Contrastivism can be applied to a variety of problems within philosophy, and as such, it can be coherently seen as a unified movement. This volume brings together state-of-the-art research on the contrastive treatment of philosophical concepts and questions, including knowledge, belief, free will, moral luck, Bayesian confirmation theory, causation, and explanation.

This reflection focuses on what insights Catholic Social Teaching can provide for corporate governance. I argue that the ‘standard’ agency theory is overly reductionist and insufficiently incorporates important economic limitations as well as human frailty. As a result, such agency theory insufficiently distinguishes firms from markets, which can easily relativize how we treat others and facilitate rationalization of unethical behavior. I then explore how three pillars of CST—human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity—can help overcome these limitations. CST proposes a vision of (...) the business corporation as a community of persons, working together in cooperative business relationships toward the shared purpose of contributing to human flourishing. (shrink)

In order to explain such puzzling cases as the Bank Case and the Airport Case, semantic contextualists defend two theses. First, that the truth-conditions of knowledge sentences fluctuate in accordance with features of the conversational context. Second, that this fluctuation can be explained by the fact that 'knows' is an indexical. In this paper, I challenge both theses. In particular, I argue that it isn't obvious that 'knows' is an indexical at all, and that contrastivism can do the same work (...) as contextualism is supposed to do, without being linguistically implausible. (shrink)

Psycholinguistic studies often look at the production of referring expressions in interactive settings, but so far few referring expression generation algorithms have been developed that are sensitive to earlier references in an interaction. Rather, such algorithms tend to rely on domain-dependent preferences for both content selection and linguistic realization. We present three experiments showing that humans may opt for dispreferred attributes and dispreferred modifier orderings when these were primed in a preceding interaction (without speakers being consciously aware of this). In (...) addition, we show that speakers are more likely to produce overspecified references, including dispreferred attributes (although minimal descriptions with preferred attributes would suffice), when these were similarly primed. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Netherlands, Foundation De Einder offers counselling to people who wish to be able to self-determine the timing and manner of their end of life.AimThis study explores the experiences with counselling that counselees receive from counsellors facilitated by Foundation De Einder.MethodsOpen coding and inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 counselees.ResultsCounselling ranged from solely receiving information about lethal medication to combining this with psychological counselling about matters of life and death, and the effects for close ones. Counselees appreciated the (...) availability of the counsellor, their careful and open attitude, feeling respected and being reminded about their own responsibility. Some counselees felt dependent on the counsellor, or questioned their competency. Most counselees collected lethal medication. This gave them peace of mind and increased their quality of life, but also led to new concerns. Few were inclined to use their self-collected medication. Counselling contributed to thinking about if, when and how counselees would like to end their life.ConclusionHaving obtained means to end their lives can offer people feelings of reassurance, which can increase their quality of life, but can also give rise to new concerns. Next to providing information on lethal medication, counsellors can play an important role by having an open non-judgemental attitude, providing trustworthy information and being available. These positively valued aspects of counselling are also relevant for physicians taking care of patients who wish to self-determine the timing and manner of their end of life. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a central problem in Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness & Objectivity (SC&O) and in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In a statement of the form “I think p”, the words “I think” do not contribute to the content and yet they are not redundant. What comes to the same, a thinking subject is not something and yet not nothing. But then in what sense is a thinking subject a part of the world? The problem is intractable on a merely negative understanding of (...) “I think”, like Anscombe’s merely negative thesis, endorsed by SC&O, that “I” is not a referring expression. In search of a positive understanding, this chapter proposes to understand “I think” by comparison to “hello”. A speaking subject is the expression of mutual presence in conversation — in that sense a limit of the world. Such expression may be compared to facial expression, with the crucial difference that a verbal expression can be taken up - repeated - in the third person. A speaking subject, then, is potentially absent from conversation — in that sense a part of the world. (shrink)

How the Author Disappeared from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus In this essay, I investigate the status of the written word in the (early, mostly) work of Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein tends to imagine language as written rather than spoken. This focus on writing goes together with a sense that the author is absent from the text. I argue that the problem is not with writing in general but specifically with books, and more specifically with the fantasy of a book of (...) everything, the importance of which to Wittgenstein’s early work was brought out by Eli Friedlander. On my account, such a book, by pretending to contain the whole world, leaves no place for an author. Since the early Wittgenstein imagines subjectivity in the form of a book of everything, he is unable to place subjectivity – subjects: you and I – in the world. I end by briefly suggesting that in his later work, Wittgenstein gives up on the fantasy of a book of everything and is in a better position to address the problem of finding subjectivity in the world. (shrink)

This essay examines two conceptions of the ancient ideal of ‘living in the present’, one that may be called ‘Platonic’, suggested by a remark of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and one that may be called ‘Stoic’, developed by Pierre Hadot. On both conceptions, a life lived and considered in the right way is complete in the present, so that nothing is wanting. I introduce a problem concerning the coherence of this concept: Life involves movement, and movement is aimed at some completion in (...) the future. How, then, can a life be complete in the present and yet not be static? I consider and reject an answer by Hadot, based on psychological concentration on the present. I then propose an alternative answer, based on Aristotle's concept of complete activity, and discuss its significance for both the Platonic and the Stoic conception of the ideal. Throughout, my focus is on this metaphysical and conceptual problem, thus preparing the way for the ethical question whether ‘living in the present’ would be a good way to live. (shrink)

Background In the Netherlands, people can receive (limited) demedicalised assistance in suicide (DAS)—an option less well known than physician-assisted dying (PAD). Aim This study explores which trajectories people take to seek DAS, through open-coding and inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 people who receive(d) DAS from counsellors facilitated by foundation De Einder. Results People sought DAS as a result of current suffering or as a result of anticipating possible prospective suffering. People with current suffering were unable or assumed they (...) would be unable to obtain PAD. For people anticipating possible prospective suffering, we distinguished two trajectories. In one trajectory, people preferred PAD but were not reassured of help by the physician in due time and sought DAS as a backup plan. In the other trajectory, people expressed a preference for DAS mainly as a result of emphasising self-determination, independence, taking their own responsibility and preparing suicide carefully. In all trajectories, dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication—for instance about (a denied request for) PAD or fearing to discuss this—influenced the decision to seek DAS. Conclusions While PAD is the preferred option of people in two trajectories, obtaining PAD is uncertain and not always possible. Dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication can result in the physician not being involved in DAS, being unable to diagnose diseases and offer treatment nor offer reassurance that people seem to seek. We plea for more mutual understanding, respect and empathy for the limitations and possibilities of the position of the physician and the patient in discussing assistance in dying. (shrink)

Standardisation is increasingly seen as a means to insert ethics in innovation processes. We examine the institutionalisation of responsible innovation in de jure standardisation as this is an important but unexplored research area. In de jure standardisation, stakeholders collaborate in committees to develop standards. We adopt the anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness responsible innovation framework as our theoretical lens. Our study suggests that responsible standardisation processes should embody forms of these four dimensions. We investigate the institutionalisation of these dimensions and (...) identify 96 factors that can motivate, hinder, or facilitate responsible standardisation. Factors were found through in-depth interviews with managers of a standard developing organisation. These are subsequently validated/rejected using surveys completed by committee representatives. The results suggest that the social desirability of standards is not self-evident. This study could pave the way for future research on responsible standardisation processes, complementing research on legitimacy, responsible innovation, and standardisation. (shrink)

One of the hardest questions to answer for a (Neo)platonist is to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge. My dissertation is a study of the answer given to that question by the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. I present a new explanation of Proclus’ concept of nature and show that philosophy of nature consists of several related subdisciplines matching the ontological stratification (...) of nature. Moreover, I demonstrate that for Proclus philosophy of nature is a science, albeit a hypothetical one, which takes geometry as its methodological paradigm. I also offer an explanation of Proclus’ view of what is later called the mathematization of physics, i.e. the role of the substance of mathematics, as opposed to its method, in explaining the natural world. Finally, I discuss Proclus’ views of the discourse of philosophy of nature and its iconic character. (shrink)

Many philosophers are building a solid case in favour of the knowledge account of assertion (KAA). According to KAA, if one asserts that P one represents oneself as knowing that P. KAA has recently received support from linguistic data about prompting challenges, parenthetical positioning and predictions. In this article, I add another argument to this rapidly growing list: an argument from what I will call ‘reinforcing parenthesis’.

A decade ago, Isham and Butterfield proposed a topos-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics, which meanwhile has been extended by Döring and Isham so as to provide a new mathematical foundation for all of physics. Last year, three of the present authors redeveloped and refined these ideas by combining the C*-algebraic approach to quantum theory with the so-called internal language of topos theory (Heunen et al. in arXiv:0709.4364). The goal of the present paper is to illustrate our abstract setup through the (...) concrete example of the C*-algebra M n (ℂ) of complex n×n matrices. This leads to an explicit expression for the pointfree quantum phase space Σ n and the associated logical structure and Gelfand transform of an n-level system. We also determine the pertinent non-probabilisitic state-proposition pairing (or valuation) and give a very natural topos-theoretic reformulation of the Kochen–Specker Theorem.In our approach, the nondistributive lattice ℘(M n (ℂ)) of projections in M n (ℂ) (which forms the basis of the traditional quantum logic of Birkhoff and von Neumann) is replaced by a specific distributive lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ of functions from the poset $\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ of all unital commutative C*-subalgebras C of M n (ℂ) to ℘(M n (ℂ)). The lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ is essentially the (pointfree) topology of the quantum phase space Σ n , and as such defines a Heyting algebra. Each element of $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ corresponds to a “Bohrified” proposition, in the sense that to each classical context $C\in\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ it associates a yes-no question (i.e. an element of the Boolean lattice ℘(C) of projections in C), rather than being a single projection as in standard quantum logic. Distributivity is recovered at the expense of the law of the excluded middle (Tertium Non Datur), whose demise is in our opinion to be welcomed, not just in intuitionistic logic in the spirit of Brouwer, but also in quantum logic in the spirit of von Neumann. (shrink)

Ignorance is a neglected issue in philosophy. This is surprising for, contrary to what one might expect, it is not clear what ignorance is. Some philosophers say or assume that it is a lack of knowledge, whereas others claim or presuppose that it is an absence of true belief. What is one ignorant of when one is ignorant? What kinds of ignorance are there? This neglect is also remarkable because ignorance plays a crucial role in all sorts of controversial societal (...) issues. Ignorance is often thought to be a moral and legal excuse; it is a core concept in medical ethics and debates about privacy, and it features in religious traditions and debates about belief in God. This book does not only study an epistemic phenomenon that is interesting in itself, but also provides important tools that can be fruitfully used in debates within and beyond philosophy. (shrink)

A central intuition many epistemologists seem to have is that knowledge is distinctively valuable. In his paper 'Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Value', Duncan Pritchard rejects the virtue-theoretic explanation of this intuition. This explanation says that knowledge is distinctively valuable because it is a cognitive achievement. It is maintained, in the first place, that the arguments Pritchard musters against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement are unconvincing. It is argued, in the second place, that even if the (...) arguments against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement were convincing, there is another explanation of the intuition that knowledge has final value available: the question-relative treatment of knowledge. (shrink)

The principle of philosophy, Schelling declares in his 1810 Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen, is the Absolute or God.1 The terms are brought into close yet ambiguous proximity by this assertion. Yet how are we to think them together? It is far from clear just how the Absolute—the abstract, universal, all-encompassing name Idealism gives to what, most fundamentally, there is—and God, a name with a rather longer life story, are to be related. Are we to take it that the Absolute and God are (...) to be baldly equated? That the one is a mere term of convenience properly understood in the light of the other? That the one is a supplement or corrective that the other is in need of? And who would be the arbiter of... (shrink)

While Minsky’s work is often identified with the critique of financial speculation, this paper argues that there is a different side to his work. We argue that Minsky can be read as offering a post-foundational perspective on political economy that recognizes the speculative dimension of all economic activity. This post-foundational reading allows for an understanding of neoliberal policymaking in terms of the provision of liquidity to too-big-to-fail constituencies. The article discusses how some segments of Western societies have been able to (...) participate in the inflationary logic of this too-big-to-fail dynamic, whereas others are locked out and face increasingly tight liquidity constraints. This differential access to liquidity is an increasingly central aspect of the stratifying rationality of contemporary capitalism. By connecting Minsky’s insights into the temporal logic of capital to key issues in social theory, the article presents a new theorization of (il)liquid life that advances on extant accounts. (shrink)

This article engages with current discussions on the politics of aesthetics to theorize the role of popular art in reproducing or contesting urban orders. Specifically, we engage with scholars who have taken up the work of Jacques Rancière to understand how power structures are normalized through ‘the distribution of the sensible’. Building on and critically engaging with debates on the ‘post-political city’, we suggest that all too often scholars fall back on a binary, state-centric approach that depicts non-state popular aesthetics (...) as either revolutionary and disruptive, or as indicative of an alternative form of oppression. Drawing on our work in Kingston, Jamaica, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we argue that sensorial-political, art-based urban struggles shape multiple urban orders that are distinct but not necessarily antagonistic. Applying Stuart Hall’s work on popular culture to contexts of criminal governance, we show how art is often simultaneously supportive and disruptive of urban orders. (shrink)

Subject sensitive invariantism is the view that whether a subject knows depends on what is at stake for that subject: the truth-value of a knowledge-attribution is sensitive to the subject's practical interests. I argue that subject sensitive invariantism cannot accept a very plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I argue, furthermore, that semantic contextualism and contrastivism can accept this plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I conclude that semantic contextualism and contrastivism are in a dialectical position better than (...) subject sensitive invariantism is. (shrink)

Privacy is valued by many. But what it means to have privacy remains less than clear. In this paper, I argue that the notion of privacy should be understood in epistemic terms. What it means to have (some degree of) privacy is that other persons do not stand in significant epistemic relations to those truths one wishes to keep private.

In this paper I show that Proclus is an adherent of the Classical Model of Science as set out elsewhere in this issue (de Jong and Betti 2008), and that he adjusts certain conditions of the Model to his Neoplatonic epistemology and metaphysics. In order to show this, I develop a case study concerning philosophy of nature, which, despite its unstable subject matter, Proclus considers to be a science. To give this science a firm foundation Proclus distills from Plato’s Timaeus (...) the basic concepts Being and Becoming and a number of basic propositions, among others the quasi-definitions of the basic concepts. He subsequently explains the use of these quasi-definitions, that are actually epistemic guides, in such a way that he obtains a connection between a rational and an empirical approach to the natural world. A crucial task in establishing the connection is performed by the faculty of doxa and by geometrical conversion. The result is that Proclus secures a universal, necessary and known foundation for all of philosophy of nature. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Søren Kierkegaard’s oeuvre can be seen as a theater of ideas. This argument is developed in three steps. First, I will briefly introduce a theoretical framework for addressing the theatrical dimension of Kierkegaard’s works. This framework is based on a distinction between“performative writing strategies” and “categories of performativity.” As a second step, I will focus on Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology, by Constantin Constantius, one of the best examples of Kierkegaard’s innovative way of (...) doing philosophy. This strange and elusive book introduces the difficult and counter-intuitive notion of repetition. Repetition is a category of performativity that aims to activate the subjectivity of the reader. This performative effect is achieved by confronting the reader with an “unresolved”existential problem that is not yet drawn into clarity but is staged in all its confusions and contradictions. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Constantius relies here on a performative writing strategy that is animated by a dialectic of advance and withdrawal. In the last and third step, I will analyze Constantius’s own reflection on the performative dimension of his text. Constantius has left several clues behind, each of which suggests that he deliberately developed a performative writing strategy. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 11 Heft: 1 Seiten: 69-100.

In this introduction to the special issue of Social Epistemology on epistemological contrastivism, I make some remarks on the history of contrastivism, describe three main versions of contrastivism, and offer a guide through the papers that compose this issue.

The author takes the publication of an impressive dissertation on Thomas a Kempis’ Hortulus Rosarum and Vallis Liliorum as an opportunity to call attention to Thomas’ theology and spirituality. Rather than to put this work within the usual framework of the history of spirituality, he looks at it from the viewpoint of a scholar of monastic theology and medieval forms of pastoral theology. The last decades have seen an increase of this kind of research. He presents the contents of this (...) excellent work and discusses its most important results. (shrink)

This article demonstrates a novel conceptualization of sublimity: the sublime in the pedestrian. This pedestrian mode of sublimity is exemplified by the Biblical Abraham, the central figure of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous Fear and Trembling. It is rooted in the analysis of one of the foundational stories of the three monotheistic religions: Abraham’s averted sacrifice of his son Isaac. The defining feature of this new, pedestrian mode of sublimity is that is remains hidden behind what I call a total incognito. It is (...) similar to the classical ‘elevated mode of sublimity’ as developed by Burke, Kant, and Schiller insofar as it denotes two contrasting feelings at once: repulsion and attraction. It is different insofar as Kierkegaard’s pedestrian mode of sublimity remains hidden from view and can only be shown indirectly. This article expounds the new, pedestrian mode of sublimity by investigating the relation between the incognito and the sublime in Fear and Trembling. It achieves that goal by engaging three perspectives: (1) the sublime failure that comes to the fore in the incognitos of an imaginary Abraham; (2) the ‘fear without being afraid’ that is invoked by God’s incognitos; (3) the total incognito of the pedestrian which conceals Abraham’s sublimity. (shrink)