Priority setting in health care is ubiquitous and health authorities are increasingly recognising the need for priority setting guidelines to ensure efficient, fair, and equitable resource allocation. While cost-effectiveness concerns seem to dominate many policies, the tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns is salient to many, and various severity criteria appear to fill this gap. Severity, then, must be subjected to rigorous ethical and philosophical analysis. Here we first give a brief history of the path to today’s severity criteria in (...) Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian perspective on severity might be conducive to the international discussion, given its long-standing use as a priority setting criterion, despite having reached rather different conclusions so far. We then argue that severity can be viewed as a multidimensional concept, drawing on accounts of need, urgency, fairness, duty to save lives, and human dignity. Such concerns will often be relative to local mores, and the weighting placed on the various dimensions cannot be expected to be fixed. Thirdly, we present what we think are the most pertinent questions to answer about severity in order to facilitate decision making in the coming years of increased scarcity, and to further the understanding of underlying assumptions and values that go into these decisions. We conclude that severity is poorly understood, and that the topic needs substantial further inquiry; thus we hope this article may set a challenging and important research agenda. (shrink)

Can groups really be agents or is group agency just a fiction? Christian List and Philip Pettit argue influentially for group-agent realism by showing how certain groups form and act on attitudes in ways they take to be unexplainable at the level of the individual agents constituting them. Group agency is therefore considered not a fiction or a metaphor but a reality we must account for in explanations of certain social phenomena. In this paper, I challenge this defence of group-agent (...) realism by showing how it is undermined by individual-level analysis of how individuals interact within groups. While group agency can be a useful fiction, real agents are at the individual level, not the collective level. (shrink)

Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation, we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This (...) survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change. (shrink)

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

The experience of embodiment is a central theme in phenomenological philosophy and has recently received increasing attention also within psychological science. In the present paper we argue (1) that the experience of embodiment represents a fundamental synthesis of having a body (the body as an object) and being a body (the body as felt “from within”); (2) that this synthesis is basic to an individual’s experience of self-identity; (3) that each individual, as an existential task, has to develop their specific (...) version of the embodiment synthesis; (4) that these syntheses can be more or less harmonious or disharmonious, and that disharmonious syntheses are associated with psychological distress and psychopathology. Different phenomenological accounts of possible variants of disharmonious embodiment, as found in the literature on eating disorders, are discussed and compared. Finally, some research implications and clinical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Background: Several researchers have argued that disturbances in embodiment play an important role in the development of psychological health problems among adolescents. The purpose of the present study was to use the 12-item Embodiment Scale (ES-12), with its three subscales Harmonious Body (HB), Disharmonious Body (DB), and Body for Others (BO), (1) to identify subgroups of adolescents with different profiles on the ES-12 scales, and (2) to see how these profiles are associated with patterns of psychological health problems. Methods: The (...) participants were 530 adolescents with a mean age of 14 years (SD = 0.89), who filled out the ES-12 and measures of disordered eating, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), anxiety, and depression. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to divide the sample into (1) subgroups with different profiles of HB, DB and BO and (2) subgroups with different psychological health profiles. Cross-tabulation was used to study associations between different embodiment profiles and different patterns of psychological health problems. Results: Five different profiles of embodiment were identified: Strong Embodiment, Average Embodiment, Weak Embodiment, Body for Others, and Low Body Harmony. Five different psychological health profiles were identified: Multiple Problems, Multiple Problems without NSSI, Disordered Eating Only, Average Psychological Health, and a Healthy profile. Cross-tabulation showed that individuals with a Strong Embodiment profile were over-represented among adolescents in the Healthy cluster, and that individuals with the Weak Embodiment profile were over-represented in both Multiple Problems clusters. Individuals with a Body for Others profile were over-represented among adolescents with a Disordered Eating Only profile but not among adolescents with Multiple Problems profiles. Conclusions: These findings align with theoretical frameworks which emphasize the importance of embodiment for the understanding of psychological health problems. At the same time, the results go against theories that attribute a central role to high levels of experienced Body for Others for the development of psychological health problems. (shrink)

Can a group be morally responsible instead of, or in addition to, its members? An influential defense of corporate responsibility is based on results in social choice theory suggesting that a group can form and act on attitudes held by few, or even none, of its members. The members therefore cannot be (fully) responsible for the group’s behavior; the group itself, as a corporate agent, must be responsible. In this paper, I reject this view of corporate responsibility by showing how (...) it pays insufficient attention to individual agency. By accounting for group members’ strategic behavior, we shall see how they control collective attitude formation and are therefore responsible for their group’s behavior. (shrink)

Republican freedom is said to require institutions denying anyone the power to interfere with people contrary to their shared interests regardless of the likelihood of such power being exercised. This paper identifies two constraints on this insistence on institutional protection. First, maintaining institutional constraints is costly and will serve people’s interests only insofar as they reduce the probability of interference. And second, republicans do not support attempts to control individuals’ behaviour expected to make unwanted behaviour more, not less, likely. These (...) limits of institutional control reveal a fundamental concern with reducing the probability of interference, not with eliminating arbitrary power. (shrink)

A moralised conception of freedom is based on a normative theory. Understanding it therefore requires an analysis of this theory. In this paper, I show how republican freedom as non-domination is moralised, and why analysing this concept therefore involves identifying the basic components of the republican theory of justice. One of these components is the non-moralised pure negative conception of freedom as non-interference. Republicans therefore cannot keep insisting that their freedom concept conflicts with, and is superior to, this more basic (...) concept. I demonstrate how we can use pure negative freedom to formulate the republican theory more precisely. This exercise is more fruitful than the common focus on the alleged conflict between the two freedom concepts. (shrink)

In the debate on how we ought to define political freedom, some definitions are criticized for implying that no one can ever be free to perform any action. In this paper, I show how the possibility of freedom depends on a definition that finds an appropriate balance between absence of interference and protection against interference. To assess the possibility of different conceptions of freedom, I consider the trade-offs they make between these two dimensions. I find that pure negative freedom is (...) clearly possible. Republican freedom might also be possible, though its protection requirement is too vague for a definitive verdict. Finally, the recently proposed ‘freedom as independence’ is impossible since it is an attempt to avoid the unavoidable trade-off. (shrink)

Public reason liberals expect individuals to have justificatory reasons for their views of certain political issues. This paper considers how groups can, and whether they should, give collective public reasons for their political decisions. A problem is that aggregating individuals’ consistent judgments on reasons and a decision can produce inconsistent collective judgments. The group will then fail to give a reason for its decision. The paper considers various solutions to this problem and defends a deliberative procedure by showing how it (...) incentivizes information sharing and leads to outcomes most acceptable to the group members. (shrink)

Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in which a left- and a right-wing coalition were locked in a close race. We asked our (...) participants to state their voter intention, and presented them with a political survey of wedge issues between the two coalitions. Using a sleight-of-hand we then altered their replies to place them in the opposite political camp, and invited them to reason about their attitudes on the manipulated issues. Finally, we summarized their survey score, and asked for their voter intention again. The results showed that no more than 22% of the manipulated replies were detected, and that a full 92% of the participants accepted and endorsed our altered political survey score. Furthermore, the final voter intention question indicated that as many as 48% (69.2%) were willing to consider a left-right coalition shift. This can be contrasted with the established polls tracking the Swedish election, which registered maximally 10% voters open for a swing. Our results indicate that political attitudes and partisan divisions can be far more flexible than what is assumed by the polls, and that people can reason about the factual issues of the campaign with considerable openness to change. (shrink)

John Rawls thinks republicanism is compatible with his political liberalism. Philip Pettit insists that the two conflict in important ways. In this paper, I make sense of this dispute by employing David Chalmers’s method of elimination to reveal the meaning underlying key terms in Rawls’s political liberalism and Pettit’s republicanism. This procedure of disambiguating terms will show how the two theories defend the same institutional arrangement on the same grounds. The procedure thus vindicates Rawls’s view of the two theories being (...) compatible. The reason for this compatibility is that both theories are politicized—that is, they are constructed to attract the compliance of all reasonable members of a modern, pluralistic society. (shrink)

Institutions promoting republican freedom as non-domination are commonly believed to differ significantly from institutions promoting negative freedom as non-interference. Philip Pettit, the most prominent contemporary defender of this view, also maintains that these republican institutions are neutral between the different conceptions of the good that characterise a modern society. This paper shows why these two views are incompatible. By analysing the institutional requirements Pettit takes as constitutive of republican freedom, I show how they also promote negative freedom by reducing overall (...) interference. To avoid this result, republican institutions must be more restrictive and require that citizens conform to a life of political engagement. But then republican freedom will not be a neutral ideal. Rejecting negative freedom therefore means sacrificing neutrality. (shrink)

The revival of republicanism was meant to challenge the hegemony of liberalism in contemporary political theory on the grounds that liberals show insufficient concern with institutional protection against political misrule. This article challenges this view by showing how neorepublicanism, particularly on Philip Pettit’s formulation, demands no greater institutional protection than does political liberalism. By identifying neutrality between conceptions of the good as the constraint on institutional requirements that forces neorepublicanism into the liberal framework, the article shows that neutrality is what (...) neorepublicans must jettison to offer a tenable critique of liberalism. Only then can neorepublicans ensure greater protection against misrule by demanding that citizens participate more actively in politics. They can then also criticize liberalism for failing to appreciate the importance of such protection. (shrink)

The present paper argues that experimental phenomenology has an important role to play in research on mindfulness. Experimental phenomenology is defined as a subcategory of phenomenology (defined as the science of our subjective experience of being in the world), which explores the effects of intentional variations of subjective experiencing (direction of attention and choice of attitude) on subsequent experience. To count as experimental phenomenology, both the independent and dependent variable have to be phenomenological. Because mindfulness involves paying attention to present (...) experience with a specific attitude, it is well suited for experimental-phenomenological research. What makes experimental phenomenology into a scientific endeavor is the intersubjective nature of this kind of study: potential effects described by one person can be subjected to replication both by the same person, and by other persons. Also, conclusions drawn on the basis of this kind of study are hypothetical and provisional, and may be modified or specified on the basis of further study. In this paper, the principles of experimental phenomenology are illustrated by (a) variations of a given mindfulness practice (the body scan), and (b) the construction of a personalized mindfulness practice (mindful driving). Finally, three varieties of experimental phenomenology in research on mindfulness are discussed: (1) the use of qualitative methods to analyze mindfulness practices and their potential effects, (2) idiographic research with the use of single-subject designs and experience sampling, and (3) randomized controlled studies of the effects of mindfulness practices on present experience. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians defend a social arrangement ensuring that individuals can relate to each other with mutual respect as equal members of society. This equal standing is required also by the republican conception of freedom, which is therefore commonly endorsed by relational egalitarians. But while capturing egalitarian concerns might make republican freedom an attractive ideal, it prevents it from performing a useful role in the formulation of relational egalitarianism. When we develop the ideal of relational equality, we are better served by (...) a conception of negative freedom defined without egalitarian or other evaluative terms. Negative freedom turns out to be especially important as a component of the respect between individuals that lies at the core of relational egalitarianism. (shrink)

How is law related to liberty? For republicans, a just law constitutes people’s liberty. Another prominent view is that while the law is not necessary for freedom, legal constraints do not make individuals unfree when they protect their moral rights. In this paper, I reject these views and defend a purely negative conception of liberty according to which the law necessarily makes individuals unfree. I show how this means legal constraints deny individuals something valuable. But importantly, these constraints can still (...) have a beneficial effect on negative freedom overall. By enabling us to consider how much freedom and unfreedom a constraint causes, this conception of freedom provides a better basis for evaluating legal constraints than do the two rival conceptions. It is therefore by taking the law to necessarily make people unfree in some respects that we can meaningfully evaluate different legal arrangements in terms of their effect on freedom. (shrink)

In The Republican Dilemma, I argue that contemporary republicans fail in their attempts to distinguish their theories from a liberalism fundamentally concerned with individuals’ pure negative freedom. I also show how achieving such a break from liberalism takes republicanism towards a political ideal unsuited for modern pluralistic societies. In this paper, I reply to four commentators and their challenges to core arguments in my book.

There are different ways of dividing psychology into subdisciplines. The purpose of the present paper is to explore one specific meta-perspective on psychological science, seen as having three main branches: person psychology, population psychology, and mechanism psychology, linked to three different levels of research. Person-level research focuses on psychological phenomena as experienced and enacted by individual persons in their interaction with other persons and other parts of the environment, and in their development over time. Population-level research focuses on populations of (...) individuals, frequencies of various psychological phenomena in a population, risk factors, and population-level effects of various psychological interventions. Mechanism-level research focuses on psychological func-tioning as explained in terms of neurophysiological mechanisms and information processes at a sub-personal level. It is argued that the failure to differentiate clearly between research questions at these three levels lead to questionable research practices. Most notably, a failure to differentiate clearly between the population level and the person level leads to problem-method mismatches in the form of re-searchers trying to answer questions about persons by research on populations. Also, because of a failure to differentiate between the person level and the mechanism level, explanations in terms of sub-personal mechanisms are too often seen as providing answers about what occurs at the person level, thereby failing to study persons as intentional agents in interaction with other persons and other parts of the environment. It is argued that a clear differentiation between three levels of psychological science – population, person, and mechanism – may contribute to an increased clarity in these matters and may thereby contribute to the development and maturation of psychological science. (shrink)

This article argues that Kant’s attack on the ars oratoria in §53 of the Critique of the Power of Judgement is directed against eighteenth-century school rhetoric, in particular against the ‘art of speech’ (Redekunst) of Johann Christoph Gottsched. It is pointed out that Kant suggests a revision of Gottsched’s conception of ‘true eloquence’, which was the predominant rhetorical ideal at the time. On this basis, and in response to recent discussions on ‘Kantian rhetoric’, Kant’s own ideal of speech is adressed. (...) It emerges that he favours a culture of speech embedded in moral cultivation, which excludes any disciplinary form of rhetoric. (shrink)

The debate on ideal theory focuses mainly on whether it can provide a long-term target and a metric for assessing the justice of different institutional arrangements in non-ideal theory. Both critics and defenders of ideal theory typically overlook the role it plays in a model of fairness that can restrict the range of permissible arrangements under non-ideal conditions. In this paper, I explain ideal theory’s fairness role and its part in ensuring an institutional structure that benefits everyone in a society. (...) Critics of ideal theory therefore cannot reject it as simply useless. But I consider how they can question the attractiveness of an ideal-theory-based fairness constraint on non-ideal theory. (shrink)

As individual persons, we are all embodied in the sense that we have a body with certain needs, sensory systems, feelings, and capacities. Humans and some other animals also have an experience of embodiment, defined as an experience of “my body”. This is a combined experience of having a body (the body as an object that can be perceived, imagined, thought about, and evaluated according to different standards) and being this body (the subjective experience of the felt body). The latter (...) is not about the body as an object but is focused on how the body feels. The main claims of the present paper are (1) that we have a need to feel embodied, and that this is important for the development of self-identity, interpersonal relations, well-being, and flourishing in general; and (2) that experiences of feeling embodied can serve as important motives, both in a positive sense (embodiment motivation) and a negative sense (disembodiment motivation). In the present paper, felt embodiment motivation is illustrated by the motivation to feel one’s body (1) in its vitality and capacities, both in rest and in movement (e.g., physical activity and dancing), and in its expressiveness; (2) as being an integrated part of wholesome environments, and (3) in pleasurable and loving bodily contact with significant others. Disembodiment motivation is defined as the motive to avoid or reduce bodily self-experiences, for example due to physical or emotional pain or other forms of bodily discomfort. In brief, the present paper outlines a new area of research: embodiment motivation, defined as the motivation to feel one’s own body, its vitality, capacities, and expressiveness, its embeddedness in wholesome environments, and the embodied contact with others, and its opposite: disembodiment motivation. (shrink)

In a previous paper (Lundh, 2023), it was argued that psychological science can be seen as having three main branches, corresponding to three levels of research: research at the person level, at the population level, and at the mechanism level. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the critique that has been raised against this model by Lamiell (2024) and Nilsson (2024) and to elaborate and specify the three-branch model in more detail. This is done by an incorporation (...) of Nilsson’s concept of person-sensitivity into the model, and by a clearer differentiation between the two contrasts involved: (1) the methodological focus either on individual persons or on populations of individuals; and (2) the theoretical focus either on whole-person functioning or on sub-personal mechanisms. (shrink)

Jacques Ranciere, “The aesthetic revolution and its outcomes” (Estetik devrim ve sonuçları) adlı yazısının başında, Schiller’in Ober die iisthetische Erziehung des Menschen (İnsanın Estetik Eğitimi Üzerine) başlıklı eserinden bir alıntı yapıyor: “İnsan ancak (oyun) oynadığında tamamen insandır.” Schiller’e göre bu “güzellik sanatının ve daha da zor olan yaşama sanatının tüm yapısını taşıyabilir”. Ranciere’e göre, "Bu düşünceyi şu şekilde yeniden formüle edebiliriz: Hem yeni bir sanat dünyasının hem de bireyler ve toplum için yeni bir yaşamın vaadini taşıyan belirli bir duyusal deneyim (...) vardır, yani estetik." Bu bildiride, sözü geçen “duyusal deneyim”in mantığını anlamaya yönelik olarak, “duyumsanabilir olanın paylaşımı” (partager le sensible) için ön koşul olan temel bir varsayımdan söz açılacaktır. “Hilbert’in çokluk ilkesi” diyeceğim bu varsayım, David Hilbert’in matematiğin temelleri üzerine soruşturmaları sırasında farkına vardığını düşündüğüm nominalist bir ilkedir. İlke gündelik dilde kısaca şunu söyler: Farklı her tür (olanaklı) nesnenin özellenebildiği bir kurgular evreni vardır. Hilbert’in çokluk ilkesinin mantıkça nasıl dile getirilmesi gerektiği üzerinden, başlıktaki soruya nasıl bir yanıt verilebileceğini göstereceğim. (shrink)

Rawlsian ideal theory is meant to perform various roles in non-ideal theory. In this paper, I distinguish between three roles, and I consider the extent to which we can expect ideal theory to perform them. It is meant to serve as a target to guide non-ideal theorising in the long-term. It is also supposed to provide a way of comparing different injustices to tell us which is worst and therefore in most urgent need of a remedy. Finally, ideal theory is (...) the basis for a model of fairness that restricts the set of morally permissible measures in non-ideal theory. I show how the first two roles—the target and urgency roles—are less plausible than the fairness role. (shrink)

Gündelik dilin mantığı ile matematiksel dilin mantığı arasındaki ayrımı sonsuzluk ve sezgi kavramları bağlamında soruşturmayı amaçlayan çizgeleyici bir mantık anlayışı üzerine değiniler.

Common conclusions from traditional psychotherapy research are that we still do not know how or why even our most well studied interventions produce change, and that there is little evidence that any form of psychotherapy is generally more effective than any other. This has led some researchers to the so called Dodo Bird Verdict, that all forms of psycho- therapy are equally effective, and to the conclusion that what is at work are “common factors” that have little to do with (...) treatment method. An alternative explanation, however, is that the traditional research paradigm is insufficiently sensitive to provide us with the required kind of knowledge. First, the outcome in typical RCTs is averaged across individuals, and at best complemented by a search for predictors in the form of stable individual differences. This means that this research stays at a group level of analysis and is insensitive to variation and change in individual patients. Second, the independent variable in RCTs does not consist in any well controlled psychological intervention, but in large scale treatment packages that contain a large number of interventions over a considerable time period. In other words, this research is insensitive to the effects of specific treatment interventions. Third, traditional psychotherapy research is insensitive to the therapist and patient as in di- vidual persons, and their specific interaction. It is argued that a person-oriented approach to psychotherapy, which is idio- graphic, holistic and interactional, may be able to overcome some of these problems by being more sensitive to (1) the treatment course of individual patients, and patterns during that course; (2) the effects of the specific interventions that are implemented over time, and (3) the personal characteristics of patient and therapist, and nuances of their interaction. (shrink)

In this article I argue for an empiricist view on laws. Some laws are fundamental in the sense that they are the result of inductive generalisations of observed regularities and at the same time in their formulation contain a new theoretical predicate. The inductive generalisations simul- taneously function as implicit definitions of these new predicates. Other laws are either explicit definitions or consequences of other previously established laws. I discuss the laws of classical mechanics, relativity theory and electromagnetism in detail. (...) Laws are necessary, whereas acciden- tal generalisations are not. But necessity here is not a modal concept, but rather interpreted as short for the semantic predicate “... is necessarily true”. Thus no modal logic is needed. The neces- sity attributed to law sentences is in turn interpreted as “necessary condition for the rest of the the- ory”, which is true since fundamental laws are implicit definitions of theoretical predicates use in the theory. (shrink)

The full compliance assumption has been the focus of much recent criticism of ideal theory. Making this assumption, critics argue, is to ignore the important issue of how to actually make individuals compliant. In this article, I show why this criticism is misguided by identifying the key role full compliance plays in modelling fairness. But I then redirect the criticism by showing how it becomes appropriate when Rawls and other ideal theorists expect their model of fairness to guide real-world political (...) practice. Attempts to establish institutions conforming to this ideal could have undesirable consequences and might even undermine fairness itself. (shrink)

According to group-agent realism, treating groups as agents with their own intentional states, irreducible to those of the group members, helps us explain and predict the groups’ behavior. This paper challenges this view. When groups judge logically interconnected propositions, group members often have incentives to misrepresent their beliefs of propositions they care less about in order to increase the probability of their groups adopting their view of propositions they consider more important. Aggregating such untruthful judgments may lead to the group (...) forming false beliefs. Treating groups as agents will then not help us explain or predict their behavior. (shrink)

The present paper outlines the nature of a three-dimensional ontology and the place of psychological science within this ontology, in a way that is partly similar to and partly different from that of Pérez-Álvarez. The first dimension is the material realities, and involves different levels (physical, chemical, biological, psychological, etc.), where each level builds on a lower level but also involves the development of new emergent properties, in accordance with Bunge’s emergent materialism. Each level involves systems, with components, structures and (...) mechanisms, and an environment. This dimension can be studied with natural scientific methods. The second dimension is the subjective-experiential realities, and refers to our subjective perspective on the world. In accordance with Husserl’s phenomenology, it is argued that this subjectivity does not exist in the world (i.e., should not be reified as an object among other objects), but represents a perspective on the world that we enter in our capacity as conscious human beings. Essential characteristics of this subjectivity (such as intentionality, temporality, embodiment, and intersubjectivity) can be explored by phenomenological methods. The third dimension is the social-constructional realities, and includes social institutions, norms, categories, theories, and techniques. It is argued that psychological science spans over all three dimensions. Although almost all psychological research by necessity starts from a problem formulation where the subjective-experiential dimension plays an essential role (either explicitly or implicitly), most of present-day psychological research clearly emphasizes the material dimension. It is argued that a mature psychological science needs to integrate all three dimensions. (shrink)

This literature review describes the current state of research on the Greek sophists. It draws on recent work on the beginnings of rhetoric, overviews of sophistic thought and case studies on Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon and Prodicus. It is shown that the traditional notion of a sophistic antithesis to philosophy has lost further ground: While earlier »rehabilitations« of sophistic thought still use the dichotomous distinction of philosophy und sophistic, now any generic talk of »the sophist« should better be regarded as misleading.

Principles of justice, David Estlund argues, cannot be falsified by people’s unwillingness to satisfy them. In his Utopophobia, Estlund rejects the view that justice must bend to human motivation to deliver practical implications for how institutions ought to function. In this paper, I argue that a substantive argument against such bending of justice principles must challenge the reasons for making these principles sensitive to motivational limitations. Estlund, however, provides no such challenge. His dispute with benders of justice is therefore a (...) verbal one over the true meaning of justice, which need not worry those with the intuition that justice should perform a function that requires bending. By focusing on John Rawls’s reasons for bending his justice principles, I point towards a substantive critique of bent justice. (shrink)

Bu yazı, 1994’te Stefan Zweig’ın Kendi Hayatının Şiirini Yazanlar’ını okuduğumdaki etkilenmemin bir uzantısı olabilir. Düşlemlemenin yüce nesnelerinin gerçeklikte oynadıkları rol üzerine bir değini ve bir felsefecinin yazdığı bir dörtlüğün Google çevirisinden ibaret olmanın ötesine gitmek isteyen birkaç dize... Yazmayı öğrenebildiğim kadarıyla...

"Zaman zaman arkamızda uzanan yola bir göz atmak için dururuz. Bir filozofun bu insan eğilimine kapılması yakışıksız değildir, ancak bu tür geriye dönük düşüncelerin sonuçlarıyla başkalarını rahatsız etmekte haklı olup olmadığını düşünmek zorunda kalacaktır, çünkü bunlar yalnızca anekdotlar olmasa bile, nesnel olarak tarihsel bir nitelikte olmaktan çok daha sıklıkla öznel olarak otobiyografiktir. ...Başkalarının da benzer veya en azından karşılaştırılabilir deneyimler yaşamış olması oldukça olasıdır, bu nedenle kendi gelişimimle ilgili bir açıklama, bazen bir dönemin entelektüel iklimi olarak adlandırılan şeyin kökenlerine dair (...) daha net bir anlayışa katkıda bulunabilir." -Evert Beth. (shrink)

An influential view in the ethics of self-defence is that causal responsibility for an unjust threat is a necessary requirement for liability to defensive harm. In this article, I argue against this view by providing intuitive counterexamples and by revealing weaknesses in the arguments offered in its favour. In response, adherents of the causal view have advanced the idea that although causally inefficacious agents are not liable to defensive harm, the fact that they may deserve harm can justify harming them (...) in the course of defending oneself. I argue that this strategy is ad hoc and leads to more problems than it solves. Once we allow normative facts outside our account of liability to affect a person's moral protection against harm, the lieability verdicts cannot tell us whether there is a relevant moral asymmetry between the victim and the target of defence. In conclusion, the causal view is wrong and causal responsibility for an unjust threat is not a necessary requirement for liability to defensive harm. (shrink)

Mantık, yirminci yüzyıldaki gelişimi bakımından ele alındığında, matematik, bilgisayar bilimi, dilbilim ve felsefe gibi alanlarla sıkı kavramsal bağlantılar kuran bir disiplin haline gelmiştir. Tüm bu alanların gündelik dilde izi sürülen anlamalar, anlaşmalar, anlatmalar vb. edimler için birşeyler söyleyebileceğini ya da yapabileceğini varsayabiliriz. Ancak bu varsayım gündelik dilin mantığıyla ya da mantıksızlıklarıyla doğrudan başedebilecek bir anlama yetisi kazanmanın kolay bir yolu olduğu anlamına gelmez. Modern mantık matematikseldir ve gündelik dilde bir kolaylık sağlamaz; aksine işleri olduğundan da karmaşık hale getirir.

Antonio Damasio is known for his research on consciousness from a neurological and evolutionary perspective. His latest book, Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, starts by focusing on the development, around 3.8 billion years ago, of living organisms with homeostatic processes that involve a “non-explicit” form of intelligence in the service of self-preservation. Here we find sensing, but still no feelings nor mental processes; yet these early forms of sensing are seen as a necessary basis for the development of feelings (...) and consciousness. With the development of organisms with nervous systems, starting around 500 million years ago, feelings and “minding” (in the form of images of the surrounding environment) enter the scene. Feelings are seen to have their origin in the nerve cells’ close interaction with the biochemical processes that occur in the homeostatic regulation of the body. In this interaction between nervous systems and the bodily interior, feelings emerge as subjective experiences of homeostatic bodily processes. Consciousness is described by Damasio as involving an experience of ownership of one’s body, feelings, perspectives, etc. Because consciousness represents a further developmental stage on top of feelings, it cannot be based solely on the nervous system. Although Damasio sees the nervous system as a critical contributor to the development of minds and consciousness, he emphasizes that any theory that relies exclusively on the nervous system to account for minds and consciousness is likely to fail. Damasio’s book contains many innovative parts, that may stimulate new thinking and new research on these matters. It also illustrates how discussions about the nature of sentience, feeling and consciousness all too often suffer from an insufficient differentiation between distinct kinds of phenomena, and the need for an improved conceptual apparatus for a more nuanced description of the phenomena involved. -/- . (shrink)

Buradaki yazılar farklı zamanlarda farklı amaçlarla yazılanların bir derlemesi.. Örneğin, ilk bölüm 2012'den.. Son bölüm 90'lardan. Tümünü bir araya toplamamın basit bir nedeni var; bir ölçüye kadar sürekliliği olan bir anlatı oluşturmak istedim.. Yazılarda ortak bir akışın içinde olan noktaların, izlerin vbg. toplamı için, düşüncenin --belki de yalnızca çağrışımsal anlamıyla düşüncenin-- çevresel koşulları üzerine bir deneme olduğu söylenebilir. Bu anlamda bu taslak dosya bir felsefeye giriş denemesi olarak da görülebilir; ya da bir metafelsefe çalışması olarak...

In his late ‘A Plea for Excuses’, John L. Austin suggests labelling his philosophy ‘linguistic phenomenology’. This article examines which idea of phenomenology Austin had in mind when he coined this term and what light this sheds on his method. It is argued that the key to answering this question can be found in Merleau-Ponty’s 'Phenomenology of Perception', which Austin must have been familiar with. Merleau-Ponty presents phenomenology in a way Austin could embrace: it is a method, it aims at (...) description and uses reduction, it is a non-idealistic study of essence, and interprets intentionality as ‘operative’. In this light, Austin’s method can be appreciated more fully. (shrink)

What are the justifications and constraints on the use of force in self-defense? In his book The Morality of Defensive Force, Jonathan Quong presents the moral status account to address this and other fundamental questions. According to the moral status account, moral liability to defensive harm is triggered by treating others with less respect than they are due. At the same time, Quong rejects the relevance of culpability to the morality of defensive harming. In this article I argue that this (...) rejection of culpability is unfounded and that Quong fails to establish his account as superior to the culpability account of liability to defensive harm. (shrink)

During history humans have developed a large variety of contemplative practices, in many different areas of life, and as part of many different traditions and contexts. Although some contemplative practices are very old, the research field of Contemplation Studies is young, and there are no agreed-upon definitions of central concepts such as contemplative practices and contemplative experiences. The present paper focuses on contemplative practices, defined as practices that are engaged in for the sake of the contemplative experiences they afford. The (...) purpose of the present paper is to discuss the potential of experimental phenomenology to contribute to the development of the research field of Contemplation Studies. Experimental phenomenology is defined as the investigation of phenomenological practices and their effects on experience. Phenomenological practices involve intentional variations of experiencing by means of changes in the direction of attention and the choice of attitude, typically as guided by verbal instructions or self-instructions. It is suggested that contemplative practices represent a subcategory of phenomenological practices. Two different varieties of experimental phenomenology are described and illustrated in the present paper: an informal variety which involves the development of new phenomenological practices by creative variation of procedures and observation of effects; and a more rigorously scientific variety, which involves the systematic variation of phenomenological practices in accordance with experimental designs to study their experiential effects. It is suggested that the development of contemplative practices during the ages is the result of an informal experimenting of the first kind; this variety of experimental phenomenology can also be used to develop personalized health interventions in a clinical setting. As to the more rigorously scientific experimental phenomenology, it is possible that it may lead not only to an improved understanding of general principles underlying contemplative practices, but also to a more systematic development of new contemplative practices. The experimental-phenomenological approach to contemplative practices is illustrated by various examples involving mindfulness, gratitude, receiving and giving. (shrink)

If we regard discursive practice as constitutive for the way we relate to the world, ourselves and others, then it is vitally important to ask how this practice can be formed or cultivated. For this reason, rhetoric has always been closely connected to ethics. This article attempts to explicate this relationship. It revolves around ancient conceptions of rhetoric that do not aim at establishing a system or a theory of speech, but at cultivating speech as a practice of good life. (...) This “rhetorical ethics” of antiquity remains instructive for contemporary thinking, since it points to a way of reflecting discourse that accounts not only for the content of speech but also for how it shapes human life. In particular, it is instructive for modern ethics, since it reveals that moral discourse can be regarded as a rhetorical practice too: it is not ethically neutral but has to be reflected upon as a practice of life. (shrink)

2011-2020 yılları arasında yazdıklarım arasından seçip derlediğim bu dosyada farklı amaçlarla yazılıp bütünsel bir anlatı oluşturmak arzusuyla bir araya getirilmiş yazılar var. İçindeki yazıların başlıkları sırasıyla şöyle: 1. Maddesiz ama manalı ufuklar; 2. Wittgenstein'ın ölümsüz dünyasında kim öle, kim kala?; 3. Hilbert izlencesinin izinde; 4. Adcılık adına yeni bulgular; 5. Doğa ile oynanan oyunlarda hakikat arayışı; 6. Hakikat-sonrası hakikat araştırmaları; 7. Ekolojik bir etik arayışı: hakikat-sonrası, yalan, dolan; peki ya daha sonrası? Söz konusu yazılarla arzulanan bütünsel anlatıya göre bu çalışma (...) zihin-beden ikiliği, özdeşleştirme dizgeleri, adcılık, kamusal akıl yürütme ve çevre etiği gibi konularda felsefece değinilerden oluşan bir doğa felsefesine giriş denemesi olarak değerlendirilebilir. (shrink)

Ancient ethics was an exercise of good life. This study examines how this is reflected in the forms of speech that ancient ethics developed. It is shown that, in antiquity, discursive practices were not considered neutral methods of ethical thinking but rather ways of life to be cultivated as ethical practices in their own right. This book describes central aspects of this ethical culture of speech from the times of the sophists and Socrates up to hellenistic philosophy.

The contribution examines Goodman’s conception of philosophy, in particular his remark that his project can be understood as a «critique of worldmaking». It is argued that, despite dealing with epistemological questions, the general theory of symbols and worldmaking does not answer them. Rather, it can be conceived as a practical conception comparable to Kant’s critique of reason or to Wittgenstein’s critique of language games, i. e. , as a philosophy of world orientation. It is claimed that Goodman himself could not (...) articulate this dimension of his position appropriately as he kept using the language of epistemology. Yet many aspects of his thinking become much clearer if they are interpreted within a non-epistemological frame. (shrink)

The purpose of the present chapter is to discuss whether psychological science today is in a state of crisis, and if so how that crisis is to be characterized. Three aspects of a possible crisis are discussed: a replicability crisis, a normativity crisis, and a validity crisis. It is argued that the present crisis goes deeper than being merely a replicability crisis. There are also signs of a normativity crisis, due to a social incentive system that is not conducive to (...) scientific progress, and a validity crisis due to a variable-oriented approach that is not suitable to the scientific problems that need to be solved. Whereas the normativity crisis requires changes in the social incentive system operating in the scientific community, the validity crisis requires a change of paradigm from a variable-oriented to a more person-oriented approach. These questions are illustrated with examples from the field of psychotherapy research. (shrink)

Notes mainly on model-oriented vs. deduction-oriented conceptions of axiomatic reasoning.

The terms “relation” and “technique” are frequently used in discussions of what is effective in psychotherapy, but often as referring to two conceptually separate categories. The present paper questions this dichotomy between “relationship” and “technique”. This is done on the basis of a theoretical analysis of these concepts and the variety of phenomena they refer to. Basically, it is argued for a differentiation between two subcategories of techniques: (a) relational techniques, which the therapist uses in the interaction with the patient, (...) and which are central to psychodynamic approaches, and (b) self-techniques, which the therapist teaches the patient to use (or applies to him/herself), and which are central to cognitive-behavioral approaches to therapy. In addition, it is argued that the therapeutic relationship involves a number of non-technical aspects that also need to be systematically addressed. In this perspective, technique and relationship are partly overlapping categories. Techniques are defined as sociocultural procedures that appear in books, manuals or other practically transferable knowledge, and are made available to individuals through various kinds of training, education, and apprenticeship. At the psychological level the learning of self-techniques and relational techniques involves the acquisition of skills and attitudes, and results in personal knowledge. From an integrative perspective, it is of interest not only to explore the variety of techniques that exist in the psychotherapy field, but also to subject these to a thematic analysis for the purpose of identifying the more or less general methodological principles and skills that are involved. (shrink)