100 Philosophie und Psychologie
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Abstract
Knowledge ascriptions depend on so-called non-traditional factors. For instance, we become less inclined to ascribe knowledge when it’s important to be right, or once we are reminded of possible sources of error. A number of potential explanations of this data have been proposed in the literature. They include revisionary semantic explanations based on epistemic contextualism and revisionary metaphysical explanations based on anti-intellectualism. Classical invariantists reject such revisionary proposals and hence face the challenge to provide an alternative account. The most prominent strategy here appeals to Gricean pragmatics. This paper focuses on a slightly less prominent strategy, which is based on the idea that non-traditional factors affect knowledge ascriptions because they affect what the putative knower believes. I will call this strategy doxasticism. The full potential of doxasticism is rarely appreciated in the literature and numerous unwarranted concerns have been raised. The goal of this paper is to present the strongest form of doxasticism and then to point out the genuine limitations of this position. I also sketch a closely related, more promising account.
Abstract
The paper introduces, compares and contrasts formal models of source reliability proposed in the epistemology literature, in particular the prominent models of Bovens and Hartmann (Bayesian epistemology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003) and Olsson (Episteme 8(02):127–143, 2011). All are Bayesian models seeking to provide normative guidance, yet they differ subtly in assumptions and resulting behavior. Models are evaluated both on conceptual grounds and through simulations, and the relationship between models is clarified. The simulations both show surprising similarities and highlight relevant differences between these models. Most importantly, however, our evaluations reveal that important normative concerns arguably remain unresolved. The philosophical implications of this for testimony are discussed.
Abstract
This paper shows that our popular account of weakness of will is inconsistent with dilemmas. In dilemmas, agents judge that they ought to do one thing, that they ought to do something else, and that they cannot do both. They must act against either of their two judgments. But such action is commonly understood as weakness of will. An agent is weak-willed in doing something if she judges that she ought to and could do something else instead. Thus, it seems that, in a dilemma, the agent is weak-willed by definition. But this is puzzling: clearly, the two are different phenomena. The puzzle may support scepticism about weakness of will or dilemmas. Here, I argue that the two are consistent on a revised understanding of weakness of will. To do so, I further distinguish the mental states of an agent in a dilemma from those of a weak-willed person.
Abstract
Many experiential properties are naturally understood as dispositions such that e.g. a cake tastes good to you iff you are disposed to get gustatory pleasure when you eat it. Such dispositional analyses, however, face a challenge. It has been widely observed that one cannot properly assert “The cake tastes good to me” unless one has tried it. This acquaintance requirement is puzzling on the dispositional account because it should be possible to be disposed to like the cake even if this disposition has never been manifested. We argue that familiar response strategies on behalf of the dispositionalist fail. These include appeals to conversational implicatures, expressivism, semantic presuppositions and norms of assertion. Against this background, we propose a new analysis in terms of what we call tendencies, where a tendency is a disposition that has been manifested. The acquaintance requirement comes out as an entailment. We point out a hitherto unnoticed parallel to sentences ascribing character traits such as “Hannah is brave,” and extend our tendency-based analysis to this domain.
Der vorliegende Text geht der Frage nach, wie die genetische Religionspsychologie von Wilhelm Wundt als Zeitzeugnis verstanden werden kann. Dabei wird zunächst das Gesamtwerk der Völkerpsychologie betrachtet, in das die Wundtsche Religionspsychologie eingebettet ist. Die Völkerpsychologie erweist sich einerseits als ein Kind ihrer Zeit, da sie völkerpsychologische Gedanken zweier verschiedener Strömungen miteinander verknüpft. Dies führt aber andererseits dazu, dass Wundts Ansatz einzigartig ist. Insbesondere im letzten Kapitel der Völkerpsychologie wird auch Wundt als Kind seiner Zeit sichtbar, indem er sich zur politischen Lage und zur Zukunft der Kultur äußert. Wundts Religionspsychologie lässt sich ebenso als Kind ihrer Zeit lesen. Sie verbindet die damals dominierende Religionsgeschichte mit der Psychologie, scheitert aber meines Erachtens daran, den Phänomenen gerecht zu werden, indem er sie doch teleologisch hierarchisiert und vom Heute in die Geschichte projiziert.
Abstract
Donald Davidson established causalism, i.e. the view that reasons are causes and that action explanation is causal explanation, as the dominant view within contemporary action theory. According to his “master argument”, we must distinguish between reasons the agent merely has and reasons she has and which actually explain what she did, and the only, or at any rate the best, way to make the distinction is by saying that the reasons for which an agent acts are causes of her action. “Davidson's challenge” to non‐causalists is to come up with an alternative, more convincing, way of drawing the distinction. In this paper, I argue that G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright offer such an alternative. Moreover, I argue that Davidson's own account of interpretation makes no use of his causalist claim.
This article examines the connection between actions, temporality, and media-based observation. Slow motion technology is currently being used especially in sports to examine and evaluate athletes’ actions more precisely in order to identify potential infringements of rules. Starting with a phenomenological perspective, this article engages in a critical assessment of the degree to which the intentions underlying athletes’ actions become clearer if their actions are slowed down using slow motion. It transpires that a more in-depth understanding is not possible because the process of time-stretching using media technology tends to obscure intersubjective understanding. Nevertheless, the use of different playback speeds does increase observers’ sensitivity to the temporality of action and observation. This is particularly the case when greater emphasis is placed on the body and its role in the formation and carrying out of intentions. With the phenomenological view and in special consideration of the body and the subjective intentionality, the paper contributes to a discussion about the connection of time and (inter-)action already led in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. These findings mark a contribution to empirical social research as well, which is increasingly using video material in action analysis and should take slow motion as a possible augmented but also manipulated access to actions into account adequately. To this end, this article suggests a method for identifying the merits and demerits of using slow motion to analyse actions, and discusses the methodological implications of temporality in observation.
Pruritus (itch) is a distressing sensation that provokes people to scratch (1).
The International Forum on the Study of Itch (IFSI) defines pruritus as
acute and chronic pruritus (CP is defined itch lasting more than six weeks).
Since the definition of pruritus, scientists have been trying to clarify its
mechanism, but because itch and pain have many overlaps in the periphery,
and pathways, itch was also considered to be a sub-threshold pain
sensation. However, the anesthesiologists, Sun and colleagues from
Washington University discovered that itching was processed in pathways
associated with the gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) gene, the
authors found that itching in mice was related to a particular cell type in
the spinal cord. The data were published in Science (2). Mice with high
GRPR gene expression had a significantly higher intensity of itching than
did mice with low GRPR gene expression (3, 4). Previous studies have
shown that pruritus is transmitted through histamine-dependent and
histamine-independent peripheral pathways in which immune cells, and
skin neurons and their secretion of cytokines are involved. Some
unmyelinated C fibers originate in the skin and transmit itch signals to the
spinal cord, then via the thalamus to activate certain brain regions, such as
the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex and also the insular
cortex (5). The histaminergic itch pathway is generally well-defined and a
clinical target for drugs. However, blockade of histamine receptors does
— 5 —
not eliminate all types of pruritus, especially in many chronic disease (6),
for example in atopic dermatitis and psoriasis (7).
Based on the previous research findings of our team, the C57BL/6J (C57)
mouse strain and the C3H/HeJ (C3H) mouse strain were selected from 21
previously screened inbred mouse strains. We selected the C3H mouse
strain and the more sensitive C57 mouse strain to determine if resistance
and sensitivity to developing pruritus are restricted to histamine and
chloroquine (8). Scratching behaviour in mice is a consistent, repetitive,
and rapid characteristic movement that involves only the hind paws.
Therefore both hindpaws of mice were implanted with a Teflon coated
magnet under isoflurane anesthesia (the magnet dimensions were
5X2mm). Magents were placed in distance from the knee or ankle joints to
prevent adverse effects on the activity of the mouse. After seven days of
recovery, the mice were placed in separate cages one hour prior to the
measurements, in order to familiarize them with the novel environment.
The cages were placed in a measurement system surrounded by magnetic
coils, where the movement of the magnets were automatically recorded. A
custom-programmed software was used to record and analyse the walking
and scratching movements of the mice according to the amplitude and
frequency of the magnet movements within the coil. The seven pruritogens
used in the study were endothelin, chloroquine, trypsin, lysophosphatidic
acid (LPA), histamine, serotonin(5-HT) and SLIGRL-NH2 (SLIGRL).
— 6 —
They were injected into the dorsal folds of the mouse neck at 48-hour
intervals to induce itch, followed by acute scratching behaviour, then
measured during 30 minutes (Figure 1).
To establish the effective dose range for each pruritogen, four different
doses were used, in the dose range of the concentrations used in previous
experiments and in already published findings (9, 10). Our study
established an animal model of pruritus with two genetic backgrounds and
opposite itch phenotypes which allow to study the genetic mechanisms of
itch sensitivity in future research projects.
This paper offers a novel account of practical factor effects on knowledge attributions that is consistent with the denial of contextualism, relativism and pragmatic encroachemt. The account goes as follows. Knowledge depends on factors like safety, reliability or probability. In many cases, it is uncertain just how safe, how reliably formed or how probable the target proposition is. This means that we have to estimate these quantities in order to form knowledge judgements. Such estimates of uncertain quantities are independently known to be affected by pragmatic factors. When overestimation is costlier than underestimation, for instance, we tend to underestimate the relevant quantity to avoid greater losses. On the suggested account, high stakes and other pragmatic factors induce such “asymmetric loss functions” on quantities like safety, reliability and probability. This skews our estimates of these quantities and thereby our judgements about knowledge. The resulting theory is an error-theory, but one that rationlizes the error in question.
The dissertation is mainly concerned with the following question: How can we be responsible for our attitudes? Traditional formulations of the philosophical problem underlying this question see it as a conflict between responsibility and the absence of voluntary control. I interpret it, by contrast, as a problem about the responsibility that we have for being (ir)rational. To illuminate this responsibility, I engage in discussions about the normative status of object-given reasons for attitudes, present a novel case against pragmatism about reasons for attitudes, and propose that we can understand our responsibility for being (ir)rational by grounding the normative force of reasons for attitudes in our practice of holding each other answerable for our (ir)rationality. Properly distinguishing the direct answerability we have for our attitudes from the indirect accountability that we have for managing our attitudes allows us to see that not all kinds of responsibility presuppose control. Rather, attitudes for which we are directly answerable are within the space of reasons without always being within our control.
This dissertation aims to reassess the early reception of Zhu Xi's 朱熹 (1130-1200) commentary on the Odes.This study basically unfolds in accordance with the time order from the late Southern Song to the early Ming. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapter 2 discusses the version-reception of the Shi jizhuan in the late Southern Song. I argue that the early and late versions of the Shi jizhuan were simultaneously in circulation in the late Southern Song – specifically, the version that was used by two scholars in the late Southern Song, Duan Changwu and Yan Can. Chapter 3 will focus on scholars’ reactions to Zhu Xi's readings of the “lascivious Odes” at the time that the late version began to be known. Chapter 4 will present the earliest advocacy of Shi jizhuan in the late Southern Song. Fu Guang, Zhu Jian and Wang Bo, to different extents, influenced the spread of the late version of the Shi jizhuan. Chapter 5 will attempt to discern the process that occurred as the Shi jizhuan became the canon of Shijing exegesis in the official school. A series of Shijing commentaries from the Yuan Dynasty, and the Shi zhuan daquan from the early Ming, will be inspected. In Chapter 6, scholars’ responses to Zhu Xi's Shi jizhuan in the Yuan, and especially to Zhu Xi’s notion of the “Lascivious Odes”, will be analysed.
Chapter 7 will show that the oppositions to Zhu Xi’s Shi jizhuan from the supporters of the Han-Tang tradition had not ceased, even when the Shi jizhuan officially became the canon in Shijing exegesis.
Chapter 8 is the Conclusion.
Confucianism claims that the state should offer a particular moral good for pursuing good individual life. To attain such a good life for an individual, it is argued that community prosperity has to be given priority over guaranteeing individual rights. Such a perspective will be criticized throughout this thesis. The ruler‘s primary role in East Asian culture is often suggested as pursuing the happiness of the ordinary people, who are themselves the subjects to be ruled. This study aims to look through the development of the ‚Asian values‘ based on Confucianism and further criticize the perfectionist perspective embedded therein. The character of humans as ordinary people who Asiatic perfectionists presumed in their claims is originally selfish humans. Interestingly, such selfish humans are surprisingly similar to the humans supposed by classical economists in the West. For this reason, it would be particularly helpful to look at the character of cooperative humans, which has recently emerged from behavioral economics, to criticize the nature of selfish humans.
Grenzen : Fünf Vorträge
(2021)
Der Band präsentiert die Druckfassungen der Vorträge zum Thema ‚Grenzen‘, die anlässlich der Erlanger Universitätstage vom 3. bis zum 31. März 202 in Amberg und vom 22. Oktober bis zum 26. November in Ansbach gehalten wurden. Neben der ausführlichen Einführung in das Rahmenthema finden sich hier die Beiträge, die die Erlanger Kolleginnen und Kollegen, Prof. Dr. Doris Feldmann, Prof. Dr. Kristina Giesel, Dr. Johannes Fürst, Prof. Dr. Christoph Ostgathe und Prof. Dr. Jörn Wilms zu ‚Grenzen‘ in ihren jeweiligen Disziplinen gehalten haben: Aus den Perspektiven der englischen Kulturwissenschaft, der Theoretischen Physik, der Geographie, der Palliativmedizin und der Astrophysik gelang es den Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern mit großem didaktischen Geschick, dem Thema neue spannende Aspekte abzugewinnen.
„Das ist doch nicht normal“ – eine Redewendung, die auch vor der Seuche schon sprachliches und emotionales Alltagsrepertoire war. Aber was ist schon normal – jenseits dessen, was man selbst dafür hält? Wie einigen wir uns über Normalität, brauchen wir sie überhaupt, und falls ja, weshalb, in welchem Rahmen und in welchen Grenzen? Ist nicht das Unnormale viel spannender als das Normale, und grenzt die Normalitätsdebatte nicht Menschen und Dinge aus, die das nicht verdient haben? Muss es eine einzige Normalität geben, und wer legt sie fest? Eine Annäherung an solche Fragen kann nur im Gespräch zwischen unterschiedlichen Wissenschaftsdisziplinen gelingen; eine jede hat ihre eigenen Blickwinkel, Methoden und Erkenntnisse.
Für die Atzelsberger Gespräche konnten herausragende Expertinnen und Experten für Beiträge gewonnen werden, die uns profunde Einblicke in die Fragestellungen von Norm und Normabweichung verschafften, Scheingewissheiten als solche entlarvten und die oft überraschende Dynamik im Verständnis von Normalem und Unnormalem aufzeigten. Aida Bosch erschließt aus soziologischer Sicht Debatten über Gesellschaft im Wertewandel – ein dynamisches Verständnis von Normalität – mit optimistischem Ausblick. Friedrich Lösel erhellt die sozialpsychologischen und kriminologischen Dimensionen des (Un)Normalen. Nadine Metzger verschafft Einblicke in die Diskussionen um die Suche der Medizin im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert nach dem „Normkörper“ – dabei wird die mögliche Kehrseite der Normierung deutlich, nämlich die Ausgrenzung des „Unnormalen“. Hans Dickel zeigt „Anstößiges“ anhand von vier Beispielen in der Kunst – Skandale, die auch den Anstoß zu neuen Normalitäten bilden können.
I argue for an account of know‐how as a capacity for practical judgment—a view I derive from Gilbert Ryle. I begin by offering an interpretation of Ryle and by correcting a number of widespread misconceptions about his views in the current debate. I then identify some problems with Ryle's account and finally present my own view which, I argue, retains Ryle's insights while avoiding his mistakes.
Much at stake in knowledge
(2020)
Orthodoxy in the contemporary debate on knowledge ascriptions holds that the truth‐value of knowledge ascriptions is purely a matter of truth‐relevant factors. One familiar challenge to orthodoxy comes from intuitive practical factor effects. But practical factor effects turn out to be hard to confirm in experimental studies, and where they have been confirmed, they may seem easy to explain away. We suggest a novel experimental paradigm to show that practical factor effects exist. It trades on the idea that people retract knowledge attributions when practical factors shift. We also explain why the resulting data raise a serious challenge to orthodoxy.
G.E.M. Anscombe’s account of practical knowledge raises a puzzle for cases of practical error, i.e. cases where, due to a mistake of mine, I am not in fact doing what I mean to be doing. It can seem that in such cases, we must both affirm and deny the presence of practical knowledge. It must be present, because practical error presupposes that there is an intentional action in which the mistake occurs, which in turn presupposes practical knowledge as a formal‐causal condition. At the same time, practical knowledge can’t be present, because I am not doing what I think I am doing, and therefore can’t have knowledge of what I am doing. I discuss and reject various attempts to deal with the problem. The solution I propose and defend against objections relies on applying the Aristotelian‐Thomistic conceptual framework of form and matter to intentional action.
Die Untersuchungen gelten den spannungsreichen Beziehungen zwischen Marxismus, Phänomenologie, Interaktionismus und an Intersubjektivität orientierten Positionen. Den Zusammenhang stiftet die konstitutionstheoretische Frage nach einer überbietenden Wirklichkeits-, Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftskonzeption. Zur Sprache kommen philosophische und sozialtheoretische Beiträge aus der Denkströmung von E. Husserl über A. Schütz, Berger-Luckmann und G.H. Mead bis hin zur Kritischen Theorie und J. Habermas. Dazu werden aus der Denklinie eines philosophisch reflektierten Marxismus Beiträge ins Feld geführt, die von Marx über die jugoslawische Praxisgruppe, J.P. Sartre und auch H. Marcuse bis hin zu den modernen Klassikern Bloch und Lefebvre reichen. Im Zuge intensiver, diskursiv geführter Auseinandersetzungen werden Elemente und Umrisse einer integralen Grundlagentheorie gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit kenntlich, die sich sowohl von dogmatischen Marxismen distanziert als auch inkonsequenten und affirmativen sozialtheoretischen Ansätzen opponiert. Es zeichnet sich das viel versprechende Arbeitsprojekt einer praxisphilosophisch fundierten und intersubjektivitätstheoretisch abgeklärten, dialektisch qualifizierten Praxiswissenschaftlichkeit ab.
“Give Me Sight Beyond Sight”: Thinking With Science Fiction as Thinking (Together) With (Others)
(2016)
This is the second of two special issues, and the articles are grouped according to two themes: The previous, first issue featured articles that shared the theme Technologies and the Political, while this second issue is focused on the theme of Subjectivities. In this second, somewhat expanded, introduction, the “sky’s the limit.” This introduction canvasses various theoretical and conceptual-empricial perspectives that the articles of both issues touch on and further tries to open many doors through which readers are invited to go on their own rather than give readymade answers. This introduction is written not only to give both an overview of some of the most important conceptual, methodological, and empirical contexts that the two special issues evoke but also to create invitations for many further conversations to be had from here on forward by beginning the interrogating and troubling of the intercourse between “science” and “science fiction”: beause all of this has happened before and will happen again.
Der Band präsentiert die Druckfassungen der Vorträge zum Thema ‚Unendlichkeit‘, die anlässlich der Erlanger Universitätstage vom 24. Februar bis zum 24. März 2015 in Amberg und vom 22. Oktober bis zum 26. November 2015 in Ansbach gehalten wurden. Die fünf Erlanger Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler, Professor Dr. Christine Lubkoll, Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Leven, Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schoberth, Professor Dr. Thomas Weth und Professor Dr. Jörn Wilms – aus den Disziplinen Germanistik, Geschichte der Medizin, Theologie, Mathematik und Astronomie – verstanden es auf ebenso informative wie unterhaltsame Weise, dem Thema ‚Unendlichkeit‘ faszinierende Aspekte abzugewinnen und ihr – erfreulicherweise stets großes – Publikum mit ihren geschickt didaktisch aufbereiteten Beiträgen zu begeistern.