Abstract We use the concept of causal dynamic systems to define causal transition models and demonstrate how they meet the requirements for a reductive theory of causality. Highlights include a graphical analysis of common causal counterexamples including resolving current cases of isomorphic causal models. We also address their relationship to major schools of causality – Counterfactual Theory, Manipulationist/Interventionist Theory, and Mechanism accounts of causality.
Abstract Ambivalence is a state in which a subject simultaneously holds two contradictory statements as true. It is commonly experienced in eating disorders and can become an obstacle to recovery. Early recognition and behavioral changes are crucial for recovery. However, making lasting changes is easier said than done, and ambivalence can intensify these challenges. That is why it is crucial to explore and develop new perspectives on how ambivalence could support the recovery from eating disorders. While there is a substantial body of research on ambivalence in the context of eating disorders, it lacks a philosophical approach that could complement existing frameworks by analyzing how interactions with artifacts constitute ambivalence and facilitate recovery. In this paper I will employ postphenomenology to investigate how ambivalence, as a technologically mediated phenomenon, opens a possibility for recovery.
Abstract This study argues that there is an internal inconsistency in Badiou’s treatment of art, particularly in how he applies his ontological investigations to literary works. This inconsistency complicates the use of a literary theory derived from his philosophy. By examining Badiou’s encounters with specific literary works, we reveal two distinct yet unexamined descriptions of artistic truth that coexist within his writings. Understanding these dualities allows us to explore how Badiou’s concept of ‘truths’ transcends both temporal and local knowledge systems – such as postmodernism – which may be influential for a time but ultimately fade. The very inconsistency within Badiou’s framework is a strength, as it opens the possibility for two distinct ontological modes of reading literature. This approach broadens the potential for declaring universal ‘truths’ that are both ‘singular’ and ‘immanent’, while applicable to both an infinite “configuration” of literary works and a finite individual work as “pertinent units” of literary criticism. This inconsistency not only helps to challenge and blur the clichéd boundaries between literary schools and epochs but also infuses literary theory – drawn from Badiou’s philosophy – with an anti-identitarian, trans-linguistic, trans-historical, and trans-topological resonance.
Abstract This article develops an epistemological and representational analysis of theoretical particle-like constructs in modern physics, using a triad-structured framework that distinguishes between referential grounding (Base), symbolic representation (Representation), and procedural-institutional linkage (Linkage). While virtual particles in quantum field theory and condensed matter serve as our primary case study, we extend our analysis to encompass the so-called quasiparticles, e.g., Bloch electrons, phonons, plasmons, and excitations renormalized by Cooper pairing in Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconductors. Rather than interpreting these constructs as either ontically real entities or mere calculational fictions, we conceptualize them as epistemic-mediating constructs embedded within the representational infrastructure of their respective physical theories. Our comparative analysis demonstrates that the scientific effectiveness of such constructs derives from their functional integration into modeling practices, computational techniques, and community standards, rather than from strong ontic commitments. By situating our investigation within contemporary debates on scientific representation and model-based reasoning, this paper contributes to a broader epistemology of theoretical entities across different domains of physics.
Abstract This review compares two recent books, One True Logic: A Monist Manifesto, by Owen Griffiths and A. C. Paseau; and Essay on the Principles of Logic: A Defense of Logical Monism, by Michael Wolff, both professing to be defenses of logical monism. Logical pluralism is the view that differing systems of logic may be equally defensible, even though they differ on which arguments should be judged valid; logical monism is the view that only one logic is ultimately “correct.” Despite their shared conclusions, the two books reach that conclusion in strikingly different ways. The review is critical of One True Logic for dismissing “non-classical” logics out of hand, as if it were a foregone conclusion that the one correct logic is truth functional. That book is also criticized for giving specious arguments against logical pluralism. The review praises Essay on the Principles of Logic for having a more satisfactory approach. That book begins by distilling out what Kant would call a canon of pure logic. It then shows that the various logics motivating the argument for pluralism (including truth functional logic) can be explained as special applications (organons) subsumed under that broadly general canon.
Abstract This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing debates about methodological naturalism in philosophy by examining the interpretations of Wittgenstein as a naturalist philosopher. Through analyzing these interpretations, I characterize Wittgenstein’s position as a rare kind of naturalism independent of ontological or metaphysical claims. I show that what makes Wittgenstein’s naturalism methodological is its metaphilosophical thrust, which I exemplify in two interrelated features of Wittgenstein’s thought. First, the idea of philosophy’s radical autonomy prevents philosophy from committing itself to any metaphysical thesis. Second, the emphasis that Wittgenstein places on the descriptiveness of philosophy makes “general facts of nature” not the material of observation but the hinges of philosophy. Naturalism in Wittgenstein’s thought, I argue, is the precondition for philosophy as opposed to science. Since Wittgenstein’s naturalism is metaphilosophical, it is methodological: it prevents a philosopher from adopting the supernatural positions embodied in metaphysical theses. Thus, the proposed interpretation not only refines dominant views of Wittgenstein’s naturalism as liberal or liberating, but also adds to the diversity of naturalistic positions in philosophy.
This article focuses on the Danish Prime ministry’s press conferences during the first 3 months of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 when stakes were high, and reliable information practically non-existent. It analyses various uses of the concept of probability in political communication focusing on aleatory and epistemic concepts of probability, i.e. its ‘dual nature’. The question is whether and how different uses of the concept of probability can be identified in press conferences and how the uncertainty of the situation was communicated to the public. The analysis identifies how a space for decision-making can be extended and limited through the application of various probability concepts.
Grammarians have come to think of their discipline as a descriptive science, not as a set of prescriptive rules. This paper explores the ways in which logic, sometimes called “the grammar of argumentation,” can also be considered a descriptive science. Logic is a natural science that describes a set of observable facts, namely facts about the nature of successful reasoning, but logicians have been remiss in failing to recognize abductive reasoning as an observable mode of successful reasoning. Logic also offers descriptive definitions of words that structure arguments in common speech. But here logicians have made a “prescriptivist error,” offering a definition of the ‘if…then…’ relation that has no basis in common usage. The paper prescribes (to logicians) that they should (a) accept abduction as a third mode of reasoning, and (b) adopt a definition of the consequence relation commensurate with the connexivist school of logic.
This paper critically examines the idea that language use is governed by semantic rules. In the literature, two competing rules have been proposed: the truth rule and the rule of use. The truth rule requires speakers to always use expressions truthfully, while the rule of use requires speakers to use expressions in accordance with meaning. The rule of use has been claimed to be better at making justice to the intuitions on linguistic mistakes, but it is unclear how these rules of use should be formulated. By focusing on a recent suggestion by Indrek Reiland, I assess various candidates for rules of use and show that even these fail to accord with the intuitive notion of linguistic mistakes. I propose that linguistic mistakes should be understood in terms of what I call expressions’ linguistic function. However, this implies that only rules that can capture this notion of linguistic mistakes rely on speakers’ intentions and therefore should be taken as instances of the general relationship between means and ends rather than being intrinsic to meaning.
For Kant, recognition of national sovereignty is constitutive of international law, and international law is the sine qua non for peace between Peoples. The article demonstrates how and why national sovereignty is inextricably connected to the self-determination of Peoples in Kant’s philosophy of law and in international law. The principle of self-determination in turn is grounded in his idea of a normative dignity of Peoples. In Kant’s theory, “People” and “state” are diachronically conceived. This allows him to define the state’s primary function and foremost duty as securing the individual and collective dignity of its constitutive People against reification through external interference and manipulation, as well as against self-reification, by means of domestic and international law in a peace union of like-minded (i.e. ideally republican) states.
Abstract One of the central problems in the current discussion about the climate crisis is the fact that we (in the broadest sense of the term) do not act according to the knowledge available. That is, the sciences are more or less unanimous in their claim that we need to change our ways of living drastically, and yet we do very little to change. Given that there’s no shortage of scientific evidence, the central issue is not necessarily knowledge, but how we relate to what we already know. But how do such changes in how we relate to what we know come about? How can a radical shift in our way of living come about? Facts don’t seem to do it. In light of this stand-still it is easy to resort to either anger or resignation. One suggestion is that arts, and movies in particular, may help us change our attitudes to what we know. In this article, I show how that what is required is not a mere change in attitude, but that we learn to reconfigure the concepts we live by, and that many films about the climate crisis often may conceal the climate crisis for us and prevent us from engaging imaginatively with the prospect of a radically changed way of living. Not all movies that are, in an objective sense “about” the climate crisis, allows for transformative experience where we learn to conceptualize our world differently.
Arising from the whole body of Wittgenstein's writings is a picture of a (not necessarily straight, linear, but admittedly tireless) journey to come to terms with the mechanics of language as an instrument to conceive `reality' and to communicate an acquired conception of the `world'. The journey passes through mathematics, psychology, color perception, certainty, aesthetic, but, looking at it from a sort of birdview, it seems reasonable to say that these are all used as `test beds' for his reflections and `experimentations' towards an all encompassing perspective of such a fundamental gateway to human reasoning and life-revealing as language. Whatever labelling of Wittgenstein as a mystic, a logicist, a conventionalist, a skeptic, an anti-metaphysics, an anti-realist, a verificationist, a pragmatist, a behaviorist, and many others, does not seem to do justice to his absolute obsession with being a persistent `deep diver' into the nature of language. Working with an open and searchable account of the Nachlass has allowed us to identify important aspects of the philosopher's possible common line of thinking, in spite of changes of directions, some of them acknowledged by Wittgenstein himself. One of those aspects is the association of meaning with use, application, purpose, usefulness of symbols in language, which happens to show itself from the very beginning through to the very late writings. The German terms Gebrauch, Anwendung, Verwendung, Zweck in relation to meaning, sense of signs, words, sentences, appear in several texts since the WW1 Notebooks (1914–1916) up until very late manuscripts from 1950–51.
The use of the open and searchable Wittgenstein's Nachlass (The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen (WAB)) has proved instrumental in the quest for a common thread of Wittgenstein's view on the connections between meaning, use and consequences, going from the Notebooks to later writings (including the Philosophical Investigations) and beyond. Here we take this as the basis for a proposal for a formal counterpart of a 'meaning-as-use' (dialogical/game-theoretical) semantics for the language of predicate logic. In order to further consolidate this perspective, we shall need to bring in key excerpts from Wittgenstein oeuvre (including the Nachlass) and from those formal semanticists who advocate a different perspective on the connections between proofs and meaning. With this in mind we consider several passages from Wittgenstein's published as well as unpublished writings to build a whole picture of a formal counterpart to 'meaning is use' based on the idea that explanations of consequences via 'movements within language' ought to be taken as a central aspect to Wittgenstein's shift from 'interpretation of symbols in a state of affairs' to 'use of symbols' which underpins his 'meaning is use' paradigm. As in the Investigations "every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning", as well as in a remark from his transitional period (1929-30): "Perhaps one should say that the expression 'interpretation of symbols' is misleading and one should instead say 'the use of symbols'." Significantly, we wish the present examination of the searchable Nachlass can make a relevant step towards a formal counterpart to the 'meaning is use' dictum, while highlighting an important common thread from Wittgenstein's very early to very late writings.
Abstract The analytical model of political ideologies offered in this article describes the connection between rising levels of distrust towards societal institutions in modern democracies and how such developments has challenged traditional and long-standing political parties in the Western world, such as the Danish political party Radikale Venstre [the Danish Social-Liberal Party]. Through use of a tripartite model of trust developed by Arman Teymouri Niknam during his interpretation of Mary Wollstonecraft’s attitudes towards trust brought together with different aspects of Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical framework, Teymouri Niknam and Leif Hemming Pedersen show how distrust may be able to act as a progressive tool in the creation of a more just, diverse and equal future and also how a virtuous and healthy form of democracy is an ideal that can be challenging to realise in practice. Teymouri Niknam and Hemming Pedersen are thus able to point to the ways in which a healthy democracy needs a balance of virtuous trust and distrust in order to achieve a good amount of both stability and progress, thus pointing to a difficult balancing act that many traditional political parties find themselves struggling with especially at this point in time in many contemporary democracies.
AbstractThe effectiveness of vaccination programmes depends on high levels of public trust in political, scientific and health-related institutions, but public trust in vaccines can waver. This article explores aspects of public trust and mistrust on a web media platform about the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine through the statements of a doctor and an anonymised ‘anti-vaxxer’. Thematic analysis identifies commonalities and divergences in both perspectives. Both trust and mistrust of MMR vaccination are presented as moral, reasoned stances by their proponents; they are connected to the individual’s experiences and situations, but are associated with very different trust attitudes to scientific and political institutions. Moreover, both the trustworthiness of the speakers themselves and the (un)trustworthiness of authorities are emphasised. Trust and mistrust are also thematised in relation to contextual matters such as the role of social media and the historical MMR controversy. Further research towards identifying common ground between trust positions is recommended.
Abstract This article is a slighty adapted version of my inaugural lecture as Professor of Philosophy presented on 21 June 2024 at the University of Copenhagen. Given my seniority and as the first woman ever to be appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, I decided to take this opportunity to address a broader and more fundamental topic: namely, what is philosophy, what role does philosophy play in today’s university systems, and what kind of history of philosophy do we need for the 21st century. My lecture has three parts. First, I present and defend a specific understanding of philosophy focussing on the notion of knowledge for its own sake. Second, I outline some of the challenges for contemporary and future historiography of philosophy. Third, I conclude with some remarks on the societal relevance of feminist history of philosophy.
