Knowledge and success from ability

This paper argues that knowledge is an instance of a more general and familiar normative kind—that of success through ability (or success through excellence, or success through virtue). This thesis is developed in the context of three themes prominent in the recent literature: that knowledge attributions are somehow context sensitive; that knowledge is intimately related to practical reasoning; and that one purpose of the concept of knowledge is to flag good sources of information. Wedding these themes to the proposed account helps to explain a wide range of standard Gettier problems. It also helps to explain barn façade cases, which require a different kind of treatment.     

Democracy,Equality and Toleration

In this paper I comment on a recent “letter” by Burleigh Wilkins addressed to nascent egalitarian democracies which offers advice on the achievement of religious toleration. I argue that while Wilkins’ advice is sound as far as it goes, it is nevertheless underdeveloped insofar as his letter fails to distinguish two competing conceptions of toleration – liberal-pluralist and republican-secularist – both of which are consistent with the advice he offers, but each of which yields very different policy recommendations (as can be seen by consideration of The United States v. Lee in America and, I’affaire du foulard in France). I argue that a democratic society of equals must be committed to liberal-pluralist rather than republican-secularist toleration. Some material in this paper is drawn from Catriona McKinnon, Toleration: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2006). This paper was written during a Fellowship on the Philosophy Program, School of Advanced Study, University of London. I am grateful to the University of York for a sabbatical term, and the Leverhulme Trust for a Study Abroad Fellowship, during which this paper was written. I would like to thank John Horton and Cécile Laborde for very useful written comments, and two anonymous referees for The Journal of Ethics for their reports.     

Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen und Behandlungspraxis bei persönlichkeitsgestörten Straftätern in den Niederlanden

Zusammenfassung   Die Behandlung pers?nlichkeitsgest?rter Straft?ter, die in den Niederlanden haupts?chlich dem Ma?regelvollzug obliegt, steht durch die Forderung von Politik und ?ffentlichkeit nach maximaler Sicherheit der Allgemeinheit momentan unter st?ndigem Druck. Gleichzeitig finden im Ma?regelvollzug Entwicklungen statt, die gew?hrleisten sollen, dass der Sektor seine prim?re Aufgabe, die Gesellschaft vor rückfallgef?hrdeten Straft?tern zu schützen, besser erfüllen kann. Dabei wird ebenfalls versucht, den unterschiedlichen Sicherungs- und Behandlungsbedürfnissen der verschiedenen Patientengruppen durch ein differenziertes, wissenschaftlich fundiertes Behandlungsangebot gerecht zu werden. In diesem Beitrag werden die Errungenschaften in der Behandlung psychisch gest?rter Straft?ter beschrieben und es wird erl?utert, inwieweit die Panikmache von Politik und Medien die gemachten Fortschritte zu untergraben droht.      

Die Effektivität der Hypnose

From 193 studies published until 1998 that investigated the efficacy of hypnosis 43 randomized clinical studies were selected that compared a patient group treated exclusively by hypnosis with an untreated control group (or with a group of patients treated by conventional medical procedures). The 43 studies were integrated into a meta-analysis that yielded a weighted average post-treatment effect size of d=.60 (medium effect size) for hypnotic treatment of ICD-10 coded disorders (24 studies; average treatment period: 5.1 weeks) and d=.38 (small effect) for hypnosis as an adjunct for supporting medical procedures (19 studies). These estimates are conservative since all variables of a given study were used. Most of the studies employed methods of the classical approach to hypnosis. In order to obtain an estimate to which extent non-clinical factors (design-quality, way of comparison of dependent variables) have an influence on the effect sizes, effect sizes were computed for all studies of the original 193 studies that reported the necessary statistical information (N=89). For those studies with an average effect size of d=.80 a massive influence of non-clinical factors was demonstrated with a range from d=.51 for randomized studies with group comparisons to d=2.0 for non-randomized studies using pre-post-comparisons.     

Double reorientation in 〈1 1 0〉 Cu nanowires

Molecular dynamics simulations performed on tensile deformation of 〈1?1?0〉 Cu nanowire indicated that the nanowire undergoes double reorientation from 〈1?1?0〉 to 〈1?0?0〉 tensile axis followed by 〈1?0?0〉 to 〈1?1?2〉 tensile axis. It has been observed that the double reorientation results from the occurrence of twinning mode of deformation in both the original 〈1?1?0〉 and reoriented 〈1?0?0〉 Cu nanowires. The double reorientation in 〈1?1?0〉 Cu nanowire leads to tensile ductility as high as 260% thereby displaying superplastic like behaviour. The occurrence of double reorientation and the associated high tensile ductility have been restricted to low nanowire length below or equal to 7.15 nm with aspect ratio ≤1. Above this length (higher aspect ratio), the reorientation process has not been observed and the nanowire fails at significantly lower strains due to activation of multiple twin systems facilitating twin–twin interactions.     

A Reader’s Guide to al-Shāfiʿī’s Epistle on Legal Theory (al-Risāla)

Al-Shāfi?ī’s famous Epistle on Legal Theory (al-Risāla) has long been hailed as formative for the discipline of Islamic legal theory (u?ūl al-fiqh), but its structure and the wording of some of its most important passages remain a puzzle. This essay is intended as an aide for the study of the Risāla’s Arabic text. It surveys scholarly disagreements about the work’s significance and structure, and argues that it is best understood as a sequence of three distinct compositions, the second and third having been appended to address issues raised by opponents during discussions about the first. Each ‘book’ makes a separate argument, has its own internal structure, and is distinguished by terminological and stylistic features. Most of the article consists of a detailed analytical outline that spells out what point al-Shāfi?ī is trying to make with each of his concrete legal examples, and shows how they fit together into a sequence of three related but separately organized arguments.     

Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) and Rūmī (1207–1273) on the Question of Evil: Discontinuities in Sufi Metaphysics

This article compares and contrasts Ibn ?Arabī’s and Rūmī’s accounts of evil. Ibn ?Arabī explains the existence of evil as a consequence of both metaphysical necessity and God’s volitional act. Evil is the inevitable ‘shadow’ of existence implied by the Infinity of God, and God’s mercy existentiates the possibilities ‘hidden’ in the Infinite, allowing this metaphysical necessity to emerge. In contrast to Ibn ?Arabī’s necessitarian-cum-volitional theodicy, Rūmī presents an almost exclusively volitional theodicy. He traces the roots of evil to the Divine Will. To preserve God’s moral perfection, he frequently points to the positive compensating functions of the existence of evil in the world. Ibn ?Arabī’s theodicy enables him to accentuate the necessity of evil in order to save the act of will, and hence God’s perfection, from being directly related to the emergence of evil. Rūmī’s volitional theodicy, however, relates the Divine Will directly to evil, and subsequently attempts to preserve the purity of the Divine intention by accentuating all the positive compensations.     

水平空间与情绪效价联结效应的产生机制

采用词汇效价判断任务,考察水平空间与情绪效价联合效应的产生机制。实验1在被试双手正常放置条件下考察了词汇效价与水平空间联结效应的存在;实验2则要求被试双手交叉放置,以考察当反应手和反应键的空间信息冲突时水平空间与情感效价的关联现象;实验3则进一步考排除反应手的参与,以考察口头报告的反应方式是否对两者的联结效应产生影响。结果表明,不同反应方式下均存在空间情感效价的联结,且此联结更多是反应选择极性编码的结果。     

Chimpanzee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>) and orangutan (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pongo abelii</Emphasis>) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Planning for future needs has traditionally been considered to be restricted to human cognition. Although recent studies on great ape and corvid cognition challenge this belief, the phylogenesis of human planning remains largely unknown. The complex skill for future planning has not yet been satisfactorily established in any other extant primate species than our own. In humans, planning for future needs rely heavily on two overarching capacities, both of which lie at the heart of our cognition: self-control, often defined as the suppression of immediate drives in favor of delayed rewards, and mental time travel, which could be described as a detached mental experience of a past or future event. Future planning is linked to additional high complexity cognition such as metacognition and a consciousness usually not attributed to animals. In a series of four experiments based on tool use, we demonstrate that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and they do not merely rely on associative learning or semantic prospection when confronted with a planning task. These results suggest that great apes engage in planning for the future by out competing current drives and mentally pre-experiencing an upcoming event. This suggests that the advanced mental capacities utilized in human future planning are shared by phylogenetically more ancient species than previously believed.     

Variability and moral phenomenology

Many moral philosophers in the Western tradition have used phenomenological claims as starting points for philosophical inquiry; aspects of moral phenomenology have often been taken to be anchors to which any adequate account of morality must remain attached. This paper raises doubts about whether moral phenomena are universal and robust enough to serve the purposes to which moral philosophers have traditionally tried to put them. Persons’ experiences of morality may vary in a way that greatly limits the extent to which moral phenomenology can constitute a reason to favor one moral theory over another. Phenomenology may not be able to serve as a pre-theoretic starting point or anchor in the consideration of rival moral theories because moral phenomenology may itself be theory-laden. These doubts are illustrated through an examination of how moral phenomenology is used in the thought of Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Francis Hutcheson, and Søren Kierkegaard.