Institut für Philosophie

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Facts about incoherence as non-evidential epistemic reasons
(2023-05-12) Schmidt, Eva
This paper presents a counterexample to the principle that all epistemic reasons for doxastic attitudes towards p are provided by evidence concerning p. I begin by motivating and clarifying the principle and the associated picture of epistemic reasons, including the notion of evidence concerning a proposition, which comprises both first- and second-order evidence. I then introduce the counterexample from incoherent doxastic attitudes by presenting three example cases. In each case, the fact that the subject’s doxastic attitudes are incoherent is an epistemic reason to suspend, which is not provided by evidence. I argue that this incoherence fact is a reason for the subject to take a step back and reassess her evidence for her conflicting attitudes, and thus a reason to suspend all of them. Suspending judgment enables the subject to revise attitudes where appropriate and thus (typically) to arrive at a set of coherent and well-supported attitudes. I then address a dilemma for my proposal and, in conclusion, briefly suggest a picture of epistemic reasons on which they are to be understood against the background of the subject’s virtuous intellectual conduct.
Functional concept proxies and the actually smart Hans problem: what’s special about deep neural networks in science
(2024-12-27) Boge, Florian J.
Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are becoming increasingly important as scientific tools, as they excel in various scientific applications beyond what was considered possible. Yet from a certain vantage point, they are nothing but parametrized functions of some data vector , and their ‘learning’ is nothing but an iterative, algorithmic fitting of the parameters to data. Hence, what could be special about them as a scientific tool or model? I will here suggest an integrated perspective that mediates between extremes, by arguing that what makes DNNs in science special is their ability to develop functional concept proxies (FCPs): Substructures that occasionally provide them with abilities that correspond to those facilitated by concepts in human reasoning. Furthermore, I will argue that this introduces a problem that has so far barely been recognized by practitioners and philosophers alike: That DNNs may succeed on some vast and unwieldy data sets because they develop FCPs for features that are not transparent to human researchers. The resulting breach between scientific success and human understanding I call the ‘Actually Smart Hans Problem’.
On the idea of degrees of moral status
(2023-12-12) Timmer, Dick
Doing wrong with others
(2025) Baum, Kevin; Schmidt, Eva; Andrić, Vuko
According to Maximizing Objective Act-Consequentialism (MOAC)—more a family of theories than a specific doctrine—the concepts of the right and the best are closely intertwined. MOAC theories assert that an action is right if and only if no alternative action has better consequences. This criterion of rightness seems, however, to be an expression of a more general view, according to which the ‘core function’ of morality consists in implicitly coordinating collective actions: those actions that, if carried out, lead to the morally best world that moral agents can collectively bring about are to be designated as right. This idea, prominently referred to as the Principle of Moral Harmony by Fred Feldman (1980), was considered unchallenged dogma within the consequentialist community until the second half of the 20th century. However, whether MOAC theories can meet this expectation is questionable. Various circumstances—overdetermination and preemption, as well as the apparent existence of effects that, considered in isolation, are negligible but accumulate into significant harm—seem to allow the existence of collective decision situations in which combinations of actions yield collectively suboptimal results, even though no agent could have made a difference for the better by acting differently unilaterally. Consequently, such actions are apparently right according to MOAC theories, yet they lead to suboptimal outcomes. This puzzle, known as the Challenge of Collective Action, has questioned consequentialism for decades. This dissertation aims to reconstruct and understand the Challenge of Collective Action in its various forms and ultimately propose a novel consequentialist solution. Significantly based on game-theoretical considerations, the proposed solution results in a new and generalized MOAC theory, Multi-Agent Consequentialism, that is well-suited for multiple agents. The overarching aim of this work is to preserve the Principle of Moral Harmony as a fundamental motivation of consequentialist theorizing and, at the same time, to offer a decidedly objective-consequentialist solution to the Challenge of Collective Action.
Reasons, attenuators, and virtue: a novel account of pragmatic encroachment
(2023-09-04) Schmidt, Eva
In this paper, I explicate pragmatic encroachment by appealing to pragmatic considerations attenuating, or weakening, epistemic reasons to believe. I call this the ‘Attenuators View’. I will show that this proposal is better than spelling out pragmatic encroachment in terms of reasons against believing – what I call the ‘Reasons View’. While both views do equally well when it comes to providing a plausible mechanism of how pragmatic encroachment works, the Attenuators View does a better job distinguishing practical and epistemic reasons to believe. First, this view does not appeal to the costs of believing falsely as reasons against believing; second, because of this, it does not run the risk of tearing down the wall between practical and epistemic reasons bearing on belief. I underpin the Attenuators View with a virtue-theoretic account of how pragmatic encroachment attenuates epistemic reasons and close my discussion by considering some objections against such a view.
The world as witty agent - Donna Haraway on the object of knowledge
(2024-09-20) Trächtler, Jasmin
In her essay “Situated Knowledges,” the biologist and philosopher of science Donna Haraway tackles the question of scientific objectivity from a feminist perspective and opts for a ‘re-vision’ of science that overcomes the traditional dualisms of epistemic subject and object as well as of nature and culture (science). Beyond scientific realism and radical social constructivism, Haraway understands ‘nature’ or ‘world’ neither as a passive resource nor as a human product of imagination. Rather, she argues, the world is to be understood as a ‘witty agent’ that has its own efficacy and historicity in the production of knowledge. Instead of epistemic reification, possession, and appropriation of ‘nature’, knowledge production should be understood as a conversation between material-semiotic actors, human, and non-human, from which none of the actors leaves as they entered. In this study, I want to explore what it means to conceive of nature or world in knowledge processes as a “witty agent” and how exactly one is to imagine this form of non-human agency. To this end, I will first explain Haraway’s re-vision of “nature” beyond scientific realism and radical social constructivism (sect. 2). From this, I will discuss her underlying conception of agency (sect. 3). This involves first, a reconception of the traditional relation between epistemic subject and object as dynamic and situational relation (sect. 3.1). Second, Haraway characterizes the world’s epistemic agency in more positive terms by using the ‘trickster’ figure as it appears in Southwest Native American representations in the form of a Coyote (sect. 3.2). Finally, I will come back to Haraway’s initial question of an objective scientific approach to the world, which for her consists in a power-charged social relation of conversations with the world. I will conclude with a critical reflection of what Haraway’s conception of the world as an agent means for scientific practice and its engagement with objects of knowledge.
Reductive views of knowledge and the small difference principle
(2023-06-13) Wimmer, Simon
I develop a challenge to reductive views of knowing that ϕ that appeal to what I call a gradable property. Such appeal allows for properties that are intrinsically very similar to the property of knowing that ϕ, but differ significantly in their normative significance. This violates the independently plausible claim Pautz (2017) labels the ‘small difference principle.’
John Cook Wilson on the indefinability of knowledge
(2022-02-13) Longworth, Guy; Wimmer, Simon
Can knowledge be defined? We expound an argument of John Cook Wilson's that it cannot. Cook Wilson's argument connects knowing with having the power to inquire. We suggest that if he is right about that connection, then knowledge is, indeed, indefinable.
Introduction: Symposium Limitarianism: Extreme Wealth as a Moral Problem
(2022-12-09) Timmer, Dick; Neuhäuser, Christian
The growing concentration of wealth has acquired a new urgency in recent years. One particular view in this context is developed by Ingrid Robeyns in her ground-breaking work on limitarianism. According to this view, no one should have more than a certain amount of valuable goods, such as income and wealth. The contributors to this symposium, Brian Berkey, David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen, Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, and Lena Halldenius, critically examine various aspects of limitarianism. In particular, they examine how limitarianism should be interpreted and developed as a principle of justice, on what reasons speak in favour and against limitarianism, and on how limitarianism relates to other principles of distributive justice. Our hope is that this symposium will contribute to the ongoing debate in political philosophy about the concentration of wealth and economic justice.
Cook Wilson on knowledge and forms of thinking
(2022-06-27) Longworth, Guy; Wimmer, Simon
John Cook Wilson is an important predecessor of contemporary knowledge first epistemologists: among other parallels, he claimed that knowledge is indefinable. We reconstruct four arguments for this claim discernible in his work, three of which find no clear analogues in contemporary discussions of knowledge first epistemology. We pay special attention to Cook Wilson’s view of the relation between knowledge and forms of thinking (like belief). Claims of Cook Wilson’s that support the indefinability of knowledge include: that knowledge, unlike belief, straddles an active/passive divide; that, rather than entailing belief, knowledge excludes belief; and that understanding forms of thinking other than knowledge (such as belief) depends on understanding knowledge. Reflecting on Cook Wilson’s framework highlights underappreciated concerns relevant to any attempt to define knowledge.
From responsibility to reason-giving explainable artificial intelligence
(2022-02-19) Baum, Kevin; Mantel, Susanne; Schmidt, Eva; Speith, Timo
We argue that explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), specifically reason-giving XAI, often constitutes the most suitable way of ensuring that someone can properly be held responsible for decisions that are based on the outputs of artificial intelligent (AI) systems. We first show that, to close moral responsibility gaps (Matthias 2004), often a human in the loop is needed who is directly responsible for particular AI-supported decisions. Second, we appeal to the epistemic condition on moral responsibility to argue that, in order to be responsible for her decision, the human in the loop has to have an explanation available of the system’s recommendation. Reason explanations are especially well-suited to this end, and we examine whether—and how—it might be possible to make such explanations fit with AI systems. We support our claims by focusing on a case of disagreement between human in the loop and AI system.
Ways to knowledge-first believe
(2021-05-28) Wimmer, Simon
On a widely suggested knowledge-first account of belief, to believe p is to Φ (e.g. treat p) as if one knew p. I challenge this view by arguing against various regimentations of it. I conclude by generalizing my argument to alternative knowledge-first views suggested by Williamson and Wimmer.
Pairing and sharing: the birth of the sense of us
(2021-12-13) Vincini, Stefano
The goal of this paper is to show that a particular view of emotion sharing and a specific hypothesis on infant social perception strengthen each other. The view of emotion sharing is called “the straightforward view.” The hypothesis on infant social perception is called “the pairing account.” The straightforward view suggests that participants in emotion sharing undergo one and the same overarching emotion. The pairing account posits that infants perceive others’ embodied experiences as belonging to someone other than the self through a process of assimilation to, and accommodation of, their own embodied experience. The connection between the two theories lies in the domain-general process of association by similarity, which functions both in the individuation of a unitary emotion and in the interpretation of the sensory stimulus. By elaborating on this connection, the straightforward view becomes more solid from the cognitive-developmental standpoint and the pairing account expands its explanatory power. Since the straightforward view requires minimal forms of self- and other-awareness, the paper provides a characterization of the developmental origin of the sense of us, i.e., the experience of self and other as co-subjects of a shared emotional state.
Where reasons and reasoning come apart
(2020-04-07) Schmidt, Eva
Proponents of the reasoning view analyze normative reasons as premises of good reasoning and explain the normativity of reasons by appeal to their role as premises of good reasoning. The aim of this paper is to cast doubt on the reasoning view by providing counterexamples to the proposed analysis of reasons, counterexamples in which premises of good reasoning towards φ-ing are not reasons to φ.
Models, unification, and simulations: Margaret C. Morrison (1954–2021)
(2021-03-30) Falkenburg, Brigitte; Hartmann, Stephan
The philosophy of science community mourns the loss of Margaret Catherine Morrison, who passed away on January 9, 2021, after a long battle with cancer. Margie, as she was known to all who knew her, was highly regarded for her influential contributions to the philosophy of science, particularly her studies of the role of models and simulations in the natural and social sciences. These contributions made her a world-leading philosopher of science, instrumental in shifting philosophers' attention from the structure of scientific theories to the practice of science. Her sophisticated studies of the function of models in scientific practice drew on detailed knowledge of the theories and experiments of physics as well as the history of physics. In emphasizing the autonomy of scientific models and their interventional character, her insights had some affinity with Cartwright's and Hacking’s views on phenomenological laws, entity realism, the instrumentalist interpretation of scientific theories, and the disunity of science. But Morrison’s approach was distinguished by the conviction that the existence of unobservable entities cannot be defended independently of the theories that support their evidence, and that scientific practice cannot be adequately understood without examining the reasons for theory unification.
Belief does not entail a reasoning disposition
(2021-12-16) Wimmer, Simon
Are there any dispositions one must have if one believes p? A widespread answer emphasizes the role of beliefs in reasoning and holds that if one believes p, one must be disposed to treat p as true (rely on p/use p as a premise) in one’s reasoning. I argue that this answer is subject to counterexamples.
Personal identity, transformative experiences, and the future self
(2020-08-18) Crone, Katja
The article explores the relation between personal identity and life-changing decisions such as the decision for a certain career or the decision to become a parent. According to L.A. Paul (Paul 2014), decisions of this kind involve “transformative experiences”, to the effect that - at the time we make a choice - we simply don’t know what it is like for us to experience the future situation. Importantly, she claims that some new experiences may be “personally transformative” by which she means that one may become a “new kind of person” having a different subjective perspective and “identity”. The article discusses this understanding of a transformed future self. It will be argued that different notions of identity can be distinguished with respect to Paul’s claim: the notion of identity in the sense of a (core) personality as well as the notion of numerical identity in the sense of sameness. By distinguishing these two notions it will become more clear how a future experience may indeed qualify as “personally transformative”. Moreover, it will be shown that the notion of a self-understanding of persons helps to further clarify the kind of change at issue.
Foundations of a we-perspective
(2020-08-17) Crone, Katja
What enables everyday collective attitudes such as the intention of two persons to go for a walk together? Most current approaches are concerned with full-fledged collective attitudes and focus on the content, the mode or the subject of such attitudes. It will be argued that these approaches miss out an important explanatory enabling feature of collective attitudes: an experiential state, called a “sense of us”, in which a we-perspective is grounded. As will be shown, the sense of us pre-structures collective intentional states and is thus relevant to an adequate understanding of collective attitudes. The argument receives indirect support by insights into distortions of interaction due to implicit stereotypes.
Wissenschaft als Selbstzweck
(2014-09-12) Braun, Florian; Falkenburg, Brigitte; Schiemann, Gregor
Im Mittelpunkt der Abhandlung „Wissenschaft als Selbstzweck. Eine wissenschaftsphilosophische Untersuchung zu Aristoteles’ und Hegels Ideal der selbstgenügsamen Erkenntnis“ steht die uneigennützige Liebe zur Weisheit. Mit diesem Erkenntnisideal assoziiert man seit der Antike, dass die Philosophen die Weisheit und den Weg dorthin, die Erkenntnistätigkeit, um ihrer selbst willen lieben. Für sie sei die Suche nach begrifflich begründetem Wissen – häufig auch als Wahrheitssuche bezeichnet – ein Selbstzweck: eine von den Zwängen des Alltags befreite, sich selbst genügsame Tätigkeit. Im Rahmen des Buches werden die epocheabhängigen Bedeutungen dieses philosophischen Erkenntnisideals anhand von Aristoteles’ und Hegels Konzeption der selbstgenügsamen Wissenschaft untersucht. Die Wahl fällt zum einen auf Aristoteles, weil er als erster dieses Ideal in eine philosophische Wissenschaftskonzeption gießt, und zum anderen auf Hegel, weil er explizit auf Aristoteles’ Konzeption zurückgreift. Er rehabilitiert dessen Ansatz im Licht der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaftsrevolution. Die anhand der Analyse gewonnene These besagt, dass Aristoteles und Hegel mit Verweis auf das philosophische Erkenntnisideal Phänomenologien wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis konzipieren. Deren epochenübergreifende Gemeinsamkeit findet sich darin, dass in ihnen eine philosophische Anthropologie mit einem integrativ-holistischen Wissenschaftsverständnis verbunden wird. Aristoteles und Hegel wollen durch diese Verbindung eine wissenschaftlich begründete Orientierung des Menschen in einem alle Facetten der Natur und der Kultur umfassenden Wirklichkeitsbild ermöglichen. Als Richtmaß zur begrifflichen Systematisierung der allumfassenden Wirklichkeit entwickeln Aristoteles und Hegel jeweils einen epocheabhängigen Begriff der selbstgenügsamen Erkenntnistätigkeit.
Intuitive Erkenntnis und exakte Wissenschaften
(2013-07-19) Huber, Renate
Das zentrale philosophische Problem dieser Studie ist die Frage, ob die intuitive Erkenntnis im Erkenntnisprozeß eine Rolle spielt oder nicht und – da die Frage bejaht wird – welche Rolle dies sein kann. Das Problem ist vielschichtig und richtet sich an verschiedene Disziplinen: (a) Die Frage nach der Explikation des Intuitionsbegriffs ist zuallererst Aufgabe der Philosophie. (b) Die Frage nach den spezifischen Merkmalen der Intuition ist insbesondere eine Frage an die Wahrnehmungs- und Entwicklungspsychologie, sowie die empirischen Neurowissenschaften und die theoretische Neuroinformatik, die Aussagen zum erkennenden Subjekt S machen, aber auch eine Frage an die Mathematik, die eines der wichtigsten Instrumentarien für die Erforschung des zu erkennenden Objekts O liefert. (g) Die Frage nach den Funktionen und Grenzen der Intuition verlangt die Analyse spezieller Theorienkonstruktionen der Physik, an denen sich exemplarisch die Unverzichtbarkeit der intuitiven Erkenntnis nachweisen läßt. Diese Fragen werden in systematischer Absicht behandelt, wobei es zunächst um neuere Einsichten zur intuitiven Erkenntnis auf dem Boden empirischer Wissenschaften geht, dann wird die Diskussion mit der historischen Perspektive verknüpft und die Reflexionen der traditionellen Erkenntnislehren kritisch gewürdigt.

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