Volume 38, Issue 93

I try to show that all judgments are immune to error through misidentification in Shoemaker’s sense. To establish my thesis I distinguish between mispredication and misidentification. I claim that, if a judgement is false, it is only mispredication that accounts for its falsity. Misidentification is irrelevant in this connection.

Ernst Topitsch’s analysis of world views is presented. His explanatory model consists of an elaborated projection-reflection-scheme. It is argued that the projection is an abductive inference. As a consequence Topitsch’s analysis of world views can be linked to recent developments in the philosophy of science. Finally the question is considered whether the projection can be interpreted as an inference to the best explanation. This is denied because an inference to the best explanation roots in a scientific context, whereas Topitsch’s (abductive) projection obviously does not.

This paper offers a revision of the author’s previous interpretation of Neurath’s proposal for the form and content of so-called protocol sentences (first given in this journal). Now the ambition to give necessary and sufficient conditions for Neurath’s explicandum is replaced by that to provide a characterisation of central cases. Moreover, Neurath’s proposal is cast in the form of an incipient theory of scientific testimony about observations. In light of the new analysis this paper then links Neurath’s proposal to current debates about the viability of Sellars’ anti-foundationalism and compares testimony and the justification of perceptual knowledge in science and everyday life.

The paper endeavors to illuminate the term ” emergence“ in its significance for debates on the ” reducibility“ of phenomena such as ” cooperation“ which commonly are perceived as consequences of aggregated dynamics. The significance of parallel or coevolutionary processes for the ” reductionist question“ will be discussed in regard to an extension of the Demographic Prisoner’s Dilemma-simulation by Joshua M. Epstein.

Against the background of the growing social and ecological problems, business ethics and economics ethics were developed in order to reflect on the ethical dimension of modern economic activities. This article contrasts two different approaches from within this field of applied ethics: one that regards the implementation of a responsible and institutionally-based framework of regulations for all of our economic activities as the aim of business ethics; another that stresses the influence of individual business leaders and regards all efforts of business ethics as pointless if they are not directed to the individual decisions and actions of managers. The article shows that the first approach remains insufficient if it is not complemented with elements from the individual ethics provided by the second approach.

This article pursues the question of the significance of moral emotions by exhibiting the similarities and differences of ethical approaches as diverse as Kant’s and Hume’s. What will be shown through this contrast are aspects often overlooked in these approaches. So, one must agree that on the one hand Kant’s idea of the force of moral law as being (necessarily) intertwined with the feeling of respect for others suffers from a lacking support by experience, whereas his ideas about the formation and cultivation of a ” moral sense“ undoubtedly have such a support. Hume’s theory on the other hand appeals to emotions in order to make explainable our having moral evaluations but falls short when it comes to account for the content of emotions said to be responsible for evaluative judgments. Both accounts therefore can be said to suffer from an unsatisfying explanation of the motivational aspect of moral norms that is due to an unsatisfying conceptualization of the difference between reason and emotions.