Philosophical Studies Abstract In her ground-breaking and highly influential book Transformative Experience, L.A. Paul makes two claims: (1) one cannot evaluate and compare certain experiential outcomes  evaluate and compare certain intuitively horrible outcomes (e.g. being eaten alive by sharks) as bad and worse than certain other outcomes even if one cannot grasp what these intuitively horrible outcomes are like. We argue that the conjunction of these two claims leads to an implausible discontinuity in the evaluability of outcomes. One implication of positing such a discontinuity is that evaluative comparisons of outcomes will not be proportionally sensitive to variation in the underlying features of these outcomes. This puts pressure on Paul to abandon either (1) or (2). But (1) is central to her view and (2) is very hard to deny. We call this the Shark Problem.

Futures  Volume: 101, pp. 46–54. doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2018.06.007  Abstract Among scholars dedicated to Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), the risks and possibilities of actively contac

Offentliga samtal: Hur påverkar de starka berättelserna oss?

I seminarieserien Offentliga samtal – forskare möter praktiker bjuder vi in två forskare som presenterar sina resultat kring ett aktuellt ämne, för att sedan möta praktiker i ett samtal inför publik.

Are some countries better equipped from the onset of a democratization process to become democracies? We compared successful and failed episodes of liberalization over the period 1900 to 2018 to exami

Peter Hedström, Director of the Institute for Futures Studies, will leave the Institute in August 2014. Peter will then be Professor of Sociology at Linköping University, where he will build a new rese

Welcome to the first lecture in the new series CUSP - Critically Urgent Societal Problems - that we arrange in collaboration with the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala. At this first

Nearly ten years after the first financial chock Waves rippled through the world economy, generating a global recenssion, the track record of high income countries in protecting Children from its worsoch .

Lag eller näve? Intervju med Victor Lundberg och Johan A Lundin om SSU och en antifascistisk kamp

Historikerna Johan A Lundin och Victor Lundberg intervjuas av Gustaf Arrhenius och Erika Karlsson om sin artikel "Med ett våldsamt knytnävsslag och en välriktade spark? SSU och den nazistiska utmaning

Why we need research on AI impact now. Pontus Strimling (introduction from Gustaf Arrhenius)

Artificial intelligence is already here and is changing society. But social science research on the impact of AI and which choises and ethical considerations societies will face due to developments in

European Journal of Political Research 56: 735–756. DOI: 10.1111/1475-6765.12201 Abstract What determines countries’ successful transition to democracy? This article explores the impact of granting civil