Our latest publications

• Maravela, Anastasia (2027). An Allusion to Archilochus Fr. 114 W in Lucian Dial. mort. 19 (9) and a Possible Intermediary. Hermes: Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie. ISSN 0018-0777. Full text in Research Archive
• Trivigno, Franco V. (2026). A Note on Aristotle’s Definition of Anger in the Rhetoric. Symbolae Osloenses - Norwegian Journal of Greek and Latin Studies. ISSN 0039-7679. p. 1–10. doi: 10.1080/00397679.2026.2721091. Full text in Research Archive
• Airikka, Timo Christian Antero (2026). Flat-footed functionalism in the face of T-duality. European Journal for Philosophy of Science. ISSN 1879-4912. 16. doi: 10.1007/s13194-026-00787-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The goal of this paper is to examine the viability of Lewis-style spacetime functionalism in the presence of string theory duals. This task is carried out in three steps. First, I discuss Lewisian functionalism, and the related Geneva plan, bringing to light a number of features that are far too often passed over without comment in the literature on philosophy of physics. Then I show that Lewis-style functionalism fails as an account of spacetime emergence in the presence of certain theory duals, by investigating a simple toy case involving string theories related by T-duality. I find that the functionalist ought to, if she takes her functionalist commitments seriously, identify terms related via the duality map as they refer to the same functional roles. This blocks the argument that spacetime is emergent. However, this might just as well be interpreted as a success—spacetime functionalism implies a deflationary interpretation of T-duality. Finally, I offer a brief look forward by examining whether there is a positive case to be made for the deflationary interpretation, which I refer to as flat-footed functionalism. I find that it is a surprisingly promising account, with several good points in its favour. However, the position is not without its issues, and remains underdeveloped.

• Dellsén, Finnur & Norton, James (2026). THE EPISTEMIC MISMATCH PROBLEM: SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS AND KNOWLEDGE OF APPROXIMATE TRUTHS. Ergo - An Open Access Journal of Philosophy. 13, p. 1653–1675. doi: 10.3998/ergo.11018.
• Holst, Cathrine & Wig, Tore (2026). The affinities between democracy and science. Inquiry (Oslo). ISSN 0020-174X. Full text in Research Archive
• Väliaho, Pasi (2026). Data, Movement and Capital on the Bay of Bengal: ‘View in the Island of Narkondam’ by Robert Hyde Colebrooke (1787). Theory, Culture and Society. Explorations in Critical Social Science. ISSN 0263-2764. doi: 10.1177/02632764261486391. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article discusses how seascapes became an issue of datafication in the British East India Company’s campaign toward global economic hegemony in the later 18th century. It focuses on a series of expeditions launched by the Company to explore the Bay of Bengal in the 1780s and discusses the work of surveyors, hydrographers, draughtsmen and other kinds of (both human and machine) ‘sensors’ employed to investigate logistically important locations and passages. The reports from these expeditions demonstrate how all sorts of observational data – measurements, charts, pictures, verbal descriptions – came into an epistemically vital accord, which, as this article argues, also had a particular aesthetic dimension in plotting vectors of movement across a constantly shifting and, in those days, still largely unknown environment. Data-gathering practices meant here a process of sensorial ‘envelopment’, which would ideally harmonize the Company’s pursuit of economic gain with the affordances of the oceanic environment.

• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Introspection and Attention. In Giustina, Anna (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Introspection. Routledge. ISSN 9781003393269. p. 390–408. doi: 10.4324/9781003393269-32. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  What is the role of attention in introspection? The chapter begins with a tension: ‘inward-directed’ or ‘introspective’ attention seems to be at the heart of introspection; yet it can also seem to be impossible. Starting from this tension, the chapter addresses a number of issues. First, how much theory of attention should be involved in the discussion of attention and introspection? The chapter argues for a ‘theory-light’ approach that recommends constructing and reconstructing our theories of attention and introspection simultaneously. Second, what may be meant by ‘inward-directed’ or ‘introspective’ attention? The issue, it is argued, is surprisingly complex and depends on the nature of attention and experience. Third, what kind of roles may attention play in introspection? The chapter proposes a way of unifying the roles of attention in introspection and elsewhere by thinking of introspection as a particular type of inquiry. Fourth, the chapter raises the question of how we introspect our own attention and how the answer to it may be relevant for theories of introspection generally. Fifth and finally, given that there are many issues and people that deserve our attention, how much attention should we each dedicate to our own mind? Answering normative questions about introspection will require addressing normative questions about attention.

• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Phillips, Kim Pedersen (2026). Science miscommunication. Inquiry (Oslo). ISSN 0020-174X. Full text in Research Archive
• Mostue, Victoria Marie (2026). «Græske Muser finde ikke sit Olymp paa Dovres barske Tinder»: 1800-tallets antikkoversettelse i Norge. Klassisk Forum. ISSN 0801-3179. 41(1), p. 5–34. doi: https:/ojs.novus.no/index.php/kf/article/view/2551/2556. Full text in Research Archive
• Friedman, Yael & Smajdor, Anna (2026). Synthetic Medical Data vs. The Four Principles: Ethical Trade-Offs and Zombie Data | Health Care Analysis | Springer Nature Link. Health Care Analysis. ISSN 1065-3058. doi: 10.1007/s10728-026-00596-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Rapid advances in AI for medical applications are accompanied by an increasing demand for vast datasets. Privacy constraints – legal restrictions such as GDPR, as well as more general ethical concerns – pose significant barriers to the acquisition and use of data. Synthetic medical data (SMD) is AI-generated data that mimics real patient information. SMD is being promoted as an ethical solution that preserves privacy while enabling scalable model training. However, as we will show, the use of SMD raises its own set of issues. SMD’s emphasis on privacy and scalability subtly embeds ethical and epistemic trade-offs that undermine the principles commonly regarded as being paramount in medical ethics. These trade-offs lack the kind of ethical justification one would expect in decisions that disrupt commonly accepted values and priorities, such as those captured by Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles. In the discourse on the ethical advantages of SMD, privacy tends to be treated as a value in its own right. We show that this is a problematic assumption. Transparency, privacy, scalability, and fidelity are all linked in complex ways with the principles of medical ethics. We map these relationships and show that when privacy is privileged over other values, it conflicts with autonomy and beneficence. Our aim here is not to establish that this privileging is wrong per se, but to show that it needs careful analysis before we can accept the idea that SMD is indeed ethically advantageous.

• Turnbull, Jonathon; Cusworth, George; Searle, Adam; Vogel, Else; Thoreau, François & Oliver, Catherine (2026). Metabolo-politics: Bovine Metabolism and Environmental Biopower. Theory, Culture and Society. Explorations in Critical Social Science. ISSN 0263-2764. 43(5), p. 21–42. doi: 10.1177/02632764261438395. Full text in Research Archive
• Sander-Oest, Sebastian (2026). Patterns of life: how to differentiate between self-assembly and self-organization. Synthese. ISSN 0039-7857. 208. doi: 10.1007/s11229-026-05793-6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Self-assembly and self-organization are central concepts in theories of how patterns form in natural systems. However, literature on the topic has for long been riddled with inconsistent uses of these concepts, which often conflate their meaning or define them idiosyncratically. This is problematic as it struggles to make sense of the ubiquitous interaction between self-assembly and self-organization in chemistry and biology. The thermodynamic account is an attempt to draw up clear definitions of the concepts using thermodynamics as the appropriate framework for distinguishing the two concepts from each other. In this paper, I challenge this account and argue that self-assembly shouldn’t primarily be understood in terms of thermodynamics. I offer a philosophical analysis of core conceptual challenges for self-assembly and self-organization and argue that the thermodynamic approach follows a misguided conceptualization strategy. Drawing on recent philosophical work on scientific definitions, I propose an alternative account that treats the concept as a conceptual tool that directs our attention towards the kinds of features that are explanatorily relevant for the pattern-formation process and towards the features the resulting pattern itself will possess.

• Sander-Oest, Sebastian (2026). A processual account of scientific definitions. European Journal for Philosophy of Science. ISSN 1879-4912. 16. doi: 10.1007/s13194-026-00769-2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How to understand definitions of polysemous concepts in the sciences has generated significant philosophical debate. In this paper, I extend pragmatist and inferentialist theories of scientific concepts to definitions and propose a processual approach to definitions, which views definitions as consisting of the activity of defining. I develop this into a specific framework called ‘the multiplex theory’ according to which defining is an organized process by which concept users integrate semantic resources into certain tasks in a way that regulates and develops the meaning of the concept. The theory is then exemplified by applying it to a case study in the origins-of-life debate.

• Berneri, Jacopo (2026). Revenge Russell‐Myhill and the Ramified Hierarchy. Theoria. ISSN 0040-5825. doi: 10.1111/theo.70119. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Russell‐Myhill paradox targeting the structuralist view of proposition in classical higher‐order logic is blocked by implementing restrictions associated with an ordinary account of predicativity. However, it has been shown that these restrictions are not safe: “revenge” versions of the paradox show the inconsistency of the structuralist view in what is ordinarily regarded as a predicative setting. This result has been interpreted as suggesting an expressive limitation of the structuralist view. In this paper, I argue otherwise. There is a metaphysical sense in which structured propositions presuppose properties appearing as their constituents. I use this idea to elaborate a more thoroughgoing understanding of predicativity. In this way, the structuralist has the resources to interpret revenge paradoxes as a byproduct of impredicativity and coherently block them by means of a more subtle regimentation on how properties are defined.

• Eilertsen, Maja; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi; Omsland, Tone Kristin; Røysamb, Espen & Nes, Ragnhild Bang (2026). Wellbeing, mastery and work participation: Effects of the Five Ways to Wellbeing course—a randomized controlled trial. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1403-4948. doi: 10.1177/14034948261479465. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background: Rising ill health, declining wellbeing, and absenteeism threaten societal sustainability amid an ageing population. Promoting health, wellbeing and work participation is essential. The Five Ways to Wellbeing course is a six-week programme designed to enhance wellbeing through five core activities: connecting, being active, taking notice, learning, and giving. A digital, shorter version has shown effectiveness in the general population, but the physical course has not been evaluated by randomized controlled trial in high-risk groups. Methods: This parallel two-group randomized controlled trial examined the effects of the Five Ways to Wellbeing course versus no course. Adults (⩾18 years old) receiving benefits through the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. The trial was non-blinded; participants were aware of group allocation because blinding was not feasible. Main outcomes were wellbeing, mastery and work participation, measured at baseline, post-intervention and six months. Multilevel analyses compared repeated measures across groups. Results: A total of 171 adults were randomized to the intervention (n = 87) or the control group (n = 84). Owing to attrition, data from 71 intervention and 46 control participants were included in the final analyses. No statistically significant differences in wellbeing, mastery or work participation were observed between groups. Conclusions: This underpowered trial found no statistically significant effects, limiting conclusions about the course’s effectiveness. However, it provides insight into the challenges of conducting pragmatic randomized trials within routine welfare services.

• Beccaria, Federica; Leenen, Liesl; Kolenberg, Marie; Vertongen, Klaartje; Demurie, Ellen & Weyland, Marielle [Show all 41 contributors for this article] (2026). Defining Language Profiles in Young Autistic Children Across Verbal, Speaking, and Generative Dimensions. Autism Research. ISSN 1939-3792. doi: 10.1002/aur.70324. Full text in Research Archive
• Dellsén, Finnur (2026). Collectivizing Public Scientific Testimony. Episteme: A journal of individual and social epistemology. ISSN 1742-3600. doi: 10.1017/epi.2026.10124. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  On many topics of commoninterest, there are multiple scientific experts who are more-orless equally reliable as far as most laypeople can tell. In such situations, it would generally be a bad idea for those laypeople to form or update their opinions by deferring to the opinions of individual experts; rather, when possible, they should consider the more general distribution of opinions among all the experts. Building on this thought, this paper argues that scientific experts themselves should ideally not simply report their own opinions on topics within their expertise; rather, if possible, they should provide information about expert opinion distributions more generally, for example, by communicating that a majority of their fellow experts take such-and-such position on a topic while the minority has a contrary view– even when they are themselves in the minority. I go on to trace some important implications of this argument, for example, that scientific communities have an epistemic obligation to periodically gather data on expert opinion distributions regarding topics that are of interest to the general public.

• Vicente, Agustín & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Polysemy. In Nesi, Hilary (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. ISSN 9780443222863. p. 186–191. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-323-95504-1.00376-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 14 Volume Set is the most authoritative, comprehensive and international reference work of its kind. Ground-breaking in its sheer scope – the 2nd edition had almost 3,000 chapters – no other linguistics reference work matches it for sheer broadness of coverage. Over the years it has been a much-loved and invaluable resource for researchers, academics, students and professionals in linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, language acquisition and pathology, cognitive science, sociology and media/cultural studies. Led by a brand new and outstanding international editorial team, the 3rd edition will be thoroughly modernized to address the considerable growth and development in this field since the previous edition published in 2005. Existing chapters will be revised and updated, obsolete material removed and approximately 300 brand-new chapters will be commissioned to cover newer areas of research such as machine learning and natural language processing. Significant multimedia such as high-quality figures, audio files (highlighting differences in accent and dialects within languages) will be available to complement the text content, and chapters will follow a consistent chapter template in order to provide a logical reading experience for the user. The end-result will be an outstanding and market-leading reference work: modern, fully up to date, easy to navigate via its electronic platform, and logistically and consistently structured. Once again it will be the perfect resource for the modern-day language scholar.

• Baron, Sam & Eskens, Floris (2026). Structuralism and the Individuation of Causal Set Elements in Causal Set Theory. Erkenntnis: An International Journal of Scientific Philosophy. ISSN 0165-0106. doi: 10.1007/s10670-026-01141-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It has been suggested that causal set theory is particularly accommodating to a structuralist interpretation. In this paper, we will evaluate this claim, focusing on a recent version of structuralism proposed by Wüthrich (2012, 2024). We show that structuralism of this variety conflicts with the standard dynamics of causal set theory, and that removing this conflict may require reworking the dynamics. We also show that a structuralist interpretation along these lines requires metaphysically privileging the dynamical aspect of the theory. We consider three potential ways forward for a structuralist, but suggest that matters are difficult: two of these likely require reworking CST and one invokes controversial metaphysical assumptions.

• Schemper, Lukas & Trüper, Henning (2026). Introduction: The rescuing sovereign at sea. International Journal of Maritime History. ISSN 0843-8714. 38(1), p. 4–18. doi: 10.1177/08438714251404370. Full text in Research Archive
• Kapelner, Zsolt (2026). Ignoring the Unreasonable. Moral Philosophy and Politics. ISSN 2194-5616. doi: 10.1515/mopp-2025-0053. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Illiberal and antidemocratic political forces, for example, in the form of far-right populism, are on the rise. Such politics, commonly referred to as ‘unreasonable’ in political philosophy, is widely seen as a threat to democracy. Many argue that an adequate response must involve listening to, that is, understanding and seriously considering the perspective of the unreasonable. I disagree. I argue that as democratic citizens, we should not listen to the unreasonable; we should, in a sense, ignore them, that is, refuse to understand and seriously consider their perspective, although continue to monitor their activities. Listening to the unreasonable is not instrumentally required for countering unreasonable politics. In addition, the unreasonable likely have no moral claim to be listened to. Finally, listening to them is disrespectful to reasonable citizens whose voice is ignored for the sake of paying attention to the unreasonable. For these reasons, we should ignore the unreasonable.

• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2026). The Silence of the Stones On the Lapidation of Lycides and His Family at Hdt. 9.5. Mnemosyne: A Journal of Classical Studies. ISSN 0026-7074. 79(1), p. 45–69. doi: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10336. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Making Epistemic Considerations Primary Does Not Make Social Values Secondary: A Reply to Hilligardt. Social Epistemology Review and reply Collective. ISSN 2471-9560. Full text in Research Archive
• Sander-Oest, Sebastian (2026). Spontaneous contexts: Explanatory diversity in biological self-assembly. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. ISSN 0039-3681. 118. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2026.102174. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this paper, I argue that explaining spontaneous phenomena in biology requires multiple types of scientific explanations. First, I contend that explaining spontaneity necessitates citing both topological and nomological features as explanans. Second, I assert that the context-sensitivity of spontaneity complicates mechanistic localization, necessitating the inclusion of functional and network features to account for mechanistic operations. To develop this argument, I present two models of activated self-assembly and their roles in explaining two cases of biological structures: virus capsids and microtubule dynamics. This approach reveals a complex explanatory landscape that spans multiple levels of generality. I term this structure of explanations an “explanatory reservoir.”

• Skoie, Mathilde & Maravela, Anastasia (2026). In and Out of Epic: Polyphemos’ Transgeneric Travels. In Bär, Silvio Friedrich (Eds.), Transtextual Characters in Ancient Greek and Roman Epic: Conceptualization and Case Studies. De Gruyter Brill. p. 383–414. Full text in Research Archive
• Giuliano, Sidro, & Maravela, Anastasia (2026). P.Lond. II 191 revisited and its place in the archive of Iulius Agrippinus. In Roberta, Berardi,; Samuele, Cohen,; Giulio, Iovine, & E., Prodi, Enrico (Ed.), Papyrological Journeys. Studies in Greek Literature and Papyri. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783112236086. p. 353–372. Full text in Research Archive
• Prydz, Monica Beer; Røysamb, Espen; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi & Nes, Ragnhild Bang (2026). The Digital Five Ways to Wellbeing Intervention: Long-Term Change in Life Satisfaction. Applied Research in Quality of Life. ISSN 1871-2584. doi: 10.1007/s11482-026-10628-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The worldwide burden of mental health problems is substantial. Preventive and promotive interventions with impact on the population level are needed. The Five Ways to Wellbeing is a health-promotive evidence-informed framework that supports the importance of five specific action domains (connect, take notice, be active, keep learning and give). This framework was recently documented to be effective in enhancing wellbeing through a low-dosage digital intervention termed the Five Ways to Wellbeing for All (5waysA). However, the duration of the effects has not been examined. In the present study, we investigate the long-term (12-month) enhancement of life satisfaction following the intervention in a single-group design utilizing multilevel modeling and piecewise regression (n = 731). Subsequently, we simulate the trajectory for a synthetic control group, using Norwegian population data (Mean and SD), to serve as an untreated counterfactual for comparison. For the intervention group, our analysis revealed a significant increase in life satisfaction (SWLS) from baseline to follow-up (12 months) (d = 0.28; p < 0.01). Further analysis including the synthetic population-based control group showed a significant (p < 0.05) between-group difference in wellbeing at 12 months. Cohen’s d effect size for this between group difference was 0.17 (p < 0.05). With low administration costs and high scalability, 5waysA may offer policymakers and practitioners an effective way to promote lasting improvements in wellbeing. Considering the resource demands associated with the use of regular control groups, we also hope to inspire the field to adopt resource-efficient synthetic control methods to study the long-term effects of health interventions.

• Hegstad, Eilev; Holst, Cathrine & Molander, Anders (2026). Er og bør i samfunnsforskningen. Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning (TfS). ISSN 0040-716X. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Var 22. juli-kommisjonen en sannhetskommisjon? In Lohne, Kjersti; Houge, Anette Bringedal; Liden, Kristoffer & Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora (Ed.), Etter 22. juli. Overgangsrettferdighet og terror. Cappelen Damm Forskning/NOASP. ISSN 9788202926151. p. 55–75. doi: 10.23865/cdf.289.ch3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The chapter is an analysis and discussion of the governmental inquiry commission from 2012 that investigated the terror attacks in Norway 22 July 2011. It is argued, first, that the commission was a seemingly ordinary commission. In terms of its composition, the commission process, and the various features of the submitted commission report, the commission had many of the characteristics of a standard Nordic-style public investigation. However, literature on transitional justice has argued that such investigations in the aftermath of extreme terror attacks should preferably be organized along the lines of so-called truth commissions. Based on criteria derived from this literature, the chapter goes on to assess the extent to which the 22 July inquiry had the features of a truth commission. It is concluded that the inquiry, despite its appearance of being “nothing special” qualifies as a rudimentary, but not a full-fledged, truth commission. Finally, the chapter discusses whether the 22 July investigations could and should have taken on more truth commission traits at the time, and the extent to which we need another truth commission now, many years after the 2011 attacks, to properly reconciliate after what remains a national trauma in Norway.

• Clausen, Hannah; Kutuzov, Andrey; Smajdor, Anna & Velldal, Erik (2026). Assessing Moral Judgment by Large Language Models – A Survey of Available Datasets. Northern European Journal of Language Technology (NEJLT). ISSN 2000-1533. 12(1), p. 88–116. doi: 10.3384/nejlt.2000-1533.2026.6366. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent advances in language modeling have contributed to a growing emphasis on machine ethics, including researching and assessing moral judgments made by large language models (LLMs). This paper provides a critical survey of the existing datasets for exactly this assessment, with a special focus on the respective data sources. We address the current lack of theoretical grounding by providing an introduction to ethics and different frameworks from moral philosophy and moral psychology. Moreover, we identify four main data sources: webcrawled corpora, scholars, laypeople, and synthetic data generation. By discussing the strengths and weaknesses of these sources, we analyze their implications for the assessment of moral judgment. Importantly, systemizing the available datasets reveals an over-reliance on previous work, reinforcing existing shortcomings. Addressing the current limitations, we recommend adopting a consistent terminology and creating independently curated datasets based on interdisciplinary work. To ensure a clear delineation of normative approaches, we propose focusing on the assessment of moral consistency and certainty of LLMs as effective and well-defined indicators of their performance on moral judgment.

• Linnebo, Øystein (2026). POTENTIALISM DEMODALIZED. The Review of Symbolic Logic. ISSN 1755-0203. 19(2), p. 291–316. doi: 10.1017/S1755020326101130. Full text in Research Archive
• Barnes, Michael; Dylan, Campbell,; Yunzhong, Hou,; Rahul, Shome, & Changlin, Song, (2026). Extreme Amodal Face Detection. IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV). ISSN 2472-6737. p. 2934-2943–2934-2943. doi: 10.1109/WACV61042.2026.00287. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Extreme amodal detection is the task of inferring the 2D location of objects that are not fully visible in the input image but are visible within an expanded field-of-view. This differs from amodal detection, where the object is partially visible within the input image, but is occluded. In this paper, we consider the sub-problem of face detection, since this class provides motivating applications involving safety and privacy, but do not tailor our method specifically to this class. Existing approaches rely on image sequences so that missing detections may be interpolated from surrounding frames or make use of generative models to sample possible completions. In contrast, we consider the single-image task and propose a more efficient, sample-free approach that makes use of the contextual cues from the image to infer the presence of unseen faces. We design a heatmap-based extreme amodal object detector that addresses the problem of efficiently predicting a lot (the out-of-frame region) from a little (the image) with a selective coarse-to-fine decoder. Our method establishes strong results for this new task, even outperforming less efficient generative approaches. Code, data, and models are available at https://charliesong1999.github.io/exaft_web/.

• Cappuccilli, Eleonora (2026). Comunità o corte? L’amicizia oltre il convento in Teresa d’Avila. Rivista MO.DO Rivista di storia scienze umane e cultural heritage. 2025-2026(Special issue), p. 537–563. doi: https:/www.rivistamodo.it/2026/05/03/tra-restrizioni-e-spazi-di-autonomia-principesse-vedove-nella-prima-etamoderna/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Starting from the reception of Aristotle’s theory of friendship, the article explores the way in which, in the Life (1582), in The Way of Perfection (1566), in the Constitutions (1567) and in the letters to the nuns and prioresses, Teresa of Avila forges a practice of friendship based on collectivity and communal life rather than on the singularity of relationships. A friendship that reflects an egalitarian conception of conventual life against the ancient society marked by hierarchies and attachment to “earthly things”, the honors and affections of the world. This article contributes to both the understanding of the social practices related to friendship in early modern times and to the research on Teresa’s doctrine of friendship within and against the boundaries of the Tridentine reforms.

• Dimas, Panagiotis (2026). Aristotle on Luck; Physics ii.4–5. In Nehamas, Alexander; Tsouna, Voula; Chiaradonna, Riccardo & McKirahan, Richard (Ed.), New Essays on the Platonic Tradition. In Honour of Paul Kalligas. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9789004751132. p. 186–204. doi: 10.1163/9789004751149_010. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Aristotle devotes three chapters of Physics II, namely four to six, to argue that ‘τύχη’, translated here—and often—as “luck”, is a cause (as is also the “αὐτόματον”, which though is not discussed in the present study). Modern commentators doubt that Aristotle is sincere when he claims that luck is aitia, but nothing in Physics II 4–6 suggests that he dedicates the three central chapters of Book II to argue for a claim he does not believe is true. On the contrary, before explaining in chapters five and six how luck and the αὐτόματον are causes, he devotes chapter four to discussing evidence that luck must be considered a cause. He draws attention to the fact that ordinary people consider it to be such, and, more importantly, he points out that even thinkers whose conceptual scheme has no room for it do nonetheless appeal to it in their accounts. By claiming that luck is a cause and explaining why this is so, Aristotle lends further support to his overall account of causation and the centrality of the final cause in it, or so I claim. In addition to showing that Aristotle is committed to the claim that luck is properly to be regarded a cause, the aim of the present study is to examine his argument for this claim and to explain how luck is an indelible part of Aristotle’s overall account of causation.

• Litland, Jon Erling (2026). Beyond Substitution—An Antipositionalist's Guide to Subtraction—. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. ISSN 0031-8205. doi: 10.1111/phpr.70113. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Existing accounts of relations do not properly account for variably polyadic relations: they fail to capture the relationship between completions of the same relation by different numbers of relata. This paper develops a fully general account of such relations by adding an operation of subtraction to the antipositionalist theory of relations pioneered by Fine in “Neutral Relations”. Along the way we rebut a common argument against antipositionalism; defend some strong principles about the behavior of occurrences of objects; and speculatively propose some principles about the structure of variably polyadic relations.

• Baghramian, Maria & Holst, Cathrine (2026). Expert advice and institutional trust. In Samarzija, Hana & McKenna, Robin (Ed.), The European Face of Political Epistemology. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783032270481. Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius & Köder, Franziska (2026). The development of irony and epistemic vigilance. Pragmatics & Cognition. ISSN 0929-0907. 33(1), p. 98–98. doi: 10.1075/pc.24045.fal. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Understanding irony requires epistemic vigilance towards both the content and source of communication. We conducted two experiments to investigate whether children’s early epistemic vigilance abilities aid in detecting verbal irony. The first experiment focused on children’s vigilance towards utterance content, hypothesizing that utterances whose explicit (or literal) content is more inappropriate in the context would be easier to recognize as ironic. The second experiment examined children’s vigilance towards the source of the utterances, hypothesizing that children would find ironic (but accurate) informants more trustworthy than inaccurate ones. Both tasks proved challenging for 3- to 7-year-olds, providing no direct evidence of irony understanding. While adults performed as predicted in the first experiment, they did not trust ironic (but accurate) informants, suggesting that the trustworthiness paradigm may not suit the complexity of verbal irony, where the speaker is both dismissive and correct. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the role of epistemic vigilance in irony development.

• Iversen, Rebecca Kvisler & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Parodic irony comprehension. Pragmatics & Cognition. ISSN 0929-0907. 33(1), p. 188–188. doi: 10.1075/pc.24041.ive. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Studies find that irony comprehension emerges around the ages of 6–7, aligning with second-order theory of mind (ToM) abilities. This study follows up on previous research suggesting that children younger than this age might be to some extent sensitive to irony uttered with a parodic tone of voice. Using picture selection and eye gaze measures, 4–7-year-old children were tested on a parodic irony comprehension task. We also investigated the proposed connection between second-order ToM abilities and parodic irony comprehension. Given that parodic irony has an affinity with pretense we also explored how pretend play skills influenced comprehension. Results corroborate existing evidence that children only reliably pass the irony task by age 6, and that second-order ToM abilities contribute to irony comprehension but only in 6–7-year-olds. Pretend play also positively correlates with comprehension scores, suggesting that this aspect of cognitive and social development might contribute positively to children’s irony understanding.

• Maslov, Boris (2026). An Incorporate Fellowship? Antiphon, Thucydides, Beccaria, and Elizabeth Petrovna on the Death Penalty. Critical Inquiry. ISSN 0093-1896. 52(3), p. 539–560. doi: 10.1086/739751. Full text in Research Archive
• Palleschi, Daniela; Ronderos, Camilo Rodriguez & Knoeferle, Pia (2026). Contrasting different context sources in processing lifetime-tense (in)congruence: evidence from cumulative self-paced reading time experiments. Language and Cognition. ISSN 1866-9808. 18. doi: 10.1017/langcog.2026.10068. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The present study investigated the effects of (in)congruence between a referent’s lifetime (alive vs. dead) and verb tense during language processing, assessing to what extent these effects are modulated by the source of referent-lifetime knowledge. A referent’s lifetime status (dead vs. alive) was conveyed either via a known famous (Experiment 1) or unknown (Experiment 2) name, or was primed non-linguistically via a photograph of a known famous referent (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that referent-lifetime information influenced the processing of verb tense across the different context sources, but not at the earliest point possible (the verb). Instead, lifetime-tense congruence effects emerged two words later (Experiments 1 and 2), or in the sentence-final region (Experiment 3). The presence and size of nested effects were graded by lifetime context: larger congruence effects were elicited by Experiment 1 than by Experiment 2 in both tenses, with significant effects in the present perfect condition only in Experiment 3. In all, referent-lifetime status modulated tense processing in the expected direction, but with variations in whether effects emerge in post-verb regions or at sentence-end depending on how referent-lifetime knowledge was accessed. This temporal variability needs to be considered in accommodating context effects in processing accounts.

• Chegeni, Razieh; Nes, Ragnhild Bang; Cheesman, Rosa Catherine Gillespie; Ayorech, Ziada; Ystrøm, Eivind & Røysamb, Espen (2026). Direct and indirect parental genetic effects on offspring susceptibility to internalizing problems across development. Nature Mental Health. 4, p. 754–765. doi: 10.1038/s44220-026-00619-3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Internalizing problems, including symptoms of anxiety and depression, are common in childhood and adolescence and are linked to adverse long-term outcomes. Although both child genetic variants and parental genetic influences contribute to these problems, the specific direct (child) and indirect (parental) genetic pathways involved remain unclear. We applied multi-polygenic score models using elastic net regression to identify key genetic predictors of depressive and anxiety symptoms at ages 8 and 14 in 9,314 parent–child trios from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. We included 90 polygenic scores (PGSs) for the trio, along with their respective interaction terms. Predictive accuracy improved with age, with models explaining up to 2.7% of the variance in depression and 1.2% in anxiety. Key predictors included child attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cognitive skills and well-being spectrum PGSs; maternal PGSs for smoking and cognitive skills; and paternal well-being spectrum PGSs. These findings underscore the value of incorporating diverse parental genetic traits to understand intergenerational risk transmission and developmental changes in child mental health.

• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Virkelig viktig villmark. Naturbegreper i naturkrisens tid. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (NNT). ISSN 0800-336X. 43(1), p. 16–30. doi: 10.18261/nnt.43.1.2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Få ord er så alminnelige og anvendelige som «natur». Tilsynelatende kan det brukes til og om alt. Derfor har mange hevdet at begrepet er intetsigende, at det forutsetter en dualisme mellom det menneskelige og ikke-menneskelige, samt at forestillingen om urørt natur er en illusjon. Med overgangen til antropocen får argumentene vann på møllen. Flere betrakter epoken som en endelig stadfestelse av naturens død. Denne artikkelen påstår derimot at naturbegrepet er uunngåelig og uunnværlig, selv – eller særlig – i en tid preget av dens fysiske forvitring. Begreper som «natur» og «villmark» må forstås som dynamiske størrelser. Samtidig kan de fungere som normative referanser og erkjennelsesmessige bolverk. Med en dialektisk tolkning unngår man den villfarelse at naturen er og alltid har vært én ting, og ved å fastholde grønne begreper garderer man seg mot økologisk sneversyn og endringsblindhet.

• Trivigno, Franco (2026). Plato. In Amir, Lydia (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Humor. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783031862465. p. 45–63. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-86247-2_3. Full text in Research Archive
• Crowther, Karen (2026). Dumb holes: universality or analogy? What makes an analogue experiment an analogue experiment? Synthese. ISSN 0039-7857. 207(4). doi: 10.1007/s11229-026-05538-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Analogue experiments have been promoted as means of potentially confirming theoretical predictions about systems that are inaccessible under the relevant conditions. A focus has been on the example of potential confirmation of Hawking radiation in black holes via analogue ‘dumb hole’ experiments in fluids. Dardashti (The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 68:55–89, 2017; Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 67:1–11, 2019) present arguments in support of this possibility, while Crowther (Synthese (Suppl 16):1–26, 2019) is critical that these arguments suffice. The latter analysis utilises the characterisation of analogue experiments given by the former two papers, upon which analogue experiments are supposed to differ from both conventional experiments as well as analogies. The defining feature was taken, by Crowther (Synthese (Suppl 16):1–26, 2019), to be the inaccessibility of the target system. This, however, not only rules out the possibility of such experiments being confirmatory, but also conflicts with the common belief that conventional scientific experiments can aim to provide knowledge about inaccessible target systems. So, if not inaccessibility of their target systems, what defines an analogue experiment? Here, I argue that there is nothing special about analogue experiments: Either, they are conventional experiments, or they are material analogies. Nevertheless, there remain particular challenges for the case of confirming Hawking radiation via dumb hole experiments, owing to inaccessibility issues.

• Beebe, James R.; Dellsén, Finnur & Khalifa, Kareem (2026). Deeper explorations of scientific realism in the wild. Synthese. ISSN 0039-7857. 207(2). doi: 10.1007/s11229-025-05412-w. Full text in Research Archive
• Hal, Toon van & Lamers, Han (2026). Ninety new Greek proverbs of Hermodorus Rhegius: edition and textual history. Byzantine and modern Greek studies. ISSN 0307-0131. 50(1), p. 39–68. doi: 10.1017/byz.2025.10057. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In the early seventeenth century, the Greek Jesuit Hermodorus Rhegius (1579–1655) compiled a collection of Greek proverbs which constitutes important evidence for early modern Greek language and culture. Little is known about Hermodorus aside from his pastoral and educational work across the Aegean islands, primarily on Chios. For over two centuries, his proverbs were known mainly through the work of Charles Du Cange, who cited twenty-seven of them. The early twentieth century, however, saw three additional proverbs uncovered in a manuscript in the National Library of France (Français 9467), and a recent discovery in the Médiathèque d’Orléans (MS 0422) has added ninety more. This article revisits Hermodorus’ legacy in light of this new evidence and presents an edition of all 120 proverbs attributed to his collection, thereby enlarging the corpus fourfold. Tracing the collection’s textual history for the first time, this study also reveals a small network of scholars in early modern France with a keen interest in Greek proverbs.

• Eriksen, Anne (2026). Knowledge, Formats, and Fish. Journal for the History of Knowledge (JHoK). 7. doi: 10.55283/jhk.21777. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Society for the Promotion of Norwegian Fisheries (Selskabet for de norske fiskeriers fremme) was established in 1879 and started publishing the Norwegian Fisheries’ Journal (Norsk Fiskeritidende). The article argues that this journal, with a total of about 22,500 pages, has been vital to establish “the Norwegian fisheries” as a field of activity and knowledge. It is not only a historical source of information on the fisheries and fish trade in Norway, but a historical agent in its own right representing specific knowledge-making practices. The article explores how the journal was a driving force in constituting the fisheries as an object of knowledge and politics, and established them as networks of connected elements, agents, and issues. The exploration draws on two key theoretical concepts that both serve to highlight the journal’s own agency and performative dimensions: format and scale or scaling.

• Weyland, Marielle; Maes, Pauline & Kissine, Mikhail (2026). Can autism professionals hear the autism diagnosis at a preverbal stage? A first impression study. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. ISSN 1750-9467. 132. doi: 10.1016/j.reia.2026.202844. Full text in Research Archive
• Måge, Arendse Wenzel (2026). Usamtidighedens ø: Eggert Ólafssons Reise igiennem Island (1772) læst som synkroniseringsforsøg. Slagmark. ISSN 0108-8084. 89, p. 17–34. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I 1752 begiver den unge islandske digter og naturhistoriker, Eggert Ólafsson (1726-1768), sig ud på en femårig ekspedition til sin fødeø, hvor han på Kong Frederik den 5.s befaling skal rejse rundt og indsamle viden om dens geografiske, sociale og økonomiske forhold og hvordan de kan forbedres. Hans observationer og konklusioner samlet i den posthumt udgivne rejseberetning Reise igiennem Island (1772), hvor han også retter skarp kritik mod nogle af de forbedringstiltag, kongen allerede har sat i gang. Hvor den eksisterende har forskning har set denne forbedringsdisput i lyset af den oplyste enevældes rationaliserings- og reformpolitik og en gryende islandsk nationalisme, præsenterer denne artikel en ny temporal analyse af sagen inspireret af Reinhart Koselleck og Helge Jordheim. Artiklen argumenterer for, at parternes forskellige visioner for islandsk forbedring er baseret på forskellige ’diagnoser’ af dens usamtidighed og at disse bliver stillet med henvisning til forskellige forståelser af klima og opfordrer til mere forskning i samspillet mellem idéer om tid, temporalitet og klima i den såkaldte Sattelzeit.

• Myklebust, Erlend Østrem & Karlsen, Espen (2026). Oversettelse av Sættargjerden i Tønsberg. In Dahl, Ida Marie Myrstad & Nordby, Ole-Albert Rønning (Ed.), Magnus Lagabøtes kristenrett, Sættargjerden i Tønsberg. Nasjonalbiblioteket. ISSN 9788279655732. p. 171–187. doi: https:/issuu.com/nasjonalbiblioteket/docs/magnus_lagab_tes_kristenrett_s_ttargjerden_i_t_ns?fr=xKAE9_zU1NQ. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Magnus Lagabøtes kristenrett er loven med kirkelige regler som ble forsøkt innført i kongens regjeringstid (1263–1280), og Sættargjerden er avtalen som ble inngått mellom kong Magnus og erkebiskop Jon Raude i Tønsberg i 1277. Skriftene utgjør den delen av kong Magnus’ lovgivning som berører kirken og religionens plass i samfunnet, samt forholdet mellom kirken og kongemakten. Begge skrifter er viktige kilder til å forstå hvordan religionen formet dagligliv, økonomi og politikk i Norge i middelalderen. Oversettelser er ved Erlend Myklebust, Magnus Rindal og Bjørg Dale Spørck. Introduksjonstekster ved Sigrun Høgetveit Berg og Anders Winroth.

• Litland, Jon Erling (2026). Grounding conditionals. Philosophical Studies. ISSN 0031-8116. doi: 10.1007/s11098-025-02458-x. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper develops a systematic account of the immediate grounds of conditionals, uses this to give a ground-theoretic semantics for the language of intuitionistic propositional logic, and proves intuitionistic logic sound and complete with respect to this semantics. A striking consequence of the account is that all intuitionistic validities are zero-grounded and thus—unlike distinctively classical validities—make no demand on reality.

• Baron, Sam & Eskens, Floris (2026). What Could Prototime Be? Journal of Consciousness Studies. ISSN 1355-8250. 33(1-2), p. 147–159. doi: 10.53765/20512201.33.1.147. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Schneider and Bailey (this issue) propose a ‘prototime’ interpretation of quantum mechanics. We consider the question of what prototime could be. To do this we offer a framework for thinking about different theories of time, and argue that prototime is time based on this framework. We close by offering an alternative interpretation of prototime that treats it in modal, rather than temporal, terms.

• Crowther, Karen & Mørch, Hedda Hassel (2026). The Emergence of Space-time and the Emergence of Consciousness: Could They Be One and the Same?: A Comment on Schneider and Bailey’s ‘Superpsychism’. Journal of Consciousness Studies. ISSN 1355-8250. 33(1), p. 127–146. doi: 10.53765/20512201.33.1.127. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In ‘Superpsychism’, Susan Schneider and Mark Bailey (this issue) propose that space-time and ordinary (human-level) consciousness both emerge from a fundamental, non-spatio-temporal level of reality consisting of a network of maximally coherent, zero entropy quantum entanglement relations, termed prototime, which also instantiates a fundamental form of consciousness, termed superconsciousness. We raise some objections to this view, considered as an explanation or reduction of space-time, as an interpretation of quantum mechanics, and as a theory of consciousness, questioning the extent of its explanatory advantages in each of these areas.

• Buchanan, Ray & Litland, Jon Erling (2026). A Note on Ground and Rigidity in advance. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy. doi: 10.5840/tht202611456. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It has been argued that Rigidifying Descriptivists cannot capture the truth-conditions of sentences involving proper names. We argue that we must distinguish between the conditions under which the proposition expressed by a sentence is true and the conditions in which the truth of the expressed proposition consists. We show that the Rigidifying Descriptivist can capture the former but not the latter.

• Litland, Jon Erling & Miller, Taylor-Grey (2026). Towards an inferentialist account of essentialist explanation. Philosophical Studies. ISSN 0031-8116. doi: 10.1007/s11098-025-02438-1. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The fact that it is essential that p in some sense explains that p . This paper makes one negative and one positive contribution. Negatively, the paper argues that the sense of explanation is not ground , and we prove—contra Vogt—that the issue has nothing to do with whether one works with a representational or worldly notion of ground. Positively, the paper proposes an inferentialist account of essence and uses that to develop an account of essentialist explanation.

• Eriksen, Anne (2026). Names, knowledge, and formats: Transformations of oceanic literacy | Science in Context | Cambridge Core. Science in Context. ISSN 0269-8897. p. 1–14. doi: 10.1017/S0269889725100963. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Names, knowledge, and formats: Transformations of oceanic literacy

• Paulsen, Gard (2026). ‘Proceed to the assistance of the persons in distress’: The sinking of the Titanic and the international regulation of safety of life at sea. International Journal of Maritime History. ISSN 0843-8714. 38(1), p. 116–129. doi: 10.1177/08438714251412652. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was first drafted in response to the sinking of the Titanic . The 1914 convention sought international agreement on issues such as construction, navigation, communication, protection and rescue. The convention also formulated an obligation to ‘proceed to the assistance of the persons in distress’. The treaty has been interpreted both as imposing increased public and international responsibility at sea and as marking one of the origins of the duty to save lives at sea in international law. This article highlights how the convention in general and the obligation to come to rescue in particular can also be understood as a culmination of nineteenth-century maritime law, in which a combination of sovereignty, public responsibility, private authority and international law was typical.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Defending expertise. Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. Full text in Research Archive
• Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield & Watzl, Sebastian (2026). The attention market—and what is wrong with it. Philosophical Studies. ISSN 0031-8116. 183, p. 227–257. doi: 10.1007/s11098-025-02436-3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attention market, and if so, what, if anything, is wrong with it? We defend the claim that there are markets in attention. We provide an account of such attention markets and use that account to address what is morally wrong with them. Our account draws on knowledge of how attention works and what roles it plays in the mind. The attention market trades in an ability to influence our attention – somewhat (though not exactly) like the labor market trades in an ability to influence how we use our capacity for work. Specifically, the commodity it trades in is attentional landscaping potential, viz. the ability to systematically influence patterns of attention by changes to the sensory environment individuals are exposed to. Attention markets thus, we argue, commodify influence over a human capacity that plays a central role in shaping individual experience, agency, and belief formation. This feature of attention markets makes them ethically problematic. As markets in access to external influence, attention markets pose a special threat to individual autonomy and escape the classical liberal defense of free markets. Those who value autonomy should worry about the attention markets that exist today.

• Langvatn, Silje Aambø & Holst, Cathrine (2026). Science advice for policy: enhancing the legitimacy of non-epistemic value judgments through proportionality analysis. European Journal for Philosophy of Science. ISSN 1879-4912. 16. doi: 10.1007/s13194-026-00734-z. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Science advice bodies increasingly shape public policy. Yet, their analyses and recommendations routinely involve non-epistemic value judgments that sit uneasily with ideals of democracy and separation of powers. We argue that in liberal constitutional democracies the political legitimacy of such judgments can be enhanced by integrating structured proportionality analysis into the workflow of policy-recommending advisory bodies. This deliberative procedure – first developed by constitutional courts – brings attention to policies’ impact on protected rights and amounts to a multi-pronged scrutiny of the justifiability of a policy which infringe on rights. We show, first, that existing guidelines for science advice bodies nationally and in international organizations implicitly acknowledge non-epistemic judgments but under-specify how to deal with them. Second, recent philosophy of science rightly foregrounds the democratic scrutiny of values (and so representation, alignment, and participation) but underemphasizes rights-based constraints. Our proposal reorients advisory practice toward rights-sensitive, deliberative justification that science advice bodies can apply ex ante—where these bodies often possess superior expertise on relevant aspects such as the suitability and necessity of a policy. Embedding proportionality analysis both mid-stream (to shape option generation) and in public justifications (to enable contestation and deliberation across branches and publics) improves transparency, mitigates overreach, and aligns advice with the rule-of-law and rights commitments of liberal democracies. The final part discusses scope conditions, institutional implications and limitations of our proposal. Structured proportionality analysis does not guarantee optimal outcomes, but supplies a stable, recognized method to discipline non-epistemic judgments and thereby enhance the legitimacy of science-based policy advice.

• Mambrioni, Cecilia & Maravela, Anastasia (2026). New Information on Two Elite Families of Tebtunis and Ptolemais Euergetis. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete. ISSN 0066-6459. 71(2), p. 380–403. doi: 10.1515/apf-2025-0022. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article presents new information about familial and social connections, gleaned from a partially preserved Greek-style testament in the papyrus collection of the University of Oslo Library. The will (P.Oslo inv. 1037+1178) was drawn up at Ptolemais Euergetis, probably in the late second century CE. In light of the new information, we review the known evidence concerning two Arsinoite elite families with ties to Tebtunis, i.e. the family of Sabeinos alias Ninnos and the family of the notary Achilleus, grandson of Lurius, in an attempt to connect hitherto unconnected pieces of evidence, expand the family trees, elucidate the relations between family members and better understand their activities and social network.

• Mjelva, Jørn Kløvfjell (2026). Entanglement Swapping for Entanglement Realists. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. ISSN 0007-0882. doi: 10.1086/738874. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Delayed-choice entanglement swapping experiments have been argued to undermine realism about entanglement. One response has been to argue that the correlations displayed in delayed-choice entanglement swapping experiments have a different physical interpretation than the correlations in the non-delayed case. This strategy runs into problems when applied to cases of spacelike entanglement swapping, as it would appear to require one to either posit a privileged foliation of spacetime or otherwise accept that whether entanglement obtains is frame dependent. In this article, I present a realist-friendly account of entanglement swapping that circumvents this dilemma, in which entanglement is explicated via the notion of a common ground. The issue of frame dependence is resolved by adopting the past light-cone criterion for property attribution, and the correlations displayed in the spacelike entanglement swapping experiments are attributed to a joint common ground.

• Baier, Simon (2026). Die Kunst des Klimas. In Baier, Simon & Rottmann, André (Ed.), Kunst ohne Bewusstsein? Beiträge zur technologischen Ästhetik der Gegenwart. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110748635. p. 67–89. Full text in Research Archive
• Findlay, Jamie Yates & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (2025). Negation in Universal Dependencies. In Bouma, Gosse & Çöltekin, Çağrı (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW, SyntaxFest 2025). Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). ISSN 9798891762923. p. 70–79. doi: https:/aclanthology.org/2025.udw-1.8/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this paper we study the representation of negation in UD treebanks. We show that the existing annotations are often inconsistent with the guidelines and that there are ill-motivated differences in annotation of constructions across and even within languages. Moreover, we argue that even if the annotation of the two negation-related features (Polarity=Neg and PronType=Neg) were consistent, these two features would be inadequate for straightforwardly expressing the semantics of negation because they relate to the word level only and hence to form rather than meaning. We therefore propose to add two features, Negated=+ and DoubleNegated=+, which directly encode when a predicate is semantically under negation, and thereby allow a straightforward semantic interpretation of a UD parse in terms of negation.

• Dalrymple, Mary; Findlay, Jamie Yates & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (2025). Constraining scope in Glue Semantics: the linear logic approach. In Butt, Miriam; Findlay, Jamie Yates & Toivonen, Ida (Ed.), Proceedings of the LFG'25 Conference. PubliKon. p. 110–131. doi: 10.18148/LFG/2025.V30I.75. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  A hallmark of the Glue approach to the syntax-semantics interface is its clean and simple treatment of quantifiers and quantifier scope ambiguity, without the need to assume different syntactic structures for different scopes. One weakness, which has received renewed attention recently, is Glue’s inability to constrain such scope ambiguities when they should not occur. We propose a new means of encoding constraints on the relative scope of quantifiers, building on Fry’s (1997) analysis of negative polarity items. We believe that our proposal also holds promise for the analysis of other constraints on relative scope, including modifier scope and scope islands.

• Lavallee, Zoey; Snoek, Anke & Gammelsæter, Frøydis (2025). Addiction and emotions: From distress-regulation loops to affective recovery niches. Philosophical Psychology. ISSN 0951-5089. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2025.2539466. Full text in Research Archive
• Baker, Austin & Green, J. Remy (2025). The Right to Transgender Identity. In Tobia, Kevin (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence. Cambridge University Press. ISSN 9781009170901. p. 649–665. doi: 10.1017/9781009170901.039. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This handbook introduces readers to the emerging field of experimental jurisprudence, which applies new empirical methods to address fundamental philosophical questions in legal theory. The book features contributions from a global group of leading professors of law, philosophy, and psychology, covering a diverse range of topics such as criminal law, legal interpretation, torts, property, procedure, evidence, health, disability, and international law. Across thirty-eight chapters, the handbook utilizes a variety of methods, including traditional philosophical analysis, psychology survey studies and experiments, eye-tracking methods, neuroscience, behavioural methods, linguistic analysis, and natural language processing. The book also addresses cutting-edge issues such as legal expertise, gender and race in the law, and the impact of AI on legal practice. In addition to examining United States law, the work also takes a comparative approach that spans multiple legal systems, discussing the implications of experimental jurisprudence in Australia, Germany, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

• Baker, Austin (2025). Nonverbal marginalization. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. ISSN 0031-8205. 111(3), p. 919–953. doi: 10.1111/phpr.70038. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The nonverbal cues that accompany speech (for example, facial expressions, gestures, and eye gaze) can be as communicatively significant as the content of the speech itself. I identify what I argue is a very common—but largely philosophically unexamined—phenomenon: our tendency to allocate nonverbal cues in ways that are sensitive to conversational participants' levels of respective social power such that people with more power receive comparatively more positive and affirming nonverbal cues than people with less power. I call this ‘nonverbal marginalization’ and argue that it reflects and reinforces harmful social prejudices. In this paper, I introduce and empirically situate nonverbal marginalization within a broader account of nonverbal communication, showing how implicit and explicit biases are subtly reflected in automatic patterns of nonverbal behavior. I go on to propose a new conceptual resource and intervention stratagy to identify and address the various ethical, psychological, and epistemic harms of nonverbal marginalization.

• Villalba, Adrian; Brassington, Iain; Smajdor, Anna & Cutas, Daniela (2025). Synthetic DNA and mitochondrial donation: no need for donor eggs? Journal of Medical Ethics. ISSN 0306-6800. doi: 10.1136/jme-2024-110122. Full text in Research Archive
• Katsos, Napoleon & Kissine, Mikhail (2025). No one-to-one mapping between typologies of pragmatic relations and models of pragmatic processing: a case study with mentalizing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. ISSN 0962-8436. 380(1932). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0501. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this article, we argue that the growth of research in cognitively and experimentally oriented pragmatics in the last two decades has rested on two epistemological assumptions: that theoretical-pragmatic notions such as ‘implicature’, ‘metaphor’ and ‘irony’ correspond to distinct types of pragmatic inferences, and that each theoretical-pragmatic characterization of a certain type of inference corresponds to one and only one cognitive model of processing in the mind. We review the foundations of these assumptions and we problematize them based on (i) a conceptual argument that notions such as ‘implicature’ and ‘irony’ are originally meant as relations between propositions rather than types of inferences, and (ii) on recent experimental evidence which suggests that whether mentalizing is employed in pragmatic processing or not is not a function of the type of pragmatic relation, but rather it depends on situation-specific considerations and characteristics of the interlocutor, such as age and neurotype. These considerations call for a new understanding of the role of experimental evidence in the evaluation of pragmatic theories. This article is part of the theme issue ‘At the heart of human communication: new views on the complex relationship between pragmatics and Theory of Mind’.

• Dumont, Charlotte; Belenger, Marie; Destrebecqz, Arnaud & Kissine, Mikhail (2025). Exploring Unexpected Bilingualism in Autism: Enhanced Sensitivity to Non‐Adjacent Dependencies. Developmental Science. ISSN 1363-755X. 28(4). doi: 10.1111/desc.70026. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  ABSTRACT Statistical learning refers to the ability to detect regularities from sensory input, including speech. Statistical learning plays a key role in language acquisition, particularly for complex structures, such as nonadjacent dependencies, that are ubiquitous in natural language syntax. This study investigates nonadjacent dependency learning in autistic children who acquire English through screen exposure, a phenomenon known as Unexpected Bilingualism (UB). Unlike their non‐autistic peers, autistic‐UB children acquire foreign languages with little interactional support. We hypothesize that this intensive experience with linguistic input should be associated in autistic‐UB children with enhanced sensitivity to nonadjacent dependencies. An artificial language learning experiment confirmed that both non‐autistic and autistic children with close to typical language ranges can learn non‐adjacent dependencies from passive exposure to unfamiliar linguistic input. Crucially, autistic‐UB exhibited significantly faster learning as compared to their autistic and non‐autistic peers. This study documents that UB in autism is associated with distinct cognitive abilities.

• Belenger, Marie; Dumont, Charlotte; Geelhand, Philippine & Kissine, Mikhail (2025). Investigating sex differences in narrative production of autistic pre-adolescents and adolescents. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. ISSN 1750-9467. 124. doi: 10.1016/j.reia.2025.202589. Full text in Research Archive
• Geelhand, Philippine; Papastamou, Fanny; Jaspard, Solène & Kissine, Mikhail (2025). Autistic adults display different verbal behavior only in mixed-neurotype interactions: Evidence from a referential communication task. Autism. ISSN 1362-3613. 29(5), p. 1129–1142. doi: 10.1177/13623613241298376. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent accounts of social difficulties in autism suggest that autistic and non-autistic individuals mutually misunderstand each other. This assumption aligns with findings that mixed-neurotype interactions are less efficient than same-neurotype interactions. However, it remains unclear whether different outcomes between mixed- and same-neurotype interactions are due to contact with a different neurotype or to inherently different communication styles, specific to each neurotype. A total of 134 adult participants were divided into three same-sex dyad types: 23 autistic dyads, 23 non-autistic dyads, and 21 mixed-neurotype dyads. Participants were unaware of their partner’s neurotype. Dyads completed an online referential communication task where a “Director” guides a “Matcher” to rearrange abstract images, using both written (chat) and oral (microphone, no video) communication modes. Interaction outcome measures were task duration and verbosity of the Director. Across both communication modes, non-autistic dyads completed the task faster than autistic and mixed dyads, indicating that dyads with at least one autistic partner were generally slower. Notably, in mixed dyads, autistic Directors were more verbose than non-autistic Directors across both communication modes. These results, in conjunction with partners’ unawareness of each other’s neurotype, suggest that even in the absence of non-verbal cues neurotype mismatch triggers autistic adults to display different verbal behavior. Lay abstract Recent research shows that in conversations, both participants influence the outcome. More specifically, conversations do not go as smoothly when autistic and non-autistic people talk together compared to when people of the same neurotype (either all autistic or all non-autistic) talk to each other. In studies finding a “same-neurotype communicative advantage”, interaction partners knew about each other’s neurotype. Because of this methodological choice, it is unclear whether mixed-neurotype interactions go less smoothly because participants knew they were interacting with a different neurotype or because each neurotype really has a distinct communication style. In our study, 134 adults were grouped into same-sex pairs: 23 autistic, 23 non-autistic, and 21 mixed-neurotype pairs. The pairs did not know if the other person was autistic or not. They completed an online task where the “Director” instructs the “Matcher” to reorder abstract pictures. Pairs did this task in two ways: by typing in a live chat and by speaking into a microphone without video. The study looked at how long the task took and how much the Director talked/wrote. Results showed that non-autistic pairs were faster to complete the task than autistic pairs and mixed pairs, meaning pairs with at least one autistic person were slower in general to complete the task. Interestingly, in mixed pairs, only autistic Directors produced more words than non-autistic Directors, in both typing and speaking. These findings suggest that even without knowing about their partner’s neurotype and seeing/hearing their partner, autistic adults communicate differently when they interact with a non-autistic person.

• Belenger, Marie; Dumont, Charlotte & Kissine, Mikhail (2025). Exploring Pragmatic Abilities in Sisters of Autistic Individuals: A Methodological Solution to Female Autism Research. Autism Research. ISSN 1939-3792. 19(1). doi: 10.1002/aur.70147. Full text in Research Archive
• Dalrymple, Mary & Haug, Dag Trygve Truslew (2025). Constraints on Reciprocal Scope. Linguistic Inquiry. ISSN 0024-3892. p. 1–18. doi: 10.1162/ling_a_00546. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract We explore constraints on reciprocal scope, showing that properties of the local antecedent of the reciprocal are crucial in determining the scope of the reciprocal. We survey bound and non-bound, collective, controlled and distributive antecedents, examining and rejecting or refining some previously proposed constraints on reciprocal scope. We also discuss logophoric antecedents, which to our knowledge have not figured in the literature up to now. Our findings provide overall support for a relational (rather than quantificational) treatment of reciprocal semantics.

• Mancilla, Alejandra (2025). Effective deoccupation: Towards Responsible Guardianship of Nature. Political Philosophy. 2(2), p. 450–472. doi: 10.16995/pp.23671. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The doctrine of effective occupation was developed by colonial powers to justify their sovereignty over newly annexed territories and was measured by animus occupandi, the will to be sovereign; and corpus occupandi, the exercise of sovereignty, both specified by the colonizers themselves. While effective occupation over humans ended through the global decolonization movement, it remains the default for nature under the doctrines of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (PSNR) and the resourcist interpretation of Common Heritage of Mankind (CHM). Here I contend that nature still suffers the harms of colonialism through dispossession, exploitation, and domination. I propose a transition to effective deoccupation, measured by animus deoccupandi (the will to cultivate a well-informed, attentive and respectful relationship with nature), and corpus deoccupandi (the replacement of PSNR and CHM with Responsible Guardianship, with states as fiduciaries of planetary nature). I offer a preliminary sketch of what this would require, address objections, and conclude.

• Hal, Toon van (2025). Linguistics ante litteram in the Learned Journals of the Enlightenment. 1700-tal: Nordic Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. ISSN 1652-4772. 22, p. 121–136. doi: 10.7557/4.7993. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article examines the role of eighteenth-century learned journals in centralizing and structuring scholarly disciplines, with a focus on linguistics ante litteram. It considers whether these publications shaped the formation of distinct scholarly fields. The study offers an overview of early modern journal research, focusing on corpus-based methods, before embarking on a comprehensive approach to early modern journals through a number of case studies. After exploring the information included in the Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen project, it looks at how journals indexed and labeled linguistic topics and traces the evolution of language research terminology. The findings reveal a lack of discipline-specific classification in early modern journals, implying that the rapid pace of publishing hindered thematic organization. Nonetheless, journals may have subtly aided the development of nascent disciplines by acting as arenas for terminological exploration.

• Villalba, Adrian; Smajdor, Anna; Brassington, Iain & Cutas, Daniela (2025). Non-viable embryos created with synthetic DNA. Trends in Biotechnology. ISSN 0167-7799. 43(9), p. 2093–2095. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2025.02.021. Full text in Research Archive
• Smajdor, Anna & Cutas, Daniela (2025). The Social Construction of Reproduction. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. ISSN 0887-5367. doi: 10.1017/hyp.2025.9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In recent decades, ethicists have engaged with new developments in human reproductive technologies from a variety of angles. Yet there has been relatively little effort to problematize the concept of reproduction itself. In this paper, we examine the question of what reproduction is and its relationship with biology. We show that reproduction is commonly assumed to entail biological parenthood—an assumption that we term “the biological reproduction paradigm.” Drawing on Sally Haslanger’s analysis of the biological/social division between sex and gender, we suggest that the concept of reproduction is socially constructed, despite its apparently biological nature. In turn, we argue that the supposed necessity of the relationship between reproduction and biological parenthood leads to a situation in which access to a variety of medical, legal, and social goods is constrained on the basis of spurious, inconsistent, and undertheorized assumptions. Finally, we note that, given the socially constructed nature of reproduction, we cannot take it for granted that the term “reproduction” signifies the same thing among different interlocutors and in different contexts.

• Domaneschi, Filippo & Ronderos, Camilo Rodriguez (2025). Expressivity and Psycholinguistics. In Gutzmann, Daniel & Turgay, Katharina (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Expressivity. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780191905797. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Expressivity is the essential property of natural language to not just describe something in the world, but to directly express or display the speaker’s attitudes or emotions. This handbook provides fifty comprehensive chapters that approach expressive meaning from a plethora of angles. Following the editors’ introduction, which sketches the expressive turn in linguistics, the book is divided into five parts. The chapters in Part I lay out the historical background and foundations of expressivity. Part II shows how expressivity plays a major role in all linguistic domains and fields of research, including morphology, syntax, semantics, and across linguistic frameworks and linguistic theories, like relevance theory, construction grammar and discourse analysis, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, computational and corpus linguistics. Part III presents dedicated studies concerning specific linguistic phenomena (like slurs, interjections, or vocatives, but also sentence types or information structure), demonstrating how a focus on expressivity enhances our understanding of them. Part IV shows how the concept of expressivity can be used in further domains and applications in interdisciplinary contexts, showcasing its relevance beyond traditional linguistic boundaries, including pedagogy, the law, or music. Finally, Part V of the handbook presents a cross-linguistic perspective, revealing how expressivity manifests differently in a collection of languages. The chapters, all written by leading experts and emerging scholars in their respective fields, not only provide critical and opinionated surveys of the current state-of-the-art, but in many cases also provide new insights and innovative perspectives.

• Palleschi, Daniela; Ronderos, Camilo Rodriguez & Knoeferle, Pia (2025). Living in the present - how referent lifetime influences processing of past, present (perfect), and future tenses. Glossa Psycholinguistics. 4(1), p. 1–48. doi: 10.5070/g6011.19481. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The English present perfect and simple future tenses are felicitous with the living, but not the dead, as a referent must exist at reference time. In contrast, the simple past is odd with living referents in out-of-the-blue statements, as it requires a specified or implied past reference time. We employed eye-tracking during reading (Experiment 1) and self-paced reading (Experiments 2 and 3) in order to explore how (referent) lifetime-tense congruence influences processing across three English tenses. Referent-lifetime contexts (e.g., Jimi Hendrix was an American musician. He died in London.) were followed by critical sentences in the present perfect (Experiments 1-3), simple future (Experiments 1 and 2), and the simple past (Experiment 3) (e.g., He has performed/will perform/performed in numerous music festivals.). Lifetime-tense congruence effects in reading times and naturalness responses emerged in all three tenses, but with differences in the latency, magnitude, and direction of effects: Longer reading times were elicited by the present perfect (Experiments 1-3) and simple past (Experiment 3) in incongruent (versus congruent) lifetime-tense conditions, with earlier and larger congruence effects in the present perfect. Conversely, the simple future elicited shorter reading times and reaction times in the incongruent condition (Experiments 1 and 2). All incongruent lifetime-tense conditions elicited lower naturalness judgements than congruent conditions, suggesting metalinguistic awareness of the violations, with the largest effect in the simple future condition. Our findings provide the first evidence of processing costs associated with violations of the Perfect Lifetime Effect, and contribute to the existing literature exploring the distribution and processing of (English) tenses.

• Domaneschi, Filippo; D’Agruma, Nicolò; Vignolo, Massimiliano & Ronderos, Camilo Rodriguez (2025). Eye-tracking evidence for the causal-historical theory of reference. Linguistics and Philosophy. ISSN 0165-0157. 48(3), p. 573–602. doi: 10.1007/s10988-024-09427-3. Full text in Research Archive
• Righetti, Guendalina & Giorgis, Stefano De (2025). “Let’s collide with the approaching car head-on” Introducing Synthes-IS: extending the Image Schema catalogue with synthetic-data. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. 4173. doi: https:/ceur-ws.org/Vol-4176/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Image Schema (IS) research has been significantly constrained by the limited availability of annotated linguistic data, which has slowed empirical progress and evaluation in the field. One of the few existing resources — the Image Schema Catalogue — offers a collection of metaphorical sentences annotated with single image schemas. In prior work, we extended this catalogue in two key ways: (1) by allowing for the annotation of multiple image schemas per sentence, thereby reflecting the often-complex interplay of schemas in language use; and (2) by augmenting the dataset with new, non-metaphorical sentences grounded in practical scenarios, all enriched with image schematic content. Both extensions were generated and annotated with the assistance of a large language model (LLM), opening new possibilities for scalable IS research. However, that prior work lacked a rigorous evaluation of the quality of the LLM-generated sentences and their corresponding IS annotations. This paper addresses that limitation through a systematic expert-based evaluation. Independent domain experts were tasked with assessing both the relevance and accuracy of the image schemas assigned to each sentence, as well as the plausibility and linguistic quality of the LLM-generated content.

• Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim & Røyneland, Unn (2025). Language Activism and Social Justice: Why Languages Still Matter. In Cutler, Cecelia; Røyneland, Unn & Vrzić, Zvjezdana (Ed.), Language Activism The Role of Scholars in Linguistic Reform and Social Change. Cambridge University Press. ISSN 9781108833165. p. 26–43. doi: 10.1017/9781108973168.003. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent work in sociolinguistics criticizes labeling sets of linguistic practices as languages and varieties. A focal concept is translanguaging – while opening productive perspectives on linguistic behavior, this approach often claims that, linguistically speaking, there is no such thing as a language. In this chapter we argue that this ontological claim is too strong, and that bottom-up approach to activism that follows in its trail, is insufficient as a response to linguistically embedded social hierarchies and power inequalities. Linguistics has a checkered history; labeling of varieties and construction of language standards has served dubious ends. However, using Norway as a case in point and alluding to other cases of standardization and norm regulation, we argue that effective linguistic activism aimed at social justice sometimes requires the identification of varieties as linguistic objects. We reject a generalized language suspicion, because the anti-language approach to activism pushes out of theoretical reach a level of organization where social and political hierarchies are instituted and maintained – but where such hierarchies may also be challenged and altered. We conclude that socially engaged language scholars must struggle with the concrete contextual assessments that languages and varieties confront us with, and face the normative dilemmas that top-down political intervention on languages allegedly faces. Otherwise, important means of social justice are lost.

• Cusworth, George & Stanley, Theo (2025). Environmental performativity: How natures are made. Progress in Environmental Geography. 4(1), p. 69–91. doi: 10.1177/27539687251321503. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  A range of things get made as natures are subject to programmes of management, measurement, regulation, subsidy, and commodification. Knowledge production practices stabilise dynamic environments into governable objects. Environmental management schemes materialise specific ecologies in particular places and create value for certain actors. Neoliberal governance mechanisms reproduce their own ideological foundations. This paper offers a conceptual vocabulary to articulate the different performances and performative processes that drive these makings. Drawn together under the framework of environmental performativity, we show how objects , environments , and regimes all get made as natures are governed. Together, these terms disambiguate the diverging ways the concept of performativity gets used in the literature. They reveal how material, semiotic, ideological, and calculative forces exert their influence at different points in the design and delivery of environmental governance interventions. In describing these terms, we want to highlight the unique influence that human activities have in shaping the world without denying the agency of nonhuman actors and materialities. By drawing attention to the fact that alternative performances have the power to yield more just and sustainable environmental futures, we conclude the paper on a more optimistic note. We use the concept of reflexive performativity to discuss these political opportunities.

• Cusworth, George (2025). Framing the Planetary and Calculating the Complex: The Controversies, Overflows, and Floods of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Diet. Science, Technology and Human Values. ISSN 0162-2439. p. 1–32. doi: 10.1177/01622439251367132. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Data-intensive methods have become vital for getting epistemic purchase on global socioecological issues. Yet these methods are never fully insulated against contestation precisely because they seek to represent things that are so large and complex. This article is about these contestations and what they reveal about knowledge politics, today. It focuses on the EAT-Lancet report and its Planetary Diet. By promising to have comprehensively mapped the interactions between food and human and environmental health, the EAT-Lancet Commission attracted a flood of contestations. The concept of the flood is introduced to explore what happens when political, cultural, and scientific interest in the complex, interconnected, and planetary ontology of ecological crisis encounters the epistemologies of data-intensive knowledge production. Building on the language of framing and overflowing, the article shows why complexity and planetarity have become so alluring in science communication strategies, and it interrogates the political economy that determines which representation–reality gaps get to become controversial. The contestations the EAT-Lancet report attracted arose, in part, because of conflicting understandings of complexity. Where the report depicted the food system as a romantic whole, those who challenged its findings did so by attesting to the food system's baroque irreducibility and the pervasiveness of context.

• Stanley, Theo & Cusworth, George (2025). Legitimacy in the making: Conservatism, additionality and natural capital accreditation in the UK's Woodland Carbon Code. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. ISSN 2514-8486. 8(6), p. 2018–2037. doi: 10.1177/25148486251379613. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article critically examines the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC), the quality assurance test for UK woodland carbon credits. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with stakeholders in the Scottish land sector, we show how the WCC's finance allocation, additionality criteria, and carbon measurement systems create legitimacy for the code, the credits the code generates, and the market on which the credits are traded. The paper begins by tracing the early history of the WCC to describe how the code's developers integrated a commitment to calculative conservatism into its design. We then consider how WCC developers responded to a trial of legitimacy. Stakeholders argued that the existence of WCC-accredited commercial timber plantations, which should not have passed its economic additionality criteria, revealed flaws in the WCC's accreditation process. The ensuing threats to the code's legitimacy were exacerbated by broader concerns about the mixed socio-ecological record of natural capital markets worldwide. We then analyse the additionality demands introduced to the code to exclude forest ecologies deemed undesirable from receiving carbon finance. These tweaks were made to shore up the code's legitimacy and to maintain the long-term functioning of the voluntary carbon market. These dynamics are constitutive of the three main claims we make in this article. First, that ecological, political, and scientific forces interact in natural capital markets in ways that threaten the legitimacy of the commodification process by creating undesirable outcomes. Second, that operators of accreditation schemes reflexively respond to these reputational risks by changing the way they measure nature, allocate credits, and direct finance towards particular carbon offsetting projects. Third, that the (il)legibility of nature is, in part, an emergent effect of the way political and cultural pressures bear down on the practices of scientific representation and economic valuation rather than something that is inherent to the ecologies being represented.

• Cetin, Idil (2025). Early Armenian Photographic Communities in the Ottoman Empire: The Cases of Abdullah Frères and Yesayi Garabedian. History of Photography. ISSN 0308-7298. 48(2), p. 111–134. doi: 10.1080/03087298.2025.2489310. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although the prevalence of Armenians in nineteenth-century photographic practice in the Ottoman Empire is widely acknowledged, existing studies often focus on the visual output of select practitioners whose work is more readily accessible. This article takes a distinctive approach by delving into the social history of Armenian commercial photographic engagement through a comparative lens and seeks to demonstrate that the nationality of these practitioners was not merely a descriptive label but, rather, shaped their photographic practice while also bringing with it considerable diversity. By examining the photographic practices of the Abdullah Frères studio in Constantinople and Yesayi Garabedian in Jerusalem, this article situates their engagement within the broader contexts of imperial and photographic histories and explores the converging and diverging aspects of their work. The article discusses the networks of which these practitioners were part, not only in terms of their generative capacities but also in terms of their exclusionary mechanisms. It also highlights the ways in which their allegiance to the Armenian nation intricately informed, rather than operated independently of, their photographic engagement.

• Kryluk, Michael Craig Victor (2025). The Moral Politician: Kant and the Kantian Conservatives in ‘Perpetual Peace’. Kantian Review. ISSN 1369-4154. p. 1–24. doi: 10.1017/s1369415425100824. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Kant’s description of the moral politician in ‘Perpetual Peace’ is the most detailed statement of his template for legislative reform. I argue that the moral politician responds to criticisms of Kant’s earlier ‘Theory and Practice’ essay by Friedrich Gentz and August Wilhelm Rehberg. Gentz and Rehberg objected to: Kant’s treatment of the relationship between theory and practice in politics, his conception of popular sovereignty, and his account of political transformation. By showing that Kant used the moral politician to rebut Gentz and Rehberg, I highlight an underappreciated dimension of ‘Perpetual Peace’ while situating Kant’s political stance in its historical context.

• Kryluk, Michael Craig Victor (2025). Fichte contra Rehberg on the Origin of the Aristocracy and Feudal Inequality. In Maliks, Reidar Kiljan & Widmer, Elisabeth Theresia (Ed.), Kant’s Early Followers in Political Philosophy. Routledge. ISSN 9781032851907. p. 215–239. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Immanuel Kant influenced a large and productive group of political philosophers in the 1790s. This volume argues that they brought out more fully the egalitarian principles of Kantian republicanism. “The Kantian school” featured young philosophers including Saul Ascher, Johann Adam Bergk, Johann Benjamin Erhard, Johann Ludwig Ewald, the early Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schlegel, and Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk. The chapters in this volume analyze their work in relation to Kant and their

• Andersen, Øivind (2025). Friedrich Nietzsche: ­Filologen som seer og profet. Klassisk Forum. ISSN 0801-3179. 40(1-2), p. 39–65. doi: https:/ojs.novus.no/index.php/kf/article/view/2512. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Mange som aldri har lest eller sett en gresk tragedie, kjenner til Nietzsches Tragediens fødsel. Selv leste jeg boken første gang for et par mannsaldere siden, med store øyne. Nå har jeg lest den på nytt, med hevede øyenbryn. Boken handler om et sentralt kulturfenomen i den gammelgreske kulturen. Hva har Nietzsche å by på? Er det noe vi kan bygge på? Hvorfor ble boken så kraftig sablet ned?

• Dellsén, Finnur (2025). Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence. Philosophy of Science. ISSN 0031-8248. doi: 10.1017/psa.2025.10151. Full text in Research Archive
• Rodineliussen, Rasmus (2025). Let Atlantis Sink: Underwater Ethnography, Waste Sculptures, and Multimodal Environmental Communication. Visual Anthropology. ISSN 0894-9468. 38(3-5), p. 219–233. doi: 10.1080/08949468.2025.2597224. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This methods article explores how multimodal anthropology can enrich ethnographic engagements with contemporary environmental issues by extending research practices beyond conventional fieldwork settings. Focusing on a group of trash scuba divers in Sweden, the article examines their creation of a submerged installation – an imagined version of the lost city of Atlantis – constructed entirely from recovered marine debris. Situated off a beach outside Stockholm this underwater dive park offers both an immersive sensory experience and a material commentary on water and participating in the embodied, multisensory experience and a material commentary on marine pollution, urban futures, and ecological imagination. By following the divers into the water and participating in the embodied, multisensory practice of underwater ethnography, the research highlights how knowledge is generated not only through observation and conversation, but through movement, immersion, and affect. The article reflects on the methodological implications of engaging with environments that are fluid, unstable, and mediated by technologies such as scuba gear and cameras. In doing so, it argues that multimodal anthropology offers tools for more ethically attuned and ecologically responsive research practices – ones capable of capturing the complex entanglements between humans, waste, and watery worlds.

• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2025). Lorenz Rhodoman als Herausgeber von Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica. In Weise, Stefan (Eds.), Griechischhumanismus des 16. Jahrhunderts: Lorenz Rhodoman im Kontext und digital. Franz Steiner Verlag. ISSN 9783515138574. p. 271–296. Full text in Research Archive
• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2025). Zur Konzeptualisierung des Transtextualitätsbegriffs: Licht aus der Klassischen Philologie? Journal of Literary Theory. ISSN 1862-5290. 19(2), p. 213–236. doi: 10.1515/jlt-2025-2011. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The concept and notion of transtextuality – understood in relation to (fictional, semi-fictional and historical) characters who travel from text to text or from one fictional world to another – have not yet been firmly established in Classical Philology. This article examines how the theory of transtextuality can be historicized and how the study of characters from ancient literature can contribute to a more nuanced and historically sensitive conceptualization of transtextuality. First, the article evaluates the relevance of the concept in relation to the notion of fictional worlds and the question of how the latter concept may – or may not – be applied to ancient texts, arguing that a sharp distinction between distinct fictional worlds is impossible to maintain in ancient literature because of considerable overlap between (mythical as well as historical) narrative networks in the ancient world. Secondly, the article challenges the commonly held idea that transtextual characters should necessarily be identified by the consistent identity of their names; it demonstrates that this assumption is untenable when it comes to characters from ancient literature – particularly so in the realm of mythology, where the same character is often identified by different names, while at the same time the same name is sometimes used for several different figures. Thirdly, the article suggests the application of a prototype model to the study of ancient characters, illustrated through a discussion of two major mythical figures, Odysseus and Heracles, and their diachronic development. This model does not put the names of the characters at its centre, but, rather, their most central characteristics that remain stable in the course of their development, whereas other, less prototypical features are subject to change and adaptation. The prototype model thus offers an analytic tool that can help to enhance our understanding of ancient transtextual figures in their diachronic development both within and across literary genres.

• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2025). Forgiftning eller ulykke? En introduksjon til Antifons ‘Anklagetalen mot stemoren’ (ca. 418–415 f.Kr.) + Antifon fra Rhamnus: Anklagetalen mot stemoren. Oversatt fra gresk. Arr - Idéhistorisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0802-7005. 37(2), p. 83–93. Full text in Research Archive
• Eilertsen, Maja; Hansen, Thomas; Torre, Maria Julia Bidonde; Reneflot, Anne; Nilsen, Thomas Sevenius & Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2025). Effects of Positive Psychology Interventions on Inflammatory Biomarkers and Cortisol: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology. ISSN 2364-5040. 10(4), p. 1–33. doi: 10.1007/s41042-025-00258-6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract There is growing interest in how well-being-enhancing activities influence stress and health. Positive psychology interventions (PPIs) foster such activities, but evidence regarding their physiological effects remains fragmented. This review aimed to examine the effects of PPIs on two physiological indicators of stress via a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the effects of PPIs on inflammatory biomarkers and/or cortisol in adult clinical and non-clinical populations. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Epistemonikos, and clinical trial registries (from January 2000 to June 2023). Two reviewers independently screened studies, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias. Random-effects meta-analyses using robust variance estimation accounted for statistical dependencies. Effects were reported as Cohen’s d with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and heterogeneity as prediction intervals (PIs). Twenty-five RCTs ( N  = 1,641) were included. Common PPIs included music, nature exposure, gratitude, optimism, kindness, and meaning-focused activities. The overall effect was d  = 0.39 (95% CI: 0.16, 0.62). The effect estimates were significant for inflammatory biomarkers ( d  = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.89), but not for cortisol ( d  = 0.30, 95% CI: − 0.10, 0.71). A significant effect was observed in clinical groups ( d  = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.17, 1.04); the effect in non-clinical groups was non-significant ( d  = 0.23, 95% CI: − 0.01, 0.79). High heterogeneity and risk of bias warrant cautious interpretation. These findings suggest that PPIs may reduce inflammatory biomarkers. The clinical relevance of these effects remains uncertain and warrants further investigation, particularly in relation to long-term outcomes. Registration : The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023438736).

• Grasskamp, Anna (2025). Found Objects in Southern Chinese Craftsmanship and Design: Social Connections and Material Agency. In Ng, Sandy & Rajguru, Megha (Ed.), The Dynamics of Modern Asian Design: Material Culture and Social Agency. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350427815. p. 269–300. doi: 10.5040/9781350427853.ch-002. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  While objets trouvés such as shells have played an important role in Southern Chinese craftsmanship for centuries, modern types of found objects such as plastic garbage have recently been integrated into design. This essay investigates creative practices of reusing organic and inorganic (waste) materials by focusing on a number of wearable and collectible jewelry objects made by artists and designers in Hong Kong. Its approach is informed by early modern sources on craftsmanship and materiality and the work of Jane Bennett, Gaston Bachelard and Chetput Venkatasubban Seshadi. The chapter argues that the power of discarded materials in the hands of creative practitioners based in South China can be seen as undermining the material hierarchies of commercial trade, blurring distinctions between ‘the local’ and ‘the global’ and subversive in terms of agency, prompting and to a certain extent guiding their makers’ hands, rather than the other way round.

• Cusworth, George; Finlay, B. Brett; Nguyen, Nhu H. & Lorimer, Jamie (2025). Microbial repair and ecological justice: A new paradigm for agriculture. npj Sustainable Agriculture. 3. doi: 10.1038/s44264-025-00062-4. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this paper, we put forward a case for repair by showing how food security, rural economic resilience, ecological restoration, and environmental justice can be achieved through a repaired agricultural microbiome. Microbial repair must reverse the damage done by legacies of agricultural intensification to restore the microbiome’s ability to deliver key agricultural and societal functions. This project demands collaboration from diverse food system actors building on different types of knowledge.

• Krick, Eva; Holst, Cathrine & Christensen, Johan (2025). The governance of policy advice: between scientization and participation. In Howlett, Michael & Fraser, Simon D. (Ed.), Handbook of Policy Advice. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781035318070. p. 246–261. doi: 10.4337/9781035318087.00029. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study investigates two significant shifts in modern governance: scientization and the participatory turn. Scientization refers to the increased reliance on scientific expertise in policy-making, driven by the growing complexity of policy issues and a demand for evidence-based solutions. Conversely, the participatory turn emphasizes expanding public involvement in governance as a response to legitimacy challenges in representative democracy. By analyzing Norway's ad hoc public advisory committees (Norges offentlige utredninger or NOUs) across diverse policy areas—climate change and family and gender equality policies—this research evaluates trends in both scientization and citizen participation over time. Findings reveal shifts in the makeup and citation patterns of NOUs, indicating a stronger presence of scientific expertise, while also examining evolving openness to public involvement. The study contextualizes these trends within the broader political landscape, exploring their compatibility and implications for legitimacy and effective governance.

• Kapelner, Zsolt (2025). The Democratic Theory of Immigrant Enfranchisement. Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal. ISSN 2332-8894. 12(1), p. 103–103. doi: 10.3167/dt.2025.120105. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Immigrants without citizenship are usually excluded from democratic participation. It is often argued that this is a grave injustice that calls for redress; immigrants should be enfranchised whether they have citizenship or not. Most arguments for this claim hold that immigrant enfranchisement is justified by immigrants’ interest against being ruled by the receiving state. In this article, I argue that this view fails to explain why immigrants should be enfranchised. I offer an alternative view according to which immigrant enfranchisement is justified by a shared interest of immigrants and citizens in relating as mutually serving agents of justice by participating in the common undertaking of ruling the polity justly together.

• Barton, Neil Alexander & Venturi, Giorgio (2025). Language, Models, and Reality: Weak Existence and a Threefold Correspondence. In Antos, Carolin; Barton, Neil & Venturi, Giorgio (Ed.), The Palgrave Companion to the Philosophy of Set Theory. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783031623868. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-62387-5_14. Full text in Research Archive
• Barton, Neil Alexander (2025). Mathematical Gettier Cases and Their Implications. Australasian Journal of Philosophy. ISSN 0004-8402. doi: 10.1080/00048402.2025.2521736. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Let mathematical justification be the kind of justification obtained when we prove theorems. Are Gettier cases possible for this kind of justification? At first sight we might think not: The standard for mathematical justification is proof and, since proof is bound at the hip with truth, there is no possibility of having an epistemically lucky justification of a true mathematical proposition. In this paper, I challenge this idea by arguing that there is conception of mathematical justification which is fallibilist (in addition to infallibilist accounts). I argue that for the fallibilist conception, non-trivial Gettier cases are possible (and indeed actual). I indicate some upshots for mathematical practice, in particular, regarding folklore theorems and pluralism.

• Barton, Neil Alexander (2025). Is (Un)Countabilism Restrictive? Journal of Philosophical Logic. ISSN 0022-3611. 54(5), p. 1061–1077. doi: 10.1007/s10992-025-09812-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Let’s suppose you think that there are no uncountable sets. Have you adopted a restrictive position? It is certainly tempting to say yes—you’ve prohibited the existence of certain kinds of large set. This paper argues that this intuition can be challenged. Instead, I argue that a formal notion of restrictiveness suggests that it is restrictive to hold that there are uncountable sets.

• Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud (2025). Kirkekunst: et medium for teologisk innsikt? Segl. Katolsk Årsskrift for religion og samfunn. ISSN 1893-8728. 2025, p. 195–207. Full text in Research Archive
• Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud (2025). "Ved hans sår har vi fått legedom.” Helse og frelse i nordisk middelalder. In Mundal, Else; Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud & Lærum, Ole Didrik (Ed.), Kampen for livet. Helse, sjukdomar og medisinsk behandling i Norden i vikingtid og mellomalder. Scandinavian Academic Press. ISSN 9788230403273. Full text in Research Archive
• Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud (2025). Civitas auro mundo: The Heavenly Micro-Architecture of the Golden Altars from Medieval Scandinavia. In Johannsen, Birgitte Bøggild (Eds.), Visions of Heaven and Earth. Romanesque Golden Altars and Crucifixes from Medieval Denmark. Syddansk Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788740836127. p. 109–140. Full text in Research Archive
• Dellsén, Finnur (2025). Disagreement and Consensus in Science. In Maria, Baghramian,; Adam, Carter, J. & Rach, Cosker-Rowland, (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement. Routledge. ISSN 9780367723484. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Disagreement is one of the deepest and most pervasive topics in philosophy; arguably its very bedrock, and is an ever-increasing feature of politics, ethics, public policy, science and many other areas. Despite the omnipresence of disagreement, the topic itself has received relatively little sustained examination. This outstanding handbook examines the philosophy of disagreement and how it extends to debates in public policy and science. Comprising 41 chapters by an international team of highly distinguished contributors, the Handbook is divided into six clear parts: Philosophy of Disagreement Epistemology of Disagreement Disagreement in Science Moral Disagreement Political Disagreement Disagreement and Public Policy Within these sections key topics are examined, including skepticism, truth, pluralism, feminist philosophy, philosophy of religion, epistemology of peer disagreement, ethics, metaethics, political philosophy, rationality, intellectual virtues, relativism, realism, instrumentalism, and scientific method.

• Baron, Sam; Dellsén, Finnur; Firing, Tina & Norton, James (2025). Philosophical methodology: a plea for tolerance. Analysis. ISSN 0003-2638. 85(3), p. 575–586. doi: 10.1093/analys/anae053. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternative method. If one agrees with these critiques, it may seem natural to conclude that these (comparatively) unreliable methods should be abandoned. Drawing upon work on the division of cognitive labour in science, we argue that things are not so straightforward. Rather, whether an unreliable method should be abandoned depends heavily on the crucial question of how we should divide philosophers’ time and effort between different methods in order to maximize our prospects of achieving epistemic success. We show that, in a range of cases, even a (comparatively) unreliable method may deserve to be allocated some of these resources.

• Trüper, Henning (2025). Seenotrettung. In Möllmann, Christopher & Pollmann, Anna (Ed.), Schlüsselbegriffe gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts: Ein kritisches Vokabular. Wallstein Verlag. ISSN 9783835356979. p. 692–709. doi: https:/www.wallstein-open-library.de/9783835356979-038.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Trüper, Henning (2025). Moralische Epochen. In Picht, Barbara & Trüper, Henning (Ed.), Epochenwenden: Zur Aktualität historischer Periodisierung. Wallstein Verlag. ISSN 9783835358805. p. 43–64. doi: https:/www.wallstein-open-library.de/9783835358805-epochenwenden.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Trüper, Henning (2025). Einleitung. In Picht, Barbara & Trüper, Henning (Ed.), Epochenwenden: Zur Aktualität historischer Periodisierung. Wallstein Verlag. ISSN 9783835358805. p. 7–25. doi: https:/www.wallstein-open-library.de/9783835358805-epochenwenden.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Trüper, Henning (2025). Uncontrollable Noise: The Loss of HMS Nimble, 1834. Histoire sociale / Social History. ISSN 0018-2257. 58(119), p. 49–69. doi: 10.1353/his.2025.a971515. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  HMS Nimble, a Royal Navy schooner having recently captured a Spanish slaver and taken aboard 272 slaves, ran ashore at nighttime in bad weather on the Cuban coast in November 1834. While all crew were saved, several dozen of the African recaptives aboard lost their lives in the accident, which according to the Nimble’s master had occurred because the “uncontrollable noise of these savages” had made it impossible to hear the breaking of the waves on the reef. What emerges from a detailed reconstruction of the perceptions of the accident as evident in the court martial documents is a specific imaginary of the comical, based on a profound lack of mastery over the moving parts of the situation—natural, technical, and social. This imaginary is intimately related to the moral language of humanitarianism but also adds to the patterns of victimization and the cruel ironies of abolition.

View all works in NVA

• Amadou, Christine (2027). Heading North | 6 | Scandinavia and Modern Byzantine Studies | Christi. Taylor & Frances Routledge. ISBN 9781032077802. doi: 10.4324/9781003211518-6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this chapter, Christine Amadou examines the growth of Byzantine studies in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) during the early twentieth century. While

• Zoonen, Derk Hilbrand Cornelis van (2026). Pleasure and Illusion in Plato's Phaedo. De Gruyter Brill. Full text in Research Archive
• Sjåstad, Øystein (2026). Jan Valentin Sæther: Drømmebilder. Cappelen Damm Forskning. ISBN 9788202882891. 142 p. doi: 10.23865/cdf.283. Full text in Research Archive
• Mancilla, Alejandra (2026). From Sovereignty to Guardianship. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197902769. 208 p. doi: 10.1093/9780197902769.001.0001. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As the coldest, windiest, driest, and highest continent in the world, it is no wonder that Antarctica has been painted as exceptional in geographic and climatic terms. But not only that, Antarctica is also seen as politically exceptional. Since the Antarctic Treaty came into force in 1961, the continent has been under the Joint Guardianship of a group of states that have kept peace and privileged science as the main activity, ‘freezing' sovereign claims and focusing on the protection rather than the exploitation of nature. For scientists, Antarctica is the largest open-air laboratory in the world. This book proposes that Antarctica should also be seen as a laboratory for territorial governance, providing inspiration in places where both the regime of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources of individual states and the international regime of Common Heritage of Mankind have proven insufficient and inadequate. At the same time, it shows that Antarctic governance can be made less state-centric and less anthropocentric by incorporating the political representation of nature in decision-making processes that affect the continent. To successfully protect Antarctica, the author claims moreover that action must be taken beyond it: governing Antarctica requires governing the world, and vice versa. Given the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss and the growing challenges to international law and cooperation, environmental governance around the world can—and should—benefit from the creative and often unexpectedly fruitful Antarctic political imagination.

• Tanyi, Attila & Sagdahl, Mathea Slåttholm (2026). Problems of Choice: Normativity, Rationality, Axiology, and Morality -. Taylor & Frances Routledge. ISBN 9781041017530. 340 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This volume features new, cutting-edge research on problems of choice in connection with four different fields of inquiry: normativity, rationality, axiology, a

• Vetlesen, Arne Johan (2026). Da ugla forsvant. Om natur, tap og tilhørighet. Kagge Forlag AS. ISBN 9788248946946. 249 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Å høre lyden av en ugle, møte blikket til en hegre, oppleve gleden ved å komme tilbake til en skog som alltid har vært der – slike erfaringer blir stadig sjeldnere for oss. Naturen er sårbar og truet, men har det også skjedd noe med oss mennesker og vår måte å forholde oss til naturen på? Er vi i ferd med å miste naturen ikke bare i konkret forstand, men også som noe betydningsfullt i vårt eget indre? «Da ugla forsvant» er en personlig og filosofisk bok der Arne Johan Vetlesen utforsker det moderne menneskets forhold til naturen. Forfatteren skriver klokt og engasjerende om møter med dyr og mennesker, vandringer i natur og med perspektiver fra filosofi, film og litteratur. I vår tid, antropocen, betraktes naturen først og fremst som noe underlagt oss, ressurser vi kan utnytte, ifølge Vetlesen. Dermed har vi mistet fortroligheten med naturen, den er blitt fremmed og avfortryllet for oss. Dette i kontrast til barnets, urfolks og tidligere tiders naturopplevelse. Boken er en samtidsdiagnose og en innsiktsfull analyse av endringsblindhet og økosorg. Samtidig gir den et håp; forfatteren gir leseren et språk for rike naturerfaringer som kan vise vei til et nytt og forsterket bånd til naturen.

• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2026). Transtextual Characters in Ancient Greek and Roman Epic: Conceptualization and Case Studies. De Gruyter Brill. Full text in Research Archive
• Johnsen, Espen; Larsen, Bente & Sjåstad, Øystein (2026). Kystlandskap i sommerlys. Kunsten finner sted. Orfeus Forlag. ISBN 9788293959366. 302 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Park, Joonkoo; Snyder, Eric & Samuels, Richard (2026). Numerical Cognition: Debates and Disputes. Springer Nature. Full text in Research Archive
• Trivigno, Franco (2025). Plato on Comedy and Tragedy: The Role of Drama in the Pursuit of Happiness. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009360128. doi: 10.1017/9781009360128. Full text in Research Archive
• Bär, Silvio Friedrich (2025). Diachronic Narratology in Greek Myth. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009474986. 70 p. doi: https:/www.cambridge.org/core/elements/diachronic-narratology-in-greek-myth/0292E5E1EFD24DDB2B653BE142B74231. Full text in Research Archive
• Grasskamp, Anna (2025). (Re)made in China: Material (Dis)connections, Art, and Creative Reuse. De Gruyter Brill. ISBN 9783111331522. 240 p. doi: 10.1515/9783111331522. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The reuse and recycling of materials that were made in China has a short history in the daily activities of private households worldwide, but a long history in art, craft, and design. Focusing on the practices of artists, craftspeople, and designers, and their re-evaluation of unwanted, pre-used, and discarded materials, this volume presents new research on material culture from China, one of the world’s leading waste-receiving and waste-producing countries, in a global context. Through the lens of an ecocritical history of art, craft, and design, it studies creative engagements with matter related to aspects of (dis)connectivity, considering how the meanings and values attributed to objects and raw materials can change radically as they travel across historical and cultural divides. "A captivating account of the cycles of use, waste and reinvention that animate modern and contemporary China. The authors capture the dexterity of artists and craftspeople who imagine, picture, signify, fashion and terraform the aesthetic dimension. With vivid detail, the chapters highlight the ingenuity of Chinese material culture in the complexity of its global circulation and planetary transformation. (Re)Made is a necessary volume for anyone seeking to inform their perspective of China’s impact on today’s political ecologies." Amanda Boetzkes, author of Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste

• Picht, Barbara & Trüper, Henning (2025). Epochenwenden: Zur Aktualität historischer Periodisierung. Wallstein Verlag. ISBN 9783835358805. 307 p. doi: https:/www.wallstein-open-library.de/9783835358805-epochenwenden.html. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Zoonen, Derk Hilbrand Cornelis van (2026). Savoring and Sifting: Platonic Reflections on Pleasure and the Good Life. Full text in Research Archive
• Zoonen, Derk Hilbrand Cornelis van (2026). False Pleasure and Psychic Disintegration in Plato's Tyrant. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The tyrannical personality plays a central role in Republic 9’s attempt to establish that only the just person—whose soul is healthy, integrated, and harmonious—lives a genuinely happy life. In the first apodeixis, Plato argues that the tyrannical soul is marked by fragmentation and disintegration, producing pervasive negative affect—grief, paranoia, regret—and depriving the person of inner freedom and autonomy. The second, and especially the third, apodeixisadvance a more radical thesis: that the tyrant’s pleasures are qualitatively inferior to the fully integrated, fully actualized agent. As Socrates puts it (587b9–10), “the tyrant will inevitably live most unpleasantly (ἀηδέστατα) and the king most pleasantly (ἥδιστα).” Yet this proposal has received strikingly little sustained analysis in the literature. In this paper, I offer a detailed and original interpretation of the claim and elucidate how it contributes to the Republic’s overarching argument. Toward the end of the third apodeixis, Socrates describes tyrannical pleasures as “untrue,” “spurious,” a “fake” or “simulacrum” of the real thing—“three times removed from true pleasure”—and comparable to a two-dimensional “plane figure” rather than a three-dimensional “solid figure.” Earlier, he had compared such pleasures to “trompe l’oeil paintings.” Tyrannical pleasures are inferior, I argue, because they are false or deceptive (pseudēs). The idea here, I suggest, is that these deceptive pleasureslack depth: they present an attractive phenomenal surface—at least from the blurry perspective of the tyrant—but fail to correspond appropriately to deeper, real features of the world. I consider several ways of fleshing out this notion of hedonic depth. Drawing on a stretch of argumentation developed earlier in the third apodeixis (583b1 – 585a7), I then suggest that the tyrant’s so-called pleasuresamount to nothing more than temporary relief from the pain his psychic disorder generates. They are not intrinsic or substantial pleasures at all, but fakes masquerading as their genuine counterparts. Tragically, the tyrant is in no position to recognize the impoverished quality of his affective life. He takes himself to be well of, hedonically speaking, but he is not. As the limiting case of psychological fragmentation, he suffers from two failures of rationality that explain why he is a stranger to himself when it comes to his pleasures. First, his conception of what counts as pleasure has progressively narrowed: due to a loss of discriminative capacity, he is no longer able to access what is genuinely rewarding or satisfying. Second, because his personality has been hijacked by the lowest part of the psyche, the power of logismos—the capacity to detect and reject false or misleading appearances—can no longer perform its proper function. This reading neatly explains why Plato calls the third apodeixis the “strongest and most decisive (μέγιστόν τε καὶ κυριώτατον, 583b6–7)” response to Thrasymachus’s challenge. If the tyrannical personality is deeply mistaken about his own hedonic experiences, then the hedonic basis for Thrasymachus’s flirtations with tyranny collapses: what he takes to be the most pleasant life is, in truth, less than fully pleasant.

• Zoonen, Derk Hilbrand Cornelis van (2026). Interview dagblad Trouw about meaning and existential issues in psychotherapy. [Journal]. Trouw . Full text in Research Archive
• Holmen, Frida Johanne; Idsøe, Thormod; Falkum, Ingrid Lossius & Næss, Kari-Anne Bottegård (2026). Inference-Making Among 4-5-Year-Old First- and Second-Language Learners in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care. Full text in Research Archive
• Trivigno, Franco (2026). Hvit januar? Ikke hvis vi skal leve som Aristoteles. [Journal]. Morgenbladet. Full text in Research Archive
• Fobel, Bjarne Erik; Molis, Markus; Filby-Dexter, Karen & Dietrich, Ulrike (2026). Sink or source - Effects of aging and ocean warming on kelp detritus palatability. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Kelp forests, as blue ecosystems, export ca. 80 % of their primary production as detritus into adjacent habitats. If exported below 200 m depth of water detritus bound carbon can be stored for long periods of time and is thereby removed from the atmosphere. On the way towards sequestration grounds, detritus undergoes many processes, transformations, and can get recycled and reintroduced to the food web, and ultimately into the atmosphere, through herbivores, detritivores, and microbial remineralization. These biotic processes are essential for understanding the fate of kelp derived carbon. Yet, the abiotic and biotic processes shaping feeding rates of herbivores on detritus are not well quantified, creating considerable uncertainty in carbon budgets along these pathways. This study provides insights into the effect of temperature and detritus age on the palatability of kelp detritus of two abundant kelp species in the Arctic (Laminaria digitata and Saccharina latissima), using three kelp associated herbivores (Amphipoda spp., Patella pellucida, and Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis). Feeding assays with intact and agar-based reconstituted detritus were conducted to tease apart the influence of morphological and chemical traits on the palatability of kelp detritus. The effects of detritus age were grazer-specific, with amphipods preferring older and S. droebachiensis preferring younger detritus, while P. pellucida showed no significant preferences. The preference of amphipods was due to morphological traits of detritus, while the feeding rate of S. droebachiensis was influenced by chemical characteristics of detritus. Temperature sparked inconsistent changes in herbivore preferences suggesting ambiguous variation of carbon flux in a warming Arctic ocean. The results can help refining future carbon sequestration models for kelp-derived carbon and provide a deeper understanding of the complex interactions between herbivores and kelp detritus and the consequences for carbon sequestration.

• Aasgaard, Reidar & Presno, Gunhild Garcia de (2026). Episode 26. Augustin - arvesynd, menneskesyn og det ondes problem - Podcast på Spotify og Apple podcast. doi: https:/open.spotify.com/episode/5nKkS9BHlyiVpPlq1gXUGI?si=ZwxIDCCSTZe3b1PSAygkEA&utm_source=copy-link. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Hvem var Augustin – og hvorfor har tankene hans fått så stor betydning for kristendommen? Denne episoden er en samtale med professor Reidar Aasgaard, som har forsket på Augustin og den tidlige kristendommen. Sammen ser vi nærmere på Augustins liv og samtid, tankeverdenen hans og et av hans mest kjente verk, Bekjennelser. Hva forteller Bekjennelser om Augustin som menneske? Hvordan ble tankene hans formet av tiden han levde i, og hvilken betydning har Augustins teologi fått for kristen tenkning helt fram til vår egen tid? Vi snakker om Augustin som teolog, filosof og menneske – og om hvordan hans ideer har satt dype spor i den kristne tradisjonen. (Episoden er 69 min. lang)

• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Naturens stillhet drukner i vår støy. 115. doi: https:/www.oa.no/naturens-stillhet-drukner-i-var-stoy/o/5-35-2267080. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandvik, Frode (2026). Cold War Munch. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Since the early 1970s, critical attention has been directed at the ideological implications of the Cold War on American art and art institutions. Scholars such as Cockcroft, Shapiro and Guilbaut, have shown that the rhetorics of the avantgarde emerging in the late 1940s coincided with the pragmatic liberalism that became hegemonic in the United States in the early stages of the Cold War. The apoliticism of the art scene was in this sense political: Avoiding the extremes of both left and right, American artists and intellectuals aligned to the idea of the “vital center” and became promoters of liberal values such as individual freedom and universalist humanism. Incidentally, the years from 1945 to 1951 also coincided with the planning and the execution of the first substantial presentation of Edvard Munch’s art in the United States. Touring twelve different venues and comprising 171 works, the exhibition is considered a posthumous breakthrough for the artist in the English-speaking world. The project was not exempt from the political currents of the time. Government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean recognized the exhibition’s potential as a tool in the strengthening of international relations. Moreover, as Reinhold Heller has shown, the preparations became integral to the ideologically charged antagonism between the two ensuing American organizers, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, sparked off by the latter’s controversial manifesto “‘Modern Art’ and the American Public” in 1948. The paper explores the possible significance of this ideological context for the American canonization of Edvard Munch’s works, drawing on recent archival research in Norway and the United States. The presented research is part of an ongoing PhD project examining the American reception of Edvard Munch’s art, using the 1950–51 tour as a case study.

• Zoonen, Derk Hilbrand Cornelis van (2026). Savoring and Sifting. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Platonic reflections on pleasure and flourishing

• Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2026). Justice in Public Attention. doi: https:/safi-network.org/conferences/bonn2026/. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian; Williams, James; Myrstad, Finn; Sjursen, Michelle & Velden, Maja van der (2026). Power and distraction. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Who shapes our attention? How does it affect both personal agency and democracy? Leading scholars and practitioners discuss technology, power, and how we can regain control over our attentional lives.

• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attention: Some philosophical aspects. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attention and Inquiry. Full text in Research Archive
• Lange, Victor & Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Demons in Depression. doi: https:/espp2026.sites.uu.nl/programme-draft/. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attention Norms and Frames. doi: https:/www.thebsp.org.uk/2026/04/28/monthly-phenomenology-sebastian-watzl-attention-norms-and-frames-8-may-2026/. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attentional Landscaping and Attentional Domination. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attention Norms and Epistemic Norms. doi: https:/religion.princeton.edu/events/2026/3pr-conference-attention-and-virtues-mind-and-heart. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). What is Wrong with Distraction? doi: https:/www.coursicle.com/harvard/courses/PHIL/158C/. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). What is Wrong with Distraction? Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Attentional Landscaping. doi: https:/www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/cspe/news-and-events/headline_1249060_en.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). ADHD. The Broader Societal Context. doi: https:/www.psykiatriveka.no/program-2022/. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian; Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield; Clover, Louise Margaret; Eldjarn, Eileen; Kapelner, Zsolt Kristof & Lange, Victor [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2026). Aufmerksamkeit ist Macht. Und die müssen wir brechen. doi: https:/www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2026-03/social-media-verbot-demokratie-big-tech-digitalpolitik. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Die Debatte um Social Media ist komplett falsch abgebogen. Wenn wir unsere Kinder und uns selbst schützen wollen, müssen wir zum Kern der Krise: unsere Aufmerksamkeit.

• Jære, Lisbet & Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Aldersgrenser på sosiale medier er et blindspor. [Internet]. https://www.forskning.no. doi: https:/www.forskning.no/barn-og-ungdom-digital-teknologi-filosofi/aldersgrenser-pa-sosiale-medier-er-et-blindspor/2654156. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian; Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield; Clover, Louise Margaret; Eileen Eldjarn; Lie Hølmebakk, Lara & Kapelner, Zsolt Kristof [Show all 11 contributors for this article] (2026). Aldersgrenser i sosiale medier er et bomskudd. doi: https:/www.morgenbladet.no/ideer/aldersgrenser-i-sosiale-medier-er-et-bomskudd/10270143. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Et samfunn som ønsker selvstendige borgere, kan ikke møte digitale utfordringer først og fremst med forbud.

• Schouwink, Theresa & Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Die heutige Umgebung bereitet Menschen mit ADHS-Profil starke Probleme. [Journal]. Philosophie Magazin. doi: https:/www.philomag.de/artikel/sebastian-watzl-die-heutige-umgebung-bereitet-menschen-mit-adhs-profil-starke-probleme. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2026). Zwischen Fakten und Bewertung – Überlegungen zum Wesen und zu einer Ethik der Aufmerksamkeit. Forschung und Lehre. ISSN 0945-5604. 8, p. 9–11. doi: https:/www.forschung-und-lehre.de/forschung/wesen-und-ethik-der-aufmerksamkeit-7831. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Aufmerksamkeit ist nicht nur Sache des Einzelnen, sondern beeinflusst unser Zusammenleben. Sie ist steuerbar – durch uns selbst wie auch durch andere.

• Watzl, Sebastian; Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield & Kitsik, Eve (2026). Collective Attention. doi: https:/link.springer.com/collections/eaahcdagia. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian; Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield; Kapelner, Zsolt Kristof; Eldjarn, Eileen; Hølmebakk, Lara Lie & Lange, Victor [Show all 10 contributors for this article] (2026). Social Media Bans and the Ethics of Attention. doi: https:/www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/goodattention/news/goodattention_final-social-media-bans.pdf. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The current worldwide debate on age restrictions on social media is mis-framed, and if this framing persists, the net societal harm will increase regardless of which side prevails.

• Kvarberg, Paal Fredrik Skjørten (2026). Panel discussion on the Norwegian economy and quality of life. doi: https:/almsenter.no/brofoss-seminaret-2026/. Full text in Research Archive
• Evang, Vigdis Andrea Baugstø & Kvarberg, Paal Fredrik Skjørten (2026). Måling og velferd. [Journal]. Arr Idéhistorisk Tidsskrift. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Sandve, Geir Kjetil Ferkingstad (2026). Diskusjon om kunstig intelligens i forskning. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2026). LLMs in education. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Strand, Anders (2026). Transdisciplinary Studies of AI in Professional Conduct. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Strand, Anders (2026). Transdisciplinary Studies of AI in Professional Conduct. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2026). Algorithmic Bias. Full text in Research Archive
• Salimifar, Saeedeh & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Do We hold Large Language Models Accountable? Full text in Research Archive
• Reksnes, Vilde Regine Stugaard; Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Investigating expectations about informatively in human-LLM interactions. Full text in Research Archive
• Bollingmo, Helle & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Does the way in which information is presented influence people's trust in AI agents? Full text in Research Archive
• Yuan, Yuting; Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Kissine, Mikhail (2026). Belief Revision in Human-LLM Communication. Full text in Research Archive
• Yuan, Yuting; Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Kissine, Mikhail (2026). Belief Revision in Human-LLM Communication: Effects of Source Identity, Reliability, and Initial Confidence. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Tillit til vitenskap i befolkningen. Full text in Research Archive
• Rodineliussen, Rasmus (2026). En kontroversiel norsk beslutning | Udenrigs. Full text in Research Archive
• Väliaho, Pasi (2026). Artifices of the Abyss: Transition and Security on the Deep Seabed. Full text in Research Archive
• Friedman, Yael & Smajdor, Anna (2026). Synthetic Medical Data. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Eldre bilder og nye naturtap. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. 136(5), p. 80–91. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Med utgangspunkt i tre bilder fra Nasjonalmuseets samling – Cappelens «Skogtjern i Nedre Telemark» (1852), Delacroix' «Løve ved sin hule» (1847) og d’Hondecoeters «Oppstilling med døde fugler og frukt» (1654–1695) – illustreres den mangefasetterte fremmedgjøringen fra natur og dyr, historisk og nåtidig.

• Friedman, Yael & Smajdor, Anna (2026). Synthetic medical data: ethical panacea or invasion of the zombies…? Full text in Research Archive
• Friedman, Yael & Smajdor, Anna (2026). On synthetic medical data: Values hierarchies, reification, and zombies. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Synthetic medical data (SMD) has been introduced to address data-acquisition challenges. It has been described as a “magical” solution that enables model training without compromising patients’ privacy and is therefore considered ethically desirable (Bellovin et al. 2019; Savage, 2023). However, as we will show in this article, synthetic data is not value-neutral, and it poses both epistemic and ethical trade-offs that cumulatively affect the medical realm. We focus on three primary methodologies: two key deep learning approaches, namely generative models without privacy guarantees and differential privacy (DP) models. In addition, we will use vine copula models as our primary example to demonstrate the statistical approach. We show that prioritizing privacy over transparency undermines explainability, which in turn hinders trust and fairness, pushing these values down the ladder. We also show that prioritizing scalability over fidelity moves medicine away from personalized, participatory, and patient-centered approaches and toward a naturalistic, mechanistic understanding. The collapse of context and experiential knowledge into “zombie data” yields a narrow conception of utility in medicine that ignores the patient as a person. The absence of a direct real-world reference (combined with the use of this data to train algorithms) is where SMD makes a step forward in the reification process relative to “regular” medical data. The data collected to represent reality may gradually subsume the very thing it is intended to represent. As such, SMD also introduces a new degree of reification in medicine, promoting fungibility, which offers clear advantages for data-intensive enterprises, over patients and minorities.

• Friedman, Yael & Smajdor, Anna (2026). DATA, Synthetic DATA, and the spectrum of reification. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  With rapid advances in AI technology, there is an increasing demand for data to train AI models. These models are used in medicine and health care for clinical research, diagnosis, drug development, and prevention. However, while significant amounts of health-related data are generated, large datasets may not be available due to privacy concerns and regulatory frameworks (e.g., GDPR). To obtain patients’ data, informed consent is required, therefore creating a high threshold for data sharing. In addition, for rare diseases or cases of “no diagnosis”, large data sets are not available. Synthetic medical data (SMD) has been introduced to address data-acquisition challenges; It has been described as a solution that enables model training without compromising patients’ privacy and is therefore considered "ethically desirable" (Bellovin et al. 2019, Savage, 2023). In this talk, we will introduce three main models of SMD: Generative models, Differential Privacy (DP) models, and the C-vine copula-based synthetic data generator. As we will show, these models are not value-neutral, and they pose both epistemic and ethical trade-offs. We will illustrate how SMD use creates new value hierarchies: Privacy over transparency: SMD can obscure the specific characteristics and nuances of real patient populations, which can create explanation gaps that undermine clinicians’ ability to interpret model outputs, erode trust, hinder bias mitigation (Susser et al., 2024), and knowledge development, and risk long-term de-skilling. These risks are especially relevant in the case of rare diseases, where small original datasets and oversimplified synthetic approaches can lose critical dependencies and idiosyncratic features, leading to misleading clinical insights. Scalability over fidelity: developers of SMD aim for low individual fidelity (to protect privacy) but high distributional fidelity, yet, as we will show, noise and selective-distortion methods can break crucial dependencies or entrench biased dependencies from the original data (ibid.), perpetuating the “garbage in, garbage out” paradox (in the process of keeping what seems as important dependencies in C vein copula models), or even introduce new biases (when adding noise in DP models). The preference for scalable, quantified data over individual experience holds risks of alienating patients, erasing contextual and minority experiences (creating what we call “zombie data”), expanding diagnostic disparities, and institutionalizing these trade-offs as a new normal. We will discuss how this prioritization fosters fungibility in medical practice, which we conceptualize as an advanced stage of the medical reification process. We will distinguish between the stage of “datafication”, which is characterize by decontextualization and translation of messy human experiences into transportable data points that creates a partial, curated technical form of objectivity (Leonelli,2016; Nguyen,2024), and SMD, which goes a step further, generating “zombie data” that deepens reification by stripping lived experience, context and agency from those experiences. Finally, we will argue that this new level of reification is a step forward in the process of commodification and, hence, in capitalism. References Bellovin, S. M., Dutta, P. K., & Reitinger, N. (2019). Privacy and synthetic datasets. Stan. Tech. L. Rev., 22, 1. Leonelli, S. (2019). Data-centric biology: A philosophical study. University of Chicago Press. Nguyen, C. T. (2024). Value capture. J. Ethics & Soc. Phil., 27, 469. Savage, N. (2023). Synthetic data could be better than real data. Susser, D., Schiff, D. S., Gerke, S., Cabrera, L. Y., Cohen, I. G., Doerr, M., ... & Wagner, J. K. (2024). Synthetic health data: real ethical promise and peril. Hastings Center Report, 54(5), 8-13.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Positivismestriden i samfunnsvitenskapene. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine & Linnebo, Øystein (2026). Vitenskap i demokratiet - under press? Full text in Research Archive
• Sjåstad, Øystein (2026). Mænd, modernisme og kanon. Full text in Research Archive
• Young, Mark (2026). Artifacts are Never Tamed: Maintenance and the Philosophy of Technology. Full text in Research Archive
• Armannsdottir, Elin Margot (2026). Designing Consumption: The Making of Norwegian Aluminium. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, behind silicon and oxygen. Occurring in bauxite, the main ore used for its extraction, it is also present in clay minerals, silicates, and even sapphires and rubies. More common than gemstones, aluminium is the main component of cans and food packaging; it is also integrated in buildings, planes, cars, and, more recently, the electronic devices that follow us around. Despite its omnipresence, aluminium’s widespread use is relatively recent. Its extraction is energy-demanding; thus, commercial production began only in the mid-nineteenth century, and mass consumption developed in the latter part of the twentieth century. This energy-intensive process found a favourable site of production in Norway, where the landscape provided access to abundant and inexpensive hydropower resources, making the country a leading producer in the early twentieth century. Initially lacking a defined market, early companies such as the Norsk Aluminium Company relied heavily on design to introduce aluminium to manufacturers. This lecture presents aluminium as both an element and a material, traces its historical development, and examines the Norwegian case, positioning design as a historical driver of extractivism.

• Young, Mark (2026). Artefact Metabolisms: The Material Flows of an iPhone. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper introduces the notion of artefact metabolism by exploring how objects serve as sites through which materials flow in the form of parts or consumables. As a central activity of maintenance and repair, the replacement of materials encourages us to reflect not only on the complex and heterogeneous temporalities of the objects that surround us, but also on the wider contexts in which they exist. Insofar as the replacement of parts demands interchangeability and standardisation, artefact metabolism is an achievement requiring the coordination of various actors. Yet, far from a mere ‘feature’, metabolisms are deeply connected to the achievement that technologies themselves often represent. Many of the most celebrated aspects of modern technology, from the reliability of aircraft engines to the longevity and structural integrity of engineered structures, depend on the replacement of parts and materials over time. At the same time, however, the metabolisms of artefacts are not fixed, and neither do they remain uncontested. This paper examines how the metabolism of artefacts may be negotiated between different actors by exploring the case study of the iPhone. We begin by reviewing attempts by Apple to constrain the metabolism of the phone, by restricting the accessibility of OEM parts and creating barriers to replacement through initiatives such as software pairing or designing phones in ways that discourage repair. We then look at how these initiatives are balanced by attempts to facilitate the metabolism of the device by a range of other actors, including third-party parts manufacturers in China and right-to-repair activists who disseminate knowledge and equipment enabling the replacement of parts. As I argue, this unique ecology of repair helps to determine the complex temporality of the iPhone – a device that serves as a site through which a wide range of parts and materials flow.

• Armannsdottir, Elin Margot (2026). Aluminium or the recipe for Never-Ending Consumption: Analysis of the Construction of a Material Identity in Interwar Norway. doi: https:/arthistory.phil.muni.cz/dhs2026. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In 1937, the Norwegian producer Norsk Aluminium Company (NACo) and its subsidiaries sold a total of 309 tonnes of aluminium in the form of kitchen utensils. This amount represents a 3,535% increase on 1920, the company's early days, when 8.5 tonnes had been sold. Beyond kitchen utensils, the NACo group produced dairy and brewery articles, various transportation tanks, packaging and many other semi-finished products for automobile, ship and the building industries. Rising to a monopoly status on the Scandinavian market in the 1930’s, NACo attributed their success to their propaganda work using advertisements, exhibitions, films, lectures to trade associations and even technical schools. The various formats highlighted specific properties of the metals depending on the targeted audience; the design of objects often underlined the corresponding material narrative. Production of aluminium expanded globally in the first part of the 20th century, following the adoption of the Hall-Héroult process and its use in explosives and military aviation during the First World War. This latter application helped associate the metal with modernity which persisted through its application in objects such as aeroplanes and automobiles. Norway’s abundant and cheap hydroelectric resources made it an attractive site for energy-demanding aluminium production. However, entering the market at the war's end, NACo missed peak demand and instead focused on manufacturing finished goods, both as an outlet for its metal and as a strategy to introduce Scandinavia to the metal, where the aluminium market remained undeveloped. The proposed paper examines the material narratives disseminated through NACo’s cross-disciplinary marketing formats and design that can be linked to the phenomenal increase in the Scandinavian consumption of the metal. The paper considers how the analysis of such material rhetorics may inform approaches to assess design’s role in the construction of contemporary material identities.

• Fallan, Kjetil (2026). Taking Stock for Sustainable Design: The World Resources Inventory. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Etter godhetsregimet. Minerva (Oslo). ISSN 0805-7842. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Perspektiver på en ny Makt- og demokratiutredning. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Hvorfor skal vi stole på ekspertene? Full text in Research Archive
• Røyneland, Unn & Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim (2026). Researcher Positionality and Epistemic Integrity in Minority Language Scholarship . Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Minority language scholarship is often conducted in socially and politically loaded contexts, that is, contexts of both historical and enduring injustice. How does the burden of injustice constrain the path to epistemic integrity that responsible scholarship requires? In this presentation we consider two very different types of case from Norway; the reclamation and revitalization of the languages of the historically oppressed indigenous Sami people, and the shaping and reshaping of the minoritized written language Nynorsk. We argue that while these are very different socio-political narratives, both suggest that epistemic legitimacy requires scholars to negotiate their positionality with respect to historical events as well as to current social conflict.

• Røyneland, Unn; Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim; Cutler, Cecelia Anne; Vrzic, Zvjezdana & Williams, Quentin (2026). Epistemic Integrity, Social Justice and Language Scholarship. doi: https:/www.stias.ac.za/events/epistemic-integrity-and-political-values/. Full text in Research Archive
• Røyneland, Unn; Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim; Cutler, Cecelia Anne; Vrzic, Zvjezdana & Williams, Quentin (2026). Epistemic Integrity and Political Values in Language Scholarship. doi: https:/www.stias.ac.za/public-lectures-seminars/epistemic-integrity-and-political-values-in-language-scholarship/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Human struggles for identity, recognition, access, power, social control, and political change typically have a linguistic face. Accordingly, language often serves as a fulcrum of social conflict. Contested questions may concern what the proper form of language is, or who the legitimate users of a particular language are. Decisions regarding what counts as a language or “merely” a dialect and who gets to decide that, and on what grounds, may be both politically significant and highly divisive. Conflict may also arise as to which and whose languages are to be preserved, protected, and developed, and which are left to their contingent fate. In sociolinguistics such issues may be explicitly addressed. Even when they are not, they are still embedded in the immediate context of many empirical research projects. Consequently, scholarly research and community engagement are closely interwoven, as researchers enter highly charged political contexts. How do we navigate tensions between social and political aims and commitments, on the one hand, and the aspiration to produce narratives and analyses with enduring scholarly legitimacy, on the other? In this presentation, a group of scholars engaged in language research and language politics (in the Western Cape, in the Istrian peninsula of Croatia, in the United States, and in Norway) will present projects and work experience that illustrate some of the challenges and tensions of socially engaged scholarship. We also point to some possible responses to these dilemmas and blind spots from the perspective of philosophical pragmatism. Our guiding aim is to contribute to a notion of scholarly integrity that is suitable for disciplines in which pursuit of knowledge is constrained by the pursuit of justice.

• Brennhagen, Sindre & Hverven, Sigurd (2026). Uhjemlig, mystisk, T // natur. doi: https:/forlagethof.no/mollebyen-litteraturfestival/uhjemlig-mystisk-t-natur/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Opplesning og samtale mellom filosof Sigurd Hverven og forfatter Charlotte Vaillot Knudsen. Ledet av Sindre Brennhagen.

• Marcussen, Johanna Bjånes; Huse, Geir; Ytteborg, Elisabeth; Sandberg, Jan Henrik; Bekkby, Trine & Krefting, Ellen Marie [Show all 12 contributors for this article] (2026). Beredskap til sjøs | Klassekampen. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Det er et uttalt mål å øke den nasjonale selvforsyningsgraden. Men fiskeri var knapt nevnt når regjeringen lanserte totalberedskapsplan. Det mangler en nasjonal plan for hvordan norsk fisk og skalldyr skal gjøres tilgjengelig i en krise, og hvordan fiskeflåten faktisk kan være beredt.

• Marcussen, Johanna Bjånes; Eilertsen, Mari Heggernes; Bekkby, Trine & Krefting, Ellen Marie (2026). Debatt: Kunnskap om havet mangler i læreplanen for norske skoler. doi: https:/www.dagsavisen.no/debatt/pa-tide-at-havet-seiler-inn-i-norske-skoler/10484185. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Havkunnskap er knapt nevnt i læreplanen, selv om Norge er en havnasjon, påpeker Nasjonalkomiteen for FNs havforskningstiår. De ber om at havet løftes høyere i skolen fra tidlig alder.

• Lintvedt, Mona Naomi; Tangen, Thomas Huh & Sterri, Aksel (2026). Politisk frokost: Medborger i en maskinlærende stat. Full text in Research Archive
• Yao, Ying (2026). Attending to Mortality, Attending to Morality: Moral Transformation through Grief. Full text in Research Archive
• Yao, Ying (2026). The Morally Transformative Attention(s) of Grief. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Da fotballvaksinerte fikk VM-feber. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. doi: https:/www.samtiden.no/kommentar/da-fotballvaksinerte-fikk-vm-feber/1437804. Full text in Research Archive
• Aasgaard, Reidar (2026). Presentasjon av egne salmer. Full text in Research Archive
• Aasgaard, Reidar (2026). Underverket. Stille Stunder. ISSN 1892-5103. 137(3), p. 12–12. Full text in Research Archive
• Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). The Greek Proverbs of Hermodorus Rhegius and Their Context: A Recent Find from the Library of Orléans (France). Full text in Research Archive
• Torgersen, Eivind; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Treasure hunt reveals unknown Greek proverbs. [Internet]. Alpha Galileo. doi: https:/www.alphagalileo.org/fr-fr/Item-Display-fr-FR/ItemId/271477. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Two researchers in a French library have uncovered 90 previously unknown Greek proverbs, hidden for centuries in a forgotten manuscript. Now they are ....

• Lombardi, Chiara; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Manuscrito em Orléans revela 90 provérbios gregos inéditos e amplia legado de Hermodorus Rhegius - La Via Italia | Conectando a Comunidade Italiana. doi: https:/laviaitalia.com.br/noticias/cultura-noticias/manuscrito-orleans-90-proverbios-gregos-ineditos-hermodorus-rhegius. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Manuscrito em Orléans revela 90 provérbios gregos inéditos atribuídos a Hermodorus Rhegius, ampliando estudos de paremiologia e memória cultural.

• Definition, Greece High; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). 90 Lost Greek Proverbs Rediscovered in a French Manuscript. doi: https:/www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2026/4/18/90-lost-greek-proverbs-rediscovered-in-a-french-manuscript. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Greek proverbs have carried wisdom, humor, and everyday truths across centuries. Now, scholars have uncovered 90 previously unknown Greek proverbs , hidden for hundreds of years inside an old manuscript in France. The remarkable discovery adds a new chapter to the long story of Greek oral tradition.

• Καθημερινή, Η; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Ανακαλύφθηκε συλλογή 90 παροιμιών του 17ου αιώνα. doi: https:/www.kathimerini.gr/society/564118567/anakalyfthike-syllogi-90-paroimion-toy-17oy-aiona/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Τις είχε καταγράψει ο Ερμόδωρος Ρέγγιος (1579-1655), ένας από τους Ελληνες λογίους της πρώιμης νεότερης εποχής που διέδωσαν την ελληνική παιδεία στην Ευρώπη

• Couto, Erica; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Descubren 90 proverbios griegos ocultos en un manuscrito del siglo XVII: revelan el proceso olvidado que permitió difundir el saber griego en Europa durante siglos. doi: https:/muyinteresante.okdiario.com/historia/hallazgo-90-proverbios-griegos-desconocidos-manuscrito-siglo-xvii-transmision-cultural.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  90 proverbios inéditos, recién descubiertos, revelan el papel de los manuscritos en la transmisión de la cultura griega en Europa.

• Italia, Agenzia Giornalistica; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Da un antico manoscritto emergono 90 proverbi greci inediti. doi: https:/www.agi.it/cultura/news/2026-04-14/manoscritto-proverbi-greci-orleans-36578688/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Il manoscritto conservato a Orleans, in Francia. Il ritrovamento è è frutto di uno studio di ricercatori norvegesi

• Melchiorri, Gaspare; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Scoperti in un manoscritto 90 proverbi greci seicenteschi sconosciuti. doi: https:/www.ilgiornaledellarte.com/Articolo/Scoperti-in-un-manoscritto-proverbi-greci-seicenteschi-sconosciuti. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Scoperti in un manoscritto 90 proverbi greci seicenteschi sconosciuti

• Torgersen, Eivind; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Skattejakt avdekket ukjente greske ordtak. [Internet]. Forskningsnytt - Universitetet i Oslo. doi: https:/www.uio.no/forskning/forskningsnytt/artikler/2026/skattejakt-avdekket-ukjente-greske-ordtak.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Ved en tilfeldighet fant forskere fra Universitetet i Oslo 90 hittil ukjente gamle greske visdomsord på et bibliotek i Orléans i Frankrike.

• Παπαγρηγορίου, Στέλιος; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). «Συζήτηση» τεσσάρων αιώνων:Φως σε ελληνικές παροιμίες από τους ερευνητές που τις εντόπισαν απρόσμενα - CNN.gr. [Internet]. CNN Hellas. doi: https:/www.cnn.gr/style/politismos/story/525273/syzitisi-tessaron-aionon-fos-se-ellinikes-paroimies-apo-tous-erevnites-pou-tis-entopisan-aprosmena. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  «Πολλές από τις παροιμίες που καταγράφηκαν τον 17ο αιώνα ακούγονται ακόμη οικείες στους Έλληνες σήμερα»: οι ερευνητές Han Lamers και Toon Van Hal μιλούν στο CNN Greece για την ανακάλυψη δεκάδων ελληνικών παροιμιών σε άγνωστο μέχρι σήμερα χειρόγραφο του 17ου αιώνα και εξηγούν τι αποκαλύπτουν για τη γλώσσα και την καθημερινή ζωή των Ελλήνων της εποχής.

• Cogos, Sasha; Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2026). Cachés dans les écrits d’un érudit orléanais depuis trois siècles, des proverbes grecs sortent de l'oubli par hasard. [Internet]. La République du Centre. doi: https:/www.larep.fr/orleans-45000/loisirs/caches-dans-les-ecrits-dun-erudit-orleanais-depuis-trois-siecles-des-proverbes-grecs-sortent-de-l-oubli-par-hasard_14997860/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Orléans, juillet 2025. Une découverte historique vient de secouer la médiathèque : deux chercheurs, Néerlandais et Belge, ont retrouvé 90 proverbes grecs inédits. Repris par les médias du monde entier, ce trésor oublié depuis trois siècles multiplie par quatre les écrits connus de cette collection.

• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Og i deres øyne var varighet. Filosofisk supplement. ISSN 0809-8220. 22(1-2), p. 109–119. Full text in Research Archive
• Myklebust, Erlend Østrem (2026). Contentious History: The Contention of the Bards in Seventeenth-Century Hiberno-Latin Historiography. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper examines the reception of the early seventeenth-century poetical feud in Latin historiographies from the latter part of the century. It argues that neither the poetical contention itself or the local allegiances that fueled it, disappeared during the violence in the middle of the century.

• Sjåstad, Øystein (2026). Christian Krohgs motiver fra Sandøsund. In Johnsen, Espen; Larsen, Bente & Sjåstad, Øystein (Ed.), Kystlandskap i sommerlys. Kunsten finner sted. Orfeus Forlag. ISSN 9788293959366. p. 53–79. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Naturtap og følelser – et filosofisk perspektiv [Omvisning 03.06.2026]. doi: https:/www.nasjonalmuseet.no/utstillinger-og-arrangementer/nasjonalmuseet/arrangementer/2026/16/naturtap-og-folelser--et-filosofisk-perspektiv/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Filosofisk foredrag om naturtap og følelser, avholdt i to bolker ved Nasjonalmuseet 03.06.2026. Sammen med formidler Håkon Hoffart.

• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Med øye for dyrenes blikk, anmeldelse av Gisle Selnes' «Dyr» (2025). Agora Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon. ISSN 0800-7136. 44(1-2), p. 261–273. doi: 10.18261/agora.44.1-2.13. Full text in Research Archive
• Ottersen, Ole Petter; Banet, Catherine & Lygre, Eirik Tangeraas (2026). Håp for kommende generasjoner? doi: https:/filosofifestivalen.no/program2026/. Full text in Research Archive
• Yao, Ying (2026). The Intrinsic Value of Attention. doi: https:/www4.uib.no/en/research/research-groups/bergen-logic-group/events/2026-bergen-oslo-graduate-conference-in-philosophy. Full text in Research Archive
• Armannsdottir, Elin Margot (2026). Design as Geological Force: The Making of Norwegian Aluminium. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The paper Design as Geological Force: The Making of Norwegian Aluminium traces the material flows of aluminium produced by Norsk Aluminium Company (NACO) from its initial commercial-scale production at the beginning of the twentieth century until its exponential growth in the mid-twentieth century. The paper is accompanied by a digital representation, an interactive map depicting the places of extraction, production, manufacture, use, and discard, as well as the material trajectories and their evolution through the period using the software QGIS. In the special Trade & Engineering Supplement of the Times of March 1937, one can find a poster depicting a waterfall at the end of a fjord. The cascade plunges onto a globe; at its point of impact appears the silhouette of a factory from which the water magically transforms into planes, ships, skyscrapers, pots, pans and cars. Designed by Paul Lorck Eidem, one of Norway’s leading advertisement artists at the time, and commissioned by NACO, the artist makes the industrial process seem effortless and local, almost natural. With powerful waterfalls at the end of deep fjords, Norway was indeed and remains an appealing location for aluminium producers seeking to lower costs of production by exploiting cheap hydroelectricity. At the time, NACO held a monopoly on the Scandinavian market and contributed greatly to defining the metal’s place in everyday objects, promoting it as a local material, as the poster proclaimed: Out of Norway falls aluminium. However, the main raw materials from which the metal is produced are absent from the country's geology. Like all aluminium smelted in the country, Norway is merely a stop on the metal’s journey. In the early 20th century, companies driven by the promise of the light metal engaged in international coordination, extracting ore in one place, refining, smelting, manufacturing, and consuming in others. NACO’s smelters were supplied with cryolite from Greenland and aluminium oxide from Høyanger, which itself depended on bauxite imported from the Var region in France. Aluminium travelled and still travels, changing communities, environments and, form at each stop. Where were the raw materials extracted from, where were the refined materials sent to and what impacts did each stop entail? By focusing on material flows, here aluminium, design historians can provide a new understanding of how design shapes consumption, and a detailed assessment of its broader socio-ecological impact. The paper traces the circulation of aluminium to and from Norway during the early decades of its production, revealing the intricate transnational effects that designing with the metal involved. The paper and map are based on primary and secondary sources, using existing writings in the field of business history combined with corporate archives from NACO and its subsidiaries in Sweden, Denmark, and France.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Long problems in legacy institutions. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Democracy and Political Order in Europe’s Emergent Polity. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Det annet kjønn og statsfeminismen. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). I strupen på staten. [Journal]. Dag og Tid. Full text in Research Archive
• Vangshardt, Mie (2026). French 19th-Century Painting and the End of History? Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina & Hernandez, Gabriel (2026). Session Chair: Mapping New Epistemologies of Collecting and Archiving. Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina (2026). Ur arkivet: När framtiden skulle bli grön. Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina & Mattsson, Helena (2026). Arkitekturdebatt: Tomrummet Eva lämnat efter sig är en uppmaning till oss alla. Arkitektur : byggnad, interiör, plan, landskap. ISSN 0004-2021. 2026(2). Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Fugler og forgjengelighet hos Kjersti Ericsson. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. 136(3), p. 96–104. Full text in Research Archive
• Mancilla, Alejandra; Krefting, Ellen Marie & Meyer, Tirza (2026). GM-brunsj: Blå humaniora. doi: https:/www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/studier/aktuelt/arrangementer/2026/gm-brunsj.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Hva er blå humaniora? Hvordan har forestillinger om havet utviklet seg historisk? Trenger vi nye begreper for å forstå havet og vår relasjon til det? Hvordan kan blå humaniora bidra til samt utfordre forskning i andre fagfelt?

• Fallan, Kjetil & Halland, Ingrid (2026). Moving Matter: Design History as Pathfinding. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Gjensyn med Habermas' teknokratikritikk i en tid der folk har fått nok av eksperter. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Elite perceptions and normative legitimacy. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Studentvalget på UiO: Antall lister halvert på ett år. [Journal]. Universitas. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2026). Epistemic bubbles and contextual discordance. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Phillips, Kim Pedersen (2026). Science Miscommunication. Full text in Research Archive
• Torgersen, Eivind & Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2026). - Vi må forstå andres verden for å tilegne oss ny kunnskap. [Internet]. https://www.uio.no/forskning/forskningsnytt/. doi: https:/www.uio.no/forskning/forskningsnytt/artikler/2026/vi-ma-forsta-andres-verden.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Mallory, Fintan Declan (2026). INTERVIEW: Fintan Mallory on 'Fictionalism about chatbots'. doi: https:/www.joeykpollock.net/blog/interview-fintan-mallory-on-fictionalism-about-chatbots. Full text in Research Archive
• Måge, Arendse Wenzel & Pold, Valdemar Nielsen (2026). Arr /2025 nr. 3-4 Ny nordisk renessance. doi: https:/tekstallmenningen.no/butikk/kunst-kultur/arr-2025-03-04/. Full text in Research Archive
• Myklebust, Erlend Østrem (2026). Sic ne vestigium Troiae relictum est: Vikings in Seventeenth-Century Hiberno-Latin Historiography. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper explores the representation of the Vikings in Hiberno-Latin historiographies from the seventeenth-centuries. It argues that such representations were usually brief and largely related the experience of the Vikings with contemporary religious and political conflicts. This is in contrast to Protestant Latin and Catholic Irish-language texts from the same period, which tend to discuss the Vikings in more detail, and this discrepancy can largely be explained by Catholic Latin historiographies Counter-Reformation context.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Tillit under press? Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Når forskning blir fienden: er forskning udemokratisk? Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Intervju om arven etter Habermas. [Internet]. Khrono. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Intervju om Habermas. [Journal]. Klassekampen. Full text in Research Archive
• Trivigno, Franco (2026). Stoisisme om penger og kjærlighet. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandvik, Frode (2026). Munch og USA. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I perioden fra april 1950 til juli 1951 turnerte den retrospektive utstillingen «Edvard Munch» i USA fra kyst til kyst. Utstillingen ble vist ved Institute of Contemporary Art i Boston, Museum of Modern Art i New York og ved ti andre institusjoner. En stor andel av de 171 verkene var lånt fra Munchs testamentariske gave til Oslo kommune. Utvalget inkluderte også sentrale verk fra Nasjonalgalleriet, Bergen Billedgalleri og Rasmus Meyers samlinger, samt innlån fra sju private samlinger. Kun ett av de utstilte verkene var i amerikansk eie. Lanseringen i USA var blant de første store internasjonale Munch-utstillingene som ble organisert etter kunstnerens død, og foregikk i en tid da amerikanske museer inntok en ledende rolle i defineringen av den moderne kunstens historie og dens hovedskikkelser. Et nylig påbegynt PhD-prosjekt med tittelen «Munch og USA. En studie av vandreutstillingen Edvard Munch (1950–51)» av Frode Sandvik undersøker hvordan utstillingen har bidratt til å forme forståelsen av Edvard Munchs kunst. Sandvik er kurator ved Kode kunstmuseer og komponisthjem i Bergen og PhD-kandidat ved Universitetet i Oslo. Hans faglige interesser inkluderer kunsthistoriografi, samlere, etterkrigsmodernisme og utstillingshistorie.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Hva er makt? Full text in Research Archive
• Aasgaard, Reidar (2026). Smågodt fra livet: Reidar deler egne dikt og sanger. Full text in Research Archive
• Trivigno, Franco & Røysamb, Espen (2026). The Aristotelian Happiness Scale. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Er det fortsatt «Hjernevask» sin feil at tilliten til kjønnsforskningen er så lav? [Internet]. Blikk. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Omstillingskommisjonen. [Internet]. Energi og klima. Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Investigating the development of irony comprehension: Some challenges and ways forward. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Hva er det med far? Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. 136(1), p. 156–172. Full text in Research Archive
• Bucher, Taina; Falkum, Ingrid Lossius; Berg, Margareta; Findlay, Jamie Yates; Kempton, Alexander Moltubakk & Müller, Lilly Pijnenburg [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2026). Mellom ytring og fortelling: Kommunikasjon med og om KI. doi: https:/www.uio.no/om/aktuelt/universitetsplassen/domus-bibliotheca/arrangementer/2026/kommunikasjon-med-om-KI. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandvik, Frode (2026). Bridge-building with Munch. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In the period from April 1950 to July 1951, an exhibition of 171 paintings and prints by Edvard Munch toured the United States from coast to coast, visiting venues such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Los Angeles County Museum. A main purpose of the tour was to establish the recently deceased artist’s works in the English-speaking world and to secure Munch’s art-historical position as a pioneer of modern art. The symbolic value of cultural exchange in these early postwar years was, however, recognized on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as is implied in the exhibition committee’s heralding of Munch as a “symbol of the growing friendship and understanding of the Norwegian and American peoples” on the first pages of the catalogue. Archival sources provide further insight into the interests in the exhibition as a tool in the efforts to strengthen international relations; on the one hand serving as an “extraordinary cultural embassy” for Norway, and on the other, a means to augment American prestige in the Scandinavian countries. The paper explores the implications of the Cold War context on Munch’s posthumous American breakthrough, drawing on archival research in Norway and the United States, as well as recent scholarship into the role of art in cultural diplomacy and nation branding. The presented research is part of an ongoing PhD project examining the American reception of Edvard Munch’s art, using the 1950–51 tour as a case study. The presentation was part of the session "Cultural Diplomacy in Nordic Art and Design," at SASS 2026, Brooklyn (22-25 April 2026)

• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2026). Epistemic vigilance and the development of pragmatic interpretation. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2026). Vinterens forvitring. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Technocracy - or epistocracy? Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Designing legitimate science advice arrangements. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Forskning om Epstein-avsløringene. [Internet]. forskning.no. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Verdensmester i likestillingsdebatt? Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (NNT). ISSN 0800-336X. 43(1). doi: 10.18261/nnt.43.1.3. Full text in Research Archive
• Marcussen, Johanna Bjånes; Krefting, Ellen Marie; Bekkby, Trine; Ytteborg, Elisabeth; Sandberg, Jan Henrik & Huse, Geir [Show all 13 contributors for this article] (2026). Syv ting du bør kunne om havet. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Nordmenn bryr seg om havet, men få kjenner ansvar for å ta vare på det. Skal vi lykkes med å ta vare på vår viktigste ressurs og klimatermostat, må alle forstå havet bedre.

• Myklebust, Erlend Østrem (2026). Hibernice: Interpreting the Irish Vernacular in 17th-Century Scholarship. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper investigates the discussions relating to the Irish language in Hiberno-Latin texts, primarily historiographies, of the seventeenth century. It argues that the Latin authors stressed the unique qualities of the Irish language, especially its alphabet, and that Latin historians were generally focused on defending the traditional learned register that was falling out of fashion in the Early Modern period, rather than the popularly spoken vernacular.

• Evju, Håkon (2026). Norwegian Wood and German Forestry: The ‘General Forest Administration ’ (Generalforstamtet) as an Experiment in Imperial Governance. Full text in Research Archive
• Murphy, Peter & Sandvik, Frode (2026). Edvard Munch and the United States. [Internet]. @busch_hall (IG account for the Busch-Reisinger Museum/Harvard Art Museums). doi: https:/www.instagram.com/reel/DTBHfxMj1uA/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Busch Hall Conversation with Frode Sandvik, curator at the Kode Art Museums in Bergen and PhD affiliate at the University of Oslo. We will discuss Frode’s doctoral research, which explores an exhibition of works by Munch that toured the United States in 1950–51. Conceived as a case study of canon formation, the project examines the network of actors, institutions and organizations involved in the realization of the exhibition, concurrent debates over modern art, the significance of national interests and Cold War cultural diplomacy, and in what ways the exhibition may have helped shape the understanding of Munch’s art in the postwar era.

• Sjåstad, Øystein & Haugsbø, Tove (2026). Frits Thaulow. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Utstilling

• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Forhåpentligvis kvitrer det i trærne i morgen. 114. doi: https:/www.oa.no/forhapentligvis-kvitrer-det-i-trarne-i-morgen/o/5-35-2175716. Full text in Research Archive
• Watzl, Sebastian (2025). What is Wrong with Distraction? doi: https:/www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/agenda/coimbra-seminars-01/. Full text in Research Archive
• Vadseth, Elly Stormer; Vadseth, Elly Stormer; King, Benjamin Morris; Hoel, Aurora; Hongisto, Ilona & Røyrvik, Jens Olgard Dalseth [Show all 13 contributors for this article] (2025). Deep Sea Moves. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Participatory public performance with research team in the context of the workshop Deep Sea Fabulation (WP 5) at Ladekaia, Trondheim

• Young, Mark (2025). Smartphone Metabolisms: Material Flows in the Evolution of the iPhone. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This presentation explores the design history of the iphone as a backdrop against which to introduce and examine two new concepts in maintenance and repair studies which are useful for examining the processes artifacts undergo after their production. The first, disassembility captures the extent to which the parts of an artifact can be separated without destroying them or the object. Insofar as it depends not only on how objects are designed, but also on the availability of skills, knowledge and equipment, the disassembility of artifacts are often determined by a much wider range of actors than the producers of a technology alone. We’ll begin exploring how this applies to the iphone by examining how the separability of components has changed throughout the design history of the device. Then we’ll turn our attention to iphone displays and explore how the disassembility of these components change as they move between and across different contexts before examining some recent initiatives to disrupt the existing landscape through the development of specialized equipment which enable the disassembly of displays in new contexts. The second part of the presentation introduces the concept of artifact metabolism by exploring how objects serve as sites through which materials flow in the form of spare parts and consumables. As I’ll attempt to show, the metabolic natures of artifacts often result from negotiation between different actors. To illustrate this in the case of the iphone, we’ll review attempts by Apple to constrain the metabolism of the phone, by restricting the accessibility of OEM parts and creating barriers to replacement through initiatives such as software pairing or designing phones in ways which discourage user repairs. Then we’ll look at how these initiatives are balanced by attempts to facilitate the metabolism of the device by a range of other actors, including third party parts manufacturers in China and right to repair activists who disseminate the knowledge and equipment required for the replacement of parts and consumables.

• Young, Mark (2025). Material Flows in the Evolution of the iPhone. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Join Mark Young, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, for a fascinating deep dive into the hidden life of the iPhone — from its design history to the unseen material flows that shape its evolution. Discover how ideas in maintenance and repair studies can shift the way we think about technology, consumption, and sustainability.

• Young, Mark (2025). Taking Things Apart: Clips, Glues and Pentalobe Screws. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This presentation examines how and when objects are taken apart, the contexts in which this occurs and the challenges actors face in achieving disassembly. In doing so, my aim will be to demonstrate how “dis- assembility” – the extent to which the parts of an object can be separated without destroying them or the object - represents an important feature of our relationship to technology and one which has yet to receive sufficient attention from existing literature. The first part of the presentation explores how disassembility is grounded in a relational ontology, in which the separability of components depends not only on how objects are designed, but also on the skills, knowledge and equipment available to consumers and technicians. For this reason, there are a much wider range of actors who are able to determine the disassembility of objects than the producers of technol- ogy alone. In fact, the disassembility of objects is often contested by a range of actors, from consumer organisations to DIY hackers, who disrupt practices and attitudes towards objects by disseminating tools, equipment and information enabling them to be taken apart. These processes stem from a variety of mo- tivations, including concerns surrounding environmental impacts of existing patterns of consumption and the democratization of technology. The second part of the presentation examines how these themes intersect by focusing specifically on the case of the smartphone. Smartphones are devices which connect and fold components together so tightly that they strongly encourage us to see them as singular. Most smartphones are designed in ways which give very little indication that they can even be opened - let alone that they consist of parts. They often have seamless exteriors, with few if any visible screw holes - and components which are often glued together. However, since the origin of the technology itself, the disassembility of smartphones has been contested by actors who disseminate not only tools and equipment, but also knowledge that enables peo- ple to take their phones apart. Yet even despite consisting of various components, none of this material aims to enable to disassembly of smartphone displays which have long been treated as singular objects in western Europe and North America. When the glass which forms the front layer is cracked, common practice in these regions dictates replacing the entire display. Replaced displays are then shipped to other geographic locations such as eastern Europe or China, where they are disassembled to identify and replace faulty or broken components before returning to the market again in the form of “refurbished” displays. This case study looks at how the disassembility of these objects change as they move between and across different contexts and explores some recent initiatives to disrupt the existing landscape by providing DIY tools and specialized equipment to consumers and repair shops in Western Europe and North America which enable the disassembly of displays.

• Young, Mark (2025). Taking Things Apart: Clips, Glues and Pentalobe Screws. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This presentation examines how and when objects are taken apart, the contexts in which this occurs and the challenges actors face in achieving disassembly. In doing so, my aim will be to demonstrate how “disassembility” – the extent to which the parts of an object can be separated without destroying them or the object - represents an important feature of our relationship to technology and one which has yet to receive sufficient attention from existing literature. Insofar as the separability of components depends not only on how objects are designed, but also on the skills, knowledge and equipment available to consumers and technicians, my talk will begin by demonstrating how the dissasembility of objects is not determined by their producers alone, and instead often results from the activities of a wider range of actors, from consumer organizations to DIY hackers, who disrupt practices and attitudes towards objects by disseminating tools, equipment and information enabling them to be taken apart. Later sections examine how these themes intersect by focusing specifically on the case of the smartphone. Smartphones are devices which connect and fold components together so tightly that they strongly encourage us to see them as singular. Most smartphones are designed in ways which give very little indication that they can even be opened - let alone that they consist of parts. They often have seamless exteriors, with few if any visible screw holes - and components which are often glued together. However, since the origin of the technology itself, the disassembility of smartphones has been contested by actors who disseminate not only tools and equipment, but also knowledge that enables people to take their phones apart. This case study looks at how the disassembility of these objects change as they move between and across different contexts and explores some recent initiatives to disrupt the existing landscape by providing DIY tools and specialized equipment to consumers and repair shops in Western Europe and North America which enable the disassembly of smartphone components.

• Young, Mark (2025). Artifact Metabolisms: The Material Flows of an Iphone. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The ancient paradox of the Ship of Theseus – in which the materials of a boat are gradually replaced over time - underscores a feature of artifacts which has largely been overlooked. While most philosophers have approached the paradox as an opportunity to explore metaphysical questions surrounding identity and change, the processes by which artifacts exchange matter with their environments has attracted relatively little attention, not only in philosophy but also within scholarship on technology more generally. Yet gaining a deeper understanding of these processes is clearly important: not only do most artifacts exchange material with their environments in some way throughout their histories, but the extent to which they do so is increasingly recognized as crucial for achieving more sustainable patterns of consumption and fulfilling our rights as consumers and owners of artifacts. The first section of this presentation aims introduce and examine the notion of artifact metabolism (Evnine 2016; Young 2024) by exploring how objects serve as sites through which materials flow in the form of spare or replacement parts and consumables such as lubricants or paint. As perhaps the most pervasive activity performed under the guise of maintenance and repair, the replacement of materials and parts encourages us to reflect, not only on the complex and heterogenous temporalities of the objects which surround us, but also on the wider context in which they exist. Insofar as the replacement of parts demands interchangeability and standardization, artifact metabolism is itself often a hard-won achievement requiring the coordination of various actors. Yet far from being a mere ‘feature’ – metabolisms are deeply connected to the achievement that technologies themselves often represent. Many of the most celebrated aspects of modern technology, from the reliability of aircraft engines to the longevity and structural integrity of engineered structures – depend crucially on processes through which parts and materials come to be replaced over time. At the same time however, the metabolic natures of artifacts are not fixed2 and neither do they remain uncontested. The second section of this presentation aims to examine how the metabolism of artifacts may be negotiated between different actors by exploring the case study of the iphone. We’ll begin by reviewing attempts by Apple to constrain the metabolism of the phone, by restricting the accessibility of OEM parts and creating barriers to replacement through initiatives such as software pairing or designing phones in ways which discourage user repairs. Then we’ll look at how these initiatives are balanced by attempts to facilitate the metabolism of the device by a range of other actors, including third party parts manufacturers in China and right to repair activists who disseminate the knowledge and equipment required for the replacement of parts and consumables. As I’ll argue, this unique ecology of repair helps to determine the complex temporality of the iphone – a device which serves as a site through which a wide range of parts and materials flow.

• Røyneland, Unn & Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim (2025). Creativity and norms at play in social media. Full text in Research Archive
• Lamers, Han & Hal, Toon van (2025). Middle Greek Proverbs in Seventeenth-Century France: 90 New Proverbs of Hermodorus Rhegius Found in Orléans. Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina (2025). Eva Eriksson: Gunnar Asplund. Arkitekt i brytningstid 1909-1931. Arkitektur : byggnad, interiör, plan, landskap. ISSN 0004-2021. 2025(3). Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina (2025). Institutions and the governing of public space – the changing policies of architecture museums in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Full text in Research Archive
• Pech, Christina (2025). Session Chair: Environment and its disciplinary crossroads: New approaches to an old challenge. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2025). Global testimonial pessimism and the division of epistemic labour. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2025). Miscommunication and the limits of testimonial knowledge. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2025). Testimonial Pessimism. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Phillips, Kim Pedersen (2025). Science Miscommunication. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Phillips, Kim Pedersen (2025). Science Miscommunication. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary & Phillips, Kim Pedersen (2025). Science Miscommunication. Full text in Research Archive
• Pollock, Joanna Katharine Mary (2025). Science Miscommunication. Full text in Research Archive
• Aasgaard, Reidar (2025). Markusevangeliet. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven). doi: https:/snl.no/Markusevangeliet. Full text in Research Archive
• Krogvig, Ingvild; Sandvik, Frode; Kroneberg, Else-Brit & Leknes, Tor-Martin (2025). Samlingens rolle i museenes utstillingsvirksomhet. doi: https:/www.nasjonalmuseet.no/utstillinger-og-arrangementer/nasjonalmuseet/arrangementer/2025/1/samling-til-besvar/. Full text in Research Archive
• Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). LLMs: Illusions of meaningfulness. Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). Hvordan kommuniserer vi med maskiner? Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius & Allott, Nicholas Elwyn (2025). How do we communicate with chatbots? Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius & Allott, Nicholas Elwyn (2025). Hvordan kommuniserer vi med språkmodeller? Full text in Research Archive
• Ronderos, Camilo Rodriguez; Mathisen, Emma Krane; Noveck, Ira & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). The development of understanding maximum standard absolute adjectives: evidence for pragmatic tolerance. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Ikke velg bort naturen. Fjell og vidde. ISSN 0332-8775. p. 66–68. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre & Hverven, Sigurd (2025). Den ville filosofen. Holmes Rolston (1932–2025). Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Vill i en tam verden. Harvest Magazine. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Arne Næss og økosofien – et omriss. Filosofisk supplement. ISSN 0809-8220. 21(1), p. 58–66. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Enden er nær, enden har vært. Salongen – nettidsskrift for filosofi og idéhistorie. ISSN 2703-7053. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). I det ville er verdens frelse. Forfatternes Klimaaksjon §112 Nettside.. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). En kropp er intet hjem. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. 135(6), p. 10–18. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Vern om ditt unike sted. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Tause tall, verdifulle varslere. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Norge i dødt, slitt og grått. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Rovdyr i litteratur og kultur. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Et umulig ulveliv. Samtiden. ISSN 0036-3928. 134(1), p. 42–51. Full text in Research Archive
• Brennhagen, Sindre (2025). Anmeldelse av Ole Jacob Madsens «Helsestasjonismen og andre essays» (2024). Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0029-1943. 60(3-4), p. 185–195. doi: 10.18261/nft.60.3-4.10. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandvik, Frode & Campé, Sid (2025). Je suis Strandamaler. In Surlapierre, Nicolas; Toudoire-Surlapierre, Frédérique & Ballotti, Alessandra (Ed.), Alt Går Bra. Un adage pour l'art contemporain. Silvana Editoriale. ISSN 9788836662333. p. 114–143. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Alt Går Bra / Tout Va Bien is the name of the artist collective formed by Agnes Nedregård and Branko Boero Imwinkelried — a name that resonates above all as a maxim for contemporary art. This monograph celebrates ten years of their artistic practice in France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Edited by Nicolas Surlapierre, Frédérique Toudoire-Surlapierre and Alessandra Ballotti, with a preface by Jacques Rancière, it brings together contributions from distinguished voices including Geir Haraldseth, Karen Pinkus, Frode Sandvik and Hanne Hammer Stien. Contents Preface : A Popular Art Form? Jacques Rancière 1. ACANTHUS We Are All Acanthus Alessandra Ballotti, Nicolas Surlapierre, Frédérique Toudoire-Surlapierre 2. FERALOCENE Institutional Critique from a Feral Point of View Hanne Hammer Stien 3. STRANDAMALERNE Je suis Strandamaler Frode Sandvik 4. DEN NORSKE IDEALSTATEN Internalizing the Social Democratic State: On the Work of Alt Går Bra Geir Haraldseth 5. MIMEOGRAPH Free Expression? The Mimeograph Work of Alt Går Bra Karen Pinkus 6. TRIUMF Triumphs of the Goal-Art Alessandra Ballotti, Frédérique Toudoire-Surlapierre Exhibitions

• Paulsen, Gard (2025). Pål Nygaard, Knut Grove og Håvard Brede Aven: Teknologibyggerne: SINTEF 1950–2025. Historisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0018-263X. 104(3), p. 315–315. doi: 10.18261/ht.104.3.9. Full text in Research Archive
• Grasskamp, Anna (2025). Material (Dis)connections, Art, and Creative Reuse. In Grasskamp, Anna (Eds.), (Re)made in China: Material (Dis)connections, Art, and Creative Reuse. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783111331522. p. 1–20. doi: 10.1515/9783111331522-001. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This introduction discusses the eleven contributions to the edited volume (Re)made in China Material (Dis)connections, Art, and Creative Reuse in relation to developments in contemporary global history, discusses terminological issues, relevant scholarship, and historical examples of creative reuse and recycling of material culture from China in a global context. By considering how the meanings and values attributed to objects and raw materials change through practices of creative reuse, it provides news ways of writing the histories of art and material culture made in China through the lens of (dis)connectivity and with a focus on remaking and resources rather than authorship, authenticity, origin, or originality. The volume thereby contributes to the rapidly growing field of ecocritical perspectives on art made in China.

• Myking, Synnøve Midtbø & Fenn, Taran Palmstrøm (2025). Med historia mellom hendene - Det norske institutt i Roma. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Mikaela og Taran kombinerer det tradisjonsrike FIDEM-kurset i mellomalderhandskrift med forskingsopphald ved Det norske instituttet (DNIR).

• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). Emojis at the semantic-pragmatic interface. Full text in Research Archive
• Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). Children (chatbots) and non-literal uses of language. Full text in Research Archive
• Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). LLMs, intentions, illusions and bullshit. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Some people are deluded about LLMs in that they think they are sentient, and have mental states like beliefs and intentions, but most of us probably aren’t and don’t. But this raises questions about how we understand their ‘utterances’ and how we learn from them, since leading accounts of utterance interpretation are intentionalist (Grice 1957; Green 2007). We suggest that people are subject to an illusion that LLMs text productions are meaningful. A recent paper (Hicks et al., 2024) has suggested that the ‘utterances’ of LLMs are bullshit in Harry Frankfurt’s sense since the LLMs are indifferent to their truth value. On a Frankfurtian process view, a machine with no intentions cannot be a bullshitter, for two reasons that we explain, while on a product view (Cohen 2002) only some LLM productions are bullshit. We argue that our illusion account has the benefits of Hicks et al’s bullshit view while avoiding these difficulties.

• Allott, Nicholas Elwyn & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). LLMs: Intentions, illusion and bullshit. Full text in Research Archive
• Barton, Neil Alexander (2025). Tim Button, Level Theory, Parts 1-3. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. ISSN 1079-8986. 31(4), p. 689–689. doi: 10.1017/bsl.2024.58. Full text in Research Archive
• Lawler, Insa; Dellsén, Finnur & Norton, James (2025). Progress and disagreement in philosophy: A brief introduction. In Joachim, Horvath,; Steffen, Koch, & Michael, Titelbaum, (Ed.), Methods in Analytic Philosophy: A Primer and Guide. PhilPapers. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Guide with brief introductions on methods in analytic philosophy by experts on the relevant topics. With sections on: formal methods, argumentation, inferential methods, thought experiments, intuition, ordinary language philosophy, conceptual analysis, conceptual engineering, naturalism, analytic feminism, experimental philosophy, and progress and disagreement in philosophy.

• Evju, Håkon (2025). Giving Republican Counsel to an Absolutist King: Peter Collet’s Translation of Francis Bacon’s Essays in 1790s Denmark. Full text in Research Archive
• Pedaprolu, Harish Surya Prakash (2026). Questions in Conflict: On the Role of Attention in Inquiry and Communication. University of Oslo (UiO). Full text in Research Archive
• Smajdor, Anna & Berglen, Benjamin (2026). How should embryo research be regulated in a pluralistic society? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  My project explores how embryo research should be regulated in a pluralistic society. I use Tim Scanlon’s contractualism for this purpose and as the main theory throughout the thesis. I explore several avenues in order to reach my conclusion. The first avenue I analyse is Mary Warnock’s report on embryology. The second avenue I explore is a consequentialist one. Then, I discuss arguments against research on human embryos. I argue that these arguments are subject to reasonable rejection and thus fail. In chapter six, I argue that one of the limits of scientific autonomy and one of the restraints that ought to be imposed on embryo research is that a trustee should be appointed for human embryos. Additionally, I outline an argument for research that is not grounded in consequentialism. I argue that research on human embryos is morally permissible. I discuss two arguments for this. The first is grounded in the idea that research ought to be autonomous. This implies, among other things, that what scientists research should be determined by scientists themselves. There are limits to this, which I discuss in chapters four and six.

• Väliaho., Pasi & Heberling., Ruth Helene (2026). Alt er Skrik. Reproduksjon - Fra kopi til kreasjon. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette essayet utforsker hvordan reproduserende praksiser fungerer forlengende av kunstverk og bidrar til deres fortsatte eksistens i visuell kultur. I stedet for å behandle reproduksjoner som sekundære kopier undersøker studien hvordan de genererer nye betydninger, funksjoner og former for kulturell verdi over tid. Det sentrale forskningsspørsmålet spør hvordan reproduksjon forlenger et kunstverks liv, og hvordan denne prosessen endrer kunstverkets funksjon og betydning gjennom ulike stadier av reproduksjon. Essayet foreslår en livssyklusmodell for reproduksjon som sporer hvordan kunstverket beveger seg gjennom suksessive stadier av repetisjon, sirkulasjon, nytolkning, kommersiell bruk og digital spredning. Denne modellen baseres på Edvard Munchs Skrik, som fungerer som primær casestudie for undersøkelse av hvordan kunstverk utvikler seg utover sin opprinnelige materielle form gjennom kunstnerisk, kulturell og teknologisk reproduksjon. Med utgangspunkt i perspektiver fra kunsthistorie, visuelle kulturstudier og medieteori, særlig Walter Benjamin, argumenterer essayet for at reproduksjon bør forstås som en generativ prosess snarere enn en trussel mot det originale kunstverket. Reproduksjon bevarer ikke bare kunstverket; den er aktiv i å forme dets kulturelle betydning og gjør det i stand til å vedvare, tilpasse seg og fornyes på tvers av varierende historiske og visuelle kontekster.

• Falkeid, Unn & Grimnes, Ellisiv Røvik (2026). En emosjonshistorisk analyse av Anna Grostøls tekst «Heime-Yrke». Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven er en emosjonshistorisk undersøkelse av lærebokkapittelet «Heime-yrke», forfattet av folkelivsgransker og lærer Anna Grostøl (1894-1962). Teksten beskriver den utdøende tekstiltradisjonen heime-yrke som ble praktisert i naturalhusholdet. Den er skrevet for det utgåtte faget Heimstadlære og er rettet mot elever i Vest-Agder under etterkrigstidens ressursmangel. Gjennom nærlesning undersøkes det hvordan beskrivelser av håndverkspraksiser flettes sammen med emosjoner, mer spesifikt trygghet og gilde følelser. Grostøl bruker et emosjonelt språk for å fremstille og løfte opp et emosjonelt fellesskap mellom fortidens heime-yrke-utøvere. Dette forsøker hun å innlemme de unge leserne i, og slik skaper hun et delt emosjonelt fellesskap på tvers av tid. Gjennom analysen vil jeg lese fram hvordan Grostøl forsøker å videreføre tekstiltradisjonen på to måter: Å inspirere og oppfordre til framtidig praksis, og å fortelle en gild fortidsfortelling som søker å bevare og bygge lokal identitet.

• Blom, Ina & Linnerud, Anne F. (2026). Romlige overganger: Terskler og liminale soner i Nasjonale turistveger. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Terskler og romlige overganger omgir oss, og vi beveger oss inn og ut av liminale soner mange ganger daglig. En terskel er ikke kun en tradisjonell døråpning, men representerer en overgang og en transformasjon. Terskelen utgjør en egen sone med egen atmosfære og romlige kvaliteter. Terskelen både stenger og åpner. Den deler opp rom, men gjennom åpningen vil det også oppstå en sammenblanding av de to rommene, slik at det blir en utveksling av de to rommenes atmosfærer. Terskelens tydelige dobbelthet i både å åpne og lukke, både ta deg inn i noe nytt og forlate det du er i, både en fortid og en framtid, gir terskelen mange lag av mulig transformasjon. Terskelen, som begrep, omfatter både en fysisk overgang og er et metaforisk begrep som brukes i mange sammenhenger og innenfor mange ulike fagfelt. Terskelen har derfor betydning utover den rent konstruktive, som den utgjør i en bygning. I denne oppgaven har jeg vurdert tre ulike kategorier utsiktspunkter i Nasjonale turistveger og undersøkt hvordan de ligger som en liminal sone i overgangen mellom vei og natur. Oppgavens intensjon var å se på hvordan utsiktspunktene danner terskler og overganger og hvordan de er med på å mediere naturen gjennom sin fortolkning av stedet. Oppgavens teoretiske utgangspunkt er hentet fra begrepene liminalitet og atmosfære, og ligger til grunn for analysene sammen med arkitektonisk teori om terskel og romlige overganger. Alle utsiktspunktene ligger i overgangen mellom vei og natur, og tilrettelegger for å se på stedet gjennom konstruksjonenes liminale egenskaper. Selv de mest varsomme utsiktspunktene medierer på sin måte de stedsspesifikke egenskapene og tilbyr en fortolkning gjennom det tilførte elementet. Konstruksjonene tar de besøkende gjennom et forløp av rom som samlet etablerer et mellomrom og en atmosfærisk erfaring. Fortolkning av stedet eller stedets kvaliteter er en mediering av landskapet sett gjennom den arkitektoniske konstruksjonen, som skaper den liminale sonen. Utsiktpunktene ble delt opp i 3 ulike kategorier, bilde, passasje og vandringssone, ut ifra hvordan de liminale sonene var utformet og hvilke egenskaper de representerte i forhold til hvordan konstruksjonen opptrådte i dialog med sine omgivelser. I denne oppgaven er terskler og liminalitet knyttet til romlige konstruksjoner som ikke har samme type overganger som tradisjonelle arkitektoniske rom. Utsiktspunktenes liminale soner må i større grad sees i sammenheng med de naturgitte omgivelsene som konstruksjonen er en del av. Samspillet mellom konstruksjon og natur er i mange av prosjektene det som skaper de liminale overgangene. Relasjonen blir derfor et møtepunkt mellom menneske, arkitektur og natur.

• Sjåstad, Øystein & Jarli, Christine Anett (2026). Moderne blikk Asta Nørregaards kvinneportretter. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sammendrag I denne studien argumenteres det for at Asta Nørregaards vedvarende orientering mot portrettsjangeren må forstås som et bevisst kunstnerisk valg, ikke som et uttrykk for svekket kunstnerisk ambisjon eller ensidig markedsmessig tilpasning, slik det til dels er blitt antydet i tidligere forskning. Allerede tidlig i hennes virke, som i altertavlen i Gjøvik kirke, kommer en markert interesse for kvinneskikkelser til syne. Dette leser jeg som et tidlig uttrykk for et sterkt engasjement for kvinnen. Oppgaven søker å fremheve andre, mindre utforskede sider ved Nørregaards praksis. Portrettene kan forstås som politiske arenaer, der kunstneren deltar i samtidens moralske og kjønnspolitiske diskurser og signaliserer solidaritet med kvinnesaken gjennom nøye avstemte visuelle markører som positur, blikk og drakt. Erfaringene fra Paris skjerpet hennes forståelse av mote som et sosialt kodet og kulturelt lesbart formspråk, noe hun konsekvent integrerte i portrettpraksisen. Klær og fremtoning brukes til å formulere ulike former for kvinnelighet og til å plassere modellene som aktører i en moderne urban offentlighet, snarere enn som figurer begrenset til et privat, borgerlig interiør. Portrettene fremstår dermed som steder der kvinnelig identitet ikke bare fremstilles, men også bearbeides og forhandles. Gjennom iscenesettelsen av kropp, drakt og blikk undersøker Nørregaard hvordan kvinner manøvrerer innenfor, men også utfordrer, samtidens forestillinger om femininitet. Slik åpner portrettene for en lesning der de ikke bare dokumenterer borgerskapets estetiske idealer, men også synliggjør spenningene knyttet til kvinners handlingsrom i det moderne samfunn.  

• Fremmerlid., Anny & Judson., Anne-Marie (2026). Øyet uten ansikt. En kunsthistorisk og fenomenologisk undersøkelse av øyemotivet i Kjell Torrisets 836 øyne. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette mastergradsessayet undersøker det løsrevne øyemotivet i Kjell Torrisets 836 øyne (1997-1998), som kan besøkes på Universitetsbiblioteket i Georg Sverdrups hus. Oppgaven redegjør for øyemotivet gjennom et historisk løp, med nærlesning, formalanalyse og en komparativ analyse i lys av Sandro Kopps serie Eye Portraits (2017–2019) og en øyeminiatyr av Auguste Amalia (1823). Med utgangspunkt i Hanneke Grootenboers begrep «intimate vision» og Maurice Merleau-Pontys fenomenologi analyseres hvordan kunstnerens intensjon, historisk kontekst, materialitet og utstillingspraksis påvirker betydningen og uttrykket til øyemotivet. Essayet konkluderer med at øyemotivet kan fungere som et uttrykk for en sameksistens av intimitet og anonymitet: det kan være en inngang til personlighet og nærvær som aktiverer betrakterens indre liv. Øyet forstås dermed ikke bare som et symbolsk ladet motiv eller som et rent optisk organ, men som en inngang til en fenomenologisk ontologi – et sted hvor både kunstnere og betraktere ser og blir sett, og gjennom dette erfarer sin egen tilstedeværelse i verden.

• Johnsen, Espen & Lie, Magnus Sigurd (2026). Arnstein Arneberg og Magnus Poulssons sommerhus på Nesøya. En undersøkelse med fokus på bygningslovens påvirkning på den arkitektoniske prosessen. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Sammendrag og filene vil publiseres: 2027-06-15

• Falkeid., Unn & Solheim., Andreas (2026). «Skjønner du at bilen fungerer på samme måte som et borgerlig kunstverk?». Nye veier i forholdet mellom kunst og virkelighet i Profil 1968–1969. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I perioden 1968 og 1969 eksisterte det et helt særegent prosjekt i det norske litterære tidsskriftet Profil. Redaksjonen forsøkte å føre en sosialistisk revolusjon ved å formidle en radikal, avantgarde kunst- og litteraturforståelse. De ønsket å endre samfunnet gjennom å endre massens syn på kulturen. Slutten av 1960-tallet var en periode med store omveltninger i samfunnet, både politisk, kulturelt og intellektuelt. Tidsskriftet Profil, som holdt til på Universitetet i Oslo, tok inspirasjon fra globale revolusjonære idéstrømninger, og ønsket å anvende dem på norske forhold. I denne oppgaven forsøker jeg å sammenfatte hva Profils kunstsyn bestod i, og hvordan det uttrykkes i tidsskriftets utgaver i perioden. Jeg tar for meg tre sentrale aspekter ved kunsten. Kapittel 1 ser på kunstens tilblivelse, med særlig vekt på et ideal om kollektiv skapelse. Kapittel 2 undersøker Profils formsyn, og trekker frem brudd med tradisjonelle kunstformer, syn på massemedier og språklig maktutøvelse. Kapittel 3 tar for seg kunstens funksjon som revolusjonært medium for bevisstgjøring av massene og deres materielle forhold. Slik viser denne oppgaven hvordan Profil i perioden 1968–1969 skapte et helt nytt radikalt prosjekt innenfor norsk litteraturhistorie.

• Vetlesen, Arne Johan & Gjuvsland, Marte Ruhlin (2026). Tyveriet av naturens generative logikk. En genealogi over fornektelsen av tilblivelse, forandring og det kjønnede, lest gjennom Teresa Brennan. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sammendrag Den vestlige filosofien har avvist tilblivelse og forandring, og psyken har fornektet forbindelsen til det som bærer fram liv. Disse to er ikke beslektede historier, men én og samme handling sett fra to kanter. Lest gjennom Teresa Brennan rammer denne doble fornektelsen både naturen og kvinnen. Naturen får ikke være en frambringelse, men gjøres til materie for et formgivende prin-sipp utenfor seg, og kvinnen rammes av samme struktur og blir det formløse og mottakende. Det er ett nedslag på to steder. Den grunnleggende fantasien er forestillingen om at subjektet er opphav til sitt eget liv, med verden som noe som er til for å tjene det. Den er verken en idé eller en samfunnsstruktur løsrevet fra subjektet, men et energetisk arbeid som tar form både i den enkelte psyken og i de varene, byene og tidsstrukturene den stivner til. Psyken reiser et første fastpunkt over et tap, tapet av for-bindelsen til det vi er kommet av og lever av, og morskroppen svarer her til den levende naturen. Brennans egen ramme forutsetter en lengre historie enn hun selv fører gjennom, om hvordan strukturen fikk filosofisk form før moderniteten gjorde den til vitenskap. Det er den historien oppgaven tar opp. Historien lar seg lese som en genealogi. Parmenides avviste tilblivelsen, Platon nedvurderte den, og Aristoteles' forsøk på å redde den bar Platons omvending i seg. Mekanismen ga formen materiell skikkelse. De tre retningene hviler på samme grunn, og den platonske tradisjonen er ikke fantasiens opphav, men stedet der dens vestlige trekk fikk et filosofisk språk fast nok til å vare. Slik ble den grunnlaget for det Brennan kaller det innkapslede subjektet og egoets tidsalder. Nedvurderingen viser seg til sist å være mer enn en nedvurdering. Den er en tilegnelse, der subjektet tar den frambringende kraften fra dem som bærer den, og setter seg selv i opphavets sted. Tyven etterligner det han har stjålet fra, og samtidens forsøk på å gi naturen en innside til-bake, panpsykismen og den nymaterialistiske vendingen, vekker fysis som bilde og ikke den frambringende grunnen selv, fordi de gir naturen et selv støpt etter subjektets eget mønster. Til slutt vender det fortrengte tilbake. Sammenbruddet i det innkapslede subjektet er ikke at virkelig-heten rakner, men øyeblikket der forseglingen viser seg som forsegling, og forbindelsen melder seg igjen.

• Rørvik, Thor Inge & Flydal, Sofie Kristine (2026). «Giv mig Noget at tage mig for». Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne masteroppgaven gir en idéhistorisk nærlesning av Marie Colbans (1814-1884) fortelling Jeg lever (1877). Oppgaven undersøker hvilke syn på kvinners rolle i ekteskapet og kvinners ønsker om et selvstendig arbeid og frie livsvalg som presenteres gjennom bokens kvinnelige karakterer. For å belyse tematikken kontekstualiseres verket ved å se på kvinners stilling i Norge på 1800-tallet, med fokus på embetsstanden og det intellektuelle miljøet som forfatterinnen var en del av. Gjennom lesningen ser jeg på hvordan Marie Colban bruker de litterære karakterene til å fremme kvinners behov for å drive med et selvstendig arbeid.

• Baier, Simon & Velletri, Stella Maria (2026). Tight Knit. The importance of textile art made by groups in Norwegian art History. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This essay will explore textile art’s development in Oslo in the past fifty year, through the practice of artists working in groups. The two groups this research is centered around are Tekstilgruppa and Løvaas & Wagle, who both worked before the turn of the century. The goal is to show how crucial collaborative work has been to the development of textile art in Oslo. This essay will mostly touch on the groups’ practices up to the early 2000s and show their influence. Finally, a smaller section will be dedicated to more contemporary collaborative textile projects that are happening on national and international bases.

• Baier, Simon & Mørken, Malin Ljone (2026). Function, Commodity, and the Woman Object: Nicola L. On canonization, recognition, and institutional gender bias. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Through public, institutional, and systematic oppression, women have been disregarded throughout centuries within art and often been completely ignored in art history, making it near impossible for them to enter art historical canons and being properly categorized. By looking at the career, practice, and life of Nicola L., as well as a large part of her body of works, this essay further looks into the causes and results of this common disregard. Using writings by feminist art historians Lucy Lippard and Linda Nochlin, this essay will utilize their texts and theories in order look closely at how women artists have been treated, gone unnoticed, and often been underrecognized. Looking at different movements and phenomenons in art, as well as defining canonization, the impact of activism, and other topics of relevance, it will become clear that there were many different factors at play leading to Nicola L., as so many other women artists before and after her, not getting the recognition she deserved.

• Sjåstad, Øystein & Tømmeraas, Andrea Kanutte (2026). Mellom det klassisistiske og det medievaliske. En analyse av forholdet mellom kunst og politikk i Wilhelm Rasmussens skulpturer 1926-1944. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette mastergradsessayet undersøker fire verk av den norske billedhuggeren Wilhelm Rasmussen: «Fra Hafrsfjord til Eidsvoll» (1926-1992), utkast til triumfbue på Egertorget (1933), «Vidkun Quisling» (1942) og «NS-monumentet» (1944). Essayet tar utgangspunkt i følgende problemstilling: hvordan brukes klassisisisme i Wilhelm Rasmussens skulpturer fra 1926 til 1944? Jeg forsøker å svare på problemstillingen ved hjelp av en kontekstanalyse med utgangspunkt i Rasmussens samtid og kunsthistoriske forbilder, samt teorier om nasjonalkunst, etnoklassisisme og minnesteder. Klassisismen i Rasmussens kunstnerskap kan ses som en retorisk komponent i en eklektisk stilistisk sammensmelting av ulike stiler, hovedsakelig klassisisme og medievalisme.

• Baier, Simon & Petersen, Kaja Sofie Rindal (2026). Kontinuitet eller brudd? En undersøkelse av rekurateringen av Picassoverkene fra Y-blokka. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Sammendrag og filene vil publiseres: 2027-06-15

• Aaby, Bendik Hellem & Khaled, Lasarus (2026). The Universality of Disease: A Process Ontological Approach. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Abstract will be published: 2031-06-15

• Baier, Simon & Grétudóttir, Kari Ósk (2026). Dieter Roth and the Immediate Environment. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Abstract will be published: 2031-06-15

• Evju., Håkon & Hørnes., Magnus Knarvik (2026). Writing Mission. Christian Protten and the Rhetoric of Moravian Mission. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis examines the rhetorical strategies in the mission diary of the Euro-African Moravian Christian Protten (1715–1769). Whereas previous studies have largely used the diary as a source on 18th-century West Africa, this study argues that its primary purpose was to influence the leadership of the Moravian Church. Composed after Protten’s banishment from the community, the diary sought both to negotiate his readmission into the Church and to secure support for a mission to West Africa. Chapter 1 analyses how Protten fashioned himself as a pious Christian through emotional introspection. Chapter 2 investigates how he performed belonging to the Moravian Church by enacting its rituals and aligning himself with its emotional norms. Chapter 3 examines how his ethnographic depictions of West Africans challenged growing Moravian pessimism toward African missions by portraying Africans as culturally intelligible and malleable. By analysing the diary as a rhetorical intervention, the study highlights the role of writing in shaping missionary projects and contributes to broader discussions of lay authority, community, and constructions of cultural difference within the 18th-century Moravian Church.

• Baier, Simon & Solem, Margrethe Stenberg (2026). Verden består. Økosentrisme i Gunvor Nervold Antonsens relieffserie Fødselen (2025-26). Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Sammendrag og filene vil publiseres: 2027-06-15

• Larsen, Bente & Skalstad, Stine (2026). Det kreative selvet som motstand. Feministisk somaestetikk, kroppslig frihet og kritisk praksis. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Oppgaven er en teoretisk studie som tar utgangspunkt i et grunnleggende spørsmål: Kan vi være frie som kropper, og ikke bare til tross for at vi er kroppslige? Med forankring i Richard Shustermans somaestetikk undersøkes forholdet mellom kropp, frihet og feminisme, og hvordan kroppslig selvforming kan tenkes som del av et kritisk frigjøringsprosjekt heller enn som individuell selvoptimering. Problemstillingen som leder analysen er: I hvilken grad og på hvilke måter kan somaestetikken forstås som kritisk praksis innen en feministisk ramme, og hvilke implikasjoner har dette for begrepet kroppslig frihet? Teoretisk er oppgaven basert i estetisk og feministisk teori og bygger på en nærlesning av Simone de Beauvoir, Richard Shusterman, Michel Foucault og Judith Butler, med vekt på kroppens betydning i menneskets liv. Beauvoir gir et grunnlag gjennom analysen av kvinnens kropp som «situasjon» og hennes frihetstenkning. Shustermans somaestetikk behandles deretter som et samtidsfilosofisk bidrag som gjør soma til medium for erfaring, selvforming og handling. Foucaults eksistensestetikk og Butlers teori om materialisering og performativitet brukes videre som kritisk linse for å knytte somaestetikk til makt og kjønn. Oppgaven viser for det første at Beauvoirs frihetstenkning rommer en spenning der kroppen både er forutsetning og hinder for frihet. Dette skaper en anspent relasjon mellom kvinnen og hennes kropp og et motsetningsforhold mellom kropp og frihet, slik at frihet ofte forestilles som distanse fra kroppen. For det andre argumenterer oppgaven for at somaestetikk gir et alternativ ved å forstå kroppslig selvkultivering som mulig del av kvinners frigjøringsprosjekter. For det tredje kommer det frem at analysen av Foucault og Butler gjør det mulig å lese somaestetikken videre inn i et motstandsarbeid der kjønnede kropper står i sentrum. På dette grunnlaget foreslås en feministisk somaestetikk som kritisk og kreativ praksis, der frihet begrepsliggjøres som en somatisk og relasjonell form for motstand, hvor kroppsliggjorte subjekter forsøker å utvide sitt handlingsrom innenfor og mot normaliserende maktformer.

• Vikesdal, Sara Kasin; Mørch, Hedda Hassel & Sjøtveit, Vilde Rødsand (2026). A Problem of Temporal Phenomenology for Integrated Information Theory. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Abstract and files will be published: 2027-06-15

• Väliaho, Pasi & Jansen, Jonathan Myran (2026). Visualizing Ocean Space: Mediating Surface and Seafloor Circa 1960. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis examines the role of images and visuality in the historical production of ocean space. Focusing on the immediate period after World War II, it explores how the seafloor emerged as a space of extraction, governance and territoriality within a capitalist political economy increasingly oriented toward the prospect of offshore resource extraction. Although the seabed was imagined to be a seemingly limitless repository of natural riches, such extractive prospects conflicted sharply with the historical principle of “free seas”, which had situated the oceans largely outside the reach of terrestrial forms of appropriation. By combining perspectives from theories of the image, visuality and geography, the thesis weaves together modern ocean-histories in order to examine how the political economy of capitalism rearticulated the ocean as a space of extraction, sovereignty, and territoriality in the decades after World War II. Drawing on Nicholas Mirzoeff’s concept of “visuality”, it proposes that this transformation cannot be understood solely in material or politico-economic terms, but rather that it must be situated within a broader framework of images, knowledge, and imagination, through which certain spatial imaginaries are rendered visible.

• Vikesdal, Sara Kasin & Rosén, Jon Axel (2026). Toward a Conceptual Framework of The Disordered Mind. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  --- Abstract will be published: 2029-06-15

• Grøgaard, Åsne Dorthea & Öksüz, Şükrü (2026). FROM ALIENATION TO UPROOTEDNESS. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE DIFFERENT, BUT RELATED, ANALYSES OF MARX AND WEIL OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MODERN WORKER? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis examines labor conditions of the modern worker through a comparative analysis of the philosophies of Karl Marx and Simone Weil. Both philosophers discuss the suffering of workers as one of the central problems of modern industrial society and its division of labor. Having said that, they offer different explanations and concepts for analyzing this problem. Marx explains the modern worker’s conditions through the concept of alienation and argues that in the modern industry, workers become separated from the product of their labor, the labor process, other human beings, and their species being as a result of capitalist relations of production. Weil, while accepting many aspects of Marx’s analysis and the importance of material conditions, argues that alienation is a necessary, but insufficient concept to have a full grasp of the worker’s conditions. She therefore develops the concept of déracinement (uprootedness), which encompasses not only the economic dimension, but also the spiritual, cultural, temporal, and existential dimensions of human beings. In this way, I try to find answers to the question of what we can learn from the different, but related, analyses of Marx and Weil of the sufferings of the modern worker, and argue that Weil’s concept of uprootedness extends Marx’s concept of alienation by addressing dimensions of human beings that cannot be reduced to economic and material conditions alone.

• Dimas, Panos & Vestervik, Mathias (2026). Symbolic Conditioning. Narrative, Affect, and the Limits of Argument in Plato. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Shah., Feroz Mehmood & Rødstøl., Hanna (2026). Should I kill myself or have a cup coffee? An exploration on what embracing the absurd entails. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The title of this thesis, Should i kill myself or have a cup of coffee?, encapsulates the central existential dilemma of Albert Camus’ philosophy. This thesis explores how individuals navigate the tension between our human desire for meaning in an indifferent universe. I challenge conventional philosophical and societal responses, arguing that these are ultimately a form of evasion that alienate us from reality. Through an analysis that pairs Camus' literary works with philosophers like Dostoevsky and Sartre, I articulate a practical framework for the absurd condition. I propose that the antidote to meaninglessness is not a fabricated ideology, but rather a profound commitment to “micro meanings”, the small things in life. By rejecting the rigged game of demanding ultimate justifications, we are free to find value in earthly experiences.

• Vetlesen, Professor Arne Johan & Asp, Lene Anette (2026). Hovedtittel: Den idealiserte universalismen i Seyla Benhabibs kosmopolitisme Undertittel: en ontologisk analyse. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sammendrag I denne oppgaven har jeg gjort en ontologisk analyse av Seyla Benhabibs ‘Et annet verdensborgerskap’ med hovedfokus på hennes kjernebegreper: demokratiske iterasjoner og kosmopolitiske normer. Jeg har forsvart at hennes konkrete universalisme og inkluderingen av den konkrete andre i samtalen om det moralske, ikke innebærer relativisme, men snarere er et uttrykk for kompleksiteten i møtet mellom det universelle og det konkrete. Oppmerksomheten på de ‘rettighetsløse’, er uten tvil en viktig utfordring for alle som er opptatt av universelle rettigheter. Samtidig er splittelse og polarisering en tydelig trend og politisk bekymring i vår tid. Benhabibs konkrete universalisme baserer seg på en diskursiv eller kommunikativ rasjonalitet, hvor poenget er å inkludere den konkrete andre - den det angår og den som er berørt - i moralske, rettferdiggjørende samtaler. Benhabib legger dermed et stort ansvar på den offentlige sfære. Jeg har argumentert for at Benhabibs diskurs-etikk forutsetter en samlet offentlighet for å innfri som en forbedret utgave av universalismen. Faren for fragmentering og polarisering er en blindsone hos Benhabib, og denne faren er ekstra relevant i spørsmål om rettigheter for utsatte grupper, noe som nettopp er Benhabibs kjernesak fremfor noen. Benhabib tar den offentlige sfære for gitt, der hun burde stilt spørsmålstegn ved den. Benhabib synes å skissere en modell der vi alle er i en bevegelse fra et ‘tykk’ samfunnsstruktur med normer, bindinger, tradisjoner og kollektive normer, og over til et samfunn preget av kosmopolitiske normer, rettigheter og frihet, der disse implisitt presenteres som motpoler. Jeg har argumentert for at Benhabib undervurderer den ‘tykke’ samfunnsveven og den offentlige sfære, og i tillegg hvordan disse fenomenene henger sammen. Som en kontrast til Benhabib, har jeg redegjort for Nadim Khourys teoretisering over det som kan hindre en samlet offentlig samtale, og over en manglende felles offentlighet som er tilfelle noen steder. Hans tekster er tydelig situert i den ‘tykke’ israelsk-palestinske konflikten, og tar med det utgangspunkt i realiteten av splittede samfunn. Khoury tar faren for fragmentering og separate narrativer på alvor, og minner oss på at en samlet offentlighet, og samlende fortellinger ikke er naturgitt, men derimot noe som må arbeides frem. Khoury introduserer begreper som ‘kosmopolitisk minne’ og ‘post-nasjonalt minne’ i kontrast til internt samlende nasjonale narrativer. Jeg argumenterer for at Khourys ontologi kan anses å være et bidrag til en videreutvikling eller forbedring av Benhabibs konkrete universalisme. Det er nå lett å se at den utviklingen av kosmoplitiske normer som Benhabib forventet, ikke er innfridd. Derimot ser vi at nasjonalisme, populisme, religiøsitet og tradisjoner seiler opp, og mange rettighetskamper får stadig større motstand. Hvis vi lar Benhabib stå som representant for den brede optimismen som regjerte på 90- og 2000-tallet, og så spør hvorfor denne utviklingen nå går i retrett: Er det mulig at nettopp dette synet, at rettigheter og individualisme, implisitt eller eksplisitt, ble fremstilt som motpoler til kulturen, kan være en grunn? Er det ethnos, tilhørighet, og tradisjoner som slår tilbake? ‘Tykke’ ting som gir mening, trygghet, røtter og fellesskap? Hadde det vært mulig å tenke annerledes og mer syntetisk, at kampen for kosmopolitiske normer og rettigheter i stedet kunne tenkes integrert nennsomt og med respekt inn i kulturen? Dette er spørsmål jeg ikke har forsøkt å besvare, jeg har kun søkt å levere en analyse av Benhabibs Et annet verdensborgerskap.

• Crowther, Karen & Hanssen, Martin Elias Bergh (2026). Measuring operational coherence: A new framework for a fine-grained action-based analysis of science. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this thesis I argue that the notion of aim-oriented adjustment in Hasok Chang’s pragmatism is insufficient for the purpose of explaining what it is about an activity that makes it more operationally coherent than another. I present what I call the continuum collapse problem, which states that, without a way to assess the differences between activities, Chang’s conception of operational coherence as a matter of degrees is in danger of collapsing into a success/failure binary. In light of this, my goal is to fend off the continuum collapse problem by developing a framework that allows for the measurement of operational coherence. Drawing on examples from linguistics, sports, music, and animation, I argue that operational coherence can be measured based on the style with which operations are performed.

• Shah, Feroz Mehmood & Kåvik, Emma Karen (2026). Have you heard the good news? The Case for Deliberative Disagreement in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores the question of whether disagreement is, epistemically speaking, beneficial. John Stuart Mill’s account of disagreement in chapter two of On Liberty serves as the thesis’ starting point and throughline. Mill’s view entails that the benefits of disagreement are cashed out in deliberation. This is contrasted by other approaches to disagreement which focus on the realisation of disagreement itself. The first chapter of the thesis concludes that it is disagreement in the form of deliberation which can in fact lead to epistemic improvements. Chapter two considers various problems which would frustrate the beneficial potential of disagreement. Chapter three aims to show that the root of these problems is a breakdown of the relationship (broadly construed) between knowers and arguers. The thesis concludes by returning to the question of whether or not disagreement is on the whole beneficial.

• Shah, Feroz Mehmood & Maina, Fulvio (2026). The Ethics of Desire Care. Relational Flourishing and Careful Interventions. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Care ethics has long prioritised the satisfaction of human needs, yet in doing so its literature has largely neglected the concept of desire: a theoretical gap this project sets out to address. By bringing care ethics into dialogue with relational theories of desire, this project argues that such a synthesis produces a meaningful and original contribution to the field. The project's central theoretical contribution is the concept of desire intervention: Desire intervention is a caring practice aimed at changing a desire that harms the care receiver’s flourishing. This concept is developed at the intersection of two traditions. The care ethical dimension is grounded in the care-capability framework: a normative foundation developed by integrating the capability approach with Ruddick's goals of care, Warren's eco-feminist account of caring practices, and Randall's values of care. Together, these elements specify both when a desire harms flourishing and the necessary conditions for a practice to be genuinely caring. The theoretical account of desire itself is drawn from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's theory of desiring production, which furnishes a dynamic, relational, and situated understanding of how desire is constituted and transformed. This text shows how taking desire seriously can strengthen care ethical practice. Desire intervention does not introduce something external to care ethics; instead, it illuminates a dimension that was already there but underexamined and expands what care ethics can do in practice.

• Mancilla, Alejandra & Koster, Mark (2026). Our Inorganic Body. In Defense of Marxist Philosophy in Environmental Ethics. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In the paper On Marx as an Environmental Hero, Val Plumwood critiques Marx’s thought from the standpoint of environmental ethics, arguing that Marx’s thought is environmentally unethical. In this thesis, I argue that Plumwood’s critiques of Marx’s ethics do not hold. I distinguish, elaborate upon, and evaluate four arguments in Plumwood’s paper. I will analyze the arguments and compare them to a multitude of Marx’s early and late works, ranging from the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, to Capital Volume III. First I analyze the ‘critique of humanization,’ which states that in a Marxist perspective, man swallows up nature. Then, I analyze the critique of Marx’s Hegelian heritage, which states that Marx’s view ultimately assigns a god-like status to humanity over nature. After this I analyze the critique of Prometheanism within Marx’s conception of the transformation of nature and self-identification with nature. Finally, I analyze Plumwood’s critique of historical materialism, which states that historical materialism endorses the nature-dominance paradigm. I conclude that none of the arguments presented establish that Marx’s thought is environmentally unethical. In doing this, I hope to contribute to a broad reevaluation of Marxist theory within environmental philosophy that is pressing and necessary.

• Holst, Cathrine & Noonan, Kari Sogner (2026). The Limits of Deliberation. A Critical Analysis of Ethics Commissions and Philosophers in Democratic Decision-Making. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis identifies democratic concerns when utilising ethics commissions in governmental decision-making and reflects on how to handle these worries. It focuses especially on what role philosophers should have within such commissions. I analyse these commissions using deliberative democracy as a lens. In this democratic theory, the central value is how the public can discover, discuss and as such handle societal issues. There is a tension between ethics commissions and inclusive public debate. Commissions can both inform and encourage deliberation, but they can also insulate important value debates from the public sphere. The overarching worry when using these commissions in decision-making is that they give more weight to the opinions of expert members, meaning that other citizens do not have equal say in value questions which concern us all. To mitigate this, I set out how ethics commissions and philosophers can encourage rather than hinder public debate. I will also argue that ethics commissions can counteract this main democratic worry by focusing on listening to all types of viewpoints, however they may be expressed. This can serve the important purpose of making ethics commissions more democratic.

• Mjelva, Jørn Kløvfjell; Crowther, Karen & Wilson, Alastair (2026). Understanding Entanglement: A Realist Approach. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This dissertation comprises three self-standing papers investigating the metaphysics of quantum entanglement and its explanatory role in accounting for the non-classical correlations exhibited by entangled systems. It defends entanglement realism, the view that entanglement reflects a genuine metaphysical feature of systems in entangled states. While this position aligns with a scientific realist attitude towards entanglement, it has been argued to be undermined by entanglement swapping, particularly in delayed-choice and spacelike scenarios. This objection is addressed in the first two papers. The first (Ch. 2) analyses delayed-choice entanglement swapping in both a collapsebased and a no-collapse framework, arguing that a realist account remains viable. It also considers spacelike entanglement swapping, concluding that it only presents a problem for a collapse account. This problem is addressed in the second paper (Ch. 3), which develops a realist-friendly relativistic collapse account of entanglement swapping. The third paper (Ch. 4) addresses metaphysical concerns, specifically that entanglement realism challenges key elements of our intuitive worldview by implying some form of “holistic unity”. It proposes a novel approach to the link view on entanglement – a view which explicates entanglement in terms of physical relations rather than holistic unity – that addresses the main objections raised against the link view by developing it in a formalism based on the Heisenberg picture of quantum mechanics. Taken together, the dissertation advances a positive case for entanglement realism as a straightforwardly scientific realist view that accounts for quantum correlations – even in the entanglement swapping case – which can also be made compatible with key elements of our intuitive worldview.

• Berneri, Jacopo & Linnebo, Øystein (2026). Structured Properties and Propositions: Foundations and Applications. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Numerous philosophers are committed to fine-grained accounts of properties, propositions, and relations. One approach gaining traction in recent decades is the structuralist view, which claims that properties and propositions with distinct constituents are distinct. However, the Russell-Myhill paradox has been proposed as evidence that this view is inconsistent within higher-order logic. Based on the previous work of other philosophers, my article-based dissertation is dedicated to the conceptual foundation and mathematical implementation of a framework, called generativism, which aims to retain the structuralist view and counter the paradox in a well-motivated way. Generativism is grounded on the idea that structured entities are iteratively generated, thereby circumventing the paradox. According to this view, the universe of structured properties and propositions is never fully available, but continuously expands through a hierarchy of stages. The key aspect of my approach is advocating for a predicative turn in higher-order logic, suggesting that the quantifiers used when generating new entities should only range over entities available at each stage of the generative process. So, the main aim of my dissertation is to propose a more thoroughgoing study of predicativism in the context of structured properties and propositions. I develop and discuss two mathematical implementations of these ideas. One is historically well-known in the logical and philosophical literature on predicativity: it is Russell's ramified theory of types (abbreviated as RTT). The other is Boolos' stage theory, which has received significant attention in the philosophy of set theory, but its applicability for structured propositions has been seriously underestimated. RTT is often deemed clunky and not explanatory, so my preferred approach for giving formal precision to generativism is the stage theory. The reason is that it provides greater flexibility, enhanced clarity, stronger theoretical justification, and a more streamlined framework, by bypassing the complications tied to ramified types and the use of modal operators, which are typical of potentialist views.

• Holst, Cathrine (2026). Demokratisk impact: Model og forslag til videre undersøgelser. Københavns Universitet. Full text in Research Archive
• Andersson, Viktor Carl-Magnus (2026). Deep-sea conceptions in postwar Scandinavia 1947–1961. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Fjeldvig, Antonsen, Pål & Jaime, Maes, (2025). Fixation and Transmission An Attempt at Reconciling the Cognitive and Linguistic Foundations of Referentialism. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How do our thoughts and words continue to refer to the same things despite error, disagreement, and learning? This thesis argues that an adequate referentialist account must address two explanatory tasks: the fixation of reference in individual cognitive systems and its transmission across speakers in a linguistic community. To develop this claim, the thesis proposes two interpretative frameworks accounting respectively for either fixation or transmission. The Naturalistic Cognitive Account (NCA), inspired by Jerry Fodor, explains reference in terms of causal relations between mental representations and objects in the world. The Social Historical Account (SHA), drawing on Saul Kripke, grounds reference in naming practices and historical chains of transmission within a linguistic community. Although these approaches appear to compete - reference is better explained as either a cognitive or linguistic phenomenon - I argue that this opposition is misleading: reference is not the product of a single explanatory level but emerges from the interaction of cognitive and social mechanisms. Therefore, the thesis attempts to integrate NCA and SHA. On the one hand, it contends that transmission shapes our conceptual repertoire and provides the basis for public referential practices that sustain shared inquiry. On the other hand, it claims that successful communication presupposes, rather than replaces, naturalistically grounded cognitive fixation that sustains stable referential capacities at the individual level. By treating reference as a two-layered phenomenon, the thesis encourages future research to rethink reference across the mental and linguistic domains.

• Mostue, Victoria Marie; Lamers, Han & Güthenke, Constanze (2025). Philology on the Fringe: Case Studies in the History of Classical Philology in Nineteenth-Century Norway. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Selv om klassisk filologi har vært en del av norsk akademia siden grunnleggelsen av det første norske universitetet i 1811, er dens historie fortsatt i stor grad understudert. Denne avhandlingen undersøker utviklingen og forvandlingen av 1800-tallets norske klassiske forskning ved Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet (nå Universitetet i Oslo) og plasserer den i sin nasjonale og internasjonale intellektuelle kontekst. Avhandlingen tar for seg tre sentrale problemstillinger: norske klassisisters akademiske profiler, oppfatningen av klassisk filologi og de klassiske språkene i den aktuelle perioden og fagets interaksjon med bredere norske og internasjonale politiske, kulturelle og institusjonelle endringer. Denne oppgaven har en todelt struktur. Den første delen gir en oversikt over klassisk filologi ved universitetet, forklarer disiplinens hovedtrekk og plasserer de viktigste aspektene ved dens utvikling innen pågående politiske og kulturelle strømninger i 1800-tallets Norge (s. 21–62). Den andre delen består av tre kasusstudier av enkelte forskere: professor i gresk Frederik Ludvig Vibe (1803–1881), professor i gresk Peter Olrog Schjøtt (1833–1926), og stipendiat i latin Bastian Anastasius Dahl (1851–1895). Hver kasusstudie utforsker ulike aspekter ved norsk klassisk forskningshistorie. Den første studien (s. 63-99) analyserer en latinsk tale som Vibe holdt i 1835 og fokuserer på debatten om gresk og latins posisjon i norsk utdannelse i første halvdel av århundret. Med utgangspunkt i Schjøtts omfattende akademiske forfatterskap undersøker den andre studien (s. 100–153) den metodologiske utviklingen innen klassisk filologi og beslektede disipliner – hovedsakelig arkeologi og lingvistikk – både innenfor og utenfor universitetet i siste halvdel av århundret. Ved å kombinere analysen av både publiserte og upubliserte kilder, utforsker det siste kasusstudiet (s.154–191) den internasjonale rekkevidden av norsk forskning gjennom Dahls liv og virke. Gjennom brede undersøkelser og tre kasusstudier utforsker og kontekstualiserer denne avhandlingen norsk klassisk forskningshistorie på 1800-tallet og viser at de norske forskerne jobbet i et internasjonalt miljø samtidig som de dyrket særegne nasjonale trekk.

• Simon, Baier, & Berit, Berge, (2025). Building a Cityscape. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Østtveit, Martin Kang & Ramberg, Bjørn Torgrim (2025). Hinsides reduksjonisme: Nietzsches dynamiske bevissthetsfilosofi i lys av moderne nevrovitenskap. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven utforsker samtidens filosofiske og nevrovitenskapelige debatter om bevissthet gjennom en kritisk dialog mellom Friedrich Nietzsches perspektivisme, Gerald Edelmans Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) og Daniel Dennetts funksjonalistiske rammeverk. Med fokus på tre kjerneproblemer – bevissthetens ontologiske og epistemologiske natur, samspillet mellom bevissthet og kropp/miljø, og forklarende strategier i bevissthetsforskning – analyserer oppgaven styrker og svakheter ved reduksjonistiske tilnærminger og fremmer Nietzsches antireduksjonistiske perspektiv som et verdifullt bidrag. Første del gir en oversikt over sentrale posisjoner i bevissthetsforskningen, inkludert dualisme, fysikalisme, idealisme og funksjonalisme. Funksjonalismen, som vektlegger organisasjonsstruktur, samsvarer med fremskritt i nevrovitenskap og kunstig intelligens, men sliter med å forklare subjektiv erfaring, som utfordrer reduktive modeller. Andre del sammenligner Dennetts og Edelmans teorier. Dennetts Multiple Drafts-modell reduserer bevissthet til funksjonelle narrativer, og avviser qualia som illusjoner, noe som gjør den forenlig med sterk AI, men sårbar for kritikk om å overse subjektivitet. Edelmans TNGS fremstiller bevissthet som et emergent fenomen fra nevronal plastisitet og reentrant signalling, og anerkjenner biologisk kompleksitet, men forklarer ikke fullt ut hvorfor nevrale prosesser gir opphav til qualia. Spenningen mellom Dennetts eliminative reduksjonisme og Edelmans emergentisme belyser motstridende forklaringsstrategier. Tredje del introduserer Nietzsches perspektivisme, som ser bevissthet som et overfladisk biprodukt av kroppslige dynamikker drevet av «viljen til makt». Hans avvisning av subjekt-objekt-skillet og vektlegging av affektiv, relasjonell flyt utfordrer reduksjonismens vitenskapelige pretensjoner. Nietzsche deler Edelmans ikke-komputasjonelle fysikalisme, men kritiserer nevrale kart som reduktive fiksjoner og avviser Dennetts eliminering av subjektiv erfaring, som han anser som essensiell. Hans tilnærming bygger broer mellom filosofi og nevrovitenskap ved å integrere kroppens materialitet med bevissthetens kontekstuelle natur. Oppgaven konkluderer at reduksjonistiske paradigmer, som Dennetts og Edelmans, utvider forståelsen av kognitive funksjoner, men ikke fanger bevissthetens subjektive rikdom. Nietzsches perspektivisme tilbyr et dynamisk, ikke-dualistisk alternativ som beriker debatten. Likevel medfører tverrfaglige tilnærminger metodologiske utfordringer, som spenningen mellom førstepersons- og tredjepersonsperspektiver og vanskeligheter med å operationalisere begreper som «viljen til makt». Oppgaven argumenterer for metodologisk pluralisme, der filosofiske og vitenskapelige innsikter kombineres, og inviterer til videre forskning for å belyse bevissthetens vedvarende mysterium.

• Skjeldal, Guri (2025). Kjønn og klasse i Harriet Backers kunst. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Harriet Backers liv og kunst har vært gjenstand for omfattende interesse i kunsthistorisk sammenheng. Likevel er det sider ved hennes kunst som ikke er tilstrekkelig belyst. Denne oppgaven undersøker hva kunsten kan fortelle om tidens samfunnsforhold og hva den kan fortelle om hvordan hun selv ble formet av sin tid. En sosialhistorisk tilnærming kombinert med et feministisk perspektiv kan bidra til nye måter å lese bildene hennes på. I bildeanalysen undersøkes om og hvordan kjønn og klasse kommer til uttrykk i kunsten og hva kunsten kan fortelle om Backers egen posisjon og holdninger.

• Lyckander, Vetle Gunnar (2025). Forfall og blomstring: Tid og form i Henrik Sørensens sene hagemalerier. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Historisk har det eksistert en oppfatning om at kunsten aldres i takt med kunstneren, der den siste fasen i en kunstners liv forstås enstydig med kroppslig og mentalt forfall. Oppfatninger om forfall slo rot tidlig i Henrik Sørensens kunstnerskap og har vedvart til vår samtid, og kunstneren blir i mange sammenhenger omtalt som en gammeldags «stabbursmaler». Få har dermed viet omtanke til den senere perioden av hans liv – nærmere bestemt tiden etter den andre verdenskrig og frem til hans død i 1962. Sørensens slagferdige uttalelser som kunstpolitiker og autoritet i det norske kunstmiljøet har trukket til seg oppmerksomheten i den turbulente etterkrigsperioden i norsk kunst, der personen kan sies å ha havnet i veien for kunsten. I en tid der både kunstens utvikling og livet løper ifra den aldrende maleren, virker han å finne inspirasjon i sin hage i Holmsbu. Alderdom behøver ikke være ensbetydende med kunstnerisk forfall. Selv forfall kan romme grobunn for blomstring.

• Tønderum, Ingunn (2025). Klær som narrativt element: Fortelling gjennom drakt sett i verk av Asta Nørregaard og Christian Krohg. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne masteroppgaven utforsker representasjonen av sosiale klasser og kjønn gjennom klær i verkene til Asta Nørregaard og Christian Krohg, fra 1870-1910. Ved å analysere et utvalg av portrettmalerier, bruker oppgaven drakthistorisk og semiotisk analyse for å forstå hvordan klær fungerer som kulturelle tegn på identitet, makt og kjønnsroller. Ved hjelp av et semiotisk rammeverk hentet fra Roland Barthes The Fashion System, og feministisk kunstteori utforsker denne oppgaven hvordan Asta Nørregaard og Christian Krohg brukte samtidens mote som narrativt element i sine kunstverk. Teoriene kombineres for å avkode klær som kulturelle tegn og implikasjonen kjønn har på kunsthistorien, satt i kontekst av drakthistorien fra 1870-1910. Nørregaards kunstnerskap har blitt oversett i kunsthistorien, til fordel for hennes modernistiske kunstnerkollegaer. Portrettene hennes bruker motedrakter for å fremheve en borgerlig identitet, samtidig som de illustrerer hennes suksess som kunstnerkvinne i en tid der det ikke var vanlig. Krohg, kjent for sine sosialtendensmalerier, demonstrerer en mer moderne tilnærming ved å bruke klær som narrativt element for å underbygge sin samfunnskritikk. Gjennom verksanalyser fremhever oppgaven hvordan kunstnernes representasjoner av klær gir innsikt inn i deres samtids sosiale hierarkier og kontekstualiserer hvilke implikasjoner kjønn hadde på representasjon i norsk kunsthistorie. Gjennom en detaljert analyse av åtte verk, avdekker oppgaven hvordan Krohg og Nørregaard bruker klær som en mekanisme for å reflektere ideer om klasse og kjønn.

• Myklebust, Embla Ingeborg (2025). Fred i krigstid: En analyse av Per Krohgs Frognerjordet (1940) og Fred, kunstneren med sin familie (1940) i lys av andre verdenskrigs utbrudd. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette mastergradessayet utforsker landskapsmotivets ideologiske og symbolske funksjoner i Per Krohgs malerier Frognerjordet og Fred, kunstneren med sin familie fra 1940. Gjennom analyser og kontekstuell tolkning viser denne oppgaven hvordan motivene tilbyr en subtil form for kulturell motstand. Krohgs motiver blir undersøkt ikke bare som dekorative elementer, men som ideologiske plattformer der fred, medlidenhet og kontinuitet er formidlet og forsvart. Naturen i maleriene er utemmet og mektig, noe som speiler til Norges nasjonalromantiske fokus på 1800-tallet. Sakrale- og familieorienterte elementer oppleves som metaforiske tilfluktssted som preserverer den norske identitet og kulturelle integritet i møte med en fremmed makt. Undersøkelsen av Per Krohgs landskapsmotiver fra 1940 åpner for en forståelse av norske kunstneres mer lavmælte uttrykksformer som resultat av okkupasjonstiden. Første del tar for seg maleriet Frognerjordet med hensikt om å presentere landskapsmotivet som en plattform for politiske og kulturelle fortellinger. Andre del retter søkelys mot maleriet Fred, kunstneren med sin familie, der fokuset ligger på nordmenns forhold til landskapet og samtidige forestillinger om tilhørighet og identitet.

• Larsson, Renate Eckstrøm (2025). Edvard Munchs motiv Kvinnen og hjertet i lys av Tracey Emins kunst – En undersøkelse av hjerteformen i Munchs kunst og hvordan hans ekspressive strek videreføres i Emins utsagn «ekte tegning er som hjerteslag». Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I denne oppgaven skal noen utvalgte tegninger av Edvard Munch med hovedvekt på motivet Kvinnen og hjertet (1896) (ill.1) belyses i forhold til Tracey Emins strek og ouvres, og vise hvordan Emin belyser Munchs kunstnerskap i perioden 1890-1900. Det er glidende overganger, så noen av verkene er også fra etter 1900. Kvinnen og hjertet er et av de nylig digitaliserte tegningene på Munchmuseet. Jeg har lett etter og funnet flere utgaver og skisser med dette kvinne - og hjertemotivet i arkivene. Jeg har også lett etter og funnet ubevisste hjerteformer. Emin har uttalt at hun har et veldig nært forhold til Munch og hans kunst og er inspirert av han, noe som kan avleses i hennes kunstnerskap. Det er usynlige bånd mellom de to kunstnernes kunstverk, og det synliggjør Emin. De har begge et budskap i kunsten som denne oppgaven vil belyse.

• Marstrander, Hilde Cathrine (2025). «Livsspesifikk kunst» Serialitet, prosess og eksistensielt nærvær hos Kamin Lertchaiprasert. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The thesis looks at the serial, time-specific series Time and Experience from 1990, placing it in an art historical context, but with references to both Western and Eastern art traditions. It briefly compares the series with On Kawara's Today series and places the project in the context of relational aesthetics.

• Langvæg, Hanna Maria Håtun (2025). På sporet av de tapte ryer - En undersøkelse av Annelise Knudtzon og Knut Rumohrs rye-produksjon. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven undersøker tekstilkunstner Annelise Knudtzon og billedkunstner Knut Rumohrs rye-produksjon, som foregikk primært i perioden 1952 - slutten av 1970-tallet. Oppgavens tematikk sentrerer seg særlig rundt kunstnernes forhold til det å "skape". De epistemologiske begrepene technê, epistêmê, phronesis og poiesis blir brukt som en inngang til å kontekstualisere det erfaringsbaserte og kunnskapsbaserte i Knudtzon og Rumohrs rye-produksjon.

• Lundberg-Nilsen, Hanna Sofie Kultorp (2025). Le Tournoi: Hvordan utforskes forholdet mellom kropp og natur i Leonor Finis maleri Le Tournoi? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Løddesøl, Anne (2025). Angelic Hours: Temporal and Typological Structures in Honorius Augustodunensis’ De Neocosmo. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores the hermeneutical principles and temporal structures in Honorius Augustodunensis’ De Neocosmo. In De Neocosmo, Honorius provides a description of angelic time, or tempora aeterna, a temporality which bridges the eternity of God and the time of the world. The thesis argues that Honorius’ depiction of angelic time is influenced by the monastic experience of time, structured by the Divine Office and other monastic practices. The study also examines the typological mode of interpretation in De Neocosmo, which recontextualizes the creation narrative by anchoring it in the Adam-Christ typology. This typological framework compresses the Genesis narrative of the Fall and the New Testament story of Redemption, giving the treatise a circular structure. In analysing De Neocosmo, I engage with perspectives from temporalities studies in the historical disciplines. By drawing on insights from temporalities studies, I argue that we can examine new facets of medieval material which challenges preconceived notions of temporal consciousness in the Middle Ages. I further argue that these perspectives can show how conceptualisations of time and history are culturally and historically contingent.

• Salvesen, Helene Sagen (2025). Robert Colletts rugekasser og relasjon til småfuglene. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Vibeke (2025). Et forsvar for retten til å kritisere makten. En analyse av Peter Colletts argumenter for uinnskrenket skrive – og trykkefrihet i Danmark –Norge i 1798. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Westergaard, Karl Christian (2025). Leve kongene! En analyse av Platons bruk av begrepet «filosofkonge» i Staten på et illokusjonært nivå. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Oppgaven er en undersøkelse av to begreper som ligger gjemt i det som i norsk oversettelse heter “filosofkonge”. For å komme til bunns i hva disse to begrepene er, viser jeg først at denne berømte delen av den athenske filosofen Platons filosofi er en resepsjonshistorisk konstruksjon, og i denne resepsjonshistoriske konstruksjonen har filosofi-delen av konstruksjonen vært altoverskyggende. I denne oppgaven undersøker jeg i stedet det en kunne kalle konge-delen av denne konstruksjonen, som har forblitt underordnet og uutforsket. Som jeg skal vise, har Platon brukt to begreper for å betegne konge-delen: basileús og dynástēs og deres abstrakte motstykker: basileī́a og dynasteī́a. (Begrepene blir ikke oversatt i denne oppgaven.) Med fokus på disse to begrepene som ligger gjemt i konstruksjonen, viser jeg hvordan et tilsynelatende enkelt valg av begreper hos Platon var en innovasjon i diskusjonen om organiseringen av fullborgere og om fullborgernes adgang til embetene i en bystat, og følgelig på hvilken måte Platon brakte til torgs nye betingelser for det som til norsk oversettes som “forfatning” (gammelgresk, heretter ga.gr., politeī́ā). Således akter jeg å synliggjøre hvordan Platon forsøkte å endre betingelsene i diskusjonen ved å hente inn nye og fremmede begreper for å bøte på hans samtidige, sønderknuste Athen under og i kjølvannet av Peloponneserkrigen og for å løse én av antikkens Hellas’ store utfordringene i hans samtid: splittelse (ga.gr. stásis) blant fullborgeren. Gjennom Quentin Skinners metodisk-teoretiske perspektiv skal jeg vise hvorfor Platon ordla seg akkurat slik som han gjorde, og studere hva Platon forsøkte å gjøre i sitt overordnete prosjekt om å undersøke rettferdighet. For å gjøre det tar jeg utgangspunkt i Skinners fokus på ytringers “illokusjonære nivå”, det vil si på handlingen i og med ytringen. Jeg viser dermed det som var Platons handling da han dro nytte av og mobiliserte konvensjoner, begreper og forståelsesmåter til et etablert språk og til en etablert diskusjon som sto til hans disposisjon. Således synliggjør jeg hvordan Platons valg og bruk av basileús/basileī́a og dynástēs/dynasteī́a i diskusjonen om politeī́ā var en innovasjon og og brøyt med de rådende konvensjonene og forståelsesmåtene i denne etablerte diskusjonen. Ved å undersøke konge-delen på et illokusjonært nivå kaster jeg et nytt lys over Platons prosjekt om å undersøke rettferdighet, for jeg konkluderer med at det illokusjonære nivået til basileús/basileī́a og dynástēs/dynasteī́a, Platons handling, var å fjerne fullborgernes politiske deltakelse og derigjennom frykten for splittelse. I kraft av dette perspektivet bidrar jeg således med en undersøkelse av enkelte trekk ved Platons tekst Staten som hittil har vært underordnet og uutforsket.

• Soland, Pernille (2025). Should Feminists Embrace the AI Revolution? On the promise and pitfalls of AI technology through the lens of established values, data, care, and labour demands. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis investigates how the values dominating our collective societal reality are becoming amplified and solidified through AI technologies, and that these mechanisms disadvantaging women and feminist perspectives can result in not only women continuing being disadvantaged, but that we all might miss out on a better future of more equity and human flourishing as a result. Through philosophical analysis, the thesis examines AI as a mirror reflecting our datafied past, explores how the marginalisation of care shapes both technological development and societal values, and argues for the importance of designing AI systems that promote free time, equity and human flourishing. Rather than regarding AI technology as being inherently progressive or neutral it is argued to be a political project that could and should be shaped to be differently.

• Bullen, Peter Lund (2025). The Value of Creation: Discerning a Biblical View on Value in Nature. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  As climate change and degradation of nature escalate, it is crucial to examine the worldviews that have contributed to the present situation. The Bible has played a significant role in forming Western worldviews, influencing both ethical and ontological perspectives on nature. Through blame and praise, the Bible remains a book with immense influence. Therefore, this thesis sets out to investigate a biblical view on the value of creation. In addressing this question, I will critically engage with environmental philosophers, especially John Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston III, on topics related to the ontology of value. This interdisciplinary thesis develops a biblical value theory through ecotheology, while both critically engaging with and contributing to environmental philosophy. Employing ecotheological hermeneutics, this thesis analyzes a broad range of biblical excerpts to discern a coherent biblical value theory in relation to secular counterpart value theories. The main chapter is divided into three parts, with subchapter 3.1 exploring the relationship within creation, especially between humanity and the biotic and abiotic parts of creation. A common cosmic salvation story is found, leading to the conclusion that creation is moving towards a relationship of resonance, although it will not be fulfilled until the end times. Subchapter 3.2 discusses whether the biblical value stance aligns with anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, or theocentrism. Although each view provides valuable additions, theocentrism with moral inclusion of both the biotic and abiotic world is most consistent with a biblical view. Subchapter 3.3 further explores the two main types of values discussed in this thesis, namely instrumental and intrinsic value. After an analysis of intrinsic value, based on the thesis’ findings, I conclude that the Bible accords with a non-hierarchical, theocentric, objective intrinsic value theory. Finally, I briefly explore the practical application of this biblical value theory, while addressing ecocentric critiques of a flat intrinsic value theory leading to moral paralysis. This thesis ultimately proposes a value theory that holds all of creation to be imbued with objective intrinsic value. This perspective challenges both secular environmental philosophies’ moral scope and biblically oriented worldviews that neglect to recognize the real value of creation.

• Tønnesen, Fredrik (2025). Siste slagmark – Hegel sitt fridomsomgrep i møte med den seinmoderne skulen. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgåva gjer eit forsøk på å setja Hegel sine tankar om fridom i møte med ein analyse av den seinmoderne skulen. Ho går fyrst i gjennom ein korleis hegeliansk filosofi kan nyttast på meiningsfullt vis i møte med moderne samfunnsinstitusjonar, med referanse til Axel Honneth og Slavoj Zizek. Ho presenterer så eit filosofisk bakteppe med referansar til Descartes, Hume og Kant. Vidare presenterest Hegel si framstilling av omgrepet som subjektiv og levande handsaming av gjenstanden. Vidare, med grunn i dette, presenterer ein fridomsforståinga til Hegel nett som omgrepsutvikling. Fridomsomgrepet vert presentert i ulike former. Fyrst som abstrakt, fri vilje. Sidan som subjektiv fridom, og til sist som objektiv, konkrét fridom, festa i faktiske sosiale institusjonar. Hegel sitt fridomssyn vert her òg konfrontert med Isaiah Berlin sin kritikk av positive fridomsomgrep. Til sist vert denne analysen av hegeliansk filosofi set i møte med ein kort analyse av den seinmoderne skulen.

• Mussi, Sebastiano (2025). The Virtue of Impartiality. Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy and the Challenge of Trans-Cultural Moral Judgements. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis examines how moral judgements are formed in everyday social interactions and under what conditions they can acquire normative authority and claim to be justified across cultural contexts. Engaging closely with Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), it argues that Smith’s account of morality -grounded in sympathy, mutual spectatorship, and the cultivation of impartiality- offers a promising framework for addressing the challenge of trans-cultural moral judgements. Through a reconstruction of Smith’s theory of sympathy and an analysis of its procedural dimensions, the thesis defends the view that moral propriety is not achieved through universal principles or utilitarian calculation, but through an ongoing process of imaginative engagement and mutual correction. In doing so, it explores whether Smith’s sympathetic procedure can support the possibility of justified moral judgements across cultural difference, while at the same time remaining sensitive to pluralism and human vulnerability.

• Eldjarn, Eileen (2025). Self-Alienating Epistemic Erosion. Rethinking Epistemic (In)justice in Education. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Bendiktsen, Kristoffer (2025). Moral Success: Does Moral Success Provide Justification for Moral Beliefs? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Simon, Alexandre Amilien (2025). Kategoriene i filosofien. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Mostad, Trym (2025). Protagoras On Knowledge, Utility and Reason: Comparing -isms. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Her drøftes den historiske Protagoras sin posisjon før den vurderes imot moderne terminologi som forfatteren foreslår burde revurderes i lys av historisk bevis.

• Thommessen, Allan Sæther (2025). Expanding Sexiness. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Utne, Erlend Krogh (2025). Identity Crisis: An Inquiry of Sexual Identity. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper inquires sexual identity, aiming to provide a framework for better understanding the concept and its significance for human life. It distinguishes between essentialist and constructionist views on sexuality, arguing that sexual identity is largely constructed and defined by context. Taking inspiration from feminist and queer studies, the paper explores what sexuality is and how identity is formed. It focuses on how society and culture shape sexual difference and agency in self-identifications. The inquiry is split in two parts. Part 1 analytically explores the mechanisms of sexual identity, particularly the concepts of sexuality and identity. Part 2 hermeneutically investigates the experience of sexual identity, particularly how sexual agents have desires, orientations, conduct, and affiliations with culture. Ultimately, this inquiry argues that individual narratives both differ and cohere with cultural understandings, since both sexuality and identity are complex and fluid concepts.

• Grøver, Torstein Loe (2025). Where Should Our Demons Go? On Cultural Symbols of Dread and Evil. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Neraal, Ragna Sofie Lund (2025). “Turning the Glance” in Emotion: A Reading of Edith Stein’s Phenomenology of Empathy and Emotion, and its Relevance for Assessing Contemporary Models of Emotion Regulation. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Moskvil, Francis Herman Fisknes (2025). Et og annet om Enhet og Annethet. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven begynner med problemstillingen om hva som utgjør den individuelle henologiens rolle i Egil A. Wyllers Enhet og annethet på bakgrunn av at den virker å ha blitt undervurdert av tidligere anmeldelser og analyser. Forholdet mellom den universelle og den individuelle henologi er av særlig interesse siden det representerer forholdet mellom Wyllers platonisme og Wyllers kristne tro. Det som styrer vår undersøkelse er hvordan Wyller, gjennom forholdet universell–individuell, redegjør for virkningen mellom tanken, dvs. filosofien, og troen, dvs. religionen. Den største delen i oppgaven er en redegjørelse av Wyllers henologi slik den fremkommer i Enhet og annethet. På bakgrunn av denne redegjørelsen, går de to neste kapitlene i dybden på den individuelle henologiens rolle: Det første, «Den ortodokse motsats», sammenligner den individuelle henologi med gresk-ortodoks teologi representert av Vladimir Lossky og David Bentley Hart. Den andre, «En hermeneutisk tolkning», tolker den individuelle henologi i henhold til Hans-Georg Gadamers analyse av hermeneutikkens anvendelsesproblem. Innenfor denne tolkningen utgjør den individuelle henologi en avgjørende del av Enhet og annethet, i tillegg til at den formaner leseren til å forholde seg aktivt til filosofisk overlevering for ikke å bli et talerør.

• Lind-Fossen, Gustav (2025). Can a Subject think abstractly while being objectively confined? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Grindeland, Bendik Prag (2025). Autonomi og atferd: En etisk drøfting av EIBI som pedagogisk praksis. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven undersøker de etiske forutsetningene for å anvende Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) i norske barnehager, med særlig vekt på barns autonomi og rett til medvirkning. Gjennom en kombinasjon av teoretisk drøfting, forskningsgjennomgang og normative perspektiver analyseres hvordan EIBI både kan fremme og utfordre barns utvikling, avhengig av hvordan metoden praktiseres. Oppgaven belyser hvordan EIBI, som en strukturert og evidensbasert metode, krever høy grad av profesjonell sensitivitet for å ivareta barnets subjektive perspektiv. Spørsmålet som reises, er ikke bare om EIBI virker, men om den anvendes på en etisk forsvarlig måte. I forlengelsen diskuteres spenningen mellom effektiv tidlig innsats og hensynet til barnets verdighet, relasjonelle behov og langsiktige trivsel. Funnene peker på at det etiske ansvaret ikke ligger i metoden alene, men i hvordan den forvaltes i praksis – av fagpersoner, institusjoner og strukturelle rammer.

• Olsen, Marita Nathalie (2025). Dementia - An Existential Analysis. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis explores difference in the context of dementia. The primary aim is to reveal dementia as a social category illegitimately functioning to naturalize the meaning of existence for individuals framed by dementia. Through a critical analysis of and an existential phenomenological approach to the modern human identity I examine how mind/body dualism functions to objectify individuals framed by dementia as radical other. I argue that the modern alienation of the sensing body functions toward the non recognition and deprivation of agency for individuals subject to dementia framings. By establishing a framework in which to interpret dementia experience as political experience, this work contributes to strengthening our capacity to name and notice unjust relations in the context of dementia.

• Kilde, Reynir Aslak (2025). Defending Equestrianism through the Ethics of Care. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The way horses are kept in Europe makes them not fit perfectly into the mould of either pet or cattle. Their situation is rather unique and only comparable to other working animals. While I wanted to limit myself and only ask the question whether we can have ethical riding schools, I needed a foundation first. I needed to ask and answer whether we can even keep horses ethically in captivity, and whether we can ethically interact with horses, and ride them. The traditional approaches to animal welfare, deontology and utilitarianism, seem to not be able to ask the right questions concerning how horse and human can live ethically together. To come to the defence of equestrianism I turn to the ethics of care as it gives the right tools to figure out the right way to keep horses in captivity,namely, to not only meet their needs but also help them flourish. This will lead me to the condition we need to fulfil to defend our continued interactions with horses: we need to ensure that horses can lead flourishing lives in accordance with their telos and any activity shared with humans need to be enjoyable unless it fulfils a basic need such as medical attention. I conclude that so long that condition is fulfilled, that we can preserve equestrianism. However, this condition is hardly satisfied in many cases of horses in captivity and especially not in riding schools.

• Joranger, Lars Øverstad (2025). Consent and free-floating evils. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Gatevold, Lennart (2025). Kant om rom og subjektivitet Det første skrittet i den metafysiske romeksposisjonen i Critique forstått på bakgrunn av Directions. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Lengali, Gabriel Aleksander (2025). omsorgsetikk og fordeling av ressurser. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I verdens globale politiske økonomi er ressurser så ulikt fordelt at det kan føles som hver eneste konsumpsjon av ressurser er en spott til dem med for lite til å overleve. De innviklede fordelingsmekanismene gir en bismak til denne følelsen om at konsumeringen av ressurser forer den groteske grådigheten til dem som allerede har altfor mye. Omsorgsetikken er et relativt nytt etisk rammeverk som prioriterer forholdene som opprettholder, viderefører og reparer vår verden slik at den blir best mulig å leve i. Jeg undersøker hvordan omsorgsetikken stiller seg til disse globale fordelingsmekanismene, som skaper så ulike virkeligheter. Det første jeg finner er en divisjon blant omsorgsetikere: der noen omsorgsetikere (representert av Virginia Held) hevder at omsorg er avhengig av en viss grad av nærhet. Mens andre omsorgsetikere (representert av Joan Tronto) argumenterer for at omsorg ikke utelukkende er avhengig av denne nærheten. Jeg argumenterer så for sistnevnte, fordi jeg mener den øker den politiske effekten som omsorgsetikken kan ha. Videre undersøker jeg hvordan omsorgsetikken kan blande seg inn i politikken, ved hjelp av en oppstilt diskusjon mellom den politiske omsorgsetikken og kantiansk liberalisme. Jeg finner at omsorgsetikken krever en inngripende politikk og stat, men at denne inngripen er for å ta høyde for ugunstige trekk ved samfunn. Omsorgsetikken vektlegger også relasjoner som en kilde til ansvar, til forskjell fra liberalismen som ser på statlig legitimerte institusjoner som den eneste kilden til ansvar. Det relasjonelle ansvaret bidrar til en unngåelse av suverenitetsdilemmaet som liberalismen som global etikk sliter med, og at omsorgsetikken dermed er mer anvendelig som global etikk, om enn noe naiv. Omsorgsetikken legger vekt på anerkjennelse av forskjeller og sårbarheter, og dermed utgår hierarkiet mellom negative og positive rettigheter og plikter. Til slutt kommer vi til anvendelsen på ressursfordelingsmekanismene i den globale politiske økonomien. Jeg finner her at omsorgsetikken fordrer en radikal strukturell endring av nyliberale strukturer og det maskuline hegemoniet. Omsorgsetikken fordrer faktisk en fullstendig avskaffelse av de to. Det er fordi omsorgsetikken er en praktisk etikk, som fordrer at vi skal kunne leve sammen på en best mulig måte, og som anerkjenner de iboende forskjellene som kommer av individuell personlige separasjon. Omsorgsetikken anerkjenner at relasjonelle barrierer aldri kommer til å overskrides fullstendig – med mindre telepati finnes – men at vi allikevel bør strebe etter å overskride, for å kunne ha omsorg for hverandre.

• Rørmark, Eskil (2025). A Manly, Moral, Regulated Liberty - Edmund Burkes Concept of Liberty. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this essay I will attempt to catalogue the account of Liberty held by Edmund Burke, primarily within his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” as well as contrasting it with common modern accounts. Particularly I discuss negative liberty and how this conflicts with Burke, as well as positive liberty, and republicanism. This Liberty I find to be social in nature, as well as requiring restraint and moral character to be realized. This communitarian idea means that different societies might have different sorts of liberty. Finally I try to argue for why this account is an interesting one that might be good to study further. The Burkean concept of liberty is in an itself interesting, and, as I hope to have shown, has applications in modern discussion on topics such as politics.

• Christel, Fricke, & Brynestad, Jørgensen, Johan Julius (2025). Relationship Attunement: A Functional-Strawsonian Model of our Moral Responsibility Practice. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Espen, Johnsen, & Lisbeth, Guldbrandsen, (2025). Arkitekturhistorien og formidlingen av Eileen Grays E.1027 og Tempe à Pailla: En vunnet eller tapt kjønnskamp? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sammendrag Denne masteroppgaven redegjør for og diskuterer deler av forskningshistorien om hvordan den kvinnelige irsk-engelske, modernistiske arkitekten og designeren Eileen Gray (1878-1976) er omtalt i eldre og nyere arkitekturhistorie, med vekt på nyere forskning fra 1990 til i dag. Oppgaven har et overordnet kvinneperspektiv og en teoretisk-metodisk modell med tre hovedspor: en resepsjonsstudie, en historiografisk undersøkelse og et spor basert på Deborah Fausch’ teorier om en kvinnelig arkitektur. Hovedfokus er på Grays arkitektoniske hovedverk, E.1027 (1926-1929), og hennes eget sommerhus, Tempe à Pailla (1932-1934) i Sør-Frankrike. Eileen Gray var en pionér i den tidlige fasen av modernistisk arkitektur, som en av svært få kvinnelige arkitekter som fikk oppført hus i denne perioden. Hun er senere utelatt og underkommunisert i arkitekturhistorien gjennom flere tiår. Oppgaven undersøker eldre og nyere arkitekturhistoriske tekster og diskuterer, med basis i Dana Arnold og Despina Stratigakos’ tekster, den manglende omtalen av Gray og feilattribusjonen av E.1027. Manglende omtale av kvinnelige arkitekter generelt er et aktuelt tema også i dag. Oppgaven ser spesielt på nyere forskning på Gray, og undersøker «acts of erasure», eller utviskninger av kvinnelige arkitekters arbeid, monografienes makt og samarbeidet mellom Eileen Gray og hennes samarbeidspartner, Jean Badovici. Gjennom Deborah Fausch’ teorier om kvinnelig arkitektur som en arkitektur som gir rom for kroppslige erfaringer, ser oppgaven på om det er paralleller til Grays arkitektur og design. Den ser også på hvordan Gray formidlet sin egen arkitektur og design, og hvordan hun brukte tekst og hverdagspoesi som elementer i arkitekturen og interiøret.

• Pasi, Väliaho, & Eira, Mugås, (2025). ‘New Constructivism’: Materiality, Play, and Simulation in Harun Farocki’s Parallel cycle (2012–2014). Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Simon., Baier, & María., Benjamínsdóttir, (2025). Three Facets of a Faceless Portrait: Landscape, Site and Portraiture in Roni Horn's VATNASAFN / LIBRARY OF WATER. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This thesis argues that Roni Horn’s permanent installation VATNASAFN / LIBRARY OF WATER (2007) articulates subject formation as an environmental and relational process. Ecological loss is demonstrated as a condition that intensifies Horn’s long-standing engagement with embodied experience, spatial relation, and relational subjectivity. The thesis situates VATNASAFN / LIBRARY OF WATER, comprised of the works Water, Selected (2007), You Are the Weather (Iceland) (2007) and Weather Reports You (2007), in the context of Horn’s wider Iceland works, drawing on the ongoing series of artist’s books To Place (1990-), as well as Horn’s writings on Iceland. By bringing together theories of landscape, site, and portrait, the thesis proposes that Horn’s installation articulates a model of subjectivity shaped through intra-actions with environment and weather, while sustaining difference as an ethical condition. In doing so, the work suggests that the loss of glaciers also signals a diminishing presence of places that remain inaccessible, unknown, and intact – reshaping the conditions under which experience and subjectivity remain possible. Finally, it argues that the installation functions as a faceless portrait that articulates the tensions inherent in the contemporary experience of landscape, place and self.  

• Kjetil, Fallan, & Hiller, Sollie, Kaia Elise (2025). Til Jevnaker med glassarbeid i bagasjen til et glassverk i endring - De utenlandske glassarbeiderne på Hadeland glassverk i 1850-1880 årene. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne masteroppgaven undersøker hvilken rolle utenlandske glassarbeidere spilte i utviklingen av hvittglassproduksjonen ved Hadeland Glassverk i perioden 1855 til 1880. Hadeland Glassverk, etablert i 1765, regnes som Norges eldste industribedrift i kontinuerlig drift, og har hatt en viktig posisjon både som produsent av glass og som kulturhistorisk institusjon. I 1855 ble produksjonen lagt om fra grøntglass og flasker til mer eksklusivt hvittglass og krystall. Denne omleggingen krevde spesialisert kompetanse, og bedriften rekrutterte arbeidere fra blant annet Tyskland, Bøhmen og Sverige. Oppgaven kombinerer teori fra designhistorie, materiell kultur og migrasjonsstudier for å analysere hvordan denne migrasjonen av arbeidskraft påvirket produksjonen, stiluttrykket og teknologiene ved glassverket. Den bygger i hovedsak på primærkilder fra Riksarkivet – inkludert kontrakter, brev og produksjonsprotokoller – i tillegg til relevant sekundærlitteratur. Et særlig fokus er rettet mot enkeltpersoner som Robert Gube, Albert Kraft og Amand Siegel, hvor arkivmaterialet gir et sjeldent innblikk i deres faglige bidrag, arbeidsforhold og migrasjonsbakgrunn. Oppgaven viser hvordan disse arbeiderne ikke bare var teknisk dyktige håndverkere, men også formgivere, kunnskapsbærere og i enkelte tilfeller toneangivende i rekrutterings- og opplæringsprosesser. Gjennom en kombinasjon av arkivstudier og kulturhistorisk analyse belyser oppgaven hvordan arbeidsinnvandring bidro til å forme det norske glassuttrykket, og hvordan impulser fra kontinentet ble integrert i det som i dag regnes som en del av vår felles design- og kulturarv. Studien utgjør et bidrag til designhistorisk forskning ved å knytte migrasjon og industrihåndverk sammen i en helhetlig analyse av Hadeland Glassverks utvikling i en avgjørende periode.

• Bente, Larsen, & Lien, Gundersen, Ingunn (2025). Leikeskulpturen - har ei særeiga evne til å fremje barns kreativitet. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette mastergradsessayet undersøkjer leikeskulpturen som fenomen, og spør om leikeskulpturen har ei særeiga evne til å fremje kreativitet hos barn. Arbeidet kombinerer kunsthistorisk kontekst med teori om kreativitet, affordance og somaestetikk for å analysere leikeskulpturen som kunstverk, som del av det offentlege rommet, og som arena for leik og læring. Gjennom drøfting av historiske og samtidige døme, forsking på leik, risiko og kroppsleg læring, samt pedagogiske perspektiv, belyser analysen korleis leikeskulpturens opne former, taktile kvalitetar og fysiske handlingsrom kan stimulere kreativ utforsking, problemløysing og sanseleg kompetanse hos barn. Essayet synleggjer at leikeskulpturen er eit underutforska, men kunstfagleg, pedagogisk og kulturpolitisk viktig fenomen, og peikar på eit særleg potensial som autonomt og demokratisk kunstverk retta mot barn og unge.

• Bente, Larsen, & Johan, Karstensen, Marcus (2025). Jan Groth og "den hvite kuben". Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dette essayet søker å belyse Jan Groths (1938-2022) debut i New York under gallerist Betty Parsons (1900-1982), året 1972. Groths kunstnerskap er i perioden som leder opp til hans inntreden i det amerikanske kunstfeltet preget av en progresjon mot et satt formspråk hvor «linjen» og «tegnet» står sentral. Med sine tegninger og gobelin-tepper gjorde Groth seg bemerket på det europeiske kontinentet, likevel ville den mest tungtveiende bekreftelse være å finne i New York. Parsons hadde siden 1945 dominert det amerikanske kunstfeltet samt spilt en viktig rolle i spredningen av «den hvite kuben» som den ubestridte standard for fremvisningen av moderne abstrakt kunst. Med sin urokkelig tro på hva den modernistiske kunsten kunne romme og formidle ovenfor mennesket evnet Parsons, med sin prominente bakgrunn, å kultivere et publikum og en sfære som raskt brakte både kunstnere og hennes hvitmalte galleri inn i høykulturen. Denne sfæren, kulturen eller rammeverket, som jeg i dette essayet velger å omtale det som, utgjør konteksten hvor Jan Groth presenterer sine verk for å videre nå uante høyder i sin karriere. En essensiell del av dette rammeverket er således Betty Parsons og hennes myndighet innenfor det amerikanske kunstfeltet, men også «den hvite kuben» som et kuratorisk grep og kunsthistorisk fenomen. Utover Groths debut i New York og hans år med adresse på Manhattan, er «den hvite kuben» et moment i hans kunstnerskap som åpner opp for å illustrere den internasjonale nerven og hans betydelige nedslagsfelt utenfor Skandinavia. Groths kunstnerskap muliggjør å korte ned avstanden mellom norsk og internasjonal modernisme samt utdype hvordan «den hvite kuben» fra sin oppblomstring på tidlig 1900-tall satte nye premisser for produksjonen av kunst. Gjennom dette essayet historiseres «den hvite kuben» som et kunsthistorisk fenomen og legger vekt på det tankegodset som gjorde seg gjeldende i New York anno 1945-50, da Parsons åpnet sin «hvite kube». Videre tematiseres Groths ovre innenfor rammene av det nevnte kuratoriske grepet samt i hvilken grad hans kunstnerskap sett i lys av «den hvite kuben», åpner opp for en særegen forståelse av hans formspråk, kunstneriske åndsfellesskap og bidrag til en bredere diskurs omkring modernismens kunst.

• Friedrich, Bär, Silvio & Douma, Miles, Margaretha Jacoba (2025). Artemis in Homer Who is she? What is she? A literary analysis of the Goddess Artemis. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Homer in his poems does not appear to provide us with a coherent view of Artemis, for example, he does not include the myth of a daughter of Agamemnon being sacrificed to Artemis before the battle of Troy when there is an opportunity to include it. The opposite is proposed by Homer when he uses Agamemnon during the battle of Troy to explain that he has three daughters who are still alive and living in his home among them one named Iphianassa, which sounds very much like Iphigenia. In this thesis, narrators and focalisers are analysed within texts that mention Artemis in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, to ascertain whether commonly held views about her are valid; that she is a fearful and uncaring goddess, who loves bloodshed. We discover that Homer in the Iliad focusses on Artemis as a goddess who may inspire strife; however, she can also show kindness by providing healing and protecting women. In the Odyssey we learn that Zeus placed the life of all women in Artemis’ hands, which sounds threatening; however, this statement may be misinterpreted, because Artemis appears to be perceived by women as a kind personal goddess, who hears their prayers and can bring a gentle and quick death when necessary. In both books, we are made aware that Artemis imposes severe punishment on anyone who offends the gods.  

• Mehmood, Shah, Feroz & Gina, Graff, (2025). Med hjertet for landet: politiske følelser, apati og rettferdighet. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven utforsker patriotismens rolle i et godt medborgerskap med utgangspunkt i Martha Nussbaums teori om politiske følelser og argument for å kultivere frem patriotisme i et samfunn. Spesifikt tar oppgaven for seg forholdet mellom følelser og fornuft i politiske teori, jf. den affektive vendingen; patriotisme forstått som en partikulær lojalitet; hvorvidt denne formen for lojalitet er sårbar for ‘bad faith’, manipulasjon og populisme; patriotismens innvirkning på deltagelse i en demokratisk kontekst; problemet med politisk apati og patriotisme som mulig løsning; og, til slutt, forholdet mellom kjærlighet og rettferdighet: hva slags rolle skal kjærlighet ha i det politiske?

• Johan, Vetlesen, Arne & Eirik, Vad, (2025). The Metamorphosis of the Antisocial Mind: Philosophical Analysis of Change Processes in Antisocial Personality. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Antisocial personality constitutes coordinated deficiency in three cardinal virtues—justice, practical wisdom and temperance. These are not isolated behavioral dysfunction or rule-violation, but corruption within the psychic infrastructure incapacitating moral agency. Integrating Aristotelian virtue ethics and Platonic moral psychology with contemporary work by MacIntyre, Annas and Hursthouse, alongside Frankfurt, Strawson and Fischer and Ravizza, the inquiry demonstrates why antisocial character resists conventional rehabilitation and what authentic transformation would require. The central contribution is the transformation paradox: antisocial personality corrupts the psychological capacities necessary for moral development. Character metamorphosis presupposes three interdependent prerequisites—temporal integration for experiential learning, intersubjective recognition for genuine relational bonds, and psychic order for reflective self-examination. Virtue deficiency undermines all three, creating internal barriers differing in kind from external obstacles. Vice generates conditions that demand and preclude its own amelioration. Plato’s Callicles serves as exemplar throughout, offering conceptual clarification of how antisocial character actively opposes the framework for ethical formation. His withdrawal from Socratic dialogue shows how psychic disorder creates learning-proof defenses resistant to rational appeal but also reveals why only engagement at the level of character—through sustained dialectical examination rather than behavioral management—could achieve the reform antisocial personality imposes. The analysis yields normative criteria distinguishing authentic transformation from strategic adaptation and contributes to debates on scalar moral agency. It also establishes foundations for empirical investigation of Socratic dialectical methods with antisocial populations.

• Mehmood, Shah, Feroz & Gina, Graff, (2025). Med hjertet for landet: politiske følelser, apati og rettferdighet. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Denne oppgaven utforsker patriotismens rolle i et godt medborgerskap med utgangspunkt i Martha Nussbaums teori om politiske følelser og argument for å kultivere frem patriotisme i et samfunn. Spesifikt tar oppgaven for seg forholdet mellom følelser og fornuft i politiske teori, jf. den affektive vendingen; patriotisme forstått som en partikulær lojalitet; hvorvidt denne formen for lojalitet er sårbar for ‘bad faith’, manipulasjon og populisme; patriotismens innvirkning på deltagelse i en demokratisk kontekst; problemet med politisk apati og patriotisme som mulig løsning; og, til slutt, forholdet mellom kjærlighet og rettferdighet: hva slags rolle skal kjærlighet ha i det politiske?

• Anna, Smajdor, & Magnus, Langsæter, (2025). Is AI Intellectual Theft? On Large Language Models, training data, plagiarism and intellectua property. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This MA thesis examines a set of ethical concerns related to generative AI and the use of other people’s material for training data without consent or compensation, especially as it relates to accusations of plagiarism and intellectual property violations. This is a topic which has seen much discussion in the last couple of years, both on the academic, legal and popular level. In this thesis, I aim to give a thorough analysis of the issue from an ethical perspective, independent of (for example) where existing legal standards may fall on the issue. After introducing the debate, I first give a general analysis of plagiarism and intellectual property from an ethical perspective, asking what is really wrong with reusing other people’s material in the first place. Here, I articulate and defend a version of a “labour-desert” view which emphasizes that creators are entitled to be the recipients of various secondary benefits from their work, rather than on the intellectual products themselves. I also propose a more “Kantian” approach to the question, whereon aligned ends are what distinguish (morally) acceptable and unacceptable uses of other people’s work. In the third chapter, I begin looking more specifically at the issue of AI-generated work. I look at the recurring issue of creativity and originality, as well as more generally on the value of the resulting outputs and the relationship between this and the labour involved in producing them. Here I particularly draw on aesthetic literature which looks at these kinds of questions in the context of AI-generated artistic works. In the last chapter, I finally evaluate the central questions, examining if and when there might be something morally problematic with using people’s work in AI-development. In particular, I argue that it is likely to depend on the use and how it affects the people who made the training data in question, but that people might be ethically entitled to some form of compensation. I then spend some time articulating a possible resolution in terms of communal rather than (necessarily) individual benefit, and suggest the “Stewardship model” in Gene-ethics as a possible parallel. Lastly I evaluate the extent to which such an analysis makes sense giving current actual circumstances, without drawing absolute conclusions.

• Ingvild, Torsen, & Sivert, Wøien, (2025). This Machine Makes Artworks. A case for generative AI art based on Danto's philosophy of art. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Over the past few years, the rapid proliferation of generative AI images has caused debate over whether these images should be considered art, or whether making art with AI is possible at all. This is a topic which has received little attention in the field of philosophical aesthetics, likely because philosophers have assumed that generative AI images can be artworks. This thesis provides an argument to support that assumption, using Danto’s philosophy of art, and argues that AI images can be artworks. I present three sceptical positions of AI art: the intentionalist sceptic, the phenomenological sceptic, and the institutionalist sceptic. The intentionalist sceptic argues that AI art is impossible because AI models lack intentions. The phenomenological sceptic argues that AI art is impossible because AI models lack a unique outlook on the world, based on direct experience. The institutionalist sceptic argues that AI art is impossible because AI images have no connection to art history or art theories. These three sceptics correspond with central concepts in Danto’s philosophy of art: metaphor, style, and the artworld. If the sceptics were correct, AI images would not be able to be metaphors, because they lack intentions. AI images would not have style either, because they do not express unique ways of seeing. Finally, AI images would not be part of the artworld, since they lack a connection to the artworld. I argue that the positions of the three sceptics do not hold, and that AI images can fulfil all the requirements for art in Danto’s philosophy of art. Since AI images can be metaphors, have style, and be art of the artworld, AI images can be art.

View all works in NVA