Presents a guide to the basics of quantum mechanics and measurement.

This essay asks if there is a role for an active public in ratcheting down the harsh politics of crime control in the United States and the United Kingdom that has led to increased use of the criminal law and greater severity in punishment. It considers two opposing answers offered by political and legal theorists and then begins to develop a participatory democratic framework for institutional reform.

The study examines the argumentative competencies of people with Asperger syndrome (AS) and compares this with those of normal – or what are called neurotypical (NT) – subjects. To investigate how people with AS recognise, evaluate and engage in argumentation, we have adapted and applied the empirical instrument developed by van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels to study the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical freedom rule (van Eemeren, Gars- sen & Meuffels 2003a; 2003b; 2005a; 2005b; van Eemeren & Meuffels, 2002). Our (...) paper begins with some background information on Asperger syndrome and how it impacts upon communication and argumentation; then it addresses the research questions and methods used; thirdly, it presents some initial findings; finally, it will conclude with some im- plications for those people with AS, for those they come into contact with and for the pragma-dialectic model in general. (shrink)

The Internet has become a field of dragon teeth for a person’s identity. It has made it possible for your identity to be mistaken by a credit agency, spied on by the government, foolishly exposed by yourself, pilloried by an enemy, pounded by a bully, or stolen by a criminal. These harms to one’s integrity could be inflicted in the past, but information technology has multiplied and aggravated such injuries. They have not gone unnoticed and are widely bemoaned and discussed. (...) The government and private watchdogs are working to protect the identity of citizens though at least in the United States both the government and individuals all too often side with prosperity when it conflicts with privacy. Still, these information-technological threats to identity have been recognized and can be reasonably met through legislation, regulation, and discretion. There is another kind of danger to our identity that is more difficult to define and to meet, for it has no familiar predecessors, has no criminal aspects, and exhibits no sharp moral or cultural contours. Still that threat to our identity haunts us constantly and surfaces occasionally in conversations and the media. It makes us feel displaced, distracted, and fragmented at the very times when to all appearances we seem to be connected, busy, and energetic. At the same time, the culture of technology, and of information technology particularly, has opened up fields of diversity and contingency that invite us to comprehend our identities in newly responsible, intricate, and open-minded ways. (shrink)

Amongst the many social factors that impact upon children, race is arguably one of the largest. Race is an ever-present social category that governs many elements of a child’s interaction with others, and especially for racial minority children it exerts a deep influence on their understanding of themselves. In this chapter, we shall begin by examining what the concept of race really amounts to, emphasizing its status as a socially constructed concept, before examining in the following section how children first (...) come to recognize the existence of race, and to understand their own racial identity.We will then look at two important areas that illustrate the profound impact that the social presence of race and the child’s developing understanding of racial identity have upon the social conditions of many children. First, we will examine how race and childhood intersect in matters of educational opportunity and achievement, before moving on to examine the issue of transracial adoption in the final section. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to consider the possibility of a new analytical methodology that could include multidisciplinary approaches into the study of religious ideologies and practices, taking benefit from historical and ethnographic interpretations, but also from linguistic and philological, psychoanalytical, philosophical, sociological, and anthropological considerations. If one tries to study the role or function played by religion in society, considering human beings as builders of symbolic worlds, one should set out to analyze, if not rules, at least general (...) processes of the religious readjustment with respect to the rest of social life, whenever the gap is much too wide, or the religious transfer from one realm to another entirely different. (shrink)

Art is a language. Art objects are therefore decipherable into more or less elaborated and restricted codes. These codes change with the relative solidarity of the community in which they are produced. The more solidary the group, the more restricted the code; the less solidary the community, the more elaborated the artistic codes they produce. In general, realism is a more elaborated code and abstraction a more restricted code, and accordingly more solidary communities should produce more abstract art and less (...) solidary groups should produce more realistic art. This theoretical relationship between artistic codes and group solidarity is captured in the idea of a "semantic equation" and is applied to changes in the styles of New York art from the 1940s through the mid 1980s. (shrink)

God’s speech is a prominent theme in the book of Hebrews. A fascinating phenomenon regarding God’s speech, and one that has in my opinion not been adequately explored, is that the writer possibly implies that God created by his word (Heb 11:3), preserves creation by his word (Heb 1:3) and will consummate creation by his word (Heb 12:26). This article examines whether the writer indeed had the conviction that God did, does and will do this by his word. This is (...) done by doing grammatico-historical exegesis of Hebrews 11:3, 1:3 and 12:26 and integrating the findings. In so doing, this article contributes to the study of Hebrews’ theology of God’s word. (shrink)

0.1 Logic, in particular the modern symbolic logic, is not accused of being deficient in precision and accuracy, but one does sometimes hear that it is unrealistic, that it cannot be applied to reality, that it is utopian.

Bei einer groben Betrachtungsweise wird meist nur zwischen dem frühen und dem späten Wittgenstein unterschieden, dem Verfasser des Tractatus logico-philosophicus von 1918 und dem Verfasser der 1953 posthum veröffentlichten Philosophischen Untersuchungen. Die Fülle der nachgelassenen Schriften erlaubt es uns jedoch, ein klares Bild der Entwicklung seines Denkens zu zeichnen. Im Zentrum des Aufsatzes steht die Diskussion des Farbenausschlusses, wobei dieser besagt, daß zwei Farben nicht zur selben Zeit am selben Ort gegeben sein können. Zunächst wird geklärt, wie sich die Sprachphilosophie (...) Wittgensteins durch die Thesen zum Farbenausschluß in dem Aufsatz „Some Remarks on Logical Form" im Vergleich zu seiner Position im TLP geändert hat. Die Thesen in SR bilden eine Übergangsposition vom TLP hin zu einer Kalkültheorie der Bedeutung, die sich 1931/32 ausbildete. Alle diese Positionen bewegen sich noch im Rahmen einer allgemein verstandenen Bildtheorie, die durch die Veränderungen stetig unterhöhlt und erst 1932/33 von einer Gebrauchstheorie der Bedeutung abgelöst wird. Das Modell von der Entwicklung der Sprachphilosophie Wittgensteins kann als Bild der insgesamt umfassenden, aber stufenweise erfolgenden Änderung der Theorie der sprachlichen Bedeutung charakterisiert werden. (shrink)