A revision of the author's thesis, Stuttgart, 1972.

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

Successful surgical treatment of patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy remains challenging, especially in cases for which it is difficult to define the area of cortex from which seizures originate, the seizure onset zone. Various diagnostic methods are needed to select surgical candidates and determine the extent of resection. Interictal magnetoencephalography with source imaging has proven to be useful for presurgical evaluation, but the use of ictal MEG data remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether pre-ictal (...) variations of spectral properties of neural activity from ictal MEG recordings are predictive of SOZ location.We performed a 4 h overnight MEG recording in an 8-year-old child with drug-resistant focal epilepsy of suspected right fronto-temporal origin and captured one ~45-s seizure. The patient underwent a right temporal resection from the anterior temporal neocortex and amygdala to the mid-posterior temporal neocortex, sparing the hippocampus proper. She remains seizure-free 21 months postoperatively. The histopathological assessment confirmed frank focal cortical dysplasia type IIa in the MEG-defined SOZ, which was based on source imaging of averaged ictal spikes at seizure onset. We investigated temporal changes together with spatial differences in spectral parameters of background brain activity, namely the aperiodic broadband offset and slope, and assessed how they confounded the interpretation of apparent variations of signal power in typical electrophysiological bands. Our data show that the SOZ was associated with a higher aperiodic offset and exponent during the seizure compared to control regions. Both parameters increased in all regions from 2 min before the seizure onwards. Regions anatomically closer to the SOZ also expressed higher values compared to contralateral regions, potentially indicating ictal spread. We also show that narrow-band power changes were caused by these fluctuations in the aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity. Our results indicate that the broadband aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity cannot be reduced to background noise of no physiological interest, and rather may be indicative of the neuropathophysiology of the SOZ. We believe these findings will inspire future studies of ictal MEG cases and confirm their significance. (shrink)

The following strong form of density of definable types is introduced for theoriesTadmitting a fibered dimension functiond: given a modelMofTand a definable setX⊆Mn, there is a definable typepinX, definable over a code forXand of the samed-dimension asX. Both o-minimal theories and the theory of closed ordered differential fields are shown to have this property. As an application, we derive a new proof of elimination of imaginaries for CODF.

Goethes Novelle ist ein Familienexperiment. Sie exponiert einen nach den damaligen Rechtsverhältnissen inzestuösen Heiratswunsch, um ihn durch ein Gewebe affektiver Verschiebungen und Übertragungen in eine legitime Partnerkonstellation zu überführen. Mit groβem mythologischem Aufwand werden für die Goethezeit fundamentale Fragen des Verwandtschaftscodes verhandelt.

The set of $$\textsf{ST}$$ ST -valid inferences is neither the intersection, nor the union of the sets of $$\textsf{K}_3$$ K 3 -valid and $$\textsf{LP}$$ LP -valid inferences, but despite the proximity to both systems, an extensional characterization of $$\textsf{ST}$$ ST in terms of a natural set-theoretic operation on the sets of $$\textsf{K}_3$$ K 3 -valid and $$\textsf{LP}$$ LP -valid inferences is still wanting. In this paper, we show that it is their relational product. Similarly, we prove that the set of (...) $$\textsf{TS}$$ TS -valid inferences can be identified using a dual notion, namely as the relational sum of the sets of $$\textsf{LP}$$ LP -valid and $$\textsf{K}_3$$ K 3 -valid inferences. We discuss links between these results and the interpolation property of classical logic. We also use those results to revisit the duality between $$\textsf{ST}$$ ST and $$\textsf{TS}$$ TS. We present a notion of duality on which $$\textsf{ST}$$ ST and $$\textsf{TS}$$ TS are dual in exactly the same sense in which $$\textsf{LP}$$ LP and $$\textsf{K}_3$$ K 3 are dual to each other. (shrink)

Reputation monitoring and the punishment of cheats are thought to be crucial to the viability and maintenance of human cooperation in large groups of non-kin. However, since the cost of policing moral norms must fall to those in the group, policing is itself a public good subject to exploitation by free riders. Recently, it has been suggested that belief in supernatural monitoring and punishment may discourage individuals from violating established moral norms and so facilitate human cooperation. Here we use cross-cultural (...) survey data from a global sample of 87 countries to show that beliefs about two related sources of supernatural monitoring and punishment — God and the afterlife —independently predict respondents' assessment of the justifiability of a range of moral transgressions. This relationship holds even after controlling for frequency of religious participation, country of origin, religious denomination and level of education. As well as corroborating experimental work, our findings suggest that, across cultural and religious backgrounds, beliefs about the permissibility of moral transgressions are tied to beliefs about supernatural monitoring and punishment, supporting arguments that these beliefs may be important promoters of cooperation in human groups. (shrink)

Entrée encyclopédique / Encyclopedia Entry.

Les deux réceptions du De musica de Plutarque par Pierre-Jean Burette et Jean-Jacques Rousseau interrogent de deux manières dissemblables le rapport qu’entretiennent les découvertes musicales originaires et leur appropriation sensible à la faveur de l’usage. Pensé comme habitude par Burette, l’usage permettra d’historiciser l’origine sans radicaliser la singularité des circonstances. En refusant de conférer à l’usage une telle souplesse, au nom d’une dégénérescence irréversible de l’histoire musicale, Rousseau historicisera l’origine au point d’une non reproductibilité des circonstances.

This essay argues that 20th century analytic philosophy can be fruitfully divided into two periods, the Russell‐based extension list philosophy of the first half of the century and the Marcus‐based intension list philosophy of the second half of the century. The difference between these two philosophical periods is illustrated by the different analyses Russell and Marcus give to the sentence “Scott is Scott” and the different meanings they assign to the sentence “Identity statements between names are necessarily true if true”. (...) Russell's influential role in analytic philosophy in the first half of this century is well‐known, but it has not been until the mid‐1990s that the decisive role that Marcus' philosophy has played in analytic philosophy during the second half of the century has begun to be widely recognized. (shrink)

Philip Turetzky's book TIME presents an exceptionally comprehensive and reliable history of theories of time from the pre-Socratics up to 20th century existentialist thought, Bergsonian theories and even the debate among analytic philosophers about the A and B theories of time (Mellor, Oaklander, Le Poidevin, etc.). He takes the reader up to the You can search..

Call a (strictly increasing) sequence (rn) of natural numbers regular if it satisfies the following condition: rn+1/rn→θ∈R>1∪{∞} and, if θ is algebraic, then (rn) satisfies a linear recurrence relation whose characteristic polynomial is the minimal polynomial of θ. Our main result states that (Z,+,0,R) is superstable whenever R is enumerated by a regular sequence. We give two proofs of this result. One relies on a result of E. Casanovas and M. Ziegler and the other on a quantifier elimination result. We (...) also show that (Z,+,0,<,R) is NIP whenever R is enumerated by a regular sequence that is ultimately periodic modulo m for all m>1. (shrink)

Given the residual homonegativity in evidence throughout our diverse communities, and given the large numbers of gay people who remain “in the closet”, it is critical that we seek to understand in greater depth the complexities of the coming-out process with a view to dispelling some of the confusion relating to sexual identity. Internalised homophobia is more widespread than generally acknowledged, and it manifests in a variety of ways, including the sociological phenomenon of gay men remaining closeted until well into (...) middle age. This article applies a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to examine the process of realisation, where an individual gradually becomes aware of his sexual orientation, and eventually acknowledges to himself that he is gay. This process can take decades. For this research project, twelve participants (gay men who have come out after the age of 40) from Aotearoa New Zealand willingly shared intensely personal accounts of their lived experiences. The findings indicate that individuals experience clarity about same-sex attraction in strikingly different ways. This study helps us to understand the difficulties faced by men who have lived the majority of their lives as “straight”, then in middle age find themselves having to negotiate the tortuous terrain between heterosexuality and a new gay identity. (shrink)

Truth, semblance, reconciliation -- The dialectic of modernism and postmodernism -- Art and industrial production -- Ethics and dialogue.

Some philosophers follow mctaggart in holding that there is a vicious infinite regress of tensed predications. Other philosophers claim there is no regress. The author argues that there is a regress, But it is benign.

This introductory chapter presents an overview of the different topics discussed in the subsequent chapters. These include process reliabilism, evidentialism, viral epistemology, anti-luminosity argument, and modal epistemology.

you use it. These two assumptions, which I believe to be false, are based on a more fundamental assumption, that the rule governing the reference of an indexical remains constant from use to use. Contemporary theories hold that the reference of an indexical varies from use to (relevantly different) use, but that the reference-fixing rule of use is You can search..

This book proposes a novel position in the debate on scientific realism: Modal Empiricism. Modal empiricism is the view that the aim of science is to provide theories that correctly delimit, in a unified way, the range of experiences that are naturally possible given our position in the world. The view is associated with a pragmatic account of scientific representation and an original notion of situated modalities, together with an inductive epistemology for modalities. It purports to provide a faithful account (...) of scientific practice and of its impressive achievements, and defuses the main motivations for scientific realism. More generally, Modal Empiricism purports to be the precise articulation of a pragmatist stance towards science. This book is of interest to any philosopher involved in the debate on scientific realism, or interested in how to properly understand the content, aim and achievements of science. (shrink)

Taylor analyzes Nietzsche's thoughts on the state, culture and education.

The novel use of symbolism in early modern mathematics poses both philosophical and historical questions. How can we trace its development and transmission through manuscript sources? Is it intrinsically related to the emergence of symbolic algebra? How does symbolism relate to the use of diagrams? What are the consequences of symbolic reasoning on our understanding of nature? Can a symbolic language enable new forms of reasoning? Does a universal symbolic language exist which enable us to express all knowledge? This book (...) brings together a collection of papers that address all these and related questions which were initially posed at a conference held in Ghent (Belgium) in August 2009. Scholars working on philosophy of science, history of philosophy and history of mathematics provide an insight into the role and function of symbolic representations in the development of early modern mathematics. The papers cover the period from early abbaco arithmetic and algebra (14h century) up to Leibniz (early 18th century). (shrink)

Many activities towards plants are directly related to environmental crisis issues. However, our actions towards plants are little theorized in philosophy and ethics. After a brief presentation of the history, state of the art, and current issues of plant ethics, I critically illustrate how the theoretical threads of current ethics should be clarified, and, more importantly, contextualised, to promote the application of concrete measures. Particular attention is paid to the ethics of plant flourishing as applied to different fields and types (...) of plants. The treatment of wild and ornamental plants is, thus, explicitly distinguished from that of improved agricultural varieties, themselves distinguishable according to modes of cultivation. I thus propose and discuss several recommendations and concrete courses of action to promote an ethics of plants, while pointing out its limitations. (shrink)

Wir rekonstruieren einen signifikanten Strang von Max Benses früher intellektueller Entwicklung über sein Verhältnis zu Oswald Spengler, David Hilbert und Heinrich Scholz. Nach einer kurzen Rekapitulation von Spenglers kulturrelativistischem Bild des Mathematischen folgen wir einigen Spuren der Spengler-Lektüre in Max Benses frühen Texten und zeigen, wie sich Bense unter dem Einfluss von Heinrich Scholz ab Ende der 1930er Jahre sukzessive von Spengler distanziert und schließlich ein Konzept ‚reiner Wissenschaft‘ ausbildet, wie es sich unter anderem in David Hilberts formalistischer Mathematik Ausdruck (...) verleiht. Die Verteidigung Hilberts gegen völkische Denker wie Max Steck ist einer der Schauplätze, auf denen Scholz und Bense gemeinsam ihren Weltanschauungsdissens zur NS-Wissenschaftsauffassung artikulieren, gleichwohl sind auch sie Teil des NS-Wissenschaftssystems. (shrink)

Introduction Ce que nous proposons ici est un essai général, une tentative avec tout ce qu’elle comporte d’imparfait et d’incomplet, de rendre compte à travers une étape de son développement, du regard que porte la littéra­ture sur elle-même. Ce miroir littéraire nous semble en effet très bien explicité par la littérature romantique, qui choisit pour thème le regard sur soi et joue avec le lecteur sur la mise en abîme de ce regard. L’importance de ce miroir romantique repose sur l’idée (...) que sa... (shrink)