Both daily demands as well as training and competition characteristics in sports can result in a psychobiological state of mental fatigue leading to feelings of tiredness, lack of energy, an increased perception of effort, and performance decrements. Moreover, optimal performance will only be achievable if the balance between recovery and stress states is re-established. Consequently, recovery strategies are needed aiming at mental aspects of recovery. The aim of the study was to examine acute effects of potential mental recovery strategies on (...) subjective-psychological and on cognitive performance outcomes after a mentally fatiguing task. A laboratory-based randomized cross-over study with twenty-four students was applied. Participants were run through a powernap intervention, a systematic breathing intervention, a systematic breathing plus mental imagery intervention, and a control condition with one trial a week over four consecutive weeks. Mental fatigue was induced by completion of the 60-min version of the AX-continuous performance test. The Short Recovery and Stress Scale and Visual Analog Scales were assessed to measure effects on perceptual outcomes. Cognitive performance was measured with a reaction time test of the Vienna Test System. During all three recovery interventions and CC portable polysomnography was applied. Results showed a significant increase from pre-AX-CPT to pre-MR on fatigue states and recovery-stress states indicating that the induction of mental fatigue was effective. Moreover, results underlined that analysis yielded no significant differences between recovery interventions and the control condition but they revealed significant time effects for VAS, SRSS items, and cognitive performance. However, it could be derived that the application of a rest break with 20 min of mental recovery strategies appears to enhance recovery on a mainly mental and emotional level and to reduce perceived mental fatigue. (shrink)

In this extraordinary work, Peter Alexander Meyers shows how the centerpiece of the Enlightenment—society as the symbol of collective human life and as the fundamental domain of human practice—was primarily composed and animated by its most ambivalent figure: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Displaying this new society as an evolving field of interdependence, Abandoned to Ourselves traces the emergence and moral significance of dependence itself within Rousseau’s encounters with a variety of discourses of order, including theology, natural philosophy, and music. Underpinning this (...) whole scene we discover a modernizing conception of the human Will, one that runs far deeper than Rousseau’s most famous trope, the “general Will.” As Abandoned to Ourselves weaves together historical acuity with theoretical insight, readers will find here elements for a reconstructed sociology inclusive of things and persons and, as a consequence, a new foundation for contemporary political theory. (shrink)

We report the results of a vignette study with an online sample of the German adult population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distribution decisions. We asked participants to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The study systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find that (...) participants distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is partially compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is given a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of participants being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

From Hobbes to Weber, discussions of power increasingly made a modern concept of "will" their pivotal category. Although sometimes tinged with other concerns, this tendency continues today. Focusing through the lens of the "will" displays an image of power that reasserts untenable conceptions of the person and obscures the fact that power is a relation and not a property, a faculty, or a thing-in-itself. The dissertation tackles this fundamental problem. ;To begin, "dependence" is given the centering position. "Dependence," unlike "will," (...) is a necessarily relational concept. A distinction is introduced between dependence-from-things and dependence-from-persons. The interrelation between these is considered in terms of non-formal anthropological conceptions of reciprocity. This complex reciprocity is contrasted to reciprocity understood as "equality." ;Paradoxically, the theoretical move to contextually determined reciprocity forces reconsideration of the "will," for the background normative institutional patterns of reciprocity in liberal societies are delineated in terms of the "will." This is a virtuous, not a vicious, circle. Once the "will" has been forced from its central position in the theory of power, a critical perspective is gained by viewing "will" through "dependence." ;An analysis of the ways people rationalize or appropriate to their own advantage the unintended consequences of action illuminates the link between "will" and "dependence." The emergence of dependence itself provides a general example of an "unintended consequence of action." People seeking to gain advantage assert their independence from the unintended, even while appropriating the "unintended consequences of action." Cultural patterns for denying dependence play an important part in asserting advantage. ;Disruptions of practical relations of reciprocity cannot be determined a priori; rather, they follow from speech and action. These disruptions lead to contention. Two notoriously vague notions, public and private, have long been terms for playing out such contentions. Theorists often assume that public/private indicates two distinct "spheres" . By contrast, the present theory provides an approach to the analysis of the transformation of private into public. This is a necessary condition for the emergence and control of power. (shrink)

We report the results of a vignette experiment with a quota sample of the German population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distributive decisions. We asked subjects to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The experiment systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find that subjects (...) distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is always compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is punished in terms of receiving a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of subjects being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

La curiosité persistante des lecteurs de Primo Levi a pris souvent une forme interrogative et a suscité son engagement. Sa réponse à la question « êtes-vous retourné à Auschwitz ? » se trouve dans un appendice joint à l’édition scolaire de Se questo è un uomo longtemps après sa première parution1.La réponse est oui. Levi est retourné..

Society as the ethical starting point for political inquiry -- The moral relevance of dependence -- Nature and the moral frame of society -- Morality in the order of the will.

In this extraordinary work, Peter Alexander Meyers shows how the centerpiece of the Enlightenment—_society _as the symbol of collective human life and as the fundamental domain of human practice—was primarily composed and animated by its most ambivalent figure: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Displaying this new _society_ as an evolving field of interdependence, _Abandoned to Ourselves_ traces the emergence and moral significance of dependence itself within Rousseau’s encounters with a variety of discourses of order, including theology, natural philosophy, and music. Underpinning this (...) whole scene we discover a modernizing conception of the human Will, one that runs far deeper than Rousseau’s most famous trope, the “general Will.” As _Abandoned to Ourselves_ weaves together historical acuity with theoretical insight, readers will find here elements for a reconstructed sociology inclusive of things and persons and, as a consequence, a new foundation for contemporary political theory. (shrink)

A. G. Baumgarten's foundation of aesthetics as a branch of philosophical reflection is itself deeply rooted in Leibnizian metaphysics. From this starting-point Baumgarten comes to a kind of monadological concept of the work of art, that gets now an inexhaustible and thruthrepresenting meaning. This truth of the work of art however cannot be recognized rationally, for it is impossible for human beings to be aware of a beautiful object's 'metaphysical truth', which can only be perceived by the senses as - (...) to quote Baumgarten - 'aesthetical truth'. Still it is possible, by rational and scientific hermeneutics, to transfer some aspects of aesthetical to logical truth. The interest in art is therefore at the same time an interest in the cognition of the metaphysical cosmic order, and Baumgarten's aesthetics similarly are the first foundation of philosophical hermeneutics of art. (shrink)

In dieser Untersuchung zum Demarkationsproblem wird auf der Grundlage eines rational rekonstruierten Konzepts von Wissenschaft ein Ansatz zur Bewertung des wissenschaftlichen Status von mutmaßlich pseudowissenschaftlichen Glaubenssystemen entwickelt. Der instrumentelle Wert des Konzepts wird durch eine Kritik des Intelligent Designs belegt.

Das 12. Jahrhundert gilt als eine Epoche gro.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 5-24.

Die Untersuchung analysiert deswegen nach einem einleitenden Vorschlag zur Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Logik und Metaphysik im Anschluss an Leibniz Baumgartens Erkenntnistheorie in ihrer charakteristischen Komplementarität von Ästhetik und Logik, die das gesamte Feld aller möglichen Gewissheit, d. h. des Bewusstseins der Wahrheit der verschiedensten Erkenntnisse, abdecken. Darüber hinaus erörtert sie auch deren mögliche Gegenstände, nämlich die Beschaffenheit der Dinge, wie sie das Wissen Gottes als eine ideale Metaphysik enthielte. Auf der Grundlage einer Ontologie teilweise unbestimmer aktualer Existenz kommt Baumgarten (...) zu einer kosmologischen Theorie monadischer Bewegtheit aller körperlichen Dinge. Sie führt zu einer Psychologie des Erkennens und Handelns, aus der ein indeterministischer Begriff menschlicher Willensfreiheit folgt, die auch von Gottes Allwissen nicht beschränkt wird. (shrink)