The internet could be an efficient political instrument if it were seen as part of a democracy where free and open discourse within a vital public sphere plays a decisive role. The model of deliberative democracy, as developed by Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, serves this concept of democracy best. The paper explores first the model of deliberative democracy as a ‘two-track model’ in which representative democracy is backed by the public sphere and a developing civil society. Secondly, it outlines (...) the normative concept of the public sphere and its basic ideas, namely the uncoerced communication of equal participants with equal access and equal rights to intervene or propose themes. The third part for discussion shows how the internet could fit into this concept of public sphere and influence the quality of political debates, and emphasizes the important role it can play in the political process. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a thorough discussion and reconstruction of Bernard Bolzano’s theory of grounding and a detailed investigation into the parallels between his concept of grounding and current notions of normal proofs. Grounding (Abfolge) is an objective ground-consequence relation among true propositions that is explanatory in nature. The grounding relation plays a crucial role in Bolzano’s proof-theory, and it is essential for his views on the ideal buildup of scientific theories. Occasionally, similarities have been pointed out between Bolzano’s (...) ideas on grounding and cut-free proofs in Gentzen’s sequent calculus. My thesis is, however, that they bear an even stronger resemblance to the normal natural deduction proofs employed in proof-theoretic semantics in the tradition of Dummett and Prawitz. (shrink)

"As a 'rhetoric of the mean' (mesotes ideal), sensibility provides a positive catalog of emotionalization. This is because ethos as an emotional level is viewed as being able, through gentle emotions, to please, placate and achieve sympathy and virtue (Quintilian). Sensibility in literature creates a bridge between an 'art of the soul' that developed into a major subjective and personal factor in the 18th century and a sense of sociability that aimed to integrate the individual into the community. The goal (...) of this study is to provide, through a structural linking of the ethos of virtue and the 'rhetoric of the mean', a reading of literature of sensibility based on rhetoric and cultural history that can explain both its public success 'with the people' and the reasons for why it failed to meet its own claims."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 1 Seiten: 346-360.

Aus geteilten Zeiten: Studien zur Nanbeichao-Periode. Geburtstagsgabe für Shing Müller 宋馨. Edited by Roderich Ptak. Deutsche Ostasienstudien, vol. 35. Gossenberg: Ostasien Verlag, 2020. Pp. vi + 216. €29.

Stress-related psychopathology is on the rise, and there is a pressing need for improved prevention strategies. Positive appraisal style, the tendency to appraise potentially threatening situations in a positive way, has been proposed to act as a key resilience mechanism and therefore offers a potential target for preventive approaches. In this article, we review n = 99 studies investigating associations of positive cognitive reappraisal, an important sub-facet of positive appraisal style, with outcome-based resilience and relevant other outcomes, which are considered (...) resilience-related. According to the studies reviewed, positive cognitive reappraisal moderates the relation between stressors and negative outcomes and is positively related to several resilience-related outcomes. It also mediates between other resilience factors and resilience, suggesting it is a proximal resilience factor. (shrink)

The transition semantics presented in Rumberg (J Log Lang Inf 25(1):77–108, 2016a) constitutes a fine-grained framework for modeling the interrelation of modality and time in branching time structures. In that framework, sentences of the transition language L_t are evaluated on transition structures at pairs consisting of a moment and a set of transitions. In this paper, we provide a class of first-order definable Kripke structures that preserves L_t-validity w.r.t. transition structures. As a consequence, for a certain fragment of L_t, validity (...) w.r.t. transition structures turns out to be axiomatizable. The result is then extended to the entire language L_t by means of a quite natural ‘Henkin move’, i.e. by relaxing the notion of validity to bundled structures. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a novel propositional semantics based on the framework of branching time. The basic idea is to replace the moment-history pairs employed as parameters of truth in the standard Ockhamist semantics by pairs consisting of a moment and a consistent, downward closed set of so-called transitions. Whereas histories represent complete possible courses of events, sets of transitions can represent incomplete parts thereof as well. Each transition captures one of the alternative immediate future possibilities open at a (...) branching point. The transition semantics exploits the structural resources a branching time structure has to offer and provides a fine-grained picture of the interrelation of modality and time. In addition to temporal and modal operators, a so-called stability operator becomes interpretable as a universal quantifier over the possible future extensions of a given transition set. The stability operator allows us to specify how and how far time has to unfold for the truth value of a sentence at a moment to become settled and enables a perspicuous treatment of future contingents. We show that the semantics developed along those lines generalizes and extends extant approaches: both Peirceanism and Ockhamism can be viewed as limiting cases of the transition approach that build on restricted resources only, and on both accounts, stability collapses into truth. (shrink)

Quipus, knotted structures of woollen or cotton cords, were used as a bureaucratic tool in the Inca state. In the absense of a writing system, numerals and possibly other pieces of information were encoded on the quipus by tying knots into elaborately structured coloured cords. Though interpretation of the quipu contents is far from complete, some information on Inca mathematics can be deducted from the analysis of ancient specimen, especially when combined with the results of anthropological and linguistic research in (...) contemporary Andean societies. In this paper, the quipus are introduced, their structure is explained, and some results on mathematical concepts of the Incas are presented based on a comparison of mathematical and anthropological literature on the subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Utopias in Africa is an emerging academic field. While we are witnessing an increasing number of fictional and ideological utopias, little attention is paid to lived utopias. The Green Camp Gallery Project is such a lived utopia, which predominantly strives for realizing desired future imaginations in daily practices. Localized in the urban context of Durban, in a derelict house in the industrial area, the Green Camp strives for a “simple post-growth life,” which is closely related to nature and the (...) philosophy of Ubuntu. In so doing, the Green Camp responds to the overlapping crisis of urbanity and offers an alternative future aspiration. The Green Camp is not perfect and it is not able to solve the deep problems of South African society, but it offers an “island” of hope and imagination in a challenging urban environment. At the same time the lived utopia reveals the agency of the urban marginalized and contradicts widespread assumptions concerning environmentalism. Based on a qualitative study, the article takes an unusual perspective by analyzing the imagination of lived utopia in an emerging utopian hotspot—Africa. (shrink)

Abstract State Machines (ASMs) provide a formal method for transparent design and specification of complex dynamic systems. They combine advantages of informal and formal methods. Applications of this method motivate a number of computability and decidability problems connected to ASMs. Such problems result for example from the area of verifying properties of ASMs. Their high expressive power leads rather directly to undecidability respectively uncomputability results for most interesting problems in the case of unrestricted ASMs. Consequently, it is rather natural to (...) ask whether there exist expressive classes of ASMs for which we can prove positive decidability and computability results. In this work, we introduce such a class of ASMs. The concept is similar to the one of the guarded fragment of first-order logic. We analyze the expressive power of this class and prove that it is stronger than Datalog LITE and the guarded fragment of first-order fixed point logic. Some decidability and computability results have been proven in earlier works. (shrink)

“[T]here is something rotten at the heart of medicine” —this is one of the central statements of Jeffrey Paul Bishop in his book The Anticipatory Corpse. Medicine, Power and the Care of the Dying. The obvious, if somewhat morbid, thought that “rotten” would refer to the decaying body as the central subject of investigation is, however, misleading. Instead, Bishop aims to demonstrate that the modern trend of medicalizing dying and death is the wrong way.The book explores contemporary medicine’s practices, their (...) historical evolvement, and their underpinnings with regard to the care of the dying. Informed by Foucault’s genealogy of medicine, the book argues that the dead body has become the epistemologically normative body for medicine: medical knowledge of the living body is derived from investigating the dead body. With the help of autopsies, medicine has learned to view life as “matter in motion” and people as moving machines with interchangeable parts. Furthermore, medicine has .. (shrink)

Communicating the process quality of ethically produced food effectively is of highest interest to policy makers, organizations, retailers and producers in order to enhance ethical food production and increase ethical label use. The objective of this paper is to unveil the effectiveness of different communication treatments in regard to changing purchase behavior of different consumer groups. Different communication material for beef produced according to consumer expectations was compiled and applied in a consumer survey—incorporating a choice experiment and a questionnaire—with 676 (...) respondents in three cities of Germany. A Latent Class Mixed Logit Model was basis to identify different consumer segments and their response to the different communication treatments. The effects of different communication treatments unveil the importance to address information in an objective manner. Target groups could be enlarged through the assessment of clear, objective information. Moreover, most consumers were more likely to refrain from choosing a cheap beef product from conventional, barn-based rearing. Hence, consumers might be interested in reducing their overall consumption of beef and prefer the consumption of high value ethical beef with less frequency. Producers, market actors and policy makers should realize that a high share of consumers, not only smaller target groups, value ethical food and may be ready to change their consumption habits, if they are adequately informed. (shrink)

A central challenge of Amartya Sen’s comparative view of justice is to bring cultural diversity to bear on conceptualizing global justice, which includes building bridges across cultures that enable effective action, and rendering compatible the most beneficent of Rawlsian (or transcendental) intentions with irreducible cultural diversity. For social scientists meeting this challenge requires, first, taking account of variation of social practices in the social construction of meaning, and second, uncovering invisible frontiers of global justice that remain hidden due to conceptual (...) or empirical oversight. The latter is especially true for contemporary International Relations (IR) theory, which assumes state actors to be the main interlocutors in the global realm, and thus precludes consideration of micro-level forms of inter-national relations (understood as interaction among all types of actors that takes place across country borders and that bears traits of national identity). Alternatively, Sen’s micro-perspectival approach offers a welcome support for pluralist approaches that both appreciate non-state access to contestation in the international arena, and account for the meaning-in-use of fundamental norms (democracy, rule of law, human rights) in different cultural and inter-national contexts. (shrink)

The globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited. As an alternative, private regulation, developed and administered by companies, industry associations, and nongovernmental organizations, has emerged to safeguard economic, environmental, and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain. The academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade, but currently few major reviews of the research have (...) been undertaken. This paper examines peer-reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to December 2011. Our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature. We conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation, in a global value chain context, is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world’s economy. We also conclude that agriculture, forestry, and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors; in contrast, other sectors, such as the information, communication and technology, with their complex global value chains, and often problematic environmental and social conditions, are understudied. (shrink)

Der Sammelband nimmt erstmalig seit Ende des Kalten Krieges für den deutschsprachigen Raum eine komprimierte Bestandsaufnahme der aktuellen Aktivitäten, rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen, politischen und militärischen Konfliktlinien und Kooperationsräume sowie weiterführender Trends und Herausforderungen im Weltraum vor. Dabei werden zum einen die rechtlichen, militärischen, wirtschaftlichen und technologischen Herausforderungen des Bedeutungszuwachses dieses strategisch gewichtigen Raumes analysiert. Zum anderen werden Handlungsfähigkeit und -bedarf ausgewählter Weltraummächte, ihre Kooperationsmöglichkeiten und Konfliktpotenziale sowie der internationale politische Regulierungsbedarf herausgearbeitet und darauf aufbauend politische Handlungsempfehlungen dargelegt.,,Eine hervorragend gelungene Bestandsaufnahme der (...) umfassenden Bedeutung des Weltraums." Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Karl Kaiser, Harvard University Die Herausgeber PD Dr. Antje Nötzold ist Privatdozentin und wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an der Professur Internationale Politik der TU Chemnitz. Dr. Enrico Fels ist Geschäftsführer des Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Andrea Rotter ist Referatsleiterin für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik bei einer politischen Stiftung. Dr. Moritz Brake ist Senior Fellow am Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) und Experte für Maritime Sicherheit und Strategie am German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies (GIDS) als Reserveoffizier der Deutschen Marine. (shrink)

For Seneca, the firmness of the Wise is shown in his ability to remain calm against attacks, as he explains in his treatise of that name. Attacks can come in the form of injustice, iniuria, and disparagement, contumelia; Seneca proves that neither of them affects the wise man. Contumelia is linked to contemptus in definition and conceptualization so that the remarks on how to deal with disparagement contain clues as to what contemptus means for Seneca. The article argues that Seneca (...) understands the term in a double sense: First, contemptus denotes a reprehensible attitude. Second, it designates a kind of indifference which is to be understood in the context of Stoic apatheia. (shrink)

Suppose there comes a day when Homo sapiens has evolved into or been overtaken by techno sapiens. Will it then still make sense to speak of human beings as created in the image of God? What is the relevance of asking such a question today? I offer a sketch of the present state of development and discussion in artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (AL) and discuss some implications for the human condition. Taking into account both reality and fiction in (...) AI and AL, I hold that, regardless of the degree of realization, issues related to technological evolution inform the cultural agenda—at least the European–American one. I comment on antireductionist arguments and on arguments from philosophy and (history of) culture. I argue in favor of a consonance between neurotechnology and the Christian gospel in terms of realizing the marks of messianic life. However, issues of justice, reason versus nature, and perfection and finitude versus imperfection and immortality call for further illumination. Even though no principal opposition seems to exist between technological evolution and possible interpretations of the concept of the image of God (imago dei), a number of significant dissimilarities need to be addressed, such as the differences between technical improvement and forgiveness or transformation and between immortality and resurrection. The role of irregularity, disturbance, and error for creative processes in nature and culture is an exciting topic in science and technology as well as in theology. (shrink)

I explore three challenges for the current dialogue between science and religion: the challenges from hermeneutics, feminisms, and postmodernisms. Hermeneutics, defined as the practice and theory of interpretation and understanding, not only deals with questions of interpreting texts and data but also examines the role and use of language in religion and in science, but it should not stop there. Results of the post‐Kuhnian discussion are used to exemplify a wider range of hermeneutical issues, such as the ideological potential of (...) scientific concepts, the dynamics of interdisciplinarity, and the significance of the socioeconomic situatedness of science and religion. Feminist research analyzes the consequences of the interplay of masculine, feminine, and gender typologies in religion and science. Examples from the history of science as well as current scientific conceptualizations indicate that beliefs in the inferiority of woman form part of our inherited scientific, religious, and metaphysical framework. It is argued that postmodernism in its most constructive form shares the best fruits of modernity, especially of the Enlightenment, while avoiding some of its most serious mistakes. In conclusion, reflecting on the three publics engaged in the dialogue between science and religion—academe, religious communities, and societies—I offer constructive suggestions and critical observations concerning the future of this dialogue. (shrink)

One of the most robust findings in psychopathology is the fact that specific phobias are more prevalent in women than in men. Although there are several theoretical accounts for biological and social contributions to this gender difference, empirical data are surprisingly limited. Interestingly, there is evidence that individuals with stereotypical feminine characteristics are more fearful than those with stereotypical masculine characteristics; this is beyond biological sex. Because gender role stereotypes are reinforced by parental behavior, we aimed to examine the relationship (...) of maternal gender stereotypes and children’s fear. Dyads of 38 mothers and their daughters were included. We assessed maternal implicit and explicit gender stereotypes as well as their daughters’ self-reported general fearfulness, specific fear of snakes, and approach behavior toward a living snake. First, mothers’ fear of snakes significantly correlated with their daughters’ fear of snakes. Second, mothers’ gender stereotypes significantly correlated with their daughters’ self-reported fear. Specifically, maternal implicit gender stereotypes were associated with daughters’ fear of snakes and fear ratings in response to the snake. Moreover, in children, self-reported fear correlated with avoidance of the fear-relevant animal. Together, these results provide first evidence for a potential role of parental gender stereotypes in the development and maintenance of fear in their offspring. (shrink)

Abstract.A hallmark of Arthur Peacocke's work is his aim of writing theology that is intellectually honest. He believed that intelligibility and meaning are foremost on theology's agenda. Consequently, he focused on ultimate meanings, but he did so by taking into account the scientific knowledge of the world. He faced head‐on the challenge to accept the Christian tradition, at the same time subjecting that tradition to critique and reforming its images and modes of thinking. I survey Peacocke's agenda, his methodology, and (...) the sources of his theological thinking, and how this contributes to understanding the relationship between science and theology. A major result of his approach is the abolition of dualisms, specifically that of the natural and the supernatural. Peacocke's approach to theology has exemplary potential for the debate between those who espouse a radical Enlightenment with its claim to universal principles of reason and radical postmodernists who may appear to fall prey to a relativism that equals nihilism. (shrink)

Although there is increasing public criticism of intensive livestock production, the market share of meat with an animal welfare standard exceeding legal requirements remains small. Food retailers, in their role as gatekeepers, can influence changes in production and consumption patterns. Their strategic role between farmers and consumers allows them to control commodity, information and value flow and therefore places them into a key position when it comes to the distribution of meat with a higher animal welfare standard. The aim of (...) this explorative study is to identify factors which motivate food retailers to take on the marketing of products of increased animal welfare standards, in this case, pasture-based beef. Nine in depth-interviews were conducted with representatives of the food retail industry. The interviews took place in June 2018, followed a structured guideline and were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were categorized and evaluated using qualitative content analysis. Results showed that food retailers are driven by both extrinsic and intrinsic motives. The main extrinsic motive is the perceived customer demand. Consciousness for animal welfare and the regional production cycles, including close connection between farmers and retailers are inherently intrinsic motives. Interestingly, the interviewed retailers show a high personal interest and moral obligation with regard to sourcing and marketing pasture-based beef. As such, this research finds innovative retailers, who take on a new role in sustainable food systems which exceed classical distribution functions and may have a considerable effect in transforming the food system. (shrink)

In einer gesteigerten Form der Memento-mori-Dichtung des Barock wurde die menschliche Sterblichkeit durch den Einsatz performativer Strategien für die Zeitgenoss*innen bereits zu Lebzeiten erfahrbar. So waren mahnende und tröstende Tote, die scheinbar direkt aus dem Jenseits zu den Lebenden sprechen, in Begräbnisgedichten und Grabinschriften allgegenwärtig. Ebenso waren Gedichte und Sterbelieder verbreitet, in denen der Sterbeakt performativ durchlebt werden konnte. In der Gegenwart, die sich nach Norbert Elias durch eine Verdrängung der menschlichen Vergänglichkeit zugunsten von Unsterblichkeitsphantasien, und somit einer Vermeidung von (...) Erfahrungen mit der Vergänglichkeit, auszeichnet, gestalten einige deutschsprachige Lyriker*innen moderne Variationen dieses gesteigerten memento mori. In den untersuchten Gedichten von Özlem Özgül Dündar und Günter Kunert werden durch performative Verfahren Konfrontationen mit der eigenen Endlichkeit inszeniert, welche als moderne, säkulare Vergänglichkeitsmahnungen verstanden werden können. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of resistance under conditions of extreme state power in liberal democracies. It examines the strategies of migrants without legal status who, when threatened with one of the most awesome powers of the liberal state—expulsion—shed their legal identity in order to escape the state’s reach. Remarkably, in doing so, they often succeed in preventing the state from exercising its sovereign powers. The article argues that liberal states are uniquely constrained in their dealing with undocumented migrants. Not (...) only are they forced to operate within the constraints of the international legal order—making repatriation contingent on the possession of identity documents—but the liberal state is also constitutionally limited in its exercise of coercion against the individual. The article concludes that it is those individuals who have the weakest claims against the liberal state that are most able to constrain its exercise of sovereignty. (shrink)