Continuous reducibilities are a proven tool in Computable Analysis, and have applications in other fields such as Constructive Mathematics or Reverse Mathematics. We study the order-theoretic properties of several variants of the two most important definitions, and especially introduce suprema for them. The suprema are shown to commutate with several characteristic numbers.

This paper reviews the debate on the notion of biological function and on functional explanation as this takes place in philosophy. It describes the different perspectives, issues, intuitions, theories and arguments that have emerged. The author shows that the debate has been too heavily influenced by the concerns of a naturalistic philosophy of mind and argues that in order to improve our understanding of biology the attention should be shifted from the study of intuitions to the study of the actual (...) practice of biological inquiry. (shrink)

This article deals with a type of functional explanation, viability explanation, that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of science. Viability explanations relate traits of organisms and their environments in terms of what an individual needs to survive and reproduce. I show that viability explanations are neither causal nor historical and that, therefore, they should be accounted for as a distinct type of explanation.

This contribution investigates the idea that an act of signification can be understood in terms of the self-referentiality that is typical of the biological organization. The capacity of a living being to interpret and appreciate its own environment can be understood as being grounded in its ability to perform self-referential experiences. We may call this the living being’s capacity of sense. In any act that generates sense, it is possible to distinguish a process of signification from its outcome, but such (...) a distinction between logical levels inevitably demands an external observer’s point of view. Hence, the concept of ‘subjectivity’ can be defined in terms of an absence of such distinction between logical levels. This absence is considered pivotal both for the self-referential organization of the living and for the generation of sense. A case example from the field of psychotherapy is added to illustrate the distinction as well as the non-distinction between logical levels of description. (shrink)

Max Horkheimer, the founder of the critical theory of the ‘Frankfurt School’, died in July 1973. In his essay dedicated to this great thinker, sociologist and philosopher, the author attempts to uncover the theoretical roots of this critical thinking in the philosopher's early work. He analyses Horkheimer's early commitment to the cause of the victims of social, economic and political oppression as well as all systems that trample on the freedom and dignity of the individual and that discriminate against and (...) persecute minorities. He also pays special attention to Horkheimer's struggle against the authoritarian state, against totalitarianism as well as anti-Semitism. (shrink)

Following Mayr (1961) evolutionary biologists often maintain that the hallmark of biology is its evolutionary perspective. In this view, biologists distinguish themselves from other natural scientists by their emphasis on why-questions. Why-questions are legitimate in biology but not in other natural sciences because of the selective character of the process by means of which living objects acquire their characteristics. For that reason, why-questions should be answered in terms of natural selection. Functional biology is seen as a reductionist science that applies (...) physics and chemistry to answer how-questions but lacks a biological point of view of its own. In this paper I dispute this image of functional biology. A close look at the kinds of issues studied in biology and at the way in which these issues are studied shows that functional biology employs a distinctive biological perspective that is not rooted in selection. This functional perspective is characterized by its concern with the requirements of the life-state and the way in which these are met. (shrink)

Although machine learning has been successful in recent years and is increasingly being deployed in the sciences, enterprises or administrations, it has rarely been discussed in philosophy beyond the philosophy of mathematics and machine learning. The present contribution addresses the resulting lack of conceptual tools for an epistemological discussion of machine learning by conceiving of deep learning networks as ‘judging machines’ and using the Kantian analysis of judgments for specifying the type of judgment they are capable of. At the center (...) of the argument is the fact that the functionality of deep learning networks is established by training and cannot be explained and justified by reference to a predefined rule-based procedure. Instead, the computational process of a deep learning network is barely explainable and needs further justification, as is shown in reference to the current research literature. Thus, it requires a new form of justification, that is to be specified with the help of Kant’s epistemology. (shrink)

I argue that there are at least four different ways in which the term ‘function’ is used in connection with the study of living organisms, namely: function as activity, function as biological role, function as biological advantage, and function as selected effect. Notion refers to what an item does by itself; refers to the contribution of an item or activity to a complex activity or capacity of an organism; refers to the value for the organism of an item having a (...) certain character rather than another; refers to the way in which a trait acquired and has maintained its current share in the population. The recognition of a separate notion of function as biological advantage solves the problem of the indeterminate reference situation that has been raised against a counterfactual analysis of function, and emphasizes the importance of counterfactual comparison in the explanatory practice of organismal biology. This reveals a neglected problem in the philosophy of biology, namely that of accounting for the insights provided by counterfactual comparison. (shrink)

Este artículo trata de relacionar el teatro posdramático con algunas ideas que Friedrich Nietzsche presenta sobre todo en su primera obra importante, El origen de la tragedia. En concreto se buscan similitudes en el concepto de lo performativo y en un aspecto esencial de la tragedia nietzscheana, el dolor físico. No se pretende establecer una filiación directa entre Nietzsche y el teatro de última actualidad sino llamar la atención sobre una de las consecuencias más recientes de la ruptura estética que (...) él propuso. (shrink)

Examines the moral and political philosophies of John Locke in comparison with his predecessors and contemporaries such as Hobbes and Filman.

Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of culture has been much discussed in recent years. However, it remains unclear how it evolved from his older theory of knowledge. This study deals with this question on the basis of Cassirer's 'disposition' of a 'philosophy of the symbolic', reconstructed here for the first time. This text shows that the 'symbolic' refers to culture as a whole and to its inherent diversity. Therefore, 'the symbolic' includes the relationship between the general transcendental conditions of culture and its (...) empirical specificities in language and languages, art and the arts, myth and myths, science and disciplines. Cassirer does not comprehend this empirical and specific reality of symbolization depending on pre-existing transcendental conditions. Instead, he proceeds from the empirical diversity of the symbolisations and reflects on their simultaneously general and specific conditions. Thus, Cassirer embarks on a path that he finds paved in Kant's "Critique of Judgement": He consequently defines 'the symbolic' as the horizon for a reflective approach based on empirical findings - and not as the foundation of a systematic derivation of the diversity of culture in the style of the idealistic tradition. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Kuipers' account of functional explanation in biology in view of an example of such an explanation taken from real biology. The example is the explanation of why electric fishes swim backwards (Lannoo and Lannoo 1993). Kuipers' account depicts the answer to a request for functional explanation as consisting only of statements that articulate a certain kind of consequence. It is argued that such an account fails to do justice to the main insight provided by the example explanation, (...) namely the insight into why backwards swimming is needed by fishes that locate their food by means of an electric radar. The paper sketches an improved account that does justice to this kind of insight. It is argued that this account is consistent with and complementary to Kuipers' insight that function attributions are established by means of a process of hypothetico-deductive reasoning guided by a heuristic principle. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with reasonings that purport to explain why certain organisms have certain traits by showing that their actual design is better than contrasting designs. Biologists call such reasonings 'functional explanations'. To avoid confusion with other uses of that phrase, I call them 'design explanations'. This paper discusses the structure of design explanations and how they contribute to scientific understanding. Design explanations are contrastive and often compare real organisms to hypothetical organisms that cannot possibly exist. They are not (...) causal but appeal to functional dependencies between an organism's different traits. These explanations point out that because an organism has certain traits, it cannot be alive if the trait to be explained were replaced by a specified alternative. They can be understood from a mechanistic point of view as revealing the constraints on what mechanisms can be alive. (shrink)

Dieses Buch schlägt - unter dem Titel "synthetischer Materialismus" - einen neuen Weg zur Klärung des Geist-Materie-Problems vor. Ausgangspunkt ist die These, dass wir als Betrachter der Welt frei sind, dieselben Gegenstände in unterschiedlich komplexe raum-zeitliche Zusammenhänge einzuordnen, und dass sich daraus unterschiedliche Möglichkeiten der Klassifikation von Gegenständen ergeben können: Wenn wir von "Lebewesen", "Handlungssubjekten" und "Personen" sprechen, und ihnen psychische Phänomene zuschreiben, nutzen wir den Umstand, dass die Konstellationen von Kohlehydraten, Eiweißen, Wasser und Nukleinsäuren, die jene Entitäten auch sind, (...) in einer besonderen Weise mit Teilen ihrer Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft in Verbindung gebracht werden können. Der synthetische Materialismus vermag so zu zeigen, dass es zwischen einem ausschließlich "materialistischen" Verständnis der Welt und jenen Sichtweisen, innerhalb derer wir manche Komplexe von materiellen Phänomenen als Individuen mit ihnen selbst bewussten Empfindungen, Absichten und Überzeugungen verstehen, Übergänge gibt, die methodisch-wissenschaftlich nachvollzogen werden können und die nicht zu nutzen töricht wäre. (shrink)

"André Tosel (1941-2017) fut par excellence un intellectuel organique au sens donné par Gramsci. Militant pour une part, et pour l'autre, auteur d'une oeuvre singulière et riche, nourrie de ; Spinoza, de Marx et de Gramsci dont il fut l'un des spécialistes français. OEuvre tout entière tournée vers une refondation non-dogmatique de la théorie marxienne de la révolution et vers l'élaboration d'une définition actualisée et rénovée de l'émancipation, maître-mot sans doute de sa pensée. Émancipation juridique (de l'État "pénal" plus que (...) de droit), sociale (de l'impératif systémique capitaliste), politique (de la "démocratie-régime", en réalité un "libéral-totalitarisme") et religieuse (repensant les conditions de la laïcité, autre maître-mot de cette oeuvre, contre le ré-enchantement métaphysico-religieux). Arno Munster rend ici hommage à une oeuvre dont on s'étonne qu'elle n'ait pas davantage été connue, qui doit l'être plus et mieux, et qui la critique aussi bien, en toute amitié, depuis les points de vue qui lui sont propres, poursuivant en somme ce qui a, des années durant, lié essentiellement leurs deux pensées et les a parfois opposés."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Arno Bammé geht es in diesem Buch darum, die sozialhistorischen Wurzeln der gegenwärtigen Problematik im Verhältnis Natur/Gesellschaft/Wissenschaft/Technik deutlich zu machen. Ausgangspunkt seiner Argumentation ist David Bloors Edinburgh Strong Programme, demzufolge auch der”hard core“der Wissenschaft sozialen Ursprungs ist. Sein Ziel ist es, der tatsächlichen historischen Entwicklung, die sehr chaotisch verlaufen ist, soziologisch eine Struktur zu geben - in Form dreier Zäsuren, wobei das Wechselverhältnis von Wissenschaft, Technik und Gesellschaft im Vordergrund steht.

Exploration of the political roles firms play in society is a flourishing stream within corporate social responsibility research. However, few empirical studies have examined multiple levels of political CSR at the same time from a critical perspective. We explore both how the motivations of managers and internal organizational practices affect a company’s choice between competing CSR approaches, and how the different CSR programs of corporate and civil society actors compete with each other. We present a qualitative interpretative case study of (...) how a French children’s clothing retailer develops CSR practices in response to accusations of poor working conditions and child labor in its supply chain. The company’s CSR approach consists of superficial practices, such as supplier audits by a cooperative business-organized nongovernmental organization and philanthropic activities, which enable managers to silence more radical alternative models defended by other NGOs, activists, and trade unions. By this approach, the core business model based on exploitative low-cost country sourcing remains intact through self-regulated CSR. Through the case study, we develop a framework of dynamism in competing CSR programs. We discuss the implications of our study for CSR researchers, company managers, and policy makers. (shrink)

Thesis--Fribourg. Cf. Das Schweizer Buch. Serie B. 1966.

Resumo O entendimento de Friedrich Nietzsche sobre Friedrich Schiller é bem conhecido e culmina em 1888, na desqualificação que se tem com “Schiller: ou o trompetista moral de Säckingen”. Mas é sabido que suas considerações são contraditórias, mudando com frequência nas diferentes etapas de sua vida produtiva. A monografia de Nicholas Martin marca um ponto de viragem no que diz respeito a este tema, refutando a disseminada compreensão de que somente o jovem Nietzsche teria experimentado admiração por Schiller, depois vindo (...) a assumir distância cada vez maior. A dívida de Nietzsche para com Schiller, segundo Martin, é constante, e manifesta-se sobretudo em sua recepção das cartas estéticas. O que se pretende fazer ver aqui, seguindo a tradição de Wolfgang Riedel, é que o ensaio Sobre a poesia ingênua e sentimental [Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung] é tão ou mais importante neste contexto sobretudo quando dirigimos nosso enfoque para o contexto da crítica cultural. Várias declarações de Nietzsche, por exemplo, formulada em 1870, “não estou em condições de empregar essa terminologia esplendorosamente schilleriana para o inteiro e mais amplo domínio de toda a arte”, confirmam tal suposição, e uma vez que, no mesmo momento de elaboração de O nascimento da tragédia no espírito da música, ele se propõe a “[…] fortalecer o conceito do ingênuo e do sentimental”, tem-se justificada a intenção de relacionar ambas as obras-chave de ambos os Dichterphilosophen [filósofos poetas] do ponto de vista da crítica cultural.Friedrich Nietzsche's opinion about Friedrich Schiller is well known and culminates in 1888 in the disqualification “Schiller: oder der Moral-Trompeter von Säckingen”, but at the same time it is recognized that his considerations are contradictory and that they change in the different moments of his productive life. Nicholas Martin's study from 1996 marks a caesura in this subject by refuting the widespread view that only the young Nietzsche experienced admiration for Schiller and that there was a growing distance afterwards. Nietzsche's debt to Schiller, according to Martin, is constant and is manifested above all in his reception of the aesthetic letters. We would like to demonstrate in the tradition of Wolfgang Riedel that the essay Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung is equally or even more important in this context, especially when it is approached from the standpoint of cultural criticism. Several statements by Nietzsche, such as the one formulated in 1870 “Ich bin nicht im Stande, jene herrliche Schillersche Terminologie auf das ganze weiteste Bereich aller Kunst anzuwenden” confirm this assumption, and when, at the very moment when Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geist der Musik was being prepared, Nietzsche proposed that the “[…] Begriff des Naiven und des Sentimentalistischen ist zu steigern”, the attempt to link both key works of the two Dichterphilosophen from the point of view of cultural criticism is justified. (shrink)

Epistula 108, one of the longest of Jerome’s letters, was written in 404 AD to console Eustochium for the loss of her mother Paula. Scholars have referred to this letter as a lengthy epitaphium with hagiographic features, a eulogistic tribute, a biographical eulogy of Paula, a laudatio funebris, a travelogue, a memoir, a metaphorical account of Paula’s pilgrimage through life, a piece of ascetic propaganda and a textual basis for a Bethlehem-centred cult of Paula the ascetic martyr-saint. The aim of (...) this article is to analyse and comment on Jerome’s letter as an example of the genre of Graeco-Roman biography, containing various features of ancient βίοι. While Jerome cast the letter ostensibly as a consolatio for Eustochium, it turned out to be a commemoration of Paula, his patron, devoted disciple and monastic companion. The article will ultimately investigate whether this letter was written to sub-serve a higher motive of Jerome, the chief architect of 4th-century asceticism. (shrink)

We show that a computable function $f:\mathbb R\rightarrow \mathbb R$ has Luzin’s property if and only if it reflects $\Pi ^1_1$ -randomness, if and only if it reflects $\Delta ^1_1$ -randomness, and if and only if it reflects ${\mathcal {O}}$ -Kurtz randomness, but reflecting Martin–Löf randomness or weak-2-randomness does not suffice. Here a function f is said to reflect a randomness notion R if whenever $f$ is R-random, then x is R-random as well. If additionally f is known to have (...) bounded variation, then we show f has Luzin’s if and only if it reflects weak-2-randomness, and if and only if it reflects $\emptyset '$ -Kurtz randomness. This links classical real analysis with algorithmic randomness. (shrink)

Promoting translational research as a means to overcoming chasms in the translation of knowledge through successive fields of research from basic science to public health impacts and back is a central challenge for research managers and policymakers. Organizational leaders need to assess baseline conditions, identify areas needing improvement, and to judge the impact of specific initiatives to sustain or improve translational research practices at their institutions. Currently, there is a lack of such an assessment tool addressing the specific context of (...) translational biomedical research. To close this gap, we have developed a new survey for assessing theorganizational climate for translational research. This self-assessment tool measures employees’ perceptions of translational research climate and underlying research practices in organizational environments and builds on the established Survey of Organizational Research Climate, assessing research integrity. Using this tool, we show that scientists at a large university hospital (Charité Berlin) perceive translation as a central and important component of their work. Importantly, local resources and direct support are main contributing factors for the practical implementation of translation into their own research practice. We identify and discuss potential leverage points for an improvement of research climate to foster successful translational research. (shrink)

Das Lehrbuch, das neuartige Zugänge bietet, die sowohl die Politikgestaltung beeinflussen, als auch der Politikwissenschaft ein komplexes kritisch-rationales Handlungs- und Orientierungswissen bereitstellen. Das Werk eignet sich sowohl für das Selbststudium als auch für den akademischen Unterricht.

This handbook explores the ways biomedicine and pop culture interact while simultaneously introducing the reader with the tools and ideas behind this new field of enquiry. From comic books to health professionals, from the arts to genetics, from sci-fi to medical education, from TV series to ethics, it offers different entry points to an exciting and central aspect of contemporary culture: how and what we learn about scientific knowledge and its representation in pop culture. Divided into three sections the handbook (...) surveys the basics, the micro-, and the macroaspects of this interaction between specialized knowledge and cultural production: After the introduction of basic concepts of and approaches to the topic from a variety of disciplines, the respective theories and methods are applied in specific case studies. The final section is concerned with larger social and historical trends of the use of biomedical knowledge in popular culture. Presenting over twenty-five original articles from international scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds, this handbook introduces the topic of pop culture and biomedicine to both new and mature researchers alike. The articles, all complete with a rich source of further references, are aimed at being a sincere entry point to researchers and academic educators interested in this somewhat unexplored field of culture and biomedicine. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 19-54.

Auf die Rede von Begriffen und vergleichbaren Entitäten, so behauptet Quine, könne man verzichten. Mit einer solchen Einstellung handelt Quine sich jedoch Schwierigkeiten ein, die z.B. an seinem Konzept des Setzens von Gegenständen sowie an seinem Verständnis von Existenzaussagen sichtbar werden (§ 1 und 2). Im Hintergrund jener Einstellung steht ein unzureichendes Verständnis der Funktion von Begriffen (§ 3). Zudem hat Quine bisher nicht zur Kenntnis genommen, daß Wittgenstein in seiner Spätphilosophie Vorschläge zum Verständnis der Rede von Begriffen entwickelt hat, (...) welche es erlauben, zahlreiche Defizite des neuzeitlichen Verständnisses von Begriffen zu beheben (§ 4). (shrink)