In a well-known text called ‘The Communist Hypothesis’, first published in 2007, the renowned philosopher Alain Badiou breathed fresh life into the idea of communism as an intellectual representation that provides a critical perspective on existing politics and offers a systemic alternative to capitalism. Now, in the course of this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Engelmann, Alain Badiou explains why he continues to value the idea of communism against the background of current social crises and despite negative historical experiences. From (...) the anticipation of a communism without a state to the problem of the concept of democracy and an analysis of capitalism as a system, the two thinkers discuss the key political issues of our time. Whilst explaining his political philosophy, Badiou also reflects on current socio-political developments such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the situation in China. This compelling dialogue is both a highly topical contribution to the question of how we might organize our societies differently and an accessible introduction to Badiou's philosophical thinking. (shrink)

We present a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the ACT‐R–based model of sentence processing developed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005) (LV05). The predictions of the model are compared with the results of a recent meta‐analysis of published reading studies on retrieval interference in reflexive‐/reciprocal‐antecedent and subject–verb dependencies (Jäger, Engelmann, & Vasishth, 2017). The comparison shows that the model has only partial success in explaining the data; and we propose that its prediction space is restricted by oversimplifying assumptions. We then implement (...) a revised model that takes into account differences between individual experimental designs in terms of the prominence of the target and the distractor in memory‐ and context‐dependent cue‐feature associations. The predictions of the original and the revised model are quantitatively compared with the results of the meta‐analysis. Our simulations show that, compared to the original LV05 model, the revised model accounts for the data better. The results suggest that effects of prominence and variable cue‐feature associations need to be considered in the interpretation of existing empirical results and in the design and planning of future experiments. With regard to retrieval interference in sentence processing and to the broader field of psycholinguistic studies, we conclude that well‐specified models in tandem with high‐powered experiments are needed in order to uncover the underlying cognitive processes. (shrink)

In the preface of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein says that his “most fruitful ideas” are due to the stimulus of Sraffa's criticism, but Sraffa is not mentioned anywhere else in the book. It remains a puzzle in the literature how and why Sraffa influenced Wittgenstein. This paper presents a solution to this puzzle. Sraffa's criticism led Wittgenstein away from the calculus conception of language of the Big Typescript (arguably, an adaptation of the calculus of the Tractatus), and towards the “anthropological (...) view,” which structures both the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations and Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

We explore the interaction between oculomotor control and language comprehension on the sentence level using two well-tested computational accounts of parsing difficulty. Previous work (Boston, Hale, Vasishth, & Kliegl, 2011) has shown that surprisal (Hale, 2001; Levy, 2008) and cue-based memory retrieval (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005) are significant and complementary predictors of reading time in an eyetracking corpus. It remains an open question how the sentence processor interacts with oculomotor control. Using a simple linking hypothesis proposed in Reichle, Warren, and (...) McConnell (2009), we integrated both measures with the eye movement model EMMA (Salvucci, 2001) inside the cognitive architecture ACT-R (Anderson et al., 2004). We built a reading model that could initiate short “Time Out regressions” (Mitchell, Shen, Green, & Hodgson, 2008) that compensate for slow postlexical processing. This simple interaction enabled the model to predict the re-reading of words based on parsing difficulty. The model was evaluated in different configurations on the prediction of frequency effects on the Potsdam Sentence Corpus. The extension of EMMA with postlexical processing improved its predictions and reproduced re-reading rates and durations with a reasonable fit to the data. This demonstration, based on simple and independently motivated assumptions, serves as a foundational step toward a precise investigation of the interaction between high-level language processing and eye movement control. (shrink)

I aim to present a solution to the apparent paradox of the Tractatus by means of a minimalist reading grounded in the idea that the correct logical symbolism alone “finally solves” in essentials the philosophical problems. I argue that although the sentences of the Tractatus are nonsensical, rules presented in its symbolism are not. The symbolism itself expresses only a priori rules of logic through schematic variables that do not say anything. I argue that this reading correctly expresses the ladder (...) structure of the book, and that it can account for Wittgenstein's critique of the Tractatus in Some Remarks on Logical Form. (shrink)

The epistemological challenges of the Anthropocene trouble distinctions of solid and fluid. In this contribution, the author proposes, after Gabrielle Hecht, that the nuclearity of the Anthropocene contributes significantly to destabilising these categories. Nuclear materials and ideas of nuclearity force (re)consideration of deep timescales and imperceptible processes, problematising fixed material ontologies. The article engages with nuclear matters and queries the logic of solids and fluids by developing the notion of elemental memory. An attention to elemental memory – an element’s capacity (...) to auto-affect over time – reveals the inadequacy of terms like solid and fluid, and highlights the expressiveness of solid fluid substances. Empirically, the author demonstrates, first, how elemental memory informs the solid-fluid processuality of radioactive glasses, especially trinitite. Second, engaging with the work of artists Mari Keto and Erich Berger, she addresses the slow auto-transformations of radioactive minerals. (shrink)

I argue that Wittgenstein’s engagement with Russell’s The Analysis of Mind was crucial for the development of his new method. First, I show that Wittgenstein’s criticism of the causal theory of meaning (namely: that it generates an infinite regress and that it does not determine the depiction of a fact) is motivated by its incompatibility with the pictorial conception of language. Second, I show that in reacting against that theory he comes to invent the calculus conception of language. Third, I (...) argue that the calculus conception is vulnerable to critiques that parallel those presented against Russell’s theory (a rule-following regression and the indeterminacy of depicted facts). Fourth, the striking similarity between the problems present in Russell’s theory and in Wittgenstein’s own views makes him realize that both were working under misleading trains of thought and false analogies. It is this realization that brings Wittgenstein to the view that his task is to investigate the genesis of philosophical puzzlement in order to stop philosophical theorizing right from the beginning. Thus, in explaining the invention of Wittgenstein’s new method I show its relation to Russell’s philosophy and indicate the origins of the rule-following problem. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que as interpretações "tradicional" e "resoluta" não livraram o "Tractatus" da aparente autoderrota paradoxal. Argumento que essas leituras apresentam apenas uma nova roupagem ao paradoxo. A leitura "tradicional" de Hacker acaba atribuindo uma conspiração metafísica ao "Tractatus", o que é incompatível com os objetivos do livro. A leitura "resoluta" de Diamond e Conant atribui a Wittgenstein uma conspiração autoral, o que contradiz suas opiniões sobre autoria e método. Com base nas dificuldades encontradas em (...) ambos os lados do debate atual, concluo este artigo propondo vários requisitos que a correta interpretação do "Tractatus" deve preencher. (shrink)

The article takes the renewed popularity and interest in epidemiological modelling for Covid-19 as a point of departure to ask how modelling has historically shaped epidemiological reasoning. The focus lies on a particular model, developed in the late 1920s through a collaboration of the former field-epidemiologists and medical officer, Wade Hampton Frost, and the biostatistician and population ecologist Lowell Reed. Other than former approaches to epidemic theory in mathematical formula, the Reed-Frost epidemic theory was materialised in a simple mechanical analogue: (...) a box with coloured marbles and a wooden trough. The article reconstructs how the introduction of this mechanical model has reshaped epidemiological reasoning by shifting the field from purely descriptive to analytical practices. It was not incidental that the history of this model coincided with the foundation of epidemiology as an academic discipline, as it valorised and institutionalised new theoretical contributions to the field. Through its versatility, the model shifted the field’s focus from mono-causal explanations informed by bacteriology, eugenics or sanitary perspectives towards the systematic consideration of epidemics as a set of interdependent and dynamic variables. (shrink)

SUMMARYThe debates over Sunstein and Thaler’s Nudge oppose libertarianism and paternalism, or defend the authors’ proposed manipulation of individuals’ ‘choice architectures’ as a consistent system of libertarian paternalism. My essay looks beyond the terms of this debate and revisits Bentham’s ‘Indirect Legislation’ in order to excavate the issues raised by the deployment of technologies of behavioural economics in schemes of government. On the one hand, nudging is nothing other than a mild and carefully considered mode of indirect legislation, and the (...) authors are right to join Bentham in pointing out that the landscape they seek to improve is always with us; we are always already governed and governing others, and we might as well govern and be governed better than we do/are. On the other hand, nudge-like innovations reveal the extent to which Bentham’s insights have been captured by a disciplinary orientation that removes its subjects from political space. Put differently, the issue with this kind of government is not that it interferes with our liberty so much as that it presumes our lack of political orientation and efficacy. Bentham’s liberal subjects inhabit a public and even republican space that Sunstein and Thaler’s neo-liberal subjects have long since abandoned. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The aim of this study is to analyze the reasons behind users’ selection of news results on the news aggregator website, Google News, and the role that news factors play in this selection. We assume that user’s cognitive elaboration of users influences their news selection. In this study, a multi-method approach is used to obtain a complete picture of the users’ news selection reasoning: an open survey, a closed survey, and a content analysis of screen recording data. The results were (...) determined from online news selection of 90 news results from 47 users on Google News. Different news values could be identified as relevant for selection: time-referenced news factors and news factors of social significance were shown to be more important than the news factors of deviance. News cues (presence of a picture, position of a news result, source) were identified as selection reasons regardless of the level of cognitive elaboration during the online browsing process. (shrink)

What should judges do when faced with immoral laws? Should they apply them without exception, since “the law is the law?” Or can exceptions be made for grossly immoral laws, such as historically, Nazi law? Surveying laypeople (N = 167) and people with some legal training (N = 141) on these matters, we find a surprisingly strong, monotonic relationship between people's subjective moral evaluation of laws and their judgments that these laws should be applied in concrete cases. This tendency is (...) most pronounced among individuals who endorse natural law (i.e., the legal-philosophical view that immoral laws are not valid laws at all), and is attenuated when disagreement about the moral status of a law is considered reasonable. The relationship is equally strong for laypeople and for those with legal training. We situate our findings within the broader context of morality's influence on legal reasoning that experimental jurisprudence has uncovered in recent years, and consider normative implications. (shrink)

Schools in Germany are frequently named after people. Thus, these persons are remembered in the public sphere. This article answers the question to what extent the school names in the federal state of Thuringia correspond with the history of scientific pedagogy. For this purpose, in a first step, the controversial discussion about key figures in pedagogy and history of education is presented. In a second step the entirety of all school names in Thuringia is considered and individual results are discussed. (...) As a rule, it is not pedagogues who lend their names to schools but writers, artists and political figures. Only one fifth of all schools named after a person are named after educators. It is found that the key figures in pedagogy are rarely available as namesakes, whereas in practice successful school founders are preferred as name-givers. Accordingly, the history of pedagogy is represented in a filtered way in school names. Based on these results, further research perspectives for research on school names are formulated. (shrink)

IntroductionLittle is known about risk factors for both Long COVID and somatic symptoms that develop in individuals without a history of COVID-19 in response to the pandemic. There is reason to assume an interplay between pathophysiological mechanisms and psychosocial factors in the etiology of symptom persistence.ObjectiveTherefore, this study investigates specific risk factors for somatic symptom deterioration in a cohort of German adults with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.MethodsGerman healthcare professionals underwent SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody testing and completed self-rating questionnaires at baseline (...) and 21 months later between April 2020 and February 2022. Differences in variables between the time points were analyzed and a regression analysis was performed to predict somatic symptom deterioration at follow-up.ResultsSeven hundred fifty-one adults completed both assessments. Until follow-up, n = 58 had contracted SARS-CoV-2 confirmed by serology. Between baseline and follow-up, signs of mental and physical strain increased significantly in the sample. Symptom expectations associated with COVID-19 and a self-reported history of COVID-19, but not serologically confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, significantly predicted somatic symptom deterioration at follow-up. A further predictor was baseline psychological symptom burden.ConclusionsThis study supports a disease-overarching biopsychosocial model for the development of burdensome somatic symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic and supports research findings that symptom burden may be more related to the psychosocial effects of the pandemic than to infection itself. Future studies on Long COVID should include SARS-CoV-2 negative control groups and consider symptom burden prior to infection in order to avoid an overestimation of prevalence rates. (shrink)

Bentham, a founder of political science based on the calculation of interest, has been misread as a crass materialist. I argue, instead, that Bentham's interest is a specific product of the imagination, and the pleasures and pains of which it is composed are also products of the imagination. On my reading, interests and imaginations are always governed and the role of Bentham's political science is to help govern them more effectively and efficiently. Political science is a mode of what he (...) calls. Various interest-based modes of analysis have been attacked by constructivist critics, but I argue that the arch-theorist of interest himself relies on constructivist modes of analysis. What lessons can we learn from this? We should pay less attention to methodological and foundational conflicts, and pay more attention to the practices of government that social science may or may not indirectly legislate. (shrink)

This paper aspires to show the often-obscured structure of alternatives in education. Alternative education is generally understood as an umbrella term for educational thought and practice for and in schools differing from an assumed ‘mainstream’, where ‘alternative’ is often taken to mean ‘better’. In many cases, ‘mainstream’ serves as an empty signifier that can be substituted by various forms of criticism. Just as progressive education is supposed to remedy all the ills of traditional education, alternative education is often positioned as (...) a safe place to retreat to, away from the mainstream. I argue that this leads to a dichotomous structure. The mainstream, however, is not an empirical reality, for example, a specific form of curriculum, differentiation of different types of schooling, or anything else. ‘Mainstream’ serves as a generic critical reference point. My argument is developed through a series of historical discussions around alternative education explored through the lens of contemporary analysis of the category. I then offer a more systematic account of the terminology in order to establish a perspective from which to assess the flaws and problems of alternative education alongside its potential virtues and benefits. (shrink)

This very short introduction to the bibliography of modern epidemiology aims to achieve two modest goals. First, the works presented will be separated into two bodies of historical scholarship, to distinguish the history of the field as told by epidemiological practitioners from the work developed in the history of science, medicine, and public health. Second, this essay focuses on a modern history of epidemiology spanning the later nineteenth and twentieth century. These distinctions aim to capture the contours of the history (...) of epidemiology as it became a field of knowledge production and to some extent an academic discipline, a history told in part by those involved in the field themselves. The enclosed bibliography further distinguishes between geographic contributions to this historiography to capture the historical distribution of the scientific field and its associated histories. (shrink)

Argumento que precisamos mudar de perspectiva na elucidação da referência a Mauthner no Tractatus. A pergunta a ser feita não é “Quais são as semelhanças ou diferenças entre os projetos de Mauthner e do Tractatus?”, mas “Por que Wittgenstein se deu ao trabalho de negar que sua Sprachkritik poderia ter alguma relação com Mauthner?”. A significatividade da negação em “não no sentido de Mauthner” (TLP 4.0031) não se encontra em um problema comum para o qual Mauthner e Wittgenstein teriam suas (...) respostas, como pensavam Janik e Toulmin, mas no fato da Sprachkritik de Mauthner figurar, dentro do Círculo Kraus, como expressão da superficialidade moral da Europa no início do século XX.AbstractThe paper argues that we need to change our perspective to elucidate the reference to Mauthner in the Tractatus. The question is not “What are the similarities or major differences between Mauthner’s views and the Tractatus?” but “Why did Wittgenstein bother to deny that his Sprachkritik could have anything to do with Mauthner’s?” The significance of the negation in “not in Mauthner’s sense” (TLP 4.0031) is not found in a common problem to which Mauthner and Wittgenstein had different answers, as Janik and Toulmin thought, but in the fact that Mauthner’s Sprachkritik is seen within the Kraus Circle as an expression of the moral superficiality of European culture at the beginning of the 20th century. (shrink)

This essay intends to identify intentionalism (infinity given by rules, not by extensions) and the idea of multiple complete mathematical systems (several “mathematics”) as the central characteristics of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics. We intend to roughly show how these ideas come up, interact to each other, how they develop and, in the end, how they are abandoned in the late period. According to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, infinities can only be given by rules and there is a single numerical system (the (...) number’s essence is the general idea of ordering). Intentionalism is up to at least 1933, but the idea of a single system is abandoned in 1929-30 (already in the Philosophische Bemerkungen). In its place one finds the idea of multiple, independent and complete numerical systems. This idea will engender some key moves in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of Mathematics. The notion of “seeing an aspect” from the Big Typescript, of instance, comes up so as to explain such systems. From 1934 onwards, Wittgenstein gradually abandons intentionalism and the idea of multiple, independent and complete systems. In his late philosophy, both ideas are used only as instruments to dissolve philosophical prose regarding mathematics. (shrink)

This article investigates the nature of Aristotelian syllogistics and shows that the categorical syllogism is fundamentally about showing the connection, in the premises of the syllogism, between the major and minor terms as stated in the conclusion. It discusses how this is important for the use of the syllogism in scientific demonstration. The article then examines modern deductive logic with an eye to they way in which it contrasts with Aristotelian syllogistics. It shows howmodern logic is about making necessary connections (...) between each proposition by means of external or second order rules. In the syllogism, on the other hand, the necessity between the premises as a whole unit and the conclusion is based on the internal middle term. The article concludes with a discussion of Günther Patzig’s claim that Aristotelian syllogisms are best thought of as tautological propositions. If this were the case, then the differences asserted to exist between syllogistic and modern logic would not hold. However, it is shown that Patzig’s assimilation of syllogistics to modern deductive logic is illegitimate. (shrink)

Epidemiology is a field torn between practices of surveillance and methods of analysis. Since the onset of COVID-19, epidemiological expertise has been mostly identified with the first, as dashboards of case and mortality rates took centre stage. However, since its establishment as an academic field in the early 20th century, epidemiology’s methods have always impacted on how diseases are classified, how knowledge is collected, and what kind of knowledge was considered worth keeping and analysing. Recent advances in digital epidemiology, this (...) article argues, are not just a quantitative expansion of epidemiology’s scope, but a qualitative extension of its analytical traditions. Digital epidemiology is enabled by deep and digital phenotyping, the large-scale re-purposing of any data scraped from the digital exhaust of human behaviour and social interaction. This technological innovation is in need of critical examination, as it poses a significant epistemic shift to the production of pathological knowledge. This article offers a critical revision of the key literature in this budding field to underline the extent to which digital epidemiology is envisioned to redefine the classification and understanding of disease from the ground up. Utilising analytical tools from science and technology studies, the article demonstrates the disruptive expectations built into this expansion of epidemiological surveillance. Given the sweeping claims and the radical visions articulated in the field, the article develops a tentative critique of what I call a fantasy of pathological omniscience; a vision of how data-driven engineering seeks to capture and resolve illness in the world, past, present and future. (shrink)

This essay seeks to ground the ontological integrity of natural things by examining the dialectic between substantial form, which is the “being-in-itself ”of substances, and second acts, the “being-toward-others” of substances. It is found that a new category of causality needs to be established, that of “expressive causality.” The effects of expressive causality—second acts—are expressions of their substantial form, their cause. It is determined that second acts are sufficient conditions for substantial form, while substantial form itself is a necessary condition (...) for its second acts. This implies that substantial form is ontologically prior to its second acts, which are proper attributes. These proper attributes are distinct from yet essentially connected with substantial form, and can never exhaust the content of the form. (shrink)

Pode-se afirmar que a filosofia crítica kantiana é uma espécie de suporte para a fundamentação epistemológica de Schopenhauer, mas que a teoria schopenhaueriana de modo algum a ela se reduz até porque Schopenhauer reprova desde a compreensão de Kant a respeito do papel que desempenham intuição e razão até a arquitetônica kantiana que exige doze categorias como alicerce do processo de conhecer. Nosso texto versará sobre a importância que Schopenhauer concede à intuição e, principalmente, sobre a justificação de Schopenhauer acerca (...) da causalidade como única “categoria” necessária e suficiente para a percepção dos objetos. (shrink)

Dans cet article, j’essaie de montrer que l’idée du langage comme calcul structure la philosophie de Wittgenstein dans le Big Typescript. Pour ce faire, je commence par mettre en relief les différences entre la conception du langage comme calcul dans le Tractatus, et sa reformulation dans le Big Typescript ; j’explique ensuite comment l’idée de l’autonomie de la grammaire est à la base de la conception de la « grammaire » ou du langage comme calcul. J’espère pouvoir montrer ainsi l’unité (...) de la philosophie de Wittgenstein aux alentours de 1932-1933. Il doit en ressortir que sa philosophie à l’époque du Big Typescript présente un intérêt en elle-même, quoiqu’il ne s’agisse pas encore de la philosophie des Recherches philosophiques.I aim at showing that the idea of language as a calculus is the central view that shapes Wittgenstein’s philosophy in the Big Typescript. In order to do so, I first contrast the conception of language as a calculus in the Tractatus with its reformulation in the BigTypescript ; then I explain how the idea of the autonomy of grammar grounds the conception of “grammar” or language as calculus. With this on hand, I give an overview of the unity of Wittgenstein’s philosophy around 1932-1933. It should become clear that his philosophy at the time is worth arguing for, even though it is not yet the philosophy of the PhilosophicalInvestigations. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Meisterwerke der Staatsphilosophie" verfügbar.

This book explores the artificial by examining transformations in the Aristotelian metaphysical understanding of the relationship between nature and techne, which leads to the “operative imperative” in early modernity. With this a reversal takes place, whereby instead of nature being model for techne as it is for Aristotle and Aquinas, techne becomes the model for nature.

Neste artigo começo por argumentar que devemos ver o Big Typescript como algo muito diferente de um livro planejado para a publicação. Ele deve ser tomado meramente como uma coleção de observações, que expressam a concepção de Wittgenstein de “gramática” por volta de 1932-33, quando as observações foram reunidas. Em seguida, explico a concepção substancial de “gramática” do BT. Espero tornar claro, nesta segunda parte, que o BT e o Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus são próximos no sentido de que partilham a idéia (...) de que a linguagem tem uma estrutura que opera de acordo com regras fixas de sentido (um cálculo). (shrink)