Exploratory analysis is an area of increasing interest in the computational linguistics arena. Pragmatically speaking, exploratory analysis may be paraphrased as natural language processing by means of analyzing large corpora of text. Concerning the analysis, appropriate means are statistics, on the one hand, and artificial neural networks, on the other hand. As a challenging application area for exploratory analysis of text corpora we may certainly identify text databases, be it information retrieval or information filtering systems. With this paper we present (...) recent findings of exploratory analysis based on both statistical and neural models applied to legal text corpora. Concerning the artificial neural networks, we rely on a model adhering to the unsupervised learning paradigm. This choice appears naturally when taking into account the specific properties of large text corpora where one is faced with the fact that input-output-mappings as required by supervised learning models cannot be provided beforehand to a satisfying extent. This is due to the fact of the highly changing contents of text archives. In a nutshell, artificial neural networks count for their highly robust behavior regarding the parameters for model optimization. In particular, we found statistical classification techniques much more susceptible to minor parameter variations than unsupervised artificial neural networks. In this paper we describe two different lines of research in exploratory analysis. First, we use the classification methods for concept analysis. The general goal is to uncover different meanings of one and the same natural language concept. A task that, obviously, is of specific importance during the creation of thesauri. As a convenient environment to present the results we selected the legal term of neutrality, which is a perfect representative of a concept having a number of highly divergent meanings. Second, we describe the classification methods in the setting of document classification. The ultimate goal in such an application is to uncover semantic similarities of various text documents in order to increase the efficiency of an information retrieval system. In this sense, document classification has its fixed position in information retrieval research from the very beginning. Nowadays renewed massive interest in document classification may be witnessed due to the appearance of large-scale digital libraries. (shrink)

The major focus of the article is on Georg Forster’s mode of elaborating a “science of man” in its theoretical and cultural contexts. The study aims at identifying Forster’s distinct interests in the specificity of mankind and his interpretation of both the reasons for its diversity and its different stages of development. Forster, the article argues, used a historicized version of Enlightenment natural history in order to analyse man as a natural as well as a cultural being. At the same (...) time, put anachronistically, Forster constituted the reciprocity of physical and cultural anthropology. However, he differs from Enlightenment historical thinking in that he interprets history as a contingency. Finally, the article maintains that Forster deliberately conceived of the “science of man” as a multidisciplinary empirical science. (shrink)

From time to time medical ethicists bemoan the loss of a religious perspective in medical ethics. The discipline had its origins in the thinking of explicitly religious thinkers such as Paul Ramsey and Joseph Fletcher. Furthermore, many of those who contributed to the early development of the discipline had training in theology. One thinks of Daniel Callahan, Richard McCormick, Albert Jonsen, Sam. Banks. As the discipline becomes more and more self-reflective, with attention being paid to methodological and conditional concerns, it (...) is only natural that the roots are due for a reexamination. The time has therefore come for some reassessment. The first steps here are taken in the form of a dialogue between the coauthors to clarify authentic contributions and weed out unauthentic ones. (shrink)

Rede und Gegenrede, pro und contra - jeweils von derselben Person zu einem bestimmten Thema? Wer kennt das nicht von sich selbst? Auch beim Philologen und Philosophen Friedrich Nietzsche finden sich solche Stellen in seinem Werk. Systematisch aufbereitet durch den Autor, umfasst das Buch 287 Schlagwörter und 5527 Zitate, geordnet nach pro und contra und ein Fundstellenverzeichnis. Das Buch will sein: Ein Zugang und Schlüssel zu Nietzsches Schriften Ein Nietzsche-Nachschlagewerk Ein Nietzsche-Brevier Eine Aufforderung an den Leser, von der Oberfläche der (...) Zitate in die Tiefen der Gedankengänge Nietzsches vorzudringen Ein Rüstzeug zum Selbst-Überdenken der Probleme Ein Buch von Studiendirektor i.R. Erich Frey-Teschen (1922 - 2016), posthum herausgegeben von Roman Seidl. (shrink)

Tetens und Herder stehen beide zwischen den radikalen Polen rein empirischer Sprachforschung und theologischer bzw. transzendentaler Sprachphilosophie. Tetens vertritt verschiedener als Herder eine empirische, weitgehend psychologische Methode. Seine Versuche zeigen paradigmatische Züge dieser Einstellung zum Sprach- und besonders zum Ursprungsproblem, die von allgemeinem Interesse auch für die gegenwärtige Problemlage sind.

Those who comment on modern scientific institutions are often quick to praise institutional structures that leave scientists to their own devices. These comments reveal an underlying presumption that scientists do best when left alone—when they operate in what we call the ‘scientific state of nature’. Through computer simulation, we challenge this presumption by illustrating an inefficiency that arises in the scientific state of nature. This inefficiency suggests that one cannot simply presume that science is most efficient when institutional control is (...) absent. In some situations, actively encouraging unpopular, risky science would improve scientific outcomes. 1 Introduction2 Scientists and Bandits3 Choosing an ϵ4 Structure of Communication5 Discussion. (shrink)

Der Jesuit Erich Przywara (1889-1972) und Gertrud von le Fort (1876-1971) lernten sich Mitte der 1920-er Jahre kennen, zur Zeit der Konversion le Forts zum katholischen Glauben. Seither standen sie in einem durchgehenden, wenn auch losen Briefwechsel, vor allem in den beiden Jahrzehnten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Die von Manfred Lochbrunner herausgegebene Korrespondenz ist das berührende Dokument einer freundschaftlichen Beziehung zwischen der angesehenen Dichterin und dem nicht minder bedeutenden Religionsphilosophen und Theologen mit eigenen dichterischen Ambitionen. In einem Einführungsessay werden (...) die wesentlichen Briefinhalte kurz vorgestellt. Anmerkungen kommentieren den Text der Briefe. Abgerundet wird die Edition durch drei biographische Exkurse zu nahestehenden Personen und Anhänge, etwa zu gegenseitigen Widmungen, sowie ein Literaturverzeichnis"-- Back cover. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: For the Patient's Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care. By Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma.

This translation of four of Plato's dialogues brings these classic texts alive for modern readers. Allen introduces and comments on the dialogues in an accessible way, inviting the reader to re-examine the issues Plato continually raises.

This paper argues that we have wrongly and not for the patient’s benefit made a form of stark autonomy our highest value which allows physicians to slip out from under their basic duty which has always been to pursue a particular patient’s good. In general – I shall argue – it is the patient’s right to select his or her own goals and the physician’s duty to inform the patient of the feasibility of that goal and of the means needed (...) to attain it. If the goal is not one that is possible, the patient, with the physician and family, must select a feasible goal and then discuss the costs/benefits of various approaches. The physician should take a leading role in helping the patient select the goal. I argue that to simply present a laundry list of means and insist that patients choose for themselves is not only abandoning patients to their autonomy but is, in fact, a crass form of violating the patient’s autonomy. Freely choosing not to choose is a choice a patient with decisional capacity is entitled to make and one that needs to be respected. (shrink)

A detailed multi-disciplinary analysis of Sudan in the post-colonial era with a consideration of possibilities for the future.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In recent philosophy of mathematics avariety of writers have presented ``structuralist''views and arguments. There are, however, a number ofsubstantive differences in what their proponents take``structuralism'' to be. In this paper we make explicitthese differences, as well as some underlyingsimilarities and common roots. We thus identifysystematically and in detail, several main variants ofstructuralism, including some not often recognized assuch. As a result the relations between thesevariants, and between the respective problems theyface, become manifest. Throughout our focus is onsemantic and metaphysical issues, (...) including what is orcould be meant by ``structure'' in this connection. (shrink)

Explores the acquisition and use of knowledge for human purposes and the extent of our ability to shape the future through the design, regulation, and restructuring of the lives of human systems at all levels.

Museums are home to millions of artworks and cultural artifacts, some of which have made their way to these institutions through unjust means. Some argue that these objects should be repatriated (i.e. returned to their country or culture of origin). However, these arguments face a series of philosophical challenges. In particular, repatriation, even if justified, is often portrayed as contrary to the aims and values of museums. However, in this paper, I argue that some of the very considerations museums appeal (...) to in order to oppose repatriation claims can be turned on their heads and marshaled in favor of the practice. In addition to defending against objections to repatriation, this argument yields the surprising conclusion that the redistribution of cultural goods should be much more radical than is typically supposed. (shrink)

The question of whether physicians or other healthcare workers are ethically entitled to strike is troubling in that it entails a conflict in obligations. This question of a conflict of obligations (and the answer to it) has wider implications for many other workers.

Guarded fragments of first-order logic were recently introduced by Andreka, van Benthem and Nemeti; they consist of relational first-order formulae whose quantifiers are appropriately relativized by atoms. These fragments are interesting because they extend in a natural way many propositional modal logics, because they have useful model-theoretic properties and especially because they are decidable classes that avoid the usual syntactic restrictions (on the arity of relation symbols, the quantifier pattern or the number of variables) of almost all other known decidable (...) fragments of first-order logic. Here, we investigate the computational complexity of these fragments. We prove that the satisfiability problems for the guarded fragment (GF) and the loosely guarded fragment (LGF) of first-order logic are complete for deterministic double exponential time. For the subfragments that have only a bounded number of variables or only relation symbols of bounded arity, satisfiability is EXPTIME-complete. We further establish a tree model property for both the guarded fragment and the loosely guarded fragment, and give a proof of the finite model property of the guarded fragment. It is also shown that some natural, modest extensions of the guarded fragments are undecidable. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy--arguably one of the most important philosophical movements in the twentieth century--has gained a new historical self-consciousness, particularly about its own origins. Between 1880 and 1930, the most important work of its founding figures (Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein) not only gained attention but flourished. In this collection, fifteen previously unpublished essays explore different facets of this period, with an emphasis on the vital intellectual relationship between Frege and the early Wittgenstein.

We identify the computational complexity of the satisfiability problem for FO 2 , the fragment of first-order logic consisting of all relational first-order sentences with at most two distinct variables. Although this fragment was shown to be decidable a long time ago, the computational complexity of its decision problem has not been pinpointed so far. In 1975 Mortimer proved that FO 2 has the finite-model property, which means that if an FO 2 -sentence is satisfiable, then it has a finite (...) model. Moreover, Mortimer showed that every satisfiable FO 2 -sentence has a model whose size is at most doubly exponential in the size of the sentence. In this paper, we improve Mortimer's bound by one exponential and show that every satisfiable FO 2 -sentence has a model whose size is at most exponential in the size of the sentence. As a consequence, we establish that the satisfiability problem for FO 2 is NEXPTIME-complete. (shrink)

In Man for Himself , Erich Fromm examines the confusion of modern women and men who, because they lack faith in any principle by which life ought to be guided, become the helpless prey forces both within and without. From the broad, interdisciplinary perspective that marks Fromm’s distinguished oeuvre, he shows that psychology cannot divorce itself from the problems of philosophy and ethics, and that human nature cannot be understood without understanding the values and moral conflicts that confront us (...) all. He shows that an ethical system can be based on human nature rather than on revelations or traditions. As Fromm asserts, “If man is to have confidence in values, he must know himself and the capacity of his nature for goodness and productiveness.”. (shrink)

According to the theory theory of metalinguistic disputes, disagreements in metalinguistic disputes are based on diverging underlying theories, opinions, or world views. An adequate description of metalinguistic disagreement needs to consider the compatibility and topics of such theories. Although topic continuity can be spelled out in terms of measurement operations, it is argued that even metalinguistic disputes about a term used in different, mutually compatible theories can be substantive because the dispute is indirectly about the virtues of the underlying theories. (...) The account is defended against externalist and holist objections. (shrink)

Résumé Notre rapport aux technologies médiatiques ne nous met pas tant en présence de nouveaux objets que de nouveaux environnements. C’est donc à partir d’une écologie générale qu’il nous faut tenter de comprendre les médias, nouveaux et anciens. Les réflexions de Félix Guattari, Gilbert Simondon, mais aussi l’agentivité environnementale de Mark Hansen ou la « struction » de Jean-Luc Nancy sont convoqués ici comme autant de pistes fécondes en direction d’une techno-écologie du sens.

In discussion surrounding the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict, one often hears two important claims in support of intervention to safeguard heritage. The first is that the protection of people and the protection of heritage are two sides of the same coin. The second is that the cultural heritage of any people is part of the common heritage of all humankind. In this article, I examine both of these claims, and consider the extent to which they align with (...) the current practices that they are intended to justify. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an outline of the oppression account of cultural appropriation and argue that it offers the best explanation for the wrongfulness of the varied and complex cases of appropriation to which people often object. I then compare the oppression account with the intimacy account defended by C. Thi Nguyen and Matt Strohl. Though I believe that Nguyen and Strohl’s account offers important insight into an essential dimension of the cultural appropriation debate, I argue that justified objections (...) to cultural appropriation must ultimately be grounded in considerations of oppression as opposed to group intimacy. I present three primary objections to the intimacy account. First, I suggest that in its effort to explain expressive appropriation claims (those that purportedly lack an independent ground), the intimacy account doubles down on the boundary problem. Second, I question whether group intimacy possess the kind of bare normativity that Nguyen and Strohl claim for it. Finally, I argue that these objections give us reason to accept the importance of group intimacy to the cultural appropriation debate, but question the source of its significance as identified by Nguyen and Strohl. (shrink)

Can we still watch Woody Allen's movies? Can we still laugh at Bill Cosby's jokes? Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Dave Chappelle, Louis C. K., J.K. Rowling, Michael Jackson, Roseanne Barr. Recent years have proven rife with revelations about the misdeeds, objectional views, and, in some instances, crimes of popular artists.

In this paper, I argue that norms of artistic and aesthetic authenticity that prioritize material origins foreclose on broader opportunities for aesthetic experience: particularly, for the aesthetic experience of history. I focus on Carolyn Korsmeyer’s recent articles in defense of the aesthetic value of genuineness and argue that her rejection of the aesthetic significance of historical value is mistaken. Rather, I argue that recognizing the aesthetic significance of historical value points the way towards rethinking the dominance of the very norms (...) of authenticity that Korsmeyer endeavors to defend and explain. (shrink)

The historiographical concept "Enlightenment" has for a long time wavered between the idea of a single unified Enlightenment and the notion of multiple competing enlightenments. This volume revisits this seeming contradiction by asserting that the Enlightenment should be understood as a shared process of communication, seeking ways to accommodate and mediate rival ideologies and orient enlightenment projects towards the betterment of humankind. Taking the work of the eminent Enlightenment scholar Hans Erich Bödeker as their point of departure, the different (...) chapters seek to explore this perspective through specific case studies of political communication. Readers are offered a selection of Bödeker's texts never previously translated into English, along with a series of contributions from his former colleagues, students, and collaborators. In doing so the book displays the broad scope of Bödeker's own work, as well as the multiplicity of themes captured within the framework of the Enlightenment. Genres, modes, and strategies of communication are contrasted with the institutions and cultural practices underpinning them. In exploring the depth and scope of Bödeker's work, the volume pays tribute to a German tradition rooted in historical semantics, while at the same time querying its present state and its future. (shrink)

The problem of value disagreement and contextualist, relativist and metalinguistic attempts of solving it are laid out. Although the metalinguistic account seems to be on the right track, it is argued that it does not sufficiently explain why and how disagreements about the meaning of evaluative terms are based on and can be decided by appeal to existing social practices. As a remedy, it is argued that original suggestions from Putnam's 'The Meaning of "Meaning"' ought to be taken seriously. The (...) resulting dual aspect theory of meaning can explain value disagreement in much the same way as it deals with disagreement about general terms. However, the account goes beyond Putnam's by not just defending a version of social externalism, but also defending the thesis that the truth conditional meaning of many evaluative terms is not fixed by experts either and instead constantly contested as part of a normal function of language. (shrink)

Publisher's Foreword As the present book is reissued, The American Mental Health Foundation celebrates its 86th anniversary. Organized in 1924, AMHF is ...

This chapter offers an overview of issues posed by the problem of immoral artists, artists who in word or deed violate commonly held moral principles. I briefly consider the question of whether the immorality of an artist can render their work aesthetically worse (making connections to chapters in the Theory section of the handbook), and then turn to questions about what the audience should do and feel in response to knowledge of these moral failings. I discuss questions such as whether (...) audiences have reason not to purchase or consume work by these artists, whether their shows and exhibitions should be canceled, and how fans might grapple with the emotional turmoil they feel when artists whom they love act or speak in ways that are morally condemnable. (shrink)