Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions became the most widely read book about science in the twentieth century. His terms 'paradigm' and 'scientific revolution' entered everyday speech, but they remain controversial. In the second half of the twentieth century, the new field of cognitive science combined empirical psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. In this book, the theories of concepts developed by cognitive scientists are used to evaluate and extend Kuhn's most influential ideas. Based on case studies of the Copernican revolution, (...) the discovery of nuclear fission, and an elaboration of Kuhn's famous 'ducks and geese' example of concept learning, this volume, first published in 2006, offers accounts of the nature of normal and revolutionary science, the function of anomalies, and the nature of incommensurability. (shrink)

In Epistemic Entitlement. The Right to Believe Hannes Ole Matthiessen develops a social externalist account of epistemic entitlement and perceptual knowledge. The basic idea is that positive epistemic status should be understood as a specific kind of epistemic right, that is a right to believe. Since rights have consequences for how others are required to treat the bearer of the right, they have to be publicly accessible. The author therefore suggests that epistemic entitlement can plausibly be conceptualized as a status (...) that is grounded in a publicly observable perceptual situation, rather than in a perceptual experience as current theories of epistemic entitlement state. It is then argued that such a social externalist account of entitlement, in which the perceiver's epistemic perspective becomes relevant only in the exceptional case where an entitlement is challenged, can nevertheless do justice to our central intuitions about first-personal epistemic phenomenology. (shrink)

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When do children acquire a propositional attitude folk psychology or theory of mind? The orthodox answer to this central question of developmental ToM research had long been that around age 4 children begin to apply “belief” and other propositional attitude concepts. This orthodoxy has recently come under serious attack, though, from two sides: Scoffers complain that it over-estimates children’s early competence and claim that a proper understanding of propositional attitudes emerges only much later. Boosters criticize the orthodoxy for underestimating early (...) competence and claim that even infants ascribe beliefs. In this paper, the orthodoxy is defended on empirical grounds against these two kinds of attacks. On the basis of new evidence, not only can the two attacks safely be countered, but the orthodox claim can actually be strengthened, corroborated and refined: what emerges around age 4 is an explicit, unified, flexibly conceptual capacity to ascribe propositional attitudes. This unified conceptual capacity contrasts with the less sophisticated, less unified implicit forms of tracking simpler mental states present in ontogeny long before. This refined version of the orthodoxy can thus most plausibly be spelled out in some form of 2-systems-account of theory of mind. (shrink)

The limit of language is one of the most pervasive notions found in Wittgenstein's work, both in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and his later writings. Moreover, the idea of a limit of language is intimately related to important scholarly debates on Wittgenstein's philosophy, such as the debate between the so-called traditional and resolute interpretations, Wittgenstein's stance on transcendental idealism, and the philosophical import of Wittgenstein's latest work On Certainty. This collection includes thirteen original essays that provide a comprehensive overview of (...) the various ways in which Wittgenstein appeals to the limit of language at different stages of his philosophical development. The essays connect the idea of a limit of language to the most important themes discussed by Wittgenstein--his conception of logic and grammar, the method of philosophy, the nature of the subject, and the foundations of knowledge--as well as his views on ethics, aesthetics, and religion. The essays also relate Wittgenstein's thought to his contemporaries, including Carnap, Frege, Heidegger, Levinas, and Moore. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Logik des Widerspruchs" verfügbar.

Abstract: Focusing on early child pretend play from the perspective of developmental psychology, this article puts forward and presents evidence for two claims. First, such play constitutes an area of remarkable individual intentionality of second-order intentionality (or 'theory of mind'): in pretence with others, young children grasp the basic intentional structure of pretending as a non-serious fictional form of action. Second, early social pretend play embodies shared or collective we-intentionality. Pretending with others is one of the ontogenetically primary instances of (...) truly cooperative actions. And it is a, perhaps the, primordial form of cooperative action with rudimentary rule-governed, institutional structure: in joint pretence games, children are aware that objects collectively get assigned fictional status, 'count as' something, and that this creates a normative space of warranted moves in the game. Developmentally, pretend play might even be a cradle for institutional phenomena more generally. (shrink)

Farm to institution programs represent alternative supply chains that aim to organize the activities of local producers with institutions that feed the local community. The current study demonstrates the value of structuration theory :75–80, 1983; The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984) for conceptualizing how FTI agents create, maintain, and change organizational structures associated with FTI and traditional supply chains. Based on interviews with supply chain agents participating in FTI programs, we (...) found that infrastructure, relationships, and pricing were seen as important factors that enabled and constrained FTI organizing. Additionally, we describe how FTI organizing serves to simultaneously reinforce and challenge the practices associated with traditional supply chains. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as directions for future research. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the ways in which bodies and subjects are enacted and negotiated in the encounter between client and practitioner within specialized kinesiology – a specific complementary and alternative medical practice. In the article we trace the ideas of connections and disconnections, which are conceptualized and practised within kinesiology. We attempt to come to grips with these specific notions of relatedness through the introduction of the concept ‘energetic kinship’ and to relate them to more general discussions about (...) the nature of subjects, bodies and social identity in late modern society. We argue that through the particular approach to the body as a prime locus of knowledge on which kinesiological treatment practices are based, kinesiology offers clients an alternative understanding of being-in-the-world. The understanding of the body as the locus of knowledge might, on the one hand, potentially alleviate the individual from the weight of a late modern focus on self-responsible, rational and autonomous individuality, while, on the other hand, it simultaneously supports this understanding. Hence, we argue that kinesiology operates with a subject which is both inherently related and individual at the same time, and that these particular understandings may be appealing in a world in which health and illness are increasingly seen as a question of individual responsibility. The article was written on the basis of interviews and participant observation among kinesiological teachers and practitioners in Denmark. (shrink)

This research explores the role of digitally enhanced apparel in encouraging empathic linkage between geographically distant individuals. The research draws from the diverse fields of communications theory, neuropsychology, presence technologies and technologically advanced textiles, and suggests that a nexus of these disciplines may provide significant opportunities for enhancing the user interactivity of garments. The paper then describes a series of prototypes that the author has developed, in collaboration with a fashion designer and electronic engineers, to encourage remote empathic connection through (...) the real time transference of heartbeat. The paper concludes with a brief discussion regarding what has been learnt through the design and development process, particularly the difficulties in bridging theory and practice, and the role of design in the development of wearable electronics projects. (shrink)

This is a précis of my book "Praktische Intelligenz und die Zweiteilung des Wissens" (Metzler/Springer 2019).

In everyday life we either express our beliefs in all-or-nothing terms or we resort to numerical probabilities: I believe it's going to rain or my chance of winning is one in a million. The Stability of Belief develops a theory of rational belief that allows us to reason with all-or-nothing belief and numerical belief simultaneously.

One of the fundamental problems of epistemology is to say when the evidence in an agent’s possession justifies the beliefs she holds. In this paper and its sequel, we defend the Bayesian solution to this problem by appealing to the following fundamental norm: Accuracy An epistemic agent ought to minimize the inaccuracy of her partial beliefs. In this paper, we make this norm mathematically precise in various ways. We describe three epistemic dilemmas that an agent might face if she attempts (...) to follow Accuracy, and we show that the only inaccuracy measures that do not give rise to such dilemmas are the quadratic inaccuracy measures. In the sequel, we derive the main tenets of Bayesianism from the relevant mathematical versions of Accuracy to which this characterization of the legitimate inaccuracy measures gives rise, but we also show that Jeffrey conditionalization has to be replaced by a different method of update in order for Accuracy to be satisfied. (shrink)

Thomas Reid's Geometry of Visibles, according to which the geometrical properties of an object's perspectival appearance equal the geometrical properties of its projection on the inside of a sphere with the eye in its centre allows for two different interpretations. It may (1) be understood as a theory about phenomenal visual space – i.e. an account of how things appear to human observers from a certain point of view – or it may (2) be seen as a mathematical model of (...) viewpoint-relative but mind-independent relational properties of objects. This paper makes a systematic and a historical claim. I shall argue, first, that given certain features of the human visual system phenomenal visual space differs in several aspects from Reidean visual space. Secondly, I suggest that, since Reid was aware of some of these empirical facts, we should interpret Reid as endorsing the second interpretation of the Geometry of Visibles. (shrink)

It has recently been proposed that the evolution of human cooperativeness might, at least in part, have started as the cooptation of behavioral strategies evolved for solving problems of coordination to solve problems with higher incentives to defect, i.e. problems of cooperation. Following this line of thought, we systematically tested human subjects for spillover effects from simple coordination tasks (2x2 Stag Hunt games, SH) to problems of cooperation (2x2 Prisoner’s Dilemma games, PD) in a laboratory experiment with rigorous controls to (...) rule out subject confusion or habituation. Supporting the hypothesis that decision mechanisms for cooperation problems are linked with decision mechanisms for coordination, our main finding is that cooperation levels in PD games embedded in a sequence of SH games were significantly increased compared to a baseline sequence consisting only of PDs when subjects played in fixed pairs. No such effects could be found when players were randomly rematched each round. Additional findings include that this spillover effect cannot prevent a decay of cooperation over time, that there is no indication of a reversed effect, i.e. no signs of negative spillovers from failed cooperation to miscoordination, and that subjects self-reported preferences in SH games are prosocial. (shrink)

This monograph provides a new account of justified inference as a cognitive process. In contrast to the prevailing tradition in epistemology, the focus is on low-level inferences, i.e., those inferences that we are usually not consciously aware of and that we share with the cat nearby which infers that the bird which she sees picking grains from the dirt, is able to fly. Presumably, such inferences are not generated by explicit logical reasoning, but logical methods can be used to describe (...) and analyze such inferences. Part 1 gives a purely system-theoretic explication of belief and inference. Part 2 adds a reliabilist theory of justification for inference, with a qualitative notion of reliability being employed. Part 3 recalls and extends various systems of deductive and nonmonotonic logic and thereby explains the semantics of absolute and high reliability. In Part 4 it is proven that qualitative neural networks are able to draw justified deductive and nonmonotonic inferences on the basis of distributed representations. This is derived from a soundness/completeness theorem with regard to cognitive semantics of nonmonotonic reasoning. The appendix extends the theory both logically and ontologically, and relates it to A. Goldman's reliability account of justified belief. This text will be of interest to epistemologists and logicians, to all computer scientists who work on nonmonotonic reasoning and neural networks, and to cognitive scientists. (shrink)

Several investigations have shown language impairments following electrode implantation surgery for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in movement disorders. The impact of the actual stimulation, however, differs between DBS targets with further deterioration in formal language tests induced by thalamic DBS in contrast to subtle improvement observed in subthalamic DBS. Here, we studied speech samples from interviews with participants treated with DBS of the thalamic ventral intermediate nucleus (VIM) for essential tremor (ET), or the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson’s disease (PD), (...) and healthy volunteers (eachn= 13). We analyzed word frequency and the use of open and closed class words. Active DBS increased word frequency in case of VIM, but not STN stimulation. Further, relative to controls, both DBS groups produced fewer open class words. Whereas VIM DBS further decreased the proportion of open class words, it was increased by STN DBS. Thus, VIM DBS favors the use of relatively common words in spontaneous language, compatible with the idea of lexical simplification under thalamic stimulation. The absence or even partial reversal of these effects in patients receiving STN DBS is of interest with respect to biolinguistic concepts suggesting dichotomous thalamic vs. basal ganglia roles in language processing. (shrink)

In this book, Hannes Charen presents an alternative examination of kinship structures in political theory. Employing a radically transdisciplinary approach, On the Politics of Kinship is structured in a series of six theoretical vignettes or frames. Each chapter frames a figure, aspect, or relational context of the family or kinship. Some chapters are focused on a critique of the family as a state-sanctioned institution, while others cautiously attempt to recast kinship in a way to reimagine mutual obligation through the generation (...) of kinship practices understood as a perpetually evolving set of relational responses to finitude. In doing so, Charen considers the ways in which kinship is a plastic social response to embodied exposure, both concealed and made more evident in the bloated, feeble, and broken individualities and nationalities that seem to dominate our social and political landscape today. On the Politics of Kinship will be of interest to political theorists, feminists, anthropologists, and social scientists in general. (shrink)

Bankers have a reputation for deviating from standard morals. It is an open question, though, if this claim can be substantiated. Here, it is tested directly if bankers respond differently to moral dilemmas. Evaluations of the moral acceptableness of behavioural options in two trolley cases by bankers (n = 23) are compared to those of ordinary people (n = 274). An apparent difference in response behaviour between the groups can be fully explained by a difference in the response behaviour of (...) men and women. When controlling for gender, no differences between bankers and other people remain. (shrink)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing stands out among the thinkers of the 18th century for his refusal to synthesize theology and philosophy. But due to his notorious ambivalence about religious questions, even Lessing’s contemporaries remained uncertain whether he ultimately sided with the former or the latter. The short dialogue Hercules and Omphale is, to the detriment of research on this topic, largely unknown. I show that the dialogue offers in a nutshell Lessing’s comprehensive analysis of the intellectual and religious situation of his (...) time. By calling on the mythical travesty of the Asian queen and the Greek hero, Lessing illustrates the mutual attraction that has led astray both Enlightenment philosophy and contemporary Lutheran orthodoxy. Implicitly, his diagnosis of the aberrations of philosophy and theology sheds light on Lessing’s own position. The twofold criticism is an attempt to restore theology as well as philosophy in their genuine forms and to reestablish their proper relationship. Through his twofold restitutio in integrum, Lessing is able to reopen the quarrel between orthodoxy and the Enlightenment and, thus, to radically renew the all but forgotten theologico-philosophical antagonism. (shrink)

Originally presented as the author's thesis, Bonn, 1976.

This paper contextualized Hans Blumenberg early theory of technology in its time vis-á-vis competing theories of technology in post-war Germany; and it reconstructs how his theory is based in a notion of history that is a temporalization of Husserl's idea of "life-world.".

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 28-36.

A perceptive and reflective state? Such a state might not exist yet, but it refers to an ideal for state-provided care which can protect both the caregiver and recipient of care from emotional overload and indifference. Such an ideal introduces new lines of enquiry to contemporary theories of care and their sociological orientation. It is argued that theories of care need to be combined with insights from political science concerning power and dilemmas within care. Dilemmas within state-provided care which might (...) temporarily be overcome through an application of an interactive universalism such as more generally advocated by the Turkish-American feminist philosopher Seyla Benhabib. Interactive universalism implies a shift of perspective, a kind of hypothetical moral dialogue, which would bring a stronger element of reflection into caring practices in the welfare state. However, interactive universalism presupposes empathy understood as a kind of emotional attention to the other. If implemented this ideal will introduce a new form of authority: more compassionate and bodily oriented. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Der Sport ist ein körperzentriertes Sozialsystem, das als machtvolle Ausdrucks- und Inszenierungsstätte beschrieben wird, in der verschiedene soziale Gruppen um Prestige und symbolische Macht konkurrieren. In diesem Wettbewerb können Vorurteile der Abgrenzung zwischen Gruppen auf der Grundlage von ethnischen, sozialen und kulturellen Kategorisierungen dienen. Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich mit der Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit im vereinsorganisierten Sport. Es wird den Fragen nachgegangen, ob und wie Vorurteile im Sport miteinander zusammenhängen und welche Faktoren ausgewählte Abwertungen beeinflussen. Es zeigt sich, dass (...) Vorurteile im Sport eng miteinander verbunden sind, und es wird diskutiert, weshalb Diversität im Sport eine stärkere Rolle bei Integrationsprozessen spielen sollte. (shrink)