Bird songs often display musical acoustic features such as tonal pitch selection, rhythmicity, and melodic contouring. We investigated higher-order musical temporal structure in bird song using an experimental method called “music scrambling” with human subjects. Recorded songs from a phylogenetically diverse group of 20 avian taxa were split into constituent elements and recombined in original and random order. Human subjects were asked to evaluate which version sounded more “musical” on a per-species basis. Species identity and stimulus treatment were concealed from (...) subjects, and stimulus presentation order was randomized within and between taxa. Two recordings of human music were included as a control for attentiveness. Participants varied in their assessments of individual species musicality, but overall they were significantly more likely to rate bird songs with original temporal sequence as more musical than those with randomized temporal sequence. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the origins of avian musicality, including honest signaling, perceptual bias, and arbitrary aesthetic coevolution. (shrink)

PurposeThe demand for learning is constantly increasing in transcultural knowledge societies. This paper aims to consider the impact of learning concepts, as developed by Danish libraries, and the way they relate to mutual recognition and social inclusion of ethnic minority groups.Design/methodology/approachConducting research on open social spaces as libraries and learning labs in libraries implies a multiple research design along with a differentiated analytical framework.FindingsLibraries in multicultural districts will be able to contribute to the fulfilment of integration purposes more effectively if (...) they cease to be bound to the concept of information. In transformative and cross‐cultural learning contexts, the concept of knowledge should be employed.Practical implicationsStudying activities in libraries still need to be delimited from learning in schools. Enhancing multicultural learning with focus on learning styles, which permits a mutual reflection of significant symbol systems, will be desirable.Originality/valueThe paper shows, in the context of this study, knowledge emerged from the interaction of social and cultural capital. (shrink)

O debate atual em tomo da luta pelo direito de cidadania pouco dá-se conta da lógica abstraidora que caracteriza o sistema do Direito liberal, ao qual se integra. Usando como meio de inclusão social das camadas desfavorecidas, esta luta vê-se encadeada aos trilhos do procedimento legal. Ainda que possibilite avanços no que tange ao reconhecimento de novas demandas sociais, não consegue garantir sua concretização material. É na complementaridade entre a luta pelo direito de cidadania e aquela dos movimentos sociais que, (...) na sociedade liberal, revelasse a insuficiência dos procedimentos meramente legais. (shrink)

Few arguments against intentional states in animals have stood the test of time. But one objection by Stich and Davidson has never been rebutted. In my reconstruction it runs: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous, unless something counts as an animal believing one specific “content” rather than another; Nothing counts as an animal believing one specific content rather than another, because of their lack of language; Ergo: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous. Several attempts to block the argument challenge the (...) first premise, notably the appeals to “naked” belief ascriptions and alternative representational formats. This essay defends the first premise and instead challenges the second premise. There are non-linguistic “modes of presentation”; these can be determined by attributing to animals specific needs and capacities—a “ hermeneutic ethology” based on lessons from the debate about radical translation/interpretation in the human case. On that basis we can narrow down content by exclusion. What remains is an “imponderability of the mental” which does not rule out attributions of intentional states to animals. (shrink)

This contribution deals with an interpretation of practical theology which reckons amongst its tasks both an empirical situational analysis and a normative guide to action. We address the question to what extent it is possible for practical theology to fullfil both these tasks when, in the tradition of Weber's concept of scientific method, it wants to be descriptive above all, while applying at the same time methods that claim to be objective and value-free, i.e. that do not jump to conclusions (...) about what should be on the basis of what is. In order to relate all this to practice, both the foundations of our theory and its initial formulation and evaluation need to be worked out and submitted to rational verification. (shrink)

In this analysis we discuss the change in criteria for triage of patients during three different phases of a pandemic like COVID-19, seen from the critical care point of view. Availability of critical care beds has become a hot topic, and in many countries, we have seen a huge increase in the provision of temporary intensive care bed capacity. However, there is a limit where the hospitals may run out of resources to provide critical care, which is heavily dependent on (...) trained staff, just-in-time supply chains for clinical consumables and drugs and advanced equipment. In the first phase, we can still do clinical prioritisation and decision-making as usual, based on the need for intensive care and prognostication: what are the odds for a good result with regard to survival and quality of life. In the next, the resources are mostly available, but the system is stressed by many patients arriving over a short time period and auxiliary beds in different places in the hospital being used. We may have to abandon admittance of patients with doubtful prognosis. In the last phase, usual medical triage and priority setting may not be sufficient to decrease inflow and there may not be enough intensive care unit beds available. In this phase different criteria must be applied using a utilitarian approach for triage. We argue that this is an important transition where society, and not physicians, must provide guidance to support triage that is no longer based on medical priorities alone. (shrink)

In this accessible collection of short meditations on various topics, Blumenberg works as a detective of ideas scouring the periphery of intellectual and philosophical history for clues—metaphors, gestures, anecdotes—essential to grasping human finitude.

Die Zeiten, da die Philosophen ganze Epochen in den Blick nahmen, um ihre Tendenzen zu charakterisieren und zu kritisieren, scheinen längst vorbei. Die hypertrophen Ansprüche der Hegelianer und Marxisten bzw. Neomarxisten sind einer kleinteiligen logischen Analyse gewichen, die an Schärfe gewinnt, was sie an umfassendem Überblick verliert.In einer solchen Situation ist es bemerkenswert, wenn der Dortmunder Philosoph Friedrich Rapp den Mut hat, an ältere Formen der Kultur- und Gesellschaftskritik anzuknüpfen, um schonungslos die Pathologien der Moderne aufzudecken. Diese Pathologien rühren seiner (...) Meinung nach daher, daß dem Freiheitsdrang des modernen Menschen keine entsprechenden konstruktiven Leistungen gegenüberstünden, die eine ordnungsstiftende Kraft hätten. Es gilt sogar: „Die Konsequenzen der maßlosen Freiheit sind ein Tabuthema." An dieses Tabu will Rapp rühren, weil die destruktiven Konsequenzen unseres Freiheitsdranges inzwischen Ausmaße erreicht haben, die zur Selbstzerstörung führen könnten. Die „Lebenslüge der Moderne" bestehe darin, dies nicht sehen zu wollen. (shrink)

We discuss the possibility of “fifth forces” in relativistic gravitation theories of fourth order. The fifth force may be an analog to the “weak forces” in the theories of electroweak interactions.

The article defines a comprehensive concept of cognitive objectivity (CCCO) applied to embodied subjects in health care. The aims of this study were: (1) to specify some necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO that will allow objective descriptions and assessments in health care, (2) to formulate criteria for application of such a CCCO, and (3) to investigate the usefulness of the criteria in work disability assessments in medical certificates from health care provided for social security purposes. The study (...) design was based on a philosophical conceptual analysis of objectivity and subjectivity, the phenomenological notions ‘embodied subject’, ‘life-world’, ‘phenomenological object’ and ‘empathy’, and an interpretation of certificates as texts. The study material consisted of 18 disability assessments from a total collection of 86 medical certificates provided for social security purposes, written in a Norwegian hospital-based mental health clinic. Four necessary conditions identified for defining a CCCO were: (A) acknowledging the patient’s social context and life-world, (B) perceiving patients as cognitive objects providing a variety of meaningful data (clinical, psychometric, and behavioural data – i.e. activities and actions, meaningful expressions and self-reflection), (C) interpreting data in context, and (D) using general epistemological principles. The criteria corresponding to these conditions were: (a) describing the patient’s social context and recognizing the patient’s perspective, (b) taking into consideration a variety of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from the clinician’s perceptions of the patient as embodied subject, (c) being aware of the need to interpret the data in context, and (d) applying epistemological principles (professional expertise, dialogical intersubjectivity, impartiality, accuracy and correctness). Genuine communication is presupposed. These criteria were tested in the work disability assessments of medical certificates. The criteria were useful for understanding both how objectivity fails during work disability assessments and how it can be improved in the writing of certificates. The article specifies four necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO in health care and social security medicine and the corresponding criteria for its application. Analysis of the objectivity of work disability assessments in medical certificates for social security confirmed the usefulness of the criteria. (shrink)