Die Beitrage europaischer Forscherinnen und Forscher beleuchten die Probleme, Herausforderungen, Formen und Bilder, die mit stadtischer Entwicklung einhergehen, aus zumeist vergleichender und auch interdisziplinarer Perspektive. Geschichte, Literatur, Soziologie, Architektur, Kino oder Interkulturalitat auf vielfaltige Art werden am Beispiel vor allem deutscher und franzosischer Stadte verschiedene Aspekte der Modernitat herausgearbeitet. Die Hauptfragestellungen widmen sich sozialen Gruppen, Migrationsstromen, Integrations- und Ausschlussphanomenen, Orten der Soziabilitat, Kulturveranstaltungen, Erzahlformen sowie theoretischen Analysen. Die transatlantische Dimension, also der Vergleich europaischer Gegebenheiten und amerikanischer Spezifika, wird anhand von (...) Einzelfallstudien und uber unterschiedliche Denkansatze erforscht. Die Beitrage zur Stadtforschung geben so, im zeitlichen Rahmen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis hin zur Schwelle des 21. Jahrhunderts, den Forschungsstand verschiedener Disziplinen wieder und untersuchen die Relevanz zeitgenossischer Herangehensweisen.". (shrink)

The commercialization of ‘big science’ is in full swing, leading to situations in which the ethical principles of academia are beginning to be compromised. This is exemplified by the profitable business of genetic ancestry testing. The goals of this sort of ‘big science’ are not necessarily in any way novel, however. In particular, large genotyping projects have a certain start‐up time when their design is frozen in, so that the projects often lag behind the development of genetic knowledge. On the (...) other hand, extremely provisional knowledge about potential disease markers is being rapidly turned into questionable ‘tests’, purporting to determine risk factors for complex disorders, by private companies that are eager to get their share of a profitable market of the future. The flow of money generated by such concerns looks likely to erode traditional research operations and small‐scale projects, which risk becoming pebbles on the ‘big science’ landscape. BioEssays 30:1246–1251, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the children's book ``The Phantom Tollbooth'' by Norton Juster one can find the following passage:``Yes, please,'' said Milo. ``Can you show me the biggest number there is?''.

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Friedrich Engels und die wegweisende Bedeutung der Philosophie für die Naturwissenschaft" verfügbar.

Most of the reports on synthetic biology include not only familiar topics like biosafety and biosecurity but also a chapter on ‘ethical concerns’; a variety of diffuse topics that are interrelated in some way or another. This article deals with these ‘ethical concerns’. In particular it addresses issues such as the intrinsic value of life and how to deal with ‘artificial life’, and the fear that synthetic biologists are tampering with nature or playing God. Its aim is to analyse what (...) exactly is the nature of the concerns and what rationale may lie behind them. The analysis concludes that the above-mentioned worries do not give genuine cause for serious concern. In the best possible way they are interpreted as slippery slope arguments, yet arguments of this type need to be handled with care. It is argued that although we are urged to be especially vigilant we do not have sufficiently cogent reasons to assume that synthetic biology will cause such fundamental hazards as to warrant restricting or refraining from research in this field. (shrink)

The Galilei invariance of classical dynamics does not automatically imply the third Newtonian axiom and the center of mass theorem. For the deduction of these theorems from Galilei invariance we must have, generally, a “kinematical potential” (Helmholtz) and a “potential function” (Clausius), respectively. In celestial mechanics it is possible to have conservation of the motion of the center of gravity but not of the mass center. In this case, the active and the passive masses are different quantities.

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.

HJ EIKMEYER AND H. RIESER Word Semantics from Different Points of View. An Introduction to the Present Volume /. Possible Worlds Possible worlds have turned ...

Summary The author exemplifies the congruency of essential foundations between the critical realism of the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology (Gestalt theory) and Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology. For instance, this congruency manifests in the importance given to critical-realistic epistemology – purified from idealistic prejudices, not least prejudices such as production-theoretical ones – connected with an unconditional phenomenology. Altogether, it results in a shared critical distance from scholars of Brentano, such as Husserl and Meinong, as well as from Neo-Kantianism.

ZusammenfassungIn der Debatte um die embryonale Stammzellenforschung führen die Verfechter der Würde des Embryos gerne eine Gemeinsamkeit von Embryonen und reversibel Komatösen an: Beide sind bloß potentiell Personen. Wenn aber Komatösen fraglos personale Würde zukommt, weshalb sollte man sie Embryonen absprechen? In ihrem AufsatzIn dubio pro embryone kombinieren G. Damschen und D. Schönecker diese Analogie mit einem Vorsichtsargument: Weil die Analogie zumindest gute Gründe für die Annahme biete, Embryonen komme eine menschliche Würde zu, sei angesichts der Schwere des möglichen Unrechts (...) die embryonale Stammzellenforschung nicht zu verantworten. Im Folgenden möchte ich darlegen, weshalb die Analogie nicht ausreicht, um ein solches Vorsichtsargument zu etablieren. In einem ersten Schritt soll gezeigt werden, wie man der Analogie begegnen kann, weshalb das entsprechende Argument also nicht zwingend ist. Um ein Vorsichtsargument zu begründen, würde es allerdings genügen, wenn die Analogie „hinlänglich plausible“ Gründe zugunsten der Würde von Embryonen liefert. In einem zweiten Schritt soll daher – aufbauend auf allgemeinen Überlegungen zum Vorsichtsargument – dargelegt werden, dass die Analogie selbst unter dieser Annahme nicht überzeugen kann. (shrink)

The physical meaning of gauge groups in bimetrical, Riemannian, and Hermitian theories of gravitation is discussed. In Hermitian relativity, Einstein's A-invariance means a super-gauge group which characterizes the Einstein-Schrödinger equations as the only nondegenerate general-relativistic field theory.

The favourable social conditions Fechner met at Leipzig with its university and its book industry as well as the close ties to the citizenship of that town were of outstanding importance for G.Th. Fechner (1801–1887), his scientific achievements as natural scientist and philosopher, as the founder of psychophysics and of experimental aesthetics. Since 1825 Fechner had been integrated into its social, scientific and art life in many different ways. His political and theoretical social ideas were obviously influenced by ist bourgeois (...) liberal circles. (shrink)

The author exemplifies the congruency of essential foundations between the critical realism of the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology (Gestalt theory) and Nicolai Hartmann`s Critical Ontology. For instance, this congruency manifests in the importance given to critical-realistic epistemology - purified from idealistic prejudices, not least prejudices such as production-theoretical ones - connected with an unconditional phenomenology. Altogether, it results in a shared critical distance from scholars of Brentano, such as Husserl and Meinong, as well as from Neo-Kantianism.

This paper considers the concept of freedom in behavioural terms, defining it in relation to freedom of action. This notion is applied to psychiatric abnormalities, and it is suggested that this new way of looking at the problem may go some way to surmount the philosophical difficulties normally attaching to the notion of freedom.

The fundamental open questions of general relativity theory are the unification of the gravitational field with other fields, aiming at a unified geometrization of physics, as well as the renormalization of relativistic gravitational theory in order to obtain their self-consistent solutions. These solutions are to furnish field-theoretic particle models—a problem first discussed by Einstein. In addition, we are confronted with the issue of a coupling between gravitational and matter fields determined (not only) by Einstein's principle of equivalence, and also with (...) the question of the geometric meaning of a gravitational quantum theory. In our view, all these problems are so closely related that they warrant a general solution. We treat mainly the concepts suggested by Einstein and Weyl. (shrink)