Giuseppe Franco hat mich mit süditalienischer Liebenswürdigkeit dazu eingeladen, einen kleinen Beitrag zum vorliegenden Hommage-Band zu schreiben, in dem ich von meiner „intellektuellen Beziehung“ zu Dir und „von der Bedeutung des Kritischen Rationalismus“ für meinen „eigenen Denkweg“ berichte. Kennengelernt haben wir einander vor inzwischen 53 Jahren kurz nach Deinem Dienstantritt an der Mannheimer Wirtschaftshochschule. Ich studierte damals in Wien, vor allem bei Bela Juhos, der in einer Art Dachkammer der Alten Universität seine Seminare, z. B. eines über „Wissenschaftstheorie und Quantenmechanik“ (...) mit maximal zehn älteren Studenten und bereits habilitierten Wissenschaftsphilosophen abhielt, sowie beim Altmeister Victor Kraft, dessen Privatissime-Veranstaltungen in seiner Wohnung in der Walfischgasse von noch weniger, handverlesenen Geistesschaffenden besucht wurden. (shrink)

If one takes seriously the idea that a scientific language must be extensional, and accepts Quine’s notion of truth-value-related extensionality, and also recognizes that a scientific language must allow for singular terms that do not refer to existing objects, then there is a problem, since this combination of assumptions must be inconsistent. I will argue for a particular solution to the problem, namely, changing what is meant by the word ‘extensionality’, so that it would not be the truth-value that had (...) to be preserved under the substitution of co-extensional expressions, but the state of affairs that the sentence described. The question is whether or not elementary sentences containing empty singular terms, such as ‘Vulcan rotates’, are extensional in the substitutivity sense. Five conditions are specified under which extensionality in the substitutivity sense of such sentences can be secured. It is demonstrated that such sentences are state-of-affairs-as-extension-related extensional. This implies that such sentences are also truth-value-related extensional in Quine’s sense, but not truth-value-as-extension-related extensional. (shrink)

Biochemical and genetical analysis of plant transposons has shown that these elements can induce unstable mutations and also that the transposon structure can be altered in different ways. Upon insertion, a transposon can give rise to a variety of chromosomal changes in the vicinity of the insertion site. The alterations range from the nucleotide level to large‐scale rearrangements.

The importance of Dilthey Why read Dilthey today? Why study the ideas of a nineteenthcentury German philosopher some seventy years after his death? ...

In German discussions over the last twenty years of the difference between what it is to be a body (in German: Leibsein) and what it is to have a body (Körperhaben), many have been concerned to remind us that we owe this conceptual distinction to the philosophical anthropologist Helmuth Plessner. He introduces the distinction in an essay from 1925—written in collaboration with the Dutch behavioral researcher Frederick Jacob Buytendijk—“Die Deutung des mimischen Ausdrucks. Ein Beitrag zur Lehre vom Bewusstsein des anderen (...) Ichs” (“The Interpretation of Mimetic Expressions: A Contribution to Understanding One’s Consciousness of Other Subjects”). Buytendijk later explained that it was Plessner who worked out the .. (shrink)

Often overlooked is the fact that postmodern theory brought to the fore a crisis in the humanities. The implied universalism of the current “iconic turn” in postmodern thinking is a blow to the traditional sciences grouped around national literatures and cultures. In the 1980's, postmodern practitioners in the United States began to assault the discursive practices of the mainstream under the banner of cultural studies. The current crisis in the humanities surfaced in the emancipation of the various studies from their (...) traditional fields in the humanities. The German Studies practiced today in the United States for instance, has no counterpart in Germany's traditional departments of Deutsche Philologie. Whereas the icon in the United States has become an object of investigation for the various studies, it has not yet displaced the littera in Germany's literary sciences. However in the 1990's, the historical sciences in Germany responded to the challenge of the various studies by directing their attention not to cultural studies, but to cultural history, with its well-defined set of methodologies. But what kind of cultural history is it? Is it built on 19th century German foundations, or is it grafted to current North American notions of post-industrial culture? In this paper I show that the supposed opposition between cultural studies and cultural history is artificial. Through a close reading of Hayden White's extremist questioning of historical practice in Metahistory (1973), I demonstrate that there is no opposition between the icon and the littera in this recent radical critique of mainstream humanistic science. The vehement German reaction to his North American assault on European Kultur is based on a misunderstanding of White's premises. Rather than being constructed on a hodgepodge of postmodern approaches, I show that White's postmodern history is in fact conventionally grounded in 19th century Nietzschean thinking. 1 Hans-Peter Söder, Junior Year in Munich Program (Wayne State University). (shrink)

IntroductionAlthough a few studies suggest that young overweight to obese children and adolescents may have impaired postural control compared to young normal-weight peers, little information exists about how these two groups differ in the quality of the underlying balance strategies employed. Hence, the aim of the present study was a first comprehensive examination of the structural complexity of postural sways in these two cohorts during quiet bilateral standing.MethodsNineteen YO secondary school students were carefully matched to YN controls for age, sex, (...) height, and school. Mediolateral and anteriorposterior acceleration signals were recorded with an inertial measurement unit positioned at the trunk while standing barefoot in two conditions: firm and foam support surface. The magnitude of postural fluctuations was obtained using the root mean square. The temporal structure of the signals was analyzed via sample entropy, largest Lyapunov exponent, and detrended fluctuation analysis algorithm. Reliability was assessed using a test–retest design.ResultsIn both groups, foam standing caused higher postural fluctuations and reduced structural complexity. In comparison to YN, YO exhibited a higher RMSAP. Especially in ML direction, the acceleration signals of the YO had higher repeatability, greater long-range correlations, and lower local stability. However, these observations were largely independent of the task difficulty. Except for α-DFAAP, the IMU approach proved reliable to characterize posture control.DiscussionOur outcomes confirm postural control deficits in YO compared to their YN peers and indicate impaired regulatory mechanisms reflected as rigidity. Such less complex patterns usually reflect diverse pathologies, are detrimental to compensate for internal or external perturbations, and are attributed to lower adaptability and task performance. Without targeted balance stimuli, YO likely end in a lifelong vicious circle of mutually dependent poor balance regulation and low physical activity. (shrink)

The conceptual distinction between what it is to be a body and what it is to have a body was first construed by the philosophical anthropologist Helmuth Plessner.This article deals with two common problems within the German discourse on the theme.The first derives from a misunderstanding that the 3 categories body, living body, and person signify distinct entities, whilst what Plessner is actually referring to is the various modes in which a person′s life is led. Neither the modes of body (...) nor living body has primacy per se, and the person lives by doubling itself into a public and private person situated in a shared world outside of centric correlations .The second point of contention relates to Plessner′s methodology in developing the distinction between Leib and Körper. He believed in combining a plurality of methods in accordance with the phenomenon, its understanding, and the stances or positionings taken up by living persons. The indeterminacy and unfathomability of persons in the leading of their lives emerges from the variety of their perspectives and changing historical aspects. It is only the invalid extension of these perspectives and aspects to the whole of the future that leads to false promises – to the animal ideologicum who is unable to endure its questionability. The homo absconditus, by contrast, lives in scepticism of positive absolutisms. The questionability of his form of life keeps him open. (shrink)

This essay considers the work of Jean-Luc Nancy on touch as a model for a conception of the musical body. More than a re-emphasizing of the tactile, though, it is possible to show that Nancy’s work enables an understanding of music as touch. The significance of this re-thinking lies in the counterweight it provides to the degradation of music entailed in its digitalized de-materialization. Hegel is seen to be complicit in this degradation.

Name der Zeitschrift: Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie Jahrgang: 7 Heft: 1 Seiten: 139-154.

Abstract John McDowell argues for minimal empiricism via using the notion of second nature of human beings. I should like to invite him to discuss Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology in order to elaborate a more substantial conception of second nature. McDowell seems to think that it is adequate for his more epistemological aim to remind us of second nature as though it were to be taken for granted. But I think, following Plessner, that this right reminder needs a therapeutic elaboration (...) in Kant's sense of propaedeutics. What had been called our second nature found itself being questioned in order to limit the range of ways of treating the self we can authorize. (shrink)

Das Insolvenzrecht gehört zu dem Kernbestand der Regelwerke, die das Vertrauen der Rechtsgenossen in eine Rechtsordnung sichern. Es regelt die Bedingungen allseitiger Haftung eines Schuldners und steckt damit zugleich den Rahmen ab, innerhalb dessen die Gläubiger erwarten können, dass ihre Rechte in einer und durch eine Reorganisation und Sanierung des schuldnerischen Unternehmens gewahrt werden. Die faktische Wirkung des Insolvenzrechts endet nicht an nationalstaatlichen Grenzen. Das Insolvenzverfahren ist nach seinem Anspruch auf universelle Geltung angelegt. In fast allen Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union (...) gilt heute als innerstaatliches Recht ein gemeinsames Recht grenzüberschreitender Insolvenzverfahren. Dieses gemeinsame europäische Recht strahlt auf die innerstaatlichen Reformbemühungen aus - es hat Einfluss auf die Insolvenzgesetzgebung. Die innerstaatlichen Gesetzgebungen werden zudem von UNCITRAL-Modellgesetzgebungen beeinflusst. Die wissenschaftliche Diskussion geht zusehends auf die damit ausgelösten Konvergenzbewegungen ein; die Praxis bedarf rechtsdogmatischer Aufklärung über die komplexer werdenden Regelungen des Insolvenzrechts und der Unterrichtung über die Strukturen und Problemstellungen ausländischer europäischer und außereuropäischer Insolvenzrechte, auch und gerade in ihrer Wechselwirkung mit dem deutschen Recht. Die Schriftenreihe der DZWIR ist ein Forum dieser Diskussionen. Sie wird in loser Folge monographische Untersuchungen zu Grundsatzfragen des deutschen, europäischen und internationalen Insolvenzrechts veröffentlichen. Damit leistet diese Schriftenreihe einen Beitrag ebenso zur rechtsdogmatischen Klärung von Streitfragen wie nicht minder zur Unterstützung der europäischen Integration der nationalstaatlichen Insolvenzrechte. (shrink)

Unsere Welt ist verschiedenartig. Nicht zuletzt wird das an den verschiedenen Religionen deutlich. Und doch ist unsere Welt eine Welt. Gemeinsam leben wir in ihr. Angesichts dieser Spannung kann gefragt werden: Wie konnen wir in unserer - auch religiosen - Unterschiedlichkeit in einer Welt zusammenleben? Und wie sollen wir das? Welche Moglichkeiten und Probleme bringen die Religionen an diesem Punkt mit sich? Der Band widmet sich diesen Fragen aus philosophischer und theologischer Sicht. Es werden ausgewahlte Modelle aus Philosophie und Theologie (...) vorgestellt und diskutiert, wie in unseren heutigen Gesellschaften religiose Pluralitat integriert werden kann und soll. (shrink)