The role of contingent contexts in formulating relations between properties of systems at different descriptive levels is addressed. Based on the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions for interlevel relations, a comprehensive classification of such relations is proposed, providing a transparent conceptual framework for discussing particular versions of reduction, emergence, and supervenience. One of these versions, contextual emergence, is demonstrated using two physical examples: molecular structure and chirality, and thermal equilibrium and temperature. The concept of stability is emphasized as a (...) basic guiding principle of contextual property emergence. (shrink)

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is described as a new way of doing science that brings science closer to society. Based on a qualitatively oriented case study, this article supports previous research indicating that researchers face a variety of ethical problems and dilemmas when implementing RRI for the first time. These include difficulties with anticipating and controlling future impacts, an asymmetry of power between project partners and an elusive understanding of the RRI concept. The researchers’ challenges were rooted in conventional (...) research ethics and could be boiled down to one core dilemma: If RRI had been applied from the very beginning of the project period, the chance of realising proof of concept within the scheduled time may decrease. The researchers’ solution to this dilemma was to prioritize proof of concept and postpone RRI activities to later stages of the project. If RRI is expected to live up to its ambition of representing a new way of doing science, more effort is needed at the political level to facilitate change. (shrink)

The article Do translocal networks matter for agricultural innovation? A case study on advice sharing in small scale farming communities in Northeast Thailand, written by Till Rockenbauch, Patrick Sakdapolrak and Harald Sterly, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 10 April 2019 without open access.

This volume brings together philosophers and physicists to explore the parallels between Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, and the phenomenological tradition. It is the first book exclusively devoted to phenomenology and quantum mechanics. By emphasizing the role of the subject's experiences and expectations, and by explicitly rejecting the idea that the notion of physical reality could ever be reduced to a purely third-personal perspective, QBism exhibits several interesting parallels with phenomenology. The central message of QBism is that quantum probabilities must be (...) interpreted as the experiencing agent's personal Bayesian degrees of belief--degrees of belief for the consequences of their actions on a quantum system. The chapters in this volume elaborate whether and specify how phenomenology could serve as the philosophical foundation of QBism. This objective is pursued from the perspective of QBists engaging with phenomenology as well as the perspective of phenomenologists engaging with QBism. These approaches enable us to realize a better understanding of quantum mechanics and the world we live in, achieve a better understanding of QBsim, and introduce the phenomenological foundations of quantum mechanics. Phenomenology and QBism is an essential resource for researchers and graduate students working in philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, quantum mechanics, and phenomenology. (shrink)

Trieste Publishing has a massive catalogue of classic book titles. Our aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. The many thousands of books in our collection have been sourced from libraries and private collections around the world.The titles that Trieste Publishing has chosen to be part of the collection have been scanned to simulate the original. Our readers see the books the same way that their (...) first readers did decades or a hundred or more years ago. Books from that period are often spoiled by imperfections that did not exist in the original. Imperfections could be in the form of blurred text, photographs, or missing pages. It is highly unlikely that this would occur with one of our books. Our extensive quality control ensures that the readers of Trieste Publishing's books will be delighted with their purchase. Our staff has thoroughly reviewed every page of all the books in the collection, repairing, or if necessary, rejecting titles that are not of the highest quality. This process ensures that the reader of one of Trieste Publishing's titles receives a volume that faithfully reproduces the original, and to the maximum degree possible, gives them the experience of owning the original work.We pride ourselves on not only creating a pathway to an extensive reservoir of books of the finest quality, but also providing value to every one of our readers. Generally, Trieste books are purchased singly - on demand, however they may also be purchased in bulk. Readers interested in bulk purchases are invited to contact us directly to enquire about our tailored bulk rates. (shrink)

The nonrandom distribution of fears is not as clearly related to phylogenetically survival relevance as preparedness theory seems to imply. Although delayed extinction reflects some of the best human evidence for preparedness, even this phenomenon is not as robust as it once seemed to be. Apart from the evidence reviewed by Davey, recent studies from our laboratory provide further evidence for an expectancy bias model of selective associations.

L. M. de Rijk supposed in 1982 that two anonymous logical tracts in the Viennese Codex 4698, fol. 18r–27v, may be the work of Martinus Anglicus to whom a tract on consequences and one on obligations are ascribed in that codex. The tract on supposition of which the Viennese codex hands down only a fragment of the beginning is contained completely in Hs I 613 of the Stadtbibliothek Mainz, fol. 20vb–21vb. This finding ensures the authorship of Martinus Anglicus and allows (...) to ascribe an Introduction into Logic in some seven parts to him. Martin’s tract on supposition and the more detailed one by Thomas Manlevelt show some resemblances in structure and content, the first being presumably the later one. This paper presents an edition of Martin’s Tractatus de suppositione from the Mainz manuscript and an introduction regarding the author and his work. (shrink)

Philosophical discourse traditionally distinguishes between ontology and epistemology and generally enforces this distinction by keeping the two subject areas separated. However, the relationship between the two areas is of central importance to physics and philosophy of physics. For instance, many measurement-related problems force us to consider both our knowledge of the states and observables of a system and its states and observables independent of such knowledge. This applies to quantum systems in particular. This contribution presents an example showing the importance (...) of distinguishing between ontic and epistemic levels of description even for classical systems. Corresponding conceptions of ontic and epistemic states and their evolution are introduced and discussed with respect to aspects of stability and information flow. These aspects show why the ontic/epistemic distinction is particularly important for systems exhibiting deterministic chaos. Moreover, this distinction provides some understanding of the relationships between determinism, causation, predictability, randomness, and stochasticity. (shrink)

Valorising the biocultural heritage of common goods could enable peasant farmers to achieve socially and economically inclusive sustainability. Increasingly appreciated by consumers, peasant heritage products offer small farmers promising opportunities for economic, social and territorial development. Identifying the obstacles and levers of this complex, multi-scale and multi-stakeholder objective requires an integrative framework. We applied the panarchy conceptual framework to two cases of participatory research with small quinoa producers: a local fair in Chile and quinoa export production in Bolivia. In both (...) cases, the “commoning” process was crucial both to bring stakeholders together inside their communities and to gain outside recognition for their production and thus achieve social and economic inclusion. Despite the differences in scale, the local fair and the export market shared a similar marketing strategy based on short value chains promoting quality products with high identity value. In these dynamics of biocultural heritage valorisation, the panarchical approach revealed the central place as well as the vulnerability of the community territory. As a place of both anchoring and opening, the community territory is the privileged space where autonomous and consensual control over the governance of common biocultural resources can be exercised. (shrink)

This research brings together insights from philosophy, political theory, and consumer research in conceptualizing and empirically examining the social dimension of negative and positive freedom in consumption. Drawing from ethnographic observations and interviews with Moroccan women regarding their shopping at the supermarket, the findings detail the roles of husbands, store employees, extended family members and friends as constrainer, protector, enabler, facilitator, indulger, and witness. The discussion explains a ‘domino effect’ in such innovative marketplaces, as these market and social actors together (...) enact positive and negative forms of freedom in consumption in ways that co-disrupt social traditions. Implications for business ethics emphasize the need for greater theoretical understanding and practical transparency and accountability regarding the shared, yet disparate responsibilities among businesses and consumers for the changes to social traditions that result in the joint enactment of women’s freedom in consumption. (shrink)

Since the publication of ChatGPT and Dall-E, there has been heavy discussions on the possible dangers of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for society. These discussions question the extent to which the development of AI can be regulated by politics, law, and civic actors. An important arena for discourse on AI is the news media. The news media discursively construct AI as a technology that is more or less possible to regulate. There are various reasons for an assumed regulatability. Some voices (...) highlight the predominant capitalism of modern society as an ideology that enforces an uncontrolled development of AI. Others call on the rationality of civic society, which will push AI toward a development that serves humankind. Summarized, the discourse on AI floats between positions of technological and social determinism. The article conducts a discourse analysis on 113 articles from the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The analysis shows how these center-left and center-right media frame the AI development in terms of social and technological determinism. As these newspapers reach out to a large audience, the article shows the kinds of perspectives on AI that confront civic society in Germany every day. News media can motivate or impede social action, as they frame the potential necessity of society and its members to intervene against certain developments. The article shows how the newspapers promote an understanding of AI, by which citizens will feel motivated to insist on a regulation of AI by politics and law. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. It will be pointed out that they make different epistemological assumptions, refer to different neurophysiological (...) levels of description, and use quantum theory in different ways. For each of the approaches discussed, problematic and promising features will be equally highlighted. (shrink)

1,857 adults rated the grandparental solicitude they received in childhood. Through a simple model based on the evolutionary concepts of ontogenetically differentiated reproductive strategy and paternity confidence, an ordered discriminative pattern of grandparental caregiving was predicted and confirmed by solid main effects, based on 603 complete cases. The maternal grandmother was the most caring. Unlike prevalent gender stereotypes, she was followed by the maternal grandfather, the paternal grandmother, and the paternal grandfather. The preferential grandparental solicitude was not influenced by residential (...) distance, grandparent age, and availability of other grandparents. A predicted higher correlation for male than for female progenitors between solicitude and phenotypic resemblance could be confirmed. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that consciousness or, in other words, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the brain or, in other words, material brain activity. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question a?rmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. It will be pointed out that they make (...) di?erent epistemological assumptions, refer to di?erent neurophysiological levels of description, and adopt quantum theory in di?erent ways. For each of the approaches discussed, these imply both.. (shrink)

Mind and Matter is conceived as an interdisciplinary journal, aimed at an educated readership interested in all aspects of mind-matter research from the perspectives of the sciences and humanities. It is devoted to the publication of empirical, theoretical, and conceptual research and the discussion of its results. The main subject areas of the journal are -- neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral science -- physical approaches, mathematical modeling, data analysis -- philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, applied metaphysics --cultural and social studies, (...) history of ideas. (shrink)

Following much work in linguistic theory, it is hypothesized that the language faculty has a modular structure and consists of two basic components, a lexicon of (structured) entries and a computational system of combinatorial operations to form larger linguistic expressions from lexical entries. This target article provides evidence for the dual nature of the language faculty by describing recent results of a multidisciplinary investigation of German inflection. We have examined: (1) its linguistic representation, focussing on noun plurals and verb inflection (...) (participles), (2) processes involved in the way adults produce and comprehend inflected words, (3) brain potentials generated during the processing of inflected words, and (4) the way children acquire and use inflection. It will be shown that the evidence from all these sources converges and supports the distinction between lexical entries and combinatorial operations. (shrink)

Scientific progress is achieved not only by continuous accumulation of knowledge but also by paradigm shifts. These shifts are often necessitated by anomalous findings that cannot be incorporated in accepted models. Two important methodological principles regulate this process and complement each other: Ockham's Razor as the principle of parsimony and Plato's Life Boat as the principle of the necessity to 'save the appearances' and thus incorporate conflicting phenomenological data into theories. We review empirical data which are in conflict with some (...) presuppositions of accepted mainstream science: Clinical and experimental effects of prayer and healing intention, data from telepathy, psychokinesis experiments and precognition, and anecdotal reports of macro-psychokinesis. Taken together, the now well documented possibility of these events suggests that such phenomena are anomalies that challenge some widely held beliefs in mainstream science. On the other hand, scientists often fear that by accepting the reality of these phenomena they also have to subscribe to world-models invoking ontological dualism or idealism. We suggest accepting the phenomena as real, but without questionable ontologies commonly associated with them. We outline how this might work. (shrink)

The concept of archetypes has received a number of fundamentally different interpretations, and there are numerous additional philosophical concepts which can be characterized as modifications of those interpretations. Chris Nunn’s paper represents an approach to bringing a specific one among those concepts -- Richard Dawkins’ neo-Darwinistic conception of memes -- into contact with the notion of archetypes as it has been mainly popularized by Carl Gustav Jung. Nunn states rightly that Jung’s own understanding of and emphasis on archetypes changed considerably (...) during his lifetime. Therefore the difficulty is not only how to relate memes to archetypes, but also to distinguish that concept of archetypes to which memes relate from those to which they do not. (shrink)

This article presents for the first time complete descriptions of four codices of the Austrian National Library at Vienna, viz. 1617, 5237, 5248 and 5377. Cod. 1617 is a fragment of Henry Totting of Oyta’s 13 Quaestiones Sententiarum, comprising part of q.7 and qq.8-13 in 198 ff.. The other three manuscripts contain mainly logical texts, e.g., Albert of Saxony’s Sophismata in Cods. 5237 and 5377, his Insolubilia in Cod. 5248, and his Quaestiones Posteriorum in Cod. 5377; 11 of the 12 (...) Tractatus by Peter of Spain in Cod. 5248; an apparently unnoticed copy of Porphyry’s Isagoge translated by Boethius and treatises by Thomas Manlevelt, Richard Billingham and John of Holland along with several anonymous texts in Cod. 5248; a fragment of John Buridan’s Quaestiones breves veteris artis in Cod. 5377. The latter codex has also two interesting sets of anonymous Quaestiones quodlibetales and an erratic leaf with questions on Peri heremeias. Charters or charter-like texts are to be found in Cods. 1617 and 5248 , which may be of value for the prosopography of the fourteenth century. (shrink)

Kant's contribution to modern Protestant theology is as unmistakable as it is controversial. The authors of this volume are investigating a new perspective on the work of theology and the effects of Kant's philosophy of religion concentrated on biblical hermeneutics and dogmatic theology.

The choice of fuels has frequently been at the center of debates about how a future low-carbon mobility system can be achieved. This paper introduces two visions of biogas fuels and electricity using material from interviews and documents in Swedish transport. These visions are analyzed as interrelated sociotechnical imaginaries. To better understand the way visions of biogas and electric vehicles dynamically shape and condition each other, four dimensions of sociotechnical imaginaries are further developed: spatial boundedness, temporality, coherence and contestation, and (...) the socio-material relations they are associated with. Imaginaries of biogas and EVs differ with respect to these characteristics. The biogas imaginary is made up of locally bounded visions of the desirable future, showing how imaginaries can be fragmented and contested, often because of their embeddedness in local socio-material systems of resource use. This local boundedness is exemplified by contrasting cases of contested biogas imaginaries in the Swedish municipalities of Linköping and Malmö. The imaginary of EVs, in contrast, is more uniform nationally and even influenced by international expectations that in the future vehicles will be shared, electric, and autonomous. The qualities of these imaginaries shape the way they interrelate and coevolve as sociotechnical changes of the transport system unfold. (shrink)