This junior/senior level text is devoted to a study of first-order logic and its role in the foundations of mathematics: What is a proof? How can a proof be justified? To what extent can a proof be made a purely mechanical procedure? How much faith can we have in a proof that is so complex that no one can follow it through in a lifetime? The first substantial answers to these questions have only been obtained in this century. The most (...) striking results are contained in Goedel's work: First, it is possible to give a simple set of rules that suffice to carry out all mathematical proofs; but, second, these rules are necessarily incomplete - it is impossible, for example, to prove all true statements of arithmetic. The book begins with an introduction to first-order logic, Goedel's theorem, and model theory. A second part covers extensions of first-order logic and limitations of the formal methods. The book covers several advanced topics, not commonly treated in introductory texts, such as Trachtenbrot's undecidability theorem. Fraissé's elementary equivalence, and Lindstroem's theorem on the maximality of first-order logic. (shrink)

The present work critically examines two assumptions frequently stated by supporters of cognitive neuroenhancement. The first, explicitly methodological, assumption is the supposition of effective and side effect-free neuroenhancers. However, there is an evidence-based concern that the most promising drugs currently used for cognitive enhancement can be addictive. Furthermore, this work describes why the neuronal correlates of key cognitive concepts, such as learning and memory, are so deeply connected with mechanisms implicated in the development and maintenance of addictive behaviour so that (...) modification of these systems may inevitably run the risk of addiction to the enhancing drugs. Such a potential risk of addiction could only be falsified by in-depth empirical research. The second, implicit, assumption is that research on neuroenhancement does not pose a serious moral problem. However, the potential for addiction, along with arguments related to research ethics and the potential social impact of neuroenhancement, could invalidate this assumption. It is suggested that ethical evaluation needs to consider the empirical data as well as the question of whether and how such empirical knowledge can be obtained. (shrink)

This contribution to the special issue is an historical account of Paulo Freire’s pedagogical and administrative praxis before his forced exile in 1964. It relies on interviews collected during a field trip in 1976, a conversation with Paulo Freire in Geneva one year later and on the secondary literature up to date. Being the head of the first Extension Service of a major Brazilian university in the early 1960s gave Freire and his collaborators the space and time to experiment with (...) the today world famous literacy method bearing his name. The concept of ‘Field of Cultural Production’ (Bourdieu) is used to elucidate better Freire and his team’s avant-gardist production within the spaces opened up by Brazil’s popular movements in the early sixties. The contribution shows how the ‘Paulo Freire System’ developed in the praxis of a cultural movement and received its academic consecration in an incremental and eclectic style. (shrink)

T. 1. Ideenlehre und Paralogismen.--T. 2 Vierfache Vernunftantinomie; Natur und Freiheit; intelligibler und empirischer Charakter.--T. 3. Das ideal der reinen Vernunft; die spekulativen Beweisarten vom Dasein Gottes; dialektischer Schein und Leitideen der Forschung.

Using hitherto unpublished manuscripts from the Zermelo Nachlass, I describe the development of the notion of definiteness and the discussion about it, giving a conclusive picture of Zermelo's thoughts up to the late thirties. As it turns out, Zermelo's considerations about definiteness are intimately related to his concept of a Cantorian universe of categorically definable sets that may be considered an inner model of set theory in an ideationally given universe of classes.

This paper examines a model in which people’s preferences adjust to changes in their relative ability to attain various goals. Preference changes are modeled as changes in the configuration of weights (or values) attached to these goals. The model permits to explain common prototype changes of preferences such as the ‘sour grapes’ or the ‘overcompensating’ phenomenon. It is found that whether the first or the second phenomenon occurs depends on whether a goal is easy or difficult to substitute by other (...) goals. If two goals are sufficiently strong substitutes for each other, no weight will be placed on that goal which is harder to attain. The results readily apply to the standard microeconomic set-up involving goods and prices, rather than abstract goals and abilities. In this case, one implication of the model is that only a subset of the overall commodity space is relevant for everyday consumer choice, which reduces the complexity of the choice procedure. The model also permits to explain how new and unfamiliar products are incorporated into the consumer’s preference pattern. (shrink)

This article argues that to advance the struggle for access to essential medicines, it is necessary to identify the global and local regimes that shape the rules that give impetus to particular policy options, while undermining others. In exploring the role of law and politics in this process, the author first outlines the globalization of a standardized, corporate-inspired, intellectual property regime. Second, the author uses the example of the HIV/aids pandemic to demonstrate how the stability of this new regime came (...) under pressure, both locally and globally. Finally, it is argued that while the global HIV/aids pandemic and the social movements that emerged in response to government inaction have effectively challenged the TRIPS regime, this complex contestation has reached an unsustainable stalemate in which development aid, corporate, and non-governmental philanthropy is simultaneously providing increased availability to drugs while precluding a more lasting solution to the crisis of access to essential medicines in developing countries. (shrink)

A mechanism-based approach was developed focusing on the psychodynamic, psychological and neuronal mechanisms in healthy and depressed persons. In this integrative concept of depression, the self is a core dimension in depression. It is attributed to negative emotions (e.g., failure, guilt). The increased inward focus in depression is connected with a decreased environmental focus. The development of neuropsychodynamic hypotheses of the altered self-reference is based on the investigation of the emotional-cognitive interaction in depressed patients. It may be hypothesized that the (...) increased negative self-attributions—as typical characteristics of an increased self-focus in depression—may result from altered neuronal activity in subcortical-cortical midline structures in the brain, especially from hyperactivity in the cortical-subcortical midline regions and hypoactivity in the lateral regions. The increased resting state activity in depression is especially associated with an increased resting state activity in the default mode network (DMN) and a dysbalance between DMN and executive network (EN) activity. Possible therapeutic consequences of the neuropsychodynamic approach to depression involve the necessary emotional attunement in psychotherapy of depressed patients and the adequate timing of therapeutic interventions. The hypotheses which have been developed in the context of the neuropsychodynamic model of depression may be used for more specific psychotherapeutic interventions, aiming at specific mechanisms of compensation and defence, which are related to the increased resting state activity and the disturbed resting state-stimulus-interaction. (shrink)

Einleitung: Der beginn der neuzeit in der geschichte der philosophie.--Gott und welt; die einheit der gegensätze.--Unendlichkeit im endlichen.--Seele und aussenwelt.--Sein und lebendigkeit.--Das individuum.--Erkenntnis und wille.

Excerpt from Fichte Die geistige Nahrung des Elternhauses bestand in einer innigen und strengen Religiosität. Der Trieb, der in dem Kinde hier zuerst geweckt wurde, hat Fichte, wie er selbst betont, zeitlebens tief in allem Sein und Tun bestimmt. Von seiner ersten Schrift an bis zur letzten sind es religiose Fragen und Erlebnisse gewesen, die sein Denken zu den letzten Wurzeln seiner Überzeugung fuhrten. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at (...) www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Der deutsche Philosoph und Charakterkundler Ludwig Klages kann als ein Pionier des ökologischen Denkens angesehen werden. Vor allem mit seinem Aufsatz „Mensch und Erde“, verfasst für das Bundestreffen der Freideutschen Jugend 1913 auf dem Hohen Meißner bei Kassel, prangerte er in einer bis dahin beispiellosen Schärfe die Naturzerstörung der modernen Welt an. Klages stand dabei durchaus in einer Traditionslinie, die mit der Romantik einsetzte und durch die frühen Naturschützer des 19. Jahrhunderts wie Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl und Ernst Rudorff verkörpert wurde. (...) Anders als diese benannte er aber die geistige Ursache für die Entfremdung des Menschen von der übrigen Natur klar beim Namen: den Anthropozentrismus. Dieser sei der Wesenskern sowohl der monotheistischen Religionen wie auch der seit dem Zeitalter der Aufklärung dominierenden materialistischen Fortschrittsgläubigkeit. War Klages zu Lebzeiten damit noch ein „einsamer Rufer in der Wüste“, so wurden mit der in den 1970er Jahren aufkommenden Umweltbewegung viele seiner Aspekte – vom Biozentrismus bis hin zur Ökologie als einer Leitwissenschaft – neu thematisiert. (shrink)

Mario Bunge is an important philosopher of science. But he does not limit himself to using his “truth-technology” in his particular philosophical discipline. For decades, he has also endeavored to achieve an independent profile as a public intellectual on the basis of his wide-ranging competence. To this end, he authoritatively criticizes authors who market themselves to the public as anti-scientists or as pseudo-scientists. On his home continent of Latin America, Mario Bunge is regarded as a role model because he has (...) achieved international recognition like no other South American philosopher before him. (shrink)

Fichte definiert in der Wissenschaftslehre von 1794 seinen kritischen Idealismus durch die Identität von Idealgrund und Realgrund. Identisch aber seien beide »im Begriffe der Wirksamkeit«, und deshalb »überall«, denn nur im Begriffe der Wirksamkeit komme ein Real-Grund vor. Dieser Definition bzw. dieser Identifizierung möchte ich im Folgenden nachgehen und andeutungsweise zeigen, inwiefern diese Identifizierung eine Vorgeschichte bei Kant und eine Nachgeschichte bei Schelling hat. Die Perspektive, in der dieser Problematik hier nachgegangen werden soll, ist die, dass es bei Fichte wie (...) schon bei Kant, aber auch bei Hegel und Schelling nicht nur um Selbstverhältnisse, sondern zugleich um Weltverhältnisse geht. Dass Selbstverhältnis und Weltverhältnis nur gemeinsam zu haben sind, könnte als die zentrale Einsicht des Deutschen Idealismus bezeichnet werden; dass aber Selbst- und Weltverhältnis im Grunde identisch sind, dies argumentativ und a priori aufzuzeigen ist Anliegen, Ziel und Inhalt von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre. (shrink)

O objeto dessa investigação é o status sistemático da ideia transcendental como “focus imaginarius” na Crítica da razão pura de Kant. Tentar-se-á mostrar que a teoria da auto-referência do eu fracassa, se for pensada na forma de uma objetivação do eu como objeto. Nesse sentido, a ideia regulativa marca o ponto central de um equívoco tanto da razão especulativa como da prática, como também das consequências resultantes dessa objetivação nos níveis epistemológico, psicológico e da teoria da ação.

Both inside and outside Germany, the volume presented here has figured for more than three decades among the generally acknowledged standard works on speech training in German. In this new, revised edition each of the detailed accounts of the functions of the different speech organs is followed immediately by exercises concentrating on the organ in question. The practice-oriented methodological indications and the wide range of carefully graded and differentiated exercises are designed to optimize breathing during speech, vocalization, and above all (...) articulation. The publication takes appropriate account of the different concerns of various fields of study and target groups. (shrink)

Ancient Greek drama became the driving force in the Western theatrical revolution of the 1920s with Leopold Jessner's famous staging of King Oedipus in 1919. Once again theatre defined itself as the public tribune: the Athenian polis with its direct democracy giving way to the concept of a new social collective for the scientific age. The urgency of the impulse for social change coupled with the experience of World War I led to the investigation of images and action as forces (...) of internal necessity arising from the existentielle Angst of a whole generation of artists who found themselves face to face with the spiritual bankruptcy of the bourgeois social order. The long-term effects of the new dramatists’ radical re-viewings of the Greek theatre's potential as a progressive social undertaking—revealing its use value—may be detected in current-day rehearsal practices. Some of these effects are the subject of this article, which presents the author's experience of directing Sophocles’ Antigone in 1986 at the ancient Greek theatre of Oeniades. (shrink)

The subject of intercultural exchange is complex and demands that we keep the basic issues that shape our views of the world in mind. And one of these basic issues is what we mean by “European identity.” The ideological concerns over the norms of identity became necessarily entangled in the post-1989 interests and agendas of Europe’s various nations. So the great challenge for us as academics as well as for the policymakers in Brussels and Strasburg is to focus on these (...) dialectics. European identity is too varied to be a unitary and homogenous thing; indeed, one of the battles within it is between the advocates of a unitary identity and those who see the whole as a complex that is irreducible to a unified identity. In this article I explore how the theatre, in the aftermath of the Second World War, served as a laboratory for the investigation, analysis, and constuction of dramatic models that became a means of transcultural communication. As attested by the continuing success of the experimental approaches of Brecht, Grotowski, La Mama, and Suzuki, this endeavour reflected the struggle of people from different cultural backgrounds to understand and accept each other. One of the reasons the theatre continues to have the potentiality to promote transcultural integration is that it deals in concrete particulars with universal resonances. As I will demonstrate with examples from my own work in various countries, the production and directing of plays by these and other dramatists shows that it is only in the performance—by transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar, by making the habitual and customary seem strange and unexpected—that the motives, relationships, and events enclosed in the written play are released so as to stimulate the audience to re-examine their own contemporary realities. Transcultural theatre thus creates dramatic experiences that are adequate and responsive to the changing world of migration and mobility in which both practitioners and audiences actually live. As such it offers the kind of transcultural education that promotes communication and understanding and that fosters an open-eyed and open-hearted attitude to the changing realities of Europe. (shrink)

Für die Sinnesdatenphilosophie sind zwei Behauptungen zentral: (1) Der sinnliche Gehalt des sinnlich-perzeptiven Bewußtseins ist gegenständlich oder objektual aufzufassen, d.h. es gibt Sinnesdaten oder phänomenale Gegenstände mit phänomenalen Beschaffenheiten; (2) Das sinnlich-perzeptive Bewußtsein ist nach dem Modell: Subjekt — zweistelliges Prädikat — Objekt zu analysieren, d.h. Sinnesdaten sind uns als Objekte unseres sinnlich-perzeptiven Bewußtseins unmittelbar gegeben. Die Annahmen (l)und (2) führen in philosophische Aporien. Es ist jedoch möglich, den sinnlichen Gehalt des sinnlich-perzeptiven Bewußtseins nicht-gegenständlich aufzufassen und nach einem Modell zu (...) analysieren, welches eine solche Vergegenständlichung und die damit verbundenen Probleme vermeidet. Die sich gegen ein solches nicht-objektuales oder adverbiales Analysemodell erhebenden phänomenologischen und semantischen Einwände lassen sich entkräften. (shrink)

Die Struktur des unmittelbaren epistemischen Selbstbewußtseins läßt sich am besten unter Zugrundelegung und Entfaltung folgen der Annahmen explizieren: (i) Es gibt mentale Substanzen, (ii) Es gibt Wahrheitswerttransparente Cogitopropositionen oder CogitoSachverhalte, (iii) Jedes Ich kann seine und nur seine es betreffenden Cogitopropositionen fassen, womit es ipso facto ein unmittelbares Wissen um sich selbst hat. Dieses unmittelbare selbstreflexive Wissen kann in assertorischen Sätzen seinen Ausdruck finden, (iv) Die andere Iche betreffenden Cogitopropositionen können diesen Ichen nur mit Hilfe quasiindikatorischer Mittel zugeschrieben werden. Jedes (...) Ich kann wenigstens eine Entität per se individuieren, nämlich sich selbst. Per se Individuation anderer Iche ist nur dann möglich, wenn jedem Ich nicht nur Cogitopropositionen, sondern auch es und nur es betreffende Propositionen zugeordnet werden, die von ihm selbst, aber auch von anderen gefaßt bzw. gewußt werden können. (shrink)