Originally presented as the author's thesis, Heidelberg, 1976, under the title: Elemente zu Hegels Auseinandersetzung mit Kant und Fichte in Teubingen und Bern.

Most studies of academic inbreeding have focused on assessing its impact on scholarly practices, outputs, and outcomes. Few studies have concentrated on the other possible effects of academic inbreeding. This paper draws on a large number of studies on academic inbreeding to explore how the practice has been conceptualized, how it has emerged, and how it has been rationalized in the creation and development of higher education systems. Within this framework, the paper also explores how academic inbreeding shapes and maintains (...) a powerful academic oligarchy, leading to the stonewalling of both knowledge and institutional change to maintain social and political structures somewhat akin to those of medieval societies. The paper shows that the key to mitigating academic inbreeding practices lies in ensuring that academic recruitment processes are open, meritocratic, and transparent. However, a more difficult task is to change longstanding mentalities and disrupt a system that serves the interests of certain groups but not the advancement of knowledge or the fulfillment of universities’ social mandates. (shrink)

According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, humans have evolved reasoning abilities for argumentative purposes. This implies that some reasoning skills should be universals. Such a claim seems to be at odd with findings from cross-cultural research. First, a wealth of research, following the work of Luria, has shown apparent difficulties for illiterate populations to solve simple but abstract syllogisms. It can be shown, however, that once they are willing to accept the pragmatics of the task, these participants can perform (...) at or near ceiling. Second, historical, sociological and anthropological research has been used to claim that some Eastern cultures have not developed argumentation. These claims are the result of oversimplifications and of a selective view of the data. A closer looks reveals instead very elaborate forms of argumentation, in Chinese culture particularly. Third, cross-cultural psychologists have carried out an extensive research program aimed at showing that Easterners do not rely on the principle of non-contradiction and that they use holistic rather than analytic thinking. A review of these experiments shows that no qualitative difference emerges in the way Easterners and Westerners deal with argumentation and that in the proper context both populations can easily have recourse to holistic or analytic thinking. It is possible to conclude from this critical review that the reasoning skills involved in argumentation seem to be universal even though they can be used in different ways in various cultural contexts. (shrink)

The role of reasoning in our moral lives has been increasingly called into question by moral psychology. Not only are intuitions guiding many of our moral judgments and decisions, with reasoning only finding post-hoc rationalizations, but reasoning can sometimes play a negative role, by finding excuses for our moral violations. The observations fit well with the argumentative theory of reasoning (Mercier H, Sperber D, Behav Brain Sci, in press-b), which claims that reasoning evolved to find and evaluate arguments in dialogic (...) contexts. This theory explains the strong confirmation bias that reasoning displays when it produces arguments, which in turn explains its tendency to rationalize our decisions. But this theory also predicts that people should be able to evaluate arguments felicitously and that, as a result, people should reason better in groups, when they are confronted with other people’s arguments. Groups are able to converge on better moral judgments. It is argued that reasoning and argumentation play an important role in our everyday moral lives, and a defense of the value of reasoning for moral change is offered. (shrink)

Reasoning, defined as the production and evaluation of reasons, is a central process in science. The dominant view of reasoning, both in the psychology of reasoning and in the psychology of science, is of a mechanism with an asocial function: bettering the beliefs of the lone reasoner. Many observations, however, are difficult to reconcile with this view of reasoning; in particular, reasoning systematically searches for reasons that support the reasoner’s initial beliefs, and it only evaluates these reasons cursorily. By contrast, (...) reasoners are well able to evaluate others’ reasons: accepting strong arguments and rejecting weak ones. The argumentative theory of reasoning accounts for these traits of reasoning by postulating that the evolved function of reasoning is to argue: to find arguments to convince others and to change one’s mind when confronted with good arguments. Scientific reasoning, however, is often described as being at odds with such an argumentative mechanisms: scientists are supposed to reason objectively on their own, and to be pigheaded when their theories are challenged, even by good arguments. In this article, we review evidence showing that scientists, when reasoning, are subject to the same biases as are lay people while being able to change their mind when confronted with good arguments. We conclude that the argumentative theory of reasoning explains well key features of scientists’ reasoning and that differences in the way scientists and laypeople reason result from the institutional framework of science. (shrink)

People not only disagree about religious belief, but they disagree about what it is to disagree about religious belief; and consequently about what it would be for one religion to be uniquely true. What I shall try to do first is to characterise the nature of religious disagreement; and next to suggest in what the uniqueness of Christianity might consist.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

La recepción de la Wissenschaft der Logik de G. W. F. Hegel en la filosofía argentina fue tardía y focal. A la casi nula atención al aspecto especulativo de la filosofía hegeliana durante el positivismo decimonónico, continuó un superficial interés en las primeras décadas del siglo XX que derivó en dos comentarios de la Wissenschaft der Logik: La Lógica de Hegel de M. A. Virasoro y Hegel y la dialéctica de C. Astrada. Para Virasoro la obra representaba un posicionamiento lógico (...) contrapuesto al formal con derivaciones gnoseológicas y metafísicas; para Astrada ella exponía la fundamentación del método dialéctico, el cual tenía relevancia ontológica y política. Ambos filósofos coincidieron en un interés crítico por la obra y en un privilegio exegético de la Doctrina del ser por sobre la Esencia y el Concepto. Las diferencias y las continuidades entre ambas interpretaciones conformaron la recepción inicial de la Wissenschaft der Logik en la filosofía argentina. (shrink)

Hindbrain development is orchestrated by a vertebrate gene regulatory network that generates segmental patterning along the anterior–posterior axis via Hox genes. Here, we review analyses of vertebrate and invertebrate chordate models that inform upon the evolutionary origin and diversification of this network. Evidence from the sea lamprey reveals that the hindbrain regulatory network generates rhombomeric compartments with segmental Hox expression and an underlying Hox code. We infer that this basal feature was present in ancestral vertebrates and, as an evolutionarily constrained (...) developmental state, is fundamentally important for patterning of the vertebrate hindbrain across diverse lineages. Despite the common ground plan, vertebrates exhibit neuroanatomical diversity in lineage‐specific patterns, with different vertebrates revealing variations of Hox expression in the hindbrain that could underlie this diversification. Invertebrate chordates lack hindbrain segmentation but exhibit some conserved aspects of this network, with retinoic acid signaling playing a role in establishing nested domains of Hox expression. (shrink)

Modern societies depend on a growing production of scientific knowledge, which is based on the functional differentiation of science into still more specialised scientific disciplines and subdisciplines. This is the basis for the paradox of scientific expertise: The growth of science leads to a fragmentation of scientific expertise. To resolve this paradox, the present paper investigates three hypotheses: 1) All scientific knowledge is perspectival. 2) The perspectival structure of science leads to specific forms of knowledge asymmetries. 3) Such perspectival knowledge (...) asymmetries must be handled through second order perspectives. We substantiate these hypotheses on the basis of a perspectivist philosophy of science grounded in Peircean semiotics and autopoietic systems theory. Perspectival knowledge asymmetries are an unavoidable and necessary part of the growth of scientific knowledge, and more awareness of this fact can help avoid blind and futile struggles between scientific perspectives, and direct efforts toward more appropriate ways of handling these fundamental knowledge asymmetries. Concretely, we show how different kinds of scientific knowledge, expertise, disagreement and learning can be correlated to the perspectival structure of science, and propose how polyocular communication based on observations of the observations made by specialised perspectives can be used to handle such perspectival knowledge asymmetries. This can help overcome the observed problems in carrying out cross-disciplinary research and in the collective use of different kinds of scientific expertise, and thereby make society better able to solve complex, real-world problems. (shrink)

An English eccentric and an agitated dean -- Mr. McGregor's garden -- I banish you -- Vultures and ostriches -- Post mortem.

This is the first book to examine individual rights from an economic perspective, collecting together leading articles in this emerging area of interest and showing the vibrant and expanding scholarship that relates them. Areas covered include The implications of constitutional protections of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press, The right to bear arms, The right against unreasonable searches, The right against self-incrimination, The right to trial by jury, The right against cruel and unusual punishment, (...) including capital punishment. The focus of these papers is both theoretical and empirical, examining how economics can illuminate the entire sequence of crime and punishment, from the decision to commit a crime, to police methods for apprehending and arresting criminals, to the rules used in trials to the scope of punishment for the convicted. (shrink)