We consider the investigation of the embedding of semigroups in groups, a problem which spans the early-twentieth-century development of abstract algebra. Although this is a simple problem to state, it has proved rather harder to solve, and its apparent simplicity caused some of its would-be solvers to go awry. We begin with the analogous problem for rings, as dealt with by Ernst Steinitz, B. L. van der Waerden and Øystein Ore. After disposing of A. K. Sushkevich’s erroneous contribution in this (...) area, we present A. I. Maltsev’s example of a cancellative semigroup which may not be embedded in a group, which showed for the first time that such an embedding is not possible in general. We then look at the various conditions that were derived for such an embedding to take place: the sufficient conditions of Paul Dubreil and others, and the necessary and sufficient conditions obtained by A. I. Maltsev, Vlastimil Pták and Joachim Lambek. We conclude with some comments on the place of this problem within the theory of semigroups, and also within abstract algebra more generally. (shrink)

The Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, the _Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie,_ is distinguished by its particular presentation of philosophical terms, ideas and concepts. Rather than providing mere defintions or descriptive and analytical explanantions the _HWPh_ strictly applies the critical method of history of concepts developed by the eminent German scholar and philosopher Joachim Ritter. By means of precise and detailed references it documents the origin, first occurrence, the historical evolution and the changes of meaning of each concept, from Ancient Greek (...) to contemporary philosophy. For the reader this presentation is of unique value: it makes traceable the importance of terms and concepts at certain periods or for a particular philosopher, as well as its changes and development of meaning. Voulmes 1–12 of the _HWPh_ comprises more than 17.000 text columns on 3.670 philosophical terms. The dictionary does not include articles on persons. Volume 13 includes, besides of a comprehensive introductory essay, three different indexes: - the Subject Index classifies the articles by disciplinary and systematic categories - the Main Index includes all philosophical keywords with more than 30.000 references to their occurrences in other articles and contexts - the Author Index lists all authors and their contributions The included CD-ROM allows full text research of the _HWPh's_ entire content. (shrink)

"Heimat" ist zutiefst doppeldeutig. Heimat steht zum einen für Sicherheit und Geborgenheit, zum anderen für Enge und Exklusion. Heimat ist zugleich Paradies und Sehnsuchtsort wie auch Hölle. Das Buch lotet diese Spannung aus. Im Fokus steht nicht nur der gegenwärtige politische Gebrauch des Begriffs. Gefragt wird auch, ob es angesichts der Individualität, Pluralität und Heterogenität, die das Lebensgefühl der Menschen prägen, überhaupt noch Sinn macht, den Begriff "Heimat" zu verwenden. Gleichzeitig fordern Migration und Flucht die modernen westlichen Gesellschaften heraus, sich (...) neu mit kulturellen Verortungen auseinanderzusetzen. Mit Beiträgen von Hans-Joachim Höhn, Markus Kotzur, Jürgen Manemann, Ulrich Hemel, Jörg Wächter, Birgit Recki, Christian Starck, Saskia Wendel, Hans Joas und Gerhard Kruip. "Homeland" is full of ambiguity. "Homeland" refers to safety and feelings of security, at the same time it is perceived as narrowness and exclusion. Homeland is experienced as paradise as well as hell. The book fathoms the tension and raises the question how to speak of homeland today. (shrink)

In the last 20 years, a stream of research emerged under the label of „complex problem solving“ (CPS). This research was intended to describe the way people deal with complex, dynamic, and intransparent situations. Complex computer-simulated scenarios were as stimulus material in psychological experiments. This line of research lead to subtle insights into the way how people deal with complexity and uncertainty. Besides these knowledge-rich, realistic, intransparent, complex, dynamic scenarios with many variables, a second line of research used more simple, (...) knowledge-lean scenarios with a low number of variables („minimal complex systems“, MCS) that have been proposed recently in problem-solving research for the purpose of educational assessment. In both cases, the idea behind the use of microworlds is to increase validity of problem solving tasks by presenting interactive environments that can be explored and controlled by participants while pursuing certain action goals. The main argument presented here is: both types of systems - CPS and MCS – can only be dealt with successfully if causal dependencies between input and output variables are identified and used for system control. System knowledge is necessary for control and intervention. But CPS and MCS differ in their way of how causal dependencies are identified and how the mental model is constructed; therefore, they cannot be compared directly to each other with respect to the cognitive processes that are necessary for solving the tasks. Knowledge-poor MCS tasks address only a small fraction of the cognitive processes and structures needed for knowledge-rich CPS situations. (shrink)

Diese kleine Rechtsphilosophie bemillit sich, die heutige rechts­ philosophische Problematik in den groBen Rahmen der Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie hineinzustellen. Ein derartiges Unterfangen macht eine strenge Auswahl erforderlich, und jeder wird bei einer solchen zum Teil davon beeinfluBt sein, was er im Hinblick auf die Problema­ tik der Gegenwart als wesentlich empfindet. Viel Interessantes muB notwendigerweise unberiicksichtigt bleiben; als MaBstab fiir die Auswahl habe ich dabei im wesentlichen die Originalitat des rechtsphilosophischen Beitrags angesehen. Eine Ausnahme· bilden die Naturrechtler des 18. Jahrhunderts. (...) Man wird gewiB auch hier iiber vieles streiten Mnnen. Ich mochte an dieser Stelle dem Herausgeber, meinem Freunde WOLFGANG KUNKEL, fiir die groBe Millie danken, die er sich im ganzen Verlauf der Arbeit gemacht hat. Cambridge, Mass., Friihjahr 1955. CARL J OACBlM FRIEDRICH. Inhaltsverzeichnis. Erster Teil. Die Geschichte. Selta I. Einleitung......................... 1 II. Das Recht aIs Wille Gottes: Die Erbschaft des Alten Testaments. 4 III. Das Recht aIs Teilhabe an der Idee der Gerechtigkeit: Plato und Aristoteles......................... 7 IV. Das Recht aIs Ausdruck der Gesetzlichkeiten menschlicher Natur: Die Stoa. und das romische Naturrecht............ 16 V. Das Recht als Friedensordnung der Liebesgemeinschaft: Augustin 21 VI. Das Recht aIs Teil und Spiegel der gottlichen Weltordnung: Thomas Aquinas und die Scholastik................. 25 VII. Das Recht aIs Geschichtsphii. nomen: Die Humanisten....... 30 VIII. Gesetztes Recht gegen Naturrecht: Die Souverinitatslehre bei Bodin, Althusius, Grotius..................... 34 IX. (shrink)

In this article, I present a novel approach to the scientific understanding of consciousness. It is based on the hypothesis that the full range of phenomenal qualities is built into the frequency spectrum of a ubiquitous background field and proceeds on the assumption that conscious systems employ a universal mechanism by means of which they are able to extract phenomenal nuances selectively from this field. I set forth that in the form of the zero-point field (ZPF) physics can offer a (...) promising candidate that is qualified for playing the dual role as both the carrier of energy and consciousness. The appropriate mechanism, which rests upon the principle of dynamical coupling of ZPF modes, is a unique feature of quantum systems, suggesting that the dividing line between conscious and non-conscious systems is defined by the differentiation between quantum systems and classical systems. The presence of this mechanism in the brain is supported by the neurophysiological body of evidence, leading to a consistent explanation of the dynamical properties of the neural correlates of consciousness. Building on these findings, I lay the foundations for the conceptually coherent integration of consciousness into the physical worldview, derive an indicator for the quantity of consciousness of a given system, and outline the further steps toward a theory of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the relations existing between four deductive systems that have been called categorial grammars and have relevant connections with linguistic investigations: the syntactic calculus, bilinear logic, compact bilinear logic and Curry''s semantic calculus.

Discussions of the implications of sexual reproduction have appeared throughout the history of evolutionary biology, from Darwin to Weismann, Fisher, Muller, Maynard Smith, and Williams. The latest of these appearances highlighted an evolutionary paradox that had previously been overlooked. In many animal and plant species reproduction is obligately sexual and also half the offspring are male, yet the males contribute nothing but genes to reproduction. If asexual mutants of such a species were to produce as many asexual offspring on average (...) as sexual females in that species produce daughters and sons, the growth rate of their population would be twice as large. Whereas half the offspring of sexual females are noncontributory males, all the offspring of such an asexual mutant would contribute to growth rate. Nevertheless, sexual reproduction prevails in most species and is not lost evolutionarily. (shrink)

Angels are the ultimate stranger. They come from another world and have a special place in the art of the Russian Jewish painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985). In My Life (1923) the young Chagall recalls one memorable night in Saint-Petersburg. Drifting into sleep in the corner of a room (all he could afford) he suddenly saw the ceiling open and a winged being, surrounded by light and blue air, hovered above him before disappearing through the ceiling again.

'Jeder denkt doch nur an seinen eigenen Vorteil'. Diese schwer überprüfbare Lebensweisheit ist in den letzten zwanzig Jahren von der neueren Ökonomik zu einer modelltheoretisch fundierten Ethik ausgearbeitet worden, die fordert, innerhalb geeigneter Rahmenbedingungen dem 'unbändigen Vorteilsstreben' nicht nur im Marktgeschehen, sondern auch im alltäglichen Zusammenleben freien Lauf zu lassen. Beispielhaft demontiert Hans-Joachim Niemann das Modelldenken der neuen Ökonomik und zeigt: Wer seine Modelle nicht durchschaut oder die Komplexität des sozialen Lebens unterschätzt, läuft Gefahr, das soziale Gefüge aus den (...) Angeln zu heben. Eine solche 'Ethik der Zukunft' brauchen wir nicht. Not tut stattdessen, die herkömmliche Moral als 'säkulare Moral' zu analysieren, zu formulieren und sie dadurch kritisierbar und verbesserbar zu machen. Das geeignete Instrument dazu ist die Problemlösungsethik des kritischen Rationalismus. (shrink)

Social order and social change is based on social action. All sociological theories of action agree on this assumption. Beyond that insight action theories disagree on basic notions of how action can be explained, on basic principles clarifying the selection of action and on basic motivations of action as starting point to construct theories of social order and social change. Contemporary sociology accepts the multidimensionality of theoretical approaches. Open are questions of how action theories can be differentiated, related or combined (...) to offer analytical instruments for empirical research. The idea this essay brings forward is that the classical dualism between utilitarism (homo oeconomicus) and normativism (homo sociologicus) is transcended in support of action theories concentrating on the meaning of culture (cultural turn), communication (linguistic turn), and on creativity (dialogical turn). Integrated as a new typology these five action theories provide an analytical framework to research social order and social conflicts of modern societies. (shrink)

Schleiermachers klassische Bestimmung der Dogmatik als historische Disziplin wird zunächst nach ihrem enzyklopädischen Sinn genau bestimmt. Dabei treten die Themen „Sprache“ und „Geschichte“ besonders in den Blick. Abschnitt entfaltet diese im Anschluss an W. v. Humboldt unter den Gesichtspunkten: Sprache und Denken wie auch: Sprache und Geschichte weiter. Im letzten Abschnitt entwickelt der Verf. theologische Folgerungen für die Dogmatik und ihre geschichtliche Dimension, die sich wesentlich aus der traditionellen Sprache der Bibel herschreibt. Dieser Zusammenhang hat auch Konsequenzen für den Zusammenhang (...) von Sprache und Bewusstsein. Schließlich wird die Geschichtlichkeit des Wortes Gottes reflektiert, sofern es eschatologisch ist. (shrink)