Der neue Plutarch - Biographien hervorragender Charktere der Geschichte, Literature und Kunst ist ein unveränderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1874. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernährung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitäten erhältlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bücher neu und trägt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur (...) und historischem Wissen auch für die Zukunft bei. (shrink)

This article by Johannes B. Lotz, S.J., never before translated into English, describes his contacts with Martin Heidegger. First it describes his arrival, along with Karl Rahner, S.J., to pursue doctoral studies in Freiburg im Breisgau and their first experiences with the famous professor. Lotz continues his narrative by mentioning times he met with Heidegger over the subsequent forty years up to the philosopher’s death. With Gustav Siewerth, Max Müller, Bernhard Welte, and Karl Rahner, Lotz belonged to a (...) group of Catholic thinkers influenced—some more, some less—by Martin Heidegger. In Lotz’s view some of Heidegger’s ideas were already found in Aquinas, and a philosophy of Being needed to go beyond existential analysis into religion, revelation, and cultural criticism. (shrink)

This paper discusses the contribution of Hegel’s first biographer to the overall understanding of his work through the elaboration and analysis of theses and remarks related to the earliest roots of Hegel’s speculation in his youth, i.e. pre-Jena period and certainly the most problematic and least known phase of his philosophical worldview and written expression. The aim of this contribution is, on the one hand, to point out the inestimable importance of the content presented in this biographical overview, as well (...) as the significance of the material consulted, on which the biography is based and which has survived only in a deficiently fragmented form. On the other hand, an important part of the research presented here consists of highlighting and correct historical and critical contextualization of certain inconsistencies and interpretive shortcomings, present in this first-ever written biography of Hegel, which had a significant impact on the subsequent understanding of the origin of the system and the dialectic in Hegel’s later and more mature speculation. (shrink)

Einleitung : Zur Entstehung der Schrift ; Zum Kontext der Schrift ; Zur Wirkung der Schrift ; Die zentralen Themen der Schrift -- Hinweise zur Edition -- Siglen und Kurztitel -- Bibliographische Angaben -- Karl Leonhard Reinhold : Ueber das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens nebst einigen Erläuterungen über die Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögens. Vorrede -- Uever das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens -- Die in 26sten Stück der A.L.Z. von 1791 enthaltene Beurtheilung der Reinholdschen Elementarphilosophie -- Des Herrn Hofrath und Professor (...) Schwab Gedanken über die Reinholdsche Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögens. Im 2ten St. des 3ten Bandes des Eberhardschen Magazins. Geprüft von M.F.C. Forberg -- Anhang : Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 26/27. 28. Januar 1791, 201-208; 209-214 [Rezensent A. W. Rehberg] (Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Misverständnisse der Philosophen. Erster Band) ; Philosophisches Magazin. Hg. von Johann August Eberhard. Dritten Bandes zweytes Stück. Halle 1790, 125-147 (Ueber den Reinholdischen Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens, non J. C. Schwab). (shrink)

It can be creepy to notice that something human-looking is not real. But can sensitivity to this phenomenon, known as the uncanny valley, be predicted from superficially unrelated traits? Based on results from at least 489 participants, this study examines the relation between nine theoretically motivated trait indices and uncanny valley sensitivity, operationalized as increased eerie ratings and decreased warmth ratings for androids presented in videos. Animal Reminder Sensitivity, Neuroticism, its Anxiety facet, and Religious Fundamentalism significantly predicted uncanny valley sensitivity. (...) In addition, Concern over Mistakes and Personal Distress significantly predicted android eerie ratings but not warmth. The structural equation model indicated that Religious Fundamentalism operates indirectly, through robot-related attitudes, to heighten uncanny valley sensitivity, while Animal Reminder Sensitivity increases eerie ratings directly. These results suggest that the uncanny valley phenomenon may operate through both sociocultural constructions and biological adaptations for threat avoidance, such as the fear and disgust systems. Trait indices that predict uncanny valley sensitivity warrant investigation by experimental methods to explicate the processes underlying the uncanny valley phenomenon. (shrink)

After reviewing the papers in this special issue, I must conclude that brains are not syntactic engines, but control systems that orient to biological, interindividual, and cultural norms. By themselves, syntactic constraints both underdetermine and overdetermine cognitive operations. So, rather than serving as the basis for general cognition, they are just another kind of empirically acquired constraint. In humans, symbols emerge from a particular sensorimotor activity through a process of contextual broadening that depends on the coordination of conscious and nonconscious (...) processing. This process provides the representational freedom and stability that constitute the human brain’s solution to the frame problem and symbol grounding problem. Symbol formation and grounding is an ongoing process of generalising constraints from particular contexts, selectively enlisting their use, and re-automating them. This process is central to the self-creation of a language-using person with beliefs, agency, and identity. (shrink)

Este artigo estuda alguns aspectos de uma das maiores transformações na história do pensamento estético, nomeadamente, a teorização estética do feio. A seguir a referências a concepções estéticas do feio em E. Lessing e F. Schlegel, é estudada a concepção dialética do feio segundo o Sistema da Estética (1830) de Ch. H. Weisse, da escola hegeliana. O feio é entendido então como a aparição não sublimada da contradição inerente ao finito. Esta concepção abre caminho à Estética do Feio, de K. (...) Rosenkranz, a única e certamente primeira estética do feio, completa, independente e sistemática. Através do estudo das suas teses principais e de alguns exemplos citados pelo autor, mostra-se como a estética do feio de Rosenkranz, apesar da sua pertença ainda em parte a cânones clássicos, abre o caminho para a autonomização do feio e à substituição de uma estética da beleza por outros valores, participando de um movimento de transformação da razão mais geral iniciado no final do séc. XVIII. (shrink)

Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans. In addition, although the US faculty reported people were more (...) threatening than robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties associated weapons more strongly with robots than with humans. Despite the media’s hype about Japan’s robot ‘craze,’ response similarities suggest factors other than attitude better explain robot adoption. These include differences in history and religion, personal and human identity, economic structure, professional specialization, and government policy. Japanese robotics offers a unique reference from which other nations may learn. (shrink)

Mangan’s hypothesis, that consciousness is an information-bearing medium, presents an alternative to Dennett’s brand of functionalism, and Dennett’s counterattacks have yet to address Mangan’s main assertion. The medium hypothesis does not entail Cartesian theater assumptions concerning the localization, causal status, and “filling in” of consciousness in the brain. In principle, it is compatible with distributed information transfer between different media, epiphenomenalism, and gaps in visual experience. However, Mangan’s strongest empirical argument, based on consciousness’ limited “bandwidth,” does not necessarily show that (...) transduction between media of different information-bearing capacities occurs between the brain and consciousness. The features of consciousness that he attributes to a lower bandwidth medium can be explained in terms of functional constraints on a single medium. Furthermore, empirical results showing gaps and anomalies in visual experience speak against consciousness being a medium. (shrink)

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive research. An android provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human behavior, it is necessary to investigate social activity in detail and to develop models of the cognitive (...) mechanisms that support this activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific theories as well as platform for their eventual unification. Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with death’s inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods used in terror management research, was performed to test this hypothesis. [Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators: Fast Breaking Paper in Social Sciences, May 2008]. (shrink)

Cognitive theories based on a fixed feature set suffer from frame and symbol grounding problems. Flexible features and other empirically acquired constraints (e.g., analog-to-analog mappings) provide a framework for letting extrinsic relations influence symbol manipulation. By offering a biologically plausible basis for feature learning, nonorthogonal multiresolution analysis and dimensionality reduction, informed by functional constraints, may contribute to a solution to the symbol grounding problem.

This volume starts where the four-volume work by Johannes Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, left off. It consists of excerpts from letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, etc., much of which has never been published before. What emerges is a conflicting picture of Hegel, the man--from which the reader can take his choice. The comments are from contemporaries: relatives, friends, acquaintances, students, colleagues, admirers, critics, and last, but not least, enemies. The chapters are organized chronologically by city of (...) residence, beginning with Stuttgart, 1770-1788, and covering the periods in Tübingen, Bern, Frankfurt, Jena, Bamberg, Nürnberg, Heidelberg, and Berlin. There is a special chapter on the period immediately following Hegel's death, and a final chapter on After-Effects. The biggest chapter by far is the one on the Berlin period, which spans the longest space of time and also covers the time when Hegel's fame had reached its zenith. All told there are 769 excerpts from the pens of such varied personalities as Karl, Christiane, and Marie Hegel, Hölderlin, Goethe, Schelling, Karl Rosenkranz, Eduard Zeller, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schiller, Schlegel, Brentano, Savigny, Michelet, Schopenhauer, Victor Cousin, Heine, Feuerbach, Bouterwek, Varnhagen v. Ense, K. F. Zeller, Arnold Ruge, Ranke, Eduard Gans, and many others. This book will undoubtedly figure prominently in future biographies of Hegel. However, it is not only for the Hegel specialist. Those who are interested in that specific period of German culture and those who simply enjoy anecdotal historical commentary will find much of interest and amusement here.--H. B. (shrink)