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)

Die Arbeit widmet sich dem Person- und Freiheitsverstandnis des Freiburger Religionsphilosophen Bernhard Welte (1906-1983). Damit werden unter Berucksichtigung bisher unveroffentlichter Schriften anthropologische Voraussetzungen ethisch relevanter Grundphanomene menschlichen Daseins zuganglich gemacht.

In order to elucidate his logical analysis of modal quantified propositions (e.g. ‘all men are necessarily mortal’), the 14th century philosopher John Buridan constructed a modal octagon of oppositions. In the present paper we study this modal octagon from the perspective of contemporary logical geometry. We argue that the modal octagon contains precisely six squares of opposition as subdiagrams, and classify these squares based on their logical properties. On a more abstract level, we show that Buridan’s modal octagon precisely captures (...) the interaction between two classical squares of opposition, viz. one for the quantifiers and one for the modalities. Finally, we argue that several aspects of our contemporary formal analyses were already hinted at by Buridan himself. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band versammelt drei Texte: Johann Gustav Reinbecks 'Abhandlung Von dem Gebrauch der Vernunfft Und Welt-Weißheit In der GOttes-Gelahrtheit' (1733) und 'Erörterung Der Philosophischen Meynung von der sogenandten Harmonia Praestabilita (1737) und Johann Friedrich Bertrams dagegen gerichtete 'Beleuchtung Der Neu-getünchten Meynung von der Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737). Stellt die erste der drei Abhandlungen - schon mit ihrem Titel - so etwas wie Reinbecks Programmschrift des auf die Übereinstimmung von Vernunft und Offenbarung bedachten 'Theologischen Wolffianismus' dar, so dokumentieren die zwei anderen (...) die Debatte Reinbecks mit einem nicht unbedeutenden Vertreter des Halleschen Pietismus über ein zentrales Lehrstück des Leibnizischen Philosophie, die Praestabilierte Harmonie, zu der allerdings auch Reinbeck als Theologe eine differenzierte Meinung hat. (Aus dem Vorwort von Stefan Lorenz) This volume brings together three texts: Johann Gustav Reinbeck’s 'Abhandlung von dem Gebrauch der Vernunfft und Welt-Weißheit in der Gottes-Gelahrtheit' (1733) and 'Erörterung Der Philosophischen Meynung von der sogenandten Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737) and Johann Friedrich Bertram’s refutation of these, 'Beleuchtung Der Neu-getünchten Meynung von der Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737). While the first of these works presents – even in ist title – in effect Reinbeck’s programmatic statement of ‘theological Wolffianism’, concerned with the harmonisation of reason and revelation, the other two document Reinbeck’s debates with a not insignificant representative of Halle Pietism about a central teaching of Leibniz’s philosophy, pre-established harmony, which Reinbeck as a theologian had a sophisticated understanding. (From the introduction by Stefan Lorenz). (shrink)

In the century between the creation of the first large, European astronomical observatory by Tycho Brahe in the 1580s and the national observatories of France and England in the 1660–1670s, astronomers constructed ever more sets of tables, derived from various geometrical and physical models, to compute planetary positions. But how were these tables to be evaluated? What level of precision or accuracy should be expected from mathematical astronomy? In 1644, the Stetin astronomer and calendar-maker Lorenz Eichstadt published a new (...) set of tables, mostly cobbled together from earlier tables, which include a running commentary on how his tables might be expected to match ‘observed’ planetary positions. His earlier works also often display a rhetoric of ‘exactitude’ and ‘error’. Eichstadt thus offers a case study of explicit discussions of ‘precision’ in mid-seventeenth astronomy. Although some tables could generate positions to arcseconds, Eichstadt argued that a regime of five arcminutes should be enough for most table users who were, presumably, computing horoscopes. (shrink)

The focus of this book is on the theory of infinity in Lawrence of Lindores' commentary on Aristotle's “Physics”. Written shortly before 1400, Lindores' text played an important role in disseminating the natural philosophy of John Buridan and his disciples in the 15th century. In the first part of this book, Lindores' concept of science is discussed and a detailed analysis of his treatment of infinity and related topics (continuity, the eternity of the world) is given. Subsequently an assessment of (...) his ideas from the point of view of modern mathematics is attempted and some interesting similarities between medieval theories of infinity and recent developments in mathematics are outlined. The second part contains the relevant questions from Lindores' commentary (book I, qu. 1-5, 10; book III, qu. 13-18; book VI, qu. 9-10; book VIII, qu. 3), which are presented here for the first time in a critical edition based on all seven manuscripts of the text. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die Theorie des Unendlichen in dem kurz vor 1400 verfaßten Kommentar des Lorenz von Lindores zur „Physik" des Aristoteles, der im 15. Jh. eine wichtige Rolle spielte bei der Verbreitung der Naturphilosophie Johannes Buridans und seiner Schüler. Im ersten Teil des Buches wird die Wissenschaftstheorie Lindores' in ihren Grundzügen dargestellt, danach werden seine Ausführungen zum Unendlichen und zu damit zusammenhängenden Themen (Struktur des Kontinuums, Ewigkeit der Welt) detailliert analysiert. Abschließend wird eine Bewertung dieser Theorien aus der Sicht der modernen Mathematik versucht, wobei sich bemerkenswerte Ähnlichkeiten zwischen mittelalterlichen Theorien des Unendlichen und neueren Entwicklungen in der Mathematik zeigen. Der zweite Teil bietet erstmals eine kritische Edition aller einschlägigen Quaestionen aus Lindores' Physikkommentar (Buch I, qu. 1-5, 10; Buch III, qu. 13-18; Buch VI, qu. 9-10; Buch VIII, qu. 3) auf der Basis aller sieben Handschriften des Textes. (shrink)

Vorwort - O. Bayer: Johann Georg Hamann - Radikaler Aufklarer als Metakritiker - D. Berman: Hume and Collins: Two Ways of Lying Theologically - U. Dierse: Nachtrage zu G. F. Meiers Religionsphilosophie - K. Dusing: Schema und Einbildungskraft in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft - J. Ecole: Des rapports de l'essence et de l'existence selon Wolff - E. J. Engel: Mendelssohn und Spinoza: Dankesschuld und Rettung - N. Hinske: Die Kritik der reinen Vernunft und der Freiraum des Glaubens. Zur Kantrezeption (...) des Jenaer Fruhkantianismus - H.-U. Hoche: Anthropologische Komplementaritat und die Einheit der Sache. Versuch einer skeptischen Losung eines skeptischen Zweifels - M. Hossenfelder: Der Liberalismus als Naturrecht im Anschluss an Kant - L. Kreimendahl: Hume uber das Misslingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodizee um 1748 - R. H. Popkin: Scepticism and Optimism in the Late 18th Century - H. Graf Reventlow: Vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Bibel und Philosophie von Thomas von Aquin bis H. S. Reimarus - W. Schneiders: Vernunft und Verstand - Krisen eines Begriffspaares - W. Schroder: Aporien des theologischen Liberalismus. Johann Lorenz Schmidts Pladoyer fur 'eine allgemeine Religions- und Gewissensfreyheit' - R. Specht: Sind einfache Ideen einfach und gegeben? - I. Strohschneider-Kohrs: Anmerkungen zu Lessings Selbstdeutungs-Bildern - W. Strube: Der Begriff des Erhabenen in der deutschsprachigen Asthetik des 18. Jahrhunderts - Bibliographie Gunter Gawlick 1956-1993. Zusammengestellt von U. Golembek. (shrink)

This is part one of a two-part paper, in which we develop an axiomatic theory of the relation of partial ground. The main novelty of the paper is the of use of a binary ground predicate rather than an operator to formalize ground. This allows us to connect theories of partial ground with axiomatic theories of truth. In this part of the paper, we develop an axiomatization of the relation of partial ground over the truths of arithmetic and show that (...) the theory is a proof-theoretically conservative extension of the theory PT of positive truth. We construct models for the theory and draw some conclusions for the semantics of conceptualist ground. (shrink)

WHAT IS PRESENT TO THE MIND? Donald DAVIDSON The University of California at Berkeley There is a sense in which anything we think about is, ...

Isaac Levi is more interested in inquiry and how it progresses than he is in metaphysics. Questions concerning the role of disposition predicates in inquiry are more central to him than those concerning the nature and reality of dispositions. It has not stopped him from giving me and others very useful metaphysical advice. Currently, where empirical metaphysics is in vogue, there is every reason to see whether the two forms of philosophical interest might interlock substantially. Levi has stimulating ideas indeed (...) on the two forms of philosophical interest, and has recently summarized them in the slogan: “The reality of dispositions is a work in progress”. We can learn much about what kinds of dispositions are acceptable from tracing and comparing the histories of successful and less successful disposition predicates in scientific inquiry. Levi explores one route along which dispositions become real. His idea is that the introduction of dispositions facilitates covering law explanation by increasing the number of laws. The successful disposition predicate eventually becomes integrated in scientific theory, much like an ordinary theoretical term, whereas the unsuccessful does not. My impression is that Levi thinks that this is the only way a disposition can become real. To evaluate this claim, an alternative course suggested by Jon Elster is introduced. I then try to bring out the differences between Levi's and Elster's views on dispositions, partly by suggesting that they resemble two aspects of full explanations discussed by Wesley Salmon. But more about that below. (shrink)

In social evolution theory, biological individuals are often represented on the model of rational agents, that is, as if they were ‘seeking’ to maximize their own (expected) reproductive success. In the 1990s, important criticisms of this mode of thinking were made by Brian Skyrms ([1994], [1996]) and Elliott Sober ([1998]), who both argued that ‘rational agent’ models can lead to incorrect predictions when there are positive correlations between individuals’ phenotypes. In this article, I argue that one model of rational choice—namely, (...) Savage’s model ([1954])—can actually be vindicated in evolutionary biology, provided that the pay-offs are computed in inclusive fitness terms. I also show that the use of this model is better avoided when pay-offs are non-additive, or when certain causal influences (due to manipulative behaviours) affect the outcome of natural selection. The result is a partial rehabilitation of this mode of thinking, conditional on both the additivity of the pay-off structure and the absence of any form of manipulation or coercion. 1 Introduction2 When Natural Selection and Rational Deliberation Part Ways3 A Simple Solution: Redefining the Pay-offs in Inclusive Fitness Terms4 Sober on Inclusive Fitness Maximization5 Inclusive Fitness with Non-additive Pay-offs6 Causal Influences and the Savage– Hamilton Model6.1 Reciprocity and partner choice6.2 Coercion and manipulation7 ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the Black Notebooks, Heidegger ascribes in 1938/9 to the Jewish race an “empty rationality and calculative ability,” in his view the cause of its “worldlessness.” To assess this characterisation, I present Heidegger’s theories of history as a decline in Being and Time and in his later history of Being. For this purpose, I discuss his notions of Rechnen, Machenschaft, and Geviert, several existentialia from Being and Time, and Heidegger’s identification of modern machination and modern technology. Furthermore, I examine Heidegger’s (...) attitude toward the Jews and the Holocaust. I present his alignment of the unconcealment of modernity and the Jewish race, and compare his theory of machination with the texts “Positionality” and “The Question concerning Technology”. Heidegger’s notes about the Jews in the Black Notebooks after 1944 confirm that he tried “to silence Auschwitz silently,” as I already argued in a paper from 1995. (shrink)

he paper examines the thesis that participants in shared intentional activities have first-person plural ‘practical knowledge’ of what they are jointly doing, in the sense of ‘practical knowledge’ articulated by G.E.M Anscombe. Who is supposed to be the subject of such knowledge? The group, or members of the group, or both? It is argued that progress with this issue requires conceiving of collective activities as instances, not of supra-personal agency, but of interpersonal agency; specifically: as involving communication. There is a (...) sense, it is suggested, in which the basic form of plural practical knowledge is relational: ‘I am doing x with you.’. (shrink)

After achieving sustained graft functioning in animal studies, the next step in the progression of xenotransplantation towards clinical application is the initiation of the first clinical trials. This raises the question according to which criteria patients shall be selected for these trials. While the discussion regarding medical criteria has already commenced, ethical considerations must also be taken into account. This is essential, first, to establish a procedure that is ethically reasonable and justified. Second, it is a prerequisite for a publicly (...) acceptable and comprehensible implementation. This paper outlines a multicriteria approach for the selection of patients in first-in-human clinical trials of cardiac xenotransplantation with four ethical criteria: medical need, capacity to benefit, patient choice and compliance (as an exclusion criterion). Consequently, these criteria identify a primary target group of patients who exhibit a high medical need for cardiac xenotransplantation, face a high risk of morbidity and mortality without an organ replcaement therapy, have a substantial chance of benefiting from xenotransplantation, thereby also enhancing the scientific value of the trial, and qualify for an allotransplant to have a real choice between participating in a first-in-human xenotransplantation trial and waiting for a human organ. A secondary group would include patients for whom only the first two criteria are met, that is, who have a high medical need and a good capacity to benefit from xenotransplantation but who have a restricted choice because they do not qualify for an allotransplant. (shrink)

This article has three objectives: First, it revises the history of the reception of Ludwik Fleck’s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache (1935, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact). Contrary to the established picture, Fleck’s book was largely discussed in the years before the outbreak of World War II. What becomes clear when reading these early reviews and especially Fleck’s comments to those written by representatives of Nazi Germany is, second, the political dimension of his epistemology. In this (...) respect, Fleck’s emphasis on the genuinely democratic character of science will be discussed in some detail. And third, Fleck’s notion of “ Denkstil ”—thought-style—shall be examined more closely since, as we will claim, it can be understood as a notion indicating where the democratic dimension of science encounters its limits. (shrink)

This paper develops a taxonomy of kinds of actions that can be seen in group agency, human–machine interactions, and virtual realities. These kinds of actions are special in that they are not embodied in the ordinary sense. I begin by analysing the notion of embodiment into three separate assumptions that together comprise what I call the Embodiment View. Although this view may find support in paradigmatic cases of agency, I suggest that each of its assumptions can be relaxed. With each (...) assumption that is given up, a different kind of disembodied action becomes available. The taxonomy gives a systematic overview and suggests that disembodied actions have the same theoretical relevance as the actions of any ordinarily embodied human. (shrink)

Leading philosophers & psychologists offer an assessment of the commonsense view that perceptual experience is an immediate awareness of mind-independent objects. They examine the nature of perception, its role in the acquisition of knowledge, the role of causation in perception, & how perceptual understanding develops in humans.

This article will discuss different understandings of love. In particular, two modern perceptions of love will be differentiated: love as consisting of individual, often inconstant, emotions between human beings, and a Christian understanding of love, which is often expressed through caring for other members of the community. Aspects of Christian love will then be examined in ethical terms, emphasising the relevance of love for the diaconal dimension of the church. Before one is able to help one's neighbour, one first has (...) to be actively identified within the complex social structures of society. Next, the nature of diaconal action has to be defined and adapted to individuals who are in need, or who have become needy or been disadvantaged by society, for example, migrant workers, refugees or asylum seekers. A central aspect of diaconal action - in addition to meeting basic needs - lies in giving a voice to such individuals and in empowering them, including politically, to represent their own interests in public life. (shrink)

What is the significance of attentiveness in teaching? A spontaneous answer would be that attentiveness is a crucial aspect in the practice of teaching, because if the students do not pay attention...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Max Nordau, Madison Grant, and Racialized Theories of IdeologyJohannes Hendrikus BurgersRecently, Jonathan Spiro has undertaken the Herculean task of recovering the ghost of the conservationist and anti-immigrant racist Madison Grant from a very limited archival record. Spiro’s biography is an invaluable resource that covers, in as much detail as possible, Grant’s life and thought. Although largely forgotten now, in the first half of the twentieth century Grant was a (...) leading figure in the eugenics movement that sterilized thousands of people deemed unfit to reproduce. He was also a prominent advocate of immigration restriction, and he helped southern racists ban miscegenation.1 Like other scholars before him, Spiro argues that Grant arrived at many of his views through the work of such racial scientists as Arthur de Gobineau, Francis Galton, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.2 While he and other scholars are certainly correct in drawing such a lineage, one unlikely and hitherto unexplored parallel to Grant’s thought specifically, and American eugenics in general, was that of Hungarian cultural critic and later Zionist leader, Max Nordau. By elucidating their intellectual kinship, this paper seeks to reveal the extent to which early twentieth-century transatlantic racial discourse involved widely different actors who were at times unknowingly espousing quite similar racial views for entirely different ends. [End Page 119]The reasons why Nordau’s name has not appeared in relation to Grant are several. First, there is a lack of biographical material on Madison Grant: much of his personal correspondence was purloined or destroyed.3 Consequently, evidence that Grant had been influenced by or even read Nordau is largely circumstantial and inferential, and cannot be verified through archival documentation. Secondly, despite a recent Nordau renaissance,4 and notwithstanding certain key publications, he still remains a somewhat marginal figure in the narrative of late nineteenth century history, especially in the American context.5 Thirdly, and more importantly, after the death of Theodore Herzl, Nordau became the most prominent leader of the Zionist movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Certainly, someone as committed to Jewish advancement and Jewish emigration to America as Nordau, was hardly likely to share similar racial views with a white supremacist, anti-immigration propagandist, and vicious anti-Semite like Grant. In fact, the only indirect textual connection between the two thinkers is the verbatim use of one of Nordau’s articles by Grant’s racist disciple Lothrop Stoddard; a connection that has only been explored very briefly in a footnote by Nordau biographer Meir Ben-Horin.6 Otherwise, there has been no attempt to see these two thinkers in the same context. Hence, contrary to current scholarly opinion about both writers, this paper will show that they both operated within the same racial framework. While making no claim here of a direct causal relationship between Nordau and Grant, I do contend that during this period there is enough intellectual crosspollination of racial theories to create a significant, not merely coincidental, overlap of ideas. Simplifying early twentieth-century racial thinking into two distinct camps of non-racists and racists is conceptually flawed, even if, as in this case, the ostensible disparities could not be greater.The idea Nordau helped introduce to America, and the idea Grant used later, was that there was a hereditary link between race and ideology. Both believed a person’s racial makeup directly influenced their political ideology. Grant and other anti-immigration nativists used this logic to justify the [End Page 120] exclusion of non-Anglo-Saxon foreigners. Unhealthy, degenerate, foreign bodies presented a danger to the body politic, not just because they were not as productive as the white “Nordics” and therefore caused a drain on the system, but, more significantly, because their inferior type made them susceptible to radical anti-American ideologies like socialism and anarchism. Accordingly, their degeneracy was both an economic strain and a political danger to post-World War I America. The tragic irony is that Nordau’s contribution to the late nineteenth-century racial science was intended to combat increasingly virulent European anti-Semitism. Instead, it ended up in the hands of anti-Semitic propagandists. In fact, at the time that Nordau was urging Jews... (shrink)

Making the inevitability of mortality salient makes people more defensive about their self-esteem and worldviews. Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence point to a mediating role of arousal in this defensive process, but evidence from physiological measurement studies is scarce and inconclusive. The present study seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of how physiological arousal develops over time in the mortality salience paradigm, and whether contemplating one’s mortality actually elicits more physiological arousal than reflecting on a death-unrelated aversive control topic. In (...) a between-subjects design, participants were asked two open questions about their mortality or about dental pain. Cardiac, respiratory, and electrodermal indicators of arousal were measured both as participants provided written answers to the questions, and during a series of resting intervals surrounding the questions. A Bayes factor analysis indicated support for the hypothesis that the mortality salience paradigm increases physiological arousal, both while answering the two open-ended questions and afterwards. Regarding the mortality salience versus dental pain comparison, the null hypothesis of no difference was supported for most analysis segments and signals. The results indicate that the arousal elicited by mortality salience is not different from that elicited by dental pain salience. This speaks against the idea that worldview defense following mortality salience occurs because mortality salience produces higher physiological arousal. Of course, this finding does not rule the importance of other forms of arousal (i.e., subjective arousal) for mortality salience effects. (shrink)

In recent studies of primates, the question has been raised whether competitive regimes are species-specific or should rather be considered as sex-specific. To study this problem we use an individual-oriented model called DomWorld in which artificial agents are equipped merely to group and compete. In former studies of this model, dominance style appeared to be strongly influenced by the intensity of aggression: by increasing only this intensity of aggression, a great number of the characteristics of an egalitarian society switched to (...) those of a despotic one. Here, we investigate, using DomWorld, a competitive regime of artificial males and females that differ exclusively in their fighting capacity; males having a higher intensity of aggression and a higher initial capacity of winning, such as may be due to a male-biased sexual dimorphism. Unexpectedly it appears that, in the model, even if the intensity of aggression of males is greater than that of females, their hierarchy is still significantly weaker and thus their society less differentiated and more egalitarian than that of females. The explanation is that, due to the higher initial dominance of males, single events of victory and defeat lead to less differentiation than among females. The greater the sexual difference in initial dominance between the sexes is the more egalitarian the males behave among themselves compared to the behaviour of the females among themselves. These effects are already visible during the initial phases of the hierarchical development. These results resemble findings among primates; in real primates their degree of sexual dimorphism may influence the competitive regime of each sex. (shrink)

Malgré leurs divergences, les interprètes sont en général d’accord sur le fait que pour Aristote, le lieu est bidimensionnel et peu significatif du point de vue de l’ontologie. Dernièrement, ces présupposés ont cependant été remis en question par Casey et Lang. Dans cet article, c’est la position traditionnelle qui est défendue, et j’argumente en faveur de l’idée qu’Aristote développe sa théorie du lieu à partir du point de vue d’une mécanique du mouvement spatial et des outils nécessaires à un corps (...) organique pour son mouvement dans l’espace – et non à partir d’une théorie de la localisation des corps. Pour finir, la méthodologie aristotélicienne est comparée avec la physique contemporaine depuis Descartes. (shrink)

Der Beitrag diskutiert die unterschiedlichen Kritiken, die an meiner in „Kontroverse Themen im Unterricht. Konstruktiv streiten lernen“ vorgelegten Position vorgebracht wurden. Im Durchgang durch diese Kritiken werde ich jeweils meine eigene Position klären und aufzeigen, wo Konkretisierungs- und Revisionsbedarf besteht und wo nicht. Ich schließe mit drei Forschungsdesideraten, die Möglichkeiten der konstruktiven Fortführung und Weiterentwicklung der philosophischen und wissenschaftlichen Debatte über kontroverse Themen im Unterricht skizzieren.

Obwohl jüngere Interpretationen Descartes meist vor dem Vorwurf eines doxastischen Voluntarismus in Schutz nehmen, gibt es im Kontext der cartesischen Urteilstheorie erhebliche Schwierigkeiten mit seinem Begriff der Willensfreiheit. Vor allem zwei Aspekte von Descartes’ Theorie lassen sich auf den ersten Blick nur schwer miteinander vereinbaren: die unbegrenzte Freiheit des Willens auf der einen und die unweigerliche Zustimmung des Willens zu klaren und deutlichen Ideen auf der anderen Seite.Ich schlage zunächst vor, zur Lösung dieser Schwierigkeiten zwei verschiedene Begriffe der Willensfreiheit bei (...) Descartes zu unterscheiden, von denen jeder seinen spezifischen Anwendungsbereich hat: Freiheit als Wahlfreiheit und Freiheit als Spontaneität. In einem zweiten Schritt argumentiere ich, dass sich unter Voraussetzung von Descartes’ Urteilstheorie seine These der unbegrenzten Freiheit des Willens für beide Begriffe von Willensfreiheit verteidigen lässt, ohne dass Descartes deshalb zum doxastischen Voluntaristen würde. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian (...) pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Division One, Chapter 4, Heidegger develops the structures “Being-with and Dasein-with [Mitsein and Mitdasein]” and “what we might call the ‘subject’ of everydayness—the ‘they’”. In the last section of the chapter, Section 27, Heidegger presents six characters of the ‘they’, namely, “distantiality, averageness, levelling down, publicness, the disburdening of one’s Being, and accomodation”. The meaning of the last five characters is relatively unproblematic. For instance, by “averageness” Heidegger obviously wants to indicate that the ‘they’ establishes a (...) set of behavioural patterns as normal and ‘natural’. For example, at certain junctures of their lives, individual Daseine have to choose, or are able to choose, among several options within a given set of options. However, the entire set of options as such has already been adopted by them in a self-evident way and without much thought. The ‘they’ forces this choice by suppressing other possibilities and other ways of handling given possibilities. Thus, the respective averageness results from a screening process in which the ‘they’ constantly rules out other possibilities or prevents them from emerging in the first place. Heidegger calls this “the ‘levelling down’ [Einebnung] of all possibilities of Being”. However, the first character, distantiality, seems more difficult to understand. In the English translation, Heidegger characterizes it thus. (shrink)

Our main considerations take as a starting point the educational policy demand for a model of competence of text comprehension, which should make it possible to measure and systematically increase comprehension accomplishments and competences. The approach of classical cognitive psychology appears particularly suitable for this purpose, which determines comprehension as a rule-guided transfer of a sign complex into a mental representation. However, such representationalism tends to be aporetic in character. A way out of this problem is offered by recent concepts (...) of understanding from the area ofEmbodied Cognition, according to which all mental operations are embedded in physical interaction processes. Comprehension means, in this sense, letting physical primary experiences be reproduced in a trial-action fashion. This approach is, in this paper, reconsidered in relation to the role of subjectivity and affect: Physical experiences are meaning-generating because they exhibit a subjectively perceived affective valence between pleasure and suffering. The beginning of all understanding therefore is to be located within the emotional sphere.Such a conception of understanding is supposed to have a considerable impact upon language- and literature teaching in schools. For example, training of reading skills should always be embedded in body-bound experiences. Moreover, learning and understanding both mean cultivating an alert ear for affective undertones, needs and irritations, which might even lead to drawing the curricular benchmarks and competency targets into question. Finally, as art and literature establish areas of freedom and play, literature teaching, especially, needs to be founded on affective awareness, discursive openness and proceeding voluntariness. (shrink)

In recent years, the psychological causes and consequences of poverty have received renewed attention from scientists and policymakers. In this essay, we summarize new developments in this literature. First, we discuss advances in our understanding of the relationship between income and psychological well-being. There is a robust positive relationship between the two, both within and across countries, and in correlational and causal analyses. Second, we summarize recent work on the impact of “scarcity” and stress on economic preferences and decision-making. Our (...) view of this literature is that the evidence is relatively weak. Third, we summarize evidence on the impact of psychological interventions on economic outcomes. Light-touch psychological interventions, such as videos that aim to raise aspirations, have shown some promise in encouraging investment and improving economic well-being. Similarly, psychotherapy and pharmacological mental health treatments have positive effects on economic outcomes. Relative to the effects of cash transfers, these impacts are small in absolute terms and large in per-dollar terms. We conclude by discussing whether a psychological poverty trap is plausible. (shrink)