In this study the theory of risk factors is discussed. The risk-concept is essential in cardiology and is, furthermore, important not only in medicine in general, but also and particularly in ecology. Since environmental risk factors endanger our health, ecological risks have to be taken as medical problems. If a factor or a set of factors is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a disease we speak of a risk factor or of risk factors. Statistical analysis of risk (...) factors can be performed by multivariate methods. A method which is particularly useful for finding the most important of a set of risk factors, is discriminant analysis. (shrink)

My work is concerned mainly with an abstract subject: the problem of human knowledge and, in particular, of scientific knowledge.I am an optimist. I am an optimist in a world where among the intelligentsia it has become a strict rule that one must be a pessimist if one wants to be “in”. But I do believe that our age is not so bad as is generally maintained; I do believe that it is better and more beautiful than its reputation. A (...) quarter of a century ago, I gave a lecture, the title of which sounds today even more provocative than it did then: “The History of our Time: An Optimist's View”. (shrink)

Kant's critical philosophy marks the end of a two-thousand year tradition of metaphysics. Against this older tradition, Kant proposes a new metaphysics of knowledge and human freedom with the autonomy of the subject as its principle. Led by the principle of subjectivity, it attempts to obtain a unified understanding of the whole world organized into a system of reason. In this way, the idea of classical metaphysics receives a new controversial interpretation still discussed today. In twelve contributions, the fifth volume (...) of the Yearbook pursues the different forms of grounding metaphysics after Kant. (shrink)

Die Beiträge behandeln in systematischer und historischer Sicht epistemologisch orientierte Fragen nach dem gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Standort von Theorie zwischen Wissenschaftskultur und Kulturwissenschaft. Sie gehen dem Eindruck nach, demzufolge die Ambivalenz theoretischer 'Passion' entweder eher zu ereignisträchtigen kulturellen Formen oder aber ins Abseits theoretisch-organisatorischer Betriebsamkeit führt. Nicht nur in den Geisteswissenschaften lässt sich beobachten, dass Theoriebildungsprozesse innerhalb einer vielfach unterschätzten Bandbreite von Denkstilen vonstatten gehen - zwischen Intuition und Konstruktion. Diese Vor- und Nachrationalisierungen theoretischen Denkens hat die bisherige Theoriegeschichte weitgehend (...) unbeachtet gelassen; auch für diese Denkstil-Bandbreite steht der Platzhalter 'kulturell'. Es sind mithin sowohl die gesellschaftlich-institutionellen Einbindungsformen als auch die möglichen kulturellen Ressourcen von Theorie, denen die einzelnen Beiträge des Bandes paradigmatisch (u.a. Dilthey, Valéry, Bachtin, Adorno, Luhmann, Feyerabend) nachgehen. (shrink)

This is a broad-ranging and ambitious attempt to rethink aesthetic and literary studies in terms of an “anthropology” of symbolic media generally. Central to the author’s argument is the proposition that the idea of literature—at least as it has been understood in the West since the eighteenth century—as the paradigm for artistic experience is both limited and limiting. In its place, the author offers a more general theory of aesthetic experience appropriate to a wide range of media and geared toward (...) performativity and bodily experience. The author develops the idea of the “protoliterary” as a cultural-aesthetic discourse prior to and external to the “literary” as traditionally conceived in Western aesthetics. Manifestations of the protoliterary tend to occur within forms of multimedia theatricalization in which suggestive images of the body loom large. The appeal of the protoliterary lies in its ability to function on both cognitive and somatic levels, thereby neutralizing such distinctions as self/society and reality/fiction. The author’s argument is indebted to John Dewey’s belief in a basic human need for aesthetic experience, a need that can be met in a variety of ways, from tattoos and scarification, through sports, parades, and cosmetics, to literature, opera, and film. From this basis the book theorizes a history of the development of separate, hierarchical arts in the West while suggesting that independent histories of single arts and artistic experience are no longer desirable or even possible. Although the genesis of particular forms of media are inextricably linked to specific historical, sociological, and technological conditions, their potential functions and effects are not tied to those conditions, nor should they be. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of groups have begun to argue that pension funds have an obligation to invest their capital in socially responsible ways. The concept of social investing of pension funds is examined with regard to legal requirements, determination of social objectives, measurement of perfornance, and financial effects. This analysis concludes that, while the problems of social investing are relatively well-defined, the benefits are nebulous. A social-oriented investment strategy should be adopted only after a careful review of all (...) factors. (shrink)

Kant's critical philosophy marks the end of a two-thousand year tradition of metaphysics. Against this older tradition, Kant proposes a new metaphysics of knowledge and human freedom with the autonomy of the subject as its principle. Led by the principle of subjectivity, it attempts to obtain a unified understanding of the whole world organized into a system of reason. In this way, the idea of classical metaphysics receives a new controversial interpretation still discussed today. In twelve contributions, the fifth volume (...) of the Yearbook pursues the different forms of grounding metaphysics after Kant. (shrink)