Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

This article proposes a new approach to the question of why so few Arabic documents have survived in their original archival context. Taking the Mamluk period as a case study it argues that the category “archive” itself needs to be reconfigured, away from the idea of fixed archival spaces, or even a Mamluk state archive, toward archival practices. These archival practices were spread across the Mamluk realm and involved numerous actors, which included the central bureaucracy in Cairo, individual secretaries, and, (...) most importantly, the small-scale administration managed by officers. These archival practices emerge not from normative and narrative texts, but primarily from a consideration of archival traces on surviving documents. (shrink)

We examine the bioethical issues that arise from long-duration space missions, asking what there is that is distinctive about such issues. We pay particular attention to the possibility that such space missions, certainly if they lead to self-sustaining space settlements, may require human enhancement, and examine the significance of reproduction in space for bioethics. We conclude that while space bioethics raises important issues to do with human survival and reproduction in very hazardous environments, it raises no issues that are distinct (...) from those in terrestrial bioethics. Rather, space bioethics raises extreme versions of bioethical issues that are already found in the military, when working in extreme environments (such as Antarctica), or when living in circumstances (such as in prison) where one’s autonomy is severely curtailed. (shrink)

A manned mission to Mars is faced with challenges and topics that may not be obvious but of great importance and challenging for such a mission. This is the first book that collects contributions from scholars in various fields, from astronomy and medicine, to theology and philosophy, addressing such topics. The discussion goes beyond medical and technological challenges of such a deep-space mission. The focus is on human nature, human emotions and biases in such a new environment. The primary audience (...) for this book are all researchers interested in the human factor in a space mission including philosophers, social scientists, astronomers, and others. This volume will also be of high interest for a much wider audience like the non-academic world, or for students. (shrink)

The account of Zeus’ love for Io, the nature of which can be defined by the reports of the ancient mythographers, the song of Orpheus in Valerius Flaccus and the ancient love poetry, has been changed into its contrary by Ovid who has turned the truly loving father of the gods into a brutal rapist. This radical reinterpretation is reflected in the fog cover that Jupiter makes rise in the „Metamorphoses“ in order not to be seen by Juno. It must (...) be read as a contrafacture of the golden cloud in the „Iliad“, under the protection of which Zeus makes love to his wife Hera. As this reinterpretation was not compatible with the father of the gods’ care for his lover after their affair had been discovered by his wife, Ovid has also changed the following account up to the salvation of Io. (shrink)

This unique and pioneering book critically appraises current work from both the cognitive science of religion and the evolutionary study of religion. It addresses the question: Why does the believer possess supernatural or religious beliefs in the combined context of his cognitive biases, their adaptive usefulness measured in terms of survival and reproduction, and the impact of social learning and cultural traits? The authors outlines a pluralistic approach to the study of religion that does not treat religion as an accidental (...) by-product but an adaptation selected by natural selection. Chapters discuss the role of religious components for the evolution of cooperation and altruism, and explore the development of atheism and secular ideas, in cognitive and evolutionary terms. Topics such as the usefulness of religion, the transmission of religious beliefs, and a Darwinian approach to religion are among those addressed. Contrary to standard views, religious biases are regarded as shaped by cultural influences and not merely by natural dispositions. This monograph will particularly appeal to researchers who are looking for a scientific explanation of religion and religious beliefs but who do not stop at the level of narrow cognitive and evolutionary accounts. The work will also be of interest to students of philosophy, sociology, religious studies, theology, or anthropology who seek to explain such fascinating, complex, and unequivocal phenomena as religion and religious components. (shrink)

This article focuses on the early years of children from immigrant families in Germany. Research has documented disparities in young children’s development correlating with their family background, making clear the importance of early intervention. Institutional childcare—as an early intervention for children at risk—plays an important role in Germany, as 34.3% of children below the age of three and 93% of children above that age are in external childcare. This paper focuses on the extent to which children from families with a (...) background of migration differ in their social development when considering their age of entry into early external childcare. Data from the infant cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study is used to analyze the impact of early institutional childcare before the age of 3 years on children’s social competence at the age of 5 years, controlling for gender, siblings, temperament, home learning activities, and socioeconomic status. Results show the effects of duration of early external childcare on peer problems for children from families with a background of migration, in such a way that children who attend early external childcare for more than 1 year before the age of three show less problem behavior with peers than those who attend for less than a year. These findings have equity implications for children with a migration background living in Germany, especially as the proportion of these children is trending upwards. (shrink)

Two major philosophical movements have sought to fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans and their environment(s): environmental ethics and enactivism. Surprisingly, they virtually never refer to or seek inspiration from each other. The goal of this analysis is to bridge the gap. Our main purpose, then, is to address, from the enactivist angle, the conceptual backbone of environmental ethics, namely the concept of intrinsic value. We argue that intrinsic value does indeed exist, yet its "intrinsicality" does not boil down to (...) being independent of the interests and needs of humans. Rather, it is brought forth by what we callshared enactionof an axiological domain. The latter is built upon such core posits of enactivism as autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making as well as the most recent concept of loving as knowing proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)

Religious beliefs can be explained in two different ways, cognitive and adaptationist. Each of them is another kind of explanation, one is proximate and the other ultimate. Each of them provides the other with a specific status for religious beliefs, such as by-product or adaptation. However, there is no clarity of how cognition itself could be religiously biased and how the religious/theistic approach could work as a default cognitive mode, as Cognitive Science of Religion suggests. I would like to criticize (...) cognitive assumptions in the study of religion and show how adaptationist accounts are preferable. I specifically focus on the functional context of religious components, the social and psychological applications. I suggest how discussing about a cognitive basis does not matter in these fields and the cognitive account cannot explain the ubiquity of religious components that lie in their function, rather than the alleged connection with cognition. (shrink)

We examine second order intuitionistic propositional logic, IPC². Let $F_\exists $ be the set of formulas with no universal quantification. We prove Glivenko's theorem for formulas in $F_\exists $ that is, for φ € $F_\exists $ φ is a classical tautology if and only if ¬¬φ is a tautology of IPC². We show that for each sentence φ € $F_\exists $ (without free variables), φ is a classical tautology if and only if φ is an intuitionistic tautology. As a corollary (...) we obtain a semantic argument that the quantifier V is not definable in IPC² from ⊥, V, ^, →. (shrink)

The book is the first formulation of a meta-philosophical scheme rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm. The latter views subjects capable of cognition and experience as living, embodied creatures coupled with their environments. On the other hand, the emergence of experimental philosophy has given rise to a new context in which philosophers have begun to search for a more thorough definition of philosophical competence. The time is ripe for these two trends to join their efforts. Therefore, the book discusses what (...) it means for a human being thought of as a living subject to pursue philosophy. In this context, in contrast to the existing literature, philosophical competence must not be conflated with competence in philosophy. The former is a skill or attitude. The book refers to this peculiar attitude as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. (shrink)

Marc-Wogau, K. Mina filosofiska fördomar.--Gustafsson, L. Om klassifikation.--Kanger, S. Några synpunkter på begreppet inflytande.--Torstendahl, R. Minikrav, optimumnormer och paradigm i historisk vetenskap.--Lagerberg, D. Punktkommentarer till dialektiken.--Nordenfeldt, L. Om olika former av interaktion.--Puterman, Z. An indeterminist interpretation of Marx's historical determinism.--Carls, R. Kunskap och frihet.--Andersson, J. S. Some notions of pragmatic implication.--Tönisson, I. A preliminary study of interpreting K[subscript x]ø¹.--Bergström, L. Vilken handlingsutilitarism är den riktiga?--Alfredsson, T. Kärlekskoefficienter.--Segerberg, K. The assignment problem as a problem of social choice.--Åqvist, L. En tidslogisk variant (...) av Morgenstjärneparadoxen. (shrink)

The paper develops the idea that institutions are enablers. However, they do not only enable individuals and collectives to achieve their goals; first and foremost, they enable individuals and collectives to have a goal, to select and recognize certain possible states of affairs as targets of action, and as a result, to have a demand – especially a demand for further institutions. I make the case that properly functioning institutions are dedicated to making these states of affairs epistemically acquaintable. What (...) I will stress in particular is that acquaintance is first realized in the form of questions, which are linguistic expressions of acts of problematization. However, I will discuss less what an individual subject questions, but rather what the social dynamic of questioning is. This dynamic will be conceptualized in terms of epistemic dependence, and it will be singled out as the dynamic that gives rise to institutions. (shrink)

Many scholars that study of religion and religious beliefs find that they affect behavioral patterns. Some of them suggest that this impact is morally wrong because religion and religious beliefs can cause aggression, conflicts, and wars. However, it seems that this topic is more complicated and complex. Here I show that religion and religious beliefs can affect mentioned above morally wrong patterns only in some particular cases. Usually they do not do it. Here I show an outline of philosophical historical (...) approach that was critically oriented against religion and that accused it about conflicts and wars. Then I briefly discuss two current scientific research approaches to the study of religion, cognitive and evolutionary. They falsify these critically oriented philosophers because they treat connection between religious beliefs and conflicts as random and necessary. The core idea of this paper assumes that religious beliefs do not affect aggression and wars directly. They can sometimes strengthen or weaken some biological mechanisms that then can be used to compete by conflicts or by not-violent inter-group competition. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

Context: Von Foerster’s concept of eigenbehavior can be recognized against the broader context of enactivism as it has been advocated by Varela, Thompson and Rosch, by Noë and recently by Hutto and Myin, among others. This flourishing constellation of ideas is on its way to becoming the new paradigm of cognitive science. However, in my reading, enactivism, putting stress on the constitutive role of action when it comes to mind and perception, faces a serious philosophical challenge when attempting to account (...) for the way we actually perceive our environments, most importantly for the fact that we perceive things or objects. Von Foester’s eigenbehavior is understood here as a concept supposed to take on this challenge. Problem: In this article I tackle the following issues: Enactivism must be able to account for the apparent stability of the perceived world: this is not a realm of a never-ending flux of stimuli; it is a realm of stable things. Enactivism is committed to the anti-Cartesian endeavor seeking to bridge the gap between the inner and the outer; between the subjective and the objective. Now, these two points constrain each other so that one cannot address simply by regarding the apparent stability of things as a projection that springs out of the internal machinery binding inputs with outputs. This is because the very idea of such an internal machinery opposes, i.e., it employs the Cartesian dichotomy. So, enactivism is in need of an account of that would not oppose its anti-Cartesian commitment. Method: I introduce the ontology of location and niche theory, as it has been brought forth by Varzi, Casati, and Smith, and develop it so that it can be used in the philosophy of mind. This is a conceptual, semi-formal philosophical analysis. Results: I shall come up with the idea of object conceived of a product of action, and - drawing on von Foerster’s central idea - as a product of coordination of perceptions. Yet, it is not coordination of stimuli but coordination of cognitive connections. The notion of connection is thus articulated in the article and cast as the central concept in my proposal. Implications: We are able to account for both and (2. The apparent stability of the perceived world is due to the setting up and maintaining of connections between the perceiver and the things perceived, resulting in the establishment of what I call a cognitive niche. Constructivist content: Constructivism, broadly construed, takes, in my reading, a negative stance in the first place. Namely, it opposes what I call the metaphysics of the ready-made world. So, it holds that there is no ready-made reality; however it remains open when it comes to positive claims: a mind-independent reality does not exist at all or it does exist but it is not ready-made and as such it must be brought to completion, so to speak, or enacted, as Varela et al. would say, by a cognitive subject. In this article, I follow the latter and address one specific issue: how the enacted world gains its relatively stable architecture. (shrink)

Moral Sanctuary is used in this paper as a metaphor for any theory which makes actions immune from moral criticism. Three arguments favoring moral sanctuaries for business activities are countered. Two of the arguments rest on faulty analogies. One compares business activities to games, another to the behavior of machines. The third rests on the claim that business is a unique activity. This position is rejected by a reductio ad absurdum argument; it entails the immunity of all professional activities from (...) moral judgment. I argue that business managers are accountable to the combined requirements of professionalism and democratic citizenship, notions which are briefly described at the conclusion of the paper. (shrink)

This paper targets the concept of enactment as a genuinely metaphysical idea. Its goals are two-fold. First, a reappraisal of enactment in its proper historical context, as well as an articulation of the core innovations enactment brings to traditional metaphysics. Here the idea of 'productive' cognition, as I provisionally term it, comes to the fore. The second goal is a reinterpretation of certain themes from traditional metaphysics, including the key question of why there is something rather than nothing, so as (...) to make it more open to insights originating from enactivism. For that, the concept of 'situated metaphysics' is introduced and elaborated upon. (shrink)

Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write beautifully. He did more than any other person to establish and popularize the study of how animals behave, receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. King Solomon's Ring , the book which brought him worldwide recognition, (...) is a delightful treasury of observations and insights into the lives of all sorts of creatures, from jackdaws and water-shrews to dogs, cats and even wolves. Charmingly illustrated by Lorenz himself, this book is a wonderfully written introduction to the world of our furred and feathered friends, a world which often provides an uncanny resemblance to our own. A must for any animal-lover! (shrink)

Among the many strengths of the article by Lorenzo Gilardi and Giovanni Stanghellini one can find its open-ended character most directly reflected by the fact that these are "questions for further research," rather than a set of definitive theses, that are provided as concluding remarks. But it is not the mere occurrence of such a setting that is crucial. After all, even if somewhat atypical, the latter does happen to be used in scholarly literature. What makes the open-endedness of the (...) article and its somehow dialogical flavor so important is these features' full continuity with the method of dialectical psychopathology proposed. The form and the content, in other words, go hand in hand.As far as formal... (shrink)

The concept of biodiversity has entered the law. Article intends to make the conceptual suppositions and the ethical profile of the biodiversity concept explicit. Article takes “biodiversity” as a hybrid concept located at the intersection of biological science, environmental ethics, and international conservation policies. It proceeds with sections on genealogy and definitions of the concept. Further, a matrix-scheme is construed serving the purpose to make debates on biodiversity more specific and precise. Moreover, different approaches in environmental ethics are assessed trying (...) to substantiate the conservation of biodiversity in its entirety (“all”), but mostly fail in the attempt. A “strong” sustainability approach, however, can justify the protection of many and most components. Finally, the dialectics of biodiversity is outlined. On the one hand, a method is outlined how to proceed in order to reach resonable judgements about conservation and utilization of specific components of biodiversity while, on the other hand, the philosophical dimension is taken into account. This philosophical dimension is two-fold: a) epistemology of living beings and b) biophilic existentialism. Finally, some open questions with respect to implementation of “biodiversity” into law are asked. (shrink)

There is no longer any doubt that the coming decades will bring serious threats to humanity from anthropogenic climate change. As we have suggested elsewhere, horrible scenarios are far more realistic than non-horrible ones, and science and technology are incapable, especially in our non-ideal world, of equitably distributing wealth, access to resources and adaptations to climate change. In this article, we offer an alternative to these inevitable horrible scenarios. The alternative is to implement either an anti-natalist policy, or procreative beneficence (...) and reproductive rights policies aimed at radically reducing the birth rate. These alternatives, however, are potentially unfair and quite possibly unthinkable to most of humanity. (shrink)