Die Philosophie der Lebenskunst begnügt sich nicht nur mit abstrakten Begründungen, sondern widmet sich praktischen Aspekten, die für ein gelungenes Leben entscheidend sind. Sie greift auf eine lange Tradition zurück, die bei Sokrates beginnt und bis zu Foucault und Wilhelm Schmid reicht. Bei den neueren Vertretern bildet die Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche und seiner Thematisierung der Selbstsorge einen zentralen Fokus. Als philosophischer Arzt suchte Nietzsche herauszufinden, was für den einzelnen Menschen und die Kultur im Gesamten förderlich oder schädlich sei. Das Handbuch (...) stellt Nietzsches Kontexte und Konzepte der Lebenskunst übersichtlich und polyphon dar. Mit Beiträgen von: Eike Brock, Almuth Bruder-Bezzel, Tobias Brücker, Marco Brusotti, Mirella Carbone, Gaia Domenici, Ferdinand Fellmann, Günter Gödde, Helmut Heit, Beatrix Himmelmann, Kristina Jaspers, Joachim Jung, Hans-Per Klie, Manuel Knoll, Rolf Kühn, Torsten Lerchner, Roman Lesmeister, Kevin Liggieri, Diana Lohwasser, Nikolaos Loukidelis, André Martins, Martin Morgenstern, Jörn Müller, Nicola Nicodemo, Johannes Oberthür, Manos Perrakis, Martin Poltrum, Birgit Recki, Renate Reschke, Pia Daniela Völz, Hans Gerd von Seggern, Werner Stegmaier, Michael Steinmann, Barbara Straka, Paul von Tongeren, Vivetta Vivarelli, Robert Zimmer, Jörg Zirfas. (shrink)

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are. _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions _is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty (...) years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, _Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science. (shrink)

Power differentials are a ubiquitous feature of social interactions and power has been conceptualised as an interpersonal construct. Here we show that priming power changes the sense of agency, indexed by intentional binding. Specifically, participants wrote about episodes in which they had power over others, or in which others had power over them. After priming, participants completed an interval estimation task in which they judged the interval between a voluntary action and a visual effect. After low-power priming, participants judged intervals (...) to be significantly longer than judgments after high-power or no priming. Thus, intentional binding was significantly changed by low-power, suggesting that power reduces the sense of agency for action outcomes. Our results demonstrate a clear intrapersonal effect of power. We suggest that intentional binding could be employed to assess agency in individuals suffering from anxiety and depression, both of which are characterised by reduced feelings of personal control. (shrink)

A number of natural language constructions seem to provide access to structured pluralities — that is, pluralities of pluralities. A body of semantic work has debated how to model this additional structure and the extent to which it depends on pragmatics. In this article, after controlling for the distinction between ambiguity and underspecification, we present new data showing that structured pluralities are sometimes but not always available, depending on the form of the plural noun phrase used. We show that these (...) results challenge two longstanding theories of plurality. We sketch two different ways to account for these data and describe some of the diverging predictions they make. (shrink)

Between 300,000 and 250,000 years ago early humans in Africa and Eurasia began to use durable material substances and objects as media for signaling. Initially material signals were confined to ochre and other pigments, but over time objects such as beads were also added as technologies for sending messages. Changes in the types of materials used, their durability and costs, and the contexts of their disposal indicate a series of transitions in how early humans employed signaling media. Signaling theory from (...) biology suggests that shifts in technologies over the course of the Pleistocene reflect problems in coordinating action and resolving conflicts within increasingly large and internally differentiated societies. (shrink)

Arguments are nowadays often presented as soundbites: as slogans, tweets, memes and even gifs. Arguments developed in detail often meet the response TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read). This is unfortunate—especially when tackling the topic of abortion. Soundbites make many pro-life arguments seem stronger than they really are, while the complexities of pro-choice arguments can’t be readily reduced to soundbites.

While Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) have been shown to be effective for a range of patient populations and outcomes, a question remains as to the role of common therapeutic factors, as opposed to the specific effects of mindfulness practice, in contributing to patient improvements. This project used a mixed-method design to investigate the contribution of specific (mindfulness practice-related) and common (instructor and group related) therapeutic factors to client improvements within an MBI. Participants with mild-severe depression (N= 104; 73% female,Mage = 40.28) (...) participated in an 8-week MBI. Specific therapeutic factors (formal out-of-class meditation minutes and informal mindfulness practice frequency) and social common factors (instructor and group ratings) were entered into multilevel growth curve models to predict changes in depression, anxiety, stress, and mindfulness at six timepoints from baseline to 3-month follow-up. Qualitative interviews with participants provided rich descriptions of how instructor and group related factors played a role in therapeutic trajectories. Findings indicated that instructor ratings predicted changes in depression and stress, group ratings predicted changes in stress and self-reported mindfulness, and formal meditation predicted changes in anxiety and stress, while informal mindfulness practice did not predict client improvements. Social common factors were stronger predictors of improvements in depression, stress, and self-reported mindfulness than specific mindfulness practice-related factors. Qualitative data supported the importance of relationships with instructor and group members, involving bonding, expressing feelings, and instilling hope. Our findings dispel the myth that MBI outcomes are exclusively the result of mindfulness meditation practice, and suggest that social common factors may account for much of the effects of these interventions. Further research on meditation should take into consideration the effects of social context and other common therapeutic factors. (shrink)

Simple explanations are very often inadequate and can encourage faulty inferences. We examined college students’ explanations regarding illegal immigration to determine the prevalence of single-factor explanations. The form of students’ explanations was predicted by their responses on a simple three-item forced-choice multivariable causal reasoning task in which they selected the strongest evidence against a causal claim. In a further qualitative investigation of explanations by a sample of community adults, we identified positive features among those who scored high on this multivariable (...) causal reasoning task. We consider limitations of single-factor reasoning and means of encouraging more comprehensive explanations to support claims. (shrink)

Urban dwellers are more likely to develop mental disorders such as mood and anxiety disorder as well as schizophrenia compared to rural dwellers. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that even short-term exposure to nature can improve mood and decrease stress, but the underlying neural mechanisms are currently under investigation. In the present intervention study we examined the effects of a one-hour walk in an urban vs. natural environment on activity in the amygdala, a brain region previously associated with stress processing. (...) Before and after the walk 63 participants underwent an fMRI paradigm inducing social stress. Since there is a pronounced gap in the literature regarding interindividual differences in stress-related neural effects of urban and natural environments, we set out to explore sex differences. We observed that amygdala activity decreased after the walk in nature, but only in women, suggesting that women may profit more from salutogenic effects of nature. Moreover, performance on the arithmetic tasks improved in women after the walk in nature, whereas men performed better after the walk in the urban environment. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report differencial tendencies in men and women concerning the stress-related neural activity as an effect of acute exposure to urban vs. natural environments. Furthermore, our findings highlight the importance of sex differences when exploring effects of the environment on brain function and stress. Evidence for beneficial effects of nature on stress-related brain regions may inform urban design policies to focus on providing more accessible green areas in cities and this study suggests that sex differences in experiencing the environment should be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Research on the public understanding of science has measured knowledge as acquaintance with scientific facts and methods and attitudes as evaluations of societal consequences of science and technology. The authors propose alternative concepts and measures: knowledge of the workings of scientific institutions and attitudes to the nature of science. The viability, reliability, and validity of the new measures are demonstrated on British and Bulgarian data. The instrument consists of twenty items and takes ten to fifteen minutes to apply. Differences in (...) the representation of science are reported between the British and Bulgarian young elite, between the elite and the public in Bulgaria, between natural and social science students, and between beginners and advanced students in Britain. The use of these measures will extend the scope of science indicator measures used by the European Commission and the National Science Foundation, help the assessment of the socialization in university training, and may even contribute to the peace process in the “science wars.”. (shrink)

This study investigates how Human Factors is applied when designing and developing Immersive Visual Technologies, including Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Virtual Reality. We interviewed fourteen people working at different organizations, that develop IVT applications in the Nordic region. We used thematic analysis to derive themes from the interviews. The results showed an insufficient knowledge and application of HF in IVT development, due to the lack of awareness of both scope and significance of HF, resource allocation strategy, market inertia, stakeholder's (...) involvement, standardization of HF application and IVT uses, and technology maturity. This situation could be improved by allocating experts, adjusting organizational strategy to balance resource allocation, training developers and user organizations to raise awareness and to encourage co-creative design and knowledge sharing, create a sense of ownership amongst stakeholders, and ensure the usefulness of the technology to the user's work. (shrink)

Great effort is invested in identifying ways to change people's minds on an issue. A first priority should perhaps be enriching their thinking about the issue. With a goal of enriching their thinking, we studied the views of community adults on the DACA issue—young adults who entered the United States illegally as children. A dialogic method was employed, offering dual benefits in providing participants the opportunity to further develop their own ideas and to consider differing ideas. Yet, participants engaged in (...) dialog only vicariously by observing the talk of a pair of actors who held opposing positions on DACA. The effect on participants’ thinking was greatest in the condition in which they viewed a dialog between the two actors, rather than a comparison condition in which the actors individually expressed their positions. In control conditions, no presentation was observed. Probing questions included in all conditions encouraged a participant to examine and clarify for themselves their own position, potentially enriching it. This condition proved unsuccessful in enriching thinking; participants’ justifications for their own positions in fact became simpler and less qualified. In contrast, observing a video of a like-minded and opposing other did enrich observers’ thinking, yet to a greater degree in the dialogic than nondialogic condition. The findings thus suggest observed dialog as a promising practical approach in promoting deeper thinking. (shrink)

The studies in this book set out to examine the labile resonances of phenomenology and art in Michel Henry, by examining the different figures of movement given to the concept of the aesthetic by the philosopher. They are preceded by one of Michel Henry’s own texts. Les études qui composent ce livre proposent d’interroger les résonances labiles de la phénoménologie et de l’art chez Michel Henry, en examinant les différentes figures du déplacement imprimé par le philosophe au concept d’esthétique. Le (...) tout est précédé d’un texte de Michel Henry. (shrink)

Condensed mathematics, developed by Clausen and Scholze over the last few years, proposes a generalization of topology with better categorical properties. It replaces the concept of a topological space by that of a condensed set, which can be defined as a sheaf for the coherent topology on a certain category of compact Hausdorff spaces. In this case, the sheaf condition has a fairly simple explicit description, which arises from studying the relationship between the coherent, regular, and extensive topologies. In this (...) paper, we establish this relationship under minimal assumptions on the category, going beyond the case of compact Hausdorff spaces. Along the way, we also provide a characterization of sheaves and covering sieves for these categories. All results in this paper have been fully formalized in the Lean proof assistant. (shrink)

Knowledge can be acquired through the processes of listening or reading testimonies of other agents. How and, particular, to whom, one ascribes trustworthiness when listening or reading a testimony is of special interest in this paper, especially in terms of societal-epistemic deviations that appear in the form of epistemic injustice. Neurotypicals, individuals with typical neurological states and developmental pathways, perceive individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder as an aberration from neuro-normativity, unable to contribute on an equal basis to the pool of (...) epistemic resources and shared meanings. The latter is related to the stereotypes of the unreliability of autistic persons’ testimonies about their own experiences and conditions. Given that atypical social and behavioural conditions autistics share are clinically classified as a disorder, the question of whether we can justify the failure to extend trust to the autistics arises. (shrink)

Reproductive biotechnologies, also known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART), have undergone significant development over time, reaching a remarkable level of evolution in the 20th century. Currently, several biotechnologies stand out, among which Artificial Insemination (AI), widely spread globally, Embryo Production (EP) both in vivo and in vitro for embryo transfer, Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), sexing, among other innovations. In Vitro Production (IVP) of embryos has emerged as the biotechnology that has experienced the greatest development and evolution in recent decades, covering (...) various fields such as research in assisted human reproduction, obtaining transgenic animals for biomedicine, preservation of endangered species and conservation of animals of high genetic value. This research aims to analyze the relevance of IVP, as well as the fundamental elements that make up this complex process. IVP of embryos involves several stages, from oocyte procurement, oocyte selection and in vitro maturation, sperm preparation, in vitro fertilization, to the culture of the resulting zygotes to blastocysts. These blastocysts, once transferable to recipients, culminate in the birth of a new being. However, this process has both advantages and disadvantages, which motivates continuous innovation in the field. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel method for identifying the public evaluative standards that contribute to the classification of certain conditions as mental disabilities. Public evaluative standards could contribute to ascertaining disabilities by outlining characteristics whose presence beyond a threshold is fundamentally important for the life of a person and whose absence or reduced occurrence constitutes a disability. Additionally, they can participate in determining disabilities by delineating particularly grave difficulties, impairments, or incapacities. Our method relies on a model of public justification (...) of evaluative standards that is inspired by Gerald Gaus’s theory of public reason. Thus, our approach recommends the justification of evaluative standards through sound deliberative routes from reasons accessible to all persons who participate in the process of justification and the convergence of what is justified in this way to each of them. We deem that disabilities could be caused both by problems in the internal characteristics of a person as well as by unfairness or a lack of hospitality in external circumstances. This is why the method of justification is applied to the assessment of those circumstances as well. If social or environmental circumstances cannot be justified through the convergence of reasons accessible to all persons involved in the process of justification, we have reasons to exclude the presence of a disability and ascertain the presence of inadequate external conditions. (shrink)

Das Werk ist die erste komplett an allen Gebieten der Physik systematisch ausgerichtete Darstellung der Geschichte der Physik. Geschrieben von einem erfahrenen Didaktiker seines Faches und als Ergebnis jahrzehntelanger Recherche soll dieses Buch ein tieferes Verständnis seines Faches vermitteln, als dies traditionelle Lehrbücher vermögen. Der rote Faden sind die Konzepte und Theoriebildungen, wie sie sich durch die Jahrhunderte nachzeichnen lassen. Das Ergebnis ist ein lebendig geschriebenes Fachbuch, das sich sowohl zum Lernen und Nachschlagen systematisch nutzen wie auch als packende Physikgeschichte (...) von der ersten bis letzten Seite spannend lesen lässt. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Reasoning biases have been suggested as risk factors for delusional ideation in both patients and non-clinical individuals. Still, it is unclear how these biases are longitudinally related to delusions in the general population. We hence aimed to investigate longitudinal associations between reasoning biases and delusional ideation in the general population. METHODS: We conducted an online cohort study with 1184 adults from the German and Swiss general population. Participants completed measures on reasoning biases (jumping-to-conclusion bias JTC, liberal acceptance bias LA, (...) bias against disconfirmatory evidence BADE, possibility of being mistaken PM) and delusional ideation at baseline, and delusional ideation 7 to 8 months later. RESULTS: A greater JTC bias was associated with a greater increase in delusional ideation over the following months. This association was better described by a positive quadratic relationship. Neither BADE, LA nor PM were associated with subsequent changes in delusional ideation. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that jumping-to-conclusions predicts delusional ideation in the general population but that this association may follow a quadratic trajectory. While no other associations turned significant, future studies with shorter temporal distances may shed further light on the role of reasoning biases as risk factors for delusional ideation in non-clinical samples. (shrink)