A recent analysis by de Barros and Suppes of experimentally realizable GHZ correlations supports the conclusion that these correlations cannot be explained by introducing local hidden variables. We show, nevertheless, that their analysis does not exclude local hidden variable models in which the inefficiency in the experiment is an effect not only of random errors in the detector equipment, but is also the manifestation of a pre-set, hidden property of the particles ("prism models"). Indeed, we present an explicit prism model (...) for the GHZ scenario; that is, a local hidden variable model entirely compatible with recent GHZ experiments. (shrink)

Job crafting has been established as a bottom-up work design instrument for promoting health and well-being in the workplace. In recent years, the concepts of job crafting have been applied to the university student context, proving to be positively related to student well-being. Building on person-centered analyses from the employment context, we assessed approach study crafting strategy combinations and the relationships to students’ exhaustion, study engagement, and general well-being. Data from 2,882 German university students were examined, collected online during the (...) summer term in 2020. Using latent profile analysis, we found five distinct crafting groups, which showed discriminate validity with regard to emotional exhaustion, engagement, and well-being. The results underscore the positive role of study crafting for students’ health and well-being. They further indicate a less important role of increasing social resources for emotional exhaustion when combined with a moderate increase in structural resources and a moderate increase in challenging demands. Our findings imply that interventions to promote study crafting should be considered to promote student health and well-being. (shrink)

Prolonging working hours and presenteeism have been conceptualized as self-endangering coping behaviors in employees, which are related to health impairment. Drawing upon the self-regulation of behavior model, the goal achievement process, and Warr's vitamin model, we examined the antecedents and moderation effects regarding quantitative demands, autonomy, emotion regulation, and self-motivation competence of university students' self-endangering coping behaviors. Results from a cross-sectional survey of 3,546 German university students indicate that quantitative demands are positively related and autonomy has a u-shape connection with (...) self-endangering coping. Emotion regulation was shown to be a protective factor for prolonging working hours. Moreover, self-motivation moderated the relationship between quantitative demands and prolonging of working hours, but not in the assumed direction. Self-motivation showed a systematic positive relationship with prolonging of working hours, but no relationship with presenteeism. Autonomy moderated the relationship of quantitative demands with both self-endangering behaviors. We found no moderating effects for emotion regulation of quantitative demands or autonomy and self-endangering behaviors. Besides further practical implications, the results suggest that lecturers should design their courses accordingly with less time pressure and university students should be trained in the use of autonomy. (shrink)

As long-term childhood cancer survivors are at risk for late effects, ongoing medical care is crucial to detect and treat physical illnesses as early as possible. However, previous research from around the world has shown that many adult survivors did not participate in long-term medical follow-up. This study aimed to provide insight into German survivors’ care situation, with a particular focus on barriers to follow-up care. We investigated a sample of adult CCS drawn from the German Childhood Cancer Registry’s oldest (...) cohort. Our analyses included data from a standardized medical examination, a self-report questionnaire, and in-depth interviews with a subsample. Half of the participants reported participating in some kind of medical follow-up. In a logistic regression analysis, attendance of medical follow-up care was associated with higher age. Reasons for non-attendance were assigned to four categories: lack of information about medical follow-up and/or its purpose, termination by the health care provider, structural barriers, and emotional-motivational aspects. The interviews contributed to a better understanding of how these reported barriers played out in the care of individual survivors. Further, they revealed that some survivors currently in medical follow-up had had periods without follow-up care in the past—which were also in many cases related to a lack of information, both on the part of health care providers and CCS themselves. The results indicated that a large proportion of long-term CCS do not receive the recommended follow-up care. Further, there is a great need for more information regarding the aims of long-term medical follow-up and available offers. This is an important prerequisite for CCS to make informed decisions. (shrink)

According to the standard realistic interpretation of classical electrodynamics, the electromagnetic field is conceived as a real physical entity existing in space and time. The problem we address in this paper is how to understand this spatiotemporal existence, that is, how to describe the persistence of a field-like physical entity like electromagnetic field. First, we provide a formal description of the notion of persistence: we derive an “equation of persistence” constituting a necessary condition that the spatiotemporal distributions of the fundamental (...) attributes of a persisting physical entity must satisfy. We then prove a theorem according to which the vast majority of the solutions of Maxwell’s equations, describing possible spatiotemporal distributions of the fundamental attributes of the electromagnetic field, violate the equation of persistence. Finally, we discuss the consequences of this result for the ontology of the electromagnetic field. (shrink)

O presente estudo aborda a temática mal-estar docente. Trata-se de um recorte de uma pesquisa teórica desenvolvida em nossos estudos de Pós-graduação em educação. O objetivo geral foi pensar o mal-estar docente como elemento intrínseco à subjetividade e à prática docente. Metodologicamente, do ponto de vista filosófico e psicanalítico, propomos uma análise reflexiva a partir da via da crítica e da ressignificação. Os resultados apontaram que o mal-estar docente é um traço do ser professor, como um elemento que está no (...) entrecruzamento do desejo de ensinar, educar, exercer a docência e as condições objetivas e subjetivas encontradas e mobilizadas nesse exercício, tendo a experiência formativa como elemento-chave desse processo. É necessário, então, que os professores tomem contato com sua dor, com a finitude, com a incerteza que a angústia de não saber tudo ou nada saber a respeito de si mesmo é um marco da subjetividade. (shrink)

Manfred Rehbinder (Berlín 1935), asistente de Ernst E. Hirsch, se habilita en la Freie Universität Berlin, profesor en las Universidades de Bielefeld (1969-1973) y Zúrich (1973- 2003), y es —así lo señala por ejemplo Alfons Bora— uno de los precursores de la sociología jurídica de carácter empírico. Sin embargo, el texto que se presenta, y que fue publicado en los Anales en su número dedicado a la sociología del derecho (número 13, 1973), posee un carácter eminentemente teórico. Apoyándose en (...) el conocimiento del derecho positivo alemán, Manfred Rehbinder traza una serie de tendencias generales que resultan de gran utilidad para comprender los notables cambios que acaecían en aquel entonces y cuyos ecos resuenan en la actualidad: el síntoma novedoso se ha convertido hoy en lugar común. La racionalización del derecho, su homogeneización, el incremento de la materia, las estructuras jurídicas y el apoyo del derecho en paradigmas científicos son las líneas evolutivas a las que se presta atención en este trabajo. (shrink)

Kant’s solution for the problem of freedom of the will rests on his transcendental idealism and its differentiation of appearances and things in themselves. Human beings, with their bodies and observable inner and outer activities, are objects of perception (empirical intuition) and therefore appearances. These are only the appearances of their noumenal selves. Human beings are determined by laws of nature in all their perceivable alterations which include all their actions, but their noumenal selves, not being in time, are not (...) determined by the necessity of causal laws of nature, but can be determined by the moral law of their pure practical reason which they give to themselves. The actions of the will, observable volitions and external actions, can therefore, at the same time, be under the necessitating law of nature, i.e. be unfree, and, as appearances of the self-determination of their noumenal will (by fulfilling the demands of the moral law), be free. Two professors of Jena University, Ulrich and Schmid, accept part of Kant’s transcendental idealism but contend that the many transgressions of the moral law in human acting must have their noumenal reason in the agent’s intelligible character or in the intelligible substrate of nature. This theory is called “intelligible fatalism”. (shrink)

Der Artikel sucht eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der sogenannten Finalisierungsthese. Diese postuliert eine externe Steuerung der Wissenschaft, die "Indienstnahme" der "wissenschaftlichen" durch die "gesellschaftliche Praxis". Schon im Ansatz zeigt die Finalisierungsthese einige gravierende Mängel, die noch gravierender in ihren methodologischen Voraussetzungen - u.a. der Ablehnung der Kausalforschungsmethode - zum Ausdruck kommen. Bei näherer Analyse enthüllt sich die Finalisierungsthese als rein normatives Konzept, als der bloße Anspruch, Wissenschaft könne und solle extern gesteuert werden.

Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird versucht, bezogen auf das Beispiel Cäsars, eine wissenschaftstheoretische Kritik der Vorstellung von "historischer Größe" und gleichzeitig eine Korrektur unseres Cäsar-Bildes durch eine historische Erklärungsskizze, wie sie Hempel und Oppenheim vorschlagen, vorzunehmen.

Argumentation mining is an application of natural language processing (NLP) that emerged a few years ago and has recently enjoyed considerable popularity, as demonstrated by a series of international workshops and by a rising number of publications at the major conferences and journals of the field. Its goals are to identify argumentation in text or dialogue; to construct representations of the constellation of claims, supporting and attacking moves (in different levels of detail); and to characterize the patterns of reasoning that (...) appear to license the argumentation. Furthermore, recent work also addresses the difficult tasks of evaluating the persuasiveness and quality of arguments. Some of the linguistic genres that are being studied include legal text, student essays, political discourse and debate, newspaper editorials, scientific writing, and others. The book starts with a discussion of the linguistic perspective, characteristics of argumentative language, and their relationship to certain other notions such as subjectivity. Besides the connection to linguistics, argumentation has for a long time been a topic in Artificial Intelligence, where the focus is on devising adequate representations and reasoning formalisms that capture the properties of argumentative exchange. It is generally very difficult to connect the two realms of reasoning and text analysis, but we are convinced that it should be attempted in the long term, and therefore we also touch upon some fundamentals of reasoning approaches. Then the book turns to its focus, the computational side of mining argumentation in text. We first introduce a number of annotated corpora that have been used in the research. From the NLP perspective, argumentation mining shares subtasks with research fields such as subjectivity and sentiment analysis, semantic relation extraction, and discourse parsing. Therefore, many technical approaches are being borrowed from those (and other) fields. We break argumentation mining into a series of subtasks, starting with the preparatory steps of classifying text as argumentative (or not) and segmenting it into elementary units. Then, central steps are the automatic identification of claims, and finding statements that support or oppose the claim. For certain applications, it is also of interest to compute a full structure of an argumentative constellation of statements. Next, we discuss a few steps that try to 'dig deeper': to infer the underlying reasoning pattern for a textual argument, to reconstruct unstated premises (so-called 'enthymemes'), and to evaluate the quality of the argumentation. We also take a brief look at 'the other side' of mining, i.e., the generation or synthesis of argumentative text. The book finishes with a summary of the argumentation mining tasks, a sketch of potential applications, and a—necessarily subjective—outlook for the field. Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Argumentative Language / Modeling Arguments / Corpus Annotation / Finding Claims / Finding Supporting and Objecting Statements / Deriving the Structure of Argumentation / Assessing Argumentation / Generating Argumentative Text / Summary and Perspectives / Bibliography / Authors' Biographies / Index. (shrink)

This article1 investigates a particular use of generic sentences (or “characterizing” sentences, in the terminology of Krifka e.a. 1995), which is most prevalent with indefinite singular subjects. Such subjects cannot always be interchanged with bare plural NPs, as has been famously pointed out by Lawler (1973).

To answer the question of whether school can become a non-adultist institution, this article examines the unequal adult–child (teacher–pupil) power relations that characterize school under the framework of bourgeois-capitalist society and that are upheld by certain functions, methods, norms and knowledge standards. Under the influence of the anti-authoritarian youth protest movements from the 1960s onwards, overt power in school (e.g. by means of corporal punishment) has been criticized and, in most countries, abolished. However, power imbalances between teachers and pupils have (...) not disappeared, but rather developed towards a more subtle, covert power, e.g. by framing certain expectations. The hierarchical top-down and one-way learning principles of school institutions are mostly left uncontested. This article does not content itself with simply stating that schools repeatedly reproduce adultism under these societal conditions, but also discusses possible strategies and interventions that could shift unequal power relations and ultimately overturn them. It looks at various concepts and alternative forms of education critical of adultism that have emerged since the beginning of the 20th century both within and outside the state school system. It further explores the contradictions that should be expected to arise in their implementation within the framework of existing educational institutions. Particular attention is paid to the respective possibilities for action on the part of teachers and pupils. We offer a decisive challenge to teachers to rethink how they deal with their power, which is always derived and fragile, and how they can contribute to pupils empowering themselves and significantly influence learning and decision-making processes at school. (shrink)

Der Übersetzer befindet sich im Spannungsfeld nicht nur zwischen den Sprachen, sondern auch zwischen den Kulturen. Die Beiträge nähern sich der Frage nach der kulturellen Dimension von Übersetzung sowohl epochen- als auch fachübergreifend an, wobei das Erkenntnisinteresse sämtliche Textsorten umfasst. Im vorliegenden Band wird die besondere Rolle der Übersetzung bei der Überschreitung kultureller Grenzen von unterschiedlichen Disziplinen aus erforscht. Neben Translationswissenschaftlern kommen auch Vertreter aus Literatur- und Sprachwissenschaft, Kunstgeschichte, Philosophie, Rhetorik und Musikwissenschaft zu Wort. Aus dem Inhalt: Vorwort der Herausgeber (...) Manfred Schmeling:Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt - Eine Würdigung Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt:Wie Grün Rot werden soll oder Die Metamorphose des Übersetzens I. Theoretisch-philosophische Fragestellungen Jörn Albrecht: Heidegger auf Französisch - die,Poststrukturalisten' auf Deutsch. Ein Fall von,verschränktem' Kulturtransfer Hervé Pasqua: Traduction et déconstruction Pierre Deshusses/Irène Kuhn: Der Übersetzer: ein Seiltänzer über dem Abgrund der Sprachen II. Historische Schwerpunkte Ursula Wienen: Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Briefe über die Botanik im Spiegel ihrer deutschen Übersetzungen. Ein Beitrag zur kulturellen Prägung der Fachübersetzung Fritz Nies: Vernetzung und Affinitäten. Deutsche Autoren in französischer Sprache, vor der Romantik Lieven D'Hulst: La culture allemande en France au début du XIXe siècle: analyse statistique des livres traduits entre 1810 et 1840 Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink: "Lost in Translation" - Übersetzung und Exilerfahrung bei Eva Hoffman und Jacques Poulain III. Textsortenspezifisches Übersetzen Georgette Stefani-Meyer: Fonction et statut de la traduction dans le Journal des savants entre 1665 et 1714 Alberto Gil: Traduire la rhétorique. Rilke als Übersetzer des sermon L'Amour de Madeleine Jean-Claude Lejosne und Pierre Dimon: Problèmes de traduction de l'interculturalité dans l'expression du droit et la réflexion sur l'éthique: ambiguïté et désambiguïsation dans des domaines,sensibles' Michael Schreiber: Rhetorische Fragen in politischen Reden. Textsortenspezifik und Übersetzung IV. Formen medialen Transfers: Neue Medien/Intermedialität Vahram Atayan: Elektronische Übersetzungsbibliographien als translationswissenschaftliches Werkzeug: Eine exemplarische Studie anhand von thematischen Häufungen und funktionalen Elementen in den Titeln von Übersetzungen Französisch-Deutsch aus dem 16.-17. Jahrhundert Rainer Schmusch: "La vie est un voyage": Vertonter Text in Übersetzung - Lied und Oper als Kulturvermittler Herbert Schneider: Vertonter Text in Übersetzung oder Kann man Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg und Aristide Bruants A Batignolles übersetzen? Jean-Loup Korzilius: Le geste pictural et la question de l'origine dans l'oeuvre de Pierre Soulages et Karl Otto Götz Ramona Schröpf: Zur Übertragung von Kulturspezifika in der Filmuntertitelung In derselben Reihe als Band 1 bereits erschienen: Kulturelles Gedächtnis und interkulturelle Rezeption im europäischen Kontext. Herausgegeben von Eva Dewes und Sandra Duhem 2008 / XXIII, 678 S. / 113 Abb. / e 49,80 ISBN 978-3-05-004132-2. (shrink)

Marx und die "bürgerliche" Nationalökonomie, von G. Aspelin.--Några textkritiska problem i Berkeleyforskningen, av B. Belfrage.--Några kommentarer till C.L. Stevensons teori om etisk oenighet, av L. Befgström.--Viljeteorins premisser, av J. Evers.--Axel Hägerströms analys av värdeupplevelsen, av L. Fröström.--On archetypical performatives, by M. Furberg.--The better something is, the worse its absence, by S. Halldén.--Ett slags representationsteorem för deontisk logik, av B. Hansson.--Om Platons "Euthyphron," av I. Hedenius.--Tolkningssatsernas logik, av G. Hermerén.--Är verkligheten motsägande? Ett dialektiskt argument, av K. Marc-Wogau.--Moral, amoral og indifferens, av (...) H. Ofstad.--Begreppet "property" hos John Locke, av K. Olivecrona.--En skademodell, av U. Persson.--Objektivitet som kunskaps teoretiskt begepp och som värderingsideal, av H. Regnéll.--Satsen "Flickan F är vacker," av E. Ryding.--Lathund för lagläsare, av T. Strömberg. (shrink)

Inductive probabilistic reasoning is understood as the application of inference patterns that use statistical background information to assign (subjective) probabilities to single events. The simplest such inference pattern is direct inference: from “70% of As are Bs” and “a is an A” infer that a is a B with probability 0.7. Direct inference is generalized by Jeffrey’s rule and the principle of cross-entropy minimization. To adequately formalize inductive probabilistic reasoning is an interesting topic for artificial intelligence, as an autonomous system (...) acting in a complex environment may have to base its actions on a probabilistic model of its environment, and the probabilities needed to form this model can often be obtained by combining statistical background information with particular observations made, i.e., by inductive probabilistic reasoning. In this paper a formal framework for inductive probabilistic reasoning is developed: syntactically it consists of an extension of the language of first-order predicate logic that allows to express statements about both statistical and subjective probabilities. Semantics for this representation language are developed that give rise to two distinct entailment relations: a relation ⊨ that models strict, probabilistically valid, inferences, and a relation that models inductive probabilistic inferences. The inductive entailment relation is obtained by implementing cross-entropy minimization in a preferred model semantics. A main objective of our approach is to ensure that for both entailment relations complete proof systems exist. This is achieved by allowing probability distributions in our semantic models that use non-standard probability values. A number of results are presented that show that in several important aspects the resulting logic behaves just like a logic based on real-valued probabilities alone. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Größe und Grenzen der Philosophie Immanuel Kants" verfügbar.

Explanation and prediction play an important role in medical decision making, particularly for diagnostic and treatment decisions. For the most part, explanations as well as predictions are derived from causal knowledge and have to be made under uncertainty. In cognitive psychology, these phenomena have been approached from two directions. On the one hand, there is research on knowledge representation and inferential reasoning (Holland et al. 1986; Anderson 1990). On the other hand, there is research on heuristics and biases in judgments (...) under uncertainty (Kahneman et al. 1982; Rehm & Gadenne 1990). However, no exact models have yet been developed to describe the process that leads from a given knowledge base to judgments of probabilities, i.e., from causal knowledge about the world to subjective expressions of the uncertainty associated with explanations or predictions. (shrink)

The paper first presents a short survey of ancient and modern logical, rhetorical and argumentative approaches (e.g. Aristotle, Quintilian, Quine, Anscombre and Ducrot) studying the properties of paradoxical utterances. This survey is followed by a tentative definition of paradoxes as seemingly contradictory utterances triggering conversational implicatures in the sense of Grice. A specific group of paradoxes, namely, persuasive paradoxes, is further characterized by the specific implicatures which they trigger: the implicatures of persuasive paradoxes serve the interest of the (political) speaker (...) because they either convey a sharp criticism of the political opponent(s) or praise the political activities of the speaker in a highly effective way.The second part of the paper takes a corpus of about 80 paradoxical utterances from Cicero's speeches to show how they are used 1. for a devastating criticism of Cicero's political enemies, 2. a milder form of criticism in the case of his friends, when their political activities have failed, 3. a praise of successful policies of Cicero and his political friends and 4. a defense of unsuccessful activities started by Cicero and his friends. (shrink)

Fundamental changes in sciences offer new perspectives for the management of complexity. Increased complexity in society, economics, and technology requires a new and suitable organization and management. What are the consequences and results for project management? That is the theme of this article. First of all it will given a short introduction to project management, which will be later called "traditional project management" or "project management 1st order (PM-1)." Then, the challenges by the fundamental changes in sciences and the increased (...) complexity in society, economics, and technology will be discussed. It will state that traditional project management cannot solve these challenges. The widespread working-themes and results of the research program "Beyond Frontiers of Traditional Project Management" as an answer to these challenges will be presented at a glance. Subsequently, it will discuss some selected results of the research program: The principle-definition and foundation of "Evolution of 1st and 2nd Order." The Evolution of 1st Order and the impact on Project Management methods and processes. Evolution of 2nd Order and the Grand Evolutionary Systems Theory (GEST) of E. Laszlo as also the impact on Project Management methods and processes. Management of crisis: turn a change to advantage or risk-assurance? Thereafter, the concept of "Project Management Second Order (PM-2)" is presented as a highlighted result of the research program, as a new paradigm in project management, and as an answer to the challenges, described earlier will be explained in detail. Finally, a real example of transfer evolutionary and self-organizational management principles in a real project life will be demonstrated. (shrink)

Horatii Epistula ad Pisones quae inde a Quintiliani temporibus Ars poetica appellari solet duobus e generibus composita esse videtur: nonnulla sunt illius formae carminum peculiaria qua praecepta traduntur; alia naturam epistularum versibus confectarum reddunt quam poeta senescens creavit. Hac de re homines docti consentiunt, at etiam nunc ambigitur, quatenus Epistula ad Pisones a poeta in formam carminis praecepta continentis redacta sit. Novissimae disputationes (a Brink et a Becker conscriptae) Horatii Epistulae illius carminis compositionem inesse demostrare volunt. Sed huius commentationis auctor (...) Horatii Epistulam cum Vergilii Georgicis comparat, ut Horatii et Vergilii opera pauca admodum communia habere ostendat -multum afuit, ut Horatius in Epistula ad Pisones praeceptoris personem induere voluerit. Tamen Epistula multa variaque dogmata complectitur: caput ultimum originem fontesque eorum explanare conatur. (shrink)

David Lewis proposed to deal with the semantics of sentences that state what is possible for an individual in terms of possible individuals that are in ways the first individual might have been, so called counterparts of the individual. In this book, I defend counterpart semantics as an approach to the semantics of modality and natural language semantics in particular. Counterpart semantics has a rival, the standard Kripkean semantics that deals with the same sentences in terms of an accessibility relation (...) between possible worlds. While counterpart semantics appears to be more flexible and carries less metaphysical presuppositions (it does not presuppose that I myself exist in various possible worlds, e.g.), Kripkean semantics has some advantages of its own. Most importantly, it incorporates the core assumptions of what may be called standard possible-worlds semantics; i.e. the core assumptions of the most successful framework within linguistic semantics. Counterpart semantics, on the other hand, does not conform to these assumptions, or so I will argue. In this book I opt for a synthesis of these two approaches that allows to combine their advantages. In Chap.1 I introduce the basic idea of counterpart semantics. I defend counterparts against the charge, made by Kripke, that counterparts are irrelevant for the analysis of modality. In Chap. 2 I present the classical version of counterpart semantics, i.e. David Lewis's translation of the language of quantified modal logic into counterpart theory. I discuss some well-known problems and opt for a revision of that translation that is able to solve the problems. Lewis's translation indirectly defines semantical values for expressions of quantified modal logic. In Chap.3 I evaluate counterpart semantics with respect to basic features of possible-worlds semantics. I conclude that the semantical values indirectly assigned to sentences by Lewis's translation are not sets of possible worlds, and that they do not meet certain intuitive demands on notions of meaning and content. (The revisions proposed in Chap.2 do not change this.) In Chap.4 I discuss various versions of a combination of counterpart semantics with Kripkean semantics found in the literature. But I conclude that here, the benefits of the latter are achieved by forfeiting the advantages of the former. Chap.5 finally contains my own proposal how to combine the two approaches in a more satisfactory way. The core semantical notion is truth according to a maximal complete representation, where representations now play the role of worlds. It is an important feature of the counterpart relation that it is qualitative, i.e. a relation in which things stand in virtue how they are. In Chap.1 I point out why it is qualitative, and why it ought to be. In Chap.6 I show how to make the notion of a qualitative property or relation precise. Finally, in Chap.7 I show how to extend this and related notions to predicates and propositions. For counterpart semantics to work at all we have to assume that everything that can be said at all can in principle be expressed in a language with qualitative predicates only (and perhaps, additionally, names, treated directly referentially). In Chap.7 I show how this assumption allows to maintain that the representations of our semantics deserve their name. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:25. HUME'S ANTINOMIES I There are many contradictions in Hume. So much is readily admitted by all Hume scholars. But there is little agreement on what these contradictions show about Hume's thought in general. Many interpretations are based upon the view that Hume's contradictions are signs of his carelessness or lack of thoroughness. He is seen either as having lost all interest in giving a comprehensive or consistent account (...) of human nature or as not having pushed far enough his analysis of the philosophical problems facing him. Other interpretations suggest that Hume, the "skeptic," has recklessly introduced these contradictions in order to confuse us. He is perhaps not altogether serious and is laughing at those who take too serious a view of the "science" of metaphysics and his own contribution 2 to it. Others again argue that the contradictions (or some fundamental class of them) are the consequence of Hume's philosophical presuppositions or his psychological method. Given his particular beliefs and his method, these contradictions had to arise with logical necessity. However, the general opinion seems to be that, if Hume is not to be dismissed as a merely negative skeptic whose philosophy is of no great consequence, he needs to be excused or defended, i.e. his contradictions, which are 4 seen as "inconsistencies," have to be explained away. His discussions of the self, causality, substance, or the relationship of reason and the passions must be, and — it is believed — can be shown not to be contradictory, if all the relevant factors are considered. However, reconstructions of Hume's analysis of the self or causality, for instance, which involve the explaining away of contradictions soon find themselves in a rather peculiar quandary, since they also have to show that Hume's own admissions of the contradictory nature of his analysis is mistaken. Such "defenses" issue only in other 26. accusations, namely that Hume, in addition to not having expressed himself very clearly in his writings, failed to understand them himself when he referred back to them. If only for this reason, I think that interpretations which involve an explaining away or minimizing of the contradictions in Hume are suspect. It is my opinion that Hume needs no such defenses or excuses -- at least not in so far as the most important contradictions are concerned. On the contrary, I believe that Hume can be understood properly, only if we take full account of them. I want in this paper to argue that there is in Hume a fundamental class of contradictions which he believed were neither accidental nor created by his analysis, but were essential characteristics of the human mind. The contradictions uncovered by his analysis can be understood only if they are recognised as one aspect of a more complex problematic. They must have a "deeper" significance for Hume because they are the symptoms of the infirmities... which are common to human nature (T265). These are 'Hume's 7 "antinomies. " In this analysis I have allowed myself to be guided by a more or less Kantian conception of "antinomy" and "antinomical." In fact, I believe that there is a definite similarity between Kant's doctrine of the "Antinomy of Pure Reason" and Hume's "operations" which are equally natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in some circumstances... directly contrary (T266). But the present paper is not so much a sustained comparison of Hume and Kant in this regard as it is an attempt to elucidate the g peculiar nature of several contradictions in Hume. For I believe that, if we have a better understanding of the nature of these contradictions, we will also be able to say something more definite about Hume's theory of mental activity and certain aspects of the relationship of skepticism and naturalism (or: Pyrrhonism and Newtonianism, destructive and constructive side, negative and positive phase, etc.) in his thought. To this end, I shall first 27. explain what I mean by "antinomy" here. Secondly, I shall show in what sense Hume was aware of having discovered something very much like an antinomical dimension in human nature, and, finally, I shall offer some suggestions as to the relevance of this... (shrink)

A condition is formulated in terms of the probabilities of two pairs of correlated events in a classical probability space which is necessary for the two correlations to have a single (Reichenbachian) common-cause and it is shown that there exists pairs of correlated events probabilities of which violate the necessary condition. It is concluded that different correlations do not in general have a common common-cause. It is also shown that this conclusion remains valid even if one weakens slightly Reichenbach's definition (...) of common-cause. The significance of the difference between common-causes and common common-causes is emphasized from the perspective of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.