Die Vielfalt der mittelalterlichen Epik bietet ein fruchtbares Feld für gattungstheoretische Bestimmungen, das bislang in keiner Hinsicht ausgeschöpft ist. Da die mittelalterlichen Poetiken Gattungszuordnungen nicht zwingend festschreiben, bietet sich die Möglichkeit, auf der Basis einer induktiven Poetik mittelalterliche Werke in ihren generischen Verwandschaftsverhältnissen neu zu bestimmen. Entgegen dem Trend der älteren Forschung, Beschreibungspassagen in der mittelalterlichen Erzählliteratur eher negativ zu bewerten, soll in dem vorliegenden Beitrag die Bedeutung der Ekphrasis für Gattungsbestimmungen mittelalterlicher Erzähltexte herausgearbeitet und mit dem Begriff des „ekphrastischen (...) Romans“ ein neuer, auch die Antike und die Neuzeit umfassender Gattungstypus kreiert werden. Wer sich zünftig vorwiegend mit der modernen Literatur befasst, weiß um die gattungsbildende Funktion der Beschreibung im neoavantgardistischen Nouveau Roman, doch ist die generische Relevanz von ekphrastischen Passagen im mittelalterlichen Versroman noch weithin unerforscht und den Mediävisten unbekannt. Dass gerade der Beschreibung von Kunstwerken, auf die in letzter Zeit immer mehr der Begriff der Ekphrasis eingeschränkt wird, eine große poetische Relevanz zukommt, dokumentiert nicht nur ihre häufige Positionierung am Werkeingang oder ihre motivische Verknüpfung mit Passageriten des Protagonisten, sondern auch ihre besondere digressive Stellung im Erzählkontinuum mit komplexen Rahmen- und Binnenstrukturen, vor allem aber ihre für das ganze Werk repräsentative und quasi gattungsgenerierende Funktion als mise en abyme. Zudem sind die Beschreibungen von Kunstwerken in der Erzählliteratur des Hochmittelalters Zeichen einer neuen materiellen Sachkultur sowie symbolisch-diagrammatische Spiegelungen zeitgenössischer Weltbilder. Durch Partizipation an Formen der Visualität und Intermedialität sind die Ekphrasen auch mediengeschichtlich attraktiv und fungieren außerdem als Vehikel nicht nur einer werkimmanenten Poetik, sondern auch einer intrinsischen, Kunst wie auch Technik umgreifenden und universellen Ästhetik. Das hier rekonstruierte Genos des „ekphrastischen Romans“, das sich bis auf Homers,Ilias' zurückverfolgen lässt, die mit der Beschreibung von Achills Schild einen Prototypen liefert, zeigt bei aller Kontinuität einen besonderen Schub im Hochmittelalter, der neben byzantinischen Einflüssen u. a. mit einer ausgebildeten Exkurstheorie sowie Innovationen in der Erzähltechnik zusammenhängt, wie man z. B. aus dem,Erec' Hartmanns von Aue ersehen kann. Der „ekphrastische Roman“ zielt nicht auf einen nur an Aktionen interessierten Leser ab, der im Extremfall Haltepunkte im Erzählfluss überspringt, sondern auf einen Rezipienten, der sich geduldig mit der Dekodierung imaginärer Bildwelten befasst und bereit ist, sich in poetologische und kunstästhetische Reflexionen zu vertiefen, die eine eigene Ebene der Werkdeutung konstituieren. (shrink)

Hesiod, um 700 vor Christus im armlichen Bootien lebend, ist nur wenig junger als Homer. Obwohl er von der hexametrischen Epik der "Ilias" und der "Odyssee" stark beeinflusst ist, bietet er in seinen beiden Werken "Vom Ursprung der Gotter" und "Werke und Tage" etwas vollig Neues: Zum ersten Mal in der europaischen Literaturgeschichte tritt uns ein Autor als Person entgegen. Er selbst erzahlt, wie die Musen ihm beim Schafehuten erschienen und den jungen Menschen zum Dichter beriefen.Ausserdem wird Hesiod zum (...) Vater einer eigenen literarischen Gattung: des Lehrgedichts. Er bringt die gottlichen Machte in verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen; so entsteht eine Deutung des Weltganzen, die bereits auf die philosophischen Entwurfe der vorsokratischen Denker vorausweist. Indem er die Erzahlungen uber die Gotter zusammenfasst und ordnet, wird Hesiod zur wichtigsten Quelle des griechischen Mythos. In den "Werken und Tagen," einer Art Bauernkalender, in den Bruchstucke einer ersten Autobiographie und einige beruhmte Sagen eingestreut sind, wirkt Hesiod mit seiner pessimistischen Beurteilung des eigenen Zeitalters erstaunlich aktuell. Mit Einfuhrung, Erlauterungen und Literaturhinweisen von E.G. Schmidt.". (shrink)

Die ratselhafte Gestalt des Dichters und Rhapsoden Homer ragt aus den dunklen Anfangen des Abendlandes in unsere Gegenwart hinein. Uber sein Leben und seine Umwelt ist wenig bekannt, aber sein Werk hat auch nach mehr als zweieinhalb Jahrtausenden noch nichts von seiner Gultigkeit eingebusst. Die beiden grossen Dichtungen Homers, die Ilias und die Odyssee, bezeichnen nicht nur den glanzvollen Beginn des europaischen Epos, sondern der abendlandischen, ja der Weltliteratur uberhaupt. Sie sind die "Urromane" der Menschheit, wie Jean Paul einmal (...) gesagt hat. Die grossten Geister von der Antike bis zur deutschen Klassik, von Vergil bis Goethe haben ihn bewundert und gepriesen und in seinem machtigen Schatten gedichtet. In Homers Heldengesangen vom Kampf um Troja scheinen alle Motive und Triebkrafte der Menschheitsdichtung beispielhaft vorgebildet zu sein: Kampf und Abenteuer, Sieg und Untergang, Liebe und Hass, Heroentum und Niedrigkeit, Mythos und historische Wirklichkeit. So ist Homers Werk Anfang und Vollendung zugleich. Mit Einfuhrung und Literaturhinweisen von A. Heubeck.". (shrink)

In this article, the author reveals the question of the relationship between the political concepts of “conservatism” and “reaction,” their evolution in the historical context, as well as the special place of conservatism in the Russian political tradition.

This article shows what difficulties are connected with the enactivist interpretation of Heidegger and what options can be found to overcome them. First of all, the epistemological attitude of enactivism is outlined. This attitued forced the enactivist theoreticians (i.e. Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson) to turn to the “cognitive” understanding of Heidegger. The rejection of cognitivism and connectionism as equally “disembodied” ways of understanding consciousness in favor of an “embodied” approach led enactivist theorists to turn to the phenomenological tradition and, (...) in particular, to the cognitive interpretations of Heidegger. Secondly, the reasons for disappointment in the Heideggerian heritage, expressed by the theorists of enactivism, are considered. It is shown that the main reason for this disappointment was the basic incompatibility of the enactivist approach to consciousness, based on the Husserlian concept of intentionality, with Heidegger's approach. Natalie Depraz' non-intentional approach based on her interpretation of the concept of Gelassenheit is named as an example of overcoming the contradictions that arise in enactivism. (shrink)

Exploration of brain pathways involved in religious experience has been the focus of research by Andrew Newberg and colleagues. Although the import of this work sheds new light on the human capacity to experience divine reality, the theological implications drawn from this research are vague and lack an appropriate methodology to provide critical distinctions. This paper offers a theological response to Newberg's work by highlighting several aspects of this research including the relationship between theological judgments and empirical observations, the uniqueness (...) of human transcendence, and the appropriateness of measuring mystical experience. (shrink)

Whitehead and Teilhard scholars imagine a philosophical and theological encounter between the two.

Der Leser entdeckt einen jüdisch-spanischen Autor des 14. Jhdts., der gleichsam der Postmoderne zugehörig erscheint: ein Dialektiker und Skeptiker, der nach der Wahrheit sucht in einer Welt, die von Chaos und Wahnsinn regiert wird.

Deep Learning has been widely used for tackling challenging natural language processing tasks over the recent years. Similarly, the application of Deep Neural Networks in legal analytics has increased significantly. In this survey, we study the early adaptation of Deep Learning in legal analytics focusing on three main fields; text classification, information extraction, and information retrieval. We focus on the semantic feature representations, a key instrument for the successful application of deep learning in natural language processing. Additionally, we share pre-trained (...) legal word embeddings using the word2vec model over large corpora, comprised legislations from UK, EU, Canada, Australia, USA, and Japan among others. (shrink)

The UK’s Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) was introduced in 2010 following the Conservative Party’s promise to address the fact that numerous efficacious cancer drugs were not available because of their cost ineffectiveness, as deduced by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. While, at face value, this policy appears only to promote the UK’s public welfare, a deeper analysis reveals the ethically unjustifiable inconsistencies that the CDF introduces; where is the analogous fund for other equally severe diseases? Have the (...) patients without cancer been neglected simply due to the fear-inducing advertising and particularly ferocious speech which surrounds cancer? The CDF is unjustifiable when challenged by such questions. However, it is troubling to think that the CDF might be repealed in order to abolish these ethical concerns. Intuitively, one feels uncomfortable stripping the cancer patient of their benefits just so that they might be on an equally pessimistic footing with others. In the present essay, I argue that, although there are no ethically justifiable grounds for the CDF’s introduction, its removal would be inappropriate. Following this realisation, I investigate whether the procedural steps of the CDF itself—theoretically removed from the context of resource distribution for all disease types—represent an ethically justifiable system. I believe that the answer is yes, given the CDF’s conformity to accountability for reasonableness, a robust framework of procedural justice, which continuously improves the ethical and epistemological standards of the policies to which it is applied. (shrink)

Explainable artificial intelligence has become a vitally important research field aiming, among other tasks, to justify predictions made by intelligent classifiers automatically learned from data. Importantly, efficiency of automated explanations may be undermined if the end user does not have sufficient domain knowledge or lacks information about the data used for training. To address the issue of effective explanation communication, we propose a novel information-seeking explanatory dialogue game following the most recent requirements to automatically generated explanations. Further, we generalise our (...) dialogue model in form of an explanatory dialogue grammar which makes it applicable to interpretable rule-based classifiers that are enhanced with the capability to provide textual explanations. Finally, we carry out an exploratory user study to validate the corresponding dialogue protocol and analyse the experimental results using insights from process mining and argument analytics. A high number of requests for alternative explanations testifies the need for ensuring diversity in the context of automated explanations. (shrink)

Pensamiento atrevido y nuevo, visión abierta, donde el lector hallará cuestiones clave del conocimiento, pero también del confundir y fundir, metafísica, física, antropología, sociedad. Desde la psicología a la reunión de los hombres en ciudades, la política, todo penetrado de la mirada estética, como si el saber fuera una de las bellas artes. Cuestiones como la Orden del Temple, la francmasonería, el ciber-arte, la clonación de obras artísticas o las bibliotecas digitales se convierten en ejemplos para una filosofía alternativa. Ilia (...) Galán, Titular de Estética y Teoría del Arte en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid y profesor invitado en las universidades de Oxford, Harvard, la Sorbona, New Tork University, etc. Columnista habitual en El País, y otros periódicos. Entre sus libros, editados en varios idiomas, destacan: El Dios de los dioses (Ciencia del Arte) 1993, El romanticismo: Schelling o el arte divino Madrid, 1999, Actualidad del pensamiento de Sem Tob (filosofía hispano-hebrea del siglo XIV), 2003, 2004. Teorías del arte desde el siglo XXI, 2005, Sabiduría oculta en el Camino de Santiago, 2011. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the problem of the linguistic grounds of the semiotic model of history, according to which history is described as a communication process circulating within a society. An analogy of principle between language and culture is the theoretical premise of that semiotic approach. Proceeding on this assumption semiotics (B. Uspensky’s case for instance) regards historical process as the process of text outcome and reading, while at the same time control over communication is provided through the cultural (...) code or in other words — through the grammar of history. But the description of history as just the functioning of a single and unified grammatical code doesn’t make it possible to explain the appearance of new meanings or history par excellence. J. Lotman interpreted the rhetorical mechanism of text outcome as the working of two (at a minimum) interplaying semiotic systems. It is the principle of its working that he takes as abasis of his semiotic version of cultural diachrony. And at the very point semiotics finds itself in front of the choice: either to stop at the decomposition the rhetorical machine on separate cultural codes and at the description their separate grammars, or to conceptualize a historical event as un-grammatism, grammatical error, “wrong text”. The analytical way leads to an extremely reduced theoretical construction; the synthetic way undermines status of the semiotic model of history as a positivistic scientific project. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the normative strategy of interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time in modern analytical philosophy, and also proposes a theoretical framework for understanding this strategy as a historical phenomenon. The article describes the development of the normative direction in the interpretation of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Its first branch—the socio-normative, or the neopragmatist one—is associated with such philosophers as John Haugeland and Robert Brandom. The second one—the ethico-normative, or postneopragmatist one—branch is represented by Steven Crowell and Sacha Golob. (...) It is shown that the first group of normativists focused mainly on implicit social norms and structures of conformity, while the second—focuses primarily on Kantian ethics and Christina Korsgaard’s interpretation of Kant, as well as on the inferentialist philosophy of language of Robert Brandom. The conceptual schemes used by each of the representatives of these approaches are reconstructed. The connections of different approaches within the framework of the normative direction with each other are shown. The concept of a relay race is proposed, which can describe normative Heideggerianism as a historical phenomenon. It is shown that the development of normative Heideggerianism can be characterized as theoretical progress in relation to the accuracy of the interpretation of Heidegger’s texts. The grounds for the comparative “progressiveness” of different normative approaches in the updates of the basic normative conceptual scheme that they involve are clarified. It is also shown that the progress of the normative conceptual scheme in the direction of flexibility and adaptation to Heidegger’s text is fraught with a loss of meaningfulness of the very concept of norm. It is argued that the concept of norm, despite the loss of its empirical content, can be used to translate Heidegger’s concepts for pragmatic reasons. (shrink)

Climate change is to a large extent a collective action problem, but many believe that individual action is also required. But what if no individual contribution to climate change is necessary nor sufficient to cause climate change-induced harms? This issue is known as the problem of inconsequentialism. It is particularly problematic for act consequentialism because the theory does not seem to judge such inconsequential contributions negatively. In this paper, we apply Henry Sidgwick's idea of esoteric morality to climate change and (...) assess whether what we call a climate esoteric morality could help to deal with the problem of inconsequentialism from an act consequentialist perspective. Consequentialists ought then to promote what we call nonconsequentialist faux principles; exaggerate existing consequentialist principles that pro tanto forbid contributing to climate change whenever strictly consequentialist principles fail to do so; and refrain from criticising nonconsequentialist principles that forbid contributing to climate change. (shrink)

Background End-of-life decisions for neonates with adverse prognosis are controversial and raise ethical and legal issues. In Greece, data on physicians’ profiles, motivation, values and attitudes underlying such decisions and the correlation with their background are scarce. The aim was to investigate neonatologists' attitudes in Neonatal Intensive Care Units and correlate them with self-reported practices of end-of-life decisions and with their background data. Methods A structured questionnaire was distributed to all 28 Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Greece. One hundred and (...) sixty two out of 260 eligible physicians answered anonymously the questionnaire. Demographic and professional characteristics, self-reported practices and opinions were included in the questionnaire, along with a questionnaire of 12 items measuring physicians’ attitude and views ranging from value of life to quality of life approach. Results Continuation of treatment in neonates with adverse prognosis without adding further therapeutic interventions was the most commonly reported EoL practice, when compared to withdrawal of mechanical ventilation. Physicians with a high attitude score were more likely to limit, while those with a low score were more likely for continuation of intensive care. Physicians’ educational level, involvement in research, religion and position on the existing legal framework were factors that affected the attitude score. Conclusions Physicians presented with varying end-of-life practices. Limiting interventions in neonates with poor prognosis was strongly related to their attitudes. The most important predictors for physicians' attitudes were religiousness and belief for Greek legal system reform. (shrink)

With this book Ilia Delio has provided a long needed introduction to Bonaventures thought.

Human-robot collaboration, whereby the human and the robot join their forces to achieve a task, opens new application opportunities in manufacturing. Robots can perform precise and repetitive operations while humans can execute tasks that require dexterity and problem-solving abilities. Moreover, collaborative robots can take over heavy-duty tasks. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a serious health concern and the primary cause of absenteeism at work. While the role of the human is still essential in flexible production environment, the robot can help decreasing (...) the workload of workers. This paper describes a novel framework for task allocation of human-robot assembly applications based on capabilities and ergonomics considerations. Capable agents are determined on the basis of agent characteristics and task requirements. Ergonomics is integrated by measuring the human body posture and the related workload. The developed framework was validated on a gearbox assembly use case using the collaborative robot Baxter. (shrink)

F. 1v-9v of the codex Vat. gr. 1020, which is dated to the first half of the 14th century, contains seven unknown and anonymous letters, the last one mutilated. In this study, at first, the ascription of the letters to Maximus Neamonites as proposed by the database of the PINAKES is rejected, and a number of assumptions are made concerning the name of their writer in the light of the little prosopographical information offered. The content is studied, as well as (...) the style of the letters and their place in the literary context of the Palaiologan Rennaisance of the 13th-14th centuries. A critical edition of the letters completes the article. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present an educative experience carried out in a university context, in order to discuss of the ways that peer tutoring could contribute to the development of the pedagogical skills of future and novice teachers of French as a Foreign Language. The aforementioned case study lasted throughout an academic semester and involved undergraduate and graduate students.

We review some known results about the Ramsey property for partitions of reals, and we present a certain two-person game such that if either player has a winning strategy then a homogeneous set for the partition can be constructed, and conversely. This gives alternative proofs of some of the known results. We then discuss possible uses of the game in obtaining effective versions of Ramsey's theorem and prove a theorem along these lines.

The relationship between being and goodness is one of the most engaging philosophical questions, particularly in light of the new science, which pointsto the interconnectedness of the physical world. The relationship between being and goodness is examined here in the thought of Bonaventure, who maintainsa primacy of the good. Bonaventure’s integration of philosophy and theology provides an understanding of being as goodness and hence an understandingof being as relational and generative. Because being is good, created reality is intrinsically good and (...) bears within it an inner dynamic toward the pleroma oflove. The implications of Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good for ecology and epistemology are explored. (shrink)

This article examines the passing of the Palamedes episode, a matter from the subtexts of the Epic Cycle, into Byzantine rhetoric. This scene forms the center of a topic in the Progymnasmata of three Byzantine writers, Nikolaos Sophistes, Nikephoros Basilakes and George Pachymeres, while at the same time this matter is used (with a different function) also by Constantine Manasses, in his Synopsis Chronike. The way of use and the evaluation of the episode in these texts are examined in detail. (...) In particular, Basilakes' and Pachymeres' Progymnasmata (διηγήματα), in which the Palamedes episode is used in an autonomous way, are compared with each other, and the differences of style, syntax, grammar and vocabulary between the texts of these wo writers are determined. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 91-122.

Background: End-of-life decision-making for terminally ill neonates raises important legal and ethical issues. In Greece, no recent data on nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions are available. Research question/aim: To investigate neonatal nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions and the relation to their socio-demographic and work-related background data. Research design: A survey was carried out in 28 neonatal intensive care units between September 2018 and January 2019. A structured questionnaire was distributed by post. Participants and research context: The (...) questionnaire was answered anonymously by 312 nurses (response rate, 71.1%) and returned to the investigators. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Bioethics and Research Committee of Aretaieio Hospital in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Findings: Nurses more often reported involvement in various end-of-life decisions, such as continuation of treatment without adding further therapeutic interventions for terminally ill neonates, while less reported were mechanical ventilation withdrawal and drug administration to end life. Nurses with a high attitude score, reflecting a more quality-of-life approach, were more likely to be involved in setting limits to intensive care. α low score was consistent with life preservation. Nurses’ religiousness ( p = 0.097), parenthood ( p = 0.093), involvement in daily practice ( p = 0.03), and position on the existing legal framework ( p < 0.002) influenced their attitude score. Discussion: The likelihood of nurses to support interventions in neonates with poor prognosis in neonatal intensive care units was related to their attitudes. After adjusting for potential confounders, the most important predictors for nurses’ attitudes were parenthood, involvement in daily practice, and position supporting current legislation reform. Conclusion: Variability in involvement in end-of-life decisions among nurses exists on a national level. (shrink)

There is a dilemma in modern medicine, and, as a general family practitioner, this dilemma has great impact on me as a professional with a responsibility to my patients, and on the treatments I prescribe. Every day we receive a lot of updated information about relevant issues in treatment of various conditions we encounter in our daily practice. There is a great deal of interesting, serious research; however, frequently results and conclusions are very different and at times, contradictory. It is (...) extremely difficult to evaluate updated research information, and to understand trends in current medicine. Our responsibility to our patients is to find a solution for this problem. (shrink)