In an earlier paper by one of us [K.-E. Hellwig (1981)], elements of discrete quantum stochastic processes which arise when the classical probability space is replaced by quantum theory have been considered. In the present paper a general formulation is given and its properties are compared with those of classical stochastic processes. Especially, it is asked whether such processes can be Markovian. An example is given and similarities to methods in quantum statistical thermodynamics are pointed out.

RésuméL'intention de l'auteur du présent article est de montrer que des liens manifestes peuvent s'établir entre la philosophie de F. Gonseth et celle de L. Wittgenstein de même que celles de trois penseurs repréentatifs de la philosophie dite analytique: J.L. Austin, W.V. Quine et J. Searle. Il importe en effet de dénoncer certaines mises en opposition fallacieuses et de souligner le bénéfice à tirer d'un dialogue entre le courant de pensée anglo‐saxon et celui d'Europe occidentale. En toile de fond, la (...) philosophie du language! On se souviendra à cet égard que F. Gonseth a sans cesse défendu la thèse qu'un jeu de prêté‐rendus s'établit en recherches scientifiques comme en recherches philosophiques sur le front de l'énonciation et sur le front de l'expérimentation. Il en résulte que la mise à l'épreuve de la pertinence du langage ne s'effectue correctement que si l'on prononce un verdict sur le complexe discours‐activités. C'est dire l'importance accordée par F. Gonseth à l'insertion non seulement des mots, mais de l'expression discursive en sa globalité dans des contextes précisants. (shrink)

Christian hopes for salvation and redemption, and Marxist promises of emancipation and liberation have had and do have today much to do with each other. Historically they have grown up in dialogue with one another and today they address each other more than ever. Mutual condemnations get us nowhere. This article tries to identify areas of common intention and cooperation, without ignoring real differences, and offers a theological reflection that suggests an alliance with the critical elements within Marxist circles that (...) speak for humanism and the exercise of freedom in the present. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that linguistically the Rigveda is a heterogeneous collection of texts. Since the early days of Vedic scholarship, researchers have tried to correlate grammatical properties with individual parts of the Rigveda, aiming at identifying layers and strata. In this article we review stratifications proposed in previous literature and assess the support for these strata by performing statistical analyses with allomorphic linguistic features that have been claimed to bear signals of stratification. In addition, we run a cluster analysis (...) exploring how the books are grouped given the same allomorphic linguistic data. Our results show that once we control for metrical positioning, prosodic structure, and content, the allomorph distributions do not lend significant support for any of the proposed stratifications. Moreover, the cluster analysis favors the assumption that book 10 occupies a special position, but overall differences across the ten books of the Rigveda are not substantial. (shrink)

Künstlerbiographien sind seit jeher eine beliebte Darstellungsform der Kunstgeschichte. Eine Untersuchung der Genese dieser Textgattung fehlte jedoch bislang. Nahezu zweihundert Jahre waren die in der Tradition Vasaris entstandenen Viten vorherrschend. Nach 1700 wandten sich von dieser Frühform der Biographie allerdings auch jene Autoren ab, denen es weiterhin ein Anliegen blieb, "Geschichte der Künstler" zu vermitteln, jedoch erprobten sie innerhalb der Künstlergeschichte neue methodische Ansätze. In diesem Buch wird erstmals die historische Entwicklung dargestellt, in deren Verlauf sich die topos- und anekdotenreiche (...) Vita zur wissenschaftlichen Künstlerbiographie wandelte. In diesem Prozess kristallisierten sich die entscheidenden strukturellen Merkmale heraus, die noch heute für das Genre charakteristisch sind. So lässt sich für die Künstlerbiographien im 18. und in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts ein ähnlicher Verwissenschaftlichungsprozess feststellen wie für die anderen historiographischen Gattungen dieser Jahrzehnte. Das zeigt die Analyse einer Reihe bedeutender Biographien vor allem zu Künstlern der Renaissance wie Dürer, Cranach und Raffael, die in dieser Zeit im deutschsprachigen Raum entstanden. Dabei wird vornehmlich die Umgewichtung im Verhältnis von Lebensbeschreibung und Werkanalyse systematisch nachgezeichnet. Besondere Bedeutung kommt in der Untersuchung dem Mythos der Kongruenz von Künstlerleben, Charakter und Œuvre zu. Während der zentrale Topos vom "tugendhaften" und "erfinderischen" Künstler in der Vita noch zu einer Unterscheidung zwischen empirischer Person und Künstlerexistenz zwang, gelang es im Rahmen des biographischen Konzeptes der "Künstlerbiographie" zunehmend, die beiden Aspekte unter dem Begriff des "Genies" zu vereinen. Einen weiteren Schwerpunkt bildet die Rekonstruktion der Rezeptionsgeschichte der Künstlerbiographien. Die zahlreichen theoretisch-methodologischen Reflexionen in den Jahrzehnten zwischen 1820 bis 1840 zeugen von dem Versuch der frühen Kunsthistoriker, die Biographie zu einer führenden Methode der Kunstgeschichte zu etablieren. Es werden auch die Dispute untersucht, die in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts und den ersten Jahrzehnten nach 1900 für die Kanonisierung der Kunstgeschichte als Wissenschaft grundlegende Bedeutung hatten und bei denen der biographische Ansatz eine wichtige Rolle spielte. Nicht zuletzt die vernichtende Kritik Heinrich Wölfflins, des Verfechters einer "Kunstgeschichte ohne Namen", der die Biographie der Unwissenschaftlichkeit bezichtigte, hat entscheidend dazu beigetragen, diese, wenngleich nicht aus dem Schrifttum, so doch aus der Wissenschaftsgeschichte zu verdrängen. Erst der fundamentale Paradigmenwechsel von der Künstlergeschichte hin zur überpersönlichen Stilgeschichte, der sich ab der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts vollzog, konnte jahrhundertelang den Blick auf die Tatsache verstellen, dass der biographische Aspekt der Kunstgeschichte damit keineswegs obsolet geworden ist. (shrink)

William Blake and film noir apparently had the same problem with the urban landscape. While Blake attempts to create a mental world within language that would give a new face of religion to offer comfort to the inhabitants of London, film noir in Los Angeles finds noise and nihilism in the absence of faith. Both struggle with Immanuel Kant, who claimed that reason actively makes the world worthwhile. Hickey and Boggs, a relatively obscure neo-noir movie from 1972, represents the meaninglessness (...) and noise of language, bereft of the religion of Blake and the reason of Kant. (shrink)

A new technology paired with a viable business model will have disruptive impact on incumbent companies in a speci c market, if they do not re- evaluate and update their business models accord- ingly. As the Internet matures, Semantic Web technologies enable applications for meaning- based and dynamic ltering and processing of information, which has a disruptive impact on sci- enti c publishing. This article calls for publishers to adopt seman- tic technologies and emphasises the “need to in- clude a (...) semantic strategy in their business models” (Hawkins 2009). With a focus on journals as the ‘cash cow’ of scienti c publishers, it assembles de- bates about disruption and general tendencies in scienti c publishing. An introduction to Semantic Web, Text Mining and Semantic Publishing is given as well as various examples of product developments, company partnerships and acquisitions related to semantic technologies. Finally, different ways of acquiring semantic annotation data and nancial aspects of semantic enhancements are discussed. (shrink)

Citation: Braun G, Hellwig MK, Byrnes WM (2007) Global Climate Change and Catholic Responsibility: Facts and Faith Response. Journal of Catholic Social Thought 4(2): 373-401. Abstract: The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that human activity is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to grow hotter, which is leading to global climate change. If current rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue, it is predicted that there will be dramatic changes, including flooding, more intense heat waves and storms, and an increase in (...) disease. Indigenous peoples and the poor will be most severely affected, as will Earth’s wild animals and plants, a quarter of which could become extinct in fifty years. We urgently need to switch to renewable (non-GHG emitting) energy sources, and try to live in a simpler, more sustainable way. In this article, a renewable energy expert, a biochemist, and a theologian have come together to describe the situation in which we find ourselves, and present ideas for a solution that incorporates Catholic social teaching. (shrink)

This entry provides an opinionated overview of central debates surrounding doxastic disagreement, focusing on doxastic states or attitudes such as beliefs and credences. It differentiates between various types of epistemologically significant disagreement based on the agents involved and the source of the disagreement. It also examines and evaluates current accounts of how peers should (rationally) address disagreement and highlights the fundamental principles that support these accounts.

Protochemistry. The Program of a Methodical Foundation of Chemistry. "Protochemistry" - in analogy to protophysics - is sketched as the program of a methodical foundation of chemistry. "Foundation" means to reconstruct the methods (both linguistic and poietic) which lead from the prescientific every-day-practice of mastering properties of substances to scientific theories of modern chemistry. Four types of chemical terms are distinguished, depending on different methods of definition and different areas of reference. Consequences of the program if realized are pointed out.

SummaryLeśniewski presented his logical systems in a way which conformed to his nominalism, so the question arises whether Leśniewski's logic can be given a natural formal semantics which, unlike current versions, avoids commitment to abstract entities. Building on hints in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I develop the idea of a way of meaning which is the basis for what I call combinatorial semantics. I then consider whether this commits us to abstract objects or an intensional metalogic.

This book offers a discussion of practical as well as theoretical autonomy.

Agricultural Enlightenment explores the economic underpinnings of the Enlightenment to argue the case that the expansion of the so-called knowledge economy in the second half of the eighteenth century powerfully influenced governments and all those who worked in agriculture, or who sought to derive profit from the productive use of the land.

The University of Warsaw has a splendid modern library with 60,000 m 2 of floor space. It resembles a shopping centre. The long and elegant modern building on ulica Dobra, on the low ground between the old University and the Vistula, was opened in 1998 replacing the previous hopelessly inadequate facilities. It has an imposing sequence of copper-green “great texts” on its front side in Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, Polish, music, and mathematics. These are international symbols, posting Warsaw’s claim (...) to international status. But inside, once one has passed the mall -like coffee-shop. (shrink)

Fundamental differences between current and past knowledge in the field of biotechnology mean that we now have at our disposal the means to irreversibly change what is meant by ‘human nature’. This paper explores some of the ethical issues that accompany the attempt to increase scientific control over the human genetic code in what amounts to a diminishing of difference and the reduction of human life to scientific explanations at the expense of spiritual, cultural and communal considerations. Within such a (...) limited view, the critical role of education is reduced in favour of promoting psychological efficiency, with the possibility of accelerating learning and increasing intellectual capacity through genetic manipulation. A major concern expressed in the paper is the fine line between corrective therapy and psychological enhancement: Who should be defining the normal range of human difference? And what degree of caution should be required in redesigning future generations? The unknown dangers inherent in the application of genetic technology to human life suggests that current precautions may not go far enough in recognising that education is a contestable field. (shrink)