Dissociative identity disorder is a dissociative disorder that gained a significant rise in the past few decades. There has been less than 50 DID cases recorded between 1922 and 1972, while 20,000 cases are recorded by 1990. Therefore, it becomes of great significant to assess the various concepts related to DID to further understand the disorder. The current review has a goal of understanding whether an individual suffering from DID is legally responsible for the committed crime, and whether or not (...) he or she can be considered competent to stand trial. These two questions are to be raised in understanding DID, by first shedding a light on the nature of the disorder and second by examining the past legal case examples. Despite the very nature of the disorder is characterized by dissociative amnesia and the fact that the host personality may have limited or no contact with the alters, there is no consensus within the legal system whether the DID patients should be responsible for their actions. Further to that, courts generally deny the insanity claims for DID suffering patients. In conclusion, more studies in the field are suggested to incorporate primary data into research, as the extensive reliance on secondary data forces us to believe the conclusions that were previously made, and no opportunity to verify those conclusions is present. (shrink)

Von 1925 bis 1928 wurden im Berliner J. M. Spaeth-Verlag unter der Leitung von Hans Rosenkranz eine Reihe von Werken seinerzeit eher unbekannter, in der Retrospektive jedoch signifikanter Autoren der Zwischenkriegszeit publiziert. Der Beitrag thematisiert Rosenkranz als jungen Verleger und Bewunderer Stefan Zweigs. Er entwirft auf Grundlage der Archivüberlieferung einen neuen Blick auf die Geschichte des Unternehmens und kommentiert das damit verbundene literarische Programm: Welche wichtigen verlegerischen Projekte wurden in jener kurzen Zeit unternommen? Welche Rolle hatte Stefan Zweig für das (...) Zustandekommen einiger Titel und besonders in den letzten Wochen der Verlagsexistenz? Inwiefern lässt sich Programmgestaltung und ökonomische Entwicklung von J. M. Spaeth als paradigmatisch für jüdische Verlage in der Weimarer Republik verstehen? Dazu wird erstmals das Scheitern des Unternehmens während der „Bücherkrise“ Ende der 1920er Jahre aus den Quellen rekonstruiert. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Stefan Sienkiewicz analyses five argument forms which are central to Pyrrhonian scepticism, as expressed in the writings of Sextus Empiricus. In particular, Sienkiewicz distinguishes between two different perspectives of the sceptic and his dogmatic opponent, and interprets the five modes of scepticism from both viewpoints.

Polish philosophy of science has been the beneficiary of three powerful creative streams of scientific and philosophical thought. First and fore­ most was the Lwow-Warsaw school of Polish analytical philosophy founded by Twardowski and continued in their several ways by Les­ niewski, Lukasiewicz, and Tarski, the great mathematical and logical philosophers, by Kotarbinski, probably the most distinguished teacher, public figure, and culturally influential philosopher of the inter-war and post-war period, and by Ajdukiewicz, the linguistic philosopher who was intellectually sympathetic with (...) the anti-irrationalist (as he would say), logistic and meta-theoretical inquiries of the Vienna Circle. Second was independent and lively Polish Marxism, with its fine development of social research under Krzywicki, a social anthropologist and younger contemporary of Engels, and then after the war the economist Lange, the philosophers Schaff, Kolakowski, Baczko, and many others. Finally there has been a wide range of philosophical, scientific and humanistic scholar­ ship which lends its various qualities to the understanding of both the logic of science and the historical situation of the sciences: we mention only that great and humane physicist Infeld, the phenomenologist with deep epistemological interest Ingarden, the historian of scientific ideas Zawirski, the historian of philosophy and aesthetics Tatarkiewicz, and the mathematical logicians such as Mostowski and Szaniawski. (shrink)

In a recent article, Emanuel Rutten defends his Modal-Epistemic Argument (MEA) for the existence of God against various objections that I raised against it. In this article, I observe that Rutten’s defence fails for various reasons. Most notably though, the defence is self-undermining: the very claims that Rutten argues for in his defence yield novel counterexamples to the first premise of the MEA.

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Was Marxism a variety of German Idealist self-actualization in economic form? A deeply flawed blueprint for social engineering? A catechism for post-colonial insurgencies? the intellectual foundations of modern social democracy? In this wide ranging summation, Sullivan tackles the multi-tentacled reach of Marx's legacy, and explores both the limits and the lasting significance of his ideas. Structured around three obstacles to freedom - poverty, corruption and banality - the work engages both Marx and his critics in addressing unresolved issues of the (...) current social and political order. As such, the work, after two introductory chapters, leaves behind Marxology and its familiar cast of characters (Bernstein, Kautsky, Adorno, Lukacs, Fanon, Horkheimer, Marcuse, etc.) to address both neo-Marxist and non-Marxist interpretations of these obstacles. These include growth-led poverty alleviation, human capital theory, current debates on rent-seeking and public choice theory, weaknesses in Frankfurt School approaches to mass culture, and emerging trends in cyberspace and leisure consumption. Marx for a Post-Communist Era is credited as a foundational theoretical source in a wide range of contemporary studies. Some examples include a government-sponsored anti-corruption report in Peru, a study of neoliberalism and education reform in the UK, and an urban planning essay on museum spaces and the public good. (shrink)

The subject of my dissertation is "rationality". In this book I undertake a comprehensive, systematic and independent treatment of the problem of rationality. This furthers progress toward a general theory of rationality, one that represents and defends a uniform conception of reason. The structure and general outline are as follows: Part I: General Definition of the Concept; Part II: Rationality in the Theoretical Realm; Part III: Rationality in the Practical Realm (parts II and III are divided respectively into A. Relative (...) Reasons and B. Absolute Reasons); Part IV: Grounds for the Principle of Reason. My aim in this work is to prove that a conception of rationality as justification of our usage of language is more significant than has been classically recognized, without, however, reducing the concept of rationality. After a definition of the term is provided in the first chapter by means of language analysis, the following three questions are dealt with in the subsequent chapters: a) Exhaustion of rationality in relative reasons—i.e., is reasoning exhausted by reference to existing views and goals, or does rationality also exist in a strong sense? The latter would be the case if the views and goals referred to the relative conception must themselves be justified de novo. I argue that such an absolute justification of views and goals cannot be provided. To this end, in the theoretical domain, I discuss a question prominent in the debate over the rationality of worldviews, namely the question of whether the standards of theoretical rationality are merely culturally relative (chapter V.). Here I arrive at the position that standards of theoretical rationality are only transcultural insofar as there are goals which are not themselves culturally-dependent. With regard to practically fundamental goals, the core standards of modern science can be justified. This justification strategy therefore requires that such goals be established. In practical terms, first I address (in Chapter VII) the so-called "final justification" of norms problem. Here I discuss above all the transcendental-pragmatic proposal and the contractualist conception. According to my view, neither succeed in providing a final rational grounding for norms. That grounding pertains instead to the rationale for objectives, and Chapter VIII demonstrates that even a final justification of objectives is impossible. This does not mean, however, that a person's goals cannot be criticized as irrational. But the warrant in this case depends on the rules that govern the genesis of desires being accepted by the subject. b) If substantive rationality does not exist because no absolute grounding for opinions and goals can obtain, then the question of how strong or weak the concept of rationality is acquires further weight. On that basis, relative theoretical and practical rationality is examined in detail. I aim with this analysis of (relative) rationality to apprehend the structural parallelism between rationality in both the practical and the theoretical domain, and therefore to defend a uniform conception of reason or rationality. This is accomplished by identifying a concept that exhibits the same structure in both theoretical and practical domains: the term "rational" is applied to actions and opinions in order to claim, first of all, that they are "well-founded." For example, one must inquire into the precise rational justification for opinions or actions. To determine the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions required for an opinion or action to be rational, one must first provide a formal characterization of the rationality of those opinions or actions. What is to count as a rational ground can only be explained by formal procedures and results achievable via those procedures. To be more specific, I claim that the process of opinion formation and practical reflection is subject to rational justification based on internalist rules. The rules governing theoretical rationality can have their content transformed in a further move, if one takes the result of the process of rational opinion-formation as the product of an epistemological determination, that is, as a decision about which opinion to hold that is made on the basis of epistemological or prudential goals. Implicit in this position is the controversial idea that one can actually decide to believe something. The rules of practical reason are the rules that guide the rational selection of objectives and actions. The structural parallelism of theoretical and practical rationality consists, therefore, in the fact that both refer to mental processes that are controlled by rules which one freely accepts and follows. In both cases, these rules are to be understood as governing the rational choice of a mental or physical action. c) Therefore, the question of whether rationality—being rational—can in turn be grounded by reasons can be answered in the following way: The rules of rationality can only be justified with reference to a person’s goals, as the best strategy for achieving those goals. If someone does not desire the optimal realization of his goals, there is no other way of arguing directly for rationality. One can only attempt to demonstrate—if the person is open to argument—that it is typically in the person's own best interest to adhere to the rules of rationality. (shrink)

This paper issues a highly controversial point: is there possible that a concept of ‘revolution’ can legitimize the historical revolutionary action and, if yes, how could this be possible? This debate on revolution is a subsequent part of a larger puzzle: the hermeneutics of the historical fact. Roughly explained, the concept of ‘revolution’ is the major piece of a ’revolutionary rhetoric,’ which generates the interpretation of the historical fact. Samples are offered by means of the concept of ‘revolution’ issued by (...) modern historiography. The case focuses on three main parts: a brief debate on the concept of ‘revolution’ viewed by the apologists of the French Revolution and their adversaries; a critique of Marx’s and Lenin’s ideology of revolution; finally, an illustration of a rhetorical dismantle of ‘revolution’ at hand in Kenneth Burke’s comments on Marxist ‘revolution.’. (shrink)

The issue, which is at stake here, consists in analysing the modern view of ethics in the context of the social and cultural transformation of the status of the individual. The role of ethics in the history of the modern mind is strictly related to the struggle between liberal individualism and the ge- neric idea of “man,” presented as a social actor in a large political and ideological arena. As a matter of fact, beginning with Illuminism, the radical as- sumption (...) concerning the “human rights” has sev- ered two different directions of thought: 1) The theory of human rights, which are immediately and unconditionally related to the preservation of both negative and positive rights of the individual; 2) the Hegelian and Post-Hegelian view (especially Marxism) – the social and political liberty of the indi- vidual is protected only by the direct intervention of the State. Thus, introducing the traditional concept of “virtue” – following Alasdair MacIntyre’s theory on traditional virtues – into the arena of the modern ethics debate is seen at first as an adven- turous task, but finally, as a possible solution – the neo-Aristotelian view of virtues could be considered as a positive response to the more increasing crisis of traditional values in our society. (shrink)

At present, the theoretical approaches of Baumgarten and Kant continue to constitute the framework for discussing the nature of aesthetic judgments about art, including the question of what such judgments are really articulating. In distinction to those two eighteenth-century theorists, today we would largely avoid an assumption that aesthetic judgments necessarily attribute beauty to the objects being judged; we would as a rule take a far more complex approach to the topic. But whatever we say about art, even today many (...) theorists wish to ground aesthetic judgments in particularities of the aesthetic object, like Baumgarten, or in specific moments of the aesthetic experience, like Kant. (shrink)

Though the concept of ‘stylized fact’ plays an important role in the economic literature, there is little analysis of the definition and evaluative use of the term. A permissive account of stylized facts is developed which focuses on their mediating role between models and empirical evidence. The mediation relationship restricts stylized facts by requiring concrete empirical targets. On the other hand, there is much legitimate diversity within the permissive account; key dimensions of diversity are argued to be the part of (...) the model targeted (explanans vs. explanandum) and degree of partiality of correspondence. The use of stylized fact in model evaluation points to the downside of stylization: decreased ability to support strong claims about particular targets. In the final analysis, the role of stylized facts in model-based explanation depends on the view taken of the relative importance of generality and empirical adequacy. (shrink)

A promising recent development in molecular biology involves viewing the genome as a miniecosystem, where genetic elements are compared to organisms and the surrounding cellular and genomic structures are regarded as the local environment. Here we critically evaluate the prospects of Ecological Neutral Theory, a popular model in ecology, as it applies at the genomic level. This assessment requires an overview of the controversy surrounding neutral models in community ecology. In particular, we discuss the limitations of using ENT both as (...) an explanation of community dynamics and as a null hypothesis. We then analyze a case study in which ENT has been applied to genomic data. Our central finding is that genetic elements do not conform to the requirements of ENT once its assumptions and limitations are made explicit. We further compare this genome-level application of ENT to two other, more familiar approaches in genomics that rely on neutral mechanisms: Kimura’s Molecular Neutral Theory and Lynch’s Mutational Hazard Model. Interestingly, this comparison reveals that there are two distinct concepts of neutrality associated with these models which we dub ‘fitness-neutrality’ and ‘competitive neutrality’. This distinction helps to clarify the various roles for neutral models in genomics, for example, in explaining the evolution of genome size. (shrink)

Positron emission tomography is a frontiermedical technology that, in contrast to the othercomputer-assisted technologies providing anatomicalpictures, produces functional images. I argue that PETalso opens up an avenue for shifting from images back toanalysis of measurements. Admittedly, quantification of functionrequires structural constraints. I coined the emerginginterpretational framework quantitative anatomyin an attempt to conceptualize the PET merger betweenmeasuring and imaging, the two competing meansmedicine uses to examine the human body. Anatomyjustifies interpretations that fit the existingknowledge of a larger clinical audience, whilestatistical data (...) possess an unexplored potential tointroduce mathematical rigor in the evaluation offunction, but are still a black box for the majorityof clinicians. This epistemological change is beingcarried out by PET users in action as well as indiscourse. (shrink)

In the present chapter, the design of select margins of late medieval Old Norse manuscripts containing the Icelandic ‘Jónsbók’, ‘Kristinréttr Árna biskups’ and Norwegian ‘Landslǫg’ law codes is addressed. In particular, it discusses the size and fillings of margins in these codices and the relation to their modes of use by original clients and later owners. Although it is well-known that Scandinavian law manuscripts contain a large number of notes written by both original and later users, the particular use of (...) marginal spaces by original scribes and illuminators for glosses and other annotations and illuminations has scarcely been investigated to date. In my contribution, two distinctive features will be addressed: (1.) The different use of margins by Norwegian and Icelandic readers of the manuscripts, and (2.) the use of margins by illuminators surrounding the column(s) and incorporated initials. (shrink)

This book studies Thomas Aquians' treatise on happiness (STh I-II 1-5) with his "Summa Theologiae from a Lutheran theological perspective.

Fichtes >Reden an die deutsche NationRedenReden an die deutsche Nation.

The debate about global distributive justice is characterized by an often stark opposition between universalistic approaches, advocating an egalitarian global redistribution of wealth (Beitz, Pogge, Barry, Tan), and particularistic positions, aiming to justify a restriction of redistribution to the domestic community (D. Miller, R. Miller, Blake, Nagel, Rawls). I argue that an approach starting from the deliberative model of democracy (Habermas) can overcome this opposition. On the one hand, the increasingly global scope of economic interactions implies that the range of (...) individuals concerned with the redistribution of wealth should also be increasingly universal. On the other hand, the need for democratic deliberation refers to the fact that demands of justice should be contextual and should take into account the particular circumstances, needs and values of the people concerned. Both concerns can be realized simultaneously only within a multi-layered democratic system in which redistribution is a concern at the domestic, the international and the global level. (shrink)

This paper argues that Neil Walker’s analysis of the complementary relationship between democracy and constitutionalism remains one-sided. It focuses only on the incompleteness of democracy and the democracy-realizing function of constitutionalism rather than also taking into account the reverse complementary and constitution-realizing function of democracy. In this paper, I defend a fuller account that takes into account this mutual complementarity between democracy and constitutionalism. Such an alternative approach is consequential for Walker’s argument in two respects. In terms of the general (...) analysis of the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism, my adjusted approach leads to a defence of the Habermasian thesis of the co-originality of constitutionalism and democracy which is too quickly dismissed by Walker himself. A fuller appreciation of this co-originality suggests that the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy is perhaps, after all, more singularly complementary than Walker recognizes. In terms of the more specific analysis of the impact of globalization, this adjusted approach tilts the argument in favour of the critics of current practices of postnational constitutionalism. Without complementary postnational democratic structures, this constitutionalism remains problematic and potentially oppressive. (shrink)

The generalizing methods of philosophies achieve a popularity for a period of time, which may be extended or brief, during which their proponents and even their opponents may regard them as the cognitive presuppositions for the epoch. The same effect is achieved by the more exact scientific methodologies as they find fame outside the scientific circle and are treated by some as omnipotent discoveries with powers to heal all other disciplines which may be ailing. The limping disciplines, generally classified among (...) the humanities and discerned to be in trouble since the nineteenth century, are understandably envious of the seemingly invincible, favored scientific children of our time. For our era tends to worship quantifiable data and the principles and instruments for measuring and conceptualizing it. Thus semiotics and information theory, in hopes of acquiring the status of the sciences, have led aesthetic inquiry toward the currently popular scientism; but the limited cognitive scope of this methodology has not been recognized. Sociology of knowledge, however, forewarns us of the winds of fashion on cognitive paradigms. Where the inherent explanatory scope of a doctrine, system, or method is less than is believed according to the prevailing sociological patterns, a correction will eventually set in. And an important factor in overcoming the para-religious claims will be, precisely, the fundamental antinomical tendency of the human mind. Stefan Morawski, Research Professor at the Institute of Arts of the Polish Academy of Sciences, has lectured throughout the United States and is currently teaching at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. His works have appeared in a variety of languages: Marxism and Aesthetics: History of Ideas has been published in Spanish and Italian; Absolute and Form, in Polish, Italian, and French; and, in English, Inquiries into the Fundamentals of Aesthetics. (shrink)

In recent years combinations of tense and modality have moved intothe focus of logical research. From a philosophical point of view, logical systems combining tense and modality are of interest because these logics have a wide field of application in original philosophical issues, for example in the theory of causation, of action, etc. But until now only methods yielding completeness results for propositional languages have been developed. In view of philosophical applications, analogous results with respect to languages of predicate logic (...) are desirable, and in this paper I present two such results. The main developments in this area can be split into two directions, differing in the question whether the ordering of time is world-independent or not. Semantically, this difference appears in the discussion whether T x W-frames or Kamp-frames (resp. Ockham-frames) provide a suitable semantics for combinations of tense and modality. Here, two calculi are presented, the first adequate with respect to Kamp-semantics, the second to T x Wsemantics. (Both calculi contain an appropriate version of Gabbay's irreflexivity rule.) Furthermore, the proposed constructions of canonical frames simplify some of those which have hitherto been discussed. (shrink)

Is there any good reason to believe in Nietzsche's metaphysics even thought he himself claims that it is not "the truth" in correspondence with the world? According to Danto, Nietzsche's metaphysics is only valid for Nietzsche himself. However, this answer does not take into consideration Nietzsche's claim for the general superiority of his philosophy. Nietzsche's view seems inconsistent: on the one hand, he claimed all perspectives are equally false in respect to "the truth," but on the other, he regarded his (...) view as superior. This book explains in which respect Nietzshe justifies his claims, that Nietzsche's position is not inconsistent, and why consistency is important for him. (shrink)

Kann ein nicht-sprachliches Zeichen aus einer Menge nicht-sprachlicher Zeichen folgen? Lassen sich Beweise fuhren, deren Schritte nicht-sprachliche Reprasentationen sind? Konnen nicht-sprachliche Logiksysteme entwickelt werden, die den Sicherheitsanforderungen genugen, welche ublicherweise an sprachliche Systeme gestellt werden? Und wenn ja: Sind sie ebenso gut geeignet, um logische Probleme zu losen? In der Logik werden meist Propositionen oder Satze als Relata der logischen Folgerungsbeziehung behandelt. Diagramme, Bilder und andere nicht-sprachliche Zeichen spielen bisher nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. In dieser Einfuhrung werden einige grundlegende Fragen (...) zum logischen Status nicht-sprachlicher Zeichen motiviert, erlautert und untersucht. Logikkenntnisse werden nicht vorausgesetzt.". (shrink)