This book offers an innovative defense of Wilfrid Sellar's notion of ideal truth. Sellars adopts two attractive ideas about truth: the pragmatist idea that the concept of truth cannot be understood independently from the norms and practices we find ourselves with and the realist idea that there is one ultimate truth about how the world is. Sellars is thus committed both to an immanent notion of truth and an ideal notion of truth. This book discusses these countervailing tendencies and tries (...) to reconcile them. The author's defense of Sellars's notion of truth minimizes problematic commitments while still being recognizably rooted in Sellars's texts. Additionally, the author defends several innovative claims with respect to Sellars's thinking, for example, about the relative unimportance of his controversial concept of pictorial adequacy and about the neglected significance of considerations concerning context-sensitive expressions in his thought. Wilfrid Sellars on Truth will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wilfrid Sellars, pragmatism, and questions about truth, naturalism, and scientific realism. (shrink)

In seiner Lehre vom Begriff, Urteil und Schluss behandelt Hegel die Gegenstände der traditionellen formalen Logik. In der Hegel-Forschung hat dieser Abschnitt der Wissenschaft der Logik vergleichsweise wenig Aufmerksamkeit gefunden. Der hier angezeigte Band erschließt jenen Abschnitt vor dem Hintergrund der gesamten Wissenschaft der Logik und problematisiert Hegels Ausführungen sowohl hinsichtlich der immanenten Nachvollziehbarkeit des Gedankens als auch unter aktuellen systematischen Gesichtspunkten. Der Band vereinigt, der Gliederung des Hegelschen Textes folgend, dreizehn thematisch abgestimmte Beiträge zu einem kooperativen Kommentar, der durch (...) eine Auswahlbibliographie ergänzt wird. (shrink)

Cognitive failures are lapses in attention, cognition, and actions that everybody experiences in everyday life. Self-reports are mainly used for assessment but those instruments are memory-biased and more related to personality aspects than to actual behavior. Ambulatory assessment is already used for capturing emotions or addictive behavior, but not yet for cognitive failures. The newly developed Questionnaire for Cognitive Failures in Everyday Life was applied via mobile phones wherein an acoustic signal asked participants 4 times daily to answer 13 questions (...) for 1 week. The new instrument showed satisfying reliability and was compared with a self-report method in terms of correlations with cognitive abilities , personality traits, and demographical aspects. Although further validation is needed, first results are promising and eKFA enriches cognitive failures research. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Molekulargenetik bietet seit ein paar Jahren völlig neue Zugänge zur menschlichen Vergangenheit. Das noch junge und sehr dynamische Forschungsfeld der Archäogenetik nimmt für sich in Anspruch, Geschichte schreiben zu können, und zwar über alte DNA. Durch zahlreiche beachtenswerte Veröffentlichungen hat es viel Aufmerksamkeit erzeugt und erfahren – nicht nur im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs, sondern auch in den Medien. Allerdings erfährt die mediale Berichterstattung von der Forschung bisher wenig Beachtung. Auch der Forumsbeitrag kann dieses Desiderat nicht beheben, sucht aber – mit (...) einem exemplarischen Blick auf die Presseberichterstattung – erste Tendenzen einzufangen. Dies geschieht anhand von drei Thesen, sie lauten: Erfolgsgeschichten erzählen, Grenzen ziehen und konformistisch schreiben.In recent years molecular genetics has provided a completely new approach/access to the human past. The still new and quite dynamic research field of archaeogenetics claims to be able to write history using ancient DNA. Through numerous remarkable publications it has generated and received much interest not only in scientific discourse but also in the media. So far, however, scientists have not paid much attention to this coverage–a research desideratum this paper cannot resolve. But by looking at selected press clippings it seeks to capture first trends according to the following three theses: telling success stories, drawing boundaries, and writing in a conformist manner. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 37, Issue 1, pp 61 - 94 Interchanges between political, juridical and theological thought in the early modern period have been studied extensively during the past decades. Less light has been cast on the corresponding interrelations between politico-juridical thought and biblical hermeneutics. However, this issue deserves some attention, too, as the following case study on Hugo Grotius wants to show by pointing to the mutual adjustment of juridical, theological and biblical arguments in the progress of the core (...) semantics of Grotius’s natural law theory from _De iure praedae_ to _De iure belli ac pacis._. (shrink)

In "The Subtle Body," Stefanie Syman tells the surprising story of yoga's transformation from a centuries-old spiritual discipline to a multibillion-dollar American industry.

My paper is concerned with the relation between ought-statements and intentions in Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy. According to an entrenched view in Sellars scholarship, Sellars considers ought-statements as expressions of we-intentions. The aim of my paper is to question this reading and to propose an alternative. According to this alternative reading of Sellars, ought-statements are metalinguistic statements about the implication relations between intentions. I show that the entrenched understanding faces many unacknowledged problems and generates incompatibilities with Sellars’s commitments about intentions. I (...) argue that the alternative account can help to resolve these problems. A second reason in support of the alternative understanding of Sellars is provided by historical considerations. I argue that my alternative account can be discerned in Sellars’s most developed views about intentions and ought-statements. I also discuss problems and questions which the alternative reading itself faces. (shrink)

The distinction between the manifest and the scientific image of man- in-the-world is widely seen as crucial to Wilfrid Sellars's philosophical work. The present essay agrees with this view. It contends, however, that precisely because the distinction is important, we should not hurry to a quick and superficial understanding of it. The essay identifies several oversimplifications that can be found in the literature on the topic and argues that they are at least partly rooted in too rigid a view of (...) the role that the two-image distinction plays in Sellars's philosophy. It shows that this rigid approach is quite common in the secondary literature, either explicitly or by implication. It then presents a more cautious, flexible approach to the problem of the two images and explains why this approach is fruitful on the basis of textual evidence, along with the overall advantages of interpreting Sellars's thought as a whole. (shrink)

This paper presents Christian Wolff’s argument on the evidence of metaphysical principles as expounded in his article Directive notions and the true use of the first science (1729). This article was a central and yet forgotten reference for those who responded to the 1762/1763 academy questions such as Kant. Wolff here asserts that metaphysics has a kind of certainty that is equal or even superior to mathematics and that it communicates such certainty to the remaining sciences. It is this Wolffian (...) thesis that Kant attacked in 1763. A closer reading allows to acknowledge more philosophical premises of Wolff’s argument. Wolff’s thesis on the mathematical certainty of metaphysics inverts the former order of priorities between metaphysics (ontology) and mathematics. According to Wolff (who here seemed to be influenced by Euclides’ geometry), metaphysical notions are at the foundation of mathematical and logical rules. Notions such as “identity”, “thing”, “possibility” etc. have a “directive” or methodical status : they direct the mind searching the truth. Together, these notions constitute a modern and “architectonic” ontology. This framework shows the methodological continuity between Wolff and Kant. Even though Kant contested the form of Wolff’s system, his response still formed part of the general program sketched by Wolff. Kant still attempted to found some kind of architectonic metaphysics containing a table of directive concepts. From this viewpoint, Kant owes more to Wolff than what has been commonly assumed, and the deep and complex debate between the two thinkers calls for more attention. (shrink)

On January 22, 2002, California Governor Gray Davis released the state's long-anticipated, proposed regulations establishing hospital nurse-to-patient ratio requirements. The Safe Staffing Law mandating minimum ratios was enacted in October 1999 in response to legislators concerns that [q]uality of patient care is jeopardized because of staffing changes implemented in response to managed care. While the law was scheduled to take effect by January 1, 2002, conflict within the medical community regarding appropriate ratios slowed down the rulemaking process. Lawmakers now anticipate (...) that the rule will be implemented by January 2003. Approximately 5,000 new nurses will need to be hired for California's hospitals to come into compliance with the proposed regulation. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophical system joins issues that have often been regarded as incompatible or at least in mutual tension. Two of these are his holistic approach to language and knowledge on the one hand and his realism on the other hand. In my paper I first outline this tension and then present a number of steps, including the rejection of semantic relations, picturing and the defense of realism, which can help us to accommodate it. I highlight the payoff of these (...) steps for the question to be solved. In the last part of the paper I detect new and more refined tensions revealed by Sellars’ solution. I identify possible dissonances between his Kantian and his naturalist treatment of causality as well as between his two ways of conceiving of language arguing that these new questions furnish a more interesting approach to our initial problem. (shrink)

Die Beiträge des Bandes befassen sich in disziplinärer und interdisziplinärer Perspektive aus Literaturwissenschaft, Kunstgeschichte und Musikwissenschaft mit den Ästhetiken pluraler Autorschaft. Der Band zielt darauf, plurale Autorschaft in der Vormoderne als Koordinate einer Anderen Ästhetik zu erschließen und kulturgeschichtlich zu kontextualisieren. Dabei fokussiert der Band zwei Leitfragen: Welche Formen pluraler Autorschaft gibt es in der Vormoderne, und wie werden diese gemeinschaftlichen Schaffensprozesse ästhetischer Akte und Artefakte reflektiert? Wie wirken sich gemeinschaftliche Schaffensprozesse auf die ästhetische Faktur sowie die Funktion, Bedeutung und (...) Rezeption eines Artefakts aus? Die zweite Frage schließt Aspekte wie die materielle Produktion von Texten und Bildern ebenso ein wie etwa den Status anonymer Werke und Referenzen auf göttliche Co-Autorschaft. Die Beiträge untersuchen den historischen Mehrwert gemeinschaftlicher Autorschaft, wobei sie auch Paratextualität und Intermedialität sowie ökonomische Erwägungen bei der Produktion und Rezeption ästhetischer Artefakte berücksichtigen. (shrink)

Based on a qualitative study of 48 teenage mothers living in the Denver metropolitan area, this research examines the loss of multiple attachments, including mothers, siblings, and other extended family members and friends, among African American and Latina girls who become young mothers. Through life history narratives, this article explores the isolating effects of teen motherhood on the relational world of young mothers and the transition to “forced autonomy” that emerges out of the relationship strains in the teen mothers’ lives. (...) Faced with ruptures in significant childhood attachments and strains in the mother–daughter bond, young mothers develop strategies of accommodation to cope with the disruptions to connectivity and the demands of forced autonomy that are the result of early motherhood. These findings are interpreted through the frame of self-in-relation theory as this theoretical perspective has been informed by the scholarship on race and ethnicity. In reengaging the discourse on race, class, and gender, our findings contribute to the field in a number of significant and related ways: first, through an investigation into relationship loss and repair among teen mothers; second, by addressing the conditions under which teen mothers gain acceptance in their families; and third, in applying self-in-relation theory to the experience of adolescent girls of color whose relational lives are disrupted by the stigma and adversity of teen motherhood. (shrink)

For three centuries, concepts of the state have been animated by one of the most powerful metaphors in politics: the body politic, a claustrophobic and bounded image of sovereignty. Climate change, neoliberalism, mass migration, and other aspects of the late Anthropocene have increasingly revealed the limitations of this metaphor. Just as the human body is not whole and separate from other bodies--comprising microbes, bacteria, water, and radioactive isotopes--Stefanie R. Fishel argues that the body politic of the state exists in (...) dense entanglement with other communities and forms of life. Drawing on insights from continental philosophy, science and technology studies, and international relations theory, this path-breaking book critiques the concept of the body politic on the grounds of its very materiality. Fishel both redefines and extends the metaphor of the body politic and its role in understanding an increasingly posthuman, globalized world politics. By conceiving of bodies and states as lively vessels, living harmoniously with multiplicity and the biosphere, she argues that a radical shift in metaphors can challenge a politics based on fear to open new forms of global political practice and community. Reframing the concept of the body politic to accommodate greater levels of complexity, Fishel suggests, will result in new configurations for the political and social organization necessary to build a world in which the planet's inhabitants do not merely live but actively thrive. (shrink)

Response to Don Baxter, Don Garrett and Jennifer Marusic regarding my book Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects; initially delivered at the 2016 Hume Conference in Sydney, Australia as part of the Author Meets Critics session.

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, new anatomical investigations of the brain and the nervous system, together with a renewed interest in comparative anatomy, allowed doctors and philosophers to ground their theories on sense perception, the emergence of human intelligence, and the soul/body relationship in modern science. They investigated the anatomical structures and the physiological processes underlying the rise, differentiation, and articulation of human cognitive activities, and looked for the “anatomical roots” of the specificity of human intelligence when compared (...) to other forms of animal sensibility. This edited volume focuses on medical and philosophical debates on human intelligence and animal perception in the early modern age, providing fresh insights into the influence of medical discourse on the rise of modern philosophical anthropology. Contributions from distinguished historians of philosophy and medicine focus on sixteenth-century zoological, psychological, and embryological discourses on man; the impact of mechanism and comparative anatomy on philosophical conceptions of body and soul; and the key status of sensibility in the medical and philosophical enlightenment. (shrink)

Recuperating the sibling -- Sibling logic -- Fraternity and revolution -- The shadows of fraternity -- Economizing desire : the sibling (in) law -- Genealogical sciences -- Living languages : comparative philology and evolution -- The east comes home : race and religion.

In the Iambs of Gregory of Nazianzus occur many hiatuses: this might suggest that his verses had been composed with carelessness. In fact, if we examine the various kinds of hiatuses, we notice that some of them should not be considered as such, because they occur after words, or along with iuncturae, that usually admit them. There remains, however, a considerable number of hiatus in caesura. The article strives to demonstrate that these hiatuses are due to the imitation of the (...) well-known hiatus in trocaic caesura in the hexameter, which was allowed since Homer’s age. As a matter of fact, in some cases, the same words that produce a hiatus after a trochaic caesura in Homer show an identical one after a caesura in Gregory’s trimeters. Moreover, hexameter and iambic trimeter were frequently juxtaposed by the late ancient metric-grammatical tradition. The article further analyzes the occurence of the hiatus in caesura in the Byzantine dodecasyllables, which, among other reasons, might be due also to the influence of Gregory in Byzantine poetry. (shrink)

Der Band widmet sich den Spezifika des Verhältnisses zwischen Religion, Ethik und Politik in der modernen Gesellschaft. Die versammelten Beiträge klären insbesondere, welche inhaltlichen Verbindungen und institutionellen Trennlinien der (säkulare) demokratische Rechtsstaat erlaubt bzw. auch verlangt. Ob die Politik dabei ihre eigene "Moral" ausbilden muss, weil die ethische und religiöse Kardinalfrage nach dem "guten" Leben ihren Bereich überfordert, wird anhand von zahlreichen aktuellen religionspolitischen Problemkreisen erörtert."-- Back cover.