Formal representations of values and norms are employed in several academic disciplines and specialties, such as economics, jurisprudence, decision theory and social choice theory. Sven Ove Hansson closely examines such foundational issues as the values of wholes and the values of their parts, the connections between values and norms, how values can be decision-guiding and the structure of normative codes with formal precision. Models of change in both preferences and norms are offered, as well as a method to base (...) the logic of norms on that of preferences. Hansson has developed a unified formal representation of values and norms that reflects both their static and their dynamic properties. This formalized treatment, carried out in terms of both informal value theory and precise logical detail, will contribute to the clarification of certain issues in the basic philosophical theory of values and norms. (shrink)

The concept of mentality in the context of today's post-pandemic society, its role in the development of historical and socio-postmodern scientific thought are analyzed. Its correlation with other categories has been determined, revealing phenomena that are close in meaning. Revealed the significance of the category of mentality for the study of the development of society.Mentality as a system is a categorical characteristic of a nation, and hence of a society, the core of which is a given nation. The study of (...) mentality allows us to understand the internal relationships in society identify the internal reasons for the development of society and do praxeological research. The analysis of mentality within the framework of social philosophy cannot be limited to a certain time period, this category characterizes the nation and society at the present stage, accumulating in itself all the historical influences and changes projected at the present.The article examines the phenomenon of mentality as a system of internal deep-psychological socio-cultural attitudes of the individual. The article considers and substantiates a mental approach to understanding the phenomena of socially individual life. The philosophical and educational aspects of the formation of personality mentality and the main "problematic sides" of modern education through the prism of the mental approach are actualized. (shrink)

Two types of measures of probabilistic uncertainty are introduced and investigated. Dispersion measures report how diffused the agent’s second-order probability distribution is over the range of first-order probabilities. Robustness measures reflect the extent to which the agent’s assessment of the prior (objective) probability of an event is perturbed by information about whether or not the event actually took place. The properties of both types of measures are investigated. The most obvious type of robustness measure is shown to coincide with one (...) of the major candidates for a dispersion measure, the mean square deviation measure. (shrink)

Attentional character is a way of thinking about what is relevant in a human life, what is meaningful and how it becomes so. This paper introduces the concept of attentional character through a redefinition of attentional capture as achievement. It looks freshly at the attentional capture debate in the current cognitive sciences literature through the lens of Aron Gurwitsch’s gestalt-phenomenology. Attentional character is defined as an initially limited capacity for attending in a given environment and is located within the sphere (...) of attention, primarily as an irrelevant centering in attending. (shrink)

In order to reduce the death toll of road traffic it is necessary to focus on how vehicles and roads can be improved. Like other dangerous machines, motor vehicles should be equipped with safety devices that prevent mistakes by the operator from leading to serious consequences. Speed limiters that prevent driving at illegal speeds would save many lives, and so would alcohol interlocks. Meshi Ori's proposal that most cars should be replaced by motorcycles would not lead to the moral improvement (...) that he hopes for. We need motor vehicles with better, not worse, protection of the driver and passengers than the cars presently in use. (shrink)

This VSD nugget considers how the small-scale effects of practice-based design activities can be sustained and scaled up to contribute to global societal change. Examining in particular the character of social networking activity, we discuss how the sustainability of an initiative is related to its ability to: (i) be scaled up and linked with like-minded initiatives; (ii) navigate diverse values; (iii) establish organizational structures beyond the scientific context; (iv) establish a voice in public discourse; and (v) identify and involve relevant (...) policy makers. (shrink)

Diese Ausgabe der Kategorienlehre Eduard von Hartmanns vereint alle drei Bande, die 1923 von Fritz Kern unter Beachtung der Verfasserhandschrift herausgegeben wurden. Im Mittelpunkt seiner Lehre steht fur Hartmann der Begriff der Kategorie, mit dem er eine unbewusste Intellektualfunktion von bestimmter Art und Weise oder eine unbewusste logische Determination, die eine bestimmte Beziehung setzt, bezeichnet. In den Kategorien der Sinnlichkeit" (erster Band), den Kategorien des reflektierenden Denkens" (zweiter Band) und den Kategorien des spekulativen Denkens" (dritter Band) werden die Kategorien (...) sodann erstens in der subjektiv idealen, zweitens in der objektiv realen und drittens in der metaphysischen Sphare behandelt. Demgemass bietet Hartmanns Werk mit dem ersten Band eine Erkenntnistheorie am Leitfaden der Kategorien, mit dem zweiten Band eine kategoriale Grundlegung der Naturphilosophie und mit dem dritten Band schliesslich eine Metaphysik. Unverandertes Reprint der Ausgabe von 1923.". (shrink)

Unintended negative outcomes on child behavior due to lockdown and home confinement following the corona virus disease pandemic needs highlighting to effectively address these issues in the current and future health crises. In this sub-study of the ODIN-study, the objectives were to determine whether the Danish lockdown and home confinement following the COVID-19 pandemic affected changes in emotional-behavioral functioning of pre-school-aged children using the validated Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire answered by parents shortly before lockdown and 3 weeks into lockdown, and (...) moreover, to examine whether baseline family and social characteristics could predict change in child emotional-behavioral functioning during lockdown. Parents of 40 children with a mean age of 5.0 completed the baseline questionnaire and the lockdown follow-up questionnaire. The SDQ-Total difficulties score and Prosocial Behavioral score changed significantly from pre- to lockdown [SDQ-TD mean: 6.0 and 7.9; P = 0.02, respectively and PSB mean: 8.5 and 7.9; P = 0.03, respectively]. Attending leisure time activities before lockdown was a predicting factor of changes to the worse in the children’s SDQ-TD scores, with a mean difference in SDQ-TD between those with and without activities of 3.16 ; P = 0.03. In conclusion, the study showed a modest decrease in child-emotional behavioral functioning during the COVID-19 lockdown, potentially due to parental stress. Although these results might not be generalizable due to small sample size and selected population, the results point to a need of a greater awareness of child mental wellbeing during a lockdown situation. (shrink)

This paper examines how the riparian vegetation of perennial and ephemeral rivers systems in the semi-arid, winter rainfall region of South Africa has changed over time. Using an environmental history approach we assess the extent of change in plant cover at 32 sites using repeat photographs that cover a time span of 36-113 years. The results indicate that in the majority of sites there has been a significant increase in cover of riparian vegetation in both the channel beds and adjacent (...) floodplain environments. The most important species to have increased in cover across the region is Acacia karroo. We interpret the findings in the context of historical changes in climate and land use practices. Damage to riparian vegetation caused by mega-herbivores probably ceased sometime during the early 19th century as did scouring events related to large floods that occurred at regular intervals from the 15th to early 20th centuries. Extensive cutting of riparian vegetation for charcoal and firewood has also declined over the last 150 years. Changes in the grazing history as well as increased abstraction and dam building along perennial rivers in the region also account for some of the changes observed in riparian vegetation during the second half of the 20th century. Predictions of climate change related to global warming anticipate increased drought events with the subsequent loss of species and habitats in the study area. The evidence presented here suggests that an awareness of the region's historical ecology should be considered more carefully in the modelling and formulation of future climate change predictions as well as in the understanding of climate change impacts over time frames of decades and centuries. (shrink)

This collection presents the English-language reader for the first time with essays that are representative of Bernstein's much-neglected revisionist period, 1901-1921. Bernstein himself suggested that this later work included significant new elements, indicating further progress in his liberal-socialist theory. Bernstein's later work acquires additional significance in light of the events of 1989, which have discredited not only Marxism-Leninism, but revolutionary Marxist theory in general, thus making the reevaluation of Bernstein's revisionism a worthwhile experience.

Sven Bernecker presents an analysis of the concept of propositional (or factual) memory, and examines a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues crucial to the understanding of memory. -/- Bernecker argues that memory, unlike knowledge, implies neither belief nor justification. There are instances where memory, though hitting the mark of truth, succeeds in an epistemically defective way. This book shows that, contrary to received wisdom in epistemology, memory not only preserves epistemic features generated by other epistemic sources but also (...) functions as a source of justification and knowledge. According to the causal theory of memory argued for in this book, the dependence of memory states on past representations supports counterfactuals of the form: if the subject hadn't represented a given proposition in the past he wouldn't represent it in the present. The book argues for a version of content externalism whereupon the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past physical or social environment. Moreover, Bernecker shows that memory doesn't require identity, but only similarity, of past and present attitudes and contents. The notion of content similarity is explicated in terms of the entailment relation. (shrink)