Autism provides a model for exploring the nature of self‐consciousness: self‐consciousness requires the ability to reflect on mental states, and autism is a disorder with a specific impairment in the neurocognitive mechanism underlying this ability. Experimental studies of normal and abnormal development suggest that the abilities to attribute mental states to self and to others are closely related. Thus inability to pass standard ‘theory of mind’ tests, which refer to others’ false beliefs, may imply lack of self‐consciousness. Individuals who persistently (...) fail these tests may, in the extreme, be unable to reflect on their intentions or to anticipate their own actions. In contrast, individuals with high‐functioning autism or Asperger syndrome often possess a late‐acquired, explicit theory of mind, which appears to be the result of effortful learning. An experimental study with three people with Asperger syndrome suggested that level of performance on standard theory of mind tasks was strongly related to the ability to engage in introspection. Qualitative differences in the introspections of high‐functioning people with autism are also reflected in autobiographical accounts which may give a glimpse of what it is like to be autistic. (shrink)

Exploring the conceptual baseline of Parsons's sociology and maintaining focus on its links with 20th century history, this book sheds light on the requirements of analytical rigor in the social sciences through examination of the debates in which Parsons was engaged throughout his life. In addition to revisiting Parsons's extensive oeuvre, Uta Gerhardt takes up various themes in current research and theory - including social inequality, civic culture, and globalization - thus demonstrating what the conceptual approaches of Parsons can accomplish (...) today. (shrink)

Micro-phenomenology is an interview and analysis method for investigating subjective experience. As a research tool, it provides detailed descriptions of brief moments of any type of subjective experience and offers techniques for systematically comparing them. In this article, we use an auto-ethnographic approach to present and explore the method. The reader is invited to observe a dialogue between two authors that illustrates and comments on the planning, conducting and analysis of a pilot series of five micro-phenomenological interviews. All these interviews (...) asked experienced researchers of micro-phenomenology to browse their memories to identify one successful and one challenging instance of working with micro-phenomenology. The interview then focused on this reflective task to investigate whether applying the method to itself might reveal quality criteria. The article starts by presenting a shortened and edited version of the first of these interviews. Keeping the dialogue format, we then outline the micro-phenomenological analysis procedure by demonstrating its application to part of this data and corresponding passages of other interviews. We focus on one unexpected finding: interviewed researchers judge the quality of an interview in part based on a connection or contact between interviewer and interviewee. We discuss these results in the context of the means and intentions of the method and suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 1 Seiten: 197-204.

It is suggested (1) that motivation must not be overlooked, (2) that most social imitation does not involve novel behaviors, and (3) that newborn babies do imitate.

Einleitung-- Kapitel I: Politische Freiheit: Vom Begriff zur Erfahrbarkeit -- Kapitel II: Die politische Welt -- Kapitel III: Politisches Handeln -- Kapitel IV: Politisches Urteilen -- Schlussbetrachtung -- Literaturverzeichnis und ...

Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ participation in deliberation processes. However, research studies have pointed out that deliberation outcomes vary due to the participants’ sociodemographic differences. In this paper, we address this debate by quantitatively measuring different sociodemographic participant groups’ deliberation quality. By building an index of the quality of understanding, we analyze the quality of 1,991 postings on local political issues that participants contributed during the 2011 Zurich City debate. We defined five indicators for (...) deliberation quality: statement of reasons, proposals for solutions, respect, doubts, and reciprocity. The analysis confirms that the sociodemographic composition of the participants is of great importance for self-selected participation and deliberation quantity, but not for the deliberation quality. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to make a distinction between egocentrism and allocentrism in social cognition, based on the distinction that is made in visuo-spatial perception. We propose that it makes a difference to mentalizing whether the other person can be understood using an egocentric (‘‘you'') or an allocentric (‘‘he/ she/they'') stance. Within an egocentric stance, the other person is represented in relation to the self. By contrast, within an allocentric stance, the existence or mental state of the other person (...) needs to be represented as independent from the self. We suggest here that people with Asperger syndrome suffer from a disconnection between a strong naı¨ve egocentric stance and a highly abstract allocentric stance. We argue that the currently used distinction between first-person and third-person perspective-taking is orthogonal to the distinction between an egocentric and an allocentric stance and therefore cannot serve as a critical test of allocentrism. (shrink)

This paper discusses how facet-like structures occur as a commonplace feature in a variety of computer science disciplines as a means for structuring class hierarchies. The paper then focuses on a mathematical model for facets (and class hierarchies in general), called formal concept analysis, and discusses graphical representations of faceted systems based on this model.

In der Soziologie ist seit längerer Zeit ein zunehmendes Interesse an Architektur und Artefakten beobachtbar. Dabei wird daran erinnert, dass nicht nur immaterielle Zeichen, Symbole und Repräsentationen des Sozialen existieren, sondern auch Orte, Stoffe und Dinge. Diesen wird eine wichtige Rolle im sozialen Geschehen zugesprochen: Materiales erscheint als Träger von Erinnerungskulturen, als sozialer Akteur, Heilsvermittler, Medium von Repräsentation – kurz: als Bedingung, Beschränkung und Instrument sozialer Praxis. Dies gilt auch in Bezug auf Religion. Dennoch hat die Perspektive noch kaum Eingang (...) in die deutschsprachige Religionssoziologie gefunden. Dieser Band soll daher Anstoß sein für die Öffnung der Religionssoziologie in Richtung einer Soziologie des Materialen. (shrink)

Autism: Mind and Brain provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research on autism and highlights new techniques that will progress future understanding. With contributions from leaders in autism research, the book describes the latest advances, discusses ways forward for future research, and presents new techniques for understanding this complex disorder.

Many accounts in environmental ethics converge on relationality as the catalyst of humans' responsibility towards other-than-human beings. But what exactly is relationality and how can the amorphous notion be specified? In search of a conceptual basis for human-animal relations, I show how questions about the nature of intersubjectivity are entwined with questions about the nature of reality. In my approach to answering these questions, I connect empirical results, insights from Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and from Jakob von Uexküll's theory of _Umwelten_. (...) Based on this synthesis, I explain how beings endowed with radically different subjective experiences–what I call organisms' respective realities–are nevertheless capable of meaningfully relating to one another and have their minds "merge" in intersubjective encounters. I conclude that relationality is a "real" possibility for mediating ethical action. (shrink)

The goal of the study was to determine which aspects of interpersonal touch interactions lead to a positive or negative experience. Previous research has focused primarily on physical characteristics. We suggest that this may not be sufficient to fully capture the complexity of the experience. Specifically, we examined how fulfilment of psychological needs influences touch experiences and how this relates to physical touch characteristics and situational factors.In two mixed-method studies, participants described their most positive and most negative interpersonal touch experience (...) within a specific time frame. They reported fulfilment of nine needs, affect, intention, and reason for positivity/negativity, as well as the body part(s) touched, location, type of touch, interaction partner, and particular touch characteristics (e.g. humidity).Positive and negative touch experiences shared similar touch types, locations, and body parts touched, but differed in intended purpose and reasons. Overall, the valence of a touch experience could be predicted from fulfilment of relatedness, the interaction partner and initiator, and physical touch characteristics. Positive affect increased with need fulfilment, and negative affect decreased.The results highlight the importance of relatedness and reciprocity for the valence of touch, and emphasise the need to incorporate psychological needs in touch research. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Brian Rabern suggests a semantics for languages with two kinds of modality, standard Kripkean metaphysical modality as well as epistemic modality. This semantics presents an alternative to two-dimensionalism, which was developed in the last decades. Both Rabern’s semantics and two-dimensionalism are subject to a puzzle that Chalmers and Rabern, 210–224 2014) call the nesting problem. I will investigate how Rabern’s semantics answers this puzzle.

Un estudio de caso de investigación socio-ecológica realizado en Puerto Williams, Cabo de Hornos (Chile), revela que las personas pertenecientes a diferentes grupos socioculturales poseen una diversidad de perspectivas y relaciones con la naturaleza. Por ejemplo, los miembros de la Comunidad Indígena Yagán y los antiguos residentes (en su mayoría descendientes de colonos de principios del siglo XX), expresaron un fuerte sentimiento de pertenencia y hogar. Sin embargo, las personas identificadas con el uso de los recursos no tuvo respuestas positivas (...) respecto al sentimiento de hogar. Entre los entrevistados, el concepto de un territorio común presentó contrastes muy marcados. Aquellos que se identificaban con un tipo de relación de cultivo de la tierra favorecieron la propiedad privada sobre la pública. Para los entrevistados con una relación de tipo integrado con la naturaleza, la libertad de movimiento fue uno de los valores esenciales. Algunos de los entrevistados identificados con el uso de los recursos y con relaciones intelectuales y estéticas con la naturaleza, valoraron también de manera positiva la tierra como bien común. La aproximación utilizada en este estudio transforma las nociones polarizadas y dicotómicas en gradientes de perspectivas relacionadas a diferentes grados de ambientes ecológicos y culturales, locales y globales. La visión híbrida resultante de las perspectivas acerca de la naturaleza puede ser de utilidad en tiempos de cambio global, donde tanto escalas locales como globales contribuyen a identificar problemáticas asimétricas específicas, como también oportunidades de comunicación entre los diferentes grupos socioculturales. (shrink)

This article is drawn from research with women clergy and rabbis. As practitioners in leading congregations, the women have to work with their own liturgical traditions. However, they critique the traditions, and make them more inclusive where possible, by adapting words, or encouraging the wearing of liturgical garments. The women also adapt existing rituals, or write new liturgy to honour life events, often specific to women’s lives, for which there are no existing rituals. This is seen as continuous with pastoral (...) care and sometimes draws on shared experience as women. Many of these liturgies are carried out privately, while the women exercise a more traditional role in their congregations. (shrink)