Beta‐oxidation of fatty acids and detoxification of reactive oxygen species are generally accepted as being fundamental functions of peroxisomes. Additionally, these pathways might have been the driving force favoring the selection of this compartment during eukaryotic evolution. Here we performed phylogenetic analyses of enzymes involved in beta‐oxidation of fatty acids in Bacteria, Eukaryota, and Archaea. These imply an alpha‐proteobacterial origin for three out of four enzymes. By integrating the enzymes' history into the contrasting models on the origin of eukaryotic cells, (...) we conclude that peroxisomes most likely evolved non‐symbiotically and subsequent to the acquisition of mitochondria in an archaeal host cell. (shrink)

This paper presents a simple argument against life being the product of design. The argument rests on three points. We can conceive of the debate in terms of likelihoods, in the technical sense – how probable the design hypothesis renders our evidence, versus how probable the competing Darwinian hypothesis renders that evidence. God, as traditionally conceived, had many more options by which to bring about life as we observe it than were available to natural selection. That is, the relevant parameters (...) were, in many cases, far more constrained under natural selection. Utterly mundane features of the world, like that the earth is very old, are actually powerful evidence that the world was not designed, since that outcome was optional on the design hypothesis but nearly inevitable on natural selection. (shrink)

What makes trust such a powerful concept? Is it merely that in trust the whole range of social forces that we know play together? Or is it that trust involves a peculiar element beyond those we can account for? While trust is an attractive and evocative concept that has gained increasing popularity across the social sciences, it remains elusive, its many facets and applications obscuring a clear overall vision of its essence. In this book, Guido Möllering reviews a broad range (...) of trust research and extracts three main perspectives adopted in the literature for understanding trust. Accordingly, trust is presented as a matter of reason, routine or reflexivity. While all these perspectives contribute something to our understanding of trust, Möllering shows that they imply, but cannot explain, ‘suspension’ – the leap of faith that is typical of trust. He therefore proposes a new direction in trust research that builds on existing perspectives but places the suspension of uncertainty and vulnerability at the heart of the concept of trust. Beyond a purely theoretical line of argument, the author discusses implications for empirical studies of trust and presents original case material that captures the experience of trust in terms of reason, routine, reflexivity and suspension. Möllering concludes by suggesting how the new approach can enhance the relevance of trust research and its contributions to broader research agendas concerning the constitution of positive expectations in the face of prevalent uncertainty and change at various levels in our economies and societies. The book is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of trust. It can serve as a general introduction for advanced students and scholars in the social sciences, especially in economics, sociology, psychology and management. For more experienced researchers, it is a challenging and provocative critique of the field and a new approach to understanding trust. (shrink)

We present a new road map for research on “How the Brain Got Language” that adopts an EvoDevoSocio perspective and highlights comparative neuroprimatology – the comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in extant monkeys and great apes – as providing a key grounding for hypotheses on the last common ancestor of humans and monkeys and chimpanzees and the processes which guided the evolution LCA-m → LCA-c → protohumans → H. sapiens. Such research constrains and is constrained by analysis of (...) the subsequent, primarily cultural, evolution of H. sapiens which yielded cultures involving the rich use of language. (shrink)

It is natural for those with permissive attitudes toward abortion to suppose that, if they have examined all of the arguments they know against abortion and have concluded that they fail, their moral deliberations are at an end. Surprisingly, this is not the case, as I argue. This is because the mere risk that one of those arguments succeeds can generate a moral reason that counts against the act. If this is so, then liberals may be mistaken about the morality (...) of abortion. However, conservatives who claim that considerations of risk rule out abortion in general are mistaken as well. Instead, risk-based considerations generate an important but not necessarily decisive reason to avoid abortion. The more general issue that emerges is how to accommodate fallibilism about practical judgment in our decision-making. (shrink)

The authors of this volume — all of them recognized representatives of a wide range of academic disciplines — agree that Locke’s work must have had a considerable influence both on English and German literature and the visual arts of Great Britain, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the perspective of interdisciplinarity and intertextuality, the essays presented here deal with Locke as a source of ideas for Archibald Alison, John Constable, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, Johann Timotheus (...) Hermes, William Hogarth, Immanuel Kant, Martin Knutzen, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, George Lillo, Edward Moore, Johann Gottwerth Müller, Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Richardson, John Ruskin, Joseph Spence, Laurence Sterne, J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Whately, among others. (shrink)

Empirical evidence indicates that bereaved spouses are surprisingly muted in their responses to their loss, and that after a few months many of the bereaved return to their emotional baseline. Psychologists think this is good news: resilience is adaptive, and we should welcome evidence that there is less suffering in the world. I explore various reasons we might have for regretting our resilience, both because of what resilience tells us about our own significance vis-à-vis loved ones, and because resilience may (...) render us incapable of comprehending how things really stand, valuewise. I also compare our actual dispositions to extreme alternatives (“sub-resilience” and “super-resilience”), and consider whether we might endorse (plain) resilience as a kind of mean. (shrink)

This book argues that political libertarianism can be grounded in widely shared, everyday moral beliefs--particularly in strictures against shifting our burdens onto others. It also seeks to connect these philosophical arguments with related work in economics, history, and politics for a wide-ranging discussion of political economy.

This article discusses how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) for sustainability manage the paradoxical tension between stakeholder inclusiveness and administrative efficiency. Drawing on qualitative data from a case study of a CSP focused on urban sustainability, we show how the inclusiveness–efficiency paradox unfolded throughout the studied collaboration. We discuss how the paradox reemerged in a different guise within each phase of the partnership and how three practices of paradox management helped actors to cope with the tension: “customized inviting” (during the formation phase), (...) “sequential including” (during the preparation phase), and “tailored instructing” (during the implementation phase). On the basis of these findings, we argue that (a) the paradox reoccurred throughout the phases of the CSP because the three paradox management practices accentuated boundaries, thereby helping to resolve the paradox temporarily while at the same time creating grounds for the paradox to resurface, and (b) that the three paradox management practices can be theorized as a special type of boundary work that “plays up” relevant differences between actor groups and thereby ensures collaboration. (shrink)

Normativität hat in den Sozialwissenschaften noch immer etwas Anrüchiges, fast Abschreckendes. Es gibt eine lange Traditionslinie in den Sozialwissenschaften, die versucht, ihre Disziplin gegenüber normativen Argumenten „sauber“ zu halten. Das wird in der Regel damit begründet, dass im wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisprozess Gesinnungsmotive nicht hilfreich sind und im Extremfall Ergebnisse verzerren. Befürworter normativer Sozialwissenschaften halten dagegen, dass die fehlende Thematisierung etwa von sozialen Ungleichheits- und Herrschaftsverhältnissen die Welt, so wie sie gerade ist, einmal mehr bestätigt – und das ist eben auch nicht (...) normfrei und kann es auch nicht sein, weil, so eine zentrale These des vorliegenden Bandes, Theorien notwendig mit normativen Bezügen behaftet sind. Damit ist das Spektrum der Positionen angedeutet, die in diesem Sammelband zu finden sind. Er hat einerseits das Ziel, normative Verwicklungen auch in den sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen aufzuspüren, die stärker auf die Idee einer wertfreien Wissenschaft verpflichtet sind. Andererseits werden Ansätze, die explizit herrschaftskritische Positionen vertreten, auf die Plausibilität ihrer normativen Setzungen hin überprüft. Die normativen Hintergründe sozialwissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung aufzuzeigen und eine Debatte über die normativen Bezüge der Sozialwissenschaften anzuregen ist das Anliegen dieses Bandes. (shrink)

This article explores how nuclear disaster narratives have both been informed by and articulated collective images of risk and uncertainty since the 1980s. Drawing on ideas from classical and affective narratology that are framed by a perspective informed by the sociology of knowledge, we examine three variations of narrating nuclear disasters in different media: (1) sociologist Charles Perrow’s detailed analysis of the Three Mile Island accident in his popular science book _Normal Accidents_ (1984), (2) Svetlana Alexievich’s _Chernobyl Prayer_ (1997), a (...) literary/journalistic account of the Chernobyl disaster that chronicles individuals’ experiences through eyewitness accounts, and (3) the television series _Chernobyl_ (2019), which, in a docufictional style, combines what is staged as an objective reconstruction of the unfolding of the disaster with subjective memories of those affected while reflecting on the incident’s larger political, scientific, and environmental contexts. We suggest that these three stories of nuclear incidents not only produce specific knowledges about the disaster in question but also address the fragility of knowledge systems and social structures as well as assessments of agency. As such, these narratives function as sites of mitigation that offer their readers/viewers certainty in times of crisis. (shrink)

Mit dieser Festschrift wird ein Gelehrter geehrt, dessen uberragendes juristisches Fachwissen sich immer mit einer weitgespannten Allgemeinbildung, insbesondere auf den Gebieten der Kunst, der Musik, der Literatur und vor allem auch der Theologie, verbunden hat. Zu seinem 70. Geburtstag am 19. September 2009 uberreichen Freunde, Kollegen und Wegbegleiter Achim Kramer damit einen spatsommerlichen Strauss unterschiedlicher fachlicher und literarischer Provenienz.".

Philosophy of Mental Representation Hugh Clapin (Ed.)Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002332 pages, ISBN: 0198250525 (pbk); $35.00In the cognitive science era, in which philosophers frequ...

Der protestantische Theologe Karl Girgensohn (1875–1925) ist 1903 mit seinem frühen Werk über das Wesen der Religion an die Öffentlichkeit getreten, welches einen starken religionsphilosophischen Standpunkt zum Ausdruck bringt. Kernüberlegung ist hierbei eine kognitive Theorie des Religiösen, in der die Gottesidee zentral ist. Unter Berücksichtigung der Biographie Girgensohns geht der vorliegende Beitrag auf diese frühe Studie zum Wesen der Religion ein und skizziert den Übergang des Autors von einem philosophischen zu einem experimentell-introspektiven Ansatz der Religiositätsforschung, welcher dann zum Fundament für (...) die Dorpater religionspsychologische Schule wurde. Basierend auf Girgensohns frühem Werk werden abschließend Implikationen für die heutige empirische Theologie vorgeschlagen.The Protestant theologian Karl Girgensohn (1875–1925) came to the public in 1903 with his early work on the nature of religion, which expresses a strong religious-philosophical standpoint. The core consideration here is a cognitive theory of the religious, in which the idea of God is central. Taking into account Girgensohn’s biography, the present contribution addresses this early study on the nature of religion and outlines the author’s transition from a philosophical to an experimental-introspective approach to religious research, which then became the foundation for the Dorpat School of the psychology of religion. Based on Girgensohn’s early work, implications for contemporary empirical theology are finally proposed. (shrink)

Most people don’t want their teachers, scientists, or journalists to be too ideological. Calling someone an “ideologue” isn’t a compliment. But what is ideology and why exactly is it a threat? I propose that ideology is fruitfully understood in terms of three ingredients: a basic moral claim, a worldview built on top of that claim, and the attempt to politicize this worldview by injecting it into social institutions. I further argue that the central danger of ideology is that activating these (...) three ingredients tends to undermine liberal social institutions. And yet a certain amount of ideology is both unavoidable and desirable, as I show, since it supplies us with important goods like social cohesion and mobilization. This means the best we can do is to try and set boundaries on ideology. (shrink)

Guo Xiang's (252-312) reading of the famous "Butterfly Dream" passage from the Zhuangzi differs significantly from modern readings, particularly those that follow the Giles translation. Guo Xiang's view is based on the assumption that the character of Zhuang Zhou has no recollection of his dream after awakening and therefore does not entertain doubts about what or who he really is. This leads to a specific understanding of the allegorical and philosophical meaning of the text that stands in contradistinction to most (...) modern interpretations. A translation of the Butterfly passage and commentary are appended. (shrink)

This article outlines a critical systems theory approach to the study of populism by arguing that populism is an avenue of contestation which assumes a distinct role and function in the existing constitution of the political system. Most notably, it is characterised by the re-entry of a popular sovereignty dimension within regular political procedures. By taking up a critical systems theory perspective, it becomes possible to more precisely distinguish populism from other forms of politics, such as oppositional politics, social movement (...) politics or procedural constitutional politics. Further, populism’s oscillation between democratic and authoritarian dynamics can be elucidated as an inversion which operates from within its political form. Finally, it is argued that the critical systems theory approach provides a more nuanced understanding of populism’s inherent problems and, consequently, moves beyond a blunt defence or rejection of populism as such. (shrink)

The rapid spread of judicially-enforced constitutional rights has been one of the most dramatic developments in modern law. This book argues that there is now a global model for how such rights should function, and develops an original, philosophically grounded, account of their nature and scope.

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism — and certain minority group rights in particular — make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity (...) and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world’s leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate. Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government’s giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives’ own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. In reply, some respondents reject Okin’s position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin’s focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays — expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions — are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today. The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir. (shrink)