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)

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)

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

Puts Schelling in conversation with twentieth-century continental philosophy.

In this book Uwe Steinhoff describes and explains the basic tenets of just war theory and gives a precise, succinct and highly critical account of its present status and of the most important and controversial current debates surrounding it. Rejecting certain in effect medieval assumptions of traditional just war theory and advancing a liberal outlook, Steinhoff argues that every single individual is a legitimate authority and has under certain circumstances the right to declare war on others or the state. He (...) also argues that the just cause cannot be established independently of the other criteria of jus ad bellum (the justification of entering a war), except for right intention, which he interprets more leniently than the tradition does. Turning to jus in bello (which governs the conduct of a war) he criticizes the Doctrine of Double Effect and concludes that insofar as wars kill innocents, and be it as "collateral damage", they cannot be just but at best justified as the lesser evil. Steinhoff gives particular attention to the question why soldiers, allegedly, are legitimate targets and civilians not. Discussing four approaches to the explanation of the difference he argues that the four principles underlying them all need to be taken into account and outlines how their weighing can proceed if applied to concrete cases. The resulting approach does not square the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets with the distinction between soldiers and civilians, which has extremely important consequences for the conduct of war. Finally, Steinhoff analyses the concept of terrorism and argues that some forms of "terrorism" are actually not terrorism at all and that even terrorism proper can under certain circumstances be justified. (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)

Confirmation bias is one of the most widely discussed epistemically problematic cognitions, challenging reliable belief formation and the correction of inaccurate views. Given its problematic nature, it remains unclear why the bias evolved and is still with us today. To offer an explanation, several philosophers and scientists have argued that the bias is in fact adaptive. I critically discuss three recent proposals of this kind before developing a novel alternative, what I call the ‘reality-matching account’. According to the account, confirmation (...) bias evolved because it helps us influence people and social structures so that they come to match our beliefs about them. This can result in significant developmental and epistemic benefits for us and other people, ensuring that over time we don’t become epistemically disconnected from social reality but can navigate it more easily. While that might not be the only evolved function of confirmation bias, it is an important one that has so far been neglected in the theorizing on the bias. (shrink)

To better navigate social interactions, we routinely (consciously or unconsciously) categorize people based on their distinctive features. One important way we do this is by ascribing political orientations to them. For example, based on certain behavioral cues, we might perceive someone as politically liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian, Marxist, anarchist, or fascist. Although such ascriptions may appear to be mere descriptions, I argue that they can have deeper, regulative effects on their targets, potentially politicizing and polarizing them in ways that remain (...) underexplored in research on political polarization. To capture this dynamic, I introduce the notion of ‘politicizing mindshaping,’ distinguish it from other types of politicization, and review evidence suggesting that politicizing mindshaping is likely common. Finally, I contend that the pernicious effects of politicizing mindshaping may currently be significantly underestimated. This is because, unlike in many other cases of social labeling, negativity in political labeling is, to some extent, widely tolerated – even encouraged – and largely unconstrained by social norms in democratic countries. (shrink)

_A new English translation of Schelling’s unfinished magnum opus, complete with a contextualizing introduction by the translator._.

Seven decades after his death, German Jewish writer, philosopher, and literary critic Walter Benjamin continues to fascinate and influence. Here Uwe Steiner offers a comprehensive and sophisticated introduction to the oeuvre of this intriguing theorist. Acknowledged only by a small circle of intellectuals during his lifetime, Benjamin is now a major figure whose work is essential to an understanding of modernity. Steiner traces the development of Benjamin’s thought chronologically through his writings on philosophy, literature, history, politics, the media, art, photography, (...) cinema, technology, and theology. Walter Benjamin reveals the essential coherence of its subject’s thinking while also analyzing the controversial or puzzling facets of Benjamin’s work. That coherence, Steiner contends, can best be appreciated by placing Benjamin in his proper context as a member of the German philosophical tradition and a participant in contemporary intellectual debates. As Benjamin’s writing attracts more and more readers in the English-speaking world, Walter Benjamin will be a valuable guide to this fascinating body of work. (shrink)

It is unknown to what extent medical researchers generalize study findings beyond their samples when their sample size, sample diversity, or knowledge of conditions that support external validity do not warrant it. It is also unknown to what extent medical researchers describe their results with precise quantifications or unquantified generalizations, i.e., generics, that can obscure variations between individuals. We therefore systematically reviewed all prospective studies (n = 533) published in the top four highest ranking medical journals, Lancet, New England Journal (...) of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the British Medical Journal (BMJ), from January 2022 to May 2023. We additionally reviewed all NEJM Journal Watch clinical research summaries (n = 143) published during the same time. Of all research articles reporting prospective studies, 52.5% included generalizations beyond specific national study populations, with the numbers of articles with generics varying significantly between journals (JAMA = 12%; Lancet = 77%) (p < 0.001, V = 0.48). There was no evidence that articles containing broader generalizations or generics were correlated with larger or more nationally diverse samples. Moreover, only 10.2% of articles with generalizations beyond specific national populations reported external validity strengthening factors that could potentially support such extrapolations. There was no evidence that original research articles and NEJM Journal Watch summaries intended for practitioners differed in their use of broad generalizations, including generics. Finally, from the journal with the highest citation impact, articles containing broader conclusions were correlated with more citations. Since there was no evidence that studies with generalizations beyond specific national study populations or with generics were associated with larger, more nationally diverse samples, or with reports of population similarity that may permit extensions of conclusions, our findings suggest that the generalizations in many articles were insufficiently supported. Caution against overly broad generalizations in medical research is warranted. (shrink)

Can AI developers be held epistemically responsible for the processing of their AI systems when these systems are epistemically opaque? And can explainable AI (XAI) provide public justificatory reasons for opaque AI systems’ outputs? Koskinen (2024) gives negative answers to both questions. Here, I respond to her and argue for affirmative answers. More generally, I suggest that when considering people’s uncertainty about the factors causally determining an opaque AI’s output, it might be worth keeping in mind that a degree of (...) uncertainty about conclusions is inevitable even in entirely human-based empirical science because in induction there’s always a risk of getting it wrong. Keeping this in mind may help appreciate that requiring full transparency from AI systems before epistemically trusting their outputs might be unusually (and potentially overly) demanding. (shrink)

McGowan argues “that ordinary utterances routinely enact norms without the speaker having or exercising any special authority” and thereby not “merely cause” but “constitute” harm if harm results from adherence to the enacted norms. The discovery of this “previously overlooked mechanism,” she claims, provides a potential justification for “further speech regulation.” Her argument is unsuccessful. She merely redefines concepts like “harm constitution” and “norm enactment” and fails to explain why speech that “constitutes” harm is legally or morally problematic and thus (...) an initially more plausible target for speech regulation than speech that “merely causes” harm. Even if she could explain that, however, her account would still be incapable of identifying cases where utterances “constitute harm.” This is so for two reasons. First, she provides neither analytical nor empirical criteria for deciding which so-called “s-norms” have been enacted by an “ordinary utterance.” Second, even if such criteria could be provided, there is no epistemically available means to distinguish whether harm has ensued due to adherence to the enacted s-norms or through other mechanisms. Given this lack of criteria and practical applicability, there is no way that this account could serve as a principled basis for speech regulation – it could only serve as a pretext for arbitrary censorship. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDot-probe studies usually find an attentional bias towards threatening stimuli only in anxious participants, but not in non-anxious participants. In the present study, we conducted two experiments to investigate whether attentional bias towards angry faces in unselected samples is moderated by the extent to which the current task requires social processing. In Experiment 1, participants performed a dot-probe task involving classification of either socially meaningful targets or meaningless targets. Targets were preceded by two photographic face cues, one angry and one (...) neutral. Angry face cues only produced significant cueing scores with socially meaningful targets, not with meaningless targets. In Experiment 2, participants classified only meaningful targets, which were either socially meaningful or not. Again, mean cue... (shrink)

O tema deste artigo é um texto apócrifo de W. G. Sebald, o ensaio "Europäische Peripherien" [Periferias Europeias], baseado em uma palestra proferida em fevereiro de 1992, em Tübingen. Esse ensaio ocupa um lugar especial na obra de Sebald, pois nele o autor se expressa mais resolutamente do que em qualquer outra ocasião sobre questões políticas, no que diz respeito tanto ao processo de unificação europeia quanto aos problemas fundamentais das sociedades ocidentais na transição para o século XXI. A partir (...) de uma leitura mais atenta, chego à conclusão de que esse ensaio, supostamente secundário, revela-se um importante pilar para reconstruir a interpretação profundamente melancólica que Sebald faz da história com base no conceito de uma “história natural da destruição”. Ao mesmo tempo, “Europäische Peripherien” permite reconhecer a importância de Mutation der Menschheit [Mutação da Humanidade], de Pierre Bertaux, como influência fundamental, até então não reconhecida, para o desenvolvimento da obra de Sebald.Palavras-chave: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “História natural da destruição”. Pierre Bertaux. AbstractThis article discusses the essay "Europäische Peripherien", a hitherto overlooked text by W.G. Sebald based on a lecture given in Tübingen in February 1992. The essay occupies a special position in Sebald's oeuvre, as the author positions himself more pronouncedly than anywhere else on political issues, both with regard to the process of European unification and to fundamental challenges of Western societies in the transition to the twenty-first century. In my close reading the supposedly insignificant essay proves to be an important text for a reconstruction of Sebald's deeply melancholic view of history as expressed in the concept of a "natural history of destruction". At the same time, "European Peripheries" allows us to acknowledge the importance of Pierre Bertaux’ Mutation der Menschheit as an undiscovered influence on the development of Sebald's oeuvre.Keywords: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “Natural history of destruction”. Pierre Bertaux. ORCIDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4825-1912. (shrink)

Abstract:Despite his ridicule of Schelling, Nietzsche’s thought is in much greater proximity to Schelling’s philosophy than he realized. This essay explores this surprising and mutually illuminating relationship and concludes by arguing that this unexpected resonance exposes a sensibility, both fundamental and practical, to approach the reigning ecological crisis.

Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 4-5.

Stellen Kondome einen potenten Schutz sowohl vor HIV als auch von anderen sexuell übertragbaren Infektionen (STIs) dar, und besteht außerdem ein barrierefreier Zugang zur HIV-Postexpositionsprophylaxe (PEP) (z. B. nach Kondom-Fatigue), muss präzise sondiert werden, wann die sich zunehmend etablierende HIV-Präexpositionsprophylaxe (PrEP) die bessere Wahl darstellt. Vor dem Hintergrund einer generalisierten everyone at risk-Annahme über MSM wird die PrEP zunehmend zu einem standard of care. Zwar kann kein Zweifel daran bestehen, dass dies für bestimmte MSM mit einem bestimmten Risikoprofil wünschenswert ist. (...) Es ist aber von Variabilitäten (z. B. casual condomless sex versus random condomless sex) auszugehen, die zur Vermeidung einer unverhältnismäßigen Medikalisierung berücksichtigt werden müssen. Im Spannungsfeld von hochpotenter HIV-Prävention und Medikalisierung insbesondere von Männern, die Sex mit Männern praktizieren, soll im Sinn einer Güterabwägung gefragt werden, wann genau eine PrEP (dauerhaft oder on demand) mehr Vorteile und weniger Nachteile bietet als der Gebrauch von Kondom oder PEP. Dazu gehört ein Fokus auf den aktuellen Stand der klinischen Forschung und ein Fokus auf die medizinethische Debatte. Die Medizingeschichte der Prävention und der HIV-Erkrankung erweist sich dabei als relevanter Erörterungszusammenhang für die weitgehend noch ausstehende ethische Untersuchung der PrEP. Methodisch basiert diese Arbeit auf einer Auswertung der interdisziplinären Fachliteratur über die HIV-Präexpositionsprophylaxe im Besonderen und über HIV-Prävention im Allgemeinen. Basierend auf den PRISMA (Prefered Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Guidelines wurden aus der Datenbank PubMed/MEDLINE solche Studien ausgewählt, die die aktuelle klinische Praxis der PrEP oder eine medizinethische Diskussion der PrEP zum Gegenstand haben. Auf der Basis dieser Literatur erfolgt eine diskursive Erörterung und Abwägung der verfügbaren Pros und Cons zur PrEP. Präventionsmaßnahmen treten regelmäßig als ambivalente Instrumente der Gesundheitsförderung zwischen Liberalisierung und Restringierung des Individuums hervor. Insgesamt bietet daher die PrEP on demand gegenüber der kontinuierlichen PrEP im Sinne der Personalisierung die Option einer individuellen Anpassung an konkretes Risikoverhalten. Auch im Sinne einer Güterabwägung hat die PrEP gewichtige Vorteile gegenüber der kontinuierlichen PrEP und gegenüber einer PEP, wenn kein dauerhaft gleichhohes Risiko vorliegt. In dieser medizinethischen Untersuchung wird darauf hingewiesen, dass es sich bei MSM um eine heterogene Gruppe handelt, deren individuelles Sexualverhalten eine ebenfalls individualisierte HIV-Präventions-Strategie benötigt. Diese Studie argumentiert daher für ein stark personalisiertes decision making bei möglicher Indikation für eine PrEP bei MSM. Damit soll ein wesentlicher Faktor zur Vermeidung einer Medikalisierung von MSM dargestellt werden. (shrink)

This is an appreciative examination of Matthias Fritsch’s significant new book, Taking Turns with the Earth: Phenomenology, Deconstruction, and Intergenerational Justice (Stanford, 2018). After analyzing the temporal axis of Fritsch’s intervention into the question of intergenerational justice in the context of the ecological crisis, I extend it to a complementary spatial analysis by following some of the book’s important cues. I develop this in terms of some recent North American Indigenous philosophy, including Winona LaDuke, Glen Sean Coulthard, and Leanne Simpson.

Essays exploring a rich intersection between phenomenology and idealism with contemporary relevance.

_Reconsiders the contemporary relevance of Schelling’s radical philosophical and religious ecology._.

For synergistic interactions between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) systems, AI outputs often need to be explainable to people. Explainable AI (XAI) systems are commonly tested in human user studies. However, whether XAI researchers consider potential cultural differences in human explanatory needs remains unexplored. We highlight psychological research that found significant differences in human explanations between many people from Western, commonly individualist countries and people from non-Western, often collectivist countries. We argue that XAI research currently overlooks these variations and that (...) many popular XAI designs implicitly and problematically assume that Western explanatory needs are shared cross-culturally. Additionally, we systematically reviewed over 200 XAI user studies and found that most studies did not consider relevant cultural variations, sampled only Western populations, but drew conclusions about human-XAI interactions more generally. We also analyzed over 30 literature reviews of XAI studies. Most reviews did not mention cultural differences in explanatory needs or flag overly broad cross-cultural extrapolations of XAI user study results. Combined, our analyses provide evidence of a cultural bias toward Western populations in XAI research, highlighting an important knowledge gap regarding how culturally diverse users may respond to widely used XAI systems that future work can and should address. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Realismus und Apriorismus in Nicolai Hartmanns Erkenntnistheorie" verfügbar.

English summary: Human perception includes the division of space into left and right. In general, left holds a negative connotation: A clumsy man appears linkisch in German, links meaning left, and the term translates as awkward. If you conned him, he has been gelinkt. For a long time this negative coloring was also closely associated with the image of left-handers: Left-handers were often regarded as disabled, appeared awkward and antisocial, and were exposed to discrimination. To understand the people of ancient (...) Greece and Rome, one must understand the role right and left played in their perception and evaluation of the world. Henning Wirth studies the following questions from an ancient historical perspective: How did the Greeks and Romans perceive left? What role was provided to the left hand in a dominantly right-handed world, where the right hand attested Godly effectiveness? And how does one explain the phenomenon of left-handedness and assessment of left-handed people? German text. German description: Zur menschlichen Wahrnehmung gehort die Einteilung des Raumes in links und rechts. Dabei ist links in der Regel negativ konnotiert: Ein ungeschickter Mensch erscheint alinkisch. Hat man ihn betrogen, so hat man ihn agelinkt. Lange Zeit war diese Negativfarbung auch eng mit dem Bild ueber Linkshander verknuepft: Linkshander galten oftmals als behindert, erschienen asozial und ungeschickt und waren Diskriminierungen ausgesetzt. Will man den Menschen der griechischen und romischen Antike verstehen, muss man nachvollziehen, welche Rolle rechts und links in seiner Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Welt spielten. Aus althistorischer Perspektive untersucht Henning Wirth hier folgende Fragen: Welche Vorstellungen besassen Griechen und Romer von links' Welche Rolle war in einer mehrheitlich aus Rechtshandern bestehenden Welt, in der der rechten Hand gottliche Wirkkraft attestiert wurde, fuer die linke Hand vorgesehen' Und wie erklarte man sich das Phanomen der Linkshandigkeit und bewertete linkshandige Menschen'. (shrink)

Wirth beschreibt in diesem Buch Volkstum und Weltmacht in der Geschichte, im Original 1904 erschienen.