What produces emotions? Why do we have emotions? How do we have emotions? Why do emotional states feel like something? This book considers these questions, going beyond examining brain mechanisms of emotion, by proposing a theory of what emotions are, and an evolutionary, Darwinian, theory of the adaptive value of emotion.

Memory, attention, and decision-making are three major areas of cognitive neuroscience. They are however frequently studied in isolation, using a range of models to understand them. This book brings a unified approach to understanding these three processes, showing how these fundamental functions can be understood in a common and unifying framework.

This book engages in an analysis of the ideals of freedom and social justice. Rolle examines and questions Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World by David Walker, which encourages slaves to embrace a theologically-based understanding of freedom and participate in insurrectionist activities to overthrow slavery.

Why do we have emotions? What is the relationship between mind and brain? Why do we appreciate art? How do we make decisions? Why do so many people follow religions? Neuroculture considers the implications of our modern understanding of how the brain works, and how it can help us understand many mental issues central to everyday life.

What produces emotions? Why do we have emotions? How do we have emotions? Why do emotional states feel like something? The Brain, Emotion, and Depression addresses these issues and more, providing a unified approach to emotion, reward value, economic value, decision-making, and their brain mechanisms.

There is at present uneasiness about the conceptual basis of genetics. The gene concept has become blurred and there are problems with the distinction between genotype and phenotype. In the present paper I go back to their role in the creation of modern genetics in the early twentieth century. The terms were introduced by the Danish botanist and geneticist Wilhelm Johannsen in his big textbook of 1909. Historical accounts usually concentrate on this book and his 1911 paper “The Genotype (...) Conception of Heredity.” His bean selection experiment of 1900–1903 is generally assumed to be the source of his genotype theory. The present paper examines the scientific context and meaning of this experiment, how it was received, and how the genotype theory became securely established by the early 1910s. I argue in conclusion that the genotype/phenotype distinction, which provides the empirical basis for Johannsen's gene, was scientifically well founded when introduced and still is. Keith Baverstock's criticism does not consider the force of the bean selection experiment at the time and as a paradigm for following investigations of heredity. (shrink)

Twenty-five years after his death, critics and academics, film-makers and journalists continue to argue over Sartre's legacy. But certain interpretations have congealed around his iconic text Nausea, tending to confine it within the framework provided by the later philosophical work, Being and Nothingness. This volume opens up the text to a range of new approaches within the fields of English and Comparative Literature, as well as Philosophy and French Studies, under the headings: 'Text', 'Context', and 'Intertext' the textual strategies at (...) work within the novel; the literary, cultural and philosophical context of its production; and the intertextual web within which it is situated. This volume will interest a wide public of teachers, students and all those who want to reconsider Sartre's legacy in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Understanding consciousness is a truly multidisciplinary project, attracting intense interest from researchers and theorists from diverse backgrounds. Thus, we now have computational scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers all engaged in the same effort. This book draws together the work of leading researchers around the world, providing insights from these three general perspectives. The work is highlighted by a rare look at work being conducted by Japanese researchers.

From their commanding role in the so-called British Invasion of the early 1960s to their status as the elder statesmen (and British Knight) of rock and roll, the Stones have become more than an evanescent phenomenon in pop culture. They have become a touchstone not only for the history of our times--their performance at the Altamont Raceway marked the "end of the sixties," while their 1990 concert in Prague helped Czechoslovakia and other eastern bloc nations celebrate their newfound freedom (...) (and satisfaction) out from under Moscow's thumb. Because of their longevity, the music and career of the Stones--much more than The Beatles--stand as touchstones in the personal lives of even casual Stones fans. Everyone of a certain age remembers the Stones on Ed Sullivan, the death of founder Brian Jones, their favorite songs, concerts, or videos, and their stance in the classic "Beatles versus Stones" debates. In the wake of Keith Richards's bestselling autobiography, Life (2010), many are now reliving these events and decades from the viewpoint of the band's endearing and seemingly death-defying guitarist. The chapters in The Rolling Stones and Philosophy celebrate the Stones' place in our lives by digging into the controversies, the symbols, and meanings the band and its songs have for so many. What might you mean (and what did Mick mean) by "sympathy for the Devil"? Did the Stones share any of the blame for the deaths at Altamont, as critic Lester Bangs charged they did in Rolling Stone magazine? What theories of ethics and personality lay behind the good-boy image of the Beatles and the bad-boy reputation the Stones acquired? If Keith Richards really had his blood replaced four separate times, does that make him a zombie? How do the Glimmer Twins help us refine our understanding of friendship? Written by a dozen philosophers and scholars who adore the Rolling Stones not only for their music, this book will become required reading for anyone seeking maximum satisfaction from "the world's greatest rock and roll band.". (shrink)

This is a book about intellectuals in late twentieth-century Hungary. Altough not strictly a work of intellectual history, it is very much of interest to intellectual historians of the Soviet and p...

This book investigates the relation of rock and roll to social protest music and authenticity. It examines the nature and commercial origins of rock and roll, why rock and roll was frequently considered subversive, and the nature and significance of authenticity to rock and roll as social protest music.

Wohl keinem anderen Denker sah sich Johann Gottlieb Fichte so verbunden, wie Immanuel Kant, dessen kritisches OEuvre, dessen neu festgelegte Rollen von Anschauung und Begriff in der Erkenntnistheorie er intensiv studierte, daraus Impulse gewann, um sich mit Kant, und über diesen hinaus, methodisch neu zu orientieren. Fichtes Wissenschaftslehren bewegen sich bei allen Unterschieden in einem erstaunlichen Maß im Horizont von Kants Theorie.

Naturwissenschaftliche Beobachtungen hängen auf vielfältige Weise von wissenschaftlichen Theorien ab. Diese These der Theoriebeladenheit galt lange als der Sargnagel wissenschaftlicher Objektivität. Der Autor untersucht wahrnehmungstheoretische, sprachphilosophische und methodologische Aspekte der Theoriebeladenheit. Er kommt zum Ergebnis, dass die Theoriebeladenheit nur in beschränktem Umfang besteht und als solche den wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisprozess fördert. Dies führt zu einem verbesserten Verständnis der Rolle von Beobachtungen in den Naturwissenschaften.

'Ethik ist auf deskriptives Wissen angewiesen. Das ist nichts Neues: Bereits Aristoteles betont, die Ethik müsse berücksichtigen, dass der Mensch von Natur aus ein soziales Wesen sei. Wie viel Gewicht aber kann und sollte man dem deskriptiven Wissen in normativen Fragen zugestehen? Eine naturalistische Ethik hält es für möglich, dass deskriptives Wissen nicht nur Hilfsmittel für die Anwendung ethischer Normen sein, sondern einen großen Teil der bisher erforderlichen Normen ersetzen kann. Eine naturalistische Ethik fordert außerdem: Möglichst wenig metaphysische Annahmen! Statt (...) Metaphysik möchten Naturalisten Ergebnisse und Methoden der Wissenschaften einsetzen, mit dem Ziel, den Bestand an Normen in der Ethik und damit den Begründungsbedarf zu verkleinern. Lassen sich also Normen durch Fakten ersetzen? Und wenn ja, wie weit? In diesem Band kommen zu dieser Frage Philosophie, Ökonomik, Soziologie, Psychologie, Soziobiologie, Rechtswissenschaft und Spieltheorie zu Wort. Es geht hierbei gerade nicht um eine ethisch-moralische Bewertung von Resultaten oder Methoden dieser Disziplinen, sondern - umgekehrt - um die Frage, welchen Beitrag diese Wissenschaften zur Ethik leisten können.' (Autorenreferat). Inhaltsverzeichnis: Gerhard Vollmer, Christoph Lütge: Fakten statt Normen? Einleitung und Überblick (VII-XIV); Dieter Birnbacher: Prognosen statt Normen? Das Zusammenspiel von Normen und Fakten in der Angewandten Ethik (3-13); Gerhard Schurz: Zur Rolle von Brückenprinzipien in einer faktenorientierten Ethik (14-27); Uwe Czaniera: Vernünftige Normen statt moralischer Fakten (28-42); Gerhard Engel: Von Fakten zu Normen: Zur Ableitbarkeit des Sollen aus dem Sein (43-59); Dagmar Borchers: Träume von Tatsachen und Tugenden: Stärken und Schwächen des tugendethischen Naturalismus (60-77); Wolfgang Buschlinger: Hinter verschlossene Türen: Ethik in die Hand von Experten? (78-87); Eric Hilgendorf: Fakten und Normen in der Rechtstheorie Tatsachenfragen und Wertungsfragen: Bausteine zu einer naturalistischen Jurisprudenz (91-102); Karl Homann: Fakten und Normen: Der Fall der Wirtschaftsethik (105-116); Christoph Lütge: Ordnungsethik - naturalistisch konzipiert (117-127); Ken Binmore: Natural Justice (128-150); Michael Baurmann: Mehrheit ohne Moral? Warum demokratische Entscheidungen ethische Prinzipien erfordern (153-176); Eckart Voland: Normentreue zwischen Reziprozität und Prestige-Ökonomie: Eine soziobiologische Interpretation kostspieliger sozialer Konformität (177-189); Günter Dux: Das Sein des Sollens (190-204); Heiko Breit, Lutz Eckensberger: Fakten und Normen in der Psychologie. Die Faktizität des Normenbewusstseins: Eine entwicklungspsychologische Perspektive (207-224). (shrink)

Since the Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series (KSMS) was first published in 1997, it has served as the authoritative book series in the field. Starting from 2011 the Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series will intensify the peer-review process with a new editorial and advisory board. KSMS is published on behalf of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen. KSMS publishes outstanding monographs in all fields of Kierkegaard research. This includes Ph.D. dissertations, Habilitation theses, conference proceedings and single author (...) works by senior scholars. The goal of KSMS is to advance Kierkegaard studies by encouraging top-level scholarship in the field. The editorial and advisory boards are deeply committed to creating a genuinely international forum for publication which integrates the many different traditions of Kierkegaard studies and brings them into a constructive and fruitful dialogue. To this end the series publishes monographs in English and German. Potential authors should consult the Submission guidelines. All submissions will be blindly refereed by established scholars in the field. Only high-quality manuscripts will be accepted for publication. Potential authors should be prepared to make changes to their texts based on the comments received by the referees. (shrink)

_Published in its entirety for the first time, a candid conversation with Susan Sontag at the height of her brilliant career_ “One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling, which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment... and I don’t believe it’s true.... I have the impression that thinking is a form of feeling and that feeling is a form of thinking.” Susan Sontag, (...) one of the most internationally renowned and controversial intellectuals of the latter half of the twentieth century, still provokes. In 1978 Jonathan Cott, a founding contributing editor of _Rolling Stone_ magazine, interviewed Sontag first in Paris and later in New York. Only a third of their twelve hours of discussion ever made it to print. Now, more than three decades later, Yale University Press is proud to publish the entire transcript of Sontag’s remarkable conversation, accompanied by Cott’s preface and recollections. Sontag’s musings and observations reveal the passionate engagement and breadth of her critical intelligence and curiosities at a moment when she was at the peak of her powers. Nearly a decade after her death, these hours of conversation offer a revelatory and indispensable look at the self-described "besotted aesthete" and "obsessed moralist." “I really believe in history, and that’s something people don’t believe in anymore. I know that what we do and think is a historical creation....We were given a vocabulary that came into existence at a particular moment. So when I go to a Patti Smith concert, I enjoy, participate, appreciate, and am tuned in better because I’ve read Nietzsche.” “There’s no incompatibility between observing the world and being tuned into this electronic, multimedia, multi-tracked, McLuhanite world and enjoying what can be enjoyed. I love rock and roll. Rock and roll changed my life....You know, to tell you the truth, I think rock and roll is the reason I got divorced. I think it was Bill Haley and the Comets and Chuck Berry that made me decide that I had to get a divorce and leave the academic world and start a new life.”. (shrink)

This volume explores the reorganisation of knowledge taking place in the course of Galileo's research process extending over a period of more than thirty years, pursued within a network of exchanges with his contemporaries, and documented by a vast collection of research notes. It has revealed the challenging objects that motivated and shaped Galileo's thinking and closely followed the knowledge reorganization engendered by theses challenges. It has thus turned out, for example, that the problem of reducing the properties of pendulum (...) motion to the laws governing naturally accelerated motion on inclined planes was the mainspring for the formation of Galileo's comprehensive theory of naturally accelerated motion. (shrink)

Two well-known ancient witnesses report that Aristophanes of Byzantium was responsible for the arrangement of Pindar's poems into seventeen book-rolls according to lyric genres. These witnesses form fr. 381 in the edition of Aristophanes’ fragments by W.J. Slater : Vit. Pind. P.Oxy. 2438.35–9 δ]ιῄρητα̣ι̣ δὲ α̣ὐ̣τ̣[ο]ῦ̣ τ̣[ὰ ποιήματα ὑπ’ Ἀριστοφάν]ους εἰς βιβλία ιζˊ· διθ̣[υ]ρά̣[μ]βων βˊ [προσοδίω]ν̣ βˊ παιάνων αˊ πα[ρ]θεν[εί]ων γ̣ˊ [ἐπινικίω]ν̣ δˊ ἐγκωμίων αˊ ἐν [ᾧ] κα̣ὶ [σκ]όλ̣[ια ±4 ὕμ]ν̣ων αˊ ὑ[π]ορχημάτων αˊ θρ̣[ήνων.| nisi aliter ind., omnia suppl. (...) Lobel | 2 Ἀριστοφάν]ους Lobel e Vit. Pind. Vat. | 3 ἐν [ᾧ] κα̣ὶ [σκ]όλ̣[ια …. de Kreij : ἐν [ᾧ] κ[αὶ σκόλιά τινα vel ἐν [ᾧ] κ[αὶ σκόλιά ἐστι Gallo : ἐν [ᾧ] καὶ [παροίνια D'Alessio | 4 αˊ post θρ̣[ήνων coni. edd., fort. recte; an θρ̣[- βˊ?Vit. Pind. Vat. page 7.14–17 Dr. ὁ δὲ ἐπινίκιος οὗ ἡ ἀρχὴ “Ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ” προτέτακται ὑπὸ Ἀριστοφάνους τοῦ συντάξαντος τὰ Πινδαρικὰ διὰ τὸ περιέχειν τοῦ ἀγῶνος ἐγκώμιον καὶ τὰ περὶ τοῦ Πέλοπος, ὃς πρῶτος ἐν ῎Ηλιδι ἠγωνίσατο.A much-debated question is whether the order of the poems attested by the papyrus can be credited to Aristophanes, since an ordering principle is apparently not to be found in the list transmitted by it. Moreover, there are some disagreements with the list of Pindar's works transmitted by the Vita Ambrosiana, which is generally deemed the most authoritative catalogue of the poet's corpus, on account of its well-recognized criterion of classification: the poems are divided between those for gods and those for men, and both of these categories of songs are arranged from the most general to the most specific. This catalogue has been thought to reproduce the order established by Aristophanes in his edition of Pindar. (shrink)

Das Buch untersucht die Mechanismen der kulturellen Evolution, insbesondere die Rolle von Memen – kulturelle Muster also, die von Generation zu Generation weitergereicht werden. Gesellschaften durchlaufen einen evolutionären Prozess, Prinzipien wie Variation, Selektion und Reproduktion können als abstrakte Eigenschaften dynamischer Systeme verstanden werden. Sie finden sowohl Anwendung bei der Entwicklung von Organismen als auch bei kulturell erworbenen Verhaltensweisen. Dies ist der Erklärungsansatz einer interdisziplinären verallgemeinerten Evolutionstheorie. Was aber evolviert genau innerhalb der kulturellen Evolution? Der Autor versucht Einheiten der kulturellen Entwicklung (...) (Meme) möglichst exakt zu definieren, um spezifische kulturelle Phänomene zu erklären. (shrink)