Dieser Beitrag stellt die Zeitlichkeit des Bewusstseins und ihre Folgeprobleme in einer neuen Perspektive vor, die sich aus der Verknüpfung der empirischen Theorie selbstreferentieller Systeme mit der transzendentalen Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls ergibt. -/- .

The author presents Gernot Böhme’s median mode of being theory, which attempts to find an anthropological middle ground between the rational and the irrational, the spiritual and the corporeal and the active and passive in human experience. Böhme’s reflections on the median mode of being are normative in character and linked to the concept of “sovereign man,” which he strongly defends and whose main characteristics Hoffmann outlines in the first part of the essay. Among others, Hoffmann argues against Böhme’s excessive (...) emphasis on the controlling/restrictive functions of awareness at the cost of those functions which serve to protect and stimulate life, his non-distinction between the distance to a cognized object and its intellectual instrumentalisation, and his rather one-sided tendency to seek the sources of European rationalism in the Socra-tean tradition. (shrink)

Rolf KÜHN, Innere Gewißheit und lebendiges Selbst. Grundzüge der Lebens-phänomenologie ; John Wrae STANLEY, Die gebrochene Tradition. Zur Genese der philosophischen Hermeneutik Hans-Georg Gadamers ; Gisbert HOFFMANN, Heideggers Phänomenologie. Bewusstsein — Reflexion — Selbst und Zeit im Früh werk ; Dean KOMEL, Kunst und Sein. Beiträge zur Phänomenologischen Ästhetik und Aletheiologie.

Engineers fine-tune the design of robot bodies for control purposes, however, a methodology or set of tools is largely absent, and optimization of morphology (shape, material properties of robot bodies, etc.) is lagging behind the development of controllers. This has become even more prominent with the advent of compliant, deformable or ”soft” bodies. These carry substantial potential regarding their exploitation for control—sometimes referred to as ”morphological computation”. In this article, we briefly review different notions of computation by physical systems and (...) propose the dynamical systems framework as the most useful in the context of describing and eventually designing the interactions of controllers and bodies. Then, we look at the pros and cons of simple vs. complex bodies, critically reviewing the attractive notion of ”soft” bodies automatically taking over control tasks. We address another key dimension of the design space—whether model-based control should be used and to what extent it is feasible to develop faithful models for different morphologies. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, the capabilities approach has become an increasingly influential theory of development. It conceptualises human wellbeing in terms of an individual's ability to achieve functionings we have reason to value. In contrast, the African ethic of ubuntu views human flourishing as the propensity to pursue relations of fellowship with others, such that relationships have fundamental value. These two theoretical perspectives seem to be in tension with each other; while the capabilities approach focuses on individuals as the (...) locus of ethical value, an ubuntu ethic concentrates on the relations between individuals. In this article, we ask: to what extent is the capabilities approach compatible with this African ethical theory? We argue that, on reflection, relations play a much stronger role in the capabilities approach than often assumed. There is good reason to believe that relationality is part of the concept of a capability itself, where such relationality has intrinsic ethical value. This understanding of the ethical centrality of relations grounds new normative perspectives on the capabilities approach, and offers a more comprehensive grasp of the relevance of relationships to empirical enquiry. (shrink)

The field of modern logic is too extensive to be worked through by open cast mining. To open it up, we need to sink shafts and construct adits. This is the method of most text books: a systematic exposition of a number of main topics, supplemented by exercises to teach skill in the appurtenant techniques, lays a secure foundation for subsequent dis cussion of selected questions. Compared with this, the present treatment is more like a network of exploratory drillings to (...) show that it would be worthwhile to start mining operations, or to work the existing shafts and adits, as the case may be. Within this metaphor we may also describe the inherent weakness of this conception: once a cavity is pierced, the duct's capacity will in general not be sufficient to carry away the discovered riches. But whether we are concerned with a new or an already worked mine - at any rate, the experience should stimulate us into either reviving an existing system of shafts or even, in particularly fortunate cases, designing a new ap proach. (shrink)

Chemical structures are among the trademarks of our profession, as surely chemical as flasks, beakers and distillation columns. When someone sees one of us busily scribbling formulas or structures, he or she has no trouble identifying a chemist. Yet these familiar objects, which accompany our work from start to end, from the initial doodlings (Fig. I) to the final polished artwork in a publication (Fig. II), are deceptively simple. They raise interesting and difficult questions about representation. It is the intent (...) of this article to reflect upon molecular graphics. (shrink)

Se presenta una experiencia musical desarrollada con una muestra total de ciento noventa participantes entre los dos y los tres años de edad. El objetivo consiste en facilitar la discriminación de dos parámetros musicales: duración e intensidad, mediante varias sesiones musicales desarrolladas con metodología constructivista y conexionista. Se adapta el Test de aptitudes musicales de Seashore para la etapa de infantil. La incorporación de estas metodologías ha resultado muy positiva, observando evolución en la identificación de los estímulos proporcionados. Se contempló (...) la procedencia familiar y la asistencia a actividades musicales pudiendo resultar condicionantes por la exposición a la escucha musical. (shrink)

Over twenty years have passed since JLME published “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain.” This article revisits the conclusions drawn in that piece and explores what we have learned in the last two decades regarding the experience of men and women who have chronic pain and whether women continue to be treated less aggressively for their pain than men.

This contribution analyzes the general relation between nature and laboratory with respect to the alternative of a ,,presented" and a ,,self-presenting nature". It is argued that as essentially presented by technological means, ,,nature in the laboratory" has to be considered as a dimensionally reduced nature already incorporated to the objective world of man. The basic precondition of the emergence of laboratory science on the threshold of modern times was the introduction of a concept of an ,,active physics" which itself presupposed (...) the abandonment of a given ,,metaphysical" order of phenomena, especially in the sense of the Aristotelian substance-accidence-scheme. The logic of a suchlike forced ,,presentation of nature", and also the logic of the modern technology-dependent ways of progress in knowledge can precisely be analyzed within the theoretical framework of the Paul-Lorenzen-School (,,Methodological constructivism"). The concept of a ,,self-presenting nature", on the other hand, requires a genuine reflection of a philosophy of nature which is able to focus on the aspects of self-reference and differentiality of the genuine instances of nature. Finally three starting-points of a non-laboratorial way of thinking nature are discussed. German Der Beitrag analysiert das Verhältnis von Natur und Labor unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Alternative von ,,sich zeigender und ,,gezeigter Natur, wobei die im Labor auf dem Wege einer wesentlich technisch-praktischen Erwirkung konkret ,,gezeigte Natur eine der Gegenstandswelt des Menschen immer schon integrierte (und insoweit dimensional verkürzte) Natur ist. Die entscheidende Voraussetzung für die Entstehung der Laborwissenschaft an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit war die Einführung eines Konzepts ,,handelnder Physik, das seinerseits die Preisgabe einer vorgängigen ,,metaphysischen Ordnung der Phänomene (insbesondere im Sinne des Substanz-Akzidens-Gefälles) voraussetzt. Die Logik dieses ,,Zeigens der Natur ebenso wie die des modernen, technologieabhängig gewordenen Erkenntnisfortschritts ist wissenschaftstheoretisch mit den Mitteln des Methodischen Konstruktivismus präzise beschreibbar. Für den alternativen Begriff einer ,,sich zeigenden Natur als wesentlich polydimensionaler, einheitsbegrifflich nicht einholbarer Totalität bedarf es jedoch einer genuin naturphilosophischen Reflexion, die insbesondere die mit dem Natürlichen verbundenen Komponenten der Selbstbezüglichkeit und der Differentialität zu thematisieren vermag. Abschließend werden drei Ansatzpunkte eines ,,nichtlaboratorischen Naturdenkens diskutiert. (shrink)

The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions--are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal knowledge, modal (...) logic and its relations to necessary existence and to counterfactual reasoning. The general introduction locates the individual contributions in the wider context of the contemporary discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of modality. (shrink)

Résumé L’article développe la thèse suivante : le phénomène évaluatif, ses instruments et ses institutions nouvellement créées (agences de notation, agences d’évaluation, hautes autorités) sont à la fois les révélateurs et les opérateurs d’une transformation des rapports entre deux institutions en crise : L’État et les professions. S’inspirant de la trilogie des pouvoirs de Freidson (2001), l’auteur suggère d’analyser l’alliance actuelle entre marché et État tandis qu’une crise et une mutation des élites traditionnelles françaises (haute fonction publique, experts d’État, élites (...) politiques) fragilisent l’alliance entre professions et État caractéristique de la construction de l’État social à la fin du xix e siècle. (shrink)

Résumé L’article développe la thèse suivante : le phénomène évaluatif, ses instruments et ses institutions nouvellement créées (agences de notation, agences d’évaluation, hautes autorités) sont à la fois les révélateurs et les opérateurs d’une transformation des rapports entre deux institutions en crise : L’État et les professions. S’inspirant de la trilogie des pouvoirs de Freidson (2001), l’auteur suggère d’analyser l’alliance actuelle entre marché et État tandis qu’une crise et une mutation des élites traditionnelles françaises (haute fonction publique, experts d’État, élites (...) politiques) fragilisent l’alliance entre professions et État caractéristique de la construction de l’État social à la fin du xix e siècle. (shrink)

The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...) facilitates control, (2) morphology that facilitates perception and the rare cases of (3) morphological computation proper, such as ‘reservoir computing.’ where the body is actually used for computation. This result contributes to the understanding of the relation between embodiment and computation: The question for robot design and cognitive science is not whether computation is offloaded to the body, but to what extent the body facilitates cognition and control – how it contributes to the overall ‘orchestration’ of intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

In this article, the authors explore the impact of a potential future regulatory decision by FDA whether or not to continue its enforcement discretion policy allowing physicians to perform, and stool banks to sell, stool product for fecal microbiota transplantation as a treatment for recurrent Clostridium Difficile infection without an Investigative New Drug application. The paper looks at the Agency's regulatory options in light of the current gut microbiota based products that are in the FDA pipeline for drug approval and (...) the potential impact and repercussions of their approval on FDA action. In laying out FDA's options we consider the implications of market exclusivity and off-label use of newly approved drugs. Ultimately, we explore the potential impact of FDA's decision on patients, research, and innovation. (shrink)

We generalize a well-known theorem binding the elementary equivalence relation on the level of PAC fields and the isomorphism type of their absolute Galois groups. Our results concern two cases: saturated PAC structures and nonsaturated PAC structures.

Based on a qualitative survey among 203 US workers active on the microwork platform Amazon Mechanical Turk, we analyze potential biases embedded in the institutional setting provided by on-demand crowdworking platforms and their effect on perceived workplace fairness. We explore the triadic relationship between employers, workers, and platform providers, focusing on the power of platform providers to design settings and processes that affect workers’ fairness perceptions. Our focus is on workers’ awareness of the new institutional setting, frames applied to the (...) mediating platform, and a differentiated analysis of distinct fairness dimensions. (shrink)

In most countries in the global north, social differences in health status and disease prevalence and outcomes are persistent and growing. This is also the case in the welfare states of Scandinavia. In Denmark, the empirical point of departure for this article, income inequality is relatively low and social mobility is generally considered to be high. One of the ideals of the Danish welfare state is that all citizens have free and open access to the tax-funded health-care system. All Danish (...) citizens can register at a general practice, which serves as the gatekeeper for more specialized health-care... (shrink)