The exhaustion particles of the Yi languages are sentence-end morphemes with a surprising wealth of possible interpretations. With gradeable states they convey the meaning of superlative, with accomplishments they function as completive particle, and in ungradeable states, activities or achievements they act as all particles, i.e. as universal non-distributive quantifiers, on the first argument. A unified account of the all -, completive - and superlative -meanings is proposed. It is argued that all three notions basically divide their respective domain into (...) three types: a singular domain type, a quantized domain type and a homogeneous domain type. For events there is also a fourth domain type, the bounded domain type, which does not have an analogy with objects and states. Object-denotations Event-denotations State-denotations Singular Individual OD Punctual ED Ungradeable SD Quantized Quantized OD Quantized ED State with quantized comparison class Bounded — Bounded ED — Homogeneous Homogeneous OD Homogeneous ED State with homogeneous comparison class The all -, the completive - and the superlative -meanings of the exhaustion particles have in common that they are incompatible with entities from the singular domain type, pragmatically implausible with entities from the homogeneous domain type, and compatible with entities from the quantized domain type. (shrink)

This paper explores a technical unfinished half-method [Halbzeug] of a metaphorology of the technological other in its variations and the philosophical mise-en-scène of the techno-social uncanny. The roboticist Mori had revived the concept of a technological uncanny in human machine interaction in the spatial metaphor derived from a diagram of an uncanny valley in the reaction of a human being shaking an artificial hand in order to show why we feel a certain eeriness in relation to technological artefacts, a topic (...) that gains importance today to reflect human technological automata relations with robots/AI/Avatars that mimic and socially resonate with humans and may even drive further technological transhumanism. Although in an artefact design approach uncanniness is said to be avoided in the human-like automaton-human encounter this paper dwells on the critic of techno-social otherness avoidance by technological overcoming of obstacles and thus argues for a cybernetic uncanny that can’t be avoided. This paper introduces in a broader sense than Mori’s a philosophical dramaturgy of Emmanuel Levinas’ temporal notion of the relation to the other, including a preliminary metaphorological variation of the temporal techno-social uncanny. (shrink)

This book investigates the relationships between gestures and artefacts theoretically and historically, by analyzing different phenomena stemming from a variety of fields such as robotics, archaeology, gesture studies, anthropology, philosophy, and gestural practices like choreography, music performance, and composition. It underlines how embodiment and technology change the interplay between maker and artefact over time and appeals to students and researchers in these fields. Its goal is to enable the reader to understand that the recurring topics and questions as well as (...) multi-level similarities are by no means accidental, but can best be understood if one pays attention to the intertwinements of materiality and cognition, praxis and techne. (shrink)

Of late, evidentiality has received great attention in formal semantics. In this paper I develop ‘evidentiality-informed’ truth conditions for modal operators such as must and may . With language data drawn from Luoping Nase (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the P.R. of China and belonging to the Yi Nationality), I illustrate that epistemic modals clash with clauses articulating first-hand information. I then demonstrate that existing models such as Kratzer’s graded possible-worlds semantics fail to provide accurate truth conditions for modals tagging (...) clauses with first-hand information. As a remedy I propose a fuzzy version of possible-worlds semantics with various grades of belief and knowledge. In addition to preserving the expressive power of graded possible-worlds semantics, the fuzzy model will be shown to supply appropriate truth conditions for epistemic modals appended to evidential clauses (i.e. clauses expressing first-hand information). (shrink)

This paper will philosophically extend Julian Leff’s Avatar therapy paradigm (AT) for voice-like hallucinations that was initially proposed for treatment-resistant Schizophrenia patients into the realm of gesture-enhanced embodied cognition and Virtual Reality (VR), entitled g+TA (gesture-enhanced Avatar Therapy). I propose an philosophy of technology approach of embodied rhetorics of triadic kinetic “actions” in the sense of Charles Sanders Peirce that transforms the voice hallucination incorporated by an avatar- and that can confront acousmatic voice-like hallucinations with a method of gesture synchronization (...) and dyssynchronization and gestural refusal of interaction that the player with the Avatar can resist in full embodiment. This paper therefore introduces a gesture-enhanced, extended version of Cybertherapy with Avatars that tackle multimodal bodily experience of voice-like hallucinations beyond mere visual or auditory stimulation. This is put forward theoretically in a 4E-cognition approach that expands Avatar Therapy with gestures into VR. (shrink)

The need for a ‘many-valued logic’ in linguistics has been evident since the 1970s, but there was lack of clarity as to whether it should come from the family of fuzzy logics or from the family of probabilistic logics. In this regard, Fine [14] and Kamp [26] pointed out undesirable effects of fuzzy logic (the failure of idempotency and coherence) which kept two generations of linguists and philosophers at arm’s length. (Another unwanted feature of fuzzy logic is the property of (...) truth functionality.) While probabilistic logic is not fraught by the same problems, its lack of constructiveness, i.e. its inability to compose complex truth degrees from atomic truth degrees, did not make it more attractive to linguists either. In the absence of a clear perspective in ‘many-valued logic’, scholars chose to proliferate ontologies grafted atop the classical bivalent logic: ontologies for truth, individuals, events, situations, possible worlds and degrees. The result has been a collection of incompatible classical logics. In this paper, I present sample logic, in particular its semantics (not its axiomatization). Sample logics is a member of the family of probabilistic logics, which is constructive without being truth functional. More specifically, I integrate all the important linguistic data on which the classical logics are predicated. The concepts of (in)dependency and conditional (in)dependency are the cornerstones of sample logic. (shrink)

Eleven pairs of newly commissioned essays face off on opposite sides of fundamental problems in current theories of knowledge. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in epistemology. Questions addressed include: Is knowledge contextual? Can skepticism be refuted? Can beliefs be justified through coherence alone? Is justified belief responsible belief? Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary epistemology, (...) whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers. (shrink)

Faber, W. Martin Buber über Erziehung.--Bohnsack, F. Das Problem der pädagogischen Absicht bei Martin Buber.--Simon, S. Martin Buber, der Erzeiher.--Klafki, W. Dialog und Dialektik in der gegenwärtigen Erziehungswissenschaft.--Faber, W. Reale Bildung.--Caselmann, C. Martin Buber als Erzieher.

Was macht das Besondere der menschlichen Lebensform aus? Wie können wir es verstehen, dass unsere Art wie alle anderen natürlich evolviert ist und dennoch als einzige Art die Fähigkeit entwickelt hat, unter dem Anspruch der Freiheit und in reflexiver Distanz zu handeln, damit aber die Umwelt auf eine Welt hin zu transzendieren? Jung argumentiert, dass sich diese Fragen nur beantworten lassen, wenn man philosophische, evolutionstheoretische und kognitionswissenschaftliche Ansätze aufeinander bezieht. Der Schlüssel hierfür ist der Begriff der Bedeutung. Alle Lebewesen erfassen (...) ihre Umwelt im praktischen Umgang mit ihr als bedeutsam. Auch der Geist des Menschen ist essentiell verkörpert und basiert auf erlebten Bedeutsamkeiten. Die Fähigkeit zur symbolischen Artikulation und kulturellen Weiterentwicklung solcher Lebensbedeutungen erlaubt es ihm aber auch, die lokale Umwelt zu transzendieren und dabei Werte, Normen und objektive Geltungsansprüche zu entwickeln. Eine zeitgemäße Anthropologie muss in der Lage sein, diese qualitativen Besonderheiten des menschlichen Geistes als Resultate von Naturprozessen verständlich zu machen. Sie verbindet methodischen Naturalismus mit Offenheit für die Transzendenz des Geistes über die Umwelt. Damit leistet der Autor einen wichtigen Beitrag zu einem nichtreduktionistischen Verständnis des Menschen, das Leib und Geist nicht dualistisch trennt, sondern ihre spannungsvolle Einheit sichtbar macht. (shrink)

When I take a sip from the coffee in my cup, I can taste that it is sweet. When I hold the cup with my hands, I can feel that it is hot. Why does the experience of feeling that the cup is hot give me justification for believing that the cup is hot?And why does the experience of tasting that the coffee is sweet give me justification for believing that the coffee is sweet?In general terms: Why is it that (...) a sense experience that P is a source of justification—a reason—for believing that P? Call this the Question. I will discuss various answers to the Question, and defend the one I myself favor. (shrink)

Psychiatric research is in crisis because of repeated failures to discover new drugs for mental disorders. Lack of measurement validity could partly account for these failures. If researchers do not actually measure the effects of drugs on the disorders they aim to investigate, one should expect suboptimal treatment outcomes. I argue that this is the case, focusing on depression, and fear & anxiety disorders. In doing so, I show how psychiatric research illustrates a more general phenomenon that I call “validity (...) drift.” A validity drift occurs when, in the course of developing new measurement procedures, researchers end up studying something different from what they originally aimed to study. I analyze the different ways in which scientists attempt to validate procedures for measuring mental disorders for the purpose of testing drugs in animal models. I show how those validation efforts might fail, thereby leading to validity drifts. Overall, this analysis highlights the complex interplay between the development of new measurement procedures, their calibration, and scientific theories of the target phenomena. (shrink)

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Setting out the 'state of the art' in proportionality doctrine, this book combines theoretical reconstruction with case-law examples, defending and developing the dominant model of proportionality.

Background Teamwork in emergency medical services is a very important factor in efforts to improve patient safety. The potential differences of staff gender on communication, patient safety, and teamwork were omitted. The aim of this study is to evaluate these inadequately examined areas. Methods A descriptive and anonymous study was conducted with an online questionnaire targeting emergency physicians and paramedics. The participants were asked about teamwork, communication, patient safety and handling of errors. Results Seven hundred fourteen prehospital professionals from all (...) over Germany participated. A total of 65.7% of the women harmed a patient (men 72.9%), and 52.6% were ashamed when mistakes were made (men 31.7%). 19.0% of the female participants considered their communication skills to be very good, compared to 81% of the men. More women than men did not want to appear incompetent (28.4%, 15.5%) and therefore did not speak openly about mistakes. Both genders saw the character of their colleagues as a reason for poor team communication (women 89.4%, men 84.9.%). Under high stress, communication decreased (women 35.9%, men 31.0%) and expression became inaccurate (women 18.7%, men 20.1%). Conclusions Team communication problems and teamwork in rescue services are independent of gender. Women seem to have more difficulty with open communication about mistakes because they seem to be subject to higher expectations. Work organization should be adapted to women’s needs to enable more effective error management. We conclude that it is necessary to promote a positive error and communication culture to increase patient safety. (shrink)

Negative subjective reports such as “I didn’t see the stimulus” can be interpreted as indicating either that the subject didn’t see the stimulus, or as indicating that, while the subject did see the stimulus, the strength of sensory signals associated with the stimulus fell below a conservative criterion for answering “seen”. Determining which of these two interpretations is correct is the criterion problem. I present two ways in which researchers can solve this problem. But there’s more. What I call the (...) “new criterion problem” consists in determining whether criteria effects reflect perceptual changes, or changes in response strategy. Through case studies, I argue that this new version of the problem can be solved as well, although there is currently no systematic way to solve it. I conclude that criterion problems do not constitute good reasons for skepticism about the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

English summary: Ordinary, unmethodical experience forms our lives. It accumulates when we interact with our environment as living beings, and combines cognitive, affective and volitional elements. In it, questions of meaning and value and issues of knowledge become strongly interdependent. In a normative sense, modern culture has tremendously upgraded the status of ordinary people's experience. However, at the same time, our world is increasingly determined by the methodological experience of the (natural) sciences and by the technology they have made possible. (...) Will scientific experience now replace ordinary experience, or will it complement and regulate it? How do facts and values relate to one another and what does this mean for our understanding of democracy? Matthias Jung starts by developing an integrated approach to ordinary experience, taking into account insights from areas including hermeneutics, phenomenology, pragmatism and cognitive science. As a result, three main areas of discussion emerge: knowledge, values and ideology, all of which are covered in their respective individual chapters. German description: Gewohnliche, unmethodische Erfahrung formt unser Leben. Sie vollzieht sich, wenn wir als lebendige Wesen mit unserer Umwelt interagieren, und verbindet jeweils kognitive, affektive und willentliche Dimensionen. Fragen nach Sinn und Wert und Wissensfragen sind in ihr eng aufeinander bezogen. Normativ hat die Kultur der Moderne die Erfahrung gewohnlicher Menschen enorm aufgewertet, doch gleichzeitig wird unsere Welt immer starker von der methodischen Erfahrung der (Natur-)Wissenschaften und der von ihr ermoglichten Technik bestimmt. Ersetzt nun wissenschaftliche die gewohnliche Erfahrung oder erganzt und korrigiert sie diese? Wie verhalten sich Fakten und Werte zueinander und was ergibt sich daraus fur unser Verstandnis von Demokratie? Matthias Jung entwickelt zunachst ein integriertes Konzept gewohnlicher Erfahrung und nimmt dabei Einsichten u.a. aus Hermeneutik, Phanomenologie, Pragmatismus und Kognitionswissenschaften auf. Daraus ergeben sich drei exemplarische Problemfelder: Wissen, Werte und Weltanschauung. Ihnen sind jeweils eigene Kapitel gewidmet. (shrink)

Conditional structures lie at the heart of the sciences, humanities, and everyday reasoning. It is hence not surprising that conditional logics – logics specifically designed to account for natural language conditionals – are an active and interdisciplinary area. The present book gives a formal and a philosophical account of indicative and counterfactual conditionals in terms of Chellas-Segerberg semantics. For that purpose a range of topics are discussed such as Bennett’s arguments against truth value based semantics for indicative conditionals.

Focusing on his essays “New value‐free sociology” and “Remarks on social conflict today,” this chapter discusses Adorno's assessments of how Karl Mannheim, Georg Simmel, Lewis Coser, and Ralf Dahrendorf have addressed the tensions and conflicts that beset contemporary society. The chapter draws on these sociologists' works and on Adorno's reading of them to elucidate core arguments in his critique of both their conceptions of the social world and their sociological modes of procedure. Particular emphasis is placed on Adorno's notion of (...) the potential of a sociological approach that is more suitable for gaining insight into the antagonistic capitalist condition. The key components of such an approach, notably experience, its interplay with theory, and sociology's response to appearance, are further illuminated with reference to passages that illustrate their operations in sociological research. (shrink)

This essay consists of two parts. In the first part, I focus my attention on the remarks that Frege makes on consistency when he sets about criticizing the method of creating new numbers through definition or abstraction. This gives me the opportunity to comment also a little on H. Hankel, J. Thomae—Frege’s main targets when he comes to criticize “formal theories of arithmetic” in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) and the second volume of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1903)—G. Cantor, L. E. (...) J. Brouwer and D. Hilbert (1899). Part 2 is mainly devoted to Hilbert’s proof theory of the 1920s (1922–1931). I begin with an account of his early attempt to prove directly, and thus not by reduction or by constructing a model, the consistency of (a fragment of) arithmetic. In subsequent sections, I give a kind of overview of Hilbert’s metamathematics of the 1920s and try to shed light on a number of difficulties to which it gives rise. One serious difficulty that I discuss is the fact, widely ignored in the pertinent literature on Hilbert’s programme, that his language of finitist metamathematics fails to supply the conceptual resources for formulating a consistency statement qua unbounded quantification. Along the way, I shall comment on W. W. Tait’s objection to an interpretation of Hilbert’s finitism by Niebergall and Schirn, on G. Gentzen’s allegedly finitist consistency proof for Peano Arithmetic as well as his ideas on the provability and unprovability of initial cases of transfinite induction in pure number theory. Another topic I deal with is what has come to be known as partial realizations of Hilbert’s programme, chiefly advocated by S. G. Simpson. Towards the end of this essay, I take a critical look at Wittgenstein’s views about (in)consistency and consistency proofs in the period 1929–1933. I argue that both his insouciant attitude towards the emergence of a contradiction in a calculus and his outright repudiation of metamathematical consistency proofs are unwarranted. In particular, I argue that Wittgenstein falls short of making a convincing case against Hilbert’s programme. I conclude with some philosophical remarks on consistency proofs and soundness and raise a question concerning the consistency of analysis. (shrink)

Studies of the history of 20th century philosophy usually suggest a sharp antagonism between Martin Heidegger on the one hand and Philosophical Anthropology, as founded by Max Scheler and Helmuth Plessner, on the other. In contrast I will argue that one of Heidegger′s texts, namely his lecture The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. World – Finitude – Solitude, held in the 1929/30 winter semester is in fact very close to the theoretical approach of Philosophical Anthropology. The measure for determining this proximity (...) is taken from Joachim Fischer′s study Philosophische Anthropologie. Eine Denkrichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts . Its main systematic thesis posits that the theoretical approach of Philosophical Anthropology is constituted by a core identity, which can be accurately defined by a set of features. In my paper I use these features heuristically to examine the question whether Heidegger, who prima facie is not an adherent of the theoretical approach, in his lecture The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics actually does argue like an exponent of Philosophical Anthropology. (shrink)

This volume commemorates the life, work, and foundational views of Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), most famous for his hallmark works on the completeness of first-order logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the consistency - with the other widely accepted axioms of set theory - of the axiom of choice and of the generalized continuum hypothesis. It explores current research, advances, and ideas for future directions not only in the foundations of mathematics and logic, but also in the fields of computer (...) science, artificial intelligence, physics, cosmology, philosophy, theology, and the history of science. The discussion is supplemented by personal reflections from several scholars who knew Gödel personally, providing some interesting insights into his life. By putting his ideas and life's work into the context of current thinking and perceptions, this book will extend the impact of Gödel's fundamental work in mathematics, logic, philosophy, and other disciplines for future generations of researchers. (shrink)

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.

The core feature that distinguishes moods from emotions is that moods, in contrast to emotions, are diffuse and global. This article outlines a dispositional theory of moods (DTM) that accounts for this and other features of mood experience. DTM holds that moods are temporary dispositions to have or to generate particular kinds of emotion-relevant appraisals. Furthermore, DTM assumes that the cognitions and appraisals one is disposed to have in a given mood partly constitute the experience of mood. This article outlines (...) a number of implications of DTM (e.g., regarding the noncognitive causation and rationality of moods) and summarizes empirical results supporting the theory. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band ist der zweite Teil einer Sammlung zentraler Arbeiten von Matthias Baltes. Den Hauptteil bilden neuere Aufsätze zur antiken Philosophie, insbesondere zu Platon und zum Platonismus sowie zu Epikur, von denen einige bisher unveröffentlicht sind. Ein kleinerer Teil umfasst frühere Arbeiten zur homerischen Dichtung. Beide Sammlungen bieten einen nahezu vollständigen Überblick über die Forschungsarbeiten von Matthias Baltes, vor allem zu dem Gebiet, dem er sich Zeit seines Lebens intensiv gewidmet hat: dem geistesgeschichtlichen Phänomen des Platonismus. Er (...) behandelt neben philologischen Einzelfragen auch übergreifende philosophische und theologische Aspekte dieser für die Antike wie für die Moderne wichtigen Gedankenwelt. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the French philosopher and historian of science Abel Rey played a more influential role in the formative phase of the Vienna Circle than hitherto supposed. On the whole, it will be argued that Rey's contribution had political impact. His interpretation of "modern physics" in 1907 in the face of the alleged "bankruptcy of science" should be appreciated as a masterpiece of applied enlightenment thought. As such, it was especially paradigmatic for Philipp (...) Frank's "positivist" defense of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics against the irrationalist tendencies of the 1920s and 1930s. (shrink)

Was ist der Mensch? Und welche Bedeutung hat diese Frage fur die Philosophie? Fur die erste Halfte des 20. Jahrhunderts gilt die zwischen Ernst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger gefuhrte Davoser Disputation als der paradigmatische Streit um den Menschen und das richtige Verstandnis von Philosophie. Ausgeblendet wird dabei, dass die Protagonisten des Streits ihre Positionen selbst in einer Dreierkonstellation mit der von Max Scheler und Helmuth Plessner begrundeten modernen philosophischen Anthropologie sahen. Bezieht man diese dritte, naturphilosophische Alternative mit ein, so eroffnen (...) sich neue Wege der Auseinandersetzung mit Heideggers Daseinsontologie und Cassirers Kulturphilosophie. Zugleich wird eine originelle Position kenntlich, die auch fur eine Reihe von Themenkreisen des gegenwartigen Fragens nach dem Menschen von methodisch-sachlicher Aufschlusskraft ist: den Naturalismus, das Tier-Mensch-Verhaltnis, den Personbegriff und das Verhaltnis von menschlicher Lebensform und objektivem Geist. (shrink)

Matthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality, it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an increasingly visual culture, we (...) are constantly confronted with images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality - but did this referential character really get lost over time? Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions: what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it be recovered? (shrink)

Critical realism is a frequently mentioned, but not very well-known, late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century philosophical tradition. Having its roots in Kantian epistemology, critical realism is best characterized as a revisionist approach toward the original Kantian doctrine. Its most outstanding thesis is the idea that Kantian things-in-themselves are knowable. This idea was—at least implicitly—suggested by thinkers such as Alois Riehl, Wilhelm Wundt, and Oswald Külpe. Interestingly enough, the philosophical position of the early Moritz Schlick stands in the critical realist tradition as well. (...) As will be outlined in the course of this paper, both Schlick’s magnum opus General Theory of Knowledge (1918) and his seminal Space and Time in Contemporary Physics (1917) are based on the assumption that the objects of science are relations and that relations have the status of Kantian things-in-themselves. By way of conclusion, I shall point out that this— more or less directly—leads to the current debate over ‘structural’ realism. (shrink)

Fully updated with new topics covering the latest developments and debates, the second edition of this highly influential text retains its unique combination of accessibility and originality. Second edition of a highly influential text that has already become a standard in the field, for students and professional researchers alike, due to its impressive line-up of contributors, and its unique combination of accessibility and originality Twenty-six essays in total, covering 13 essential topics Features five new topics that bring readers up to (...) speed on some of the latest developments in the field, and give them a glimpse of where it's headed: Should knowledge come first? Do practical matters affect whether you know? Is virtuous motivation essential to knowing? Can knowledge be lucky? Can evidence be permissive? Substantially updates two other debates: Is there immediate justification? Can belief be justified through coherence alone? (shrink)

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...) without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

Theories of epistemology make reference—via the perspective of an observer—to the structure of information transfer, which generates reality, of which the observer himself forms a part. It can be shown that any epistemological approach which implies the participation of tautological structural elements in the information transfer necessarily leads to an antinomy. Nevertheless, since the time of Aristotle the paradigm of mathematics—and thus tautological structure—has always been a hidden ingredient in the various concepts of knowledge acquisition or general theories of information (...) transfer. We hold that Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory is the first scientific theory which consistently presupposes a non-tautological structure for the information transfer and, at the same time, keeps it strictly distinct from the tautological metric of scientific observation. The consequences of this technique—namely the dissociation of information from intentionality—have not yet been fully drawn. (shrink)

Africa, along with Asia, is the continent with the highest number of ‘living’ indigenous languages. European languages, mainly English, French and Portuguese, have spread throughout all African nations during the last 200 years; however, until today, the use of these ‘foreign’ languages has been mostly restricted to certain domains, such as higher education, politics and business, and also to a relatively small number of people. According to Scotton (1982: 68) only 10 per cent or less of the rural African population (...) have a considerable competence in the imported languages, even though these are in many instances the official languages of their home countries. African vernaculars are generally not in danger of being replaced by European languages. However, we observe a diminishing use of African vernaculars, not only in an increasing number of domains, but also with regard to the absolute number of indigenous languages; that means, in short, that linguistic vitality and variety on the African continent is decreasing. (shrink)

Making good decisions in extremely complex and difficult processes and situations has always been both a key task as well as a challenge in the clinic and has led to a large amount of clinical, legal and ethical routines, protocols and reflections in order to guarantee fair, participatory and up-to-date pathways for clinical decision-making. Nevertheless, the complexity of processes and physical phenomena, time as well as economic constraints and not least further endeavours as well as achievements in medicine and healthcare (...) continuously raise the need to evaluate and to improve clinical decision-making. This article scrutinises if and how clinical decision-making processes are challenged by the rise of so-called artificial intelligence-driven decision support systems (AI-DSS). In a first step, this article analyses how the rise of AI-DSS will affect and transform the modes of interaction between different agents in the clinic. In a second step, we point out how these changing modes of interaction also imply shifts in the conditions of trustworthiness, epistemic challenges regarding transparency, the underlying normative concepts of agency and its embedding into concrete contexts of deployment and, finally, the consequences for (possible) ascriptions of responsibility. Third, we draw first conclusions for further steps regarding a ‘meaningful human control’ of clinical AI-DSS. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno is a widely-studied figure, but most often with regard to his work on cultural theory, philosophy and aesthetics. The Sociology of Theodor Adorno provides the first thorough English-language account of Adorno's sociological thinking. Matthias Benzer reads Adorno's sociology through six major themes: the problem of conceptualising capitalist society; empirical research; theoretical analysis; social critique; the sociological text; and the question of the non-social. Benzer explains the methodological and theoretical ideas informing Adorno's reflections on sociology and illustrates Adorno's (...) approach to examining social life, including astrology, sexual taboos and racial prejudice. Benzer clarifies Adorno's sociology in relation to his work in other disciplines and the inspiration his sociology took from social thinkers such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Kracauer and Benjamin. The book raises critical questions about the viability of Adorno's sociological mode of procedure and its potential contributions and challenges to current debates in social science. (shrink)