This book offers an important reappraisal of Schelling's philosophy and his relationship to German Idealism. Focusing on Schelling's self-critique in early identity philosophy the author rejects those criticisms of Schelling made by both Hegel and Heidegger. This work significantly redraws the boundaries of metaphysical thinking, arguing for a dialogue between rational philosophy, mythology and cosmology.

This article unfolds Schelling’s idea that artwork allows for infinite interpretations and condenses into an infinite meaning. This claim has been investigated by the double act of potentiation that occurs, in parallel ways, both in the artwork and in Nature writ large, as well as in the artist’s body. The questions of form, formation, and individuation in Nature are addressed along with the role of the expansive productive intuition in the body of the artist. Nature in Schelling’s thought consists in (...) a self-generative artistic creativity and the primordial spring for the dynamics of the cosmic and the human poiesis. In this context, the act of Potenzierung provides a powerful insight into the “leap of art-making.”. (shrink)

This article introduces the significance of the mythic tradition for modern theorizing, through a discussion of Schelling's study on the Deities of Samothrace. It argues that the mythic tradition constitutes a relatively unthematized legacy offering large resources for the investigation of the inscrutable aspects of human consciousness and the unconscious and their relation to the world. In particular, it extracts theoretical conclusions deriving from the specific traits of the myths and cult-practices of the Deities of Samothrace, which open new horizons (...) as far the notion of cognitive experience is concerned. This is undertaken with a view to challenging both Enlightenment conceptual models and traditional mythological ones, thereby opening the problematic for a new re-enchantment of the world. (shrink)

Kant denies that Reason is intuitive, but demands that we must - in some way - 'make' Reason intuitive, and follow its guidance, particularly in matters of morality. In this book, a group of scholars attempt to analyze and explore this central paradox within Kantian thought. Each essay explores the question from a different perspective - from political philosophy, ethics and religion to science and aesthetics. The essays thus also reformulate the core question in different forms, for example, how are (...) we to realize the moral good in personal character, political arrangements, or religious institutions? (shrink)

In this thesis I investigate the notion of experience in German Idealist Philosophy. I focus on the exploration of an alternative to the transcendental model notion of experience through Schelling's insight into the notion of logogrif. The structural division of this project into two sections reflects the two theoretical standpoints of this project, namely the logic and the logogrif of experience. The first section - the logic of experience - explores the notion of experience provided in Kant's Critique of Pure (...) Reason, Critique of Judgement and Fichte's Science of Knowledge. I argue that Kant's fundamental question about the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements succeeds in thematising the aporia of cognitive experience but results in a subject-oriented, representational model which radically confines the notion of experience to the constitutive laws of the understanding or to the normative precepts of Reason. Experience is founded upon a sharp division between faith and knowledge, will and logic, desire and reflection, absolute and finitude. Fichte's endeavour to articulate a non-representational account of experience, does not succeed in extricating itself from the representational model, so long as experience is reduced to the ever-producing deeds of the self-positing ego. Despite the serious differences between Kant's and Fichte's notions of experience, both accounts, so long as they unfold from a transcendental standpoint, attempt to resolve experience into conceptual laws or determinations of the ego's absolute will. Experience is transformed into an object of the subject's cognitive or volitional faculties. The paradoxes of man's interaction with the world are intended to be accommodated either by the law-giving spontaneity of the understanding and the Architectonic of Pure Reason or by the overpowerful primordial act of the self-positing ego. This implies the conceptualisation of the self in terms of constant identity-through-time, or sheer self-determination. However, this conceptualisation remains at the normative or prescriptive level, which in turn is projected upon the world. The latter, though appears as the subject's property, essentially remains alien and opaque, confirming the radical limitations of the ego rather than its order-giving authority. Moreover, this notion of experience is ultimately founded upon a radical expulsion of the divine from the world, the de-spiritualisation of the sensual and the de-sensualisation of the spiritual, the sharp juxtaposition between absolute and finitude. This results in a self-defeating subjectivity, whose firm identity and rule-giving authority does not rescue it from its perennial unattainability to 'organise the conditioned' or 'conquer the unconditioned'. In Kant's and Fichte's thought, however, I detect elements that potentially transgress their transcendental account of experience. These are found in Kant's concept of spontaneity and free play between understanding and imagination, and Fichte's concept of productivity. I argue that these elements lose their potential dynamism, so long as they are absorbed by the transcendental demands for the solution of the aporias of logic. However, these elements point to the need for a radical re-conceptualisation of the notion of experience. This is provided by means of Schelling's logogriflic approach, which constitutes the theme of the second section. The second section - the logogrif of experience - attempts to articulate a different approach towards the notion of experience, through an exploration of Schelling's versatile and provocative thought. This section focuses on Schelling's original insight into the notion and act of logogrif, which opens the dialogue between logos and mythos, cosmic becoming and human soul, cosmic imagination and human reflection, faith and knowledge. This section attempts to illuminate Schelling's fascinating philosophical investigations and discoveries that have been rather overlooked, possibly, due to Hegel's overwhelming critique. This section, after a brief critical examination of the Identity Philosophy, attempts to elucidate Schelling's notion of experience through his middle works, Of Human Freedom, Ages of the World, The Deities of Samothrace, which are treated as a self-developing trilogy. Schelling re-addresses the aporias of logic not as part of Reason's self-interrogation but as part of the cosmic paradoxes and living experiences. In this way, Schelling resets the scene of the debate on the conditions of possibility for cognitive experience by putting on the stage the enigmas of the cosmos and life rather than the Tribunal of Reason. Logic itself is conceived as a potency in the cosmic becoming, and consequently can no longer attempt to establish the transcendental conditions for the possibility of cognitive experience. Cosmic becoming, in which man is an active part, is conceived as the process of the movement, the interaction, the transformations and transmutations of multiple potencies. These, far beyond any mechanical conceptualisation, appear as self-moving and yet interdependent, unknown yet familiar, inscrutable and yet manifest powers, describing the mystery of life itself. The latter is depicted as an ever-recurrent act of longing for self-expression as active unity. Experience is conceived as the lived process of a network of living potencies, which may not only resist rational powers but may also puzzle and seize them. In this context, reflection acquires a plastic dimension, as opposed to its rigidity in the representational model of experience. Reflection depicts cosmic longing's self-formation, whose man is part. This self-bending formation partially illuminates the nature of longing, and from this standpoint is the logic of the longing. However, this formation is movable, transmutable and mostly ineffable, and from this standpoint is the logic of a riddle: a logogrif. Logogrif is the transitive term that attempts to describe the transition of experience from its enacted phase to its allusive conceptual utterance, and in this sense the term itself participates in both phases, as both form of thought and form of life. The logogrific approach to experience in turn transposes us as from the realm of pure concepts to the realm of the mystery of life, from pure thought to acts of longing, from the Architectonic of Pure Reason to Cosmic Theurgy. The latter term attempts to grasp the paradox and dynamism of cosmic and non-cosmic becoming by means of multiple, vanishing and ever-recurring, transmutable potencies, or in Schelling's terms 'the magic of insoluble life'. Schelling's logogrific account consists in a powerful voice for the re-enchantment of the world, the introduction into the notion of experience of the imminence of the divine. This is not suggested in terms of the adoption of old religious doctrines but by means of the discovery and re-discovery of the theurgy of life, through the intensification of our artistic mood, the creative expansion of our deeds. This notion of experience allows for the reconsideration of the notion of the self, in terms of a dynamic, conflictual process between conscious and unconscious powers and the critical revaluation of the accounts of subjectivity which reduce it to the sphere of self-consciousness. The thesis concludes with the need for an investigation into the relation between logos and mythos, which only tangentially has been introduced by the present project. In this context it will be possible to re-appraise the potential that the logogrific approach opens for an alternative to both logical and traditional mythological patterns of thinking. (shrink)

The most predominant and usual interpretations amongst Leibniz’s scholars, as far as his conception of space is concerned, draw from the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, and thereby, they argue for the relativist/idealist Leibnizian notion of space contra to the absolutist/realist Newtonian thesis In the present paper I intend to expand Leibniz’s conception of space, which, in our view, is much broader and fertile than the relativistic/idealistic interpretation. The main reason for the above mentioned accounts of the Leibnizian thesis on space lies on (...) the restrictive interpretation of space, i.e. only in terms of the monad’s relative perceptions of the coexistence of its compossible monadic relations, which thereby extrapolates the perspectivist/relativistic character of the monad from its simultaneous embeddedness within the objective/realist living tissue of the organic plenum of the universe. Instead, our argument is sustained by incorporating in the previous account Leibniz’s critique of the Cartesian res extensa, and mainly, his powerful idea that each monad is a perpetual, living mirror of the Universe. This would lead us beyond an one-sided relativistic and subjectivist notion of space, which, in fact, seems at odds with Leibniz’s cosmo-oriented frame of thought, since it reduces Leibniz’ conception of space to the Kantian abstract/geometrical and subjectivist conception of an apriori intuition of the external world; instead, through our interpretation we attain the alignment of Leibniz’s notion of space with his whole dynamic, organic and ensouled account of the Universe. (shrink)

The Big Two theoretical framework suggests that two traits, namely morality and competence, govern social judgments of individuals and that morality shows a primacy effect over competence because it has more diagnostic value. In this study we tested the primacy effect of morality in the workplace by examining how instrumental or relational goals of organizations might influence the importance of morality or competence of candidates during the hiring process. We hypothesized that the primacy effect of morality might hold when organizational (...) goals are relational, but it might get reversed when organizational goals are instrumental. Supporting our hypothesis, in a field study and two experiments we found that people perceive moral candidates as more appropriate for recruitment when an organization prioritizes relational goals. In contrast, people perceive competent candidates as more appropriate for recruitment when an organization prioritizes instrumental goals. Perceived appropriateness of a candidate, in turn, predicts a stronger intention to recruit a candidate. These results provide evidence for a reversal of the primacy effect of morality in a work setting, and illuminate the important role of organizational goals in social judgments. (shrink)

For years now, phase-amplitude cross frequency coupling (CFC) has been observed across multiple brain regions under different physiological and pathological conditions. It has been suggested that CFC serves as a mechanism that facilitates communication and information transfer between local and spatially separated neuronal populations. In non-invasive brain computer interfaces (BCI), CFC has not been thoroughly explored. In this work, we propose a CFC estimation method based on Linear Parameter Varying Autoregressive (LPV-AR) models and we assess its performance using both synthetic (...) data and electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded during attempted arm/hand movements of spinal cord injured (SCI) participants. Our results corroborate the potentiality of CFC as a feature for movement attempt decoding and provide evidence of the superiority of our proposed CFC estimation approach compared to other commonly used techniques. (shrink)

This paper argues for the need to engage with the views of children in primary schools as a way of promoting inclusive education. One example from one primary school, where the views of children were explored in order to develop further the school’s practices, will be used to illustrate this argument. Methodological considerations, the benefits as well as the challenges associated with the process will be discussed.

Signal transduction pathways constructed around a core module of three consecutive protein kinases, the most distal being a member of the extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) family, are ubiquitous among eukaryotes. Recent work has defined two cascades activated preferentially by the inflammatory cytokines TNF‐α and IL‐1‐β, as well as by a wide variety of cellular stresses such as UV and ionizing radiation, hyperosmolarity, heat stress, oxidative stress, etc. One pathway converges on the ERK subfamily known as the ‘stress activated’ protein kinases (...) (SAPKs, also termed Jun N‐terminal kinases, JNKs), whereas the second pathway recruits the p38 kinases. Upstream inputs are diverse, and include small GTPases (primarily Rac and Cdc42; secondarily Ras) acting through mammalian homologs of the yeast Ste20 kinase, other kinase subfamilies (e.g. GC kinase) and ceramide, a putative second messenger for certain TNF‐α actions. These two cascades signal cell cycle delay, cellular repair or apoptosis in most cells, as well as activation of immune and reticuloendothelial cells. (shrink)

This text is an account of two conversations with Professor Emma nuel Levinas (1906–1995) in his home in Paris. The first conversation took place July 22, 1980, the second on October 29, 1981. A few questions on paper and an article of mine served as introduction and point of departure for the conversations. Originally it was not my intention to publish the conversations as an “interview.” The idea of making the account of the conversations acceptable for publication only arose later. (...) The original accounts, based on recordings, had to be shortened and worked over considerably to get a coherent text that is interesting for a broader public.Olivier van Wersch-Cot has been very helpful to me through his knowledge of the French language. I am very grateful to Prof. Levinas not only for the friendly way he received me and conversed with me, but also for his consent for the publication of the definitive text. (shrink)

Is there a parallel between climate change and our body’s temperature or non-compliance and failure to act on global warming? This paper proposes a model which describes the human body as part of N...

The area where literature, art, music, religion, spirituality, and philosophy split off from, run parallel to each other, and merge again is like a delta. This essay explores the complex interrelations between art and spirituality on three levels. First on the level of spiritual experience, exemplified by experiences of the art of still life (the painter Morandi, the poet Kopland). On the second level, several questions about meaning are analyzed, beginning with the question of meaning posed by the work of (...) art itself. Both art and spirituality presuppose an open and receptive attitude. In philosophical reflections on the meaning of art, some aim primarily at its relevance for our insight into the reality of things, people, and animals, while others are more concerned with its significance for human action. Thirdly, some problems on the level of research are discussed. Research invites us to come to a critical relativization of what we have seen, heard, or read and also allows us to see that the often presupposed ‘immediacy’ of our experience is in fact mediated by pre-given schemes and habits. Three reasons are given to answer the question why it is meaningful to research these mediations and to search for the authentic meanings of art works (in particular works of literature) themselves. (shrink)

Het denken van Levinas verdedigt op een uiterst kritische manier de subjectiviteit van de mens en geeft nieuwe inhoud aan de humanistische idealen van vrijheid en waardigheid. Dat verklaart wellicht de populariteit ervan. Na de dood van de metafysische God brengt Levinas bovendien opnieuw, zij het ‘met de knipoog van het raadsel’, God ter sprake . Met eenzelfde knipoog zou men daarom Levinas ‘theoloog’ kunnen noemen. Maar dan wel in heel bepaalde zin.

This text is an account of two conversations with Professor Emma nuel Levinas (1906–1995) in his home in Paris. The first conversation took place July 22, 1980, the second on October 29, 1981. A few questions on paper and an article of mine served as introduction and point of departure for the conversations. Originally it was not my intention to publish the conversations as an “interview.” The idea of making the account of the conversations acceptable for publication only arose later. (...) The original accounts, based on recordings, had to be shortened and worked over considerably to get a coherent text that is interesting for a broader public.Olivier van Wersch-Cot has been very helpful to me through his knowledge of the French language. I am very grateful to Prof. Levinas not only for the friendly way he received me and conversed with me, but also for his consent for the publication of the definitive text. (shrink)

Electroencephalographic correlates of movement have been studied extensively over many years. In the present work, we focus on investigating neural correlates that originate from the spine and study their connectivity to corresponding signals from the sensorimotor cortex using multivariate autoregressive models. To study cortico-spinal interactions, we simultaneously measured spinal cord potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials of wrist movements elicited by neuromuscular electrical stimulation. We identified directional connections between spine and cortex during both the extension and flexion of the wrist using (...) only non-invasive recording techniques. Our connectivity estimation results are in alignment with various studies investigating correlates of movement, i.e., we found the contralateral side of the sensorimotor cortex to be the main sink of information as well as the spine to be the main source of it. Both types of movement could also be clearly identified in the time-domain signals. (shrink)

The museum of Trebizond houses a seal with a metrical legend of special interest, documenting a Synadenos, who had for some time been in a Sicilian prison but managed to escape, and thanks the apostle Thomas for this liberation. He might be Andronikos Synadenos, the husband of Theodora Komnene, a daughter of Alexios I, who served with distinction as general and as diplomat. As a military commander he maintained order in several border regions such as Dyrrachion, Niš, Cyprus, and finally (...) Trebizond. The legend of the seal enhances the information from his epitaph which is known from Codex Marc. gr. 574: Synadenos must have been taken prisoner as dux of Dyrrachion, either at the fights during the Second Crusade in 1147/49, or during the failed expedition to Southern Italy; it ended in 1158 by a peace treaty which included an exchange of prisoners. The seal stems from Synadenos’ last post in his military career as dux of Trapezunt (before 1179), since it was found there. A parallel piece, also published in this article, is nowadays in Dumbarton Oaks. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 207-218.

Current societal changes and challenges demand a broader role of technological universities, thus opening the question of how their role evolved over time and how to frame their current responsibility. In response to urgent calls for debating and redefining the identity of contemporary technological universities, this paper has two aims. The first aim is to identify the key characteristics and orientations marking the development of technological universities, as recorded in the history of engineering education. The second aim is to articulate (...) the responsibility of contemporary technological universities given their different orientations and characteristics. For this, we first provide a non-systematic literature review of the key pedagogical orientations of technological universities, grounded in the history of engineering education. The five major orientations of technological universities presented in the paper are technical, economic, social, political, and ecological. We then use this historical survey to articulate the responsibilities of contemporary technological universities reflecting the different orientations. Technological universities can promote and foster the development of scientific, professional, civic, legal, or intra- and inter- generational responsibility. We argue that responsibility is not specific to any particular orientation, such that the concept is broadened to complement each orientation or mix of orientations of a technological university. Our contribution thus serves as a call for technological universities to self-reflect on their mission and identity, by offering a lens for identifying the orientations they currently foster and making explicit the responsibility arising from their current orientation or the ones they strive to cultivate. (shrink)

Although attentional bias is considered a key characteristic of anxiety problems, the psychometric properties of most AB measures are either problematic or unknown. We conducted two experiment...

Today humanity is in the midst of the massive expansion of new and fundamental technology, represented by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The ongoing revolution of these technologies and their profound impact across various sectors, has triggered discussions about the characteristics and values that should guide their use and development in a responsible manner. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review with the aim of pointing out existing challenges and required principles in AI-based systems in different industries. We (...) discuss our findings and provide general recommendations to be considered during AI deployment in production. The results have shown many gaps and concerns towards responsible AI and integration of complex AI models in the industry that the research community could address. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to implement a Riemannian geometry -based algorithm to detect high mental workload and mental fatigue using task-induced electroencephalogram signals. In order to elicit high MWL and MF, the participants performed a cognitively demanding task in the form of the letter n-back task. We analyzed the time-varying characteristics of the EEG band power features in the theta and alpha frequency band at different task conditions and cortical areas by employing a RG-based framework. MWL and MF (...) were considered as too high, when the Riemannian distances of the task-run EEG reached or surpassed the threshold of the baseline EEG. The results of this study showed a BP increase in the theta and alpha frequency bands with increasing experiment duration, indicating elevated MWL and MF that impedes/hinders the task performance of the participants. High MWL and MF was detected in 8 out of 20 participants. The Riemannian distances also showed a steady increase toward the threshold with increasing experiment duration, with the most detections occurring toward the end of the experiment. To support our findings, subjective ratings and behavioral measures were also considered. (shrink)

The publication of the Byzantine lead seals kept in Austrian collections is one of the many projects initiated by the late Prof. Herbert Hunger under the auspices of the Kommission for Byzantinistik of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The project is anticipated to be completed in three volumes, the first one of which appeared in Vienna in 1977 (henceforward Österreich I) and was dedicated to seals belonging to members of the imperial family and palace officials. The volume under review (henceforward (...) Österreich II) is the second one in the series and presents seals belonging to officials of the central and provincial administration. (shrink)