Language’s intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production (...) of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans. (shrink)

Beck, L.W. Können Kants synthetische Urteil in analystische umgewandelt werden?--Ebbinghaus, J. Kants Lehre von der Anschauung a priori.--Mittelstrass, J. Spontaneität.--Prauss, G. Zum Wahrheitsproblem bei Kant.--Henrich, D. Die Beweisstruktur von Kants transzendentaler Deduktion.--Kaulbach, F. Schema, Bild und Modell nach den Voraussetzungen des Kantischen Denkens.--Frede, M. und Krüger, L. Über die Zuordnung der Quantitäten des Urteils und der Kategorien der Grösse bei Kant.--Weizsäcker, C.F. von. Kants "Erste Analogie der Erfahrung" und die Erhaltungssätze der Physik.--Beck, L.W. Die Zweite Analogie und das Prinzip der (...) Unberstimmtheit.--Tuschling, B. Kants "Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft" und das Opus postumum.--Hilbner, K. Leib und Erfahrung in Kants Opus postumum.--Patzig, G. Die logischen Formen praktischer Sätze in Kants Ethik.--Henrich, D. Der Begriff der sittlichen Einsicht und Kants Lehre vom Faktum der Vernunft.--Schwemmer, O. Vernunft und Moral.--Ebbinghaus, J. Die Formeln des kategorischen Imperativs und die Ableitung inhaltlich bestimmter Pflichten. (shrink)

The series, founded in 1970, publishes works which either combine studies in the history of philosophy with a systematic approach or bring together systematic studies with reconstructions from the history of philosophy. Monographs are published in English as well as in German. The founding editors are Erhard Scheibe (editor until 1991), Günther Patzig (until 1999) and Wolfgang Wieland (until 2003). From 1990 to 2007, the series had been co-edited by Jürgen Mittelstraß.

Some maladaptive thought processes are characterized by reflexive and habitual patterns of cognitive and emotional reactivity. We review theoretical and empirical work suggesting that mindfulness—a state of nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment—can facilitate the discontinuation of such automatic mental operations. We propose a framework that suggests a series of more specific mechanisms supporting the de-automatizing function of mindfulness. Four related but distinct elements of mindfulness (awareness, attention, focus on the present, and acceptance) can each contribute to de-automatization through subsequent (...) processes, including discontinuing automatic inference, enhancing cognitive control capacity, facilitating metacognitive insight, and preventing suppression or thought distortion. De-automatizing can, in turn, allow enhancement of adaptive self-control ability and increased well-being. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, the Jewish mystical tradition which is known as Kabbalah was integrated into the curriculum of studying the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. Kabbalah became popular in these times in the wake of the dissemination of Isaac Luria’s teachings, in particular within the Jewish communities in Prague and Amsterdam, where members of the Horowitz family took a leading role. Kabbalistic psychology was applied to the whole Jewish lifestyle then, and to the understanding of Jewish tradition. Kabbalistic intentions (...) of prayer intensified the expectation of redemption, and during the messianic movement initiated by Shabtai Zvi, the kabbalistic meaning of repentance was also adapted in prayer books composed for so-called Conversos, who had to familiarize themselves with Jewish tradition. The article exemplifies this process by a Spanish anthology of prayers, Libro entitulado ensenha à pecadores, and shows the historical impact of Kabbalah in the field of Jewish education. (shrink)

Business, management, and business ethics literature pay little attention to the topic of AI robots. The broad spectrum of potential ethical issues pertains to using driverless cars, AI robots in care homes, and in the military, such as Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. However, there is a scarcity of in-depth theoretical, methodological, or empirical studies that address these ethical issues, for instance, the impact of morality and where accountability resides in AI robots’ use. To address this dearth, this study offers a (...) conceptual framework that interpretively develops the ethical implications of AI robot applications, drawing on descriptive and normative ethical theory. The new framework elaborates on how the locus of morality and moral intensity combine within context-specific AI robot applications, and how this might influence accountability thinking. Our theorization indicates that in situations of escalating AI agency and situational moral intensity, accountability is widely dispersed between actors and institutions. ‘Accountability clusters’ are outlined to illustrate interrelationships between the locus of morality, moral intensity, and accountability and how these invoke different categorical responses: illegal, immoral, permissible, and supererogatory pertaining to using AI robots. These enable discussion of the ethical implications of using AI robots, and associated accountability challenges for a constellation of actors—from designer, individual/organizational users to the normative and regulative approaches of industrial/governmental bodies and intergovernmental regimes. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)