This article explains the ebb and flow in Belgian trade union membership from 1946 to 1995 by replicating the econometric model by Bain and Elsheikhn in which changes in macro-economic variables are highly significant. Since the automatic indexation of wages and the extension of collective labour agreements invite free riding, the relevance of the change in inflation and real wage is quite striking. However, the free riding-effect is slowed down by the institutionalised presence of the trade unions on the work (...) floor. The Ghent system explains the positive impact of the unemployment rate. The model is furthermore improved by the trade union density as a structural variable. The linear form reflects the enforcement effect, while the quadratic form mirrors the saturation effect on the trade union membership. Mainly due to the 'Allgemeinkoalitionsfähighkeit' of the Belgian government system, the impact of left parties on union growth and decline is not significant in a quantitative framework. With only four explanatory variables the model clarifies more than 75% of the fluctuations in Belgian trade union membership. (shrink)

In der Geschichte der Philosophie gibt es nur wenige Namen, mit denen sich so viel Ungewohnliches, aber auch Ungereimtes, ja Paradoxes verbindet wie mit dem Namen Wittgenstein. Fur den Mann auf der StraSSe meist ein ganzlich Unbekannter, ist Wittgenstein fur viele Fachleute der Philosoph schlechthin. ER zahlt zu den meistzitierten Denkern des 20. JAhrhunderts, obwohl er in seinem Leben nur einige Dutzend Seiten veroffentlicht hat: er wurde seit seinem Tode zum Star einer neuen philosophischen Tradition, wo gerade er uns doch (...) von der traditionellen Philosophie befreien wollte. EIne vollstandige Bibliographie der Wittgenstein-Literatur wurde mehrere tausend Titel umfassen, und standig werden neue Abhandlungen uber Wittgenstein und seine Philosophie veroffentlicht. (shrink)

Ogni tentativo di ripensare le nostre categorie politiche deve muovere dalla consapevolezza che della distinzione classica fra zoé e bios, tra vita naturale ed esistenza politica (o tra l'uomo come semplice vivente e l'uomo come soggetto politico), non ne sappiamo piú nulla. Nel diritto romano arcaico homo sacer era un uomo che chiunque poteva uccidere senza commettere omicidio e che non doveva però essere messo a morte nelle forme prescritte dal rito. È la vita uccidibile e insacrificabile dell' 'uomo sacro' (...) a fornire qui la chiave per una rilettura critica della nostra tradizione politica. Quando la vita diventa la posta in gioco della politica e questa si trasforma in biopolitica, tutte le categorie fondamentali della nostra riflessione, dai diritti dell'uomo alla democrazia alla cittadinanza, entrano in un processo di svuotamento e di dislocazione il cui risultato sta oggi davanti ai nostri occhi. Seguendo il filo del rapporto costitutivo fra nuda vita e potere sovrano, da Aristotele ad Auschwitz, dall'Habeas corpus alle Dichiarazioni dei diritti, il libro di Agamben cerca di decifrare gli enigmi - prima di tutti il fascismo e il nazismo - che il nostro secolo ha proposto alla ragione storica. Fino a vedere, nel campo di concentramento, il paradigma biopolitico nascosto della modernità in cui città e casa sono diventate indiscernibili e la possibilità di distinguere tra il nostro corpo biologico e il nostro corpo politico ci è stata tolta una volta per tutte. (shrink)

This volume offers a state-of-the-art collection of studies in the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of cognitive poetics. In coupling cognitive linguistics and poetics, cognitive poeticians aim to offer cognitive readings of literary texts. By bringing together key players and critics in a setting of interdisciplinary dialogue, this volume captures the goals, gains and gaps of this emerging field.

Da gegenwärtig kein allgemeinverbindlicher Begriff des ‚Neukantianismus‘ oder gar der ‚Transzendentalphilosophie‘ zur Verfügung steht und somit unter heutigen Bedingungen nicht aufs Geratewohl eine Geschichte der transzendentalsystematischen Bemühungen des 20. Jahrhunderts verfaßt werden kann, lag es nahe, sich diesem Thema anhand einer Analyse der Diskussionen zu nähern, in denen sich die sogenannte Selbstauflösung des Neukantianismus dokumentiert. Im Zuge dieser Annäherung war insbesondere an Siegfried Marcks zweibändiges Werk über DIE DIALEKTIK IN DER PHILOSOPHIE DER GEGENWART (Tübingen 1929/31) anzuknüpfen, das die transzendentalphilosophische Diskussion (...) der 20er Jahre unter dem Aspekt einer „kritischen Dialektik“ zusammenfaßt; einer kritischen Dialektik, die sich aufgrund der Ablehnung der neukantianischen „Konstruktion eines idealen Subjekts“ und der darum nunmehr verstärkten Einsicht in die „Spannung zwischen dem existierenden Subjekte und dem Geltungsbereich“ ausgeformt habe und als das verbindende Motiv in „Jonas Cohns Theorie der Dialektik, R. Höngswalds Denkpsychologie, Br. Bauchs Ideenlehre, P. Natorps Lehre vom Grenzdenken, N. Hartmanns Aporetik, E. Cassirers philosophische[r] ‚Anthropologie‘, Max Adlers neukantische[m] Marxismus“ anzusehen sei (S. Marck [1929], S. III). Wie allein schon der Hinweis auf „N[icolai] Hartmanns Aporetik“ zeigt, geht diese,Hegel-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie‘ (H. Levy) auch Hand in Hand mit einer Ontologisierung der Transzendentalphilosophie. Dieser Transzendentalontologie, die sich - teils in dialektischem Einverständnis mit und teils in antidialektischem Gegensatz zur ‚Hegel-Renaissance‘ - mit einer nach den unterschiedlichsten Richtungen hin wirksamen ‚Leibniz-Renaissance‘ verband, war im Titel der vorliegenden Untersuchung um so mehr Rechnung zu tragen, als das ontologische Motiv (vorallem unter dem Eindruck der Hartmannschen Neo-Ontologie und der Heideggerschen Existentialontologie) in den transzendentalsystematischen Arbeiten der Nachkriegszeit eindeutig in den Vordergrund tritt. Der Titel KRITISCHE DIALEKTIK UND TRANSZENDENTALONTOLOGIE steckt daher sowohl den inhaltlichen wie auch den zeitlichen Rahmen der Untersuchung ab: ihr Thema sind die post-neukantianischen Systembildungen, die in Auseinandersetzung mit den dominierenden Philosophemen der Zwischen- und Nachkriegszeit (der Neo-Ontologie und der Lebens- und Existenzphilosophie) am transzendentalen Ansatz und Systemanspruch festhielten, indem sie den überzeitlichen Geltungsanspruch der Idee und die innerzeitliche Existenz ‚dialektisch‘ oder ‚monadologisch‘ zu vermitteln suchten. Nachdem aus transzendentalsystematischer Sicht das Ringen um eben diese Vermittlungsproblematik ohnehin die gesamte abendländische Philosophiegeschichte ‚seit Parmenides und Platon‘ beherrscht, sagt diese Eingrenzung der Thematik allerdings mehr über das Selbstverständnis der Systemdenker aus, als sie zu deren philosophiegeschichtlicher Positionierung beiträgt. Man kommt daher dem Eigentümlichen der post-neukantianischen Systembildungen näher, wenn man – ihre Differenz zum Neukantianismus hervorhebend – betont, daß sie sich aufgrund der Ablehnung der neukantianischen „Konstruktion eines idealen Subjekts“ (S. Marck) dem Problem der ‚Konkretisierung der Transzendentalität‘ (Erich Heintel) oder einer ‚Philosophie der konkreten Subjektivität‘ (Hans Wagner) stellen. Da man die Phänomenologie Husserls und die Philosophische Anthropologie in gleicher Weise charakterisieren kann, muß diese Problemstellung in unserem Zusammenhang freilich nicht so sehr als Verabschiedung, sondern als Weiterführung neukantianischer Traditionen verstanden werden; da der Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der neukantianischen Theoriestränge, die sich gegenüber den lebensphilosophischen, ontologischen und positivistischen Zersetzungen des kritizistischen Ansatzes resistent erwiesen, zur Revision einiger gängiger Vorurteile bezüglich des Neukantianismus zwingt, wird im Zuge der einleitenden Analyse der sogenannten Selbstauflösung des Neukantianismus aber auch der Begriff ‚Neukantianismus‘ selbst in grundsätzlicher Weise zu bestimmen sein. Diese Begriffsbestimmung liefert das gesuchte Kriterium für die systematische Eingrenzung der Thematik und somit für die Auswahl der Repräsentanten der Kritischen Dialektik und Transzendentalontologie, deren philosophische Bemühungen in der Folge dokumentiert sind. Durchaus in Verbindung und Übereinstimmung mit diesen systematischen Erwägungen war für die nähere Auseinandersetzung mit Richard Hönigswald und Wolfgang Cramer, Bruno Bauch und Hans Wagner, sowie mit Robert Reininger und Erich Heintel, nicht zuletzt der Umstand maßgeblich, daß ihre Arbeiten eine für die Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts bemerkenswerte Kontinuität transzendentalphilosophischer Ansätze demonstrieren und dennoch keineswegs die Beachtung gefunden haben, die sie im Interesse einer lebendigen Aneignung und kritischen Weiterführung der Transzendentalphilosophie verdienen. Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht vorallem diese Kontinuität transzendentalphilosophischer bzw. neukantianischer Ansätze herauszustellen und die aus der individuellen Problemsicht der genannten Autoren resultierende produktive Weiterbildung dieser Ansätze zu dokumentieren, indem sie jeweils monographisch die einzelnen Denkwege verfolgt. (shrink)

Foreword by Oliver Sacks Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings. It offers a broad introduction to the sources and ranges of application of the "holistic" or "organismic" research program that has since become a standard part (...) of biological thought. Goldstein was especially concerned with the breakdown of organization and the failure of central controls that take place in catastrophic responses to situations such as physical or mental illness. But he was equally attuned to the amazing powers of the organism to readjust to such catastrophic losses, if only by withdrawal to a more limited range that it could manage by a redistribution of its reduced energies, thus reclaiming as much wholeness as new circumstances allowed. Goldstein's theses in The Organism have had an important impact on philosophical and psychological thought throughout the twentieth century, as evidenced in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Ernst Cassirer, and Ludwig Binswanger. (shrink)

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions (...) of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. (shrink)

This research examines the relationships between education in business ethics, Reynolds’s (J Appl Psychol 93:1027–1041, 2008) “moral attentiveness” construct, or the extent to which individuals chronically perceive and reflect on morality and moral elements in their experiences, and Singhapakdi et al.’s (J Bus Ethics 15:1131–1140, 1996) measure of perceptions of the role of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR). Education in business ethics was found to be positively associated with the two identified factors of moral attentiveness, “reflective” and “perceptual” moral attentiveness, (...) and with the PRESOR “stakeholder view” factor. Also, reflective moral attentiveness was found to act as a mediator in the relationship between education in business ethics and the PRESOR stakeholder view factor. Evidence of gender and social desirability bias effects was also found. The implications of these relationships and social cognitive theory for improved understanding of the mechanisms by which a variety of variables have their effects on PRESOR in business are discussed. (shrink)

The uncanny valley—the unnerving nature of humanlike robots—is an intriguing idea, but both its existence and its underlying cause are debated. We propose that humanlike robots are not only unnerving, but are so because their appearance prompts attributions of mind. In particular, we suggest that machines become unnerving when people ascribe to them experience, rather than agency. Experiment 1 examined whether a machine’s humanlike appearance prompts both ascriptions of experience and feelings of unease. Experiment 2 tested whether a machine capable (...) of experience remains unnerving, even without a humanlike appearance. Experiment 3 investigated whether the perceived lack of experience can also help explain the creepiness of unfeeling humans and philosophical zombies. These experiments demonstrate that feelings of uncanniness are tied to perceptions of experience, and also suggest that experience—but not agency—is seen as fundamental to humans, and fundamentally lacking in machines. (shrink)

Leaders, particularly new leaders, seek to establish high levels of trust, as it has been associated with higher levels of effectiveness and group outcomes. This study is designed to understand how trust changes and develops for leaders in a new role and the implications of that change. Although calls for research on trust over time have been made for the past 2 decades, our knowledge of this phenomenon is still quite limited. The findings indicate that leader and unit performance is (...) a function not only of absolute trust level, but is also affected by the direction and magnitude of change in trust across time periods, with the highest levels of effectiveness being associated with leaders who exhibited an increase in trust from the group over time. The data also suggest that the direction and rate at which trust grew was determined by initial expectations and transformational leadership behaviors. (shrink)

It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. (...) This 2005 volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

A classical work on Gestalt psychology from a member of the "Berlin School." Discusses perception in relation to the environment, along with action, learning, memory, and socieity.

First English translation of revolutionary paper that established that even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system. Introduction by R. B. Braithwaite.

Previously published: Princeton University Press, 1940.

The global array may be a useful concept in studying behavior in a complex environment, especially in the context of dynamical systems theory. However, Stoffregen & Bardy's arguments are weakened by the conflation of sensation and perception, and by the lack of evidence for synergy between stimulus energy arrays; strong evidence places the convergence of sensory stimuli inside the head.