Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the structures and functions of the brain and brain-mind relations. This effort results in an increasing amount of data, generated by sophisticated technologies. However, these data enhance our descriptive knowledge, rather than improve our understanding of brain functions. This is caused by methodological gaps both within and between subdisciplines constituting neuroscience, and the atomistic approach that limits the study of macro- and mesoscopic issues. Whole-brain measurement technologies do not resolve these issues, but rather (...) aggravate them by the complexity problem. The present article is devoted to methodological and epistemic problems that obstruct the development of human neuroscience. We neither discuss ontological questions nor review data, except when it is necessary to demonstrate a methodological issue. As regards intradisciplinary methodological problems, we concentrate on those within neurobiology and psychology. As regards interdisciplinary problems, we suggest that core disciplines of neuroscience can be integrated using systemic concepts that also entail human-environment relations. We emphasize the necessity of a meta-discussion that should entail a closer cooperation with philosophy as a discipline of systematic reflection. The atomistic reduction should be complemented by the explicit consideration of the embodiedness of the brain and the embeddedness of humans. The discussion is aimed at the development of an explicit methodology of integrative human neuroscience, which will not only link different fields and levels, but also help in understanding clinical phenomena. (shrink)

Nowadays, depression is the world’s major health concern and economic burden worldwide. However, due to the limitations of current methods for depression diagnosis, a pervasive and objective approach is essential. In the present study, a psychophysiological database, containing 213 subjects, was constructed. The electroencephalogram signals of all participants under resting state and sound stimulation were collected using a pervasive prefrontal-lobe three-electrode EEG system at Fp1, Fp2, and Fpz electrode sites. After denoising using the Finite Impulse Response filter combining the Kalman (...) derivation formula, Discrete Wavelet Transformation, and an Adaptive Predictor Filter, a total of 270 linear and nonlinear features were extracted. Then, the minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance feature selection technique reduced the dimensionality of the feature space. Four classification methods distinguished the depressed participants from normal controls. The classifiers’ performances were evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation. The results showed thatK-Nearest Neighbor had the highest accuracy of 79.27%. The result also suggested that the absolute power of the theta wave might be a valid characteristic for discriminating depression. This study proves the feasibility of a pervasive three-electrode EEG acquisition system for depression diagnosis. (shrink)

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) hat die Ethik als Theorie der Strukturen und Formen der geschichtlichen Welt konzipiert. Seine Entwürfe dieser „Wissenschaft von den Prinzipien der Geschichte“, die im Zusammenhang mit Vorlesungen ausgearbeitet und erst nach seinem Tod veröffentlicht worden sind, haben für seine Philosophie wie für seine Theologie grundlegende Bedeutung.

Summary Hans Albert's famous principle ‘Sollen impliziert Können’, which should bridge the two disparate domains of normative decisions and empirical informations is a constitutive one of the Popperian metaethical philosophy of social relations.

Ce texte reprend une conférence faite par H.-J. Wirth à Washington (États-Unis) en octobre 2005. Ces réflexions pourraient facilement se transposer sur la relation entre le thérapeute et le patient ; de la même façon, elle se caractérise par des positions de pouvoir différentes. Jurg Willy, se référant à Dicks et à son concept de collusion dans le cadre de la thérapie de couple, en a élargi la formulation dans la mesure où il a placé les attentes inconscientes, réciproques et (...) le jeu inconscient des deux partenaires, au centre de sa réflexion. (shrink)

Nähere Informationen zu diesem Buch erhalten Sie direkt vom Verlag / For further information about this title please contact Mohr Siebeck.

The essays by Hans Kellner, Wulf Kansteiner, and Robert Braun in the Forum, "Representing the Holocaust" attack historical realism as a legitimate form of such representation. Like any other part of narrative, "facts" do not speak for themselves in respect to the Holocaust or any other historical "event"; they are context-dependent and thus speak only in the voice of their interpreters. The symposiasts adopt this view on the assumption that an alternative to historical realism will yet reaffirm the primary (...) data of the Holocaust: the number of deaths, identities, places, dates. But I argue to the contrary: that ontologically there is but one alternative to historical realism, and that this alternative offers no ground even in principle for acknowledging a contradiction between an assertion and a denial that, for example, "On January 20th, l942, Nazi officials at Wannsee formulated a protocol for the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question.'" Thus, at least in respect to items of chronicle, historical realism must be granted--unless one is ready to affirm, as the symposiasts apparently are not, a radical epistemic and moral skepticism. (shrink)

Introduces contemporary American philosophy of technology through six of its leading figures. The six American philosophers of technology whose work is profiled in this clear and concise introduction to the field—Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner—represent a new, empirical direction in the philosophical study of technology that has developed mainly in North America. In place of the grand philosophical schemes of the classical generation of European philosophers of technology, the contemporary American generation addresses (...) concrete technological practices and the co-evolution of technology and society in modern culture. Six Dutch philosophers associated with Twente University survey and critique the full scope and development of their American colleagues’ work, often illustrating shifts from earlier to more recent interests. Individual chapters focus on Borgmann’s engagement with technology and everyday life; Dreyfus’s work on the limits of artificial intelligence; Feenberg’s perspectives on the cultural and social possibilities opened by technologies; Haraway’s conception of the cyborg and its attendant blurring of boundaries; Ihde’s explorations of the place of technology in the lifeworld; and Winner’s fascination with the moral and political implications of modern technologies. American Philosophy of Technology offers an insightful and readable introduction to this new and distinctly American philosophical turn. Contributors are Hans Achterhuis, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Martijntje Smits, Pieter Tijmes, and Peter-Paul Verbeek. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, philosophers of science have asked, "what kind of thing is a scientific theory?" The logical positivists answered: a scientific theory is a mathematical theory, plus an empirical interpretation of that theory. Moreover, they assumed that a mathematical theory is specified by a set of axioms in a formal language. Later 20th century philosophers questioned this account, arguing instead that a scientific theory need not include a mathematical component; or that the mathematical component need (...) not be specified by a set of axioms in a formal language. We survey various accounts of scientific theories entertained in the 20th century -- removing some misconceptions, and clearing a path for future research. (shrink)

Überleben und Lebensqualität als Thema der Ethik -- Ethik als Lebensweisheit -- Umwelt -- Wirtschaft -- Landwirtschaft -- Die Zukunft der Arbeit.

The paper attacks the widely held view that belief revision theories, as they have been studied in the past two decades, are founded on the Principle of Informational Economy. The principle comes in two versions. According to the first, an agent should, when accepting a new piece of information, aim at a minimal change of his previously held beliefs. If there are different ways to effect the belief change, then the agent should, according to he second version, give up those (...) beliefs that are least entrenched. Although widely proclaimed by belief revision theorists, I argue that both versions of the principle are dogmas that are not (and perhaps should not be) adhered to. I substantiate this claim with two simple mathematical observations, and I defend it against four possible objections that involve contractions, reconstructions, dispositions, and truths. (shrink)