Atmosphären zeichnen sich gleichermaßen durch ihre Profanität und ihre Wirkmächtigkeit aus. Wo immer man hinsieht, sind Atmosphären ein bestimmendes, vielleicht sogar das wichtigste Element im menschlichen Leben. Das Ziel des Sammelbandes besteht darin, die Bedeutung der Atmosphären im Gefühlsraum theoretisch und praktisch zu verdeutlichen und das Phänomen der Atmosphären in seinen vielfältigen Facetten, etwa in der Architektur, Kunst, Medizin, Psychiatrie, in der Pädagogik, in der Altenpflege, in Beruf und Privatleben, zu beleuchten.

Ist unser Bild der Welt nur das Produkt neuronaler Prozesse? Laut Forschern prägen die Eigenarten des Gehirns, was und wie wir wahrnehmen. Trotzdem sei unser Erleben kein Hirngespinst, halten Philosophen dagegen.»Wenn du die blaue Kapsel schluckst, ist es aus«, sagt Morpheus mit bedeutungsschwerem Blick. »Du wachst in deinem Bett auf und glaubst an das, was du glauben willst.« Der Computernerd Neo hat die Wahl: Entscheidet er sich gegen die blaue Kapsel und für die rote, wird er die Wahrheit sehen, verspricht (...) Morpheus. Neo nimmt – logisch: die rote! Im nächsten Moment erwacht er in einem schleimigen Kokon, aufgehängt in einem mit Flüssigkeit gefüllten Tank. Er ist nackt und an diverse Schläuche angeschlossen. Maschinen haben die Herrschaft auf der Erde übernommen und halten sich die Menschheit als Energiespender. Um sie in Ruhe ausbeuten zu können, speisen sie in das Nervensystem der Erdlinge eine Matrix ein: die Welt, wie Neo sie kannte. Sie ist in Wahrheit nichts weiter als eine kolossale Computersimulation. (shrink)

Die Studie bemüht sich um eine Rekonstruktion des ästhetischen Denkens Goethes bis zur Weimarer Klassik. Im Untersuchungsgebiet zeichnen sich schon sehr früh Tendenzen zur Autonomisierung der Kunst- und Literaturtheorie ab. In Anlehnung an Pierre Bourdieus Konzept des literarischen Feldes werden paradigmatische theoretische Schriften einer intertextuellen Mikroanalyse unterzogen und zugleich sowohl mit den unmittelbaren Entstehungsumständen und künstlerischen Bezugspunkten, als auch v.a. mit ihren europäischen Kontexten in Beziehung gesetzt. Die Spezifik wie auch die Exemplarität der nicht-systematischen Ästhetik Goethes sind somit vor einem (...) erweiterten Horizont neu zu diskutieren. (shrink)

Our ability to select relevant information from the environment is limited by the resolution of attention – i.e., the minimum size of the region that can be selected. Neural mechanisms that underlie this limit and its development are not yet understood. Functional MRI was performed during an object tracking task in 7- and 11-year-old children, and in young adults. Object tracking activated canonical fronto-parietal attention systems and motion-sensitive area MT in children as young as 7 years. Object tracking performance improved (...) with age, together with stronger recruitment of parietal attention areas and a shift from low-level to higher-level visual areas. Increasing the required resolution of spatial attention – which was implemented by varying the distance between target and distractors in the object tracking task – led to activation increases in fronto-insular cortex, medial frontal cortex including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and supplementary motor area, superior colliculi, and thalamus. This core circuitry for attentional precision was recruited by all age groups, but ACC showed an age-related activation reduction. Our results suggest that age-related improvements in selective visual attention and in the resolution of attention are characterized by an increased use of more functionally specialized brain regions during the course of development. (shrink)

Emergence of the novel pathogenic coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 and its rapid pandemic spread presents challenges that demand immediate attention. Here, we describe the development of a semi‐quantitative high‐content microscopy‐based assay for detection of three major classes (IgG, IgA, and IgM) of SARS‐CoV‐2 specific antibodies in human samples. The possibility to detect antibodies against the entire viral proteome together with a robust semi‐automated image analysis workflow resulted in specific, sensitive and unbiased assay that complements the portfolio of SARS‐CoV‐2 serological assays. Sensitive, specific (...) and quantitative serological assays are urgently needed for a better understanding of humoral immune response against the virus as a basis for developing public health strategies to control viral spread. The procedure described here has been used for clinical studies and provides a general framework for the application of quantitative high‐throughput microscopy to rapidly develop serological assays for emerging virus infections. (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)

Prosocial behavior is critical for the natural development of an individual as well as for promoting social relationships. Although this complex behavior results from gratuitous acts occurring between an agent and a recipient and a wealth of literature on prosocial behavior has investigated these actions, little is known about the effects on the recipient and the neurobiology underlying them. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify neural correlates of receiving prosocial behavior in the context of real-world (...) experiences, with different types of action provided by the agent, including practical help and effort appreciation. Practical help was associated with increased activation in a network of regions spanning across bilateral superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, temporal pole, and medial prefrontal cortex. Effort appreciation was associated with activation and increased task-modulated connectivity of the occipital cortex. Prosocial-dependent brain responses were associated with positive affect. Our results support the role of the theory of mind network and the visual cortices in mediating the positive effects of receiving gratuitous help. Moreover, they indicate that specific types of prosocial behavior are mediated by distinct brain networks, which further demonstrates the uniqueness of the psychological processes underlying prosocial actions. (shrink)

This Handbook considers Christian thought in the long nineteenth century, encompassing not only doctrine and theology, but also Christianity's mutual influence on literature and the arts, political and economic thought, and the natural and social sciences.

This essay looks into the paradoxical friendship of Jacques Maritain, a Catholic philosopher, and Saul Alinsky, a radical community organizer. Commentators Bernard Doering and Charles Curran have used the fact of this friendship to draw the erroneous conclusion that Maritain approved of Alinsky’s philosophy. However, a closer look at their respective writings shows that Maritain and Alinsky retained profound disagreements on basic philosophical issues. Particular attention is paid to Maritain’s letter in response to Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, in which Maritain (...) raised objections to many of Alinsky’s ideas. Thus, Maritain didnot compromise his Christian worldview. (shrink)

Mémoire de Mons. Lange contre cette philosophie -- Réponse préliminaire d'un auteur anonimeà ce mémoire -- Sommaire de la réponse de Mr. Wolf mȩme avec un avis au lecteur de l'histoire de ce nouveau différend.

Culture, Not Politics We live in a politicized time. Culture wars and increasingly partisan conflicts have reduced public discourse to shouting matches between ideologues. But rather than merely bemoaning the vulgarity and sloganeering of this era, says acclaimed author and editor Gregory Wolfe, we should seek to enrich the language of civil discourse. And the best way to do that, Wolfe believes, is to draw nourishment from the deepest sources of culture: art and religious faith. Wolfe has been called “one (...) of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation,” and this penetrating and wide-ranging book makes a powerful case for the importance of beauty and imagination to cultural renewal. He begins by tracing his own journey from a young culture warrior bent on attacking the modern world to a career devoted to nurturing the creation of culture through contemporary literature and art that renew the Western tradition. Along the way, Wolfe finds in Renaissance Christian humanists like Erasmus and Thomas More—and their belief that imagination and the arts are needed to offset the danger of ideological abstractions— a “distant mirror” in which to see our own times. Beauty Will Save the World offers a revealing introduction to the artists and thinkers who are the Christian humanists of the modern era, from well-known figures like Evelyn Waugh and Wendell Berry to lesser-known authors like Shusaku Endo, Andrew Lytle, and Geoffrey Hill. A section on visual artists Mary McCleary, Fred Folsom, and Makoto Fujimura (accompanied by reproductions of their works) demonstrates that there are artists who can reimagine the Western tradition in strikingly contemporary terms. Finally, Wolfe pays tribute to the conservative thinkers who served as his mentors: Russell Kirk, Gerhart Niemeyer, Marion Montgomery, and Malcolm Muggeridge— all of whom rejected rigid ideology and embraced culture and tradition. At a time when our public discourse has come to be dominated by warring factions with little regard for truth, Wolfe's affirmation of beauty as a redemptive force is both refreshing and encouraging. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine how the English philosopher-theologian Samuel Clarke (1675--1729) attempted to reasonableness of Christianity and its compatibility with the new natural philosophy. In reaction to what he perceived as the problematic excesses of mechanical philosophy, with its looming threat of atheism, Clarke developed a series of arguments against atheism which aimed to show the shortcomings of a purely material or mechanical explanation of the universe, and demonstrate the overall `reasonability' of the Christian religion. Clarke aimed to (...) demonstrate the `reasonableness' of Christianity by turning the `mathematical' style of reasoning of the mechanical philosophy against his atheist adversaries. Clarke's writings offer us a valuable case-study for the complex interplay of philosophy, science and religion in England at the start of the eighteenth century, and the impact of mechanical philosophy on natural theology. This dissertation aims to improve our understanding of Clarke's philosophy through careful examination of its principal components: The active role of God in the world, the perfection of God's plan, the existence of immaterial substances and powers, and the subsequent reasonability of the Christian religion. Taken together, the four chapters show Clarke's solutions to the atheist threats, and provide a coherent picture of Clarke's ideas about the nature of God and God's role in the world. (shrink)

The Contours of Christian Philosophy series will consist of short introductory-level textbooks in the various fields of philosophy. These books will introduce readers to major problems and alternative ways of dealing with those problems. These books, however, will differ from most in that they will evaluate alternative viewpoints not only with regard to their general strength, but also with regard to their value in the construction of a Christian world and life view. Thus, the books will explore the (...) implications of the various views for Christian theology as well as the implications that Christian convictions might have for the philosophical issues discussed. It is crucial that Christians attain a greater degree of philosophical awareness in order to improve the quality of general scholarship and evangelical theology. (shrink)

Examining, for a symposium on xenophilia, the views of some of the period’s most open-minded and tolerant thinkers, as well as the historical development of Christian writers’ treatment of Muslims, this article considers whether the term Islamophilia can be applied to any Christian’s attitudes during the Middle Ages. The analysis considers what qualifies as an expression of love for Muslims, the distinction between positive regard for Islam and positive regard for Muslims, and whether Islamophilia essentializes Muslims in the (...) same way that Islamophobia does. The author argues that any search for Christian Islamophilia must be broad enough to encompass evidence found in unexpected places. For instance, due to the Christian belief that Muslims who did not convert to Christianity would suffer eternally, a desire to convert them may well qualify as a stance of love toward them, despite the offense to modern sensibilities that such implies. Paradoxically, indifference toward Muslims’ religion, such as on the part of neighbors or business partners, might also have a place in a discussion of Islamophilia, precisely because it rejects essentialism. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of nature in the theological system of New England minister Samuel Willard. I focus specifically on his account of theological anthropology, the relationship of nature and grace, and the moral law, and show how each relates to his views on civil government and civil law. Willard affirmed the natural law, natural religion, and natural worship, and he acknowledged and respected pagan civic virtue and grounded civil order and social relations in nature. Willard’s theological articulations are (...) substantively the same as those found among the ‘Reformed orthodox’ theologians of 17th century Europe, which provides evidence for the thesis that Reformed orthodoxy was a transatlantic movement. His reliance on nature also corrects scholarship on the New England Puritans, which often assumes that they rejected the Christian natural law tradition. (shrink)

From Hegel to Engels, Sartre and Ruyer (Ruyer, 1933), to name only a few, materialism is viewed as a necropolis, or the metaphysics befitting such an abode; many speak of matter’s crudeness, bruteness, coldness or stupidity. Science or scientism, on this view, reduces the living world to ‘dead matter’, ‘brutish’, ‘mechanical, lifeless matter’, thereby also stripping it of its freedom (Crocker, 1959). Materialism is often wrongly presented as ‘mechanistic materialism’ – with ‘Death of Nature’ echoes of de-humanization and hostility to (...) the Scientific Revolution (which knew nothing of materialism!), also a powerful Christian theme in Cudworth, Clarke and beyond (Overhoff, 2000). Here I challenge this view, building on some aspects of Israel’s Radical Enlightenment concept (Israel, 2001), which has been controversial but for my purposes is a useful claim about the dissemination of a home-grown Spinozism, sometimes reformulated as an ontology of the life sciences, an aspect Israel does not address (compare Secrétan et al., eds., 2007; Citton, 2006). First, I examine some ‘moments’ of radical Enlightenment materialism such as La Mettrie and Diderot (including his Encyclopédie entry “Spinosiste”), but also anonymous, clandestine texts such as L’Âme Matérielle, to emphasize their distinctive focus on the specific existence of organic beings. Second, I show how this ‘embodied’, non-mechanistic character of Enlightenment ‘vital materialism’ makes it different from other episodes, and perhaps more of an ethics than is usually thought (also via the figure of the materialist as ‘laughing philosopher’). Third, I reflect on what this implies for our image of the Enlightenment – no longer a Frankfurt School and/or Foucaldian vision of ‘discipline’, regimentation and order (as in Mayr, 1986) – but ‘vital’, without, conversely, being a kind of holist vitalism “at odds with the universalizing discourse of Encyclopedist materialism, with its insistence on the uniformity of nature and the universality of physical laws” (Williams, 2003): vital materialism is still materialism. Its ethics tends towards hedonism, but its most radical proponents (Diderot, La Mettrie and later Sade) disagree as to what this means. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 1, April 1994, pp. 143-149 David Hume and Public Debt: Crying Wolf? JOHN CHRISTIAN LAURSEN and GREG COOLIDGE David Hume's views on public credit have not only received prominent attention in the literature on his political thought, but have even been the subject of attention in The Wall Street Journal.1 Most of the attention has centered on Hume's essay "Of Public Credit" (...) of 1752, and treats it only as an expression of ideas, without relating it to the historical facts. This note lays out Hume's views on this matter throughout his lifetime, and juxtaposes them with figures for the actual public debt, carrying the story down to the twentieth century. Public debt as we know it only goes back about 300 years. The British government in the 1690s was the first modern government to establish enough genuine credit that private citizens would loan it money without having to be compelled.2 At the turn of the century, in the year 1700, the British public debt amounted to 14.2 million pounds sterling.3 As early as 1741, Hume was already worrying about the public debt in the essay "Of Liberty and Despotism" (later changed to "Of Civil Liberty"). In the last paragraph of that essay, he wrote of the "degeneracy" brought about by public debt, suggested that debt-service "taxes may, in time, become altogether intolerable, and all the property of the state be brought into the hands of" the government. If it is not curbed, we may come to "curse our very liberty," he wrote.4 That year, the national debt totaled 48.8 million pounds (45.2 million in 1701 pounds5). John Christian Laursen and Greg Coolidge are at the Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521 USA. Laursen e-mail: [email protected]. 144 John Christian Laursen and Greg Coolidge Hume's essay of 1752, "Of Public Credit, " was devoted entirely to criticism of the public debt (Essays, 349-365). His thoughts on public credit at this time can be summed up in this ominous warning: It must, indeed, be one of these two events; either the nation must destroy public credit, or public credit will destroy the nation. (Essays, 360-361) Hume acknowledged that the use of public credit could benefit the economy in some ways: more men with large stocks and incomes, may naturally be supposed to continue in trade, where there are public debts; and this, it must be owned, is of some advantage to commerce, by diminishing its profits, promoting circulation, and encouraging industry. (Essays, 354) But the many disadvantages would outweigh such advantages (Essays, 354355 ): 1) "It is certain, that national debts cause a mighty confluence of people and riches to the capital," making the head too large for the body. 2) Public stocks "banish gold and silver from the most considerable commerce of the state." 3) The taxes levied to pay the interest oppress the poorer people. 4) "As foreigners possess a great share of our national funds, they render the public, in a manner, tributary to them, and may in time occasion the transport of our people and our industry." 5) Public credit encourages an idle and useless rentier class. All of this pales, however, in comparison to the political consequences. From the point of view of the body politic, public credit was a threat to the security of the state. It would die a natural or a violent death. In wartime, or some national emergency, the funds necessary for the functioning of the economy would be diverted to other purposes. The economy, now dependent on credit, would crumble. The whole fabric, already tottering, falls to the ground, and buries thousands in its ruins. And this, I think, may be called the natural death of public credit. (Essays, 363) Hume Studies David Hume and Public Debt: Crying Wolf? 145 Another scenario would occur if the government became too indebted to intervene in maintaining the balance of power in Europe. Our children, weary of the struggle, and fettered with encumbrances, may sit down secure, and see their neighbors oppressed and conquered ; till, at last, they themselves... (shrink)

Stephen Mulhall has distinguished himself as one of the most rigorous and constructive contemporary thinkers on European philosophy and its complicated relationship to Christian theology. A prominent locus of that relationship in his work is the Christian doctrine of original sin, and its criticism but also structural recapitulation in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and others. This article begins with an overview of relevant themes and their development in Mulhall's writings. I then offer an account of the (...) internal tensions Mulhall identifies in Heidegger et al's ambivalent contestation of original sin, and of his own response. The centre of this response is a reconfiguration of the character of the divine, and of human participation in that divine, as radical self-abnegation. I conclude with an appreciative critique of Mulhall's proposal as insufficiently responsive to the eschatological framework within which original sin has its doctrinal and ontological place in Thomist thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 85 scientious search for principles of method (and of peace) may have been one of the reasons why he was suspect in England, as were the Ramist "methodists." In any case, it is quite clear now that Hobbes was not a materialist, not even when he was writing De Corpore. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, CallJornia Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary selections. Translated with an Introduction and (...) notes by Richard H. Popkin. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. Pp. xliv q- 456.) This new edition of selections from Pierre Bayle's famous Dictionnaire will be welcomed by historians and philosophers alike. In it we find a representative sample from the book that was both the inspiration and despair of much of eighteenth-century thought, and that still presents modem man with both questions and methodological acid that makes it difficult to find or accept "truth." The young readers who will meet Pierre Bayle for the first time in these pages will find him to be the skeptical philosopher, the ribald, sometimes lewd, even pornographic storyteller, the detached scholar who prowled through the history and the ideas of men, dissolving all certainty by analyses that peeled off layer after layer of belief until the core itself was exposed as naive or ridiculous. Had Professor Popkin done nothing more than provide us with these excellently chosen selections from the Dictionnaire, we would all be in his debt, for he gives us a chance easily to bring this important work to the attention of our students. But this volume is considerably more than simply a selection. Professor Popkin's Introduction is an important statement in the controversy over Bayle's personal beliefs and involvemeat. For more than two decades a large literature has portrayed Bayle in many different guises: for some he was still the skeptic who intentionally forged the weapons with which Voltaire and his colleagues assaulted the Judeo-Christian traditions of European men; at the other extreme he was a devout Huguenot who merely wanted to do for the Calvinist world what Bishop Huet and other Catholic skeptics did for the Catholic one, namely to prove the necessity of accepting the Christian beliefs on faith since absolute knowledge was impossible. Professor Popkin has learned Bayle's methodology too well to allow himself to be trapped by a simple explanation. He refuses to identify Bayle with a Kierkegaard or a Lamennais whose ideas would dissolve under Bayle's pen just as did Pascal's and Jurieu's. But where are we to find the secret of this man who lived out his life as a member of the French Reformed Church in Amsterdam while he unfolded the absurdity or naivet~ of every intelligible Christian theology? The problem becomes more perplexing when we note his obvious sympathy for both Manicheanism and Judaism. Could he have been the last of the Cathars or a secretly converted Jew? Popkin calls attention to Bayle's interest in and affection for Maimonides' work which he translates "Guide for the perplexed", but which could be translated "Guide for those who have lost their way" or in our parlance, "the derailed." In a way Bayle's Dictionnaire was itself a "Guide" for men in trouble with their beliefs. But Bayle's approach to this problem must be understood in light of his own discussion of religion "of the heart" and religion "of reason." Like Madame Labrousse, Popkin is much impressed by the simplicity of Bayle's last words, written on the day he died, in which he described himself as "a Christian philosopher convinced of and pierced with the mercies of God.... " The statement omits all the im~ portant theological propositions of Christian theology as well as any emotional feeling. We must see Pierre Bayle as an erudite, unemotional man whose "religion had no expressed or expressible content.., but was only in the heart in some quiet unemotional way.... " Popkin sees him as "a quite Erasmian scholar, living out his days in the city of Erasmus, examining man's intellectual heritage and intellectual world.., by patient erudition [undermining] man's intellectual frame of reference while remaining secure and tranquil in his unemotional religion of the heart." Since... (shrink)