Postcolonial pedagogy invites academic teaching staff to create situations, in which hegemonic modes of knowledge production can be critically reflected and one’s own entanglement as disciplinary s...

Situation semantics was developed as an alternative to possible worlds semantics. In situation semantics, linguistic expressions are evaluated with respect to partial, rather than complete, worlds. There is no consensus about what situations are, just as there is no consensus about what possible worlds or events are. According to some, situations are structured entities consisting of relations and individuals standing in those relations. According to others, situations are particulars. In spite of unresolved foundational issues, the partiality provided by situation semantics (...) has led to some genuinely new approaches to a variety of phenomena in natural language semantics. In the way of illustration, this article includes relatively detailed overviews of a few selected areas where situation semantics has been successful: implicit quantifier domain restrictions, donkey pronouns, and exhaustive interpretations. It moreover addresses the question of how Davidsonian event semantics can be embedded in a semantics based on situations. Other areas where a situation semantics perspective has led to progress include attitude ascriptions, questions, tense, aspect, nominalizations, implicit arguments, point of view, counterfactual conditionals, and discourse relations. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an account of the meaning of must and can within the framework of possible worlds semantics. The paper consists of two parts: the first argues for a relative concept of modality underlying modal words like must and can in natural language. I give preliminary definitions of the meaning of these words which are formulated in terms of logical consequence and compatibility, respectively. The second part discusses one kind of insufficiency in the meaning definitions given in (...) the first part, which arise from the ex falso quodlibet paradox of logical consequence. In stepwise fashion, I make an attempt to avoid most of the consequences of this paradox for the meaning definitions of must and can. (shrink)

What are facts, situations, or events? When Situation Semantics was born in the eighties, I objected because I could not swallow the idea that situations might be chunks of information. For me, they had to be particulars like sticks or bricks. I could not imagine otherwise. The first manuscript of “An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought” that I submitted to Linguistics and Philosophy had a footnote where I distanced myself from all those who took possible situations to be units (...) of information. In that context and at that time, this meant Jon Barwise and John Perry. (shrink)

Forschung an und mit Menschen muss sich legitimieren, d. h. sie muss ihre wissenschaftliche Qualität, Rechtmäßigkeit und ethische Vertretbarkeit aufzeigen. Zu den Rechtfertigungsbedingungen zählt ein „günstiges“ Verhältnis von Nutzen- und Schadenpotenzialen des Forschungsvorhabens. Unabhängige Ethikkommissionen sind den Forschenden zur Seite gestellt, um sie bei der Prüfung und Sicherstellung der genannten Erfordernisse zu unterstützen. Eine zum Gebrauch durch Ethikkommissionen und Forschende entwickelte Nutzen- und Schadentaxonomie sowie ein Schema zur Systematisierung von Chancen-Risiken-Bewertungen wurde nachträglich auf alle Ethikanträge des Jahres 2006 an die (...) Ethikkommission der Medizinischen Fakultät der Universität zu Lübeck angewandt. Unter den 206 analysierten Studienvorhaben lassen 46 % die Chance eines direkten Eigennutzens für die Studienteilnehmer erkennen. Als gruppennützig wurden 12 % der Studienprojekte eingestuft. Sie lassen unmittelbar nach Studienabschluss oder nach wenigen weiteren Studien ein Nutzenpotenzial für Personen mit den gleichen demographischen und klinischen Merkmalen wie die Studienteilnehmer erwarten. 42 % der Ethikanträge bezogen sich auf fremdnützige Studienvorhaben mit Nutzenchancen für die Heilkunde und/oder medizinische Wissenschaft. Das Risiko eines mehr als geringfügigen Eigenschadens wurde bei 53 % der Studien identifiziert. Die Analyse der jeweiligen Nutzenchancen und Schadenrisiken führte bei insgesamt 33 der 206 Studien (16 %) zu einem negativen Ergebnis: Im Urteil der nachträglich durchgeführten Bewertung übertreffen die Nutzenchancen nicht die Schadenrisiken. Studien mit einem mehr als geringfügigen Eigenschadenpotenzial sowie nicht-eigennützige Studien weisen besonders häufig eine negative Gesamtbilanz auf. Eine Prozeduralisierung der Analyse von Chancen und Risiken kann die Transparenz vorgenommener Analyse- und Vergleichsprozesse steigern. Die Kommunikation zwischen Forschenden und Ethikkommissionen sowie unter Ethikkommissionsmitgliedern bei strittigen Studienvorhaben wird erleichtert, die Standardisierung und Harmonisierung der Beratungsabläufe der Ethikkommissionen unterstützt. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have been praised as vehicles for tackling complex sustainability issues, but their success relies on the reconciliation of stakeholders’ divergent perspectives. We yet lack a thorough understanding of the micro-level mechanisms by which stakeholders can deal with these differences. To develop such understanding, we examine what frames—i.e., mental schemata for making sense of the world—members of MSIs use during their discussions on sustainability questions and how these frames are deliberated through social interactions. Whilst prior framing research has focussed (...) on between-frame conflicts, we offer a different perspective by examining how and under what conditions actors use shared frames to tackle ‘within-frame conflicts’ on views that stand in the way of joint decisions. Observations of a deliberative environmental valuation workshop and interviews in an MSI on the protection of peatlands—ecosystems that contribute to carbon retention on a global scale—demonstrated how the application and deliberation of shared frames during micro-level interactions resulted in increased salience, elaboration, and adjustment of shared frames. We interpret our findings to identify characteristics of deliberation mechanisms in the case of within-frame conflicts where shared frames dominate the discussions, and to delineate conditions for such dominance. Our findings contribute to an understanding of collaborations in MSIs and other organisational settings by demonstrating the utility of shared frames for dealing with conflicting views and suggesting how shared frames can be activated, fostered and strengthened. (shrink)

The Bhagavadgita is one of the most renowned texts of Hinduism because it contains discussions of important issues such as liberation and the nature of action as well as the revelation of the Krishna as the highest god and creator of the universe. It is included in the ancient Indian Mahabharata epic at one of its most dramatic moments, that is, when the final battle is about to begin. In contrast to many other studies, this book deals with the relationship (...) between the Bhagavadgita and its epic contexts. On the basis of a thorough analysis of the text Angelika Malinar argues that its theology delineates not only new philosophical concepts and religious practices but also addresses the problem of righteous kingship and appropriate use of power. Malinar concludes by considering the Bhagavadgita's historical and cultural contexts and those features of the text that became paradigmatic in later Hindu religious traditions. (shrink)

I will assume (without explicitly argue for it here) that the verb’s external argument is not an argument of the verb root itself, but is introduced by a separate head in a neo-Davidsonian way. The content argument can be saturated by DPs denoting the kinds of things that can be believed or reported.

This paper pursues some of the consequences of the idea that there are (at least) two sources for distributive/cumulative interpretations in English. One source is lexical pluralization: All predicative stems are born as plurals, as Manfred Krifka and Fred Landman have argued. Lexical pluralization should be available in any language and should not depend on the particular make-up of its DPs. I suggest that the other source of cumulative/distributive interpretations in English is directly provided by plural DPs. DPs with plural (...) agreement features can ‘release’ those features to pluralize adjacent verbal projections. If there is a lexical source for distributive/cumulative interpretations, there should be instances of such interpretations with singular DPs. But there should also be cases of distributive/cumulative interpretations that require the presence of DPs with plural agreement morphology. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, many restrictions hit people in ways never seen before. Mental wellbeing was affected and burden was high, especially for high-risk groups such as parents. However, to our knowledge no research has yet examined whether being a parent was not only a risk for psychological burden but also a way to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsAn online survey was used to collect data from 1,121 participants from April to June 2020. In addition to (...) demographic variables, risk factors and protective factors were collected. The dataset was divided into three groups: parents whose children lived at home, parents whose children did not live at home, and people who were not parents.ResultsA linear mixed effect model showed that parents had no higher burden than non-parents, and even less when children did not live at home. Expected risk factors were generally less important, and there were no differences between parents and non-parents. In contrast, parents had advantages in protective factors.ConclusionIn the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was shown that parents were not necessarily at risk due to additional burden, but also had prospects of coping better with the situation than people without children. (shrink)

Summary Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, in the broader sense of the term, has developed in various forms on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1920s. Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, in the narrower sense of the term, came into being in the second half of the 1970s in German-speaking countries. In Austria, it is a state-approved, independent scientific psychotherapy method since 1995, and an integrative psychotherapeutic approach based on the Gestalt theory of the Berlin School. With reference to this comprehensive, consistent, scientific (...) theory, this article presents the basic concepts of therapeutic practice in the field of Gestalt psychotherapy. Starting from the overarching whole to the parts, the paper first examines the concept of therapeutic relationship and therapeutic attitude, and then describes the basic principles of the practical design of the therapeutic process. (shrink)

Resultatives raise important questions for the syntax-semantics interface, and this is why they have occupied a prominent place in recent linguistic theorizing. What is it that makes this construction so interesting? Resultatives are submitted to a cluster of not obviously related constraints, and this fact calls out for explanation. There are tough constraints for the verb, for example.

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

The last section made it clear that an analysis which at first seems to fail is viable after all. It is viable if we let it depend on a partition function to be provided by the context of conversation. This analysis leaves certain traits of the partition function open. I have tried to show that this should be so. Specifying these traits as Pollock does leads to wrong predictions. And leaving them open endows counterfactuals with just the right amount of (...) variability and vagueness. (shrink)

Theoretical models and correlational research suggest that anger and disgust play different roles in moral judgment. Anger is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against persons, such as battery and unfairness, and disgust is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against nature, such as sexual transgressions and cannibalism. To date, however, it has not been shown that induction of these two emotions has divergent effects. In this experiment we show divergent effects of anger and disgust. We use sounds to elicit (...) anger and disgust, and participants are then asked to consider moral vignettes. As compared to disgust and control condition, anger increases severity of judgments about crimes against persons, and disgust increases severity of judgments about crimes against nature, but not conversely. (shrink)

This note is a reply to ‘On the Lumping Semantics of Counterfactuals’ by Makoto Kanazawa, Stefan Kaufmann and Stanley Peters. It shows first that the first triviality result obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters is already ruled out by the constraints on admissible premise sets listed in Kratzer (1989). Second, and more importantly, it points out that the results obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters are obsolete in view of the revised analysis of counterfactuals in Kratzer (1990, 2002).

Krebs (philosophy, U. of Frankfurt, Germany) provides a systematic study of whether nature has intrinsic value or is only valuable for human beings, with an ...

The adjectival passive construction that is traditionally called ‘Zustandspassiv’ (‘state passive’) in German seems to have the same syntactic and semantic properties as its English cousin, except that it is easier to identify. German state or adjectival passives select the auxiliary sein (‘be’), and are therefore clearly distinguished from verbal or ‘Vorgangs’- passives (‘process passives’), which use the auxiliary werden (‘get’, ‘become’). In spite of their appearance, German state passives do not form a homogenious class, however. There are two important (...) subclasses that behave differently with respect to the adverbial immer noch (‘still’), for example2. (shrink)

Zu den elementaren Rechtfertigungsbedingungen der medizinischen Forschung an und mit Menschen zählt die informierte Einwilligungserklärung („informed consent“) des Probanden/Patienten. Für die Gewährleistung eines „informed consent“ sind dem potenziellen Studienteilnehmer u. a. qualitativ hochwertige schriftliche Aufklärungsmaterialien zur Verfügung zu stellen. Wir entwickelten eine Liste von Prüfpunkten, um mit ihnen die Qualität schriftlicher Aufklärungsmaterialien zu bestimmen und zu bewerten. Mithilfe eines Kriterienkataloges bestehend aus über 100 Prüfpunkten wurde die Qualität von 128 zufällig ausgewählten schriftlichen Aufklärungsmaterialien zu Forschungsvorhaben beurteilt, die der Ethikkommission der (...) Universität zu Lübeck im Jahr 2006 vorgelegt worden waren. Jeder Prüfpunkt ist einem von sechs Qualitätsbereichen zugeordnet (z. B. Lesbarkeit und Verständlichkeit, Nutzen-/Schadenpotenziale). Die untersuchten Aufklärungsmaterialien erfüllten im Durchschnitt die Hälfte der 117 abgefragten Qualitätskriterien, die Spannweite reichte dabei von 20 % bis 76 %. Der höchste Qualitätsscore wurde für den Bereich „Einwilligungserklärung“ beobachtet (64 % der Kriterien erfüllt), am schlechtesten schnitt der Bereich „Nutzen- und Schadenpotenziale“ ab (35 % der Kriterien erfüllt). Aufklärungsmaterialien zu klinischen Prüfungen von Arzneimitteln zeigten dabei eine signifikant höhere Qualität als die Aufklärungsmaterialien zu anderen Studientypen. Nur 21 der 117 analysierten Qualitätskriterien wurden in mehr als 80 % der einschlägigen Aufklärungsmaterialien umgesetzt. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt deutliche Defizite in der Qualität der untersuchten Aufklärungsmaterialien auf. Forscherinnen und Forscher benötigen Hilfestellung bei der Erstellung von Materialien, die eine informierte Entscheidung für oder gegen eine Studienteilnahme ermöglichen. Der von uns eingesetzte Kriterienkatalog könnte u. a. im Rahmen von Doktorandenseminaren dazu genutzt werden, den Blick für die Vielfalt der Anforderungen zu schärfen. (shrink)

"La géocritique de Nietzsche permet de comprendre sa pensée grâce aux pays, régions et villes du monde qui comptent pour lui. Outre la France, l'Allemagne et l'Europe, son regard englobe des espaces extra-européens, l'Inde, la Chine et l'Islam. Des données d'actualité l'intéressent autant que les strates historiques, parmi les paysages naturels, la Haute Engadine n'enchante pas moins que la Méditerranée et le désert. Nietzsche fait découvrir les lieux par l'intermédiaire des personnages qui les habitent ou incarnent. Ils peuvent être écrivains, (...) musiciens, peintres, figures mythologiques ou poétiques, fondateurs de religions, hommes d'Etat, etc. Le côte à côte d'observations anthropologiques, esthétiques et philosophiques ainsi que le lien entre espaces et cultures font apparaître, dans un langage souvent imagé, les concepts-clés, à savoir le surhomme, la volonté de puissance et l'éternel retour du même. La démarche nietzschéenne révèle des contrastes et se caractérise par le désir de dépasser les frontières pour accéder à l'interculturalité. Ouvrant des horizons nouveaux, elle reflète aussi l'héritage des Lumières et du classicisme allemand." -- [4ème de couverture]. (shrink)

Der Koran ist ein mündlich komponierter, poetischer Text, der bei Muslimen bis heute vor allem im mündlichen Vortrag fortlebt. In der westlichen Forschung wurde er dagegen aufgrund seiner schwer zugänglichen Struktur kaum je als Literatur gelesen, sondern in der Regel als Steinbruch für theologische bzw. legislative Aussagen genutzt. Angelika Neuwirth bringt Ordnung in das vermeintliche Chaos, indem sie für die mekkanischen Suren des Koran kompositionell sinnvolle Strukturen nachweist. Ergänzt wird diese 2. Ausgabe durch eine neue Studie, die die Suren (...) als Zeugnisse einer historischen Entwicklung in der Verkündung des Koran und der Herausbildung einer Gemeinde untersucht. (shrink)

This chapter was written in 2013 and was posted in the Semantics Archive in January 2014. The preprint of the published version has been in the Semantics Archive since 2016. The Semantics Archive is an electronic preprint archive hosted by the Linguistics Society of America. -/- The chapter looks at indicative conditionals embedded under quantifiers, with a special emphasis on ‘one-case’, episodic, conditionals as in "No query was answered if it came from a doubtful address." It agrees with earlier assessments (...) that a complete conditional (with antecedent and consequent) is embedded under a quantifier in those constructions, but then proceeds to create a dilemma by showing that we can’t always find the right interpretation for that conditional. Contrary to earlier assessments, Stalnaker’s conditional won’t always do. The paper concludes that the embedded conditional in the sentence above is a material implication, but the "if"-clause also plays a pragmatic role in restricting the domain of the embedding quantifier. That an appeal to pragmatics should be necessary at all goes with Edgington’s verdict that “we do not have a satisfactory general account of sentences with conditional constituents.” -/- One of the conclusions drawn at the end of the chapter is that the English modal "will" should be given a Stalnaker selection function analysis. The idea is implemented by attaching to "will" an accessibility function variable that receives its value from the context of use and can be dynamically updated by preceding "if"-clauses, as proposed in von Fintel (1994). The argument for a Stalnaker selection function analysis of "will" provided by the paper is that, together with the restrictor analysis of "if"-clauses, it yields the correct truth-conditions for "will"-conditionals (as opposed to episodic, 'one case', conditionals) embedded under quantifiers. The proposal that the English modal "will" should be given a Stalnaker selection function analysis has since been taken up and elaborated considerably in Cariani & Santorio's (2018) paper on "will" in Mind, and is a central idea in Cariani's (2021) book The Modal Future. (shrink)

They are expressives, too. There is a phonology. There is a syntax. There is a compositional semantics. There are interesting interactions to investigate. German, Greek, and Papago are known examples of discourse particle languages. Intonation has been said to have similar uses in other languages.

The chapter looks at an aspect of David Lewis’s work on language that has been important for the foundation and history of formal semantics as a discipline practiced by both linguists and philosophers of language: a referential semantics over possible worlds that is connected to linguistically plausible syntactic structures. Lewis’s original contributions are placed within their historical context: Church’s typed lambda calculus, Carnapian intensions, the categorial grammars of Ajdukiewicz, and Chomsky’s theories of the relation between syntax and semantics. Relying on (...) Lewis’s letters, the chapter identifies the works of Stenius, Davidson, and Katz as triggering Lewis’s interest in formal theories of natural language semantics and clarifies the relation between his and Montague’s contributions to the foundation of the discipline. (shrink)

In this short paper, we introduce our Special Section in Feminist Theory titled ‘Feminist human-computer interaction: Struggles for past, contemporary and futuristic feminist theories in digital innovation’. Over the last years, we worked with the authors of the articles presented herein to bring together feminist theories with their practical application in the design, development, use and exploration of digital technologies. Our section follows three aspects: an overview of past feminist histories and discourse; the development of actionable, contemporary theory; and speculative (...) futures of what a feminist human-computer interaction could be. Together with the contributing authors, we are excited to explore these areas of post-disciplinary connection at the intersection of theory, practice and activism. (shrink)

To what extent are artists and sitters (or researchers and “objects” of investigation) implicated in their representations of others? How implicated are we when we identify with the way different cultures or perspectives represent ourselves? Understanding how specific forms of representation reveal differently authored perceptions of the individual is a critical concern. My overarching concern, as an artist, is to start mapping contemporary practices of identity formation and expression through the investigation of specific non- Western and subcultural modes that prioritise (...) different codes and social processes of cultural production – modes that do not privilege the gaze. Crucially, the case studies operate a strategic reversal of the classical artistic and scientific approaches: both sides in this dialogue of interpretation and representation involving the artist/researcher and the cultural actor are equally subject and object. The resulting artworks present distinct cultural practices as new possibilities for portrayal, and acts of selection, interpretation and definition as forms of cultural production. (shrink)

English summary: Ideas of man and concepts of the body are closely linked, and are a key factor in defining anthropological theories and problems. In addition, they are closely connected to the social structure of each cultural region, which itself has a continuous influence on human actions and attitudes, but which at the same time is also the result of human actions and attitudes. Scholars from various disciplines used this as their basis to explore the subject in their own cultural (...) field, each of them taking the perspective of their own methodological approach. The studies incorporate both, text and image sources. It is the authors' common goal to provide a precise description of specific anthropological developments which are dependent on time and culture and to include a discussion of basic issues of the conditio humana. German description: Menschenbilder und Korperkonzepte gehoren eng zusammen und bestimmen massgeblich anthropologische Lehren und Fragestellungen. Sie sind zudem eng mit der Sozialstruktur des jeweiligen Kulturraums verflochten, wobei dieselbe zwar ununterbrochen konditionierenden Einfluss auf menschliche Handlungen und Haltungen hat, sie aber zugleich auch das Ergebnis menschlicher Handlungen und Haltungen ist. Auf diesen Grundlagen haben sich Wissenschaftler unterschiedlicher Disziplinen zusammengefunden, um aus der Perspektive ihres jeweiligen methodischen Ansatzes dem Thema in ihrem jeweiligen Kulturbereich nachzugehen. Dabei werden Textquellen ebenso in die Untersuchungen mit einbezogen wie Bildquellen. Gemeinsames Ziel ist, zeit- und kulturgebundene Spezialentwicklungen prazise zu profilieren und Grundfragen der conditio humana in den Blick zu nehmen. (shrink)

Unlike human beings, landscapes, cities and buildings cannot feel anything in the literal sense. They do not have nervous systems. Nevertheless, we attribute “Stimmungen” such as peacefulness and melancholy to them. On what basis? With what right? And why does it matter anyway? This paper attempts an answer to this bunch of questions. The first section clarifies the concept of “Stimmung,” by distinguishing its three major meanings, namely harmony, mood and atmosphere. Section two discusses various models of how “Stimmung” is (...) infused into our natural and artificial environment. Section three lists several ways of how we experience atmosphere, preparing the ground for the specifically aesthetic claim in section four: how, when we experience atmosphere aesthetically, we respond to it by resonating or feeling at home. (shrink)

The study of philosophical terms and doctrines in the Mahābhārata touches not only on important aspects of the contents, composition and the historical contexts of the epic, but also on the historiography of Indian philosophy. General ideas about the textual history of the epic and the distinction between “didactic” and “narrative” parts have influenced the study of epic philosophy no less than academic discussions about what is philosophy in India and how it developed. This results in different evaluations of the (...) place of philosophical texts in the epic and their relationship to the history of Indian philosophy. While some scholars have suggested that there is a “philosophy of the epic” its composers wished to propagate, others have argued that “philosophy” is included in the epic either in a “proto” form or in a variety of doctrines they deemed relevant. The article discusses these views and some of the heuristic assumptions on which they are based. It proposes to widen the scope of analysis by paying more attention to the interplay of narrative and didactic passages, the various ways in which philosophy is presented in the epic, and its connection to a larger spectrum of the reception of philosophy in textual genres and by audiences outside the expert circles of the philosophical schools. (shrink)

The legislative answers to a growing fear of crime or other (e.g. environmental) problems are quite often so-called „symbolic statutes“ which have little or no effect on the level of crime or the solution of the respective problem but are meant to calm down the people. Obviously, these laws are in contradiction to the claim of rationality inherent in the idea of self-government of the autonomous subject and the very idea of law as it has been developed by the philosophy (...) of Enlightenment, and especially by Imanuel Kant. This article analyses different forms and manifestations of objectivity and rationality as well as different understandings of „symbols“ and their relationship with law and the process of law-making. It deals with the tension between the rationalist idea of law and the dynamics of the democratic process in political issues. These considerations lead to the choice between more „élitist“ or more „democratic“ readings of the principle of representation. Supporting the latter, the article holds that the Constitution itself strikes the right balance, leaving - within certain limits - a broad margin of discretion to the representative body of the people. However, it is the responsibility of each of its members to guard these constitutional limits and, if necessary, to vote against symbolic statutes which, at least in their sum, could undermine the idea of law. (shrink)

Large numbers of cells with unique neuronal specificity are generated during development of the central nervous system of animals. Here we discuss the events that generate cell diversity during early development of the ventral nerve cord of different arthropod groups. Neural precursors are generated in a spatial array in the epithelium of each hemisegment over a period of time. Spatial cues within the epithelium are thought to evolve as embryogenesis proceeds. This spatiotemporal information might generate diversity among the neural precursors (...) in all arthropod groups, although the mechanisms regulating the positioning of individual precursors have diverged. However, distinct strategies for the generation of neuronal diversity have evolved in the different arthropod lineages that appear to correlate with specific modes of ontogenesis. We hypothesize that an evolutionary trend towards reduced cell numbers and possibly rapid embryogenesis in insects has culminated in the appearance of stereotyped neuroblast lineages. BioEssays 27:874–883, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)