The division of cognitive labor is fundamental to all cultures. Adults have a strong sense of how knowledge is clustered in the world around them and use that sense to access additional information, defer to relevant experts, and ground their own incomplete understandings. One prominent way of clustering knowledge is by disciplines similar to those that comprise the natural and social sciences. Seven studies explored an emerging sense of these discipline‐based ways of clustering of knowledge. Even 5‐year‐olds could cluster knowledge (...) in a manner roughly corresponding to the departments of natural and social sciences in a university, doing so without any explicit awareness of those academic disciplines. But this awareness is fragile early on and competes with other ways of clustering knowledge. Over the next few years, children come to see discipline‐based clusters as having a privileged status, one that may be linked to increasingly sophisticated assumptions about essences for natural kinds. Possible mechanisms for this developmental shift are examined. (shrink)

The paper begins with consideration of Plato and Aristotle, but the question addressed in this essay is the following: What has been meant--and what role has been played--in the succession of doctrines of physics we have had since the seventeenth century, by notions of “power” and of “cause”? The essay concludes with consideration of field theories set in relativistic space-time.

The purpose of this work is to elaborate an empirically grounded mathematical model of the magnitude of consequences component of "moral intensity", 366, 1991) that can be used to evaluate different ethical situations. The model is built using the analytical hierarchy process and empirical data from the legal profession. One contribution of our work is that it illustrates how AHP can be applied in the field of ethics. Following a review of the literature, we discuss the development of the model. (...) We then illustrate how the model can be used to rank-order three well-known ethical reasoning cases in terms of the magnitude of consequences. The work concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research. Specifically we discuss how this work extends the previous work by Collins regarding the nature harm variable. We also discuss the contribution this work makes in the development of ethical scenarios used to test hypotheses in the field of business ethics. Finally, we discuss how the model can be used for after-action review, contribute to organizational learning, train employees in ethical reasoning, and aid in the design and development of decision support systems that support ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Die historisch-ethnologische Abteilung der 1911 in Dresden veranstalteten Internationalen Hygiene Ausstellung war ein großer Publikumserfolg. Organisiert von Karl Sudhoff, dem einflussreichsten Medizinhistoriker der Zeit, versuchte diese Abteilung, die Geschichte der Hygiene zu ‘verkaufen’. Auf einer Ausstellungsfläche von mehr als 2.400 m2 wurden über 20.000 Objekte in mehr als siebzig Räumen, Hallen und Gallerien präsentiert. Die Dresdener Hygiene-Ausstellung war zwar nicht die erste ihrer Art, aber die erste, die eine derartig große Ausstellungsfläche für die Inszenierung einer Geschichte der Hygiene reservierte. Der (...) Beitrag, der auf einer Auswertung der Korrespondenz Sudhoffs mit seinen Mitarbeitern beruht, zeigt, wie diese überaus erfolgreiche historisch-ethnologische Ausstellung möglich wurde. Das Archivmaterial, das einen Blick hinter die Kulissen erlaubt, belegt wie das Aufeinanderprallen unterschiedlicher Charaktere, verschiedener intellektueller Ziele und Organisationskulturen die spezifische Präsentation dieser Abteilung prägten. (shrink)

Discussion at the symposium, and subsequent correspondence with participants, have raised a series of critical questions that seem to me to merit discussion. The issues raised have also led me to consider further some of the literature commenting on Newton’s work and on related matters in the history of optics. What was initially intended as a brief supplement to the foregoing paper [On Metaphysics and Method in Newton, item 10631] has thus evolved into a new article of considerable length.

This article argues that certain philosophically devised quality control parameters should guide approaches to interdisciplinary education. We sketch the kind of reflections we think are necessary in order to produce epistemologically responsible curricula. We suggest that the two overarching epistemic dimensions of levels of analysis and basic viewpoints go a long way towards clarifying the structure of interdisciplinary validity claims. Through a discussion of how best to teach basic ideas about numeracy in Mind, Brain, and Education, we discuss what it (...) means for an interdisciplinary curriculum to respect both the minds of students and the complexity of the subject matter. (shrink)

Das historische Buch konnen zahlreiche Rechtschreibfehler, fehlende Texte, Bilder, oder einen Index. Kaufer konnen eine kostenlose gescannte Kopie des Originals durch den Verlag. 1890. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug:... sicherere Prognose stellen konnte, schon drei Wochen vor dem Tode des Philosophen an Leibniz'): D. B. de S. vereor, ut brevi nos derelicturus sit, cum phtisis in dies ingravescere videatur. Funf Tage nach dem Tode Spinoza's ubermittelt Schuller diese schmerzliche Nachricht Leibniz und macht ihm dabei gleichzeitig das merkwurdige Anerbieten, er moge das dem (...) Nachlass entnommene, von Spinoza's Hand herruhrende Exemplar der Ethik fur 150 Gulden fur die Bibliothek des Herzogs von Hannover ankaufen: Caeterum te minime celare debui, clarissimum et acutissimum virum Spinozam maxima atrophia conflictatum 21./H-Februar. vitam suam cum morte commutasse. Videtur autem quod inexpectata mortis debilitate praeventus sit, quoniam sine testamento, ultimae voluntatis indice, a nobis discessit. Ethica, quam penes ipsum vidisti, in autogra-cp penes amicum asservatur2) venalisque habetur, si pretio opere tanto condigno persolvatur, ad quod nulli melius, quam Tibi significandum censui, utpote qui operis conscius principis animum dirigere poteris, ut suis sumtibus coematur3). Gegen eine solche unehrerbietige und geschaftsmassige Ausbeutung der litterarischen Hinterlassenschaft Spinoza's mussen die edler veranlagten Junger des Meisters, an ihrer Spitze wol Ludwig Meyer, entschiedene Einsprache erhoben haben. Denn im folgenden Briefe widerruft Schuller in angstlichem Tone sein unpassendes Angebot, und man merkt es den Zeilen an, dass die heftige Erregung, die uber den Nachlass im Amsterdamer Schuler ') Brief II, datirt: 6. Februar 1677. Dass das Luugenubel in seiner Familie hereditar war, ist ubrigens ein Novum. 2) Die... (shrink)

In this paper, the author considers an argument against the thesis that humans are irrational in the sense that we reason according to principles that differ from those we ought to follow. The argument begins by noting that if humans are irrational, we should not trust the results of our reasoning processes. If we are justified in believing that humans are irrational, then, since this belief results from a reasoning process, we should not accept this belief. The claim that humans (...) are irrational is, thus, self-undermining. The author shows that this argument---and others like it---fails for several interesting reasons. In fact, there is nothing self-undermining about the claim that humans are irrational; empirical research to establish this claim does not face the sorts of a priori problems that some philosophers and psychologists have claimed it does. (shrink)

No primeiro esforço de aproximaçãoentre analítica existencial e antropologia filosófica,este ensaio procura estabelecer, em lugarde destaque, a idéia de compreensão do sercomo elemento determinante do modo de serno-mundo do ser humano. Dessa primeira idéiadecorrem então os dois teoremas de finitude: ocirculo hermenêutico e a diferença ontológica.Temos, nestes dois pilares da filosofia hermenêutica,um novo modo de fundação e um novomodo de dar-se de todo ente. A diferençaontológica constitui o como tudo é acessível,vem ao encontro, mas ela mesma éinacessível ao pensamento objetificador. (...) Todonosso modo de pensar e conhecer o ente passapor aquilo que é sua condição de possibilidade.Mas todo, a dar-se nesse como é articuladono enquanto, no algo enquanto algoda estrutura da compreensão que é o modo deser do Dasein, a dimensão hermenêutica docirculo do hermenêutico. A articulação dessesdois teoremas da finitude, que são os elementosdeterminantes presentes em todo conhecimentohumano, constitui o modo de ser e omodo primeiro de conhecer do ser do Dasein. Aantropologia filosófica, a partir da analíticaexistencial, encontra nos dois teoremas dafinitude seu estatuto filosófico. (shrink)

The observation that humans are often irrational has become commonplace. This observation has received empirical support from various experiments performed by cognitive scientists that are supposed to show that humans systematically violate principles of probability, rules of logic, and other norms of reasoning. In response to these experiments, philosophers have made creative and appealing arguments that these experiments must be mistaken or misinterpreted because humans must be rational. I examine these arguments for human rationality and show that they fail; cognitive (...) science does play a role in assessing human rationality. ;In Chapter One, I examine three cognitive science experiments in detail and discuss what is at issue in the debate about human rationality. At issue is whether the mistakes humans make are mere mistakes or indicative of systematic divergences from norms of reasoning. Defenders of human rationality say these mistakes are not characteristic of underlying reasoning abilities but are performance errors. Because humans make performance errors, human reasoning ability cannot be read off of behavior, but rather is to be studied by exploring cognitive competence, the underlying ability to reason. ;In Chapter Two, I develop and discuss the notion of cognitive competence. I then consider and reject two arguments that human cognitive competence must match the norms of reasoning. The first argument appeals to simplicity considerations, the second to the supposed common origin of our cognitive competence and our normative standards. In Chapter Three, I turn to a related argument for a view that humans are rational that says cognitive competence is discovered in the same way norms of reasoning are justified: both projects involve reflective equilibrium using as data people's judgments about what counts as good reasoning. ;In Chapter Four, I consider an argument for human rationality that draws on the principle of charity: when translating utterances of a speaker, one should try to interpret her utterances as rational and true. ;In Chapter Five, I consider an argument for human rationality that appeals to evolution. This argument claims that natural selection will select for cognitive mechanisms that produce true beliefs, and that such "truth-tropic" mechanisms are sufficient for being rational. ;My overall conclusion is that while cognitive science does not determine what the normative principles of reasoning are, it is relevant to whether or not human cognitive competence matches these principles; whether or not humans are irrational is, thus, an empirical question. (shrink)

SÍNTESE - Na tradição filosófica a questão do objeto tem levado a discussões de importância no âmbito da análise do conhecimento. Na psicanálise a expressão relação de objeto herdou as dificuldades que o problema do objeto suscitava na filosofia. O ensaio pretende sugerir um novo tratamento para a questão através do uso de alguns elementos da analítica existencial. É assim que irá tratar do modo de ser-no-mundo e a perturbação da relação de objeto, partindo da questão da finitude do Dasein (...) para realizar uma espécie de desconstrução hermenêutica dessa relação. Um exame especifico da questão do objeto perdido irá revelar novas faces da questão na relação de ambiguidade entre culpa e melancolia diante dos objetos da experiência de um tipo de obra de arte contemporânea. (shrink)