In order to prove the validity of logical rules, one has to assume these rules in the metalogic. However, rule-circular ‘justifications’ are demonstrably without epistemic value. Is a non-circular justification of a logical system possible? This question attains particular importance in view of lasting controversies about classical versus non-classical logics. In this paper the question is answered positively, based on meaning-preserving translations between logical systems. It is demonstrated that major systems of non-classical logic, including multi-valued, paraconsistent, intuitionistic and quantum logics, (...) can be translated into classical logic by introducing additional intensional operators into the language. Based on this result it is argued that classical logic is representationally optimal. In sec. 6 it is investigated whether non-classical logics can be likewise representationally optimal. The answer is predominantly negative but partially positive. Nevertheless the situation is not symmetric, because classical logic has important ceteris paribus advantages as a unifying metalogic. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 31-42, January 2022. This paper distinguishes collective emotions from other phenomena pertaining to the social and interactive nature of emotion and proposes a taxonomy of different types of collective emotion. First, it emphasizes the distinction between collective emotions as affective experiences and underpinning mechanisms. Second, it elaborates on other types of affective experience, namely the social sharing of emotion, group-based emotions, and joint emotions. Then, it proposes a working definition of collective emotion via (...) a minimal threshold and four structural features. Finally, it develops a taxonomy of five types of collective emotion: emotional sharing, emotional contagion, emotional matching, emotional segregation, and emotional fusion. (shrink)

In Sect. 1 it is argued that systems of logic are exceptional, but not a priori necessary. Logics are exceptional because they can neither be demonstrated as valid nor be confirmed by observation without entering a circle, and their motivation based on intuition is unreliable. On the other hand, logics do not express a priori necessities of thinking because alternative non-classical logics have been developed. Section 2 reflects the controversies about four major kinds of non-classical logics—multi-valued, intuitionistic, paraconsistent and quantum (...) logics. Its purpose is to show that there is no particular domain or reason that demands the use of a non-classical logic; the particular reasons given for the non-classical logic can also be handled within classical logic. The result of Sect. 2 is substantiated in Sect. 3, where it is shown (referring to other work) that all four kinds of non-classical logics can be translated into classical logic in a meaning-preserving way. Based on this fact a justification of classical logic is developed in Sect. 4 that is based on its representational optimality. It is pointed out that not many but a few non-classical logics can be likewise representationally optimal. However, the situation is not symmetric: classical logic has ceteris paribus advantages as a unifying metalogic, while non-classical logics can have local simplicity advantages. (shrink)

The “return of the state” as an economic actor has left scholars at a lack of theoretical tools to capture the characteristics of state-dominated business systems. This is reflected in the fact that any type of state intervention in the economy is too easily qualified as a sign of “authoritarian capitalism,” which has led scholars to lump together countries as diverse as China, Singapore, and Norway under that heading. Rather than considering any type of state intervention in the economy as (...) authoritarian, we propose a more sophisticated conceptualization, which distinguishes two boundaries between the public and the private domains and conceives of the “return of the state” as the erosion of one or both of them. This conceptualization allows us to clearly distinguish a shift from an ideal-typical market-based “regulatory capitalism” to “state capitalism” or “authoritarian capitalism,” respectively. We use interview data with business leaders in an extreme case of the return of the state to identify the nature of the mechanisms by which an authoritarian government erodes these private-public divides. We argue that a focus on these constitutive mechanisms of the erosion of private-public divides allows us to define “authoritarian capitalism” in a way that makes it a useful tool to understand contexts beyond the Chinese case in which it first emerged. (shrink)

According to individualism about feelings, only individuals can experience feelings, because only individuals live under the condition of embodiment. Assuming a necessary link between emotions and feelings thus seems to justify doubt about the possibility of shared emotions. I challenge this line of argumentation by showing that feelings are best understood as enactments of a feeling body, which is a psycho-physically neutral expressive unity. Based on the body’s embeddedness into a world and connectedness with others, feelings are perceivable and shareable. (...) Accordingly, dynamics of mutual incorporation and interaffectivity are shown to be the ground for shared feelings. (shrink)

Es war im Herbst 1970, als ich an der Universität Graz mit dem Studium der Philosophie und Mathematik begann. Schnell verlagerte sich mein Interesse fast vollständig auf die Philosophie, hatte doch das damalige Institut für alle, die sich von grundlegenden Fragestellungen bedrängt fühlten, einiges zu bieten.

In the first section, five major attempts to solve the problem of induction and their failures are discussed. In the second section, an account of meta-induction is introduced. It offers a novel solution to the problem of induction, based on mathematical theorems about the predictive optimality of attractivity-weighted meta-induction. In the third section, how the a priori justification of meta-induction provides a non-circular a posteriori justification of object-induction, based on its superior track record, is explained. In the fourth section, four (...) important extensions and refinements of the method of meta-induction are presented. The final section, summarizes the major impacts of the program of meta-induction for epistemology, the philosophy of science and cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper deals with the “magic” of the Carpocratians, who, according to Irenaeus of Lyon, believed in the Platonic tripartite nature of the soul. The Carpocratian approach to philosophical magic is probably derived from Neoplatonic ideas popular during the first centuries of the Common Era. The Carpocrations, a second-century Christian Gnostic group, believed Yeshua was a soul personality like all other people, but because of his “spiritualization,” he reached the state of the “philosophical magician.” He did not lose his memory (...) while “staying with his Father” (while he was in the eternal sphere before his next incarnation) and, according to Irenaeus, despised the creators (angels) of the world during the ascension of the soul, a Hermetic and Neoplatonic notion. In addition, as the Christ, Yeshua overcame all emotions and passions. That is, according to the Neoplatonic tripartite nature of the soul, he overcame the emotional part of himself in favor of the spirit. This ascent gave him magical abilities such as healing and prophecy. The Carpocratians believed that each soul can achieve what Christ achieved. Ceremonial and heavenly magic was practiced by the Carpocratians, but their main goal was to achieve the complete spiritualization of the soul or the attainment of Christ Consciousness. To analyze Carpocratian magic, it is useful to use the theories of other magicians like Agrippa von Nettesheim or Iamblichus, because their ideas improve our limited understanding of the text by the Early Church Writer Irenaeus whose basic interest in the Carpocratians was heresiology. Finally, this analysis of how magic was applied by the Carpocratians could contribute to a better understanding of their philosophy. (shrink)

The paper critically reconstructs the crowd psychological heritage in phenomenological and social science emotion research. It shows how the founding figures of phenomenology and sociology uncritically adopted Le Bon’s crowd psychological imagery as well as what I suggest calling the disease model of emotion transfer. Against this background, it can be examined how Le Bon’s understanding of emotional contagion as an automatic, involuntary, and uncontrollable mechanism has remained a dominant force in emotion research until today. However, a closer look at (...) phenomenological descriptions and empirical investigations of how emotion’s spread shows that there is little evidence supporting Le Bon’s crowd psychological framework. Thus, I suggest that the disease model should be dismissed in favor of more plausible approaches to interpersonal emotion dynamics. (shrink)

Die jetzt vorliegende ungekürzte Korrespondenz zwischen Sigmund Freud und Karl Abraham in originalem Deutsch erlaubt Einblicke in den wissenschaftlichen Austauschprozess bei der Entwicklung ihrer psychoanalytischen Konzepte. Abrahams einseitig-genetische Vorstellungen über die destruktiv-sadistischen Aspekte der Oralität und über die frühen Objektbeziehungen sind bei Freud auf Widerspruch gestoßen. Freud erweist sich einerseits als geduldiger Lehrer und Supervisor für Abraham. Andererseits ist er auch kritischer Mahner, der Abraham bis in die letzten Briefe daran erinnert, die Grundbedingungen der Neurosenentstehung zu beachten. Die Ergebnisse von (...) Abrahams klinischen Beobachtungen sind für Freud wiederum wertvolle Bestätigungen für seine eigenen Überlegungen zur Pathologie früher Störungen. Der Autor zeichnet die Entwicklung der unterschiedlichen Ansätze am wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel nach. Der Akzent liegt auf dem ätiologischen Problem der Neurosengenese im kausalen Denken bzw. im Denken vor dem Hintergrund von Nachträglichkeit. Die weitere Entwicklung der Konzeptionen nach Abrahams Tod wird kurz skizziert. (shrink)

Statistical mechanics attempts to explain the behaviour of macroscopic physical systems in terms of the mechanical properties of their constituents. Although it is one of the fundamental theories of physics, it has received little attention from philosophers of science. Nevertheless, it raises philosophical questions of fundamental importance on the nature of time, chance and reduction. Most philosophical issues in this domain relate to the question of the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics. This book addresses issues inherent in this reduction: (...) the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics and its absence in statistical mechanics; the role and essential nature of chance and probability in this reduction when thermodynamics is non-probabilistic; and how, if at all, the reduction is possible. Compiling contributions on current research by experts in the field, this is an invaluable survey of the philosophy of statistical mechanics for academic researchers and graduate students interested in the foundations of physics. (shrink)

The article outlines the development and most important features of the religious constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany, as constituted in the Grundgesetz and the decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court. Under the basic principle of neutrality, it constitutes a system of separation with single aspects of cooperation of the state and religious communities. It is also a system of wide freedom and of kindness to religion. Non-religious worldviews are explicitly equated for individuals as well as for religious (...) and non-religious associations. This system is in theory exemplary, but holed by contradictory laws, church-state-treaties and one-sided financial subventions in a huge dimension. The indirect influence of the large Christian churches is remarkable. Christian institutions dominate the social services – with unpleasing consequences for over 1 million employees, who are subject to a special employment law. Meanwhile, low-level discrimination of small religious communities continues. (shrink)

Das Religionsrecht hat angesichts der veränderten religionspolitischen Lage Konjunktur. Das Buch gibt eine kompakte Einführung in die theoretisch und praktisch wichtigsten Bereiche des Religionsrechts und greift vernachlässigte Fragen auf. Es will überzeugen durch klare rechtliche Grundbegriffe und eine Abkehr von einer einseitig kirchenzentrierten Sichtweise. Normtexte und Rechtsprechungsübersichten runden das leserfreundliche, auch für Nichtjuristen interessante Buch ab.

In this paper I investigate unification as a virtue of explanation. In the first part of the paper (sec. 1-2) I give a brief exposition of the unification account of Schurz and Lambert (1994) and Schurz (1999). I illustrate the advantages of this account in comparison to the older unification accounts of Friedman (1974) and Kitcher (1981). In the second part (sec. 3) I discuss several comments and objections to the Schurz-Lambert account that were raised by Weber and van Dyck (...) (2002), Gijsbers (2007) and de Regt (2005). In the third and final part (sec. 4), I argue that explanation should be understood as a prototype concept which contains nomic expectability, causality and unification as prototypical virtues of explanations, although none of these virtues provides a sufficient and necessary "defining condition" of explanation.El artículo analiza la unificación como virtud explicativa. En su primera parte hago una breve exposición del enfoque de la unificación de Schurz y Lambert (1994) y Schurz (1999). Ilustro las ventajas de este planteamiento sobre otros anteriores, como Friedman (1974) y Kitcher (1981). En la segunda parte (secc. 3)discuto varios comentarios y objeciones al enfoque Schurz-Lambert planteados por Weber y van Dyck (2002), Gijsbers (2007) y de Regt (2005). En la tercera y última parte (secc. 4) argumento que la explicación debería entenderse como un concepto prototipo que contiene la esperabilidad nómica, la causalidad y launificación como virtudes prototípicas de las explicaciones, aunque ninguna de estas virtudes ofrece una condición “definitoria”, suficiente y necesaria, de la explicación. (shrink)

Wer hat sich nicht schon gefragt, was es mit unseren moralischen Überzeugungen auf sich hat: Spiegeln diese die Wahrheit in Sachen Moral wieder? Gibt es eine solche Wahrheit überhaupt? Oder sind moralische Überzeugungen eher das Produkt unserer Interessen und Neigungen, Ausdruck unserer Wünsche oder Mittel der Machtausübung, das bloße Ergebnis unserer Erziehung, unseres sozialen Umfelds oder gar eine List der Evolution? Ist es eine Illusion, wenn man glaubt, echte moralische Erkenntnisse gewinnen zu können? Kurzum: Kann die Moral Objektivität beanspruchen? Die (...) vorliegende Arbeit versucht, eine Antwort auf diese zentrale Frage der Metaethik zu geben. Dazu wird zunächst gezeigt, dass uns der Status der Moral ein Rätsel ist, weil wir dazu neigen, drei Thesen für wahr zu halten, die nicht zugleich wahr sein können. Die drei prinzipiell möglichen Strategien zur Auflösung dieses Trilemmas geraten jedoch in Schwierigkeiten, weil es bisher nicht gelungen ist, ein passendes Vergleichsobjekt für die Moral zu finden. In dieser Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, dass die Moral in genau der gleichen Weise wie die Wissenschaft Objektivität beanspruchen kann. (shrink)

Ever since Aristotle's famous argument about the sea-battle tomorrow, there has been intensive and controversial discussion among philosophers whether the truth of statements about the future leads to determinism. Ther e is controversy about Aristotle's own solution to the problem, as well as the views of classical and medieval commentators on Aristotle. Seel's book attempts to answer this question for the Neoplatonist Ammonius (5th-6th century AD). In so doing, he also opens up new insights into Neoplatonic thought.