The relation between Emanuel Swedenborg and Immanuel Kant has been the subject of many discussions. The chief aim of this paper is not to elucidate this question from an historical point of view, but to compare the teachings of the two thinkers, as those teachings have come to us. Kant's "Träme eines Geistersehers" embodies a very unfavourable opinion about Swedenborg. It is a curious circumstance, that this judgement is not based on decisive arguments. On the contrary, Swedenborg's fundamental doctrines about (...) the existence of a spiritual world and the communication between the living and the dead, are accepted by Kant as plausible. Du Prel and others have concluded, that Kant was a Swedenborgian in his heart, and that his negative attitude was due to the fear of losing his scientific reputation. A careful consideration of the two philosophical systems does not tend to bear out this opinion; nevertheless, such a comparative study is very instructive. In the mental development of the two thinkers there are remarkable analogies. Both were occupied with the great problems of God and the human soul; and both were disappointed by the leading philosophical and theological doctrines of their days. To Swedenborg those doctrines seemed to lead straightforwardly to naturalism and atheism. Kant was struck by the diversity of the opinions expressed and by the succession of heterogeneous doctrines without lasting results. But the reactions of the two men in these circumstances were different. In his cosmological and anatomical works Swedenborg aims at acquiring a comprehensive view of the Universe, in which view God and the soul should obtain their proper places. When he had reached the age of about 55 years, a crisis set in, which he described as "the opening of his spiritual senses". From that time he could see the spiritual world and speak with its inhabitants; he could study the workings of God and of the soul with the help of living experience. Kant raised the question, whether there are departments of knowledge in which certainty is attainable, and what is the ground of this certainty. His answer is, that the fundamental propositions of mathematical physics are absolutely certain. The ground lies in the fact, that these propositions are not derived from experience, but that they are "synthetic judgments a priori". They express the workings of the "categories" and "forms of intuition". by means of which the mind constructs, out of a chaos of sense-impressions, the ordered universe of science. Of objects to which these propositions do not apply, e.g. God and the soul, no certain knowledge is possible. This precludes the knowledge of "another world", fundamentally different from our ordinary world. So there seems to be an irreconcilable opposition between the teachings of Kant and of Swedenborg, But further considerations tend to lessen this contrast. Notwithstanding his own teaching, Kant accepted a life after death and he even speculated on it. If we follow this example, we come to remarkable conclusions. It is reasonable to suppose, that the spirits, who have been men, use the same categories as we do. Then out of the impressions which reach them, they will construct a world built on the same pattern as our earthly world. So life before and after death will not be very different. And this is precisely Swedenborg's teaching. This may be confirmed by the experiences of our dream-life. In dreams, our mind out of different impressions builds a world closely resembling our ordinary world. The spiritual world, as described by Swedenborg, presents many analogies with the world of our dreams. Now it is a very remarkable circumstance, that modern physics has been under the necessity of modifying the system of categories as described by Kant. In quantum mechanics the connection between cause and effect is less stringent than in classical mechanics. This adds fresh interest to the study of a system like that of Swedenborg, where quantitative laws are largely replaced by qualitative laws. (shrink)

Verwijzend naar de Burndy Library conferentie in 1973 schrijft P.A. Kroes in de inleiding tot de ‘proceedings’ van de internationale conferentie over ‘Technische ontwikkeling en natuurwetenschap in de 19e en 20e eeuw’,1 dat tijdens de eerstgenoemde conferentie de meeste deelnemers van mening waren dat de opvatting van techniek als toegepaste wetenschap onjuist was. Technische produkten volgen niet zonder meer lineair uit de beschikbare natuurwetenschappelijke kennis. Een dergelijke zienswijze leidt bovendien snel tot de gedachte dat bij een autonome ontwikkeling van de (...) natuurwetenschap, ook de techniek zich autonoom zou ontwikkelen. Echter, Kroes moet concluderen, dat ondanks alle moeite die men zich sindsdien heeft gegeven om de verhouding tussen techniek en natuurwetenschap te bestuderen en nader te bepalen, hierin bijzonder weinig vooruitgang is geboekt. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology is put forward by its defenders as an extension of evolutionary biology, bringing psychology within the integrated causal chain of the hard sciences. It is extolled as a new paradigm for integrating psychology with the rest of science. We argue that such claims misrepresent the methods and explanations of evolutionary biology, and present a distorted view of the consequences that might be drawn from evolutionary biology for views of human nature. General theses about adaptation in biology are empty (...) schemata, not laws of nature allowing the subsumption of mind under biology. Functional thinking is an indispensable tool for psychology, mostly of value in abstractive unification and as a heuristic, but it gains little from association with evolutionary notions of selection. Thus, we argue, the cherished integrative causal model evaporates, and evolutionary phraseology serves no more than rhetorical purposes. Moreover, the universality of human nature and the evolutionary irrelevance of individual variation are presented as biological truths that psychologists should respect in their approach to mind. On closer inspection, this turns out to be rather dubious biology. Psychology might conceivably be better off as a continuation of biology by different means, but evolutionary psychology does not provide the conceptual integration leading to such a happy union. (shrink)

This interview study investigates the short- and long-term implications of incidental findings detected through brain imaging on research participants’ lives and their surroundings. For this study, nine participants of the Rotterdam Scan Study with an incidental finding were approached and interviewed. When examining research participants’ narratives on the impact of the disclosure of incidental findings, the authors identified five sets of tensions with regard to motivations for and expectations of research participation, preferences regarding disclosure, short- and long-term impacts and impacts (...) on self and others. The paper shows: that the impact of incidental findings may be greater than participants at first let on; incidental findings can have significant effects on participants’ social environment; and participants may not feel prepared for disclosure even if incidental findings have been discussed during the informed consent process. The authors call for investigators to be aware of research participants’ experiences and these short- and long-term impacts when designing suitable courses of action for the detection and management of incidental findings in research settings. (shrink)

Selection on grandparental investment is more complex than Coall & Hertwig (C&H) propose. Patterns of investment are subject to an intergenerational conflict over how resources should be distributed to maximize fitness. Grandparents may be selected to distribute resources unevenly, while their descendants will be selected to manipulate investment in their own favor. Here we outline the evolutionary basis of this conflict.

(1983). The exegete as restorer and interpreter: An essay about ancient Hebrew poetics, as exemplified by Psalm 121. Bijdragen: Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 350-365.

Kaum einer hat die offene Gesellschaft in der politischen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts so leidenschaftlich verteidigt wie Karl Popper. Sein Demokratieverstandnis ist eng gekoppelt an seine Wissenschaftstheorie und die Kritik an Platon, Hegel, Marx. Als Liberaler und sozialer Reformist wird er parteiubergreifend zum Stichwortgeber bundesdeutscher Politik seit den 70er Jahren. Popper-Rezeptionen finden sich bis in die Staatsrechtslehre (namentlich Peter Haberle) und das Bundesverfassungsgericht hinein. Noch heute lasst sich mit Popper gegen Diktaturen wie uberhaupt gegen Konzepte von "Gemeinschaft" Position beziehen - (...) aber auch gegen einen pseudo-liberalen, gnadenlosen Kapitalismus der "Ich-AGs". Mit Beitragen von Dorothea Frede, Peter Haberle, Herbert Keuth, Hubert Kiesewetter, Martin H. W. Mollers, Jurgen Nordmann, Harald Stelzer, Robert Chr. van Ooyen, Robert Zimmer. (shrink)