From the contents: Culture, nationalism and philosophy (Sophie B. Oluwole).- The relationship between African and European philosophers: what it ought to be (Juergen Hengelbrock).- Against culture and the aliens of modernization: the case of Africa (Christian Neugebauer).- Elements democratiques dans les sagesses du Senegal (Massaer Diallo).- Democracy in an ethical community (Tobias J.G. Louw).

In seinem Aufsatz „Immanuel Kant und die Reichweite der Kanonen. Die Abkehr von der Illusion eines ewigen Friedens“, in: Internationale Politik, Heft 11–12, Berlin 2004, 155ff. stellt Heinz Kluss, ehemaliger Direktor des Ausschusses für Verteidigung und Sicherheit der Parlamentarischen Versammlung der NATO, drei eingängige Thesen auf.

Introduction -- Repression, ignorance, and undone science -- The epistemic dimension of the political opportunity structure -- The politics of meaning: from frames to design conflicts -- The organizational forms of counterpublic knowledge -- Institutional change, industrial transitions, and regime resistance politics -- Contemporary change: liberalization and epistemic modernization -- Conclusion.

This article sketches an idealized strategy for the identification of neural correlates of consciousness. The proposed strategy is based on a state space approach originating from the analysis of dynamical systems. The article then focuses on one constituent of consciousness, phenomenal awareness. Several rudimentary requirements for the identification of neural correlates of phenomenal awareness are suggested. These requirements are related to empirical data on selective attention, on completely intrinsic selection and on globally unconscious states. As an example, neuroscientific findings on (...) synchronized γ activity are categorized according to these requirements. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...) rather than hypothetico-deductive inferential paradigm. However, these proposals deliver no clear guidelines about how such plurality of evidence sources should jointly justify hypotheses of causal associations. We here develop such guidelines by first giving a philosophical analysis of the underpinnings of Hill’s viewpoints on causality. We then put forward an evidence-amalgamation framework adopting a Bayesian net approach to model causal inference in pharmacology for the assessment of harms. Our framework accommodates a number of intuitions already expressed in the literature concerning the EBM vs. pluralist debate on causal inference, evidence hierarchies, causal holism, relevance, and reliability. (shrink)

Considered by many to be Abraham Robinson's magnum opus, this book offers an explanation of the development and applications of non-standard analysis by the mathematician who founded the subject. Non-standard analysis grew out of Robinson's attempt to resolve the contradictions posed by infinitesimals within calculus. He introduced this new subject in a seminar at Princeton in 1960, and it remains as controversial today as it was then. This paperback reprint of the 1974 revised edition is indispensable reading for anyone interested (...) in non-standard analysis. It treats in rich detail many areas of application, including topology, functions of a real variable, functions of a complex variable, and normed linear spaces, together with problems of boundary layer flow of viscous fluids and rederivations of Saint-Venant's hypothesis concerning the distribution of stresses in an elastic body. (shrink)

According to the objective Bayesian approach to inductive logic, premisses inductively entail a conclusion just when every probability function with maximal entropy, from all those that satisfy the premisses, satisfies the conclusion. When premisses and conclusion are constraints on probabilities of sentences of a first-order predicate language, however, it is by no means obvious how to determine these maximal entropy functions. This paper makes progress on the problem in the following ways. Firstly, we introduce the concept of a limit in (...) entropy and show that, if the set of probability functions satisfying the premisses contains a limit in entropy, then this limit point is unique and is the maximal entropy probability function. Next, we turn to the special case in which the premisses are categorical sentences of the logical language. We show that if the uniform probability function gives the premisses positive probability, then the maximal entropy function can be found by simply conditionalising this uniform prior on the premisses. We generalise our results to demonstrate agreement between the maximal entropy approach and Jeffrey conditionalisation in the case in which there is a single premiss that specifies the probability of a sentence of the language. We show that, after learning such a premiss, certain inferences are preserved, namely inferences to inductive tautologies. Finally, we consider potential pathologies of the approach: we explore the extent to which the maximal entropy approach is invariant under permutations of the constants of the language, and we discuss some cases in which there is no maximal entropy probability function. (shrink)

Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality from symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between person and personification. Where it is too strongly individualized, it ceases to be allegory […]. In the community of scholars of intermedia research, the above quoted citation is commonly regarded as Coleridge’s coining of the term “intermedium” or “intermediality”. However, a short glance at the discursive strategy of his argument emphasizes that his notion of “intermedium” must be closely linked to the poetics (...) and aesthetics of 19th-century romanticism. For the romantic poet, the term of “intermedium” does not point to media relations or intermedia processes but to.. (shrink)

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find (...) that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness. (shrink)

As digital media becomes more central to the lives of adolescents, it also becomes increasingly relevant for their sexual communication. Sexting as an important image-based digital medium provides opportunities for self-determined digital communication, but also carries specific risks for boundary violations. Accordingly, sexting is understood either as an everyday, or as risky and deviant behavior among adolescents. In the affectedness of boundary violations gender plays an important role. However, it is still unclear to what extent digital sexual communication restores stereotypical (...) gender roles and restrictive sexuality norms or, alternatively, enables new spaces of possibility. In this sense, current research points to a desideratum regarding adolescents’ orientations toward sexting as a practice between spaces of possibility and boundary violations. This paper discusses the possibilities, but also the risks, of intimate digital communication among adolescents. The main question is, how adolescents themselves perceive sexting practices and how they position themselves between both spaces for possibility and for the exchange of unwanted sexual content. For this purpose, orientations toward normalities and gender of students are reconstructed. To answer these questions, twelve single-sex, group discussions were carried out with students aged 16 and 17 at five different secondary schools in northern Germany. A total of 20 boys and 22 girls took part. The group discussions were structured by a narrative generating guideline. The analysis draws its methodology from the Documentary Method, regarding implicit and explicit forms of knowledge and discourse. It results in a typology of three types with different orientations. The study shows, that most of the students consider sexting to be a risky practice; only one type shows normality in the use of sexting. At the same time, some of the young people are interested in experimenting with image-based intimate digital communication. Further, gender differences in use and affectedness are also documented. In this way, orientations toward gender stereotypes “favor” both the attribution of responsibility to girls, and overlook the responsibility of students who perpetrated the boundary violation. The orientations of adolescents should be taken more into account in research as well as in educational programs for the prevention of sexual violence. (shrink)

Dans ses différentes fonctions (enseignement, édition, conseiller au Ministère de la Recherche, etc.), Heinz Wismann n’a cessé d’interroger les traditions intellectuelles qui, dans leurs différences et leurs contradictions, constituent la culture philosophique et scientifique contemporaine. D’où le titre de sa grande collection au Cerf, « Passages », en référence à Walter Benjamin, dans l’idée que la complexité du monde actuel n’est intelligible que par un décentrement rigoureux des disciplines et des traditions savantes et nationales. Depuis plus de trente ans, (...) Heinz Wismann a joué en France un rôle décisif dans la vie culturelle et intellectuelle où il s'est attaché à transmettre et à reconstruire des traditions à l'époque oubliées : les présocratiques (Héraclite), l'idéalisme allemand (Cassirer, Benjamin). Au centre de toutes ses activités de passeur entre l'Allemagne et la France, le ressort de sa démarche est une analyse des mécanismes par lesquels une tradition se sédimente et tout à la fois innove ; la conception des rapports entre les langues en est le terrain d'exercice privilégié. L'intérêt de son parcours intellectuel est indissociable de sa fréquentation de tous les milieux français (culturels, savants, politiques), dont il donne un portrait intérieur, et européens (Bulgarie, Allemagne de l'Est, etc.), où il est extrêmement connu. D’Homère à Nietszche, de Platon à Kant, de la philologie à la musique, de la langue au texte, c’est ce tissage de la pensée qu’Heinz Wismann évoque avec un savoir et un talent exceptionnels. (shrink)

Aktuelles Forschungsfeld zahlreicher Disziplinen. In rund 50 Artikeln macht das Handbuch mit den Schlüsselbegriffen und zentralen Themen der Aufklärung in Europa vertraut. Die forschungsgestützten und mit einer Bibliographie versehenen Beiträge zu Gegenständen wie u.a. Anthropologie, Freiheit/Gleichheit, Erfahrung, Vernunft, Moral und Toleranz, aber auch zu Landschaft/Garten, Esoterik, Rasse und Kolonialismus präsentieren die Vorgeschichte ihres Themas, zeigen dessen Aufklärungsrelevanz und beleuchten, wo geboten, seine Transformation im Wirkungszusammenhang des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.