New computer systems of discovery create a research program for logic and philosophy of science. These systems consist of inference rules and control knowledge that guide the discovery process. Their paths of discovery are influenced by the available data and the discovery steps coincide with the justification of results. The discovery process can be described in terms of fundamental concepts of artificial intelligence such as heuristic search, and can also be interpreted in terms of logic. The traditional distinction that places (...) studies of scientific discovery outside the philosophy of science, in psychology, sociology, or history, is no longer valid in view of the existence of computer systems of discovery. It becomes both reasonable and attractive to study the schemes of discovery in the same way as the criteria of justification were studied: empirically as facts, and logically as norms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBased on an overview of the ways in which politics and the political have been thought in critical discourse analysis, the author calls for a focus on the metapolitical dimension of discourse. The author develops his notion of metapolitics on the basis of post-foundational insights into politics, the political and processes of politicization. Metapolitics refers to projects and struggles where conflicting modes and models of politics clash. Metapolitical debates potentially reshape the structure of the public realm as well as the (...) entities, borders and processes that constitute it. The author differentiates his descriptive and analytic use of the term from the way this signifier has been used programmatically by the anti-democratic New Right and its heirs. He demonstrates that metapolitical projects can be democratic as well as anti-democratic. In order to facilitate discourse analyses of metapolitical projects, debates and struggles, the author suggests that the metapolitical dimension of contemporary debates can be explored further by integrating insights from governmentality studies, studies of political rationality and the discourse theoretical logics approach with CDA. Moreover, a further exploration of the linguistic and textual underpinnings of metapolitics constitutes a promising pathway for future investigation. The study of metapolitics should be part and parcel of the transdisciplinary domain of critical discourse studies so that our understanding of the linguistic and non-linguistic features of metapolitical projects can be developed in equal measure at multiple levels of abstraction. (shrink)

Notes on the life of Adolf Lindenbaum, a complete bibliography of his published works, and selected references to his unpublished results.

In this essay, I argue, via a revision of Freud's notions of primary and secondary process, that experiences of resonant form lie at the root of many serious ineffability claims. I suggest further that Western European culture's resistance to the perception of resonant form underlies some of its present crises.

Alkibiades, a central character in Plato's Symposium, claims that philosophy touches him to the quick. When Socrates speaks, he's often moved to tears and realizes he must change his life. In Alkibiades' Love, Jan Zwicky demonstrates that this image of philosophy is not anachronistic, but remains the living heart of the discipline. Philosophy can indeed matter to our lives, but for it to do so, we must reconceive the methods that, since the Enlightenment, have dominated its self-image in the West. (...) In these meticulously researched essays, Zwicky argues that analytic and poststructuralist philosophy are not simply fashions in academic discourse, but are manifestations of the technocracy which they sustain and promote. The alternative she develops, by showing it in action, is lyric philosophy - an integrated mode of understanding whose foundations lie in the way we comprehend music and metaphor. Written in lucid and powerful prose, Alkibiades' Love will interest a broad readership, from students of ancient Greek philosophy to ecologists seeking a coherent foundation for their work. Zwicky offers deep and original readings of Freud, Plato, and Simone Weil, and resuscitates Max Wertheimer's work, linking it to our comprehension of mathematics, metaphor, and ecological structures. Zwicky has been hailed as one of the most important and original thinkers of our time. Alkibiades' Love illuminates and extends her groundbreaking work while providing an accessible introduction for those coming to her thought for the first time. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Breakthrough of the Refrigerant System CO2 Makes a Brief Appearance The New Wonder Refrigerants The Area of the HFC Gases A New Technology Is Born – in Norway The SHECCO Transcritical CO2 Circuit The CO2 Paradox.

The author of this book, Czech philosopher, former dissident, software developer and occasional politician, tries to carry over this experience into his university lectures.

Auf die im Jahre 1938 entwickelte allgemeine Gleichung derMendel Gesetze bezugnehmend, die die Vererbung als Ausdruck desNewtonschen Binoms hält, sucht der Verfasser dieselbe auf die Geschlechtsvererbung anzuwenden, indem er, sich des transformiertenPascal'schen arithmetischen Dreiecks bedienend, zum Schluss kommt, dass die ungeschlechtliche Vermehrung, vom rein biometrischen Standpunkt aus betrachtet, als Beispiel der Zero-Potenz in dem Kreuzungsrange angesehen werden könnte, d.h. eine komplette Konsolidierung und Homozygotie, bei alledem vielleicht sekundär aus der früher durchgemachten geschlechtlichen Vermehrung entstanden, darstellte.Die geschlechtliche Vermehrung müsste sodann etwa (...) für ein Beispiel des Binoms, wenn auch von nicht reiner, aber deformierter oder verkümmerter Form, von einer Kreuzungspotenzn=1 angesehen werden, und zwar vom Typus .Zudem wird ein weiterer Versuch gemacht, von demselben Standpunkt aus, auch einige kompliziertere Geschlechtserscheinungen zu analysieren, wie die des Geschlechtspolymorphismus , des Hermaphroditismus , so wie auch die oft in den natürlichen Populationen beobachtbaren Verschiebungen in der üblichen Zahlproportion 1 ∶ 1 der Geschlechter .In relation to the general equation of the laws ofMendel, given by the author in 1938, as forming the expression ofNewton's binomial, the author analyses the possibilities of application of this equation to the phenomena of sex inheritance and, while usingPascal's transformed arithmetical triangle, comes to the conclusion that the asexual propagation might be taken, from the purely biometrical point of view, as an instance of Zero-power of the crosses, which would mean a complete consolidation or homozygoty of germ material, acquired, it is true, as a secondary achievement from the previous sexual propagation.The latter, again, ought to be considered as an instance ofNewton's binomial of the cross power ofn=1 of a rather irregular, disfigured type of .Then, the author is making an attempt of analysing, from this point of view, a few more complicated cases from this field of inquiry, such as sexual polymorphism , hermaphroditism and finally the fluctuations in the number proportions of sexes, found in natural populations. (shrink)

Abstract“Show, don't tell” is a maxim basic to literary craft. It enjoins avoidance of abstract, cliché‐ridden summaries and use of rich, vividly rendered details. Anyone who has attended an introductory creative writing course will have encountered it. Practised literary writers know it is true. Why is showing so fundamental to good literature? Why is it more effective than telling? Showing constellates details, placing facets of a larger shape before the reader's mind, a shape that cannot be adequately encompassed by a (...) summary, whose power lies in the simultaneous integration of multiple, superficially discontinuous aspects. This sounds like the eureka effect, the “Aha!” of sudden discovery in mathematics and the sciences. I argue that grasping what is being shown in a literary context is indeed related to insight in theoretical fields. Telling the reader “what happened” makes the mind's eye glaze over in just the way that it glazes over when it is forced to memorize formulae that it does not understand. Showing is like offering an elegant proof; the mind reaches to understand what is going on. When it succeeds, it feels the satisfaction of having grasped meaning. (shrink)

The general thrust of Neil Levy's paper is that a certain amount of paternalism should be viewed as compatible with liberalism.1 I am not quite convinced that what he is defending is properly paternalism. In addition, I am not entirely sure what his proposal is. Here are a few comments about several points in the paper.1. A possibly small question is worth raising when Levy says, ‘That is, the state may not interfere with individuals’ actions, even to promote their own (...) conception of the good. This claim is typically justified on epistemic grounds: individuals are best placed to judge for themselves how to pursue their conception of the good.’But I don't think that this is quite the right picture, though admittedly, it has often been suggested by liberals. Still: if it's a matter of ‘epistemic’ grounds, then that implies that there is something out there to be known, so that the question is, how do we go about knowing it? But this way of putting it is misleading. For liberalism says that whenever anybody, B, other than the individual we are considering, say A, claims that what is good for A is something ‘out there’—something that can strongly contradict what A thinks for his own case—then that outsider has no authority to override A's preference. This isn't epistemic—it's a moral position.If we were to talk of ‘epistemic’ here, presumably what is known in this case is how the individual …. (shrink)

Our topic asks for a/the “normative outlook” on “the cultural edifice of the moral mind.” In this essay, I shall attempt to fix a fairly definite meaning for each of these notions, and then argue that our normative outlook insofar as this cultural edifice is moral is very strong approval. By the (or a) “cultural edifice,” I take it, we mean pretty much the whole of society insofar as it is a product of human effort, which in turn is affected, (...) no doubt, by luck – good and bad – and shot through, informed, and constrained by the moralities of the various societies that make it up. But in order to talk coherently of “the moral mind,” we need a clear and strong moral theory, one that presents a basic set of moral principles or ideas, ones which ought, therefore, to impose a coherent shape on the whole. This is vague, to be sure, and will be thought in a basic way to be implausible. I shall try at least briefly to affirm the idea and to insist that it is not after all so implausible. Is there, then, a supreme, overriding morality? Yes, I claim (in the wake, to be sure, of many others, including Aristotle, Kant, David Gauthier, and Nicholas Rescher). It has one supreme idea that nobody is to make their way in the world by imposing costs on other innocent people. (That formulation is a generalization of the ideas of Kant, Hobbes, Socrates, and perhaps that of mankind generally.) The cultural world as we know it includes the accomplishments of the original and the brilliant, plus even more the communal and cooperative efforts of innumerable people, including symphony orchestras and art museums on and on, down to a gathering of friends playing cricket. On the other hand, of course, it contains much violence and evil. What our world would look like in the absence of that evil is very hard to say – but, surely, it would be better. (shrink)

Plutarch was a brilliant Platonist, an erudite historian, a gifted author of highly polished literary dialogues, a priest of Apollo at Delphi, and a devoted politician in his hometown Chaeronea. He felt confident in the most technical and specialized discussions, yet was not afraid of rhetorical generalizations. In his voluminous oeuvre, he appears as a sharp polemicist and a loving father, an ardent pupil but also a kind, inspiring teacher, a sober historian and a teller of wondrous tales. In view (...) of all these different personae, erudite versatility is without any doubt a major characteristic of Plutarch’s works. A Versatile Gentleman is dedicated to Luc Van der Stockt, professor emeritus of Greek language and literature at KU Leuven and a truly versatile gentleman. The volume aims to do justice to his and Plutarch’s versatility by discussing the Chaeronean from many different angles. As such, it sheds new light on the coherence of, and the tensions in, Plutarch’s thinking and writing. (shrink)

Neuf études sur l'art et le temps - c'est-à-dire - l'art et l'histoire. Regard historique sur l'esthétique, analyse des conceptions du Beau dans la tradition philosophique, au travers d'exemples venant de la Grèce, de la Renaissance, du Romantisme, et d'auteurs comme Burckhardt ou Hegel - ces essais sont le prétexte à une exploration des grandes questions métaphysiques sur l'art et les hommes, analyses par un auteur dont l'engagement concret contre le régime totalitaire de son pays porte la marque de son (...) souci de l'homme et de sa dignité. (shrink)

Our ability to rapidly distinguish new from already stored information is important for behavior and decision making, but the underlying processes remain unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that contextual cues lead to a preselection of information and, therefore, faster recognition. Specifically, on the basis of previous modeling work, we hypothesized that recognition time depends on the amount of relevant content stored in long-term memory, i.e., set size, and we explored possible age-related changes of this relationship in older humans. In (...) our paradigm, subjects learned by heart four different word lists written in different colors. On the day of testing, a color cue indicated with a probability of 50% that a subsequent word might be from the corresponding list or from a list of new words. The old/new status of the word had to be distinguished via button press. As a main finding, we can show in a sample of n = 49 subjects, including 26 younger and 23 older humans, that response times increased linearly and logarithmically as a function of set size in both age groups. Conversely, corrected hit rates decreased as a function of set size with no statistically significant differences between both age groups. As such, our findings provide empirical evidence that contextual information can lead to a preselection of relevant information stored in long-term memory to promote efficient recognition, possibly by cyclical top-down and bottom-up processing. (shrink)

Section 1 One of the big problems facing us is the need to plan for the betterment and improvement of society. In any status quo there are many unsatisfactory moments and experience shows that with changing conditions, even those elements of our communal structure that work well will often get out of step and become a problem. We need then to introduce devices both to alleviate present troubles and, if possible, to anticipate future ones. On the whole, it might appear (...) to the untutored eye that the matter is relatively simple. For instance, if we keep increasing prices of commodities without increasing incomes, and especially if we allow inflation to proceed unfettered as well, the situation will certainly deteriorate. What we need to. (shrink)

In this contribution we shall characterize matrix consequence operation determined by a direct product and an ultraproduct of a family of logical matrices. As an application we shall describe finite consequence operations with the help of ultrapowers.

Die nicht erst seit dem Herbst 2015 andauernden Migrationsbewegungen nach Europa und auch innerhalb Europas lassen es angeraten erscheinen, den damit aufgeworfenen ethischen und rechtlichen Fragen auch in einem Themenschwerpunkt des Jahrbuchs näher nachzugehen. Der vorliegende Band stellt dabei in einem ersten Teil die rechtsethischen Grundfragen der Migration zur Diskussion. In einem zweiten Teil werden demgegenüber rechtliche Spezialfragen der Migration untersucht. Das Jahrbuch enthält wieder ein »Diskussionsforum«, in dem in diesem Jahr Fragen des Zusammenspiels von logischer Analyse und juristischer Argumentation (...) zur Debatte stehen. Es schließt mit einem Berichts- und Rezensionsteil. (shrink)

In this essay, part of a cluster of pieces on her concept of “lyric philosophy,” the author explores connections between imagination, understood as the capacity to think in images, and what Wittgenstein called “seeing-as.” In seeing-as, we focus on what Wittgenstein identifies as inner structural relations. This is a term that Max Wertheimer, one of the founders of gestalt philosophical psychology, used independently to describe how seeing-as involves seeing into a thing or situation. The present essay suggests that both seeing-as (...) and seeing-into depend on, and develop, sensitivity to ontological resonance, the attunement of things with one another, the deep analogies that constitute the underlying structure of the world. Imagination is thus fundamental to the good, or ethical, life. For its disciplined exercise relieves us of what Simone Weil calls the “Ring of Gyges”: the refusal to perceive significant analogies between ourselves and other beings, which is the root of injustice. (shrink)

We used Discursive Psychology to study the claims and arguments which occur when ‘the child’s best interests’ is produced as a resource in family mediation settings. Analysis draws on data from three pairs of separated or separating parents attempting to resolve child contact or residency disputes through mediation. Our analysis focuses on the tendency of claims to the abstract notion of the child’s best interests to exacerbate conflict, especially as parents drew on conflicting research in this area. Changing expectations of (...) fathering could be observed in the men’s argumentative positioning, and this was taken up in different ways by ex-partners and by mediators. Participants aligned themselves with mediators’ statements by picking up details of mediators’ language, hampering mediators’ attempted neutrality. The problematic nature of acknowledging the intensity of emotions in this process was also highlighted. (shrink)

If we consider perceptions as arising from predictive processes, we must consider the manner in which the underlying expectations are formed and how they are applied to the sensory data. We provide examples of cases where expectations give rise to unexpected and unlikely perceptions of the world. These examples may help define bounds for the notion that perceptual hypotheses are direct derivatives of experience and are used to furnish sensible interpretations of sensory data.

Our aim in this study is to examine the attitude to violence expressed in the works of two leading figures in the history of Czech philosophical thought. Several scholars in the field of Comeniology have expressed the belief that not only clear parallels but also direct continuity can be traced between the views of Petr Chelčický and those of Jan Amos Comenius. To make a proper judgement as to whether Comenius and Chelčický shared identical attitudes to the question of the (...) legitimacy of violence, we focus first on Comenius’s climactic work, in which his point of view is most fully expressed. Subsequently we analyse Chelčický’s views and compare them with Comenius’s attitude. A comparison of the works of the two thinkers leads to the conclusion that on the one hand Comenius’s key opinions are much more comprehensively founded; on the other, he does not restrict himself to a critique of physical violence but also deals with the spiritual struggle. Any analogy between Chelčický and Comenius’s attitude to violence can therefore be related only to the early works of Comenius in which his concept of universal tolerance was not yet thoroughly thought through. The study therefore focuses on the issue of the development of Comenius’s concept of tolerance as well. (shrink)

Politische Theologie erlebt derzeit ein Revival: Nachdem es eine längere Zeit lang still um die Politische Theologie geworden war, erfreut sie sich - nicht zuletzt angesichts multipler Krisenerscheinungen - aktuell wieder eines wachsenden Interesses. Aber was ist,,Politische Theologie" eigentlich? Die Einführung bietet eine begriffsgeschichtliche Orientierung und systematische Einordnung dieses schillernden Begriffs, eine vertiefende Auseinandersetzung mit den Politischen Theologien des Staatsrechtlers Carl Schmitt und des katholischen Theologen Johann Baptist Metz sowie eine Reflexion ausgewählter gegenwärtiger Diskussionsbeiträge in der deutschsprachigen katholischen Theologie. Das (...) Buch verdeutlicht die ungebrochene Aktualität und Relevanz fundierter wissenschaftlicher und öffentlicher Auseinandersetzungen mit der Politischen Theologie. Der Inhalt Politische Theologie - Begriff und Geschichte Politische Politische Theologie (Carl Schmitt) Theologische Politische Theologie (Johann B. Metz) Gegenwart theologischer Politischer Theologie Die Zielgruppen Studierende und Dozierende der Theologie, Philosophie, Sozial- und Politikwissenschaften Interessiertes Fachpublikum Die Autoren Jan Niklas Collet ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Katholische Theologie der TU Dortmund (Systematische Theologie). Dr. Jan-Hendrik Herbst ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Katholische Theologie der TU Dortmund (Religionspädagogik). (shrink)