The theory of nonlinear complex systems has become a successful and widely used problem-solving approach in the natural sciences - from laser physics, quantum chaos and meteorology to molecular modeling in chemistry and computer simulations of cell growth in biology. In recent times it has been recognized that many of the social, ecological and political problems of mankind are also of a global, complex and nonlinear nature. And one of the most exciting topics of present scientific and public interest is (...) the idea that even the human mind is governed largely by the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems. In this wide-ranging but concise treatment Prof. Mainzer discusses, in nontechnical language, the common framework behind these endeavours. Special emphasis is given to the evolution of new structures in natural and cultural systems and it is seen clearly how the new integrative approach of complexity theory can give new insights that were not available using traditional reductionistic methods. (shrink)

Among scholars it is common to assume that Aristotle’s practical syllogism does two jobs. It is often taken to explain both animal motion and human deliberation. I will call this the “two-jobs view of the practical syllogism”. In what follows, I will argue that the two-jobs view of the practical syllogism is not working. I will then try to give a very brief and incomplete sketch of how to conceive of a non-two-jobs view of the Aristotelian practical syllogism. Finally, I (...) will discuss two possible problems for the non-two-jobs view. (shrink)

Attention is automatically allocated to stimuli that are opposite in valence to the current motivational focus (Rothermund, 2003; Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). We tested whether this incongruency effect is due to affective–motivational counter-regulation or to an increased salience of stimuli that mismatch with cognitively activated information. Affective processing biases were assessed with a search task in which participants had to detect the spatial position at which a positive or negative stimulus was presented. In the motivational condition, positive or negative (...) affective–motivational states were induced by performance feedback after each trial. In the cognitive activation condition, participants memorised the word “good” or “bad” during the search task. The affective incongruency effect was replicated in the motivational condition, whereas an affective congruency effect obtained in the cognitive activation condition. These findings support an explanation of affective incongruency effects in terms of automatic counter-regulation that is motivational in nature. (shrink)

This is the overdue replacement of D. W. Hamlyn’s somewhat dismissive 1968 translation and commentary of the first two books of Aristotle’s De Anima. Hamlyn hardly did justice to this foundational treatise of Aristotle’s science of living beings: not only did he mistake it for a treatise on “the” philosophy of mind, he also did not bother to translate the first book apart from two snippets. Shields’s replacement is entirely free from such vices. It provides a new translation and commentary (...) on the whole argument of De Anima, and offers a much more philosophically satisfying interpretation... (shrink)

En la Filosofía del Derecho, Hegel dedica especial atención a uno de los problemas más preocupantes de las sociedades y los estados modernos: la inequitativa distribución de la riqueza y la consiguiente secuela de inequidades e injusticias sociales. En su análisis, Hegel enfatiza la idea de que la conformación de una sociedad civil justa y de un estado racional o de derecho, depende enteramente del reconocimiento, por parte de esas esferas, de los derechos de todos los individuos a gozar de (...) una vida material digna, que les permita no sólo el aseguramiento de las condiciones elementales de existencia, sino también la participación y el disfrute de los bienes materiales y espirituales que sustentan y dinamizan la vida en común. De acuerdo con el diagnóstico de Hegel, tal reconocimiento tiene, ciertamente, su punto de partida en la esferas del derecho abstracto y se prolonga en la esfera de la moralidad, en las que el individuo es reconocido como persona o sujeto moral, pero es sólo en la esfera superior de la eticidad donde el reconocimiento de todos los derechos que garantizan una vida digna, alcanza validez y necesidad universales, dado que es en dicha esfera, concretamente en la esfera del estado, donde dicho reconocimiento logra asegurarse en las diferentes instancias legales y jurídicas que lo componen. Tal es la vía por la cual la filosofía política de Hegel intenta ofrecer una salida a un problema que, como el señalado, sigue siendo una amenaza a las sociedades del presente y un cuestionamiento a las estructuras mismas del poder. Independientemente de la viabilidad de la solución ofrecida, la filosofía política de Hegel recaba aquí una vigencia pertinente e incuestionable. (shrink)

In their scholarly target article, Gilead et al. explain how abstract mental representations and the predictive brain enable prospection and time-traveling. However, their exclusive focus on intrapsychic capacities misses an important point, namely, the degree to which mind and brain are tuned by the environment. This neglected aspect of adaptive cognition is discussed and illustrated from a cognitive-ecological perspective.

In recent years we have seen the rise of a new framework within the study of the mind, namely Predictive Processing. This framework essentially holds that the brain is a prediction machine constantly postulating perceptual models which are tested against incoming information. At the same time, the notion of the minimal or core self has become very influential as a way of explaining, or explaining away, pre-reflective self-awareness. The four most widely discussed alternatives for thinking through the metaphysical implications the (...) pre-reflective sense of self are the standard phenomenological view, the substance view, the no-self view and by now the relational view. In this paper, it is our objective to rethink the notion of the sense of self in the context of PP. Now, PP is often held to be a unifying framework that offers a new integrated account of perception, cognition, imagination, and indeed the pre-reflective sense of self. We will show, however, that PP has been taken to endorse rather too many different metaphysical accounts of self: that is, views about how we should regard the ultimate nature of self. What we need to do, if possible, is to use PP to constrain the theories on offer. Here we focus upon two central constraints that we think PP implies. These are, the mutability constraint and the multi-layereredness constraint. We argue that self-views laid out in terms of the PP framework are usually – to some degree – located within the four standard metaphysical accounts of self. However, we think that realist versions of self-accounts seem to have more trouble in respecting the PP constraints or requirements. The reason, or so we believe, is PP’s mutability constraint. This does not have to be the case and we, therefore, propose an alternative realist view – namely the pre-reflective situational self view – which is more adequate to fit the PP framework. (shrink)

A favorite assumption of anglo-American scholarship is that locke's influence "pervaded the eighteenth century with an almost scriptural authority." examining the philosophy of the german enlightenment, This essay disputes the exaggerated importance ascribed to locke in the eighteenth century. Locke's influence was always limited by native traditions inimical to his thought. His empiricism could not compete with the leibniz-Wolff system in which all german philosophers, Including the lockean sympathizers, Were educated. It is true that around mid-Century and beyond locke attracted (...) a certain following, But those who accepted his theories were minor figures (popular philosophers) and exercised very little influence on the future course of german philosophy (kant). (shrink)

Molecules have more or less symmetric and complex structures which can be defined in the mathematical framework of topology, group theory, dynamical systems theory, and quantum mechanics. But symmetry and complexity are by no means only theoretical concepts of research. Modern computer aided visualizations show real forms of matter which nevertheless depend on the technical standards of observation, computation, and representation. Furthermore, symmetry and complexity are fundamental interdisciplinary concepts of research inspiring the natural sciences since the antiquity.

This book provides insight into the work of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), one of the most prophetic minds of the 20th century, whose dire historical predictions - world wars, ecological disasters, gigantic cities with unrestrained urban sprawl, increasing race conflicts, failure of nerve among the ruling elites, and rapid decline of cultural norms - have more than passed the test of time. Besides focusing on Spengler the prophet and the controversies which surrounded his name in the 1920s, this book also emphasizes (...) Spengler's pioneering role in the development of a comparative study of cultures based on biological principles. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Sept. 2010 in Jena, Germany.

Debido al interés de Hegel por la función histórica del arte como factor de cultura, su filosofía del arte es inseparable de su filosofía de la historia. Las formas universales del arte (simbólica, clásica y romántica), corresponden al proceso de formación y realización de la subjetividad humana y su libertad en el mundo oriental, el antiguo o griego, y el moderno. El articulo se concentra en la forma clásica, o sea el mundo de la cultura griega. Su clasicismo es un (...) "punto medio", porque se ubica en el reino de la belleza, entre la naturaleza y la libertad. A pesar de su belleza, el arte de la forma clásica para nosotros modernos es un arte del pasado, es un arte para la libertad de un ciudadano de la polis pero no lo es para la libertad individualizada y universal de un ciudadano cosmopolita. (shrink)

Se propone aqui una actualización del pensar hegeliano en la filosofía del derecho internacional, cix tomo al problema del reconocimiento interestatal, a fin de mediar entre un liberalismo vacuo y un multiculturalismo , que en base a la inalienable identidad de cada pueblo haría imposible la defensa de la dignidad de la persona. Se atisba una solución en el concepto de «reconocimiento sustancial y con contenido», que lleva a la paulatina sustitución de las guerras por «contiendas metafóricas», regladas en base (...) al reconocimiento, a la vez, de los derechos humanos y de la contingencia histórica.Hier wini cine Aktualisierung des hegelschen Denkens in Hinsicht aufdie politische Philosophie des tiuBeren Staatsrechts vorgesehíagen, dic den Spuren von Kants Zum ewigen Frieden folgí und zwar mit der Absicht, cine «mittlere Bestimmung» zwischen leerem Liberalismus bzw. abstraktem Universalismus und Multikulturalismus bzw. Relativismus zu finden. Dazu sieht man cine mogliche Lósung in der Idee ciner interstaatlichen «inhaltlichsubstanticllen Anerkennung», dic allmáhlich dic Kricge durch «metaphorische Wettstreite» ersetzen soll. (shrink)

Una comprensión adecuada de la confrontación de Hegel con el concepto de ironía romántica de Friedrich Schlegel sólo puede lograrse mediante una explicación de la relación estructural de negatividad, skepsis e ironía. La relación entre una filosofía de la ironía y una filosofía del absoluto puede ser puesta bajo una nueva luz si se compara la cercanía y la oposición de las estrategias de una skepsis implícita o interna desarrolladas por Schlegel y Hegel. Hegel ve en la ironía de Schlegel (...) una forma de la "negatividad infinita, absoluta”, una figura de una skepsis estética, pero no —como Schlegel— la “skepsis suprema y más pura". En la permanente oscilación de "autocreación y autodestrucción ", en la corriente eternamente alterna de discurso y contradiscurso de pensamiento y contrapensamiento, no se logra en modo a alguno, según Hegel, la integración del escepticismo. El proyecto de una "poesía trascendental'' como intento de una nueva unificación de poesía y filosofía tiene el mismo talón de Aquiies del pirronismo antiguo, el cual oscila entre narración y discurso y —como el asno de Buridán— "muere de hambre " entre los dos. Los ironistas perseveran en la pura negatividad, su incesante y nostálgica actividad semeja una conversación sin resultados. Creatividad crítica, vital y escéptica, y tedio bostezador constituyen para Hegel las dos posiciones extremas del proyecto romántico temprano. (shrink)

›Streben‹ und das entsprechende abstrakte Hauptwort ›Strebung‹ bilden den Oberbegriff für alle konativen Zustände, d. h. für alle Zustände des Versuchens, Wollens und Angetriebenseins. Aristoteles verwendet den Begriff als Erster in terminologischer Weise : ›Streben‹ ist allgemeiner Begriff für zwei einander entgegengesetzte Modi des Strebens, nämlich Verfolgen und Meiden. Sie decken das Spektrum solcher motorischen Prozesse, bei denen Lebewesen sich intentional auf Bewegungsziele richten, vollständig ab.

Im vorliegenden Buch stellt Klaus Oehler die Lehre vom noetischen und dianoetischen Denken bei Platon und Aristoteles dar und begründet damit erstmals die These, dass das für die neuzeitliche Philosophie zentrale Problem der Reflexion und des Selbstbewusstseins schon, wenn auch nicht in gleicher Weise, in der antiken Philosophie eine Rolle gespielt hat.

To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Experience or Interpretation:"What You See Is Not What You Read"Klaus OttmannMuseums of modern and contemporary art are growing at an unprecedented rate. New museums are being founded and existing ones are expanding exhibition spaces and acquiring more and more works of art. Concurrently, cultural institutions compete with a growing number of art fairs, biennials, galleries, and public collection spaces.Since the 1980s the focus of museums increasingly has been (...) on education and interpretation, which among other things has created a boom for audio guides and scholarly exhibition catalogs at the expense of the unmediated experience of works of art. Perhaps what is needed are exhibitions that present art again primarily as "experience," with minimal curatorial and didactic intervention. [End Page 13]I have borrowed the title of my essay from a lecture that was given by Nicolas Serota, the director of the Tate galleries in London, in 1996. His lecture was subtitled "The Dilemma of Museums of Modern Art."But the question of the presentation of art, and specifically, that of experience vs. interpretation, by no means originated in the last decades. It is at least as old a question as modern art itself, going as far back as the nineteenth-century French intellectual dispute on the museum between the poet Paul Valéry and the novelist Marcel Proust, as recounted with a sympathetic voice by the German philosopher and cultural critic Theodor Adorno in a short essay with the minimalist title "Valéry Proust Museum."There is much to be learned from reading this small text. Paul Valéry criticized the museum of his time (the Louvre) for creating confusion in the mind of the spectator by reducing the experience to the level of information only. No one would want to listen to ten orchestras at once, he argued, yet we are forced to apprehend, at the same moment, a seascape, a portrait, and a still-life, or worse, painting styles completely incompatible with each other. He warned that excess of information would lead to impoverishment of the senses, as art was becoming a matter of education. Valéry's view could be regarded as the conservative position.Marcel Proust's view was more modernist: he regarded the museum as the best place to view art. Devoid of décor and other commonplace distractions, its galleries symbolized for him the inner spaces into which the artist withdraws to create works of art.Both Valéry and Proust emphasized that art should be enjoyed. But while for Valéry art lost its vitality in the museum and effectively "died," Proust saw an afterlife of art in the museum and in the subjective stream of consciousness of the viewer.For Adorno, both views were too one-sided and extreme. Valéry's absolute unwavering contemplation of pure art takes the risk of neutralization, unless the work can point beyond itself toward a social context. Thus, a work of art is neither an embodiment of a Platonic idea, as Valéry believed, nor is it exclusively a reflection of the soul, as Proust understood it. Rather, in Adorno's view, art is a "force field" between the art and the viewer, both passive and active.In his 1931 lectures on "Art as Experience," the American philosopher John Dewey said:The trouble with existing theories [of art] is that they start from ready-made compartmentalization, or from a conception of art that "spiritualizes" it out of connection with the objects of concrete experience. The alternative, however, to such spiritualization is not a degrading... materialization of works of fine art, but a conception that discloses the way in which these works idealize qualities found in common experience.1 [End Page 14]In my book The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition, I describe the creative act as an active-passive leap that the artist is impelled to make and the viewer is challenged to repeat.Wittgenstein often spoke about the inexpressible, that which is beyond the limits of language. He called it "running against the boundaries of language." It is something any poet, musician, or painter is familiar with; they all run against boundaries of language, sound, or color... (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Symmetrien werden in der Wissenschafts- und Kulturgeschichte als grundlegende Ordnungsmodelle verwendet. Damit stellt sich die Frage, ob sie von Menschen bloß ausgedacht wurden, um die Vielfalt der Erscheinungen zu ordnen, ob sie gar nur einem ästhetischen Bedürfnis entspringen oder ob es sich um Grundstrukturen der Natur handelt, die unabhängig vom Menschen existieren. In der Antike jedenfalls wurden Erkenntnis, Kunst und Natur aus einer gemeinsamen symmetrischen Grundordnung verstanden. In der Neuzeit bricht diese Einheit von Natur- und Humanwissenschaften auseinander. In der Kunst (...) werden Symmetrien und Symmetriebrechungen auf subjektive Geschmacksurteile bezogen. In Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften bleiben Symmetrien und Symmetriebrechungen fundamentale Annahmen der Naturbeschreibung, deren Anwendung von der Entstehung der Urmaterie bis zur Evolution des Lebens reicht. Tatsächlich hängen aktuelle Entdeckungen und Gesetze in Kosmologie, Physik, Chemie und Biologie mit Symmetrie und Symmetriebrechungen zusammen. Ob aber diese mathematischen Strukturen tatsächlich fundamentalen Naturgesetzen entsprechen, entscheiden wie immer in der Physik am Ende Beobachtung, Messung und Experiment. (shrink)

As a logical consequence of recent developments in the philosophy of science the concept of rationality has lost much of its impact. It seems that the rationality of methodological decisions in science can be defined no longer in an absolute sense but only in relation to a given context and in hindsight. This failure of methodology in assessing once and for all the rights and wrongs of scientific decisions is taken as a clue for reanalyzing the strategical intervention-points of methodological (...) norms. It is shown that relativism and irrationalism are to be avoided by not cutting the process of scientific investigation into intrinsically different portions: context of justification and context of discovery. This dichotomy opens a logical and psychological gap between different stages of scientific evolution that the idea of comparing factual contents or degrees of justification is no longer able to bridge. In two case studies, the development of modern science in the 16th and 17th centuries and the development of special and general realtivity it is shown that the dichotomy is inherently implausibel. But if it is possible to analyze the context of justification and the context of discovery in same terms, the logical chain of reasoning is closed. This problem-shift defies both irrationalism and relativism and leads to a different view of scientific progress as an increase of information-processing capacity that can be measured by a certain set of indicators radically different from the received one. (shrink)