Several philosophers of science have claimed that the correspondence principle can be generalized from quantum physics to all of (particularly physical) science and that in fact it constitutes one of the major heuristical rules for the construction of new theories. In order to evaluate these claims, first the use of the correspondence principle in (the genesis of) quantum mechanics will be examined in detail. It is concluded from this and from other examples in the history of science (...) that the principle should be qualified with respect to its nature and relativized with respect to its scope of application. At the same time this conclusion implies a qualification and a relativization of the heuristic power of the principle. Generally speaking, intertheoretical correspondence is primarily of a formal-mathematical and empirical but not of a conceptual nature. Moreover, it only applies to certain parts of the theories involved. Finally, a number of philosophical justifications of the principle are discussed and some conclusions are drawn concerning the debates on theory reduction and on the discovery-justification distinction. (shrink)

The problem of how to remove information from an agent's stock of beliefs is of paramount concern in the belief change literature. An inquiring agent may remove beliefs for a variety of reasons: a belief may be called into doubt or the agent may simply wish to entertain other possibilities. In the prominent AGM framework for belief change, upon which the work here is based, one of the three central operations, contraction, addresses this concern (the other two deal with (...) the incorporation of new information). Makinson has generalised this work by introducing the notion of a withdrawal operation. Underlying the account proffered by AGM is the idea of rational belief change. A belief change operation should be guided by certain principles or integrity constraints in order to characterise change by a rational agent. One of the most noted principles within the context of AGM is the Principle of Informational Economy. However, adoption of this principle in its purest form has been rejected by AGM leading to a more relaxed interpretation. In this paper, we argue that this weakening of the Principle of Informational Economy suggests that it is only one of a number of principles which should be taken into account. Furthermore, this weakening points toward a Principle of Indifference. This motivates the introduction of a belief removal operation that we call severe withdrawal. We provide rationality postulates for severe withdrawal and explore its relationship with AGM contraction. Moreover, we furnish possible worlds and epistemic entrenchment semantics for severe withdrawals. (shrink)

In "Two sorts of Naturalism" John McDowell is sketching his own sort of naturalism in ethics as an alternative to "bald naturalism". In this paper I distinguish materialist, idealist and absolute conceptions of nature and of naturalism in order to provide a framework for a clearer understanding of what McDowell’s own naturalism amounts to. I argue that nothing short of an absolute naturalism will do for a number of McDowell's own purposes, but that it is far from obvious that (...) this is his position. If he directly denies that it is, he seems to be left with some rather awkward choices. (shrink)

The Hans Reichenbach Papers comprise published and unpublished manuscripts, lectures, correspondence, photographs, drawings, and related materials from his early student days until his death. The correspondence contains about 9000 pages to and from Reichenbach; it ranges over his entire career. Those with whom Reichenbach maintained lifelong contact include Rudolf Carnap, Ernst Cassirer, Herbert Feigl, Philip Frank, Carl Hempel, Sidney Hook, Paul Oppenheim and Wolfgang Pauli. In addition, there is significant correspondence with von Astor, Bergmann, Bertalanffy, Dingler, Dubislav, Einstein, (...) Fraenkel, Frank, Freundlich, Grelling, Grünbaum, Paul Hertz, Hutten, Jordan, Landé, von Laue, Lewin, C.I. Lewis, Charles Morris, Nagel, Neurath, Northrop, Planck, Quine, Regener, Rougier, Salmon, Schillp, Schlick, Scholz, Schrödinger, Martin Strauss, Tarski, Vaihinger, Weiss, Williams, Zawarski, and Zilsel. The correspondence provides a valuable source of information about Reichenbach’s personal and philosophical development. It also provides primary source material for research into one of the 20th century most influential philosophical movements. Reichenbach’s manuscripts include many of his own notes as a student. Some go as far back as his university days in science and mathematics. Some of the most significant of these notes are those taken by him as a student of Albert Einstein on the special and general theories of relativity. There are four such notebooks dating from 1918. In addition there are his student notes on astronomy, Planck and electricity, Hilbert’s “Statistical Mechanics” and “Problems and Principles.” He also kept many of his lecture notes from Germany, Turkey, and the United States. The number of lectures runs to over 100 and provides a glimpse into the problems of philosophy and how he presented them to his students. Many of his lectures discussed principles of radio and issues in philosophy and modern science, often in form of popularizations of questions in relativity and quantum theory delivered on radio programs for a wider audiences. In addition to this there are an abundance of notes, calculations, and diagrams used to draft both published and unpublished papers. (shrink)

Richard Bradley has initiated a new debate, with Brian Hill and Jake Chandler as further participants, about the implications of a number of so-called triviality results surrounding the Ramsey test for conditionals. I comment on this debate and argue that ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Preservation’, which were originally introduced as postulates for the rational revision of factual beliefs, have little to recommend them in the first place when extended to languages containing conditionals. I question the philosophical method of postulation that was applied (...) in the new debate, and instead base my arguments on explicit representations of belief states and canonical constructions of belief state revisions. (shrink)

In his choice of texts, the Editor has been faced with the difficult task of selecting, from among the author's more than 600 publications, those of the greatest philosophical interest. It is chiefly the topics of value-rela tivism and the logic of norms that have been kept in view. The selection has also been guided by the endeavour to reprint, so far as possible, texts which have not hitherto appeared in English. At times, however, this aim has had to (...) be discarded, in order to include works of key im portance and also the latest expressions of Kelsen's view. In addition to the two topics already mentioned, the Editor has con sidered Kelsen's discussions of the causal principle to be so far worthy of philosophical attention, that some writings on causality and account ability have been included in this collection of philosophical studies. OTA WEINBERGER Hans Kelsen died on April 19th, 1973. Only his work now lives, for the inspiration of future generations of jurists and philosophers. Graz, 25th April, 1973 OT A WEINBERGER TRANSLATOR'S NOTE I am obliged to the Editor for his careful scrutiny of the translation, which has led to a number of corrections and improvements in the text. (shrink)

We distinguish the set of explicit beliefs of a reasoner, his "belief base", from the beliefs that are merely implicit. Syntax-based belief change governed by the structure of the belief base and the ranking ("prioritization") of its elements is reconstructed with the help of an epistemic entrenchment relation in the style of Gärdenfors and Makinson. Though priorities are essentially different from entrenchments, distinguished relations of epistemic entrenchment may be obtained from prioritized belief bases by a number of (...) different constructions. An approximate reconstruction of syntax-based belief change is possible, which can be strengthened to a strict identity in some important special cases. A competitive interpretation and a minimal change interpretation of the basic idea of entrenchment are discussed. It is argued that entrenchment essentially involves multiple belief changes, i.e., changes by sets of sentences. (shrink)

Starting from the four theses that globalization is unavoidable, ambivalent, incalculable, and can be controlled rationally, ethics has an indispensable and important role to play in the process of globalization. Indeed, a number of international documents published in the 1990s not only acknowledge human rights but also speak explicitly of human responsibilities. The author pleads for the primacy of ethics over politics and economics and, in reviewing both the Interfaith Declaration for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and the Caux Roundtable (...) Principles for Business Conduct, he raises the question about the foundation for the unconditional validity of particular basic ethical values and attitudes. In Küng’s view, no universal ethic, but only religion, expressed by the three prophetic religions, the mystical religions of Indian origin, and the wisdom religions of Chinese origin, can provide this foundation. Yet, religion as a spiritual resource intends to influence concrete behavior and decision making. Therefore, the author stresses the importance of a personality culture for business executives and an “ethic of responsibility” to shape business culture and institutions. He then proposes the Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions Toward a Global Ethic as a basis to develop a business ethics that can be supported by believers and non-believers alike. (shrink)

One of this century's most important philosophers here focuses on Plato's Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, and Philebus and on Aristotle's three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. "Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith.... Gadamer's book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers."--Alexander Nehemas, New York Times Book Review "The translation is highly readable. The translator's introduction and frequent (...) annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations."--Choice "This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer's works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial.... I enthusiastically recommend this...challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers."--Francis J. Ambrosio, International Philosophy Quarterly Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato and Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. (shrink)

The protection of human research subjects in clinical studies is regulated by international guidelines and national laws. Research Ethics Committees play an important role here, as they review the documentation for clinical studies under consideration of ethical aspects. This documentation includes an exclusion or wash-out period which designates when study subjects may not have participated in another study or be allowed to take part in a future one within a specified time period. However not all research subjects comply with their (...) applicable exclusion period. This prohibited multi-participation in clinical studies is known as ‘research subject tourism,’ ‘clinical study overlapping’, or ‘guinea-pigging’. This practice brings with it additional risks for the research subject and the integrity of the research being conducted. No comprehensive data are available to demonstrate exactly how many research subjects participate in overlapping multiple studies. However, the number of them who ‘travel’ from one study to another seems to be significant. Preventing this practice is a matter of concern for ethics committees, but the responsibility for protecting research subjects in this respect apart from approving the ethics of a wash-out period and recruiting from a specific pool or database of patients is solely that of the investigating physician. But how can the investigating physician be certain that a research subject complies with their exclusion period? An international data bank for research subjects who have participated, or are participating, in clinical studies, is a measure that would serve to prevent prohibited multi-participation in clinical studies and thereby protect the research subject, the investigating physician and their institution. VIP Check, International, which was founded by the author in 1990, is an example of such a data bank. This article examines the existence of prohibited multi-participation in clinical studies, the additional risk this practice of itself poses to the research subjects and the integrity of clinical studies, and how this practice might best be reduce or even eliminated through use of an international data bank of research subjects such as that of VIP Check. (shrink)

Hamblin held that the conception of 'fallacy' as an argument that seems valid but is not really so was the dominant conception of fallacy in the history of fallacy studies. The present paper explores the extent of support that there is for this view. After presenting a brief analysis of 'the standard definition of fallacy,' a number of the definitions of 'fallacy' in texts from the middle of this century – from the standard treatment – are considered. This (...) is followed by a review of the definitions of 'fallacy' in the earlier history of logic books, including those of Aristotle, Whately, Mill and De Morgan. The essay concludes that there is scarcely any support for Hamblin's view that this particular definition of 'fallacy' was widely held. (shrink)

The thoughts presented here never appeared in research proposals, but nevertheless grew at the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory over the years 1971 through 1980 under support from the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and more recently at the Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute under Office of Naval Research contract number N00014-81-K-0503.

This essay examines St Augustine’s various references to Pythagoras and his teachings. The young Augustine presents Pythagoras as an ideal philosopher. Late in life, he regrets this praise he then considers exaggerated, mostly on account of Pythagoras’ polytheism. As can been seen from works written in between, Augustine’s appreciation for Pythagoras rests on more than one column: Pythagoras is the representative of contemplative philosophy, and Augustine credits him with a philosophical understanding of numbers and with key insights into (...) philosophical theology. Pythagoras’ traditional association with divination or theurgy is played down. In Augustine’s eyes, no pagan philosopher has much authority in comparison to Christ, whose humility is the only way to God. Yet, this very argument opens the gate to the most interesting comment Augustine makes on Pythagoras: he ascribes to Pythagoras having coined the term philosopher and defined it as lover of God. Moreover, Pythagoras preferred himself to be called a philosopher, i.e. a lover and student of wisdom, rather than wise, which would be a presumptuous claim. In Augustine’s consistently respectful treatment, therefore, Pythagoras, implicitly, gives an example of humility, seems to belong to those pagans who were at least looking for a mediator, and may in fact have received a certain revelation of him – about them, therefore, “nothing rash must be said”. (shrink)

The void deck, originally developed for housing projects in Singapore, refers to the open space located on the ground floor of a residential building. The model of the void deck was exported to Suzhou Industrial Park and later used in a growing number of high-rise residential developments in China. Taking community interiority as a new perspective, the discussion of void decks and everyday life investigates whether the void deck endows a new layer of interiority to communal life as a special (...) type of threshold space in China’s highly dense and high-rise residential environments. The growing number of domestic objects in the void decks represents a consensual reconstruction of community interiority, allowing the reflection and rediscovery of the resonant membrane that mediates every relationship between people and things living in a substantially enclosed community. The study of void deck, its status and its transformation reflects how neo-liberal community spaces and new social relations in the communities in China have been changing: the communities are evolving from a consumption-based and top–down designed space, circling back to a deeper relationship between people and community within the urban transformation. (shrink)

Developments in biotechnology and genomics have moved the issue of patenting scientific and technological inventions toward the center of interest. In particular, the patentability of genes of plants, animals, or humans and of genetically modified (parts of) living organisms has been discussed, and questioned, from various normative perspectives. This paper aims to contribute to this debate. For this purpose, it first explains a number of relevant aspects of the theory and practice of patenting. The focus is on a special (...) and increasingly significant type of patents, namely product patents. The paper provides three general arguments against the concept and practice of product patenting. The first argument briefly considers the claim that patents are legitimate because they promote socially useful innovation. Against this claim, it is argued that product patents may hamper rather than promote such innovation. The second and main argument concludes that product patents are not adequately based on actual technological inventions, as they should be according to the usual criteria of patentability. The principal moral issue is that product patents tend to reward patentees for inventions they have not really made available. The final argument proposes a method for patenting the heat of the sun. Assuming that granting this patent will be generally considered absurd, the argument exposes a further, fundamental problem of the concept and practice of product patenting. (shrink)

In Popper's Logik der Forschung, a theoretical system is a set of sentences that describe a particular sub-area of science, in particular of empirical science. The goal of axiomatizing a theoretical system is to specify a small number of "axioms" describing all presuppositions of the sub-area under consideration, so that all other sentences of this system can be derived from them by means of logical or mathematical transformations. The paper discusses two philosophical interpretations of these proper axioms. First, proper (...) axioms stipulate the use of the signs for the basic concepts of the system. Consequently, the proper axioms turn out to be analytic relative to a class of interpretations of the underlying logic. Hence, they cannot be falsified by refuting their logical consequences because these consequences are analytic as well. Secondly, proper axioms are synthetic, falsifiable and uncertain sentences. Hence, they are not immunized against falsification by refuting their logical consequences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Protestant Responses to Darwinism in Denmark, 1859–1914Hans Henrik HjermitslevFrom the 1870s onwards, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, published in On the Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), was an important topic among the followers of the influential Danish theologian N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–1872). The Grundtvigians constituted a major faction within the Danish Evangelical-Lutheran Established Church, which included more than ninety percent of the population in the period (...) 1859–1914.This article demonstrates the influence of local contexts on the reception of scientific ideas by analyzing how specific aspects of Danish intellectual culture made the Grundtvigian reactions to Darwin’s theory different from Protestant denominations in America and Britain. Firstly, Grundtvig’s critique of Lutheran scriptural theology and his preference for the living word to the letters of the Bible legitimized liberal interpretations of Scripture. Secondly the philosophy of the Søren Kierkegaard protagonist, Rasmus Nielsen, made it possible for Grundtvigians to draw radical distinctions between science and faith. This specific “Danish Protestantism,” as the clergyman Frederik Jungersen phrased it in 1873, led the way for liberal Grundtvigians in coming to terms with Darwinism in the first decades of the twentieth century.1 [End Page 279]Protestant Responses to EvolutionIn recent decades historians have paid considerable attention to religious responses to Darwinism. Studies have revealed a variety of reactions to evolution depending on local contingencies, which has made it impossible to uphold any grand narrative of the dissemination of Darwinism.2 In his study of Calvinist attitudes toward Darwinism in Princeton, Belfast, and Edinburgh, David N. Livingstone thus emphasizes the importance of place in the reception of evolution.3 The historical complexities shaped by local contexts have been further demonstrated by scholars, who have explored the responses to Darwinism in a wide range of Protestant denominations in Britain and America.4 From the 1870s, when evolution was generally accepted among British and American scientists, liberal and even some orthodox theologians advocated various kinds of theistic evolutionism. It was not until the 1920s that creationists, who rejected evolution in general and human evolution in particular, took center stage in American Protestant answers to the Darwinian challenge. While many Protestant theologians in the decades around 1900 accepted that God had created the living world, including man, through evolution, very few embraced the specific Darwinian mechanism of natural selection that was often said to have atheistic implications. Instead liberal theologians, in line with many naturalists, often applied Lamarckian concepts of use-inheritance and teleological [End Page 280] development and prevalent ideas of progress that were seen as consistent with viewing evolution as a meaningful process and the unfolding of the Creator’s plan. According to James R. Moore, Peter J. Bowler, and Frederick Gregory this was the common way for liberal Christians to respond to organic evolution at least in the English-speaking world. It offered an acceptable compromise between science and faith. However, this article demonstrates that this strategy did not dominate in Denmark, where a separation model of science and faith was a more widespread approach when embracing the theory of evolution.5While studies by Jon H. Roberts and Ronald L. Numbers reveal considerable differences within the leading Protestant denominations such as Calvinists, Baptists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Methodists in their attitudes toward evolution, they detect no significant differences among the groups. Numbers notes however that “distinctive theological convictions sometimes influenced how people viewed Darwin’s theory.”6 This was especially the case when we move from the Protestant mainstream into distinctive groups such as the Seventh-day Adventists and the Pentecostals. In the case of the Adventists, their hyper-literalism and strong support for young-earth creationism owed much to the inspired writings of their founding prophetess Ellen G. White, while the relative indifference to evolution among Pentecostals can be explained by their Wesleyan-Methodist focus on religious experience over the study of Scripture.7 Likewise, in a study of attitudes toward evolution within the British Quaker community, Geoffrey Cantor has shown how discussions of Darwinism between evangelicals and moderates centred on the relative importance that should be paid to the Bible versus the doctrine of the Inner Light. Emphasizing... (shrink)

This paper presents a number of apparent anomalies in rational choice scenarios, and their translation into the logic of everyday reasoning. Three classes of examples that have been discussed in the context of probabilistic choice since the 1960s (by Debreu, Tversky and others) are analyzed in a non-probabilistic setting. It is shown how they can at the same time be regarded as logical problems that concern the drawing of defeasible inferences from a given information base. I argue that initial (...) appearances notwithstanding, these cases should not be classed as instances of irrationality in choice or reasoning. One way of explaining away their apparent oddity is to view certain aspects of these examples as making particular options salient. The decision problems in point can then be solved by ‘picking’ these options, although they could not have been ‘chosen’ in a principled way, due to ties or incomparabilities with alternative options. (shrink)

This paper discusses a number of apparent anomalies in rational choice scenarios, and their translation into the logic of everyday reasoning. Three classes of examples that have been discussed in the context of probabilistic choice since the 1960s are analyzed in a nonprobabilistic setting. It is shown how they can at the same time be regarded as logical problems that concern the drawing of defeasible inferences from a given information base. I argue that initial appearances notwithstanding, these cases should (...) not be classed as instances of irrationality in choice or reasoning. One way of explaining away their apparent oddity is to view certain aspects of these examples as making particular options salient. The decision problems in point can then be solved by ‘picking’ these options, although they could not have been ‘chosen’ in a principled way, due to ties or incomparabilities with alternative options. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Theological Empiricism: Aspects ofJohann Georg Hamann's Reception of Hume Hans Graubner The philosophical Enlightenment in Germany executed in none of its phases as clean a break with the theological tradition as the English and especially the French. To its very end it pleaded for a theology of Creation, however thin this plea had become, that is, for an adherence to the first article of the Creed. On the other (...) hand, a philosophical adherence to the second article, that is, to christology, had no chance left owing to the rationalist Bible criticism of the 17th and 18th centuries and was not considered a serious philosophical position in the controversy between natural religion and revealed religion. Its mere link-up with historic facts that were considered epistemologically inferior made it unthinkable in the eyes of the dominating rationalists. In 18th century Königsberg this controversy determined the life-long argument between Hamann and Kant. Hamann attacks Kant and the German philosophy ofthe Enlightenmentfrom the position ofrevealed religion. In doing so, he refers to David Hume from the very beginning. In Hume's thoughts Hamann saw a chance of regaining a serious position for the Christian religion, that is, of its christology, in philosophical discussion. Thisveryaim ofHamann's shows thathe proceeds fromcompletely different philosophical interests than does Hume. But there are certain basic attitudes that make it understandable why Hamann refers to Hume, even declares him to be his philosopher. These attitudes, which they have in common, maybe called criticism ofreason, epistemological empiricism, and subjectivism. In spite of these attitudes, which they share, the difference between their ways ofthinkingleads to Hamann's practise of not adopting any of Hume's ideas unchanged. Instead of speaking ofreception it would be better to speak ofa transformation of Hume's thoughts into the totally different world of Hamann's ideas. The latter is determined by at least three basic motives: Firstly, by the sharp criticism of an over-estimation of reason in philosophy. This criticism is directed both against the rationalism of the recognized German philosophy as well as against Hume's scepticism and Kant's transcendental philosophy. Secondly,- by his personally being affected by Christianity, which renders itimpossible for him to separate the personal from the theoretiVolume XV Number 2 377 HANS GRAUBNER cal, and philosophy from the way a philosopher sees himself and from his own historical background. Thirdly, by a concentration of all philosophical energy on language as the fundamental empirical and historical fact, which, for Hamann, becomes the centre of his theological, ontological and anthropological reflection. It is my intention to show how Hamann unfolds his basic motives by following certain ideas of Hume's, for example, the idea of geometry, that of belief and that of image. In the end I shall summarize Hamann's criticism of scepticism and point out the significance ofanthropomorphism in Hume's and Hamann's understanding ofreligion. Referring to the understanding of Hamann's Hume-reception so far, I want to emphasize three results: 1.Hamann's Hume-reception is due, above all, to his repeated study ofthe Treatise, which musthave begun earlier than was assumed before. 2.Hamann's reference to Hume is not restricted to the discussion of the concept of belief, but is far more extensive. 3.Neither is Hamann's Hume-reception a total "misunderstanding "1 of Hume nor is his passing-on of Hume's ideas to the German romanticism "a strange paradox"; rather it is a conscious transformation ofempiricism into a theology oflanguage, which has had an effect even on romantic and idealistic secularization. Now I shall come to my first point. I. Geometry After having finished his studies in Königsberg and before his conversion experience at London in 1758 that was to determine his whole life, Hamann, from 1752 to 1756, became a private tutor for two aristocratic families in Courland. During this time he definitely read the German translations ofHume's "Political Essays" and ofhis Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. That Hamann, who had a good command of the English language, knew even the Treatise at this time, can, according to my hypothesis, be gathered from his use of Hume's conception ofgeometry in an unpublished philosophic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Theological Empiricism: Aspects ofJohann Georg Hamann's Reception of Hume Hans Graubner The philosophical Enlightenment in Germany executed in none of its phases as clean a break with the theological tradition as the English and especially the French. To its very end it pleaded for a theology of Creation, however thin this plea had become, that is, for an adherence to the first article of the Creed. On the other (...) hand, a philosophical adherence to the second article, that is, to christology, had no chance left owing to the rationalist Bible criticism of the 17th and 18th centuries and was not considered a serious philosophical position in the controversy between natural religion and revealed religion. Its mere link-up with historic facts that were considered epistemologically inferior made it unthinkable in the eyes of the dominating rationalists. In 18th century Königsberg this controversy determined the life-long argument between Hamann and Kant. Hamann attacks Kant and the German philosophy ofthe Enlightenmentfrom the position ofrevealed religion. In doing so, he refers to David Hume from the very beginning. In Hume's thoughts Hamann saw a chance of regaining a serious position for the Christian religion, that is, of its christology, in philosophical discussion. Thisveryaim ofHamann's shows thathe proceeds fromcompletely different philosophical interests than does Hume. But there are certain basic attitudes that make it understandable why Hamann refers to Hume, even declares him to be his philosopher. These attitudes, which they have in common, maybe called criticism ofreason, epistemological empiricism, and subjectivism. In spite of these attitudes, which they share, the difference between their ways ofthinkingleads to Hamann's practise of not adopting any of Hume's ideas unchanged. Instead of speaking ofreception it would be better to speak ofa transformation of Hume's thoughts into the totally different world of Hamann's ideas. The latter is determined by at least three basic motives: Firstly, by the sharp criticism of an over-estimation of reason in philosophy. This criticism is directed both against the rationalism of the recognized German philosophy as well as against Hume's scepticism and Kant's transcendental philosophy. Secondly,- by his personally being affected by Christianity, which renders itimpossible for him to separate the personal from the theoretiVolume XV Number 2 377 HANS GRAUBNER cal, and philosophy from the way a philosopher sees himself and from his own historical background. Thirdly, by a concentration of all philosophical energy on language as the fundamental empirical and historical fact, which, for Hamann, becomes the centre of his theological, ontological and anthropological reflection. It is my intention to show how Hamann unfolds his basic motives by following certain ideas of Hume's, for example, the idea of geometry, that of belief and that of image. In the end I shall summarize Hamann's criticism of scepticism and point out the significance ofanthropomorphism in Hume's and Hamann's understanding ofreligion. Referring to the understanding of Hamann's Hume-reception so far, I want to emphasize three results: 1.Hamann's Hume-reception is due, above all, to his repeated study ofthe Treatise, which musthave begun earlier than was assumed before. 2.Hamann's reference to Hume is not restricted to the discussion of the concept of belief, but is far more extensive. 3.Neither is Hamann's Hume-reception a total "misunderstanding "1 of Hume nor is his passing-on of Hume's ideas to the German romanticism "a strange paradox"; rather it is a conscious transformation ofempiricism into a theology oflanguage, which has had an effect even on romantic and idealistic secularization. Now I shall come to my first point. I. Geometry After having finished his studies in Königsberg and before his conversion experience at London in 1758 that was to determine his whole life, Hamann, from 1752 to 1756, became a private tutor for two aristocratic families in Courland. During this time he definitely read the German translations ofHume's "Political Essays" and ofhis Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. That Hamann, who had a good command of the English language, knew even the Treatise at this time, can, according to my hypothesis, be gathered from his use of Hume's conception ofgeometry in an unpublished philosophic... (shrink)

How to enable the computer to accurately analyze the emotional information and story background of characters in Qin opera is a problem that needs to be studied. To promote the artistic inheritance and cultural emotion color dissemination of Qin opera, an emotion analysis model of Qin opera based on attention residual network is presented. The neural network is improved and optimized from the perspective of the model, learning rate, network layers, and the network itself, and then multi-head attention is (...) added to the ResNet to increase the recognition ability of the model. The convolutional neural network is optimized from the internal depth, and the fitting ability and stability of the model are enhanced through the ResNet model. Combined with the attention mechanism, the expression of each weight information is strengthened. The multi-head attention mechanism is introduced in the model and a multi-head attention ResNet, namely, MHAtt_ResNet, is proposed. The network structure can effectively identify the features of the spectrogram, improve the weight information of spectrogram features, and deepen the relationship between distant information in long-time series. Through experiments, the proposed model has high emotional classification accuracy for Qin opera, and with the increase of the number of data sets, the model will train a better classification effect. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has shocked his readers by arguing that assertion is not a conventional activity, thus attacking what was taken to be a truism by most philosophers of language. The paper claims that Davidson's argument is seriously flawed by his failure to distinguish a number of questions which should be kept separate. Assertion is a matter of seriousness, not of sincerity; departures from seriousness are marked by techniques which are undeniably conventional. There are no parallel indicators of seriousness, i. (...) e. there is no assertion-sign. But this necessary absence of a conventional marker of seriousness from our communicative repertoire does not imply that the activity of asserting is not conventional. Assertion differs in important ways from eating or walking; it is these differences which have led Searle, Lewis, EHimmett and countless others to conceive of language as essentially conventional'. The paper argues that Davidson'snaturalistic challenge illuminates the (non-existing) role of the assertion-sign, while failing to undermine the credentials of the 'truism'. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has shocked his readers by arguing that assertion is not a conventional activity, thus attacking what was taken to be a truism by most philosophers of language. The paper claims that Davidson's argument is seriously flawed by his failure to distinguish a number of questions which should be kept separate. Assertion is a matter of seriousness, not of sincerity; departures from seriousness are marked by techniques which are undeniably conventional. There are no parallel indicators of seriousness, i. (...) e. there is no assertion-sign. But this necessary absence of a conventional marker of seriousness from our communicative repertoire does not imply that the activity of asserting is not conventional. Assertion differs in important ways from eating or walking; it is these differences which have led Searle, Lewis, EHimmett and countless others to conceive of language as essentially conventional'. The paper argues that Davidson'snaturalistic challenge illuminates the (non-existing) role of the assertion-sign, while failing to undermine the credentials of the 'truism'. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is (1) to show, on the basis of a number of unpublished documents, how Heinrich Scholz supported his Warsaw colleague Jan Łukasiewicz, the Polish logician, during World War II, and (2) to discuss the efforts he made in order to enable Jan Łukasiewicz and his wife Regina to move from Warsaw to Münster under life-threatening circumstances. In the first section, we explain how Scholz provided financial help to Łukasiewicz, and we also adduce evidence (...) of the risks incurred by German scholars who offered assistance to their Polish colleagues. In the second section, we discuss the dramatic circumstances surrounding the Łukasiewiczes' move to Münster in the summer of 1944. (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s _Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, _and _Philebus_ and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. “Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith…. Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”—Alexander Nehemas, _New York__ Times Book Review_ “The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent (...) annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”—_Choice_ “This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial…. I enthusiastically recommend this…challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”—Francis J. Ambrosio, _International Philosophy Quarterly_ Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: _Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato _and _Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies._. (shrink)

Current interpretations of the concept of theory by philosophers of science of different orientations are sketched out, in particular the traditional statement view (theories as systems of statements) and the formal axiomatic interpretation (theories as calculi) as well as the historical or historicist interpretation of theories as series of successive research programs or paradigms etc. (theory dynamics). In addition, the model-theoretical nonstatement view (the so-called structuralist interpretation) of theories is roughly delineated and discussed as regards the status and interpretation of (...) theoretical (T-theoretical) concepts. Finally, technological and action-theoretical approaches defining the model-theoretic view are presented as particularly apt for a methodology of technology.A number of recommendations are developed from this, particularly the idea of satisficing in construction theory and the methodological idea of optimum fit instead of approximation to truth.The interplay between action, experiment and gaining knowledge is highlighted from a methodological and schema-interpretationist perspective. This approach seems to be conducive to a methodology and epistemology of engineering sciences, in particular construction theory and design theory. (shrink)

Despite the growing number of studies on the topic of guanxi in a work context, there is a paucity of research on supervisor-subordinate guanxi in the field of organisation and management. This article critically reviews the extant literature on guanxi in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to explore the perception of guanxi from both superior and subordinate perspectives in the People's Republic of China. The study reports positive and ethical features of guanxi as (...) well as unethical and negative practices in the Chinese workplace. On the positive side, guanxi comprises reciprocal exchange and perceived positive attributes, whereas its darker aspects include perceived unfairness and supervisor-targeted impression management. Managerial and research implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although'Otherness' is an extremely common phenomenon in every society, related research is still at its beginnings.'Otherness' in the Middle Ages is a versatile and complex theme that covers a great number of different aspects, facets, and approaches: from non-human monsters and cultural strangers from remote places up to foreigners from another country or another town; it can refer to ethnic, cultural, political, social, sexual, or religious'Otherness', inside or outside one's own community. In any case, however,'Otherness' is a (...) subjective phenomenon depending on personal views and ascriptions, an issue of'imagination' and experience rather than'reality'. There is neither one single model of alterity nor is'Otherness' a stable phenomenon, but it changes over time and according to the cultural context. All this calls for methodological reflection and needs thorough investigation.00The methodological introduction and the 18 contributions of this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the theme and its different manifestations and perspectives. They tackle the problem from distinct angles and disciplines (history, art history, archaeology, literary history, and philology) in a wide chronological and thematic frame, using different methodological approaches, dealing with different areas (from Northern and Southern Europe to Byzantium and India), perspectives (including law, social order, the past, a sea), and diverse kinds of sources. They examine all kinds of'Otherness' mentioned above, highlight demarcation and rejection, aversion or acceptance, assimilation and integration, thus relativizing a strict dichotomy between'the Self' and'the Other' or between inside and outside. This volume is so far the most comprehensive attempt to tackle the huge problem of'Otherness' in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

For a very long time truth-value gaps were under a cloud of suspicion because they were considered logically unmanageable. So Frege declared that:“as regards concepts we have a requirement of sharp delimitation; if this were not satisfied it would be impossible to set forth logical laws about them”.Three-valued logic promised to dispel the cloud but in the eyes of many it had promised more than it could deliver. So in response to Reichenbach's plea for a three-valued quantum logic Russell replied:“This (...) is one of a number of questions as to which I am prevented from accepting a certain view by difficulties in carrying it out, but am prepared to alter my opinion if technical skill supplies an answer to my difficulties”.‘By now technical skill has supplied many alternative systems of three-valued logic, but few answers and numerous additional difficulties.’. (shrink)

A new volume on one of the most influential and most discussed works from antiquity should offer something new. In this truly interdisciplinary volume, a great number of intriguing problems posed by Plato's Timaeus are given a fresh and lucid treatment. Contributors from an unusual range of backgrounds reflect on aspects of Plato's astounding synthesis of natural philosophy, including cosmology, theology, perception, physiology, and more. Plato's synthesis was original, reusing previous ideas for a new vision of the structure (...) and coherence of the physical world: his "likely account" (Tim. 29bc) (as he preferred to call it) showed that a Maker or Creator used a form of "geometric atomism" to build up the universe .. (shrink)

Building on conceptual insights from the history and sociology of numbers, media and surveillance studies, and theories of governance and risk, this article analyzes the forms of transparency produced by the use of numbers in social life. It examines what it is about numbers that often makes their ‘truth claims’ so powerful, investigates the role that numerical operations play in the production of retrospective, real-time and anticipatory forms of transparency in contemporary politics and economic transactions, and (...) discusses some of the implications resulting from the increasingly abstract and machine-driven use of numbers. It argues that the forms of transparency generated by machine-driven numerical operations open up for individual and collective practices in ways that are intimately linked to precautionary and pre-emptive aspirations and interventions characteristic of contemporary governance. As such, these numerical operations raise important political and ethical questions that deserve further conceptual and empirical scrutiny. (shrink)

Despite the growing number of studies on the topic of guanxi in a work context, there is a paucity of research on supervisor-subordinate guanxi in the field of organisation and management. This article critically reviews the extant literature on guanxi in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to explore the perception of guanxi from both superior and subordinate perspectives in the People's Republic of China. The study reports positive and ethical features of guanxi as (...) well as unethical and negative practices in the Chinese workplace. On the positive side, guanxi comprises reciprocal exchange and perceived positive attributes, whereas its darker aspects include perceived unfairness and supervisor-targeted impression management. Managerial and research implications are discussed. (shrink)

A number of studies in the extant literature report findings that suggest asymmetry in the way reflexive and pronoun anaphors are interpreted in the early stages of processing: that pronouns are less sensitive to structural constraints, as formulated by Binding Theory, than reflexives, in the initial antecedent retrieval process. However, in previous visual world paradigm eye-tracking studies, these conclusions were based on sentences that placed the critical anaphors within picture noun phrases or prepositional phrases, which have independently been shown not (...) to neatly conform to the Binding Theory principles. We present results from a visual world paradigm eye-tracking experiment that show that when critical anaphors are placed in the indirect object position immediately following a verb as a recipient argument, pronoun and reflexive processing are equally sensitive to structural constraints. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is (1) to show, on the basis of a number of unpublished documents, how Heinrich Scholz supported his Warsaw colleague Jan ?ukasiewicz, the Polish logician, during World War II, and (2) to discuss the efforts he made in order to enable Jan ?ukasiewicz and his wife Regina to move from Warsaw to Münster under life-threatening circumstances. In the first section, we explain how Scholz provided financial help to ?ukasiewicz, and we also adduce evidence (...) of the risks incurred by German scholars who offered assistance to their Polish colleagues. In the second section, we discuss the dramatic circumstances surrounding the ?ukasiewiczes' move to Münster in the summer of 1944. (shrink)

In the second book of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo presents his famous juvenile Pear Theft as an apparent case of acting under the guise of the bad. At least since Thomas Aquinas’ influential interpretation, scholars have usually taken Augustine’s detailed discussion of the case to be dispelling this “guise of the guise of the bad”, and to offer a solid “guise of the good”-explanation. This paper addresses an important challenge to this view: Augustine offers two different “guise of the (...) good”-explanations in his text rather than just one, and the two explanations seem to be mutually exclusive. A number of more recent attempts to reconcile Augustine’s two lines of explanation are discussed and found wanting, and a new suggestion is made. The proposed solution focuses on the Pear Theft as a joint action, and it departs from the Aquinian interpretation in that it accounts for a way in which the “guise of the bad”-hypothesis survives the explanation. (shrink)

As a contribution to the emerging field of corporate social responsibility cognition, this article reports on the findings of an exploratory study that compares SME owner–managers’ mental models with regard to CSR and related concepts across six European countries. Utilising Repertory Grid Technique, we found that the SME owner–managers’ mental models show a few commonalities as well as a number of differences across the different country samples. We interpret those differences by linking individual cognition to macro-environmental variables, such as language, (...) national traditions and dissemination mechanisms. The results of our exploratory study show that nationality matters but that classifications of countries as found in the comparative capitalism literature do not exactly mirror national differences in CSR cognition and that these classifications need further differentiation. The findings from our study raise questions on the universality of cognition of academic management concepts and warn that promotion of responsible business practice should not rely on the use of unmediated US American management terminology. (shrink)

Cognitive science of religion is a fairly young discipline with the aim of studying the cognitive basis of religious belief. Despite the great variation in theories a number of common features can be distilled and most theories can be situated in the cognitivist and modular paradigm. In this paper, I investigate how cognitive science of religion (CSR) can be made better by insights from John Dewey. I chose Dewey because he offered important insights in cognition long before there was (...) cognitive science and because his ideas are influential in the recent enactivist movement. The relevance of Dewey’s thought for CSR will be discussed under three headers: embodiedness, embeddedness and anti-modularity. I focus on these points because embodiedness and embeddedness are important features of Dewey’s view on cognition and because his ideas are useful for criticizing modularity. I will first give a brief overview of the most influential theories in CSR. Then I will discuss how existing theories in CSR can be improved on the first two points and criticized on the third. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 91-97 [Access article in PDF] The Ambiguities of "Meaning":A Commentary Hans S. Reinders "Death, Disability, and Dogma" by Jennifer Clegg and Richard Lansdall Welfare (2003) is a rich paper that presents an unexpected but interesting mixture of observations and perspectives on mourning, grief and bereavement in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.In a number of ways, the notion of meaning is prominent (...) in the paper. The authors observe that recent literature on grief and bereavement because of loss of loved ones does not confirm the "stage theory of loss." Instead there is a "multiplicity of possible responses to bereavement," which is partly explained by the role of cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is particularly involved in the development of "meanings" about loss (2003, 69). However, looking into the literature on grief and bereavement among persons with intellectual disabilities, the authors found that literature "dogmatic" in that it sticks to the traditional theoretical framework of "grief work" (2003, 74). The authors offer an explanation for this "stuck discourse": The approach to grief and bereavement among people with intellectual disabilities is framed within the philosophy of normalization. This leads professionals to downplay limitations to the potential of their clients in ways that encourage the denial of disability. The meaning assigned to intellectual disabilities, this is to say, is primarily positive. This positive outlook promotes the "belief in the apparently limitless potential of the client group to develop skills and autonomy if only they are given the right help" (2003, 71). The authors read this promoting of positive meaning as a counter strategy: our culture in general does not seem to be convinced of a valued meaning of life for persons with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, the professional world of service systems adopts a strategy of "separitism" (2003, 77), which explains why approaches to phenomena like grief and bereavement are "stuck" with ideas that are inadequate. The professional community attending those with intellectual disabilities is too much a world on its own. There should be more interaction between generalists and specialists on the subject of grief and bereavement.So far the general argument of the paper. Because my own area of research is not in the fields of clinical psychology or psychiatry, it cannot be my task to comment on Clegg and Lansdall-Welfare's presentation of the research on grief and bereavement in these fields. Nonetheless, there are a few points in their review of the literature that I will briefly address, but only to prepare the way for the major topic of this commentary, which is the issue of meaning as it relates to intellectual disability.Intuitively, my sympathy would lie with social critics arguing for caution with regard to the [End Page 91] medicalization of mourning and grief (Clegg and Lansdall-Welfare 2003, 67-79). The loss of loved ones will oftentimes be a traumatic experience, but when it is, I tend to see the symptoms of distress following that experience as a sign of mental health, more than anything else. Losing a parent, sibling, or someone else who has been part of one's life, is not only missing the other person, it is missing a part of oneself. That being the case, it is only to be expected that, in some sense, life will never be again what it was. Replacing notions of recovery from a traumatic experience by notions of "adaptation and accommodation" (2003, 68) appears to me the more sensible approach.Therefore, I tend to be suspicious about notions such as "pathological grief." From a philosophical point of view, such a notion seems to betray a modernist conception of the human subject in control of its own action. Following that conception, human beings need to transform that which happens to them by means of their own action so that they have made it part of themselves. Being overcome with grief one is in an emotional state that as such is "pathological"—as Immanuel Kant had it—the main characteristic of which is its heteronomy. A person overcome by grief is controlled by passion instead... (shrink)

In the spring of 1980 everyone in China wore the blue Mao uniform; the Cultural Revolution had been terminated a year before and the “Let 1000 Flowers Blossom” campaign introducing economic and cultural diversity and personal responsibility had just gotten off the ground. Ten lines of bicycles in each direction respectfully gave way for the few official, window-curtained limousines of the Red Flag or Shanghai type. Cadres and academics were interested in keeping up with what had happened in the rest (...) of the world during the three decades of Chinese self-isolation during the Civil War first and the Cultural Revolution thereafter. In the fall of 1985 the dresses were more colorful, and Beijing experienced lovers walking hand in hand, cadres preferring Nissan compact cars without curtains over full-sized, curtained Red Flags, and a real rush hour, mixing the ever increasing number of bicycles with official and private cars, trucks, and three-horse wagons bringing vegetables and meat from market oriented farmers into town for good profit. The blue Mao outfit becomes more and more the business dress of cadres and business executives or the clothing of the less fortunate; fabric and style indicate the precise social rank of the wearer. (shrink)

Should Germany be prosecuting crimes committed in Syria pursuant to universal jurisdiction? This article revisits the normative questions raised by UJ—the principle that a state can prosecute serious international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by foreigners outside of its territories—against the backdrop of increasing European UJ proceedings regarding Syrian conflict–related crimes, focusing on Germany as an illustrative example. While existing literature justifies UJ on the basis of universal prohibition of certain atrocities, this creates residual (...) normative issues. Alternatively, this article applies the “two-tiered test” derived from the “dual foundation” thesis of the Eichmann judgment, in which the normative appropriateness of UJ is evaluated against both accounts of universal prohibition and the specific politics surrounding the prosecution. It contends that the large number of Syrian refugees in Germany means that Germany, in particular, should initiate Syrian conflict–related UJ proceedings to prevent continued harm and recognize the political agency of refugees. Ultimately, the article suggests UJ should normatively be thought of as a domestic, rather than international, political event. (shrink)

This dissertation reconsiders some traditional issues in the foundations of quantum mechanics in the context of relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT); and it considers some novel foundational issues that arise first in the context of RQFT. The first part of the dissertation considers quantum nonlocality in RQFT. Here I show that the generic state of RQFT displays Bell correlations relative to measurements performed in any pair of spacelike separated regions, no matter how distant. I also show that local systems in (...) RQFT are "open" to influence from their environment, in the sense that it is generally impossible to perform local operations that would remove the entanglement between a local system and any other spacelike separated system. The second part of the dissertation argues that RQFT does not support a particle ontology -- at least if particles are understood to be localizable objects. In particular, while RQFT permits us to describe situations in which a determinate number of particles are present, it does not permit us to speak of the location of any individual particle, nor of the number of particles in any particular region of space. Nonetheless, the absence of localizable particles in RQFT does not threaten the integrity of our commonsense concept of a localized object. Indeed, RQFT itself predicts that descriptions in terms of localized objects can be quite accurate on the macroscopic level. The third part of the dissertation examines the so-called observer-dependence of the particle concept in RQFT -- that is, whether there are any particles present must be relativized to an observer's state of motion. Now, it is not uncommon for modern physical theories to subsume observer-dependent descriptions under a more general observer-independent description of some underlying state of affairs. However, I show that the conflicting accounts concerning the particle content of the field cannot be reconciled in this way. In fact, I argue that these conflicting accounts should be thought of as "complementary" in the same sense that position and momentum descriptions are complementary in elementary quantum mechanics. (shrink)

It is shown that both covariant harmonic oscillator formalism and quantum field theory are based on common physical principles which include Poincaré covariance, Heisenberg's space-momentum uncertainty relation, and Dirac's “C-number” time-energy uncertainty relation. It is shown in particular that the oscillator wave functions are derivable from the physical principles which are used in the derivation of the Klein-Nishina formula.

Antallet sultne i verden har økt, selv om det kan diskuteres om det i dag er en høyere eller lavere andel som lider under sult enn for seks år siden – før matprisøkningen. Alle er uansett enige om at det samlet sett produseres nok mat i verden til at alle kan få dekket sine ernæringsbehov. Artikkelen viser at to hovedretninger i debatten om matproduksjon står mot hverandre. Den dominerende retningen fokuserer primært på matsikkerhet, forstått som økt matproduksjon og økt handel (...) med mat. Den andre retningen argumenterer for at interessene og rettighetene for de mest sårbare må ha forrang i politiske prioriteringer, og at de sårbare sikres best med en strategi basert på menneskerettigheter. Artikkelen drøfter landfordeling, økt bruk av genteknologi i landbruket og nedbygging av handelshindre for landbruksprodukter. Industrialisering av landbruket og liberalisering av handelen med landbruksvarer kan gi gode resultater på makronivå – på kort sikt. Dersom målet er å fremme situasjonen for de mest sårbare og samtidig møte klimautfordringene er løsningen en nedenfra-tilnærming, som til nå er blitt ignorert av de fleste stater.Nøkkelord: retten til mat, matsikkerhet, klima, Verdens handelsorganisasjon, FNs tusenårsmålEnglish summary: The struggle over food intake and food productionThe number of hungry persons in the world has increased – although it is debatable whether there is currently a higher or lower proportion of suffering from hunger than six years ago – before the food price increases. All agree that the overall production of food in the world is adequate for everyone's nutritional needs. The article demonstrates that there are two main approaches in the debate on food production. The dominant approach focuses primarily on food security, understood as increased food production and increased food trade. The other approach argues that the interests and rights of the most vulnerable must prevail, and that improvements for the vulnerable are best ensured with a strategy based on human rights. The article analyzes land distribution, increased use of genetic technology in agriculture and reduction of trade barriers for agricultural products. Industrialization of agriculture and the liberalization of trade in agricultural products can provide good results at the macro level – in the short term. If the goal is to promote the situation of the most vulnerable and at the same time addressing climate change, the solution is a bottom-up approach, which until now has been ignored by most states. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that the new emerging discipline cognitive science of religion has a bearing on how to think about the epistemic status of religious beliefs. Both defenders and opponents of the rationality of religious belief have used cognitive theories of religion to argue for their point. This paper will look at the defender-side of the debate. I will discuss an often used argument in favor of the trustworthiness of religious beliefs, stating that cognitive science of religion shows that (...) religious beliefs are natural and natural beliefs ought to be trusted in the absence of counterevidence. This argument received its most influential defense from Justin Barrett in a number of papers, some in collaboration with Kelly James Clark. I will discuss their version of the argument and argue that it fails because the natural beliefs discovered by cognitive scientists of religion are not the religious beliefs of the major world religions. A survey of the evidence from cognitive science of religion will show that cognitive science does show that other beliefs come natural and that these can thus be deemed trustworthy in the absence of counterevidence. These beliefs are teleological beliefs, afterlife beliefs and animistic theistic beliefs. (shrink)

By delineating in this way the historical context of the Vienna Circle, by tracing its origins in the rise of a scientific philosophizing that began in Austria with Bolzano and extended through Brentano and Mach, by exploring the antecedents of the Vienna Circle in the first two decades of this century, by showing, in particular, how the Vienna Circle interacted with a number of other intellectual groups in Vienna , how it was engaged in a continuous struggle with the largely (...) conservative and reactionary academic environment, and how it concerned itself with popular education , Stadler succeeds in showing that the Vienna Circle was indeed a central element in the culture of its time. One certainly takes from his book a deepened grasp of the intellectual, social, and political environment in which the Vienna Circle operated. But Stadler’s account also makes clear why the Circle eventually dissolved. For the constant battering by ideological and political enemies eventually made it impossible for its members to survive at the University and in Austria as a whole. Even before the “Anschluss” in 1938 the hostile climate had forced some members of the Circle to emigrate. The result, ratified, by Hitler’s march to Vienna was the complete dispersion but, at the same time, also the internationalization of the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

Cognitive Science of Religion is still a rather young discipline. Depending on what one deems to be the first paper or book in the field, the discipline is now almost forty or almost thirty years old. Philosophical and theological discussion on CSR started in the late 2000s. From its onset, the main focus has been the epistemic consequences of CSR, and this focus is dominant even today. Some of those involved in the debate discussed the relevance of CSR for (...) further issues in philosophy of religion, and other have examined how CSR weighs in on various theological questions. Finally, a small number of philosophers offered criticisms or support for various CSR-theories. In this chapter, we give an overview of the debates so far and provide an outline of the book. (shrink)

It was not long ago when the consciousness was not considered a problem for science. However, this has now changed and the problem of consciousness is considered the greatest challenge to science. In the last decade, a great number of books and articles have been published in the field, but very few have focused on the how consciousness evolves and develops, and what characterizes the transitions between different conscious states, in animals and humans. This book addresses these questions. Renowned researchers (...) from different fields of science (including neurobiology, evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive science, computational neuroscience and philosophy) contribute with their results and theories in this book, making it a unique collection of the state-of-the-art of this young field of consciousness studies. - First book on the topic - Focus on different levels of consciousness, including: Evolutionary, developmental, and functional - Highly interdisciplinary. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the relationship between social cognition and religious cognition. Many cognitive theories of religion claim that these two forms are somehow related, but the details are usually left unexplored and insights from theories of social cognition are not taken on board. I discuss the three main (groups of) theories of social cognition, namely the theory-theory, the simulation theory and enactivist theories. Secondly, I explore how these theories can help to enrich a number of cognitive theories (...) of religion. The theories I discuss are Stewart Guthrie’s anthropomorphism, Justin Barrett’s hyperactive agency detection device, Jesse Bering’s existential theory of mind, Pascal Boyer’s minds with full strategic access and Tanya Luhrmann’s porous theory of mind. Finally, I look at how enrichment with insights from social cognition can help to combine different existing theories of religious cognition into a unified framework. (shrink)