A meta-analysis of 190 cross-cultural emotion studies, published between 1967 and 2000, was performed to examine (1) to what extent reported cross-cultural differences in emotion variables could be regarded as valid (substantive factors) or as method-related (statistical artefacts, cultural bias), and (2) which country characteristics could explain valid cross-cultural differences in emotion. The relative contribution of substantive and method-related factors at sample, study, and country level was investigated and country-level explanations for differences in emotions were tested. Results indicate that a (...) correction for statistical artefacts and method-related factors reduced the observed cross-cultural effect sizes considerably. After controlling for valence (positive vs. negative emotions) and kind of study (self-report vs. recognition studies), the remaining cross-cultural variance was associated with subsistence mode, political system, values, and religiosity. Values explained more variance than did ecological or sociopolitical variables. It was concluded that both method-related factors (13.8% of variance explained) and culture-level factors (27.9% of variance explained) underlie observed cross-cultural differences. (shrink)

Modernity is Apocalyptic in essence. This assertion is stated nowhere in The Triumph of Human Empire by Rosalind Williams, nor in l’Apocalypse Joyeuse by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. But it is everywhere on the pages of these books, which recount the ambivalence with which the project of Modernity and its technological feats has been received in specific times and places, notably nineteenth century Europe. Essence here is not to be understood as transcendental a-historical necessity, but as unfolding historical ontology. Despite contingencies, the (...) project of Modernity has continued to realise a secular ending of the world by continuing to conquer and destroy it.In The Triumph of Human Empire we encounter ambivalence through the biographies and works of three European writers, who employed the genre of romance to express their uneasiness with modern civilisation and progress: Jules Verne, William Morris and Louis Stevenson. Verne is perhaps the writer which we would least expect to have probl .. (shrink)

Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (1774-1845 ) was born in Germany but moved to Holland at the age of 13. After studying at Halle he joined the Kantian movement in Amsterdam as an active member, cooperating with Paulus van Hemert and contributing articles to his Kantian magazine. During his professional career as a marine instructor (1803-11 ), however, he became increasingly critical of Kantianism. As professor of mathematics, physics and philosophy at the University of Utrecht (1816-44) he traded in his (...) former Kantianism for a variant of the common sense philosophy then in favour in the Netherlands. He now regarded Kantianism as a form of scepticism. Accordingly, in his major work, the Contnbution to a Critique of the Truth of Human Knowledge, he propounds an anti-sceptical doctrine of such ‘basic truths’ as are founded on the immediate relevation of our consciousness. Schröder also attempts to reduce the Kantian doctrine of the noumenon to an inconsistent set of propositions, by showing them to be antinomies in the Kantian sense of the term, even using Kant's own dialectical method in proving their contradictoriness ; these contradictory propositions he calls the 'antinomies of the Kantian philosophy'. In a minor work, The Sign Relation as the Basis of Human Knowledge (translated freely), we find reminiscences of Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind: of the doctrine of sensations suggesting our conceptions of things, of causes being the signs of their effects, of 'the natural language of mankind'. Schröder, in developing these ideas in his own way, presents the sign relation as being fundamental to the construction of our knowledge of both nature and the human soul. Only by taking one thing as the ‘sign’ (signal, symbol, symptom, index, expression, picture, representation etc.) of another can we attain a conception of the world as a coherent whole. Our perception of this relation is partly a matter of innate capacities, partly the result of acquired skill. (shrink)

Keuze van artikelen uit het werk van de Vlaamse filosoof over wetenschap, milieu, en medische en biologische ethiek.

Current dynamic-epistemic logics model different types of information change in multi-agent scenarios. We generalize these logics to a probabilistic setting, obtaining a calculus for multi-agent update with three natural slots: prior probability on states, occurrence probabilities in the relevant process taking place, and observation probabilities of events. To match this update mechanism, we present a complete dynamic logic of information change with a probabilistic character. The completeness proof follows a compositional methodology that applies to a much larger class of dynamic-probabilistic (...) logics as well. Finally, we discuss how our basic update rule can be parameterized for different update policies, or learning methods. (shrink)

Is it wrong to say Heidegger developed a metaphysics of technology? It doesn't seem to be so. The distinction he makes between technology and the essence of technology, a distinction that proves to be the core of his philosophy of technology, is clearly a metaphysical one: what appears is rooted in something else that does not appear . This is peculiar, for Heidegger is commonly known of course as a thinker who tenaciously tried to overcome metaphysics. In this paper, I (...) wish to examine to what extent Heidegger's philosophy of technology is metaphysical, and to what extent it isn't. In doing so, I want to make clear how Heidegger could arrive at the statement that the essence of technology jeopardizes the essence of man, and why according to him insight can bring salvation here. (shrink)

In Belgium, as in most countries, each Minister or Secretary is assisted by a limited number of trusted collaborators who constitute the Ministerial Office.The article is an attempt to shed a light on the Chief Ministerial Officer who is the closest collaborator of the Minister.In order to show the role of the Chief Ministerial Officer, the article first describes the tasks, powers and composition of the Ministerial Office to proceed to a more extensive analysis of the functions, the appointment of (...) the Chief Ministerial Officer, and the question whether he can exercise executive power.The most important tasks of the Chief Ministerial Officer are: organization and coordination of the Office and its activities, acting as a «Liaison-Officer» with the Minister, passing on of information, exercising of a form of internal, political and administrative control.The article closes with some more personal remarks, pointing out a few guidelines which a Chief Ministerial Office, should keep in mind. (shrink)

One of the key concepts of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is the notion of distanciation. In this article we show that Ricoeur introduces this notion as a correction of Heidegger’s focus on being-in and Gadamer’s emphasis on belonging . Ricoeur argues that distanciation does not lead to the uprooting of our belonging to a tradition. Rather, distanciation is an integral part of the dynamics that constitutes tradition. We discuss the different senses in which Ricoeur understands distanciation as a positive and productive (...) aspect of tradition. In particular, we discuss the ontological aspect of distanciation. In his discussion of both the long way of hermeneutics and the creative dimension of distanciation in fiction, Ricoeur argues that it is distanciation that opens up the possibility of understanding our own being-in-the-world. This involvement of distanciation in the disclosure and understanding of being allows us to show that distanciation determines what “kind” of being is understood: what is interpreted in hermeneutics and disclosed in poetics is never being as such, but “being-interpreted” and “being-as,” respectively. This leads us to a description of the difference between Ricoeur’s and Heidegger’s thought concerning the ontological dimension of their hermeneutics. (shrink)