Autism provides a model for exploring the nature of self‐consciousness: self‐consciousness requires the ability to reflect on mental states, and autism is a disorder with a specific impairment in the neurocognitive mechanism underlying this ability. Experimental studies of normal and abnormal development suggest that the abilities to attribute mental states to self and to others are closely related. Thus inability to pass standard ‘theory of mind’ tests, which refer to others’ false beliefs, may imply lack of self‐consciousness. Individuals who persistently (...) fail these tests may, in the extreme, be unable to reflect on their intentions or to anticipate their own actions. In contrast, individuals with high‐functioning autism or Asperger syndrome often possess a late‐acquired, explicit theory of mind, which appears to be the result of effortful learning. An experimental study with three people with Asperger syndrome suggested that level of performance on standard theory of mind tasks was strongly related to the ability to engage in introspection. Qualitative differences in the introspections of high‐functioning people with autism are also reflected in autobiographical accounts which may give a glimpse of what it is like to be autistic. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to make a distinction between egocentrism and allocentrism in social cognition, based on the distinction that is made in visuo-spatial perception. We propose that it makes a difference to mentalizing whether the other person can be understood using an egocentric (‘‘you'') or an allocentric (‘‘he/ she/they'') stance. Within an egocentric stance, the other person is represented in relation to the self. By contrast, within an allocentric stance, the existence or mental state of the other person (...) needs to be represented as independent from the self. We suggest here that people with Asperger syndrome suffer from a disconnection between a strong naı¨ve egocentric stance and a highly abstract allocentric stance. We argue that the currently used distinction between first-person and third-person perspective-taking is orthogonal to the distinction between an egocentric and an allocentric stance and therefore cannot serve as a critical test of allocentrism. (shrink)

The subjective experience of time in depression has been described to be altered in complex ways, with sensations of particular slowness, delay or stillness being the most often named articulations. However, the attempts to provide empirical evidence to the phenomenon of “time slowing down in depression” have resulted in inconsistent findings. In consequence, the overall claim that depressive time somehow differs from ordinary time has often been discarded as unfounded. The article argues against such conclusion, contending that the described ambiguity (...) might be caused by the methods employed to assess the phenomenon under observation. In the first part of the article, a reconceptualization of the experience of time in depression is proposed on the grounds of classic and contemporary phenomenological psychiatry. This leads to identify the essential features of depressive time as described both in clinical and philosophical contexts. In the second part, a critique of the existing methods of time perception assessment is conducted, with a specific focus on duration estimation and time passage perception tasks. The above-mentioned core features serve as guidelines in discussing to what degree such methods fit the phenomenon at stake. Finally, an alternative and innovative method is put forward, that might not only help to explore the scope of existing methods but might itself present an alternative to such: the micro-phenomenological interview. (shrink)

This paper discusses how facet-like structures occur as a commonplace feature in a variety of computer science disciplines as a means for structuring class hierarchies. The paper then focuses on a mathematical model for facets (and class hierarchies in general), called formal concept analysis, and discusses graphical representations of faceted systems based on this model.

Autism: Mind and Brain provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research on autism and highlights new techniques that will progress future understanding. With contributions from leaders in autism research, the book describes the latest advances, discusses ways forward for future research, and presents new techniques for understanding this complex disorder.

In der Soziologie ist seit längerer Zeit ein zunehmendes Interesse an Architektur und Artefakten beobachtbar. Dabei wird daran erinnert, dass nicht nur immaterielle Zeichen, Symbole und Repräsentationen des Sozialen existieren, sondern auch Orte, Stoffe und Dinge. Diesen wird eine wichtige Rolle im sozialen Geschehen zugesprochen: Materiales erscheint als Träger von Erinnerungskulturen, als sozialer Akteur, Heilsvermittler, Medium von Repräsentation – kurz: als Bedingung, Beschränkung und Instrument sozialer Praxis. Dies gilt auch in Bezug auf Religion. Dennoch hat die Perspektive noch kaum Eingang (...) in die deutschsprachige Religionssoziologie gefunden. Dieser Band soll daher Anstoß sein für die Öffnung der Religionssoziologie in Richtung einer Soziologie des Materialen. (shrink)

The ecological crisis is arriving, coinciding with crises of many human systems, e.g. the financial and economic systems. Centuries of mismanagement and abuse of natural and human "resources" bring drought and floods, snow storms and suffocating heat, political and psychic collapses. Calls for rethinking and restoring our relationship to the non-human world, to one another, and to ourselves are now ubiquitous.These calls have emerged from various disciplines—psychology, philosophy, sociology, biology, education, law...

Einleitung-- Kapitel I: Politische Freiheit: Vom Begriff zur Erfahrbarkeit -- Kapitel II: Die politische Welt -- Kapitel III: Politisches Handeln -- Kapitel IV: Politisches Urteilen -- Schlussbetrachtung -- Literaturverzeichnis und ...

The goal of the study was to determine which aspects of interpersonal touch interactions lead to a positive or negative experience. Previous research has focused primarily on physical characteristics. We suggest that this may not be sufficient to fully capture the complexity of the experience. Specifically, we examined how fulfilment of psychological needs influences touch experiences and how this relates to physical touch characteristics and situational factors.In two mixed-method studies, participants described their most positive and most negative interpersonal touch experience (...) within a specific time frame. They reported fulfilment of nine needs, affect, intention, and reason for positivity/negativity, as well as the body part(s) touched, location, type of touch, interaction partner, and particular touch characteristics (e.g. humidity).Positive and negative touch experiences shared similar touch types, locations, and body parts touched, but differed in intended purpose and reasons. Overall, the valence of a touch experience could be predicted from fulfilment of relatedness, the interaction partner and initiator, and physical touch characteristics. Positive affect increased with need fulfilment, and negative affect decreased.The results highlight the importance of relatedness and reciprocity for the valence of touch, and emphasise the need to incorporate psychological needs in touch research. (shrink)

Illusory Abiding: The Cultural Construction of the Chan Monk Zhongfeng Mingben. By Natasha Heller. Harvard East Asian Monographs, vol. 368. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, Harvard Univ. Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 471. $49.95.

According to Hans Kelsen, the basic norm is the necessary presupposition of the positivistic cognition of law, making possible both descriptive legal cognition and Verbindlichkeit. The nature of the presupposition in question here has been a subject of controversy ever since. Presupposing the basic norm gives rise to formulations that are neither purely descriptive nor purely normative. The author contends that Kelsen's doctrine of the basic norm was intended to apply to all jurists irrespective of function. Kelsen, without being aware (...) of it initially, invested the verb “to presuppose” with an ambiguity that suits precisely this purpose. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungVor dem Hintergrund, dass in den Medien und der Öffentlichkeit thematisierte und dargestellte Arztbilder stets auch auf die öffentliche Meinung und die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Ärzten wirken, spürt der Artikel der Frage nach, welches Arztbild die amerikanische TV-KrankenhausserieDr. House transportiert und welche Ausprägung das dargestellte Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnis einnimmt. Hierbei werden die medizinethischen Reflexionen durch eine detaillierte medienwissenschaftliche Genre-Einordnung und dramaturgische Analyse eingerahmt und unterstützt. Zudem werden als Analyseinstrumentarium die vier Modelle des Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnisses nach Emanuel/emanuel herangezogen. Dieser interdisziplinäre Forschungsansatz zeigt, dass (...) die Hauptfigur der Serie, der Arzt Dr. Gregory House, durchaus als Gegenentwurf einesmodernen Arztes, der fürsorglich, nicht-direktiv und stets im Sinne desinformed consent handelt, konzipiert und präsentiert wird. Doch ist daraus nicht zu schließen, dass die Figur des Dr. House einseitig als Paternalist gezeichnet ist. Die Kategorisierung und Einordnung des Dr. House und der von ihm repräsentierten Arzttugenden ist vielmehr entlangaller Elemente des gesellschaftlichen Arztideals vorzunehmen, zu denen eine entsprechende wissenschaftlich-medizinische Kompetenz, die Orientierung an objektivierbaren Indizien, die Verpflichtung auf das naturwissenschaftliche, evidenzbasierte Ideal, eine angenehme Kommunikation mit dem Patienten sowie die nötige, gebotene Aufklärung zählen. So wird in der Analyse deutlich, dass die Darstellung von Dr. House vielschichtiger ist und immer wieder auf ethische Dilemma-Situationen in der Medizin verweist. Diese wirkmächtige dramatisch-filmische Darstellung von Konfliktsituationen im diagnostisch-therapeutischen Kontext sollte daher auch in der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Wirkungsforschung vertieft werden. (shrink)

Who presupposes Kelsen's basic norm? Is it possible to defend the presupposition in a way that is convincing? And what difference does the presupposition make? Endeavouring to highlight the role of basic assumptions in the law, the author argues that the verb "to presuppose', with Kelsen, has not only a conceptual but also a normative dimension; and that the expression 'presupposing the basic norm'is adequate in so far as it marks the descriptive-normative nature of utterances made in specifically legal speech-situations.Addressed (...) to legal theorists in general, the treatise purports to show that Kelsen's doctrine lends itself to an interpretation according to which the very act of "presupposing" the Grundnorm can be understood as a Grund, i.e. normative source of all positive law; and, what is more, that this interpretation admits of addressing the issue of the (formal) legitimacy of supra-national and directly applicable rules and other norms. (shrink)

Un estudio de caso de investigación socio-ecológica realizado en Puerto Williams, Cabo de Hornos (Chile), revela que las personas pertenecientes a diferentes grupos socioculturales poseen una diversidad de perspectivas y relaciones con la naturaleza. Por ejemplo, los miembros de la Comunidad Indígena Yagán y los antiguos residentes (en su mayoría descendientes de colonos de principios del siglo XX), expresaron un fuerte sentimiento de pertenencia y hogar. Sin embargo, las personas identificadas con el uso de los recursos no tuvo respuestas positivas (...) respecto al sentimiento de hogar. Entre los entrevistados, el concepto de un territorio común presentó contrastes muy marcados. Aquellos que se identificaban con un tipo de relación de cultivo de la tierra favorecieron la propiedad privada sobre la pública. Para los entrevistados con una relación de tipo integrado con la naturaleza, la libertad de movimiento fue uno de los valores esenciales. Algunos de los entrevistados identificados con el uso de los recursos y con relaciones intelectuales y estéticas con la naturaleza, valoraron también de manera positiva la tierra como bien común. La aproximación utilizada en este estudio transforma las nociones polarizadas y dicotómicas en gradientes de perspectivas relacionadas a diferentes grados de ambientes ecológicos y culturales, locales y globales. La visión híbrida resultante de las perspectivas acerca de la naturaleza puede ser de utilidad en tiempos de cambio global, donde tanto escalas locales como globales contribuyen a identificar problemáticas asimétricas específicas, como también oportunidades de comunicación entre los diferentes grupos socioculturales. (shrink)

This commentary cites several findings of neuromuscular research that are consistent with aspects of Plamondon's kinematic theory. In addition, we point out certain biomechanical properties of the limb that influence the requirements for the production of accurate movement, and might thus compromise the global applicability of any law governing speed/accuracy trade-offs.

(1996). Socialist legacy as liability: East German intellectuals after German unification. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 556-561.

Using web standards, such as uniform resource identifiers (URIs), XML and HTTP, for naming and describing resources which are not information objects is the key difference between the Web as we know it today and the Semantic Web. Naming and interlinking this type of resources by HTTP URIs (instead of individual constants in a formal language) is the key feature which distinguishes traditional knowledge representation from web-scale knowledge representation. However, this use of URIs brought back attention to the old philosophical (...) problem of identity and reference in a new form. In this paper, we analyze the new version of the problem, provide a formal model for dealing with it when interlinking knowledge on the Web, and argue for the need of a distinction between the use of URIs for describing and accessing resources, and the use of URIs for fixing the reference . We show that in the current practice of linking data these roles are not clearly distinguished, and that this fact may cause unwanted effects and prevent some basic forms of data integration. We also discuss the role of an entity name system as a potential piece of infrastructure for fixing the reference in the Semantic Web. (shrink)

Corresponding to our best physical theories and going against our intuitions the term now is not related to events in the world in a direct way. This knowledge is supported by modern neurobiological investigations. The neurobiological conception of now is compared with the analysis of concepts concerning this issue. The conception turns out to be highly compatible with this analysis. In the last section of the paper I will argue for a considerable link between the notion of truth and the (...) notion of nowness in view of the meta-structure of now. German In Übereinstimmung mit unseren besten physikalischen Theorien und entgegen unserer Intuition bezieht sich der Ausdruck jetzt nicht unmittelbar auf Ereignisse in der Welt - diese Erkenntnis lässt sich durch die neuere neurobiologische Forschung untermauern. Das neurobiologische Zeitkonzept wird sprachphilosophischen Analysen zu diesem Thema gegenübergestellt; es erweist sich mit ihnen als recht gut vereinbar. Im letzten Teil des Beitrags argumentiere ich im Hinblick auf die Metastruktur von jetzt für eine bedeutsame Verbindungslinie zwischen dem Wahrheits-und dem Gegenwärtigkeitsbegriff. (shrink)

We challenge the notion that differences in spatial ability are the best or only explanation for observed sex differences in mathematical word problems. We suggest two ideas from the study of autism: sex differences in theory of mind and in central coherence.

Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ participation in deliberation processes. However, research studies have pointed out that deliberation outcomes vary due to the participants’ sociodemographic differences. In this paper, we address this debate by quantitatively measuring different sociodemographic participant groups’ deliberation quality. By building an index of the quality of understanding, we analyze the quality of 1,991 postings on local political issues that participants contributed during the 2011 Zurich City debate. We defined five indicators for (...) deliberation quality: statement of reasons, proposals for solutions, respect, doubts, and reciprocity. The analysis confirms that the sociodemographic composition of the participants is of great importance for self-selected participation and deliberation quantity, but not for the deliberation quality. (shrink)