In einer unterhaltsamen wie anspruchsvollen und packenden Zeitreise entlang der diversen Theorien zur Entwicklung des Lebendigen, führt uns der Altmeister der Systemtheorie des Erkennens von der "heroischen Phase" über die "ideologische" bis hin zur heutigen "systemischen Phase". Seine Auseinandersetzung mit zahllosen Biologen und ihren Theorien gründet auf die beiden Ansichten, dass man den Zustand von Theorien am besten aus deren Geschichte heraus versteht und dass ein wechselseitiger Zusammenhang zwischen Zeitgeist und biologischen Theorien besteht. Professor Riedl legt uns mit diesem (...) Buch eine Kulturgeschichte der Evolutionstheorie vor mit dem Ziel, den Wandel von Einsichten im Laufe unserer kulturellen Entwicklung zu sehen und zu erkennen. Ein Muss für jeden Biologen und Philosophen. (shrink)

Kistler, Sebastian/Puzio, Anna/Riedl, Anna-Maria/Veith (Hrsg.) Digitale Transformationen der Gesellschaft Sozialethische Perspektiven auf den technologischen Wandel -/- Die Digitalisierung bewirkt Transformationsprozesse, die die Formen unseres Zusammenlebens grundlegend verändern. Dies betrifft nicht nur die Art, wie wir leben, Partner suchen, arbeiten, wohnen, konsumieren oder uns selbst präsentieren – auch die gesellschaftlichen Lebensbereiche wie Politik, Bildung, Wirtschaft und Gesundheit befinden sich in einem digitalen Wandel. Mit diesen Veränderungsprozessen sind nicht nur Hoffnungen, sondern auch Ängste verbunden, die die Ambivalenzen der Digitalisierung zum Ausdruck (...) bringen. Die Komplexität und die Wirkungstiefe digitaler Transformationsprozesse werfen Fragen nach deren Steuerbarkeit, nach ihren Zwecken bzw. nach möglichen Orientierungen auf: • Welche technologischen Entwicklungen müssen reguliert werden? • Wie kann eine entsprechende Legitimation erfolgen? • Wer übernimmt Verantwortung? • Wie und nach welchen Kriterien sind ethische Bewertungen vorzunehmen? • Und nicht zuletzt: Gibt es Grenzen für diese Entwicklungen oder haben die Möglichkeiten des Machbaren die ethischen Fragen längst überholt und erledigt? -/- Die Texte des Sammelbandes nähern sich den digitalen Transformationen aus verschiedenen Perspektiven. Anhand unterschiedlicher Zugänge werden die Themenfelder „Digitalisierung und Gesellschaft“, „Körper und Technologie“ sowie „Digitalisierung und Demokratie“ entfaltet. Darüber hinaus werden die Konsequenzen für die Pflegearbeit und für den Umgang mit modernen Waffentechnologien als anwendungsbezogene Konkretionen diskutiert. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income (UBI) can serve as a beneficial public policy to reduce poverty and inequality, yet a great challenge is how to fund it. This article offers a roadmap for fully funding UBI in a manner that: eliminates poverty; bolsters the middle-class; eliminates the stigma and government bureaucracy of social welfare programs; reduces ever-expanding inequality; initiates a path to meeting climate change goals; reduces speculation; and increases fairness and opportunity in the tax code. As stand-alone policies, these revenue proposals (...) are valuable correctives in their own right. If the entire package of UBI and funding sources were in effect, society (and American capitalism) would be on a more stable, equitable, and environmentally sustainable footing. (shrink)

This article reports on the development of an instrument to measure the perceived stress that results from the use and ubiquity of digital technology in the workplace. Based upon a contemporary understanding of stress and a set of stressors that is a substantial update to existing scales, the Digital Stressors Scale advances the measurement of digital stress. Initially, 138 items were constructed for the instrument and grouped into a set of 15 digital stressors. Based on a sample of N = (...) 1,998 online questionnaires completed by individuals representative of the US employed population, the scale was refined using exploratory factor analyses and PLS-SEM. The resulting and final scale consists of ten stressor categories reflective of one higher-order construct and a total of 50 items. Through a nomological network that includes important outcome variables of digital stress it was then demonstrated that the DSS provides substantial explanatory power, particularly related to emotional exhaustion and user satisfaction. Thus, the DSS constitutes a state-of-the-art self-report instrument to measure the extent of distress appraisal related to digital technologies in the workplace and helps to explain further how and why information and communication technologies can lead to adverse outcomes in individuals, thereby providing the starting point for job related organizational interventions. (shrink)

The rise of digital and interconnected technology within the workplace, including programs that facilitate monitoring and surveillance of employees is unstoppable. The COVID-19-induced lockdowns and the resulting increase in home office adoption even increased this trend. Apart from major benefits that may come along with such information and communication technologies (e.g., productivity increases, better resource planning, and increased worker safety), they also enable comprehensive Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) which may also have negative effects (e.g., increased stress and a reduction in (...) job satisfaction). This conceptual article investigates EPM to better understand the development, adoption, and impact of EPM systems in organizations. The EPM literature published since the 1980s constitutes the basis for this conceptual article. We present a framework which is intended to serve as foundation for future studies. Moreover, we reviewed more than three decades of empirical EPM research and identified six major outcomes that are influenced by the use of an EPM system, as well as a large number of moderator variables. Based on our conceptual analyses and the resulting insights, which also include privacy, ethical, and cultural considerations, we discuss future research opportunities where we also refer to design implications for EPM systems. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Spitzensport zu betreiben und gleichzeitig ein Hochschulstudium zu absolvieren, scheint unter den derzeitigen Umständen nahezu unmöglich. Der Artikel konstruiert dieses Phänomen der Unvereinbarkeit zweier Karrieren zunächst gesellschaftstheoretisch als Inklusionsproblem. Da eine merkliche Verbesserung der Situation der Athleten letztlich nur auf Seiten der Hochschule erwartet werden darf, werden anschließend aus organisationstheoretischer Perspektive die dortigen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interner Strukturveränderungen reflektiert. Schließlich wird diskutiert, wie Hochschulen mit den Erwartungen des Spitzensports umgehen können und in welcher Weise sich im Rahmen von Netzwerken (...) womöglich doch Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den beteiligten Organisationen zugunsten studierender Spitzensportler aufbauen lassen. (shrink)

Muße ist ein freies Verweilen in der Zeit jenseits von Zweckrationalismus. Die Eigenzeitlichkeit wird zum Freiraum simultaner Möglichkeiten unserer Lebensgestaltung. Muße zielt auf ästhetisch und räumlich inszenierte Lebensformen, die in der Zeit nicht der Herrschaft der Zeit unterliegen. Konzepte von Muße sind stets eingebettet in ihre historischen und kulturellen Kontexte. Der Band beleuchtet historische Paradigmen der Muße in ihren literarischen Inszenierungen, diskursiven Verflechtungen und performativen Effekten. Die Beiträge aus der Philosophie, Klassischen Philologie, Alten Kirchengeschichte, germanistischen Mediävistik, neueren deutschen Literatur, Anglistik, (...) Soziologie, Geschichtswissenschaft, Archäologie, Kunstgeschichte, Ethnologie und Sinologie untersuchen Muße als anthropologisches und kulturgeschichtlich distinktes Phänomen, das sich Zeitzwängen widersetzt und Freiräume eröffnet. Analysiert werden unterschiedliche Semantisierungen, Ähnlichkeiten und Umbesetzungen, wie beispielsweise 'Freizeit', die Überschneidungen, aber auch gravierende Abgrenzungen zur Muße aufweisen. (shrink)

In meditation, mind-wandering has to be noticed and stopped in order to attain and sustain a state of mindfulness. Mindwandering has been linked to increased activity in the default mode network (DMN). We found that hemodynamic activity in the DMN was inversely related to frontal midline theta (FMT) EEG activity. In addition, a recent study reported that FMT power was reduced during mind-wandering and increased during deep meditation. In our experiment, six subjects were introduced to two forms of meditation to (...) be used during neurofeedback training in eight daily sessions during two weeks. FMT power was chosen for neurofeedback, while subjects applied these meditation techniques and individual strategies to increase FMT power. Each session was followed by a detailed interview. Four subjects were able to raise average FMT power over the course of the training, two of them significantly. We report and discuss the results of the neurophenomenological analysis of the relationship between meditation strategies, subjective experiences, and success of neurofeedback training. (shrink)

A spiral running along the surface of a cone standing on top is proposed as a model for evolution, the progress of which is considered as composed of a linear progression following the direction of time and representing the linear increase in the number of taxa, while a circular component stands for the ever recurring functional types of organisms.

Does a philosopher need the support of poets? Ancient sources suggest that Chrysipp of Soloi (3rd century BC), the greatest Stoic thinker of his time, quoted abundantly from poetry in his philosophical writings. For the first time, the collection and systematic analysis of these poetic quotations allows insight into a fascinating interplay of philosophy and poetry and expands our understanding of a thinker whose philosophical influence has lasted for millennia.

In this book, the author Rupert Riedl investigates the structural and functional correlations of issues considered as "complex". He brilliantly analyzes the definition of complexity, the occurrence of complexity, the meaning of complexity, and last-but-not-least the way complexity is dealt with professionally. In recent years, our view of the world has been split into ever smaller segments – in part due to the increasing importance of the natural sciences and their associated analytical power. This calls for once again focusing (...) on complexity and the holistic aspects, on interdisciplinary and synoptic approaches. This book is a translation of the original German version “Strukturen der Komplexität”, which was published in 2000. The discussion of complexity from the perspective of a biologist has long been overdue when it was published and is still up-to-date. (shrink)

Eric Voegelin formulated one of the most challenging theses about the theological foundations of modern progressivist and revolutionary thought: the character of modernity is essentially Gnostic. The aim of this essay is to show why the early version of Voegelin’s Gnosis-thesis, as proposed in his New Science of Politics (1951), is not convincing. I argue that processes of immanentization can be fully explained within the development of Western ecclesiastical thought, without invoking Gnostic sectarianism. From a historical-empirical perspective Gnosticism is, in (...) fact, principally opposed to immanent eschatologies. Joachim of Fiore, who, according to Voegelin, is the originator of modern Gnosticism, aptly illustrates this incompatibility. This essay also aims to show how Voegelin became increasingly aware of this problem and, accordingly, formulated a much more adequate and convincing version of the Gnosis-thesis in The Ecumenic Age (1974). The final section of the essay returns to the question of the relation of Gnosis and revolution. (shrink)

Young adults in Europe have more difficulty than previous generations to maintain or improve on their parents’ housing situation. Recommodification, financialisation and the withdrawal of the state as housing provider have transformed housing markets and affected the housing situation of young people. By drawing on various data sources, especially on the EU-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, I aim to present a differentiated assessment and comparison of current housing conditions and problems in Europe with a focus on young people. I (...) argue that a rights-based housing strategy with an explicit intergenerational justice perspective is a promising approach to tackle the housing crisis in a way that meets the housing needs of young people. (shrink)