The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

Psychometrically sound instruments that assess temporal dynamics of creative abilities are limited. The Ambulatory Battery of Creativity is designed to assess creative ideation performance multiple times in everyday life and was proven to capture the intra-individual dynamic of creative abilities reliably and validly. The present ambulatory study aimed to replicate and extend the psychometric evidence of the novel ABC. Sixty-nine participants worked on the ABC during a 5-day ambulatory assessment protocol. Each day, participants completed six randomly presented items of the (...) verbal and the figural ABC. Matching previous psychometric analyses, the results indicated good between-person and good within-person reliability. Furthermore, evidence for between-person and within-person validity of the ABC was obtained. Performance in the verbal and the figural ABC were interrelated and correlated with an independent measure of creative potential. The verbal ABC was further associated with openness, self-reported creative behavior, creative activities, and creative achievements, thus providing additional evidence of construct validity, especially for the verbal ABC. Finally, the verbal and the figural ABC yielded convincing within-person validity: Longer response times and higher subjective originality ratings were associated with more original ideas. This replication and extension of the ABC’s psychometric properties indicates that it enables a reliable and valid assessment of moment-to-moment fluctuations of creative ideation abilities in everyday life, which may facilitate the investigation of exciting new research questions related to dynamic aspects of creative ability. (shrink)

The goal of the following study is to investigate whether first-year students in STEM fields that have a low proportion of females (STEM-L) show vocational interests that fit their vocational aspirations. To place our investigation into a broader context, we compared students in STEM-L with students of STEM subjects with a medium proportion of women (STEM-M) as well as with other subjects with a medium or a high proportion of females. We analyzed their vocational interests, vocational aspirations and their interest (...) congruence. In both the comparison regarding interest profiles and the comparison of vocational aspirations, we focused on the things-orientation and people-orientation, all while taking respective gender differences into account. Following the suggestion from previous studies, in a further step we differentiated between subjects within STEM-L. Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we analyzed the interest congruence of 5530 male and 7406 female students in STEM majors (with a low or medium proportion of women) and non-STEM majors (with a medium or high proportion of women). Students from different subjects showed different magnitudes regarding their things- and people-orientation. STEM-L students had a high things-orientation and a low people-orientation regarding both their interests and aspired occupations. Students of STEM-L and STEM-M showed a lower interest congruence than students from other subjects. With the exception of education, gender differences regarding the people- and things-orientation also existed within most of the subjects. Gender differences partly remain when distinguishing between the different subjects within STEM-L. And so, the result that not all STEM-L subjects are “created equal” is discussed in the context of their theoretical and methodological aspects. (shrink)

"Bernard Groethuysen (1880-1946), philosophe d'origine allemande, partage, dès 1904, sa vie entre Berlin et Paris où il étudie la Révolution française et rencontre, grâce à Bergson, Alix Guillain (1876-1951), traductrice et journaliste à L'Humanité. Vivant avec leurs compagnes dans le phalanstère de la rue Campagne-Première, Groethuysen et Paulhan, devenus amis, oeuvrent à partir de 1920 à La Nouvelle Revue francaise, dont ce dernier prend la direction cinq ans plus tard : ils font découvrir Hôlderlin, Kassner, Kafka, Büchner, Musil... En 1927, (...) ils inaugurent leur collection "Bibliothèque des Idées" par l'essai majeur de Groethuysen, Origines de l'esprit bourgeois en France, "notre premier enfant", écrit-il à Paulhan. Dans son ultime lettre d'Allemagne, de 1931, il s'inquiète : "L'Histoire devrait nous donner des vacances. On en profiterait pour reprendre la vie." En août 1932, devant l'essor du nazisme, Groethuysen s'exile en France. Quant à Paulhan, le Front populaire le voit s'engager aux côtés de Jean Longuet, maire socialiste de Châtenay-Malabry. Arrive la guerre : Germaine et Jean Paulhan quittent leur maison, leur jardin, leurs animaux, dont Alix Guillain et Groethuysen, naturalisé en 1938, prennent soin. Après la défaite de l'Allemagne, le philosophe rêve encore d'utopie, mais il meurt le 17 septembre 1946. Les travaux de Groethuysen m'intéressaient, il s'intéressait aux miens", confiera Paulhan à Ponge. Ce volume prouve leur affectueuse amitié, fondée sur le travail en commun pour la NRF. Mais c'est également un document sur les réseaux intellectuels et politiques de l'entre-deux-guerres: Maria Van Rysselberghe et les amis de Gide, la princesse de Bassiano et la revue Commerce, Paul Desjardins et les Décades de Pontigny, Henry Church et la revue Mesures, Alix Guillain et le Parti communiste, Aline Mayrisch et le groupe de Colpach... "Je n'ai pas connu d'autre homme, écrira Paulhan, pour qui une idée, fût-elle évidemment fausse ou absurde, dès l'instant qu'un homme l'avait inventée, eût un tel prix. Il disait: "C'est une idée" d'un ton de gourmet. C'est qu'il pensait que la vérité ayant été une fois dans la suite des temps atteinte (par Hegel et - pour ce qui concernait son application au monde moderne - par Marx), il ne nous restait qu'à former des idées - plus ou moins agréables, curieuses, attendrissantes de faiblesse." (Mort de Groethuysen à Luxembourg, rédigé en 1946)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

I love books for many things, but I despise them for introducing a physical limit to the free circulation of knowledge (compared to the Internet). At least, that's what I had always thought. continent. is an online journal aiming at, among other things, breaking with the established paradigms of how academic work has to be published in order to be respected among relevant peers. I'm the engineer behind the current version of continent. , making it work and keeping it running (...) since began in 2010. We provide an online platform for knowledge to circulate, beyond the limitations of institutional attachment or distribution of physical volumes. And regardless of not having a physical publication ourselves, and being a trans-national endeavour with core members spread across three continents, we had the honour to join the Publish Or Be Damned fair and conference of Northern European independent book publishers at Index Art Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. The place was bursting with exceptional volumes made by some of the most interesting publishers in the European north. The encounter changed the way I think about such books: these editions are designed, engineered and crafted to a level of sophistication that they begin to hold more than just their informational value printed. They convey and communicate a form of tactile knowledge and pleasure, and this completely changed my perspective on the matter. Because continent. had not materialised yet and only appeared in the form of social events (such as those in Basel, Boston, New York, or Zürich), we could not offer any such tactile pleasures to those visiting our booth. Given this, my solution was to turn continent. 's participation into a spectacle of simulation. With so many important figures of the independent publishing world present, we staged a series of imaginary book-launch moments for the camera. Presenting a first quasi-materialisation of continent. in the form of a book, or rather, the hypothetical extrapolation of our red square shape from our logo into a red 30x30 cm slate. Thanks to all those that participated. Your presences allowed continent. to visualise what it would be like if we had a book, and had been published within the honorable circle of these fine publishers. Soon the day will come where this will become reality. Thanks to all who joined the fun and didn't mind me showing these to the rest of the world. I'll publish them here, for them not to perish, even if I shall be damned. Ida Marie Hede Bertelsen ( Pork Salad Press ) Abdul Dube ( sideprojects ) René Sørensen ( sideprojects ) Anders ( OEI Editör ) Brett Bloom ( Half Letter Press ) Anni Puolakkaby ( OK Do ) Kit Hammonds, Kate Phillimore, Louise O'Hare ( Publish and Be Damned ) Ingvar Högni ( Útúrdúr ) Fredrik Ehlin, Andjeas Ejksson, Oscar Mangione ( Geist Magazine ) Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt ( B-B-B Books ) Laura Hatfield ( Witnas editors ) Chris Johnsen ( WITNAS editors ) Matthew Rana ( Witnas editors ) Ola Ståhl & Carl Lindh ( In Edit Mode Press ) Staffan Lundgren ( Axl Books ) Tuuka Kaila ( NAPA Books ) Vebjørn Guttormsgaard Møllberg + Ingrid Forlang ( Kuk et Parfyme ) Diana Baldon, Joanna Nowotny and Egle Kulbokaite ( Index Foundation ). (shrink)

First two paragraphs of the article, in lieu of an abstract: “What I am going to discuss in terms of response and responsivity is not just a special1kind of behavior with respect to the Other. Responding has rather to be understood as the genuine way in which we encounter the alien as alien. It will be shown that the experience of the Other, i.e., what Husserl calls Fremderfahrung, requires a new sort of responsive phenomenology. This kind of responsive phenomenology goes (...) beyond the traditional form of intentional phenomenology just as much as it leaves behind every sort of hermeneutics. Responding means more than intending or understanding. [note 1] In what follows I shall unfold some of the main features to be ascribed to responsive phenomenology, and in doing so I shall proceed in the following way. After having made some general remarks about the actual and the historical background of the alien, I shall first say something about the different meanings of the alien (Fremde) and about the place of the alien in our experience. The second part leads us to a turning-point where responsivity diverges from the basic underlying presuppositions to the phenomenology of intentional acts and to the hermeneutic interpretation of texts. In a third step I shall outline the key concepts of demand and response. I shall conclude by presenting some features of what I call logic of response.” Note 1: N.B. This text was first published as a Japanese version in Metaphysica: The Journal of Philosophy and Ethics (Dept. of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, Osaka) 27 (1996), 1-15. A German version was published under the title “Antwort auf das Fremde: Grundzüge einer responsive Phänomenologie” in B. Waldenfels & I. Datmann (Eds.). Der Anspruch des Anderen: PerspekJiven phtinomenologischer Ethik. München: W. Fink., 1998. The English translation is based on a first draft made by Robb E. Eason, C. Edward Emmer, and Evan M. Selinger and revised by the author. (shrink)

The following investigation illustrates, by concrete historical examples, some of the basic results, outlined in earlier papers on theory evolution and reference dynamics in science (cf. Balzer, W. et al.: 1989, 'A Static Theory of Reference in Science', Synthese 79, 319-360; Lauth, B.: 1989, 'Reference Problems in Stoichiometry', Erkenntnis 30, 339-362; Lauth, B.: 1990, 'Theory Evolution and Reference Kinematics', Synthese 88, 279-307). All theories considered in this paper are represented within a metatheoretical frame that has become known as the structuralist (...) view in the philosophy of science. The paper focusses on some physical constants, namely the mass and charge of electrons, henceforth denoted by m₀ and e₀, of Boltzmann's constant k, Faraday's constant F and Avogadro's Number ${\rm N}_{{\rm A}}$ , and the evolution of their 'reference spectra' from the beginning of the 19th century until the early days of quantum physics. (shrink)

This is an interesting theologically oriented study of Saint Bernard's teachings on man. The author tackles the central issue of Bernardian studies: was this holy monk a theologian or a philosopher, or both? Bernard's entire œuvre is penetrated by the questioning of the boundaries of natural and revealed knowledge, i.e., of philosophy and theology. The doctrine of man, that microcosmos in whom God was made flesh, is the best and the most likely ground on which to discuss the interconnection between (...) faith and reason, which was the most intricate issue of medieval culture. To do this, we need, among other things, a chart of the human intellectual faculties—and the author gives us exactly this. This is the core of the book but there is more. He presents an analysis of the properly philosophical aspects and patterns of Bernard's way of thinking, and also a good chapter on his metaphysics of the relationship between body and soul. The author is well-versed in the enormous secondary literature on Saint Bernard to which his study is a valuable addition.—M. J. V. (shrink)

Guilt and forgiveness, with their attendant philosophical and religious ramifications, permeate writing on the Holocaust and can also be related to South Africa’s recent history and present situation. Two controversial and provocative books (both possibly autobiographical) which tackle the question of guilt and forgiveness head on are Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, both of which have led to much debate. The central event in both texts is the slaughter of innocents, burned to death in a (...) building during World War II, while the perpetrators (an SS officer who tells his story in The Sunflower and a concentration camp warder who refuses to tell hers in The Reader) either kill those trying to escape or totally ignore the screams of the victims. The reader has to decide whether it is plausible that years later these murderers feel genuine guilt and, if so, whether they should be forgiven – and by whom. The Reader can be seen as the obverse of The Sunflower. The two should be read in conjunction for an intriguing view of the human psyche, the dichotomy in the soul of a person preceding and succeeding his/her horrific deeds, and the questions arising of whether death can be faced by the wicked with a clear conscience, whether the fear of meeting one’s Maker engenders belated remorse, whether one changes if found out, and whether ignorance of mind betokens evil of soul which can be overcome with learning and insight. (shrink)

This edited volume, Voters & Voting in Context, is a comprehensive study of voter behavior that concentrates on surveys and other data linked to the 2009 and 2013 German general elections. The indi...

The Mahāyāna Buddhist term dhāraṇī has been understood to be problematic since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was often translated as “magical phrase” or “magical formula” and was considered to be emblematic of tantric Buddhism. The situation improved in contributions by Bernhard, Lamotte and Braarvig, and the latter two suggested the translation be “memory,” but this remained difficult in many environments. This paper argues that dhāraṇī is a function term denoting “codes/coding,” so that the category dhāraṇī is polysemic and (...) context-sensitive. After reviewing Western scholarship, the article discusses dhāraṇī semantic values and issues of synonymy, the early applications of mantras, the sonic/graphic background of coding in India extended into Buddhist applications, and the soteriological ideology of dhāraṇīs along with some of its many varieties. (shrink)

A chapter in the book, Philosophies of Place: An Intercultural Conversation, edited by Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames, and published by University of Hawaii Press. In this chapter I present a phenomenological ontology of place vis-a-vis horizon and also alterity (otherness), discussing related themes in Heidegger, Kitaro Nishida, Shizuteru Ueda, Otto Bollnow, Karl Jaspers, Ed Casey, Günter Figal, Bernhard Waldenfels, and others. Wherever we are we are implaced, delimited in our being-in-the-world constituted by a horizon that implaces (...) us, not only literally but semantically and ontologically. Whether we take place in its semantic sense or as ontological, I underscore its duplicity—taking off from Ueda Shizuteru’s concept of two-fold being-in-the-world—as on the one hand demarcating a realm of determinacy, our ontological finitude or our social imaginary world, and on the other hand through its horizonal nature as pointing to an indeterminacy or exteriority that demarcates or delimits that realm, finitizing us. That latter may be characterized as an excess irreducible to semantic or ontological determination or as a nothing or a-meaning. Hence place with its horizon implies the interface of meaning and a-meaning, nomos and anomy, principles and anarché, in Nishidian terms being and the nothing (mu), in Heideggerian terms unconcealment and concealment or world and earth. Thus the horizon that constitutes place entails both finitude and openness, allowing for alterity and alteration, whereby the determinations within place are never fixed, secure, or guaranteed. In demarcating a place, the horizon always points to a yonder beyond the place, its other. In its very contact with the unassmilable or irreducible, the line of demarcation is itself thus unpredictable in its fluctuations. The place determined within the nothing or the clearing of unconcealment amidst the concealed will thus always be provisional despite any appearance or claims to the contrary. Its determination is indeterminate. (shrink)