Feature logics are the logical basis for so-called unification grammars studied in computational linguistics. We investigate the expressivity of feature terms with negation and the functional uncertainty construct needed for the description of long-distance dependencies and obtain the following results: satisfiability of feature terms is undecidable, sort equations can be internalized, consistency of sort equations is decidable if there is at least one atom, and consistency of sort equations is undecidable if there is no atom.

Das Thema Leib ist langst nicht mehr nur auf die traditionelle phanomenologische Forschung beschrankt. Das leibliche Sein betrifft vielmehr die Situation des Menschen an sich. Die Anthropologie des 20. Jh. bedarf angesichts der Ergebnisse der Ethologie, der Genomforschung und der Neurowissenschaften einer Revision. Die hier formulierte Version einer empirisch orientierten transklassischen Phanomenologie thematisiert den menschlichen Leib philosophisch neu und begrundet so eine leiborientierte Anthropologie fur das 21. Jahrhundert. Kern dieser Anthropologie ist nicht eine biologische Definition, sondern das leibliche In-der-Welt-Sein des (...) Menschen. Dieses leibliche Sein definiert sich durch die Fahigkeit, mit sich selbst, mit anderen und mit der Natur angemessen umgehen zu konnen. (shrink)

Wiederkehr des Raumes?. Topologisches Paradigmen ; Rückkehr zum gelebten Raum ; Raumkonzepte und Raumpraktiken ; Regionale oder fundamentale Räumlichkeit ; Zweideutigkeiten und Paradoxien der Lebenswelt -- Polarität von Ort und Raum. Phänomenologische Topik ; Wo-Frage im Schatten der Was-Frage ; Ortsbestimmung als Antwort auf eine Wo-Frage ; Fremde und eigene Wo-Frage ; Hier als Standort : Grund und Boden ; Woher und Wohin : Wegstrecken ; Worin : offene und geschlossene Räume ; Ringsum : Umgebung, Umwelt und Welt ; Wie (...) weit : Vermessene Räume -- Leibliches Wohnen im Raum. Vielfalt des Raumes ; Verankerung im Hier ; Raumachsen ; Durchmessung, Dehnung und Schrumpfung des Raumes ; Nähe und Ferne ; Drinnen und Draußen ; Interieur und Exterieur im Blickfield der Malerei ; Raumanlage und Raumbühne ; Raumtechniken und Ortskarten ; Lokale Räume und globaler Raum -- Ortsverschiebungen. Hier und Anderswo ; Aktualität, Habitualität und Virtualität der räumlichen Bewegung ; Spuren der Zeit im Raum ; Zersprengter Raum ; Telepräsenz ; Fremdorte und andere Räume ; Gemeinorte und globaler Raum ; Gastlichkeit ; Coda : Topos : Atopie : Heterotopien -- Zeitverdoppelung und Zeitverschiebung. Zwischen Mythos und Logos ; Frage nach der Zeit ; Zeitverdoppelung in der Rede und Zeitverkörperung ; Zeitverschiebung zwischen Pathos und Respons ; Zeitverschiebung und Reaktionszeit ; Der entrückte Anfang im Roman und auf der Bühne ; Zeit der Sinne ; Jenseits von Erinnerung und Erwartung ; Rhythmen und Tempi ; Zwischen Leere und Erfüllung ; Coda : Anderswo enden -- Die verändernde Kraft der Wiederholung. Wiederholungsexperiment ; Sich wiederholdende Erfahrung ; Widerholung als Rettung aus der Zeit ; Altes und Neues im Widerstreit ; Unwiederholbares in der Zeit -- Die Wahrscheinlichkeit von Zukünftigem im Anschluß an Aristoteles. Handlungsperspektive ; Die drohende Seeschlacht ; Wahrscheinlichkeit und Häufigkeit ; Zwischen Gewißheit und Ungewißheit ; Rückzug auf pratische Gewißheit ; Zwischen Entwurf und Erwartung ; Unwahrscheinliche Zukunft -- Kommen und Gehen in der Zeit im Anschluß an Merleau-Ponty. Frühe dialektik der Zeit ; Zeit als bloßes Nacheinander ; Totalität der Zeit : Präsenzfeld ; Riß der Zeit : Selbstaffektion ; Bewegung der Zeit : Vor- und Rückläufigkeit ; Wahrnehmung zwischen Vor- und Rückblick ; Handeln zwischen Vorsatz und Vorschlag ; Kommen und Gehen ; Chiasmus der Zeit -- Epilog : Verquickung von Ort, Raum und Zeit. (shrink)

Few would contest the fact that analytical philosophy has dominated philosophical practice in the English speaking world for about the last century. But dispute continues about both its origins and nature; whilst others question its value. Michael Dummett wholly embraced the analytical approach to philosophy, as he conceived of it. For him analytical philosophy marked itself off from its precursors and its alternatives, embodied in the Continental tradition, by taking the linguistic turn. And Frege was unequivocally the first philosopher to (...) take that auspicious turn, which ushered in a new method in philosophy. Henceforth philosophers were to approach the business of analyzing thought via the enterprise of analyzing language. So Dummett is presenting us with both a history lesson and a recommendation about how we ought to do philosophy. But is his reading of the history accurate? And is his conception of the nature of analytical philosophy viable? In order to reflect on these questions this collection brings together eight scholars who have made a serious business of reading Dummett. (shrink)

Considered by many to be Abraham Robinson's magnum opus, this book offers an explanation of the development and applications of non-standard analysis by the mathematician who founded the subject. Non-standard analysis grew out of Robinson's attempt to resolve the contradictions posed by infinitesimals within calculus. He introduced this new subject in a seminar at Princeton in 1960, and it remains as controversial today as it was then. This paperback reprint of the 1974 revised edition is indispensable reading for anyone interested (...) in non-standard analysis. It treats in rich detail many areas of application, including topology, functions of a real variable, functions of a complex variable, and normed linear spaces, together with problems of boundary layer flow of viscous fluids and rederivations of Saint-Venant's hypothesis concerning the distribution of stresses in an elastic body. (shrink)

This book offers the fullest and most sophisticated account of Gert's influential moral theory, a model first articulated in the classic work The Moral Rules: A New Rational Foundation for Morality, published in 1970. In this final revision, Gert makes clear that the moral rules are only one part of an informal system that does not provide unique answers to every moral question but does always provide a range of morally acceptable options. A new chapter on reasons includes (...) an account of what makes one reason better than another and a second new chapter is devoted to the question of justifying violations of the rules. Moral impartiality, the moral ideals, and virtue and vice, are all treated in greater detail. Throughout, Gert attempts to answer all of the challenges that his work has provoked. (shrink)

An ethical epoché is required to leave the terrain of a self-evident morality and question its origin. In particular, four fundamental motifs of the ethical dimension are identified: pathos, to be thematised as an alternative to the persistent activist unilateralism; response, which always involves body and soul; diastasis with its stumbles and subtractions; and finally coaffection, in which the social dimension of experience is announced. Ethical behaviour feeds on the magma of pathos, which in turn would be blind and directionless (...) without any ethos. (shrink)

An updated and expanded successor to Culver and Gert's Philosophy in Medicine, this book integrates moral philosophy with clinical medicine to present a comprehensive summary of the theory, concepts, and lines of reasoning underlying the ...

Living corporeity is the intermediate element between nature and culture, which must be thought of as a reciprocal interconnection, since as corporeal beings we always move on a threshold. In the reflection of the bodily self, a doubling between the living body as a functioning subject and as a material object is revealed; after all, even one's own body sometimes takes on the features of a foreign body, as is the case in the experience of illness. In the technical instrument, (...) the body is prolonged and this highlights the connection between the technique of the thing and the technique of the self; however, despite the gradual autonomisation of the technical element from the living corporeity, there remains what escapes calculation and looms large in the subtraction of the alien. (shrink)

The second volume in Joel Feinberg's series The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Offense to Others focuses on the "offense principle," which maintains that preventing shock, disgust, or revulsion is always a morally relevant reason for legal prohibitions. Feinberg clarifies the concept of an "offended mental state" and further contrasts the concept of offense with harm. He also considers the law of nuisance as a model for statutes creating "morals offenses," showing its inadequacy as a model for understanding "profound (...) offenses," and discusses such issues as obscene words and social policy, pornography and the Constitution, and the differences between minor and profound offenses. (shrink)

Bernhard Nickel presents a theory of generic sentences and the kind-directed modes of thought they express. The theory closely integrates compositional semantics with metaphysics to solve the problem that generics pose: what do generics mean? Generic sentences are extremely simple, yet if there are patterns to be discerned in terms of which are true and which are false, these patterns are subtle and complex. Ravens are black, and lions have manes: statistical measures cannot do justice to the facts, but (...) what else is there that has a hope of giving us insight into what we are capturing across so many domains? Nickel argues that generics are the top of a fundamentally explanatory iceberg, and that this explanatory framework is deeply intertwined with the semantics of the language we use to express them. In providing an integrated semantic and metaphysical theory of generics, he aims to solve old puzzles and draw attention to new phenomena. (shrink)

Prologue: on the weakness of education -- Creativity -- Communication -- Teaching -- Learning -- Emancipation -- Democracy -- Virtuosity -- Epilogue: for a pedagogy of the event -- Appendix: coming into the world, uniqueness, and the beautiful risk of education: an interview with Gert Biesta by Philip Winter.

This volume documents for the first time the enormous variety of diverging interpretations and presents a text-oriented analysis of antinomy and its resolution ...

I contrast two approaches to the interpretation of generics such as ‘ravens are black:’ majority-based views, on which they are about what is the case most of the time, and inquiry-based views, on which they are about a feature we focus on in inquiry. I argue that majority-based views face far more systematic counterexamples than has previously been supposed. They cannot account for generics about kinds with multiple characteristic properties, such as ‘elephants live in Africa and Asia.’ I then go (...) on to sketch an inquiry-based view. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing. On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning. On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account (...) for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task. We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference. Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes. We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data. Key Words: action planning; binding; common coding; event coding; feature integration; perception; perception-action interface. (shrink)

When did the concept of model begin to be used in mathematics? This question appears at first somewhat surprising since “model” is such a standard term now in the discourse on mathematics and “modelling” such a standard activity that it seems to be well established since long. The paper shows that the term— in the intended epistemological meaning—emerged rather recently and tries to reveal in which mathematical contexts it became established. The paper discusses various layers of argumentations and reflections in (...) order to unravel and reach the pertinent kernel of the issue. The specific points of this paper are the difference in the epistemological concept to the usually discussed notions of model and the difference between conceptions implied in mathematical practices and their becoming conscious in proper reflections of mathematicians. (shrink)

Die Rede von einem Zwischenreich des Dialogs deutet hin auf den intermedHi. ren Charakter des Dialogs, in dem zwischen uns zustande kommt, was keiner fur sich zustande brachte. Stehen wir immer schon im Dialog, so ist fur jeden der Weg zu sich selbst nicht der kurzeste, sondern der langste, er ginge durch die Welt sowohl wie durch die Andern. Dieser Gesichtspunkt ist keines wegs selbstverstandlich, doch selbst dort, wo er sich Geltung ver schafft, wird er vielfach verdunkelt durch die Verwandlung (...) von Verschiedenem in Gegensatzliches, wenn etwa interpersonale Be ziehung und soziale Verhaltnisse, interpersonales Ereignis und anonyme Prozesse und Strukturen, personliche Umkehr und so ziale Veranderungen gegeneinander ausgespielt werden. N eigt die sogenannte Philosophie des Dialogs dazu, reine zwischenmensch liche Beziehungen abzulosen von der mundanen und sozialen Wirklichkeit, so tendiert ein Denken, das von Geschichte und Gesellschaft ausgeht, dahin, einzig den konkreten Entwicklungs gang einer Menschheit in Rechnung zu stellen. Der wechselseitig erhobene Vorwurf, man verliere sich hierin der AuBerlichkeit des Offentlichen und der bloBen Geschichte, man fluchte sich dort in die Innerlichkeit des Privaten und des bloBen Augenblicks, ware dann nur der Ausdruck dafur, daB entweder das Ganze ohne das Urspriingliche oder das Ursprungliche ohne das Ganze gesucht wird. Was hier auseinanderstrebt, nicht nur in der Theorie, sondern auch in der Lebenspraxis, sind zwei Weisen des mitmenschlichen Umgangs. (shrink)

Proper procedures for informed consent are widely recognized as an ethical requirement for biomedical research involving human beings, in particular as a means to respect the autonomy and personal integrity of potential and actual research participants.

Moral problems do not always come in the form of great social controversies. More often, the moral decisions we make are made quietly, constantly, and within the context of everyday activities and quotidian dilemmas. Indeed, these smaller decisions are based on a moral foundation that few of us ever stop to think about but which guides our every action. Here distinguished philosopher Bernard Gert presents a clear and concise introduction to what he calls "common morality" -- the moral system (...) that most thoughtful people implicitly use when making everyday, common sense moral decisions and judgments. Common Morality is useful in that -- while not resolving every disagreement on controversial issues -- it is able to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable answers to moral problems. In the first part of the book Gert lays out the fundamental features of common morality: moral rules, moral ideals, and a two-step procedure for determining when a violation of a moral rule is justified. Written in a non-technical style, the ten general moral rules include rules on which everyone can agree, such as "do not kill," "do not deceive," and "keep your promises." The moral ideals include similarly uncontroversial precepts such as "Relieve pain" and "Aid the needy." In the second part of the book Gert examines the underlying concepts that justify common morality, such as the notions of rationality and impartiality. The distillation of over 40 years of scholarship, this book is the most accessible version of Gert's influential theory of morality as well as an eye-opening look at the moral foundations of our everyday actions. Throughout the discussion is clear enough for a reader with little or no philosophy background. (shrink)

In den sozialwissenschaftlichen und sozialtheoretischen Diskussionen ruckt nach einer langeren Interimszeit wieder zunehmend die Frage nach den Konstitutionsbedingungen des Sozialen, von Sozialitat bzw. sozialen Gebilden in den Vordergrund.

The problem with authenticity—the idea of being “true to one’s self”—is that its somewhat checkered reputation garners a complete range of favorable and unfavorable reactions. In educational settings, authenticity is lauded as one of the top two traits students desire in their teachers. Yet, authenticity is criticized for its tendency towards narcissism and self-entitlement. So, is authenticity a good or a bad thing? The purpose of this article is to develop an intimate understanding of authenticity by investigating its current interpretation (...) and criticisms, its struggle with narcissism and relation to freedom. Examining authenticity as multilayered self-exploration reveals a composite of understanding, care, and acceptance. While a side current of acceptable tension shifts our understanding of authenticity from the security of self-determination to the messy interplay involved in being “true to one’s self” and being “in-the-world”. (shrink)

We describe a new way in which theories about the deontic status of actions can be represented in terms of the standard two-sorted extensional predicate calculus. Some of the resulting formal theories are easy to implement in Prolog; one prototype implementation--R. M. Lee's deontic expert shell DX--is briefly described.

Ceteris Paribus (cp-)laws may be said to hold only “other things equal,” signaling that their truth is compatible with a range of exceptions. This paper provides a new semantic account for some of the sentences used to state cp-laws. Its core approach is to relate these laws to natural language on the one hand — by arguing that cp-laws are most naturally expressed with generics — and to natural kinds on the other — by arguing that the semantics of generics (...) in the context of the special sciences are best spelled out by appeal to natural kinds. The paper then goes on to draw on these semantics in order to illuminate several problems raised by cp-laws, some familiar, some new. (shrink)

This paper investigates the interaction between semantic theories for cp-laws (roughly, laws that hold “all things equal”) and metaphysical theories of kinds in the special sciences. Its central conclusion is that cp-laws concerning kinds behave differently from cp-laws concerning non-kinds: “ravens are black” which concerns the kind corvus corax, behaves differently from from “albino ravens are white” which concerns the non-kind grouping of albino ravens. I argue that this difference is in the first instance logical: the two sorts of cp-laws (...) give rise to different inferential patterns. I draw two further conclusions. The difference in logical behavior poses a severe problem for extant semantic theories of cp-laws, and: we cannot elucidate the distinction between kinds and non-kinds by suggesting that only kinds can appear in laws. (shrink)

Good’s theorem is the apparent platitude that it is always rational to ‘look before you leap’: to gather information before making a decision when doing so is free. We argue that Good’s theorem is not platitudinous and may be false. And we argue that the correct advice is rather to ‘make your act depend on the answer to a question’. Looking before you leap is rational when, but only when, it is a way to do this.

This article explores the implications of Bernhard Waldenfels’s responsive phenomenology for the discipline of cultural anthropology or ethnology, insofar as it understands itself as the “science of the culturally Other”. It discusses Waldenfels’s own engagement with ethnology and shows the compatibility of his approach with discussions within the discipline. The intertwining of ownness and alienness that is central to Waldenfels’s account of experience is applied to the problem of culture in ethnology. This leads to an acknowledgement of a domain (...) between cultures, a genuine interculturality, as the fundamental field of ethnological research, which, however, can only be addressed through indirect forms of representation. Such forms are identified in the practice of ethnographic citation, and through a reinterpretation of Horace Miner’s classical satire “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, thus demonstrating the possibility of a prospective “responsive ethnology”. (shrink)

Many approaches to the semantics of generic sentences posit an unpronounced quantifier gen. However, while overt quantifiers are conservative, gen does not seem to be. A quantifier Q is conservative iff instances of the following schemas are equivalent: Q As are F and Q As are As that are F. All ravens are black is obviously equivalent to All ravens are ravens that are black, yet ravens are black is not equivalent to ravens are ravens that are black. This may (...) cast doubt on theviability of quantificational analyses of generics. This paper proposes a theory of why such “conservativity” generics are problematic that is compatible with the conservativity of gen and also accounts for perennially troublesome examples such as books are paperbacks and bees are workers. (shrink)

The paper presents a formal explication of the early Wittgenstein's views on ontology, the syntax and semantics of an ideal logical language, and the propositional attitudes. It will be shown that Wittgenstein gave a "language of thought" analysis of propositional attitude ascriptions, and that his ontological views imply that such ascriptions are truth-functions of (and supervenient upon) elementary sentences. Finally, an axiomatization of a quantified doxastic modal logic corresponding to Tractarian semantics will be given.

Die in diesem Band enthaltenen Beiträge gehören in den Umkreis von Waldenfels' 1987 erschienenem Buch Ordnung im Zwielicht. Der dort vorgelegte Grundriß wird hier auf mannigfache Weise ausgeführt und fortgeführt - ein Materialienband also zu Ordnung im Zwielicht, doch gleichzeitig ein Vorbereitungsband zur Behandlung dessen, was Waldenfels dort responsive Rationalität genannt hat.