The exploration of chemical periodicity over the past 250 years led to the development of the Periodic System of Elements and demonstrates the value of vague ideas that ignored early scientific anomalies and instead allowed for extended periods of normal science where new methodologies and concepts are developed. The basic chemical element provides this exploration with direction and explanation and has shown to be a central and historically adaptable concept for a theory of matter far from the reductionist frontier. This (...) is explored in the histories of Prout’s hypothesis, Döbereiner Triads, element inversions necessary when ordering chemical elements by atomic weights, and van den Broeck’s ad-hoc proposal to switch to nuclear charges instead. The development of more accurate methods to determine atomic weights, Rayleigh and Ramsey’s gas separation and analytical techniques, Moseley’s X-ray spectroscopy to identify chemical elements, and more recent accelerator-based cold fusion methods to create new elements at the end of the Periodic Table point to the importance of methodological development complementing conceptual advances. I propose to frame the crossover from physics to chemistry not as a loss of accuracy and precision but as an increased application of vague concepts such as similarity which permit classification. This approach provides epistemic flexibility to adapt to scientific anomalies and the continued growth of chemical compound space and rejects the Procrustean philosophy of reductionist physics. Furthermore, it establishes chemistry with its explanatory and operational autonomy epitomized by the periodic system of elements as a gateway to other experimental sciences. (shrink)

This article sketches an idealized strategy for the identification of neural correlates of consciousness. The proposed strategy is based on a state space approach originating from the analysis of dynamical systems. The article then focuses on one constituent of consciousness, phenomenal awareness. Several rudimentary requirements for the identification of neural correlates of phenomenal awareness are suggested. These requirements are related to empirical data on selective attention, on completely intrinsic selection and on globally unconscious states. As an example, neuroscientific findings on (...) synchronized γ activity are categorized according to these requirements. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...) rather than hypothetico-deductive inferential paradigm. However, these proposals deliver no clear guidelines about how such plurality of evidence sources should jointly justify hypotheses of causal associations. We here develop such guidelines by first giving a philosophical analysis of the underpinnings of Hill’s viewpoints on causality. We then put forward an evidence-amalgamation framework adopting a Bayesian net approach to model causal inference in pharmacology for the assessment of harms. Our framework accommodates a number of intuitions already expressed in the literature concerning the EBM vs. pluralist debate on causal inference, evidence hierarchies, causal holism, relevance, and reliability. (shrink)

Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality from symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between person and personification. Where it is too strongly individualized, it ceases to be allegory […]. In the community of scholars of intermedia research, the above quoted citation is commonly regarded as Coleridge’s coining of the term “intermedium” or “intermediality”. However, a short glance at the discursive strategy of his argument emphasizes that his notion of “intermedium” must be closely linked to the poetics (...) and aesthetics of 19th-century romanticism. For the romantic poet, the term of “intermedium” does not point to media relations or intermedia processes but to.. (shrink)

According to the objective Bayesian approach to inductive logic, premisses inductively entail a conclusion just when every probability function with maximal entropy, from all those that satisfy the premisses, satisfies the conclusion. When premisses and conclusion are constraints on probabilities of sentences of a first-order predicate language, however, it is by no means obvious how to determine these maximal entropy functions. This paper makes progress on the problem in the following ways. Firstly, we introduce the concept of a limit in (...) entropy and show that, if the set of probability functions satisfying the premisses contains a limit in entropy, then this limit point is unique and is the maximal entropy probability function. Next, we turn to the special case in which the premisses are categorical sentences of the logical language. We show that if the uniform probability function gives the premisses positive probability, then the maximal entropy function can be found by simply conditionalising this uniform prior on the premisses. We generalise our results to demonstrate agreement between the maximal entropy approach and Jeffrey conditionalisation in the case in which there is a single premiss that specifies the probability of a sentence of the language. We show that, after learning such a premiss, certain inferences are preserved, namely inferences to inductive tautologies. Finally, we consider potential pathologies of the approach: we explore the extent to which the maximal entropy approach is invariant under permutations of the constants of the language, and we discuss some cases in which there is no maximal entropy probability function. (shrink)

In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the periodic table’s origins and history, and of the elements which conspired to make it chemistry’s most recognisable icon. We pay attention to Mendeleev’s role in the development of a system for organising the elements and chemical knowledge while facilitating the teaching of chemistry. We look at how the reception of the table in different chemical communities was dependent on the local scientific, cultural and political context, but argue that its (...) eventual universal acceptance is due to its unique ability to accommodate possessed knowledge while enabling novel predictions. Furthermore, we argue that its capacity to unify apparently disconnected phenomena under a simple framework facilitates our understanding of periodicity, making the table an icon of aesthetic value, and an object of philosophical inquiry. Finally, we briefly explore the table’s iconicity throughout its representations in pop art and science fiction. (shrink)

Augmented Reality (AR) is commonly defined as a digital layer of information viewed on top of the physical world through a smartphone, tablet or eyewear. Increasingly, this understanding of AR is shifting to a dynamic framework of ‘smart things’, including wearable technology, sensors and artificial intelligence (AI), with the ability to intercede in key moments and to deliver contextual and meaningful experiences. The things that come into context are the logical next steps in an evolutionary development towards computers that are (...) better able to show empathy in relation to people: even more human-oriented, anticipative and ubiquitous. Thus, this outsourcing of meaning to empathic technologies points to one of the fundamental questions concerning the relation of human and technology – the nature of the trust that users place in technology. (shrink)

Epistemic scoring rules are the en vogue tool for justifications of the probability norm and further norms of rational belief formation. They are different in kind and application from statistical scoring rules from which they arose. In the first part of the paper I argue that statistical scoring rules, properly understood, are in principle better suited to justify the probability norm than their epistemic brethren. Furthermore, I give a justification of the probability norm applying statistical scoring rules. In the second (...) part of the paper I give a variety of justifications of norms for rational belief formation employing statistical scoring rules. Furthermore, general properties of statistical scoring rules are investigated. Epistemic scoring rules feature as a useful technical tool for constructing statistical scoring rules. (shrink)

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find (...) that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness. (shrink)

As digital media becomes more central to the lives of adolescents, it also becomes increasingly relevant for their sexual communication. Sexting as an important image-based digital medium provides opportunities for self-determined digital communication, but also carries specific risks for boundary violations. Accordingly, sexting is understood either as an everyday, or as risky and deviant behavior among adolescents. In the affectedness of boundary violations gender plays an important role. However, it is still unclear to what extent digital sexual communication restores stereotypical (...) gender roles and restrictive sexuality norms or, alternatively, enables new spaces of possibility. In this sense, current research points to a desideratum regarding adolescents’ orientations toward sexting as a practice between spaces of possibility and boundary violations. This paper discusses the possibilities, but also the risks, of intimate digital communication among adolescents. The main question is, how adolescents themselves perceive sexting practices and how they position themselves between both spaces for possibility and for the exchange of unwanted sexual content. For this purpose, orientations toward normalities and gender of students are reconstructed. To answer these questions, twelve single-sex, group discussions were carried out with students aged 16 and 17 at five different secondary schools in northern Germany. A total of 20 boys and 22 girls took part. The group discussions were structured by a narrative generating guideline. The analysis draws its methodology from the Documentary Method, regarding implicit and explicit forms of knowledge and discourse. It results in a typology of three types with different orientations. The study shows, that most of the students consider sexting to be a risky practice; only one type shows normality in the use of sexting. At the same time, some of the young people are interested in experimenting with image-based intimate digital communication. Further, gender differences in use and affectedness are also documented. In this way, orientations toward gender stereotypes “favor” both the attribution of responsibility to girls, and overlook the responsibility of students who perpetrated the boundary violation. The orientations of adolescents should be taken more into account in research as well as in educational programs for the prevention of sexual violence. (shrink)

This paper presents the contributions of Alcindo Flores Cabral, professor of Chemistry at the Faculdade de Agronomia Eliseu Maciel, nowadays part of the Universidade Federal de Pelotas, to chemistry teaching. It is a contribution almost unknown to the Brazilian chemical community, although recognized as valuable by several renowned chemists abroad, like W. Hückel, G. Charlot, F. Strong, E. Fessenden and others. Cabral’s innovative helical representation is presented in connection not only with contemporary representations, but also an incursion is made into (...) the first helical systems proposed, those of Hinrichs and of Baumhauer. Some comments are made not only on Cabral’s Classificação Natural dos Elementos, published in 1946, but also about other texts he wrote for an efficient chemistry teaching. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta a contribuição de Alcindo Flores Cabral (1907-1982) - professor de química da Faculdade de Agronomia Eliseu Maciel, hoje incorporada à Universidade Federal de Pelotas - ao ensino de química, uma contribuição quase desconhecida pela própria comunidade química brasileira, embora reconhecida como relevante por diversos químicos estrangeiros importantes, como W. Hückel, G. Charlot, F. Strong, E. Fessenden e outros. A inovadora representação helicoidal de Cabral é apresentada não só em conexão com representações contemporâneas, mas também inclui-se uma incursão (...) pelos primeiros sistemas helicoidais propostos, os de Hinrichs e de Baumhauer. Apresentam-se alguns comentários não somente sobre a Classificação natural dos elementos, publicada em 1946, mas também sobre outros textos escritos para tornar mais eficaz o ensino de química. (shrink)

O presente trabalho examina os aspectos históricos da extração do óleo de canela-sassafrás (Ocotea pretiosa Mez), rico em safrol, no Alto e Médio Vale do Itajaí, a partir de 1940, por iniciativa de Otto Grimm, no município de Rio do Sul. Apresenta-se o tema no contexto da memória química em Santa Catarina, e discutem-se os procedimentos utilizados, e principalmente os motivos que levaram tal indústria incipiente a não se converter em uma indústria de química fina. Para tanto, são apresentados alguns (...) dados pertinentes à química do safrol, indicando que tal indústria poderia ter evoluído, bem como os aspectos econômicos e sociais que, ao lado da proibição do corte da canela-sassafrás, levaram em 1990 à extinção definitiva dessa "química fina que poderia ter sido". (shrink)

Dos diferentes fatores associados a uma mudança de paradigma e, portanto, a uma revolução química, o menos discutido é o que envolve os assim chamados experimentos exemplares, mudanças radicais na metodologia de trabalho e nos procedimentos empíricos da química, mudanças e modificações estas que, no caso de uma ciência natural empírica, podem ter como consequência dados experimentais antes inacessíveis, levando, por fim, a uma nova abordagem de conceitos, hipóteses e teorias e desencadeando uma "revolução" química, um novo paradigma. Muito mais (...) do que uma revolução química, dever-se-ia optar por uma gradativa evolução química. Escolhemos três dessas situações como "exemplares": a modificação no procedimento empírico da química pneumática, com o uso da cuba pneumática contendo mercúrio; a introdução de novos métodos de extração de compostos orgânicos naturais, com a substituição do método pirogênico pelo de extração com solventes; um novo entendimento de "análise química", com a substituição da comparação de amostras tidas como autênticas pela decomposição do analito. (shrink)

The chemist Max von Pettenkofer studied with Justus von Liebig, and after leaving Giessen in 1844 did not immediately find an academic position. During the period 1844/1845 he wrote a cycle of 16 Chemical Sonnets, but published them only in 1886. The Sonnets have with few exceptions a historiographical character. We present a translation of the Sonette into Portuguese as well as commentaries about their content and their philosophical significance. We also comment rather briefly on Pettenkofer’s career as an empirical (...) chemist and later as a somewhat heterodox hygienist. (shrink)

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

The origin and the development of scientific disciplines has been a topic of reflection for several decades. The few extensive case studies support the thesis that scientific disciplines are not monolithic structures but can be characterized by distinct social, organizational and scientific–technical practices. Nonetheless, most disciplinary histories of genetics confine themselves largely to an uncontested account of the content of the discipline or occasionally institutional factors. Little attention is paid to the large number of researchers who, by their joint efforts, (...) ultimately shaped the discipline. We contribute to this aspect of disciplinary historiography by discussing the role of women researchers at the Institute for Heredity Research, founded in 1914 in Berlin under the directorship of Erwin Baur, and the sister of the John Innes Institute at Cambridge. This paper investigates how and why Baur built a highly successful research programme that relied on the efforts of his female staff, whose careers, notably Elisabeth Schiemann's, are also assessedin toto. These women undertook the necessary ‘technoscience’ and in some cases innovative work and helped increase the prestige of the institute and its director. Together they played a pivotal role in the establishment of genetics in Germany. Without them the discipline would have developed much more slowly and along a divergent path. (shrink)

Ethik hat es weder nur mit Grundlagenfragen noch allein mit konkreten Anwendungsproblemen zu tun. Sie ist vielmehr zusatzlich durch vermittelnde Gliederungselemente und -systeme bestimmt. Dieser Thematik wurde bisher kaum die notwendige systematische Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Das Handbuch widmet sich den drei historisch wirkmachtigsten Gliederungsschlusseln angewandter Ethik: den Geboten (in Gestalt des Dekalogs), den (Kardinal-)Tugenden und den Pflichtenkreisen. Den Abschluss bildet die Frage, welche Gliederungssysteme den sich immer starker nach Sachbereichen differenzierenden ethischen Diskurs der Gegenwart bestimmen.

In ancient philosophy, there is no discipline called “logic” in the contemporary sense of “the study of formally valid arguments.” Rather, once a subfield of philosophy comes to be called “logic,” namely in Hellenistic philosophy, the field includes (among other things) epistemology, normative epistemology, philosophy of language, the theory of truth, and what we call logic today. This entry aims to examine ancient theorizing that makes contact with the contemporary conception. Thus, we will here emphasize the theories of the “syllogism” (...) in the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions. However, because the context in which these theories were developed and discussed were deeply epistemological in nature, we will also include references to the areas of epistemological theorizing that bear directly on theories of the syllogism, particularly concerning “demonstration.” Similarly, we will include literature that discusses the principles governing logic and the components that make up arguments, which are topics that might now fall under the headings of philosophy of logic or non-classical logic. This includes discussions of problems and paradoxes that connect to contemporary logic and which historically spurred developments of logical method. For example, there is great interest among ancient philosophers in the question of whether all statements have truth-values. Relevant themes here include future contingents, paradoxes of vagueness, and semantic paradoxes like the liar. We also include discussion of the paradoxes of the infinite for similar reasons, since solutions have introduced sophisticated tools of logical analysis and there are a range of related, modern philosophical concerns about the application of some logical principles in infinite domains. Our criterion excludes, however, many of the themes that Hellenistic philosophers consider part of logic, in particular, it excludes epistemology and metaphysical questions about truth. Ancient philosophers do not write treatises “On Logic,” where the topic would be what today counts as logic. Instead, arguments and theories that count as “logic” by our criterion are found in a wide range of texts. For the most part, our entry follows chronology, tracing ancient logic from its beginnings to Late Antiquity. However, some themes are discussed in several eras of ancient logic; ancient logicians engage closely with each other’s views. Accordingly, relevant publications address several authors and periods in conjunction. These contributions are listed in three thematic sections at the end of our entry. (shrink)