Visual and cognitive skills are key to successful functioning in highly demanding settings such as elite sports. However, their mutual influence and interdependencies are not sufficiently understood yet. This cross-sectional study examined the relationship between visual skills and executive functions in elite soccer players. Fifty-nine male elite soccer players performed tests assessing visual clarity, contrast sensitivity, near-far quickness, and hand-eye coordination. Executive function measures included working memory capacity, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and selective attention. Overall, visual abilities were largely correlated with (...) executive functions. Near-far quickness performance showed a large correlation with an executive function total score as well as with cognitive flexibility, working memory, and especially selective attention. Visual clarity and contrast sensitivity were moderately correlated with the cognition total score. Most consistent correlations with the visual functions were present for working memory. These findings present an overall vision-cognition relationship but also very specific linkages among subcategories of these functions, especially meaningful relations between near-far quickness, selective attention and cognitive flexibility. Further studies are needed to investigate the neuropsychological mechanisms accounting for the correlations and possible improvements of the executive functions by training specific visual skills. (shrink)

Les recherches sur les usages contribuent-elles à une théorie des pratiques? Les sciences de la communication sont particulièrement concernées par les études d'usages, les Tic constituant des objets de prédilection. Mais l'approche communicationnelle empêche de regarder les pratiques comme des « choses » externes à la recherche. Elle redéfinit le terrain dans l'observation des pratiques sociales, ainsi que des unités d'analyse des pratiques, les composites.Can usage studies contribute to a theory of practices ? The communications sciences are particularly concerned with (...) the study of usage because of the centrality of technologies among the objects it examines. A communicational approach can help us to think about social practices reflexively, taking into account our own research practices. From that standpoint, we can redefine the place of fieldwork and build new objects - "composites". (shrink)

Résumé En prologue de cet article, nous rappelons les circonstances qui ont amené Jochen Hoock à contribuer à une nouvelle Histoire de Rouen. Il vise aussi à caractériser la spécificité de son approche par rapport à celle développée par Jean-Pierre Bardet dans la précédente Histoire de Rouen. Puis est envisagé, en deux temps, l’apport principal de l’auteur. Durant la première moitié du XVIIe siècle Rouen apparaît comme une grande ville marchande sous tension du fait notamment des guerres européennes. Les années (...) 1650-1700 sont marquées par des difficultés économiques liées à l’exacerbation des tensions religieuses avant que le commerce colonial et international serve d’appui à l’expansion industrielle des années 1680-1740. En conclusion, la démarche de Jochen Hoock paraît essentielle en ce qui concerne l’articulation entre commerce et industrie et aussi entre différents niveaux d’analyse, du local à l’international et au global. (shrink)

According to J. L. Schellenberg’s argument from the reasonableness of nonbelief, the fact that many people inculpably fail to find sufficient evidence for the existence of God constitutes evidence for atheism. Schellenberg argues that since a loving God would not withhold the benefits of belief, the lack of evidence for God’s existence is incompatible with divine love. I argue that Schellenberg has not successfully defended his argument’s two controversial premises, that God’s love is incompatible with his allowing some to remain (...) in doubt that he exists, and that the nonbelief of some agnostics is inculpable. From the standpoint of what Christians believe about God, there are plausible reasons, which Schellenberg has not succeeded in refuting, for thinking that all nonbelief is culpable. I argue also that a loving God could have reasons remaining hidden to some persons, which are consistent with his desire to draw all people to faith. (shrink)

L’environnement apparaît à des moments et sous des formes différentes dans les musées de sciences et les musées de société : entre les écomusées soutenus par le premier ministère de l’Environnement, et l’apparition du thème des crises environnementales et du développement durable dans les musées de sciences, on repère également des divergences fortes dans le sens des dynamiques participatives, les dimensions politiques des savoirs sur les relations entre l’homme et la nature, le développement d’une ingénierie des technologies sociales. Le musée (...) apparaît dans cette perspective non pas comme un lieu de diffusion des sciences, mais comme un lieu d’expression culturelle des sciences, sciences de la nature, et sciences sociales.Since the support given to eco-museums by the first Ministry for the Environment and the emergence of environ-mental crisis and sustainable development as an exhibition theme, science museums and social museums have treated the environment at different times and in different ways. Considerable differences can be discerned in areas such as participa-tory dynamics, the political dimensions of knowledge on relationships between humans and nature and the development of social engineering technologies. Museums in this sense increasingly appear to be no longer places for disseminating science, but places for cultural expressions of science, natural sciences and social sciences. (shrink)

À partir du Champignon de la fin du monde d’Anna Tsing, ce texte interroge l’imaginaire résolument optimiste de découverte et de reconquête nourrie par l’attention à ce qui échappe à la destruction, propre à plusieurs travaux récents. Revenant sur la position du chercheur avide de nouveaux récits, soucieux également de ne pas les écraser sous des jugements déterminant a priori ce qui compte et ne compte pas, au risque de les étouffer, l’article invite cependant à ne pas négliger la dimension (...) de perte associée aux catastrophes passées et en cours. À cet égard, il convoque d’autres voix, en dehors des sciences sociales, en particulier celle de l’écrivant allemand W.G. Sebald, lequel accorde une place très importante aux ruines et à la remémoration des mondes perdus, de ce qui a compté pour les disparus, tel l’inlassable effort caractérisant la vie au sein des milieux fragiles. (shrink)

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL IN CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM ABSTRACT In his prolegomena to “the problem of evil in Christianity and Buddhism” Masao Abe compares how Christianity and Buddhism explain the conflict between good and evil, the absolute ethical imperative to do good and avoid evil, and the problem that human beings inevitably fail to comply with that imperative. Abe argues that Buddhism and Christianity agree on the absoluteness of the imperative, but that Buddhism’s notions of the relativity and interdependence of (...) good and evil and “absolute nothingness” beyond good and evil make intelligible, as Christianity does not, the necessity of evil without undermining the ethical imperative to do good, and solve the problem of the failure of to overcome the duality of good and evil at the ethical level. I explore advantages and disadvantage of the responses of Buddhism and Christianity to the problem of evil, according to Abe’s analysis. I argue that Buddhism enjoys an advantage in dealing with the origin of evil and the conflict between good and evil without the burden of Christianity’s problem of theodicy, but suffers a difficulty in explaining why commitment to the ethical imperative is a prerequisite to enlightenment. Christianity’s identification of the good with God gives an advantage in explaining the relation between the ethical imperative and the religious ultimate, but encounters the problem of explaining the origin of evil. (shrink)

Although there are a host of distinct issues associated with discussions of realism and antirealism, the most fundamental is the ontological question whether there is a mind-independent world, a world with a determinate, intrinsic nature that is independent of our theoretical and practical interaction with it. That there is such a mind-independent world is the minimal and most crucial requirement of realism. The main purpose of this paper is to defend this ontological requirement of realism. The ontological requirement involves two (...) propositions---that objects exist whether or not they are known to exist, and that the world has an intrinsic nature that does not depend on our concepts, values, or interests. I defend realism against a number of objections offered by Putnam and Goodman. I argue that the ontological requirement of realism is not undermined by objections to it based upon a consideration of problems concerning reference, the implications of the “agent point of view,” the interest-relativity of concepts, or the multiplicity of versions of the world. (shrink)

Although there are a host of distinct issues associated with discussions of realism and antirealism, the most fundamental is the ontological question whether there is a mind-independent world, a world with a determinate, intrinsic nature that is independent of our theoretical and practical interaction with it. That there is such a mind-independent world is the minimal and most crucial requirement of realism. The main purpose of this paper is to defend this ontological requirement of realism. The ontological requirement involves two (...) propositions---that objects exist whether or not they are known to exist, and that the world has an intrinsic nature that does not depend on our concepts, values, or interests. I defend realism against a number of objections offered by Putnam and Goodman. I argue that the ontological requirement of realism is not undermined by objections to it based upon a consideration of problems concerning reference, the implications of the “agent point of view,” the interest-relativity of concepts, or the multiplicity of versions of the world. (shrink)

The evidential argument for atheism from evil may be appealing because it seems both less naïve and more enlightened than theism. However, implicit in the argument that the world contains so much evil that it could not have been created by God is the tacitnihilistic proposition that the world is so bad that it would be better that it not exist at all. Besides entailing an unattractive rejection of the worth of the existence of the world, atheism motivated by the (...) argument from evil is also embroiled in moral inconsistencies that make it difficult or impossible for the atheologian to live and act in the world with moral consistency and seriousness. (shrink)

In his recent book, The Coherence Theory of Truth, Nicholas Rescher emphasizes the difference between the question of the criterion of truth and the question of the nature of truth. A particular position concerning the criterion of truth, he says, may leave open a variety of options on the question of the nature of truth. There have been several recent attempts to defend coherence theories of rational justification in which coherence is held to be a criterion of truth, but the (...) coherence theory of the nature of truth has been resisted because of the supposed metaphysical implications of such a position. In this paper I shall consider whether the coherence theory of justification can be adequately defended apart from a commitment to the coherence theory of truth. I shall argue that coherence as the criterion of truth does entail that coherence is the nature of truth, that the coherence theory of justification is correct, and that therefore the coherence theory of truth is correct. (shrink)

Socrates did not claim to know many things, but one of the things that he insisted he did know with certainty was that there is a genuine distinction between knowledge and true opinion. Socrates maintained that unless this distinction held, inquiry would be pointless. Such a claim would seem to pre-suppose knowledge of what it means to know, an ability to specify the ground of the distinction between knowledge and true opinion. However, the attempt to bring the manifold forms of (...) knowledge under a unified definition in the Theaetetus ends in perplexity. (shrink)

In a recent article in Faith and Philosophy, Wesley Morriston argues that Plantinga’s Free Will Defense is incompatible with his version of the ontological argument because the former requires that God be free in a sense that precludes a requirement of the latter---that God be morally perfect in all possible worlds. God’s perfection, according to Morriston, includes moral goodness, which requires that God be free in the sense that entails that in some possible worlds God performs wrong actions. I argue (...) that Morriston’sintention is based upon a faulty conception of both God’s perfection and His freedom. God’s perfection does not entail that He has moral obligations which in some possible worlds He fails to discharge, and His freely performing an action does not entail that there are possible worlds in which He does not perform it. (shrink)

Two major obstacles to belief in God in the twenty-first century are the idea that science is incompatible with religious faith, and the idea that the diversity of religions undermines the credibility of belief that any one religion could be truer than the others. This book addresses both of these challenges to belief in God and explores a connection between them. It argues that science and religion are not only compatible, but that some recent scientific discoveries actually support belief in (...) the existence of the Creator God. The diversity of religions is widely believed to undermine the credibility of religious truth claims because of the assumed lack of any way to settle disagreements between different religions. This book argues that one rational way to adjudicate disagreements between the claims of diverse religions is to assess their consistency with contemporary science. The book considers how Christian theism and Buddhism fare in harmonizing their metaphysical frameworks with contemporary scientific cosmology. Although both theistic and Buddhist worldviews resonate with many recent scientific discoveries, the Big Bang theory and cosmic fine-tuning favor the Christian doctrine of creation. (shrink)

An experiment teacher of elementary school try te become an educational adviser. He accepts the collaboration with the researchers, the first one in didactics of history and the second in professional didactics, to get success with examination necessary to become an educational adviser. The didactic experiment concerns an historical debate with pupils to orient them in an historic investigation from an engraving dating from 1787. The analyse shows that the didactic experiment was abandoned for the benefit of institutional prescriptions in (...) which this teacher aims to conforms, its principles of actions and the significantly associations with his future job. It’s in contradiction with the sens of the activity proposed by the researcher in didactics of history. Our longitudinal analysis concerns, first, the teacher analyses the activity of a beginner, second, the experimentation of the debate in his classroom and finally his theorization about the driving of this type of debate in a document required in the examination. (shrink)

Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary (...) precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework. (shrink)

Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary (...) precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework. (shrink)

After a general remark about Armstrong’s conception of ontology, I raise objections against this view and defend an alternative account of the connection between particulars and their properties, involving a kind of ontological dependence which is different from Armstrong’s necessary connection between particulars and their properties.

Recently Ekman gave a derivation in natural deduction such that it either contains a substantial redundant part or else is not normal. It is shown that this problem is caused by a non-normality inherent in the usual modus ponens rule.

Bewerking van een televisiecursus gehouden voor de Bayerische Rundfunk.

1807 konstatiert Hegels "Phänomenologie des Geistes" das Ende der Geschichte. 200 Jahre später scheint es Zeit für eine Bilanz: Wie verhält sich eine von technologischen und medialen Zwängen geprägte Demokratie zu dem von Hegel avisierten System der Freiheit? Als eine Geschichte der vollendeten Geschichte geht dies Buch einer Dialektik der Freiheit nach, die in der Nachfolge der Französischen Revolution im Namen von Gleichheit und Brüderlichkeit Totalität beansprucht. In der Durchsetzung dieses Anspruchs werden Wesenszüge der totalitären Systeme, der Technikfetischismus des Kommunismus (...) und die Propaganda des Faschismus, als Teil einer Entwicklung verständlich, an deren Ende die Logik des Sachzwangs und das Diktat medialer Öffentlichkeit stehen. Sollte sich Freiheit somit gerade dort vollenden, wo - jenseits der Geschichte - mehr denn je passiert, ohne dass sich noch Wesentliches ereignet? (shrink)

Volume 2, part 1 "herausgegeben von Georg Braungart; begrèundet von Ernst Behler in Zusammenarbeit mit Frank Jolles;" volume 3 "begrèundet von Ernst Behler und Frank Jolles; herausgegeben von Claudia Becker.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Political AuthorityA Christian PerspectiveMichael von BrückGeneral Reflection: Apocalyptic and Utopian Models of Progress and ReligionEuropean tradition of thought is shaped by two different mythical imaginations of time structure: apocalyptic thought and the concept of utopia.Jewish apocalyptical thinking culminated in the expectation that God would finally complete the processes of history at the end of time. In conjunction with Iranian dualism this expectation was interpreted metaphysically: After the collapse of (...) the existing order God would create a messianic kingdom of peace and justice, that is, a kingdom under the direct rule of God. This was not “political progress” in the modern sense of the term, for the subject of these final events was God himself or God alone. Human beings might participate in accelerating or slowing down these divine actions by lawful or unlawful behavior—measured according to the Mosaic Law, but human historical acting itself would not lead to a betterment in this sense. Nevertheless, this form of thought gave history a direction, and this is what inspired later Jewish and Christian intentionality. Early Christianity was shaped by the expectation of the coming end of time in the immediate future; however, at the same time it added a remarkable tension to the traditional apocalyptic idea: the tension of fulfillment of time, which had happened already in the advent of Jesus as the Christ (messiah) and an expectation of the imminent completion of time (the return of Christ, which would finally end history and start the new kingdom). Since the second century ad this myth of future time became ontologized or platonized—that is, the future was transferred into an “other world.” This means that the new quality would not be a dimension of the future (only) but graspable in the ecclesiastical mediation of the sacraments. The eucharist was the pharmakon athanasias (medicine of immortality). At the same time there was a mystical dimension that holds that in a specific spiritual experience this dimension might be experienced by any person who would be prepared to receive it as divine grace. The paradigm of early Christianity failed: Christ did not return. There was no new kingdom that would have ended known history. In order to cope with this disappointment, two forms of life emerged that shaped the [End Page 159] spirit of Christianity throughout the Middle Ages, so to speak, until the end of the eighteenth century: ecclesiastical mediation of the saving reality and mystical participation in a transtemporal Beyondness.Utopia develops on the basis of difference between imagination and reality. At least structurally utopian thinking can be found in all cultures; usually it is expressed in the power of myths. This marks a difference between utopia and apocalyptics. There are three different types of utopian thinking: spatial, temporal, and in terms of different states of consciousness. Spatial utopia expects the final accomplishment or climax of history, that is, the essence of hope, in spatial terms, in different regions of the world, faraway, behind oceans or mountains (Atlantis, the country flowing with milk and honey, El Dorado, Shambhala, the islands of the blessed, etc.). These spaces lost their power of inspiring imagination because there are no more white spots on the map, and that is why this utopia had to emigrate into extraterrestrial spaces of the universe (the contemporary myths of ET, Star Wars, etc.)Temporal utopia transfers the field of expectation to the beginning of the world (paradise, Golden Age) or to the end of history (millennialistic thought, communistic utopia). These temporal expectations lost their power of inspiring imagination because the fulfillment was heralded time and again but never happened.Utopia in terms of a different state of consciousness transfers the catastrophe (the turning point of time and history) into the consciousness of human beings (the prophets of Israel, Buddha, Jesus, in a certain way Confucius, modern New Age movements, etc.). An individual or even collective awakening of consciousness in humans would transform the world from within into a new paradise. The credibility of this model is challenged by the actual suffering in the world, which does not seem to diminish.In actual history these three types occur in mixed forms. The Western idea of... (shrink)

We challenge the idea that a cognitive perspective on therapeutic change concerns only memory processes. We argue that inclusion of impairments in more generative cognitive processes is necessary for complete understanding of cases such as depression. In such cases what is identified in the target article as an “integrative memory structure” is crucially supported by processes of mental model construction.

El resurgimiento de la educación tradicional en los Estados Unidos ha generado un intenso debate en la esfera pública. Este artículo examina el debate discursivo que rodea este fenómeno. A medida que las críticas hacia los enfoques educativos progresistas se intensifican, defensores de la educación tradicional argumentan a favor de un retorno a métodos pedagógicos más tradicionales. Este resumen destaca el papel de la esfera pública como espacio de conflicto y negociación de ideas en torno a la educación. Al explorar (...) las perspectivas y los argumentos en disputa, el artículo busca arrojar luz sobre el resurgimiento de la educación tradicional y su impacto en el sistema educativo de los Estados Unidos. (shrink)

Ramsey (1997) argues that connectionist representations 'do not earn their explanatory keep'. The aim of this paper is to examine the argument Ramsey gives to support that conclusion. In doing so, I identify two kinds of explanatory need—need relative to a possible explanation and need relative to a true explanation and argue that internal representations are not needed for either connectionist or nonconnectionist possible explanations but that it is quite likely that they are needed for true explanations. However, to show (...) that the latter is the case requires more than a consideration of the form of explanation involved. (shrink)

Ramsey (1997) argues that connectionist representations ‘do not earn their explanatory keep’. The aim of this paper is to examine the argument Ramsey gives to support that conclusion. In doing so, I identify two kinds of explanatory need—need relative to a possible explanation and need relative to a true explanation and argue that internal representations are not needed for either connectionist or non‐connectionist possible explanations but that it is quite likely that they are needed for true explanations. However, to show (...) that the latter is the case requires more than a consideration of the form of explanation involved. (shrink)

A satisfactory normative theory of acceptable risk would be useful in resolving current disputes over government safety regulation of the workplace, consumer products, and technology. Alan Gewirth has attempted to develop such a theory, arguing from the individual's right not to be harmed by the risk-imposing activities of others. His theory is analyzed in detail, and the difficulties faced by such rights-based (deontological) approaches are pointed out. It is argued that a satisfactory theory will not be of a simple rights-based (...) form. Reason is also given for doubting that it will be of a simple utilitarian form. (shrink)

A Hobbesian Model. If ever possible the modelling of the abstract pattern of the item of a philosophical theory belongs, alas!, to its interpretation. In the case of the Hobbesian theory of the natural right and the natural laws (Lev c. XIV, XV) the mathematics of the covenant-model and of its interpretation by an model of preferences and utilities is a neglect task till now. Its performance shows certain shortcomings of the Hobbesian theory.

"Agreement" is the key notion in Wittgenstein's explanation of the possibility of public language. Agreement in judgements constitutes the justification for asserting agreement in definitions. The determinates of rules are empirical; rules as determinables are transcendental. Rules are on the limit of public language, and not within it. Wittgenstein's skeptical solutions to skepticism about language and about the given are transcendentalistic. His skeptical solutions in other areas are conventionalistic. Skepticism about mental phenomena is not solved because of a systematic rule-gap (...) for the application of non-dispositional psychological concepts. (shrink)

"Agreement" is the key notion in Wittgenstein's explanation of the possibility of public language. Agreement in judgements constitutes the justification for asserting agreement in definitions. The determinates of rules are empirical; rules as determinables are transcendental. Rules are on the limit of public language, and not within it. Wittgenstein's skeptical solutions to skepticism about language and about the given are transcendentalistic. His skeptical solutions in other areas are conventionalistic. Skepticism about mental phenomena is not solved because of a systematic rule-gap (...) for the application of non-dispositional psychological concepts. (shrink)