In the Fall 1988 issue of Informal Logic, John McMurtry suggests that the current mass communication system "obstructs and deforms our thinking and our reasoning by a general system of deception" (p. 133). This essay suggests that McMurtry's view of the mass media is inaccurate. The mass media needs to make choices about what material it includes; McMurtry's description of the media could be explained by a rational theory of media agenda setting. Finally. it is argued that critical thinkers need (...) to go beyond the mass media to make decisions; the mass media should not be expected to provide all arguments and viewpoints. (shrink)

Spreds form a new protein family with an N‐terminal Enabled/VASP homology 1 domain (EVH1), a central c‐Kit binding domain (KBD) and a C‐terminal Sprouty‐related domain (SPR). They are able to inhibit the Ras–ERK signalling pathway after various mitogenic stimulations. In mice, Spred proteins are identified as regulators of bone morphogenesis, hematopoietic processes, allergen‐induced airway eosinophilia and hyperresponsiveness. They inhibit cell motility and metastasis and have a high potential as tumor markers and suppressors of carcinogenesis. Moreover, in vertebrates, XtSpreds help together (...) with XtSprouty proteins to coordinate gastrulation and mesoderm specification. Here, we give an overview of this new field and summarize the domain functions, binding partners, expression patterns and the cellular localizations, regulations and functions of Spred proteins and try to give perspectives for future scientific directions. BioEssays 29:897–907, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

John von Neumann (1903-1957) was undoubtedly one of the scientific geniuses of the 20th century. The main fields to which he contributed include various disciplines of pure and applied mathematics, mathematical and theoretical physics, logic, theoretical computer science, and computer architecture. Von Neumann was also actively involved in politics and science management and he had a major impact on US government decisions during, and especially after, the Second World War. There exist several popular books on his personality and various collections (...) focusing on his achievements in mathematics, computer science, and economy. Strangely enough, to date no detailed appraisal of his seminal contributions to the mathematical foundations of quantum physics has appeared. Von Neumann's theory of measurement and his critique of hidden variables became the touchstone of most debates in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Today, his name also figures most prominently in the mathematically rigorous branches of contemporary quantum mechanics of large systems and quantum field theory. And finally - as one of his last lectures, published in this volume for the first time, shows - he considered the relation of quantum logic and quantum mechanical probability as his most important problem for the second half of the twentieth century. The present volume embraces both historical and systematic analyses of his methodology of mathematical physics, and of the various aspects of his work in the foundations of quantum physics, such as theory of measurement, quantum logic, and quantum mechanical entropy. The volume is rounded off by previously unpublished letters and lectures documenting von Neumann's thinking about quantum theory after his 1932 Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. The general part of the Yearbook contains papers emerging from the Institute's annual lecture series and reviews of important publications of philosophy of science and its history. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Includes articles by: Ulrich Arnswald, Jens Kertscher, Matthias Kross, Thomas Macho, Walter Mesch, Dieter Mersch, Regine Munz, Hans Julius Schneider, Hans-Peter Schutt, Ilse Somavilla, Samuel C. Wheeler III, Anja Weiberg, Rüdiger Zill.

Der Band versammelt 29 Aufsätze, die Walter Haug in seinen letzten Lebensjahren geschrieben hat. In ihnen entwickelt er die großen Themen seines Lebenswerkes - insbesondere seine Beschäftigung mit dem höfischen Roman und der Mystik - weiter und führt sie zusammen unter dem titelgebenden Aspekt der Negativität, d.h. des Scheiterns, des Verlustes, der Trennung. Die erotische Liebe wie die mystische Gottesbegegnung, deren absoluten Anspruch die Wirklichkeit nie ganz zu erfüllen vermag, können durch Literatur in ihrem Scheitern dargestellt und gerade dadurch (...) erfahrbar gemacht werden. Literaturtheoretische und philosophiegeschichtliche Überlegungen bilden einen Schwerpunkt des Bandes, dessen Themenkreis über den höfischen Roman und die Mystik hinaus Heldenepik, Märendichtung, Lyrik und anderes mehr umfasst. Der Band spiegelt die Lebendigkeit und Vielseitigkeit von Haugs Denken und erlaubt zuletzt, über sechs Reden und Nachrufe, einen sehr persönlichen Blick auf diesen herausragenden Wissenschaftler und Menschen. (shrink)

Der Laureatus dieser Schrift hatte 1986 Hans Jonas eröffnet, daß er an einer Politischen Philosophie arbeite, aus der, wie die Autoren dieses Bandes wissen, nichts geworden ist und von der man auch sonst nicht viel vernommen hat. Jonas wandte damals ein: "Wie wollen Sie der Politischen Vernunft auf die Beine helfen? Das Wissen über die politischen Bewußtseinsvoraussetzungen in uns und ihre Struktur in Gesellschaften ist in esoterische Teilbestände und exoterische politische Religionen, Ideologien und Denkschulen zerfallen. Diese Angelegenheit müßte einer umfassenden (...) Kritik unterzogen werden. Außerdem müßten alle gescheiterten Restitutionsversuche von Platon bis heute auf ihre Prägnanz hin durchgegangen werden. Er nannte Thomas von Aquin, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Arendt, Strauss, Voegelin und sich selbst. Sie müßten die Erfahrungen und die Maßstäbe, aus denen das politische Bewußtsein sich ernährt und aufrichtet und die, die es vergiften, frei legen." Im nachfolgenden Gespräch über verschiedene Denker und ihre Texte zur politischen Philosophie tauchten metaphorisch die "leuchtenden Fünkchen" oder "Goldklümpchen" auf, in denen Jonas und der Laureatus lebendige Reste der Politischen Vernunft und die menschheitliche Erinnerung an sie erkannten. "Wir sind womöglich aus einer Jeremiade herausgekommen …" lautete der verheißungsvolle Schlußpunkt des kurzen Gesprächs. Der Laureatus, Jurist und Politikwissenschaftler, konnte während seiner Lehr- und Forschungstätigkeit einige Anregungen für "philosophische Fragestellungen" zu den grotesken und verflachten Formationen des politischen Denkens unserer Zeit geben. Die Autoren sind Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Giandomenico Bonanni, Ulrich Diehl, Michael Ensslen, Jürgen Gebhardt, Volker Gerhardt, Manfred Henningsen, Vittorio Hösle, Klaus Kodalle, Peter König, Daniel Krochmalnik, Jan-Ivar Lindén, Reiner Manstetten, Krzysztof Maurin, Peter J. Opitz, Thomas Petersen, Walter Rothholz, Florian Sattler, Stephan Sattler, Julius H. Schoeps, Peter von Sivers, Chiara Staude-Colli, Jakob Staude, Kurt Stenzel, Peter Weber-Schäfer, Reiner Wiehl und James Wood. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1936, Walter Benjamin’s “Artwork” essay has become a canonical text about the status and place of the fine arts in modern mass culture. Benjamin was especially concerned with the ability of new technologies—notably film, sound recording, and photography—to reproduce works of art in great number. Benjamin could not have foreseen the explosion of imagery and media that has occurred during the past fifty years. Does Benjamin’s famous essay still speak to this new situation? That is (...) the question posed by the editors of this book to a wide range of leading scholars and thinkers across a spectrum of disciplines in the humanities. The essays gathered here do not hazard a univocal reply to that question; rather they offer a rich, wide-ranging critique of Benjamin’s position that refracts and reflects contemporary thinking about the ethical, political, and aesthetic implications of life in the digital age. (shrink)

In his works on natural philosophy, Walter Burley designed a theory about one particular kind of opposition, namely contrariety. In this respect, one of his most peculiar tractates is the Tractatus primus. However, also in his Physics-commentary, in his Tractatus secundus and in the quaestio Utrum contraria adequata in virtute agant et patiantur ad invicem? one finds arguments revealing a dialectical approach to the problem of the specific identity and/or incompatibility of contrariously opposed qualities. Burley’s rea­­sonings compose an original (...) attempt to use philosophical dialectic not only as a meth­od of disputation, but moreover primarily as a theory of the mediation of opposites. These arguments refer to the scope of natural philosophy, logic, ethics and medicine. An analysis of these arguments and of the criticisms of Thomas Wylton and Konrad of Megenberg reveals Burley’s dialectical approach to be an eminent historical contribution to the solution of fundamental questions within the realm of Aristotelian metaphysics. (shrink)

Schlusslogische Letztbegründung is a collection of essays in honor of Kurt Walter Zeidler. Mr. Zeidler is a distinguished Kant- and Neo-Kantian-scholar who has reconstructed Kant's concept of transcendental logic in connection with the logic of the concept of Hegel and the logic of symbolization of Peirce. (cf. Zeidler: Grundriss der transzendentalen Logik, 3rd ed., Wien 2017) He has most notably inquired intensively into the relation of transcendental logic to philosophy of science (cf. Zeidler: Prolegomena zur Wissenschaftstheorie, Wien 2000) and (...) to phenomenology (cf. Zeidler: Vermittlungen. Zum antiken und neueren Idealismus, Wien 2016). He has also published several studies on Neo-Kantianism (cf. Zeidler: Provokationen. Zu Problemen des Neukantianismus, Wien 2018). This is refelected in the collection of essays by distinguished scholars who discuss and critically examine Zeidler's work. It includes contributions by Steinar Mathisen (Oslo), Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Vienna), Werner Flach (Lichtenau), Thomas Knoppe (Straberg), Geert Edel (Wyk/Föhr), Martin Bunte (Münster), Reinhard Hiltscher (Dresden), Walter Tydecks (Bensheim), Christian Krijnen (Amsterdam), Hartwig Wiedebach (Zürich), Max Gottschlich (Linz), Thomas Sören Hoffmann (Hagen), Rudolf Meer (Kaliningrad), Hans-Jürgen Müller (Frankfurt am Main), Robert König (Vienna), Ulrich Blau (Marburg), Karen Gloy (Luzern/Munich), Reinhold Breil (Aachen), Erhard Oeser (Vienna), Hans-Dieter Klein (Vienna), Hans Martin Dober (Tübingen), Kurt Walter Zeidler (Vienna) and Lois Marie Rendl (Vienna). (shrink)

The following article starts by summarising how much modern capitalism is characterised by its religious structure. The world of branding — consumer goods becoming religiously attractive — and religious metaphors that have become necessary to describe contemporary neoliberalism are key examples. A second step consists in describing four typical aspects of religious capitalism in the following of Walter Benjamin's fragment `Capitalism as Religion' from 1921. Against this background I thirdly summarise Hans G. Ulrich's theological ethics concerning the economy. (...) At the centre of Ulrich's ethics we find his emphasis on God's economy that relieves us from all our worries enabling us thereby to become cooperators of God acting and working in an ethical way. A final step discusses Ulrich's rejection of an ethics of striving for God as the summum bonum by showing that desire or will do not necessarily contradict with the priority of God's grace. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift umfasst 22 nationale und internationale Beiträge zu Ehren des Jubilars, darunter von solch renommierten Autoren wie Werner Flach, Christian Krijnen, Ulrich Blau, Erhard Oeser, Hans-Dieter Klein, um nur diese zu nennen. – Sie enthält ferner eine Stellungnahme von K. W. Zeidler, wo dieser im Dialog mit den Beiträgern jeweilige kritische Punkte seiner Schlusslogischen Letztbegründung klar zu stellen sich bemüht. – Ein Siglen- und Abkürzungsverzeichnis sowie eine Bibliographie des Jubilars runden die Ausgabe ab. Kurt Walter Zeidler darf (...) als einer jener selten gewordenen Denker gelten, die in unermüdlichem Reflexionseinsatz seit Jahrzehnten sich für die seit längerem in Gefahr geratene klassische Philosophie auf einem ihrer Hochplateaus, der Transzendentalphilosophie, genauer noch: deren postneukantianischer Erscheinungsform einsetzen, dies im lebendigen Wechselgespräch mit einer Reihe von Meisterdenkern von Platon und Aristoteles an über Leibniz, die neuzeitliche Aufklärung hin zu Kant, dann über Fichte, Hegel, Schelling zu ausgewählten Neukantianern sowie z. T. auch polemisch zu den ‚Modernen‘ und dem neo-nominalistischen Zeitgeist weithin. – Die Position Zeidlers dem allen gegenüber ist im Grunde sehr einfach zu kennzeichnen: Es ist ein Denken einer ihre eigene Geschichte in ihren ‚großen‘ Gestalten einbeziehenden Vernunft, die in ihrem Prinzipien-Selbst als theoretischer wie praktischer Erst- und Gesamtgrund menschliche Würde wie auch diesheitliche Ganzheit zu fundieren und zu garantieren vermag. – Zeidler darf in diesem Panorama mit Fug und Recht als eine Art Leuchtturm im rasch wechselnden Gewölk modernen und nachmodernen Gedankenlebens erscheinen. (shrink)

ULRICH NORTMANN, Modale Syllogismen, mögliche Welten, Essentialismus. Eine Analyse der aristotelischen Modallogik (Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie/ Perspectives in Analytical Philosophy, vol. 9). Berlin and New York:Walter de Gruyter, 1996. x +427 pp. DM 260.00 (for members of the Society for Analytical Philosophy DM 98.00). ISBN 3-1 1-014660-6.

Ein Gespenst geht um in den Wissenschaften - das Gespenst des Gedankenexperiments. Gedankenexperimente verheißen Erkenntnisgewinn ohne empirische Arbeit - was vor dem Selbstverständnis der modernen Naturwissenschaften jedoch einer Unmöglichkeit gleichkommt. Und doch zieht sich das Forschen mit Gedankenexperimenten wie ein roter Faden durch die lange Tradition in den empirischen Wissenschaften von ihren Anfängen bei Stevin, Galilei und Newton bis heute.

Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal‐producing and signal‐consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny’s proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring (...) representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer‐based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.; e‐mail: ulrich[email protected]. (shrink)

Emile Borel regards the Banach-Tarski Paradox as a reductio ad absurdum of the Axiom of Choice. Peter Forrest instead blames the assumption that physical space has a similar structure as the real numbers. This paper argues that Banach and Tarski's result is not paradoxical and that it merely illustrates a surprising feature of the continuum: dividing a spatial region into disjoint pieces need not preserve volume.

Herausgegeben von Walter Senner OP (Federf hrender Herausgeber), Kaspar Elm, Thomas Eggensperger OP, Isnard W. Frank OP, Ulrich Horst OP Mit neuen Methoden und Fragestellungen ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten die Erforschung der Geschichte der Bettelorden vorangetrieben und ihre ber die engere Ordens- und Kirchengeschichte hinausgehende Bedeutung f r Politik-, Wirtschafts- und Sozial-, f r Bildungs- und Geistesgeschichte herausgearbeitet worden. Zur Intensivierung und Koordinierung der sie ber hrenden Forschungen gibt die deutsche Dominikanerprovinz Teutonia die Reihe "Quellen und Forschungen (...) zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens. Neue Folge" heraus. Auch in der Neuen Folge wird die Geschichte der Dominikaner im deutschen Sprachraum den Schwerpunkt bilden. Es werden auch wichtige Untersuchungen zur Ordensverfassung und Fr mmigkeit, zur Philosophie und Theologie aufgenommen, die f r den Dominikanerorden im Untersuchungsraum Verbindlichkeit oder Bedeutsamkeit hatten, selbst wenn die untersuchte Thematik ihrer Entstehung nach nicht speziell mit den deutschen Dominikanern und Dominikanerinnen zu tun hatte. Der Begriff Dominikanerorden wird in einem weiten Sinn verstanden. Alle Gemeinschaften, die nach rechtlicher Verfassung oder geistlicher Ausrichtung mit den Dominikanern zu tun hatten, werden ihm subsumiert: der Predigerorden, die dominikanischen Frauenkl ster und -gemeinschaften, die losen Verb nde der Dritten Orden sowie die verschiedenen Bruderschaften. Dem Zeitraum nach ist Forschungsgegenstand die Geschichte des Dominikanerordens von den Anf ngen bis in die unmittelbare Vergangenheit. Dabei ist auch gedacht an die Aufarbeitung von Entstehen und Geschichte der verschiedenen dominikanischen Frauengemeinschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts, die mit ihren religi sen und sozialen Aktivit ten in der sich rasch wandelnden Gesellschaft eine bedeutende, bisher meist untersch tzte Rolle spielten. Zum Lehrstuhl von P. Prof. Walter Senner OP: http: //philo.pust.op.org/prof/senner/index.html Zur Seite von Dr. theol. Thomas Eggensperger OP, M.A. http: //www.institut-chenu.eu. (shrink)

In Interfaces of the World, Walter J. Ong explores the effects on consciousness of the word as it moves through oral to written to print and electronic culture.

This volume contains a selection of nine essays with an interdisciplinary perspective. They were originally presented at the Sixth International Conference on Word and Music Studies, which was held at Edinburgh University in June 2007 and was organized by the International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA). The contributions to this volume focus on self-reference in various systematic, historical and intermedial ways. Self-reference - including, as a special case, metareference (the self-conscious reflection on music, literature and other medial concerns) (...) - is explored, among others, in instrumental music by Mozart, Mahler and Satie, in the structure and performance of (meta-)operas, in operatic adaptations of drama and filmic adaptations of opera, as well as in intermedial novelistic references to music. The essays cover a historical range from the 18th century to the present and are of interest to literary and opera scholars and students, musicologists as well as all readers generally interested in medial self-reference and intermediality studies. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe there to be a fundamental difference between the present and past and future times, but they tend to disagree amongst themselves about what this difference is. Some think that the present is singled out by consciousness, while others believe that it marks the position to which the flow of time has advanced. According to presentism, the current moment is ontologically privileged: nothing exists that is not present. My aim in this chapter is to argue that this particular (...) attempt at distinguishing the present from other times is unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper defends three theses: (i) that presentism is either trivial or untenable; (ii) that the debate between tensed and tenseless theories of time is not about the status of presentism; and (iii) that there is no temporal analogue of the modal thesis of actualism.

When people suffer they always suffer as a whole human being. The emotional, cognitive and spiritual suffering of human beings cannot be completely separated from all other kinds of suffering, such as from harmful natural, ecological, political, economic and social conditions. In reality they interact with each other and influence each other. Human beings do not only suffer from somatic illnesses, physical pain, and the lack of decent opportunities to satisfy their basic vital, social and emotional needs. They also suffer (...) when they are not able to experience and grasp any meaning of life even if such suffering is not quite as obvious as most forms of physical, social and emotional suffering. Suffering from the lack for the sense of the meaning of life is a special form of emotional, cognitive, and spiritual suffering. Although all human beings share the same basic human need for some meaning of life, the fulfilment of this need is highly individual and personal. Although all forms of human suffering can be a challenge to the meaning of life, the personal conditions of suffering usually are a stronger challenge for the meaning of life. Among the personal conditions of human suffering, the Grenzsituationen cannot be cancelled or raised at all, but only accepted and coped with as existential aspects of the conditio humana. According to Karl Jaspers these are: death, suffering, struggling, guilt, and failing. The challenge for human beings to cope with these Grenzsituationen is a way to move from the mere Being-there to true human Existence. (shrink)

Successful transitions to a sustainable bioeconomy require novel technologies, processes, and practices as well as a general agreement about the overarching normative direction of innovation. Both requirements necessarily involve collective action by those individuals who purchase, use, and co-produce novelties: the consumers. Based on theoretical considerations borrowed from evolutionary innovation economics and consumer social responsibility, we explore to what extent consumers’ scope of action is addressed in the scientific bioeconomy literature. We do so by systematically reviewing bioeconomy-related publications according to (...) the extent to which consumers are regarded as passive vs. active, and different domains of consumer responsibility. We find all aspects of active consumption considered to varying degrees but observe little interconnection between domains. In sum, our paper contributes to the bioeconomy literature by developing a novel coding scheme that allows us to pinpoint different aspects of consumer activity, which have been considered in a rather isolated and undifferentiated manner. Combined with our theoretical considerations, the results of our review reveal a central research gap which should be taken up in future empirical and conceptual bioeconomy research. The system-spanning nature of a sustainable bioeconomy demands an equally holistic exploration of the consumers’ prospective and shared responsibility for contributing to its coming of age, ranging from the procurement of information on bio-based products and services to their disposal. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that the structuralist approachprovides a powerful framework for the analysis of certain holistic phenomena in empirical theories.We focus on two aspects of holism. The first refers to the involvement of comprehensive complexes of hypothesesin the theoretical treatment of systems regarded in isolation. By contrast, the second refers to thecorrelation between the theoretical descriptions of different systems. It is demonstrated how these two aspectscan be analysed by making use of the structuralist notion of (...) theory-nets, and how they are reflected by a refinedversion of the Ramsey sentence. Furthermore, it is argued that there exists a tight correlation between theoccurrence of these two holistic phenomena, a specific form of underdetermination of terms which occur in thefundamental principles of an empirical theory, and the shaping of the theory's protective belt. After having dealtwith these questions in abstracto, the relevance of these considerations for a better understanding of the dynamicsof empirical theories is demonstrated in a concrete case study. It refers to the role holistic phenomenaplayed in the investigation of the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion and in the various attempts to eliminate this anomaly. (shrink)

Kant wird normalerweise zu den 'doktrinären' Begründern des rein-parlamentarischen Demokratiemodells gerechnet; schließlich habe er, nicht zuletzt veranlaßt durch den Jakobiner-Terror, die reine Demokratie als Despotie erkannt und im Gegenzug allein die repräsentative Demokratie als mit den Freiheitsrechten vereinbar gewertet. Diese populäre Ansicht bezweifelt Ulrich Thiele in der vorliegenden Veröffentlichung. Er zeigt auf, daß Kant, von Rousseau inspiriert, eine mehrdimensionale Theorie der demokratischen Gesetzgebung entworfen hat, die sowohl parlamentarische als auch plebiszitäre Verfahren zu ihrem Recht kommen läßt.Wenn Kant sagt, die (...) Demokratie »im eigentlichen Verstande des Worts [sei] notwendig ein Despotism«, so ist, wie schon bei Rousseau, das Modell der griechischen Antike gemeint, und es soll zum Ausdruck gebracht werden, daß eine freiheitsrechtliche Demokratie unabdingbar auf strikte Gewaltenteilung angewiesen sei. Die häufig zitierte Formel von der 'despotischen Demokratie' richtet sich demnach nicht gegen Plebiszite, sondern gegen gewaltenverschmelzende Verfassungen.Wo sich Kant dagegen zugunsten der repräsentativdemokratischen Gesetzgebung ausspricht, geschieht dies durchweg unter Hinweis auf Zweckmäßigkeitserwägungen, nicht aber in der Form eines kategorischen praktischen Urteils. Dieser Befund bestätigt sich, wenn man die Kantische Verwendung der Begriffe Staatsform, Regierungsform und Regierungsart näher untersucht. Nicht die unmittelbare Volksgesetzgebung, sondern allein die demokratische Regierungsform widerspricht der republikanischen, d. h. rechtsstaatlichen Regierungsart, weil dort, wo das Volk die exekutive Gewalt (im weiteren Sinne) ausübe, jeder individuelle Rechtsschutz untergraben werde. Die Anwendung staatlichen Zwanges hinge nämlich nicht von Gesetzen, sondern von zufälligen Mehrheitsentscheidungen ab. (shrink)

English summary: In this volume, the Munich and Vienna-based theologian Falk Wagner's work in the fields of philosophical theology, sociology and lived religion is taken up for the first time against the backdrop of current theological and philosophical controversies. The essays integrate Wagner's thinking into the history of theology and philosophy in the twentieth century, reconstruct fundamental elements of his philosophical theology between the poles of speculative theology and lived religion, while also highlighting the constellations and context wherein his theology (...) is situated. The authors explore from a work- and problem-historical perspective the contribution of the systematic theologian to the relevant twenty first century debates. German description: Der vorliegende Band thematisiert erstmals vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwartigen theologischen und philosophischen Kontroversen das Gesamtwerk des Munchener und Wiener Theologen Falk Wagner im Spannungsfeld von philosophischer Theologie, Sozialwissenschaften und gelebter Religion. Die einzelnen Beitrage ordnen dessen Denken in die theologie- und philosophiegeschichtliche Entwicklung des 20. Jahrhunderts ein, rekonstruieren grundlegende Aufbauelemente seiner philosophischen Theologie und beleuchten die Konstellationen, in denen seine Theologie steht. Dabei loten die Autoren sowohl in werkgeschichtlicher als auch in problemgeschichtlicher Perspektive den Beitrag des systematischen Theologen fur die theologischen Debatten im 21. Jahrhundert aus. Mit Beitragen von: Christine Axt-Piscalar, Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz, Wilhelm Grab, Kathrin Mette, Michael Murrmann-Kahl, Jan Rohls, Ewald Stubinger, Folkart Wittekind, Kurt Walter Zeidler, Manuel Zelger. (shrink)

The contributors to _Constructing the Pluriverse_ critique the hegemony of the postcolonial Western tradition and its claims to universality by offering a set of “pluriversal” approaches to understanding the coexisting epistemologies and practices of the different worlds and problems we inhabit and encounter. Moving beyond critiques of colonialism, the contributors rethink the relationship between knowledge and power, offering new perspectives on development, democracy, and ideology while providing diverse methodologies for non-Western thought and practice that range from feminist approaches to scientific (...) research to ways of knowing expressed through West African oral traditions. In combination, these wide-ranging approaches and understandings form a new analytical toolbox for those seeking creative solutions for dismantling Westernization throughout the world. Contributors Zaid Ahmad, Manuela Boatcă, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Arturo Escobar, Sandra Harding, Ehsan Kashfi, Venu Mehta, Walter D. Mignolo, Ulrich Oslender, Isiaka Ouattara, Manu Samnotra, Aram Ziai. (shrink)

Abstract In order to illuminate the role of information in biology, Bergstrom and Rosvall (Biol Philos 26:159–176, 2011a ; Biol Philos 26:195–200, 2011b ) propose a ‘transmission sense of information’ which builds on Shannon’s theory. At the core of the transmission sense is an appeal to the reduction in uncertainty in receivers and to etiological function. I explore several ways of cashing out uncertainty reduction as well as the consequences of appealing to function. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI (...) 10.1007/s10539-012-9310-x Authors Ulrich E. Stegmann, School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Old Brewery, High Street, Aberdeen, AB24 3UB UK Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867. (shrink)

Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence of their correlata, and having justified the distinction between a domain in which outcome-indicating events occur and a domain whose properties only exist if their existence is indicated by such events, it explains the difference between the two domains as essentially the difference between the manifested world (...) and its manifestation. A single, intrinsically undifferentiated Being manifests the macroworld by entering into reflexive spatial relations. This atemporal process implies a new kind of causality and sheds new light on the mysterious nonlocality of quantum mechanics. Unlike other realist interpretations, which proceed from an evolving-states formulation, the present interpretation proceeds from Feynman’s formulation of the theory, and it introduces a new interpretive principle, replacing the collapse postulate and the eigenvalue–eigenstate link of evolving-states formulations. Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between regions of space, this principle implies that the spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world is incomplete. Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between things, it warrants the claim that, intrinsically, all fundamental particles are identical in the strong sense of numerical identical. They are the aforementioned intrinsically undifferentiated Being, which manifests the macroworld by entering into reflexive spatial relations. (shrink)

Does a world that contains chemistry entail the validity of both the standard model of elementary particle physics and general relativity, at least as effective theories? This article shows that the answer may very well be affirmative. It further suggests that the very existence of stable, spatially extended material objects, if not the very existence of the physical world, may require the validity of these theories.