In den letzten zehn Jahren sind die digitalen Geisteswissenschaften von einem Randphänomen zu einem der sichtbareren Felder kultur- und geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung geworden. Dieser Erfolg ist von Kritik begleitet und Fotis Jannidis identifiziert drei Topoi der Kritik an den Digital Humanities, die oft vorgebracht und wiederholt werden: 1. ›Das wussten wir schon vorher‹ 2. ›Die Themen der Digital Humanities sind veraltet‹ 3. Es handle sich bei den Digital Humanities um eine neue Form des Positivismus, der geisteswissenschaftliche Gegenstände nicht adäquat beschreibt. Diese (...) drei Vorwürfe gegen die Digital Humanities werden von Jannidis aufgegriffen und auf ihren argumentativen und wissenschaftspolitischen Gehalt befragt und hinterfragt. Der Beitrag schließt mit einem Plädoyer für das Ausprobieren, Basteln und für die Neugierde auf die neu entstehenden Datensammlungen in den Bibliotheken und Archiven. Markus Krajewski hält die Erwartungen an das Innovationspotenzial der Digital Humanities dagegen für überzogen, die aus seiner Perspektive bisher über den Status einer Hilfswissenschaft nicht hinausgekommen sind. So wie die Diplomatik um die Analyse von Urkunden oder die Numismatik um die Einordnung von Münzen oder die Paläographie um die Analyse von Handschriften besorgt ist, so kümmern sich die Digital Humanities bisher lediglich um die Nahtstelle von geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungsfragen mit computergestützten Methoden. Die eigentliche Aufgabe der Digital Humanities bestünde aber darin, die Kulturtechnik Codieren in den Vordergrund zu rücken. Denn Programmcodes lesen und schreiben zu können, seien auch für Geisteswissenschaftler eine Schlüsselkompetenz, damit die Schrift der Zukunft – die von Softwareentwicklern, Computeringenieuren und selbstlernenden Maschinen entworfenen Algorithmen – weiterhin kritisch kommentiert und interpretiert (und nicht bloß passiv angewandt) werden kann. During the last ten years, the so-called digital humanities have developed from a footnote to being a major player in the academic field of cultural studies and humanities alike. However, success goes hand in hand with increasing criticism, and Fotis Jannidis identifies three topoi of critique digital humanities repeatedly have to face. 1. ›We already knew that‹ 2. ›The topics of digital humanities are outdated‹ 3. Digital humanities are said to be a new form of positivism not adequately describing humanities related issues. Jannides takes up these accusations against digital humanities by scrutinizing and questioning their argumentative and scientific- political substance. The article closes with a speech promoting of a phase of trial and error, of tinkering and of curiosity for the subject at hand while analyzing newly originated data collections from libraries or archives. In Markus Krajewski’s opinion, however, the expectations placed in the potential of innovation of digital humanities are exaggerated which subsequently leads him to label them an ancillary discipline. The usefulness of digital humanities is entirely limited to providing the link between humanities-related research questions and computer-based methods in the same way diplomatics relies on the analysis of records, numismatics on the process of categorizing coins or paleography on the analysis of historical manuscripts. Krajewski sees the real task of digital humanities in bringing the cultural technology of coding into the spotlight. He describes the ability to write and read source code as a key competence every modern humanities scholar needs in order to be able to critically comment and interpret the script of the future: algorithms designed by software developers, computer engineers, and auto-didactic machines. (shrink)

Focusing on a subject the author has extensively engaged with over the years, the article develops the notion of service as a cultural technique, and the media-theoretical figure of the servant as its servomechanism. The analysis follows three distinct scenarios that highlight, via different channels of perception, the interplay between corporeal practices and media objects in the production of specific cultural effects. In each of the examples chosen, service implies highly regulated networks of recursive operational chains that regulate in their (...) turn the production and distribution of power and knowledge. Thus, Krajewski argues, despite, or rather, precisely because of their apparent marginality and invisibility, the ‘small gestures’ of service join the ranks of already established, elementary symbolic techniques such as reading or writing. (shrink)

Exactitude. The Genesis of an Epistemic Virtue in the ‘Long Nineteenth Century’. The article examines the genesis of exactitude as an epistemic virtue in both scholarly and scientific contexts in the 19th century, mainly in Prussia. Starting with an influential historiographic work on ancient metrology three semantic fields of accuracy, exactitude and precision are differentiated and pursued in their etymologies as well as applications. The historic situation between 1790 and 1860 is identified as the crucial period when the exactness of (...) the exact sciences as well as the notion of accuracy in the humanities start to diverge from one another in order to develop an epistemic virtue each on its own. (shrink)

This ‘technical memoir’ shares insider knowledge of a specific scholarly and scientific situation in the second half of the 1990s: how a group of students and researchers at Humboldt-University Berlin, together with their teacher, media historian Friedrich Kittler, combined historical questions with computer science. The discussions and projects developed in this circle constituted a scholarly practice which would be called today digital humanities.

Citizen Science in the Empire. The System Place “Wertlose Einsendungen aus der Bevölkerung” (Worthless Entries from the Population) in the Archives of the Berlin‐Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Between 1871 and 1946, the Berlin‐Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities maintained a special collection in its archives, which, under the simple name “Entries from the Population”, kept correspondences, projects and proposals, for which a negative expert opinion was issued after thorough examination. The collection offers surprising insights into the pathologies and (...) fantasies of mostly pseudo‐scientific researchers, inventors and discoverers, while at the same time revealing a glimpse of the topics of this epoch that moved the history of science. Using a selection of examples, this essay examines the economic cycles and archive practices of a largely forgotten source of what is now called Citizen Science. (shrink)

The article examines the relationship between Aby Warburg and his library by analysing the media which is involved: first, the arrangement of the books according to the library’s principle of the ‘law of thse good neighbour’, which helps to order the books on the shelves. Second, the handling of the library is even more determined by Aby Warburg’s use of index cards and card indexes. Like his card index which is situated between him and the library, Aby Warburg himself is (...) in between two library paradigms: on the one hand, as a person of the nineteenth century, Warburg belongs to the supporters of the systematic shelving instead of cataloguing the book collection. On the other hand his work is based on swift associations and direct responses to research questions, the associations not only thought up by words, but also visually, manually to be re-arranged on the shelves, which turns out to be a rather clumsy practice. The motor and initiator of these new orders is the card index with its mobile elements, allowing quick connections between the entities and resulting in enormous processes of re-shuffling of whole shelves and systematic arrangements in the book collection. It is especially the combination of these usually incompatible paradigms that makes the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg such a unique institution and rich example of knowledge practices in the twentieth century. (shrink)

The world around 1900 -- The unity of diversity : Wilhelm Ostwald's world formations -- World history of technology : Dr. Franz Maria Feldhaus -- Systems economy : Walther Rathenau, man of the world -- As for the rest : in search of the world's remains.

Epistemische Tugenden sind Eigenschaften des forschenden Subjekts, die in wissenschaftlichen Kulturen als Bedingung fur die Produktion, Vermittlung oder den Erwerb von Wissen angesehen werden. Sie lassen sich nicht auf ein abstraktes Sollen reduzieren, wie es oft von Ethikkommissionen oder politischen Bewegungen an die Wissenschaft herangetragen wird. Die methodische Erzeugung von Wissen ware kaum moglich, wenn es nicht erkenntnisfordernde Tugenden wie Geduld, Aufmerksamkeit, Genauigkeit, Intuition, Wahrhaftigkeit, Neugierde, Strenge oder Zuverlassigkeit gabe, die den an sich prekaren Erkenntnisprozess stabilisieren und in eine bestimmte (...) Richtung lenken. Die Beitrage dieses Sammelbandes befassen sich mit epistemischen Tugenden aus (wissenschafts-)historischer, philosophischer, medien- und literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf dem Verhaltnis von wissenschaftlichen und soziokulturellen beziehungsweise moralischen Normen. Mit Beitragen von: Lorraine Daston, Martin Doll, Andreas Gelhard, Raymond Geuss, Ruben Hackler, Michael Hagner, Jens Kertscher, Markus Krajewski, Marcel Lepper, Martin Mulsow, Oliver Nievergelt, Tanja Paulitz, Robert Proctor, Katja Sabisch, Sandro Zanetti, Cornelia Zumbusch. (shrink)

In den letzten zehn Jahren sind die digitalen Geisteswissenschaften von einem Randphänomen zu einem der sichtbareren Felder kultur- und geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung geworden. Dieser Erfolg ist von Kritik begleitet und Fotis Jannidis identifiziert drei Topoi der Kritik an den Digital Humanities, die oft vorgebracht und wiederholt werden: 1. ›Das wussten wir schon vorher‹ 2. ›Die Themen der Digital Humanities sind veraltet‹ 3. Es handle sich bei den Digital Humanities um eine neue Form des Positivismus, der geisteswissenschaftliche Gegenstände nicht adäquat beschreibt. Diese (...) drei Vorwürfe gegen die Digital Humanities werden von Jannidis aufgegriffen und auf ihren argumentativen und wissenschaftspolitischen Gehalt befragt und hinterfragt. Der Beitrag schließt mit einem Plädoyer für das Ausprobieren, Basteln und für die Neugierde auf die neu entstehenden Datensammlungen in den Bibliotheken und Archiven. Markus Krajewski hält die Erwartungen an das Innovationspotenzial der Digital Humanities dagegen für überzogen, die aus seiner Perspektive bisher über den Status einer Hilfswissenschaft nicht hinausgekommen sind. So wie die Diplomatik um die Analyse von Urkunden oder die Numismatik um die Einordnung von Münzen oder die Paläographie um die Analyse von Handschriften besorgt ist, so kümmern sich die Digital Humanities bisher lediglich um die Nahtstelle von geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungsfragen mit computergestützten Methoden. Die eigentliche Aufgabe der Digital Humanities bestünde aber darin, die Kulturtechnik Codieren in den Vordergrund zu rücken. Denn Programmcodes lesen und schreiben zu können, seien auch für Geisteswissenschaftler eine Schlüsselkompetenz, damit die Schrift der Zukunft – die von Softwareentwicklern, Computeringenieuren und selbstlernenden Maschinen entworfenen Algorithmen – weiterhin kritisch kommentiert und interpretiert (und nicht bloß passiv angewandt) werden kann. During the last ten years, the so-called digital humanities have developed from a footnote to being a major player in the academic field of cultural studies and humanities alike. However, success goes hand in hand with increasing criticism, and Fotis Jannidis identifies three topoi of critique digital humanities repeatedly have to face. 1. ›We already knew that‹ 2. ›The topics of digital humanities are outdated‹ 3. Digital humanities are said to be a new form of positivism not adequately describing humanities related issues. Jannides takes up these accusations against digital humanities by scrutinizing and questioning their argumentative and scientific- political substance. The article closes with a speech promoting of a phase of trial and error, of tinkering and of curiosity for the subject at hand while analyzing newly originated data collections from libraries or archives. In Markus Krajewski’s opinion, however, the expectations placed in the potential of innovation of digital humanities are exaggerated which subsequently leads him to label them an ancillary discipline. The usefulness of digital humanities is entirely limited to providing the link between humanities-related research questions and computer-based methods in the same way diplomatics relies on the analysis of records, numismatics on the process of categorizing coins or paleography on the analysis of historical manuscripts. Krajewski sees the real task of digital humanities in bringing the cultural technology of coding into the spotlight. He describes the ability to write and read source code as a key competence every modern humanities scholar needs in order to be able to critically comment and interpret the script of the future: algorithms designed by software developers, computer engineers, and auto-didactic machines. (shrink)

The idea of levels of organization plays a central role in the philosophy of the life sciences. In this article, I first examine the explanatory goals that have motivated accounts of levels of organization. I then show that the most state-of-the-art and scientifically plausible account of levels of organization, the account of levels of mechanism proposed by Bechtel and Craver, is fundamentally problematic. Finally, I argue that the explanatory goals can be reached by adopting a deflationary approach, where levels of (...) organization give way to more well-defined and fundamental notions, such as scale and composition. (shrink)

The book addresses the constitution of the high culture of modernity as an uneasy unity of the sciences, including philosophy, and the arts. Their internal dynamism and strain is established through, on the one hand, the relationship of the author - work - recipient, and, on the other, the respective roles of experts and the market.

Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified (...) in believing that things studied by science are real insofar as we have robust evidence for them. I develop and analyze this idea in detail, and based on concrete examples show that it plays an important role in science. Finally, I demonstrate how robustness can be used to clarify the debate on scientific realism and to formulate new arguments. (shrink)

This chapter reviews empirical research on the rules governing assertion and retraction, with a focus on the normative role of truth. It examines whether truth is required for an assertion to be considered permissible, and whether there is an expectation that speakers retract statements that turn out to be false. Contrary to factive norms (such as the influential “knowledge norm”), empirical data suggests that there is no expectation that speakers only make true assertions. Additionally, contrary to truth-relativist accounts, there is (...) no requirement for speakers to retract statements that are false at the context of assessment. We conclude by suggesting that truth still plays a crucial role in the evaluation of assertions: as a standard for evaluating their success, rather than permissibility. (shrink)

I show that the recent account of levels in neuroscience proposed by Craver and Bechtel is unsatisfactory since it fails to provide a plausible criterion for being at the same level and is incompatible with Craver and Bechtel’s account of downward causation. Furthermore, I argue that no distinct notion of levels is needed for analyzing explanations and causal issues in neuroscience: it is better to rely on more well-defined notions such as composition and scale. One outcome of this is that (...) apparent cases of downward causation can be analyzed away. (shrink)

The relationship between psychological states and the brain remains an unresolved issue in philosophy of psychology. One appealing solution that has been influential both in science and in philosophy is Dennett’s concept of the intentional stance, according to which beliefs and desires are real and objective phenomena, but not necessarily states of the brain. A fundamental shortcoming of this approach is that it does not seem to leave any causal role for beliefs and desires in influencing behavior. In this paper, (...) I show that intentional states ascribed from the intentional stance should be seen as real causes, develop this to an independently plausible ontological position, and present a response to the latest interventionist causal exclusion worries. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus among philosophers of science that scientific endeavors of understanding the human mind or the brain exhibit explanatory pluralism. Relatedly, several philosophers have in recent years defended an interventionist approach to causation that leads to a kind of causal pluralism. In this paper, I explore the consequences of these recent developments in philosophy of science for some of the central debates in philosophy of mind. First, I argue that if we adopt explanatory pluralism and the interventionist (...) approach to causation, our understanding of physicalism has to change, and this leads to what I call pluralistic physicalism. Secondly, I show that this pluralistic physicalism is not endangered by the causal exclusion argument. (shrink)

Although scientific realism is the default position in the life sciences, philosophical accounts of realism are geared towards physics and run into trouble when applied to fields such as biology or neuroscience. In this paper, I formulate a new robustness-based version of entity realism, and show that it provides a plausible account of realism for the life sciences that is also continuous with scientific practice. It is based on the idea that if there are several independent ways of measuring, detecting (...) or deriving something, then we are justified in believing that it is real. I also consider several possible objections to robustness-based entity realism, discuss its relationship to ontic structural realism, and show how it has the potential to provide a novel response to the pessimistic induction argument. (shrink)

Is the assessment of a view of life only a matter of personal preference? I argue that there is more than personal preference. I defend the position that a view of life must be useful for the ascription of meaning and therefore needs to fulfil the requirements of the process of ascribing meaning. In this article I analyse this process and its requirements and deduce from them a set of criteria by which views of life can be assessed.

This article aims to classify those reducts of expansions of (Q, <) by unary predicates which eliminate quantifiers, and in particular to show that, up to interdefinability, there are only finitely many for a given language. Equivalently, we wish to classify the closed subgroups of Sym(Q) containing the group of all automorphisms of (Q, <) fixing setwise certain subsets. This goal is achieved for expansions by convex predicates, yielding expansions by constants as a special case, and for the expansion by (...) a dense, co-dense predicate. Partial results are obtained in the general setting of several dense predicates. (shrink)

The notion of reduction continues to play a key role in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science. Supporters of reductionism claim that psychological properties or explanations reduce to neural properties or explanations, while antireductionists claim that such reductions are not possible. In this book, I apply recent developments in philosophy of science, particularly the mechanistic explanation paradigm and the interventionist theory of causation, to reassess the traditional approaches to reduction in philosophy of mind. I then elaborate and defend (...) a pluralistic framework for philosophy of mind, and show how reductionist ideas can be incorporated into it. This leads to a novel synthesis of pluralism and reductionism that I call pluralistic physicalism. (shrink)

The two main domains of high culture - the arts and the sciences - seem to be completely different, simply unrelated. Is there any sense then in talking about culture in the singular as a unity? A positive answer to this question presupposes that there is a single conceptual scheme, in terms of which it is possible to articulate both the underlying similarities and the basic differences between these domains. This article argues that - at least in respect of ‘classical’ (...) modernity - there is such a framework: the normatively conceived Author-Work-Recipient relation. It allows the disclosure of the paradoxical unity of culture: its two main realms are constituted as polar opposites and thus as strictly complementary. Through such an organization, culture could fulfil an affirmative, compensatory role. At the same time however, it also allowed culture to acquire the character of social critique, a function realized through the antagonistically opposed projects of Enlightenment and Romanticism - projects whose illusions are now evident. (shrink)

Recently Kenneth Kendler and Peter Zachar have raised doubts about the correspondence theory of truth and scientific realism in psychopathology. They argue that coherentist or pragmatist approaches to truth are better suited for understanding the reality of psychiatric disorders. In this article, I show that rejecting realism based on the correspondence theory is deeply problematic: It makes psychopathology categorically different from other sciences, and results in an implausible view of scientific discovery and progress. As an alternative, I suggest a robustness-based (...) approach that can accommodate the significance of coherence and pragmatic factors without rejecting scientific realism and the correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)

From the late seventeenth century on the idea of culture underwent a gradual transformation. Originally this concept referred essentially to the “refined” way of life of the ruling social elite. Popular culture, on the other hand, refers to the usually collective practices of groups of rural and urban workers taking the form of performance. They were not only excluded from refined culture, but it was regarded as completely unsuitable for them, potentially creating dangerous social aspirations. It is with the great (...) social transformation from feudal to bourgeois society that the idea of refined culture was replaced by that of “high culture” encompassing both the arts and the sciences: works claiming universal human significance. This “high culture” for a considerable time coexisted with the remnants of popular culture. It has been only due to the great technical advances that its true opposite, “mass culture” emerged, at the turn to twentieth century, claiming an empirical universality: being understandable and truly interesting to everyone. In economic respect, there is a competitive relation between high and mass culture. However, it is argued that there can be no cultural competition between them. For they posit differing and potentially co-existing receptive attitudes. The characterisation of this difference and the discussion of the seeming exceptions to the so-articulated conceptual scheme occupies the concluding part of this essay. (shrink)

The levels of selection debate is generally taken to be a debate about how natural selection can occur at the various levels of biological organization. In this paper, we argue that questions about levels of selection should be analyzed separately from questions about levels of organization. In the deflationary proposal we defend, all that is necessary for multilevel selection is that there are cases in which particles are nested in collectives, and that both the collectives and the particles that compose (...) them each separately undergo natural selection. We argue that adopting this deflationary account helps to disentangle the levels of selection and the levels of organization, and thereby contributes to advancing the levels of selection debate. (shrink)

Rubin and Pearl offered approaches to causal effect estimation and Lewis and Pearl offered theories of counterfactual conditionals. Arguments offered by Pearl and his collaborators support a weak form of equivalence such that notation from the rival theory can be re-purposed to express Pearl’s theory in a way that is equivalent to Pearl’s theory expressed in its native notation. Nonetheless, the many fundamental differences between the theories rule out any stronger form of equivalence. A renewed emphasis on comparative research can (...) help to guide applications, further develop each theory, and better understand their relative strengths and weaknesses. (shrink)

This article makes the case for a specific variety of what we call Collective Capital Institutions (CCIs), by returning to the idea of Wage-Earner Funds (WEFs) – a 1970s Swedish policy proposal designed gradually to shift ownership and control over parts of the economy to democratically controlled institutions. We identify two attractive rationales in favour of such a scheme and argue that both can fruitfully be transposed to the current worldwide economic situation. The egalitarian rationale is that WEFs could help (...) in the pursuit of equality by giving a wider set of people a stake in collectively owned companies and a right to their profits. The democratic rationale is that WEFs redistribute not only these profits, but also the power over economic decisions made within companies. We then contrast such schemes for collective capital ownership with the similar but much more privatised proposals set out in, for instance, John Rawls's idea of a ‘property-owning democracy’. We argue that CCIs ultimately are more likely to contribute to the development of the ‘sense of justice’ within society that is needed for a stable just society. We conclude that CCIs deserve a great deal more exploration in academic and political discussions of egalitarian economic systems. (shrink)

We associate with every first order structure [Formula: see text] a family of invariant, locally Noetherian topologies. The structure is almost determined by the topologies, and properties of the structure are reflected by topological properties. We study these topologies in particular for stable structures. In nice cases, we get a behaviour similar to the Zariski topology in algebraically closed fields.

We show that equational independence in the sense of Srour equals local non-forking. We then examine so-called almost equational theories where equational independence is a symmetric relation.

This reference work offers a representative and reliable survey of classical, medieval, and modern history in regards to the philosophical term, truth .

This paper is about two topics: 1. systems of explicit mathematics with universes and a non-constructive quantification operator $\mu$; 2. iterated fixed point theories with ordinals. We give a proof-theoretic treatment of both families of theories; in particular, ordinal theories are used to get upper bounds for explicit theories with finitely many universes.

If there is a duty of justice to contribute to society, which asks individuals to produce a specific amount of goods and services that can be redistributed, we need a decision-procedure to know when we have done our part. This paper analyses and critically assesses the commonly suggested decision-procedure of relying on market prices to measure the value of one’s contribution. It is usually assumed that a high salary indicates that one’s talents are put to good use, but this presupposes (...) both that market prices of labour are correct reflections of supply and demand, and that market prices are correct reflections of social value. I criticise both assumptions and argue that the social value of a contribution cannot simply be a function of its market value, but is also influenced by the principles of justice that support the duty to contribute. Further, the market solution is incapable of valuing contributions that lack market prices, like non-marketised care labour. The market solution thus fails as a decision-procedure under other than special circumstances. This does not mean, however, that we need to give up the idea of a duty to contribute. (shrink)