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)

Die Welt liegt in Scherben, so heisst es. Und sich mit einer Welt anzufreunden, die sich der Anfreundung entzieht, scheint paradox. Christina Thürmer-Rohr kreist in ihren Essays zu Feminismus, Pluralität, Dialog, Aussenseitertum, Vergänglichkeit und zum politischen Denken Hannah Arendts um den Widerstreit zwischen dem Heimatlichen und dem Unheimlichen - und um die Fiktionen vom »heilen« Geschlecht. Sie widerspricht dabei der Annahme, Fremdheit sei das Andere der Freundschaft, Freundschaft das Andere der Fremdheit. So entsteht eine Karte, auf der man sich hin- (...) und herbewegen kann, denn die Nachbarschaft der einzelnen Texte eröffnet Türen zu Lesarten, die nicht in den gewohnten Spuren bleiben, und führt zu unerledigten Fragen, die keine Ruhe lassen." --Back cover. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 36 Heft: 2 Seiten: 392-402.

Outlines of Metaphysic - dictated portions of the lectures of Hermann Lotze is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1884. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to (...) the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

This is a book that no one but Weyl could have written--and, indeed, no one has written anything quite like it since.

The Dimensions of Spirituality Inventory (DSI) is a 50-item quantitative assessment of spirituality. Whereas “spirituality” has seemed to some to be too vague for research purposes, the DSI follows earlier qualitative research in showing that usage of the word points to an intelligible conceptual structure. Instead of defining spirituality and then operationalizing it, as most extant instruments do, the DSI defines and operationalizes 21 relatively uncontroversial elemental components of spirituality, so the overall interpretation of spirituality can only emerge after factor (...) analysis. Just as an alphabet flexibly expresses words and sentences, so the 21 DSI dimensions permit the discovery of latent constructs corresponding to cultural packages of spirituality at the present time. The DSI avoids culturally parochial formulations of items, thanks to intense multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, scholars of religion, and psychologists of religion, and thus is suitable for cross-cultural application. This paper reports on a study based on a participant pool recruited for ExploringMyReligion.org, in part from Prolific (N = 820, after culling unreliable responses). The DSI is interpreted and validated in relation to several other relevant measures, and the factor analysis is strongly resonant with prior qualitative studies. The psychometric properties of the DSI make it usable as an overall spirituality scale as well as a sensitive inventory of types and configurations of spirituality. (shrink)

Frege ist bekannt für seinen Versuch, die Arithmetik aus der Logik herzuleiten. Doch welcher Begriff von Logik liegt diesem Projekt zugrunde? Wenn Logik die Grundlage der Arithmetik ist und die Arithmetik über Inhalte verfestigt, so muss die Logik selbst eine Wissenschaft mit eigenen Inhalten sein. Die Autorin zeigt, wie Frege logische Zeichen zu eigenständigen Begriffen aufwertet und dadurch eine inhaltliche Logikkonzeption überhaupt erst ermöglicht. In einem weiteren Schritt wird ein Kriterium vorgestellt, mit dessen Hilfe Frege logische Inhalte von den Inhalten (...) anderer Wissenschaften abgrenzt. Dabei wird jedoch deutlich, dass Frege bis in die 1890er Jahre braucht, um sich vollständig vom Kantischen Diktum zu lösen, die Logik sei nur ein negativer Probierstein der Wahrheit. Die Suche nach dem Grund, der Frege zu einer inhaltlichen Konzeption von Logik zwang, führt in die Geometriegeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Vor ihrem Hintergrund werden schließlich die Anfangsparagraphen der Grundlagen der Arithmetik in einem neuen Licht interpretiert. (shrink)

A teoria pedagógica comporta muitos fenômenos que o educador deve compreender e levar em consideração, dentre eles, a crise. Alguns educadores exercem dignamente o seu ofício. Mesmo diante das situações mais adversas, eles podem ser considerados resilientes. Resiliência é o nome dado à capacidade concreta das pessoas de não só superarem situações críticas, mas também de utilizá-las em seus processos de desenvolvimento pessoal. Os estudos sobre o tema se propõem a enfatizar a promoção de processos educativos que facilitem ou tornem (...) as pessoas mais resistentes e maduras para enfrentar as dificuldades que ocorrem em sua vida. A inclusão da espiritualidade como um fator de favorecimento da resiliência parece ser o de desafiar o futuro numa perspectiva de superação, considerando as adversidades como obstáculos que poderão favorecer o amadurecimento pessoal, através da ampliação da visão de mundo e do estabelecimento de novas formas de equilíbrio. Acredita-se que um professor resiliente poderá mais facilmente manter-se firme em sua tarefa de educar, transcendendo as questões meramente pedagógicas, buscando desenvolver a integralidade na prática formativa, sobretudo porque possui mais possibilidades de vivenciar a sua própria multidimensionalidade. Este texto tem como finalidade estudar a importância da espiritualidade no favorecimento de uma postura resiliente no educador. (shrink)

It’s not clear what supervaluationists should say about propositional content. Does a vague sentence, e.g., ‘Harry is bald’, express one proposition, or a barrage of propositions, or none at all? Or is the matter indeterminate? The supervaluationist canon is not decisive on the issue; authoritative passages can be cited in favor of each of the proposals just mentioned. Furthermore, some detractors have argued that supervaluationism is incapable of providing any coherent account of propositional content. This paper considers each of the (...) proposals for how many propositions are expressed by a vague sentence: none, some, all, or it’s indeterminate. Most of these proposals turn out to be unworkable in the metalanguage. I conclude that orthodox supervaluationists—those who identify truth with supertruth—must either relax the standard requirement that propositions be bivalent, or else alter the standard relation between sentences and propositions in which a sentence inherits its truth-conditions from the proposition it expresses. The best option going forward for the orthodox supervaluationist is perhaps the most surprising—amend the requirement that propositions be bivalent. I argue that propositions having supervaluational truth-conditions are best suited to fill the propositional roles in the semantic theory of a vague language. These propositions admit of truth-value gaps, and gappy propositions are controversial, but I argue that they earn their keep. (shrink)

Hermann Weyls "Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft" erschien erstmals 1928 als Beitrag zu dem von A. Bäumler und M. Schröter herausgegebenen "Handbuch der Philosophie". Die amerikanische Ausgabe, auf der die deutsche Übersetzung von Gottlob Kirschmer beruht, erschien 1949 bei Princeton University Press. Das nunmehr bereits in der 8. Auflage vorliegende Werk ist längst auch in Deutschland zum Standardwerk geworden.

Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this (...) crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specificFOXP2mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977). (shrink)

This paper aims to show that Frege’s and Hilbert’s mutual disagreement results from different notions of Anschauung and their relation to axioms. In the first section of the paper, evidence is provided to support that Frege and Hilbert were influenced by the same developments of 19th-century geometry, in particular the work of Gauss, Plücker, and von Staudt. The second section of the paper shows that Frege and Hilbert take different approaches to deal with the problems that the developments in 19th-century (...) geometry posed for the traditional Kantian philosophy of mathematics. Frege maintains that Anschauung is a source of knowledge by which we acknowledge geometrical axioms as true. For Hilbert, in contrast, axioms provide one of several correct “pictures” of reality. Hilbert’s position is thereby deeply influenced by epistemological ideas from Hertz and Helmholtz, and, in turn, influenced the neo-Kantian Cassirer. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), begründete nicht nur die moderne Logik, sondern auch die Sprachphilosophie. Er erweiterte die funktionale Analyse der Sätze zu einer Systematik des gesamten sprachlichen Bedeutens und Ausdrucks, indem er zwischen den Zeichen selbst, dem Sinn und der Bedeutung der Zeichen unterschied. Dieser Band versammelt Kommentare und Analysen zu den drei klassischen Aufsätzen Funktion und Begriff (1891), Über Sinn und Bedeutung und Über Begriff und Gegenstand (beide 1892). Er verschafft dadurch einen fundierten Überblick sowohl zu den Kernproblemen wie auch (...) den Hintergründen von Freges bis heute kontrovers diskutiertem Ansatz. Dabei wird die enge Verzahntheit zwischen dem logischen Hintergrund und Freges logizistischem Anliegen einerseits und den Vorschlägen zur Deutung einer ganzen Reihe von sprachlichen Erscheinungen erkennbar. Dazu gehören Fragen nach dem Wesen von Begriff und Gegenstand bzw. Prädikaten und Eigennamen als den Grundelementen jeder Aussage überhaupt – aber auch Erläuterungen zu indirekter Rede und fiktionalem Diskurs. Der vorliegende Band bietet dazu informierte Kommentare und Analysen. (shrink)

Big data represents a significant challenge for the social sciences. From a philosophy-of-science perspective, it is important to reflect on related theories and processes for developing them. In this paper, we start by examining different views on the role of theories in big data-related social research. Then, we try to show how big data is related to standards for evaluating theories. We also outline how big data affects theory- and data-based research approaches and the process of theory building. Discussions include (...) a summary of lines of reasoning, limitations, and a proposal for future developmental steps. (shrink)

From the earliest times, American ethics, the rules for the moral \& intellectual life of the West, used to be founded upon the two principles of self-reliance and good neighborliness. Here we consider the underlying functions of neural brain circuits, organic structures that have evolved adaptively by Darwinian rules subject to selection pressure. In the left brain resides our self-reliant private Ego, making plans, launching initiatives. Your public Ego dwells in the right brain, looking around, meeting with your friendly neighbor. (...) A main component is our bilateral interior cosmos, providing us with all the detailed information about our environment as well as the universe at large. (shrink)

This essay employs Charles Peirce’s triadic semiotics in order to develop a biosemiotic theory of life that is capable of illuminating the function of information in living systems. Specifically, I argue that the relationship between biological information structures , selecting environments, and the adapted bodily processes of living organisms is aptly modelled by the irreducibly triadic relationship between Peirce’s sign, object, and interpretant, respectively. In each instance of information-based semiosis, the information structure is a complex informational sign that represents the (...) informational object ; and the bodily, behavioral, mental, or intellectual processes that are organized by the informational sign to more or less accurately interpret the present environment constitute a complex informational interpretant—a living, interpreting organism. The essay begins by discussing the precise sense in which this biosemiotic theory is based upon Charles Peirce’s semiotic theory. Next, the theory is developed at length in relation to genetic information structures. Finally, I present a brief outline of how the theory applies to neural and linguistic information structures. The essay concludes with a reflection upon the anti-reductionist implications of the theory. (shrink)