We are highly tuned to each other's visual attention. Perceiving the eye or hand movements of another person can influence the timing of a saccade or the reach of our own. However, the explanation for such spatial orienting in interpersonal contexts remains disputed. Is it due to the social appearance of the cue—a hand or an eye—or due to its social relevance—a cue that is connected to another person with attentional and intentional states? We developed an interpersonal version of the (...) Posner spatial cueing paradigm. Participants saw a cue and detected a target at the same or a different location, while interacting with an unseen partner. Participants were led to believe that the cue was either connected to the gaze location of their partner or was generated randomly by a computer (Experiment 1), and that their partner had higher or lower social rank while engaged in the same or a different task (Experiment 2). We found that spatial cue‐target compatibility effects were greater when the cue related to a partner's gaze. This effect was amplified by the partner's social rank, but only when participants believed their partner was engaged in the same task. Taken together, this is strong evidence in support of the idea that spatial orienting is interpersonally attuned to the social relevance of the cue—whether the cue is connected to another person, who this person is, and what this person is doing—and does not exclusively rely on the social appearance of the cue. Visual attention is not only guided by the physical salience of one's environment but also by the mental representation of its social relevance. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility in developing countries has recently received increasing attention, and scholars have pointed to the strong contextuality of CSR in the respective regions. Regarding the latter, however, sub-Saharan Africa has been scrutinized only marginally by academia. Moreover, empirical research on the impact of the institutional context has been scant, despite its attributed importance for CSR. Our article seeks to fill a part of this research gap by investigating CSR website reporting of 211 companies in seven sub-Saharan countries. The (...) study’s aim is twofold: First, we identify to what extent sub-Saharan companies report on CSR and which contents they disclose. Second, by building on institutional theory, we investigate how the socio-economic and political environments influence CSR reporting. For this purpose, we examine the impact of country-level and company-level determinants. We find that the sample African companies’ CSR efforts focus strongly on local philanthropy and therefore differ substantially from Western CSR approaches. Furthermore, we evidence that GDP and level of governance standard positively affect CSR reporting. Our study contributes to the literature by empirically evidencing the contextuality of CSR in Africa and by explaining how specific country- and company-level determinants contribute to or hamper the development of CSR in developing countries. (shrink)

Because of the declining fiscal capabilities of the German welfare state and the resulting reductions in social services provided by the government, increasing attention has been given to the voluntary social engagement of businesses, often referred to as corporate citizenship. In that context, scholars and politicians alike have pointed to the United States as a country with a strong corporate citizenship culture and advocated a transatlantic transfer of the respective practices. Against this background, it is the first aim of this (...) paper to examine the socio‐economic environment for corporate citizenship in both countries. Second, it will be investigated if corporate citizenship is really practiced more widely in the United States than in Germany and what forms of corporate citizenship are used by businesses. For that purpose, the corporate citizenship activities of the 100 largest companies in the United States and Germany each will be analyzed. Results show that more US than German companies undertake corporate citizenship activities and apply a wider variety of different forms. The possibilities for a transatlantic transfer are limited because of the differences in the cultural and political systems of both countries. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 51 Heft: 1 Seiten: 39-56.

This book explores the current state of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in 24 European nations, examining the state of the development and practice of CSR and sustainability for organizations in these countries. The common denominator for all of the book's 25 chapters is a management perspective rather than an ethical discourse. The book therefore represents a comprehensive survey of initiatives and activities in the field of CSR and provides a wealth of complete cases and examples for different approaches to sustainable (...) and responsible management practice. The book also reviews the relevant political and governmental guidelines and frameworks for organizations, both on a national and a European level. Europe has taken a leading role in the promotion and implementation of CSR. This book showcases how, through CSR, enterprises can significantly contribute to achieving the European Union's treaty objectives of sustainable development and a highly competitive social market economy. (shrink)

Although it is not yet officially recognized as a clinical entity which is diagnosable, Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been included in section III for further study in the DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013). This is important because there is increasing evidence that people of all ages, in particular teens and young adults, are facing very real and sometimes very severe consequences in daily life resulting from an addictive use of online games. This article summarizes general aspects (...) of IGD including diagnostic criteria and arguments for the classification as an addictive disorder including evidence from neurobiological studies. Based on previous theoretical considerations and empirical findings, this paper examines the use of one recently proposed model, the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, for inspiring future research and for developing new treatment protocols for IGD. The I-PACE model is a theoretical framework that explains symptoms of Internet addiction by looking at interactions between predisposing factors, moderators, and mediators in combination with reduced executive functioning and diminished decision making. Finally, the paper discusses how current treatment protocols focusing on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Internet addiction (CBT-IA) fit with the processes hypothesized in the I-PACE model. (shrink)

This volume offers a systematic philosophical analysis of the normative challenges facing European refugee policy, focusing on whether the response to it can be based on European values. By considering the refugee policy through the lens of European values, cosmopolitan norms and universal human rights, the contributions expose the weaknesses and limitations of existing regulations and make proposals on how to improve them. The EU is often seen as a cosmopolitan project. Europe is supposed to be a community of states (...) that aspires to be guided by cosmopolitan norms. However, the idea of a cosmopolitan Europe has never been unanimously shared, and in recent years, it has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly with regard to the EU’s refugee policy. The guiding idea of this book is that a deeper philosophical understanding of the normative issues at stake can foster greater conceptual clarity and enrich political debates on the future of European refugee policy. The first part of the book revolves around the question of whether the rise in refugee numbers over the past decade has led to a crisis in the EU and, if so, how this crisis relates to or impacts European values. The second part traces the history of the discourse on “European values” and examines from a philosophical perspective how we can plausibly understand these values in terms of their moral grammar, their normative content and their implications for the behaviour of the EU and its member states. Finally, the third part puts forth recommendations for a feasible and normatively more compelling European refugee policy based on human rights, human dignity, justice and democratic self-determination as the decisive normative requirements. Cosmopolitan Norms and European Values: Ethical Perspectives on Europe’s Refugee Policy will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethics, political philosophy, political science, social sciences and law. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. (shrink)

So far, little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with emotion effects on prospective memory (PM) performance. Thus, this study aimed at disentangling possible mechanisms for the effects of emotional valence of PM cues on the distinct phases composing PM by investigating event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were engaged in an ongoing N-back task while being required to perform a PM task. The emotional valence of both the ongoing pictures and the PM cues was manipulated (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant). ERPs were (...) recorded during the PM phases, such as encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of the intention. A recognition task including PM cues and ongoing stimuli was also performed at the end of the sessions. ERP results suggest that emotional PM cues not only trigger an automatic, bottom-up, capture of attention, but also boost a greater allocation of top-down processes. These processes seem to be recruited to hold attention towards the emotional stimuli and to retrieve the intention from memory, likely because of the motivational significance of the emotional stimuli. Moreover, pleasant PM cues seemed to modulate especially the prospective component, as revealed by changes in the amplitude of the ERP correlates of strategic monitoring as a function of the relevance of the valence for the PM task. Unpleasant pictures seemed to modulate especially the retrospective component, as revealed by the largest old/new effect being elicited by unpleasant PM pictures in the recognition task. (shrink)

People often make use of a spatial “mental time line” to represent events in time. We investigated whether the eyes follow such a mental time line during online language comprehension of sentences that refer to the past, present, and future. Participants' eye movements were measured on a blank screen while they listened to these sentences. Saccade direction revealed that the future is mapped higher up in space than the past. Moreover, fewer saccades were made when two events are simultaneously taking (...) place at the present moment compared to two events that are happening in different points in time. This is the first evidence that oculomotor correlates reflect mental looking along an abstract invisible time line during online language comprehension about time. Our results support the idea that observing eye movements is likely to “detect” invisible spatial scaffoldings which are involved in cognitively processing abstract meaning, even when the abstract meaning lacks an explicit spatial correlate. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Cross-sector social collaborations are increasingly recognised as valuable inter-organizational arrangements that seek to combine the commercial capabilities of private sector companies with the deep knowledge of social and environmental issues enrooted in social sector organizations. In this paper we empirically examine the configurations of conditions that lead to lasting cross-sector social collaboration. Situating our enquiry in Schütz’s theory of life-worlds and the reciprocity literature, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse data gathered from 60 partners in 30 cross-sector social (...) collaborations. We find two distinct types of configurational pathways leading to lasting cross-sector social collaboration which we label reciprocal economic exchange based on direct reciprocity, and reciprocal social exchange based on generalised reciprocity. The pathways vary in terms of the delivery of expected and unexpected resources and benefits. We introduce the concept of double relationality to explain the interdependence of structure and action in lasting cross sector social collaboration. (shrink)

The current German criticism of HUGO centers around the term ‘human dignity’; consenquentialist and autonomy-based arguments are used. The debate culminates in questioning the integrity of bioethics as a scholarly discipline and has created a heterogeneous coalition of disparate political and social groups that oppose any research that would facilitate genetic pre-selection of human characteristics.

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Theories of epistemology make reference—via the perspective of an observer—to the structure of information transfer, which generates reality, of which the observer himself forms a part. It can be shown that any epistemological approach which implies the participation of tautological structural elements in the information transfer necessarily leads to an antinomy. Nevertheless, since the time of Aristotle the paradigm of mathematics—and thus tautological structure—has always been a hidden ingredient in the various concepts of knowledge acquisition or general theories of information (...) transfer. We hold that Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory is the first scientific theory which consistently presupposes a non-tautological structure for the information transfer and, at the same time, keeps it strictly distinct from the tautological metric of scientific observation. The consequences of this technique—namely the dissociation of information from intentionality—have not yet been fully drawn. (shrink)

Background Teamwork in emergency medical services is a very important factor in efforts to improve patient safety. The potential differences of staff gender on communication, patient safety, and teamwork were omitted. The aim of this study is to evaluate these inadequately examined areas. Methods A descriptive and anonymous study was conducted with an online questionnaire targeting emergency physicians and paramedics. The participants were asked about teamwork, communication, patient safety and handling of errors. Results Seven hundred fourteen prehospital professionals from all (...) over Germany participated. A total of 65.7% of the women harmed a patient (men 72.9%), and 52.6% were ashamed when mistakes were made (men 31.7%). 19.0% of the female participants considered their communication skills to be very good, compared to 81% of the men. More women than men did not want to appear incompetent (28.4%, 15.5%) and therefore did not speak openly about mistakes. Both genders saw the character of their colleagues as a reason for poor team communication (women 89.4%, men 84.9.%). Under high stress, communication decreased (women 35.9%, men 31.0%) and expression became inaccurate (women 18.7%, men 20.1%). Conclusions Team communication problems and teamwork in rescue services are independent of gender. Women seem to have more difficulty with open communication about mistakes because they seem to be subject to higher expectations. Work organization should be adapted to women’s needs to enable more effective error management. We conclude that it is necessary to promote a positive error and communication culture to increase patient safety. (shrink)

Negative subjective reports such as “I didn’t see the stimulus” can be interpreted as indicating either that the subject didn’t see the stimulus, or as indicating that, while the subject did see the stimulus, the strength of sensory signals associated with the stimulus fell below a conservative criterion for answering “seen”. Determining which of these two interpretations is correct is the criterion problem. I present two ways in which researchers can solve this problem. But there’s more. What I call the (...) “new criterion problem” consists in determining whether criteria effects reflect perceptual changes, or changes in response strategy. Through case studies, I argue that this new version of the problem can be solved as well, although there is currently no systematic way to solve it. I conclude that criterion problems do not constitute good reasons for skepticism about the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

English summary: Ordinary, unmethodical experience forms our lives. It accumulates when we interact with our environment as living beings, and combines cognitive, affective and volitional elements. In it, questions of meaning and value and issues of knowledge become strongly interdependent. In a normative sense, modern culture has tremendously upgraded the status of ordinary people's experience. However, at the same time, our world is increasingly determined by the methodological experience of the (natural) sciences and by the technology they have made possible. (...) Will scientific experience now replace ordinary experience, or will it complement and regulate it? How do facts and values relate to one another and what does this mean for our understanding of democracy? Matthias Jung starts by developing an integrated approach to ordinary experience, taking into account insights from areas including hermeneutics, phenomenology, pragmatism and cognitive science. As a result, three main areas of discussion emerge: knowledge, values and ideology, all of which are covered in their respective individual chapters. German description: Gewohnliche, unmethodische Erfahrung formt unser Leben. Sie vollzieht sich, wenn wir als lebendige Wesen mit unserer Umwelt interagieren, und verbindet jeweils kognitive, affektive und willentliche Dimensionen. Fragen nach Sinn und Wert und Wissensfragen sind in ihr eng aufeinander bezogen. Normativ hat die Kultur der Moderne die Erfahrung gewohnlicher Menschen enorm aufgewertet, doch gleichzeitig wird unsere Welt immer starker von der methodischen Erfahrung der (Natur-)Wissenschaften und der von ihr ermoglichten Technik bestimmt. Ersetzt nun wissenschaftliche die gewohnliche Erfahrung oder erganzt und korrigiert sie diese? Wie verhalten sich Fakten und Werte zueinander und was ergibt sich daraus fur unser Verstandnis von Demokratie? Matthias Jung entwickelt zunachst ein integriertes Konzept gewohnlicher Erfahrung und nimmt dabei Einsichten u.a. aus Hermeneutik, Phanomenologie, Pragmatismus und Kognitionswissenschaften auf. Daraus ergeben sich drei exemplarische Problemfelder: Wissen, Werte und Weltanschauung. Ihnen sind jeweils eigene Kapitel gewidmet. (shrink)

Conditional structures lie at the heart of the sciences, humanities, and everyday reasoning. It is hence not surprising that conditional logics – logics specifically designed to account for natural language conditionals – are an active and interdisciplinary area. The present book gives a formal and a philosophical account of indicative and counterfactual conditionals in terms of Chellas-Segerberg semantics. For that purpose a range of topics are discussed such as Bennett’s arguments against truth value based semantics for indicative conditionals.

This essay consists of two parts. In the first part, I focus my attention on the remarks that Frege makes on consistency when he sets about criticizing the method of creating new numbers through definition or abstraction. This gives me the opportunity to comment also a little on H. Hankel, J. Thomae—Frege’s main targets when he comes to criticize “formal theories of arithmetic” in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) and the second volume of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1903)—G. Cantor, L. E. (...) J. Brouwer and D. Hilbert (1899). Part 2 is mainly devoted to Hilbert’s proof theory of the 1920s (1922–1931). I begin with an account of his early attempt to prove directly, and thus not by reduction or by constructing a model, the consistency of (a fragment of) arithmetic. In subsequent sections, I give a kind of overview of Hilbert’s metamathematics of the 1920s and try to shed light on a number of difficulties to which it gives rise. One serious difficulty that I discuss is the fact, widely ignored in the pertinent literature on Hilbert’s programme, that his language of finitist metamathematics fails to supply the conceptual resources for formulating a consistency statement qua unbounded quantification. Along the way, I shall comment on W. W. Tait’s objection to an interpretation of Hilbert’s finitism by Niebergall and Schirn, on G. Gentzen’s allegedly finitist consistency proof for Peano Arithmetic as well as his ideas on the provability and unprovability of initial cases of transfinite induction in pure number theory. Another topic I deal with is what has come to be known as partial realizations of Hilbert’s programme, chiefly advocated by S. G. Simpson. Towards the end of this essay, I take a critical look at Wittgenstein’s views about (in)consistency and consistency proofs in the period 1929–1933. I argue that both his insouciant attitude towards the emergence of a contradiction in a calculus and his outright repudiation of metamathematical consistency proofs are unwarranted. In particular, I argue that Wittgenstein falls short of making a convincing case against Hilbert’s programme. I conclude with some philosophical remarks on consistency proofs and soundness and raise a question concerning the consistency of analysis. (shrink)

Studies of the history of 20th century philosophy usually suggest a sharp antagonism between Martin Heidegger on the one hand and Philosophical Anthropology, as founded by Max Scheler and Helmuth Plessner, on the other. In contrast I will argue that one of Heidegger′s texts, namely his lecture The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. World – Finitude – Solitude, held in the 1929/30 winter semester is in fact very close to the theoretical approach of Philosophical Anthropology. The measure for determining this proximity (...) is taken from Joachim Fischer′s study Philosophische Anthropologie. Eine Denkrichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts . Its main systematic thesis posits that the theoretical approach of Philosophical Anthropology is constituted by a core identity, which can be accurately defined by a set of features. In my paper I use these features heuristically to examine the question whether Heidegger, who prima facie is not an adherent of the theoretical approach, in his lecture The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics actually does argue like an exponent of Philosophical Anthropology. (shrink)

Focusing on his essays “New value‐free sociology” and “Remarks on social conflict today,” this chapter discusses Adorno's assessments of how Karl Mannheim, Georg Simmel, Lewis Coser, and Ralf Dahrendorf have addressed the tensions and conflicts that beset contemporary society. The chapter draws on these sociologists' works and on Adorno's reading of them to elucidate core arguments in his critique of both their conceptions of the social world and their sociological modes of procedure. Particular emphasis is placed on Adorno's notion of (...) the potential of a sociological approach that is more suitable for gaining insight into the antagonistic capitalist condition. The key components of such an approach, notably experience, its interplay with theory, and sociology's response to appearance, are further illuminated with reference to passages that illustrate their operations in sociological research. (shrink)

In this article, I first analyze and assess the epistemological and semantic status of canonical value-range equations in the formal language of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik. I subsequently scrutinize the relation between (a) his informal, metalinguistic stipulation in Grundgesetze I, Section 3, and (b) its formal counterpart, which is Basic Law V. One point I argue for is that the stipulation in Section 3 was designed not only to fix the references of value-range names, but that it was probably also (...) intended to play a regulative role with an eye to Basic Law V. I further intend to shed new light on the status of Frege’s identification of the truth-values with their unit classes in Grundgesetze I, Section 10 and determine its place and importance in his overall logicist project. In a subsequent section, I first discuss the hypothetical extendability of the logical system of Grundgesetze. In what follows, I analyze the incompleteness of that system—were it not inconsistent and hence trivially complete—by focusing on the role of the definite description operator and the axiom governing it (= Basic Law VI) as well as on the role of the application operator. The latter is defined by means of the former. I further comment on the redundancy of an axiom that could be designed to supplement Basic Law VI by incorporating the second clause of Frege’s two-part elucidation of the description operator. I argue that although it seems likely that Basic Law VI could have been shown to be dispensable in Grundgesetze, Frege would probably have been reluctant to dispense with it, despite his commitment to axiomatic parsimony. In my view, the reason is that he considers it essential that every primitive function-name of his formal language be governed and grounded by a basic law that is tailored to the nature and the role of the primitive name occurring at a key point in the law. Toward the end of the article, I propose solutions to two problems with Frege’s use of “=” in the concept-script sentences that result from his definitions involving the replacement of the double stroke of definition with the judgment-stroke. I conclude the article with a summary of the main results that I have achieved. (shrink)

Matthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality, it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an increasingly visual culture, we (...) are constantly confronted with images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality - but did this referential character really get lost over time? Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions: what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it be recovered? (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the French philosopher and historian of science Abel Rey played a more influential role in the formative phase of the Vienna Circle than hitherto supposed. On the whole, it will be argued that Rey's contribution had political impact. His interpretation of "modern physics" in 1907 in the face of the alleged "bankruptcy of science" should be appreciated as a masterpiece of applied enlightenment thought. As such, it was especially paradigmatic for Philipp (...) Frank's "positivist" defense of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics against the irrationalist tendencies of the 1920s and 1930s. (shrink)

Social enterprises, like almost all organizations, continuously strive for external legitimacy. To be perceived as externally legitimated by society, social enterprises often engage in strategic partnerships. However, scholars have only recently turned their attention to the legitimating function of such partnerships. The purpose of this article is to address the hitherto neglected construct of inter-partner legitimacy. Drawing on institutional theory, we hypothesize that such inter-partner legitimacy affects the resource transfer among partners, which will, in turn, be recognized by society and (...) will subsequently affect each partner’s external legitimacy. Dyadic data of 121 strategic partnerships between social enterprises and their key partners confirm our hypotheses. We add to institutional theory by integrating the often ignored dimension of inter-partner legitimacy into our analysis and demonstrate its relevance to each partner’s external legitimacy and to resource transfer. Further contributions to the literature on institutional theory, legitimacy, social entrepreneurship, and inter-organizational relationships are identified. (shrink)

Economics and psychology are both sciences of human behaviour. This paper gives a survey of their interaction. First, the changing relationship between the two sciences is discussed: while economics was once imperialistic, it has become a science inspired by psychological insights. In order to illustrate this, recent developments and evidence for three major areas are presented: bounded rationality, non-selfish behaviour, and the economics of happiness.

Critical realism is a frequently mentioned, but not very well-known, late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century philosophical tradition. Having its roots in Kantian epistemology, critical realism is best characterized as a revisionist approach toward the original Kantian doctrine. Its most outstanding thesis is the idea that Kantian things-in-themselves are knowable. This idea was—at least implicitly—suggested by thinkers such as Alois Riehl, Wilhelm Wundt, and Oswald Külpe. Interestingly enough, the philosophical position of the early Moritz Schlick stands in the critical realist tradition as well. (...) As will be outlined in the course of this paper, both Schlick’s magnum opus General Theory of Knowledge (1918) and his seminal Space and Time in Contemporary Physics (1917) are based on the assumption that the objects of science are relations and that relations have the status of Kantian things-in-themselves. By way of conclusion, I shall point out that this— more or less directly—leads to the current debate over ‘structural’ realism. (shrink)

Fully updated with new topics covering the latest developments and debates, the second edition of this highly influential text retains its unique combination of accessibility and originality. Second edition of a highly influential text that has already become a standard in the field, for students and professional researchers alike, due to its impressive line-up of contributors, and its unique combination of accessibility and originality Twenty-six essays in total, covering 13 essential topics Features five new topics that bring readers up to (...) speed on some of the latest developments in the field, and give them a glimpse of where it's headed: Should knowledge come first? Do practical matters affect whether you know? Is virtuous motivation essential to knowing? Can knowledge be lucky? Can evidence be permissive? Substantially updates two other debates: Is there immediate justification? Can belief be justified through coherence alone? (shrink)

At the end of the eighteenth century, the new revolutionary authorities in France made history one of the most important school subjects in their central schools. In order to teach this subject, the revolutionaries prescribed all teachers to use Claude-François-Xavier Millot's Élémens d’histoire générale (1772-1773). In this article, the characteristics that molded the narrative of this textbook will be analyzed. What form did the composition of this book, especially recommended because of its ‘philosophical plan’, take? How did its historiography relate (...) to that of other enlightened historians such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Mably or Goguet? And how was it that Millot's textbook was still considered useful for history teaching almost twenty years after its publication date? (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the new Tweety puzzle. The original Tweety puzzle was addressed by approaches in non-monotonic logic, which aim to adequately represent the Tweety case, namely that Tweety is a penguin and, thus, an exceptional bird, which cannot fly, although in general birds can fly. The new Tweety puzzle is intended as a challenge for probabilistic theories of epistemic states. In the first part of the paper we argue against monistic Bayesians, who assume that epistemic states can (...) at any given time be adequately described by a single subjective probability function. We show that monistic Bayesians cannot provide an adequate solution to the new Tweety puzzle, because this requires one to refer to a frequency-based probability function. We conclude that monistic Bayesianism cannot be a fully adequate theory of epistemic states. In the second part we describe an empirical study, which provides support for the thesis that monistic Bayesianism is also inadequate as a descriptive theory of cognitive states. In the final part of the paper we criticize Bayesian approaches in cognitive science, insofar as their monistic tendency cannot adequately address the new Tweety puzzle. We, further, argue against monistic Bayesianism in cognitive science by means of a case study. In this case study we show that Oaksford and Chater’s (2007, 2008) model of conditional inference—contrary to the authors’ theoretical position—has to refer also to a frequency-based probability function. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno is a widely-studied figure, but most often with regard to his work on cultural theory, philosophy and aesthetics. The Sociology of Theodor Adorno provides the first thorough English-language account of Adorno's sociological thinking. Matthias Benzer reads Adorno's sociology through six major themes: the problem of conceptualising capitalist society; empirical research; theoretical analysis; social critique; the sociological text; and the question of the non-social. Benzer explains the methodological and theoretical ideas informing Adorno's reflections on sociology and illustrates Adorno's (...) approach to examining social life, including astrology, sexual taboos and racial prejudice. Benzer clarifies Adorno's sociology in relation to his work in other disciplines and the inspiration his sociology took from social thinkers such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Kracauer and Benjamin. The book raises critical questions about the viability of Adorno's sociological mode of procedure and its potential contributions and challenges to current debates in social science. (shrink)

The great Pontano -- The storms of life -- The haven of philosophy -- Rewriting moral philosophy -- Learned authority -- Latin philosophy -- Virtue, inside out -- The rule of reason -- Beyond the veil -- Chronology of Pontano's works -- Chronology of Pontano's life -- Moral virtues in Aristotle and Pontano.

BackgroundParental reflective functioning refers to parents’ mental capacity to understand their own and their children’s behaviors in terms of envisioned mental states. As part of a broader concept of parental mentalization, PRF has been identified as one of the central predictors for sensitive parenting. However, the unique contribution of PRF to the quality of various parenting behaviors has not yet been addressed systematically. Thus, the present article provides a systematic overview of current research on the associations between PRF or its (...) sub-dimensions and observed parenting behaviors in infancy and early childhood, while considering the influence of contextual factors.MethodsThe review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Systematic searches were carried out in five electronic databases. The eligibility and methodological quality of the identified studies were assessed using pre-defined criteria and a standardized checklist.ResultsSixteen studies with moderate to high quality on a total of 15 parenting behaviors were included, the majority of which examined positive parenting behaviors, while negative parenting behaviors were rarely investigated. Most of the associations indicated a positive effect of PRF on parenting behavior, with mostly small-sized effects. The strength and direction of the associations varied depending on the dimensionality of PRF, observation settings, sample types, socioeconomic factors, and cultural background. Moreover, five assessment instruments for PRF and 10 observation instruments for parenting behaviors were identified.ConclusionIn summary, PRF has shown a positive association with parenting quality. However, its complex interaction with further contextual factors emphasizes the need for differentiation of PRF dimensions and the consideration of the observation settings, assessment time points, psychosocial risks, and sample types in observational as well as intervention studies. Further high-quality studies with multivariate analyses and diverse study settings are required. (shrink)

Once the post-modern account of individual and cultural identity as creative openness to change is re-construed in terms of a constructivist rendering of the semiotic theory of culture, and once inter-denominational and inter-faith hospital chaplaincy is interpreted on a model of cross-cultural communication which agrees with this theory, chaplains can conceive of their ability to fulfill their mission in offering understanding and help to the client from other faith communities only by explicitly invoking the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The (...) commentary argues that Schneider-Harpprecht’s all too generalized account of that intervention leaves chaplains with no spiritual substance for distinguishing between truely and only apparent pastoral helpfulness. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Basic Laws of Arithmetic, Vol. I/II; 1893/1903) is a modern classic. Since the 1930s it has belonged to an exclusive class of only eleven works in the history of symbolic logic, which contain the ‘first appearance of a new idea of fundamental importance’ [Church, 1936, p. 122], and its author is the only one whose other major works — Begriffsschrift (1879) and Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) — also belong to this distinguished group. Together with (...) the seminal paper ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ these three monographs represent the essential contributions to one of the most fascinating foundational projects in mathematics, then and now. For decades Frege struggled with the question, ‘how are we to apprehend logical objects, in particular, the numbers? What justifies us in acknowledging numbers as objects?’ [Frege, 2013, ‘Afterword’, p. 265]. His favourite answer, for a long time, was that arithmetic is a complex branch of logic. But since there is no logicism without logic, Frege started in Begriffsschrift with the invention of a nearly perfect formalization of higher-order classical predicate logic. To discover how far we can get in arithmetic by analytic means alone, it was even necessary to clarify the semantic character of the concept of number. This was done in a marvellous way by Frege five years later, in Grundlagen. The next step was nothing less than the complete execution of his logicist project, a monumental undertaking; and it is well known that here Frege failed, due to Russell’s derivation of the antinomy in 1902. But, despite the contradiction, Grundgesetze contains Frege’s legacy to logicism, which became more and more attractive. (shrink)