Two experiments were conducted to investigate the roles of covariation and of causality in people's readiness to believe a conditional. The experiments used a probabilistic truth-table task (Oberauer & Wilhelm, 2003) in which people estimated the probability of a conditional given information about the frequency distribution of truth-table cases. For one group of people, belief in the conditional was determined by the conditional probability of the consequent, given the antecedent, whereas for another group it depended on the probability of the (...) conjunction of antecedent and consequent. There was little evidence that covariation, expressed as the probabilistic contrast or as the pCI rule (White, 2003), influences belief in the conditional. The explicit presence of a causal link between antecedent and consequent in a context story had a weak positive effect on belief in a conditional when the frequency distribution of relevant cases was held constant. (shrink)

English summary: The philosophy of play during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance has been largely neglected by scholars, despite the fact that influential thinkers, such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, perceived recreational play to be a vital part of a philosopher's life. By exploring a heterogeneous collection of diverse philosophical approaches to ludic practices, this innovative study provides the first in-depth discussion of the complexity of medieval and early-modern ludic philosophy. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between (...) play and philosophy, which the influential Aristotelian discourse on play, initiated by Albert and Thomas, conceptualized as a contradictory dichotomy. By focusing on the manifold epistemic transformations which occurred during the Renaissance, this study analyses how philosophers in various contexts developed alternative or complementary theories of the connection between ludus and philosophia. German description: Die philosophische Geschichte des Spielens nach der Antike lasst man in der Regel mit Friedrich Schillers von Kant inspirierten Briefen Uber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen beginnen, ohne die ihnen vorausgehende Vielfalt philosophischer Auseinandersetzung mit ludischen Praktiken naher zu betrachten. Vorliegende Studie versteht sich als erster Beitrag zur Erschliessung dieser bislang vernachlassigten spielphilosophischen Ansatze zwischen Mittelalter und Fruher Neuzeit. Dabei wird insbesondere das Verhaltnis von Spielen und Philosophieren in den Blick genommen, das schon bei scholastischen Autoren im Zentrum ludischer Reflexionen stand. So etablierten Gelehrte wie Albertus Magnus oder Thomas von Aquin bereits im 13. Jahrhundert eine strenge Trennung zwischen dem als Rekreation konzipierten Spielen und dem Ernst des Philosophierens, indem sie ludische Erholung mit Ruckgriff auf Aristoteles zum notwendigen Gegenstuck der Kontemplation erklarten. Die Arbeit zeigt, wie Philosophen zwischen Spatmittelalter und Fruher Neuzeit im Zuge vielfaltiger epistemischer Transformationen das Verhaltnis von philosophia und ludus komplementar oder alternativ zu diesem einflussreichen aristotelischen Deutungsschema bestimmten. Unter diesen heterogenen Ansatzen finden sich ein allegorisches Globusspiel des Nikolaus von Kues, die erste philosophischen Therapie ubermassiger Spielleidenschaft und eine naturphilosophische Beschreibung des Tennisspiels am rinascimentalen Hof von Ferrara. (shrink)

Besides their skepticism about universal reason and universal morality, the Frankfurt Schools of Critical Systems Theory and Critical Theory share basic assumptions: (1) the thinking in societal-systemic, institutional concepts, which transcend simple reciprocal relations by dint of their complexity; (2) the assumption that society is based on fundamental paradoxes, antagonisms, antinomies; (3) the strategy to conceptualize justice as a contingent and transcendental formula; (4) the form of immanent (and not morality-based, external) critique as an attitude of transcendence; (5) the aim (...) of societal (and not only political) emancipation in an ‘association of free individuals’ (Marx). The article focuses on those parallels and aims to conceptualize a critical turn-around of autopoietic systems theory. (shrink)

In this paper we propose the multiple complex systems approach for assessing domain-general complex problem-solving skills and its processes knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. After defining the construct and the formal frameworks for describing complex problems, we emphasise some of the measurement issues inherent in assessing CPS skills with single tasks. With examples of the MicroDYN test and the MicroFIN test, we show how to adequately score problem-solving skills by using multiple tasks. We discuss implications for problem-solving research and the (...) assessment of CPS skills in general. (shrink)

Moral development has become an integral part in military training and the importance of moral judgment and behavior in military operations can hardly be overestimated. Many armed forces have integrated military ethics and moral decision-making interventions in their training programs. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study examined the effectiveness of a 1-week training program in moral decision making in the Swiss Armed Forces. The program was based on a strategy-based interactional moral dilemma approach. Results (...) of this quasi-experimental intervention study showed significant improvements in content-related (moral and instrumental awareness, quality of moral information processing, development of compensatory actions) as well as process-related (situational analysis, development and evaluation of alternative solutions, justification of decision) aspects in moral decision making. Results of a follow-up test indicated positive long-term effects with regard to moral and instrumental awareness and process-related aspects. Findings are discussed, and consequences for leadership development programs and further research are explored. (shrink)

Let be an o-minimal structure expanding a real closed field R. We show that any definable set in Rn can be stratified into cells, whose defining functions are smooth Lipschitz continuous functions with constant 2n3/2, which have additional regularity conditions on the derivatives of higher order.