Since the regional level has become important in European politics, it is necessary to examine the specifity of the regions. This contribution is a first attempt to develop a model to measure 'regional specifity' for the ten criteria which are most often used to define regions in academic literature. A first application of the model makes clear the characteristics of those regions and gives an understanding of the process of regionbuilding as well. Most regions with a certain degree of political (...) autonomy do have a specificity on more criteria than those regions without any autonomy. These empirical data give a scientific basis to the thesis that regional specificity is constructed by regional authorities. (shrink)

The overlapping of the competencies of a number of regional authorities and those of the EU has necessitated an introduction of the regions in the EU policy-making. In this contribution, this phenomenon is combined with the concepts of paradiplomacy and multilevel governance. The present opportunities for regional participation will be looked at and some kind of classification scheme will be proposed. Those opportunities may be classified into four categories, depending on the formal or informal and direct or indirect character of (...) the participation. References are made to the Flemish involvement in European decision-making in the environmental field. (shrink)

The revised edition contains a new chapter which provides an elegant description of the semantics. The various classes of lambda calculus models are described in a uniform manner. Some didactical improvements have been made to this edition. An example of a simple model is given and then the general theory (of categorical models) is developed. Indications are given of those parts of the book which can be used to form a coherent course.

In this paper, we first classify different types of second opinions and evaluate the ethical and epistemological implications of providing those in a clinical context. Second, we discuss the issue of how artificial intelligent could replace the human cognitive labour of providing such second opinion and find that several AI reach the levels of accuracy and efficiency needed to clarify their use an urgent ethical issue. Third, we outline the normative conditions of how AI may be used as second opinion (...) in clinical processes, weighing the benefits of its efficiency against concerns of responsibility attribution. Fourth, we provide a ‘rule of disagreement’ that fulfils these conditions while retaining some of the benefits of expanding the use of AI-based decision support systems in clinical contexts. This is because the rule of disagreement proposes to use AI as much as possible, but retain the ability to use human second opinions to resolve disagreements between AI and physician-in-charge. Fifth, we discuss some counterarguments. (shrink)

Hendrik Lorenz presents a comprehensive study of Plato's and Aristotle's conceptions of non-rational desire. They see this as something that humans share with animals, and which aims primarily at the pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Lorenz explores the cognitive resources that both philosophers make available for the explanation of such desires, and what they take rationality to add to the motivational structure of human beings. In doing so, he finds conceptions of the mind that are coherent and deeply (...) integrated with both philosophers' views about such topics as the relation between body and soul, or the nature of the virtues. (shrink)

Inleiding tot de Duitse filosoof (1724-1804).

An architect and architectural philosopher, Berlage created a series of buildings and a body of writings that probed the problems and possibilities of Modernism. His principal texts, given here in English for the first time, present a vital chapter in the history of European Modernism.

This paper wants to shed light on the way the philosophical school of Stoicsm in Greco-Roman antiquity has dealt with the relationship of men and nature by pointing out to some of the key texts in which these issues are mentioned. Although the modern concept of sustainability or environmental protection did not really exist in antiquity, the Stoa was convinced that individual decisions had a direct impact on this world. Following the concept of environmental humanities, the ancient texts and authors (...) are collected as historical ideas of the multifaceted interactions between nature and men that can be fruitfully mirrored with the arguments of the current Anthropocene discourse and its focus on (post)industrialism. By doing so we might come across helpful approaches deeply rooted in our cultural heritage that we could possibly adopt and find practical answers for our age in terms of individual behaviour as well as management decisions to face the ecological and social challenges ahead. (shrink)

This paper explores the role and resolution of disagreements between physicians and their diagnostic AI-based decision support systems. With an ever-growing number of applications for these independently operating diagnostic tools, it becomes less and less clear what a physician ought to do in case their diagnosis is in faultless conflict with the results of the DSS. The consequences of such uncertainty can ultimately lead to effects detrimental to the intended purpose of such machines, e.g. by shifting the burden of proof (...) towards a physician. Thus, we require normative clarity for integrating these machines without affecting established, trusted, and relied upon workflows. In reconstructing different causes of conflicts between physicians and their AI-based tools—inspired by the approach of “meaningful human control” over autonomous systems and the challenges to resolve them—we will delineate normative conditions for “meaningful disagreements”. These incorporate the potential of DSS to take on more tasks and outline how the moral responsibility of a physician can be preserved in an increasingly automated clinical work environment. (shrink)

Conflicts in Interpretation applies novel methods of constraint interaction, derived from connectionist theories and implemented in linguistics within the framework of Optimality Theory, to core semantic and pragmatic issues such as polysemy, negation, (in) definiteness, focus, anaphora, and rhetorical structure. It explores the hypothesis that a natural language grammar is a set of potentially conflicting constraints on forms and meanings. Moreover, it hypothesizes that competent language users not only optimize from an input form to the optimal output meaning for this (...) form, or vice versa, but also consider the opposite direction of optimization, thus taking into account the speaker as a hearer and taking into account the hearer as a speaker. The book aims to show that such a bidirectional constraint-based grammar sheds new light on the relation between form and meaning, within a sentence as well as across sentence boundaries, within a single language as well as across languages, and within competent adult language users as well as during language development. An important dimension of the book is the structured investigation of issues at the interface of semantics with syntax and pragmatics, such as the effects of distinguishing between speaker's perspective and hearer's perspective in comprehension and production, stable and instable patterns of form and meaning across languages, and the development of a coherent pattern of form and meaning in children. Conflicts in Interpretation will be of interest to any researcher or advanced student in linguistics, cognitive science, language typology, or psycholinguistics who is interested in the capacity of our human mind to map meaning onto form, and form onto meaning. (shrink)

The central theme of this essay concerns the historical character of human nature and especially of human reason. This theme I will develop first of all by discussing briefly that aspect of the present-day philosophical debate, in which this theme takes pride of place. Thus, in the first section, I will try to show which predicament the participants of this debate face in the defense of their position. In the second section, I will discuss the main ideas of Herman Dooyeweerd’s (...) transcendental critique of theoretical thought. This critique, which Dooyeweerd himself considered to be a Christian critique on the whole tradition of philosophical thought, is closely tied up with the theme of this chapter. The problem of the historical character of human rationality — or in the words of Dooyeweerd, ‘the problem of historicism’ — formed for a large part the setting in which he developed his critique. Although I fully accord with the main thrust of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy and especially endorse that which motivated him in his transcendental critique, there are, nevertheless, elements in his conception which have dissatisfied me for a long time. His critique needs to be revised, in my opinion. In section three, I shall attempt such a revision, by taking as a starting point the idea of the ‘answering nature of humankind,’ an idea which I have worked out elsewhere. (shrink)

Aristotle takes practical wisdom and arts or crafts to be forms of knowledge which, we argue, can usefully be thought of as ‘empiricist’. This empiricism has two key features: knowledge does not rest on grasping unobservable natures or essences; and knowledge does not rest on grasping logical relations that hold among propositions. Instead, knowledge rests on observation, memory, experience and everyday uses of reason. While Aristotle’s conception of theoretical knowledge does require grasping unobservable essences and logical relations that hold among (...) suitable propositions, his conception of practical and productive knowledge avoids such requirements and is consistent with empiricism. (shrink)

We analyze investors’ perception and long-term effects of board gender diversity on firms’ stock market performance in an international setting. Our results, controlling for the endogenous nature of board compositions, indicate that female board representation neither improves nor reduces firms’ long-term stock performance. Hence, we argue that it is imperative to go beyond the conventional thinking in terms of the business case for gender diversity and broaden the perspective also to incorporate societal and ethical aspects in the strive to board (...) gender equality. Even more so, as our results show that it does not entail reduced shareholder value, which the literature on mandatory gender quotas commonly seems to suggest. (shrink)

The reliability of clinical practice guidelines has been disputed because guideline panel members are often burdened with financial conflicts of interest. Current recommendations for COI regulation advise not only detailed declaration but also active management of conflicts. To continuously assess COI declaration and management in German guidelines we established the public database LeitlinienWatch. We analyzed all German guidelines at the highest methodological level that included recommendations for pharmacological therapy according to five criteria: declaration and assessment of COI, composition of the (...) guideline development group, independence of the coordinators and lead authors, imposed abstentions because of COI and public external review. Each criterion was assessed using predefined outcome categories. Most guidelines contained a detailed declaration of COI. However, none of the guidelines provided full transparency of COI assessment results. The guideline group was composed of a majority of participants with COI in 55% of the guidelines, no guideline was free of participants with COI. Only 9% of guidelines had coordinators and lead authors without any financial COI. Most guidelines did not provide a rule for abstentions for participants with COI. In 21% of guidelines there was a rule, but abstentions were either not practiced or not documented, whereas in 7% partial abstentions and in 2% complete abstentions were documented. Two thirds of the guideline drafts were not externally reviewed via a public website. COI are usually documented in detail in German guidelines of the highest methodological level. However, considerable improvement is needed regarding active management of COI, including recruitment of independent experts for guideline projects, abstention from voting for participants with COI and external review of the guideline draft. We assume that the publicly available ratings on GuidelineWatch will improve the handling of conflicts of interest in guideline development. (shrink)

With special attention being paid to recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and the Law, specifically related to evidentiary reasoning, this book ...

This article explores nation building as an organizational accomplishment and uses the concept of boundary object to explain how the groups that compose the nation cooperate. Specifically, the article examines the mechanisms devised to secure a flow of money from the Irish-American and Jewish-American diasporas to their respective homelands. To overcome problems associated with conventional philanthropy, Irish and Jewish nationalists issued bonds and sold them to their American compatriots as a hybrid of a gift and an investment. In the Irish (...) case, disagreements about the entitlement to the proceeds resulted in the termination of the bond project. In the Jewish case, the bond served as a boundary object allowing American and Israeli Jews to cooperate despite ongoing tensions. The Israeli bond provided Jewish-Americans with an additional way to invest themselves financially and emotionally in Israel. This bond is an example of a socio-technical mechanism used to create national attachments. (shrink)

Descartes' works were not allowed to be read at Leiden University, even his name could not be pronounced. Read the compelling story about how his pupil Johannes de Raey has had the opportunity to preach Descartes fully in philosophy, but also in medicine, in a hostile anti-Cartesian climate during 20 years (1647-1668). This book is not only meant for philosophers and medical historians, but for all who want to take a look at the extensive menu of Cartesian cuisine. The 17th-century (...) philosopher René Descartes turned established science upside down by doubting all certainties. His critical mind rejected statements that could not be proven by the Ratio. The Ratio was the metaphor for the roots, the physics for the trunk and the medicine for the branches and leaves of the Cartesian tree. This premise was directly opposed to the established aristotelian theory in which observation formed the basis of knowledge. De Raey, who once called Descartes his best student, synthesized a hybrid model of the old Aristotelian and the new Cartesian concept. From 1658 to 1662 he gave private lessons in medicine at Leiden University and tried to use his model as a basis for explaining human physiology. Until now, nothing was known about the content of these lectures. The author recently found a dispute. It is a new dish on the Cartesian menu. (shrink)

Ancient philosophical theories of soul are in many respects sensitive to ways of speaking and thinking about the soul psuchê] that are not specifically philosophical or theoretical. We therefore begin with what the word ‘soul’ meant to speakers of Classical Greek, and what it would have been natural to think about and associate with the soul. We then turn to various Presocratic thinkers, and to the philosophical theories that are our primary concern, those of Plato (first in the Phaedo, then (...) in the Republic), Aristotle (in the De Anima or On the Soul ), Epicurus, and the Stoics. These are by far the most carefully worked out theories of soul in ancient philosophy. Later theoretical developments — for instance, in the writings of Plotinus and other Platonists, as well as the Church Fathers — are best studied against the background of the classical theories, from which, in large part, they derive. (shrink)

The target article presents a model for schizophrenia extending four levels of abstraction: molecules, cells, cognition, and syndrome. An important notion in the model is that of coordination, applicable to both the level of cells and of cognition. The molecular level provides an “implementation” of the coordination at the cellular level, which in turn underlies the coordination at the cognitive level, giving rise to the clinical symptoms.

The central theme of this essay concerns the historical character of human nature and especially of human reason. This theme I will develop first of all by discussing briefly that aspect of the present-day philosophical debate, in which this theme takes pride of place. Thus, in the first section, I will try to show which predicament the participants of this debate face in the defense of their position. In the second section, I will discuss the main ideas of Herman Dooyeweerd’s (...) transcendental critique of theoretical thought. This critique, which Dooyeweerd himself considered to be a Christian critique on the whole tradition of philosophical thought, is closely tied up with the theme of this chapter. The problem of the historical character of human rationality — or in the words of Dooyeweerd, ‘the problem of historicism’ — formed for a large part the setting in which he developed his critique. Although I fully accord with the main thrust of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy and especially endorse that which motivated him in his transcendental critique, there are, nevertheless, elements in his conception which have dissatisfied me for a long time. His critique needs to be revised, in my opinion. In section three, I shall attempt such a revision, by taking as a starting point the idea of the ‘answering nature of humankind,’ an idea which I have worked out elsewhere. (shrink)

Pragma-dialectical approaches to legal argumentation seem to be rather different from traditional approaches appealing to standards of propositional logic. Pragma-dialectical analysis of arguments by analogy and e contrario seem to fall foul to the rigors of logical analysis, in which problems or even concepts of analogy and e contrario seem to disappear. The brunt of both types of special legal argumentation appears to be borne by often implicit general principles and an appeal to the system of the law as a (...) whole. Still, pragma-dialectics and logical analysis of legal argument are best seen as fruitfully supplementing each other in ongoing research of ever evolving legal argument. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I argue that there are, according to Aristotle, two importantly different kinds of goals or ends in the domain of human agency and that one of these two kinds has been frequently, though not universally, overlooked. Apart from psychological goals, goals that agents adopt as their purposes, there are also, I submit, goals that actions have by being the kinds of actions they are and, in some cases, by occurring in the circumstances in which they do. These latter goals belong (...) to suitable actions whether or not agents adopt them as purposes and whether or not agents are aware of them. There is evidence both in Aristotle's ethical writings and in his discussion of chance and luck in Physics II.4–6 that he recognizes goals of this latter kind. (shrink)

Mit Fragen der Formgebung und Zeitorganisation einerseits, der Nähe von Rhythmus und Körper andererseits lassen sich zwei Schwerpunkte gegenwärtiger Debatten über rhythmische Phänomene ausmachen, deren Konstellierung auf die Umbrüche der Rhythmusdiskurse um 1900 zurückverweist. Der Beitrag diskutiert das Verhältnis der beiden Diskussionsstränge und dessen Rekonfiguration in Musils Überlegungen zum Rhythmus; im Zentrum stehen dabei Musils Notizen zu den Experimentaluntersuchungen Kurt Koffkas.

How does one make sense of a naked prophet who walked the streets of Jerusalem for no less than three years? This contribution interpreted the ambulatory naked prophet in Isaiah 20 as a sign-act by means of symbolic interactionism and performative interpretation according to which symbolic or sign-acts are multivalent entities. Isaiah 20 was interpreted as an embodied, multivalent text that invited ongoing appropriation among subsequent audiences while exploring the potential meaning(s) of the initial act within the parameters of text (...) and context. It is presupposed that human beings reinterpret symbolic acts in different subsequent contexts and that a symbolic act should never be reduced to one single (original!) meaning – this reinterpretation process is illustrated by the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 20. Furthermore, the question will be posed how one could interpret and appropriate a disruptive and ‘foolish’ prophetic and symbolic act of public exposure – Isaiah as an ‘agent provocateur’?Contribution: The performative critique of Isaiah 20 drew attention to the neglected multivalent character of the initial sign-act that enabled ongoing appropriations (‘Fortschreibung’) in new contexts of competing power relations. At first the sign-act was relevant for its pre-exilic audience, then for the post-exilic and even later for a Hellenistic audience by means of the Septuagint version. It also illustrated that text interpretation can be a catalyst that unsettles and disrupts power (within and beyond academic and believing communities), even when it is considered folly. (shrink)

When heterogeneous players make strategic investment decisions in multi-stage contests, they might conserve resources in a current contest to spend more in a subsequent contest, if the degree of heterogeneity in the current contest is sufficiently large. We confirm these predictions using data from German professional soccer, in which players are subject to a one-match ban if they accumulate five yellow cards. Players with four yellow cards facing the risk of being suspended for the next match are less likely to (...) be fielded when the heterogeneity in the current match increases and more likely to receive a fifth yellow card in the current match when heterogeneity in the next match increases or heterogeneity in the next match but one decreases. (shrink)

Die Idee zu der in diesem Band dokumentierten Tagung ist im Rahmen des disziplinübergreifenden Nachwuchswissenschaftsnetzwerkes THESIS entstanden. Der Dialog über die fachlichen und disziplinären Grenzen hinweg hat bei THESIS seit dessen Gründung im Jahre 1990 stets einen großen Raum eingenommen. Anderen Fächern Respekt und Interesse entgegenzubringen und sich nicht von stereotypen Vorurteilen leiten zu lassen, ist konstitutiver Bestandteil im Selbstverständnis des Netzwerkes. Selbstverständlich gibt es in einem solchen Verbund eine Reihe von Gelegenheiten (darunter auch den einen oder anderen entwicklungsfördernden Konflikt), (...) das eigene Bild vom Anderen und das andere Bild vom Eigenen zur Sprache zu bringen und zu hinterfragen. Auf der Basis dieser bestehenden Kommunikationsstrukturen trafen sich am 11. Oktober 2003 in Göttingen 12 junge Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler zwischen, über und auch auf den Grenzen ihrer eigenen Herkunftsdisziplinen, um den Trendbegriff [alpha]Transdisziplinarität" auf seine Substanz zu prüfen. (shrink)