The hypothesis that anatomically modern homo sapiens could have undergone changes akin to those observed in domesticated animals has been contemplated in the biological sciences for at least 150 years. The idea had already plagued philosophers such as Rousseau, who considered the civilisation of man as going against human nature, and eventually.

Carpendale & Lewis (C&L) propose that social knowledge is constructed from triadic interactions. This account generates testable predictions concerning social knowledge in infancy. Current evidence is not entirely consistent with these predictions. Infants possess action knowledge before they engage in triadic interactions, and triadic use of an action does not always precede knowledge about the action.

First published in 1986, Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft remains the only analysis of indigenous discourse about an African belief system undertaken from within the framework of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Taking as its point of departure W. V. O. Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, the book investigates questions of Yoruba epistemology and of how knowledge is conceived in an oral culture.

Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature contains 110 images from the collections of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser; the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; and of the J. Paul Getty Museum, along with an essay by Paul Martineau that ...

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent writing in the philosophy of mind.

Recently, reliable interindividual differences were found for the way how individuals process multiple tasks and how they organize their responses. Previous studies have shown mixed results with respect to the flexibility of these preferences. On the one hand, individuals tend to adjust their preferred task processing mode to varying degrees of risk of crosstalk between tasks. On the other, response strategies were observed to be highly stable under varying between-resource competition. In the present study, we investigated whether the stability of (...) response strategies also persists with increased risk of crosstalk or whether individuals adjust their choice of response strategy, similar to what has been found at the level of task processing modes. Besides, related differences in multitasking efficiency were assessed. For this purpose, 53 participants performed the Free Concurrent Dual-Tasking paradigm, which allows them to control their task scheduling and response organization. The participants completed the FCDT paradigm under two conditions including task pairs characterized by either low or high levels of risk of crosstalk. The free choice of task scheduling resulted in the previously found distinct response patterns, best described as blocking, switching or response grouping. Remarkably, we did not find any notable adjustments of strategies of response organization to the extent of crosstalk. However, we observed suspected performance decrements of a switching strategy in the condition of high risk of crosstalk. The results suggest that individual strategies of response organization are stable habits. Further, they illustrate disadvantages of switching vs. blocking strategies of response organization in case of high task similarity. (shrink)

Since Barry Stroud's classic paper in 1968, the general discussion on transcendental arguments tends to focus on examples from theoretical philosophy. It also tends to be pessimistic, or at least extremely reluctant, about the potential of this kind of arguments. Nevertheless, transcendental reasoning continues to play a prominent role in some recent approaches to moral philosophy. Moreover, some authors argue that transcendental arguments may be more promising in moral philosophy than they are in theoretical contexts. Against this background, the current (...) volume focuses on transcendental arguments in practical philosophy. Experts from different countries and branches of philosophy share their views about whether there are actually differences between "theoretical" and "practical" uses of transcendental arguments. They examine and compare different versions of transcendental arguments in moral philosophy, explain their structure, and assess their respective problems and promises. This book offers all those interested in ethics, meta-ethics, or epistemology a more comprehensive understanding of transcendental arguments. It also provides them with new insights into uses of transcendental reasoning in moral philosophy. (shrink)

El presente artículo se interroga por la noción de sujeto implícita en el proceder empleado por Tribunales de Familia para casos de violencia hacia la mujer en Chile. Considera las implicancias que tienen las leyes en el contexto del proceder de los casos de violencia, para terminar revisando ciertas nociones desprendidas del operar jurídico, a partir de una lectura que incluye aspectos de las ciencias humanas y del psicoanálisis. Se expone, finalmente, cómo estas nociones están enraizadas en y, a su (...) vez, sostienen ciertos discursos respecto a la violencia hacia la mujer, que permiten determinadas modalidades de subjetivación.The present article discusses the notion of subject implicit in the procedures of Family Courts in case of women violence in Chile. The article takes in to account the influence of laws in the context of violence cases and it finishes reviewing certain notion taken from the juridical work. This is done beginning with a reading based on human sciences and psychoanalysis. Finally, the article point out the roots of these notions and, at the same time, discusses certain discourses related to woman violence that allow certain subjectivation modes. (shrink)

Au confluent de la narratologie et de la psychologie, le concept de narrativité est un outil thérapeutique primordial. Dans le cadre de thérapies post-traumatiques, le thérapeute est l’interlocuteur dont l’écoute soutient les fonctions de l’enveloppe narrative du patient : cette élaboration qui transforme les éléments bruts d’un réel effractant en éléments pensables puise dans la vie fantasmatique qui préexistait à l’événement traumatique. Ces « mythèmes » organisateurs sont venus nourrir la structuration de ces contes à usage privé qui se construisent (...) dans le cadre de la thérapie. Mais ce travail engage un jeu particulier où les identités du témoin, de la victime et du coupable sont floues. Patient et thérapeute se retrouvent au coeur d’une valse-hésitation d’identifications projectives qu’il est nécessaire d’analyser. (shrink)

It is common to account for our senses on the basis of our sensory organs. One way of glossing why Aristotle famously counted five senses—and why his count became common sense in the West and elsewhere—is because there are five rather obvious organs of sense. In more modern accounts, this organ criterion of the senses has transformed into a neurobiological criterion; that is to say, part of what it means to be a sense is to have an associated organ with (...) appropriate physiological properties. For example, part of the claim that humans have a sense of vision is that we have a non-vestigial organ (the eye) that has cells (photoreceptors) especially sensitive to the properties of electromagnetic radiation. However, the nature of this “organ criterion” is a point of some contention. Is it a sufficient criterion? Necessary? To be called “vision” need the organ mediating it give rise to “visual experiences”? This chapter will consider the neurobiological criterion as it was originally presented in Aristotle and later reconceptualized in 19th-century neurophysiologist Johannes Müller’s “Law of Specific Nerve Energies.” By understanding the role of neurobiology in these accounts, we will be able to explore the deficiencies of contemporary accounts that downplay neurobiology in differentiating the senses. We will consider one of these accounts in detail: Alva Noë’s recent arguments in favor of an enactive approach to perceptual psychology. (shrink)

Softlifting, or the illegal duplication of copyrighted software by individuals for personal use, is a serious and costly problem for software developers and distributors. Understanding the factors that determine attitude toward softlifting is important in order to ascertain what motivates individuals to engage in the behavior. We examine a number of factors, including personal moral obligation (PMO), perceived usefulness, and awareness of the laws and regulations governing software acquisition and use, along with facets of personal self-identity that may play a (...) role in the development of attitudes and therefore intentions regarding this behavior. These factors are examined across multiple settings expected to be pertinent to our survey respondents: home, work and school. Personal moral obligation and perceived usefulness are significant predictors of attitude across all settings. Past behavior is a significant predictor of intention across all settings, and a significant predictor of attitude in the home setting. We find evidence that awareness of the law causes a less favorable evaluation of softlifting in the school setting only, but has little effect in the home and work settings. As in previous studies, attitude is a significant predictor of intent. We do not find indications that one’s personal self-identity influences one’s attitude towards the behavior and the intention to perform it, except in the case of legal identity, where marginally significant effects are found in the work environment. (shrink)

1.1 Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Tangent Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Vector Fields, Integral Curves, and Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Tensors and Tensor Fields on Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.5 The Action of Smooth Maps on Tensor Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.6 Lie Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.7 Derivative Operators and Geodesics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.8 Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 1.9 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 1.10 Hypersurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1.11 Volume Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.. (shrink)

В книге собраны статьи по актуальным вопросам политической теории, которые находятся в центре дискуссий отечественных и зарубежных философов и обществоведов. Книга имеет полемический характер и предназначена всем.

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.

With Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotical theory two different kinds of creative metaphorical reasoning in science can be identified. The building of remainder metaphors is especially important for creating new scientific models. We show that the conveyor belt metaphor provides an excellent example for Peirce's theory. The conveyor belt metaphor has recently been invented in order to describe the oceanic transport system. The paradigm of the oceanic conveyor belt strongly influenced the geoscience community and the climate change discussion.

Bereits mit Grundung der Universitat Helmstedt im Jahr 1576 wurde eine mit zehn Lehrstuhlen sehr gut ausgestattete Philosophische Fakultat installiert, die die Grundlage fur die irenisch-humanistische Ausrichtung der Helmstedter Theologie und Philosophie bildete. Jens Brunings Studie Innovation in Forschung und Lehre nimmt bewusst nicht die Glanzzeit der Academia Julia im spaten 16. und im 17. Jahrhundert in den Blick, sondern erstmals den Zeitraum um 1700, in dem sich die Helmstedter Universitat in einer problematischen Phase des Ubergangs befand und zudem durch (...) die Grundungen der Universitaten in Halle (1694) und Gottingen (1737) starke Konkurrenz erhielt. Die Helmstedter Professorengeneration der 1720er und 1730er Jahre schaffte es schliesslich, u.a. mit der Durchsetzung einer den Aristotelismus ablosenden eklektisch ausgerichteten Philosophie, der Einfuhrung der experimentellen Naturlehre und der "Historia Litteraria", die Philosophische Fakultat der Universitat noch einmal zu den fuhrenden Einrichtungen ihrer Art im Alten Reich zu machen. In dieser Zeit zeigt sich ein bemerkenswerter Modernisierungsschub, der sowohl die Lehrfacher und Lehrinhalte als auch die Organisation von Wissenschaft in Form gelehrter Gesellschaften und Zeitschriften und nicht zuletzt den einsetzenden Funktionswandel der Philosophischen Fakultat betraf. Brunings auf den Bestanden der Herzog August Bibliothek und des Staatsarchivs Wolfenbuttel basierende Studie untersucht dabei insbesondere die Laufbahnen des Lehrpersonals, die inhaltliche, institutionelle und methodische Seite des Lehrbetriebs, das Selbstverstandnis der Fakultat sowie das spezifische Profil des dort vermittelten Wissens und fragt ausserdem nach deren Rolle und Bedeutung in der Fruhaufklarung. (shrink)

Studies in economic decision-making have demonstrated that individuals appreciate social values supporting equity and disapprove unfairness when distributing goods between two or more parties. However, this seems to critically depend on psychological mechanisms partly pertaining to the ingroup–outgroup distinction. Little is known as to what extent economic bargaining can be manipulated by means of psychological interventions such has hypnosis. Here we show that a hypnotic ingroup versus outgroup suggestion impacts the tolerance of unfairness in an Ultimatum Game. Specifically, the ingroup (...) suggestion was associated with significantly greater acceptance rates of unfair offers than the outgroup suggestion, whereas hypnosis alone exerted only small effects on unfairness tolerance. These findings indicate that psychological interventions such as hypnotic suggestion can contribute to ingroup favoritism and outgroup rejection. (shrink)