African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that African society does not objectify and exploit nature and natural existents, unlike Western moral attitudes and practices. This book investigates whether this claim is correct by examining religious and philosophical thought, as well as traditional cultural practices in Africa. Through exploration of what kind of status is reserved for other-than-human animals in African ethics, Horsthemke (...) argues that moral perceptions and attitudes on the African continent remain resolutely anthropocentric, or human-centred. Although values like ubuntu (humanness) and ukama (relationality) have been expanded to include nonhuman nature, animals have no rights, and human duties to them are almost exclusively 'indirect'. Animals and African Ethics concludes by asking whether those who, following their own liberation, continue to exploit and oppress other creatures, are not thereby contributing to their own dehumanization. (shrink)

Abstract‘Africanisation’ has, during the last few decades, been a buzzword that has enjoyed special currency in South Africa. Africanisation is generally seen to signal a (renewed) focus on Africa, on reclamation of what has been taken from Africa, and, as such, it forms part of post-colonialist, anti-racist discourse. With regard to knowledge, it comprises a focus on indigenous African knowledge and concerns simultaneously ‘legitimation’ and ‘protection from exploitation’ of this knowledge. With regard to education, the focus is on Africanisation of (...) institutions, curricula, syllabi and criteria for excellence (in research, performance, etc.). This paper, while sympathetic to the basic concerns that inform the call/s for Africanisation, spells out the problems and limits of this project. For one thing, the idea of Africanisation may evoke a false or at least a superficial sense of ‘belonging’. For another, it may entail further marginalisation and derogation. Lastly, while it may emphasise relevance, it is hazardously close to a comprehensive relativism. In the light of these points, this paper suggests a more promising alternative: a framework of basic human rights appears to be a more appropriate locus for the pertinent concerns and demands. (shrink)

African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that, in stark contrast with Western moral attitudes and practices, there is no comparable objectification and exploitation of other-than-human animals and nature. This article investigates whether this claim is correct by examining the status of animals in religious and philosophical thought, as well as traditional cultural practices, in Africa. I argue that moral perceptions and attitudes on (...) the African continent remain resolutely anthropocentric. Although values like ubuntu or ukama have been expanded to include nonhuman nature, animals are characteristically not seen to have any rights, and human duties to them are almost exclusively “indirect.” I conclude by asking whether those who, following their own liberation, continue to exploit and oppress other creatures—simply because they can—are not thereby contributing to their own dehumanization. (shrink)

Indigenous Knowledge provides all educators, especially indigenous educators, with theoretical tools for critical reflection and interrogation of their own and others’ preconceptions. The book challenges our conception of knowledge as a tool in anti-discrimination and anti-repression discourse with profound educational consequences.

Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent ‘#FeesMustFall’ movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth matters, in education as elsewhere, and in ways not often acknowledged by (...) constructivist, postmodernist and postcolonialist positions. (shrink)

In this brief reply to the essays by Edwin Etieyibo, Thad Metz, and Elisa Galgut, I argue that African morality is neither biocentric nor ecocentric in the sense of accepting that “there is no significant moral difference between animal and human slaughter and rituals,” and that African modal relationalism is problematic in both its empirical assumptions and its normative counsel. I concede that anthropocentrism, whether this involves the view that only human beings merit moral treatment or the view that any (...) human is necessarily superior to or more significant morally than any other animal, is not essential to African morality. There exist several resources in African philosophical thinking for deriving a nonanthropocentric and nonspeciesist ethical orientation. The task, however, is a formidable one that requires imagination as well as intellectual consistency and honesty. (shrink)

In South Africa, the notion of an African Philosophy of Education emerged with the advent of post-apartheid education and the call for an educational philosophy that would reflect this renewal, a focus on Africa and its cultures, identities and values, and the new imperatives for education in a postcolonial and post-apartheid era. The idea of an African Philosophy of Education has been much debated in South Africa. Not only its content and purpose but also its very possibility have been, and (...) continue to be, the subject of understandably passionate exchanges. In this paper, after discussing some of the constitutive features of African Philosophy of Education, we indicate aspects with which we are sympathetic. Our central question is whether African Philosophy of Education is the revisioned, ‘typically African’ philosophy of education that it is claimed to be. We argue that it has revealed certain tendencies that are remarkably similar to characteristics of Fundamental Pedagogics, the repressive doctrine complicit in apartheid education that it claims to replace. More substantially still, African Philosophy of Education, by labeling itself uniquely and distinctly ‘African’, runs the risk of insulating itself not only from interaction with the wider world but also from any critical interrogation. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

“I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am”, generally regarded as the guiding principle of African humanism, expresses the view that a person is a person through other persons and is closely associated but not identical with African communitarianism, or communalism. Against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s “unrestricted or radical or excessive communitarianism” Kwame Gyekye has proposed a “restricted or moderate communitarianism”. Whereas personhood, for Menkiti, is acquired over time, with increasing moral maturation, seniority and agency, Gyekye considers it (...) to arise automatically with being born human. The problem with Menkiti’s account of personhood is that it is at once too wide and too narrow. On the other hand, it remains unclear to what extent Gyekye’s is a communitarian view – and to what extent it is distinctly ‘African’. I conclude with a critical reflection on the implications of African communalism and personhood for non-human animals. Keywords: Ifeanyi Menkiti, Kwame Gyekye, African Communitarianism, Non-Human Animals, Personhood. (shrink)

In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distinguished from alternative traditions of thought. We argue that there is fundamental implicit and (...) explicit agreement across traditions about the most difficult of issues and on standards about how to reason about them and that the ‘West’ has demonstrably learned from within and without itself. But, we question the very viability under conditions of heightened globalisation and neo-colonialism of distinguishing between thought of the ‘West’ and thought outside the West. It is time to move beyond the reified assumptions that underlie the idea of ‘Western thought’, cast as an agent with a collective purpose. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Helena Pedersen’s powerful keynote address poses the question: What prevents education from becoming a transformative force in times of ‘omnicide’, that is, ‘the annihilation of everything’? She locates at least part of the response in ‘institutional anxiety’, which constitutes a psychological barrier to radical change. In particular, she discusses anxiety related to the moral standing of non-human animals as a threat to human exceptionalism in educational practice and research. Institutional anxiety, as I show in my discussion of a recent (...) manifestation at a university in South Africa, also occurs in post-liberation societies, when ‘university teachers confront’ or consider confronting ‘their own colleagues with requests for deconstruction of the anthropocentric infrastructure of their own workplace’, colleagues they know to have been historically marginalised or disenfranchised. However, as I hope to make clear in my response, there are some ways of confrontation that are less divisive than others. (shrink)

In the literature on inclusion and inclusive education there is a frequent conflation of inclusion of diverse people, or people in all their diversity, inclusion of diverse worldviews, and inclusion of diverse epistemologies. Only the first of these is plausible—and perhaps even morally and politically mandatory. Of course, more needs to be said about inclusion and its possible difference from integration, conditions of access, etc. Regarding the second type of inclusion, not all worldviews merit inclusion. Moreover, worldviews and epistemologies are (...) not identical: everyone may have a worldview but not everyone has an epistemology. Finally, the idea of diverse epistemologies makes only limited sense, as do the associated notions of ‘indigenous knowledge’, ‘legitimation of knowledge’ and ‘epistemic marginalisation’. (shrink)

The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognitive and moral education – i.e. (...) showing respect for the child's point of view and inducting the child into respecting the points of view of others. After briefly discussing the idea of empathy and relating it to ideas such as sympathy or compassion, this paper focuses on epistemic empathy in particular. The relevant characteristics in this regard are knowledge of another's internal state, including her thoughts and feelings; understanding how another is thinking and feeling and imagining how one would think and feel in the other's place. Regarding childrearing and.. (shrink)

Barrierefreiheit is a key term in the German inclusion movement, in education and more generally. Sometimes translated as ‘accessibility’, it refers not just to absence of barriers but to freedom from barriers, which in turn indicates a significant social and ethical component. It signals an active, conscious intervention by agents, a consequence of agentic commitment towards crossing borders and overcoming boundaries. In this regard, this article seeks to provide an epistemological analysis and illustration of what ‘inclusive’, ‘barrier-free’ education means, by (...) examining three ideas within social epistemology: epistemological access, epistemic paternalism and epistemic justice. In so doing, it articulates a position that might be called ‘context-sensitive realism’, which cautions against not only constructivist theoretical leanings but also the anti-individualism that characterises a substantial portion of the inclusive education literature. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The 17th Biennial INPE Meeting was scheduled to take place from 28 to 31 July 2020 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Of course, there is something ironic about convening a conference on the environment and sustainability that would require presenters to utilize unsustainable modes of transport in order to participate. As it turned out, because of the outbreak and rapid global spread of a new Corona virus, the conference was cancelled and replaced by an online event held (...) on 7 and 8 November 2020, both premieres in the history of INPE. The essays collected in this Special Issue will hopefully contribute towards the unmasking and undoing of the various kinds of denialism that have held us in its grip and that continues to thwart attempts to establish a sane and morally sustainable set of relationships between us, human beings, and other animals and the animate and inanimate environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The advent of Covid-19, a new and highly contagious form of Corona virus, in late 2019 cast a harsh light on human vulnerabilities and on the provocations (and opportunities) facing humanity. Although many of the more drastic measures applied within educational settings have since ceased to apply, at least for the time being, we are not yet ‘past Covid’: many of the challenges that are discussed here still exist. As we faced unprecedented disruption to economies, societies and education systems, (...) the global health pandemic drew attention to existing inequalities and presented a clear picture of steps required for addressing the education of close to one billion students whose learning was hampered due to school closures. The magnitude of this challenge was and still is starkly manifest with the digital divide on the African continen. Democratization of education has been perceived to include facilitation of both formal and epistemic access (including allocation of new technologies for teaching and learning), reconceptualization of knowledge, truth and learning, recognition of ‘other standpoints for knowledge’ and ‘very different knowledge registers,’ recovery of ‘lost knowledge resources’ and connection of ‘multiple ways of knowing,’ and respectful engagement ‘with indigenous and local knowledges,’ idea that merit critical interrogation. (shrink)

Does the imperative that we ought to try to understand one another make any sense? Presumably not – if it is correct that there are indeed different truths, and that the quest for objectivity is appropriate only in certain cultural contexts. After carefully mapping out the epistemological and ethical terrain, with special reference to the notions of ‘outsider understanding’, ‘other ways of knowing’ and epistemic injustice, this article presents a case for outsider critique. Education for belief and commitment necessarily includes (...) education for understanding. Given our shared humanity, with many overlapping facets that make up our identities, and considering that the standard arguments against outsider understanding fail to stand up to critical scrutiny, this arguably also paves the way for the possibility of critical interrogation ‘from the outside’. Such interrogation should display virtues such as sensitivity, patience, perseverance, imagination, empathy and open-mindedness – and should be guided by an honest attempt at understanding. (shrink)

The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general 'decline in moral values'. There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like ubuntu , communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing alienation from nature. In other words, in terms of teaching and learning initiatives, we should turn to religion, community and the common good and nature (the natural environment and nonhuman animals) (...) in order to feel the force of morality and, consequently, to counteract human violence and cruelty. After critically examining these responses, the present article focusses on the third as the most promising, albeit one that is in need of re-conceptualisation. We need to teach not as if nature mattered but that it matters. Concepts and principles like justice, equality and rights have worked in the past. They have been useful in governing and regulating relations between human individuals. Indeed, it is the recognition of and respect for rights that best exemplifies the transculturality of values. Taking these concepts and principles seriously requires extending and employing them beyond the human realm. This may well be the most reliable way of halting the rapid deterioration of the world. Humane education, insofar as it incorporates guidance in moral reasoning and critical thinking - over and above nurture of appropriate feelings in individuals - and engages both rationality and individual responsibility, consists of transmission as well as in transcendence of our moral and cultural heritage. 'Decline in moral values', then, is counteracted by an approach that combines caring with respect for rights, in order to contribute towards erasing what has been called 'the ultimate evil', namely human violence and abuse. Environmental education and humane education, so re-conceived, arguably have long-term benefits for both humans and nonhumans. (shrink)

Posing the question ‘How diverse is philosophy of education in the West?’ this paper responds to two recent defences of African philosophy of education which endorse its communitarianism and oppose individualism in Western philosophy of education. After outlining Thaddeus Metz's argument that Western philosophy of education should become more African by being more communitarian, and Yusef Waghid's defence of communitarianism in African philosophy of education, we develop a qualified defence of aspects of individualism in education. Our reservations about some aspects (...) of communitarianism lead us to argue for a role for some forms of individualism in African as well as Western education. Finally, reflecting on what is at stake in this kind of comparative philosophy of education, we argue that an over-emphasis on cultural differences can distract philosophers of education from the attention they should pay to the common dangers posed across continents by the influence of global capitalism on education. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

In a recent journal article, as well as in a recent book chapter, in which she critiques my position on ‘indigenous knowledge’, Lesley Green of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town argues that ‘diverse epistemologies ought to be evaluated not on their capacity to express a strict realism but on their ability to advance understanding’. In order to examine the implications of Green’s arguments, and of Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin’s work in this regard, I (...) apply them to a well-known controversy between Native American (or First Nations) creationism and archaeology. I argue that issues in social justice should be distinguished from issues in epistemology. Moreover, in tightening in this paper the link between knowledge and truth, I attempt to defend science as a ‘privileged way of seeing the world’. The analysis of truth, and of related concepts like reality and ‘the way the world is’, will assume a central role here. I contend that, ultimately, the only coherent and consistent position is a realist view of the pertinent issues and ideas. (shrink)

In his recently published book Animals and African Ethics, Kai Horsthemke makes two important and related claims. The first is that most African metaphysical, religious, and ethical positions and perspectives on animals are anthropocentric. Second, he states that if there are one or more principles of duties regarding other animals derivable from these positions and perspectives, they are at best “indirect duties.” In this article, I critically engage with these claims in the context of the ontological beliefs and ethical (...) standpoints that flow from anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. I argue that the African metaphysical worldview and African practices on animals are not anthropocentric. The nub of my argument is that a closer examination of African practices on animals and one dominant African metaphysical worldview—one that Horsthemke engages with in the book—presents us a different conclusion, one that suggests that the worldview and practices are conceivably biocentric or ecocentric rather than anthropocentric. (shrink)

I seek to advance plausible replies to the several criticisms Kai Horsthemke makes of ‘African Modal Relationalism’, his label for my theory of animal rights with a sub-Saharan pedigree. Central to this view is the claim that, roughly, a being has a greater moral status, the more it is in principle capable of relating communally with characteristic human beings. Horsthemke maintains that this view is anthropocentric and speciesist, is poorly motivated relative to his egalitarian-individualist approach, and does not (...) have the implications that I contend. I aim to rebut these and related criticisms, contending that African Modal Relationalism is in fact a promising way to philosophically ground animal rights. (shrink)

The sense of agency is a basic feature of our subjective experience. Experimental studies usually focus on either its attributional aspects or on its motoric aspects. Here, we combine both aspects and focus on the subjective experience of the time between action and effect. Previous studies [Haggard, P., Aschersleben, G., Gehrke, J., & Prinz, W.. Action, binding and awareness. In W. Prinz, & B. Hommel, Common mechanisms in perception and action: Attention and performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press] have shown a (...) temporal attraction in the perceived times of actions and effects, but did directly not study the relation between them. In three experiments, time estimates of an interval between an action and its subsequent sensory effect were obtained. The actions were either voluntary key press actions performed by the participant or kinematically identical movements applied passively to the finger. The effects were either auditory or visual events or a passive movement induced to another finger. The results first indicated a shortening of the interval between one’s own voluntary action and a subsequent effect, relative to passive movement conditions. Second, intervals initiated by observed movements, either of another person or of an inanimate object, were always perceived like those involving passive movements of one’s own body, and never like those involving active movements. Third, this binding effect was comparable for auditory, somatic and visual effects of action. Our results provide the first direct evidence that agency involves a generalisable relation between actions and their consequences, and is triggered by efferent motor commands. (shrink)

Explains the ethical principles of the ancient Greek philosophy known as Stoicism and shows how it can change our understanding of contemporary issues such as environmental sustainability, social justice, and global capitalism.

The positivists defined analyticity as truth in virtue of meaning alone and advocated the view that the notion of analyticity so defined is co-extensive with both the notion of an a priori truth an...

Many find the prospect of death distressing at least partly because they believe that death deprives its subject of life’s benefits. Properly qualified, the belief is surely true. But should its truth lead us to conclude that there is something dreadful or awful about death, something that merits distress?

Drawing on insights of thinkers in the natural rights tradition, Draper analyzes numerous hypothetical cases including those involving a runaway trolley, then seeks to determine if killing civilians in war is ever justified. In his consideration of this issue he avoids appealing to the principle of double effect. Having considered hypothetical cases at length, he leaves it to others to decide if any option to go to war is justifiable. In this regard he himself is sceptical.

Biographical note: Kai Ginkel (Dr.), geb. 1981, ist Projektmitarbeiter an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz. Der Soziologe promovierte an der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Zuvor war er PhD-Scholar im postgradualen Lehrgang”Sociology of Social Practices“am Institut für Höhere Studien Wien.

This book, first published in 2002, is a systematic critical overview of German aesthetics from 1750 to the present. It begins with the work of Baumgarten and covers all the major writers on German aesthetics that follow, including Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer and Adorno. The book offers a clear and non-technical exposition of ideas, placing these in a wider philosophical context where necessary. Such is the importance of German aesthetics that the market for this book will extend (...) far beyond the domain of philosophy to such fields as literary studies, fine art and music. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given certain highly (...) plausible assumptions about evidence and epistemic probability, the proposition which it treats as evidence cannot coherently be regarded as evidence for anything. This raises the question of whether to reject the assumptions or accept that such a proposition cannot be evidence. (shrink)

Hitchcock advances a diachronic Dutch Book argument (DDB) for a 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem. Bradley and Leitgeb argue that Hitchcock’s DDB argument fails. We demonstrate the following: (a) Bradley and Leitgeb’s criticism of Hitchcock is unconvincing; (b) nonetheless, there are serious reasons to worry about the success of Hitchcock’s argument; (c) however, it is possible to construct a new DDB for 1/3 about which such worries cannot be raised.

Stephen Barker (The Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (1997), pp. 195–211) has presented a new argument for a pure material implication analysis of indicative conditionals. His argument relies crucially on the assumption that general indicatives such as ‘Every girl, if she gets a chance, bungee‐jumps’ are correctly analysed as having the formal structure (for all x)(if x gets a chance, x bungee‐jumps). This paper argues that an approach first proposed by David Lewis must be pursued: the ‘if’‐clause in these sentences restricts the (...) quantifier. Only the Lewis‐style analysis can deal with sentences involving non‐universal quantifiers such as ‘Most letters are answered if they are shorter than 5 pages’. I show that Barker's reasons for rejecting the restrictor analysis are not cogent and that the restrictor analysis connects widely with recent work in natural language semantics. (shrink)

Four Distinctions for the Auditory “Wastebasket” of Timbre1.

Metaphilosophy is itself philosophy about philosophy. It is not something before or independent of philosophy. Both Kai Nielsen and Richard Rorty are deeply concerned (someone might say obsessively preoccupied) with metaphilosophy. They both are thoroughly historicist and contextualist resolutely rejecting any form of a transcendental or metaphysical turn. They argue against claims to absolute validity (as well as against absolutism in any form) and a natural order of reasons: some 'Reason' to which any rational agent must be committed. They both (...) see philosophy as a transitional genre first (historically speaking) from religion then metaphysics and more latterly from scientistic conceptions of the world. But they differ about what philosophy is transitional to. For Rorty it is historical narrative and utopian proposals; for Nielsen it is critical theory. Rorty claims this, Nielsen's intentions to the contrary notwithstanding, commits him to enlightenment rationalism. Nielsen replies that his form of critical theory is deeply historicist and contextual without being resolutely atheoretical. This plays out in political orientation to Nielsen's being a socialist while Rorty is a social democrat. (shrink)

The rapid spread of judicially-enforced constitutional rights has been one of the most dramatic developments in modern law. This book argues that there is now a global model for how such rights should function, and develops an original, philosophically grounded, account of their nature and scope.

Paired associative stimulation at the spinal cord has been shown to increase muscle force and dexterity by strengthening the corticomuscular connection, through spike timing dependent plasticity. Typically, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcutaneous peripheral nerve electrical stimulation are often used in spinal PAS. PNS targets superficial nerve branches, by which the number of applicable muscles is limited. Alternatively, a muscle can be activated by positioning the stimulation electrode on the “motor point”, which is the most sensitive location of a muscle to (...) electrical stimulation. Although this can increase the number of applicable muscles for spinal PAS, nobody has tested whether MPS can be used for the spinal PAS to date. Here we investigated the feasibility of using MPS instead of PNS for spinal PAS. Ten healthy male individuals received spinal PAS on two separate days with different stimulation timings expected to induce facilitation of corticospinal excitability or no effect on the soleus. The motor evoked potentials response curve in the soleus was measured prior to the spinal PAS, immediately after and at 10, 20, 30 min post-intervention as a measure of corticospinal excitability. The post-intervention MEP response curve areas were larger in the REAL condition than the CONTROL conditions. Further, the post-intervention MEP response curve areas were significantly larger than pre-intervention in the REAL condition but not in the CONTROL condition. We conclude that MPS can facilitate corticospinal excitability through spinal PAS. (shrink)

This open access book is a superb collection of some fifteen chapters inspired by Schroeder-Heister's groundbreaking work, written by leading experts in the field, plus an extensive autobiography and comments on the various contributions by Schroeder-Heister himself. For several decades, Peter Schroeder-Heister has been a central figure in proof-theoretic semantics, a field of study situated at the interface of logic, theoretical computer science, natural-language semantics, and the philosophy of language. -/- The chapters of which this book is composed discuss the (...) subject from a rich variety of angles, including the history of logic, the proper interpretation of logical validity, natural deduction rules, the notions of harmony and of synonymy, the structure of proofs, the logical status of equality, intentional phenomena, and the proof theory of second-order arithmetic. All chapters relate directly to questions that have driven Schroeder-Heister's own research agenda and to which he has made seminal contributions. The extensive autobiographical chapter not only provides a fascinating overview of Schroeder-Heister's career and the evolution of his academic interests but also constitutes a contribution to the recent history of logic in its own right, painting an intriguing picture of the philosophical, logical, and mathematical institutional landscape in Germany and elsewhere since the early 1970s. The papers collected in this book are illuminatingly put into a unified perspective by Schroeder-Heister's comments at the end of the book. Both graduate students and established researchers in the field will find this book an excellent resource for future work in proof-theoretic semantics and related areas. (shrink)