Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 72-85.

Le sujet de l’article est la situation actuelle de la recherche internationale sur le Cusain et ses perspectives pour l’avenir. Au cours du xxe siècle, la recherche internationale sur Nicolas de Cues a connu une expansion énorme. L’édition historique-critique de son œuvre est achevée. Aujourd’hui, il existe des centres sur le Cusain pas seulement en Allemagne, au Japon et aux États-Unis, mais aussi aux Pays-Bas, en Italie, en Argentine, en Russie et en France. à l’échelle mondiale, beaucoup de thèses de (...) doctorat sont écrites sur Nicolas de Cues, sans parler des nombreux articles le concernant. à l’occasion du 25e anniversaire de l’American Cusanus Society en mai 2008 à Kalamazoo, le philosophe américain Clyde Lee Miller a étudié la recherche sur Nicolas de Cues sous quatre angles différents que l’article reprend pour esquisser les futures perspectives de la recherche sur le Cusain. (shrink)

The article compares for the first time Luther‘s reflections on Islam with Cusanus‘s. Both thinkers didn‘t engage in Islam on their own initiative, but because they were prompted by political developments. Luther‘s writings on Islam are mostly authored in German. He addresses the public in the empire and tries to encourage Christians challenged in their Christians faith, especially those who are in Turkish captivity. Nicholas of Cusa addresses also Islamic receivers in his Cribratio Alkorani. Luther stresses the contrast between the (...) gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of Muhammad, whereas Cusanus tries to build theological bridges between Christianity and Islam. (shrink)

Der Kardinal Nikolaus von Kues bzw. Nicolaus Cusanus (1401 - 1464) war der bedeutendste Philosoph des 15. Jahrhunderts und zugleich einer der einflussreichsten Kirchenpolitiker seiner Zeit. Neben seiner rastlosen Tätigkeit als Advokat von Fürsten und Päpsten, als Fürstbischof von Brixen und Kurienkardinal verfasste er philosophisch-theologische Schriften von historischem Rang. Ihn interessierten die großen Köpfe der europäischen Geistesgeschichte und die Intellektuellen seiner Zeit genauso wie die Alltagsprobleme der Gläubigen seines Tiroler Bistums. Besondere Beachtung verdient zudem die Tatsache, dass er einen Großteil (...) seiner Schriften in Dialogform verfasste. Die 14 Beiträge dieses Bandes zeigen in exemplarischer Weise, dass Nikolaus von Kues sowohl ein Denker im Dialog als auch ein dialogischer Denker war. (shrink)

Interpersonal sensitivity, particularly threat of potential exclusion, is a critical condition in borderline personality disorder (BPD) which impairs patients’ social adjustment. Current evidence-based treatments include group components, such as mentalization-based group therapy (MBT-G), in order to improve interpersonal functioning. These treatments additionally focus on the therapeutic alliance since it was discovered to be a robust predictor of treatment outcome. However, alliance is a multidimensional factor of group therapy, which includes the fellow patients, and may thus be negatively affected by the (...) exclusion-proneness of BPD patients. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the predictive value of threat of social exclusion for the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. In the first part of the study, social exclusion was experimentally induced in 23 BPD inpatients and 28 healthy subjects using the Cyberball paradigm, a virtual ball tossing game. The evoked level of threat was measured with the Need-Threat Scale (NTS) which captures four dimensions of fundamental human needs, i. e. the need for belongingness, for self-esteem, for control, and for a meaningful existence. In the second part of the study, therapeutic alliance was measured on three dimensions, the therapists, the fellow patients and the group as a whole, using the Group-Questionnaire (GQ-D). BPD patients scored higher in their level of threat according to the NTS in both, the inclusion and the exclusion condition. The level of threat after exclusion predicted impairments of the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. It was associated with more negative relationships, lower positive bonding and a lower positive working alliance with the fellow patients and lower positive bonding to the group as a whole whilst no negative prediction of the alliance to the therapists was found. Consequently, our translational study design has shown that Cyberball is an appropriate tool to use as an approach for clinical questions. We further conclude that exclusion-proneness in BPD is a critical feature with respect to alliance in group treatments. In order to neutralize BPD patients’ exclusion bias, therapists may be advised to provide an “inclusive stance”, especially in initial sessions. It is also recommendable to strengthen patient to patient relations. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose Kripke-style models for the logics of evidence and truth LETJ and LETF. These logics extend, respectively, Nelson’s logic N4 and the logic of first-degree entailment with a classicality operator ∘ that recovers classical logic for formulas in its scope. According to the intended interpretation here proposed, these models represent a database that receives information as time passes, and such information can be positive, negative, non-reliable, or reliable, while a formula ∘A means that the information about (...) A, either positive or negative, is reliable. This proposal is in line with the interpretation of N4 and FDE as information-based logics, but adds to the four scenarios expressed by them two new scenarios: reliable information for the truth and for the falsity of a given proposition. (shrink)

Even though theistic philosophers and scientists agree that God created, sustains, and providentially governs the physical universe and even though much has been published in general regarding divine action, what is needed is a fine-grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity, satisfying the widely recognized adequacy conditions for any account of dispositions.1 Such an account would be a basic part of a more comprehensive theory of divine action in relation to (...) the fundamental concepts of science and of mathematics. Our aim in this article is simply to present such a theory. (shrink)

This volume identifies and develops how philosophy of mind and phenomenology interact in both conceptual and empirically-informed ways. The objective is to demonstrate that phenomenology, as the first-personal study of the contents and structures of our mentality, can provide us with insights into the understanding of the mind and can complement strictly analytical or empirically informed approaches to the study of the mind. Insofar as phenomenology, as the study or science of phenomena, allows the mind to appear, this collection shows (...) how the mind can reappear through a constructive dialogue between different ways—phenomenological, analytical, and empirical—of understanding mentality. (shrink)

Recent research put forward the hypothesis that eye movements are integrated in memory representations and are reactivated when later recalled. However, “looking back to nothing” during recall might be a consequence of spatial memory retrieval. Here, we aimed at distinguishing between the effect of spatial and oculomotor information on perceptual memory. Participants’ task was to judge whether a morph looked rather like the first or second previously presented face. Crucially, faces and morphs were presented in a way that the morph (...) reactivated oculomotor and/or spatial information associated with one of the previously encoded faces. Perceptual face memory was largely influenced by these manipulations. We considered a simple computational model with an excellent match that expresses these biases as a linear combination of recency, saccade, and location. Surprisingly, saccades did not play a role. The results suggest that spatial and temporal rather than oculomotor information biases perceptual face memory. (shrink)

This study investigated the applicability of a novel instrument to assess parent–child attunement in free play interactions, in dyads with an infant with and without visual impairments. We here report the findings on the reliability and applicability of the newly developed Attune & Stimulate Mother–Infant 56-items Instrument in two separate samples: one with infants with VI and one with typically sighted infants. In addition, we assessed the contribution of parental sensitivity to attunement in dyadic interactions. The A&S M-I is an (...) observational comprehensive instrument of behaviors that captures different body parts and their motility, and different senses. The appropriate responding of a parent to the child’s signal reflects the ability to attune in the dyad as well as parent’s ability to stimulate the child to become engaged in the contact or activity. Consistency assessments revealed good reliability for maternal and infant behaviors, acceptable internal consistency and good test–retest reliability. Furthermore, both samples scored significantly above chance level on attunement, suggesting that the instrument captures parent–infant behavioral coordination, and VI was not related to parent–infant attunement. Lastly, a relation between parental sensitivity and attunement was found only in the TS sample. Altogether, these findings provide promising initial evidence of the applicability of the A&S M-I instrument for assessing dyadic attunement across different populations and ages. Having assessed the applicability of this observational instrument, future work should corroborate these findings in larger samples. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

La cobertura universal de salud está en el centro de la acción actual para fortalecer los sistemas de salud y mejorar el nivel y la distribución de la salud y los servicios de salud. Este documento es el informe fi nal del Grupo Consultivo de la OMS sobre la Equidad y Cobertura Universal de Salud. Aquí se abordan los temas clave de la justicia (fairness) y la equidad que surgen en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de salud. Por lo (...) tanto, el informe es pertinente para cada agente que infl uye en ese camino y en particular para los gobiernos, ya que se encargan de supervisar y guiar el progreso hacia la cobertura universal de salud. (shrink)

Meaningful relationships are centrally important for human functioning. It remains unclear, however, which aspects of meaningful relationships impact wellbeing the most and whether these differ between psychiatric patients and members of the community. Information about relationship attributes and functions were collected in community members and psychiatric patients. Relationship attributes and functions were examined for differences between groups, their impact on wellbeing and symptoms, and the size of network. Community members reported fewer relationships, higher frequency of contact and less desire for (...) change when compared to the psychiatric patients. Nevertheless, both groups reported relatively high levels of fulfilled functions. Quality of the relationship and investment into the relationship was associated with both wellbeing and symptoms for both the community and the patient group. Almost all functions were associated with wellbeing and symptoms for the community group. However, for the patient group, only few functions were associated with wellbeing and no functions were associated with symptoms. Contrary to our hypotheses, the results show that psychiatric patients do not have a deficit in fulfilling relationships. Most people report a well-functioning network of meaningful, high-quality relationships. Patients benefit from meaningful, function-fulfilling relationships just as much as community members. Results are discussed with respect to how targeting relationships can be used clinically. (shrink)

This report from the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage offers advice on how to make progress fairly towards universal health coverage.

Extensive research has demonstrated that rs1360780, a common single nucleotide polymorphism within the FKBP5 gene, interacts with early-life stress in predicting psychopathology. Previous results suggest that carriers of the TT genotype of rs1360780 who were exposed to child abuse show differences in structure and functional activation of emotion-processing brain areas belonging to the salience network. Extending these findings on intermediate phenotypes of psychopathology, we examined if the interaction between rs1360780 and child abuse predicts resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the amygdala (...) and other areas of the salience network. We analyzed data of young European adults from the general population (N = 774; mean age = 18.76 years) who took part in the IMAGEN study. In the absence of main effects of genotype and abuse, a significant interaction effect was observed for rsFC between the right centromedial amygdala and right posterior insula (p <.025, FWE-corrected), which was driven by stronger rsFC in TT allele carriers with a history of abuse. Our results suggest that the TT genotype of rs1360780 may render individuals with a history of abuse more vulnerable to functional changes in communication between brain areas processing emotions and bodily sensations, which could underlie or increase the risk for psychopathology. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 110 Heft: 1 Seiten: 172-177.

Up to now only three lunar tables by Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), published in 1745, 1746, and 1772, were known. For a long time, however, it was assumed that the first two of these tables were identical. The author compared these tables with each other and proved the contrary. This fact also transpires from an examination of their history, which was reconstructed using Euler’s correspondence. In addition, evidence has been found in Euler’s voluminous scientific correspondence and in contemporary (...) publications of the eighteenth century that, between 1742 and 1750, Euler published additional lunar tables anonymously. The author proved Euler’s authorship of at least five lunar tables containing some 100 pages, which were neither recorded in the list of his works nor published in the Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia. (shrink)

The paper suggests that Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s arguments against sympathy after the French Revolution, Walter Benjamin’s claims against empathy following the traumatic shock of Modernity and the First World War, and Hannah Arendt’s critical take on compassion. after the Holocaust are similar responses to singular historical crises. Reconsidering Arendt’s On Revolution (1963) and its evocation of Hermann Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1891), I show first that the novella bears the traces of an essay by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Appeal (...) to Law” (1809). Then, drawing on Walter Benjamin’s writings on trauma in Illuminations (1968, edited by Arendt), I discuss the political importance Arendt attaches to the proper way of telling a story, at a time when “the communicability of experience is decreasing” (Benjamin, Illuminations, 86). Through the analysis of Benjamin’s “The Storyteller” and Arendt’s “heartless” report on the Eichmann trial (1963), I equally show that, according to Arendt, testimonies must be narrated, or rather performed, in a dispassionate, dry, and compact manner so that they can be historically and politically relevant. (shrink)

Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) published two lunar theories in 1753 and 1772. He also published lunar tables in 1745, 1746, and—anonymously—in 1750. There are notebook records, unpublished manuscripts, and manuscript fragments by Euler reflecting the development of his lunar theories between about 1725 until about 1752. These documents might be used to reconstruct Euler’s theory on which he based his calculations of those lunar tables and to analyze the development of his lunar theories within this time span. The (...) results of this analysis will be published here in three parts representing three stages of Euler’s research on this topic: First approaches (about 1725–1730), developing the methods (about 1730–1744), and the breakthrough (about 1744–1752). In this part, I analyze Euler’s manuscripts and, predominantly, Euler’s records of his first two notebooks written between 1725 and 1730. I found that his early theoretical approach is coined by his development of analytical (rational) mechanics of punctiform bodies moved by central forces. He tried to describe the Moon’s motion in terms of two simultaneously acting centripetal forces, Huygens’ centrifugal theorem, and associated osculating radii. (shrink)

Up to now only three lunar tables by Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), published in 1745, 1746, and 1772, were known. For a long time, however, it was assumed that the first two of these tables were identical. The author compared these tables with each other and proved the contrary. This fact also transpires from an examination of their history, which was reconstructed using Euler’s correspondence. In addition, evidence has been found in Euler’s voluminous scientific correspondence and in contemporary (...) publications of the eighteenth century that, between 1742 and 1750, Euler published additional lunar tables anonymously. The author proved Euler’s authorship of at least five lunar tables containing some 100 pages, which were neither recorded in the list of his works nor published in the Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia. (shrink)

The analysis of unpublished manuscripts and of the published textbook on mechanics written between about 1730 and 1744 by Euler reveals the invention, application, and establishment of important physical and mathematical principles and procedures. They became central ingredients of an “embryonic” lunar theory that he developed in 1744/1745. The increasing use of equations of motion, although still parametrized by length, became a standard procedure. The principle of the transference of forces was established to set up such equations. Trigonometric series (...) expansions together with the method of undetermined coefficients were introduced to solve these equations approximatively. These insights constitute the milestones achieved in this phase of research, which thus may be characterized as “developing the methods”. The documents reveal the problems Euler was confronted with when setting up the equations of motion. They show why and where he was forced to introduce trigonometric functions and their series expansions into lunar theory. Furthermore, they prove Euler’s early recognition and formulation of the variability of the orbital elements by differential equations, which he previously anticipated with the concept of the osculating ellipse. One may conclude that by 1744 almost all components needed for a technically mature and successful lunar theory were available to Euler. (shrink)

Émilie Du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics (Institutions de physique, 1740/42) has recently been attracting increasing interest from analytical philosophy in the anglophone world. Du Châtelet’s conception of space and time constitutes a controversial issue. I argue that the current debate underestimates the modal approach and epistemological turn in Du Châtelet’s view on space and time. A historical perspective on Abraham Gotthelf Kästner’s criticism and Jean Henry Samuel Formey’s plagiarism of Du Châtelet underlines the significance of this turning point. Against this (...) background, I revisit Leonhard Euler’s space-time realism and its influence on Immanuel Kant. -/- Les Institutions de physique (1740/1742) d’Émilie Du Châtelet suscitent depuis peu un intérêt croissant dans le monde anglophone, chez les philosophes analytiques. Une question controversée concerne les concepts d’espace et de temps de Du Châtelet. Je soutiens que le débat actuel sous-estime l’approche modale et la tournure épistémologique des considérations de Du Châtelet sur l’espace et le temps. Un regard historique sur la critique d’Abraham Gotthelf Kästner et le plagiat de Du Châtelet par Jean Henry Samuel Formey souligne l’importance de ce tournant. Dans ce contexte, je revisite le réalisme spatio-temporel de Leonhard Euler et son influence sur Emmanuel Kant. (shrink)

Die Emanzipation der modernen Menschen von übermächtigen Bedingungen traut Benjamin nicht den Individuen selbst zu, sondern nur einer übersubjektiv-messianischen Instanz.