Die Reihe "Studien interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung" präsentiert regelmäßig neuere Untersuchungen über Herausbildungen und Bedeutungen von Geschlecht. Verknüpft werden natur-, technik-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Sichtweisen. Ebenfalls thematisiert werden hochschulpolitische Entwicklungen und Perspektiven von Geschlechterforschung in und außerhalb der Hochschule. Die Reihe wird herausgegeben vom Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (ZFG) und dem Zentrum für feministische Studien, Universität Bremen (ZFS). In diesem Band: In unserer heutigen Technowissenschaftskultur ist die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Körper und (...) Maschine zentral. Während Körper denaturalisiert und durch die Life- und Cyberscience als turbulent und dynamisch reformuliert werden, wird Maschinen Sozialität zu- und eingeschrieben. An Beispielen aus der Robotik, Embodied Agents-Forschung und anderen Technowissenschaften, mit Bezug auf Philosophie, Wissenschaftsforschung und Literatur wird gezeigt, wie sich transklassische Maschinen und post-humane Körper herausbilden und geschlechtlich neu kodiert werden. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue of the same title sets out the context for a critical examination of contemporary developments in sociotechnical systems deployed in the name of security. Our focus is on technologies of tracking, with their claims to enable the identification of those who comprise legitimate targets for the use of violent force. Taking these claims as deeply problematic, we join a growing body of scholarship on the technopolitical logics that underpin an increasingly violent landscape of institutions, (...) infrastructures, and actions, promising protection to some but arguably contributing to our collective insecurity. We examine the asymmetric distributions of sociotechnologies of security; their deadly and injurious effects; and the legal, ethical, and moral questions that haunt their operations. (shrink)

In recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and especially in robotics we can observe a tendency towards building intelligent artefacts that are meant to be social, to have ‘human social’ characteristics like emotions, the ability to conduct dialogue, to learn, to develop personality, character traits, and social competencies. Care, entertainment, pet and educational robots are conceptualised as friendly, understanding partners and credible assistants which communicate ‘naturally’ with users, show emotions and support them in everyday life. Social robots are often designed to (...) interact physically, affectively and socially with humans in order to learn from them. To achieve this goal, roboticists often model the human‐robot interaction on early caregiver‐infant interactions. In this paper I want to analyse prominent visions of these ‘socio‐emotional’ machines as well as early prototypes and commercial products with regard to the human‐machine interface. By means of this I will ask how feminist critiques of technology could be applied to the field of social robotics in which concepts like sociality or emotion are crucial elements while, at the same time, these concepts play an important role in feminist critiques of technology. (shrink)

There are only a few ethical regulations that deal explicitly with robots, in contrast to a vast number of regulations, which may be applied. We will focus on ethical issues with regard to “responsibility and autonomous robots”, “machines as a replacement for humans”, and “tele-presence”. Furthermore we will examine examples from special fields of application (medicine and healthcare, armed forces, and entertainment). We do not claim to present a complete list of ethical issue nor of regulations in the field of (...) robotics, but we will demonstrate that there are legal challenges with regard to these issues. (shrink)

A multitude of techno-natures emerge through discourses and practices of the new technosciences. While some philosophers and science studies scholars argue that model organisms and artefacts are getting more and more disembodied and decontextualised in the laboratory, I want to show how ontic dimensions of model organisms and artefacts are made invisible as well as visible in different practices of technosciences like Artificial Life and robotics.This analysis opens up possibilities for an understanding of how ontic dimensions of non-human actors are (...) made visible and invisible in technoscientific practices. At the same time it allows the development of a concept of nonhuman actors beyond reifying, velontriquist practices of representation as well as a critical intervention in the co-construction of our technoculture. German Mannigfaltige Techno-Naturen an der Schnittstelle von Sozialem, Technischem und Natürlichem entstehen in den und durch die Diskurse und Praktiken der neuen Technowissenschaften. Entgegen der verbreiteten These von der Entkörperung und Dekontextualisierung von Modellorganismen im Labor zeige ich in meinem Beitrag auf, wie auf je unterschiedliche Weise ontische Dimensionen von Modellorganismen und Technofakten in der Artificial Life-Forschung und Robotik sichtbar bzw. unsichtbar gemacht werden.Gerade die Untersuchung der Konstruktion der ontischen Dimension nichtmenschlicher Akteure in unterschiedlichen Forschungspraktiken eröffnet Möglichkeiten, nichtmenschliche Akteure ernst zu nehmen, erlaubt ein genaueres Verständnis des Un/Sichtbarmachens von spezifischen ontischen Dimensionen nichtmenschlicher Akteure und zeigt Wege für kritische Interventionen in unsere Technowissenschaftskultur auf. Sie vermeidet jene bauchrednerischen Erzählpraktiken, die mit der Stimme aus dem Off den nichtmenschlichen Akteuren Eigenschaften verordnen und sie damit einmal mehr zum Verstummen bringen. (shrink)

This anthology of articles provides contemporary international feminist perspectives on issues of identity, agency, and difference as they pertain to both feminist politics in particular, and contemporary western politics more generally.

This paper outlines some of the new epistemological and ontological assumptions of contemporary technoscience thereby reframing the question of an epochal break. Important aspects are the question of a new techno-rationality, but also the constitution of a ‘New World Order Inc.’, with its new ‘politics of life itself’, the reconfiguration of categories such as race, class and gender in technoscience, as well as the amalgamation of everyday life, technoscience and culture. Given the difficulties of ‘proving’ a new episteme (or even (...) epoch), I change perspective by reflecting on the epistemological vantage point from which the interpretation of technoscience as a new episteme or epoch becomes (im)plausible—confronting traditional approaches of philosophy and history of science and technology assessment (TA) with interventional approaches, such as postcolonial and feminist cultural studies of technoscience. (shrink)

The unity of science movement was itself far from unified. There may have been unity on the rallying call for a unity of science but that is as far as it went. Not only was there disagreement among the main protagonists on what was meant by the unity of science, but also on how to achieve it. In this paper I shall deal with Edgar Zilsel’s (1891-1944) conception. It represents an interesting break with the more programmatic approaches of Carnap, Neurath; (...) Zilsel emphasizes the need for an empirical demonstration of the unity of science, which has interesting meta-philosophical implications. The unity of science is not just central to his research programme; it is what constitutes the latter’s unifying principle, although this is far from evident if one takes a look at the historical essays he published in exile in the USA during the 1940s. (These important essays on the emergence of science, well known among historians of early modern science, have given rise to the so-called Zilsel Thesis, which holds that modern science came into being when, between 1300 and 1600, the social barriers between those who ‘labored with there minds and tongues’, i.e. the university scholars and the humanists, and those who ‘worked with their hands’, i.e the superior artisans, eroded because of the rise of free-enterprise capitalism.) But simultaneously, he also published a couple of smaller and far less known essays, directed against Southwest-German Neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Windelband), Dilthey’s philosophy of life, and interpretative sociology (Max Weber, W. Sombart, G. Simmel, R. Stammler, Alfred Weber, etc.). His main argumentwas that philosophers of cultural science and the humanities had a falseunderstanding of natural science. Because of this false understanding, they erroneously postulated a fundamental methodological difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences. According to Zilsel, this difference does not exist. In his view the historian is basically confronted with the same problems as the natural scientist. If the science of history is not compared with classical mechanics but with, for example, geophysics – that is, “the physics of earthquakes, sea-currents, volcanology, and meteorology” – one will arrive at the conclusion “that historical phenomena are hardly more difficult to predict than the weather, and certainly no more difficult than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. What would scientists think of a geophysicist who abandoned the search for geophysical laws because of their inexactness? ” (SOMS: 202). (shrink)

This article sets out to provide a conceptual contribution to theoretical and empirical work on the level of media repertoires. We will first discuss theoretical approaches which allow for an explanation of media repertoires and relate them to the most prominent approaches to selective audience behavior. Secondly, in order to empirically analyze media repertoires we propose a combination of secondary analyses of existing surveys on media use and qualitative studies on the internal ‘architecture’ of these repertoires and their practical meaning (...) in the user's everyday life. These proposals for secondary analyses are illustrated by two examples based on different data sets and referring to different levels of analysis. (shrink)

Logical paradoxes – like the Liar, Russell's, and the Sorites – are notorious. But in Paradoxes and Inconsistent Mathematics, it is argued that they are only the noisiest of many. Contradictions arise in the everyday, from the smallest points to the widest boundaries. In this book, Zach Weber uses “dialetheic paraconsistency” – a formal framework where some contradictions can be true without absurdity – as the basis for developing this idea rigorously, from mathematical foundations up. In doing so, (...) class='Hi'>Weber directly addresses a longstanding open question: how much standard mathematics can paraconsistency capture? The guiding focus is on a more basic question, of why there are paradoxes. Details underscore a simple philosophical claim: that paradoxes are found in the ordinary, and that is what makes them so extraordinary. (shrink)

Depression is a disorder of impaired emotion regulation. Consequently, examining individual differences in the habitual use of emotion-regulation strategies has considerable potential to inform models of this debilitating disorder. The aim of the current study was to identify cognitive processes that may be associated with the use of emotion-regulation strategies and to elucidate their relation to depression. Depression has been found to be associated with difficulties in cognitive control and, more specifically, with difficulties inhibiting the processing of negative material. We (...) used a negative affective priming task to assess the relations among inhibition and individual differences in the habitual use of rumination, reappraisal, and expressive suppression in clinically depressed, formerly depressed, and never-depressed participants. We found that depressed participants exhibited the predicted lack of inhibition when processing negative material. Moreover, within the group of depressed participants, reduced inhibition of negative material was associated with greater rumination. Across the entire sample, reduced inhibition of negative material was related to less use of reappraisal and more use of expressive suppression. Finally, within the formerly depressed group, less use of reappraisal, more use of rumination, and greater expressive suppression were related to higher levels of depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that individual differences in the use of emotion-regulation strategies play an important role in depression, and that deficits in cognitive control are related to the use of maladaptive emotion-regulation strategies in this disorder. (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety (...) over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

In der Philosophiegeschichte findet sich keine detailliert ausformulierte Philosophie des Abschieds. Die Publikation liefert hierzu die Spur des Abschieds, die als ein abwesend anwesendes Phänomen nachzuzeichnen ist. Neben der Rekonstruktion der relevanten philosophischen Thanatologien von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, der Phänomenologie von Leiden und Schmerz, des Trostes und der Trauer werden vorrangig über Nietzsches Philosophie der tragischen Bejahungpraxis philosophische Orientierungen für ein souveränes Verhaltengegenüber dem existentiellen Phänomen des Abschieds präsentiert"--Page 4 of cover.

Introduction: "a matter so obscure, so difficult, and likewise so new . . ." -- Argument, narrative, and methods discourse -- Many, many experiments -- Trying again -- Newtonian poison: a mechanical account of viper venom -- Experiment as the only guide -- Thousands of experiments -- Practical criticisms -- Controlling experiment -- Unobservables -- Fragmentation and modularity: notes on crotoxin -- Conclusion: about methods.

This open access book provides a historical treatment of scientific control in experimentation in the longue durée. The introduction distinguishes four related strands in the history of experimental control: the development of practices to stabilize experimental conditions; the career of the comparative design; the unfolding of methodological discussions about control practices and designs; and the history of the term “control”. Each chapter brings these distinctions to bear on specific historical episodes. The focus is on experiments with complex, elusive phenomena such (...) as perception and learning, irregular movements, and unobservable elements. Such experiments bring control issues to the fore because they are difficult to design and stabilize and often controversial. Together, the chapters show that the local context shapes what exactly is controlled, how control can be accomplished, and how controls are justified. They also show that control strategies and methodological ideas often remain stable for a long time and change only gradually. This book, as well as the volume on analysis and synthesis in experimentation by the same editors, contains contributions by an array of experts from multiple disciplines, making it suitable for historians and philosophers of science and students alike. (shrink)

The ability to process center‐embedded structures has been claimed to represent a core function of the language faculty. Recently, several studies have investigated the learning of center‐embedded dependencies in artificial grammar settings. Yet some of the results seem to question the learnability of these structures in artificial grammar tasks. Here, we tested under which exposure conditions learning of center‐embedded structures in an artificial grammar is possible. We used naturally spoken syllable sequences and varied the presence of prosodic cues. The results (...) suggest that mere distributional information does not suffice for successful learning. Prosodic cues marking the boundaries of the major relevant units, however, can lead to learning success. Thus, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that center‐embedded syntactic structures can be learned in artificial grammar tasks if language‐like acoustic cues are provided. (shrink)

Mueller et al. discuss the role of acoustic cues in detecting language structure more generally. Across languages, there are clear links between acoustic cues and syntactic structure. They show that AGL experiments implementing analogous links demonstrate that prosodic cues, as well as various auditory biases, facilitate the learning of structural rules. Some of these biases, e.g. for auditory grouping, are also present in other species.

Für Nietzsches Philosophie der tragischen Bejahung, die eine der Transformation ist, sind die Relationen zwischen dem Übermenschen und der ewigen Wiederkehr von enormer Bedeutung. Um diese herauszuarbeiten, untersucht die Studie die nietzscheanischen Menschentypen? ausgehend von der These, dass es Nietzsche immer um den schaffenden Menschen geht? vom 'Heerdenthier' bis zum Übermenschen, sodass die mit ihnen verbundenen Dispositive (Metaphysik, Religion, Moral, Philosophie und Kunst) in Nietzsches Evaluation transparent werden.

In Extragalactic Reality: The Case of Gravitational Lensing Hacking resumes the discussion of scientific realism from the last chapter of Representing and Intervening. Since the criterion of manipulability cannot be applied to astronomical objects, experimental entity realism seems to be restricted to terrestrial entities. In fact, Hacking explicitly argues against astronomical realism. The case at issue is the existence of gravitational lenses. In this paper, I question Hacking 's chief witness for astronomical antirealism: the gravitational lens system “0957+ 561”. It (...) will be shown that Hacking 's argumentation is misleading. Discussing astronomical realism as theory realism, Hacking focuses on the question of how to infer the existence of gravitational lenses from the truth of gravitational lens theory. But neither the reconstruction of gravitational lensing in terms of inference to the best explanation nor the argument of underdetermination are tenable under closer inspection. My thesis is that a realist account of gravitational lensing can be given by relying on observation, causal capacities and home truths. (shrink)

Exploring the concepts of Freezing: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Theoretical advancement. Ur Shlonsky and Luigi Rizzi: Criterial Freezing in small clauses and the cartography of copular constructions -- Angel J. Gallego: Freezing Effects in a free-Merge System -- Gereon Maller: Freezing in complex prefields. Empirical domains. Norbert Corver: The Freezing points of the (Dutch) adjectival system -- Jutta M. Hartmann: Freezing in it-clefts: Movement and focus -- Josef Bayer: Criterial Freezing in the syntax of particles -- Michael S. Rochemont: (...) Only syntax -- Maria Polinsky: Freezing and phi-feature agreement: On the role of [PERSON] -- BalÃízs SurÃínyi and Gerg Turi: Freezing, Topic Opacity and Phase-based Cyclicity in Subject Islands. Interface extensions. Peter W. Culicover and Susanne Winkler: Freezing: Between grammar and processing -- Andreas Konietzko: Heavy NP shift in context: On the interaction of information structure and subextraction from shifted constituents -- Rui P. Chaves: Freezing as a probabilistic phenomenon -- Marion Jaeger: An experimental study on freezing and topicalization in English. (shrink)

Marsilio Ficino, Protegé Cosimos, Pieros und Lorenzos von Medici, gilt als Zentralgestalt des italienischen Renaissance-Platonismus. Mit den Übersetzungen der Dialoge Platons, der Schriften Plotins und des Corpus Hermeticum sowie durch eine theoretische Verknüpfung von antiker Philosophie mit christlicher Religion übte er einen unübersehbar grossen Einfluss auf die europäische Wissenschafts- und Geistesgeschichte aus. Im Zentrum seines Theorie-Gebäudes steht ein komplexes Konzept von Magie, dessen Konstruktion bis heute erforscht wird. Es hat dem Band den Titel gegeben, dessen Themen sich Ficinos intellektuellem Horizont (...) entsprechend jedoch in eine Vielzahl weiterer Aspekte ausdifferenzieren. Diese literarisch-künstlerischen, literaturwissenschaftlichen, wissenschaftshistorischen und philosophisch-theologischen Implikationen von Ficinos Schriften werden paradigmatisch und vergleichend behandelt. (shrink)

Risk assessment is an evidence-based analytical framework used to evaluate research findings related to environmental and public health decision-making. Different routines have been adopted for assessing the potential risks posed by substances and products to human health. In general, the traditional paradigm is a hazard-driven approach, based on a monocausal toxicological perspective. Questions have been raised about the applicability of the general chemical risk assessment approach in the specific case of nanomaterials. Most scientists and stakeholders assume that the current standard (...) methods are in principle suitable, but point out that experimental aspects and practical guidelines need specific adaptations. Beyond this laboratory level, risk assessment of nanomaterials also faces a number of substantive and procedural limitations, which are intrinsically attributed to the general orthodoxy of the risk assessment concept. Moreover, the developed formalism used to organize scientific knowledge is closely interlinked with the underlying governance design and the mode of interaction between the two spheres of ‘science’ and ‘decisions’. This contribution will provide a closer look at the evolution of different institutional settings for risk assessment in the context of decision-making. Improved risk governance frameworks with different narratives, process designs and procedural elements will be compared. The question of a general principle of enhanced organization of risk assessment will be discussed taking account of the barriers of substantive and procedural limitations in the special case of nanomaterials. (shrink)