BackgroundPrevious studies suggested a circadian variation of migraine attack onset, although, with contradictory results – possibly because of the existence of migraine subgroups with different circadian attack onset peaks. Migraine is primarily a brain disorder, and if the diversity in daily distribution of migraine attack onset reflects an important aspect of migraine, it may also associate with interictal brain activity. Our goal was to assess brain activity differences in episodic migraine subgroups who were classified according to their typical circadian peak (...) of attack onset.MethodsTwo fMRI studies were conducted with migraine without aura patients (n= 31 in Study 1,n= 48 in Study 2). Among them, three subgroups emerged with typical Morning, Evening, and Varying start of attack onset. Whole brain activity was compared between the groups in an implicit emotional processing fMRI task, comparing fearful, sad, and happy facial stimuli to neutral ones.ResultsIn both studies, significantly increased neural activation was detected to fearful (but not sad or happy) faces. In Study 1, the Evening start group showed increased activation compared to the Morning start group in regions involved in emotional, self-referential (left posterior cingulate gyrus, right precuneus), pain (including left middle cingulate, left postcentral, left supramarginal gyri, right Rolandic operculum) and sensory (including bilateral superior temporal gyrus, right Heschl’s gyrus) processing. While in Study 2, the Morning start group showed increased activation compared to the Varying start group at a nominally significant level in regions with pain (right precentral gyrus, right supplementary motor area) and sensory processing (bilateral paracentral lobule) functions.ConclusionOur fMRI studies suggest that different circadian attack onset peaks are associated with interictal brain activity differences indicating heterogeneity within migraine patients and alterations in sensitivity to threatening fearful stimuli. Circadian variation of migraine attack onset may be an important characteristic to address in future studies and migraine prophylaxis. (shrink)

Based on retrospection on the reappraisal of the past in Hungary since 1989, this text analyses the representation of the Communist era in the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, the Terror Háza Múzeum and the Hadtörténeti Múzeum Budapest. All three museums place the suppression of the Hungarian people at the centre of their narration, while depicting the Hungarian nation as a victim. The 1956 revolution is staged as a central turning point in the second half of the 20th century, which supplies (...) the narrative with a fresh set of martyrs. In this context, Imre Nagy not only takes the role of an icon with regard to the events of 1956, but his re-interment is also seen as a climax of the turnabout of 1989. (shrink)

Acting morally comes at a price. The fewer people act morally, the dearer moral acts will be to those who perform them. Even if it could be proven that a certain moral norm were valid, the question might still be open whether, under certain circumstances, the demand to follow it meant asking too much. The validity of a moral norm is independent from actual compliance. In that regard, moral norms differ from legal rules. A law that nobody obeys has eroded (...) and thus lost validity; a moral norm that nobody keeps, however, may still be valid. Yet the latter point does not render the question obsolete whether demanding obedience to a specific moral norm, under certain circumstances, could mean asking too much. The costs incurred might be, on the one hand, individual costs. But there may, on the other hand, also be moral costs of obeying a certain moral norm. For an individual might also have responsibilities towards others near her, e.g., her family or peers; acting in accordance with the strict moral standard, then, could do harm not just to her but also to those who rely, and must rely upon her. Yet to define moral limits to following moral rules appears to be self-defeating. (shrink)

A student's future as a knowledge worker (one who "thinks for a living" with the task of problem solving) is the starting point of this book. With this in mind, the book combines a review of philosophical positions and problems with practical examples and perspectives gained from everyday challenges faced by knowledge workers in their businesses and organizations. Through the use of summative chapters, highlighted key concepts, questions for reflection, and illustrative examples on how to work with the theories presented, (...) the book provides a clear and accessible introduction to this challenging subject. Philosophy of Science primarily addresses students studying language, communication, marketing, economics, and management. However, the survey of the theoretical schools of thought - as well as the discussions on research ethics and the role of research in society - will be equally relevant for other students in the humanities and the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

Andréa Petö, née en 1964, enseigne l'histoire des femmes à la Central European University de Budapest. Son livre explore l'évolution des mouvements de femmes en Hongrie : la disparition des associations féminines féministes et religieuses, la section féminine du Parti Social Démocrate et la montée en puissance de l'Union démocratique des femmes hongroises sous l'égide communiste. Si la mise en place du pouvoir communiste a suscité, depuis 1989, de nombreuses recherches, aucune ne s'éta..

Andréa Petö, née en 1964, enseigne l'histoire des femmes à la Central European University de Budapest. Son livre explore l'évolution des mouvements de femmes en Hongrie : la disparition des associations féminines féministes et religieuses, la section féminine du Parti Social Démocrate et la montée en puissance de l'Union démocratique des femmes hongroises sous l'égide communiste. Si la mise en place du pouvoir communiste a suscité, depuis 1989, de nombreuses recherches, aucune ne s'éta...

Anche se siamo comunemente abituati a pensare alla scienza come a un qualcosa di assolutamente atemporale e indipendente da tutto, in realtà essa è profondamente influenzata dalla cultura e dalla società del tempo in cui vive. Infatti né la scienza è isolabile dalla società, né la società è isolabile dalla scienza, tanto meno come si sta configurando oggi. Per approfondire questi aspetti, esistono però due visioni antagoniste che bisogna superare: secondo la visione scolastica, retaggio del positivismo ottocentesco ancora molto diffuso (...) fra scienziati e pubblico di non esperti, la scienza è conoscenza senza soggetto conoscente. All'opposto, la visione cinica della scienza, sull'onda di talune elaborazioni della sociologia della scienza, la riduce a nient'altro che a una costruzione di soggetti che partecipano al gioco scientifico, una cultura come altre e da "mediare", e comunque una conoscenza relativa, se non frutto di una costruzione puramente soggettiva, arbitraria, ideologica. Un'analisi della costituzione sociale della scienza può, invece, mirare a un'indagine scientifica sulla scienza proprio configurando una relatività della conoscenza che supera sia l'assolutismo idealistico sia il relativismo soggettivistico. (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were in (...) different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

Abstract:We discuss the role that transnational corporations (TNCs) should play in developing global governance, creating a framework of rules and regulations for the global economy. The central issue is whether TNCs should provide global rules and guarantee individual citizenship rights, or instead focus on maximizing profits. First, we describe the problems arising from the globalization process that affect the relationship between public rules and private firms. Next we consider the position of economic and management theories in relation to the social (...) responsibility of the firm. We argue that instrumental stakeholder theory and business and society research can only partially solve the global governance issue, and that more recent concepts of corporate citizenship and republican business ethics deliver theoretically and practically helpful, fresh insights. However, even these need further development, especially with regard to the legitimacy of corporate political activity. (shrink)

Simondon adopts some concepts of social psychology as ‘in group’ and ‘out group’, namely from Kurt Lewin and Gordon Allport, that allow him to describe the fundamental processes shaping the domain of collective individuation, and to challenge Bergson’s distinction between a ‘closed’ community and an ‘open’ society. Reconstructing Simondon’s sources is necessary to understand how he tries to provide an analysis of the social system without presupposing a given anthropology, but rather exploring different perspectives on the human/nature threshold through the (...) concept of transindividual. In his study of the social system Simondon progressively gives conceptual shape to the processes he calls transindividual thanks to the ontogenetic analysis of the phenomena of belief, work and language. In all these domains, a ‘basic community’ emerges just over the threshold of the biological group, where the structural ambivalence of all collective processes as simultaneously closed and open becomes clear. That is why Simondon does not present the concept of the transindividual as a solution to the epistemological problem of psychic and collective individuation, but rather as the ‘field’ in which a whole series of social, biological and technical dimensions can be made converge towards a science of anthropogenic processes. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein also rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, (...) and that their anti-scientism leads both towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a broader metaphilosophical disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics. (shrink)

Memory of historical trauma has a unique power to generate works of art. This book analyzes the relation of public memory to history, forgetting, and selective memory in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York—three late-twentieth-century cities that have confronted major social or political traumas. Berlin experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall and the city’s reemergence as the German capital; Buenos Aires lived through the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s and their legacy of state terror and disappearances; and New (...) York City faces a set of public memory issues concerning the symbolic value of Times Square as threatened public space and the daunting task of commemorating and rebuilding after the attack on the World Trade Center. Focusing on the issue of monumentalization in divergent artistic and media practices, the book demonstrates that the transformation of spatial and temporal experience by memory politics is a major cultural effect of globalization. (shrink)

The central contention of this article is that the classificatory scheme of contemporary affective science, with its traditional categories of emotion, anger, fear, and so on, is no longer suitable to the needs of affective science. Unlike psychological constructionists, who have urged the transition from a discrete to a dimensional approach in the study of affective phenomena, I argue that we can stick to a discrete approach as long as we accept that traditional emotion categories will have to be transformed (...) in order to do any scientific work. I conclude by articulating some general rules for turning traditional emotion categories into suitable scientific tools. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and (...) human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Responsibility as accountability is normally taken to have stricter control conditions than responsibility as attributability. A common way to argue for this claim is to point to differences in the harmfulness of blame involved in these different kinds of responsibility. This paper argues that this explanation does not work once we shift our focus from other-directed blame to self-blame. To blame oneself in the accountability sense is to feel guilt and feeling guilty is to suffer. To blame oneself in the (...) attributability sense, it will be argued, is to feel shame and feeling shame is also to suffer. The different control conditions cannot be explained by a difference in the harm of blame. Instead, this paper argues that accountability and attributability are governed by different kinds of appropriateness: an agent S is accountability blameworthy for X only if S deserves to feel guilty; an agent S is attributability blameworthy for X only if it is fitting that S feels shame for X. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the structural concept of representation, as defined by homomorphisms, against its main objections, namely: logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, theobjection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. The logical objections can be met by reserving the relation ‘to be homomorphic to’ for the explication of potential representation (or, of the representational content). Actual reference objects (‘targets’) of representations are determined by (intentional or causal) representational mechanisms. Appealing to the independence of (...) the dimensions of ‘content’ and ‘target’ also helps to see how the structural concept can cope with misrepresentation. Finally, I argue that homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight. (shrink)

The paper defends the structural concept of representation, defined by homomorphisms, against the main objections that have been raised against it: Logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, the objection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. Homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight.

Importation in fictional discourse is the phenomenon by which audiences include information in the story over and above what is explicitly stated by the narrator. This paper argues that importation is distinct from generation, the phenomenon by which truth in fiction may outstrip what is made explicit, and draws a distinction between fictional truth and fictional records. The latter comprises the audience’s picture of what is true according to the narrator. The paper argues that importation into fictional records operates according (...) to principles that also govern ordinary conversation. An account of fictional records as a species of common ground information is proposed. Two sources of importation are described in detail, presupposition accommodation and conversational implicatures. It is shown that presuppositions are both mandatorily imported and mandatorily generated. By contrast, conversational implicatures are neither mandatorily imported nor mandatorily generated. The paper distinguishes conversational implicatures from contextual inferences. Both rely on background assumptions, yet conversational implicatures moreover depend on assumptions concerning Gricean cooperation. (shrink)

The paper defends the structural concept of representation, defined by homomorphisms, against the main objections that have been raised against it: Logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, the objection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. Homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight.

Der Band repräsentiert in dreißig Einzelbeiträgen den Stand der internationalen Forschung zur frühen Nietzsche-Rezeption.

Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A’s chances of getting the good, we reduce B’s chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Non-competitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to (...) do with non-competitive goods, e.g., being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Non-competitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is (...) alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences; and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics.

The aim of this paper is to defend the structural concept of representation, as defined by homomorphisms, against its main objections, namely: logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, theobjection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. The logical objections can be met by reserving the relation.

This English translation of the author's original work has been thoroughly revised, expanded and updated. The book covers logical systems known as type-free or self-referential . These traditionally arise from any discussion on logical and semantical paradoxes. This particular volume, however, is not concerned with paradoxes but with the investigation of type-free sytems to show that: (i) there are rich theories of self-application, involving both operations and truth which can serve as foundations for property theory and formal semantics; (ii) these (...) theories provide a new outlook on classical topics, such as inductive definitions and predicative mathematics; (iii) they are particularly promising with regard to applications. Research arising from paradoxes has moved progressively closer to the mainstream of mathematical logic and has become much more prominent in the last twenty years. A number of significant developments, techniques and results have been discovered. Academics, students and researchers will find that the book contains a thorough overview of all relevant research in this field. (shrink)

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong towards women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. (...) We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal. (shrink)

I offer a new understanding of Descartes’ metaphysics, arguing that his primary question is ‘what is real and true?’ – not as we have been accustomed to believe, ‘how can I be certain?’ – an inquiry that requires both reason’s authority and freedom’s autonomy. I argue that without freedom and its internal relation to reason, Descartes’ undertaking would not get off the ground; yet that relation has gone unnoticed by successive studies of his philosophy. I demonstrate that it is only (...) when we grasp the centrality of freedom to his Meditations that we can understand what motivates key parts of his metaphysics. I present Descartes’ distinctive metaphysics of freedom and resolve what has been seen as an intractable inconsistency between his account of freedom in the Meditations, and the account of freedom he presents in the Principles I 37 and the notorious letter to Mesland (1645). I defend his compelling conception of the true unity of the self, a thinking active being, and its place in the world. (shrink)

Critical algorithm scholarship has demonstrated the difficulties of attributing accountability for the actions and effects of algorithmic systems. In this commentary, we argue that we cannot stop at denouncing the lack of accountability for algorithms and their effects but must engage the broader systems and distributed agencies that algorithmic systems exist within; including standards, regulations, technologies, and social relations. To this end, we explore accountability in “the Generated Detective,” an algorithmically generated comic. Taking up the mantle of detectives ourselves, we (...) investigate accountability in relation to this piece of experimental fiction. We problematize efforts to effect accountability through transparency by undertaking a simple operation: asking for permission to re-publish a set of the algorithmically selected and modified words and images which make the frames of the comic. Recounting this process, we demonstrate slippage between the “complication” of the algorithm and the obscurity of the legal and institutional structures in which it exists. (shrink)