The topic of synchronicity has long intrigued philosophers, scientists, and the general public. However, to date very little empirical research has explored the underlying mechanisms of synchronicity. In other words, why do synchronicities occur? Are synchronicities random, or do they hold clues about the ultimate nature of reality? Drawing on theoretical and empirical research, the current paper explores the idea that synchronicity might be one way that the fundamental (i.e. ontologically primary) nature of consciousness reveals itself to us in everyday (...) life, and that contemplative practices such as meditation might be capable of invoking synchronicity. In addition, this paper aims to summarize theoretical perspectives on synchronicity in an attempt to spark a renewed interest in conducting empirical research on this topic, arguing for a thoughtful consideration of post-materialist perspectives in an attempt to innovate within the field of consciousness studies and shed light on the ontological questions raised by synchronicity. (shrink)

Exceptional human experiences (EHEs) have garnered increasing research attention, particularly with regard to the characteristics and potential functional aspects of these experiences. The current study sought to replicate and expand upon previous research on EHEs by using a mixed-methods approach to examine the characteristics of EHEs in a large adult sample. The participants were 869 healthy adults who completed a survey that allowed participants to share both quantitative ratings and qualitative descriptions of EHEs. The results revealed that 96.7% of respondents (...) had experienced at least one EHE, and EHEs were generally rated as having a positive impact on the participants' lives. Participants reported a variety of EHEs, with two primary themes emerging in the qualitative analysis: perception and function of EHEs. The results suggest that EHEs may serve a positive, functional purpose in the lives of those who experience them. (shrink)

Leitkonzepte wie Nachhaltigkeit bedürfen, sollen sie erfahrbar werden, der konkreten Umsetzung. Nachhaltiges Denken in Form von Gedankenentwürfen muss demnach in nachhaltiges Handeln in Form entsprechender Initiativen überführt werden. Dabei geht nachhaltiges Denken weit über Unternehmensgrenzen hinaus und ragt in alle gesellschaftlichen Systeme hinein. Eine besonders wichtige "Keimzelle" des komplementären nachhaltigen Denkens und Handelns sind die Kommunen. Sie sind zum einen als Handlungseinheiten klein genug, um Nachhaltigkeit mit konkreten Initiativen ein Gesicht zu geben. Zum anderen sind sie aber auch groß genug, (...) um Nachhaltigkeit in einen übergeordneten Zusammenhang zu stellen und entsprechende Aktivitäten zu koordinieren und zu fördern. Mit dem inhaltlichen Fokuspunkt Wirtschaft und dem kommunalen Fokuspunkt Hannover wird mit diesem Werk ein konkreter und praxisnaher Forschungsbereich näher beleuchtet. Die kombinierte Forschungs- und Praxisperspektive des Werkes wurde ausgewählt, um sowohl den theoretischen Diskussionsstand widerzuspiegeln und mit dem integrativen Ansatz anzureichern als auch exemplarisch den praxisnahen Anwendungs- und Ausprägungsstand abzubilden. Das Buch richtet sich an Experten*innen im Bereich Kommunales Management aber auch an Wissenschaftler*innen und Studierende in Studiengängen zum Thema Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement und Regionale Entwicklung. Der Inhalt Konzeptionelle Grundlagenbeiträge Schnittstelle Kommune - Wirtschaft: Triebfeder für lokale und regionale Nachhaltigkeit Referenzbeispiele für (integriertes) kommunales Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement Die Herausgeber*innen Prof. Dr. Kristin Butzer-Strothmann ist Professorin für Allgemeine BWL, insbesondere Marketing und Empirische Sozialforschung an der Leibniz-Fachhochschule in Hannover. Prof. Dr. Friedel Ahlers ist Professor für Allgemeine BWL, insbesondere Unternehmensführung und Personalwirtschaft an der Leibniz-Fachhochschule in Hannover. (shrink)

I offer an account of perceptual warrant according to which one’s basic perceptual beliefs are immediately and defeasibly warranted if they are formed on the basis of experiences produced by a competent perceptual system. I claim that sub-personal features of one’s perceptual systems can render one competent to perceptually represent a particular environment. When these conditions are met, one is warranted in forming beliefs on the basis of one’s perceptual experiences. I develop my account of perceptual warrant in the context (...) of a Bayesian theory of perceptual processing. (shrink)

I criticize an account of perceptual warrant proposed by [Burge, Tyler. 2003. “Perceptual Entitlement.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3): 503–548]. Burge contends that a subject's beliefs are entitled only if that subject's perceptual system represents its normal environment in a reliably veridical manner. The normal environment, according to Burge, is the environment in which the contents of the subject's perceptual experiences were fixed. I present a case that shows that the contents of a subject's perceptual experiences can remain fixed (...) while features of its perceptual system relevant to its representational reliability change. This leads to problematic consequences for Burge's view. (shrink)

I argue that racially biased perception can be incompetent in a way that undermines perceptual warrant. This can occur even when the subject is unaware of the influence of the bias upon their beliefs or when they possess no defeating evidence that makes it rational for them to doubt the accuracy of their perceptual experiences. When a subject’s racial bias causes their perceptual system to encode inaccurate information about their environment, or to process information in an epistemically incompetent manner, this (...) can reduce their perceptual competence, and thus their perceptual warrant. I discuss a series of cases that illustrate how my proposals treat various instances of racially biased perception. I then distinguish my view from a competing proposal from Jessie Munton (2019) which claims that racially biased priors are epistemically incompetent because they are gerrymandered. A gerrymandered prior is one whose accuracy depends on ongoing manipulations of the environment. I argue that the kinds of manipulations that Munton cites do not necessarily impact perceptual competence and that my account better explains how racist institutions and societal structures can impact the epistemic competence of perceivers. (shrink)

Dogmatists claim that having a perceptual experience as of p can provide one with immediate and defeasible warrant to believe that p. A persistent complaint against this position is that it sanctions an intuitively illicit form of reasoning: bootstrapping. I argue that dogmatism has no such commitments. Dogmatism is compatible with a principle that disallows the final non-deductive inference in the bootstrapping procedure. However, some authors have maintained that such strategy is doomed to failure because earlier stages of in the (...) bootstrapping inference are already problematic. I argue that insofar as these inferences appear problematic, the dogmatist is not committed to sanctioning them. I conclude that the bootstrapping argument presents no significant objection to the claim that perceptual experiences can provide immediate and defeasible warrant to believe their contents. (shrink)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philosophy of history is analyzed here from the point of its epistemological and ontological meaning. The author considers that the ontological point of view makes it possible to conceptualize the history as the unity of its all times - Past, Present and Future. The connection between these three times based on their relation to the concept of Eternity which has been symbolically formed within the mythological, religious and utopian Weltanschauung. The necessity of these relations transforms philosophy of history into a (...) special kind of ontological historical knowledge. The study of history from the prospect of unity is only possible within the historical interpretation of Future as an epoch of bridging the gap between Time and Eternity. Author calls this philosophical concept the Time of Freedom. (shrink)