Ethical evaluation of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease is complicated by results that can be described as involving changes in the patient’s identity. The risk of becoming another person following surgery is alarming for patients, caregivers and clinicians alike. It is one of the most urgent conceptual and ethical problems facing deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease at this time. In our paper we take issue with this problem on two accounts. First, we elucidate what is (...) meant by “becoming another person” from a conceptual point of view. After critically discussing two broad approaches we concentrate on the notion of “individual identity” which centers on the idea of “core attitudes”. Subsequently we discuss several approaches to determine what distinguishes core attitudes from those that are more peripheral. We argue for a “foundational-function model” highlighting the importance of specific dependency relations between these attitudes. Our second aim is to comment on the possibility to empirically measure changes in individual identity and argue that many of the instruments now commonly used in selecting and monitoring DBS-patients are inappropriate for this purpose. Future research in this area is advised combining a conceptual and an empirical approach as a basis of sound ethical appraisal. (shrink)

Teachers’ instructional practices are important for student learning. However, there are few tools for evaluating instructional practices in social studies. To this end, we present a video-based in...

The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to critically investigate Kuhn’s stance on the assessment of the pursuit worthiness of scientific theories, and, on the other hand, to show the actuality of some of Kuhn’s points on this issue, in view of their critical analysis. To this end we show that Kuhn presents certain tools, which may help scientists to overcome communication breakdowns when engaging in the process of rational deliberation regarding the question whether (...) a theory is worthy of further pursuit. These tools are persuasion, translation and interpretation. However, we argue that the perspective of epistemic semantic monism present in Kuhn’s work obstructs the full applicability of these tools. We show that dropping this perspective makes the notions of persuasion and interpretation more fruitful, and moreover, allows for a pluralism of scientific theories and practices that complements the pluralism based on disagreement among scientists, emphasized by Kuhn. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the development of philosophy of science in the 1970s. The explanatory framework is the picture of two fundamental split-offs: the controversial establishment of history and sociology of science and of formal philosophy of science as independent disciplines, against the background of more traditional “conceptual” varieties of philosophy of science. I illustrate these developments, which finally led to somewhat “purified” versions of the respective accounts, by examining a case study, namely, that of the structuralist school, which (...) emerged in the 1970s as an attempt to reconcile historical and formal approaches in philosophy of science. I try to explain the failure of this initial program of “Kuhn Sneedified” and its transition to a more purified formalist version, on the basis of the fact that the former attempt was caught somewhere amid the purism of conceptual, historical, and formal accounts of philosophy of science. (shrink)

In the last two sections of Structure, Thomas Kuhn first develops his famous threefold conception of the incommensurability of scientific paradigms and, subsequently, a conception of scientific progress as growth of empirical strength. The latter conception seems to be at odds with the former in that semantic incommensurability appears to imply the existence of situations where scientific progress in Kuhns sense can no longer exist. In contrast to this seeming inconsistency of Kuhns conception, we will try to show in (...) this study that the semantic incommensurability of scientific terms appears to be fully compatible with scientific progress. Our argumentation is based on an improved version of the formalization of Kuhns conception as developed in the 1970s by Joseph Sneed and Wolfgang Stegmüller: In order to be comparable, incommensurable theories need the specification of relations that refer to the concrete ontologies of these theories and involve certain truth claims. The original structuralist account of reduction fails to provide such relations, because (1) it is too structural and (2) it is too wide. Moreover, the original structuralist account also fails to cover important cases of incommensurable theories in being too restrictive for them. In this paper, we develop an improved notion of “reduction” that allows us to avoid these shortcomings by means of a more flexible device for the formalization of (partially reductive) relations between theories. For that purpose, we use a framework of rigid logic, i.e., logic that is based on a fixed collection of objects. (shrink)

The paper challenges a recent attempt by Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen to show that since Thomas Kuhn’s philosophical standpoint can be incorporated into coherentist epistemology, it does not necessarily lead to: an abandonment of rationality and rational interparadigm theory comparison, nor to an abandonment of convergent realism. Leaving aside the interpretation of Kuhn as a coherentist, we will show that Kuukkanen’s first thesis is not sufficiently explicated, while the second one entirely fails. With regard to Thesis 1, we argue that (...) Kuhn’s view on inter-paradigm theory comparison allows only for ‘the weak notion of rationality’, and that Kuukkanen’s argument is thus acceptable only in view of such a notion. With regard to Thesis 2, we show that even if we interpret Kuhn as a coherentist, his philosophical standpoint cannot be seen as compatible with convergent realism since Kuhn’s argument against it is not ‘ultimately empirical’, as Kuukkanen takes it to be.Keywords: Thomas S. Kuhn; Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen; Coherentist epistemology; Rationality; Theory choice; Convergent realism. (shrink)

Auch in der gegenwärtigen Naturphilosophie wird erkannt, dass die klassische Verstehensweise unserer näheren und ferneren „Umwelt“ über ein mechanistisches Weltbild, wie es den Naturwissenschaften lange zugrunde lag, nicht mehr allein angemessen sein kann. Diese notwendige Korrektur,die gerade im Zusammenhang mit dem Teleologiegedanken des Lebendigen besonders diskutiert wird, muss jedoch in phänomenologischer Sicht noch weiter geführt werden, denn es ist die deskriptive Erscheinensvoraussetzung von Differenz oder Transzendenz im modernen Denken selbst, die in Frage zu stellen ist, um „Natur“ aus einem immanenten (...) Einheitsbegriff heraus aufzuweisen. Die philosophie‐ wie geistesgeschichtlichen Sondierungen zu Antike und Mittelalter sollen dabei bewusst machen, dass diese Zweideutigkeit von Immanenz/Transzendenz vom griechischen Physis‐Begriff über den christlichen Schöpfungsgedanken bis zur Moderne weiter vererbt wurde unddaher heute mit einer radikalisierten Phänomenologie zu konfrontieren ist, welche sich zugleich der Verantwortung für eine Einheit von Natur/Kultur in Zukunft bewusst ist.Contemporary philosophy recognizes that the “environment” cannot be understood any longer with a mechanistic conception of the world alone. This is discussed in context with the teleology of the living and descriptive presupposition of appearance of difference/transcendence in modern thinking,in order to exhibit “nature” from an immanent unit term. The ancient philosophy and the middle ages philosophy make conscious that this duality of Immanence/transcendence is a heritage from the Greek term of physisthat passed through the Christian view of Creation to reach the modernity.Today this heritage is confronted to the radicalized phenomenology, in orderto take the responsibility of unifying in the future nature and culture. (shrink)

As any science presupposes a certain “something” for its constitution as a discipline, the same applies also for philosophy and theology as discourses of a specific intentionality. However, pure phenomenological life relies on an originary self-donation, which precedes any manifestation of language or scientific knowledge, and implies a practical “original intelligibility”, pertaining to any human being as his “transcendental birth”. Relating to Michel Henry, this circumstance will be confronted with the self-revelation in Christianity, involving a discussion of the phenomenological status (...) of the Scripture, as well as a delimitation from any Gnosis. Hence, the “word of life” (of God), preceding any manifestation of language, coincides with an immediate ethos, that can be illustrated by the “acts of compassion”. The text conceives itself as a preliminary work for a religious philosophy founded in the phenomenology of life. (shrink)

The issue of Christ’s two natures and the Trinitarian persons of God in the Christian conception have posed a conundrum in Christian-Muslim Relations. Islam has historically held to a formulation of absolute unity while the historic Christian faith prefers to see a plurality of union as the proper expression of divine unity. The debate raged throughout the medieval period. The contemporary Egyptian intellectual Awwaḍ Simʽān is one outstanding voice in the current nexus of Muslim-Christian engagement. Simʽān presents a rationally appealing (...) formulation of the Christian doctrine, avoiding or carefully explaining some of the Christian Trinitarian terminology which Muslims regard as most egregious. He appeals to Muslim philosophers as well as historic Christian apologists to buttress his views. It is a winsome and rationally appealing formulation from an Arabic-writing theologian from within the Muslim context. This article seeks to examine the salient points of Simʽān’s formulation and ask if it could be heard in today’s Muslim milieu with all its attending dissonance due to the realities of religious militancy and social displacement. The communal unity of the Trinity may yet find corners of the Muslim world where it is welcomed and embraced. If so, Awwaḍ Simʽān’s formulation will play a visible role. (shrink)

While in medicine, comparison of the data supplied by a clinical syndrome with the data supplied by the biological system is used to arrive at the most accurate diagnosis, the same cannot be said of financial economics: the accumulation of statistical results that contradict the Brownian hypothesis used in risk modelling, combined with serious empirical problems in the practical implementation of the Black-Scholes-Merton model, the benchmark theory of mathematical finance founded on the Brownian hypothesis, has failed to change the Brownian (...) representation, which has endured for more than fifty years despite the extent of its invalidation by experience. Without any statistical foundations, one mathematical representation has become the established approach, acting in the minds of practitioners as a “prenotion” in the sense the word is used by Durkheim, i.e. a “schematic, summary representation” which has produced a kind of spontaneous epistemology. The question arises of the persistence of this mathematical representation, which has been the basis for every financial risk modelling approach: how can its long life be explained? How was this spontaneous epistemology formed, and why did it prove to be so persistent? To address this question and offer an answer, I will test the various dynamics of scientific knowledge used with reference to financial modelling. All these dynamics are specific ways of describing the relationship between knowledge of a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. Observing that it is impossible for the positivist approach to solve the financial puzzle, I turn to the three principal postpositivist dynamics, developed by Kuhn, Lakatos and Quine. I shall try to make to speak these representations of science for financial research, in order to reflect on the dominance of the Brownian representation in finance. We shall see that none of the epistemologies examined can explain why the Brownian representation continues to be used in mathematical finance research. I shall then propose an alternative hypothesis, concerning a significant pervading mental model that has irrigated both academics and practitioners in the financial sector: the “principle of continuity” introduced into economics by Marshall in. I consider that this principle of continuity has become a “persistent idea” in the form of a viral approach to representations, and I give this persistent idea the metaphorical name of the “Brownian virus”. Then, to explain the spread of this Brownian virus through the financial sector, the contamination of financial practices by this mental representation founded on the principle of continuity, I introduce the concept of the “financial Logos”, a discourse that structures practices and organisations, calculations, prudential regulations and accounting standards, leading to a general financialisation of society from the 1980s onwards. (shrink)

According to their founders, the DVjs, established in 1923, was supposed to develop a specific focus also for medieval literature and culture. This article analyzes how this program was realized and how the relationship between literary studies and intellectual history (›Geistesgeschichte‹) was shaped in different periods from the early articles of Günther Müller, Wolfgang Stammler or Walther Rehm to the reestablishment by Hugo Kuhn around 1950. The authors reconstruct a particular branch of German medieval studies still relevant today.

Als die zwei auch für die Wissenschaftstheorie relevantesten Konversionen der letzten Jahre gelten die von Holzkamp hin zum Marxismus sowie die von Feyerabend hin zum Anarchismus oder Dadaismus. Beide Forscher haben autobiographische Notizen publiziert, die ihre Konversion plausibel machen sollen. Darüberhinaus liegt durch jüngste Publikationen auch bei Feyerabend inzwischen genügend theoretisches Material vor, aufgrund dessen eine erste Bilanz gewagt werden kann. Mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Feyerabend lautet die Hauptfrage, warum er "nur" zum Anarchismus konvertierte, nicht aber zum Marxismus. Bezogen auf (...) die Auseinandersetzung zwischen emanzipatorischer Anthropologie und nomothetischer Methodologie wird zunächst die Kritik der Forschungspraxis aufgezeigt, wie sie vom frühen Holzkamp und von Feyerabend geübt wurde. Spätestens bei dem seit den Analysen von Kuhn aktuellem Bruch zwischen Wissenschaftstheorie und -praxis ist Feyerabend im Unterschied zu Holzkamp nicht mehr motiviert, diesen Bruch rational zu rekonstruieren. Vielmehr tut Feyerabend alles dafür, die Autorität der Wissenschaft zu erschüttern. Die Überführung seines durchaus teilbaren Kampfes gegen ein Falsifikationsprinzip in einen Kampf für pluralistische Methodologie ist letztlich ein Zeichen der Hilflosigkeit einer idealistischen und voluntaristischen Philosophie. Seine radikaldemokratische Konzeption der Wissenschaft als Abstimmungsgeschäft etabliert jene 'Mob'-Herrschaft, die er in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Lakatos' Basisurteilen noch ablehnte. Als Ursache für den Unterschied in der Konversion bei Holzkamp und Feyerabend wird herausgestellt: Das liberalistische Privatindividuum Feyerabend ist im Unterschied zu Holzkamp nie in der Lage, seine Interessen an Wissenschaft von der Praxis her disziplinieren zu lassen und die positiven Ansätze zu einer "kosmologischen" Analyse in einer umfassenden Reflektion des Zusammenhangs von Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft aufzuheben. (shrink)

Le premier Wittgenstein expose dans le Tractatus une philosophie des sciences marquée par le conventionnalisme complété d’un certain vérificationnisme assuré par la logique de l’ Abbildung. Pour autant il ne développe aucune idéologiste scientiste. A partir de 1929, sa philosophie prend un tournant grammatical : la « grammaire » de la science comporte non seulement les lois logiques, mais aussi la partie théorique des sciences de la nature. L’assimilation des grandes théories (Copernic, Darwin, Freud) à des « vues synoptiques » (...) rassemblant une quantité de phénomènes, comme les paradigmes de Kuhn, n’empêche pas Wittgenstein de donner à sa philosophie le tour d’un incontestable réalisme (au sens de Cora Diamond). La dernière partie de ce texte essaie d’apprécier, à partir de Wittgenstein, les différences et les relations entre science et philosophie dans le naturalisme contemporain. (shrink)

Inhalt: O. Poggeler: Vorwort - Publikationen des Hegel-Archivs (Bochum) - Publications du Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur Hegel et sur Marx (Poitiers) - G. Planty-Bonjour: In memoriam Claude Bruaire - Die Lehren der Geschichte: J. D'Hondt: Les lecons hegeliennes de l'histoire - N. Waszek: Weltgeschichte und Zeitgeschehen. Hegels Lekture des Globe - B. Bourgeois: Hegel et la deraison dans l'histoire - D. Souche-Dagues: La 'fierte' de l'Esprit - Dialektische Logik und Geschichtsmetaphysik: O. Poggeler: Geschichte, Philosophie und Logik bei (...) Hegel - K. Dusing: Dialektik und Geschichtsmetaphysik in Hegels Konzeption philosophiegeschichtlicher Entwicklung - G. Schmidt: Kausalitat oder Substantialitat? - Geschichte der Philosophie und logische Kategorien: M. Riedel: Erster und anderer Anfang. Hegels Bestimmung des Ursprungs und Grundes der griechischen Philosophie - B. Tuschling: Necessarium est idem simul esse et non esse. Zu Hegels Revision der Grundlagen von Logik und Metaphysik - Entwicklung, Geschichte der Philosophie und Evolution: P. Garniron: Hegels Geschichte der Philosophie der Moderne. Eine Untersuchung auf der Grundlage verschiedener Berliner Nachschriften - H.-Ch. Lucas: Kontinuitat, Einheit und das Neue. Uberlegungen zu Hegel und Thomas S. Kuhn - W. Bonsiepen: Der Zusammenhang von Naturrevolution und geschichtlicher Entwicklung in Hegels Berliner System - Anhang: Abkurzungen und Siglen - Literaturverzeichnis: H.-Ch. Lucas und N. Waszek. - Personenverzeichnis. (shrink)

In 1845, John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote a treatise describing the development of Christian doctrine. Since then, his ideas have been challenged, in particular by Protestant theologians who have argued that the development of doctrine does not progress in either a smooth or linear path. In the philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has challenged the idea that science is purely driven by objective and rational motives. In this paper, Kuhn's ideas are applied to (...) the development of Christian doctrine. Drawing from historical examples, it is shown that Kuhn's contextual approach to describe the progress of science aids in understanding the way doctrines themselves develop. Although this is not the first time that theology and Kuhn have conversed, the notion of doctrinal development being systematically and methodically shown to have parallels with Kuhn's ideas is novel. Ultimately, this work is another important step in building interdisciplinary links between science and theology. (shrink)

In his book “Reconstruction of Scientific Change” R.M. Nugayev proposes a new model of theory change by analyzing the reasons for theory change in science. Nugayev’s theoretical concept is based on a realist’s philosophical attitude. The most important notions of Nugayev’ s conception of theory change are “theories’ cross” and “crossbred objects”, which he takes from the terminology of other Russian philosophers of science (Bransky, Podgoretzky, Smorodinsky). His investigations often refer to several famous Western philosophers. Yet his study is not (...) free of some drawbacks. Nevertheless, Nugayev’s book is worth reading and discussing within the current debate about the structure of scientific revolution and theory changes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that, historically, Christianity emerges out of Judaism by way of a paradigm shift in Thomas Kuhn’s sense of the word and that this emergence has normative consequences regarding the legitimacy of Christianity. Paradigm shifts are characterized by observational anomalies triggering particular kinds of theoretical modifications, e.g. meaning-changes of key terms, leading to a coherent re-disclosure of reality. The first Christians underwent such a paradigm shift: The anomalous experience that the dead Jesus has risen triggered theoretical modifications (...) – the term ‘Messiah’ underwent a meaning-change – so that reality could be coherently re-disclosed as eschatological reality. If Christianity emerges by way of a paradigm shift, this shift should be the foundation of Christological theorizing: Rather than basing Christology on what the ‘historical Jesus’ did or said, the reconstruction of Jesus as the Christ in the context of this shift is foundational for Christ... (shrink)

Both Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion and Philip Kennedy’s book A Modern Introduction to Theology: New Questions for Old Beliefs were published in 2006. This article aims to compare the two books and to argue that Kennedy does not oppose Dawkins’s views but, in fact, debates along similar lines. Kennedy is adamant that the Augustinian paradigm of Christianity no longer makes sense, because it is based on an outdated cosmology and anthropology. He firmly maintains that Christianity requires a new (...) paradigm, which is informed by our current knowledge and worldview. Thomas Kuhn’s ideas of paradigm and paradigm changes in the history of natural sciences are utilised in comparing the books, seeing that Dawkins accepts and works within the Darwinian paradigm of evolutionary biology, and Kennedy argues that Christians and Christian theologians adhere to the Augustinian paradigm of Fall-Redemption-Judgement. It is argued that Dawkins should have referred to the paradigm change in the study of the Bible, which occurred towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, and the plea of theologians, like Kennedy, for a paradigm change in theology. The article concludes that only a paradigm change in Christianity, which is in line with the modern worldview, will enable Christians to keep the tradition alive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Annual Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesMontreal, Quebec, Canada, 6 –7 November 2009Sandra Costen Kunz and Amos YongThe Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS) sponsored two sessions in conjunction with the 2009 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. The first session was titled “The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity and Science.” The theme for the second session was “Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science.”The (...) first session, a panel discussion of The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity and Science, edited by Paul Numrich (Göttingen: Vandenhouek and Rupricht, 2008), considered the epistemological questions raised by Buddhist, Christian, and scientific insights on the inadequacies of conceptualization and language for understanding reality. The project that produced the book was funded by the Templeton Foundation, which also generously supported this panel.After a welcome by moderator Miriam Levering (University of Tennessee), the book’s editor, Paul Numrich (Theological Consortium of Greater Columbus), gave a brief overview of the volume, followed by reflections on their chapters by two contributors: Dennis Hirota (Ryukoku University) and Paul Ingram (Pacific Lutheran University). Amos Yong (Regent University School of Divinity) responded to Hirota’s chapter, and Sandra Costen Kunz (Phillips Theological Seminary) responded to Ingram’s. Hirota and Ingram each made a few remarks on these responses, leading into an open discussion including other contributors to the book: John Albright (Lutheran School of Theology), Roger Blomquist (Argonne National Laboratory), Tom Christenson (Capital University), and David McMahan (Franklin and Marshall College).Hirota’s paper, based on his chapter “Shinran and Heidegger on Truth,” examined the epistemology of Shinran (1173–1263), founder of the Japanese Shin Pure Land Buddhist tradition. Hirota noted that for both Shinran and Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) [End Page 197] truth is less a matter of asserting propositions and more a matter of the recognition and turning away from prior perceptual distortion. This permits the emergence of a new structure of awareness, an emergence that parallels Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts in scientific understanding.In his response, Yong called for a greater role for different “particularistic or even confessional approaches” within “the religion-science discussion.” He thus noted with appreciation the grounding of Hirota’s paper in a Buddhist tradition that is not “broadly Tibetan,” like much work in Buddhist-science dialogue. He compared and contrasted Shinran’s teachings about the corruption and purification of human reason with those of the Council of Dordt’s five-point condensation of Protestant reformer John Calvin’s soteriology, pointing out that both have a salvific intention.Ingram argued that while science has amassed reliable information about physical reality, and Buddhist and Christian practitioners have amassed reliable knowledge about the structures of human experience, all three traditions confront epistemological boundaries imposed by their methods of inquiry. Questions arising at these boundaries form the foundation for a science-Buddhism-Christianity trialogue. Noting that science demonstrates that “nature is rooted in a realm... only half-translated into our phenomenal experience,” Ingram reviewed how scientists and Buddhist and Christian practitioners “work back from relevant experiences on the phenomenal level, and then ask what hypothetical reality might constructively explain these experiences.”Kunz pointed out that in his examples of “working back” from experience toward hypotheses, Ingram cites many reasons for epistemological humility. Noting her research on how methods of Christian spiritual discernment might yield hypotheses for reducing the ecological crisis, she argued that Christians who have ignored the boundaries of human knowledge have contributed to this crisis. She suggested that if Western Christians who teach spiritual discernment took Buddhist and current neuroscience insights about human knowing more seriously, their teaching practices might differ less from those of non-Western Christians.The second session, chaired by Amos Yong (Regent University), was a roundtable discussion of Paul O. Ingram’s book Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). Respondents included Mark Unno, associate professor of East Asian religions at the University of Oregon; Nancy Howell, professor of theology and philosophy of religion at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri; Benjamin Chicka, PhD candidate in the philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont Graduate University; and former... (shrink)

There is a strong need of a reasoned defense of what was known as the “independence” position of the science–religion relationship but that more recently has been denigrated as the “accommodationist” position, namely that while there are parts of religion—fundamentalist Christianity in particular—that clash with modern science, the essential parts of religion do not and could not clash with science. A case for this position is made on the grounds of the essentially metaphorical nature of science. Modern science functions because (...) of its root metaphor of the machine: the world is seen in mechanical terms. As Thomas Kuhn insisted, metaphors function in part by ruling some questions outside their domain. In the case of modern science, four questions go unasked and hence unanswered: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the foundation of morality? What is mind and its relationship to matter? What is the meaning of it all? You can remain a nonreligious skeptic on these questions, but it is open for the Christian to offer his or her answers, so long as they are not scientific answers. Here then is a way that science and religion can coexist. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Wissenschaft ist geprägt durch Ausdifferenzierungs- und Pluralisierungsprozesse, wodurch konkrete Forschung in Ansatz und Reichweite immer fokussierter und partikularer wird. Eine solche Spezialisierung ist einerseits sehr wünschenswert, birgt aber gerade für den in Disziplinen agierenden Diskurs bzw. das System Wissenschaft gewisse Schwierigkeiten in sich. Mit dem Ruf nach mehr Interdisziplinarität versucht Wissenschaft und die auf sie angewiesene Gesellschaft zu reagieren. Interdisziplinarität braucht aber klare Disziplinarität. Vor diesem Hintergrund will dieser Beitrag ein Angebot machen, Disziplinen nicht über bestimmte Gegenstände, Methoden oder (...) Perspektiven zu definieren, sondern diskursstrukturell zu denken – als über ihre Fragestellung auf der Meta-Ebene identifizierbare Diskurse. (shrink)

The question of coming to faith, and leaving Christian faith, has become prominent in recent years, with much discussion of Christian “conversion” and “deconversion.” Some people seem to make sudden changes in their belief systems; are such changes fundamentally irrational, or can we understand them as the outcome of a rational (though perhaps tacit) thought process? In this paper, I present a model for how people change their minds about both minor and major beliefs, with elements from Thomas Kuhn’s (...) model of “revolutions,” as well as input from the modern philosophy, psychology, and Christian theology. The main thesis of this paper is that people regularly go through revolutions of varying degrees of magnitude, which can be quite sudden, based on the buildup of tension due to lack of felt coherence in a previously-held view, compared to their perception of alternative views. Such a process is rational at its core. (shrink)

For decades, Christiane Northrup has been helping women navigate their lives with grace and joy. This elegant, compact volume offers her trademark wisdom in a fresh form, filled with pointed reminders "to help you develop a deeper respect for, and connection to, your own body and its exquisite guidance system [to] create a vibrantly healthy body, mind, and spirit." Each beautifully designed black-and-white page carries a quote that touches on a topic of deep significance: everything from heart-listening to epigenetics (...) to the importance of knowing that your decisions about medical treatment are not irreversible. Examples include:You are an ever-renewing, ever-changing, ever-growing being, born with an inner guidance that helps you create and maintain vibrant health and happiness. / When faced with a dilemma, take a moment to sit with the issue. Don't rush to decide what to do. Intend to let Divine inspiration flow to you, and it will be so! The next time you get an ache or a pain, soften the area around it with compassion. Ask your body what it needs. Listen deeply for the answer. (shrink)

Theoretical and empirical research on stakeholder behavior tends to focus on specific actions or responses in the context of the organization–stakeholder relationship. Despite increased efforts to look beyond the dyadic organization–stakeholder relationship, research still favors the perspective of the focal organization. The taken-for-granted assumption of the organization–stakeholder relationship may limit our understanding of how organization–stakeholder linkages are formed and evolve over time. By adopting the perspective of the stakeholder, this article examines organization–stakeholder relationship formation and tracks changes in the salience (...) of stakeholder groups otherwise considered to be nonstakeholders. This research draws from a case study of small coffee producers in Southern Mexico who formed a cooperative and developed salience within their stakeholder network after a long history of diverse individual, organizational, and institutional arrangements. The findings suggest that the replacement of bureaucratic stakeholder relationships with relationships characterized by strong moral commitment to stakeholders’ claims enabled independent farmers to transform into an integrated, solid, and worldwide competitive group of coffee producers. (shrink)

Military physicians are often perceived to be in a position of ‘dual loyalty’ because they have responsibilities towards their patients but also towards their employer, the military institution. Further, they have to ascribe to and are bound by two distinct codes of ethics, each with its own set of values and duties, that could at first glance be considered to be very different or even incompatible. How, then, can military physicians reconcile these two codes of ethics and their distinct professional/institutional (...) values, and assume their responsibilities towards both their patients and the military institution? To clarify this situation, and to show how such a reconciliation might be possible, we compared the history and content of two national professional codes of ethics: the Defence Ethics of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association. Interestingly, even if the medical code is more focused on duties and responsibility while the military code is more focused on core values and is supported by a comprehensive ethical training program, they also have many elements in common. Further, both are based on the same core values of loyalty and integrity, and they are broad in scope but are relatively flexible in application. While there are still important sources of tension between and limits within these two codes of ethics, there are fewer differences than may appear at first glance because the core values and principles of military and medical ethics are not so different. (shrink)

In this essay, Christiane Thompson addresses the question of evaluative practices, particularly student evaluation of teaching (SET), and their effects with respect to pedagogical relations in the university setting. In the first part of the essay, Thompson draws on Michel Foucault's analysis of power to show how university teaching has come to be defined according to notions of obligation, accountability, and assurance. The forgetfulness of pedagogical relations that results from the increasing use of SET prompts Thompson to rethink the (...) significance of pedagogical relations in the second part of the essay. Referring to the notion of “educational authority” and Foucault's framework of power, Thompson argues that education is about the continuous re-institution of pedagogical relation to the other. In the final section, Thompson reflects upon the professor's “authority” in terms of constituting a “community of inquiry”: specifically, the seminar is interpreted as a pedagogical setting that implies a different “being-with” than SET suggests. She concludes by considering what possibilities and limitations the seminar setting offers and how we can discuss this issue (by means of evaluative practice). (shrink)

The Studies in Religious History and Philosophy cover the entire field of theology, especially the history of Christianity and the philosophy of religion.

Rev. version of the author's Habilitationsschrift, Martin-Luther-Universitèat.