In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking by Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, and Daniel P. UmbelDallas J. GinglesBonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, and Daniel P. Umbel grand rapids, mi: baker academic, 2013. 272 pp. $29.99In their new book Bonhoeffer the Assassin?, Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, (...) and Daniel P. Umbel painstakingly reread primary texts in order to challenge the widely held belief that Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Their alternative to the usual narrative of Bonhoeffer’s life holds that early in his career, long before the crisis of the Confessing Church and the rise of Nazism, Bonhoeffer made a commitment to [End Page 205] Christian pacifism that endured even through the war years and his resistance to Hitler.To argue for this alternative telling, the authors analyze Bonhoeffer’s three main “ethical” texts: the early “Barcelona lectures,” Discipleship, and finally Ethics. On their telling, while the early ethics lectures were theologically deficient, by the time that Bonhoeffer wrote Discipleship he had developed “integration,” which was “the primary theological catalyst for the ethical transition from Barcelona to Discipleship” (129). Discipleship is, they conclude, the pinnacle of Bonhoeffer’s thought, and anything that comes after it, including Ethics, cannot in any fundamental way differ from it.Alongside this diachronic analysis of Bonhoeffer’s main ethics texts, the authors emphasize two letters that Bonhoeffer wrote in 1935 and 1936. In the first, Bonhoeffer asserts that, because of his theology, he is “sometimes perceived as fanatical” (223). The second he wrote describing his “conversion experience” in 1930, in relation to the Sermon on the Mount and “Christian pacifism.” Read singly, these letters are interesting examples of Bonhoeffer’s thought and life of faith. As the authors present the argument, though, the letters comprise a unified narrative and function as an interpretive lens by which the primary texts should be understood. They think that the “fanaticism” of the first letter refers to the faith brought about in the conversion experience described in the second. The “fanaticism” letter is important because in it he asserts that, “if he were to become more ‘reasonable,’ he would have to ‘chuck [his] entire theology’” (223).Because Bonhoeffer wrote that he would have to “chuck” his theology if he made it more “reasonable,” the authors think that the theology that emerged from the conversion experience has a foundational role in his later works. Whatever Bonhoeffer wrote in Ethics, then, simply cannot disagree with the “fanaticism” that “is most fully articulated in … Discipleship” (223). Because of the importance of the “Christian pacifism” of the conversion and Discipleship, it is thus impossible—or at least highly unlikely—that Bonhoeffer participated in the assassination attempts.Bonhoeffer scholars and nonspecialists alike will find this text provocative and interesting. The conclusions, though, are finally unconvincing. For the authors, the “conversion experience” is the central key to understanding Bonhoeffer, and it is clear that they understand “Christian pacifism” to be of primary importance in the conversion, but they never tell us to what variety of Christian pacifism Bonhoeffer converted. It is very likely that Bonhoeffer’s Christian pacifism was different in kind than the Christian pacifism that the authors seem to endorse. That anachronistic reading alone renders the conclusions of the text suspect.Apart from simple historical questions, the methodology the authors use to construct their hermeneutical lens is also problematic. It is difficult to submit [End Page 206] Bonhoeffer’s entire corpus to two earlier letters that he wrote a full year apart. While readers may understand and agree that Bonhoeffer was not, in reality, an assassin (the minor claim), it will be hard to convince readers of the impassibility of his “Christian pacifism” (the major claim).Dallas J. GinglesSouthern Methodist UniversityCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

We point out some concepts that appear rather frequently in physics discussions, which, despite a seemingly innocent initial appearance, turn out to have important implicit implications that put into question the very assumption of their meaningfulness. The message of this essay is that, in order to avoid the ensuing confusions, their usage should be accompanied with clarifications that make them meaningful, and then to confront the often uncomfortable underlying assumptions required to do so. In particular, we will visit the notions (...) of novel physics occurring at a certain energy scale, or at certain distance from a black hole’s event horizon, and the various meanings of the word “fluctuations”. (shrink)

Příspěvek si klade dvojí cíl. V prvé řadě je jeho záměrem vyzdvihnout přínos monografie O revoluci pro celek myšlení Hannah Arendtové. Především pak nabízí interpretaci klíčového oddílu knihy, v němž spočívá vlastní jádro arendtovského návrhu „nové politické vědy“. Ústředním pro politický řád se ukazuje být rozdíl mezi pramenem moci a pramenem autority, která politickému řádu propůjčuje stabilitu. Příspěvek dokládá, že Arendtová v zakladatelském aktu politického společenství spatřuje dva „bludné kruhy“ – bludný kruh legitimity moci a bludný kruh legitimity zákonů. Zatímco (...) s prvním bludným kruhem si zdařilá americká revoluce věděla rady, druhý bludný kruh, který odkazuje k potřebě autority sankcionující pozitivní zákonodárství, ji uvedl do teoretických obtíží. Stať ukazuje, že Arendtová sama důsledně trvá na možnosti nalézt pramen autority výhradně v prostoru politického jednání. (shrink)

Kunst schaffen -- Kunst rahmen -- Birgit Spalts reflektierende Urteilskraft -- Kunst einordnen -- Kunst: immanent.

The topic of my dissertation is satire. This seems to excite many people, and over the past four years I have heard many variations of a similar refrain: “Oh, wow. You’re studying satire? That’s very topical. You must have a lot of material to work with.” There is a way in which this is true, though I suspect in a way that diverges from the way that most of my interlocutors believed. I suspect that the material they imagined me to (...) be working with was the output of Donald Trump, first a candidate for and now holder of the office of President of the United States. That is not the material I find interesting. More interesting to me is their statement. It evinces a number of beliefs that I find interesting, chief among them that Trump makes the current period particularly apt for satire, as if a doddery and incompetent ruling class is somehow a recent phenomenon. And I suspect that underneath this belief in the aptness of satire is a belief in the power of satire. Satire is somehow how people are going to strike back at the vice-governed fools who rule us. Those beliefs are the material I want to work with. This is my interest in satire, then: not so much what it is about satire that makes it powerful, but what is it about satire that makes people think it is powerful? And what is it about satire that makes people think it is powerful when there is pretty powerful evidence that it is not? Unfortunately, here is where I run into the problem that in a very important way I do not have a lot of material to work with. There is not an awful lot on satire within the analytic tradition: outside of a few references to satire, analytic discussions of satire are limited to two short articles. Accordingly, I have taken the task of my dissertation to be to create an account of satire that helps to bring forward why satire is a thing that people can imagine to be powerful, that they can imagine to be politically effective. My dissertation will effectively have two halves, one where I build my account and one where I begin to apply it. The purpose of applying my account, which will comprise the final two chapters, will not be to show its implications so much as how it can be used. My goal will not so much be to give definitive answers about the nature of satire, but rather to give a demonstration of how my account facilitates engaging questions about the role of satire in social and political context. (shrink)

From its dissonant musics to its surrealist spectacles (the urinal is a violin!), Modernist art often seems to give more frustration than pleasure to its audience. In Untwisting the Serpent, Daniel Albright shows that this perception arises partly because we usually consider each art form in isolation, even though many of the most important artistic experiments of the Modernists were collaborations involving several media--Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is a ballet, Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts is (...) an opera, and Pablo Picasso turned his cubist paintings into costumes for Parade. Focusing on collaborations with a musical component, Albright views these works as either figures of dissonance that try to retain the distinctness of their various media (e.g. Guillaume Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tiresias ) or figures of consonance that try to lose themselves in some total effect (e.g. Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung ). In so doing he offers a fresh picture of Modernism, and provides a compelling model for the analysis of all artistic collaborations. Untwisting the Serpent is the recipient of the 2001 Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship of the Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University. (shrink)

In naturalistic settings, great apes exhibit impressive social intelligence. Despite this, experimental findings are equivocal about the extent to which they are aware of other minds. At the high level, there is only negative evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans understand the concept of belief, even when simplified non-verbal versions of the ‘location change’ false belief test are used (Call & Tomasello, 1999). More remarkably, even the evidence that they are aware of simpler mental states – such as seeing – is (...) equivocal and ‘decidedly mixed’ (Call & Tomasello 2005, p. 61). At best, there appear to be signature limits to simian capacities in this regard. In addition, there exists a range of proposals about what lies behind their particular form of social intelligence. Within the cognitivist camp, these range from positing a Naïve, Weak, or Minimal Theory of Mind (Bogdan 2009, Tomasello, Call and Hare 2003, Apperly and Butterfill 2009); Perceptual Mindreading (Bermúdez 2009); an Early Mindreading System (Nichols and Stich 2003); or a Theory of Behaviour (Povinelli and Vonk 2004). -/- In line with this experimental evidence, this contribution motivates a different explanatory possibility. It defends the view that the basic ways that apes and humans (both children and adults) engage with other minds is emotionally charged, enactive and non-representational. If true, this would be important for thinking about the moral status of animals capable of such mind minding. This is not only because it would identify an important cross species commonality, but also especially because it would promote the importance of non-cognitive aspects of such engagements. For example, it is at odds with the idea that having a ‘theory of mind’ is required for being phenomenally conscious (Carruthers 2000, 2005). (shrink)

An expanded version of the theory of traditional referentiality suggests that the ambiguous glowing eyes of Iliad 1.200 are Achilles', not Athena's. The image "glowing eyes" bifurcates into two syntactic groups, a verb group and an adjective group, with different connotations. The verb group is associated with enraged mortals; the adjective group, vision and the divine. This division suggests that the verbally glowing eyes in Iliad 1.200 belong to Achilles and express his fury. Yet, colored by the adjective group, they (...) also imply Achilles' tragedy by indexing his vision, semi-divinity, and vitality at the moment when he seals his doom. (shrink)

In order to make scientific results relevant to practical decision making, it is often necessary to transfer a result obtained in one set of circumstances—an animal model, a computer simulation, an economic experiment—to another that may differ in relevant respects—for example, to humans, the global climate, or an auction. Such inferences, which we can call extrapolations, are a type of argument by analogy. This essay sketches a new approach to analogical inference that utilizes chain graphs, which resemble directed acyclic graphs (...) (DAGs) except in allowing that nodes may be connected by lines as well as arrows. This chain graph approach generalizes the account of extrapolation I provided in my (2008) book and leads to new insights that integrate the contributions of the other participants of this symposium. More specifically, this approach explicates the role of “fingerprints,” or distinctive markers, as a strategy for avoiding an underdetermination problem having to do with spurious analogies. Moreover, it shows how the extrapolator’s circle, one of the central challenges for extrapolation highlighted in my book, is closely tied to distinctive markers and the Markov condition as it applies to chain graphs. Finally, the approach suggests additional ways in which investigations of a model can provide information about a target that are illustrated by examples concerning nanomaterials in sunscreens and Wendy Parker’s discussion of fingerprints in climate science. (shrink)

Biological models are useful not only because they can simulate biological behaviors, but because they may shed light on the inner workings of complex biological structures and functions as deduced by top-down and/or bottom-up reasoning. Beyond the stylistic appeal of specific implementation methods, a model should be appraised according to its ability to bring out the underlying organizing and operating principles – which are truly the model's heart and soul.

Przekaz legendarnego Orfeusza już przez autorów starożytnych identyfikowany był z niejasną i trudną symboliką. Język ten, pomimo swojej niejasności, był najlepszą drogą do komunikacji pomiędzy bogami a ludźmi. Niniejszy artykuł jest kolejną próbą, na podstawie starożytnych przekazów, współczesnej literatury krytycznej i refleksji autora, opisania orfizmu: starożytnego fenomenu łączącego ze sobą przekaz religijny, filozoficzny, antropologię i teologię. Zjawisko to wciąż nie jest dostatecznie rozumiane, mimo, że odgrywa kluczową rolę w kształtowaniu się mentalności i duchowości współczesnego człowieka. Orfizm jako starożytna via-religia do (...) zbawienia i samopoznania wymaga nieustających studiów bazujących wyłącznie na oryginalnych greckich tekstach, stanowiących niezgłębioną kopalnię wiedzy na temat religijności starożytnych Greków. (shrink)

Perennialists regarding the phenomenology of mysticism, like Walter Stace, feel that all Christian mystical experiences are fundamentally similar to each other and to experiences described by mystics across religious traditions, cultures and ages. In his seminal work, Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, Nelson Pike convincingly argues that this extreme position is inadequate for capturing the breadth of experiences described by the canonical Medieval Christian mystics. However, Pike may have leaned too far away from perennialism in claiming (...) that all the experiences of (Christian) mystic union are essentially theistic. Here, I argue that Pike did not successfully establish this point and that union without distinction, often described as the pinnacle of union by Christian mystics, remains a viable candidate for an instance of a trans-traditionally type-identical mystical experience. (shrink)

Hertwig and Ortmann (H&O) rightly criticize the usage of deception. However, stationary replication may often have no ecological validity. Many economic experiments are not interactive; when they are, there is not much specifically validating H&O's psychological views on script enactment. Incentives in specific market structures may scaffold even zero rational decision-making, but this says very little about individual psychology.

Spatial attention and eye-movements are tightly coupled, but the precise nature of this coupling is controversial. The influential but controversial Premotor theory of attention makes four specific predictions about the relationship between motor preparation and spatial attention. Firstly, spatial attention and motor preparation use the same neural substrates. Secondly, spatial attention is functionally equivalent to planning goal directed actions such as eye-movements (i.e. planning an action is both necessary and sufficient for a shift of spatial attention). Thirdly, planning a goal (...) directed action with any effector system is sufficient to trigger a shift of spatial attention. Fourthly, the eye-movement system has a privileged role in orienting visual spatial attention. This article reviews empirical studies that have tested these predictions. Contrary to predictions one and two there is evidence of anatomical and functional dissociations between endogenous spatial attention and motor preparation. However, there is compelling evidence that exogenous attention is reliant on activation of the oculomotor system. With respect to the third prediction, there is correlational evidence that spatial attention is directed to the endpoint of goal-directed actions but no direct evidence that this attention shift is dependent on motor preparation. The few studies to have directly tested the fourth prediction have produced conflicting results, so the extent to which the oculomotor system has a privileged role in spatial attention remains unclear. Overall, the evidence is not consistent with the view that spatial attention is functionally equivalent to motor preparation so the Premotor theory should be rejected, although a limited version of the Premotor theory in which only exogenous attention is dependent on motor preparation may still be tenable. A plausible alternative account is that activity in the motor system contributes to biased competition between different sensory representations with the winner of the competition becoming the attended item. (shrink)

Is liberal democracy a universal ideal? Proponents of "Asian values" argue that it is a distinctive product of the Western experience and that Western powers shouldn't try to push human rights and democracy onto Asian states. Liberal democrats in the West typically counter by questioning the motives of Asian critics, arguing that Asian leaders are merely trying to rationalize human-rights violations and authoritarian rule. In this book--written as a dialogue between an American democrat named Demo and three East Asian critics-- (...) class='Hi'>Daniel A. Bell attempts to chart a middle ground between the extremes of the international debate on human rights and democracy.Bell criticizes the use of "Asian values" to justify oppression, but also draws on East Asian cultural traditions and contributions by contemporary intellectuals in East Asia to identify some powerful challenges to Western-style liberal democracy. In the first part of the book, Bell makes use of colorful stories and examples to show that there is a need to take into account East Asian perspectives on human rights and democracy. The second part--a fictitious dialogue between Demo and Asian senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew--examines the pros and cons of implementing Western-style democracy in Singapore. The third part of the book is an argument for an as-yet-unrealized Confucian political institution that justifiably differs from Western-style liberal democracy.This is a thought-provoking defense of distinctively East Asian challenges to Western-style liberal democracy that will stimulate interest and debate among students of political theory, Asian studies, and international human rights. (shrink)

The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we are doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. This happens in clinical disorders such as alien hand syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and (...) schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. And in people without disorders, phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, Ouija board spelling, water dowsing, facilitated communication, speaking in tongues, spirit possession, and trance channeling also illustrate anomalies of will not from processes whereby mind creates action. Conscious will, in this view, is an indication that we think we have caused an action, not a revelation of the causal sequence by which the action was produced. (shrink)

This chapter sets out an optimistic view of philosophical progress. The key idea is that the historical record speaks in favor of there being progress at least if we are clear about what philosophical problems are, and what it takes to solve them. I end by asking why so many people tend toward a pessimistic view of philosophical progress.

This article explores two consequences of intentionalism. My first line of argument focuses on the impact of intentionalism on the 'hard problem' of phenomenal character. If intentionalism is true, the phenomenal supervenes on the intentional. Furthermore, if physicalism about the intentional is also true, the intentional supervenes on the physical. Therefore, if intentionalism and physicalism are both true, then, by transitivity of supervenience, physicalism about the phenomenal is true. I argue that this transitivity argument is not persuasive, because on any (...) interpretation of its central terms, at least one of its premises is as controversial as its conclusion already is. My second line of argument is about the consequences of intentionalism for the error theory of color perception. I suggest that if intentionalism is true, projectivism must be true also, because under this condition there is no single concept of color that can be used for the qualification of objects as well as for the characterization of experiences. (shrink)

Mit dem Konzept der Evidenz-basierten Medizin wurde die Verwendungsweise von empirischen Informationen in den Gesundheitswissenschaften stark verändert. Ein grundlegendes Charakteristikum dieses Konzeptes ist die Unterscheidung zwischen empirischen Informationen per se und „Evidenzen“ im Sinne von qualitativ hochwertigeren empirischen Informationen. Dieses Konzept der Evidenzbasierung findet sich zunehmend auch im Kontext der angewandten Ethik. In der internationalen Fachpresse sind in den letzten 5 bis 10 Jahren zunehmend Arbeiten publiziert worden, die den Begriff „Evidenz-basierte Ethik“ in unterschiedlicher Weise verwenden. Um die ethisch akzeptable (...) Verwendungsweise dieses neuen Konzeptes in der Ethik beurteilen zu können, bedarf es seiner systematischen und kritischen Explikation und Analyse.Der Artikel unterscheidet verschiedene deskriptive und normative Dimensionen des Konzeptes einer Evidenzbasierung und stellt diese in einer Systematik vor. Die Problembereiche im Zusammenhang mit den normativen Dimensionen werden an Praxisbeispielen der Evidenz-basierten Medizin dargestellt, um anschließend die methodischen und praxisorientierten Besonderheiten einer Evidenz-basierten Ethik herauszustellen.Die Höherwertigkeit von Evidenzen gegenüber anderen empirischen Informationen impliziert verschiedene normative Dimensionen wie die der Handlungslegitimation. Die Handlungslegitimation durch den Verweis auf Evidenzen wird dann zu einem ethischen Problem, wenn kein Konsens besteht zu der Frage, wann man bei spezifischen empirischen Informationen von Evidenz sprechen sollte und wann nicht. Durch die im Rahmen der empirischen Ethik hauptsächlich verwendeten sozialempirischen Studienansätze und die noch fehlenden Goldstandards zur Bewertung ihrer Qualität, führt die Übertragung des Evidenz-Konzeptes auf die Ethik zu weiteren methodischen und praktischen Problembereichen. Von einer Verwendung des Begriffspaares „Evidenz-basiert“ in der angewandten Ethik ist solange abzuraten, bis diese Problembereiche konsensfähig gelöst wurden. In der Zwischenzeit wäre eine „Informations-kritische“ Ethik zu fordern, deren Aufgabenspektrum in diesem Artikel vorgestellt wird. (shrink)

New C. elegans studies imply that lipases and lipid desaturases can mediate signaling effects on aging. But why might fat homeostasis be critical to aging? Could problems with fat handling compromise health in nematodes as they do in mammals? The study of signaling pathways that control longevity could provide the key to one of the great unsolved mysteries of biology: the mechanism of aging. But as our view of the regulatory pathways that control aging grows ever clearer, the nature of (...) aging itself has, if anything, grown more obscure. In particular, focused investigations of the oxidative damage theory have raised questions about an old assumption: that a fundamental cause of aging is accumulation of molecular damage. Could fat dyshomeostasis instead be critical? (shrink)