The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics. The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as revealed in (...) Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Church as distinct from the secular world such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God's having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God's commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world. (shrink)

Jury theorems are mathematical theorems about the ability of collectives to make correct decisions. Several jury theorems carry the optimistic message that, in suitable circumstances, ‘crowds are wise’: many individuals together (using, for instance, majority voting) tend to make good decisions, outperforming fewer or just one individual. Jury theorems form the technical core of epistemic arguments for democracy, and provide probabilistic tools for reasoning about the epistemic quality of collective decisions. The popularity of jury theorems spans across various disciplines such (...) as economics, political science, philosophy, and computer science. This entry reviews and critically assesses a variety of jury theorems. It first discusses Condorcet's initial jury theorem, and then progressively introduces jury theorems with more appropriate premises and conclusions. It explains the philosophical foundations, and relates jury theorems to diversity, deliberation, shared evidence, shared perspectives, and other phenomena. It finally connects jury theorems to their historical background and to democratic theory, social epistemology, and social choice theory. (shrink)

Suppose several individuals (e.g., experts on a panel) each assign probabilities to some events. How can these individual probability assignments be aggregated into a single collective probability assignment? This article reviews several proposed solutions to this problem. We focus on three salient proposals: linear pooling (the weighted or unweighted linear averaging of probabilities), geometric pooling (the weighted or unweighted geometric averaging of probabilities), and multiplicative pooling (where probabilities are multiplied rather than averaged). We present axiomatic characterisations of each class of (...) pooling functions (most of them classic, but one new) and argue that linear pooling can be justified procedurally, but not epistemically, while the other two pooling methods can be justified epistemically. The choice between them, in turn, depends on whether the individuals' probability assignments are based on shared information or on private information. We conclude by mentioning a number of other pooling methods. (shrink)

A probability aggregation rule assigns to each profile of probability functions across a group of individuals (representing their individual probability assignments to some propositions) a collective probability function (representing the group's probability assignment). The rule is “non-manipulable” if no group member can manipulate the collective probability for any proposition in the direction of his or her own probability by misrepresenting his or her probability function (“strategic voting”). We show that, except in trivial cases, no probability aggregation rule satisfying two mild (...) conditions (non-dictatorship and consensus preservation) is non-manipulable. (shrink)

This is the first volume in the trilogy "Many Peaces" on transrational peace and elicitive conflict transformation. It proposes an innovative analysis of peace interpretations in global history and contemporary cultures of peace, the so-called five families of energetic, moral, modern, post-modern, and transrational.

Bereits zur Zeit der europäischen Renaissance, lange vor der Ausrufung eines spatial turn in den Kulturwissenschaften, wurde das wechselseitige Verhältnis von Raum und Wissen als Analysekategorie eingeführt. Der Band demonstriert das mit Untersuchungen zu den archäologischen Landeskunden des 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. In der geographisch-historischen Betrachtung erschlossen sich im 15. Jahrhundert Raumkonzepte, die wiederum auf das eigene Selbstverständnis zurückwirkten. Der vorliegende Band geht in Fallstudien zu landeskundlichen Forschungen der frühen Neuzeit der Geschichte des Raumwissens nach. Dabei kommt Flavio Biondos Italia (...) Illustrata (erschienen 1474) ein besonderes Interesse zu, da das Werk in vielen Bereichen Europas ähnliche Untersuchungen angeregt hat, etwa in Spanien, Skandinavien, der Schweiz und im Rheingebiet. (shrink)

This handbook offers original, critical perspectives on different approaches to the history of biology. This collection is intended to start a new conversation among historians of biology regarding their work, its history, and its future. Historical scholarship does not take place in isolation: As historians create their narratives describing the past, they are in dialogue not only with their sources but with other historians and other narratives. One important task for the historian is to place her narrative in a historiographic (...) lineage. Each author in this collection offers their particular perspective on the historiography of a range of topics from Model Organisms to Eugenics, Molecular Biology to Biotechnology, Women, Race, Scientific Biography, Genetics, Darwin and more. Rather than comprehensive literature reviews, the essays critically reflect upon important historiographic trends, offering pointed appraisals of the field by leading scholars. Other authors will surely have different perspectives, and this is the beauty and challenge of history-making. The Handbook of the Historiography of Biology presents an opportunity to engage with each other about how the history of biology has been and will be written. (shrink)

The one hundredth recurrence of Paul Ricoeur's birthday was an occasion for many to remember the work of the French philosopher, whose groundbreaking combination of phenomenology with hermeneutics, transcending even his own discipline, is of great significance to this day. This volume looks into the relationship between persons and subjects of Protestant theology and Ricoeur's philosophy. It does so from two different perspectives - the history of theology and the perspective of dogmatics - and links both of these approaches methodologically. (...) The volume documents the intense discussion between Paul Ricoeur and primarily the younger generation of theologians. (shrink)

Behaviourism is the view that preferences, beliefs, and other mental states in social-scientific theories are nothing but constructs re-describing people's behaviour. Mentalism is the view that they capture real phenomena, on a par with the unobservables in science, such as electrons and electromagnetic fields. While behaviourism has gone out of fashion in psychology, it remains influential in economics, especially in ‘revealed preference’ theory. We defend mentalism in economics, construed as a positive science, and show that it fits best scientific practice. (...) We distinguish mentalism from, and reject, the radical neuroeconomic view that behaviour should be explained in terms of brain processes, as distinct from mental states. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Deutungen -- Bd. 2. Elicitive Konflikttransformation und die transrationale Wende der Friedenspolitik.

This book contains the first complete interpretation of all aspects of Hobbes's philosophy which treat religious convictions and practices. Not only his philosophy of religion and his philosophical theology, but also his biblical theology are treated in extense. The main thesis is that, according to Hobbes, neither philosophy nor politics in any way need a religious fundament; but since religions establish institutions and thus accumulate means of power, they are necessarily an object of politics. It is for this reason that (...) religious convictions and practices are a - for a long time neglected - main topic of Hobbes's philosophy"--Publisher's pamphlet. (shrink)

This book surveys and examines the most famous philosophical arguments against building a machine with human-level intelligence. From claims and counter-claims about the ability to implement consciousness, rationality, and meaning, to arguments about cognitive architecture, the book presents a vivid history of the clash between the philosophy and AI. Tellingly, the AI Wars are mostly quiet now. Explaining this crucial fact opens new paths to understanding the current resurgence AI (especially, deep learning AI and robotics), what happens when philosophy meets (...) science, and the role of philosophy in the culture in which it is embedded. -/- Organising the arguments into four core topics - 'Is AI possible', 'Architectures of the Mind', 'Mental Semantics and Mental Symbols' and 'Rationality and Creativity' - this book shows the debate that played out between the philosophers on both sides of the question, and, as well, the debate between philosophers and AI scientists and engineers building AI systems. Up-to-date and forward-looking, the book is packed with fresh insights and supporting material, including: -/- - Accessible introductions to each war, explaining the background behind the main arguments against AI - Each chapter details what happened in the AI wars, the legacy of the attacks, and what new controversies are on the horizon. - Extensive bibliography of key readings. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers of biology have endorsed views about random drift that, we will argue, rest on an implicit assumption that the meaning of concepts such as drift can be understood through an examination of the mathematical models in which drift appears. They also seem to implicitly assume that ontological questions about the causality of terms appearing in the models can be gleaned from the models alone. We will question these general assumptions by showing how the same equation (...) — the simple 2 = p2 + 2pq + q2 — can be given radically different interpretations, one of which is a physical, causal process and one of which is not. This shows that mathematical models on their own yield neither interpretations nor ontological conclusions. Instead, we argue that these issues can only be resolved by considering the phenomena that the models were originally designed to represent and the phenomena to which the models are currently applied. When one does take those factors into account, starting with the motivation for Sewall Wright’s and R.A. Fisher’s early drift models and ending with contemporary applications, a very different picture of the concept of drift emerges. On this view, drift is a term for a set of physical processes, namely, indiscriminate sampling processes. (shrink)

T. 1. Erwägungen zu Ort, Bedeutung und Funktion der Lehre von der Königsherrschaft Christi in Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan".

Hans Drieschs "Wirklichkeitslehre".--Emanuel Laskers "Philosophie des Unvollendbar".--Carl Ludwig Schleich und die "neue Epoche der Weltanschauung".--Fr. J. Kurt Geisslers "System der Seinsgebiete".--Graf Hermann Keyserlings "Gefüge der Welt", "Reisetagebuch eines Philosophen", "Unsterblichkeit", "Prolegomena zur Naturphilosophie".--Henri Bergsons "Schöpferische Entwicklung".--L. William Sterns "Person und Sache".--G. Heymans "psychischer monismus".--Wilhelm Wundts "Sinnliche und übersinnliche Welt".--Emil Boutroux und die "Kontingenz der Naturgesetze".--Rudolf Otto, Christof Schrempf, Romain Rolland und die intuitive Methode des Welterkenens.--Rudolf Steiners "Philosophie der Freiheit".--Erich Becher und die fremddienliche Zweckmässigkeit.--Edmund Husserl, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask, Leonard (...) Nelson und der methodologische Gott.--Anhang: Eucken, Dessoir, Scheler, Heiler, James, Bo Yin Ra, Oesterreich, Schneider. (shrink)

We introduce a “reason-based” framework for explaining and predicting individual choices. It captures the idea that a decision-maker focuses on some but not all properties of the options and chooses an option whose motivationally salient properties he/she most prefers. Reason-based explanations allow us to distinguish between two kinds of context-dependent choice: the motivationally salient properties may (i) vary across choice contexts, and (ii) include not only “intrinsic” properties of the options, but also “context-related” properties. Our framework can accommodate boundedly rational (...) and sophisticatedly rational choice. Since properties can be recombined in new ways, it also offers resources for predicting choices in unobserved contexts. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution The Molecular Clock The Neutral Null Model Controversy in Molecular Evolution Acknowledgment References Further Reading.

Which rules for aggregating judgments on logically connected propositions are manipulable and which not? In this paper, we introduce a preference-free concept of non-manipulability and contrast it with a preference-theoretic concept of strategy-proofness. We characterize all non-manipulable and all strategy-proof judgment aggregation rules and prove an impossibility theorem similar to the Gibbard--Satterthwaite theorem. We also discuss weaker forms of non-manipulability and strategy-proofness. Comparing two frequently discussed aggregation rules, we show that “conclusion-based voting” is less vulnerable to manipulation than “premise-based voting”, (...) which is strategy-proof only for “reason-oriented” individuals. Surprisingly, for “outcome-oriented” individuals, the two rules are strategically equivalent, generating identical judgments in equilibrium. Our results introduce game-theoretic considerations into judgment aggregation and have implications for debates on deliberative democracy. (shrink)

What is consciousness? Of course, each of us knows, privately, what consciousness is. And we each think, for basically irresistible reasons, that all other conscious humans by and large have experiences like ours. So we conclude that we all know what consciousness is. It's the felt experiences of our lives. But that is not the answer we, as cognitive scientists, seek in asking our question. We all want to know what physical process consciousness is and why it produces this very (...) strange, almost mysterious, phenomenon of felt experience. (shrink)

What is consciousness? Of course, each of us knows, privately, what consciousness is. And we each think, for basically irresistible reasons, that all other conscious humans by and large have experiences like ours. So we conclude that we all know what consciousness is. It's the felt experiences of our lives. But that is not the answer we, as cognitive scientists, seek in asking our question. We all want to know what physical process consciousness is and why it produces this very (...) strange, almost mysterious, phenomenon of felt experience. (shrink)

The widely discussed "discursive dilemma" shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential (...) quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path-dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path-independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy-proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision-making. (shrink)

Tomus 1. Schriften zur Intellekttheorie.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Allure of Monsters Explaining the Allure: First Look Stalking the Deeper Reasons Closing in for the Kill Removing Empathy The Prison of Rules Conclusion.