This volume presents a series of studies that expand laws, invariants, and principles of psychophysics beyond its classical domain of sensation.

In recent years, scholars have come to understand emotions as dynamic and socially constructed—the product of interdependent cultural, relational, situational, and biological influences. While researchers have called for a multilevel theory of emotion construction, any progress toward such a theory must overcome the fragmentation of relevant research across various disciplines and theoretical frameworks. We present affect control theory as a launching point for cross-disciplinary collaboration because of its empirically grounded conceptualization of social mechanisms operating at the interaction, relationship, and cultural (...) levels, and its specification of processes linking social and individual aspects of emotion. After introducing the theory, we illustrate its correspondence with major theories of emotion construction framed at each of four analytical levels: cultural, interactional, individual, and neural. (shrink)

GoalThis paper presents an immersive Virtual Reality system to analyze and train Executive Functions of soccer players. EFs are important cognitive functions for athletes. They are a relevant quality that distinguishes amateurs from professionals.MethodThe system is based on immersive technology, hence, the user interacts naturally and experiences a training session in a virtual world. The proposed system has a modular design supporting the extension of various so-called game modes. Game modes combine selected game mechanics with specific simulation content to target (...) particular training aspects. The system architecture decouples selection/parameterization and analysis of training sessions via a coaching app from an Unity3D-based VR simulation core. Monitoring of user performance and progress is recorded by a database that sends the necessary feedback to the coaching app for analysis.ResultsThe system is tested for VR-critical performance criteria to reveal the usefulness of a new interaction paradigm in the cognitive training and analysis of EFs. Subjective ratings for overall usability show that the design as VR application enhances the user experience compared to a traditional desktop app; whereas the new, unfamiliar interaction paradigm does not negatively impact the effort for using the application.ConclusionThe system can provide immersive training of EF in a fully virtual environment, eliminating potential distraction. It further provides an easy-to-use analyzes tool to compare user but also an automatic, adaptive training mode. (shrink)

While current literature on examination and testing mostly engages with the objectivity of exams and their procedural logic, this article is concerned with the ‘ethical dimension’ of examination: Examinations provoke a particular relation to oneself, possibly self-transformation. The praxis of examination entails self-confrontation in the light of the uncertainty regarding that which is expected of the self. Referring to an example taken from the field of early education, four ‘figures' – positional difference, exposition, identification, and representation – are used in (...) a heuristic manner to elaborate on the ethical dimension in examination. The aim of the paper is to view ‘examination’ from a theoretical point of view focusing on practices, on the one hand, and to analyze the ethical norms and expectations that the self is addressed with in the field of early education, on the other. (shrink)

We are pleased that all the commentators seem to agree that a theory-driven integration across disciplines is a worthwhile endeavor to better understand the social constitution of emotion. In our reply, we first take up the idea of relating affect control theory to cultural priming and suggest links to an ACT-inspired constraint satisfaction explanation of priming. Second, we address reservations concerning ACT’s capability to account for emotions with nonconceptual content and to explain stability and change in affective meanings. Third, we (...) clarify the relation of affect control theory to psychological constructionism, in particular with regard to conceptualizations of culture and society. Finally, we suggest that computational models are an adequate tool to address multilevel issues in the study of emotion. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

Along the entire course of that seventeenth century, the great principles of representative government and the rights of conscience were passing through the anguish of conflict and fiery trial (De...

The present study, for the first time, provides a comparative analysis of the objections raised against Christianity by late antique pagan philosophers (esp. Celsus in Alethes logos, Porphyry in Contra Christianos, and Julian the Apostate in Contra Gali-laeos) and Enlightenment philosophers and freethinkers and examines the impact of pagan thinking on the critique of Christianity in the 16th to 18th centuries - in particular, on discussions concerning the authority of the Bible, biblical exegesis, the Christian concept of faith, religious (...) coercion and the uniformity of faith, the belief in miracles, and the Christ-ian understanding of morality. (shrink)

As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence”. This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel, a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an (...) explanation on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E language by Guthrie. According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations.. The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach. Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way. (shrink)

Systematischer Gegenstand der klassischen Religionsphilosophie ist die Frage nach den Bedingungen der Moglichkeit, unter denen die Gottesvorstellung denkbar ist. Als so verstandene systematische Disziplin geht die Tradition der Religionsphilosophie schon auf die Theologie der antiken Naturphilosophie, vor allem aber auf die theologischen Entwurfe Platons und Aristoteles' zuruck, die fur die Wirkungsperspektive im Mittelalter und in der fruhen Neuzeit richtungweisend wurden. Als eigenstandige wissenschaftliche Disziplin entstand die Religionsphilosophie jedoch erst in der fruhen Neuzeit, und zwar mit dem Traktat des englischen Platonikers (...) Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678), der sich erstmals auch terminologisch als eine 'Philosophy of Religion' verstand. Die vorliegende historische und systematische Studie dokumentiert die Transformation der klassischen philosophischen Theologie in die neuzeitliche Religionsphilosophie unter den Bedingungen der reformatorischen Theologie, die eine Denkbarkeit der Gottesvorstellung auszuschliessen schien. (shrink)

Der Beitrag nimmt Erich Auerbachs Postulat einer transnationalen Ideengeschichte als Ausgangspunkt, um aktuelle Potenziale einer ideenhistorisch geprägten Literaturwissenschaft zu prüfen. Einerseits ausgehend von der sozialgeschichtlichen bzw. sprachkritisch geprägten Neuausrichtung der Ideengeschichte, wie man sie mit dem Schlüsseljahr 1969 und den Namen Foucault und Skinner in Verbindung bringen kann, und andererseits vor dem Hintergrund ihrer kulturwissenschaftlichen Expansion lotet der Artikel die Möglichkeiten einer Ideengeschichte aus, die sich wieder stärker der Interpretation von Bedeutung, von Ideen als geistigen Tatsachen zuwendet. Dazu schlägt (...) er einen topisch-rhetorischen Begriff der Texthandlung vor, der es dem Leser gestattet, sich dem Autor als dem eklektischen Nutzer und Neuarrangeur verfügbaren Wissens zu nähern. Die Literaturwissenschaft könnte sich auf diese Weise als hermeneutisches Leitverfahren der Ideengeschichte empfehlen, mit dem der Stellenwert eines souveränen Lesersubjekts auch angesichts zur Unübersichtlichkeit neigenden Text-Kontext-Formationen aufrechterhalten werden kann. (shrink)

The essence оf the Christian dogma by Erich Fromm. In the article is widely considered the dynamics of religious beliefs Erich Fromm. For the first time a comparative analysis of all Fromm’s work relating to the theme of religion. Fromm devoted to the search itself and society in faith quite a lot of time because such research is very important and requires a recess in the nature of some of the world’s religions, including Christianity. Questions and countermeasures (...) manifestations of humanism and authoritarian Christianity, its historical evolution and ideals throw a kind of challenge to the outstanding philosopher, and forced him to work on this complex issue almost all his life. Dogma Erich Fromm developed so that initially there was an idea of the man who became God, and turned on the idea of God became man. The concept of the Old Testament prophets world extend beyond relationships between people, harmony should prevail between man and nature. Peace between man and nature is harmony between them. Erich Fromm permanently broke with Judaism in ‘26 and has since considered himself a Christian. But Christianity Fromm, his understanding of God, the role of Christ in history, the interpretation of the evolution of ideas and Savior is surprising for its boldness. (shrink)

Este trabalho é um breve estudo sobre a análise literária de textos cristãos elaborada por Erich Auerbach. O objetivo é destacar como, a partir do sermão 256 de Santo Agostinho e da Bíblia, Auerbach ilumina a articulação do sublime cristão com o sermo humilis , ou seja, incorpora a linguagem ordinária e temas prosaicos cotidianos para transmitir a mensagem religiosa. Do ponto de vista teórico-conceitual, faremos uma breve exposição sobre teoria da literatura, mais especificamente, sobre mimesis e literatura, como (...) forma de pensar a abordagem de textos cristãos. Segundo Auerbach, o texto cristão, num mundo bastante conturbado, incorporou a vida e a linguagem simples das pessoas para, então, configurar uma nova forma do sublime. Concluímos que o texto cristão, visando a uma formulação religiosa (normativa), para isso trouxe para seu interior aquilo que definimos como dinâmica histórica, para trabalhá-la numa proposta de sentido. Palavras-chave : Erich Auerbach. Sermo humilis. S ublime. Literatura. Mímesis. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to twentieth-century Catholic thinker Erich Przywara, retrieving and extending Przywara's vision of the analogy of being as the metaphysical touchstone of a specifically Christian understanding of being. The author offers a detailed exploration of Przywara's thought in conversation with Edith Stein, the Nouvelle Théologie, and leading figures in contemporary postmodern theology.

Graham McAleer's Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law is the first work to present in an accessible way the thinking of Erich Przywara (1889-1972) for an English-speaking audience. Przywara's work remains little known to a broad Catholic audience, but it had a major impact on many of the most celebrated theologians of the twentieth century, including Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, Edith Stein, and Karl Barth. Przywara's ground-breaking text Analogia Entis (The analogy of being) brought theological metaphysics (...) into the modern era. While the concept of "analogy of being" is typically understood in static terms, McAleer explores how Przywara transformed it into something dynamic. McAleer shows the extension of Przywara's thought into a range of disciplines: from a new theory of natural law to an explanation of how misunderstanding the analogy of being lies at the foundation of the puzzles of modernity and postmodernity. He demonstrates, through Przywara's conceptual framework, how contemporary moral problems, such as those surrounding robots, Islam and sumptuary laws, Nazism (including fascism and race), embryos, migration, and body modification, among others, are shaped by the failure of Western thought to address metaphysical quandaries. McAleer updates Przywara for a new audience searching for solutions to the failing humanism of the current age. This book will be of interest to intellectuals and scholars in a wide range of disciplines within philosophy or theology, and will appeal especially to those interested in systematic and moral theology. (shrink)

Der Biologe Erich Wasmann SJ ging in seinem Buch “Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungstheorie” und in seinen Berliner Vorträgen 1907, in denen er sich mit dem Monisten Ernst Haeckel auseinandersetzte, das Problem der Evolution an. In Bezug auf die Entwicklung des Menschen vertrat er in beiden eine offene Position: Er hielt die Entwicklung des Menschen aus dem Tierreich für nicht erwiesen, rechnete jedoch damit, dass sie eines Tages bewiesen werden könnte, und betonte, dass sie nicht prinzipiell der Offenbarung (...) widerspreche. Dies führte zu Klagen in Rom. Der Jesuitengeneral Wernz erklärte, es sei “theologice certum”, dass der Mensch auch dem Leibe nach nicht aus dem Tierreich abstammen könne. Wasmann solle daher in künftigen Neuauflagen seines Buches nur die biologische Seite behandeln und Spekulationen über die prinzipielle Vereinbarkeit einer Humanevolution mit der Offenbarung unterlassen. Dies hatte zur Folge, dass es keine Neuauflage mehr gab.The Jesuit and biologue Erich Wasmann dealt in his book “Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklunstheorie” and in his Berlin conferences in 1907, dealing with the monist Ernst Haeckel, the problem of evolution. Regarding the evolution of mankind, he defended an open position: he judged that it had not been proved, but reckoned with the possibility that it could be proved one day, and insisted that there would be no contradiction with Christian revelation. That provoked, in the time of the Modernist crisis, complaints to Rome. The Jesuit General Wernz declared that it would be “theologice certum” that mankind could not descend, not even regarding the body, from animal ancestors. Therefore Wasmann should deal, in future editions, only with the biological questions and omit speculations about the theoretical compatibility of human evolution with the revelation. That had the consequence, that no new edition of the book was ever published. (shrink)

The authors of this volume elucidate the remarkable role played by religion in the shaping and reshaping of narrative forms in antiquity and late antiquity in a variety of ways. This is particularly evident in ancient Jewish and Christian narrative, which is in the focus of most of the contributions, but also in some “pagan” novels such as that of Heliodorus, which is dealt with as well in the third part of the volume, both in an illuminating comparison with (...) Christian novels and in an inspiring rethinking of Heliodorus's relation to Neoplatonism. All of these essays, from different perspectives, illuminate the interplay between narrative and religion, and show how religious concerns and agendas shaped narrative forms in Judaism and early Christianity. A series of compelling and innovative articles, all based on fresh and often groundbreaking research by eminent specialists, is divided into three large sections: part one deals with ancient Jewish narrative, and part two with ancient Christian narrative, in particular gospels, acts, biographies, and martyrdoms, while part three offers a comparison with “pagan” narrative, and especially the religious novel of Heliodorus, both in terms of social perspectives and in terms of philosophical and religious agendas. Like the essays collected by Marília Futre Pinheiro, Judith Perkins, and Richard Pervo in 2013, which investigate the core role played by narratives in Christian and Jewish self-fashioning in the Roman Empire, the present volume fruitfully bridges the disciplinary gap between classical studies and ancient Jewish and Christian studies, offers new insights, and hopefully opens up new paths of inquiry. Contributions by (in alphabetical order): Cathryn Chew, Mark J. Edwards, Erich Gruen, Vincent Hunink, David Konstan, Karen King, Dennis MacDonald, Laura S. Nasrallah, Judith Perkins, Richard Pervo, Ilaria Ramelli, Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, and Lawrence Wills. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to John Betz who has recently rejected claims that I have made about Erich Przywara’s anti- Semitism and his relationship to Nazi era ideology. Although I admire much of Przywara’s theology and have great sympathy for the teaching about the analogy of being, in this article I address some of the problems of Przywara’s work. I address literature from Przywara on the Jews where he talks about the essence of “the Jew” as “restless” and (...) “revolutionary,” and where he brings up the “wandering Jew” theme or claims Judaism is an “insolent disturber” of the “folkdom.” Przywara’s rejection of “Jewish messianism” and his claims about the “basic tension of the Jew” are also addressed. I analyze his conception of the essence of “the Jew” as, among other things, a “rising will of destruction” and his claim that “Christianity” ultimately becomes the “enemy” of Judaism. Beyond these things, Przywara’s desire to “overcome” Judaism with the right “weapons” is addressed. I also draw attention to his rejection of “Jewish capitalism” and his justification of “the hatred towards the Jews in world history.” In addition to this, his use of ideologically charged Nazi terminology, such as “host-peoples,” and his support of Catholic integralism in Nazi Germany are addressed. Furthermore, Przywara’s remarks on “the positive sense” of the German “movements” in the 1930s are presented. I also show that Przywara”s work was praised by a leading representative and ideologue of National Socialism. With this, I address the internal Nazi correspondences on the very influential German Catholic Jesuit journal titled Stimmen der Zeit. (shrink)

The 'Illuminating Modernity' series examines the great but lesser known thinkers in the 'Romantic Thomist' tradition such as Erich Przywara and Fernand Ulrich and shows how outstanding 20th century theologians like Ratzinger and von Balthasar have depended on classical Thomist thought, and how they radically reinterpreted this thought. The chapters in this volume are dedicated to the encounter between the presuppositions and claims of modern intellectual culture and the Christian confession that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the (...) power and wisdom of God and is the lord of history and of his church. The scholars contributing to this discussion do not assume that Christianity and modernity are two discrete entities which can be readily defined, nor do they presume that Christian wisdom and modernity meet each other only in conflict or by coincidence. They engage with a variety of great figures – Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Rahner, Przywara, Guardini, Karl Barth, and Karol Wojtyla – to illustrate the connection between modernism and Christian wisdom. The volume concludes with a programmatic statement for the renewal of Christian philosophy that has been able to retain the cosmo-theological vision as outlined by Mezei in the final chapter. (shrink)

Explores the acquisition and use of knowledge for human purposes and the extent of our ability to shape the future through the design, regulation, and restructuring of the lives of human systems at all levels.