Event-based prospective memory tasks require the realisation of a delayed intention at the occurrence of a specific target event. The present research investigates how performance in this kind of prospective memory task is influenced by the current affective state. By manipulating participants’ mood during intention realisation we tested two competing models of mood effects on memory (i.e., a capacity consuming account and a processing style account). Furthermore, we manipulated the valence of the target event to investigate mood-congruency effects in prospective (...) memory. No evidence was found for a mood-congruency effect, but the results showed that prospective memory performance increased with a sad mood. This effect is consistent with recent theories on mood-dependent processing-style regulation, postulating that a sad mood produces a more analytic and detailed processing style whereas a happy mood produces a more global and less detailed processing style. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a discourse analysis of press coverage on the Quantified Self (QS) movement in the German and British (online) press between 2007 and 2018. The analysis is driven by two questions: What discursive patterns can be discerned within this coverage? And, what characterizes the translation of the experimental practices and imaginaries of this pioneer community into an overall societal reflection of deep mediatization? In essence, the article shows that the QS movement becomes a ‘general signifier’ (...) for a dystopian view of deep mediatization. So, while the QS movement itself understands its practices and community as self-empowering, self-reasoning, and experimental, the constructions of the QS movement in public discourse suggest the opposite. Paradoxically, however, another basic imaginary of the pioneer community is adopted and confirmed, namely that of the (simple) mutability of society as a consequence of digital media technologies. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion surrounding mediatization by presenting some arguments on how we could include questions of media specificity in an appropriate way. The core argument is that we have to do this by integrating `media specificity' into a theory of communicative practice or action. In doing so, we can grasp media in their institutional and technological sense as `molding force' of communicative action and research them empirically as part of mediatization processes.

The aim of the article is to outline an understanding of mediatization that might be a reference point for empirical research in various fields and contexts of present media cultures and societies. Therefore, present ideas and approaches of theorizing media-tization like for example the concept of the media logic are discussed critically. Based on this, an understanding of mediatization is outlined that focuses on the media as modifiers of communication. Such a reflection makes it possible to substantiate mediatization research as (...) the empirical investigation of mediatized worlds. (shrink)

Until the end of the last century, media sociology was synonymous with the investigation of mass media as a social domain. Today, media sociology needs to address a much higher level of complexity, that is, a deeply mediatized world in which all human practices, social relations, and social order are entangled with digital media and their infrastructures. This article discusses this shift from a sociology of mass communication to the sociology of a deeply mediatized world. The principal aim of the (...) article is to outline a new media-sociological imagination: media sociology as a cross-sectional sociology, a sociology of entanglement, and a new critical sociology of technological deep structures. (shrink)

Secretion systems enable bacteria to import and secrete large macromolecules including DNA and proteins. While most components of these systems have been identified, the molecular mechanisms of macromolecular transport remain poorly understood. Recent findings suggest that various bacterial secretion systems make use of the translocation ratchet mechanism for transporting polymers across the cell envelope. Translocation ratchets are powered by chemical potential differences generated by concentration gradients of ions or molecules that are specific to the respective secretion systems. Bacteria employ these (...) potential differences for biasing Brownian motion of the macromolecules within the conduits of the secretion systems. Candidates for this mechanism include DNA import by the type II secretion/type IV pilus system, DNA export by the type IV secretion system, and protein export by the type I secretion system. Here, we propose that these three secretion systems employ different molecular implementations of the translocation ratchet mechanism. Brownian ratchets are often discussed in the context of directed molecular movement. Bacterial secretion systems transport molecules through membranes in a directed fashion. Here, we focus on recent experiments supporting a role of translocation ratchets in the secretion and import of proteins and DNA. (shrink)

The thinking of Pierre Bourdieu, even in its most subtle aspects, is characterized by a distrust of the “high” theory. He does not totally reject it, but it is questioned by his critical reflection upon it. By a resort to the functions of the social and the French epistemology, which examines and analyzes the scientific terms in connection to their constitution, Bourdieu’s theory aims to develop a “sociological thinking” in relations which integrates motives of the “social” into the theoretical reflection (...) and works out their interaction in the form of significant chains. The range and the precision of this methodical reflection is illustrated and specified in this article also on the basis of examples. (shrink)

The thinking of Pierre Bourdieu, even in its most subtle aspects, is characterized by a distrust of the “high” theory. He does not totally reject it, but it is questioned by his critical reflection upon it. By a resort to the functions of the social and the French epistemology, which examines and analyzes the scientific terms in connection to their constitution, Bourdieu’s theory aims to develop a “sociological thinking” in relations which integrates motives of the “social” into the theoretical reflection (...) and works out their interaction in the form of significant chains. The range and the precision of this methodical reflection is illustrated and specified in this article also on the basis of examples. (shrink)

This volume offers a collection of in-depth explorations of pragmatism as a framework for discussions in philosophy of science and metaphysics. Each chapter involves explicit reflection on what it means to be pragmatist, and how to use pragmatism as a guiding framework in addressing topics such as realism, unification, fundamentality, truth, laws, reduction, and more. -/- .

كتاب بحصي يتناول الصراع بين الصوفية والسلفية ويتناول قصة حياة الحلاج وابن الفارض والسهروردي ودواوينهم ويتناول الحب الإلهي عند الصوفية.

"First published by Oxford University Press, 1916."--Title page verso.

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi articulates a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton’s translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever (...) before. Named for its purported author, the Xunzi has long been neglected compared to works such as the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius. Yet interest in the Xunzi has grown in recent decades, and the text presents a much more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius. In one famous, explicit contrast to them, the Xunzi argues that human nature is bad. However, it also allows that people can become good through rituals and institutions established by earlier sages. Indeed, the main purpose of the Xunzi is to urge people to become as good as possible, both for their own sakes and for the sake of peace and order in the world. In this edition, key terms are consistently translated to aid understanding and line numbers are provided for easy reference. Other features include a concise introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, brief explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index. (shrink)

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two great (...) lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified. The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share. (shrink)

A classic exposition of Kant's ethical thought.

Engelhardt invites readers to understand what it means to live in a world after God, where questions of sin and virtue have been replaced with life-and-death-style choices. After God provides a dark prophetic vision. But there is still hope. As Engelhardt argues, In this culture, children now grow up apart from and defended against a recognition of the God Who lives. They are nurtured in a social fabric that is structured so as to avoid a recognition of, much less an (...) encounter with, God. Nevertheless... a traditional Christianity has endured, even though its morality and bioethics have become ever more strongly counter-cultural. The source of this traditional Christian otherness over against the surrounding post-theistic culture lies in the origins of Christianity itself, in the Christianity of the Apostles and the Fathers, namely, in Orthodox Christianity. Against the tenor of the times, disregarding the animus to set traditional Christianity aside, and despite heretics prominent within its fold, Orthodox Christianity remains a light in a world after God. --! From back cover. (shrink)