Gärdenfors (Conceptual spaces, 2000) argues that the semantic domains that natural language deals with have a geometrical structure. He gives evidence that simple natural language adjectives usually denote natural properties, where a natural property is a convex region of such a “conceptual space.” In this paper I will show that this feature of natural categories need not be stipulated as basic. In fact, it can be shown to be the result of evolutionary dynamics of communicative strategies under very general assumptions.

Nonmonotonic reasoning in its broadest sense is reasoning to conclusions on the basis of incomplete information. Given more information, previously drawn inferences may be retracted. Commonsense reasoning has a nonmonotonic component; it has been argued that almost all commonsense inferences are of this sort. From the end of the 1980s to the present there has been an explosion in research in nonmonotonic reasoning. It is now possible to understand more clearly the properties of the major formalisms from a metatheoretical point (...) of view, the relationships among the formalisms and their connection to independently developed proof methods. The goal of this monograph is to make this understanding more accessible. (shrink)

In this article we discuss the notion of a linguistic universal, and possible sources of such invariant properties of natural languages. In the first part, we explore the conceptual issues that arise. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the explanatory potential of horizontal evolution. We particularly focus on two case studies, concerning Zipf’s Law and universal properties of color terms, respectively. We show how computer simulations can be employed to study the large scale, emergent, consequences of (...) psychologically and psychologically motivated assumptions about the working of horizontal language transmission. (shrink)

We study and some of its most important extensions primarily from a proof-theoretic perspective, determine their consistency strengths by exhibiting equivalent systems in the realm of traditional set theory and introduce a new and interesting extension of which is conservative over.

In this article we discuss the notion of a linguistic universal, and possible sources of such invariant properties of natural languages. In the first part, we explore the conceptual issues that arise. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the explanatory potential of horizontal evolution. We particularly focus on two case studies, concerning Zipf's Law and universal properties of color terms, respectively. We show how computer simulations can be employed to study the large scale, emergent, consequences of (...) psychologically and psychologically motivated assumptions about the working of horizontal language transmission. (shrink)

Do members of democratic societies have a moral right that others not actively prevent them from engaging in wrongdoing? Many political theorists think that they do. “It is a feature of democratic government,” Michael Walzer writes, “that the people have a right to act wrongly—in much the same way that they have a right to act stupidly”. Of course, advocates of a democratic right to do wrong may believe that the scope of this right is limited. A majority in a (...) democratic society, for example, may not have a moral right against being prevented from enslaving or arbitrarily disenfranchising a minority, or if it were to launch a wrongful aggressive war against another society. But many join Walzer in asserting that it would be wrong in principle to intervene to prevent some wrongs that democratic societies would inflict. This thesis, which we call the democratic right to do wrong thesis (DRTDWT), can be formulated as follows: DRTDWT – For democratic societies A and agents B, there is a class of wrongful policies and institutions X, such that if A chooses to implement members of this class pursuant to democratic procedures, B has a duty not to actively intervene to prevent the implementation of X. Our goal in this essay is to show that the DRTDWT should be rejected. (shrink)

This short note is on the question whether the intersection of all fixed points of a positive arithmetic operator and the intersection of all its closed points can proved to be equivalent in a weak fragment of second order arithmetic.

In this paper, we discuss some formal properties of the model ofbidirectional Optimality Theory that was developed inBlutner (2000). We investigate the conditions under whichbidirectional optimization is a well-defined notion, and we give aconceptually simpler reformulation of Blutner's definition. In thesecond part of the paper, we show that bidirectional optimization can bemodeled by means of finite state techniques. There we rely heavily onthe related work of Frank and Satta (1998) about unidirectionaloptimization.

We discuss several ontological properties of explicit mathematics and operational set theory: global choice, decidable classes, totality and extensionality of operations, function spaces, class and set formation via formulas that contain the definedness predicate and applications.

Wer hat sich nicht schon gefragt, was es mit unseren moralischen Überzeugungen auf sich hat: Spiegeln diese die Wahrheit in Sachen Moral wieder? Gibt es eine solche Wahrheit überhaupt? Oder sind moralische Überzeugungen eher das Produkt unserer Interessen und Neigungen, Ausdruck unserer Wünsche oder Mittel der Machtausübung, das bloße Ergebnis unserer Erziehung, unseres sozialen Umfelds oder gar eine List der Evolution? Ist es eine Illusion, wenn man glaubt, echte moralische Erkenntnisse gewinnen zu können? Kurzum: Kann die Moral Objektivität beanspruchen? Die (...) vorliegende Arbeit versucht, eine Antwort auf diese zentrale Frage der Metaethik zu geben. Dazu wird zunächst gezeigt, dass uns der Status der Moral ein Rätsel ist, weil wir dazu neigen, drei Thesen für wahr zu halten, die nicht zugleich wahr sein können. Die drei prinzipiell möglichen Strategien zur Auflösung dieses Trilemmas geraten jedoch in Schwierigkeiten, weil es bisher nicht gelungen ist, ein passendes Vergleichsobjekt für die Moral zu finden. In dieser Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, dass die Moral in genau der gleichen Weise wie die Wissenschaft Objektivität beanspruchen kann. (shrink)

The articles collected in this volume document the eighth conference organized by the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The conference in which Indologists, Theologians and Philosophers participated in, took place in september 2004 under the title "Certainty of Believe and Truth in Religious Tradition". Against the background of Gerhard Oberhammer's hermeneutics of religious traditions the contributors challenge from their professional viewpoint the traditional understanding of the relationship between certainty of (...) belief and truth and give reasons that certainty of belief found in a special religious tradition cannot claim absolute truth, even if its validity within a tradition is not to be denied. (shrink)

Die in diesem Bande vereinigten Aufsatze dokumentieren die siebte einer Reihe thematisch aufeinander bezogener Arbeitstagungen von Indologen, Buddhologen und Theologen, zu der das Institut fur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften eingeladen hatte, und die im September 2000 unter dem Titel "Mythisierung der Transzendenz als Entwurf ihrer Erfahrung" stattfand. Zur Diskussion stand die Tragweite und Anwendbarkeit des Begriffes "Mythisierung", ein zentraler Terminus der Religionshermeneutik Gerhard Oberhammers. Dieser Begriff ermoglichte es den Beitragenden nicht nur, den Gegensatz von (...) Erfahrung, Sprache und Transzendenz in den unterschiedlichen Religionen zu problematisieren, sondern mit ihm konnte auch auf die Bedingungen jeder historisch-konkreten Religion reflektiert werden. Zu den theologischen und philosophischen Beitragen gehoren: Gerhard Oberhammer, Mit-sein, Mythisierung und Transzendenz. Einleitende Gedanken; Siegfried Wiedenhofer, "Mythisierung der Transzendenz". Zwischen Offenbarungsereignis und Traditionsvermittlung; H. J. Adriaanse, Wort, Offenbarung und Theologie als Momente der Mythisierung. Karl Barths Theologie des Wortes Gottes als Prufstein eines religionshermeneutischen Grundbegriffs; Desiree J. Berendsen, Mythisierung der Transzendenz als Ordnung des Lebens. Uber Kierkegaard und Oberhammer; Marcus Schmucker, Von der individuellen Erfahrung zum Text; Norbert Hintersteiner, Von der Gebung des Unendlichen. Phanomen und Transzendenz bei Jean-Luc Marion. Shizuteru Ueda, Mythisierung und Ent-Mythisierung der Transzendenz als Entwurf ihrer Erfahrung im Zen-Buddhismus; Hans-Peter Muller, Mythisierung geschichtlicher Ereignisse im Alten Testament und im Alten Vorderen Orient; Lourens Minnema, Bildlose Bildhaftigkeit. "Mythisierung" im Werk Mark Rothkos; Johann Reikerstorfer, Kritische Toleranz. Verstandigungsmoglichkeiten im interreligiosen Dialog? Indologische Beitrage: Halina Marlewicz, Advaita Vedanta Hermeneutics of Revelation Key-Statements as "Mythicising" of Transcendence; Jan C. Heesterman, Opfer, Transzendenz und Dharma in der Sicht der Mima'sa; Andre Padoux, Mythisierung am Beispiel des Sivaismus; Marion Rastelli, Der Tempel als Mythisierung der Transzendenz; Axel Michaels, Tirtha - Orte der Transzendenz in hinduistischen Texten, Ritualen und Karten; Tilmann Vetter, Zur Anthropologie der Khandha-Passagen in den alteren Sammlungen des Pali-Kanons. (shrink)

In this book, Gerhard Richter explores the aesthetic and political ramifications of the literary genre of the Denkbild, or thought-image, as it was employed by four major German-Jewish writers and philosophers of the first half of the ...

: When suggesting that we—the affluent in the developed world—are legitimate targets of defensive force due to our contribution to global poverty one is likely to be countered by one of two strategies. The first denies that we contribute to global poverty. The second seems to affirm that we contribute, and even that we have stringent contribution-based duties to address this poverty, but denies that such contribution makes forcible resistance permissible. Those in this second group employ several argumentative strategies. In (...) this paper I investigate these strategies for denying the force-related implication of contribution to poverty. I do not argue for political violence or for the permissibility of targeting the affluent, I merely investigate a conditional: if contribution to global poverty generates stringent duties to address it, then this contribution implies permission on the part of the victims to defend themselves with force, or for third parties to use force on their behalf. (shrink)

This book deals with the metaphysics of Giordano Bruno. It is very controversial until today, whether Giordano Bruno is a Pantheist or not. There are even authors who believe that Bruno was an Atheist. Other authors like Frances Yates believes that Bruno was a representative of the Hermetic Tradition, but not in the sense of Ficino. This work tries to find out whether Giordano Bruno had a concept of god or not. Finally, there is a concept of god in Giordano (...) Bruno´s works. His concept of god is very similar to that of the Hermetic Tradition and that of neoplatonic philosophy. The reason why Bruno was burned in Rome was not that he was an Atheist, but Bruno denied that Jesus Christ was the son of god. (shrink)

Despite a constitutional and oft-stated political commitment to an undefined notion of non-racialism, South Africans continue to operate in formal and informal ways with ‘race’ as the common-sense organizing principle of legal systems, ways of thinking, social identities, constructing arguments or closing debate, organizational and mobilizing strategies, policy development and execution, and interaction in daily life. This state of affairs is regrettable and dangerous, often questioned and rejected, but objections are waged and alternatives suggested against the tide of societal trends. (...) What the organizing principle of race thinking does is to close the mind to alternative possibilities – of thought, social practice and ways of living. Here I explore an overview of racialism as it permeates and shapes the life cycles of citizens from birth to death. I make an argument for a way of thinking that is necessarily utopian, as one of few options of escaping a social world made in the image of apartheid. (shrink)

Die Beihefte der Historische Zeitschrift werden in Neuer Folge von Andreas Fahrmeir und Hartmut Leppin herausgegeben. Die Beihefte enthalten Essays und Monographien zu Themen der deutschen und europäischen Geschichte sowie Sammelbände zu herausragenden Themenbereichen. In ihnen äußern sich die ausgewiesenen Sachkenner ihres Fachgebiets.

This paper on the occasion of the 500th birthday of the great Saxon humanistic scholar Georgius Agricola deals with his contributions to geology in the narrow sense. These, contrary to his voluminous works on mining, metallurgy and mineralogy (De re metallica and De natura fossilium, resp.) are parts of the booksDe ortu et causis subterraneorum andDe natura eorum, quae effluunt ex terra. In those we find statements on the causes of earthquakes, on volcanos and the subterranean fire as well as (...) the effects of the running water in mountain-building. Agricola's ideas on geological time and his statements on dynamics of the Earth's crust are remarkable. (shrink)

Organisms are self-producing and self-maintaining, or autopoietic systems. Therefore, the course of evolution and adaptation of an organism is strongly determined by its own internal properties, whatever role external selection may play. The internal properties may either act as constraints that preclude certain changes or they open new pathways: the organism canalizes its own evolution. As an example the evolution of feeding mechanisms in salamanders, especially in the lungless salamanders of the family Plethodontidae, is discussed. In this family a large (...) variety of different feeding mechanisms is found. The authors reconstruct this evolutionary process as a series of bifurcation points of either constraints or opportunities forming a sequence of preconditions for the formation of a high-speed projectile tongue characteristic of tropical salamanders. Furthermore, it is shown how parallel evolution of seemingly unrelated domains within an organism such as respiratory physiology, life history biology and pattern of ontogeny has rather direct relevance to the feeding biology, thus demonstrating that organisms always evolve as wholes. (shrink)

... und was ist hässlich? Gibt es objektive Kriterien für Schönheit? Und welche Rolle spielt dabei die eigene Wahrnehmung? Diesen Fragen geht die Ästhetik nach.