Dictionary of Critical Realism fills a vital gap in the literature. The dictionary seeks to redress the problem of accessibility by explaining all the main concepts and key developments. It has more than 500 entires on these themes, with contributions from many leading critical realists, and is thoroughly cross-referenced. However, this text does not stop at the elucidation of concepts. It incorporates surveys of critical realist work and prospects in more than fifty areas of study across the humanities and social (...) sciences, thereby demonstrating the appropriate use and possibilities of the concepts in action."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary courses on science, engineering and society have been successfully established in two cases, at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, and at the University of Hamburg, Germany. In both cases there were institutional and perceptual barriers that had to be overcome in the primarily disciplinary departments. The ingredients of success included a clear vision of interdisciplinary themes and didactics, and the exploitation of institutional opportunities. Haldun M. Ozaktas in Ankara used the dynamics of an accreditation process to establish courses on engineering (...) and society. At the University of Hamburg the introduction of optional courses into all curricula allowed for the establishment of a seminar series on physics and society, as well as on peace education and peace building. Both of these approaches have a weakness in common: the courses can disappear once their initiators have left, unless the interdisciplinary themes are integrated into compulsory core curricula. (shrink)

Since its inception in the 1970's, critical realism has grown to address a broad range of subjects, including economics, philosophy, science, and religion. It has also gone through a number of key evolutions that have changed its direction, and seen it develop into a complex and mature branch of philosophy. Critical Realism: A Brief Introduction, is the first book to look back over the entire field of critical realism in one concise and accessible volume. As the originator and chief exponent (...) of CR, Roy Bhaskar draws from his experience of countless introductory lectures, seminars, workshops and courses to give a definitive and compelling account of this increasingly influential, international and multi-disciplinary approach. Its eight chapters examine the following topics: Transcendental Realism and the Philosophy of Science Critical Naturalism and the Philosophy of Social Science Explanatory Critique and Ethics Language and Critical Discourse Analysis The Development of Critical Realism Interdisciplinarity and Applied Critical Realism Modernity, Theories of Science and Metacritique The Advantages of Critical Realism Everything from the definition of CR and its applicability to the social sciences, to explanations of dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of meta-reality are addressed in detail, making this the essential introduction for students of CR at all levels. (shrink)

A Karger 'Publishing Highlights 1890-2015' title These three volumes are the revised and enlarged edition of a classic work hailed as bringing a new perspective to knowledge of the mind-brain relationship. In the tradition of highest scholarship, the author uses both neurological and epistemological approaches to provide a unique interpretation of the relationship of brain and consciousness.

The volume is dedicated to the work of Chajim H. Steinthal (1823-1899), who in the second half of the nineteenth century was a prominent philosophical linguist and also an eminent teacher of the "Science of Judaism." Together with Moritz Lazarus he founded the discipline of "Voelkerpsychologie" ("psychology of nations").

Structured interviews were held with 149 registered nurses in seven countries in America, Asia, Australia and Europe concerning the feeding of severely demented patients who do not accept food. The most common reasons for nurses being willing to change their decision to feed or not to feed were an order from the medical head, a request from the patient's husband and/or the staff meeting. There was a connection between the willingness to feed and the ranking of ethical principles. Nurses who (...) were most prone to feed the patient most often gave a high rank to the ethical principle of sanctity of life, while those who primarily chose not to feed the patient gave a high rank to the ethical principle of autonomy. All nurses stressed the ethical principle of beneficence. Des interviews structurés ont eu lieu avec 149 infirmiers/ères dans sept pays en Amérique, Asie, Australie et Europe concernant l'alimentation des malades gravement dément qui refusent de manger. La raison la plus générale pour des infirmiers/ères d'être prêt à changer leures décisions de donner à manger ou non sont: un ordre du médecin, la demande du mari de la malade ou de la réunion du personnel. Il y avait un lien entre la volonté de nourir et le rang des principes éthiques. Les infirmiers/ères les plus enclins de nourir la malade le plus souvent donnaient un rang supérieur au principe éthique de la sainteté de vie, pendant que ceux et celles qui choisissaient de ne pas nourrir la malade donnaient un rang supérieur au principe éthique de l'autonomie. Tous insistaient sur l'importance du principe éthique de la bienfaisance. Konstruktive Interviews wurden mit 149 ausgebildeten Krankenschwestern und Pfleger in sieben Ländern in Amerika, Asien, Australien und Europa gehalten über die Ernährung von schwer von Dementia praecox leidenden Patienten, die das Essen verweigern. Die gewöhnlichsten Gründe des Pflegepersonals für die Bereitwilligkeit, ihre Entscheidung, zu ernähren oder nicht, zu ändern, waren Anordnungen vom medizinischen Chef, Anfragen vom Ehemann der Patientin und/oder einer Personalsitzung. Es bestand ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Bereitwilligkeit zur Ernährung und dem Rang der ethischen Prinzipien. Die Pflegenden, die sich am meisten neigten, die Patientin zu ernähren, gaben dem ethischen Prinzip der Heiligkeit des Lebens einen hohen Rang, während die, die meistens vorzogen, die Patientin nicht zu ernähren, gaben dem ethischen Prinzip der Autonomie einen hohen Rang. Alle Pflegenden legten grossen Wert auf das ethische Prinzip der Wohltätigkeit. (shrink)

Members of a human group are bound with one another by multiple flows of information. (Here we use “information” in a broad sense that includes not only the content of people’s knowledge, but also that of their beliefs, assumptions, fictions, rules, norms, skills, maps, images, and so on.) This information is materially realized in the mental representations of the people, and in their public productions, that is, their cognitively guided behaviors and the enduring material traces of these behaviors. Mentally represented (...) information is transmitted from individuals to individuals through public productions. Public representations such as speech, gestures, writing, or pictures are a special type of public productions, the function of which is to communicate a content. Public representations play a major role in information transmission. Much information, however, is communicated implicitly, that is, without being publicly represented. Information can also be transmitted without being properly speaking communicated, not even implicitly, as when one individual acquires a skill by observing and imitating the behavior of others. Most information transmitted among humans is about local and transient circumstances, and is not transmitted beyond these. Some information of more general relevance, however, is repeatedly transmitted, and propagates throughout the group. Talk of “culture” (whatever the preferred definition or theory of culture) is about this widely distributed information and about its material realizations inside people’s mind and in their common environment (see Sperber 1996). One can study cultural phenomena in two main ways. One can interpret them, that is, try and make their contents intelligible to people of another culture, or more intelligible to members of the culture in which these phenomena occurs, as do anthropologists and historians. One may also try and explain causally how these cultural phenomena emerge, stabilize and evolve.. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 1 Heft: 2 Seiten: 298-324.

The goal of this book is to recapture the diminished roles of affect, psychological needs, and the psychodynamic mechanisms that are crucial for understanding political behavior by explaining and extending the contributions of Harold D. Lasswell, the dominant figure in political psychology in the mid-twentieth-century. Although Lasswell was best known for applying psychodynamic theories to politics, this book also demonstrates how his framework accommodated for cognitive processes and social interactions ranging from communications to policy-making. The authors use Lasswell's contributions and (...) the debates over his ideas as a springboard for examining current policy, political, and leadership issues. _Revitalizing Political Psychology_ presents and extends four aspects of Lasswell's contributions to the field: the psychodynamic mechanisms drawn from psychoanalytic theory, the use of symbol associations to understand political propaganda, the analysis of "democratic character" for both the public and the elites, and the structure of belief systems. In so doing, the authors link personality and political communication theory to democratic practice. The authors also critique leadership studies using Lasswell's concerns over the risks to democratic accountability and the current preoccupation with strengthening the roles of charismatic and transformational leaders. Intended for researchers, practitioners, and students in the areas of political and historical psychology, political strategy, and political communication, the book's emphasis on psychodynamics also appeals to psychoanalysts and the material on leadership appeals to professionals in management and industrial/organizational psychology. (shrink)

"Hermann Cohen war ein herausragender deutscher Philosoph und jüdischer Denker. In nahezu allen Bereichen seiner verzweigten Tätigkeit beeinflusste er das akademische, politische und religiöse Leben seiner Zeit. Aus Anlass des hundertsten Todestages Cohens am 4. April 2018 widmet sich der vorliegende Band Kontexten und Netzwerken, in die Cohen zeit seines Lebens eingebunden war"--.

Russland und das Russische werden für Nietzsche in den 188034 Jahren, besonders nach seiner "Entdecklung" Dostojewkijs, zu signifikanten Metaphern in sienen Überlegungen zur Zukunft Europas und der europäischen Kultur. In geopolitischer, geschichts- und moralphilosophischer Hinsicht bestimmte Nietzsche Russland als ein "Zwischenreich" zwischen Europa und Asien, das durch seinen Machtwillen in der Lage sein Könnte, das Überleben der europäischen Kultur in den von Nietzsche vorhergesehenen globalen Auseinandersetzungen des kommenden Jahrhunderts zu fördern. In psychologischer under metaphysischer under metaphysischer Hinsicht sah Nietzsche in (...) dem "beherzten Falalismus ohne Revolte" der Russen eine große Nähe zum amor fati und seiner eigenen Experimentalphilosophie.Russia and the Russian culture became significant metaphors in Nietzsche's reflections on the future of Europe and European culture in the 80s, especially after his "discovery" of Dostjevskij. On one hand, concerning geopolitics, history, and morality, Nietzsche identified Russie as an "empire-between" Europe and Asia that could guarantee the survival of European culture in the global contests of the coming century. On the other hand, concerning metaphysics and psychology, he connected the "fatalism without revolt" of the Russian people with the amor fati and his own experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Protestant documents conceming the status of the human embryo are empirically founded on biological observations and their interpretation. In Germany the beginning of individual human life is the end of the pre-core-state, the British embryo begins at the end of phase of possible sp1itting into twins. Both argue that the once manifest human embryo carries the full human dignity. As definitions thus no Ionger can plead innocent, additional factors of the argument have to be revealed.

Sie führt zurück zu etwas, das es im Unterschiede zu dem Nichts tatsächlich gibt, zu dem genuinen Individuum namens "Zeit".

A wider than just a biological approach to the human embryo provides a relational perception of it, which may open a dialogue between those who plead for the protection of the embryo and those who seek to help their patients with therapies developed through embryo research. According to all german speaking protestant churches and theologians riskful research on human embryos shall be prohibited, some theologians however concede, that for high ranking therapeutical goals the law should provide an exception. The author (...) shows that it is impossible to define any therapeutical goals unless one allows non-therapeutical research in advance. This dilemma so far is unsolved. (shrink)