This collection of essays by eminent scholars on the reconstruction and critique of Kant's transcendental philosophy in the Indian context specifically discusses his ideas on perpetual peace, universal history, and critical philosophy.

This collection of essays by eminent scholars on the reconstruction and critique of Kant's transcendental philosophy in the Indian context specifically discusses moral philosophy, philosophical psychology, religion, and aesthetics.

Using an explicit task cuing paradigm, we tested whether masked cues can trigger task-set activation, which would suggest that unconsciously presented stimuli can impact cognitive control processes. Based on a critical assessment of previous findings on the priming of task-set activation, we present two experiments with a new method to approach this subject. Instead of using a prime, we varied the visibility of the cue. These cues either directly signaled particular tasks in Experiment 1, or certain task transitions in Experiment (...) 2. While both masked task and transition cues affected task choice, only task cues affected the speed of task performance. This observation suggests that task-specific stimulus–response rules can be activated only by masked cues that are uniquely associated with a particular task. Taken together, these results demonstrate that unconsciously presented stimuli have the power to activate corresponding task sets. (shrink)

As the increasing loss of ecosystem services severely affects life perspectives of today's poor and future populations, governing access to, and use of, ecosystem services in an intragenerational and intergenerational just way is an urgent issue. The author argues that theories of distributive justice should consider the distribution of access rights to ecosystem services. Three specific demands that a theory of distributive justice should fulfill to adequately cope with the distribution of access rights to ecosystem services, and show that Rawls??A (...) Theory of Justice? can be consistently extended to meet the identified demands. (shrink)

Many philosophers maintain that causation is to be explicated in terms of a kind of dependence between cause and effect. These “dependence” theories are opposed by “production” accounts which hold that there is some more fundamental causal “oomph”. A wide range of experimental research on everyday causal judgments seems to indicate that ordinary people operate primarily with a dependence-based notion of causation. For example, people tend to say that absences and double preventers are causes. We argue that the impression that (...) commonsense causal discourse is largely dependence-based is the result of focusing on a very narrow class of causal verbs. Almost all of the vignette-based experimental work on causal judgment has been prosecuted using the word “cause”. But much ordinary causal discourse involves special causal verbs, such as “burn” and “crack”. We find that these verbs display a quite different pattern from the verb “cause”. For instance, for absences and double preventers (Studies 1-3), we find that while people are inclined to say that X caused Y to burn, turn, crack or start, they are less inclined to think that X burned, turned, cracked or started Y. In Study 4, we find that for chains involving a distal and proximal event, people are inclined to say that the distal event is not a special cause of the outcome, though it is a “cause” of the outcome. Together, we find a surprising double dissociation between “cause” and a stock of special causal verbs. We conclude by suggesting that much commonsense causal judgment, which heavily trades in special causal verbs, might be better captured by production-based accounts of causation. (shrink)

This conceptual paper analyses the arguments which have been made in favour of a transition towards humanistic management. In order to reconcile economic as well as moral arguments an integrative model of humanistic management is presented. This model outlines prospective lines of empirical research especially in the area where business conduct is profitable but not humanistic.

The present study evaluates the cognitive representation of a kicking movement performed by a human and a humanoid robot, and how they are represented in experts and novices of soccer and robotics, respectively. To learn about the expertise-dependent development of memory structures, we compared the representation structures of soccer experts and robot experts concerning a human and humanoid robot kicking movement. We found different cognitive representation structures for both expertise groups under two different motor performance conditions . In general, the (...) expertise relies on the perceptual-motor knowledge of the human motor system. Thus, the soccer experts’ cognitive representation of the humanoid robot movement is dominated by their representation of the corresponding human movement. Additionally, our results suggest that robot experts, in contrast to soccer experts, access functional features of the technical system of the humanoid robot in addition to their perceptual-motor knowledge about the human motor system. Thus, their perceptual-motor and neuro-functional machine representation are integrated into a cognitive representation of the humanoid robot movement. (shrink)

This chapter presents a series of experiments that elicit causal judgments using statements that do not include the verb "to cause". In particular, our interest is in exploring the extent to which previously observed effects of normative considerations on agreement with what we call "cause"-statements, i.e. those of the form "X caused ..." extend as well to those of the form "X V-ed Y", where V is a lexical causative. Our principal finding is that in many cases the effects do (...) not extend in this way, and moreover that the cases where we do find the same pattern are those where the causal verb used has a negative valence of its own. We draw two main conclusions from this finding. First, it reveals how the almost exclusive focus on "cause"-statements in the experimental study of causal judgment has led to findings that are unrepresentative of the full range of ordinary causal thinking, and provides a proof of concept as to how this thinking can be studied in its full variety. Second, the results of our experiments provide significant indirect support for the contention that the effect of moral considerations on agreement with "cause"-statements reflect the fact that these statements are most often used to assign responsibility for an event, and not just to describe the causal structure of what happened. It is not causal judgments in general that result from a process in which normative considerations play a role, but perhaps only those judgments that express a determination of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Sportvereine reagieren auf einen Veränderungsdruck ihrer Umwelt selten einheitlich und keinesfalls immer so, wie es die damit verbundenen Forderungen nahe legen. Was steckt hinter diesem Phänomen? Weshalb ist es anscheinend so irrelevant für die Entwicklung der Sportvereine, wenn externe Experten die Notwendigkeit von Strukturveränderungen einfordern? Bedeutet dies, dass Sportvereine ausschließlich nach dem Gutdünken ihrer Funktionäre operieren, oder dass sie gar unfähig sind, sich von Ereignissen in ihrer Umwelt zu Lernprozessen anregen zu lassen? Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der (...) Lernfähigkeit von Sportorganisationen. Dabei zeigt sich der Sportverein als besonders lernfähig im Hinblick auf eine Abwehr von Irritationen. Die Notwendigkeit dieser Abwehr ergibt sich aus den sportvereinsspezifischen Organisationsstrukturen. (shrink)

Implicit and explicit filling-in phenomena should be distinguished. Blind spot phenomena and mechanisms of boundary completion can be accounted for by implicit filling-in. Surface regions are “painted” with perceptual quantities, such as brightness, by explicit filling-in. “Filling-in” and “finding-out” relate to different computational tasks. Mechanisms of purposive computation (e.g., for navigation) evaluate local measurements, thus “finding out”; whereas mechanisms for grasping might require passive reconstruction, thus “filling in.”.

The aim of this dissertation is to present a systematic account of F. H. Bradley's philosophy in so far as it is relevant to an understanding of his conception of the nature and criterion of truth. I argue that, for Bradley, the nature of truth is the identity of thought with reality given in immediate experience. There is no absolute separation between thought and its object. Bradley therefore rejects both the correspondence theory and epistemological realism. Thought is not just a (...) mirror which reflects an independently existing reality. ;Concerning the criterion of truth, I argue that his criterion for our ordinary and scientific beliefs is practice, and the criterion for philosophical positions is a kind of coherence based on the doctrine of relative truth. For Bradley, some positions are truer than others, and the best philosophy is a comprehensive system which contains the truth of all different positions. ;Bradley does not accept the coherence theory of justification as it is understood today, since it is based on the standard account of negation and the doctrine of absolute truth. Bradley has a different approach to negation and inconsistency, according to which there are no absolutely inconsistent beliefs. Further, he insists that truth is not absolute but "relative," a matter of degree. All philosophical positions contain some truth, and none is completely false. The truth in philosophy is a position which accounts for the whole of reality and includes all apparently inconsistent positions within it. ;I explain Bradley's place in the history of philosophy and show his connections with the British empiricist tradition. I believe one of Bradley's central concerns is to explain the nature and criterion of truth in philosophy within the constraints of empiricism. I also contrast Bradley's positions on important issues with those of philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition, such as Russell, Moore, Ayer, Tarski, Quine, Churchland, Lehrer and Campbell. I argue that most recent commentators on Bradley overlook the importance of understanding his philosophy as a system constructed according to the doctrine of relative truth. (shrink)

The following article has its basis in the respective chapter of my book entitled Work, Death, and Life Itself . In the present article I intend to elaborate the working hypothesis that the attempt to increase and extend participation in contemporary work enterprises can be understood more than ever before as a collusive quarrel between managers and workers about immortality. The quarrel has its roots in the widespread experience of the discrepancy between the vigour with which participation in organisations is (...) demanded and offered on the one hand and the inadequacy and limitations of its actual realisation on the other. Attempts to increase participation in a work enterprise are often confronted at an early stage with insoluble difficulties which too often lead to termination of the participation project.Although participation in general, and in work enterprises in particular, is generally seen as a paradigm for integration, co operation and democratisation among more or less equal partners, I propose the hypothesis that any attempt to practice participation will most probably lead to a situation in which management and workers get entangled in a collusive quarrel concerning the preconditions, content and range of said participation. Sustained by the predominant myth that management means the management of people, workers tend to become infantilised. The deep contempt and mistrust that so often characterise relations between managers and workers and/or their respective representatives thus poisons any simultaneous desire for trust and cooperation.In an analogy with ancient Greek mythology and its inherent quarrel between the immortal gods and the mortal ephemerals, the collusion between management and workers in contemporary work enterprises can be understood as a quarrel about participating in immortality. Since immortality is a limited resource, it is only available to the happy few. The collusive quarrel and the underlying split between managers and workers can only be overcome if both parties recognise that as human beings they can neither escape mortality nor relieve the other of it. (shrink)

Here is a contemporary social paradox: Modern liberal democracy rests upon a platform of a pluralistic civil society. Philanthropy, by providing vital resources, is an essential feature of that civil society. Yet philanthropy also plays an ambiguous role in democracy. Therefore philanthropy potentially both supports and detracts from democracy. This essay explores the nature of this paradox and its implications for the practice of contemporary philanthropy.Neither "civil society" nor "democracy" has a single, universally accepted meaning in the contemporary world. In (...) differing historical and philosophical contexts, civil society has been used to describe a broad spectrum of social phenomena—the realm of social .. (shrink)

chapter Introduction Poststructuralist perspectives on language, gender and sexual identity Since the inception of the field of language and gender in the, ...

In his applied moral philosophy, Kant formulates the parents’ duty to make their child happy. I argue that, for Kant, this duty is an ad hoc attempt at compensating for the parental guilt of having brought a person into the condition of existence – and hence also having created her need for happiness – on their own initiative. I argue that Kant’s considerations regarding parental duties and human reproduction in general imply arguments for an ethically justified anti-natalism, but that this (...) position is abolished in his teleology for meta-ethical reasons. (shrink)

Performance on working memory (WM) tasks may partially be supported by long-term memory (LTM) processing. Hence, brain activation recently being implicated in WM may actually have been driven by (incidental) LTM formation. We examined which brain regions actually support successful WM processing, rather than being confounded by LTM processes, during the maintenance and probe phase of a WM task. We administered a four-pair (faces and houses) associative delayed-match-to-sample (WM) task using event-related fMRI and a subsequent associative recognition LTM task, using (...) the same stimuli. This enabled us to analyze subsequent memory effects for both the WM and the LTM test by contrasting correctly recognized pairs with incorrect pairs for either task. Critically, with respect to the subsequent WM effect, we computed this analysis exclusively for trials that were forgotten in the subsequent LTM recognition task. Hence, brain activity associated with successful WM processing was less likely to be confounded by incidental LTM formation. The subsequent LTM effect, in contrast, was analyzed exclusively for pairs that previously had been correctly recognized in the WM task, disclosing brain regions involved in successful LTM formation after successful WM processing. Results for the subsequent WM effect showed no significantly activated brain areas for WM maintenance, possibly due to an insensitivity of fMRI to mechanisms underlying active WM maintenance. In contrast, a correct decision at WM probe was linked to activation in the “retrieval success network” (anterior and posterior midline brain structures). The subsequent LTM analyses revealed greater activation in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex in the early phase of the maintenance stage. No supra-threshold activation was found during the WM probe. Together, we obtained clearer insights in which brain regions support successful WM and LTM without the potential confound of the respective memory system. (shrink)

The following study tries to elucidate the connection between the discourse of natural philosophy in the late eighteenth century and Wilhelm von Humboldt's anthropological, aesthetic and linguistic writings. The concepts of force, organism and, most significantly, of generation, as they were developed in the natural sciences, are shown to have strongly influenced Humboldt's philosophy. ;The first chapter reconstructs the scientific discussion about biological generation in the 18th century. At the end of the century, the widely accepted theory of preformationism is (...) challenged and replaced by the epigenetic model of generation, according to which each organism is individually produced by both parents and the workings of a formative force. ;The second chapter interprets the significance of this change for the philosophy of German Idealism, most notably in the works of Kant and Fichte. Epigenesis and its key concepts, such as "formative impulse" , organism and individuality is shown to provide a biological base for the idealist theories of subjectivity and freedom. ;The third chapter investigates Humboldt's involvement in the discourse and practice of natural philosophy during his studies at Gottingen and Jena. He discussed these problems frequently with his brother Alexander and his friends Schiller, Goethe and Fichte. His famous articles on the significance of sexual difference can be understood as a philosophical interpretation of his own scientific studies. ;The fourth chapter shows the main concepts of natural philosophy at work in Humboldt's mature writings about the philosophy of language. Against the backdrop of Goethe's scientific work, Humboldt's linguistic theory appears as an application of scientific notions to the "organism" of language. ;The fifth chapter concentrates on Humboldt's account of the mutual dependence and the mutual generation of language and thought. With his epigenetic account he tries to overcome the impasses of earlier 18th century theories of language. ;The last chapter focuses on the essential element in Humboldt's linguistic theory, the problem of articulation. Humboldt interprets articulation seen from the side of the subject as an act of violence, opposed to the material power of historically given languages. This interplay between violence and power is also shown to be at the center of Humboldt's hitherto unnoticed poetic works. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is, famously, not only the major philosopher of European enlightenment, but also one of the first philosophers to develop a philosophical theory of “human races”. How do these two sides of Kant relate to each other? What is the significance of race in Kant’s philosophy? In this article, we aim to discuss these questions by taking a close look into the conceptual and philosophical presuppositions underlying Kant’s understanding of race; relating them to the concept of teleology as developed (...) by Kant in the Critique of Judgement and to the idea of natural history that can be derived from there. In the last two chapters, we intertwine both perspectives in such a way that, on the one hand, we can determine the philosophical significance of race for Kant, and, on the other hand, show how a race-sensible perspective gives new and critical insight into Kant’s concept of reason. (shrink)

What is the purpose of our economic system? What would a more life-serving economy look like? There are many books about business and society, yet very few of them question the primacy of GDP growth, profit maximization and individual utility maximization. Even developments with a humanistic touch like stakeholder participation, corporate social responsibility or corporate philanthropy serve the same goal: to foster long-term growth and profitability. Humanism in Business questions these assumptions and investigates the possibility of creating a human-centered, value-oriented (...) society based on humanistic principles. An international team of academics and practitioners present philosophical, spiritual, economic, psychological and organizational arguments that show how humanism can be used to understand, and possibly transform, business at three different levels: the systems level, the organizational level and the individual level. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and policymakers concerned with business ethics and the relationship between business and society. (shrink)

Cancer is a complex disease, necessitating research on many different levels; at the subcellular level to identify genes, proteins and signaling pathways associated with the disease; at the cellular level to identify, for example, cell-cell adhesion and communication mechanisms; at the tissue level to investigate disruption of homeostasis and interaction with the tissue of origin or settlement of metastasis; and finally at the systems level to explore its global impact, e.g. through the mechanism of cachexia. Mathematical models have been proposed (...) to identify key mechanisms that underlie dynamics and events at every scale of interest, and increasing effort is now being paid to multi-scale models that bridge the different scales. With more biological data becoming available and with increased interdisciplinary efforts, theoretical models are rendering suitable tools to predict the origin and course of the disease. The ultimate aims of cancer models, however, are to enlighten our concept of the carcinogenesis process and to assist in the designing of treatment protocols that can reduce mortality and improve patient quality of life. Conventional treatment of cancer is surgery combined with radiotherapy or chemotherapy for localized tumors or systemic treatment of advanced cancers, respectively. Although radiation is widely used as treatment, most scheduling is based on empirical knowledge and less on the predictions of sophisticated growth dynamical models of treatment response. Part of the failure to translate modeling research to the clinic may stem from language barriers, exacerbated by often esoteric model renderings with inaccessible parameterization. Here we discuss some ideas for combining tractable dynamical tumor growth models with radiation response models using biologically accessible parameters to provide a more intuitive and exploitable framework for understanding the complexity of radiotherapy treatment and failure. (shrink)

The notion of internalization put forth by Roger Shepard continues to be appealing and challenging. He suggests that we have internalized, during our evolutionary development, environmental regularities, or constraints. Internalization solves one of the hardest problems of perceptual psychology: the underspecification problem. That is the problem of how well-defined perceptual experience is generated from the often ambiguous and incomplete sensory stimulation. Yet, the notion of internalization creates new problems that may outweigh the solution of the underspecification problem. To support this (...) claim, I first examine the concept of internalization, breaking it down into several distinct interpretations. These range from well-resolved dynamic regularities to ill-resolved statistical regularities. As a function of the interpretation the researcher selects, an empirical test of the internalization hypothesis may be straightforward or it may become virtually impossible. I then attempt to cover the range of interpretations by drawing on examples from different domains of visual event perception. Unfortunately, the experimental tests regarding most candidate regularities, such as gravitational acceleration, fail to support the concept of internalization. This suggests that narrow interpretations of the concept should be given up in favor of more abstract interpretations. However, the latter are not easily amenable to empirical testing. There is nonetheless a way to test these abstract interpretations by contrasting internalization with the opposite concept: externalization of body dynamics. I summarize evidence for such a projection of body constraints onto external objects. Based on the combined evidence of well-resolved and ill- resolved regularities, the value of the notion of internalization has to be reassessed. Key Words: event perception; evolution; internalization. (shrink)

This study presents a contrastive corpus linguistic analysis of language use before and after Stonewall. It uses theoretical insights on normativity from the field of language and sexuality to investigate how the shifting normativities associated with the Stonewall Riots – widely considered the central event of gay liberation in the Western world – have shaped our conceptualization of sexuality as it surfaces in language use. Drawing on two corpora of gay men’s pre-Stonewall narratives dating from two time periods, the analysis (...) combines quantitative and qualitative corpus linguistic methods to examine discursive shifts as evident from narrators’ language use. The study identifies the terms homosexual and normal as central contrastive labels in PRE, and gay and straight as corresponding terms in POST. Other discursive shifts detected are from sexual desire/practices to identity, from an individualistic to a community-based conceptualization of sexuality, and from unquestioned heteronormativity and gender binarism to a weakening of such dominant discourses. The findings are discussed in relation to the desire-identity shift, which is traditionally assumed to have taken place at the end of the 19th century, and shed new light on Stonewall as a central event for the development of an identity-based conceptualization of sexuality as we know it today. (shrink)

This note proposes to emend the problematic preserved reading ad cuius mensae sacra (Val. Max. 4.2.3) to ad Iouis mensae sacra.

Kritik: Formbildung und Formbegriff. Das Formdenken der Moderne, hrsg. von Ralph Ubl. Malika Maskarinec, Rahel Villinger und Markus Klammer, Paderborn: Fink 2019.