In most developmental studies the only error children could make on counterfactual tasks was to answer with the current state of affairs. It was concluded that children who did not show this error are able to reason counterfactually. However, children might have avoided this error by using basic conditional reasoning (Rafetseder, Cristi-Vargas, & Perner, 2010). Basic conditional reasoning takes background assumptions represented as conditionals about how the world works. If an antecedent of one of these conditionals is provided by the (...) task, then a likely conclusion can be inferred based only on background assumptions. A critical feature of counterfactual reasoning is that the selection of these additional assumptions is constrained by actual events to which the counterfactual is taken to be counterfactual. In contrast, in basic conditional reasoning one enriches the given antecedent with any plausible assumptions, unconstrained by actual events. In our tasks basic conditional reasoning leads to different answers from counterfactual reasoning. For instance, a doctor, sitting in the park with the intention of reading a paper, is called to an emergency at the swimming pool. The question, “If there had been no emergency, where would the doctor be?” should counterfactually be answered “in the park”. But by ignoring the doctor's intentions, and just reasoning from premises about the default location of a hospital doctor who has not been called out to an emergency, one might answer: “in the hospital”. Only by 6 years of age did children mostly give correct answers. (shrink)

Millikan's externalist account of concept acquisition cannot completely avoid the distinction between central (defining) and peripheral (characteristic) features, because some knowledge is required to achieve reference and to decide what kind of information to record about the identified substances. However, the emphasis on external reference may provide the requisite principled way to make this distinction.

Cílem studie je srovnání Platónova a Aristotelova výkladu vlastností těžké a lehké. Nejprve jsou představeny hlavní motivy obou výkladů a poté následuje srovnání z hlediska využití empirických dat, z hlediska jejich explikační síly a také co do blízkosti modernímu pojetí tíže. V závěru se ukazuje, že Aristotelova koncepce těžkého a lehkého je propracovanější a komplexnější, ovšem mnohem stručnější výklad Platónův má také značné explikační možnosti a v určitých ohledech Aristotelovu teorii předčí.

Calcium plays an important role in regulating a great variety of neuronal processes, and many efforts are made to generate gadolinium complexes that can act as calcium-dependent MRI contrast agents. A series of gadolinium chelate complexes based on DO3A were developed, bearing phosphonate groups as an additional coordination sites, which is hypothesized to change relaxivity in magnetic resonance experiments dynamically with Ca2+ concentration. Different lengths of the phosphonate side chains are expected to lead to different binding constants of the phosphonate (...) - gadolinium bonds. The latter property can be exploited for fine-tuning the sensitivity of the agent to calcium ion concentration. (shrink)

The ability of non-invasively observing changes in the Ca2+ concentrations is important in the understanding of a great variety of neuronal processes. Several compounds were designed (Fig.1) to take advantage of the different binding abilities of carboxylates and phosphonates to gadolinium. Furthermore the different affinities of the two functional groups to Ca2+ permit to obtain free coordination sites at gadolinium. The generation of these coordination sites, which are mandatory for water relaxivity, depends on the structure of the complexes and the (...) Ca2+ concentration. Gadolinium complexes 1 and 2 were synthesized and relaxivity studies were performed. (shrink)

Functionally distinct anatomic subdivisions of the brain can often be only a few millimeters in one or more dimensions. The study of metabolic differences in such structures by means of localized in vivo MR spectroscopy is therefore challenging, if not impossible. In fact, the spatial resolution of chemical shift imaging (CSI) in humans is typically in the range of centimeters. The aim of the present study was to optimize 1H CSI in monkeys and demonstrate the feasibility of high spatial resolutions (...) up to 1.4 ؋ 2 ؋ 1.4 mm3. The obtained spatial resolution permitted the segregation of gray and white matter in the visual cortex based on the concentration of different metabolites and neurotrans- mitters like N-acetylaspartate, glutamate, and creatine. Con- centration ratios of white matter versus gray matter tissue as well as between metabolites matched those reported in the literature from healthy human brain, demonstrating the consis- tency and reliability of the procedure. Magn Reson Med 54: 1541–1546, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: in vivo 1H NMR spectroscopy; spectroscopic imag- ing; chemical shift imaging; spatial resolution; monkey visual cortex.. (shrink)

This article wants to answer three questions: first, why is not only sensibility but visibility important for modern democracy? Second, why is art or aesthetic experience important for both democracy and visibility? And third, how is it possible that aesthetic experience generates effects that conduce to democracy? Answering these questions aims at highlighting an inner connection between democracy, feelings and aesthetics. For a democratic community, on the one hand, cannot exclude feelings from political discourse, but, on the other hand, cannot (...) accept them in their immediate and absolute form. Feelings need ‘transformation’, and the best popular medium for this is aesthetic experience. (shrink)

The text presents the general cultural-historical thesis that one cannot adequately understand philosophy after the Second World War if one does not understand it in interaction with politics and popular culture. These three spheres find themselves in a variable triangular constellation after the Second World War. Methodologically, the text is guided by the fact that this interplay is also organised in a triangular and variable way, namely according to the options of coexistence, conflict and cooperation. Adorno’s philosophy serves as a (...) challenging example. The principle of coexistence, conflict and cooperation also serves as a framework for the second part of the text, which reformulates Adorno’s socio-critical question about the possibility of change as an ontological question. In the constellation with politics, pop music can in this context express in its own way what in philosophy is called the principle of ontological contingency. (shrink)

Following Hegel's remark that art is a “thousand-eyed Argos,” one can formulate the assumption that under contemporary conditions art and surveillance state do not necessarily exclude, but reflect each other. The film minority report as popular art offers a visual self-reflection on this proposition. The central question is whether and to what extend this film performs a legitimization or delegitimization of the normative order.

At first trust plays a fundamental role within the social sphere. Accordingly, trust serves as philosophical term above all in Political, Social, and Moral Philosophy. But it is also central in recent Sociology and Psychology. Referring to these disciplines, the relationship of trust be- tween viewer and hero on the screen can be called ›parasocial‹, as-if-interaction. In contrast, ontological trust is of particular interest for recent philosophy of film. Instead of explaining it, following Deleuze, in terms of a metaphysics of (...) cinema it seems to be more adequate to com- bine the different subject-specific answers in Kant’s concept of play. Aesthetic experiences then are encouraging us in the attitude to act as if there could be trust in the world. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Jacques Rancière lässt sich das Verhältnis von Ästhetik und Politik erneut, wie schon im deutschen Idealismus, als Einheit eines Widerspruchs begreifen. Rancière verknüpft dieses Verhältnis mit einem romantischen Begriff von Politik. Unabhängig davon aber rekonstruiert er es ‚historisch-apriorisch‘ unter dem genannten idealistischen Prinzip. Für das Konzept des Spiels hat das, über Rancière hinausgehend, ambivalente Konsequenzen. Seine Attraktivität wie Kalamität werden bestimmt durch die ‚Regime‘ der Moderne, die sich als ausdifferenzierte Formen des dialektischen Widerspruchsprinzips erweisen.

The Art of a Democracy of Emotions There is a long discussion in philosophy about the relationship between reason, emotions and politics. Today the adequate question is not whether, but to what extent and in which sense emotions normatively have to play a role in democracy. My first thesis is that there are three central answers to that question which can be brought down to the nominators ‘presentation’, ‘compensation’ and ‘transformation’. Within a political context, emotions ask for a contemporary form (...) of presentation, for a tempering or balancing compensation, and for a meaningful transformation. And my second thesis is that this threefold reaction can be achieved either with the aid of, or even in an excellent way by, aesthetic experiences. In detail I focus on a brief analysis of the modern political meaning of impertinence; the current situation concerning the philosophical discussion on democracy, emotions and aesthetics (with an accent on Martha Nussbaum); and finally on my own suggestion, supported by I. Kant and J. Dewey, concerning the concept of aesthetic experience. (shrink)