Explanation and prediction play an important role in medical decision making, particularly for diagnostic and treatment decisions. For the most part, explanations as well as predictions are derived from causal knowledge and have to be made under uncertainty. In cognitive psychology, these phenomena have been approached from two directions. On the one hand, there is research on knowledge representation and inferential reasoning (Holland et al. 1986; Anderson 1990). On the other hand, there is research on heuristics and biases in judgments (...) under uncertainty (Kahneman et al. 1982; Rehm & Gadenne 1990). However, no exact models have yet been developed to describe the process that leads from a given knowledge base to judgments of probabilities, i.e., from causal knowledge about the world to subjective expressions of the uncertainty associated with explanations or predictions. (shrink)

The superlative quantifiers, at least and at most, are commonly assumed to have the same truth-conditions as the comparative quantifiers more than and fewer than. However, as Geurts & Nouwen have demonstrated, this is wrong, and several theories have been proposed to account for them. In this paper we propose that superlative quantifiers are illocutionary operators; specifically, they modify meta-speech acts.Meta speech-acts are operators that do not express a speech act, but a willingness to make or refrain from making a (...) certain speech act. The classic example is speech act denegation, e.g. I don't promise to come, where the speaker is explicitly refraining from performing the speech act of promising What denegations do is to delimit the future development of conversation, that is, they delimit future admissible speech acts. Hence we call them meta-speech acts. They are not moves in a game, but rather commitments to behave in certain ways in the future. We formalize the notion of meta speech acts as commitment development spaces, which are rooted graphs: The root of the graph describes the commitment development up to the current point in conversation; the continuations from the root describe the admissible future directions.We define and formalize the meta-speech act GRANT, which indicates that the speaker, while not necessarily subscribing to a proposition, refrains from asserting its negation. We propose that superlative quantifiers are quantifiers over GRANTs. Thus, Mary petted at least three rabbits means that the minimal number n such that the speaker GRANTs that Mary petted n rabbits is n = 3. In other words, the speaker denies that Mary petted two, one, or no rabbits, but GRANTs that she petted more.We formalize this interpretation of superlative quantifiers in terms of commitment development spaces, and show how the truth conditions that are derived from it are partly entailed and partly conversationally implicated. We demonstrates how the theory accounts for a wide variety of phenomena regarding the interpretation of superlative quantifiers, their distribution, and the contexts in which they can be embedded. (shrink)

Sind Wissenschaften und Universitäten (noch) gesellschaftlich und politisch relevant? Die Beiträge dieses Bandes setzen sich mit den politischen Voraussetzungen und Implikationen der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit auseinander und plädieren für die Wahrnehmung gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung durch Wissenschaft und Universität.

Das "Kleine Worterbuch der marxistisch-Ieninistischen Philoso­ phie", das 1966 in erster Auflage, 1974 in zweiter und 1975 in dritter Auflage erschienen ist, wird nun in einer vierten, iiberarbei­ teten und erweiterten Auflage herausgegeben. Die Tatsache, dal3 die hohe Auflage der zweiten und dritten Ausgabe vergriffen ist und die Nachfrage unvermindert anhalt, zeigt, da/3 dieses Nach­ schlagewerk sich inzwischen einen festen Platz im geistigen Leben erobert hat. Das wachsende Interesse breiter Kreise an der marxi­ stisch-Ieninistischen Philosophie ist als ein Ausdruck des (...) geistigen Reifeprozesses un serer Gesellschaft objektiv bedingt: Die weitere Gestaltung der entwickelten sozialistischen Gesellschaft in der DDR entsprechend dem Programm der SED und den Beschliissen des IX. Parteitages der SED, die sich vertiefende Zusammenarbeit der sozialistischen Gemeinschaft und auch der sich verscharfende ideo­ logische Kampf zwischen Sozialismus und Imperialismus erfordern einen hoheren Grad an theoretischen Kenntnissen, ideologischer Klarheit und politischer Bewul3theit. Immer mehr Menschen machen sich aus diesen Griinden in den verschiedensten Studienformen mit dem Marxismus-Leninismus und seinen philosophischen Grund­ lagen vertraut, um sich die Weltanschauung des Sozialismus anzu­ eignen, ihre Personlichkeit geistig zu bereichern und die vor ihnen stehenden Aufgaben mit grol3erer Sachkenntnis zu meistern. Mit der vorliegenden vierten, iiberarbeiteten und erweiterten Auf­ lage des,. Kleinen Worterbuchs der marxistisch-Ieninistischen Philo­ sophie" versuchen Autoren und Verlag, diesem wichtigen geseIl­ schaftlichen Bediirfnis noch besser zu entsprechen. (shrink)

1. Aufklärung, Gesellschaft, Kritik -- 2. Aufklärung, Geschichte, Revolution.

Kant's philosophy, the peak, the culminating point of the European bourgeois Enlightenment, also represents the starting point of German classic bourgeois philosophy, leading through Fichte and Schelling to Hegel and Feuerbach. With the last-named, as we know, classic German philosophy, one of the theoretical sources of Marxism, "terminates.".

About a methodically ordered reconstruction of the theory of special relativity. One of the main results of the theory of special relativity is that our basic concepts concerning space and time must be revised, because there is new experimental evidence. But on the other hand it was meant to move in a circular procedure, if the usual methods of measuring distances and temporal durations are refused on the ground of experimental results that are based on even these measuring methods. Thus (...) a reconstruction of the theory of special relativity was demanded. It consists of a finite number of steps and basicly one may presuppose that each step may at best include the results of undertaken steps. This reconstruction will be discussed in this article. It begins with the socalled proto-physics (Protophysik) that reflects the production of measuring rods and clocks without recurring on the existence of other clocks or measuring rods. Then Newtonian mechanics, electrodynamics, the refinement of classical mechanics, the formalism of transforming according to the Lorentz Group and the construction of moved systems of reference are brought into a methodically correct order. (shrink)