To Shoot Photographs of Tutankhamun – The Making of an Exhibition Star. In the 1970s, the exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun” toured the world. It still ranks today amongst the most popular museum exhibitions of all time. This article explores photography used in the catalogue of this blockbuster exhibition in the USA and West Germany; it describes how the pictures of Tutankhamun's objects, which were made by a team from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, introduced a significantly new and different (...) approach to catalogue photography. Until the 1960s, Ancient Egyptian artefacts had been documented by means of bare frontal or profile images in black and white; their close‐grained, accurately shaded quality allowed the objects to be investigated independently of the viewer's location. The high gloss colour images of the 1970s, however, instead sought to lend the objects something a photograph could not normally achieve: a palpable presence. They captured sensational traces, creating star items that one “just had to see for oneself”. In other words, the article presents how catalogue photos were able to participate in the creation of star objects and therefore also contributed to the exhibition's enormous success. The historical background behind the rise of this sensational photography in the 1960s and 1970s will be discussed and framed theoretically. In showing how photography played an important role in transforming the objects taken from Tutankhamen's tomb, it argues that mobilising museum objects through media can induce (semiotic and material) transformations of objects. (shrink)

This introduction outlines the threefold contribution that this Focus section on research film offers. First, it introduces the vast collection of films from the former Institute for Scientific Film (Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film [IWF]), arguably the most ambitious endeavor ever undertaken to manage the distribution, production, and archiving of research films. At the same time, the institute’s questionable roots in the National Socialist education system and in war research are addressed. Second, the introduction points out that the Focus section (...) enters largely uncharted terrain in the history of research films. Third, it argues that a focus on the multiple reuses of research films, as this section attempts, not only suits the medium specificity of film but helps us to map the aesthetic, intermedial, and cultural-political practices of disseminating knowledge. In this vein, the organizers asked established scholars working on film and science to share with us a short story of a reused research film. Scott Curtis, Vinzenz Hediger, Anja Laukötter, and Hanna Rose Shell responded. Their contributions can be found in the supplementary materials to the online edition. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag erkundet und beschreibt das anthropologische Konzept einer sensorisch und besonders klanglich bestimmten Persona. Hintergrund bilden hierbei die künstlerischwissenschaflichen Forschungsmethoden des Soundwalks nach Hildegard Westerkamp, des Sensobiographic Walking oder Sensory Memory Walks nach Helmi Järviluoma sowie Jean-Luc Nancys Körperbegriff und Mario Perniolas Entwurf einer sensorisch verankerten Ideologie unter dem Begriff der Sensologie. Am Ende des Beitrags steht der Vorschlag einer Anthropologie, die sich dezidiert anti-normalistisch und nicht-heteronormativ versteht: eine Anthropologie nicht des Posthumanen, das allzu oft reale Diversität, soziale (...) und materiale Differenzen sowie die Partikularitäten und Idiosynkrasien ignoriert und verdrängt; stattdessen argumentiert dieser Beitrag für eine Anthropologie des Inhumanen, der sogenannten „humanoid aliens“. Diese Anthropologie versteht sich dann als eine Xenologie, als eine Erforschung des Fremden. (shrink)

Predictivists use the no miracle argument to argue that “novel” predictions are decisive evidence for theories, while mere accommodation of “old” data cannot confirm to a significant degree. But deductivists claim that since confirmation is a logical theory-data relationship, predicted data cannot confirm more than merely deduced data, and cite historical cases in which known data confirmed theories quite strongly. On the other hand, the advantage of prediction over accommodation is needed by scientific realists to resist Laudan’s criticisms of the (...) no miracle argument. So, if the deductivists are right, the most powerful argument for realism collapses. There seems to be an inescapable contradiction between these prima facie plausible arguments of predictivists and deductivists; but this puzzle can be solved by understanding what exactly counts as novelty, if novel predictions must support the no miracle argument, i.e., if they must be explainable only by the truth of theories. Taking my cues from the use-novelty tradition, I argue that (1) the predicted data must not be used essentially in building the theory or choosing the auxiliary assumptions. This is possible if the theory and its auxiliary assumptions are plausible independently of the predicted data, and I analyze the consequences of this requirement in terms of best explanation of diverse bodies of data. Moreover, the predicted data must be (2) a priori improbable, and (3) heterogeneous to the essentially used data. My proposed notion of novelty, therefore, is not historical, but functional. Hence, deductivists are right that confirmation is independent of time and of historical contingencies such as if the theorist knew a datum, used it, or intended to accommodate it. Predictivists, however, are right that not all consequences confirm equally, and confirmation is not purely a logical theory-data relation, as it crucially involves background epistemic conditions and the notion of best explanation. Conditions (1)–(3) make the difference between prediction and accommodation, and account for the confirming power of theoretical virtues such as non ad-hocness, non-fudging, non-overfitting, independence and consilience. I thus show that functional novelty (a) avoids the deductivist objections to predictivism, (b) is a gradual notion, in accordance with the common intuition that confirmation comes in degrees, and (c) supports the no miracle argument, so vindicating scientific realism. (shrink)

There are two possible realist defense strategies against the pessimistic meta-induction and Laudan’s meta-modus tollens: the selective strategy, claiming that discarded theories are partially true, and the discontinuity strategy, denying that pessimism about past theories can be extended to current ones. A radical version of discontinuity realism is proposed by Gerald Doppelt: rather than discriminating between true and false components within theories, he holds that superseded theories cannot be shown to be even partially true, while present best theories are demonstrably (...) completely true. I argue that this position, running counter both the cumulativity of science and fallibilism, is untenable; it cannot account for the success of past theories, nor for the failures of current theories, and rather than shutting the door to the pessimistic historical objections it opens it wide. The best strategy, instead, joins the selective idea there was both some truth and some falsity in discarded theories, like in current ones, with the moderate discontinuity idea that the truth rate in present best theories is much greater than in past ones. (shrink)

Der Begriff »Race«, aus den universitären Kulturwissenschaften stammend, will unbewusste Rassifizierungsprozesse beschreiben, die wir unweigerlich vornähmen und denen wir zugleich ausgesetzt seien. Der vorliegende Beitrag will diesen Begriff für Psychoanalyse und Psychotherapie fruchtbar machen. Zwei Fallvignetten illustrieren, welche Fallstricke für Psychoanalytiker und Patienten bereit lägen, wenn »Race« in Übertragung und Gegenübertragung verleugnet werden müsse. Tauchen negativ konnotierte »racial« Phantasien auf, könne die Angst, rassistisch zu denken oder zu agieren, zum Stillstand und sogar Scheitern einer Behandlung führen. Da rassifizierte Projektionen nach (...) Ansicht der Autorin unvermeidbar seien, sieht sie die Entstehung des Gefühls einer »racial Melancholia« als Möglichkeit, dem drohenden Stillstand entgegenzuwirken. (shrink)

Criticisms à la Laudan can block the “no miracles” argument for the (approximate) truth of whole theories. Realists have thus retrenched, arguing that at least the individual claims deployed in the derivation of novel predictions should be considered (approximately) true. But for Lyons (2002) there are historical counterexamples even to this weaker “deployment” realism: he lists a number of novel predictions supposedly derived from (radically) false claims. But if so, those successes would seem unexplainable, even by Lyons’ “modest surrealism” or (...) other surrogates to realism. In fact, I argue, some of those predictions were an easy guess, or independently probable in the light of available evidence; hence, they are no counterexamples to deployment realism, for the no miracles argument wouldn’t apply to them. In other instances, pace Lyon, the prediction was actually false, and could be reinterpreted as true only by interpreting as true also the claim from which it was derived; or again, a false claim was employed in the derivation of a true prediction, but inessentially, the essential role being played by a weaker true claim. But as soon as the paradoxical air of such historical cases is explained away in any of these manners, they cease to represent counterexamples to deployment realism. If, as I suggest, all of them can be dealt with by these strategies, a theoretical claim can still be assumed to be true if it is crucial in deriving an improbable novel prediction. (shrink)

Entrevista concedida por Antonio Negri a Homero Santiago e Mario Marino por ocasião do lançamento da segunda edição da tradução brasileira de A anomalia selvagem: poder e potência em Espinosa.

El propósito de este artículo consiste en mostrar el carácter social del contractualismo de Fichte. Para realizar ese propósito se comienza examinando la conexión entre trabajo y ciudadanía como una condición de la legitimidad política. Luego se presenta esa conexión en el marco del siempre posible desarrollo histórico de la naturaleza humana. Por último, se indican las razones de la recepción de Fichte como un precursor del socialismo germánico.

Gerald Doppelt claims that Deployment Realism cannot withstand the antirealist objections based on the “pessimistic meta-induction” and Laudan’s historical counterexamples. Moreover it is incomplete, as it purports to explain the predictive success of theories, but overlooks the necessity to explain also their explanatory success. Accordingly, he proposes a new version of realism, presented as the best explanation of both predictive and explanatory success, and committed only to the truth of best current theories, not of the discarded ones. Elsewhere I criticized (...) his new brand of realism. Here instead I argue that Doppelt has not shown that Deployment Realism cannot solve the problems raised by the history of science, explaining explanatory success does not add much to explaining novel predictive success, and Doppelt is right that truth is not a sufficient explanans, but for different reasons, and this does not refute Deployment Realism, but helps to detail it better. In a more explicit formulation, the realist IBE concludes not only to the truth of theories, but also to the reliability of scientists and scientific method, the order and simplicity of nature, and the approximate truth of background theories. (shrink)

Many formulations of scientific realism (SR) include some commitment to metaphysical realism (MR). On the other hand, authors like Schlick, Carnap and Putnam held forms of scientific realism coupled with metaphysical antirealism (and this has analogies in Kant). So we might ask: do scientific realists really need MR? or is MR already implied by SR, so that SR is actually incompatible with metaphysical antirealism? And if MR must really be added to SR, why is that so? And which additional arguments (...) scientific realists need to support it? After reviewing and classifying a number of different kinds of realisms, metaphysical and not, I answer that SR and MR are logically independent of each other, so that there is no logical inconsistency in holding SR while rejecting MR. However, I argue that the “no miracle” argument (NMA) not only is the “ultimate” argument for SR, but by the same token it also supports MR. Therefore one cannot effectively defend SR without also subscribing to MR, but this can be done at no additional argumentative cost. I show this by discussing not only the standard version of the NMA, but also three more versions which are not usually considered as such in the literature. (shrink)

The integration of standardized biomedical terminologies into a single, unified knowledge representation system has formed a key area of applied informatics research in recent years. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is the most advanced and most prominent effort in this direction, bringing together within its Metathesaurus a large number of distinct source-terminologies. The UMLS Semantic Network, which is designed to support the integration of these source-terminologies, has proved to be a highly successful combination of formal coherence and broad scope. (...) We argue here, however, that its organization manifests certain structural problems, and we describe revisions which we believe are needed if the network is to be maximally successful in realizing its goals of supporting terminology integration. (shrink)

Originally published as Scientific Research, this pair of volumes constitutes a fundamental treatise on the strategy of science. Mario Bunge, one of the major figures of the century in the development of a scientific epistemology, describes and analyzes scientific philosophy, as well as discloses its philosophical presuppositions. This work may be used as a map to identify the various stages in the road to scientific knowledge. Philosophy of Science is divided into two volumes, each with two parts. Part 1 (...) offers a preview of the scheme of science and the logical and semantical took that will be used throughout the work. The account of scientific research begins with part 2, where Bunge discusses formulating the problem to be solved, hypothesis, scientific law, and theory. The second volume opens with part 3, which deals with the application of theories to explanation, prediction, and action. This section is graced by an outstanding discussion of the philosophy of technology. Part 4 begins with measurement and experiment. It then examines risks in jumping to conclusions from data to hypotheses as well as the converse procedure. Bunge begins this mammoth work with a section entitled "How to Use This Book." He writes that it is intended for both independent reading and reference as well as for use in courses on scientific method and the philosophy of science. It suits a variety of purposes from introductory to advanced levels. Philosophy of Science is a versatile, informative, and useful text that will benefit professors, researchers, and students in a variety of disciplines, ranging from the behavioral and biological sciences to the physical sciences. (shrink)

The first electron back-scattered diffraction Kikuchi patterns and grain orientation maps were captured for pure n -phase Ce. The sample preparation technique used for electron back-scattered diffraction orientation mapping of this surface-reactive metal included ion sputtering the surface using a scanning Auger microprobe followed by vacuum transfer of the sample from the scanning Auger microprobe to the scanning electron microscope. The effect of ion sputtering on the microstructure as well as preliminary electron back-scattered diffraction microstructural characterization is presented. Based on (...) the sputtering data, the room-temperature diffusivity of O in n -Ce was estimated. (shrink)

In this paper, it is presented a historical account of the formulation of the quantum relativistic wave equation of an electron – the Dirac equation, issues regarding its interpretation that arose from the very beginning, and the later formulation of this equation in relation to a quantized electron-positron field, which implies a new interpretation. The way in which solutions obtained under each interpretation of the equation relate to one another is also considered for the simple case of hydrogen-like problems.

This paper assesses the novelty of NSMs - or better, of any social and political movement in contemporary Western societies - in the light of their capacity to develop systems of relationships which cut across established social and political cleavages. It illustrates first the relational bases of Rokkan's concept of cleavage, and its contribution to the understanding of social movements; it then shows how Simmel's concept of the intersection of social circles and his distinction between concentric and crosscutting circles may (...) be fruitfully applied to the analysis of political cleavages and their changing forms. In the conclusions, the elements of an approach to the study of the newness of social movements, based on the integration of Rokkan's and Simmel's principles, are introduced. (shrink)

On the basis of Levin’s claim that truth is not a scientific explanatory factor, Michel Ghins argues that the “no miracle” argument (NMA) is not scientific, therefore scientific realism is not a scientific hypothesis, and naturalism is wrong. I argue that there are genuine senses of ‘scientific’ and ‘explanation’ in which truth can yield scientific explanations. Hence, the NMA can be considered scientific in the sense that it hinges on a scientific explanation, it follows a typically scientific inferential pattern (IBE), (...) and it is based on an empirical fact (the success of science). Scientific realism, in turn, is scientific in the sense that it is supported both by a meta-level scientific argument (the NMA), and by first level scientific arguments through semantic ascent and generalization. However, both the NMA and scientific realism are not purely scientific, since they go beyond properly scientific concerns, and require additional philosophical reasoning. In turn, naturalism is correct in the sense that philosophy is continuous with science, partly based on it, and potentially equally well warranted. Beside denying the scientific nature of the NMA, Ghins raises some objections to its cogency , to which I reply in the final section. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag untersucht, was es heißt, verwundet zu leben. Was auf den ersten Blick als eine mehr als gewöhnliche und kaum spektakuläre Frage erscheinen mag, wird nach Untersuchung der dominanten Phantasmen der Unverletzlichkeit als eine Grundfrage der historischen Anthropologie erkennbar: Wie entsteht und wandelt sich der tägliche Umgang mit eigener Verletzlichkeit und Verwundung im Menschenbild? Welche Wunden des Gewöhnlichen werden in den meisten Lebens- und Arbeitsumgebungen im Allgemeinen ignoriert und ausgeblendet? Worin bestehen die Idiosynkrasien eines empfindsamen Leibes, eines sensorisches Corpus? (...) Und in welchem Zusammenhang stehen die Begehren eines bestimmten Menschen zu seinen Wunden? Eine Körperanthropologie der Wunden bezieht die Verletzungen eines Menschen im Laufe seines Lebens als integraler Teil eines Menschenbildes mit ein. (shrink)

The contribution takes a closer look at the relations between Hannah Arendt and Paul Tillich, and focuses on the controversy surrounding Emil Ludwig's ideas on a possible ‘re-education’ of postwar Germany which was published mainly in the New York journal Aufbau of 1942. The letters and other documents used from 1942 to 1965 also shed light on the personal life and work of those embroiled in this dispute, as well as their involvement in the public discussions of their day.