Geschichtliche Welten und Orientierungen haben als modale Sonderformen der Existenz zwar einen im gewissen Sinne perspektivischen Charakter; die geschichtliche Wirklichkeit, die sie tragt, jedoch nicht. Die Herausforderung der historischen Ontologie ist, durch solche Welten und Orientierungen hindurch den Sinn fur die tragende Wirklichkeit aufrechtzuerhalten. In diesem ersten Band der neuen Reihe 'Beitrage zur historischen Ontologie' wird die Tragweite dieser Konzeption aus philosophischer, philologischer, historischer und kulturwissenschaftlicher Sicht beleuchtet, um so den Bereich der historischen Ontologie fur weitere Studien zu erschliessen. Die (...) Beitrage auf Deutsch, Englisch und Franzosisch gliedern sich in sechs Abteilungen: 1) Historische Ontologie und metaphysische Tradition, 2) Personliche Historizitat, 3) Kausalitat und Wirkungsgeschichte, 4) Inhalt und Ereignis, 5) Diversitat und Dominanz und 6) Hermeneutik und Semiotik. (shrink)

Aus Anlass des 2400. Geburtstages von Aristoteles fand vom 7. bis 9. Januar 2016 an der Universität Heidelberg ein internationales Aristoteles-Symposium statt. Die gemeinsam vom Philosophischen Seminar' der Universität und vom 'Zentrum für historische Ontologie organisierte Veranstaltung eröffnete eine Reihe von insgesamt zehn Tagungen, die unter dem übergreifenden Titel 'Aristotle today - Aristoteles heute - Aristote aujourd'hui' standen und bis zum Januar 2017 in verschiedenen Ländern durchgeführt wurden. Der nun vorliegende Band mit Beiträgen der Auftaktveranstaltung in Heidelberg verfolgt das doppelte (...) Ziel, die Aktualität der aristotelischen Philosophie zu beleuchten und zugleich das aristotelische Werk im Kontext der antiken Philosophie zu situieren. Die Beiträge sind mehrheitlich in deutscher, aber auch englischer und französischer Sprache verfasst. Autoren*innen sind Thomas Buchheim, Roman Dilcher, Andrea Falcon, Dorothea Frede, Jens Halfwassen, Annette Hilt, Otfried Höffe, Anton Koch, Walter Mesch, Maria Protopapas-Marneli, Evanghelos Moutsopoulos, Christina Rossitto und Hans-Peter Schütt"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Belief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly (...) readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience. (shrink)

Arousal is one of the dimensions of core affect and frequently used to describe experienced or observed emotional states. While arousal ratings of facial expressions are collected in many studies it is not well understood how arousal is displayed in or interpreted from facial expressions. In the context of socioemotional disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, this poses the question of a differential use of facial information for arousal perception. In this study, we demonstrate how automated face-tracking tools can be (...) used to extract predictors of arousal judgments. We find moderate to strong correlations among all measures of static information on one hand and all measures of dynamic information on the other. Based on these results, we tested two measures, average distance to the neutral face and average facial movement speed, within and between neurotypical individuals and individuals with autism. Distance to the neutral face was predictive of arousal in both groups. Lower mean arousal ratings were found for the autistic group, but no difference in correlation of the measures and arousal ratings could be found between groups. Results were replicated in an high autistic traits group. The findings suggest a qualitatively similar perception of arousal for individuals with and without autism. No correlations between valence ratings and any of the measures could be found, emphasizing the specificity of our tested measures. Distance and speed predictors share variability and thus speed should not be discarded as a predictor of arousal ratings. (shrink)

A common basis for the project on which this volume is based is that one cannot understand religion and ethics without paying attention to the different contexts in, and by means of which, these cultural elements are expressed. This approach makes both religion and ethics liquid, and allows us to see them as based on specific contingencies rather than as expressions of some essential features. The changing societal and cultural conditions in late modern Western societies pose new challenges for established (...) religion, theology and ethics: Not only does religion itself appear to be in some kind of crisis, but also many of the established ways of understanding and doing religion, theology and ethics appear obsolete, inadequate or dated. Against such a backdrop, the articles in the present volume represent attempts to rethink theology and religion with regard to these late modern conditions. The volume is the result of a joint undertaking of two research groups, one based inAbo, Finland, and the other in Oslo, Norway, which have since 2006 focused on exploring the contextual character of theology in understanding both Christian belief and Christian ethics. The challenge of the idea that Christianity appears in new ways - and in "new" contexts, and of investigating what that means, is pursued in various ways. (shrink)

This article introduces and defends a probabilistic measure of the explanatory power that a particular explanans has over its explanandum. To this end, we propose several intuitive, formal conditions of adequacy for an account of explanatory power. Then, we show that these conditions are uniquely satisfied by one particular probabilistic function. We proceed to strengthen the case for this measure of explanatory power by proving several theorems, all of which show that this measure neatly corresponds to our explanatory intuitions. Finally, (...) we briefly describe some promising future projects inspired by our account. (shrink)

Der Band enthält Beiträge von Juristen, Medizinern und Philosophen aus Australien, Estland, Polen, Rußland, Tschechien, den U.S.A. und Deutschland zu Themen der Ethik und Wissenschaftstheorie der Medizin. Die Mehrzahl der Beiträge sind von Nachwuchswissenschaftlern des College for Advanced Central European Studies an der Europa-Universität Viadrina erarbeitet worden. Sie wurden im Rahmen der Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises für Ethik und Wissenschaftstheorie der Medizin in Ostmitteleuropa neben weiteren Beiträgen, die hier zum Abdruck kommen, zur Diskussion gestellt. Der Arbeitskreis beruht auf einer Kooperationsvereinbarung des (...) Interdisziplinären Zentrums für Ethik der Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) und des Instituts für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin der Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Die Beiträge befassen sich u. a. mit der Gesundheitsreform in Polen, mit ethischen und rechtlichen Problemen bei der künstlichen Befruchtung, der Abtreibung, medizinischen Experimenten an Menschen, der Gentechnik, der Patientenautonomie, Außenseitermethoden in der Medizin, dem Patiententestament, dem Todesbegriff, Drogenkonsum, der Sterbehilfe und der Gentechnik. (shrink)

Der Band enthält Beiträge von Medizinern, Juristen, Philosophen und Naturwissenschaftlern aus Estland, Polen, den Niederlanden und Deutschland zu Themen der Ethik und Wissenschaftstheorie der Medizin. Diese Beiträge sind im Rahmen des «Arbeitskreises für Ethik und Wissenschaftstheorie der Medizin in Ostmitteleuropa» entstanden, der auf einer Kooperationsvereinbarung des Interdisziplinären Zentrums für Ethik der Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) und des Instituts für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin der Universität Halle-Wittenberg beruht. Sie befassen sich u. a. mit der Gesundheitsreform in Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn, (...) mit ethischen Problemen bei Abtreibung, HIV-Infektion, Drogenkonsum, Sterbehilfe und Gentechnik sowie dem Theorie-Praxis-Verhältnis in der Medizin. (shrink)

Recently, Jenny Strauss Clay has put forward the suggestion that the ‘goat island’ on which Odysseus lands before crossing over to the Cyclopes is ‘none other than Hyperia, the former home of the Phaeacians from which they emigrated to Scheria under the leadership of Nausithoos on account of the depredations of the Cyclopes.’ She arrives at this suggestion by combining the former proximity of the Phaeacians and Cyclopes with the fact that the island νδρν χηρεύει , ‘is bereft of men’ (...) . The argument seems debatable. First, the word χηρεύει is a hapax, which Homer may or may not have used in a metaphorical way; our words ‘desert’ and ‘deserted’ are also used of places which have not been inhabited before. Second, nothing in the description of the island suggests previous habitation. Third, the Phaeacians are said to have left Hyperia to escape the plundering of the Cyclopes , but the Cyclopes are also explicitly described as lacking ships and shipbuilders . Consequently, Hyperia will hardly have been an island, nor the ‘goat island’ Hyperia. Modern studies of Odysseus' visit to the Cyclopes often focus on the nature/culture aspects of the episode. The wild goats of ‘goat island’ in line 124 — βóσκει δέ τε μηκδας αγας — have regularly been included in these analyses. For example, C. Calame has well pointed out that ‘ce dernier trait distingue le complexe sémantique que définit l'Île Petite de celui que représente Polyphème et son monde: alors que Polyphème avait avec le monde des hommes le trait commun de l'élevage du petit bétail, la figure sémantique de l'Île Petite inverse exactement les traits caractérisant le monde des hommes.’. (shrink)

We present a formal theory of contextuality for a set of random variables grouped into different subsets corresponding to different, mutually incompatible conditions. Within each context the random variables are jointly distributed, but across different contexts they are stochastically unrelated. The theory of contextuality is based on the analysis of the extent to which some of these random variables can be viewed as preserving their identity across different contexts when one considers all possible joint distributions imposed on the entire set (...) of the random variables. We illustrate the theory on three systems of traditional interest in quantum physics. These are systems of the Klyachko–Can–Binicioglu–Shumovsky-type, Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen–Bell-type, and Suppes–Zanotti–Leggett–Garg-type. Listed in this order, each of them is formally a special case of the previous one. For each of them we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for contextuality while allowing for experimental errors and contextual biases or signaling. Based on the same principles that underly these derivations we also propose a measure for the degree of contextuality and compute it for the three systems in question. (shrink)

The field of psychology, including cognitive science, is vexed by a crisis of confidence. Although the causes and solutions are varied, we focus here on a common logical problem in inference. The default mode of inference is significance testing, which has a free lunch property where researchers need not make detailed assumptions about the alternative to test the null hypothesis. We present the argument that there is no free lunch; that is, valid testing requires that researchers test the null against (...) a well-specified alternative. We show how this requirement follows from the basic tenets of conventional and Bayesian probability. Moreover, we show in both the conventional and Bayesian framework that not specifying the alternative may lead to rejections of the null hypothesis with scant evidence. We review both frequentist and Bayesian approaches to specifying alternatives, and we show how such specifications improve inference. The field of cognitive science will benefit because consideration of reasonable alternatives will undoubtedly sharpen the intellectual underpinnings of research. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 29-31, June 2011.

Crupi and Tentori (2012) propose a condition of adequacy for any Bayesian measure of explanatory power, which they call Explanatory Justice. They criticize a measure recently defended by Schupbach and Sprenger(2011) for failing to satisfy this condition, and they offer a new explanatorily just measure of explanatory power. In this paper, we investigate Explanatory Justice’s merits as a condition of adequacy. We offer three arguments against this condition, thus supporitng the idea that a measure of explanatory power should rather be (...) unjust. Then, in order to ensure that the debate advances beyond a mere battle of intuitions, we offer some new results derived from the empirical study described in (Schupbach, 2011a). All of this strengthens the case for Schupbach and Sprenger’s measure while simultaneously posing new challenges to Crupi and Tentori’s alternative proposal. (shrink)

This paper presents a single case-study of a longitudinal shared reading programme that took place in Dutch kindergartens with first language speakers of 4 to 6 years old. As will be shown, children participate both in a traditional instructional structure and in a participation framework characterised by a more or less free discussion. These structures establish an optimal learning environment both together and in relationship to each other. Our case study demonstrates how the teacher and the pupils participate in these (...) successive frameworks and how this supports the construction of conceptual knowledge. It will be shown that participation during shared reading of picture books at kindergarten is directly linked to interactional learning opportunities. (shrink)

Thetranslation Chern-Simons type three-formcoframe∧torsion on a Riemann-Cartan spacetime is related (by differentiation) to the Nieh-Yan fourform. Following Chandia and Zanelli, two spaces with nontrivial translational Chern-Simons forms are discussed. We then demonstrate, first within the classical Einstein-Cartan-Dirac theory and second in the quantum heat kernel approach to the Dirac operator, how the Nieh-Yan form surfaces in both contexts, in contrast to what has been assumed previously.

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

Appendix 1 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

The power of the application of bioinformatics across multiple publicly available transcriptomic data sets was explored. Using 19 human and mouse circadian transcriptomic data sets, we found that NR1D1 and NR1D2 which encode heme‐responsive nuclear receptors are the most rhythmic transcripts across sleep conditions and tissues suggesting that they are at the core of circadian rhythm generation. Analyzes of human transcriptomic data show that a core set of transcripts related to processes including immune function, glucocorticoid signalling, and lipid metabolism is (...) rhythmically expressed independently of the sleep‐wake cycle. We also identify key transcripts associated with transcription and translation that are disrupted by sleep manipulations, and through network analysis identify putative mechanisms underlying the adverse health outcomes associated with sleep disruption, such as diabetes and cancer. Comparative bioinformatics applied to existing and future data sets will be a powerful tool for the identification of core circadian‐ and sleep‐dependent molecules. (shrink)

"The Treatise on the Origin of Humanity (Yuanren lun) by the Huayan patriarch Zongmi classifies various teachings of Buddhism on a scale of relative profundity, and specifically critiques the weaknesses of the teachings of Confucianism and Daoism, which he regards as inferior to Buddhism. This work formed the basis for some of the arguments in later East Asian history on the relationship of the three teachings." --.

The paper deals with the work Philosophia Sacra: Or The Principles of Natural Philosophy. Extracted from Divine Revelation, published in 1753 by the relatively unknown English clergyman Samuel Pike (circa 1717 – 1773). This work falls within the tradition of the so-called Mosaic physics, a specific Early Modern endeavor to build natural philosophy based on a literal reading of the Holy Scriptures, particularly the first chapters of the book of Genesis attributed to Moses – hence the term “Mosaic.” For this (...) reason, at the beginning of the paper, the author seeks to introduce the fundamental ideas of this movement as expressed by its key proponents, namely L. Daneau, O. Casmann, and K. Aslakssøn. In the subsequent analysis of Pike’s natural-philosophical conception, the author highlights its specific features, including obvious Newtonian influences on the one hand (Pike’s work was written about a century and a half later than the texts of the ‘founding fathers’ of Mosaic physics and must have been influenced by the contemporary discourse). On the other hand, Pike’s work exhibits strong, albeit implicit, similarities with the ideas of J. A. Comenius, another thinker associated with Early Modern Mosaic physics (and often considered its most significant representative, which are explored in the concluding part of the text. It can be said that Pike’s work appears as a remarkable and highly original culmination of the Mosaic natural philosophy tradition, combining a range of seemingly unexpected, if not outright contradictory, motifs. (shrink)

Cook and Reckhow [5] pointed out that $\mathcal {N}\mathcal {P} \neq co\mathcal {N}\mathcal {P}$ iff there is no propositional proof system that admits polynomial size proofs of all tautologies. The theory of proof complexity generators aims at constructing sets of tautologies hard for strong and possibly for all proof systems. We focus on a conjecture from [16] in foundations of the theory that there is a proof complexity generator hard for all proof systems. This can be equivalently formulated (for p-time (...) generators) without a reference to proof complexity notions as follows:•There exists a p-time function g stretching each input by one bit such that its range $rng(g)$ intersects all infinite $\mathcal {N}\mathcal {P}$ sets.We consider several facets of this conjecture, including its links to bounded arithmetic (witnessing and independence results), to time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity, to feasible disjunction property of propositional proof systems and to complexity of proof search. We argue that a specific gadget generator from [18] is a good candidate for g. We define a new hardness property of generators, the $\bigvee $ -hardness, and show that one specific gadget generator is the $\bigvee $ -hardest (w.r.t. any sufficiently strong proof system). We define the class of feasibly infinite $\mathcal {N}\mathcal {P}$ sets and show, assuming a hypothesis from circuit complexity, that the conjecture holds for all feasibly infinite $\mathcal {N}\mathcal {P}$ sets. (shrink)

Cet article fait le point sur la grande diversité de la manière dont la notion de populaire est perçue dans les «Cultural Studies». Grosso modo, les différences qui se manifestent tiennent d'abord au fait que les études culturelles ne constituent pas une discipline homogène: le poids des traditions nationales pèse en effet très fortement sur la manière dont le populaire est conçu et jugé en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis . Elles sont liées ensuite au fait que le populaire en soi (...) a fait l'objet d'évaluations très contrastées au cours du développement des études culturelles, qui se sont détachées progressivement de leur défense inconditionnelle de la culture ouvrière. L'émergence du populisme et ses rapports avec le néo-libéralisme s'avèrent décisifs dans les nouvelles évolutions du populaire.This article deals with the various ways in which the concept of "popular" has been dealt with in Cultural Studies. Roughly speaking, the dramatic variety of interpretations has to do first of all with the fact that Cultural Studies is not a homogeneous discipline: national traditions, for instance, continue to play a very important role, so that British Cultural Studies does not analyze the popular the same way as American Cultural Studies . Second, the differences within the field are explained by the fact that the interpretation of the popular has shifted dramatically during the decades in which Cultural Studies developed as an autonomous disciplinary field, progressively ceasing to be the sole study of working class culture. The emergence of populism and its relationships with neo-liberalism play a decisive role in this shifting appreciation. (shrink)

LK is a natural modification of Gentzen sequent calculus for propositional logic with connectives ¬ and $\bigwedge, \bigvee$. Then for every d ≥ 0 and n ≥ 2, there is a set Td n of depth d sequents of total size O which are refutable in LK by depth d + 1 proof of size exp) but such that every depth d refutation must have the size at least exp). The sets Td n express a weaker form of the pigeonhole (...) principle. (shrink)