ABSTRACTOne prestudy based on a corpus analysis and four experiments in which participants had to invent novel names for persons or objects investigated how the valence of a face or an object affects the phonological characteristics of the respective novel name. Based on the articulatory feedback hypothesis, we predicted that /i:/ is included more frequently in fictional names for faces or objects with a positive valence than for those with a negative valence. For /o:/, the pattern should reverse. An analysis (...) of the Berlin Affective Word List – Reloaded yielded a higher number of occurrences of /o:/ in German words with negative valence than in words with positive valence; with /i:/ the situation is less clear. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants named persons showing a positive or a negative facial expression. Names for smiling persons included more /i:/s and fewer /o:/s than names for persons with a negative facial expression. In Experiments 3 and 4, participant... (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Currently, two frameworks of causal reasoning compete: Whereas dependency theories focus on dependencies between causes and effects, dispositional theories model causation as an interaction between agents and patients endowed with intrinsic dispositions. One important finding providing a bridge between these two frameworks is that failures of causes to generate their effects tend to be differentially attributed to agents and patients regardless of their location on either the cause or the effect side. To model different types of error attribution, we augmented (...) a causal Bayes net model with separate error sources for causes and effects. In several experiments, we tested this new model using the size of Markov violations as the empirical indicator of differential assumptions about the sources of error. As predicted by the model, the size of Markov violations was influenced by the location of the agents and was moderated by the causal structure and the type of causal variables. (shrink)

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Inductive Metaphysics combines an anti-aprioristic emphasis on an empirical and scientific basis for metaphysics with an insistence on a specifically philosophical abductive theory-building. Since the latter specifically philosophical work is not empirical itself, it may in a liberal sense be called apriori. This paper highlights this apriori dimension within IM by a case study on Structuralism, the view that fundamental reality consists of a network of relations, which a number of philosophers consider to be suggested by modern physics. Focussing on (...) Dasgupta’s algebraic Generalism, the author argues that Structuralism suffers from a severe entailment problem, because the relations-spanning apparatus must stand for metaphysically fundamental forms. Schaffer’s contention that there are no entailment problems is rejected. Advocates of IM are well advised to take seriously their own insistence on metaphysical abduction and not to one-sidedly emphasise the empirical input: the elaboration of exact metaphysical theories and the apriori evaluation of their inherent tenability is a constituent of IM no less important than the consideration of scientific input. More traditional ways of metaphysical reasoning inevitably survive as an essential dimension within IM. (shrink)

Strong dispositional monism, the position that all fundamental physical properties consist in dispositional relations to other properties, is naturally construed as property structuralism. J. Lowe’s circularity/regress objection constitutes a serious challenge to SDM that questions the possibility of a purely relational determination of all property essences. The supervenience thesis of A. Bird’s graph-theoretic asymmetry reply to CRO can be rigorously proved. Yet the reply fails metaphysically, because it reveals neither a metaphysical determination of identities on a purely relational basis nor (...) a determination specifically of identities in the sense of essences. Asymmetry is thus not by itself sufficient for a solution to CRO. But it cannot even help to answer CRO when a model for the determination of essences is taken as a basis. Nor is asymmetry necessary for a reply, as property structures may well be symmetric. A metaphysics of dispositional properties as grounded in a purely relational structure faces serious obstacles, and the properties would not be fundamental. Since essence and grounding are notions of metaphysical priority, there can be no essentially dispositional metaphysically fundamental properties, and the prospects of a “coherentist” metaphysics of basic properties are dim. A modal retreat that refrains from a post-modal conception of essence and simply claims that fundamental properties play dispositional roles by metaphysical necessity is unsatisfactory. (shrink)

The mechanics of claims focusses predominantly on the claim to life. The claim to life is rooted in the autonomy principle, just like other specific claims. Still, the mechanics of claims does not have a systematic place for the fundamental negation of the status as an autonomous being as such. It is, however, the proctiction of the status as such, which is at the center of the protection of human dignity in German constitutional law. Looked at it from this perspective, (...) the protection of human dignity as the protection of the status of an autonomous human being, appears to be a blind spot of the mechanics of claims. The comment attempts to show, how this blindspot leads to inconsistencies in the mechanics of claims, and how they might be ameliorated if human dignity is considered as an absolute right independent of the claims to life. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes bruteness from fundamentality by developing a theory of stochastic grounding that makes room for non-fundamental bruteness. Stochastic grounding relations, which only underwrite incomplete explanations, arise when the fundamental level underdetermines derivative levels. The framework is applied to fission cases, showing how one can break symmetries and mitigate bruteness whilst avoiding arbitrariness and hypersensitivity.

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the problem of opaque sweetening and argues that one should use stochastic dominance in comparing lotteries even when dealing with incomplete orderings that allow for non-comparable outcomes.

We show that L absoluteness for semi-proper forcings is equiconsistent with the existence of a remarkable cardinal, and hence by [6] with L absoluteness for proper forcings. By [7], L absoluteness for stationary set preserving forcings gives an inner model with a strong cardinal. By [3], the Bounded Semi-Proper Forcing Axiom is equiconsistent with the Bounded Proper Forcing Axiom , which in turn is equiconsistent with a reflecting cardinal. We show that Bounded Martin's Maximum is much stronger than BSPFA in (...) that if BMM holds, then for every X ∈ V , X# exists. (shrink)

Resemblance Nominalism About Perfect Naturalness is the view that perfect naturalness of classes is best defined by a conceptual primitive of resemblance between particulars. The adequacy of RNPN is defended by outlining nominalism as the strictly anti-constitutive view that the particulars’ being the fundamental ways they are is not constituted by anything further, supplying a doubly plural contrastive and graded resemblance predicate that allows for a definition of perfect naturalness on an actualist basis, and proving a representation and a uniqueness (...) theorem on the basis of a formal constraint on resemblance called “the Principle”, thereby revealing that bodies of nominalist resemblance facts are guaranteed to behave as if they were grounded in patterns of universals distributed over particulars. (shrink)

Recently, metaphysical coherentism has been propounded as an alternative to metaphysical foundationalism and infinitism. The view replaces the picture of reality as a hierarchy of levels with that of a network of objects or facts standing in symmetric or, more generally, cyclic relations of metaphysical dependence. This paper defends the orthodox picture of a well-founded hierarchy against the claimed superiority of coherentism. First, it will be argued that alleged theoretical advantages of coherentism do not hold up to scrutiny. Secondly, examples (...) that are claimed to support coherentism are either misdescribed as involving metaphysical interdependence, or foundationalist treatments fare at least as good and often better than coherentist interpretations. Thirdly, a similar diagnosis applies to a recently proposed coherentist interpretation of quantum entanglement. The more general diagnosis is that claims of metaphysical dependence are convincing only if there is a detailed account of how one item metaphysically explains another. While foundationalists can resort to various specific explanatory relations, coherentism seems to be incapable of providing detailed explanations. (shrink)

Minimalism is the view that our concept of truth is constituted by our disposition to accept instances of the truth schema ‘The proposition that p is true if and only if p’. The generalisation problem is the challenge to account for universal generalisations concerning logical truths such as ‘Every proposition of the form 〈if p, then p〉 is true’. This paper argues that such generalisations can be deduced using a single example of the logical truth in question and a single (...) corresponding instance of the truth schema, employing the logical method of reasoning with arbitrary instances of universal and existential generalisations. Suggesting an inferentialist construal of Minimalism, the paper introduces conditional and general acceptance dispositions, distinguishes inferential meaning constitution from implicit definition, highlights the inferential nature of acceptance of instances of the truth schema, sketches a suitable account of structured propositions, compares higher-order with first-order means of quantification, and argues that the conception of truth Minimalism attributes to ordinary speakers is essentially inferential. It finally applies the deductive strategy to generalisations concerning logical validity as well as more complex logical truths. (shrink)

It is shown in ZF that if $\delta < \delta^+ < \Omega$ are such that $\delta$ and $\delta^+$ are either both weakly compact or singular cardinals and $\Omega$ is large enough for putting the core model apparatus into action then there is an inner model with a Woodin cardinal.

With catastrophic events of «nature» like global warming, arguments emerge that insinuate an equivalence of vulnerability, responsibility or being affected by these catastrophes. Such an alleged equivalence when facing climate catastrophe is already visible, for example, in the notion of the «Anthropocene» itself, which obscures both causes and various vulnerabilities in a homogenized as well as universalized concept of humanity (anthropos). Taking such narratives as a starting point, the paper explores questions about the connection between catastrophe, temporality, and history, following (...) mainly Walter Benjamin, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Jean-Luc Nancy with the goal to provide (1) a critique of the concept «Anthropocene» on the basis of nonequivalence while retaining its key features to still grasp the catastrophic present, (2) an analysis of anthropocenic time and the chronical structure of catastrophe, (3) philosophical considerations on the intersection of catastrophe and history. (shrink)

Working with Old High German and Old Saxon texts has become rare in German language and literature studies. Nowadays, the brief introductions to historical linguistics and philology do not suffice to enable students to explore the oldest German texts in significant depth. A new tool could at least help move closer to this dept of textual exploration: an on-line publication of all Old High German and Old Saxon texts with a morphological word-by-word annotation. The data has been collected by the (...) research project ‘Old German Reference Corpus’ (‘Referenzkorpus Altdeutsch’ / ReA) and can already be used for complex database queries. Within the framework of the ‘eHumanities Centre for Historical Lexicography’ (eHumanities-Zentrum für Historische Lexikographie / ZHistLex), it has been converted into a clearly arranged format, focusing on the information needed for comprehending the texts: the ‘Lesekorpus Altdeutsch’ (LeA). This tool can of course not replace the work with text editions, translations and commentaries, but will help pave the way from the first insight into the language to a profound understanding. Additionally, a supplemental both-way linking between every word token and the corresponding entry in the on-line dictionaries of historical German is being prepared. (shrink)

In this paper, the results of an empirical analysis of a set of 416 descriptive case studies published by corporate members of the UN Global Compact are presented. Although these cases cannot be viewed as representative of the Compact itself or of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and development in general, they can illustrate which kinds of projects are deemed appropriate as best practice examples among Compact members, and therefore indicate the direction, in which predominantly voluntary and business‐led CSR might at (...) best be evolving. To help contextualize the analysis, the paper starts with a brief overview of recent academic work on the strengths and limitations of CSR in the light of international development, followed by the empirical analysis of Compact case studies. The results raise doubts regarding the general suitability of contemporary CSR initiatives to tackle some of the most pressing developmental challenges. Instead, only certain topics are commonly addressed, while a number of issues such as anti‐corruption measures or labour rights are underrepresented in the case study sample. Regarding the target regions of the best practice examples, the majority is reported on activities based in OECD countries and a small number of emerging markets such as South Africa, India or China, while neglecting other regions such as sub‐Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa). From a European Union policy perspective, these results indicate that there is a role to play for the state in order to create a better fit between CSR agendas and the actual developmental needs in the South. (shrink)

In this paper, the results of an empirical analysis of a set of 416 descriptive case studies published by corporate members of the UN Global Compact are presented. Although these cases cannot be viewed as representative of the Compact itself or of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and development in general, they can illustrate which kinds of projects are deemed appropriate as best practice examples among Compact members, and therefore indicate the direction, in which predominantly voluntary and business‐led CSR might at (...) best be evolving. To help contextualize the analysis, the paper starts with a brief overview of recent academic work on the strengths and limitations of CSR in the light of international development, followed by the empirical analysis of Compact case studies. The results raise doubts regarding the general suitability of contemporary CSR initiatives to tackle some of the most pressing developmental challenges. Instead, only certain topics are commonly addressed, while a number of issues such as anti‐corruption measures or labour rights are underrepresented in the case study sample. Regarding the target regions of the best practice examples, the majority is reported on activities based in OECD countries and a small number of emerging markets such as South Africa, India or China, while neglecting other regions such as sub‐Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa). From a European Union policy perspective, these results indicate that there is a role to play for the state in order to create a better fit between CSR agendas and the actual developmental needs in the South. (shrink)

Gegenstand des Bandes ist eine Profilierung der Kulturphilosophie mit dem Ziel ihrer notigen Selbstbehauptung gegenuber einem gegenwartigen Naturalismus. Ein zentrales Ratsel der Gegenwartsphilosophie ist das Verhaltnis unseres Bewusstseins, der Perspektive der ersten Person machtig und Urheber der Kultur zu sein, zu den Erkenntnissen der Kognitions- sowie der Evolutionswissenschaften seit Darwin. In diesen scheint von der Natur her auf die Kultur ein neues Licht zu fallen. Dies ist ebenso faszinierend wie interessant. Es ist aber auch eine Herausforderung: Der Begriff der "Welt" (...) wird naturwissenschaftlich praokkupiert, Extrapolationen ins Ontologische wie die "kausale Geschlossenheit der Welt" breiten sich auf Kosten fruherer, starker zuruckgenommener Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorien aus. Wie steht es demgegenuber mit den Beitragen von Kulturphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften / Geisteswissenschaften? Deutlich wird in den Beitragen im Anschluss an Dilthey, Cassirer, Simmel und weitere Autoren: Die Notwendigkeit und der Eigencharakter kultureller Arbeit mussen offentlich wie in den Wissenschaften wieder bewusst werden. Mit Beitragen von Katharina Bauer, Jorn Bohr, Gunter Dux, Ralf Glitza, Kinga Golus, Julia Gruevska, Ralph Kohnen, Gudrun Kuhne-Bertram, Hans-Ulrich Lessing, Kevin Liggieri, Ernst Wolfgang Orth, Annika Schlitte, Gunter Scholtz und Rene Torkler. (shrink)

Inhalt Einfuhrung - Staat im Wandel. Rudiger Voigt zum 65. Geburtstag I. Konzeptualisierung und Systematisierung von Staatswandel Ralf Walkenhaus: Entwicklungslinien moderner Staatlichkeit.

Der Staat hat die politische Moderne wie keine andere Institution und Ordnungsidee gepragt. Als eine Herrschaftsformation, die sich standig an die Umweltbedingungen anpasst, ist ihm die Funktionalitat des Wandels quasi institutionell in die Wiege gelegt. Dennoch ist der Nationalstaat im Prozess der Globalisierung und Europaisierung als Entgrenzung von Herrschaftsraumen der groae Verlierer geworden: Legitimations-, Souveranitats- und Steuerungsprobleme sind die Folge. Der Band erfasst den Staatswandel auf politik- und verwaltungswissenschaftlicher, geschichtswissenschaftlicher, soziologischer und offentlich-rechtlicher Ebene. Dabei behandeln die Beitrage exemplarisch Politikfelder wie (...) Soziales, Wirtschaft, Umwelt, Bildung, Wissenschaft und Verwaltung und bieten so ein breites Forum interdisziplinarer Staatsforschung. Inhalt Einfuehrung - Staat im Wandel. Ruediger Voigt zum 65. Geburtstag I. Konzeptualisierung und Systematisierung von Staatswandel Ralf Walkenhaus: Entwicklungslinien moderner Staatlichkeit. Konzeptualisierungsprobleme des Staatswandels Peter Nahamowitz: Themenkonjunkturen der Politikwissenschaft als Indikatoren fuer nachhaltige Veranderungen der Staatlichkeit in Deutschland? Zugleich ein Nachruf auf die okonomische Globalisierung II. Staatliche Steuerung in einzelnen Politikfeldern Nicolai Dose: Der informierende Staat: Information als Instrument staatlicher Steuerung Lutz R. Reuter: Zum Wandel des staatlichen Handelns im Bildungswesen Helmuth Schulze-Fielitz: Staatliche Wissenschaftssteuerung als organisations- und verfahrensrechtliche Aufgabe Dietrich Fuerst: Der Beitrag der Regionalplanung zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Eine steuerungstheoretische Perspektive Erhard Treutner: Staat und nachhaltige Entwicklung. Zur Bedeutung staatlicher Steuerung fuer Prozesse nachhaltiger Entwicklung III. Einzelaspekte Emanual Richter: Zur Rekonstruktion der Kategorie aNachhaltigkeito Stefan Machura: Der Einfluss der Parteien auf die dritte Gewalt Axel Gorlitz / Oliver Sigrist: Des Staates neue Kleider. Demokratie- und Rechtsstaatsdefizite der Verwaltungsreformkonzepte Peter Nitschke: Die Reterritorialisierung Europas auf subnationaler Identitatsebene. Uberlegungen zu einer Rekonstruktion der Theorie des apolitischen Raumeso Klaus A. Ziegert: Weltgesellschaft und Nationalstaat im 21. Jahrhundert. Eine rechtssoziologische Analyse Michael Staack: Multilateralismus, Unilateralismus und das Volkerrecht. Deutschland und die aBush-Revolutiono IV. Historische Bezuege Otwin Massing: Der (europaische) Praambelgott. Fetisch, sakralisierende Uberhohung oder Skandalon? Uber den Atavismus politischer Symbolsprache in amoderneno Staaten Rainer S. Elkar: Die Meister des Staates. Vom Scheitern und von der Aktualitat des Korporatismus Walter Demel: Verwaltung in China und Japan aus der Sicht des fruehneuzeitlichen Europa Georg-Christoph von Unruh: Widerstandsrecht und Widerstandspflicht Verzeichnis der Publikationen von Ruediger Voigt Verzeichnis der Doktoranden und Habilitanden von Ruediger Voigt Verzeichnis der Autoren. (shrink)

This paper develops a valid reconstruction in first-order predicate logic of Leibniz’s argument for his complete concept definition of substance in §8 of the Discours de Métaphysique. Following G. Rodriguez-Pereyra, it construes the argument as resting on two substantial premises, the “merely verbal” Aristotelian definition and Leibniz’s concept containment theory of truth, and it understands the resulting “real” definition as saying not that an entity is a substance iff its complete concept contains every predicate of that entity, but iff its (...) complete concept contains every predicate of any subject to which that concept is truly attributable. An account is suggested of why Leibniz criticises the Aristotelian definition as merely nominal and how he takes his own definition to overcome this shortcoming: while on the Aristotelian basis the predication relation could generate endless chains, so that substances as endpoints of predication would be impossible, Leibniz’s definition reveals lowest species as such endpoints, which he therefore identifies with individual substances. Since duplicate lowest species make no sense, the Identity of Indiscernibles for substances follows. The reading suggests a Platonist interpretation according to which substances do not so much have but are individual essences, natures or forms. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalism is the view that possibilities are a matter of the dispositions of individual objects: it is possible that p if and only if something has a disposition for p to be the case. We raise a problem for modal dispositionalism: nothing within the theory rules out that there could be necessary, perfect masks, which make the manifestation of a disposition impossible. Unless such necessary perfect masks are ruled out, modal dispositionalism runs the risk of failing to provide a (...) sufficient condition for possibility, and indeed of engendering contradictions. But to rule them out, modal dispositionalism would have to revise a crucial tenet of the view, its localism. (shrink)