According to berkley's review, women have a higher risk of suffering from pain than men. If this is true, there should be more frequent and more intense activity both in the pain excitatory system and in the pain inhibitory system of women than of men. Consequently, it remains unclear whether the overall effect at the end is more pain or less pain in women. This conclusion fits the weak sex differences observed for experimental and clinical pain as shown by BERKLEY's (...) review of the literature. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Examines widespread myths about transhumanism and explores the most pressing ethical issues in the debate over technologically assisted human enhancement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted mobility worldwide. As a corollary, the health of top- and lower-level athletes alike is profoundly reliant on movement and exercise. Thus, the aim of this study is to understand impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on athletes’ motivation to exercise and train. In detail, we aim to better understand who reported a change in motivation to train due to the lockdown, why they reported lower motivation, what they did to help themselves, what support they (...) received from others, and what they are looking forward to after the lockdown. Questionnaire data and answers to these open-ended questions were assessed via an online questionnaire, completed by 95 amateur and recreational athletes during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Germany. Results show that greater numbers of female athletes are less motivated to train in comparison to male athletes. No differences in motivation were found regarding type of sport and number of competitions during the year. Also, more motivated to train amateur and recreational athletes showed lower athletic identity than athletes who reported no change in motivation to exercise during the lockdown. Additionally, differences in state emotional, perceived stress, and personality variables were found between athletes who stated that they were less motivated to train compared to athletes who reported no changes in motivation. In particular, closure of sports facilities and social distancing measures were perceived to be highly problematic. Even though athletes received emotional support, organized themselves via routines and schedules, and trained using online tools, they predominately stated that they wished that their coaches would have supported them more. Understanding the impacts of a pandemic-related lockdown on athletes’ motivation, athletes’ coping strategies, and their desired support will help better support them in future crises. (shrink)

"Provides translations of Bolzano's most important work on grounding, including previously untranslated material"--.

Positive emotions (PEs) impact cognitive processes, including executive functions (EFs; i.e. inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility). However, previous reviews and meta-analyses report contradicting results. Thus, this review takes a novel approach to overcome conflicting findings by clearly conceptualising PE induction and by providing a detailed description of the tasks used to assess EFs, as well as by exclusively focusing on EFs. A systematic literature review and meta-analysis was performed. Study inclusion criteria required that subjects were healthy individuals over 18 years, (...) PEs were induced in a controlled laboratory setting, a baseline measurement and a control condition was required, and finally, EFs were measured as a dependent variable using valid measurement instruments. The literature search was performed on PRIMUS, including relevant databases such as ERIC, MEDLINE, Psych ARTICLES, Psych INFO or SocINDEX. From a total of 6,661 identified articles, only 13, which featured 20 experimental studies, were included. Results show that the overall induction of PEs successfully caused an increase in valence and/or positive emotions. However, no significant effects of PE on EFs were detected (d = −0.051, p =.405). Reasons and future research will be discussed. (shrink)

In this chapter we deal with the challenge to the existence of free will and moral responsibility that is raised by the threat of determinism from a Wittgensteinian perspective. Our argument starts by briefly recapitulating Wittgenstein’s analysis of the practice of doubt in On Certainty. We subsequently turn to the problem of free will. We argue that the existence of free will is a basic certainty and that the thesis of determinism fails to cast doubt on it. We thereby make (...) use of – but also try to go beyond – Wittgenstein’s own remarks in his “Lectures on Freedom of the Will”. In the final section we focus more explicitly on moral responsibility. Inspired by P.F. Strawson’s work on free will and moral responsibility, which we take to be deeply Wittgensteinian, we argue that our practices of holding each other responsible manifest basic human certainties which cannot be meaningfully challenged by invoking the thesis of determinism. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

How ought you to evaluate your options if you’re uncertain about which axiology is true? One prominent response is Expected Moral Value Maximisation, the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected moral value across axiologies. EMVM raises two fundamental questions. First, there’s a question about what it should even mean. In particular, it presupposes that we can compare moral value across axiologies. So to even understand EMVM, we (...) need to explain what it is for such comparisons to hold. Second, assuming that we understand it, there’s a question about whether EMVM is true. Since there are many plausible rivals, we need an argument to defend it. In this paper, I’ll introduce a representation theorem for axiological uncertainty to answer these two questions. Roughly, the theorem shows that if all our axiologies satisfy the von Neumann–Morgenstern axioms, and if the facts about which options are better than which in light of your uncertainty also satisfy these axioms as well as a Pareto condition, then these facts have a relevantly unique expected utility representation. If I’m right, this theorem at once affords us a compelling way to understand EMVM—and specifically intertheoretic comparisons—and a systematic argument for its truth. (shrink)

Intuitively, we lack the standing to blame others in light of moral norms that we ourselves don't take seriously: if Adam is unrepentantly aggressive, say, he lacks the standing to blame Celia for her aggressiveness. But why does blame have this feature? Existing proposals try to explain this by reference to specific principles of normative ethics – e.g. to rule‐consequentialist considerations, to the wrongness of hypocritical blame, or principles of rights‐forfeiture based on this wrongness. In this paper, I suggest a (...) fundamentally different approach. Employing Timothy Williamson's idea of ‘constitutive rules’ of speech acts, I argue that this feature of blame is simply constitutive of any essentially moral form of disapproval. So if Adam had the standing to disapprove of Celia's aggressiveness in some form, necessarily, this disapproval couldn't be blame. If I'm right, this proposal thus not only answers our main question, but also sheds an interesting novel light on the very nature of blame. If we didn't have a form of disapproval with that feature, we wouldn't have our practice of holding each other to moral norms. (shrink)

In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne (HKE), there are circumstances in which (1) is true and (2) is false. Hans wants the ghost (...) in his attic to be quiet tonight.Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight. After all, the argument goes, unlike (2), (1) can be true without Hans wanting there to be exactly one ghost in his attic. Kaplan and Neale famously reply that the HKE objection presupposes that non-doxastic attitudes are closed under entailment, which they are not. For Rostworowski, on the other hand, the problematic principle used by the HKE objection is a substitutivity principle for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. This is further supported by the fact that, as Elbourne points out, Russell’s analysis already leads to a problem similar to the HKE objection together with substitutivity alone. By questioning substitutivity for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, Rostworowski tries to block both the HKE objection and Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection. In this paper, I will argue that Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions leads to a variant of the HKE objection even in the context of doxastic attitude ascriptions. Since, as we will see, doxastic attitude ascriptions do not seem to suffer from the substitutivity problems discussed by Rostworowski in the context of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, this will further exacerbate the problem for Russell’s analysis. I will then discuss the possibility to reject substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions using a contextualist analysis of attitude ascriptions. However, we will see that, independent of whether we accept substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions, a complete solution of the doxastic problem has to reject Russell’s analysis of the truth-conditions of sentences of the form ‘The F is G’. Concluding, I will show that, unlike Russell’s analysis, the Frege–Strawson analysis of definite descriptions, according to which a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ presupposes that there is exactly one F, rather than asserting it, provides an explanation of the HKE objection, Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection, and the doxastic problem presented in this paper. This will speak not only in favor of a Fregean analysis of definite descriptions, but also of a Fregean conception of propositions. (shrink)

Wenn digitale Technologien wie künstliche Intelligenz, Blockchain und Robotik auf die Medizin treffen, entstehen zwangsläufig ethische Fragestellungen. Diese lassen sich nicht ohne Weiteres mit medizinisch-technologischen, rechtlichen oder ökonomischen Argumenten allein beantworten. Neue Themenfelder wie die sich wandelnde Rolle der Patienten, die neue Verantwortung von Ärzten und Pflegenden, neue digitale Möglichkeiten in der Medizin, Smart Hospitals im Klinikalltag, die gesellschaftliche Legitimität eines möglichen dritten Datengesundheitsmarktes, eine zukunftsfeste Ausbildungslandschaft für den Gesundheits-/Medizinbereich sowie die Grenzen der digitalen Forschung bedürfen einer kritischen und gleichzeitig (...) thematisch breiten Auseinandersetzung mit ethischen Aspekten in der digitalen Gesundheitswirtschaft und Medizin. (shrink)

Das Werk entkräftet das Vorurteil, Kants Philosophie sei für eine Reflexion der kulturellen Welt unzureichend. Klingner entwickelt die Option einer Kulturphilosophie als Theorie technischer Vernunft mit Bezug auf den kantischen Kulturbegriff und auf seinen Philosophiebegriff. Damit erweist sich zugleich, dass eine kantische Kulturphilosophie rekonstruierbar und in ihrem Gehalt auch heute noch diskussionswürdig ist.

This chapter discusses some of the central theoretical perspectives on culture and cultural practices implied in Pragmatism and interactive constructivism. The first part of the chapter highlights three major perspectives on cultural theory to be found in Dewey's thought: culture and experience, culture and habit, and culture and communication. The chapter then compares basic conceptual tools and interpretive approaches and shows that Dewey's work continues to provide fundamental resources in this field. Through this connection, it presents a brief introduction to (...) theories of discourse and power and discusses some implications for current controversies regarding multiculturalism. It argues that Dewey's Pragmatism and the Cologne program of interactive constructivism share a robust interest in culture and cultural diversity. (shrink)

The normative mechanics of promising seem complex. The strength and content of promissory obligations, and the residual duties they entail upon being violated, have various prima facie surprising features. We give an account to explain these features. Promises have a point. The point of a promise to φ is a promise-independent reason to φ for the promisee’s sake. A promise turns this reason into a duty. This explains the mechanics of promises. And it grounds a nuanced picture of immoral promises, (...) an argument against promissory bare wrongings, and a constraint on theories of why we have promissory obligations at all. (shrink)

Throughout his philosophical work, Schelling came to increasingly emphasize his conviction that the ultimate principles of philosophy are essentially practical: the ego formally conceived as act in early philosophy, creation as the unfolding of structurally rich action in late philosophy. It remained unclear, however, exactly what constituted the practicality of these principles, namely which concept of action Schelling used and how it is being integrated into the totality of his system. The task this study sets itself is to investigate into (...) these issues in respect to his middle and late philosophy. With the doctrine of potencies serving as point of departure, spirit is first reconstructed as practical consciousness. Creation as an ontotheological original act with the historical world as the space of human action is then systematically developed. Freedom, foresight, purposefulness, intentionality and futurity prove to be the central practical attributes of both human and divine action. Their connection is manifested in the religious consciousness of man and instantiated metaphysically in the relationship of time and eternity. Schelling's positive philosophy shows that these practical aspects are the irreducable prerequisites to render the historical world process intelligible. (shrink)

Among those who denounced the study of the philosophical tradition of classical antiquity was Manegold of Lautenbach. He aimed his fiery polemical tract, the "Liber contra Wolfelmum", at a master from Cologne who glorified the ancients while siding with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV (1056-1106), against Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) in the struggle known as the Investiture Controversy.

Many people think that if you're uncertain about which moral theory is correct, you ought to maximize the expected choice-worthiness of your actions. This idea presupposes that the strengths of our moral reasons are comparable across theories – for instance, that our reasons to create new people, according to total utilitarianism, can be stronger than our reasons to benefit an existing person, according to a person-affecting view. But how can we make sense of such comparisons? In this article, I introduce (...) a constructivist account of intertheoretic comparisons. On this account, such comparisons don't hold independently of facts about morally uncertain agents. They're simply the result of an ideal deliberation in terms of certain epistemic norms about what you ought to do in light of your uncertainty. If I'm right, this account is metaphysically more parsimonious than some existing proposals, and yet has plausible and strong implications. (shrink)

Assessment is an important cornerstone of education. A world trend in staying abreast of the latest developments in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) has led to an increased demand for electronic assessment in education circles. The critical need and responsibility for higher education to stay on par with the latest techniques regarding assessment subsequently led the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to implement electronic assessment in some departments in 2004. Several challenges led to this exploration into the use (...) of one e?assessment tool within the University. (shrink)

In professional soccer, players, coaches, and researchers alike recognize the importance of cognitive skills. Research addressing the relevance of cognitive skills has been based on the cognitive component skills approach or the expert performance approach. Our project aimed to combine the strengths of both approaches to develop and validate cognitive tasks measuring inhibition and cognitive flexibility in a soccer-specific setting with a soccer-specific motor response. In the main study 77 elite youth soccer players completed a computerized version of the standard (...) flanker and number–letter tasks as well as flanker and number–letter tasks requiring a soccer-specific motor response in a soccer-specific setting. Results show good reliability for both tasks. For the SoccerBot360 number–letter task, switch effects for response times and accuracy and acceptable convergent validity were shown. A flanker effect for response time but not accuracy was apparent. Due to no acceptable convergent validity, the flanker task was revised and 63 adult soccer players participated in a follow-up validation study in the SoccerBot100. The revised flanker task showed the flanker effect for response time, but not for accuracy. However, acceptable convergent validity for response time was present. Thus, the soccer-specific number–letter and to some extent the soccer-specific flanker task show potential to be used as a valid cognitive diagnostic tool by soccer clubs. (shrink)

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Die klassische deutsche Philosophie zählt zu den bedeutendsten und wirkmächtigsten Diskursformationen. Die Beiträge bieten eine grundlegende Orientierung sowie systematische Analysen zu Schlüsselbegriffen und Grundproblemen der praktischen Philosophie dieser Epoche. Neben den Klassikern wie Kant, Fichte und Hegel werden auch Beziehungen zu aktuellen Debatten behandelt und analysiert.

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

We are currently witnessing the emergence of a ‘third culture’, driven by unprecedented developments that are changing the playing field. These include advances in AI, big data analysis and robotics. The traditional ‘two cultures’ view (S. P. Snow) distinguishes between the sciences and the humanities. The wisdoms these two cultures offer are separated from each other, with little to no interaction or mutual comprehension. However, over the past two decades, and for the first time in human history, a new, third (...) culture has appeared. This new culture, rooted in new technologies, not only pursues its own form of rationality but also supports advances in the original two cultures, deepening and expanding our individual and collective consciousness so that we can see more and do better. It will eventually give rise to new forms of consciousness based not on biochemical signals, but on copper wires and lithium chips. These new machine intelligences will change the world and force us to realise: we are no longer alone. The human species’ position in the twenty-first century will be fundamentally redefined: not as a conductor leading the orchestra, but a single string player within it. (shrink)

La sensation d'être soumis à une contrainte implacable peut déclencher une souffrance intense, une activité délirante, ou bien une créativité irrépressible. Elle peut prendre la forme d'une "machine" à influencer. Cette figure majeure de la maladie psychique depuis deux cents ans est le point de départ et le fil conducteur pour éclairer la structure complexe et paradoxale de la subjectivité. Loin d'être un outil technique, elle est un enjeu d'abord existentiel et esthétique. De Tausk à Szondi et Maldiney, de Merleau-Ponty (...) à Guattari et Deleuze, de Deligny à Nauman et Duchamp, de Sobchack à Epstein et Godard, et enfin, à nouveau, de Merleau-Ponty à Guattari, on voit émerger les contours d'une subjectivité en tension,toujours déjà habitée d'une altérité qui la garde en mouvement. Et l'ontologie de la chair apparaît finalement comme un champ essentiellement politique. (shrink)

Wie gehen wir mit Gewordenem um, wie bedingt das Gewordene unser Handeln? Wie interagieren das Gewordene und wir? Das sind grundlegende Fragen unseres Alltags, die in diesem Buch zum Prinzip einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Methode - der Signifikanten-Interaktionsanalyse - erhoben werden. Die Analyseobjekte der Signifikanten-Interaktionsanalyse (SIA) werden als Formation verstanden, die aus materiellen, perzeptiven, emotionalen, sprachlichen Signifikanten bestehen. SIgnifikanten verweisen aufeinander und bedingen sich relational, so dass fur sich stehende, eigentlich bedeutungslose Signifikanten in ihrem relationalen Verbund Aussagekraft entfalten. JEde Aussage beruht auf (...) einer Interaktion mehreren Signifikanten. JEder Signifikant wird als potentieller Aktant verstanden. MIt der SIA lassen sich die Interaktionen zwischen Signifikanten auf formalisierte Aussagen reduzieren. DIes geschiet mittels dreier Interaktionsmodi - Belassen, Anpassen oder Beseitigen -, die aus dem Umgang mit Gewordenem abgeleitet werden. DIe formalisierten Aussagen konnen Werthaltung, Wertschopfung, Wertvernichtung, identitat, Integritat, Einzigartigkeit und Differenz von Signifikanten erfassen. (shrink)

Using a variant of Schiffer’s puzzle regarding de re belief, I recently presented a new argument against the so-called Naive Russellian theory, consisting of the following theses: ( \(NR_{1}\) ) The propositions we say and believe are Russellian propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about; ( \(NR_{2}\) ) Names (and other singular terms) are directly referential terms, i.e., the propositional content of a name is just its referent; ( \(NR_{3}\) (...) ) A sentence of the form ‘_A_ believes/disbelieves that _S_’ is true in a context _c_ if and only if the referent of _A_ in _c_ believes/disbelieves the proposition expressed by _S_ in _c_. In this paper, I will argue that my variant of Schiffer’s puzzle is not only a problem for the Naive Russellian theory, but for every theory of belief ascriptions entailing ( \(NR_{3}\) ). Such theories are also called _relational analyses of belief ascriptions_. Here the main alternative to a Neo-Russellian theory, consisting of ( \(NR_{1}\) ) and ( \(NR_{2}\) ), is a Fregean theory, according to which the propositions we say and believe are Fregean propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of ways the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about are presented to the speaker or agent. I will argue that such variants of the relational analysis are committed to principles very similar to the principles used by my Schiffer puzzle. Concluding, I will discuss Fregean and Neo-Russellian alternatives to the relational analysis, and I will argue that, although there are Neo-Russellian alternatives to the relational analysis which provide a solution to my variant of Schiffer’s puzzle, there seem to be no such Fregean alternatives. (shrink)

This study defends the legitimacy of the Enlightenment project by way of its different realizations in the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Today, Enlightenment as a cosmopolitan project with a global claim is often considered synonymous with Western chauvinism. The assertion of a universally binding reason is all too obviously inconsistent with the much-cited recognition of cultural differences. In contrast, it is the conviction brought forward in this book that an adequately understood Enlightenment is an unconditional right (...) of every person taking an active interest in a self-determined way of life. Only the realization of this conception of Enlightenment can provide the required space for the reciprocal recognition of human differences to freely unfold. (shrink)

Transhumanism : in a nutshell -- On a silicon-based transhumanism -- On a carbon-based transhumanism -- A fictive ethics -- The end of the beginning.

If one knows everything there is to know about a person's state while playing BioShock, if one could describe the exact neurons firing, the synapses responding, and so on, one still wouldn't know what it is like to play BioShock. This is precisely what phenomenology is interested in. Some philosophers would argue that there are a great number of phenomenological methods, but the author thinks they basically fall into two categories: the phenomenological tradition and art as phenomenology. Infinite is phenomenologically (...) interesting because the game's designers have poured phenomenological ideas into Columbia and Elizabeth, which one can then read as if they were books containing a phenomenological analysis of reality. Once the player is comfortable in the role of protagonist, one is easily absorbed by the worlds of Rapture and Columbia. The phenomenological relevance of these insights is that they reveal something about oneself. (shrink)

Pythagoras created the notion of philosophy, which literally means love of wisdom, and wisdom has traditionally been related to values and notions of the good. Not surprisingly, the central idea in Plato's philosophy was the concept of the good. Nietzsche saw philosophers as inventors of values, and this understanding of philosophy remains valid today. It is the methodology by means of which values are derived or created that changes from time to time. Today, it is important for giving a comprehensive (...) account of one's philosophical method to clarify the relationship between skepticism, the natural sciences, naturalism, and pragmatism. In this chapter, I develop three pillars of a philosophical method for plausible investigation concerning philosophical insights. I stress the relevance of widely spread intuitions, scientific insights, and respect for the norm of negative freedom. My own approach of a Nietzschean transhumanism combines these elements with a specific version of perspectivism. (shrink)