Different or conflicting accounts of the same episode in the history of science may arise from viewing that episode from different perspectives. The metaphor suggests that conflicting accounts can be seen as complementary, constructing a multi-dimensional understanding, if the different perspectives can be coordinated. As an example, I discuss different perspectives on the Stern-Gerlach experiment. In a static interpretation, the SGE has been viewed as an experiment that allows the determination of the magnetic moment of silver atoms. Based on the (...) concept of magnetic momentum arising from orbital angular momentum, the original experiment was designed in 1922 as an experimentum crucis to decide between Bohr’s quantum theory and classical electromagnetic theory, and its outcome was interpreted as a confirmation of the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantum postulates. After the advent of quantum mechanics, the SGE was reinterpreted in terms of magnetic moment arising from the electron’s spin angular momentum. In a dynamical interpretation, physicists have asked for the physical mechanism responsible for the quantization of the angular momentum with respect to the direction of the magnetic field. Although different suggestions were explored, none was ever accepted as fully satisfactory. Today this difficulty is seen as a paradigmatic instance of the unsolved quantum measurement problem. (shrink)

This paper takes Wilhelm von Humboldt seriously—as a philosopher. It does so by exploring Humboldt’s central notion of “Individuum/Individualität,” which does not coincide with the philosophical usage of “individual/individuality” in English. It is closer related to Leibniz’s notion of the “monad,” being characterized by infinity, totality and ineffability. Humboldt’s focus on the philosophical role of language does not primarily aim at an analysis of the system(s) of language(s), but rather at an hermeneutical investigation of actual thinking and speaking among thinking (...) and speaking individuals, every one of them being characterized by infinity, totality and ineffability. This analysis eventually leads to a new approach to ethics. It circumscribes an ethics without universal truths, guided by the respect of the words of the others even if we cannot ever fully understand them. But it is necessarily their words which co-constitute our mentally framed perception of the world. (shrink)

This paper proposes an epistemological approach to analyse social-ecological systems from a process perspective in order to better tackle the co-constitution of the social and the ecological and the dynamism of these systems. It highlights the usefulness of rethinking our conceptual tools taking processes and relations as the main constituents of reality instead of fundamental substances or essences. We introduce the concept of experience as understood in radical empiricism to critically revise our available concepts through focusing on the concept of (...) difference, exploring apparent contradictions and engaging in assemblage thinking. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become indispensable in our lives. The development of a quantitative scale for AI ethics is necessary for a better understanding of public attitudes toward AI research ethics and to advance the discussion on using AI within society. For this study, we developed an AI ethics scale based on AI-specific scenarios. We investigated public attitudes toward AI ethics in Japan and the US using online questionnaires. We designed a test set using four dilemma scenarios and questionnaire items (...) based on a theoretical framework for ethics, legal, and social issues (ELSI). We found that _country_ and _age_ are the most informative sociodemographic categories for predicting attitudes for AI ethics. Our proposed scale, which consists of 13 questions, can be reduced to only three, covering ethics, tradition, and policies. This new AI ethics scale will help to quantify how AI research is accepted in society and which area of ELSI people are most concerned with. (shrink)

​„Plessner in Wiesbaden“ schildert das Leben und Werk eines Philosophen und Soziologen (1892-1985), der das 20. Jahrhundert durchlebt, durchlitten und durchdacht hat. Ausgangspunkt ist das jüngere Interesse seiner Geburts- und Heimatstadt an dem großen Sohn der Stadt, das sich in der Stiftung eines „Wiesbadener Plessner Preises“ manifestiert. Damit wird ein Schlüsseldenker der modernen Philosophischen Anthropologie gewürdigt. Neben einigen Beiträgen zu Plessner in Wiesbaden enthält der Band auch Beiträge zu Plessners anderen Lebens- und Wirkungsstationen wie Heidelberg, Erlangen, Köln, Groningen, Göttingen, New (...) York, Zürich. In diesen Stationen und ihren Facetten wird deutlich, warum Helmuth Plessner einer der maßgebenden Intellektuellen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland werden konnte.​. (shrink)

Understanding causation in social-ecological systems (SES) is indispensable for promoting sustainable outcomes. However, the study of such causal relations is challenging because they are often complex and intertwined, and their analysis involves diverse disciplines. Although there is agreement that no single research approach (RA) can comprehensively explain SES phenomena, there is a lack of ability to deal with this diversity. Underlying this diversity and the challenge of dealing with it are different causal reasonings that are rarely explicit. Awareness of hidden (...) assumptions is essential for understanding how the causal reasoning of an RA is constituted, and for promoting the integration, translation, or juxtaposition of different RAs. We identify the following elements as particularly relevant for understanding causal reasoning: methods, frameworks and theories, accounts of causation, analytical focus, and causal notions. We begin with the idea that one of these elements typically figures as an entry point to an RA. This entry point is particularly important because it generates a path dependence that orients causal reasoning. In a subsequent step, when an approach is applied, causal reasoning concretizes as a result of a particular constellation of the remaining elements. We come to these insights by studying the application of four different RAs to the same social-ecological case (the collapse of Baltic cod stocks in the 1980s). On the basis of our findings we developed a guide for the analysis of causal reasoning by raising awareness of the assumptions, key elements, and the relations between these key elements for a given RA. The guide can be used to elicit the causal reasoning of RAs, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, and support disclosure of ethical/political dimensions that underlie management/governance interventions that are formulated on the basis of causal findings of research studies. (shrink)

Die Beurteilung von Handlungen als ethisch erlaubt gehort zum moralischen Bewusstsein und zur moralischen Verstandigung. In der theologischen Ethik gab es jedoch Kritik an der Kategorie des ethisch Erlaubten, am grundsatzlichsten bei Friedrich Schleiermacher. Die Kritiker vertraten die These, dass sich alle moglichen Handlungen als entweder moralisch geboten oder verboten ausweisen liessen und dass eine mittlere Kategorie des bloss Erlaubten die Klarheit ethischer Verbindlichkeit trube. Fuss analysiert die Argumentationen reprasentativer evangelischer Ethiker vor allem des 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhunderts, die (...) einerseits fur die Kritik am Begriff des Erlaubten und andererseits fur seine Rehabilitierung stehen. Dabei wird das Erlaubnisproblem in seiner Beziehung zu anderen ethischen Kontroversthemen gesehen, wie etwa den Problemen des supererogatorischen Handelns oder der Adiaphora. Das Schlusskapitel beschreibt den Begriff des Erlaubten im Kontext einer Lehre von elementaren Pflichten. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die gotische Kirchenarchitektur galt in der Religionsphänomenologie als ein Ideal für die Vermittlung von Transzendenz. Historisch betrachtet avancierte zunächst im religiösen Umfeld des Sturm und Drang der zeichenhafte ‚Thurm‘ des Straßburger Münster zu einer natursprachlichen Repräsentation von,Wahrheit‘. Der Münsterturm wurde als Wahrnehmungsraum emotional codiert und eine kleine Pilgerpraxis entwickelte sich von 1770 bis 1780. Gut zwanzig Jahre später erneuerte Friedrich Schlegel im Zuge der deutschen Nationalbewegung die Rezeption der Gotik anhand des Kölner Doms. Dieser Artikel rekonstruiert die mediale Funktion (...) von Architektur im Zusammenhang dieser historischen Wahrnehmungsräume und historisiert den Transzendenzbegriff. Die Gestaltung religiöser Emotionen erfolgt im Austausch mit zeitgenössischen Theorien über Anschauung und Wahrnehmung. Welche architektonischen Motive standen für die Erfahrung von Transzendenz? Welche Sprachstrategien bezeugten eine erfolgreiche Vermittlung? (shrink)

This contribution gives an overview of Einstein's work on unified field theory. It characterizes this work from four perspectives, by looking at its conceptual, representational, biographical, and philosophical dimensions.

While principle-based ethics is well known and widely accepted in psychiatry, much less is known about how decisions are made in clinical practice, which case scenarios exist, and which challenges exist for decision-making. Protocols of the central ethics committee responsible for four psychiatric hospitals over 7 years (N=17) were analysed. While four cases concerned suicide risk in the case of intended hospital discharge, the vast majority (N=13) concerned questions of whether the responsible physician should or should not initiate the use (...) of coercion in patients lacking mental capacity. The committee’s recommendations were non-uniform. Forced feeding and electroconvulsive therapy were endorsed in each one case. In two cases of intermittent loss of capacity due to heavy drinking or intermittent severe suicidal ideation, a self-binding contract was recommended and the use of coercion was considered as justified for a very limited period. In all other cases, most of which involved involuntary treatment, the use of coercion was not endorsed. Without exception, the recommendations were accepted with relief by the physicians and their treatment teams, who feared liability in the event of harm to the patient. Eventually, a model of a decision algorithm was derived from the ethical arguments in the protocols. (shrink)

This article looks at what is genuinely new in the Buddhist transnationalism of the modern period. It examines the history of Buddhist councils and synods from the early gatherings after the demise of the Buddha to the Buddhist World Council in the twentieth century. These often international events followed a role-model, defined by the first three councils, of creating and handing down an authoritative version of the Buddha's teachings (dhamma) while they could also lead to a ?purification? of the monks' (...) order (sangha) if monks sticking to divergent textual traditions were expelled from the sangha. Despite their importance, however, councils have received rather little attention in scholarly literature. This article takes a fresh look at Buddhist synods with a focus on those convened since the mid-nineteenth century. It explores how the latter sought to comply with inherited forms and functions, while at the same time becoming innovative in order to adapt Buddhism to its modern environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Engaging in sexting, such as sending or receiving of sexual words, pictures, or videos via technology, is a common behavior in minors and a rising trend. This study aimed to understand the ethical dilemmas that clinicians face when working with minors that engage in sexting under current mandated reporting standards. For this study, 178 graduate students and licensed clinicians who work with minors in the state of California completed an online survey involving vignettes concerning issues of sexting behaviors in (...) adolescents. Participants were asked to read each vignette and answer a series of questions regarding their knowledge and attitudes related to the presented issue and whether or not they would breach confidentiality in each case. Results indicated that participants, who had undergone specific training in issues of social media and technology, were significantly more likely to have more declarative knowledge of mandated reporting requirements, however, their reporting behavior was not significantly different from those, who had not previously had any training. Younger clinicians tended to report less than older clinicians. This study highlights the discrepancy that exists between the knowledge of mandated reporting standards relevant to sexting behaviors and clinicians’ reporting practice. (shrink)

Many accounts of analogy based on sentential semantics owe their continued popularity more to a lack of theoretical specificity than to their superior explicative power. I examine a recent attempt to remedy this situation.Conclusion: Once the sentential semantics account of analogy is spelled out in sufficient detail to permit its systematic application to a variety of cases, it quickly becomes apparent why it must fail, and why we should give preference to a multi-constraint theory of cognitive process instead.

Despite their importance to the history of economics and social theory, social scientists and historians pay little heed to the structural similarities as well as the important divergences in the work of French-man Emile Durkheim (1858—1917) and American Thorstein Veblen (1857—1929). Consequently, this article places Durkheim and Veblen in their social and historical context, and then (1) their epistemologies are related to their use of cultural lag to explain the persistence of atavistic continuities in the existing order, (2) their theories (...) of social bonding and integration are compared to explain the meaning as well as the structural differences in their collectivism, and (3) these are linked with the predictive power of their broader socioeconomic theories to forecast the future of Western society. The two men made major contributions to the human sciences and a historical retrospect by way of comparative analysis illuminates these contributions. (shrink)

Albert Einstein ist für seine Arbeiten in der Physik weltberühmt. Nur wenige wissen jedoch, dass Einstein selbst auch philosophische Arbeiten publiziert hat und seine Erkenntnisse weitreichende Folgen für die Philosophie haben. Oder haben „Raum“ und „Zeit“ nichts mit Wissen zu tun?

In this note, we point attention to and briefly discuss a curious manuscript of Einstein, composed in 1938 and entitled “Unified Field Theory,” the only such writing, published or unpublished, carrying this title without any further specification. Apparently never intended for publication, the manuscript sheds light both on Einstein′s modus operandi as well as on the public role of Einstein′s later work on a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism.

A formulation by Einstein of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen incompleteness argument found in his scientific manuscripts is presented and briefly commented on. It is the only known version in which Einstein discussed the argument for spin observables. The manuscript dates, in all probability, from late 1954 or early 1955 and hence also represents Einstein's latest version of the incompleteness argument and one of his last statements on quantum theory in general. A puzzling formulation raises the question of Einstein's interpretation of space quantization (...) and the non-classical spin degree of freedom. (shrink)

The first thorough examination of C. Wright Mills's intellectual roots, this book also is the first to present Mills's full analysis in his unpublished as well as published writings of the work of his precursors, mentors, and critics. Mills' intellectual line of descent is traced from the American institutional economists, especially Thorstein Veblen and Clarence Ayres, and the American pragmatists, especially John Dewey and George H. Mead—an evolution influenced though not determined by ideas from Europe. Always the critic and gadfly, (...) Mills subjected all theories to his special brand of analysis and synthesis. For example, his books on U.S. social stratification are seen by Tilman as a trilogy updating Veblen with ideas from the pragmatists, spiced with a good bit of Max Weber but very little Man. Power, his other chief concern, also was subjected to his creative American eclecticism. As a lifelong seeker of knowledge, Mills studied the great European social thinkers—notably Marx, Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Weber, Mannheim, and Freud—until his untimely death. Explaining Mills's self-description as a "plain Marxist," Tilman writes that it "amounted to little more than a willingness to use Marx's values, vocabulary, and model when these seemed relevant and to ignore them when they did not." Regarding alleged affinities between Freud and Mills, Tilman argues these were "tenuous at best and, although the linkage with the neo-Freudians was stronger, Mills remained critical of Homey and Fromm because they had "not succeeded in entirely overcoming Freud's biological metaphysic." Although the American radical tradition is complex and varied, the heritage that most influenced Mills, Tilman contends, contains elements of evangelical Protestantism and of liberal pragmatism. "It was Charles Wright Mills more than any other thinker in recent years," he concludes, "who synthesized these strands of thought and then wove them into an authentic American radical theory.". (shrink)

One of America’s most influential social critics, Thorstein Veblen authored works deeply rooted in evolutionary biology and American philosophical naturalism—both of which help explain his institutional economics and radical sociology. Now, one of today’s preeminent Veblen scholars ranges widely over the man’s writings to show how evolutionary naturalism underlies his social theory and criticism, shapes his satire, and binds his work together. Rick Tilman’s study focuses on the intersections of social theory and social psychology, political economy and political theory, (...) and modern philosophy and intellectual history in Veblen’s thinking. It links evolutionary naturalism for the first time to Veblen’s aesthetics, secular humanism, sociology of control, sociobiology, and sociology of knowledge, and it makes groundbreaking observations regarding the relationship of Veblen’s own life to his thinking; his place as a cultural lag theorist; and his analysis of sports, gambling, and religion. Drawing on textual exegesis of Veblen’s work, unpublished correspondence, and selected archives, Tilman argues that only evolutionary naturalism could provide the philosophical foundations of Veblen’s thought. He also emphasizes Veblen’s role in the enhancement and embellishment of the social sciences and cultural studies, as well as his insights into the processes of change in the sociopolitical order. Veblen’s evolutionary naturalism, with its unflattering evaluation of America’s self-selected special place in the international arena, casts doubt on today’s foreign interventions, and it also provides a much-needed antidote to the resurgence of creationist thought in American culture. Tilman shows that Veblen’s ideas are still valuable to contemporary social scientists—indeed, that his method of analysis and values are sorely needed to help us avoid wasteful consumption, predation, and the persistence of religious superstition. This work offers readers a new appreciation of Veblen and the many issues he addressed, and of Tilman’s own masterful facility in bringing them to light. (shrink)

The history of the publication of the gravitational field equations of general relativity in November 1915 by Einstein and Hilbert is briefly reviewed. An analysis of the internal structure and logic of Hilbert's theory as expounded in extant proofs and in the published version of his relevant paper is given with respect to the specific question what information would have been found on a missing piece of Hilbert's proofs. The existing texts suggest that the missing piece contained the explicit form (...) of the Riemann curvature scalar in terms of the Ricci tensor as a specification of the axiomatically underdetermined Lagrangian in Hilbert's action integral. An alternative reading that the missing piece of the proofs already may have contained the Einstein tensor, i.e. an explicit calculation of the gravitational part of Hilbert's Lagrangian is argued to be highly implausible. (shrink)

Tilman Nagels Bücher "Mohammed. Leben und Legende" und "Allahs Liebling. Ursprung und Erscheinungsformen des Mohammedglaubens" nahm die Öffentlichkeit begeistert auf. Der Autor gehört zu den "besten deutschsprachigen Kennern des arabischen Schrifttums". Jetzt legt er auf knappem Raum eine Zusammenfassung der Erträge seiner Arbeit vor und öffnet neue Zugänge zu Leben und Legende Mohammeds. Zu den Büchern "Mohammed. Leben und Legende" und "Allahs Liebling" schreibt die "Neue Zürcher Zeitung": "Um keines der beiden Bücher Tilman Nagels wird herumkommen, wer sich (...) eingehender mit Mohammed beschäftigen will. Es ist das Verdienst des Oldenbourg Verlags, dass er sie in sein Programm aufgenommen hat. Zukünftige Generationen werden es ihm danken.". (shrink)

In this article, we analyze the third of three papers, in which Einstein presented his quantum theory of the ideal gas of 1924–1925. Although it failed to attract the attention of Einstein’s contemporaries and although also today very few commentators refer to it, we argue for its significance in the context of Einstein’s quantum researches. It contains an attempt to extend and exhaust the characterization of the monatomic ideal gas without appealing to combinatorics. Its ambiguities illustrate Einstein’s confusion with his (...) initial success in extending Bose’s results and in realizing the consequences of what later came to be called Bose–Einstein statistics. We discuss Einstein’s motivation for writing a non-combinatorial paper, partly in response to criticism by his friend Ehrenfest, and we paraphrase its content. Its arguments are based on Einstein’s belief in the complete analogy between the thermodynamics of light quanta and of material particles and invoke considerations of adiabatic transformations as well as of dimensional analysis. These techniques were well known to Einstein from earlier work on Wien’s displacement law, Planck’s radiation theory and the specific heat of solids. We also investigate the possible role of Ehrenfest in the gestation of the theory. (shrink)