Geht es nach der Political Correctness (PC), soll man auf bestimmte Redeweisen verzichten, obwohl diese legal zulässig sind. Inwiefern PC mit solchen Forderungen die Redefreiheit beeinträchtigt, ist eine hart umkämpfte Frage. Begreift man PC, wie ich vorschlage, mit Bernard Williams als moralistischen Anspruch, lässt sie sich begrifflich differenziert und instruktiv beantworten. Der „korrekte“ Anspruch basiert auf ungedeckten Sollens-Behauptungen und schlägt sich in einem spezifischen Gebrauch von Vorwürfen nieder. So begriffen lässt sich zum einen leicht darlegen, inwiefern PC nötigend wirkt und (...) wechselseitiges Vertrauen aufzehrt: Die PC kennzeichnet ein Desinteresse gegenüber den Beweggründen der Rednerinnen, weshalb sie weder nach Gründen fragt noch Gründe gibt, sondern mit Vorwürfen Grenzen zieht. Zum anderen wird deutlich, dass die Kritik diskriminierender Rede nicht notwendig diesen Anspruch erheben muss. Es lassen sich verständigungsorientierte Strategien aufweisen, die umso dringlicher erscheinen, als es in liberaler Politik und Gesellschaft immer Gründe gibt, gegen PC-Redekonventionen zu verstoßen, und das Gut der Redefreiheit auf das robuste Vertrauen in anhaltende Kooperation angewiesen ist. (shrink)

A national anthem is arguably one of the most powerful symbols for a nation-state, with impact beyond its ceremonial purposes. One source of its power lies in the lyrical content, bearing imprints of the past and texts for potentially guiding future behavior.In this paper we study the social foundations of national anthems with the Chinese national anthem as a case by analyzing its production through two changing texts—the lyrics of the anthem and key political documents from the period of 1949–2005. (...) The current national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” adopted in 1949, was forbidden during the Cultural Revolution, and was restored in 1978, albeit with a new set of lyrics, and used until 1982 when the original lyrics were restored.Drawing upon the literature on collective focus and social relations, we build a theoretical model for understanding the changes in the Chinese national anthem. According to this model, the creation of collective memory in the form of a national anthem is conditioned by the cognitive and social context in terms of the type of collective focus and the kind of top-bottom social relation. The changing fate of the Chinese national anthem illustrates the efficacy of the theoretical model. (shrink)

Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg wrote volumes upon volumes based on the understanding he gained through visits to the spiritual world and from conversations with its inhabitants. For new readers of Swedenborg, knowing where to start and what to read can present an insurmountable task. This volume is a good starting point and provides samples of some of his most powerful writings, now available in new, contemporary translations. What happens to our souls after we die? What is the afterlife (...) like? What is the nature of God? Of evil? What can we do during our lives to help guide us to heaven? What kinds of answers can we find in the Bible? Selections from some of Swedenborg’s most popular works—_Heaven and Hell_, _Divine Love and Wisdom_, _Divine Providence_, _Secrets of Heaven_, and _True Christianity_—answer these questions and more. Ideal for those new to Swedenborg’s theology, _A Swedenborg Sampler_ offers tastes from a rich smorgasbord of spiritual insight. (shrink)

To understand the mind, we need to draw equally on the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience. But these two fields have very separate intellectual roots, and very different styles. So how can these two be reconciled in order to develop a full understanding of the mind and brain.This is the focus of this landmark new book.

We discuss the development of cognitive neuroscience in terms of the tension between the greater sophistication in cognitive concepts and methods of the cognitive sciences and the increasing power of more standard biological approaches to understanding brain structure and function. There have been major technological developments in brain imaging and advances in simulation, but there have also been shifts in emphasis, with topics such as thinking, consciousness, and social cognition becoming fashionable within the brain sciences. The discipline has great promise (...) in terms of applications to mental health and education, provided it does not abandon the cognitive perspective and succumb to reductionism. (shrink)

In a lifelog, data from various sources are combined to form a record from which one can retrieve information about oneself and the environment in which one is situated. It could be considered similar to an automated biography. Lifelog technology is still at an early stage of development. However, the history of lifelogs so far shows a clear academic, corporate and governmental interest. Therefore, a thorough inquiry into the ethical aspects of lifelogs could prove beneficial to the responsible development of (...) this field. This article maps the main ethically relevant challenges and opportunities associated with the further development of lifelog technologies as discussed in the scholarly literature. By identifying challenges and opportunities in the current debate, we were able to identify other challenges and opportunities left unmentioned. Some of these challenges are partly explained by a blind spot in the current debate. Whilst the current debate focuses mainly on lifelogs held by individuals, lifelogs held by governmental institutions and corporations pose idiosyncratic ethical concerns as well. We have provided a brief taxonomy of lifelog technology to show the variety in uses for lifelogs. In addition, we provided a general approach to alleviate the ethical challenges identified in the critical analysis. (shrink)

Autonomy seems to be a core issue for lifelogging technology as it can influence our understanding as well as our personal freedom but a comprehensive discussion on the effect of it on the autonomy of the lifelogger and others affected seems still missing in the current academic debate. In this article we provide a preliminary inquiry into this topic. First, the concept of lifelogging will be briefly clarified. In a lifelog, different data sources are combined in an archive that can (...) be used to retrieve information about the lifelogger and the environment in which the lifelogger is situated. Second, we will discuss the effect of lifelogs on an element of autonomy, namely understanding. Lifelogs can both advance understanding as well as hinder it. Information of lifelogs is the result of social processes that can bias information and can be used to manipulate lifeloggers. Third, we will discuss another aspect of autonomy, namely being free from controlling influences. Also on this level the effect of lifelogs is ambiguous. Fourth, we will discuss the conditions under which prospective lifelogger become lifeloggers. By discussing both the effect of lifelogs on autonomy as well as joining the community of lifeloggers we aim to show the many ways in which lifelogs can compromise and advance autonomy. Fifth, some recommendations are provided that aim to address the above mentioned concerns. (shrink)

This paper describes the application of eight statistical and machine-learning methods to derive computer models for predicting mortality of hospital patients with pneumonia from their findings at initial presentation. The eight models were each constructed based on 9847 patient cases and they were each evaluated on 4352 additional cases. The primary evaluation metric was the error in predicted survival as a function of the fraction of patients predicted to survive. This metric is useful in assessing a model’s potential to assist (...) a clinician in deciding whether to treat a given patient in the hospital or at home. We examined the error rates of the models when predicting that a given fraction of patients will survive. We examined survival fractions between 0.1 and 0.6. Over this range, each model’s predictive error rate was within 1% of the error rate of every other model. When predicting that approximately 30°K of the patients will survive, all the models have an error rate of less than 1.5%. The models are distinguished more by the number of variables and parameters that they contain than by their error rates; these differences suggest which models may be the most amenable to future implementation as paper-based guidelines. (shrink)

The organism-in-its-environment is recognized as the basic unit of analysis when dealing with living beings. This paper seeks to define the fundamental implications of the concept of the organism-in-its-environment in terms of the biosemiotic concept of human distributed cognition. Human distributed cognition in a biosemiotic context is defined as the ability of a self-referencing organism-in-its-environment to interact with its environment to satisfy its physiological and social needs to survive and sustain itself. The ontogenetic development of the organism-in-its-environment serves as the (...) backdrop to discover the implications of distributed cognition that have general applicability in organisms, but in this paper, are made relevant to human beings. (shrink)

Part I. Social theory -- Part II. Philosophy -- Part III. History of science -- Notes on contributors -- Index.

Norman's identification of a ventral system embodying a constructivist theory of perception is rejected in favor of an ecological theory of perception and perceptual learning. We summarize research showing that a key motivation for the ventral-constructivist connection, percept-percept coupling, confuses perceptual and post-perceptual processes.

In 1988 Fodor and Pylyshyn issued a challenge to the newly-popular connectionism: explain the systematicity of cognition without merely implementing a so-called classical architecture. Since that time quite a number of connectionist models have been put forward, either by their designers or by others, as in some measure demonstrating that the challenge can be met (e.g., Pollack, 1988, 1990; Smolensky, 1990; Chalmers, 1990; Niklasson and Sharkey, 1992; Brousse, 1993). Unfortu- nately, it has generally been unclear whether these models actually do (...) have this implication (see, for instance, the extensive philosophical debate in Smolensky, 1988; Fodor and McLaughlin, 1990; van Gelder, 1990, 1991; McLaughlin, 1993a, 1993b; Clark, 1993). Indeed, we know of no major supporter of classical orthodoxy who has felt compelled, by connectionist models and argu- ments, to concede in print that connectionists have in fact delivered a non-classical explanation of systematicity. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases worldwide over coming decades. However, the development, introduction and use of AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This paper is a systematic literature review of the on-going scholarly (...) debate about these issues. More specifically, we look at the ethical issues involved in research and development, clinical experimentation, and clinical application of AAL technologies for people with dementia and related stakeholders. In the discussion we focus on: the value of the goals of AAL technologies, the special vulnerability of persons with dementia in their private homes, the complex question of informed consent for the usage of AAL technologies. (shrink)

The concept of information has been extensively studied and written about, yet no consensus on a unified definition of information has to date been reached. This paper seeks to establish the basis for a unified definition of information. We claim a biosemiotics perspective, based on Gregory Bateson’s definition of information, provides a footing on which to build because the frame this provides has applicability to both the sciences and humanities. A key issue in reaching a unified definition of information is (...) the fundamental problem of identifying how a human organism, in a self-referential process, develops from a state in which its knowledge of the human-organism-in-its-environment is almost non-existent to a state in which the human organism not only recognizes the existence of the environment but also sees itself as part of the human-organism-in-its-environment system. This allows a human organism not only to self-referentially engage with the environment and navigate through it, but also to transform it in its own image and likeness. In other words, the Fundamental Problem of the Science of Information concerns the phylogenetic development process, as well as the ontogenetic development process of Homo sapiens sapiens from a single cell to our current multicellular selves, all in a changing long-term and short-term environment, respectively. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

The contributors to Nervous Systems reassess contemporary artists' and critics' engagement with social, political, biological, and other systems as a set of complex and relational parts: an approach commonly known as systems thinking. Demonstrating the continuing relevance of systems aesthetics within contemporary art, the contributors highlight the ways that artists adopt systems thinking to address political, social, and ecological anxieties. They cover a wide range of artists and topics, from the performances of the Argentinian collective the Rosario Group and the (...) grid drawings of Charles Gaines to the video art of Singaporean artist Charles Lim and the mapping of global logistics infrastructures by contemporary artists like Hito Steyerl and Christoph Büchel. Together, the essays offer an expanded understanding of systems aesthetics in ways that affirm its importance beyond technological applications detached from cultural contexts. (shrink)

There has been a recent growth in philosophy of psychiatry that draws heavily (although not exclusively) on analytic philosophy with the aim of a better understanding of psychiatry through an analysis of some of its fundamental concepts. This 'new philosophy of psychiatry' is an addition to both analytic philosophy and to the broader interpretation of mental health care. Nevertheless, it is already a flourishing philosophical field. One indication of this is the new Oxford University Press series International Perspectives in Philosophy (...) and Psychiatry seven volumes of which (by Bolton and Hill; Bracken and Thomas; Fulford, Morris, Sadler, and Stanghellini; Hughes, Louw, and Sabat; Pickering; Sadler; and Stanghellini) are examined in this critical review. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is, perhaps, the most controversial philosopher of the twentieth-century. Little has been written on him or about his work and its significance for educational thought. This unique collection by a group of international scholars reexamines Heidegger's work and its legacy for educational thought.

This panel considered the uses of and prospects for the stakeholder theory/approach. After 20 years of popularity, the stakeholder concept has still notemerged as a true theory. However, it offers some unique perspectives on business organizations and there is plenty of room to develop stakeholder theory and research. These session notes are offered to further the scholarly discussion.