Influential theories on affect and emotion propose a fundamental differentiation between emotion and cognition, and research paradigms designed to test them focus on differences rather than similarities between affective and cognitive processes. This research orientation is increasingly challenged by the widespread and successful use of cognitive research paradigms in the study of affect and emotion—a challenge with far-reaching implications. Where and on what basis should theorists draw the line between cognition and emotion, and when is it useful to do so? (...) Should researchers build more global, integrative models of cognition and emotion, or should they rely on local, content-specific models that draw attention to a differentiation between affective and cognitive processes? This special issue compiles different viewpoints on fundamental issues in the relationship between affect and cognition. (shrink)

Nietzsche was a harsh critic of German culture and yet, at the same time, realized he was quite inseparable from it. His disagreement with the Germans began as a dispute with Richard Wagner and then, after renouncing him, increasingly turned into an internal dispute with himself. This subject is important for a philosophical understanding of his thought as a whole.

Dieser Sammelband zeigt anhand von Problemen der Lexik und Grammatik romanischer Sprachen sowie der linguistischen Metasprache, daß die onomasiologische und die semasiologische Perspektive in ihrer Komplementarität unabdingbare Bezugspunkte einer sich als 'kognitiv' verstehenden Sprachwissenschaft sein sollten. Mit im Detail unterschiedlicher Perspektivierung werden Fragen der synchronischen und diachronischen Lexikologie und Grammatik diskutiert, ausgewählte Konzept- bzw. Funktionsbereiche im Detail analysiert und Probleme der Grammatikographie und der Konzeptualisierung von Sprache beleuchtet.

There is much disagreement among many commentators of Hannah Arendt's work about whether her contributions to politics and philosophy contain a clandestine version of decisionism or, by contrast, represent an explicit attempt to break away from the elements of voluntarism, arbitrariness, and irrationality, which are considered to be inherent to any theory of the decision. Despite the many disagreements that set apart these two interpretations of Arendt, however, there is a common presupposition that both share. They are in agreement concerning (...) the decision: it is a threat and a vice, intrinsically dangerous and potentially totalitarian in nature, which ought to be expelled from any theory of politics with a normative content. As a result, the terms of the debate pertain solely to whether Arendt was a (crypto-) decisionist and not to the nature and evaluation of the decision as such. This paper argues, contrary to Arendt's critics, that although elements of a theory of the decision can be found scattered throughout many of her writings, she was nonetheless unswerving in her opposition to decisionism. But unlike her defenders, it also argues that had Arendt built on these elements to elaborate a systematic theory of the decision, she would have avoided many of the flaws and inconsistencies that plague her concept of politics. (shrink)

This paper addresses theoretically the question how virtual communication may affect cooperation in work teams. The degree of team virtualization, i.e. the extent to which interaction between team members occurs online, is related to parameters of the exchange. First, it is assumed that in online interaction task uncertainties are higher than in face-to-face contacts. Second, the gratifying value of peer rewards is assumed to be lower in online contacts. Thirdly, it is assumed that teams are different in the extent to (...) which members depend on their peers for positive affections, operationalized by the extent to which team members are interested in social relationships for their own sake, independently from their work interactions. Simulation results suggest both positive and negative effects of team virtualization on work-cooperation. (shrink)

Machiavelli's 500-year-old treatise The Prince outlined the central features of the realist tradition in international relations. His premises led him to question the likelihood of efficacious and stable international law and international courts, a skepticism that has present-day proponents. Machiavelli's reluctance was due to a combination of features of human nature and a focus on anarchic features of the relations among states. This article challenges these assumptions and implications: Other interpretations of human nature are closer to Machiavelli's text, and current (...) relations among states are significantly different. The revised assumptions should make Machiavelli's followers more optimistic about international law and international courts. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to shed light upon Bitinna's reference to a goddess who is described as ‘tyrant’ in Herondas 5.77. Light is also shed on the delineation of Bitinna's character and social status in terms of the immediate context of mimiamb 5 as well as of the wider Alexandrian cultural context of Herondas' work. Bitinna's reference is for the first time examined in relation to the depiction of her character and it is shown that the goddess-tyrant must (...) be Aphrodite. (shrink)

Die Emanzipation der modernen Menschen von übermächtigen Bedingungen traut Benjamin nicht den Individuen selbst zu, sondern nur einer übersubjektiv-messianischen Instanz.

In its first part, the article reconstructs descriptions of corporal perception of simultaneity.concepts and categories of time are secondary to these perceptions and objectified by means of language. In a second part, with reference to system theory, the perspective is turned around, so that simultaneity is discussed as a secondary mode of social relations and the inner stream of consciousness; in this view, simultaneity is based on world experience and techniques of synchronization. In conclusion, the paper analyses how modern electronic (...) mass media and especially television produces and manipulates autonomously worldwide synchronization. German Der Aufsatz rekonstruiert im ersten Teil sozialphänomenologische Beschreibungen der leibfundierten Erfahrung von Gleichzeitigkeit. Abstrakte Zeitvorstellungen und Zeitkategorien sind dem nachgeordnet und werden mittels Sprache objektiviert. Im zweiten Teil wird mit Bezug auf die soziologische Systemtheorie die Perspektive umgedreht und diskutiert, ob Gleichzeitigkeit nicht vielmehr ein nachrangiger Modus sozialer Beziehungen sowie des inneren Bewusstseinsstroms ist und grundlegend auf Welterfahrung und Techniken der Uhrenkoordination respektive Isochronie beruht. Abschließend wird untersucht, wie moderne elektronische Massenmedien, insbesondere das Fernsehen, weltweite Synchronisation herstellen und diese eigenständig manipulieren. (shrink)

In the process of making bedsteads, Plato claimed, makers look towards the ‘idea’ of the bed. But what is that idea? Two candidates come to mind: shape and purpose. The fact that we identify objects of very different shape, not even involving a bedstead, as beds seems to render purpose conceptually superior. But, then, what is a bed’s purpose? An obvious response appears tobe: lying down and sleeping. Yet, first, beds are not needed for that. Secondly, precisely when a bed (...) is slept on, it is not perceived as a design object. Thirdly, beds constitute a kind of existential furniture, associated with giving birth, making love, suffering illness and dying. All such issues humans really care about, however, are strikingly indifferent towards the design of beds. As elsewhere, the maxim that form follows function fails. Design thinking might rather make headway when beds are conceived of as peculiar spaces within spaces. (shrink)

Art is whatever it is mediated through anticipations of diverse kinds. To the temporal art of music such anticipations are crucial. Composers and performers build up expectations in their musical works and interpretations, thwart them, delay their fulfillment, fulfill them. Some of these expectations arise on the level of chosen genre, others are peculiar to the individual composition. Listeners, correspondingly, may adjust their expectations or, alternatively, attempt to uphold them at any price, turning them into prejudices. And, as anything in (...) art, musical anticipations are prone to ambiguities; they may, e.g., be redeemed at a surface level while being countered subliminally. (shrink)

The expulsion of prejudice is the centrepiece of intellectual progress, as it has been understood since the Enlightenment. that this fight has not been successful since is obvious, but this does not invalidate it. There is no reason to believe that people in the 20th century had fewer (rather than merely different) prejudices than people had in the 18th century; yet we might simply conclude that the fight has not been conducted resolutely enough. The question whether or not this might (...) be the right conclusion, however, depends on an answer to a more fundamental question; whether prejudices, as such, are a proper object to fight against in the first place. The argument of this book, is an attempt to show that they are not. The author begins by reconstructing the Enlightenment's main objection to prejudice, challenging the conclusion that all prejudices must be destroyed and focusing on the context of decision and action. The book goes on to consider the relationship between prejudice and experience, and explores a particular defence of prejudice developed in hermeneutics. A final chapter drives home the general conclusion of the book. To make the case for a reinterpretation of the concept of prejudice, it addresses particularly contentious issues, exploring dogmatism, fundamentalism and racist prejudices. (shrink)