Was sind Bilder? -Bild- ist keine scharf umrissene Kategorie. Was man zu den Bildern zahlt, hangt allerdings von Eigenschaften ab, die zueinander in systematischen Beziehungen ('Familienahnlichkeiten') stehen. Diese Eigenschaften werden in einer formalen Explikatsprache expliziert - so, dass deutlich wird, inwiefern Bilder eine Art Zeichen sind und: weshalb fur Bildende Kunst nicht Kommunikativitat, sondern Manipulativitat (in einem nicht wertenden Sinne) relevant ist. Die Arbeit ist ein Beispiel dafur, dass etablierte Mittel und Einsichten sowohl der sprachanalytischen Philosophie als auch der (...) fruhen Phanomenologie einer bildsemiotischen Grundlagenforschung zugutekommen.". (shrink)

Introduction By the late fifth century BCE Panini had composed the Astadhyayi, consisting of nearly 4000 rules giving a precise and fairly complete ...

Pāṇinīyavyākaraṇodāharaṇakośaḥ; La grammaire paninéenne par ses exemples; Paninian Grammar through Its Examples, vol. I: Udāharaṇasamāhāraḥ; L’ensemble des exemples; The Collection of Examples; saṁśodhitaprakāśanam, édition révisée, revised edition. Two parts. By F. Grimal, V. Venkataraja Sarma, S. Lakshminarasimham, K. V. Ramakrishnamacharyulu, and Jagadeesh Bhat. Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha Series, vols. 309, 310; Collection indologie 93.1.1, 2. Tirupati: Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha; Pondichéry: École française d’Extrème-Orient; Institut Français de Pondichéry, 2018. Pp. xiii + 757 + 481. Rs. 680, 450.

Viṣamapadavyākhyā: A Commentary on Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s Śabdakaustubha Attributed to Nāgeśabhaṭṭa. Edited by James W. Benson. American Oriental Series, vol. 97. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2015. Pp. xl + 233.

The Ethics Committee at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) developed a Bioethics Ambassador Program (BAP); a yearlong educational program to assist clinical and non-clinical staff develop the skills to identify and address common burgeoning ethical issues that can arise during the provision of care to patients with cancer. The goal was to provide greater awareness of the role and services of Ethics, particularly at the institution’s geographically-diverse outpatient care centers and to better-instill a culture of preventative ethics. This article (...) discusses the design and implementation of the first two years of the program and analyzes its strengths, weaknesses, and impact on MSK. (shrink)

In this note some epistemological problems in general theories about living systems are considered; in particular, the question of hidden connections between different areas of experience, such as folk biology and scientific biology, and hidden connections between central concepts of theoretical biology, such as function, semiosis, closure and life.

Changing Generations, a study of intergenerational relations in Ireland undertaken between 2011 and 2013 by the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin, and the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway, used the Constructivist Grounded Theory method to interrogate support and care provision between generations. This article draws on interviews with 52 women ages 18 to 102, allowing for simultaneous analysis of older and younger women’s perspectives. The intersectionality of gender and class emerged as central to the (...) analysis. Socioeconomic positions shape contrasting forms of interdependency among family generations, ranging from “enmeshed” lives among lower socioeconomic groups to “freed” lives among higher socioeconomic groups. Women are initiating changes in how care and support flow across generations. Older women in higher socioeconomic groups are attuned to how emotional capital women expend across family generations can constrain women’s lives. In an expression of solidarity, older women are renegotiating the place of care labor in their own lives and in the lives of younger women. A new reciprocity emerges that amounts to women “undoing gender.” This process is, however, deeply classed as it is women in higher socioeconomic groups whose resources best place them to renegotiate care. (shrink)

"Zeit": Was ist das überhaupt? Und vor allem: Wie ist ein gelingender Umgang mit ihr möglich? Diese Fragen, die für das menschliche Leben in seiner wesentlich zeitlichen Verfasstheit höchst bedeutsam sind, stehen im Mittelpunkt des vorliegenden Bandes. Ihnen wird auf eine Weise nachgegangen, die existentielles Interesse mit dem Anspruch auf theoretische Durchklärung und systematische Durchsichtigkeit verbindet. Aufgezeigt wird ein Weg jenseits von gedankenloser Betroffenheit oder existentieller Belanglosigkeit, der zu einer Theorie gläubiger Identität am Leitfaden ihrer Zeitlichkeit führt.

It is quite extraordinary, philosophically speaking, that according to the orthodox interpretation: (a) quantum mechanics is a complete and comprehensive theory of microphysics, and yet (b) the role of measurement, in quantum mechanics, cannot be analyzed in terms of the collective effects of the microphysical particles making up the apparatus. It follows that, if the orthodox interpretation is correct, the measurement apparatus and its quantum physical effects cannot be accounted for microreductively. This is significant because it is widely believed that (...) the relation between physical wholes and parts is microreductive. Indeed, many philosophers are persuaded of the inevitability of universal microreduction to the basic elements of microphysics. This is the viewpoint embodied in the program for the unity of science, espoused in recent years, most notably by Robert Causey (1977). (shrink)

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, SETLcoin, Ether, Solar Coin, or Liberty Reserve exist since 2009. Because of their decentralized control, they are often considered a threat or alternative to the conventional centralized banking system. While the technological implication of some such currencies, especially of Bitcoin, has attracted much attention, so far there is little discussion about the entire field of cryptocurrencies and very little academic literature addressing its ethical significance. In this article, we thus address the impact of “blockchain technology” on (...) the nature of financial transactions from a business ethics perspective. We begin with a survey on relevant literature from neighboring disciplines. Next, we work towards a 3 × 3 framework for current debates on the ethics of cryptocurrencies : we combine the micro, meso, and macro levels of business and society with assessments of the potential ethical impact of cryptocurrencies as morally beneficial, detrimental, and ambiguous. In addition, we highlight possible avenues for future research, such as the changing roles of the miners and regulators, the prosocial use of cryptocurrencies, the antisocial use for shadow banking and transactions in the ‘dark net’ and cryptocurrencies’ effect on inflation and deflation. (shrink)

Accounts of creation in Sanskrit literature include a number of hymns in the R̥gveda principal among which are R̥V 10.72, 10.81–82, 10.90, 10.121, and 10.129. Later accounts appear in the Mānavadhārmaśāstra, the Mahābhārata, and purāṇas. Scholars generally describe these accounts as various, mutually inconsistent myths, or as superseded stages of philosophical thought. Even recent treatments of Indian cosmogony that praise the poetic subtlety and prowess of their composers consider their work as products of individual poetic imagination. Yet, despite the variety (...) of expression in the various accounts, they appear to convey a consistent model of the origin of the world. Moreover, the model of the absolute and the first stages of creation mirror the descriptions of the development of enlightenment in foundational texts of Vedānta and systematic analyses of Yoga. The descriptions of creation may therefore rather be the result of the special insight of enlightened sages than the results of individual imagination. (shrink)

Thinking in Translation posits the Hebrew Bible as the fulcrum of the thought of Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), underpinning a unique synthesis between systematic thinking and biblical interpretation. Addressing a lacuna in Rosenzweig scholarship, the book offers a critical evaluation of his engagement with the Bible through a comparative study of The Star of Redemption and his Bible translation with Martin Buber. The book opens with Rosenzweig's rejection of German Idealism and fascination with the sources of Judaism. It then analyzes the (...) unique hermeneutic approach he developed to philosophy and scripture as a symbiosis of critique and cross-fertilization, facilitated by translation. An analysis of the Star exposes Rosenzweig's employment of translation in grafting biblical verses unto the philosophical discussion. It is followed by a reading that demonstrates how his Bible translation reflects an attempt to re-valorize the Tanakh as a distinctively Jewish scripture, over and against Christian appropriations. Thinking in Translation recasts Rosenzweig's life's work as a project of melding Judaism and modernity in an attempt to secure their spiritual and intellectual survival. (shrink)

If cosmology is to obtain knowledge about the whole universe, it faces an underdetermination problem: Alternative space-time models are compatible with our evidence. The problem can be avoided though, if there are good reasons to adopt the Cosmological Principle (CP), because, assuming the principle, one can confine oneself to the small class of homogeneous and isotropic space-time models. The aim of this paper is to ask whether there are good reasons to adopt the Cosmological Principle in order to avoid underdetermination (...) in cosmology. Various strategies to justify the CP are examined. For instance, arguments to the effect that the truth of the CP follows generically from a large set of initial conditions; an inference to the best explanation; and an inductive strategy are assessed. I conclude that a convincing justification of the CP has not yet been established, but this claim is contingent on a number of results that may have to be revised in the future. (shrink)

The origins of field guides and other plant identification manuals have been poorly understood until now because little attention has been paid to 18th century botanical identification guides. Identification manuals came to have the format we continue to use today when botanical instructors in post-Revolutionary France combined identification keys with the "natural method" and alphabetical indexes. Botanical works featuring multiple but linked techniques to enable plant identification became very popular in France by the first decade of the 19th century. British (...) botanists, however, continued to use Linnaeus's sexual system almost exclusively for another two decades. Their reluctance to use other methods or systems of classification Can be attributed to a culture suspicious of innovation, anti-French sentiment and the association of all things Linnaean with English national pride, fostered in particular by the President of the Linnean Society of London, Sir James Edward Smith. The British aversion to using multiple plant identification technologies in one text also helps explain why it took so long for English botanists to adopt the natural method, even after several Englishmen had tried to introduce it to their country. Historians of ornithology emphasize that the popularity of ornithological guides in the 19th and 20th centuries stems from their illustrations, illustrations made possible by printing technologies that improved illustration quality and reduced costs. Though illustrations are the most obvious features of late 19th century and 20th century guides, the organizational principles that make them functional as identification devices come from techniques developed in botanical works in the 18th century. (shrink)

This article pursues the question whether and inasmuch theories of corporate responsibility are dependent on conceptions of managerial freedom. I argue that neglect of the idea of freedom in economic theory has led to an inadequate conceptualization of the ethical responsibilities of corporations within management theory. In a critical review of the history of economic ideas, I investigate why and how the idea of freedom was gradually removed from the canon of economics. This reconstruction aims at a deconstruction of certain (...) axioms of neoclassical economics that hamper contemporary efforts in integrating ethics firmly into management education. I intend to show by these deconstructive endeavors that a constructive use of the idea of responsible freedom could correct and complement the current quantitative focus in business theory through qualitative orientations. I argue that with the help of qualitative success criteria, the strategic integration of the tenets of both business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility into business practice can be advanced by further research. (shrink)

1Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. Published pp. 117-124 in: Mark Bedeau, Phil Husbands, Tim Hutton, Sanjev Kumar and Hideaki Suzuki : Workshop and Tutorial Proceedings. Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems.

Monte Carlo simulations arrive at their results by introducing randomness, sometimes derived from a physical randomizing device. Nonetheless, we argue, they open no new epistemic channels beyond that already employed by traditional simulations: the inference by ordinary argumentation of conclusions from assumptions built into the simulations. We show that Monte Carlo simulations cannot produce knowledge other than by inference, and that they resemble other computer simulations in the manner in which they derive their conclusions. Simple examples of Monte Carlo simulations (...) are analysed to identify the underlying inferences. (shrink)

It is argued that the notion of Umwelt is relevant for contemporary discussions within theoretical biology, biosemiotics, the study of Artificial Life, Autonomous Systems Research and philosophy of biology. Focus is put on the question of whether an artificial creature can have a phenomenal world in the sense of the Umwelt notion of Jakob von Uexküll, one of the founding figures of biosemiotics. Rather than vitalism, Uexküll's position can be interpreted as a version of qualitative organicism. A historical sketch of (...) Autonomous Systems Research (ASR) is presented to show its theoretical roots and fruitful opposition to traditional AI style robotics. It is argued that these artificial systems are only partly 'situated' because they do not in the full sense of the word experience an Umwelt. A deeper understanding of truly situated autonomous systems as being a kind of complex selforganizing semiotic agents with emergent qualitative properties must be gained, not only from the broad field of theoretical biology, but also from the perspective of biosemiotics in the Uexküll tradition. The paper is thus an investigation of a new notion of autonomy that includes a qualitative aspect of the organism. This indicates that the Umwelt concept is not reducible to purely functional notions. (shrink)

Contradictions of the Welfare State is the first collection of Offe's essays to appear in a single volume in English, and it contains a selection of his most important recent work on the breakdown of the post-war settlement.

Lamenting the deplorable state of business ethics is, itself, a staple of the deplorable state of business ethics. But if, as its many critics claim, business ethics continuously fails to deliver on its promise, what could take its place in management education? After business ethics—How else can we integrate ethics into the curriculum? This article argues that an ethical grounding of business theory and corporate practice requires a critique of conventional economics, replacing the mechanistic paradigm that predominated economics over the (...) last 200 years with a humanistic alternative. (shrink)

Today’s globalized economy cannot be governed by legal strictures alone. A combination of self-interest and regulation is not enough to avoid the recurrence of its systemic crises. We also need virtues and a sense of corporate responsibility in order to assure the sustained success of the global economy. Yet whose virtues shall prevail in a pluralistic world? The moral theory of Thomas Aquinas meets the present need for a business ethics that transcends the legal realm by linking the ideas of (...) justice and virtue in an ingenious way. While allowing for, and incorporating, the specificities of region and religion, industry and culture, Thomas’s virtue theory coordinates private and public activities through a set of context-invariant, justice-oriented norms with conceptual appeal to contemporary questions of global business ethics.In our article, we first sketch how Aquinas’s theory can be also of relevance to a non-confessional audience through its appeal to the ‘natural light of reason.’ Then we explain how his theory of ‘natural law’ aligns his ideas of virtue and justice. From this vantage point, we address the tension between cultural diversity and moral uniformity in the economic sphere in general and in today’s globalized business world in particular. Throughout the article, we aim to show that by interpreting the virtue-dimension of business in light of the idea of social justice, Aquinas’s conception of virtuous business conduct gains inter-personal and inter-cultural validity that establishes social justice as the global virtue of business. (shrink)

The Arthaśāstra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft. Edited and Translated, with an Introduction, by Mark McClish and Patrick Olivelle. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2012. Pp. lxvi + 169. $52, £37.95 ; $16.95, £12.95.

Der spätmoderne Mensch befindet sich in einer Identitätskrise. Frei im Hinblick auf die individuelle Lebensgestaltung ist er zugleich losgelöst von alten Sicherheiten und Bindungen an Klasse, Religion und Nation. Vor dem Hintergrund gesellschaftspolitischer und kultureller Krisen erscheint Identitätsbildung heute als situatives, ständig neu zu entwerfendes und dabei höchst ambivalentes Projekt. Welches Potenzial entfaltet das literarische Erzählen in diesem Kontext? Terézia Mora, Reinhard Jirgl und Peter Wawerzinek modellieren in ihren Werken Szenarien der Identitätsarbeit. Die Krise des Subjekts führt bei ihnen zu (...) einem neuen Nachdenken über Lebens- und Romanformen. Sie versinnbildlichen den Kernkonflikt von Text und Figur in charakteristischen Leerstellen, die das Ringen der Romane um die Selbstbilder von Protagonistinnen und Protagonisten sowie gleichzeitig um Form und Gattung spiegeln. So werden die literarischen Texte als komplexe Wahrnehmungsräume für die Leserinnen und Leser selbst zu einer Identitätserfahrung. (shrink)

Historians and sociologists of science usually discuss multiple independent inventions or multiple independent discoveries in terms of priority disputes among the inventors. But what should we make of the multiple invention of a technology that not only gave rise to very few priority disputes, but never worked and was rejected by each inventor’s contemporaries as soon as it was made public? This paper examines seven such situations in the history of botany. I devote particular attention to the inventors’ cultural and (...) educational backgrounds, in particular, the scholastic education most of them shared, through which they would have become familiar with Llullian combinatorics and the mnemonic names used to distinguish syllogistic moods. I also examine their conceptions of the roles of nomenclature in botany, their assumptions about how memory works, their awareness of other similar efforts, and their contemporaries’ reactions to their proposals. Finally, I reflect on the impacts that a consideration of multiple independent inventions of failed technologies may have on current approaches to the history and sociology of science. (shrink)

The idea of a higher level phenomenon having a downward causal influence on a lower level process or entity has taken a variety of forms. In order to discuss the relation between emergence and downward causation, the specific variety of the thesis of downward causation (DC) must be identified. Based on some ontological theses about inter-level relations, types of causation and the possibility of reduction, three versions of DC are distinguished. Of these, the `Strong' form of DC is held to (...) be in conflict with contemporary science; the `Medium' version of DC may for instance describe thoughts constraining neurophysiological states, while the `Weak' form of DC is physically acceptable but may not in practice be a feasible description of the mind/brain or the cell/molecule relation. All forms have their specific problems, but the Medium and the Weak version seems to be most promising. (shrink)

If we are to constrain our place in the world, two principles are often appealed to in science. According to the Copernican Principle, we do not occupy a privileged position within the Universe. The Cosmological Principle, on the other hand, says that our observations would roughly be the same, if we were located at any other place in the Universe. In our paper we analyze these principles from a logical and philosophical point of view. We show how they are related, (...) how they can be supported and what use is made of them. Our main results are: 1. There is a logical gap between both principles insofar as the Cosmological Principle is significantly stronger than the Copernican Principle. 2. A step that is often taken for establishing the Cosmological Principle on the base of the Copernican Principle and observations is not incontestable as it stands, but can be supplemented with a different argument. 3. The Cosmological Principle might be crucial for cosmology to the extent it is not supported by empirical evidence. (shrink)

The present paper discusses a topic often neglected by contemporary philosophy of biology: The relation between metaphorical notions of living organisms as information processing systems, the attempts to model such systems by computational means (e.g., Artificial Life research), and the idea that life itself is a computational phenomenon. This question has ramifications in theoretical biology and thedefinition of Iife, in theoretical computer science and the concept of computation, and in semiotics (the study of signs in the most general sense, including (...) information, signification, and meaning), and the concept of the interpreter. It is argued, that the theory of autopoietic systems known from theoretical biology should be integrated with a biosemiotic reflection on the natural history of signs. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The search for a quantum theory of the gravitational field is one of the great open problems in theoretical physics. This book presents a self-contained discussion of the concepts, methods and applications that can be expected in such a theory. The two main approaches to its construction - the direct quantisation of Einstein's general theory of relativity and string theory - are covered. Whereas the first attempts to construct a viable theory for the gravitational field alone, string theory assumes that (...) a quantum theory of gravity will be achieved only through a unification of all the interactions. However, both employ the general method of quantisation of constrained systems, which is described together with illustrative examples relevant for quantum gravity. There is a detailed presentation of the main approaches employed in quantum general relativity: path-integral quantisation, the background-field method and canonical quantum gravity in the metric, connection and loop formulations. The discussion of string theory centres around its quantum-gravitational aspects and the comparison with quantum general relativity. Physical applications discussed at length include the quantisation of black holes, quantum cosmology, the indications of a discrete structure of spacetime, and the origin of irreversibility. This book will be of interest to researchers and students working in relativity and gravitation, cosmology, quantum field theory and related topics. It will also be of interest to mathematicians and philosophers of science. (shrink)

Der Beitrag von Claus Pias geht von zwei Beobachtungen aus: einem Zurücktreten des Medienbegriffs innerhalb medienwissenschaftlicher Forschung und eines Desinteresses sogenannter ›Digitalisierung‹ ihr gegenüber. Er untersucht, inwiefern Medientheorie (von McLuhan und Kittler bis zu den sogenannten Digital Humanities) durch einen starken Medienbegriff an der Herausbildung von Zeitsemantiken und Narrativen von ›Digitalisierung‹ beteiligt war und von ihnen profitiert hat. Als Konsequenz fordert Pias zu medienwissenschaftlicher Grundlagenforschung auf, die mit einer strategischen Revision und Aktualisierung von ›Medien‹ als Begriff und Gegenstand einhergeht. (...) Der Beitrag von Kathrin Peters stimmt mit dieser Lagebeschreibung nur teilweise überein. Die Skepsis gegenüber den Zukunfts- und Dringlichkeitsrhetoriken gegenwärtiger Digitalisierungsoffensiven wird von ihr geteilt, dass allerdings vor allem eine Medienwissenschaft des ›medientechnischen a priori‹ eine Antwort auf den gegenwarts- und an- wendungsfixierten Digitalisierungsdiskurs liefern könnte, erscheint Peters als zu kurz gegriffen. Andere medienwissenschaftliche Ausrichtungen sind dazu ebenso in der Lage: medienwissenschaftliche Analysen zu Kolonialität und Postkolonialität, feministische, gen- der- und queertheoretische Fragestellungen, eine medienwissenschaftlich informiert Wissenschaftsforschung und Affekttheorie – um nur einige zu nennen. Es geht um Konzepte von Medienwissenschaft als Fragestellung, die ihre Gegenstände in den verschiedensten Bereichen hervorbringen, dabei aber zugleich als Mittel und Mittler immer wieder unsichtbar werden. Debate: Media Studies without Media Claus Pias’ article starts out from two points of observation: a recession of the term media within the field of media studies and a dis- interest of the so-called digitalization in this particular term. Pias examines the impact media theory (ranging from McLuhan and Kittler to the so-called Digital Humanities) had on the development of time semantics and the narratives of ›digitalization‹ due to the use of a strong media term, and how media theory profited from it. mAs a result, Pias calls for establishing basis research in media studies, going hand in hand with a strategic revision and update of media, as a term as well as a subject. In her article, Kathrin Peters only partially agrees with this evaluation. She shares the scepticism concerning future-rhetoric as well as priority-rhetoric, both featuring heavily in current digital offensives; however, in her opinion it is not enough to hope for answers on today’s digitalization-discourse from media studies hailing the media-technical a priori. There are other approaches in media studies which are able to offer these answers: analysis of colonialism and post-colonialism, feministic, gender- and queer-theoretical questions, a media-informed science of knowledge and affect theory, just to name a few of them. It is all about concepts of media science being perceived as problems which bring forth their own subjects in various areas of research, yet as a tool as well as an intermediary, they are frequently overlooked. (shrink)