Since the publication of Nikolas Rose’s ‘The Politics of Life Itself’ there has been vivid discussion about how biopolitical governance has changed over the last decades. This article uses what Rose terms ‘molecular politics’, a new socio-technical grip on the human body, as a contrasting background to ask anew his question ‘What, then, of biopolitics today?’ – albeit focusing not on advances in genetics, microbiology, and pharmaceutics, as he does, but on the rapid proliferation of wearables and other sensor-software gadgets. (...) In both cases, new technologies providing information about the individual body are the common ground for governance and optimization, yet for the latter, the target is habits of moving, eating and drinking, sleeping, working and relaxing. The resulting profound differences are carved out along four lines: ‘somatic identities’ and a modified understanding of the body; the role of ‘expert knowledge’ compared to that of networks of peers and self-experimentation; the ‘types of intervention’ by which new technologies become effective in our everyday life; and the ‘post-discipline character’ of molecular biopolitics. It is argued that, taken together, these differences indicate a remarkable shift which could be termed aretaic: its focus is not ‘life itself’ but ‘life as it is lived’, and its modality are new everyday socio-technical entanglements and their more-than-human rationalities of governance. (shrink)

Numerical magnitude information is assumed to be spatially represented in the form of a mental number line defined with respect to a body-centred, egocentric frame of reference. In this context, spatial language skills such as mastery of verbal descriptions of spatial position have been proposed to be relevant for grasping spatial relations between numerical magnitudes on the mental number line. We examined 4- to 5-year-old’s spatial language skills in tasks that allow responses in egocentric and allocentric frames of reference, as (...) well as their relative understanding of numerical magnitude. In addition, we evaluated influences of children’s absolute understanding of numerical magnitude assessed by their number word comprehension and of their knowledge on numerical sequences. Results indicated that when considering responses that corresponded to the egocentric perspective, children’s spatial language was associated significantly with their relative numerical magnitude understanding, even after controlling for covariates, such as children’s SES, mental rotation skills, and also absolute magnitude understanding or knowledge on numerical sequences. This suggests that the use of egocentric reference frames in spatial language may facilitate spatial representation of numbers along a mental number line and thus seem important for preschoolers’ relative understanding of numerical magnitude. (shrink)

Without joint action, man's cultural, scientific and everyday achievements would be unthinkable. What special cognitive abilities make it possible for this to happen so often and in so many ways? Dancing, waging war, building a castle together in the sandbox - joint action is a central component of everyday life and the success of mankind. This ability is based on special socio-cognitive abilities, the scope and interplay of which characterize the human species. Literature often focuses on the large and complex (...) forms of joint action. This book represents an attempt to present a philosophical reconstruction of joint action through an interdisciplinary investigation of small forms with few actors. This is suitable for explaining the behavior of children and adults, as well as for taking into account empirical results from related disciplines, especially developmental psychology. (shrink)

Diese Untersuchung behandelt die Auseinandersetzung aus systematisch-theologischer Perspektive mit einem «unsystematischen» Denker, Emil Cioran. Sie versucht im Sinne einer dialogischen Kulturtheologie einen Dialog zwischen der christlichen Theologie orthodoxer Prägung und Cioran zu führen. Dieser Versuch soll von Toleranz als Anerkennung der Legitimität des Anderen und dem Respekt des Fremden als Fremden geprägt sein. Methodologisch untersucht die Arbeit drei Hauptcharakteristika von Ciorans Denken: den Dualismus, die Skepsis und die Mystik. Sie versucht diese mit Hilfe von zwei Strukturierungsprinzipien - dem hermeneutische Dreieck (...) Gott-Mensch-Welt und den sieben Leitebenen zu systematisieren. (shrink)

The text sets out from a fourfold concept of Eurocentrism developed in postcolonial studies and global history. Against this backdrop, it traces the treatment of non-Western societies throughout Marx's work. His 1853 articles on India are shown to be Eurocentric in every respect. They are partially based on a travel narrative by François Bernier. Bernier's text is analyzed in some detail as one of Marx's sources. Marx's treatment of the 1857-59 Indian rebellions also displays Eurocentric features. His writings on British (...) colonialism, in Ireland, however, begin to break with the Eurocentric mold. The Marxian critique of political economy, in contrast, teems with Orientalist motifs. Marx's late work is quite different in this respect: in the excerpts from his reading that he made from 1879 on, as well as in his discussions with the Russian Social Revolutionaries, he breaks with Eurocentrism. The development of Marx's thought shows that the hasty dismissal of him often observed in postcolonial studies is not carefully thought out. Yet the fact remains that Marxists who attempt to think global capitalism, historical progress and contingent development have something to learn from postcolonial studies. (shrink)

In general, analyses of voting power are performed through the notion of a simple voting game (SVG) in which every voter can choose between two options: ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Felsenthal and Machover [Felsenthal, D.S. and Machover, M. (1997), International Journal of Game Theory 26, 335–351.] introduced the concept of ternary voting games (TVGs) which recognizes abstention alongside. They derive appropriate generalizations of the Shapley–Shubik and Banzhaf indices in TVGs. Braham and Steffen [Braham, M. and Steffen, F. (2002), in Holler, et (...) al. (eds.), Power and Fairness, Jahrbuch für Neue Politische Ökonomie 20, Mohr Siebeck, pp. 333–348.] argued that the decision-making structure of a TVG may not be justified. They propose a sequential structure in which voters first decide between participation and abstention and then between ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we compare the two approaches and show how the probabilistic interpretation of power provides a unifying characterization of analogues of the Banzhaf (Bz) measure. Second, using the probabilistic approach we shall prove a special case of Penrose’s Limit Theorem (PLT). This theorem deals with an asymptotic property in weighted voting games with an increasing number of voters. It says that under certain conditions the ratio between the voting power of any two voters (according to various measures of voting power) approaches the ratio between their weights. We show that PLT holds in TVGs for analogues of Bz measures, irrespective of the particular nature of abstention. (shrink)

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of the (...) sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

Definition of the problem The umbrella term “explicability” refers to the reduction of opacity of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These efforts are challenging for medical AI applications because higher accuracy often comes at the cost of increased opacity. This entails ethical tensions because physicians and patients desire to trace how results are produced without compromising the performance of AI systems. The centrality of explicability within the informed consent process for medical AI systems compels an ethical reflection on the trade-offs. Which (...) levels of explicability are needed to obtain informed consent when utilizing medical AI? Arguments We proceed in five steps: First, we map the terms commonly associated with explicability as described in the ethics and computer science literature, i.e., disclosure, intelligibility, interpretability, and explainability. Second, we conduct a conceptual analysis of the ethical requirements for explicability when it comes to informed consent. Third, we distinguish hurdles for explicability in terms of epistemic and explanatory opacity. Fourth, this then allows to conclude the level of explicability physicians must reach and what patients can expect. In a final step, we show how the identified levels of explicability can technically be met from the perspective of computer science. Throughout our work, we take diagnostic AI systems in radiology as an example. Conclusion We determined four levels of explicability that need to be distinguished for ethically defensible informed consent processes and showed how developers of medical AI can technically meet these requirements. (shrink)

Marx’s Eurocentrism : Postcolonial Studies and Marx Scholarship. This article takes as its starting-point the fourfold concept of Eurocentrism developed in postcolonial studies and global history. Against this backdrop, it traces the treatment of non-Western societies throughout Marx’s work. His 1853 articles on India are shown to be Eurocentric in every respect. They are partly based on a travel narrative written by François Bernier. Bernier’s text is analyzed in some detail as one of Marx’s sources. Marx’s treatment of the 1857-59 (...) Indian rebellions also displays Eurocentric traits. However his writings on British colonialism in Ireland begin to break with the Eurocentric mould. The Marxian critique of political economy is, in contrast, saturated with Orientalist motifs. The late work is however quite different in this respect. Both in the excerpts from his readings from 1879 on and in his discussions with the Russian Social Revolutionaries, it is evident that Marx breaks with Eurocentrism. The development of Marx’s thought thus shows that the somewhat hasty dismissal which he is frequently subjected to in postcolonial studies is, in many cases, inadequately thought out. The fact remains however that Marxists striving to apprehend global capitalism, historical progress and contingent development have something to learn from postcolonial studies. (shrink)

A collection of essays on philosophy and politics on the occasion of the 65th birthday of the radical philosopher Frieder Otto Wolf.

Sumit Sarkar, one of the leading Indian historians of his generation, participated in the Indian-British Subaltern Studies Collective that established new standards in the historiography of colonialism in the 1980’s. In this Interview, Déborah Cohen and Urs Lindner ask him about the achievements and oversights of the Subaltern Studies project, the prospects of global history, Marx’s eurocentrism and the problem of religion.

LS Penrose was the first to propose a measure of voting power (which later came to be known as ‘the [absolute] Banzhaf index’). His limit theorem – which is implicit in Penrose (1952) and for which he gave no rigorous proof – says that, in simple weighted voting games, if the number of voters increases indefinitely while the quota is pegged at half the total weight, then – under certain conditions – the ratio between the voting powers (as measured by (...) him) of any two voters converges to the ratio between their weights. We conjecture that the theorem holds, under rather general conditions, for large classes of variously defined weighted voting games, other values of the quota, and other measures of voting power. We provide proofs for some special cases. (shrink)

Rethinking the “Epistemological Break” : Reading Marx with and against Althusser The article critically reconsiders Althusser’s thesis that there is an “epistemological break” in the work of Marx taking place in 1845/46. It is argued that there can indeed be found an important break in Marx at this time, but that it cannot be conceptualised as an “epistemological” passage from ideology to science. Instead, this break should be considered as a purely philosophical one, as a transition from a young-Hegelian to (...) a realist social philosophy. The first part of the article offers a critical re-reading of the young Marx. The second part analyses the entanglements of social philosophy, the philosophy of history and social science haunting Marx after 1845/46. The intention is not to dismiss out of hand Althusser’s interpretation of Marx’s work. The aim is rather to clarify it from the perspective of current debates within the philosophy of science, ethics and social theory. (shrink)