The paper focuses on ›Sammelrezensionen‹ (reviews) in the DVjs in their founding period and enquires into their function on establishing the concept of ›Geistesgeschichte‹ as a research paradigm. First, I will have a closer look on the text-type itself in the context of the journal and will analyze its strategic potential to (re-)organize research fields. Second, I will investigate the polemic function of such reviews and the relevance for the founding years of the DVjs. Finally, the results of this analysis (...) are discussed in relation to the research on Baroque literature. (shrink)

A radical new assessment of Hegel revealing the problems and limitations of sociological method.

This book combines literary and film criticism with musical hermeneutics and discourse analysis to illustrate how sonic information contributes to the detached listener’s interpretations of the discerning messages of Pink Floyd’s monumental recordings.

We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to quantum field theory. By means of the Dirac sea model—exemplified in the electron sector of the standard model neglecting radiation—we explain how starting from persisting particles, one is led to standard QFT employing creation and annihilation operators when tracking the dynamics with respect to a reference state, the so-called vacuum. Since on the level of wave (...) functions, both formalisms are mathematically equivalent, this proposal provides for an ontology of QFT that includes a dynamics of individual processes, solves the measurement problem, and explains the appearance of creation and annihilation events. 1Bohmian Mechanics from Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Field Theory2The Dirac Sea Model3Equilibrium States and the Vacuum4Excitations of the Vacuum and the Fock Space Formalism5The Appearance of Particle Creations and Annihilations6The Merits of the Bohmian Approach. (shrink)

We live, according to some, in the century of biology, where we now understand ourselves in radically new ways as the insights of genomics and neuroscience have opened up the workings of our bodies and our minds to new kinds of knowledge and intervention. Is a new figure of the human, and of the social, taking shape in the 21st century? With what consequences for the politics of life today? And with what implications, if any, for the social, cultural and (...) human sciences? These are the issues that are discussed in this article, which argues that a new relation is requred with the life sciences, beyond commentary and critique, if the social and human sciences are to revitalize themselves for the 21st century. (shrink)

People undergo many idiosyncratic experiences throughout their lives that may contribute to individual differences in the size and structure of their knowledge representations. Ultimately, these can have important implications for individuals' cognitive performance. We review evidence that suggests a relationship between individual experiences, the size and structure of semantic representations, as well as individual and age differences in cognitive performance. We conclude that the extent to which experience-dependent changes in semantic representations contribute to individual differences in cognitive aging remains unclear. (...) To help fill this gap, we outline an empirical agenda that utilizes network analysis and involves the concurrent assessment of large-scale semantic networks and cognitive performance in younger and older adults. We present preliminary data to establish the feasibility and limitations of such empirical, network-analytical approaches. (shrink)

Alors que l’anthropologie montre que la naissance est d’abord un événement communautaire, actuellement des parents se retrouvent de plus en plus profondément seuls et démunis devant leur bébé. Ce phénomène est l’objet d’une recherche en cours qui essaie d’évaluer après la naissance les effets de l’isolement familial des parents sur la vie psychique du bébé lors de sa première année. Dans le cas clinique qui illustre ici cette « nouvelle solitude » des parents, les forums d’internet tentent de relayer la (...) faiblesse du soutien familial alors que les anxiétés, bien légitimes autour de la naissance, perdurent quand le bébé grandit. Au-delà des problèmes de la dépression maternelle du postpartum, l’accent est mis sur la place réelle que prend l’entourage comme soutien des processus plus intrapsychiques propres à la construction de la parentalité. (shrink)

Approaching the idea from three viewpoints, The author contends that eternal recurrence is a central and unifying theme in nietzsche's thought. She first considers its scientific basis, Arguing for a reinterpretation of the doctrine because nietzsche did not subscribe to the classical atomism of his time. She then considers the idea in its metaphysical perspective: it represents a repudiation of platonism and an affirmation of life. Finally, Urging the unity of the metaphysical and the ethical in nietzsche's philosophy, The author (...) interprets eternal recurrence as an idea created by life itself to serve life by strengthening the will to power. (staff). (shrink)

English summary: This book analyses the relationship between faith and love in terms of Aquinas' theology.

Este estudio revisa el desarrollo del análisis propuesto por Michel Foucault sobre el poder político en términos de gubernamentalidad, y esboza sus características principales. Se examina el despliegue de esta perspectiva, centrándose particularmente en cómo este enfoque genealógico del análisis de la conducta de todos y cada uno ha sido acogido y desarrollado en el mundo angloparlante. Se evalúan algunas de las críticas fundamentales que han sido planteadas a la analítica de la gubernamentalidad, y se arguye en favor de la (...) productividad continua y la creatividad de estas maneras de analizar la emergencia, naturaleza y consecuencias de las artes de gobierno. (shrink)

In this paper I demonstrate that theories which postulate a strict tree structure of discourse on either the intentional or attentional level are not totally adequate for handling spontaneous dialogues. I use as..

The most comprehensive collection available in paperback of Bacon’s philosophical and scientific writings, this volume offers Bacon's major works in their entirety, or in substantive selections, revised from the classic 19th century editions of Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. Selections from some of Bacon's natural histories round out this edition by showing the types of compilations that he believed would most contribute to the third part of his Great Instauration. Each work has a separate brief introduction indicating the major themes developed. (...) In her general Introduction, Sargent gives a biographical sketch of Bacon's early life, education, and legal career, discusses the major components of his philosophical project, and traces his influence on subsequent natural philosophy. In addition, she looks at the primarily negative evaluations of Bacon's methodological writings by philosophers of science in the first half of the twentieth century, the reassessments of his works that took place as the influence of logical empiricism declined, and the current revival of interest in Bacon that coincides with the focus on experimental practice today. A bibliography and index complete the text. (shrink)

After years of relative neglect, experimental science has once again become an object of scrutiny. Philosophers such as Hacking and Cartwright have examined contemporary science in an attempt to display the epistemic status of experimental results, while sociologists such as Shapin and Schaffer have focussed on historical cases in an attempt to display the conventional basis of experimentation. In this study I am concerned with the epistemological question: How can one justify the claim that it is rational to believe that (...) the methods of experimental science yield knowledge about the unobserved causal structures of our world? My answer to this question is produced by way of an historical analysis and philosophical retrieval of Robert Boyle's epistemological defense of experimental science. ;The first two chapters examine contemporary issues surrounding experimental science, particularly those challenges posed to its knowledge-producing ability by philosophical instrumentalists and sociological constructionists. I then turn to an examination of Boyle's version of experimental philosophy, which includes a detailed discussion of the background traditions from which he drew in its formulation, and his response to critics of experimentation, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. ;Boyle's work is not only historically important, but is philosophically significant in light of the fact that he developed epistemological strategies in defense of experimental techniques at a time when it was not clear that experimentation would become the standard of modern science. His philosophy is characterized as a sophisticated and complex method that employs the elements of inductive, retroductive, and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. This combination, he argues, yields a system of checks and balances on sense, reason, and ideology that, while fallible, offers us the best assurance that we have of coming closer to the truth about the processes operative in our world. ;In a concluding chapter it is argued that Boyle's philosophy of science, by virtue of its richness and complexity, is sufficient to respond to the general challenges to scientific objectivity posed by sociologists of knowledge, and the more specific challenges to the realist import of the theoretical claims of experimental science posed by philosophers such as Laudan and van Fraassen. (shrink)

In the past decades, professions have increasingly been called to account. Several authors have reported that this increased public professional accountability, in the form of showing that professional conduct meets predefined standards or rules, has had severe negative consequences for professionals, their clients and society, and call for ‘intelligent’ forms of accountability; forms of accountability that may inform a wider public about professional conduct but do not harm it. In this paper, we propose a form of ‘intelligent’ public professional accountability. (...) Taking Freidson’s notion of institutional ethics as a point of departure, we develop a form of accountability that seeks to account for the conditions required for professional conduct. The paper first discusses the current ‘dilemma of professional accountability,’ describes ‘ideal-type professional conduct’ and goes into the conditions it requires. Next, it shows what accounting for these conditions entails and that this form of accountability fits the criteria for intelligent accountability, as set by O’Neill Capital failure: rebuilding trust in financial services, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014). (shrink)

It has been argued that organizational structures (the way tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated) can influence moral agency in organizations. In particular, low values on different structural parameters (functional concentration, specialization, separation, and formalization) are said to foster an organizational context (allowing for relating to the goals and output of the organization, moral deliberation, and social connectedness) that is conducive to moral agency. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the organizational structure and moral agency in the case (...) of a.s.r. (a large Dutch insurance company). While our empirical results fit the thesis that low values on structural parameters positively relate to moral agency, they also refine our understanding of the influence of structural parameters. In particular, our data suggest that the influence of functional concentration not only depends on whether it is low, but also on the type of criterion used for identifying business units; they suggest that the specific organizational context may put a limit to lowering design parameters and points at several non-structural factors that have an influence on the relation between structure and moral agency. In all, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of the conditions conducive to moral agency in organizations. (shrink)

Think Rich. Look Poor.Andy Warhol 1 Quadro introduttivo: la vita e l’opera di Danto Arthur C. Danto inizia la sua biografia intellettuale My Life as a Philosopher, a tutt’oggi inedita, con l’affermazione: «ho avuto l’immensa fortuna di crescere nel mezzo di due epoche d’oro — quella della filosofia e quella dell’arte». Sarà questa costellazione [Konstellation; N. d. T.] a modellare i suoi interessi, il suo sviluppo filosofico e in particolare la sua filosofia dell’arte che è stata influenzata...

Professor Joseph Agassi hat in dieser Zeitschrift meine Analyse von Quines Stellung in der analytischen Tradition kritisiert und dabei insbesondere die Irrelevanz von Neurath betont und Quines Nähe zu Popper herausgestellt. In meiner Antwort geht es mir sowohl um eine Rehabilitation Neuraths als auch um die Unterschiede von Quines Philosophie zu Popper und Wittgenstein.

Although more and more researches have shown that edge-based information is more important than surface-based information in object recognition, it remains unclear whether edge-based features play a more crucial role than surface-based features in category learning. To address this issue, a modified prototype distortion task was adopted in the present study, in which each category was defined by a rule or similarity about either the edge-based features (i.e., contours or shapes) or the corresponding surface-based features (i.e., color and textures). The (...) results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that when the category was defined by a rule, the performance was significantly better in the edge-based condition than in the surface-based condition in the testing phase, and increasing defined dimensions enhanced rather than reduced performance in the edge-based condition but not in the surface-based condition. The results of Experiment 3 showed that when each category was defined by similarity, there was also a larger learning effect when the category was defined by edge-based dimensions than by surface-based dimensions in the testing phase. The current study is the first to provide convergent evidence that the edge-based information matters more than surface-based information in incidental category learning. (shrink)