When did the concept of model begin to be used in mathematics? This question appears at first somewhat surprising since “model” is such a standard term now in the discourse on mathematics and “modelling” such a standard activity that it seems to be well established since long. The paper shows that the term— in the intended epistemological meaning—emerged rather recently and tries to reveal in which mathematical contexts it became established. The paper discusses various layers of argumentations and reflections in (...) order to unravel and reach the pertinent kernel of the issue. The specific points of this paper are the difference in the epistemological concept to the usually discussed notions of model and the difference between conceptions implied in mathematical practices and their becoming conscious in proper reflections of mathematicians. (shrink)

This comment is analysing the last section of a paper by Piotr Blaszczyk, Mikhail G. Katz, and David Sherry on alleged misconceptions committed by historians of mathematics regarding the history of analysis, published in this journal in the first issue of 2013. Since this section abounds of wrong attributions and denouncing statements regarding my research and a key publication, the comment serves to rectify them and to recall some minimal methodological requirements for historical research.

The life and work of Hermann Günther Graßmann (1809–1877) attract not only ever again the attention of mathematicians, mathematical historians and those interested in the history of mathematics, they constitute also a challenge for the methodology of historiographical research. This challenge persists since Friedrich Engel’s biography of 1911; there, two sources were presented and interpreted in a not legitimate manner which even mislead since then various scholars. This paper faces the intricate task to unravel not only the methodological shortcomings of (...) Engel’s biography, but also to re-assess the misinterpretations – particularly of alleged influences on Graßmann’s approaches – induced by Engel’s misleading claims. Based upon broader historically contextualised analyses of Graßmann’s innovative elements in his theory of extension and upon new primary sources for his student times at the Gymnasium and Berlin University, the paper presents a novel assessment of Graßmann’s approaches. (shrink)

By the end of the 19th century, mathematics teaching underwent a crisis of similar proportion in several European countries. Constrained by the values of classical Antiquity, which dominated in secondary education, mathematics was taught as a formal discipline enhancing elementary geometry and intended as some gymnastics of the mind. Moreover, a specific feature in Germany was that the country was split up into numerous independent states each having a separated educational system of its own. Many of these conferred an only (...) marginal status to mathematics instruction. This complex situation is analyzed for the traditional school system for boys, as well as for the emerging system for girls, and for primary schooling.The study describes the key initiatives by Felix Klein, who forged a dynamic movement of teachers for modernising secondary school teaching. Their culmination in the famous “Meran” reform program is depicted, a program which became the starting point for the first international reform movement in mathematics teaching. (shrink)

Wenn wir davon sprechen, dass etwas sozial unangemessen ist, meinen wir damit in der Regel, dass es keine Übereinstimmung gibt zwischen dem erwarteten Verhalten und dem tatsächlichen Verhalten. Soziale Angemessenheit betrifft dementsprechend Fragestellungen, die (soziale) Normen betreffen. Betrachten wir Angemessenheitskriterien durch die Positionen bestimmter sozialer Gruppen, ist es uns möglich, gruppenspezifische Angemessenheitskriterien zu beleuchten und kritisch zu betrachten. Hier geht es um Fragen wie: Ist mein Verhalten meinem wahrgenommenen Geschlecht angemessen? Mit diesem Blickwinkel wird deutlicher, dass unseren Vorstellungen von sozialer (...) Angemessenheit unter Umständen widersprüchliche Normen zugrunde liegen. Gerade wenn es um gruppenspezifische Fragen zur sozialen Angemessenheit geht, die etwa das Geschlecht, physische und mentale Befähigungen oder die Ethnie einer Person betreffen, kann Dehumanisierung eine Rolle spielen. Moderne Normen, so die Argumentation in diesem Kapitel, berücksichtigen Aspekte der Dehumanisierung, während traditionellere Normen diese tendenziell ignorieren. Hierdurch ergibt sich die Existenz widersprüchlicher Normen rund um soziale Angemessenheit. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird erklärt, wie soziale Angemessenheit und dehumanisierende Interaktionsstrukturen zusammenhängen, um die Frage erörtern zu können, wie widersprüchliche Kriterien für soziale Angemessenheit zustande kommen und wie diese eventuell auch verändert werden können. Hierzu wird das Konzept der Skripte herangezogen. (shrink)

Some philosophical and psychological approaches to social interaction posit a powerful explanatory tool for explaining how we navigate social situations: scripts. Scripts tell people how to interact in different situational and cultural contexts depending on social roles such as gender. A script theory of social interaction puts emphasis on understanding the world as normatively structured. Social structures place demands, roles, and ways to behave in the social world upon us, which, in turn, guide the ways we interact with one another (...) and the ways we coordinate our behaviors. In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of coordinated behaviors in social interactions in humans. I argue that looking closely at everyday interactions, for which social coordination is central, strongly points to a fundamental role of scripts for social cognition and interaction. In order to explain some social interactions, like those based on social coordination, we do not need to recourse to mental state attribution. Rather, I argue, scripts are a powerful resource for explaining social interaction and especially coordinated behaviors. Scripts have been neglected in standard approaches to social cognition but are (re-)gaining attention via the normative turn in social cognition. (shrink)

Enno Heeren Dirksen (1788–1850) was one of several mathematicians originating from Eastern Frisia at the end of the eighteenth century to acquire prominence in neohumanist reformed Prussia. While striving—like so many of his contemporaries—for more rigour in the foundations of calculus, his work is significant due to his unusual emphasis on the semiotic aspects of the basic concepts. As a clear-sighted propagator of Cauchy's conceptual innovations in Germany, his achievements in improving sign expressions of such concepts enabled him to clarify (...) hitherto not differentiated multiple limit processes—although less successfully in constructive concept formation itself. The contribution is based on the analysis of Dirksen's published texts and on the numerous texts which remained drafts for his projected voluminousOrganon der gesamten Analysis. (shrink)

Dans les premières lignes du compte-rendu substantiel qu’il fournit de l’ouvrage de Mikel Dufrenne paru en 1963 sous le titre Le Poétique, Paul Ricœur écrit : Le dernier livre de Mikel Dufrenne n’est pas seulement le fruit mûr d’une œuvre qui pousse comme une plante – les images végétales conviennent à merveille à une philosophie qui se veut fidèle aux voix de la Nature! –, il est aussi l’un des signes de la mue de la philosophie française : celle-ci, de (...) multiples façons, se rebelle comme l... (shrink)

There is no specific trans perspective on romantic love. Trans people love and do not love, fall in love and fall out of love, just like everyone else. Trans people inhabit different sexual identities, different relationship types, and different kinds of loving. When it comes to falling in love as or with a trans person, however, things can get more complicated, as questions of gender and sexual identity emerge. In a study by Blair & Hoskin from 2018, 87.5% of the (...) interviewed participants said they would not consider dating a trans person (Blair & Hoskin, 2018). Among those who were open to dating trans people, a pattern emerged: the subjects were disproportionately willing to date trans men but not trans women, even if this preference did not match their own sexual identity; for example, a woman who identifies as a lesbian may be open to dating a trans man but not a trans woman. This seems like a clash of sexual and gender identities: why are women who identify as lesbians willing to date men? This chapter aims to analyze this phenomenon: love between clashing sexual and gender identities – e.g., the love between a man, who identifies as being romantically interested in men, and a trans woman, – and thereby evaluates the limits of romantic love for trans people. Limits of love, in this chapter, are conceived of as normative restrictions on whom and how we love. By exploring cases of clashing sexual and gender identities in romantic love, this chapter analyzes how trans people’s opportunities for love are often limited. (shrink)

This chapter argues that emotion recognition is a skill. A skill perspective on emotion recognition draws attention to underappreciated features of this cornerstone of social cognition. Skills have a number of characteristic features. For example, they are improvable, practical, and flexible. Emotion recognition has these features as well. Leading theories of emotion recognition often draw inadequate attention to these features. The chapter advances a theory of emotion recognition that is better suited to this purpose. It proposes that emotion recognition involves (...) scripts. Emotion scripts describe how people are likely to behave in different emotional contexts. Scripts can be improved with the addition of richer social knowledge, they are practical in that they describe and guide social interaction, and they are flexible because they must accommodate the fact that emotions have different behavioral impact depending on the agents involved and the circumstances at play. Learning to recognize emotions through scripts qualifies as a skill. (shrink)

This paper explores how the social and affective lives of people with marginalized social identities are particularly affected by digital influences. Specifically, the paper examines whether and how social media enables LGBTQ+ people to experience feelings of belonging. It does so by drawing on literature from digital epistemology and phenomenology of the digital, and by presenting and analyzing the results of a qualitative study consisting of 25 interviews with LGBTQ+ people. The interviews were conducted to explore the social media experiences (...) of LGBTQ+ people through an empirical framework informed by both phenomenology and social epistemology, particularly feminist standpoint theory. The paper emphasizes the importance of positionality and the epistemic value of research that centers marginalized perspectives and employs an anti-oppressive research approach, and focuses on understanding the digital experiences of LGBTQ+ people from within their marginalized perspective. (shrink)

Essentiellement composé de photographies aériennes, Earthscape est néanmoins un ouvrage de phénoménologie. Après avoir commencé des études d’architecture, puis soutenu une thèse de doctorat en philosophie à Freiburg, son auteur, Chan-fai Cheung, qui a dirigé le département de philosophie de la Chinese University of Hong Kong, met en effet, en tant que photographe, en suspens nos appréhensions habituelles et, pour ainsi dire, naturelles de la terre ; comme l’écrit Bernhard Waldenfels à propos...

Le vieux concept de nature dit-il encore quelque chose de pertinent ou de consistant aujourd’hui, en particulier au regard de notions comme celles d’environnement et de Gaïa? J’aimerais revenir sur deux des raisons avancées pour justifier sa remise ou son déclassement au rayon des notions obsolètes. La première raison consiste à avancer non seulement que la notion de nature est vague, mais qu’elle s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une opposition dépassée entre nature et culture ; c’est ce que suggèr...

L'omniprésence des images dans la société mass-médiatique est corrélative de leur évanescence et du constant renouvellement qui conditionne le processus de leur consommation. Leur omnipotence se réduit ainsi à celle de stimuli destinés à induire des comportements. Or, il convient d'autant plus de revenir d'une telle exténuation de l'image que cette dernière constitue l'une des dimensions essentielles du déploiement de la vie humaine. L'image est traditionnellement rapportée à l'activité imaginante d'un sujet. Mais, s'il est vrai que l'étoffe des hommes et (...) des choses qui se donnent à voir dans le paraître sensible d'une image n'existe pas coupée d'un tel paraître, l'esthétique relève aussi de l'ontologie et sa tâche est de nous ré-apprendre à contempler les images. Au regard de la clarté et de la distinction conférées par la théorie à notre appréhension des choses, la détermination positive des images ne tient-elle pas en effet au fait que c'est dans leur dimension qu'il nous est donné de faire l'expérience vive du paraître de ces choses, jusqu'à l'extrême de l'horreur, du merveilleux et du sacré? (shrink)

The mathematical and epistemological origins of Hermann Graßmann’s innovative work have always attracted the interest of mathematicians and historians. Since Friedrich Engel’s biography, a favourite source for these interpretations has been two curriculum vitae, which were, however, only known from several excerpts. The complete texts are edited here for the first time. They are presented and commented on in their respective contexts, namely the examinations required for a career as Gymnasium teacher and as Protestant pastor. Graßmann’s relations to Schleiermacher’s theology (...) and to his philosophy, as well as Graßmann’s philosophical and mathematical motivations, are discussed in the light of these two documents. (shrink)

Ce recueil vise à interroger un versant moins connu, mais essentiel, de la pensée de Gadamer, sa méditation des philosophes grecs, des Présocratiques à Plotin, qui occupe un tiers de ses œuvres complètes.

While the importance of social emotions is widely recognized, the question whether all emotions are social and what this would mean for the category ‘social emotions’ is yet to be addressed systematically. Emotion theorists and researchers so far have proposed different candidates for social emotions. These include non-basic emotions, self-conscious emotions, higher-cognitive emotions, and defining social emotions via their social functions. This paper looks at these different candidates for social emotions and briefly discusses their issues. Discussing the candidates and their (...) issues motivates embracing a pluralistic approach to social emotions. In a further step, the paper will look at approaches exploring how social factors impact emotions in general. This serves as a basis for explaining what it would mean to propose that all emotions are social. After reviewing different candidates for social emotions and looking at the impact of social factors on emotions in general, the paper will propose that a pluralistic understanding of social emotions is needed to embrace the different ways in which social emotions may function. Embracing a pluralistic understanding of social emotions does not mean, however, that all emotions are social emotions. (shrink)

The contributions to this volume, which take into account literary, visual, and other types of evidence, show that animals and humans in Graeco-Roman antiquity are interconnected on a variety of different levels and that their encounters and interac.

Uexkull’s famous umwelt theory, which is simultaneously a theory of meaning, remains almost unknown in American environmental thought. Thepurpose of this article is to create a dialogue between the umwelt theory – a source of inspiration for biosemiotics – and one of the major figures of the environmental thought, namely Aldo Leopold. The interest of this dialogue lies in the fact that the environmental thought has much to gain by relying on Uexkull’s theory of meaning and, conversely, that Leopold’s land (...) ethic is likely to extend Uexkull’s thought in terms of ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, an array of critical emotion theorists have emerged who call for change with respect to how emotion theory is done, how emotions are understood, and how we do emotion. In this chapter, I draw on the work that some of these authors have produced to analyze how emotional marginalization of trans and disabled identities is experienced, considering in particular how this emotional marginalization results from the long history of pathologization of trans and disabled people. The past and (...) current pathologization of trans and disabled people is produced through normative assumptions, values, and beliefs that uphold systems of normalcy, including assumptions, values, and beliefs about how we feel and express emotions. In order to examine these issues, I identify three different stages at which emotional marginalization may take place: emotion experience, emotional display, and emotion recognition. In other words, emotional marginalization of trans and disabled people can occur at any of these stages. The central concern of my chapter is thus to show how emotional marginalization, at each of these stages, affects trans and disabled people. (shrink)

Initialement écrits à l’occasion de conférences données entre 1996 et 2016 en Asie, aux Amériques et en Europe, les onze chapitres de ce volume interrogent la possibilité, en partant de la phénoménologie, d’engager un dialogue interculturel entre l’Europe et l’Orient, et, en l’occurrence, la Chine. Comme l’indique déjà le sous-titre, l’auteur invite en fin de compte, pour entrer en un tel dialogue, à une nouvelle appropriation du concept merleau-pontien de chair, ce qui le conduit à forger l’...

On pourrait s’étonner de la lecture que Hans Jonas propose de l’histoire des interprétations de l’être. Celle-ci serait animée par une ontologie de mort qui empêche la vie d’être portée au concept. Mais comment cet oubli de la vie pourrait-il concerner le courant de la Lebensphilosophie? Par ailleurs, la phénoménologie elle-même ne prend-elle pas au sérieux cette notion lorsque Husserl considère la pulsion ou interroge le monde de la vie et lorsque le jeune Heidegger consacre un séminaire du...

Comme tous les termes d’une langue, les concepts philosophiques n’ont de sens que par leur relation à l’ensemble de la conceptualité à laquelle ils appartiennent. Mais cela signifie que la relation entre les concepts n’est pas moins essentielle que ces derniers. Et c’est cette relation que disent les éléments du langage que l’on appelle communément des particules de liaison comme de, et, après…, en dehors desquelles la parole serait pure nomination. Seulement, poser l’égale importance de ces...

Japan is one of several East Asian countries that share an ethical system of mutual support. A review of Japan’s health care system reveals a strong egalitarian ethos often considered unique by outside observers.

Uexkull’s famous umwelt theory, which is simultaneously a theory of meaning, remains almost unknown in American environmental thought. Thepurpose of this article is to create a dialogue between the umwelt theory – a source of inspiration for biosemiotics – and one of the major figures of the environmental thought, namely Aldo Leopold. The interest of this dialogue lies in the fact that the environmental thought has much to gain by relying on Uexkull’s theory of meaning and, conversely, that Leopold’s land (...) ethic is likely to extend Uexkull’s thought in terms of ethics. (shrink)