This unique and pioneering book critically appraises current work from both the cognitive science of religion and the evolutionary study of religion. It addresses the question: Why does the believer possess supernatural or religious beliefs in the combined context of his cognitive biases, their adaptive usefulness measured in terms of survival and reproduction, and the impact of social learning and cultural traits? The authors outlines a pluralistic approach to the study of religion that does not treat religion as an accidental (...) by-product but an adaptation selected by natural selection. Chapters discuss the role of religious components for the evolution of cooperation and altruism, and explore the development of atheism and secular ideas, in cognitive and evolutionary terms. Topics such as the usefulness of religion, the transmission of religious beliefs, and a Darwinian approach to religion are among those addressed. Contrary to standard views, religious biases are regarded as shaped by cultural influences and not merely by natural dispositions. This monograph will particularly appeal to researchers who are looking for a scientific explanation of religion and religious beliefs but who do not stop at the level of narrow cognitive and evolutionary accounts. The work will also be of interest to students of philosophy, sociology, religious studies, theology, or anthropology who seek to explain such fascinating, complex, and unequivocal phenomena as religion and religious components. (shrink)

Bird songs often display musical acoustic features such as tonal pitch selection, rhythmicity, and melodic contouring. We investigated higher-order musical temporal structure in bird song using an experimental method called “music scrambling” with human subjects. Recorded songs from a phylogenetically diverse group of 20 avian taxa were split into constituent elements and recombined in original and random order. Human subjects were asked to evaluate which version sounded more “musical” on a per-species basis. Species identity and stimulus treatment were concealed from (...) subjects, and stimulus presentation order was randomized within and between taxa. Two recordings of human music were included as a control for attentiveness. Participants varied in their assessments of individual species musicality, but overall they were significantly more likely to rate bird songs with original temporal sequence as more musical than those with randomized temporal sequence. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the origins of avian musicality, including honest signaling, perceptual bias, and arbitrary aesthetic coevolution. (shrink)

Der Band vereint aktuelle Beiträge zu den Themenschwerpunkten Fiktion, Wahrheit und Interpretation im Hinblick auf fiktionale literarische Texte. Im Einzelnen werden Fragen wie die folgenden diskutiert: In welchem Verhältnis stehen Literatur und Wahrheit? Welche Rolle spielen Intentionen für die Interpretation? Sind fiktionale Texte ausschließlich fiktional? Lässt sich die Sprechakttheorie für die Beschreibung der in fiktionalen literarischen Texten enthaltenen Sätze fruchtbar machen? Warum nehmen wir Anteil an fiktionaler Literatur, obwohl wir wissen, dass die beschriebenen Personen und Ereignisse nicht real sind? Die (...) Beiträger nehmen diese Problemfelder aus einer interdisziplinären Warte zwischen Literaturtheorie und analytischer Philosophie in den Blick. (shrink)

The book addresses the questions how literature can convey knowledge and how literary meaning can arise in the face of the fact that fictional texts waive the usual claim to truth. Based on the interdisciplinary cooperation of literary scholars and analytic philosophers, the present anthology attempts a) to analyze the possibility and conditions of gaining knowledge through literature, and b) to apply, in a fruitful way, philosophical theories of meaning and interpretation to the constitution of meaning within the language of (...) literature. The project is guided by the hypothesis that the cognitive function of literature cannot be understood without such fundamental modelings of the complex interaction of meaning, truth and knowledge. (shrink)

In his works on natural philosophy, Walter Burley designed a theory about one particular kind of opposition, namely contrariety. In this respect, one of his most peculiar tractates is the Tractatus primus. However, also in his Physics-commentary, in his Tractatus secundus and in the quaestio Utrum contraria adequata in virtute agant et patiantur ad invicem? one finds arguments revealing a dialectical approach to the problem of the specific identity and/or incompatibility of contrariously opposed qualities. Burley’s rea­­sonings compose an original attempt (...) to use philosophical dialectic not only as a meth­od of disputation, but moreover primarily as a theory of the mediation of opposites. These arguments refer to the scope of natural philosophy, logic, ethics and medicine. An analysis of these arguments and of the criticisms of Thomas Wylton and Konrad of Megenberg reveals Burley’s dialectical approach to be an eminent historical contribution to the solution of fundamental questions within the realm of Aristotelian metaphysics. (shrink)

Geist und Natur im Widerspruch und in der Übereinstimmung.--Das Menschenbild im Lichte der Heilkunde.--Roger Bacon (1214[?]-1292) und Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464) als Begründer chemischer und physikalisch-chemischer Methoden in der Medizin.--Leonardo da Vinci als Physiologe.--Die kosmologische Anthropologie des Paracelsus als Grundlage seiner Medizin.--Konrad Gessner (1516-1567).--Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733).--Goethe und die wissenschaftliche Medizin seiner Zeit.--Die Krankheitsauffassung Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Novalis).--Rudolf Kassner.--Anmerkungen (p. [285]).

La rencontre du peintre Hans von Marées avec le théoricien Konrad Fiedler est le moteur théorique du courant des « deutsche Römer ». Suivant un parti pris antiréaliste, Marées est fidèle à l’analyse menée par Fiedler, selon laquelle l’art n’a pas pour fonction d’imiter la réalité. Il inaugure avec Adolf Hildebrand une nouvelle phénoménologie, une nouvelle manière de constituer le phénomène comme abstrait du sensible perçu, si bien que la perception en art obéit à ses règles propres, ouvrant (...) les portes de l’abstraction. (shrink)

Die Philosophie von Hans Jonas hat eine tiefe Wirkung auf ein weites Spektrum von Lesern in Europa, Asien und in Amerika entfaltet. Mit seinem ethischen Entwurf "Das Prinzip Verantwortung" gewann er insbesondere in Deutschland in der ökologischen Bewegung in den 70er Jahren einen enormen Einfluss. Die Autoren dieses von Christian Wiese und Eric Jacobson herausgegebenen Bandes (u.a. Micha Brumlik, Konrad Liessmann, Michael Löwy) versuchen hier eine Neubewertung seines herausragenden Beitrags zum religionsgeschichtlichen und philosophischen Diskurs seiner Zeit. Erstmals liegt (...) hier der Versuch vor, die vier zentralen Elemente des Werkes von Hans Jonas in ihrer Gesamtheit und ihrem inneren Zusammenhang zu beleuchten: deutsch-jüdische Geistesgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Erforschung der spätantiken Gnosis, Ethik und Philosophie der Verantwortung für die technologische Zivilisation sowie theologische Reflexionen nach dem Zivilisationsbruch von Auschwitz. Die international anerkannten Forscherinnen und Forscher arbeiten die vielfältigen Facetten des Denkens von Hans Jonas heraus. Sein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer für die "Weiterwohnlichkeit der Welt" ist vor diesem Hintergrund von bleibender Aktualität. (shrink)

In this article, I put forward a basic philosophical claim: empirical scientific knowledge, that is, knowledge generated in experimental and observational practices, presupposes real causation. My discussion exploits two core notions from the philosophical analysis of scientific experimentation and observation: the aim of realizing object-apparatus correlations and the required control of the relevant interactions between environment and experimental or observational system. The conclusion is that, without the notion of real causation, acquiring epistemically sound empirical knowledge is impossible. Several empiricist objections (...) to this conclusion are discussed and refuted. As a consequence, empiricism faces an unsolvable dilemma: either it cannot account for empirical knowledge or it should accept the existence of unobservable but real causal interactions. (shrink)

1947 legt Hans Blumenberg aus Bargteheide in Holstein an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel seine unter schwierigsten persönlichen Umständen entstandene Dissertation 'Beiträge zum Problem der Ursprünglichkeit der mittelalterlich-scholastischen Ontologie" vor. Hinter diesem Titel verbirgt sich eine mit ständigem Bezug auf die Philosophie Heideggers und seine "Fundamentalontologie' geführte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Denken des christlichen Mittelalters, in dem die Frage nach dem Grund des Seins eine so krisenhafte wie produktive Zuspitzung erfahren hatte. Die Dissertation wird von den Gutachtern Ludwig Landgrebe und Rudolf (...) Schneider mit "ausgezeichnet" bewertet, aber sämtliche Bemühungen, zeitnah einen Verlag für die Arbeit zu finden, scheitern. Blumenbergs brillantes Erstlingswerk blieb mehr als 70 Jahre ungedruckt. Nun wird es erstmals publiziert in einer leserorientierten Edition, die unter anderem Übersetzungen der zahlreichen altsprachlichen Zitate wie auch ein "Verzeichnis der Referenzliteratur" bietet, das die Lücke des im Original fehlenden Literaturverzeichnisses schliesst und dieses darüber hinaus durch heute zugängliche Ausgaben ergänzt. In ihrem Nachwort beleuchten die Herausgeber den Entstehungskontext dieses Werks, das überraschende Perspektiven auf Blumenbergs Biographie und Denkentwicklung eröffnet. (shrink)

The commentary interprets the practices of remembering and the creation of memory as an attempt at academic and public-media self-understanding, which exhibit past-political, present-oriented and future-oriented perspectives and intentions. Academic politics of history and remembrance can hardly be imagined without reference to and interaction with the public and politics. The contributions in this special issue make it clear that a large number of public and private actors and interest groups are usually involved in memory policy controversies surrounding academics. When discussing (...) prizes, street names or school names named after academics, for example, very different logics and ideas about remembering and memory often clash. This fundamental dilemma is particularly evident in debates about controversial academics who worked before, during and after the Nazi era. (shrink)

Comparative biological morphology, incorporating the study of active reaction, is contrasted with genetics as the study of passive mutation. Geneticists investigate anatomical characters, never anatomical constructions, which are capable of reorganization when the biological-morphological equilibrium of the organism has been disturbed. The anatomy of Opisthocomus cristatus and Stringops habroptilus demonstrate that three successive disturbances in the bio-morphological equilibrium are reacted to purposively by anatomical reconstruction. These reactions are no accidental mutations, but are anatomical reactions, related to, and affecting, the organism (...) as a whole. In sharp contrast to such anatomical reaction, resulting, during phylogeny, in reorganization, are the “technics” [i.e., mechanistic bases] of individual development. The hereditary process is, like every physiological or embryological process, a fixed mechanism, which remains constant until an active reaction leads to reconstruction and at the same time an appropriate change of the mechanisms. The remolding of species is therefore no passive, “technical” process, but a creative act of the organisms themselves. [Original English abstract; not translated.]. (shrink)

Brief discussion of Niels Bohr's place in the history of philosophy (including his philosophical forebears, Søren Kierkegaard, Rasmus Nielsen, and Harald Høffding).

Gödel’s slingshot-argument proceeds from a referential theory of definite descriptions and from the principle of compositionality for reference. It outlines a metasemantic proof of Frege’s thesis that all true sentences refer to the same object—as well as all false ones. Whereas Frege drew from this the conclusion that sentences refer to truth-values, Gödel rejected a referential theory of definite descriptions. By formalising Gödel’s argument, it is possible to reconstruct all premises that are needed for the derivation of Frege’s thesis. For (...) this purpose, a reference-theoretical semantics for a language of first-order predicate logic with identity and referentially treated definite descriptions will be defined. Some of the premises of Gödel’s argument will be proven by such a reference-theoretical semantics, whereas others can only be postulated. For example, the principle that logically equivalent sentences refer to the same object cannot be proven but must be assumed in order to derive Frege’s thesis. However, different true (or false) sentences can refer to different states of affairs if the latter principle is rejected and the other two premises are maintained. This is shown using an identity criterion for states of affairs according to which two states of affairs are identical if and only if they involve the same objects and have the same necessary and sufficient condition for obtaining. (shrink)

In recent years, the relation between studying and learning has been a topic of debate. This article is mainly interested in a concept of study practices, conceived of as practices that are strongly engaged with issues of living together in a superdiverse city. Such practices firstly require to think the relation between studying and learning in other-than-oppositional terms, and secondly, to raise questions concerning the political role of education. The aim of the article is double in that it wants to (...) further elaborate the concept of study practices in relation to a concrete practice on the one hand, and, on the other, that it has the objective to rethink in educational terms the notion of solidarity—deeply entwined with matters of living together in superdiversity. These aims are pursued based on an analysis of the study practice of System_D, a film festival in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Brussels, drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway. (shrink)

In his influential book, "Changing Order", H.M. Collins puts forward the following three claims concerning experimental replication. (i) Replication is rarely practiced by experimentalists; (ii) replication cannot be used as an objective test of scientific knowledge claims, because of the occurrence of the so-called experimenters' regress; and (iii) stopping this regress at some point depends upon the enculturation in a local community of practitioners, who tacitly learn the relevant skills. In my paper I discuss and assess these claims on the (...) basis of a more comprehensive analysis of experimentation and experimental reproducibility. The main point is that Collins' claims are not, strictly speaking, wrong, but rather too one-sided and therefore inadequate. This point also calls for a reconsideration of the radical (social constructivist) conclusions that Collins has drawn from his studies of scientific experimentation. (shrink)

The concept of similarity plays a crucial role in biology, especially in natural history. Despite its apparent familiarity it has been subject again and again to reinterpretations — it may even be stated that the main streams of theoretical thinking in the life sciences are reflected and condensed in its ever changing meaning. The changing content of the concept is analyzed from Linnaean systematics through classical morphology and comparative anatomy to Darwinian evolutionary thinking. It appears that the meaning of similarity (...) is inseparable from the function of the concept in theory, viz. its operational determination. In addition a remarkable correspondence has to be recognized between the notion of similarity and the conceptualization of an organism as the basic unit of life. (shrink)

Empty individual expressions are needed to reconstruct the actual use of scientific language as well as to make logic free from existence assumptions. According to Quine, a language must be extensional to be adequate for the purposes of science. By means of Lambert's non-extensionality argument it can be demonstrated that a language containing empty individual expressions cannot be extensional as long as truth-values are the extensions of sentences. This book investigates the soundness of Lambert's argument and examines the question of (...) whether and how extensionality of a language for free logic can be secured. To achieve these aims, the notion of extensionality is thoroughly analyzed and two new semantic approaches to free logic are developed in which states of affairs, but not truth-values, are the extensions of sentences. These two semantic approaches are defended against the slingshot argument. In this way, two possible solutions to the problem of extensionality arise which use non-existent objects in two different ways: whereas in dual domain semantics non-existent objects serve as referents of empty singular terms, in single domain semantics they serve as hole marker objects that mark the holes in states of affairs where an object is missing due to an irreferental individual expression. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Internistenkongress von 1949 war Anlass und Arena einer breit wahrgenommenen Kontroverse zu epistemologischen Fragen der Psychosomatischen Medizin. Der Beitrag verortet zunächst den Kongress in der Nachkriegsgeschichte und zeichnet die Verlaufslinien der Debatte nach. Dabei werden sowohl die Positionen der Sprecher der Psychosomatischen Medizin – Viktor von Weizsäcker und Alexander Mitscherlich – als auch diejenige von Paul Martini, der auf Basis seiner Methodologie klinischer Forschung grundsätzliche Kritik äußerte, rekonstruiert. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die jeweils unterschiedlichen Auffassungen von Kausalität, Evidenz (...) und Subjektivität herausgearbeitet und kontextualisiert. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt hierbei auf dem konkreten und expliziten Gebrauch dieser Begriffe bei Martini. Schließlich zeige ich, dass diese Ereignisse im Jahr 1949 als Kulmination einer fortdauernden Kontroverse über wissenschaftliche Evidenz in der klinischen Medizin gelesen werden können, die sich mit ihren Beteiligten und Bezugsebenen über mehrere Jahrzehnte erstreckte. (shrink)

Social Justice, Health Inequities, and Access to New Age-Related Interventions Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 281-295 DOI 10.1007/s12376-009-0027-3 Authors Hans-Jörg Ehni, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Georg Marckmann, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Journal Medicine Studies Online ISSN 1876-4541 Print ISSN 1876-4533 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 296-325, April 2022.

Few arguments against intentional states in animals have stood the test of time. But one objection by Stich and Davidson has never been rebutted. In my reconstruction it runs: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous, unless something counts as an animal believing one specific “content” rather than another; Nothing counts as an animal believing one specific content rather than another, because of their lack of language; Ergo: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous. Several attempts to block the argument challenge the (...) first premise, notably the appeals to “naked” belief ascriptions and alternative representational formats. This essay defends the first premise and instead challenges the second premise. There are non-linguistic “modes of presentation”; these can be determined by attributing to animals specific needs and capacities—a “ hermeneutic ethology” based on lessons from the debate about radical translation/interpretation in the human case. On that basis we can narrow down content by exclusion. What remains is an “imponderability of the mental” which does not rule out attributions of intentional states to animals. (shrink)

In 1890 C. S. Peirce wrote a review of A. C. Fraser’s recent book on Locke, published to coincide with the bicentennial of Locke’s Essay. Peirce remarked that “Locke’s grand work was substantially this: Men must think for themselves, and genuine thought is an act of perception…. We cannot fail to acknowledge a superior element of truth in the practicality of Locke’s thought, which on the whole should place him nearly upon a level with Descartes.” This estimate of Locke was (...) not the common opinion in England during the nineteenth century. This opinion was reflected in Fraser’s book which, Peirce remarked, could not “be said to be a sympathetic account of [Locke]. The biographer seems to see no charm in his hero, and is perpetually speaking of his want of imagination; which only means he was not given to unpractical dreaming.” Locke had his knowledgeable critics and defenders—for instance Dugald Stewart and John Stuart Mill—but the common opinion ranged from extreme hostility and contempt to condescending criticism of isolated minor points. His style was deplored, his philosophy was called unoriginal and a mere unacknowledged plagiarism of Gassendi and Hobbes; he was said to have so thoroughly misunderstood Descartes that he had merely repeated him with new errors; he was said to owe his philosophical reputation entirely to his advocacy of the popular argument for political freedom or merely to the intellectual circumstances of his time; he was held accountable for Condillac’s rejection of reflection and reason; he was knocked down with a few bare sentences loosely drawn from Leibniz; he was said to have made the mind a puny, passive, mechanical thing. He was called a sensualist, a materialist, a sceptic, an atheist, and a utilitarian though at the same time—and not without contradiction—he was generally, especially by his critics, styled a “great lover of truth,” a plain and simple, well-meaning and religious man. To the nineteenth century Locke meant the Essay, and the history of the Essay was in large measure the history of modern thought, of the eighteenth century. Precisely for this reason there was something nearly sinister about him, in spite of his good personal character. “Locke, himself a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent, nay, religious man,” said Carlyle, “had paved the way for banishing religion from the world.”. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the relationship between creativity and autonomy - originally related to each other in the concept of the `self' as one of the crucial parts of the Meadian and symbolic interactionist heritage - and asks how we should construe this relation today. After a brief reconstruction of the history of the notions of `self' and `identity' the paper takes up the postmodern challenge of these notions by clarifying and partially revising them. It discusses the three (...) aspects of a possibly over-socialized conception of the person, the irreducibility of difference between socialized individuals and the role of power and exclusion in processes of identity formation. (shrink)

This essay argues that Pufendorf conceived the principles of natural law against the rationalism and innatism of the 17th century, and that Condillac similarly formulated a conception of the human origin of language, both of them thus securing open and human foundations for the two primal institutions of law and language, and also making all citizens free agents in the ordering of communal living.

En un ensayo de 2002 Julia Iribarne somete a crítica algunas teorías fenomenológicas sobre el sueño, agregando algunas descripciones de los fenómenos. En este ensayo se evaluará de modo crítico la contribución de Iribarne. En el primer apartado se esbozarán brevemente las principales conclusiones de una fenomenología del sueño tal fueron formuladas desde Husserl a Th. Conrad. En el segundo se contrastará con ellas la crítica de J. Iribarne. En el tercero se examinarán la solidez de sus objeciones antes de (...) intentar, en el último apartado, desde la pregunta central sobre la producción de la realidad en un sueño, formular un resultado que lleva un poco más lejos, pero que igualmente solo puede ser provisional.In a 2002 essay, Julia Iribarne subjected to criticism some phenomenological theories on sleep, adding some descriptions of phenomena. This essay critically evaluates the contribution of Iribarne. In the first section, it briefly outlines the main conclusions of a phenomenology of sleep that were made from Husserl to Th. Conrad. The second, it contrasts these theories with Iribarne's criticism. The third part examines the strength of their objections, before attempting to formulate, in the fourth and final section, from the central question about the production of reality in a sleep, a result that takes a little further, but it also can only be provisional. (shrink)