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)

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

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)

ABSTRACTThe question concerning the relation between thinking and the university is the starting point of this paper. After a very brief outline of some reflections on this topic, the case of Campus in Camps, a Palestinian experimental university, is presented to shed light on this issue. Inspired by Isabelle Stengers’ ecology of practices, it is possible to discern four requirements on thinking in the work of Campus in Camps, namely storytelling, comparing, mapping, and using. It will be argued that the (...) particularity of thinking at the university, is that it is done via artifices that initiate processes of composition, problematization, and attention. In the concluding section, the paper proposes to understand the study practice of Campus in Camps as an adventure that activates a sense of the possible, and hence opens up futures that are different from the ones that present themselves as obvious or unavoidable. (shrink)

This major work by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg is a monumental rethinking of the significance of the Copernican revolution for our understanding of modernity.

The development of science does not proceed as a monotonous addition of information. A superior successor theory often contradicts its predecessor. The question as to what the logical relationship is between such theories, insofar as the transition from one to the other embodies continuity and progress, is the subject of this book. Proceeding from a discussion of intertheory reductions, the author proves that theories revision models from philosophical logic are fruitful for questions of scientific theory. Formal analyses of conditionals, autoepistemic (...) inferences, intertheoretical explanations and idealizations are carried out, as well as applications to the Kepler-Newton case and the case of the ideal gas law and van der Waals's law. (shrink)

The paper attacks the widely held view that belief revision theories, as they have been studied in the past two decades, are founded on the Principle of Informational Economy. The principle comes in two versions. According to the first, an agent should, when accepting a new piece of information, aim at a minimal change of his previously held beliefs. If there are different ways to effect the belief change, then the agent should, according to he second version, give up those (...) beliefs that are least entrenched. Although widely proclaimed by belief revision theorists, I argue that both versions of the principle are dogmas that are not (and perhaps should not be) adhered to. I substantiate this claim with two simple mathematical observations, and I defend it against four possible objections that involve contractions, reconstructions, dispositions, and truths. (shrink)

The directionality of space-number association (SNA) is shaped by cultural experiences. It usually follows the culturally dominant reading direction. Smaller numbers are generally associated with the starting side for reading (left side in Western cultures), while larger numbers are associated with the right endpoint side. However, SNAs consistent with cultural reading directions are present before children can actually read and write. Therefore, these SNAs cannot only be shaped by the direction of children’s own reading/writing behavior. We propose six distinct processes (...) – one biological and five cultural/educational – underlying directional SNAs before formal reading acquisition: (i) Brain lateralization, (ii) Monitoring adult reading behavior, (iii) Pretend reading and writing, and rudimentary reading and writing skills, (iv) Dominant attentional directional preferences in a society, not directly related to reading direction, (v) Direct spatial-numerical learning, (vi) Other spatial-directional processes independent of reading direction. In this mini-review, we will differentiate between these processes, elaborate when in development they might emerge, discuss how they may create the SNAs observed in preliterate children and propose how they can be studied in the future. (shrink)

Wanneer ben je sexy, en wie bepaalt dat eigenlijk? Gelden dezelfde normen voor mannen en vrouwen? En hoe moeten we als maatschappij omgaan met de toenemende druk om er hot uit te zien? In dit boek zoekt filosoof Hans Maes een antwoord op deze vragen. Onderweg reflecteert hij over sekssymbolen, over de erotiserende werking van macht en rijkdom, en over de rol van kunst. Hij buigt zich over de notie van seksuele authenticiteit en lanceert ten slotte ook een oproep (...) voor betere pornografie. (shrink)

This is a unique volume by a unique scientist, which combines conceptual, formal, and engineering approaches in a way that is rarely seen. Its core is the relation between ways of learning and knowing on the one hand and different modes of time on the other. Partial Boolean logic and the associated notion of complementarity are used to express this relation, and mathematical tools of fundamental physics are used to formalize it. Along the way many central philosophical problems are touched (...) and addressed, above all the mind-body problem. Completed only shortly before the death of the author, the text has been edited and annotated by the author's close collaborator Harald Atmanspacher. (shrink)

Modern belief revision theory is based to a large extent on partial meet contraction that was introduced in the seminal article by Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors, and David Makinson that appeared in 1985. In the same year, Alchourrón and Makinson published a significantly different approach to the same problem, called safe contraction. Since then, safe contraction has received much less attention than partial meet contraction. The present paper summarizes the current state of knowledge on safe contraction, provides some new results (...) and offers a list of unsolved problems that are in need of investigation. (shrink)

A fresh look at the importance of natural and international law in the religious politics at the heartlands of the Reformation, from the Low Countries, the German principalities up to Transylvania; from Niels Hemmingsen to Gian Battista Vico; from religious reasons for the universalist claims of natural law to political arguments for the sacred polity, their tension and creative potential.

In this article, I address the question of whether science can and should be seen as a common good. For this purpose, the first section focuses on the notion of knowledge and examines its main characteristics. I discuss and assess the core view of analytic epistemology, that knowledge is, basically, justified true belief. On the basis of this analysis, I then develop an alternative, multi-dimensional theory of the nature of knowledge. Section 2 reviews and evaluates several answers to the question (...) of what to understand by the notion of a common good. It discusses both economic and socio-political interpretations of this notion. In Section 3, I develop an alternative account of the common good of scientific knowledge. This knowledge constitutes a common good if it is both non-exhaustible and in the public interest. The two notions are equally important, but in this article, the focus is on the former. For reasons of space, a detailed discussion of the latter is impossible; it will be provided in a forthcoming book. My answer to the question posed in the title of this article builds on the critical discussion of extant views in Sections 1 and 2: some aspects of these views are included in this alternative account, while others are shown to be unhelpful or untenable. The final section discusses some practical implications of this account for the politics of science. The main conclusion is that scientific research should not be privatized through patenting its products. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to examine this claim, and to place it in the wider context of recent epistemological debates about the role of sociality in knowledge acquisition.

A selection from the correspondence of the logician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896?1962) is presented in this article. The most significant letters were exchanged with Bernays, Scholz and Lorenzen, from which extensive passages are transcribed. Some remarks from other letters, with quotations, are also included.

The narrative of the Death of Emperor Hundun 混沌, who finally perishes from the seventh hole that his two fellow Emperors have drilled into his formless body to do him the favor of supplying him with a face, famously concludes the seven Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi 莊子.1 Perhaps the sudden demise of the story’s protagonist is meant to signal paradoxically to the reader that he or she, too, has, unwittingly, now come to an end and reached a stage of (...) no return. With the completion of the seventh chapter, seven deep holes have been drilled into one’s head and have transformed one irredeemably. Zhuangzi, too, may have repaid the kindness of those who took him home with equal kindness and deprived them of their... (shrink)

Die Weltwirtschaft befindet sich in einer permanenten Krise, einer Krisenlatenz. Die Hauptursache liegt im Verlust einer Werteorientierung, im Verlust der Ordnung des Seins und der Legitimität; als Folge wird die Anarchie zur faktischen Grundstruktur von Weltwirtschaft und Weltgesellschaft mit verheerenden Konsequenzen für Menschen und Umwelt. Hans Ruh greift auf die Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte zurück und setzt sich ebenso intensiv mit den brennenden Fragen des aktuellen Weltgeschehens auseinander. Er legt offen, welche Probleme uns heute beschäftigen und in Zukunft betreffen und (...) wie das wirtschaftliche Verhalten wieder an eine übergeordnete Werteordnung angekoppelt werden kann. Mit “Ordnung von unten” meint er die Verlagerung des Handlungsschwerpunkts auf die Zivilgesellschaft. Autonomie bzw. Selbstorganisation sind - nach dem Verlust der Regulierung von oben - Anforderungen an die wichtigsten funktionierenden Systeme. Mit seinen sechs Leuchttürmen - das System “Ethische Marktwirtschaft”, Wirtschaft von unten, Agenturen für elementare öffentliche Güter, Ideen, die selbständig fliegen, Projekte, demokratische Zivilgesellschaft - zeigt Hans Ruh, wie wir die Zukunft gestalten und in eine andere Richtung, nämlich hin zu einer lebenswerten und überlebensfähigen Wirtschaft beziehungsweise Gesellschaft lenken können. (shrink)

“Marx na Universidade!” Esta palavra de ordem sinalizou as reivindicações do Movimento Estudantil, que agitou as universidades alemãs há mais do que cinco décadas, refletindo sobre a missão político-social da formação universitária. O fato de, naquele tempo, a indicação de uma aula sobre a teoria de Karl Marx ter sido sacrificada pela censura dos órgãos políticos da universidade tornou-se incompreensível em nossos dias.[1] Pelo contrário, depois da preocupação intensa com a teoria marxiana nas décadas passadas, o interesse nela parece ter (...) diminuído rapidamente. Acho que foram sobretudo duas razões que levaram a esse processo. Em primeiro lugar, a crítica da economia política foi aceita como teoria científica, tendo enfraquecido assim seu potencial crítico em relação ao desenvolvimento real das sociedades cunhadas pelo capitalismo tardio. Ela tornou-se apenas uma base entre outras na compreensão científica da realidade social.[2] Além disso, a teoria, ela mesma, contém traços objetivistas ao apresentar a análise das estruturas materiais e econômicas, fazendo desaparecer o sujeito humano — fato este, que levou a teoria a aproximar-se aparentemente aos dogmas positivistas da moderna ciência. A teoria de Marx correria, por isso, o risco de mover-se na vizinhança do positivismo científico sacrificando seu impulso emancipatório. Como pôde essa perversão surgir na recepção dessa teoria? Por que esta teoria tão ambiciosa perdeu seu potencial político, deixando-se incluir no pluralismo das teorias científicas? Achando que a teoria de Marx em si mesma não foi inocente quanto a esse processo ou, ao menos, a esse risco, não quero dizer que tivesse refletido de modo insuficiente sobre a emancipação humana. Muito pelo contrário, provarei que a história de sua recepção, assim como a construção teórica da crítica da economia política dão razões significativas para obrigar seu autor a destematizar os sujeitos humanos e, por isso mesmo, chamar a atenção a esse sujeito desaparecido. Em dois passos, explicarei a seguir as razões fundamentadoras dessa tese à primeira vista paradoxal. Na primeira parte da argumentação examinarei o desenvolvimento da teoria de Marx, que se lê como processo de abandono do discurso sobre o sujeito humano, ao passo que na segunda localizarei o destino dos sujeitos e da perspectiva emancipatória, provocados pelas razões internas dessa teoria. Finalmente, incluirei alguns pontos caraterísticos de uma subjetividade humana não dominada pela alienação vigente nas nossas sociedades capitalistas, extraindo assim uma perspectiva produtiva da argumentação anterior. (shrink)

Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form (...) their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind. (shrink)

When African migrants disappear on the Mediterranean going to Europe they often leave no trace—except for the occasional bodies that wash ashore on the beaches of southern Europe. In this essay, the urgent social and existential ramifications of migrant fatalities on the sea are explored. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a small Ghanaian fishing village on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, it is discussed how the bereaved struggle to make sense of these deaths to high-risk migration—how they struggle (...) to deal with devastating loss while retaining a sense of moral order. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: Concerning the debate on euthanasia, a widely held position is that it should be accepted in its so-called passive and indirect form, while so-called active euthanasia should be rejected. The problem, now, is that at least some of the usual arguments to defend this view are invalid. Arguments: Three kinds of failures are examinded: First, if taken seriously, some of the arguments against active euthanasia undermine the accepted passive and indirect forms, too. For example, this is (...) the case concerning the claim that the patient's decision can be manipulated. Second, the rejection of active euthanasia partly rests on empirical data unsuited for this task. Euthanasia in The Netherlands as evidence for the so-called slippery slopes is presented as an example. Third, some of the objections against active euthanasia rest on assumptions that contradict our empirical knowledge, e.g. in the field of motives of patients asking for euthanasia. Conclusion: Those who want to defend the view mentioned above have to present more conclusive arguments. (shrink)