I point out that Mack and Rock manipulated both expectation and attention and suggest that their results may have been caused by lack of expectation rather than lack of attention. This alternative reading of Mack and Rock's results is supported by other findings, which suggest that 'pure' manipulations of expectation produce 'blindness' whereas 'pure' manipulations of attention do not. Why should failure to expect or anticipate a stimulus lead to 'blindness'? In psychophysics, stimuli near threshold typically require a degree of (...) familiarity to be consciously perceived. Perhaps the same is true for the supra-threshold stimuli used by Mack and Rock. This may reflect the fact that the human visual system uses natural and acquired 'priors' to solve the probabilistic problem of perception. (shrink)

In Chapter 12 of the General Theory, on “The State of Long-Term Expectation,” Keynes writes: “It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain”. In a footnote to this sentence, Keynes points out that by “very uncertain” he does not mean the same as “very improbable” and refers to the chapter on “The Weight of Arguments” in his earlier Treatise on Probability. The purpose of this article, in the first place, is (...) to provide an account of, and to sort out the relations between, Keynes's views on probability, uncertainty, and the weight of arguments. (shrink)

Causal inference in the empiricalsciences is based on counterfactuals. The mostcommon approach utilizes a statistical model ofpotential outcomes to estimate causal effectsof treatments. On the other hand, one leadingapproach to the study of causation inphilosophical logic has been the analysis ofcausation in terms of counterfactualconditionals. This paper discusses and connectsboth approaches to counterfactual causationfrom philosophy and statistics. Specifically, Ipresent the counterfactual account of causationin terms of Lewis's possible-world semantics,and reformulate the statistical potentialoutcome framework using counterfactualconditionals. This procedure highlights variousproperties and (...) mechanisms of the statisticalmodel. (shrink)

Der Protestantismus hat ein Problem mit der Welt: Die reformatorische Behauptung eines dreifachen SOLA - Gnade, Glaube, Schrift - bricht die Kirche aus der Welt heraus, eröffnet aber neben dem schlichten Glaubensbekenntnis keine überzeugenden Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten. Wie kann nun das bürgerliche Verhältnis dieser Kirche zu der sie umgebenden Welt gedacht werden? Kann sie überhaupt in rechtlicher Gemeinschaft mit der Welt leben? Verfügt sie über geeignete Mittel, an der Gestaltung dieser Gemeinschaft mitzuwirken?Ausgehend von dem Blick auf die »Kehrseite« des SOLA - die (...) radikale Vergottlosung der Welt - und der daran notwendig sich anschließenden Zuordnung von Reformation und Neuzeit weist Jochen Bohn nach, daß der bei Luther und Calvin angelegte Bruch zwischen Kirche und Welt den Anschluß an die vermittelnde Naturrechtstradition verhindert. Des Naturrechtes als einer Brücke zur Welt entledigt, steht der Protestantismus vor dem Dilemma, sich in bürgerlichen Dingen entweder einer weltflüchtigen, oder aber einer christlich-despotischen Orientierung hingeben zu müssen. Am Beispiel Helmut Thielickes und Karl Barths zeigt Bohn, daß diese Not sich selbst in den Sozialtheorien des modernen Protestantismus äußert. Die evangelische Theologie, so die These, wird sich nur dann helfen, wird nur dann eine »gelassene Weltlichkeit« entwickeln können, wenn sie den theologischen Zustand in Fragen des Rechtes zu verlassen und in einen philosophischen Zustand einzutreten bereit ist. Bohn fordert die protestantische Theologie dazu auf, sich Philosophie als pure Weltweisheit wieder neu brauchbar zu machen. Für diese Perspektive stellt er erste theoretische Grundlagen bereit. Möglich wird die - theologisch motivierte! - Hinwendung zur Philosophie durch eine Rehabilitierung der ursprünglichen, durch Bohn jedoch deutlich korrigierten und damit neu zugänglichen Lösung des protestantischen Konfliktes mit der Welt: durch die Rückkehr zur Zwei-Reiche-Idee. (shrink)

Les activités du juriste qu’il soit juge, avocat ou enseignant, occupent une place stratégique dans la régulation de l’ordre politique et social des sociétés modernes. En Allemagne, la confrontation avec son passé récent a provoqué dans les années 1960 des débats sur les fondements de l’État moderne et son rôle dans la crise de la modernité qui se sont poursuivi au cours années 1980 pour déboucher au début du xxi e siècle sur le problème de l’intégration et l’affirmation d’une échelle (...) de valeurs s’imposant à tous. (shrink)

The mind body problem is a continuing issue in philosophy. No surveys known to us have been conducted about the actual preferences of, for example, psychology students for particular preconceptions about the mind body relation. These preconceptions may have different practical implications for decisions concerning the object and method of research, the choice of explanatory device for psychological and other research data and for the approach of professionals in practice. A questionnaire comprising ten different preconceptions about the mind body relation (...) and other items was returned by 209 German students of various disciplines and by a second sample of 233 first year psychology students. Identity theory, interactionism and complementarity were preferred most. The students clearly believed that the preference for certain preconceptions has important practical implications. There were no differences between the students of different disciplines in the choice of preferred preconceptions about the mind body relation or in the view that these preconceptions are of practical importance. (shrink)

Forschungs- und Therapieansätze einer „personalisierten Medizin“ erhalten gegenwärtig große Aufmerksamkeit und Förderung in Forschung, Wirtschaft und Politik und erwecken große Hoffnungen. Auf der Grundlage molekulargenetischer Biomarker soll ein zielgerichtetes, stratifiziertes Vorgehen im Bereich der Prävention, Diagnostik und Therapie erreicht werden. Häufig wird der Begriff „personalisierte Medizin“ als Synonym für medizinischen Fortschritt überhaupt benutzt und eine persönlichere, bessere und kostengünstigere Medizin versprochen. 1) Fortschritte in der genetischen Forschung können nicht mit besseren medizinischen Behandlungsmöglichkeiten für eine Vielzahl von Patienten gleichgesetzt werden. In (...) Wirklichkeit beschränken sich die aktuellen Fortschritte einer an genetischen Biomarkern ausgerichteten Diagnostik und Therapie auf Untergruppen von Patienten. Die Mehrheit der Kranken hat bisher keinen Vorteil. 2) Der Begriff „personalisierte Medizin“ ist unangemessen und irreführend. Vielmehr handelt es sich um eine auf genetischen Biomarkern basierte stratifizierende Medizin und nicht um eine patienten- oder personenzentrierte Medizin. 3) Die sog. „personalisierte Medizin“ ist ein stark forschungs- und industriegetriebener Bereich der Medizin. Globale Stakeholder bestimmen die Entwicklung, unabhängig finanzierte Forschung gibt es kaum. Daher besteht die Gefahr, dass wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisgewinn durch wirtschaftliche Einzelinteressen behindert wird. Empirische Erfahrungen, z. B. der Preisentwicklung neuer Krebsmedikamente, zeigen, dass das Versprechen der Kostenersparnis jeder Evidenz entbehrt. 4) Die hohen Investitionen in die „personalisierte Medizin“ werfen wichtige ethische Fragen nach Opportunitätskosten und Prioritätensetzungen im öffentlichen Gesundheitswesen auf. Derzeit profitieren wenige Patientengruppen von den hohen Forschungs- und Behandlungskosten der „personalisierten Medizin.“ Gleichzeitig bleiben Forschung und Versorgung in anderen wichtigen medizinischen Bereichen unterfinanziert. Eine öffentliche Debatte über die Prioritäten in medizinischer Forschung und Versorgung sowie darüber, wie diese in demokratischen Gesellschaften und in öffentlichen Gesundheitssystemen umgesetzt werden können, ist erforderlich. Eine an genetischen Biomarkern ausgerichtete sog. „personalisierte Medizin“ führt nicht zu einer persönlicheren Behandlung des einzelnen Patienten und ist von einer personen- oder patientenzentrierten Medizin zu unterscheiden. Von den bisherigen Therapiefortschritten profitieren Untergruppen von Patienten, z. B. in der Onkologie. Für die Mehrheit der Patienten konnten keine Verbesserungen erzielt werden. Für eine Kostenersparnis im Gesundheitswesen fehlt jegliche empirische Evidenz, vielmehr muss nach bisherigen Erfahrungen mit Kostensteigerungen gerechnet werden. (shrink)

Is art epistemically valuable? Catherine Z. Elgin answers this question in the affirmative. She argues for the epistemic value of art on the basis of her innovative epistemological theory, in which the focus is shifted from knowledge and truth to a non-factive account of understanding. After an exposition and critique of her view, as she develops it in her most recent book “True Enough” (MIT-Press, 2017), I will build on some of her ideas in order to strengthen her account.

The essay presents a relational concept of the stranger parting from and at the same time going beyond Alfred Schutz’s famous and controversial conception of “The Stranger.” Not only the subjective viewpoint of the stranger entering an in‑group – as in the Schutzian outline – is relevant for the construction of strangeness, but also the interactional context and the receiving in‑group with its respective patterns of culture. For strangeness is a relational concept, it is only constructed in relationships of individuals (...) and groups; it is an ascription or “label” that is activated in interaction processes. Within in‑ and out‑group constellations, the stranger is objectified by social typification, which may be based on a de‑subjectivation and reification of the respective Other. Relational strangeness refers to the diverse possibilities of the social construction of the stranger, always taking into consideration the individuals involved in in‑ and out‑group relations. (shrink)

Der Versohnung dient Dialektik. Das Konzept der negativen Dialektik lasst sich als das Vorhaben verstehen, Dialektik durch dialektische Mittel zu uberwinden. Doch wie geht die radikale Kritik gesellschaftlicher Verhaltnisse und traditioneller Denkformen, eine Fundamentalkritik des falschen Ganzen, zusammen mit einem emphatischen Begriff von Utopie, mit der Idee einer Versohnung von Menschheit und Natur? In dieser Frage kommt ein Spannungsverhaltnis zum Ausdruck, das das gesamte Werk Adornos pragt und sich in paradoxalen und aporetischen Gedankenfiguren ausdruckt. Diese Untersuchung rekonstruiert das negativ-utopische Denken (...) Adornos, indem es dessen Leitmotive in ideengeschichtlichen Konstellationen transparent macht. (shrink)

Parafoveal preview benefit is an implicit measure of lexical activation in reading. PB has been demonstrated for orthographic and phonological but not for semantically related information in English. In contrast, semantic PB is obtained in German and Chinese. We propose that these language differences reveal differential resource demands and timing of phonological and semantic decoding in different orthographic systems.

This essay presents a phenomenological analysis of the functioning of symbols as elements of the life-world with the purpose of demonstrating the interrelationship of individual and society. On the basis of Alfred Schutz''s theory of the life-world, signs and symbols are viewed as mechanisms by means of which the individual can overcome the transcendences posed by time, space, the world of the Other, and multiple realities which confront him or her. Accordingly, the individual''s life-world divides itself into the dimensions of (...) time, space, the social world and various reality spheres which form the boundaries or transcendences that the I has to understand and integrate. Signs and symbols are described as appresentational modes which stand for experiences originating in the different spheres of the life-world within the world of everyday life, within which they can be communicated, thereby establishing intersubjectivity. Schutz''s theory of the symbol explains how social entities – such as nations, states or religious groups – are symbolically integrated to become components of the individual''s life-world. The following paper reconstructs Schutz''s concept of the symbol as a crucial component of his theory of the life-world, which is seen as an outstanding phenomenological contribution to the theory of the sign and the symbol in general. (shrink)

Anthony Brueckner argues for a strong connection between the closure and the underdetermination argument for scepticism. Moreover, he claims that both arguments rest on infallibilism: In order to motivate the premises of the arguments, the sceptic has to refer to an infallibility principle. If this were true, fallibilists would be right in not taking the problems posed by these sceptical arguments seriously. As many epistemologists are sympathetic to fallibilism, this would be a very interesting result. However, in this paper I (...) will argue that Brueckner’s claims are wrong: The closure and the underdetermination argument are not as closely related as he assumes and neither rests on infallibilism. Thus even a fallibilist should take these arguments to raise serious problems that must be dealt with somehow. (shrink)

An analysis of this allusive prologue demonstrates the poet’s acquaintance with all of Greek literature. The tone of his choliambic verses is softer and more urbane than that of his iambic predecessors, his message is less obtrusive, ambiguous and can only be grasped by an active interpretative effort. The linguistic and stylistic forming of the fables, which are consciously referring back to the prosaic and more polemic Aesop, is the core of the poet’s interest. With regard to content the poet (...) places himself within the tradition of divine revealed truth when he calls for justice and peaceful coexistence. But, through subtle hints he continues to make evident that a return to the Golden Age of the early days is neither possible nor actually desirable. (shrink)

An outline topography of musical accessibility. What is musical accessibility? ; Society, atonality, psychology -- Accessibility discourse in rock, and cultural change. Case study 1 : 'Prog' rock/punk rock : sophistication, directness and shock ; Zeitgeist : accessibility in flux -- A valiant failure? : new art music and the people. Case study 2 : Vaughan Williams' national music in context ; Art music, vernacular music and accessibility -- Accessibility, identity and social action. Case study 3a : Accessibility in action (...) : Bahia, Brazil ; 3b : Samba in Wales : how is adopted music accessible? -- Part five. Themes. Some key concepts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"But I Don’t Feel It":Values and Emotions in the Assessment of Competence in Patients With Anorexia NervosaJochen Vollmann (bio)Keywordscompetence assessment, mental capacity, informed consent, psychiatry, anorexia nervosaThe respect of the self-determination of patients obliges physicians to obtain the patient's consent before providing medical treatment. One important condition for a valid informed consent is the patient's competence to make autonomous health care decisions. Therefore, a proper assessment of competence to (...) make health care decisions is crucial particularly in patients with mental disorders (Vollmann 2000; Helmchen and Vollmann 2001). In recent years, several empirical studies on the assessment of competence in patients suffering from different mental disorders have been performed using the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Treatment (MacCAT-T; Grisso and Appelbaum1998). This assessment tool is based on legal standards of competence such as understanding, reasoning, appreciation, and expressing a choice. Since its first publication, the MacCAT-T has been widely accepted as a "gold standard" of competence assessment in the psychiatric literature. In recent years the MacCAT-T has been applied to patients suffering from depression, schizophrenia, dementia, angina pectoris, and normal controls (for overview, see Welie [2001] and Bauer and Vollmann [2002]).Tan and her colleagues (2006) use the MacCAT-T the first time to assess competence to make treatment decisions in patients with anorexia nervosa. Coming from clinical practice, the authors have noticed that the MacCAT-T might not work in this group of patients. Therefore, they use semi-structured interviews in addition to the MacCAT-T to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. They use grounded theory techniques for a qualitative analysis of the data as well as five brief, self-administered questionnaires to ascertain levels of psychopathology.The results of the study show that anorexia nervosa can have complex and variable effects on concentration, beliefs, and thought processing without affecting the ability to perform well on the MacCAT-T. At the same time, participants also report a change in their value system as well as in their personal identity. The authors argue that the results of their studies suggest that the competence to refuse treatment might be compromised in [End Page 289] people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by the MacCAT-T. This is an interesting finding in patients with anorexia nervosa, because in all other studies with patients suffering from mental disorders such as dementia, depression, and schizophrenia, the MacCAT-T identified more patients as limited in their competence to make health care decisions in comparison with other methods of competence assessment such as clinical judgment (Vollmann et al. 2003). The authors argue on the basis on their qualitative, semistructured interviews that anorexia nervosa–specific difficulties with a thought process and the change of values are missed by the MacCAT-T.Furthermore, Tan and her associated could not find a relationship between the participants' scores on the psychopathological scales, the MacCAT-T scores, and their difficulties expressed during the qualitative interviews, although the small size of the study precludes statistical analysis. In an earlier study, clinical dementia scales but not neuropsychological testing correlated with formal (MacCAT-T) and clinical assessment of competence. Therefore, psychopathological factors might play a different role in different subgroups of patients suffering from different mental problems. However, the idea of an objective neuropsychological model of competence assessment, again, finds no support in the presented empirical data.The qualitative data from patients with anorexia nervosa underline the problem of the cognitive bias of the MacCAT-T assessment and the illusion of value-free categories. It has been argued that the cognitive focus for the MacCAT-T is in itself a normative convention and that the MacCAT-T is missing the complexity of the process to make health care decisions in real life. Therefore, values and emotions should be considered in addition to cognitive functions in assessing competence to make health care decisions (Breden and Vollmann 2004; see also "Mental capacity" 2004). Although many authors agree that the cognitive approach of capacity assessment is important but not sufficient for the assessment of competence to make health care decisions, it remains an... (shrink)

El presente texto busca dar cuenta del sujeto en el cual opera la memoria, para ello se recurre a la memoria individual desde una perspectiva fenomenológica. Razón por la cual se tienen en cuenta consideraciones en torno a la memoria cultural, a la conciencia temporal, a la relevanciay a los sujetos del recurso. Así, en el texto se asume la validez para las ciencias sociales de la memoria externa con la cual es posible acceder al modo como las sociedades se (...) perciben a sí mismas y se imaginan, teniendo en cuenta que la memoria individual es determinada por ese tratamiento colectivo del recuerdo. Con lo cual se muestra la diferencia entre las memorias de los individuos pero que en sus entrecruzamientos van construyendo una memoria general para cuyo puente se propone la teoría de la relevancia de Schütz. (shrink)

In dem Maße, in dem sich seit dem europäischen achtzehnten Jahrhundert die PostSende-Verhältnisse dramatisch verbessern, verblasst die Überzeugungskraft des religiösen Sendungsbewusstseins. Verwunderlich ist das nicht. Von einem göttlichen Anruf, einem Kerygma erreicht zu werden, soll, ja muss eine exquisite Ausnahme von den Regelmäßigkeiten des Alltagslebens sein. Viele sind berufen, aber nur wenige sind auserwählt (Matthäus 22,14). In nur einigermaßen aufgeklärten Zeiten ist die Frage nach der Verlässlichkeit der himmlischen Postund Sendeverhältnisse nicht zu unterdrücken. Jeder kann jedem (zunehmend ohne Angst um (...) Leib und Leben) bestreiten, der rechte Adressat göttlicher Sendungen zu sein. Intersubjektiv verbindliche Sendeverhältnisse zwischen Himmel und Erde gibt es nicht; diese höhere Trivialität wird seit 1750 aussagbar und aufschreibbar. Komplementär dazu steigt – trotz enormer Komplexitätsgewinne – die Kontrollierbarkeit irdischer Sendeverhältnisse. To the extent in which postal 'sending,' the successful delivery of messages, dramatically improves since the European eighteenth century, the persuasiveness of the religious sense of mission or 'sending' is fading. This is not surprising. To be reached by a divine call, by a Kerygma, should, indeed must be an exquisite exception of the regularities of everyday life. Many are called but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14). In somewhat enlightened times, the question of the reliability of heavenly sendings cannot be suppressed anymore. Anyone can deny anyone to be the truthful addressee of divine sendings. There are no intersubjectively binding states of transmission between heaven and earth: this higher triviality is predicable and writable since 1750. Complementary to this development, the controllability of terrestrial sendings increases– despite enormous gains in complexity. (shrink)

Sentences containing predicates of personal taste (for example, ‘tasty’, ‘funny’) and aesthetic predicates (for example, ‘beautiful’) give rise to an acquaintance inference: They convey the information that speakers have first-hand experience with the object of predication and they can only be uttered appropriately if that is the case. This is surprisingly hard to explain. I will concentrate on aesthetic predicates, and firstly criticize previous attempts to explain the acquaintance phenomena. Second, I will suggest an explanation that rests on a speech (...) act theoretical version of hybrid expressivism, according to which, in uttering ‘X is beautiful’ speakers perform two illocutionary acts simultaneously: an expressive and an assertive one. I will spell out this suggestion in detail and defend it against objections. Considering puzzles related to the acquaintance inference will lead to a new argument for a promising version of hybrid expressivism in meta-aesthetics. (shrink)

The present study examined what participants perceive of their hand movements when using a tool. In the experiments different gains for either the x-axis or the y-axis perturbed the relation between hand movements on a digitizer tablet and cursor movements on a display. As a consequence of the perturbation participants drew circles on the display while their covered hand movements followed either vertical or horizontal ellipses on the digitizer tablet. When asked to evaluate their hand movements, participants were extremely uncertain (...) about their trajectories. By varying the amount of visual feedback, findings indicated that the low awareness of one’s own movements originated mainly from an insufficient quality of the humans’ tactile and proprioceptive system or from an insufficient spatial reconstruction of this information in memory. (shrink)

Although the computational properties of the Region Connection Calculus RCC-8 are well studied, reasoning with RCC-8 entails several representational problems. This includes the problem of representing arbitrary spatial regions in a computational framework, leading to the problem of generating a realization of a consistent set of RCC-8 constraints. A further problem is that RCC-8 performs reasoning about topological space, which does not have a particular dimension. Most applications of spatial reasoning, however, deal with two- or three-dimensional space. Therefore, a consistent (...) set of RCC-8 constraints might not be realizable within the desired dimension. In this paper we address these problems and develop a canonical model of RCC-8 which allows a simple representation of regions with respect to a set of RCC-8 constraints, and, further, enables us to generate realizations in any dimension d = 1. For three-and higher-dimensional space this can also be done for internally connected regions. (shrink)

This paper aims to delineate the class of aesthetic judgments linguistically. The main idea is that aesthetic judgments can be specified by a certain set of assertibility conditions, i.e., by norms that govern appropriate speech-acts. This idea is spelled out in detail and defended against various objections. The suggestion leads to an interesting account of aesthetic judgments that is theoretically fruitful: It provides the basis for a non-circular and satisfying characterization of the whole domain of aesthetic research and it marks (...) an important linguistic difference between aesthetic judgments and judgments of personal taste. (shrink)

First, we discuss issues raised with respect to the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s scope, that is, its limitations and possible extensions. Then, we address the issue of specificity, that is, the widespread concern that TEC is too unspecified and, therefore, too vague in a number of important respects. Finally, we elaborate on our views about TEC's relations to other important frameworks and approaches in the field like stages models, ecological approaches, and the two-visual-pathways model. Footnotes1 We acknowledge the precedence (...) of both Freud¹s Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915) and Neisser¹s Stimulus Information and Its Vicissitudes (a term Neisser borrowed from Freud for his monograph “Cognitive psychology,” 1967). (shrink)

This paper gives a simple method for providing categorial brands of feature-based unification grammars with a model-theoretic semantics. The key idea is to apply the paradigm of fibred semantics (or layered logics, see Gabbay (1990)) in order to combine the two components of a feature-based grammar logic. We demonstrate the method for the augmentation of Lambek categorial grammar with Kasper/Rounds-style feature logic. These are combined by replacing (or annotating) atomic formulas of the first logic, i.e. the basic syntactic types, by (...) formulas of the second. Modelling such a combined logic is less trivial than one might expect. The direct application of the fibred semantics method where a combined atomic formula like np (num: sg & pers: 3rd) denotes those strings which have the indicated property and the categorial operators denote the usual left- and right-residuals of these string sets, does not match the intuitive, unification-based proof theory. Unification implements a global bookkeeping with respect to a proof whereas the direct fibring method restricts its view to the atoms of the grammar logic. The solution is to interpret the (embedded) feature terms as global feature constraints while maintaining the same kind of fibred structures. For this adjusted semantics, the anticipated proof system is sound and complete. (shrink)

Resume Tout au long de sa vie Reinhart Koselleck a insisté sur son appartenance à une génération marquée par la guerre et par une défaite l’une et l’autre inscrites dans une ère concentrationnaire et postconcentionnaire pour laquelle l’expérience primaire est la condition essentielle de tout travail critique de l’historien et du mémorialiste. L’article décrit les étapes de ce parcours intellectuel, qui aurait dû aboutir à la rédaction d’une Historik, une théorie de l’histoire, qu’il n’a jamais écrite. Quelle a été surtout (...) le rôle du débat autour de l’Etat séculier et de l’historicité du droit, tel qu’il s’est développé au cours des années 1950 dans les cercles autour d’Ernst Forsthoff et de Carl Schmitt? Quelle forme prendra-t-il sous la pression de l’évolution de la société civile au cours des deux décennies suivantes pour se concrétiser finalement dans une réflexion autour de la notion de « travail de mémoire », dont l’enquête sur l’iconographie des monuments aux morts constituera la dernière étape dans le parcours de l’historien. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation of the distinction, endorsed for example by James McAllister and Bruce Glymour, which identifies phenomena with patterns in data (...) sets. Furthermore, I point out that other interpretations of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction do not specify the relationship between phenomena and theories in a satisfying manner. In order to avoid this problem I propose a contextual understanding of scientific phenomena according to which phenomena are states of affairs which play specific roles in scientific practice and to which we adopt a special epistemic attitude. Second, I evaluate the epistemological significance of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction with respect to the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists. Contrary to what Bogen and Woodward claim, I argue that the distinction does not provide a convincing argument against constructive empiricism. (shrink)

Über das Verstehen von Kunst nachzudenken heißt über die Bedeutsamkeit von Kunst nachzudenken. Jochen Schuff zeichnet nach, wie Ludwig Wittgenstein und Stanley Cavell diesen Gedanken auf komplementäre Weise entfalten. Wittgenstein rückt in seinen verstreuten Bemerkungen zur Ästhetik die unterschiedlichen Spiele von Ausdruck und Verstehen zwischen kultureller Tradition und spontanen Reaktionen in den Fokus. Cavell erläutert die Bedeutsamkeit von Kunst an den Medien und Werken seiner Gegenwart--und daran, wie mit ihnen zentrale Aspekte der menschlichen Lebensform erfahrbar werden. Die vorliegende Studie (...) bietet eine systematische Lektüre der Kunstphilosophien Wittgensteins und Cavells, aber sie bleibt dabei nicht stehen. Sie testet ihre Befunde mithilfe philosophischer Betrachtungen aktueller Filme, Videos und Installationen von Jonathan Glazer, Mark Leckey, Rineke Dijkstra, Omer Fast, Isa Genzken, Douglas Gordon, Christian Marclay und Pharrell Williams. --Page [4] of cover. (shrink)

Florijn’s analysis of the Dutch Supreme Court ruling on the Albert Heringa case demonstrates that the Dutch approach to justifying physician-assisted death is based primarily on the physician...