Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 92 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-12.

The ability to generate options for action is crucial for everyday life decision‐making. In this article, we propose and test a model of the cognitive underpinnings of option generation in everyday life situations. We carried out a laboratory study using measures of a wide range of cognitive functions and asked participants (N = 157) to generate options for actions for different everyday life decision‐making scenarios. The results of a latent variable analysis show that the cognitive underpinnings of option generation are (...) consistent across different everyday life situations and, hence, option generation can be conceptualized as a general construct. Moreover, the results of a confirmatory factor analysis reveal that, when controlling for the shared variance among the cognitive processes assessed, verbal fluency, working memory capacity, ideation fluency, and processing speed predicted option generation. These findings suggest that option generation in everyday life situations can be distinguished from other cognitive constructs, such as divergent thinking (in terms of ideas’ originality) and long‐term memory. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Nach Luther soll das Evangelium nicht nur in der persönlichen Meditation des Wortes, sondern auch in der öffentlichen Verkündigung, erfahrbar werden. Dies verlangt von der Verkündigung, kritisch zu rechtlichen und sozialen Verhältnissen Stellung zu nehmen. In Spannung zu diesem Anliegen tritt Luthers Instrumentalisierung des Sprachhumanismus für sein Interesse an der objektivierenden Absicherung seiner Lehre durch die äußere Klarheit der Schrift. Der darin gründende Machtanspruch lässt einen antidialogischen und aggressiven Kommunikationsstil und eine feindselige Haltung insbesondere gegen das Judentum und seine (...) eigenständige Schriftauslegung herrschend werden. Der Humanismus verliert damit seinen wesentlichen Gehalt. Doch eine Deutung der Schrift und der Wirklichkeit im Sinne der Christus-Mystik gewinnt erst durch einen offenen Prozess der Interpretation, durch Kontextualisierung, Selbstkritik und durch Dialog an Plausibilität. Die von Luther in der Christologie geforderten Perspektivenwechsel können nur so gelingen und ihre befreiende und Solidarität stiftende Kraft entfalten. Eine Abwertung des Judentums als Bundesvolk ist damit prinzipiell unvereinbar. (shrink)

Über das Moralische an der Moral : der evaluative Charakter moralischer Wertungen und die Problematik deontischer Moralauffassungen -- Der konkrete und der generalisierte Andere : über das Verhältnis von Moral und Politik -- Moralische Dilemmata und die Grenzen der Moral -- Menschenwürde und Menschenrechte -- Warum Gerechtigkeit? : über die normative Verfasstheit der sozialen Welt in Auseinandersetzung mit Amartya Sens Theorie der Gerechtigkeit -- Was ist Religion? : über die Präsenz des Ewigen im Zeitlichen und das Verhältnis von religiöser und (...) säkularer Wirklichkeitsauffassung -- Weltgestaltung als ethische Aufgabe : über die Bedeutung der Reformation für die Entstehung des ethischen Denkens der Moderne -- Über die spirituelle Dimension der Medizin -- Bioethik oder "Biomacht?" : über intellektuelle Mythifizierung. (shrink)

COVID-19 has substantially affected our lives during 2020. Since its beginning, several epidemiological models have been developed to investigate the specific dynamics of the disease. Early COVID-19 epidemiological models were purely statistical, based on a curve-fitting approach, and did not include causal knowledge about the disease. Yet, these models had predictive capacity; thus they were used to ground important political decisions, in virtue of the understanding of the dynamics of the pandemic that they offered. This raises a philosophical question about (...) how purely statistical models can yield understanding, and if so, what the relationship between prediction and understanding in these models is. Drawing on the model that was developed by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, we argue that early epidemiological models yielded a modality of understanding that we call descriptive understanding, which contrasts with the so-called explanatory understanding which is assumed to be the main form of scientific understanding. We spell out the exact details of how descriptive understanding works, and efficiently yields understanding of the phenomena. Finally, we vindicate the necessity of studying other modalities of understanding that go beyond the conventionally assumed explanatory understanding. (shrink)

The physical activity-related health competence model assumes that individuals require movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence to lead a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Although previous research has already established some measurement factors of the three dimensions, no attempts have so far been made to statistically aggregate them on the sub-competence level. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to test two additional factors for PAHCO and subsequently model the second-order structure with two samples from the fields of rehabilitation (...) and prevention. We conducted two questionnaire surveys with persons with multiple sclerosis and teaching students undergoing a basic qualification course in physical education. After performing exploratory items analysis, we used second-order confirmatory factor analysis and multidimensional scaling to investigate whether the scales could be bundled in accordance with the PAHCO model. The CFAs with 10 factors demonstrated a good model fit. In contrast, the second-order analysis with a simple loading structure on the three sub-competencies revealed an unacceptable model fit. Instead, a second-order model variant was preferred [comparative fit index = 0.926, root mean square error of approximation = 0.048, standardized root mean square residual = 0.065] in which body awareness and self-efficacy had theory-conform cross-loadings. The results of multidimensional scaling were in line with the extracted second-order structure. The present results suggested that the extension of the measurement instrument to 10 first-order factors was psychometrically justified for the two populations. The results from the second-order analyses provided the basis for the creation of sum scores, representing manifest indicators of movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence. Future studies are needed that cross-validate the extended measurement model with other populations and that relate the sub-competencies of PAHCO to indicators of health-enhancing physical activity. (shrink)

This book reviews and presents antitrust law compliance programmes from different angles. These programmes have been increasingly implemented and refined by firms over recent years, and various aspects of this topic have been researched. The contributions in this book extend beyond the treatment of legal issues and show how lawyers, economists, psychologists, and business scholars can help design antitrust law compliance programmes more effectively and run them more efficiently.

According to Jon Elster, mechanisms are frequently occurring and easily recognizable causal patterns that are triggered under generally unknown conditions or with indeterminate consequences. In the absence of laws, moreover, mechanisms provide explanations. In this paper I argue that Elster’s view has difficulties with progressing knowledge. Normally, filling in the causal picture without revising it should not threaten one’s explanation. But this seems to be Elster’s case. The critique is constructive in the sense that it is built up from a (...) discussion of a mechanism that might explain ‘unwarranted’ risk taking in connection with swimming—a mechanism that is mirrored in the proverb: The best swimmers drown. (shrink)

In order to inquire into the possibility of a theory of education which, when constructed, will not turn out to be one-sided, three possibilities must be considered.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic by Theodore ZiolkowskiJohannes HauboldTheodore Ziolkowski. Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2011. xvi + 226 pp. 3 black-and-white ills. Cloth, $35.This book surveys modern receptions of the Gilgamesh Epic from the earliest lectures and publications of George Smith to recent reworkings of the epic in Western literature and art. The argument (...) is divided into five chapters. After an introduction which outlines the contents of the poem and tells the story of its rediscovery, chapter 1, “The Initial Reception (1884–1935),” takes us from Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton’s Ishtar and Izdubar of 1884 via the “Babel and Bible” controversy of the early twentieth century to the predominantly German reception prior to World War II. Several major figures make an appearance here, including Freud, Jung, Rilke, Hesse, Mann, Döblin, Canetti, and Pannwitz. Chapter 2, “Representative Beginnings (1941–1958),” takes up the thread of German engagement with the towering achievements of Hermann Kasack’s Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (61–64) and, especially, Hans Henny Jahnn’s Fluß ohne Ufer (67–74), an enigmatic re-imagining of the Gilgamesh story on a scale that deserves a monograph study of its own. Elsewhere, the reception of Gilgamesh continues with “four poets in English” (Lucas and Bridson in Britain; Olson and Corso in the United States; 48–59) and with the first musical settings, among them Martinů’s oratorio The Epic of Gilgamesh (75–77). Chapter 3, “The Popularization of Gilgamesh (1959–1978),” surveys new translations into the major European languages (79–80), and with them a range of popular responses. Ziolkowski notes a surge in adaptations for children, as well as other initiatives aimed at a wider public (81–82). It is against this background, he argues, that we need to see more ambitious experiments in musical and literary reception, including Per Nørgård’s opera Gilgamesh (105–7); Louis Zukofsky’s “canto 23” (which forms part of his larger poetic cycle entitled “A,” 85–88); Stanisław Lem’s review of an imaginary Gilgamesh adaptation in his A Perfect Vacuum (Doskonała Próżnia, 97–99); and the “fictional exuberances” of John Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues, Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel, and Rhoda Lerman’s Call Me Ishtar (99–105). Ziolkowski also draws attention to what he argues was the first overtly gay reworking of Gilgamesh, in Guido Bachmann’s novel of the same name (91–94). Chapter 4, “The Contemporization of Gilgamesh (1979–1999),” continues the theme of popularization in a political key: Ziolkowski takes us on a whistle-stop tour of late twentieth-century preoccupations, from successive crises in the Near East (109) to post-colonialism (109–10); the spread of psychoanalysis, both in a Freudian and a Jungian key (112–19); deconstruction (118–19); the rise of ecologism [End Page 669] (110, 123–35); and minority politics in the USA (135–38). Chapter 5, “Gilgamesh in the Twenty-First Century (2000–2009),” sets out to show that “Gilgamesh, who was born and flourished in the mid-third millennium b.c.e., is alive and well” (154). Ziolkowski identifies “a new focus” (167) on cultural and religious conflict in the wake of Samuel Huntington and the events of 9/11, although it must be said that the responses of Schrott and Begrich (171–78) do not fit this framework particularly well, and in practice much of the chapter seems designed to tie up loose ends. The book is equipped with a timeline of works discussed (199–205), end notes (207–20), and an index (221–26), but no bibliography.In lucid and unpretentious prose, Ziolkowski sets out what he sees as the most significant “Western” responses to the epic of Gilgamesh. He leaves the Near and Far East to “appropriately qualified scholars” (x): one hopes that others will take up the invitation, and that they will make connections with the materials explored in this book. Ziolkowski also passes over Latin America and the Caribbean—perhaps he felt there was nothing to say (for a possible starting point, see C... (shrink)

One of the consequences of global warming is reduced final body sizes in animals of different orders, mainly in aquatic ectotherms like fish or water-breathing invertebrates. In this article, we identify August Pütter (1879–1929) as the originator of what is now called the “temperature–size rule” and as the first physiologist to develop a mechanistic explanation for this phenomenon. While Pütter’s growth model was indirectly influential through its adaptation by Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972), his explanation of the influence of temperature on (...) growth remained either unknown or misunderstood. In this contribution, we reconstruct the theoretical framework of his model and compare it to recent critiques of mechanistic models on growth and temperature. As we argue, Pütter’s theory of “similarities of growth” provides explanations for observed temperature–size patterns trends that avoid later accounts of underlying “biological laws.” While recent findings suggest that some aspects of Pütter’s model need revision—for example, the proposed exponents of the anabolic and catabolic terms in his growth equation—we argue that his mechanistic model was designed in a way that could account for the multiple apparent exceptions to the temperature–size rule that were recently found. (shrink)

Philosophie nach Georg Meggle zeichnet sich aus durch kommunikative Offenheit, durch begriffliche Unbestechlichkeit und durch ihr Engagement in der Welt. Die Beiträge in diesem Band orientieren sich an diesem Philosophieverständnis und sind aus Anlass eines Symposiums zu Ehren von Georg Meggle als Originalbeiträge geschrieben worden. Der Band verbindet die theoretischen und praktischen Aspekte der analytischen Philosophie: So sind die Essays zur Hälfte der theoretischen, meist sprach-analytischen, zur Hälfte der praktischen, meist praktisch-politischen Philosophie zuzuordnen. Die Texte vereint das Ideal des Strebens (...) nach begrifflicher Klarheit und welthaltiger Relevanz, nach Dialog. Sie beschreiten neue Wege der analytischen Philosophie und weisen somit den Weg in die Zukunft der Philosophie als gesellschaftlich relevanter Disziplin. Mit Beiträgen u.a. von: Franz von Kutschera, Peter Singer, Wolfgang Lenzen, Wolfgang Spohn, Reinhard Merkel, Rainer Hegselmann, Peter Rohs und Georg Meggle. (shrink)

Is Feminism without the agency of sexed subjects possible? Can the problems of a highly gendered world be formulated and tackled without resorting to the notion of fundamental sexual difference? Is it possible for a Feminism that is not based on the assumption of sexed beings to gain any consistency and follow any concerted strategy? The project of this study is not only to show that all these questions can be answered with a full-hearted – Yes! – but to explore (...) the huge scope of conceptual and also practical possibilities that are created by this change of paradigms. Possibilities that are foreclosed – as the first chapters attempt to work out – by Judith Butler’s so important theory of gendered subjects, and limited by Rosi Braidotti’s or Elizabeth Grosz’s endeavours to read Deleuzian concepts under the assumption of Irigarayan sexual difference. Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s thinking provides us with conceptual tools for a thorough analysis of the status quo – and means for conceptualising resistance that do not perpetuate the power structures it is fighting against. This book is an invitation to get in touch with these tools, join the alliance (no matter whether ‘queer’ or ‘feminist’) – and ‘Make Rhizomes’! "Zugegeben: Ich habe nicht alles verstanden. Und habe mich doch maßlos bereichert an diesem reichen Buch. So viel Beglückendes, so viel Verqueres liegt in diesem schwerelosen Denken." "Admittedly, I have not understood it all. Yet I feel enriched beyond measure by this book. So much delightfulness, so much queer quirkiness, lies within these weightless thoughts." (Antje Rávic Strubel). (shrink)