Wichtige Aspekte der Spinoza-Rezeption sind lange Zeit im Hintergrund geblieben. Spinoza galt seit dem öffentlich gemachten Bekenntnis des Aufklärers Lessing zum Hen kai Pan als Vertreter einer Substanzenontologie für Atheisten. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi war es, der 1785 und 1789 eine breite Debatte um Pantheismus, Atheismus, letztbegründende Prinzipien der Metaphysik, ferner um Freiheit und Notwendigkeit auslöste. Spinozas Trieb- und Affektenlehre blieb in der Forschung weitgehend unbeachtet. Weniger lautstark als im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, aber durchaus wirksam, ist Spinoza im 20. und 21. (...) Jahrhundert durch Denker wie Gilles Deleuze oder den Neurologen Antonio Damasio erneut in den Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit geraten. Diesmal ist es Spinozas vormals wenig beachtete Affektenlehre, die für Theorien vom ganzen, nicht bloß vom einseitig rationalen Menschen Interesse weckte. Galt das Interesse der Aufklärung der Rationalität des Denkens, die gegen Aberglauben und Irreführungen der Vernunft ins Recht zu setzen war, so wenden sich das 20. und das 21. Jahrhundert der Entdeckung der Intelligenz und Rationalität der Gefühle zu – zuerst in der Psychologie, bald auch in der Philosophie. Der Band nimmt das neue Interesse an Spinoza zum Anlass zu untersuchen, ob und inwieweit im Deutschen Idealismus, in der Romantik und im 19. Jahrhundert bis heute der andere Spinoza, der Spinoza einer bemerkenswerten Trieb- und Affektenlehre sowie des amor Dei intellectualis, wahrgenommen wurde. Die Beiträge zu Spinoza selbst, zu Jacobi, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Hardenberg/Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Schleiermacher, schließlich zu Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze zeigen, dass dieser andere Spinoza durchaus in der einen oder anderen Weise gesehen wurde. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Ameriks, Andreas Arndt, Ulrich Barth, Wolfgang Bartuschat, Arno Böhler, Konrad Cramer, Bärbel Frischmann, Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch, Ulrike Kadi, Thomas Kisser, Jane Kneller, Konrad P. Liessmann, Elizabeth Millán, Ursula Renz, Helma Riefenthaler, Violetta L. Waibel, Reiner Wiehl und Jure Zovko. (shrink)

Spitale, Germani, and Biller-Andorno’s (2024) PHERCC matrix sets out a useful and systematic framework for risk and crisis communication in public health emergencies. A problem in ensuring effective messaging is the extent to which the messaging environment is *quiet* or *noisy*: in other words, whether or not a message has to *compete with other messages* at the same time. I use the example of the UK’s experience during COVID-19, which was marked by tensions between the devolved regional governments—and consequently divergent (...) policy responses—which sowed confusion among the populace. More generally, if policymakers try to account for the needs of competing publics simultaneously (in order to meet the inclusivity and understandability principles), this may increase the noise problem and so actually undermine effective public health messaging. The issue of noisy messaging environments reveals a tradeoff between inclusivity and understandability versus effectiveness in risk and crisis communication. (shrink)

The target article develops a computational connectionist model for analogy-making from a developmental perspective and evaluates this model using simple analogies. Our commentary critically reviews the advantages and limits of this approach, in particular with respect to its expressive power, its capability to generalize across analogous structure and analyze systematicity in analogies.

This study aims to identify research trends of scaffolding in the field of science education. To this end, both descriptive analysis and co-word analysis were conducted to examine the selected articles published in the Social Science Citation Index journals from 2000 to 2019. A total of 637 papers were retrieved as research samples through rounds of searching in Web of Science database. Overall, this study reveals a growing trend of science educators' academic publications about scaffolding in the recent two decades. (...) In these sample papers, from 1,487 non-repeated keywords, we extracted 286 author-defined keywords shared by at least two studies as a benchmark dictionary. A series of co-word analyses were then conducted based on the dictionary to reveal the underlying co-occurring relationships of the words in title and abstract of the sample papers. Results showed that “scaffolding,” “support,” and “design” were the top three most frequently used keywords during 2000 and 2019. Visualization of co-word networks in each 5-year period further helps clarify both educators' common research foci and relevant research trends. Derived discussion and potential research directions are also provided. (shrink)

The global progress empowers the development of new business and expansion of existing business. The availability of sufficient accounting professional are necessary to manage and document the business activities. However, youth are less inclined to purse accounting as profession to keep the progress of global and local economic development. The current study aimed to explore the formation of the intention to pursue Certified Professional Accountancy Qualification with factor of capabilities, career opportunities, job security with respect to the extended theory of (...) planned behavior, i.e., attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. The study adopted a cross-sectional design and collected quantitative data from a total of 339 accounting students from Malaysia using an online survey. The finding revealed that capabilities and career opportunities influenced the students’ intention to pursue CPAQ. Meanwhile, perceived behavioral control had significantly affect the students’ decision to pursue CPAQ, which is in line with the TPB. The study concentrated on the importance of these factors in influencing the students’ intention and decision to pursue CPAQ. The study offered vital implications for accounting educators and educational institutions to promote the accounting profession as choice and students engage in pursuing CPAQ. The Malaysian government should encourage and support accounting students financially for pursuing CPAQ by providing job security and enhancing subjective norms that may enable these students to complete the required professional qualifications. The study’s limitations and future research opportunities are documented at the end of this article. (shrink)

Scientists have made new discoveries about a strange low-level disease. The disease is highly correlated with a particularly gene. 25% of the population has this gene. 90% of those with the gene develop the disease. Among the 75% majority, on the other hand, only 10% develop the disease. There is also a mysterious skin rash which can only occur in people who have the disease. Among the people who have the gene and develop the disease, 90% show the rash. Among (...) the people without the gene that develop the disease, only 10% show the rash. (shrink)

A primary goal of research in the semantics/pragmatics interface is to investigate the division of labor between the truth-conditional component of the meaning of an expression and other factors of a more pragmatic nature. One favorite strategy, associated foremost with Grice (1967, 1989), is to keep to a rather austere semantics and to derive the overall meaning of an utterance by predictable additional inferences, called ``implicatures,'' which are seen as based on certain principles of rational and purposeful interaction. In this (...) chapter, I will explore a di¨erent way in which the truth-conditional component is complemented in context. Imagine that we have persuasive evidence that an expression a in context c expresses a proposition p. The straightforward way of capturing this in a semantic system is to attribute to a a context-dependent meaning that maps c to p in a systematic and adequate way. (shrink)

Standard assumption: lousy must be an intensional adjective (i.e. it takes the intension of its noun as its argument). BUT: we have not seen a credible meaning for lousy of this type, and it seems the McConnell-Ginet/Larson suspicion is quite right that there couldn’t be such a meaning.

∗ These are preliminary notes for a future chapter of a book I am writing, which is going to be a linguistic guide to conditionals. I would be appreciate all the help I can get. I already have Sabine Iatridou and Michela Ippolito to thank, who both know much more about tense and tense in conditionals than I will ever know. I also need to acknowledge my admiration for Jonathan Bennett and his amazingly nutritious Philosophical Guide to Conditionals. Lastly, when (...) I was writing my dissertation, Roger Higgins urged me to study the works of Vic Dudman, where I learned a lot – among other things what a scarily complex topic this is. (shrink)

We investigate whether ordinary quantification over objects is an extensional phenomenon, or rather creates non-extensional contexts; each claim having been propounded by prominent philosophers. It turns out that the question only makes sense relative to a background theory of syntax and semantics (here called a grammar) that goes well beyond the inductive definition of formulas and the recursive definition of satisfaction. Two schemas for building quantificational grammars are developed, one that invariably constructs extensional grammars (in which quantification, in particular, thus (...) behaves extensionally) and another that only generates non-extensional grammars (and in which quantification is responsible for the failure of extensionality). We then ask whether there are reasons to favor one of these grammar schemas over the other, and examine an argument according to which the proper formalization of deictic utterances requires adoption of non-extensional grammars. (shrink)

I thought the paper by Kai-yee Wong and Chris Fraser was fascinating and insightful. Two things I especially appreciated are the clarity with which they summarize my views. I think they are quite fair and accurate. Second, I appreciate their suggestion that the way to deal with the practical problem of weakness of will has much to do with the role of the Background in shaping our actions. I think they are especially on the right track when they say that (...) the improvement of Background skills may actually narrow the range of real options for action, (p. 21) nonetheless, they do not decrease freedom. As they say, “It is a process of strengthening the self, and the agent is likely to experience the concomitant restriction of ‘live’ options not as a limitation but as strength of character.” (p. 21). That seems to me very much on the right track. What they are suggesting, and it is a powerful addition to my own writings, is that we should not just think of the Background as facilitating languages, games and social practices generally, but for morality as well (p. 23). (shrink)

Metaphilosophy is itself philosophy about philosophy. It is not something before or independent of philosophy. Both Kai Nielsen and Richard Rorty are deeply concerned (someone might say obsessively preoccupied) with metaphilosophy. They both are thoroughly historicist and contextualist resolutely rejecting any form of a transcendental or metaphysical turn. They argue against claims to absolute validity (as well as against absolutism in any form) and a natural order of reasons: some 'Reason' to which any rational agent must be committed. They both (...) see philosophy as a transitional genre first (historically speaking) from religion then metaphysics and more latterly from scientistic conceptions of the world. But they differ about what philosophy is transitional to. For Rorty it is historical narrative and utopian proposals; for Nielsen it is critical theory. Rorty claims this, Nielsen's intentions to the contrary notwithstanding, commits him to enlightenment rationalism. Nielsen replies that his form of critical theory is deeply historicist and contextual without being resolutely atheoretical. This plays out in political orientation to Nielsen's being a socialist while Rorty is a social democrat. (shrink)

Kai Nielsen is one of Canada's most distinguished political philosophers. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has published more than 400 papers in political philosophy, ethics, meta-philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Pessimism of the Intellect presents a thoughtful collection of Nielsen's essays complemented by an extended reflective interview with Nielsen. This collection allows the reader to grasp the systematic scope of his thought and methodology.

The recent discussions about alternative sources of human embryonic stem cells , while stirring new interest in the developmental potential of the various abnormal embryos or constructs proposed as such sources, also raise questions about the potential of the derived embryonic stem cells. The data on the developmental potential of embryonic stem cells that seem relevant for ethical considerations and aspects of patentability are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of “totipotency, omnipotency and pluripotency” as illustrated by a (...) comparison of the developmental potential of three-dimensional clusters of blastomeres , embryonic stem cells, somatic or stem cells or other somatic cells. This paper focuses on embryoid bodies and on direct cloning by tetraploid complementation. Usage and patenting of these cells cannot be considered to be ethically sound as long as totipotency and tetraploid complementability of embryonic stem cells are not excluded for the specific cell line in question. Testing this poses an ethical problem in itself and needs to be discussed in the future. (shrink)

Ich werde zu Beginn die philosophische Entwicklung Heideggers darstellen. Auf diese Weise wird es möglich sein, genau die Stelle aufzuzeigen, wo das Fichte-Studium für ihn von größter Wichtigkeit ist. Der wahre Ausgangspunkt des Heideggerschen Denkens ist nicht die Seinsfrage, sondern die katholische Theologie. Nach seinem Abitur im Sommer 1909 nahm er sein Theologiestudium in der Absicht auf, Priester zu werden. In den theologischen Veröffentlichungen, die vor allem in Der Akademiker erschienen, treten seine katholische Weltanschauung und der antimoderne Charakter seines Denkens (...) klar zutage. Seine Kritik des Modernismus richtet sich vor allem gegen Individualismus, Liberalismus, Naturalismus und das neukantische Streben nach Autonomie; auch die Technik, der zügellose Konsum und das Modebewußtsein werden angeprangert. Dem rasenden, verflachten Leben des modernen Menschen stellt Heidegger das katholische Leben mit seinem Traditionsbewußtsein gegenüber. Das Jerusalem Gottes wird dem neoheidnischen Babylon als ein nachstrebenswürdiges Ideal vorgehalten. Die moderne Welt kann nur von ihren Übeln heilen, indem sie zum ewigen Brunnen aller Wahrheit zurückkehrt. Gegen die Zersplitterung und Nivellierung der modernen Zeit, durch die die Welt eindimensional wird und der Raum der Transzendenz verlorengeht, muß die katholische Gemeinschaft sich zur Wehr setzen und die religiöse Dimension des Lebens mit Händen und Füßen verteidigen. (shrink)

Paired associative stimulation at the spinal cord has been shown to increase muscle force and dexterity by strengthening the corticomuscular connection, through spike timing dependent plasticity. Typically, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcutaneous peripheral nerve electrical stimulation are often used in spinal PAS. PNS targets superficial nerve branches, by which the number of applicable muscles is limited. Alternatively, a muscle can be activated by positioning the stimulation electrode on the “motor point”, which is the most sensitive location of a muscle to (...) electrical stimulation. Although this can increase the number of applicable muscles for spinal PAS, nobody has tested whether MPS can be used for the spinal PAS to date. Here we investigated the feasibility of using MPS instead of PNS for spinal PAS. Ten healthy male individuals received spinal PAS on two separate days with different stimulation timings expected to induce facilitation of corticospinal excitability or no effect on the soleus. The motor evoked potentials response curve in the soleus was measured prior to the spinal PAS, immediately after and at 10, 20, 30 min post-intervention as a measure of corticospinal excitability. The post-intervention MEP response curve areas were larger in the REAL condition than the CONTROL conditions. Further, the post-intervention MEP response curve areas were significantly larger than pre-intervention in the REAL condition but not in the CONTROL condition. We conclude that MPS can facilitate corticospinal excitability through spinal PAS. (shrink)

- uneducated in the field authors who defend a consensus they are being TOLD when they enter offices of Ed-Sci, teaching and writing works on learning-theory - but never checked the facts, PART I and PART II.

Biographical note: Kai Ginkel (Dr.), geb. 1981, ist Projektmitarbeiter an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz. Der Soziologe promovierte an der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Zuvor war er PhD-Scholar im postgradualen Lehrgang”Sociology of Social Practices“am Institut für Höhere Studien Wien.

Hegel's first major philosophical work is one of philosophy's true masterpieces. Despite its notorious difficulty, it is one of the most influential philosophical works ever written. The Phenomenology is not only the first presentation of Hegel's system; it also is an account of the historical development of Geist from Greek tragedy to the triumph of philosophy as science in Hegel's own time. This volume of essays offers an interpretation of the spirit of Hegel's Phenomenology as well as a concise reading (...) of the main text. It discusses also the historical and philosophical background of Hegel's main work and takes note of its reception. Since the essays were written by philosophers from different countries—both established Hegel scholars and promising young researchers—this volume presents the reader with an international overview of recent Hegel research. The main goal of the collection is to offer students a hermeneutical tool for the reading of Hegel's masterpiece while opening up new fields of research for those who know Hegel and German philosophy well. The contributors are Christoph Asmuth, Klaus Brinkmann, Paul Cobben, Alfred Denker, Richard Findler, Jeffery Kinlaw, Angelica Nuzzo, Tom Rockmore, Dale Snow, Mike Vater, Ludovicus De Vos, Robert Williams, and Holger Zaborowski. (shrink)

This festschrift includes a dozen essays on issues that have been at the focus of Kai Nielsen's research, mainly issues in ethics and political philosophy. Among these are four essays on socialism and Marxism. There are also essays on philosophy of religion, epistemology, and meta-philosophy.

By the time Martin Heidegger passed away on May 26th, 1976, he had become the most important and controversial philosopher of his age. While many of his former students had become important philosophers and thinkers in their own right, Heidegger also inspired countless others, like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy is an historical perspective on the development of Heidegger's thought in all its nuancesand facets. Schalow and Denker (...) cast light on the historical influences that shaped the thinker an. (shrink)

Writing collectively as the Oscar Seminar in 2008, John Pollock and several colleagues advance an objectivist argument for a 1/3 solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem. In 2011, Joel Pust raises a serious objection to their argument to which Paul D. Thorn, a member of the Oscar Seminar, offers a subtle reply. I argue that the Oscar Seminar s argument for 1/3 is unsound. I do not, however, defend Pust’s objection. Rather I develop a new objection, one that is not (...) threatened by the considerations to which Thorn appeals in his reply to Pust. (shrink)

The objective of this editorial is to help authors better understand how to contribute to discourse on corporate sustainability and business ethics. We do this in two ways. First, we clarify our expectations for publication in the “Corporate Sustainability and Business Ethics” section at the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE). As section editors at the journal, we want to make explicit the criteria we apply in our decisions to accept or reject a submission. We argue that authors should explicitly reflect (...) upon what corporate sustainability means in the context of their research. We also stress that publishing in JBE requires an explicit central focus on ethics. We do not take a position on how authors must do either of these two, only that it should be done. In short, there are good business ethics papers that do not add to corporate sustainability theory building or practice, and there are good corporate sustainability papers that are not framed in a business ethics discourse. For the “Corporate Sustainability and Business Ethics” section, we expect authors to strive for both. Second, we provide several illustrations of how corporate sustainability research can be framed from a business ethics perspective around three central sustainability constructs: objective function, carrying capacity, and generational sustainability. These examples are not intended to be comprehensive or to bound the range of acceptable research for JBE’s “Corporate Sustainability and Business Ethics” section. Rather, we aim to provide representative examples of potentially publishable research on business ethics and corporate sustainability to spur innovative thinking and constructive discussion. We hope this editorial will help authors better understand what we expect from submissions to the “Corporate Sustainability and Business Ethics” at JBE. (shrink)

The trans-jurisdictional discourse on criminal justice is often hampered by mutual misunderstandings. The translation of legal concepts from English into other languages and vice versa is subject to ambiguity and potential error: the same term may assume different meanings in different legal contexts. More importantly, legal systems may choose differing theoretical or policy approaches to resolving the same issues, which sometimes – but not always – lead to similar outcomes. This book is the second volume of a series in which (...) eminent scholars from German-speaking and Anglo-American jurisdictions work together on comparative essays that explore foundational concepts of criminal law and procedure. Each topic is illuminated from German and Anglo-American perspectives, and differences and similarities are analysed. (shrink)

The recent discussions about alternative sources of human embryonic stem cells , while stirring new interest in the developmental potential of the various abnormal embryos or constructs proposed as such sources, also raise questions about the potential of the derived embryonic stem cells. The data on the developmental potential of embryonic stem cells that seem relevant for ethical considerations and aspects of patentability are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of “totipotency, omnipotency and pluripotency” as illustrated by a (...) comparison of the developmental potential of three-dimensional clusters of blastomeres , embryonic stem cells, somatic or stem cells or other somatic cells. This paper focuses on embryoid bodies and on direct cloning by tetraploid complementation. Usage and patenting of these cells cannot be considered to be ethically sound as long as totipotency and tetraploid complementability of embryonic stem cells are not excluded for the specific cell line in question. Testing this poses an ethical problem in itself and needs to be discussed in the future. (shrink)

Even outside Europe, human beings have long contemplated philosophical questions. This book explores Neo-Confucianism and its most important representative: Zhu Xi (1130-1200). In Medieval China, Indian Buddhism was widely received; many endorsed the idea that the self and the world are illusionary (i.e. "empty") but that "emptiness" (sunyata) can be known in meditation. Although Neo-Confucian thinkers in the 11th and 12th centuries also practiced meditation, Buddhist ideas otherwise represented a nuisance for them. In his careful reconstruction, Kai Marchal examines which (...) concepts, ways of speaking, and practices these Neo-Confucians developed to achieve a realistic worldview grounded in ordinary life. "Emptiness" was transformed into the unity of all things. Moreover, Marchal comes to the surprising conclusion that Zhu Xi's thought continues Buddhism in one crucial respect: in the conception of a reflective self-relation located in the world, which is not intended to strengthen the human tendency to egocentricity, but rather to weaken it. (shrink)

This paper explores how to deliberate about food choices from a Stoic perspective informed by the value of environmental sustainability. This perspective is reconstructed from both ancient and contemporary sources of Stoic philosophy. An account of what the Stoic goal of “living in agreement with Nature” would amount to in dietary practice is presented. Given ecological facts about food production, an argument is made that Stoic virtue made manifest as wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance compel Stoic practitioners to select locally (...) sourced, low resource input, plant-based foods whenever circumstances allow. (shrink)