Concept properties are an integral part of theories of conceptual representation and processing. To date, little is known about conceptual properties of abstract concepts, such as idea. This experiment systematically compared the content of 18 abstract and 18 concrete concepts, using a feature generation task. Thirty‐one participants listed characteristics of the concepts (i.e., item properties) or their relevant context (i.e., context properties). Abstract concepts had significantly fewer intrinsic item properties and more properties expressing subjective experiences than concrete concepts. Situation components (...) generated for abstract and concrete concepts differed in kind, but not in number. Abstract concepts were predominantly related to social aspects of situations. Properties were significantly less specific for abstract than for concrete concepts. Thus, abstractness emerged as a function of several, both qualitative and quantitative, factors. (shrink)

Schyns, Goldstone & Thibaut present reasonable arguments for feature creation in category learning. We argue, however, that they do not provide unequivocal evidence either for the necessity or for the occurrence of feature creation. In an effort to sharpen the debate, we take the stand that a fixed feature approach is to be preferred in the absence of compelling evidence.

The meanings of abstract concepts depend on context. Perceptual symbol systems (PSS) provide a powerful framework for representing such context. Whereas a few expected difficulties for simulations are consistent with empirical findings, the theory does not clearly predict simulations of specific abstract concepts in a testable way and does not appear to distinguish abstract noun concepts (like truth) from their stem concepts (such as true).

This special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien brings together a number of carefully selected and timely articles that explore the discussion of different facets of self-consciousness from multiple perspectives. The selected articles mainly focus on three topics of the current debate: (1) the relationship between conceptual and nonconceptual ways of self-representation; (2) the role of intersubjectivity for the development of self-consciousness; (3) the temporal structure of self-consciousness. A number of previously underexposed, yet important connections between different approaches are explored. The (...) articles not only represent the state of the art in their respective areas of research and make new insights available, but also provide an overview of different methodologies: ranging from philosophy of language and mind to phenomenology and cognitive science. The volume is of interest for philosophers, cognitive scientists and researchers in related disciplines who are concerned with investigating the nature and origin of self-consciousness. (shrink)

It is well known that the emperor Julian plays a central role in the life and writings of the Antiochene sophist Libanius. As a commentator on the life and reign of the emperor Constantine, he is seldom taken into account, and if he is, he usually gets short shrift as being verbose and unreliable. This neglect is, I believe, hardly justified. Even if it were true that Libanius could not teach us anything about the historical Constantine, his testimony still deserves (...) attention as an example of the attitude of eastern pagans to Constantine. Moreover, although much of what Libanius has to say about Constantine was written down half a century after the events, Libanius himself, born in 314, was a contemporary of the latter part of Constantine's reign. Unlike Julian, born in 331/2,2and Eunapius, born in 347/8,3he was able to form a judgement on Constantine based on first-hand knowledge. (shrink)

In people with chronic low back pain, maladaptive structural and functional changes on a cortical level have been identified. On a functional level, somatosensory cortical excitability has been shown to be reduced in chronic pain conditions, resulting in cortical disinhibition. The occurrence of structural and/or functional maladaptive cortical changes in people with CLBP could play a role in maintaining the pain. There is currently no measurement protocol for cortical excitability that employs stimulation directly to the lower back. We developed a (...) protocol for the measurement of single pulse somatosensory evoked potential waveforms and paired-pulse behavior generated from sensory nerves of the lower back and quantified its test–retest reliability in a sample of 30 healthy individuals to gain insights into the normal variability of cortical responses, which could then be compared to results from people with CLBP. We investigated cortical excitability by measuring SEPs and PPB. PPB was defined as the ratio of the amplitude of the second cortical response divided by the first cortical response. A2s was determined by subtracting the response to single-pulse stimuli from the paired pulse stimuli response to account for linear superposition effects. The test–retest reliability of the protocol was very poor with no evidence of systematic bias but a high amount of random variability between sessions. There was no significant difference in the right side PPB for session 1 and session 2 ; mean session difference [ = −0.44 ; t = −1.17, p = 0.26]. The ICC3.1 for the outlier-removed right side PPB were 0.19 and 0.43 for left side PPB. This finding potentially has wider implications for PPB protocols. If these findings were replicated in other groups and other nerves, it would question the validity of this measure more generally. However, these findings are restricted to healthy people and sensory nerves of the lower back and may not be generalizable. (shrink)

The studies cited by Dijkerman & de Haan (D&dH) stress the distinction between perception and action within the somatosensory system but provide little information about memory functions. Recent findings by our group and by others show that the dorsal stream is also activated during short-term memory maintenance and long-term memory retrieval of haptic information. These data complement and extend the proposed model.

This introductory article begins by discussing why economic inequality is of such profound interest, particularly in the light of recent changes in national and global economies. It goes on to consider the concept of economic inequality and the breadth of topics it encompasses. The distinctive nature of this field of research is discussed, followed by a description of a framework within which the various elements or aspects can be viewed and organized. The aim of the book and its intended audience (...) are then set out in more detail. Finally, the structure of the book itself is outlined, to help the reader navigate through the very broad range of topics and issues covered and also to indicate what the book could not embrace. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality presents a new and definitive analysis of economic inequality in developed countries. Bringing together the world's top scholars, this comprehensive and authoritative volume contains an impressive array of original research on topics in economic inequality.

Die Existenz einer zentralisierten, funktional differenzierten, professionalisierten und hierarchisch gegliederten Bürokratie gilt seit jeher als ein charakteristisches Merkmal spätrömischer Staatlichkeit. Tatsächlich stellte dieser Apparat in seinen Dimensionen und in seiner Komplexität alles in den Schatten, was das griechisch-römische Altertum vorher aufzuweisen hatte, auch wenn seine Ausbildung bereits in der frühen Kaiserzeit begann und sich im Laufe des 3. Jahrhunderts rapide beschleunigte, wie jüngst Peter EICH (Zur Metamorphose des politischen Systems in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Die Entstehung einer „personalen Bürokratie“ im langen (...) dritten Jahrhundert. Berlin 2005) mit guten Argumenten wahrscheinlich gemacht hat. Auch ist unbestreitbar, daß diese Bürokratie als Instrument der Zentralisierung staatlicher Funktionen diente und daher den Handlungsspielraum lokaler Autoritäten, der in der frühen Kaiserzeit nach modernen Kriterien sehr groß gewesen war, zunehmend einengte. Der in Cambridge lehrende Althistoriker Christopher KELLY geht der Frage nach, wie diese auf ein monarchisches Zentrum ausgerichtete Bürokratie funktionierte und welche Auswirkungen ihre Existenz für Regierende und Regierte hatte. (shrink)

French philosopher Louis Pierre Althusser (1918 -1990) helped define the politico-theoretical conjuncture of pre- and post-1968. Today, there is a recrudescence of interest in his thought, especially in light of his later work, published in English as Philosophy of the Encounter (Verso, 2006). This has led to renewed debates on the reformulation of conflicting notions of materialism, on the event as both philosophical concept and political construction, and on the nature of politics and the political. These original essays by leading (...) scholars aim to provide a new assessment of Althusser's thought, especially in relation to contemporary debates. Organized in four sections that represent the main currents in Althusser's scholarship, the book discusses materialism and the different formulations of the relationship between politics and philosophy, Althusser's interpretations of political thinkers (including Machiavelli, Deleuze and Gramsci), the resources he provides to critique political economy and politics in post-Marxist thought, and the theorization of ideology and politics. Encountering Althusser is a groundbreaking resource that highlights Althusser's continuing relevance to contemporary radical thought. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued the Stoics develop an account of corporeals that allows their theory of bodies to be, at the same time, a theory of causation, agency, and reason. The paper aims to shed new light on the Stoics' engagement with Plato's Sophist . It is argued that the Stoics are Sons of the Earth insofar as, for them, the study of corporeals - rather than the study of being - is the most fundamental study of reality. (...) However, they are sophisticated Sons of the Earth by developing a complex notion of corporeals. A crucial component of this account is that ordinary bodies are individuated by the way in which the corporeal god pervades them. The corporeal god is the one cause of all movements and actions in the universe. (shrink)

Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social (...) emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with ‘psychoticism’, a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with ‘need for cognition’, a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others. (shrink)

This paper explores the mystical structure of education as Bildung in medieval theologian and Dominican friar Meister Eckhart’s work and the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et Des Dieux). I start this paper with a short introductory sketch of the Bildung tradition, in order to situate my discussion of Eckhart within the more well-known humanist tradition. Here, I claim that Bildung (as we understand it today through the classic Bildung philosophers) points back to its theological heritage (...) and horizon of meaning, when it is claimed as the general tekhnê (art, craft) of making oneself at home in the world with and through others. In my first step, I then explore the intellectual heritage of this mystical structure of Bildung. Drawing on a range of Meister Eckhart’s writings (esp. his German sermons), I elaborate three features pivotal to his concept of Bildung (as image-ing) of the imago Dei (image of God) in the human soul/action: (1) divine grace, (2) human cultivation and (3) the harmonisation of both in (what I shall call) ‘careful gestures'. In my concluding second step, I illustrate this mystical structure of Eckhartian Bildung—with a particular focus on the emergence of careful gestures—through the motion picture Des Hommes et Des Dieux. (shrink)

Employment is critical for refugees’ positive integration into a receiving country. Enabling employment requires cross-sector collaborations, that is, employers collaborating with different stakeholders such as refugees, local employees, other employers, unofficial/official supporters, and authorities. A vital element of cross-sector collaborations is trust, yet the complexity of cross-sector collaborations may challenge the formation and maintenance of trust. Following a theory elaboration approach, this qualitative study with 37 employers and 27 support workers in Germany explores how employers’ experiences in cross-sector collaborations on (...) refugees’ labor market integration affect their trust in other stakeholders in this cross-sector space. Specifically, we explored employers’ perceptions of trust breaches, and how these perceptions affect their further engagement in cross-sector collaborations on refugee integration. Based on our findings, we propose a process model that describes how unmet collaboration expectations and negative assessments of collaborators’ attitudes and behaviors lead to perceived trust breaches which, in turn, lead to employers’ hesitancy to hire refugees and/or to engage in cross-sector collaborations. In doing so, we extend existing theory on trust within organizations to the cross-sector context of refugee integration, uncovering context-specific meanings to trustworthiness dimensions and illustrating how breaches of different trustworthiness dimensions can interact. Moreover, we show how social policies, resources, and trustors’ perceived vulnerability in collaborations shape their risk perceptions. This study highlights the central role of trust for refugee integration and illustrates how missing goals and process clarity endanger sustainable collaborations. (shrink)

This article deploys Peircean approach to bodily skills, foregrounding motricity as a semiotically mediated and a “suprasubjective” process. By examining two contrasting skills – javelin and martial arts – I draw out the relevance of dynamic movement to the semiotics of sport and embodiment. These contrasting movements expose different epistemological assumptions since they emerge in distinct cultural traditions. To attend to the cultural dimension of movement practices – including the mediation of signs making certain movement forms seem reasonable or desirable (...) in the first place – I highlight ecological dimensions of each somatic tradition. This ecological focus aligns with Peirce’s project of tracking how semiotic signs are positioned and mediated. To make ecological factors of motricity more recognizable, I contrast somatic engagements that take place on synthetic, predictable substrates and somatic engagements that take place on variable, unpredictable ground. In a similar way to the classic gestalt figure-ground relations, where perception of a figure depends on the particulars of the ground, I suggest that the ground upon which somatic action occurs shapes the way we make sense of it epistemologically. These different grounds – both literally and figuratively – operate representationally via thirdness: they lead us to conceptualize movement in culturally and historically particular ways. (shrink)

At its heart, design is a studio-based discipline, which makes it difficult for design educators to adopt technology-driven changes into an online teaching and learning environment. Globally, few universities offer online undergraduate degree design courses, despite an overall growth in online higher degree curricula. Anecdotal evidence and limited research studies exploring the design educators’ view lament the potential loss of direct interactions between educator and design students in an online learning environment making it impossible to offer design education online. However, (...) the attitude of design students towards online learning is largely underexplored. Given that today’s design students are considered tech-savvy, and there is a growing student demand for flexible study options, it would seem that design students would embrace online delivery options. The aim of this study is to explore the perception of undergraduate design students towards the idea of studying design online and whether or not blended learning could provide a transitional middle ground to a fully online design course. This study also touches on any student reservations about online delivery and identifies the barriers to study design online. (shrink)

Using lens- and time-based media — photography and very still moving image — the artistic research practice presented here as ‘phenomenological notes’ aims to bring to the foreground that which might be familiar and is easily overlooked. The presupposed perception of the phenomenon of nature is destabilized and put into question through a process of lens-based durational observation, stretching that which is thought to be known, allowing for the opening of other understandings of nature to emerge. The aim is for (...) these phenomena to be re-seen through closely engaging with what surrounds us and through a process of elongated looking that leads to different modes of seeing and recollecting. The practice itself comprises two distinct, seemingly opposed but interdependent parts of the overall making process: one foregoes the other which is essential for the other one to evolve. These parts are referred to as modes of attention. The first mode of attention demonstrates a more active form of being in a space: the artist actively moves, seeks, and collects. Following on from this, a less active mode is taken up: the artist becomes more receptive, lets the world reveal and unfold itself in front of the lens. The three pieces of work presented — Stille Fragmente, Leaves, Ice melting — give expression to these two modes of attention, and also show how the work has evolved throughout ‘time’. As the work has developed, the process of looking has become more and more distilled, lending more attention to the idea of duration, a concept that might be somewhat contentious to discuss via a medium so clearly associated with clock-time. The decision has been made to trust the agencies of the artifacts themselves produced by this process: not to explain but to frame the phenomenon, to destabilize the pre-established understanding of the phenomenon of nature. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to discuss research ethics in mixed-methods research and MMR development with a focus on ethical challenges that stem from working with technical instruments such as mobile eye-trackers. Design/methodology/approach The case of an interdisciplinary mixed-methods development study that aimed at researching the impacts of emerging mobile augmented-reality technologies on the perception of public places serves as an example to discuss research-ethical challenges regarding the practical implementation of the study, data processing and management and societal implications of developing (...) instruments to track and understand human practices. Findings This study reports challenges and experiences in ethical decision-making in the practical implementation of the study regarding the relationship to research subjects, the use of mobile research instruments in public places and the interdisciplinary cooperation among research team members. Further, this paper expounds on ethical challenges and recommendations in data processing and management and with a view to societal implications of method development and the aspirations of transdisciplinarity. This study concludes that institutionalized ethics need to become more flexible, while applied ethics and reflection must make their entry into university curricula across disciplines. Originality/value Complex interdisciplinary mobile and mixed-methods projects that involve sensors and instruments such as mobile eye-trackers are on the rise. However, there is a significant lack of engagement with practical research ethical challenges, practices and requirements in both mixed-methods and method-development literature. By taking a context- and process-oriented perspective focusing on doing ethics, the paper contributes a concrete empirical case to these underdeveloped fields. (shrink)

The biologist and founder of Umwelt-Research Jakob von Uexküll used cinematographic techniques in many ways. This article explores three of these. First, Uexküll uses chronophotography to investigate the locomotion of marine organisms and insects, making multiple exposures on a single photographic surface to facilitate comparison between different phases of locomotion. Second, according to Uexküll, observing the motions of the living being in this way renders visible the ‘conformity with plan’ that is particular to each organism. The technique of cinematography is (...) therefore original to his investigation of the plan-like character of organisms. Third, in his later works Foray into the World of Humans and Animals ([1934] 2010) and Theoretical Biology ([1920] 1926), Uexküll uses cinematography to demonstrate his theory that the life of every living being unfolds in its own perceptual world possessing of its own subjective time and spatiality. It is in this context that one has to understand the centrality of his references to ‘pre-cinematographic’ experiments on and theories of perception. (shrink)

The question in this article is how citizenship is reinvented and recontextualized in a newly founded European Union after the launching of Union Citizenship. What kind of conceptions of citizenship are produced in this new and evolving organization? The research material consists of documents presented by EU organs from 1994 to 2007 concerning eight EU programs on citizenship and culture. I will analyze conceptual similarities and differences between these documents and previous conceptualizations in various contexts, including citizenship discussions in the (...) history of integration since the 1970s as well as theories of democracy and nation-states. Based on the analysis of participation, rights, and identity as central dimensions of citizenship, I will discuss the relationship of Union Citizenship to democracy and nationality. (shrink)

This chapter first considers the more formal basis for the relationship between international law and European Union (EU) law by looking at the international law framework of EU law. It then discusses the approach of the EU legal order to international law and the various ways in which the two legal orders interact within the EU legal order. The chapter also considers reasons for and implications of the CJEU's approach. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has held (...) that customary international law (CIL), just like treaty law, is a standard of assessment in the review of the validity of EU secondary legislation, thus ranking CIL more highly within the EU legal order than secondary legislation. Treaties in the area of human rights have enjoyed a relatively strong role within EU law, either by interpretation or by linking them to general principles of law. (shrink)

Although religious belief is often claimed to help with physical ailments including pain, it is unclear what psychological and neural mechanisms underlie the influence of religious belief on pain. By analogy to other top-down processes of pain modulation we hypothesized that religious belief helps believers reinterpret the emotional significance of pain, leading to emotional detachment from it. Recent findings on emotion regulation support a role for the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a region also important for driving top-down pain inhibitory circuits. (...) Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in practicing Catholics and avowed atheists and agnostics during painful stimulation, here we show the existence of a context-dependent form of analgesia that was triggered by the presentation of an image with a religious content but not by the presentation of a non-religious image. As confirmed by behavioral data, contemplation of the religious image eneabled the religious group to detach themselves from the experience of pain. Critically, this context-dependent modulation of pain specifically engaged the right VLPFC, whereas group-specific preferential liking of one of the pictures was associated with activation in the ventral midbrain. We suggest that religious belief might provide a framework that allows individuals to engage known pain-regulatory brain processes. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s conception of the art of acting, and his views on the new actor’s conduct towards their craft, as a pedagogical model for Brechts’ broader view on how we should live our lives. Drawing on his key writings – most importantly, his famous street scene essay – I will show that Brecht’s conception of the theory-practice connection in his approach to actor training/acting bears some deeper insight into Brecht’s conception of the art (...) of living a flourishing life. The new actor is called to develop a conduct of careful observation and imitation of human action, one that is marked by the pleasure and lightness of exploring the contradictory workings of the social world. By placing the actor’s craft at the heart of his educational philosophy, Brecht invites us (the audience) into the theatre as a pedagogical space. Here, not unlike Brecht’s actors, we are summoned to hone our ability to boldly engage with a complex world of human actions and ideas. Brecht maintains that there resides an intellectual as well as sensual delight in being challenged to not simply accept theatre’s presentations as ‘truth’; instead, we are to learn to ‘weigh up’, ‘test’, and ‘improvise’ joyfully with theatre’s proposed ideas and practices—so that we may find out if they serve, or hinder, the creation of a larger flourishing life (beyond the theatre): a life in which we can move together, pleasurably. (shrink)

We propose a step‐by‐step methodological framework of translational bioethics that aims at changing medical practice according to normative–ethical requirements, which we will thus call “transformative medical ethics.” The framework becomes especially important when there is a gap between widely acknowledged, ethically justified normative claims and their realization in the practice of biomedicine and technology (ought–is gap). Building on prior work on translational bioethics, the framework maps a process with six different phases and 12 distinct translational steps. The steps involve various (...) research activities including conceptual philosophical inquiry and (socio‐)empirical research. On the one hand, the framework can be used as a heuristic tool to identify barriers to the transformation process. On the other hand, it can provide guidance for researchers and practitioners to develop appropriate (conceptual action and practice) models, which are then implemented and evaluated in specific practice contexts. We use the example of realizing the norm of respect for autonomy in the practice of medical decision‐making to illustrate the framework. Further research is required, for example, to theoretically underpin the framework, to apply it to other ought–is gaps, and to evaluate its feasibility and effectiveness in various practice areas. Overall, the framework of transformative medical ethics suggests a strategic process to investigate and promote practice change that is ethically informed in all phases. (shrink)

The threat simulation theory of dreaming states that dream consciousness is essentially an ancient biological defence mechanism, evolutionarily selected for its capacity to repeatedly simulate threatening events. Threat simulation during dreaming rehearses the cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and threat avoidance, leading to increased probability of reproductive success during human evolution. One hypothesis drawn from TST is that real threatening events encountered by the individual during wakefulness should lead to an increased activation of the system, a threat simulation (...) response, and therefore, to an increased frequency and severity of threatening events in dreams. Consequently, children who live in an environment in which their physical and psychological well-being is constantly threatened should have a highly activated dream production and threat simulation system, whereas children living in a safe environment that is relatively free of such threat cues should have a weakly activated system. We tested this hypothesis by analysing the content of dream reports from severely traumatized and less traumatized Kurdish children and ordinary, non-traumatized Finnish children. Our results give support for most of the predictions drawn from TST. The severely traumatized children reported a significantly greater number of dreams and their dreams included a higher number of threatening dream events. The dream threats of traumatized children were also more severe in nature than the threats of less traumatized or non-traumatized children. (shrink)

Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about belief, doxa -- belief is "shameful." In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Vogt shows how deeply this proposal differs from contemporary views, but that it nevertheless speaks to intuitions we are likely to share with Plato, ancient skeptics, and Stoic epistemologists.