Although Maxwell theory is O(3,1)-covariant, electrodynamics only transforms invariantly between Lorentz frames for special forms of the field, and the generator of Lorentz transformations is not generally conserved. Bérard, Grandati, Lages, and Mohrbach have studied the O(3) subgroup, for which they found an extension of the rotation generator that satisfies the canonical angular momentum algebra in the presence of certain Maxwell fields, and is conserved by the classical motion. The extended generator depends on the field strength, but not the (...) potential, and so is manifestly gauge invariant. The conditions imposed on the Maxwell field by the algebra lead to a Dirac monopole solution.In this paper, we study the generalization of the Bérard, Grandati, Lages and Mohrbach construction to the full Lorentz group in N dimensions. The requirements can be maximally satisfied in a three-dimensional subspace of the full Minkowski space; this subspace can be chosen to describe either an O(3)-invariant space sector, or an O(2,1)-invariant restriction of spacetime. The field solution reduces to the Dirac monopole found in the nonrelativistic case when the O(3)-invariant subspace is selected. When an O(2,1)-invariant subspace is chosen, the field strength can be associated with a Coulomb-like potential of the type A μ(x) = n μ/ρ, where ρ = (x μ x μ)1/2, similar to that used by Horwitz and Arshansky to obtain a covariant generalization of the hydrogen-like bound state. In the presence of these fields, which are determined entirely by symmetry considerations, without reference to a source equation, the extended generator is conserved under classical relativistic system evolution. (shrink)

Formwerdung, als Vorgang des Ausdrückens, ist eine der Natur inhärente technische Dimension - so eine These über den Zusammenhang von Technik- und Naturphilosophie. Demnach überzeugen die techniktheoretischen Überlegungen von Kapp, Deleuze/Guattari und Simondon insbesondere, weil dort Technik als ein Problem des Ausdrucks behandelt wird. Um diesen Gedanken auszuführen, spannt Katharina D. Martin einen Bogen von Lamarck über Schelling und Uexküll bis zu Deleuze. Dabei gelingt es ihr nicht nur, die vielfältigen Diskurse transdisziplinär zu vermitteln, sie führt uns auch zu (...) einem ökologischen und topologischen Denken, das in der Lage ist, die problematische Dimension der Technologisierung unserer Umwelt zu erfassen. (shrink)

Opstellen over de invloed van de Duitse filosoof (1889-1976) op de filosofie in Nederland. Bevat bibliografie.

In der vorliegenden Schrift soll Martin Buber als dem scharfen Diagnostiker unserer Zeit und dem Künder ewiger Wahrheiten die ganze Aufmerksamkeit gelten. Kein Denken lässt sich so wenig in billigen Schlagwörtern einfangen, wie das Martin Bubers. Die erste Aufgabe wird sein, die Situation in der wir leben, und die Buber meint, etwas näher zu bestimmen. Dies wird uns in die Lage setzen, jene Fragen zu vernehmen, die die Situation zu uns allen spricht. Sodann werden wir uns der besonderen (...) Gestalt der Buberschen Antwort zuwenden. Erst dann erscheint die Frage nach Herkunft und Inhalt der Antwort sinnvoll. In einem letzten Teil sollen dann gleichsam drei Bewährungsproben von Bubers Denken erörtert werden. (shrink)

In [6] Messmer and Wood proved quantifier elimination for separably closed fields of finite Ershov invariant e equipped with a (certain) Hasse derivation. We propose a variant of their theory, using a sequence of e commuting Hasse derivations. In contrast to [6] our Hasse derivations are iterative.

Publisher's description: The Phenomenology of Religious Life presents the text of Heidegger's important 1920621 lectures on religion. First published in 1995 as volume 60 of the Gesamtausgabe, the work reveals a young Heidegger searching for the striking language that eventually formed the mature expression of his thought. The volume consists of the famous lecture course "Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion," a course on "Augustine and Neoplatonism," and notes for a course on "The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism" that was (...) never delivered. Heidegger's engagements with Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine, and Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in his later works. Here, Heidegger reveals an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche. The appearance of this first English translation marks a significant event in Heidegger scholarship and affords a unique look into his phenomenology. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to consider what it means to teach and learn philosophy in accordance with logotectonic thinking. The contemporary obsession with critical thinking, incessant questioning, and addressing “current problems” gains its genuine philosophical meaning only in the light of logotectonic building, which is able to differentiate philo-sophical thinking- as thanks-giving and learning·from the sofia and what has been thought – from the modern-”meditation” (Besinnung) and the submodern “anarchic” reflection.

Recognize the “philo- sophia ” as such, this side of Postmodernism, means, starting from the surprising studies of Heribert Boeder, see it as a thought epochally built on a Wisdom, that is, on a initial Knowledge about the Destiny of Man. For the philo-sophical thought of the so-called “German Idealism”, that Wisdom is neither that of the Muses, as in the First epoch, neither the “Christian sapientia”, as in the Middle epoch, but the “Civil Consciousness” about Duty and Freedom.

Tanto la explicación de sentido de la modernidad como el lenguaje de la posmodernidad han rechazado la noción de presente intemporal conocida otrora por la filosofía. Aquí se quiere mostrar en qué sentido y por qué razón el novísimo pensamiento logotectónico permite recuperar aquella noción merced a una nueva distinción del presente.

"Fried and Polt's translation of Martin Heidegger's Being and Truth is a well-crafted and careful rendering of an important and demanding volume of the Complete Works."-Andrew Mitchell, Emory University In these lectures, delivered in 1933-1934 while he was Rector of the University of Freiburg and an active supporter of the National Socialist regime, Martin Heidegger addresses the history of metaphysics and the notion of truth from Heraclitus to Hegel. First published in German in 2001, these two lecture courses (...) offer a sustained encounter with Heidegger's thinking during a period when he attempted to give expression to his highest ambitions for a philosophy engaged with politics and the world. While the lectures are strongly nationalistic and celebrate the revolutionary spirit of the time, they also attack theories of racial supremacy in an attempt to stake out a distinctively Heideggerian understanding of what it means to be a people. This careful translation offers valuable insight into Heidegger's views on language, truth, animality, and life, as well as his political thought and activity. Gregory Fried is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Suffolk University. He is author of Heidegger's Polemos: From Being to Politics and editor of A Companion to Hedegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. Richard Polt is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Xavier University. He is author of The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy and Heidegger: An Introduction. (shrink)

"Is higher education a right, or a privilege? This author argues that all citizens in a free and open society should have an unconditional right to higher education. Such an education should be costless for the individual and open to everyone regardless of talent. A readiness and willingness to learn should be the only qualification. It should offer opportunities that benefit citizens with different interests and goals in life. And it should aim, as its foundational moral purpose, to help citizens (...) from all walks of life live better, freer lives. Using concepts and ideas from liberal political philosophy the author argues that access to educational goods and services is something to which all citizens have a right over a full life. Such goods, it is argued, play a key role in helping citizens realize self-determined goals. Higher education should therefore be understood a basic social institution responsible for ensuring that all citizens can access such 'autonomy-supporting' goods. The book examines the implication of this justification of the right to higher education for questions of educational justice, political authority, distributive justice, civic education, and personal autonomy"--. (shrink)

. This is thinking that is alive, always green.Ó ÑReview of Metaphysics ÒThis translation . . . enlarges our historical view of the probing advances in Heidegger's thought.Ó ÑInternational Studies in Philosophy This clear translation ...

I discuss the problem that Kant’s ethics seems to be incapable of capturing our strong intuition that emergencies create a context for actions that is very different from other cases of helping and from other opportunities to further obligatory ends. I argue that if we pay attention to how Kant grounds beneficence we see that distress and emergency function as constitutive concerns. They are vital to establishing the duty of beneficence in the first place, and they also guide the application (...) of duties to specific cases. Kant’s conception of imperfect duties to others, when understood correctly, offers a way to understand why emergencies are morally important, but also why other factors have a place in our moral reasoning. (shrink)

Increasingly, companies implement social and environmental standards as instruments towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains. This is based on the assumption that such standards increase legitimacy among stakeholders. Yet, a wide variety of standards with different requirement levels exist and companies might tend to introduce the ones with low exigencies, using them as a legitimacy front. This strategy jeopardizes the reputation of social and environmental standards among stakeholders and their long-term trust in these instruments of CSR, meaning that (...) all expenses for their implementation are of no avail for the companies. Therefore, this paper highlights which criteria are important for the selection, implementation and improvement in order to achieve a company's aim, but also to strengthen the legitimacy of social and environmental standards. This research is based on conceptual thought and some existing empirical research, comparing four different social and environmental standards, revealing weaknesses and strengths. It exposes the basic conditions for the success of such standards among stakeholders and identifies the need for more empirical data. (shrink)

In the current paper, we re-examine the concept of strong admissibility, as was originally introduced by Baroni and Giacomin. We examine the formal properties of strong admissibility, both in its e...

Earlier in this century, many philosophers of science (for example, Rudolf Carnap) drew a fairly sharp distinction between theory and observation, between theoretical terms like 'mass' and 'electron', and observation terms like 'measures three meters in length' and 'is _2° Celsius'. By simply looking at our instruments we can ascertain what numbers our measurements yield. Creatures like mass are different: we determine mass by calculation; we never directly observe a mass. Nor an electron: this term is introduced in order to (...) explain what we observe. This (once standard) distinction between theory and observation was eventually found to be wanting. First, if the distinction holds, it is difficult to see what can characterize the relationship between theory :md observation. How can theoretical terms explain that which is itself in no way theorized? The second point leads out of the first: are not the instruments that provide us with observational material themselves creatures of theory? Is it really possible to have an observation language that is entirely barren of theory? The theory-Iadenness of observation languages is now an accept ed feature of the logic of science. Many regard such dependence of observation on theory as a virtue. If our instruments of observation do not derive their meaning from theories, whence comes that meaning? Surely - in science - we have nothing else but theories to tell us what to try to observe. (shrink)

What does it take for an individual to be personally responsible for behaviors that lead to increased risk of disease? We examine three approaches to responsibility that cover the most important aspects of the discussion of responsibility and spell out what it takes, according to each of them, to be responsible for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease. We show that only what we call the causal approach can adequately accommodate widely shared intuitions to the effect that certain causal (...) influences—such as genetic make-up or certain social circumstances—diminish, or undermine personal responsibility. However, accepting the causal approach most likely makes personal responsibility impossible. We therefore need either to reject these widely shared intuitions about what counts as responsibility-softening or undermining or to accept that personal responsibility for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease rests on premises so shaky that personal responsibility is probably impossible. (shrink)

Luck egalitarians need to address the question of cost-responsibility: If an individual is responsible for being worse off than others, then what benefits, if any, is that individual uniquely cost-responsible for? By applying luck egalitarianism to justice in health I discuss different answers to this question inspired by two different interpretations of luck egalitarianism, namely ‘standard luck egalitarianism’ and ‘all luck egalitarianism’, respectively. Even though I argue that the latter is more plausible than the former, I ultimately suggest and defend (...) a third interpretation of luck egalitarianism, which I label ‘universal luck egalitarianism’. Finally, I adjust my findings to a (all things considered) more plausible currency, namely welfare. (shrink)

This article explores the social and ethical elements of cultural safety and combines them in a model of culturally safe practice that should be of interest and relevance for nurses, nurse educators and nurse ethicists in other cultures. To achieve this, the article briefly reviews and critiques the main underpinnings of the concept from its origins and development in New Zealand, describes its sociocultural and sociopolitical elements, and provides an in-depth exploration of the key socioethical elements. Finally, a model is (...) presented to illustrate the strong connection between the social and ethical components of cultural safety that combine to produce culturally safe practice through the activities of a ‘socioethical’ nurse. (shrink)

Abstract In the last few decades, a growing number of commentators have questioned the appropriateness of the 'justice view' of ethics as a suitable approach in health care ethics, and most certainly in nursing. Essentially, in their ethical deliberations, it is argued that nurses do not readily adopt the high degree of impartiality and objectivity that is associated with a justice view; instead their moral practices are more accurately reflected through the use of alternative approaches such as relational or care-based (...) ethics. Yet, it has also been argued that this viewpoint does not necessarily 'do justice' to the broader moral responsibilities of nurses towards humanity in general, i.e. to the wider socio-cultural and socio-political issues in society, and to the concept of social justice in particular. This criticism has triggered a much closer examination of relational and care-based ethics in nursing at levels beyond individual responsiveness within relationships and brought into the spotlight the need for a more ethically refined nursing response to an increasingly complex set of socio-cultural inequalities. This article explores a relational ethic within nursing practices with contemporary ideas regarding social justice. In particular, it is argued that the synergy between the two actually produces an ethic that is capable of not only challenging the continuing predominance of justice-based ethics within health care, but of replacing it. Subsequently, in the discussion that follows, it is suggested that a combined social justice and relational care-based approach, as a social ethic, should guide the moral deliberations and actions of nurses. It is maintained that such an approach is not only possible, but crucial if nurses are to realize their full potential as ethical agents for individual and social good. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (shrink)

The paper discusses modelling uncertainties in climate models and how they can be addressed based on physical principles as well as based on how the models perform in light of empirical data. We ar...

Acquisition and purchase of counterfeit and pirated products are illicit and morally questionable consumer behaviors. Nonetheless, some consumers engage in such illicit behavior and seem to overcome the moral dilemma by justification strategies. The findings on morality effects on consumer responses to counterfeit and pirated products are diverse, and the underlying theories provide no clear picture of the process that explains how morality and justification lead to particular consumer responses or why consumers differ in their responses. This study presents a (...) meta-analysis of 788 effect sizes from 207 independent samples provided in 196 manuscripts that synthesizes the research on the influence of morality on attitudes, intentions, and behavior toward counterfeit and pirated products. The meta-analysis tests competing theoretical models that describe the morality-justification processes, and identifies the deontological–teleological model as the superior one. The meta-analysis further shows that the institutional and social context of consumers explains the differences in morality effects on justifications and responses to counterfeit and pirated products, and provides evidence for the context-sensitivity of the underlying theories. (shrink)

We give sound and complete tableau and sequent calculi for the prepositional normal modal logics S4.04, K4B and G 0(these logics are the smallest normal modal logics containing K and the schemata A A, A A and A ( A); A A and AA; A A and ((A A) A) A resp.) with the following properties: the calculi for S4.04 and G 0are cut-free and have the interpolation property, the calculus for K4B contains a restricted version of the cut-rule, the (...) so-called analytical cut-rule.In addition we show that G 0is not compact (and therefore not canonical), and we proof with the tableau-method that G 0is characterised by the class of all finite, (transitive) trees of degenerate or simple clusters of worlds; therefore G 0is decidable and also characterised by the class of all frames for G 0. (shrink)

I discuss two puzzling and neglected passages in the Critique of Practical Reason, namely, V:92 and V:163. In these passages Kant claims that practical philosophers should follow the paradigm of the chemist and conduct experiments on common human reason. I explain Kant’s conception of the chemical experiment, provide a detailed interpretation of the two passages in question, and conclude by applying the structure of the chemical experiment to the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason. Chemical experiments as a model (...) of ethics should be understood as a method of confirming that a philosophical theory systematizes and defends ideas that ordinary rational agents are already committed to. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Kant’s notorious claim that psychology cannot become a science “properly so-called”. Contrary to widespread opinion, he does not hold any of the following three implausible views: psychological phenomena cannot be mathematized, they cannot be explained in by reference to mathematical causal laws, and they cannot be dealt with in causal terms at all. Instead of claiming something about psychological phenomena, Kant argues against a specific conception of psychology: the then popular introspective psychologies. Only this reading explains why (...) he is also concerned with the possibility of psychological experiments, and it does justice to how he himself treats phenomena of thinking, willing, and so on. (shrink)

A current issue in psycholinguistic research is whether the language difficulties exhibited by children with developmental language disorder [DLD, previously labeled specific language impairment ] are due to deficits in their abilities to pick up patterns in the sensory environment, an ability known as statistical learning, and the extent to which explicit learning mechanisms can be used to compensate for those deficits. Studies designed to test the compensatory role of explicit learning mechanisms in children with DLD are, however, scarce, and (...) the few conducted so far have led to inconsistent results. This work aimed to provide new insights into the role that explicit learning mechanisms might play on implicit learning deficits in children with DLD by resorting to a new approach. This approach involved not only the collection of event-related potentials, while preschool children with DLD [relative to typical language developmental controls] were exposed to a continuous auditory stream made of the repetition of three-syllable nonsense words but, importantly, the collection of ERPs when the same children performed analogous versions of the same auditory SL task first under incidental and afterward under intentional conditions. In each of these tasks, the level of predictability of the three-syllable nonsense words embedded in the speech streams was also manipulated to mimic natural languages closely. At the end of both tasks’ exposure phase, children performed a two-alternative forced-choice task from which behavioral evidence of SL was obtained. Results from the 2-AFC tasks failed to show reliable signs of SL in both groups of children. The ERPs data showed, however, significant modulations in the N100 and N400 components, taken as neural signatures of word segmentation in the brain, even though a detailed analysis of the neural responses revealed that only children from the TLD group seem to have taken advantage of the previous knowledge to enhance SL functioning. These results suggest that children with DLD showed deficits both in implicit and explicit learning mechanisms, casting doubts on the efficiency of the interventions relying on explicit instructions to help children with DLD to overcome their language difficulties. (shrink)