Im Mittelpunkt dieser Studien steht der philosophische Begriff der Begegnung, der auf die Erfahrung zurückgeht, dass sich das eigene Selbstsein einem Beitrag von aussen verdankt. Auch hundert Jahre nach der mit Bubers Ich und Du zu markierenden Entstehung der Dialogik ist 'Begegnung' ein in der Philosophie unverarbeiteter Begriff geblieben. In diesem Buch wird ein prinzipieller Neuansatz durch eine Gesamtschau der Philosophie Robert Spaemanns versucht. Indem die noch kaum freigelegte Kohärenz des vielschichtigen Werks dieses bedeutenden Denkers des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts (...) entfaltet wird, tritt eine philosophische Beschreibungsebene des Ereignisses der Begegnung zutage. (shrink)

The High Line – a public park on a repurposed railway track in New York City – first opened to the public in 2009, and has been increasingly celebrated as a model public space, and as a democratic project directed by community. Artistic and amateur photographic practices have significantly informed the High Line’s design, landscaping, publicity, urban policy, use and constellations of community. This photo-conceptual essay critically considers the constitutive function of the photographic image, as photography produces, interpellates and defines (...) the public and public sphere of the High Line. However, these imaging practices have also taken increasingly regulated form, and endorse conservative forms of community, personhood and publicness. The new park’s imaging practices may be understood as supplementary to neoliberal forms of property accumulation, in fact diminishing public space even as they purport to represent it. Drawing from the historical avant-garde, feminist critiques of representation and anti-capitalist urban theory, the following photographic series critiques the High Line’s photographic apparatus, from within a practice of photography, and from a position within the field of contemporary art. (shrink)

Widowhood is common in old age, can be accompanied by serious health consequences and is often linked to substantial changes in social network. Little is known about the impact of social isolation on the development of depressive symptoms over time taking widowhood into account. We provide results from the follow-up 5 to follow-up 9 from the longitudinal study AgeCoDe and its follow-up study AgeQualiDe. Depression was measured with GDS-15 and social isolation was assessed using the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6). (...) The group was aligned of married and widowed people in old age and education through entropy balancing. Linear mixed models were used to examine the frequency of occurrence of depressive symptoms for widowed and married elderly people depending on the risk of social isolation. Our study shows that widowhood alone does not lead to an increased occurrence of depressive symptoms. However, "widowed oldest old", who are also at risk of social isolation, have significantly more depressive symptoms than those without risk. In the group of "married oldest old", women have significantly more depressive symptoms than men, but isolated and non-isolated do not differ. Especially for people who have lost a spouse, the social network changes significantly and increases the risk for social isolation. This represents a risk factor for the occurrence of depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Mit den Fortschritten im Bereich der psychiatrisch-genetischen Forschung gehen auch intensive Diskussionen bezüglich der daraus erwachsenden Implikationen einher. Hoffnungen wie Befürchtungen gegenüber der neuen Technologie und deren Folgen werden gleichermaßen zum Ausdruck gebracht. Über die Einstellung der Bevölkerung und insbesondere der Patienten mit affektiven oder schizophrenen Erkrankungen und ihrer Angehörigen in Deutschland war bisher allerdings wenig bekannt. Daher führten wir im Rahmen des Deutschen Humangenomprojektes erstmals eine Studie durch, um die Einstellungen und ihre beeinflussenden Faktoren zu erfassen. Wir entwickelten einen (...) Fragebogen zur Erfassung der Erwartungen, Hoffnungen und Befürchtungen sowie der die Einstellung beeinflussenden Faktoren. Hiermit wurde eine repräsentative Stichprobe von 3077 Personen aus der Allgemeinbevölkerung am Telefon befragt. Weiterhin wurden mit 316 Patienten und 163 Angehörigen persönliche standardisierte Interviews anhand des Fragebogens durchgeführt. Die Mehrzahl der Befragten hatte eine positive Einstellung zu psychiatrisch-genetischer Forschung, äußerte jedoch gleichzeitig ethische Bedenken. Übereinstimmend waren die Befragten der Ansicht, dass Informationen aus genetischen Untersuchungen vertraulich behandelt werden sollten. Kleine, aber signifikante Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen zeigten sich bezüglich der Einstellung zu präsymptomatischer genetischer Diagnostik. Unsere Ergebnisse weisen auf eine Ambivalenz der Befragten gegenüber der psychiatrisch-genetischen Forschung und Untersuchung hin: Neben einer überwiegend positiven Einstellung wurden auch moralische Bedenken geäußert. (shrink)

Background: Although convolutional neural networks (CNNs) achieve high diagnostic accuracy for detecting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, they are not yet applied in clinical routine. One important reason for this is a lack of model comprehensibility. Recently developed visualization methods for deriving CNN relevance maps may help to fill this gap as they allow the visualization of key input image features that drive the decision of the model. We investigated whether models with higher accuracy (...) also rely more on discriminative brain regions predefined by prior knowledge. Methods: We trained a CNN for the detection of AD in N = 663 T1-weighted MRI scans of patients with dementia and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and verified the accuracy of the models via cross-validation and in three independent samples including in total N = 1655 cases. We evaluated the association of relevance scores and hippocampus volume to validate the clinical utility of this approach. To improve model comprehensibility, we implemented an interactive visualization of 3D CNN relevance maps, thereby allowing intuitive model inspection. Results: Across the three independent datasets, group separation showed high accuracy for AD dementia versus controls (AUC ≥ 0.91) and moderate accuracy for amnestic MCI versus controls (AUC ≈ 0.74). Relevance maps indicated that hippocampal atrophy was considered the most informative factor for AD detection, with additional contributions from atrophy in other cortical and subcortical regions. Relevance scores within the hippocampus were highly correlated with hippocampal volumes (Pearson’s r ≈ −0.86, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The relevance maps highlighted atrophy in regions that we had hypothesized a priori. This strengthens the comprehensibility of the CNN models, which were trained in a purely data-driven manner based on the scans and diagnosis labels. The high hippocampus relevance scores as well as the high performance achieved in independent samples support the validity of the CNN models in the detection of AD-related MRI abnormalities. The presented data-driven and hypothesis-free CNN modeling approach might provide a useful tool to automatically derive discriminative features for complex diagnostic tasks where clear clinical criteria are still missing, for instance for the differential diagnosis between various types of dementia. (shrink)

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

Objectives:Social isolation is increasing in aging societies and several studies have shown a relation with worse cognition in old age. However, less is known about the association in the oldest-old (85+); the group that is at highest risk for both social isolation and dementia. Methods:Analyses were based on follow-up 5 to 9 of the longitudinal German study on aging, cognition, and dementia in primary care patients (AgeCoDe) and the study on needs, health service use, costs, and health-related quality of life (...) in a large sample of oldest-old primary care patients (AgeQualiDe), a multi-center population-based prospective cohort study. Measurements included the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), with a score below 12 indicating social isolation, as well as the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) as an indicator of cognitive function. Results:Dementia-free study participants (n = 942) were M = 86.4 (SD = 3.0) years old at observation onset, 68.2% were women. One third (32.3%) of them were socially isolated. Adjusted linear hybrid mixed effects models revealed significantly lower cognitive function in individuals with smaller social networks (β = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.3-0.7, p <.001). Moreover, changes in an individual's social network size were significantly associated with cognitive changes over time (β = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.1-0.4, p =.003), indicating worse cognitive function with shrinking social networks. Conclusion:Social isolation is highly prevalent among oldest-old individuals, being a risk factor for decreases in cognitive function. Consequently, it is important to maintain a socially active lifestyle into very old age. Likewise, this calls for effective ways to prevent social isolation. (shrink)

Lucy O'Brien has argued that defenders of the object-dependence of singular thought should attend to mental agency. A recent trend in action theory, towards what John Maier calls ‘agentive modality’, suggests that we conceive agency in terms of the exercise of abilities, and this is how I propose to approach O'Brien's challenge. For Gareth Evans, an early defender of object-dependence, maintained that thinking is the exercise of a complex of abilities. The debate about object-dependence gives way to the question (...) whether we have what I call dedicated singular mental abilities. In arguing that we do, I defend the thesis of object-dependence. (shrink)

Die Geltung der Menschenrechte kann verteidigt werden. Wer zwischen der imperialen Behauptung, die Menschenrechte seien ein triumphales Produkt des "Westens", und der relativistischen Beteuerung, sie seien "bloss" westlich, nicht wahlen mochte, tut gut daran, die Debatte um die "affirmative Genealogie", die Hans Joas in seiner Apologie der Menschenrechte entwickelt hat, genau zu verfolgen. In "Der Westen und die Menschenrechte" plausibilisiert Joas noch einmal seinen Standpunkt und reagiert scharfsinnig auf die Debatte, die in diesem Buch durch namhafte Wissenschaftler gefuhrt wird. Wer (...) mit menschenrechtlichen Fragen zu tun hat - sei es akademisch, politisch oder in anderen Engagements - und diese gegen ihre Ideologisierung oder Relativierung in Schutz nehmen will, wird zu diesem Buch greifen mussen. Mit Beitragen von Heiner Bielefeldt, Daniel Bogner, Bernd Irlenborn, Christian Hillgruber, Hans Joas, Michael Kuhnlein, Hans Maier, Christoph Mollers, Matthias Sellmann, Ludwig Siep, Tine Stein, Jean-Pierre Wils und Rolf Zimmermann. (shrink)

In this article I raise empirical challenges for the claim tha area MT/V5 is the neural correlate for visual experience as of motion (Block 2005). In particular, I focus on the claim that there is matching content between area MT, on one hand, and visual experience as of motion, on the other hand (Chalmers 2000, Block 2007). I survey two lines of empirical evidence which challenge the claim of matching content in area MT. The first line of evidence covers new (...) results in neuroscience which emphasize the ongoing dynamics in cortical activity. The second line of evidence focuses on results regarding area MT in particular (Maier et al. 2007 and Cohen and Newsome 2008). Together, the empirical results indicate that neural processing is context sensitive in a way that challenges the attribution of content to local areas of cortex, to area MT in particular. In the final part of the article I explore alternative approaches and discuss remaining issues. (shrink)

Hethitisch ◦̯uant- und Verwantes: Untersuchungen zur Vertretung des indogermanischen Possessiv- suffixes *-went- in den anatolischen Sprachen. By Michael Georg Maier. Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie, vol. 42. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013. Pp. xix + 304. €78.

The political scientist and former Bavarian Minister of Culture Hans Maier has created a historically profound, theologically educated, literarily and musically highly sensitive, politically mature body of work, with which he has inscribed himself in the (intellectual) history of the Federal Republic. This book is the first to contain contributions by renowned scholars and politicians on the rich work and impact of the Catholic scholar and politician Hans Maier. It thematises and appreciates in detail his view of German (...) history and the traditions of political thought, his critique of political language, political theology, totalitarianism and political religions, but also his contributions on Catholicism and modernity, his writings on literature and music, and finally his influence as an academic teacher, public intellectual and politician. With contributions by Udo Bermbach, Thomas Brose, Ahmet Cavuldak, Horst Dreier, Hermann-Josef Große Kracht, Jens Hacke, Oliver Hidalgo, Hans Günter Hockerts, Patrick Horst, Horst Möller, Heinrich Oberreuter, Henning Ottmann, Mark Edward Ruff, Hans Otto Seitschek, Michael Stolleis, Bernhard Vogel, Peter Graf von Kielmansegg, Theo Waigel and Markus Zimmermann. (shrink)

Continental authors and editors often sought to ground alchemical writing within a long-established, coherent and pan-European tradition, appealing to the authority of adepts from different times and places. Greek, Latin and Islamic alchemists met both in person and between the covers of books, in actual, fictional or coincidental encounters: a trope utilised in Michael Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum. This essay examines how works attributed to an English authority, George Ripley, were received in central Europe and incorporated (...) into continental compendia. Placed alongside works by the philosophers of other nations, Ripley’s writings helped affirm the unity and truth of alchemy in defiance of its critics. His continental editors were therefore concerned not only with the provenance of manuscripts and high-quality exemplars, but by a range of other factors, including the desire to suppress controversial material, intervene in contemporary polemics, and defend their art. In the resulting compilations, the vertical axis of alchemy’s long, diachronic tradition may be compared to the horizontal plane of pan-European alchemy. (shrink)

In the last decades Robert Fludd’s philosophy has received increasing attention. On the other hand, his life, network, and acquaintances have been investigated in much less detail. As William Huffman rightly put it, “[o]ne of the main problems confronting someone interested in Robert Fludd is the lack of information about his formative years, as well as about his later associations”. Ron Heisler already observed that regrettably Huffman’s own account is not always accurate or complete. Scholars such as Johannes Rösche have (...) recently added more details. The aim of this article is to give scope for further research; it collects contributions by previous scholars and adds details, corrects inaccuracies, identifies hitherto nameless people with whom Fludd came into contact, and places he visited. It also takes into account current research coming from tangential fields, for instance studies on Fludd’s publisher or on philosophers such as Michael Maier, with whom he is thought to have been closely associated. (shrink)

A coherent treatment of the flow of ideas throughout Darwin's works, this volume presents a unified theoretical system that explains Darwin's investigations, evaluating the literature from a historical, scientific, and philosophical perspective.

Science and philosophy study well-being with different but complementary methods. Marry these methods and a new picture emerges: To have well-being is to be "stuck" in a positive cycle of emotions, attitudes, traits and success. This book unites the scientific and philosophical worldviews into a powerful new theory of well-being.

The book has two parts: one metaphysical, the other epistemological. The metaphysical part is largely concerned with realism issues. It starts with realism about universals, dismissing Plato's notorious ‘one over many’ problem. Several chapters argue for a fairly uncompromisingly realist view of the external physical world of commonsense and science. Both the nonfactualism of moral noncognitivism and positivistic instrumentalism, and deflationism about truth, are found to rest on antirealisms about their subject matters that are hard to characterize. A case is (...) presented for moral realism. Various biological realisms are considered. Finally, an argument is presented for an unfashionable biological essentialism. The epistemological part of the book argues against the a priori and for a Quinean naturalism. The intuitions that so dominate ‘armchair philosophy’ are empirical not a priori. There is an emphasis throughout the book on distinguishing metaphysical issues about what there is and what it's like from semantic issues about meaning, truth, and reference. Another central theme, captured in the title, is that we should ‘put metaphysics first’. We should approach epistemology and semantics from a metaphysical perspective rather than vice versa. The epistemological turn in modern philosophy and the linguistic turn in contemporary philosophy were something of disasters. (shrink)

However, other leading philosophers of the era--such as David Hume, Adam Smith, and J.G. Herder--placed greater emphasis on feeling, seeing moral and political ...

Various ideals of purity are surveyed and discussed. These include the classical Aristotelian ideal, as well as certain neo-classical and contemporary ideals. The focus is on a type of purity ideal I call topical purity. This is purity which emphasizes a certain symmetry between the conceptual resources used to prove a theorem and those needed for the clarification of its content. The basic idea is that the resources of proof ought ideally to be restricted to those which determine its content.

English summary: A liberal market society is often critized as being a society in which morality and virtues are crowded out by increasing egoism and utility-maximization. Michael Baurmann develops quite a different picture. He shows that anonymous market-relations and competition are by no means the only traits of a liberal society. Freedom of cooperation and association is one of its main characteristics as well. This freedom lays the fundament for the emergence of moral commitment and civil virtues which are (...) needed to provide the public goods a free society is based on - in particular the limitation of state power by the rule of law. Close German description: Es ist der beste deutsche Beitrag zur theoretischen Soziologie, den ich seit langer Zeit gelesen habe.Erich Weede in Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 1996, S. 762Der Gedankengang des Buches ist klar und uberzeugend. Insbesondere die Passagen daruber, was universalistische Normen auszeichnet, und uber die Bedingungen, unter denen die Orientierung an universalistischen Normen gelernt werden kann, verdienen es, sozialwissenschaftliches Gemeingut zu werden.Reinhard Zintl in Associations 1998, S. 294 f.Das Buch von Baurmann entwickelt mit Bedacht und auf hohem Niveau einen rechts- und staatstheoretischen, soziologisch fundierten Losungsvorschlag fur eine aktuelle, viel diskutierte Problematik.... Gegenuber manchen modischen Verfallszenarien wirkt der Ansatz Baurmanns... erfrischend und ermutigend...Gerhard Dilcher in Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 1998, S. 3692Dem, der die okonomische Theorie der sozialen Ordnung auf der Hohe ihrer Leistungsfahigkeit erleben mochte,... wird mit diesem ausgeklugelten Festival des Kontrafaktischen viel geboten.Wolfgang Kersting in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 29.4.1997, S. 12. (shrink)

The definitive work on the philosophical nature and impact of the theories of Charles Darwin, written by a well-known authority on the history and philosophy of Darwinism. Broadly explores the theories of Charles Darwin and Darwin studies Incorporates much information about modern Biology Offers a comprehensive discussion of Darwinism and Christianity – including Creationism – by one of the leading authorities in the field Written in clear, concise, user-friendly language supplemented with quality illustrations Examines the status of evolutionary theory as (...) a genuine theory and its implications for philosophy, epistemology and ethics Provides a strong understanding of the philosophical nature and impact of Darwin's thought Holds wide appeal for general audiences outside the world of academic philosophy Strongly supports Darwinism and fully explores modern naturalistic explanations of religion. (shrink)

This book is a sophisticated, detailed, and original examination of the main ideas that have dominated Anglo-American legal philosophy since the Second World War. The author probes such themes as: whether there can be right answers to all disputed law cases; how laws and other rules impact on the practical rationality of actors subject to their authority; whether general principles justifying the law must themselves be thought of as part of the law binding on legal actors; and the possibility of (...) an interpretivist jurisprudence that is continuous with law practice in a given culture. (shrink)

Why believe in the a priori? The answer is clear: there are many examples, drawn from mathematics, logic and philosophy, of knowledge that does not seem to be empirical. It does not seem possible that this knowledge could be justified or revised “by experience.” It must be justified in some other way, justified a priori.

This book addresses such key ethical issues as euthanasia, the environment, biotechnology, abortion, the family, sexual ethics, and the distribution of health care resources. Michael Banner argues that the task of Christian ethics is to understand the world and humankind in the light of the credal affirmations of the Christian faith, and to explicate this understanding in its significance for human action through a critical engagement with the concerns, claims and problems of other ethics. He illustrates both the distinctiveness (...) of Christian convictions in relation to the above issues and also the critical dialogue with practices based on other convictions which this sense of distinctiveness motivates but does not prevent. The book's importance lies in its attempt to show the crucial difference which Christian belief makes to an understanding of these issues, whilst at the same time demonstrating some of the weaknesses and confusions of certain popular approaches to them. (shrink)