Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 1 Seiten: 188-206.

The first of three articles discussing the Israel/Palestine conflict and the charge of anti-semitism. The second article is a response by Tamar Meisels, and the third a reply to Meisels by Klug.

The Special Issue is started with the observation that the tension of mind and society, i.e. cognitive and sociological/cultural dimensions in knowledge production and innovation, is a well-known topic of academic discourse in Science and Technology Studies. The introduction mentions some historical hallmarks of the involved perspectives and discussions to outline the background of the Special Issue. The purpose of its contributions, which are briefly presented at the end of the introduction, is to review this long-existing tension of cognitive and (...) cultural dimensions in knowledge production and innovation in the light of the cognitive and societal changes that have just begun and will have a huge impact in the future. (shrink)

The article briefly introduces an academic debate between two different responses to the predicament of the human in the ecological crisis, namely the object-oriented ontology and the vitalist response to that approach. Based on that introduction, it argues for the need of a complementing analytical tool and sketches the contours of such a tool by suggesting an epistemological tactic for a decolonizing human distinctiveness. The article suggests an analytical maneuver to be used by scholars who aim at decolonizing nature from (...) human oppression, a tool that enables illumination and critical scrutiny of the epistemological role of the human as one stage toward destabilizing the notion of human distinctiveness. The article, thus, introduces an approach where human distinctiveness is not understood as a factual distinctiveness—not an essential difference between the human and the nonhuman world—but where human distinctiveness is critically viewed as a discursive role in theoretical work, a role that can be temporarily put to use by the scholar as a decolonizing epistemological tactic. In other words, human distinctiveness is here tactically used as a tool to critically scrutinize the idea of human distinctiveness rather than to safeguard it. (shrink)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Knud Ejler Løgstrup were WWII contemporaries: Lutheran theologians and religious figures in their respective German and Danish communities; both active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Being involved in the resistance, Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup were required to rethink what it meant to be ethical, in particular in relation to disclosure and the telling of truth, in a situation of war. In this paper, we consider the grounds on which both Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer acted, their belief in a duty or (...) requirement to resist, in light of the more general problem presented by resistance as action undertaken in a state of exception. We investigate the distinction between the normativity of ordinary or stable time, and action required in a state of exception, using the specific example of truth-telling as a normative demand and its conflict with the exceptional imperative to lie. The example of truth-telling raises important questions about the role of agency and phronetic judgment in a state of exception. In order to determine a foundation for such judgment, we turn to the framework adapted by both Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup to ground their requirement to lie: Luther’s concept of three estates. We consider how their respective concepts of mandates and laws of life/sovereign expressions of life both illuminate and highlight the more general problem of the relation between norm and exceptional action. (shrink)

Die Sprache weiß, wovon sie spricht. Das zeigt sich im Kompositum "ef?μe ", von dem das deutsche "ephemer" abgeleitet wurde. Während das Präfix "epi" u.a. die Bedeutungen "darauf, während, bis zu" umfasst, bedeutet "hemära" nicht nur "Tag", sondern auch "Zeit" und "Leben". Das Ephemere spricht existenziell die Daseinsweise des Menschen an. Ephemeroi, Menschen, sind "Eintagswesen", "eines Schattens Traum". Ohne das Ephemere als Kennzeichen der Moderne und Postmoderne zu vernachlässigen, unter Berücksichtigung der Wechselwirkungen mit Medienumbrüchen und Künsten stehen Fragen nach der (...) Zeitlichkeit als Bedingung der Möglichkeit allen Existierens, aber auch nach den Weisen der Zeitigung von Zeit, die die konkrete Lebenszeit prägen, im Zentrum. Mit Beiträgen von: Gabriele Brandstetter, Danica Darkic, Martina Dobbe, Martin Dornberg, Hinderk M. Emmrich, Daniel Fetzner, Angela Melitopoulos, Petra Maria Meyer, Jürgen Partenheimer, Claus-Arthur Scheier, Michael Schirner, Annette Stahmer, Georg Christoph Tholen, Michael Wetzel, Martin Zenck. (shrink)

Nebel argues for the Repugnant Conclusion via the “Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion,” on which certainty of a mediocre life is better for individuals than a sufficiently small chance of an excellent life. In this article, I deny that acceptance of the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion leads us to the Repugnant Conclusion. I point out that on many views which avoid the Repugnant Conclusion we should discount very small probabilities down to zero. If we do, then Nebel’s crucial premise of Ex Ante Pareto (...) fails, because discounting at the individual level can fail to match up with discounting at the population level. (shrink)

Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of T'ubingen.

Dieser Aufsatz präsentiert die funktionalistische Theorie der Würde, die in der Tradition Arnd Pollmanns steht und eine modifizierende Weiterentwicklung vorschlägt. Die funktionalistische Theorie der Würde stellt die historisch bedingte Funktion von Würde innerhalb der wichtigen modernen (Menschen-) Rechtsdokumente in den Vordergrund: Würde markiert die Abkehr zu den Verbrechen des Nationalsozialismus. Daraus lässt sich eine Schutzfunktion ableiten: Menschen sollten „Nie Wieder!“ – so der ablehnende moralische Standpunkt – in gravierenden Notsituationen leben, wie jene in welche die Nationalsozialisten ihre Opfer brachten. Menschenrechte (...) haben zum Ziel, Menschen ein Leben in Würde zu ermöglichen. Im Kontext historischer Lernprozesse lässt sich die funktionalistische Theorie der Würde demnach auch auf zeitgenössische Unrechtssituationen anwenden. Die Eigenschaften dieses Würdebegriffs werden dabei ebenfalls aus der Funktion abgeleitet. Grundlage der funktionalistischen Theorie der Würde sind die Zeugnisse von Menschen in gravierenden Notsituationen und nicht primär die Einstellungen und Handlungen von möglichen Täter*innen. (shrink)

There is substantial support for the general idea that a formalization of comprehenders' expectations about the likely next word in a sentence helps explaining data related to online sentence processing. While much research has focused on syntactic, semantic, and discourse expectations, the present event‐related potentials (ERPs) study investigates neurolinguistic correlates of pragmatic expectations, which arise when comprehenders expect a sentence to conform to Gricean Maxims of Conversation. For predicting brain responses associated with pragmatic processing, we introduce a formal model of (...) such Gricean pragmatic expectations, using an idealized incremental interpreter. We examine whether pragmatic expectancies derived from this model modulate the amplitude of the N400, a component that has been associated with predictive processing. As part of its parameterization, the model distinguishes genuine pragmatic interpreters, who expect maximally informative true utterances, from literal interpreters, who only expect truthfulness. We explore the model's non‐trivial predictions for an experimental setup which uses picture‐sentence verification with ERPs recorded at several critical positions in sentences containing the scalar implicature trigger some. We find that Gricean expectations indeed affect the N400, largely in line with the predictions of our model, but also discuss discrepancies between model predictions and observations critically. (shrink)

In response to cases that involve tiny probabilities of huge payoffs, some argue that we ought to discount small probabilities down to zero. However, this paper shows that doing so violates Independence and Continuity, and as a result of these violations, those who discount small probabilities can be exploited by money pumps. Various possible ways of avoiding exploitation will be discussed. This paper concludes that the money pump for Independence undermines the plausibility of discounting small probabilities. Much of the discussion (...) on Independence generalizes to other views that also violate Independence. (shrink)

Our article explores the repair practices pilots use to correct various troubles during flights. The intersubjective understanding of action is a salient part of the time-critical activities of aviation. Repairs solve troubles before any accident risk emerges, thus contributing to flight safety. In repair practices, the social and technical environment is interwoven. If remedies concern faulty lines of action, they target the techno-material condition of the aircraft. Such repair practices are not repairs of talk, but remedies of action in a (...) socio-material interaction. We discuss remedies of action as a particular type of repair practice, and outline their role in socio-material interactions. The aim is to continue building a holistic analysis of social action, not just to add a multimodal layer over an analysis of talk. The rethinking of social action contributes to the exploration of social actions anchored to their socio-material environment. (shrink)

Theologian. Conspirator. Martyr. Saint. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was killed in the waning days of World War II, having been implicated in the July 20th assassination attempt on Hitler. Since his death, Bonhoeffer’s life and writings have inspired contradictory responses. He is often seen as a model for Christian pacifist resistance, and more recently for violent direct political action. Bonhoeffer’s name has been invoked by violent anti-abortion protestors as well as political leaders calling for support on a ‘war on terror’ in the (...) aftermath of 9/11. Petra Brown critically analyses Bonhoeffer’s writing preceding and during his conspiracy involvement, particularly his recurring concept of the ‘extraordinary.’ Brown examines this idea in light of ‘the state of exception,’ a concept coined by the one-time Nazi jurist and political theorist, Carl Schmitt. She also draws on the existentialist philosopher Sören Kierkegaard to consider what happens when discipleship is understood as obedience to a divine command. This book aims to complicate an unreflective admiration of Bonhoeffer’s decision for conspiracy, and draws attention to the potentially dangerous implications of his emerging political theology. (shrink)

Research suggests that sedentary behavior is negatively associated with cognitive outcomes. Interrupting prolonged sitting has been shown to improve cognitive functions, including executive functioning, which is important for academic performance. No research has been conducted on the effect of standing on EF in VET students, who make up a large proportion of the adolescent population and who are known to sit more than other students of this age. In this study, we investigated the acute effects of reducing SB by short (...) time standing on EF in vocational education and training students. In a randomized crossover study, 165 VET students were first taught for 15 min in seated position. After this, they performed while seated the Letter Memory Test for updating, and the Color Shape Test for shifting and inhibition. Students were randomly assigned to a sitting or standing condition. All students were taught again for 15 min and then took the same tests in the condition they were allocated to, respectively, standing or seated. After 1 week, the test procedure was repeated, in which students switched conditions. Mixed model analyses showed no significant effect of sitting or standing on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Also, no significant differences were found for the order of condition on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Our results suggest that 40 min of standing does not significantly influence EF among VET students. (shrink)

Analyses of household urban agriculture have demonstrated a wealth of personal, economic, social, moral or political uses for self-provisioned food, yet have often understood the practice itself as merely a production process. This ‘means-to-an-end’ perspective is especially pronounced in studies of locations undergoing economic hardship. Urban gardening in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has been framed as an element of an informal economy, enabling household savings, access to informal networks and avoidance of industrial goods deemed (...) ethically dubious. In this article, I present evidence from participant observation and interviews with urban gardeners conducted in 2014–2015 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where urban agriculture proliferated during the European debt crisis that began in 2009. I interpret the material through an ecological perspective that focuses on labour in nature and highlights the interconnected, situated role of the gardener. My analysis of gardening styles, behaviours, attitudes and life-narratives of long-term urban growers challenges the utilitarian interpretation by arguing that urban agriculture in Ljubljana is in fact a means in itself—not an informal economy, but a narrative practice. While undertaken to ameliorate the effects of economic hardship, household urban agriculture first and foremost promotes individual wellbeing and restores a stable sense of self. I outline a series of self-making benefits of working with cultivated, edible nature that helped gardeners reconstruct their biographies after their previously established self-making processes collapsed in the economic downturn. (shrink)

This article provides a state of the art of the growing normative plea for enhanced representativeness, by which we understand a form of representation considering the sociodemographic particularities of society. We look at the Anglo-American plea for group representation and the French debate on parity democracy. Concerned with the structural marginalisation of large numbers of citizens from the political arena, these scholars criticise the abstract concept ofcitizenship and the interpretation of the process of representation as such. The plea for enhanced (...) representativeness faces more than one normative challenge. Dealing with these issues the scholars pleading for enhanced representativeness above all reveal that the issue for or against representation in terms of representativeness is a matter of choice on underlying normative assumptions. (shrink)

Sijilmassi et al. offer a cognitive account of historical myths, which they present as a cognitive technology designed to recruit coalitional support. We argue this account is incomplete, and that a comprehensive explanation of historical myths must include a central role for human emotions. In particular, emotion-driven narratives have the capacity to recruit coalitional support, which is critical to large-scale human cooperation and social cohesion.

The present event‐related potential (ERP) study used picture–sentence verification to investigate the neurolinguistic correlates of the online processing of compositional‐semantic information. To this end, we examined context effects on sentences involving temporal adverbial quantification likeJana war jeden Morgen schwimmen an den Arbeitstagen (“Jana went for a swim every morning during the working week”). We tested whether the conceptual complexity associated with quantifying over time intervals leads to delayed predictions regarding the upcoming words in a sentence. The present study replicated previous (...) results relating to quantification over individuals, which are conceptually less complex than time intervals. Analogous to previous studies, false vs. true sentences elicited an N400 whenever contextual cues did not permit a potential revision of a locally assigned truth value. The present results are compatible with an approach under which contextual cues are immediately considered for predicting how a sentence continues. The fact that the contextual complexity did not lead to processing delays indicates that the processing system quickly abstracts away from the conceptual complexity associated with the linguistic input if such an abstraction is possible. (shrink)

The topic of this thesis is how we should treat tiny probabilities of vast value. This thesis consists of six independent papers. Chapter 1 discusses the idea that utilities are bounded. It shows that bounded decision theories prescribe prospects that are better for no one and worse for some if combined with an additive axiology. Chapter 2, in turn, points out that standard axiomatizations of Expected Utility Theory violate dominance in cases that involve possible states of zero probability. Chapters 3–6 (...) discuss the idea that we should ignore tiny probabilities in practical decision-making. Chapter 3 argues that discounting small probabilities solves the ‘Intrapersonal Addition Paradox’ and thus helps avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. Chapter 4 explores what the most plausible version of this view might look like and what problems the different versions have. Chapter 5 focuses on one type of problem, namely, money pumps. The Independence Money Pump, in particular, presents a difficult challenge for those who wish to discount small probabilities. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses the implications of discounting small probabilities for the value of the far future. (shrink)

In the last twenty years, there has been an enormous growth of scientific research concerning the process of human moral reasoning and moral intuitions. In contemporary descriptive ethics, three dominant approaches can be found – heuristic approach, dual-process theory, and universal moral grammar. Each of these accounts is based on similar empirical evidence combining findings from evolutionary biology, moral psychology, and neuroethics. Nevertheless, they come to different conclusions about the reliability of moral intuitions. The aim of this paper is to (...) critically investigate each of these approaches and compare them with recent scientific findings. Last chapter addresses implications of these findings for moral epistemology and normative ethics. The aim is to show that despite different interpretations of available data, we can reach a satisfying pragmatical conclusion which would be in compliance with the empirical evidence, yet it would not necessarily depend on it. (shrink)

The interplay of content and context is observable in a moment to moment manner as propositional content unfolds. The current contribution illustrates this through data from real-time language comprehension indicating that propositional content is not computed in isolation but relies in important ways on context during every step of the computation of meaning. The relevant notion of context that we have to adopt includes all aspects of possible worlds and draws on a variety of knowledge representations, which in a first (...) processing phase serve to generate expectations for upcoming words. In a second phase, the discourse representation is assessed and if necessary updated by means of inferential reasoning and enrichment to reflect the speaker’s intended meaning. (shrink)

This autobiographically based article aims to consider the practical application of Anderson’s conception of analytic autoethnography under particular circumstances and requirements for its use. It reflects on the friendships that developed between me and my key informants during ethnographic research. In this context I refer to autoethnography as a method that allows researchers to identify aspects of their lives that have relevance beyond the personal and deal analytically with friendships in the field. Moreover, I consider how the researcher can analytically (...) handle friendships in the field using analytic autoethnography, even when he is not a complete member of the community under investigation. (shrink)

Conflicts in Interpretation applies novel methods of constraint interaction, derived from connectionist theories and implemented in linguistics within the framework of Optimality Theory, to core semantic and pragmatic issues such as polysemy, negation, (in) definiteness, focus, anaphora, and rhetorical structure. It explores the hypothesis that a natural language grammar is a set of potentially conflicting constraints on forms and meanings. Moreover, it hypothesizes that competent language users not only optimize from an input form to the optimal output meaning for this (...) form, or vice versa, but also consider the opposite direction of optimization, thus taking into account the speaker as a hearer and taking into account the hearer as a speaker. The book aims to show that such a bidirectional constraint-based grammar sheds new light on the relation between form and meaning, within a sentence as well as across sentence boundaries, within a single language as well as across languages, and within competent adult language users as well as during language development. An important dimension of the book is the structured investigation of issues at the interface of semantics with syntax and pragmatics, such as the effects of distinguishing between speaker's perspective and hearer's perspective in comprehension and production, stable and instable patterns of form and meaning across languages, and the development of a coherent pattern of form and meaning in children. Conflicts in Interpretation will be of interest to any researcher or advanced student in linguistics, cognitive science, language typology, or psycholinguistics who is interested in the capacity of our human mind to map meaning onto form, and form onto meaning. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is devoted to two main parts. First, the paper introduces logical interpretations of classical structures of opposition that are constructed as extensions of the square of opposition. Blanché’s hexagon as well as two cubes of opposition proposed by Morreti and pairs Keynes–Johnson will be introduced. The second part of this paper is dedicated to a graded extension of the Aristotle’s square and Peterson’s square of opposition with intermediate quantifiers. These quantifiers are linguistic expressions such (...) as “most”, “many”, “a few”, and “almost all”, and they correspond to what are often called “fuzzy quantifiers” in the literature. The graded Peterson’s cube of opposition, which describes properties between two graded squares, will be discussed at the end of this paper. (shrink)

This review study was conducted to describe how temperament is related to school readiness. The basic research question was whether there is any relationship between later school success and temperament in children and, if so, what characterizes it. A systematic search of databases and journals identified 27 papers that met the two criteria: temperament and school readiness. The analytical strategy followed the PRISMA method. The research confirmed the direct relationship between temperament and school readiness. There is a statistically significant relationship (...) between temperament and school readiness. Both positive and negative emotionality influence behavior (especially concentration), which is reflected in the approach to learning and school success. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of undergoing a presymptomatic genetic test for the hereditary and fatal Huntington’s disease, using a case study approach. The study was based on 18 interviews with a young woman and her husband from the decision to undergo the test, to receiving the results and trying to adapt to them, which were analysed using a life history approach. The findings show that the process of undergoing a presymptomatic test involves several closely (...) connected ethical and medical questions, such as the reason for the test, the consequences of the test results and how health-care services can be developed to support people in this situation. (shrink)

Background: A predictive genetic test for Huntington’s disease can be used before any symptoms are apparent, but there is only sparse knowledge about the long-term consequences of a positive test result. Such knowledge is important in order to gain a deeper understanding of families’ experiences. Objectives: The aim of the study was to describe a young couple’s long-term experiences and the consequences of a predictive test for Huntington’s disease. Research design: A descriptive case study design was used with a longitudinal (...) narrative life history approach. Participants and research context: The study was based on 18 interviews with a young couple, covering a period of 2.5 years; starting 6 months after the disclosure of the test results showing the woman to be a carrier of the gene causing Huntington’s disease. Ethical considerations: Even though the study was extremely sensitive, where potential harm constantly had to be balanced against the benefits, the couple had a strong wish to contribute to increased knowledge about people in their situation. The study was approved by the ethics committee. Findings: The results show that the long-term consequences were devastating for the family. This 3-year period was characterized by anxiety, repeated suicide attempts, financial difficulties and eventually divorce. Discussion: By offering a predictive test, the healthcare system has an ethical and moral responsibility. Once the test result is disclosed, the individual and the family cannot live without the knowledge it brings. Support is needed in a long-term perspective and should involve counselling concerning the families’ everyday life involving important decision-making, reorientation towards a new outlook of the future and the meaning of life. Conclusion: As health professionals, our ethical and moral responsibility thus embraces not only the phase in direct connection to the actual genetic test but also a commitment to provide support to help the family deal with the long-term consequences of the test. (shrink)

Originally presented as the author's thesis, Heidelberg, 1977.