Currently, two frameworks of causal reasoning compete: Whereas dependency theories focus on dependencies between causes and effects, dispositional theories model causation as an interaction between agents and patients endowed with intrinsic dispositions. One important finding providing a bridge between these two frameworks is that failures of causes to generate their effects tend to be differentially attributed to agents and patients regardless of their location on either the cause or the effect side. To model different types of error attribution, we augmented (...) a causal Bayes net model with separate error sources for causes and effects. In several experiments, we tested this new model using the size of Markov violations as the empirical indicator of differential assumptions about the sources of error. As predicted by the model, the size of Markov violations was influenced by the location of the agents and was moderated by the causal structure and the type of causal variables. (shrink)

Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. – Trotz ihrer prominenten Rolle im Grundgesetz und in vielen anderen Dokumenten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg hat sich die moderne Philosophie lange Zeit nur wenig um die Menschenwürde gekümmert. Erst als um die Jahrtausendwende herum die Würde von Embryonen zur Diskussion stand, zeigte es sich, wie spannend und schwierig es ist, ein angemessenes philosophisches Verständnis der Menschenwürde zu finden. Dieses Buch basiert auf drei Grundgedanken: dass die Menschenwürde aus ihren Verletzungen heraus verstanden werden muss, (...) dass wir sie in ihrem historischen Kontext betrachten sollten und dass es vor allen Dingen wichtig ist, ihre vielfältige Verwendung in unterschiedlichen Feldern der Angewandten Ethik zu untersuchen. Entsprechend vereint das Buch theoretische philosophische Überlegungen mit konkreten Untersuchungen zu öffentlich vieldiskutierten Themen wie Hirntod, assistiertem Suizid, Todesstrafe und Ehrenmord. Reflexionen zur Würde des Kindes, des Alters und des Sterbens bilden den Abschluss des Buches. Dabei erweist es sich, dass der Menschenwürde eine unverzichtbare Rolle in der Ethik zukommt, weil sie die Bedeutung eines für jedermann geltenden Schutzes vor Erniedrigungen ausdrückt, und damit für uns alle einen – vielleicht sogar den – Kern unseres moralischen Status formuliert. (shrink)

Putnam’s internal realism implies a form of conceptual relativity with respect to ontology. There can be different descriptions of the world which are based on distinct ontologies. It has been argued that this relativity forecloses any possibility of unifying our knowledge and can even lead to inconsistency. If this is true, internal realism should be abandoned because it is compatible with non-rational positions. We will argue that these objections can be dismissed if truth as idealized warranted assertibility is understood as (...) stability of a belief state under new evidence. This view of truth is still compatible with the existence of distinct belief states expressing different views on the world. This understanding of the notion of truth is a consequence of interpreting both our cognitive activities and the notion of meaning dynamically. The meaning of a sentence is no longer given in terms of (static) truth conditions but as a relation between belief sets, that is, as a kind of information change potential. (shrink)

Inhalt Einfuhrung - Staat im Wandel. Rudiger Voigt zum 65. Geburtstag I. Konzeptualisierung und Systematisierung von Staatswandel Ralf Walkenhaus: Entwicklungslinien moderner Staatlichkeit.

Erythropoietin (EPO), long appreciated as the chief endocrine regulator of red blood cell formation, is now recognized to exert many additional functions outside the bone marrow. Thus, the quest is on to define the full range of EPO functions in the physiology and pathology of non‐hematopoietic tissues. Two recent studies in man and mice have highlighted the importance of the mammalian skin as one peripheral tissue with a previously unsuspected role in EPO biology; both, as a target and as a (...) source of EPO. In addition, the skin has been proposed to function as an oxygen sensor. The present hypothesis essay critically reviews the currently available evidence for this and provides a unifying theoretical scenario for intracutaneous EPO functions and for a potential role of the skin in the control of EPO production. Mainly, we propose that the skin itself directly contributes to the up‐regulation of EPO plasma levels in response to hypoxia. (shrink)

The following paper is devoted to the discussion of three important and closely interlocked topics in the philosophy of Donald Davidson, the questions: What are reasons? — What are actions? — And: What is the relation between a reason and an action, when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? The last question is actually a quotation; it is the first sentence of Davidson's famous article Actions, Reasons, and Carnes. Although subse-quently modified (...) in various important respects, it still provides the meta-physical groundwork for Davidson's later views on action theory and the philosophy of mind. It is this metaphysical basis that I want to concentrate on. Offhand, Davidson's answers to all the three questions are common in philosophical action theory: Actions are events, reasons are causes of those events, and giving the agent's reason explains an action because it explains the action causally. In what follows, I shall first recapitulate Davidson's reasoning toward the third claim, which I take to be true and to be what Davidson thinks. In discussing a possible objection against this claim I shall then try to show that the second thesis, the thesis that reasons are causes, is neither true nor is it Davidson's opinion. And finally, I want to argue with regard to the first thesis that although Davidson actually holds that actions are events, he should better abandon this position. (shrink)

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

ZusammenfassungDie traditionsreiche Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin war durch ihr Agieren in der NS-Zeit belastet. Vor ihrem ersten Nachkriegskongress 1948 in Karlsruhe fiel dem Bonner Klinikdirektor Paul Martini die Rolle eines Reorganisators zu. Martini, der während der NS-Zeit in Opposition zum Regime gestanden hatte, wählte einen Kurs umfassender Integration. Verfolgte des NS-Staats versuchte er ebenso in die DGIM einzubinden wie einstige gemäßigte Nationalsozialisten. Zugleich bemühte er sich um die Bewahrung des gesamtdeutschen Charakters der Kongresse sowie um einen zügigen Anschluss an (...) die internationale Forschung. Dennoch führte der eingeschlagene Weg die DGIM in nur scheinbar unpolitische Wissenschaftlichkeit und Jahrzehnte weitgehender Kritiklosigkeit gegenüber ihrer NS-Geschichte. (shrink)

One hundred and fifty years ago, a hopeful young researcher reported a recent discovery he had made. Working in the bowels of a medieval castle in the German city of Tübingen, he had isolated a then entirely new type of molecule. This was the birth of a field that would fundamentally change the course of biology, medicine, and beyond. His discovery: DNA. His name: Friedrich Miescher. In this article, the authors try to find answers to the question why—despite the fact (...) that virtually everyone nowadays knows DNA—hardly anyone remembers the man who discovered it. In the history of science, the discovery of DNA was a seminal moment. Why then did it not enter into public memory? Ground‐breaking discoveries can occur in a historical context that is not ready to appreciate them. But that's not all that decides who is remembered and who is forgotten. Scientific pioneers sometimes fail to publicize their findings in a way that ensures that they receive the attention they merit. As discussed here, their personalities and habits may cause discoveries to be “overwritten” by more recent researchers, resulting in distorted cultural memories no longer reflecting the initial event. (shrink)

This paper assesses the role of the Refutation of Idealism within the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as its relation to the treatment of idealism in the First Edition and to transcendental idealism more generally. It is argued that the Refutation is consistent with the Fourth Paralogism and that it can be considered as an extension of the Transcendental Deduction. While the Deduction, considered on its own, constitutes a 'regressive argument', the Refutation allows us to turn the Transcendental Analytic (...) into a 'progressive argument' that proceeds by the synthetic method. (shrink)

Gegenstand des Bandes ist eine Profilierung der Kulturphilosophie mit dem Ziel ihrer notigen Selbstbehauptung gegenuber einem gegenwartigen Naturalismus. Ein zentrales Ratsel der Gegenwartsphilosophie ist das Verhaltnis unseres Bewusstseins, der Perspektive der ersten Person machtig und Urheber der Kultur zu sein, zu den Erkenntnissen der Kognitions- sowie der Evolutionswissenschaften seit Darwin. In diesen scheint von der Natur her auf die Kultur ein neues Licht zu fallen. Dies ist ebenso faszinierend wie interessant. Es ist aber auch eine Herausforderung: Der Begriff der "Welt" (...) wird naturwissenschaftlich praokkupiert, Extrapolationen ins Ontologische wie die "kausale Geschlossenheit der Welt" breiten sich auf Kosten fruherer, starker zuruckgenommener Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorien aus. Wie steht es demgegenuber mit den Beitragen von Kulturphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften / Geisteswissenschaften? Deutlich wird in den Beitragen im Anschluss an Dilthey, Cassirer, Simmel und weitere Autoren: Die Notwendigkeit und der Eigencharakter kultureller Arbeit mussen offentlich wie in den Wissenschaften wieder bewusst werden. Mit Beitragen von Katharina Bauer, Jorn Bohr, Gunter Dux, Ralf Glitza, Kinga Golus, Julia Gruevska, Ralph Kohnen, Gudrun Kuhne-Bertram, Hans-Ulrich Lessing, Kevin Liggieri, Ernst Wolfgang Orth, Annika Schlitte, Gunter Scholtz und Rene Torkler. (shrink)