Please note that this book review was written in August 2017, prior to The World Congress of Philosophy in Beijing In 2011 Africa and China in Dialogue: Philosophical South-East Dialogues from a Western Perspective by the German philosopher Heinz Kimmerle and the Dutch psychologist Hans van Rappard was published in Dutch, and was then followed in 2013 by a German translation by the first author. In this book, an appeal is made for establishing dialogues between philosophies from Africa and the (...) East. Africa and China in Dialogue is one of the first published dialogues between African and Chinese philosophies and one of the few from an East-South perspective. In it a... (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)

Bohr’s work in quantum mechanics posed a challenge to philosophers of science, who struggled with the question of whether and to what degree his theories and methods could be considered rational. This paper focuses on Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Kuhn, all of whom recognized some irrational, dogmatic, paradoxical or even inconsistent features in Bohr’s work. Popper, Feyerabend, and Lakatos expressed strong criticism of Bohr’s approach to quantum physics, while Kuhn argued that such criticism was unlikely to be fruitful: progress in (...) science is generally not made through philosophical reflection. Feyerabend’s criticism of Bohr gradually weakened, as he gained a more detailed understanding of the development of Bohr’s views on quantum mechanics, and this went together with an increasingly critical view of normative philosophy of science and was instrumental to his conversion to ‘anarchism’. This paper aims to show that quantum mechanics played a central role in their debates and disagreements on the rationality of science and the possibility of a normative philosophy of science. (shrink)

This book offers a text and translation of Theophrastus' "Metaphysics," together with a full commentary, which may be used as an introduction to the terminology of Aristotle's school. The Introduction provides an assessment of Theophrastus' contribution to Peripatetic thought on the principles of being.

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: advocating the initial stance, sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, image repairing, and adjusting the stance. Taken together, our analysis of (...) IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases. (shrink)

Langeweile wird in dieser Anthologie als Signatur der Moderne lesbar: Sie durchdringt die gegenwärtige Kultur, wird aber nach wie vor weggeschoben, ja tabuisiert. Der Band bietet eine Textauswahl von klassischen Denkern sowie von Autorinnen und Autoren des modernen Diskurses bis heute und stellt den Zusammenhang mit verwandten Phänomenen der Sinnleere und Erschöpfung her. Als zunehmendes Massenphänomen in saturierten Gesellschaften entwickelt die Langeweile eine pathologische Dynamik, wenn ihr nicht ein eigener Raum gelassen wird. Ein Plädoyer für die Anerkennung dieses unvermeidlichen Gefühls. (...) Mit Texten von Blaise Pascal, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Bertrand Russell, Iwan Gontscharow, Siegfried Kracauer, Emil Cioran, Giacomo Leopardi, Wolf Lepenies, Elizabeth S. Goodstein, Peter Toohey, Martin Doehlemann, Françoise Wemelsfelder und anderen. (shrink)

This monograph, the first of its kind in English, offers a detailed study of the Wenzi, a controversial Chinese philosophical text. The book also sheds light on text production and reception in Chinese history, with its changing views on authorship, originality, authenticity, and forgery.

Gödel once offered an argument for the general reflection principle in set theory that took the form of an analogy with Leibniz' Monadology. I discuss the mathematical and philosophical background to Gödel's argument, reconstruct the proposed analogy in detail, and argue that it has no justificatory force.

The development of neonatology and the establishment of neonatal intensive care units has led to a vast array of new medical ethical problems and dilemmas centered around discontinuing treatment or nontreatment decisions. Neonatology has become one of the fields that has made clear that medical success is only rarely nonproblematic. The new technology can be a blessing for some, but it may also become a sad experience to others, with life-long repercussions.The ethical problems of neonatology transcend national boundaries. Nevertheless, there (...) are differences in approach among various countries. In The Netherlands, the ethical deliberations have been a matter of public debate, but most of the decision making is left to the medical profession; these decisions are considered too harsh for the general public. Recently, two developments have emerged. The Royal Dutch Medical Association and the Dutch Pediatrics Society have published reports with guidelines and ethical reflections. Over the same period of time, cases have been brought to court for legal analysis and the development of case precedence. (shrink)

Langeweile wird in dieser Anthologie als Signatur der Moderne lesbar: Sie durchdringt die gegenwärtige Kultur, wird aber nach wie vor weggeschoben, ja tabuisiert. Der Band bietet eine Textauswahl von klassischen Denkern sowie von Autorinnen und Autoren des modernen Diskurses bis heute und stellt den Zusammenhang mit verwandten Phänomenen der Sinnleere und Erschöpfung her. Als zunehmendes Massenphänomen in saturierten Gesellschaften entwickelt die Langeweile eine pathologische Dynamik, wenn ihr nicht ein eigener Raum gelassen wird. Ein Plädoyer für die Anerkennung dieses unvermeidlichen Gefühls. (...) Mit Texten von Blaise Pascal, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Bertrand Russell, Iwan Gontscharow, Siegfried Kracauer, Emil Cioran, Giacomo Leopardi, Wolf Lepenies, Elizabeth S. Goodstein, Peter Toohey, Martin Doehlemann, Françoise Wemelsfelder und anderen. (shrink)