Combining testimonial reports from independent and partially reliable information sources is an important epistemological problem of uncertain reasoning. Within the framework of Dempster–Shafer theory, we propose a general model of partially reliable sources, which includes several previously known results as special cases. The paper reproduces these results on the basis of a comprehensive model taxonomy. This gives a number of new insights and thereby contributes to a better understanding of this important application of reasoning with uncertain and incomplete information.

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

Expectations are growing that literature may contribute to clinical skills. Narrative medicine is a quickly expanding area of research. However, many people remain sceptical to the idea of literature having a capacity to save the life of medicine . It is therefore urgent to scrutinize both the arguments in favour of and those against the potential of literature for increasing medical understanding. This article attempts to do this. It does in fact support the assertion that literature is important, but it (...) stresses precisely its character of potential. There is no simple connection between acquaintance with literary texts and understanding of the different aspects of medical work. Much more need to be known about the conditions which allow the experiences residing in texts to be transformed into lived personal knowledge. (shrink)

Reconstruction rationnelle des vues sur la définition de Pascal, De l'esprit géométrique et d'Arnaud et Nicole, La logique ou l'art de penser.

Silence in organizations refers to a state in which employees refrain from calling attention to issues at work such as illegal or immoral practices or developments that violate personal, moral, or legal standards. While Morrison and Milliken (Acad Manag Rev 25:706–725, 2000) discussed how organizational silence as a top-down organizational level phenomenon can cause employees to remain silent, a bottom-up perspective—that is, how employee motives contribute to the occurrence and maintenance of silence in organizations—has not yet been given much research (...) attention. In this paper, we argue that this perspective is a meaningful complementation of the existing literature and that it is sensible to conceptualize distinct forms of employee silence (Pinder and Harlos, Research in personnel and human resources management. JAI Press, Greenwich, 2001; van Dyne et al., J Manag Stud 40:1359–1392, 2003). Drawing on past research and theory we conceptualize four forms of employee silence, namely quiescent, acquiescent, prosocial, and opportunistic silence. We present scales to assess the four forms and provide empirical tests for their distinctiveness and patterns of relationships to various correlates and potential antecedents and consequences. (shrink)

Zeki and co-workers recently proposed that perception can best be described as locally distributed, asynchronous processes that each create a kind of microconsciousness, which condense into an experienced percept. The present article is aimed at extending this theory to metacognitive feelings. We present evidence that perceptual fluency—the subjective feeling of ease during perceptual processing—is based on speed of processing at different stages of the perceptual process. Specifically, detection of briefly presented stimuli was influenced by figure-ground contrast, but not by symmetry (...) or the font of the stimuli. Conversely, discrimination of these stimuli was influenced by whether they were symmetric and by the font they were presented in , but not by figure-ground contrast. Both tasks however were related with the subjective experience of fluency . We conclude that subjective fluency is the conscious phenomenal correlate of different processing stages in visual perception. (shrink)

Silence in organizations refers to a state in which employees refrain from calling attention to issues at work such as illegal or immoral practices or developments that violate personal, moral, or legal standards. While Morrison and Milliken (Acad Manag Rev 25:706–725, 2000) discussed how organizational silence as a top-down organizational level phenomenon can cause employees to remain silent, a bottom-up perspective—that is, how employee motives contribute to the occurrence and maintenance of silence in organizations—has not yet been given much research (...) attention. In this paper, we argue that this perspective is a meaningful complementation of the existing literature and that it is sensible to conceptualize distinct forms of employee silence (Pinder and Harlos, Research in personnel and human resources management. JAI Press, Greenwich, 2001; van Dyne et al., J Manag Stud 40:1359–1392, 2003). Drawing on past research and theory we conceptualize four forms of employee silence, namely quiescent, acquiescent, prosocial, and opportunistic silence. We present scales to assess the four forms and provide empirical tests for their distinctiveness and patterns of relationships to various correlates and potential antecedents and consequences. (shrink)

Population counts and longitude and latitude coordinates were estimated for the 50 largest cities in the United States by computational linguistic techniques and by human participants. The mathematical technique Latent Semantic Analysis applied to newspaper texts produced similarity ratings between the 50 cities that allowed for a multidimensional scaling (MDS) of these cities. MDS coordinates correlated with the actual longitude and latitude of these cities, showing that cities that are located together share similar semantic contexts. This finding was replicated using (...) a first‐order co‐occurrence algorithm. The computational estimates of geographical location as well as population were akin to human estimates. These findings show that language encodes geographical information that language users in turn may use in their understanding of language and the world. (shrink)

Critics of the target article objected to our account of art appreciators' sensitivity to art-historical contexts and functions, the relations among the modes of artistic appreciation, and the weaknesses of aesthetic science. To rebut these objections and justify our program, we argue that the current neglect of sensitivity to art-historical contexts persists as a result of a pervasive aesthetic–artistic confound; we further specify our claim that basic exposure and the design stance are necessary conditions of artistic understanding; and we explain (...) why many experimental studies do not belong to a psycho-historical science of art. (shrink)

Previous reports have demonstrated that the comprehension of sentences describing motion in a particular direction (toward, away, up, or down) is affected by concurrently viewing a stimulus that depicts motion in the same or opposite direction. We report 3 experiments that extend our understanding of the relation between perception and language processing in 2 ways. First, whereas most previous studies of the relation between perception and language processing have focused on visual perception, our data show that sentence processing can be (...) affected by the concurrent processing of auditory stimuli. Second, it is shown that the relation between the processing of auditory stimuli and the processing of sentences depends on whether the sentences are presented in the auditory or visual modality. (shrink)

Based on the premise that what is relevant, consistent, or true may change from context to context, a formal framework of relevance and context is proposed in which • contexts are mathematical entities • each context has its own language with relevant implication • the languages of distinct contexts are connected by embeddings • inter-context deduction is supported by bridge rules • databases are sets of formulae tagged with deductive histories and the contexts they belong to • abduction and revision (...) are supported by a notion of consistency of formulae and sets of formulae which are relative to a context, and which can, in turn, be seen as constituents of agendas. (shrink)

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there emerged a radically new kind of music based on recorded environmental sounds instead of sounds of traditional Western musical instruments. Centered in Paris around the composer, music theorist, engineer, and writer Pierre Schaeffer, this became known as musique concrète because of its use of concrete recorded sound fragments, manifesting a departure from the abstract concepts and representations of Western music notation. Furthermore, the term sound object was used to denote our perceptual images (...) of such fragments. Sound objects and their features became the focus of an extensive research effort on the perception and cognition of music in general, remarkably anticipating topics of more recent music psychology research. This sound object theory makes extensive use of metaphors, often related to motion shapes, something that can provide holistic representations of perceptually salient, but temporally distributed, features in different kinds of music. (shrink)

Theoretical Laws and Normative Rules: Kant and Bolzano's Views on Logic'"1" Anita Von Duhn, Genf Does logic instruct us how to think correctly? ...

In everyday life, as well as in science, we have to deal with and act on the basis of partial (i.e. incomplete, uncertain, or even inconsistent) information. This observation is the source of a broad research activity from which a number of competing approaches have arisen. There is some disagreement concerning the way in which partial or full ignorance is and should be handled. The most successful approaches include both quantitative aspects (by means of probability theory) and qualitative aspect (by (...) means of graphical or causal models or logic). Some of these approaches have important impacts on various disciplines including philosophy, computer science, statistics, mathematics, physics, and social science. Most notably, the relation between causal and probabilistic information is a topic of interest in all of these fields. The general question of how uncertainty is related to ignorance, and the connection thereof to causality, have been the key topics of the international summer school at the University of Konstanz, Germany, in August 2004. This was the third event in a series of summer schools organized by the interdisciplinary research group “Philosophy, Probability, and Modeling”. The group was in operation from September 1st, 2001, until August 31, 2005. The first summer school, held in September 2002, focused on the application of probability theory to topics of philosophical interest. Problems and questions that arise when probabilistic models and techniques are being applied in the special sciences were then discussed during the second summer school, held in July 2003. The fourth and final event in the series, in August 2005, was devoted to philosophical questions related to the application and interpretation of probabilities in physics. Each of the four summer schools attracted 40–50 people from many different countries. It was an inspiring forum for an interdisciplinary discussion among researchers and students from many different areas. This special issue collects a selection of the invited and contributed papers presented at the summer school in 2004. We acknowledge the generous support of the Center for Junior Research Fellows at the University of Konstanz, the Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie e.V., the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Program for the Investment in the Future (ZIP) of the German Government through a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award. We thank the referees of the papers for their work, and James Moor for his interest in dedicating a special issue of this journal to Causality, Uncertainty and Ignorance. (shrink)

According to general relativity, we live in a four-dimensional curved universe. Since the human mind cannot visualize those four dimensions, a popular analogy compares the universe to a two-dimensional rubber sheet distorted by massive objects. This analogy is often used when teaching GR to upper secondary and undergraduate physics students. However, physicists and physics educators criticize the analogy for being inaccurate and for introducing conceptual conflicts. Addressing these criticisms, we analyze the rubber sheet analogy through systematic metaphor analysis of textbooks (...) and research literature, and present an empirical analysis of upper secondary school students’ use and understanding of the analogy. Taking a theoretical perspective of embodied cognition allows us to account for the relationship between the experiential and sensory aspects of the metaphor in relation to the abstract nature of spacetime. We employ methods of metaphor and thematic analysis to study written accounts of small groups of 97 students who worked with a collaborative online learning environment as part of their regular physics lessons in five classes in Norway. Students generated conceptual metaphors found in the literature as well as novel ones that led to different conceptions of gravity than those held by experts in the field. Even though most students showed awareness of some limitations of the analogy, we observed a conflict between students’ embodied understanding of gravity and the abstract description of GR. This conflict might add to the common perception of GR being counterintuitive. In making explicit strengths and weaknesses of the rubber sheet analogy and learners’ conceptual difficulties, our results offer guidance for teaching GR. More generally, these findings contribute to the epistemological implications of employing specific scientific metaphors in classrooms. (shrink)

The experiactional stream of a person can be seen to be organized. It takes place in situation as a "situated event." Events have a duration through time; they could be called: Time-Gestalten. Events first tend to appear in the stream of experience in imaginary anticipation usually as a result of a social invitation or as a self-initiated project. In anticipatory experience projected events are developed, worked-on, thought about on repeated occasions. The event takes shape in experience as an anticipation before (...) it takes place . This has consequences and is important because strategy-decisions are made which actually create the future event. During the recorded experience I actually decided what I was going to do for the lecture. The meaning of this anticipated event which has personal as well as social-professional horizons sets limits to what is allowed into the imaginary anticipation or the projecting. They could be said to act as "charges" upon my experiaction here and now. It seems that the event in anticipatory elaboration is richer and allows more play in experience. As we approach the actualization proper the range of possibilities narrows. Anticipation has to become embodied: it springs into action and enters the domain of public and shared social reality. We witness the event. Any component of the experiactional stream-particularly in the anticipating phases of event-structures-is built up in complex ways. This may be described as "interwovenness." Whatever we focus on can be seen to arise on a string of previous encounters reaching back into one's at bottom indeterminate biographical stock of experiaction. This stock hovers horizonally around the theme-what I pay attention to at the moment-and codetermines its meaning. This makes for idiosyncratic meanings. But our past experience is also in a good measure shared because it is based on experiences of communication to which I had access through language or images. To some extent, therefore, there is also a public and shared meaning to a perceived theme. Components of the experiactional stream are also gathered up and connected through a higher and unifying intention, the project. We take many steps to actualize a project, and we also seem to have more than one project going on at any one time. This tends to "mix-up" our stream of experiaction in surprising and complex ways. In this study I have taken a small step which turned out to be connected to the larger sequence of being involved in giving a lecture. This event as an over-arching project casts its shadow ahead of itself and colored my anticipatory experience in clearly definable ways. The general structural features uncovered here through reflection were present and at work during my experiaction although I was not explicitly aware of them at the time, while living them out. Nevertheless, my pre-reflective experiaction turned out to have been structured and organized. In what I thought was an unique-private experience there were revealed and operative general-universal structures. The personal-existential and the general-phenomenological components are inextricably intertwined and collaborative in the creation of human experience in a particular situation. They constitute a tension inherent in the flow of experiaction. In living we constantly move between these levels and as researchers in this field we always try to bridge this "gap" that arises in understanding which dichotomizes "lived immediacy" and "theoretical understanding." Either extreme-"just living" or "just thinking"-if emphasized unduly is an aberration. The human way is to experiact and to make sense of it so that mere living-out is humanized into living-with-awareness. This can never be fully accomplished but is always in process, ongoing. Everyone has to unfold his own awareness and understanding, recognizing that the depth or ground of living eludes objectification and final conceptual grasp. We can only tune-in. (shrink)

Beethoven is a classic study of the composer's music, written by one of the most important thinkers of our time. Throughout his life, Adorno wrote extensive notes, essay fragments and aides-memoires on the subject of Beethoven's music. This book brings together all of Beethoven's music in relation to the society in which he lived. Adorno identifies three periods in Beethoven's work, arguing that the thematic unity of the first and second periods begins to break down in the third. Adorno follows (...) this progressive disintegration of organic unity in the classical music of Beethoven and his contemporaries, linking it with the rationality and monopolistic nature of modern society. Beethoven will be welcomed by students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines - philosophy, sociology, music and history - and by anyone interested in the life of the composer. (shrink)

Schule und Hochschule sind als als dispositive Ordnung in diversen Texten thematisiert worden, etwa bei Michel Foucault und Michel Serres zum Spannungsfeld von Unterwerfung und Selbstbestimmung. Die performative Beschreibung der Schulsituation durch Elise v. Bernstorff ermöglicht dabei eine neue Perspektive auf das Dispositiv von Klang und Zeit, der hier nachgegangen wird.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universit'at Erlangen-N'urnberg, 1981.

Gibt es einen spezifisch "linken" Kitsch in Abgrenzung zu politisch "rechtem"? Dieser vernachlässigten, für das Verständnis "linken Denkens" seit der Französischen Revolution aber wichtigen Frage gehen die Beiträge dieses Bandes nach.0Gezeigt wird, dass "linkes" Denken aus ganz anderen Gründen kitschanfällig ist als sein "rechtes" Pendant, auch wenn die Pathosformeln sich mitunter frappierend ähneln. Denn während rechte Ideologien den Veränderungsdruck der Moderne kompensieren, streben linke eher danach, ihn nach dem Motto "Mehr desselben" zu überbieten. Dieses Phänomen »linker Kitsch± nimmt der Band (...) in historischer und theoretischer Hinsicht anhand von sprachlichen, bildlichen und filmischen Beispielen in den Blick, sodass es in seinem konstitutiv transmedialen Charakter zur Geltung kommt. (shrink)

T. 1. Synthese und Theorie. Trägerschichten.

Which theories of Leibniz are still valid after post-modern critique? Using various methods, this work considers a new interpretation and views Leibniz's work from a different perspective. As such, the authors reconstruct Leibniz's viewpoints on tolerance and truth in light of his position and the influence of church politics. Furthermore, his strategy of differentiation between animal and human will be analyzed on its usefulness to current debate. Leibniz's theory of perception will also be contrasted to comparable theories of today. The (...) usual interpretations of his metaphysics based on substance will here be contrasted by a nature-based interpretation. German text. (shrink)