Emergence of the novel pathogenic coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 and its rapid pandemic spread presents challenges that demand immediate attention. Here, we describe the development of a semi‐quantitative high‐content microscopy‐based assay for detection of three major classes (IgG, IgA, and IgM) of SARS‐CoV‐2 specific antibodies in human samples. The possibility to detect antibodies against the entire viral proteome together with a robust semi‐automated image analysis workflow resulted in specific, sensitive and unbiased assay that complements the portfolio of SARS‐CoV‐2 serological assays. Sensitive, specific (...) and quantitative serological assays are urgently needed for a better understanding of humoral immune response against the virus as a basis for developing public health strategies to control viral spread. The procedure described here has been used for clinical studies and provides a general framework for the application of quantitative high‐throughput microscopy to rapidly develop serological assays for emerging virus infections. (shrink)

Appraisal theory has become one of the most active aproaches in the domain of emotion psychology. The appraisal process consists of the subjective evaluation that occurs during the individual's encounter with significant events in the environment, determining the nature of the emotional reaction and experience. The organism's interpretation of events and situations elicits and differentiates its emotional responses, although the exact processes involved and the limits of the theory are still a matter of debate and are currently the object of (...) active research. This volume is intended to become the primary source of information on appraisal for all those interested in emotion, from beginning graduate students to accomplished researchers in emotion psychology. (shrink)

Appraisal theories of emotion have had a strong impact on the development of theory and experimental research in the domain of the affective sciences. While there is generally a high degree of convergence between theorists in this tradition, some central issues are open to debate. In this contribution three issues have been chosen for discussion: (a) varieties of relevance detection, (b) varieties of valence appraisal, and (c) sequential-cumulative effects of appraisal results. In addressing these issues, new theoretical ideas are suggested (...) and an update of recent research on the sequence of appraisal processes is provided. Special emphasis is placed on nonverbal signatures of appraisal processes. (shrink)

How do animals make themselves move? Unlike most modern theories, Aristotle answers this question through a general theory of animal movement valid for both humans and animals. This book interprets this theory and analyses its fundamental concepts.

I show that in his De motu animalium Aristoteles proposes a teleology of the practical on the most general zoological level, i.e. on the level common to humans and self-moving animals. A teleology of the practical is a teleological account of the highest practical goals of animal and human self-motion. I argue that Aristotle conceives of such highest practical goals as goals that are contingently related to their realizations. Animal and human self-motion is the kind of action in which certain (...) state of affairs that realize values are mechanized. (shrink)

Plato's depiction of the world soul's cognitive activity in Timaeus 37 A 2‐C 5 offers a general account of intellectual cognition. He gives this account by describing the activity of an ideal cognitive agent, involving the very same comparative mechanism that governs human intellectual activity, namely, the active production of a propositional grasp of sameness and difference that things have in relation to each other in several respects. Plato depicts the world soul's intellectual activity as entirely devoid of immediate forms (...) of cognition such as perception and/or intellectual intuition: everything the world soul cognizes is the outcome of its active comparison of things with each other. In particular, there is no direct cognitive grasp of the being of things. The paper ends with a suggestion as to how to understand Plato's account of the world soul's activity as an instance of the ‘like is known by like’ principle of cognition. (shrink)

Electronegativity is a quantified, typical chemical concept, which correlates the ability of chemical species to attract electrons during their contact with other species with measurable quantities such as dissociation energies, dipole moments, ionic radii, ionization potentials, electron affinities and spectroscopic data. It is applied to the description and explanation of chemical polarity, reaction mechanisms, other concepts such as acidity and oxidation, the estimation of types of chemical compounds and periodicity. Although this concept is very successful and widely used, and in (...) spite of the fact that it is still subject to scientific investigations, neither a more than intuitive definition nor a generally accepted, logically clear and standardized quantification model has been developed. In the present work, electronegativity is presented and discussed with respect to its main conceptual and operational continuities and discontinuities. We try to analyze the epistemological status of electronegativity, conceived as a typical notion of chemical sciences. Under ‘epistemological status’ we subsume the issues of its reference, its historical persistence, and the relationship between its measurement and quantification. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to explain Aristotle’s definition of the vegetative part of the soul in the De anima from a methodological point of view. I discuss Aristotle’s conception of the soul and his conception of “parts of the soul” before I turn to his definition of the vegetative part of the soul in De anima II 4. I argue that the definition of the vegetative capacity is deliberately abstract so as to cover its various activities under one (...) common heading. I also argue that the De anima deliberately avoids a positive and determinate description of the activity of the soul that is properly responsible for the vegetative functions, and that Aristotle offers such a positive and determinate description in his works dedicated to the actions and affections “common to body and soul”. (shrink)

This paper discusses Aristotle's notion of the practical syllogism. It is argued that the notion of ‘practical’ reasoning in the sense of reasoning which implies motion in one sense or the other is alien to Aristotle's philosophy of nature. All (at least in type) the relevant passages will be discussed. The outcome is that there are three different contexts in which it would be justified to speak of practical syllogisms: (i) human deliberation, (ii) the illustration of the triggering cause of (...) animal motion, and (iii) the teleological ex post explanationof human action. (i) is genuine, but non-deductive reasoning which does not immediately result in action/motion, whereas (ii) is not genuine reasoning, but an analogy with deductive reasoning. Finally, the relation between (i) and (ii) in Aristotle's theory of animal motion will be discussed. (shrink)

Here I try a new synthesis of personalism and materialism leading to new concepts of sense. Beginnig with the analysis of the correlations between matter, personality, language, understanding, cognition, knowledge, and the problem of truth, followed by a critique of pragmatism, personalism and "new realism" as well as by ontological concretisations in different fields of philosophy, i.e. in logical order from cosmology to anthropology, ethics, history and political philosophy (including globalization, digital revolution amd ecocide), aesthetics, and philosophy of religion, leading (...) to new concepts of sense and value. Of immediate political relevance is my new concept of a democratic eco-socialism, drawing conclusions of the failure of the socialist experiences in the world up to nowadays. Not giving up the Marxian vision of a realm of Freedom, Justice and Solidarity, that of a "free association of free individuals". (shrink)

Die Arbeiten der Künstler Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee und Wassily Kandinsky werden in diesem Band phänomenologisch betrachtet. Auf je eigene Weise vollzieht jeder von ihnen eine Wendung im Kunstverständnis. Bezeichnend dafür ist Klees berühmter Satz von 1920: »Die Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.« Klaus Kienzler untersucht an exemplarischen Werken, auf welche Weise sich die drei Maler mit philosophischen Grundthemen wie Zeit und Bewegung auseinandergesetzt haben. Zugleich geht es ihm darum auszuloten, inwieweit phänomenologische Ansätze (Heidegger, Welte, (...) Fink, Rombach, Merleau-Ponty) Malerei der klassischen Moderne zu erhellen vermögen. (shrink)

This chapter describes the phenomenology of the political world. Phenomenology must get underway with an analysis of the political world. The chapter evaluates more precisely the relation between the concept of world or worldliness and the openness of the political. Using the term ‘political world’ is preferred to utilising the traditional terms because it is less burdened by prejudice. The guiding impulse towards the clarification of the Sache of political philosophy as political world stems from Hannah Arendt, who does not (...) make use of the phenomenological conception of ‘horizon’. Science's confidence that it can attain a knowledge free of all horizonal plurality is among the most fundamental prejudices that phenomenology endeavours to overcome. Phenomenology is the decided present renewal of the most ancient idea of epistêmê. (shrink)

Mimicry of appearance or of facial, vocal, or gestural expressions emerges frequently among members of different species. When such mimicry directly relates to affective aspects of an interaction, researchers talk about “emotional mimicry”. Emotional mimicry has been amply documented but its functionality is still debated. Why and when do people mimic the expressions of others, who benefits, the mimicker or the mimicked, and how do they benefit? Which processes underlie emotional mimicry? Is it completely automatic and unconscious or can it (...) be deliberate and conscious? The current Theory Section addresses these questions from different theoretical perspectives. The invited article by Hess and Fischer focused on the role of mimicry in social regulation and social bonding. The invited comment by Krets and Akyüz highlights information gathering and prediction in social interaction. The invited comment by Bernhold and Giles emphasizes vocal communication and its role in interpersonal accommodation. In this editorial, I propose the different theoretical perspectives may be integrated by assuming a multilevel appraisal and response generation mechanism. I also suggest that emotional mimicry research may be broadened by including social learning, vocal imitation, interspecies comparisons, and affective computing approaches. (shrink)

Social scientists often lament the fact that philosophically trained ethicists pay limited attention to the insights they generate. This paper presents an overview of tendencies in sociological and anthropological studies of morality, ethics and bioethics, and suggests that a lack in philosophical interest might be related to a tendency among social scientists to employ either a deficit model (social science perspectives accommodate the sense of context that philosophical ethics lacks), a replacement model (social scientists have finally found the “right way” (...) of doing ethics), or a dismissal model (ethics should be abandoned all together as a misconstrued veil of power). Increased awareness of differences in styles of reasoning and objects of research interest might help to overcome the hostility, and an anthropological project is presented as an invitation to a dialogue informed by awareness of such differences. (shrink)

›Streben‹ und das entsprechende abstrakte Hauptwort ›Strebung‹ bilden den Oberbegriff für alle konativen Zustände, d. h. für alle Zustände des Versuchens, Wollens und Angetriebenseins. Aristoteles verwendet den Begriff als Erster in terminologischer Weise : ›Streben‹ ist allgemeiner Begriff für zwei einander entgegengesetzte Modi des Strebens, nämlich Verfolgen und Meiden. Sie decken das Spektrum solcher motorischen Prozesse, bei denen Lebewesen sich intentional auf Bewegungsziele richten, vollständig ab.

I reject Lindquist et al.'s implicit claim that all emotion theories other than constructionist ones subscribe to a “brain locationist” approach. The neural mechanisms underlying relevance detection, reward, attention, conceptualization, or language use are consistent with many theories of emotion, in particular componential appraisal theories. I also question the authors' claim that the meta-analysis they report provides support for thespecificassumptions of constructionist theories.

Among scholars it is common to assume that Aristotle’s practical syllogism does two jobs. It is often taken to explain both animal motion and human deliberation. I will call this the “two-jobs view of the practical syllogism”. In what follows, I will argue that the two-jobs view of the practical syllogism is not working. I will then try to give a very brief and incomplete sketch of how to conceive of a non-two-jobs view of the Aristotelian practical syllogism. Finally, I (...) will discuss two possible problems for the non-two-jobs view. (shrink)

Does the soul have parts? What kind of parts? And how do all the parts make together a whole? Many ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers discussed these questions, thus providing a mereological analysis of the soul. The eleven chapters reconstruct and critically examine radically different theories. They make clear that the question of how a single soul can have an internal complexity was a crucial issue for many classical thinkers.

After a short description of the Aristotelian examples for practical syllogisms, the essay gives an overview of the interpretations of the practical syllogism since the 1950s. These interpretations can be divided into two main groups: while the first group connects the practical syllogism with practical thinking, the second, smaller group considers it as an illustration of the causal explananation of actions. The essay closes with some remarks on the reasons for these different interpretations.

Das Denken steht für Aristoteles im Zentrum seiner Philosophie und er setzt sich immer wieder und aus verschiedenen Perspektiven damit auseinander. Unter diesen verschiedenen Perspektiven steht uns seine Behandlung des menschlichen Denkens sicherlich am nächsten. Aristoteles befasst sich aber auch auf kosmologischer Ebene mit dem Denken, und zwar besonders mit dem Denken der Gottheit.

Aristoteles’ Traktat De anima befasst sich mit der Natur der Seele. Die verhältnismäßig kurze Schrift – sie umfasst nicht mehr als 33 Seiten in der Bekker-Ausgabe – teilt sich in drei mehr oder weniger gleichlange ›Bücher‹. Sie gehört neben der Metaphysik zu den besonders häufig kommentierten Schriften des Aristoteles.

›Freundschaft‹ ist bei Aristoteles Sammelbegriff für eine Reihe verschiedener – und für uns auch verschiedenartiger – Formen von sozialen wechselseitigen Verhältnissen unter Menschen und auch unter Tieren. Der Begriff lässt sich durch moderne Übersetzungen daher nicht deckungsgleich wiedergeben, insbesondere nicht durch den modernen, romantisch besetzten Begriff der Freundschaft oder gar Liebe. Allen Formen der philia ist gemeinsam, dass sie in friedfertigen und wechselseitigen Beziehungen zwischen Individuen einer Art bestehen.

In der modernen philosophischen Handlungstheorie finden sich nur wenige Theoretiker, die sich in ihren zentralen Punkten explizit auf bestimmte Thesen des Aristoteles berufen. Roderick Chisholm, der versucht hat, durch direkten Import der aristotelischen These vom unbewegten Beweger das Determinismusproblem in der Handlungstheorie kausaltheoretisch zu lösen, ist eine Ausnahme von dieser Regel. Gleichwohl war und ist Aristoteles in vielen handlungstheoretischen Debatten gegenwärtig. Sein Einfluss wird sichtbar besonders bei den drei führend an der Ausbildung der modernen analytischen Handlungstheorie beteiligten Personen nämlich Gilbert (...) Ryle, Elizabeth Anscombe und Donald Davidson. (shrink)

Eine ›offizielle‹ Handlungstheorie, welche das menschliche Handeln in methodisch zusammenhängender Weise untersucht, gibt es bei Aristoteles nicht. Dies ist nicht zufällig so, sondern Aristoteles hat methodische und wissenschaftstheoretische Gründe, eine solche methodisch eigenständige Theorie des menschlichen Handelns nicht zu vertreten. Er meint nämlich, dass das menschliche Handeln zwei Elemente in sich vereint, die wissenschaftlich heterogenen Bereichen angehören, Körperbewegung und vernünftiges Denken: Während die Erklärung von Bewegung, und zwar auch die der menschlichen Körperbewegungen, für ihn Sache der Naturwissenschaft ist, hält Aristoteles (...) das menschliche Denken weder selber für eine physische Bewegung, noch hält er es für einen Bewegungsursprung. (shrink)

Eine wissenschaftliche Methode oder Verfahrensweise, die man als ›die‹ philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Methode des Aristoteles bezeichnen könnte, gibt es nicht. Vielmehr ist es so, dass Aristoteles in unterschiedlichen Kontexten auch unterschiedliche Verfahren zur Anwendung bringt. Wenn man daher von einer einheitlichen philosophisch-wissenschaftlichen Methode bei Aristoteles sprechen wollte, so könnte man dies nur der Analogie nach tun.

Die Physik ist das in acht Büchern überlieferte naturphilosophische Hauptwerk des Aristoteles. Sie lässt sich grob in zwei Teile gliedern: Einerseits enthält sie eine Metaphysik naturphilosophischer Grundbegriffe im Sinne einer allgemeinen Wissenschaft und Methodenlehre von der Natur, andererseits aber auch Argumentationen für eine Reihe naturphilosophischer Thesen, die nicht mehr Teil der Explikation von naturphilosophischen Grundbegriffen sind, sondern bereits Thesen im Rahmen dieser Naturwissenschaft etablieren. Den Unterschied kann man sich vielleicht anhand der unterschiedlichen Typen von Fragen klarmachen, auf die in den (...) thematischen Teilen des Werkes eingegangen wird. (shrink)

Phantasia ist ein terminologischer Ausdruck aus Aristoteles’ philosophischer Psychologie. Er bezeichnet das Vermögen von Lebewesen, Wahrnehmungsgehalte auch in Abwesenheit externer Wahrnehmungsgegenstände mental gegenwärtig zu haben. Der Ausdruck leitet sich her von dem Verb phainomai und ist nicht zu verwechseln mit dem in der Wortgestalt identischem phantasia, dem aus phainomai gebildeten nomen abstractum, das kein seelisches Vermögen bezeichnet, sondern so viel wie ›Erscheinung‹, ›geistiges Bild‹ oder ›subjektiver Eindruck‹ bedeutet.

Praktische Weisheit, häufig auch mit »Klugheit« übersetzt, ist die Tugend der praktischen Vernunft. Die praktische Vernunft, deren Eigenständigkeit als Vermögen des Intellekts zuerst von Aristoteles herausgestellt wurde, ist das Vermögen zur Planung der Umsetzung von praktischen Handlungszwecken. Praktische Weisheit als die Tugend der praktischen Vernunft ist daher diejenige tugendhafte Disposition des vernünftigen Seelenteils, die für die gute Planung und Umsetzung praktischer Handlungszwecke verantwortlich ist.

Science, technology, commerce and consumerism have set humankind on a trajectory towards a catastrophe of inestimable proportions. To respond appropriately to this danger, theology must replace obsolete contextualisations of its message with currently relevant ones. ‘Creation out of nothing’ is a case in point. Will God create a new and perfect world ‘out of nothing’ after we have messed up the one we have? Probably not! In Part I, I show that ‘creation out of nothing’ is not a relevant issue (...) in the biblical tradition. In Part II, I argue that the concept is based on the unsupported metaphysical postulate of ‘divine perfection’. In Part III, I try to find an equivalent for the concept in science that theology could link up with. ‘Creation’ can be equated with a cosmic evolution proceeding in levels of emergence. But ‘out of nothing’ cannot be supported by science. Even at the most fundamental level, energy and the way it operates, are presupposed. At lower levels, the process is guided by causality and (embedded) contingency. Intentionality and agency only appear at the personal and social levels. Dealing with existential needs, faith (appropriately) intuits a personal transcendent Source and Destiny of reality, but (inappropriately) absolutizes the personal at the expense of the impersonal aspects of reality. The laws of nature are also of God; they are essential; they are valid. They leave sufficient space for novelty and agency, but God works as much through regularity as through contingency. Contribution: The dynamic nature of the biblical tradition demands constant re-contextualisations of its central message. ‘Creation out of nothing’ is part of the contextualisation of the message into the ancient Hellenistic worldview, which does not fit into the modern scientific worldview and must be replaced with a contemporarily more appropriate alternative. (shrink)