Austrian economics focuses on markets but has much to say about organizations. In particular, Austrian insights on the structure of production, the heterogeneity and subjectivity of resources, the nature of uncertainty, the role of monetary calculation, and the function of the entrepreneur provide solid foundations for a distinctly Austrian theory of organizations. This chapter reviews these insights, discusses recent literature on Austrian economics and the theory of the firm, and suggests new directions for developing and extending an Austrian approach to (...) organizations. In doing so it answers the following questions: Why, do organizations, large and small, emerge and persist? How do they avoid the problem of economic calculation faced by socialist economies? Why do organizations take the shapes they do, why do their characteristics vary over time and across industries, and why do they succeed or fail? Are most organizations stable over time, or do organizations, like markets, adapt and learn? and How do entrepreneurs arrange assets and manage individuals within organizations? (shrink)

O intuito deste texto pode ser retratado através de duas tarefas principais que se propõe. De um lado, realiza um balanço - limitado e parcial, na medida em que trata de um recorte bastante circunscrito - da reflexão da teoria crítica da sociedade de Max Horkheimer acerca do problema da universidade, notadamente, no período imediatamente posterior ao fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial, e do modo como se relaciona com o conceito de formação , bastante caro à tradição da universidade alemã (...) moderna. Completado esse passo, o qual estabelece laços com o papel ocupado pela socialização nessa ótica teórica, visa-se, ao final, delinear algumas reflexões preliminares a propósito da contemporaneidade que, entende-se, podem beneficiar-se do enfoque concedido ao problema, com base na situação singular em que o pensamento de Horkheimer foi formulado. This text sets itself two main tasks. First, it offers a limited evaluation of Horkheimer's reflections, especially in the period directly after the end of the Second World War, on the problem of the university and how it relates to the concept of formation , a concept fundamental to the tradition of the modern German university. Second, the role exercised by socialization in this viewpoint is examined. The objective is to elaborate reflections on contemporaneity that benefit from the focus conceded to the problem in the singular situation in which Horkheimer's thinking was formulated. (shrink)

Prägender Denker für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Das Handbuch präsentiert den aktuellen Diskussionsstand zu Werk und Wirkung Theodor W. Adornos. Es beleuchtet zentrale Fragestellungen des wegweisenden Philosophen und bietet inhaltliche und methodische Werkzeuge zur Auseinandersetzung mit seinen Schriften. Über 40 Beiträger lassen die verschiedenen Zugangsweisen in der Beschäftigung mit Adorno deutlich werden. So kommt der spezifisch interdisziplinäre Charakter des Adornoschen Philosophierens hervorragend zum Ausdruck.

Quantifier expressions like “many” and “at least” are part of a rich repository of words in language representing magnitude information. The role of numerical processing in comprehending quantifiers was studied in a semantic truth value judgment task, asking adults to quickly verify sentences about visual displays using numerical or proportional quantifiers. The visual displays were composed of systematically varied proportions of yellow and blue circles. The results demonstrated that numerical estimation and numerical reference information are fundamental in encoding the meaning (...) of quantifiers in terms of response times and acceptability judgments. However, a difference emerges in the comparison strategies when a fixed external reference numerosity is used for numerical quantifiers, whereas an internal numerical criterion is invoked for proportional quantifiers. Moreover, for both quantifier types, quantifier semantics and its polarity biased the response direction. Overall, our results indicate that quantifier comprehension involves core numerical and lexical semantic properties, demonstrating integrated processing of language and numbers. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

Paul Klee’s significance for painting is undisputed. This article argues that Klee’s theoretical writings, especially those written during his time at the Bauhaus, present a seminal contribution to aesthetics. The argument will proceed in three steps, using the notions of generative thinking and aesthetic cognition: First, the notion of generative thinking will be outlined as a process of aesthetic cognition on the basis of an analysis of Klee’s theoretical writings. The second step extends the inquiry beyond Klee and considers problems (...) of contemporary art. Finally, the results will be established by discussing two exemplary paintings by Klee. (shrink)

"Sowohl in den antiken Mythen des Übergangs der Toten in den Hades wie auch in der New Yorker Subway sind es kleine münzartige Artefakte, welche transitorische Praktiken und Subjekte entscheidend formen. Die zahlreichen Konflikte und Subversionen um diese Objekte offenbaren ihre Offenheit als konfiguriert durch die Gefüge, in denen sie sich bewegen. Versteht man also, was Gefüge sind und welche Wirkungen sie entfalten, erlaubt dies, die soziale Wirkmächtigkeit von Artefakten besser zu verstehen. Both in ancient myths about the passage of (...) the dead to Hades and in the New York subway, small coin-like artifacts shape decisively transitory practices and subjects alike. The numerous conflicts and subversions surrounding these objects reveal their openness as configured by the assemblages in which they develop. Thus, understanding what assemblages are and what effects they produce, one might understand the social effectiveness of artifacts more clearly. ". (shrink)

Belnap-Dunn logic, sometimes also known as First Degree Entailment, is a four-valued propositional logic that complements the classical truth values of True and False with two non-classical truth values Neither and Both. The latter two are to account for the possibility of the available information being incomplete or providing contradictory evidence. In this paper, we present a probabilistic extension of BD that permits agents to have probabilistic beliefs about the truth and falsity of a proposition. We provide a sound and (...) complete axiomatization for the framework defined and also identify policies for conditionalization and aggregation. Concretely, we introduce four-valued equivalents of Bayes’ and Jeffrey updating and also suggest mechanisms for aggregating information from different sources. (shrink)

Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

In a recent set of articles (Klein et al., 2023; Klein & Loftus, 2024), my colleagues and I used the logic of adaptationism—the application of evolutionary principles to study the functional design of naturally selected systems (e.g., Klein et al., 2002)—to help make sense of the role natural selection played in the evolution of consciousness. To avoid well-known, seemingly intractable problems that accompany efforts to explain “how consciousness is possible in a world that consists in physical objects (...) and their relations” (the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”), we limited investigation to the question of “why natural selection favored consciousness?” In the present article, I try to make amends for this evasion by addressing some of the conceptual challenges posed by the hard problem. Drawing on insights from Klein et al.’s (2023) evolutionary excursion into the why of consciousness, I identify a potential alteration in the referential identity of “subject” and “object” when they are taken as properties of a mental state, and discuss how these changes might offer insight into the how question of consciousness. (shrink)

This volume features a collection of essays on consciousness, which has become one of the hot topics at the crossroads between neuroscience, philosophy, and religious studies. Is consciousness something the brain produces? How can we study it? Is there just one type of consciousness or are there different states that can be discriminated? Are so called "higher states of consciousness" that some people report during meditation pointing towards a new understanding of consciousness? Meditation research is a new discipline that shows (...) new inroads into the study of consciousness. If a meditative practice changes brain structure itself this is direct proof of the causal influence of consciousness onto its substrate. If different states of consciousness can be linked with properties and states of the brain this can be used to study consciousness more directly. If the sense of self is modifiable through meditative techniques and this can be objectively shown through neuro-imaging, this has profound implications for our understanding of who we are. Can consciousness, in deep states of meditative absorption, actually access some aspect of reality which we normally don't? Meditation research can potentially foster us with a new access to the phenomenological method in general. This has even been branded with a new catch-phrase: Contemplative Science. It brings together the most modern neuroscientific approach and the most advanced phenomenological methodology of studying the mind from within, through highly skilled self-observation that has gone through many thousand hours of honing the capacity to look carefully, without distraction. This book addresses these issues by bringing together some of the leading researchers and thinkers in the field. The scope of the volume reaches from first person neuroscience to Indian philosophy, from pedagogic applications to epistemological aspects and from compassion meditation to the study of brain activity. (shrink)

To philosophize or not is a matter of conscious choice and option. But when we start with such a premise, we have to lay down what we understand by this activity. In the paper the author undertakes this task, distinguishing four-fold the philosophizing practice with regard to the domain of aesthetics. In the final section of the paper he considers the problem which seems to him fundamental, namely why today philosophizing via aesthetics in a definite way should be recommendable and (...) primary, as well as why it has to be bitter-juicy. (shrink)

This paper discusses counterexamples to the thesis that the probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities. It is argued that the discrepancy is systematic and predictable, and that conditional probabilities are crucially involved in the apparently deviant interpretations. Furthermore, the examples suggest that such conditionals have a less prominent reading on which their probability is in fact the conditional probability, and that the two readings are related by a simple step of abductive inference. Central to the proposal is a distinction between (...) causal and purely stochastic dependence between variables. (shrink)

The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality is about research design, specifically concerning research that uses observational data to make a causal inference. It is separated into two halves, each with different approaches to that subject. The first half goes through the concepts of causality, with very little in the way of estimation. It introduces the concept of identification thoroughly and clearly and discusses it as a process of trying to isolate variation that has a causal interpretation. Subjects (...) include heavy emphasis on data-generating processes and causal diagrams. Concepts are demonstrated with a heavy emphasis on graphical intuition and the question of what we do to data. When we "add a control variable" what does that actually do? (shrink)

The paper centres on the historical background in which Athens was “liberated” in c. 255. The first part explores the tenability of the assumption that the “petitions” mentioned by Diogenes Laertios in his biography of Arkesilaos should indeed be placed in the context of the “liberation” of Athens. The analysis of the chapter, as well as the particular phrase, points towards a rather different conclusion – that we are dealing with private petitions, and therefore the information should not be associated (...) with the “liberation” of Athens; consequently, that there is no correlation with the question for the date of the battle of Kos. The second part focuses on the causes for Antigonos’ decision to “liberate” Athens; i.e., the conjecture that this decision stemmed from the victory at Kos. The analysis of the sources shows that even though the conjecture cannot be ruled out, it cannot be proven either. Lastly, an alternative context for the “liberation” of Athens is offered. (shrink)

The central task of my reflections is to deal with the question what harming a person could mean. In the first part of the reflections, I will be critically concerned with current ways of dealing with the concept of human dignity, and why it is no longer plausible to uphold these regulations, whereby I will particularly focus on the legal dimension. It will come out that the person-object-dichotomy cannot simply be upheld in its traditional manner. Given the plausibility of these (...) reflections, the legal implication that it ought to be legally prohibited to treat another person merely as a means becomes implausible, too, as it rests on the aforementioned distinction between persons and objects. As an alternative, it will be suggested that legally we ought to separate ontological insights clearly from normative ones. In the following part, I will focus on the moral status of personhood, and develop some philosophical reflections which could be upheld on the basis of a posthuman paradigm-shift. Thereby, I will develop a gradual concept of personhood which implies several levels of personhood depending on the corresponding capacity of suffering, which needs to be established empirically. Once, the direction of an alternative concept of personhood becomes clearer, which implies that some animals become person and which provides some reasons for holding that some sufficiently developed embodied AIs could also deserve personhood, the question can be reflected upon further what it could mean to harm a person. The issue of harming, however, is so complex that I merely plan to raise some questions which need to be confronted when clarifying the concept of harming. I do not attempt to propose a definite concept of harming, but stress that the concept is closely related to cultural circumstances, so that there is a permanent need to engage with the concept, redefine it, and adapt it to the current cultural situation. Not proposing a clear concept of harm is not a shortcoming, but rather a necessity. (shrink)

Part I The Unity of Value -- A hedgehog's unity of value / Joseph Raz -- Part II Political Values : Legitimacy, Authority, and Collective Responsibility -- Political resistance for hedgehogs / Candice Delmas -- Ronald Dworkin, state consent, and progressive cosmopolitanism / Thomas Christiano -- To fill or not to fill individual responsibility gaps? / Franðcois Tanguay-Renaud -- Inheritance and hypothetical insurance / Daniel Halliday -- Part III General Jurisprudence : Contesting the Unity of Law and Value -- Putting (...) law in its place / Lawrence G. Sager -- Dworkin and unjust law / David Dyzenhaus -- The grounds of law / Luâis Duarte d'Almeida -- Immodesty in Dworkin's theory : the lines dividing different kinds of conceptual theory of law / Kenneth Einar Himma -- Imperialism and importance in Dworkin's jurisprudence / Michael Giudice -- A theory of legal obligation / Christopher Essert -- Part IV Value in Law -- Originalism and constructive interpretation / David O. Brink -- Was Dworkin an originalist? / Lawrence A. Alexander -- The moral reading of constitutions / Connie S. Rosati -- Authority, intention, and interpretation / Aditi Bagchi -- Concern and respect in procedural law / Hamish Stewart. (shrink)

Introduction: on not giving interviews -- Interview with Leonard Green, Jonathan Culler, and Richard Klein -- Interview with Anders Stephanson -- Interview with Paik Nak-Chung -- Interview with Sabry Hafez, Abbas Al-Tonsi, and Mona Abousenna -- Interview with Stuart Hall -- Interview with Michael Speaks -- Interview with Horacio Machín -- Interview with Sara Danius and Stefan Jonsson -- Interview with Xudong Zhang -- Interview with Srinivas Aravamudan and Ranjana Khanna.

ABSTRACTPhysiologists have long known that some vertebrates can survive for months without a brain. This phenomenon attracted limited attention until the nineteenth century when a series of experiments on living, decapitated frogs ignited a controversy about consciousness. Pflüger demonstrated that such creatures do not just exhibit reflexes; they also perform purposive behaviours. Suppose one thinks, along with Pflüger's ally Lewes, that purposive behaviour is a mark of consciousness. Then one must count a decapitated frog as conscious. If one rejects this (...) mark, one can avoid saying peculiar things about decapitated animals. But as Huxley showed, this position leads quickly to epiphenomenalism. The dispute long remained stalemated because it rested on conflicting sets of intuitions that were each compatible with the growing body of experiments. What eventually resolved it is that one set of intuitions supported a research programme in physiology that came to seem more fruitful on the whole. So my case st... (shrink)

Many people think that if you're uncertain about which moral theory is correct, you ought to maximize the expected choice-worthiness of your actions. This idea presupposes that the strengths of our moral reasons are comparable across theories – for instance, that our reasons to create new people, according to total utilitarianism, can be stronger than our reasons to benefit an existing person, according to a person-affecting view. But how can we make sense of such comparisons? In this article, I introduce (...) a constructivist account of intertheoretic comparisons. On this account, such comparisons don't hold independently of facts about morally uncertain agents. They're simply the result of an ideal deliberation in terms of certain epistemic norms about what you ought to do in light of your uncertainty. If I'm right, this account is metaphysically more parsimonious than some existing proposals, and yet has plausible and strong implications. (shrink)