Hans Mayer, one of the most eminent literary critics and public intellectuals in post-war Germany, visited Israel four times between 1968 and 1995. This article aims to reconstruct the key elements of Mayer’s ambivalent perception of Israeli society and culture as it is documented in his travelogue Reisen nach Jerusalem from 1997 and several further texts. However, Mayer’s view on Israel can only be understood adequately by also considering his situation as a non-religious Jew and Shoah survivor in Germany.

Contrary to the prevailing opinion the servum in Calpurnius Flaccus’ fourth declamation (ed. Håkanson 4,12) is to be kept very well, whereas the emendations sacrum and tectum are unnecessary and not very convincing.

In this article, the – in a double sense – problematic passages in the epithalamium for Stella and Violentilla and in thematically linked epigrams of Martial (especially in the epigram 6.21 whose subject likewise is their wedding, but also in the epigrams 5.11 and 5.12) are analyzed. These are the passages that, firstly, are difficult to interpret and, secondly, seem to cast a bad light on Stella and Violentilla in the form of explosive details and tactlessness. The guiding question in (...) this article will be whether and to what extent Martial’s and especially Statius’ portrayal of the wedding couple is not only idealizing but also ambivalent. (shrink)

How do we get out knowledge of the natural numbers? Various philosophical accounts exist, but there has been comparatively little attention to psychological data on how the learning process actually takes place. I work through the psychological literature on number acquisition with the aim of characterising the acquisition stages in formal terms. In doing so, I argue that we need a combination of current neologicist accounts and accounts such as that of Parsons. In particular, I argue that we learn the (...) initial segment of the natural numbers on the basis of the Fregean definitions, but do not learn the natural number structure as a whole on the basis of Hume's principle. Therefore, we need to account for some of the consistency of our number concepts with the Dedekind-Peano axioms in other terms. (shrink)

Taking credit for digitalization and platformization, China has initiated its open science infrastructure implementation and made an effort to focus on open access (OA) journals and data sharing over the past two decades. With the continuous development need, issues and concerns have caught in attention, including data accessibility, research transparency, general population awareness and communication of science, public trust in science, and scientific research and innovation efficiency. This paper has unfolded the maze of open science stance in China and elaborated (...) on its current economy, openness and freedom extents, and future innovation potential towards a global open science community, within depth and scope of both the Chinese and Western scholars’ interpretations. (shrink)

The fact that the standard probabilistic calculus does not define probabilities for sentences with embedded conditionals is a fundamental problem for the probabilistic theory of conditionals. Several authors have explored ways to assign probabilities to such sentences, but those proposals have come under criticism for making counterintuitive predictions. This paper examines the source of the problematic predictions and proposes an amendment which corrects them in a principled way. The account brings intuitions about counterfactual conditionals to bear on the interpretation of (...) indicatives and relies on the notion of causal (in)dependence. (shrink)

By using the notions of exact truth and exact falsity, one can give 16 distinct definitions of classical consequence. This paper studies the class of relations that results from these definitions in settings that are paracomplete, paraconsistent or both and that are governed by the Strong Kleene schema. Besides familiar logics such as Strong Kleene logic, the Logic of Paradox and First Degree Entailment, the resulting class of all Strong Kleene generalizations of classical logic also contains a host of unfamiliar (...) logics. We first study the members of our class semantically, after which we present a uniform sequent calculus that is sound and complete with respect to all of them. Two further sequent calculi and \ calculus) will be considered, which serve the same purpose and which are obtained by applying general methods to construct sequent calculi for many-valued logics. Rules and proofs in the SK calculus are much simpler and shorter than those of the \ and the \ calculus, which is one of the reasons to prefer the SK calculus over the latter two. Besides favourably comparing the SK calculus to both the \ and the \ calculus, we also hint at its philosophical significance. (shrink)

The Direct Argument is an important argument for demonstrating that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism because it makes no presuppositions about the nature of free will. One of the inference rules employed in the Direct Argument is rule A: If a proposition is broadly logically necessary, then it is true and no one is, nor ever has been, even partially morally responsible for the fact that the proposition is true. While inference rule A is assumed by all parties to (...) the debate, I demonstrate that the rule is invalid. (shrink)

The number of legal and nonlegal ethical regulations in the biomedical field has increased tremendously, leaving present-day practitioners and researchers in a virtual crossfire of legislations and guidelines. Judging by the production and by the way these regulations are motivated and presented, they are held to be of great importance to ethical practice. This view is shared by many commentators. For instance, Commons and Baldwin write that, within the nursing profession, patient care can be performed unethically or ethically depending on (...) the professional standards the nurses have set for themselves. They also hold that such standards are set when nurses become aware of the ethical codes available. As nurses are often not familiar with the codes, they do not all conform to them. Commons and Baldwin argue that nurses' ability to deal with ethical dilemmas is effectively secured with education on guidelines, creating a “barrier” between personal and professional values. (shrink)

We are currently witnessing the emergence of a ‘third culture’, driven by unprecedented developments that are changing the playing field. These include advances in AI, big data analysis and robotics. The traditional ‘two cultures’ view (S. P. Snow) distinguishes between the sciences and the humanities. The wisdoms these two cultures offer are separated from each other, with little to no interaction or mutual comprehension. However, over the past two decades, and for the first time in human history, a new, third (...) culture has appeared. This new culture, rooted in new technologies, not only pursues its own form of rationality but also supports advances in the original two cultures, deepening and expanding our individual and collective consciousness so that we can see more and do better. It will eventually give rise to new forms of consciousness based not on biochemical signals, but on copper wires and lithium chips. These new machine intelligences will change the world and force us to realise: we are no longer alone. The human species’ position in the twenty-first century will be fundamentally redefined: not as a conductor leading the orchestra, but a single string player within it. (shrink)

The issue of anxiety has been thoroughly debated in Kierkegaardian scholarship from multiple standpoints and traditions, but not so much when it comes to the hermeneutic undertone. This article is primarily concerned with tackling the concept of anxiety as a hermeneutical concept, or working with it through hermeneutical lenses; nevertheless, the implications go deeper—making a case for an original hermeneutic anxiety, an agonistic trait of hermeneutics. By exploring the hermeneutical dimensions of the Kierkegaardian anxiety we unravel a whole genealogy of (...) the agonistic phenomena—a hermeneutical way that thrives in the paradox. The scope of it all is to break with the conciliatory ways of an epistemic hermeneutics, by regaining the Kierkegaardian hermeneutics of anxiety: preferring the fertile struggle over the passionless synthesis, paradox over soundness and agony over apathy. (shrink)

I challenge a claim that seems to be made when nominalists offer reformulations of the content of mathematical beliefs, namely that these reformulations are accessible to everyone. By doing so, I argue that these theories cannot account for the mathematical knowledge that ordinary people have. In the first part of the paper I look at reformulations that employ the concept of proof, such as those of Mary Leng and Ottavio Bueno. I argue that ordinary people don’t have many beliefs about (...) proofs, and that they are not in a position to acquire knowledge about proofs autonomously. The second part of the paper is concerned with other reformulations of content, such as those of Hartry Field and Stephen Yablo. There too, the problem is that people are not able to acquire knowledge of the reformulated propositions autonomously. Ordinary people simply do not have beliefs with the kind of content that the nominalists need, for their theory to account for the mathematical knowledge of ordinary people. All in all then, the conclusion is that a large number of theories that suggest reformulations of mathematical content yield contents that are inaccessible for most people. Thus, these theories are limited, in that they cannot account for the mathematical knowledge of ordinary people. (shrink)

Clarke and Beck argue that the ANS doesn't represent non-numerical magnitudes because of its second-order character. A sensory integration mechanism can explain this character as well, provided the dumbbell studies involve interference from systems that segment by objects such as the Object Tracking System. Although currently equal hypotheses, I point to several ways the two can be distinguished.

What is life? A gathering consensus in anthropology, science studies, and philosophy of biology suggests that the theoretical object of biology, “life,” is today in transformation, if not dissolution. Proliferating reproductive technologies, along with genomic reshufflings of biomatter in such practices as cloning, have unwound the facts of life.

Can private companies legitimately regulate sharing markets, and if yes, how? Whereas scholars have either criticized sharing platforms for expanding into private and public arenas or welcomed them to counterbalance encroaching government regulations, studies document their unbridled popularity. On the basis of a special version of social contracts theory pioneered by James Buchanan, we develop a heuristics that helps guide reasoning about the legitimacy of the sharing economy’s regulatory function. First, we discuss the conditions under which free and responsible individuals (...) deliberately subject themselves to rules without their prior direct participation, that is, exit, voice, and constitutional limits. Second, we suggest sharing platforms can use novel ordo-responsibilities to establish a sharing constitution that takes these conditions into account. Third, we argue that sharing platforms can legitimately do so within an enabling institutional environment in society, the provision of which relies on the joint efforts of sharing platforms, political actors, and civil society. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction General Scenario for the Transmission of Information and Its Application to Genetics Semiotic Dimensions of Biological Information Syntactic Dimension I: Measuring the Statistical Entropy of Signals and Messages Syntactic Dimension II: Estimating the Algorithmic Complexity of Signals and Messages Semantic Dimension: Classifying the Mutual Complexity of Transmitters and Receivers Acknowledgment References Further Reading.

We discuss four distinct semantic consequence relations which are based on Strong Kleene theories of truth and which generalize the notion of classical consequence to 3-valued logics. Then we set up a uniform signed tableau calculus, which we show to be sound and complete with respect to each of the four semantic consequence relations. The signs employed by our calculus are,, and, which indicate a strict assertion, strict denial, tolerant assertion and tolerant denial respectively. Recently, Ripley applied the strict–tolerant account (...) of assertion and denial to develop a new approach to truth and alethic paradox, which we call the Strict–Tolerant Conceptionof Truth. The paper aims to contribute to our understanding of STCT in at least three ways. First, by developing the strict–tolerant calculus.Second, by developing a semantic version of the strict–tolerant calculus, which informs us about the assertoric possibilities relative to a fixed ground model. Third, by showing that the strict–tolerant calculus and assertoric semantics jointly suggest that STCT's claim that the strict and tolerant can be understood in terms of one another has to be reconsidered. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo analiza si en la teoría de los cuatro ethe de la modernidad capitalista, desarrollada por Bolívar Echeverría, no está contenida una debilidad de principio. Se trata de saber si para arribar a sus más altas aportaciones, esta teoría no termina pagando un precio que debiera dar que pensar. ¿Acaso renuncia a la crítica de la ideología, por lo menos en la radicalidad realizada por los autores de la Teoría crítica, inspirados en este punto originalmente por Georg Lukács?This (...) article is analyzing if in the theory of the four ethe of capitalist modernity, developed by Bolívar Echeverría, isn’t included a basic weakness. It is about understanding if for to arrive to its highest contributions, this theory is not paying a too high prize. Does it possibly renounce to the critique of ideology, at least in the radicality fulfilled by the authors of Critical theory, inspired in this point originally by Georg Lukács? (shrink)

SummaryErnest Gellner was, by all accounts, one of the most unconventional thinkers of the twentieth century. Not only was the content of his theories often strikingly original, but he also arrived at them by use of a singularly personal thought-style. The article describes the most salient features of this thought-style: his quest for overviews, on the one hand, and for penetrating and unexpected insights, on the other, his opposition to what he perceived as humanistic complacency, his academic elitism, and much (...) else. In the final section, an assessment of the most conspicuous feature of Gellner's thought-style—his tendency to downplay the importance of detail and to focus on high-level theory—is given. It is argued that this characteristic served Gellner better in philosophy and the history of ideas than in the social sciences. (shrink)

In contemporary theories of language it is common to appeal to propositions as expressed by utterances of sentences. The aim of this paper is to question this idea, for as I argue, the relationship between sentences and propositions cannot be worked out in any rewarding way.

Resumo: O presente artigo tem por objetivo analisar como a noção de nacionalidade e de cidadania, legitimados com o surgimento do Estado-Nação, promovem a exclusão dos sujeitos imigrantes. A hipótese, defendida no trabalho, é a de que as normas que regulamentam as fronteiras nacionais atribuem ao agente migratório discricionariedade para definir quem pode ou não entrar em cada país, permitindo o uso de argumentos securitários para barrar a entrada de sujeitos indesejados em detrimento do reconhecimento da migração como um direito (...) humano. Para a realização da pesquisa utilizou-se o método qualitativo, amparando-se nas contribuições de Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) sobre a relação entre cidadania, nacionalidade, Estado-Nação e exclusão de determinados sujeitos. Os resultados da pesquisa vêm a demonstrar que, nos últimos anos, as normas de direito público internacional legitimaram critérios securitários para o controle das fronteiras, o que acabou por acarretar a violação dos direitos humanos de diversos imigrantes. Conclui-se que uma mudança de perspectiva em relação à necessária vinculação entre nacionalidade e Estado-Nação deve ser questionada nos ordenamentos jurídicos locais e internacional, a fim de garantir os direitos humanos do sujeito imigrante. (shrink)

Beginning from the texts of Colectivo Situaciones on the insurrectional movements of December 2001 in Argentina, this article raises the question of institutional critique on the basis of a reflection on destituent practices. Far from being reducible to the aim of a reinstitution – that is, the aim of accomplishing the classical functions of political power – these practices refer instead to a « positive no », to the self-transforming actualization of the potentials of social action before and beyond the (...) figures of institutional representation. Thus, what appears amidst destitution is not a « labor of negation », but rather the contours of an instituting activity that engenders new forms of coexistence and coaction, even if this activity is partially haunted by the staging of past conflicts. To better understand this instituent activity, we must consider a second meaning of the word « destitution », which is desubjectivation as the destruction of the faculty of subjectivation, as Agamben describes it in Remnants of Auschwitz. It is only on the basis of the double meaning of destitution that the complex co-involvement of institution and destitution can be brought to light and that the privilege long accorded to « constitution » can be questioned, on the level of the theory of subjectity as well as that of politics. (shrink)

"Der Text gilt den Aporien der Medienanthropologie. Neben den Debatten um das mediale Apriori, wie sie vor allen die Arbeiten Friedrich Kittlers ausgelöst haben, geraten dabei zwei Dinge in den Blick. Zum einen die Möglichkeit, die Rede von der technischen Datenverarbeitung nicht nur metaphorisch, sondern der Sache nach auf die Verarbeitungsprozesse des Menschen zu übertragen und so quantifizierbare Kriterien für dessen Leistungsfähigkeit abzuleiten. Zum anderen wird in der Abwendung von einer spezifisch deutschen Medienwissenschaft gerade in der aktuellen internationalen Diskussion ein (...) Medienbegriff etabliert, der in seiner pluralen Ausrichtung Bezugnahmen etwa auch zur Biologie erlaubt (BioMedia). The paper is devoted to the aporias of medial anthropology. In addition to the debates about the medial a priori, as initiated primarily by the works of Friedrich Kittler, two things come into view: On the one hand, the possibility to apply the notion of technical data processing to human processes not only in a metaphorical, but also in a literal way, in order to derive quantifiable criteria for their performance; on the other hand, the turn away from specifically German media studies in the ongoing international discussion establishes a notion of media that, thanks to its pluralistic orientation, allows references to other fields of study, e.g. to biology (biomedia). ". (shrink)