The ocean’s properties and processes are now mostly known through distributed sensor networks. Among the most widespread of such networks are those that connect wave-measuring buoys. Buoys have been deployed and consulted by national meteorological organizations, state militaries, multinational corporations, and citizens. This paper zeroes in on the Directional Waverider, the most widely used buoy, manufactured since 1961 in the Netherlands by Datawell. I am interested in this buoy’s material qualities and networks of use, its life within legal frameworks, and (...) its media ecology. Staging my account against the metaphysical Italian author Italo Calvino’s “Reading a Wave,” I explore what it means to “read” a sensing technology. (shrink)

Transgender legal protections have long been contentious issues, with courts often pathologizing or refusing recognition of transgender identities. Recently, however, courts adjudicating asylum claims have recognized “transgender” as a legitimate category of protection. I take this legal development as an opportunity to ask how courts determine if individuals are transgender. While previous work has shown how courts maintain the gender binary, asylum law offers the first chance to analyze how recognizing a distinct transgender category affects the legal gender order and (...) the classification of trans claimants. Drawing on court decisions, ethnographic observations, and interviews, I argue that the recognition of transgender as a category implicitly acknowledges the malleability of gender. Yet, the adjudication of transgender asylum cases continues to uphold a fixed and binary conception of gender by assuming a “born into the wrong body” narrative and that claimants should always already know their gender identities. Courts thus enforce a cis–trans binary wherein only certain claimants are found “trans enough.”. (shrink)

This article analyzes computer security rhetoric, particularly in the United States, arguing that dominant cultural understandings of immunology, sexuality, legality, citizenship, and capitalism powerfully shape the way computer viruses are construed and combated. Drawing on popular and technical handbooks, articles, and Web sites, as well as on e-mail interviews with security professionals, the author explores how discussions of computer viruses lean on analogies from immunology and in the process often encode popular anxieties about AIDS. Computer security rhetoric about compromised networks (...) also uses language reminiscent of that used to describe the “bodies” of nation-states under military threat from without and within. Such language portrays viruses using images of foreignness, illegality, and otherness. The security response to viruses advocates the virtues of the flexible and adaptive response—a rhetoric that depends on evolutionary language but also on the ideological idiom of advanced capitalism. (shrink)

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values critically explores a new stage in which the life sciences and biomedical practices have entered. This new stage is marked by postgenomic developments and an increased interest of life sciences in the everyday lives of people outside laboratories and clinical settings. Furthermore, particular attention is given to many chronic and degenerative disorders such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or developmental disorders. These developments coincide—or have become entangled—with a new set of interests (...) that an anthropologically inclined science and technology studies is bringing to the analyses of biomedical practices. An increased interest is observed in the anthropologically inclined STS in studying phenomena on different scales and in exploring fields that are not readily dominated by technoscientific rationality in practice. The introduction to the special issue examines briefly these developments and situates them in a broader genealogy of different movements that have taken place in the anthropologically inclined subfield of STS since the late 1970s and early 1980s. (shrink)

This article applies a theoretical framework developed by the late American sociologist Anselm Strauss to the discovery of a new resuscitation technique, closed-chest cardiac massage. The discovery, which took place in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins University between 1956 and 1960, is analyzed as the collective management of a trajectory over time. The article follows the discovery trajectory from its origins in defibrillator research to the establishment of closed-chest cardiac massage and cardiopulmonary resuscitation as a universal life-saving method. The analytical (...) focus on the experimental, clinical, and promotional activities performed by the different actors interacting with the emerging technology allows one to critically question the value of concepts such as closure, stabilization, and black boxing in sociology of science and technology. Instead of prematurely freezing the analysis of technoscience, a trajectory conceptual framework emphasizes the ongoing dynamic between actors and medical technology to define the scope, effectiveness, and multiple interpretations of the technology-actor interaction. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an anti-Humean critique to Williamson and Russo’s approach to medical mechanisms. I focus on one of the specific claims made by Williamson and Russo, namely the claim that micro-structural ‘mechanisms’ provide evidence for the stability across populations of causal relationships ascertained at the (macro-) level of (test) populations. This claim is grounded in the epistemic account of causality developed by Williamson, an account which—while not relying exclusively on mechanistic evidence for justifying causal judgements—appeals nevertheless to (...) mechanisms, and rejects their anti-Humean interpretation in terms of capacities, powers, potencies, etc. By using (and expanding on) Cartwright’s basic critique against Humean mechanisms, I suggest that, in order to move beyond the level of plausibility, Williamson and Russo’s position is in need of a clarification as to the occurent reading of the components, functioning and interferences of mechanisms. Relatedly, as concerns Williamson’s epistemic account of causation, I argue that this account is in need of a more straightforward answer as to what truth-makers its causal claims should have. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I offer an anti-Humean interpretation of the causal interactions in somatic medicine. I focus on life-threatening pathological states and show how Nancy Cartwright’s capacities can offer a plausible epistemology for medical processes and the singular causal claims advanced in medical diagnoses. I argue that the capacities manifested in the emergence of symptoms and signs could be tracked down if healthy organisms are construed as nomological machines and suggest that the causal reasoning from current medical practice bears (...) a tacit adherence to anti-Humean assumptions. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-28 DOI 10.1007/s12136-011-0141-1 Authors Stefan Dragulinescu, Drumul Taberei 20, Bucharest, Romania Journal Acta Analytica Online ISSN 1874-6349 Print ISSN 0353-5150. (shrink)

Moral development has become an integral part in military training and the importance of moral judgment and behavior in military operations can hardly be overestimated. Many armed forces have integrated military ethics and moral decision-making interventions in their training programs. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study examined the effectiveness of a 1-week training program in moral decision making in the Swiss Armed Forces. The program was based on a strategy-based interactional moral dilemma approach. Results (...) of this quasi-experimental intervention study showed significant improvements in content-related (moral and instrumental awareness, quality of moral information processing, development of compensatory actions) as well as process-related (situational analysis, development and evaluation of alternative solutions, justification of decision) aspects in moral decision making. Results of a follow-up test indicated positive long-term effects with regard to moral and instrumental awareness and process-related aspects. Findings are discussed, and consequences for leadership development programs and further research are explored. (shrink)

Let us by ‘first-order beliefs’ mean beliefs about the world, such as the belief that it will rain tomorrow, and by ‘second-order beliefs’ let us mean beliefs about the reliability of first-order, belief-forming processes. In formal epistemology, coherence has been studied, with much ingenuity and precision, for sets of first-order beliefs. However, to the best of our knowledge, sets including second-order beliefs have not yet received serious attention in that literature. In informal epistemology, by contrast, sets of the latter kind (...) play an important role in some respectable coherence theories of knowledge and justification. In this paper, we extend the formal treatment of coherence to second-order beliefs. Our main conclusion is that while extending the framework to second-order beliefs sheds doubt on the generality of the notorious impossibility results for coherentism, another problem crops up that might be no less damaging to the coherentist project: facts of coherence turn out to be epistemically accessible only to agents who have a good deal of insight into matters external to their own belief states. (shrink)

In this article, we explore to what extent parents should be ‘educators’ of their children. In the course of this exploration, we offer some examples of these practices and ways of speaking and thinking, indicate some of the problems and limitations they import into our understanding of the parent–child relationship, and make some tentative suggestions towards an alternative way of thinking about this relationship.

This chapter provides an overview of Bernard Bolzano’s views about grounding. On Bolzano’s account, grounding is an objective priority relation among true propositions that has certain explanatory features. The chapter briefly highlights historical influences on Bolzano’s account of grounding and subsequently provides an overview of the most important aspects of it. Bolzano’s account resembles current accounts of metaphysical grounding in many respects and can thus easily be related to many positions in the current debate. The chapter investigates some Bolzanian ideas (...) about grounding that differ from the current orthodoxy but may constitute interesting additions, challenges or inspirations for those working in the current debate. It is striking that Bolzano accepts a number of principles that seem to be motivated by the same kind of intuition that underlies present work on the logic of ground. Bolzano’s thought is that, for instance, general mathematical truths will never be grounded in truths concerned with any individual concrete object in particular. (shrink)

Ethics and Education, Volume 6, Issue 2, Page 101-108, July 2011.

In this paper, I investigate the phonological similarity of different elements of the phonological pole of multi-word units. I discuss two case studies on slightly different levels of abstractness. The first case study investigates lexically fully-specified V-NPDirObj idioms such as kick the bucket and lose one's cool; the idioms investigated are taken from the Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms (Harper Collins, 2002). The second case study investigates the lexically less specified way-construction, which is exemplified by He fought his way through (...) the crowd (cf. Goldberg, Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure, The University of Chicago Press, 1995: Ch. 9), on the basis of data from the British National Corpus 1.0. I show that both patterns exhibit a strong phonological within-pole relation, namely a strong preference for having their slots filled with phonologically similar elements, where phonological similarity is manifested in alliteration patterns. These preferences are statistically significant when compared to chance-level expectations derived both from the corpora and from the CELEX database (Baayen et al., The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM), University of Pennsylvania, 1995) and are explained on the basis of Langacker's concept of syntactic and phonological constituents as well as current exemplar-/usage-based approaches. (shrink)

In their Minds and Machines essay How would you know if you synthesized a Thinking Thing? (Kary & Mahner, Minds and Machines, 12(1), 61–86, 2002), Kary and Mahner have chosen to occupy a high ground of materialism and empiricism from which to attack the philosophical and methodological positions of believers in artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (AL). In this review I discuss some of their main arguments as well as their philosophical foundations. Their central argument: ‘AI is Platonism’, which (...) is based on a particular interpretation of the notion of ‘definition’ and used as a critique against AI, can be counter criticized from two directions: first, Anti-Platonism is not a necessary precondition for criticizing AI, because outspoken Platonist criticism against AI is already known (Penrose, The emperor’s new mind (with a foreword by M. Gardner), 1989). Second, even in case that AI would essentially be ‘Platonism’ this would not be a sufficient argument for proving AI wrong. In my counter criticism I assume a more or less Popperian position by emphasizing the openness of the future: Not by quasi-Scholastic arguments (like Kary and Mahner’s), but only after being confronted with a novel ‘thinking thing’ by future AI engineers we can start to analyze its particular properties (Let me use a history analogon to illustrate my position: In the 19th century, mechanized aviation was widely regarded impossible—only natural organisms (such as birds or bees) could fly, and any science of aerodynamics or aviation did not exist. Only after some non-scientific technicians had confronted their astonished fellows with the first (obviously) flying machine the science of ‘Artificial Aviation’ came into existence, motivated by the need for understanding and mastering that challenging and puzzling new phenomenon). (shrink)

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; } Hegel's transient notion of "Aether", developed and finally abandoned again during his short period of time at the University of Jena in the early years of the 19th century, has received comparatively little attention so far – much less than, for example, his Phenomenology (...) of Spirit, or his later systematic works which he published after his departure from Jena. In modern and contemporary physics, on the other hand, novel notions comparable to Hegel's "aether" have become interesting again with the rise of quantum physics. In this essay we recapitulate and explain the notion of "Aether" in Hegel's works and compare it to novel aether concepts which might be appropriate in the context of contemporary quantum physics. Such a juxtaposition would well have matched Hegel's own intentions, since he had always been a keen observer of the latest developments in the natural sciences during his own lifetime. In conclusion we can say that, in spite of a number of differences, both notions of aether can be speculatively characterised by the paradoxical term "reality of possibility". (shrink)

We share the authors' general approach to the study of perception and action, but rather than singling out a particular level of “late perceptual” and “early motor” processing for sensorimotor interactions, we argue that these can arise at multiple levels during action preparation and execution. Recent data on action-perception transfer are used to illustrate this perspective.

States of emergency are declared frequently in all parts of the world. Their declaration routinely implies a suspension of basic constitutional rights. In the last half century, it has become the norm for constitutions to contain an explicit ‘emergency constitution’, i.e., the constitutionally safeguarded rules of operation for a state of emergency. In this paper, I ask whether inclusion of an emergency constitution can be legitimized by drawing on social contract theory. I argue that there are important arguments, both against (...) and in favor of constitutionalized emergency provisions, and that social contract theory—as applied by economists—can be of some help when deciding whether to have, or not to have an emergency constitution. This paper introduces a novel argument for justifying emergency constitutions. It argues that they can serve as a commitment mechanism protecting both citizens and politicians from overreacting to rare but significant threats. (shrink)

Elected politicians—legislators and, in some systems, members of the executive—can choose to exercise authority themselves or to delegate that authority to any number of agencies. Such delegation of power can occur at the constitutional stage, but is most common at the post-constitutional stage. Two categories of delegation can be distinguished: domestic delegation to agencies within the legislators’ jurisdiction, and international delegation to supranational or international bodies. While some research has been done on domestic delegation, especially in the context of delegation (...) to administrative agencies in the U.S., as well as on delegation to supranational bodies, especially with regard to the E.U., these activities have not been analyzed within a unified framework. This paper attempts to inquire into these issues and provide a general picture of the decision-making process regarding whether to delegate authority and to which body to transfer the authority. The past decade has been a period of rapid change in Central and Eastern Europe. Almost all of these countries have either passed entirely new constitutions or substantially modified the old ones. This is a unique situation in which constitutional delegation of powers can be performed almost simultaneously with post-constitutional delegation. The constitutional process in Israel is very different. It has been underway for fifty years. However, it can also be characterized by simultaneous constitutional and post-constitutional choices. In this paper, we examine such delegation choices in nine countries. We describe the main differences among these countries with regard to delegation of power, try to trace their origins and analyze their effects on delegation of powers. One question raised is what are the ramifications of a quasi-simultaneous constitutional and post-constitutional choice? Have constitutional rules been chosen in anticipation of the necessary compatibility with the rules of international organizations that one wants to join? Has membership in international organizations led to a boost in credibility of those governments concerned? (shrink)

Spatestens seit dem emotional turn in den Kulturwissenschaften zu Anfang dieses Jahrhunderts ist die Leibphanomenologie von Hermann Schmitz kein Geheimtipp mehr. Die Zahl der Studien, die sich mit ihr auseinandersetzen, ist heute kaum uberschaubar. Der Band versucht nach knapp einem halben Jahrhundert Wirkungsgeschichte eine Art Zwischenbilanz zu ziehen. Er fragt, inwiefern und in welchen Kontexten sich die von Schmitz erarbeiteten Kategorien des eigenleiblichen Spurens bewahrt haben. Die Beitrage erortern die gespurte Leiblichkeit in ihrer Verflechtung mit Sachverhalten wie Geschichte, Kultur, Person, (...) Geschlecht sowie als Aktionsfeld leiblicher Kommunikation und zeugen davon, dass das von Schmitz begonnene Projekt uber die Philosophie hinaus auch von anderen Wissenschaften stetig erganzt und weiterentwickelt wird. Vor dem Hintergrund eines sich am Leitmodell des sicht- und tastbaren Korpers orientierenden Denkens konnten sprachliche Ausdrucke fur leibliches Erleben nur als Skandal der Metapher (Strub) begriffen werden. Die Leibphanomenologie bietet dagegen einen alternativen Zugang, dem aber der Korper, wie Schmitz sagt, zum Skandal wird. Diesem schwierigen Verhaltnis von Leib und Korper geht der Band nach, um das Skandalose theoretisch einzuholen. Mit Beitragen von Kerstin Andermann, Undine Eberlein, Thomas Fuchs, Ute Gahlings, Robert Gugutzer, Christian Julmi / Ewald Scherm, Steffen Kammler, Gudula Linck, Gesa Lindemann, Isabella Marcinski, Jan Slaby, Hermann Schmitz und Jens Soentgen. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Oftmals wird Fairness mit einer ethischen Haltung in Verbindung gebracht. Demnach ist ein Sportler fair, wenn er aufgrund bestimmter moralischer Einsichten handelt. Diese Vorstellung ist kaum empirisch nachprüfbar. Andere, nichtethische Motive können stattdessen für die Individuen handlungsleitend sein. Nimmt man als Extremfall rein egoistische Handlungsmotive der Individuen an, lässt sich dann noch faires Verhalten beobachten? Dieser Frage wird im vorliegenden Aufsatz nachgegangen. Aufbauend auf einer Kritik deontologischer Konzeptionen von Fairness, wird ein utilitaristischer Ansatz entwickelt, der faires Verhalten als wechselseitige (...) Kooperation versteht. Auf Grundlage dieses Ansatzes werden Bedingungen herausgearbeitet, unter denen faires Handeln im Sport erwartbar wird. Zugleich zeigt sich, dass sich aus einer Fairnesskonzeption als wechselseitige Kooperation deutlich mehr Maßnahmen zur Förderung von Fair Play im Sport ableiten lassen. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics of a particle in an infinite square well under the influence of a time-dependent electric field is reconsidered. In some gauge, the Hamiltonian depends linearly on the momentum operator, which is symmetric but not self-adjoint when defined on a finite interval. In spite of this symmetric part, the Hamiltonian operator is shown to be self-adjoint. This follows from a theorem by Kato and Rellich which guarantees the stability of a self-adjoint operator under certain symmetric perturbations. The result, which (...) has been assumed tacitly by other authors, is important in order to establish the equivalence of different Hamiltonian operators related to each other by quantum gauge transformations. (shrink)

What is the contribution of pragmatism to the sociology of morality? I answer to the points raised by the essays in this symposium on Moral Entanglements: Conserving Birds in Britain and Germany by outlining what the work of John Dewey adds to recent discussions on the question how values change over time and how individuals develop moral commitments.

Im subjektphilosophischen Denken J.-J. Rousseaus treten sie einander als streng separierte Größen gegenüber. Für ein Denken jenseits von Seins- und Subjektphilosophie präsentiert sich die musikalische Situation als Spielwerk.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGDie antik-jüdische Apokalyptik liefert einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erschließung einer Biblischen Theologie, insofern man von einem offenen Kanon ausgeht, der Quellen auch jenseits seiner Grenzen berücksichtigt. Unter Einbeziehung der historisch-kritischen Methode zeigen sich in der apokalyptischen Literatur »Strukturen«, deren Sinn- und Wirkzusammenhang für eine gesamtbiblische Theologie von konstitutiver Bedeutung ist. Als wichtiger Baustein einer Biblischen Theologie fungiert die Apokalyptik. Und zwar auch deshalb, weil etwa die beiderseits auswertbare Struktur der »Verkehrung« im apokalyptischen Transzendierungskonzept eine zentrale Rolle spielt. Zum Erweis dient (...) als material-exegetisches Paradigma die alttestamentliche Gerichtsprophetie in Verbindung mit der Einsicht, dass ihre Aussagen zu »Schuld« und »Gericht« neutestamentlich erst über einen »apokalyptischen Filter« rezipiert worden sind. Relevante Motive sind die Rede von der Verkehrung der »Bitternis«, der personifizierte Tod und der Herrscher- bzw. Satanssturz, wie sie in den antik-jüdischen Texten des Testaments Abrahams und des äthiopischen Henochbuchs verarbeitet werden. Zwar greift das Diktum Käsemanns von der »Apokalyptik als Mutter aller christlichen Theologie« zu weit, mahnt aber zugleich, die apokalyptische Dimension Biblischer Theologie erst wieder zu entdecken. (shrink)

There are more types and kinds of referendum so for all forms of referendum, the Constitutional Court is the one confirming the results and certifying the accuracy of the procedure for organization and holding of a referendum. Also there are many criteria and species of referendum.

Zusammenfassung Vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen soziologischen Theoriebildung zum Event zeigt der Artikel am Beispiel des II. Ökumenischen Kirchentags in München, wie nicht nur ein einheitliches Erleben des konkreten Events selbst, sondern darüber hinaus auch eine holistische Erlebnisqualität hergestellt wird. Die Erzeugung dieses auch als entgrenzend zu beschreibenden Erlebens wird durch die Konzepte Mediatisierung/hybridisierung, Gleichzeitigkeit/verdichtung und Sukzession analysiert und nachgezeichnet. Das holistische Erlebnis – und damit gleichzeitig das Gesamtevent ÖKT – wird dann im Sinne einer Praxis der Konstitution einer spezifisch (...) postmodernen Subjektivität zur Debatte um die Moderne und den Ort der Religion in derselben in Beziehung gesetzt. Dabei wird vor allem das überkommene Paradigma der funktionalen Ausdifferenzierung als Bestimmungsmerkmal einer prekären Moderne hinterfragt und stattdessen die Alternative eines in der alltagsweltlich- populären Kultur verankerten, holistischen Modells aufgezeigt. (shrink)

Das ägyptische Investiturritual. By Martin Bommas. BAR International Series, vol. 2562. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013. Pp. xvi + 244, illus. £41.

Forschung in der Papyrussammlung: Eine Festgabe für das Neue Museum. Edited by Verena M. Lepper. Ägyptische und Orientalische Papyri und Handschriften des Ägyptischen Museums und Papyrussammlung Berlin, vol 1. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012. Pp. 512. $238.

This book analyzes the identity crisis found in nineteenth-century post-Romantic literature. By mirroring several Antihumanist theories through the Jungian theory of the shadow, the author argues that this literature anticipates our contemporary “internal conflict.”.