The Federation of Belgian companies is a confederation which groups 36 branch associations covering 30. 000 individual firms. About 85 % are small and medium-sizedfirms occupying less than 50 employees. The VBO/FEB is the most important exponent of the high degree of affiliation on the employers' side. The process of decision making reflects the structure of the federation. The mandate is defined in the board of the VBO/FEB, composed by a representative ofeach branch association. This representative holds his mandate on (...) the basis of the deliberations held in the elected board of his association. The guiding principle is consensus, which is not synonymous of unanimity. When a consistent and representative majority emerges from the debate, the members holding another opinion join that majority in a spirit ofemployers' solidarity. The decision making process aims in this way to combine efficiency and democracy. This is particularly important for the VBO/FEB, as that organisation not only acts as a lobby but also as a social partner able to conclude agreements. In the Belgian system, social partners are consulted by the authorities, because of their representativeness. It must however be clear that they may not interfere with the political decisions which in our democratic system rest with government and parliament. (shrink)

Studies of consumer complaint behavior have shown that many elderly consumers are very reluctant to pursue their rights through the complaint process when they encounter problems with products or services. This passive complaint behavior may be very costly to the elderly, who often live on fixed incomes. This paper presents a theory developed in experimental psychology that may help explain why clderly consumers are more likely than other consumers to incur losses rather than engage in complaint activity. The theory, known (...) as learned helplessness (LH), refers to a process whereby noncontingent reinforcement produces the expectation that events are uncontrollable.The theory of learned helplessness is presented and related to specific behaviors of dissatisfied elderly consumers that have been reported in the literature. Strategy implications of the theory are discussed for counselors, consumer affairs practitioners, and others interested in helping elderly consumers exercise their rights. (shrink)

Since their inception, the Perspectives in Logic and Lecture Notes in Logic series have published seminal works by leading logicians. Many of the original books in the series have been unavailable for years, but they are now in print once again. This volume, the fifteenth publication in the Lecture Notes in Logic series, collects papers presented at the symposium 'Reflections on the Foundations of Mathematics' held in celebration of Solomon Feferman's 70th birthday (The 'Feferfest') at Stanford University, California in 1988. (...) Feferman has shaped the field of foundational research for nearly half a century. These papers reflect his broad interests as well as his approach to foundational research, which emphasizes the solution of mathematical and philosophical problems. There are four sections, covering proof theoretic analysis, logic and computation, applicative and self-applicative theories, and philosophy of modern mathematical and logic thought. (shrink)

Wilfred Sieg and Dirk Schlimm. Dedekind's Analysis of Number: Systems and Axioms.

Zuerst im 2CV, dann im umgebauten VW-Bus: Das Zürcher Fotografenpaar Margrit und Ernst Baumann, 1929 bzw. 1928 geboren, begann in den 1950er-Jahren rund um den Erdball zu reisen. Ihre Fotografien publizierten sie in Zeitschriften und Zeitungen wie Stern, Neue Zürcher Zeitung oder Das gelbe Heft und brachten so die Welt in die Wohnzimmer. Kosmopolitan und neugierig kamen sie zu Motiven mit Seltenheitswert: Farbporträts von Che Guevara gehören ebenso dazu wie Reportagen über die letzten Kopfjäger im ecuadorianischen Urwald. Ein Schwerpunkt dieser (...) reich bebilderten Doppelmonografie ist ihre Reise entlang der “Panamericana” 1957-1959, die Süd- und Nordamerika verbindet. Sie fotografierten Reportagen, Porträts und Landschaftsbilder und drehten den wohl ersten Farbfilm über den legendären Verkehrsweg. Dieser Film und ein Filporträt über die beiden Fotografen sind dem Buch auf DVD beigefügt. Das Buch präsentiert Funde aus ihrem Fotoarchiv - viele Bilder erstmals im Originalausschnitt - sowie Publikationen in Zeitschriften. Der Historiker und Schriftsteller Wilfried Meichtry erzählt vom ereignisreichen Leben des Paars, das sich zeitlebens als journalistische Handwerker verstanden hat. Der Fotohistoriker Markus Schürpf ordnet ihr Werk in die Foto- und Pressegeschichte ein, Nadine Olonetzky verfasst Begleittexte zu den Bildern. Eine Entdeckung in der Schweizer Fotogeschichte. (shrink)

Wilfried Sieg. Formal Systems, Church Turing Thesis, and Gödel's Theorems: Three Contributions to The MIT Encyclopedias of Cognitive Science.

English summary: Does pastoral care require ethical competence in order to fulfil its task properly? And, conversely, to what extent does ethical reflection require feedback from pastoral experience in order to remain true to life and of practical relevance? Wilfried Sturm examines the way hospital pastors deal with ethical challenges and conflict situations in neonatal clinics and enquires into the insights that can be gained from them for the relationship of pastoral care and ethics. German description: Braucht Seelsorge ethische (...) Kompetenz, um ihrem Auftrag gerecht zu werden? Inwiefern bedarf umgekehrt die ethische Reflexion der Ruckkopplung an seelsorgerliche Erfahrung, um lebensnah und praxisrelevant zu bleiben? Wilfried Sturm untersucht den Umgang von Klinikseelsorgerinnen und -seelsorgern mit ethischen Herausforderungen und Konfliktsituationen in der Fruh- und Neugeborenenmedizin und fragt, welche Einsichten sich daraus fur das Verhaltnis von Seelsorge und Ethik gewinnen lassen. (shrink)

Thema der vorliegenden Arbeit ist der dialektische Gehalt der wichtigsten bildungstheoretischen Abhandlungen des padagogischen Theoretikers Josef Derbolav. Ergebnis der zum grossten Teil immanent durchgefuhrten Analyse ist der Aufweis, dass Derbolav die dialektische Fassung didaktischer, anthropologischer und handlungstheoretischer Prinzipien aufgrund metaphysischer Denkstrukturen nicht oder nur teilweise gelingt. Inwieweit einige dieser Prinzipien dialektisches Potential enthalten konnten, zeigt der Verfasser anhand der Entwicklung eines eigenen, an der hermeneutischen Philosophie orientierten dialektischen Standpunktes.".

David Hilbert was one of the great mathematicians who expounded the centrality of their subject in human thought. In this collection of essays, Wilfried Sieg frames Hilbert's foundational work, from 1890 to 1939, in a comprehensive way and integrates it with modern proof theoretic investigations.

Demokratische Systeme sind auch dann, wenn sie den grundrechtlichen Forderungen politischer Gerechtigkeit genügen, kritikwürdig und reformbedürftig, solange es ihnen nicht gelingt, allen Bürgern gerechte Anteile an den gesellschaftlich produzierten Reichtümern zu sichern. Bei den Auseinandersetzungen um Arbeitsmarktpolitik, Steuerpolitik, Erziehungspolitik, Meinungs- und Willensfreiheit steht auch Grundsätzlicheres zur Debatte: Was verstehen wir unter sozialer Gerechtigkeit? In Gerechtfertigte Ungleichheiten werden die Grundzüge einer Theorie sozialer Gerechtigkeit entwickelt. Es handelt sich um eine egalitäre Theorie, die soziale Ungleichheit ausdrücklich zulässt, diese aber an das Vorliegen (...) bestimmter öffentlicher Rechtfertigungsgründe bindet. (shrink)

The incompleteness theorems constitute the mathematical core of Gödel’s philosophical challenge. They are given in their “most satisfactory form”, as Gödel saw it, when the formality of theories to which they apply is characterized via Turing machines. These machines codify human mechanical procedures that can be carried out without appealing to higher cognitive capacities. The question naturally arises, whether the theorems justify the claim that the human mind has mathematical abilities that are not shared by any machine. Turing admits that (...) non-mechanical steps of intuition are needed to transcend particular formal theories. Thus, there is a substantive point in comparing Turing’s views with Gödel’s that is expressed by the assertion, “The human mind infinitely surpasses any finite machine”. The parallelisms and tensions between their views are taken as an inspiration for beginning to explore, computationally, the capacities of the human mathematical mind. (shrink)

Using the concept of notations for infinitary derivations we give an explanation of Takeuti's reduction steps on finite derivations (used in his consistency proof for Π1 1-CA) in terms of the more perspicious infinitary approach from [BS88].

In this article we prove that a certain intuitionistic version of the well-known fixed point theory \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $\widehat{\rm ID}_1$\end{document} is conservative over \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $\mbox{\sf HA}$\end{document} for almost negative formulas.

We establish by elementary proof-theoretic means the conservativeness of two subsystems of analysis over primitive recursive arithmetic. The one subsystem was introduced by Friedman [6], the other is a strengthened version of a theory of Minc [14]; each has been shown to be of considerable interest for both mathematical practice and metamathematical investigations. The foundational significance of such conservation results is clear: they provide a direct finitist justification of the part of mathematical practice formalizable in these subsystems. The results are (...) generalized to relate a hierarchy of subsystems, all contained in the theory of arithmetic properties, to a corresponding hierarchy of fragments of arithmetic. The proof theoretic tools employed there are used to re-establish in a uniform, elementary way relationships between various fragments of arithmetic due to Parsons, Paris and Kirby, and Friedman. (shrink)

Hilbert's finitist program was not created at the beginning of the twenties solely to counteract Brouwer's intuitionism, but rather emerged out of broad philosophical reflections on the foundations of mathematics and out of detailed logical work; that is evident from notes of lecture courses that were given by Hilbert and prepared in collaboration with Bernays during the period from 1917 to 1922. These notes reveal a dialectic progression from a critical logicism through a radical constructivism toward finitism; the progression has (...) to be seen against the background of the stunning presentation of mathematical logic in the lectures given during the winter term 1917/18. In this paper, I sketch the connection of Hilbert's considerations to issues in the foundations of mathematics during the second half of the 19th century, describe the work that laid the basis of modern mathematical logic, and analyze the first steps in the new subject of proof theory. A revision of the standard view of Hilbert's and Bernays's contributions to the foundational discussion in our century has long been overdue. It is almost scandalous that their carefully worked out notes have not been used yet to understand more accurately the evolution of modern logic in general and of Hilbert's Program in particular. One conclusion will be obvious: the dogmatic formalist Hilbert is a figment of historical (de)construction! Indeed, the study and analysis of these lectures reveal a depth of mathematical-logical achievement and of philosophical reflection that is remarkable. In the course of my presentation many questions are raised and many more can be explored; thus, I hope this paper will stimulate interest for new historical and systematic work. (shrink)

Herbrand's Theorem, in the form of $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle-}$}}{\exists } $$ -inversion lemmata for finitary and infinitary sequent calculi, is the crucial tool for the determination of the provably total function(al)s of a variety of theories. The theories are (second order extensions of) fragments of classical arithmetic; the classes of provably total functions include the elements of the Polynomial Hierarchy, the Grzegorczyk Hierarchy, and the extended Grzegorczyk Hierarchy $\mathfrak{E}^\alpha $ , α < ε0. A subsidiary aim of the paper is to show (...) that the proof theoretic methods used here are distinguished by technical elegance, conceptual clarity, and wide-ranging applicability. (shrink)

Within the Belgian political system political issues are hard to deal with. The institutions do not provide a problem-solving mechanism : no ref erendum, no direct election of a one-party cabinet. Moreover, electoral campaigns usually involve a lot of heterogeneous issues and almost never focus upon a single one. Active political participation of citizens is, by definition, selective and, compared with electoral participation, limited, although, the number of people taking part in a political demonstration is sometimes considerable. An investigation of (...) the Belgian political elite shows that active political participation, sparked off by a single issue, can be considered as one of the most polyarchie types of political decision-making in Belgium. This involves an increase of tension and conflict, a slowing down of the process of decision-making and a selective accessibility to this type of participation. Belgian politicians try to avoid these difficulties by either opting for non-decision or consociational politics. (shrink)

While the Historische Kulturwissenschaft is introduced as a new way of writing history the question has to be answered what Kultur means or how it should be interpreted. The paper deals primarily with the special German notion of ‘Kultur’. The distinction between ‘intension’ and ‘extension’ is made and contrasted with both the narrow and the wide concept of ‘Kultur’. Writing history as new cultural history is shaped at least by five aspects: space, perspective, language, acting and time which are discussed (...) in this thesis. The intension of ‘Kultur’ in Historische Kulturwissenschaft leads to popularisation. The sense of the popular approach to history emphasizes modality in the conception and writing of history. (shrink)

Dedekind’s structuralism is a crucial source for the structuralism of mathematical practice—with its focus on abstract concepts like groups and fields. It plays an equally central role for the structuralism of philosophical analysis—with its focus on particular mathematical objects like natural and real numbers. Tensions between these structuralisms are palpable in Dedekind’s work, but are resolved in his essay Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? In a radical shift, Dedekind extends his mathematical approach to “the” natural numbers. He creates (...) the abstract concept of a simply infinite system, proves the existence of a “model”, insists on the stepwise derivation of theorems, and defines structure-preserving mappings between different systems that fall under the abstract concept. Crucial parts of these considerations were added, however, only to the penultimate manuscript, for example, the very concept of a simply infinite system. The methodological consequences of this radical shift are elucidated by an analysis of Dedekind’s metamathematics. Our analysis provides a deeper understanding of the essay and, in addition, illuminates its impact on the evolution of the axiomatic method and of “semantics” before Tarski. This understanding allows us to make connections to contemporary issues in the philosophy of mathematics and science. (shrink)

Wilfred Sieg. Mechanical Procedures and Mathematical Experience.