Diese Festgabe zum 60. Geburtstag Seiner Exzellenz Bischof Dr. Alois Schwarz ist Zeichen dankbarer Ruckschau, wachsamen Innehaltens in der Gegenwart und fundierte Reflexion uber die brennenden Erfordernisse der Zukunft. Die Zusammenstellung der Beitrage spiegelt die Themen der unter anderem ausgehend vom Bildungshaus Stift St. Georgen am Langsee in den letzten zehn Jahren gesetzten Initiativen wider. Im Zentrum steht die Auseinandersetzung mit den Rahmenbedingungen fur ethisches Wirtschaften, eine wertorientierte Unternehmensfuhrung und eine der Realwirtschaft dienende Finanzwirtschaft. Die von software-systems.at Finanzdatenservice und SEFO (...) initiierten Congressreihen Finance & Ethics und Finance & Science wurden vom Jubilar von Beginn an mitgetragen. Der Auftrag fur die Zukunft liegt in der Entwicklung adaquater Bildungsmoglichkeiten. Mit dem vorliegenden Band beginnt eine neue Forschungsreihe, die 2010 mit der Buchreihe Finance & Ethics begonnen wurde.". (shrink)

Intelligence on mass media audiences was founded on representative statistical samples, analysed by statisticians at the market departments of media corporations. The techniques for aggregating user data in the age of pervasive and ubiquitous personal media build on large aggregates of information analysed by algorithms that transform data into commodities. While the former technologies were built on socio-economic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, media preferences, Big Data technologies register consumer choice, geographical position, web movement, and behavioural information in (...) technologically complex ways that for most lay people are too abstract to appreciate the full consequences of. The data mined for pattern recognition privileges relational rather than demographic qualities. We argue that the agency of interpretation at the bottom of market decisions within media companies nevertheless introduces a ‘heuristics of the algorithm’, where the data inevitably becomes translated into social categories. In the paper we argue that although the promise of algorithmically generated data is often implemented in automated systems where human agency gets increasingly distanced from the data collected, one can observe a felt need among media users and among industry actors to ‘translate back’ the algorithmically produced relational statistics into ‘traditional’ social parameters. The tenacious social structures within the advertising industries work against the techno-economically driven tendencies within the Big Data economy. (shrink)

According to the classical quantificational analysis of modals, an agent has the ability to perform an act iff relevant facts about the agent and her environment are compatible with her performing the act. The analysis faces a number of problems, many of which can be traced to the fact that it takes even accidental performance of an act as proof of the relevant ability. I argue that ability statements are systematically ambiguous: on one reading, accidental performance really is enough; on (...) another, more is required. The stronger notion of ability plays a central role in normative contexts. Both readings, I argue, can be captured within the classical quantificational framework, provided we allow conversational context to impose restrictions not just on the “accessible worlds”, but also on what counts as a performance of the relevant act among these worlds. (shrink)

I defend a general rule for updating beliefs that takes into account both the impact of new evidence and changes in the subject’s location. The rule combines standard conditioning with a shifting operation that moves the center of each doxastic possibility forward to the next point where information arrives. I show that well-known arguments for conditioning lead to this combination when centered information is taken into account. I also discuss how my proposal relates to other recent proposals, what results it (...) delivers for puzzles like the Sleeping Beauty problem, and whether there are diachronic constraints on rational belief at all. (shrink)

Statements of the form ''Osorno is in Chile'' were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.

Dichotomous categories, such as the West and the rest, primitive and modern, are discussed within a phenomenological theory that suggests humans create structures through which we perceive objects. The perception of culture as an object and its construction through the epistemological practices of fieldwork and interpretation within the metaphor of West and non-Western reveals the structure of sociocultural anthropological inquiry and expresses embodiment of the cosmology of nations. Experiences of, and shared understandings regarding, the body, soul, knowledge, thoughts, emotions, memories, (...) spirits, voice, and speech are compared from descriptions, participant observation, and embodiment as a multi-site ethnographic performance artist expressing new genres of ethnography. Harmony is defined as social location. (shrink)

Theology and the life sciences are mutually dependent on one another in the task of understanding the origin and function of moral behavior. The life sciences investigate morality from the perspective of the historical and communal dimension of humanity and point to survival as the primary function of human behavior. A Christian ethic of self‐sacrifice advances the preservation of the entire human and nonhuman creation and should not, therefore, be objected to by the life sciences. Religion, however, is more than (...) a survival mechanism. It points to a preserving agency beyond humanity and prevents the life sciences from reducing life to its strictly biological side. (shrink)

Periodic tables (PTs) are the ‘ultimate paper tools’ of general and inorganic chemistry. There are three fields of open questions concerning the relation between PTs and physics: (i) the relation between the chemical facts and the concept of a periodic system (PS) of chemical elements (CEs) as represented by PTs; (ii) the internal structure of the PS; (iii)␣The relation between the PS and atomistic quantum chemistry. The main open questions refer to (i). The fuzziness of the concepts of chemical properties (...) and of chemical similarities of the CE and their compounds guarantees the autonomy of chemistry. We distinguish between CEs, Elemental Stuffs and Elemental Atoms. We comment on the basic properties of the basic elements. Concerning (ii), two sharp physical numbers (nuclear charge and number of valence electrons) and two coarse fuzzy ranges (ranges of energies and of spatial extensions of the atomic orbitals, AOs) characterize the atoms of the CEs and determine the two-dimensional structure of the PS. Concerning (iii), some relevant ‘facts’ about and from quantum chemistry are reviewed and compared with common ‘textbook facts’. What counts in chemistry is the whole set of nondiffuse orbitals in low-energy average configurations of chemically bonded atoms. Decisive for the periodicity are the energy gaps between the core and valence shells. Diffuse Rydberg orbitals and minute spin–orbit splittings are important in spectroscopy and for philosophers, but less so in chemical science and for the PS. (shrink)

Magnetism in meta-semantics is the view that the meaning of our words is determined in part by their use and in part by the objective naturalness of candidate meanings. This hypothesis is commonly attributed to David Lewis, and has been put to philosophical work by Brian Weatherson, Ted Sider and others. I argue that there is no evidence that Lewis ever endorsed the view, and that his actual account of language reveals good reasons against it.

Our senses provide us with information about the world, but what exactly do they tell us? I argue that in order to optimally respond to sensory stimulations, an agent’s doxastic space may have an extra, “imaginary” dimension of possibility; perceptual experiences confer certainty on propositions in this dimension. To some extent, the resulting picture vindicates the old-fashioned empiricist idea that all empirical knowledge is based on a solid foundation of sense-datum propositions, but it avoids most of the problems traditionally associated (...) with that idea. The proposal might also explain why experiences appear to have a non-physical phenomenal character, even if the world is entirely physical. (shrink)

In Listening Subjects, David Schwarz uses psychoanalytic techniques to probe the visceral experiences of music listeners.

This study collects oral histories in intersubjective methods. Grounded methods allowed for themes to emerge that revealed strategies of self-definition expressed by survivors of ethnic cleansing. The discussion draws on interdisciplinary literature to broaden the scholarly focus from bounded wholes to historical experience. Political scientists convincingly define Silesia as ethnicity and geographical areas in Europe today, yet this anthropological study focuses on the effects of history (sensu Foucault 1972) as experienced, especially emotionally and traumatically, when geopolitical powers divided families into (...) those who stayed and those forced to leave. The discursive field and historical experience of Silesia is vast. An innovative methodology, the ethnography of historical experience, allows for people's experiences of geopolitical boundaries and nation–states to emerge. Themes that emerge distinguish this discursive field in its polyvocality and heteroglossia as creole and multilingual people who experience the imposition of nation–states repeatedly in history. Intersubjective methods change the subjectivity and singing voice of the text author over the long period of this study, and the silent space of trauma is mutually revoiced. Theory from interdisciplinary fields contextualizes the empirical evidence after the themes emerged. (shrink)

New pedagogical visions and technological developments have brought argumentation to the fore of educational practice. Whereas students previously 'learned to 'argue', they now 'argue to learn': collaborative argumentation-based learning has become a popular and valuable pedagogical technique, across a variety of tasks and disciplines. Researchers have explored the conditions under which arguing to learn is successful, have described some of its learning potentials and have developed Internet-based tools to support such learning. However, the further advancement of this field presently faces (...) several problems, which the present book addresses. Three dimensions of analysis - historical, theoretical and empirical - are integrated throughout the book. Given the nature of its object of study - dialogue, interaction, argumentation, learning and teaching - the book is resolutely multidisciplinary, drawing on research on learning in educational and psychological sciences, as well as on philosophical and linguistic theories of dialogue and argumentation. (shrink)

Some cognitive processes appear to have “phenomenal” properties that are directly revealed to the subject and not determined by physical properties. I suggest that the source of this appearance is the method by which our brain processes sensory information. The appearance is an illusion. Nonetheless, we are not mistaken when we judge that people sometimes fee lpain.

Hofmeister's reply to schwarz's paper: kant's refutation of charitable lies (ethics, Oct. 1970) attacks an imaginary disjunction of two true duties. Hofmeister's maxim 'consciousness' blots out three principal relations in truthfulness. His claim 'falsifications of facts are not immoral in themselves' vitiates all rights based on contract. Schwarz's 'overlooking' of the thematic distinction is refuted by textual evidence. Kant's alleged reversal of his stand draws on a spurious historical source.

ABSTRACT ‘You may have beer or wine’ suggests that you may have beer and you may have wine. Following Klinedinst, I argue that this ‘free choice’ effect is a special kind of scalar implicature, arising from the application of an unspecific predicate to a plurality (of worlds). I show that the implicature can be derived from general norms of cooperative communication, without postulating new grammatical rules or hidden lexical items. The derivation calls for an extension to the classical neo-Gricean model. (...) I give independent arguments for this extension. (shrink)

About Christian philosophy, by J. Maritain.--Von Hildebrand and Marcel: a parallel, by A. Jourdain.--Love and philosophy, by J. V. Walsh.--The concepts of cyclic and evolutionary time, by B. de Solages.--The sovereignty of the object; notes on truth and intellectual humility, by A. Kolnai.--Authentic humanness and its existential primordial assumptions, by C. Marcel.--Individuality and personality, by M. F. Sciacca.--Can a will be essentially good? By H. de Lubac.--Reason and revelation on the subject of charity, by R. W. Gleason.--Technique of spiritualization and (...) transformation in Christ, by J. A. Cuttat.--Some reflections on gratitude, by B. V. Schwarz.--Bibliography of the works of Dietrich Von Hildebrand (p. 195-210). (shrink)

Distinguished contributors take up eminent scholar Daniel R. Schwarz’s reading of modern fiction and poetry as mediating between human desire and human action. The essayists follow Schwarz’s advice, “always the text, always historicize,” thus making this book relevant to current debates about the relationships between literature, ethics, aesthetics, and historical contexts.

David Lewis's position, often called analytic functionalism, was inspired by Ryle's analytic behaviorism, which took psychological predicates to express complex sets of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, the author reviews some tenets of Lewis's philosophy of mind and begins with some comments on the methodology Lewis employed in his analysis of psychological terms, which has become standard in functionalist accounts across philosophy. Then, he discusses the difference between what are often called “realizer functionalism” and “role functionalism,” and argues that Lewis (...) made the wrong choice. In Lewis's argument for the identity theory, the identity of mental states with biological states follows logically from folk‐psychological definitions and broadly physical facts. A central part of folk psychology concerns the interaction of beliefs, desires, and choices. The chapter presents Lewis's often misunderstood account of intentionality. It also presents few pessimistic remarks on the prospect of analyzing phenomenal truths in terms of functional role. (shrink)

Background: Nurses and surgeons may experience intra-team conflict during decision making about the use of postoperative life-sustaining treatment in the intensive care unit due to their perceptions of professional roles and responsibilities. Nurses have a sense of advocacy—a responsibility to support the patient’s best interest; surgeons have a sense of agency—a responsibility to keep the patient alive. Objectives: The objectives were to (1) describe the discourse surrounding the responsibilities of nurses and surgeons, as “advocates” and “agents,” and (2) apply these (...) findings to determine how differences in role responsibilities could foster conflict during decision making about postoperative life-sustaining treatment in the intensive care unit. Research design: Articles, books, and professional documents were explored to obtain descriptions of nurses’ and surgeons’ responsibilities to their patients. Using discourse analysis, responsibilities were grouped into themes and then compared for potential for conflict. Ethical considerations: No data were collected from human participants and ethical review was not required. The texts were analyzed by a surgeon and a nurse to minimize profession-centric biases. Findings: Four themes in nursing discourse were identified: responsibility to support patient autonomy regarding treatment decisions, responsibility to protect the patient from the physician, responsibility to act as an intermediary between the physician and the patient, and the responsibility to support the well-being of the patient. Three themes in surgery discourse were identified personal responsibility for the patient’s outcome, commitment to patient survival, and the responsibility to prevent harm to the patient from surgery. Discussion: These responsibilities may contribute to conflict because each profession is working toward different goals and each believes they know what is best for the patient. It is not clear from the existing literature that either profession understands each other’s responsibilities. Conclusion: Interventions that improve understanding of each profession’s responsibilities may be helpful to reduce intra-team conflict in the intensive care unit. (shrink)