Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Studie basiert auf einer quantitativ-qualitativen Erhebung der Arbeitsbedingungen und -zufriedenheit des religionswissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses (d. h. ohne unbefristete Anstellung als Professor*in). Die Erhebung wurde von Mai bis Juli 2022 vom Arbeitskreis Mittelbau und Nachwuchs (AKMN) der Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft (DVRW) durchgeführt. Sie ist eine erweiterte Variante einer Erhebung von 2015. Auf der Grundlage der Umfrageergebnisse werden die Arbeitsbedingungen und ihre Auswirkungen auf berufliche Perspektiven und persönliche Lebensumstände der Betroffenen beschrieben und mit denen von 2015 verglichen. Zudem werden (...) die speziellen Herausforderungen während der Corona-Pandemie dargestellt. Die Studie ist nicht nur eine aussagekräftige Untersuchung der Entwicklung der Arbeitsbedingungen des religionswissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses, sondern auch ein Beitrag zur derzeit intensiv geführten Debatte um Beschäftigungsverhältnisse an deutschen Universitäten. (shrink)

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Philodemus' History of the Academy represents a valuable treatise on Greek philosophical schools containing much unique information on Plato and on the development of the Academy under his successors. The so called Index Academicorum is a draft version preserved in a Herculaneum papyrus, which has been reread and reedited on the basis of innovative papyrological criteria and pioneering imaging techniques. The text is now very different from former editions and reveals countless new facts on various Academic philosophers. The edition and (...) the commentary provide new insights of interdisciplinary relevance into ancient philosophy, biography, literature and the ancient process of writing a book. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDepression is marked by rigid thinking and the inability to generate different and more positive views on the self. The current study conceptualises this a perspective-taking deficit, which is defined as a deficit in the ability to overcome one’s egocentrism. Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with depression are impaired in Theory of Mind reasoning and empathy – two social cognitions that involve cognitive and affective perspective-taking. Here, it was investigated whether these deficits generalise to visuo-spatial perspective-taking. To test this, (...) a convenience sample completed a test-battery including measures of cognitive and visuo-spatial perspective-taking and closely matched cognitive and visuo-spatial control tasks. The results showed that individuals exhibiting high levels of depressive symptoms were specifically impaired on both perspective-taking tasks but performed equally well on the cont... (shrink)

La discussion sur la doctrine trinitaire d'Origène entraîne nécessairement des questions sur sa pneumatologie. Comme en ce qui concerne le Fils, Origène considère l'Esprit à partir de l'invisible Déité. Il s'appuie sur une logique du Logos : la théologie du Fils est normative pour celle de l'Esprit. Comme l'Eglise pré-nicéenne en général, Origène a un vocabulaire hérétique qui subordonne les trois personnes de la Trinité mais les textes en question sont davantage économiques qu'ontologiques. Selon lui, l'Esprit a-t-il un rôle inférieur (...) au Logos ? Sa pneumatologie est-elle trinitaire ? L'article tente une réponse à ces questions. (shrink)

Deux assomptions ont été faites au sujet du refus du Pape Pie XII à aller au-delà de condamnations génériques de l'Holocauste Nazi. 1. La politique était dictée par peur de représailles contre les Catholiques et les Juifs. 2. La peur de représailles contre les Juifs était essentiellement une excuse pour ne rien faire ou rester au niveau de condamnations génériques. Mais les organisations juives elles-mêmes ont souvent cité la peur de représailles contre les Juifs comme la raison d'une restrainte dans (...) les déclarations publiques. Bien que la peur des représailles fut un élément formatif de la politique diplomatique du Vatican, la politique n'est pas venue de la peur, comme on peut le voir de l'histoire de condamnations génériques en d'autres contextes de guerre où les atrocités furent en jeu, entre autres en Arménie sous Benoît XV, en Espagne et Abyssinie sous Pie XI, de même qu'en Pologne et en Russie sous Pie XII. Deux fois Benoît XV fit un appel direct au Sultan de Turquie, mentionnant les Arménians spécifiquement trois fois, parlant de «souffrances indicibles», mais sans mentionner des noms personnels, des noms de lieu, des dates, des batailles. Bien que la condamnation resta générique, Benoît XV est considéré un héro national Arménien. Pendant la guerre civile en Espagne les républicains «incontrôlables» ont assassiné plus de cinq mille prêtres, moines et séminaristes pendant les trois premiers mois de la guerre et à la fin de. (shrink)

The problem of finding sufficient doxastic conditions for backward induction in games of perfect information is analyzed in a syntactic framework with subjunctive conditionals. This allows to describe the structure of the game by a logical formula and consequently to treat beliefs about this structure in the same way as beliefs about rationality. A backward induction and a non-Nash equilibrium result based on higher level belief in rationality and the structure of the game are derived.

In vision research metacontrast masking is a widely used technique to reduce the visibility of a stimulus. Typically, studies attempt to reveal general principles that apply to a large majority of participants and tend to omit possible individual differences. The neural plasticity of the visual system, however, entails the potential capability for individual differences in the way observers perform perceptual tasks. We report a case of perceptual learning in a metacontrast masking task that leads to the enhancement of two types (...) of adult human observers despite identical learning conditions. In a priming task both types of observers exhibited the same priming effects, which were insensitive to learning. Findings suggest that visual processing of target stimuli in the metacontrast masking task is based on neural levels with sufficient plasticity to enable the development of two types of observers, which do not contribute to processing of target stimuli in the priming task. (shrink)

A syntactic formalism for the modeling of belief revision in perfect information games is presented that allows to define the rationality of a player's choice of moves relative to the beliefs he holds as his respective decision nodes have been reached. In this setting, true common belief in the structure of the game and rationality held before the start of the game does not imply that backward induction will be played. To derive backward induction, a “forward belief” condition is formulated (...) in terms of revised rather than initial beliefs. Alternative notions of rationality as well as the use of knowledge instead of belief are also studied within this framework. Footnotes1 I would like to thank Wlodek Rabinowicz and three anonymous referees for very helpful comments. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz soll der Takt als ein moral- und tugendrelevantes Phänomen bestimmt werden. Ausgehend von einer kontrastierenden Abgrenzung gegenüber anderen Umgangsformen, wendet er sich wichtigen Theoriestücken zu, die sich explizit mit dem Takt befassen, um an ihnen entscheidende problematische Aspekte aufzuzeigen und zu korrigieren. Anschließend erfolgt die handlungstheoretische Erklärung als einer Form des Perspektivenwechsels. Diese erlaubt es zugleich, auch die moralische Dimension des Takts und seinen Status als Tugend zu fokussieren, die zwar nicht nur, aber vor allem in einer (...) multidimensional charakterisierbaren demokratischen Gesellschaft ihren relevanten Ort hat. (shrink)

During the past decade, the so-called “hypothesis of cognitive extension,” according to which the material vehicles of some cognitive processes are spatially distributed over the brain and the extracranial parts of the body and the world, has received lots of attention, both favourable and unfavourable. The debate has largely focussed on three related issues: (1) the role of parity considerations, (2) the role of functionalism, and (3) the importance of a mark of the cognitive. This paper critically assesses these issues (...) and their interconnections. Section 1 provides a brief introduction. Section 2 argues that some of the most prominent objections against the appeal to parity considerations fail. Section 3 shows that such considerations are nevertheless unsuitable as an argument for cognitive extension. First, the actual argumentative burden is carried by an underlying commitment to functionalism, not by the parity considerations themselves. Second, in the absence of an independently motivated mark of the cognitive, the argument based on parity considerations does not get off the ground, but given such a mark, it is superfluous. Section 4 argues that a similar dilemma arises for the attempt to defend cognitive extension by a general appeal to functionalism. Unless it can be independently settled what it is for a process to be cognitive, functionalism itself will be undermined by the possibility of cognitive extension. Like parity considerations, functionalism is thus either unable to support cognitive extension or superfluous. Hence, nothing short of the specification of an appropriate mark of the cognitive that can be fulfilled not only by intracranial but also by extended processes will do as an argument for cognitive extension. (shrink)

Recent studies on neural pathways in a broad spectrum of vertebrates suggest that, in addition to migration and an increase in the number of certain select neurons, a significant aspect of neural evolution is a “parcellation” (segregation-isolation) process that involves the loss of selected connections by the new aggregates. A similar process occurs during ontogenetic development. These findings suggest that in many neuronal systems axons do not invade unknown territories during evolutionary or ontogenetic development but follow in their ancestors' paths (...) to their ancestral targets; if the connection is later lost, it reflects the specialization of the circuitry.The pattern of interspecific variability suggests (1) that overlap of circuits is a more common feature in primitive (generalized) than in specialized brain organizations and (2) that most projections, such as the retinal, thalamotelencephalic, corticotectal, and tectal efferent ones, were bilateral in the primitive condition. Specialization of these systems in some vertebrate groups has involved the selective loss of connections, resulting in greater isolation of functions. The parcellation process may also play an important role in cell diversification.The parcellation process as described here is thought to be one of several underlying mechanisms of evolutionary and ontogenetic differentiation. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a syntactic framework for the analysis ofstrategic form games that is based on a straightforward combination ofstandard systems of doxastic, probabilistic and conditionalpropositional logic. In particular, for the probabilistic part I makeuse of the axiomatization provided in Fagin and Halpern (1994). The use ofconditionals allows to represent a strategic form game by a logicalformula in a very natural way. Also expected utility maximization can benaturally captured. I use this framework to prove a version of a (...) resulton Nash equilibrium conjectures first presented in Aumann and Brandenburger (1995). (shrink)

In the so-called “international credit market crisis,” which started in the second half of 2007 in the US subprime mortgage market, financial derivatives, most notably credit default swaps (CDS), have been publically blamed for having caused, or at least aggravated, the economic and monetary debacle. However, sound economic [...].

Justification as Ignorance offers an original account of epistemic justification as both non-factive and luminous, vindicating core internalist intuitions without construing justification as an internal condition knowable by reflection alone. Sven Rosenkranz conceives of justification, in its doxastic and propositional varieties, as a kind of epistemic possibility of knowing and of being in a position to know. His account contrasts with recent alternative views that characterize justification in terms of the metaphysical possibility of knowing. Instead, he develops a suitable (...) non-normal multi-modal epistemic logic for knowledge and being in a position to know that respects the finding that these notions create hyperintensional contexts. He also defends his conception of justification against well-known anti-luminosity arguments, shows that the account allows for fruitful applications and principled solutions to the lottery and preface paradoxes, and provides a metaphysics of justification and its varying degrees of strength that is compatible with core assumptions of the knowledge-first approach and disjunctivist conceptions of mental states. (shrink)

On the basis of comparative views on social theories that deal with the normative foundations of modern societies (such as those of Bourdieu, Durkheim and Luhmann), the genesis of law is examined in the light of Norbert Elias’ reflexions on the process of civilization. One crucial element is the surmounting of the traditional division between micro and macro structures, which, in Elias’ thought, can be achieved by taking into account the relation between sociogenesis and psychogenesis. The psychogenetic development serves as (...) main focus, which - with regard also to Philosophical Anthropology - is examined in it’s effects on the emergence of legal awareness. (shrink)

Many scholars claim that Frege's theory of colouring is committed to a radical form of subjectivism or emotivism. Some other scholars claim that Frege's concept of colouring is a precursor to Grice's notion of conventional implicature. I argue that both of these claims are mistaken. Finally, I propose a taxonomy of Fregean colourings: for Frege, there are purely aesthetic colourings, communicative colourings or hints, non-communicative colourings.

Mental causation, our mind's ability to causally affect the course of the world, is part and parcel of our ‘manifest image’ of the world. That there is mental causation is denied by virtually no one. How there can be such a thing as mental causation, however, is far from obvious. In recent years, discussions about the problem of mental causation have focused on Jaegwon Kim's so-called Causal Exclusion Argument, according to which mental events are ‘screened off’ or ‘preempted’ by physical (...) events unless mental causation is a genuine case of overdetermination or mental properties are straightforwardly reducible to physical properties. (shrink)

Mental causation, our mind's ability to causally affect the course of the world, is part and parcel of our ‘manifest image’ of the world. That there is mental causation is denied by virtually no one. How there can be such a thing as mental causation, however, is far from obvious. In recent years, discussions about the problem of mental causation have focused on Jaegwon Kim's so-called Causal Exclusion Argument, according to which mental events are ‘screened off’ or ‘preempted’ by physical (...) events unless mental causation is a genuine case of overdetermination or mental properties are straightforwardly reducible to physical properties. (shrink)

In metacontrast masking target visibility is modulated by the time until a masking stimulus appears. The effect of this temporal delay differs across participants in such a way that individual human observers’ performance shows distinguishable types of masking functions which remain largely unchanged for months. Here we examined whether individual differences in masking functions depend on different response criteria in addition to differences in discrimination sensitivity. To this end we reanalyzed previously published data and conducted a new experiment for further (...) data analyses. Our analyses demonstrate that a distinction of masking functions based on the type of masking stimulus is superior to a distinction based on the target–mask congruency. Individually different masking functions are based on individual differences in discrimination sensitivities and in response criteria. Results suggest that individual differences in metacontrast masking result from individually different criterion contents. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed reconstruction of Frege’s theory of side-thoughts and its relation to other parts of his pragmatics, most notably to the notion of colouring, to the notion of presupposition, and to his implicit notion of multi-propositionality. I also highlight some important differences between the subsemantic categories employed by Frege and those used in contemporary pragmatics.

According to T. M. Scanlon's 'buck-passing' analysis of value, x is good means that x has properties that provide reasons to take up positive attitudes vis-à-vis x. Some authors have claimed that this idea can be traced back to Franz Brentano, who said in 1889 that the judgement that x is good is the judgement that a positive attitude to x is correct ('richtig'). The most discussed problem in the recent literature on buckpassing is known as the 'wrong kind of (...) reason' problem (the WKR problem): it seems quite possible that there is sometimes reason to favour an object although that object is not good and possibly very evil. The problem is to delineate exactly what distinguishes reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind. In this paper we offer a Brentano-style solution. We also note that one version of the WKR problem was put forward by G. E. Moore in his review of the English translation of Brentano's Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. Before getting to how our Brentano-style approach might offer a way out for Brentano and the buck-passers, we briefly consider and reject an interesting attempt to solve the WKR problem recently proposed by John Skorupski. (shrink)

The author argues that there is no such thing as a unique and general taxonomy of non-at-issue contents. Accordingly, we ought to shun large categories such as “conventional implicature”, “F-implicature”, “CI”, “Class B” or the like. As an alternative, we may, first, describe the “semantic profile” of linguistic devices as accurately as possible. Second, we may explicitly tailor our categories to particular theoretical purposes.

In recent years, several cases about the legal personhood of nonhuman animals garnered global attention, e.g. the recognition of ‘basic rights’ for the Argentinian great apes Sandra and Cecilia. Legal scholars have embraced the animal turn, blurring the once sovereign boundaries between persons and objects, recognising nonhuman beings as legal subjects. The zoonotic origins of the Covid-19 pandemic stress the urgency of establishing ‘global animal law’ and deconstructing anthropocentrism. To this end, it is vital to also consider the extensive premodern (...) legal history that humans share with other animals. Over 200 so-called animal trials have been documented in premodern Europe. In these proceedings, certain nonhuman animals—particularly domestic pigs—were prosecuted, often resulting in their capital punishment or anathema. This paper takes a history of ideas approach to these historical instances where Western philosophy of law and philosophical anthropology intersect, problematising the notion that such trials constitute wholesome precedents of the kind of legal personhood presently debated in jurisprudence. My counter-hegemonic analysis of the legal prosecution and execution of several pigs in fifteenth-century France demonstrates that late mediaeval notions of criminality transcended the alleged human-nonhuman divide whilst reaffirming and reifying human distinctiveness. I propose that pig trials were local laboratories where Christian communities reflected upon the natural hierarchy of God’s creation. Ensuing the apparent breach of the prescribed boundaries of nature, these communities renegotiated and re-naturalised everyday interspecies sociability by utilising the offending animals to exemplify particular norms about what it means to be human, generally to the animals’ detriment. (shrink)

How do we ascribe subjective probability? In decision theory, this question is often addressed by representation theorems, going back to Ramsey (1926), which tell us how to define or measure subjective probability by observable preferences. However, standard representation theorems make strong rationality assumptions, in particular expected utility maximization. How do we ascribe subjective probability to agents which do not satisfy these strong rationality assumptions? I present a representation theorem with weak rationality assumptions which can be used to define or measure (...) subjective probability for partly irrational agents. (shrink)

Following the recent call for advancement in knowledge about business ethics in East Asia, this study proposes a complementary perspective on business ethics in South Korea. We challenge the conventional view that South Korea is a strictly collectivist country, where group norms and low trust determine the norms and values of behavior. Using the concept of civil religion, we suggest that the center of the South Korean civil religion can be seen in the affective ties and networks pervading the economic, (...) political, and social institutions, embedded in and guided by Confucian ideals. We argue that South Korea should be seen not as a collectivist low-trust society, but rather as an affective-relational society, in which the relational context determines whether collectivism or individualism prevails. Further, we assert that trust, the cohesive factor of affective ties and networks, has until now been inadequately captured by conventional surveys. Our proposed perspective contributes to a more holistic picture and a more firmly grounded understanding of business ethics in South Korea. (shrink)

PurposeIn this article, we aim to present and defend a contextual approach to mathematical explanation.MethodTo do this, we introduce an epistemic reading of mathematical explanation.ResultsThe epistemic reading not only clarifies the link between mathematical explanation and mathematical understanding, but also allows us to explicate some contextual factors governing explanation. We then show how several accounts of mathematical explanation can be read in this approach.ConclusionThe contextual approach defended here clears up the notion of explanation and pushes us towards a pluralist vision (...) on mathematical explanation. (shrink)

Sven Bernecker presents an analysis of the concept of propositional (or factual) memory, and examines a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues crucial to the understanding of memory. -/- Bernecker argues that memory, unlike knowledge, implies neither belief nor justification. There are instances where memory, though hitting the mark of truth, succeeds in an epistemically defective way. This book shows that, contrary to received wisdom in epistemology, memory not only preserves epistemic features generated by other epistemic sources but also (...) functions as a source of justification and knowledge. According to the causal theory of memory argued for in this book, the dependence of memory states on past representations supports counterfactuals of the form: if the subject hadn't represented a given proposition in the past he wouldn't represent it in the present. The book argues for a version of content externalism whereupon the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past physical or social environment. Moreover, Bernecker shows that memory doesn't require identity, but only similarity, of past and present attitudes and contents. The notion of content similarity is explicated in terms of the entailment relation. (shrink)

This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of their political activation – (...) albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism. (shrink)

So far overlooked by the international business ethics literature, we introduce, characterize, and normatively analyze the use of affective ties and networks in South Korea from an ethical point of view. Whereas the ethics of using Guanxi in China has been comprehensively discussed, Korean informal networks remain difficult to manage for firms in South Korea due to the absence of existing academic debate and research in this field. In this study, we concentrate mainly on the question of whether foreign firms (...) will and can use affective ties in Korea. The informal social network forms are classified and contrasted with the conventional ethical approaches used in international business ethics to assess which categories can be regarded as ethical or unethical. Finally, foreign firms are advised how to cope with and use different affective network types. Although the nature of affective ties and networks in Korea differs from that found for instance in China, consistent with the conclusion of prior research, we recommend particularistic analysis and decision making regarding the circumstances in which to conclude affective ties and networks and when to opt out. We conclude that foreign firms in Korea should invest in establishing Inmaek, refrain from engaging in Yonjul, and support host country nationals’ Yongo ties. Moreover, it is suggested that foreign firms should find ways to monitor and manage informal ties effectively. (shrink)

We argue that non-epistemic values, including moral ones, play an important role in the construction and choice of models in science and engineering. Our main claim is that non-epistemic values are not only “secondary values” that become important just in case epistemic values leave some issues open. Our point is, on the contrary, that non-epistemic values are as important as epistemic ones when engineers seek to develop the best model of a process or problem. The upshot is that models are (...) neither value-free, nor depend exclusively on epistemic values or use non-epistemic values as tie-breakers. (shrink)

In this paper, we apply imprinting theory to examine how institutional transformation substantially influences perceptions of corruption that we argue to be incorporated to a varying extent in organizations founded in that period. For this purpose, we compare the effect of a sudden shock (dissolution of the Soviet Union) on the managers' present perceptions to that of a steady transition (EU accession). We consult the 5th round of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey from 2012 to 2014 analyzing 4715 (...) interviews with managers of organizations from twelve Central and Eastern European countries. Our results reveal striking differences in the present perception of corruption for organizations founded immediately before and immediately after these institutional transitions. The study's results contribute to the research on imprinting theory regarding the relationship between organizations and institutional conditions that constitutes a lasting effect on organizational structures. Thus, applying an institutional perspective that considers less stable periods for organizations yields a promising avenue in research on organizational behavior. (shrink)