Wolfgang Welsch examines global aestheticization phenomena, probes the relationship of aesthetics and ethics, and considers the broad relevance of aesthetics for contemporary thinking. He argues that modes of thought familiar from the aesthetic realm comprise fundamental paradigms for understanding todayÆs reality. The implications for specific and everyday issues are demonstrated in studies of architecture, advertising, the Internet, and our perception of the life world. Surgically precise, innovative, and, above all, relevant, this book is an essential resource, providing the analysis (...) of contemporary culture with philosophical bite. Aesthetics is to transcend itself, address the whole realm of aethesis, and hence enable orientation in the contemporary condition. Undoing aesthetics means releasing it from old cultural binds and giving it new ties with the future. (shrink)

We argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical perspective on Gödel’s most famous theorem is even more radical than has commonly been assumed. Wittgenstein shows in detail that there is no way that the Gödelian construct of a string of signs could be assigned a useful function within (ordinary) mathematics. — The focus is on Appendix III to Part I of Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The present reading highlights the exceptional importance of this particular set of remarks and, more specifically, emphasises (...) its refined composition and rigorous internal structure. (shrink)

This book is about the interrelationship between nature, semiosis, metarepresentation and (self-)consciousness, and the role played by metarepresentation in ...

This paper aims to contribute to an ongoing and controversial debate about non-conceptuality in Kantian aesthetics. It is a replica on a paper of Dietmar Heidemann in Con-Textos Kantianos N.° 12, to which I do consent, but I’d like to give some additional comments on a specific issue: I show in this paper that the problem about whether or not the understanding contributes to aesthetic judgment can be elucidated by means of a revaluation of the imagination’s capacity of formal representation (...) and the subsuming activity of the power of reflective judgment. I argue that the understanding is considered by the power of reflective judgment merely in his lawfulness in order to find a universal under which the imagination’s particular, the formal representation of the beautiful shape, can be subsumed. (shrink)

The book demonstrates for the first time that transculturality – the mixed constitution of cultures – is by no means only a characteristic of the present, but has de facto determined the composition of cultures since time immemorial. This is demonstated using examples from the arts across all cultures and continents.

Based on the exactly solvable case of a harmonic oscillator, we show that the direct correspondence between the Bohr-Sommerfeld phase of semiclassical quantum mechanics and the topological phase of Aharonov and Anandan is restricted to the case of a coherent state. For other Gaussian wave packets the geometric quantum phase strongly depends on the amount of squeezing.

Communication is inherent to social relationships. Previous papers addressed the correlation between social and communicative complexity, and the origin of sociality in rodents. In subterranean social species, as the number of animals in the same burrow increases, so do interindividual contact rates. This is because of limitations in actually used tunnel length and diameter, leading to an increasing number of agonistic situations probably resulting in time loss, threatening, and fighting with danger of injuries. To avoid this, social species are expected (...) to have an increase in the number of particular vocalizations. Comparison of the adult vocal repertoire of 12 species through regression and phylogenetically independent contrasts suggests three main conclusions: social species increase their repertoire both in number and categories of vocal signals in relation to solitary species, although the coefficient was smaller in the PIC model; the number of agonistic vocalizations was also different between solitary and social species, with the latter displaying higher numbers of these calls; the percentage of agonistic vocalizations in relation to total repertoire was similar between social and solitary species, with no significant relationship between this parameter and the social structure. These results imply that agonistic vocalizations have also increased in number in social species, indicating the importance of these calls in the establishment of new relationships. As repertoire changes are essential to cope with new and frequent kinds of interactions sociality originates, these results suggest that at least for these organisms, communicative changes, especially at the level of agonistic signals, could be a necessary condition to fulfill in the path to the possibility of group living. (shrink)

Concentrating upon applications that are most relevant to modern physics, this valuable book surveys variational principles and examines their relationship to dynamics and quantum theory. Stressing the history and theory of these mathematical concepts rather than the mechanics, the authors provide many insights into the development of quantum mechanics and present much hard-to-find material in a remarkably lucid, compact form. After summarizing the historical background from Pythagoras to Francis Bacon, Professors Yourgrau and Mandelstram cover Fermat's principle of least time, the (...) principle of least action of Maupertuis, development of this principle by Euler and Lagrange, and the equations of Lagrange and Hamilton. Equipped by this thorough preparation to treat variational principles in general, they proceed to derive Hamilton's principle, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, and Hamilton's canonical equations. An investigation of electrodynamics in Hamiltonian form covers next, followed by a resume of variational principles in classical dynamics. The authors then launch into an analysis of their most significant topics: the relation between variational principles and wave mechanics, and the principles of Feynman and Schwinger in quantum mechanics. Two concluding chapters extend the discussion to hydrodynamics and natural philosophy. Professional physicists, mathematicians, and advanced students with a strong mathematical background will find this stimulating volume invaluable reading. Extremely popular in its hardcover edition, this volume will find even wider appreciation in its first fine inexpensive paperbound edition. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents: Vorbemerkung/Preface. Dagfin FØLLESDAL: Bolzano's Legacy. Jan BERG: Bolzano, the Prescient Encyclopedist. Jan SEBESTIK: Bolzano, Exner and the Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Paul RUSNOCK: Bolzano and the Traditions of Analysis. Peter SIMONS: Bolzano on Collections. Ali BEHBOUD: Remarks on Bolzano's Collections. Mark SIEBEL: Variation, Derivability and Necessity. Edgar MORSCHER: Bolzano's Method of Variation: Three Puzzles. Rolf GEORGE: Bolzano's Programme andObjects. Mark TEXTOR: Bolzano's Sententialism. Wolfgang KÜNNE: Propositions in Bolzano and Frege. Michael DUMMETT: Comments on Wolfgang Künne's (...) Paper. Carsten Uwe GIESKE: Bolzano's Notion of Testifying. (shrink)

We consider an oscillator subjected to a sudden change in equilibrium position or in effective spring constant, or both—to a “squeeze” in the language of quantum optics. We analyze the probability of transition from a given initial state to a final state, in its dependence on final-state quantum number. We make use of five sources of insight: Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization via bands in phase space, area of overlap between before-squeeze band and after-squeeze band, interference in phase space, Wigner function as quantum (...) update of B-S band and near-zone Fresnel diffraction as mockup Wigner function. (shrink)