Evidence is accumulating that individual and environmental factors in childhood and adolescence should be considered when investigating adult health and aging-related processes. The data required for this is gathered by comprehensive long-term longitudinal studies. This article describes the protocol of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies (ZLS), a set of three comprehensive cohort studies on child growth, health, and development that are currently expanding into adulthood. Between 1954 and 1961, 445 healthy infants were enrolled in the first ZLS cohort. Their physical, motor, (...) cognitive, and social development and their environment were assessed comprehensively across childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood. In the 1970s, two further cohorts were added to the ZLS and assessed with largely matched study protocols: Between 1974 and 1979, the second ZLS cohort included 265 infants (103 term-born and 162 preterm infants), and between 1970 and 2002, the third ZLS cohort included 327 children of participants of the first ZLS cohort. Since 2019, the participants of the three ZLS cohorts have been traced and invited to participate in a first wave of assessments in adulthood to investigate their current health and development. This article describes the ZLS study protocol and discusses opportunities, methodological and conceptual challenges, and limitations arising from a long-term longitudinal cohort recruited from a study about development in early life. In the future, the ZLS will provide data to investigate childhood antecedents of adult health outcomes and, ultimately, will help respond to the frequent call of scientists to shift the focus of aging research into the first decades of life and, thus, to take a lifespan perspective on aging. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to propose a new categorization of a specific set of aesthetic concepts, using Sibley’s theory of the aesthetic concepts as a starting point. I discuss the status of aesthetic concepts connected with pleasure and the role of aesthetic pleasure. I examine Sibley’s theory and the importance of its results for the conceptual art. Then, I compare Sibley’s theory and Kant’s theory specifically on the theme of judgment, universal agreement and pleasure. I finally propose to (...) look at these theories as complementary (they deal with the same problems but Sibley takes an objective position, since his main focus is the object and its properties, while in Kant’s theory the focus is on the subject) since they achieve important results for the theory of aesthetic concepts, both from the perspective of the subject and from the perspective of the object. (shrink)

Wittgenstein, possibly the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century, is often labelled a Neopositivist, a New-Kantian, even a Sceptic. _Questions on Wittgenstein_, first published in 1988, presents a selection of nine essays investigating a matter of vital philosophical importance: Wittgenstein’s relationship to his Austrian predecessors and peers. The intention throughout is to determine the precise contours of Wittgenstein’s own thought by situating it within its formative context. Although it remains of particular interest to Anglo-Saxon philosophers, special familiarity with Austrian (...) philosophy is required to appreciate the subtle and profound influence which this cultural and philosophical setting had on Wittgenstein’s intellectual development. Professor Haller has spent his career exploring these themes, and is one of the foremost authorities on both Wittgenstein and contemporary Austrian philosophy. Questions on Wittgenstein thus offers a unique insight into the twentieth-century tradition of Austrian philosophy, and its importance for Wittgenstein’s thought. (shrink)

. Die Bedeutung von Frieden als Grundwert steht außer Frage. Krieg wird seit jeher als eines der größten, von Menschen verursachtes Übel angesehen. Es ist daher überraschend, dass eher Theorien und Anschauungen vorzuherrschen scheinen, welche dauerhaften Frieden für unmöglich halten, sogar Gewalt als Mittel für die Durchsetzung politischer Ziele ansehen, den Krieg als „Vater aller Dinge“ betrachten, Pazifismus weithin diskriminiert wird. Als Gegenpol zu diesen Anschauungen wird Kants Theorie des Ewigen Friedens dargestellt. Sie ist denkbar einfach und stark: an Krieg (...) sind vor allem (militärische, wirtschaftliche und politische) Eliten interessiert, das Volk hat nur die Kosten von Kriegen zu tragen. Demokratien werden daher untereinander keine Kriege mehr führen; wenn es auch noch eine Völkerbund zur Schlichtung von zwischenstaatlichen Konflikten gäbe, würde ein dauerhafter Frieden auf der Welt möglich. Im Kapitel werden Argumente dafür vorgebracht, die belegen, dass Kants Theorie kein weltfremder Idealismus ist, sondern einige der von ihm geforderte Neuerungen bereits eingeführt haben. Die Gründung der Vereinten Nationen war ein entscheidender Schritt in dieser Hinsicht. Aber auch die Friedensbewegungen, Formen des gewaltlosen Widerstands, die internationale wirtschaftliche Verflechtung und die atomare Bedrohung sind Kräfte, welche der Idee des Weltfriedens Realitätsgehalt verleihen. (shrink)

A famous and frequently quoted sentence by Max Weber states: "Interests, not ideas, directly govern the actions of people. However, the 'worldviews' created by 'ideas' have often determined the paths in which the dynamics of interests propelled action." Recent sociology, however, has not done justice to this principle. Values and their effects are either assumed to be given (as in the case of Talcott Parsons) or considered entirely irrelevant (as in Rational Choice and System Theory). Extensive empirical research on values (...) has yielded many results but has largely lacked a theoretical foundation, making its findings often contestable. Weber himself provided only unsatisfactory answers regarding the relevance of values: The decision for specific values is a purely individual matter, and there is an irreconcilable struggle between different values. This book comprehensively examines this issue for the first time in sociology and finds a new, constructive, and explanatory solution - drawing on authors such as Immanuel Kant, George H. Mead, and Raymond Boudon. It is utilizing considerations from philosophy, social theory, and empirical social research, as well as incorporating historical struggles for the recognition and enforcement of values. It can be determined that there are fundamental societal values, that their number can be clearly defined, and that there is not necessarily conflict between them, but rather complementarity. With these theses and findings, this book can be regarded as a new sociological standard work. It is also of fundamental importance for students and researchers in many other humanities and social science disciplines. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents: Rudolf HALLER: Zwei Vorworte in einem. Evelyn DÖLLING: Alexius Meinong: "Der blinde Seher Theiresias". Jaakko HINTIKKA: Meinong in a Long Perspective. Richard SYLVAN: Re-Exploring Item-Theory. Francesca MODENATO: Meinong's Theory of Objects: An Attempt at Overcoming Psychologism. Jan WOLE??N??SKI: Ways of Dealing with Non-existence. Karel LAMBERT: Substitution and the Expansion of the World. Terence PARSONS: Meinongian Semantics Generalized. Reinhardt GROSSMANN: Thoughts, Objectives and States of Affairs. Peter SIMONS: Meinong's Theory of Sense and Reference. Barry SMITH: More Things (...) in Heaven and Earth. Michele LENOCI: Meinongs unvollständige Gegenstände und das Universalienproblem. Maria E. REICHER: Gibt es unvollständige Gegenstände? Dale JACQUETTE: Meinong's Concept of Implexive Being and Nonbeing. Herbert HOCHBERG:s, Functions, Existence and Relations in the Russell-Meinong Dispute, the Bradley Paradox and the Realism-Nominalism Controversy. Jacek PA_NICZEK: Are Contradictions Still Lurking in Meinongian Theories of Objects? Marie-Luise SCHUBERT KALSI: Apriorische Elemente im Denken. Liliana ALBERTAZZI: Forms of Completion. Johann Ch. MAREK: Zwei Gegenstände und ein Inhalt. Zur Intentionalität bei Meinong. Wolfgang KÜNNE: Some Varieties of Thinking. Reflections on Meinong and Fodor. Alberto VOLTOLINI: Is Meaning Without Actually Existing Reference Naturalizable? Markus S. STEPANIANS: Russells Kritik an Meinongs Begriff des Annahmeschlusses. Nenad MIŠ_EVI_: Imagination and Necessity. R.D. ROLLINGER: Meinong on Perception: Two Questions Concerning Propositional Seeing. Wolfgang G. STOCK: Die Genese der Theorie der Vorstellungsproduktion der Grazer Schule. Rudolf HALLER: Über Meinongs Wissenschaftstheorie. Alfred SCHRAMM: Meinongs Wahrscheinlichkeit. Karl SCHUHMANN: Der Wertbegriff beim frühen Meinong. Wilhelm BAUMGARTNER: Wertpräsentation. Ursula ZEGLÉN: Meinong's Analysis of Lying. Seppo SAJAMA: Hitting Reality: France Veber's Concept of Zadevanje. Matja_ POTR_: Sensation According to Meinong and Veber. Róbert SOMOS: Zwei Schüler Brentanos: Ákos von Pauler und Meinong. J.C. NYÍRI: Palágyis Kritik an der Gegenstandstheorie. David M. ARMSTRONG: Reaction to Meinong. (shrink)

The study's goal was to examine the socially responsible power use in the context of ethical leadership as an explanatory mechanism of the ethical leadership-follower outcomes link. Drawing on the attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982 ), we explored a power-based process model, which assumes that a leader's personal power is an intervening variable in the relationship between ethical leadership and follower outcomes, while incorporating the moderating role of followers' moral identity in this transformation process. The results of a two-wave field study (...) ( N = 235) that surveyed employees and a scenario experiment ( N = 169) fully supported the proposed (moderated) mediation models, as personal power mediated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and a broad range of tested follower outcomes (i.e., leader effectiveness, follower extra effort, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and work engagement), as well as the interactive effects of ethical leadership and follower moral identity on these follower outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

In Garvers Aufsatz soll gezeigt werden, daß in den Philosophischen Untersuchungen der Begriff der Lebensform dem Begriff der gemeinsamen menschlichen Handlungsweise synonym ist. Demgegenüber verteidigt die vorliegenden kritische Betrachtung Wittgensteins Auffassung, nämlich die Möglichkeit der Vielfalt möglicher Lebensformen. Auch wenn man gegen eine Inflation von Lebensformen polemisiert, braucht man nicht zu behaupten, es gebe nur eine menschliche Lebensform. Das ist falsch. Einige historische Hinweise dienen der weiteren Aufklärung der Bedeutung des Ausdrucks "Lebensformen".

In the judgment of many historians of contemporary philosophy as well as of analytic philosophers of different lines, there is no doubt about the truth of the statement that the philosophy of the Vienna Circle is dead. And since it is dead, some think that the only remaining task could be to find out the cause that led to the downfall of this proud philosophical movement.

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents: Rudolf HALLER: Investigating Hintikka. David PEARS: Hintikka's Interpretation of Wittgenstein's Treatment of Sensation-Language. Allan JANIK: How Did Hertz Influence Wittgenstein's Philosophical Development? Ilkka NIINILUOTO: Hintikka and Whewell on Aristotelian Induction. Jan von PLATO: Illustrations of Method in Ptolemaic Astronomy. Peter SIMONS: New Categories for Formal Ontology. Henri LAUENER: How to Use Proper Names. Matti SINTONEN: Knowing and Making: Kantian Themes in Hintikka's Philosophy. Paul WEINGARTNER: A Note on Jaakko Hintikka's "Knowledge and Belief". Nenad MIŠ_EVI_: Naturalism and (...) Modal Reasoning. Ulrike LEOPOLD-WILDBURGER: Induction as a Connection between Philosophy, Psychology and Economics. A Plea for Experimental Research. John PASSMORE: Editing Russell's Papers: A Fragment of Institutional History. Rudolf HALLER: From Archives to Editions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kyklikoi Logoi BENJAMIN HALLER i. palinode I really think Steisichorus had it all wrong, This rank and futile puttering in palinodes. And Simonides: did Ceos boast no beauties on its shores? Skopas would have laughed. The flute girls’ tatter, On and on and on and on—who would have thought Of recantations for a promise posed while perched Amidst... pornography of pillows, feastingSick symposiasts fed beasts dragged down with (...) spear. Wise, redundant Ocean. Wine, topped with a sleek Red-figured trireme would have bobbed its Watchful eye, and soon grown turgid. Louder, Now, the waves which rock the mountains, Waves of earth which crash across the mountains, Turn the blank limestone entablature of crags and ridges to a cyma cornice—rigid, cold. Steisichorus to Helen. Stop. Regrets. Misunderstanding. Stop. Your chastity unblemished. Stop. Grant voice to worship, praise you. Stop. Some will leave with tripods, some with gold. And Simonides? Will know these wilted sacks of flesh, Like flowers touched by some insensate plowshare, Sudden, dumb within the space of heavy seconds, Will know them for himself, and trace the path his errant Feet trod in egress, inscribe a witless placard on their graves. arion 27.2 fall 2019 ii. phaiakis 1. Appleton Wisconsin, Autumn Through the reddening maples and the birch where once a sluggish puddle moped round rocks a sudden surge, a rising tide, a convex tumescence building up for years, released. The sluice is open on the Fox, and all the hidden rocks that snooped like hounds about the pillars of the derelict railroad bridge are made a carcharodontous maul for hipboot fishers, waiting patiently beneath the lock’s expostulating lip. We flock, the shrieking gulls and I, to see what fish may drift by stunned beneath the bridge, what fishers might need fished from their upended sport, what crimson leaves have chosen at the very last, a final act of will, when all prevarication and all staring at the frothed abyss and all coy curling round their pendant stems like blonde Wisconsin girls twining locks and bounding O’s round fingers in the sunny stillness of a main street morning coffee shop, will choose this moment to precipitate themselves into the stream, inexplicably abandoning their elevated perch, and drift down toward the chilly Northern wood, meet muddy dissolution in the sediment, mingle in the bloated belly of that Ice Age Belua, Leviathan of Lakes. 120 KYKLIKOI LOGOI 2. Virginia Autumn, Five Years Later The light was yellow as a Martha Jones Postmodern; It was a bar, and it was late. I plaudered on about some... something? It was the wrong thing, and the music Capered on. And then the next day, It was like the year I spent in Appleton, Balmy cidermill frost in the morning, Mists on the polluted Fox, and bounding Rounded O’s on the red lips of buxom Girls. I lay upon the floor and watched The motes of dust in light no longer Cancerous from summer’s balmy claws. It was the wrong thing. And today Despite Virginia, it is autumn, where Yesterday was summer, and another year Has bobbed along beyond the sluice; It has weathered the railroad truss, Observed, with passing interest, thinking Every shore would be as polychrome As this, the evanescent burnt orange Oakleaves, without sighing. Worlds Of wanwood flap like navy wives In some old vintage film of VE day, All eager to embrace us from a distance, But soon past and little matter whether Waves or stern caresses were the fruit Of battles fought. And now the sluice Approaches, and the ominous broad Back of Winnebago, with its plesiosaurs And ex wives on its banks. There is little To regret. The sun upon the shores of Winnebago is yellow, honest yellow, Like some faded photo from an old Vacation that your parents took; such Benjamin Haller 121 Colors don’t exist (you thought) the Atmosphere has changed, attenuated, Global climate shifts have taken those Cold days,... Or yellow like the wan bar Lightbulb, chuckling at my hubris, pulsing In the silent starts, warning, as I pay my slinking tab and head for home. 122 KYKLIKOI LOGOI iii. kairos (christina) Ibycus on Spring this year, But... (shrink)

An läßlich der I 00. Wiederkehr des Geburtstages von Ludwig Wittgenstein, dem wohl bedeutendsten Philosophen unseres Jahrhunderts und Namensgeber der veranstaltenden Gesellschaft, wurde das 14. Internationale Symposium in Kirchberg gänzlich unter die programmatische Perspektive einer Neubewertung seiner Philosophie gestellt. Dem Anlasse entsprechend war dieses Symposium das weitaus größte aller bisherigen mit nahezu 600 Teilnehmern und 230 Vorträgen. Nur 138 davon konnten in die Akten des 14. Symposiums aufgenommen werden, dietrotzdieser Auswahl über 1000 Seiten stark wurden. Wegen dieses außerordentlichen Umfangs ist (...) es nötig, die Akten diesmal auf drei Bände aufzuteilen. Der erste Band enthält eingeladene Vorträge, gegliedert nach fünf Themenschw- punkten: Zur Philosophie der Traktatperiode Zur Philosophie von Logik und Mathematik Zur Übergangsperiode der Dreißigerjahre Zur Aufgabe der Philosophie Zur Ethik und Religion. Freilich wäre es eine Übertreibung zu behaupten, daß alle Beiträge im vollen Wortsin ne eine Neubewertung von Wittgensteins Philosophie veranschaulichen. Aber der Ten denz nach exemplifizieren die gesammelten Texte den Stand der gegenwärtigen Wittgen stein-Interpretation sehr deutlich. Waren in den ersten Jahren nach seinem Tode und der Publikation der nachgelassenen Schriften die Bemühungen zunächst auf die sprachphi losophischen Aspekte der Philosophischen Untersuchungen, das Privatsprachenproblem und den Neuerungen nach der Traktatperiode gerichtet, so zeigten sich seit den Siehziger jahren Tendenzen zur Vereinheitlichung. So entstand in den letzten Jahren ein zuneh mend differenzierteres Bild sowohl der Entwicklung von Wittgensteins Philosophie als auch der Rolle von Logik, Bedeutung und Bezug sprachlicher Zeichen im Gesamtkonte. M der Lebensformen. (shrink)

Psycholinguistic theories traditionally assume similar cognitive mechanisms across different speakers. However, more recently, researchers have begun to recognize the need to consider individual differences when explaining human cognition. An increasing number of studies have investigated how individual differences influence human sentence processing. Implicitly, these studies assume that individual‐level effects can be replicated across experimental sessions and different assessment methods such as eye‐tracking and self‐paced reading. However, this assumption is challenged by the Reliability Paradox. Thus, a crucial first step for a (...) principled investigation of individual differences in sentence processing is to establish their measurement reliability, that is, the correlation of individual‐level effects across multiple measurement occasions and methods. In this work, we present the first naturalistic eye movement corpus of reading data with four experimental sessions from each participant (two eye‐tracking sessions and two self‐paced reading sessions). We deploy a two‐task Bayesian hierarchical model to assess the measurement reliability of individual differences in a range of psycholinguistic phenomena that are well‐established at the population level, namely, effects of word length, lexical frequency, surprisal, dependency length, and number of to‐be‐integrated dependents. While our results indicate high reliability across measurement occasions for the word length effect, it is only moderate for higher‐level psycholinguistic predictors such as lexical frequency, dependency distance, and the number of to‐be‐integrated dependencies, and even low for surprisal. Moreover, even after accounting for spillover effects, we observe only low to moderate reliability at the individual level across methods (eye‐tracking and self‐paced reading) for most predictors, and poor reliability for predictors of syntactic integration. These findings underscore the importance of establishing measurement reliability before drawing inferences about individual differences in sentence processing. (shrink)

This paper studies how the introduction of non-additive probabilities (capacities) affects the solvability of strategic games.

Ein literarisch-naturwissenschaftlicher Versuch über das Licht. Licht ist so selbstverständlich wie Luft und Wasser. Am Tag ist es allgegenwärtig, in der Nacht holen wir es mit Kerzen und Lampen in die Räume. Was aber ist Licht? Woraus besteht es und wie setzt es sich zusammen? Diese Fragen beschäftigten die Menschen seit der Renaissance. Die Sonne war zum Mittelpunkt des Kosmos geworden, und man experimentierte mit der Camera obscura, mit Spiegeln und Prismen, nahm sich den neuen Kosmos zum Modell gesellschaftlichen Lebens (...) und stellte sich vor Fotokameras. Doch bei all der Beschäftigung wusste man noch immer nicht, was das Licht wirklich ist. In seinem tiefgründigen Essay führt uns Christian Haller durch die Jahrhunderte in die Gegenwart. Heute kennen wir die Antwort, und sie stiess die Tür zur Quantenphysik auf. Durch deren Anwendung betreten wir virtuelle Räume, bestrahlt von Licht, von dem wir endlich wissen, was es ist. Doch wissen wir auch, welche Konsequenzen dieses Wissen hat?"--Publisher's statement, https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/blitzgewitter.html, viewed 02/07/2023. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents: Rudolf HALLER: Investigating Hintikka. David PEARS: Hintikka's Interpretation of Wittgenstein's Treatment of Sensation-Language. Allan JANIK: How Did Hertz Influence Wittgenstein's Philosophical Development? Ilkka NIINILUOTO: Hintikka and Whewell on Aristotelian Induction. Jan von PLATO: Illustrations of Method in Ptolemaic Astronomy. Peter SIMONS: New Categories for Formal Ontology. Henri LAUENER: How to Use Proper Names. Matti SINTONEN: Knowing and Making: Kantian Themes in Hintikka's Philosophy. Paul WEINGARTNER: A Note on Jaakko Hintikka's "Knowledge and Belief". Nenad MIŠ_EVI_: Naturalism and (...) Modal Reasoning. Ulrike LEOPOLD-WILDBURGER: Induction as a Connection between Philosophy, Psychology and Economics. A Plea for Experimental Research. John PASSMORE: Editing Russell's Papers: A Fragment of Institutional History. Rudolf HALLER: From Archives to Editions. (shrink)

Ein berühmter, immer wieder zitierter Satz von Max lautet: "Interessen (materielle und ideelle), nicht: Ideen, beherrschen unmittelbar das Handeln der Menschen. Aber: die 'Weltbilder', welche durch 'Ideen' geschaffen wurden, haben sehr oft als Weichensteller die Bahnen bestimmt, in denen die Dynamik der Interessen das Handeln fortbewegte." Die neuere Soziologie ist diesem Grundsatz allerdings nicht gerecht geworden. Werte und ihre Wirkung werden entweder als gegeben vorausgesetzt (so bei Talcott Parsons) oder überhaupt als irrelevant betrachtet (so in der Rational Choice- und Systemtheorie). (...) Die umfangreiche, empirische Werteforschung hat vielfältige Ergebnisse erbracht, blieb jedoch weitgehend ohne theoretisches Fundament, sodass ihre Befunde vielfach anfechtbar sind. Weber selbst gab im Hinblick auf die Frage nach der Relevanz der Werte nur unbefriedigende Antworten: Die Entscheidung für bestimmte Werte sei eine rein individuelle Angelegenheit und zwischen den verschiedenen Werten gebe es einen unversöhnlichen Kampf. Im vorliegenden Buch wird diese Problematik erstmals in der deutschen Soziologie umfassend untersucht und es wird dafür (u.a. im Anschluss an Autoren wie Immanuel Kant, George H. Mead und Raymond Boudon), eine neue, konstruktive und erklärungsstarke Lösung gefunden. Unter Zuhilfenahme von Überlegungen aus Philosophie, Sozialtheorie und empirischer Sozialforschung sowie unter Einbeziehung historischer Kämpfe zur Anerkennung und Durchsetzung der Werte kann man feststellen, dass es gesellschaftliche Grundwerte gibt, dass deren Anzahl klar bestimmbar ist und dass zwischen ihnen keineswegs Konflikt, sondern Komplementarität besteht. Mit diesen Thesen und Befunden kann dieses Buch als neues soziologisches Standardwerk angesehen werden. Es hat auch für Vertreter vieler anderer geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen grundlegende Bedeutung. Der Autor Dr. Max Haller war nach wissenschaftlichen Tätigkeiten am Institut für Höhere Studien in Wien und an der Universität bzw. ZUMA Mannheim 1985-2015 Professor für Soziologie in Graz. Er lehrte als Gastprofessor auch an Universitäten in mehreren Ländern Europas, den USA und Afrika. Seine Publikationen erschienen in den renommiertesten internationalen soziologischen Zeitschriften. Er ist Mitglied der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und forscht dort jetzt zu Fragen der Migration, Staatsbürgerschaft und Mehrsprachigkeit. Er war Mitbegründer der Europäischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie und der Wiener Gesellschaft für Soziologie. (shrink)

Distributional fairness of corporate distributions is an important social issue linked to accounting for equality. Value added and the information contained in the value added statement can conceptually be regarded as a reflection of how the company is managed for all stakeholders. We investigate value added information published in sustainability reports to determine if the information provided is useful for assessing distributional fairness between stakeholders. We find that the value added information disclosed lack conciseness, comparability and understandability. The divergence is (...) considerable and the explanations of the disclosed information so limited that the usefulness of the value added disclosures must be questioned. Our results suggest several obfuscating techniques in the disclosure of value added information, including disclosing information that is conceptually compromised, resulting in comparability issues and disclosing information that can’t be verified by reconciling back to the financial statements. Our findings have clear ethical and moral implications as they stress the societal issue of distributional fairness. It seems that companies are either reluctant to provide value added information that is useful, or deliberately use value added disclosures to obfuscate. Information reflecting distributional fairness is therefore compromised. (shrink)

At least since Descartes the epistemological turn derived its impetus from the sceptical challenge to provide a justification for all knowledge claims. According to a foundational view, a claim to know something is justified only when the justification refers to ultimate grounds in the form of self‐supporting propositions. This paper's title suggests that justification may be seen from a different perspective, namely that of acting. Wittgenstein's examples show that the sceptic's maxim ‐ doubt everything ‐ breaks down because some beliefs (...) and judgments have to be accepted unconditionally if one is to believe or judge something else. Wittgenstein concludes that the certainty we are looking for is to be found in the very nature of the language‐game. (shrink)

Volume 30, Issue 6, September 2025, Page 762-773.

For several decades, globalizationGlobalization has been a development that is scientifically very exciting from the perspective of the basic questions of this book and politically of utmost importance. The thesis represented here is that globalization supports the formation of a “world society”World Society and that societal fundamental values thus gain universality, i.e., global significance and validity. The prevailing view of globalization in the social sciences is very critical. It is seen by many primarily as a result of capitalist expansion and (...) land acquisition and is associated with the extreme inequality between the global North and South. It is overlooked that globalization has also led to a massive catch-up process of numerous countries in the South and Southeast Asia and has caused a significant reduction in the proportion of poor people in the world. It is also argued that altruistic factors and processes, such as the development of science and technology, including the humanities and social sciences, are driving forces of globalization. They have all led to a turning away from religious and ideological myths and, through communicative and sociocultural interweaving of the world, to an opening for modern and democratic ideas. Politically, the world has been positively permeated by corresponding norms and institutions—international agreements, the founding of the United Nations, the adoption of declarations of human rights, and the establishment of regional associations. Civil society institutions, no less than multinational corporations, are increasingly focusing on problems that become virulent locally but have a global background. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of some of the key questions about the regulation of professions and examples of research carried out to assist in providing answers to those questions. It discusses two key issues demanding empirical answers that have caused a degree of tension between the interests of the profession and the public in regulation, and the most effective methods of regulating professions. It looks at studies and the important relationship between theory and practice. Empirical studies have proved essential (...) in testing theories critical of the public, regarding the claims of professions themselves. This article also concerns empirical studies that have sought to provide insight into the possible tension that might exist between the interests of the profession and the public in regulation before moving to the question of the most effective regulatory “mix” for professions. (shrink)

War has always been considered one of the greatest evils caused by humans. It is therefore surprising that theories and views seem to prevail which consider lasting peace to be impossible. Some, even view violence as a means of enforcing political goals, consider war as the “father of all things”, and pacifism is widely discriminated. As a counterpoint to these views, Kant’s theory of Perpetual Peace is presented in this chapter. It is conceivably simple and strong: primarily (military, economic, and (...) political) elites are interested in war, the people only have to bear the costs of wars. Therefore, between democracies in which the people governs there will no longer wage wars. I also a League of Nations to settle interstate conflicts would be established, a lasting peace in the world would be possible. The chapter presents arguments that prove that Kant’s theory is not an unrealistic idealism, but that some of the innovations he demanded have already been introduced. The founding of the United Nations was a decisive step in this regard. But also the peace movements, forms of nonviolent resistance, international economic interdependence, and the nuclear threat are forces that lend reality to the idea of world peace. (shrink)