Toward a Renewed Theological Culture: Introduction

This article introduces a series of articles analysing the current state of theology and inquiring about the possibilities of a renewed theological culture (not least within secular societies). It places theology, and more precisely, the conditions of a possible renewal thereof, in several fields of tension. Paradigmatic for secular societies is the tension between theology and the natural sciences. It is argued that theology and the natural sciences cultivate different modes of reasoning on different epistemic levels and that no competition between them has to be construed if one is not caught up in the premises of secularism. A brief summary of each of the contributions follows these initial remarks.     

Primate Numerical Competence: Contributions Toward Understanding Nonhuman Cognition

Nonhuman primates represent the most significant extant species for comparative studies of cognition, including such complex phenomena as numerical competence, among others. Studies of numerical skills in monkeys and apes have a long, though somewhat sparse history, although questions for current empirical studies remain of great interest to several fields, including comparative, developmental, and cognitive psychology; anthropology; ethology; and philosophy, to name a few. In addition to demonstrated similarities in complex information processing, empirical studies of a variety of potential cognitive limitations or constraints have provided insights into similarities and differences across the primate order, and continue to offer theoretical and pragmatic directions for future research. An historical overview of primate numerical studies is presented, as well as a summary of the 17‐year research history, including recent findings, of the Comparative Cognition Project at The Ohio State University Chimpanzee Center. Overall, the archival literature on number‐related skills and counting in nonhuman primates offers important implications for revising our thinking about comparative neuroanatomy, cross‐species (human/ape) cognitive similarities and differences, and the evolution of cognition represented by the primate continuum.     

Disinterested Love: Understanding Leibniz's Reconciliation of Self- and Other-Regarding Motives

While he was in the employ of the Elector of Mainz, between 1668 and 1671, Leibniz produced a series of important studies in natural law. One of these, dated between 1670 and 1671, is especially noteworthy since it contains Leibniz's earliest sustained attempt to develop an account of justice. Central to this account is the notion of what Leibniz would later come to call `disinterested love', a notion that remained essentially unchanged in Leibniz's work from this period to the end of his life. Through his notion of disinterested love, Leibniz sought to resolve the supposed conflict between self- and other-regarding motives. For a variety of reasons, many commentators have failed to understand the basis of Leibniz's proposed resolution. My purpose in the present paper is to clarify the terms in which Leibniz effected this resolution, as well as to point out important developments in his later thought concerning the relation between pleasure, good, and happiness.     

Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain: A Symposium: Introduction

This article introduces the symposium “Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain,” which provides a philosophical contemplation of blockchain technology, the digital ledger software underlying cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet without needing a third‐party intermediary. The symposium offers philosophical scholarship on a new topic, blockchain technology, from a variety of perspectives. The philosophical themes discussed include mathematical models of reality, signification, and the sociopolitical institutions that structure human life and interaction. The symposium also investigates the metaphilosophical theme of how to create a philosophy of anything, specifically a new topic such as blockchain technology. Repeated themes are identified, in all areas of philosophical inquiry (ontology, epistemology, and axiology), and conceptual resources are elaborated to contribute to a philosophical understanding of blockchain technology. Thus, philosophy as a metaphilosophical approach is shown to be able to provide an understanding of the conceptual, theoretical, and foundational dimensions of novelty and emergence in the world, with a particular focus on blockchain technology.     

Introduction: Toward a Fully Human Theory of Evolution

During the 20th century two major ventures were launched to advance Darwinian evolution theory. Both involved historic visions and were vital steps for science and society, but then something happened on the way to the millennium. By mid-century the first venture had become a virtual scientific monopoly governed by the biology of the neoDarwinian paradigm. The second venture then set out in the 1980s to remedy the inadequacies of the neoDarwinian paradigm by widening the prospects for evolution theory. But overwhelmed by the underlying mismatch between scientific abstraction and evolutionary reality the first venture established, it soon settled into a fierce attempt to further expand the territory for the neoDarwinian monopoly into what became a militant ideology for sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. This special issue of World Futures contains the papers of a small "task force" of the General Evolution Research Group that set out in the summer of 2000 to try to put behind us what increasingly looms as the "old" paradigm, as well as the "old" story, of evolution.     

Toward an Understanding of Religious Tolerance: Quest Religiousness and Positive Attitudes Toward Religiously Dissimilar Others

We interact frequently with individuals with religious beliefs that vary from our own. Although we may naturally prefer interacting with religiously similar others, individuals vary in their attitudes toward religiously dissimilar others. In the present set of studies, we examined how variability in quest religiousness affects religious tolerance. In Study 1 (N = 159), we found that quest religiousness in Christian undergraduates was associated with positive attitudes toward both non-Christian religious groups and atheists. In Study 2, 118 Christian undergraduates evaluated vignettes regarding a devout moral or an average morality Christian (ingroup) or Muslim (outgroup). Participants preferred moral targets relative to less moral targets. However, when rating moral targets, participants high in quest religiousness preferred the Muslim target (religious outgroup member), whereas those low in quest religiousness preferred the Christian target (religious ingroup member). We discuss implications for the links between quest religiousness and religious tolerance.     

Toward Understanding Each Other: Bridging Gaps in the Science-and-Religion Dialogue

Abstract. The high degree of specialization in society and compartmentalization in education have resulted in increasing difficulty in communicating across different fields of study. I propose that these gaps in communication across disciplines must be addressed to ensure a fruitful ongoing science‐and‐religion dialogue.     

Toward a More Credible Understanding of Post-Traumatic Growth

Traditional research on post-traumatic growth has utilized methodologically flawed cross-sectional designs that involve retrospective assessments of post-traumatic growth. This has resulted in a majority of research in this field suffering from a lack of credibility and reliability. In this special issue, we present nine articles that seek to make innovative conceptual and methodological contributions with the goal of promoting better research practices on post-traumatic growth. In the introduction to this special issue, we provide an overview of these contributions, and discuss the implications of these articles both to improving future scholarship and to encouraging personality scientists to examine this important phenomenon in the years and decades to come.     

Toward an Improved Understanding of Work Motivation Profiles

The present research proposes an improved understanding of work motivation by identifying employees’ motivational profiles while taking into account the dual global and specific nature of work motivation proposed by self-determination theory (SDT). To document the construct validity of these latent profiles, we relied on the circumplex model of employees’ well-being to investigate whether they differed in terms of burnout, work satisfaction, and work addiction. Results from analyses conducted among a sample of 955 employees revealed five distinct profiles characterized by differing levels of global and specific forms of motivation: Intrinsically Motivated, Poorly Motivated, Driven, Conflicted, and Self-Determined. Lower levels of burnout and work satisfaction were associated with profiles characterized by higher global levels of self-determination and more autonomous forms of motivation, matching theoretical expectations. Interestingly, work addiction was highest in the Driven profile and lowest in the Self-Determined profile, suggesting that autonomous forms of motivation are not always able to buffer the adverse effects of controlled forms of motivation. Our results also suggest that the specific qualities of work motivations are just as important as the global levels of self-determination in the identification of work motivation profiles.     

如何理解作为公共艺术的雕塑

本文主要关注公共艺术中的雕塑，并讨论公共空间、公共领域、艺术家在公共艺术中的角色、观众在公共艺术中的角色等与公共艺术密切相关的几个问题。公共空间和公共领域构成了我们理解公共艺术的基本框架，但是随着电子空间的出现和民主社会的发展，这两个概念的含义已经发生了深刻的变化，这个变化又深刻地影响着公共雕塑的实践和观念。相应地，艺术家和观众在公共雕塑中的角色也发生了巨大的变化。在一个日趋多元化的社会里，当代公共雕塑的诸多发展，要求我们重新思考雕塑的定义并调整我们的公共艺术观念。