The Internet as Cultural Form: Technology and the Human Condition in China

Raymond Williams’ work on television as a cultural form offers a theoretical basis for overcoming technological determinism in the study of the Internet. The Internet in China exerts social and political influences through the cultural forms it enables and then only when these forms respond to the human condition. Chinese Internet culture consists of new cultural forms that emerge out of the interactions between Internet and society and that are the products of both cultural tradition and innovation.

Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics

In this introduction we discuss the motivation behind the workshop “Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics” of which this special issue constitutes the proceedings. We elaborate on historical and empirical aspects of the desired new epistemology, connect it to the public image of mathematics, and give a summary and an introduction to the contributions to this issue.

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The Difference Between Lonely Old Ladies and CCTV Cameras: A Response to Ryberg

This article considers the question of whether it is meaningful to speak of privacy rights in public spaces, and the possibility of such rights framing the basis for regulating or restricting the use of surveillance technologies such as closed circuit television (CCTV). In particular, it responds to a recent article by Jesper Ryberg that suggests that there is little difference between being watched by private individuals and CCTV cameras, and instead argues that state surveillance is qualitatively different from (and more problematic than) surveillance by ‘lonely old ladies’.

Are There Stable Factors in Preadolescent Girls’ Externalizing Behaviors?

Relatively little is known about the factor structure of disruptive behavior among preadolescent girls. The present study reports on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of disruptive girl behavior over four successive data waves as rated by parents and teachers in a large, representative community sample of girls (N = 2,451). Five factors were identified from parent ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, relational aggression, and callous-unemotional behaviors), and four factors were identified derived from teacher ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems/callous-unemotional behaviors, inattention, hyperactivityimpulsivity, and relational aggression). There was a high degree of consistency of items loading on equivalent factors across parent and teacher ratings. Year-to-year stability of factors between ages five and 12 was high for parent ratings (ICC = 0.70 to 0.88), and slightly lower for teacher ratings (ICC = 0.56 to 0.83). These findings are discussed in terms of possible adjustment to the criteria for children's disruptive behavior disorders found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

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Phenomenology and the Third Generation of Cognitive Science: Towards a Cognitive Phenomenology of the Body

Phenomenology of the body and the third generation of cognitive science, both of which attribute a central role in human cognition to the body rather than to the Cartesian notion of representation, face the criticism that higher-level cognition cannot be fully grasped by those studies. The problem here is how explicit representations, consciousness, and thoughts issue from perception and the body, and how they cooperate in human cognition. In order to address this problem, we propose a research program, a cognitive phenomenology of the body, which is basically motivated by the perspective of Merleau-Ponty. We find a substantial clue in developmental psychological studies on the body and language.

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No Regrets, or: Edith Piaf Revamps Decision Theory

I argue that standard decision theories, namely causal decision theory and evidential decision theory, both are unsatisfactory. I devise a new decision theory, from which, under certain conditions, standard game theory can be derived.

A Precautionary Tale: Separating the Infant from the Fetus

This article confronts growing conservative opposition to abortion based on the claim that abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide. By examining the relationship between moral skepticism and precautionary ethics the article promotes a completely permissive position on abortion from conception to birth while consistently rejecting the possibility that such a position entails permissive implications for infanticide. The article introduces and traces the implicit relationship between moral skepticism, the precautionary principle and political liberalism.

Indirect perceptual realism and demonstratives

I defend indirect perceptual realism against two recent and related charges to it offered by A. D. Smith and P. Snowdon, both stemming from demonstrative reference involving indirect perception. The needed aspects of the theory of demonstratives are not terribly new, but their connection to these objections has not been discussed. The groundwork for my solution emerges from considering normal cases of indirect perception (e.g., seeing something depicted on a television) and examining the role this indirectness plays in demonstrative assertions. I argue that indirectness routinely if not typically plays a justificatory role in such judgements, and not a semantic one, and that the same can be said of such judgements when considered within the indirect realist framework. The denial of this, on my analysis, is essential to the criticisms of Snowdon and Smith. The discussion is extended to include scenarios involving the sorts of misconceptions Smith employs.

Visualizations in Mathematics

In this paper we discuss visualizations in mathematics from a historical and didactical perspective. We consider historical debates from the 17th and 19th centuries regarding the role of intuition and visualizations in mathematics. We also consider the problem of what a visualization in mathematical learning can achieve. In an empirical study we investigate what mathematical conclusions university students made on the basis of a visualization. We emphasize that a visualization in mathematics should always be considered in its proper context.

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Die Geschichte der „Stellungnahme zur psychoanalytischen Therapie“

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Foundationalism, Probability, and Mutual Support

The phenomenon of mutual support presents a specific challenge to the foundationalist epistemologist: Is it possible to model mutual support accurately without using circles of evidential support? We argue that the appearance of loops of support arises from a failure to distinguish different synchronic lines of evidential force. The ban on loops should be clarified to exclude loops within any such line, and basing should be understood as taking place within lines of evidence. Uncertain propositions involved in mutual support relations are conduits to each other of independent evidence originating ultimately in the foundations. We examine several putative examples of benign loops of support and show that, given the distinctions noted, they can be accurately modeled in a foundationalist fashion. We define an evidential “tangle,” a relation among three propositions that appears to require a loop for modeling, and prove that all such tangles are trivial in a sense that precludes modeling them with an evidential circle.

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Bootstrapping and knowledge of reliability

This is a critical discussion of a paper on the problem of bootstrapping by Jose Zalabardo.

Mortality salience reduces attentional bias for fear-relevant animals

This research investigated the influence of reminders of mortality on biased attention for fear-relevant animals across 2 studies. In each study, participants completed a baseline dot-probe test of attention to fear-relevant animals (snakes and spiders). After random assignment, participants completed a mortality salience or control writing task (about watching television in Study 1 and about writing an important exam in Study 2). Finally, participants completed the dot-probe measure a second time. In both studies, those in the mortality salience condition showed a significant reduction in bias for fear-relevant animals from baseline to post-manipulation, whereas no change was found for those in the control conditions. These data suggest that the previously demonstrated lack of emotional response to mortality salience may, in part, result from the avoidance of fear-relevant stimuli.

Factors affecting responses to Likert type questionnaires: introduction of the ImpExp,a new comprehensive model

The major purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive model describing the effects of response sets within the theory framework of the stages of responding to questionnaires, and taking into account the effects of collectivist and individualist attributes within cross-cultural contexts. The introduction of this model aims to provide a construct that may help minimize biases in questionnaire-based research as well as providing new directions for theoretical and empirical research in the field of response sets.

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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The many minds account of vagueness

This paper presents an new epistemicist account of vagueness, one that avoids standard arbitrariness worries by exploiting a plenitudinous metaphysic.

Interpreting Neurath’s Protocols. Reply to Nottelmann

This paper responds to a recent criticism of Uebel's analysis of Neurath's protocol statements and proposes some independent amendments.

The Role of Customers in Interactive Co-Creation Practices: The Italian Scenario

Co-production, or co-creation, is becoming the cornerstone of marketing and design practices and a sort of managerial mantra that is rapidly gaining momentum both at professional and academic level. Despite a growing interest for this topic, there seems to be a lack of researches investigating the level of interest and participation of customers in co-creation activities and the drivers and motivations that might trigger co-production. This paper presents the results of a research run by Politcnico di Milano School of Management in collaboration with AC Nielsen, Nielsen Online and Connexia in 2007 among Italian consumers to determine the size and characteristics of the co-creation phenomena.

Aktuelle Probleme der Krankenhausplanung in der Psychosomatischen Medizin und Psychotherapie

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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God and The Possibility of Random Creation

In this paper I discuss a number of problems associated with the suggestion that it is possible for God to randomly select a possible world for actualization.