Das Geschichtliche in Marxistischer Sicht

The purpose of this article is to clarify some basic features of historical materialism insofar as it is a philosophic conception of history. Every serious philosophy of history must give an answer to at least three questions: What is the nature of historical reality? How is historical change being accomplished? What are the possibilities, the scope and the limits of historical knowledge? In historical materialism not one of these questions is sufficiently resolved. Contrary to Marxist-Leninist assertions, there is no “necessary” and “inseparable” connection between dialectical and historical materialism. A materialist conception of history is compatible with many non-materialist metaphysical views. Further, historical materialism uses a superseded monocausal model of historical flux. Moreover, it is based upon a notion of historical causality which simply reproduces mechanical causality; but mechanical causality is inapplicable to historical events. Finally, the critique of historical knowledge isterra incognita for historical materialism.     

Revisiting the suitability of antisaccade performance as an endophenotype in schizophrenia

Poor performance on the antisaccade task has been proposed as a candidate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Caveats to this proposal, however, include inconsistent findings in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia, and substantial heterogeneity in individuals with the disorder. In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in patients and relatives, and sought to establish whether antisaccade measures could differentiate between two patients clusters identified in the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia with either pervasive cognitive deficits (CD) or cognitively spared (CS). Ninety-three patients (CD = 47, CS = 46), 99 relatives and 62 healthy controls carried out a standard antisaccade task. Results showed: (i) significantly greater error rate, and prolonged latencies to correct responses and self-correction saccades in patients compared with controls; (ii) high error rates in relatives of poorly performing patients; (iii) longer latencies of self-correction saccades in relatives compared to controls; and (iv) higher error rate and longer latencies of self-correction saccades in the CD subgroup compared with CS. Unaffected relatives as a group were unimpaired in error rate as compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that the antisaccade error rate and latency of self-correction saccades are useful measures in specific applications of genetic research in schizophrenia, without fully meeting endophenotype co-familiality requirements.     

REVIEWS

Studies in East European Thought -     

Vorwort

Studies in East European Thought -     

Das schwierige Gespräch oder: Heideggers Entfremdungsauffassung und der Marxismus

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Analyzing behavior implied by EWA learning: An emphasis on distinguishing reinforcement from belief learning

An important issue in the field of learning is to what extent one can distinguish between behavior resulting from either belief or reinforcement learning. Previous research suggests that it is difficult or even impossible to distinguish belief from reinforcement learning: belief and reinforcement models often fit the empirical data equally well. However, previous research has been confined to specific games in specific settings. In the present study we derive predictions for behavior in games using the EWA learning model (e.g., Camerer & Ho, 1999), a model that includes belief learning and a specific type of reinforcement learning as special cases. We conclude that belief and reinforcement learning can be distinguished, even in 2×2 games. Maximum differentiation in behavior resulting from either belief or reinforcement learning is obtained in games with pure Nash equilibria with negative payoffs and at least one other strategy combination with only positive payoffs. Our results help researchers to identify games in which belief and reinforcement learning can be discerned easily.