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Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens
... The latter formulated his famous "ignorabimus" that it would never be possible to fully explain the basis of consciousness and free will in scientific terms. In doing so, he took up older ideas of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and anticipated David Chalmers' "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers, 1995;du Bois-Reymond, 1872;. ...
... The latter formulated his famous "ignorabimus" that it would never be possible to fully explain the basis of consciousness and free will in scientific terms. In doing so, he took up older ideas of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and anticipated David Chalmers' "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers, 1995;du Bois-Reymond, 1872;Schleim, 2022b). ...
After an introduction to the general topics of neurolaw, this chapter will focus in particular on the concept of criminal responsibility. We will see that not the concept of causation, but knowledge and conscious control are central to this. This corresponds to a notion of minimal rationality of people. These criteria are then applied to the free will debate and frequently cited cases of brain damage in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. This analysis shows that the existing psycho-behavioral criteria are ideally supplemented by neuroscientific methods, but certainly cannot be replaced for the time being.
... Then he introduced a first limit of natural science in the explanation of the 'essence of matter and force', arguing that hypotheses like physical monadology and the like could never find empirical support. 76 This anti-metaphysical attitude concerning natural science was arguably the reason why du Bois-Reymond did not commit himself to materialism either. Besides excluding vital materialism, he engaged with contemporary physicalist materialism of Vogt and others, which considered 'mental' properties such as sensation as material. ...
Kant's legacy in the history of life sciences has notoriously included a critique of the use of soul and ‘vital force’ ( Lebenskraft ). In this paper I focus on a less-known side of this legacy, i.e. Kant's late critique of vital materialism and its impact on nineteenth-century German science and philosophy. I show that Kant considered materialism as a kind of metaphysical hypothesis since the 1760s and pointed out that it was empirically impossible to distinguish it from different kinds of hypotheses (such as monadology). I focus on Kant's late essay on Samuel Sömmering (1796), arguing that the critical rejection of materialism and the notion of Lebenskraft belonged to an anti-reductive program for life sciences. I maintain that Kant's views influenced Alexander von Humboldt's turn concerning vitalism in the late 1790s and the anti-metaphysical and physicalist epistemology of Hermann von Helmholtz. I follow this Kantian legacy in the works of Friedrich Lange, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Erich Adickes. Finally, I argue that this tradition provides a vantage point to reconsider contemporary debates over materialism and panpsychism.
... Instead, I first summarize the historical precursors of the presently known "hard problem." It turns out that the core of the argument has already been formulated by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646Leibniz ( -1716 in the 18th and Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896 in the 19th century (Leibniz, 1714(Leibniz, /2014Du Bois-Reymond, 1872). 1 This is then related to Wilhelm Wundt's (1832Wundt's ( -1920 view of experimental psychology and the problem of introspection, particularly the lacking stability of consciousness and the impossibility to observe it without changing it (Wundt, 1888). Decades later, John B. Watson (1878Watson ( -1958 and other behaviorists banned consciousness from scientific investigation because of its (alleged) vagueness and the unavailability of reliable instruments (Watson, 1913). ...
Finding a scientific, third-person explanation of subjective experience or phenomenal content is commonly called the “hard problem” of consciousness. There has recently been a surge in neuropsychological research on meditation in general and long-term meditators in particular. These experimental subjects are allegedly capable of generating a stable state of consciousness over a prolonged period of time, which makes experimentation with them an interesting paradigm for consciousness research. This perspective article starts out with a historical reconstruction of the “hard problem,” tracing it back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Emil du Bois-Reymond in the 18th and 19th century, respectively, and the problem of introspection as already acknowledged by Wilhelm Wundt in the 19th century. It then discusses the prospects of research on long-term meditators from a contemporary perspective and with respect to the neurophenomenological research program already advocated by Francisco J. Varela.
... So wurden im Jahr 1900 bis zum Jahr 2000 sowohl das Handy -"drahtlose Telephonie" -als auch der Tunnel unter dem Ärmelkanal richtig prophezeit, während wir heute vom 1900 ebenfalls vorausgesagten "ewigen Leben, sofern der Mensch es nur wolle", noch weit entfernt sind [16,59]. Dem Naturerkennen sind und bleiben Grenzen gesetzt, wie uns bereits der große Physiologe und Graefe-Lehrer Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) 1872 lehrte: "Ignoramus-ignorabimus". Wir wissen es nicht, und wir werden es nicht wissen [17]. [59]. ...
Das Motto des DOG(Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft)-Kongresses 2019 „Augenheilkunde: Unser Fach mit Zukunft“ wirft die Frage auf, wie „augenheilkundliche Zukunft“ eigentlich aussehen soll, welches ihre treibenden Kräfte und welches die Fundamente ihrer Gestaltung sind. Die Gestaltung der Zukunft – gemeinhin meist mit „Fortschritt“ gleichgesetzt – erfolgt naturgemäß immer aus der Gegenwart heraus, welche ihrerseits ein Produkt der Vergangenheit ist. Geschichte ist wie Zeit und Evolution also immer ein Kontinuum. Obwohl wir uns das vielleicht nicht immer ganz klarmachen, nimmt die Geschichte daher immer Einfluss auf die Zukunft. „Zukunft durch Geschichte“ entsteht v. a. immer dort, wo aus „historischen Fehlern“ gelernt wird, wo gute, aber vergessene Ideen wiederentdeckt werden und wo Geschichte zum besseren Verständnis herangezogen wird.
... At first glance the development of a general, deterministic procedure for proving mathematical propositions may seem like a hopeless, indeed ludicrous endeavor, perhaps comparable to the medieval quest for the philosopher's stone. 24 He then describes the decision problem as the more specific problem of finding a deterministic, computational procedure to decide any mathematical claim: ...
Stöltzner coined the expression ‘Vienna indeterminism’ to describe a philosophical tradition centered on the Viennese physicist Exner, serving as the ‘historical link’ between Mach and Boltzmann, on the one hand, and von Mises and Frank, on the other. During the early 1930s debate on quantum mechanics, there was a ‘rapprochement’ between Vienna indeterminism and Schlick’s work on causality. However, it was Cassirer’s 1936 monograph Determinismus und Indeterminismus that showed a full ‘convergence’ with major tenets of Vienna indeterminism: the fundamentality of statistical laws, the frequency interpretation of probability, and the statistical interpretation of the uncertainty relations. Yet, Cassirer used these conceptual tools to pursue ‘in parallel’ different philosophical goals. While for the Viennese quantum mechanics represented a fatal blow to the already discredited notion of ‘causality,’ for Cassirer it challenged the classical notion of ‘substantiality,’ the ideas of ‘particles’ as individual substances endowed with properties. The paper concludes that this ‘parallel convergence’ is the most striking and overlooked aspect of Determinismus und Indeterminismus , serving as the keystone of its argumentative structure.
Zusammenfassung
Im Zentrum des triadischen Systems, der psychiatrischen Systematik Kurt Schneiders, steht ein medizinischer Krankheitsbegriff. Auf dieser Grundlage hat K. Schneider im Jahre 1948 Positionsbestimmungen zur Beurteilung der Zurechnungsfähigkeit vorgelegt. Die Aussage, dass man die Einsichts- oder Steuerungsfähigkeit nicht beurteilen könne, hat eine Diskussion nach sich gezogen, die als „Agnostizismusstreit“ in die Geschichte der forensischen Psychiatrie eingegangen ist. Es wird zuerst der Frage nachgegangen, ob auf einem „gnostischen“ Weg die Probleme auf der zweiten Beurteilungsebene gelöst werden konnten. Danach wird die Frage erörtert, ob es Fälle gibt, in denen an einer „agnostischen“ Positionsbestimmung hinsichtlich der Beurteilung der Einsichts- oder Steuerungsfähigkeit festzuhalten ist. Im Zuge der Ausführungen wird auf die Bedeutung eines „psychopathologischen Referenzsystems“ (H. Saß) für die Beurteilung der Schuldfähigkeit hingewiesen.
In der Geschichte des Neukantianismus ist aufgrund der fehlenden Aufarbeitung der Quellen und Briefe bis heute vieles unerforscht geblieben. Alois Riehl (1844–1924) und Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936) waren zwei der wichtigsten Vertreter dieser in der Philosophiegeschichte bedeutenden Strömung.
Diesem Buch gelingt es erstmals, ein helleres Licht auf den Gegensatz zwischen der Südwestdeutschen Schule des Neukantianismus und Riehls Realismus zu werfen, welcher vor allem rund um den Methodenstreit zum Ausdruck kam. Die Briefe können aber auch über andere Aspekte des Denkens dieser beiden zentralen Neukantianer Aufschluss geben.
In this chapter, we examine the explanations and claims of a few renowned brain researchers from a psychosocial perspective. Upon closer inspection, some of their essential explanations for the neural understanding of what it means to be human will turn out to be one-sided or even wrong. Examples of this are assertions about alleged illusions of will and the probably most famous neurological patient, Phineas Gage. A brief excursion into the nineteenth century and its materialism dispute makes it clear that this phenomenon is not new, both in science and in the media.
The idea that all physical phenomena should ultimately be reducible to matter and motion was influential throughout the nineteenth century, although this ideal was never realized and never without critics. But could the notion of matter itself be understood? A unified conception of matter was lacking in nineteenth century physics. Physicists used different conceptions of matter, and debated the question of the true nature of matter on the basis of philosophical as well as empirical arguments; it turned out to be very challenging to develop a conception of matter that was consistent with experimental findings as well as philosophically satisfactory. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, physicists increasingly rejected the question of the true nature of matter, arguing that this question was irrelevant for physics or altogether meaningless. This was sometimes seen as an emancipation of physics from philosophy, and sometimes as a result of philosophical reflection on physics.
Existe una vieja tradición anti-metafísica de la que en el siglo XX son eminentes representantes los llamados “positivistas (o empiristas) lógicos”. Aunque el discurso de estos autores, como el de todos los antimetafísicos, se declara opuesto justamente al de los autores metafísicos, es posible aplicarle el mismo tipo de análisis retórico que resulta obvio en el caso de los metafísicos. Este artículo presenta una primera muestra de los resultados de semejante análisis. Los aspectos elegidos son: (1) el público al que se dirige el discurso anti-metafísico, (2) el éthos que ese discurso pretende transmitir, y (3) el estilo en que está escrito. Los textos elegidos son el panfleto propagandístico del Círculo de Viena titulado “La concepción científica del mundo” de 1929, y el libro de divulgación El ascenso de la filosofía científica que escribió Hans Reichenbach poco antes de morir, en 1951.Palabras clave: anti-metafísica, estilo, éthos, público, retórica
Theory building in neuropsychology, similar to other disciplines, rests on metatheoretical assumptions of philosophical origin. Such assumptions regarding the relation of psychological and physiological variables influence research methodologies as well as assessment strategies in fields of application. Here, we revisit the classic procedure of Double Dissociation (DD) to illustrate the connection of metatheory and methodology. In a seemingly unbridgeable opposition, the classical neuropsychological procedure of DD can be understood as either presupposing localizationism and a modular view of the brain, or as a special case of the generalized neuro-lens model for neuropsychological assessment. In the latter case, it is more easily compatible with a perspective that emphasizes the systemic-network, rather than the modular, nature of the brain, which as part of the organism, proportionately mediates the situatedness of the human being in the world. This perspective not only makes it possible to structure ecological validation processes and give them a metatheoretical foundation, but also to interlace it with the phenomenological insight that the laboratory as one context of empirical research may be analyzed in terms of situated experience. We conclude with showing that both the localizationist and the system science approach can agree on a view of the brain as a dynamical network, and that metatheory may thus offer important new perspectives of reconciliation.
Adolf Horwicz (1831–1894) was the main public critic of Wilhelm Wundt’s election for the chair of philosophy at the Universität Leipzig in 1875. Horwicz’s book titled Psychologische Analysen auf physiologischer Grundlage published in 1872 had a great impact on his contemporaries. Two years later, Wundt published Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (1874) and with Horwicz’s books were recognized as the most representative books of the emerging physiological psychology. Finally, Horwicz and Wundt had a debate published in Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie during 1879–1880 in where Wundt affirmed that many of Horwicz’s research results were deduced from preconceived ideas without using a clear method. For that reason, Horwicz considered that Wundt’s criticisms were aimed at destroying his scientific reputation. The debate is the materialization of a long professional struggle that took place between professional philosophers and physiologists who began to occupy chairs of philosophy in the early 1870s. The debate can be summarized in the following questions: (a) Should psychology have as its main objective the search for a single physical–biological process to which all other psychical processes are reduced? (b) Should psychological research use an inductivist reasoning? (c) What should be the relationship between philosophy and the psychological psychology?
The hitherto prevailing ideas about matter, energy and information have so far prevented an explanation of the mind-body problem. The article presents a solution based on modern quantum theory. It starts from the simplest possible quantum structures, absolute bits of quantum information - AQIs. These must be understood as cosmically extended structures for mathematical reasons. In cosmic evolution, they can form into material and energetic particles. In the process of biological evolution, they can also become effective as properties, especially of biological structures, as meaningful information. Finally, as coherent states of the properties of entangled photons in a living brain, they also form the bits of information of our thoughts.
The fundamental scientific structure given with the AQIs can thus be understood in the sense of a neutral monism. Such a monism can provide the basis for both mental and material phenomena.
Here, it was necessary to replace the idea that a "material atom concept" of whatever kind could provide the absolute and ultimate foundation of the explanation of nature. Thereby, however, the cosmically founded AQIs, are to be thought in contrast to the bits of our thoughts and also to the bits in quantum computing as still free of any specific or concrete meaning.
Claude Bernard (1813-1878) and Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) rank as two of the most influential scientists of the nineteenth century. Renowned for their experiments, lectures, and writing, Bernard and du Bois-Reymond earned great prestige as professors of physiology in a time when Paris and Berlin reigned as capitals of science. Yet even though they were equals in every way, du Bois-Reymond's reputation has fallen far more than Bernard's. This essay compares aspects of the two men's attitudes to philosophy, history, and biology in an attempt to explain why Bernard remains the better known. The answer lies less in the value of du Bois-Reymond's contributions than in the way that science is remembered in France and Germany.
In diesem Kapitel betrachten wir die Erklärungen und Erklärungsansprüche namhafter Hirnforscher aus einer psychosozialen Perspektive. Bei näherer Betrachtung werden sich einige ihrer für das „Neuro-Menschenbild“ wesentlichen Erklärungen als einseitig oder gar falsch herausstellen. Beispiele hierfür sind Behauptungen über angebliche Willenstäuschungen und den wahrscheinlich berühmtesten neurologischen Patienten, Phineas Gage. Ein kurzer Ausflug in das 19. Jahrhundert und seinen Materialismusstreit verdeutlicht, dass dieses Phänomen nicht neu ist, und zwar sowohl in der Wissenschaft als auch in den Medien.
• This paper argues that studying anomalies in consciousness research can contribute significantly to advancing the debate on consciousness.
• Various unusual and anomalous phenomena are addressed in this paper
• The concepts of terminal lucidity and paradoxical lucidity need to be reconceived.
• This paper proposes building a bridge between the fields of studies into dementia diseases and end-of-life experiences.
Dieser Beitrag versucht zu zeigen, warum Schopenhauer als ein Vorläufer
einer physiologischen Kant-Interpretation bzw. einer „Empirisierung“
oder „Naturalisierung des Transzendentalen“ betrachtet werden kann, wie
sie später von wichtigen Neukantianern wie Hermann von Helmholtz
oder Friedrich Albert Lange vorgeschlagen wurde und in Langes Ausspruch, dass „die Physiologie der Sinnesorgane“ als „der entwickelte oder
der berichtigte Kantianismus“ aufzufassen sei, seinen berühmtesten Ausdruck fand.
In this paper I examine a series of interconnected accounts of the limits of mechanical explanations in psychology that were developed from Kant’s late writings to classic late nineteenth century psychology textbooks. The connection among these different accounts is established by a number of originally Kantian doctrines that were worked through and significantly reformulated in the nineteenth century. These doctrines can be summarized as follows: (1) metaphysical hypotheses are ruled out; (2) mechanical laws and explanations can contribute to the analysis of mental processes, but (3) they turn out to be intrinsically limited in this regard, hence “psychology” (in different senses) cannot be grounded on mechanical principles. I will examine elements of this Kantian legacy in Emil du Bois-Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz, Friedrich Albert Lange and Wilhelm Wundt, and focus on the progressive transformation of the Kantian insights until the early twentieth century.
Im 19. Jahrhundert emanzipierten sich die Naturwissenschaften von der Philosophie und entwickelten ihre eigene Rationalität, wobei die Philosophie seit der Revolution von 1848 endgültig ins Hintertreffen geriet und die Naturwissenschaften einen Führungsanspruch geltend machten. Die kritische Haltung gegenüber der Philosophie fand letztlich ihren Abschluss im Logischen Empirismus. Es ging darum, ein religiöses oder metaphysisches Weltbild zu überwinden. Einen besonderen Angriffspunkt stellte die überkommene Annahme eines metaphysischen Subjektes dar, die in dieser Untersuchung im Mittelpunkt stehen soll. Sie wird sich auf die österreichische Donaumonarchie konzentrieren. Wien war in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts eine der wichtigsten Metropolen des Positivismus, aber aufgrund der ›Zweiten Wiener Medizinischen Schule‹ auch ein Zentrum der damaligen antivitalistisch und antiessentialistisch ausgerichteten Medizin. Diese Untersuchung versucht, den Einfluss der ›Wiener Medizin‹ auf die Entstehung des für die Donaumonarchie typischen empirisch-positivistischen Denkens, wie es seinen Abschluss im Wiener Kreis gefunden hat, insbesondere anhand des Hirnforschers Theodor Meynert (1833–1892) nachzuzeichnen.
The problem of how biochemical processes in the brain give rise to conscious experience is still unanswered. This paper aims at stimulating the debate surrounding this enigma by advocating the study of unusual and anomalous aspects of consciousness. For this purpose, the contents of this paper are organized in three parts. In the first part, I provide a brief overview on unsolved riddles of the mind. These include unusual episodes of lucidity that have been termed terminal lucidity and paradoxical lucidity. Because the use of these terms has sometimes been inappropriate in recent literature, I clarify the basic meanings of these two concepts in the second part. The third part contains suggestions for future research. Specifically, I argue that the field of studies into episodes of lucidity in dementias and the field of studies into end-of-life experiences, such as near-death visions, should engage in an active dialogue in order to build bridges between these disciplines. Such a dialogue will enable a better understanding of the whole spectrum, and thus, possible circumstances, causes and underpinnings of lucid episodes. In sum, this paper argues that the study of lucid episodes such as terminal lucidity, paradoxical lucidity, and related occurrences holds enormous significance for improving our understanding of brain functions and accompanying states of consciousness – from a practice-orientated perspective in the contexts of the dementias and dealing with end-of-life experiences, and from a theoretical perspective in the context of the scientific debate about the nature of consciousness.
The present paper argues that the book Prinzipien des römischen Rechts by Fritz Schulz (1879-1959), first published in 1934, besides being a scholarly piece on Roman law, consists also in a Roman-law-based statement against Nazism. The argument is articulated in three parts, being the first dedicated to understanding the development of the national socialist views on Roman law; the second one deals with the Prinzipien against the background of Nazi legal conceptions, trying to grasp how the structure of the book, as well as some of the word-choices employed by Schulz were not determined exclusively by Roman law scholarship, but also intended to dialogue and ultimately re-signify Nazi misconceptions; the third and last part is dedicated to an overview of the reactions on the Prinzipien, with emphasis to the silence of potential Schulz’s allies. Two main conclusions are stated: a) the framework which allowed the development of the Nazi legal doctrine also contained the elements of Schulz reaction against it; b) Schulz’s expulsion of his career and country creates long-term difficulties concerning the evaluation of his work, ignored for years in Germany, in comparison to others, like Hans Kreller, who could stay and eventually adapt their writings for the circumstances after 1945.
This chapter demonstrates that language is a general principle of nature that is rooted exclusively in physical and chemical laws. Revealing the “grammar” of this language may be expected to lift modern biotechnology to a new level. At the same time, the concept of molecular language opens the door to a deeper understanding of the origin and early evolution of life. It is shown that linguistic pre-structures can already emerge in self-reproducing nucleic acids under prebiotic conditions. Accordingly, the first steps toward life must be regarded as a language-driven evolution of biological macromolecules that led to the protoforms of life. This phase of evolution was non-Darwinian, since it was driven exclusively by a natural selection of the phenotypic properties of nucleic acids. Only after the nucleation of the genetic code did molecular systems become the object of Darwinian evolution—that is, evolution by adaptation.
Tradução de Cassirer, E. (2009). Prefácio e Capítulo 1. In: Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik: Historische und systematische Studien zum Kausalproblem, Gesammelte Werke Hamburger Ausgabe. Editado por Birgit Recki, Band 19. Texto e notas de Claus Rosenkranz. (pp. 3-18). Hambourg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2009. Traduzido por: Ivânio Lopes de Azevedo Júnior (Universidade Federal do Cariri) e Guilherme Santos Cysne (Universidade Federal do Ceará) Precedido por: Idealismo e ciência sob uma perspectiva neokantiana.Apresentação à tradução do Prefácio e Capítulo I de “Determinismo e Indeterminismo na Física Moderna” de Ernst Cassirer, por Ivânio Lopes de Azevedo Júnior e Guilherme Santos Cysne
É uma descrição sóbria o fato de que nenhuma voz filosófica da filosofia alemã pós-fascista em todo o mundo, sobretudo nos Estados Unidos, é levada tão a sério, discutida tão profundamente e admirada por tantos quanto a habermasiana. Isto não se deve apenas ao espírito democrático fundamental (raro na tradição alemã) que respira a partir dela. Nenhuma outra posição filosófica hoje presente reagiu com comparável flexibilidade e amplitude às mudanças dos sistemas de crenças e sensibilidades contemporâneas quanto a habermasiana. O conceito de comunicação, em seu ponto central, também abre espaço para o defensor da subjetividade contra aquilo que é cultuado entre seus menosprezadores e, de fato, parece igualmente imune a uma série de tentativas reducionistas rejeitadas a seguir. Quando eu, no entanto, - após a apresentação das minhas próprias convicções – declaro haver um déficit filosófico sobre subjetividade na teoria de Habermas, faço com a consciência de que os argumentos nunca são “definitivos” ou “conclusivos” (cf. NOZICK, 1981, pp. 4), na verdade, as teorias nunca são definitivamente refutadas. Temos, diz David Lewis, de pagar um preço (LEWIS, 1983, p. X) por continuar a defendê-las contra os nossos adversários. Nas próximas quatro seções explicarei como concebo uma teoria consistente de subjetividade, e numa quinta justificarei porque é que o preço que esta teoria teria de pagar ainda me parece demasiado elevado se quisesse aderir ao paradigma da “razão comunicativa”.
Bildung, so wird behauptet, sei zu einer zentralen Ressource geworden, die besser gefördert werden müsse. Der tief greifende Umbau von Schule und Universität gehorcht diesem ökonomischen Imperativ und verkehrt die Bildungsinstitutionen in berufspragmatisch ausgerichtete Lernanstalten. Der Lehrer wird zum apparativ-instrumentellen Faktor - als »Coach«, »Moderator« oder »Lernarrangeur«. Jedoch: Lehren und Lernen sind nicht auf den apparativ geregelten Austausch von Daten reduzierbar. Bildung ist auf Beziehungen zwischen Subjekten, auf Affekte, Wünsche und Erfahrungen angewiesen. »Lehren bildet?« nimmt dieses Geflecht in seiner Rätselhaftigkeit aus verschiedenen Perspektiven in den Blick, um der »Bildungsreform« kritisch und produktiv zu begegnen.
Catchment models are conventionally evaluated in terms of their response surface or likelihood surface constructed from model runs using different sets of model parameters. Model evaluation methods are mainly based upon the concept of the equifinality of model structures or parameter sets. The operational definition of equifinality is that multiple model structures/parameters are equally capable of producing acceptable simulations of catchment processes such as runoff. Examining various aspects of this convention, in this thesis I demonstrate their shortcomings and introduce improvements including new approaches and insights for evaluating catchment models as multiple working hypotheses (MWH). First (Chapter 2), arguing that there is more to equifinality than just model structures/parameters, I propose a theoretical framework to conceptualise various facets of equifinality, based on a meta-synthesis of a broad range of literature across geosciences, system theory, and philosophy of science. I distinguish between process-equifinality (equifinality within the real-world systems/processes) and model-equifinality (equifinality within models of real-world systems), explain various aspects of each of these two facets, and discuss their implications for hypothesis testing and modelling of hydrological systems under uncertainty. Second (Chapter 3), building up on this theoretical framework, I propose that characterising model-equifinality based on model internal fluxes — instead of model parameters which is the current approach to account for model-equifinality — provides valuable insights for evaluating catchment models. I developed a new method for model evaluation — called flux mapping — based on the equifinality of runoff generating fluxes of large ensembles of catchment model simulations (1 million model runs for each catchment). Evaluating the model behaviour within the flux space is a powerful approach, beyond the convention, to formulate testable hypotheses for runoff generation processes at the catchment scale. Third (Chapter 4), I further explore the dependency of the flux map of a catchment model upon the choice of model structure and parameterisation, error metric, and data information content. I compare two catchment models (SIMHYD and SACRAMENTO) across 221 Australian catchments (known as Hydrologic Reference Stations, HRS) using multiple error metrics. I particularly demonstrate the fundamental shortcomings of two widely used error metrics — i.e. Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and Willmott’s refined index of agreement — in model evaluation. I develop the skill score version of Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGEss), and argue it is a more reliable error metric that the other metrics. I also compare two strategies of random sampling (Latin Hypercube Sampling) and guided search (Shuffled Complex Evolution) for model parameterisation, and discuss their implications in evaluating catchment models as MWH. Finally (Chapter 5), I explore how catchment characteristics (physiographic, climatic, and streamflow response characteristics) control the flux map of catchment models (i.e. runoff generation hypotheses). To this end, I formulate runoff generating hypotheses from a large ensemble of SIMHYD simulations (1 million model runs in each catchment). These hypotheses are based on the internal runoff fluxes of SIMHYD — namely infiltration excess overland flow, interflow and saturation excess overland flow, and baseflow — which represent runoff generation at catchment scale. I examine the dependency of these hypotheses on 22 different catchment attributes across 186 of the HRS catchments with acceptable model performance and sufficient parameter sampling. The model performance of each simulation is evaluated using KGEss metric benchmarked against the catchment-specific calendar day average observed flow model, which is more informative than the conventional benchmark of average overall observed flow. I identify catchment attributes that control the degree of equifinality of model runoff fluxes. Higher degree of flux equifinality implies larger uncertainties associated with the representation of runoff processes at catchment scale, and hence pose a greater challenge for reliable and realistic simulation and prediction of streamflow. The findings of this chapter provides insights into the functional connectivity of catchment attributes and the internal dynamics of model runoff fluxes.
Argument
Nineteenth-century Prussia was deeply entrenched in philhellenism, which affected the ideological framework of its public institutions. At Berlin’s Friedrich Wilhelm University, philhellenism provided the rationale for a persistent elevation of the humanities over the burgeoning experimental life sciences. Despite this outspoken hierarchy, professor of physiology Emil du Bois-Reymond eventually managed to increase the prestige of his discipline considerably. We argue that du Bois-Reymond’s use of philhellenic repertoires in his expositions on physiology for the educated German public contributed to the rise of physiology as a renowned scientific discipline. Du Bois-Reymond’s rhetorical strategies helped to disassociate experimental physiology from clinical medicine, legitimize experimental practices, and associate the emerging discipline with the more esteemed humanities and theoretical sciences. His appropriation of philhellenic rhetoric thus spurred the late nineteenth-century change in disciplinary hierarchies and helped to pave the way for the current hegemonic position of the life sciences.
Argument
In this paper I present an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond’s thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I reconsider du Bois-Reymond’s speech “On the limits of natural science” (1872) in the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy and neurophysiology, pointing out connections and analogies with contemporary arguments on the “hard problem of consciousness.” Du Bois-Reymond’s position turns out to be grounded on an epistemological argument and characterized by a metaphysical skepticism, motivated by the unfruitful speculative tendency of contemporary German philosophy and natural science. In the final sections, I show how contemporary research can benefit from a reconsideration of this position and its context of emergence, which is a good vantage point to trace open problems in consciousness studies back to their historical development.
The development of phenomenology in nineteenth‐century German philosophy is that of a particular stream within the larger historical‐philosophical complex of Austro‐German philosophy. As the “grandfather of phenomenology” resp. the “disgusted grandfather of phenomenology,” but also as the key figure on the “Anglo‐Austrian Analytic Axis”, Brentano is at the source of the two main philosophical traditions in twentieth‐century philosophy. This chapter focuses mainly on his place in nineteenth‐century European philosophy and on the central themes and concepts in his philosophy that were determinant in the development of the philosophy of his most gifted student: Edmund Husserl. Despite the variety of stances which Brentano expressed on ontology, metaphysics, and psychology over the course of his career, the five general principles remain central to his whole philosophy throughout: they have an important place in what could be called Brentano's philosophical worldview or system. By extension, they also are essential to his conception of phenomenology.
My topic is the materialist appropriation of empiricism—as conveyed in the ‘minimal credo’ nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu (which interestingly is not just a phrase repeated from Hobbes and Locke to Diderot, but is also a medical phrase, used by Harvey, Mandeville and others). That is, canonical empiricists like Locke go out of their way to state that their project to investigate and articulate the ‘logic of ideas’ is not a scientific project: “I shall not at present meddle with the Physical consideration of the Mind” (Essay, I.i.2, in Locke 1975; which Kant gets exactly wrong in his reading of Locke, in the Preface to the A edition of the first Critique). Indeed, I have suggested elsewhere, contrary to a prevalent reading of Locke, that the Essay is not the extension to the study of the mind of the methods of natural philosophy; that he is actually not the “underlabourer” of Newton and Boyle he claims politely to be in the Epistle to the Reader (Wolfe 2010b). Rather, Locke says quite directly if we pay heed to such passages, “Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our Conduct” (Essay, I.i.6). There would be more to say here about what this implies for our understanding of empiricism (see Norton 1981; Gaukroger 2005), but instead I shall focus on a different aspect of this episode: how a non-naturalistic claim which falls under what we now call epistemology (a claim about the senses as the source of knowledge) becomes an ontology—materialism. That is, how an empiricist claim could shift from being about the sources of knowledge to being about the nature of reality (and/or the mind, in which case it needs, as David Hartley saw and Denis Diderot proclaimed more overtly, an account of the relation between mental processes and the brain). (David Armstrong, for one, denied that there could be an identification between empiricism and materialism on this point: eighteenth century history of science seems to prove him wrong: see Armstrong 1978). Put differently, I want to examine the shift from the logic of ideas in the seventeenth century (Locke) to an eighteenth-century focus on what kind of ‘world’ the senses give us (Condillac), to an assertion that there is only one substance in the universe (Diderot, giving a materialist cast to Spinozism), and that we need an account of the material substrate of mental life. This is neither a ‘scientific empiricism’ nor a linear developmental process from philosophical empiricism to natural science, but something else again: the unpredictable emergence of an ontology on empiricist grounds.
Much has been written about the famous lecture on “Mathematical Problems” (Hilbert 1901) that David Hilbert delivered at the Second International Congress of Mathematicians, which took place in Paris during the summer of 1900 (Alexandrov 1979; Browder 1976). Not that the event itself evoked such great interest, nor have many writers paid particularly close attention to what Hilbert had to say on that occasion. What mattered – both for the text and the larger context – came afterward. Mathematicians remember ICM II and Hilbert’s role in it for just one reason: this was the occasion when he unveiled a famous list of 23 problems, a challenge to those who wished to make names for themselves in the coming century (Gray 2000). These “Hilbert Problems” and “their solvers” have long served as a central theme around which numerous stories have been written (Yandell 2002; Rowe 2004a). They have also served as a convenient peg for describing important mathematical developments of the twentieth century (Struik 1987). Yet relatively little has been written about the events that led up to Hilbert’s lecture or the larger themes he set forth in the main body of his text. With this in mind, the present essay aims to address these less familiar parts of the story by sketching some of the relevant historical and mathematical background.
With the help of huge machines, science endeavours to wrest the last secrets from Nature. An example is the large accelerator at the European nuclear research centre CERN, which is designed to simulate processes that presumably took place at the origin of the universe. Can we hope to understand some day the existence of the world, or does the origin of all things confront us with an unsolvable problem?
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