Anschauung, Anschauen (Intuition)

Since Plato’s metaphor of the light of knowledge used in the “Allegory of the Cave” from his dialogue Politeia, the concepts of Anschauen or Anschauung (intuition) and their corresponding lexical field, including the terms light, sun, and eye, represent key notions and much-debated issues in philosophical thinking. In his literary, scientific, and philosophical writings, Goethe does not articulate a systematic and explicit theory of these concepts; on the contrary, most of his remarks on the topic of “intuition” are aphoristic or tacitly integrated into his poetic and scientific works. One of his main contributions to the philosophical debates surrounding Anschauen and Anschauung is that he developed and integrated into his works different modes of a specifically creative and productive—as opposed to a merely receptive and sensory—form of Anschauen. This productive form of Anschauen, for which he also uses the terms “Phantasie” (phantasy), “Einbildungskraft” (imagination), “exakte sinnliche Phantasie” (exact sensory phantasy or imagination) or “anschauende Urteilskraft” (intuitive power of judgment) in various contexts, can serve as both a creative faculty in his poetry and a precise scientific or philosophical instrument of cognition. Within the context of the philosophical tradition, and apart from the heritage of Plato and Platonism, Goethe’s notion of Anschauen can be understood, on the one hand, in the context of classical German philosophy and its debates on “anschauender Verstand” (intuitive understanding) and “intellektuelle” or “intellektuale Anschauung” (intellectual intuition). On the other hand, it is also phenomenologically grounded and anticipates the main insights of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and the phenomenological movement in the 20th century, one of the most important of which is the so-called phenomenological Wesensschau (eidetic intuition).

A family of solutions to the inverse problem in gravitation: building a theory around a metric

A method is presented to construct a particular, non-minimally coupled scalar–tensor theory such that a given metric is an exact vacuum solution in that theory. In contrast to the standard approach in studies of gravitational dynamics, where one begins with an action and then solves the equations of motion, this approach allows for an explicit theory to be built around some pre-specified geometry. Starting from a parameterized black hole spacetime with generic, non-Kerr hairs, it is shown how an overarching family of theories can be designed to fit the metric exactly.

Anonymity

Anonymity is defined as the absence of the author’s name on a title page, or in any other paratext of a publication such as a preface or dedication or manuscript colophon; pseudonymity is included because it presents a false name to the reader while concealing the author’s name. A theory of anonymity establishes the general conditions of possibility for anonymous authorship, and thus has a different object than a literary history that describes the variable causes of anonymity: the decisions of authors, editors, or publishers, or the fact that the author was either originally unknown or has come to be unknown over time. In the most general sense, the conditions of anonymity are inherent in language itself, and especially so in writing; the writer is separated from the written. While writers have always exploited this knowledge in practice, the fullest theory of the anonymity of language was developed extensively by the linguists, critics, philosophers, and historians of culture associated with structuralism and poststructuralism in mid-twentieth century France. While the concerns of the problematic of enunciation—who is speaking, and from what place?—were central to this group of thinkers, and are indeed familiar under the headings of the critique of the cogito and the relation between writing and death, it is less widely recognized that an explicit theory of anonymity as a condition of speech and writing was constructed in the movement that can be traced economically from Benveniste to Barthes, and then to Derrida and Foucault.

Testing the stability of theory of mind: A longitudinal approach

An explicit understanding of false belief develops around the age of four years. However, tasks based on spontaneous responses have revealed an implicit understanding of belief and other theory of mind constructs in infants in their second year of life. The few longitudinal studies that have examined conceptual continuity of theory of mind from infancy to early childhood have reported mixed findings. Here we report two longitudinal experiments to investigate the developmental relation between implicit and explicit theory of mind. No link was observed in the first experiment between false belief and intention understanding measured at 14 and 18 months with the violation of expectation paradigm and tasks measuring explicit and implicit false belief at four or five years of age. In the second experiment, infants aged 18 months were tested with a battery of tasks that measured knowledge inference and false belief. They were then tested with the theory of mind scale at five years of age. The parents completed the Children’s Social Understanding Scale (CSUS) and the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ). As in the first experiment, there were no associations between early and later forms of theory of mind. We suggest that these findings do not support the view that there is conceptual continuity in theory of mind development.

Science Without a Question

Fabian Stephany on the CoRisk-Index, its development during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nexus between implicit and explicit theory.

Caveats of Non-Ipsatization of Basic Values: A Review of Conceptual and Statistical Issues

Ipsatization, or a correction of variables by their common component, has been routinely applied to measures of basic values. However, it was rarely discussed in terms of the consequences it may entail and especially in contrast to the consequences of non-ipsatization. The current paper aimed at clarifying conceptual and statistical issues as well reviewing the existing critiques of ipsatization. Conceptually, ipsatization of values is intertwined with the definition of values which emphasizes their ordered nature. A common factor that is removed by ipsatization was discussed to represent either a nuisance variable to turn ratings into preferences, a response style, social desirability, or an overall level of motivation. None of these, though, were proved to be a single determinant of a common value factor. The conceptualizations were not mutually exclusive and partly overlapped with the content of values. Statistically, both applying and failing to apply ipsatization can cause bias. A small simulation study illustrated that the use of a popular ipsatization method of within-person centering tended to increase bias when the specific factors were positively intercorrelated or correlated to a common factor. In contrast, non-centered scores were biased when the common factor had relatively large variance compared to specific value factors and when the factors were negatively intercorrelated. Revisiting previous overarching recommendations, we concluded that no general advice in regard to ipsatization can be provided. Instead, each measurement situation requires its own evaluation. An explicit theory of a common factor in given settings can provide arguments for or against ipsatization.

Distracted driving prevention: an analysis of recent UK campaigns

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze message features of fear appeals in current British road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving and to discuss barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design. Design/methodology/approach This message-centred research takes a qualitative content analytical approach to analyze nine British web-based road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving based on the extended parallel process model. Message content and message structure are analyzed. Findings There still exists a gap between theory and road safety campaign practice. The study reveals that campaigns with fear appeals primarily use threatening messages but neglect efficacy-based contents. Severity messages emerge as the dominant content type while self-efficacy and response efficacy are hardly represented. Fear appeal content in the threat component was mainly communicated through the mention of legal, financial and physical harm, whereas efficacy messages communicated success stories and encouragement. As regards message structure, the threat component always preceded the efficacy component. Within each component, different patterns emerged. Practical implications To enhance efficacy in campaigns directed against distracted driving and to reduce the gap between theory and practice, social marketers should include messages that empower recipients to abstain from mobile phone use while driving. Campaigns should show recommended behaviours and highlight their usefulness and effectiveness. Originality/value This paper adds to limited research conducted on effect-independent message properties of fear appeals. It enhances understanding of fear appeal message features across the structure and content dimension. By discussing barriers to explicit theory use in social marketing practice and offering practical implications for social marketers, it contributes towards reducing the barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design.