Phenomenology as an instrument of critique

The present paper aims at showing that the phenomenological method is a crucial methodological element of every research that is based on the interpretation of utterances or texts based on experiences, like religious studies. Following the neophenomenological school, the notion of “phenomenon” is understood in a radically relative way: “A phenomenon for a person at a given point of time is a state of affairs for which this person cannot — in spite of trying to vary the presuppositions she makes as much as possible — withdraw the belief that it is a fact” (Schmitz, 2003: 1). Starting from this notion, phenomenology may fruitfully criticise two common strategies: reduction and construction. The first one tries to reduce experiences to allegedly more fundamental processes like electrical impulses in neural nets. Here the phenomenologist must object that in doing so without preceding phenomenological analysis the reductionist will lose large parts of potentially important information. As to the second strategy, constructions — in the sense of presuppositions, ready-made concepts etc. — are present in all texts that are meant to express an experience. In order to describe the underlying experience more adequately, the phenomenological researcher has to remove as many constructions as possible. In this way she does not only produce a description that is ”closer” to the experience (though she can never hope to fully grasp it), but she also paves the way for comparison and dialogue across religions and cultures

Coronavirus and Power: The Impact on International Politics. Egmont European Policy Brief No. 126 March 2020

This will change everything. It is an understandable feeling. When people pass through an ordeal, they want to believe that when all is over there will be some compensation. Things may indeed change, but perhaps not as radically as may seem likely today in the midst of the crisis – and not all change will be for the better. What change could the corona crisis bring to international politics

Proton and Neutron Irradiation Tests of Readout Electronics of the ATLAS Hadronic Endcap Calorimeter

The readout electronics of the ATLAS Hadronic Endcap Calorimeter will have to withstand the about ten times larger radiation environment of the future high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) compared to their design values. The GaAs ASIC which comprises the heart of the readout electronics has been exposed to neutron and proton radiation with fluences up to ten times the total expected fluences for ten years of running of the HL-LHC. Neutron tests were performed at the NPI in Rez, Czech Republic, where a 36 MeV proton beam is directed on a thick heavy water target to produce neutrons. The proton irradiation was done with 200 MeV protons at the PROSCAN area of the Proton Irradiation Facility at the PSI in Villigen, Switzerland. In-situ measurements of S-parameters in both tests allow the evaluation of frequency dependent performance parameters - like gain and input impedance - as a function of the fluence. The linearity of the ASIC response has been measured directly in the neutron tests with a triangular input pulse of varying amplitude. The performance measurements and expected performance degradations under HL-LHC conditions are presented.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures, talk given at IEEE/NSS 2012 in Anaheim, C

Can Program Explanations Save the Causal Efficacy of Beliefs?

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit offered the "program\ud explanation account� (PEA) in order to vindicate the causal\ud relevance of mental states such as beliefs. According to\ud J&P, a property F of a cause-event c (potentially a mental\ud property) can be causally relevant for an effect-event e"s\ud having property G because "e had G because c had F� is\ud an informative, non-redundant program explanation. If\ud PEA succeeded, the causal relevance of beliefs would be\ud vindicated and mental property epiphenomenalism would\ud be avoided.1 However, it doesn"t succeed