In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Christian PerspectiveUlrich DuchrowTogether we are facing a global kairos of humanity because these years are decisive for whether our civilization will irreversibly continue to produce death or whether we find a way out toward a life-enhancing new culture. So let me try to make a humble contribution to our common search for liberation from suffering toward life through justice.suffering caused by economic injustice in (...) the axial age and in the capitalist civilization of modernityWe do not need to spend much time on describing the sufferings caused by economic injustice. They cry to high heaven every day. Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, speaks of more than 60 million people dying of hunger and its consequences every year, especially children, although there is more than enough to feed them. That is an annual World War II against the poor. He continues to say: “A child that dies of hunger is murdered.” He calls this a daily crime against humanity.1 Others call it structural genocide.2 All these victims are human beings with a human face, according to biblical tradition created in the image of God. So we are talking about murdering living images of God, about blasphemy.Also, the blue planet Earth’s suffering is growing dramatically. The extinction of species is accelerating, desertification is expanding, the poisoning of water and soil is increasing, and climate change is producing irreversible effects like lifting the sea level, devouring islands in the Pacific and growing parts of Bangladesh, creating weather disasters everywhere, and possibly increasing temperature in parts of Africa by ten degrees. We all know this, but so far we have not been able to make the necessary changes in global economics and politics to stop or at least slow it.Often forgotten are the psychological and spiritual sufferings and diseases of a growing number of people. In India an average of more than fifty farmers, driven into debt beyond their means, commit suicide daily out of despair.3 Workers suffer increasing stress and anxiety, and middle-class people fall into depression, projected to be the second most common illness in 2020, according the World Health Organization. So what are the roots of all of this? [End Page 27]My thesis is that what we are experiencing now started nearly three thousand years ago within what is called the Axial Age, beginning in the eighth century bce, in the whole of Eurasia from Greece to China. At that time a new economy started to appear in daily life, built on money and private property. It had tremendous social as well as psychological and spiritual effects. To analyze what happened then helps us understand what is happening today. Looking at the responses to this development by the different faiths and philosophies in Israel/Judah, India, China, and Greece may also help us to better understand the tasks and possibilities of engaged Buddhists and liberation theologians in our age.The philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term “Axial Age.”4 According to him, the experience of violent crises between 800 and 200 bce might have prompted the parallel efforts of the prophets, the Buddha, Confucius, Daoism, and Greek philosophy to find new foundations for living together. He characterized the new approach as intellectual and spiritual (geistig), looking only marginally at the economic and political context. Recently Karen Armstrong and, based on her findings, Jeremy Rifkin took up this theory, looking particularly at war and violence as causes for the responses within the different cultures.5 Also José María Vigil, who is present here, has just published a chapter in his book on Theology of Axiality and Axial Theology.6 As far as the sociohistoric context of the Axial Age is concerned my thesis comes nearest to what David Graeber has worked out in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years,7 although he is not very interested in the religious responses. Combining his insights with my own research,8 let me summarize how the new economy affects ancient societies.Money as unit of account was used in the palaces and temples of Mesopotamia as early... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Response to Ulrich Duchrow and David LoyJoerg RiegerThat economic injustice is one of the central topics of our time is hard to dispute. Even those who seek to avoid the topic cannot escape the numbers and the stories of gross economic disparity. It affects life everywhere, as—using the language of the Occupy Wall Street movement—economic injustice pits the 99 percent against the (...) 1 percent even in the United States. More and more of us are not benefitting from capitalism anymore.Ulrich Duchrow’s presentation puts matters in stark relief when he reminds us that 60 million people are dying of hunger and its consequences every year. If we do the math based on this one number, this amounts to one Holocaust every two months. Nevertheless, even this large number shows only a tiny tip of the iceberg, as it does not include the countless millions who die from the consequences of malnourishment, from lack of resources like clean drinking water, employment opportunities, health care, and many other problems. In the United States alone, forty-five thousand people die annually simply because of the lack of affordable health care.1When we are dealing with economic injustice, we are dealing with what ultimately amounts to a matter of life and death. Here, all religion necessarily becomes engaged religion in one way or another: In the struggle between life and death caused by economic injustice, religion has the option of placing itself on the side of life. If it does not place itself on the side of life, I suspect that it places itself on the side of death by default. Neutral ground does not seem to exist here.Nevertheless, let us not forget that the topic of economic injustice is not just a matter of those who suffer from economic injustice; it is also a matter of those who impose the suffering of economic injustice on others. While people of religion often address the former topic, they often remain silent on the latter. Kwok Pui-lan and I have tried to deal with this problem in our recent book Occupy Religion.2 When we talk about economic injustice and the 99 percent, we must also talk about the 1 percent. I will return to this topic shortly.What I have presented so far amounts to a fairly dualistic picture. Given the current economic status quo, this dualism appears to be something that we have to contend [End Page 51] with, whether we like dualisms or not: As people are dying and lives are being destroyed, economic injustice confronts us with matters of life and death. While the dualisms of economic injustice are nothing to be celebrated, it may be necessary to fight back. It is significant to hear David Loy, who has consistently fought against dualisms in his work, admit that “there’s also a beneficial side” to dualism, for instance when Amos castigates those who “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth” and “crush the needy” (Amos 2:7, 4:1). Loy further understands that our societies may be “becoming more unjust.” I wonder what would happen, though, if Loy were to take a closer look at what this injustice looks like and if he were to take into consideration actual people whose lives are being destroyed by it. What might this mean for his understanding of the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering)?Loy understands social justice as distributive justice, referring the Hebrew prophets’ frustration that the rich have so much and the poor have so little. While he does not dismiss this discourse of justice, he seeks to shift gears as a Buddhist, arguing that economic suffering (dukkha) is based on “our delusive sense of self.” This shift leads me to wonder who is included in this use of the first person plural; whose “delusive sense of self” is Loy talking about? At first sight it looks as if he refers to all of us, claiming that all human beings equally share in this delusion that causes suffering. Let me suggest, however, that we take a closer look and investigate more carefully whose delusive... (shrink)

Das Buch weist die Fruchtbarkeit einer strukturgenetisch fundierten Rekonstruktionsperspektive für die Analyse der historisch und kulturell differenten Weltbilder nach. Anhand der für die Geschichte der Denksysteme zentralen Vorstellungen über die Natur-Kultur-Differenz und die physikalische Kausalität werden Reichweite und Grenzen der These einer universalen Entwicklungslogik kritische geprüft. Die historischen Studien bieten dabei einen neuartigen Blick auf die Aristotelische Physik und ihre mittelalterlichen Fortentwicklungen. Schließlich werden die materialen Ergebnisse in Richtung einer differenztheoretisch orientierten Theorie der Entstehung des Neuen in der Entwicklung ausgedeutet.

The explanation of animal communication by means of concepts like information, meaning and reference is one of the central foundational issues in animal behaviour studies. This book explores these issues, revolving around questions such as: • What is the nature of information? • What theoretical roles does information play in animal communication studies? • Is it justified to employ these concepts in order to explain animal communication? • What is the relation between animal signals and human language? The book approaches (...) the topic from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including ethology, animal cognition, theoretical biology and evolutionary biology, as well as philosophy of biology and mind. A comprehensive introduction familiarises non-specialists with the field and leads on to chapters ranging from philosophical and theoretical analyses to case studies involving primates, birds and insects. The resulting survey of new and established concepts and methodologies will guide future empirical and theoretical research. (shrink)

Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal‐producing and signal‐consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny’s proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring (...) representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer‐based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.; e‐mail: ulrich[email protected]. (shrink)

Als eine wesentliche Schwäche des strukturalistischen Theorienkonzepts musste die Vagheit erscheinen, mit der die Unterscheidung zwischen bezüglich einer Theorie theoretischen und nichttheoretischen Funktionen bisher belastet war. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird ein formal präzises, pragmatisch nichtrelativiertes Kriterium für T-Theoretizität vorgestellt. Erste Schritte zur Klärung seiner Bedeutung für die holistische Sichtweise erfahrungswissenschaftlicher Theorien werden unternommen.

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

Epistemic arguments play a significant role in the foundations of market liberalism as exemplified, in particular, by the work of F. A. Hayek. Competition in free markets is claimed to be the most effective device both to utilize the knowledge dispersed throughout society as well as create new knowledge through innovation competition. The fast pace with which new economic opportunities are discovered and costs are reduced is considered proof of the benefits of free markets to the common good. However, with (...) its inherently unpredictable consequences, innovation competition is actually ambiguous in this respect. This feature raises questions over the stringency of market liberal pleas that oppose quests for redistribution and environmental concerns in an absolute fashion. (shrink)

In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with remarks (...) on the legitimacy and the effectiveness of norms generated by TNNs. Through this, we aim to contribute a new theoretical foundation to the analysis of CSR standards, which enables us to undertake a more differentiated description of TNN structures which have hitherto been ignored in academic literature. Secondly, we will contribute to the practical debate on ISO 26000 and the Global Compact by proposing new perspectives on the conditions of their legitimacy and effectiveness based on the voice-entitlement nexus. (shrink)

Eine tragfähige affektive Beziehung wird als Grundlage für reflexive kooperative Prozesse in der psychoanalytisch orientierten Therapie erachtet. Was ist die Essenz dieser affektiven Bindung (des Attachments)? Es werden zwei bildhafte Konzepte entwickelt: das affektive Feld und die Trajektorie. Letztere ist als ein Weg der affektiven Information zwischen den Protagonisten gezeichnet. Jedes Selbst hat ein affektives Feld. Die Felder zwischen zwei Selbsten werden verknüpft, jedoch nicht im Sinne der Feldtheorie, die eine eigen­ständige Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Feldes postuliert. In einem wissenschaftstheoretischen Exkurs (...) werden die Ansätze »Feld« und »two singles« als gleichwertige Möglichkeiten diskutiert, Intersubjektivität zu verstehen. Die affektive Beziehung entwickelt sich zunächst zu den beiden Funktionen der resonanten und der responsiven Relation, um dann zunehmend durch die kognitive überlagert zu werden. Affektive Kommunikation ist nicht identisch mit der affektiven Bindung. Es werden Störungen im Bereich der Psychosen und Formen früher Störungen beschrieben. Die Ergebnisse der Bindungsforschung sind bekannt, spielen aber in dieser klinisch ausgerichteten Arbeit nur hintergründig eine Rolle. (shrink)

Ulrich Meyer defends a novel theory about the nature of time, and argues against the consensus view that time and space are fundamentally alike. He presents the first comprehensive defense of a 'modal' account, which emphasizes the similarities between times and possible worlds in modal logic, and is easily reconciled with the theory of relativity.

The goal of this article is to show that the structuralist approachprovides a powerful framework for the analysis of certain holistic phenomena in empirical theories.We focus on two aspects of holism. The first refers to the involvement of comprehensive complexes of hypothesesin the theoretical treatment of systems regarded in isolation. By contrast, the second refers to thecorrelation between the theoretical descriptions of different systems. It is demonstrated how these two aspectscan be analysed by making use of the structuralist notion of (...) theory-nets, and how they are reflected by a refinedversion of the Ramsey sentence. Furthermore, it is argued that there exists a tight correlation between theoccurrence of these two holistic phenomena, a specific form of underdetermination of terms which occur in thefundamental principles of an empirical theory, and the shaping of the theory's protective belt. After having dealtwith these questions in abstracto, the relevance of these considerations for a better understanding of the dynamicsof empirical theories is demonstrated in a concrete case study. It refers to the role holistic phenomenaplayed in the investigation of the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion and in the various attempts to eliminate this anomaly. (shrink)

The German debate on bioethics and medical ethics turns on a change in the meaning of human dignity. Such dignity is increasingly rendered contingent upon a person's empirically assessable quality of life. In contrast to such dignity-endowed human life, a merely biological human life is taken to disqualify its bearer from such dignity, depriving his life of the protection “respect for human dignity” would otherwise guarantee. The idea of a “life not worth living” or “undignified life” evokes categories, which were (...) developed at the beginning of the 20th century, and later informed the crimes of National Socialist medicine in Germany. Against this secular development, this article analyses the theological and church-based discussion of basic bioethical questions in Germany, especially the controversy among Protestants: once Protestant ethicists abandon an explicitly theological basis for their arguments, their conclusions come to closely resemble those of the secular participants in the debate. As a result, such Protestants relativize fundamental ethical norms. They subordinate, along with their secular environment, the protection of life to respect for autonomy. They thus prepare the ground for a revival of the risky concepts of the past. (shrink)

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...

In this paper we present a modern version of the classic theory of “ultimate psychological hedonism” . As does the UPH, our two-dimensional model of metatelic orientations also postulates a fundamentally hedonistic motivation for any human action. However, it makes a distinction between “telic” or content-based goals of actions and “metatelic” or emotional reasons for actions. In our view, only the emotional reasons for action, but not the goals of action, conform to the UPH. After outlining our model, we will (...) elucidate the similarities and differences between our model and classic UPH. In this context we will clarify several basic misconceptions regarding classic UPH. In a next step, two major criticisms of the theory of ultimate psychological hedonism will be discussed, that is the statement that the hedonistic principle has no motivating effect at all and the argument that the hedonistic motivation is only one of many motivations of human actions. We believe that both of these arguments can be refuted. Finally, we will discuss the compatibility of our model with evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Constitutions are not just legal texts but form a narrative with an engaging plot, a hierarchy of actors and a distinct ideology. They can be read and interpreted as literary texts. The four constitutions in 20th century Russia can be attributed to specific genres. Moreover, they interact closely with the official culture of their time. The constitutions serve an important task in the cultural self-definition of Russian society which as a rule occurred in moments of ideological crisis. The case of (...) Russia is especially intriguing since the Utopian project of a just society needed in every stage of its evolution a new convincing design which was able to guarantee the citizens' loyalty to the state. (shrink)