The World According to Kant offers an interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s critical idealism, as developed in the Critique of Pure Reason and associated texts. Critical idealism is understood as an ontological position, which comprises transcendental idealism, empirical realism, and a number of other basic ontological theses. According to Kant, the world, understood as the sum total of everything that has reality, comprises several levels of reality, most importantly, the transcendental level and the empirical level. The transcendental level is a mind-independent (...) level at which things in themselves exist. The empirical level is a fully mind-dependent level at which appearances exist, which are intentional objects of experience. Empirical objects and empirical minds are appearances, and empirical space and time are constituted by the spatial and temporal determinations of appearances. On the proposed interpretation, Kant is thus a genuine idealist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. But in contrast to other intentional objects, appearances genuinely exist, which is due both to the special character of experience compared to other kinds of representations such as illusions or dreams, and to the grounding of appearances in things themselves. This is why, on the proposed interpretation, Kant is also a genuine realist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and empirical space and time. This book develops the indicated interpretation, spells out Kant’s case for critical idealism thus understood, pinpoints the differences between critical idealism and ‘ordinary’ idealism, such as Berkley’s, and clarifies the relation between Kant’s conception of things in themselves and the conception of things in themselves by other philosophers, in particular, Kant’s Leibniz-Wolffian predecessors. -/- PS from the author: I maintain a list of errata plus corrections on my website (which can easily be found by googling my name). If you discover additional errors, typos, or unfortunate formulations, I would be grateful to hear from you. -/- . (shrink)

This essay examines some of the ways in which the assumption of the essential finitude of the human mind, in contrast to the infinitude of God’s mind, bears on Leibniz’s and Kant’s accounts of our representational capacities. This examination reveals several underappreciated similarities between their views, but also some notable differences that help us pinpoint where and in what ways Kant departs from his celebrated predecessor. The fruits of this examination are a better understanding of Kant’s conception of the discursivity (...) of our understanding, his account of the difference between concepts and intuitions, and the particular flavor of his idealism. -/- . (shrink)

Contrary to popular belief, I argue that Leibniz is not hopelessly confused about motion: Leibniz is indeed both a relativist and an absolutist about motion, as suggested by the textual evidence, but, appearances to the contrary, this is not a problem; Leibniz’s infamous doctrine of the equivalence of hypotheses is well-supported and well-integrated within Leibniz’s physical theory; Leibniz’s assertion that the simplest hypothesis of several equivalent hypotheses can be held to be true can be explicated in such a way that (...) it makes good sense; the mere Galilean invariance of Leibniz’s conservation law does not compromise Leibniz’s relativism about motion; and Leibniz has a straightforward response to Newton’s challenge that the observable effects of the inertial forces of rotational motions empirically distinguish absolute from relative motions. (shrink)

In his recent book, The Empirical Stance, Bas van Fraassen forcefully raises the question of what a philosophical position can or should be. He mainly discusses this question with regard to empiricism but his discussion makes it clear that he takes his proposed answer to be generalizable: not only empiricism but philosophical positions in general should be understood as stances rather than dogmata. The first part of this essay is devoted to an examination of van Fraassen’s critique of ‘naïve’ or (...) dogmatic empiricism, which represents an integral part of his argument for ‘stance’ empiricism. It will be argued that, contrary to van Fraassen’s view, not all versions of naïve empiricism run into the problems identified by him. In the second part of the paper the case will be made that, contrary to van Fraassen’s thesis, the stance empiricist is in at least as bad a position as the naïve empiricist with regard to the task of providing a radical critique of metaphysics, which van Fraassen takes to be an essential task that any empiricist should be able to accomplish. The third part of this essay concerns van Fraassen’s general proposal, and examines the question whether a philosophical position can possibly consist in a stance. It will be suggested that this is not the case. With regard to empiricism this has the implication that if one wants to be a philosopher and an empiricist at the same time one needs to subscribe to a form of naïve empiricism. Furthermore, it will be proposed that as a philosopher-empiricist one should want, or, at least, allow some form of metaphysical theorizing to be part of the philosophical enterprise after all. (shrink)

A popular story about Kant's relation to Leibniz presents Kant as a Leibniz-Wolffian by education who, inspired by his encounter with the teachings of Newton and Hume, took on the project of reconciling Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics with Newtonian science and of responding to epistemological skepticism, a project that led him further and further away from his Leibniz-Wolffian roots and culminated in the total rejection of the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy in the Critique of Pure Reason. In this essay, four shortcomings of the popular (...) story are identified and several suggestions are made about how to amend and expand the story in order to overcome these shortcomings. Furthermore, some of the most important Leibnizian doctrines that influenced Kant are collected and their role in Kant's philosophy is discussed. (shrink)

Most commentators agree that Leibniz advocates some version of a doctrine of the ideality or reducibility of relations, but there is considerable disagreement about what exactly this doctrine means. I argue that Leibniz’s views on relations are more complex than has been previously appreciated, and that, despite some ‘reductionist’ strands in Leibniz’s position, it is seriously misleading to describe him as a reductionist about relations without adding some important qualifications. The complexity of Leibniz’s views on relations tends to be obscured (...) by the common assumption that they can be captured in one unified thesis, or a small number of closely related theses, and by the widespread neglect to take Leibniz’s division of reality into several ontological levels into consideration. I disentangle ten Leibnizian theses about relations, extrinsic denominations, and their relation to intrinsic denominations. Some of these theses express a kind of dependence of extrinsic denominations on intrinsic ones, and some of them can even be counted as articulations of a form of reductionism. But, overall, the general tenor of Leibniz’s position on extrinsic denominations remains non-reductionist. (shrink)

It is surprisingly difficult to determine what modal strength Leibniz wants to ascribe to his principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). I consider this question by examining (i) some direct textual evidence, (ii) Leibniz's main arguments for PII, (iii) Leibniz's presumable response to a prominent contemporary defense of the necessity of PII against Max Black style counterexamples, and (iv) Leibniz's views about the possibility of primitive haecceities. I conclude that Leibniz probably takes PII to be necessary.

The problem at the center of this essay is how one can reconcile the continuity of space with a monadological theory of matter, according to which matter is ultimately composed of simple elements, a problem that greatly exercised Leibniz, the Wolffians, and Kant. The underlying purpose of this essay is to illustrate my reading of Kant’s philosophical development, and of his relation to the Wolffians and Leibniz, according to which, (a), this development was fueled by ‘home-grown’ problems that arose within (...) the framework of the Wolffian philosophy from which Kant started out, and, (b), on his journey to critical idealism, Kant gradually moved away from Wolffianism, but closer to Leibniz, which, however, he came to realize only some years after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason. This reading is illustrated by showing that the problem of how to reconcile the continuity of space with a monadological theory of matter is a problem that Kant inherits from Leibniz and the Wolffians, in whose thinking it already plays an important role, that Leibniz’s mature solution to the problem differs markedly from the Wolffian solution, and that Kant’s early, pre-critical solution is largely Wolffian, while his later critical solution is largely Leibnizian, as he himself notes with gleeful satisfaction. The discussion also reveals that this problem is one of the key problems that fueled Kant’s philosophical development and, eventually, led him to the discovery of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Response to critical comments by Edward Slowik on my article 'Leibniz on Motion and the Equivalence of Hypotheses' in The Leibniz Review 18 (2008).

Kant attacks the Leibnizians on various fronts but the objection that occurs most frequently in his writings is that they are committed to an untenable conception of the relation between sensible and intellectual representations. They regard the difference between intellectual and sensible representations as a merely ‘logical’ difference that concerns their form, namely, their different degrees of distinctness, while in truth it is a difference in kind that concerns their nature, origin, and content. In the first part of this essay, (...) I provide a detailed reconstruction of what exactly this objection amounts to, and show why Kant takes this misconception to be so significant that he keeps coming back to it over and over again. The misconception is so significant because virtually all of the other mistaken doctrines of the Leibnizians can be traced back to it. Several commentators have argued that Leibniz is not guilty of the confusion of sensible and intellectual representations that Kant accuses him of. But this does not automatically clear him from all the other errors that Kant takes to be closely connected with this confusion. In the second part of this essay, I take a look at Leibniz's theory of confused perceptions and examine whether he is committed to one of these errors, namely, the view that we could learn something about things in themselves by experience if our senses were acute enough or our powers of 'disfusing' perceptions were strong enough. (shrink)

Most commentators agree that (part of what) Kant means by characterizing the propositions of geometry as synthetic is that they are not true merely in virtue of logic or meaning, and that this characterization has something to do with his views about the construction of geometrical concepts in intuition. Many commentators regard construction in intuition as an essential part of geometrical proofs on Kant’s view. On this reading, the propositions of geometry are synthetic because the geometrical theorems cannot be proved (...) in purely conceptual or logical terms. Other commentators see the main role of pure intuition and the figures constructed in pure intuition in that they provide a model for Euclidean geometry. On views of this kind, the propositions of geometry are synthetic because the geometrical axioms are substantive truths about one of our forms of intuition. On the interpretation proposed in this essay, what Kant means by claiming that the propositions of geometry are synthetic is not only that the Euclidean axioms and theorems cannot be reduced to tautologies or logical truths, but also that they apply to really possible objects. Construction in intuition plays no essential role in (what we now call) ‘pure’ geometry on Kant’s view. But the fact that the concepts of geometry can be constructed in intuition is of crucial importance in the context of Kant’s transcendental philosophy of geometry, because, among other things, it allows him to explain how Euclidean geometry is possible as an a priori synthetic science in the sense just indicated. (shrink)

Jauernig defends the view that all living beings are of equal moral worth and are owed compassion, on account of which we are also obligated to adopt a vegan diet. Fischer denies that we have an obligation to become vegans, and argues for the position that humans morally matter more than all other living creatures.

It is argued that the popular story that portrays Kant’s philosophical development as a gradual emancipation from his Leibniz-Wolffian roots that culminated in a total rejection of the Leibnizian philosophy by 1781 is not accurate. Kant’s many objections against the Leibnizian philosophy in the critical period are not directed against Leibniz himself but against the Leibniz-Wolffians. Kant considers Leibniz’s philosophy to be very close to his own, calling the Critique of Pure Reason the “true apology” of Leibniz. It is claimed (...) that this assessment is correct; the correctness is demonstrated with respect to Kant’s and Leibniz’s theories of space. (shrink)

In Immanuel Kant's pre-critical writings as well as in his main critical work, the Critique of Pure Reason, one finds a whole battery of fierce attacks on core doctrines of Leibnizian philosophy, e.g., the monadology, the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, the principle of sufficient reason, the doctrine of the pre-established harmony, or the relationalist theory of space and time. It is tempting to read Kant's philosophical development as a gradual emancipation from his Leibnizian upbringing, culminating in a thorough (...) rejection of Leibnizian philosophy as a paradigm case of the kind of dogmatic metaphysics that Kant wants to overcome with his critical philosophy. But in addition to the familiar texts in which Kant attacks the Leibnizians there are several curious, less well-discussed passages in which Kant speaks in highly approving terms of Leibniz. In these passages Kant self-avowedly defends Leibniz against his Leibniz-Wolffian followers who, according to Kant, have seriously misunderstood Leibniz's original position. Kant maintains that a correct reading of Leibniz reveals that his own and Leibniz's views are in fact very close, and that with regard to many issues that are central to transcendental idealism Leibniz had already tried to say what Kant then made explicit in his critical work. The project of this essay is to lay the foundation for the examination of an unorthodox reading of the relation between Leibnizian metaphysics and Kantian transcendental idealism, according to which Kant's critical philosophy can correctly be described as the "true apology of Leibniz", as Kant claims, while Kant's sharply critical objections in the pre-critical works and in the Critique of Pure Reason for the most part don't apply to Leibniz's original theory but to Leibniz-Wolffian school-philosophy. The present essay provides the necessary groundwork for the examination of this unorthodox reading by showing that, and to what extent, these Kantian objections do not apply to Leibniz himself, and by arguing that Kant's reading of certain central Leibnizian doctrines in which Leibnizian metaphysics is represented as a forerunner of transcendental idealism is indeed defensible. (shrink)

Review of Kant’s Moral Metaphysics, edited by Benjamin Lipscomb and James Krueger, de Gruyter, 2010.

Book review of Anja Jauernig, The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism (2021) by Ekin Erkan.

Review of Anja Jauernig, The World according to Kant: appearances and things-in-themselves in Critical Idealism, Oxford University Press, 2021.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism by Anja JauernigPatricia KitcherAnja Jauernig. The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 400. Hardback, $105.00.After Peter Strawson's withering criticisms of the "Metaphysics of Transcendental Idealism" in The Bounds of Sense (London: Methuen, 1966), many Kant scholars devoted their labors to explaining (...) and expanding his project of transcendental epistemology. Recently, however, the tide has turned, and major Kant scholars have tried to fathom the intricacies of his metaphysical doctrines. With its new, systematic, and boldly idealistic interpretation of transcendental idealism, Anja Jauernig's The World According to Kant is an important contribution to this literature.Jauernig casts her reading of Kantian metaphysics in relation to two traditional accounts: the two-world interpretation that seemed obvious to Kant's first readers, and the two-aspect interpretation offered by Gerald Prauss (Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich [Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1974]) and Henry Allison (Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983]). On the second reading, there are not two sets of objects, one phenomenal and one noumenal, but just one set that can be regarded in two different ways. Jauernig effectively demolishes the original two-aspect reading, noting that it has the consequence that contradictory properties (being F and not being F) are attributed to the same thing (164). The serious competitor to her interpretation is a more recent reading that makes an analogy with secondary qualities. Rae Langton introduces this strategy in Kantian Humility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), and Lucy Allais offers a new version of it in Manifest Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). On Allais's version, the properties of empirical objects are real, but unusual. As the redness of a rose depends not just on the existence of the rose, but also on the existence of perceivers with retinal cones, the properties of empirical objects depend on cognitive subjects as well on as things in themselves. Jauernig takes Allais's secondary quality analogy and a closely [End Page 160] related view of Tobias Rosefeldt's as her principal foils and marshals many texts to support her new view. To my mind, however, some of the cited texts seem ambiguous, for example, "our sensible representation is in no way a representation of things in themselves, but merely of the manner in which they appear to us" (Ak. 4:287, cited on 256n22). The second part of the citation seems to imply that sensible representations are how things in themselves are "manifest" to us, as Allais would put it.Jauernig would focus on the first part of the citation: a sensible representation in no way represents the thing in itself. In her view, empirical objects or appearances are fully mind-dependent: each of their "ontological ingredients" (elements that make up an object) is mind-dependent. Since empirical objects are fully mind-dependent and things in themselves are mind-independent, they have no "ontological overlap" (32). Phenomena and noumena are therefore numerically distinct things (32). Appearances or empirical objects are "empirically real" (as opposed to illusory), not merely because they agree with the formal conditions of reality, but because cognition begins with the receipt of sensations through the affection of human sensibility by things in themselves. (Here Jauernig's appearances that are grounded in real things but have properties that are "fully" mind-dependent seem similar to Allais's appearances.) Because objects of empirical cognition involve sensations caused by things in themselves, they should be understood as existents, even though they are not part of "fundamental ontology," whose denizens are mind-independent. Appearances exist or perhaps "in-exist" only as "intentional objects" of representations (33). On Kant's theory, as on Leibniz's, there are different levels of reality (39–40).Jauernig energetically engages challenges confronting her strongly idealistic reading. If empirical objects are fully mind-dependent, how do they differ from illusions and fictions? Since Kant anchors empirical reality to empirical intuition, the question becomes, how are appearances or empirical objects the referents of empirical intuitions? Appearances are... (shrink)

_Review of: Jauernig, Anja, _The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism, _Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021, xiv +pp. 384 ISBN. 13:978-0-19-969538-6_.

Ethical thought experiments such as the trolley dilemma have been investigated extensively in the past, showing that humans act in utilitarian ways, trying to cause as little overall damage as possible. These trolley dilemmas have gained renewed attention over the past few years, especially due to the necessity of implementing moral decisions in autonomous driving vehicles. We conducted a set of experiments in which participants experienced modified trolley dilemmas as drivers in virtual reality environments. Participants had to make decisions between (...) driving in one of two lanes where different obstacles came into view. Eventually, the participants had to decide which of the objects they would crash into. Obstacles included a variety of human-like avatars of different ages and group sizes. Furthermore, the influence of sidewalks as potential safe harbors and a condition implicating self-sacrifice were tested. Results showed that participants, in general, decided in a utilitarian manner, sparing the highest number of avatars possible with a limited influence by the other variables. Derived from these findings, which are in line with the utilitarian approach in moral decision making, it will be argued for an obligatory ethics setting implemented in ADVs. (shrink)

Thema dieses Buches ist weder die Philosophie der Zeit noch eine römische Chronologie, sondern eine Untersuchung der literarischen Reflexion der Zeitordnung in Rom. Es sagt wenig darüber, "wie es wirklich gewesen", und mehr darüber, wie diese Ordnung sprachlich konstituiert wurde, welche Metaphern sie hervorbrachte und welche Argumente im römischen Zeitdiskurs präsent waren. Wichtigstes Ziel ist die interpretatorische Erschließung der relevanten Texte und, daran anknüpfend, die Rekonstruktion des kulturellen Wissens in Bezug auf das tempus Romanum. Dieses Wissen konkretisiert sich in der (...) Darstellung der beiden Organisationsinstrumente der Zeit, Kalender und Uhr; es wird in die Kulturentstehungslehren integriert, der Kulturkritik unterworfen, für das Selbstbild Roms in Anschlag gebracht und in einem aemulatio-Verhältnis zu Griechenland und Ägypten gesehen. Interpretiert werden Texte von Plautus, Lukrez, Varro, Cicero, Caesar, Vitruv, Vergil, Livius, Ovid, Pomponius Mela, Plinius d.Ä., Sueton, Censorinus und Macrobius; ergänzend herangezogen werden motivisch relevante Passagen bei Hesiod, (Ps.-)Aischylos, Xenophon, Hekataios, Geminos, Plutarch, Iambulos, Lukian und Alkiphron. (shrink)

From French miniature paintings to the work of Pope Pius II, this collection of essays explores the philosophical history behind medieval European art. The essays reveal how a visual vocabulary was established among French miniature painters to express the concepts of personal identity and alterity in their work and how Pope Pius II helped spread these metaphysical ideologies across the eastern Christian world. An exhaustive and articulate guide to European art in the Middle Ages, this book is essential reading for (...) art students and enthusiasts alike. (shrink)

Die gängigen Prognosen, nach denen die Religionen im Kontext der Moderne oder im Zuge der Globalisierung an Bedeutung verlieren würden, haben sich nicht bestätigt. Das Gegenteil ist der Fall: Jenseits von nihilistischen Entwürfen und virtuellen Konstruktionen öffneten sich auch und gerade in der Literatur Räume für die Belebung religiöser Weltsicht. Ausgehend von Heinrich Böll und seiner Anfang der 1960er Jahre eingeleiteten Distanzierung von der Institution Kirche, wird am Beispiel von Botho Strauß und Peter Handke, die seit den 1970er und 1980er (...) Jahren eine ins Metaphysische zielende Subjektivität repräsentieren, eine Renaissance des Religiösen konstatiert, die sich in den Werken des jüngeren Autors Ralf Rothmann seit den 1990er Jahren mit selbstbewusster Deutlichkeit fortschreibt. Anhand der geistesgeschichtlichen Trias Gnostizismus, Philosophie und Mystik nimmt die Verfasserin eine Fokussierung vor, die die ästhetischen Konzeptionen der Autoren deutlich werden lässt und sie zueinander in Beziehung setzt. (shrink)

This essay is a contribution to a symposium on Anja Jauernig's excellent book, The World According to Kant. I discuss Jauernig's account of how Kant conceives the empirical reality of appearances.

We explore aversion to the use of algorithms in moral decision-making. So far, this aversion has been explained mainly by the fear of opaque decisions that are potentially biased. Using incentivized experiments, we study which role the desire for human discretion in moral decision-making plays. This seems justified in light of evidence suggesting that people might not doubt the quality of algorithmic decisions, but still reject them. In our first study, we found that people prefer humans with decision-making discretion to (...) algorithms that rigidly apply exogenously given human-created fairness principles to specific cases. In the second study, we found that people do not prefer humans to algorithms because they appreciate flesh-and-blood decision-makers per se, but because they appreciate humans’ freedom to transcend fairness principles at will. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of algorithm aversion. They indicate that emphasizing the transparency of algorithms that clearly follow fairness principles might not be the only element for fostering societal algorithm acceptance and suggest reconsidering certain features of the decision-making process. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an analysis of the connection between shared emotions and shared epistemic states and undertakings. In so-doing, I aim to answer the following questions: In what sense do shared emotions help or hinder our epistemic enterprises? How do they shape the way that groups engage in these epistemic undertakings? In my analysis, I stress emotions are correlated with far-reaching changes in cognitive processing. I suggest that we should understand emotions within group contexts as ways of thinking (...) that can facilitate cooperation and create a joint epistemic outlook. Overall, my suggestion thus is that shared emotions should be seen as important for epistemic undertakings because they turn groups into unified epistemic subjects. (shrink)

This book explores the structure and function of memory and imagination, as well as the relation and interaction between the two states. It is the first book to offer an integrative approach to these two emerging areas of philosophical research. The essays in this volume deal with a variety of forms of imagining and remembering. The contributors come from a range of methodological backgrounds: empirically minded philosophers, analytic philosophers engaging mainly in conceptual analysis, and philosophers informed by the phenomenological tradition. (...) Part 1 consists of novel contributions to ontological issues regarding the nature of memory and imagination and their respective structural features. Part 2 focuses on questions of justification and perspective regarding both states. The chapters in Part 3 discuss issues regarding memory and imagination as skills or abilities. Finally, Part 4 focuses on the relation between memory, imagination, and emotion. Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of memory, philosophy of imagination, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. (shrink)

Bilder spielen in allen Schulfächern immer schon eine zentrale Rolle. Die intellektuellen Energien, die in den Bildungs- und Erziehungswissenschaften aufgewendet werden, um Fragen des Einsatzes von Bildern zu beantworten, wirken daher beachtlich. Eingeklammert bleiben dabei bisher jedoch Phänomene der Unsichtbarkeit, obwohl sie grundlegend für alles Bildliche sind. Denn sie gehören zu jener Dimension, die wir als "latent" bezeichnen. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Funktionen von Bildern in Lehrkontexten kann deshalb nur erfolgreich sein, wenn die philosophischen Debatten über "Latenz", die zwischen dem (...) Zeitalter der Aufklärung und dem frühen 21. Jahrhundert stattgefunden haben, Eingang in die bildungswissenschaftliche Theoriebildung finden. (shrink)

Ein Dekonstruktivist sagt: "Ich rede von der Demokratie als von etwas Kommendem."l Doch die Rede soIl hier nicht von einer empirisch gestiitz­ ten Vorhersage oder einer normativen Utopie sein, sondern von der ethisch­ politischen Perspektive, die die Geste der Dekonstruktion offnet. Den Hori­ zont dieser Perspektive bildet die Demokratie, dessen Unerreichbarkeit in der politischen Praxis der Demokratisierung affirmiert wird. Dekonstruktion und Demokratisierung stehen dabei weder in einem parallelen noch einem additiven Verhiiltnis, auch wenn die Konjunktion "und" dies suggerieren mag. Es (...) handelt sich um zwei offene, einander verschiebende Prozesse, deren Verschriinkung diese Studie darlegen mochte. Eine temporale Meta­ pher tragt dabei solange, wie sie nicht teleologisch miBverstanden wird: Die Demokratie ist die Zukunft der Dekonstruktion,2 wenn die Dekonstruktion die andere Gegenwart bleibt. Die Spur einer dekonstruktiven Bewegung hat sich lange schon, minde­ stens seit einem Jahrhundert, vergegenwartigt.3 An sie gekoppelt ist gleich­ wohl die Angst vor einem Nihilismus, der das emanzipatorische Verspre­ chen verneinen konnte. Als anti-moderne Reaktion, die sich schein bar nicht auf Zukiinftiges beziehen kann, wird die Dekonstruktion immer wieder als Zeitgeisterscheinung zuriickgewiesen. Doch phanomenologische Periodisie­ rungsversuche, die die Subversion moderner rationalistischer Essenzen wie Subjekt, Gesellschaft und Geschichte etwa als ideologischen Ausdruck der Entwicklung zum Spatkapitalismus oder auch als intellektuelle Konsequenz der politischen Aufbruchsstimmung der sechziger Jahre interpretieren wol- Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches. Allzumenschliches. Ein Buch for /reie Geister, Slimtli­ che Werke Bd. 3 (Stuttgart 1964),313. 2 Vgl. zu dieser Fonnulierung auch Simon Critchley, The Ethics a/Deconstruction. Derrida and Levinas (Oxford/Cambridge 1992), 241. (shrink)

New forms of artificial intelligence on the one hand and the ubiquitous networking of “everything with everything” on the other hand characterize the fourth industrial revolution. This results in a changed understanding of human–machine interaction, in new models for production, in which man and machine together with virtual agents form hybrid teams. The empirical study “Socializing with robots” aims to gain insight especially into conditions of development and processes of hybrid human–machine teams. In the experiment, human–robot actions and interactions were (...) closely observed in a virtual environment. Robots as partners differed in shape and behavior. Participants were instructed to achieve an objective that could only be achieved via close teamwork. This paper unites different aspects from core disciplines of social robotics and psychology contributing to anthropomorphization with the empirical insights of the experiment. It focuses on the psychological effects on anthropomorphization and mechanization, taking the inter- and transdisciplinary field of social robotics as a starting point. (shrink)

The view that agents are not obliged to do more than their initial fair shares when their fellow duty bearers fail to comply has prominent defenders, including Liam Murphy and David Miller. While Murphy thinks that asking agents to take up other agents’ slack would be unfair, Miller claims that slack-taking cannot be required because primary responsibility does not migrate from noncompliers to compliers. This paper argues, by contrast, that there are a number of circumstances in which there is a (...) duty to take up the slack even though it is unfair and even though responsibility stays where it is. The central claim is that what agents owe to third parties is a separate issue from how they relate to fellow duty bearers. This proposal also runs counter to familiar defenses of slack-taking that weigh its unfairness against the moral importance of the interests at stake for third parties. (shrink)

The influence of background music on cognitive functions is still a matter of debate. In this study, we investigated the influence of background music on executive functions (particularly on inhibitory functions). Participants completed a standardized cued Go/NoGo task during three different conditions while an EEG was recorded (1: with no background music, 2: with relaxing or 3: with exciting background music). In addition, we collected reaction times, omissions, and commissions in response to the Go and NoGo stimuli. From the EEG (...) data, event-related potentials (ERPs) were calculated for the Go and NoGo trials. From these ERPs, the N2 and P3 components were specifically analyzed since previous studies have shown that these components (and particularly the Go-NoGo difference waves) are strongly associated with inhibitory functions. The N2 and P3 components of the difference waves (N2d and P3d) were used for statistical analyses. The statistical analyses revealed no differences between the three conditions in terms of amplitudes and latencies of the N2d and P3d components. In addition, reaction times, omissions, and commissions were comparable across all conditions. Our results suggest that in the context of this paradigm, music as background acoustic stimulation has no detrimental effects on the performance of a Go/NoGo task and neural underpinnings. (shrink)

When the first publication of Hans-Georg Gadamer's magnum opus Wahrheit und Methode came to life in I960, the work was initially received with a slight sense of puzzlement and yet concurrently acknowledged as monumental. The title, in English, Truth and Method, was regarded by the philosophical community both in Germany and abroad as being somewhat obscure, as Gadamer himself would later admit, but the ingeniousness of the book's content could hardly be debated. Since its initial publication, Truth and Method has, (...) respectively helped to expand and light up the horizon of modern hermeneutics by provoking, at once, a reconsideration of the phenomenon of understanding while, at the same time, enlivening the debate over scientific methodology and its exclusive claim to truth. The central aim of the present thesis has been to focus on Part I of Truth and Method, concentrating primarily on the 'guiding humanistic concepts' and the experience of truth in art, to clarify Gadamer's understanding of truth and to shed new light as to how the experience of tmth is to be grasped in relation to the human sciences, i.e. the humanities. The humanistic concepts, I believe, are vital to understanding the experience of truth. One reason, which leads me to this conclusion, is that in Truth and Method Gadamer begins his philosophical undertaking with the elucidation of the humanistic concepts rather than with a direct exposition of truth. By opening with the humanistic concepts, Gadamer seems to demonstrate subtly the phenomenological and ontological nature of knowledge and understanding. The outcome of this manoeuvre is that one comes to realise that truth does not simply belong to method and that it is not something which can be defined solely as 'absolute certainty'. Moreover, in my interview with Professor Gadamer, the humanistic concepts, he explained to me, are the most 'natural' and 'original' concepts. By natural and original he means that these concepts are intrinsic. They evolve from life as well as being a part of life, i.e. a way of living. Thus these concepts, he affirmed, represent 'a way of life' and a way to truth. Consequently, insofar as comprehending the phenomenon of truth, I believe any and every investigation of the concept of truth must begin with the understanding of the humanistic tradition. The following thesis however does not end simply with the humanistic concepts. It also devotes to examining the truth-claim or the 'truth-experience' of art. This part of the inquiry centres on two important questions: How are we to understand art? What does it mean to experience art? The challenge here has been to show how Gadamer overcomes Kant's subjectivation of the aesthetic experience and to demonstrate how and why Gadamer considers the experience of art as the 'self-presentation' of being. In surveying the various works of criticism I have tried to draw attention to what seem to me to be the most insightful comments and analyses. If 1 have failed in any way to supply proper acknowledgement to ideas, which might seem close to other critical works, I offer my apologies. As I am sure those in the research business know well, in reflection ideas often interfuse with one's own, making it difficult sometimes to discriminate between one's own ideas from another's. However, I have tried my best to keep from that error. (shrink)

This article aims to serve as an introductory discussion of the European Continental tradition of pedagogics, specifically from a North American perspective. It begins with an overview of the Continental tradition and its main figures. Here, we find a philosophical and, thus, language-sensitive attitude toward the human, the child; and a specific pedagogical terminology, i.e., descriptions and interpretations about the reality of education, such as educational practices, goals, norms, and organizational forms of educational institutions. John Dewey's educational theories exemplify the (...) North American perspective on Continental pedagogics and its study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. Dewey's writings diverge notably from this tradition, as he integrated into his work American pragmatism and an interest in the scientific method, an interest that plays a role in today's policy trends in the United States and elsewhere. Then again, Dewey took a critical stand toward instrumentalizing pedagogics for political aims. On this point, the German-born political philosopher Hannah Arendt agreed with him. As Arendt can be seen as an example of a Continental perspective on philosophy that includes a strong warning to separate politics and education, she relates to Dewey's argument against instrumentalization. Thus, this article also features some of her work. The overall intention is to contribute to a renewal of a language for pedagogics by delineating a historical-philosophical perspective on this specific field of professional practice. (shrink)

Weak Quantum Theory (WQT) and the Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI) are two psychophysical concepts developed on the basis of quantum physics. The present study contributes to their empirical examination. The issue of the study is whether WQT and MPI can not only explain ‘psi’-phenomena theoretically but also prove to be consistent with the empirical phenomenology of extrasensory perception (ESP). From the main statements of both models, 33 deductions for psychic readings are derived. Psychic readings are defined as settings, in (...) which psychics support or counsel clients by using information not mediated through the five senses. A qualitative approach is chosen to explore how the psychics experience extrasensory perceptions. Eight psychics are interviewed with a half-structured method. The reports are examined regarding deductive and inductive aspects, using a multi-level structured content analysis. The vast majority of deductions is clearly confirmed by the reports. Even though the study has to be seen as an explorative attempt with many aspects to be specified, WQT and MPI prove to be coherent and helpful concepts to explain ESP in psychic readings. (shrink)

The institutional reform of the Belgian state seems to run parallel with a redefinition of the whole of Belgian society. 'Subnationalism' has overtaken the traditional ethno-linguistic definitions which used to provide a basis for political identification and mobilisation. The territorial demarcation of the regions and the politicisation of cultural life on both sides of the linguistic border constitute basic ingredientsfor 'nationbuilding'projects in Flanders and Wallonia. A number of elements are distinguished to explain why the 'nationalism' of the regions will have (...) repercussions on the political developments in the capital area. Language and territoriality have always played a special role in Brussels. Changes in connection with definitions of territoriality and identity now seem to create opportunities to redefine the relationship between the communities in Brussels. It is not inconceivable that, in the long run, the linguistic divide wilt fade out and wilt be replaced by an identification on the basis of a territorial criterion shared by all the Brussels' inhabitants. (shrink)