Although machine learning has been successful in recent years and is increasingly being deployed in the sciences, enterprises or administrations, it has rarely been discussed in philosophy beyond the philosophy of mathematics and machine learning. The present contribution addresses the resulting lack of conceptual tools for an epistemological discussion of machine learning by conceiving of deep learning networks as ‘judging machines’ and using the Kantian analysis of judgments for specifying the type of judgment they are capable of. At the center (...) of the argument is the fact that the functionality of deep learning networks is established by training and cannot be explained and justified by reference to a predefined rule-based procedure. Instead, the computational process of a deep learning network is barely explainable and needs further justification, as is shown in reference to the current research literature. Thus, it requires a new form of justification, that is to be specified with the help of Kant’s epistemology. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirers 1932 erschienene Darstellung der »Philosophie der Aufklärung« zählt zu den herausragenden Standardwerken zur Bestimmung der Leitgedanken der Epoche. »Die eigentliche ›Philosophie‹ der Aufklärung ist und bleibt«, so Cassirer, »etwas anderes als der Inbegriff dessen, was ihre führenden Denker [...] gedacht und gelehrt haben«. Entsprechend sah er das auszeichnende Merkmal seiner historischen Rekonstruktion der Epoche darin, »daß sie nicht die Geschichte der einzelnen Denker und ihrer Lehren, sondern eine reine Geschichte der Ideen der Aufklärungszeit zu geben suchte, und daß (...) sie diese Ideen selbst nicht nur in ihrer abstrakt-theoretischen Fassung darlegen, sondern in ihrer unmittelbaren Wirksamkeit aufzeigen und sichtbar machen wollte«. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 19-54.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 2 Seiten: 401-409.

The reflexivity of images is often dealt with in theoretical discourse on art and image. Yet what reflexivity consists of and how it proceeds within images is seldom clarified. Following a basic idea taken from Niklas Luhmann, this article proposes a model of reflexivity, namely: Each self-reference often proceeds by a conspicuous iconic element, which is concretely determined within the visual arrangement and thus draws the beholder’s attention not to the image as a whole, but to one of its specific (...) aspects. This model characterizes reflexivity as a dimension of iconic representation in general and distinguishes it from mere artistic reflection and thematic self-reference. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of culture has been much discussed in recent years. However, it remains unclear how it evolved from his older theory of knowledge. This study deals with this question on the basis of Cassirer's 'disposition' of a 'philosophy of the symbolic', reconstructed here for the first time. This text shows that the 'symbolic' refers to culture as a whole and to its inherent diversity. Therefore, 'the symbolic' includes the relationship between the general transcendental conditions of culture and its (...) empirical specificities in language and languages, art and the arts, myth and myths, science and disciplines. Cassirer does not comprehend this empirical and specific reality of symbolization depending on pre-existing transcendental conditions. Instead, he proceeds from the empirical diversity of the symbolisations and reflects on their simultaneously general and specific conditions. Thus, Cassirer embarks on a path that he finds paved in Kant's "Critique of Judgement": He consequently defines 'the symbolic' as the horizon for a reflective approach based on empirical findings - and not as the foundation of a systematic derivation of the diversity of culture in the style of the idealistic tradition. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, the question of time was ordinarily formulated by asking what time is. Yet, already Kant claimed that time is only accessible to us by representing it – a term that he introduced into the philosophical tradition. Accordingly, the question of time should be transformed into: How can time be represented? Furthermore, a closer examination of Kant’s example of representing time ‘under the image of a line, which we draw in thought’, makes evident that the time (...) represented depends, at least partially, on the characteristics of the concrete form of representation. I discuss this entanglement of the ways of representation and the concepts of time they represent, using the example of Eadweard Muybridges chronophotography: a snapshot, a series of snapshots and their projected moving image. (shrink)