In the early 20th century, Marxist theory was enriched and rejuvenated by adopting the concept of reification, introduced by the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukács to identify and denounce the transformation of historical processes into ahistorical entities, human actions into things that seemed part of an immutable "second nature." For a variety of reasons, both theoretical and practical, the hopes placed in de-reification as a tool of revolutionary emancipation proved vain. In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures (...) at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the distinguished third-generation Frankfurt School philosopher Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades. Three distinguished political and social theorists: Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, respond with hard questions about the central anthropological premise of his argument, the assumption that prior to cognition there is a fundamental experience of intersubjective recognition that can provide a normative standard by which current social relations can be judged wanted. Honneth listens carefully to their criticism and provides a powerful defense of his position. (shrink)

The present paper argues for a more complete integration between recent “genealogical” approaches to the problem of knowledge and evolutionary accounts of the development of human cognitive capacities and practices. A structural tension is pointed out between, on the one hand, the fact that theexplicandumof genealogical stories is a specifically human trait and, on the other hand, the tacit acknowledgment, shared by all contributors to the debate, that human beings have evolved from non-human beings. Since humans differ from their predecessors (...) in more ways than just the lack of a particular concept or cognitive ability, this casts doubt on the widely shared assumption (the “Constancy Assumption”) that, when constructing a genealogical narrative for a particular concept (e.g., our contemporary concept of knowledge), it is permissible to hold all other factors (e.g., individual “on-board” cognitive capacities) fixed. What is needed instead, I argue, is an ecological perspective that views knowledge as an adaptive response to an evolutionary constellation that allows for a diversity of selective pressures. Several examples of specific conceptual pressures at different stages in human evolution are discussed. (shrink)

This article shows the philosophical kinship between Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft on the subject of love. Though the two major 18th century thinkers are not traditionally brought into conversation with each other, Wollstonecraft and Smith share deep moral concerns about the emerging commercial society. As the new middle class continues to grow along with commerce, vanity becomes an ever more common vice among its members. But a vain person is preoccupied with appearance, status, and flattery—things that get in the (...) way of what Smith and Wollstonecraft regard as the deep human connection they variously describe as love, sympathy, and esteem. Commercial society encourages inequality, Smith argues, and Wollstonecraft points out that this inequality is particularly obvious in the relationships between men and women. Men are vain about their wealth, power and status; women about their appearance. Added to this is the fact that most middle class women are both uneducated and encouraged by the conduct literature of their day to be sentimental and irrational. The combined economic and moral considerations of Wollstonecraft and Smith show that there is very little room for love in commercial society as they conceived it. (shrink)

Bien qu'il soit critique à son endroit, Deleuze invente une nouvelle histoire de la philosophie conçue comme un art du portrait conceptuel, une forme de collage et de théâtre, où il ne s'agit pas de brosser un tableau fidèle, mais de produire la ressemblance en éprouvant la puissance des concepts.

Das Buch bietet in 24 Kapiteln einen systematischen Einblick in methodische und thematische Fragen der Medizin- und Bioethik in Deutschland von 1995 bis 2016. Dieser beginnt mit metaethischen Aspekten der Relation zwischen Ethik und Moral sowie mit der keineswegs unproblematischen Fächerkombination von Medizinethik und Medizingeschichte an den deutschen Universitäten. Sodann werden zentrale bioethische und biopolitische Diskursfelder wie Stammzellforschung, Präimplantationsdiagnostik, prädiktive Medizin sowie Sterbehilfe und Transplantationsmedizin erörtert, die ausnahmslos brisante normative Probleme am Beginn und am Ende des menschlichen Lebens betreffen. Anders (...) als im derzeitigen bioethischen „Mainstream“ liegt in diesem Buch der Akzent auf der Betonung des Vorrangs der unantastbaren Würde des Menschen vor dessen niemals absolut zu denkender Autonomie. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts. Moving smoothly between moral philosophy and social theory, Honneth offers insights into such issues as the social forms of recognition and nonrecognition, the moral basis of interaction in human conflicts, the relation between the recognition model and conceptions of modernity, the normative basis of social theory, and the possibility of mediating between Hegel and Kant.

Living in the digital world, we have little choice but to share our personal data with big tech companies. These companies use our data to direct our attention so that they can make money from advertising. In a so-called surveillance society, we stand in an asymmetrical power relationship to these companies (and sometimes governments) and have little to no control over what happens to our data. Our dependence on these asymmetrical relationships is increasing as “big tech” uses the information it (...) gathers about us to cater to our personal habits and desires. (shrink)

Many discussions in the philosophy of the humanities and of the social sciences take it for granted that the term „interpretation“ unambiguously refers to only one well-defined activity. In this paper, I want to discredit this assumption. First, I distinguish seventeen different kinds of activity regarding linguistic utterances which are commonly considered activities of interpretation. Then I specify diverse methodological requirements connected with each of the kinds of interpretation distinguished. Finally, I argue that attempts to give an unitary account of (...) interpretation-such as ‚assigning meaning to something’-fail to do justice to the multifariousness of the activities commonly called ‚interpretation’. (shrink)

Though to deny the geological impact of human force on nature is now essentially quasi-criminal, many theorists remain, nonetheless, unimpressed with what this “new era” has afforded us in terms of critical potential. This article is concerned with what Srinivas Aravamudan deems “the escapist philosophy of various dimension of the hypothesis concerning the Anthropocene.” Following Erik Swyngedouw's indictment of apocalyptic discourses' vital role in displacing social antagonisms and nurturing capitalism, this article argues that the new regimes of Anthropocenean consciousness have (...) been powerful in disavowing racial antagonisms. It discusses the ways in which Anthropocene ethics have foreclosed proper political framings by promoting a moral philosophy unequipped to face the racial histories of our current ecological predicament. It contends that the “political Anthropocene” will remain an impossibility until it is able to wrestle with the problem of black suffering. (shrink)

In this contribution we take a look at the development of environmental concern and mobility behavior of the population in Germany and Switzerland. The proportion of survey participants who express concern about the state of the natural environment is high in both countries. However, this proportion did not increase during the last two decades despite the ongoing public debate about environmental issues. At the same time the demand for private transportation did increase in Germany by almost 20% (in Switzerland by (...) 2.5%). However, fuel consumption per capita decreased in Germany by 6.5% and in Switzerland by 2.2%. Our time series analyses of these trends suggest that this reduction is due to the price increase of gasoline which was substantial in both countries and not due to any change in attitudes. We argue that further price increases are appropriate means to reduce fuel consumption. However, our analyses also show that the price elasticity for fuel is low. (shrink)

The benefits of a large organ pool accrue not only to the actual organ recipients themselves, but to others as well due to the insurance it provides against having to wait ‘too long’ for an organ transplant. We argue that this public good character of a large organ pool makes it economically and ethically justifiable to design a market mechanism that boosts the number of donors. Most importantly, such a mechanism has the potential to substantially alleviate the troubling equity and (...) efficiency problems on the demand side while, at the same time, being entirely independent of the allocation algorithm used for the distribution of organs. (shrink)

Dewi et Eka sont de vraies jumelles nées dans la province sud du Kalimantan, à Bornéo. La première est sauvée d’un effroyable incendie dans lequel tout le monde pense qu’a péri Eka. En fait, cette dernière a été récupérée par une femelle orang-outan qui l’élèvera. Dewi, elle, sera l’une des femmes les plus brillantes de sa génération, et recevra le prix Nobel de physiologie et médecine. Eka, quant à elle, bien que recueillie dans une société humaine à dix ans, restera (...) une enfant sauvage souffrant d’un grave retard mental. Elle mourra misérablement. Les deux soeurs ont pourtant les mêmes gènes. Comment Dewi a-t-elle pu développer les outils d’un brillant épanouissement pleinement humain, quelles en furent les étapes et les conditions? Pourquoi tout cela n’a-t-il pu s’enclencher chez Eka? Axel Kahn utilise la fiction pour introduire la thématique qu’il développe à travers un essai, s’attachant à enrichir, touche après touche, l’observation de ses héroïnes gémellaires dont l’image et l’exemple traversent l’ouvrage. Il rappelle le rôle de l’altérité de l’un et l’autre, comme deux bûches incandescentes qui s’embrasent l’une l’autre, et nous enjoint : «Osons vouloir, alors nous pourrons, peut-être.». (shrink)

Taking scientific practice as its starting point, this book charts the complex territory of models used in science. It examines what scientific models are and what their function is. Reliance on models is pervasive in science, and scientists often need to construct models in order to explain or predict anything of interest at all. The diversity of kinds of models one finds in science – ranging from toy models and scale models to theoretical and mathematical models – has attracted attention (...) not only from scientists, but also from philosophers, sociologists, and historians of science. This has given rise to a wide variety of case studies that look at the different uses to which models have been put in specific scientific contexts. By exploring current debates on the use and building of models via cutting-edge examples drawn from physics and biology, the book provides broad insight into the methodology of modelling in the natural sciences. It pairs specific arguments with introductory material relating to the ontology and the function of models, and provides some historical context to the debates as well as a sketch of general positions in the philosophy of scientific models in the process. (shrink)

In Sweden, palliative care has, over the past decades, been object to policies and guidelines with focus on how to achieve “good palliative care”. The aim of this study has been to analyse how experts make sense of the development and the current state of palliative care. Departing from this aim, focus has been on identifying how personal experiences of ‘the self’ are intertwined with culturally available meta-level concepts and how experts contribute to construct new scripts on palliative care. Twelve (...) qualitative interviews were conducted. Four scripts were identified after analysing the empirical material: 1. script of paths towards working within palliative care; 2. script of desirable and deterrent reference points; 3. script of tensions between improvement and bureaucracy; and 4. script of low status and uncertain definitions. The findings of this study illustrate how experts in complex ways intertwine experiences of ‘the self’ with meta-levels concepts in order to make sense of the field of palliative care. The participants did not endorse one “right way” of “good” deaths. Instead, palliative care was considered to be located in a complex state where the historical development, consisting of both desirable ideals, death denials and lack of guidelines, and more recent developments of strives towards universal concepts, “improvement” and increased bureaucracy altogether played a significant role for how palliative care has developed and is organised and conducted today. (shrink)

Despite being a new term, ‘fake news’ has evolved rapidly. This paper argues that it should be reserved for cases of deliberate presentation of false or misleading claims as news, where these are misleading by design. The phrase ‘by design’ here refers to systemic features of the design of the sources and channels by which fake news propagates and, thereby, manipulates the audience’s cognitive processes. This prospective definition is then tested: first, by contrasting fake news with other forms of public (...) disinformation; second, by considering whether it helps pinpoint conditions for the proliferation of fake news. (shrink)

Values in dialogue offers a practical and theoretical model for ethics in care, that has grown from experience and research. The foundation of this ethical model is laid in the care relationship and in relational personalism. It consists of three pillars: values, dialogue, and attitudes. On this basis, a practical model for ethical reflection is developed. The aim is to empower professionals in their own ethical reflection and responsibility in concrete care situations. The model is applied on several topics, such (...) as collaboration between professionals, collaboration with clients and significant others, restriction of freedom and use of coercion, and exchange of information and confidentiality. 'Values in dialogue' is written for care professionals in their daily practice and in ethics commitees, but also for teachers and students in ethics courses. It focuses in particular on mental healthcare, support for people with mental disabilities, and care for elderly persons. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Bildmonographie Eugen Finks (1905-1975) ruft die eindrucksvolle Gestalt des Freiburger Philosophen, Phänomenologen und Pädagogen in die Erinnerung zurück. Sie bietet zum ersten Male aufschlussreiche Einblicke in die nachgelassenen Bilddokumente, aus denen der Takt seines Lebenslaufes selbst vernommen werden kann. über die biographischen Schlaglichter hinaus führt sie den Leser schrittweise in die Werkstatt seiner nachgelassenen Manuskripte und Entwürfe, in ausgewählte Partien seines Briefwechsels, in die Akten und Urkunden hinein, die seinen beruflichen Werdegang dokumentieren. Auf diese Weise stellt sie nicht (...) nur die Gesamtausgabe der Werke Eugen Finks in ein umgreifendes Landschaftsbild hinein, sondern hebt zugleich die vielfältigen Motive und Beweggründe der phänomenologischen Bewegung hervor, als deren Vermittler und Bindeglied Eugen Fink weltweite Anerkennung zuteilde wurde. (shrink)

This volume addresses the interdependencies between visual technologies and epistemology with regard to our perception of the medical body. It explores the relationships between the imagination, the body, and concrete forms of visual representations: Ranging from the Renaissance paradigm of anatomy, to Foucault's "birth of the clinic" and the institutionalised construction of a "medical gaze"; from "visual" archives of madness, psychiatric art collections, the politicisation and economisation of the body, to the post-human in mass media representations. Contributions to this volume (...) investigate medical bodies as historical, technological, and political constructs, constituted where knowledge formation and visual cultures intersect. Contributors are: Axel Fliethmann, Michael Hau, Birgit Lang, Carolyn Lau, Heikki Lempa, Stefanie Lenk, Joanna Madloch, Barry Murnane, Jill Redner, Claudia Stein, Elizabeth Stephens, Corinna Wagner, and Christiane Weller. (shrink)

Much of Arnold Hauser’s work on the social history of art and the philosophy of art history is informed by a concern for the cognitive dimension of art. The present paper offers a reconstruction of this aspect of Hauser’s project and identifies areas of overlap with the sociology of knowledge—where the latter is to be understood as both a separate discipline and a going intellectual concern. Following a discussion of Hauser’s personal and intellectual background, as well as of the shifting (...) political and academic setting of his work, the paper addresses one of Hauser’s central questions, viz. how best to square a thoroughgoing commitment to the social nature of art with the reality of successive artistic styles, given that the latter seem to be characterizable on purely formal grounds. This is followed by a discussion of Hauser’s conflicted views on the relation between art, science, and technology. This injects a tension into Hauser’s work, due to his initial reluctance to explain just how the aesthetic and the cognitive realms relate. The final part of the paper, through a closer examination of the analogies and disanalogies that Hauser sees between art history and the history of science, attempts to give a positive answer—“on Hauser’s behalf”, as it were—to the question of whether art may be credited with a specific cognitive dimension of its own, and if so, what its contribution to our cognitive enterprise may consist in. (shrink)

Collaborative consumption is proposed as a potential step beyond unsustainable linear consumption patterns toward more sustainable consumption practices. Despite mounting interest in the topic, little is known about the determinants of this consumer behavior. We use an extended theory of planned behavior to examine the relative influence of consumers’ personal norms and the theory’s basic sociopsychological variables attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on collaborative consumption. Moreover, we use this framework to examine consumers’ underlying value and belief structure regarding (...) collaborative consumption. We measure these aspects for 224 consumers in a survey and then assess their self-reported collaborative consumption behavior in a second survey. Our structural model fits the data well. Collaborative consumption is more strongly—through intentions—influenced by personal norms and attitudes than by subjective norms. Personal norms to consume collaboratively are determined by consumers’ altruistic, biospheric, and egoistic value orientations. Cost savings, efficient use of resources, and community with others are found to be consumers’ attitudinal beliefs underlying collaborative consumption. We conclude that collaborative consumption can be pin-pointed neither as a mere form of economic exchange nor as a primarily normative form of sharing resources. Instead, collaborative consumption is determined by economic/egoistic (e.g., cost savings) and normative (e.g., altruistic and biospheric value orientations) motives. Implications for collaborative consumption research, the theory of planned behavior, and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)

Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as (...) a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. (shrink)

Shawn Loht's ground-breaking Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience (2017) offers a detailed account of film experience as rooted in Martin Heidegger's existential structure of Dasein. Adapting Being and Time for a phenomenology of cinematic experience, Loht accurately describes how various existential structures of Dasein are “fostered” by the projected world of film: in Loht's account, being-in-the-world is extended in the film experience. Loht's project offers fertile ground for developing the phenomenological basis of film experience. Yet, (...) Loht anchors this account of film experience primarily in Heidegger's early philosophy; this leaves his adaptation not without challenges. First, if the structure of film experience is mapped too closely onto the notion of Dasein projecting itself into the filmworld, this theory presents the risk of taking the early Heidegger's “hands-on” approach too literally. Moreover, in its concern for Dasein's extensions into the world of film, Phenomenology of Film says little about the distinctly mediated character of filmworlds; this leaves ambiguous where the film experience effectively takes place. (shrink)

Automated technologies and robots make decisions that cannot always be fully controlled or predicted. In addition to that, they cannot respond to punishment and blame in the ways humans do. Therefore, when automated cars harm or kill people, for example, this gives rise to concerns about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps. According to Sven Nyholm, however, automated cars do not pose a challenge on human responsibility, as long as humans can control them and update them. He argues that the agency exercised in (...) automated cars should be understood in terms of human–robot collaborations. This brief note focuses on the problem that arises when there are multiple people involved, but there is no obvious shared collaboration among them. Building on John Danaher’s discussion of command responsibility, it is argued that, although Nyholm might be right that autonomous cars cannot be regarded as acting on their own, independently of any human beings, worries about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps are still justified, because it often remains unclear how to allocate or distribute responsibility satisfactorily among the key humans involved after they have been successfully identified. (shrink)