Eine kurze Biografie des antiken Naturforschers Plinius des Älteren anlässlich der Wiederkehr seines Todes beim Ausbruch des Vesuv am 25. August 79 n.Chr. Mit 31 Abbildungen.

Zenon von Elea (5. Jh. v. Chr.) gilt als einer der bedeutendsten vorsokratischen Philosophen. Mit Ausnahme von höchstens fünf wörtlichen Zitaten besteht die gesamte Überlieferung zu ihm jedoch nur aus kursorischen Paraphrasen und teils kontroversen Diskussionen seiner Überlegungen bei späteren Autoren. Durch umsichtige und kritische Auswertung sämtlicher relevanter Quellen lassen sich gleichwohl über seine beiden sogenannten "Argumente gegen die Vielheit" (Frg. B1-3) sowie über das sogenannte "Argument des Orts" (Frg. B5) philologisch schlüssige, sachlich plausible und historisch stimmige Hypothesen aufstellen. Das (...) Ergebnis besteht in zwei neuen Rekonstruktionen, die im Vergleich zum bisherigen Forschungsstand den gesamten Überlieferungsbefund verständlicher sowie Zenons ursprüngliche Argumentation und Zielsetzung einsichtiger werden lassen. Folgt man diesen beiden Rekonstruktionen, so erscheint nicht nur die Beziehung, die seit der Antike zwischen den Überlegungen Zenons und der Philosophie des Parmenides angenommen wird, in einem neuen Licht, sondern es werden womöglich auch einige geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklungen des 5. und 4. Jhs. v. Chr. präziser fassbar, als dies bislang der Fall war. (shrink)

English summary: This volume contains controversial views and discussions on the purpose, function, analysis and justification of value judgments and norms in the social sciences and humanities.

The article outlines the Multiple-Field-Approach ("Mehr-Felder-Ansatz") in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy and in psychotherapy in general. This Gestalt theory based approach deals 1) with the conditions under which a secondary phenomenal field (containing a secondary phenomenal ego and a secondary phenomenal environment) segregates within the primary phenomenal field, 2) with the dynamic field interaction between primary and secondary field and their role in psychotherapy, 3) with psychotherapeutic techniques favouring the segregation and favouring the dissolution of a secondary field . Some of (...) these phenomena have been discussed as mind-wandering, daydreaming, or - in a pathological context - as dissociation. But it seems that the Gestalt psychological approach presented in this paper has to offer a more promising framework for these phenomena and their dynamics. (shrink)

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universitèat Tèubingen, 1993.

The paper presents basic Gestalt psychological concepts of ego and self. They differ from other concepts in the way that they do not comprehend ego and self as fixed entities or as central controlling instances of the psyche, but as one specific organized unit in a psychological field in dynamic interrelation with the other organized units—the environment units—of this field. On this theme, well-known representatives of Gestalt theory have presented some general and special theories since the early days of this (...) approach that could partly be substantiated experimentally. They illuminate the relationship between ego and world in everyday life as well as in the case of mental disorders. Not only the spatial extension of the phenomenal ego is subject to situational changes, but also its place in the world, its functional fitting in this world, its internal differentiation, its permeability to the environment, and much more. The German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger emphasizes the significant functional role that this dynamic plasticity of the phenomenal world and its continuously changing segregation of ego and environment have for human life by designating the phenomenal world as a “Central Steering Mechanism.” In this article, ego and self as part of this field in their interrelation with the total psychological field will be illuminated from the perspective of the thinking of the Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, Mary Henle, Edwin Rausch, and Giuseppe Galli. (shrink)

We discuss several ontological properties of explicit mathematics and operational set theory: global choice, decidable classes, totality and extensionality of operations, function spaces, class and set formation via formulas that contain the definedness predicate and applications.

Treatise on Mimamsa philosophy; critical edition.

Gerhard Richter's groundbreaking study argues that the concept of "afterness" is a key figure in the thought and aesthetics of modernity. It pursues questions such as: What does it mean for something to "follow" something else? Does that which follows mark a clear break with what came before it, or does it in fact tacitly perpetuate its predecessor as a consequence of its inevitable indebtedness to the terms and conditions of that from which it claims to have departed? Indeed, (...) is not the very act of breaking with, and then following upon, a way of retroactively constructing and fortifying that from which the break that set the movement of following into motion had occurred? The book explores the concept and movement of afterness as a privileged yet uncanny category through close readings of writers such as Kant, Kafka, Heidegger, Bloch, Benjamin, Brecht, Adorno, Arendt, Lyotard, and Derrida. It shows how the vexed concepts of afterness, following, and coming after shed new light on a constellation of modern preoccupations, including personal and cultural memory, translation, photography, hope, and the historical and conceptual specificity of what has been termed "after Auschwitz." The study's various analyses—across a heterogeneous collection of modern writers and thinkers, diverse historical moments of articulation, and a range of media—conspire to illuminate Lyotard's apodictic statement that "after philosophy comes philosophy. But it has been altered by the 'after.'" As Richter's intricate study demonstrates, much hinges on our interpretation of the "after." After all, our most fundamental assumptions concerning modern aesthetic representation, conceptual discourse, community, subjectivity, and politics are at stake. (shrink)

This book raises in a new way a central question of Christology: what is the divine motive for the incarnation? Throughout Christian history a majority of Western theologians have agreed that God's decision to become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was made necessary by "the Fall": if humans had not sinned, the incarnation would not have happened. This position is known as "infralapsarian." A minority of theologians however, including some major 19th- and 20th-century theological figures, championed a "supralapsarian" (...) Christology, arguing that God has always intended the incarnation, independent of "the Fall." Edwin Chr. van Driel offers the first scholarly monograph to map and analyze the full range of supralapsarian arguments. He gives a thick description of each argument and its theological consequences, and evaluates the theological gains and losses inherent in each approach. Van Driel shows that each of the three ways in which God is thought to relate to all that is not God -- in creation, in redemption, and in eschatological consummation -- can serve as the basis for a supralapsarian argument. He illustrates this thesis with detailed case studies of the Christologies of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth. He concludes that the most fruitful supralapsarian strategy is rooted in the notion of eschatological consummation, taking interpersonal interaction with God to be the goal of the incarnation. He goes on to develop his own argument along these lines, concluding in an eschatological vision in which God is visually, audibly, and tangibly present in the midst of God's people. (shrink)

Although Walter Benjamin's writings are considered to be among the most powerful theoretical enterprises of the twentieth century, his ideas are resistant to cooptation by the doctrines of various critical programs. These essays engage this resistance by examining the ghostly in Benjamin's work. The contributors show that the haunting truths Benjamin offers point towards new forms of responsibility. These truths reside in a figurative elsewhere, a ghostly space that his texts delimit but never fully inhabit, and these essays seek to (...) do justice to the ghosts of Benjamin. Issues explored include: the status of the image in Benjamin's literary reflections and in his meditations on cinema and visual culture; abiding Benjaminian notions of messianism, aura, reproducibility, semblance, and melancholy; Benjamin's relation to Freud; his innovative rethinking of history, virtuality, and translation; and his reflections on tragedy and prophecy, the geometrical dimensions of writing, and the relation between eros and language. (shrink)

The project of renewing childhood by transforming one's life -- Critical theory -- Reason's self-criticism -- Defined negation -- The two faces of enlightenment -- Rescuing what is beyond hope -- Philosophy from the perspective of redemption -- Primacy of the object -- The totally socialized society -- The concept of society -- Liquidation of the individual -- Critical theory on morality -- The goal of the emancipated society -- The powerless utopia of beauty -- The destruction and salvation of (...) art -- The silence of music -- The transition from art to knowledge -- Theorizing art and culture in the institute for social research -- Benjamin and kracauer: theorizing mass art -- Anarchistic and bourgeois romanticism: Adorno's critique of Benjamin -- The work of art and the concept of truth -- The failure of culture -- The radically pathetic and guilty culture -- Enlightenment as mass deception. (shrink)

Proceedings of a symposium held Sept. 24-28, 1996 in Vienna, Austria.

Critical Rationalism has become an influential philosophy in many areas including a great number of scientific disciplines. Yet only few studies have been devoted to the role of the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper in the vast field of education. This volume undertakes to fill this gap. Leading scholars in the educational science and in the philosophy of education have critically written for this volume in an attempt to elaborate Popper's methodological and socio-political views and confront them with a globally (...) relevant spectrum of scientific objectives and cultural values. Among the topics discussed are moral values, education for freedom and its consequences for the student, and the critical attitude in political education. Attention is also paid to the historiography of this significant philosophical movement. Regarding pedagogical research, the empirical paradigm, the falsificatory approach to educational research, the complex relationship between educational theory and practice as well as the problem of value-neutrality in educational science are objects of critical analysis. (shrink)

Sebastian Franck commented and translated parts of Agrippa´s De Vanitate Scientiarum, confirming that Franck knew at least some of this philosopher’s work. However, there is no detailed research on the influence Agrippa had on Franck—a gap this paper tries to fill. In a paper of Keefer, the author advocates that Franck was much influenced by Agrippa. The major claim of this paper is that Agrippa’s influence on Franck should not be overestimated, primarily because Franck deliberately did not cite from the (...) Occulta philosophia. Only De Vanitate Scientiarum and one paragraph of Oratio habita papiae are shown to have had a direct influence on Franck. The influence on Franck`s philosophy has to be analyzed very carefully to avoid such fallacies. In a comparison of the metaphysical belief systems of both Franck and Agrippa, important parallels concerning the soul and Christology can be found. Notably, Agrippa and Franck were both believers in the Platonic doctrine of the tripartite soul. However, Franck did not cite this concept from Agrippa. A difference between Agrippa and Franck was that Agrippa had a cosmological perspective that was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. In contrast, the Neoplatonic concept of the world soul did not make sense in Franck’s philosophical system of beliefs because Franck denies the idea that the world is conducted by rationality. His pessimistic view of the world and the human being did not blend with this idea of the world soul. These differences demonstrate that Franck did not agree with many concepts found in the Occulta philosophia. The Corpus Hermeticum was also not as important for Franck as it was for Agrippa. Franck focused primarily on the Pimander and to a certain extent on the thirteenth book (rebirth), whereas for Agrippa many parts were relevant. Research on the influence of the Hermetic books on Franck just began in the 21st century and this paper further contributes to a better understanding of how the Hermetic books affected Franck. Franck used Agrippa to convey his understanding of the Corpus Hermeticum to his readers. However, it remains an open question why Franck integrated only a small part of the Corpus Hermeticum and the writings of Agrippa into his philosophy. (shrink)

In this book the author gives a broad overview of different areas of research in nonmonotonic reasoning, and presents some new results and ideas based on his research. The guiding principles are: clarification of the different research activities in the area, which have sometimes been undertaken independently of each other; and appreciation of the fact that these research activities often represent different means to the same ends, namely sound theoretical foundations and efficient computation. The book begins with a discussion of (...) the various types of nonmonotonic reasoning, their applications and their logics. Theorem proving techniques for these logics are also described. The following chapters deal with formulations of nonmonotonic inheritance, and nonmonotonic reasoning based on nonmonotonic rules. The final chapter discusses the achievements in the field in the light of the Yale shooting example. The book will be welcomed by researchers in theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Enthält: Gesichtspunkte zur Beurteilung von Wissenschaftsbegriffen / von Gerhard Funke. Kriterien zur Beurteilung der Naturwissenschaften / von Erhard Scheibe.

The volume contains the written versions of all papers given at the workshop, divided into five chapters and followed by Alvin Goldman's replies in the sixth.

Die jetzt vorliegende ungekürzte Korrespondenz zwischen Sigmund Freud und Karl Abraham in originalem Deutsch erlaubt Einblicke in den wissenschaftlichen Austauschprozess bei der Entwicklung ihrer psychoanalytischen Konzepte. Abrahams einseitig-genetische Vorstellungen über die destruktiv-sadistischen Aspekte der Oralität und über die frühen Objektbeziehungen sind bei Freud auf Widerspruch gestoßen. Freud erweist sich einerseits als geduldiger Lehrer und Supervisor für Abraham. Andererseits ist er auch kritischer Mahner, der Abraham bis in die letzten Briefe daran erinnert, die Grundbedingungen der Neurosenentstehung zu beachten. Die Ergebnisse von (...) Abrahams klinischen Beobachtungen sind für Freud wiederum wertvolle Bestätigungen für seine eigenen Überlegungen zur Pathologie früher Störungen. Der Autor zeichnet die Entwicklung der unterschiedlichen Ansätze am wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel nach. Der Akzent liegt auf dem ätiologischen Problem der Neurosengenese im kausalen Denken bzw. im Denken vor dem Hintergrund von Nachträglichkeit. Die weitere Entwicklung der Konzeptionen nach Abrahams Tod wird kurz skizziert. (shrink)