The phrase 'beyond historicism' is usually associated with Bielefeld historians like Hans Ulrich Wehler and Jürgen Kocka, who attempted to turn the study of history into a social science, but a better candidate would be the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who happened to teach as well in Bielefeld during the 1970's and 1980's. Luhmann had little affinity with the project of his colleagues from the history department. He took the opposite view that the social sciences suffered from a naive enlightenment view (...) and should become more history minded. Like the historicists of the early nineteenth century Luhmann was indirectly inspired by the philosophy of Leibniz. Although Luhmann's theory of social systems may seem miles away from the daily interests of most historians, it can be interpreted as an Aufhebung of historicism. This will be demonstrated for two important concepts, the autopoietic system which incorporates the historicist notion of individuality and the concept of second order observation which can be read as an abstract redescription of what historicists meant by the historical method. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe metaphor of historical distance often appears in discussions about the study of contemporary history. It suggests that we cannot see the past in perspective if we are too near to it. According to founding fathers like Ranke and Humboldt, temporal distance is required to discern historical “ideas” or forms. The argument may have some plausibility, but the presupposition is plainly false, since we cannot see the past at all. This leaves us with the question of what to make of (...) the so‐called historical forms. This article discusses three different views. The first, historicist, view is objectivist and localizes historical forms in the past. The second, narrativist, view is subjectivist and localizes historical forms in the realm of imagination and representation. The third view goes beyond the other two in that it considers both sides. It does not use a one‐sided but a two‐sided concept of form, which hinges on the idea of a distinction. This means that historical forms occupy both sides of the subject–object distinction or the present–past distinction. Because the subject–object terminology is confusing, the essay employs an alternative distinction between first‐ and second‐order observation. With the help of this distinction, it is possible to redescribe the distance metaphor in such a way that the theoretical status of contemporary history becomes less enigmatic. (shrink)

To address the burden of maternal morbidity and mortality in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), research with pregnant women in these settings is increasingly common. Pregnant women in LMIC‐context may experience vulnerability related to giving consent to participate in a clinical trial. To recognize possible layers of vulnerability this study aims to identify factors that influence the decision process towards clinical trial participation of pregnant women in an urban middle‐income setting. This qualitative research used participant observation, in‐depth interviews, and focus (...) group discussion with medical staff and pregnant women eligible for trial participation, at a regional hospital in Accra, Ghana. Besides lack of familiarity with modern scientific concepts, specific factors influencing the decision‐making process were identified. These include a wide power difference between health provider and patient, and a different perception of risk through externalization of responsibility of risk management within a religious context as well as a context shaped by authority. Also, therapeutic misconception was observed. The combination of these factors ensued women to rely on the opinion of the medical professional, rather than being guided by their own motivation to participation. Although being a (pregnant) woman per se should not render the label of being vulnerable, this study shows there are factors that influence the decision process of pregnant woman towards trial participation in a LMIC context that can result in vulnerability. The identification of context‐specific factors that can create vulnerability facilitates adaptation of the design and conduct of research in a culturally competent manner. (shrink)

This article considers Hugo Grotius’s ideas on a specific topic of commercial law, analysing his position and potential contributions to early modern Dutch insolvency legislation. It might be questioned how ‘Hollandic’ Grotius’s interpretations of legal solutions for insolvency as presented in the Inleidinge tot de Hollandsche Rechts-Geleerdheid actually were. Grotius’s treatment of cessie van goede is relatively strict, whereas compositions are hardly mentioned. A rather different image rises from his later work. Here, Grotius displays a more radical view, in specific (...) cases allowing the sovereign to interfere in private property rights and to restructure debts for the common good. It is an intriguing question if and to what extent these ideas can be related to contemporary Dutch insolvency practices. (shrink)

The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 was an unquestionably traumatic event in the history of the Jewish people. By all accounts it was a social, political, and theological disaster. As such, contemporary Jewish figures wrestled with the meaning of the event. This article analyses the efforts by two figures in this internal Jewish dialogue to provide this meaning, namely, the historian Josephus and Jesus of Nazareth. We will see that in both cases the (...) meaning of the destruction was rooted in the firm conviction of the God of Israel’s existence and his self-revelation in Scripture. The temple was destroyed not apart from God or in spite of God, but in full accordance with his will. This will, moreover, was judged to be accessible through Scripture, both in terms of its prophetic value and its establishment of a metanarrative – redemptive history – that provided a framework for historical events. In addition, the reason for the destruction was judged by both to be the sins of (certain) people. The major difference between them lay rather in the question of which sins exactly were judged to be responsible. (shrink)

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE LOGICALEXANDER BROADIE, Introduction to medieval logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. vi + l5Opp. £20.00.CHARLES B. SCHMITT, QUENTIN SKINNER, ECKHARD KESSLER, JILL KRAYE, The Cambridge historj. of renaissance philosophj.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, xiii + 968 pp. £5O.OO/$79.jO.GERMAN TRADITIONSSTEPHEN PRIEST, Hegel's critique of Kant. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. xii + 229 pp. £22.50.NORBERT HINSKE, Kant 7 Index, Band 2, Stellenindex und Konkordanz zu “Zmmanuel Kant's Logik”. Erstellt in Zusammenarbeit mit Heinrich P. Delfosse und Heinz Schay. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: (...) Frommann-Holzboog, 1986. xlviii + 633 pp. DM 475.FREGE STUDIESGOTTLOB FREGE, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Eine logisch mathematische Untersuchung über den Begrif der Zahl. Centenarausgabe. Mit ergänzenden Texten kritisch herausgegeben von Christian Thiel. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1986. 187 + Ixiii. pp. DM 120.G. WECHSUNG, Frege Conference 1984. Berlin: Akademic Verlag, 1984. 408 pp. DDR-DM5 1.ANGLO–SAXON TRADITIONSN. B. COCCHIARELLA, Logical studies in early analytic philosophy. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1987. 295 pp. $30.00.PAUL GOCHET, Ascent to truth. A critical exumination of Quine‘s philosophy. Miinchen: Philosophia Verlag, 1986. 201 pp. DM59.BARRY M. TAYLOR, Michael Dummett: contributions to philosophy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987. xii+ 339 pp. £47.25.OBJECTS OF THOUGHTB. HALE,objects. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987; New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988. viii + 282pp. £27.50.ANTHONY PALMER, Concept and object. The unity of the proposition in logic and psychology. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. xvi + 144 pp. £19.95.NON–CLASSICAL LOGICSG. PRIEST, In contradiction: a study of the transconsistent. Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. xvf 279 pp. $49.50.JÜRGEN WALTHER, Logik der Fragen, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1985. viii + 334pp. DM 98.MISCELLANEOUSF. ENRIQUES, Per la storia della logica. Photostatic reproduction of the 1922 edition. Foreword by Raffaella Simili. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1987. xxii + 302 pp. 18,000 Lire.PAUL WEINGARTNER and GERHARD SCHURZ, Logic, philosophy of science and epistemology. Proceedings of the 11th International Wittgenstein Symposium, 4th to 13th August 1986, Kirchberg am Wechsel. Selected papers. Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1987. 430 pp. £54.00.G. TAKEUTI, Proof theory. Second edition. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1987. 490 pp. $64.00. (shrink)

Politicians and engineers are increasingly realizing that values are important in the development of technological artefacts. What is often overlooked is that different conceptualizations of these abstract values lead to different design-requirements. For example, designing social media platforms for deliberative democracy sets us up for technical work on completely different types of architectures and mechanisms than designing for so-called liquid or direct forms of democracy. Thinking about Democracy is not enough, we need to design for the proper conceptualization of these (...) values. As we see it, we cannot responsibly engineer and innovate and shape technology in accordance with our moral values without engaging in systematic and continuous conceptual engineering: This is not only an academic, or theoretical issue, it is also not simply an issue for public policy or politics, or regulators, it has become a central problem for engineering and the world of technology. In this paper, we present a framework for doing the necessary conceptual work in the context of requirement engineering. We draw on the literature on conceptual engineering to lay out a methodology to (1) assess different conceptions and (2) to develop new conceptions. Moreover, we integrate this methodology with extant approaches in the philosophy of technology which aim at designing technological artefacts ethically. In the final section we apply this integrated framework to freedom in the context of social media networks. (shrink)

In response to Anton Froeyman's paper, “Virtues of Historiography,“ this article argues that philosophers of history interested in why historians cherish such virtues as carefulness, impartiality, and intellectual courage would do wise not to classify these virtues unequivocally as either epistemic or moral virtues. Likewise, in trying to grasp the roles that virtues play in the historian's professional practice, philosophers of history would be best advised to avoid adopting either an epistemological or an ethical perspective. Assuming that the historian's virtuous (...) behavior has epistemic and moral dimensions (as well as aesthetic, political, and other dimensions), this article advocates a non-reductionist account of historical scholarship, which acknowledges that the virtues cherished by historians usually play a variety of roles, depending on the goals they are supposed to serve. Given that not the least important of these goals are epistemic ones, the articles concludes that virtue ethical approaches, to the extent that they are focused on the acquisition of moral instead of epistemic goods, insufficiently recognize the role of virtue in the pursuit of such epistemic aims as knowledge and understanding. (shrink)

The Belgian health care system has a few features that may havecontributed to the rising costs of health care: patients' freechoice of physicians, large clinical freedom of physicians, essentiallya fee-for-service remuneration for medical specialists in which the feesare agreed between insurance funds and physicians. The increased medicalconsumption and costs have prompted the state and insurance companies totake measures that limit the professional autonomy of the physicians.Access to medical education, free until 1997, is now restricted. Themedical profession is organized in the (...) Order of Physicians that hasestablished a code of professional ethics that has moral but not legalforce. So far, there is no special legislation for thepatient–physician relationship, though laws on specific issueslike organ transplantation contain duties for physicians. In recentyears a debate is taking place on patients' rights, of which informedconsent is central and gaining importance in medico-legal publications.An analysis of (ethical and legal) regulations concerning thewithholding or withdrawal of treatment by physicians demonstrate thatthe profession still enjoys a large clinical autonomy, though duediscussion with the patient has become more explicitly required. Therespect for professional autonomy is not primarily due to any formalpower that the Order of Physicians would have, but is rather grounded inthe generally high quality of the patient–physician relationshipthat in ethical terms is considered essentially as a confidencerelationship rather than a contractual relationship. (shrink)

Philosophers of history in the past few decades have been predominantly interested in issues of explanation and narrative discourse. Consequently, they have focused consistently and almost exclusively on the historian’s output, thereby ignoring that historical scholarship is a practice of reading, thinking, discussing, and writing, in which successful performance requires active cultivation of certain skills, attitudes, and virtues. This paper, then, suggests a new agenda for philosophy of history. Inspired by a “performative turn” in the history and philosophy of science, (...) it focuses on the historian’s “doings” and proposes to analyze these performances in terms of epistemic virtue. It argues that historical scholarship is embedded in “practices” or “epistemic cultures,” in which knowledge is created and warranted by means of such virtues as honesty, carefulness, accuracy, and balance. These epistemic virtues, however, are not etched in stone: historians may highlight some of them, exchange one for another, or reinterpret their meaning. On the one hand, this suggests a rich area of research for historians of historiography. To what extent can consensus, conflict, continuity, and change in historical scholarship be explained in terms of epistemic virtue? On the other hand, the proposal outlined in this article raises a couple of philosophical questions. For example, on what grounds can historians choose among epistemic virtues? And what concept of the self comes with the notion of virtue? In addressing these questions, philosophy of history may expand its current scope so as to encompass not only “writings” but also “doings,” that is, the virtuous performances historians recognize as professional conduct. (shrink)

This commentary discusses three main requirements for models of vision, namely, translation and scale invariance, scalability, and hierarchy. Edelman's Chorus model falls short of fulfilling these requirements because it ignores the highly dynamic nature of vision. Incorporating an attentional mechanism and assuming geon-like prototype representations may enhance Chorus's plausibility as a model of human object recognition.

We investigate the set theoretical strength of some properties of normality, including Urysohn's Lemma, Tietze-Urysohn Extension Theorem, normality of disjoint unions of normal spaces, and normality of Fσ subsets of normal spaces.

Bioethics has been in existence now for more than twenty years. Much has changed, however, since Van Rensselaer Potter2 first used the term bioethics in 1971. For Potter, bioethics was an applied science with its roots in the biological sciences and its orientation towards the betterment of human life. Today the concept is used in a different context. It has become the name given to the ethical research that has become necessary in light of the new possibilities created by revolutionary (...) developments in medical science. Generally speaking, bioethics is concerned with the beginning and the end of life. In a certain sense, however, this is merely a de facto definition which does not possess a great deal of internal logical consistency.If we attempt to reconstruct the incredibly rapid evolution of bioethics we quickly realize how the times were truly ripe for this new discipline to begin to mature. In a very short space of time bioethics was taken seriously in just about every University and medical centre the world over. There is no part of the world which has not organised a colloquium or developed a study programme or created a Centre for Biomedical Ethics. Yet this advance is hardly surprising if we consider the fact that there have been revolutionary developments in themedical world in the 1960’s which have made it necessary to engage in serious ethical reflection on the borderline questions of human life.From the start, bioethicists have concerned themselves primarily with ethical problems related to reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization, medically assisted fertilization with donor gametes, pregnancy termination, and the status of the embryo. More recently, however, questions concerning the end of life have entered the bioethicist’s field of interest, e.g. ethical questions related to euthanasia and the problems surrounding the artificial nutrition and hydration of persistently vegetative patients. In the meantime, of course, bioethics has broadened its field of interest beyond questions related to the beginning and end of life. Serious ethical and juridical reflection has resulted from the problems surrounding organ transplantation, transplantation of brain tissue, and the problem of AIDS.With the many recent developments in genetics, the first applications of gene therapy, and the world-wide human genome research project bioethics is assured an exciting future. It is clear that the issues which grab the bioethicist’s attention are rather disparate. Moreover, we are now beginning to realize that a whole gamut of specific questions cannot be addressed unless the broader context of the ethics of health care in general is taken into account. Such a realization has led to something of a new movement within the bioethical sphere which is interested in widening the notion of ‘medical ethics’ or ‘ethics of health’.The purpose of this article is to help familiarize the reader with the world of bioethics. Such a task is both simple and complex; bioethics has become a house with many rooms, a house, furthermore, which is being constantly renovated and rebuilt. By way of introduction, we shall take an investigative and evaluative stroll through the broad landscape bioethics has traced in the first twenty years of its existence. (shrink)

Bioethics has been in existence now for more than twenty years. Much has changed, however, since Van Rensselaer Potter2 first used the term bioethics in 1971. For Potter, bioethics was an applied science with its roots in the biological sciences and its orientation towards the betterment of human life. Today the concept is used in a different context. It has become the name given to the ethical research that has become necessary in light of the new possibilities created by revolutionary (...) developments in medical science. Generally speaking, bioethics is concerned with the beginning and the end of life. In a certain sense, however, this is merely a de facto definition which does not possess a great deal of internal logical consistency.If we attempt to reconstruct the incredibly rapid evolution of bioethics we quickly realize how the times were truly ripe for this new discipline to begin to mature. In a very short space of time bioethics was taken seriously in just about every University and medical centre the world over. There is no part of the world which has not organised a colloquium or developed a study programme or created a Centre for Biomedical Ethics. Yet this advance is hardly surprising if we consider the fact that there have been revolutionary developments in themedical world in the 1960’s which have made it necessary to engage in serious ethical reflection on the borderline questions of human life.From the start, bioethicists have concerned themselves primarily with ethical problems related to reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization, medically assisted fertilization with donor gametes, pregnancy termination, and the status of the embryo. More recently, however, questions concerning the end of life have entered the bioethicist’s field of interest, e.g. ethical questions related to euthanasia and the problems surrounding the artificial nutrition and hydration of persistently vegetative patients. In the meantime, of course, bioethics has broadened its field of interest beyond questions related to the beginning and end of life. Serious ethical and juridical reflection has resulted from the problems surrounding organ transplantation, transplantation of brain tissue, and the problem of AIDS.With the many recent developments in genetics, the first applications of gene therapy, and the world-wide human genome research project bioethics is assured an exciting future. It is clear that the issues which grab the bioethicist’s attention are rather disparate. Moreover, we are now beginning to realize that a whole gamut of specific questions cannot be addressed unless the broader context of the ethics of health care in general is taken into account. Such a realization has led to something of a new movement within the bioethical sphere which is interested in widening the notion of ‘medical ethics’ or ‘ethics of health’.The purpose of this article is to help familiarize the reader with the world of bioethics. Such a task is both simple and complex; bioethics has become a house with many rooms, a house, furthermore, which is being constantly renovated and rebuilt. By way of introduction, we shall take an investigative and evaluative stroll through the broad landscape bioethics has traced in the first twenty years of its existence. (shrink)

SUMMARYHistorians of historiography have recently adopted the language of ‘epistemic virtues’ to refer to character traits believed to be conducive to good historical scholarship. While ‘epistemic virtues’ is a modern philosophical concept, virtues such as ‘objectivity’, ‘meticulousness’ and ‘carefulness’ historically also served as actors' categories. Especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians frequently used virtue language to describe what it took to be a ‘good’, ‘reliable’ or ‘professional’ scholar. Based on three European case studies—the German historian Georg (...) Waitz, his French pupil Gabriel Monod and the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne —this article argues that such virtues cannot neatly be classified as ‘epistemic’ ones. For what is characteristic about virtue language in historical scholarship around 1900 is an overlap or entanglement of epistemic, moral and political connotations. The virtues embodied by, or attributed to, Waitz, Monod and Pirenne were almost invariably aimed at epistemic, moral and political goods at once, though not always to the same degrees. Consequently, if ‘epistemic virtues’ is going to be a helpful category, it must not be interpreted in a strong sense, but in a weak one. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhat did “historical distance” mean to historians in the Rankean tradition? Although historical distance is often equated with temporal distance, an analysis of Ernst Bernheim's Lehrbuch der historischen Methode reveals that for German historians around 1900 distance did not primarily refer to a passage of time that would enable scholars to study remote pasts from retrospective points of view. If Bernheim's manual presents historical distance as a prerequisite for historical interpretation, the metaphor rather conveys a need for self‐distanciation. Self‐distanciation is (...) not a Romantic desire to “extinguish” oneself, but a virtuous attempt to put one's own ideas and intuitions about the working of the world between brackets in the study of people who might have understood the world in different terms. Although Bernheim did not explicitly talk about virtue, the article shows that his Lehrbuch nonetheless considers self‐distanciation a matter of virtuous behavior, targeted at an aim that may not be fully realizable, but ought to be pursued with all possible vigor. For Bernheim, then, distance requires epistemological virtue, which in turn calls for intellectual character, or what Bernheim's generation considered scholarly selfhood . Not a mapping of time onto space, but a strenuous effort to mold “scholarly characters,” truly able to recognize the otherness of the past, appears to be characteristic of Bernheim's view of historical distance. (shrink)

This book addresses the methodological issues involved in responsible innovation and provides an overview of recent applications of multidisciplinary research. Responsible innovation involves research into the ethical and societal aspects of new technologies (e.g. ICT, nanotechnology, biotechnology and brain sciences) and of changes in technological systems (e.g. energy, transport, agriculture and water). This research is highly multidisciplinary. It involves close collaboration between researchers in such diverse fields as ethics, social science, law, economics, applied science, engineering - as well as innovative, (...) design-oriented and policy-relevant. Although there is a trend to engage ethicists and social scientists early in technology development, most literature in the field of Technology Assessment or Ethics of Technology is still aimed at one discipline whereas this book incorporates different approaches and to discuss experiences, lessons and more general theoretical issues. (shrink)

Im Nietzsche-Wörterbuch werden etwa 300 Begriffe aus Nietzsches Vokabular eingehend erläutert, davon 67 imersten Band. Berücksichtigt werden u. a.: Anzahl der Belege, Schwerpunkte im Gebrauch, Synonyme, die verschiedenen Bedeutungen, Bedeutungskomponenten und bedeutungsrelevanten Kontexte, sprachgeschichtliche und philosophiehistorische Lokalsierung von Nietzsches Gebrauch des Wortes, Nietzsche-Forschung und -Rezeption. Das gesamte Wörterbuch umfaßt 4 Bände.

This article seeks to reconcile a historicist sensitivity to how intellectually virtuous behavior is shaped by historical contexts with a non-relativist account of historical scholarship. To that end, it distinguishes between hierarchies of intellectual virtues and hierarchies of intellectual goods . The first hierarchy rejects a one-size-fits-all model of historical virtuousness in favor of a model that allows for significant varieties between the relative weight that historians must assign to intellectual virtues in order to acquire justified historical understanding. It grounds (...) such differences, not on the historians’ interests or preferences, but on their historiographical situations, so that hierarchies of virtues are a function of the demands that historiographical situations (defined as interplays of genre, research question, and state of scholarship) make upon historians. Likewise, the second hierarchy allows for the pursuit of various intellectual goods, but banishes the specter of relativism by treating historical understanding as an intellectual good that is constitutive of historical scholarship and therefore deserves priority over alternative goods. The position that emerges from this is classified as a form of weak historicism. (shrink)