Online research in philosophy

In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation of the distinction, endorsed for example by James McAllister and Bruce Glymour, which identifies phenomena with patterns in data (...) sets. Furthermore, I point out that other interpretations of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction do not specify the relationship between phenomena and theories in a satisfying manner. In order to avoid this problem I propose a contextual understanding of scientific phenomena according to which phenomena are states of affairs which play specific roles in scientific practice and to which we adopt a special epistemic attitude. Second, I evaluate the epistemological significance of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction with respect to the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists. Contrary to what Bogen and Woodward claim, I argue that the distinction does not provide a convincing argument against constructive empiricism. (shrink)

v. 1. Towards a transcendental semiotics -- v. 2. Ethics and the theory of rationality.

Collected together for the first time in English, Karl-Otto Apel’s most recent work covers a broad spectrum of philosophical issues. Highly original, this work will be valuable to academics and students concerned with (post-) analytic philosophy, epistemology, history of science, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, current debates about transcendental modes of argument, second-generation Frankfurt School thinkers and American pragmatists. It will be no less useful to all those interested in reformulations of Kantian themes and redefinitions of older ideas within the linguistic (...) paradigm, as well as those who, being familiar with Habermas’s work, wish to know more about the controversies and debates within the circle of the Frankfurt School itself. (shrink)

O artigo interpreta o pensamento de Heidegger como transformação da filosofia transcendental que conduz à sua radicalização e, ultimamente, destruição. A este projecto contrapõe Apel a sua tentativa de estabelecer uma filosofia transcendental linguístico-pragmática que procura estabelecer um compromisso entre as temáticas da constituição antepredicativa do sentido e da exigência de validade intersubjectiva. /// L'article interprète la pensée de Heidegger comme transformation de la philosophie transcendantale qui conduit à sa radicalisation et, en dernier lieu, à sa destruction. A ce (...) projet, Apel oppose sa tentative d'établir une philosophie transcendantale linguistique pragmatique qui cherche à faire un compromis entre les thématiques de la constitution anteprédicative du sens et de l'exigence de validité intersubjective. /// The author interprets Heidegger's thought in terms of a transformation of transcendental philosophy, leading to its radicalization and finally its destruction. In the place of this project, the author proposes a transcendental philosophy of a linguistic and pragmatic kind, wich seeks to establish a compromise between the thematics of ante-predicative constitution of sense and the demand for intersubjective validity. (shrink)

There are several paradigms of 'first philosophy' (e.g. Aristotle, Descartes). A third paradigm of first philosophy is transcendental pragmatics or transcendental semiotics (exemplified by Peirce and Wittgenstein). Husserl correctly grasped that Descartes inaugurated first philosophy in the sense of a transcendental inquiry into the foundations of absolute knowledge. But Husserl's retrieval of Descartes remains within the second paradigm in that it ignores the role of language as a condition of the possibility of objectively constituted knowledge. I propose to re-examine Descartes's (...) conception of first philosophy to see if it can be read in the light of the third paradigm of transcendental philosophy, namely transcendental semiotics. I argue that Cartesian methodic doubt can be rehabilitated (against Wittgenstein's critique) as a kind of 'fallibilistic' approach to knowledge of a Peircean kind, and that the Cartesian cogito can be read (following Hintikka) as recognition of performative contradiction and of the necessity of speech acts, and hence of the transcendental communication community. (shrink)

The present book tries to show that the transcentendal-pragmatic approach to discourse ethics can reconstruct the genesis of this situation and provide a ...

This paper considers how the problem of justice is to be globalized in the political theory of John Rawls. I discuss first the conception of “overlapping consensus” as an innovation in Rawls’s Political Liberalism and point out the recurrence of the problem of a philosophical foundation in his pragmatico-political interpretation. I suggest an intensification of Rawls’s notion of the “priority of the right to the good” as a philosophical correction to his political self-interpretation, and then finally carry through on a (...) theory of globalization of the problem of justice as extended from his “The Law of Peoples.”. (shrink)

This paper examines two contemporary answers to the question of whether moral values and norms are apt for rational criticism and justification: Richard Rorty’s radically contextualist approach—which is centered around the notion of contingency and is characterized by a dismissal of all claims to philosophical justification—and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental-pragmatic version of discourse ethics—which encompasses highly ambitious claims to justification and universal validity. Contrasting the key theses of Rorty’s contextualism with those of Apel’s universalist discourse ethics and reconstructing their (...) respective conceptions of moral progress we argue that neither Rorty’s nor Apel’s position is convincing. (shrink)

The papers collected here are the result of an INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: Data · Phenomena · Theories: What’s the notion of a scientific phenomenon good for? held in Heidelberg in September 2008. The event was organized by the research group Causality, Cognition, and the Constitution of Scientific Phenomena in cooperation with Philosophy Department at the University of Heidelberg (Peter McLaughlin and Andreas Kemmerling) and the IWH Heidelberg. The symposium was supported by the Emmy-Noether-Programm der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft and by Stiftung Universitat Heidelebrg (...) . The workshop was held in honor of Daniela Bailer-Jones, who died on 13 November 2006 at the age of 37 (cf. my 2007 Daniela Bailer-Jones ). Bailer-Jones was an Emmy Noether fellow, and the symposium was arranged and run by those who were working in her research group at the time of her death: Monika Dullstein, Jochen Apel, and Pavel Radchencko. To them goes the credit for the conception, planning, and carrying out of the symposium. (shrink)

Eva Buddeberg: Verantwortung im Diskurs: Grundlinien einer rekonstruktiv-hermeneutischen Konzeption moralischer Verantwortung im Anschluss an Hans Jonas, Karl-Otto Apel und Emmanuel Lévinas Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10677-012-9366-3 Authors Norbert Anwander, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.

Anglo-American and continental philosophy are often con sidered sharply divergent, even hostile, movements of thought. However, there have been several attempts to cross the divide between them, leading some theorists to very interesting and promising new projects. Apel has been one of the first German philosophers whose serious preoccupation with continental themes has not impeded his thorough and responsible investigation of analytic and post-analytic issues. Thus, Apel promotes a linguistic analysis that aspires to unveil the hidden, implicit, but (...) non circumventible linguistic-pragmatic presuppositions of argumentation and to explore its implications for epistemology, ethics and politics. Key Words: communicative and strategic rationality • . discourse ethics • . fallibilism • . foundationalism • . normative presuppositions of argumentation • . pragmatics . transcendentalism. (shrink)

Richard Whitley, Jochen Gläser (eds.), The Changing Governance of the Sciences. The Advent of Research Evaluation Systems. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook Content Type Journal Article Pages 465-468 DOI 10.1007/s11024-009-9132-4 Authors Jürgen Enders, University of Twente Enschede The Netherlands Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 47 Journal Issue Volume 47, Number 4.

Frédérick Bruneault | Résumé : Y a-t-il une fondation rationnelle ultime à nos obligations morales qui puisse nous permettre de faire face aux exigences de notre situation technologique actuelle et des inquiétudes qu’elle fait surgir ? Ce texte a pour objectif de répondre affirmativement à cette question en examinant les travaux de deux auteurs qui partagent une lecture de l’aspect paradoxal de la réflexion éthique contemporaine, à savoir Karl-Otto Apel et Hans Jonas. Chacun de leur côté, ils se proposent (...) de fonder rationnellement une éthique capable d’affronter l’ampleur des problèmes auxquels fait face la civilisation technologique, mais ils le font par des chemins passablement différents. Ma thèse est que ces deux voies sont nécessaires pour arriver à l’objectif d’une fondation rationnelle ultime de l’éthique, mais qu’elles ne peuvent y arriver qu’à la condition de travailler en complémentarité. |: Is there an ultimate rational foundation to our moral obligations, which could help us deal with problems raised by our technological world ? This paper wants to give an affirmative answer to this question. This answer will draw from two contemporary authors in ethical thinking, Karl-Otto Apel and Hans Jonas. Both of them, in their own different way, provide a rational foundation to an ethics that has enough strength to deal with contemporary problems. My thesis is that both ways are necessary to achieve an appropriate affirmative answer to the question. They thus have to work dynamically. (shrink)

Neste trabalho, investiga-se a reconstrução apeliana da controvérsia, entre Habermas e o próprio Apel, acerca da fundamentação e relação entre a moral e o direito, enquanto concepção procedimental discursiva da filosofia prática. Assim, objetiva-se mostrar a relação – metodologicamente importante – do discurso filosófico no trato específico para a arquitetônica da ética do discurso. Defende-se a hipótese de que o debate e controvérsia entre ambos os programas da ética do discurso decorrem fundamentalmente do modo diferenciado de tematizar a relação (...) metodológica entre enunciados filosóficos e enunciados das ciências sócio-reconstrutivas, empíricas, e que essa diferença de abordagem é relevante na forma distinta de tratarem a moral e conceberem o conceito de razão prática, que culmina na compreensão desta como razão prática moral ou não prescritiva, bem como, o problema da sua unidade e/ou quanto de sua especificação. Para Apel, é importante a determinação dessa relação metodológica, pois a partir dessa reflexão efetivar-se-á, na teoria discursiva, uma cisão entre dois modos fundamentais de pensar a fundamentação e relação entre a moral, o direito e a política. (shrink)

A filosofia, sendo um discurso antípoda ao discurso das ciências, no sentido de que não produz um conhecimento sobre particularidades, situa-se a priori no espaço interno de uma clivagem, de uma diferença e de uma dobra onde este discurso e este saber são produzidos e apresentados. Na cena contemporânea três pensadores, Lacan, Apel e Gadamer, tematizam a experiência do humano como ligada estritamente à linguagem enquanto elemento estruturador do humano, na medida em que este é situado no interior do (...) espaço de uma dobra e de uma clivagem. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Apel. A priori. Gadamer. Lacan. Linguagem. Ser humano. ABSTRACT Philosophy as a speech opposite to the speech of sciences as long as it does not pursue a knwoledge on specialities, it is situated a priori at the internal space of a fold where this knowledge is produced and presented. At the contemporary scene there are three thinkers, Lacan, Apel and Gadamer which think human experience as deeply linked towards language as the structural frame of the human being, hence he is situated within the space of this fold. KEY WORDS – Apel. A priori. Gadamer. Human being. Lacan. Language. (shrink)

In the book under review, Walter Reese-Schafer provides a concise Introduction to the sources, themes and conclusions of the philosophy of Karl-Otto Apel, Emeritus Professor at Frankfurt and close colleague of Jurgen Habermas. There are both Kantian and Peircean themes in Apel, with the chief focus on the concept of discourse ethics.

This article describes some of the main arguments for the existence of other minds, and intersubjectivity more generally, that depend upon a transcendental justification. This means that our focus will be largely on ‘continental’ philosophy, not only because of the abiding interest in this tradition in thematising intersubjectivity, but also because transcendental reasoning is close to ubiquitous in continental philosophy. Neither point holds for analytic philosophy. As such, this essay will introduce some of the important contributions of Edmund Husserl, Martin (...) Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Karl-Otto Apel, all of whom use transcendental reasoning as a key part of their analyses of intersubjectivity, and we also consider the work of Peter Strawson who does likewise in the analytic tradition. (shrink)

Anthony Brueckner argues for a strong connection between the closure and the underdetermination argument for scepticism. Moreover, he claims that both arguments rest on infallibilism: In order to motivate the premises of the arguments, the sceptic has to refer to an infallibility principle. If this were true, fallibilists would be right in not taking the problems posed by these sceptical arguments seriously. As many epistemologists are sympathetic to fallibilism, this would be a very interesting result. However, in this paper I (...) will argue that Brueckner’s claims are wrong: The closure and the underdetermination argument are not as closely related as he assumes and neither rests on infallibilism. Thus even a fallibilist should take these arguments to raise serious problems that must be dealt with somehow. (shrink)

Friendship, as a unique form of social relationship, establishes a particular union among individual human beings which allows them to overcome diverse boundaries between individual subjects. Age, gender or cultural differences do not necessarily constitute an obstacle for establishing friendship and as a social phenomenon, it might even include the potential to exist independently of space and time. This analysis in the interface of social science and phenomenology focuses on the principles of construction and constitution of this specific form of (...) human encounter. In a “parallel action,” the perspective of social science focuses on concrete socio-historical constructions of friendship in different time periods. These findings are confronted with the description of principles of the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship” from a phenomenological perspective. The point of reference for the study is the real type of the symbolically established and excessively idealized form of friendship intended for eternity which was especially popular in eighteenth century Germany. Analogous to the method of phenomenological reduction, three different levels of protosociological reduction are developed for the exploration of the unique social phenomenon of friendship. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a combination of the antiskeptical strategies offered by semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation. I argue that the most difficult problems of the two strategies can be solved, if the strategies are combined: The strategy offered by semantic externalism is successful against standard skeptical brain-in-a-vat arguments. But the strategy is ineffective, if the skeptical argument is referring to the recent-envatment scenario. However, by focusing on the scenario of recent envatment the most difficult problems (...) of the antiskeptical strategy posed by the inference to the best explanation can be solved. The most difficult problems with this strategy are: (1) Why is an explanation of our experience offered by the skeptical hypothesis more complex than our standard explanation? (2) Why is the more complex explanation less likely to be true? By focussing on the recent envatment hypothesis both questions can be answered satisfactorily. Therefore, the combination of semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation yields a powerful antiskeptical argument. (shrink)

The four-principle approach to biomedical ethics is used worldwide by practitioners and researchers alike but it is rather unclear what exactly people do when they apply this approach. Ranking, specification, and balancing vary greatly among different people regarding a particular case. Thus, a sound and coherent applicability of principlism seems somewhat mysterious. What are principlists doing? The article examines the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the applicability of this approach. The most important result is that a sound and comprehensible application (...) of the four principles is additionally ensured by making use of the organizing meta-principle of common morality, which is the starting point and constraining framework of moral reasoning. (shrink)

After what has been termed the affective or emotional turn in sociology and many other academic fields, there is still a dearth of methodologies for systematic empirical emotion analysis in sociology. The article addresses this gap and argues that the principles of narrative analysis can be fruitfully extended to the systematic empirical investigation of emotions. A short description of key principles and tools in narrative analysis will serve as the basis for showing how the same concepts can be used to (...) gain access to the emotional side of human experience. To this end the article engages with philosophical debates to develop a specific theoretical notion of emotions—their narrative nature—and discusses the emotional nature of narrative. Specifically, this calls into question any clear-cut distinction between meaning and emotion. Based on this, the text then employs linguistic and some psychological and literary research to demonstrate and systematize key ways in which emotions can be expressed narratively as well as on the level of sentences and words. Together this forms an encompassing methodological framework that can capture the emotionality of human experience in its manifold forms. Specifically, this also addresses the problem of non-conscious emotions. (shrink)

This paper aims to shed light on the role played by purposefulness in Peirce’s account of thought by means of a comparison with Kant’s regulative principles. Purposefulness, as an orientation toward an end involved in a thought process, is distinguished from purposiveness, as conformity to an end. Peirce’s architectonic, cosmology, and theory of natural classes are briefly analyzed in light of these concepts. Then, a comparison between Peirce’s esthetic ideal and regulative hopes and Kant’s regulative ideas and principle of purposiveness (...) is undertaken. This comparison, while allowing us to find a solution for some difficulties, especially some regarding Peirce’s esthetics, shows how purposefulness is far more important for the American thinker. Thus, purposefulness and purposiveness turn out to be primarily regulative principles of our thought. As such, they allow us to identify a transcendental level in Peirce’s philosophy, avoiding the inconsistencies that have been attributed to Karl-Otto Apel’s account. (shrink)

This essay presents a phenomenological analysis of the functioning of symbols as elements of the life-world with the purpose of demonstrating the interrelationship of individual and society. On the basis of Alfred Schutz''s theory of the life-world, signs and symbols are viewed as mechanisms by means of which the individual can overcome the transcendences posed by time, space, the world of the Other, and multiple realities which confront him or her. Accordingly, the individual''s life-world divides itself into the dimensions of (...) time, space, the social world and various reality spheres which form the boundaries or transcendences that the I has to understand and integrate. Signs and symbols are described as appresentational modes which stand for experiences originating in the different spheres of the life-world within the world of everyday life, within which they can be communicated, thereby establishing intersubjectivity. Schutz''s theory of the symbol explains how social entities – such as nations, states or religious groups – are symbolically integrated to become components of the individual''s life-world. The following paper reconstructs Schutz''s concept of the symbol as a crucial component of his theory of the life-world, which is seen as an outstanding phenomenological contribution to the theory of the sign and the symbol in general. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing. On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning. On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account (...) for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task. We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference. Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes. We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data. Key Words: action planning; binding; common coding; event coding; feature integration; perception; perception-action interface. (shrink)

Transcendental philosophy has traditionally sought to provide non-contingent grounds for (a 'rational' account of) certain aspects of cognitive, moral, and social life. Further, it has made a claim to being 'ultimately' grounded in the sense that its account of experience should provide a non-dogmatic account of its own possibility. Most current approaches to transcendental philosophy seek to do justice to these twin aspects of the project by making an 'intersubjective turn', taking the structure of dialogue or social practice rather than (...) the 'I think' or consciousness as the locus of ultimate grounds. After examining the recent debate over transcendental arguments in order to illuminate the relations between two important versions of transcendental philosophy- the neo-Kantian version oriented toward justification of principles and the phenomenological version oriented toward clarification of meaning- this paper criticizes internally connected aspects of the intersubjective turn in K. O. Apel, Bernhard Waldenfels, and a recent 'practical' interpretation of Husserl. It is shown that the twin demands of the project can be redeemed only if ultimate grounding is seen first of all not as an epistemological or ontological question but (as Levinas suggests) as an ethical one. This requires modification of the appeal to intersubjectivity and a qualified return to the first-person perspective. (shrink)

As a unique method of philosophical argument, performative contradiction attracted general attention after the change in direction of pragmatics in the twentieth century. Hintikka used this method to conduct an in-depth analysis of Descartes’ proposition “I think, therefore I am,” providing a proof which is a model in the philosophical history; Apel absorbed performative contradiction into his own framework of a priori pragmatics; and Habermas introduced it into the theory of formal pragmatics and rendered it an effective weapon of (...) debate. Wittgenstein, who had fallen into the trap of performative contradiction in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, later managed to extract himself from it and indeed used the methodology of performative contradiction to cure the ills of philosophy, making it a general philosophical method. Through analysis of its connotations and classic examples of its use we can see that it is crucial in refuting extreme relativism and skepticism, and hence provides methodological support for a new foundation for philosophical paradigms. (shrink)