Das Buch weist die Fruchtbarkeit einer strukturgenetisch fundierten Rekonstruktionsperspektive für die Analyse der historisch und kulturell differenten Weltbilder nach. Anhand der für die Geschichte der Denksysteme zentralen Vorstellungen über die Natur-Kultur-Differenz und die physikalische Kausalität werden Reichweite und Grenzen der These einer universalen Entwicklungslogik kritische geprüft. Die historischen Studien bieten dabei einen neuartigen Blick auf die Aristotelische Physik und ihre mittelalterlichen Fortentwicklungen. Schließlich werden die materialen Ergebnisse in Richtung einer differenztheoretisch orientierten Theorie der Entstehung des Neuen in der Entwicklung ausgedeutet.

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...

Ereignet sich anstelle von Klang oder Sprache, Musik oder Lärm lediglich Stille oder vielmehr das, was wir für Stille halten, kommt ein unerwartetes Aufmerken in Gang. Die Stille kann auffordern, genauer hinzuhören, aber auch genauer hinzusehen. Ein plötzliches Aufmerken geschieht jedoch nur, wenn die Stille den Wahrnehmenden unerwartet trifft. Einer im Alltäglichen zumeist durch die Priorität des Bewussten, Bekannten oder Vertrauten untergeordneten Stille, können Arbeiten, wie jene von Aernout Mik, eine konkrete Erfahrbarkeit geben. Was er erfahrbar werden lässt, ist aber (...) nicht die Stille, sondern das, was in der Regel überhört wird. In der Verkehrung des vermeintlich Unhörbaren in ein Hörbares zeigt sich mit der Stille ein Möglichkeitsraum, dessen Besonderheit die Autorin mit der Frage, was sich in der Erfahrung von Stille zeigt, nachgeht. Ist also von einer Stille als ästhetischem Phänomen die Rede, ist nicht eine Stille innerhalb der Rezeption genuin stiller Kunstwerke gemeint, sondern der bewusste Entzug des Auditiven. Damit widerspricht die Autorin zugleich einer Vorstellung von Stille als mess- oder bestimmbarer Grösse und stellt die Stille aus der ästhetischen Erfahrung heraus ins Zentrum ihrer Betrachtungen. (shrink)

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

The notion of societal boundaries aims to enhance the debate on planetary boundaries. The focus is on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial process – based on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political struggles – it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation.

Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity; Part II. Reflections on the Foundations of Economic ...

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely (...) throughout social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

This essay introduces ideas from Confucius, Xunzi, the Six Dynasties, and Kant about beauty, music, morality, and what we might today call “aesthetic education.” It asks how beauty and morality are related and how they ideally should be related to each other. We know that beauty and morality can drift apart, and we may wonder how aesthetic education might work best. Should the arts be a means for developing morality? Or should it be the other way around? These questions are (...) still relevant today. But our world has changed, not only since Confucius, but also since Kant. We may ask what to make of their ideas in our present time. I argue that there are good reasons for keeping morality and aesthetics apart, somewhat in the spirit of Kant, and in opposition to the idea of “fusing” the two. (shrink)

"This is an extremely interesting and innovative collection with unusual empirical richness, with ethical and epistemological discussions cutting across ...

Angesichts der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise fragt die habituelle Unternehmensethik neu nach dem Fundament der Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik. Sie begreift sich als kritische Weiterentwicklung werteorientierter Ansatze in der Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik. Habituelle Unternehmensethik reflektiert nicht in erster Linie auf formale Strukturen von Systemprozessen, sondern auf die inneren Strukturen, die das Handeln einer naturlichen oder juristischen Person pragen. Habituelle Unternehmensethik vermittelt die Einsicht, dass der Markt von Voraussetzungen lebt, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann. Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik durfen und konnen sich nicht (...) vollstandig von den Werten der Alltagsethik dispensieren. Durch diese Ruckbindung wird Unternehmensethik als Anerkennungspraxis einsichtig und uberwindet damit den unbegrundeten Verdacht einer vom Alltagsleben abgekoppelten Parallelwelt. Die sozialisatorische Wirkung eines unternehmenstypischen Habitus ist bislang in Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften nicht in den Blick genommen worden; hier schlieat dieser Band eine Lucke. Das Buch dokumentiert die Arbeit des "Arbeitskreises Habituelle Unternehmensethik", der gemeinsam vom Forschungsinstitut fur Philosophie in Hannover und vom Institut fur Sozialstrategie in Berlin initiiert, organisiert und koordiniert worden ist. (shrink)

This compilation explores the significance of religion for the controversies stirred up by populist politics in European and American contexts, engaging Jewish, Christian, and Islamic political thought. Moving beyond essentialist definitions of religion, the contributions offer critical interpretations and constructive interventions for political theology today.

The aim of the paper is this: Instead of presenting a provisional and necessarily insufficient characterization of what mathematical physics is, I will ask the reader to take it just as that, what he or she thinks or believes it is, yet to be prepared to revise his opinion in the light of what I am going to tell. Because this is precisely, what I intend to do. I will challenge some of the received or standard views about mathematical physics (...) and replace them by a more sophisticated picture, which takes into account the methodological and philosophical roots of mathematical physics in Göttingen. (shrink)

Toen Ulrich Libbrecht vanaf de jaren 1970 Vlaanderen en Nederland inspireerde met ‘oosterse wijsheid voor de westerse mens’ was dit pionierswerk. Ondertussen heeft de globalisering zich verder voltrokken, is boeddhisme en meditatie geen exotisme meer en is China dichterbij gekomen. Hoe kijkt de filosoof nu tegen deze ontwikkelingen aan? Dit boek is ontstaan uit gesprekken waarin Libbrecht op een meesterlijke wijze oosterse en westerse inzichten integreert tot een nieuw antwoord op actuele vragen en universele thema’s. Hierin benadrukt hij de (...) waarde van natuur, wetenschap en religieus bewustzijn in de betekenis van re-ligare: herverbinden. In dit boek zet hij geen theorie uiteen, maar neemt de lezer mee op de boeiende weg van het denken, doortrokken van ontroering en een rijke levenservaring. (shrink)

In recent years the works of Friedman, Howard and many others have made obvious what perhaps was always self-evident. Namely, that the philosophy of the logical empiricists was shaped primarily by Einstein and his invention of the theory of relativity, whereas Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to the exact sciences had comparatively little impact on the logical empiricists and their understanding of science — if they had any effect at all. This is in one respect quite astonishing, insofar as Einstein (...) himself confessed 1921 in his famous lecture before the Prussian Academy of Science that “without it [the axiomatic point of view] it would have been impossible for me to propound the theory of relativity”.2 Hence the simple question arises: why didn’t the logical empiricists pay more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic point of view, than they in fact did? It is an aim of this paper to answer this question and in part to correct this one-sided view in the hypothetical or contra-factual sense that the logical empiricists would have done better, if they had paid somewhat more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to science. (shrink)

This article investigates the prospect of giving de dicto- and de re-necessity a uniform treatment. The historical starting point is a puzzle raised by Aristotle's claim, advanced in one of the modal chapters of his Prior Analytics, that universally privative apodeictic premises simply convert. As regards the Prior and the Posterior Analytics, the data suggest a representation of propositions of the type in question by doubly modally qualified formulae of modal predicate logic that display a necessity operator in two distinct (...) positions. Can the N-operator occurring in these positions be given a unified semantical treatment (which would justify dispensing with a notational differentiation)? A positive answer, based on a suitably shaped truth condition for N-formulae, is given, and is supported in the final section with an alternative proof theoretically based conception of a property's essential belonging to an individual. (shrink)

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

This paper studies the attempts (and failure) of Russian revolutionaries to mobilize the peasantry in the decade leading to the Soviet revolution of 1917. Peasants, who had been emancipated from serfdom only four decades earlier, in 1861, were still largely propertyless and poor. This would, at first glance, make them a ripe target for revolutionary activity. But peasants were largely refractory. We explain this lack of revolutionary spirit through two models. First, despite their lack of education and political awareness, the (...) peasants were rational in their refusal to participate in revolutionary activity; they engaged in a cost–benefit calculus which pushed them away from revolt and political organization. Second, based on the Wildavsky–Thompson cultural types, Russian peasants were largely fatalist: they believed they had no influence on the world, so it was not worth attempting to change it. This paper sheds light on some aspects of the Russian revolution, but also encourages further research in history and economic sociology on the interaction between culture and incentives. (shrink)

This essay will inform the reader about Kant’s views on mathematics and aesthetics. It will also critically discuss these views and offer further suggestions and personal opinions from the author’s side. Kant (1724-1804) was not a mathematician, nor was he an artist. One must even admit that he had little understanding of higher mathematics and that he did not have much of a theory that could be called a “philosophy of mathematics” either. But he formulated a very influential aesthetic theory (...) that is contained in his “Critique of the Power of Aesthetic Judgment” (1790), and his views on mathematics, especially those that compare it with philosophy, are distinctive and worthy of our attention. Hence, combining mathematics and aesthetics, asking whether mathematics can be beautiful and why and how it can or cannot be so called, according to Kant’s theory, will be particularly interesting. This essay has three parts: it discusses mathematics, aesthetics, and the aesthetics of mathematics, primarily in Kantian perspectives but also in ways that critically evaluate those perspectives. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 21st century the conditio humana cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally. This constitutes a revolution in the social sciences. The `sociological imagination' so far has basically been a nation state imagination. The main problem is how to redefine the sociological frame of reference in the horizon of a cosmopolitan imagination. For the purpose of empirical research I distinguish between three concepts: interconnectedness, liquid modernity and cosmopolitization from within. The latter is a kind (...) of class analysis after class analysis, which takes on board globalization internalized. For the purposes of social analysis, therefore, it is necessary to distinguish systematically between the national manifestation on the one hand and cosmopolitan reality of `global flows', currents of information, symbols, money, risks, people, social inequalities, on the other. This internal involuntary and often unseen cosmopolitanization from below of the national sphere of experience is occurring, however, with the power of economic globalization. So what does inner `cosmopolitanization' mean? The key concepts and questions of a way of life, such as nourishment, production, identity, fear, memory, pleasure, fate, power and politics, can no longer be located and understood nationally, but only globally whether in the shape of globally shared collective futures, capital flows, impending ecological or economic catastrophes, global foodstuff chains, transnational power games, or the `Esperanto' of pop music. In this article I look at transformation in the understanding of space-time, of identity, of the production paradigms, as well as at the resulting consequences for key sociological concepts like class and power and, within this frame, point to certain dilemmas of cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

An original analysis of the parallels between the arrested moment in photography and in the traumatized psyche.

How can one distinguish the concept of second modernity from the concept of postmodernity? Postmodernists are interested in deconstruction without reconstruction, second modernity is about deconstruction and reconstruction. Social sciences need to construct new concepts to understand the world dynamics at the beginning of the 21st century. Modernity has not vanished, we are not post it. Radical social change has always been part of modernity. What is new is that modernity has begun to modernize its own foundations. This is what (...) it means to say modernity has become reflexive. It has become directed at itself. This causes huge new problems both in reality and in theory. There has been a pluralization of the boundaries within and between societies, between society and nature, between Us and Other, between life and death. This pluralization also changes the inherent nature of boundaries. They become not so much boundaries as a variety of attempts to draw of boundaries. Border conflicts become transformed into conflicts over the drawing of boundaries. Where postmodernism simply celebrates this multiplication of boundaries, the theory of second modernity starts with the problem this new reality poses for individual and collective decisions, and with the problem that the continued existence of such decisions poses for theory. Institutions that are capable of such conscious boundary drawing are enabled in a way that those of the first modernity were not. But this process also generates qualitatively new kinds of trouble and crises. To investigate those troubles is to unveil the emergence of the second modernity. (shrink)

This article opens with general and historical remarks on philosophy of science's problems with the concept of discovery. Then, drawing upon simple examples of Watson's and Crick's non-philosophical usage, I characterize phrases of the type "x discovers y" semantically. It will subsequently be shown how widespread philosophical discussion on discovery violates the semantic constraints of phrases of the type "x discovers y." Then I provide a philosophical reconstruction of "x discovers y" that is in keeping with the "folk" notion of (...) discovery. The philosophical ingredients of this approach are taken from a certain aspect of action theory and from epistemological reliabilism. The approach draws upon the concept of superior action and connects this concept to progressive research. In contrast to normal actions, superior actions are primarily explained by competencies. This perspective includes reminders of what some nineteenth-century philosopher-scientists had advocated as a competence-oriented view on scientific research. Finally, this approach is applied to the case of Watson's and Crick's discovery. (shrink)

Berger, U., Total sets and objects in domain theory, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 60 91-117. Total sets and objects generalizing total functions are introduced into the theory of effective domains of Scott and Ersov. Using these notions Kreisel's Density Theorem and the Theorem of Kreisel-Lacombe-Shoenfield are generalized. As an immediate consequence we obtain the well-known continuity of computable functions on the constructive reals as well as a domain-theoretic characterization of the Heriditarily Effective Operations.