Nähere Informationen zu diesem Buch erhalten Sie direkt vom Verlag / For further information about this title please contact Mohr Siebeck.

Felix Kaufmanns Wissenschaftstheorie Hans-Georg Zilian. X KAUFMANN, DIE ÖKONOMEN UND DAS A PRIORI Bei den österreichischen Grenznutzentheoretikern, mit deren Arbeiten sich Kaufmann vor allem auseinandersetzte, ist von ...

Technology and responsibility: reflections on the new tasks of ethics.--Jewish and Christian elements in philosophy: their share in the emergence of the modern mind.--Seventeenth century and after: the meaning of the scientific and technological revolution.--Socio-economic knowledge and ignorance of goals.--Philosophical reflections on experimenting with human subjects.--Against the stream: comments on the definition and redefinition of death.--Biological engineering--a preview--Contemporary problems in ethics from a Jewish perspective.--Biological foundations of individuality.--Spinoza and the theory of organism.--Sight and thought: a review of "visual thinking."--Change and (...) permanence: on the possibility of understanding history.--The gnostic syndrome: typology of its thought, imagination, and mood.--The hymn of the pearl: case study of a symbol, and the claims for a Jewish origin of gnosticism.--Myth and mysticism: a study of objectification and interiorization in religious thought.--Origen's metaphysics of free will, fall, and salvation: a "divine comedy" of the universe.--The soul in gnosticism and Plotinus.--The abyss of the will: philosophical meditations on the seventh chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. (shrink)

Introduces contemporary American philosophy of technology through six of its leading figures. The six American philosophers of technology whose work is profiled in this clear and concise introduction to the field—Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner—represent a new, empirical direction in the philosophical study of technology that has developed mainly in North America. In place of the grand philosophical schemes of the classical generation of European philosophers of technology, the contemporary American generation addresses (...) concrete technological practices and the co-evolution of technology and society in modern culture. Six Dutch philosophers associated with Twente University survey and critique the full scope and development of their American colleagues’ work, often illustrating shifts from earlier to more recent interests. Individual chapters focus on Borgmann’s engagement with technology and everyday life; Dreyfus’s work on the limits of artificial intelligence; Feenberg’s perspectives on the cultural and social possibilities opened by technologies; Haraway’s conception of the cyborg and its attendant blurring of boundaries; Ihde’s explorations of the place of technology in the lifeworld; and Winner’s fascination with the moral and political implications of modern technologies. American Philosophy of Technology offers an insightful and readable introduction to this new and distinctly American philosophical turn. Contributors are Hans Achterhuis, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Martijntje Smits, Pieter Tijmes, and Peter-Paul Verbeek. (shrink)

Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of Western (...) moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

In this book Han Thomas Adriaenssen offers the first comparative exploration of the sceptical reception of representationalism in medieval and early modern philosophy. Descartes is traditionally credited with inaugurating a new kind of scepticism by saying that the direct objects of perception are images in the mind, not external objects, but Adriaenssen shows that as early as the thirteenth century, critics had already found similar problems in Aquinas's theory of representation. He charts the attempts of philosophers in both periods to (...) grapple with these problems, and shows how in order to address the challenges of scepticism and representation, modern philosophers in the wake of Descartes often breathed new life into old ideas, remoulding them in ways that we are just beginning to understand. His book will be valuable for historians interested in the medieval background to early modern thought, and to medievalists looking at continuity with the early modern period. -/- . (shrink)

The ever-increasing dominance of English within analytic philosophy is an aspect of linguistic globalisation. To assess it, I first address fundamental issues in the philosophy of language. Steering a middle course between linguistic universalism and linguistic relativism, I deny that some languages might be philosophically superior to others, notably by capturing the essential categories of reality. On this background I next consider both the pros and cons of the Anglicisation of philosophy. I shall defend the value of English as a (...) lingua franca, while denying both the feasibility and the desirability of English as the sole universal language of philosophy. Finally I turn to the linguistic inequality in contemporary analytic philosophy. While it does not per se amount to an injustice, there is a need to level the playing field. But the remedy does not lie in linguistic academic sectarianism. Instead, what might be called for are piecemeal measures to reduce explicit and implicit biases against analytic philosophers on the geographic fringes, biases that are only partly connected to the predominance of English. (shrink)

The work of Thomas White represents a systematic attempt to combine the best of the new science of the seventeenth century with the best of Aristotelian tradition. This attempt earned him the criticism of Hobbes and the praise of Leibniz, but today, most of his attempts to navigate between traditions remain to be explored in detail. This paper does so for his ontology of accidents. It argues that his criticism of accidents in the category of location as entities over and (...) above substances was likely aimed at Francisco Suárez, and shows how White’s worries about the analysis of location were linked with his broader cosmological views. White rejects real qualities, but holds that the quantity of a substance is somehow distinct from its bearer. This reveals a common ground with some of his scholastic interlocutors, but lays bare a deep disagreement with thinkers like Descartes on the nature of matter. (shrink)

Beherrschten vor 20 Jahren noch Industriekonglomerate, Energiekonzerne und Banken die Rangliste der wertvollsten Unternehmen, wurden diese längst von Internetgiganten wie Google, Apple, Amazon und Tencent abgelöst. Digitale Technik ist allgegenwärtig: Wir tragen Hochleistungsrechner in unseren Taschen herum, Waschmaschinen können sich mit dem Internet verbinden. Doch erschöpft sich darin das Neue am digitalen Kapitalismus? 0Philipp Staab beleuchtet den digitalen Kapitalismus aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, um ihn präziser auf den Begriff zu bringen. Er zeigt, wie digitale Überwachungs- und Bewertungspraktiken in immer mehr Bereiche (...) der Wirtschaft vordringen und dabei die soziale Ungleichheit verschärfen. Das Spezifische am digitalen Kapitalismus, so Staab, ist die Herausbildung 'proprietärer Märkte': Kam es früher darauf an, Dinge herzustellen und mit Gewinn zu verkaufen, geht es im Zeitalter der Unknappheit um das Eigentum an den Märkten selbst. (shrink)

Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 98-32334. ISBN 1-886363-74-9. Cloth. $95. * Reprint of the first edition.

This essay seeks to examine the relation between selfhood and history through Gadamer's conception of hermeneutical experience, one of the cornerstones of his theory of effective history in Truth and Method. By setting Gadamer's project into relation with those of Heidegger and Hegel, my primary focus is to demonstrate how effective history, in its emphasis upon the finite, the partial, and the fragmented, actually turns these seeming deficiencies into advantages for human self-understanding in the current theoretical climate of plurality and (...) diversity. I argue that the dialectical model of the relationship between self and tradition given by Gadamer serves to reveal our human limitations, and thereby allows us a space in which self-determination can be carried out through an effective-historical consciousness that avoids the pitfalls of subject-centered, all-encompassing, unified theories of history, on the one hand, and scientifically unselfconscious, ahistorical approaches to selfhood, on the other. The essay closes with an application of effective-historical consciousness to the tradition of post-holocaust German theater, where hermeneutical experience functions to provide resources for Jewish self-determination through the same tradition that had formerly excluded them. (shrink)

Part one of this paper focuses on that region in which the phenomenon of attention is the most significant today: the region of media and cultural theory. The second part refines the phenomenal description of attention by applying Husserl's concept of affection. The final part thematizes attention as a conscious turning-towards; for this purpose, the paper refers to the phenomenon of greeting.

Divergences and controversies are inevitable in the discussion of freedoms and rights, especially in the matter of reproduction. The Chinese first social egg freezing lawsuit raises the question: is the freedom to freeze eggs for social reasons justified because it is an instance of reproductive rights? This paper accepts social egg freezing as desirable reproductive freedom, but following Harel's approach and considering two theories of rights, the choice and interest theories of rights, we argue that social egg freezing is not (...) a reproductive right because one cannot justify a right or an instance of rights via merely describing the function of those instances that have been justified as right, that is, the choice theory lacks justifying normativity. Since reserving fertility and a suspension from reproduction do not serve reproductive ends per se, the sufficient reason for demanding social egg freezing as a right should be found in other ends rather than in right‐to‐reproduce, that is, the interest theory denies the demand as a right‐to‐reproduce. Permitting it on any grounds without guaranteeing adequate and accessible resources, especially in light of cross‐border reproductive care, raises serious questions about reproductive equality and violates the idea of reproductive rights. Therefore, any ground for social egg freezing should be weighed against whether more pressing reproductive needs, specifically those that are justified as rights, have been met. It would be social progress to shoulder these burdens for the vulnerable and then allow social egg freezing—if right‐to‐reproduce were not the only privilege of the few. (shrink)

Machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, predicts robotics expert Hans Moravec. And by 2050, they will have far surpassed us. In this mind-bending new book, Hans Moravec takes the reader on a roller coaster ride packed with such startling predictions. He tells us, for instance, that in the not-too-distant future, an army of robots will displace workers, causing massive, unprecedented unemployment. But then, says Moravec, a period of very comfortable existence will follow, as humans benefit (...) from a fully automated economy. And eventually, as machines evolve far beyond humanity, robots will supplant us. But if Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. We will become our children and live forever. In his provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, Moravec charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine. (shrink)