In Kreative Gegensätze Marcel Bubert analyses the debates among medieval scholastics on the social usefulness of learned knowledge in their specific social and cultural contexts. In particular, he shows how the skepticism towards the scholars as well as the tensions between the University of Paris, the French royal court, and the citizens of Paris had profound effects on the scientific community, and led to very different views on the utility of philosophy. Some Masters responded to the expectations of society (...) by emphasizing the autonomy of philosophical cognition. Others departed radically from this notion of science "for its own sake", and created decidedly "practical" concepts of knowledge. The examination of these contentious relations shows how the dynamics of mutual demarcation within this "constellation" became intellectually prolific by way of generating highly original and innovative responses to the question of the utility of philosophy. (shrink)

Irigaray's critique of the phallocentric subject's implicit dependence on the maternal-feminine “outside” is compelling. Her postulation of nonhierarchical sexual difference gives the relational world of woman specificity and Irigaray brings the subject's worldview to earth as merely the relation of the male human to the world. But the focus of her transvaluation remains largely anthropocentric; and she maintains too many aspects of the privilege of the subject's sovereignty as proper to male subjectivity. I suggest that, we need to extend Irigaray (...) and to think sexual difference beyond the human. Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson and Jakob Von Uexküll, I argue that we need to think life beyond the constitution of the organism as the continuous enmeshment of different milieus. Sexual difference is a force of differentiation that articulates relationships between organisms and organs as crucial aspects of many milieus that make up the Earth. Along with the sexually differentiated aspects of milieus, there are rhythms of difference constitutive of milieus that are not sexed. The first section of the essay describes Irigaray's conceptualization of sexual difference between humans. Then I turn to her engagement with the status of nonhuman animals in “Animal Compassion.” I suggest her approach in this essay is too anthropocentric and move to a discussion of Uexküll's thinking on milieus as a way to extend the concepts of difference and sexual difference into posthuman contexts. The essay concludes by reading Irigaray's concept of difference with Deleuze and Bergson. (shrink)

Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464) konzipiert menschliche Erkenntnis als kreative, asymptotische Assimilation: Auf kreative Weise verähnlichen sich Menschen in Erkenntnisprozessen Denkunabhängigem, ohne diesen Verähnlichungsprozess je zum Abschluss bringen zu können. Obwohl menschliche Erkenntnis als kreativ charakterisiert wird, verliert sie nicht die Welthaftung. Obwohl sie asymptotisch verläuft, führt sie nicht zu Pessimismus und einem Ablassen von Erkenntnisbemühungen überhaupt. Cusanus macht die beiden Kernaspekte seines Modells menschlicher Erkenntnis trotz einiger systematischer Unschärfen im Rahmen eines massvollen Erkenntnisoptimismus kompatibel. Die vorliegende Monographie befasst sich (...) mit diesem Modell in zwei Hinsichten. Zunächst wird seine systematische Gestalt über das cusanische Oeuvre hinweg untersucht. Die zu diesem Zweck herangezogenen Werke sind De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, Idiota de mente, De beryllo und das Compendium. Im Anschluss werden dann zentrale epistemologische Anfragen eingehender betrachtet und historisch kontextualisiert: Cusanus' Intellektverständnis, seine Stellung zu species-Theorien von Erkenntnis, seine Wahrheitsauffassung und sein Modell menschlichen Weltbezugs. Vergleiche mit den Positionen von Aristoteles und Augustinus, Thomas von Aquin und Dietrich von Freiberg, Anselm von Canterbury sowie John McDowell machen dabei sowohl die Eigenheiten von Cusanus als auch seine Verhaftung in der epistemologischen Tradition sichtbar. (shrink)

Im Mittelpunkt steht das kreative Subjekt als höchste Potenz des Schöpferischen. Dabei ist die Entwicklung vom dionysischen Weltwillen zum schaffenden Individualwillen von zentraler Bedeutung. Relevant ist die Unterscheidung von logischem Subjekt und schaffendem Subjekt. Es dominiert eine ausgesprochene Schaffensästhetik. Das existentielle Grundmotiv ist die Einsamkeit, die Einsamkeit als Verhängnis und die Einsamkeit als schöpferischer Zustand, aus dem die Kunst erwächst, die höchste Form der Lebenssteigerung. Die wahre Kunst ist die monologische Kunst. Aus Mitteilungsdrang kann sie in das Pathos der (...) Verkündigung umschlagen. Das Telos des Schaffens: der ,,Übermensch". (shrink)

In this paper, I develop the concept ofaffective milieusby building on the recently established notion ofaffective arrangements. Affective arrangements bring together the more analytical research of situated affectivity with affect studies informed by cultural theory. As such, this concept takes a step past the usual synchronic understanding of situatedness toward an understanding of the social, dynamic, historical, and cultural situatedness of individuals in relation to situated affectivity. However, I argue that affective arrangements remain too narrow in their scope of analysis (...) since their focus mainly lies on local, marked-off, and unique constellations of affect relations. They neglect the more mundane and day-to-day affect dynamics of social life. Hence, I introduce the notion of affective milieus, which brings to light the everyday, ubiquitous affective engagements of individuals with their socio-material surroundings. Affective milieus specifically call attention to how commonplace affect relations create territories in the social universe which form and mold individuals all the time. In that way, this paper apprehends and advances recent developments in the research on situated affectivity. (shrink)

English summary: Currently, for many of the central problems that challenge human survival, such as the limitation of resources, problems in intercultural relations, information overload, and so on, there is hardly a satisfying solution. The relevant areas of tension are captured in this book, and placed in the context of the overextension and rebellion of individuals and of society. The pre-critical conditions, crisis, and borderline situations are the motivations behind the philosophical thoughts and conceptualizations captured in the essays in this (...) work. These studies consider themselves as a contribution to a life-serving communication, and for the development of a common construction meaning and symbols in dialogue. Overcoming threshold situations proves to be a case of "what humans really are and what they can really be." (Karl Jaspers) This book shows on the basis of numerous examples from psychotherapeutic, artistic, and political fields of actions, that historical and phenomenological analysis are complimented by a process-dynamic approach to social and conceptual problems. German description: Fur kaum eines der zentralen Uberlebensprobleme der Menschheit, Begrenztheit der Ressourcen, transkulturelle Verstandigungsprobleme, Informationsuberflutung u.a. liegen bislang uberzeugende Losungskonzepte vor. Die diesbezuglichen Spannungsfelder werden in dem vorliegenden Band aufgegriffen und in den Zusammenhang von Uberforderung und Rebellion des Einzelnen und der Gesellschaft gestellt. Die prakritische Ausgangslage, Krise und Grenzsituation werden Anstoss zum philosophischen Denken und zur Konzeptualisierung des hier vorgelegten Ansatzes. Dieser versteht sich als Beitrag zu lebensdienlicher Kommunikation und zu gemeinsamer Sinn- und Symbolbildung im Dialog. In der Uberwindung der Grenzsituation erweist sich, "was der Mensch eigentlich ist und werden kann" (Karl Jaspers). Das vorgelegte Buch zeigt anhand zahlreicher Beispiele aus Psychotherapie, kunstlerischem und politischem Handlungsraum, dass die historische und phanomenologische Analyse durch einen prozessdynamischen Ansatz zu erganzen ist. (shrink)

Der Band dokumentiert Beiträge zum 18. Symposium des Mediävistenverbandes, das im Frühjahr 2019 in Tübingen stattgefunden hat. Das Thema greift aktuelle Debatten über Autorschaft, Urheberrecht, Originalität und Plagiat auf, die anzeigen, dass diese Konzepte neuerdings in Bewegung geraten sind. Die Beiträge des Bandes fragen aus unterschiedlichen Fachperspektiven, ob und inwiefern die Verfahren des Umgangs mit Autorschaft zwischen Mittelalter und Moderne am Ende stärker vergleichbar sind als gemeinhin angenommen. So werden die aus der Moderne gebildeten Kategorien von Kreativität hinterfragt und unterlaufen. (...) Zugleich zeigt sich, dass eben diejenigen Kreativitätsprozesse der Moderne, die den hohen normativen Ansprüchen einer Geniekultur nicht entsprechen, nicht einfach Defizienzerscheinungen sind, sondern Variationen vielfach geübter Techniken, zu deren Verständnis die mittelalterliche Produktivität dient. Schaffen und Nachahmen sind nicht in einen "künstlerischen" Bereich der Kultur sektorierbar, sondern sie erweisen sich als Grundstruktur menschlichen Handelns auch im wissenschaftlichen, ethischen oder religiösen Feld. So liegt mit diesem Band ein starkes Plädoyer für die Anerkennung der kreativen Kraft der Nachahmung vor. (shrink)

On the one hand, means of transport can be considered as media which shape the perception of space; on the other, they can be considered as milieus which produce certain forms of social interaction. In order to relate both perspectives to each other, the present contribution outlines a topology of vehicles, drawing upon contemporary French literature set in cities. Their detailed representation of certain means of transport shows that literary texts not only decipher modes of spatial perception that are (...) specific to certain vehicles, but also devise new ways of using vehicles through their involvement with an outdated culture of transport. German Verkehrsmittel lassen sich als Medien betrachten, die auf die Wahrnehmung des Raums einwirken, aber auch als Milieus, die bestimmte Formen sozialer Interaktion erzeugen. Um beide Perspektiven aufeinander zu beziehen, umreißt der Beitrag eine Topologie der Fahrzeuge anhand von Stadttexten aus der französischen Literatur der Gegenwart. Aus deren eingehender Darstellung bestimmter Verkehrsmittel geht hervor, dass literarische Texte nicht allein fahrzeugspezifische Weisen der Raumerfahrung entziffern, sondern darüber hinaus auch in Auseinandersetzung mit einer überkommenen Transportkultur originelle Praktiken des Fahrzeuggebrauchs ersinnen. (shrink)

The article examines the reorientations of the appreciation of ugliness within different national contexts in a comparative and relational frame, juxtaposing the Australian, American, British and Italian milieus. It also explores the ways in which the transformation of the urban fabric and the effect of suburbanization were perceived in the aforementioned national contexts. Special attention is paid to the production and dissemination of how the city’s uglification was conceptualized between the 1950s and 1970s. Pivotal for the issues that this (...) article addresses are Ian Nairn’s Outrage: On the Disfigurement of Town and Countryside, Robin Boyd’s The Australian Ugliness, Donald Gazzard’s Australian Outrage: The Decay of a Visual Environment, and the way the phenomenon of urban expansion is treated in these books in comparison with other books from the four national contexts under study, such as Ludovico Quaroni’s La torre di Babele and Reyner Banham’s The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?. Particular emphasis is placed on Boyd’s articles in The Architectural Review between 1951 and 1970. At the core of the article is the analysis of the debates around ugliness between the 1950s and 1970s within the British, Italian, American and Australian contexts. (shrink)

This article analyzes the relevance of a specific form of social networks, so-called innovative milieus, for the development of radical innovations. Two Swiss initiatives which developed highly energy-efficient means of individual transport in the past ten years are analyzed in terms of the resources they could mobilize and the risks they run. To assess the milieu's potential for radical innovation, we examine the construction of a lightweight safety system, the social construction of the product category "lightweight vehicle, " and (...) the management of the interface between prototype development and large-scale manufacturing. (shrink)

Die Rezeption und Produktion von Kunst generiert sich zentral aus einem kreativen Akt der Erfahrung, der auf Momenten affektiver Performativität beruht. Doch wie lässt sich dieses Phänomen begreifen und beschreiben? Mit einem neuen kunstsoziologischen Ansatz und anhand der Konzepte und Theorien u.a. von Umberto Eco, Pierre Bourdieu und Gilles Deleuze diskutiert Andreas Hudelist die hier auftretenden Dimensionen der Beteiligung. An empirischen Beispielen und mittels qualitativer Interviews spürt er dem kreativen Akt der Erfahrung nach und macht ihn teilweise sichtbar. Dabei erarbeitet (...) er Typologien im Kunstgefüge, die nicht nur eine unterschiedliche Qualität der Beteiligung verdeutlichen, sondern teilweise auch zu einem 'magischen Denken' führen. (shrink)

We argue that narratives are central to the success of historical reconstruction. Narrative explanation involves tracing causal trajectories across time. The construction of narrative, then, often involves postulating relatively speculative causal connections between comparatively well-established events. But speculation is not always idle or harmful: it also aids in overcoming local underdetermination by forming scaffolds from which new evidence becomes relevant. Moreover, as our understanding of the past’s causal milieus become richer, the constraints on narrative plausibility become increasingly strict: a (...) narrative’s admissibility does not turn on mere logical consistency with background data. Finally, narrative explanation and explanation generated by simple, formal models complement one another. Where models often achieve isolation and precision at the cost of simplification and abstraction, narratives can track complex changes in a trajectory over time at the cost of simplicity and precision. In combination both allow us to understand and explain highly complex historical sequences. (shrink)

Reflective transcending is essential for any creative philosophizing. What I mean by this is the creative transcending of limits and boundaries such as, e.g., borders of classes, any sets or delimitations. Conceptual dimensions within a specific level or stratum in comparing of different species is one thing, the transcending of levels and ascending to a higher one is another matter. Such a semantic or level ascent is often a hallmark of creativity – according to some classical philosophers mentioned in the (...) paper. In general, one should, once again, hold the creative ascent to meta-levels in philosophy in higher esteem! (shrink)

This paper focuses on the fact that AI is predominantly portrayed as white—in colour, ethnicity, or both. We first illustrate the prevalent Whiteness of real and imagined intelligent machines in four categories: humanoid robots, chatbots and virtual assistants, stock images of AI, and portrayals of AI in film and television. We then offer three interpretations of the Whiteness of AI, drawing on critical race theory, particularly the idea of the White racial frame. First, we examine the extent to which this (...) Whiteness might simply reflect the predominantly White milieus from which these artefacts arise. Second, we argue that to imagine machines that are intelligent, professional, or powerful is to imagine White machines because the White racial frame ascribes these attributes predominantly to White people. Third, we argue that AI racialised as White allows for a full erasure of people of colour from the White utopian imaginary. Finally, we examine potential consequences of the racialisation of AI, arguing it could exacerbate bias and misdirect concern. (shrink)

Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

Scientific inquiry has led to immense explanatory and technological successes, partly as a result of the pervasiveness of scientific theories. Relativity theory, evolutionary theory, and plate tectonics were, and continue to be, wildly successful families of theories within physics, biology, and geology. Other powerful theory clusters inhabit comparatively recent disciplines such as cognitive science, climate science, molecular biology, microeconomics, and Geographic Information Science (GIS). Effective scientific theories magnify understanding, help supply legitimate explanations, and assist in formulating predictions. Moving from their (...) knowledge-producing representational functions to their interventional roles (Hacking 1983), theories are integral to building technologies used within consumer, industrial, and scientific milieus. -/- This entry explores the structure of scientific theories from the perspective of the Syntactic, Semantic, and Pragmatic Views. Each of these views answers questions such as the following in unique ways. What is the best characterization of the composition and function of scientific theory? How is theory linked with world? Which philosophical tools can and should be employed in describing and reconstructing scientific theory? Is an understanding of practice and application necessary for a comprehension of the core structure of a scientific theory? How are these three views ultimately related? (shrink)

In this essay and the next, on Foucault, Derrida reencounters two thinkers to whom he had earlier devoted important essays, which precipitated stormy discussions and numerous divisions within the intellectual milieus influenced by their ...

In Taking Care of Youth and the Generations, Bernard Stiegler develops an account of the pedagogical responsibilities which follow from rhythmic intergenerational flows, involving the creation of milieus which care for and pay attention to the future, toward the creation of nootechnical milieus. Such milieus are defined by their objects of attention: intellectual life, spiritual life, and political life; taken together: noetic life. Such is the claim Alfred North Whitehead makes when arguing that the sole object of (...) education is life and the creation of an art of life which is itself a rhythmic adventure.The purpose of this paper is three-fold. First, to clarify the importance of Stiegler’s reading of Aristotle’s notion of the noetic soul in our thinking about the role, purpose, and function of educational institutions in relation to intellective, spiritual, and political life. In this paper, I will fuse this discussion with a Whiteheadian approach to rhythm, developing what I call a ‘rhythmic nootechnics’ in the service of ‘nootechnical evolution’ as, I argue, Whitehead’s approach to rhythm allows to clarify and enrich Stiegler’s reading of Aristotle. Second, and as indicated, to explore the relationship between Whitehead and Stiegler, insofar as the former has become an increasing reference point for the latter, but this relationship remains unexplored in the literature. Third, to apply this concept of ‘rhythmic nootechnics’ to think about what transformations at the level of pedagogy and politics are necessary to reinvent the university from this Stieglerian and Whiteheadian perspective. (shrink)