Die interdisziplinäre Forschungsgruppe "Poetik und Hermeneutik" und ihre Mitglieder haben die geistes- und kulturwissenschaftliche Landschaft der alten Bundesrepublik geprägt wie vielleicht sonst nur noch die Kritische Theorie. Zahlreiche Interviews mit den wichtigsten noch lebenden Akteuren erlauben einen ebenso erkenntnisreichen wie unterhaltsamen Blick hinter die Kulissen von Poetik & Hermeneutik. Unter welchen Bedingungen und mit welchen Absichten wurde die Gruppe von Hans Blumenberg, Clemens Heselhaus, Wolfgang Iser und Hans Robert Jauß ursprünglich gegründet? Wie entfalteten sich Diskussionen und Kontroversen? Wie (...) kam P&H zur Blüte und warum scheiterte ein möglicher Generationenwechsel? Als Zeitzeugen gehört werden unter anderen Aleida und Jan Assmann, Ferdinand Fellmann, Manfred Frank, Gerhart von Graevenitz, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Anselm Haverkamp, Dieter Henrich, Helga Jauss-Meyer, Renate Lachmann, Thomas Luckmann, Hermann Lübbe, Christian Meier, Jürgen Schlaeger, Gabriele Schwab, Wolf-Dieter Stempel, Karlheinz Stierle, Rainer Warning und Harald Weinrich. (shrink)

This article is the editors’ introduction to the transcript of a lecture that Harold Garfinkel delivered to a seminar in 1993. Garfinkel extensively discusses the relevance of Aron Gurwitsch’s phenomenological treatment of Gestalt theory for ethnomethodology. Garfinkel uses the term “misreading” to signal a respecification of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological investigations, and particularly his conceptions of contextures, functional significations, and phenomenal fields, so that they become compatible with detailed observations and descriptions of social actions and interactions performed in situ. Garfinkel begins with (...) Gurwitsch’s demonstrations with line drawings and other abstract examples, and suggests how they can be used to suggest original procedures for investigating the vicissitudes of embodied practical actions in the lifeworld. This introduction to the lecture aims to provide some background on the scope of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological critique and elaboration of Gestalt theory and Garfinkel’s “misreading” of it in terms of his own conceptions of indexicality and accountability, and ethnomethodological investigations of the production of social order. (shrink)

Ethical concerns regarding agricultural practices can be found to co-evolve with technological developments. This paper aims to create an understanding of ethics that is helpful in debating technological innovation by studying such a co-evolution process in detail: the development and adoption of the milking robot. Over the last decade an increasing number of milking robots, or automatic milking systems (AMS), has been adopted, especially in the Netherlands and a few other Western European countries. The appraisal of this new technology in (...) ethical terms has appeared to be a complicated matter. Compared to using a conventional milking parlor, the use of an AMS entails in several respects a different practice of dairy farming, the ethical implications and evaluation of which are not self-evident but are themselves part of a dynamic process. It has become clear that with its use, the entire practice of dairy farming has been reorganized around this new device. With a robot, cows must voluntarily present themselves to be milked, whereby an ethical norm of (individual) freedom for cows can be seen to emerge together with this new technology. But adopting a robot also implies changes in what is considered to be a good farmer and an appropriate relation between farmer and cow. Through interviews, attending “farmers’ network” meetings in the Netherlands, and studying professional literature and dedicated dairy farming web forums, this paper traces the way that ethical concerns are a dynamic part of this process of rearranging a variety of elements of the practice of dairy farming. (shrink)

A plethora of ethical issues in livestock agriculture has emerged to public attention in recent decades, of which environmental and animal welfare concerns are but two, albeit prominent, themes. For livestock agriculture to be considered sustainable, somehow these interconnected themes need to be addressed. Ethical debate on these issues has been extensive, but mostly started from and focused on single issues. The views of farmers in these debates have been largely absent, or merely figured as interests, instead of being considered (...) morally worthwhile themselves. In this paper the relevance for ethical debates of the ways farmers discuss and engage with moral concerns is explored. The variety of norms that figure in contemporary farming practices is sketched in its multifarious complexity, illustrated by ethnographic fieldwork, and systematized in terms of “orders of worth.” Reviewing the practical arguments and commitments of farmers within this framework reveals that farming practices are subject to mixed motives, in which an amalgam of types of concerns play a role. Recognition of the peculiarly entangled nature of the ethics of farming practices could counter the tendency in policy making, technological innovation, and ethical thought to compartmentalize our moral landscape. Understanding farming practice as the integration of a mosaic of concerns in the light of a variety of moral experiences would foster public appreciation of positions of farmers in debates on improving the sustainability and societal acceptability of livestock agriculture. (shrink)

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten gilt mit Fug und Recht als der selbstandigste aller Wolffianer. Doch hat man kaum je systematisch untersucht, worin - uber die Begrundung der Asthetik hinaus - seine denkerische Originalitat besteht. Im vorliegenden Band wird der fur Kant wichtigste Schulautor als Erkenntnistheoretiker, Psychologe und Moralphilosoph erstmals prononciert aus dem Schatten Wolffs herausgeholt. Nach der jungsten Pionierubersetzung der Metaphysica ins Deutsche folgt hier eine interpretatorisch wegweisende Detailstudie zu philosophischen Schlusselthemen des fruhvollendeten Hochaufklarers - gerade recht zu den anstehenden Jubilaen. (...) Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten is regarded justifiably as the most independent of all Wolffians. Up to now however there have been very few systematic studies examining his intellectual originality, apart from his founding of aesthetics. In this volume, the author who was most important for Kant during his school years finally steps out of Wolff's shadow and is revealed to be an epistemologist, a psychologist and moral philosopher. After the recent translation of the Metaphysica into German, a pioneering achievement, what follows here is an interpretively groundbreaking detailed study of the key philosophical subjects of the philosopher of the High Enlightenment, just in time for the current anniversaries. (shrink)

In 1878, as a consequence of an international Balkan summit in Berlin, Austria–Hungary was given permission to occupy the troubled Ottoman provinces Bosnia and Hercegovina. A gory invasion campaign ensued, followed by four decades of civil administration. Finally, the territories were annexated by the Habsburg Monarchy in 1908 as an appendix of sorts, which almost caused the premature outbreak of a great war in Europe. This article will sketch the background for this last – and lethal – expansion of the (...) empire and pursue the research questions of (a) whether this constitutes a case of colonialism within Europe and (b) what its repercussions were, critically challenging the alleged ‘civilising mission’ that would legitimise the whole undertaking. (shrink)

Foucaults Werk hat nicht nur die Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften entscheidend beeinflusst. Das Handbuch gibt einen systematischen Überblick über Foucaults Leben und Werk. Es stellt die Kontexte dar, aus denen heraus seine Werke entstanden sind und erklärt Grundbegriffe des Foucault‘schen Denkens wie Archiv, Biopolitik, Diskurs, Dispositiv, Genealogie, Körper und Macht. Mit einem umfangreichen Kapitel zur Rezeption in den verschiedenen Disziplinen. Für die 2. Auflage wurde das Handbuch durchgesehen und aktualisiert sowie um neue Artikel zu Foucaults journalistischen und medizingeschichtlichen Arbeiten sowie zu (...) seinen Vorlesungen über das Wahrsprechen und zur Ödipus-Thematik erweitert. Außerdem setzt sich ein Beitrag ausführlich mit dem 2018 posthum erschienenen vierten Band der Geschichte der Sexualität auseinander. (shrink)

Das Werk "Metaphysicae systema methodicum" des Steinfurter Gymnasialprofessors Clemens Timpler (1563/64-1618) war, als es 1604 erstmals erschien, das erste Lehrbuch der Metaphysik aus protestantischer Feder und schon damit vor allem in Form und Stil, aber auch dem Inhalt nach wegweisend für die gesamte deutsche Schulphilosophie. Fest verwurzelt in der Tradition des Aristoteles und seiner thomistischen Auslegung und in stetem Bezug auf Suarez' seinerzeit gerade erschienene "Disputationes metaphysicae", entwickelt Timpler eine Lehre von erstaunlicher Eigenständigkeit, die akademisch umfassend rezipiert und intensiv (...) diskutiert wurde. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass sie auch Wolff nicht unbekannt gewesen sein wird, insbesondere wenn man etwa Timplers Bestimmungen der Philosophie und der Metaphysik, der Modalitäten und der Willensfreiheit betrachtet. The Metaphysicae systema methodicum by the Steinfurt professor Clemens Timpler (1563/4-1618) was, when it first appeared in 1604, the first textbook of metaphysics by a Protestant author, and was thus already a groundbreaking work of German academic philosophy, primarily in form and style but also in content. Firmly rooted in the tradition of Aristotle and the thomistic interpretation of his works, and making constant reference to Suarez’s recently-published Disputationes metaphysicae, Timpler developed a theory of astonishing originality, which was widely absorbed and intensively discussed in academic circles. It follows that the work would not have been unknown to Wolff, especially in view of Timpler’s designations of philosophy and metaphysics, modalities and freedom of will. (shrink)

The new series of 'Studies on Ethics and Science' complements the Yearbook for Ethics and Science edited since 1995 by the Institute for Science and Ethics in Bonn and published by de Gruyter. The monographs and collected volumes in the series cover the same subjects as the Yearbook, namely outstanding and innovative contributions to the investigation of ethical questions connected with modern science and its development. Particular interest is directed towards ethical questions in medicine and the biological sciences.

In this paper we study the termination behavior of Russell’s description elimination rewrite system. We discuss certain claims made by Kripke (2005) in his paper concerning the possible nontermination of elimination of descriptions.

Hallucinatory states are experienced not only in connection with drugs and psychopathologies but occur naturally and spontaneously across the human circadian cycle: Our nightly dreams bring multimodal experiences in the absence of adequate external stimuli. The current study proposes a new, tighter measure of these hallucinatory states: Sleep onset, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep are shown to differ with regard to motor imagery indicating interactions with a rich imaginative world, and cognitive agency that could enable sleepers to recognize their hallucinatory (...) state. Mentation reports from the different states were analysed quantitatively with regard to two grammatical–semantic constructs, motor agency and cognitive agency. The present results support earlier physiological and psychological evidence in revealing a decline in cognitive functions and an increase in simulated interactions with a hallucinatory world, en route to normal REM sleep. This leads us to introduce the hypothesis that REM sleep, which exhibits remarkably high levels of sensorimotor processes, may have evolved to serve as a virtual laboratory for the development and rehearsal of embodied cognition. The new measure of hallucinatory states presented here may also hold implications for the study of executive functions and cognitions, which might be interesting, for example, for the investigation of lucid dreaming. (shrink)

By looking back to the early days of network building within the Internet, Clemens Apprich looks at how those pioneer projects have shaped new forms of media and social practices, and critically engages with current discourses about the weal and woe of the Internet.

Independent central banks are major centres of unelected power in contemporary capitalist societies. While critics allege that they are incompatible with democratic values, defenders argue that delegating monetary policy to an independent central bank is an important policy tool elected institutions may use to credibly commit to low inflation. This paper defends a moderate view that neither requires dismantling central bank independence nor turns a blind eye to its risks for the proper functioning of a democratic regime. It proposes a (...) set of concrete constitutional rules that limit central bank power while allowing it to serve its core function. (shrink)

Since the 1970s, historical sociology in the United States has been constituted by a configuration of substantive questions, a theoretical vocabulary anchored in concepts of economic interest and rationalization, and a methodological commitment to comparison. More recently, this configuration has been destabilized along each dimension: the increasing autonomy of comparative-historical methods from specific historical puzzles, the shift from the analysis of covariation to theories of historical process, and new substantive questions through which new kinds of arguments have been elaborated. Although (...) the dominant responses have centered on methodological elaboration and epistemological debate, greater attention to historical process also informs new strategies for defining cases and framing puzzles, thereby highlighting different categories of empirical questions: social caging, group formation, and multiple orders. The most striking shift is from the imagery of systems-and-crises, which highlighted revolution and state-building, to multidimensional understandings of emergence and destabilization. (shrink)

This article contains four criticisms against Jacques Rancière's philosophy of education, insofar as his philosophy is written in his work The Ignorant Schoolmaster. In the first criticism, Rancière's presupposition of equality of intelligence would be framed as a truth claim and to the extent that it can be treated as such, Rancière's argument contains a number of defects. The second criticism underscores the distinction between inequality of intelligence and inequality of knowledge Rancière confuses. The third criticism concerns the contradiction between (...) what Rancière has written and what he practiced and also the weakness of the defense provided by his supporters on this point. Fourth, Rancière's redefinition of “emancipation” as verification of the equality of intelligence turns out to strip away the very idea of emancipation of what makes it meaningful for many people. Abstrak: Tulisan ini berisi empat kritik terhadap filsafat pendidikan Jacques Rancière sebagaimana tertuang dalam karyanya The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Dalam kritik pertama, pengandaian kesetaraan akal budi Rancière akan dikemas sebagai klaim kebenaran dan sejauh itu dapat diperlakukan sebagai klaim kebenaran, argumen Rancière mengandung sejumlah kecacatan. Kritik kedua menggarisbawahi perbedaan antara ketidaksetaraan akal budi dan ketidaksetaraan pengetahuan yang dirancukan Rancière. Kritik ketiga berkaitan dengan adanya kontradiksi antara apa yang Rancière tuliskan dan apa yang ia praktikkan serta kelemahan pendukung Rancière dalam membela butir ini. Keempat, pendefinisian ulang Rancière atas “emansipasi” sebagai verifikasi atas kesetaraan akal budi justru melucuti ide emansipasi dari apa yang membuatnya bagi banyak orang berarti. (shrink)

We introduce the computable FS-jump, an analog of the classical Friedman–Stanley jump in the context of equivalence relations on the natural numbers. We prove that the computable FS-jump is proper with respect to computable reducibility. We then study the effect of the computable FS-jump on computably enumerable equivalence relations (ceers).

One central objection to the maximin payoff criterion is that it focuses on the state that yields the lowest payoffs regardless of how low these are. We allow different states to have different sets of possible outcomes and show that the original axioms of Milnor (1954) continue to characterize the maximin payoff criterion, provided that the sets of payoffs achievable across states overlap. If instead payoffs in some states are always lower than in all others then ignoring the “bad” states (...) is no longer inconsistent with these axioms. Similar dependence on overlap of outcome spaces across states holds for the minimax regret and maximin joy criteria. (shrink)

In this paper, I will examine whether the reflexivity thesis of David Bloor’s Strong Programme in the Sociology of Knowledge is self-refuting. I will argue that even though the relativism in the Strong Programme is self-refuting, I do not think Bloor’s reflexivity thesis implies relativism. By looking at the case of determinism, I intend to show that we can and should treat the reflexivity thesis independently of relativism. Therefore, the reflexivity thesis is not necessarily subject to self-refutation objection. Abstrak Dalam (...) tulisan ini, saya akan membahas apakah tesis refleksivitas dalam Program Kuat Sosiologi Pengetahuan yang diusung oleh David Bloor mengimplikasikan penyanggahan diri. Saya hendak berargumen bahwa kendati relativisme yang diimplikasikan Program Kuat menyanggah dirinya sendiri, saya tidak melihat tesis refleksivitasyang diusung Bloor per se mengimplikasikan relativisme. Dengan merujuk pada contoh determinisme, saya ingin menunjukkan bahwa tesis refleksitivitas dapat dan semestinya diperlakukan secara terpisah dari relativisme. Dengan demikian, tesis refleksivitas tidak dapat serta-merta menjadi sasaran argumen yang menyoal penyanggahan diri. (shrink)

Gegenwartig vorherrschenden tierethischen Diskursen wird ein theologisch eigenstandiges, verantwortungsethisches Konzept entgegengestellt, das einen Richtungswechsel intendiert: Die Frage stellt sich dann nicht mehr nach der Personalitat des Tiers als Individuum, sondern nach Begrundungszusammenhangen und Moglichkeiten zum Erhalt von Biodiversitat. Ziel ist es somit, Bewahrung der Schopfung in dem Mass zu gestalten, dass Okosysteme und genetische Varianz in moglichst grosser Zahl erhalten bleiben. Anschliessend wird nach bereichsethischen Konkretionen gefragt und aufgezeigt, wie auf Grundlage des zuvor entwickelten Ansatzes eine Urteilsbildung in verschiedenen Konfliktsituationen (...) moglich ist. Abschliessend wird die Arbeit im grosseren kulturwissenschaftlichen Kontext des "Animal Turn" verortet. (shrink)

Next SectionBy discussing a novel paradigm, it is shown that the likeliness of an operator to trigger an intervention effect in a wh-in-situ question is determined by the logical properties of that operator (contra Beck 1996a, 2006, for instance). A new empirical generalization accounting for the differences between operators in their ability to cause intervention and improving on existing analyses is suggested. This generalization is fully predictive and allows one to not have to list in the lexicon whether an intervener (...) is problematic or not. It is implemented as a formal condition on wh-questions in a version of Hamblin 1973's/Karttunen 1977's question semantics that makes crucial use of Chierchia 2006's domain alternatives. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a research field that has grown rapidly and attracted considerable attention. Most prominently, it has been labelled the ‘engineering of biology’. While other attempts to label the field have been also pursued, the program of engineering can be considered the core of the field’s disciplinary program, of its identity. This article addresses the success of the ‘engineering program’ in synthetic biology and argues that its success can partly be explained by distinct practices of persuasion that aim at (...) persuading scientific, but also non-scientific audiences. The article explores two different modes of persuasion:, building tools as heuristic models and posing visionary claims. Objects such as the toggle switch or the synthetic oscillator in synthetic biology can more adequately be described as heuristic models of engineering instead of simply as prototypes of ‘tools’. Posing visionary claims can be also understood as a persuasion practice, since the claims are used to construct the societal relevance of the field. Drawing upon Michel Callon’s ‘sociology of translation’, I argue that both practices of persuasion aim at ‘enrolling’ entities into the disciplinary identity. The article is based on the textual analysis of rhetorical practices in three synthetic biology review articles which are considered seminal for the history of the field. (shrink)