I show that in his De motu animalium Aristoteles proposes a teleology of the practical on the most general zoological level, i.e. on the level common to humans and self-moving animals. A teleology of the practical is a teleological account of the highest practical goals of animal and human self-motion. I argue that Aristotle conceives of such highest practical goals as goals that are contingently related to their realizations. Animal and human self-motion is the kind of action in which certain (...) state of affairs that realize values are mechanized. (shrink)

In recent years we have seen the rise of a new framework within the study of the mind, namely Predictive Processing. This framework essentially holds that the brain is a prediction machine constantly postulating perceptual models which are tested against incoming information. At the same time, the notion of the minimal or core self has become very influential as a way of explaining, or explaining away, pre-reflective self-awareness. The four most widely discussed alternatives for thinking through the metaphysical implications the (...) pre-reflective sense of self are the standard phenomenological view, the substance view, the no-self view and by now the relational view. In this paper, it is our objective to rethink the notion of the sense of self in the context of PP. Now, PP is often held to be a unifying framework that offers a new integrated account of perception, cognition, imagination, and indeed the pre-reflective sense of self. We will show, however, that PP has been taken to endorse rather too many different metaphysical accounts of self: that is, views about how we should regard the ultimate nature of self. What we need to do, if possible, is to use PP to constrain the theories on offer. Here we focus upon two central constraints that we think PP implies. These are, the mutability constraint and the multi-layereredness constraint. We argue that self-views laid out in terms of the PP framework are usually – to some degree – located within the four standard metaphysical accounts of self. However, we think that realist versions of self-accounts seem to have more trouble in respecting the PP constraints or requirements. The reason, or so we believe, is PP’s mutability constraint. This does not have to be the case and we, therefore, propose an alternative realist view – namely the pre-reflective situational self view – which is more adequate to fit the PP framework. (shrink)

After a short description of the Aristotelian examples for practical syllogisms, the essay gives an overview of the interpretations of the practical syllogism since the 1950s. These interpretations can be divided into two main groups: while the first group connects the practical syllogism with practical thinking, the second, smaller group considers it as an illustration of the causal explananation of actions. The essay closes with some remarks on the reasons for these different interpretations.

This paper discusses Aristotle's notion of the practical syllogism. It is argued that the notion of ‘practical’ reasoning in the sense of reasoning which implies motion in one sense or the other is alien to Aristotle's philosophy of nature. All (at least in type) the relevant passages will be discussed. The outcome is that there are three different contexts in which it would be justified to speak of practical syllogisms: (i) human deliberation, (ii) the illustration of the triggering cause of (...) animal motion, and (iii) the teleological ex post explanationof human action. (i) is genuine, but non-deductive reasoning which does not immediately result in action/motion, whereas (ii) is not genuine reasoning, but an analogy with deductive reasoning. Finally, the relation between (i) and (ii) in Aristotle's theory of animal motion will be discussed. (shrink)

Being conscious or experiencing the world with all its vivid qualities is something humans intimately cherish. The fact that consciousness provides us with a lively phenomenology is what makes life worth living. Yet, when it comes to understanding how consciousness fits into the natural world, we feel deeply puzzled. In this context, one important claim about consciousness consists in the idea that our awareness is not only about the world but also reveals an intimate subjectivity. This aspect of phenomenal consciousness (...) is often referred to as pre-reflective self-consciousness. It is often held that this type of self-awareness is intrinsic and essential to any form of conscious experience, i.e. there is no conscious experience without also being implicitly self-conscious. Being of such importance to the nature of consciousness, the recent literature mainly discusses two ways of accounting for pre-reflective self-consciousness, its role for conscious experience and how it fits into the natural world. On the one hand, there are relational views; on the other hand, there are non-relational accounts. This paper will argue that both approaches are not sustainable as they stand, since either important aspects are lost or not sufficiently embedded in the natural world. Consequently, I will argue for an alternative that allows for both a functional and an embodied nature of pre-reflective self-consciousness. (shrink)

Historical Justice and Memory highlights the global movement for historical justice—acknowledging and redressing historic wrongs—as one of the most significant moral and social developments of our times. Such historic wrongs include acts of genocide, slavery, systems of apartheid, the systematic persecution of presumed enemies of the state, colonialism, and the oppression of or discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities. The historical justice movement has inspired the spread of truth and reconciliation processes around the world and has pushed governments to make (...) reparations and apologies for past wrongs. It has changed the public understanding of justice and the role of memory. In this book, leading scholars in philosophy, history, political science, and semiotics offer new essays that discuss and assess these momentous global developments. They evaluate the strength and weaknesses of the movement, its accomplishments and failings, its philosophical assumptions and social preconditions, and its prospects for the future. (shrink)

"Die Bildung muss auf die volle Entfaltung der menschlichen Persönlichkeit und auf die Stärkung der Achtung vor den Menschenrechten und Grundfreiheiten gerichtet sein.

L'article est consacré à la procréation médicalement assistée et aux techniques médicales qui la concernent: les concepts bioéthiques, l'option anthropologique, le dialogue interdisciplinaire et la philosophie de la nature impliqués sont étudiés. Les problèmes concrets du diagnostic préimplantatoire, de la sélection de l'embryon, du clônage, et de la compétence du médecin en matière de conseil sont analysés par l'A.

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 49 Heft: 1 Seiten: 49-90.

A pragmatic (communication-discursive) cognitive sociology beyond observationism (Luhmann, Turner, Conein) and individualistic reductionism (Esser, Boudon) as a way to do sociology as a critical theory and as a positive science is proposed, drawing on the Habermasian theory of communicative action and its radical continuation in Luhmann's concept of the (cognitive) autopoiesis of social systems.

In diesem Buch erscheint Kants Moralphilosophie in neuem Licht. Kants Bestimmung und Begründung des Moralprinzips wird gegen das Gros der bisherigen Forschung als konsistente Argumentation auf hohem Niveau aufgeschlüsselt. Das gut lesbare Buch klärt die Grundbegriffe von Kants Moralphilosophie und lässt sich als Kommentar zu deren als besonders schwierig empfundenen Teilen benutzen.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Experience or Interpretation:"What You See Is Not What You Read"Klaus OttmannMuseums of modern and contemporary art are growing at an unprecedented rate. New museums are being founded and existing ones are expanding exhibition spaces and acquiring more and more works of art. Concurrently, cultural institutions compete with a growing number of art fairs, biennials, galleries, and public collection spaces.Since the 1980s the focus of museums increasingly has been (...) on education and interpretation, which among other things has created a boom for audio guides and scholarly exhibition catalogs at the expense of the unmediated experience of works of art. Perhaps what is needed are exhibitions that present art again primarily as "experience," with minimal curatorial and didactic intervention. [End Page 13]I have borrowed the title of my essay from a lecture that was given by Nicolas Serota, the director of the Tate galleries in London, in 1996. His lecture was subtitled "The Dilemma of Museums of Modern Art."But the question of the presentation of art, and specifically, that of experience vs. interpretation, by no means originated in the last decades. It is at least as old a question as modern art itself, going as far back as the nineteenth-century French intellectual dispute on the museum between the poet Paul Valéry and the novelist Marcel Proust, as recounted with a sympathetic voice by the German philosopher and cultural critic Theodor Adorno in a short essay with the minimalist title "Valéry Proust Museum."There is much to be learned from reading this small text. Paul Valéry criticized the museum of his time (the Louvre) for creating confusion in the mind of the spectator by reducing the experience to the level of information only. No one would want to listen to ten orchestras at once, he argued, yet we are forced to apprehend, at the same moment, a seascape, a portrait, and a still-life, or worse, painting styles completely incompatible with each other. He warned that excess of information would lead to impoverishment of the senses, as art was becoming a matter of education. Valéry's view could be regarded as the conservative position.Marcel Proust's view was more modernist: he regarded the museum as the best place to view art. Devoid of décor and other commonplace distractions, its galleries symbolized for him the inner spaces into which the artist withdraws to create works of art.Both Valéry and Proust emphasized that art should be enjoyed. But while for Valéry art lost its vitality in the museum and effectively "died," Proust saw an afterlife of art in the museum and in the subjective stream of consciousness of the viewer.For Adorno, both views were too one-sided and extreme. Valéry's absolute unwavering contemplation of pure art takes the risk of neutralization, unless the work can point beyond itself toward a social context. Thus, a work of art is neither an embodiment of a Platonic idea, as Valéry believed, nor is it exclusively a reflection of the soul, as Proust understood it. Rather, in Adorno's view, art is a "force field" between the art and the viewer, both passive and active.In his 1931 lectures on "Art as Experience," the American philosopher John Dewey said:The trouble with existing theories [of art] is that they start from ready-made compartmentalization, or from a conception of art that "spiritualizes" it out of connection with the objects of concrete experience. The alternative, however, to such spiritualization is not a degrading... materialization of works of fine art, but a conception that discloses the way in which these works idealize qualities found in common experience.1 [End Page 14]In my book The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition, I describe the creative act as an active-passive leap that the artist is impelled to make and the viewer is challenged to repeat.Wittgenstein often spoke about the inexpressible, that which is beyond the limits of language. He called it "running against the boundaries of language." It is something any poet, musician, or painter is familiar with; they all run against boundaries of language, sound, or color... (shrink)

Anhand dreier paradigmatischer Positionen des bioethischen Diskurses wird dargestellt, inwiefern diese von ihren Leitbegriffen abhängig sind. Dabei darf eine Ansicht nicht vom bioethischen Diskurs exkludiert werden, nur weil sie metaphysische Begründungsweisen impliziert. Vielmehr ist auf einer moralphilosophischen Ebene jede Position zunächst allein theorieimmanent danach zu beurteilen, ob sie ihre Kriterien konsistent aus den rational zu begründenden Leitbegriffen entwickelt. Dann können die Ansichten in ein Gespräch miteinander gebracht werden, das mögliche Einseitigkeiten zutage treten lässt. Erst in einem zweiten Schritt geht es (...) um eine rechtsethische Engführung, wobei eine moralphilosophische Korrektur nach ethischen Kriterien angebracht ist, wenn es bei rechtsethischer Betrachtung nicht möglich ist, der Instrumentalisierungsgefahr hinreichend vorzubeugen; dann kann es Aufgabe sein, religiöse Bedeutungspotentiale, die säkularistischen Ansichten verborgen bleiben müssten, in eine öffentliche Sprache zu übersetzen. Jedenfalls sollte eine Rechtsethik ihre Ergebnisse anhand moralphilosophisch relevanter Intuitionen überdenken, sodass ein Ansatz, der vorwiegend an Interessen orientiert ist, hinterfragt werden kann. (shrink)

This article examines whether European integration and identity are prerequisites for a common constitution, or whether they can result from the process through which the European member states give themselves a constitution; in the latter case integration may be considered the main task and challenge for the European constitutive process, especially when we seek to formulate the basic rights, the preamble or other symbols. In order to be able to engage in the process of developing a common constitution Europeans have (...) to assume first of all that there already are common experiences and values in Europe that can bring about the intended results. What we invoke are events and memories that connect the citizens of the European Union. Understood in this way, the search for a European constitution is itself a necessary condition for initiating European identity. By consequence, there is no predetermined concept of a European constitution, rather there is an ideal of political unity that needs to be realized in practice. (shrink)

Pitanje izgrađuje li Europa politički identitet ili ostaje zajednica drugog reda odredit će put europske integracije. Uvjet političkog identiteta je zasigurno europska javnost; na taj način su građani sposobni prihvatiti odluke europskog političkog sustava sudjelujući u relevantnim raspravama. Tri koncepta javnog će poslužit će pri razumijevanju europske javnosti kao međusobne povezanosti zajednice temeljene na mrežama. Nadopunjavanje »javne sfere« »javnim diskursom« odražava nastojanje nadilaženja nacionalnih ideja: ne govorimo o jednoj europskoj javnosti, nego je ona zamišljena kao mreža parcijalnih nacionalnih javnosti, koje (...) izviru iz događaja koje imaju određen značaj za Europu. Tako se europski identitet može stvoriti fokusiranjem političkih interesa građana na teme od zajedničkog značaja. (shrink)

Na temelju tri paradigmatske pozicije bioetičkoga diskursa pokazuje se u kojoj su mjeri one ovisne o svojim vodećim pojmovima. Pritom se iz bioetičkoga diskursa ne smije isključiti neko gledište samo zato što implicira metafizički način utemeljenja. Štoviše, na moralno-filozofskoj razini, svaku poziciju treba prosuđivati najprije teorijski imanentno, s obzirom na to da li svoje kriterije razvija konzistentno iz vodećih pojmova koji se mogu racionalno utemeljiti. Potom različiti pogledi mogu stupiti u razgovor koji dopušta pojavljivanje mogućih jednostranosti. Tek u drugom koraku (...) radi se o pravno-etičkom tumačenju pri kojem se poduzima moralno-filozofska korektura prema etičkim kriterijima ako u pravno-etičkom razmatranju nije moguće na zadovoljavajući način spriječiti opasnost instrumentalizacije. Nakon toga se kao zadaća može postaviti to da se u javni jezik prevedu religijski potencijali tumačenja, koji bi morali ostaviti skrivenima sekularne poglede. Jedna bi etika prava svakako trebala reflektirati svoje rezultate pomoću moralno-filozofijski relevantnih intuicija kako bi se moglo propitivati pristup koji je prvenstveno orijentiran prema interesima. (shrink)

On grounds of three paradigmatic stances in bioethical discourse we will introduce the level of their dependence on their leading notions. All trough, we mustn’t exclude a certain point of view out of bioethical discourse just because it implies a metaphysical foundation. In fact, on a morally-philosophical level, every stance should be judged first as a theoretically immanent, considering whether it evolves its criteria consistently out of the leading notions which could be rationally founded. Successively, different views may join into (...) a dialogue which allows the occurrence of potential one-sidedness. Only this second step is concerning legally-ethical explanation with a morally-philosophical correcture of ethical criteria, in case that a legally-ethical consideration doesn’t give us a possibility to prevent the danger of instrumentalisation in a proper manner. Only after, the aim to translate the religious potentials of explanation into a common language can be set, and the secular views would have to be left concealed. Ethics of law should certainly be able to reflect its results using morally-philosophical relevant intuitions, so approach, mainly oriented towards interests, could be questioned. (shrink)