Dieser Aufsatz behandelt drei Zeithorizonte des guten Lebens, durch die die drei Zeitdimensionen der Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart und der Zukunft lebensperspektivisch miteinander vermittelt werden. Erstens wird Lebenssinn von der Generationenfolge her begriffen. Zweitens wird der Prozess menschlicher Selbstverwirklichung im Fortschreiten durch den Zeitfluss der Lebensspanne untersucht. Drittens werden drei Arten von Glücksmomenten in der Gegenwart des Augenblicks verortet und in Bezug zu sinnorientierter Selbstverwirklichung gebracht. Es wird zudem erörtert, wie durch diese drei Zeithorizonte die Spannung zwischen aktiver Lebensführung und passiver (...) Lebenswiderfahrnis aus der Perspektive eines selbstreflexiven Wesens verarbeitet wird und welchen Einfluss dadurch Schnelligkeit und Langsamkeit für ein gutes Leben haben. (shrink)

People prefer prototypical stimuli over atypical stimuli. The dominant explanation for this prototype preference effect is that prototypical stimuli are processed more fluently. However, a more recent account proposes that prototypes are more strongly associated with their category’s valence, leading to a reversed prototype preference effect for negative categories. One critical but untested assumption of this category-valence account is that no prototype preference should emerge for entirely neutral categories. We tested this prediction by conditioning categories of dot patterns positively, negatively, (...) or neutrally. In line with previous findings on the category-valence account, prototype preference reversed for negatively conditioned categories. However, prototype preference was similarly strong for positive and neutral categories. These findings imply that prototype preferences do not only reflect a transfer of category valence to exemplars. Instead, the results suggest that prototype preference is a multi-process phenomenon arising from the activated category valence and a fluency-based process. We discuss further implications for theories on fluency and prototype preference. (shrink)

Words whose consonantal articulation places move from the front of the mouth to the back (e.g. BADAKA; inward) receive more positive evaluations than words whose consonantal articulation places move from the back of the mouth to the front (e.g. KADABA; outward). This in–out effect has a variety of affective, cognitive, and even behavioural consequences, but its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Most recently, a linguistic explanation has been proposed applying the linguistic easy-first account and the so-called labial-coronal effect from developmental speech (...) research and phonology to the in–out effect: Labials (front) are easier to process than coronals (middle); and people prefer easy followed by harder motor components. Disentangling consonantal articulation direction and articulation place, the present three preregistered experiments (total N = 1012) found in–out effects for coronal-dorsal (back), and labial-dorsal articulation places. Critically, no in–out effect emerged for labial-coronal articulation places. Thus, the in–out effect is unlikely an instantiation of easy first. (shrink)

People prefer linguistic stimuli with an inward (e.g. BODIKA) over those with an outward articulation dynamic (e.g. KODIBA), a phenomenon known as the articulatory in-out effect. Despite its robustness across languages and contexts, the phenomenon is still poorly understood. To learn more about the effect’s boundary conditions, mental representation, and origin, we crossed the in-out effect with evaluative conditioning research. In five experiments (N = 713, three experiments pre-registered), we systematically paired words containing inward versus outward dynamics with pictures of (...) negative versus positive valence. Although this evaluative conditioning procedure reversed the preference for inward over outward words, this was the case only for words with the same consonant sequences as the conditioned words. For words with inward/outward dynamics but different consonant sequences than the conditioned ones, a regular in-out effect emerged. Also, no preference reversal at all emerged for the conditioned consonant sequences when the contingency between single consonants at specific positions and positive/negative valence was zero. Implications of these findings for the in-out effect and evaluative conditioning are discussed. (shrink)

Subjunctivitis is the doctrine that what is distinctive about knowledge is essential modal in character, and thus is captured by certain subjunctive conditionals. One principal formulation of subjunctivism invokes a ``sensitivity condition'' (Nozick, De Rose), the other invokes a ``safety condition'' (Sosa). It is shown in detail how defects in the sensitivity condition generate unwanted results, and that the virtues of that condition are merely apparent. The safety condition is untenable also, because it is too easily satisfied. A powerful motivation (...) for adopting subjunctivism would be that it provides a solution to the problem of misleading evidence, but in fact, it does not. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

I call for “postnaturalism” in environmental philosophy—for an environmental philosophy that no longer employs the concept nature. First, the term is too ambiguous and philosophically dangerous and, second, McKibben and others who argue that nature has already ended are probably right—except that perhaps nature has always already ended. Poststructuralism, environmental history, and recent science studies all point in the same direction: the world we inhabit is always already one transformed by human practices. Environmental questions are social and political ones, to (...) be answered by us and not by nature. Many will worry that this conclusion leads to environmentally pernicious consequences, and to problems of relativism and idealism, but I argue that it does not. Practices are real, not ideal, and not all practices are equal: those that acknowledge human responsibility for transforming the world are preferable to those that don’t. Environmental harm results when we do not recognize our own responsibility for the world our practices create. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

This paper traces the historical roots of some of our current preoccupations with the ethics of business. Its central argument is that many of the contemporary criteria that we use to evaluate the ethics of business are not new; rather, they date back several centuries. This paper illustrates this thesis by comparing historical and contemporary discussions of three sets of issues: the relationship between ethics and profits, the relationship between private gain and the public good and the tension between the (...) results of capitalism and the intentions of businessmen.The fact that these tensions are inherent in the nature of capitalism, if not in human nature itself, does not make our contemporary concerns or standards any less valid. On the contrary, it underlies their significance. Contemporary discussions of business ethics constitute part of an ongoing moral dialogue with both deep secular and religious roots. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

In an important study, Lawrence Sklar has defended a doctrine of methodological conservatism (very roughly, the principle that a proposition derives some sort of epistemic warrant from being believed). I argue that Sklar's careful formulation of methodological conservatism remains too strong, and that a yet weaker version of the doctrine cannot be successfully defended. I also criticize Sklar's argument that the rejection of methodological conservatism would result in total skepticism. Finally, I turn to a closely related issue, and try to (...) show why different people with the same evidence should be justified in believing the same things. (shrink)

The chapter takes structuralism to be the thesis that if F and G are alike causally, then F and G are the same property. It follows that our beliefs about the world can be true in various brain-in-a-vat scenarios, giving us refuge from skeptical arguments. The trouble is that structuralism doesn’t do justice to certain metaphysical aspects of property identity having to do with fundamentality, intrinsicality, and the unity of the world. A closely related point is that the relation…lies-at-some-spatial-distance-from…obeys necessary (...) truths that need not apply to other relations with the same causal profile. This observation is especially important if, as David Lewis argued, the only alternatives to skepticism are structuralism and an anti-Humean stance toward modality. Some pertinent views of David Chalmers’s are discussed, and parallels are drawn between the structuralist response to skepticism and functionalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Leon Kass is much misunderstood. He is not simply a Republican ideologue who tailored his ideas to break out of the ivory tower and into the halls of power. Nor does he ook simply to use human nature as a moral guide. When the full range of his writings is considered and set in the tradition of his teachers, Hans Jonas and Leo Strauss, what emerges is a natural law position colored by religious revelation.

Michael WiIliams maintains that skepticism about the extemal worId is vitiated by a commitment to foundationalism and epistemological realism. (The latter is, approximately, the view that there is such a thing as knowledge of the extemal world in general, which the skeptic can take as a target). I argue that skepticism is not encumbered in the ways Williams supposes. What matters, first of all, is that we can’t perceive the difference between being in an ordinary environment and being in the (...) sort of situation the skeptic describes (e.g. having one’s brain manipulated by deceitful experimenters). This point can be upheld without embracing any substantial foundationalist tenet, such as the existence of basic beliefs, the availabiIity of something “given,” or the epistemic priority of experience. As to “epistemological realism,” I find that Williams has offered no principled way to distinguish between ordinary chaIIenges to knowledge and skeptical challenges which, supposedly, have no cIaim on our concem. (shrink)

Metaphysical investigation often proceeds by way of linguistic meaning. This tradition relies on an assumption about meanings, namely that they can be given in terms of referential relations and truth. Chomsky and others have illustrated the difficulty with this externalist hypothesis regarding natural language meanings, which implies that natural languages are ill‐suited for the purposes of metaphysical investigation. In reply to this discordance between the features of natural languages and the goals of metaphysical investigation, metaphysicians propose that we look to (...) the invented languages used to express our best scientific theories as metaphysical guides, in the hope that these languages are better behaved. I argue that this retreat is beset with similar troubles for the metaphysician. In particular, I argue that central terms in the field of biology, namely ‘gene’ and ‘species’, exhibit a kind of lexical flexibility that renders them, much like their natural language counterparts, ill‐suited for the metaphysician's aims. (shrink)

Michael WiIliams maintains that skepticism about the extemal worId is vitiated by a commitment to foundationalism and epistemological realism. (The latter is, approximately, the view that there is such a thing as knowledge of the extemal world in general, which the skeptic can take as a target). I argue that skepticism is not encumbered in the ways Williams supposes. What matters, first of all, is that we can’t perceive the difference between being in an ordinary environment and being in the (...) sort of situation the skeptic describes (e.g. having one’s brain manipulated by deceitful experimenters). This point can be upheld without embracing any substantial foundationalist tenet, such as the existence of basic beliefs, the availabiIity of something “given,” or the epistemic priority of experience. As to “epistemological realism,” I find that Williams has offered no principled way to distinguish between ordinary chaIIenges to knowledge and skeptical challenges which, supposedly, have no cIaim on our concem. (shrink)

I show how Hans Jonas, one of Heidegger's most distinguished Jewish students, traces his mentor's susceptibility to Nazism to a moral nihilism at the heart of Heidegger's teaching in "Being and Time". I then demonstrate how Jonas's own "existential interpretation of the biological facts" and metaphysical grounding of "an imperative of responsibility" provide one of the most systematic and challenging rejoinders to the moral failings of Heidegger's thought.

If “environment” means “that which environs us,” it isn’t clear why environmentalist thinkers so often identify it with nature and not with the built environment that a quick glance around would reveal is what we’re actually environed by. It’s a familiar claim that we’re “alienated from nature,” but I argue that what we’re really alienated from is the built environment itself. Typically talk of alienation from nature involves the claim that we fail to acknowledge nature’s otherness, but the built environment (...) is just as other from us as the natural one. And just as we are said to fail to recognize the role of nature as the origin of everything with which we have to do in the world, so too we fail to recognize the role of socially organized human labor in the objects that surround us. Overcoming alienation would require acknowledging the builtness and the sociality of the world we inhabit. (shrink)

Derek Allen, Richard Boyd, and Alan Gilbert have suggested that Marx’s normative political views should be reconstructed as a sophisticated version of moral consequentialism. This paper investigates whether Marx’s ostensible anti-moralism differs in any interesting way from Mill’s sophisticated utilitarianism plus some Marxist social science. I present an account of the social meaning and implications of moral language and argument, based on Marx’s description of morality as a social practice based on distinctive motives, emotions and sanctions, to explain why Marx (...) would reject moral consequentialism. This account will explain how Marx can consistently reject morality yet retain a normative basis for his social criticism. (shrink)

According to a widely shared notion, music is not only something that we can understand, but moreover something that gives us access to a specific form of cognitive reflection. This paper suggests that the first part of this notion is only plausible if musical understanding is not explained in terms of grasping the meaning of music, but in terms of experiencing its sense. Music has neither a classifiable meaning full content nor a predicative structure, both of which are necessary in (...) order for a medium of reflection. Therefore, the second part of this notion can only be defended in a rather modest way, insofar as the cognitive function of music is limited to its role merely as a means that serves our otherwise language-based reflexive competence. (shrink)

Ich versuche zu zeigen, dass sich der Prozess des ästhetischen Erfahrens als einer des verstehenden Nachvollzugs begreifen lässt, in dem wir die mit Erlebnisqualitäten verbundenen Wahrnehmungen (beispielsweise einer Melodie) auf einer grundlegenden Ebene mittels der Erlebnisqualitäten anderer Wahrnehmungen (beispielsweise einer Geste) strukturieren; und zwar so, dass wir den Gegenstand dieses Verstehens als eine Einheit erfassen. Es zeigt sich dabei zum einen, dass sich Verstehen nicht im begrifflichen Erfassen von Bedeutungen, Handlungen oder Ursache- Wirkungs-Relationen erschöpft; und zum anderen, dass uns in (...) Gestalt des Nachvollziehens eine Form des Verstehens offensteht, der die Möglichkeit innewohnt, uns selbst und anderen Aspekte unseres subjektiven Erlebens (des Gegenstands) bewusst zu machen und begrifflich zu artikulieren. Die Philosophie des Geistes muss sich daher der Aufgabe stellen, das Verhältnis zwischen phänomenalen und intentionalen Aspekten unseres Geistes produktiver zu erläutern als bloß in Formeiner Disjunktion. I will try to show that the process of making an aesthetic experience can be conceived as a process of understanding via re-enactment in which we structure the phenomenal qualities of perceptions (e.g. of a melody) at a fundamental level by means of the phenomenal qualities of other perceptions (e.g. of a gesture); and this in such a way that we grasp the object of this understanding as a unity. Thereby, it turns out that understanding is not restricted to conceptually grasping meanings, actions, or relations of cause and effect. Moreover, re-enactment shows itself as a form of understanding, which enables us to become aware of aspects of our subjective experience, to make others understand these aspects, and to articulate them conceptually. hilosophy of mind must therefore face the task of elucidating the relationship between phenomenal and intentional aspects of our mind in a more productive way than in the form of a mere disjunction. (shrink)

Any thoughtful reading of Levinas must grapple with what is implied by his notion that the Other is “higher” than the self — that the Other is “one for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all”? (EI 89). At least two evident issues arise when we wonder what it would mean to live with and by this notion. Without fail, newcomers to Levinas’s ideas raise these two issues. The first centers on the question: What is my (...) responsibility to strangers? That is, if I “owe all” to a stranger in need to the point where his or her welfare and life come before mine, how can I possibly address the interests of my loved ones, friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens, not to mention my own needs? Moreover, is Levinas suggesting that we have a moral duty to be saints? The second issue revolves around the question: What is the responsibility of a victim toward her persecutor? This can easily lead to asking, is Levinas implying that a Jew being herded off to Auschwitz “owes everything” tohis Nazi captor? Also, what can it mean for a victim to encounter the face of a rapist and to “substitute” herself for him? And should she? I shall approach these persistent issues by first explaining how Levinas grounds his claims that the face-to-face-relationship is asymmetrical and that “I am responsible for the Other, without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it” (EI 98). (shrink)

Any thoughtful reading of Levinas must grapple with what is implied by his notion that the Other is “higher” than the self — that the Other is “one for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all”? (EI 89). At least two evident issues arise when we wonder what it would mean to live with and by this notion. Without fail, newcomers to Levinas’s ideas raise these two issues. The first centers on the question: What is my (...) responsibility to strangers? That is, if I “owe all” to a stranger in need to the point where his or her welfare and life come before mine, how can I possibly address the interests of my loved ones, friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens, not to mention my own needs? Moreover, is Levinas suggesting that we have a moral duty to be saints? The second issue revolves around the question: What is the responsibility of a victim toward her persecutor? This can easily lead to asking, is Levinas implying that a Jew being herded off to Auschwitz “owes everything” tohis Nazi captor? Also, what can it mean for a victim to encounter the face of a rapist and to “substitute” herself for him? And should she? I shall approach these persistent issues by first explaining how Levinas grounds his claims that the face-to-face-relationship is asymmetrical and that “I am responsible for the Other, without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it” (EI 98). (shrink)