Spatestens seit dem emotional turn in den Kulturwissenschaften zu Anfang dieses Jahrhunderts ist die Leibphanomenologie von Hermann Schmitz kein Geheimtipp mehr. Die Zahl der Studien, die sich mit ihr auseinandersetzen, ist heute kaum uberschaubar. Der Band versucht nach knapp einem halben Jahrhundert Wirkungsgeschichte eine Art Zwischenbilanz zu ziehen. Er fragt, inwiefern und in welchen Kontexten sich die von Schmitz erarbeiteten Kategorien des eigenleiblichen Spurens bewahrt haben. Die Beitrage erortern die gespurte Leiblichkeit in ihrer Verflechtung mit Sachverhalten wie Geschichte, Kultur, Person, (...) Geschlecht sowie als Aktionsfeld leiblicher Kommunikation und zeugen davon, dass das von Schmitz begonnene Projekt uber die Philosophie hinaus auch von anderen Wissenschaften stetig erganzt und weiterentwickelt wird. Vor dem Hintergrund eines sich am Leitmodell des sicht- und tastbaren Korpers orientierenden Denkens konnten sprachliche Ausdrucke fur leibliches Erleben nur als Skandal der Metapher (Strub) begriffen werden. Die Leibphanomenologie bietet dagegen einen alternativen Zugang, dem aber der Korper, wie Schmitz sagt, zum Skandal wird. Diesem schwierigen Verhaltnis von Leib und Korper geht der Band nach, um das Skandalose theoretisch einzuholen. Mit Beitragen von Kerstin Andermann, Undine Eberlein, Thomas Fuchs, Ute Gahlings, Robert Gugutzer, Christian Julmi / Ewald Scherm, Steffen Kammler, Gudula Linck, Gesa Lindemann, Isabella Marcinski, Jan Slaby, Hermann Schmitz und Jens Soentgen. (shrink)

Das Buch liefert eine Analyse des Phänomens Tradition, wie es in der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts vor allem betrachtet wurde. Dabei werden auch die relevanten vorhergehenden Ansätze des Mittelalters und der Aufklärung erläutert. Es kommen alle namhaften Vertreter des Traditionsdenkens - u.a. Habermas, Gadamer, Assmann oder Hobsbawm - zu Wort, so dass sich ein intellektuelles Gegenwartspanorama ergibt.

A philosopher argues that state-sponsored cyberattacks against central military or civilian targets are always acts of war. What is this philosopher doing? According to conceptual analysts, the philosopher is making a claim about our concept of war. According to philosophical realists, the philosopher is making a claim about war per se. In a quickly developing literature, a third option is being explored: the philosopher is engineering the concept of war. On this view, the philosopher is making a proposal about which (...) concept we should have – even if it deviates from the extant concept, and even if it does not capture ‘what war really is’. The activity or method of proposing such revisionary definitions, as well as the metaphilosophical reflection on it, has become known as conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers aim to revise rather than describe our concepts. But what are concepts? And how does one engineer them? Answering these questions is of central importance for implementing and theorizing about conceptual engineering. This paper discusses and criticizes two influential views of this issue: semanticism, according to which conceptual engineers aim to change linguistic meanings, and psychologism, according to which conceptual engineers aim to change psychological structures. I argue that neither of these accounts can give us the full story. (...) Instead, I propose and defend the Dual Content View of Conceptual Engineering. On this view, conceptual engineering targets concepts, where concepts are understood as having two kinds of contents: referential content and cognitive content. I show that this view is independently plausible and that it gives us a comprehensive account of conceptual engineering that helps to make progress on some of the most difficult problems surrounding conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Bayesian approaches for estimating multilevel latent variable models can be beneficial in small samples. Prior distributions can be used to overcome small sample problems, for example, when priors that increase the accuracy of estimation are chosen. This article discusses two different but not mutually exclusive approaches for specifying priors. Both approaches aim at stabilizing estimators in such a way that the Mean Squared Error of the estimator of the between-group slope will be small. In the first approach, the MSE is (...) decreased by specifying a slightly informative prior for the group-level variance of the predictor variable, whereas in the second approach, the decrease is achieved directly by using a slightly informative prior for the slope. Mathematical and graphical inspections suggest that both approaches can be effective for reducing the MSE in small samples, thus rendering them attractive in these situations. The article also discusses how these approaches can be implemented in Mplus. (shrink)

This is a book symposium on Steffen Borge’s The Philosophy of Football. It has contributions from William Morgan, Murray Smith and Brian Weatherson with replies from Borge.

Connecting human minds to various technological devices and applications through brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) affords intriguingly novel ways for humans to engage and interact with the world. Not only do BCIs play an important role in restorative medicine, they are also increasingly used outside of medical or therapeutic contexts (e.g., gaming or mental state monitoring). A striking peculiarity of BCI technology is that the kind of actions it enables seems to differ from paradigmatic human actions, because, effects in the world are (...) brought about by devices such as robotic arms, prosthesis, or other machines, and their execution runs through a computer directed by brain signals. In contrast to usual forms of action, the sequence does not need to involve bodily or muscle movements at all. A motionless body, the epitome of inaction, might be acting. How do theories of action relate to such BCI-mediated forms of changing the world? We wish to explore this question through the lenses of three perspectives on agency: subjective experience of agency, philosophical action theory, and legal concepts of action. Our analysis pursues three aims: First, we shall discuss whether and which BCI-mediated events qualify as actions, according to the main concepts of action in philosophy and law. Secondly, en passant, we wish to highlight the ten most interesting novelties or peculiarities of BCI-mediated movements. Thirdly, we seek to explore whether these novel forms of movement may have consequences for concepts of agency. More concretely, we think that convincing assessments of BCI-movements require more fine-grained accounts of agency and a distinction between various forms of control during movements. In addition, we show that the disembodied nature of BCI-mediated events causes troubles for the standard legal account of actions as bodily movements. In an exchange with views from philosophy, we wish to propose that the law ought to reform its concept of action to include some, but not all, BCI-mediated events and sketch some of the wider implications this may have, especially for the venerable legal idea of the right to freedom of thought. In this regard, BCIs are an example of the way in which technological access to yet largely sealed-off domains of the person may necessitate adjusting normative boundaries between the personal and the social sphere. (shrink)

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in (...) recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greater capacity take greater responsibility but remain inclusive and cognizant of different voices and experiences. Focussing on business ethics in connection to the grand challenge of environmental emergencies, Steffen Böhm introduces the deceptively simple yet radical position that business is nature, and nature is business. His quick but profound side-step from arguments against human–nature dualism to an ontological undoing of the business–nature dichotomy should have all business ethics scholars rethinking their “business and society” assumptions. Also, singularly concerned with the climate emergency, Boudewijn de Bruin posits a scenario where, 40 years from now, our field will be evaluated by its ability to have helped humanity emerge from this emergency. He contends that Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell illustrates how human rights take centre stage in climate change litigation, and how business ethics enters the courtroom. From a consumer ethics perspective, Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Louise Hassan argue that ecologically sustainable and socially just marketplace systems demand cultural change, a reconsideration of future interpretations of “consumer society”, a challenge to the dominant “growth logic” and stimulation of alternative ways to address our consumption needs. Still concerned with global issues, but turning attention to social inequalities, Nelarine Cornelius links the capability approach to global and corporate governance, arguing that CA will continue to lie at the foundation of human development policy, and, increasingly, CSR and corporate governance. Continuing debate on the grand challenges associated with justice and equality, Laurence Romani identifies a significant shift in the centrality of business ethics in debates on managing differences, positing that dialogue between diversity management and international management can ground future debate in business ethics. Finally, the essay concludes with a commentary by Charlotte Karam and Michelle Greenwood on the possibilities of feminist-inspired theories, methods, and positionality for many spheres of business ethics, not least stakeholder theory, to broaden and deepen its capacity for nuance, responsiveness, and transformation. In the words of our commentators, grand challenges must be addressed urgently, and the Journal of Business Ethics should be at the forefront of tackling them. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have become a vital part of the organizational landscape for corporate social responsibility. Recent debates have explored whether these initiatives represent opportunities for the “democratization” of transnational corporations, facilitating civic participation in the extension of corporate responsibility, or whether they constitute new arenas for the expansion of corporate influence and the private capture of regulatory power. In this article, we explore the political dynamics of these new governance initiatives by presenting an in-depth case study of an organization often (...) heralded as a model MSI: the Forest Stewardship Council. An effort to address global deforestation in the wake of failed efforts to agree a multilateral convention on forests at the Rio Summit in 1992, the FSC was launched in 1993 as a non-state regulatory experiment: a transnational MSI, administering a global eco-labeling scheme for timber and forest products. We trace the scheme’s evolution over the past two decades, showing that while the FSC has successfully facilitated multi-sectoral determination of new standards for forestry, it has nevertheless failed to transform commercial forestry practices or stem the tide of tropical deforestation. Applying a neo-Gramscian analysis to the organizational evolution of the FSC, we examine how broader market forces and resource imbalances between non-governmental and market actors can serve to limit the effectiveness of MSIs in the current neo-liberal environment. This presents dilemmas for NGOs which can lead to their defection, ultimately undermining the organizational legitimacy of MSIs. (shrink)

In this article, we draw on established views of CSR dysfunctionalities to show how and why CSR is regularly observed to be both shaped by and supportive of capitalism. We proceed to show that these dysfunctionalities are maintained by both the pro- and anticapitalist approaches to CSR, both of which imply an ill-defined separation of the economy and society as well an overly strong problem or solution focus on political and economic issues. Finally, we present a post-capitalist approach to CSR (...) that overcomes (1) the ill-defined separation of the economy and society, (2) the capitalist bias towards economic rationalities, and (3) the overidentification of society with its political system; this approach thus helps to manage the abovementioned CSR dysfunctionalities. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to present a condensed version of my theory of what sport is from my book The Philosophy of Football. In that work, I took my starting point in Bernard Suits’ celebrated,...

Our outline points out three aspects of a new post-modern methodology in psychology: liberal, pluralistic, and more tolerant: liberal because it rejects rules that are too strict in favor of more freedom in the choice of method, pluralistic because it conveys an “almost anything goes” attitude toward methods, and more tolerant because mutual tolerance among researchers is vital for a pluralism of methods. Psychological phenomena are complex and can best be understood by using different methods. However, to get things working, (...) tolerance must actively be lived. Of course, much depends on our own willingness as researchers but also on the system’s arrangements. Psychology could be more colorful, and we could all have more fun if we were to be more committed to such a methodology. (shrink)

Currently, electronic agents are being designed and implemented that, unprecedentedly, will be capable of performing legally binding actions. These advances necessitate a thorough treatment of their legal consequences. In our paper, we first demonstrate that electronic agents behave structurally similar to human agents. Then we study how declarations of intention stated by an electronic agent are related to ordinary declarations of intention given by natural persons or legal entities, and also how the actions of electronic agents in this respect have (...) to be classified under German law. We discuss four different approaches of classifying agent declarations. As one of these, we propose the concept of an electronic person (i.e., agents with limited liability), enrolment of agents into an agent register, and agent liability funds as means to serve the needs of all contracting parties. (shrink)

Der Band diskutiert ausgewählte Positionen der Theoriebildung Ernesto Laclaus, die in den letzten Jahren im Kontext demokratietheoretischer Debatten zwar in politik-, kultur- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Feldern rezipiert wurde, deren Aufnahme in erziehungswissenschaftlichen Debatten aber eher als 'handverlesen' bezeichnet werden könnte. Die Rezeption beschränkt sich häufig auf spezifische Einsätze rund um die gemeinsam mit Chantal Mouffe in Hegemonie und radikale Demokratie entwickelte und an Antonio Gramsci ansetzende Hegemonietheorie. Dass Laclaus Perspektiven jedoch eine Vielzahl produktiver Anschlüsse und Irritationen für unterschiedliche pädagogische Frage- und (...) Problemstellungen beinhalten, verdeutlichen die hier versammelten Beiträge rund um transdisziplinäre Spannungsverhältnisse von Politik, Bildung und Pädagogik, von Artikulation und Repräsentation, von Ontologie und Identität oder im Kontext aktueller Sichtweisen auf Inklusion, Solidarität, Migration, pädagogische Beziehungen und Professionalität. Die Herausgebenden Dr. Steffen Wittig, Professor Dr. Ralf Mayer und Julia Sperschneider arbeiten und forschen an der Universität Kassel. (shrink)