All human beings--indeed, all creatures--experience evil in various forms. How can the hurtful and harmful aspects of life be understood and faced? What differing perspectives on evil can be gained from - Behavioral science and psychology - Biblical faith and the history of Christian thought - Contemporary thinkers - Religious traditions of the East In a constructive conclusion, Schwarz assesses the pervasiveness of evil, human freedom in the face of evil, the personification of evil, and the hope for the (...) end of evil. This book provides the basis of hope for a just and humane life. It is a book for our time. Evil is neither a primeval decree nor an inescapable fate but has its origin in a power that always denies or negates. While we are all caught in the dragnet of evil, we are not helpless victims, as if evil were simply an imperious it. We can fight evil and indeed should do so. --from the Preface Evil is a] comprehensive treatment of a complex and currently interesting subject. The historical and theological treatment will be as competent as everyone who has read a Schwarz book before will expect. In] the final chapter Schwarz concludes that]: evil exists as opposition to God in our natural world; humans participate freely in evil and morally transgress; a price is paid for choosing wrongly; evil will not necessarily continue in order to highlight the good by contrast; the liberated Christian bears good fruit amidst this evil; and God has set boundaries for evil that it cannot overstep. -- Pastor Ronald E. C. Grissom, St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, Ohio Hans Schwarz provides a kind of textbook history of the ways thinkers in our time have tried to account for evil. . . .The book is succinct, fair to its subjects, and helpful to those who want introductions to these hypotheses. -- The Christian Century Hans Schwarz is Professor of Systematic Theology and Contemporary Theology at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books. (shrink)

. The shift from a pre‐Copernican to a Copernican world view has caused an ever increasing sense of homelessness for the idea of a theistically conceived God. This paper first traces the historical development of this problem and its implications for the Christian faith. Next it presents some historically evolved “rescue” attempts and examines them critically. Then follows an inquiry concerning the biblical understanding of God's relation to space and a critical presentation of some contemporary proposals to make God's presence (...) intelligible. In conclusion we propose a dimensional model of relating God and the world, a model which allows for a reasonable discourse of God's immanence and transcendence. (shrink)

Anknüpfend an die erkenntnistheoretische und naturwissenschaftliche Krise stellt Karl Heim die Frage nach der Glauhensgewissheit: Die erkenntnistheoretische Unlösbarkeit der Frage nach der letiten, weltbewegenden Machtjuhrt alle Weltanschauungen in eine Aporie und stellt vor ein letztes "Entweder-Oder." Der Aufweis eines wirklichkeitsbestimmenden, nichtgegenständlichen Raumes und innerweltlicher Transzendenzverhältnisse eröffnet ein dynamisches Weltbild, innerhalb dessen der metaphysisch transzendente Daseinsraum Gottes die Wirklichkeit dimensional durchdringt (Allgegenwart), In scharfem Gegensatz zur menschlichen Selbstbestimmung im deutschen Idealismus wird Christi Herrschervollmacht herausgearbeitet, die einziges Fundament für menschliches Handeln ist: (...) Als Offenbarer des Vaters besiegte Er in Tod und Auferstehung die widergöttlichen Mächte als die Verursacher alter Sunde. (shrink)

Theology and the life sciences are mutually dependent on one another in the task of understanding the origin and function of moral behavior. The life sciences investigate morality from the perspective of the historical and communal dimension of humanity and point to survival as the primary function of human behavior. A Christian ethic of self‐sacrifice advances the preservation of the entire human and nonhuman creation and should not, therefore, be objected to by the life sciences. Religion, however, is more than (...) a survival mechanism. It points to a preserving agency beyond humanity and prevents the life sciences from reducing life to its strictly biological side. (shrink)

Dialectic is the parting of ways in philosophy. The analytical movement inaugurated by Moore and Russell took its departure in an attack against Neo‐Hegelianism in Britain, presenting analysis as the cure for the dialectical disease. Gadamer's contributions to Greek philosophy and, in particular, his readings of Plato, arguably the most significant thinker for Gadamerian hermeneutics. Hence, in Gadamer's hermeneutics, the dialectic of question and answer does not function as a maxim that one should apply in exegetic business instead of other (...) competing maxims or methods. Gadamer acknowledges a speculative dimension; but he finds this dimension in our everyday understanding, promoted by the web of ordinary language. Gadamer's hermeneutic not only promotes language holism, but claims the possibility of experiencing the inherent dialectic of the whole and its parts that the traditional doctrine of the hermeneutical circle in methodological respect had formulated. (shrink)

Nicht erst seit dem Erscheinen der Schwarzen Hefte wird Martin Heideggers personliche wie denkerische Verstrickung in den Nationalsozialismus diskutiert. Die Debatte, ob er sich aus dieser Verstrickung jemals entschieden gelost hat, begleitet die Auseinandersetzung mit Heideggers Denken seit Jahrzehnten. Die Tagung Heideggers Schwarze Hefte. Ideologieanfalligkeit der Intellektuellen, die im Dezember 2015 an der Universitat Freiburg i.Br. stattfand, wendete sich im Blick auf Heidegger und daruber hinaus der Frage zu, wie es dazu kommen konnte, dass sich Intellektuelle in der Weimarer Republik (...) wenigstens zeitweise fur die NS-Bewegung begeisterten. Immanent-kritisches Weiterdenken mit Heidegger gegen Heidegger (NZZ) zeichnet die aus Anlass der Tagung gehaltenen Vortrage in ihrer Gesamtheit aus. Der Band enthalt die Beitrage von Wolfgang Essbach, Andreas Urs Sommer, Claus Arnold, Lore Huhn, Christian Bermes, Jeff Malpas, Emil Angehrn, Peter Trawny, Christoph Demmerling, Oliver Muller, Georg Essen, Rainer Marten und Dieter Thoma. (shrink)

Die jungsten Finanzkrisen haben die Diskussion uber die Moral der Markte wiederbelebt: Welche Verantwortung haben Unternehmen, Banken, Politik und letztlich jeder Einzelne in unserer Gesellschaft? Droht die Okonomisierung aller Lebensbereiche, der Ausverkauf des Menschen? Ist der Markt moralfrei? Brauchen wir neue Perspektiven und Werte? Diese drangenden Fragen werden im vorliegenden Buch von namhaften Autorinnen und Autoren wie Franz Muntefering und Rita Sussmuth beantwortet: Der Mensch muss wieder ins Zentrum rucken, Verantwortung und Moral sollten grundlegender Massstab auch des wirtschaftlichen Handelns sein. (...) Mit diesen Forderungen appellieren die BeitragerInnen an einen echten Dialog zwischen Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Ethik. Mit Beitragen von Bernhard Emunds, Jurgen Hardt, Linus Hauser, Esther Junger, Josef Kaiser, Siegfried Karl, Andreas Lenz, Uta Meier-Grawe, Franz Muntefering, Thomas Petersen, Marcus K. Reif, Rainer Schwarz, Rita Sussmuth und Joachim Wiemeyer". (shrink)

What is the future of science and technology? Will academic research become a commodity like so much else? Will technology and science become ever more intertwined? Such questions concern anyone to whom science and technology matter. A philosophical approach can shed light on them, as Hans Radder has amply shown. This volume contains essays by colleagues and friends that highlight the wide variety of topics he has addressed in his work. Whether it is the interaction between science, technology and (...) society, the nature of scientific experimentation, or the scientific realism question, Radder's approach is always acute and committed. 0With contributions by Henk van den Belt, James Robert Brown, Kai Eigner, Andrew Feenberg, Steve Fuller, Makoto Katsumori, Peter Kirschenmann, Christian Krijnen, Peter Kroes, Chunglin Kwa, Sabina Leonelli, Loet Leydesdorff, Alfred Nordmann, Pieter Pekelharing, Arthur Petersen, Henk de Regt, Angela Roothaan, László Ropolyi, Frits Schipper, and Astrid Schwarz. (shrink)

The pattern of data underlying the successful replications of cleansing effects is improbable and most consistent with selective reporting. Moreover, the meta-analytic approach presented by Lee and Schwarz is likely to find an effect even if none existed. Absent more robust evidence, there is no need to develop a theoretical account of grounded procedures.

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

Rational agents are supposed to maximize expected utility. But what are the options from which they choose? I outline some constraints on an adequate representation of an agent’s options. The options should, for example, contain no information of which the agent is unsure. But they should be sufficiently rich to distinguish all available acts from one another. These demands often come into conflict, so that there seems to be no adequate representation of the options at all. After reviewing existing proposals (...) for how to construe decision-theoretic options and finding them all wanting, I suggest that our model of rational agents should include a special domain of ‘virtual’ option propositions to serve as formal objects of deliberation and choice. (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

Our senses provide us with information about the world, but what exactly do they tell us? I argue that in order to optimally respond to sensory stimulations, an agent’s doxastic space may have an extra, “imaginary” dimension of possibility; perceptual experiences confer certainty on propositions in this dimension. To some extent, the resulting picture vindicates the old-fashioned empiricist idea that all empirical knowledge is based on a solid foundation of sense-datum propositions, but it avoids most of the problems traditionally associated (...) with that idea. The proposal might also explain why experiences appear to have a non-physical phenomenal character, even if the world is entirely physical. (shrink)

Some cognitive processes appear to have “phenomenal” properties that are directly revealed to the subject and not determined by physical properties. I suggest that the source of this appearance is the method by which our brain processes sensory information. The appearance is an illusion. Nonetheless, we are not mistaken when we judge that people sometimes fee lpain.