ObjectiveTo investigate the short-term effect of music therapy combined with binaural frequency difference therapy on patients with consciousness disorder.Materials and methodsNinety patients with definite diagnosis of disorders of consciousness were selected. These patients were randomly divided into control group, experiment 1 group and experiment 2 group, with 30 patients in each group. The control group was treated with routine clinical treatment and rehabilitation. In experiment 1 group, music therapy was added to the control group. In experimental group 2, music therapy (...) combined with binaural α frequency difference therapy was added to the control group. All patients were assessed before and after 30 treatments. The assessment items included Glasgow Coma Scale, Coma Recovery Scale revised, electroencephalogram, upper somatosensory evoked potential, and brainstem auditory evoked potential.ResultsBefore treatment, there were no significant differences in GCS score, CRS-R score, USEP, BAEP, and EEG scores among the three groups. After 30 times of treatment, GCS score, CRS-R score, USEP, BAEP, and EEG scores in 3 groups were significantly higher than those before treatment. And the consciousness rate of experimental group 2 was better than experimental group 1, experimental group 1 was better than the control group and the difference was statistically significant.ConclusionMusic therapy combined with binaural α frequency difference therapy is more effective in stimulating DOC patients. (shrink)

A series of papers in Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine (PEHM) have recently disputed whether non-heart beating organ donors are alive and whether non-heart beating organ donation (NHBD) contravenes the dead donor rule. Several authors who argue that NHBD involves harvesting organs from live patients appeal to.

IndividuelleFreiheitindividuelleAutonomieAutonomie wird allgemein als die Fähigkeit von Personen verstanden, über ihr eigenes Leben bestimmen zu können, ihr eigenes Leben zu führen anhand von Gründen, Überlegungen, Motiven, Wünschen, die ihre eigenen sind und ihnen nicht von anderen – aus persönlichen oder politischen Gründen – aufgezwungen, die aber immer in Beziehung mit anderen entwickelt werden. Deshalb begründet Autonomie VerantwortlichkeitVerantwortungFreiheit als Bedingung für Verantwortung und fordert Respekt von anderen. Autonomie ist seit der Aufklärung einer der zentralen, leitenden Begriffe sowohl in der Ethik wie (...) in der Politischen Philosophie. (shrink)

English summary: Beate Bengard deals with the ecumenical hermeneutics of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. His theory is of interest for ecumenical theology particularly in the area of ecumenical reception. The specificity of ecumenical reception is that it requires the acceptation of otherness - of the alterity - of the ecumenical partner. Obviously, this process goes far beyond the ratification of ecumenical documents. In order to clarify the process of reception, a hermeneutical model is needed which explains the interrelation (...) of the interpersonal recognition of otherness, the reception of texts, as well as of changing collective identities. A complex model of the reception process is deduced from the theory of Paul Ricoeur and Ricoeur's model is compared with three concrete ecumenical processes in France. This shows there is a high degree of accordance between these ecumenical examples and Ricoeur's hermeneutical process. The conclusion points to ways in which this contributes to building an ecumenical culture inspired by Ricoeur's philosophy. German description: Beate Bengard stellt erstmals der Beitrag des franzosischen Philosophen Paul Ricoeur zum okumenischen Dialog detailliert vor. Die Studie, die im Rahmen eines deutsch-franzosischen Promotionsprojekts entstanden ist, beruht auf teilweise bisher unveroffentlichten Zeugnissen. Fur die okumenische Theologie ist Ricoeurs Beitrag primar fur die Frage der 'okumenischen Rezeption' interessant. Die Besonderheit der okumenischen Rezeption gegenuber anderen Rezeptionsprozessen besteht darin, dass sie die Annahme des Anderen, d.h. die Rezeption der Alteritat des okumenischen Partners verlangt. Was das im Einzelnen bedeutet, kann nicht durch eine Rezeptionsforschung geklart werden, die sich nur auf die Ratifikation von okumenischen Dokumenten konzentriert. Zu seiner Klarung braucht es vielmehr ein hermeneutisches Modell, das den Zusammenhang von interpersonaler Anerkennung, Textrezeption und dem Wandel kollektiver Identitaten erklart. Eine solche komplexere Rezeptionstheorie rekonstruiert Bengard aus der Fulle von Ricoeurs philosophischem Werk und uberpruft dieses anschliessend auf ihre Plausibilitat hin. Dazu untersucht Bengard drei sehr unterschiedliche okumenische Rezeptionssituationen aus Frankreich: die Rezeption der Leuenberger Konkordie in den evangelischen Kirchen, die unabhangig fur den katholisch-evangelischen Dialog arbeitende Groupe des Dombes und die Communaute de Taize. Abschliessend gibt sie Anregungen fur eine Okumenekultur, die Inspiration aus dem Werk von Paul Ricoeur bezieht. (shrink)

This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are (...) bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. (shrink)

Starting from the given societal fact of an unequal ‘worth of freedom’ for men and women in pursuing possible plans of life, and the assumption that this difference is due to the distinction between the private and public realm, the author investigates into the gender-structure of recent political theories. Following the lines of the debate between communitarians and liberals she argues for the thesis that while communitarians try to ‘privatize’ the public sphere on the model of the ideal family or (...) given traditions of communities and thus cannot account for the idea of emancipation from given structures and roles, liberals have to ‘publicize’ the private in order to give substance to the idea of an ‘equal worth of freedom’ for men and women. Thus, liberalism has to rethink the theoretical distinction of the private and the public sphere and its practical consequences. (shrink)

Interest in sensory atmospheres and architectural and urban ambiances has been growing for over 30 years. A key figure in this field is acclaimed German philosopher Gernot Böhme whose influential conception of what atmospheres are and how they function has been only partially available to the English-speaking public. This translation of key essays along with an original introduction charts the development of Gernot Böhme's philosophy of atmospheres and how it can be applied in various contexts such as scenography, commodity aesthetics, (...) advertising, architecture, design, and art. The phenomenological analysis of atmospheres has proved very fruitful and its most important, and successful, application has been within aesthetics. The material background of this success may be seen in the ubiquitous aestheticization of our lifeworld, or from another perspective, of the staging of everything, every event and performance. The theory of atmospheres becoming an aesthetic theory thus reveals the theatrical, not to say manipulative, character of politics, commerce, of the event-society. But, taken as a positive theory of certain phenomena, it offers new perspectives on architecture, design, and art. It made the spatial and the experience of space and places a central subject and hence rehabilitated the ephemeral in the arts. Taking its numerous impacts in many fields together, it initiated a new humanism: the individual as a living person and his or her perspective are taken seriously, and this fosters the ongoing democratization of culture, in particular the possibility for everybody to participate in art and its works. (shrink)

Das Buch weist in exemplarischen Fallstudien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart die zentrale Rolle von Bildern für Prozesse der Vergemeinschaftung auf. Gegen Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts setzt in der akademischen Diskussion eine verstärkte Rückwendung zum Konzept der Gemeinschaft ein.

This chapter examines the biography of Hans-Georg Gadamer and explores his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. Gadamer was born on February 11, 1900, and on March 13, 2002 he was honored with numerous prizes, among them the Reuchlin Prize of the City of Pforzheim and the Hegel Prize of the City of Stuttgart. For his understanding of art, the three concepts—play, composition, and contemporaneity or simultaneity—were constitutive. His hermeneutic position attracted and continues to attract widespread attention among scholars, ranging from (...) agreement, to criticism, to reception. Additionally, his interpretation of art as a phenomenon that belongs to epistemology rather than to the world of practice meant that for him it can be a means of cognition and the expression of cognition, i.e. a means of truth. Gadamer's Truth and Method had a powerful effect on the philosophy of art and on literature and theology. (shrink)

This paper defends the case against (sparse) disjunctive properties by means of four Armstrongian arguments. The first of these is a logical atomist argument from truthmaking, which is, broadly speaking, ‘Armstrongian’ (Armstrong 1997). This argument is strong – although it stands or falls with the relevant notion of truthmaking, as it were. However, three arguments, which are prima facie independent of truthmaking, can be found explicitly early in Armstrong’s middle period. Two of these early arguments face a serious objection put (...) forward forcefully by Louise Antony (2003) and Alan Penczek (1997), respectively. I consider these objections and argue that they fail. Thus, even if the argument from truthmaking is indecisive, disjunctive properties should be rejected. (shrink)

The processing, representation, and perception of bodily signals (interoception) plays an important role for human behavior. Theories of embodied cognition hold that higher cognitive processes operate on perceptual symbols and that concept use involves reactivations of the sensory-motor states that occur during experience with the world. Similarly, activation of interoceptive representations and meta-representations of bodily signals supporting interoceptive awareness are profoundly associated with emotional experience and cognitive functions. This article gives an overview over present findings and models on interoception and (...) mechanisms of embodiment and highlights its relevance for disorders that are suggested to represent a translation deficit of bodily states into subjective feelings and self-awareness. (shrink)

Constitutive mechanistic explanations are said to refer to mechanisms that constitute the phenomenon-to-be-explained. The most prominent approach of how to understand this constitution relation is Carl Craver’s mutual manipulability approach to constitutive relevance. Recently, the mutual manipulability approach has come under attack (Leuridan 2012; Baumgartner and Gebharter 2015; Romero 2015; Harinen 2014; Casini and Baumgartner 2016). Roughly, it is argued that this approach is inconsistent because it is spelled out in terms of interventionism (which is an approach to causation), whereas (...) constitutive relevance is said to be a non-causal relation. In this paper, I will discuss a strategy of how to resolve this inconsistency, so-called fat-handedness approaches (Baumgartner and Gebharter 2015; Casini and Baumgartner 2016; Romero 2015). I will argue that these approaches are problematic. I will present a novel suggestion of how to consistently define constitutive relevance in terms of interventionism. My approach is based on a causal interpretation of mutual manipulability, where manipulability is interpreted as a causal relation between the mechanism’s components and temporal parts of the phenomenon. (shrink)

his monograph examines the metaphysical commitments of the new mechanistic philosophy, a way of thinking that has returned to center stage. It challenges a variant of reductionism with regard to higher-level phenomena, which has crystallized as a default position among these so-called New Mechanists. Furthermore, it opposes those philosophers who reject the possibility of interlevel causation. Contemporary philosophers believe that the explanation of scientific phenomena requires the discovery of relevant mechanisms. As a result, new mechanists are, in the main, concerned (...) solely with epistemological questions. But, the author argues, their most central claims rely on metaphysical assumptions. Thus, they must also take into account metaphysics, a system of thought concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world around it. This branch of philosophy does indeed matter to the empirical sciences. The chapters investigate the nature of mechanisms, their components, and the ways in which they can bring about different phenomena. In addition, the author develops a novel account of causation in terms of activities. The analysis provides the basis for many further research projects on mechanisms and their relations to, for example, the mind-body problem, realization, multiple realization, natural kinds, causation, laws of nature, counterfactuals, and scientific levels. (shrink)

What I call Mellor’s Question is the problem of whether determinables are properties of their determinates or properties of the particulars that possess these determinates. One can distinguish two basic competing theories of determinables that address the issue, implicitly if not explicitly. On the second-order theory, determinables are second-order properties of determinate properties; on the second-level theory, determinables are first-order properties of the particulars with these determinate properties. Higher-order properties are prima facie ontologically uneconomical, and in line with my general (...) view that ontological parsimony is vital to metaphysics, I consider it highly important which of the two theories is true. Firstly, I argue that the second-level theory offers the best explanation of the explananda (though the race is close), including the important but neglected phenomenon of ‘intermediate determinables’. Secondly, by paying attention to intermediate determinables and instantiation of higher-order properties, I argue that the second-level theory also is more ontologically economical. For these two reasons, this theory is preferable. (shrink)

Written by a select international group of leading privacy scholars, Social Dimensions of Privacy endorses and develops an innovative approach to privacy. By debating topical privacy cases in their specific research areas, the contributors explore the new privacy-sensitive areas: legal scholars and political theorists discuss the European and American approaches to privacy regulation; sociologists explore new forms of surveillance and privacy on social network sites; and philosophers revisit feminist critiques of privacy, discuss markets in personal data, issues of privacy in (...) health care and democratic politics. The broad interdisciplinary character of the volume will be of interest to readers from a variety of scientific disciplines who are concerned with privacy and data protection issues. (shrink)

Scheint die Sache aussichtslos, wird das "Prinzip Hoffnung" beschworen. Dessen Urheber, Ernst Bloch, war allerdings nicht ins Scheitern, sondern ins "Gelingen verliebt" Für die Philosophie der "konkreten Utopie", die sich strikt vom utopischen Denken im Sinne eines "wishful thinking" abgrenzt, ist die gesellschaftliche Praxis Orientierungspunkt. Die Trias "Solidarität, Allianztechnik, Heimat" markiert ein Ultimum, das latent im Weltprozess vorscheint, aber der Realisierung durch das menschliche Subjekt immer noch bedarf. Ein entsprechendes philosophisches Begriffsinstrumentarium, dem der Gedanke vom "Prius der Theorie, Primat der (...) Praxis" zugrunde liegt, hat Bloch systematisch in seiner Kategorienlehre entwickelt. Gegenstand ist das universelle menschliche Sein als "Noch-Nicht-Sein". Akzentuiert wird die auf dem Prozesscharakter der Materie beruhende Möglichkeit der Veränderung. Dabei umfasst das Denken nicht nur Gesellschaft, Kunst und Religion, sondern auch die Natur - ein Gebiet, das zunehmend zu philosophischer Insichtnahme auffordert. Die wichtigsten Leitbegriffe der Bloch'schen Philosophie werden im Wörterbuch erläutert. (shrink)

In this paper, I relate key features of Adolf Reinach’s abundant ontology of propositional states of affairs of his to Armstrong’s—or an Armstrongian—state of affairs ontology, with special regard to finding out how sparse or abundant the latter is with respect to negative states of affairs. After introducing the issue, I clarify the notion of a propositional state of affairs, paying special attention to the notion of abstract versus concrete. I show how Reinach’s states of affairs are propositional, and how (...) they compare with Chisholm’s well-known propositional states of affairs. In the next section, I outline Reinach’s five roles for states of affairs and show that only one of them is relevant to Armstrongian state of affairs ontology. In the following section, I utilise this role to create a ranking of state of affairs ontologies according to how abundant they are. It is, however, unclear which level Armstrongian state of affairs ontology is at, since it is unclear if, like Reinach’s ontology, it includes negative states of affairs. In the final section, I argue that the answer is a qualified ‘yes’, i.e. it does not occupy the sparsest level. (shrink)

Long description: Welche Betrachtungsmöglichkeiten ergeben sich aus den vielfältigen Verknüpfungen von Musik, Medien und Kunst? Der Band widmet sich dieser Frage aus wissenschaftlicher ebenso wie aus künstlerischer Perspektive. Zentrale Angelpunkte dabei sind Kommunikation, Technologie und Wahrnehmung als Gegenstände und/oder methodische Konzepte in Wissenschaft und Kunst. Die Beiträge machen unterschiedliche Blickwinkel auf gemeinsame Themenfelder sichtbar, um darin mögliche Schnittmengen, Übergänge und Bruchlinien zu erschließen.

Immer mehr Menschen verbringen ihren Lebensabend in Einrichtungen der Altenpflege. Zusätzlich zur Sorge um physische, psychische und soziale Belange gilt es, deren spirituelle Bedürfnisse zu berücksichtigen. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, die spirituellen Bedürfnisse von alten Menschen in Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen zu erfassen. Gleichzeitig wurde untersucht, welche spirituellen Bedürfnisse Pflegende bei den ihnen anvertrauten Bewohner/-innen wahrnehmen. Dabei wurden Übereinstimmungen bzw. Unterschiede identifiziert. Daten aus 28 Einzelinterviews mit Bewohnerinnen und Bewohnern und 9 Fokusgruppeninterviews mit Mitarbeitenden wurden mittels Qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet und unter die (...) Kernkategorien „Sinn“, „Verbundenheit“, „Transzendenz“ kategorisiert. Die Kategorien beider Befragtengruppen wurden einem Vergleich unterzogen. Trotz zahlreicher Übereinstimmungen in den Aussagen beider Gruppen bleiben Defizite in der Wahrnehmung von Pflegenden. Aus den Ergebnissen der Arbeit werden Schlussfolgerungen für die Einbeziehung der spirituellen Dimension der alten Menschen in die pflegerische Arbeit im Seniorenheim gezogen und Empfehlungen ausgesprochen. (shrink)

Quel est le substrat de la conscience? Qu'est-ce qui la fait? Poser la question signifie ne pas se satisfaire de la position naturaliste qui affirme que c'est le cerveau qui produit la conscience. En fait, toute explication qui situe son substrat dans le monde objectif est confrontée à une forme de circularité à la fois ontologique (la conscience est dans le monde qui est dans la conscience) et épistémique (la conscience explique le monde qui explique la conscience). La phénoménologie transcendantale (...) n'échappe pas à cette circularité. Et le caractère circulaire d'une vision globale de la réalité s'avère rédhibitoire dès lors qu'on est prêt à considérer subjectivité et objectivité sur le même niveau de dignité ontologique. Reste alors l'option d'aborder, sans préjugés, la question du substrat comme problème philosophique. Il s'agit de concevoir le substrat de la conscience comme un domaine d'être à part, situé en amont de toute objectivation. Un tel substrat est transcendantal, puisqu'il est condition de possibilité de toute connaissance. (shrink)

This chapter considers the ‘hosting question’ of how immanent universals, in contrast to transcendent universals, are ‘brought down to earth’ from ‘Plato’s heaven’. It explores the thesis that the hosting amounts to their being constituents of the states of affairs that result from their instantiations. These states of affairs are concrete complexes consisting of particulars and universals, and perhaps something that links them together. The traditional view that immanent universals are concrete is briefly defended against a recent prominent objection. On (...) relationalism, states of affairs are unified by a relation of some sort; on non-relationalism they are unified non-relationally. Roughly, these two conceptions of states of affairs are equivalent to Armstrong’s relational and non-relational versions of immanent realism, respectively. Armstrong mostly criticises the former and defends the latter. It is argued, however, that relationalism, at least potentially, answers the hosting question, whereas non-relationalism realism does not. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with what I call the ‘problem of unity’ . This is the puzzle of how Armstrong‐like states of affairs are unified. The general approach is ‘relational internalism’: the unifier of such a state of affairs is a relation of some sort in it. A view commonly associated with relational internalism is that if such a relation satisfies a certain ‘naive’ expectation to a relation – that it is related to its relata – then Bradley's regress results. (...) As I argue, for one very natural species of relational internalism, this is indeed the case. Influential writers on the topic have therefore maintained that this relation is not related to its relata. But, as we shall see, while this ‘classic’ relational internalism obviously avoids Bradley's regress, intuitively, it fails completely to solve the problem of unity. I argue, however, that given the rejection of a natural, but unfounded, assumption of conventional relational internalism, a unique relation can unify states of affairs without leading to Bradley's regress. I consequently propose a novel version of relational internalism on which states of affairs are unified by such an entity. (shrink)

Recent findings in different areas of psychology and cognitive science have brought the unconscious mind back to center stage. However, the unconscious mind worry remains: What renders unconscious phenomena mental? I suggest a new strategy for answering this question, which rests on the idea that categorizing unconscious phenomena as “mental” should be scientifically useful relative to the explanatory research goals. I argue that this is the case if by categorizing an unconscious phenomenon as “mental” one picks out explanatorily relevant similarities (...) to a corresponding paradigmatically mental conscious phenomenon. Explanatory relevance is spelled out in terms of mechanistic norms. (shrink)

A 'social trap' is a situation where individuals, groups or organisations are unable to cooperate owing to mutual distrust and lack of social capital, even where cooperation would benefit all. Examples include civil strife, pervasive corruption, ethnic discrimination, depletion of natural resources and misuse of social insurance systems. Much has been written attempting to explain the problem, but rather less material is available on how to escape it. In this book, Bo Rothstein explores how social capital and social trust are (...) generated and what governments can do about it. He argues that it is the existence of universal and impartial political institutions together with public policies which enhance social and economic equality that creates social capital. By introducing the theory of collective memory into the discussion, Rothstein makes an empirical and theoretical claim for how universal institutions can be established. (shrink)

This new book by Beate Rossler is a work of real quality and originality on an extremely topical issue: the issue of privacy and the relations between the private and the public. Rossler investigates the reasons why we value privacy and why we ought to value it. In the context of modern, liberal societies, Rossler develops a theory of the private which links privacy and autonomy in a constitutive way: privacy is a necessary condition to lead an autonomous life. (...) The book develops a theory of freedom and autonomy which sees the ability to pose the "practical question" of how one wants to live, of what a person strives to be, at the centre of the modern idea of autonomy. The question of privacy is emerging as an increasingly important topic in social and political theory and is central to many current debates in law, the media and politics. The Value of Privacy will be widely recognised to be a classic contribution to the subject. (shrink)

It is a common view that arguments from analogy can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. However, while this reflects an important insight, I propose instead a relatively simple method for their evaluation based on just (i) their general form and (ii) four core questions. One clear advantage of this proposal is that it does not depend on any substantial (and controversial) view of similarity, unlike influential current alternative methods, such as Walton’s. Following some initial clarification of the notion (...) of analogy and similarity, I demonstrate the strength of this method by analysing and evaluating three prominent arguments from analogy. (shrink)

The philosophy and aesthetics of music have been shaped by the philosophy of life since the end of the 18th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, the relationship between the philosophy of music and the philosophy of life changed fundamentally – due to the development and popularization of various related cultural theories. From then on, the philosophy of life, the philosophy of music and cultural criticism formed a complex triangle. Many European and North American intellectuals availed themselves (...) of established concepts of the philosophy of life such as ‘non-rationality’, ‘organicity’ and ‘vitality’ as contrasting foils for their own cultural-pessimistic theories, which revolved around the ‘critique of technology’, ‘pessimism of progress’, ‘posthistoire’, ‘dehumanisation’, ‘the uncontrollable machine’ and the ‘hypertrophy of administration’. At the same time, cultural criticism transformed the philosophy of music having been shaped by the philosophy life. This chapter reconstructs the triangle by means of Theodor W. Adorno’s music philosophy, especially his theoremes on avant-garde music. It demonstrates how, in the middle of the 20th century, cultural-pessimistic and life-philosophical ideas mutually explained and questioned each other in light of the contemporary compositional techniques and the philosophical discourse on them. (shrink)

Responding to bivalent stimuli slows subsequent performance. In prospective memory research, prospective memory targets can be considered as bivalent stimuli because they typically involve features relevant for both the prospective memory task and the ongoing task. The purpose of this study was to investigate how responding to a prospective memory target slows subsequent performance. In two experiments, we embedded the prospective memory task in a task-switching paradigm and we manipulated the degree of task-set overlap between the prospective memory task and (...) the ongoing task. The results showed consistent after-effects of responding to prospective memory targets. The specific trajectory of the slowing depended on the amount of task-set overlap. These results demonstrate that responding to prospective memory targets results in after-effects, a so far neglected cost on ongoing task performance. (shrink)

Many authors have turned their attention to the notion of constitution to determine whether the hypothesis of extended cognition (EC) is true. One common strategy is to make sense of constitution in terms of the new mechanists’ mutual manipulability account (MM). In this paper I will show that MM is insufficient. The Challenge of Trivial Extendedness arises due to the fact that mechanisms for cognitive behaviors are extended in a way that should not count as verifying EC. This challenge can (...) be met by adding a necessary condition: cognitive constituents satisfy MM and they are what I call behavior unspecific. (shrink)

Ein Leben lang leidet der Mensch an der nie zu überwindenden Endlichkeit seiner Vernunft, die ihn heftig mit Fragen bedrängt, zu deren Beantwortung sie selbst gar nicht in der Lage ist. Im Blick auf den Versuch, dieses Paradoxon aufzulösen, dass nämlich einerseits das metaphysische Bedürfnis der Vernunft zwar von dieser nicht aus eigener Kraft zufriedengestellt werden kann, andererseits aber diese Einsicht keineswegs ihr bohrendes Fragen zum Schweigen bringt, wird die Verführung nachvollziehbar, das Kind mit dem Bade auszuschütten und der Vernunft (...) rundweg und grundsätzlich eine tragfähige lebens- und handlungsleitende Kraft abzusprechen. Grosse Teile der Postmoderne sind von diesem tiefen Misstrauen, das den Abschied von aller Vernunft zu rechtfertigen scheint, geprägt. Die Alternative zu ihrer Verabschiedung im Aufweis der Möglichkeit - ja Notwendigkeit - von Metaphysik auch und gerade angesichts einer stets in ihrer Endlichkeit gefangenen Vernunft wird in diesem Buch gezeichnet."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Das Buch spannt einen Bogen von der Kernfrage der Metaphysik hin zur Ausgangsfrage der Anthropologie: Was ist der Mensch? Ein missratenes Geschöpf, dem nur die blanke Verzweiflung bleibt, weil es für die Welt besser wäre, wenn es ihn gar nicht gäbe? Oder geht, um es mit den Worten von Rémi Brague zu sagen, dem Indikativ des Seins ein Imperativ zum Sein voran, so dass es gute Gründe für das Dasein des Menschen gibt – Gründe, die jenseits aller Selbstrechtfertigung liegen? Wenn (...) es solche Gründe gibt, wird man über sie kaum reden können, ohne zugleich nach dem zu fragen, was sie bedingungslos macht. Aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln heraus wird dieser Frage nach dem Unbedingten – Gott – in ihrer Beziehung zum Sein des Menschen nachgegangen. (shrink)

William Vallicella (2020) puts forward three arguments against self-relating internalism, my theory of the unity of states of affairs. His first objection is that there can be no constituent of a state of affairs with the required unifying power given the need for ‘ontological analysis’, or at least that such an entity is mysterious. His second objection is that self-relating internalism violates the principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals. His final objection is that my explanation of the unity of states (...) of affairs is viciously circular. In this note, I argue that each of challenges can be met. (shrink)

This new book by Beate Rossler is a work of real quality and originality on an extremely topical issue: the issue of privacy and the relations between the private and the public. Rossler investigates the reasons why we value privacy and why we ought to value it. In the context of modern, liberal societies, Rossler develops a theory of the private which links privacy and autonomy in a constitutive way: privacy is a necessary condition to lead an autonomous life. (...) The book develops a theory of freedom and autonomy which sees the ability to pose the "practical question" of how one wants to live, of what a person strives to be, at the centre of the modern idea of autonomy. The question of privacy is emerging as an increasingly important topic in social and political theory and is central to many current debates in law, the media and politics. The Value of Privacy will be widely recognised to be a classic contribution to the subject. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett is arguably one of the most influential yet radical philosophers in America today. In this volume, Dennett is confronted by colleagues and critics, from philosophy, biology and psychology. His reply constitutes an extensive essay which clarifies, and develops further, central themes in his philosophy. The debate ranges over Dennett's whole corpus, but special attention is given to his major work on consciousness, Consciousness Explained. The volume includes a critical assessement of Dennett's views on behaviouralism and the subjectivity of (...) consciousness, the nature of perception and mental representation, intentional laws and computational psychology, the rationality of thought, culture as a virus, the architecture of mind, and the role of artifacts in thinking. Also included is an introduction to Dennett's philosophy and a full bibliography of his publications. (shrink)

Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde is one of Europe's foremost legal scholars and political thinkers. As a scholar of constitutional law and a judge on Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, Böckenförde has been a major contributor to contemporary debates in legal and political theory, to the conceptual framework of the modern state and its presuppositions, and to contested political issues such as the rights of the enemies of the state, the constitutional status of the state of emergency, citizenship rights, and challenges of European integration. (...) His writings have shaped not only academic but also wider public debates from the 1950s to the present, to an extent that few European scholars can match. As a federal constitutional judge and thus holder of one the most important and most trusted public offices, Böckenförde has influenced the way in which academics and citizens think about law and politics. During his tenure as a member of the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court, several path-breaking decisions for the Federal Republic of Germany were handed down, including decisions pertaining to the deployment of missiles, the law on political parties, the regulation of abortion, and the process of European integration. In the first representative edition in English of Böckenförde's writings, this volume brings together his essays on constitutional and political theory. The volume is organized in four sections, focusing respectively on the political theory of the state; constitutional theory; constitutional norms and fundamental rights; and the relation between state, citizenship, and political autonomy. Each of these four cornerstones of Böckenförde's legal and political thinking features introductions to the articles as well as a running editorial commentary to the work. A second volume will follow this collection, focusing on the relation between religion, law, and democracy. (shrink)

William Vallicella (2020) puts forward three arguments against self-relating internalism, my theory of the unity of states of affairs. His first objection is that there can be no constituent of a state of affairs with the required unifying power given the need for ‘ontological analysis’, or at least that such an entity is mysterious. His second objection is that self-relating internalism violates the principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals. His final objection is that my explanation of the unity of states (...) of affairs is viciously circular. In this note, I argue that each of challenges can be met. (shrink)

According to the new mechanistic approach, an acting entity is at a lower mechanistic level than another acting entity if and only if the former is a component in the mechanism for the latter. Craver and Bechtel :547–563, 2007. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9028-8) argue that a consequence of this view is that there cannot be causal interactions between acting entities at different mechanistic levels. Their main reason seems to be what I will call the Metaphysical Argument: things at different levels of a mechanism (...) are related as part and whole; wholes and their parts cannot be related as cause and effect; hence, interlevel causation in mechanisms is impossible. I will analyze this argument in more detail and show under which conditions it is valid. This analysis will reveal that interlevel causation in mechanisms is indeed possible, if we take seriously the idea that the relata of the mechanistic level relation are acting entities and accept a slightly modified notion of a mechanistic level that is highly plausible in the light of the first clarification. (shrink)