Der vorliegende Sammelband soll dazu anregen, sich auf den Spuren der wichtigsten politischen Theoretiker des 19. Jahrhunderts mit den Grundlagen unseres politischen Denkens zu beschäftigen und dabei hinter die Kulissen des aktuellen politischen Geschehens unserer Zeit zu schauen. Denn die politischen Diskussionen der Gegenwart können ohne Kenntnis ihrer Vorgeschichte, ohne Analyse und Rezeption der politischen Theorien der Vergangenheit nicht beurteilt werden. Die Vermittlung dieser Grundlagen ist Aufgabe der politischen Ideengeschichte.

The years covered by this volume of the Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell were among the most productive, philosophically speaking, of Russell's entire career. In addition to the papers reprinted here, he bought Principia Mathematica to its finished form and wrote The Problems of Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge and Knowledge of the External World . In October 1910 he began teaching at Cambridge, having accepted an appointment as lecturer in logic and the principles of mathematics at Trinity College for a (...) term of five years. A year later Ludwig Wittgenstein began to attend his lectures. Within a few months he was influencing Russell's philosophical thinking as much as, or more than, Russell was influencing his. (shrink)

Die Publikation untersucht den Umgang mit der kantischen Postulatenlehre in den Diskussionen um 1900 und ordnet diesen ein in die politischen Debatten der Zeit. Die Arbeit weist in diesem Kontext nach, dass diese bis heute zitierten Deutungen der kantischen Morallehre ein Effekt wirkmächtiger spiritistischer und materialistischer Diskurse sind.

This volume describes features of biological autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype, and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated (...) during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach. (shrink)

The two main challenges of the theory of conceptual content presented by Robert Brandom in Making It Explicit are to account for a referential dimension of conceptual content and to account for the objectivity of conceptual norms. Brandom tries to meet both these challenges in chapter 8 of his book. I argue that the accounts presented there can only be understood if seen against the background of Brandom's theory of communication developed in chapter 7. This theory is motivated by the (...) well-known problem that semantic holism threatens the possibility of communication because it has the consequence that words mean different things in different mouths. Brandom offers a solution to this problem in terms of what he calls recurrence commitments. I show that chapter 8 of Making It Explicit should be understood as arguing that a practice that includes acknowledging interpersonal recurrence commitments institutes both conceptual contents with a referential dimension and objective conceptual norms. I close by raising the objection that Brandom's argument can only show that conceptual norms are communally shared and not that they are objective. I propose an emendation of this argument, having recourse to a practice Brandom refers to as rational rectification in his new book Between Saying and Doing. (shrink)

Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, and people’s ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons, policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical (...) issues pertain to being proactive in addressing such issues at an early stage of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The authors outline how the description of emerging ICTs can be used for an ethical analysis. (shrink)

There has been much debate whether computers can be responsible. This question is usually discussed in terms of personhood and personal characteristics, which a computer may or may not possess. If a computer fulfils the conditions required for agency or personhood, then it can be responsible; otherwise not. This paper suggests a different approach. An analysis of the concept of responsibility shows that it is a social construct of ascription which is only viable in certain social contexts and which serves (...) particular social aims. If this is the main aspect of responsibility then the question whether computers can be responsible no longer hinges on the difficult problem of agency but on the possibly simpler question whether responsibility ascriptions to computers can fulfil social goals. The suggested solution to the question whether computers can be subjects of responsibility is the introduction of a new concept, called “quasi-responsibility” which will emphasise the social aim of responsibility ascription and which can be applied to computers. (shrink)

Trustful interaction serves the interests of those involved. Thus, one could reason that trust itself may be analyzed as part of rational, goaloriented action. In contrast, common sense tells us that trust is an emotion and is, therefore, independent of rational deliberation to some extent. I will argue that we are right in trusting our common sense. My argument is conceptual in nature, referring to the common distinction between trust and pure reliance. An emotional attitude may be understood as some (...) general pattern in the way the world or some part of the world is perceived by an individual. Trust may be characterized by such a pattern. I shall focus on two central features of a trusting attitude. First, trust involves a participant attitude (Strawson) toward the person being trusted. Second, a situation of trust is perceived by a trusting person as one in which shared values or norms motivate both his own actions as well as those of the person being trusted. As an emotional attitude, trust is, to some extent, independent of objective information. It determines what a trusting person will believe and how various outcomes are evaluated. Hence, trust is quite different from rational belief and the problem with trust is not adequately met in minimizing risk by supplying extensive information or some mechanism of sanctioning. Trust is an attitude that enables us to cope with risk in a certain way. If we want to promote trustful interaction, we must form our institutions in ways that allow individuals to experience their interest and values as shared and, thus, to develop a trusting attitude. (shrink)

Long-term studies of whales, dolphins, and porpoises (the cetaceans) in nature abruptly began about 50 yr ago, preceded by several decades of terrestrial animal studies, often of charismatic large mammals. Fifty years ago, intensive whaling was still occurring, and arguments against whaling largely centered around impending extinctions due to over-hunting, not the idea that cetaceans should not be killed due to natural or inherent goodness. In the 1970s, several USA and other government agencies promulgated rules to help control pollution and (...) other insults to nature, often effective in the short term but not in stopping an overall decline in the health of nature. While there appeared a general societal awakening towards greater appreciation of nature and intrinsic animal rights, researchers largely stayed focused on their research, with little attention to using knowledge to increase ecosystem and animal health. Attitudes of direct scientific involvement in calling for environmental action have changed, as it is becoming increasingly (but not universally) appreciated that researchers who know the problems are well-suited to alert governments, industry, and society to them, and loudly call for action. I have no good answers for how to accomplish large-scale rapid reversals of environmental declines. One laudable action is to be an active vocal part of appropriate web-based conservation advocacy groups. Involving the young of all genders and races for a groundswell of support is likely most effective in generating a new world view of so much respect for nature that we radically alter our present ways of subjugating and diminishing it in the name of supposed human progress. Above all, we scientists must no longer dither with opinions on environmental problems and urgent needs for action; we must proclaim them intelligently, forcefully, and as broadly as possible. (shrink)

The contributors to _Constructing the Pluriverse_ critique the hegemony of the postcolonial Western tradition and its claims to universality by offering a set of “pluriversal” approaches to understanding the coexisting epistemologies and practices of the different worlds and problems we inhabit and encounter. Moving beyond critiques of colonialism, the contributors rethink the relationship between knowledge and power, offering new perspectives on development, democracy, and ideology while providing diverse methodologies for non-Western thought and practice that range from feminist approaches to scientific (...) research to ways of knowing expressed through West African oral traditions. In combination, these wide-ranging approaches and understandings form a new analytical toolbox for those seeking creative solutions for dismantling Westernization throughout the world. Contributors Zaid Ahmad, Manuela Boatcă, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Arturo Escobar, Sandra Harding, Ehsan Kashfi, Venu Mehta, Walter D. Mignolo, Ulrich Oslender, Isiaka Ouattara, Manu Samnotra, Aram Ziai. (shrink)

Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, their ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical issues (...) would be to be proactive and address such issues at early stages of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The paper goes on to outline some of the preliminary findings of a European research project that has applied this method. (shrink)

The essay presents a description of two metaphors, that of the threshold and that of the barrier, each characterizing a different, but complementary, fundamental attitude toward the world. The metaphor of the threshold addresses a human world of conversation centered on the question: "Who are you?" The metaphor of the barrier describes work-oriented human situations that reflect a never-ending human struggle with a resistant nature. Natural scientific approaches guided by the metaphor of the barrier are allied to technology and to (...) the profane workaday world. Human science understood as an inquiry guided by the metaphor of the threshold makes possible an understanding of festive reality and of human encounter. (shrink)

Das Buch versammelt grundlegende Studien zu Edith Stein und ihren Lektüren von Homer, mittelalterlicher Literatur, Lessing, Schleiermacher, Hauptmann und dem Expressionismus. Es geht den Lektüreeinflüssen in Tradition, Spiritualität und Begegnungen nach und untersucht dazu aktuelle Fragen um Glaube, Wissen und eine neue Phänomenologie. Ein literarisch intensiver und aus der rekonstruierten Bibliothek quellenerschlossener Bildungsgang wirkte auf die Frömmigkeitsentwicklung der späteren Karmelitin und befruchtete massgeblich ihre Denkwelt und mystisch eigene Position.

In this introduction we discuss the motivation behind the workshop “Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics” of which this special issue constitutes the proceedings. We elaborate on historical and empirical aspects of the desired new epistemology, connect it to the public image of mathematics, and give a summary and an introduction to the contributions to this issue.

Taking account of Kant's unpublished mss., the author presents a close textual interpretation of Kant's logic of concepts.

The ethics of artificial intelligence is a widely discussed topic. There are numerous initiatives that aim to develop the principles and guidance to ensure that the development, deployment and use of AI are ethically acceptable. What is generally unclear is how organisations that make use of AI understand and address these ethical issues in practice. While there is an abundance of conceptual work on AI ethics, empirical insights are rare and often anecdotal. This paper fills the gap in our current (...) understanding of how organisations deal with AI ethics by presenting empirical findings collected using a set of ten case studies and providing an account of the cross-case analysis. The paper reviews the discussion of ethical issues of AI as well as mitigation strategies that have been proposed in the literature. Using this background, the cross-case analysis categorises the organisational responses that were observed in practice. The discussion shows that organisations are highly aware of the AI ethics debate and keen to engage with ethical issues proactively. However, they make use of only a relatively small subsection of the mitigation strategies proposed in the literature. These insights are of importance to organisations deploying or using AI, to the academic AI ethics debate, but maybe most valuable to policymakers involved in the current debate about suitable policy developments to address the ethical issues raised by AI. (shrink)

The current issue of the Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung presents a discussion of social media's future. Geert Lovink and Stefan Heidenreich debate the sense and non-sense of network-critique in light of the internet's modified usage and perception, which is commonly labeled Web 2.0. Lovink is critical about the increasing tendency towards monopolization in Web 2.0. Users, he contends, become thrilled by walled gardens , which are presented to them by big companies. Independent of the question whether the need (...) for practical information and the prevalence of economical interests is understandable or not, Lovink is most of all concerned with artistic alternatives and an activist usage of the nets. According to him, it is time for developers, programmers, freaks and nerds of all nations to become conscious of and active against the dark sides of economical and political control over the internet. Heidenreich, on the other hand, is skeptical. In contrast to the project of network-critique, he pursues a rigorously medial approach, which presents itself as unimpressed by ethical or engaged observations of social media. In his view, the heroization of hackers and nerds is informed by Science Fiction and nostalgia, both of which miss Reality 2.0. Heidenreich asserts that the internet's new generation, which has grown up with the new media, is not particularly interested in network-critique, but uses the given internetservices in various ways. German In der aktuellen Ausgabe der Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung wird über die Zukunft der Social Media gestritten. Geert Lovink und Stefan Heidenreich debattieren über den Sinn und Unsinn von Netzkritik angesichts einer veränderten Nutzung und Wahrnehmung des Internets, die sich hinter dem Schlagwort Web 2.0 verbirgt. Lovink sieht die zunehmende Tendenz zur Monopolisierung im Web 2.0 kritisch. Die Nutzer lassen sich von walled gardens begeistern, die Großunternehmen ihnen vorsetzen. Netzkritik solle sich daher nicht in der Frage erschöpfen, wie man Facebook und Twitter am besten nutzen kann, sondern sich mit echten Alternativen im Netz auseinandersetzen. Unabhängig davon, wie nachvollziehbar der Bedarf an praktischen Informationen und die Dominanz ökonomischer Interessen ist, geht es Lovink vor allem um künstlerische Alternativen und eine aktivistische Nutzung der Netze. Es sei an der Zeit, dass Entwickler, Programmierer, Freaks und Nerds aller Nationen sich die dunklen Seiten der ökonomisch-staatlichen Kontrolle des Internets bewusst machen und dagegen aktiv werden. Heidenreich ist dagegen skeptisch. Im Gegensatz zum Projekt der Netzkritik verfolgt er einen strikt medialen Ansatz, der sich gegenüber einer ethischen oder engagierten Beobachtung sozialer Medien kühl gibt. Die Heroisierung von Hackern und Nerds ist aus seiner Sicht von Science Fiction und Nostalgie geprägt, die an der Realität 2.0 vorbeigeht. Die neue Internetgeneration, die mit dem Medium aufgewachsen ist, habe gar kein ausgeprägtes Interesse an Netzkritik, sondern nutze die gegebenen Netzwerkfunktionen auf unterschiedliche Weise. (shrink)

The current issue of the presents a discussion of social media's future. and debate the sense and non-sense of network-critique in light of the internet's modified usage and perception, which is commonly labeled Web 2.0. Lovink is critical about the increasing tendency towards monopolization in Web 2.0. Users, he contends, become thrilled by, which are presented to them by big companies. Independent of the question whether the need for practical information and the prevalence of economical interests is understandable or not, (...) Lovink is most of all concerned with artistic alternatives and an activist usage of the nets. According to him, it is time for developers, programmers, freaks and nerds of all nations to become conscious of and active against the dark sides of economical and political control over the internet. Heidenreich, on the other hand, is skeptical. In contrast to the project of network-critique, he pursues a rigorously medial approach, which presents itself as unimpressed by ethical or engaged observations of social media. In his view, the heroization of hackers and nerds is informed by Science Fiction and nostalgia, both of which miss Reality 2.0. Heidenreich asserts that the internet's new generation, which has grown up with the new media, is not particularly interested in network-critique, but uses the given internetservices in various ways. (shrink)

This article discusses the 2019 Event Horizon Telescope image of a black hole as an ontological question for photography, contrasting its spatially distributed operations as a planetary apparatus against its temporal inscriptions of successive histories of scientific realisms following Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. The 'becoming photographic' of this image, this text argues, hinges on the distance it traverses from its scientific milieu to its vernacular reception, making visible the cultural calibrations that produce a consensually legible image.

In this paper, I approach the power of digital platforms by using the republican concept of domination. More specifically, I argue that the traditional, agent-relative interpretation of domination, in the case of digital domination, is best supplemented by a more radical version, on which republicans ought to give priority to structural elements. I show how radical republicanism draws attention to (1) the economic rationales and the socio-technical infrastructures that underlie and support digital platforms and to (2) the forms of influence (...) that are directed at cognitive dimensions, such as habituation and routinisation, which are particularly relevant for the power of digital platforms. These insights also imply that republicans have reason to favour a more structural response to digital platforms over more direct and individualised forms of control that fit with a ‘standard’ republican approach, such as securing exit options and requiring user consent. (shrink)

In Moral Case Deliberation, healthcare professionals discuss ethically difficult patient situations in their daily practice. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the content of MCD and there is a need to shed light on this ethical reflection in the midst of clinical practice. Thus, the aim of the study was to describe the content of healthcare professionals’ moral reasoning during MCD. The design was qualitative and descriptive, and data consisted of 22 audio-recorded inter-professional MCDs, analysed with content analysis. The (...) moral reasoning centred on how to strike the balance between personal convictions about what constitutes good care, and the perceived dissonant care preferences held by the patient. The healthcare professionals deliberated about good care in relation to demands considered to be unrealistic, justifications for influencing the patient, the incapacitated patient’s nebulous interests, and coping with the conflict between using coercion to achieve good while protecting human dignity. Furthermore, as a basis for the reasoning, the healthcare professionals reflected on how to establish a responsible relationship with the vulnerable person. This comprised acknowledging the patient as a susceptible human being, protecting dignity and integrity, defining their own moral responsibility, and having patience to give the patient and family time to come to terms with illness and declining health. The profound struggle to respect the patient’s autonomy in clinical practice can be understood through the concept of relational autonomy, to try to secure both patients’ influence and at the same time take responsibility for their needs as vulnerable humans. (shrink)

The essay critically engages Woltertorff’s account of justice by challenging the political status of its archaeological defence of rights language, its prioritizing of ‘primary’ and therefore ‘procedural’ justice, its suggestion to think of rights as ‘social bonds’ and the validity of subjecting God and world under one and the same concept of ‘worth’.