ABSTRACTThe Jewish-Catholic philosopher and Carmelite Edith Stein offers a rich notion of love, based on an original phenomenology, which resulted from an active engagement with her teachers Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, and was later enriched and deepened by incorporating religious philosophical and theological ideas. In order to locate Stein’s original thinking, the essay will first introduce the two thinkers by whom she was most clearly influenced, and show how Stein contrasted the ‘nothing’, as it is presented in Husserl’s other (...) pupil Martin Heidegger’s existentialist analysis, with the fullness of being to which the human person aspires, and which is given through love. Her phenomenological thinking, based on the intersubjective approach to its object, ultimately leads Stein to a triple philosophical statement about love: Love is a principle of being, a principle of knowledge and a principle of relationship. The passage through theology verifies what has been said philosophically about its relationship to God, in whom love ultimately finds its completion. The three basic principles of love complement and correct each other, to the point not only of issuing in an analysis of the phenomenon ‘love’ but of also opening up an ethics of love. (shrink)

Es gibt ein Ziel, auf das alle philosophische Einzelforschungen hinarbeiten und zu dessen Erreichung sie zusammenwirken: das Ziel, die Welt zu verstehen. (Edith Stein) Edith Stein ist eine Philosophin, die auf Grund der Weite des Horizonts, in dem sie denkt, in kein Raster passt. Die Beitrage dieses Bandes, die auf eine Tagung anlasslich der Prasentation des Edith Stein-Lexikons an der FernUniversitat in Hagen im November 2017 zuruckgehen, machen das systematische und ideengeschichtliche Profil in Steins Denken transparent. Die versammelten namhaften Stein-Forscherinnen (...) und -forscher aus verschiedenen europaischen Landern zeigen die immer wieder uberraschende Aktualitat von Steins phanomenologischem Ansatz, der bis in Grundfragen der Anthropologie und Bioethik auch heute fruchtbar gemacht werden kann. "Verschiedene Grundbegriffe und -phanomene Edith Steins werden im Rahmen des vorliegenden Tagungsbandes vorgestellt und diskutiert. Dabei entsteht eine Synopse ihres Denkens und zugleich wird dessen Kern immer genauer sichtbar. Es gibt Beitrage zur Phanomenologie, zur Anthropologie, zur Religionsphilosophie und zur Frage, wie wir heute Stein lesen konnen." (Aus dem Vorwort) Mit Beitragen von Beate Beckmann-Zoller, Angela Ales Bello, Christof Betschart, Tonke Dennebaum, Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, Martin Hahnel, Marcus Knaup, Ugo Perone, Harald Seubert, Claudia Mariele Wulf. (shrink)

Conscience – a catholic anthropological vision In the catholic tradition conscience always played an important role as visible in the ‘clausula Petri’ (Ac 5,30-33) or in Paul’s belief in its wisdom (Rm 2,14-16). Conscience can break rules (‘epikeia’), but should not stand up against the church as such. Luther’s historical deed left behind a distrust in conscience in the Catholic Church; it took 400 years to restore Paul’s vision of the conscience as the highest authority – if it is formed (...) and reaches the state of maturity. By his conscience, man is called to be as God created him; he is called by others to develop and to respect their dignity. He is also called by the world to form it according to its higher possibilities which cannot be realized but by man. Conscience is God’s voice in the person where his promises can be heard. Though conscience is free, it is the place where responsibility is formed according to what someone can and should do. This is why the conscience will keep its unavoidable and undeniable role – even in a postmodern context. (shrink)

Christelijke ethiek, in de traditie ook wel moraaltheologie genoemd, is een van de meest omstreden onderwerpen binnen de theologie, maar ook daarbuiten. Toch is het doel van deze ethiek 'een leven in volheid en vrijheid'. Zonder ethische richtlijnen en persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid kan een leven niet slagen. Normen en wetten hebben als doel ruimte te scheppen voor het leven en dat te beschermen. Deze vrijheid invullen, daar zijn mensen zelf verantwoordelijk voor. En verantwoordelijk zijn betekent: een antwoord verschuldigd zijn aan iemand. (...) Ethiek voltrekt zich daarom altijd in relatie: tot het eigen geweten, tot het goede dat te verwezenlijken valt, en in relatie tot andere levende wezens en de natuur. Christelijke ethiek plaatst deze verantwoordelijkheid bovendien in relatie tot God. Mensen zijn vrij maar ook beperkt; zij doen elkaar kwaad en hebben behoefte aan vergeving en verzoening. (shrink)

De christelijke ethiek is een ethiek in wording. Dit tweede deel van het 'Handboek Moraaltheologie' legt aan de hand van de trefwoorden wetten, waarheid en waardigheid uit hoe de morele denkpatronen zich in de tijd hebben ontwikkeld. (Kerk)historische en dogmatische veranderingen hadden een belangrijke invloed op de moraaltheologie. Niet alleen de inhouden, maar ook methoden veranderden door de eeuwen heen: bij de eerste christenen leidde een oorspronkelijke overtuiging tot een overtuigende ethiek. In de Middeleeuwen droeg een systematisering van de theologische (...) waarheid bij aan een systematisering van morele normen en wetten. In de moderne en postmoderne tijd wordt naarmate het waarheidsbegrip in de wijsgerige ethiek verdwijnt, de morele leer aan de orde gesteld. Dit boek brengt fenomenologie, antropologie en theologie met elkaar in gesprek: eidetische fenomenologie en een existentiële antropologie dragen bij aan een mogelijke vertaalslag van geopenbaarde inhouden. (shrink)

We present here the “e-Portfolio” concept, which aims to provide access to documented design case studies of design researchers’ practices. Our e-Portfolio has its origins in Grounded Design. We examine here how the e-Portfolio concept grew out of Grounded Design, the way it instantiates values, and how it contributes to our understanding of the ways in which shifting values in practice can have an impact beyond the individual.

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the (...) charges that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and (...) shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we need (...) to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots. (shrink)

Book Description\n\nIn Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy, Claudia Baracchi demonstrates\nthe indissoluble links between practical and theoretical wisdom in\nAristotle's thinking. Baracchi shows how the theoretical is always\ninformed by a set of practices, and, specifically, how one's encounter\nwith phenomena, the world, or nature in the broadest sense, is always\na matter of ethos. \n\nAbout the Author\n\nClaudia Baracchi is a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Universit...\ndi Milano-Bicocca, Italy and the author of Of Myth, Life, and War\nin Plato's Republic.

Rather than focusing on political and legal debates surrounding attempts to determine if and when genocidal rape has taken place in a particular setting, this essay turns instead to a crucial, yet neglected area of inquiry: the moral significance of genocidal rape, and more specifically, the nature of the harms that constitute the culpable wrongdoing that genocidal rape represents. In contrast to standard philosophical accounts, which tend to employ an individualistic framework, this essay offers a situated understanding of harm that (...) features the importance of interdependence and relationality and that conceptualizes harms as embodied and contextual. The paper ultimately reveals what is distinctive about this particular crime of sexual violence by exploring the logic of genocidal rape: genocidal rape involves the harm of forced self-betrayal unleashed relationally, causing victims as representatives of their group to participate inadvertently in the destruction of that group. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and (...) shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

In Aristotle's Ethics as First Philosophy Claudia Baracchi demonstrates the indissoluble links between practical and theoretical wisdom in Aristotle's thinking. Referring to a broad range of texts from the Aristotelian corpus, Baracchi shows how the theoretical is always informed by a set of practices, and specifically, how one's encounter with phenomena, the world, or nature in the broadest sense, is always a matter of ethos. Such a 'modern' intimation can, thus, be found at the heart of Greek thought. Baracchi's (...) book opens the way for a comprehensively reconfigured approach to classical Greek philosophy. (shrink)

Over the last decades, various predictors have proven relevant for job performance [e.g., general mental ability, broad personality traits, such as the Big Five]. However, prediction of job performance is far from perfect, and further potentially relevant predictors need to be investigated. Narrower personality traits, such as individuals' character strengths, have emerged as meaningfully related to different aspects of job performance. However, it is still unclear whether character strengths can explain additional variance in job performance over and above already known (...) powerful predictors. Consequently, the present study aimed at examining the incremental validity of character strengths as predictors of job performance beyond GMA and/or the Big Five traits and identifying the most important predictors of job performance out of the 24 character strengths, GMA, and the Big Five. Job performance was operationalized with multidimensional measures of both productive and counterproductive work behavior. A sample of 169 employees from different occupations completed web-based self-assessments on character strengths, GMA, and the Big Five. Additionally, the employees' supervisors provided web-based ratings of their job performance. Results showed that character strengths incrementally predicted job performance beyond GMA, the Big Five, or GMA plus the Big Five; explained variance increased up to 54.8, 43.1, and 38.4%, respectively, depending on the dimension of job performance. Exploratory relative weight analyses revealed that for each of the dimensions of job performance, at least one character strength explained a numerically higher amount of variance than GMA and the Big Five, except for individual task proactivity, where GMA exhibited the numerically highest amount of explained variance. The present study shows that character strengths are relevant predictors of job performance in addition to GMA and other conceptualizations of personality. This also highlights the role of socio-emotional skills, such as character strengths, for the understanding of performance outcomes above and beyond cognitive ability. (shrink)

Bringing together historical and cultural perspectives on the senses, and their association with body, emotion, cultural memory and tradition, this book examines the significance of senses in the understanding of the world and the self. Further, in comparing Indian and western theories of senses, it highlights the anthropological, philosophical and religious underpinnings of our engagement with a changing world, globalization, and new media.

Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we need (...) to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots. (shrink)

This special issue responds to the current discourse on cinema and education from a philosophical point of view. Considering the fact that young people worldwide are watching films and series via their smartphones or personal computers, we here explore the educative aspects of this popular activity. Does this wide-ranging habit mis-educate the next generation? Or does cinema carry a potential for ethical-political education, parallel to the ancient Greek tragedies and the modernist Bildungsroman? The authors of this special issue deliberate this (...) question by exploring the intersection between cinema and philosophy and the potential powers of cinematic education. (shrink)

We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial behavior on benefactors’ positive affect. Participants from three cultures responded to scenarios in which they could perform small acts of kindness for different targets. A stronger relationship between agentic and obligated motivation to perform acts of kindness, as well as between obligated motivation and positive affect, was observed for participants from Japan, and for individuals with higher endorsement of the Community Ethic. Agentic motivation to engage in (...) prosocial behavior was related to benefactors’ positive affect, regardless of relationship type. (shrink)

One of the persistently controversial issues in the discussion of Kant’s moral philosophy is his view of the relation between the metaphysics of morals and human nature.

Promoting interpersonal helping among coworkers is an important aim for any organisation that cares about employee well-being. Drawing on guilt aversion hypothesis, this research focuses on the power of social expectations in promoting prosocial behaviour among employees and investigates the role of anticipated guilt for failing to meet coworkers’ expectations. In two preregistered studies, the effect of beneficiary expectation on benefactors’ anticipated guilt and intention to help was investigated. In Study 1, Japanese participants (n = 284) recalled a situation when (...) they helped a coworker spontaneously, and evaluated perceived beneficiary expectation to receive help, as well as anticipated guilt for not helping. Beneficiary expectation positively predicted anticipated guilt, and the effect was stronger when the beneficiary was a same-status colleague, and when interpersonal helping frequency in the organisation was low. Study 2 (n = 499) employed vignettes and manipulated beneficiary expectation. A mediational model revealed that beneficiary expectation leads to more anticipated guilt for not helping, which, in turn, increases employees’ intention to help. Together, these studies show that employees are sensitive to their coworkers’ expectations, and guilt-averse; therefore, interpersonal helping among employees may be promoted by establishing legitimate expectations of prosociality in the workplace. (shrink)

Most cognitive scientists nowadays tend to think that at least some of the mind’s capacities are the product of biological evolution, yet important conceptual problems remain for all scientists in order to be able to speak coherently of mental or cognitive systems as having evolved naturally. Two of these important problems concern the articulation of adequate, interesting, and empirically useful concepts of homology and variation as applied to cognitive systems. However, systems in cognitive science are usually understood as functional systems (...) of some sort. Thus, to be able to talk about functional systems being homologous requires having a solid, adequate, and empirically articulated concept of functional homology—and the same is true about functional variation. Here I construct an original concept of functional homology that, in my view, adequately systematizes a number of actual uses of the word “functional homology” in a variety of biological disciplines and in ethology. I also propose a number of criteria for the empirical application of the concept that are analogous to the criteria that are currently used in comparative biology, ethology, and molecular developmental genetics. Then I construct a concept of functional variation on the basis of this concept of homology. (shrink)

This is the introduction of the Synthese Topical Collection Epistemological Issues in Neurodivergence and Atypical Cognition written by the guest editors. In order to justify the relevance of the topic, a minimum context is given on the notions of neurodivergence as well as some brief remarks on the neurodiversity advocacy movement. This serves as a basis to establish the importance of increasing the scope of epistemology to include issues that do not fit in the descriptions of typical subjects and cognitive (...) processes. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa has proposed two different ways to respond to dreaming skepticism. In this paper I argue that Sosa's first response —which centers on holding that we have no beliefs in dreams— does not appear to be successful against either the hyperbolic or the realistic dreaming skeptic. I also argue that his second attempt to respond to the dreaming skeptic by arguing that perceptual knowledge indeed counts as what he calls "animal knowledge", may succeed but requires us to perform what (...) appears to be some radical surgery on the concept of knowledge; a radical surgery that, as I show, is probably unnecessary to avoid dreaming skepticism. Finally, I sketch some independent considerations why I think that the hyperbolic skeptic's dreaming argument is not acceptable. Ernesto Sosa propone dos maneras de responder al escéptico del sueño. En este ensayo argumento que su primera propuesta, según la cual no tenemos creencias en los sueños, no parece ser una buena respuesta en contra de ninguno de los escepticismos del sueño, de los cuales distingo dos tipos: el hiperbólico y el realista. También argumento que su segunda propuesta para responder al escéptico del sueño, en la que argumenta que el conocimiento perceptual sí cuenta como conocimiento animal, quizá resulte exitosa; sin embargo, ésta requiere llevar a cabo una cirugía radical en el concepto de conocimiento; una cirugía que, como muestro, es probablemente innecesaria para evitar el escepticismo del sueño. Finalmente bosquejo algunas razones independientes por las cuales considero que el argumento del escéptico hiperbólico del sueño no es aceptable. (shrink)

v. 1. From the beginnings to the end of the twelfth century.

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 1 Seiten: 13-19.

ZusammenfassungZur Verringerung der Knappheit an Organen wird die Einführung eines Marktes für menschliche Organe vorgeschlagen. Personen, die ihre Organe verkaufen, und Personen, die ihre Organe lebend spenden, sind medizinisch den gleichen Gefahren ausgesetzt. Der Verkaufserlös bietet für den Abgebenden eine Einkommenssteigerung, die vielfältig genutzt werden kann. Die auf Schwarzmärkten beobachteten negativen Effekte sollen durch eine strikte Überwachung und Regulierung verhindert werden. Der Markt für Organe kann von zwei getrennten Ankaufsorganisationen geprägt werden. Eine Organisation zahlt die Weiterverkaufserlöse der Organe direkt an (...) die Geber aus, eine andere Organisation investiert sie stattdessen in wohltätige Zwecke und gibt so den Gebern die Möglichkeit, ihr Organ aus rein altruistischen Motiven zu spenden. Die Finanzierung des Systems soll durch das öffentliche Gesundheitssystem bzw. die privaten Krankenversicherungen erfolgen. (shrink)

Aquí argumento que algunas propuestas recientes de caracterizar una noción de lo innato teóricamente útil usando conceptos de la biología padecen serios problemas conceptuales. También defiendo una propuesta propia, de inspiración biológica, la cual pretende capturar las formas en que se usa el término 'innato' en algunas disciplinas cognitivas.

The belief that quantum mechanics does not admit a realistic interpretation is widespread. According to some scholars concerned with the foundations of QM all existing interpretations of this theory presuppose instead a form of realism which consists in assuming that QM deals with individual objects and their properties. We uphold in the present paper that the arguments supporting the contextuality and the nonlocality of QM are a significant clue to the implicit adoption of stronger forms of realism. If these kinds (...) of realism are substituted by a simpler and more intuitive semantic realism one can contrive a noncontextual and local interpretation of the formalism of QM. Moreover one can provide a model for such an interpretation in which local realism and QM do not conflict and some fundamental problems of the standard interpretation of QM are avoided. (shrink)

There is an argument that has recently been deployed in favor of thinking that the mind is mostly (or even exclusively) composed of cognitive modules; an argument that draws from some ideas and concepts of evolutionary and of developmental biology. In a nutshell, the argument concludes that a mind that is massively composed of cognitive mechanisms that are cognitively modular (henceforth, c-modular) is more evolvable than a mind that is not c-modular (or that is scarcely c-modular), since a cognitive mechanism (...) that is c-modular is likely to be biologically modular (henceforth, b-modular), and b-modular characters are more evolvable (e.g., Sperber 2002, Carruthers 2005). In evolutionary biology, the evolvability of a character in an organism is understood as the “organism’s capacity to facilitate the generation of non-lethal selectable phenotypic variation from random mutation” with respect to that character. Here I will argue that the notion of cognitive modularity needed to make this argument plausible will have to be understood in terms of the biological notion of variational independence; that is, it will have to be understood in such a way that a cognitive feature is c-modular only if few or no other morphological changes (cognitive and not) are significantly correlated with variations of that feature arising in members of the relevant population. I will also argue that all –except for (possibly) one—of the connotations contained in a cluster of notions of cognitive modularity widely accepted in some of the mainstream currents of thought in classical cognitive science, are simply irrelevant to the argument. In order to argue for this, I will have to examine the question as to whether there are any strong theoretical connections between (1) those connotations and (2) notions of modularity accepted in biology, specially in evolutionary and in developmental biology, that are thought to be most relevant to arguments to the effect that biological modularity enhances evolvability. (shrink)

Can the concept of myths, as developed by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, help us to better understand and sociologically examine social inequalities in heterosexual couple relationships? Beauvoir has shown how women are defined as the Other. Her conceptualization of myths plays an important role in the production of asymmetry between men and women. How can we translate these myths, to a sociological micro level to examine couple relationships? We illustrate the feasibility of this approach through the comparison (...) of two qualitative research projects from the 1990s and 2020s with dual-earner couples in transition to retirement. We try to find out how femininity and masculinity are defined in couple relationships, how they relate to each other, and whether asymmetry is at work. What has changed over time and are women (still) defined in a subordinate and derivative way from men? (shrink)

"This work attempts to establish a philosophy of art that is both intellectual and objective. At first sight it may appear that these goals are at variance with contemporary ideas. On closer examination, however, the reader will see that the tendency is in the opposite direction, a closer approach to present-day thought rather than a departure from it. To admit that there exists a world other than that of our subjective states is to subscribe to an interpretation more in keeping (...) with the real, and thus also with artistic reality. The intellectual and objective philosophy to which this book appeals in order to interpret the beauty of art will not be an intrusion, if it guards against all exclusiveness and does not itself compromise that which gives it its value."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)