We propose for the first time to divide histone proteolysis into “histone degradation” and the epigenetically connoted “histone clipping”. Our initial observation is that these two different classes are very hard to distinguish both experimentally and biologically, because they can both be mediated by the same enzymes. Since the first report decades ago, proteolysis has been found in a broad spectrum of eukaryotic organisms. However, the authors often not clearly distinguish or determine whether degradation or clipping was studied. Given the (...) importance of histone modifications in epigenetic regulation we further elaborate on the different ways in which histone proteolysis could play a role in epigenetics. Finally, unanticipated histone proteolysis has probably left a mark on many studies of histones in the past. In conclusion, we emphasize the significance of reviving the study of histone proteolysis both from a biological and an experimental perspective.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

This book critically engages with the idea of transparency whose ubiquitous demand stands in stark contrast to its lack of conceptual clarity. The book carefully examines this notion in its own right, traces its emergence in Early Modernity and analyzes its omnipresence in contemporary rhetoric. Today, transparency has become a catchword outplaying other Enlightenment values like empowerment, sincerity and the notion of a public sphere. In a suspicious manner, transparency is entangled in the discourses on power, surveillance, and self-exposure. Bringing (...) together prominent scholars from the emerging field of Critical Transparency Studies, the book offers a map of the various sites at which transparency has become virulent and connects the dots between past and present. By studying its appearances in today’s hyper-mediated economies of information and by linking it back to its historical roots, the book analyzes transparency and its discontents, and scrutinizes the reasons why it has become the imperative of a supposedly post-ideological age. (shrink)

A Criticism misjudging itself too. On the Deficiency of Reflection in Formal Explications. The criticism formulated by L. B. Puntel concerning the theory of dialectic proposed by the author is rejected. Puntel's attempt at explicating predication by means of predicate logic fails: It misjudges predication being already presupposed for the possibility of predicate logic, thus belonging to the transcendental conditions of formal predicate logic, so that predication itself cannot be further explicated by means of such logic. What is in fact (...) criticized by Puntel is something like an artefact of formalization. The unreflected application of formal logic here generates problems instead of solving them. (shrink)

Written in the form of a dialogue with Brussels sociologist Dieter Vandebroeck, this article retraces the social and intellectual trajectory of Loïc Wacquant as stepping stone to reviewing and discussing the major concepts coined and theoretical propositions elaborated in the course of his research on comparative urban marginality, racial domination, the ghetto, the penal state, neoliberalism, and carnality. This provides an opportunity to specify the relationships between ethnography, history and theory; the dialectic of domination and resistance; the role of (...) public (dis)honor in social life; the uses of Bourdieu's bureaucratic field; and the social and academic conditions of incubation, diffusion, and death of scholarly myths such as the “underclass.” The article closes on a call to clearly distinguish the rhetorical, metaphorical, and analytical usages of concepts and reaffirms the need for epistemic reflexivity as sine qua non for the articulation of robust scientific problematics. (shrink)

There is hardly an analogy in the history of philosophy that has been referred to as often as the one that Kant himself draws in the second preface of the Critique of pure reason between Copernicus′ revolution in astronomy and his own revolution in metaphysics; and yet there is to the present day no detailed analysis thereof. The analogy is much more complex than meets the superficial eye: In the first passage , Kant does not draw a simple comparison to (...) Copernicus′ famous heliocentric hypothesis . In the second passage , Kant connects the reference to Copernicus with a reference to Newton by drawing an extremely rich analogy between the law of gravitation and the moral law of freedom. The revolution in metaphysics is related to the revolution in ethics; that famous analogy of Kant really is a Copernican-Newtonian analogy. (shrink)

I argue that many interpretations of Kant’s philosophy suffer from what I call “Textvergessenheit,” and that the remedy against it is what I call “kommentarische Interpretation.” By “Textvergessenheit” I mean that, despite all appearances, there are no really close, detailed, exegetical and reconstructive interpretations of Kant’s texts; and by “kommentarische Interpretation” I mean interpretations that are just this: close, detailed, exegetical and reconstructive. The main purpose of “doing history of philosophy” and thus the main purpose of interpreting philosophical texts is (...) to understand what they mean; it is not to find out whether what the text claims to be true really is true . The ultimate aim of reading a philosophical text is to understand, and this means: to reconstruct the theory and arguments put forward by its author. Once it is clear what an argument says, we can relate to it, critically or affirmatively, or whatever; but what exactly the argument really says, is never obvious. Of course, no one will argue that we should not read Kant’s text carefully. Yet, since it is a widely held belief that, contrary to what I claim, there are close readings of Kant’s text, I will provide examples that, as a matter of fact, this is not the case; Textvergessenheit is a fact of philosophical life. Key words HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. (shrink)

Was ist Wahrheit?- Vernunft und Offenbarung.- Die Bedeutung von Bekenntnissenin der Gegenwart.

The paper outlines the debate on European state socialism as a social and political order. There are different attempts to obtain a better understanding of the core principles of this type of society and a continuing public debate on it. Following the end of the decade of the transition from “socialism to capitalism” we can observe a renewal in the debates on the “Ancient regime” and its heritage. There are different reasons for this phenomenon; these include new insights from the (...) archives and the recent politics on history in post-socialist societies. The new “zeitgeist” following the world financial crisis of 2008 might be an additional reason. The issues that developed are discussions on the nature of state socialism, some hypotheses on the role of reformers within the changes to late socialism from the perspective of political science, and some assumptions on the methods adopted by former reform socialists after 1989. (shrink)

Dieter Henrich is one of the most respected and frequently cited philosophers in Germany today. His extensive and highly innovative studies of German Idealism and his systematic analyses of subjectivity have significantly impacted on advanced German philosophical and theological debates. Dieter Henrich and Contemporary Philosophy presents a comprehensive analysis of Henrich's work on subjectivity, evaluating it in the context of contemporary debates in both continental and analytic traditions. Familiarising the non-German reader with an important development in contemporary German (...) philosophy, this book explains the significance of subjectivity for any philosophy that attempts to offer existential orientation and contrasts competing conceptions in analytic philosophy and in the social philosophy of Juergen Habermas. Presenting Henrich's philosophy of subjectivity as a credible alternative to analytic philosophy of mind and a radical challenge to Heideggerian, Habermasian, neo-pragmatist, and postmodern positions, Freundlieb argues that a philosophy of the kind developed by Henrich can regain the cultural significance philosophical thinking once possessed. Dieter Freundlieb is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Griffith University, Australia. (shrink)

Wer kennt GOTTLOB FREGE (1848-1925)? Nur wenige verbinden mit seinem Namen einen der groaten Logiker aller Zeiten, ohne dessen "Logik von Funktion und Argument" die heutige Computertechnik kaum denkbar ist. Frege fuhlte sich zeitlebens zu seiner Heimat im Norden Deutschlands hingezogen. In Wismar verbrachte er seine Kindheit und in Bad Kleinen, in unmittelbarer Nahe, seinen Lebensabend. Das im Jahre 2000 gegrundete Gottlob-Frege-Zentrum der Hochschule Wismar organisierte ihm zu Ehren im Mai 2013 in seiner Geburtsstadt eine internationale Konferenz, an der Forscher (...) aus der mathematischen Grundlagenforschung und der Analytischen Philosophie teilnahmen. Im Konferenzband erfahren Sie von bekannten Wissenschaftlern u.a., begin{itemize} item was Frege zur Entwicklung der Mathematik, Logik und Philosophie leistete, item welche wissenschaftlichen Auffassungen Frege vertrat und welche er scharf kritisierte, item mit welchen bekannten Wissenschaftlern Frege korrespondierte und wer sein Werk fortsetzte oder in Frage stellte, item was wir heute noch aus Freges Arbeiten lernen konnen. (shrink)

"Dieter Jähnig's life's work has been devoted to uncovering and exploring the field of tension between philosophy and art. The combination of comprehensive expertise in the field of the arts, together with the willingness of philosophy to radically question itself, has yielded a wealth of critical insights that can have a liberating and objectifying effect on the subject sciences. The many years of study with Jacob Burckhardt have produced an analysis of the different presences of the arts in time (...) that may be considered groundbreaking for the understanding of their 'relation to the world'. This differentiation of the character of works not only touches on methodological questions of reception aesthetics, but also has repercussions on the concept of history in general, which guides the historical-critical sciences." Robert Kudielka. (shrink)