Eine "rein" philosophische - Ethik lässt zu viele Probleme ungelöst. Oie wenigen formalnen Bedingungen, die sich transzendentalphilosophisch, transzendéntalpragmatisch oder konstruktivistisch gewinnen lassen, reichen bei weitem nicht aus, um uns zu praktischen Handlungsanweisungen zu verhelfen. In die ser Situationistes wohl einen Versucht wert, sich auf die anthropologischen und damit letztlich biologischen Grundlagen der Ethik zu besinnen, lässtsich der "Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie" eine "Evolutionäre Ethik” an die Seitestellen? Oder ist ein solches Unternehmen von vornherein zum Scheitern verurteilt? In diesem Beitrag werden Absichtund (...) Besonderheit des evolutionären Ansatzes charakterisiert, wird der mögliche Beitrag der Soziöbiologie zur Ethik skizziert und werden die Einwände geprüft, die gegen eine solche Evolutionäre Ethik vorgerbracht werden (obwohl sie noch gar nicht existiert). (shrink)

We analyze programs for undergraduate women in science and engineering as strategic research sites in the study of disparities between women and men in scientific fields within higher education. Based on responses to a survey of the directors of the universe of these programs in the United States, the findings reveal key patterns in the programs’ definitions of the issues of women in science and engineering, their solutions to address the issues, their goals and perceived success with goals, and their (...) organizational characteristics and relationship to the larger institutional environments. The findings—which are conceptually grounded in the distinction between structural/institutional and individual issues facing women in science—have implications for understanding gender, science, and higher education, and for initiatives undertaken to improve the condition of women in scientific fields. The findings may also inform strategic efforts to reduce gender disparity in other organizational contexts. (shrink)

The representational distortion (RD) approach to similarity (e.g., Hahn, Chater, & Richardson, 2003) proposes that similarity is computed using the transformation distance between two entities. We argue that researchers who adopt this approach need to be concerned with how representational transformations can be determined a priori. We discuss several roadblocks to using this approach. Specifically we demonstrate the difficulties inherent in determining what transformations are psychologically salient and the importance of considering the directionality of transformations.

Like scientific theories, metaphysical theories can and should be justified by the inference of creative abduction. Two rationality conditions are proposed that distinguish scientific from speculative abductions: achievement of unification and independent testability. Particularly important in science is common cause abduction. The justification of metaphysical realism is structurally similar to scientific abductions: external objects are justified as common causes of perceptual experiences. While the reliability of common cause abduction is entailed by a principle of causality, the latter principle has an (...) abductive justification based on statistical phenomena. (shrink)

Gerhard Richter's groundbreaking study argues that the concept of "afterness" is a key figure in the thought and aesthetics of modernity. It pursues questions such as: What does it mean for something to "follow" something else? Does that which follows mark a clear break with what came before it, or does it in fact tacitly perpetuate its predecessor as a consequence of its inevitable indebtedness to the terms and conditions of that from which it claims to have departed? Indeed, (...) is not the very act of breaking with, and then following upon, a way of retroactively constructing and fortifying that from which the break that set the movement of following into motion had occurred? The book explores the concept and movement of afterness as a privileged yet uncanny category through close readings of writers such as Kant, Kafka, Heidegger, Bloch, Benjamin, Brecht, Adorno, Arendt, Lyotard, and Derrida. It shows how the vexed concepts of afterness, following, and coming after shed new light on a constellation of modern preoccupations, including personal and cultural memory, translation, photography, hope, and the historical and conceptual specificity of what has been termed "after Auschwitz." The study's various analyses—across a heterogeneous collection of modern writers and thinkers, diverse historical moments of articulation, and a range of media—conspire to illuminate Lyotard's apodictic statement that "after philosophy comes philosophy. But it has been altered by the 'after.'" As Richter's intricate study demonstrates, much hinges on our interpretation of the "after." After all, our most fundamental assumptions concerning modern aesthetic representation, conceptual discourse, community, subjectivity, and politics are at stake. (shrink)

Question: Where, when and under what circumstances did the two of you get to know each other?Fischer: It was in the early seventies, in Frankfurt, after the dissolution of the gauche proletarienne and while there were still leftist groups in Germany. It must have been 1972. Question: Was that a private visit?Glucksmann: We had private discussions. We also participated in rallies and demonstrations.Question: That was in the late phase of the student movement.Fischer: We kept in contact through my old room-mate, (...) Daniel Cohn-Bendit. He was our link to France, so to speak.Question: And was this the link between the French and the German Left that existed then? (shrink)

This is a study of Frege's permutation argument in Part I, Section 10, of Frege's Basic Laws of Arithmetic.

In Sect. 1 it is argued that systems of logic are exceptional, but not a priori necessary. Logics are exceptional because they can neither be demonstrated as valid nor be confirmed by observation without entering a circle, and their motivation based on intuition is unreliable. On the other hand, logics do not express a priori necessities of thinking because alternative non-classical logics have been developed. Section 2 reflects the controversies about four major kinds of non-classical logics—multi-valued, intuitionistic, paraconsistent and quantum (...) logics. Its purpose is to show that there is no particular domain or reason that demands the use of a non-classical logic; the particular reasons given for the non-classical logic can also be handled within classical logic. The result of Sect. 2 is substantiated in Sect. 3, where it is shown (referring to other work) that all four kinds of non-classical logics can be translated into classical logic in a meaning-preserving way. Based on this fact a justification of classical logic is developed in Sect. 4 that is based on its representational optimality. It is pointed out that not many but a few non-classical logics can be likewise representationally optimal. However, the situation is not symmetric: classical logic has ceteris paribus advantages as a unifying metalogic, while non-classical logics can have local simplicity advantages. (shrink)

La théorie de l’organisme social était une approche foncièrement et largement répandue au début du 20ème siècle, qui était acceptée par de nombreuses orientations théoriques dans la sociologie et l’économie. L’approche de Rudolf Steiner s’y rapportant est bien connue. La théorie de Gerhard Stolzmann ne l’est pas autant. Ce dernier était un représentant de ce qu’on appelle le « mouvement des droits sociaux de l’économie politique » et au plan philosophique, il défendait le néo-kantisme (école de Marburg, de l’Allemagne (...) du sud-ouest). Stolzmann a connu et cité les écrits de Steiner sur l’organisme social, comme on peut le prouver. Dans cet essai, on va mettre au jour les communautés et tendances dans le concept de l’organisme social chez Stolzmann et Steiner. Tous deux ont mis en exergue l’importance du spirituel et en conséquence de la sphère du droit, pour la société et l’économie dans leur théorie. Mais Steiner eut essentiellement une amorce plus pratique. Son concept d’organisme social est plus une proposition de réforme pour l’économie et la société, alors que Stolzmann fait ressortir la signification théorique générale toujours valable de sa théorie. (shrink)

Wer hat sich nicht schon gefragt, was es mit unseren moralischen Überzeugungen auf sich hat: Spiegeln diese die Wahrheit in Sachen Moral wieder? Gibt es eine solche Wahrheit überhaupt? Oder sind moralische Überzeugungen eher das Produkt unserer Interessen und Neigungen, Ausdruck unserer Wünsche oder Mittel der Machtausübung, das bloße Ergebnis unserer Erziehung, unseres sozialen Umfelds oder gar eine List der Evolution? Ist es eine Illusion, wenn man glaubt, echte moralische Erkenntnisse gewinnen zu können? Kurzum: Kann die Moral Objektivität beanspruchen? Die (...) vorliegende Arbeit versucht, eine Antwort auf diese zentrale Frage der Metaethik zu geben. Dazu wird zunächst gezeigt, dass uns der Status der Moral ein Rätsel ist, weil wir dazu neigen, drei Thesen für wahr zu halten, die nicht zugleich wahr sein können. Die drei prinzipiell möglichen Strategien zur Auflösung dieses Trilemmas geraten jedoch in Schwierigkeiten, weil es bisher nicht gelungen ist, ein passendes Vergleichsobjekt für die Moral zu finden. In dieser Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, dass die Moral in genau der gleichen Weise wie die Wissenschaft Objektivität beanspruchen kann. (shrink)

Contemporary understanding of human subjectivity has come a long way since the Cartesian 'thinking thing' or Freud's view of the self struggling with its unconscious. We no longer think of ourselves as stable and indivisible units or combinations thereof - instead, we see the self as constantly reinvented and reorganised in interaction with others and with its social and cultural environments. But the world in which we live today is one of uncertainty where nothing can be taken for granted. Coping (...) with change is a challenge but it also presents new opportunities. Uncertainty can be both liberating and oppressive. How does an individual understand her or his position in the world? Are we as human beings determined by our genetic heritage, social circumstances and cultural preferences, or are we free in our choices? How does selfhood emerge? Does it follow the same pattern of development in all people, all cultures, all ages? Or is it a socio-cultural construction that cannot be understood outside its historical context? Are the patterns of selfhood fundamentally changing in the present world? Does new technology allow us more autonomy or does it tempt us to give up the freedoms we have? (shrink)

This article tries to point out the dialectical and paradoxical character of Eckhart’s thought, which permits him at once to affirm and to negate categories such as being, nothingness, personality, substance, origin, creation, image. In this way, Eckhart can unite a personal-theistic and a non-personal-atheistic view. A dialectical structure can also be seen in Eckhart’s ethics. Further, the dialectical interpretation can elucidate the ambivalence in the concept of the scintilla animae. The origin and aim of Eckhart’s dialectics proves to consist (...) in the concept of non-distinction. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the question whether the notion of ownedness or authenticity in Being and Time can serve as a model for social change. To answer this question, I build on the late Dreyfus’s understanding of owned Dasein as a “world transformer”, Butler’s understanding of contingent foundations, and Kyle Stroh’s conception of owned Dasein in the plural, in order to develop a notion of social ownedness. In my reading, ownedness concerns primarily the transparency of ontological structures on the part of (...) the owned self, including a proper understanding of the role of the anyone. The owned self realizes that the anyone remains the foundation of intelligibility, but understands it as a contingent foundation and thereby contests its absolutization and the tendency of conformism. After an interpretation of Heidegger’s remarks on “nullity” and “abyss of ground “ in relation to Butler’s theory of post-foundationalism, and a discussion of “historicality” in relation to Butler’s notion of performativity as iterability, I offer a reinterpretation of the figure of the “world transformer” and end with a proposal on how to understand social ownedness. (shrink)

Sebastian Franck hat Teile von Agrippas De Vanitate Scientiarum übersetzt und kommentiert. Von daher ist der Einfluss der Philosophie von Agrippa auf Franck bekannt. Es gab allerdings bisher keine ausführlichen Untersuchungen zu den Einflüssen von Agrippa auf Franck. Diese Lücke versucht dieser Aufsatz zu schließen. Beim Vergleich der metaphysischen Systeme von Franck und Agrippa stellt sich heraus, dass es bedeutende Einflüsse im Bereich der Seelenlehre und der Christologie gab. Sowohl Agrippa als auch Franck sind Anhänger der platonischen Lehre der drei (...) Seelenteile. Die Seele besteht nach dieser Lehre aus Geist, Seele und Körper. Der Geist ist der unsterbliche göttliche Teil im Menschen. Der Hauptunterschied zwischen Agrippa und Franck kann darin gesehen werden, dass Agrippas Synkretismus stärker den Neuplatonismus betont und Franck`s Synkretismus die Gnosis. Die Weltseele ergibt im Konzept von Franck nur wenig Sinn, während diese bei Agrippa ganz zentral ist. Franck lehnt den Gedanken ab, die Welt werde durch eine Vernunft geleitet. Sein pessimistisches Bild von der Welt und vom Menschen verträgt sich nicht mit diesem Gedanken. Da es keine Vernunft gibt, ist auch die Astrologie, die Mantik oder die Kabbalistik nicht wichtig für Franck. Daher ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass Franck nirgends die Occulta philosophia zitiert, sondern immer nur De Vantitate Scientiarum Der Synkretismus von Agrippa beinhaltet Astrologie, Mantik, Kabbala und Neuplatonismus. Am ehesten spielt bei Franck noch die Hermetik eine Rolle. Franck meint, Christus habe im Pimander mit Hermes Trismegistos kommuniziert. Diesen Gedanken findet man nicht nur bei Franck, sondern auch bei Agrippa. Die für Franck so wichtige Lehre des inneren Christus ist ebenfalls Teil der Seelenlehre von Agrippa. Wenn der Mensch seinen Geist oder seinen inneren Christus erkennt, dann erkennt er Gott. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass Franck nur diejenigen Dinge von dem „weisen Agrippa“ übernommen hat, die in sein Konzept passen. (shrink)

Im Zentrum der Hauptform des metaethischen Relativismus steht eine kontextualistische Analyse der Bedeutung moralischer Aussagen. Gegen diese Analyse lassen sich jedoch bestimmte sprachliche Beobachtungen anführen, die der Relativist erklären muss, wenn er an seiner Theorie festhalten möchte. In diesem Aufsatz argumentiere ich für die These, dass keiner dieser Erklärungsversuche gelingt. Wir betrachten, wie sich zeigt, moralische Aussagen als weder in offensichtlicher noch in versteckter Weise kontextsensitiv. Damit gerät aber der Relativismus als metaethische Position überhaupt in ernsthafte Bedrängnis.

In this article, I explore how the emancipatory potential of the human capacity to desire and be desired can contribute to more inclusive, sustainable, and convivial futures. I differentiate four m...

This book is no less than the birth of a new discipline. The Experience Science is the indispensable tool for the global experience economy. Including a detailed analysis of the human experience process, the book provides the reader with a teachable methodology for staging unforgettable experiences that make a difference. It is a must for everyone in the experience industry who wants to leave his/her mark. Author Gerhard Frank - philosopher, natural scientist, and experience dramaturge - has been engaged (...) in the global attraction industry for 25 years. His clients come from different segments, including theme parks, museums, zoos, visitor centers, and other types of venues. (Series: Psychologie - Vol. 50). (shrink)

In the first section, five major attempts to solve the problem of induction and their failures are discussed. In the second section, an account of meta-induction is introduced. It offers a novel solution to the problem of induction, based on mathematical theorems about the predictive optimality of attractivity-weighted meta-induction. In the third section, how the a priori justification of meta-induction provides a non-circular a posteriori justification of object-induction, based on its superior track record, is explained. In the fourth section, four (...) important extensions and refinements of the method of meta-induction are presented. The final section, summarizes the major impacts of the program of meta-induction for epistemology, the philosophy of science and cognitive science. (shrink)