English summary: The freedom potential of modern societies, above all the justification of political authority, is today linked to a democratically constituted order. What is meant by the idea of being democratic seems, however, to be anything but clear. Is it only a question of representing the people through elections, ballots, and political parties, or does it include institutional culture, the division of powers, and the legal regime within a community? A "philosophy of the republic," as developed in this volume's (...) contributions, shows that the current "dominance of the democratic" falls short of accounting for the independent significance to the republican self-organisation of state and society. German description: Das Freiheitspotential moderner Gesellschaften, vor allem die Rechtfertigung politischer Herrschaft, wird heute mit einer demokratisch verfassten Ordnung verknupft. Was eine demokratische Ordnung ausmacht, was also die Idee des Demokratischen meint, scheint aber alles andere als klar zu sein. Soll es nur um Fragen der Reprasentation des Volkes durch Wahlen, Abstimmungen und Parteien oder daruber hinaus auch um die institutionelle Kultur, die Gewaltenteilung und das Rechtsregime innerhalb eines Gemeinwesens gehen? Eine "Philosophie der Republik," wie sie in den Beitragen dieses Bandes entwickelt wird, kann zeigen, dass die aktuelle "Dominanz des Demokratischen" keine eigenstandige Bedeutung der republikanischen Selbstorganisation von Staat und Gesellschaft beimisst. Mit Beitragen von: David Abraham, Andreas Anter, Susanne Beck, Jochen Bung, Daniela Demko, Horst Dreier, Andrea Marlen Esser, Helmut Goerlich, Bernd Grzeszick, Klaus Gunther, Matthias Kaufmann, Jean-Francois Kervegan, Thomas Khurana, Stephan Kirste, Oliver Lembcke, Rochus Leonhardt, Georg Lohmann, Wolfgang Schild, Christian Schmidt, Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Kurt Seelmann, Hannes Siegrist, Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, Trevor Wedman, Marc Andre Wiegand, Benno Zabel, Sabrina Zucca-Soest. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccine refusal seems like a paradigm case of irrationality. Vaccines are supposed to be the best way to get us out of the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet many people believe that they should not be vaccinated even though they are dissatisfied with the current situation. In this paper, we analyze COVID-19 vaccine refusal with the tools of contemporary philosophical theories of responsibility and rationality. The main outcome of this analysis is that many vaccine-refusers are responsible for the belief that (...) they should not be vaccinated and epistemically rational in holding it. This is an important result because it provides insights into the legitimacy of certain public health policies. In particular, this result shows that a public health policy that would abandon the project of convincing certain vaccine-refusers with reasons – e.g., by simply making vaccination compulsory – is prima facie illegitimate. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that solutions to normative challenges associated with autonomous driving, such as real-world trolley cases or distributions of risk in mundane driving situations, face the problem of reasonable pluralism: Reasonable pluralism refers to the fact that there exists a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive moral doctrines within liberal democracies. The corresponding problem is that a politically acceptable solution cannot refer to only one of these comprehensive doctrines. Yet a politically adequate solution to the normative challenges (...) of autonomous driving need not come at the expense of an ethical solution, if it is based on moral beliefs that are (1) shared in an overlapping consensus and (2) systematized through public reason. Therefore, we argue that a Rawlsian justificatory framework is able to adequately address the normative challenges of autonomous driving and elaborate on how such a framework might be employed for this purpose. (shrink)

On Hume's account, when we lack virtues that would typically prompt moral action, we can instead be motivated by the "sense of duty." Surprisingly, Hume seems to maintain that, in such cases, we are motivated by a desire to avoid the unpleasantness of "self-hatred" evoked in us when we realize we lack certain traits others possess. This account has led commentators to argue that Hume is not a moral internalist, since motivation by duty is motivation by a self-interested desire. This (...) paper concludes that Hume is indeed a moral internalist and that the motive of duty can be understood as a form of motivation by moral disapprobation in a way supported by Hume's general motivational psychology. (shrink)

Theater rehearsals are (usually) confronted with the problem of having to transform a written text into an audio-visual, situated and temporal performance. Our contribution focuses on the emergence and stabilization of a gestural form as a solution for embodying a certain aesthetic concept which is derived from the script. This process involves instructions and negotiations, making the process of stabilization publicly and thus intersubjectively accessible. As scenes are repeatedly rehearsed, rehearsals are perspicuous settings for tracking interactional histories. Based on videotaped (...) professional theatre interactions in Germany, we focus on consecutive instances of rehearsing the same scene and trace the interactional history of a particular gesture. This gesture is used by the director to instruct the actors to play a particular aspect of a scene adopting a certain aesthetic concept. Stabilization requires the emergence of shared knowledge. We will show the practices by which shared knowledge is established over time during the rehearsal process and, in turn, how the accumulation of knowledge contributes to a change in the interactional practices themselves. Specifically, we show how a gesture emerges in the process of developing and embodying an aesthetic concept, and how this gesture eventually becomes a sign that refers to and evokes accumulated knowledge. At the same time, we show how this accumulated knowledge changes the instructional activities in the rehearsal process. Our study contributes to the overall understanding of knowledge accumulation in interaction in general and in theater rehearsals in particular. At the same time, it is devoted to the central importance of gestures in theater, which are both a means and a product of theatrical staging. (shrink)

The standard model for mereotopological structures are Boolean subalgebras of the complete Boolean algebra of regular closed subsets of a nonempty connected regular T 0 topological space with an additional "contact relation" C defined by xCy x ØA (possibly) more general class of models is provided by the Region Connection Calculus (RCC) of Randell et al. We show that the basic operations of the relational calculus on a "contact relation" generate at least 25 relations in any model of the RCC, (...) and hence, in any standard model of mereotopology. It follows that the expressiveness of the RCC in relational logic is much greater than the original 8 RCC base relations might suggest. We also interpret these 25 relations in the the standard model of the collection of regular open sets in the two-dimensional Euclidean plane. (shrink)

Scientific progress is achieved not only by continuous accumulation of knowledge but also by paradigm shifts. These shifts are often necessitated by anomalous findings that cannot be incorporated in accepted models. Two important methodological principles regulate this process and complement each other: Ockham's Razor as the principle of parsimony and Plato's Life Boat as the principle of the necessity to 'save the appearances' and thus incorporate conflicting phenomenological data into theories. We review empirical data which are in conflict with some (...) presuppositions of accepted mainstream science: Clinical and experimental effects of prayer and healing intention, data from telepathy, psychokinesis experiments and precognition, and anecdotal reports of macro-psychokinesis. Taken together, the now well documented possibility of these events suggests that such phenomena are anomalies that challenge some widely held beliefs in mainstream science. On the other hand, scientists often fear that by accepting the reality of these phenomena they also have to subscribe to world-models invoking ontological dualism or idealism. We suggest accepting the phenomena as real, but without questionable ontologies commonly associated with them. We outline how this might work. (shrink)

Der Band bietet einen systematischen Überblick über das Verhältnis von Literatur und Philosophie. Philosophische, literarische und literaturwissenschaftliche Ansätze kommen gleichberechtigt zu Wort. Die Beiträge loten die Bedeutung von Literatur aus und präsentieren gattungstheoretische Überlegungen zu literarischen Formen der Philosophie. Studien über philosophierende Literatur und philosophische Reflexionen über Literatur beschließen den Band.

Can associative learning take place without awareness? We explore this issue in a sequence learning paradigm with amnesic and control participants, who were simply asked to react to one of four possible stimuli on each trial. Unknown to them, successive stimuli occurred in a sequence. We manipulated the extent to which stimuli followed the sequence in a deterministic manner (noiseless condition) or only probabilistically so (noisy condition). Through this paradigm, we aimed at addressing two central issues: first, we asked whether (...) sequence learning takes place in either condition with amnesic patients. Second, we asked whether this learning takes place without awareness. To answer this second question, participants were asked to perform a subsequent sequence generation task under inclusion and exclusion conditions, as well as a recognition task. Reaction times results show that amnesic patients learned the sequence only in the deterministic condition. However, they failed to be able to reproduce the sequence in the generation task. In contrast, we found learning for both sequence structures in control participants, but only control participants exposed to a deterministic sequence were successful in performing the generation task, thus suggesting that the acquired knowledge can be used consciously in this condition. Neither amnesic nor control participants showed correct old/new judgments in the recognition task. The results strengthen the claim that implicit learning is at least partly spared in amnesia, and the role of contextual information available for learning is discussed. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Dieser Band lotet vor dem Hintergrund einer krisenhaften Gegenwart das Verhältnis von Verletzbarkeit und Institutionen aus. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Fragen, wie Dimensionen der Verletzbarkeit durch Anrufungen und soziale, politische, kulturelle Praktiken (doing vulnerability) institutionell hergestellt und perpetuiert werden, in welchen Bedeutungszusammenhängen sie verankert und verstetigt sind und wie Anrufungen der Verletzbarkeit schließlich auch provoziert und subvertiert werden können. Institutionen werden dabei nicht als homogene Gebilde, sondern als Bündelung von Kräften verstanden, die es immer wieder neu zu entwerfen, zu (...) imaginieren, zu erstreiten und zu verteidigen gilt. (shrink)

In scholarship on the history of philosophy, it is widely assumed that Charles Fourier was a utopian socialist who could not have exerted a significant influence on the development of Karl Marx's thought. Indeed, both Marx and Engels seem to have advanced this view. In contrast, I argue that in 1844 when Marx was developing his anthropology and social critique, he relied upon Fourier's thought to supply a key assumption. After establishing this connection, I explain why Marx's tacit reliance on (...) Fourier creates a problematic undercurrent in his thought. (shrink)

Die Frage, ob ein Grundeinkommen für jede Bürgerin und jeden Bürger eine gerechte Institution ist, wird unter Philosophen seit gut 20 Jahren verstärkt diskutiert. Zur Begründung der Institution des Grundeinkommens wird von vielen Denkern eine Überlegung geltend gemacht, die von links-libertären Philosophen entwickelt wurde. Sie beruht auf der Annahme, dass von Natur aus gegebene Dinge und Ressourcen ursprünglich das gemeinsame Eigentum aller Menschen sind und dass private Aneigner derartiger Dinge und Ressourcen deshalb aus Gerechtigkeitsgründen gegenüber den anderen Menschen zur Zahlung (...) einer Entschädigung verpflichtet sind, deren Höhe dem ökonomischen Wert der von ihnen angeeigneten Güter entspricht. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird gezeigt, dass diese Begründung des Grundeinkommens auch dann nicht überzeugen kann, wenn man die eigentumstheoretischen Grundannahmen des Links-Libertarismus akzeptiert. Hierfür sind werttheoretische Defizite verantwortlich, die es fraglich erscheinen lassen, ob sich die Größe des ökonomischen Werts der von Natur aus gegebenen Dinge und Ressourcen im Rahmen der links-libertären Philosophie überhaupt überzeugend bestimmen lässt. For a good twenty years now, philosophers have been increasingly discussing whether or not a basic income for every citizen is a just institution. Some of these thinkers ground the institution of basic income on a notion that was developed by left-libertarian philosophers. This notion is based on the claims that things and resources that are naturally given are originally the common possession of all of mankind and that, out of reasons of justice, whoever privately appropriates such things or resources is therefore liable to paying compensation of an amount corresponding to the economic value of the appropriated items. The aim of the present study is to show that even if one accepts the basic assumptions made by left-libertarians about property rights, the above justification of basic income does not hold. This is due to deficits in the theory of value, which render it questionable whether the magnitude of the economic worth of things and resources given in nature can ever be convincingly determined within the framework of left-libertarianism. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is (1) to show, on the basis of a number of unpublished documents, how Heinrich Scholz supported his Warsaw colleague Jan Łukasiewicz, the Polish logician, during World War II, and (2) to discuss the efforts he made in order to enable Jan Łukasiewicz and his wife Regina to move from Warsaw to Münster under life-threatening circumstances. In the first section, we explain how Scholz provided financial help to Łukasiewicz, and we also adduce evidence of (...) the risks incurred by German scholars who offered assistance to their Polish colleagues. In the second section, we discuss the dramatic circumstances surrounding the Łukasiewiczes' move to Münster in the summer of 1944. (shrink)

This anthology of articles provides contemporary international feminist perspectives on issues of identity, agency, and difference as they pertain to both feminist politics in particular, and contemporary western politics more generally.

Für die zeitgenössische Philosophie ist das Vererben ein Vermögenstransfer, der unter Gesichtspunkten sozialer Gerechtigkeit zu behandeln ist. Diese Untersuchungsperspektive ist angesichts der massiven Verteilungseffekte, die das Vererben zeitigt, ohne Frage sehr wichtig. Allerdings lässt sie einen Punkt unberücksichtigt: Das testamentarische Vererben kann wichtige Beiträge dazu leisten, dass wir Verstorbene, denen wir zu Lebzeiten nahestanden, in Erinnerung behalten und wertschätzen. Hierbei ist der monetäre Wert der vererbten Güter nicht entscheidend. Wie ich in meinem Aufsatz darlege, lässt sich mit diesem Befund erklären, (...) warum die (von einer wachsenden Zahl von Gerechtigkeitstheoretikerinnen und -theoretikern geforderte) Abschaffung des Rechts zu vererben nicht nur von Vorteil sein würde, sondern auch mit ethischen Kosten verbunden wäre. Ein adäquater philosophischer Diskurs hätte diesen Befund (mit dem sich neoliberale oder rechtslibertaristische erbrechtliche Positionen nicht rechtfertigen lassen) angemessen zu berücksichtigen. (shrink)

Mythen dienen der Bewaltigung praktischer gesellschaftlicher Probleme, sie bieten Anleitungen zum poietischen und praktisch-politischen Handeln - dies bildet das einigende Band der im vorliegenden Buch versammelten Beitrage. Aus dem Inhalt: Jan Assmann: Tod, Staat, Kosmos: Dimensionen des Mythos im Alten Agypten Stefan Breuer: Das Dritte Reich Michael Friedrich: Chinesische Mythen Bodo Guthmuller: Europa - Kontinent und antiker Mythos Joachim Heinzle: Unsterblicher Heldengesang. Die Nibelungen als nationaler Mythos der Deutschen Klaus Koch: Vom Mythos zum Monotheismus im alten Israel Jurgen Leonhardt/Katharina Krause: (...) Poesie und Bild: Die Actaeon-Geschichte in Ovids Metamorphosen. Stefan M. Maul: Altorientalische Schopfungsmythen Herfried Munkler: Der Antifaschismus als Grundungsmythos der DDR Reimar Schefold: Die mehrstimmige Botschaft: Manner- und Frauenperspektiven in indonesischen Mythen Renate Schlesier: Freuds Dionysos Arbogast Schmitt: Mythos bei Platon". (shrink)