Empirical approaches on topics such as consciousness, self-awareness, or introspective perspective, need a conceptual framework so that the emerging, still unconnected findings can be integrated and put into perspective. We introduce a model of self-consciousness derived from phenomenology, philosophy, the cognitive, and neurosciences. We will then give an overview of research data on one particular aspect of our model, self-agency, trying to link findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Finally, we will expand on pathological aspects of self-agency, and in particular (...) on psychosis in schizophrenia. We show, that a deficient self-monitoring system underlies, in part, hallucinations and formal thought (language) disorder in schizophrenia. We argue, that self-consciousness is a valid construct and can be studied with the instruments of cognitive and neuroscience. (shrink)

Research on parasocial interactions and parasocial relationships refers back to a tradition of 50 years. However, research on both phenomena still suffers from overlapping definitions and resulting measurements that do not distinguish between PSI and PSR. The present study presents a post-exposure measurement tool that aims to measure PSI instead of PSR. It is derived from a theoretical model that specifically focuses on PSI. Psychometric analyses indicate the tool's high usability. It is capable of displaying both the intensity and the (...) dimensionality of PSI. It can be applied to measure both positive and negative PSI across all TV formats, without changing the item wording. In sum, the PSI-Process-Scales may offer a valuable alternative for researchers in the field, specifically if they want to assess parasocial processes that take place throughout TV exposure. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 18 Heft: 2 Seiten: 129-152.

These are set against introductory essays describing the philosophical, historical and psychological approaches, making this a uniquely inclusive overview.

Kant and Adorno alike have assumed that hope plays a central role in the relation between ethics and happiness. After comparing some of their different interpretations of hope, this paper traces the philosophical account of the concept of hope which Kant and Adorno, however, agree on. They both see hope as essential for bridging the gulf between normativity and realities. Hope, they argue, features a weaker doxastic state than belief but a stronger one than wishful thinking. For Kant, the question, (...) "what may I hope?" is part of the interests of human reason. By modifying this conception of hope, Adorno advocates a notion of hope, which accounts for a critique of religion and metaphysics. (shrink)

Thinking is a festival and thus human beings experience, through cogitation, the sociable structure of their thinking. As they think, speak and listen they listen and speak and they are in the company of others. It was Plato, the sociable one, who thus spoke and was listened to: “And thinking, is it the same thing to you as to me?” This is the question that Plato puts in Socrates's mouth, when faced with Theaetetus in a dialogue named after him. Theaetetus (...) in turn asks a question: “How do you describe it?” And Socrates replies: “As a discourse that the mind carries on with itself about any subject it is considering. …, but I have a notion that, when the mind is thinking, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them, and saying yes or no.”. (shrink)

Dans ce commentaire, je me pencherai brièvement sur une philosophie du discours performatif qui s’inscrit dans la foulée de l’exploration par Taylor des capacités linguistiques humaines. Cette philosophie vient compléter la pleine étendue de la capacité linguistique, et montrer comment la raison pénètre la pensée grâce au langage. Le langage crée en effet une ouverture à la raison grâce — et c’est ce sur quoi je me concentrerai — à une critique de l’auto-tromperie, qui peut être réalisée grâce à la (...) capacité linguistique. (shrink)

In his latest book, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, Jürgen Habermas attempts nothing less than a reconceptualisation of the history of human reason. Why, according to the central question that runs through the book like a red thread, can we, in the face of all social adversities and psychological obstacles, still be morally motivated to stand up for overcoming injustice in the world? This almost classic question about what I can hope for undoubtedly bears Kantian traits. And yet Habermas clearly (...) goes beyond Kant. We argue that this becomes visible, first, in his post-metaphysical conception of motivation, which links individual and collective moral learning processes. The enormous explosive power of this conception comes into its own, secondly, especially against the background of some additional assumptions (trust, grief, open future). Nevertheless, thirdly, the question arises to what extent the Habermasian narrative of progress does not have a blind spot because it is in some sense not dialectical enough. The negative side of reason, which Adorno and Benjamin emphasised, are not included in the progress narrative, or only indirectly, which makes the conception of moral motivation seem weaker than it ought to be. (shrink)

Das Erkenntnisinteresse, das dieses Buch anleitet, gilt dem Begriff der moralischen Wahrheit, der Frage, ob und, wenn ja, warum moralische Urteile Wahrheitsansprüche erheben dürfen.

In Democracy without Shortcuts, Cristina Lafont elaborates the view that participatory deliberation is at the heart of every democracy and that both truth-tracking and mutual justification are the...

Thinking is a festival and thus human beings experience, through cogitation, the sociable structure of their thinking. As they think, speak and listen they listen and speak and they are in the company of others. It was Plato, the sociable one, who thus spoke and was listened to: “And thinking, is it the same thing to you as to me?” This is the question that Plato puts in Socrates's mouth, when faced with Theaetetus in a dialogue named after him. Theaetetus (...) in turn asks a question: “How do you describe it?” And Socrates replies: “As a discourse that the mind carries on with itself about any subject it is considering. …, but I have a notion that, when the mind is thinking, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them, and saying yes or no.”. (shrink)

Let us imagine that we decided to visit cities at different places in the world. During our journey we would probably consult often one or more of these books known as “travel guides,” which, in our case, describe one or more cities for the benefit of the traveler who knows nothing about them or has only a slight idea of what they are like.Presumably we would be told not infrequently that in the cities being described something is “reflected” - that (...) the city architecture of Paris reflects the immortality - obsessed self-glorification of French kings, emperors, or national presidents; that the baroque layout of Rome reflects the triumphant Catholicism of the counter- Reformation ; that the skyscrapers of Manhattan reflect the unbridled creativity of American civilization. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 67 Heft: 2 Seiten: 317-323.

Property rights are often seen as a gateway to the destruction of nature. In view of the ecological crisis, criticism of property rights is therefore becoming louder and louder. On the one hand, rightly so, since global warming, resource depletion, global pollution and the loss of species have been made possible by the private ownership of natural assets. On the other hand, the criticism falls short. Even common and public property does not protect natural assets from being overexploited, resources depleted, (...) and values extracted. Moreover, it is questionable whether nature would actually be better off today without any property regulation. A new understanding of property that does justice to natural goods is therefore needed. The article considers the rights of nature as a way to rethink property in this sense and explores reasons to give rights of nature a general validity. (shrink)

Does modernity still have a future? The news from the modern world suggests a negative answer. It is true, the project of modernity, in the fourth century after its inception, has still not been brought to its completion. Modern man has not yet succeeded in establishing himself as maître et possesseur de la nature. Nevertheless, he has elevated himself above his earthly existence by mastering the laws of space travel; the man in the moon, formerly a mythological figure, has now (...) an American name. Modern man has not yet reached Utopia where the necessity of labor and the ease of leisure would be reconciled; in many regards, he is still bound to toil for his subsistence. But he has invented artificial intelligence and thus has found a humanoid substitute for an endless number of cumbersome tasks; work is transformed into computer games. Modern man has not yet become the Lord of his life, he continues to miss a complete control over infirmities, afflictions, and, finally, death. But he has fathomed the biochemical basis of life and acquired the skills to manipulate the forms of being; the breath of life is recorded as genetic code. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 3 Seiten: 595-603.

Hegel′s concept of truth and contemporary theories of truth could mutually profit from one another in two regards. Hegel′s unity of truth and rationality makes an attempt to undermine the antagonism of internal and external concepts of knowledge and gives an account for truth in ethics. Ethical truth is accounted for by an external concept of practical rationality without assigning truth an epistemic design. To understand practical rationality, we must account for irrationality as a case of self-deception which seems to (...) be incompatible with an external concept of rationality. Hegel′s 'inclusive monism′ elucidates a concept of rationality which complies with the requirements for ethical truth. (shrink)

The title of this article evokes the problem in the pursuit of which Eric Voegelin, one of the foremost political philosophers in the twentieth century, produced his work. To inquire into what is called here “the movement unto knowing between reality and consciousness,” Voegelin progressively differentiated his language concerning “reality” and “consciousness.” In fact, language itself became for him a central theme. In his late essay The Beginning of the Beginning he added to the notions of reality and consciousness that (...) of “language,” in one and the same “complex”” It is through language, he maintained, that reality becomes present to consciousness. To know reality means to enter into the “story” that reality is. In his quest for a theory of consciousness, the acme of his theory of politics, Voegelin found himself compelled to develop a theory of language. (shrink)