Les grandes controverses historiographiques se sont généralement déroulées sur plusieurs fronts. L’article essaie de replacer les débats actuels dans le contexte et l’horizon de différentes expériences de recherche afin de dégager leur apport théorique et empirique. En envisageant surtout les rapports controversés entre histoire sociale et anthropologie historique, il cherche à dégager les récurrences qui le lient à d’autres débats dont les moments forts autour de 1800 et de 1900 reflètent des crises aux connotations politiques mais aussi aux conséquences épistémologiques (...) évidentes. (shrink)

Ab dem Frühjahr 1532 rückt wieder die Reichspolitik ins Zentrum von Bucers Aufmerksamkeit, als in Schweinfurt in seiner Gegenwart die Verhandlungen über einen befristeten Waffenstillstand zwischen Kaiser und Protestanten beginnen. Erst Bucers theologische Gutachten und Argumentationshilfen eröffnen den Oberdeutschen dort die Möglichkeit, die Lehrformulierungen der Confessio Augustana und ihrer Apologie mitzutragen.

On 19 March 1900, at the bicentenary celebrations of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Kaiser Wilhelm II established three new fellowships in engineering sciences. This was in many aspects an unwanted gift, and one which tested the Academy’s relationship between pure and applied science. In the context of contemporary struggles between traditional and modern knowledge, this paper shows how the Academy confronted the newly emerging engineering sciences, and how it resolved a potential challenge in ways that ensured its continuing (...) autonomy. (shrink)

What are the conditions under which one biological object is a part of another biological object? This paper answers this question by developing a general, systematic account of biological parthood. I specify two criteria for biological parthood. Substantial Spatial Inclusionrequires biological parts to be spatially located inside or in the region that the natural boundary of t he biological whole occupies. Compositional Relevance captures the fact that a biological part engages in a biological process that must make a necessary contribution (...) to a condition that is minimally sufficient to one or more of the characteristic behaviors of the biological whole. Instead of emphasizing the diversity of part-whole relations in the biological world, this paper asks what biological part-whole relations have in common and what constrains their existence, in general. After presenting the two criteria for biological parthood I discuss in how far my account can cope with hard cases (e.g., redundant parts) and I reveal the merits and limits of monism. (shrink)

Back cover: This book develops a philosophical account that reveals the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive and distinguish them from non-reductive explanations. Understanding what reductive explanations are enables one to assess the conditions under which reductive explanations are adequate and thus enhances debates about explanatory reductionism. The account of reductive explanation presented in this book has three major characteristics. First, it emerges from a critical reconstruction of the explanatory practice of the life sciences itself. (...) Second, the account is monistic since it specifies one set of criteria that apply to explanations in the life sciences in general. Finally, the account is ontic in that it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist between objects in the world (such as part-whole relations and level relations), rather than to the logical relations between sentences. Beginning with a disclosure of the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie the author’s analysis of reductive explanation, the book leads into the debate about reduction(ism) in the philosophy of biology and continues with a discussion on the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far. The author scrutinizes how the issue of reduction becomes entangled with explanation and analyzes two concepts, the concept of a biological part and the concept of a level of organization. The results of these five chapters constitute the ground on which the author bases her final chapter, developing her ontic account of reductive explanation. (shrink)

Figures of Simplicity explores a unique constellation of figures from philosophy and literature—Heinrich von Kleist, Herman Melville, G. W. Leibniz, and Alexander Baumgarten—in an attempt to recover alternative conceptions of aesthetics and dimensions of thinking lost in the disciplinary narration of aesthetics after Kant. This is done primarily by tracing a variety of “simpletons” that populate the writings of Kleist and Melville. These figures are not entirely ignorant, or stupid, but simple. Their simplicity is a way of thinking, one that (...) Birgit Mara Kaiser suggests is affective thinking. Kaiser avers that Kleist and Melville are experimenting in their texts with an affective mode of thinking, and thereby continue a key line within eighteenth-century aesthetics: the relation of rationality and sensibility. Through her analyses, she offers an outline of what thinking can look like if we take affectivity into account. (shrink)

Om: Walter Benjamin: Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen og Theodor W. Adorno: Ästhetische Theorie.

Physicists have grappled with quantum theory for over a century. They have learned to wring precise answers from the theory's governing equations, and no experiment to date has found compelling evidence to contradict it. Even so, the conceptual apparatus remains stubbornly, famously bizarre. Physicists have tackled these conceptual uncertainties while navigating still larger ones: the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars and a new nuclear age, an unsteady Cold War stand-off and its unexpected end. Quantum Legacies introduces readers to physics' (...) still-unfolding quest by treating iconic moments of discovery and debate among well-known figures like Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, and Stephen Hawking, and many others whose contributions have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature. (shrink)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed in their disciplines (...) and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Though the notion of a scientific textbook has been around for almost three centuries, the category has hardly been stable. The plasticity of the textbook genre may be illustrated by recent variations as well as long-term trends. In this brief essay I examine two idiosyncratic but highly successful physics books, each published in the mid 1970s, whose production, marketing, and adoption reveal some of the slippage between such categories as textbook, scholarly monograph, and popular best seller.

ABSTRACT Though the notion of a scientific textbook has been around for almost three centuries, the category has hardly been stable. The plasticity of the textbook genre may be illustrated by recent variations as well as long-term trends. In this brief essay I examine two idiosyncratic but highly successful physics books, each published in the mid 1970s, whose production, marketing, and adoption reveal some of the slippage between such categories as textbook, scholarly monograph, and popular best seller.

Zum Geleit -- Metapher und Allegorie bei Philo von Alexandrien -- Philos Kosmologie zwischen Platonismus und Biblizismus -- Die kosmische Bedeutung des jüdischen Hohepriesters im Denken Philos von Alexandrien -- Das Gebet bei Philo von Alexandrien -- Aretē und Pathos bei Philo von Alexandrien -- Hoffnung und Freude, Kummer und Furcht bei Philo von Alexandrien -- Gesundheit und Krankheit bei Philo von Alexandrien -- Vom Tod des Leibes und der Seele sowie der Freiheit als dem höchsten irdischen Gut oder Die (...) Rolle des Todes in Philos Denken . (shrink)

This paper is about time preferences, the phenomenon that the very same things are usually considered the less valuable the farther in the future they are obtained. The utilities of those things are discounted at a certain rate. The paper presents a novel normative argument for exponential discount rates, whatever their empirical adequacy. It proposes to take indexical utility seriously, i.e. utilities referring to indexical propositions (that speak of ‘I’, ‘now’, etc.) as opposed to non-indexical propositions. Economic focus is only (...) on the latter, while the former are neglected. The potential ignorance of when is now generates a difference between indexical and non-indexical utility that can be exploited for a novel argument in favour of exponential discount rates. (shrink)

In his 1969 book The Making of a Counterculture, Theodore Roszak described the youth of the late 1960s as fleeing science “as if from a place inhabited by plague,” and even seeking “subversion of the scientific worldview” itself. Roszak’s view has come to be our own: when we think of the youth movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, we think of a movement that was explicitly anti-scientific in its embrace of alternative spiritualities and communal living. Such a view is (...) far too simple, ignoring the diverse ways in which the era’s countercultures expressed enthusiasm for and involved themselves in science—of a certain type. Rejecting hulking, militarized technical projects like Cold War missiles and mainframes, Boomers and hippies sought a science that was both small-scale and big-picture, as exemplified by the annual workshops on quantum physics at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, or Timothy Leary’s championing of space exploration as the ultimate “high.” Groovy Science explores the experimentation and eclecticism that marked countercultural science and technology during one of the most colorful periods of American history. (shrink)

Einleitung -- Grundthemen des Diskurses um die Philosophenbiographien im christlichen Milieu -- Das Leben der Philosophen im Urteil der griechischen Kirchenväter -- Pagane und christliche Philosophenbiographien in byzantinischer Zeit -- Diogenes Laertios unter den Griechen in Byzanz und Italien.

Evo-devo is a multidisciplinary field that investigates the interplay between evolutionary and developmental processes and brings together different kinds of explanatory strategies. This chapter examines the structure of paradigmatic explanations in evo-devo (e.g., the explanation of the origin of an evolutionary novelty) and raises philosophical questions about explanation in evo-devo. Much research in evo-devo is concerned with studying the developmental mechanisms that constrain and facilitate phenotypic evolution, which suggests that a distinctive feature of evo-devo is that it constructs mechanistic explanations. (...) In this chapter, I discuss three major challenges for thinking about evo-devo as providing mechanistic explanations. First, an explanation of an evolutionary novelty consists of several mechanistic explanations, rather than being a single one. Second, developmental mechanisms are ontogenetically and phylogenetically dynamic and thus difficult to individuate. Third, an explanation of an evolutionary novelty also has a non-mechanistic, historical part. Finally, I discuss whether evo-devo’s emphasis on mechanistic explanation promotes explanatory integration or results in a reductionist view of evolution. (shrink)

"A Survey of Ranking Theory": The paper gives an up-to-date survey of ranking theory. It carefully explains the basics. It elaborates on the ranking theoretic explication of reasons and their balance. It explains the dynamics of belief statable in ranking terms and indicates how the ranks can thereby be measured. It suggests how the theory of Bayesian nets can be carried over to ranking theory. It indicates what it might mean to objectify ranks. It discusses the formal and the philosophical (...) aspects of the tight relation and the complementarity of ranks and probabilities. It closes with comparative remarks on predecessors and other philosophical proposals as well as formal models developed in AI. (shrink)

Theologie / Altes Testament Philo von Alexandrien nimmt eine Schlüsselstellung in der hellenistischen Geistesgeschichte ein, weil er der erste mittelplatonische Denker gewesen ist, dessen Schriften zum größten Teil überliefert sind. Seine Schriften sind darüber hinaus eine unentbehrliche Quelle für die hellenistische und stoische Philosophie, deren Werke nicht erhalten sind. Seine theologiegeschichtliche Bedeutung beruht darauf, dass er sich als Erster bei seinen Auslegungen der Fünft Bücher Mose zur Welt- und Existenzerhellung der ihm vorliegenden Schriften der griechischen Philosophen und...

Der Sammelband vereint Beitrage, die dem Andenken an den Philosophiehistoriker Thomas Ricklin gewidmet sind und an dessen Arbeit anschlieaen. Die Texte befassen sich mit der Erforschung der Philosophie- und Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters, der Renaissance und der Fruhen Neuzeit und bieten ein Panorama der verschiedenen Dimensionen dessen, was Weisheit und Philosophie in diesen Epochen bedeuteten. Im Zentrum stehen Dante und Boccaccio, wobei insbesondere deren Lehre vom "Schleier" der poetischen Sprache, unter dem die Wahrheit verhullt sei, in einer Reihe von Studien untersucht (...) wird. In diesem Kontext widmen sich weitere Beitrage den Konzepten einiger der wichtigsten Denker des Mittelalters, wie Boethius von Dacien, Roger Bacon, Johannes von Wales, Meister Eckhart und Pietro d'Abano, dessen "Differentia prima" hier zum ersten Mal in einer kritischen Edition vorgelegt wird. Auaerdem wird die Uberlieferung und Auslegung der antiken Exempla als viel zu lange vernachlassigter Teil der Philosophiegeschichte in den Fokus geruckt. Des Weiteren thematisieren die Beitrage Autoren und Texte, die philosophische Fragen verhandeln, ohne den paradigmatischen Formen des Kommentars oder der Summa zugerechnet werden zu konnen, weil sie Sprach- und Genregrenzen uberschreiten, wie Giordano da Pisa, Jodocus Eichmann und Henry More. Weitere Beitrage, die sich mit Philosophinnen und Historikerinnen der Renaissance und Fruhen Neuzeit beschaftigen, verschaffen den weiblichen Stimmen in von Mannern dominierten Diskursen Gehor. (shrink)

Der Unterricht in Medizinethik soll Medizinstudierenden die Grundlagen dafür vermitteln, in ihrer zukünftigen ärztlichen Tätigkeit gute Entscheidungen treffen zu können. Im Rahmen einer Panelstudie wird derzeit die Entwicklung moralischer Positionen, medizinethischer Kenntnisse und Motivationen von Medizinstudierenden der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München über den Verlauf des Studiums untersucht. Für die Datenerhebung wurde ein Fragebogen entwickelt, der medizinethische Positionen und Kenntnisse sowie Motivationen erfasst. Im Wintersemester 2009/10 wurde die erste Querschnittsuntersuchung mit Studierenden im 1., 3. und 8. Semester sowie im Praktischen Jahr durchgeführt. Die (...) Mehrzahl der Befragten verfügte über einen geringen Kenntnisstand in verschiedenen Themenbereichen des Unterrichtsfachs GTE. Rechtliche Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung von Therapiebegrenzungsmaßnahmen waren bis ins PJ-Semester vielen Studierenden nicht bekannt. Im Verlauf des Studiums veränderten sich die Motivationen weg von der Motivation, Menschen helfen zu wollen, hin zu Wissenserwerb und dem Ergreifen eines sicheren Berufs. Obwohl viele Befragte ein hohes Interesse an medizinethischen Fragestellungen und Unterricht im Bereich GTE angaben, zeigte sich kein nachhaltiger Zuwachs an medizinethischen Kenntnissen im Laufe des Studiums. In der Zusammenschau werfen die Ergebnisse die Frage auf, inwieweit verschiedene Ausbildungskonzepte Einfluss auf die individuelle ethische Entwicklung Medizinstudierender nehmen können. Eine Untersuchung dieser Fragestellung bleibt Gegenstand weitergehender Forschung. (shrink)

English summary: With this work, Otto Kaiser presents the Tria Corda lectures on the three topics of destiny and freedom and divine providence as well as the beauty and harmony in the world and the problem of the existence of evil.