Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and shifting (...) meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU confirms the protection of personal data as a fundamental human right and affords data subjects more control over the way their personal information is processed, shared, and analyzed. However, where data are processed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, asserting control and providing adequate explanations is a challenge. Due to massive increases in computing power and big data processing, modern AI algorithms are too complex and opaque to be understood by most data (...) subjects. Articles 15 and 22 of the GDPR provide a modest regulatory framework for automated data processing by, among other things, mandating that data controllers inform data subjects about when it is being used, and its logic and ramifications. Nevertheless, due to the phrasing of the articles and the numerous exceptions they allow, doubts have arisen about their effectiveness. In this paper, we empirically evaluate the quality and effectiveness of AI disclosures as mandated by the GDPR. By means of an online survey (N = 835), we investigated how data subjects expect to be informed about the automated processing of their data. We then conducted a content analysis of the AI disclosures of N = 100 companies and organizations. The combined findings reveal that current GDPR-mandated disclosures do not meet the expectations and needs of data subjects. Explanations drawn up following the guidelines of the generic formulations of the GDPR differ widely and are often vague, incomplete and lack transparency. In our conclusions we identify a path towards standardizing and optimizing AI information notices. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and shifting (...) meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

Young children learn to make sense of the world through mimetic processes. These processes are focused to begin with on their parents, brothers and sisters and people they know well. Young children want to become like these persons. They are driven by the desire to become like them, which will mean that they belong and are part of them and their world. Young children, and indeed humans in general are social beings. They, more than all non-human primates, are social beings (...) who cannot survive without the Other. In mimetic processes the outside world becomes the inner world and the inner world becomes the outside world. The imaginary is developed and the imaginary develops ways of relating to the outside world. In a mimetic loop, this in turn affects the inner world of the imaginary. These processes are sensory and governed by desire. All the senses are involved which means that the imaginary has multiple layers. Since there is an intermingling of images, emotions and language, these processes are rooted in the body and at the same time transcend the body as they become part of the imaginary. Human beings create images of themselves in all cultures and historical periods. They need these images to understand themselves and their relationship to other human beings and to develop social relations and communities. Images of the human being are designs and projections of the human being and his or her relationship to other people and to the world. They are formed to visualize representations of individuals or aspects of them. They arise when we communicate about ourselves. They support us to live with diversities and to develop similarities and feelings of belonging with other people. They are the result of complex anthropological processes, in which social and cultural power structures play an important role. (shrink)

I defend J. L. Austin's direct realism against the colour delusion argument by employing epistemic logic to demonstrate that perceiving colours does not necessitate an intermediary such as sense-data, thus preserving the directness of perception.

I will explore the paradoxical nature of epistemic access. By critiquing the traditional conception of mental states that are labelled as ’knowledge’, I demonstrate the susceptibility of these states to an infinite regress, thus, challenging their existence and validity. I scrutinise the assumption that an epistemic agent can have complete epistemic access to all facts about a given object while simultaneously being ignorant of certain truths that impact the very knowledge claims about the object. I further analyse the implications of (...) this paradox when attempting to fine-grain the parameters of epistemic access, which happens to reveal the vacuity of such definitions and the inevitability of the regress. (shrink)

Paradigms of anthropology -- Evolution-hominization-anthropology -- Philosophical anthropology -- Anthropology in the historical sciences: historical anthropology -- Cultural anthropology -- Historical cultural anthropology -- Core issues of anthropology -- The body as a challenge -- The mimetic basis of cultural learning -- Theories and practices of the performative -- The rediscovery of rituals -- Language-the antinomy between the universal and the particular -- Images and imagination -- Death and recollection of birth -- Future prospects.

This volume develops a unique framework to understand India through indigenous and European perspectives, and examines how it copes with the larger challenges of a globalized world. Through a discussion of religious and philosophical traditions, cultural developments as well as contemporary theatre, films and media, it explores the manner in which India negotiates the trials of globalization. It also focuses upon India’s school and education system, its limitations and successes, and how it prepares to achieve social inclusion. The work further (...) shows how contemporary societies in both India and Europe deal with cultural diversity and engage with the tensions between tendencies towards homogenization and diversity. This eclectic collection on what it is to be a part of global network will be of interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian studies, philosophy, sociology, culture studies, and religion. (shrink)

Davon ausgehend, dass Natur und Kultur das gemeinsame Erbe des Menschen bilden, wird dargestellt, was wir unter dem Anthropozän verstehen. Es werden die ungewollten Wirkungen der Industrialisierung und Modernisierung untersucht. Dazu gehören der Klimawandel, die Zerstörung der Biodiversität, die gestörten biogeochemischen Kreisläufe, die Versauerung der Ozeane und die Verschmutzung des Planeten mit der Gefahr der Zerstörung der Lebensgrundlagen der Menschen, Tiere und Pflanzen. Welche Rolle spielen in diesem Prozess die Maschinen? Ohne ihre Erfindung wäre es nicht zu diesem Prozess mit (...) seinen zahlreichen Nebenwirkungen gekommen. Ihre Entwicklung reicht von der Dampfmaschine über die Prothetik bis zur Robotik. Ein wichtiger Motor der Entwicklung sind heute die digitale Kultur und die Künstlichen Intelligenz. Lassen sich diese auch für die nachhaltige Entwicklung nutzen? Ohne die Digitalisierung wäre es nicht zu den Entwicklungen der Gentechnologie gekommen. Mit der Erfindung und Nutzung der CRISPR-Technologie werden Eingriffe in die Evolution möglich, die sich als eine Zuspitzung der Dynamik des Anthropozäns begreifen lassen. Gibt es Möglichkeiten, die Gefährdungen und die negativen Auswirkungen dieser Entwicklungen zu vermeiden oder sie sogar zu kompensieren? Hier entstehen viele nicht einfach beantwortbare anthropologische Fragen, die für ein historisch und kulturell reflexives (Selbst-)Verständnis des Menschen von zentraler Bedeutung sind. (shrink)

(2003). Perfecting the Individual: Wilhelm von Humboldt's concept of anthropology, Bildung and mimesis. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 241-249.

We introduce a new theorem in social choice theory built on a path integral approach which will show that, under some reasonable conditions, there is a unique way to aggregate individual preferences based on fuzzy sets into a social preference based on probabilities, and that this way is invariant under any permutation of alternatives. We then apply this theorem to the case of democratic decision making with data of the behaviour and voting preferences of voting agents and show that there (...) is a tradeoff between fairness and efficiency and that no voting system can achieve both simultaneously. (shrink)

Bringing together historical and cultural perspectives on the senses, and their association with body, emotion, cultural memory and tradition, this book examines the significance of senses in the understanding of the world and the self. Further, in comparing Indian and western theories of senses, it highlights the anthropological, philosophical and religious underpinnings of our engagement with a changing world, globalization, and new media.

The first part of the article (§§ 1-3) illustrates the critical relation the authors establish with the leading figures of philosophical anthropology in terms of their engagement with “world-openness” (Weltoffenheit). This notion cannot be reduced to the objectivity that confronts man as a spiritual being, as in Max Scheler, but rather makes it possible to grasp the limits of distancing objectification; in Arnold Gehlen, the coercion to action derived from the indeterminacy of man’s relation with the world is not sufficient (...) to comprehend the role of culture for the constitution of the human animal itself; and with the biological means utilized by Helmuth Plessner it is not possible to account entirely for the human capacity to establish relations by means of society. Historical anthropology, as the second part (§§ 4-5) of the article shows, aims to respond to such deficiencies by bringing to light the numerous historical and cultural forms of openness to a plurality of worlds. Freeing itself of any abstract and binding anthropological norm that claims to define the essence of man, historical anthropology investigates human structures and phenomena through a series of transdisciplinary studies centering on themes such as the body, ritual, mimesis and the performative dimension in its entirety, performance and performativity. (shrink)

In this article Cristoph Wulf examines the basic concepts of pedagogy and educational science in the German-speaking world, looking at education and socialization from the perspective of educational anthropology. He makes evident that the complex German concept of Bildung, in particular, can only be fully understood by means of a historical and philosophical analysis.

In this interdisciplinary anthology, essays study the relationship between the imagination and images both material and mental.

The progressive in English appears to be inherently modal, due to what Dowty (Word meaning and Montague grammar: The semantics of verbs and times in generative semantics and in Montague’s PTQ, 1979) terms the imperfective paradox. In truth-conditional accounts, the literal truth of a clause with the modal progressive hinges on the possibility of the described outcome. The clause’s truth under such accounts has also been tacitly assumed to describe its felicitous use. Two challenges for this strategy are discussed. First, (...) a progressive clause exhibiting the imperfective paradox can occur felicitously even when the described outcome is not possible. Second, a progressive clause exhibiting the paradox can occur felicitously with an accompanying unless-clause, yet the analysis of unless-clauses directly contradicts the modal analysis of the truth-conditional behavior of the progressive clause in such cases. If the analysis of unless is not flawed, then the modal progressive will require reanalysis. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 1 Seiten: 13-19.

There is no doubt that it is in Germany that educational science developed as a scientific discipline in its own right when humanist pedagogics, empirical ...

Medizinethische Untersuchungen zum Thema Neuroenhancement (NE) wenden sich oft der Frage zu, inwiefern der Einzelne wie auch die Allgemeinheit durch NE zu Schaden kommen können. Gerechtigkeitsprobleme, ein befürchteter Wandel des Menschenbildes oder die Gefahr einer unerwünschten, schleichenden Veränderung der Gesellschaft werden problematisiert. Bezüglich individueller Risiken bleibt es aufgrund des vermeintlichen Zugewinns an Selbstbestimmung und Eigenverantwortung gerne beim Verweis auf die subjektive Kosten-Nutzen-Abwägung. Innerhalb der NE-Debatte gibt es bisher kaum Arbeiten, die die Aspekte der Motivation für die Nutzung von NE aus (...) tiefenpsychologischer Perspektive beleuchten. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, diese Aspekte zu analysieren. Die Arbeit soll einen Beitrag zu einem neuen Blickwinkel auf Selbstbestimmung und subjektive Einschätzung der Vor- und Nachteile von NE leisten. Es werden psychologische Aspekte thematisiert, welche die im Kontext von NE übliche Annahme, dass Konsumenten zur Selbstverantwortung fähig seien, problematisch erscheinen lassen, da sie die Wahrnehmung dieser Verantwortung erschweren oder gar unmöglich machen können. In diesem Zusammenhang wollen wir versuchen, für die psychologischen Gefahren und Folgen von NE zu sensibilisieren. Es wird beispielsweise darüber diskutiert, inwiefern der Gebrauch von NE-Technologien eine Persönlichkeit nachhaltig prägen und gerade deshalb das Erleben von Selbstwirksamkeit beeinträchtigen kann. Dies stellt die für die liberale Position zentrale Prämisse, wonach Individuen sich frei und vernünftig entscheiden können, infrage. (shrink)

In groupware tools, the activation of a function may affect other users who might have conflicting interests. We developed technical mechanisms to support users in resolving them. Contrary to current implementations of groupware tools, these mechanisms strengthen the position of the users who are affected by the activation of said functions. Supporting the visibility of a function's activation, and providing a channel for communication or means to intervene against the function's activation are approaches which constitute a framework to implement these (...) mechanisms. We conclude with showing implementation examples of the framework and their evaluation in the POLITeam project. (shrink)

This book develops an “idiomatic” foundational theory of the self and its moral obligations. It then employs this theory to answer a variety of questions about legal obligation, political authority, community, and international justice. It argues that we ought to obey a particular community’s laws and government commands, so long as our government restricts itself to protecting classical liberty and individual property rights under the rule of law. It further argues that people today should ideally live in confederated, legally sovereign (...) nation-states or nation-unions. Finally, it suggests that we have greater obligations to our compatriots than we do to foreign citizens, although we will often have pressing moral reasons to obey foreign laws while abroad, grant citizenship to outsiders who wish to join us, and help relieve foreign people’s misery. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Die thematisch breit gefächerte Reihe umfasst Schriften zur Kunst- und Bildwissenschaft, Kulturgeschichte und Philosophie.

First published in 1989, Looking Back on the End of the World raises provocative questions about the possibilities of critical knowledge in social systems that seem to have "surpassed history." Unlike recent works that make history end with the consumer, or project the conflict between the capitalist and the oppressed into the future, the writers in these essays perform a much more basic task: they argue that we can now think through the "end of the world." The idea of a (...) "unified world," they claim, has given way to new sensibilities about history. The essays evaluate current negative obsessions such as apocalypse and the elimination of difference, and offer positive approaches to the "gamble of thinking" required in a society without traditional subjects and institutions. Capitalism, the book argues, has changed all the rules of the game, and any nostalgia for "starting" from the familiar in terms of intellectual critique is doomed. Collectively, the authors sketch the unfamiliarity of the new, those moments when our categories dissolve in the face of connections and relations that announce all sorts of "ends." And other things besides. (shrink)

The background of the conflict study presented in part II consists of ten transdisciplinary and transcultural anthropological studies based on the paradigm of historical anthropology. On this basis, the “Berlin Ritual and Gesture Study” financed by the German Research Foundation was carried out. This 12 years lasting research project examined the role of rituals and gestures in the major fields of socialization “family”, “school”, “peer-group” and “media” in the context of a Berlin inner city primary school. It provided the conceptual (...) and methodological starting point for the exploration of the possible beginning of a mobbing conflict and the difficulties to handle it. In this study, a methodology of ethnography of education was developed which served as basis for the analysis of the mobbing process in Part II. (shrink)

We present here the “e-Portfolio” concept, which aims to provide access to documented design case studies of design researchers’ practices. Our e-Portfolio has its origins in Grounded Design. We examine here how the e-Portfolio concept grew out of Grounded Design, the way it instantiates values, and how it contributes to our understanding of the ways in which shifting values in practice can have an impact beyond the individual.

Für den interkulturellen Dialog zwischen den europäischen Ländern und ihren muslimischen Nachbarn spielen die Künste eine zentrale Rolle. Jede Kunst hat eine ihr eigene Sprache entwickelt, die den Menschen hilft, in Beziehung zueinander zu treten und sich auszutauschen. Die Künste geben den Kulturen die Möglichkeit sich auszudrücken und tragen zur Entstehung kultureller Identität bei. Sie formen die Wahrnehmungen, Erinnerungen, Vorstellungen und damit das individuelle und kollektive Imaginäre. In ihnen erfahren die Menschen die Alterität anderer Kulturen und ihrer selbst und werden (...) dadurch gebildet. Die Künste sind nicht nur den Angehörigen ihrer Kultur, sondern allen Menschen zugänglich. Sie vermitteln heterologische Erfahrungen und haben daher für die Verständigung zwischen den verschiedenen Kulturen eine große Bedeutung. Zu den Autoren gehören Kulturwissenschaftler und Philosophen aus europäischen und muslimischen Ländern: Radwa Ashour, Hans Belting, Benmeziane Bencherki, Roland Bernecker, Christina von Braun, Paolo Fabbri, Lydia Goehr, Gertrud Koch, Klaus Krüger, Mustapha Larissa, Reyés Mate, Hamdi Mehrez, Marie-José Mondzain, Angelika Neuwirth, Ludgar Schwarte, Antoine Seif, Philippe Tancelin, Jacques Poulain, Fathi Triki, Rachida Triki, Hassan Wahibi,Christoph Wulf, Mohamed Zouzi-Chebbi. (shrink)

Demokratische Lebensbedingungen sind nur möglich, wenn Menschen mit Hilfe von Erziehung und Bildung über die Fähigkeit verfügen, ihre gesellschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Verhältnisse so zu gestalten, dass sie sich an den menschlichen Grundrechten orientieren. Erziehung und Bildung dürfen nicht auf die Maximierung von Leistungsfähigkeit, Demokratie und gesellschaftliches Zusammenleben nicht auf die bloße Befolgung von Gesetzen und Regeln reduziert werden. Erziehung und Bildung umfassen wissen lernen, handeln lernen, zusammenleben lernen und sein lernen. Gelingende Demokratie zielt auf Lebens-, Interaktions-, Kommunikationsverhältnisse, die sich (...) an den Werten gesellschaftliche Sicherheit, soziale Gerechtigkeit und Nachhaltigkeit orientieren und zugleich für neue individuelle und soziale Entwicklungen offen sind. Infolge der Globalisierung und des Neoliberalismus sind Demokratien und ihre Bildungssysteme in den europäischen, muslimischen und arabischen Ländern in Gefahr, den Reichtum und die Vielfalt ihrer Werte und Lebensformen auf die Realisierung enger religiöser Vorstellungen, die Durchsetzung politischer und ökonomischer Herrschaft und die Überbetonung zweckrationalen Denkens und Handelns zu reduzieren. Dagegen bestehen die Autoren und Autorinnen dieses Bandes auf der Notwendigkeit partizipatorischer Erziehungs- und Bildungsprozesse, die die Entwicklung von Subjekten und Gemeinschaften fördern und in denen Menschen lernen, ihre individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Lebensbedingungen in kultureller Diversität demokratisch zu gestalten. (shrink)

This VSD nugget considers how the small-scale effects of practice-based design activities can be sustained and scaled up to contribute to global societal change. Examining in particular the character of social networking activity, we discuss how the sustainability of an initiative is related to its ability to: (i) be scaled up and linked with like-minded initiatives; (ii) navigate diverse values; (iii) establish organizational structures beyond the scientific context; (iv) establish a voice in public discourse; and (v) identify and involve relevant (...) policy makers. (shrink)