The emerging consensus in the philosophy of cognition is that cognition is situated, i.e., dependent upon or co-constituted by the body, the environment, and/or the embodied interaction with it. But what about emotions? If the brain alone cannot do much thinking, can the brain alone do some emoting? If not, what else is needed? Do (some) emotions (sometimes) cross an individual's boundary? If so, what kinds of supra-individual systems can be bearers of affective states, and why? And does that make (...) emotions ?embedded? or ?extended? in the sense cognition is said to be embedded and extended? Section 2 shows why it is important to understand in which sense body, environment, and our embodied interaction with the world contribute to our affective life. Section 3 introduces some key concepts of the debate about situated cognition. Section 4 draws attention to an important disanalogy between cognition and emotion with regard to the role of the body. Section 5 shows under which conditions a contribution by the environment results in non-trivial cases of ?embedded? emotions. Section 6 is concerned with affective phenomena that seem to cross the organismic boundaries of an individual, in particular with the idea that emotions are ?extended? or ?distributed.? (shrink)

Einleitung - S. Peetz: Subjekt und Freiheit. Antike Grundlagen moderner Konzeptionen der Willensfreiheit - G. Schmidt: Die Paradoxie des Subjekts - A. Friedrich Koch: Die Logik des Scheinens und der Sinn von "ich" - B. Tuschling: Epochen, Stufen und Dimensionen von Subjektivität und Transzendentalität bei Kant: 1770, 1781/87, 1790, 1799/1800 - M. Baum: Person und Persönlichkeit bei Kant - S. Sedgwick: Die Leerheit des 'Ich': Kants Transzendentale Deduktion in "Glauben und Wissen" - E. Düsing: Subjektivität und göttliches Sein bei Fichte (...) - mit Ausblicken auf Kierkegaard - J. Engfer: Kants Konzeption der menschlichen Vernunft und Plessners Begriff der Exzentrizität - T. Nenon: Freiheit, Verantwortung und Selbstbewusstsein bei Husserl - R. Cristin: Die Abenteuer des Bewusstseins. Zum Subjektbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger - C.-A. Scheier: Über logische und andere Subjekte. (shrink)

This paper revisits the often debated question Can machines think? It is argued that the usual identification of machines with the notion of algorithm has been both counter-intuitive and counter-productive. This is based on the fact that the notion of algorithm just requires an algorithm to contain a finite but arbitrary number of rules. It is argued that intuitively people tend to think of an algorithm to have a rather limited number of rules. The paper will further propose a modification (...) of the above mentioned explication of the notion of machines by quantifying the length of an algorithm. Based on that it appears possible to reconcile the opposing views on the topic, which people have been arguing about for more than half a century. (shrink)

Two of Heidegger’s most fundamental distinctions, authenticity and inauthenticity, the existential and the existentiell, are motivated by Aristotle’s δύναμισ/ένέργεια distinction. Even the basic concept of truth must be understood in terms of δύναμισj and ένέργεια. Moreover, Heidegger’s existential imperative only becomes fully comprehensible within the Aristotelian context, revealing the intrinsic interrelation of Heidegger’s two distinctions with one another.

Dieser Band ist Harald Holz zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet. Er bietet keine Festschrift in dem Sinne, dass in den versammelten Texten an das Werk Harald Holz' im einzelnen angeschlossen wurde. Die Beitrager - Freunde, Schuler, Weggefahrten, Kollegen - mochten vielmehr ihre Anerkennung im allgemeinen dadurch ausdrucken, dass sie sich um die gemeinsame Sache, die Philosophie, bemuhen. In den Texten sind Aspekte der Arbeitsgebiete der einzelnen Autoren mit Interessen des Jubilars verbunden, was sich um so leichter ergab, als letztere ausserordentlich weit (...) gespannt sind. Die Beitrage sind geordnet unter den Titeln: Anschauung und Wesen - Zweifel und Wissen - Normen und Kriterien - Glauben und Handeln.". (shrink)

What metaethical position Kant is committed to remains a controversial issue. I discuss three recently published books in which Kant is viewed as an opponent to moral realism and located more or less in the constructivist camp. Although the motivations to classify Kant as a moral constructivist are partly understandable, I argue that constructivist interpretations of Kant’s moral philosophy cause serious theoretical difficulties and, for that reason, should be refrained from.

The concept of emergence is widely used in both the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. In the philosophy of mind it serves to refer to seemingly irreducible phenomena, in cognitive science it is often used to refer to phenomena not explicitly programmed. There is no unique concept of emergence available that serves both purposes.

In the second half of the 19th century, pre-Hispanic jade artifacts from Mexico—especially jade celts and votive axes—stood at the center of scholarly debates on the origins of American civilizations. The contradiction between the prevalence of carved jades, on the one hand, and the apparent absence of jade mineral deposits in the Americas, on the other, resuscitated centuries-old theories that placed the beginnings of pre-Hispanic civilizations in China. The increasing availability of Chinese and Mexican jades in the same spaces of (...) commercial exchange, collection, display, and study—following French imperialist interventions in China and Mexico in the 1860s, which resulted in the plunder of a massive number of antiquities; and in a broader context of interest in jade that brought together artifacts from the South Pacific and from Neolithic contexts in Europe—contributed material proof to these theories. The so-called “jade question” was mostly dismissed by the 20th century, but the debates surrounding jade's mineralogical identity and provenance provide insight into the kinds of epistemological configurations, material limitations, and geopolitical arrangements that bore upon the emergence of new disciplines, including mineralogy, archaeology, and prehistory, as well as the new sciences of the pre-Hispanic past. This essay explores these processes and reconstructs the dense networks of private and public institutions, scholars, collectors, dealers, and connoisseurs, that made jade artifacts from Mexico—and Central America—into a scientific, aesthetic, and commercial category. (shrink)

Während es im moralisch-politischen Diskurs geradezu unkontrovers ist, dass Toleranz eine eminent wichtige Rolle für ein friedliches Zusammenleben von Menschen in pluralistischen Gesellschaften spielt, ist es alles andere als klar, was Toleranz überhaupt ist. Insbesondere die häufig anzutreffende Auffassung, dass es ‚Paradoxien‘ der Toleranz gäbe, sowie die in der Literatur immer von Neuem auftauchende Vexierfrage, ob Toleranz auch den Feinden der Toleranz gelten kann oder muss, sind deutliche Anzeichen dafür, dass es kein stabiles Verständnis der Natur dieser Einstellung gibt. Das (...) Problem ist nicht zuletzt ein methodologisches. Ich stelle zunächst einige Adäquatheitsbedingungen für eine Theorie der Toleranz auf, und argumentiere dann, dass eine Theorie der Toleranz als eine moralpsychologische Theorie vom normativen Begriff der Tolerierbarkeit frei zu halten ist. Nach der hier vorgeschlagenen Theorie besteht das Herzstück der Toleranz in einer verhaltenswirksamen Kontrolle moralischer Aversionen. Diese Theorie erfüllt die Adäquatheitsbedingungen für Theorien der Toleranz und wird von ihnen sogar erzwungen. Auf der Grundlage der erzielten Ergebnisse, erläutere ich dann Sinn und Rechtfertigung der Toleranzforderung und skizziere ihren Ort innerhalb der Ethik. (shrink)

Several theories of emergence will be distinguished. In particular, these are synchronic, diachronic, and weak versions of emergence. While the weaker theories are compatible with property reductionism, synchronic emergentism and strong versions of diachronic emergentism are not. Synchronice mergentism is of particular interest for the discussion of downward causation. For such a theory, a system's property is taken to be emergent if it is irreducible, i.e., if it is not reductively explainable. Furthermore, we have to distinguish two different types of (...) irreducibility with quite different consequences: If, on the one hand, a system's property is irreducible because of the irreducibility of the system's parts' behavior on which the property supervenes, we seem to have a case of "downward causation". This kind of downward causation does not violate the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain. If, on the other hand, a systemic property is irreducible because it is not exhaustively analyzable in terms of its causal role, downward causation is not implied. Rather, it is dubitable how unanalyzable properties might play any causal role at all. Thus, epiphenomenalism seems to be implied. The failure to keep apart the two kinds of irreducibility has muddled recent debate about the emergence of properties considerably. (shrink)

This article focuses on existential feelings. To begin with, it depicts how they differ from other affective phenomena and what type of intentionality they manifest. Furthermore, a detailed analysis shows that existential feelings can be subdivided, first, into elementary and nonelementary varieties, and second, into three foci of primary relatedness: oneself, the social environment, and the world as such. Eventually, five strategies of emotion regulation are examined with respect to their applicability to existential feelings. In the case of harmful existential (...) feelings, it turns out that none seems fitting except one, attentional deployment. (shrink)

A central problem for the international governance of heritable germline gene editing is that there are important differences in attitudes and values as well as ethical and health care considerations around the world. These differences are reflected in a complicated and diverse regulatory landscape. Several publications have discussed whether reproductive uses would be legally permissible in individual countries and whether clinical applications could emerge in the context of regulatory gaps and gray areas. Systematic comparative studies that explore issues related to (...) the governance of this technology from different national and international perspectives are needed to address the lack of knowledge in this area. In this research report, we contribute to filling this gap by presenting views of stakeholders in the United Kingdom on challenges to the governance of heritable genome editing. We present findings from a multistakeholder study conducted in the United Kingdom between October 2016 and January 2018 and funded by the Wellcome Trust. This research included interviews, literature analysis, and a workshop. We involved leading U.K. scientists, in vitro fertilization clinicians, and representatives from regulatory bodies, patient organizations, and other civil societal organizations, as well as fertility companies. Part one of this article explores stakeholder perceptions of possible global developments in heritable genome editing and associated risks and governance challenges. Part two presents a range of policy options that were generated during the workshop in relation to the challenges discussed in part one. (shrink)

This article introduces the Culturally Meaningful Networks (CMN) approach. Following a pragmatist perspective of social mechanisms more broadly, it develops and demonstrates an approach to understanding networks that incorporates both structure and meaning and that leverages time to understand how these aspects influence each other. I apply this approach to investigate a longstanding puzzle about why some of those who leave military service for civilian life fare well, and others badly. In a mixed-methods analysis, I follow a sample of individuals (...) moving through the transition from military to civilian life in the contemporary United Kingdom. I find that the higher the proportion of alters (i.e., “contacts”) with a military background in the networks of leavers before discharge, the worse they fare after discharge. The CMN approach helps me locate a specific structural embedding that explains the presence or absence of durable cultural frames that set the context for the actual experience of the transition and cause problems during it. Attention to the temporal unfolding of network structure and social meaning is essential to bringing out this finding. By re-embedding networks within people’s experiences over time, the CMN approach helps grasp the distinctions by which leavers understand their interactions. I conclude by arguing that the CMN approach has implications for network sociology and cultural sociology that go beyond this substantive case. (shrink)

This book offers a faithful and meticulous reading of Heidegger's magnum opus , Being and Time .

Certification is a crucial part of the organic farming system to protect the integrity of the whole organic sector. Process-oriented on-site auditing by skilled inspectors is the central element of the certification procedure to protect the organic sector against fraud. However, little is known about the role of the inspectors in the certification scheme. In recent years, the requirements and challenges for the organic certification system have changed significantly. The aim of the present study is to get insights into strategies (...) and action patterns used by organic inspectors and thus to better understand their behaviour. Due to the exploratory character of the study, a qualitative approach was chosen. Twenty narrative expert interviews with organic inspectors were conducted. The evaluation was carried out with the narration analysis, which was basis for a typology analysis. The results of the study show that all organic inspectors develop strategies and behavioural patterns, which can be structured in two levels: an interpersonal and a professional level. On the interpersonal level, the results indicate that the inspectors’ behaviour patterns lie between goodwill and demonstration of power. At the professional level, the organic inspectors work with a risk or a checklist-oriented control approach. A risk-oriented control is characterised by the intrinsic motivation of the organic inspector to maintain the integrity of the organic sector. Risk-oriented inspectors set a control focus on the detection of fraud. The aspect of personal ethical involvement and interpersonal actions in control systems should be included when considering improvements in the organic sector. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary approaches to emotions hold a tension which we know already from other discourses such as the debate about free will or the problem of phenomenal qualities { the tension between the perspective of the observer and the personal point of view . While we know, from our own experience, some portion of the richness which emotional experiences are capable of affording, we can partake in experiences and feelings of others through narratives. By contrast, insights into the neuronal mechanisms forming (...) the basis of emotional processes do not deliver insight into the corresponding feelings. So, one might think: the more accurate neuroscientific descriptions of the basis of emotions are, the more we lose track of what we esteem most in our emotional life { the multi-layered and fine-grained nature of experience itself. But it need not be like this. (shrink)

According to Kant, the moral worth of an action depends on its maxim. As he explains, particularly in the Groundwork, moral worth accrues to an action when the action rests on a maxim selected for its accordance with the moral law. With respect to Religion, however, Kant modifies his understanding of the moral worth of actions. He now expresses the view that an agent acts morally worthy only if he possesses a moral Gesinnung as a character trait. According to this (...) opinion, only such persons can act in a manner that has moral worth who own a good Gesinnung and seek to express it in their actions. But to be in possession of a good Gesinnung depends, according to Kant, on strict conditions that ordinary actors will not realistically be able to fulfil. This accords with Kant's verdict that moral progress has not yet taken place because the conversion in Gesinnung that it would require is still outstanding. (shrink)

Review by: Achim Blumensath The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, Volume 19, Issue 3, Page 394-396, September 2013.

The concept of self-legislation or autonomy is one of the outstanding innovations of Kant’s ethics. Nevertheless, it should not be ignored that it also builds on previous positions. Even if Kant in the Groundwork classifies all other moral principles as heteronomous, it is important to recognize that Kant incorporates elements of Wolff’s theory of self-legislation and Crusius’ theory of obligation into his theory of autonomy. In this essay, I present the relevant themes in Wolff and Crusius and discuss how they (...) were taken up by Kant in the mid-1780s. (shrink)

Bioethical debates on the use of human embryos and oocytes for stem cell research have often been criticized for the lack of empirical insights into the perceptions and experiences of the women and couples who are asked to donate these tissues in the IVF clinic. Empirical studies that have investigated the attitudes of IVF patients and citizens on the donation of their embryos and oocytes have been scarce and have focused predominantly on the situation in Europe and Australia. This article (...) examines the viewpoints on the donation of embryos for stem cell research among IVF patients and students in China. Research into the perceptions of patients is based on in-depth interviews with IVF patients and IVF clinicians. Research into the attitudes of students is based on a quantitative survey study. The empirical findings in this paper indicate that perceptions of the donation of human embryos for stem cell research in China are far more diverse and complex than has commonly been suggested. Claims that ethical concerns regarding the donation and use of embryos and oocytes for stem cell research are typical for Western societies but absent in China cannot be upheld. The article shows that research into the situated perceptions and cultural specificities of human tissue donation can play a crucial role in the deconstruction of politicized bioethical argumentation and the assumptions about “others” that underlie socio-ethical debates on the moral dilemmas of technology developments in the life sciences. (shrink)