Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Gregorian University).

Faszination ist eine zentrale Form ästhetischen Erlebens in der Gegenwart, deren Merkmale und historisches Profil bislang nur ansatzweise beschrieben sind. Ausgehend vom modernen Verständnis von Faszination entwickelt die begriffsgeschichtlich breit fundierte Untersuchung einen formalen Begriff dieser ästhetischen Emotion, der für zwei bedeutende Epochen der ästhetischen, poetologischen und semiotischen Theoriebildung -- die griechische Antike und das 18. Jahrhundert -- diskutiert wird. In der Auseinandersetzung mit antiken Konzepten der Metapher und des Erhabenen sowie mit ästhetischen Positionen bei Addison, Mendelssohn, Klopstock, Hamann, Kant, (...) Stewart und Goethe werden grundlegende Erklärungskomponenten für die Entstehung und Wirkung sprachlich induzierter Faszination aufgezeigt. Ästhetische Faszination ist kein Pathos-, sondern ein Tiefenkonzept. Sie resultiert aus einer Divergenzerfahrung in der Prozessierbarkeit von Sinnlichkeit und Bedeutung. Faszination bewirkt keine Verabschiedung, sondern eine Stimulierung des Intelligiblen. (shrink)

The chapter discusses the use of machine analogies in biology from an ethical point of view. The chapter identifies a number of “antimachine” views – views that are critical of the use of machine analogies on ethical grounds. Such views typically object to machine analogies either because such analogies understand organisms in mechanistic terms or because they recommend viewing organisms as artifacts. According to antimachine views, understanding organisms mechanistically, or creating biological artifacts, leads to several problems: (1) because mechanistic understandings (...) of organisms are descriptively inadequate, their use is hubristic or dangerous; (2) mechanistic or artifactual understandings imply a denial that organisms have moral standing; (3) biological artifacts lack an intrinsic value that natural organisms have; and (4) creating biological artifacts expresses objectionable attitudes of mastery and domination of nature. The chapter analyzes objections, pointing to each of these problems, and argues that they all suffer from a common problem: they extend the scope of the analogy beyond what is necessary or intended by those using it. Antimachine views are thus best seen as warnings not to overextend analogies between organisms and machines. (shrink)

Der Band repräsentiert in 30 Einzelbeiträgen den Stand der internationalen Nietzsche-Forschung und -interpretation.

‘Logos’ is the Greek term for word, and language is indeed the realm of logic in a way that imagery never will be. While clearly not all use of words is argumentative – in fact, most is not –, their sequentiality brings them closer to argument than images, given the simultaneity of contents within the latter. In images, there is no discrete number of definite signs – the sort of thing language has in its vocabulary. The relations between colour and (...) form are not systematized through rules. There is no grammar of the image, or only in the faintest of metaphorical senses. Words tend to demarcate, to classify and to delimit; images are inclined to transitions, continua, metamorphoses. (shrink)

Relational egalitarianism says that moral equals should relate as equals. We explore how moral unequals should relate.

When our choice affects some other person and the outcome is unknown, it has been argued that we should defer to their risk attitude, if known, or else default to use of a risk‐avoidant risk function. This, in turn, has been claimed to require the use of a risk‐avoidant risk function when making decisions that primarily affect future people, and to decrease the desirability of efforts to prevent human extinction, owing to the significant risks associated with continued human survival. I (...) raise objections to the claim that respect for others' risk attitudes requires risk‐avoidance when choosing for future generations. In particular, I argue that there is no known principle of interpersonal aggregation that yields acceptable results in variable population contexts and is consistent with a plausible ideal of respect for others' risk attitudes in fixed population cases. (shrink)

A curious feature of Belnap’s “useful four-valued logic”, also known as first-degree entailment (FDE), is that the overdetermined value B (both true and false) is treated as a designated value. Although there are good theoretical reasons for this, it seems prima facie more plausible to have only one of the four values designated, namely T (exactly true). This paper follows this route and investigates the resulting logic, which we call Exactly True Logic.

Many of our endeavors -- be it personal or communal, technological or artistic -- aim at eradicating all traces of dissatisfaction from our daily lives. They seek to cure us of our discontent in order to deliver us a fuller and flourishing existence. But what if ubiquitous pleasure and instant fulfilment make our lives worse, not better? What if discontent isn't an obstacle to the good life but one of its essential ingredients? In Propelled, Andreas Elpidorou makes a lively (...) case for the value of discontent and illustrates how boredom, frustration, and anticipation are good for us. Weaving together stories from sources as wide-ranging as classical literature, social and cognitive psychology, philosophy, art, and video games, Elpidorou shows that these psychological states aren't unpleasant accidents of our lives. Rather, they illuminate our desires and expectations, inform us when we find ourselves stuck in unpleasant and unfulfilling situations, and motivate us to furnish our lives with meaning, interest, and value. Boredom, frustration, and anticipation aren't obstacles to our goals--they are our guides, propelling us into lives that are truly our own. (shrink)

In this paper we develop what we can describe as a “dual two-sided” cut-free sequent calculus system for the non-classical logics of truth lp, k3, stt and a non-reflexive logic ts which is, arguably, more elegant than the three-sided sequent calculus developed by Ripley for the same logics. Its elegance stems from how it employs more or less the standard sequent calculus rules for the various connectives and truth, and the fact that it offers a rather neat connection between derivable (...) sequents and validity in comparison to the calculus developed by Ripley. (shrink)

Jenseits von Gut und Böse ist ein Werk, mit dem Nietzsche einen neuen Ton fand, um so die „Philosophie der Zukunft“ zu initiieren. Es untergräbt gewohnte Gewissheiten in fundamentalphilosophischer, religiöser, moralischer und politischer Hinsicht. Zugleich verspricht es, die Perspektiven, das Leben der Leser grundlegend zu verändern. Signalbegriffe wie „Wille zur Macht“ und „Sklaven-Moral“ dürfen nicht als feste Lehren missverstanden werden.

The all-affected principle is a widely accepted solution to the problem of constituting the demos. Despite its popularity, a basic question in relation to the principle has not received much attention: why does the fact that an individual is affected by a certain decision ground a right to inclusion in democratic decision-making about that matter? An answer to this question must include a reason that explains why an affected individual should be included because she is affected. We identify three such (...) reasons in the literature – to wit, interest protection, self-government and welfare – and show why they all fail. We then propose two alternative reasons, equal relations and fairness, and show why they are also deficient. Surprisingly, the all-affected principle then appears groundless, which supports withholding belief in the all-affected principle or(/and) investing future research in identifying the thus-far unidentified reason why being affected grounds a claim to inclusion. (shrink)

Maria Rosa Antognazza's work has issued a historical challenge to the thesis that the analysis of knowledge (as justified true belief) attacked by epistemologists from Gettier onwards was indeed the standard view traditionally upheld from Plato onwards. This challenge led to an ongoing reappraisal of the historical significance of intuitive knowledge, in which the knower is intimately connected to what is known. Such traditional accounts of intuition, and their accompanying claims to epistemological primacy, constituted the precise target of Moritz Schlick's (...) critique. Schlick engages with this topic throughout his oeuvre, from some of his early epistemological writings, to his anti-metaphysical stance as a leading Logical Empiricist. Schlick crucially distinguishes knowledge from mere acquaintance, denying that the latter has epistemic status. He therefore argues that the very notion of ‘intuitive knowledge’ is a contradictio in adjecto. (shrink)

This book aims to lay bare the logical foundations of tractable reasoning. It draws on Marvin Minsky's seminal work on frames, which has been highly influential in computer science and, to a lesser extent, in cognitive science. Only very few people have explored ideas about frames in logic, which is why the investigation in this book breaks new ground. The apparent intractability of dynamic, inferential reasoning is an unsolved problem in both cognitive science and logic-oriented artificial intelligence. By means of (...) a logical investigation of frames and frame concepts, Andreas devises a novel logic of tractable reasoning, called frame logic. Moreover, he devises a novel belief revision scheme, which is tractable for frame logic. These tractability results shed new light on our logical and cognitive means to carry out dynamic, inferential reasoning. Modularity remains central for tractability, and so the author sets forth a logical variant of the massive modularity hypothesis in cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper concerns the classification of the process of mixture, for Aristotle, and the related issue of the manner in which the ingredients remain present once mixed. I argue that mixture is best viewed as a kind of substantial generation in the context of the GC and, accordingly, that the ingredients do not enjoy the kind of strong presence within a mixture usually attributed to them. To do this, I critically examine the most promising versions of the standard view and (...) offer a new interpretation of Aristotle’s treatment of a puzzle about mixture in GC 1.10. (shrink)

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In his writings, Richard Wagner imagines art as something natural. This paradox was only befitting for Wagner’s contradictory historical stance: that of an eminently modern artist loathing the modern world. For him, nature served as a yardstick apt to find the modern world deficient on all counts. But how can something ahistorical, nature, be used to judge a historical phenomenon, modernity? To arrive at the verdict Wagner was keen on, he had to fill his concept of nature with historical content (...) attributed to myth. (shrink)

Delius’ Messe des Lebens (1907) transforms Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-5) into a Mass, religious services for worshippers of ‚Life‘. An individual reader’s train of thought is thus replaced by a collective experience at grand scale. To achieve that, Delius abandons cognitive, in particular philosophical, as well as satirical and parodistic features of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Yet unlike the Christian Mass, Eine Messe des Lebens gathers its congregation less by reference to belief, but rather by virtue of a sequence of musically (...) evocative moods (‚Stimmungen‘). Mood is not to be confused with a mere subjective state (‚feeling‘). Bound up with Delius’ idea of Nature, it is meant to dispel the suspicion of arbitrariness attached to the particular artistic invention of a Mass of Life, compared to its rival, the anonymous Holy Mass. (shrink)

We judge actions to be rational if means are adequate to ends. In modern societies, innumerable actions are interconnected into complex systems. Does rationality, then, become a feature of systems? If so, it will not do to view means in the light of ends, Niklas Luhmann maintained. In ‘The Concept of Purpose and Systems Rationality’ (‘Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität’) (1968), he defined the rationality of systems as their capacity to reduce complexity (“Reduktion von Komplexität”); in his later work, Luhmann elaborated and (...) partly transformed that account. Dorschel and Kettner put his views under scrutiny. (shrink)

Nietzsche was a harsh critic of German culture and yet, at the same time, realized he was quite inseparable from it. His disagreement with the Germans began as a dispute with Richard Wagner and then, after renouncing him, increasingly turned into an internal dispute with himself. This subject is important for a philosophical understanding of his thought as a whole.

This book provides a comprehensive account of vascular biology and pathology and its significance for health and disease. It systematically and chronologically explains how we came to our current understanding of the vasculature and it's function today, and describes in an entertaining way the diverse flaws and turns in science and medicine from the past. It thereby offers a complete and well-studied history on vascular biology and medicine. The book has an easy-to-read style and is written for students as well (...) as scientists, physicians and lecturers in the field of biomedicine, human physiology, cardiology and hematology. (shrink)

This paper offers a theory of spatial indexicals like _here_ and _there_ on which such expressions are variables associated with presuppositional constraints on their values. I show how this view handles both referential and bound uses of these indexicals, and I propose an account of what counts as the location of the context on a given occasion. The latter is seen to explain a wide range of facts about what the spatial indexicals can refer to.

Barrio et al. (_Journal of Philosophical Logic_, _49_(1), 93–120, 2020 ) and Pailos (_Review of Symbolic Logic_, _2020_(2), 249–268, 2020 ) develop an approach to define various metainferential hierarchies on strong Kleene models by transferring the idea of distinct standards for premises and conclusions from inferences to metainferences. In particular, they focus on a hierarchy named the \(\mathbb {S}\mathbb {T}\) -hierarchy where the inferential logic at the bottom of the hierarchy is the non-transitive logic ST but where each subsequent metainferential (...) logic ‘says’ about the former logic that it is transitive. While Barrio et al. ( 2020 ) suggests that this hierarchy is such that each subsequent level ‘in some intuitive sense, more classical than’ the previous level, Pailos ( 2020 ) proposes an extension of the hierarchy through which a ‘fully classical’ metainferential logic can be defined. Both Barrio et al. ( 2020 ) and Pailos ( 2020 ) explore the hierarchy in terms of semantic definitions and every proof proceeds by a rather cumbersome reasoning about those semantic definitions. The aim of this paper is to present and illustrate the virtues of a proof-theoretic tool for reasoning about the \(\mathbb {S}\mathbb {T}\) -hierarchy and the other metainferential hierarchies definable on strong Kleene models. Using the tool, this paper argues that each level in the \(\mathbb {S}\mathbb {T}\) -hierarchy is non-classical to an equal extent and that the ‘fully classical’ metainferential logic is actually just the original non-transitive logic ST ‘in disguise’. The paper concludes with some remarks about how the various results about the \(\mathbb {S}\mathbb {T}\) -hierarchy could be seen as a guide to help us imagine what a non-transitive metalogic for ST would tell us about ST. In particular, it teaches us that ST is from the perspective of ST as metatheory not only non-transitive but also transitive. (shrink)

Mutational robustness facilitates evolutionary innovations. Gene duplications are unique kinds of mutations, in that they generally increase such robustness. The frequent association of gene duplications in regulatory networks with evolutionary innovation is thus a special case of a general mechanism linking innovation to robustness. The potential power of this mechanism to promote evolutionary innovations on large time scales is illustrated here with several examples. These include the role of gene duplications in the vertebrate radiation, flowering plant evolution and heart development, (...) which encompass some of the most striking innovations in the evolution of life. BioEssays 30:367–373, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)