Nie war Freundschaft populärer als heute. Sie gilt als entscheidende Zutat für ein gutes und glückliches Leben. Viele haben auch viele Freunde - jedoch will sich das versprochene Glück nicht so recht einstellen. Woran liegt das? Björn Vedder verknüpft in seiner Zeitdiagnose der Freundschaft philosophische Überlegungen mit der Analyse von popkulturellem Material sowie literarischen Klassikern. Er zeigt, was Freundschaft heute bedeutet, wie sie (auch zu uns selbst) gelingen kann und warum Facebook-Freunde echte Freunde sind. Dabei nimmt er die (...) pessimistischen Kulturkritiken der Gegenwart ernst, teilt deren Defätismus aber nicht, sondern zeigt Wege aus den Pathologien der modernen Freundschaft auf. (shrink)

Without suggesting that Kant is responsible for the rise of hermeneutical philosophy, there are some developments in his philosophy which are important in relation to hermeneutics. Kant made the distinction between things‐in‐themselves and phenomena or appearances (see Article 2, kant). The world we know depends on a conceptual projection of categories of our mind; we do not have access to the things‐in‐themselves, but only to interpretations of things such as they appear to us, after they have been edited by the (...) understanding. This domestication of rationality led to the fideism of Jacobi: if reason can not bring us to reality, the only instance that can give us any sense of an objective and real world is faith with a kind of “knowledge” which is higher than our rational knowledge. In his early On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799) Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) followed Jacobi in denying the pretensions of rational knowledge and determined religious sentiment to be a source of “knowledge” which transcends rational understanding (Vedder 1994). This background of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is important to acknowledge. Therefore in this essay I will emphasize the fragility of hermeneutical knowledge for Schleiermacher. First I shall explain the hermeneutics of Schleiermacher; then I shall examine the relation between hermeneutics and dialectics. (shrink)

This article examines Gadamer's claim that language is fundamentally metaphorical from the perspective of Ricoeur's complementary analysis of metaphor. I argue that Gadamer's claim can only be understood in relation to a broader understanding of metaphor in which metaphor is not regarded as secondary to literal meaning. From this context one is better able to understand the connection Gadamer makes between language and ontology, which is found in his statement "Being that can be understood is language.".

We present a developmental perspective regarding the difference in perceptions toward privacy between young and old. Here, we introduce the notion of privacy conceptions, that is, the specific ideas that individuals have regarding what privacy actually is. The differences in privacy concerns often found between young and old are postulated as the result of the differences found in their privacy conceptions, which are subsequently linked to their developmental life stages. The data presented have been obtained through a questionnaire distributed among (...) adolescents, young adults, and adults and provide support for this developmental perspective. This study is one of the first to include adolescents when investigating the privacy concerns among young and old. The results show that the privacy conceptions held by adolescents indeed differ from those held by young adults and adults in keeping with the expectations as seen from a developmental perspective. In addition, the areas in which the differences in privacy conceptions are found also reflect the strongest relationship with concerns. As such, these findings present an alternative perspective to the commonly held notion that young people are less concerned about privacy. (shrink)

In this article is presented a reading of Heidegger in relation to the conception of desire, and its relation to various terms he uses frequently. I argue that the genesis of desire lies in the gap between the fullness of possibility and the poverty of actualization; that inauthentic desire aims at presence, possession, actualization (always insufficient); and that authentic desire aims at the conservation of the possibility-character of being. I also pay attention to the temporality of desire; to the analogy (...) between Kant's emphasis on respect for the law one has freely postulated and Heidegger's emphasis on Dasein's subjection to the possibilities it projects; to possibility as original abundance; and, in principle, to the turning in which desire is evoked in the event of granting, rather than simply produced in the act of projection. Special attention is paid on the German word 'Verlangen', which is related etymologically to the English 'long for', which stands for wanting something very much. But the word is also connected to the word 'long' which is important to get a grip on the notion of desire in Heidegger. (shrink)

Demokratisierungsvorhaben sind auf Konzepte angewiesen, die Demokratieideale nicht leichtfertig preisgeben und alternative Möglichkeiten nicht grundsätzlich blockieren. Dabei sollten sie an bestehende Strukturen anknüpfen und die Entscheidungsfähigkeit politischer Gremien sowie die Zurechenbarkeit von Verantwortung erhalten können. Zugleich sollten sie die Qualität und den Einfluss öffentlicher Deliberation stärken und mobilisierbares politisches Engagement richtig einschätzen, ohne vorhandene Defizite als notwendige festzuschreiben. Auf der Grundlage einer Durchsicht von Gesellschafts-, Organisations-, Steuerungs- und Demokratietheorien skizziert Björn Thies ein solches Konzept, das an Arbeiten amerikanischer, britischer (...) und deutscher Autoren anknüpft. (shrink)

Informed consent bears significant relevance as a legal basis for the processing of personal data and health data in the current privacy, data protection and confidentiality legislations. The consent requirements find their basis in an ideal of personal autonomy. Yet, with the recent advent of the global pandemic and the increased use of eHealth applications in its wake, a more differentiated perspective with regards to this normative approach might soon gain momentum. This paper discusses the compatibility of a moral duty (...) to share data for the sake of the improvement of healthcare, research, and public health with autonomy in the field of data protection, privacy and medical confidentiality. It explores several ethical-theoretical justifications for a duty of data sharing, and then reflects on how existing privacy, data protection, and confidentiality legislations could obstruct such a duty. Consent, as currently defined in the General Data Protection Regulation – a key legislative framework providing rules on the processing of personal data and data concerning health – and in the recommendation of the Council of Europe on the protection of health-related data – explored here as soft-law – turns out not to be indispensable from various ethical perspectives, while the requirement of consent in the General Data Protection Regulation and the recommendation nonetheless curtails the full potential of a duty to share medical data. Also other legal grounds as possible alternatives for consent seem to constitute an impediment. (shrink)

In this contribution, we identify and clarifysome distinctions we believe are useful inestablishing the reliability of information onthe Internet. We begin by examining some of thesalient features of information that go intothe determination of reliability. In so doing,we argue that we need to distinguish contentand pedigree criteria of reliability and thatwe need to separate issues of reliability ofinformation from the issues of theaccessibility and the usability of information.We then turn to an analysis of some commonfailures to recognize reliability orunreliability.

This rejoinder is a reply to the authors' criticisms of Vedder's original review of Norms of Liberty that seeks to clarify why the difficulties present in their attempt to establish the modern right to liberty on the foundation of Greek nobility and Aristotelian eudaemonism are insuperable.

Gezeigt wird wie Heideggers Denken des Seins interpretiert werden kann als sein Denken des Verlangens. Es wird darauf hingewiesen dass beim frühen Heidegger Begriffe wie „ὂρµξις“ und „Wille“ anwesend sind, und bestimmt werden als Bewegung der Transzendenz im Entwurf auf Möglichkeit als Möglichkeit. Auch wird gezeigt dass Begriffe wie „das Ungenügende“ und „der Überfluss“ im Entwurf auf Möglichkeiten eine Bedeutung haben. Im eigentlichen Entwurf auf Möglichkeit ist der Überfluss an Möglichkeiten unüberholbar. Dagegen ist die Neugier eine Bewegung die das Mögliche (...) nicht sein lässt‚ sondern das Mögliche nur noch als Wirklichkeit begehrt. Beim späteren Heidegger wird das Sein verstanden als Mögen. Dieses Mögen wird ausgelegt als Verlangen weil das Mögen enerseits eine Zuneigung ist und andererseits das Austragen der Differenz ist. Gezeigt wird wie beim späteren Heidegger der eigentliche Entwurf auf Möglichkeit substantiviert wird als Mögen des Seins. Um diese Zuneigung zu dem Sein anzudeuten braucht Heidegger Begriffe wie „Lange-Zeit“‚ „Langen“‚ „Langmut“‚ und „Langeweile“. Diese Wörter sind verwandt mit dem Wort „Verlangen“ das ursprünglich „differre“ bedeutet. (shrink)

Recently, the outsourcing of Information Technology activities to offshore locations has been gaining significant momentum, with some associated backlash by the workforce in the United States. Based on their 2005 survey [6], Global Insight, a private consulting firm, estimated that U.S. companies will spend about $38.2 billion in offshore IT services by 2010, compared with about $15.2 billion in 2005, primarily because the expected cost savings will grow by $11.7 billion in the same time period. Binder writing in "Foreign Affairs" (...) [2] states that offshoring expenditures will continue to increase dramatically, and the changes the offshoring phenomenon will bring will transform society. This paper focuses on the social impact of offshoring and the effects of the weighing of costs and benefits as a result of offshoring activities. (shrink)

While Susan Moller Okin found much to celebrate in Rawls's earlier articulation of his theory of justice, she worried that his later turn to political liberalism evacuated his theory of its feminist potential. Here, I argue that we need not be so pessimistic: some of the strongest arguments for pursuing certain feminist projects can and should be made from within a politically liberal framework. In advancing this claim, I develop Rawls's idea of primary goods—namely those goods that all citizens need (...) qua citizens—as a key conceptual resource for arguing for the elimination of the gendered division of labor using public reason. Drawing on recent empirical literature, I point out that the gendered division of labor continues to distribute to women an unfair allocation of primary goods. I then advocate for a specific public policy, which I call Gender Egalitarian Daddy Quota—a parental leave policy that sets aside time specifically for fathers to encourage men and women to engage in childcare related leave-taking to similar extents—on the grounds that this policy would help secure a fairer distribution of primary goods, and thus is required as a matter of justice. (shrink)

This article discusses some rather formal characteristics of possible obligations to enhance. Obligations to enhance can exist in the absence of good moral reasons. If obligation and duty however are considered as synonyms, the enhancement involved must be morally desirable in some respect. Since enhancers and enhanced can, but need not coincide, advertency is appropriate regarding the question who exactly is addressed by an obligation or a duty to enhance: the person on whom the enhancing treatment is performed, or the (...) controller or the operator of the enhancement. Especially, the position of the operator is easily overlooked. The exact functionality of the specific enhancement, is all-important, not only for the acceptability of a specific form of enhancement, but also for its chances of success for becoming a duty or morally obligatory. Finally and most importantly, however, since obligations can exist without good moral reasons, there can be obligations to enhance that are not morally right, let alone desirable. (shrink)

One of the most significant aspects of Internet, in comparison with other sources of information, such as libraries, books, journals, television, radio etcetera, is that it makes expert knowledge much more accessible to non‐experts than the other traditional sources. This phenomenon has often been applauded for its democratizing effects. Unfortunately, there is also a disadvantage. Expert information that was originally intended for a specific group of people ‐ and not in any way processed or adapted to make it fit for (...) a broader audience ‐ can easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted by non‐experts and, when used as a basis for decisions, lead to unhappy consequences. Can these risks be diminished without limiting the informational freedoms of the information providers and without imposing paternalistic measures regarding the receivers of the information? (shrink)

The leading question of this article is the way Gadamer interpreted Schleiermacher. Already in Truth and Method Gadamer interpreted Schleiermacher trough the eyes of Dilthey. This resulted in the idea that Schleiermacher was interested in restoring the original meaning of a text. Gadamer never abandoned this psychological interpretation of Schleiermacher. This is a result from the fact that Gadamer did not involve Schleiermacher’s dialectic in his hermeneutics. Because of this Gadamer never mentioned the kinship between Schleiermacher and his own theory (...) of interpretation. In Schleiermacher dialectic and hermeneutics are connected in the same way text constitution and text interpretation are connected. The art of speaking and of understanding are joined together in such a way that they imply each other. They are linked to each other like speaking and hearing . This means that a text is always the result of both. The other, the reader, the interpreter is already there in the constitution of the text. Schleiermacher writes, as a predecessor of Gadamer, in his Dialektik “The more a text is dialogic, the more complete it is” . In this way constitution and interpretation of a text are dependent on each other. By emphasizing the dialogical structure of our knowledge, Schleiermacher opens the way to a broader insight into the world. Through dialogue we can go beyond the limits of our selves and attain a relative universality. We learn to see things from different points of view. We can find traces of this in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, but Gadamer was not able to see that. (shrink)

In his essay “Faith and Knowledge,” Derrida provides us with his most direct and explicit discussion of the phenomenon of religion. One of the important ideas of “Faith and Knowledge” is that faith and knowledge cannot be understood in a simple opposition to each other as if knowledge would not require forms of faith and as if faith would be completely purified of knowledge. In order to get a precise impression of Derrida's interpretation of faith and the holy, this chapter (...) begins with a presentation of these notions in Heidegger. The chapter discusses the question whether it is the case that Heidegger finds in his question of being what phenomenology of religion and theology consider to be characteristic of religious thinking, feeling, and acting. It also discusses with an analysis of abstraction and deracination, which are juxtaposed to the process of indemnification. (shrink)

"Science and Theology in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy" has two primary goals. The first is to establish Descartes' understanding of the primary purpose of the Meditations . The second is to determine the meaning, status, and purpose of the fundamental Cartesian theological and scientific principles employed in the Meditations. ;Descartes makes two distinct and explicit statements of the primary purpose of the Meditations. The first statement, made in the dedicatory epistle to the Meditations, claims that the primary purpose of (...) the Meditations is to establish the truth of the Christian religion on the basis of demonstrative proofs of the existence of God and of the immortality of the human soul. The second statement, made in the First Meditation, claims that the primary purpose of the Meditations is the establishment of "unshakable" foundations of the sciences. Descartes compels the reader to determine whether the Meditations is primarily a work of Christian theology or a scientific treatise dedicated to establishing the certitude and indubitability of its primary concepts. The dissertation defends the view that only if the Meditations' "theological" purpose is understood to be subordinate to and in the service of advancing its "foundational" purpose is a coherent interpretation of the Meditations possible. ;The second goal of the dissertation is advanced through the study of the fundamental Cartesian theological and scientific principles in relation to "Cartesian doubt." These principles are shown to be advanced and defended by Descartes in order to establish the foundations of a comprehensive science of nature directed toward the unification of the human and the non-human order. The sought for derivation of the human from the non-human order is shown, however, to be in principle impossible on precisely Cartesian grounds. Cartesian "First Philosophy" demonstrates that what is "first for us" and what is "first by nature" are necessarily the same. The foundations of the sciences prove to be the very experiences of pre-scientific consciousness that are regarded as "patently false" by Cartesian doubt. The dissertation concludes with the suggestion that the possibility of philosophy itself is grounded in the unity and difference between pre-scientific "awareness" and scientific "cognition.". (shrink)

Questions regarding the moral responsibility of Internet accessand service providers relating to information on the Internetcall for a reassessment of the ways in which we think aboutattributing blame, guilt, and duties of reparation andcompensation. They invite us to borrow something similar to theidea of strict liability from the legal sphere and to introduceit in morality and ethical theory. Taking such a category in thedistribution of responsibilities outside the domain of law andintroducing it into ethics, however, is a difficult thing. Doingso (...) seems to conflict with some broadly shared and deeply feltintuitions regarding the individuality of responsibility and therelationship between responsibility and guilt. These convictionscoincide with some basic ideas in Kantian moral theory and theascriptive theory based on these ideas. Nevertheless, theproblems to which the proposed liabilities / responsibilitiesrelate are so serious that they do not seem to leave room foraloofness. At least, they encourage us to reconsider the idea ofstrict liability carefully and to assess its merits. (shrink)

In topical philosophy of religion the word 'given' plays an important role. However the meaning of this word is ambiguous. The word refers not only to the factual reality (datum) but also to what is given as a gift to someone (donum). This ambiguity leads toan unclear mixture of philosophical and religious positions. Therefore an analysis of such mixture is necessary. The main question of this analysis is how faith and religion on the one hand, and ontology and reason on (...) the other hand, influence each other? Isn'tit so that in the religious domain nobody can be convinced with and by rational means? In the first section, the question on the reality of the ultimate meaning as the momentfrom where man is motivated to lead his life, is explored. In the second section the idea is developed that philosophical insights are meaningful with regard to religious meaning only if they are referred back to religious faith. In the third section the question posited is whether philosophical reflection does not loose its original motivationalcontext if it isn't referred back to its original point of departure. This analysis is worked out against the background of I. Verhack's book: De mens en zijn onrust. Over het raadsel van de beweging. (shrink)

Rosen’s latest publication consists of a collection of fourteen philosophical essays covering a wide range of topics, themes, and historical studies. The book concludes with “Kojève’s Paris: A Memoir”: the author’s recollections of his stay in Paris in 1960–1 as a Fulbright Research Professor at the Sorbonne. With the exception of the concluding memoir, all of the essays were originally written as public lectures. Of the philosophical studies, three appear in print here for the first time, while two others are (...) “radically” reworked essays of previously published material. Of the remaining essays, all previously published, only two are today “easily available” outside the present volume; the remainder have all appeared in foreign languages or in publications that are not easily available. (shrink)

Artikelen over intersubjectiviteit in ethiek, spiritualiteit en filosofie.

PROSPERITY AND UPHEAVAL: THE WORLD ECONOMY 1945?1980 by Herman Van der Wee translated by Robin Hogg and Max R. Hall Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. 621pp., $14.95 Van der Wee uncritically accepts that Keynesianism is responsible for post?war economic stability. Against this belief, it is argued that an analysis of the historical record shows no significant efforts at countercyclical fiscal management in the post?war era, while efforts to control the economy via monetary policy were associated with increasing instability, culminating (...) in the crisis years of the 1970s. Thus, in the American case at least, post?war stability has been the result of self?correcting market tendencies, while instability has followed government macroeconomic intervention. (shrink)

For researchers who study technology designs, the application and execution of so-called design-oriented research projects are a common way of funding their research. Against this background, we propose a new methodical approach with which VSD can easily be implemented in such projects and which we call “value declaration”. We share our experience with this method which we gained in two design-oriented research projects.

In his very early work, Heidegger was already fascinated by the problem of time, which became more and more radicalized in his thinking. The experience of time, and its connection to the status of philosophical concepts, forms the background of Heidegger’s reading of Paul in his 1920-21 lecture course, 'Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion.' In discussing the peculiarity of philosophical concepts, Heidegger points out that their uncertainty is by no means accidental, but is in fact endemic to them. This (...) amounts to a definitive step away from the Platonic, Cartesian and Hegelian tradition and its ideal of certainty. In this article the author begins by presenting Heidegger’s description of the phenomenon of time. Then he presents his reformulation of the status of philosophical concepts, and he ends by showing how this is present in Heidegger’s analysis of the letters of Saint Paul. Especially in Heidegger’s interpretation of the letters to the Thessalonians, he shows how the actualization of factical life is understood on the basis of the ‘parousia,’ the second coming of Christ. An essential moment of the orientation of factical life appears in the articulation of the actualization of the lived life; this is historicality. The meaning of human existence appears in existence as historicality. The way in which factical life lives time is the actualization of historicality. (shrink)

In this article the author presents a comment on Ludwig Heyde’s last book. This book on autonomy, transcendence and mortality was published a few days before he died. Heyde analyses the concept of autonomy, transcendence and mortality from a philosophical point of view. He especially pays a lot of attention to the notion of mortality. Here, he tends to strengthen the Kantian postulate of immortality by giving it an ontological claim. But what kind of “being” can we ascribe to what (...) on the other side of death counts for the immortals? Isn’t this a question about the relation between philosophy and religion? Many philosophers tend to approach religion in a reductionistic way. By their point of departure they ignore beforehand the specific religious aspects of life. But isn't it the task for philosophy to approach religion in such a way that religion preserves its specificity? To achieve this, maybe it is also necessary to ascribe ontological claims to religious truth. With his concept of transcendence Heyde approaches religion not in a reductionistic way. However the question remains whether philosophy can do justice to religious truth. Since religion is, as Heyde says in the beginning of his study, sui generis, can philosophy ever do justice to it? Or is religion neutralised by philosophy beforehand? This book therefore, leaves us behind with the question: can philosophy do justice to religion? (shrink)