Christian PlantinCentre National de Recherche Scientifi que:CNRS. Universidad de Lyon.

This article compares two groundings of ethics: the ethical postulates of Immanuel Kant with the existential thinking of S. Kierkegaard. To achieve this goal, first, it proposes highlighting the fundamental ideas of Kantian ethics; then, secondly, highlighting Kierkegaard’s ethical stance; and finally, contrasting both approaches to identify differences and similarities. Conclusively, we can say that the pure Kantian ethical formality of duty for duty’s sake necessarily dispenses with existential and concrete content; it is an ethics that is grounded in itself, (...) that refers to itself, to the rational nature of the human being and its universality. In contrast, Kierkegaardian ethics is a Christian ethics, it is the ethics of love for one’s neighbour and, above all, for God; it is a relational and existential ethics of the single individual. (shrink)

This book presents an analysis of the institutional development of selected social science and humanities disciplines in Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Where most narratives of a scholarly past are presented as a succession of ‘ideas,’ research results and theories, this collection highlights the structural shifts in the systems of higher education, as well as institutions of research and innovation within which these disciplines have developed. This institutional perspective will facilitate systematic comparisons between (...) developments in various disciplines and countries. Across eight country studies the book reveals remarkably different dynamics of disciplinary growth between countries, as well as important interdisciplinary differences within countries. In addition, instances of institutional contractions and downturns and veritable breaks of continuity under authoritarian political regimes can be observed, which are almost totally absent from narratives of individual disciplinary histories. This important work will provide a valuable resource to scholars of disciplinary history, the history of ideas, the sociology of education and of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Jennifer Nado has recently argued that conceptual engineers should focus on (re-)designing representations and may safely ignore issues of implementation. I make a general case for the methodological importance of implementation to conceptual engineering. Using the Social Norms Account as a foil, I argue for three claims. (1) Inquiring into methods of implementation is a theoretically challenging and philosophically worthwhile project in and of itself. (2) A sound theoretical understanding of implementation is imperative for theorists of conceptual engineering. It proves (...) vital for their assessment of the prospects for engineering interventions and the political risks inherent in them. (3) A sound theoretical understanding of implementation is imperative for practitioners of conceptual engineering. The usefulness of their representational (re-)designs depends on respecting broadly cognitive and social constraints on the part of the target population. I conclude that conceptual engineers have very good reasons to seriously engage with issues of implementation. (shrink)

This paper explores a Rastafari perspective on consciousness development and relates this to developmental stage theories of consciousness evolution from the psychology of religion. The empirical material is from fieldwork on an online Rastafari community with global reach but run by a group based in Trinidad. The people on this particular forum align with the “spiritual, but not religious” trend in contemporary religiosity, which means they are more focused on interior questions of consciousness raising than on religious externals. This paper (...) interprets empirical material from the dialogues on this forum in light of Rastafari theorist Dennis Forsythe. It compares this Rastafari theory of stages of consciousness, symbolized by the animals Anancy, lion, and lamb, to developmental theories of consciousness evolution. These are drawn from psychology and the psychology of religion (Maslow 1970; Kohlberg 1981; Fowler 1981; Gilligan 1982; Wilber 2007), which focus on preconventional, traditional, modern, pluralist, and integral stages. (shrink)

Most approaches to quantum gravity suggest that relativistic spacetime is not fundamental, but instead emerges from some non-spatiotemporal structure. This paper investigates the implications of this suggestion for the possibility of time travel in the sense of the existence of closed timelike curves in some relativistic spacetimes. In short, will quantum gravity reverse or strengthen general relativity’s verdict that time travel is possible?

Individuality and collectivity are central concepts in sociological inquiry. Incorporating cultural history, social theory, urban and economic sociology, Borch proposes an innovative rethinking of these key terms and their interconnections via the concept of the social avalanche. Drawing on classical sociology, he argues that while individuality embodies a tension between the collective and individual autonomy, certain situations, such as crowds and other moments of group behaviour, can subsume the individual entirely within the collective. These events, or social avalanches, produce an (...) experience of being swept away suddenly and losing one's sense of self. Cities are often on the verge of social avalanches, their urban inhabitants torn between de-individualising external pressure and autonomous self-presentation. Similarly, Borch argues that present-day financial markets, dominated by computerised trading, abound with social avalanches and the tensional interplay of mimesis and autonomous decision-making. Borch argues that it is no longer humans but fully automated algorithms that avalanche in these markets. (shrink)

The standard of proof in criminal trials should require that the evidence presented by the prosecution is robust. This requirement of robustness says that it must be unlikely that additional information would change the probability that the defendant is guilty. Robustness is difficult for a judge to estimate, as it requires the judge to assess the possible effect of information that the he or she does not have. This article is concerned with expert witnesses and proposes a method for reviewing (...) the robustness of expert testimony. According to the proposed method, the robustness of expert testimony is estimated with regard to competence, motivation, external strength, internal strength and relevance. The danger of trusting non-robust expert testimony is illustrated with an analysis of the Thomas Quick Case, a Swedish legal scandal where a patient at a mental institution was wrongfully convicted for eight murders. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be impacting all industry sectors, while becoming a motor for innovation. The diffusion of AI from the civilian sector to the defense sector, and AI’s dual-use potential has drawn attention from security and ethics scholars. With the publication of the ethical guideline Trustworthy AI by the European Union (EU), normative questions on the application of AI have been further evaluated. In order to draw conclusions on Trustworthy AI as a point of reference for responsible research (...) and development (R&D), we approach the diffusion of AI across both civilian and military spheres in the EU. We capture the extent of technological diffusion and derive European and German patent citation networks. Both networks indicate a low degree of diffusion of AI between civilian and defense sectors. A qualitative investigation of project descriptions of a research institute’s work in both civilian and military fields shows that military AI applications stress accuracy or robustness, while civilian AI reflects a focus on human-centric values. Our work represents a first approach by linking processes of technology diffusion with normative evaluations of R&D. (shrink)

An experiment is proposed to test Bell’s theorem in a purely macroscopic domain. If realized, it would determine whether Bell inequalities are satisfied for a manifestly local, classical system. It is stressed why the inequalities should not be presumed to hold for such a macroscopic system without actual experimental evidence. In particular, by providing a purely classical, topological explanation for the EPR-Bohm type spin correlations, it is demonstrated why Bell inequalities must be violated in the manifestly local, macroscopic domain, just (...) as strongly as they are in the microscopic domain. (shrink)

Christian Waldvogel's work in conceptual and visual art is about the Earth within the solar system and mankind within its world and new imaginations. Waldvogel uses mainly photography, various means of digital image-generation and processing and moving i.

The most prominent argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism is Peter van Inwagen’s consequence argument. I offer a new diagnosis of what is wrong with this argument. Proponents and critics typically accept the way the argument is framed, and only disagree on whether the premisses and rules of inference are true. I suggest that the argument involves a category mistake: it conflates two different levels of description, namely, the physical level at which we describe the world from (...) the perspective of fundamental physics and the agential level at which we describe agents and their actions. My diagnosis is based on an account of free will as a higher-level phenomenon. I call this account ‘compatibilist libertarianism’, for reasons that will become clear. Although the paper addresses a primarily metaphysical question, it uses tools similar to those employed in philosophy-of-science work on determinism and indeterminism, higher-level phenomena, and dynamical systems. (shrink)

Technologies of “artificial intelligence” and machine learning are increasingly presented as solutions to key problems of our societies. Companies are developing, investing in, and deploying machine learning applications at scale in order to filter and organize content, mediate transactions, and make sense of massive sets of data. At the same time, social and legal expectations are ambiguous, and the technical challenges are substantial. This is the introductory article to a special theme that addresses this turn to AI as a technical, (...) discursive and political phenomena. The opening article contextualizes this theme by unfolding this multi-layered nature of the turn to AI. It argues that, whereas public and economic discourses position the widespread deployment of AI and automation in the governance of digital communication as a technical turn with a narrative of revolutionary breakthrough-moments and of technological progress, this development is at least similarly dependent on a parallel discursive and political turn to AI. The article positions the current turn to AI in the longstanding motif of the “technological fix” in the relationship between technology and society, and identifies a discursive turn to responsibility in platform governance as a key driver for AI and automation. In addition, a political turn to more demanding liability rules for platforms further incentivizes platforms to automatically screen their content for possibly infringing or violating content, and position AI as a solution to complex social problems. (shrink)

Die Transformation der Kernphysik aus dem akademischen Labor über die Großforschung hin zum gescheiterten großtechnologischen Projekt war eng verknüpft mit der Implementierung transnationaler Wissensströme. Christian Forstner zeigt am Beispiel Österreichs, wie Industrie, Wissenschaft, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft interagieren müssen, um erfolgreiche Innovation möglich zu machen. Zunächst analysiert er die frühe Radioaktivitätsforschung bis zur Kernspaltung und dem NS-Forschungsverbund Uranverein. Anschließend folgt der Weg von den österreichischen Forschungsreaktoren im Rahmen des US-amerikanischen Atoms for Peace-Programms bis hin zum Bau des Kernkraftwerks Zwentendorf, das (...) nach dem „Nein zu Zwentendorf“ als Ergebnis einer Volksabstimmung im November 1978 nie in Betrieb ging. Der Autor: PD Dr. Christian Forstner ist Physiker und Wissenschaftshistoriker und derzeit Privatdozent für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Er leitet den Fachverband „Geschichte der Physik“ der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article argues that the data presented in Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds are of greater interest to psychologists than to philosophers, and cautions experimental philosophers against some experimental shortcomings in the use of self-report and vignettes.

This introduction summarizes the main contributions of this special issue titled “Quiet Politics and the Power of Business: New Perspectives in an Era of Noisy Politics.” The four articles in the issue use and extend Culpepper’s influential concept of “quiet politics” according to which business is able to shape policies and regulations when issues are of low salience to the public and politicians. The issue takes Culpepper’s analysis further in ways that respond to the rise of noisy politics over the (...) last few years, often associated with new strident forms of left- and right-wing populism. Three contributions are made. First, the articles show that salience is not an inherent property of a policy area but is socially constructed. Second, a variety of strategies are described that business uses when trying to keep politics quiet. Third, strategies are affected by the structure of business, which varies across types of capitalism. Future research can use these insights to extend our understanding of the limits, strategies, and dynamics of quiet politics across political economies. (shrink)

Par sa défense de l’esprit critique et de la tolérance, son refus de l’individualisme, sa conviction que la connaissance rationnelle peut contribuer à l’amélioration de la vie privée et sociale des individus et œuvrer au développement des possibilités de chacun, Carnap s’inscrit dans la tradition des Lumières. Loin de se préoccuper exclusivement de problèmes logiques ou épistémologiques, il tient la question philosophique des valeurs pour la plus importante de toutes et reconnaît la part essentielle de l’affectivité dans la vie humaine, (...) laquelle ne saurait être satisfaite par la seule pensée conceptuelle, comme en témoigne l’expression du « sentiment de la vie » par le poète ou le musicien. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Bis zu welchem Grad ist eine mit dem Lebens- und Gesundheitsschutz begründete Einschränkung von Grundrechten und des gesellschaftlichen Lebens, wie bei der gegenwärtigen Covid-19-Pandemie, aus ethischer und rechtsphilosophischer Sicht legitim? Ethik und Recht und nicht die Medizin sind es, die in diesen Fragen letztlich den normativen Orientierungsrahmen geben müssen – was nicht ausschließt, dass auch medizinische Argumente bei der Deliberation eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Es stellen sich deshalb Fragen nach diesem normativen Orientierungsrahmen und danach, wie die Berufung auf das (...) „Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit“ und eine davon abgeleitete staatliche Aufgabe des Lebensschutzes gegenüber diesem einzuordnen sind. Hierfür ist zunächst auf die Begriffe der „Person“ und der „Menschenwürde“ einzugehen, wobei ich mich insbesondere an Kant orientiere. Es stellen sich hierbei Fragen sowohl nach dem Recht als auch nach dem Verhältnis der menschlichen Person zur Natur bzw. zum Leben. Hier ist dann über Kants Dualismus hinaus zu einer in zweifacher Hinsicht stärker „integrativen“ Perspektive überzugehen, die den Menschen als personal-leibliche Einheit bzw. als personales Naturwesen begreift und auch methodisch eine Vielfalt relevanter Perspektiven einbezieht und von der her sich auch Konsequenzen für das Verhältnis zu Viren und für den Begriff der Gesundheit ergeben. Die hiermit angesprochenen naturphilosophischen und anthropologischen Aspekte sind dennoch zugleich vor dem Hintergrund Kants normativ einzubinden. Als absoluter Selbstzweck können dabei nicht das Leben und die Gesundheit gelten, sondern nur die menschliche Würde. Vor diesem Hintergrund betrachte ich einige zentrale Argumente der gesellschaftlichen und juristischen Debatten, die im Zuge des ersten Lockdowns im Frühjahr 2020 geführt wurden, speziell zum Verhältnis von Würde und Leben und zur Verhältnismäßigkeitsprüfung in Bezug auf die Einschränkung von Grundrechten. Dass es hierbei eines differen-zierten Umgangs mit verschiedenen Gruppen von Betroffenen bedarf, zeige ich an den Beispielen von Senior:innen in Pflegeheimen sowie Kindern und Jugendlichen. Als Ergebnis halte ich fest: Der Schutz des Lebens ist der Würde des Einzelnen im Zweifel unterzuordnen; es bedarf einer integrativen Perspektive und eines differenzierten Vorgehens, das verschiedene Personengruppen auch hinsichtlich ihrer jeweiligen besonderen Situation entsprechend berücksichtigt. (shrink)

›Natur‹ ist von natura, und damit durch das zusammengesetzte Suffix -tu-ra von dem lateinischen Verb nasci abgeleitet. Solche Suffixe drücken in der Regel eine Tätigkeit oder ein Ergebnis aus. Sie sind nicht wörtlich zu übersetzen; ›natura‹ ließe sich vielleicht noch am besten als das ewig Tätige, Produzierende oder Entstandene umschreiben.

G. E. M. Anscombe introduced the concept of »practical knowledge« into contemporary action theory. According to Anscombe, in cases where someone’s action fails to be performed successfully, the error lies in what he or she is doing and not in what he or she is thinking, wherefore his thought is not mistaken, and thus still knowledge. But Anscombe also seems to believe that knowledge is factive, i.e. to know that p implies that p. Both claims are, however, in tension with (...) each other, because my practical mistake prevents that my knowledge corresponds to a fact. This paper seeks to address the problem this tension poses for our understanding of practical knowledge. In § 1, I describe the problem. In § 2, I review Anscombe’s own response to the problem, and point out a difficulty for it. In § 3, I discuss three other attempts to deal with the problem, and argue that they are flawed. Finally, in § 4 I sketch my own solution. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The five volumes contain the main papers and lectures of invited speakers that were presented at the X. International Kant Congress in Sao Paolo in 2005.

O artigo em questão procurará pensar o tratamento dado por Gilles Deleuze ao Discurso Indireto Livre [DIL] ao longo de sua obra, escrita ou não em parceria com Félix Guattari. Compreendido como uma estratégia discursiva, partimos da hipótese que o DIL possui um papel singular do exercício filosófico de Deleuze em relação à História da Filosofia.; permitindo-lhe escapar da função repressora que essa exerceria sobre o pensamento. Por permitir uma despersonificação do próprio filosofar, ademais, o DIL possibilitaria transmutar a filosofia (...) em atividade criativa e não reflexiva. Em tempos em que Deleuze é cada vez mais lido e comentado, no qual trabalhos de cunho exegético – ou de cunho experimental – surgem em profusão nas áreas de saber as mais diversas, recuperar o uso estratégico do discurso indireto livre por parte do filósofo francês talvez se demonstre uma tarefa profícua. (shrink)

Es ist ein Gemeinplatz, dass die Auseinandersetzung mit dem moralischen Intuitionismus ein Leitmotiv in Mills Werk ist und ihm persönlich viel bedeutete. So ist z. B. der Autobiography zu entnehmen, dass Mill im Intuitionismus seiner Zeit eine Hauptwurzel für gesellschaftliche Übel, schlechte Institutionen und vorurteilsbeladene Praktiken, kurzum ein großes Fortschrittshindernis sah, dem er mit seinem Werk (v. a. auch den theoretischeren Schriften A System of Logic und An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy) den Nährboden entziehen wollte. Demnach hatte Mill (...) es sich zur Lebensaufgabe gemacht, die (aus seiner Sicht schädlichen) praktischen Auswirkungen des Intuitionismus einzudämmen, indem er dessen philosophisches Fundament attackierte. (shrink)

Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nying-ma Tradition. By Douglas S. Duckworth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Pp. xxxiv + 292. $80 ; $27.95.

Die assyrischen Königstitel und -epitheta vom Anfang bis Tukulti-Ninurta I. und seinen Nachfolgern. By Vladimir Sazonov. State Archives of Assyria Studies, vol. 25. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus ProJect, 2016. Pp. xiii + 139. $59. [Distributed by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN].

The meaning and validity of Kant’s Kant’s doctrine of schematism remains contested until today. In neo-Kantianism and post-War transcendental philosophy, Kant’s schematism of the pure concepts of understanding is transformed drastically. Kant’s thesis of heterogeneity is overcome by taking it back into the internal relationships of the structure of cognition. The spontaneity of thought, performing schematizations, is retained, but Kant’s project of conceiving of the foundations of knowledge in the fashion of a theory of apperception of the I as well (...) as the externality of the given and the determination of the given that goes along with it is sublated by an objective order of validity-noematic constitution and regulation. Kant’s doctrine of schematism, then, shows to be methodology. (shrink)

Unter ›Design-Argumenten‹ fasst man Argumente zusammen, die von der Existenz bestimmter struktureller Merkmale M der natürlichen, also nicht auf menschliches Handeln zurückgehenden Welt auf die Existenz eines nicht-menschlichen intelligenten Urhebers dieser Merkmale schließen. Da die strukturellen Merkmale M in der Regel eine bestimmte Zweckmäßigkeit und damit den Anschein einer Anpassung an bestimmte Ziele einschließen, wie man ihn von menschlichen Artefakten kennt, die für einen bestimmten Zweck gemacht sind, nennt man diese Merkmale auch › Design‹ und den erschlossenen Urheber einen ›Designer‹.

To study how populist sentiments have increasingly influenced businesses in society, we examine how German and Swedish corporations addressed the refugee situation in their 2015 and 2016 annual reports. We find that corporations changed their communication once refugee migration became subjected to populist political sentiments, but that they did so without subscribing to those sentiments. Although populism is based on such sharp oppositions as welcoming refugees or closing borders, our analysis shows that corporations have found ways to communicate about the (...) refugee migration beyond these oppositions. Rather than taking a political stance, the corporations studied have primarily articulated the refugee situation as it pertains to their business operations. We identify four modes of articulation: the refugee as someone needing international aid, as a factor for economic analysis, as a benefit recipient, or as a potential stakeholder. These findings help nuance our understanding of how corporations navigate contested political issues. (shrink)

This article investigates whether there is any place for the school of thought that is known as analytic philosophy of education in the aftermath of postmodernism, and whether analytic philosophy of education can be treated as a ‘method’, among other alternative ‘methods’, that can be applied regardless of what kind of ‘-ism’ or ideology one embraces. An additional aim is to suggest some important questions for analytic philosophy of education to take into consideration. We argue that conceptual engineering may be (...) a promising avenue for analytic educational theory if it is used with a critical intent that is more heuristic and inconclusive than prescriptively ideal. (shrink)

Cette contribution se propose d’étudier l’anthropologie philosophique de Karl Löwith en partant de sa thèse d’habilitation, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen (1928). L’étude de cet ouvrage, dont Löwith nous dit qu’il est « pensé de manière anthropologique », permettra de poser le cadre initial de son anthropologie dont nous montrerons que la visée est éthique. C’est là sans doute, comme nous le montrerons en passant par la lecture de Löwith par Gadamer, que se joue la véritable distanciation avec (...) l’ontologie heideggérienne, même lorsque la pensée de Löwith cherchera à expurger son anthropologie de tout anthropocentrisme. (shrink)

[A] Prologue -- 1. De l'imaginaire au symbolique (livres I, II, III, IV) -- 2. Les pensées totalisantes (livres I, II, III) -- 3. La philosophie -- 4. La totalité réalisée (livre I) -- 5. La totalité réalisée : les sciences (livre II) -- v. 6. L'Histoire (livre III).

This paper challenges the traditional notions of ‘Monophysitism’ and ‘Nestorianism’ or ‘The Nestorian Church’. With regard to ‘Monophysitism’, it argues that two interpretations of the basic ‘Alexandrian’ Christological formula of the ‘one nature of the God-Logos incarnate’ need to be distinguished. One, according to which the individual properties of the two ‘natures’ of Christ were lost and mixed, and which can, indeed, be referred to as ‘Monophysitism’ – in contrast to another interpretation which insisted that the individual characteristics of the (...) two ‘natures’ were preserved and the ‘God-Logos incarnate’ remained consubstantial with human beings (homoousios hēmin). This second approach might be better referred to as ‘Miaphysitism’. Similarly, this contribution suggests that it seems necessary to differentiate between what Nestorius of Constantinople himself taught and what his opponent Cyrill of Alexandria imputed to him. When analyzing Nestorius’ own writings, it becomes clear that Nestorius neither challenged the true union between the God-Logos and the ‘Man’ nor assumed a time in which the ‘Man’ existed prior to his unification with the God-Logos. Therefore, Nestorius taught no ‘Nestorianism’ in the sense in which Cyrill of Alexandria introduced it. Likewise, the Christology of the Apostolic Church of the East is based on the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia. It is not before the 6th century that representatives of this Church discovered Nestorius as a martyr for the ‘orthodox belief’ who was persecuted by the Egyptian ‘Pharaoh’, just as had been John Chrysostom before him. Because of its loyalty to the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, it seems rather fitting to abandon the inappropriate title ‘Nestorian Church’ – a polemical title that has been pinned on the ‘Church of the East’ by its theological opponents from the 6th century onwards. (shrink)