Žižek’s recent commentaries on the topics of gender identity, sexuality, and consent have provoked outraged reactions from the politically correct neoliberal consensus. This paper argues these reactions emerge in part due to Žižek & Zupančič’s recent explorations into the ontological and political ramifications of Lacan’s thesis ‘ il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel’. Specifically, these explorations pose a threat to the contemporary definition of the subject as the subject of trauma, and the economy of moralistic outrage which sustains this (...) subjectivization. Following the recent commentaries by both Žižek and Zupančič, we argue this economy produces a valorization of affects, in which subjectivity becomes directly expressed in proportion to the subject’s expressed suffering. We argue the properly feminist question today must be how to escape what has become an economy of moralist satisfaction; an economy that seduces the subject into a cycle in which their own suffering becomes a currency – an end in itself – rather than a strategy to overcome the social inequalities that created the conditions for this very exploitation. This paper aims at offering an explanation of the traumatic reactions against Žižek and Zupančič’s recent investigations into sexuality, as well as to continue their investigation in the direction of trauma and subjectivity itself. (shrink)

The thematic focus of this yearbook is concerned with the various relations of „art“ and „technology“. It seeks to interrogate and reflect their conceptual filiations, their complementarities and mutual stimulations, and contrasts and tensions. The very notion of the „work“ challenges us to explode or triangulate the dichotomy of art and technology. This connects to further problems in and for the philosophy of technology, such as the relation of arts and crafts, the question of Kitsch or camp in art and (...) technology, or the role of play as a basic modality of artful technical production. Finally, of course, comes design, packaging, marketing and the aesthetic effects of works. With contributions by Katrin Becker, Rainer Becker, Andreas Beinsteiner, Hans Blumenberg, Johanna Dombois, Daniel Martin Feige, Nico Formanek, Petra Gehring, Sebastian Hallensleben, Andreas Hauschke, Dawid Kasprowicz, Viet Anh Nguyen Duc, Regina Oehler, Anika Reineke, Dirk Rustemeyer, Bernhard Siebert, Larissa Ullmann, Claudia Wiesemann, Ryan Mitchell Wittingslow and Konstanze Wolter. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This paper explores the phenomenon of meta-emotions. Meta-emotions are emotions people have about their own emotions. We analyze the intentional structure of meta-emotions and show how psychological findings support our account. Acknowledgement of meta-emotions can elucidate a number of important issues in the philosophy of mind and, more specifically, the philosophy and psychology of emotions. Among them are (allegedly) ambivalent or paradoxical emotions, emotional communication, emotional self-regulation, privileged access failure for repressed emotions, and survivor guilt.

This article consists of three parts, two introductory, in which the limits and the methods of analysis of dialogues are expounded, and the major part, in which the main features of a philosophical theory of disputation are outlined.It was an essential aim of the philosophical analysis of argumentative dialogues to develop tools of substantiation for cases in which logic doesn't help any more. In the first part of this paper I show that such tools can and will be developed only (...) by analyzing argumentations (“argumentation” in the sense of a monologue in which arguments for a thesis are brought forward), and that the analysis of argumentative dialogues doesn't contribute anything to the development of such tools.The systematically first task of the philosophical analysis of dialogues consists in understanding the general practical aims of philosophically interesting types of dialogue. Only subsequently the rules of the dialogue can be reconstructed as good means for reaching these aims. Dialogical games constructed without referring to such a purpose are externally senseless and useless.The third part is an outline of a philosophical theory of disputation (“disputation” here will mean: (learned) dialogue in which the participants cooperatively though perhaps controversially attempt to find out by means of arguments and mutual criticism whether a thesis is true or false). Disputations contain argumentations, and many functions of a disputation can also be fulfilled by argumentations alone. Certifying the truth of convictions is the specific aim of disputation. This is accomplished by eliminating errors of substantiation and foundation as effectively as possible, in revising false convictions and their foundations, thereby making the remaining convictions more certain. Based on this analysis of the aim of disputation, the basic rules of disputations will be critically reconstructed: possible moves, rules of sequence, and the internal aim and ends of disputations. (shrink)

In der Architekturtheorie ist häufig von der Identität von Bauwerken oder Städten die Rede. Der Ausdruck „Identität“ bezieht sich dabei auf etwas, was man „spezifischen Charakter“ nennen könnte. Wir schlagen eine symboltheoretische Explikation dieses Identitätsbegriffs vor und zeigen, in welchem Sinn ein Bauwerk verschiedene, sich verändernde oder gar konfligierende Identitäten haben kann. Identitäten von Bauwerken werden oft als mehr oder weniger klar, positiv, angemessen oder stark bewertet. Solche Attribute diskutieren wir, indem wir epistemische, materielle und strukturelle Bewertungen von Identitäten unterscheiden. (...) Abschliessend weisen wir Wechselwirkungen zwischen Identitäten von Bauwerken und Identitäten (im Sinn des Selbstverständnisses) von Personen und Gesellschaften hin. (shrink)

Pour l'auteur, la Lettre représente un seuil décisif dans l'évolution de la théologie fondamentale moderne. Partant des trois acquis majeurs du projet blondélien , l'auteur propose une voie de réinterprétation dans une perspective culturelle nouvelle de ces acquis, notamment en raison du pluralisme qui semble d'abord s'opposer à la structure fondamentalement chrétienne du discours de Blondel, ce qui contraint à infléchir la définition blondélienne du surnaturel. Enfin, l'esquisse d'un argument apologétique valorise l'ensemble du processus circulaire de l'argument apologétique dans la (...) mesure où cet ensemble est constitué par vérité, justesse et authenticité : ce processus prend aujourd’hui son départ dans la consistance du comportement de celui qui engage l’argumentation en faveur de la foi chrétienne.For the author, the Lettre represents a decisive threshold in the evolution of fundamental modern theology. Starting with the three major accepted propositions of Blondel’s project , the author proposes a way of reinterpretation in a new cultural perspective of these propositions, notably because of a pluralism that seems at first to be opposed to the fundamentally Christian structure of Blondel’s discourse, which forces one to bend Blondel’s definition of the supernatural. Finally, the outline of an apologetical argument valorises the whole of the circular method of the apologetical argument in so far as this whole is constituted by truth, soundness, and authenticity. Today this method being with the consistency of the comportment of he who engages the argumentation in favour of the Christian faith. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a novel account of the normativity of assertion. Its core thesis is that assertion has an etiological epistemic function, viz. to generate knowledge in hearers. In conjunction with a general account of etiological functions and their normative import, it is argued that an assertion is epistemically good if and only if it has the disposition to generate knowledge in hearers. In addition, reason is provided to believe that it makes sense to regulate the practice of (...) assertion by a speaker rule—and, more specifically, by a knowledge rule—as so regulating assertion contributes to ensuring that assertion fulfils its etiological function reliably. (shrink)

The origin of colour categories and their relationship to colour perception have been the prime example for testing the influence of language on perception and thought and more generally for investigating the biological, ecological and cultural determination of human cognition. These themes are central to a broad range of disciplines, including vision research, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental science, cultural anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy. Unfortunately, though, it has been tacitly taken for granted that the conceptual assumptions and methodological practices (...) from the dawn of empirical research on colour categorisation are the gold standard for current colour category research. Here, we show that these assumptions and practices are obsolete and flawed and have led to four fundamental and widespread misconceptions about colour categorisation: 1.) that colour perception is inherently categorical; 2.) that English Basic Colour Terms correspond to universal categories that are the end point of a fixed evolutionary sequence; 3.) that the prototypes of English basic colour terms are perceptually salient and qualify as focal colours; and 4.) that colour category research essentially revolves around the universalism-realism debate. State-of-the-art research on colour categorisation provides new, more sophisticated approaches and allows for rectifying those four statements. At the same time, some of the questions underlying those statements are not convincingly answered yet and constitute major challenges to future research. The critical considerations on colour categorisation may be transferred to research on other kinds of perceptual categorisation to inspire new, more general research questions. (shrink)

There seems to be a distinctive way in which we can remember events we have experienced ourselves, which differs from the capacity to retain information about events that we can also have when we have not experienced those events ourselves but just learned about them in some other way. Psychologists and increasingly also philosophers have tried to capture this difference in terms of the idea of two different types of memory: episodic memory and semantic memory. Yet, the demarcation between episodic (...) memory and semantic memory remains a contested topic in both disciplines, to the point of there being researchers in each of them who question the usefulness of the distinction between the two concepts. In this paper, I outline a new characterization of the difference between episodic memory and semantic memory, which connects that difference to what is sometimes called the ‘epistemic asymmetry’ between the past and the future, or the ‘epistemic arrow’ of time. My proposal will be that episodic memory and semantic memory exemplify the epistemic asymmetry in two different ways, and for somewhat different reasons, and that the way in which episodic memory exemplifies the epistemic asymmetry is manifest to the remembering subject in a way in which this is not the case for semantic memory. (shrink)

In Plato's Republic, the Analogy of the Sun famously points out that as the Idea of the Good relates to the knowable Forms so does the Sun to the visible things. Yet, no one has ever questioned whether the consequences claimed to be caused by the sun – among them especially the vital genesis of all physical things – can, based on Plato's philosophy, actually be caused by the material body of the sun. Taking this as a point of departure, (...) the present article looks into whether one can reveal more of the Analogy, just as Socrates himself frequently emphasises the incompleteness of his presentation. The article thus develops a series of detailed arguments to propose a differentiation of each analogical relation into two subrelations, which imply a transcendent principle and an immanent representation of this principle on both sides of the Analogy. Implementing this differentiation bears the potential to solve existing tensions within the interpretation of Republic VI and VII, it allows for further systematic considerations about, among others, the Good and the Beautiful and it may help to contextualise Plato's Analogy historically. (shrink)

ACTION-THEORETICALLY EXPLANATORY INTERPRETATIONS AS A MEANS OF SEMANTIC MEANING ANALYSIS The article first develops a general procedure for semantic meaning analysis in difficult cases where the meaning is very uncertain. The procedure consists of searching for one or more possible hypothetical causal explanations of the text, these explanations containing, among other things, the semantic intention of the author, his subjective reasons for this meaning and for the writing down of the text, but also the path of transmission of the text (...) from the writing down to the respective present text version. These hypothetical explanations (interpretations) are deductive-nomological or probabilistic, therefore presuppose corresponding general law hypotheses. If there is only one possible (hypothetical) explanation of the text at hand, this hypothetical explanation is also true. Very often, however, there are several possible explanations. In this case, the probabilities of these possible explanations must be determined; these probabilities then carry over to the individual hypotheses in the explanation (according to Bayes' law). This general procedure of meaning analysis is used in the second part of the article to reconstruct two famous interpretations (by Wapnewski and Hahn) of a poem by Walther von der Vogelweide ("Nemt, frowe, disen kranz"). -/- GERMAN ABSTRACT In dem Artikel wird zunächst ein allgemeines Verfahren zur semantischen Bedeutungsanalyse in schwierigen Fällen entwickelt, in denen die Bedeutung sehr unsicher ist. Das Verfahren besteht darin, daß eine oder mehrere mögliche hypothetische kausale Erklärungen des Textes gesucht werden, wobei diese Erklärungen u.a. die semantische Intention des Autors enthalten, seine subjektiven Gründe für diese Bedeutung und für die Niederschrift des Textes, aber auch den Weg der Tradierung des Textes von der Niederschrift bis zur jeweils vorliegenden Textversion. Diese hypothetischen Erklärungen (Deutungen) sind deduktiv-nomologisch oder probabilistisch, setzen deshalb entsprechende allgemeine Gesetzeshypothesen voraus. Wenn es nur eine mögliche (hypothetische) Erklärung des vorliegenden Textes gibt, ist diese hypothetische Erklärung auch wahr. Sehr häufig gibt es aber mehrere mögliche Erklärungen. In diesem Fall müssen die Wahrscheinlichkeiten dieser möglichen Erklärungen bestimmt werden; diese Wahrscheinlichkeiten übertragen sich dann auch auf die einzelnen Hypothesen in der Erklärung (nach dem Bayesschen Gesetz). Dieses allgemeine Verfahren der Bedeutungsanalyse wird im zweiten Teil des Artikels zur Rekonstruktion zweier berühmter Interpretationen (von Wapnewski und Hahn) eines Gedichts von Walther von der Vogelweide („Nemt, frowe, disen kranz“) verwendet. (shrink)

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato s innatist approach and Aristotle s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias ) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th century (...) AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition.". (shrink)

Time and Memory throws new light on fundamental aspects of human cognition and consciousness by bringing together, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches dealing with the connection between the capacity to represent and think about time, and the capacity to recollect the past. Fifteen specially written essays offer insights into current theories of memory processes and of the mechanisms and cognitive abilities underlying temporal judgements, and draw out key issues concerning the phenomenology and epistemology of memory and its (...) role in our understanding of time. (shrink)

Auch wenn die Unterscheidung von Form und InhaltForm-Inhalt-Beziehung in fast allen Teilen von Hegels System eine Rolle spielt, kommt ihr gerade in seiner Theorie des absoluten Geistes eine zentrale argumentative Funktion zu. Mit ihrer Hilfe nämlich vertritt Hegel die These, dass die einzelnen Gestalten des absoluten GeistesGeistabsoluter, KunstKunst, ReligionReligion und PhilosophiePhilosophie, sich eben nur der Form nach unterscheiden, aber ein und denselben Inhalt teilen.

Comment on Armin Falk & Nora Szech "Morals and Markets", Science 340(6133), 707-711, 2013.

A interlocution containing a stimulating lead essay on the relationship between law and violence by one of the key third-generation Frankfurt School philosophers, Christoph Menke, and engaged responses by a variety of influential critics.

The lottery paradox shows that the following three individually highly plausible theses are jointly incompatible: highly probable propositions are justifiably believable, justified believability is closed under conjunction introduction, known contradictions are not justifiably believable. This paper argues that a satisfactory solution to the lottery paradox must reject as versions of the paradox can be generated without appeal to either or and proposes a new solution to the paradox in terms of a novel account of justified believability.

Most contemporary legal philosophers tend to take force to be an accessory to the law. According to this prevalent view the law primarily consists of a series of demands made on us; force, conversely, comes into play only when these demands fail to be satisfied. This book claims that this model should be jettisoned in favour of a radically different one: according to the proposed view, force is not an accessory to the law but rather its attribute. The law is (...) not simply a set of rules incidentally guaranteed by force, but it should be understood as essentially rules about force. The book explores in detail the nature of this claim and develops its corollaries. It then provides an overview of the contemporary jurisprudential debates relating to force and violence, and defends its claims against well-known counter-arguments by Hart, Raz and others. This book offers an innovative insight into the concept of Pure Theory. In contrast to what was claimed by Hans Kelsen, the most eminent contributor to this theory, the author argues that the core insight of the Pure Theory is not to be found in the concept of a basic norm, or in the supposed absence of a conceptual relation between law and morality, but rather in the fundamental and comprehensive reformulation of how to model the functioning of the law intended as an ordering of force and violence. (shrink)

Instead of simply following the current neoliberal mantra of proclaiming economic growth as the single most important factor for maintaining well-being, Education and Schmid's Art of Living revisits the idea of an education focused on personal development and the well-being of human beings. Drawing on philosophical ideas concerning the good life and recent research in positive psychology, Teschers argues in favour of shifting the focus in education and schooling towards a beautiful life and an art of living for today's students. (...) Containing a thorough discussion of the ideas of contemporary German philosopher Wilhelm Schmid, this book considers the possible implications of developing a more humanistic and life-centred approach to educational policy, research and practice, showing that Schmid's concept of Lebenskunst provides a firm philosophical basis for this endeavour. Among others, this book draws on analytical and continental traditions to challenge current views and assumptions in regard to education and the role of schooling for contemporary societies. As a result, Teschers' work is sure to spark a debate about the direction of educational policy and practice in the 21st century. Education and Schmid's Art of Living is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in education. Given the importance of such topics as the relationship between education and society, teacher education and how best to structure schools and learning environments, Teschers' work will appeal to academics and students in a diverse range of fields, including education, philosophy, sociology and psychology. (shrink)

One of Ludwik Fleck’s ideas about the development of scientific knowledge is that—once a system of interpretation is in place—the process that follows can be characterised as one of inertia: any new evidence comes under a strong pressure to be incorporated into the established frame. This can result in what Fleck called a harmony of illusions when contradictory evidence becomes almost invisible or is incorporated into the established frame only by huge efforts.The paper analyses early explanations of the tuberculin reaction (...) as a case study of Fleck’s argument. For Robert Koch, who had presented tuberculin in 1890, the compound was supposed to be a diagnostic tool and a cure for tuberculosis. His conception of its effect was rather peculiar, but strictly in line with ideas on the pathogenesis of infectious diseases he had developed much earlier. After tuberculin was released in late 1890, whether Koch’s conception was convincing depended on the place that a given observer had in the medical world in late-nineteenth-century Germany. Inside Koch’s group, the status of the tuberculin reaction remained stable and tuberculin retained its value as a diagnostic and curative tool. On the other hand, observers from outside that thought collective, and in particular from clinical medicine, soon pointed to flaws in its conception. These critics developed a rather different picture of tuberculin as a mysterious and dangerous drug. No reconciliation followed and what we find instead in German medicine around the year 1900 is the presence of rather contradictory concepts and practices surrounding Koch’s wonder cure. (shrink)

Seit ihrer Verurteilung vor allem im Deutschen Idealismus hatte die Popularphilosophie, in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine der einflussreichsten Stromungen, einen faden Beigeschmack. Dabei verstand sich die Diskussion uber eine Philosophie, die mehr Nahe zum Leben der Menschen suchte, als Teil der umfassenden Selbstverstandnisdebatte von Aufklarung insgesamt. Vor allem die Auseinandersetzung mit der kritischen Philosophie Kants zwang dazu, Anspruch, Grenzen und Moglichkeiten popularer Philosophie zu uberdenken. So wurde Popularitat zu Programm und Problem von Philosophie, damals wie heute. - (...) Der vorliegende Band zeichnet die Geschichte der Popularphilosophie nach: ihre Vorgeschichte, die Diskussion im 18. und ihre Nachklange im 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert bis hin zur gegenwartigen Auseinandersetzung. Since its condemnation, above all by German idealism, popular philosophy, which had been one of the most influential movements of the 18th century, had a negative connotation. The discussion about a philosophy which tried to get closer to peoples lives did however see itself as a part of the widespread debate on self-understanding of Enlightenment as a whole. It was mainly the study of Kant's critical philosophy which forced people to rethink the demands, limitations and possibilties of popular philosophy. Thus popularity became the agenda and the problem of philosophy, then as now. This volume traces the history of popular philosophy: its previous history, the discussion in the 18th century and its reverberations in the 19th and early 20th centuries up to the present time. (shrink)