I argue that many interpretations of Kant’s philosophy suffer from what I call “Textvergessenheit,” and that the remedy against it is what I call “kommentarische Interpretation.” By “Textvergessenheit” I mean that, despite all appearances, there are no really close, detailed, exegetical and reconstructive interpretations of Kant’s texts; and by “kommentarische Interpretation” I mean interpretations that are just this: close, detailed, exegetical and reconstructive. The main purpose of “doing history of philosophy” and thus the main purpose of interpreting philosophical texts is (...) to understand what they mean; it is not to find out whether what the text claims to be true really is true . The ultimate aim of reading a philosophical text is to understand, and this means: to reconstruct the theory and arguments put forward by its author. Once it is clear what an argument says, we can relate to it, critically or affirmatively, or whatever; but what exactly the argument really says, is never obvious. Of course, no one will argue that we should not read Kant’s text carefully. Yet, since it is a widely held belief that, contrary to what I claim, there are close readings of Kant’s text, I will provide examples that, as a matter of fact, this is not the case; Textvergessenheit is a fact of philosophical life. Key words HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. (shrink)

The study ties in with former considerations concerning the problem of phenomenal perception of higher animals. Accordingly the phenomenal character, qualia included, results from the adjustment of perceptions to (typal) behavioral dispositions under the principle of self-preservation: an emergence phenomenon provided by the constitutive system unity of perception and behavior, here characterized as percept-act-system. Thereby the subject of behavior can be explained as an emergent instance of the – system-theoretically highest rank – percept-act-level. In terms of the principle of self-preservation (...) it subjects all sensations to an valuation. Perception thus gaining existential sense for the subject, a psychic sense-dimension is spanned which as such does not own physical but ideal character. Accessing Hegel this is further interpreted: Accordingly the ontological basis of this view is the lawfulness of nature, understood as the ideal essence underlying it. In virtue of this – basically Hegelian-type idealistic – conception the material being of nature always encloses the possibility of the psychic, according to that ideal substratum of nature. (shrink)

The center of this investigation is the ‘real hard problem’ of phenomenal perception (Chalmers), i.e. of the qualitative kind of perception presenting the subject with forms, colors, smell, pleasurable or negative feelings etc.; the problem of Human consciousness, however, will explicitly not be treated. The ‘explanatory gap’ (Levine) complained by the philosophy of mind, that is to say the failure of all attempts to supply a neuronal explanation of experiences, is emergence-theoretically treated: Systems own properties and laws different from their (...) components; so the emergence concept shows promise also for the explanatory potential with respect to neuronal systems. Here the phenomenal character of perception is explained from the systemic co-action of perception and behavior, whereby also an interpretation is opened to Davidson’s anomal monism. Qualitative feelings, as is further shown, are not to be understood as needless ‘epiphenomena’, but as a necessary completion of per-ception when, as in the case of higher animals, the behavior is primarily controlled by phenomenal perception. (shrink)

My presentation begins with Kant's philosophical project, which played a key role in understanding German Idealism, and then considers in detail the philosophical approaches developed by Schelling and Hegel.

The hierarchy of conceptual categories involves a level of abstraction called the basic level. This is the level at which the subjects are fastest at identifying category members, at which conceptual priming most easily obtains, at which information is most easily remembered over time, and at which a single mental image can reflect the entire category. Basic-level categories tend to be the first ones acquired by young children, and also tend to be expressed by the simplest words. Various approaches have (...) been developed to deal especially with verbs, which, as the basis of grammatical clauses, are more structured than nouns. Generative semantics explored the idea that the inherent structure of verbs conforms to the syntactic structure of sentences, and therefore should be studied by means of complex paraphrases. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer schnelle Fortschritt der Biomedizin fördert fortwährend neue bioethische Problemstellungen zutage und erfordert Anpassungen überlieferter Normbestände an neue Gegebenheiten. Für viele neue Verfahren stellen sich jedoch Fragen nicht nur der moralischen Bewertung, sondern auch der begrifflichen Einordnung. Diese besagt dann häufig etwas über das Gewicht, das einerseits sachlichen, andererseits normativen Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten beigelegt wird. Der Beitrag illustriert die in diesem Zusammenhang auftretenden Konflikte am Beispiel des Gene editing bei Nutzpflanzen, der mitochondrial replacement therapy, des aktiven Behandlungsabbruchs bei Schwerkranken und (...) dem freiwilligen Verzicht auf Nahrung und Flüssigkeit zur Lebensbeendigung (Sterbefasten). Besonderes Augenmerk gilt den Dilemmata, die sich ergeben, wenn sich diese Konflikte angesichts verhärteter normativer Fronten diskursiv nicht auflösen lassen. (shrink)

Supporting the rational suicide of a patient with a terminal disease is opposed by a majority of German doctors, whereas assistance in such patients’ hastening their death by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking is predominantly judged to be acceptable. Are these two positions compatible? It is argued that the normative differentiation cannot be justified by the fact that the assistance in active suicide is itself active, whereas assistance in VSED is merely passive. Even in "letting die" a patient from hastening (...) death by refusing nutrition and hydration there is an active element in the doctor's/the palliative care team's assurance that they will provide palliative support in case of need. Nor can the difference in evaluation be justified by relevant differences in the causal situation. Enabling a patient to perform VSED and assisting a patient's active suicide under the same circumstances are, as far as causal relevance is concerned, on a par. This holds, at least, on a condition view of causality in the tradition of John Stuart Mill. Finally, the paper discusses whether there are other morally relevant dimensions by which actively and passively supporting a patient suicide under the relevant circumstances differ, again with a negative result. (shrink)

InNaturNatürlichkeitseinerKünstlichkeitKritik der Urteilskraft zitiert Kant das Beispiel eines Gastwirts, der seinen Burschen im Wirtsgarten den Gesang der Nachtigall nachahmen lässt, um damit seine bei ihm eingekehrten Gäste zu erfreuen: Dieser „lustige Wirth“ habe „seine zum Genuß der Landluft bei ihm eingekehrten Gäste dadurch zu ihrer größten Zufriedenheit hintergangen […], daß er einen mutwilligen Burschen, welcher diesen Schlag (mit Schilf oder Rohr im Munde) ganz der NaturNatur ähnlich nachzumachen wußte, in einem Gebüsche verbarg. Sobald man aber inne wird, daß es Betrug (...) sei, so wird niemand es lange aushalten, diesem vorher für so reizend gehaltenen Gesange zuzuhören; und so ist es mit jedem anderen Singvogel beschaffen. Es muß Natur sein, oder von uns dafür gehalten werden, damit wir an dem Schönen als einem solchen ein unmittelbares Interesse nehmen können.“. (shrink)

The subject matter of ethics is morality, and ethics deals with it in four different though closely related ways: by analysis, by criticism, by norm construction, and by moral pragmatics.