Die "Lebensschutz"-Bewegung will in die Offensive: Sie möchte nicht nur die Zugänge zu Schwangerschaftsabbrüchen erschweren, sondern führt auch einen Kulturkampf zur Retraditionalisierung der Geschlechter- und Familienverhältnisse, um christliche Moral und das ärztliche Gewissen. Damit ist sie Teil eines konservativen bis extrem rechten, in Teilen antidemokratischen, Aufwindes. Die Autor innen analysieren die neuen medizinethischen Strategien der "Lebensschutz"-Bewegung, ihre Stärken, Schwächen und internen Widersprüche. Damit liefern sie das Material für eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den "Lebensschützern" - und die Grundlage für den nötigen (...) Widerstand."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Substitute decision-makers for severely disabled neonates who can be kept alive but who will require constant medical interventions and will die at the latest in their teens are faced with a difficult decision when trying to decide whether to keep the infant alive. By and large, the primary focus of their decision-making centers on what is in the best interests of the newborn. The best-interests criterion, in turn, is importantly conditioned by quality-of-life considerations. However, the concept of quality of life (...) is logically and ethically different for patients with a developing as opposed to a developed awareness. Unfortunately, this difference is ignored by current quality-of-life considerations, there are no quality-of-life measures that take this difference into account, and decision-making proceeds entirely without acknowledging this fact. This note outlines why this is a problem and why there is a need for a new set of tools that incorporates this distinction if the substitute decision-makers are to apply the best-interest criterion in a meaningful way. (shrink)

This paper is on theoretical commitments involved in connecting use and meaning. Wittgenstein maintained, in his Philosophical Investigations, that meaning more or less 'is' use; and he more or less proclaimed that in philosophy, we must 'not advance any kind of theory' (PI § 109). He presented a connection between use and meaning by describing a sequence of language-games where richness of vocabularies and complexity of embedding behaviour grow simultaneously. This presentation is very impressive in the sequence of PI §§ (...) 2, 8, 15, and 21, even if it needs sympathetic touching up. If supplemented, the presentation makes a convincing case for claiming that there is a connection between use and meaning in the following sense: Within everyday, innocent talk about meanings of expressions, all questions and controversies about meanings are ultimately to be answered and to be decided by appeal to correct descriptions of the expressions' use. This may be a very modest statement of the meaning-is-use connection. However, establishing even this modest statement requires that one implicitly relies on controversial, explanatory theories from philosophy of language, as sober analysis of the sequence presented by Wittgenstein will reveal.This is not to say that the modest statement is in any way fishy. Rather, I want to remind readers of how desirable it is to restrict the interpretation of Wittgenstein's famous hostile remarks on theories to that kind of metaphysical misunderstandings of our everyday language which the context of PI § 109 is about.In (1) I characterize, by way of listing examples from the Philosophical Investigations, the area of what I think Wittgenstein regarded as innocent, everyday meaning talk, talk that is not yet infected by bad philosophy. In (2), I argue that what Wittgenstein wanted to show was that such talk is in some sense replaceable by use descriptions, i.e. by descriptions of language-games. In (3), I argue that not all kinds of language-games are relevant; in particular, those of teaching and explaining words have to be excluded. As I restrict myself to the four remaining 'primitive' language-games in PI §§ 2, 8, 15, and 21, I have to defend my approach, in (4), against Joachim Schulte's case for reading Wittgenstein's comparison of these language-games with real languages as ironical. How the invitation to regard such a language-game as a complete, primitive language should in fact be construed is a question I discuss in (5), defending my interpretation against Richard Raatzsch in particular. How increases of expressive power are brought about by increases of the use repertoires is shown by an analysis of modified versions of the language-games in question, and of alternatives thereof, in (6), (7), (8), and (9) respectively, pointing out the places where theoretical commitments enter. Section (10) sums up commitments that have emerged from a sympathetic defence of a modest reading of the meaning-and-use connection. (shrink)

Mitte der 1870er Jahre vollzieht Nietzsche eine folgenreiche Wende in seinem Denken, die eben sowohl Ausdruck einer Krise wie eines theoretischen Neubeginns, ist; wobei insbesondere Menschliches, Allzumenschliches dabei einen Scheitelpunkt markiert, der auch sein Verhältnis zu Wagner und zu Schopenhauer – den Säulenheiligen der frühen Jahre –, grundstürzend verändert. Distanziert er sich einerseits von Wagners dramatischer Musikkonzeption, so bei Schopenhauer von dessen Willensmetaphysik und substituiert sie durch einen Topos eines grundlegend agierenden Willens zu Macht. Wenn wir uns auf die Suche (...) nach Nietzsches aufklärerischer Motivation in diesem Buch machen, dann könnte ein Aphorismus aus dem ersten Teil helfen: „Die eherne Nothwendigkeit ist ein Ding, von dem die Menschen im Verlauf der Geschichte einsehen, dass es weder ehern noch nothwendig ist". Mit dieser zweibändigen, zugleich umfangreichsten Schrift betritt der Nietzsche die Bühne, der er sein will: Ein freier Geist. (shrink)

This book provides an exciting and diverse philosophical exploration of the role of practice and practices in human activity. It contains original essays and critiques of this philosophical and sociological attempt to move beyond current problematic ways of thinking in the humanities and social sciences. It will be useful across many disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, science, cultural theory, history and anthropology.

This paper provides a translation of the introduction, titled ‘Account of the work’ Ratio operis, to the first edition of Genera plantarum, published in 1737 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The text derives its significance from the fact that it is the only published text in which Linnaeus engaged in an explicit discussion of his taxonomic method. Most importantly, it shows that Linnaeus was clearly aware that a classification of what he called ‘natural genera’ could not be achieved by (...) a top-down approach of logical division, but had to rely on inductive, bottom-up procedures. The translation is supplemented by explanatory notes. (shrink)

In this article I pursue both a systematic and a historical interest. I develop the sentiment of unease as a feminist-pragmatist concept systematically. The main references are the terms habit and situation in John Dewey and the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Perkins Gilman reflects experiences of unease as a writer and as a (social) theorist. The paper is therefore also a historical appreciation of the theoretical work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. With Perkins Gilman, uneasiness appears to be an expression (...) of an androcentric world, more generally speaking, of a world in which gender relations are understood according to the pattern of normality and deviation. This can be generalized and unease can be understood as an expression of power asymmetries that damage the epistemic authority of some. Such a view is critical of a widespread tendency to individualize negative feelings and attribute them to individuals, who are then classified either as in need of individual coaching or as pathological, and who can therefore theoretically be passed over. (shrink)

The development of paper-based information technologies in the early modern period is a field of enquiry that has lately benefited from extensive studies by intellectual historians and historians o...

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 3 Seiten: 536-537.

We provide a detailed description of an interleaved and heavily annotated copy of Florae Berolinensis Prodromus, a flora of Berlin published by the German apothecary and botanist Karl Ludwig Willdenow in 1787, which today is preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. We demonstrate that this is the copy that the author himself used and carried with him during his botanical excursions in and around Berlin to prepare a second edition of the work. By analyzing this document as (...) paper technology, we reveal that even seemingly trifling aspects of its material organization enabled far-reaching biological research agendas that were not originally intended. The hybrid form of manuscript and printed book, used in field excursions, enabled a kind of natural-historical observation that was at once detailed and bound by strict convention, a combination that inadvertently opened new research questions and suggested new objects of research. We thereby contribute to an understanding of the history of natural history that goes beyond the history of ideas and the intended uses of techniques, giving an example of how routine work on paper within a scientific tradition could generate innovation. (shrink)

L’apport de la Certitude Sensible à l’ensemble du programme de Phénoménologie de l’Esprit est constitué par la preuve de l’inévitabilité de distinguer. L’Introduction présente la distinction entre conscience et l’objet , dont la légitimité et la structure auto-réflexive se déroulent par l’éxécution de Phénoménologie de l’Esprit. Le premier pas, qui est élémentaire, se réalise dans la Certitude Sensible. Suivant la formule programmatique du « immediat » la Certitude Sensible exige la dissolution de le distinction entre conscience et objet et même (...) de la structure de distinction soi-même. Il est montré pourquoi cette exigence ne peut pas être satisfait. Au contraire, les distinctions qui font une différencecelles qui séparent deux côtés différentes l’un de l’autre – sont inevitables. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 64 Heft: 3 Seiten: 380-409.

Book publishers seem to have found a new niche judging by the number of review copies coming our way. This column just aims to give a line or two on some of them to help the reader decide whether to buy, borrow or leave it for now.

We establish the existence uncountably many atoms in the subvariety lattice of the variety of involutive residuated lattices. The proof utilizes a construction used in the proof of the corresponding result for residuated lattices and is based on the fact that every residuated lattice with greatest element can be associated in a canonical way with an involutive residuated lattice.

Anthropologists, linguists, cultural historians, and literary scholars have long emphasized the value of examining writing as a material practice and have often invoked the list as a paradigmatic example thereof. This Focus section explores how lists can open up fresh possibilities for research in the history of science. Drawing on examples from the early modern period, the contributors argue that attention to practices of list making reveals important relations between mercantile, administrative, and scientific attempts to organize the contents of the (...) world. Early modern lists projected both spatial and temporal visions of nature: they inventoried objects in the process of exchange and collection; they projected possible trajectories for future endeavor; they publicized the social identities of scientific practitioners; and they became research tools that transformed understandings of the natural order. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and SophistsMichael SvobodaPlato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists by Marina McCoy New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. vii + 212 pp. $74.00, hardcover.With her new book, Marina McCoy, an assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College, succeeds in opening up new lines of inquiry into Plato’s formative engagement(s) with rhetoric: first, by involving other Platonic dialogues in the ongoing interrogations (...) of the Gorgias and Phaedrus and, second, by patiently considering the implications of the different accounts of sophists and philosophers that result. These new investigations are aided by the diverse disciplinary voices with which Marina McCoy herself converses—works by classicists, critics, philosophers, political theorists, and rhetoricians, works taken from a wide range of journals. In her interpretation of the Gorgias, for example, one encounters the names one would expect from a thorough and up-to-date review of these different literatures: Arieti, Dodds, Fussi, Gordon, McComiskey, Nightingale, Saxonhouse, and Yunis. Thus, Plato scholars from both rhetoric and philosophy will find much of interest in this book.McCoy provides a clear overview of her project in her introduction (1–22). In separate readings of the Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist and Theaetetus, and Phaedrus, three interrelated claims are presented and developed: first, consistently distinguishing the philosopher from the sophist was a difficult challenge for Plato—and for the ancient Athenians; second, Plato’s conception of philosophy includes “important rhetorical dimensions,” and third, Plato ultimately differentiates the philosopher [End Page 191] from the sophist on the basis of character (3). To substantiate these claims, the dramatic and historical elements of Plato’s dialogues are interpreted in tandem with their explicit arguments. McCoy notes that the experience of reading the dialogues often reproduces the psychological tensions captured by them. In other words, Plato uses rhetorical techniques to cause his readers both to question philosophy and to engage in it as they do so (7). At the same time, McCoy recognizes that the terms of these discussions were hotly contested: “The Greek mindset at the time of Plato is one of passionate interest in the nature, power, and danger of logos : terms such as philosophia, rhetorike, sophist, and rhetor become part of the weaponry in the battle” (11). By attending to these elements in the seven dialogues examined in the following six chapters, McCoy seeks to show that philosophy is better defined as an interaction of souls than as a collection of analytical techniques, that the approach of Plato’s Socrates “relies more on phronesis and kairos than techne ” (15).These broad claims are immediately tested in the second chapter of the book, “Elements of Gorgianic Rhetoric and the Forensic Genre in Plato’s Apology ” (23–55). Here McCoy further develops two observations about the Apology. First, Socrates’ claims to the contrary, the Apology actually incorporates a number of elements common in forensic speeches at the time of his trial: a standard speech structure, arguments from probability ( eike ), and portrayal of character ( ethopoioa ) (26, 40). But perhaps more provocatively, second, in the Apology Plato seems to allude to Gorgias’ In Defense of Palamedes ; both speeches portray their speakers as public benefactors who cannot have committed the crimes of which they are accused but who nonetheless cannot defend themselves effectively under the conditions of their trial (32–39). When McCoy then calls our attention to the historical elements in the Apology —the life and death of Chaerophon, the role played in Athenian culture and politics by the oracle at Delphi, and the rules governing testimony—we must consider the possibility that Socrates may successfully be using rhetorical techniques, not to win his juror’s favor but to confuse and challenge them. Thrown off their moral balance, McCoy argues, his jurors might be led to question themselves. “Socrates’ risky choice to appeal to the oracle story forces each juror to make a choice: he must decide whether Socrates’ philosophical activity is a moral and even religious virtue” (51). In and through the Apology, Plato may be doing something very similar for his readers: “If Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen is a forensic piece disguised as [an] encomium, perhaps Plato’s Apology... (shrink)

Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, das Projekt angewandter interkultureller Philosophie „Briefe über Philosophie weltweit“ vorzustellen. Der Beitrag ist in vier Teile gegliedert. Im ersten Abschnitt werden Anlass und Profil des Projektes vorgestellt. Der „akademische Nomadismus“ der Gegenwart verstärkt die immer schon interkulturelle Verfasstheit der akademischen Praxis und stellt den lebensweltlichen Anlass des Projektes dar, dies in Form von Briefen über die verschiedenen Bedingungen des Philosophierens auch zu reflektieren. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird genauer nach Erfahrungen gefragt, die in den Briefen zum (...) Ausdruck kommen und die wir als „interkulturelle Erfahrungen“ bezeichnen und näher bestimmen wollen. Thema des dritten Abschnitts ist die gewählte Darstellungsform für derartige interkulturelle Erfahrungen, nämlich die Briefform als Medium für Perspektivität. Im vierten Abschnitt machen wir abschließend den Versuch, das Projekt als Form angewandter interkultureller Philosophie zu profilieren. (shrink)

Scholars have suggested that leaders’ ethical failures at the beginning of the twenty-first century have raised awareness about the importance of ethical leadership (EL). Yet, there has been no systematic effort to evaluate whether this awareness indeed led to changes in EL or how followers react to this leadership style over time. To address this gap, we examine the evolution in EL means, variability, and its associations with follower outcomes between 2004 and 2019. Our cross-temporal meta-analysis included 359 independent samples (...) from 314 studies published between 2005 and 2020 and focused on followers’ ratings of their leaders using the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS; Brown et al., in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117–134, 2005). Using cubic spline meta-regressions, our results indicated no global changes in EL mean levels and variability across the 15-year period. Nevertheless, country-level comparisons revealed different EL-trends in China (i.e. decrease) versus the United States (i.e. stable), and further moderation analyses highlighted the role of cultural value dimensions and national corruption rates. Finally, we also found that the relationship between EL and desirable follower outcomes (e.g. organizational citizenship behavior) became gradually stronger over time on a global level. These results provide a solid empirical basis to evaluate cross-temporal trends in EL and its (changing) impact on follower outcomes across the globe. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction The Gene in Classical Genetics The Gene in Molecular Genetics The Gene in Evolution and Development Conclusion: Genes, Genomics, and Reduction Acknowledgement References Further Reading.

Taking as a point of departure the thesis that philosophical content and stylistic form are internally related to each other, we explore in our text the possibilities enabled by the literary form of the letter. We begin with a brief description of the current situation of the academic philosophy around the world characterized by international migrations of thinkers and thoughts. In the second section, we highlight the importance of the literary form of the letter in the current background dominated by (...) the canonical format of the paper. In the third and fourth sections we focus on the main features and current use of this literary form and examine its possibilities for philosophy. In the final section, we render plausible our thesis examining with different examples how is possible to write letters about philosophy and to do philosophy in and through letters. (shrink)