Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 2 Seiten: 330-374.

The article recapitulates the different phases of the western interpretation of Nāgārjuna and aims, proceeding from a foundation enriched by a critique of them, to obtain elements of a renewed transcendental-philosophical interpretation of the philosophy of emptiness, such as was initiated by Fyodor Ippolitovich Stcherbatsky in his approach inspired by Immanuel Kant. Based primarily on Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s transcendental logic and Wissenschaftslehre a systematic reconstruction of Nāgārjuna’s thought is undertaken. Taking up an insight of Bhavya/Bhāviveka, we suggest that the absolute (...) known by Nāgārjuna as pre-reflexive being-conscious is the concept-bound appearance of the absolute in the medium of prapanca and not the absolute itself dispensed from prapanca, which as the unthinkable beyond of all thinking can be immediately realized in actuality only by the self-annihilation of thinking. This will bring to light the cognitive yield of Nāgārjuna’s effort, which is of a transcendental nature avant la lettre, and which makes him a witness for the claim to universality of transcendental-philosophical knowledge, beyond Europe.Der Aufsatz rekapituliert die verschiedenen Phasen der westlichen Rezeptionsgeschichte Nāgārjunas und plädiert für eine erneute transzendentalphilosophische Interpretation der Philosophie der Leerheit, wie sie die von Immanuel Kant inspirierte Interpretation Fyodor Ippolitovich Stcherbatskys inauguriert hat. Ausgehend von Johann Gottlieb Fichtes transzendentaler Logik und Wissenschaftslehre wird eine systematische Rekonstruktion von Nāgārjunas Denken unternommen und das von Nāgārjuna affirmierte Absolute als präreflexives Bewusst-Sein interpretiert. Im Anschluss an Bhavya/Bhāviveka wird das präreflexive Bewusst-Sein Nāgārjunas als absolute Erscheinung des Absoluten vom Absoluten selbst unterschieden, das als undenkbares Jenseits allen Denkens nur durch die faktische Selbstvernichtung des Denkens unmittelbar realisiert werden kann. Anhand dieser exemplarischen Untersuchung wird die These vertreten, dass Nāgārjuna Erkenntnisse errungen hat und zwar – ante litteram – transzendentale, die ihn zu einem Zeugen des Universalitätsanspruches transzendentalphilosophischer Erkenntnis außerhalb Europas machen. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungSeit Jahren steigt in Indien die Anzahl der spezifisch gegenüber Frauen, hierarchisch tieferstehenden Geburts- (varṇa) und Berufsgruppen (jāti) sowie Kastenlosen (dalits;scheduled castes) und indigenen Gemeinschaften (ādivāsī;scheduled tribes) angezeigten Gewalttaten kontinuierlich an. Diese Gewaltakte und Tötungsdelikte sind aufgrund ihrer Qualität und vor allem aufgrund ihrer quantitativen Größenordnung als systemisch anzusehen. Dass sie in dieser Form noch immer ein akutes Gegenwartsproblem von allerhöchster sozialer und politischer Brisanz im vordergründig säkularisierten Indien darstellen, legt einen gesamtgesellschaftlichen Konsens über deren grundsätzliche Rechtmäßigkeit nahe, der sich (...) anhand tradierter Normen- und Wertvorstellungen sowie prämoderner Denk- und Handlungsmuster legitimiert, die auf traditionell hinduistischen Ideen basieren. Dabei kann der politische Aufstieg der nationalreligiös argumentierenden und agitierenden „Indischen Volkspartei“ (BJP:Bhāratīya Janatā Pārṭī) sowie ihr politisch forcierter Rückgriff auf den Hinduismus als einzelner, aber dennoch entscheidender Einflussfaktor gesehen werden, der die anhaltende Verschärfung innergesellschaftlicher Gegensätze und die kontinuierliche Intensivierung der Gewaltdynamiken ursächlich zu erklären vermag. Um diese Zusammenhänge zu beleuchten, vollzieht der Beitrag die ideengeschichtlichen Grundlagen religiös legitimierter Entmenschlichung und Gewalt sowie latenter wie offener Misogynie im Hinduismus von seinen vedischen Ursprüngen im 2. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend bis zur Gegenwart nach. (shrink)

Some axiomatic theories of truth and related subsystems of second-order arithmetic are surveyed and shown to be conservative over their respective base theory. In particular, it is shown by purely finitistically means that the theory PA ÷ "there is a satisfaction class" and the theory FS of [2] are conservative over PA.

The proof-theoretic results on axiomatic theories oftruth obtained by different authors in recent years are surveyed.In particular, the theories of truth are related to subsystems ofsecond-order analysis. On the basis of these results, thesuitability of axiomatic theories of truth for ontologicalreduction is evaluated.

We prove Yablo’s paradox without the diagonal lemma or the recursion theorem. Only a disquotation schema and axioms for a serial and transitive ordering are used in the proof. The consequences for the discussion on whether Yablo’s paradox is circular or involves self-reference are evaluated.

This article introduces Turing’s idea of a “paper machine” to identify and understand one important mode of clinical research in the modern hospital, how that research worked, and how office technology and industrialized labor shaped and helped drive it. The unusually rich archives of Berlin psychiatry allow detailed reconstruction of the making of the new diagnostic category “hyperkinetic syndrome” in the 1920s. From the generating of data to the processing of information to the visualizing of the nature and course of (...) the new syndrome in the lives of more than sixty patients, this case study shows how clinical research could be based on the apparatus of the clerks’ room (folders, registers, inventories, and the dispatch of documents), office technologies (new filing systems, preprinted forms, and duplicating machines), and the principles and paper practices of the division and rationalization of labor (charts organizing worktime in complex organizations). The result is an important example of clinical research embedded in the broader history of office technology, industrial labor, and the modern hospital. (shrink)

The paper argues that human dignity is the normative, legally binding base of human rights. Since the Declarations of human rights in 1776/1789 it is no longer possible to base dignity on a universal morality. This results in two main consequences. Firstly, it is necessary to strictly shift the concept of dignity away from a dignity of the human creature, human nature or mankind to the dignity of personality and citizenship, respectively. Secondly, determining the rights of the individual is a (...) definite political practice and not only the application of a correct understanding of what constitutes dignity in theory. Slavery is not a problem of false thinking or morality, but a degrading practice. (shrink)

In this note two propositions about the epistemic formalization of Church's Thesis are proved. First it is shown that all arithmetical sentences deducible in Shapiro's system EA of Epistemic Arithmetic from ECT are derivable from Peano Arithmetic PA + uniform reflection for PA. Second it is shown that the system EA + ECT has the epistemic disjunction property and the epistemic numerical existence property for arithmetical formulas.

The history of Chinese medicine is still widely imagined in terms dictated by the discourse of modernity, that is as ‘traditional’ and ‘Chinese.’ And yet, so as to be intelligible to us moderns, it must simultaneously be framed through categories that make it comparable somehow to the ‘West’ and the ‘modern’ from which it is said to be essentially different. This is accomplished, for instance, by viewing Chinese medicine as fundamentally shaped by cosmological thinking, as focusing on process rather than (...) matter, and as forever hampered by attachments to the past even when it tries to innovate. At the same time, it is described as pursuing its objectives in ways that make sense in ‘our’ terms, too, such as the goal of creating physiological homeostasis through methods of supplementation and drainage. In this paper, I seek to move beyond this kind of analysis through a two-pronged approach. First, by focusing on the concept of tong 通 - a character that calls forth images of free flow, connectivity, relatedness and understanding - I foreground an important aspect of Chinese medical thinking and practice that has virtually been ignored by Western historians of medicine and science. Second, by exploring how the influential physician Ye Tianshi 葉天士 (1664–1746) employed tong to advance medical thinking and practice at a crucial moment of change in the history of Chinese medicine, I demonstrate that physicians in early modern China moved towards new understandings of the body readily intelligible by modern biomedical anatomy. I argue that this mode of analysis allows us to transcend the limitations inherent in the current historiography of Chinese medicine: because it allows for comparison to emerge from our subject matter rather than imposing our imaginaries onto it in advance. (shrink)

Culture is a uniquely human property. Although precursors to cultural practices are found in other animals, these precursors differ in kind from the conditions of human culture that have emerged through evolutionary processes. In order to illuminate the mutual dependence of biological-genetic and cultural evolution, the author investigates technology and the use of tools, as well as the way these abilities are transmitted, in order to understand what properties and abilities separate human beings from animals.

Recent studies suggest that vertebrate genetic material ingested by invertebrates (iDNA) can be used to investigate vertebrate ecology. Given the ubiquity of invertebrates that feed on vertebrates across the globe, iDNA might qualify as a very powerful tool for 21st century population and conservation biologists. Here, we identify some invertebrate characteristics that will likely influence iDNA retrieval and elaborate on the potential uses of invertebrate‐derived information. We hypothesize that beyond inventorying local faunal diversity, iDNA should allow for more profound insights (...) into wildlife population density, size, mortality, and infectious agents. Based on the similarities of iDNA with other low‐quality sources of DNA, a general technical framework for iDNA analyses is proposed. As it is likely that no such thing as a single ideal iDNA sampler exists, forthcoming research efforts should aim at cataloguing invertebrate properties relevant to iDNA retrieval so as to guide future usage of the invertebrate tool box. (shrink)

This book fills the void, making a substantial contribution not only to work on Rawls's thought but to contemporary debates in ethics and justice as well.

Nach seiner Rückkehr aus dem US-amerikanischen Exil 1949 unternahm das Institut für Sozialforschung zahlreiche sozialempirische Studien über das politische Bewusstsein der westdeutschen Bevölkerung und dessen ideologische Grundlagen. Anknüpfend an die Erfahrungen, die das IfS mit der in den Vereinigten Staaten durchgeführten Untersuchung zur »Authoritarian Personality« gesammelt hatte, war das als Pilotstudie konzipierte »Gruppenexperiment« die erste und umfassendste der Untersuchungen über die ideologischen Haltungen der bundesrepublikanischen Bevölkerung, in diesem Fall gegenüber dem NS-Regime und der aktuellen Demokratie. Diese erste große sozialempirische »Bewusstseinsstudie« (...) wurde vom U. S. High Commissioner for Germany finanziert und bildete inhaltlich und methodologisch die Grundlage aller weiterer »Bewusstseinsstudien«, etwa zur Erforschung des Bewusstseins der Studenten, der Arbeiter, der zukünftigen Bundeswehroffiziere und eben der Kriegsheimkehrer. (shrink)

In this article I criticize Hannah Arendt's concept of natality as unable to confront the ways in which racial capitalism links the biopolitical cultivation of natality to the necropolitical natal alienation that is structural to modern slavery. I base this argument in an understanding of social death as the production of racial capitalism, one that gives slavery an aftermath, post-abolition, which continues to dispossess Black and brown people of their capacity to begin something anew via their inclusion into juridical personhood. (...) I conclude this article with an articulation of the political impossibility of Black and brown people to begin something anew under a polis that remains structured by racial capitalism in Ralph Ellison's phenomenological description of the invisible man's misrecognized new beginnings with the Brotherhood. (shrink)

O objetivo do estudo foi verificar evidência de validade simultânea para o Desenho da Figura Humana-Escala Sisto. Mais especificamente se o DFH-Escala Sisto diferencia as categorias de interpretação fornecidas pelo manual das Matrizes Progressivas Coloridas de Raven. Participaram 279 crianças do Ens..

Tight control of the transcription process is essential for the correct spatial and temporal gene expression pattern during development and in homeostasis. Enhancers are at the core of correct transcriptional activation. The original definition of an enhancer is straightforward: a DNA sequence that activates transcription independent of orientation and direction. Dissection of numerous enhancer loci has shown that many enhancer‐like elements might not conform to the original definition, suggesting that enhancers and enhancer‐like elements might use multiple different mechanisms to contribute (...) to transcriptional activation. Here, we review methodologies to identify enhancers and enhancer‐like elements and discuss pitfalls and consequences for our understanding of transcriptional regulation. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article uses four historical case studies to address epistemological issues related to the animal model of human diseases and its use in medical research on human diseases. The knowledge derived from animal models is widely assumed to be highly valid and predictive of reactions by human organisms. In this contribution, I use three significant historical cases of failure (ca. 1890, 1960, 2006), and a closer look at the emergence of the concept around 1860/70, to elucidate core assumptions related to (...) the specific practices of animal-human knowledge transfer, and to analyze the explanations provided by historical actors after each of the failures. Based on these examples, I argue that the epistemological status of the animal model changed from that of a helpful methodological tool for addressing specific questions, but with precarious validity, to an obligatory method for the production of strong knowledge on human diseases. As a result, there now exists a culture of biomedical research in human disease that, for more than a century, has taken the value of this methodological tool as self-evident, and more or less beyond question. (shrink)

Die 1810 gegründete Berliner Universität hat auf vielen Gebieten Epoche gemacht - auch in der Philosophie. Keine andere deutsche Universität brachte so zahlreich bedeutende Philosophen hervor, deren Namen in keiner Philosophiegeschichte fehlen. Das nunmehr vorliegende Buch bietet die erste Gesamtdarstellung der Geschichte der Berliner Universitätsphilosophie bis 1946. Den Band durchzieht die These, dass die Berliner Universität in ihrer Geschichte ein eigenes philosophisches Profil ausgeprägt hat, das auch heute noch philosophisch interessant und bildungspolitisch aktuell ist.

In the opening of this paper I argue, contrary to a notion commonly found in the humanities and social sciences above all, and ironically yet not any less resolutely for all that, that in fact nature still exists. Subsequently I criticize the arguably more prevalent conviction that culture stands in opposition to nature. In contrast I argue for the thesis that culture is nothing more or less than a specific form of life that can only develop within nature. More than (...) this: it can only ever develop as nature; and it can only accomplish this with nature. This is shown by examples for the case of technology, which was decisive for the emergence of culture. Every technology can only start by using natural means. Hence we can show that we can only ever understand culture as a part of nature that differentiates itself, like all parts of nature, according to the external and internal conditions of that particular life. Thus culture is one of the countless evolutionary products of nature. (shrink)