Ist Musik eine Anschauungs- und Denkform aus eigenem Recht? Wie steht es um die systematischen, historischen und ethnologischen Aspekte einer solchen Thematik? Verändert sich die Fragestellung dank kulturspezifischer Besonderheiten befragbarer Stoffe oder lassen sich auch Universalien im Sinne von Invarianten ausmachen, die nicht automatisch aus neuzeitlichen Vorprägungen des Begriffs «Musik» gewonnen sind, sondern die auf anthropologische Prägungen verweisen? Dieser Band vereinigt die aufgrund mehrerer Symposien entstandenen Beiträge zu diesen Fragen.

Max Weber's methodological writings offered a model of singular causal analysis that anticipated key elements of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of the social and cultural sciences. The model accurately portrayed crucial steps and dimensions of causal reasoning in these disciplines, outlining a dynamic and probabilistic conception of historical processes, counterfactual reasoning, and comparison as a substitute for counterfactual argument. Above all, Weber recognized the interpretation of human actions as a subcategory of causal analysis, in which the agents' visions of desired outcomes, (...) together with their beliefs about how to bring them about, cause them to act as they do. (shrink)

In order to appreciate the role of the phenomenon of shame in the context of the clinic – both as normal self evaluation and as neurotic response – a philosophical anthropological description of shame is offered. Not only are Biblical metaphors recast, but more recent phenomenological psychological descriptions taken from Max Scheler and others are cited. These necessarily require some account of the patient's body in shame, taken from both his perspective and the physician's. In short, the corporeality of shame (...) is constituted as "ce que enveloppe le corps". Keywords: Shame, Behavior CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Distortion of Scientific Terms by Supposed Modernizing Translations: The Example ‘orbis’ (sphere)/‘orbita’ (orbit). The use of modern terminology and thinking hinders to understand historic astronomical and physical texts and often misleads the reader, because between celestial physics from Aristotle and Ptolemy to Copernic on the one side and since Kepler and Newton on the other side a fundamental change of paradigm had taken place. The former started from the assumption that planets are indirectly moved by large equally rotating etherical spheres (...) combined with each other to form every kind of unequally apparent planetary motion as a resultant, whereas the later started from Kepler's idea that every motion of a planet is directly caused by two forces moulding his (naturally unequal) ‘orbit’. ‘orbita’ was Kepler's new specific term for the way of the planet coined in late 1604; in contrast, the Latin term of the elder paradigm has been ‘orbis’ (‘sphere’), on the one hand as concentric ‘orbis totalis’ of a planet (or the fixed stars), on the other hand as non‐concentric ‘orbes particulares’ (of the eccenters and epicycles) within the space of an ‘orbis totalis’. These terms were interpreted and translated in accordance with modern dynamic (as the supposed ‘true’) thinking as if they were ‘orbits’ (German: ‘Bahn’). But you cannot bring the two paradigms into line. As a result, the texts of seemingly ‘modern’ translations become incomprehensible, absurd and wrong. The study shows this on thinking (1st) about Aristotelian physics of former times using terms and ideas of modern dynamics, and on thinking (2nd) about the former explanation of apparent motions of heavenly bodies using these dynamics and ignoring the different special Aristotelian and Ptolemaic physics of ‘orbes’ (spheres). (shrink)

Bruno Liebrucks hat eine eigenständige, an Vico, Herder, Hamann, Humboldt und Cassirer anknüpfende Philosophie von der Sprache her“ entwickelt, welche Sprache als Medium der Welterschließung begreift. Zu dieser gelangt er durch eine fundamentalphilosophische Auseinandersetzung mit jenen drei Revolutionierungen im Denken des Denkens, die mit den Namen Platon, Kant und Hegel verknüpft sind. Die Beiträge des Bandes gehen diesen „Revolutionen der Denkart“ nach und entfalten grundlegende Perspektiven, die sich von Liebrucks her für das Verständnis der Logik, der Philosophischen Anthropologie, der Ethik (...) und Politischen Philosophie, der Kunstphilosophie sowie der Philosophischen Theologie ergeben. Die Autoren sind: Leo Dorner, Max Gottschlich, Thomas Sören Hoffmann, Klaus Honrath, Simone Liedtke, Theodoros Penolidis, Brigitte Scheer, Werner Schmitt, Josef Simon, Maria Woschnak, Werner Woschnak und Fritz Zimbrich. (shrink)

Thought Experiments in Historiographic Function: Max Weber on Eduard Meyer and the Question of Counterfactuality. Max Weber’s remarks on his colleague Eduard Meyer regarding counterfactual reasoning in history reflects a significant shift during the Methodenstreit around 1900. The question of attributing historical change strictly to either individual causes or abstract general laws has been tackled in a new way: By counterfactual reasoning a historian should be able to detect the most significant (and therefore meaningful) cause, event, or action for a (...) certain historical outcome. Following Fritz Ringer, this paper argues that given the predominating methods of the natural sciences, scholars of the humanities conducted historical research by counterfactual thought experiments. This way, Weber pried open contemporary narratives (e.g. historicism), and by employing a unique historical causal analysis he made way for refined concepts to offer a model of interpretation that gave hope for a more feasible, practice‐oriented approach to historical research than the epistemological discussions had hitherto offered. (shrink)

Perhaps the gist of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's grand theory of modernity, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), can be summed up as follows: there is no progress without regression. The chapter most forcefully informed by their experiences in Southern California is called “The Culture Industry,” and it “shows the regression of enlightenment to ideology which is graphically expressed in film and radio.”1 This article seeks to contribute a fuller understanding of the term “regression” by placing it in the biographical context (...) of Adorno's friendship with film director and fellow Los Angelino, Fritz Lang. I will discuss three interrelated aspects: “regression”…. (shrink)

In his “Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt” Alfred Schutz refers frequently and mostly positively to the author Fritz Sander. In contrast to other members of the Viennese social science milieus in interwar Vienna, Sander has been neglected in the abundant literature on Schutz. Following Henrich’s Konstellationsforschung approach, Schutz and Sander are placed in the setting of interwar Viennese social science. Explicit references to Sander made by Schutz will be described, similarities and differences in their treatments of Max Weber’s (...) concepts of social action and subjective meaning will be examined, and their respective views of a phenomenological grounding of social science will be discussed. (shrink)

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall (...) of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" from our "want self", the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions. Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives. (shrink)

The study of consciousness in modern science is hampered by deeply ingrained, dualist presuppositions about the nature of consciousness. In particular, conscious experiences are thought to be private and subjective, contrasting with physical phenomena which are public and objective. In the present article, I argue that all observed phenomena are, in a sense, private to a given observer, although there are some events to which there is public access. Phenomena can be objective in the sense of intersubjective, investigators can be (...) objective in the sense of truthful or dispassionate, and procedures can be objective in being well-specified, but observed phenomena cannot be objective in the sense of being observer-free. Phenomena are only repeatable in the sense that they are judged by a community of observers to be tokens of the same type. Stripped of its dualist trappings the empirical method becomes if you carry out these procedures you will observe or experience these results -- which applies as much to a science of consciousness as it does to physics. (shrink)

Stefan Sorgner (2009) says that on becoming familiar with transhumanism, he “immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” In contrast to Bostrom (2005), Sorgner sees significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the overhuman. (I will adopt his use of “overhuman” in place of “overman” or Übermensch.) This overall view seems to me highly plausible. I agree with most of Sorgner’s comments (...) in this respect. My intent is to give further support to the conceptual parallels. In addition, I argue that these are not merely parallels: transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by Nietzsche. (shrink)

This philosophy book is written for students who are not interested in philosophy or who are struggling to understand it. Professor Malikow makes it easy to understand the sophisticated ideas and profound truths of philosophy by his use of everyday language, analogies, examples, and humor.

Produced in 1961 using film shot by official war photographers provided by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, this 26 part series covers every major ...

The trouble with business schools -- The great, but delicate experiment -- A hippocratic oath for business -- Six more arguments for the MBA oath -- The purpose of a manager -- Ethics and integrity -- No man is an island : stakeholders -- Ambition and good faith -- The letter and the spirit : law -- The sunlight of responsibility : transparency -- Personal and professional growth -- Sustainable prosperity : a partnership for living well -- Accountability.

The specific heat of hydrogen gas at low temperatures was first measured in 1912 by Arnold Eucken in Walther Nernst’s laboratory in Berlin, and provided one of the earliest experimental supports for the new quantum theory. Even earlier, Nernst had developed a quantum theory of rotating diatomic gas molecules that figured in the discussions at the first Solvay conference in late 1911. Between 1913 and 1925, Albert Einstein, Paul Ehrenfest, Max Planck, Fritz Reiche, and Erwin Schrödinger, among many others, (...) attempted theoretical descriptions of the rotational specific heat of hydrogen, with only limited success. Quantum theory also was central to the study of molecular spectra, where initially it was more successful. Moreover, the two problems interacted in sometimes surprising ways. Not until 1927, following Werner Heisenberg’s discovery of the behavior of indistinguishable particles in modern quantum mechanics, did American theorist David Dennison find a successful theory of the specific heat of hydrogen. (shrink)

For this eighth edition he also wrote a new chapter on the quantum theory of solids.

_The Lure of the Image_ shows how a close study of camera movement challenges key assumptions underlying a wide range of debates within cinema and media studies. Highlighting the shifting intersection of point of view and camera position, Daniel Morgan draws on a range of theoretical arguments and detailed analyses across cinemas to reimagine the relation between spectator and camera—and between camera and film world. With sustained accounts of how the camera moves in films by Fritz Lang, Guru Dutt, (...) Max Ophuls, and Terrence Malick and in contemporary digital technologies, _The Lure of the Image_ exposes the persistent fantasy that we move with the camera within the world of the film and examines the ways that filmmakers have exploited this fantasy. In so doing, Morgan provides a more flexible account of camera movement, one that enables a fuller understanding of the political and ethical stakes entailed by this key component of cinematic style. (shrink)

The study of preconscious versus conscious processing has an extensive history in cognitive psychology, dating back to the writings of William James. Much of the experimental work on this issue has focused on perception, conceived of as input analysis, and on the relation of consciousness to attentional processing. The present paper examines when input analysis becomes conscious from the perspectives of cognitive modelling, methodology, and a more detailed understanding of what is meant by "conscious processing." Current evidence suggests that perception (...) becomes conscious at a late-arising stage of focal-attentive processing concerned with information integration and dissemination. Reliable criteria for determining when perception becomes conscious combine the evidence of "first-person," phenomenological reports with "third-person" functional dissociations between preconscious and conscious processing. There are three, distinct senses in which a process may be said to be "conscious." It might be "conscious" (a) in the sense that one is conscious of the process, (b) in the sense that the operation of the process is accompanied by consciousness (of its results) and (c) in the sense that consciousness enters into or causally influences the process. Consciousness of familiar stimuli, rather than entering into input analysis, appears to follow it, in human information processing. Processes closely associated with the appearance of consciousness such as information integration and dissemination appear to operate unconsciously. Consequently, perception appears to be "conscious" only in sense (b). (shrink)

In his spirited "Faith and Goodness" (this issue), John Staddon says that my defense of B. F. Skinner's definition of the good—as what has the potential to reinforce desire for it—overlooks the fact that people sometimes desire the wrong things. Staddon appears to agree with G. E. Moore that the good should, rather, be equated with what is worthy of being desired, so ought to be desired, whether it ever is desired or not. But since there is no objective test (...) of worthiness, Moore's ought can only mean "I, and folk like me, desire that others desire what we desire that they desire."¹ When the talk is of values, there is no getting away from desires.². (shrink)

Essays by Rudolf Bernoulli, Martin Buber, C. M. von Cammerloher, T. W. Danzel, Friedrich Heiler, C. G. Jung, C. Kerényi, John Layard, Fritz Meier, Max Pulver, Erwin Rousselle, and Heinrich Zimmer. With an introduction by Mircea Eliade.

Essays by Julius Baum, C. G. Jung, C. Kerényi, Hans Leisegang, Paul Masson-Oursel, Fritz Meier, Jean de Menasce, Georges Nagel, Walter F. Otto, Max Pulver, Hugo Rahner, Paul Schmitt, and Walter Wili.

This review summarises why it is difficult for Darwinian evolutionary theory to explain the existence and function of consciousness. It then evaluates whether Humphrey's book Soul Dust overcomes these problems. According to Humphrey, consciousness is an illusion constructed by the brain to enhance reproductive fitness by motivating creatures that have it to stay alive. Although the review entirely accepts that consciousness gives a first-person meaning to existence, it concludes that Humphrey does not give a convincing account of how this can (...) arise from random variations in the genome. Nor does he demonstrate how first-person experiences might enter into or be reducable to third-person functioning. The review concludes that Humphrey's case is unconvincing, and goes on to suggest that an entirely different, non-reductive approach may be required to understand consciousness. (shrink)