Was meinen wir, wenn wir soziale Konstellationen als »möglich« bezeichnen? Diese Frage wurde allzu oft nur randständig beleuchtet, obwohl »Möglichkeit« seit Aristoteles zum grundbegrifflichen Repertoire der praktischen Philosophie zählt. Umso unverständlicher wirkt die Zurückhaltung von Horkheimer und Adorno, den Begriff gesellschaftstheoretisch zu explizieren. Gösta Gantner zeigt, inwiefern die Vorstellungen des »Andersseinkönnens« und der »Potentialität« die Kritische Theorie nahezu unbemerkt dominieren. Als Schlüsselbegriff trägt »Möglichkeit« dazu bei, aktuelle Varianten kritischen Denkens in ihrem leitenden Erkenntnisinteresse und ihrer praktischen Ausrichtung zu schärfen: Im (...) Lichte der Kritik des Gegebenen geht es um das, was anders sein kann. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 60 - 87 Aristotle invokes a specifically human desire, namely wish, to provide a teleological explanation of the pursuit of the specifically human good in terms of virtuous activity. Wish is a basic, unreasoned desire which, independently of other desires, or evaluative attitudes, motivates the pursuit of the human good. Even a person who pursues what she mistakenly believes to be good is motivated by wish for what in fact is good, although she (...) is oblivious of it. (shrink)

In thesophist (263e10–264b4), Plato distinguishes between two kinds of belief. On the one hand, there is a kind of belief that occurs “according to thinking” (κατὰ διάνοιαν), being “the completion of thinking” (διανοίας ἀποτελεύτησις). This kind is called ‘doxa.’ On the other hand, there is another kind of belief that occurs “through sense perception” (δι᾽ αἰσθήσεως). This kind is called ‘phantasia,’ perhaps best rendered as “appearing.”1 The purpose of this paper is to uncover the distinction between these two different kinds (...) of belief.2 What distinguishes these two kinds of belief is the believer’s understanding of the thing the belief is about, as a result of the way in which each kind of belief is .. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics (= Eth. Nic.) 10.2, Aristotle addresses Eudoxus’ argument that pleasure is the chief good in his characteristically dialectical manner. The argument is that pleasure is the chief good, since all creatures, rational (ἔλλογα) and non-rational (ἄλογα) alike, are perceived to aim at pleasure (1172b9–11).1 At 1172b35–1173a5, Aristotle turns to an objection against Eudoxus’ argument. For some object (οἱ δ᾽ἐνιστάμενοι) to the argument by questioning one of its premisses, namely that what all creatures aim at is the good (...) (1172b12–15). Instead, they claim that what all creatures aim at is not good (ὡς οὐκ γαθὸν οὗ πάντ᾽ ἐφίεται, 1172b36). This claim is reasonably taken to mean that not everything that all creatures aim at is good. But, as we shall shortly see, Aristotle dismisses it in a way suggesting a less charitable interpretation. At any rate, the significance of this objection is that it challenges the strong claim that what all creatures aim at is the good with an argument against the weaker claim that what all creatures aim at is good (or a good). For if the weaker claim is refuted, then the strong claim is refuted as well. Aristotle takes issue with the argument against the weaker claim, but without committing himself to the strong claim. (shrink)

The question raised in this chapter is why Aristotle portrays the bad person as being in a miserable state. It is argued that the bad person suffers from a mental conflict, which consists of a clash between two different kinds of desire, and that fulfilling one of the desires violates values that she also desires. But in contrast to the akratic person, the bad person has no proper conception of the good. Nevertheless, although the bad person may succeed in achieving (...) what she thinks is good, she feels miserable not only on account of failing to fulfil her desire for the truly good life, but also on account of doing things that she finds degrading for her. (shrink)

How do we switch between “playing along” and treating robots as technical agents? We propose interaction breakdowns to help solve this “social artifact puzzle”: Breaks cause changes from fluid interaction to explicit reasoning and interaction with the raw artifact. These changes are closely linked to understanding the technical architecture and could be used to design better human–robot interaction (HRI).

The article shows relations between the philosophical idea of global civil society and civil engagement which transcends national borders – a trend that is being observed in recent years. The article characterizes contemporary social movements including two particular protest movements – Indignados of Spanish origin and the American Occupy movement. A detailed study of these movements helps with understanding the main trends in modern international politics and shows the fundamental mechanisms that shape the modern social world. As an element of (...) global political culture, modern social movements are a significant example of global citizenship. They combine the main features of global civil society and allow us to draw a picture of the changing social landscape of globalization. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to spell out and consider Plato' s views on perceptual cog­nition. It is argued that Plato is cornrnitted to the view that perceptual cognition can be rational, and that beliefs about the sensible world need not be confused or ill-founded. Plato' s interest in the matter arises from worries over the way in which his fore­runners and contemporaries conceived of perceptual cognition. They conceived of cognitive processes in terms of corporeal changes and attempted to (...) explain perceptual cognition in causal terms. The problem with such accounts, according to Plato, is that they make perceptual cognition an entirely passive process, and seem incapable of accommodating the freedom of reason. Plato's main target is Protagoras' view on cognition and he accuses him of con­flating different cognitive phenomena that ought to be kept apart. More particularly, he suggests that Protagoras' 'man the measure' thesis is based on the conflation of sen se perception, belief and appearing, and that Protagoras is cornmitted to the view that beliefs are arrived at in a non-rational way. It is shown how Plato takes issue with Protagoras by disentangling these three cognitive phenomena. It is argued that Plato' s way of understanding these notions leaves room for the possibility that reason plays apart in perceptual cognition and that we arrive at beliefs in a rational way. In the course of spelling out the argument, Plato' s views on a number of topics are scrutinised: the perceptual mechanism; the objects of sense perception; perceptual content; the nature of belief; the eon trast between belief and appearing; the nation of reason. (shrink)

Feminist writings often argue that the welfare state, like the society that underpins it, is patriarchical, and that a major overhaul of policy is necessary in the quest for gender equality. This is possibly a valid claim, if not for all welfare states, then at least for some. The very same objective would, nevertheless, appear additionally persuasive if women-friendly policy can be shown to improve not only the welfare of women, but of all. In this article I shall attempt to (...) demonstrate that the feminist case need not be based on the narrower cause of women's emancipation because improving women's welfare will, simultaneously, improve upon societal welfare. Or, to put it differently, gender equality is potentially a substantial Pareto improvement in so far as women are emerging as the axial principle of any positive welfare equilibrium for post-industrial society. The post-war welfare equilibrium was built around the male breadwinner's earnings and job security, coupled to the family's internalization of caring needs. The “standard production worker” cum male breadwinner became the normative guideline for institution-building. Be it the full employment commitment, collective bargaining, labour market regulation, or social protection, all were primarily designed to safeguard his job, earnings capacity, and social entitlements. His security was assumed to deliver universal security. The male breadwinner constituted the nexus between economy and family, between production and consumption. As research has shown, women's economic dependence on men was near absolute in the post-war decades. This dependency was doubly reinforced because few married women worked and if they did, their wages were typically low. (shrink)

This article presents results from a multidisciplinary research project on the integration and transfer of language knowledge into robots as an empirical paradigm for the study of language development in both humans and humanoid robots. Within the framework of human linguistic and cognitive development, we focus on how three central types of learning interact and co-develop: individual learning about one's own embodiment and the environment, social learning (learning from others), and learning of linguistic capability. Our primary concern is how these (...) capabilities can scaffold each other's development in a continuous feedback cycle as their interactions yield increasingly sophisticated competencies in the agent's capacity to interact with others and manipulate its world. Experimental results are summarized in relation to milestones in human linguistic and cognitive development and show that the mutual scaffolding of social learning, individual learning, and linguistic capabilities creates the context, conditions, and requisites for learning in each domain. Challenges and insights identified as a result of this research program are discussed with regard to possible and actual contributions to cognitive science and language ontogeny. In conclusion, directions for future work are suggested that continue to develop this approach toward an integrated framework for understanding these mutually scaffolding processes as a basis for language development in humans and robots. (shrink)