The surprising story of how Greek classics are being pressed into use in contemporary China to support the regime’s political agenda As improbable as it may sound, an illuminating way to understand today’s China and how it views the West is to look at the astonishing ways Chinese intellectuals are interpreting—or is it misinterpreting?—the Greek classics. In Plato Goes to China, Shadi Bartsch offers a provocative look at Chinese politics and ideology by exploring Chinese readings of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, (...) and other ancient writers. She shows how Chinese thinkers have dramatically recast the Greek classics to support China’s political agenda, diagnose the ills of the West, and assert the superiority of China’s own Confucian classical tradition. In a lively account that ranges from the Jesuits to Xi Jinping, Bartsch traces how the fortunes of the Greek classics have changed in China since the seventeenth century. Before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese typically read Greek philosophy and political theory in order to promote democratic reform or discover the secrets of the success of Western democracy and science. No longer. Today, many Chinese intellectuals use these texts to critique concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and rationality. Plato’s “Noble Lie,” in which citizens are kept in their castes through deception, is lauded; Aristotle’s Politics is seen as civic brainwashing; and Thucydides’s criticism of Athenian democracy is applied to modern America. What do antiquity’s “dead white men” have left to teach? By uncovering the unusual ways Chinese thinkers are answering that question, Plato Goes to China opens a surprising new window on China today. (shrink)

Research that is initiated, designed or funded by sponsor agencies based in countries with relatively high social and economic development, and conducted in countries that are relatively less developed, gives rise to many important ethical challenges. Although clinical trials of HIV vaccines began ten years ago in the US and Europe, an increasing number of trials are now being conducted or planned in other countries, including several that are considered “developing” countries. Safeguarding the rights and welfare of individuals participating as (...) research subjects in developing countries is a priority. In September, 1997, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS embarked on a process of international consultation; its purpose was further to define the important ethical issues and to formulate guidance that might facilitate the ethical design and conduct of HIV vaccine trials in international contexts. This paper summarises the major outcomes of the UNAIDS consultative process. (shrink)

This article compares Kant and Fichte from the double stand- point of identity and difference with regard to two thinkers who were at first united by a master-student relation but who later on drifted apart from each other due to mutual defamation. At the center of the present discussion stands the relationship between spirit of freedom and system’s form which binds Kant and Fichte beyond methodological divergences and doctrinal differ- ences. The critical comparison between Kant and Fichte will be developed (...) in four steps: it will start with the general positioning of Kant within German Idealism, and then move on to Kant’s double critical enterprise of grounding an aprioristic doctrine of principles of nature and freedom; it will later on address the conception championed by Fichte of having pre- sented the “first system of freedom”, and from there it will focus on the manifestations of freedom within Fichte’s philosophical system, with Kant’s position as contrast. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Philosophisch-methodologische Probleme der Gesellschaftswıssenschaften" verfügbar.

In this commentary we suggest that asymmetries in reasoning associated with moral judgment do not necessarily invalidate a theory-theory account of naïve psychological reasoning. The asymmetries may reflect a core knowledge assumption that human nature is prosocial, an assumption that heightens vigilance for antisocial dispositions, which in turn leads to differing assumptions about what is the presumed topic of conversation.

As Husserl already noticed, artworks themselves have a phenomenological character. This means, however, that to experience artworks as phenomena no “epoché” and no “phenomenological reduction” is necessary. The leading question of my essay is whether, and possibly how, this observation can be methodologically generalized for understanding phenomena. I discuss if, and possibly how, a phenomenological reflection on art allows and even demands a general conception of phenomenology that nevertheless does not confuse artworks with phenomena in general. My intention is to (...) show that and how phenomenality can be clarified with reference to its spatial character. Accordingly, works of architecture that are artworks will play a decisive role in my argument. (shrink)

Scientific exploration and thus our knowledge about the outside world is subject to the conditions of our experience.These conditions are condensed here into an interface model which,besides being physical,has an additional interface structure not reducible to physics. We suggest that this structure can dynamically be characterized by separate modes.Their selection and operation presupposes free will and a rudimentary concept of time and space. Based on some analogies with quantum networks it is argued that the 'observed' gets 'dressed'as a consequence of (...) the observing. Interface dynamics and system dynamics supplement each other without over- determination. (shrink)

Sunstein's characterization of moral blunders jointly indicts an intuitive process and the structure of heuristics. But intuitions need not lead to error, and the problems with moral heuristics apply also to moral principles. Accordingly, moral development may well involve more, rather than less, intuitive responsiveness. This suggests a novel trajectory for future research into the development of appropriate moral judgments.

People in the ancient world thought of vision as both an ethical tool and a tactile sense, akin to touch. Gazing upon someone—or oneself—was treated as a path to philosophical self-knowledge, but the question of tactility introduced an erotic element as well. In _The Mirror of the Self_, Shadi Bartsch asserts that these links among vision, sexuality, and self-knowledge are key to the classical understanding of the self. Weaving together literary theory, philosophy, and social history, Bartsch traces this (...) complex notion of self from Plato’s Greece to Seneca’s Rome. She starts by showing how ancient authors envisioned the mirror as both a tool for ethical self-improvement and, paradoxically, a sign of erotic self-indulgence. Her reading of the _Phaedrus_, for example, demonstrates that the mirroring gaze in Plato, because of its sexual possibilities, could not be adopted by Roman philosophers and their students. Bartsch goes on to examine the Roman treatment of the ethical and sexual gaze, and she traces how self-knowledge, the philosopher’s body, and the performance of virtue all played a role in shaping the Roman understanding of the nature of selfhood. Culminating in a profoundly original reading of _Medea_, _The Mirror of the Self_ illustrates how Seneca, in his Stoic quest for self-knowledge, embodies the Roman view, marking a new point in human thought about self-perception. Bartsch leads readers on a journey that unveils divided selves, moral hypocrisy, and lustful Stoics—and offers fresh insights about seminal works. At once sexy and philosophical, _The Mirror of the Self_ will be required reading for classicists, philosophers, and anthropologists alike. (shrink)

The paper is a critical discussion of scholarship on the "Critique of Pure Reason" published during the past ten years. The emphasis is on Anglo-American authors. I identify and discuss three main trends in the field: a shift from the general discussion of transcendental arguments to the analysis and evaluation of particular proofs in Kant; a renewed interest in the doctrine of transcendental idealism and the distinction between things in themselves and appearances; and the emergence of an entire body of (...) literature on Kant's philosophy of mind, centered around the idea of a "transcendental psychology." The main body of the text is supplemented by extensive bibliographical information provided in the notes. (shrink)

This study of the workings of neural networks in perception and understanding of situations and simple sentences shows that, and how, distributed conceptual constituents are bound together in episodes within an interactive/dynamic architecture of sensorial and pre-motor maps, and maps of conceptual indicators (semantic memory) and individuating indicators (historical, episodic memory). Activation circuits between these maps make sensorial and pre-motor fields in the brain function as episodic maps creating representations, which are expressions in consciousness. It is argued that all consciousness (...) is episodic, consisting of situational or linguistic representations, and that the mind is the whole of all conscious manifestations of the brain. Thought occurs only in the form of linguistic or image representations. The book also discusses the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. Four recent controversies in consciousness research are discussed and decided along this model of consciousness: • Is consciousness an internal or external monitoring device of brain states? • Do all conscious states involve thought and judgement? • Are there different kinds of consciousness? • Do we have a one-on-one correspondence between certain brain states and conscious states. The book discusses also the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. (Series A). (shrink)

Interesting observations and problems emerge as the author pursues a complete calculus of an adverbial logic. Author Bartsch establishes a total of 18 adverbial subcategories and proposes an equal number of logico-semantic basic constructions in a predicate logical notation to explain them. The logico-semantic basic constructions bring out certain aspects of adverbial semantics, insofar as they can be specified by predicate logical means. However, for a logical and linguistic analysis of adverbials to be complete, sentence semantic analysis - provided (...) it is carried out in a clear-cut manner with clear paraphrasing criteria, unambiguous notation and complete interpretation rules - must be supplemented by and combined with 'word semantics' and syntax in a more elaborate way. The topic of adverbial semantics is a complicated and rewarding field, and this book contains enough suggestions, challenging hypotheses and stimulating observations, so that anybody directly concerned with the study of adverbials will want to have a look. (shrink)

Hauptbeschreibung Hinter den Anderen erscheint unser Ich immer schon als Schattenbild aller Möglichkeiten Seit jeher ist sich der Mensch in seiner Bösartigkeit und Güte ein Rätsel, dem Philosophen mit Moral und Tugend beizukommen versucht haben. Dabei ist der scharfe Blick auf das tatsächliche Verhalten von Menschen nicht verlorengegangen. Die Aufklärung am Beginn unserer Moderne versuchte eine Balance zwischen einem realistischen Menschenbild und einer zukunftsweisenden Perspektive zu finden, die das Zusammenleben durch Staat und Recht für alle verträglich machen sollte. D.

This collection of essays by well-known scholars of Seneca focuses on the multifaceted ways in which Seneca, as philosopher, politician, poet and Roman senator, engaged with the question of ethical selfhood. The contributors explore the main cruces of Senecan scholarship, such as whether Seneca's treatment of the self is original in its historical context; whether Seneca's Stoicism can be reconciled with the pull of rhetorical and literary self-expression; and how Seneca claims to teach psychic self-integration. Most importantly, the contributors debate (...) to what degree, if at all, the absence of a technically articulated concept of selfhood should cause us to hesitate in seeking a distinctively Senecan self - one that stands out not only for the 'intensity of its relations to self', as Foucault famously put it, but also for the way in which those relations to self are couched. (shrink)

This paper explores the phenomenon of meta-emotions. Meta-emotions are emotions people have about their own emotions. We analyze the intentional structure of meta-emotions and show how psychological findings support our account. Acknowledgement of meta-emotions can elucidate a number of important issues in the philosophy of mind and, more specifically, the philosophy and psychology of emotions. Among them are (allegedly) ambivalent or paradoxical emotions, emotional communication, emotional self-regulation, privileged access failure for repressed emotions, and survivor guilt.