1947 legt Hans Blumenberg aus Bargteheide in Holstein an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel seine unter schwierigsten persönlichen Umständen entstandene Dissertation 'Beiträge zum Problem der Ursprünglichkeit der mittelalterlich-scholastischen Ontologie" vor. Hinter diesem Titel verbirgt sich eine mit ständigem Bezug auf die Philosophie Heideggers und seine "Fundamentalontologie' geführte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Denken des christlichen Mittelalters, in dem die Frage nach dem Grund des Seins eine so krisenhafte wie produktive Zuspitzung erfahren hatte. Die Dissertation wird von den Gutachtern Ludwig Landgrebe und Rudolf (...) Schneider mit "ausgezeichnet" bewertet, aber sämtliche Bemühungen, zeitnah einen Verlag für die Arbeit zu finden, scheitern. Blumenbergs brillantes Erstlingswerk blieb mehr als 70 Jahre ungedruckt. Nun wird es erstmals publiziert in einer leserorientierten Edition, die unter anderem Übersetzungen der zahlreichen altsprachlichen Zitate wie auch ein "Verzeichnis der Referenzliteratur" bietet, das die Lücke des im Original fehlenden Literaturverzeichnisses schliesst und dieses darüber hinaus durch heute zugängliche Ausgaben ergänzt. In ihrem Nachwort beleuchten die Herausgeber den Entstehungskontext dieses Werks, das überraschende Perspektiven auf Blumenbergs Biographie und Denkentwicklung eröffnet. (shrink)

Argument quality has consistently been shown to have strong and lasting persuasive effects. The question is what criteria people use to distinguish strong from weak arguments and how these criteria relate to the ones proposed in normative argumentation theory. In an experiment 235 participants without training in argumentation theory rated the acceptance of 30 claims about the desirability of a consequence that were supported by either an argument from analogy, from authority, or from consequences. The supporting arguments were systematically manipulated (...) to violate argument type specific criteria. Participants proved sensitive to the violation of most, but not all, argument type specific criteria. From a normative perspective these findings suggest that people act in a fairly adequate way. These findings also enable a more precise description of what people may do when critically appraising arguments, which has important implications for the use of argument quality as a methodological tool in persuasion research. (shrink)

A selection from the correspondence of the logician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896?1962) is presented in this article. The most significant letters were exchanged with Bernays, Scholz and Lorenzen, from which extensive passages are transcribed. Some remarks from other letters, with quotations, are also included.

Social Justice, Health Inequities, and Access to New Age-Related Interventions Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 281-295 DOI 10.1007/s12376-009-0027-3 Authors Hans-Jörg Ehni, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Georg Marckmann, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Journal Medicine Studies Online ISSN 1876-4541 Print ISSN 1876-4533 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.

In recent years, the relation between studying and learning has been a topic of debate. This article is mainly interested in a concept of study practices, conceived of as practices that are strongly engaged with issues of living together in a superdiverse city. Such practices firstly require to think the relation between studying and learning in other-than-oppositional terms, and secondly, to raise questions concerning the political role of education. The aim of the article is double in that it wants to (...) further elaborate the concept of study practices in relation to a concrete practice on the one hand, and, on the other, that it has the objective to rethink in educational terms the notion of solidarity—deeply entwined with matters of living together in superdiversity. These aims are pursued based on an analysis of the study practice of System_D, a film festival in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Brussels, drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway. (shrink)

The development of science does not proceed as a monotonous addition of information. A superior successor theory often contradicts its predecessor. The question as to what the logical relationship is between such theories, insofar as the transition from one to the other embodies continuity and progress, is the subject of this book. Proceeding from a discussion of intertheory reductions, the author proves that theories revision models from philosophical logic are fruitful for questions of scientific theory. Formal analyses of conditionals, autoepistemic (...) inferences, intertheoretical explanations and idealizations are carried out, as well as applications to the Kepler-Newton case and the case of the ideal gas law and van der Waals's law. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe question concerning the relation between thinking and the university is the starting point of this paper. After a very brief outline of some reflections on this topic, the case of Campus in Camps, a Palestinian experimental university, is presented to shed light on this issue. Inspired by Isabelle Stengers’ ecology of practices, it is possible to discern four requirements on thinking in the work of Campus in Camps, namely storytelling, comparing, mapping, and using. It will be argued that the (...) particularity of thinking at the university, is that it is done via artifices that initiate processes of composition, problematization, and attention. In the concluding section, the paper proposes to understand the study practice of Campus in Camps as an adventure that activates a sense of the possible, and hence opens up futures that are different from the ones that present themselves as obvious or unavoidable. (shrink)

The directionality of space-number association (SNA) is shaped by cultural experiences. It usually follows the culturally dominant reading direction. Smaller numbers are generally associated with the starting side for reading (left side in Western cultures), while larger numbers are associated with the right endpoint side. However, SNAs consistent with cultural reading directions are present before children can actually read and write. Therefore, these SNAs cannot only be shaped by the direction of children’s own reading/writing behavior. We propose six distinct processes (...) – one biological and five cultural/educational – underlying directional SNAs before formal reading acquisition: (i) Brain lateralization, (ii) Monitoring adult reading behavior, (iii) Pretend reading and writing, and rudimentary reading and writing skills, (iv) Dominant attentional directional preferences in a society, not directly related to reading direction, (v) Direct spatial-numerical learning, (vi) Other spatial-directional processes independent of reading direction. In this mini-review, we will differentiate between these processes, elaborate when in development they might emerge, discuss how they may create the SNAs observed in preliterate children and propose how they can be studied in the future. (shrink)

The term >Bioethik Bioethical Imperative: Respect every living being in general as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such! reinvented Bioethics: The Science of Survival Kennedy Institute of Bioethics three-located birth bioethics medical ethics bioethics< as a comprehensive term, which includes social, cultural, environmental, medical and other fields of applied ethics.

This paper presents the model of ‘bounded revision’ that is based on two-dimensional revision functions taking as arguments pairs consisting of an input sentence and a reference sentence. The key idea is that the input sentence is accepted as far as (and just a little further than) the reference sentence is ‘cotenable’ with it. Bounded revision satisfies the AGM axioms as well as the Same Beliefs Condition (SBC) saying that the set of beliefs accepted after the revision does not depend (...) on the reference sentence (although the posterior belief state does depend on it). Bounded revision satisfies the Darwiche–Pearl (DP) axioms for iterated belief change. If the reference sentence is fixed to be a tautology or a contradiction, two well-known one-dimensional revision operations result. Bounded revision thus naturally fills the space between conservative revision (also known as natural revision) and moderate revision (also known as lexicographic revision). I compare this approach to the two-dimensional model of ‘revision by comparison’ investigated by Fermé and Rott (Artif Intell 157:5–47, 2004 ) that satisfies neither the SBC nor the DP axioms. I conclude that two-dimensional revision operations add substantially to the expressive power of qualitative approaches that do not make use of numbers as measures of degrees of belief. (shrink)

This is a unique volume by a unique scientist, which combines conceptual, formal, and engineering approaches in a way that is rarely seen. Its core is the relation between ways of learning and knowing on the one hand and different modes of time on the other. Partial Boolean logic and the associated notion of complementarity are used to express this relation, and mathematical tools of fundamental physics are used to formalize it. Along the way many central philosophical problems are touched (...) and addressed, above all the mind-body problem. Completed only shortly before the death of the author, the text has been edited and annotated by the author's close collaborator Harald Atmanspacher. (shrink)

Modern belief revision theory is based to a large extent on partial meet contraction that was introduced in the seminal article by Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors, and David Makinson that appeared in 1985. In the same year, Alchourrón and Makinson published a significantly different approach to the same problem, called safe contraction. Since then, safe contraction has received much less attention than partial meet contraction. The present paper summarizes the current state of knowledge on safe contraction, provides some new results (...) and offers a list of unsolved problems that are in need of investigation. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Sein und Werden -- Bd. 2. Gott und Welt -- Bd. 3. Einheit und Widerspruch I -- Bd. 4. Einheit und Widerspruch II -- Bd. 5. Einheit und Widerspruch III.

This book is the best and most comprehensive treatment we have of Leibniz' study of natural languages, on the same high level of scholarship, knowledge, and insight as the essay Sigrid von der Schulenburg published in 1937. With its rich detail and source references, it is indispensable both to Leibniz scholars and to students of the history of the study of language. The editor's careful indices make it possible to use the book also as a work of reference. The reviewer (...) shows that the chief impulse to Leibniz' study of languages was the need to disprove the Swedish thesis of the northern origin of the Germanic languages. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues against a universal restriction on our pursuit of acceleration. Instead, he presents arguments for a selective slowdown in different areas of our life.

In "Moses the Egyptian"--the centerpiece of Rigorism of Truth, the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg addresses two defining figures in the intellectual history of the twentieth century: Sigmund Freud and Hannah Arendt. Unpublished during his lifetime, this essay analyzes Freud's Moses and Monotheism and Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, and discovers in both a principled rigidity that turns into recklessness because it is blind to the politics of the unknown. Offering striking insights into the importance of myth in politics and the (...) extent to which truth can be tolerated in adversity, the essay also provides one of the few instances where Blumenberg reveals his thinking about Judaism and Zionism. Rigorism of Truth also includes commentaries by Ahlrich Meyer that give a fuller understanding of the philosopher's engagement with Freud, Arendt, and the Eichmann trial, as well as situating these reflections in the broader context of Blumenberg's life and thought. (shrink)

This work introduces the English-speaking reader to the theoretical foundations of Kng's popular works; an indispensable prolegomena for every future Christology.

Das kunstlerische Denken, das auf dem Denken der Sinne beruht, stellt sich seine Zeichen - in der Musik also: seine Klange - nicht vor, sondern lebt unmittelbar in ihnen, badet, watet, schwimmt in ihrer Materie und gestaltet aus ihr neue geistige Lebensformen. Ich nenne das Musikdenken das flussige Denken - so Hans Zender in einer programmatischen Ausserung. Im Hintergrund seines vielschichtigen kompositorischen Werks stehen grundlegende philosophische Fragen: Wie ist das Verhaltnis von Logos und Mythos? Was bedeutet Wahrheit in der (...) Kunst? Wo liegen die Grenzen der Rationalitat? Wie hangen Glaube und Liebe, Leere und Schweigen, Sagbares und Unsagbares zusammen? In neueren Aufsatzen und Aphorismen beruhrt Hans Zender diese und andere grosse Themen des Menschseins. Im Dialog mit Texten der religiosen und philosophischen Weltliteratur - vom I Ging bis zu Nietzsche, von der Bibel bis zum Herz-Sutra - zeigt er, dass es gerade die Paradoxa und Grenzgange des Denkens sind, die Kunstwerk zum Elementarereignis machen. (shrink)

Hans-Johann Glock develops a capacity-based alternative to the currently widespread view that concepts and experiences are mental representations. He claims that experiences must be explained by way of perceptual and sensory capacities and that concepts must be explained by way of intellectual ones, in particular, by way of capacities for classification and reasoning. Glock does not, however, identify concepts with intellectual capacities. He rather conceives of them as rules that guide the application of capacities. He defines the relationship between (...) perceptions and concepts by coupling rationalistic, Aristotelian, and Kantian motifs: perceptions are to be strictly distinguished from concepts; perceptual capacities genetically, causally, and conceptually precede conceptual ones; and conceptual capacities must, in principle, be applicable to objects of experience. Glock's “capacity approach” can accordingly be understood as a variant of non-conceptualism. (shrink)