Epistemology, as generally understood by philosophers of science, is rather remote from the history of science and from historical concerns in general. Rheinberger shows that, from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth century, a parallel, alternative discourse sought to come to terms with the rather fundamental experience of the thoroughgoing scientific changes brought on by the revolution in physics. Philosophers of science and historians of science alike contributed their share to what this essay describes as an ongoing quest to (...) historicize epistemology. Historical epistemology, in this sense, is not so concerned with the knowing subject and its mental capacities. Rather, it envisages science as an ongoing cultural endeavor and tries to assess the conditions under which the sciences in all their diversity take shape and change over time. (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)

This major work by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg is a monumental rethinking of the significance of the Copernican revolution for our understanding of modernity.

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)

Wanneer ben je sexy, en wie bepaalt dat eigenlijk? Gelden dezelfde normen voor mannen en vrouwen? En hoe moeten we als maatschappij omgaan met de toenemende druk om er hot uit te zien? In dit boek zoekt filosoof Hans Maes een antwoord op deze vragen. Onderweg reflecteert hij over sekssymbolen, over de erotiserende werking van macht en rijkdom, en over de rol van kunst. Hij buigt zich over de notie van seksuele authenticiteit en lanceert ten slotte ook een oproep (...) voor betere pornografie. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Internistenkongress von 1949 war Anlass und Arena einer breit wahrgenommenen Kontroverse zu epistemologischen Fragen der Psychosomatischen Medizin. Der Beitrag verortet zunächst den Kongress in der Nachkriegsgeschichte und zeichnet die Verlaufslinien der Debatte nach. Dabei werden sowohl die Positionen der Sprecher der Psychosomatischen Medizin – Viktor von Weizsäcker und Alexander Mitscherlich – als auch diejenige von Paul Martini, der auf Basis seiner Methodologie klinischer Forschung grundsätzliche Kritik äußerte, rekonstruiert. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die jeweils unterschiedlichen Auffassungen von Kausalität, Evidenz (...) und Subjektivität herausgearbeitet und kontextualisiert. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt hierbei auf dem konkreten und expliziten Gebrauch dieser Begriffe bei Martini. Schließlich zeige ich, dass diese Ereignisse im Jahr 1949 als Kulmination einer fortdauernden Kontroverse über wissenschaftliche Evidenz in der klinischen Medizin gelesen werden können, die sich mit ihren Beteiligten und Bezugsebenen über mehrere Jahrzehnte erstreckte. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 296-325, April 2022.

We claim that adjustable parameters play a crucial role in building and applying simulation models. We analyze that role and illustrate our findings using examples from equations of state in thermodynamics. In building simulation models, two types of experiments, namely, simulation and classical experiments, interact in a feedback loop, in which model parameters are adjusted. A critical discussion of how adjustable parameters function shows that they are boon and bane of simulation. They help to enlarge the scope of simulation far (...) beyond what can be determined by theoretical knowledge, but at the same time undercut the epistemic value of simulation models. (shrink)

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)

Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form (...) their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Kritik der logischen Konstanten" verfügbar.

For most of the twentieth century, nature conservation activities were connected to the protection of agrarian landscapes. During the late 1980s, the introduction of the concept of ‘new wilderness’ offered new opportunities for ecologists, but at the same time produced conflicts with traditional nature and landscape conservation. At the heart of the conflict were different visions of the relation between nature and society, sometimes resulting in a polarised debate, with opposing Arcadian and wilderness visions. In this paper, the new wilderness (...) will be described from a landscape perspective, envisioning these wildernesses as a phase in the long history of human influences on landscapes and as part of a landscape that is complex and multi-layered. Some examples will show how a sectoral approach to nature leads to projects in which opportunities to integrate the new wilderness into a wider context of landscape and society are missed. In the final part, a prospect will be shown in which (new) wilderness is seen as part of a layered landscape. (shrink)

How is distributive justice possible with respect to immigration if political decisions about entry and membership cannot be grounded in the symmetry of a prior commonality, human or otherwise, that could guarantee reciprocal relations between members and nonmembers? This paper deals with both aspects of this question. Initially, it engages critically with Seyla Benhabib's plea for ‘dialogical universalism,’ showing why the strong discontinuity between political and moral reciprocity precludes understanding distributive justice as the process of mediating between political particularity and (...) moral universality. Subsequently, it suggests that a way out of this conceptual and normative impasse can be found in the fact that boundaries create a double asymmetry. This double asymmetry is constitutive for the ‘dia’ of the political dialogue that separates and joins members and nonmembers. This ‘in between,’ which eludes control by the parties to a dialogue, is the realm of distributive justice. (shrink)

First publication of a letter of Albert Einstein to Hans Vaihinger, dated May, 1919, concerning Vaihinger's concept of "Fiktionen", the role of Geometry in Poincaré's system, and the importance of "real culture" in the intellectual's style of life. The letter is introduced and annotated.

The commercialization of ‘big science’ is in full swing, leading to situations in which the ethical principles of academia are beginning to be compromised. This is exemplified by the profitable business of genetic ancestry testing. The goals of this sort of ‘big science’ are not necessarily in any way novel, however. In particular, large genotyping projects have a certain start‐up time when their design is frozen in, so that the projects often lag behind the development of genetic knowledge. On the (...) other hand, extremely provisional knowledge about potential disease markers is being rapidly turned into questionable ‘tests’, purporting to determine risk factors for complex disorders, by private companies that are eager to get their share of a profitable market of the future. The flow of money generated by such concerns looks likely to erode traditional research operations and small‐scale projects, which risk becoming pebbles on the ‘big science’ landscape. BioEssays 30:1246–1251, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Inhalt: I. AUSEINANDERSETZUNG MIT GRUNDPOSITIONEN DER KRITISCHEN GESELLSCHAFTSTHEORIE DER FRANKFURTER SCHULE. Hans ALBERT: Dialektische Denkwege. Jürgen Habermas und der Kritische Rationalismus. William D. FUSFIELD: Some Pseudoscientific Features of Transcendental-Pragmatic Grounding Projects. Evelyn GRÖBL-STEINBACH: Reflektierte versus naive Aufklärung? Kritische Theorie und Kritischer Rationalismus - Versuch einer Bestandsaufnahme. Kurt SALAMUN: Befriedetes Dasein und offene Gesellschaft. Gesellschaftliche Zielvorstellungen in Kritischer Theorie und Kritischem Rationalismus. II. DAS LEIB-SEELE-PROBLEM UND DIE KONZEPTION DER OFFENEN GESELLSCHAFT. Volker GADENNE: Ist der Leib-Seele-Dualismus widerlegt? Arpad SÖLTER: Der europäische (...) Sonderweg zur offenen Gesellschaft. Miroslav PROKOPIJEVIC: Justice in the "Open Society". Wojciech DOMALEWSKI: Zwei Toleranzbegriffe. III. VON DER TOTALITÄREN DER OFFENEN GESELLSCHAFT IN DER EHEMALIGEN SOZIALISTISCHEN LÄNDERN. Dieter WITTRICH: Alltagserfahrung als Politikum. Dariusz ALEKSANDROWICZ: Die sich öffnende Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde. Andreas PICKEL: Schocktherapie als rationale Reformstrategie? Eine Kritik der theoretischen Grundlagen radikaler Marktkonzepte und ein Plädoyer für Reformgradualismus. IV. METHODISCHE PROBLEME DER GESELLSCHAFTSWISSENSCHAFTEN. Herbert KEUTH: Sozialwissenschaften, Werturteile und Verantwortung. Michael SCHMID: Die Logik institutioneller Analyse aus der Sicht des Kritischen Rationalismus. Peter V. ZIMA: Framework ist kein Mythos. Zu Karl R. Poppers Thesen über wissenschaftliche Kommunikation. (shrink)

In this essay, the relation between art and religion is explored using the concepts experience and imagination as understood by the American philosopher John Dewey. In Dewey’s view, experience involves both the experiencer and the experienced: it is a phenomenon of the in-between. When we are really touched by what we meet in interacting with our physical and social surroundings, experience acquires an aesthetic quality that opens us to the value and the potential of what we perceive. We can see (...) the factual in light of the possible, thus enriching it with new layers of meaning. We experience this as resonance between us and the world. It is the work of the imagination. Due to their imaginative capacity, humans can aspire to a ‘good life’. This aspiration is discussed in terms of invitation and response. Can we experience ourselves as being invited to respond to this unruly world with attachment and care? Here art and religion come into play. Art is understood as the domain of the possible: it explores the world behind or beyond what we usually accept as fact. An aesthetic experience acquires religious quality when it evokes in us an ideal that guides our sense of self and world, stimulating us to realize our ideals in daily actions. If inspired by imagination, art and religion may evoke intense experiences of resonance and invite us to new ways of connecting and transformative action. This is explored with the help of a hermeneutical circle, a ‘cycle of imagination’. (shrink)

Paying taxes, as determined by the legislature, is a moral obligation owed by members of a community to their community. Question is whether paying taxes has become an exclusively legal affair: a legal obligation towards the state, replacing a moral obligation towards society. This chapter tries to find an answer to that question by analysing social contract theorists and their critics. Social contract theorists and their critics searched for principles underlying a viable civil polity. Hobbes, Spinoza and Hume focused on (...) political and legal authority and obedience; grounding their theories on various ideas regarding human motivations and human sociability. These different starting points resulted in diverging conceptions of the reciprocal relationships between ruler and subjects and between subjects and fellow subjects. We will show the consequences thereof for the relationship between tax law and morality. Different conceptions of the reciprocal relationships involved may invite behaviour varying from minimalist compliance to a more liberal compliance with tax law. Taxpayers facing absolute sovereignty may adopt a legalistic attitude relying on the letter of the law or exploiting loopholes rather than stay within the spirit of applicable tax legislation. (shrink)

Frank L. Tipler's book The Physics of Immortality is a striking attempt by a scientist to resolve the conflict between theology and science on the basis of a physicalist position that identifies theology as a branch of physics, and that calculates God “in exactly the same way as physicists calculate the characteristics of electrons.” Tipler's work may be seen as a scientistic myth, and its critique is organized around the three basic characteristics of such myths: (1) it is illogical in (...) that it argues as if physics were in fact metaphysics; (2) it is grim in that its glorification of technology is insensitive to ethical issues; (3) it is meaningless in that its espousal of a strong theory of artificial intelligence empties concrete personal histories by subsuming them under abstractions that distort our understandings both of God and of resurrection. (shrink)