The differential activation hypothesis (DAH; Teasdale, 1988) proposes that individuals who are vulnerable to depression can be distinguished from non-vulnerable individuals by the degree to which negative thoughts and maladaptive cognitive processes are activated during sad mood. While retrieval of negative autobiographical memories is noted as one such process, the model does not articulate a role for deficits in recalling positive memories. Two studies were conducted to compare the autobiographical memory characteristics of never-depressed and formerly depressed individuals following a sad (...) mood induction. In Study 1, features of negative memories of never-depressed and formerly depressed individuals did not differ, either in neutral or sad mood. For positive memories, groups did not differ in neutral mood, but following a sad mood induction, formerly depressed individuals rated their positive memories as less vivid than their never-depressed counterparts. Study 2 examined positive autobiographical memory features more comprehensively and replicated the finding that in a sad mood formerly depressed individuals recalled less vivid positive memories than never-depressed controls. These findings suggest that the phenomenological features of positive memories could represent an important factor in depressive vulnerability, and, more broadly, that depression may be associated with a deficit in the processing of positive material. (shrink)

Michael Seidler - Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 405-406 Book Review Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany Ian Hunter. Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xix + 398. Cloth, $69.95. Mendelssohn once referred to Kant, supposedly with affection, as "the all-destroyer" . Hunter's erudite book (...) takes a similar, albeit colder view of Kant's impact on the history of moral and political thought. Kant and Kantians, he holds, not only distort that account by advancing themselves as the "critical" solution to its dialectical inadequacies,.. (shrink)

The paper discusses how systems biology is working toward complex accounts that integrate explanation in terms of mechanisms and explanation by mathematical models—which some philosophers have viewed as rival models of explanation. Systems biology is an integrative approach, and it strongly relies on mathematical modeling. Philosophical accounts of mechanisms capture integrative in the sense of multilevel and multifield explanations, yet accounts of mechanistic explanation have failed to address how a mathematical model could contribute to such explanations. I discuss how mathematical (...) equations can be explanatorily relevant. Several cases from systems biology are discussed to illustrate the interplay between mechanistic research and mathematical modeling, and I point to questions about qualitative phenomena, where quantitative models are still indispensable to the explanation. Systems biology shows that a broader philosophical conception of mechanisms is needed, which takes into account functional-dynamical aspects, interaction in complex networks with feedback loops, system-wide functional properties such as distributed functionality and robustness, and a mechanism’s ability to respond to perturbations. I offer general conclusions for philosophical accounts of explanation. (shrink)

The article starts with a reconstruction of Bernard Bolzano’s aesthetics as a paradigmatic example of the logical-semantic aesthetics tradition following Leibniz, which has been marginalized in Germany. It ends with perspectives for a future reconstruction of post-Hegelian aesthetics in the light of the semantic problem that became virulent in the analytical philosophy of language and in linguistics in the early 20th century. As a result, a continuity becomes visible between the allegedly idealistic 19th century and the theoretical developments in the (...) wake of the linguistic turn that emphasize the irreducible linguistic character and sign structure of semantics. (shrink)

Opposing contemporary literature’s conventional rhetorical profile, along with its awaitable topics of social concern, the article focuses on more recent examples of ›Sprachkunst‹. Via an analysis of Rainald Goetz’s and Felicia Zeller’s shorter prose, a habit of ›writing about nothing‹ could remind us what literature is all about: language and form.

In this work, originally published in 1986, Victor Seidler explores the different notions of respect, equality and dependency in Kant’s moral writings. He illuminates central tensions and contradictions not only within Kant’s moral philosophy, but within the thinking and feeling about human dignity and social inequality which we take very much for granted within a liberal moral culture. In challenging our assumption of the autonomy of morality, Seidler also questions our understanding of what it means for someone to (...) live as a person in his or her own right. The autonomy of individuals cannot be assumed but has to be reasserted against relationships of subordination. This involves a break with a rationalist morality, so that respect for others involves respect for emotions, feelings, desires and needs, and establishes a fuller autonomy as a basis for freedom and justice. (shrink)

Nikolaus von Kues, der große Philosoph und Theologe des 15. Jahrhunderts, hat sich auch mathematischen Problemen gewidmet. Vor allem die Frage nach der Möglichkeit der Quadratur des Kreises beschäftigte ihn. In seinen Lösungsansätzen spielt die Lehre vom Zusammenfall der Gegensätze eine entscheidende Rolle. In den vergangenen Jahren wurde Cusanus’ Technikverständnis an der Kueser Akademie für Europäische Geistesgeschichte intensiv erforscht. Im Ergebnis stellt Ingo Reiss in diesem Buch den cusanischen Zugang zu Mathematik und Technik und zu deren Wechselverhältnis vor.

Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is considered a ‘mechanistic science,’ in that it causally explains morphological evolution in terms of changes in developmental mechanisms. Evo-devo is also an interdisciplinary and integrative approach, as its explanations use contributions from many fields and pertain to different levels of organismal organization. Philosophical accounts of mechanistic explanation are currently highly prominent, and have been particularly able to capture the integrative nature of multifield and multilevel explanations. However, I argue that evo-devo demonstrates the need for a (...) broadened philosophical conception of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation. Mechanistic explanation (in terms of the qualitative interactions of the structural parts of a whole) has been developed as an alternative to the traditional idea of explanation as derivation from laws or quantitative principles. Against the picture promoted by Carl Craver, that mathematical models describe but usually do not explain, my discussion of cases from the strand of evo-devo which is concerned with developmental processes points to qualitative phenomena where quantitative mathematical models are an indispensable part of the explanation. While philosophical accounts have focused on the actual organization and operation of mechanisms, properties of developmental mechanisms that are about how a mechanism reacts to modifications are of major evolutionary significance, including robustness, phenotypic plasticity, and modularity. A philosophical conception of mechanisms is needed that takes into account quantitative changes, transient entities and the generation of novel types of entities, feedback loops and complex interaction networks, emergent properties, and, in particular, functional-dynamical aspects of mechanisms, including functional (as opposed to structural) organization and distributed, system-wide phenomena. I conclude with general remarks on philosophical accounts of explanation. (shrink)

This introduction to the special section on integration in biology provides an overview of the different contributions. In addition to motivating the philosophical significance of analyzing integration and interdisciplinary research, I lay out common themes and novel insights found among the special section contributions, and indicate how they exhibit current trends in the philosophical study of integration. One upshot of the contributed papers is that there are different aspects to and kinds of integration, so that rather than attempting to offer (...) a universal construal of what integrations is, philosophers have to analyze in concrete cases in what respects particular aspects of scientific theorizing and/or practice are ‘integrative’ and how this instance of integration works and was achieved. (shrink)

Despite the traditional focus on metaphysical issues in discussions of natural kinds in biology, epistemological considerations are at least as important. By revisiting the debate as to whether taxa are kinds or individuals, I argue that both accounts are metaphysically compatible, but that one or the other approach can be pragmatically preferable depending on the epistemic context. Recent objections against construing species as homeostatic property cluster kinds are also addressed. The second part of the paper broadens the perspective by considering (...) homologues as another example of natural kinds, comparing them with analogues as functionally defined kinds. Given that there are various types of natural kinds, I discuss the different theoretical purposes served by diverse kind concepts, suggesting that there is no clear-cut distinction between natural kinds and other kinds, such as functional kinds. Rather than attempting to offer a unique metaphysical account of ‘natural’ kind, a more fruitful approach consists in the epistemological study of how different natural kind concepts are employed in scientific reasoning. (shrink)

According to many biologists, explaining the evolution of morphological novelty and behavioral innovation are central endeavors in contemporary evolutionary biology. These endeavors are inherently multidisciplinary but also have involved a high degree of controversy. One key source of controversy is the definitional diversity associated with the concept of evolutionary novelty, which can lead to contradictory claims (a novel trait according to one definition is not a novel trait according to another). We argue that this diversity should be interpreted in light (...) of a different epistemic role played by the concept of evolutionary novelty—the structuring of a problem space or setting of an explanatory agenda—rather than the concept’s capacity to categorize traits as novel. This distinctive role is consistent with the definitional diversity and shows that the concept of novelty benefits ongoing investigation by focusing attention on answering different questions related to comprehending the origins of novelty. A review of recent theoretical and empirical work on evolutionary novelty confirms this interpretation. (shrink)

Marc Ereshefsky argues that pluralism about species suggests that the species concept is not theoretically useful. It is to be abandoned in favor of several concrete species concepts that denote real categories. While accepting species pluralism, the present paper rejects eliminativism about the species category. It is argued that the species concept is important and that it is possible to make sense of a general species concept despite the existence of different concrete species concepts.

The present paper analyzes the use and understanding of the homology concept across different biological disciplines. It is argued that in its history, the homology concept underwent a sort of adaptive radiation. Once it migrated from comparative anatomy into new biological fields, the homology concept changed in accordance with the theoretical aims and interests of these disciplines. The paper gives a case study of the theoretical role that homology plays in comparative and evolutionary biology, in molecular biology, and in evolutionary (...) developmental biology. It is shown that the concept or variant of homology preferred by a particular biological field is used to bring about items of biological knowledge that are characteristic for this field. A particular branch of biology uses its homology concept to pursue its specific theoretical goals. (shrink)

Recovering the Self seeks to place issues of morality and justice at the heart of social theory. Because of the breakdown of traditional forms of authority, respect for authorities can no longer be taken for granted. Increasingly people believe that respect has to be earned and people have to discover sources of authority within themselves. Victor Seidler seeks to establish a framework to rethink the relation between self and society, identities and power. Through exploring the works of Marx, Weber, (...) and Durkheim he shows the hidden complexities of a modernity too often identified with a unified vision of the rational self. Reinstating the body and emotional life into the discussion, Seidler sets new terms for respect and equality by showing ways the self is undermined in its sense of self-worth and adequacy through the working of relationships of power and subordination. (shrink)

Eduard Seidler sets his discussion of the teaching of medical ethics in the Federal Republic of Germany against an historical background. Immediately after the Second World War the freshness of the memory of the 'Nuremberg Medical Trials' influenced the way in which moral dilemmas were treated in Germany. At the present time no systematic instruction in medical ethics is provided in either undergraduate or postgraduate or continuing medical education. As a result of this, an inquiry was set up in (...) 1977/78. Questionnaires were sent out with a view to collecting information on how subjects referring to medical ethics are treated during medical training. The inquiry showed that no special discipline can claim to be the only competent one for medical ethics, but that everyone has something to contribute. Dr Seidler concludes by stating that basic curricula related to the problems of medical ethics would have to be developed and should be carried on continuously within the training programme. (shrink)

The paper works towards an account of explanatory integration in biology, using as a case study explanations of the evolutionary origin of novelties-a problem requiring the integration of several biological fields and approaches. In contrast to the idea that fields studying lower level phenomena are always more fundamental in explanations, I argue that the particular combination of disciplines and theoretical approaches needed to address a complex biological problem and which among them is explanatorily more fundamental varies with the problem pursued. (...) Solving a complex problem need not require theoretical unification or the stable synthesis of different biological fields, as items of knowledge from traditional disciplines can be related solely for the purposes of a specific problem. Apart from the development of genuine interfield theories, successful integration can be effected by smaller epistemic units (concepts, methods, explanations) being linked. Unification or integration is not an aim in itself, but needed for the aim of solving a particular scientific problem, where the problem's nature determines the kind of intellectual integration required. (shrink)

The discussion presents a framework of concepts that is intended to account for the rationality of semantic change and variation, suggesting that each scientific concept consists of three components of content: 1) reference, 2) inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued with the concept’s use. I argue that in the course of history a concept can change in any of these components, and that change in the concept’s inferential role and reference can be accounted for as being rational relative (...) to the third component, the concept’s epistemic goal. This framework is illustrated and defended by application to the history of the gene concept. It is explained how the molecular gene concept grew rationally out of the classical gene concept despite a change in reference, and why the use and reference of the contemporary molecular gene concept may legitimately vary from context to context. (shrink)

This review article summarizes various functions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that are related to language processing. To this end, its connectivity with the left-dominant perisylvian language network was considered, as well as its interaction with other functional networks that, directly or indirectly, contribute to language processing. Language-related functions of the DLPFC comprise various aspects of pragmatic processing such as discourse management, integration of prosody, interpretation of nonliteral meanings, inference making, ambiguity resolution, and error repair. Neurophysiologically, the DLPFC seems to (...) be a key region for implementing functional connectivity between the language network and other functional networks, including cortico-cortical as well as subcortical circuits. Considering clinical aspects, damage to the DLPFC causes psychiatric communication deficits rather than typical aphasic language syndromes. Although the number of well-controlled studies on DLPFC language functions is still limited, the DLPFC might be an important target region for the treatment of pragmatic language disorders. (shrink)

Examining previous discussions on how to construe the concepts of gender and race, we advocate what we call strategic conceptual engineering. This is the employment of a (possibly novel) concept for specific epistemic or social aims, concomitant with the openness to use a different concept (e.g., of race) for other purposes. We illustrate this approach by sketching three distinct concepts of gender and arguing that all of them are needed, as they answer to different social aims. The first concept serves (...) the aim of identifying and explaining gender-based discrimination. It is similar to Haslanger’s well-known account, except that rather than offering a definition of ‘woman’ we focus on ‘gender’ as one among several axes of discrimination. The second concept of gender is to assign legal rights and social recognitions, and thus is to be trans-inclusive. We argue that this cannot be achieved by previously suggested concepts that include substantial gender-related psychological features, such as awareness of social expectations. Instead, our concept counts someone as being of a certain gender solely based on the person’s self-identification with this gender. The third concept of gender serves the aim of personal empowerment by means of one’s gender identity. In this context, substantial psychological features and awareness of one’s social situation are involved. While previous accounts of concepts have focused on their role in determining extensions, we point to contexts where a concept’s role in explanation and moral reasoning can be more important. (shrink)

Pufendorf's chief contribution to political thought is to be found in his dedicated effort to defend the modern state as a fundamental feature of humankind's moral development, and thus to reconcile the artificiality of civil association with its moral necessity. By exploring the state's moral character, Pufendorf helped move political discourse beyond a focus on the practical need for civil association and towards a search for a modern theory of political legitimacy, i.e., a theory that is both compelling enough to (...) demonstrate the moral legitimacy of political authority regardless of one's religious beliefs or moral convictions, and precise enough to permit insight into the nature and limits of this authority. (shrink)

Reductionism encompasses a set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological claims about the relation of different scientific domains. The basic question of reduction is whether the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from one scientific domain (typically at higher levels of organization) can be deduced from or explained by the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from another domain of science (typically one about lower levels of organization). Reduction is germane to a variety of issues in philosophy of science, including the structure of (...) scientific theories, the relations between different scientific disciplines, the nature of explanation, the diversity of methodology, and the very idea of theoretical progress, as well as to numerous topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, such as emergence, mereology, and supervenience. (shrink)

By linking the concepts of homology and morphological organization to evolvability, this paper attempts to (1) bridge the gap between developmental and phylogenetic approaches to homology and to (2) show that developmental constraints and natural selection are compatible and in fact complementary. I conceive of a homologue as a unit of morphological evolvability, i.e., as a part of an organism that can exhibit heritable phenotypic variation independently of the organism’s other homologues. An account of homology therefore consists in explaining how (...) an organism’s developmental constitution results in different homologues/characters as units that can evolve independently of each other. The explanans of an account of homology is developmental, yet the very explanandum is an evolutionary phenomenon: evolvability in a character-by-character fashion, which manifests itself in phylogenetic patterns as recognized by phylogenetic approaches to homology. While developmental constraints and selection have often been viewed as antagonistic forces, I argue that both are complementary as they concern different parts of the evolutionary process. Developmental constraints, conceived of as the presence of the same set of homologues across phenotypic change, pertain to how heritable variation can be generated in the first place (evolvability), while natural selection operates subsequently on the produced variation. (shrink)

This essay analyzes and develops recent views about explanation in biology. Philosophers of biology have parted with the received deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation primarily by attempting to capture actual biological theorizing and practice. This includes an endorsement of different kinds of explanation (e.g., mathematical and causal-mechanistic), a joint study of discovery and explanation, and an abandonment of models of theory reduction in favor of accounts of explanatory reduction. Of particular current interest are philosophical accounts of complex explanations that appeal (...) to different levels of organismal organization and use contributions from different biological disciplines. The essay lays out one model that views explanatory integration across different disciplines as being structured by scientific problems. I emphasize the philosophical need to take the explanatory aims pursued by different groups of scientists into account, as explanatory aims determine whether different explanations are competing or complementary and govern the dynamics of scientific practice, including interdisciplinary research. I distinguish different kinds of pluralism that philosophers have endorsed in the context of explanation in biology, and draw several implications for science education, especially the need to teach science as an interdisciplinary and dynamic practice guided by scientific problems and explanatory aims. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article introduces an “ordonomic” approach to corporate citizenship. We believe that ordonomics offers a conceptual framework for analyzing both the social structure and the semantics of moral commitments. We claim that such an analysis can provide theoretical guidance for the changing role of business in society, especially in regard to the expectation and trend that businesses take a political role and act as corporate citizens. The systematicraison d'êtreof corporate citizenship is that business firms can and—judged by the criterion of (...) prudent self-interest—“should” take on an active role in rule-finding discourses and rule-setting processes with the intent of realizing a win-win outcome of the economic game. We identify—and illustrate—four ways that corporate citizens can employ moral commitments as a factor of production to enhance their processes of economic value creation. (shrink)

Zwei Aspekte bilden die Grundlage der allgemeinen Symboltheorie, die der amerikanische Philosoph Nelson Goodman in einem seiner Hauptwerke, Languages of Art, als Zentrum seiner analytischen Philosophie entworfen hat: Zum einen setzt jede Symbolisierung Bezugnahme voraus, zum anderen finden sämtliche Arten von Symbolisierung - als Performanzakte - im Bereich zwischen sowohl syntaktisch als auch semantisch eindeutigen (formalen, notationalen) und weder syntaktisch noch semantisch eindeutigen (pikturalen,,repräsentationalen') Symbolsystemen - kurz, im Spannungsbereich zwischen,Wissenschaft' und,Kunst' - statt. Somit muss es einen Bereich geben, in dem (...) diese beiden extremen Weisen von Darstellung,ineinander übergehen', und genau in diesem Bereich lässt sich, so die zentrale These dieses Buches, das Verfahren der Metaphernbildung lokalisieren. Das hat Konsequenzen für einen tragfähigen Kompetenzbegriff in Wissenschaft und Kunst, für den Kreativitätsbegriff, wirft ein besonderes Licht auf Goodmans Neufassung des Induktionsproblems und letztlich auf das Wesen (philosophischer) Erkenntnis im Allgemeinen... (shrink)

In this paper I analyze Hegel’s concept of life in the Phenomenology of Spirit and Heidegger’s critical comments regarding this concept of life in his 1930/31 Lecture Course on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I claim that Heidegger's lecture course shows his continued fascination with life, despite his official distance to Dilthey and the then contemporary life-philosophy. I argue that one of the fundamental tenets of life-philosophy, the opposition of "life" to "reason," still motivates Heidegger’s critique of Hegel’s supposedly logocentric concept (...) of life. I begin the paper with a brief review of Heidegger’s life-philosophical starting point after World War One (Section I)and, drawing on Hans Jonas, suggest some meta-reflections on the reasons behind the renewed interest in "life" in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century (section II). After a sketch of Hegel’s concept of life in the Phenomenology of Spirit (Section III), I then turn to Heidegger’s interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in 1930/31 (Section IV), in particular Hegel’s conception of the correlation of life and time. (shrink)

Original and critical essays by leading scholars on the question of the human in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) ist nicht nur einer der zentralen Begründer der Soziologie, sondern trug auch eine einflussreiche Ästhetik vor. Dabei ist Simmels Ansatz doppelt ausgerichtet: Der säkular gearbeiteten und bis heute höchst erfolgreichen soziologischen Ästhetik, die sich am Konzept sozialer Wechselwirkung orientiert, steht eine in ihrem Gesamtprofil bisher nicht erfasste, emphatische Kunstphilosophie kulturalistischer Prägung gegenüber, die Artefakte als Schauseite der Metaphysik im Modus einer spezifischen Weltgründungskunst versteht.0Die vorliegende Arbeit diskutiert Eigenart und Verhältnis dieser beiden Ästhetiken und leitet so über zu (...) einer exemplarischen Würdigung von Simmels eminenten Wirkungen in Kunstgeschichte, liberalkonservativer Kulturkritik und früher Frankfurter Schule.0Negation der Arbeitsteilung, Formwerdung als kreativistische Entäusserung schlechthin der?Seele? sowie Werk- als Wirkungsästhetik von Bedeutungsintensität sind 'Leitbegriffe', mittels derer Simmels Denken radikaler Autonomie der Kunst sortiert und in ihren Chancen und Grenzen um 1900 erfasst wird. (shrink)

In einem grundlegenden Aufsatz, der hier in deutscher Ubersetzung zusammen mit dem englischen Original abgedruckt wird, leisten Bruni und Sugden einen innovativen Beitrag zur interdisziplinaren Verstandigung zwischen Philosophie und Okonomik. Ausgangspunkt ist der Befund, dass tugendethische Ansatze oft ausgesprochen marktkritisch sind, weil sie durch den Markt eine Erosion sozialer Normen und intrinsischer Motivation befurchten. Bruni und Sugden kritisieren die traditionelle Tugendethik dahingehend, dass diese den Markt an sachfremden Idealen messe und dadurch in eine wirtschaftsfremde und sogar wirtschaftsfeindliche Schieflage gerate. Der (...) Gegenansatz von Bruni und Sugden bestimmt den Markt als Praxis mit einem eigenstandigen Ziel (telos). Dieses besteht in der wechselseitigen Vorteilsgewahrung zwischen Tauschpartnern. Von hier ausgehend, identifizieren sie (ohne Anspruch auf Vollstandigkeit) acht Tugenden, die der Praxis des Marktes forderlich sind. Hierin sehen Bruni und Sugden einen Beitrag, die Menschen, die sich als moralische Subjekte verstehen, mit einem wichtigen Bereich ihrer alltaglichen Lebenspraxis zu versohnen. Dieser Band leitet dazu an, sich mit den Thesen von Bruni und Sugden intensiv und kritisch auseinanderzusetzen. Methodische Handreichungen erleichtern die Textanalyse. Besonders anregend fur die Diskussion sind ein Dutzend Kurzkommentare, die den Aufsatz von verschiedenen Blickwinkeln aus beleuchten. (shrink)

This review-essay discusses the contributions to Ricardo Bellofiore’s bookRosa Luxemburg and the Critique of Political Economyin their respective historical and theoretical contexts. A key goal of the book is to establish Luxemburg’s work as a ‘macro-monetary class approach’, which means linking an economic outlook on effective demand and finance with a political focus on class-struggles in the domestic and international arenas. This approach marks a significant, and positive, departure from widespread interpretations that separate Luxemburg’s political theory from her economic theory. (...) Given the apparent limits of neoliberal globalisation it is also a very timely approach that can help us to understand the current conjuncture of economic and political crises. Bellofiore’s book offers a useful framework for such analysis but focuses much more on economic theory than on politics and the historical developments of global capitalism. To fully exploit the potential of Luxemburg’s political economy, complementary work on these latter two aspects has to be done. (shrink)