Die Interpretation (seit dem 17. Jahrhundert auch aHermeneutiko) ist das wichtigste methodische Hilfsmittel der Geisteswissenschaften. Die Erforschung ihrer fruehneuzeitlichen Urspruenge ist zwar im letzten Jahrzehnt ein Stueck vorangekommen, aber nach wie vor gibt es keine zusammenfassende Geschichte der juristischen, der theologischen oder der allgemeinen Hermeneutik und schon gar keinen facheruebergreifenden Vergleich. Der vorliegende Band faat die Ertrage der bisherigen Forschung zusammen und liefert darueber hinaus wichtige Bausteine zu einer vergleichenden Geschichte der Hermeneutik. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die bisher vernachlassigte Geschichte (...) der juristischen Interpretation. "Ohne Zweifel stellt der Band einen wichtigen Schritt auf dem Weg zu einer vergleichenden Geschichte der Hermeneutik dar." Das Historisch-Politische Buch "a wird fuer kuenftige Arbeiten zur Geschichte der Methodenlehre unverzichtbar sein." Zeitschrift fuer Neuere Rechtsgeschichte Aus dem Inhalt: Reformation und Humanismus: Beitrage von Ulrich Kopf zu Luther, Ian Maclean und Maximiliane Kriechbaum zur medizinischen und juristischen Hermeneutik 17. Jahrhundert und Aufklarung: Beitrage von Lutz Danneberg zur allgemeinen Hermeneutik, Klaus Luig zur Vertragsauslegung, Clausdieter Schott, Gerhard Otte und Joachim Hruschka zur Gesetzesauslegung Romantische Hermeneutik: Beitrage von Hermann Beisler zu Friedrich Schlegel, Guenter Meckenstock und Oliver R. Scholz zu Schleiermacher, Joachim Rueckert und Axel Buehler zu Savigny. (shrink)

Die Interpretation (seit dem 17. Jahrhundert auch aHermeneutiko) ist das wichtigste methodische Hilfsmittel der Geisteswissenschaften. Die Erforschung ihrer fruehneuzeitlichen Urspruenge ist zwar im letzten Jahrzehnt ein Stueck vorangekommen, aber nach wie vor gibt es keine zusammenfassende Geschichte der juristischen, der theologischen oder der allgemeinen Hermeneutik und schon gar keinen facheruebergreifenden Vergleich. Der vorliegende Band faat die Ertrage der bisherigen Forschung zusammen und liefert darueber hinaus wichtige Bausteine zu einer vergleichenden Geschichte der Hermeneutik. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die bisher vernachlassigte Geschichte (...) der juristischen Interpretation. "Ohne Zweifel stellt der Band einen wichtigen Schritt auf dem Weg zu einer vergleichenden Geschichte der Hermeneutik dar." Das Historisch-Politische Buch "a wird fuer kuenftige Arbeiten zur Geschichte der Methodenlehre unverzichtbar sein." Zeitschrift fuer Neuere Rechtsgeschichte Aus dem Inhalt: Reformation und Humanismus: Beitrage von Ulrich Kopf zu Luther, Ian Maclean und Maximiliane Kriechbaum zur medizinischen und juristischen Hermeneutik 17. Jahrhundert und Aufklarung: Beitrage von Lutz Danneberg zur allgemeinen Hermeneutik, Klaus Luig zur Vertragsauslegung, Clausdieter Schott, Gerhard Otte und Joachim Hruschka zur Gesetzesauslegung Romantische Hermeneutik: Beitrage von Hermann Beisler zu Friedrich Schlegel, Guenter Meckenstock und Oliver R. Scholz zu Schleiermacher, Joachim Rueckert und Axel Buehler zu Savigny. (shrink)

Ever since the 19th century, political parties and free media were widely deemed indispensable for the proper functioning of representative democracy. They constituted what one might call the criti...

The Covid-19 pandemic creates an unprecedented threatening situation worldwide with an urgent need for critical reflection and new knowledge production, but also a need for imminent action despite prevailing knowledge gaps and multilevel uncertainty. With regard to the role of research ethics in these pandemic times some argue in favor of exceptionalism, others, including the authors of this paper, emphasize the urgent need to remain committed to core ethical principles and fundamental human rights obligations all reflected in research regulations and (...) guidelines carefully crafted over time. In this paper we disentangle some of the arguments put forward in the ongoing debate about Covid-19 human challenge studies (CHIs) and the concomitant role of health-related research ethics in pandemic times. We suggest it might be helpful to think through a lens differentiating between risk, strict uncertainty and ignorance. We provide some examples of lessons learned by harm done in the name of research in the past and discuss the relevance of this legacy in the current situation. (shrink)

This article examines the political perspective of corporate social responsibility from the standpoint of normative Islam. We argue that large firms within Muslim majority countries have the moral obligation to assist governments in addressing challenges related to sustainable socioeconomic development and in advancing human rights. In substantiating our argument, we draw upon the Islamic business ethics, stakeholder theory, and corporate governance literatures, as well as the concepts of Maqasid al Shariah (the objectives of Islamic law) and fard al ‘ayn (obligation (...) upon all individuals within society) versus fard al kifayah (obligation upon some individuals within society) to introduce a normative model elucidating critical Islamic precepts. Finally, we propose an Islamic “political” corporate governance framework, which democratizes firm decision making by embedding “core” stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Shariah scholars in the corporate board, thereby enhancing the ability of businesses to respond to stakeholder concerns and priorities, while mitigating interstakeholder and intraboard power asymmetries. (shrink)

This paper develops a probabilistic reconstruction of the No Miracles Argument in the debate between scientific realists and anti-realists. The goal of the paper is to clarify and to sharpen the NMA by means of a probabilistic formalization. In particular, we demonstrate that the persuasive force of the NMA depends on the particular disciplinary context where it is applied, and the stability of theories in that discipline. Assessments and critiques of "the" NMA, without reference to a particular context, are misleading (...) and should be relinquished. This result has repercussions for recent anti-realist arguments, such as the claim that the NMA commits the base rate fallacy. It also helps to explain the persistent disagreement between realists and anti-realists. (shrink)

Hilbert's axiomatization program of physical theories met an interesting challenge when it confronted the rise of quantum mechanics in the mid-twenties. The novelty of the mathematical apparatus of the then newly born theory was to be matched only by its substantial lack of any definite physical interpretation. The early attempts at axiomatization, which are described here, reflect all the difficulty of the task faced by Jordan, Hilbert, von Neumann and others. The role of von Neumann is examined in considerable detail (...) as he can be viewed here as the most outstanding of Hilbert's heirs. Von Neumann, especially in his work devoted to the proof of the impossibility of hidden variables, not only continued Hilbert's program but pushed it to its very limits, blending axiomatic rigor and interpretative commitment. (shrink)

In dynamic system control, cognitive mechanisms and abilities underlying performance may vary depending on the nature of the task. We therefore investigated the effects of system structure and its interaction with cognitive abilities on system control performance. A sample of 127 university students completed a series of different system control tasks that were manipulated in terms of system size and recurrent feedback, either with or without a cognitive load manipulation. Cognitive abilities assessed included reasoning ability, working memory capacity, and cognitive (...) reflection. System size and recurrent feedback affected overall performance as expected. Overall, the results support that cognitive ability is a good predictor of performance in dynamic system control tasks but predictiveness is reduced when the system structure contains recurrent feedback. We discuss this finding from a cognitive processing perspective as well as its implications for individual differences research in dynamic systems. (shrink)

Comparative study of wall paintings in churches dedicated to St Clement in Stará Boleslav and Rome reveals the wide international networking of contemporary agents in artistic transfer. The importance of late twelfth-century wall paintings in St Clement’s in Stará Boleslav – among Bohemia’s foremost medieval monuments – is underscored by their close proximity to the place of the martyrdom and the center of the cult of the country’s patron, St Wenceslas. The Bohemian church’s consecration echoes the Cyril and Methodius mission, (...) resonating with the transfer of St Clement’s relics from the Crimea to Central Europe, then to the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. The frescoes in the Roman basilica’s lower church have been recognized as an important source for the concept of the paintings. The extensive, and iconographically exceptional, image cycle of St Clement’s life was commissioned by a high-ranking cleric, possibly the Salzburg archbishop, Adalbert of the Přemyslid family. The recent fresco restoration survey has yielded insights into the painting technique and will become the basis for the future rescue and rehabilitation of the Romanesque church’s wall decoration. (shrink)

Contrary to widespread assumptions, post-truth politicians formally adopt a rhetoric of ‘truth’ but turn it against established experts. To explain one central factor behind this destructive strategy and its success with voters, I consider Walter Lippmann and Friedrich Hayek, who from 1922 onwards helped develop and popularize a political rhetoric of ‘truth’ in terms of scientific expertise. In Hayek’s influential version, market economics became the crucial expert field. Consequently, the 2008 financial crisis impacted attitudes towards experts more generally. But even (...) sweeping rejection of experts continues to use the rhetoric, by now dominant, of expert truth. Paradoxically, this bipartisan language fuels division as opponents accuse each other of disregarding ‘truth itself’. Against the underlying metaphysics of context-free ‘facts’, John Dewey and Alfred Schutz recommend understanding truth as ‘presumptive’ knowledge produced within human practices, which can be robust but requires a readiness to engage in pluralistic and open-ended processes of (re-)contextualization. (shrink)

We introduce a cyclic proof system for the two-way alternation-free modal μ-calculus. The system manipulates one-sided Gentzen sequents and locally deals with the backwards modalities by allowing analytic applications of the cut rule. The global effect of backwards modalities on traces is handled by making the semantics relative to a specific strategy of the opponent in the evaluation game. This allows us to augment sequents by so-called trace atoms, describing traces that the proponent can construct against the opponent’s strategy. The (...) idea for trace atoms comes from Vardi’s reduction of alternating two-way automata to deterministic one-way automata. Using the multi-focus annotations introduced earlier by Marti and Venema, we turn this trace-based system into a path-based system. We prove that our system is sound for all sequents and complete for sequents not containing trace atoms. (shrink)

Enhancement, the improvement of mental capacities with psychoactive substances and technologies has stimulated one of the largest debates in contemporary bioethics. Surprisingly few participants in this debate take note of the tendentious legal status of psychoactive pharmaceuticals as the primary means of enhancement. -/- Enhancement technologies and substances have measurable effects on specific measurable cognitive functions. A major issue of contention in the debate is how to evaluate these effects, i. e. which theory of value to use. It is contested (...) whether the pleasures and achievements resulting from the use of enhancement can be counted as such or can be ignored or devaluate by calling them fraudulent or inauthentic. -/- The alleged and real benefits of enhancement are not expected to be evenly distributed, nor is it always clear whether enhancement is a zero-sum game or has benefits even for the non-users. This results in a complex structure of risks and benefits for individuals and groups, which needs to be broken down in detail. (shrink)

The chapter provides illustrations of the link between Hegel's work and Vygotsky's and shows how the argument that Vygotsky employed an abstract decontextualised form of reason, is groundless. Kant sets out to resolve the dualism of world and mind by positing the categories of understanding. Although Kant's later work moved towards overcoming the rigid separation of concept and intuition and of spontaneity from receptivity, dualism remained. Hegel dealt with dualism from a radically different standpoint, and this transformed the terms in (...) which it can be posed. In contrast to Kant, he rejected the categorical separation of subject and object, thereby opening a philosophical space within which the antinomies of dualism could be transcended. Most reactions to Hegel after Marx were intermingled with reactions to Marx. Misinterpretation of Hegel is communicated to readings of Vygotsky, where the influence of Hegel is read as evidence of hierarchical conceptions of abstract reason. (shrink)

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

This essay addresses the on-going controversy between supporters of minimal government, or minarchists, and supporters of no government, or anarchists. Both lay claim to the Libertarian principle, which holds that the only justification for the use of force is to deal with aggressive force initiated by someone else. Both agree that force is justified in dealing with aggressors. The only question is, who wields it, and how? The essay explains, briefly, the role of private property in all this. Private property (...) is really just the operation of the liberty principle in the area of the use of things outside ourselves: those who initiate use of such things will have their activities subject to continual invasion unless property is recognized, and so property is the natural outcome of liberty, taken seriously. But the trouble is, states are monopolies, and maintain themselves at public expense, by taxation. This inevitably means interference with private property rights. And so, if we deal with aggressors via the state, we turn into partial aggressors ourselves, it seems. The essay points out that and why both minarchism and anarchism are virtually impossible in contemporary circumstances, but at the level of basic theory, at any rate, the anarchist appears to have the better of it. (shrink)

‘Racism’ has become the name of something we are all against. But what exactly is it, and why are we against it? This general account proposes that in many cases and contexts, the making of racial (and other) distinctions in such a way as to give some kind of preference to members of one such group among others is quite acceptable. When isn’t it, then? The answer proposed here is that it’s unacceptable when the kind of behavior done to some (...) such group is independently wrongful behavior—in particular, seriously injurious. Various examples are given. The result is to make racism a clear notion whose unjustifiability is obvious—but to imply that many things often claimed to be racist should not be so regarded. (shrink)

In the literature, regress arguments often take one of two different forms: either they conclude that a given solution fails to solve any problem of a certain kind (the strong conclusion), or they conclude that a given solution fails to solve all problems of a certain kind (the weaker conclusion). This gives rise to a logical problem: do regresses entail the strong or the weaker conclusion, or none? In this paper I demonstrate that regress arguments can in fact take both (...) forms, and clearly set out the logical difference between them. Throughout the paper, I confine myself to metaphysical examples from the early Russell. Only now that we know they are valid can we start to discuss whether they are sound. (shrink)

Inleidend overzicht van visies van wetenschapsfilosofen op wetenschap en technologie.

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

Jeffrey Friedman broaches a number of criticisms of Libertarianism as a conceptual basis for opposing the extensive modern welfare state, examining several variants and concluding that they are fundamentally unsupported. He opts for a “consequentialist” view of foundations. Nevertheless, he thinks that the modem welfare state is subject to effective critique along such lines. But rational contractarian individualism works and does provide foundations for libertarianism, while “consequentialism” is an ill‐defined theory.that is quite unpromising for the proposed critique; nevertheless, Friedman's empirical (...) and economic critique of the welfare state is valid. (shrink)

An inquiry into the bioethical or ethical component of post-humanism can be through the question of sex. Following from Manoj’s idea of a cyborg as having a “sexless” possibility, this paper presents other arguments that advance the possibility of asexuality in the posthuman. First, I begin with a discussion of Žižek’s point concerning the cessation or voiding of sexual difference. Second, I will continue such an argument through the selfreplicating possibilities of cloning and full cyberspace immersion, the later as prototyped (...) by Pokémon. And finally, there seems to be an inevitable thread that begs to link the concept of the posthuman to Nietzsche; so I will explore some of the arguments that include or exclude Nietzschean ethics in this prospect. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es refutar las objeciones de Marc Ramsey a los principios de educación cívica del liberalismo político. Argumento que Ramsey malinterpreta la distinción entre la esfera pública y la esfera privada que emana del liberalismo político, y que su opinión de que, cuando es escrutado, el liberalismo político deriva en un liberalismo comprehensivo o de la «autonomía» carece de fundamento. La relevancia del tema es que la educación de acuerdo con el liberalismo político es más tolerante (...) que la educación conforme al liberalismo comprehensivo. Aquellos padres razonablemente religiosos que no son liberales podrán aceptar un liberalismo político, pero no uno comprehensivo. (shrink)

Der agyptische Zeitbegriff hat zwei Eigentumlichkeiten: erstens gibt es nicht einen, sondern zwei Begriffe fur das, was wir Zeit nennen, und zweitens konnen wir diese Begriffe zugleich mit Zeit und mit Ewigkeit wiedergeben. Sie bezeichnen die Zeit in ihrer Gesamtheit, ihrer unabsehbaren Fulle. Jan Assmann untersucht die Bedeutung dieses dualen Zeit/Ewigkeitsbegriffs in funf Schritten. Im ersten Teil wird diese Zweiteilung der Zeit aus der Aspektopposition des agyptischen Verbalsystems abgeleitet, das sich nicht, wie das uns vertraute auf die drei Zeitstufen Vergangenheit (...) Gegenwart Zukunft, sondern auf die zwei Aspekte Imperfektiv/Perfektiv bezieht und mit verschiedenen Symbolisierungen und Personifikationen in Verbindung gebracht. Die eine Zeit der unendlich in sich kreisenden Bewegung, aus der die Zeiteinheiten der Stunden, Tage, Monate, Jahre hervorgehen ist die Sternzeit, die Zeit des Sonnengottes, die andere Zeit der unwandelbaren Dauer ist die Steinzeit, die Zeit des Osiris. In einem zweiten Schritt wird diese Unterscheidung inhaltlich konkretisiert als kosmische und moralische Zeit. Die kosmische Sternzeit ist die Zeit der Riten, durch deren Vollzug sich der Mensch in die kosmischen Ordnungen eingliedert. Die Steinzeit der Grabmonumente, in denen sich der Mensch ins Gedachtnis der Nachwelt einzuschreiben hofft, ist die Zeit der Rechenschaft und der Geschichte. Speziell dem agyptischen Umgang mit Geschichte widmet sich der dritte Teil. Hier geht es um den engen Zusammenhang von Zeit, Geschichte und Staat, der fur das agyptische Zeitverstandnis charakteristisch ist. Der vierte Teil behandelt den Unterschied von linearer und zyklischer Zeit, Irreversibilitat und Reversibilitat, Steinzeit und Sternzeit unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Endes, das in beiden Dimensionen jeweils ganz unterschiedliche Formen annimmt. Im letzten Teil untersucht Assmann den grundlegenden Wandel des agyptischen Zeitdenkens in der 2. Halfte des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. Die aus der Bewegung der Sonne um die Erde ausstromende Sternzeit fullt sich immer mehr mit dem Inhalt von Schicksal und Geschichte, die Zeit, und mit ihr das menschliche Leben und das Geschick des Landes, wird in Gottes Handen gedacht. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to appreciate more deeply the ecclesiological and missiological perspectives of synodality and thus to suggest that synodality is not something new or created as the whim of Pope Francis but that it is rooted in the Church's ecclesiology from its earliest times and as such finds an expression in the Church's life and mission. In this paper I will demonstrate that the Church has always been a synodal Church and what we are witnessing now (...) is a valid theological development which takes us into the third millennium. I wish to set my examination of synodality in its ecclesiological and missiological perspectives and thereby posit that these two branches or routes lead into the one synodal pathway. I will show that as we examine the ecclesiological perspective of synodality we shall see that it is set in a renewed sense of mission. For this, we will need to co-operate with God and each other, as Pope Francis hinted at in 2015. (shrink)

Existing accounts of hypothetico-deductive confirmation are able to circumvent the classical objections, but the confirmation of conjunctions of hypotheses brings them into trouble. Therefore this paper develops a new, falsificationist account of qualitative confirmation by means of Ken Gemes ' theory of content parts. The new approach combines the hypothetico-deductive view with falsificationist and instance confirmation principles. It is considerably simpler than the previous suggestions and gives a better treatment of conjunctive hypotheses while solving the tacking problems equally well.

This paper investigates the distinction between determining and modifying expressions that played an important role in the Brentano School. The focus lies on how the distinction is applied to adjectives by Anton Marty and Kazimierz Twardowski. In ‘heavy gun’, ‘heavy’ plays a determining role: heavy guns are guns; in ‘fake gun’, ‘fake’ plays a modifying role: fake guns are no guns at all. According to Marty and Twardowski, when a modifying adjective is combined with a noun, it shifts the meaning (...) of the noun. This paper rejects this proposal and proposes a better account which was developed by Bernard Bolzano: the difference between determining and modifying adjectives must be understood in terms of how their meanings figure in meaning analyses of adjective-noun combinations. (shrink)

Agency without Actors? New Approaches to collective Action is rethinking a key issue in social theory and research: the question of agency. The history of sociological thought is deeply intertwined with the discourse of human agency as an effect of social relations. In most recent discussions the role of non-humans gains a substantial impact. Consequently the book asks: Are nonhumans active, do they have agency? And if so: how and in what different ways? The volume offers a critical state-of-the-art debate (...) of internationally and nationally leading scholars within Sociology, Social Anthropology and STS on agency (Latour, Law, Michael, Rammert etc.). It fosters the productive exchange of empirical settings and theoretical views by outlining a wide range of novel accounts that link human and non-human agency. It tries to understand social-technical, political and environmental networks as different forms of agency that produce discrete and identifiable entities like humans, animals, technical artifacts. It also asks how different types of (often conflicting) agency and agents actors are distinguished in practice, how they are maintained and how they interfere with each other. (shrink)