Blumenberg‘s phenomenological anthropology replaces the traditional question: What is the human being? with the following question: How is being human even possible? This question expresses a great mistrust over the ability of copying with human life. According to Blumenberg, man can survive only when he keeps distance from the threatening world in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. As an upright animal, who sees and can be seen, he can experience being hunted but also being the hunter in order (...) to bring himself into safety from what threatens him as well as succeeding in hunting. In a metaphorical sense, man takes distance from the almighty reality through myths, religion, science, technology, art, resp . culture as reliable ways to cope with anxiety and threats in this, for him, dangerous and nameless world. (shrink)

This book examines new concept of evolutionary ontology based on the idea of radically different "ontic orders" - natural and cultural being. It explains how culture evolved out of nature and how it became "anti-natural". The remedy is seen in the global biophilous reconstruction of culture. The value of the "live planet" Earth and the "subject" capable of creative activity and evolution are given fundamental philosophical interpretation.

Phytomass cultivation for energy use is increasingly popular in Europe for high profits guaranteed by subsidy. Although public interest in ecology is on an increasing level, direct combustion is still preferred even though scholars have been warning about formations of hazardous compounds for a long-time. However, the reduction of subsidies would negatively affect an already bad situation in Czech agriculture, since most farmers became fully dependent on subsidies due to quotas, restrictions, and other unequal business conditions in European Union. It (...) was proved in a commercial scale that an alternative phytomass energy utilizing technology consisting of steam explosion and subsequent anaerobic fermentation may be run solely on the waste heat without any further addition of chemicals. Behavior analysis of present and future agriculture decision-makers showed that none of the farmers who visited the facility cared about ecological consequences. On the other hand, ost students from the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of the Economy answered the questionnaire with higher environmental responsibility. We assume this is caused by high average age of farmers in Czech Republic who are more aware of the ongoing economical difficulties and perceive differently the risk of higher acquisition costs. (shrink)

1. Matter and form -- 2. Maimonides' theory of the parable -- 3. The parable of adamic perfection -- 4. Physical matter and its limitations on intellects -- 5. Maimonidean skepticism I -- 6. Maimonidean skepticism II -- 7. In the inner chamber of the ruler's palace: the critique of the theory of separate intellects -- 8. The embodied life of an intellect -- 9. Excrement and exegesis, or shame over matter.

Libet considers “positive free voluntary acts” as mere illusions, admitting free will only as Veto. This essay shows seven ways by which we can gain evident knowledge about positive and negative free will, through: (1) the immediate evidence of free will in the cogito, (2) the light of the necessary essence of free will, (3) the experience of moral “oughts” in whose experience freedom is co-given, (4) any denial of human free will entails its assertion or recognition, (5) the objects (...) and subjects of certain acts disclose free will, (6) in a world without free agents there would be no explanation of the beginning of efficient causality, and (7) Veto-power of the will logically presupposes positive free will. Libet’s experiments confirm that the free decision to act at a certain time and the preceding and accompanying free acts make new energy to burst forth in the brain. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy is of crucial importance not only for philosophical but also for theological ethics. Referring to the contemporary debate on the universality or particularity of moral judgments the idea of universal moral principles is defended by reconstructing the fundamental similarities between J. Rawls's liberal theory of social justice and Aquinas's understanding of natural law. Despite this plea for a cognitivist approach in normative ethics and a strong concept of practical reason the communitarian movement has to be taken (...) seriously especially from a theological perspective. As both the concepts of happiness or human fulfillment and that of virtue need to be rehabilitated in post-Kantian ethics communitarianism could help us to overcome a too narrow and therefore partly blind understanding of moral theory. (shrink)

Following Hegel's remark that art is a “thousand-eyed Argos,” one can formulate the assumption that under contemporary conditions art and surveillance state do not necessarily exclude, but reflect each other. The film minority report as popular art offers a visual self-reflection on this proposition. The central question is whether and to what extend this film performs a legitimization or delegitimization of the normative order.

This work brings in both the original German and English translation of over one hundred short essays in philosophical logic and the philosophy of mind of historical importance to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophical thought and development in the 1930's. Transcribed from the papers of Friedrich Waismann and dating from 1932-35, the majority are highly important dictations by Wittgenstein to Waismann, but also includes texts of redrafted material by Waismann closely based on the dictations. Many of these texts become the ultimate sources (...) of material on philosophy of language that constitutes the bulk of Waismann's book Logic, Sprache, Philosophy. The transcriptions throw light on the development of Wittgenstein's thought in this period and some of the topics are not covered in any of the existing publications of his writings, in particular his detailed attention to causal theories of meaning. They also contain texts covering psychological concepts such as expecting, intending and experience; these have no counterparts in Waismann's publications. (shrink)

For Pieper, the study of tradition is anything but antiquarian. He begins with a consideration of tradition in a changing world and is well aware of the need to confront the all-too-common perception that "tradition" is nowadays irrelevant. On the basis of his profound knowledge of the Western philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, to modern Existentialism and Marxism, Pieper is able to highlight the values established - and challenged - down through the (...) centuries. He sees the need to re-examine these values, to rid them of the false interpretations and misunderstandings that threaten to consign them to oblivion. He attempts to restate them in language which, in fact, not only reflects the clarity of his mind but also expresses his conviction that these values, freshly examined and understood, provide a sound basis for healthy living and for our survival against the dangers that pose a serious threat to the very existence of Western civilization. He illustrates these values by examining the contrast between an exponent of them, like Socrates, and an opportunist, like the Sophist Protagoras; between the man of principle and the nihilistic pragmatist. The book consists of a mixture of articles and speeches, produced by a man who, though often wooed by the academy, was not concerned with achieving personal status as an academic professor. He insisted, for the most part, in combining purely academic teaching with the education of teachers in teacher-training colleges. He would not be removed from close contact with "learners," and he remained a "learner" himself - from tradition. (shrink)

El siguiente texto es un fragmento del capítulo 4 del libro, en prensa, "Philosophical Diseases of Medicine and Their Cure" . Este pasaje seleccionado aborda la distinción analógica de los distintos tipos de fines y bienes que intervienen en el acto libre y que están íntimamente relacionados con el actuar médico.

At the beginning there was an act of extraordinary generosity: when I first met Jeff at a legal semiotics conference in the early eighties, he approached me after my presentation of mostly half-baked ideas and wild conjectures, congratulating me on my visual displays, and enquiring if I should be interested in developing my work into a joint book project. In the portrait of the scholar as a young man or woman, this is the kind of turn of events I should (...) hope will happen for all my colleagues in the first, still insecure phases of their careers. I have had the honour and privilege of becoming a member of the Collegium Invisibile Semioticae with Jeff as the Decanus subtilis of this enterprise, special in many ways. In the abstract of my contribution to his festschrift colloquium I remarked that “The idea of the academy has to be recreated from nothing. Ex nihilo quodlibet: ad multos annos” — hoping for many more than the seven years that were to follow. In the following seven Paninian quodlibeta I have endeavoured to come to terms with the intellectual and existential appeal of economy and minimalism: fail, fail again, fail better. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Jacques Rancière lässt sich das Verhältnis von Ästhetik und Politik erneut, wie schon im deutschen Idealismus, als Einheit eines Widerspruchs begreifen. Rancière verknüpft dieses Verhältnis mit einem romantischen Begriff von Politik. Unabhängig davon aber rekonstruiert er es ‚historisch-apriorisch‘ unter dem genannten idealistischen Prinzip. Für das Konzept des Spiels hat das, über Rancière hinausgehend, ambivalente Konsequenzen. Seine Attraktivität wie Kalamität werden bestimmt durch die ‚Regime‘ der Moderne, die sich als ausdifferenzierte Formen des dialektischen Widerspruchsprinzips erweisen.

Concerning artistic research, the state of affairs is still one of delusions and confusions. The reason for this is the pluralization and dedifferentiation of rationality pushed forward by the postmodern period. The way out of it is the way of differentiations. Thus, it seems helpful, first, to remember what we already have in philosophical aesthetics, namely four basic models of art and knowledge. The question, then, is whether artistic research fits into these models. To my mind, it does – though (...) in a new way. Secondly, it is helpful to have a short sober sociological look at the situation. Finally, we have to ask the question about the kind of research that is at stake in artistic research. Here, the meaning of non-propositional knowledge and Kant’s idea of an as-if-knowledge is useful. All in all, artistic research still fails in giving a sufficient explanation of itself. (shrink)

The Art of a Democracy of Emotions There is a long discussion in philosophy about the relationship between reason, emotions and politics. Today the adequate question is not whether, but to what extent and in which sense emotions normatively have to play a role in democracy. My first thesis is that there are three central answers to that question which can be brought down to the nominators ‘presentation’, ‘compensation’ and ‘transformation’. Within a political context, emotions ask for a contemporary form (...) of presentation, for a tempering or balancing compensation, and for a meaningful transformation. And my second thesis is that this threefold reaction can be achieved either with the aid of, or even in an excellent way by, aesthetic experiences. In detail I focus on a brief analysis of the modern political meaning of impertinence; the current situation concerning the philosophical discussion on democracy, emotions and aesthetics (with an accent on Martha Nussbaum); and finally on my own suggestion, supported by I. Kant and J. Dewey, concerning the concept of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

A notion of resource‐bounded Baire category is developed for the classPC[0,1]of all polynomial‐time computable real‐valued functions on the unit interval. The meager subsets ofPC[0,1]are characterized in terms of resource‐bounded Banach‐Mazur games. This characterization is used to prove that, in the sense of Baire category, almost every function inPC[0,1]is nowhere differentiable. This is a complexity‐theoretic extension of the analogous classical result that Banach proved for the classC[0, 1] in 1931. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim).

The revisions of both DSM-IV and ICD-10 have again focused the interest of the field of psychiatry and clinical psychology on the questions of nosology. This book reviews issues within psychiatric nosology from clinical, historical and particularly philosophical perspectives. It brings together an interdisciplinary group of distinguished authors.

Este estudo tem por objeto a filosofia scotista dos transcendentais, em especial a filosofia dos transcendentais como “perfeições puras”. Isso levará a uma consideração particular da “liberdade” como uma perfeição pura, bem como à concepção de um novo conceito de amor, não presente no eudemonismo aristotélicotomístico. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Duns Scotus. Filosofia dos transcendentais. Perfeições puras. Liberdade. Amor. Crítica ao eudemonismo. ABSTRACT The object of this study is Scotus’s philosophy of the transcendentals, particularly the philosophy of the transcendentals as “pure perfections”. (...) That will bring into a special consideration of “freedom” as a pure perfection, as well as into the formulation of a new concept of love, not to be found in the Aristotelian-Thomistic eudaimonism. KEY WORDS – Duns Scotus. Philosophy of the transcendentals. Pure perfections. Freedom. Love. Critique on eudaimonism. (shrink)