Isis oder Encyklopädische Zeitung, edited by the German natural philosopher Lorenz Oken (1779‐1851), is supposed to be one of the most significant journals of natural sciences in the early 19th century. The following study, based on a quantitative analyses of all articles (1817‐1822), investigates the profile of the natural sciences in this journal. The results are interpreted according to Oken's concept of the journal as well as his editorial notes. It is shown that the encyclopedically broadly designed journal focuses on (...) the natural sciences as major part of it's content, presenting the descriptive history of natural sciences (Naturgeschichte) as main subject. The journal's research perspective follows the encyclopedical spread of issues and scientific subjects; a clear research profile of scientific disciplines can not be discerned. Although scientific subjects, issues and authors are heterogeneous, Oken preserves an inner coherence by a common perspective founded in natural philosophy: his strategy was therefore to interfere with the content of the articles by comments and footnotes. Finally it is shown that Oken's idea of encyclopedism and it's realisation in Isis comprises sciences as well as politics as two sides of the same coin: based on the philosophical understanding of the unity of nature Oken tries to educate the consciousness of his readers towards a socially and politically homogeneous nation. (shrink)

Starting from Kant's striking question 'What is orientation in thinking?', this book argues that the main challenge facing global normative theorising lies in its failure to acknowledge its conceptual inadequacies. We do not know how to reason globally; instead, we tend to apply our domestic political experiences to the global context. Katrin Flikschuh argues that we must develop a form of global reasoning that is sensitive to the variability of contexts: rather than trying to identify a uniquely shareable set (...) of substantive principles, we need to appreciate and understand local reasons for action. Her original and incisive study shows how such reasoning can benefit from the open-ended nature of Kant's systematic but non-dogmatic philosophical thinking, and from reorientation from a domestic to a non-domestic frame of thought. It will appeal to all those interested in global moral issues, as well as to Kant scholars. (shrink)

In this book Katrin Flikschuh examines the relevance of Kant's political thought to major issues and problems in contemporary political philosophy. She advances and defends two principal claims: that Kant's philosophy of Right endorses the role of metaphysics in political thinking, in contrast to its generally hostile reception in the field today, and that his account of political obligation is cosmopolitan in its inception, assigning priority to the global rather than the domestic context. She shows how Kant's metaphysics of (...) freedom as a shared idea of practical reason underlies the cosmopolitan scope of his theory of justice, and she concludes that despite the revival of 'Kantianism' in contemporary thinking, his account of justice is in many respects very different from dominant approaches in contemporary liberal theory. Her study will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and historians of ideas. (shrink)

This book analyzes Western and Chinese philosophical texts to determine why laughter and the comic have not been a major part of philosophical discourse. Katrin Froese maintains that many philosophical accounts of laughter try to unearth laughter's purpose, thereby rendering it secondary to the intentional and purposive aspects of human nature that impel us to philosophize. Froese also considers texts that take laughter and the comic as starting points, attempting to philosophize out of laughter rather than merely trying to (...) unearth reasons for laughter. The book proposes that continuously unraveling philosophical assumptions through the comic and laughter may be necessary to live well. (shrink)

English summary: What is freedom? Are humans free? And are God and human freedom compatible? These questions are raised by Anselm of Canterbury in his dialogues on freedom. Katrin Konig interprets Anselm's theory of freedom in its theological and historical context and brings it into a dialogue with contemporary analytic theories of freedom. Thereby a qualitative concept of freedom as a gift towards the good is contributed: gifted freedom. According to this understanding, freedom is something greater than individual self-determination (...) or choice between alternative possibilities. It is grounded in the perception of truth, unfolded in the love of justice and compatible with perfect determination by the action of God. In this horizon it is possible to discern the aporia of the modern debate on determinism and to reconcile seeming contradictions. German description: Was ist Freiheit? Ist der Mensch frei? Und: Sind Gott und menschliche Freiheit vereinbar? Diese Fragen untersucht Anselm von Canterbury in seinen Freiheitsdialogen. Katrin Konig deutet Anselms Freiheitstheorie in ihrem theologischen Zusammenhang, verortet sie historisch und bringt sie ins Gesprach mit analytisch-philosophischen Freiheitstheorien der Gegenwart. Damit wird ein qualitativer Begriff von Freiheit als Gabe zum Guten zur Diskussion gestellt: begnadete Freiheit. Freiheit ist diesem Verstandnis nach mehr als individuelle Selbstbestimmung oder Wahl zwischen alternativen Moglichkeiten. Sie grundet in Wahrheitserkenntnis, entfaltet sich in Gerechtigkeitsliebe und ist mit vollkommener Bestimmtheit durch das Wirken Gottes vereinbar. In diesem Horizont konnen Aporien der modernen Determinismusdebatte wahrgenommen und scheinbare Gegensatze vermittelt werden. (shrink)

This study explores the attitude of German psychiatrists in leading positions towards joint crisis plans and psychiatric advance directives. This topic was examined by contacting 473 medical directors of German psychiatric hospitals and departments. They were asked to complete a questionnaire developed by us. That form contained questions about the incidence and acceptance of joint crisis plans and psychiatric advance directives and previous experiences with them. 108 medical directors of psychiatric hospitals and departments responded . Their answers demonstrate that in (...) their hospitals these documents are rarely used. Among the respondents, joint crisis plans are more accepted than psychiatric advance directives. There is a certain uncertainty when dealing with these instruments. Our main conclusion is that German psychiatry needs an intensified discussion on the use of instruments for patients to constitute procedures for future critical psychiatric events. For this purpose it will be helpful to collect more empirical data. Furthermore, the proposal of joint crisis plans in psychiatric hospitals and departments should be discussed as well as the possibility of consulting an expert during the preparation of a psychiatric advance directive. (shrink)

There is a tendency within the literature to decry Kant as either a proto-imperialist or as a proto-democrat in relation to his views on distant strangers. I here take an alternative view, arguing that Kant’s cosmopolitan morality is considerably more context-sensitive than is often assumed. More specifically, I argue that Kant’s encounter with American nomads on the final pages of his Doctrine of Right reflects a nuanced reading of European settlers’ requisite comportment towards them: Kant neither endorses a universal duty (...) of state entrance nor does he place nomads beyond all possible moral engagement with European settlers. (shrink)

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as caused by one’s own action, whereas in the case of a mismatch it will be attributed to an external cause rather than to the self. (...) In a subliminal priming paradigm we show that participants overestimated how much control they had over objectively uncontrollable stimuli, which appeared after free- or forced-choice actions, when a masked prime activated a representation of the stimuli immediately before each action. This prime-induced control-illusion was independent from whether primes were consciously perceived. Results indicate that the conscious experience of control is modulated by unconscious anticipations of action-effects. (shrink)

Die Diatriben und das Encheiridion des Stoikers Epiktet (spätes 1. bis frühes 2.Jh.n.Chr.) erfreuen sich eines bleibenden Interesses in der Forschung. Dies belegen zahlreiche Einzeluntersuchungen sowie neuere Kommentare und Übersetzungen zu ausgewählten Kapiteln seines Werkes. Als Stoiker weist Epiktet insofern eine Besonderheit auf, als er die theologischen Aspekte in seiner Philosophie besonders betont. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit einem wichtigen Teil der Theologie Epiktets: seiner Gebetslehre. Epiktet integriert in sein Werk Gebetstexte, die er seinen Schülern als Vorbild- und Übungstexte (...) an die Hand gibt, und stellt mehrfach die Wichtigkeit der Gebete innerhalb des täglichen Lebens heraus. Sie sind nach Epiktets Lehre ein zentrales Element der angemessenen stoischen Lebenshaltung. Mit seiner Gebetslehre beeinflusst Epiktet nicht nur Philosophen der Antike, sondern auch frühchristliche Theologen. Um Epiktets Gebetslehre vorzustellen, werden die Gebete Epiktets und seine Aussagen über das Beten in der vorliegenden Arbeit in ihrem jeweiligen Kontext bezüglich Form, Inhalt und Funktionen analysiert und interpretiert. Darüber hinaus wird anhand der Gebetslehren ausgewählter Autoren ein Einblick in die Geschichte des philosophischen Gebets gegeben, um Epiktets Gebetslehre anschließend darin verorten zu können. (shrink)

While interdisciplinarity is not a new concept, the political and discursive mobilisation of interdisciplinarity is. Since the 1990s, this movement has intensified, and this has affected central funding bodies so that interdisciplinarity is now a de facto requirement in successful grant application. As a result, the literature is ripe with definitions, taxonomies, discussions and other attempts to grasp and define the concept of interdisciplinarity. In this paper, we explore how strategic demands for interdisciplinarity meet, interact with and change local research (...) practices and results of higher education and research. Our aim is to question and trace the consequences of applying the slippery and difficult term interdisciplinarity in research. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish interdisciplinary research programme, where we observed and analysed practices of writing, publishing, collaboration and educational development in five different research projects. We show how the call for interdisciplinarity was mobilised in a way that rendered the incentives and motives behind the programme unclear. Furthermore, we argue that the absence of clear definitions and assessment criteria produced a dominant, all-inclusive, but vague, configuration of interdisciplinarity that affected the research outcome, and ultimately, promoted and reproduced the existing monodisciplinary research and power structures. (shrink)

Research on sustainability assurance is still in its beginnings. One of the key questions in this field that also is of the highest practical relevance is concerned with the quality of the assurance process. However, a common understanding of assurance quality and how it should be measured is still missing. We try to close this gap by building on the financial audit literature. We introduce a definition of assurance quality that comprises two key aspects: the depth of the assurance process (...) and the breadth of the assurance statement. Based on prior research, we hypothesize that a firm’s sustainability performance is related to the depth of the assurance process, while the type of the assurance provider, more precisely the affiliation to the accounting profession, is related to the breadth of the assurance statement. Results for a sample of 122 European firms reveal a negative relationship between sustainability performance and assurance process depth as well as between the affiliation to the accounting profession and assurance statement breadth. Thus, we find evidence that poor sustainability performers ask for in-depth assurance services, most likely as a means to enhance their internal sustainability-related processes and systems. Assurance providers that do not belong to the accounting profession in turn are associated with broader assurance statements. (shrink)

In this paper an approach to the exhaustive interpretation of answers is developed. It builds on a proposal brought forward by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984). We will use the close connection between their approach and McCarthy’s (1980, 1986) predicate circumscription and describe exhaustive interpretation as an instance of interpretation in minimal models, well-known from work on counterfactuals (see for instance Lewis (1973)). It is shown that by combining this approach with independent developments in semantics/pragmatics one can overcome certain limitations of (...) Groenenedijk and Stokhof’s (1984) proposal. In the last part of the paper we will provide a Gricean motivation for exhaustive interpretation building on work of Schulz (to appear) and van Rooij and Schulz (2004). (shrink)

Eusociality is the form of animal social organization with a reproductive division of labor, most prominently known from ants and bees. Here I ask the question why this enormously successful form of social organization is missing in the largest and most diverse group of vertebrates, the teleost fishes. I first briefly review the phylogenetic distribution and likely evolutionary origins of eusociality. Then, after an equally very brief review of the diverse life history strategies of teleosts, I conclude that it is (...) not the lack of evolutionary pre-adaptations which is keeping teleosts from becoming eusocial. Rather, I argue, that the absence of eusocial fish is caused by a number of differences between aquatic (chiefly marine) and terrestrial ecosystems: (1) Greater offspring dispersal in aquatic ecosystems reduces the role of kin-selection. (2) Lesser predictability of the environment at larger timescales in marine ecosystems disfavors eusociality. (3) A briefer impact of resource pulses in aquatic ecosystems will cause less evolutionary pressure towards cooperation, and eventually eusociality. Finally, I conclude by predicting that the most likely places to find eusocial fishes will be the deep-water regions of the ocean and the African rift lakes. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die These vertreten, daß die gegenwärtig herrschende liberal-egalitaristische idealistische Doktrin eine verzerrte Darstellung der liberalen politischen Ethik liefert. Diese idealistisch-theoretische Verzerrung kann erhebliche praktische Konsequenzen haben, insbesondere im Kontext des idealistisch-theoretischen Denkens über die Probleme globaler Gerechtigkeit. Aus einer globalen Perspektive betrachtet sind die idealistisch-theoretischen Verzerrungen der historisch entstandenen liberalen politischen Ethik in zweifacher Hinsicht gegeben. Zum einen überschätzt die liberal-egalitaristische idealistische Doktrin die substanzielle Reichweite der Universalisierungsanforderungen des Kontraktua-lismus. Zum anderen unterschätzt die Doktrin die Bindungen, (...) die liberal teleolo-gische Werte für die Verallgemeinbarkeit bedeuten. Der vorliegende Beitrag unterscheidet zwischen einer deontologischen und einer teleologischen Richtung innerhalb der idealistischen Doktrin. Außerdem werden die historisch erzeugten begrifflichen und substanziellen Bindungen innerhalb jeder der beiden Richtungen benannt, und es wird die These vertreten, daß global denkende liberale Egalitaristen diesen Bindungen ausweichen, a) indem sie die kontraktu-alistische Deontologie mit einer Naturrechts-Deontologie vermengen und b), indem sie die historische materialistische Konzeption eines aus liberaler Perspektive guten Lebens durch eine nicht-materialistische idealistisch-theoretische Variante ersetzen. Der Beitrag schließt mit der Frage, ob solche idealistisch-theoretischen Verzerrungen nicht möglicherweise die Propagierung einer politischen Ethik ermutigen könnten, die zumindest in bestimmter Hinsicht besonders ungeeignet ist, um als ein Modell für das Denken über globale Gerechtigkeit zu dienen. Wenn hier diese Bedenken erhoben werden, so bedeutet das nicht, in Abrede zu stellen, daß eine realistischer konzipierte liberale Ethik durchaus die einzige politisch lebensfähige, für diese Aufgabe verfügbare ist. The paper argues that currently dominant liberal-egalitarian ideal theory offers a distorted account of liberal political morality. These ideal-theoretical distortions may have grave practical consequences especially in the context of ideal-theoretical thinking about issues of global justice. Considered from a global perspective, ideal-theoretical distortions of historically evolved liberal political morality are twofold. First, liberal-egalitarian ideal theory overestimates the substantive reach of contractarianism"s universalisability requirements. Second, it underestimates the constraints upon universalisability imposed by liberal teleological values. The paper distinguishes between a deontological and a teleological strand within ideal theory. It specifies some of the historically engendered conceptual and substantive constraints within each strand and argues that global liberal-egalitarians evade these constraints a.) by conflating contractualist deontology with natural law deontology, and b.) by substituting the historically materialistic conception of the liberal good life with a non-materialistic ideal-theoretical variant. The paper concludes by asking whether such ideal theoretical distortions may not encourage the recommendation of a political morality that is at least in certain respect particularly ill-suited to serve as a model for thinking about global justice. Raising these worries is not to deny, however, that a more realistically conceived liberal morality may well be the only politically viable alternative available to this task. (shrink)

While appreciating Oblak’s call for and investment in more ecological research designs in psychology, I point out several aspects in Oblak’s own experimental setup that might themselves derive ….

I propose that a dishonest signaling system can be evolutionarily stable in eusocial animal societies if the amount of dishonesty is balanced by the chance of non-reproductive workers to advance to the reproductive caste in the future. I express this trade-off in a modified form of Hamilton’s rule, where I distinguish between the real and perceived cost of an altruistic act, and between the real and perceived genetic relatedness between colony members. Furthermore, I elaborate how the vertebrate neuromodulator oxytocin could (...) serve as an internal representation of the perceived cost of an altruistic act and of perceived relatedness. Behavioral and receptor localization data support this hypothesis. The encoding of cost and relatedness by oxytocin is likely integrated with a number of other functions related to social bonding. I conclude with a discussion of honesty in signaling, an outline of testable consequences of this hypothesis, and a comparison between vertebrate and insect eusociality. (shrink)

The current neurosciences contribute to the construction of gender/sex to a high degree. Moreover, the subject of gender/sex differences in cognitive abilities attracts an immense public interest. At the same time, the entanglement of gender and science has been shown in many theoretical and empirical analyses. Although the body of literature is very extensive and differentiated with regards to the dimensions of ‘neuroscience of gender’ and ‘gender in neuroscience’, the feeding back of these findings into the field of neuroscience remains (...) a desideratum. Especially, the question of how gender knowledge, i.e. insights from feminist theory on gender/sex and from gender and science studies on knowledge production, may be integrated and applied within the neurosciences has been strongly neglected. Presumably due to their epistemic culture and epistemological presuppositions, these critical engagements are conceived as externalist by critical scholars and neuroscientists alike. In this context, the question arises of how substantiated gender knowledge may be accounted for in neuroscientific research practice? The article outlines methodological considerations for a critical research agenda in the cognitive neurosciences. I present thoughts on how insights and expertise from gender and science studies can be taken into account in the neuroscientific practice of knowledge production. Starting from the assumption that changes in neuroscientific research practices are possible, my aim is to point out possibilities of integrating gender knowledge into the neurosciences. (shrink)

Welches Verhältnis besteht zwischen Wahrnehmung und Wahrnehmungsurteil? Handelt es sich auf der einen Seite um rein sinnliche Gehalte, welche sprachlich gar nicht ausgedrückt werden können? Oder sind es umgekehrt sprachliche Strukturen, die uns überhaupt erst etwas als etwas erkennen lassen? Beide Positionen verursachen ein Unbehagen.Katrin Nolte ist in dieser historisch weit ausgreifenden und zugleich klar systematisch konzipierten Untersuchung einem althergebrachten philosophischen Dogma auf der Spur, welches beiden Extrempositionen zugrunde liegt. Sie eröffnet mit der Aufgabe dieses Dogmas eine Perspektive, in (...) der sinnliche und sprachliche Gehalte als vermittelbare gedacht werden können, ohne dass ihre gegenseitige Souveränität in Frage gestellt werden muss. (shrink)

When it comes to improving the health of the general population, mHealth technologies with self-monitoring and intervention components hold a lot of promise. We argue, however, that due to various factors such as access, targeting, personal resources or incentives, self-monitoring applications run the risk of increasing health inequalities, thereby creating a problem of social justice. We review empirical evidence for “intervention-generated” inequalities, present arguments that self-monitoring applications are still morally acceptable, and develop approaches to avoid the promotion of health inequalities (...) through self-monitoring applications. (shrink)

ExcerptIn recent years, there has been a renewed interest in political theology that is not restricted to certain strands of political philosophy but concerns the humanities as a whole. Conferences and collections put to the fore the question of if and how our modern culture is to be understood in terms—however modified or displaced—of political theology.1 Some of the authors pursuing this question try to define new directions, along the lines of Jean-Luc Nancy or Claude Lefort, who present very different (...) and more positive notions of political theology than those that had previously been discussed with respect to Carl Schmitt,…. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Wie kann Gottes Gegenwart trotz ihrer Verborgenheit wahrgenommen werden? In dem folgenden Beitrag möchte ich zeigen, wie Simone Weil die Erfahrungen der Verborgenheit und der Abwesenheit Gottes als Signatur des Unglücks und der Entwurzelung der Menschen in der Moderne analysiert. Des Weiteren wird dargestellt, wie Simone Weil vor diesem Hintergrund mit einer kreuzestheologischen Denkfigur reflektiert, wie die Gottesliebe in besonderer Weise im Unglück verborgen anwesend sein kann, trotz Erfahrung der Abwesenheit Gottes. Hier schließt sich die erkenntnistheoretische Frage nach der (...) Wahrnehmbarkeit der verborgenen Gegenwart Gottes an. So soll ausgeführt werden, wie Simone Weil aufzeigt, wie durch ästhetische Formen der Schönheit und Ordnung der Welt, durch ethische Formen von Nächstenliebe und Freundschaft und durch die religiöse Formen in Liturgie und Gebet als höchster Form der Aufmerksamkeit die verborgen gegenwärtige Gottesliebe indirekt wahrgenommen werden kann. Dies spricht schließlich für eine andere Deutung der Verborgenheit Gottes als im sog. Verborgenheitsargument von J. L. Schellenberg, mit dem von der Verborgenheit auf die Nichtexistenz Gottes geschlossen wird. (shrink)

In this paper an approach to the exhaustive interpretation of answers is developed. It builds on a proposal brought forward by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984). We will use the close connection between their approach and McCarthy's (1980, 1986) predicate circumscription and describe exhaustive interpretation as an instance of interpretation in minimal models, well-known from work on counterfactuals (see for instance Lewis (1973)). It is shown that by combining this approach with independent developments in semantics/pragmatics one can overcome certain limitations of (...) Groenenedijk and Stokhof's (1984) proposal. In the last part of the paper we will provide a Gricean motivation for exhaustive interpretation building on work of Schulz (to appear) and van Rooij and Schulz (2004). (shrink)

This article focusses on the social and legal implications that blockchain technology brings about, not only due to its ideological framework, but also, and especially, due to the concept of law it inaugurates. Thus, this article claims, that, by interlocking technological and legal structures, blockchain technology initiates a profound displacement of legal symbolics and imaginaries. It shows how blockchain law, by emancipating itself from three essential dimensions of law—language, territory, and the body—implies a profound disruption of how we perceive law (...) and its legitimacy. Starting with an overview of the technological details of blockchain, the paper then addresses its ideological context and traces the underlying ideas, values and functions and their relation with—and impact on—the general perception of law and legal issues. By critically assessing the claim that blockchain will liberate the subject from any heteronymic constraints, this paper analyses to what extent this technology has social and legal implications that reach far beyond its virtual, purely blockchain-related scope of applications—and why this technology should matter to us all. (shrink)

The essay critically reviews two recent contributions to the debate on global justice made by Darrel Moellendorf and Thomas Pogge respectively. Given both authors’ acknowledgement of the substantial contributions which liberal economic practice currently makes to ever-increasing levels of global deprivation and injustice, can we continue to assume with confidence that liberal morality is capable of providing the solution? It is a central claim of the essay that both authors are able to sustain this optimistic assumption only because of their (...) abstraction of liberal morality from its statist political and competitive economic settings. Were these settings to be taken into account, some liberal values might be shown to be less universalisable than they are routinely assumed to be. In that case, we should not argue, implausibly, for the extension of these values to the global context, but should focus on their critical revision in the context of mature liberal societies’ domestic politics. (shrink)