Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

In the 1950s Peter Strawson analyzed the works of Bertrand Russell regarding fundamental definitions of meaning, sentences and truth value. The debate between them uncovered many issues that Fregean, truth-functional logics have when defining concepts from natural language. To reconcile the Fregean paradigm with the reality of language use, Strawson proposed the concept of presuppositions  necessary preconditions for the truth of other sentences. We believe that his proposition stemmed primarily from the problem caused by the fact that Fregean, truth-functional (...) logics are not sensitive to the contents of sentences and reduce them to their logical values. This is bound to produce a mismatch between the way logic models reasoning and the way language users reason since real-life reasoning is performed on the contents of sentences and not their logical values. Inspired by the ideas of Strawson and Roman Suszko, who initiated the paradigm of non-Fregean logics, we propose a new solution to the debate between Strawson and Russell. In our solution, the content implication connective is used to express content relations between sentences. We move away from truth and falsehood as the sole two semantic correlates of sentences and instead work in a system where the contents of sentences are their semantic correlates. (shrink)

Psychosocial coping resources and health among Germans and Poles Culture has a substantial impact on mechanism of coping with stress and related health outcomes. We proposed a model emphasizing the mediating role of coping resources and competences in the relationship between controllability of demands in professional/educational life and health in the cross-cultural context. The model is based on the transactional model of stress. 595 participants from East Germany, West Germany and Poland completed: Sense of Coherence Scale SOC-9, Self-Esteem Scale, Social (...) Support Scale, Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, Proactive Coping Inventory, Scale of Demands in Professional Life, Brief Stress Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Mental Health Questionnaire. The results have shown the general cross-cultural validity of the proposed mediational model but also indicated some cultural differences in the determinants of health. Germans had higher self-esteem and social support. Poles had higher self-efficacy and used proactive coping strategies more often. Self-esteem was the strongest predictor of mental health in both nations. We discussed the results within a broad interpretive framework of social transitions. (shrink)

Marc-Wogau, K. Mina filosofiska fördomar.--Gustafsson, L. Om klassifikation.--Kanger, S. Några synpunkter på begreppet inflytande.--Torstendahl, R. Minikrav, optimumnormer och paradigm i historisk vetenskap.--Lagerberg, D. Punktkommentarer till dialektiken.--Nordenfeldt, L. Om olika former av interaktion.--Puterman, Z. An indeterminist interpretation of Marx's historical determinism.--Carls, R. Kunskap och frihet.--Andersson, J. S. Some notions of pragmatic implication.--Tönisson, I. A preliminary study of interpreting K[subscript x]ø¹.--Bergström, L. Vilken handlingsutilitarism är den riktiga?--Alfredsson, T. Kärlekskoefficienter.--Segerberg, K. The assignment problem as a problem of social choice.--Åqvist, L. En tidslogisk variant (...) av Morgenstjärneparadoxen. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

The Chinese parallel to the Pali-Kutadantasutta marks one of the major turning points in Old Indian history of ideas: the transition from magic to ethics. In this sermon, the Buddha rejects the Vedic animal sacrifice and re-interprets it according to Buddhist ethics. He preaches sacrifices in a new sense of the word: the sacrifice of giving alms to Buddhist monks, or, even better, of building monasteries, of converting to Buddhism as a Buddhist layman, of obeying the five Buddhist rules for (...) laymen, or - finally and most meritorious - becoming a Buddhist monk. In Beginnings of Buddhist Ethics, Konrad Meisig translates the Buddhist Chinese text for the first time and contrasts it in synopsis with the Pali. The text is given in the original characters along with the Pinyin transcription. The text-critical introduction deals with the variae lectiones both of the Chinese and the Pali; the final analysis focuses on the literary stratification and criticism of forms, thus reconstructing the archetypical nucleus of the Kutadantasutta."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

Konrad Feiereis (1931-2012) hat mit Glaubenden wie Nichtglaubenden über Religion und Gesellschaft diskutiert. Der Christliche Philosoph verfügte über die Gabe, selbst im kämpferischen Atheisten den suchenden Anderen, Nachbarn und Dialogpartner zu erkennen - dabei entwickelte er im Weltanschauungsstaat DDR herausragende hermeneutische Fähigkeiten. Die Herausgeber möchten an diesen bedeutenden katholischen Intellektuellen erinnern und laden dazu ein, Feiereis in seinen Texten zu begegnen.

This article examines some selected ethical issues in human space missions including human missions to Mars, particularly the idea of a space refuge, the scientific value of space exploration, and the possibility of human gene editing for deep-space travel. Each of these issues may be used either to support or to criticize human space missions. We conclude that while these issues are complex and context-dependent, there appear to be no overwhelming obstacles such as cost effectiveness, threats to human life or (...) protection of pristine space objects, to sending humans to space and to colonize space. The article argues for the rationality of the idea of a space refuge and the defensibility of the idea of human enhancement applied to future deep-space astronauts. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 2 Seiten: 919-942.

This article presents an empirical examination of the consequences of the virtual entailment principle proposed by Jean Buridan to resolve the Liar paradox. This principle states that every sentence in natural language implicitly asserts its own truth. Adopting this principle means that the Liar sentence is not paradoxical but false, because its content is contradictory to what is virtually implied. As a result, humans should perceive the Liar sentence the same way as any other false sentence. This solution to the (...) Liar paradox received criticism for making ad hoc claims about the natural language. However, thanks to modern advancements in psychophysiology, it became possible to empirically investigate if the human brain really perceives the Liar sentence like a false sentence. We designed and conducted an experiment to examine brain activity in response to true sentences, false sentences and self-referential sentences. Our results provide support for the Buridan’s hypothesis and show that the Liar sentence is processed by the human brain identically to false sentences, while the Truthteller sentence is perceived identically to true sentences. This agrees with predictions derived from the virtual entailment principle and supports the idea that humans think with the logic of truth—a logic for which the truth is a designated value of its adequate semantics. (shrink)

The creation of paraconsistent logics have expanded the boundaries of formal logic by introducing coherent systems that tolerate contradictions without triviality. Thanks to their novel approach and rigorous formalization they have already found many applications in computer science, linguistics and mathematics. As a natural next step, some philosophers have also tried to answer the question if human everyday reasoning could be accurately modelled with paraconsistent logics. The purpose of this article is to argue against the notion that human reasoning is (...) paraconsistent. Numerous findings in the area of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience go against the hypothesis that humans tolerate contradictions in their inferences. Humans experience severe stress and confusion when confronted with contradictions. Experiments on the ways in which humans process contradictions point out that the first thing humans do is remove or modify one of the contradictory statements. From an evolutionary perspective, contradiction is useless and even more dangerous than lack of information because it takes up resources to process. Furthermore, it appears that when logicians, anthropologists or psychologists provide examples of contradictions in human culture and behaviour, their examples very rarely take the form of: \\). Instead, they are often conditional statements, probabilistic judgments, metaphors or seemingly incompatible beliefs. At different points in time humans are definitely able to hold contradictory beliefs, but within one reasoning leading to a particular behaviour, contradiction is never tolerated. (shrink)

Kant shows that a fundamental theory of normativity and morality can give neither an explanation nor an explication of normativity, but can only articulate and render explicit its origin. It can do so by indicating the place or topos and the turn or trope of its originating. According to Kant, the topos of normativity is the will qua practical reason and its trope is the general, typically instrumental use of this reason, i.e. reflection. The trope of the origin of morality (...) is autonomy, i.e. practical reason turning on itself and thus becoming pure practical reason, thereby establishing its own form as law: the categorical imperative. Consequently, fundamental ethics serves two functions : formally, it provides evidence for the originality or authenticity of morality; materially, it gives a criteriological principle for the content of morality. The article argues that Kant was right in his view of the foundation of ethics, but was wrong in the manner in which he met the requirements thus established. The topos of normativity and, consequently, of morality cannot be reason, but must be consciousness or, more precisely, knowledge de se; and its fundamental trope cannot be reflection, but must be what can be described as a conversion of consciousness. This conversion can be identified with philein in the sense of Aristotle. It has four different aspects: desire, cognition, benevolence, and recognition. When philein is reciprocal and lived, philia ensues. Friendship is then described as the topos of the origin of Normativity and Morality. (shrink)

Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write beautifully. He did more than any other person to establish and popularize the study of how animals behave, receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. King Solomon's Ring , the book which brought him worldwide recognition, (...) is a delightful treasury of observations and insights into the lives of all sorts of creatures, from jackdaws and water-shrews to dogs, cats and even wolves. Charmingly illustrated by Lorenz himself, this book is a wonderfully written introduction to the world of our furred and feathered friends, a world which often provides an uncanny resemblance to our own. A must for any animal-lover! (shrink)

The book is the first formulation of a meta-philosophical scheme rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm. The latter views subjects capable of cognition and experience as living, embodied creatures coupled with their environments. On the other hand, the emergence of experimental philosophy has given rise to a new context in which philosophers have begun to search for a more thorough definition of philosophical competence. The time is ripe for these two trends to join their efforts. Therefore, the book discusses what (...) it means for a human being thought of as a living subject to pursue philosophy. In this context, in contrast to the existing literature, philosophical competence must not be conflated with competence in philosophy. The former is a skill or attitude. The book refers to this peculiar attitude as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. (shrink)

While humans have made enormous progress in the exploration and exploitation of Earth, exploration of outer space remains beyond current human capabilities. The principal challenges lie in current space technology and engineering which includes the protection of astronauts from the hazards of working and living in the space environment. These challenges may lead to a paradoxical situation where progress in space technology and the ability to ensure acceptable risk/benefit for human space exploration becomes dissociated and the rate of scientific discovery (...) declines. In this paper, we discuss the predominant challenges of the space environment for human health and argue that development and deployment of a human enhancement policy, initially confined to astronauts – for the purpose of future human space programmes is a rational solution to these challenges. (shrink)

Kant did not explain the method of his foundation of ethics expressly. However, we can comprehend it as the demonstration of the originality of morality. For morality cannot be derived from anything non-moral – such a relation of derivation would destroy it. Therefore, there cannot be a justification or proof of morality in the strong sense, there can only be a “groundwork”, as the term “Grundlegung” is normally translated in English. This groundwork or grounding consists in disclosing the place or (...) topos and the turn or trope of its originating. According to Kant, the first is the will as practical reason; the latter is the turn of the will towards itself as autonomy. The result of such groundwork is, first, the evidence of the authenticity of morality and, hence, its unconditional validity – since such original validity is not conditioned on anything extra-moral. Second, we get a normative criterion for the contents of morality, which in Kant takes the form of the Categorical Imperative. The article seeks to defend the view that there is no alternative to Kant’s method of the foundation of ethics. However, by describing this method in a purely formal way, the author aims to open up thepossibility to implement it in another way and with other results than Kant does. (shrink)

Space philosophy offers rich insights in the future and is already well‐developed new branch of philosophy. However, space philosophers still do not pay much attention to a number of bioethical issues that may occur in space. This paper aims to introduce space bioethics, as a new branch in space philosophy, space ethics and space policy, to the philosophical and bioethical discourse. The basic issues discussed in space bioethics include—but are not limited to—human reproduction in space and human enhancement for space. (...) This paper concludes that the new space bioethics should be a feminist new bioethics that is free from many of the historical biases associated with a male‐centred perspective in philosophy and bioethics. Bioethical issues in space have also impact on future political decisions related to objectives and nature of space missions. (shrink)

Since some time the metaphor of logical space has been used to open new approaches to Hegel’s “Science of Logic”. Frequently it is noticed that in such an interpretation logical space must be understood as dynamic. However, as far as I can see, nobody has done yet the step to introduce the concept of logical time into the discussion, even though this step seems to suggest itself. The following contribution seeks to develop this thought and arrives at some new conceptions, (...) such as the curvature of logical space, logical actuality and semantic present, which may seem strange at first sight, but which follow consistently from the explication of the fundamental idea. The first aim in doing this is to broaden our conceptual repertoire do deal with Hegel’s Logic. This may open new perspectives of interpretation which may prove inspiring. Secondarily, the article also defends a systematic thesis which stands on its own and lays claim to truth. This claim goes far beyond a mere interpretation of Hegel and implies a fundamental critique of his philosophy. The comprehension of logical time-space leads to the requirement of logical chance event – and not only real chance. This goes against Hegel claim to absolute necessity in the dialectical development of his Logic and leads to a new philosophic comprehension of logic as such. (shrink)