Bis zum Ende leben. Überleben. Im Anderen. Dies ist das letzte große Thema, welches Ricœur beschäftigt hat. Die in dieser Ausgabe erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung vorgelegten Fragmente aus dem Nachlaß sind weniger eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Tod als mit dem Leben und Überleben. Es ist das große Trauma des 20. Jahrhunderts, jener, die die Vernichtungslager überlebt haben und die Jorge Semprun in seinem Buch "Schreiben oder Leben", mit dem Ricœur sich auseinandersetzt, als Wiedergänger bezeichnet, weder tot noch lebend, jene, die (...) scheinbar ihren eigenen Tod überlebt, sich selbst überlebt haben. Aber es steht auch für ein ganz persönliches Trauma, nämlich den Tod seiner Frau Simone, dessen Etappen Catherine Goldenstein im Nachwort skizziert. Der Gedanke der Trauer oder Trauerarbeit wird inspiriert von dieser Verlusterfahrung, dem Verlust eines geliebten Menschen. Beide Traumata halten einander dabei die Waage. Gegen den anonymen Massentod, dem kein Sinn mehr abzuringen ist, für den es keine wirkliche Trauerarbeit gibt, stellt sich der Verlust eines geliebten, einem nahestehenden Menschen. Das Bindeglied zwischen beiden stellt die Vorstellungs- oder Einbildungskraft dar. Sie ermöglicht eine Antizipation, eine Vergegenwärtigung sowie eine Anstelle-von-Substitution. Es ist die Antizipation des eigenen Todes in der Vergegenwärtigung der anderen Toten, an deren Stelle wir uns projizieren. (shrink)

Zusanznzenfassung – Das Buch von Alexander Wittenberg, « Bildung and Mathematik », ist ein Beitrag zu der aktuellen Diskussion über die geeignete Gestaltung des mathematischen Unterrichts auf den Mittelschulen, an welcher sich Wittenberg schon vordem mit verschiedenen Publikationen beteiligte Das Buch war als erster Teil eines umfassenderen Werkes gedacht, dessen Vollendung ihm leider durch seinen frühzeitigen Tod versagt wurde. Wittenberg setzt sich vor allem dafür ein, dass der Mathematikunterricht wie überhaupt der Unterricht an der Mittelschule nicht vornehmlich als Vorbereitung auf (...) das spätere Studium, sondern im Hinblick auf die Geistesbildung and Persönlichkeitsbildung der Schüler gestaltet werde. Speziell bezüglich der Mathematik ist es seine Absicht, zu zeigen, dass dieses Fach für eine solche Gestaltung besondere Möglichkeiten bietet. Seine Ausführungen darüber bestehen in dreierlei: 1. in der generellen Hervorhebung der für einen allgemeinbildenden Unterricht relevanten Charaktere der Mathematik; 2. in generellen Vorschlägen für die Anlage des Unterrichts, insbesondere demjenigen der «Themenkreismethodea»; 3. in der ausführlichen Beschreibung eines im Sinne seiner Direktiven gestalteten Lehrganges der elementaren Geometrie. Die Gestaltung ist allenthalben ausgerichtet auf die Entfaltung geistiger Selbständigkeit and Produktivität. In diesem Anliegen weiss Wittenberg sich einig mit den Bestrebungen, wie sie von manchen Forschern unserer Zeit, wie M. Wagenschein, G. Pólya, M. Wertheimer, A. N. Whitehead, verfochten werden.Im vorstehenden Artikel werden die Hauptgedanken dieses in seinen Ausführungen sehr eindrücklichen and an lehrreichen Bemerkungen sehr reichhaltigen Buches dargelegt; insbesondere wird der erwähnte, als Beispiel dienende Lehrgang, mit einigen kommentierenden Bemerkungen, vorgeführt. (shrink)

God alone is the true agreement of concept [Begriff ] and reality [Realität ]; all finite [endlichen] things involve some untruth [Unwahrheit], they have a concept and an existence [Existenz] which are incommensurable [unangemessen]. For this reason they inevitably go to ruin [zugrunde gehen], that the incommensurability [Unangemessenheit] of their concept and their existence may be evident [manifestiert]. The animal, as an individual, has its concept in the species [Gattung]; and its death [Tod] sets the species free from individuality [Einzelnheit]. (...) [§ 24, note 2]. (shrink)

"De venatione sapientiae" (entstanden 1463) nimmt unter den Werken des Cusanus (1401-1464) eine Sonderstellung ein, ist sie doch, ein Jahr vor seinem Tod verfaßt, so etwas wie sein philosophisches Testament. Das Werk nimmt seinen Ausgang von Diogenes Laertius' Lebensbeschreibungen der griechischen Philosophen, die Nikolaus beim Abfassen der venatio als Abschrift vor sich hatte - dies ist durch dortige Randbemerkungen belegt, die in die venatio eingegangen sind. Diese Randbemerkungen zeigen, unter welchem Gesichtspunkt Nikolaus die Geschichte der Philosophie betrachtete: Sie ist für (...) ihn die Geschichte menschlichen Ringens um Erkenntnis, und Erkenntnis ist für ihn in erster Linie Gotteserkenntnis. Nikolaus beschreibt drei Regionen und in ihnen zehn Felder (campi), in denen die philosophischen Jäger ihre Beute finden können. Einige dieser zehn Felder erinnern unmittelbar an Cusanusschriften, andere indirekt: "Das erste Feld nenne ich die belehrte Unwissenheit, das zweite das Können-Ist, das dritte das Nicht-Andere, das vierte das Feld des Lichtes, das fünfte das des Lobes, das sechste das Feld der Einheit, das siebte das der Gleichheit, das achte das Feld der Verknüpfung, das neunte das der Grenze, das zehnte das Feld der Ordnung". In den erwähnten drei Regionen wird die gesuchte Weisheit unterschiedlich angetroffen, in der ersten, wie sie in ewiger Weise ist, und als solche entzieht sie sich jeder menschlichen Erkenntnis und kann nicht adäquat benannt werden. In der zweiten Region wird die Weisheit in immerwährender Ähnlichkeit gefunden, und hier gibt es größtmögliche Annäherung an die Wahrheit als beständige Ähnlichkeit mit der ewigen Weisheit. In der dritten Region "leuchtet die Weisheit im zeitlichen Fluß der Ähnlichkeit von weitem auf"; die zeitliche Ähnlichkeit des intelligiblen Wahren (verum) ist 'verisimile', dem Wahren ähnlich. Die Kenntnisse der "Jagdzüge" antiker Philosophen nach Weisheit ordnet er nun in die Übersicht über das eigene Bemühen ein. Er zitiert die wichtigsten seiner philosophischen Schriften, weist ihnen ihren Platz in seinem Lebenswerk zu und geht ein weiteres Mal auf die "Jagd nach Weisheit". (shrink)

Heidegger, M. Andenken an Max Scheler.--Gadamer, H.-G. Max Scheler, der Verschwender.--Plessner, H. Erinnerungen an Max Scheler.--Kuhn, H. Max Scheler als Faust.--Dempf, A. Schelers System christlicher Geistphilosophie als Grundlage einer religiösen Erneuerung.--Scheler, M. Neun Briefe an Karl Muth.--Rombach, H. Die Erfahrung der Freiheit.--Landgrebe, L. Geschichtsphilosophische Perspektiven bei Scheler und Husserl.--Theunissen, M. Wettersturm und Stille.--Good, P. Anschauung und Sprache.--Welsch, W. Mit Scheler.--Avé-Lallement, E. Die phänomenologische Reduktion in der Philosophie Max Schelers.--Gehlen, A. Rückblick auf die Anthropologie Max Schelers.--Schoeps, H. J. Die Stellung des (...) Menschen im Kosmos.--Ströker, E. Der Tod im Denken Max Schelers.--Wyss, D. und Huppmann, G. Die Bedeutung Max Schelers für die Medizinische Anthropologie.--Lieber, H.-J. Bemerkungen zur Wissenssoziologie Max Schelers.--Fetscher, I. Max Schelers Auffassung von Krieg und Frieden.--Bochenski, J. M. Ist die Sprache Schelers in eine analytische übersetzbar? (shrink)

Bernard Schumacher (Hrsg.) Jean-Paul Sartre: Das Sein und das Nichts 2003. XII, 267 S. ISBN 978-3-05-003236-8 Klassiker Auslegen, Bd. 22 Sartre ist unbestritten eine herausragende Gestalt der zeitgenössischen Philosophie, dessen Werk "Das Sein und das Nichts" zu den Klassikern der philosophischen Literatur gehört. Als bedeutendster Philosoph der Nachkriegszeit hat Sartre eine ganze Generation von Denkern geprägt. Ungeachtet zahlreicher Versuche, ihn herabzuwürdigen, aller Verachtung, allem Neid über seinen Erfolg und den vielen Anfechtungen und leidenschaftlich geführten Debatten, die seine philosophischen Positionen (...) auslösten, zum Trotz, ist Sartre der französische Autor des XX. Jahrhunderts, der am meisten studiert wird. In seinem Buch, dem Hauptwerk des französischen Existenzialismus, eröffnet Sartre völlig neue, befreiende Einsichten über die menschliche Freiheit, über Gefühle wie Scham und Begehren, über den Tod. Er bringt die Philosophie zurück auf die Straße. Dennoch ist die mehr als tausend Seiten umfassende Analyse des legendären Denkers nicht ganz einfach zu lesen. Der nunmehr vorliegende kooperative Kommentar gibt mit 13 Originalbeiträgen einen spannenden Überblick über den Inhalt des Werks und dokumentiert zugleich unterschiedliche Perspektiven der internationalen Sartre-Forschung. (shrink)

Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur are well known for their accounts of history and the historical understanding of human life. Lesser known are their phenomenological accounts of death and the afterlife. Although their thoughts are available only in fragments, they show a peculiar theoretical richness, as their conceptions of the afterlife are connected to fundamental topics like history, intersubjectivity and memory. In my article, I will attempt to shed light on these fragments, to show how they are embedded in (...) already existing phenomenological theories of the afterlife such as Max Scheler’s essay Tod und Fortleben, and to trace their relation to each other. As I will try to show, Patočka and Ricoeur’s thoughts can offer an alternative formulation of the phenomenology of death that differs from Martin Heidegger’s analysis of death and human mortality in Being and Time. Such an alternative phenomenology of death would not so much focus on the authentic but rather on the intersubjective understanding of death, human mortality, and the afterlife. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Right presents us with a vision of bureaucratic paternalism that is designed to check the excesses of free markets set in motion by the triumph of natural-law thinking, which abstracted the principles of private property and subjective freedom from the institutions that had tamed them and situated them in a stable context. Against these excesses Hegel pits the agricultural estate, which has not succumbed to natural-law thinking; and a “universal estate” of bureaucrats who are educated in Hegel’s (...) philosophy itself, freeing them of the natural-law conflation of human needs with arbitrary and endlessly expanding preferences. Taught by Hegel to look after the needs of the organic whole that is society rather than the gratification of their own preferences, the task of the bureaucrats of the universal estate is to curb the tendency of free markets to produce the social preconditions for an alienated “rabble” to bring down the system. (shrink)

How does human agency relate to the good? According to a thesis with ancient pedigree, the connection is very tight. Known as “the Guise of the Good” (GG), it states that human action or motivation to act, of some special kind or another, is only possible insofar as the agent performs or is motivated to perform the act because of the good she sees in so acting. But how might agents see their actions as good? Recent research in moral psychology, (...) the philosophy of mind, and the cognitive sciences suggests that affective states may play a deep role in cognition and action as representations of value: for instance, pain may represent an injury as bad for one. This dissertation begins by defending just such an evaluationist account of unpleasant pain from an objection, and then develops and defends an affect-based version of GG. The first part of the dissertation (Chapter 2) considers a foundational problem for an evaluationist theory of affect. The theory is motivated by its ability to make sense of our aversive intentional responses to pain as responses to value, but the shooting the messenger objection charges that it is unable to make sense of our aversive behavior to the sensations themselves. I propose a solution to this problem on behalf of the evaluationist: when we introspect our pains we also turn our emotional distress inwards, enabling it to represent our pains as bad. One crucial question GG theorists must face is just what the good of GG is. Chapter 3 argues that, lest the thesis be too weak, it must hold that actions must appear to their agents to meet a standard of practical reason. The chapter then shows how the intelligibility motivation for GG can lead naturally to the view that the standards so presented are shared publicly. Chapter 4 argues against the standard understanding of GG in terms of essentially evaluative desires and contends that it should be replaced by hard-line affectivism, the view that GG is true because actions are based on affective states that represent there as being reason for those actions. (shrink)

A general conceptual framework for large-scale neocortical dynamics based on data from many laboratories is applied to a variety of experimental designs, spatial scales, and brain states. Partly distinct, but interacting local processes (e.g., neural networks) arise from functional segregation. Global processes arise from functional integration and can facilitate (top down) synchronous activity in remote cell groups that function simultaneously at several different spatial scales. Simultaneous local processes may help drive (bottom up) macroscopic global dynamics observed with electroencephalography (EEG) or (...) magnetoencephalography (MEG). A local/global dynamic theory that is consistent with EEG data and the proposed conceptual framework is outlined. This theory is neutral about properties of neural networks embedded in macroscopic fields, but its global component makes several qualitative and semiquantitative predictions about EEG measures of traveling and standing wave phenomena. A more general “metatheory” suggests what large-scale quantitative theories of neocortical dynamics may be like when more accurate treatment of local and nonlinear effects is achieved. The theory describes the dynamics of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic action fields. EEG and MEG provide large-scale estimates of modulation of these synaptic fields around background levels. Brain states are determined by neuromodulatory control parameters. Purely local states are dominated by local feedback gains and rise and decay times of postsynaptic potentials. Dominant local frequencies vary with brain region. Other states are purely global, with moderate to high coherence over large distances. Multiple global mode frequencies arise from a combination of delays in corticocortical axons and neocortical boundary conditions. Global frequencies are identical in all cortical regions, but most states involve dynamic interactions between local networks and the global system. EEG frequencies may involve a “matching” of local resonant frequencies with one or more of the many, closely spaced global frequencies. Key Words: binding problem; cell assemblies; coherence; EEG; limit cycles; neocortical dynamics; pacemakers; phase locking; spatial scale; standing waves; synchronization. Footnotes1 The relationship between the synaptic action fields proposed in the target article and cell assemblies is clarified with Figure R1 (p. 416) of the Response. (This figure was not available to Commentators. (shrink)

Recent work in the history of philosophy of science details the Kantianism of philosophers often thought opposed to one another, e.g., Hans Reichenbach, C.I. Lewis, Rudolf Carnap, and Thomas Kuhn. Historians of philosophy of science in the last two decades have been particularly interested in the Kantianism of Reichenbach, Carnap, and Kuhn, and more recently, of Lewis. While recent historical work focuses on recovering the threatened-to-be-forgotten Kantian themes of early twentieth-century philosophy of science, we should not elide the differences between (...) the Kantian strands running throughout this work. In this paper, I disentangle a few of these strands in the work of Reichenbach and Lewis focusing especially on their theories of relativized, constitutive a priori principles in empirical knowledge. In particular, I highlight three related differences between Reichenbach and Lewis concerning their motivations in analyzing scientific knowledge and scientific practice, their differing conceptions of constitutivity, and their relativization of constitutive a priori principles. In light of these differences, I argue Lewis’s Kantianism is more similar to Kuhn’s Kantianism than Reichenbach’s, and so might be of more contemporary relevance to social and practice-based approaches to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

An exploration of the consequences of various ideas in the thought of John Calvin, and the influence of his ideas on later theologians. The emphasis is on philosophical ideas within Calvin's theology, dealing in turn with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues. Helm provides a fresh perspective on Calvin's theological context and legacy.

No detailed description available for "Platone".

What Numbers Could Not Be’) that an adequate account of the numbers and our arithmetic practice must satisfy not only the conditions usually recognized to be necessary: (a) identify some w-sequence as the numbers, and (b) correctly characterize the cardinality relation that relates a set to a member of that sequence as its cardinal number—it must also satisfy a third condition: the ‘<’ of the sequence must be recursive. This paper argues that adding this further condition was a mistake—any w-sequence (...) would do, no matter how undecidable its ‘<’ relation. (shrink)

Finds solutions to the world's greatest challenge climate change in global ethicsNew for this editionIncludes recent climate diplomacy and international agreementsPresents current data and information on climate scienceUpdated statistics; e.g. in chapters and sections that look at poverty and wealthExpanded learning guide for students and lecturersGlobal Ethics and Climate Change combines the science of climate change with ethical critique to expose its impact, the increasing intensity of dangerous trends particularly growing global affluence, material consumption and pollution and the intensifying moral (...) dimensions of changes to the environment. It shows you that global justice is vital to mitigating climate change. All of the author's royalties are being paid directly to the charity Oxfam. (shrink)

Supporters of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy have largely shied away from relating his logic to modern symbolic or mathematical approaches. While it has predominantly been the non-Greek discipline of algebra that has informed modern mathematical logic, philosopher Paul Redding argues that the approaches of Plato and Aristotle to logic were deeply shaped by the arithmetic and geometry of classical Greek culture. And by ignoring the fact that Hegel's logic also has this deep mathematical dimension, conventional Hegelians have missed some of (...) Hegel's greatest insights. In Conceptual Harmonies, Redding develops an account of Hegel's logic against a classical and modern historical background that is rarely considered. He stresses Hegel's attention to the Platonic background of Aristotle's original syllogistic and beyond. He then links these Platonic elements to Leibniz's modern revitalization of the logical tradition and then to new forms of algebraic geometry emerging in Hegel's lifetime. Redding thereby reestablishes aspects of Hegel's philosophy that are essential if Hegel is to be taken as a thinker relevant not only to contemporary philosophy, but also to current philosophical conceptions of logic. (shrink)

Exploring the 'roads less travelled', MacDonald continues his monumental essay in the history of ideas. The history of heterodox ideas about the concept of mind takes the reader from the earliest records about human nature in Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Near East, and the Zoroastrian religion, through the secret teachings in the Hermetic and Gnostic scriptures, and into the transformation of ideas about the mind, soul and spirit in the late antique and early medieval epochs. These transitions include discussion of (...) the influence of Central Asian shamanism, Manichean ideas about the soul in light and darkness, and Neoplatonic theurgy, 'working-on-god-within'. Sections on the medieval period are concerned with the rediscovery of magical practices and occult doctrines from Roger Bacon to Francis Bacon, the adaptation of Neoplatonic and esoteric ideas in the medieval Christian mystics, and the survival of these ideas mixed with natural science in the works of von Helmont, Leibniz and Goethe. The book concludes with an investigation of the many forms of dualism in accounts of the human mind and soul, and the concept of dual-life which underpins our aspiration to understand how humans could have an immortal nature like the gods. (shrink)

Der Beitrag vertritt die These, dass die Fröhlichen Wissenschaft von einer Metaphorik der Seefahrt strukturiert wird: Sie liefert Nietzsche die Dramaturgie zur Entwicklung der zentralen Themen seines Buches. Zunächst wirft der Aufsatz im Anschluss an Hans Blumenberg und Manfred Frank einen Blick auf die Meerfahrt als Topos der Daseinbeschreibung insbesondere der romantischen Literatur. Dann zeigt er auf, wie Nietzsche den "Tod Gottes" und die Figur des "Schaffenden", die Kritik der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis und des traditionalen Subjektbegriffs mithlife der Seefahrtsmetaphorik entfaltet. Abschließend (...) werden noch zwei Strategien betrachtet, die Nietzsche zur Überwindung des Subjekts verfolgt, und mit Paul de Man und Michel Foucault als 'rhetorische' und 'somatische' charakterisiert.The following essay argues that the Gay Science is structured through the imagery of a sea voyage. This imagery provides the dramaturgy for the development of the book's central themes. In its first part, the essay examines, with reference to Hans Blumenberg and Manfred Frank, the sea voyage as a topos for the description of the human condition, as it can be found particularly in the literature of the Romantic period. The essay then shows how Nietzsche uses the metaphor of the sea voyage to unfold the theme of the "death of God" and the figure of the "creator", to question the objectivity to scientific knowledge and to criticize the traditional concept of the subject. It finally discusses the two main strategies Nietzsche operates to overcome the Cartesian subject and characterizes them, with reference to Paul de Man and Michael Foucault, as 'rhetorical' and 'somatic'. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses three aspects of Karen Bennett’s theory of building relations, as articulated in her book Making Things Up: the inclusion of causation among the building relations, the denial that non-fundamental things add to the complexity of a theory, and the claim that building relations are one-sided relations that are themselves built. Section 1 gives a brief overview. Section 2 seeks to motivate a distinction between building relations and making relations, and questions whether the deep structural similarities among (...) building relations has the methodological consequences that Bennett claims. Section 3 argues against the claim that considerations of ontological simplicity in theory choice are restricted to non-fundamental entities. Section 4 raises objections to the idea of a one-sided building relation. (shrink)

This book offers an up-to-date overview of the research on philosophy of mathematics education, one of the most important and relevant areas of theory. The contributions analyse, question, challenge, and critique the claims of mathematics education practice, policy, theory and research, offering ways forward for new and better solutions. The book poses basic questions, including: What are our aims of teaching and learning mathematics? What is mathematics anyway? How is mathematics related to society in the 21st century? How do students (...) learn mathematics? What have we learnt about mathematics teaching? Applied philosophy can help to answer these and other fundamental questions, and only through an in-depth analysis can the practice of the teaching and learning of mathematics be improved. The book addresses important themes, such as critical mathematics education, the traditional role of mathematics in schools during the current unprecedented political, social, and environmental crises, and the way in which the teaching and learning of mathematics can better serve social justice and make the world a better place for the future. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 2, Page 146-160, April 2022.

What is a machine? What distinguishes a machine from a tool or a simple instrument—for example, a knife, a hammer, an ax, or a pencil? Tools are technical objects that can be seen as extending or continuing a bodily action. They augment its efficiency. To push, hit, tear, pierce, crush, grasp, or throw: tools and simple instruments allow us to do better what, to some extent, we can already do without them. They enhance our performance, make the action easier, more (...) precise, they push back the limits of what we can do. What is done with difficulty and imperfectly with our bare hands, teeth, or nails can be done better and more easily using a tool, or with the help of a stone, a leaf, a stick, or of any natural object... (shrink)

Democratic institutions are under pressure as was also the case at the end of the sixties. But where in those days the critique was left-liberal and seeking to extend democracy, now the discomfort with democracy has concervative-populist overtones, related to the reaffirmation of exclusive, mostly national, identities. The populist critique of liberal achievements and institutions has raised questions of ethnicity and identity. The historical tension between national identiy and parliamentary democracy offers a broader frame against which the emergence of nationalist (...) and populist movements, like the Republikaner, Front National and the Vlaams Blok can be understood. These considerations lead to some important questions : is a parlementary democracy in the European Union possible? Does democracy need a specific cultural society? If so, European unification would break the historical link between parliamentery democracy and the nation, without realizing a democracy on a higher multi-national level. Those who want to defend the liberal democracy against the challenge of populist and nationalist political movements, will need to study more closely the cultural foundations of democracy. (shrink)

The global food system exhibits dizzying complexity, with interaction among social, economic, biological, and technological factors. Opposition to the first generation of plants and animals transformed through rDNA-enabled gene transfer has been a signature episode in resistance to the forces of industrialization and globalization in the food system. Yet agricultural scientists continue to tout gene technology as an essential component in meeting future global food needs. An ethical analysis of the debate over gene technologies reveals the details that matter. On (...) the one hand, alternative regimes for institutionalizing gene technology could mitigate injustices suffered by politically marginalized and economically disadvantaged actors in the food system, especially smallholding farmers in less industrialized economies. On the other hand, GMO opposition has been singularly effective in mobilizing citizens of affluent countries against policies and practices that lie at the heart of these same injustices. As part of the roundtable, “Ethics and the Future of the Global Food System,” this essay argues that charting a middle course that realizes the benefits of gene technology while blocking its use in the perpetration of unjust harms may require a more detailed grasp of intricacies in the food system than even motivated bystanders are willing to develop. (shrink)

„Weltanschauung“ ist ein Schlüsselbegriff philosophischer Diskurse der Zeit um 1900, der weit über den Bereich der Philosophie hinausreicht und beansprucht, umfassende kulturelle Phänomene beschreiben und analysieren zu können. Simmel verwendet insbesondere den eng verwandten Begriff der „Lebensanschauung“, und behandelt unter diesem Begriff immer wieder die für ihn zentralen Bezugsfiguren Kant und Goethe. Simmels eigene Perspektive auf diese Begriffe wird deutlich, wenn er die Einheitsfunktion einer Welt- bzw. Lebensanschauung verbindet mit einer spannungsvollen Komplexität der hiermit bezeichneten kulturell-philosophischen Produkte und Haltungen. Insbesondere (...) bieten ihm diese Begriffe die Möglichkeit, ein nicht-hierarchisierendes Nebeneinanderstehen unterschiedlicher Positionen und Bedeutungselemente methodologisch zu unterbauen und hiermit seinen Wahrheitsbegriff, angesichts relativistischer Herausforderungen, präziser zu fassen. (shrink)

The aim of appraisal theory in the psychology of emotion is to identify the features of the emotion-eliciting situation that lead to the production of one emotion rather than another². A model of emotional appraisal takes the form of a set of dimensions against which potentially emotion-eliciting situations are assessed. The dimensions of the emotion hyperspace might include, for example, whether the eliciting situation fulfills or frustrates the subject’s goals or whether an actor in the eliciting situation has violated a (...) norm. Richard Lazarus’s well-known model of emotional appraisal has six dimensions, and the regions of the resulting hyperspace that correspond to particular emotions are summarized by Lazarus as the ‘core relational themes’ of those emotions. Anger, for examples, is elicited by the core relational theme ‘a demeaning offence against me and mine’, sadness by ‘having experienced an irrevocable loss’ and guilt by ‘having transgressed a moral imperative’ (Lazarus, 1991). (shrink)

The idea of artificial intelligence implies the existence of a form of intelligence that is “natural,” or at least not artificial. The problem is that intelligence, whether “natural” or “artificial,” is not well defined: it is hard to say what, exactly, is or constitutes intelligence. This difficulty makes it impossible to measure human intelligence against artificial intelligence on a unique scale. It does not, however, prevent us from comparing them; rather, it changes the sense and meaning of such comparisons. Comparing (...) artificial intelligence with human intelligence could allow us to understand both forms better. This paper thus aims to compare and distinguish these two forms of intelligence, focusing on three issues: forms of embodiment, autonomy and judgment. Doing so, I argue, should enable us to have a better view of the promises and limitations of present-day artificial intelligence, along with its benefits and dangers and the place we should make for it in our culture and society. (shrink)

Shared Decision-Making is a widely accepted model of the physician–patient relationship providing an ethical environment in which physician beneficence and patient autonomy are respected. It acknowledges the moral responsibility of physician and patient by promoting a deliberative collaboration in which their individual expertise—complementary in nature, equal in importance—is emphasized, and personal values and preferences respected. Its goal coincides with Pellegrino and Thomasma’s proximate end of medicine, that is, a technically correct and morally good healing decision for and with a particular (...) patient. We argue that by perfecting the intellectual ability to apprehend the complexity of clinical situations, and through a perfection of the application of the first principles of practical reason, prudence is able to point toward the right and good shared medical decision. A prudent shared medical decision is therefore always in keeping with the kind of person the physician and the patient have chosen to be. (shrink)

The purported failures of ergodic theory are shown to arise from misconception of the functions served by scientific explanation. In fact, the predictive failures of ergodic theory are precisely its points of greatest physical utility, where genuinely new knowledge about actual physical systems can be obtained, once the links between explanation and reconstructive estimation are recognized.