Weltschmerz is a study of the pessimism that dominated German philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Pessimism was essentially the theory that life is not worth living, and was introduced into German philosophy by Schopenhauer. Frederick C. Beiser examines the intense and long controversy that arose from Schopenhauer's pessimism, which changed the agenda of philosophy in Germany away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life. He examines (...) the major defenders of pessimism and its chief critics, especially Eugen Dühring and the neo-Kantians. The pessimism dispute of the second half of the century has been largely ignored in secondary literature and this book is a first attempt since the 1880s to re-examine it and to analyze the important philosophical issues raised by it. The dispute concerned the most fundamental philosophical issue of them all: whether life is worth living. (shrink)

Examines the life and thought of the spiritual writer who fought in the Spanish Civil War, journeyed to Germany during the ascent of the Nazis, and worked to establish an immediate link between Christian and Greek thought.

Frederick Beiser continues to unfold the German philosophical tradition, refusing to let a static and narrowly construed canon of "big names" obscure important philosophical debates in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany. Weltschmerz focuses on the pessimism controversy, the debate over "the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be".The most important philosopher in the book is Arthur Schopenhauer. Chapters 1–4 are devoted to Schopenhauer's legacy, metaphysics, (...) pessimism, and "the illusion of redemption." Chapter 1 lays out important information about Schopenhauer's central role in German philosophy in the latter half of the... (shrink)

In the Germany of the 1860s and 1870s, the problem of the value of life was urgently debated, as a consequence of the two culture-defining systems of thought that had risen to prominence in those decades—Schopenhauerian Weltschmerz and the theory of evolution—and the degree to which they could be reconciled. On one hand, the struggle for existence affirmed the pessimistic inference as to the suffering and meaninglessness of the cosmos; on the other, it appeared to promise moral and material improvement (...) in human affairs. This article reconstructs the historical connections between the emergence of pessimism and Darwinism, most clearly represented by the work of Eduard von Hartmann, and it argues that Nietzsche’s programmatic statements on life, culture, and pessimism, from the Untimely Meditations on, are best understood in light of this context and his engagement with Hartmann’s writings. (shrink)

One of the greatest philosophical disputes in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century concerned the value of life. Following Arthur Schopenhauer, numerous philosophers sought to defend the provocative view that life is not worth living. A persistent objection to pessimism is that it is not really a philosophical theory at all, but rather a psychological state; a mood or disposition which is the product of socio-economic circumstance. A developed and influential version of this view was advanced (...) in the 1870s by the English psychologist James Sully. Yet, as important as Sully's critique was for the pessimism dispute, it has been almost entirely overlooked in the history of philosophy. With some growing recent attention to nineteenth-century pessimism, this paper aims to reconstruct Sully's view, and what I argue is his primary argument for it in terms of the best explanation for an alleged historical correlation between pessimistic belief and social hardship in the form of frustrated ideals. The paper then presents and analyses some challenges to this argument, some of which are argued to have been at least partially anticipated in the nineteenth-century by the likes of Schopenhauer and Olga Plümacher. (shrink)

One of the greatest philosophical disputes in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century concerned the value of life. Following Arthur Schopenhauer, numerous philosophers sought to defend the provocative view that life is not worth living. A persistent objection to pessimism is that it is not really a philosophical theory at all, but rather a psychological state; a mood or disposition which is the product of socio-economic circumstance. A developed and influential version of this view was advanced (...) in the 1870s by the English psychologist James Sully. Yet, as important as Sully's critique was for the pessimism dispute, it has been almost entirely overlooked in the history of philosophy. With some growing recent attention to nineteenth-century pessimism, this paper aims to reconstruct Sully's view, and what I argue is his primary argument for it in terms of the best explanation for an alleged historical correlation between pessimistic belief and social hardship in the form of frustrated ideals. The paper then presents and analyses some challenges to this argument, some of which are argued to have been at least partially anticipated in the nineteenth-century by the likes of Schopenhauer and Olga Plümacher. (shrink)

One of the greatest philosophical disputes in Germany in the latter half of the 19th century concerned the value of life. Following Arthur Schopenhauer, numerous philosophers sought to defend the provocative view that life is not worth living. A persistent objection to pessimism is that it is not really a philosophical theory at all, but rather a psychological state; a mood or disposition which is the product of socio-economic circumstance. A developed and influential version of this view was advanced (...) in the 1870’s by the English psychologist James Sully. Yet, as important as Sully’s critique was for the pessimism dispute, it has been almost entirely overlooked in the history of philosophy. With some growing recent attention to 19th century pessimism, this paper aims to reconstruct Sully’s view, and what I argue is his primary argument for it in terms of the best explanation for an alleged historical correlation between pessimistic belief and social hardship in the form of frustrated ideals. The paper then presents and analyses some challenges to this argument, some of which are argued to have been at least partially anticipated in the 19th century by the likes of Schopenhauer and Olga Plümacher. (shrink)

This collection of essays focuses on Weber's political ideology as well as his political sociology. This interdisciplinary work draws upon the expertise of a number of writers and challenges major schools of thought on Weber. In the first section on ideology, scholars question whether Weber's political predictions were based on a realistic appraisal of social development or if his objectivity was compromised by events in Weimar Germany. They then address Weber's attitudes toward socialism in light of contemporary sociology and his (...) early writings. Part two examines Weber's theory: the concept of rationalization; ideas about charisma; and the decline of charisma in light of the growing role of the media. A study of Weber's analysis of the 1917 events in Russia concludes the volume. (shrink)

In 1872, Emil du Bois-Reymond delivered an astonishing lecture entitled “The Limits of Science” at a Congress of German Scientists and Physicians in Leipzig. No stranger to polemic and bellicose oratory, and possessing among his generation of physiologists unmatched rhetorical abilities, du Bois-Reymond had already attracted much public recognition and acclaim for his denigration of French culture at a time when belligerence and competition between Prussia and France had peaked. Yet, the topic of his 1872 lecture had a signal significance (...) which not only would inform du Bois-Reymond’s subsequent public lectures on literature, art, civilization and science, and the place of Darwin in the modern world, but would also elaborate a mechanistic and fatalistic view of consciousness, one that denied scientific understanding of the phenomenon as even obtainable. Controversy exploded—and from all quarters. Renowned scientists accused him of pessimism and of failing to apprehend the progress of in .. (shrink)

The present study expands the systematic measurement of consumers’ sentiments towards business ethical practices to the international arena. Data for the Business Ethics Index (BEI) were gathered in three countries of the European Union (UK, Germany, Spain). The Germans were the most pessimistic while the British were the most optimistic about the future ethical behaviour of businesses.

This chapter explores some of the major developments in the philosophical understanding of suicide in 19th Century Western thought. Two developments in particular are considered. The first is a widespread shift towards thinking about suicide in medical terms rather than moral terms. Deploying methods initiated by a number of French and German thinkers in the preceding century who worked at the then emerging interface between the social and biological sciences, a number of 19th century thinkers ejected what they took to (...) be old metaphysical superstitions about ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and replaced them with (allegedly) hard-nosed scientific diagnoses of ‘health’ and ‘sickness’. Dismissing traditional moral arguments against the permissibility of suicide, the phenomenon came to be viewed as a symptom of decline or degeneration. How variations of this view, in biological and social contexts, reorientated practical responses to suicide in terms of treatment rather than moral condemnation is explored. The second 19th century development in philosophical thought with respect to suicide the chapter considers concerns its place in one of the most significant controversies in Germany from 1860 to the turn of the century: the Pessimismusstreit or ‘pessimism dispute’. While philosophical pessimism might be thought to vindicate or even entail suicide, many of the most prominent pessimists—including Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann—denied that this was the case, and perhaps surprisingly took suicide to involve a special kind of moral and/or epistemic failing. The chapter aims to elucidate the different arguments which pessimists appealed to in order to ground this position. (shrink)

This article suggests reading Theodor Adorno not as a notoriously pessimistic sociologist but as a committed public educator. Partly drawing on still unpublished transcripts of lectures, public talks and radio broadcasts from the 1950s and ’60s, the article offers an account of Adorno’s concept and practice of a ‘democratic pedagogy’. The key question is how we should understand the difference between Adorno the social philosopher, on the one hand, and Adorno the educator, on the other. It is argued that Adorno’s (...) pedagogical interventions are not a footnote to his social theory, but a key to understanding his entire oeuvre. (shrink)

Among the founders of classical German sociology, Ferdinand Tonnies is still relatively neglected. Many reasons are given, but the most widespread and the most damning is that Tonnies is a pessimist who wished, in the face of modernity, to return to the supposed Golden Age of rural Germany, when the community, ruled by patriarchs, gathered on the land. This interpretation is fundamentally flawed: although Tonnies wanted to describe the rootless, ruthless, calculating individuals of modern society, he wished to recall the (...) past primarily in order to develop a blueprint for the future, in which the so-called feminine traits of conscience, empathy, and care would govern the community. Rather than yearning for the past, Tonnies was a utopian who had a vision of the future and tried to make it a reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Marx's Attempt to Leave PhilosophyOmar DahbourDaniel Brudney. Marx's Attempt to Leave Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. xviii + 425. Cloth, $45.00.In the introduction to this book, Daniel Brudney writes, "The humanist Marx has been in the shadows. I think it time he was brought into the light" (13). The way Brudney chooses to do this is by examining Marx's writings of 1844-46, along with some of (...) Feuerbach and Bauer's works, for their critique of philosophy. Brudney argues that Marx's early texts are the most intrinsically interesting, in that they contain Marx's explicit antiphilosophical claims (163). Brudney asks three questions about these claims: [1] how different was Marx's critique of philosophy from that of other Young Hegelians, particularly Feuerbach and Bauer? [2] Why was Marx so committed to "leaving philosophy"? and [3] Was he successful in justifying his critique of capitalism nonphilosophically?For this reader, the most compelling part of the book was Brudney's treatment of the first question, in which he gives Feuerbach's "antiphilosophy" a sympathetic yet critical treatment. While Brudney claims that Feuerbach ultimately can substantiate neither his critique of Christian faith nor that of speculative philosophy (73), Feuerbach's work is still of interest for his ambitious, if failed, attempt to do so. Furthermore, Marx's later antiphilosophy, Brudney ultimately concludes, is much more indebted to Feuerbach than Marx cares to admit.The treatment of Marx's early work is aimed at examining the reasons for the hostility to philosophy that infuses virtually all of Marx's texts. After carefully distinguishing between the conceptions of human nature in Marx's 1844-45 manuscripts and in the German Ideology, Brudney concludes that Marx was pessimistic about providing a philosophically compelling argument for the central importance of labor (218). Much more likely, in Marx's view, was a case made on the basis of facts, practice, or experience.But Brudney argues that this will not doóthat philosophy is required because [End Page 135] Marx's conception of labor is irreducibly normative. This is what he calls the "justification problem": how can claims about the alienation of labor, e.g., be derived from facts of the matter without some further (philosophical) interpretation of these facts? In the German Ideology, the problem is compounded: how can social critics attack the "ruling ideas" of capitalism, when they live within the society in which these ideas dominate?So far, so good: Brudney makes his case for the necessity of a normative critique of capitalist society. While Marx was genuinely antiphilosophical, this was to his detrimentóit robbed him of the ability to justify his critique. But Brudney claims that, consequently, what Marx needed was "moral philosophy." This is where the problems with his argument become manifest. Despite an exhaustively detailed treatment of Marx's early texts, Brudney paints with a very broad brush when he employs the terms "philosophy" and "moral philosophy." What exactly do they mean? Brudney refuses to specify or limit Marx's critique to what Marx very probably thought of as most essentially philosophicalónamely, Hegelianism.To limit Marx's criticisms of philosophy in this way might imply that Marx was simply wielding a different kind of philosophical apparatus, one that was, in the particular intellectual world of 1840s Germany, "antiphilosophical." Specifically, Brudney wants to avoid the conclusion that Marx was a materialist, only opposed to idealism, not to "philosophy" as such. Yet, this reader cannot escape the sense that what Brudney really is comparing Marx (and Feuerbach) to the philosophy, not of the 1840s, but of the 1990s.This is especially the case in his discussion of Marx's rejection of "morality." By "morality" Brudney seems to mean some sort of rule-governed theory of moral conduct (e.g., Kantianism). But Marx's rejection of this sort of moral theory certainly need not mean his rejection of ethics of any kind. Brudney fails to adequately confront interpretations of Marx that suggest he was influenced by earlier, particularly Aristotelian, philosophy in his criticisms of German idealism (see, e.g., Carol Gould's Marx's Social Ontology or the writers in George McCarthy [ed... (shrink)

Although he primarily remained acknowledged as an authoritative theoretician of capitalism and one of the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology as a scientific discipline in Germany, Werner Sombart dedicated a significant amount of attention to the critique of modern culture that coincided with his withdrawal from the active participation in political life during the beginning of the twentieth century. After he failed to motivate German social democracy to carry out a social reform, and following a very negative impression he got in (...) the encounter with modern industrial society while visiting the United States of America, Sombart criticised capitalism, parliamentary-democratic system and mass culture from the standpoint of ‘cultural pessimism’. In the journal Der Morgen: Wochenschrift für deutsche Kultur, and in some other papers, sharply but fruitfully Sombart criticised industrial mass culture. In it, he saw a direct reflection of spiritual poverty and general decadence of the capitalistic society. (shrink)

The emphasis that the modernity gives to disengagement and beginning leads one to think that the modernity itself is in fact a culture that initiares crisis. Even if there is no initial crisis, it can be created through the ambivalent nature of modernity. Behind the concept of crisis lies the notion that history is a continuous process or movement that opens the door to nihilistic understanding which stems from the idea of contemporary life and thought alienation through the pessimistic meaning (...) of the word. There is a dialectical relationship between the ideas of modernity and progress, and the decadence, and the main theme of Nietzsche's philosophical career. Since the death of Hegel, who made the idea of crisis plausible, everything is nothing but a counter-movement not only in Germany, but also in Europe. The first of these counter-movements is romanticism with its objection to the mind which is liberated from the bonds of tradition. The main thesis of the present article is, between reactiveness of romanticism -on the surface- and the modernity; from one side romanticism's consuming modernity, which is its mirror image, while at the same time feeding from it and modernity's manipulating the ideas developed against it and monopolizing them thanks to its ambivalent nature. For this purpose, following an an anti-enlightenment thinker Nietzsche's, anti-romantic footsteps which at the same time feeds from the romantic heritage, an attempt will be made to analyze the relationship between modernity and romanticism. Another goal of this article is to allow a comparison of how the intellectual development in the West finds its response on the modernization process of our country by probing how the modernization experience of early period Islamist's who experienced this process in a feeling of "backwardness" and with a wounded consciousness and anxiety has led to a shallow romantic worldview. SummaryRomance and romanticism are the main topics of this article. Romanticism is a period, whereas romance is a spiritual attitude not limited to this period, therefore, even today it’s existence is felt. In other words, it is not specific to the Germans. This term is often used to correspond to certain aspects of European intellectual life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for instance between 1790 and 1850. In its extremely diverse definitions, the most "romantic" definition in our opinion, belongs to Novalis: “I'm romanticizing by giving a high meaning to ordinary things, a mysterious reputation to the ordinary, the honor of the unknown to the known, an infinite look to the finite.” The rejection of existing social reality, the experience of loss, the melancholic longing and the search for loss are the main components of the romantic motive. This study is based on the argument that there is a dialectical relation between romanticism and modernity, which is known as an opposing movement against enlightenment thought. The intellectual feature, which contains the opposite of modernity itself, makes this argument plausible. In addition, the view of modernity as a crisis culture due to the emphasis on disengament and beginnings offers us the possibility to establish a relationship between modernity, which accepts itself as decadence, and romance. Behind the concept of crisis lies the idea that history is a continuous process or movement opening the door to the nihilist understanding in which modern life and thought are alienated in a pessimistic sense. Thus, Allan Megill defines historicism as a prerequisite for nihilism. According to the author, Prophets of Extremity, if the history has no direction to be changed, maintained or lost when wandering in history, it also cannot have a "crisis". The suggestion of "God is dead" is the most concise expression of this crisis. In this crisis state of nihilism, it is a completely forlorn condition of living in the present. Today, which is in the absolute forlorn state; the savior declares his belief that he is devoid of all sorts of features, things that let us reconcile with the current situation of things. In the face of this situation, when people see that the present becomes completely forlorn, they move in two opposite directions with a desire to regenerate culturally: They either have to go back to the past or head for the future. However, every attempt to determine what the future or the past posess will require them to be real, belonging to the present. This will return us to the forlorn state. Nietzsche embraces both opposing sides, but does not attempts choose between them. This is the place where Nietzsche dictates that today is corrupt taking a radical attitude against romanticism fed by the notion of crisis. The fact that modernity has given up its critique of reason, which is revealed by its dialectic, had a great influence on Nietzsche's putting distance between himself and romantics. That is to say, in response to enlightened thought, although romantics speak of unity, apparently, they could not prevent emergence of emotion against mind, local against the universal, individual against social, in other words, the emergence of the second values, which they believed that these were belittled and despised by Enlightenment. Therefore, romantics seem like they could not save themselves from being caught in the web of dialectics in the account they entered that is based on the subject-object distinction in cartesian thought. It is because modernity acts with the consciousness that the life is established on the occurrence and decadence. Based on this, we can say that decadence is inevitable. This decadence (distortion) from the outside may be through movements developed against it, or experienced within itself (even if no one attempts to destroy it). Modernity, with the awareness that it cannot escape from the decadence, wants to arbitrate itself by turning this decadence in its favor by manipulating it. In other words, the modernity dramatizes the feeling of crisis considering itself decadence and the seemingly contradictory ideas of avant-garde and decadence become almost synonymous. It must be the reason why Nietzsche identifies modernity with decadence Modernity manages to put the decadence in its body at the center of attraction by producing self-opposing movements, monopolizing and manipulating. In short, both romanticism and avant-garde movements are the movements that are emerged not against modernity but from itself. Just like an apple worm, they both consume modernity and feed on it. They act as a mirror. Although they seem to criticize, as movements that have emerged from it, they allow the modernity to complete and correct the deficiencies. As a result of this, we can say that romantic critical movements are developed against the world and are shaped by modernity, beginning with the idea of enlightenment, and moved forward in the track of modernity.While romanticism developed in the West as opposed to modernity, in Ottoman-Turkish thought, it was seen as the rhetoric of retardation and regretting of backwardness from civilization. It is inevitable that the experience of modernization in a sense of backwardness, with a wounded consciousness and urgency, will open up space for romance. In our modernization adventure starting with Tanzimat, it is a fact that there has not been a drastic reckoning due to Enlightenment on an intellectual basis, industrialization on an economic basis, programs of revolutionary and nationalist formations on a political basis. Therefore, in Turkish thought, it is not possible to talk about a critical tradition developed against modern paradigm. The status of being audience to what was being experienced in Europe, resulting from superiority was transformed into grudge due to the defeats in the military field. Due to the decadence experienced in the present, inability to find the solution to the problems of its age, melancholic state of mind because of being stuck in the golden age experienced in the past, in the case of a preference, led to a romantic world view because of the appeal of its simplicity to imitate what was once lived in the past. Thus, it is very natural that the direction of Namık Kemal, the cult personality of Islamist-Turkish thought, is towards the past even when talking about progress and civilization. Seeing the 19th century Europe as a re-implementation of ideas and institutions that are actually Islamic, Namık Kemal, in our opinion, showed us a clear example of a typical Islamist romanticism and an example of occidentalist approach regarding that the West learned the civilization from Muslims. In fact, the exact equivalent of this approach displayed in Turkish cogito without even knowing that it is romantic, emerging in the personality of Namık Kemal and in the feeling of backwardness,with a hectic and injured consciousness, is kitschization. So much so that, the state of being kitsch also explains the current situation of Islamic geography which is far from creating a tradition for at least a century, and it clearly tells the usual romantic end. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Since the seventeenth century, scholars have been accusing each other of ‘dogmatism’. But what exactly did this mean? In exploring this question, this article focuses on philosophy and Biblical scholarship in nineteenth-century Germany. Scholars in both of these fields habitually contrasted Dogmatismus with Kritik, to the point of emplotting the history of their field as a gradual triumph of critical thinking over dogmatic belief. The article shows that charges of dogmatism derived much of their rhetorical force from such progressive (...) narratives. Especially neo-Kantian philosophers and Biblical scholars of liberal Protestant persuasion liked to depict their opponents as clinging to long-superseded modes of thought, thereby implying that these colleagues harked back to a past from which modern Wissenschaft had emancipated itself. This ‘denial of coevalness’, as Johannes Fabian calls it, demonstrates to what extent the vice of dogmatism was imbued with normative visions of how the field or, more broadly, German intellectual life should develop. (shrink)

Abstract in English, German, French and Croatian -/- In the paper “The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe”, which was published in 2013 in the Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor and Sabine Selchow attempted to reveal the specific qualities of the uprisings which emerged after the year 2010 in some European countries, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, England etc. According to the authors, the mode of organization which forms the main body of these emancipatory movements obtains its basic (...) logic from the world of the Internet. The use of the Internet requires a re-evaluation of negative philosophical commentary regarding technology. In the context of twentieth-century philosophy, Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse are the most influential philosophers who studied the negative aspects of technology. Heidegger portrayed the destructive effects of scientific reasoning and technology on the Western culture through the criticism of the traditional Western metaphysics on a phenomenological-ontological level. Marcuse, belonging to the tradition of Western Marxism, formed his critique of technology in the context of the concept of instrumental rationality and the critique of advanced industrial society and capitalism. Although the starting points of their perspectives on technology and the underlying purposes of their critiques of technology were different, it may be asserted that both have a rather negative and almost entirely pessimistic disposition towards technology. Heidegger’s and Marcuse’s criticisms of technology will be discussed in this context and the differences and similarities between these criticisms will be shown. Finally, the paper will emphasise the question of the possibility of a positive role of technology. Technology can serve as an alternative to negative uses by shedding light on the relation between the current uprisings and the Internet. Keywords technology, rationality, freedom, enframing, criticism, revolt movements, Internet, politics //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// Ist die Emanzipation des Menschen durch Technologie möglich? Zusammenfassung In dem Artikel „The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe”, veröffentlicht im Jahre 2013 im Journal of Civil Society, versuchten Mary Kaldor und Sabine Selchow die spezifischen Qualitäten der Aufstände zum Ausdruck zu bringen, die nach 2010 in den europäischen Ländern ausbrachen – Deutschland, Spanien, Italien, England usw. Nach Ansicht der Autoren erhält der Modus der Organisation, der den Hauptkörper dieser emanzipatorischen Bewegungen bildet, seine grundlegende Logik aus der Welt des Internets. Die Analogie mit dem Internet erfor- dert eine Neubewertung der negativen Kommentare über die Technologie aus philosophischer Perspektive. Martin Heidegger und Herbert Marcuse sind die einflussreichsten Philosophen, die sich mit den negativen Aspekten der Technologie in der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts befasst haben. Heidegger schilderte die zerstörerischen Auswirkungen der wissenschaftlichen Vernunft und Technologie auf die westliche Kultur durch die Kritik an der traditionellen abend- ländischen Metaphysik auf der phänomenologisch-ontologischen Ebene, während Marcuse, ein Mitglied des westlichen Marxismus, seine Kritik an der Technologie im Rahmen des Konzepts der instrumentellen Rationalität und der Kritik der fortgeschrittenen Industriegesellschaft und Kapitalismus geformt hat. Obgleich die Ansatzpunkte ihrer Perspektiven über die Technologie und die zugrunde liegenden Zwecke ihrer Kritik an der Technologie unterschiedlich waren, kann behauptet werden, dass beide eine eher negative und fast völlig pessimistische Einstellung zur Technologie hatten. In diesem Zusammenhang werden Heideggers und Marcuses Kritiken an der Technologie diskutiert sowie Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den beiden Kri- tiken aufgezeigt. Abschließend unterstreicht das Paper die Frage nach der Möglichkeit einer positiven Rolle für die Technologie, die als Alternative zur negativen Perspektive dienen kann, indem sie Licht in das Verhältnis zwischen aktuellen Aufständen und Internet bringt. Schlüsselwörter Technologie, Rationalität, Freiheit, Gestell, Kritik, Revoltebewegungen, Internet, Politik //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// L’émancipation humaine est-elle possible à travers la technologie ? Résumé Dans l’article « The “Bubbling Up” of Suberranean Politics in Europe » publié en 2013 dans Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor et Sabine Selchow tentent de mettre en lumière les caractéristiques spécifiques des révoltes qui ont fait jour après 2010 dans certains pays européens – Allemagne, Espagne, Italie, Angleterre, etc. Selon nos auteures, le mode d’organisation qui a formé le corps essentiel de ces mouvements émancipatoires tire sa logique de base du monde de l’internet. Cette analogie avec l’internet requiert une réévaluation, à partir d’un point de vue philosophique, des commentaires négatifs sur la technologie. Martin Heidegger et Herbert Marcuse sont les philosophes les plus influents ayant travaillé sur les aspects négatifs de la technologie au sein de la philosophie du XXe siècle. Heidegger a dépeint les effets destructeurs de la raison scientifique et de la technologie de notre culture occidentale à travers son criticisme de la métaphysique traditionnelle occidentale à un niveau phénoménologico-ontologique, tandis que Marcuse, membre du « communisme occidentale », a formé une critique de la technologie au sein du concept de rationalité instrumentale et une critique de la société industrielle avancée et du capitalisme. Bien que le point de départ de leur perspective sur la technologie et que le but sous-jacent de leur critique diffèrent, il est possible d’affirmer que leur point commun est d’avoir posé un regard négatif et presque entièrement pessimiste sur la technologie. À cet égard, le criticisme d’Heidegger et de Marcuse vont être abordés afin d’en soulever les différences et les similarités. Enfin, cet article mettra l’accent sur la possibilité d’un rôle positif de la technologie qui pourrait servir d’alternative aux perspectives négatives en faisant la lumière sur le lien entre les révoltes actuelles et l’internet. Mots-clés technologie, rationalité, liberté, mettre en forme, criticisme, mouvements de révolte, internet, politique //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////// Je li moguća ljudska emancipacija kroz tehniku? Sažetak U članku »The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe«, objavljenom 2013. u časopisu Journal of Civil Society, Mary Kaldor i Sabine Selchow pokušale su otkriti specifične značajke pobuna koje su se javila nakon 2010. godine u europskim zemljama poput Njemačke, Španjolske, Italije, Engleske itd. Prema autoricama, način organiziranja koji čini glavno tijelo ovih emancipatornih pokreta preuzima svoju osnovnu logiku iz svijeta Interneta. Analogija s Internetom zahtijeva ponovnu evaluaciju negativnih komentara o tehnici iz filozofske perspektive. Martin Heidegger i Herbert Marcuse najutjecajniji su filozofi 20. stoljeća koji su se bavili negativnim aspektima tehnike. Heidegger je prikazao destruktivne učinke znanstvene racionalnosti i tehnike na zapadnu kulturu kroz kritiku tradicionalne zapadne metafizike na fenomenološko-ontološkoj razini, dok je Marcuse, kao predstavnik zapadnoga marksizma, oblikovao svoju kritiku tehnike u kontekstu pojma instrumentalne racionalnosti te kritike razvijenog industrijskog društva i kapitalizma. Iako su polazišne točke njihovih pogleda na tehniku, kao i osnovne svrhe kritike tehnike, različite, može se reći da obojica imaju poprilično negativno i gotovo u potpunosti pesimističko shvaćanje tehnologije. U tom će se kontekstu razmotriti Heideggerova i Marcuseova kritika tehnike kao i razlike i sličnosti između tih dvaju pristupa. Zaključno će rad naglasiti mogućnost pozitivne uloge tehnike, koja može služiti kao alternativa negativnoj perspektivi osvjetljavajući odnos između nedavnih pobuna i interneta. Ključne riječi tehnologija, racionalnost, sloboda, postav, kritika, pobunjenički pokreti, Internet, politika. (shrink)

‘Romanticism’ is one of the more hotly contested terms in the history of ideas. There is a singular lack of consensus as to its meaning, unity, and historical extension, and many attempts to fix the category of romanticism very quickly become blurry. As a result, the great historian of ideas, Arthur Lovejoy, famously concludes that: ‘the word ‘romantic’ has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing. It has ceased to perform the function of a verbal (...) sign’ But his pessimistic advice has not stopped scholars from trying to define romanticism. If anything, it has brought renewed vigour to the determination with which critics try to pinpoint the term. There are several approaches to take, for those who attempt to do so. One class of critics tries to enumerate the features shared by the authors and texts generally considered romantic. An alternative approach would try to identify the fundamental unity that informs romanticism and gives rise to the empirical commonalities. But what would this essential feature be? Both of these approaches take an external perspective on romanticism, seeing it as the object of inquiry. An alternative approach, which we will pursue, looks at romantic subjects, and romanticism as a self-constituting category, rather than merely as an externally imposed one. In other words, we will take as basic neither an (empirical) array of candidate properties constituting romanticism, nor a supposed underlying (rationalist) essence from which properties can be derived, but rather we will focus on how the romantics themselves took up the idea of romanticism and transformed it into a self-conscious movement. We will treat the question of romanticism with respect to England, but above all Germany. Although romantic movements arose and flourished elsewhere in Europe (and in France in particular), German and English romanticism were uniquely theoretically sophisticated and philosophically nuanced. (shrink)

The late 19th-century Ignorabimus controversy over the limits of scientific knowledge has often been characterized as proclaiming the end of intellectual progress, and by implication, as plunging Germany into a crisis of pessimism from which Liberalism never recovered. My research supports the opposite interpretation. The initiator of the Ignorabimus controversy, Emil du Bois-Reymond, was a physiologist who worked his whole life against the forces of obscurantism, whether they came from the Catholic and Conservative Right or the scientistic and millenarian (...) Left. Du Bois-Reymond’s doubt that scientists would ever elucidate consciousness must therefore be seen as an endorsement, and not a rejection, of his faith in reason. (shrink)

In this paper, which brings together aging research and media research, we will contribute to the mapping of the complicated cartography of anti-aging by analyzing the press coverage of anti-aging medicine. The mass media decisively shape societal impacts of the expert scientific discourse on anti-aging. While sensitivity towards the heterogeneity of the field of anti-aging is increasing to some degree in the social-gerontological discussion, the role of the media in transmitting the various anti-aging messages to the general public has so (...) far not been systematically scrutinized. Current opinions on the press coverage of anti-aging medicine range from proponents’ complaints of a media witch-hunt against them to opponents’ reproaches about uncritical reporting of this complex topic. This paper discusses whether the media act accordingly to the ideal of the fourth estate, controlling the increased power of science in the 20th century. Our areas of investigation are two Western countries: the USA and Germany. Both countries have experienced an apparent increase in the average age of their populations, which has led to increasingly vigorous public debate since the late 20th century. The subjects of our study are three organizations that represent different approaches to anti-aging medicine: the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the German Society of Anti-Aging Medicine, and the Methuselah Foundation. The article discusses the programs, goals, and media strategies of these organizations and compares them with the anti-aging messages that actually make their way to the reader in the media “interdiscourse.” The article asks whether transatlantic learning processes within the anti-aging medicine movement as well as in the media can be identified. The paper’s methods and sources are those of contemporary history and ethnography. The three approaches to anti-aging medicine are drawn from publications of spokespersons from the three presented anti-aging medicine organizations and from participant observation of anti-aging medicine conferences in Germany and Europe during the period from 2005 to 2008. The media analysis is based on the study of about 300 articles that appeared between 1990 and 2009 in US and German dailies and weeklies such as Newsweek, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and Die Welt. Our analysis shows that, against the backdrop of pessimistic demographic apprehensions, the leitmotiv of both nations’ medical journalism between 1990 and 2009 was overwhelmingly pro anti-aging medicine. It is criticized that medical journalism on anti-aging medicine refrains from own investigations on potential risks. Scrutinizing activities of the media in terms of a fourth estate require stimulation from science itself. Hence, we argue for sensitization of medical journalism regarding ageism. (shrink)

Beyond Weimar Culture – The Significance of the Forman Thesis for a Cultural Approach to the History of Science. The famous ‘Forman thesis’, published in 1971, argued for a historical linkage among the intellectual atmosphere of Weimar Germany, popular revolts against determinism and materialism, and the creation of the revolutionary new theory of quantum mechanics. Paul Forman's long essay on “Weimar Culture” has shaped research agendas in numerous fields, from the history and philosophy of physics to German history to the (...) sociology of scientific knowledge. Despite its status as a classic and its transformative effect, Weimar Culture has always inspired as much critique as assent. In particular in the history of science, cohorts of students and two generations of scholars have debated the Forman thesis as a conceptual tool for linking scientific change with cultural processes. The Forman thesis raises critical questions for both the ongoing debates over cultural approaches to the history of science and the burgeoning newer scholarship on physics in and beyond Weimar Germany. Exploring these implications has been the aim of a transnational project of the three authors of this article which sheds some light on these debates and briefly introduces the following papers of this special issue devoted to Paul Forman and his seminal works in the history of science. (shrink)

Buridan endorses the basic idea that q follows from p iff it is impossible that p is true but q is false. Since he also accepts the law that, if p is impossible, the conjunction (p ∧ q) must be impossible, he comes to regard the principle ‘Ex impossibili quodlibet’ (EIQ) as basically correct. However, his logic is based on a ‘nominalist’ view according to which propositions are tokens of spoken, written or thought language existing in space of time, and (...) the truth of such a proposition presupposes that it exists. This conception prompted Buridan to modify the definition of ‘consequence’, but none of his attempts was fully successful. Yet, a large part of his theory of consequences is based on the usual account of necessary truth-conservation. As regards principle EIQ, Buridan distinguishes two variants of impossibility. Proposition p is possible iff the state of affairs as described by p is possible; this doesn’t guarantee, however, that p is ‘possibly true’. E.g. ‘No proposition is negative’ is considered by Buridan as describing a possible state of affairs, but this proposition is not possibly true, because in order to be true, it would have to exist, and as soon as it comes into existence, it becomes false. Accordingly, EIQ requires that the antecedent p is really impossible and not only impossibly true. (shrink)

This paper takes a closer look at the phenomenon of the ineffability of God from a purely logical perspective. In doing so, it pursues two main objectives. First, as to this day many philosophers speak – without hesitation – of the ‘paradox’ of ineffability closely associated with Liar-like sentences, it clarifies the situation by showing that ineffability is by no means paradoxical in the strict logical sense. Secondly, it uses a new information-theoretic approach in order to clearly distinguish between what (...) is called ‘substantial’ and ‘non-substantial’ predicates, a distinction which finally allows for a rendering of the dogma of ineffability which does not entail contradiction. (shrink)

Equal access to vaccines has been one of the key ethical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most scholars consider the massive purchase and hoarding of vaccines by high-income countries, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, to be unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A recent proposal by Andreas Albertsen of a vaccine tax has been put forward to remedy this problem. Under such a scheme, high-income countries would pay a contribution, conceptualised as a vaccine tax, dedicated to (...) buying vaccines and distributing them to low and middle-income countries. Proceeding from this proposal, we critically assess the feasibility of a vaccine tax and suggest how to conceptualise and implement a vaccine tax in practice. We present our ‘VaxTax model’ and explore its comparative advantages and disadvantages while considering other possible measures to address the global vaccine access problem, also in view of future pandemics and disease outbreaks. (shrink)

The early thirteenth century tract Ars Meliduna deals with the issue whether categorical propositions entail, or are entailed by, ‘continuing’ propositions, i.e. by implications. From the perspective of modern logic, with implication interpreted as a material, truth-functional connective, the first question has to be answered in the affirmative because, e.g. β entails (α ⊃ β). But conversely (α ⊃ β) ‘normally’ doesn’t entail the truth (or the falsity) of any of the components α, β; hence the second question should be (...) answered in the negative. These results cannot, however, be directly transferred to medieval logic because implication was there usually interpreted as a strict implication. Yet, within the framework of modal logic, one obtains parallel results. In particular, whenever β is necessary, then (α → β) must be true. Furthermore, if (α → β) is itself necessary, then it is entailed by α. Thus, in particular, ‘Socrates is a man’ entails the analytically true implication ‘If Socrates is a man, Socrates is an animal’, and the same premiss also entails the tautological consequent ‘If Socrates is white, Socrates is white’. (shrink)

The paper explores the potential of Byzantine diagrams in syllogistic logic. Byzantine diagrams are originated by Byzantine scholars in the early modern period to use as tools for teaching and studying Aristotelian logic. This paper presents pioneering work on employing Byzantine diagrams for checking syllogistic validity through reduction.

The COVID-19 pandemic is showing a strong impact on people in terms of uncertainty and instability it has caused in different areas of daily life. Uncertainty and instability are also emotions that characterize emerging adulthood. They generate worries about the present and the future and are a source of anxiety that impacts negatively on personal and interpersonal functioning. Anxiety seems a central effect of the pandemic and recent studies have suggested that it is linked to COVID-19 risk perception. In the (...) present study, a sample of 1045 Italian emerging adults was collected: to assess anxiety severity and perceived risk related to COVID-19 and their association and to compare general health and protective factors such as attitudes about security, relationships, self-esteem, and self-efficacy across anxiety severity and perceived risk categories. The findings of this study highlighted that anxiety severity categories were distributed homogeneously across the sample and that half of the participants referred to moderate-severe anxiety. A series of analysis of variances and post hoc comparisons showed that general health and all protective factors decreased according to anxiety severity. They were higher in participants with high perceived risk, with the exception of self-efficacy. Given the challenging features of the pandemic and EA, it is crucial to monitor anxiety severity in order to prevent last longing effects on mental and physical health, as well as keeping emerging adults informed about the risks related to the pandemic. Intervention and supportive programs based on improving self-esteem and self-efficacy, as well as confidence in relationships, should be offered to emerging adults over the long term, beyond the current outbreak. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 5, September 2024, Page 1182-1191.

Reasoning with diagrams is considered to be a peculiar form of reasoning. Diagrams are often associated with imagistic representations conveyed by spatial arrangements of lines, points, figures, or letters that can be manipulated to obtain knowledge on a subject matter. Reasoning with diagrams is not just ‘peculiar’ because reasoners use spatially arranged characters to obtain knowledge – diagrams apparently have cognitive surplus: they enable a quasi-intuitive form of knowledge. The present paper analyses the issue of diagrams’ cognitive value by enquiring (...) into the tradition of symbolic cognition developed by Leibniz, Lambert, and Kant. The proposal resulting from this enquiry is to question the idea that the cognitive value of diagrams lies solely in allowing evidence for inferences. The imaginative dimension of diagrams connects reasoning to doxastic attitudes of meditation and enquiry. (shrink)

This paper addresses the critiques based on trade-offs and normativity presented in response to our target article proposing the Public Health Emergency Risk and Crisis Communication (PHERCC) framework. These critiques highlight the ethical dilemmas in crisis communication, particularly the balance between promoting public autonomy through transparent information and the potential stigmatization of specific population groups, as illustrated by the discussion of the mpox outbreak among men who have sex with men. This critique underscores the inherent tension between communication effectiveness and (...) autonomy versus fairness and equity. In response, our paper reiterates the adaptability of the PHERCC framework, emphasizing its capacity to tailor messages to diverse audiences, thereby reducing potential stigmatization and misinformation. Through community engagement and feedback integration, the PHERCC framework aims to optimize the effectiveness of communication strategies while addressing ethical concerns. Furthermore, by involving affected communities in the communication strategy from the onset, the framework seeks to minimize ethical trade-offs and enhance the acceptance and effectiveness of public health messages. (shrink)

This paper presents a literary reading of the Homeric Hymn to Pan, tracing the effects of phonetic, verbal, and thematic repetitions throughout the hymn and especially surrounding the appearance of Echo in line 21. A close reading of the structures generated by these repetitions reveals a complex superimposition of structural schemata, and a psychoanalytic reader-response analysis relates our deferred expectation for closure to Pan's disappointed desire for Echo in the erotic myth. The nightingale simile, in its allusion to the Odyssey, (...) enacts another kind of echo and illustrates the self-conscious intertextuality of the archaic Greek poetics of variation. (shrink)

Risk and crisis communication (RCC) is a current ethical issue subject to controversy, mainly due to the tension between individual liberty (a core component of fairness) and effectiveness. In this paper we propose a consistent definition of the RCC process in public health emergencies (PHERCC), which comprises six key elements: evidence, initiator, channel, publics, message, and feedback. Based on these elements and on a detailed analysis of their role in PHERCC, we present an ethical framework to help design, govern and (...) evaluate PHERCC strategies. The framework aims to facilitate RCC, incorporating effectiveness, autonomy, and fairness. It comprises five operational ethical principles: openness, transparency, inclusivity, understandability, and privacy. The resulting matrix helps understanding the interplay between the PHERCC process and the principles of the framework. The paper includes suggestions and recommendations for the implementation of the PHERCC matrix. (shrink)

This is a comment on a translation of Franz von Kutschera's paper ‘Ein verallgemeinerter Widerlegungsbegriff für Gentzenkalküle’, which was published in German in 1969. The paper is an important predecessor of what is nowadays called ‘proof-theoretic semantics’, which describes the view that the meaning of logical connectives is determined by the rules governing their use in a proof system. Von Kutschera adopts this view in this paper, and more specifically, a bilateralist view on this subject in that his aim is (...) to give a general framework that provides generalized rule schemata for arbitrary connectives both for proving and refuting and to use this as a reference to prove completeness of certain systems of operators purely proof-theoretically. The main logical system in focus here has been shown to be equivalent to N4, Nelson's constructive logic with strong negation. In order to understand the translated paper better, a contextualizing comment is offered referring and relating it to a preceding paper by von Kutschera. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks and Romans often conceived works of art as inspiring them to direct imitation of what they saw represented. Such mimetic contagion is attested to throughout antiquity, yet its operation as a motif is most usefully analysed in the context of a particular historical moment: this volume takes Terence's Eunuch both as an exemplar of a persistent pattern of framing responses to art, and also as a case study of how mimetic contagion functions as a key to a (...) particular literary work and a perspective on the cultural context in which it resides. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 3, May 2024, Page 647-665.

Kant scholarship often refers to transcendental idealism as a ‘theory.’ Kant’s project, however, is not easily reconciled with that term in its current use. This paper contends that his critique and idealism should be seen as a remedial response against our natural albeit confused prejudice of transcendental realism. Kant’s idealism articulates a ‘metametaphysical’ ethos that is supposed to provide a new grounding of metaphysics by proceeding ‘from the human standpoint:’ it aims to dispel the temptation of transcendental realism in favor (...) of a resolute inhabitation of, and contentment with, our own humanity. This project comes under pressure in post-Kantianism: Fichte is among the first to voice the worry that Kant’s critique is well-intentioned, but not well-executed. His concern is that, while it ‘bring[s] man into harmony with himself,’ this mere contentment with our own humanity will not suffice to achieve the scientificity that, by Kant’s own lights, is the mark of any promising metaphysics. Fichte’s charge is that Kant’s idealism, in its very confinement to the brute facts of the human condition, surrenders itself to unacceptable contingency or ‘facticity.’ The paper explores Kant’s idealist project of grounding metaphysics, Fichte’s facticity charge against it, and whether Kantian idealism can withstand it. (shrink)

Background Prenatal genetic testing, in particular non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), as well as screening for risks associated with pregnancy, and counseling, play pivotal roles in reproductive healthcare, offering valuable information about the health of the fetus to expectant parents. This study aims to delve into the perspectives and experiences of women considering genetic testing and screening during pregnancy, focusing on their decision-making processes and the implications for informed consent. Methods A nationwide qualitative study was conducted in Switzerland, involving in-depth interviews (...) with women who were 1 to 2 years post-partum, covered by basic compulsory Swiss insurance, including women with a migration background. Thematic analysis was employed to identify key themes and patterns in the data. Results The findings underscore the significance of effective communication during prenatal counseling, suggesting that healthcare providers could not only convey technical information but also support women in their decision-making processes. Women need comprehensive information about genetic testing and its implications, as well as the reasons for screening during pregnancy, as there might be a need to bridge knowledge gaps and clarify misconceptions. Furthermore, the study highlights the multifaceted nature of decision-making, with women considering factors such as uncertainty, values, emotional responses, and societal support systems. The concept of acceptance emerged as a crucial theme, with some women expressing their readiness to love and accept their child, regardless of genetic anomalies or disabilities. Conclusion This study offers valuable insights into the perspectives and needs of women regarding prenatal genetic testing, screening, and counseling in Switzerland. It underscores the importance of enhancing the clinical interaction and informed consent process by providing comprehensive information, addressing misconceptions, and supporting women in decision-making about pregnancy management and the management of the child’s health, following prenatal genetic testing, including NIPT. These findings can inform healthcare providers and policymakers in improving the quality of prenatal counseling, ensuring informed consent, and supporting women in making well-informed and meaningful decisions about genetic testing, and on the use of screening during pregnancy. (shrink)