How would it be assessed from an ethical point of view if human wage work were replaced by artificially intelligent systems (AI) in the course of an automation process? An answer to this question has been discussed above all under the aspects of individual well-being and social justice. Although these perspectives are important, in this article, we approach the question from a different perspective: that of leading a meaningful life, as understood in analytical ethics on the basis of the so-called (...) meaning-in-life debate. Our thesis here is that a life without wage work loses specific sources of meaning, but can still be sufficiently meaningful in certain other ways. Our starting point is John Danaher’s claim that ubiquitous automation inevitably leads to an achievement gap. Although we share this diagnosis, we reject his provocative solution according to which game-like virtual realities could be an adequate substitute source of meaning. Subsequently, we outline our own systematic alternative which we regard as a decidedly humanistic perspective. It focuses both on different kinds of social work and on rather passive forms of being related to meaningful contents. Finally, we go into the limits and unresolved points of our argumentation as part of an outlook, but we also try to defend its fundamental persuasiveness against a potential objection. (shrink)

A core commitment of meta-ethical expressivism is that ordinary descriptive judgements are representational states, while normative judgements are non-representational directive states. Traditionally, this commitment has been understood as a psychological thesis about the nature of normative judgements, as the view that normative judgements consist in certain sorts of conative propositional attitudes. This paper’s aim is to challenge this reading and to show that changing our view on how this commitment is to be understood opens up space for attractive forms of (...) expressivism. The paper argues this by example: by presenting one of the possible expressivist views that can be developed on this reading and by arguing that this view has distinctive advantages over forms of expressivism that endorse the traditional interpretation of expressivism. (shrink)

According to the environment-induced approach to decoherence, the split of the Universe into the degrees of freedom which are of direct interest to the observer and the remaining degrees of freedom is absolutely essential for decoherence. However, the EID approach offers no general criterion for deciding where to place the “cut” between system and environment: the environment may be “external” or “internal”. The main purpose of this paper is to argue that decoherence is a relative phenomenon, better understood from a (...) closed-system perspective according to which the split of a closed quantum system into an open subsystem and its environment is just a way of selecting a particular space of relevant observables of the whole closed system. In order to support this claim, we shall consider the results obtained in a natural generalization of the simple spin-bath model usually studied in the literature. Our main thesis will lead us to two corollaries. First, the problem of identifying the system that decoheres is actually a pseudo-problem, which vanishes as soon as one acknowledges the relative nature of decoherence. Second, the usually supposed link between decoherence and energy dissipation is misguided. As previously pointed out, energy dissipation and decoherence are different phenomena, and we shall argue for this difference on the basis of the relative nature of decoherence. (shrink)

El artículo es el análisis de algunos estudios realizados sobre el gaucho en los que se emiten juicios de valor acerca de la pertinencia o impertinencia de utilizar fuentes literarias o pictóricas para ayudarnos a comprender la historia argentina. Más aún, para indagar si pueden resultar útiles al estudiar los pasados subalternos que han quedado desplazados del relato nacional. Además de la discusión de posiciones teóricas, se presentan dos ejemplos a través de los cuales se intenta justificar la utilidad de (...) usar dichas fuentes para enriquecer los estudios históricos. Finalmente, se inicia un debate historiográfico acerca de la posibilidad o imposibilidad de hallar espacios de enunciación o huellas de las voces silenciadas de los sectores subalternos. (shrink)

Nietzsches Ausnahmestatus als Philosoph gründet nicht zuletzt in seinem künstlerischen Verhältnis zur Sprache. Der Grenzen sprengende Denker erweist sich zugleich als ein Grenzen sprengender Sprachartist, der den traditionellen Unterschied zwischen Philosophie und Dichtung zum Verschwimmen bringt. Während die Forschung meist den Hauptakzent auf den Denker Nietzsche legt, widmet sich der vorliegende Band dem Dichter Nietzsche. Untersucht wird ein großes, von der Forschung bislang erst ansatzweise erschlossenes Korpus von Gedichten und Gedichtfragmenten. Betrachtet werden darüber hinaus auch weitere literarische Ausdrucksformen Nietzsches sowie (...) ausgewählte Stationen seiner Rezeption als Dichter. (shrink)

Long description: Trotz ”Spatial Turn“ in den Kulturwissenschaften bildet die Verknüpfung von Raum, Wissen und Medien noch immer ein Forschungsdesiderat. Dem begegnet dieser Band, indem er die Wechselverhältnisse von räumlichen Zusammenhängen, medialen Konstellationen und Wissenskonstitution untersucht. Die medien- und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Beiträge analysieren sowohl räumliche und mediale Bedingungen wissenschaftlicher Praxis als auch Räume und Räumlichkeiten von Medien. Dabei richten sie den Blick vornehmlich auf die Konstruktionsweisen von Wissensräumen durch analoge und digitale Medien und fragen aus einer topologischen Perspektive nach der epistemischen (...) Relevanz medialer Anordnungen. (shrink)

El presente artículo dialoga con la perspectiva del profesor de la Universidad de Stanford, John Searle en su perspectiva acerca de la conciencia, los actos de habla en lo que tiene que ver con la creación de hechos institucionales y su tesis emergentista. Esto con la idea de proponer la lectura del filósofo estadounidense en base a una pragmática de la expresión, que identifica al agente como centro de la creación y transformación social, y por tanto de movilización política, al (...) ser el reconocimiento colectivo quien mantiene el orden institucional. Por lo tanto, esa pragmática de la expresión identifica a los agentes como puntos esenciales de la creación del mundo social, desde el punto de vista del libre albedrio y la creación de mundos sociales posibles. (shrink)

Sicherheitsfragen spielen für die Gestaltung technischer Innovation und Entwicklung sowie für deren gesellschaftliche Implementierung eine zentrale Rolle. Wonach hierbei im Einzelfall konkret gefragt wird, ist aber keinesfalls eindeutig. Vielmehr verweist der Sicherheitsbegriff immer auf ein komplexes Gefüge von Urteils- und Wertungszusammenhängen, die es im situativen Kontext von Mensch-Maschine-Interaktionen zu explizieren gilt.

In a variety of ways, religiosity can help maintain or restore one's future capacity to act. Broadening the coping perspective for the psychology of religion (Pargament, 1997) seems to be an adequate theoretical framework for a differentiated analysis of who uses religiosity at what point, in what manner, and with which kind of outcomes in the process of coping with the future. We will introduce this approach and summarize the empirical results that are available up to now. Subsequently, we will (...) be occupied with religious cognitions about the future in a narrower sense: with the so-called millenarian or chiliastic ideas of some religious communities about the imminent end of this world. First, we will work out the specific criteria of such cognitions. Based on the approach of religious coping we will then examine whether millenarianism can be helpful in coping with the future. Our functional analysis proposes that central elements of chiliastic ideas serve to convince the believer that his life has meaning and purpose despite the obvious suffering and evil in the world. However, specific difficulties and risks are intertwined with chiliastic forms of coping with the future, namely: the derogation of this world, the problems arising from a prediction of explicit dates for the end of the world, and the connection between millenarianism and violence. (shrink)

Resumo A partir da concepção de que filosofia, para Nietzsche, é a arte da transfiguração, o texto analisa como Nietzsche incorpora e transfigura Os deuses no exílio, de Heinrich Heine. Nietzsche teria invertido a perspectiva do problema posto por Heine, bem como o seu procedimento expositivo: se o poeta traz o que seria uma humanização e aburguesamento dos antigos deuses como ato de degradação cósmica pelo qual a ascensão do cristianismo seria culpada, Nietzsche analisa a equivocada autodivinização do homem por (...) meio da moral como megalomania trágica, cuja consequência seria a invocação do sofrimento da existência terrena e a esperança numa vida melhor, supraterrena.Taking Nietzsche´s comprehension of philosophy as the art of transfiguration, the text analyses how the philosopher incorporates and transfigures The Gods in Exile, from Heinrich Heine. The philosopher would have inverted the perspective of the problem settled by Heine and his expositive procedure: if the poet bring us what would be an humanization and a “gentifrication” of the ancient gods as a cosmic degradation act by which the ascension of Christianity would be blamed, Nietzsche analyses the mistaken autodivinization of man through morals as a tragic megalomania, whose consequence would be the invocation of a suffering at the core of earthly existence and a hope in a better, ethereal life. (shrink)

Food standards, which are used to signal adherence to sustainability goals or a specific origin, have deep political implications. Standards crafted by retailers, processors, or third-party actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often disempower farmers. Moreover, due to the liberalization and globalization of many food value chains, producer organizations (POs) lost some of their legal privileges and market protections. This paper analyzes how POs in the Global North sought to regain their control over food markets by establishing their own standards. (...) These strategies and their consequences are considered across three dimensions: the internal life of the PO, the relevant market institutions, and the relationship between the PO and the state. Our case studies (N = 5) performed in France and in Québec, a French-speaking province of Canada, span across a variety of food sectors. Drawing on qualitative material, we designed our explanatory framework through an abductive, iterative method. Although standards crafted by POs have, in some cases, reshaped market institutions to their advantage and have repositioned them in the governance of food markets, they come at a cost. They may create tensions within POs and clash with the agrarian values of solidarity, democracy, and autonomy. Overall, this article challenges the assumption that food standards are mainly governed by private actors and sheds light on the new alliances and new identities of POs. (shrink)

El objetivo de las presentes páginas consiste en analizar el concepto de libertad en las Disertaciones de Epicteto, centrándonos sobre la posibilidad de la libertad y su articulación con el concepto de proaíresis. Demostraremos que la libertad no puede ser comprendida en la obra de Epicteto simplemente como un proceso negativo de liberación respecto de determinaciones (externas e internas), sino que exige un momento complementario de sustitución de las determinaciones erróneas por determinaciones racionales/virtuosas. Tal conclusión exigirá precisar que la proaíresis (...) no es en absoluto una facultad naturalmente indeterminada y libre, sino que su libertad opera como un horizonte regulativo al que sólo se puede acceder mediante el correcto cuidado (epiméleia) del alma. (shrink)

The shift from state-led import-substitution industrialization to more market-oriented economic models often has the result of shrinking and demobilizing the labor movement. Yet, evidence from Argentina suggests that a subsequent resurgence of even a downsized labor movement may occur and furthermore that a type of “segmented neocorporatism” may be established in the new economic context. We argue that the establishment of this new form of interest intermediation is driven by economic and political factors that are both immediate and longer term. (...) In addition to the short-term condition of the labor market and the political strategy of the government in power, of longer-term importance are structural and institutional conditions that derive from the earlier process of market reform, specifically the nature of sectoral shifts in the economy and the degree of labor law deregulation affecting the “associational power” of unions. (shrink)

Review of Nicola Möβner’s 'Visual Representations in Science. Concept and Epistemology'. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien.

ZusammenfassungDie Schnitzler-Forschung hat gezeigt, dass die medizinischen und die literarischen Schriften des Schriftsteller-Arztes eng verflochten sind. Dennoch haben pharmakologische Problemstellungen, wie sie für die ärztliche Praxis der Moderne grundlegend sind, bislang nur wenig Aufmerksamkeit bei der Auseinandersetzung mit Schnitzlers Werk erfahren, obwohl sie dort immer wieder zentral werden. Ausgehend von einem Fund im Archiv des Pharmakonzerns Bayer – die Firma nahm Anstoß an der Verwendung des Schlafmittels Veronal in Fräulein Else – liest dieser Aufsatz Schnitzlers Novelle erstmals vor dem Hintergrund (...) der ›Veronal-Kultur‹ des frühen zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Dabei erweist sich, dass Fräulein Else auch eine Intervention in die Public Health-Diskurse seiner Zeit beinhaltet. (shrink)

The sensorimotor account of perception is akin to Gibsonian direct realism. Both emphasize external properties of the world, challenging views based on the analysis of internal visual processing. To compare the role of distal and retinotopic parameters, distractor effect – an optomotor reaction of midbrain origin – is considered. Even in this case, permanence in the environment, not on the retina, explains the dynamics of habituation.

Kathleen Higgins (2012) claims that emotional responses to music are mostly social constructs, derived from the cultural transmission of musical knowledge. I agree with this general idea, but question Higgins’ ethnocentric and narrow view, which reduces music mainly to the art of combining sounds to produce beauty of form and expression of emotion. Instead, I propose that the distinctive and unique behavior of active music-making evolved culturally to serve a range of adaptive functions in the social environments humans used to (...) live in before the age of playback. Consequently, emotions perceived and induced via music should be studied in such “original” contexts. (shrink)