“De jure naturae multa fabulamur” — after 450 years, Luther's statement has lost none of its original validity. After a brief pseudo-renaissance following WWII, one now hears far less in legal theory about natural law, which appears finally to have fallen victim to what Weber early in the century characterized as “a progressive decomposition and relativization of all meta-legal axioms” — a destruction resulting partly “from legal rationalism itself,” and partly “from the skepticism which characterizes modern intellectual life generally.” Law (...) today, wrote Weber, “is all too tangibly (in the great majority of its determinations, and especially in many which are particularly important in terms of principle) revealed to be both the product and the technical medium of a compromise of interests,”. (shrink)

Excerpt“Europe is not America,” opined the leading editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung1 in the midst of the most severe financial crisis that the United States has experienced in its history. A few days later, when it became obvious that European-style capitalism was not immune to the problems caused by the reckless investment strategies of banks around the globe, the outburst of this European (German?) Schadenfreude dissipated. Yet, the underlying assumption remained: the economic downturn in the United States was indicative (...) of a profound crisis of the neo-liberal capitalist order that had been championed by different U.S. administrations for at…. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Explanatory realism is the view that explanations work by providing information about relations of productive determination such as causation or grounding. The view has gained considerable popularity in the last decades, especially in the context of metaphysical debates about non-causal explanation. What makes the view particularly attractive is that it fits nicely with the idea that not all explanations are causal whilst avoiding an implausible pluralism about explanation. Another attractive feature of the view is that it allows explanation to be (...) a partially epistemic, context-dependent phenomenon. In spite of its attractiveness, explanatory realism has recently been subject to criticism. In particular, Taylor :197–219, 2018). has presented four types of explanation that the view allegedly cannot account for. This paper defends explanatory realism against Taylor’s challenges. We will show that Taylor’s counterexamples are either explanations that turn out to provide information about entities standing in productive determination relations or that they are not genuine explanations in the first place. (shrink)

Recent examples of rapid evolution under natural selection seem to require that the disciplines of ecology and evolution become better integrated. This inference makes sense only if one’s understanding of these disciplines is based on Hutchinson’s two-speed model of the ecological theater and the evolutionary play. Instead, these disciplines are more accurately viewed as occupying distinct “epistemic niches.” When so understood, we see that rapid evolution under selection, even if it is generally true, does not imply that evolutionary explanations are (...) improved by the inclusion of ecological details. Nor are ecological explanations necessarily improved by the inclusion of information about trait variation, heritability, effective population size, or other standard evolutionary factors. To illustrate, I develop a version of Kitcher’s “gory details” argument to show that, even for some trait that is under strong directional selection, a dynamically sufficient explanation of its ecological relationships should ignore most of the information explaining why that trait is evolving. The wholesale integration of ecology and evolution looks even less appealing when empirical sufficiency, a purely practical requirement, is taken into account. As a way forward, I propose an eco-evo partitioning framework. This strategy enables researchers to estimate the empirical sufficiency of a purely ecological, a purely evolutionary, or a combined eco-evo approach. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to widen the scope of the current debate on peer disagreement by applying it to a kind of case it has hitherto remained silent about – namely, to cases of disagreement in which one of the disagreeing parties bases her opinion on a private religious experience to which the other party has no access. In order to do this, I will introduce a modified version of the notion of peerhood – a version that, in (...) contrast to the one employed in the current debate, can be fruitfully applied to the troublesome kind of case in question. I will then employ this new notion in order to specify the degree of conciliation rationally required from the disagreeing parties in the kind of case in question. (shrink)

Between 1918 and 1933, the masses became a decisive preoccupation of European culture, fueling modernist movements in art, literature, architecture, theater, and cinema, as well as the rise of communism and fascism and experiments in radical democracy. Spanning aesthetics, cultural studies, intellectual history, and political theory, this volume unpacks the significance of the shadow agent known as "the mass" during a critical period in European history. It follows its evolution into the preferred conceptual tool for social scientists, the ideal slogan (...) for politicians, and the chosen image for artists and writers trying to capture a society in flux and a people in upheaval. This volume is the second installment in Stefan Jonsson's epic study of the crowd and the mass in modern Europe, building on his work in _A Brief History of the Masses_, which focused on monumental artworks produced in 1789, 1889, and 1989. (shrink)

This essay argues that persons not only have nonconceptual bodily self-awareness and nonconceptual mental anonymous self-awareness but also, at least if they produce the expression ‘I’, nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness. It contains information of ‘I’ being produced by oneself. It is argued that this can be seen if we examine the constitution of referential self-consciousness, i.e. the consciousness of being the referent of ‘I’ oneself. The main argument is: A. It is not possible to explain the constitution of referential self-consciousness (...) if it is not assumed that persons have nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness. B. It is possible to explain the constitution of referential self-consciousness if it is assumed that persons have nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness. C. Thus it is reasonable to assume that persons have nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness. The justification of the thesis that persons have nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness is presented while discussing Tomis Kapitan’s analysis of conceptual egological self-consciousness. Conceptual egological self-consciousness contains infor­mation of being a subject oneself. It is argued that it is not possible to explain the constitution of referential self-consciousness with the help of Kapitan’s interpretation of conceptual self-consciousness. However, it is possible to ex­plain the constitution of referential self-consciousness within the framework of Kapitan’s account if it is assumed that persons have nonconceptual mental egological self-awareness. (shrink)

This essay develops a new interpretation of Moses Mendelssohn’s ontological argument in the Morning Hours: Lectures on God’s Existence. At the beginning, Immanuel Kant’s famous criticism of the ontological proof of God’s existence in the Critique of Pure Reason is presented. Then I offer an in-depth analysis of Mendelssohn’s original ontological argument in the Morning Hours. It is shown that with Mendelssohn’s new proof of God, Kant’s objections are answered. Finally, it is explained why Mendelssohn does not succeed in completely (...) refuting Kant’s objections. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction General Scenario for the Transmission of Information and Its Application to Genetics Semiotic Dimensions of Biological Information Syntactic Dimension I: Measuring the Statistical Entropy of Signals and Messages Syntactic Dimension II: Estimating the Algorithmic Complexity of Signals and Messages Semantic Dimension: Classifying the Mutual Complexity of Transmitters and Receivers Acknowledgment References Further Reading.

How come we ought to do things? Current metanormative debates often suffer from the fact that authors implicitly use adequacy conditions not shared by their opponents. This leads to an unsatisfying dialectical gridlock: One author accuses her opponents of not being able to account for stuff she judges essential, but the opponents do not think this to be a major flaw. In an attempt to meet the problem of gridlock head-on, the current investigation approaches oughtness differently. -/- I start with (...) the introduction of a grounding framework for thinking about oughtness -- the central normative property -- that allows a lucid presentation of the views on the market. It soon becomes clear that one necessary part of any plausible assessment of accounts of oughtness is a discussion of their adequacy conditions. I continue with a detailed evaluation of four different accounts, as presented by Halbig (2007), Schroeder (2007), Stemmer (2006), and Scanlon (2014). My main result is that desire-based or Humean theories of oughtness are more plausible because desire-independent accounts fail to explain something crucial: the for-me character of oughtness. Based on the insights gathered thus far, I then develop a new Humean theory – metaethical conativism – and defend it against some historically influential objections. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s texts contain a puzzle about the role of vulnerability in the creation of intimacy and its function on behalf of human flourishing. I describe the interpretive puzzle and its prima facie paradoxical aspects. On the one hand, there are texts in which Nietzsche expresses a longing for intimacy and other texts where he furnishes details about the possibility of intimacy between equals. On the other hand, Nietzsche is severely critical of certain types of intimacy and advocates for a pathos (...) of distance in human relationships. I claim that Nietzschean intimacy is not an inherently paradoxical concept. A proper understanding of Nietzsche’s anti-humanism provides the resources to resolve the paradox and to use the solution of the puzzle to illuminate Nietzsche’s insights about human psychology. (shrink)

Sowohl im System der medizinischen Versorgung als auch im Rahmen der Präventions- und Gesundheitsförderungspolitik stellt sich die Frage, welche Bedeutung dem Grundsatz der Eigenverantwortung zukommt. Der Beitrag vergleicht die Diskussionen in beiden Bereichen und stellt abschließend ihren Zusammenhang dar.

A vernacular fifteenth-century sermon tells us, in order to warn of the threats to spiritual welfare posed by dance, that cyclic motion and centering of sensory impressions – amongst them intimate conversation – are essential elements of dance. When blending out the parenesis, implicit poetics of medieval dance can be distilled from that sermon. The way how these essential elements of dance are used for generating disruptions within literary plots will be demonstrated in three literary texts dating from the thirteenth (...) to the fifteenth century: Disruptions in connection with dance occur when contrary concepts of motion clash with each other, for example the linearity of the chivalrous way through the Other World with the cyclicity of round dances. ‚Der Württemberger‘, however, collides two contrary concepts of time which can be paraphrased as spatial metaphors, namely the linearity of earthly life which collides with the cyclicity of eternal damnation, a collision symbolized by the expulsion of life out of the dance of the death. Finally in ‚Ritter Sociabilis‘, dance generates a virtual space which subverts the courtly society. The protagonists of all these texts differently manage to resolve disruptions, namely by redemption, by repentance, or by continuing disruptions which they have caused themselves. (shrink)

The principal task of Marxist ethics is not to formulate particular moral principles or to implement them but to describe and explain moral reality. Ethics is not a philosophical discipline although as a science of morals in its own rights it is based on philosophical premises of historical materialism. Trying to define the principal tasks of Marxist ethics in the socialist society the author contends that Marxist ethics should determine the contents, the forms and the ways in which the communist (...) morality develops and functions: in the analysis and scientific examination of the social reality it should reveal the causes of contradictions and moral conflicts in the socialist society, it should also identify favourable conditions for an extensive acceptance of the communist morality. (shrink)

The series of Velvet revolutions in 1989, which brought about the collapse of communism in Europe, seem to have vindicated those political theorists and activists who believed in the possibility of non-violent power. The relative success of the 1989 revolutions has validated a new paradigm of revolutionary change based on the assumption that radical changes were attainable through moderate means. Yet the legacy of these non-violent revolutions also points towards the limits of political strategies fundamentally opposed to violence. The article (...) shows that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom. (shrink)

What is the contribution of pragmatism to the sociology of morality? I answer to the points raised by the essays in this symposium on Moral Entanglements: Conserving Birds in Britain and Germany by outlining what the work of John Dewey adds to recent discussions on the question how values change over time and how individuals develop moral commitments.

Clarke and Beck argue that the ANS doesn't represent non-numerical magnitudes because of its second-order character. A sensory integration mechanism can explain this character as well, provided the dumbbell studies involve interference from systems that segment by objects such as the Object Tracking System. Although currently equal hypotheses, I point to several ways the two can be distinguished.

Only recently have philosophers and psychologists begun to consider empirical research methods to inform questions and debates in legal philosophy. With the field ripe for further experimental inquiry, this collection explores the most topical empirical developments and anticipates future research directions. Bringing together legal scholars, psychologists and philosophers, chapters address questions such as: Do people share a stable set of intuitions about what the law is? What are common perceptions about causation, intentionality, culpability, and are they consistent with the corresponding (...) technical legal concepts? To what extent can experimental research methods advance theoretical debates in legal philosophy about the nature of law? With fascinating implications for legal philosophy, ethics and moral psychology, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Law sets the agenda for the emerging field of experimental jurisprudence and will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners alike. (shrink)

Das Thema Staatstheorien bezieht sich auf eines der wichtigsten Gebiete der staatsbürgerlichen Erziehung und damit der stabilen freiheitlich-demokratischen Grundordnung überhaupt. Staatstheo-rien sind in verschiedenen Ausprägungen vorhanden und insofern sind Selektionskriterien und Begründungen erforderlich. Die Staats-theorien der Aufklärung werden zu Recht als maßgeblicher Ein-flussfaktor der heutigen westlichen Demokratieformen gesehen. Innerhalb der Aufklärung gibt es eine Kanonbildung der Vertrags- und Staatstheorien: Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu und Rousseau besitzen seit geraumer Zeit einen festen Platz darin. Zwischen Demokratie und politischer Bildung herrscht ein enger und (...) systematischer Zusammenhang. Demokratie bedeutet dabei gleichzeitig Lebens-, Gesellschafts- und Herrschaftsform. Nicht zu-letzt aus dieser fundamentalen und umfassenden Bedeutung für das Zusammenleben in unserer Gesellschaft rechtfertigt sich die Relevanz des Themas Staatstheorien als Gegenstand einer wissen-schaftlichen Abhandlung. Den Leserinnen und Lesern soll die exorbitante Relevanz des The-mas für unser heutiges gesellschaftspolitisches Zusammenleben vor Augen geführt werden. (shrink)

SummaryErnest Gellner was, by all accounts, one of the most unconventional thinkers of the twentieth century. Not only was the content of his theories often strikingly original, but he also arrived at them by use of a singularly personal thought-style. The article describes the most salient features of this thought-style: his quest for overviews, on the one hand, and for penetrating and unexpected insights, on the other, his opposition to what he perceived as humanistic complacency, his academic elitism, and much (...) else. In the final section, an assessment of the most conspicuous feature of Gellner's thought-style—his tendency to downplay the importance of detail and to focus on high-level theory—is given. It is argued that this characteristic served Gellner better in philosophy and the history of ideas than in the social sciences. (shrink)