Wann habe ich zu existieren begonnen? Mit der Geburt? Mit der "Empfangnis"? Oder noch davor? Wenige Fragen beruhren unser Selbstverstandnis so sehr wie diese. Diesen Fragen wird transdisziplinar theologisch-philosophisch-naturwissenschaftlich nachgegangen. Gezeigt wird, welcher Status dem Vorgeburtlichen in Geschichte und Gegenwart zugeschrieben wurde bzw. wird; Begriffe wie "biologisches Individuum", "Spezies" und "aktive Potenz" werden geklart; sodann wird diskutiert, welche ontogenetischen Ereignisse als "Beginn" - sei es des Organismus, des Individuums, des Menschen oder der Person - taugen.

Wille und Willensfreiheit sind ein heißes Thema, in der Gehirnforschung ebenso wie in der Philosophie. Wenn der Wille eine Folge biologischer Gehirnfunktionen ist und naturwissenschaftlich beschrieben werden kann, wie muss dann die Frage der ethischen Verantwortung des Einzelnen beantwortet werden? Für Wolfgang Seidel gehören biologisch bedingte Veränderungen auch des Gehirns zu den konkreten Erfahrungen aus der medizinischen Forschung und Praxis - wie auch die Erfahrung, dass nicht alle physiologischen Auswirkungen auf den einzelnen Menschen mit den Mitteln naturwissenschaftlichen Vorgehens kausal (...) absehbar sind. Sein Buch ist eine Kritik an dem alleinigen Erklärungsanspruch eines naturwissenschaftlichen Determinismus, der alles Denken und Verhalten in allen Details kausal aus der Gehirnforschung ableiten will. Seidels spannender alltagsphilosophischer Essay lädt zum entspannten Nachdenken über die Gehirnmechanismen und bewusste Entscheidungsfreiheit ein - wobei wir nebenbei erleben können, dass es letztlich keinen Unterschied macht, ob unser alltägliches Erleben des eigenen Wollens eine Illusion oder freier Wille ist - und dass unser Gehirn auch ethisch gut funktioniert. (shrink)

Theoretical models and correlational research suggest that anger and disgust play different roles in moral judgment. Anger is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against persons, such as battery and unfairness, and disgust is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against nature, such as sexual transgressions and cannibalism. To date, however, it has not been shown that induction of these two emotions has divergent effects. In this experiment we show divergent effects of anger and disgust. We use sounds to elicit (...) anger and disgust, and participants are then asked to consider moral vignettes. As compared to disgust and control condition, anger increases severity of judgments about crimes against persons, and disgust increases severity of judgments about crimes against nature, but not conversely. (shrink)

Einer verbreiteten Auffassung zufolge schenkte Mill der utilitaristischen Tradition mit der Unterscheidung zwischen höheren und niederen Vergnügen („pleasures“) eine begriffliche Innovation und stützte seinen Utilitarismus ganz wesentlich auf die daraus erwachsene Axiologie, den sogenannten ‚qualitativen Hedonismus‘. Dieser sei jedoch inkonsistent, intellektualistisch und – wegen des lexikalischen Vorrangs höherer Vergnügen – letztlich absurd. Dieses philosophiegeschichtliche Vorurteil ist in mehreren Hinsichten verzerrt. Es ignoriert den ideengeschichtlichen Rahmen, missversteht den Gehalt des ‚qualitativen Hedonismus‘ und überschätzt dessen systematische Rolle in Mills Werk.

The philosophy of measurement studies the conceptual, ontological, epistemic, and technological conditions that make measurement possible and reliable. A new wave of philosophical scholarship has emerged in the last decade that emphasizes the material and historical dimensions of measurement and the relationships between measurement and theoretical modeling. This essay surveys these developments and contrasts them with earlier work on the semantics of quantity terms and the representational character of measurement. The conclusions highlight four characteristics of the emerging research program in (...) philosophy of measurement: it is epistemological, coherentist, practice oriented, and model based. (shrink)

This study is primarily a call to philosophers to attend the concerns raised by the increasing possibility of indefinitely extended human life. While these concerns are largely moral and socio-political, questions arising from this possibility are seen to involve other philosophical areas, including epistemology.Starting with the age-old desire for extended, enjoyable life, possible strategies for realizing such life are considered. Such realization is shown to conflict with the desire for children. Various reasons for choice between the alternatives of indefinitely extended (...) life and what is currently understood to be a normal life, including the possibility of offspring, are examined. Competing social visions are sketched for the purpose of resolving this dilemma. It is argued that humanity’s likely choice from among the competing social sketches favors the decision for extended life against that for limited lifespan with the possibility of children. Assuming that the extended life will be a life of learning leads to epistemological considerations regarding what is to be learned. (shrink)

The paper deals with the meaning of the transcendental imagination in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, comparing it with the productive imagination proposed by Fichte in his Wissenschaftslehre of 1794. It also presents Heidegger’s views concerning both Kant and Fichte. Regarding Kant there is also a discussion of the difference between the first and second editions of the First Critique. It may be noted that Heidegger prefers the first edition to the second, since, in his view, the latter leads into (...) German Idealism. In Fichte’s philosophy the imagination plays a considerably larger role than it does in Kant. And Heidegger early on recognizes the importance of Fichte as a philosopher in its own right, and not just, as was customary in the period, a mere transitional figure between Kant and Hegel. The paper concludes with a critique of Heidegger’s views regarding both Fichte and Kant. Though there is an addendum discussing the function of the imagination in the aesthetics of Kant, in that of Fichte, and a brief comparison with Heidegger’s own aesthetics. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that many arguments from expert opinion are strong arguments. Therefore, in many cases it is rational to rely on experts since in many cases the fact that an expert says that p makes it highly likely that p is true. I will defend this claim by providing 5 arguments that illuminate and elaborate on 5 crucial claims about expertise. In this way, I aim to undermine recent attempts to establish a rampant scepticism about arguments from (...) expert opinion. (shrink)

Whereas there is much discussion about Thomas Kuhn’s notion of methodological incommensurability and many have seen his ideas as an attempt to allow for rational disagreement in science, so far no serious analysis of how exactly Kuhn aims to account for rational disagreement has been proposed. This paper provides the first in-depth analysis of Kuhn’s account of rational disagreement in science—an account that can be seen as the most prominent attempt to allow for rational disagreement in science. Three things will (...) be shown: First, we find not one, but two accounts of rational disagreements in science in Kuhn’s writings: one stemming from methodological incommensurability and one stemming from Kuhn-underdetermination, which are not only fundamentally different—the first purports to explain how disagreeing scientists can nevertheless be rational, while the second attempts to show how rational scientists can nevertheless disagree—but appear to be incompatible with each other. Second, I will assess both accounts. Kuhn’s account from methodological incommensurability is not convincing since it cannot explain rational disagreement in science. Whereas, on the other hand, Kuhn’s account from Kuhn-underdetermination allows for rational disagreement, his argument why we should accept it is not convincing. Third, I present a tentative sketch of an alternative to Kuhn’s account that emphasizes the fallibility of epistemic justification in order to show that Kuhn’s argument founders. In sum, the paper shows that focusing not on the muchly debated consequences of methodological incommensurability, but on Kuhn’s treatment of rational disagreement gives new insight into the adequate interpretation of his thought as well as the cogency of his ideas. (shrink)

This essay had its beginnings in my desire to reexamine the Arnolfini portrait from the perspective of Giovanna Cenami, the demure young woman who stands beside the cloaked and hated man on the fifteenth-century panel in London. Even though she shares the formal prominence with the man in Jan van Eyck’s unprecedented composition, she has been paid scant attention in the literature on the painting. I anticipated, as I began my work that inspection of the female subject of the panel (...) would, of necessity, amend the authoritative count of the Arnolfini portrait that Panofsky first published in 1934. That narrative, which focused on the event portrayed, had been recited to me by my teachers as an example of interpretive truth; I had committed it to memory as a model of our discipline’s search for meaning. I never dreamed back then that it might be “wrong.” Yet, the material I encountered as I pursued my inquiry into Giovanna’s life contradicted Panofsky’s assumptions on several key points; amendment alone would not do. It seemed necessary for me to challenge the venerable interpretation others were starting to question,4 even though two generations of students, including my own, had learned from it all they thought there was to know about “Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.” 4. See, for example, Peter H. Schabacker, “De Matrimonio ad Morganaticam Conracto: Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini’ Portrait Reconsidered,” Art Quarterly 35 : 375-98, hereafter abbreviated “DM”; Lucy Freeman Sandler, “The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent,” Art Bulletin 66 : 488-91, hereafter abbreviated “H”; and Jan Baptist Bedaux, “The Reality of Symbols: The Question of Disguised Symbolism in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait,” Simiolus 16 : 5-28, hereafter abbreviated “RS.” Linda Seidel, associate professor in the department of art at the University of Chicago, is the author of Songs of Glory , a study of twelfth-century French architectural sculpture. She is currently completing a work on medieval doorway design as an art of entry and pursuing a collaborative project with Michael Camille and Robert Nelson, Medieval Art and Its Audiences. (shrink)

Inhuman Thoughts is a philosophical exploration of the possibility of increasing the physiological and psychological capacities of humans to the point that they are no longer biologically, psychologically, or socially human. The movement is from the human through the trans-human, to the post-human. Seidel argues that such an evolution would be of positive value on the whole.

There is something very flattering, to the artist, in Schelling’s view of creativity. Put simply: the creativity of the artist is like the creativity of God. There can, however, be something disturbing, not so say embarrassing, about flattery. Even if one can be certain of the complete seriousness of the flatterer—and German philosophers tend to take themselves very seriously—one may feel a little uncomfortable in the face of what could be overflattery. Of course, the creativity of the artist may tell (...) us something about the creativity of God, if, indeed, God created the artist; however, to argue successfully the similarity between the two will require at least one assumption: namely, a similarity in the concept of person or personality in God and in the artist. (shrink)

Francesca Albertini's voluminous study, Die Konzeption des Messias bei Maimonides und die fruehmittelalterliche islamische Philosophie, wishes to put a fresh emphasis on the link between Maimonides' concept of the Messiah and his ideal of the leader as a political figure. For Maimonides, Albertini argues, the arrival of the Messiah will be realized only through human effort and appropriate behavior: it is man who bears responsibility for this event through his moral actions. The Messiah, on the other hand, as the leader (...) of the community, seeks to implement the new order in society through which Divine Law will be established and followed precisely. Hence, the Messiah's arrival is not an apocalyptic, eschatological .. (shrink)

Does the proper pursuit of cognitive science necessitate a devaluation of the ostensible phenomenon of linguistically framed conceptual thought? Paul Churchland has asserted the necessity of such devaluation forthrightly, and others have shown varying degrees of inclination in this direction.

RésuméJohn Searlea récemment soutenu que le cerveau ne peut pas être un ordinateur (non connexionniste). Son argument est que les vrais systèmes physiques comme les cerveaux fonctionnent à la causalité, tandis que les opérations computationnelles ne sont pas causales, mais sont plutôt des séquences formelles qui requièrent un interprète extérieur pour lew existence en tant que systèmes formels. Les vrais systèmes physiques, par contre, ne requièrent aucune interprétation pour lew existence comme systèmes physiques opérationnels.Contrairement à Searle, je soutiens qu'iln'y a (...) pas de démarcation nette entre notre application des formalismes mathématiques standard à des phénomènes physiques comme les oscillations, et notre application des formalismes computationnels aux divers phénomènes physiques qui sont, effectivement ou potentiellement, bien décrits et expliqués pas ces formalismes. (shrink)

This chapter discusses whether the appropriation of Kuhnian thoughts by the so-called Strong Programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge is appropriate. In order to answer the question of appropriate appropriation, Kuhn’s and the Strong Programme’s stances on two “isms” are compared: relativism and naturalism. It is shown that the Strong Programme clearly goes beyond Kuhn and breaks more radically with philosophical tradition. Nevertheless, there are also philosophical continuities and similarities.

The paper explores the defence by the early sociologist of science Ludwik Fleck against the charge of relativism. It is shown that there are crucial and hitherto unnoticed similarities between Fleck’s strategy and the attempt by his contemporary Karl Mannheim to distinguish between an incoherent relativism and a consistent relationism. Both authors seek to revise epistemology fundamentally by reinterpreting the concept of objectivity in two ways: as inner- and inter-style objectivity. The argument for the latter concept shows the genuine political (...) background and intent of Fleck’s sociology of science and its ambition to relieve the cultural struggles of his time. (shrink)

Can a heritability value tell us something about the weight of genetic versus environmental causes that have acted in the development of a particular individual? Two possible questions arise. Q1: what portion of the phenotype of X is due to its genes and what portion to its environment? Q2: what portion of X’s phenotypic deviation from the mean is a result of its genetic deviation and what portion a result of its environmental deviation? An answer to Q1 provides the full (...) information about X’s development, while an answer to Q2 leaves out a large portion unexplained—that portion which corresponds to the phenotypic mean. Q1 is unanswerable, but I show it is nevertheless legitimate under certain quantitative genetics models. With regard to Q2, opinions in the philosophical and biological literature differ as to its legitimacy. I argue that not only is it legitimate, but in particular, under a few simplifying assumptions, it allows for a quantitative probabilistic answer: for normally distributed quantitative traits with no G-E correlation or statistical G × E interaction, we can assess the probability that X’s genes had a greater effect than its environment on its deviation from the mean population value. This probability is expressed as a function the heritability and the individual’s phenotypic value; we can also provide a quantitative probabilistic answer to Q2 for an arbitrary individual where the probability is a function only of heritability. (shrink)

The idea that science teaching in schools should prepare the ground for society's future technical and scientific progress has played an important role in shaping modern education. This idea, however, was not always present. In this article, I examine how this idea first emerged in educational thought. Early in the 17th century, Francis Bacon asserted that the study of nature should serve to improve living conditions for all members of society. Although influential, Bacon's idea was not easily assimilated by educational (...) thinkers who remained committed to the traditional aims of teaching about nature. Yet in the second half of the 18th century a change has occurred; educational thinkers started to embrace Baconian ideas and therefore argued that science teaching should be oriented towards generating future scientific progress. Analysing the work of 18th century French and British educational thinkers, this article links the emergence of this new view to developments in the understanding of natural philosophy and to a rising interest in it. It is argued, however, that in themselves, these developments could not adequately explain why Baconian ideas started to influence educational theory in the time in which they did. It is maintained that the incorporation of Baconian ideas into educational thought resulted from a fundamental theoretical shift in the understanding of the role of education itself. (shrink)

Are our beliefs justified only relatively to a specific culture or society? Is it possible to give reasons for the superiority of our scientific, epistemic methods? Markus Seidel sets out to answer these questions in his critique of epistemic relativism. Focusing on the work of the most prominent, explicitly relativist position in the sociology of scientific knowledge – so-called 'Edinburgh relativism' or the 'Strong Programme' –, he scrutinizes the key arguments for epistemic relativism from a philosophical perspective: underdetermination and (...) norm-circularity. His main negative result is that these arguments fall short of establishing epistemic relativism. -/- Despite arguing for epistemic absolutism, Seidel aims to provide an account of non-relative justification that nevertheless integrates the basic, correct intuition of the epistemic relativist. His main positive result is that the epistemic absolutist can very well accept the idea that people using different standards of justification can be equally justified in holding their beliefs: Rational disagreement, he maintains, is perfectly possible. -/- The book provides a detailed critique of relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge and beyond. With its constructive part it aims at making conciliatory steps in a highly embittered discussion between sociology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Since Davidson's proposal to use a Tarskian theory of truth in order to develop a theory of meaning has been criticised extensively, it is decisive to ask whether Davidson needs such a theory as an assumption and premise in other parts of his work. Especially, many authors have claimed that Davidson's argument in his paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' depends on his approach in the theory of meaning. It is argued that this interpretation is wrong and (...) Davidson's attack on conceptual relativism does not depend in any way on his defense of truth-conditional semantics. Rather Davidson's thoroughgoing holism and the principle of charity are the basic rationale for his denial of conceptual relativism. (shrink)

In a reply to Howard Sankey I have maintained that the epistemic relativist cannot use the strategy of the sceptic since the relativist is at pains not to draw the sceptical solution. Sankey has objected to my argument by distinguishing between weak and strong justification: according to Sankey, the relativist using the sceptic’s strategy aims to provide an argument against the latter form of justification but still maintains that we can have the former.In this counter-response I argue that if this (...) is really the relativist’s strategy then she cannot provide any argument against the absolutist at all. The reason is that she simply fails to address the key question in the debate about relative/absolute justification: are there any absolutely correct epistemic standards? The epistemic relativist using the sceptic’s strategy is thus trapped between the Scylla of undermining her right to maintain that there is relative justification and the Charybdis of providing no argument against absolutism at all. (shrink)

The general features of a picture theory of meaning (PTM) are stated. The PTM is then applied to a particular ontological perspective, and suggestions are made for generalizing the PTM to most ontological perspectives. Several ways around the classic problem for the PTM-that the language used to describe a situation must have at least one more component than the situation described-are offered.

What is it for a person to be autonomous? Starting with a philosophical puzzle about personal autonomy and by way of critically discussing contemporary accounts, this monograph argues that AUTONOMY is a thick normative concept – the concept of a certain kind of practical authority. It then develops a conception of autonomy which solves the puzzle and offers an adequate understanding of what it means to determine oneself.

Is it ever rational to suspend judgment about whether a particular doxastic attitude of ours is rational? An agent who suspends about whether her attitude is rational has serious doubts that it is. These doubts place a special burden on the agent, namely, to justify maintaining her chosen attitude over others. A dilemma arises. Providing justification for maintaining the chosen attitude would commit the agent to considering the attitude rational—contrary to her suspension on the matter. Alternatively, in the absence of (...) such justification, the attitude would be arbitrary by the agent's own lights, and therefore irrational from the agent's own perspective. So, suspending about whether an attitude of ours is rational does not cohere with considering it rationally preferable to other attitudes, and leads to a more familiar form of epistemic akrasia otherwise. (shrink)