The difficulties of sociologists - particularly in Germany - to contribute to the political discussion about 'Nation' and (recent) national movements is suggested do be due to insufficiant theoretical clarity. It is proposed to to define ethnic identity as cultural phenomenon. Political unrest and dangerous movements, however, arise, whenever to be 'ethnic' is associated with state/government in its modern sense. The recent experience of political-cultural hegemony over against socalled minorities' makes requests for ethnic self-determination plausible and necessary.

Der Band vereint aktuelle Beiträge zu den Themenschwerpunkten Fiktion, Wahrheit und Interpretation im Hinblick auf fiktionale literarische Texte. Im Einzelnen werden Fragen wie die folgenden diskutiert: In welchem Verhältnis stehen Literatur und Wahrheit? Welche Rolle spielen Intentionen für die Interpretation? Sind fiktionale Texte ausschließlich fiktional? Lässt sich die Sprechakttheorie für die Beschreibung der in fiktionalen literarischen Texten enthaltenen Sätze fruchtbar machen? Warum nehmen wir Anteil an fiktionaler Literatur, obwohl wir wissen, dass die beschriebenen Personen und Ereignisse nicht real sind? Die (...) Beiträger nehmen diese Problemfelder aus einer interdisziplinären Warte zwischen Literaturtheorie und analytischer Philosophie in den Blick. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is a theory whose foundations spark controversy to this day. Although many attempts to explain the underpinnings of the theory have been made, none has been unanimously accepted as satisfactory. Fuchs has recently claimed that the foundational issues can be resolved by interpreting quantum mechanics in the light of quantum information. The view proposed is that quantum mechanics should be interpreted along the lines of the subjective Bayesian approach to probability theory. The quantum state is not the physical (...) state of a microscopic object. It is an epistemic state of an observer; it represents subjective degrees of belief about outcomes of measurements. The interpretation gives an elegant solution to the infamous measurement problem: measurement is nothing but Bayesian belief updating in a analogy to belief updating in a classical setting. In this paper, we analyze an argument that Fuchs gives in support of this latter claim. We suggest that the argument is not convincing since it rests on an ad hoc construction. We close with some remarks on the options left for Fuchs' quantum Bayesian project. (shrink)

The book addresses the questions how literature can convey knowledge and how literary meaning can arise in the face of the fact that fictional texts waive the usual claim to truth. Based on the interdisciplinary cooperation of literary scholars and analytic philosophers, the present anthology attempts a) to analyze the possibility and conditions of gaining knowledge through literature, and b) to apply, in a fruitful way, philosophical theories of meaning and interpretation to the constitution of meaning within the language of (...) literature. The project is guided by the hypothesis that the cognitive function of literature cannot be understood without such fundamental modelings of the complex interaction of meaning, truth and knowledge. (shrink)

Konrad Feiereis (1931-2012) hat mit Glaubenden wie Nichtglaubenden über Religion und Gesellschaft diskutiert. Der Christliche Philosoph verfügte über die Gabe, selbst im kämpferischen Atheisten den suchenden Anderen, Nachbarn und Dialogpartner zu erkennen - dabei entwickelte er im Weltanschauungsstaat DDR herausragende hermeneutische Fähigkeiten. Die Herausgeber möchten an diesen bedeutenden katholischen Intellektuellen erinnern und laden dazu ein, Feiereis in seinen Texten zu begegnen.

The conference Quantum Africa 2010 addressed recent advances, both theoretical and experimental, in the rapidly progressing field of quantum technologies. In particular progress in the foundations of quantum cryptography, quantum computing as well as quantum metrology was reported.

Meet the Metaorganism is a web‐based learning app that combines three fundamental biological concepts (coevolution, community dynamics, and immune system) with latest scientific findings using the metaorganism as a central case study. In a transdisciplinary team of scientists, information designers, programmers, science communicators, and educators, we conceptualized and developed the app according to the latest didactic and scientific findings and aimed at setting new standards in visual design, digital knowledge transfer, and online education. A content management system allows continuous integration (...) of new findings, which enables us to expand the app with the dynamics of the research field. Students can thus gain a close insight and connection to current research, and at the same time learn that knowledge is not static but grows dynamically. Especially in the realm of the easily accessible metaorganism research, visualization plays an essential role to keep complex processes understandable and memorable. Meet the Metaorganism is freely available online and can be accessed here: www.metaorganism.app. (shrink)

BackgroundCentral to ethically justified clinical trial design is the need for an informed consent process responsive to how potential subjects actually comprehend study participation, especially study goals, risks, and potential benefits. This will be particularly challenging when studying deep brain stimulation and whether it impedes symptom progression in Parkinson’s disease, since potential subjects will be Parkinson’s patients for whom deep brain stimulation will likely have therapeutic value in the future as their disease progresses.MethodAs part of an expanded informed consent process (...) for a pilot Phase I study of deep brain stimulation in early stage Parkinson’s disease, an ethics questionnaire composed of 13 open-ended questions was distributed to potential subjects. The questionnaire was designed to guide potential subjects in thinking about their potential participation.ResultsWhile the purpose of the study (safety and tolerability) was extensively presented during the informed consent process, in returned responses 70 percent focused on effectiveness and 91 percent included personal benefit as potential benefit from enrolling. However, 91 percent also indicated helping other Parkinson’s patients as motivation when considering whether or not to enroll.ConclusionsThis combination of responses highlights two issues to which investigators need to pay close attention in future trial designs: (1) how, and in what ways, informed consent processes reinforce potential subjects’ preconceived understandings of benefit, and (2) that potential subjects see themselves as part of a community of Parkinson’s sufferers with responsibilities extending beyond self-interest. More importantly, it invites speculation that a different paradigm for informed consent may be needed. (shrink)

Wie lasst sich pagan-antike Naturphilosophie und Naturkunde mit dem christlichen Glauben vereinbaren? Diese Frage stellte fur das Mittelalter kein akademisch-theoretisches Problem dar, sondern ein Anliegen, das die Deutung der Welt, der menschlichen Existenz und der Ethik unmittelbar betraf. Die Antworten, die das Mittelalter auf diese Fragen zu geben versuchte, differieren je nach Zeit, Standort und Intention der Autoren. Das im Rahmen des Sonderforschungsbereichs Wurzburg-Eichstatt durchgefuhrte Symposium stellt in chronologischer Anordnung verschiedene Antwortmodelle vor und gibt einen Uberblick uber das geistliche Naturverstandnis (...) des Mittelalters von der Karolingerzeit bis ins 14. Jahrhundert. Dabei werden die verschiedenen Disziplinen, die an Natur-wissen interessiert waren (Medizin, Theologie, Artes) unter Berucksichtigung der verschiedenen Gattungen (medizinisches Handbuch, Vision, Lehrdialog, enzyklopadisches Nachschlagewerk) einbezogen. Das Spektrum der behandelten Themen erstreckt sich von einem Karolingischen Arzneibuch uber den `Physiologus', Hermann von der Reichenau, Hildegard von Bingen, den altfranzosischen `Lucidaire' und `Sidrac', die Naturenzyklopadisten Thomas von Cantimpre und Bartholomaus Anglicus und reicht bis hin zu den Arzten Ortolf von Baierland und Paracelsus. (shrink)

The Danish scholar Jan Pinborg made outstanding contributions to our understanding of medieval language study. The papers in this volume clearly demonstrate the wealth of Pinborg's scholarly interests and the extent of his influence.Though centered on medieval theories of grammar and language, the collection ranges in time from the fourth century B.C. to the seventeenth century A.D.; theories of the pronoun, of mental language, of supposition, of figurative expressions and of mereology are among the topics discussed; and the papers deal (...) with both humble anonymous teachers of grammar and with such well-known men as Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Peter of Spain, Roger Bacon, Robert Kilwardby, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, William of Ockham, Domingo de Soto, and Suárez. The papers are in English, German, or French. (shrink)

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the debate on Begriffstheorie between Ernst Cassirer, the Swe¬dish philosopher Konrad Marc-Wogau, and, virtually, Moritz Schlick. It took place during in the late thirties when Cassirer had immigrated to Sweden. While Cassirer argued for a rich “constitutive” theory of concepts, Marc-Wogau, and, in a different way, Schlick favored “austere” non-con¬sti¬¬tutive theories of concepts. Ironically, however, Cassirer used Schlick’s account as a weapon to counter Marc-Wogau’s criticism of his rich con¬¬sti¬tu¬¬tive theory (...) of concepts. With the help of modern Formal Concept Theory (FCT) it can be shown, however, that Marc-Wogau’s argument is flawed. (shrink)

Als geronnene Wiederholungen prägen Rituale unseren Alltag und unser Zusammenleben maßgeblich. Nicht von ungefähr galten sie lange Zeit als Inbegriff des Konservativen, Starren und Förmlichen. Eine gänzlich durchritualisierte Welt wäre zweifellos eine unfreie Welt. Im Zeitalter der Deregulierung, der Hyperaktivität und des Aufmerksamkeitsdefizits wird nun ihre Halt gebende und strukturierende Seite wiederentdeckt.Die AutorInnen reflektieren gesellschaftskritisch Theorien und psychoanalytische Erfahrungen rund um das Thema Rituale und widmen sich den folgenden Fragen: Werden Rituale zu Widerstandsnestern gegen die allgemeine Flüchtigkeit? Können sie als (...) Angelpunkte des Innehaltens und als Wegbahner unbeirrten Denkens eine neue kritische Potenz erhalten?Mit Beiträgen von Thomas Dietzel, Gesa Foken, Dirk Hofmeister, Katharina Lacina, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Nina Reis Saroldi, Elisabeth Rohr, Jochen Schade, Hans-Ernst Schiller, Edgar Weiß, Laura Wolf und Carsten Wonneberger. (shrink)

The Pentateuch. Edited by Thomas B. Dozeman; Konrad Schmid; and Baruch J. Schwartz. Forschungen zum Alten Testament, vol. 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Pp. xviii + 578. €129.

Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings. Edited by Thomas B. Dozeman; Thomas Römer; and Konrad Schmid. Ancient Israel and Its Literature, vol. 8. Atlanta: SociEty of BiBlical litERatuRE, 2011. Pp. x + 313. $39.95.

In the article, the author substantiates the thesis that the study of the historiography of early Neo-Thomism is extremely important for research on the history of its Ukrainian branch and, accordingly, the creation of its Ukrainian historiography. Early Neotomism is a significant stage in the development of Neotomism. Under its influence, Ukrainian neo-Thomists Andrei Sheptytsky, J. Slipyj, and M. Konrad formed their views. Its study is an important part of the historiography of Ukrainian Neo-Thomism. The study of early Neo-Thomism (...) helps not only to objectively assess the views of Ukrainian Neo-Thomists, but also to distinguish the views of thinkers who do not belong to it, as in the case of H. Kostelnyk. The historiography of the issue includes not only the works of Ukrainian thinkers and studies devoted to their views, but also the sources of Neotomism, the works of foreign Neotomists, and studies that help to reconstruct the inherent context of the ideas of the representatives of the movement in Ukraine. The most important of these types of works are the encyclicals of the Popes and documents of the Church, the works of Neo-Thomist philosophers, and the achievements of researchers of this period. They help to recreate the context and clarify the features of early Neo-Thomism. The main one is objective idealism, which is used to criticise subjectivism in philosophy. The next feature is the reference not directly to the works of Thomas Aquinas, but to the encyclicals of the Popes, Church documents, and the works of famous Neo-Thomists. Thus, the absence of direct references to St Thomas is not a reason to think that a thinker cannot be a Neotomist. The study of early Neo-Thomism is an important part of the historiography of Ukrainian Neo-Thomism. His research will make it possible not only to objectively assess the views of Ukrainian neo-Thomists, but also to distinguish the views of thinkers who do not belong to it. As a result, it can be argued that the study of the historiography of early neo-Thomism is extremely important for research on the history of its Ukrainian branch and, accordingly, for the creation of the historiography of the issue. (shrink)

Thomas Reid , the Scottish natural and moral philosopher, was one of the founding members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and a significant figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Reid believed that common sense should form the foundation of all philosophical inquiry. He criticised the sceptical philosophy propagated by his fellow Scot David Hume and the Anglo-Irish bishop George Berkeley, who asserted that the external world did not exist outside the human mind. Reid was also critical of the theory of (...) ideas propagated by Locke and Descartes, arguing that it was incompatible with physical and experiential facts. For Reid, our senses demonstrate that the external world must exist, and this work is organised in chapters examining each of the senses in turn. The book, based on his lectures, was first published in 1764 when Reid was a regent professor at King's College, Aberdeen, and was reissued in 1818. (shrink)

More than 20 years ago, Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel started the philosophical research program of Discourse Ethics. This led to a broad discussion about the correct justification and application of basic principles of Discourse Ethics, from which several comprehensive new conceptions emerged in recent years. The authors of this anthology discuss central problems of the previous designs in a constructive way, they carry out alternative designs and thus open up new perspectives for discourse ethics. Niels Gottschalk-Mazouz: Einleitung - William (...) Rehg: Discourse Ethics and Individual Conscience - Thomas Webler und Seth Tuler: Fairness an Competence in Citizen Participation: Theoretical Reflections from a Case Study - Nadia Mazouz: Das Gute Leben in der Diskursethik - Adela Cortina: Virtualitäten in einer erneuerten Diskursethik für die Bioethik - Micha H. Werner: Kants pflichtenethischer Rigorismus und die Diskursethik: Eine maximenethische Deutung des Anwendungsproblems - Niels Gottschalk-Mazouz: Diskursethik als kognitivistisches Rahmenkonzept - Konrad Ott: Noch einmal: Diskursethik - Hans Schelkshorn: Dialogische Vernunft und die Grundlagen interkultureller Ethik; Thesen zu einer Revision der Diskursethik - Matthias Kettner: Diskursethik: Moralische Verantwortung für diskursive Macht. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. In addition, it presents the fundamentals of his beliefs about language, epistemology, and an extensive treatment of revealed religion and its relation to politics. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent's desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute (...) control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes's contemporaries recognized the power of the arguments in Leviathan and many of them wrote responses to it. Selections from books by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. Leviathan is divided into four parts: In the first part, Of Man, Hobbes presents a view of human beings and of the natural world in general that is materialistic and mechanistic. In the second part, Of Commonwealth, he defends the theory of absolute sovereignty, the view that the government has all the political power and has the right to control any aspect of life. In the third part, Of a Christian Commonwealth, he critiques concepts like revelation, prophets, and miracles in such a way that it becomes doubtful whether they can be rationally justified. In the fourth part, Of the Kingdom of Darkness, he explains various ways in which priestly religion has corrupted religion and transgressed the rights of the sovereign. In this revised edition of Hobbes's classic work, A.P. Martinich improves Hobbes's punctuation for the sake of clarity. He has also added new notes for readers, extensive cross references, and substantial part of Hobbes's reply to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan. (shrink)

Anhand exemplarischer Filme verschiedener Genres – vom Western über den Polizei- und Kriegsfilm bis hin zum Animationsfilm – untersucht der Band, wie die Verzahnung von Recht, Gesetz und Gewalt im Kino dramatisiert wird. Mit Beiträgen von Thomas Assheuer, James Conant, Günter Frankenberg, Lisa Gotto, Julika Griem, Klaus Günther, Vinzenz Hediger, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Verena Lueken, Anja Peltzer, Rainer Winter, Hans-Jürgen Wulff sowie den Herausgebern.

In this article I take on the “Transcendentalist Challenge” to naturalized phenomenology, highlighting how the ontological and methodological commitments of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy point in the direction of an integration of the transcendental and the scientific, thus making room for a productive exchange between philosophy and psychological science when it comes to understanding consciousness and its place in nature. Discussing various conceptions of naturalized phenomenology, I argue that what I call an “Integrationist View” is required if we are to make sense (...) of the possibility of productive exchange between phenomenology and the sciences. My main argument is that if we conceive of consciousness as a structure of behavior ontologically prior to the distinctions between objectivity and subjectivity and third- and first-person perspectives, we arrive at a view of the transcendental as not essentially separate from the domain of science, but rather as contingent organizational norms of empirical nature that are best illuminated through a dialectical exchange between phenomenological and scientific approaches. I end by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the “Schneider case” in an example of such an integration. (shrink)

The proliferation of new accounts of infused and acquired virtue in Thomas has brought much welcome attention to his understanding of the relationship between nature and grace. But the very originality of these interpretations has raised a multitude of unanswered questions and difficulties. For any of these accounts to be plausible, they must be accompanied by an account of the way in which Thomas thinks that the specifically one virtue of prudence considers the matter of all virtues, and (...) his statement that such prudence depends on a correct order to the ultimate end. The current disagreement over acquired moral virtue cannot be resolved until these related disagreements are adequately addressed. (shrink)

I will put forward a short, simple argument for a pair of realist claims: metaphysical realism and what I will refer to as epistemological realism. The argument will rely upon nothing more than our apparent memories. Having presented the argument, I will go on to consider possible objections to it, of which there will be a number but none of which will do more than complicate the matter. The argument I present borrows from Peirce’s view that the world’s capacity to (...) surprise us plays a vital role in guiding us toward truth, and from the argument to the best explanation. However, it combines the two views in a way I have not seen done previously. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper proposes a reading of Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of predestination as fundamentally oriented towards and realized in friendship with God. On this reading, the seemingly disparate questions, “What does it mean to be predestined?” and “What does it mean to grow in friendship with God?” are not only mutually illuminating but ultimately coterminous. In the first part of the paper, I contextualize this theological rapprochement by foregrounding Aquinas’ treatment in the Summa Theologiae of predestination as a Christocentric, communal (...) reality, and by considering friendship with God as the end of Aquinas’ doctrine of grace. In the second part, I attend to Aquinas’ scriptural commentaries on Romans and the Gospel of John, in order to conduct a reading of predestination in/as friendship with God. Ultimately, as invited in friendship and adopted in grace into the life of Christ, God’s ordering of the rational creature to eternal life is nothing other than God’s ordering of humanity as viator to friendship with Himself in the inner life of Trinitarian love itself. (shrink)

We investigate some logics with Henkin quantifiers. For a given logic L, we consider questions of the form: what is the degree of the set of L–tautologies in a poor vocabulary (monadic or empty)? We prove that the set of tautologies of the logic with all Henkin quantifiers in empty vocabulary L*∅ is of degree 0’. We show that the same holds also for some weaker logics like L ∅(Hω) and L ∅(Eω). We show that each logic of the form (...) L ∅ (k)(Q), with the number of variables restricted to k, is decidable. Nevertheless – following the argument of M. Mostowski from [Mos89] – for each reasonable set theory no concrete algorithm can provably decide L (k) (Q), for some (Q). We improve also some results related to undecidability and expressibility for logics L(H4) and L(F2) of Krynicki and M. Mostowski from [KM92]. (shrink)

There is no arguing the impact of Inoue Tetsujirō on the development of philosophy in Japan from the Meiji Restoration through the end of the Pacific War. He was the first Japanese to receive a doctorate in philosophy from Germany and the first native-born chair of the philosophy department at Tokyo Imperial University, the training center for almost all the major Japanese philosophers who graduated before 1915. Inoue was instrumental in making German idealism the Western philosophy of choice for Japan, (...) but he also appreciated Asian traditions as well, having no qualms about claiming there was true philosophy in India, China, and premodern Japan. He set the foundation for academic philosophy in Japan not so much through his own rather simplistic personal philosophy, but especially through his contributions to the organization of the field. This article focuses mainly on Inoue’s troubled relation with Confucianism. On one hand, in seeking a premodern philosophy to serve as the bedrock for modern Japan, Inoue looked to the Edo-period Confucian traditions originating in China. He divided them into Shushigaku, Yōmeigaku, and what he named Kogaku, the school focusing on classical texts preceding neo-Confucian developments and interpretations. In many respects, like so many others of his generation, Inoue was by training and personal preference a Confucian. That is not the whole story, however. Inoue understood Confucianism’s primary purpose as cultivating the social values and order that would ensure an efficient society of human flourishing, stability, and harmony. Yet, he also likely suspected that the people of the new Japan, with its modernization and plethora of Western ideas, would not unquestioningly accept the authority of the Confucian classics, nor be willing to undertake the rigors of textual study that are the hallmark of the Confucian scholar. In Edo-period Japan, that study had been the responsibility of the samurai class, but in their democratization program, the Meiji reformers had abolished the old class system. Education of the young would now shift from the Confucian academies to the new public school system. Always cooperative with the government to the point of being obsequious, Inoue took a leading role in the National Morality program and its installment in the nationwide school curriculum. That curriculum combined a Shinto-based reverence for the sacred nature of the emperor in the kokutai ideology along with practical moralistic values that could be loosely called Confucian. Yet, if schooling for most was limited to the elementary level and if there was no longer a samurai class to oversee the moral behavior of the society, who could nurture and enforce the moral order? Through a set of fortuitous events, Inoue “discovered” bushidō, the Way of the warrior. If there were no longer a samurai warrior class, perhaps all Japanese could become de facto samurai—at least in their mindset. Most may no longer have the scholarly skills and time to glean their spiritual and moral insights from Confucian texts. Yet, they could find the virtues of loyalty, sincerity, filiality, and compliance with seniority within the distinctively mindful heart and spirit of ancient Japan carried within the Japanese bloodline. What happened to the Confucianism of Inoue Tetsujirō? Some of its values were absorbed into bushidō and National Morality, but the praxis of the Confucian scholar and the ideal of the kunshi seem to have been lost, much to Japan’s detriment. (shrink)

This essay offers a perspective on Thomas Demand's works. It argues that in Demand’s pictures, the procedures of figuration themselves acquire a visible figure.