The role of nonverbal communication in patients with post-stroke language impairment (aphasia) is not yet fully understood. This study investigated how aphasic patients perceive and produce co-speech gestures during face-to-face interaction, and whether distinct brain lesions would predict the frequency of spontaneous co-speech gesturing. For this purpose, we recorded samples of conversations in patients with aphasia and healthy participants. Gesture perception was assessed by means of a head-mounted eye-tracking system, and the produced co-speech gestures were coded according to a linguistic (...) classification system. The main results are that meaning-laden gestures (e.g., iconic gestures representing object shapes) are more likely to attract visual attention than meaningless hand movements, and that patients with aphasia are more likely to fixate co-speech gestures overall than healthy participants. This implies that patients with aphasia may benefit from the multimodal information provided by co-speech gestures. On the level of co-speech gesture production, we found that patients with damage to the anterior part of the arcuate fasciculus showed a higher frequency of meaning-laden gestures. This area lies in close vicinity to the premotor cortex and is considered to be important for speech production. This may suggest that the use of meaning-laden gestures depends on the integrity of patients’ speech production abilities. (shrink)

This paper presents arguments from empirical research and from philosophical considerations to the effect that phenomenality and content are two distinct and independent features of mental representations, which are both relational. Thus, it is argued, classical arguments that infer phenomenality from content have to be rejected. Likewise, theories that try to explain the phenomenal character of experiences by appeal to specific types of content cannot succeed. Instead, a dynamic view of consciousness has to be adopted that seeks to explain consciousness (...) by certain ways of processing representations. Therefore, only empirical methods that are able to investigate the dynamics of the mind can be used for the “quest for consciousness” proper. Moreover, the central intuitions about consciousness are best explained when phenomenality and content are clearly distinguished. (shrink)

Consciousness is targeted by both philosophers and neuroscientists; but different methodological premises and even different conceptions about what conscious experience is and how the challenges and potential problems associated with consciousness research should be formulated underlie the different approaches. Namely, whereas empirical data and the constant refinement of experimental procedures to expand and modify this body of empirical data and resulting empirical theories are crucial to neuroscience, the significance of empirical knowledge to philosophy is less clear: Although empirical data certainly (...) can influence philosophical concepts, the latter are nonetheless prerequisites of empirical research itself and thus may themselves not be empirically testable. The present paper elaborates from a multidisciplinary, neuroscientist-philosopher’s perspective the relation of philosophical concepts and empirical research on consciousness, drawing on two exemplary controversies from the philosophy of mind – on the ontological status of experiential properties and on free will. Consequences from both the scientific and the philosophical standpoint are discussed. (shrink)

León and Zahavi (2023) have made a compelling case for the necessity of philosophy — and not only neuroscience — for investigating consciousness. In particular, they argue that any theory of consciousness cannot avoid philosophical enquiry and thus only can choose between good or bad philosophy. Also, the topics of self-consciousness and selfhood are highlighted as problems of consciousness sui generis next to the mind–body problem. I will try to elucidate a bit more the specific approaches to consciousness that philosophy (...) and neuroscience take and thus elaborate why the philosophy and the neuroscience of consciousness are complimentary rather than mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Disposition ascription has been discussed a good deal over the last few decades, as has the revisionary metaphysical view of ordinary, persisting objects known as 'fourdimensionalism'. However, philosophers have not merged these topics and asked whether four-dimensional objects can be proper subjects of dispositional predicates. This paper seeks to remedy this oversight. It argues that, by and large, four-dimensional objects are not suited to take dispositional predicates.

Rhetoric and philosophy both constituted the main elements of literary education in the Greco-Roman world of the second century A.D. The present study deals with the relationship between both disciplines in Second Sophistic literature: Did ...

David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a concise stock-take on both the (...) empirical-neuroscientific and philosophical-conceptual progress on consciousness. It turns out that, whereas empirical progress is indisputable, philosophical progress is much less pronounced. While Chalmers was right, I argue, in distinguishing distinctive types of problems of consciousness, his prediction of progress on the hard problem was overly optimistic. Empirical progress and philosophical progress are essentially uncoupled; a more skeptical perspective on progress in philosophy in general is appropriate. (shrink)

Saying so can make it so, J. L. Austin taught us long ago. Famously, John Searle has developed this Austinian insight in an account of the construction of institutional reality. Searle maintains that so-called Status Function Declarations, allegedly having a “double direction of fit”, synchronically create worldly institutional facts, corresponding to the propositional content of the declarations. I argue that Searle’s account of the making of institutional reality is in tension with the special theory of relativity—irrespective of whether the account (...) is interpreted as involving causal generation or non-causal grounding of worldly institutional facts—and should be replaced by a more modest theory which interprets the results of Status Function Declarations in terms of mere Cambridge change and institutional truth. I end the paper by indicating the import of this more modest theory for theorizing about the causal potency of institutional phenomena generated by declarations. (shrink)

We argue for the importance of looking at the microbiota-gut-brain axis from a human developmental perspective. For this purpose, we first briefly highlight emerging research with infants attesting that the microbiome plays a role in early brain and cognitive development. We then discuss the use of developmentally informed humanized mouse models and implications of microbiome research that go beyond probiotic administration.

Can institutional objects be identified with physical objects that have been ascribed status functions, as advocated by John Searle in The Construction of Social Reality (1995)? The paper argues that the prospects of this identification hinge on how objects persist – i.e., whether they endure, perdure or exdure through time. This important connection between reductive identification and mode of persistence has been largely ignored in the literature on social ontology thus far.

Der Körper hat Konjunktur. Als ausgestellter, verfüg- und verführbarer begegnet er uns täglichim Übermaß. Es war nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis im Spiel der sich in den Wissenschafteneinander ablösenden turns auch ein corporeal (oder body) turn ausgerufen würde. Dabeibleibt im genannten turn der Gegenstand der Untersuchung nicht selten reduziert auf das, wasman im deutschen Sprachgebrauch »Körper« nennt: ein physisches Substrat, das wie ein Dingunter Dingen beschreibbar ist. Gegen diese Verkürzung stellt der Begri des »Leibes«,spätestens seit Edmund Husserl, eine präzise (...) theoretische Intervention in die wissenschaftlicheund philosophische Diskussion um Körper und Körperlichkeit dar: Dem objektiv beobachtbaren Körper, den wir haben, wird der lebendige Leib, der wir sind, gegenübergestellt. Diesem »Leib«, seiner Geschichte, seinen Varianten und seinem Versprechen gehen dieAutoren der vorliegenden Beiträge nach. Inhaltsübersicht Emmanuel Alloa/Thomas Bedorf/Christian Grüny/Tobias Nikolaus Klass: Einleitung I. Der Leibbegriff in der Phänomenologie Emmanuel Alloa / Natalie Depraz: Edmund Husserl – „Ein merkwürdig unvollkommenkonstituiertes Ding“ – Stefan Kristensen: Maurice Merleau-Ponty I – Körperschema undleibliche Subjektivität – Emmanuel Alloa: Maurice Merleau-Ponty II – Fleisch und Dierenz – David Espinet: Martin Heidegger – Der leibliche Sinn von Sein – Thomas Bedorf: EmmanuelLevinas – Der Leib des Anderen – Karel Novotný: Körper, Leib, Aektivität in Jan Pato č kasPhänomenologie der natürlichen Welt – Julia Scheidegger: Michel Henry – TranszendentaleLeiblichkeit – Jörg Sternagel: Bernhard Waldenfels – Responsivität des Leibes – Kerstin Andermann: Hermann Schmitz – Leiblichkeit als kommunikatives Selbst- und Weltverhältnis II. Zur Geschichte des Leibbegris Emmanuel Alloa: Archaische Leiblichkeit. Die griechische Antike und die Entdeckung desKörpers – Theresia Heimerl: Der Leib Christi und der Körper des Christen: Körper und Leib alszentrale Problemzonen des Christentums – Marc Rölli: Philosophische Anthropologie im 19. Jahrhundert – Zwischen Leib und Körper – Tobias Nikolaus Klass: Friedrich Nietzsche – Denkenam „Leitfaden des Leibes“ – Andreas Cremonini: Sigmund Freud – Der gelebte vs. derphantasmatische Leib – Uta Noppeney: Kurt Goldstein und Frederik Buytendijk – Der Leib-Begri in der organismischen Biologie – Volker Schürmann: Max Scheler und Helmuth Plessner– Leiblichkeit in der Philosophischen Anthropologie – Marion Lauschke: Ernst Cassirer und AbyWarburg – Kulturanthropologie III. Grenzen und Kritik des Leibbegris Christian Grüny: Theodor W. Adorno – Soma und Sensorium – Ulrich Johannes Schneider: Michel Foucault – Der Körper und die Körper – Burkhard Liebsch: Paul Ricoeur – Das leiblicheSelbst begegnet dem Widerstand des Anderen – Mirjam Schaub: Gilles Deleuze – Was weiß ein„Körper ohne Organe“ vom Leib? – Kathrin Busch: Jean-Luc Nancy – Exposition und Berührung– Shaun Gallagher: Embodiment: Leiblichkeit in den Kognitionswissenschaften – Marie-Luise Angerer: Gender und Performance – Ist leibliche Identität ein Konstrukt? – Thomas Bedorf/Selin Gerlek: Praxistheorien – Leibkörperliche Praktiken im Vollzug. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz analysiert den Konnex zwischen Individualisierter Medizin und der Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung, der oft als plausibel angenommen wird, wenn der Individualisierten Medizin das Potential zugesprochen wird, das solidarisch finanzierte Gesundheitssystem in Deutschland zu transformieren. Ausgehend von einer logischen Rekonstruktion des Verantwortungsbegriffs, die dessen Operationalisierbarkeit unter anderem an Sanktionsvollmachten der jeweiligen Verantwortungsinstanz bindet, und basierend auf einem terminologisch präzisierten Verständnis von Individualisierter Medizin wird folgende These entwickelt: Die Annahme, im Rahmen Individualisierter Medizin sei eine verlässliche Prädiktion anlagebedingter und (...) zugleich lebensstilabhängiger Erkrankungsrisiken möglich, verpflichtet logisch nicht zur Übernahme der Forderung, Lebensstile mit negativem Einfluss auf persönliche Erkrankungsrisiken seien zu sanktionieren. Weil die Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung aus dem Programm der Individualisierten Medizin logisch nicht ohne Hinzunahme normativer Prinzipien abzuleiten ist, kann man dieses Programm selbst gut heißen, ohne sich die politische Forderung nach einem Umbau des solidarisch finanzierten Gesundheitssystems unter dem Vorzeichen gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung zu eigen machen zu müssen. (shrink)

Setting off from a familiar distinction in the philosophy of properties, this paper introduces a tripartite distinction between sparse causation, abundant causation and mere abundant causation. It is argued that the contrast between sparse and mere abundant causation allows us to resolve notorious philosophical issues having to do with negative causation, causation involving institutional properties and physical macro-causation in a way that is unified, intuitive and in line with scientific doctrines and practices.

I argue that Mumford and Anjum’s recent theory of simultaneous causation among powerful meso-level objects is problematic in several respects: it is based on a false dichotomy, it is incompatible with standard meso-level physics, it is explanatory deficient, and it threatens to render the powers metaphysics incoherent. Powers theorists are advised, therefore, to adopt a purely sequential conception of causation.

I outline a deflationary truthmakers account of social groups. Potentially, the approach allows us to say, with traditional ontological individualists, that there are only pluralities of individuals out there, ontologically speaking, but that there are nevertheless colloquial and social-scientific truths about social groups. If tenable, this kind of theory has the virtue of being both ontologically parsimonious and compatible with ordinary and social-scientific discourse—a virtue which the stock reductive / ontological dependence accounts of social groups arguably lack.

An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, T. Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Hawley, K. How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to this theory, a persisting object is identical with an instantaneous stage (temporal part). On the basis of Leibniz's Law, I argue that stage theorists either have to deny the alleged identity (i.e., give up their central thesis) or hold (...) that stages are both instantaneous and continuants. I subsequently show that, although stage theory is flexible enough to accommodate the latter claim, the cost for accommodating it is an excessive proliferation of persistence concepts. (shrink)

David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a concise stock-take on both the (...) empirical-neuroscientific and philosophical-conceptual progress on consciousness. It turns out that, whereas empirical progress is indisputable, philosophical progress is much less pronounced. While Chalmers was right, I argue, in distinguishing distinctive types of problems of consciousness, his prediction of progress on the hard problem was overly optimistic. Empirical progress and philosophical progress are essentially uncoupled; a more skeptical perspective on progress in philosophy in general is appropriate. (shrink)

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science. Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.

In this paper I explore how the tenseless copula is to be interpreted in sentences of the form “a is F at t”, where “a” denotes a persisting, changeable object, “F” stands for a prima facie intrinsic property and “t” for a B-time. I argue that the interpretation of the copula depends on the logical role assigned to the time clause. Having rejected the idea that the time clause is to be treated as a sentence operator, I argue: that if (...) “at t” is thought of as being associated with “a” or “F”, then the tenseless copula is most plausibly read as an “is” simpliciter; and that if “at t” is treated as being associated with the copula, then the tenseless copula is most plausibly understood as expressing a disjunction of tensed copulas. I end the paper by explaining the importance of the issue. I indicate the ramifications interpretation of the tenseless copula has for the so-called problem of temporary intrinsics. (shrink)

This volume explores challenges posed by plurality, as understood by Hannah Arendt, but also the opportunities it offers. It is an interdisciplinary collection of chapters, including contributions from different traditions of philosophy, political science, and history. The book offers novel perspectives on central issues in research on Arendt, reconfiguring the existing interpretations and reinforcing the line of interpretation illuminating the phenomenological facets of Arendt’s theory. The authors of the contributions to this volume decisively put the notion of plurality in the (...) center of the collected interpretations, pointing out that plurality in its dialectic form of commonality, and difference is not only, as assumed by default, one of the most important notions in Arendt’s theory, but the very central one. At the same time, plurality is a central issue in many current debates, from populism and hate speech to migration and privacy. This collection therefore connects the theoretical advancements regarding Arendt and other political thinkers with some of the most pressing contemporary issues. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students from philosophy, political theory and related fields studying contemporary challenges of plurality as well as scholars interested in the work of Hannah Arendt. (shrink)

The era of ‘big data’ studies and computational social science has recently given rise to a number of realignments within and beyond the social sciences, where otherwise distinct data formats – digital, numerical, ethnographic, visual, etc. – rub off and emerge from one another in new ways. This article chronicles the collaboration between a team of anthropologists and sociologists, who worked together for one week in an experimental attempt to combine ‘big’ transactional and ‘small’ ethnographic data formats. Our collaboration is (...) part of a larger cross-disciplinary project carried out at the Danish Technical University, where high-resolution transactional data from smartphones allows for recordings of social networks amongst a freshman class. With a parallel deployment of ethnographic fieldwork among the DTU students, this research set-up raises a number of questions concerning how to assemble disparate ‘data-worlds’ and to what epistemological and political effects? To address these questions, a specific social event – a lively student party – was singled out from the broader DTU dataset. Our experimental collaboration used recordings of Bluetooth signals between students’ phones to visualize the ebb and flow of social intensities at the DTU party, juxtaposing these with ethnographic field-notes on shifting party atmospheres. Tracing and reflecting on the process of combining heterogeneous data, the article offers a concrete case of how a ‘stitching together’ of digital and ethnographic data-worlds might take place. (shrink)

This thesis is about the conceptualization of persistence of physical, middle-sized objects within the theoretical framework of the revisionary ‘B-theory’ of time. According to the B-theory, time does not flow, but is an extended and inherently directed fourth dimension along which the history of the universe is ‘laid out’ once and for all. It is a widespread view among philosophers that if we accept the B-theory, the commonsensical ‘endurance theory’ of persistence will have to be rejected. The endurance theory says (...) that objects persist through time by being wholly present at distinct times as numerically the same entity. Instead of endurantism, it has been argued, we have to adopt either ‘perdurantism’ or the ‘stage theory’. Perdurantism is the theory that objects are four-dimensional ‘space-time worms’ persisting through time by having distinct temporal parts at distinct times. The stage theory says that objects are instantaneous temporal parts (stages) of space-time worms, persisting by having distinct temporal counterparts at distinct times. In the thesis, it is argued that no good arguments have been provided for the conclusion that we are obliged to drop the endurance theory by acceptance of the B-theory. This conclusion stands even if the endurance theory incorporates the claim that objects endure through intrinsic change. It is also shown that perdurantism and the stage theory come with unwelcome consequences. -/- Paper I demonstrates that the main arguments for the view that objects cannot endure in B-time intrinsically unchanged fail. Papers II and III do the same with respect to the traditional arguments against endurance through intrinsic change in B-time. Paper III also contains a detailed account of the semantics of the tenseless copula, which occurs frequently in the debate. The contention of Paper IV is that four-dimensional space-time worms, as traditionally understood, are not suited to take dispositional predicates. In Paper V, it is shown that the stage theory needs to introduce an overabundance of persistence-concepts, many of which will have to be simultaneously applicable to a single object (qua falling under a single sortal), in order for the theory to be consistent. The final article, Paper VI, investigates the sense in which persistence can, as is sometimes suggested, be a ‘conventional matter’. It also asks whether alleged cases of ‘conventional persistence’ create trouble for the endurance theory. It is argued that conventions can only enter at a trivial semantic level, and that the endurance theory is no more threatened by such conventions than are its rivals. (shrink)

This paper asks whether persistence can be a matter of convention. It argues that in a rather unexciting de dicto sense persistence is indeed a matter of convention, but it rejects the notion that persistence can be a matter of convention in a more substantial de re sense. However, scenarios can be imagined that appear to involve conventional persistence of the latter kind. Since there are strong reasons for thinking that such conventionality is impossible, it is desirable that our metaphysical-cum-semantic (...) theories of persistence be able to account for such scenarios in terms of conventions of the first kind. Later parts of the article therefore investigate whether three of the currently most influential metaphysical-cum-semantic theories of persistence—the endurance theory, the stage theory, and the perdurance theory—can do this. Fortunately, for them, it turns out that all can, though some philosophers have disputed this. However, when we ask how they account for a typical case of “conventional persistence” some problematic features of the theories—having to do with reference, persistence conditions, how they relate, and the epistemology of persistence—are revealed. (shrink)

Words whose consonantal articulation places move from the front of the mouth to the back (e.g. BADAKA; inward) receive more positive evaluations than words whose consonantal articulation places move from the back of the mouth to the front (e.g. KADABA; outward). This in–out effect has a variety of affective, cognitive, and even behavioural consequences, but its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Most recently, a linguistic explanation has been proposed applying the linguistic easy-first account and the so-called labial-coronal effect from developmental speech (...) research and phonology to the in–out effect: Labials (front) are easier to process than coronals (middle); and people prefer easy followed by harder motor components. Disentangling consonantal articulation direction and articulation place, the present three preregistered experiments (total N = 1012) found in–out effects for coronal-dorsal (back), and labial-dorsal articulation places. Critically, no in–out effect emerged for labial-coronal articulation places. Thus, the in–out effect is unlikely an instantiation of easy first. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are opening up new areas of research and teaching potential across a variety of domains. The purpose of the present conceptual paper is to map this new terrain from the point of view of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). We demonstrate that the usage of LLMs raises concerns that definitely fall within the remit of CDS; among them, power and inequality. After an initial explanation of LLMs, we focus on three key areas of reflection. (...) The first is a general stock-taking, where we look at CDS’ theoretical underpinnings and what they imply for working with AI-generated language data. The second issue is authorship, where we assess the traceability of linguistic metadata and the ethically sensitive situation with regard to ownership of texts. The third area is linguistic homogenisation, where we examine how LLM usage privileges the mainstream. Afterwards, we explore ways in which LLMs could be used in research, and we discuss the implications of exploring their use in the classroom through a CDS lens. We close the paper with some observations on likely future developments in AI and how CDS can contribute with its distinctive theoretical, methodological and critical apparatus. (shrink)

In recent debates surrounding World Health Organization reform, international lawmaking has received unprecedented attention as a future priority function of the Organization. Although WHO's constitutional lawmaking authority was historically neglected and even resisted by WHO and its Member States until the adoption of its first treaty a decade ago, the widespread consensus in favor of a central role for lawmaking in visions of a reformed WHO reflects the crystallization of contemporary approaches to global health governance. Today it is widely recognized (...) that the trends toward globalization that have restricted the capacity of sovereign states to protect health through unilateral action alone have made innovative mechanisms to promote global cooperation and coordination, including international lawmaking, an essential component of governance of public health. (shrink)

I outline a deflationary truthmakers account of social groups. Potentially, the approach allows us to say, with traditional ontological individualists, that there are only pluralities of individuals out there, ontologically speaking, but that there are nevertheless colloquial and social-scientific truths about social groups. If tenable, this kind of theory has the virtue of being both ontologically parsimonious and compatible with ordinary and social-scientific discourse—a virtue which the stock reductive / ontological dependence accounts of social groups arguably lack.

Researchers have explored important questions about employees’ prosocial motivation to impact others through their work and about employees’ engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Studies show that job seekers are attracted to CSR-engaged employers, but little is known about whether and why prospective employees are attracted by job roles that allow them to have positive social impact. We used prosocial motivation theory to develop hypotheses about processes through which a greater desire for social impact in work is associated with (...) being predisposed to it (due to trait-like prosocial motivation), being exposed to the possibility of it (through CSR-related educational choices), and both in partially mediated sequence. Analyses of data from 187 prospective employees provided support for most hypotheses. Our findings inform new directions for research on CSR and recruitment, the CSR education literature, and recruitment practices that leverage prospective employees’ desire for social impact through performing their regular work. (shrink)

The epic, page-turning history of how a group of physicists toppled the Newtonian universe in the early decades of the twentieth century. Marie Curie, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Albert Einstein didn't only revolutionise physics; they redefined our world and the reality we live in. In The Age of Uncertainty, Tobias Hürter brings to life the golden age of physics and its dazzling, flawed, and unforgettable heroes and heroines. He immerses us in a half century (...) of global turmoil against which some of humankind's greatest and strangest scientific discoveries unfolded, expertly guiding us through the brilliant and mind-bending ideas that turned the world on its head. The work of the twentieth century's most important physicists produced scientific breakthroughs that led to an entirely new view of physics -- and a view of the universe that is still not fully understood today, even as evidence for its accuracy is all around us. The men and women who made these discoveries were intellectual adventurers, renegades, dandies, and nerds, some bound together by deep friendship; others, by bitter enmity. But the age of relativity theory and quantum mechanics was also the age of wars and revolutions. The discovery of radioactivity transformed science, but also led to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Throughout The Age of Uncertainty, Hürter reminds us about the entanglement of science and world events, for we cannot observe the world without changing it"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Biographical note: Thomas Alkemeyer (Dr. phil.) ist Professor für Soziologie und Sportsoziologie an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. Ulrich Bröckling (Dr. phil.) ist Professor für Kultursoziologie an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Tobias Peter (Dr. rer. pol.) ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Soziologie der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfilment as ‘satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment’. Not only has the idea of fulfilment underpinned ‘approximately twenty centuries of philosophy’ as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of ‘life lessons’, however, are so often not about the fulfilment of oneself, about the discovery and actualisation of one's full (...) potential. Such experiences instead involve moments of sometimes irreparable failure and loss—a matter that has not received a great deal of attention in educational research and theory. After briefly examining the way that fulfilment is favourably framed both in humanistic psychology and in neo-humanist Bildungstheorie, this paper considers some of the exceptions to the nearly ubiquitous identification of education with fulfilment: Arthur Schopenhauer's view of the irrationality of human (developmental) experience and Ludwig Wittgenstein's use of the term ‘conditioning’ (Abrichtung) in some of his accounts of learning and socialisation. We then focus on failure and loss in education through an overview of the pedagogical theory of O.F. Bollnow. Bollnow, as is gradually being recognised in English-language scholarship, saw moments of uncertainty, disorientation and above all crisis as indispensable in educational experience—for both student and teacher. In this way, we show that instead of being the pursuit of self-fulfilment, education is unavoidably a matter of difficulty, disruption and also failure. It reshapes us, and this reshaping can be seen as being as much about formation as it is about deformation. (shrink)

In this paper I answer Aranyosi’s (Axiomathes 19(2):223–224, 2009) criticism of my “Is Phosphorus Hesperus?” (Axiomathes 19(1):101–102, 2009).

In his oration Against Ctesiphon, Aeschines mentions the power his rival Demosthenes had during his term as treasurer of the theoric fund (ἐπὶ τὸ θεωρικόν). Many modern assumptions about the function of the Athenian financial administration and politics between the end of the Social War (357-355 BC) and the early 330’s BC are based on Aischin. Ctes. 25. This article argues for taking into account an emendation brought forward by the early 19 th century British scholar Peter Paul Dobree. His (...) suggestions, as will be shown, correspond better to the rhetorical structure of Aeschines’ argument than the prevailing reading and change the interpretation of the treasurers’ responsibilities. (shrink)

This article examines the monastic diet during the high and late medieval periods. The evolution of this central aspect of daily life gives us greater insight into contemplative monks’ increasing worldliness. Monks not only fell short of their forefathers’ ideals, but also of their own codes of behavior. Their diet gradually became more akin to that of noblemen than to that of their ancient brothers and sisters. Frugality and temperance all too often gave way to indulgence and debauchery. Days on (...) which one should have expected to endure the austerity of fasting were sometimes more reminiscent of the lavishness of feasts. In addition to mead, merriment, and music, meat invaded the cloister. (shrink)

English summary: The connection between the soul and the material world played an important role in Neoplatonic thought. Generally, this connection prompted questions like: How should one think about the effect of the soul on the material and conversely, of matter on the soul? How is evil to be understood? Does the soul beget evil through itself or is it drawn to evil from the matter? How is the connection between the Logos, as the principle structure of the soul, as (...) well as the principle means by which the material world is organized, understandable? And what role does the intellect play in the fabric of matter and soul, which Plato already confirmed as a divine thought? These and other questions are followed up from a historical-systematic perspective in the essays collected in this volume, contributed by internationally renowned scholars of Neoplatonism. German description: Die Beziehung zwischen Seele und Materie spielt eine bedeutende Rolle im Denken des Neuplatonismus. Allerdings wirft diese Beziehung eine ganze Reihe von Fragen auf: Wie muss die Wirkung der Seele auf die Materie und umgekehrt der Materie auf die Seele gedacht werden? Wie ist das Bose zu verstehen? Bringt die Seele das Bose durch sich selbst hervor oder wird sie von der Materie zum Bosen angezogen? Wie lasst sich der Zusammenhang begreifen, durch den der Logos als das Strukturprinzip der Seele die Welt ordnet? Und welche Rolle spielt im Gefuge von Materie und Seele der Geist, den bereits Platon als ein gottliches Denken bestimmt hat? Diesen und anderen Fragen wird in den hier versammelten Aufsatzen aus historisch-systematischer Perspektive von international renommierten Neuplatonismusforschern nachgegangen. (shrink)