Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

This comprehensive research was conducted in Duhok City, Iraq, encompassing both university and high school levels in the academic year 2022-2023. The primary objective was to thoroughly examine the influence of technology on English language teaching and learning. Employing a historical analysis, this study traced the evolution of technology within the realm of English language education while meticulously scrutinizing its advantages and potential challenges. Participants encompassed a diverse group, comprising university students and teachers, as well as high school (...) teachers and students. Through rigorous investigation, the research sought to shed light on effective strategies for integrating technology into TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) classrooms, with the overarching aim of enhancing language proficiency and communication skills. The study underscored the critical significance of striking a harmonious balance between technology and traditional teaching methods. This thoughtful integration was found to hold the potential for positively transforming students' language acquisition experiences. By strategically incorporating multimedia resources and cutting-edge tools, this research succeeded in enriching the landscape of English language learning. The result was a more engaging, dynamic, and immersive educational environment. While the abstract outlines the study's participants and the period during which it was conducted, it does not specify the exact tools or methods used for data collection and analysis. Furthermore, the abstract does not provide specific findings or outcomes of the research, focusing instead on the broader implications and significance of the study for educators, policymakers, and stakeholders involved in language education in Duhok City, Iraq, and beyond. (shrink)

This is a study of how self-transformation may occur through the practice of reframing one's personal experience in terms of a canonical language: that is, a system of symbols that purports to explain something about human beings and the universe they live in. The Christian conversion narrative is used as the primary example here, but the approach used in this book also illuminates other practices such as psychotherapy in which people deal with emotional conflict through language.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 125-148.

Body experience can be seen as the basis for the formation of the self-concept. The relation between body experience and self-concept is fundamental for human existence and is especially in focus in the fields of psychotherapy and movement activities . But body experience is a "data source" which is difficult to handle scientifically. Body experiences are based on "internal physical sensations" - which Gendlin also describes as the felt meaning or the felt sense, and is not in opposition to phenomenology. (...) To bridge the gap between internal sensations - which are the foundation of the creation of meaning - and language as the medium in both everyday and scientific communication, a form of visualisation technique is introduced to help to evoke descriptions and metaphors that are able to transform body experiences as the pre-reflective mode of information into language as the digital mode of information. Metaphors are the source domain for the target domain body experience . Through the presentation of an empirical project in the field of movement and sport, the theoretical reflections on the process of transforming body experience into language will be exemplified. (shrink)

These essays define transformation by blending the familiar with the conflicted and plural. Transformation refers to the shifting ground in our present culture between the familiar and the unfamiliar. These essays are viewed as examples of new intellectual 'genres' rather than 'theories.' If they do belong to a post-theoretical, intellectual genre of writing, it is because they blend philosophical vocabularies with expressions of curiosity, novelty and plurality.

Transformer-based language models (TLMs) have widely been recognized to be a cutting-edge technology for the successful development of deep-learning-based solutions to problems and applications that require natural language processing and understanding. Like for other textual domains, TLMs have indeed pushed the state-of-the-art of AI approaches for many tasks of interest in the legal domain. Despite the first Transformer model being proposed about six years ago, there has been a rapid progress of this technology at an unprecedented rate, whereby (...) BERT and related models represent a major reference, also in the legal domain. This article provides the first systematic overview of TLM-based methods for AI-driven problems and tasks in the legal sphere. A major goal is to highlight research advances in this field so as to understand, on the one hand, how the Transformers have contributed to the success of AI in supporting legal processes, and on the other hand, what are the current limitations and opportunities for further research development. (shrink)

Within the political lexicon of the European Middle Ages, tyranny (along with related terms such as tyrant and tyrannical) constituted one of its most ubiquitous and flexibly applied discursive fields. Moreover, once Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics began to circulate in the West after their translation into Latin in the mid-1200s, a closely related term for tyranny emerged: despotism. Yet when we turn to Marsiglio of Padua, the fourteenth-century political theorist who is often regarded to be the quintessential medieval exponent of (...) Aristotelian political ideas, we find remarkably few references to either tyranny or despotism. The present article examines how Marsiglio deploys the languages of tyranny and despotism in his major work, the Defensor pacis (completed in 1324). Three intertwined theses are proposed. First, the occasions on which Marsiglio invokes tyranny and despotism reveal a great deal about his intellectual connection to his supposed source, Aristotle. Second, unacknowledged dimensions of Marsiglio’s highly critical attitude toward the papacy, especially the doctrine of the papal plenitude of power (plenitudo potestatas), may be illuminated. Third, examination of the languages of tyranny and despotism reveals additional insights into Marsiglio’s signature theory of political consent espoused in the first discourse of the Defensor pacis. (shrink)

Buddhist teachings and practices can be viewed as a journey of soteriological transformation, where language, as a tool for the analysis of views, occupies a place of special significance and importance. This article examines how the concept of non-duality, from the Madhyamaka perspective, has served as a powerful rhetorical device with the explicit aim of fostering soteriological transformation. Among the various expressions representative of the Madhyamaka perspective, two are particularly explored in this article for their facilitation of soteriological transformation: (...) the expression of ‘neither a dharma nor a not-dharma’ and the teaching that ‘one should let go even of dharmas, still more so not-dharmas’ . I argue that the Madhyamaka expression of ‘neither A nor not-A’ is hardly ever just about conforming to any linguistic conventions. It is about gaining liberation from linguistic conventions and unexamined remarks. (shrink)

Inspired by a postgraduate French studies conference (University of Nottingham, 10 September 2008), this volume explores linguistic form and content in relation to a variety of contexts, considering language alongside music, images, theatre, human experience of the world, and another language. Each essay asks what it is to understand language in a given context, and how, in spite of divergent expressive possibilities, a linguistic situation interacts with other contexts, renegotiating boundaries and redefining understanding. The book lies at (...) the intersection of linguistics and hermeneutics, seeking to (a) contextualise philosophical and linguistic discussions of communication across a range of media and (b) illustrate their intimate relations, despite differing strategies or emphases. Puisant son inspiration dans un colloque de French studies pour doctorants (Université de Nottingham, 10 septembre 2008), cet ouvrage étudie forme et contenu linguistiques en relation avec différents contextes, considérant le langage conjointement avec la musique, les images, le théâtre, l'expérience du monde et un autre langage. Chaque chapitre dissèque la compréhension du langage dans un contexte donné, et se demande comment, en dépit de possibilités expressives divergentes, une situation linguistique interagit avec d'autres contextes, redessinant leurs frontières et redéfinissant la compréhension. Ce livre, situé à l'intersection entre la linguistique et l'herméneutique, a pour but de (a) contextualiser les discussions philosophiques et linguistiques sur la communication dans une gamme de médias et (b) démontrer leur relation intime, malgré des stratégies ou intentions différentes. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Scholars have thoroughly discussed the visual aspects of Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods, as well as his own emphasis on how sight functions and what contexts and conditions shape how we see and what we can see. Yet while some of the images and visual devices he uses are frequently discussed, like Las Meninas and the panopticon, his diagrams in The Order of Things have received little attention. Why does Foucault diagram historical ways of thinking? What are we supposed to (...) see and understand through these diagrams? To examine the role of the diagram in Foucault’s archaeological method, this paper provides a close reading of how the classical quadrilateral visualizes the structure, function, content, principles, and underlying assumptions of language and thought. In analyzing the diagram as a way for visualizing history, this paper demonstrates how Foucault enacts a new visual language that emphasizes the contingency of thought. (shrink)

"The book mounts a challenge to the notion of a clear distinction between public and private and attempts to account for the mobility of the many boundaries between the two. The first essay introduces some of those problematic boundaries in the light of the influential studies of Habermas, Koselleck, Aries and Chartier, who together have helped shape our understanding of the formation of the modern public and private spheres. A number of essays deal with the nature of public opinion in (...) relation to state control and with the role of the intelligentsia. Some investigate non-political forms of sociability and the creation of various kinds of publics within the cultural realm. Others scrutinize gender roles and the validity of the accepted correspondence of male/female to public/private in the light of women's use of the printed word. (shrink)

In this paper we explore a new way to deal with social inequality and injustice in an educational way. We do so by offering a particular reading of a scene taken from Minnelli's film The Band Wagon which is often regarded as overly western-centred and racist. We argue, however, that the way in which words and movements in this scene function are expressive of an event that can be read as a new beginning and that it is for this reason (...) in and of itself educational. By drawing on Agamben's and Cavell's insights on childhood and what it means to acquire a language, we argue that in this scene a form of childhood is displayed which denotes a general condition for education to take place in children and grown-ups alike. Hence, education can be understood as a interruption of existing power structures and as a transformation of one's existence. (shrink)

In recent years, AI research has become more and more computationally demanding. In natural language processing, this tendency is reflected in the emergence of large language models like GPT-3. These powerful neural network-based models can be used for a range of NLP tasks and their language generation capacities have become so sophisticated that it can be very difficult to distinguish their outputs from human language. LLMs have raised concerns over their demonstrable biases, heavy environmental footprints, and (...) future social ramifications. In December 2020, critical research on LLMs led Google to fire Timnit Gebru, co-lead of the company’s AI Ethics team, which sparked a major public controversy around LLMs and the growing corporate influence over AI research. This article explores the role LLMs play in the political economy of AI as infrastructural components for AI research and development. Retracing the technical developments that have led to the emergence of LLMs, we point out how they are intertwined with the business model of big tech companies and further shift power relations in their favour. This becomes visible through the Transformer, which is the underlying architecture of most LLMs today and started the race for ever bigger models when it was introduced by Google in 2017. Using the example of GPT-3, we shed light on recent corporate efforts to commodify LLMs through paid API access and exclusive licensing, raising questions around monopolization and dependency in a field that is increasingly divided by access to large-scale computing power. (shrink)

Will language as we know it cease to exist? What could this mean for the way we live our lives? Shining a light on the technology currently being developed to revolutionise communication, The Future of Language distinguishes myth from reality and superstition from scientifically-based prediction as it plots out the importance of language and raises questions about its future.From the rise of artificial intelligence and speaking robots, to brain implants and computer-facilitated telepathy, language and communications expert (...) Philip Seargeant surveys the development of new digital 'languages', such as emojis, animated gifs and memes, and investigates how conventions of spoken and written language are being modified by new trends in communication. From George Orwell's fictional predictions in Nineteen Eighty-Four to the very real warnings of climate activist Greta Thunberg, Seargeant explores language through time, traversing politics, religion, philosophy, literature, and of course technology, in the process. Tracing how previous eras have imagined the future of language, from the Bible to the works H. G. Wells, and from Star Wars to Star Trek, the book reveals how perfecting language and communication has always been a vital component of utopian dreams of the future. Questioning the potential ramifications of recent and future developments in communication on society and its ideals, The Future of Language is a no holds barred investigation into the state of civilisation and the impact that changes in language could have on our lives"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Organization emerges as reality only through language. Transformation is such an emergence and it must get over the present context. A descriptive or implicative language fails to transcend the context. Linguistic suggestion of imageries and linguistic communion through imagination take departure from the present context and emerge as the new pleasurable transformed reality of organization. Linguistic holds the key to organizational transformation.

Large language models in the form of chatbots very realistically imitate a dialogue as an omniscient interlocutor and therefore have become widespread. But even Google in its Gemini chatbot does not recommend trusting what the chatbot will write and asks to check its answers. In this review, various types of LLM errors such as the curse of inversion, number processing, etc. will be analyzed to identify their causes. Such an analysis led to the conclusion about the common causes of (...) all errors, which is that transformers do not have deep analogy, hierarchy of schemes and selectivity of content taken into account in the inference. But the most important conclusion is that transformers, like other neural networks, are built on the concept of processing the input signal, which creates a strong dependence on superficial noise and irrelevant information that the transformer’s attention layer cannot compensate for. The concept of neural networks was laid down in the 1950s by the idea of F. Rosenblatt’s perceptron and did not take into account the achievements of cognitive psychology that appeared later. According to the constructivist paradigm, the input word (or perception) is only a way to check the correctness of the constructed predictive model for possible situations. This is the cause of the biggest problem of transformers, called hallucinations. And its elimination is possible only by changing the architecture of the neural network, but not by increasing the amount of data in training. (shrink)

Jean-Luc MARION, De surcroît. Études sur les phénomènes saturés ; Magda KING, A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time ; Andreas MICHEL, Die französische Heidegger-Rezeption und ihre sprachlichen Konsequenzen ; Alfred DENKER, Historical Dictionary of Heidegger’s Philosophy ; John B. BROUGH & Lester EMBREE, The Many Faces of Time ; Daniel O. DAHLSTROM, Heidegger’s Concept of Truth ; Cristina LAFONT, Heidegger, Language, And World-Disclosure ; Eliane ESCOUBAS & Bernhard WALDENFELS, Phénoménologie française et phénoménologie allemande ; Eckard WOLZ-GOTTWALD, Transformation der (...) Phänomenologie. Zur Mystik bei Husserl und Heidegger ; Martin HEIDEGGER, Ontology – The Hermeneutics of Facticity ; Arkadiusz CHRUDZIMSKI, Die Erkenntnistheorie von Roman Ingarden ; Jocelyn BENOIST, L’apriori conceptuel. Bolzano, Husserl, Schlick ; Dennis King KEENAN, Death and Responsibility. The “Work” of Levinas ; Dan ZAHAVI, Self-awareness, Temporality, and Alterity. Central Topics in Phenomenology ; Sonya SIKKA, Forms of Transcendence. Heidegger and Medieval Mystical Theology ; Alfred DENKER, Omdat filosoferen leven is. Een archeologie van Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit; Seán HAND, The Levinas Reader ; ; Ion MINCÃ, Informatica şi teoria cunoaşterii. O paradigmã fenomenologicã a domeniului hardware ; John van BUREN, The Young Heidegger. Rumor of the Hidden King. (shrink)

My dissertation establishes the basis for a systematic outlook on the role language plays in human cognition. It is an investigation based on a cognitive conception of language, as opposed to communicative conceptions, viz. those that suppose that language plays no role in cognition. I focus, in Chapter 2, on three paradigmatic theories adopting this perspective, each offering different views on how language contributes to or changes cognition. -/- In Chapter 3, I criticize current views held (...) by dual-process theorists, and I develop a picture of the complex interaction between language and cognition that I deem more plausible by using resources from the literature on the evolution of the faculty of language. Rather than trying to find one general explanation for all cognitive processes, I take seriously the idea that our mind is composed of many subsystems, and that language can interact and modify each in different ways. There is no reason offered in the empirical literature—besides maybe parsimony—that suggest that language has to interact in the same ways with all cognitive processes. Yet, this is seemingly taken for granted, especially within dual-process approaches. -/- On my view, it is a central requirement for a theory of the role of language in cognition to explain how language might have effects, at once, on and within various parts of cognition. In Chapter 4, I explore how this framework can modify how we think about some experiments in psychology, specifically in research on categorization. My idea is that language, once it evolved, changed how some cognitive capacities worked and interacted with each other, but did so in more than one or two ways. Cognitive systems are changed in very different ways—sometimes the transformation is very subtle, such as our way of forming categories by using how similar objects are, while other times it is deep and changes the very way the system works. (shrink)

Our analysis examined the language, structure, and meaning of mythological narratives, alongside relevant philosophical and theological works. Examining religious language, we found that religious texts utilize figurative language (metaphors, similes) to convey complex ideas about the divine. Philosophical works highlighted the concept of "family resemblance," where religious terms acquire meaning through connections within a religious framework. We explored how elements like plot, character development, and point of view shape meaning. The Popol Vuh's cyclical plot with repetitive elements (...) underscores the interconnectedness of creation and destruction. The Popol Vuh's deities, working together as creators, highlight the importance of collaboration. Pandora embodies the dangers of curiosity, while her role as the first woman adds layers of complexity. Finally, the transformation of Osiris signifies the triumph of good and the possibility of life after death. The Babylonian Enuma Elish features a violent power struggle among deities, with Marduk emerging as the victor and creator god. In contrast, the Judeo-Christian account depicts a singular, omnipotent God who creates the universe through spoken word, emphasizing divine orderliness and benevolence. Similarly, examining flood myths exposed differences in divine justice and hope. (shrink)

Cullinane, PJ In his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis sets his hopes, dreams and expectations for the church squarely within the gospel. He says, for example: I dream of a 'missionary option', that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today's world rather than for the Church's own self-preservation.

Probability transformation functions were introduced into modelsof behavior toward risk to allow them to accommodate violations of the expected utility hypothesis.This paper examines the shape of the probability transformation function, its interpretation asoptimism or pessimism, and how the ranking of outcomes becomes important when probability transformationsare used. It also explores two behavioral implications: the overweighting of unlikely, extremeoutcomes, and intertia around certainty. Finally, the rationality of transforming the probabilitydistribution is discussed.

Guiding questions in this dissertation: Does indeterminacy of interpretation imply no standards and limits of meaning? Is Nietzsche "modern" or "postmodern" in his approach to this and other problems? What is Nietzsche's "affirmative" message? What are the implications for the identity and future of philosophy? ;If Nietzsche has freed the signifier from any transcendental signified, how do we know when the free play of reading has utterly departed from the text? How do we recognize that one reading of a text (...) or one account of the world is better than another? ;Nietzsche said, "What was at stake in all philosophizing hitherto was not at all 'truth' but something else--let us say, health, future, growth, power, life." Truth in the service of life: Truth understood as transitory boundaries or limits without which life is impossible. As esteemers, we always impose limits, constraints. Hence, limits are absolutely necessary, never absent, though never fixed and absolute. Temporary fixity is ensured and so is truth in this sense. Conflict is resolved not by "truth," but by the demands of life, in response to which "truth" has its meaning. It is through Nietzsche's interplay of philological rigor and interpretive play that we can avoid the result in which "the text disappears under the interpretation." ;Nietzsche said, "My style, which is affirmative ... deals with contradiction and criticism only as a means." It is a means for something not easily captured in language, and certainly not in any set of logical inferences: A transformation of the attitude of resentment toward the challenge and struggle of life, and overcoming the desperate desire for salvation from suffering, insecurity, uncertainty, i.e., salvation from oneself and life through "truth." The overcoming of such motives is troped in the myth of the ubermensch and in the transforming ideas of eternal recurrence and amor fati. These are signifiers of a possible type of consciousness, a way of living in which we have a radically different relationship to our beliefs, and are no longer trapped by our "truths" in our unceasing attempt to say the unsayable, to interpret the enigma that is life. (shrink)

In this paper we systematically derive a predicate transformer semantics from a direct semantics for a simple probabilistic-nondeterministic programming language . This goal is achieved by exhibiting the direct semantics as isomorphic to a continuation semantics from which the predicate transformer semantics can be read off immediately. This isomorphism allows one to identify nonempty convex compact saturated sets of valuations on the set S of states with certain “good” functionals from to in a way similar to the one how (...) H. Minkowski in 1903 related nonempty convex compact subsets of to what is nowadays called Minkowski functionals. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to discuss the legal language transformations from a diachronic perspective taking into account the following factors: (i) spatial and temporal, (ii) linguistic norm changes, (iii) political, (iv) social (customs), and (v) globalization as well as (vi) EU-induced. Spatial and temporal factors include legal relations influenced by climate and the cycles of nature. Linguistic factors include spelling reforms and grammatical changes each language undergoes, for example, as a result of usage. As far as (...) the law is concerned, normative changes can be observed when laws are amended. Other factors such as customs, usage, etc. cannot be neglected when discussing the language of the law. Analogously political correctness and usage can be observed in gender sensitive language and the introduction of such terms as chairperson instead of chairman. Social factors should not be overlooked. As a result of social changes, numerous terms have been introduced to legal lexicons in many countries starting with same-sex unions or same-sex-marriages. The so-called political correctness enforces some language changes and leads to the introduction of new terms and at the same time the abandonment of others. Consequently, some terms cease to be used and consequently become archaic. The aim of the article is to focus on diachronic changes in legal languages and present the communication problems resulting from them from intra- and inter-lingual perspectives. (shrink)

The standard view of classical cognitive science stated that cognition consists in the manipulation of language-like structures according to formal rules. Since cognition is ‘linguistic’ in itself, according to this view language is just a complex communication system and does not influence cognitive processes in any substantial way. This view has been criticized from several perspectives and a new framework (Embodied Cognition) has emerged that considers cognitive processes as non-symbolic and heavily dependent on the dynamical interactions between the (...) cognitive system and its environment. But notwithstanding the successes of the embodied cognitive science in explaining low-level cognitive behaviors, it is still not clear whether and how it can scale up for explaining high-level cognition. In this paper we argue that this can be done by considering the role of language as a cognitive tool: i.e. how language transforms basic cognitive functions in the high-level functions that are characteristic of human cognition. In order to do that, we review some computational models that substantiate this view with respect to categorization and memory. Since these models are based on a very rudimentary form of non-syntactic ‘language’ we argue that the use of language as a cognitive tool might have been an early discovery in hominid evolution, and might have played a substantial role in the evolution of language itself. (shrink)

BY THE middle of the nineteenth century, serious difficulties in carrying out the Cartesian project of explaining through attention to our ideas how we may know things as they really are had become evident. A satisfactory account of the connection between occurrences of ideas in us and the properties of things apart from our ideas of them, an account promised by Descartes in the Meditations, had not been forthcoming. Descartes' claim that God's omnipotence guarantees that the members of some recognizable (...) class of our ideas, the class of clear and distinct perceptions, represent things as they really are became clearly unsatisfactory as part of a realist theory of knowledge as soon as Hume and Kant had shown the unsoundness of Descartes' proofs of the existence of God. Whether or not God's omnipotence guarantees that we can know things as they are, it had become evident that we lack adequate grounds for claiming to know that this is the case. Consequently, there developed by the middle of the nineteenth century a consensus that we lacked a satisfactory account of how our ideas enable us to know things. (shrink)

The most fundamental concern of this study is the question of value in the modern world as the phrase "transformation of nihilism" in the title intends to indicate. ;In Part One an interpretation of the whole of Nietzsche's philosophy is offered which focuses on the link between his "metaphysical scepticism" and his assessment of the spiritual condition of the modern world under the rubric "nihilism": the disintegration of a sense of meaning and value to human life in the face of (...) the rise of science and the "Copernican Revolution". ;In its general conclusions Part One finds that while Nietzsche had identified with great insight the related problems of truth and value in the modern world, he ultimately failed, due to his abiding "metaphysical scepticism", to take us beyond nihilism to a genuine transformation of our relation to the everyday world of becoming and to human existence in general. ;Part Two offers an interpretation of the whole of Wittgenstein's philosophy centering on his attempt to move beyond metaphysics altogether and engender a new way of looking at the human situation largely without precedent in the Western tradition. It sees in this an "eschatological" impulse somewhat similar to that which animated Nietzsche's philosophical struggle with the phenomenon of nihilism. It examines in this connection Wittgenstein's idea that "a sort of rearrangement of the whole of our language is needed" as well as his serious concern with "the ethical" and "the mystical". ;Part Three draws out the implications of an encounter between Nietzsche's thought of "nihilism" and Wittgenstein's way of looking at the human situation: what may be called its "ontological groundlessness". Suggestions are made that Wittgenstein's notion of the "groundlessness" of the human situation can be used as a pointer beyond philosophy towards a non-cognitive "awareness" of the kind intimated in the writings of some Eastern philosophies. It is suggested that such an "awareness" is the direction in which we must move if we are to reclaim an integrity and value for the everyday dimension of human existence. (shrink)

Der Rationalität, ein zentrales Konzept der abendländischen Philosophie, scheint Wittgenstein keine Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt zu haben. Jedenfalls taucht der Begriff in seinem Werk nicht explizit auf. Doch sollte diese Tatsache nicht vorschnell zu der Auffassung verleiten, dass Wittgenstein die Problemgeschichte der Rationalität unberücksichtigt gelassen hat. Das Gegenteil ist der Fall: Wittgenstein hat sich nicht nur mit Fragen beschäftigt, die ihrem Wesen nach solche nach rationalem Denken und Handeln sind. Vielmehr hat er auch auf eine Transformation des Verständnisses von menschlicher Rationalität hingewirkt. (...) Wittgensteins Ziel war es zu zeigen, dass es nicht etwa die menschliche Natur ist, die Kriterien des Rationalen, Irrationalen und Nicht-Rationalen vorgibt, sondern dass der Mensch diese selbst in der Einheit von Tun und Sprache produziert. Sinn und Notwendigkeit einer solchen Transformation lassen sich allerdings nur überzeugend erfassen und wertschätzen, wenn man sich der Systematik bewusst wird, die in Wittgensteins Sprachphilosophie angelegt ist. Gleichwohl wird mit dem Kontext der Rationalität eine weitere analytische Ebene vorgeschlagen, die in dieser systematischen Anordnung ergänzt werden sollte, um zu einem angemessenen Verständnis der Rationalität zu gelangen. Rationality as a central concept in occidental philosophy never seemed to have sparked Wittgenstein’s interest. At least, the term does not explicitly show up in his works. Does this in fact mean that he did not have a notion of rationality? On the contrary: not only did he deal with questions definitively ascribed to the conceptual history of the term, but he also worked towards a transformation of the notion of human rationality and its philosophical applications. Wittgenstein’s efforts were aimed at showing that there is nothing within human nature that defines what is perceived as rational, irrational or non-rational, but that the differences are produced in human action and language. The necessity of such a transformative perspective on rationality, however, can only be adequately captured and appreciated by recognizing the taxonomy of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, and the systematic arrangement of some of his best-known concepts. It will be argued that this systematic arrangement has to be completed by another concept that fits in between form of life and language: the context of rationality. (shrink)