In this paper I argue, based on a comparison of Spinoza's and Descartes‟s discussion of error, that beliefs are affirmations of the content of imagination that is not false in itself, only in relation to the object. This interpretation is an improvement both on the winning ideas reading and on the interpretation reading of beliefs. Contrary to the winning ideas reading it is able to explain belief revision concerning the same representation. Also, it does not need the assumption that I (...) misinterpret my otherwise correct ideas as the interpretation reading would have it. In the first section I will provide a brief overview of the notion of inherence and its role in Spinoza‟s discussion of the status of finite minds. Then by examining the relation between Spinoza‟s and Descartes‟ distinction of representations and attitudes, I show that affirmation can be identified with beliefs in Spinoza. Next, I will take a closer look at the identification of intellect and will and argue that Spinoza's identification of the two is based on the fact that Spinoza sees both as the active aspect of the mind. After that, I analyze Spinoza‟s comments on the different scopes of will and intellect, and argue that beliefs are affirmations of the imaginative content of the idea. Finally, through Spinoza‟s example of the utterance of mathematical error, I present my solution to the problem of inherence of false beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper, through a close reading of Spinoza's use of common notions I argue for the role of experiential and experimental knowledge in Spinoza's epistemology.

Spinoza’s account of memory has not received enough attention, even though it is relevant for his theory of consciousness. Recent literature has studied the “pancreas problem.” This paper argues that there is an analogous problem for memories: if memories are in the mind, why is the mind not conscious of them? I argue that Spinoza’s account of memory can be better reconstructed in the context of Descartes’s account to show that Spinoza responded to these views. Descartes accounted for the preservation (...) of memories by holding that they are brain states without corresponding mental states, and that the mind is able to interpret perception either as new experience or as memory. Spinoza has none of these conceptual resources because of his substance monism. Spinoza accounts for memories as the mind’s ability to generate ideas according to the order of images. This ability consists in the connection of ideas, which is not an actual property, but only a dispositional one and thus not conscious. It is, however, grounded in the actual property of parts of the body, of which ideas are conscious. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate whether Spinoza theory of intellect can be considered as an Averroistic, Themistian or Alexandrian theory of intellect. I identify key doctrines of these theories that are argumentatively and theoretically independent from Aristotelian hylomorphism and thus can be accepted by someone rejecting hylomorphism. Next, I argue that the textual evidence is inconclusive: depending on the reading of Spinoza's philosophy accepted, Spinoza's theory of intellect can or cannot be considered as an Averroistic theory.

The immediate occasion for this special issue was Christia Mercer’s influential paper “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy”. In her paper, Mercer clearly demarcates two methodologies of the history of early modern philosophy. She argues that there has been a silent contextualist revolution in the past decades, and the reconstructivist methodology has been abandoned. One can easily get the impression that ‘reconstructivist’ has become a pejorative label that everyone outright rejects. Mercer’s examples of reconstructivist historians of philosophy are deceased (...) (P. F. Strawson, Margaret J. Osler, Richard Watson, and Bernard Williams), anonymous (the fans of philosopher* mentioned by Lisa Downing), or authors whose more recent work followed a contextualist methodology (Jonathan Bennett). The reconstructivist camp seems to have turned into a shadowy group, largely extinct by now, not unlike the Death Eaters in the fictional universe of Harry Potter. There are some figures who previously belonged to this group, but they have since reformed their ways – or so it seems. Sometimes it is rumoured that certain people may still have secret allegiance to it, but no one dares to fly its banner openly. We decided to create this special issue because we believe that reconstructivist methodology does not deserve this shadowy existence. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the question whether Spinoza can account for the necessity of death. I argue that he cannot because within his ethical intellectualist system the subject cannot understand the cause of her death, since by understanding it renders it harmless. Then, I argue that Spinoza could not solve this difficulties because of deeper commitments of his system. At the end I draw a historical parallel to the problem from medieval philosophy.

Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.

Collection of papers presented at the 2nd and 3rd Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.

I argue that notions of relative fundamentality need to be invoked if there is to be something substantive at stake in the debate between proponents of Harvey Brown's dynamical approach to relativity and defenders of a more traditional interpretation of spacetime. I will review some problems that stand in the way of the advocate of the dynamical approach making good on their claim that dynamical symmetries are more fundamental than spacetime symmetries.

A number of recent articles have invoked the republican ideal of non-domination to justify either open borders, and/or the reduction of states’ discretionary powers to unilaterally determine immigration policy. In this paper, I show that such arguments are one-sided, as they fail to fully account for the deep ambiguity of the very ideal which they invoke. In fact, non-domination lends just as powerful support to maintaining state border controls as it does to dismantling them. There are only two exceptions to (...) the rule. It is well established that promoting non-domination demands, one the one hand, that refugees be admitted, and second, that all migrants have a right to contest decisions concerning their own admission. But aside from these things, the policy implications of the ideal are unclear. In itself, therefore, it is insufficient to justify either open borders, or the reduction of states said discretionary powers. Such arguments will have to rely on other, additional moral criteria. -/- . (shrink)

This paper reviews the hole argument as an argument against spacetime substantivalism. After a careful presentation of the argument itself, I critically review possible responses.

We make some remarks on the mathematics and metaphysics of the hole argument, in response to a recent article in this journal by Weatherall ([2018]). Broadly speaking, we defend the mainstream philosophical literature from the claim that correct usage of the mathematics of general relativity `blocks' the argument.

I argue, through appeal to the distinction between analysis and decomposition described by Dummett, that Wittgenstein employs both of those notions in the Tractatus. I then bring this interpretation to bear upon the issue of propositional unity, where I formulate an objection to the views of both Leonard Linksy and José Zalabardo. I show that both Linsky and Zalabardo fail to acknowledge the distinction between analysis and decomposition present in the Tractatus, and that they consequently mischaracterise Wittgenstein’s position with respect (...) to propositional unity. (shrink)

This paper uses a schema for infinite regress arguments to provide a solution to the problem of the infinite regress of justification. The solution turns on the falsity of two claims: that a belief is justified only if some belief is a reason for it, and that the reason relation is transitive.

In this paper I offer an argument against one important version of panentheism, that is, mereological panentheism. Although panentheism has proven difficult to define, I provide a working definition of the view, and proceed to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, mereological accounts of panentheism have serious theological drawbacks. I then explore some of these theological drawbacks. In a concluding section I give some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all (...) things considered. (shrink)

In the following article I intend to examine the problem of the unity of the proposition in Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein. My chief aim will be to draw attention to the distinction between Russell’s conception of propositional constituents, on the one hand, with Frege and Wittgenstein’s on the other. My focus will be on Russell’s view of terms as independent, propositions being built up out of these building blocks, compared with Frege and Wittgenstein’s ‘top down’ approach. Furthermore, I will argue (...) that, contra certain other commentators, Frege’s metaphor of saturation and unsaturation does not serve as a solution to the problem of unity, and that the extension of this metaphorical language to Wittgenstein is, therefore, inappropriate. (shrink)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (shrink)

Two extremely detailed accounts of temporal experience can be found in the work of C. D. Broad. These accounts have been subject to considerable criticism. I argue that, when we look more carefully at Broad’s work, we find that much of this criticism fails to find its target. I show that the objection that ultimately proves troubling for Broad stems from his commitment to two principles: i) the Thin-PSA, and ii) the ‘Overlap’ claim. I use this result to demonstrate that (...) we can learn two extremely important lessons from Broad’s work on temporal experience. -/- The first lesson is that there is a structural problem facing any account that commits to these two principles. This is significant given that a number of recent accounts of temporal experience are so committed. The second lesson is that the problem facing these accounts stems only from commitment to the Thin-PSA and ‘Overlap’, rather than to commitment to a particular conception of how experiences are to be individuated. This, I argue, gives us reason to reject Tye’s recent claim that the problems facing accounts of temporal experience can be dissolved simply by making stipulations about how experiences are to be individuated. (shrink)

My paper is on the republican version of patriotism and its justification, as developed most systematically by Philip Pettit and Maurizio Viroli. The essence of the justification is as follows: patriotism is to be viewed as valuable insofar as it is an indispensable instrument for the upholding of the central republican ideal, namely freedom understood as non-domination. My primary aim is to evaluate the normative force of this justification. In the first section, I introduce minimal descriptive definitions of the concepts (...) of patriotism and the patria. Second, I reconstruct the republican patria-ideal to which patriotism is linked to. In the third section, I reconstruct the republican justification of patriotism. Finally, I ask what we justify when we justify republican patriotism. Two views are prevalent in this regard. According to the first, republican patriotic motivation, similarly to its justification, ought to be instrumental itself too. I argue that this view is untenable, since it is in tension with the minimal definition of patriotism. The conclusion is that the other view – according to which the patriotic motivation ought to be of intrinsic character – possesses greater normative force. (shrink)

Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods? Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities, which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here (...) we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns—specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships. (shrink)

Binding specificity is a centrally important concept in molecular biology, yet it has received little philosophical attention. Here I aim to remedy this by analyzing binding specificity as a causal property. I focus on the concept’s role in drug design, where it is highly prized and hence directly studied. From a causal perspective, understanding why binding specificity is a valuable property of drugs contributes to an understanding of causal selection—of how and why scientists distinguish between causes, not just causes from (...) noncauses. In particular, the specificity of drugs is precisely what underwrites their value as experimental interventions on biological processes. (shrink)

The following four theses all have some intuitive appeal: (I) There are valid norms. (II) A norm is valid only if justified by a valid norm. (III) Justification, on the class of norms, has an irreflexive proper ancestral. (IV) There is no infinite sequence of valid norms each of which is justified by its successor. However, at least one must be false, for (I)--(III) together entail the denial of (IV). There is thus a conflict between intuition and logical possibility. This (...) paper, after distinguishing various conceptions of a norm, of validity and of justification, argues for the following position. (I) is true. (II) is false for legislative justification and true for epistemic justification. (III) is true for legislative and false for epistemic justification. (IV) is true for legislative justification; for epistemic justification (IV) is true or false depending on the conception taken of a norm. Our intuition in favour of (II) must therefore be abandoned where justification is conceived legislatively. Our intuition in favour of (III) must be abandoned, and our intuition in favour of (IV) qualified, where justification is conceived epistemically. (shrink)

The present text contains a critical edition of Peter of Palude’s question of divine concurrence, found in his Sentences commentary, book II, d. 1, q. 4. The question concerns whether God is immediately active in every action of a creature, and if yes, how we should understand this divine concurrence. Peter, just as elsewhere in his commentary, considers at length the opinions of other thinkers — especially those of Giles of Rome, Durand of St.-Pourçain, and Thomas Aquinas — and develops (...) his own answer as a response to theirs. Thus, while Giles maintained that God acts uniformly in every instance of natural causation just as the sun acts uniformly by giving the same light to everything, Peter (following Durand) argues that this is incompatible with the divine creation of multiple things. Second, while Durand maintained that God is only mediately active in the actions of creatures, Peter rejects this opinion because it cannot account for miracles contra naturam (such as the three young men in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire), and because he thinks that God’s immediate action follows from his immediate conservation of creatures. Third, Peter presents Aquinas’s position in detail, and defends it against Durand’s objections; according to this position, God immediately conserves and concurs with every creature, with an action that is numerically distinct from that of the secondary agent. Although as a result of his extensive borrowing, Peter’s text might not be regarded as immensely original, it provides an interesting case study of the Dominican reaction against Durand in the early 1300’s. (shrink)

Interjú az Új Symposion örökségéről, Jugoszláviáról, a vajdasági magyarság baloldali radikális hagyományáról, az avantgárdról stb.

The focus of this paper is Ockham's stance on the question of divine concurrence---the question whether God is causally active in the causal happenings of the created world, and if so, what God's causal activity amounts to and what place that leaves for created causes. After discussing some preliminaries, I turn to presenting what I take to be Ockham's account. As I show, Ockham, at least in this issue, is rather conservative: he agrees with the majority of medieval thinkers (including (...) Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and others) that both God and created agents are causally active in the causal happenings of the world. Then I turn to some texts that may suggest otherwise; I argue that reading Ockham as either an occasionalist or a mere conservationist based on these texts originates from a misunderstanding of his main concern. I conclude with raising and briefly addressing some systematic worries regarding Ockham's account of concurrence. (shrink)

This article is a review of the contemporary ‘leftist’ republican project. The project stands on two legs, and we examine them both in turn. The first leg is a novel reading of history. This reading suggests, on the one hand that, contrary to some popular assumptions, republicanism does have a leftist, even a radical stream. But on the other hand, it also suggests that several authors and movements that did not self-identify as republicans actually did, in fact, employ a characteristically (...) republican thinking. The second leg of the project is a normative one. It is essentially an attempt by political philosophers to demonstrate that there is something in republican theory from which all these leftist, even radical streams spring forth. Primarily, it is suggested that it is republicanism’s sensitivity to the freedom-restricting role of great inequalities of power that provides the normative resource for the development of a characteristically republican critique of capital and capitalism. We briefly review the main arguments in favor of these claims, and also, as a conclusion, raise a few challenges that the ‘leftist’ republican project potentially faces. (shrink)

Jacques Monod (1971) argued that certain molecular processes rely critically on the property of chemical arbitrariness, which he claimed allows those processes to “transcend the laws of chemistry”. It seems natural, as some philosophers have done, to interpret this in modal terms: a biological relationship is chemically arbitrary if it is possible, within the constraints of chemical “law”, for that relationship to have been otherwise than it is. But while modality is certainly important for understanding chemical arbitrariness, understanding its biological (...) role also requires an account of the concrete causal-functional features that distinguish arbitrary from non-arbitrary phenomena. In this paper I elaborate on this under-emphasised aspect by offering a general account of these features: arbitrary relations are instantiated by mechanisms that involve molecular adapters, which causally couple two properties or processes which would otherwise be uncorrelated. Additionally, adapters work by acting as intermediate rather than cooperating causes. (shrink)

Everything has mathematically expressible value. -/- The null hypothesis is that nothing, zero is a physical reality based mathematical conception which we can perceive as an energy, matter, information, space, time free state. Revealing as our common physical, mathematical, philosophical origin, a physical reality based mathematical reference point. I state that in proportion to this physical reality based sense(conception) everything has some kind of mathematically expressible value. Space, time, information, energy, matter.

„Csak az a gondolkodás kecsegtet valamivel, amely hajlandó feltörni a jelen hatalmi vonatkozásainak pecsétjét, és a jelennel eltökélten polemizálva mutat fel eleddig bejáratlan utakat. A kapitalizmus ugyanakkor több a történelmi meghatározottságainál: olyan végpontként érvényesíti magát, amely visszafelé nézve átírja az egész általunk ismert történelmet, visszatekintő módon kezdeteket teremt.”.

This article argues that we can construct a complex interpretation of the nature of time by linking Aciman’s gnostic thread to aspects of twentieth century theory, from philosophy and psychoanalysis. In brief, it attempts to demonstrate the roles of dislocation, deferral, and Otherness in constituting human temporality. The essay begins by surmising the conceptual history of time, touching on key ideas put forward by Augustine and Bergson. The second section takes a psychoanalytic turn after exploring Homo Irrealis to describe the (...) significance of desire and fantasy. Thirdly, we develop a unique and temporal application of difference and deferral, building off of Deleuze and Derrida. The fourth section will consider how the psychoanalytic concept of the Other is inhered within time. We conclude that an Acimanic analysis of time is the means by which we can understand existence not as a series of moments, but a rich progression of dissimilitude and Otherness defined moreso by its lack of cohesion and directness of being than by a unified and self-identifying subject. (shrink)

On 25 December 1991 Alaa Hamed must for his literary work to the "Emergency Court for National Security" in Cairo. The judge read out the verdict: 2,300 egyptian pounds fine and eight years in prison for violating of state security and social peace. - A shock not only for egyptian intellectuals! The Arabic Department of BBC London placed the sentence in second place in the news, immediately after the notification of the resignation of Michail Gorbachev. Even in Germany the message (...) arrived in the media (FAZ, 30 December 1991). The egyptian journalist Jusif El Kaid spoke of the "most dangerous convicted of the 20 century" (Almussawar. No. 3508, 3 January 1992). The human rights organization of Egypt criticized the verdict as a violation of the right to freedom of expression and artistic innovation. It was the first time in modern history (after the 1952 revolution), that an author should because of his literary work in prison. (shrink)

Im Jahre 1870, da Garibaldis Truppen in Rom den Kirchenstaat auflösten, gelangte in Europa die Grenznutzen-Schule in der Ökonomie zum Durchbruch. Die Wertlehre nicht nur der klassischen englischen, auch der marxistischen Ökonomie, war objektivistisch. Die subjektivistische Wertlehre hingegen verlieh der unvollständig ausgebildeten klassischen konkurrenzwirtschaftlichen Theorie ein Fundament, wurde später zum Ausgangspunkt der Wohlfahrtsökonomie wie im 20. Jh. der Spieltheorie. Zugleich der Günstlinge und Priester einer rentenabhängigen Staatsklasse höhnend wie die Existenz von Armut im Kapitalismus als dysfunktional anprangernd, stellt Nietzsche in (...) MA fast ironisch Grenznutzen-Überlegungen an: „ein ganz Armer richtet sich gewöhnlich durch Vornehmheit der Gesinnung zu Grunde, er kommt nicht vorwärts und erwirbt Nichts […] – Dabei ist aber zu bedenken, daß der Reichtum fast die gleichen Wirkungen ausübt, wenn Einer dreihundert Thaler oder dreissigtausend jährlich verbrauchen darf: es giebt nachher keine wesentliche Progression der begünstigenden Umstände mehr. Aber weniger zu haben, als Knabe zu betteln und sich zu erniedrigen, ist furchtbar: obwohl für Solche, welche ihr Glück im Glanze der Höfe, in der Unterordnung unter Mächtige und Einflussreiche suchen oder welche Kirchenhäupter werden wollen, es der rechte Ausgangspunct sein mag (– Es lehrt, gebückt sich in die Höhlengänge der Gunst einzuschleichen.)” (MA I, 479, KSA 2, 313). (shrink)

1. Kulturkomparatistik / 2. Physis als Gewissheit / 3. Kultur und Wertungskriterium / 4. Genealogie als Methode der Entbindung aus Tradition / 5. Genealogie der Ahnenkultur am Beispiel der Inuit / 6. Zwei Errungenschaften Europas: Liberaler Universalismus und individualistische Vernunftkritik / 7. Theorie der Notgemeinschaft und die Psychologie des Ressentiments zur Lösung von Isaiah Berlins "Paradoxon kollektiver Selbstbestimmung" / 8. Konflikt-Transformationen nach Albert O. Hirschman / 9. Der Wille zur Anthropodiversität übersteigt die Toleranz.

Methodological critique of the sociological theory "spontaneous cooperation" to explain the revolution in Germany in 1989. This approach represented the german sociologists Dieter Opp and Detlef Pollack. The author reconstructs the two statements. Opp's approach is logically inconsistent. This approach is also unfit for scientific prediction, but Opp says the possibility of prediction is a necessary criterion for a scientific theory. Pollack's systemtheoretical approach ignores the really existing organized resistance of the subversive groups in Leipzig, for example the "Working group (...) for human rights" or the "Working group for Justice". Miracle or surprise chance are scientifically anacceptable models to explain a revolution. Both economically and politically offered the capitalist welfare state more for the workers than the socialism. So people noticed socialism as a system with more work for less prosperity and without civil rights, as a system of "exploitation by inefficiency" (Elsenhans). The author describes the revolution as a result of very effective collaboration between people, who willing to take risks and wanted to emigrate from the GDR to West, and the subversive groups, that could organize the revolutionary resistance. - This is a possible interpretation of the revolution from the interaction of transition-theory and voice-and-exit-theory (Hirschman). (shrink)

The three books reviewed here concern some interrelated elements of Thomas Aquinas' metaphysics: his general theory of efficient causation, his metaphysics of the human act, and his theory of virtu...

A tanulmány a republikánus szabadságideálról szól, és annak összefüggéséről a politikai részvétellel. Két fölfogást különít el: az "erőst", mely önértéket, és a "gyöngét" , mely eszközértéket tulajdonít a részvételnek.

Az alábbi tanulmány a Jugoszláv Kommunisták Szövetségének (JKSZ) nemzetiségi doktrínájáról és politikájáról, valamint a JKSZ egyik prominens vajdasági magyar teoretikusának, Rehák Lászlónak az idevágó írásairól szól. Rehák Lenin és Kardelj nyomán magyarázza a nemzetiségi kérdés összefüggését a gazdasággal. Habár a munkáiban nincs nyílt kritika az alkotmányos renddel és a politikával szemben, amellett érvelek, hogy ha összeszedjük az elszórt és valamicskét burkolt kritikai megjegyzéseit, világos, hogy elég jól látta a rezsim hibáit és igazságtalanságait.

A tanulmány a vajdasági magyar autonómia eszmetörténetének talán legfontosabb időszakáról, az 1990-es évekről szól. Ismerteti az autonómiatervezeteket, elemzi és összeveti a különféle érdekérvényyesítési stratégiákat, és elhelyezi az autonómiatörekvést a szélesebb társadalom- és politikatörténeti kontextusban.

Issues of the truth potential of religions and its alleged incompatibility with scientific objectivity are among the questions that cannot be bypassed in discourses aiming to an integral understanding of society. In this paper, we will examine and compare two specific approaches that share the intention of taking into consideration religious truths when describing and criticising both modern societies and methods permitting their scientific examination within the academic field. As perennialism focuses on common metaphysical truth shared by all religions, and (...) post-secularism deals with a possible form of cooperation between secular and religious morality, it is expected to find that their offered solutions to social crisis phenomena will be essentially different. However, the results show that basically both see the solution as a reorganizational task. (shrink)

Today, the expression "media" firmly retains a broad language function both in professional and public discourse, the essence of which is a signification of the auditory, visual, audiovisual and digital-electronic "press", including both the tools and agents. The term seems scientific from academic viewpoint and precise in public discourse. However, analogies drawn from some of its connotations, which can serve as a foundation to signify various media organisations, are adequate only for some segments of the semantic field of the term (...) and for the roles of various entities described as “media” in the context of mass communication studies. In this paper we shall make an attempt to clarify whether the general name "media" and the more specific "medium" adequately marks the complex institutional system and its individual members to which it is applied in mass communication studies. To this end, after outlining the semantic scope of the term, we will try to identify differences postulated essential in the structure and operation of the constituents of the institutional structure it marks. These differences, viewed through specific types and cases, can either corroborate its use or can necessitate a refinement or rejection of its application. (shrink)

Während in griechisch-römischer Antike Arbeit und Freiheit einander ausschlossen, gilt heute den Nicht-Wohlhabenden der Ausschluss aus der Erwerbsarbeit als Verlust von Selbstbestimmung. Funktion und Wert von Arbeit sind abhängig von der Machtstreuung vs. -konzentration der jeweiligen Gesellschaften. Nicht-kapitalistische Machtstrukturen erzwingen Arbeit durch materielle Not bzw. außerökonomisch zum Zwecke der Sozialdisziplinierung. Kapitalismus ist zum Siege gelangt, wo Arbeit knapp und daher teuer – für die Armen zum Modus der Teilhabe am Wohlstand – werden konnte. Zuerst erkannten Nietzsche und Lafargue, dass die (...) aus Not zur Tugend gelogene „Arbeitsmoral“ die Arbeitenden in ihrem Kampfe um die Preissteigerung für Arbeit nie mehr als hindern kann. -/- Seit Keynes ist die Funktionsweise des Kapitalismus bekannt: Vollbeschäftigung ist Bedingung der Möglichkeit, damit Arbeit im Konflikt mit dem Kapital zu Verhandlungsmacht gelangen kann. Die von Marxisten ersehnten Krisen des Kapitalismus sind durch staatliche Maßnahmen und wohlfahrtsstaatliche Umverteilung prinzipiell politisch regulierbar. Aber wer öffentlich der politökonomischen Aufklärung dient, befähigt auch deren Widersacher dazu, sich an ihr zu bilden, die Konter-Strategie entlang ihrer Erkenntnisse gegenläufig auszurichten. -/- Neoliberalismus lässt sich als politischer Anti-Liberalismus verstehen, offensiv gegen den Sozialstaat wie den gesamten Kulturbereich gerichtet, der mehr als nur boulevardeske Unterhaltung ist. Ob Schrumpfung des öffentlichen Dienstes, Privatisierung kollektiver Güter oder Steuersenkungen für Vermögende, letztlich geht es um die Steigerung ungleicher Verteilung finanzieller Verfügungsrechte. Dem korrespondiert die Zersetzung demokratischer Steuerung durch Entpolitisierung: Wenn es gelingt vermeintliche Sachzwänge politisch glaubwürdig zu inszenieren, erscheint gleichgültig, welche Regierung angeblich nichts mehr zu entscheiden hat, weil sie den Haushalt konsolidieren müsse etc. etc. Hohe Arbeitslosigkeit ist für den Erfolg neoliberaler Strategie entscheidend. Sie spaltet die abhängig Beschäftigten in realiter machtlose Arbeitslose (sie können nicht einmal streiken) und angesichts der Arbeitslosigkeit verängstigte Arbeitende (die sich aller Forderungen enthalten). Arbeit und Lohn bleiben Verteilungsprobleme. Die Zukunft bietet die Alternativen, hinter den bewussten kapitalistischen Fortschritt zurückzufallen oder auf dessen Grundlage das Otium der Edlen für alle zu erkämpfen. (shrink)

Einer der traditionell gegen den Utilitarismus erhobenen Vorwürfe besagt, Utilitarismus sei mit der Konzeption unveräußerlicher Individualrechte unvereinbar, er könne die Menschenrechte entweder nicht begründen oder schlösse deren Gebotensein schlicht aus. Der Berechtigung dieser Behauptung wird zuerst bei den klassischen Utilitaristen Jeremy Bentham und John Stuart Mill nachgegangen. Der Einwand von Bernhard Williams gegen den Utilitarismus, er würdige den Wert von Integrität der Persönlichkeit nicht, wird anhand seines von ihm selbst gebotenen Beispiels erwogen. Unter den nicht-klassischen Utilitarismen wird die Theorie von (...) Rainer W. Trapp auf ihre Vereinbarkeit mit unveräußerlichen Rechten geprüft. Das Resümee ist uneindeutig: Nicht alle Utilitarismen schließen die Rechtsinhalte unveräußerlicher Individualrechte aus. Nicht alle der uns heute bekannten und als unveräußerlich postulierten Individualrechte lassen sich inhaltlich utilitaristisch begründen. Im Paralipomenon wird das Verhältnis der utilitaristischen Methode zu moralischen Intuitionen überdacht und ein weiterer Einwand Bernard Williams gegen den Utilitarismus geprüft: Ist der Utilitarismus konformistisch? Ein Plädoyer für einen freiheitlichen Utilitarismus in der Tradition Mills bildet den Abschluss. -/- 1. Klassischer Utilitarismus und unveräußerliche Individualrechte / 1.1. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832): Utilitarismus im Sicherheitsinteresse der Gemeinschaft / 1.2. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873): Utilitarismus der Freiheit als Lebenskunst der Individuen / 2. Zu Bernard Williams` Utilitarismus-Kritik: Integrität oder „Hier steh` ich und ich kann nicht anders!“ / 2.1. Das Jim-Pedro-Beispiel / 2.2. Negative Verantwortlichkeit: „Verhindere das größere Übel!“ / 3. Nicht-klassischer Utilitarismus und unveräusserliche Individualrechte / 3.1. Rainer W. Trapp: Gerechtigkeitsutilitarismus / 3.2. Utilitaristen und deontologische Rigoristen / 4. Resümee: Utilitarismus und unveräusserliche Individualrechte - 5. Paralipomenon: Plädoyer für Utilitarismus als Lebenskunst / 5.1. Ist der Utilitarismus konformistisch? / 5.2. Utilitarismus im Sinne John Stuart Mills als freiheitliche Lebenskunst, als „Art of Life“. (shrink)

We seek value. We seep positive value what is presented in the physical reality. There is a common expression of value in the Universe. Mathematics. There is a reason why we realize value. There is a reason why 1*0=1.