In various documents the view emerges that contemporary biotechnosciences are currently experiencing a scientific revolution: a massive increase of pace, scale and scope. A significant part of the research endeavours involved in this scientific upheaval is devoted to understanding and, if possible, ameliorating humankind: from our genomes up to our bodies and brains. New developments in contemporary technosciences, such as synthetic biology and other genomics and “post-genomics” fields, tend to blur the distinctions between prevention, therapy and enhancement. An important dimension (...) of this development is “biomimesis”: i.e. the tendency of novel technologies and materials to mimic or plagiarize nature on a molecular and microscopic level in order to optimise prospects for the embedding of technological artefacts in natural systems such as human bodies and brains. In this paper, these developments are read and assessed from a psychoanalytical perspective. Three key concepts from psychoanalysis are used to come to terms with what is happening in research laboratories today. After assessing the general profile of the current revolution in this manner, I will focus on a particular case study, a line of research that may serve as exemplification of the vicissitudes of contemporary technosciences, namely viral biomaterials. Viral life forms can be genetically modified (their genomes can be rewritten) in such a manner that they may be inserted in human bodies in order to produce substances at specific sites such as hormones (testosterone), neurotransmitters (dopamine), enzymes (insulin) or bone and muscle tissue. Notably, certain target groups such as top athletes, soldiers or patients suffering from degenerative diseases may become the pioneers serving as research subjects for novel applications. The same technologies can be used for various purposes ranging from therapy up to prevention and enhancement. (shrink)

Dass wir alle in einer gemeinsamen Wirklichkeit leben, setzen wir meist unhinterfragt voraus. Sehen Andere die Welt dann doch einmal anders, mag es uns scheinen, als sähen sie diese einfach nicht so, wie sie wirklich ist. Schwerer fällt uns anzuerkennen, dass andere zuweilen in ganz anderen Wirklichkeiten unterwegs sind als wir selbst. - Tom Poljansek zeigt, wie sich die Vorstellung einer Pluralität menschlicher Wirklichkeiten mit der Annahme einer wahrnehmungsunabhängigen Realität vereinbaren lässt, ohne sich in einen Relativismus der vielen Wirklichkeiten zu (...) verlaufen. In Auseinandersetzung mit »kontinentalen« und »analytischen« Ansätzen legt er eine elegante Theorie menschlicher Wirklichkeiten vor, die konstruktivistische und realistische, phänomenologische und naturalistische Motive unerwartet miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation and transplantation medicine covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to transplant tourism and organ trade. Over the past decades, this discourse evolved into a stream of documents of bewildering proportions, encompassing thousands of books, papers, conferences, blogs, consensus meetings, policy reports, media debates and other outlets. Beneath the manifest level of discourse, however, a more latent dimension can be discerned, revolving around issues of embodiment, the moral status (...) of the human body and the concept of bodily integrity. This publication aims to bring these “deeper” questions to the fore. What is envisioned is a “depth” ethics (the moral equivalent of a depth psychology) focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities at work in bioethical deliberations on organ transplantation, fuelling the viewpoints articulated on the more manifest levels of discourse. Organ donation reopens the question of the status of the body as something which we have, but at the same time are, and as something which constitutes a whole, while at the same time being a set of replaceable elements or parts. (shrink)

According to a chorus of authors, the human life-world is currently invaded by an avalanche of high-tech devices referred to as “emerging,” ”intimate,” or ”NBIC” technologies: a new type of contrivances or gadgets designed to optimize cognitive or sensory performance and / or to enable mood management. Rather than manipulating objects in the outside world, they are designed to influence human bodies and brains more directly, and on a molecular scale. In this paper, these devices will be framed as ‘extimate’ (...) technologies (both intimate and external; both embedded and foreign; both life-enhancing and intrusive), a concept borrowed from Jacques Lacan. Although Lacan is not commonly regarded as a philosopher of technology, the dialectical relationship between human desire and technological artefacts runs as an important thread through his work. Moreover, he was remarkably prescient concerning the blending of life science and computer science, which is such a distinctive feature of the current techno-scientific turn. Building on a series of Lacanian concepts, my aim is to develop a psychoanalytical diagnostic of the technological present. Finally, I will indicate how such an analysis may inform our understanding of human life and embodiment as such. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of the use of the idea of distance in philosophical anthropology. Distance is generally presented in works of philosophical anthropology as the ideal coping strategy, which rests in turn on the thesis of the instinct deficiency of the human species. Some of the features of species life, such as its sophisticated use of symbolic forms, come to be seen as necessary parts of this general coping strategy, rather than a merely expressive outlet, incidental to (...) the ultimate goal of life preservation. The paper analyses the arguments used in support of the thesis of instinct deficiency in Hans Blumenberg and considers their implications for the status of symbolic expression in species life. It contrasts the approach this thesis involves with one that proceeds by presenting and arguing from biological evolutionary evidence. The contrast is used to examine the questions: in what sense instinct deficiency is specifically anthropological, and in what precise sense philosophical anthropology is ‘philosophical’. (shrink)

In der deutschen medizinethischen Debatte spielen Verweise auf Menschenbilder eine große Rolle. Dabei haben diese Verweise ganz unterschiedliche argumentative Funktionen: Bisweilen sollen mit Bezug auf ein Menschenbild direkt moralische Normen begründet werden, aber Verweise auf Menschenbilder können auch andere Funktionen haben. Problematisch erweist sich jedoch, dass der Verweis auf ein „Bild“ vom Menschen voraussetzt, dass in einem einzigen Bild alle Aspekte, die für das Verständnis des Menschen wesentlich sind, erfasst werden können und damit die Vermittlung zwischen deskriptiven und normativen Dimensionen (...) als unproblematisch angesehen wird. Eine normative Begründungsfunktion des Menschenbildes ist jedoch aus verschiedenen moralphilosophischen Erwägungen heraus problematisch. Dagegen könnte eine Thematisierung eines umfassenden Verständnisses vom Menschen uns in der Tat helfen, metaphysische und ontologische Voraussetzungen moralischer Diskurse sichtbar und diskutierbar zu machen, die Bedingungen des menschlichen Handlungsraumes zu verstehen und das Moralische in einem weiteren Kontext praktischen Selbstverständnisses zu interpretieren. Die Mehrdimensionalität des Begriffs „Menschenbild“ lässt es fraglich erscheinen, ob der Begriff geeignet ist, medizinethische Fragen adäquat zu verstehen; zur Begründung von Handlungsnormen sind Menschenbilder eher ungeeignet. (shrink)

In Protagoras’ so called Great Speach, in Plato’s dialogue named after him, the Greek philosopher attributes the sophist a myth about the origin, development and nature of human beings, which has philosophical relevance. It is said that the gods created the mortal beings out of two elements, earth and fire. They assigned two titans, Epimetheus and Prometheus, to provide mortals with their faculties. Do this implies that creation had not been finished by the gods? To what extent do the gods (...) entirely create human beings? Is this mith a creationist one? In this paper, the development of living beings is divided in four stages, and different hermeneutic and explanatory models are proposed to adress the myth and answer the questions raised before. (shrink)

What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues (...) with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments. -/- With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act. (shrink)

This article presents a novel conception of groups and social processes within and among groups from a communication-ecological perspective that integrates approaches as different as Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, Heideggerian praxeology, and Luhmann’s systems theory into an innovative social-theoretical framework. A group is understood as a social entity capable of collective action that is an object to itself and insofar possesses an identity. The elementary operations of groups consist in social processes with communicative, pre-communicative, and non-communicative episodes. Groups operate in a number (...) of environments that are conceived of as both correlates of their own processes and providing groups with the raw materials for the fabrication of their constituents. These environments include but are not limited to spatial, discursive, emotional, institutional, semiotic-medial, psychic-personal, technical, and groupal environments. The article paves the way to combine studies on intergroup and intragroup communication in one comprehensive theoretical framework situated on such an abstract level that it can be concretized in view of utterly different cultural contexts and the emic perspectives of actors therein. Accordingly, the framework provides researchers with the conceptual devices to balance the comparability of different lifeworlds with the faithfulness to actors’ inside views. The methodological implications laid out in this article prioritize qualitative, especially ethnographic methods as a starting point for research on group communication. (shrink)

Problem solving has been empirical psychology’s concern for half a century. Cognitive science’s work on this field has been stimulated especially by the computational theory of mind. As a result, most experimental research originates from a mechanistic approach that disregards genuine experience. On the occasion of a review of problem solving’s foundation, a phenomenological description offers fruitful perspectives. Yet, the mechanistic paradigm is currently dominant throughout problem solving’s established patterns of description. The review starts with a critical historical analysis of (...) the state of problem solving in academic psychology. Subsequently, a phenomenological, contrastive approach is proposed. It questions the notion of problems as “goal-driven” behavior by making vivid experience the subject of discussion. As its given compounds, solvability, oppressiveness, and the problem’s horizon are discussed. Ultimately, an experience-based multimodal notion of the problem is elaborated that relates problems to challenges, fatalities and opportunities as different types of situations. (shrink)

This article presents an outline of Régis Debray's mediology. Situated at the crossroads of philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, political sciences, semiotics, media and cultural studies, mediology is a relatively autonomous discipline that analyses the totality of the processes of mediation that intervene between culture and agency, and transform ideas into a material force. Mediology or mediation studies broadens the notion of media so as to include all material and institutional vectors of communication and defines mediation as the totality (...) of interactions between culture and technology that make the diffusion (through space) and the transmission (over time) of ideas possible. (shrink)

Nicht nur das menschliche Sein ist Hervorbringen, Umgestalten, Einreißen und Neu-Errichten. Es ist Ruhelosigkeit, Prozessieren und Sehnen. Sehnen wird als Mangel gedeutet, durch den sich das Universum als Ganzes und in seinen Bestandteilen unablässig umgestaltet. In diesem Sinn erweisen sich Fehler und Mängel als ein allgemeines Prinzip der Verbesserung und der permanenten Umgestaltung. Das Weltall hat von Anbeginn an auch eine Sehnsucht nach Sprache und Kultur, nach Geist und Bewusstheit. Die Sehnsucht der Materie setzt sich in Denkern und Forschern fort, (...) um mithilfe der neuen Technologien die Spezies Mensch zu überwinden. Dagegen etablieren sich Wege in eine offene Zukunft, die Raum für Sehnsucht, Reflexion und Mangel lässt. (shrink)

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags zu Grundlagen der psychiatrischen Anthropologie steht die spezifische Vulnerabilität der psychischen Organisation des Menschen. Diese wird anhand von zwei Leitfragen untersucht, die sich auf die Entgleisungsmöglichkeiten der psychischen Struktur und auf problematische und überfordernde Bedingungen der menschlichen Existenz beziehen. Als wichtige Komponenten dieser Vulnerabilität werden die besondere Offenheit, Ungesichertheit und inhärente Widersprüchlichkeit der Organisations- und Daseinsform des Menschen identifiziert. Demnach sind die höheren Freiheitsgrade, die die psychophysische Organisation des Menschen mit sich bringt, zugleich auch wesentliche Gründe (...) für die Prekarität und Verletzbarkeit der menschlichen Existenz. Ziel des Beitrags ist ein vertieftes Verständnis der leidvollen Widersprüche und Konflikte im Leben insbesondere psychisch kranker Menschen. (shrink)

We argue that the concepts of `human equality' and `inequality' play an important role in the structure of science and philosophy. When the value of `human inequality' predominates, scientific categories are formed in accordance with the principle of `hierarchical differentiation' and concepts remain closely tied to the objects they are referring to. Following Mirowski we define this as the `anthropometric stage' of human thought and development. Contrary, Mirowski's `syndetic stage' refers to societies where the value of `human equality' prevails. Here (...) concepts appear that are universally applicable. However, because of their conventional nature these concepts cannot be `grasped' any longer by human intuition. Between the `anthropometric' and `syndetic' stages, a `lineamentric stage' appears, a period of transition from `human equality' to `human inequality'. Being both a bridge and gap between the two other stages, the `lineamentric' stage contains many contradictions between an `abstract attitude' and `concrete categories'. In this paper we examine the anthropometric, lineamentric and syndetic stages and discuss several examples taken from philosophy, logic, mathematics and physics. (shrink)

Self-research becomes a starting point for the question about the human being in contemporary anthropological approaches. Accordingly, human life is not viewed anymore as the theoretical object of philosophical investigation, but as the concrete performative execution of the individual’s life. Following this existential paradigm, this paper shows, on the basis of Heidegger’s ‘analytic of Dasein’ and Angehrn’s ‘hermeneutic of the self,’ that the meaning of life can be identified with the process of self-realization much more than with any possible meaningful (...) achievements, engagements or qualities. In fact, understanding human being as a self-interpreting being, Heidegger grasps human life based on the analysis of the ‘understanding,’ the ‘mineness’ and the ‘potentiality-to-Being’ as one’s own reflexive process of self-reference. Angehrn discloses this process as an endless self-understanding process, during which the self forms itself, and defines it as the process that characterizes human being. In this sense, the human being is ‘condemned to meaning.’ By grasping man as such a process, one fundamental feature is expressed: his constitutive unfathomability. For the task of becoming, the self comes from the self that has to become. This means that the self is constantly in the process of becoming self-existent and exists only as this process and remains unfathomable to man in his completeness. In this infinite process of self-realization, in this task of becoming oneself consists the meaning of life. And here, its normative-reflexive character arises. For the ‘must’ to become self has its origin in the self that has to become. (shrink)

The paper outlines the concept of the human being as homo biotechnologicus. This concept is just one version of many possible human self-interpretations, since human beings can answer their own fundamental question of ‘who are we?’ simply using their ‘human, all too human’ self-descriptions. However, technology is a substantial part of the human being as a natural being, and biotechnology is, moreover, its root. The biotechnology of today’s world means that humanity is set on a path to transcending its own (...) human nature, with all the risky consequences that entails. The author considers these radical developments from the standpoint of posthumanism. (shrink)

Vilém Flusser introduces a Kulturrevolution produced by computers and by the universe of technical images, leading to a re-conceptualization of society and identity, thus producing a complex theory of the media. According to Flusser, communication always depends on the media and upon each medium’s own logic and ways of transmitting information. By changing the structure of the media, information also changes, and at the same time, the reality we experience. Flusser describes this communicational revolution starting from the proliferation of images (...) into multi-visual information. The collapse of texts and the hegemony of images, according to Flusser, led to a revolution of technical images, which no longer refer to an existing world, but to the concepts that we make. Technical images are born to rebuild guidance and a re-conquest of sense perception. The screen becomes the place, the skin in which the philosophy of feeling is currently developing. Through this new mirror-device, we have an aesthetic touch-screen that redefines our gestures. While McLuhan communicates, Flusser “envisions,” and Roy Ascott produces visions. Technologies and miniaturization invade the body inside and outside, thus bringing the digital world into the physical one, within and around us: ubiquitously. The new situation, beyond contemporary communication, is producing a new type of media: moist media. This advancing, post-digital mutations, imply a variable reality while our space-time dimension becomes an exciting constellation of Flusser's flows and movements. (shrink)

Der soziotechnische Wandel bringt neue Phänomene des Zufalls hervor, die sich den üblichen Strategien des Umgangs mit Risiken und Unsicherheit entziehen. Diese Akzidenzphänomene sind prinzipiell unvorhersehbar und in ihrer komplexen Effektgesamtheit jenseits von Kalkulation und Antizipation. Eine allgemeine Verzukünftigung unseres Weltbezuges mit spezifischen weitreichenden Problemen ist die Folge und lässt klassische Agenturen des Risikomanagements und der Unsicherheitsbewältigung an ihre Leistungsgrenzen stoßen. Bruno Gransche zeigt, dass Philosophie und Zukunftsforschung gemeinsam großes Potenzial aufweisen, hier zu helfen.

Immanuel Kant hat wie kein anderer Denker die Philosophie der Neuzeit geprägt. Aufgrund seiner überragenden Bedeutung liegen inzwischen mehrere Bände zu seinen Schriften in der Reihe "Klassiker Auslegen" vor. Kant ist im wahrsten Sinne ein universeller Denker, der sein Interesse auf nahezu alle Bereiche des menschlichen Lebens richtet. Nach ihm lässt sich dieses Interesse in drei Fragen bündeln: Was kann ich wissen? Wie soll ich handeln? Und: Was darf ich hoffen? Der Antwort auf die dritte Frage geht Kant in seiner (...) Schrift Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793) nach. Hier, in seiner Religionsphilosophie, setzt er, gemäß der Grundüberzeugung der Aufklärung, seine Moralphilosophie fort. Gott ist für Kant nicht mehr wie etwa in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, auch noch bei Descartes ein Gegenstand des Wissens, sondern des Hoffens: Der moralisch handelnde Mensch hofft auf eine sinnvolle Ordnung des Weltganzen, auf einen Gott, dessen Existenz zusammen mit der Unsterblichkeit der Seele die notwendige Voraussetzung für das letzte Ziel des praktischen Handelns, für das höchste Gut, ist. Diese originelle Verbindung von zunächst als gegensätzlich Erscheinendem, von einer Moral der Autonomie mit dem Glauben an einen übernatürlichen Gott, bildet jedoch nicht das einzige Thema der Schrift. In ihr entwickelt Kant darüber hinaus eine differenzierte Theorie des moralisch Bösen und erörtert das Verhältnis zwischen einem bloßen Kirchenglauben (die "sichtbare Kirche") und dem moralischen Religionsglauben (die "unsichtbare Kirche"). Dieser thematisch reichhaltige Text wird im von Otfried Höffe herausgegebenen Band in Form eines kooperativen Kommentars von international renommierten Autoren interpretiert und somit aktuell erschlossen. Alle Beiträge wurden für die 2. Auflage anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants überarbeitet und auf den neuesten Forschungsstand gebracht. Mit Beiträgen von Jochen Bojanowski, Johannes Brachtendorf, Andrew Chignell, Katrin Flickschuh, Maximilian Forschner, Otfried Höffe, Christoph Horn, Eberhard Jüngel, Douglas McGaughey, Reza Mosayebi, Burkhard Nonnenmacher, Friedo Ricken, Allen Wood. (shrink)

The paper explores the philosophical anthropology and the moral grammar of recognition. It does so by examining how the formation of the self is informed by social recognition, the result of which can motivate individuals and groups to engage in struggles for recognition. To pursue this task, the discussion focuses on the insights of Honneth, who grounds his theory of recognition in the intersubjective relations between persons. The idea that recognition impacts the formation of personal identity is regarded as susceptible (...) to the charge of reducing recognition demands into demands for satisfying psychological needs. Contrary to this worry, the central claim of the paper is that such an identity-based understanding of recognition can still be salvaged. More precisely, this can be done by conceiving of demands of recognition as demands for inclusion into personhood through which the moral dimension of recognition struggles is properly understood. This article concludes that despite its potential ambiguities, the notion of personhood and its relation to recognition remains philosophically defensible. (shrink)

The idea to utilise cognitive neuroscientific research for educational purposes is known as Mind-Brain Education or Educational Neuroscience. Despite some calls for an uncritical endorsement of such an agenda, a growing number of educational scholars argue that it must remain impossible to translate neurological descriptions into mental or educationally relevant descriptions. This paper takes these well-established arguments further by not only focusing upon these different levels of description but going beyond this issue to assess the theoretical foundations of cognitive science (...) as a functional theory of the mind. With relevance to education it is argued that because of its functional character a cognitive-psychological approach to education suffers from an inherent blind spot regarding the actor’s feelings and motivations. The paper concludes with the claim that, because of this experiential poverty, any cognitive neuroscientific approach must face severe limitations when utilised for educational purposes. (shrink)

Natürlichkeitsargumente haben allgemein in der Bioethik und speziell in der Debatte um Enhancement und Anthropotechnik keinen guten Ruf. Neben dem formalen Vorwurf, einen naturalistischen Fehlschluss zu begehen, werden sie mit dem inhaltli-chen Einwand konfrontiert, eine falsche Auffassung von menschlicher Natur zugrunde zu legen: Recht verstanden definiere sich diese menschliche Natur nicht durch eine biologische Substanz, die durch biotechnische Eingriffe korrumpiert werden könnte, sondern durch kulturelle Vollzüge, zu denen gerade auch der Einsatz biotechnischer Verfahren zähle und die daher durch biotechnische Manipulationen (...) am Menschen keineswegs beeinträchtigt, sondern eher noch bestätigt würden. Der vorliegende Beitrag unterzieht diese Argumentation einer kritischen Prüfung. Dabei zeigt sich, dass der Ansatz, den Menschen von seiner ‚Kultürlichkeit‘ statt von seiner ‚Natürlichkeit‘ her zu begreifen, tatsächlich keine glaubhafte Rechtfertigung von Anthropotechniken liefert, sondern im Gegenteil ein neues Argument gegen sie begründet: Anthropotechniken untergraben bei genauerem Hinsehen auch und gerade den Status des Menschen als Kulturwesen. (shrink)

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too.... Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. It is the want of nerves of understanding for such a talk; (...) it is the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts and little fallacious facilities, that has in so many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. (Edmund Burke). (shrink)

The critical aspects of deep brain stimulation are usually the focus of the ethical debate about the implantation of electrodes into the brain of patients with Parkinson’s disease. Above all, potential postoperative side effects on personality caused by DBS mark the debate. However, rehabilitation of agility and mobility by DBS can be posited against critical aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to emphasize the hitherto neglected positive aspects of that technology. A detailed study of the rehabilitation of controlled (...) movements will thus be the object of this article. The possibility to move again in a controlled way will be discussed as freedom of movement. The concept freedom of movement is being linked to the observation of feelings of euphoria and joy that can occur after surgery for patients with PD stimulated in the subthalamic nucleus. This is done based on phenomenological analysis and qualitative interviews, in which the relation between freedom of movement and feelings of joy becomes clear. The aim here is to show that these feelings of exaltation express an essential feeling of freedom – a bodily felt freedom – which is grounded in movement and can be regained by STN-DBS. (shrink)

Plessner’s Stufen des Organischen questions both the conditions of possibility as well as the consequences of a self-understanding of life. Originally written against the background of urbanisation, industrialisation and colonisation, the strength of Plessner’s work lies in his combination of an analyticalphilosophical conceptualisation, the introduction of materiality and the body as well as his historical–ethical dimension. As a re-sult of this combination, Plessner’s approach is well suited to contribute to the current inter-national discourse on the relationship of sociality and materiality. (...) This article provides an overview of the reception of Plessner in Germany and embeds his approach into current de-bates, discussing its value with regard to the sociality-materiality relationship. The focus is on three issues: the definition of the boundaries of the social, the relationship between the social and the body as well as the cultural historic-ethical situation. Finally, Plessner’s Steps of the Organic are related to the current issues of ecologisation and digitalisation, allowing us to see what a Plessnerian perspective on the materiality-sociality relationship can do with-in applied social theory. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)

Der experimentale heutige Mensch ist dazu verdammt, den Menschen neu zu denken. Er bewundert sich immer, dies zu können. Dafür muss er nur alle die Mittel benutzen und kombinieren, die er gebrauchen kann, um zu sehen, was dabei herauskommt. Und das merkwürdigste Ergebnis, über das er sich freuen kann, heißt immer, sich selbst dabei neu zu denken. Er kann sich nicht genug über sich selbst und seine ewige Neuheit freuen, wenn er sich selbst in eine totale Experimentierung der Welt und (...) seiner selbst projiziert. Und das mit Recht, weil ihn diese totale Experimentierung seiner mathesis universalis und seiner sapientia universalis zwingt zu entdecken, dass er die magische Kraft, sich selbst und die Welt zu schaffen, allein sich selbst und insbesondere der magischen Kraft der Sprache verdankt. (shrink)

Anhand der Schillerschen Konzeption des Scheins und ihrer theoretischen Weiterführung durch die Philosophin Susanne Langer wird der anthropologische Stellenwert der Virtualität entfaltet und in seinen Entlastungspotentialen sowie Hermetisierungsproblematiken mit Blick auf professionshermeneutische Fragestellungen bezogen, die in der Polizeiseelsorge von Bedeutung sind.

The aim of this paper is to reconsider the relationship between living body and artefacts in the perspective of Helmuth Plessner’s aesthesiology. According to the outcomes of Plessner’s aesthesiology, I present two main theses: 1) artefacts are not created, but rather discovered and expressed by human agency, and 2) the bodily dimension of the human being is the condition of the “discovery” of material and symbolic artefacts. To argue these theses I highlight a) the process of “somatisation” that engages the (...) Kantian transcendental model of subject in Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, b) Plessner’s rejection of the Kantian profile of Uexküll’s theory of Umwelt as an application of this transcendental model of subjectivity in the biological field, and c) the development in Plessner of a type of transcendental aesthetics, which can be linked with S. Crowell’s recent theory of perception. (shrink)

Ethik und Seelsorge sind Bereiche, in denen menschliches Sein und Handeln reflektierend begleitet wird, um Orientierung, Unterstützung oder Trost zu geben. Bei Berufen, in denen Menschen auf eine gewaltverstrickte Lebenswelt treffen, ihrerseits staatlich legitimiert Gewalt ausüben und selbst von Gewalt betroffen sind, tauchen dabei besondere Widersprüche und Sinnfragen auf. Diese Herausforderungen in den Blick zu nehmen und an der Schnittstelle von Philosophie und praktischer Theologie zu erörtern, so wie es der Münsteraner Theologe Werner Schiewek richtungsweisend vorgezeichnet hat, ist das Ziel (...) des vorliegenden Bandes. (shrink)

O artigo reexamina a questão dos xenotransplantes, tecendo várias obser-vações sobre as práticas de xenotransplantes com o intuito de determinar com precisão o que se entende por “xenotransplante” e de esclarecer em que medida um transplante de animais no organismo humano pode ser denominado uma “quimera”. Em seguida, os aspectos problemáticos do XTP, desde uma perspectiva ética, embora não sejam abordados no artigo, são nomeados em sua relevância teórica para o conceito de justificação, num sentido ético-normativo. Esclarecimentos conceituais e terminológicos (...) preliminares são oferecidos pelos Autores a fim de deixar claro o que se entende, afinal, por “natureza”, tanto num sentido restrito quanto em sua relevância para as discussões éticas. O atual debate em torno de questões normativas e naturalistas da natureza e da ética é revisado em vários aspectos, culminando numa alternativa sistemática a ser desenvolvida e proposta. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed.

A new understanding of the objectifying process in science is gained if one considers it in the framework of the open, dynamical and holistic model of knowledge developed by Ernst Cassirer to overcome the problems of Kantian epistemology, which allows to consider transitoriness and contingency as integral parts of knowledge. Using physics as a concrete example it is examined, how the fundamental tasks of constitution and justification of knowledge can be understood differently within this model and to what extent this (...) allows to clarify still controversial interpretational questions (especially in quantum mechanics). Therein the creation of symbolical order -patterns and the purely pragmatic confirmation of even the foundations of knowledge are of central relevance. (shrink)

Identities form and develop through the experience of encountering the world on a day-to-day basis. The world we encounter is pre-interpreted, it presents itself to us as a largely undifferentiated and tacit background against which we organize our experience and make sense of ourselves. Pre-interpretation means that it is often difficult to disentangle identities from the worlds we inhabit unless something goes wrong and we are compelled actively to reflect on the situation at hand. In this chapter, I propose a (...) phenomenological perspective on identity based on the concept of ‘noise’. Noise refers to any instance that violates the background expectancies of everyday life and calls for interpretation on the part of those who experience it. I argue that noise can pose identity threats when it challenges the ‘pre-interpreted - world’ that we would normally take for granted and enact in everyday situations. At the same time, noise also provides researchers with an opportunity to account for the ways in which individuals experience and understand the worlds of which they are part. (shrink)