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)

The way we experience, investigate and interact with reality changes drastically in the course of history. Do such changes occur gradually, or can we pinpoint radical turns, besides periods of relative stability? Building on Oswald Spengler, we zoom in on three styles in particular, namely Apollonian, Magian and Faustian thinking, guided by grounding ideas which can be summarised as follows: “Act in accordance with nature”, “Prepare yourself for the imminent dawn and “Existence equals will to power”. Finally, we reach the (...) present. How to characterise the new era we entered round the year 2000? (shrink)

The paper shows different approaches to creativity, i.e. emergence of new meanings, in Merleau-Ponty and Patočka. The comparison is based mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s lectures L’institution dans l’histoire personnelle et publique (1954/55) and Patočka’s project Negative Platonism (1953). Despite some similarities evident in the key concepts “institution” and “transcendence”, there is a decisive difference between the two approaches concerning the temporality of creation. Whereas Merleau-Ponty likens the temporality of institution to future perfect tense, emphasizing the intertwining of present and future events, (...) Patočka understands novelty as something totally different from the present state of affairs. In his eyes, the question of how something new can arise equals the question of how an attitude of distance to existing traditions can be achieved. Contrary to Patočka, Merleau-Ponty argues that any living tradition tends towards its own transformation and presents a case of self-transcendence because it is governed by the principle of divergence (écart). Finally, we argue that some aspects of these two approaches both complement each other, and also show the limits of each other. (shrink)

This paper subjects Dan Brown’s most recent novel Origin to a philosophical reading. Origin is regarded as a literary window into contemporary technoscience, inviting us to explore its transformative momentum and disruptive impact, focusing on the cultural significance of artificial intelligence and computer science: on the way in which established world-views are challenged by the incessant wave of scientific discoveries made possible by super-computation. While initially focusing on the tension between science and religion, the novel’s attention gradually shifts to the (...) increased dependence of human beings on smart technologies and artificial intelligence. Origin’s message, I will argue, reverberates with Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, which aims to outline a morphology of world civilizations. Although the novel starts with a series of oppositions, most notably between religion and science, the eventual tendency is towards convergence, synthesis and sublation, exemplified by Sagrada Família as a monumental symptom of this transition. Three instances of convergence will be highlighted, namely the convergence between science and religion, between humanity and technology and between the natural sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

Due to great importance in the construction of theories it is imperative to analyze the nature of time and space and their use by scholars, societies and subjects. This text is the product of such analysis. My claim is that the validity of an argument depends on the spatial and temporal conditions that it is produced in. Moreover, I posit that time and space have been used in order to impose regimes of oppression over different collectives. My intention, however, is (...) not only denounced these uses because the oppression of the societies, to present the lack of such arguments. In other words, arguments based on universality of time and space have been the cornerstone of modern knowledge. This knowledge justifies regimes of oppression in different parts of the world. However, the intention of this analysis is not to denounce the lack of humanism in this knowledge, but to present the falsehood or incompleteness of this knowledge. It is not only wrong because its lack of humanity which justifies the inhuman regimes of oppression. It is also wrong, since its premises are false. (shrink)

This article aims at clarifying the philosophical (=phenomenological) implication of Talcott Parsons’s analytical realism. Generally, his theory is understood as being confrontational to phenomenology; however, in his first book, The Structure of Social Action, Parsons positively referred to Husserl’s Logical Investigations. They shared a sense of crisis: Husserl thought that there was no certain basis in modern science, and Parsons had the feeling that there was no common theory to establish sociology as a science. Thus, both of them criticized the (...) factual sciences of positivism (positivistic empiricism) and showed a strong orientation to the general theory. For this, they depended on conceptual realism (Platonic realism). According to Husserl, scientific knowledge will be arbitrary if the Ideal is not there as the norm of fact. He believed that in truth all people always see Ideas. Similarly, Parsons thought that in truth all people always act toward the Ideal, because the Ideal element is necessarily found through the logical framework of sociology, i.e., the action frame of reference. Hence, he maintained that the Ideal element that gives a normative orientation to actions is real, though analytical, insofar as the social order is established. (shrink)

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was a prolific writer of “science novels”, portraying the psychodynamics and sociodynamics of genomics and other NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science) fields, fostering critical reflection on their societal dimensions. Science novels may serve as “literary experiments”, as windows into the (future) impacts of current research. Although on the surface level Crichton’s books may be seen as entertaining bestsellers, an in-depth reading allows them to emerge as exploratory exercises, usable as course material for science students. (...) To open up this “deeper” dimension, I read Crichton’s work from a psychoanalytic angle, focusing on typical scenes and themes, such as the idea of a scientific crisis, geneticization and gender role reversal. The core question of a typical Crichton novel usually is: what will happen when a new laboratory research field suddenly comes out into the open? Notably, the gender dimension reflects and exemplifies the fascinations and concerns with contemporary technoscience addressed by him. (shrink)

The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its (...) external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’. (shrink)

The aim of my research is to define the religious hermeneutics that can be identified as the specific core of Antaios (1959–71), the German journal directed by the historian of religions Mircea Eliade and by the writer and philosopher Ernst Jünger. Drawing on their insights, we will focus on the philosophical-religious interpretation of Antaios contents: the so-called “mythical-symbolic hermeneutics” is probably the most interesting theoretical theme connected to the Weltanschauung of Antaios. This cultural journal could embody a counter-philosophical perspec­tive that (...) is at the same time intrinsic to Western speculation. This position has repeatedly emerged in many phases of our cultural history. I refer here to mythical-symbolic thought, characterized by an analogical interpretation of the world, whose structure is considered a stratification of truth levels that are complementary ontological levels of reality. This tradition sees reality as a specific kind of totality that allows human perception to take place through the structures of myth and symbols. The theoretical unity of the project is rooted in the mythical-symbolic tradition that, starting from the religious and esoteric pre-philosophical medita­tions, spans Platonic thought, the various neoplatonisms, passes through medieval mysticism and alchemy, reappears in Romanticism and is revealed in the twentieth century by the reflections of the “thinkers of Tradition.” With this paper I would like to highlight the main topics that can be identified from this hermeneutics: speculations about symbol, myth, coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence of opposites), archetypes, and ontological pluralism. These are at the core of this paradigm. (shrink)