In this contribution, I comment on Raffaella Campaner’s defense of explanatory pluralism in psychiatry (in this volume). In her paper, Campaner focuses primarily on explanatory pluralism in contrast to explanatory reductionism. Furthermore, she distinguishes between pluralists who consider pluralism to be a temporary state on the one hand and pluralists who consider it to be a persisting state on the other hand. I suggest that it would be helpful to distinguish more than those two versions of pluralism – different understandings (...) of explanatory pluralism both within philosophy of science and psychiatry – namely moderate/temporary pluralism, anything goes pluralism, isolationist pluralism, integrative pluralism and interactive pluralism. Next, I discuss the pros and cons of these different understandings of explanatory pluralism. Finally, I raise the question of how to implement or operationalize explanatory pluralism in scientific practice; how to structure the “genuine dialogue” or shape “the pluralistic attitude” Campaner is referring to. As tentative answers, I explore a question-based framework for explanatory pluralism as well as social-epistemological procedures for interaction among competing approaches and explanations. (shrink)

Wilhelm Dilthey's epistemology is an attempt at a more cogent and non-reductionist version of empiricism. According to Dilthey the concepts and ideas of the human mind are empirical objects in their own right. Thus, philosophy as the study of these “facts of consciousness” turns out to be an empirical science; its methods are the methods of psychology, sociology, and history. These views of Dilthey are firstly described in the context of their competitive philosophical programs—“metaphysics”, empiricism and -Kantianism—, then they are (...) compared with recent developments of empirical philosophy, namely van Fraassens neo-empiricism, experimental philosophy, and the sociology of philosophical knowledge. (shrink)

Do the changes that have taken place in the structures and methods of the production of scientific knowledge and in our understanding of science over the past fifty years justify speaking of an epochal break in the development of science? Gregor Schiemann addresses this issues through the notion of a scientific revolution and claims that at present we are not witnessing a new scientific revolution. Instead, Schiemann argues that after the so-called Scientific Revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a (...) caesura occurred in the course of the nineteenth century that constituted a departure from the early modern origins of science. This change was characterized by the loss of certainty on the part of the scientists, by the steadily increasing importance of scientific communities (rather than individuals), and by the systematic intertwinement of scientific and societal development. As to present science, Schiemann admits that important changes have occurred, but he denies the conflation of nature and culture: even the OncoMouse is a natural organism, though a seriously damaged one. (shrink)

Mit seinem Einfluß auf die Entwicklung der Physiologie, Physik und Geometrie ist Hermann von Helmholtz wie kaum ein anderer Wissenschaftler der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts repräsentativ für die Naturforschung in Deutschland. Nicht weniger repräsentativ nimmt sich die Entwicklung seiner Wissenschaftsauffassung aus. Während er bis in die späten 60er Jahre einen emphatischen Wahrheitsanspruch der Wissenschaft vertrat, begann er in der nachfolgenden Zeit, die Geltungsbedingungen der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis einer Relativierung zu unterwerfen, die zusammenfassend als Hypothetisierung bezeichnet werden kann. Helmholtz entwickelte damit (...) schon im vergangenen Jahrhundert Ansätze einer Wissenschaftsauffassung , die in erstaunlichem Umfang in die Richtung der Moderne weisen. Wie nah er späteren Wissenschaftsauffassungen bereits gekommen ist, kann ein Vergleich mit Karl R. Poppers Forschungslogik illustrieren. In seiner Forschungslogik ist die Hypothetisierung der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis entschieden weiter vorangeschritten als in Heimholtz' Wissenschaftstheorie. Was sich bei Helmholtz erst vage abzuzeichnen beginnt, ist bei ihm bereits explizit formuliertes Programm geworden. Obwohl HeImholtz und Popper in keiner direkten wissenschaftstheoretischen Entwicklungslinie stehen und Popper sich in seinen Schriften auch nur sehr selten und beiläufig auf Helmholtz bezieht, finden sich dennoch überraschende und bisher nicht beachtete Berührungspunkte, die insbesondere dann hervortreten, wenn man Heimholtz' Wissenschaftsauffassung vor dem Hintergrund von Poppers Forschungslogik betrachtet. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘scientific dispute’ between Hermann Cohen and Rudolf Stammler is symptomatic of a philosophical movement of left-wing Kant interpretations at the turn of the twentieth century. By outlining influential predecessors that shaped Cohen’s and Stammler’s thinking, I show that their Kantian justifications of socialism differ regarding their conception of law, history, and the political implications that follow from their practical philosophies. Against scholars who suggest that the Marburg School’s view on socialism was a coherent school of (...) thought, I introduce the concept of ‘left-Kantianism’ as an open term that includes a wide variety of novel socialist approaches to Kant at the time. (shrink)

En este ensayo se revisa alguna literatura reciente sobre el realismo jurídico y en particular sobre el realismo jurídico escandinavo. Más adelante, se proponen también dos líneas de investigación adicionales. Se sugiere que los estudios históricos deben iluminar el realismo jurídico como parte de un cambio intelectual a largo plazo del pensamiento social occidental, un cambio precipitado por variaciones socioeconómicas, como la segunda revolución industrial, el desarrollo de la secularización, y la llegada del estado de bienestar regulador, así como por (...) transformaciones intelectuales tales como el avance del materialismo científico y el naturalismo. Además, en lugar de retratar el realismo jurídico casi exclusivamente como una crítica del formalismo jurídico y el conceptualismo, los historiadores intelectuales deben discutir el realismo jurídico como un antídoto intelectual contra las diversas corrientes intelectuales autoritarias y totalitarias características de las décadas de 1920 y 1930. (shrink)

This article compares Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s foundation of the Frankfurt Critical Theory with Helmuth Plessner’s foundation of Philosophical Anthropology. While Horkheimer’s and Plessner’s paradigms are mutually incompatible, Adorno’s „negative dialectics“ and Plessner’s „negative anthropology“ (G. Gamm) can be seen as complementing one another. Jürgen Habermas at one point sketched a complementary relationship between his own publicly communicative theory of modern society and Plessner’s philosophy of nature and human expressivity, and though he then came to doubt this, he (...) later reaffirmed it. Faced with the „life power“ in „high capitalism“ (Plessner), the ambitions for a public democracy in a pluralistic society have to be broadened from an argumentative focus (Habermas) to include the human condition and the expressive modes of our experience as essentially embodied persons. The article discusses some possible aspects of this complementarity under the title of a „critical anthropology“ (H. Schnädelbach). (shrink)

O artigo versa sobre o conceito mesmo da estética contemporânea a partir de dois autores que, embora provenientes de tradições filosóficas diversas, convergem quanto ao radical esgotamento do quadro teórico e artístico que sustentava a reflexão filosófica sobre a arte e à necessidade de reformá-lo: Adorno e Badiou. Em um esforço comparativo, portanto, apresentaremos o conceito, os desafios e as potencialidades da estética contemporânea em ambos os autores. Especial atenção será dada à função sistemática e arquitetônica da disciplina no quadro (...) mais amplo de sua filosofia, notadamente no que concerne à constelação formada pelos termos pensamento, arte e verdade. (shrink)

This article examines the internationalization of scientific and scholarly communication in the period before World War I, taking philosophy as an example. In the first part of the article, several general trends in internationalization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are examined. This includes the importance of international experience for Russia’s policies today towards science and education. The main part of this article is devoted to the concept of the “international argument” and provides an analysis of three types of appeal (...) to the international community: the pragmatic, the reputational, and the communicative. The increasing importance of international communication during this period is shown on the basis of examples drawn from German philosophical discussions that took place between the first third and the end of the nineteenth century. The last part of the article examines the impact on German science and philosophy of the cessation of international communication during World War I. (shrink)

A full representation of all events in society is not possible. The Weber–Rickert solution to the establishing of transparent concept formation requires both theoretical and practical value relevance, that is, our fashions of today shape our selections from the past which, though, also have to be valid for the period studied. Max Weber’s tools for the selection of relevant information without risking uncontrolled value intrusion are influenced by Rickert’s historical relativism, which, however, is not free from lingering ‘objectivism’, transcendental metaphysics (...) in the form of normatively generally valid values, while Weber only claims general empirical validity for values serving as tools for abstraction in a process of double historicity. Today’s historical conceptualizations are not immune to conjectures and fashions; there is no permanence or resistance to the ‘teeth of time’. Weber manifests the post-Enlightenment predicament of anxiety and necessity of choice, which Rickert tries to escape by an ‘Indian rope-trick’ or Icarian flight. Weber’s solution anticipates Gunnar Myrdal’s explicit value premises anchored in significant social movements; a more radical anti-metaphysics. Weber’s ‘sociology’ grew out of history and its contemporary problems. His way of dealing with the value-incommensurability problem makes him part also of a long trend of secularization. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIst es Aufgabe der Medizinethik und medizinethischer Kommissionen, moralische Urteile von der Art zu fällen, dass eine Handlung oder Praktik, wie der assistierte Suizid, moralisch richtig oder legitim ist? Der folgende Beitrag argumentiert dafür, dass sich die Medizinethik solcher Urteile enthalten sollte. Seine These ist, dass die Aufgabe der Medizinethik nicht in moralischen Bewertungen, sondern in der Reflexion auf diejenigen Güter, Tugenden und Pflichten besteht, die bei einer solchen Handlung oder Praktik auf dem Spiel stehen. In diesem Sinne übt er (...) Kritik an einer verbreiteten Auffassung von Moral und Ethik. (shrink)

In this paper, I point to two connotations that come with the concept of ‘life’: it may refer to the natural phenomenon of organic life studied by the “life sciences” and philosophy of nature – Naturphilosophie – but it may equally refer to the lives we lead in a complex lifeworld. Of course, natural features belong to the lifeworld as well. However, the lifeworld is also shaped by various individual and cultural practices and, as such, it is not reducible to (...) the natural. I defend a twofold claim: first, a genuine interest in the lifeworld informs Classical German Philosophy throughout on a meta-level; second, it is this interest in the lifeworld that grounds and motivates considerations of natural phenomena in Classical German Philosophy. I trace the shared interest in the lifeworld from Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte back to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s formative ideas. Jacobi profoundly influenced the debates in Classical German Philosophy with his “resolute realism.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIf we take Heidegger's ontology to be a philosophy of history, then, for Husserl, the problem of history is only one among the three major directions of his thoughts. After Husserl met Dilthey in 1905, he more and more attended to the problem of history and reflected upon the longitudinal intentionality of time-genesis-history. His basic idea is to grasp the condition of possibility of history by means of an eidetic intuition upon the longitudinal intentionality. However, because Husserl never explicates his (...) thoughts on history in his published works, he is often regarded as a “non-historical” philosopher. In fact, like Dilthey, Husserl purports to combine historical enlightenment with critique of knowledge. It is hence Dilthey-Yorck, Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer who established together the most important tradition of history of philosophy in the twentieth century, namely, phenomenological-ontological philosophy of history. (shrink)

This paper examines the transformation of Windelband’s Neo-Kantian program into a variety of Neo-Hegelianism. The paper shows that, for Windelband, the rehabilitation of philosophy in terms of a theory of knowledge is insufficient in the face of the pervasive crisis-consciousness of 19th-century philosophy. By Windelband’s account, the overcoming of this crisis requires the appropriation of distinctive Hegelian themes and a new understanding of the role of history in philosophical reflection. Based on this exposition, the final section of the paper advances (...) an interpretation on the meaning and conditions for the renewal of philosophy. (shrink)