Lee (2017) calls for greater attention to the shared epistemological and normative grounds of both public health ethics and environmental ethics, and to Potter’s original conception of bioethics, which, as she rightly observes, has been largely disregarded in contemporary North American bioethics scholarship and practice. In a previous publication we also argued in favor of reviving the Potterian approach to bioethics; we built a case grounded in “the relatively new field of molecular epigenetics [that] provides novel information that should serve (...) as additional justification for expanding the scope of bioethics to include environmental and public health concerns.”. (shrink)

After six years (2012-2017) of publishing innovative bioethics scholarship, BioéthiqueOnline becomes the Canadian Journal of Bioethics/Revue canadienne de bioéthique. As executive editors of BioéthiqueOnline, we frequently heard from members of the Canadian bioethics community of the need to develop a platform with the right branding to showcase the value and the richness of our collective reflections, both locally and internationally. Following discussions with colleagues across the country, we came to the conclusion that BioéthiqueOnline had developed a unique expertise publishing bioethics (...) scholarship, but that the original name, created to convey the bilingual and open access mission of the journal, was not enthusiastically received. So the time has come to upgrade and rebrand as the Canadian Journal of Bioethics (CJB). (shrink)

BioéthiqueOnline was launched in March 2012 as a non-peer reviewed journal with the aim of providing a platform to facilitate and encourage the development of a bilingual bioethics community in Canada and internationally. In light of discussions amongst the Editorial Committee over the past few months regarding the growth of the journal, we have decided to move to a peer-reviewed process for articles submitted to the journal.

Bioethics experts played a key role in ensuring a coherent ethical response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the fields of healthcare, public health, and scientific research in Canada. In the province of Quebec, a group of academic and practicing bioethicists met periodically in the early months of the pandemic to discuss approaches and solutions to ethical dilemmas encountered during the crisis. These meetings created the opportunity for a national survey of bioethics practitioners from different fields. The survey, in which forty-five (...) Canadian bioethics practitioners (clinical ethicists, ethicist members of REBs and government health policy ethicists, or any bioethicist practicing outside of academia) participated, explored their concerns, challenges and opportunities during the first wave of the pandemic, with the objective of informing bioethics research about the difficulties experienced by bioethicists “in the field”. Participants reported increased stress levels, increased workloads, and a greater proportion of their work being devoted to public health ethics. Most of their concerns focused on groups other than themselves, such as health professionals, patients, research participants, and people in vulnerable socio-economic situations. An optimism about the future of bioethics was noted due to an increased awareness of the importance of bioethics by the public and by health and research institutions. (shrink)

Imagine that you are part of the editorial board of a young bioethics journal committed to publishing open access (OA) and to ensuring accessibility to high quality and innovative scholarship. To support junior and interna- tional scholars who might not otherwise find places for their work in the leading Western bioethics journals, you do not charge author fees. Imagine also that you have no financial resources to pay for a professional website, auto- mated submissions manager, or even a part-time coordina- (...) tor: Your government has cut all grants for journals, you cannot go to industry for private funding because of the evident risk of apparent conflicts of interest, and your strapped-for-cash institution cannot afford to offer you any support. If one of the major publishers were to approach you to sign a deal, the temptation would be strong to accept. However, this would likely mean putting aside your ideals: It would be impossible to stay a “Green OA” publication (i.e., free of author publication charges) or supportive of junior and international scholars (because of pressures to “increase credibility” through artificially high rejection rates, for example). (shrink)

Langeweile wird in dieser Anthologie als Signatur der Moderne lesbar: Sie durchdringt die gegenwärtige Kultur, wird aber nach wie vor weggeschoben, ja tabuisiert. Der Band bietet eine Textauswahl von klassischen Denkern sowie von Autorinnen und Autoren des modernen Diskurses bis heute und stellt den Zusammenhang mit verwandten Phänomenen der Sinnleere und Erschöpfung her. Als zunehmendes Massenphänomen in saturierten Gesellschaften entwickelt die Langeweile eine pathologische Dynamik, wenn ihr nicht ein eigener Raum gelassen wird. Ein Plädoyer für die Anerkennung dieses unvermeidlichen Gefühls. (...) Mit Texten von Blaise Pascal, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Bertrand Russell, Iwan Gontscharow, Siegfried Kracauer, Emil Cioran, Giacomo Leopardi, Wolf Lepenies, Elizabeth S. Goodstein, Peter Toohey, Martin Doehlemann, Françoise Wemelsfelder und anderen. (shrink)

"Wir mögen an der Natur beobachten, messen, rechnen, wägen und so weiter, wie wir wollen, es ist doch nur unser Maß und Gewicht, wie der Mensch das Maß der Dinge ist." So schrieb Goethe im Jahre 1807. "Die Natur wird uns keine Sonderbehandlung gewähren, nur weil wir uns als 'Krone der Schöpfung' betrachten... Ich fürchte, sie ist nicht eitel genug, um sich an den Menschen als einen Spiegel zu klammern, in dem allein sie ihre eigene Schönheit sehen kann", schreibt der (...) Physiker Hans-Peter Dürr heute. Diesen beiden Stellungnahmen liegen sehr unterschiedliche Vorstellungen vom Verhältnis Mensch - Natur zugrunde. Wie überhaupt die Naturphilosophie von den Vorsokratikern bis in die Gegenwart die unterschiedlichsten Varianten dieser Beziehung durchgespielt hat. Dass der Mensch sich jedoch in einem weit über die alttestamentarische Vorstellungskraft hinausgehenden Maße die Natur "untertan" gemacht und dabei großräumig zerstört hat, steht außer Zweifel. Im Rahmen der ökologischen Krise muss das Verhältnis zur Natur neu überdacht werden. Das vorliegende Lesebuch, das sich auch als Studientext und Diskussionsgrundlage für Schulen und Hochschulen bestens eignet, bietet den Blick in die Geschichte der Naturphilosophie, der dafür unerlässlich ist: Die Schwierigkeiten, die heute im Umgang mit der Natur auftreten, sind vielfach auf immer noch wirksame traditionelle Naturvorstellungen zurückzuführen. Andererseits gibt es einige eigenständige, bisher noch zu wenig berücksichtigte Ansätze, die zu neuen Konzeptionen anregen können. ------------------------------------------------------------- Inhalt: Vorwort; Einführung: Traditionslinien der Naturphilosophie; Heraklit und die Atomisten Leukipp und Demokrit; Platon und Aristoteles; Christliches Naturverstehen im Mittelalter: Aurelius Augustinus, Thomas von Aquin, Jacob Böhme; Naturvorstellungen in der beginnenden Neuzeit: Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton; Kants Naturbegriff; Goethes Naturforschung; Nachkantische Naturphilosophie: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Geschichte der Natur und Kritik des Naturalismus: Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill; Kritik des Substanzbegriffes, Alfred North Whitehead, Werner Heisenberg, Ilya Prigogine und Isabelle Stengers; Bibliographie. (shrink)

Gregor Schiemann führt allgemeinverständlich in das Denken dieses Physikers ein. Thema sind die Erfahrungen und Überlegungen, die Heisenberg zu seinen theoretischen Erkenntnissen geführt haben, die wesentlichen Inhalte dieser Erkenntnisse sowie die Konsequenzen, die er daraus für die Geschichte der Physik und das wissenschaftliche Weltbild gezogen hat. Heisenbergs Vorstellungswelt durchzieht durch ein Spannungsverhältnis, das heute noch das Denken vieler Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler bewegt. Er ist um ein umfassendes Verständnis der Naturprozesse bemüht, zugleich aber von der Berechenbarkeit und Beherrschbarkeit von Phänomenen (...) auch dann schon fasziniert, wenn die zugrunde liegenden Prozesse erst teilweise verstanden sind. Aus der Geschichte der Physik zieht er die wirkungsreiche Lehre, daß sich die naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis nicht kontinuierlich, sondern sprunghaft in Form von Revolutionen entwickelt. Die Reichweite des physikalischen Wissens begrenzt er in einer Schichtentheorie der Welt, nach der die komplexen Phänomene des Lebens nicht allein durch die Wechselwirkungen zwischen ihren Bestandteilen erklärt werden können. Der zunehmenden Technisierung der Welt steht Heisenberg kritisch gegenüber. Seiner Zeit weit voraus, glaubt er, daß die Technisierung der Welt eine epochal neue Stufe erreicht habe, in der der Mensch „nur noch sich selbst“ gegenüberstehe. (shrink)

Indem dieser Band sich auf das Verhältnis von Naturerkennen und Natursein konzentriert, thematisiert er einen wesentlichen Ausschnitt aus dem weiten Spektrum von Böhmes philosophischer Arbeit. Um die Naturthematik möglichst breit zu entfalten und für Querverbindungen offenzuhalten, ist der vorliegende Band in drei Abschnitte gegliedert. Im ersten Abschnitt stehen Charakter und Reichweite der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis von Natur im Mittelpunkt. Der zweite Teil des Bandes stellt alternative Perspektiven auf Natur vor. Im dritten Teil schließlich stehen der Mensch und sein Verhältnis zu sich (...) selbst im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen. Inhaltsverzeichnis Krohn, Wolfgang: Wissenschaftsentwicklung zwischen Dezentrierung und Dekonstruktion. Stehr, Nico: Von den Grenzen der Macht wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Schäfer, Wolf: Zweifel am Ende des Baconschen Zeitalters. Kamper, Dietmar: Wissen ist Ohnmacht. Macht ist Unwissen. Gamm, der Technik. Janich, Peter: Zeit und Natur. Kimmerle, Heinz: »Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird«. Wie kann Zeit Zeit werden? Schiemann, Gregor: Natur auf dem Rückzug. Zur Relevanz der aristotelischen Unterscheidung von Natur und Technik. Hauskeller, Michael: Ist Schönheit eine Atmosphäre?. Zur Bestimmung des landschaftlich Schönen. Schmitz, Hermann: Situationen und Atmosphären. Zur Ästhetik und Onthologie bei Gernot Böhme. Rehmann-Sutter, Christoph: Über Relationalität. Was ist das »Ökologische« in der Naturästhetik? Meyer-Abich, Klaus Michael: Erinnerung an die natürliche Mitwelt. Andreas-Griesebach, Manon: Idee plus Erfahrung. Goethes Begründung eines neuen Typs von Naturwissenschaft. Engelhardt, Dietrich von: Madame de Stael über Naturphilosophie, Naturwissenschaft und Medizin in De l'Allemagne. Deneke, Michael: Schramm, Engelbert: »Soziale Naturwissenschaft«. Zwischen Sozialwissenschaften und Naturwissenschaften. Böhme, Hartmut: Enthüllen und Verhüllen des Körpers. Biblische, mythische und künstlerische Deutungen des Nackten. Lippe, Rudolf zur: Eine Logik des gestischen Wissens. Müller, Rudolf Wolfgang: Gernot Böhme - Anima naturaliter japonica. Hoffmann, Gisbert: Das menschliche Sein als mediales. Martens, Ekkehard: »Natürlich« denken?. Heideggers Pseudosokratismus als Irrationalismus. Fleischer, Helmut: Naturalität ohne Naturalismus. Zum lebensweltlichen Fundus jeder höheren Erkenntnis-Artistik. Gerhard: Technik als Medium. Grundlinien einer Philosophie. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to develop and defend an Attentional View of bodily awareness, on which attention is necessary for bodily awareness. The original formulation of the Attentional View is due to Marcel Kinsbourne. First, I will show that the Attentional View of bodily awareness as formulated by Kinsbourne is superior to other accounts in the literature for characterizing the relationship between attention and bodily awareness. Kinsbourne’s account is the only account in the literature so far which can (...) accommodate key neurological diseases such as personal neglect. Second, when I consider Kinsbourne’s view in more detail, I will argue that Kinsbourne’s Attentional View faces problems because it is too reductive. Kinsbourne deviates from the standard taxonomy on which there is a body schema and a body image. Instead he reduces the body image to the neural representation of the body in the somatosensory cortex, the body schema and attentional shifts. I will present two challenges to Kinsbourne’s view which demonstrate that Kinsbourne’s reduction of the body image is unsuccessful. Finally, I will present a revised version of the Attentional View that is both empirically adequate and philosophically satisfactory. (shrink)

Autologos. A dialogue on fundamental logic. - In this dialogue of three dialogue partners, an attempt is made to prove the logical prerequisites of any meaningful dialogue by using transcendental arguments. Among these inescapable logical premises are a semantics as strong as that of modal logic S5, and an epistemic anti-realism.

In his pioneering sociological theory, which makes phenomenological concepts fruitful for the social sciences, Alfred Schütz has laid foundations for a characterization of an manifold of distinct domains of experience. My aim here is to further develop this pluralist theory of experience by buttressing and extending the elements of diversity that it includes, and by eliminating or minimizing lingering imbalances among the domains of experience. After a critical discussion of the criterion-catalogue Schütz develops for the purpose of characterizing different cognitive (...) styles, I move on to examine its application to one special style, the lifeworld. I appeal, on the one hand, to Husserl's characterization of the lifeworld as a world of perception, and on the other hand to the layer-model of the lifeworld developed by Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. A consequence of this approach is that the lifeworld appears as a socially definable context that is detached from other experiences but on an equal footing with them with respect to their claim of validity. The term "lifeworld" does not denote a category that encompasses culture or nature but refers to a delimited action-space. Finally, I draw upon Schütz' s criterion-catalogue to characterize two domains of experience outside of the lifeworld, which play a central role for the process of differentiation of experience in modernity and for the phenomenological analysis of types of experience: experimental science and subjectivity. (shrink)

Kaum eine Äußerung Einsteins ist so bekannt wie sein Wort, dass Gott nicht würfelt. In ähnlicher Weise, wie Einstein dies unerläutert gelassen hat, ist seine gesamte Position zur Quantenmechanik, auf die es sich bezieht, von Uneindeutigkeiten nicht frei geblieben. Für seine Würfelmetapher ergibt sich ein Spielraum von gegensätzlichen Sichtweisen. Sie lässt sich zum einen mit jüngeren Forschungsresultaten verbinden und weist zum anderen auf rückschrittliche Elemente in Einsteins Denken hin. Ich wende mich zuerst diesen Elementen zu und betrachte dann eine dazu (...) entgegengerichtete Interpretationsvariante, die an den neueren Resultaten anknüpft. (shrink)

Als Vertreter der historischen Anthropologie hat Christoph Wulf die philosophische Anthropologie von Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner und Arnold Gehlen kritisiert: Mit ihrem Interesse an einer einheitlichen Bestimmung des Menschen entgehe ihr die Pluralität von menschlichen Kulturen. Meiner Auffassung nach stellt diese Kritik für die philosophische Lehre vom Menschen eine Herausforderung dar (1.). Um ihr zu begegnen, möchte ich prüfen, ob Ernst Cassirers Kulturphilosophie die Vielfalt menschlicher Erfahrungsweisen angemessener berücksichtigt. Dass dies nicht in hinreichendem Umfang der Fall ist, lässt sich auf (...) eine bei Cassirer vorherrschende Einheitsorientierung zurückführen, die bezeichnende Berührungspunkte zu Hegels Idealismus aufweist. Der von Kant über Hegel zu Cassirer führende philosophische Diskurs über den Menschen hat zwar der Thematisierung einer irreduziblen Erfahrungspluralität zunehmend Raum verschafft, ist aber zugleich auf eine einheitliche Verfassung des Geistes bezogen geblieben (2.). Will die philosophische Anthropologie der kulturellen Vielfalt gerechter werden, muss sie über Cassirers Ansatz hinausgehen und ihre Fokussierung auf eine die menschliche Welt durchdringende Bestimmung des Geistes weiter abschwächen, wenn nicht sogar aufgeben. Als einen hierfür förderlichen Ausgangspunkt, betrachte ich die Sozialphänomenologie von Alfred Schütz. Sie erlaubt die Begründung einer nicht hierarchisch strukturierten Pluralität der Erfahrung. Im Anschluss an Schütz' Konzeption muss der Philosophie mit ihrem legitimen Interesse an dem Menschen nicht die Vielfalt der Menschen abhanden kommen. Pluralität ist dem Menschen vielmehr als Bestimmung eingeschrieben (3.). (shrink)

Definition, conditions and bearers of being a person - three philosophical aporias. -/- In this article I examine the philosophical question of how to define the concept of the person in a non-arbitrary way, how to find out the determining conditions of being a person and how to enumerate the bearers of being a person. I come to the conclusion that the question of a non-arbitrary definition, of the essential conditions and of the bearers of being a person has not (...) yet been clarified; it is not sufficiently clear what we actually mean or should mean by "person" - beyond conventions, disciplinary boundaries and doctrines. This results in three philosophical aporias of the concept of the person. (shrink)

In his Paradoxes (1995: Cambridge University Press: 149) Mark Sainsbury presents the following pair of sentences: Line 1: The sentence written on Line 1 is nonsense. Line 2: The sentence written on Line 1 is nonsense. Sainsbury (1995: 149, 154) here makes three assertions: (1) The sentence in Line 1 is so viciously self-referential that it falls into the truth-value gap. The sentence is really nonsense. (2) The sentence in Line 2 is by contrast true. For it states precisely that (...) the sentence in Line 1 is nonsense. (3) The two sentences in Lines 1 and 2 are an example of the principle that two sentence tokens of the same sentence-type can have different truth-values, although they have the same reference and state the same property of the object of reference. In this paper, I argue that Sainsbury’s assumptions are false in all three cases. (shrink)

Hermann von Helmholtz hat als Naturforscher sowohl die Physik als auch die Physiologie um eine beeindruckende Anzahl grundlegender Erkenntnisse bereichert, ihr heutiges Selbstverständnis entscheidend mitgeprägt, ihre Verfahren auf neue Gegenstandsbereiche angewendet und war führend an ihrem institutionellen Ausbau zu Laborwissenschaften beteiligt.

Mit Robotik, Digitalisierung, softwaregesteuerten Präzisionsinstrumenten und hochkomplexen Simulationsverfahren wird heute Technik zur treibenden Kraft der wissenschaftlichen Forschungspraxis. Gleichzeitig sieht sich die universitäre Forschung wachsenden gesellschaftlichen Einflüssen ausgesetzt und nähert sich selbst immer mehr der Industrieforschung an, woraus sich neue Fragen nach den Werten und der Objektivität der Wissenschaft ergeben. Derartig weitreichende Veränderungen haben zahlreiche Spekulationen darüber provoziert, ob sich in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte gegenwärtig ein Epochenbruch vollzieht. Dieser Sammelband setzt sich aus philosophischen, historischen und kulturwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven mit den Epochenbruchthesen auseinander, bestätigt (...) und bestreitet ihn. Die Beiträge in diesem Band setzen sich mit der These vom Epochenbruch vor dem Hintergrund verschiedener Disziplinen auseinander, darunter Wissenschaftsphilosophie und -geschichte, sozialwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen über Wissenschaft sowie kultur- und medientheoretische Studien zu Wissenschaft und Technik. Die erste Gruppe der Beiträge versucht, die These von einem Epochenbruch im Ganzen zu beurteilen. Den Anfang bilden mehrere Beiträge, die die Debatte eröffnen, indem sie starke Thesen für oder gegen die Vorstellung vorlegen, dass sich das wissenschaftliche Unterfangen in den letzten Jahrzehnten völlig neu orientiert hat. Die Autoren in der zweiten Gruppe setzen sich unter einem spezifischen Gesichtspunkt mit der These auseinander. Sie stellen bestimmte Konzepte in den Mittelpunkt, greifen spezifische technische Entwicklungen heraus oder betrachten einzelne Praktiken und Anwendungskontexte. Diese spezifischen Konzepte, Technologien und Praxisbereiche dienen als Testfeld für die umfassendere These. (shrink)

The paper deals with the question of the structure of knowledge and the precise relationship between propositional "knowledge that" and dispositional "knowledge how." In the first part of my essay, I provide an analysis of the term 'knowing how' and argue that the usual alternatives in the recent epistemological debate – knowing how is either a form of propositional or dispositional knowledge – are misleading. In fact it depends on the semantic and pragmatic context of the usage of this term (...) whether 'knowing how' refers to a type of dispositional knowledge, to propositional knowledge, or to a hybrid form of both. Only in the first case, can one say that dispositional know how cannot be reduced to any form of propositional knowledge. Yet, this case is the most interesting one to consider in the investigation of the nature of knowledge, if one assumes that knowing that p presupposes "having found out that p." Having found something out, however, presupposes certain acts of epistemic inquiry and corresponding epistemic abilities. Examined more carefully, it is shown that the dispositional knowledge-how is a necessary condition for propositional knowledge-that, hence propositional knowledge-that is a species of the dispositional knowledge-how. Accordingly, dispositional knowledge has to be understood as being at the very core of our notion of knowledge, including propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Limits of the Conversation about Forms. Types of Knowledge and Necessity of Forms in Plato's "Parmenides". - Forms (ideas) are among the things that Plato is serious about. But about these things he says in his "Seventh Letter": "There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject." (341c, transl. J. Harward). Plato's statement suggests the question, why one does not and never can do justice to the Platonic forms by means of a written text about (...) the forms. Another big question of Plato research is whether the conversations documented in the Platonic dialogues are also affected by this verdict. This paper aims to provide, as far as possible, newly substantiated answers to these two questions. To this end, the systematic limits of the discussion about forms, which are particularly evident in Plato's dialogue "Parmenides", are examined in eight steps: First, two types of knowledge are presented that play an important systematic role in Plato's philosophy with regard to the limits of conversation: knowledge-how (practical knowledge) and knowledge-that (propositional knowledge) (I). Then the Socratic model of these two types of knowledge is interpreted, which is drafted in the tenth book of the "Republic". This model uses the example of bridle, bridlemaker and rider to explain the primacy of practical knowledge and the limits of propositional knowledge (II). Subsequently, it will be shown how the dialogues "Republic" and "Parmenides" are connected with each other in content and form (III). The gradation of the two types of knowledge, which is indicated by the motifs of the bridle and the horse on the image level of the "Parmenides", proves to be the structure that systematically underlies the structure of the entire dialogue (IV). It also makes clear why the conversation about the forms in the first part of the "Parmenides" has to fail (V). The assumption that the two parts of the "Parmenides" express two different types of knowledge in dealing with forms is supported by the results of a logical analysis of the last defence of the acceptance of forms (135b-c). This analysis shows why, for reasons of principle, it is impossible to speak adequately about forms (VI). Forms have the function of being presuppositions of 'talking about something'. Thus forms are always presupposed in conversation when one talks about them, and thus elude appropriate discussion in conversation (VII). That this is not only a methodical insight of the Platonic Parmenides, but can also be attributed to Plato himself, is demonstrated by the concluding reinterpretation of the central sentence of the critique of writing in Plato's "Seventh Letter". It will become apparent that, contrary to the now widespread view of the representatives of the Tübingen school, philosophical and also good philological reasons speak for the fact that Plato related his criticism only to the communicability of forms through treatises, i.e. tract-like writings (VIII). (shrink)

Helmholtz initially ascribes more to theoretical knowledge than merely that it is a picture of the world: it penetrates even to the unobservable causes of the phenomena which he conceived throughout his career as matter set mechanically in motion. The introduction of the picture-concept in the 1860s to characterize scientific theories marks the beginning of the loss of a direct connection with the world. Theories now constitute only a representation of a law-like structure of the world but no longer shed (...) light on the objects themselves. Beginning in the late 1870s, this knowledge of laws takes on an increasingly hypothetical character. (shrink)

Ordinary language and scientific discourse are filled with linguistic expressions for dispositional properties such as “soluble,” “elastic,” “reliable,” and “humorous.” We characterize objects in all domains – physical objects as well as human persons – with the help of dispositional expressions. Hence, the concept of a disposition has historically and systematically played a central role in different areas of philosophy ranging from metaphysics to ethics. The contributions of this volume analyze the ancient foundations of the discussion about disposition, examine the (...) problem of disposition within the context of the foundation of modern science, and analyze this dispute up to the 20th century. Furthermore, articles explore the contemporary theories of dispositions. (shrink)

When in doubt, for the embryo. New arguments on the moral status of human embryos. - In the first part of our essay we distinguish the philosophical from the legal and political level of the embryo debate and describe our indirect justification strategy. It consists in renouncing a determination of the dignity-giving φ-properties and instead starting from premises that are undoubted by all discussion partners. In the second part we reconstruct and criticize the species, continuum, identity and potentiality arguments. The (...) species argument only has a certain plausibility, if at all, as a critical argument. From the continuum argument and identity argument we take over the idea of numerical identity (NI) and link it with the core idea of the potentiality argument (P). So we come to the NIP argument: -/- (NIP) -/- (1) Every living human body that is the bearer of (or has) potential φ-properties has dignity. (2) Every viable human embryo is a living human body that is the bearer of (or has) potential φ properties. Therefore, (3) Every viable human embryo has dignity. -/- Reversibly comatose people and newborns are protected because they have the potential to have actual personal characteristics in the future; our thesis is that embryos that are capable of development also have the same potential in moral terms. The basic idea of numerical identity, with which we support the second premise, is that every human being, from embryonic existence to adulthood, forms a physical unity. In a detailed part, we deal with the crown princess, gametes, parthenogenesis, somatic cell, pronuclear stage, biological heteronome early embryo, multiple, fusion, Siamese twin, hydatidiform mole and finally trophoblast problems. In a third part, the indirect argument is supplemented by a metatheoretical cautionary argument. It states that in situations where there is doubt as to whether a being falls within the scope of a moral norm, but there are sufficiently strong reasons for this subsumption, it must be assumed that this is the case if the contrary assumption and the positive effects it may have are in no acceptable proportion to the moral harm that would result if that subsumption were not made. The main result of our considerations is therefore: When in doubt, for the embryo. (shrink)

The article tries to prove that the famous formula "epekeina tês ousias" has to be understood in the sense of being beyond being and not only in the sense of being beyond essence. We make hereby three points: first, since pure textual exegesis of 509b8–10 seems to lead to endless controversy, a formal proof for the metaontological interpretation could be helpful to settle the issue; we try to give such a proof. Second, we offer a corollary of the formal proof, (...) showing that not only self-predication of the form of the Good, but of any form is not possible, that is: no form of F has the form of F. Third, we apply Spinoza’s distinction between an ens imaginarium and a chimaera to Plato’s Idea of the Good. (shrink)

Gregor Schiemann verteidigt die Aktualität des aristotelischen und cartesianischen Naturbegriffes, die Natur in Gegensatz zu Nichtnatürlichem definieren. Als gültig könnnen sich diese traditionellen Naturbegriffe jedoch nur noch innerhalb begrenzter Kontexte erweisen. -/- Im ersten Teil seines Buches zeigt der Autor, dass Aristoteles' Bestimmung der Natur als Gegenbegriff zur Technik in der Lebenswelt sowie Descartes' Dualismus von Natur und Geist für das eigene Bewusstseinserleben orientierungsleitend geblieben sind. Dass die Begriffspaare nicht nur in gesonderten Kontexten vorkommen, sondern sich ihre Anwendungen auch (...) wechselseitig durchdringen, führt er im zweiten Teil am Beispiel von Aristoteles' Seelenlehre und Descartes' Mechanismus aus. Die naturphilosophische und erkenntnistheoretische Untersuchung verbindet Elemente der analytischen Philosophie mit Ansätzen der Phänomenologie. Sie will zu einem pluralen Verständnis der Natur beitragen, das universelle Geltungsansprüche verabschiedet. (shrink)

Suppose a fire broke out in a fertility clinic. One had time to save either a young girl, or a tray of ten human embryos. Would it be wrong to save the girl? According to Michael Sandel, the moral intuition is to save the girl; what is more, one ought to do so, and this demonstrates that human embryos do not possess full personhood, and hence deserve only limited respect and may be killed for medical research. We will argue, however, (...) that no relevant ethical implications can be drawn from the thought experiment. It demonstrates neither that one always ought to let the embryos die, nor does it allow for any general conclusion concerning the moral status of human embryos. (shrink)

This commentary challenges Railton’s claim that the affective system is the key source of control of action. Whilst the affective system is important for understanding how acting for a reason is possible, we argue that there are many levels of control of action and adaptive behaviour and that the affective system is only one source of control. Such a model seems to be more in line with the emerging picture from affective and movement neuroscience.

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)

An account of the three rival conceptions of Western philosophy: "theoretical," "difference," and "practical." -/- Posted 29 January 2023. Note that a previous version of this paper appears as chapter 13 of my Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

How was the hypothetical character of theories of experience thought about throughout the history of science? The essays cover periods from the middle ages to the 19th and 20th centuries. It is fascinating to see how natural scientists and philosophers were increasingly forced to realize that a natural science without hypotheses is not possible.

The Contingency Postulate of Truth. - Is there a statement that cannot be false under any contingent conditions? Two well-known philosophical schools have given contradictory answers to this question about the existence of a necessarily true statement: Fallibilists (Albert, Keuth) have denied its existence, transcendental pragmatists (Apel, Kuhlmann) and objective idealists (Wandschneider, Hösle) have affirmed it. Dieter Wandschneider has (following Vittorio Hösle) translated the principle of fallibilism, according to which every statement is fallible, into a thesis which he calls the (...) contingency postulate of truth (CPT). It says: <For every true statement there are contingent conditions.> If this postulate were true, it would mark an insurmountable boundary of knowledge: a final epistemic justification would then not be possible. Wandschneider has therefore developed a counterargument to show that the contingency postulate of truth cannot be formulated without contradiction and implies the thesis that there is at least one necessarily true statement. This essay deals with the systematic question whether the contingency postulate of truth really cannot be presented without contradiction. To this end I will first present the contingency postulate and the associated problems (I.). Then I will analyze Wandschneider's argument against the consistency of the contingency postulate (II.) and finally reject it with the help of some considerations from the field of epistemic logic (III.). (shrink)

Forms of justification. On the structure and scope of self-refutation arguments in Plato, Cicero and Apel. - In this essay, the structure and scope of transcendental types of argumentation are analyzed, compared and criticized on the basis of the reception of two antiskeptical types of reasoning in ancient philosophy (Plato, Parmenides 135b-c; Cicero, Lucullus § 28) by a contemporary philosophical author (Karl-Otto Apel). Plato puts forward a transcendental argument for the inevitability of a final knowledge. Cicero argues that a principle (...) of fallibilism occurring with universal claim contradicts itself. In Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatic variant of philosophy, the two types of self-refutation arguments developed in Plato's and Cicero's dialogues are brought together into a single argumentation. (shrink)

Introduction to Debating Dispositions. Issues in Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Mind, ed. by Gregor Damschen, Robert Schnepf, and Karsten R. Stueber, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2009.

In future φ. On a subjectivist thought experiment in the embryo debate. -.

Descartes and Architecture -/- The article analyses the architectural metaphor in Descartes' Discourse on Method and The Seventh replies. The idea of Descartes' project, introduced to the reader as a construction of a building and planning of a city, is much more indebted to its architectural imagery than, or so its critics say, is "sound" for a philosophical theory. Architecture is an analogon of philosophy in Descartes' texts. By producing a figure of philosopher-architect, Descartes tries to legitimate his philosophical theory (...) using architectural discourse. Descartes always uses the examples of architecture and urban planning when he intends to introduce his great project of a new beginning in philosophy. This new beginning is manifest in two levels: first, as a denial of traditional metaphysics of the Schools in the Discourse, and second, as a denial of one’s own beliefs in the Meditations using methodical doubt. In the conclusion, the article emphasises through Derrida's analysis of metaphor that, given the metaphysical nature of any metaphor, Descartes’ metaphor also cannot appear as a mere rhetorical figure. (shrink)

"Dieu fainéant? God and Bodies in Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz" Conservation, concurrence with secondary causes, and occasionalism are the three attitudes that God can have towards the created universe in early modern philosophy. The aim of this article is to show how and in what forms these three originally mediaeval theories had survived the seventeenth century in Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz. I argue that although it cannot always be unequivocally determined which of the three doctrines each of the thinkers is (...) indebted to, Descartes should nevertheless be interpreted as a concurrentist, Malebranche as an occasionalist, and Leibniz can be read as a mere conservationist. The conservation of substances in existence being nothing but a continual creation, we claim (against the famous thesis of Alexandre Koyré) that Leibniz’s God can be called neither Dieu fainéant nor God of the Sabbath day. (shrink)

There are a bewildering variety of claims connecting Darwin to nineteenth-century philosophy of science—including to Herschel, Whewell, Lyell, German Romanticism, Comte, and others. I argue here that Herschel’s influence on Darwin is undeniable. The form of this influence, however, is often misunderstood. Darwin was not merely taking the concept of “analogy” from Herschel, nor was he combining such an analogy with a consilience as argued for by Whewell. On the contrary, Darwin’s Origin is written in precisely the manner that one (...) would expect were Darwin attempting to model his work on the precepts found in Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on Natural Science. While Hodge has worked out a careful interpretation of both Darwin and Herschel, drawing similar conclusions, his interpretation misreads Herschel’s use of the vera causa principle and the verification of hypotheses. The new reading that I present here resolves this trouble, combining Hodge’s careful treatment of the structure of the Origin with a more cautious understanding of Herschel’s philosophy of science. This interpretation lets us understand why Darwin laid out the Origin in the way that he did and also why Herschel so strongly disagreed, including in Herschel’s heretofore unanalyzed marginalia in his copy of Darwin’s book. (shrink)

Gregor Schiemann verteidigt die Aktualität des aristotelischen und cartesianischen Naturbegriffes, die Natur in Gegensatz zu Nichtnatürlichem definieren. Als gültig könnnen sich diese traditionellen Naturbegriffe jedoch nur noch innerhalb begrenzter Kontexte erweisen. Im ersten Teil seines Buches zeigt der Autor, dass Aristoteles' Bestimmung der Natur als Gegenbegriff zur Technik in der Lebenswelt sowie Descartes' Dualismus von Natur und Geist für das eigene Bewusstseinserleben orientierungsleitend geblieben sind. Dass die Begriffspaare nicht nur in gesonderten Kontexten vorkommen, sondern sich ihre Anwendungen auch wechselseitig (...) durchdringen, führt er im zweiten Teil am Beispiel von Aristoteles' Seelenlehre und Descartes' Mechanismus aus. Die naturphilosophische und erkenntnistheoretische Untersuchung verbindet Elemente der analytischen Philosophie mit Ansätzen der Phänomenologie. Sie will zu einem pluralen Verständnis der Natur beitragen, das universelle Geltungsansprüche verabschiedet. (shrink)

In searching for the origins of current conceptions of science in the history of physics, one encounters a remarkable phenomenon. A typical view today is that theoretical knowledge-claims have only relativized validity. Historically, however, this thesis was supported by proponents of a conception of nature that today is far from typical, a mechanistic conception within which natural phenomena were to be explained by the action of mechanically moved matter. Two of these proponents, Hermann von Helmholtz and his pupil Heinrich Hertz, (...) contributed significantly to the modernization of the conception of science. Paradigmatic for their common contribution to this development is the way in which they employed the concept of image. By considering the origin and the different meanings of this concept we may trace a line of development which begins with Helmholtz's original claim that a universally and forever valid theory provides a unique representation of nature. It continues with the realization that the status of scientific knowledge is capable of revision; and it arrives at Hertz's admission that a variety of theories over a domain of objects is possible, at least at times. (shrink)

Two seemingly contradictory tendencies have accompanied the development of the natural sciences in the past 150 years. On the one hand, the natural sciences have been instrumental in effecting a thoroughgoing transformation of social structures and have made a permanent impact on the conceptual world of human beings. This historical period has, on the other hand, also brought to light the merely hypothetical validity of scientific knowledge. As late as the middle of the 19th century the truth-pathos in the natural (...) sciences was still unbroken. Yet in the succeeding years these claims to certain knowledge underwent a fundamental crisis. For scientists today, of course, the fact that their knowledge can possess only relative validity is a matter of self-evidence. The present analysis investigates the early phase of this fundamental change in the concept of science through an examination of Hermann von Helmholtz's conception of science and his mechanistic interpretation of nature. Helmholtz (1821-1894) was one of the most important natural scientists in Germany. The development of this thoughts offers an impressive but, until now, relatively little considered report from the field of the experimental sciences chronicling the erosion of certainty. (shrink)

The so-called ”argument from religious experience’ plays a prominent role in today’s analytical philosophy of religion. It is also of considerable importance to richard Swinburne’s apologetic project. However, rather than joining the polyphonic debate around this argument, the present paper examines the fundamental concept of religious experience. The upshot is that Swinburne neither develops a convincing concept of experience nor explains what makes a religious experience religious. The first section examines some problems resulting mainly from terminology, specifically Swinburne’s use of (...) appear-words as success-verbs. While these problems might be resolved by a recurrence to the observer, the second and third part of our paper present problems not so easily resolved: namely, that Swinburne’s concept of experience as conscious mental events is too broad and inaccurate for its role in the argument given ; and that Swinburne does not even attempt to figure out which features of an experience, when present, turn an experience simpliciter into a distinctly religious experience. Section 4, in conclusion, outlines possible reasons for this unusual and remarkable inaccuracy in conceptualisation. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillards Kulturphilosophie läßt sich durch die Behauptung charakterisieren, daß die Medien in der modernen Kultur vorherrschend geworden sind. Seine These, die Medien hätten jeden Bezug zu einer von ihnen unabhängigen Realität verloren, haben zahlreiche Autorinnen und Autoren nihilistisch genannt. Das Zutreffende dieser Kennzeichnung verdankt sich im Wesentlichen einem eingeschränkten, auf das 19. Jahrhundert zurückweisenden Begriff des Nihilismus. Allerdings nimmt Baudrillard auf Phänomene Bezug, die er historisch später verortet und die sich ihrer Struktur nach kategorial von den Funktionen der Medien (...) im 19. Jahrhundert unterscheiden. Es gelingt ihm hierbei nicht, den allgemeinen Realitätsverlust, den er vor allem auf den wachsenden Einfluß von Wissenschaft und Technik im 20. Jahrhundert zurückführt, überzeugend nachzuweisen. -/- Als wolle er diesen Mangel beheben, führt Baudrillard in späteren Schriften weitere Struktureigenschaften der kulturellen Mediendominanz ein. Zu diesen Fortentwicklungen gehört die durch Medienmacht erzeugte „Transparenz“, die nicht zuletzt die restlose Durchsichtigkeit aller Zustände und Prozesse meint. Es ist dieses Merkmal, das Baudrillard 1981 selbst mit einem Nihilismusbegriff in Verbindung bringt. Der Nihilismus der Transparenz beansprucht, das spezifisch Neue der Sinnlosigkeit in zunehmend wissenschafts- und technikbestimmten Gesellschaften zu erfassen. Obwohl sich die Schwächen der Medientheorie in seiner Auffassung des Nihilismus reflektieren, gelingt es ihm, Phänomene der Nichtigkeit zu beschreiben, für die man gute Gründe hat anzunehmen, daß sie sich durch keinen Werte- oder Einstellungswandel mehr aufheben lassen. Um diese Einsicht zu begründen, muß man Baudrillards Medientheorie allerdings gleichsam vom Kopf auf die Füße stellen. Nicht auf einen evidenten, alles umfassenden Realitätsverlust, sondern umgekehrt auf einen Teil der vermutlichen Realitätsgehalte der Medien läßt sich die drohende Ausdehnung der Transparenz zurückführen. (shrink)