The zombie, mocking all nomological arguments, gives rise to axiological considerations that also result in a vindication of the nomological paradigm. So the ‘philosophical benefit of zombies’ ultimately proves to be that they lead to an understanding they were originally invented to refute.

Summary: Kant's characterization of organic entities by the principle of an inner, and that is to say, immanently natural and mind-independent purposiveness has continued to retain validity. Difficulties however exist for Kant's theory from the conditions of their realization. The following inquiry attempts to describe to what extent this difficulty has currently found a system-theoretical solution: The realizability of cyclical causal relationships proves itself here to be a fundamental prerequisite. The possibility for self-regulating systems thus consequently ensues. Decisive for the (...) cybernetical reconstructability of inner purposiveness is however the evidence that the principle of self-regulation - which has apparently been misunderstood in recent discussions (Jonas, Spaemann, Löw) includes not only the possibility of active goal pursuance (robots) but, additionally, the possibility forexistential self-reference (organism). This has fostered greater insight into how normative instances can be established upon a purely physical basis. The status of information will then accordingly be questioned. This inquiry closes with a look to possible ontological consequences. (shrink)

My argument is that Chalmers' zombie fiction and his rigid-designator-argument going back on Kripke comes down to a petitio principii. Rather, at the core it appears to be more related to the essential 'privacy' of the phenomenal internal perspective. In return for Chalmers I argue that the 'principle self-preservation' of living organisms necessarily implies subjectivity and the emergence of sense. The comparison with a robot proves instructive. The mode of 'mere physical' being is transcended if, in the form of phenomenal (...) perception, sense appears on the stage of higher animals – a transition explained here as an emergence phenomenon based on the systemic co-operation of perception, valuation and action ('perc-val-act system'). Some fundamental considerations are added: Those consequences implied by the principle self-preservation reveal the natural-biological origin of the organism – primarily seeming a more insignificant circumstance – as a momentous fundamental difference (end-in-itself-character, subjectivity, constitution of sense) compared to technical artefacts (robot). And the emergentist approach indicates the – maybe paradoxical – possibility of a dualism of physical and psychical phenomena in an overall physical system, that is not dualistic at the same time. (shrink)

There are arguments for determinism. Admittedly, this is opposed by the fact of everyday experience of autonomy. In the following, it is argued for the compatibility of determinism and autonomy. Taking up considerations of Donald MacKay, a fatalistic attitude can be refuted as false. Repeatedly, attempts have been made to defend the possibility of autonomy with reference to quantum physical indeterminacy. But its statistical randomness clearly misses the meaning of autonomy. What is decisive, on the other hand, is the possibility (...) of knowledge, which opens up opportunities for planning, freedom of choice and ultimately 'self-choice'. Results of neurobiological research, especially Benjamin Libet's and more recently John-Dylan Haynes', seem to refute this: Actions are unconsciously initiated before conscious decision. But, as Libet has also shown, consciousness always has the possibility of a veto – and thus also of knowledge-driven action control. Ultimately, the idea of possible self-choice can thus become the determining condition. Only such a form of rational self-determination establishes a spiritual identity and at the same time represents the maximum of autonomy possible for human beings. (shrink)

Hegel's Science of Logic makes the just not low claim to be an absolute, ultimate-grounded knowledge. This project, which could not be more ambitious, has no good press in our post-metaphysical age. However: That absolute knowledge absolutely cannot exist, cannot be claimed without self-contradiction. On the other hand, there can be no doubt about the fun-damental finiteness of knowledge. But can absolute knowledge be finite knowledge? This leads to the problem of a self-explication of logic (in the sense of Hegel) (...) and further, as will be shown, to a new definition of the dialectical procedure. The stringency of which results from the fact that always exactly that implicit content is explicated that was generated by the prece-ding explication step itself and is thus concretely comprehensible. At the same time, a new imp-licit content is generated by this act of explication, which requires a new explication step, and so forth. In the dialectical procedure reinterpreted in this way, dialectical arguments are not be-held, guessed at or even surreptitiously obtained, but are methodically accountable. Thereby dialectics is understood as a self-explication of logic by logical means and thus as a proof of the possibility of ultimate-grounding in the form of absolute and nevertheless finite – and thus also fallible – knowledge. (shrink)