HISTÓRIA DA SOCIOLOGIA: O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA SOCIOLOGIA I -/- A SOCIOLOGIA NA ALEMANHA -/- -/- HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY I -/- SOCIOLOGY IN GERMANY -/- -/- -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva – IFPE-BJ, CAP-UFPE e UFRPE. E-mail's: [email protected] e [email protected]. WhatsApp: (82)9.8143-8399. -/- PREMISSA -/- Na Alemanha, a Sociologia foi profundamente influenciada pela discussão filosófica, histórica e metodológica que se desenvolveu entre o final do século XIX e o início do século XX. Em seus fundamentos encontra-se (...) o pensamento de vários filósofos, como Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 -1814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775 -1854), Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768 -1834), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 -1831) e Friedrich W. Nietzsche (1844-1900). -/- O representante mais expressivo da Sociologia alemã é Max Weber (1864-1920). Outros pensadores, entretanto, contribuíram significativamente para a formação e o desenvolvimento da Sociologia na Alemanha, entre os quais Ferdinand Tönnies (1855 -1936), Werner Sombart (1863-1941), Georg Simmel (1858-1918) e os estudiosos que a partir da década de 1920 constituíram a chamada Escola de Frankfurt. -/- A obra desses autores liga-se fortemente ao processo de unificação alemã, promovido somente após o triunfo de Otto von Bismarck na Guerra Franco-Prussiana (1871), e à aceleração da industrialização alemã. Esses dois fatores conferiram à Alemanha uma situação muito diferente da de outros países europeus. -/- A alteração nas estruturas de poder, na Alemanha, não ocorreu por meio de uma revolução, como na França, mas por um acordo entre a bur-guesia industrial e os grandes proprietários de terra, tendo em vista uma transição mais adequada aos seus interesses. -/- Vale salientar, em nota, que após a Guerra Franco-Prussiana (1870-71), os príncipes alemães se reuniram no palácio de Versalhes (França), onde aclamaram Guilherme I, da Prússia, como o imperador alemão. Assim surgia o Império da Alemanha, em 1871. -/- A burguesia industrial não estava preocupada em alterar de modo significativo a estrutura fundiária, e os grandes proprietários, que se encastelaram na burocracia estatal, não permitiram a formulação de uma legislação trabalhista que prejudicasse os interesses da burguesia. Assim se fez uma mudança “por cima”, sem levar em conta os interesses dos trabalhadores urbanos ou rurais. Destacam-se aqui dois importantes soció-logos alemães: Georg Simmel e Max Weber, pela presença no Brasil. Depois, brevemente, falar-se-á aqui da famosa Escola de Frankfurt. -/- 1. Georg Simmel (1858-1918) -/- Nascido em Berlim, Georg Simmel é um pensador difícil de enquadrar em alguma tendência ou campo específico do conhecimento. Vamos ler um trecho do que escreveu sobre ele o sociólogo brasileiro Leopoldo Waizbort: -/- Quem tentar esboçar a fisionomia de Georg Simmel (1858-1918), logo se encontra em meio a dificuldades que são características próprias daquilo que se quer apreender. Simmel sempre postulou para seu próprio pensamento uma mobilidade e uma plasticidade para se adaptar ao seu objeto – uma multiplicidade de direções, uma defesa do fragmento –, que se opõem a toda tentativa de fixação e acabamento, a toda pretensão de sistema. Por isso todos os rótulos que lhe são atribuídos, apesar de possuírem seu teor de verdade, sempre soam tão falsos: vitalismo, relativismo, esteticismo, formalismo, irracionalismo, psicologismo, impressionismo e tantos mais. Disto também é exemplo o fato de Simmel, hoje considerado, ao lado de Max Weber e Ferdinand Tönnies, um dos “pais” da sociologia alemã, não poder ser classificado sem mais como “sociólogo”, sob pena de se perderem várias outras dimensões que são essenciais ao seu pensamento (WAIZBORT, 2000. p. 11). -/- G. Simmel foi o último dos sete filhos de um próspero comerciante judeu convertido ao cristianismo. Com a morte do pai, herdou uma fortuna considerável que lhe permitiu independência para desenvolver a vida acadêmica. Estudou História e Filosofia na Universidade de Berlim, onde foi aluno das mais importantes figuras acadêmicas da época. Em 1881, defendeu uma tese sobre Immanuel Kant e recebeu o título de doutor em Filosofia. Entre 1885 e 1914, lecionou Filosofia, Ética e Sociologia na Universidade de Berlim, mas nunca foi incorporado formalmente à universidade. -/- Ocupou o cargo de professor titular de Filosofia somente em 1914, em Estrasburgo, cidade onde permaneceu até a morte, em 1918. -/- Na virada do século XIX para o século XX na Alemanha, houve uma intensa efervescência filosófica, cultural e artística, cenário em que se desenvolveram a psicanálise, a teoria da relatividade, o positivismo lógico e a música atonal. Nesse cenário, Simmel tornou-se um conferencista muito aclamado e escreveu artigos e ensaios sobre os mais variados temas da Filosofia, como lógica, teoria do conhecimento, ética, estética ou metafísica, além de temas da Psicologia, da Sociologia, da História e da religião. -/- Escreveu também muitas biografias (de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, de Friedrich Nietzsche, de Immanuel Kant e de Rembrandt, entre outros). -/- Suas obras sociológicas mais importantes são: Da diferenciação social (1890), A filosofia do dinheiro (1907), Sociologia (1908) e Questões fundamentais da Sociologia (1917). Georg Simmel teve influência marcante no desenvolvimento da Sociologia na Alemanha, nos Estados Unidos (em especial na Escola de Chicago) e na França (em Durkheim e seus colaboradores diretos). Suas obras foram traduzidas para o francês e o inglês, muitas vezes antes de ser publicadas em alemão. -/- 2. Max Weber (1864-1920) -/- Max Weber nasceu em 21 de abril de 1864, em Erfurt, e morreu em Munique, em 1920. De família abastada, teve uma educação formal de boa qualidade, o que lhe permitiu uma erudição notável. Com 18 anos, ingressou na Universidade de Heidelberg, onde escolheu como área de concentração o Direito e como correlatas a História, a Filosofia e a Economia. Nessa universidade, teve o primeiro contato com os escritos de Immanuel Kant e com neokantianos, os quais nunca deixou de lado em seus estudos. -/- Em 1889, concluiu o doutorado em Direito Comercial com uma tese sobre a história das sociedades comerciais da Idade Média. Em 1891, defendeu outra tese: A importância da história agrária romana para o direito público e privado. Em 1894, tornou-se professor de Economia na Universidade de Freiburg e, dois anos depois, transferiu-se para a Universidade de Heidelberg. -/- A partir de 1897, acometido de uma depressão profunda, não conseguiu desenvolver as atividades acadêmicas. Entre 1902 e 1903, retomou as atividades intelectuais, mas fora da universidade, pois não tinha condições psicológicas para ministrar aulas. No ano seguinte, tornou-se coeditor do Arquivo de Ciências Sociais, publicação muito importante para o desenvolvimento dos estudos sociológicos na Alemanha. -/- Entre agosto e dezembro de 1904, viajou, com Ferdinand Tönnies e Werner Sombart, aos Estados Unidos, por ocasião da Exposição Universal de Saint-Louis, onde entrou em contato com as igrejas e seitas protestantes daquele país e também com vários escritos de Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), o que foi fundamental para suas pesquisas sobre a relação entre a ética protestante e o capitalismo. -/- Em 1907, recebeu uma herança significativa. A partir de então, dedicou-se exclusivamente à investigação histórica e sociológica. Em 1909, colaborou na fundação da Sociedade Alemã de Sociologia. Ao ser deflagrada a Primeira Guerra Mundial, em 1914, Weber foi convocado como oficial da reserva para dirigir um hospital militar. Entre as atividades no hospital encontrou tempo para continuar a escrever partes do livro que foi publicado postumamente por sua esposa, com o título Economia e sociedade. Além disso, desenvolveu estudos sobre ética econômica e as religiões universais e escreveu uma série de artigos para os grandes jornais da Alemanha. Nesses artigos, criticou a estrutura partidária do país e a burocratização das esferas políticas na Alemanha, afirmando que aquela situação ainda era a herança de Otto von Bismarck. -/- Em 1917, pronunciou uma conferência – A ciência como vocação – e produziu um escrito, no qual explicitou seu método – Ensaio sobre neutralidade axiológica nas ciências sociológicas e econômicas. -/- Pelas ideias expostas em debates e nos jornais e por sua erudição, Max Weber, após a derrota alemã na Primeira Guerra Mundial, fez parte da comissão que redigiu, em 1919, a nova constituição política alemã, conhecida como a Constituição de Weimar. -/- Pode-se afirmar que a vida de Max Weber foi dedicada aos estudos, à pesquisa e à participação ativa na política alemã de seu tempo, por meio de conferências e artigos para jornais e revistas. -/- Weber não media esforços para analisar e com-preender mais profundamente os temas que elegia. Aprendeu grego e hebraico para ler a Bíblia no original, espanhol para ler os documentos sobre as companhias de navegação e comércio espanhol, russo para ler os jornais sobre os acontecimentos na Rússia de 1905 até a revolução de 1917, inglês para ler os textos estadunidenses sobre a vida religiosa e a ética dos protestantes. -/- Para Max Weber, o indivíduo é o núcleo de análise por ser o único que pode definir intenções e finalidades para seus atos. Desse modo, o ponto de partida da Sociologia é a compreensão da ação dos indivíduos, atuando e vivenciando situações sociais com determinadas motivações e intenções. Instituições como Estado e família só ganham sentido quando vistas da perspectiva das relações sociais. Assim, Max Weber não concebe a sociedade como um bloco, uma estrutura una, mas como uma teia de relações capazes de produzir sentido. -/- A obra de Max Weber é vasta e engloba história, direito e economia, passando pelas questões religiosas, pelos processos burocráticos, pela análise da cidade, da música e, enfim, pela discussão metodológica das ciências humanas e dos conceitos sociológicos. -/- Entre os seus escritos, podemos destacar: A ética protestante e o “espírito” do capitalismo (1904-1905/1920), A ciência como vocação (1917), A política como vocação (1919), Economia e sociedade (1920), História geral da economia (1923) e Ensaios reunidos de sociologia da religião (1917/1920). -/- Outros sociólogos alemães mantiveram-se em atividade após a Primeira Guerra Mundial, como Ferdinand Tönnies, Leopold von Wiese (1876 -1969), Hans Freyer (1887-1969) e Franz Oppenheimer (1864 -1943), que fundou, em 1919, a primeira cátedra de Sociologia na Alemanha, em Frankfurt. -/- 3. A Escola de Frankfurt -/- Logo após a morte de Max Weber, abriu-se um novo horizonte para a Sociologia alemã com a fundação do Instituto de Pesquisa Social, vinculado à Universidade Johann Wolfgang Goethe de Frankfurt, que ficou conhecido como Escola de Frankfurt. Em 1923, um grupo de intelectuais – entre eles Friedrich Pollok (1894-1970), Leo Löwenthal (1900-1993), Karl August Wittfogel (1896-1988), Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) e Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) – desenvolveu uma análise da sociedade contemporânea com base em concepções filosóficas de Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel e Friedrich Nietzsche, em visões sociológicas de Karl Marx e de Max Weber e no pensamento de Sigmund Freud. -/- Os integrantes do grupo de Frankfurt pretendiam desenvolver uma teoria crítica da sociedade capitalista e buscavam explicar fenômenos que iam da análise da personalidade autoritária à indústria cultural. Mantiveram a crítica ao positivismo e ao pragmatismo, procurando demonstrar a necessida-de de refletir sobre as condições que permitiram a emergência do nazismo e sobre o significado dessa ideologia. As reflexões desses intelectuais culminaram com uma crítica à razão instrumental e às formas de controle sobre a sociedade contemporânea. -/- Além dos estudiosos citados, são representantes desse pensamento Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Erich Fromm (1900-1980) e Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), entre outros. Todos os integrantes da Escola de Frankfurt precisaram sair da Alema-nha por causa da perseguição nazista. Adorno e Horkheimer voltaram ao país depois do fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Deram continuidade à Escola de Frankfurt, entre outros, Jürgen Habermas (1929-), da segunda geração, e Axel Honneth (1949-), da terceira e atual geração. -/- REFERENCIAL TEÓRICO -/- CUIN, C. H.; GRESLE, F. História da Sociologia. Trad. Roberto Leal Ferreira. São Paulo: Ensaio, 1994. -/- CULTURAL, A. Max Weber. Textos selecionados. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1980. (Col. Os Pensadores). -/- NOVA, S. V. Introdução à Sociologia. 6ª ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2004. -/- SILVA, A. et al. Sociologia em movimento. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2016. -/- VANDENBERGHE, F. As sociologias de Georg Simmel. 1ª ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2018. -/- WAIZBORT, L. As aventuras de Georg Simmel. São Paulo: USP, Curso de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia/Editora 34, 2000. -/- SBS - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia PUCRS - PPG em Ciências Sociais Avenida Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon CEP: 90619-900 - Porto Alegre, RS [email protected] Emanuel Isaque © 2019. (shrink)

● Sergio Cremaschi, The non-existing Island. The chapter discusses how the cleavage between the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophies originated, the (self-)images of both philosophical worlds, the converging rediscoveries from the Seventies, and recent ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. I argue that pragmatism provides an important counter-instance to the familiar self-images and the fashionable ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. The conclusions are: (i) the only place where Continental philosophy exists (as Euro-Communism one decade ago) is America; (ii) less obviously, also analytic philosophy (...) does not exist, or does no more exist as a current or a paradigm; what does exist is, on the one hand, philosophy of language and, on the other, philosophy of mind, that is, two disciplines; (iii) the dissolution of analytic philosophy as a school has been highly fruitful, precisely in so far as it has left room for disciplines and research programmes; (iv) what is left, of the Anglo-American/Continental cleavage is primarily differences in styles, depending partly on intellectual traditions, partly owing to sociology, history, institutional frameworks; these differences should not be blurred by rash ecumenism; besides, theoretical differences are alive as ever, but within both camps; finally, there is indeed a lag (not a difference) in the appropriation of intellectual techniques by most schools of 'Continental' philosophy, and this should be overcome through appropriation of what the best 'analytic' philosophers have produced. ● Michael Strauss, Language and sense-perception: an aspect of analytic philosophy. To test an assertion about one fact by comparing it with perceived reality seems quite unproblematic. But the very possibility of such a procedure is incompatible with the intellectualistic basis of logical positivism and atomism (as it is for example to be found in Russell's Analysis of Mind). According to the intellectualistic approach pure sensation is meaningless. Sensation receives its meaning and order from the intellect through interpretation, which is performed with the help of linguistic tools, i.e. words and sentences. Before being interpreted, sensation is not a picture or a representation, it is neither true nor false, neither an illusion nor knowledge; it does not tell us anything; it is a lifeless and order-less matter. But how can a thought (or a proposition) be compared with such a lifeless matter? This difficulty confronts the intellectualist, if on the one hand he admits the necessity of comparing thought with sense-perception, and on the other hand presupposes that we possess only intellectual and no immediate perceptual understanding of what we see and hear. In this paper I give a critical exposition of three attempts, made by Russell, Neurath and Wittgenstein, to solve this problem. The first attempt adheres to strict conventionalism, the second tends to naturalism and the third leads to an amended, very moderate version of conventionalism. This amended conventionalism looks at sense impressions as being a peculiar language, which includes primary symbols, i.e. symbols not founded on convention and not being in need of interpretation. ● Ernst Tugendhat, Phenomenology and language analysis. The paper, first published in German in 1970, by which Tugendhat gave a start to the German rediscovery of analytic philosophy. The author stages a confrontation between phenomenology and language analysis. He argues that language analysis does not differ from phenomenology as far as the topics dealt with are concerned; instead, both currents are quite different in method. The author argues that language-analytic philosophy does not simply lay out of the mainstream of transcendental philosophy, but that instead it challenges this tradition on the very level of foundations. The author criticizes the linguistic-analytic approach centred on the subject as well as any object-centred approach, while proposing inter-subjective understanding through language as the new universal framework. This is, when construed in so general terms, the same program of hermeneutics, though in a more basic version. ● Jürgen Habermas, Language game, intention and meaning. On a few suggestions by Sellars and Wittgenstein. The paper, first published in German in 1975, in which Habermas announces his own linguistic turn through a discovery of speech acts. In this essay the author wants to work out a categorical framework for a communicative theory of society; he takes Wittgenstein's concept of language game as a Leitfade and, besides, he takes advantage also of Wilfried Sellars's quasi-transcendental account of the genesis of intentionality. His goal is to single out the problems connected with a theory of consciousness oriented in a logical-linguistic sense. ● Zvie Bar-On, Isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. This essay presents the problem of the formal relationship between speech acts and intentional states as an essential part of the perennial philosophical question of the relation between language and thought. I attempt to show how this problem had been dealt with by two prominent philosophers of different camps in our century, Edmund Husserl and John Searle. Both of them wrote extensively about the theory of intentionality. I point out an interesting, as it were unintended, continuity of their work on that theory. Searle started where Husserl left off 80 years earlier. Their meeting point could be used as the first clue in our search. They both adopted in effect the same distinction between two basic aspects of the intentional experience: its content or matter, and its quality or mode. Husserl did not yet have the concept of a speech act as contradistinguished from an intentional state. The working hypothesis, however, which he suggested, could be used as a second clue for the further elaboration of the theory. The relationship of the two levels, the mental and the linguistic, which remained for Husserl in the background only, became the cornerstone of Searle' s inquiry. He employed the speech act as the model and analysed the intentional experience by means of the conceptual apparatus of his own theory of speech acts. This procedure enabled him to mark out a number of parallelisms and correlations between the two levels. This procedure explains the phenomenon of the partial isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. ● Roberta de Monticelli, Ontology. A dialogue among the linguistic philosopher, the naturalist, and the phenomenological philosopher. This paper proposes a comparison between two main ways of conceiving the role and scope of that fundamental part of philosophy (or of "first" philosophy) which is traditionally called "ontology". One way, originated within the analytic tradition, consists of two main streams, namely philosophy of language and (contemporary) philosophy of mind, the former yielding "reduced ontology" and the latter "neo-Aristotelian ontology". The other way of conceiving ontology is exemplified by "phenomenological ontology" (more precisely, the Husserlian, not the Heideggerian version). Ontology as a theory of reference ("reduced" ontology, or ontology as depending on semantics) is presented and justified on the basis of some classical thesis of traditional philosophy of language (from Frege to Quine). "Reduced ontology" is shown to be identifiable with one level of a traditional, Aristotelian ontology, namely the one which corresponds to one of the four "senses of being" listed in Aristotle's Metaphysics: "being" as "being true". This identification is justified on the basis of Franz Brentano's "rules for translation" of the Aristotelian table of judgements in terms of (positive and negative) existential judgments such as are easily translatable into sentences of first order predicate logic. The second part of the paper is concerned with "neo-Aristotelian ontology", i.e. with naturalism and physicalism as the main ontological options underlying most of contemporary discussion in the philosophy of mind. The qualification of such options as "neo-Aristotelian" is justified; the relationships between "neo-Aristotelian ontology" and "reduced ontology" are discussed. In the third part the fundamental tenet of "phenomenological ontology" is identified by the thesis that a logical theory of existence and being does capture a sense of "existing" and "being" which, even though not the basic one, is grounded in the basic one. An attempt is done of further clarifying this "more basic" sense of "being". An argument making use of this supposedly "more basic" sense is advanced in favour of a "phenomenological ontology". ● Kuno Lorenz, Analytic Roots in Dialogic Constructivism. Both in the Vienna Circle ad in Russell's early philosophy the division of knowledge into two kinds (or two levels), perceptual and conceptual, plays a vital role. Constructivism in philosophy, in trying to provide a pragmatic foundation - a knowing-how - to perceptual as well as conceptual competences, discovered that this is dependent on semiotic tools. Therefore, the "principle of method" had to be amended by the "principle of dialogue". Analytic philosophy being an heir of classical empiricism, conceptually grasping the "given", and constructive philosophy being an heir of classical rationalism, perceptually providing the "constructed", merge into dialogical constructivism, a contemporary development of ideas derived especially from the works of Charles S. Peirce (his pragmatic maxim as a means of giving meaning to signs) and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (his language games as tools of comparison for understanding ways of life). 7. Albrecht Wellmer, "Autonomy of meaning" and "principle of charity" from the viewpoint of the pragmatics of language. In this essay I present an interpretation of the principle of the autonomy of meaning and of the principle of charity, the two main principles of Davidson's semantic view of truth, showing how both principles may fit in a perspective dictated by the pragmatics of language. I argue that (I) the principle of the autonomy of meaning may be thoroughly reformulated in terms of the pragmatics of language, (ii) the principle of charity needs a supplement in terms of pragmatics of language in order to become really enlightening as a principle of interpretation. Besides, I argue that: (i) on the one hand, the fundamental thesis of Habermas on the pragmatic theory of meaning ("we understand a speech act when we know what makes it admissible") is correlated with the seemingly intentionalist thesis according to which we understand a speech act when we know what a speaker means; (ii) on the other hand, to say that the meaning competence of a competent speaker is basically a competence about a potential of reasons (or also of possible justifications) which is inherently connected with the meaning of statements, or with their use in utterances. ● Rüdiger Bubner, The convergence of analytic and hermeneutic philosophy This paper argues that the analytic philosophy does not exist, at least as understood by its original programs. Differences in the analytic camp have always been bigger than they were believed to be. Now these differences are coming to the fore thanks to a process of dissolution of dogmatism. Philosophical analysis is led by its own inner logic towards questions that may be fairly qualified as hermeneutic. Recent developments in analytic philosophy, e.g. Davidson, seem to indicate a growing convergence of themes between philosophical analysis and hermeneutics; thus, the familiar opposition of Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy might soon belong to history. The fact of an ongoing appropriation of analytical techniques by present-day German philosophers may provide a basis for a powerful argument for the unity of philosophizing, beyond its strained images privileging one technique of thinking and rejecting the remainder. Actual philosophical practice should take the dialogue between the two camps more seriously; in fact, the processes described so far are no danger to philosophical work. They may be a danger for parochial approaches to philosophizing; indeed, contrary to what happens in the natural sciences, Thomas Kuhn's "normal science" developing within the framework of one fixed paradigm is not typical for philosophical thinking. And in philosophy innovating revolutions are symptoms more of vitality than of crisis. ● Karl-Otto Apel, The impact of analytic philosophy on my intellectual biography. In my paper I try to reconstruct the history of my Auseinandersetzung mit - as I called it - "language-analytical" philosophy (including even Peircean semiotics) since the late Fifties. The heuristics of my study was predetermined by two main motives of my beginnings: the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology and the transformation of "transcendental philosophy" in the light of the "language a priori". Thus, I took issue with the early and the later Wittgenstein, logical positivism, and post-Wittgensteinian and post-empiricist philosophy of science (i.e. G.H. von Wright and the renewal of the "explanation vs understanding controversy" as well as the debate between Th. Kuhn and Popper/Lakatos); besides, with speech act theory and the debate about "transcendental arguments" since Strawson. The "pragmatic turn", started already by C.L. Morris and the later Carnap, led me to study also the relationship between Wittgensteinian "use" theory of meaning and of truth. This resulted on my side in something like a program of "transcendental semiotics", i.e. "transcendental pragmatics" and "transcendental hermeneutics". ● Ben-Ami Scharfstein, A doubt on both their houses: the blindness to non-western philosophies. The burden of my criticism is that contemporary European philosophers of all kinds have continued to think as if there were no true philosophy but that of the West. For the most part, the existentialists have been oblivious of their Eastern congeners; the hermeneuticians have yet to stretch their horizons beyond the most familiar ones; and the analysts remain unaware of the analyses and linguistic sensitivities of the ancient non-European philosophers. Briefly, ignorance still blinds almost all contemporary Western philosophers to the rich, variegated philosophical traditions outside of their familiar orbit. Both Continental and Anglo-Americans have lost the breadth of view that once characterized such thinkers as Herder and the Humboldts. The blindness that has resulted is not simply that of individual Western philosophers but of our whole, still parochial philosophical culture. (shrink)

As a response to the COVID-19 crisis, governments have turned to various discretionary measures such as cash transfers to consumers and businesses with mixed results. Universal Basic Income (UBI) is back on the agenda as well. One of the main advantages of UBI, as scholars like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James M. Buchanan have argued, is that it does not depend upon competent and benevolent government discretion—which is often in short supply—but upon pre-established rules. This paper argues that the (...) UBI scheme holds tentative promise from the point of view of improving the institutional crisis preparedness of a complex socioeconomic order. The pre-established rules of UBI buttress the rule of law framework that improves the ability of economic agents to spontaneously coordinate their actions in times of crisis characterized by radical uncertainty, disequilibrium shocks, and institutional instability. Furthermore, UBI combines the distribution of fungible resources with the delegation of independent decision-making power to millions of crisis-struck individuals and communities. Compared to discretionary tax-and-transfer schemes, the rules of UBI therefore appear more compatible with the polycentric discovery of novel solutions from the bottom-up. In times of crisis, UBI may be relied upon as one cornerstone of what I shall call the permanent crisis management framework. Having such a permanent scheme may minimize - although it does not altogether eliminate - the need for discretionary transfers, targeted intervention, and technocratic management in times of crisis. However, this theoretical model of UBI as a facilitator of polycentric crisis preparedness faces several practical challenges that need to be addressed in further research. (shrink)

The concept of philosophy as a philosophical problem.--Critical idealism as a philosophy of culture.--Descartes, Leibniz, and Vico.--Hegel's theory of the State.--The philosophy of history.--Language and art I.--Language and art II.--The educational value of art.--Philosophy and politics.--Judaism and the modern political myths.--The technique of our modern political myths.--Reflections on the concept of group and the theory of perception.

The Finnish experiment of 2017–18 is a crucial test case. It provides one of the most robust experimental tests of a universal basic income (UBI) in the context of an advanced industrialised society. And it is a real milestone, since it represents a nonutopian approach to UBI that can be palatable to middle class voters. But its partial success is also a partial failure. Although it is too early to render judgement, the Finnish case shows that there are many obstacles (...) for the successful implementation of theoretical models. Experiments often fall short of the ideal experimental conditions. This speaks against taking too optimistic a view on the next steps. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been proposed as a potential way in which welfare states could be made more responsive to the ever-shifting evolutionary challenges of institutional adaptation in a dynamic environment. It has been proposed as a tool of “real freedom” (Van Parijs) and as a tool of making the welfare state more efficient. (Friedman) From the point of view of complexity theory and evolutionary economics, I argue that only a welfare state model that is “polycentrically” (Polanyi, Hayek) organized (...) as an evolving network of distributed decision-making can respond to the challenges of complexity in an adaptively efficient manner. UBI has the theoretical possibility to facilitate flexible, bottom-up innovation, since a) it embodies the “rule of law” principles of generality, nondiscrimination, simplicity, and transparency, and b) it grants people widespread freedom to experiment, innovate, and deviate from established practices and norms; but whether it can be made to work as intended depends on a number of variables in its design. I situate my research in the contemporary UBI debate around automation and technological development, which I interpret creatively through the lens of contemporary evolutionary political economy. I advance a syncretic model of institutional design based upon the shared insights of the Santa Fe, Neo-Hayekian, and Neo-Schumpeterian schools of evolutionary economics that, following Adam Thierer and Michael Munger, I call the framework of Permissionless Innovation (PI). Under the PI framework, which is a development of the tradition of evolutionary liberalism (Hume, Smith, Mandeville, Mill, Hayek, Polanyi, Schumpeter, Hodgson), individuals are granted the default right to innovate without having to ask for permission, and the right to basic income, which they can use to support their right to innovate, mutate, and experiment. This framework is a liberal framework to the extent it relies on widespread human freedom as a means of fostering innovation and social learning. And it is an evolutionary framework to the extent that it seeks to facilitate evolutionary socioeconomic processes for the sake of social progress and welfare advancement. I proceed to show, through an analysis of how innovation operates in both the economy and the cultural domain, that UBI can be used as an important cornerstone of an evolutionary liberal model of “ecostructural” governance that treats the socioeconomic order as an ecological garden of spontaneous growths, adaptations, and innovations. I call this the Permissionless Innovation Universal Basic Income (PIUBI) framework. In it, the right to innovate, deviate, and mutate is upheld as the “gold standard” of institutional design whereby individuals are granted widespread freedoms combined with the provision of UBI and other innovation-fostering (carefully bound) services and regulations. In the coming decades, UBI may even enable poor people to take better advantage of Human Enhancement Technologies (HETs) and other experimental innovations. Such a framework is compatible with a fast pace of evolutionary development, but the regulatory model accompanying such a framework must be capable of responding to evolutionary lock-ins, maladaptive innovations, self-destructive behaviour on the part of UBI recipients, and the management of catastrophic and existential risks. In the end, I will have shown that the PIUBI framework can be justified as a plausible default institutional mechanism for responding to radical uncertainty, but it needs to be experimentally adapted to changing circumstances with the help of various situation-specific, polycentric, multi-level, approaches. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the conceptions of "Nothigness" and "nihility" in Western continental philosophy and Japanese philosophy. The experience of the Self, and the experiences of the transcendent, are constructed upon the prevalent assumptions of the culture that the individual finds herself in. The question of the relationship between the "I" and the "World" is differently solved (or stabilized, fixed) in different cultures. I seek to defend and interrogate the claim that Japan's core metaphysical stance is that of non-dualistic non-essentialism. In (...) Takeuchi Yoshimi's words, "Japan is nothing." By contrast, Europe is "something" - e.g., history, space, structure, being. The European metaphysics of self-understanding, at least in some aspects of Continental thought, is based on the primacy of being over nothingness, whereas Japanese metaphysics is based on the non-duality of substance and insubstantiality. Japanese metaphysics, Japanese self-identity, is "zero." Japanese metaphysics, including Buddhism, is based on the idea of nonsubstantiality, i.e. groundlessness of Being. We could say that in Japan "the transcendental center that consolidates the system is absent" (Karatani 1990: 70). This analysis illuminates how differently, and still productively, the experience of nihilism can appear in Japan and in the West. (shrink)

My paper proposes a tentative framework of bio-existential semiotics based on a reading of Peirce, Darwin, Heidegger, Tarasti, and others. According to this view, there is an evolutionary continuum to life. Human beings are natural organisms and they exhibit many similar bio-existential phenomena. Natural evolution also produces the anthropological, societal and global semiotic processes that constitute cultural evolution as an outgrowth. In the bio-existential perspective, the world is composed of imperfect systems and imperfect consciousnesses where every lifeform must struggle for (...) its existence. Every “Dasein” must face the fact that it must die because it cannot comprehend or control the universe in its totality. This is why life and existence are “tragic” phenomena. Every bio-existential Dasein is a partial comprehension of the universe, and the only way the universe can comprehend itself is through these partial perspectives, which are born to imperfection and die in imperfection, but whose imperfection is of the essence of the universe. This is why bio-existentialism makes for a “tragic” perspective: we are mortals, and all mortals must die. Nonetheless, there is also hope and optimism in this view of life. In conceiving of existence as having certain universal principles that extend from biology to sociology, semioticians and philosophers can formulate new ways of looking at the world. Together with scientists and artists, they can hopefully work towards a better – or at least more refined – ethical attitude towards science, nature and society. (shrink)

The complexity approach to political economy suggests that radical uncertainty is a necessary feature of a complex and evolving socioeconomic landscape. Radical uncertainty raises various adaptive challenges that are likely to escalate in the coming decades under the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” It jeopardizes the wellbeing of ordinary citizens, whose welfare prospects, job opportunities, and income stream are rendered insecure. It also renders precarious the robust implementation of universal human rights, including the right to social security. In fact, it will be (...) argued that human rights cannot be institutionally secured unless they are implemented in a “complexity aware” way that takes account of the uncertainty of the socioeconomic order. In particular, in order to better protect the dignity of rights holders, and to allow them to survive and thrive in the face of radical uncertainty, governments ought to explore various institutional alternatives to existing schemes. It will be suggested that most existing conditional welfare policies systematically fall short of complexity-aware institutional implementation to the extent that they rely on unreasonable assumptions regarding the availability of salient technocratic control over the complex socioeconomic order. Some economists and philosophers have suggested that UBI (Universal Basic Income) might be a viable way to implement the right to social security today. I propose that some of UBI’s most ethically and economically controversial features, such as unconditionality and universality, appear relatively appealing in light of the complexity perspective. In the absence of better alternatives, UBI might even be a requirement of a robust implementation of the human right to social security – a right that welfare states are already committed to on the level of ideal theory but predictably fail to respect in practice due to policy incoherence. However, open questions remain about whether UBI can be transformed from an ideal model into a pragmatic policy. (shrink)

In his insightful book, Trust in a Polarized Age, Kevin Vallier (2021) convincingly shows that the legitimacy and sustainability of liberal democratic institutions are dependent upon the maintenance of social and institutional trust. This insight, I believe, has value beyond the illustrious halls of post-Rawlsian, post-Gausian thought. Indeed, while I remain skeptical towards some of the premises of public reason liberalism, I am convinced that any liberal democratic political philosopher who takes the trust literature seriously and who has made their (...) (pragmatic or principled) peace with redistribution has good reasons to sympathize with the general outlines of the institutional palette that emerges out of his book. In this article, I will take for granted Vallier’s assumption that the erosion of social and institutional trust is a serious problem. This motivates investigating the trust-bearing attributes of the redistributive welfare state and the “principle of social insurance” that underpins it. I reconstruct and critically analyse Vallier’s case for a liberal democratic welfare state. I show that he makes a convincing public reason argument for universal social insurance but proceeds too hastily to exclude the principle of unconditionality from consideration. The rest of my paper consists of defending this claim by presenting two kinds of arguments— empirical and theoretical—that I think public reason liberals like Vallier, according to their own commitments, should be motivated to incorporate into their comprehensive discussion of the public justifications for and against basic income. They will show that Universal Basic Income (UBI), although it remains contentious, has some features that could appeal to a diverse citizenry, and thus tilt the balance of public reason judgments towards UBI. (shrink)

In his influential 1949 essay, The Intellectuals and Socialism, F.A. Hayek prophesied that the “revival of liberalism” must coincide with the resurgence of “the courage to be Utopian.” Today, at a time when liberalism is under attack from multiple fronts, we need courage more than ever. Indeed, the rediscovery of the Utopian potential of liberalism coincides with going back to its roots. My paper shows that liberalism, especially in its so-called “epistemic” or "evolutionary" branch whose notable theorists include Adam Smith, (...) J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, and F.A. Hayek, provides a framework for “real Utopian” theory and practice. However, I argue that evolutionary liberalism should be enriched with the insights of contemporary evolutionary theory and complexity theory to properly account for the downsides of social evolution and to overcome the understandable charge of social Darwinism. Only then can it robustly realise its emancipatory aspirations and real Utopian promise. (shrink)

In this paper, I assess John McDowell's paper "Avoiding the Myth of the Given" (2009) (AMG) and its theory of epistemological openness to the world. I trace its motivations back to Kantian, Sellarsian and Aristotelean roots. I argue that McDowell subscribes to a kind of Holistic Theory of Rationality (HTR). To explain the HTR, I will analyze the Sellarsian notions of the "Manifest Image," the "Myth of the Given" and the "logical space of reasons." I argue that the holistic nature (...) of McDowell's theory gives it particular properties that put it in need of conservatism, because all the elements of the theory "hang together" - i.e. cohere - in a dangerous fashion. I argue that McDowell cannot afford big changes without upsetting the apple-cart. With this in mind, I shall assess the merits and demerits of AMG, and its modified theory of perceptual content, as an attempted conservative reform of HTR. I want to argue that, taken independently, AMG is a good and important change, but taken holistically it is non-conservative, and disruptive, of the McDowellian picture. Thus, if we wish to proceed with the McDowellian path, we are led to a choice between rejecting the local reform (and retreating back to an earlier version) or demanding further explanations of its global implications. (shrink)

Different opinions about the simplicity of God may be connected with different understandings of how abstract terms are used to name the properties which are affirmed of a being. If these terms are taken to signify parts of that being, this being is not a simple one. Thomas Aquinas, who attributes essence, existence and perfections to God, nevertheless thinks that these are not different parts of God. When essence, existence and perfections are attributed to God, they all denominate the same, (...) the Being of the first cause. For Aquinas, this is a consequence of his way of introducing the language about God by basing it upon the philosophical ways leading to God as first cause. Awareness of this connection between Divine attributes and the arguments for God’s existence is crucial for an adequate understanding of Aquinas’ position. (shrink)

In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’— a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical (...) application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models and consider the most important criticisms. We conclude that rescuing the demogrant model from relative obscurity would be a fruitful future task of applied constitutional political economy and public choice. (shrink)

Classical liberals have a long and convoluted history with the welfare state. Welfare policy has engaged liberals ever since the debates round poor relief, land ownership, and distributive justice in authors like John Locke, Thomas Paine, Herbert Spencer, and Henry George. However, the majority of the welfare state debate, from David Hume and Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Richard Epstein, has been conducted primarily on the basis of rule-consequentialist reasoning, weighing the expected (long-term) costs and benefits of different institutional (...) rules. Classical liberals tend to be primarily concerned with welfare in the “happiness of individuals” sense and only secondarily with welfare in the “government handout” sense. This necessitates an investigation into the expected benefits and costs of various institutional rules and social policies. As a result, any disagreements about the best institutional pathway forward must be settled through comparative institutional analysis. Today, it seems to me that the classical liberal perspective must choose between two alternative pathways, each of which has its pros and cons, and each of which seems compatible with the abstract and general rules of the market society: 1) The Minimally Redistributive State based on a classical liberal constitution supported by robust market institutions and a civil society mosaic of polycentric mutual aid networks; or 2) The Welfare State of Law which, in addition to all of the above, adds a few carefully rule-bound and market-conforming redistributive mechanisms, the most important of which is the robust guarantee of something like a conditional minimum income scheme or an unconditional UBI/NIT scheme. In addition, the 3) “Third Way” models of the Social Market Economy and the Free Market Welfare State are also sometimes included as a third option. (shrink)

What does effective poverty relief entail? How are we to assess the capacity of advanced industrialized societies to solve the problem of poverty? What role, if any, is left for the welfare state? This chapter argues that poverty relief, far from being primarily a matter of post hoc redistribution, primarily consists in a Hayekian-Schumpeterian discovery (or innovation) procedure whereby the problems of the poor are continuously discovered, identified, and eventually solved from the bottom up. This suggests new avenues for reform. (...) I argue, from the point of view of complexity theory, that governments must overcome knowledge and governance problems that limit their competence in the realm of solving the problems of the poor. As a result, any efficient system of poverty relief is unlikely to emerge from imposing an efficient and equitable top-down delivery of given goods and services based on established practices or preferences. The knowledge of what goods and services are required, and what practices should be modified to produce them, is not given to policy makers; it needs to be discovered. And this discovery is best modeled as an entrepreneurial, inquisitive, and experimental process. This process is best understood by applying complexity theory and the Austrian (Hayekian) epistemic paradigm. (shrink)

Liberal-minded basic income scholars often argue that UBI has two key properties that work together to justify it. Let us call these the freedom justification and the narrative justification. On the one hand, UBI is defended because it gives people more freedom to do what they want to do. (Stigler, 1946, Friedman, 1962; Van Parijs, 1995; Widerquist, 2013) They exhibit primary concern for the purely formal properties of the regime of liberal neutrality. On the other hand, many scholars, including many (...) of the same liberal scholars, argue that UBI also pushes society substantively towards desirable social outcomes. They combine the freedom justification with substantive predictions and expectations. (Rifkin, 1995; Murray, 2016; Weeks, 2020) However, I show that both existentialist philosophy (Sartre) and complexity theory (Knight, Hayek, Schumpeter) suggest that a liberal social order is compatible, at best, with rough pattern prediction about a multiply realizable future that remains narratively open to multiple possible trajectories. Liberal neutrality, to the extent that it nourishes radical freedom, is incompatible with strong, stable narrative predictions. As Nozick put, it “liberty upsets patterns”. This is true of all liberal UBI models, and liberal institutions in general. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenology and ontology of videogames through the lens of semiotics. The difference between games and more traditional narrative models (such as those found in books and movies) lies on the structural level. The game narrative needs to be ‘written’ (played) before it can be ‘read’ (interpreted). Games provide fluidity of interactive immersion: the interface as the place of the merger between the player and the game. A connection, without delay, is established between the movement of the (...) player’s hands and the virtual movement across virtual space-times of the virtual characters/events on the screen. The connection is cybernetic, of course, and real. The actuality of the virtual is established as the action of the finger movements of the player. Games require at least a minimum degree of interaction. The player has a role as the master of the code, as the last string of code attached to complete the sequence. Such is the definition of the Cinematic under the formal demands of the Ludic: the defining-delimiting-restricting background which nonetheless, by its very (fixed) presence, provides the nurturing ground for the appearance and presence of (fluid) malleability as the ‘gap’ or ‘lack’ in the structure to be filled – in whatever manner – by the player in the act of his or her (world-constitutive) existential engagement. (shrink)

Pubblicato agli inizi degli anni Cinquanta del Novecento da Ernst Bloch (1885-1977), Gli strati della categoria della possibilità diventò in seguito il diciottesimo capitolo del suo Principio speranza. Vi è presentata un’indagine teorica e storica su che cosa sia la possibilità. Da Aristotele a Marx, passando per Averroè, Giordano Bruno e Hegel, lettrici e lettori ripercorreranno le proposte avanzate nella storia della filosofia per affrontare la questione del possibile, fino a scoprire la teoria della possibilità reale. Grazie alla sua (...) particolare struttura, che sviluppa l’argomentazione facendo emergere in ordine di complessità crescente i principali elementi dell’ontologia del non essere ancora, questo testo è una preziosa chiave per orientarsi nella lettura della filosofia di Bloch. (shrink)

Why humanism, still/again? The very same question was asked – not for the first time, nor for the last – by Sartre, in a rhetorical mood, in his 1946 landmark treatise, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, a work which propounded many of the topics and doctrines that were to become the core of the new French existentialist movement in philosophy and literature. In differentiating “his” philosophy from the other humanist traditions of the time – from those allied with it, like Marxism, (...) to those hostile to it, like Christianity – he chose to define “existentialist” humanism as radically distinct from “essentialist” or “classical” humanism (basically everything pre-Sartre or pre-Existentialism). Humanism he defined as “une theorie qui prend l’homme comme fin et comme valeur supérieure." In his reading of history, this pre-existentialist humanism of his forebears, as represented by Enlightenment’s offspring, unduly emphasized such things as “human nature”, “human rights” (god-given or natural) and social law-likeness – all essentialist, anti-individualistic theories of the human condition. Existentialism wanted to strip away the last vestiges of any essentialist salvaging of the absoluteness of Man’s condition: “l’homme est libre, l’homme est liberté”; “Nous sommes seuls, sans excuses … l’homme est condamné à être libre." Instead of history or the social condition being the sculptor of man, it is man himself who is the author of his own destiny and of the course of history. This open up possibilities of progress but also temptations of hubris and disaster. (shrink)

Tämä artikkeli esittelee utilitaristisen valistusliberalismin käsityksen sananvapaudesta. Sen perusväite on, että tiedonhaluinen, kehittyvä ja demokraattinen yhteiskunta hyötyy pitkällä tähtäimellä enemmän laajan sananvapauden sallimisesta kuin sen maltillisestakin rajoittamisesta. Tämän näkökulman mukaan haitallisen puheen – kuten vihapuheen ja muun loukkaavan puheen – tukahduttaminen on epätoivottavaa mutta tilannekohtaisesti hyötylaskelmien mukaan perusteltavissa, jos laajan sananvapauden pitkän tähtäimen hyödyt on otettu riittävästi huomioon. Ongelma onkin siinä, että näitä pitkän tähtäimen hyötyjä ei yleensä ole otettu riittävästi huomioon. Sananvapauden haitat ovat kiistattomia, joten sananvapauden uskottavan puolustuksen tulee (...) lähteä tämän todellisuuden hyväksymisestä. Sen tulee tarjota uskottava teoreettinen vaihtoehto houkutteleville valtiollisille ratkaisuille, kuten kohdennetulle vihapuhelainsäädännölle. Väitän, että radikaalin valistusliberalismin esittämä laajan sananvapauden malli tarjoaa tällaisen vaihtoehdon. (shrink)

This essay comprises two chapters from the first part of Bollnow’s book on moods, namely the second chapter on the concept of Stimmung and the third chapter on Stimmungen as the sustaining foundation of the soul. It argues that moods constitute the simplest and most original form in which human life comes to know itself. Moods are understood as a specific harmony between, first, the inner and outer world; second, the states of the body and the soul; and, third, the (...) individual faculties of the soul. Moods differ from emotions in the narrow sense, which are always intentionally directed towards a specific object, whereas moods do not have any specific object; they are states of being, structuring and coloring human existence as a whole. Hence, no system of moods is provided, but their extensive diversity is indicated. Furthermore, transient, unsteady, or “moody” moods are distinguished from persistent or basic moods. (shrink)

En una conferencia sobre el Tercer Sector en Cartagena, Daniel Pecaut afirmó: “Lo que le falta a Colombia más que un “mito fundacional” es un relato nacional ”. Se refería a un relato que posibilite a los colombianos de todas las clases, razas, etnias y regiones, ubicar sus experiencias cotidianas en una mínima trama compartida de duelos y de logros.

*Taxation in Utopia" by Donald Morris makes a valuable contribution to social theory. It offers new taxonomies of actual and potential social schemes according to their diabolically creative sacrificial impositions. Perhaps the main reason to celebrate Morris’s contribution is its ability to provide insightful parallels between pecuniary and nonpecuniary “required sacrifices.” Utopian literature is rife with—indeed inseparable from—demands of sacrifice for the sake of the collective good. Morris reminds us that the full cost of Utopian schemes is measured not in (...) monetary value alone, but in the loss of freedoms, dignity, privacy, autonomy, etc. At the same time, a comprehensive analysis should also take full account of the positive side of the Utopian social calculus. It is not enough to condemn the sacrifices; one also needs to appraise the positive achievements. (shrink)

Um princípio moral a priori, segundo Kant, não resulta dizer que ele vem antes da experiência moral, mas que pode ter uma origem independente dela, recebendo uma justificação sem um recurso à experiência. A Metafísica dos Costumes de Kant é de ordem metodológica, sendo que o método analítico consiste em que a partir do saber filosófico aplica-se o princípio a casos particulares. Desse modo, Kant procura estabelecer o princípio supremo da moralidade e, este seria um juízo sintético a priori, tendo (...) as formas puras da sensibilidade e do entendimento para possibilitarem os juízos sintéticos a priori. Além disso, o princípio supremo da moralidade justificará a priori e deduzirá dele as obrigações morais. Há três proposições fundamentais das quais Kant estabelece para apresentar o princípio supremo da moralidade: a primeira refere-se ao valor moral da ação da qual está em seu cumprimento por dever e não simplesmente em conformidade com o dever; a segunda proposição afirma que uma ação desempenhada por dever não tem seu valor no propósito a ser atingido, mas na máxima que a determina; e por fim, a terceira declara o dever sendo a necessidade de uma ação executada por respeito à lei. Kant alcança o imperativo moral através de desdobramentos conceituais, onde formula o Imperativo Categórico sendo uma máxima de ação que possui um valor universal, isto é, aplicada ao indivíduo e para todos os outros seres racionais. Todo comportamento moral é, segundo Kant, comportamento regrado. Isso quer dizer que o agir moralmente consiste em seguir a lei moral de certo modo. Há um quadro de deveres apontado na obra Metafísica dos Costumes, onde se apresenta a distinção entre os deveres para consigo e deveres para com os outros e, dessa maneira, entende-se em deveres para consigo como, não cometer suicídio e desenvolver os talento, e assim, em deveres para com os outros se entende como, manter as promessas e ajudar as pessoas que necessitam. E portanto, Kant critica a Regra de ouro por não fazer essa distinção entre deveres para consigo e deveres para com os outros. O imperativo categórico institui a necessidade de julgar as máximas desde um ponto de vista imparcial, e uma máxima de ação é uma regra de agir que tem validade apenas para um indivíduo. Desse modo, uma ação praticada por dever tem seu valor na máxima que a determina, isto é, uma máxima de ação é uma regra subjetiva do agir, a possível portadora do dever moral. Kant testa as máximas a partir daquilo que ele considera o princípio supremo da moralidade, ou seja, o Imperativo Categórico. Logo, um imperativo é um mandamento da razão, onde todos os imperativos exprimem-se pelo verbo dever. Sendo assim, há duas subclasses básicas de imperativos: hipotéticas ou categóricas. Um imperativo hipotético apresenta uma ação como necessária para atingir um determinado fim, e os imperativos hipotéticos ainda se subdividem em problemáticos, isto é, para uma intenção possível, e em assertóricos, para uma intenção real. O Imperativo Categórico é o princípio que estabelece se as máximas de ação, ou seja, são regras subjetivas do agir, que podem ser consideradas leis práticas. Em outras palavras, o Imperativo Categórico é uma norma para decidir quais máximas podem ser transformadas em leis práticas. A fórmula geral do Imperativo Categórico, “Age apenas segundo uma máxima tal que possas ao mesmo tempo querer que ela se torne lei universal’’ é o único princípio da moralidade. Portanto, a universalidade de uma máxima é a exigência do princípio supremo da moral de Kant. Ter uma vontade boa é exatamente cumprir o dever pelo dever, e é exatamente isso que confere valor moral a nossas ações. Logo, seguir uma lei moral é apenas uma condição necessária do agir moralmente, mas não é suficiente. Kant em a Fundamentação da metafísica dos costumes sustenta, desse modo, que: “Não há nada em lugar algum, no mundo e até mesmo fora dele, que se possa pensar como sendo irrestritamente bom, a não ser tão-somente uma boa vontade.” (KANT, GMS, 4: 393) Segundo Kant o conceito de bom e mau não tem que ser determinado antes da lei moral, isto é, não existe nada de modo absoluto bom, mas apenas existe uma boa vontade. Desse modo, Kant critica tanto a ética antiga de virtudes e a ética utilitarista de seu tempo. Algumas propriedades são até favoráveis a essa boa vontade e podem facilitar muito sua obra, contudo não têm qualquer valor intrínseco incondicional, mas pressupõem sempre ainda uma boa vontade, que restringe, aliás, com razão, a alta estima em que são tidas e não permite tê-las como absolutamente boas. A moderação nos afectos e paixões, o autodomínio e a sóbria deliberação não somente são coisas boas sob muitos aspectos, mas parece até mesmo constituir uma parte do valor intrínseco da pessoa; só que falta muito ainda para declará-los sem restrição como bons. Pois, sem princípios de uma boa vontade, podem tronar-se extremamente maus, e o sangue-frio de um malfeitor torna-o não só mais perigoso, mas também ainda mais imediatamente abominável aos nossos olhos do que teria sido assim considerado sem isso. (KANT, GMS, 4: 393) Kant afirma, assim, que as virtudes de certo modo podem ser más se não existir uma vontade boa para guia-la, logo, ele não louva de modo absoluto as virtudes e também não admite que a felicidade possa ser o fim último que justifica as ações morais, mas a priorização do correto e não do bem. E por fim, Kant argumenta contra a ética utilitarista, declarando que uma ação não pode ser considerada como sendo absolutamente boa a partir de seus resultados. Desse modo, há regras morais que se deve cumprir, independente dos resultados ou consequências. A proposta da ética kantiana em sustentar que existem princípios auto evidentes, ou seja, normas morais, ou o tal princípio supremo da moralidade, onde prioriza o correto ao invés do bem, ao meu ver revela a pureza da ação do homem em contraste com sua capacidade para tal. Assim, quando Kant refere-se as ações, não apenas as consequências delas as tornam certas ou erradas, isto é, erradas independentemente das suas consequências, aliás, uma ação é errada quando com ela infringe-se intencionalmente algumas das normas morais. E por fim, acredito ser pior provocar um mal que permitir que um mal ocorra, como por exemplo, é pior matar uma pessoa que deixá-la morrer. E também, seria pior dar origem a um mal intencionalmente que dar a origem a um mal que não pretendemos produzir, como por exemplo, é pior torturar alguém que fazer algo que resulte em sofrimento como efeito colateral. (shrink)

(2005). Hermann Cohen and the Renewal of Kantian philosophy2. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 95-108.

Shadow pictures radically changed the modern understanding of pictorial concepts. Tim Otto Roth’s broadly based cultural history traces the consequences of this revolution of methods of vision and image production in the sciences and the arts. By means of abundant image and text sources he develops a picture theory based on physics and projective geometry. This definitive book comprising 500 pages provides a generally understandable and vivid insight in the history of shadowgraphs from the 19th century until the present (...) age. A crucial role play scientific processes as the X-ray technique, but also the artistic examination of space and body. (shrink)

In this essay Ernst Cassirer addresses two currents of the philosophical reflection about man and culture that emerged at the end of the 18th century. Th e naturalistic one, conceives of man and culture as an outcome of the processes that takes place beyond the reach of human will and consciousness. Among such naturalistically oriented philosophies Cassirer includes Hegel’s idealism, Taine’s positivism and Spengler’s psychologism. All of them imply a characteristic kind of historical fatalism. In opposition to such a (...) deterministic vision of human development stands a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of individual decision and responsibility for the course of history. Cassirer names it “humanistic” as it places man in the very middle of its research. The initiators of this tradition were Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, foremost representatives of the German romantic movement. The philosopher who took up their humanistic thought and elevated it to the importance of a distinct knowledge was Wilhelm Dilthey. While bearing in mind who is the real creator of culture all these thinkers pay special attention to the question of man’s responsibility for culture as well as for himself. The problem of human responsibility that totally escaped the attention of naturalistically oriented philosophers is somehow a distinguishing characteristic of all humanistic philosophies of culture. (shrink)

Karl Widerquist is one of the world’s leading theorists and proponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI). His argument for UBI, however, is only one important cornerstone of his broader theory of justice and freedom. This theory entails a critical reassessment of the justification and proper scope of property rights. This is the task of The Problem of Property, a nifty little book which originates in previously unpublished parts of his doctoral thesis—the same thesis that formed the foundation of his Independence, (...) Propertylessness, and Basic Income: Freedom as the Power to Say No (2013, New York: Palgrave MacMillan). The current book is thus a welcome companion piece to that magnum opus. At the same time, The Problem of Property, thanks to its brevity and clarity, is a decent standalone introduction to Widerquist’s philosophy. While some fans of his previous works might be disappointed that UBI takes an unexpected backseat, the book’s narrow critical focus on the normative justifications of property rights makes it a goldmine for political philosophers. Even Lockean right-libertarians, his ostensible main targets, should find its freedom-based arguments familiar and easy to grasp, even if they may be puzzled by some of the radical conclusions that he draws from them. (shrink)

Intellectual property (IP) can internalize positive externalities associated with the creation and discovery of ideas, thereby increasing investment in efforts to create and discover ideas. However, IP law also causes negative externalities. Strict IP rights raise the transaction costs associated with consuming and building on existing ideas. This causes a tragedy of the anticommons, in which valuable resources are underused and underdeveloped. By disincentivizing creative projects that build on existing ideas, IP protection, even if it increases original innovation, can inadvertently (...) reduce the rate of iterative innovation. The net effect of IP law on innovation and welfare depends on the relative magnitude of these positive and negative externalities. We argue that the current regime probably suffers from excessive, and excessively rigid, IP protection. This motivates the search for institutional alternatives and complements. We suggest that a monocentric IP rights regime may not be the only, or the most efficient, way to internalize the positive externalities of innovation. The knowledge economy supports the emergence of diverse, polycentric forms of bottom-up self-governance, both market and community led, that entail the citizen coproduction of the norms and practices of intellectual creation and discovery. (shrink)

The classical liberal paradigm has always argued for strong economic freedom combined with limits on government power. But it has also been always openminded about using government programs to improve the society. These principles, if applied to today’s society, are simultaneously a criticism of “really existing” welfare state ideology – with its lack of economic freedom and its reliance on the expansive bureaucracy – but also an opportunity for reforming welfare states toward more freedom-based alternatives. There is a utopian potential (...) in classical liberalism. This book articulates how several strands of liberalism, including Austrian school liberalism and Chicago school liberalism, may support something like universal basic income (UBI). (shrink)

Was Foucault a neoliberal? This book may not settle the debate, but it marks a pivotal moment in scholarship. Situating Foucault in the liberalizing, anti-statist, and anti-Communist moments in European and U.S. history, and placing him on the French “Second Left,” opens up new horizons of thought. It forces progressives and socialists to tackle with the complex legacy of Foucault. They can either go along with Foucault to critically explore the productive and emancipatory side of neoliberalism or else bemoan his (...) (however incomplete) “neoliberal turn.” Scholars should pursue further synergistic connections between the Foucauldian and neoliberal analyses of emancipation, experimentalism, decentralized “power-knowledge,” and agential self-creation. And new questions should be asked: “Are our old conceptual tools and ideological categories ill-equipped to tackle the novel challenges of 21st century emancipatory politics? What does it mean to rethink social emancipation, beyond the hegemonic left-right mapping, after Foucault?” Dean & Zamora’s book, aside from being an informative, provocative, and fun read, prompts many questions and challenges us – in one of Foucault’s favourite phrases – to think and act differently. (shrink)

Emmanuel Lévinas est le philosophe de la non-indifférence; il n’est en aucune sorte un philosophe indifférent. Son inquiétude personnelle et engagement politique ont trouvé une expression philosophique dans une quête à deux versants. Dans le versant ontologique, il cherche à montrer que même si l’homme est l’événement de compréhension de l’être, tout l’homme et toute signification ne se réduisent pas à la compréhension de l’être seul. Dans le versant politique, il s’interroge sur la possibilité de soumettre la tendance totalitaire de (...) toute politique à une recherche de justice qui ne dépend pas finalement de la politique même. Mais ces deux versants n’en font qu’un. La découverte d’une signification qui excède la compréhension de l’être – l’éthique – fournit en même temps la source de renouvellement de la justice. Ainsi, par cette double question, Lévinas nous présente les fils conducteurs de notre enquête: une signification au-delà de la compréhension de l’être et sa portée éthique, que nous appelons «langage» et que nous explorons dans la perspective de son importance politique. Les études analytiques dans lesquelles les notions de politique et de langage fonctionnent comme clef d’interprétation mutuelle débouchent sur une critique centrée sur deux problèmes: l’impossibilité d’interpréter la signifiance de l’autre et le danger inhérent à la conception d’une justice dépassant l’Etat. (shrink)

How can libertarianism—which is thought to be hostile to any redistribution—support universal, unconditional cash transfers in the form of a Basic Income? Surprisingly, many vocal proponents of programmes similar to Basic Income—such as economist Milton Friedman, public intellectual Charles Murray, and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidiyar—are self-described libertarians. As this chapter demonstrates, these and other libertarian proponents are not deviating from libertarian thought: instead, they reflect the nuance and diversity of its theoretical foundations. To that end, this chapter explores several justifications (...) for a Basic Income grounded in libertarianism. By libertarianism, we mean a family of theories that emphasize the right of the individual to be free from coercion, a strong respect for private property rights and the free market, and a presumption that market distributions are just and should be disturbed only in limited circumstances. We argue that each variant of libertarianism justifies, but does not mandate, redistribution, although for differing reasons and at different levels. Because this conclusion runs counter to most readers’ impressions of libertarianism, this chapter focuses on making the libertarian case for redistribution. We further show that once one accepts the case for redistribution, providing such redistribution through unrestricted, unconditional cash transfers best reflects core libertarian principles. (shrink)

Starting from the problem of tolerance in a multicultural society, the author undermines the limits of a classical‐liberal foundation (negative tolerance) and suggests the need for a new meaning: a positive concern of tolerance implying appreciation of a variety of social cultures and value traditions. On an ethical level, positive tolerance can be grounded in the Discourse Theory, developing the classical Kantian deontological ethics in a transcendental‐pragmatic and in a transcendental‐hermeneutic sense. In this way, discourse ethics can answer two questions (...) posed by tolerance in a multicultural society: the duty to support all in the pursuit of their ideals and realize positive tolerance as well as its restrictions. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

Philosophical texts always have a form as well as content. This seemingly self-evident fact is often overlooked by interpreters. Philosophy is frequently discussed as if it were solely concerned with formulating clear arguments and consistent concepts. The consequence of this fixation on content is that form is dismissed as little more than an incidental and insignificant packaging. However, a brief look at the history of philosophy reveals that neglecting form in this way creates a significant blind spot. -/- The choice (...) of a particular form often arises precisely in response to fundamental problems that are difficult to address in purely content-based terms. How can truth be expressed in language? How can others be inspired to lead a philosophical life? For this issue of Wijsgerig Perspectief, we have invited experts from different periods in the history of Western philosophy to reflect on the various ways in which the relationship between form and content in philosophical texts can be understood. -/- [In Dutch: Filosofische teksten hebben, behalve een inhoud, ook altijd een vorm. Dit schijnbaar evidente gegeven wordt lang niet altijd door interpreten in ogenschouw genomen. Vaak wordt er over de filosofie gesproken alsof zij alleen maar zou draaien om het formuleren van heldere argumenten en consistente concepten. Het gevolg van deze fixatie op de inhoud van de tekst is dat de vorm wordt afgedaan als weinig meer dan een toevallige en onbelangrijke verpakking. Een korte blik op de geschiedenis van de filosofie wijst echter uit dat een dergelijke veronachtzaming van vorm een grote blinde vlek creëert. -/- De keuze voor een bepaalde vorm komt vaak juist voort uit een reactie op fundamentele problemen die zich moeilijk aan de orde laten stellen in puur inhoudelijke termen. Hoe kan waarheid in taal worden uitgedrukt? Hoe kunnen andere mensen ertoe worden bewogen een filosofisch leven te leiden? Voor dit nummer van Wijsgerig Perspectief hebben we kenners van verschillende tijdvlakken in de geschiedenis van de Westerse filosofie uitgenodigd om te reflecteren op de verschillende manieren waarop de relatie tussen vorm en inhoud in filosofische teksten begrepen kan worden. (shrink)

It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae for constructing such a system and describe some of its benefits. The arguments are general enough to be of interest to all the life sciences.

Dysphoria is a complex phenomenon which must be defi ned in the framework of different forms of affections. It belongs to the broader field of emotions, which are characterized by some essential features: i.e. movement, passiveness, tran-sitoriness, and reference to the others. All these four essential features of emotion are specifi cally altered in depression, whose phenomenology is presented in a clinical case. In discussing dysphoria, a first distinction is made between par-ticular and global affections. The fi rst type encompasses (...) emotions and feelings, while the second one includes humor, mood and temper. Dysphoria belongs to one of these global affective states: the humor, which has to do with the spatial dimension of existence. In dysphoria the patient experiences the world as oppressive and invasive of his/her intimacy; the others are lived as persons demanding answers or actions he/she is not able to fulfill. Finally, the phenomenology of dysphoria is analyzed through the four essential features described above and examples are given. (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...) and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...) and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

Was ist Natur oder was könnte sie sein? Diese und weitere Fragen sind grundlegend für Naturdenken und -handeln. Das Lehr- und Studienbuch bietet eine historisch-systematische und zugleich praxisbezogene Einführung in die Naturphilosophie mit ihren wichtigsten Begriffen. Es nimmt den pluralen Charakter der Wahrnehmung von Natur in den philosophischen Blick und ist auch zum Selbststudium bestens geeignet.