Abstract Both parties in the active philosophical debate concerning the conceptual character of perception trace their roots back to Kant's account of sensible intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason. This striking fact can be attributed to Kant's tendency both to assert and to deny the involvement of our conceptual capacities in sensible intuition. He appears to waver between these two positions in different passages, and can thus seem thoroughly confused on this issue. But this is not, in fact, the (...) case, for, as I will argue, the appearance of contradiction in his account stems from the failure of some commentators to pay sufficient attention to Kant's developmental approach to philosophy. Although he begins by asserting the independence of intuition, Kant proceeds from this nonconceptualist starting point to reveal a deeper connection between intuitions and concepts. On this reading, Kant's seemingly conflicting claims are actually the result of a careful and deliberate strategy for gradually convincing his readers of the conceptual nature of perception. (shrink)

We present a vignette study conducted with a quota sample of the German population (n = 400). Subjects had to redistribute a good between two hypothetical persons who contributed equally to the available amount but differed in quantity needed and the reason for their neediness. On a within-subjects level, we tested for the effects of need, accountability, and resource availability on their third-party distribution decisions. Between subjects, we further varied the kinds of needs: The persons either needed the good as (...) a means to survive, to live a decent life, to participate in society, or to be autonomous. Despite equal productivity, the mean share allocated to the needier person was significantly higher than an equal share. However, this share turned out significantly smaller when the needier person was accountable for needing more than the other. Nonetheless, even if accountable, the needier person still got a share larger than their contribution would suggest. When there was a surplus of resources, the needier person got an even higher share than when resources were scarce. (shrink)

Although artificial intelligence has been given an unprecedented amount of attention in both the public and academic domains in the last few years, its convergence with other transformative technologies like cloud computing, robotics, and augmented/virtual reality is predicted to exacerbate its impacts on society. The adoption and integration of these technologies within industry and manufacturing spaces is a fundamental part of what is called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The impacts of this paradigm shift on the human operators (...) who continue to work alongside and symbiotically with these technologies in the industry bring with it novel ethical issues. Therefore, how to design these technologies for human values becomes the critical area of intervention. This paper takes up the case study of robotic AI-based assistance systems to explore the potential value implications that emerge due to current design practices and use. The design methodology known as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is proposed as a sufficient starting point for designing these technologies for human values to address these issues. (shrink)

The link is to an expanded, English version of this essay.

The focus of this paper is showing that meditation is becoming aware of awareness itself...and this awareness is a field phenomena.

—Commentary on Mikhalevich and Powell on invertebrate minds.— Whether or not arthropods are sentient, they can have moral standing. Appeals to sentience are not necessary and retard progress in human treatment of other species, including invertebrates. Other increasingly well-documented aspects of invertebrate minds are pertinent to their welfare. Even if arthropods are not sentient, they can be agents whose goals—and therefore interests—can be frustrated. This kind of agency is sufficient for moral status and requires that we consider their welfare.

Experimenters claim some nonhuman mammals have metacognition. If correct, the results indicate some animal minds are more complex than ordinarily presumed. However, some philosophers argue for a deflationary reading of metacognition experiments, suggesting that the results can be explained in first-order terms. We agree with the deflationary interpretation of the data but we argue that the metacognition research forces the need to recognize a heretofore underappreciated feature in the theory of animal minds, which we call Unity. The disparate mental states (...) of an animal must be unified if deflationary accounts of metacognition are to hold and untoward implications avoided. Furthermore, once Unity is acknowledged, the deflationary interpretation of the experiments reveals an elevated moral standing for the nonhumans in question. (shrink)

Este ensayo examina la idea de tolerancia en nuestra sociedad industrial avanzada. La conclusión a la que se llegó es que la realización del objetivo de la tolerancia requeriría intolerancia hacia las políticas, actitudes y opiniones prevalecientes y la extensión de la tolerancia a políticas, actitudes y opiniones que están prohibidas o reprimidas. En otras palabras, hoy la tolerancia aparece nuevamente como lo que era en sus orígenes, a principios del período moderno: un objetivo partidista, una noción y una práctica (...) liberadora subversiva. Por el contrario, lo que hoy se proclama y practica como tolerancia, en muchas de sus manifestaciones más efectivas sirve a la causa de la opresión. (shrink)

In the transcendental deduction, the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant seeks to secure the objective validity of our basic categories of thought. He distinguishes objective and subjective sides of this argument. The latter side, the subjective deduction, is normally understood as an investigation of our cognitive faculties. It is identified with Kant’s account of a threefold synthesis involved in our cognition of objects of experience, and it is said to precede and ground Kant’s proof of the (...) validity of the categories in the objective deduction. I challenge this standard reading of the subjective deduction, arguing, first, that there is little textual evidence for it, and, second, that it encourages a problematic conception of how the deduction works. In its place, I present a new reading of the subjective deduction. Rather than being a broad investigation of our cognitive faculties, it should be seen as addressing a specific worry that arises in the course of the objective deduction. The latter establishes the need for a necessary connection between our capacities for thinking and being given objects, but Kant acknowledges that his readers might struggle to comprehend how these seemingly independent capacities are coordinated. Even worse, they might well believe that in asserting this necessary connection, Kant’s position amounts to an implausible subjective idealism. The subjective deduction ismeant to allay these concerns by showing that they rest on a misunderstanding of the relation between these faculties. This new reading of the subjective deduction offers a better fit with Kant’s text. It also has broader implications, for it reveals the more philosophically plausible account of our relation to the world as thinkers that Kant is defending – an account that is largely obscured by the standard reading of the subjective deduction. (shrink)

In attempts to compare different distributions with regards to need, so-called “measures of need-based distributive justice” have emerged in recent years. Each of the proposed measures relies on a single dimension of need that is taken into account. This is shown to be problematic since humans experience different kinds of need that appear to be incommensurable. A strategy to deal with this problem is introduced by using multidimensional measures.

To investigate the impact of framing on rule-breaking behavior in social dilemmas, we incorporated a rule in a one-shot resource game with two framing-treatments: One frame was a give-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a public goods game) and the other frame a take-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a commons dilemma game). In each frame, all participants were part of one single collective sharing a common good. Each participant was initially equipped with one of five different endowments of points (...) from which they must give/could take amounts to/from the common good. The exact amounts of contributions/withdrawals were regulated by the rule. Participants decided whether to cooperate and comply with the rule or to break the rule to their own advantage and at the expense of the collective (i.e., giving lower/taking higher amounts). Results of an online-experiment with 202 participants showed a significantly higher proportion of individuals breaking the rule in the take-some frame than in the give-some frame. In addition, endowment size influenced the proportion of rule-breaking behavior in the take-some frame. However, the average amounts of points not given/taken too much were not different between the frames. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the understanding that Dzogchen experience is a Theophanic Manifestation.

Today it is commonly believed that capitalism is driven by greed. However, greed is condemned by various religious traditions. In this paper we compare how Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, and Michael Novak, a Catholic, see the possibilities of engaging in competitive business practice without the motive of greed. This discussion suggests a need to distinguish greed from self-interest. We therefore analyze whether it makes a difference in moral evaluation to claim that the real driving force of capitalism is self-interest but (...) not greed. Our analysis makes use of the rational-care theory of self-interest developed by Stephen Darwall, the discussion of which has been absent in the business ethics literature. Our conclusion is that there is a quantitative but not qualitative difference between the two. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Prajna and the discernment of knowningness.

This is a phenomenological study of the natural unfolding of awareness into non duality.

This paper focuses on the relationship of language within the awareness field.

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of healing within the awareness field.

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of timeless awareness.

This paper focuses on the views and formulations of eastern philosophy the negate humanism and personalism.

This paper focuses on symbolization as purity and translucidity of phenomena.

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of whoness.

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of the experiential awareness field.

Verteilungsgerechtigkeit befasst sich mit der Verteilung von Gütern innerhalb einer Gruppe, wobei verschiedene Verteilungsprinzipien und -ergebnisse als mögliche Ideale einer solchen Verteilung verhandelt werden. Diese normativen Ansätze sind oft rein verbal formuliert, wodurch ihre Anwendung auf unterschiedliche konkrete Verteilungssituationen, die hinsichtlich ihrer Gerechtigkeit beurteilt werden sollen, häufig schwer fällt. Eine Möglichkeit, fein abgestufte Gerechtigkeitsbeurteilungen verschiedener Verteilungen präzise erfassen zu können, besteht in der formalen Modellierung solcher Ideale durch Maße oder Indizes. Die Auswahl eines geeigneten Maßes, das ein gewisses Ideal abbilden (...) soll, muss ihrerseits eine Fundierung erfahren, was durch die Forderung von begründeten Axiomen erreicht werden kann, denen ein Maß genügen soll. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden solche Axiome für Maße der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit am Beispiel von Bedarfsgerechtigkeit eingeführt. Ferner werden exemplarische Maße der Bedarfsgerechtigkeit vorgestellt. Damit wird für die Beurteilung und Modellierung von Maßen der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit eine erste diskutable Grundlage gelegt. (shrink)

Distributive justice deals with allocations of goods and bads within a group. Different principles and results of distributions are seen as possible ideals. Often those normative approaches are solely framed verbally, which complicates the application to different concrete distribution situations that are supposed to be evaluated in regard to justice. One possibility in order to frame this precisely and to allow for a fine-grained evaluation of justice lies in formal modelling of these ideals by metrics. Choosing a metric that is (...) supposed to map a certain ideal has to be justified. Such justification might be given by demanding specific substantiated axioms, which have to be met by a metric. This paper introduces such axioms for metrics of distributive justice shown by the example of needs-based justice. Furthermore, some exemplary metrics of needs-based justice and a three dimensional method for visualisation of non-comparative justice axioms or evaluations are presented. Therewith, a base worth discussing for the evaluation and modelling of metrics of distributive justice is given. (shrink)

Imagine that only the state can meet the need for housing but decides not to do so. Unsurprisingly, participants in a vignette experiment deem this scenario unjust. Hence, justice ratings increase when the living situation improves. To a lesser extent, this also holds beyond the need threshold, understood as the minimum amount necessary for a decent life. Surprisingly, however, the justice evaluation function is highly convex below this point. The resulting S-shaped curve is akin to the value function in prospect (...) theory, with the need threshold providing the point of reference and inflection. A control treatment without needs-information supports this interpretation. Needs-information furthermore compresses the perceived injustice of arbitrary inequality. As in prospect theory, such reference dependency suggests biases in judgment and decision making. A consequence may be that the lot of the poorest in society does not receive the attention it would otherwise get. (shrink)

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well-known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for the concept of recognition in attempts to (...) secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so-called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack. (shrink)

Two questions often shape our view of the world. On the one hand, we ask what there is, on the other hand, we ask what there ought to be. Empirical research and normative theory, the methodological traditions concerned with these questions, entered a difficult relationship, from at least as early as around the time of the advent of modern sciences. To this day, there remains a strong separation between the two domains, with both tending to neglect discourses and results from (...) the other. Contrary to a verdict of strict segregation between »is« and »ought«, there are, nowadays, various attempts to integrate both theoretical approaches. This calls for a newly intensified discourse on the relation between empirical research and normative theory. In this volume, scholars from different disciplines – including psychology, sociology, economics, and philosophy – discuss possible desired or undesired influences on, and limits of, the integration of these two approaches. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Heidegger's presentation of becoming self liberated.

This paper focuses on Winnicott and Lacan and the lack within subjectivity in light of dzogchen.

This paper focuses in detail on the practice of meditation as becoming aware of awareness as a field vast and multidimensional.

This paper focuses on empty mind, transitional space and the dissolving of the self object function.

This paper focuses on the history of dzogchen within the heart essence tradition.

Plato’s tripartite soul plays a central role in his account of justice in the Republic. It thus comes as a surprise to find him apparently abandoning this model at the end of the work, when he suggests that the soul, as immortal, must be simple. I propose a way of reconciling these claims, appealing to neglected features of the city-soul analogy and the argument for the soul’s division. The original true soul, I argue, is partitioned, but in a finer manner (...) than how we encounter it in our everyday lives. (shrink)

This paper beginning with a Lacanian view point describes fragmentation and the unfolding of awareness in the process of embodiment within the understanding of dzogchen.

This paper focuses on mystical humanism as magical realism.

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of awareness and the second reduction.

This paper describes the non dual relationship between the visible and the invisible.

Si podemos hacer todo con la naturaleza y la sociedad, si podemos hacer todo con el hombre y las cosas, ¿por qué no podemos convertirlos en el sujeto-objeto en un mundo pacificado, en un entorno estético no agresivo? Sí, y también sabemos cómo. Los instrumentos y los materiales están ahí para la construcción de un entorno tal, social y natural, en el que las pulsiones de vida no sublimadas redireccionarían el desarrollo de las necesidades y las facultades humanas, redirigirían el (...) progreso técnico. Estas condiciones previas están ahí para la creación de lo bello no como adornos, no como superficie de lo feo, no como pieza de museo, sino como expresión y objetivo de un nuevo tipo de hombre: como necesidad biológica en un nuevo sistema de vida. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the radiance of awareness.

This paper focuses on the contributions of phenomenology to Dzogchen.

This paper focuses on Dzogchen and self liberation.

Kolloquiumsbeiträge des XV. Deutschen Kongresses für Philosophie 1990 in Hamburg. Mit Beiträgen von Herbert Schnädelbach, Hilary Putnam, Karl-Otto Apel, Walter Ch. Zimmerli, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Wolfgang Bartuschat, Elke Hahn und Klaus Vieweg, Roland Simon-Schaefer, Ruedi Imbach, Georg Wieland, Jan Peter Beckmann, Pierre Aubenque, Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Gernot Böhme, Dietrich Böhler, Jürgen Habermas, Friedrich Kambartel, Oswald Schwemmer, Dieter Birnbacher, Karl-Friedrich Wessel, Friedrich Rapp, Otfried Höffe, Henning Ottmann und Terry Pinkard.

This work examines Kant’s remarkable decision to rewrite the core argument of the first Critique, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. I identify a two-part structure common to both versions: first establishing an essential role for the categories in unifying sensible intuitions; and then addressing a worry about how the connection between our faculties asserted in the first part is possible. I employ this structure to show how Kant rewrote the argument, focusing on Kant’s response to the concerns raised in (...) an early review by Johann Schultz. Schultz’s dissatisfaction with the original Deduction lies in its second part, and Kant’s subsequent revisions are focused on providing a better answer to this how-possible question. The new Deduction offers a more direct and convincing account of how our faculties work together to make experience possible. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the essence of dzogchen as Presence.

This paper summarizes (in German) recent tendencies in the philosophy of the life sciences.