I argue that, on Husserl's account, affectivity, along with the closely related phenomenon of association, follows a form of sui generis lawfulness belonging to the domain of what Husserl calls motivation, which must be distinguished both (1) from the causal structures through which we understand the body third-personally, as a material thing; and also (2) from the rational or inferential structures at the level of deliberative judgment traditionally understood to be the domain of epistemic import. In effect, in addition to (...) recognizing a “space of causes” and a “space of reasons,” Husserl’s account of affectivity and the epistemology of passive synthesis in which it is situated suggest that we should recognize a separate “space of motivations.” Within this space, on Husserl’s phenomenological picture, we can isolate two different sorts of epistemic import, one belonging directly to the passive-synthetic content of experience, as explained in Husserl’s account of association and his closely aligned notion of nonlinguistic sense, and a second—my primary focus—affectivity, which is still relevant for that content, albeit indirectly, and holds epistemic import in its determination not of what that content is but of how it comes to matter for us. (shrink)

Many twentieth-century accounts of history have used geological tropes to describe the phenomenon of historical knowledge, and such terms have been of particular importance in the phenomenological tradition. In Heidegger's references in Being and Time to the "soil of history," Husserl's account in his later work of "sedimentation" in the lifeworld, and the reformulation of this notion in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, geological tropes are used to illustrate important insights into the relation between contingency, a priority and historicity. This paper (...) seeks to contribute to an understanding of history understood phenomenologically as historicity through an analysis of these geological tropes. I argue that such geological tropes help the phenomenologist to describe the way in which history is always determined within a complex interplay between only temporarily fixed determining structures - such as riverbanks, insoluble sediment, soil, etc. - and free-flowing praxis, a situation in which historical events are at once determinant of and themselves determined by human activity. Paradoxically, the constant and "grounding" element in such conceptions of history is not the sediment and hard rock of historical fact, but the the constant change and variability-despite the sense giving continuity - of human experience structured by historicity. I begin with a brief overview of the landscape on the philosophy of history in which these views arose, and then continue to an analysis of the tropes themselves. (shrink)

By portraying meaning as a phenomenon that eludes complete expression and arises spontaneously in our everyday embodied interactions with others and objects in the world, as well as in our own unconscious registering of those interactions, Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is uniquely insightful concerning both the presence of meaning in modern life and the modern conception of the self--phenomena marked by a certain ineradicable tension between that which is constituted by us and that which is given from outside us. This paper (...) examines this tension through the lens of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, with special attention to the leitmotif of the «spontaneity of sense». Woolf and Merleau-Ponty both help to illustrate an important modern insight: that among the most meaningful experiences are those that are not only unexpected and unexplained, but in some sense foreign and unexplainable--mysterious events and yet everyday occurrences that explode the supposed privacy of our thought, and exceed our capacity for expression. (shrink)

This is my full original translation of Elsenhans' “Phaenomenologie, Psychologie, Erkenntnistheorie,” an early long review article on Husserl's Ideen I, published in German in Kant Studien XX (1915). A revised version of this translation (with Andrea Staiti and Evan Clarke) appears in The Sources of Husserl’s Ideas I, ed. Staiti and Clarke, De Gruyter (2018), 339-82. Please cite only from the published version of the translation.

In recent debates about the nature of non-conceptual content, the Kantian account of intuition in the first Critique has been seen as a sort of founding doctrine for both conceptualist and non-conceptualist positions. In this paper, I begin by examining recent representative versions of the Kantian conceptualist (John McDowell) and Kantian non-conceptualist (Robert Hanna) positions, and suggest that the way the debate is commonly construed by those on both sides misses a much broader and more important conception of non-conceptual content, (...) one for which resources can be found in Husserl’s later thought. Husserl’s account of the object as “transcendental clue” [Transzendentaler Leitfaden] in the context of his later genetic phenomenology suggests a less reductive account of non-conceptual aspects of experience that respects central insights of Kant’s transcendental idealism but does not reduce the role of the non-conceptual to a mere formally-determined, not-yet-conceptualized “fodder.”. (shrink)

Handbook entry on "Synthesis" for Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology.

Both Millikan’s brand of naturalistic analytic philosophy and Husserlian phenomenology have held on to teleological notions, despite their being out of favor in mainstream Western philosophy for most of the twentieth century. Both traditions have recognized the need for teleology in order to adequately account for intentionality, the need to adequately account for intentionality in order to adequately account for meaning, and the need for an adequate theory of meaning in order to precisely and consistently describe the world and life. (...) The stark differences between their accounts of these fundamental concepts stem from radically different conceptions of the world, the natural and life. I argue that Millikan’s teleosemantic approach relies on a teleology of determination by means of the lawfulness of nature that leaves no room for the freedom of self-determination, for reason, or for experience—for the reality of lived human life. In contrast to Millikan’s account, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology situates teleology as a function of reason and first-personal experience, part of an extended account of intentionality and meaning according to which the full range of our making sense of the world is conceived as a rational activity that is itself a part of that world, and not an unnatural activity to be separated from it. While Husserl’s account of these issues is indeed symptomatic of what Millikan calls “meaning rationalism,” I argue that it is immune to the sorts of problems she claims will plague any such account, since these problems arise only against the background of a set of presuppositions about intentionality that Husserl does not share. Husserl’s position can itself be understood to be within the bounds of a suitably liberal conception of naturalism, and interpreting him in this way it has the added benefit—contra Millikan—of not divorcing teleology from reason, the latter construed as our first-personal striving to make sense of the world as we experience it—of life. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s transcendental account of the role of the lived body in sense-making is a precursor to Alva Noë’s recent work on the enactive, embodied mind, specifically his notion of “sensorimotor knowledge” as a form of embodied sense-making that avoids representationalism and intellectualism. Derrida’s deconstructive account of meaning—developed largely through a critique of Husserl—relies on the claim that meaning is structured through the complication of the “interiority” of consciousness by an “outside,” and thus might be thought to lend (...) itself to theories of mind such as Noë’s that emphasize the ways in which sense-making occurs outside the head. But while Derrida’s notion of “contamination” rightly points to an indeterminateness of meaning in an outside, extended, concrete lived world, he ultimately reduces meaning to a structure of signification. This casts indeterminateness in terms of absence, ignoring the presence of non-linguistic phenomena of embodied sense-making central to both the contemporary enactivist program and to the later Husserl, who is able to account for the indeterminateness of meaning in lived experience through his distinction between sense and more exact linguistic meaning. Husserl’s transcendental theory of meaning also allows for a substantive contribution to sense-making from the side of the perceived object—an aspect missing from Noë’s account. Thus, in contrast to Derrida and to Noë, Husserl accounts for sense-making in terms of both the lived body and the lived world. (shrink)

This paper is an essay-length review article on David Carr's book Experience and History (Oxford University Press, 2014).

The paper is an essay-length review article on Søren Gosvig Olesen's Transcendental History (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013).

Background Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness. -/- Methods We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods. (...) -/- Results 30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions. -/- Conclusions Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified. (shrink)

Recent empirical and conceptual research has shown that moral considerations have an influence on the way we use the adverb 'intentionally'. Here we propose our own account of these phenomena, according to which they arise from the fact that the adverb 'intentionally' has three different meanings that are differently selected by contextual factors, including normative expectations. We argue that our hypotheses can account for most available data and present some new results that support this. We end by discussing the implications (...) of our account for folk psychology. (shrink)

I defend an expanded reading of immanent causation that includes both inherence and causal efficacy; I argue that the latter is required if God is to remain the immanent cause of finite modes.

El libro E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of PhenomenalConsciousness presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de laconciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experienciasubjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real,y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

A growing body of research suggests that students achieve learning outcomes at higher rates when instructors use active-learning methods rather than standard modes of instruction. To investigate how one such method might be used to teach philosophy, we observed two classes that employed Reacting to the Past, an educational role-immersion game. We chose to investigate Reacting because role-immersion games are considered a particularly effective active-learning strategy. Professors who have used Reacting to teach history, interdisciplinary humanities, and political theory agree that (...) it engages students and teaches general skills like collaboration and communication. We investigated whether it can be effective for teaching philosophical content and skills like analyzing, evaluating, crafting, and communicating arguments in addition to bringing the more general benefits of active learning to philosophy classrooms. Overall, we find Reacting to be a useful tool for achieving these ends. While we do not argue that Reacting is uniquely useful for teaching philosophy, we conclude that it is worthy of consideration by philosophers interested in creative active-learning strategies, especially given that it offers a prepackaged set of flexible, user-friendly tools for motivating and engaging students. (shrink)

An electronic poster from "Polarity from Different Perspectives," New York University, 2005. The authors present an experiment that investigated to what extent six negative polarity items (slept a wink, in ages, ever, much, at all, and yet) are licensed by 9 potential licensers.

We argue that explanationist views in epistemology continue to face persistent challenges to both their necessity and their sufficiency. This is so despite arguments offered by Kevin McCain in a paper recently published in this journal which attempt to show otherwise. We highlight ways in which McCain’s attempted solutions to problems we had previously raised go awry, while also presenting a novel challenge for all contemporary explanationist views.

We use psychological concepts (e.g., intention and desire) when we ascribe psychological states to others for purposes of describing, explaining, and predicting their actions. Does the evidence reported by Knobe show, as he thinks, that moral evaluation shapes our mastery of psychological concepts? We argue that the evidence so far shows instead that moral evaluation shapes the way we report, not the way we think about, others' psychological states.

In this paper we present applications of the ACGT Master Ontology (MO) which is a new terminology resource for a transnational network providing data exchange in oncology, emphasizing the integration of both clinical and molecular data. The development of a new ontology was necessary due to problems with existing biomedical ontologies in oncology. The ACGT MO is a test case for the application of best practices in ontology development. This paper provides an overview of the application of the ontology within (...) the ACGT project thus far. (shrink)

Sensory substitution devices make use of one substituting modality to get access to environmental information normally accessed through another modality . Based on behavioural and neuroimaging data, some authors have claimed that using a vision-substituting device results in visual perception. Reviewing these data, we contend that this claim is untenable. We argue that the kind of information processed by a SSD is metamodal, so that it can be accessed through any sensory modality and that the phenomenology associated with the use (...) of a SSD is best described in terms of spatial phenomenology, only. (shrink)

Spinoza’s philosophy of mind is thought to lack a serious account of consciousness. In this essay I argue that Spinoza’s doctrine of ideas of ideas has been wrongly construed, and that once righted it provides the foundation for an account. I then draw out the finer details of Spinoza’s account of consciousness, doing my best to defend its plausibility along the way. My view is in response to a proposal byEdwin Curley and the serious objection leveled against it by Margaret (...) Wilson and Jonathan Bennett. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the question of What kind of engineering ethics (EE) is needed to develop holistic engineers who can practice and promote the principles of sustainable development? -/- It is argued that, given the existence of other models, an approach to EE, as argued for at EESD 2016, centred on “training engineers for handling ethical dilemmas in sustainability contexts” (Lundqvist and Svanstrom 2016) is inadequate to address the sustainability challenge facing engineers.. We contend that while EE is now (...) a diverse and fragmented field sociological tools can be used to understand this diversity. A framework is offered for understanding different approaches. This is used as the basis for arguing for a more extended and broad approach which allows us to focus on the relationship between social structure and human action and the need for “adequate social institutions and structures” (Becker 2012: 28) to enable ethical action. Thus engineers not should only understand the constraints and enablers emanating from the environments in which they work but can also strive for change in these environments. (shrink)

El libro "E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness" presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de la conciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experiencia subjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real, y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

methods that have shown promise for improving extreme risk analysis, particularly for assessing the risks of invasive pests and pathogens associated with international trade. We describe the legally inspired regulatory regime for banks, where these methods have been brought to bear on extreme ‘operational risks’. We argue that an ‘advocacy model’ similar to that used in the Basel II compliance regime for bank operational risks and to a lesser extent in biosecurity import risk analyses is ideal for permitting the diversity (...) of relevant evidence about invasive species to be presented and soundly evaluated. We recommend that the process be enhanced in ways that enable invasion ecology to make more explicit use of the methods found successful.. (shrink)

Assessment of those with whom one finds oneself in dispute is indispensable in the epistemology of disagreement. The assessment of one’s opponents is necessary in order to determine whether a particular disagreement constitutes evidence of a likely error in one’s own understanding. However, assessment of an opponent’s capacity to know the matter in dispute is only possible when the conditions for knowledge are not themselves open to debate. Consequently, epistemic significance can only be recognised in disagreements among those who are (...) in tacit or explicit agreement about what constitutes justification in a given case. The result is that the epistemic significance that disagreement possesses is always strictly conditional upon prior assumptions. The difference between a peer disagreement and a non-peer disagreement cannot indicate whether one is or is not more likely to be right than one’s opponent in an absolute sense, only whether one is or is not more likely to be right given the presupposed conditions. (shrink)

Over the past decade, attention to epistemically significant disagreement has centered on the question of whose disagreement qualifies as significant, but ignored another fundamental question: what is the epistemic significance of disagreement? While epistemologists have assumed that disagreement is only significant when it indicates a determinate likelihood that one’s own belief is false, and therefore that only disagreements with epistemic peers are significant at all, they have ignored a more subtle and more basic significance that belongs to all disagreements, regardless (...) of who they are with—that the opposing party is wrong. It is important to recognize the basic significance of disagreement since it is what explains all manners of rational responses to disagreement, including assessing possible epistemic peers and arguing against opponents regardless of their epistemic fitness. (shrink)

As we look beyond our terrestrial boundary to a multi-planetary future for humankind, it becomes paramount to anticipate the challenges of various human factors on the most likely scenario for this future: permanent human settlement of Mars. Even if technical hurdles are circumvented to provide adequate resources for basic physiological and psychological needs, Homo sapiens will not survive on an alien planet if a dysfunctional psyche prohibits the utilization of these resources. No matter how far we soar into the stars, (...) our psychologies for future generations will be forever tethered to the totality of our surroundings. By shaping our environment toward survival and welfare during the voyage to Mars and in a Martian colony, we indirectly shape our psyches and prepare them for a mission of unprecedented alienation and duration. Once on Mars, human factors such as leadership structure, social organization and code of conduct, group size, gender balance, developmental cycle, mobility, length of stay and the ecological settings and type and manner of subsistence, will create a novel Martian culture. The degree that settlers are severed from the Earth will affect how radically foreign this culture will be when compared with cultures on Earth. (shrink)

This critical review aims to more fully situate the claim Martin Heidegger makes in ‘Letter on Humanism’ that a “productive dialogue” between his work and that of Karl Marx is possible. The prompt for this is Paul Laurence Hemming’s recently published Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue over the Language of Humanism (2013) which omits to fully account for the historical situation which motivated Heidegger’s seemingly positive endorsement of Marxism. This piece will show that there were significant external factors (...) which influenced Heidegger’s claim and that, when seen within his broader corpus, these particular comments in “Letter on Humanism” are evidently disingenuous, given that his general opinion of Marxism can only be described as vitriolic. Any attempt to explore how such a “productive dialogue” could be construed must fully contextualise Heidegger’s claim for it. This piece will aim to do that, and more broadly explore Heidegger’s general opinion of Marxism. (shrink)

No one is quite sure what happened to T.S. Eliot in that rose-garden. What we do know is that it formed the basis for Four Quartets, arguably the greatest English poem written in the twentieth century. Luckily it turns out that Martin Heidegger, when not pondering the meaning of being, spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about the kind of event that Eliot experienced. This essay explores how Heidegger developed the concept of Ereignis, “event” which, in (...) the context of Eliot’s poetry, helps us understand an encounter with the “heart of light” a little better. (shrink)

This article juxtaposes two of the most influential thinkers of the previous century, Georges Bataille and Martin Heidegger: my overarching claim will be that a contrastive approach allows a better understanding of two central dynamics within their work. First, I show that both were deeply troubled by a certain methodological anxiety; namely, that the practice of writing might distort and deform their insights. By employing a comparative strategy, I suggest that we can gain a better understanding of the very (...) specific form this fear takes in them: in each case, it is articulated and justified in terms of the ‘chose’ or ‘Ding’ (‘thing’) or the ‘objet’ or ‘Objekt’ (‘object’). Second, I argue that close textual comparison allows us to identify an important, new dimension in their reactions to this shared anxiety: the thing or object which was originally the site of the anxiety gradually becomes, through series of ontological and textual shifts, the solution to it. I track this transformation across a range of case studies including Heidegger’s later work on the term ‘Ding’ and Bataille’s treatment of prostitution. I close by indicating how these results might create avenues for further research. (shrink)

This article discusses Heidegger’s interpretation of Parmenides given in his last public lecture ‘The Principle of Identity’ in 1957. The aim of the piece is to illustrate just how original and significant Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides and the principle of identity is, within the history of Philosophy. Thus the article will examine the traditional metaphysical interpretation of Parmenides and consider G.W.F. Hegel and William James’ account of the principle of identity in light of this. It will then consider Heidegger’s contribution, (...) his return to and re-interpretation of Parmenides in his last lecture. Heidegger will, through the Parmenidean claim that ‘Thinking and Being are one’ deconstruct the traditional metaphysical understanding of the principle of identity, and in its place offer a radically different conception of how our relationship, our ‘belonging together’ with Being can be understood. (shrink)

T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is foremost a meditation on the significance of place. Each quartet is named for a place which holds importance for Eliot, either because of historical or personal memory. I argue that this importance is grounded in an ontological topology, by which I mean that the poem explores the fate of the individual and his/her heritage as inextricably bound up with the notion of place. This sense of place extends beyond the borders of a single life to (...) encompass the remembered past and the unknown future. How this broader narrative of the passing and enduring of human existence can be better understood is a primary concern of the work of Martin Heidegger, in whose Being and Time the historical, situated context of an individual within a community is an important theme. Even more important is his later work in which this theme is extended to include place and dwelling. Dwelling is a particularly rich and poetic idea, weaving the narratological, topological and temporal aspects of human existence together, offering a challenge to modern technology thinking. This paper explores Heidegger’s thoughts on the topology of Being within the context of a poem which, I contend, is also telling the story of human situatedness, and attempting to understand what it means to truly dwell. (shrink)

El presente trabajo es un estudio del libro de Martin Kusch acerca den las tesis sostenidas en "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" (WRPL) por Saul Kripke examinado a la luz de la controversia desatada por la publicación del mismo en 1982, una de las más intensas que han ocurrido en los últimos 25 años en el seno de la filosofía analítica. En nuestro estudio procedemos en tres etapas. En la primera, presentaremos el desafío del Wittgenstein de Kripke de (...) una manera lo más neutral que podemos. En la segunda, presentaremos las características más notables trabajo de Kusch. En la tercera parte rebasamos los límites más estrictos de un comentario crítico para proponer una hipótesis propia acerca de la manera en la que la interpretación de Kusch permite comprender el vínculo de la propuesta de Kripke con la discusión clásica acerca del lenguaje privado como así también la discusión clásica permite realizar algunas observaciones críticas acerca de la propuesta de Kusch. (shrink)

This paper undertakes a philosophical analysis of the speech given by the German writer Martin Walser when the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade was awarded to him in 1998. I reconstruct Walser's infamous claims about the Holocaust and his critique against its presence in the media and discuss Walser's proclamation of a right for disregarding his claims about German normality and his views about private commemoration.

This thesis explores, thematically and chronologically, the substantial concordance between the work of Martin Heidegger and T.S. Eliot. The introduction traces Eliot's ideas of the 'objective correlative' and 'situatedness' to a familiarity with German Idealism. Heidegger shared this familiarity, suggesting a reason for the similarity of their thought. Chapter one explores the 'authenticity' developed in Being and Time, as well as associated themes like temporality, the 'they' (Das Man), inauthenticity, idle talk and angst, and applies them to interpreting Eliot's (...) poem, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. Both texts depict a bleak Modernist view of the early twentieth-century Western human condition, characterized as a dispiriting nihilism and homelessness. Chapter two traces the chronological development of Ereignis in Heidegger's thinking, showing the term's two discernible but related meanings: first our nature as the 'site of the open' where Being can manifest, and second individual 'Events' of 'appropriation and revelation'. The world is always happening as 'event', but only through our appropriation by the Ereignis event can we become aware of this. Heidegger finds poetry, the essential example of language as the 'house of Being', to be the purest manifestation of Ereignis, taking as his examples Hölderlin and Rilke. A detailed analysis of Eliot's late work Four Quartets reveals how Ereignis, both as an ineluctable and an epiphanic condition of human existence, is central to his poetry, confirming, in Heidegger's words, 'what poets are for in a destitute time', namely to re-found and restore the wonder of the world and existence itself. This restoration results from what Eliot calls 'raid[s] on the inarticulate', the poet's continual striving to enact that openness to Being through which human language and the human world continually come to be. The final chapter shows how both Eliot and Heidegger value a genuine relationship with place as enabling human flourishing. Both distrust technological materialism, which destroys our sense of the world as dwelling place, and both are essentially committed to a genuinely authentic life, not the angstful authenticity of Being and Time, but a richer belonging which affirms our relationship with the earth, each other and our gods. (shrink)

Modern generally accepted models of the growth of knowledge are scrutinized. It is maintained that Thomas Kuhn’s growth of knowledge model is grounded preeminently on Heidegger’s epistemology. To justify the tenet the corresponding works of both thinkers are considered. As a result, the one-to-one correspondence between the key propositions of Heideggerian epistemology and the basic tenets of Kuhn’s growth of knowledge model is elicited. The tenets under consideration include the holistic nature of a paradigm, the incommensurability thesis, conventional status of (...) a paradigm caused by pragmatist way of its vocabulary justification and even the basic instance – connection between Aristotelean and Newtonian mechanics. It is conjectured that an indirect influence of Heidegger upon Kuhn should be taken into account to explain the isomorphism. For instance, through the works of Alexandre Koyré admired by Kuhn. As is well-known, Koyré had close professional links with another Russian émigré – Alexandre Kojev – who presented in his 1933-1939 Paris lectures Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” seen through the cognitive lens of Heideggerian phenomenology. Key words: Martin Heidegger, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, growth of knowledge, paradigm, incommensurability thesis, holism, pragmatism. (shrink)

This review confirms Herman’s work as a praiseworthy contribution to East-West and comparative philosophical literature. Due credit is given to Herman for providing English readers with access to Buber’s commentary on, a personal translation of, the Chuang-Tzu; Herman’s insight into the later influence of I and Thou on Buber’s understanding of Chuang-Tzu and Taoism is also appropriately commended. In latter half of this review, constructive criticisms of Herman’s work are put forward, such as formatting inconsistencies, a tendency toward verbosity and (...) jargon, and a neglect of seemingly important hermeneutical issues. Such issues, seemingly substantive but neglected by Herman, are the influence of Buber’s prior familiarity with Hasidic teachings on his encounter with Chuang-Tzu, as well as the prevalence of Hasidic and Taoist thought in Buber’s conception of good and evil. (shrink)

In the debate about Heidegger’s commitment to National Socialism is often referred to his membership in the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ of the „Academy for German Law“ that was founded by then „Reichsminister“ Hans Frank in 1934. Since the protocols of the Committee were destroyed and there is no relevant information in other writings, nothing can be said about the frequency and content of the meetings. It is only documented that the committee was dissolved in 1938. However, in (...) the past year the philosopher Sidonie Kellerer and the semiotician François Rastier referred to a document that, they say, proves that Heidegger was in the committee until 1941/42 and that the latter participated „in practice“ (Rastier) in the Holocaust. The said document was depicted for the first time in the above mentioned FAZ publication and will be analysed in the present essay. It is exluded in it that the document proves the continuity of the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ until 1941/42 or even the participation mentioned. It is rather possible to conclude in the frame of high probability that in the document were listed only the names and addresses of possible experts for the conversion of the Civil Code into a „Volksgesetzbuch“. The allegation of the committee’s participation in the Holocaust is rejected as being untenable. The publication of the article in the FAZ triggered the „Debate about Heidegger and Fake News“. In der Debatte um das Engagement des Philosophen Martin Heidegger für den Nationalsozialismus wird oft auf seine Mitgliedschaft in dem vom damaligen Reichsminister Hans Frank gegründeten „Ausschuss für Rechtsphilosophie“ innerhalb der „Akademie für Deutsches Recht“ verwiesen, der 1934 gegründet wurde. Da die Protokolle des Ausschusses zerstört wurden und auch in anderen Schriften keine diesbezüglichen Angaben zu finden sind, lässt sich nichts über die Häufigkeit und den Inhalt der Tagungen sagen. Es ist nur belegt, dass der Ausschuss 1938 offiziell aufgelöst wurde. Im vergangenen Jahr, im September 2017, referierten die Philosophin Sidonie Kellerer und der Linguist François Rastier jedoch auf ein Schriftstück, das belege, dass Heidegger bis 1941/42 in dem Ausschuss war und dieser auch „in der Praxis“ (Rastier) am Holocaust teilgenommen habe. Das Schriftstück wurde in der obigen Publikation der FAZ erstmals abgebildet und wird hier im Detail analysiert. Dabei kann begründetermaßen ausgeschlossen werden, dass das besagte Dokument den Fortbestand des „Ausschusses für Rechtsphilosophie“ oder die genannte Teilhabe belege. Nach hinreichender Analyse muss vielmehr in dem Rahmen hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit geschlossen werden, dass dort nur Namen und Adressen von potentiellen Gutachtern für die Umwandlung des BGB in ein „Volksgesetzbuch“ aufgelistet wurden. Der Vorhalt einer Teilhabe des Ausschusses am Holocaust wird als ganz unhaltbar zurückgewiesen. Die Publikation des Artikels in der FAZ löste die „Debatte über Heidegger und Fake News“ aus. (shrink)

In the present interview, Jacob Rogozinski elucidates the main concepts and theses he developed in his latest book dedicated to the issue of modern jihadism. On this occasion, he explains his disagreements with other philosophical (Badiou, Baudrillard, Žižek) and anthropological (Girard) accounts of Islamic terrorism. Rogozinski also explains that although jihadism betrays Islam, it nonetheless has everything to do with Islam. Eventually, he describes his own philosophical journey which led him from a phenomenological study of the ego and the (...) flesh to the study of past (witch-hunts, French Reign of Terror) and contemporary (jihadism) terror apparatuses. (shrink)

When it comes to understanding the genesis and development of Heidegger’s thought, it would be rather difficult to overestimate the importance of the “Aristotle-Introduction” of 1922, Heidegger’s “Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle.” This text is both a manifesto which describes the young Heidegger’s philosophical commitments, as well as a promissory note which outlines his projected future work. This Aristotle-Introduction not only enunciates Heidegger’s broad project of a philosophy which is both systematic and historical; it also indicates, in particular, why (...) a principal (or fundamental) ontology can be actualized only through a destruction of the history of ontology. This text anticipates several central themes of Being and Time (e.g., facticity, death, falling), and also foreshadows some of the issues which were to occupy the later Heidegger (e.g., “truth” as a heterogenous process of unconcealment). There is no doubt that much can – and will – be written on the meaning and implications of this important text. But instead of making my own, early contribution to such a secondary literature, I have decided to limit myself in this “Preface” to a few brief remarks concerning the historical background to Heidegger’s “Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle.”. (shrink)

Among the many things minds can do, two general kinds of thing have inspired much of the debate in recent philosophy of mind. The first is minds’ power to represent the world, their intentionality. The second is their power to generate action. The first power has seemed problematic to physicalist or naturalist philosophers, since it is hard to understand how a mere physical object—which is what a mind is—can ‘direct’ itself on things in the way characteristic of intentionality. The second (...) power has seemed problematic not least because it is hard to understand how intentional states can bring about changes in the physical world without adding new mysterious forces into the world. (shrink)

XENOLOGY AND XENOTOPOGRAPHY OF BERNHARD WALDENFELS The paper strives to adapt Bernhard Waldenfels’ xenology and so called ‘xenotopography’ for the philosophico-literary studies in fantastic world-building with a special concern of the ‘portal-quest’ model of fantasy and SF. Following Waldenfel’s remarks on the nature of post- Husserlian diastasis of our world [Heimwelt] and otherworld [Fremdwelt] and acknowledging the consequences of allocating one’s attitude towards the otherness in the symbolical borderland [‘sphere of intermonde’] in between, it is examined whether such a model (...) can occur in the fantastic literature and what may be the consequence of xenotopographic reconsideration of its basic ontological premises. Additionally, the article offers an original xenotopograpfic model of worldbuilding which addresses three carefully chosen case studies of fantastic worlds from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game tetralogy, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and George R. R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire. In the end, it is suggested that hitherto presented xenotopography gravely inspired a postmodern shift in the genres of fantasy and SF which results in more ethically conscious representations of the otherness and even more concise and alien comprehensive world-building. (shrink)

The article first outlines Edmund Husserl’s idea of “complete transformation” (völlige Umwendung) and the philosophy of “the turn” (Kehre) of Martin Heidegger. In the following chapter it is shown that you can understand both Husserl as well as Heidegger in the light of “the essential turn” in the German mysticism of the fourteenth century. In this way it becomes clear that Husserl’s idea of a “complete transformation” seems to be a forgotten “mystical” impetus of phenomenology, which was much more (...) realized by Martin Heidegger than by Husserl. In this way Heidegger’s philosophy of “the turn” appears as an important modern approach of the mystical philosophy of transformation. (shrink)

El presente reporte de investigación muestra, de manera sintética, los resultados de una pesquisa presentada en el 2012 para optar por el grado de Licenciatura en Docencia en la Universidad Estatal a Distancia. La exploración de los desafíos éticos en el contexto educativo costarricense desde el planteamiento de Martin Buber y Emmanuel Lévinas es lo que pretende formular la presente investigación, procurando aportar al diálogo nacional el insumo de un elemento filosófico innovador, tenor de un impulso en futuros planteamientos (...) educativos costarricenses que propicien un desarrollo humano cada vez más integral, donde la persona sea considerada en relación armónica con lo existente. Además, se presentan una serie de desafíos éticos que se desprenden de un análisis, en el cual confluyen diversas fuentes de información. La novedad radica en la confluencia de voces y la lectura ética de estos postulados desde el pensamiento de Martin Buber y Emmanuel Lévinas. La meta de la investigación postula un aporte al modelo educativo costarricense, así como a grupos gremiales de la educación y población en general, desde el enfoque de la filosofía del encuentro, desde el planteamiento del diálogo buberiano y el planteamiento de alteridad levinasiano, se puedan encontrar insumos necesarios para un replanteamiento -tanto desde el aspecto teórico como práctico- en el quehacer educativo nacional. (shrink)

It is natural to think of remembering in terms of causation: I can recall a recent dinner with a friend because I experienced that dinner. Some fifty years ago, Martin and Deutscher (1966) turned this basic thought into a full-fledged theory of memory, a theory that came to dominate the landscape in the philosophy of memory. Remembering, Martin and Deutscher argue, requires the existence of a specific sort of causal connection between the rememberer's original experience of an event (...) and his later representation of that event: a causal connection sustained by a memory trace. In recent years, it has become apparent that this reference to memory traces may be out of step with memory science. Contemporary proponents of the causal theory are thus confronted with the question: is it possible to develop an empirically adequate version of the theory, or is it time to move beyond it? This chapter traces the recent history of the causal theory, showing how increased awareness of the theory’s problems has led to the development of modified version of the causal theory and ultimately to the emergence of postcausal theories. (shrink)

Martin and Deutscher’s remarkable 1966 paper ‘Remembering’ still offers great riches to memory researchers across distinctive traditions, both in its methodological ambition (successfully marrying phenomenological and causal discourses) and in its content. In this short discussion, after briefly setting the paper in its context, we hone in on two live and under-explored issues which have gained attention recently under new labels – the extended mind hypothesis, and the constructive nature of memory. We suggest that Martin and Deutscher’s causal (...) analysis of memory is compatible with the idea that activities of remembering may be distributed across heterogeneous social and external resources, focussing in on their neglected example of creatures who ‘remember as we do’ as long as they carry round metal boxes which are given to them at birth. We then argue that the causal analysis is in some tension with the extent to which remembering is a constructive activity, because there may be no clear way to determine the appropriate ‘limits of accuracy’ within which a past event or experience must be represented. (shrink)