Embedded in the theory of adult education (andragogy) this PhD-thesis takes up the chal-lenge proclaimed by the biography research based on the concept of Bildung and seeks to define the concept of transformational Bildung more precisely. To overcome the identified stagnation in this research field, this thesis proposes a change from qualitative research para-digm to relational paradigm and introduces the relational logic of development as methodol-ogy of relational thinking. The application of the results of the informal axiomatization of Robert Kegan’s (...) theory of human development to the concept of transformational Bildung as well as the use of various approaches based on relational communication theories allowed to provide a more precise definition of the concept of transformational Bildung. In this thesis Bildung is defined as a process of transformation of individual’s rules of mean-ing making caused by a person’s confrontation with the rules of meaning making of a higher order. From the observer’s perspective the structure of the Bildung process can be described as a transition from one context rule to another. The developed model of context levels of meaning making allows defining types of signs (ZA) that enable to measure the levels in the process of Bildung. Furthermore, this model allows determining three types of context rules (XR), which – according to the relational logic of development – represent principles of meaning making seen as rules for relating signs. Thus, on the one hand, the model of context levels of meaning making has succeeded to specify the concept of transformational Bildung and, on the other hand, has proven the effectiveness of the structuralist method for the rela-tional adult education research. (shrink)

Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive (...) to appreciate an appearance without finding it beautiful. Furthermore, statements including “beautiful” appeared more contradictory than those including “elegant” and “dynamic”, pointing to its greater evaluative component. When related to artworks, sentences could appear less contradictory due to readers’ consideration of the divergence between conventional beauty and art-related sensory pleasures that can even include negative valence. Such ambivalence might be more frequent in art-objects than in other artefacts. Indeed, in our study, sentences referring to artworks were estimated to be less contradictory compared to sentences referring to other artefacts. Meanwhile, an additional small group of graphic design students showed a less clear difference between art-related and non-art-related sentences. We discuss the potential influence of art experience and interest as well as theoretical and methodological challenges like the conceptualization of beauty. (shrink)

Sentences containing predicates of personal taste (for example, ‘tasty’, ‘funny’) and aesthetic predicates (for example, ‘beautiful’) give rise to an acquaintance inference: They convey the information that speakers have first-hand experience with the object of predication and they can only be uttered appropriately if that is the case. This is surprisingly hard to explain. I will concentrate on aesthetic predicates, and firstly criticize previous attempts to explain the acquaintance phenomena. Second, I will suggest an explanation that rests on a speech (...) act theoretical version of hybrid expressivism, according to which, in uttering ‘X is beautiful’ speakers perform two illocutionary acts simultaneously: an expressive and an assertive one. I will spell out this suggestion in detail and defend it against objections. Considering puzzles related to the acquaintance inference will lead to a new argument for a promising version of hybrid expressivism in meta-aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper aims to delineate the class of aesthetic judgments linguistically. The main idea is that aesthetic judgments can be specified by a certain set of assertibility conditions, i.e., by norms that govern appropriate speech-acts. This idea is spelled out in detail and defended against various objections. The suggestion leads to an interesting account of aesthetic judgments that is theoretically fruitful: It provides the basis for a non-circular and satisfying characterization of the whole domain of aesthetic research and it marks (...) an important linguistic difference between aesthetic judgments and judgments of personal taste. (shrink)

Consequentialist positions in philosophy spell out normative notions by recourse to final aims. Hedonistic versions of ETHICAL consequentialism spell out what is MORALLY right/justified via recourse to the aim of increasing pleasure and decreasing pain. Veritistic versions of EPISTEMIC consequentialism spell out what is EPISTEMICALLY right/justified via recourse to the aim of increasing the number of true beliefs and decreasing the number of false ones. Even though these theories are in many respects structurally analogous, there are also interesting disanalogies. For (...) example, popular versions of epistemic consequentialism implicitly endorse the truth-indication principle (which claims that a belief is epistemically justified only if there are factors indicating that the belief itself is true), whereas popular versions of ethical consequentialism do not subscribe to an analogous pleasure-indicating principle (which claims that an act is morally justified only if there are factors indicating that performing the act itself is pleasurable). In a first step I will argue that this difference rests on the fact that plausible versions of epistemic consequentialism have to meet certain constraints, which versions of ethical consequentialism do not have to satisfy. As these constraints can be easily met by incorporating the truth-indication principle, epistemic consequentialists tend to subscribe to it. In a second step I will investigate whether the identified constraints can also be met independent from the truth-indication principle. Are there plausible versions of veritistic epistemic consequentialism that reject the principle, thereby allowing that some beliefs can be epistemically justified even though no factors speak in favor of their truth? Building on ideas put forward by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Crispin Wright, and others, I will answer this question affirmatively. (shrink)

Die Rezeption von Literatur ist von besonderen Herausforderungen gekennzeichnet. Einerseits gibt es erlernbare Techniken des Lesens und Deutens, andererseits gibt es das Wissen um eine dennoch verbleibende Deutungsvielfalt. Statt die Ungewissheiten bei der Deutung zu beklagen, besteht die (in der Moderne zunehmend wichtiger werdende) Möglichkeit, diese Ungewissheit als produktiv zu deuten und das Lesen von Literatur als einen ästhetisch eröffneten Spielraum zu fassen, in dem wir gefahrlos unsere Kenntnisse, Erwartungen und Überzeugungen einsetzen, erproben und erweitern können. Es werden zunächst grundlegende (...) Fragen des Lesens und der Fiktion angesprochen, eine Bestimmung literaturwissenschaftlicher Arbeit entwickelt, um dann philosophische und theologische Integrationsbemühungen literarischer Werke kritisch zu beleuchten. Am Beispiel der Deutungsbedürftigkeit des Todes wird die Relevanz und der Eigensinn des Literarischen aufgezeigt. (shrink)

Anthony Brueckner argues for a strong connection between the closure and the underdetermination argument for scepticism. Moreover, he claims that both arguments rest on infallibilism: In order to motivate the premises of the arguments, the sceptic has to refer to an infallibility principle. If this were true, fallibilists would be right in not taking the problems posed by these sceptical arguments seriously. As many epistemologists are sympathetic to fallibilism, this would be a very interesting result. However, in this paper I (...) will argue that Brueckner’s claims are wrong: The closure and the underdetermination argument are not as closely related as he assumes and neither rests on infallibilism. Thus even a fallibilist should take these arguments to raise serious problems that must be dealt with somehow. (shrink)

Aesthetic statements of the form ‘X is beautiful’ are evaluative; they indicate the speaker’s positive affective attitude regarding X. Why is this so? Is the evaluative content part of the truth conditions, or is it a pragmatic phenomenon (i.e. presupposition, implicature)? First, I argue that semantic approaches as well as these pragmatic ones cannot satisfactorily explain the evaluativity of aesthetic statements. Second, I offer a positive proposal based on a speech-act theoretical version of hybrid expressivism, which states that, with the (...) literal utterance of ‘X is beautiful’, we perform two illocutionary acts simultaneously, an assertive and an expressive one. I will specify this theory in detail and argue that it can satisfactorily account for the evaluative content of aesthetic statements. I will also discuss the advantages of the theory over other variants of expressivism in meta-aesthetics. (shrink)

Der Beitrag beleuchtet die Struktur und Funktion forschender Laborpraxis vor dem Hintergrund verschiedener erkenntnis- und wissenschaftstheoretischer Positionen. Das Labor kann in seiner Relevanz unterschätzt werden – mit Blick auf die darin verrichteten praktischen Tätigkeiten, auf dabei erforderliche Urteilsbildungen und nicht zuletzt auf unverzichtbare Impulse für die Wissenschaft. Die abstrakte Gegenüberstellung von Theorie und Praxis ist aufzugeben. Zugleich sollte Wissenschaft weder allein über das Labor noch über die Theoriebildung bestimmt werden. Abschließend plädiert der Beitrag dafür, die skizzierten Fragestellungen in die Labordidaktik (...) sowie in die Planung und Durchführung von Lernlaboren einzubeziehen. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a problem for the justificatory significance of perceptions that has been overlooked thus far. Assuming that perceptual experiences are propositional attitudes and that only propositional attitudes which assertively represent the world can function as justifiers, the problem consists in specifying what it means for a propositional attitude to assertively represent the world without losing the justificatory significance of perceptions—a challenge that is harder to meet than might first be thought. That there is such a (...) problem can be seen by reconsidering and modifying a well-known argument to the conclusion that beliefs cannot be justified by perceptions but only by other beliefs. Nevertheless, the aim of the paper is not to conclude that perceptions are actually incapable of justifying our beliefs but rather to highlight an overlooked problem that needs to be solved in order to properly understand the justificatory relationship between perceptions and beliefs. (shrink)

Die strittige ‚Faktizität des Todes‘ eröffnet die Frage, wie man sich zu ihr stellen soll. Der Beitrag bietet ein Panorama beispielhafter Ex-plikationen von Haltungen gegenüber dem Tod. Hierbei wird aufgewiesen, dass die bloße Bejahung des Todes unzureichend ist, wenn nicht zugleich die abträglichen und abgründigen Aspekte von Sterben und Tod wahrgenommen werden. Eine Abwägung der Effekte ist allerdings kaum durchführbar und das verbreitete Argument drohender Langeweile problematisch. Mit dem Hinweis auf Aristoteles und Kant werden Lektüremöglichkeiten aufgezeigt, die vertraute Topoi einer (...) Ars Moriendi aufbrechen und ein Verständnis gelingender Lebensführung entwickeln, die auf Fortsetzung drängt. Uto- pische Entwürfe der Überwindung des Todes werden zuletzt kritisch diskutiert. (shrink)

Confronted with the problem of induction, Hans Reichenbach accepts that we cannot justify that induction is reliable. He tries to solve the problem by proving a weaker proposition: that induction is an optimal method of prediction, because it is guaranteed not to be worse and may be better than any alternative. Regarding the most serious objection to his approach, Reichenbach himself hints at an answer without spelling it out. In this paper, I will argue that there are two workable strategies (...) to rehabilitate Reichenbach’s account. The first leads to the widely discussed method of meta-induction, as proposed by Gerhard Schurz. The second strategy has not been suggested thus far. I will develop the second strategy and argue for it being, in some respects, superior to the first and closer to Reichenbach’s own position. (shrink)

This paper discusses a structural analogy between Kant’s theory of regulative ideas, as he develops it in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, and Crispin Wright’s theory of epistemic entitlements. First, I argue that certain exegetical difficulties with respect to the Appendix rest on serious systematic problems, which – given other assumptions of the Critique of Pure Reason – Kant is unable to solve. Second, I argue that because of the identified structural analogy between Kant’s and Wright’s views the project (...) Kant pursues in the Appendix can be rehabilitated by recourse to Wright’s theory. (shrink)

Die These der evidentiellen Einzigkeit besagt, dass es im Lichte von Gesamt-Evidenz E genau eine doxastische Einstellung – Für-Wahr-Halten, Für-Falsch-Halten, Enthaltung – gibt, die von Subjekten in Bezug auf eine beliebige Proposition rationalerweise eingenommen werden kann. Auf den ersten Blick ist diese These sehr plausibel. Der vorliegende Aufsatz diskutiert zunächst die Relevanz des Prin- zips sowohl in klassischen (nicht-formalen) sowie in formalen erkenntnistheoretischen Forschungstraditionen. Anschließend wird untersucht, wie plausibel das Prinzip bei genauerer Betrachtung tatsächlich ist und auf welchen Überlegungen dessen (...) anfängliche Attraktivität eigentlich beruht. Es wird nachgewiesen, dass alle in der Literatur vorgebrachten Argumente für die These nicht überzeugend sind. Allerdings wird eine bisher übersehene Überlegung präsentiert, welche die These zumindest zu einem gewissen Grad motivieren kann. (shrink)

In this essay, Heidegger's theses on art, as he develops them in the text "On the Origin of the Work of Art," are reconstructed, interpreted, and critically evalua- ted. In doing so, we pursue a threefold goal. First, his theses on art are put in relation to the main theme of his philosophy: the question of being. Second, the different ways in which Heidegger takes art to be epistemically valuable are dif- ferentiated and reconstructed in detail. Third, Heidegger's theses are (...) related to the contemporary debate on the epistemic value of art and critically discussed. (shrink)

Although the concept of judgment has been replaced by the concept of belief in many philosophical subdisciplines, it has retained its central role in aesthetics. This paper discusses the following explanation for this: In contrast to the concept of belief, the concept of judgment presupposes conscious and first-personal engagement with the object about which the judgment is being made, and this conscious and first-personal engagement with the object in question plays a more important role in aesthetics than in other domains.

This paper focuses on a combination of the antiskeptical strategies offered by semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation. I argue that the most difficult problems of the two strategies can be solved, if the strategies are combined: The strategy offered by semantic externalism is successful against standard skeptical brain-in-a-vat arguments. But the strategy is ineffective, if the skeptical argument is referring to the recent-envatment scenario. However, by focusing on the scenario of recent envatment the most difficult problems (...) of the antiskeptical strategy posed by the inference to the best explanation can be solved. The most difficult problems with this strategy are: Why is an explanation of our experience offered by the skeptical hypothesis more complex than our standard explanation? Why is the more complex explanation less likely to be true? By focussing on the recent envatment hypothesis both questions can be answered satisfactorily. Therefore, the combination of semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation yields a powerful antiskeptical argument. (shrink)

This paper argues that within the class of aesthetic judgments, interesting variations occur depending on whether the judgment refers to an artwork or not. Additionally, it is suggested that in order to understand and satisfactorily explain these variations, one needs a convincing specification of the notion of “art”. Thus, the main thesis of this paper is that a general theory of aesthetic judgments needs to be supplemented by a convincing and theoretically fruitful theory of art.

Pretheoretically we hold that we cannot gain justification or knowledge through an epistemically circular reasoning process. Epistemically circular reasoning occurs when a subject forms the belief that p on the basis of an argument A, where at least one of the premises of A already presupposes the truth of p. It has often been argued that process reliabilism does not rule out that this kind of reasoning leads to justification or knowledge. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject (...) reliabilism. Those who try to defend reliabilism have two basic options: (I) accept that reliabilism does not rule out circular reasoning, but argue that this kind of reasoning is not as epistemically “bad” as it seems, or (II) hold on to the view that circular reasoning is epistemically “bad”, but deny that reliabilism really allows this kind of reasoning. Option (I) has been spelled out in several ways, all of which have found to be problematic. Option (II) has not been discussed very widely. Vogel considers and quickly dismisses it on the basis of three reasons. Weisberg has shown in detail that one of these reasons is unconvincing. In this paper I argue that the other two reasons are unconvincing as well and that therefore option (II) might in fact be a more promising starting point to defend reliabilism than option (I). (shrink)

Die philosophische Skepsis bezweifelt argumentativ, dass Menschen über Wissen verfügen. Eine interessante und viel beachtete Reaktion auf diese Skepsis basiert auf dem semantischen Externalismus. Obwohl die antiskeptische Strategie des Externalismus im Laufe der Jahre entscheident verbessert wurde, krankt sie in den Augen vieler Philosophen immer noch an einer stark beschränkten Reichweite: Sie ist nur hinsichtlich ganz bestimmter Varianten skeptischer Argumentation erfolgreich – durch geschickte Modifikation des skeptischen Arguments ist der Skeptiker in der Lage, sein Argument gegen den externalistischen Angriff zu (...) immunisieren. In diesem Artikel gehe ich der Frage nach, ob die vom Externalismus erzwungene modifizierte Fassung des skeptischen Arguments anfälliger für antiskeptische Angriffe ist als die ursprüngliche Version. Drei Versuche, die vom Externalismus erzwungene Modifikation des skeptischen Arguments in antiskeptischer Hinsicht auszunutzen, werden diskutiert. Einer der Versuche erscheint zunächst viel versprechend, doch letztlich erweisen sich alle drei antiskeptischen Folgestrategien als unbefriedigend. (shrink)

The question whether art is of any epistemic value is an old question in the philosophy of art. Whereas many contemporary artists, art-critics, and art-historians answer this question affirmatively, many contemporary philosophers remain skeptical. If art is of epistemic significance, they maintain, then it has to contribute to our quest of achieving our most basic epistemic aim, namely knowledge.Unfortunately, recent and widely accepted analyses of knowledge make it very hard to see how art might significantly contribute to the quest of (...) achieving this aim. Hence, by the lights of recent epistemology, it is questionable whether art is of any epistemic value. In order to hold on to the epistemic value of art, one has three options: (a) reject the recent analyses of knowledge that make the epistemic value of art questionable, (b) accept the recent analyses of knowledge but argue that they are compatible with the epistemic value of art, or (c) find another epistemic aim (besides knowledge) and show that art is of significant help in achieving this aim. In this paper I will argue that, at least with respect to pictorial art, option (c) seems promising. By reconsidering some basic insights and ideas from Nelson Goodman we can identify (objective) understanding as an epistemic aim to which pictorial art makes a significant contribution. (shrink)

Welchen Zweck verfolgen wir mit ästhetischen Urteilen, wie z.B. „Das ist schön“? Drücken wir damit nur unsere Begeisterung aus oder schreiben wir Gegenständen objektive, von uns unabhängige Eigenschaften zu? Können ästhetische Urteile wahr oder falsch sein, und falls ja, gilt der jeweilige Wahrheitswert dann allgemeingültig oder muss er in gewisser Hinsicht relativiert werden? Das Buch ist der Aufgabe gewidmet, Fragen dieser Art zu beantworten. Sprachphilosophische Fragen in Bezug auf ästhetische Urteile lassen sich allerdings nur dann präzise behandeln, wenn man sie (...) um metaphysische Analysen ästhetischer Eigenschaften ergänzt. Es wird daher eine kombinierte Theorie ästhetischer Urteile und Eigenschaften motiviert, im Detail ausgearbeitet und gegen Angriffe verteidigt. Die Theorie verbindet Elemente einer Doppelsprechakttheorie – nach der wir mit ästhetischen Aussagen simultan beschreibende und expressiv-bewertende Akte ausführen – mit einer reaktions-dispositionalen Charakterisierung ästhetischer Eigenschaften. (shrink)

Writers, philosophers, and theologians have oft made the comparison between being a mature human being and a masterpiece work of art or design. Employing the analogy between the creation of artistic value and the creation of full-fledged human value, this paper stakes out a middle ground between pro-choice and pro-life by considering a more general account of value and the relationship between being a potential X and a mature implementation of X's potential. I argue that the value of a potential (...) X is a function of a number of factors, most importantly, what I call the "accessibility relation" between a potential X and a full-fledged instantiation of this potential. The value is as much intrinsic to the “seed” as to some future implementation of the seed’s potential. This approach inclines even a secular humanist to reasonably confer a significant degree of moral value to a human conceptus, and even more to an early term fetus. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is not Wittgensteinian ethics but Wittgenstein’s own ethical beliefs, specifically as these are revealed in the so-called Koder diaries. While the Koder Diaries, also known as Manuscript 183, do contain the kind of thing that one would expect to find in a diary (e.g. accounts of travel and personal relationships), they also contain more obviously philosophical remarks, sometimes as reflections on these personal remarks. Wittgenstein’s diaries illustrate well a point that Iris Murdoch has emphasized, that (...) a person’s inner life can have an ethical dimension not necessarily directly related to overt action or to other people. The kind of ethical concern that we see in these diaries is one with what we might call global implications. Not in the sense that they might affect the whole planet but in the sense that, for Wittgenstein (or anyone else involved in such struggles or deliberations), they might affect every aspect of his life in the way that a religious conversion might change one’s whole life. This ethical ubiquity is another idea that Murdoch has brought to attention. (shrink)

Rule-following is a normative doing and therefore needs to be reconsidered in a metaethical framework. Rule-following will be discussed in the light of cognitivism and non-cognitivism. It will be shown that neither cognitivism nor non-cognitivism are sufficiently good accounts for conceptualizing rule-following, because they are held captive by a quasi-mechanistical picture of rule-following. This idea stems from Stanley Cavell´s and John McDowell´s approach to rule-following. McDowell appeals to the idea that we participate in “shared forms of life” and therefore are (...) able to follow rules correctly. I believe that his quietist view can be amplified by conceptualizing different modes of following a rule. We can also follow a rule e.g. ironically and still grasp the conceptual content of the rule adequately. (shrink)

This is an unpublished talk written for a meeting of French philosophers. The paper describes the evolution versus creationism/intelligent design controversy in the U.S. A number of philosophers and scientists try to resolve this issue by sharply distinguishing the realm of science versus any talk of the supernatural. These pro-evolutionists often appeal to science's essential commitment to "methodological naturalism," the view that scientific methodology is essentially committed to naturalism and cannot meaningfully entertain hypotheses concerning the supernatural. I criticize methodological naturalism, (...) suggesting that such an appeal is misguided and counterproductive. I suggest an alternative view of the supernatural consistent with scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Appropriate information and consent has been one of the most intensely discussed topics within the context of biobank research. In parallel to the normative debate, many socio-empirical studies have been conducted to gather experiences, preferences and views of patients, healthy research participants and further stakeholders. However, there is scarcity of literature which connects the normative debate about justifications for different consent models with findings gained in empirical research. In this paper we discuss findings of a limited review of socio-empirical research (...) on patients’ and healthy research participants’ experiences and views regarding consent to biobank research in light of ethical principles for appropriate information and consent. (shrink)

Das deutsche Gesundheitswesen steht durch die schnell steigende Anzahl an CO- VID-19-Erkrankten vor erheblichen Herausforderungen. In dieser Krisensituation sind alle Beteiligten mit ethischen Fragen konfrontiert, beispielsweise nach gerech- ten Verteilungskriterien bei begrenzten Ressourcen und dem gesundheitlichen Schutz des Personals angesichts einer bisher nicht therapierbaren Erkrankung. Daher werden schon jetzt klinische und ambulante Ethikberatungsangebote verstärkt mit Anfragen nach Unterstützung konfrontiert. Wie können Ethikberater*innen Entscheidungen in der Krankenversorgung im Rahmen der COVID-19-Pandemie unterstützen? Welche Grenzen von Ethikberatung sind zu beachten? Bislang liegen hierzu (...) noch wenige praktische Erfahrungen vor. Angesichts der dynamischen Entwicklung erscheint es der Akademie für Ethik in der Medizin (AEM) wichtig, einen Diskurs über die angemessene Rolle der Ethikberatung bei der Bewältigung der vielfachen Heraus- forderungen durch die COVID-19-Pandemie zu führen und professionelle Hinweise zu geben. Mit dem vorliegenden Diskussionspapier möchte die AEM einen Beitrag zur Beantwortung wesentlicher Fragen leisten, die sich für die Ethikberatung in den verschiedenen Bereichen des Gesundheitswesens stellen. Sie regt an, diesen Dis- kurs weiter zu führen und hat ein Online-Forum (s. unten) eingerichtet, in dem Ethikberater*innen ihre Erfahrungen teilen und die professionelle Selbstreflexion der Ethikberatung in Pandemiezeiten mit Anregungen fördern können. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to create (...) new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease. (shrink)

If one follows the accounts by philosophers of science and the discussions in scientific communities, there can be little doubt that failure is an essential part of scientific practice. It is essential both in the sense of being integral to scientific practice and of being necessary for its overall success. Researchers who create new scientific knowledge face uncertainties about the nature of the problem they are trying to solve, the existence of a solution to that problem, the way in which (...) a solution can be found, and their ability to find such a solution (Gläser, 2007, 247). The existence of these uncertainties means, in turn, that each research process carries the risk of failure. (shrink)

Review of Gerhard Richter's work on randomness in his recent abstract art paintings, compared with John Cage's work on randomness; the review asks about what randomness in representation qua art amounts to.

Jochen BRIESEN verteidigt in diesem Buch einen Dispositionalismus in Bezug auf ästhetische Eigenschaften und eine „hybride“ Auffassung in Bezug auf ästhetische Urteile: Er vertritt die Ansicht, dass mit jedem ästhetischen Urteil zwei Sprechakte vollzogen werden, nämlich ein expressiver und ein assertiver Sprechakt. Mit dem assertiven Sprechakt wird dem Gegenstand eine ästhetische Eigenschaft zugeschrieben. Die ästhetische Eigenschaft ist eine dispositionelle Eigenschaft, nämlich die Disposition, unter bestimmten (idealen) Bedingungen in einem Rezipienten einen bestimmten mentalen Zustand zu verursachen. Dieser mentale Zustand ist (...) die Manifestation der ästhetischen Eigenschaft. Der expressive Sprechakt soll genau jenen mentalen Zustand ausdrücken, in dem sich die dispositionelle Eigenschaft manifestiert. (shrink)

Written over the course of two months in early 2008, Art as "Night" is a series of essays in part inspired by a January 2007 visit to the Velázquez exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, London, with subsequent forays into related themes and art-historical judgments for and against theories of meta-painting. Art as "Night" proposes a type of a-historical dark knowledge crossing painting since Velázquez, but reaching back to the Renaissance, especially Titian and Caravaggio. As a form of formalism, (...) this "night" is also closely allied with forms of intellection that come to reside in art as pure visual agency or material knowledge while invoking moral agency, a function of art more or less bracketed in modern art for ethical and/or political agency. Not a theory of meta-painting, Art as "Night" restores coordinates arguably lost in painting since the separation of natural and moral philosophy in the Baroque era. It is with Velázquez that we see a turning point, an emphasis on the specific resources of painting as a form of speculative intellect, while it is with contemporary works by Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer that we see the return of the same after the collapse of modernism, and after subsequent postmodern maneuvers to make art discursive yet without the austerities of the formal means present in Art as Art. Art as "Night" argues for a nondiscursive form of intellection fully embodied in the work of art – and, foremost, painting. A synoptic and intentionally elusive and allusive survey of painting, through the collapse of the art market in late 2007, Art as "Night" suggests by way of this critique of an elective "night" crossing painting that the art world is an endlessly deferred version of pleroma , a fully synthetic world given to an exploration and appropriation of the given through classical mimesis and epistemology and its complete incorporation and transfiguration in a theory of knowledge and art as pure speculative agency. In effect, Art as "Night" is an incarnational theory of art as absolute knowledge. (shrink)

Entscheidungen verweisen in einem begrifflichen Sinne auf Gründe. Entscheidungssysteme bieten eine probabilistische Verlässlichkeit als Rechtfertigung von Empfehlungen an. Doch nicht für alle Situationen mögen Verlässlichkeitsgründe auch angemessene Gründe sein. Damit eröffnet sich die Idee, die Güte von Gründen von ihrer Angemessenheit zu unterscheiden. Der Aufsatz betrachtet an einem Beispiel, einem KI-Lügendetektor, die Frage, ob eine (zumindest aktuell nicht gegebene) hohe Verlässlichkeit den Einsatz rechtfertigen kann. Gleicht er nicht einem Richter, der anhand einer Statistik Urteile fällen würde?

A proposta é construir uma ponte de intersecção entre os pensamentos de Pareyson, Aristóteles e Platão, e, ancorando-a nos conceitos cunhados na Teoria da Formatividade, expor como o filósofo italiano relê as problemáticas colocadas pelos filósofos gregos antigos e de que maneira esta interseção de pensamentos e conceitos contribuem para a reflexão sobre Arte na atualidade e em particular para a análise da produção pictórica de Gerhard Richter.