People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Convergence research is driven by specific and compelling problems and requires deep integration across disciplines. The potential of convergence research is widely recognized, but questions remain about how to design, facilitate, and assess such research. Here we analyze a seven-year, twelve-million-dollar convergence project on sustainable climate risk management to answer two questions. First, what is the impact of a project-level emphasis on the values that motivate and tie convergence research to the compelling problems? Second, how does participation in convergence projects (...) shape the research of postdoctoral scholars who are still in the process of establishing themselves professionally? We use an interview-based approach to characterize what the project specifically enabled in each participant’s research. We find that (a) the project pushed participants’ research into better alignment with the motivating concept of convergence research and that this effect was stronger for postdoctoral scholars than for more senior faculty. (b) Postdocs’ self-assessed understanding of key project themes, however, appears unconnected to metrics of project participation, raising questions about training and integration. Regarding values, (c) the project enabled heightened attention to values in the research of a large minority of participants. (d) Participants strongly believe in the importance of explicitly reflecting on values that motivate and pervade scientific research, but they question their own understanding of how to put value-focused science into practice. This mismatch of perceived importance with poor understanding highlights an unmet need in the practice of convergence science. (shrink)

I show that in his De motu animalium Aristoteles proposes a teleology of the practical on the most general zoological level, i.e. on the level common to humans and self-moving animals. A teleology of the practical is a teleological account of the highest practical goals of animal and human self-motion. I argue that Aristotle conceives of such highest practical goals as goals that are contingently related to their realizations. Animal and human self-motion is the kind of action in which certain (...) state of affairs that realize values are mechanized. (shrink)

There are about 100 different contradictory definitions of life. The definition of life based on symbiosis that is presented here differs fundamentally from them; it gives life a value. So this definition offers a basis for ethical and legal action e.g. in organ transplants. It is based on principles and is not an ad hoc model: Significant processes for life are basis for a theoretical concept. Quality criteria for definitions are employed to control the concept. There is a graduation, not (...) a clear division, between inanimate and animate. The graduation is based on the amount of symbiosis to be found. Life is based on symbiosis. The ideas of “ethics” and “reality” are considered in the context of this definition. (shrink)

Accelerating global climate change drives new climate risks. People around the world are researching, designing, and implementing strategies to manage these risks. Identifying and implementing sound climate risk management strategies poses nontrivial challenges including (a) linking the required disciplines, (b) identifying relevant values and objectives, (c) identifying and quantifying important uncertainties, (d) resolving interactions between decision levers and the system dynamics, (e) quantifying the trade-offs between diverse values under deep and dynamic uncertainties, (f) communicating to inform decisions, and (g) learning (...) from the decision-making needs to inform research design. Here we review these challenges and avenues to overcome them. ▪ People and institutions are confronted with emerging and dynamic climate risks. ▪ Stakeholder values are central to defining the decision problem. ▪ Mission-oriented basic research helps to improve the design of climate risk management strategies. (shrink)

Founding or explaining norms by nature seems to be impossible. Kant's Categorical Imperative seems to be "normative", i.e. of absolute validity. In fact, it is not more or less than a value theory, since Kant considers the human person as endowed by unconditional dignity. Norms can be founded on values, not vice versa. And values seem always to lead to sense.

Do we need a new ethics? And if so: why? Just because Kant's Categorical Imperative (Cat. Imp.) seems to be no longer valid? Are there, nevertheless, values that survive the so-called "decay of values"? And if there are limits of ethics, e.g. in system conditions, one can ask if new legit requests are to be made. Or can ethics even be absorbed (or "abolished") in anthropology and philosophy of history?

Providing the most thorough coverage available in one volume, this comprehensive, broadly based collection offers a wide variety of selections in four major genres, and also includes a section on film. Each of the five sections contains a detailed critical introduction to each form, brief biographies of the authors, and a clear, concise editorial apparatus. Updated and revised throughout, the new Fourth Edition adds essays by Margaret Mead, Russell Baker, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Alice Walker; fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, (...) Ursula K. LeGuin, Anton Chekov, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Louise Erdrich, Donald Barthelme, and James McPherson; poems by John Donne, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Philip Levine, and Louise Gluck; and plays by August Wilson, Marsha Norman, Wendy Wasserstein, and Vaclav Havel. The chapter devoted to film examines the relation of film to literature and gives the complete screenplay for Citizen Kane plus close analysis of a scene from the film. With its innovative structure, comprehensive coverage, and insightful and stimulating presentation of all kinds of literature, this is an anthology readers will turn to again and again. (shrink)

The task of this chapter is to investigate and assess Grossmann’s view of the ontological status of categories. It has two dimensions. Because Grossmann does not offer a full discussion of the ontology of categories, we first need to present an interpretation of his view. Our point of departure is Grossmann’s claim that a category is a fundamental property of being (which implies that he holds view 3 above). Our second task is to assess the adequacy of (...) his view. We do this by raising some problems with Grossmann’s account, offering as an alternative view a version of 4 above, and defending it against what we construe as Grossmann’s possible counter-arguments. We argue that the best way to view categories themselves is as ontologically neutral insofar as this opens the way for particular categories to be linguistic entities, mental acts, or properties of extra-mental things. This requires, in turn, a qualified defense of two views rejected by Grossmann—common natures and modes of being. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma análise das formas literárias de Mt 20,20-28, que narra o pedido da mãe dos filhos de Zebedeu e a resposta de Jesus a respeito do servir. Será aplicado o referencial teórico proposto por Klaus Berger, em As formas literárias do Novo Testamento. Com a aplicação da análise formal a perícope é classificada com um gênero abrangente que contém características de texto simbulêutico, epidíctico e dicânico. Mediante um diagrama são identificados os subgêneros, que são categorias menores (...) em níveis diferentes e que aparecem combinados na perícope. A teoria comunicativa dos gêneros prioriza a relação autor/leitor e releva a importância do ambiente vital como sustentava a tese clássica dos gêneros literários de M. Dibelius e R. Bultmann. Assim os sinais e formas usados no texto produzem o efeito nos ouvintes/leitores. Eles permanecem no modelo dos dominadores do mundo ou vão aderir ao modelo de Jesus? Vão reproduzir a racionalidade da dominação ou a do serviço? A argumentação classificada como simbulêutica em Mt 20,26 visa modificar os pressupostos usados pelos ouvintes para julgar e tomar decisões. O critério não será o poder dominação, mas o serviço, o que resulta em relações igualitárias na comunidade de Mateus. Quem quiser tornar-se grande, deve ser servidor, não o primeiro, mas o último. (shrink)

The monistic worldview aims at a uniform description of nature based on scientific models. Quantum physical systems are mutually part of the other quantum physical systems. An aperture distributes the subsystems and the wave front in all possible ways. The system only takes one of the possible paths, as measurements show. Conclusion from Bell's theorem: Before the quantum physical measurement, there is no point-like location in the universe where all the information that explains the measurement is available. Distributed information is (...) possible. Movement of the particle and measuring process are deterministic. The oscillation between location uncertainty and momentum uncertainty leads photons to determine their own location at short intervals. The uncertainty principle focuses the systems. The fields of the surrounding matter influence the location of the new formation. The effect of all fields is based on a common mechanism. (shrink)

The perhaps most challenging problem for a panentheistic paradigm in Christian god-talk consists in integrating the trait of personhood in the monistic horizon of this approach. A very helpful way to this goal seems to be the concept of imagination. Its logic of an “as if” represents a modified variation of Kant`s idea of the postulates of reason. Reflections of Jürgen Werbick, Douglas Headley, and Volker Gerhardt substantiate the philosophical and theological capabilities of this solution which also include a sensibility (...) for the ontological commitments included in the panentheistic approach. (shrink)

The essay presents Saul Kripke's argument for mind/body-dualism and makes the suppositions explicit on which it rests. My claim, inspired by Richard Boyd, is that even if one of Kripke’s central suppositions - the principle of necessity of identities using rigid designators - is shared by the non-traditional identity theorist, it is still possible for her to rebut Kripke’s dualism.

In the paper I voice my dissatisfaction with the author's essay because I think that the proposed “McClellean shift” from skeptical to trusting theism faces serious problems. The troubles are mainly caused by the way in which McClellan suggests to extend and “amend” the theist’s argument via the Moorean shift (which is intended to be a counter-argument to the atheist’s evidential argument from evil). But McClellan's proposal is no amendment at all, as it robs the theist's Moore-inspired argument its entire (...) logico-probabilistic force. (shrink)

In his essay Tracy Lupher (henceforth, TL) is concerned with Robert Kane's (1984) version of the modal ontological argument (MOA). As he correctly points out, Kane's argument is valid only if the accessibility relation between possible worlds is assumed to be symmetric. TL's remarks pave the way to thinking that the MOA is intended to establish the existence of a perfect being as a matter of logical necessity. Moreover, given TL's undisputed supposition (even shared by Kane) that S5 - in (...) which the accessibility relation is symmetric - captures the notion of logical necessity, the real issue becomes whether the premise of the MOA is true. Contrary to TL's main claim, the discussion thus shifts back from technical arguments for why the appropriate modal logic must have a symmetric accessibility relation to metaphysical, theological, or conceptual considerations about the notion of a perfect being itself. I argue that it is only due to such considerations that we even start to ponder the question of what modal logic is the appropriate one to choose. (shrink)

In their (2008) article Liar-Like Paradox and Object Language Features C.S. Jenkins and Daniel Nolan (henceforth, JN) argue that it is possible to construct Liar-like paradox in a metalanguage even though its object language is not semantically closed. I do not take issue with this claim. I find fault though with the following points contained in JN’s article: First, that it is possible to construct Liar-like paradox in a metalanguage, even though this metalanguage is not semantically closed. Second, that the (...) presented examples of Liar-like paradox are supposed to be counterexamples to Tarski’s diagnosis of the classic Liar paradox. Third, that JN fail to notice Tarski’s postulate. And finally, that JN fail to recognize that the world they are pondering is not among the possible worlds. (shrink)

'Ethics of Behavior Control. A new foundation' Do we need a new ethics? Or even an 'ethics of behavior control'? Partly founded by Immanuel Kant, but no longer valid in all its aspects? If there are values and norms, which of them can survive the so called "decay of values"? And if there are limits of ethcis, for example caused by (social) system conditions, arises the question of how to legitimate new ethical challenges and demands. Last not least: Can ethics (...) be absorbed by anthropology and / or philosophy of history? (shrink)

The topic may initially suggest that massive reductionism is pursued with it. Why this is not the case, can be explained as follows: 'Dictatorship of the proletariat', 'bureaucracy' and 'bureaucratization' are key terms through which new aspects, facts and connections of the questions about socialism can be opened again and again.

Durch genomweite Analysen werden vielfältige gesundheitsrelevante Informationen über eine Person gewonnen. Solche Informationen können die Behandlung von Krankheiten verbessern. Sie ermöglichen aber auch Vorhersagen, ob eine Person und deren Verwandte in Zukunft möglicherweise erkranken werden. Der neuartige Charakter des Informationseingriffs und sein prädiktive Potential bedürfen der ethischen, juristischen und ökonomischen Reflexion, damit diese Technologie zum Wohl der Patienten, der Familienangehörigen und der Solidargemeinschaft eingesetzt werden kann. Die vorliegende Schrift leistet mit ihren interdisziplinären, vom BMBF finanzierten Analysen dazu einen Beitrag. Grundlagen (...) für einen ethisch und juristisch verantwortbaren Einsatz der Genomsequenzierung zu medizinischen Zwecken werden erörtert und Eckpunkte für Kostenanalysen sowie Elemente einer “Guten klinischen Praxis” präsentiert. (shrink)

For Heidegger, the modern understanding of beeing is located within the space-time horizon of metaphysics in the form of a nihilistic "will to power", which makes it increasingly difficult for it to free itself from metaphysical thinking. With the progress and success of science and technology, the addiction of the modern age to metaphysics even seems to increase; man will ultimately be brought into the closed horizon of a tragic and nihilistic interpretation of beeing. The age of enlightenment, is in (...) fact - according to the thesis of the author - not yet at an end: Only if enlightenment, through basic "philosophical thought", reflects on its own foundation in a more fundamental and critical way and really makes the "turning" ("Kehre"), might it be able to overcome its unexplored addiction to the horizon of metaphysics, as well as to overcome modern man's alienation of the self and being, and to find its way back to the Greek beginnings of western thought. (shrink)

Habermas’s postmetaphysical reading of Kierkegaard is paradigmatic for his understanding of religion. It shows, why Habermas reduces religion to fideism. Therefore the paper reconstructs Habermas’s reception of Kierkegaard and compares it with the accounts of Dieter Henrich and Michael Theunissen. Furthermore it demonstrates how Habermas makes use of Kierkegaard’s dialectics of existence to formulate his postmetaphysical thesis of a cooperative venture.

If Darwin's and Wallace's theory of evolution is reduced to "eat and be eaten" misunderstanding and rejection arise. From a didactic point of view, a scientific and philosophical examination of the theory is necessary. It can create understanding and acceptance. Epistemologically, the theory of evolution describes a cognition and innovation process that corresponds to scientific working methods. The philosophical analysis shows that ethical behaviour emerges in evolution. The basic concept of this article is the assumption of the unity of spirit (...) and matter (monism) and the parallelism of ethics and mechanics (Elome concept). There is no principal contradiction between the theory of evolution and religious ideas but to the magical-mythical worldview. An understanding of the scientific method is a prerequisite for a deeper understanding of the evolutionary process. It is not about a branch of biology, but about a world view. (shrink)

Some authors have called for increased research on various forms of geoengineering as a means to address global climate change. This paper focuses on the question of whether a particular form of geoengineering, namely deploying sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere to counteract some of the effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations, would be a just response to climate change. In particular, we examine problems sulfate aerosol geoengineering (SAG) faces in meeting the requirements of distributive, intergenerational, and procedural justice. We argue (...) that SAG faces obstacles to meeting the requirements of all three considered kinds of justice, because its impacts can harm some persons and communities much more than others; it poses serious risks to future generations; and SAG is especially prone to unilateral implementation. While we do not claim that SAG ought not to be implemented, we argue that it is the responsibility of proponents of SAG to recognize and address these ethical obstacles before advocating its implementation. (shrink)

Methodological problems often arise when a special case is confused with the general principle. So you will find affordances only for ‚artifacts’ if you restrict the analysis to ‚artifacts’. The general principle, however, is an ‚invitation character’, which triggers an action. Consequently, an action-theoretical approach known as ‚pragmatic turn’ in cognitive science is recommended. According to this approach, the human being is not a passive-receptive being but actively produces those action effects that open up the world to us. This ‚ideomotor (...) approach’ focuses on the so-called ‚epistemic actions’, which guide our perception as conscious and unconscious cognitions. Due to ‚embodied cognition’ the own body is assigned an indispensable role. The action theoretical approach of ‚enactive cognition’ enables that every form can be consistently processualized. Thus, each ‚Gestalt’ is understood as the process result of interlocking cognitions of ‚forward modelling’ and ‚inverse modelling’. As can be shown, these cognitions are fed by previous experiences of real interaction, which later changes into a mental trial treatment, which is highly automated and can therefore take place unconsciously. It is now central that every object may have such affordances that call for instrumental or epistemic action. In the simplest case, it is the body and the facial expressions of our counterpart that can be understood as a question and provoke an answer/reaction. Thus, emotion is not only to be understood as expression/output according to the scheme ‚input-processing-output’, but acts itself as a provocative act/input. Consequently, artifacts are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for affordances. Rather, they exist in all areas of cognition—from Enactive Cognition to Social Cognition. (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is thus immoral. (...) But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

This chapter introduces and defends a pragmatist model of aesthetic disagreement that avoids many of the philosophical puzzles generated by the traditional, semantic, approach. Mainstream philosophical inquiry into aesthetic disagreement begins with a rather innocuous assumption: to understand what’s going on we must first explain what disputants are saying, which involves identifying the meaning of the relevant expressions or determining how aesthetic claims could be true. However, this task brings with it a new host of semantic and epistemic puzzles and (...) fails to vindicate the central role aesthetic disagreements occupy in our aesthetic lives more generally. Further, it isn’t clear how settling the meaning of aesthetic expressions bears on everyday aesthetic disagreements. Paying attention to what we do in an aesthetic disagreement will give us a better chance at identifying what matters for determining what we say. (shrink)

Teil I »Psychologische Ästhetik für transdisziplinäres Design« -/- Kapitel I »Empirische Ästhetik – Der Konflikt zwischen leichter Verarbeitbarkeit, sparsamer Codierung und neuronaler Aktivierung im Beobachtersystem. Eine Untersuchung über das Wesen der ästhetischen Erfahrung. -/- Jede Designpraxis verlangt täglich eine Vielzahl von Entscheidungen, welche die Wahl von „Etwas vor dem Hintergrund anderer Möglichkeiten“ darstellen. Diese lassen sich als Probleme einer Präferenz-Ästhetik interpretieren, wobei innerhalb eines Repertoires von Alternativen die attraktivste gewählt wird. Eine empirische Ästhetik ist somit ein notwendiger Bestandteil von Designtheorie. (...) Die Überlegung, wer in welcher Situation warum was bevorzugt, führt zur Forschungsfrage: »Was ist der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung?« In der Literatur zur empirischen Ästhetik finden sich vier wesentliche Theorie-Gruppen: (1.) Es wird eine Präferenz für einfach zu verarbeitende Stimuli behauptet und z.B. mit der Processing Fluency begründet. (2.) Andere Ansätze erklären eine maximale Stimulation des Beobachters durch komplexe Objekte zum Ideal, was auch die ästhetische Erfahrung maximieren soll. (3.) Eine dritte Gruppe vermeidet die Probleme der ersten beiden, indem eine mittlere Komplexität als Präferenz behauptet wird. (4.) Und schließlich gibt es Ansätze, die auf eine integrierende Theorie letztlich verzichten und einzelne Phänomene bzw. Effekte katalogisieren. Eine Liste ungelöster Probleme formuliert die Minimal-Anforderungen an eine integrierende Theorie. Hiermit wird geprüft, ob bzw. inwieweit die Integrative Ästhetik von Schwarzfischer (2008 und 2014) jene Probleme lösen kann. Dieser Ansatz schlägt spezifische Re-Codierungs-Prozesse als basalen Mechanismus jeder ästhetischen Erfahrung vor. Hierzu wird ein Prozess-Modell entwickelt, welches die Integrative Ästhetik überprüfbar macht. Bei der Modellbildung werden manche Konzepte der Integrativen Ästhetik erweitert und andere präzisiert. Auch die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten werden durch das Modell vielfältiger, da es nicht nur als Erklärungsmodell, sondern zudem als Gestaltungsmodell einsetzbar ist. Insgesamt zeigt die Überprüfung der Integrativen Ästhetik und des Modells, dass die Gütekriterien in einem vielversprechenden Maß erfüllt werden. Die grundsätzliche Quantifizierbarkeit wird aufgezeigt sowie die Relevanz und die Anwendbarkeit für das Design nachgewiesen. Die Forschungsfrage kann somit als hinreichend beantwortet gelten: »Der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung scheint ein Re-Codierungs-Prozess zu sein (der auf der Nutzung von In­varianzen basiert), welcher extensionale Daten zu intensionalen Gestalten transformiert, wobei eine Ressourcen-Entlastung stattfindet und der Gültigkeitsbereich der Codierung erweitert wird (was nach Jean Piaget als Dezentrierung bezeichnet wird) – was jeweils durch eine ‚Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung‘ festgestellt wird.« -/- Teil II »Transdisziplinäre Ästhetik im Dialog« -/- Kapitel II.A »Profane und heroische Beobachtungs-Experimente: Kunst-Ästhetik als methodisches Artefakt.« -/- Es reicht nicht, eine Liste mit vorgeblich ‚schönen Dingen‘ zu erstellen, um ‚das Schöne‘ zu verstehen. Piaget & Garcia (1989) unterscheiden drei Stufen in jedem Erkenntnis-Prozess: 1. isolierte Fakten, die unabhängig von einander analysiert werden; 2. konkrete Transformationen, durch welche diese Fakten mit einander verbunden sind; 3. eine Struktur, die alle denkbaren Fälle konstruierbar macht. Sie nannten diese drei Stufen ‚intra‘, ‚inter‘ und ‚trans‘. Dies kann auf das ‚höhere Erkenntnisvermögen‘ angewandt werden wie auf das ‚niedere‘. Wissenschaftlichkeit setzt nach Popper die Falsifizierbarkeit einer Theorie voraus – und damit Prognosefähigkeit. Prognosen müssen über den Bereich der bereits bekannten Fälle hinausgehen, und finden sich folglich primär in der Piaget-Phase ‚trans‘. Diese ist davon gekennzeichnet, dass es über die Gegenstände hinausgeht (‚trans-objekt‘). Zu häufig werden Artefakte nur beschrieben (‚intra-objekt‘) oder einzelne, zufällig bekannte Transformationen von Material in Artefakte bzw. von Artefakt in Verständnis aufgezählt (‚inter-objekt‘). Erst eine ‚Integrative Ästhetik‘ jenseits von zufälligen Semantiken, jenseits von sozialen Exklusions-Rhetoriken der Künstler und der ‚Leisure-Class-Eliten‘ (nach Veblen) und jenseits der Hierarchisierung von Wahrnehmungs-Modi kann den Anspruch einlösen (‚trans-objekt‘). Daraus folgen u.a. separierbare Semantiken spezifischem Maßstabs, die sich überhaupt erst dann z.B. als ‚konventionelle Kunst-Auffassung‘ beobachten lassen. Zentrierungen auf solche Semantiken können demnach „als Kunst missverstanden werden“ – obwohl sie keineswegs das allgemeine Prinzip repräsentieren, sondern stets nur Spezial­fall bleiben. -/- Kapitel II.B »Das Gehirn als Hypothesenmaschine – Ästhetische Prozesse als Selbst-Test im Beobachter-System.« -/- Die historische Trennung zwischen Techne, Poiesis und Aisthesis scheint nach der „konstruktivistischen Wende“ obsolet geworden zu sein. Jede Beobachtung kann als Handlung betrachtet werden und setzt adaptive Aspekte schon voraus. Jedoch fehlte bislang eine tragfähige konstruktivistische Ästhetik, deren Gültigkeitsbereich hinreichend groß ist: So ist die Beschränkung auf Kunst ebenso unnötig wie jene auf Kommunikation in sozialen Systemen (also auf „Kunst-Diskurse“) oder auf eine Produktions-, Werk- bzw. Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Die definitorische Auflösung des Kunst-Begriffes (z.B. bei Gernot Böhme) löst diese Schwierigkeiten nicht. Im Wesentlichen bleibt die resultierende phänomenologische Ästhetik eine Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Ähnlich begrenzt bleibt der Anwendungsbereich der Informations-Ästhetik mit kybernetischen Wurzeln. Auch die Einbettung in eine evolutionäre Ästhetik oder Neuroästhetik scheint problematisch. Daher muss eine „Integrative Ästhetik“ sehr unterschiedliche Sichtweisen in sich vereinigen. Inzwischen klassisch zu nennende kybernetische, systemtheoretische oder informations-ästhetische Ansätze verwenden meist die Logik einer Bottom-Up-Verarbeitung (Input-Processing-Output), wie sie auch die kognitive Psychologie der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts dominierte. Dass laut Schlicht et al. (2013: S.475) selbst im visuellen Kortex nur ca. 5% der neuronalen Verknüpfungen bottom-up verschaltet sind (und der „Rest” von 95% top-down oder lateral arbeitet), stellt auch die empirische Ästhetik vor Probleme. Dieser Beitrag stellt jene Integrative Ästhetik vor, welche diese Antworten auf diese Fragen zu geben vermag – und den genannten Beschränkungen nicht unterliegt. Der elementare Prozess einer ästhetischen Erfahrung besteht hier in einer Re-Codierung von extensionalen Daten zu intensionalen Codierungen. Durch die sparsamere Codierung stellt dies eine erhebliche neuronale Entlastung dar und erhöht zudem beträchtlich den Gültigkeitsbereich des Codierten. Vom Beobachter-System wird dies subjektiv als Dezentrierung (nach Piaget) positiv erlebt. Zentral ist, dass es nun mit einem einheitlichen methodischen Rahmen möglich ist, entweder bottom-up die Wahrnehmung zu analysieren oder top-down die subjektive Motivation (z.B. die erlebte Autonomie oder die erlebte Entlastung) des Akteurs zu thematisieren. Die Richtung der Prozesse wird umkehrbar. Zudem wird die konstruktivistische Wahrnehmungs-Handlung zu einer Art von Selbst-Test des Wahrnehmungs-Systems: „Funktioniere ich sensorisch und kognitiv überhaupt? Funktioniere ich korrekt, also konsistent? Und, funktioniere ich effizient?“ -/- Kapitel II.C »Beobachtende Systeme – Dezentrierende Gestalt-Integration als Basis einer Ästhetik des Alltags.« -/- An der ästhetischen Erfahrung irritiert traditionell, dass der Effekt bekannt ist, nicht aber die Ursachen und der funktionale Mechanismus. Dies leistete Mystifikationen Vorschub, was zu diversen metaphysischen Kunst-Ästhetiken führte: Der Künstler als Schamane oder Magier. Dieser Beitrag möchte dagegen einen systemsemiotischen Ansatz für eine empirische Ästhetik vorstellen. Die aktive Rolle des Beobachters im Wirkungszusammenhang soll den Blinden Fleck erhellen, aufgrund dessen sich das Phantom eines passiven Rezipienten und „quasi-aktiver“ ästhetischer Objekte so hartnäckig halten konnte. Ausgehend von gestalttheoretischen Überlegungen wird Gestalt als implizite, algorithmische Codierung begriffen. Neuere empirische Ergebnisse der „Neuro-Ökonomie“ postulieren einen Effekt der „kortikalen Entlastung“ (bei der Forschung nach der Wirkung von Marken). Der hier vertretene Ansatz verknüpft nun beide Aspekte und glaubt, daraus eine konsistente Theorie für die empirische Ästhetik des Alltags entwickeln zu können. Es muss jedoch ein weiterer Aspekt hinzu genommen werden, den Piaget „Dezentrierung“ nennt. Ästhetische Erfahrung wird dann definierbar als das Erlebnis eines Umcodierungs-Prozesses – oder genauer: als das Erlebnis einer dezentrierenden Gestalt-Integration durch das beobachtende System. Sowohl beobachtende Systeme als auch Gestalt-Integrationen sind in unserem Ansatz als multiple zu denken. Eine semiotische Differenzierung ist nun entscheidend: Die herkömmliche Informations-Ästhetik thematisierte nur die syntaktischen Aspekte des Stimulus, ohne den Beobachter in seiner aktiven Rolle zu begreifen. Gestalt-Integrationen samt deren dezentrierender Wirkung sind jedoch auch in semantischer und pragmatischer Hinsicht zu finden. Diese werden im Beitrag dargelegt. Denn erst so kann die Vielschichtigkeit ästhetischer Erfahrungen erklärt werden, wo z.B. syntaktische und pragmatische Aspekte konkurrieren können. Auch vordergründig destruktive Akte und Artefakte sind dann als Gestalt-Integrationen anderer Dimensionen oder differierender Bezugssysteme begreifbar. (Dies streift etwa auch Fragen der Ressourcen-Allokation.) Zudem muss die Kontingenz von Beobachtungs-Maßstäben, Wahrnehmungs-Modi, Struktur-Determinanten (des beobachtenden Systems) und kultur-semiotischen Prägungen mit in Betracht gezogen werden. Erst hierdurch wird der Möglichkeitsraum potenzieller Gestalt-Integrationen (der eigentlich aus einem präsentationalen und einem repräsentationalen Raum besteht) prinzipiell beschreibbar. Wenn auch die Probleme bzw. Grenzen der praktischen Durchführbarkeit entsprechender Analysen nicht unterschlagen werden sollen: Die Möglichkeiten entsprechen gut den Erfordernissen zur ästhetischen Analyse des menschlichen Alltages – schließen die Lebenswelten von nicht-anthropozentrischen Seinsformen aber wohl methodisch aus. Dieser Beitrag möchte ich primär eine empirische Ästhetik zur Diskussion stellen, die mir als Rahmen für die weitere Forschung sehr leistungsfähig erscheint. Und doch ist nichts weniger als ein theoriebildender Ansatz das Vorhaben. Eine der Konsequenzen aus diesem Ansatz ist die These, dass es sich bei Kants Diktum vom „interesselosen Wohlgefallen“ zwar für das Individuum um ein Apriori handelt, bei der Gattung Mensch jedoch evolutionär um ein Aposteriori. (shrink)

The explication of the Christian hope of resurrection requires Christianity to spell out the way in which God actually deals in the world. Only if we succeed, with regard to past, present, and future, in making the talk of God’s special action in history plausible, are we able to reasonably assert essential Christian beliefs. Yet due to past horrors, present ongoing suffering, and a future that promises of little else, it is precisely this talk that has become doubtful. This article (...) tries to describe God’s action as a process enabling freedom and love in order to develop a theodicy-sensitive speech about God’s action. (shrink)

Free will is difficult to classify with respect to determinism or indeterminism, and its phenomenology in consciousness often shows both aspects. Initially, it is felt as unlimited and indeterminate will power, with the potentiality of multiple choices. Thereafter, reductive deliberation is led by determinism to the final decision, which realises only one of the potential choices. The reductive deliberation phase tries to find out the best alternative and simultaneously satisfying vague motivations, contextual conditions and personal preferences. The essential sense of (...) free will is the introduction of personal preferences, which allows a higher diversity of reactions to vague motivations. With an oversimplified model of determinism as a chain of events, incompatibilists define “free” as “undetermined” so that determinism becomes incompatible with any free choice between alternatives. In consciousness, free will requires a more complex model of network determinism as well as the consideration of unconsciousness as a causal factor. When “free” defined as “undetermined” is applied to the context of consciousness, it should be reinterpreted as “unconscious of being determined” or not aware of underlying determinism. Lacking information on determinism generates a feeling of “free” in consciousness and, therefore, gives the impression of indeterminism. Lacking information may be induced by an uncertain future without determined events—an unconscious past with biological reactions suddenly emerging from the unconsciousness or an unknown present unable to distinguish determinism of complex events. Therefore, at the level of human consciousness, the experience of free will is associated with apparent indeterminism although it is based on unconscious determinism. The concepts of compatibilism and incompatibilism are only two different aspects of the same phenomenon and correspond to consciousness and unconsciousness. Nevertheless, they can be considered together with a free will concept based on relativity depending on two different reference frames—the first person’s experience frame or the Laplace’s demon frame with knowledge on every molecule of the universe. Only relativity of the free will concept avoids the contradiction between “free” and “unfree” for the same phenomenon and could be a compromise for considering compatibilism and incompatibilism equally. (shrink)

In order to be complete, Horwich’s minimalist theory must be able to deal with generalizations about truth. A logical and an epistemic-explanatory level of the generalization problem are distinguished, and Horwich’s responses to both sides of the problem are examined. Finally some persistent problems for minimalism are pointed out.

In recent discussions, it has been argued that a theory of animal rights is at odds with a liberal abortion policy. In response, Francione (1995) argues that the principles used in the animal rights discourse do not have implications for the abortion debate. I challenge Francione’s conclusion by illustrating that his own framework of animal rights, supplemented by a relational account of moral obligation, can address the moral issue of abortion. I first demonstrate that Francione’s animal rights position, which grounds (...) moral consideration in sentience, is committed to the claim that a sentient fetus has a right to life. I then illustrate that a fully developed account of animal rights that recognizes the special obligations humans have to assist animals when we cause them to be dependent and vulnerable through our voluntary actions or omissions is committed to the following: a woman also has a special obligation to assist a sentient fetus when she causes it to be dependent and vulnerable through her voluntary actions or omissions. From these considerations, it will become evident that a fully developed and consistent animal rights ethic does in fact have implications for the abortion discussion. (shrink)

WEGE ZUM SINN WAYS TO SENSE. Generally known seems to be the fact that, somehow, sense and value are involved in purposes, aims and temporality. Less known are the details, the concrete forms of such connections. And even less: the thesis of certain philosophers pretending that values produce sense automatically. Yet: What are 'values'? What is 'sense'? How and why does it happen? Subjectively? Objectively? In situations? By means of Being and Nothing? Due to logics? So many questions!

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

No es en modo alguno evidente que las crisis económicas sean objeto de la teoría crítica. Los propios Karl Marx y Friedrich Engels no desarrollaron una teoría integral de la crisis, sino que solo proporcionaron fragmentos que fueron interpretados y desarrollados de maneras muy diferentes por generaciones posteriores de intelectuales marxistas. El debate pasó gradualmente del ciclo económico a rupturas estructurales similares a crisis en la historia del desarrollo del capitalismo. Sin embargo, la teoría crítica reciente ha abandonado cada vez (...) más este legado. En la medida en que sus principales corrientes se alejaron de la crítica de Marx a la economía política, también perdieron su sensibilidad ante la inestabilidad estructural del capitalismo. (shrink)

It is argued that if we take grounding to be univocal, then there is a serious tension between truth-grounding and one commonly assumed structural principle for grounding, namely transitivity. The primary claim of the article is that truth-grounding cannot be transitive. Accordingly, it is either the case that grounding is not transitive or that truth-grounding is not grounding, or both.

The role of imagination in Descartes. The critic of Sartre to the concept of image in Descartes.