Michael Lewin geht es in seinem Buch um die Vernunft als ein wohlbegründetes und in zeitgenössischen Kontexten fortführbares Forschungsprogramm. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Theorienreihe zu vielfältigen Arten und Funktionen der Ideen, mit deren Hilfe die Vernunft das Verstehen und Wollen steuert und selbstreflexiv wird. Dazu entwickelt der Autor unter dem Stichpunkt „reflektierter Perspektivismus“ das Programm einer perspektivistischen Metaphilosophie, die den Hintergrundparametern forschungsprogrammatische Festlegungen (in Anlehnung an Imre Lakatos), Ansprüche und (Wissens-)Ziele hinter den philosophischen Positionierungen nachspürt und dadurch (...) ihre Grenzen und Möglichkeiten offenlegt. (shrink)

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (b) ideas (...) (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme. You can get the official version of the paper and the whole issue (open access) by clicking on the attached link. (shrink)

Over the last two decades there has been a growing interest in the transcendental dialectic of Critique of Pure Reason in Germany. Authors, however, often do not pay enough attention to the fact that Kant’s theory of reason (in the narrow sense) and the concept of ideas derived from it is not limited to this text. The purpose of this article is to compare and analyze the functionality of mind as a subjective ability developed by Kant and Fichte with the (...) Hegelian expansion of the mind to the idea of universal rationality. The relevance of such a comparison is connected with the need to demonstrate how the Hegelian paradigm of absolute rationality causes either the subsequent rejection of reason as a philosophical principle in the 19th and´20th centuries counter-discourse, or reduction of reason to the concept of pragmatic rationality. In the first part of this paper, the author intends to differentiate between at least 7 different types of ideas and their functions in Kant’s works. In the second part, he demonstrates how Fichte tries to systematize them beginning with reason, which at first creates an idea of itself. Special attention is paid to the way that Fichte categorizes them with the help of 5 spheres of action or 5 worldviews. The third and final part of the article discusses how Hegel goes beyond the frame of the transcendental philosophy of consciousness using different demands linked to the concepts of “reason” and “ideas”. Although these requirements are not found in Kant and Fichte, they entail a set of difficulties, which the author considers in conclusion. The author’s interpretation of the theory of ideas and their functions in Kant, Fichte and Hegel demonstrates the dynamic character of the theories of reason in classical German philosophy, as well as the relevance of the 7 types of ideas that retain their significance for philosophy of the 21st century. Keywords: Kant and German idealism, types of ideas, functions of reason, worldviews, the problem of different demands. В Германии на протяжении последних двух десятилетий возрос интерес к трансцендентальной диалектике «Критики чистого разума». Однако авторы часто не обращают внимания на то, что кантовская теория разума (в узком смысле), в которой разворачивается работа с идеями, не ограничивается этим текстом. Целью данной статьи является сравнительный анализ разработанной Кантом и Фихте функциональности разума как субъективной способности с гегелевским расширением разума до идеи всеобщей разумности. Актуальность такого сравнения связана с необходимостью продемонстрировать то, каким образом гегелевская парадигма абсолютной разумности вызывает либо последующий отказ от разума как философского принципа в контрдискурсе XIX–XX вв., либо редукцию разума к понятию прагматической рациональности. В первой части данной статьи вводится различение по меньшей мере семи различных видов идей и связанных с ними функций в философии Канта. Во второй части демонстрируется попытка Фихте их систематизировать исходя из утверждения том, что разум должен сначала создать идею о самом себе. Проанализировано также предложенное Фихте распределение идей на пять сфер действенности или типов мировоззрения. В третьей, итоговой части статьи рассмотрен выход гегелевской мысли за рамки трансцендентальной философии сознания. Автор статьи связывает этот процесс с выдвижением не осуществимых в контексте философии Канта и Фихте требований к понятиям «разум» и «идея» и анализирует ряд сложностей, вызванных этими требованиями. Таким образом, интерпретация учения об идеях и их функциях у Канта, Фихте и Гегеля демонстрирует динамический характер теорий разума в классической немецкой философии и актуальность семи видов идей, которые сохраняют свое значение для философии XXI в. Ключевые слова: Кант и немецкий идеализм, виды идей, функции разума, мировоззрение, проблема различных требований. (shrink)

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series (...) of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

Recent research gives perspectivism the status of a stand-alone epistemological research program. As part of this development, it must be distinguished from other epistemologies, especially relativism. Not only do relativists and perspectivists use a similar vocabulary—even the supposed tenets (features of the doctrine) seem to partially overlap. To clarify the relation between these programs, I suggest drawing two important distinctions. The first is between the (1) terminological and (2) doctrinal components of epistemologies, the second between the (2a) analytical and (2b) (...) synthetical doctrinal elements. The method of the originalistic linguistic analysis that I introduce in this article shows that both relativism and perspectivism are using the same matrix of interconnected linguistic expressions that belong to what I call the universal epistemic language. Furthermore, this method reveals which doctrinal components necessarily follow from this linguistic basis and the terms “relativism” and “perspectivism” and which are a result of deliberate philosophical constructions. As for the linguistic basis and analytical doctrinal components, relativism and perspectivism are complementary members of one epistemology. Doctrinal additions that transform the original meaning of the terms “relativism” and “perspectivism”, such as “indifferentism” and “non-absolutism”, should be always explicitly mentioned to avoid confusion and strawmen debates in philosophy. (shrink)

For Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, secondary literature on Kant, Fichte, and Hegel is not philosophy in the proper sense. It is best to think the relation between the history of philosophy, philosophy, and its future in terms of a set of virtues that should be binding both for the historians of philosophy and philosophers.

For Kant, philosophical investigations are inherently analytic. The proper method of philosophy is analysis, and the object of analysis are concepts. Hence, Kant’s short description of philosophy as “rational cognition […] from concepts” (KrV, A 837/B 865) can be substituted by “philosophy is conceptual analysis”. The article shows that Kant follows a representationalism about concepts and a combination of intensional and extensional feature semantics. Against the claim that Kant is a proponent of the concept-judgement-inversion, it is argued that concepts are (...) being articulated in form of singular terms, propositions, and sets of propositions alike. Kant interlinks different kinds of concepts with different kinds of definitions, as the reconstruction of his theory of definitions reveals. Philosophy foremost deals with what Kant calls “given” empirical and pure concepts. Such concepts are object of analysis, i.e., explication and exposition. The article ends with answers to five possible objections. Is philosophy all about analysis? (shrink)

Philosophers conceptualize a lot, generate, analyze, and engineer concepts. They often either equate ‘words’ and ‘concepts’ or consider words only as means of expression of their ‘concepts’. I suggest that philosophers should learn to distinguish between ‘words’ and ‘concepts’. Philosophers’ terms are often incompatible or partially incompatible with philosophers’ ‘concepts’. Examples are ‘isms’ in philosophy and the conception of reason. If ‘talking about the same matter’ is a prerequisite for fruitful philosophical debates, words and their analysis should have at least (...) some limiting and guiding power over concepts. (shrink)

In recent decades, perspectivism has developed into an independent epistemological research program. Perspectivism is based on the idea of perspective as an attempt to elucidate an object from a multitude of factors. Perspectivists are concerned with reconstructing and explaining these factors, identifying the conditioning of epistemic acts, using concepts such as “position”/“point of view,” “gaze,” “angle of view,” “horizon,” “focus,” “picture,” “relativity,” and “context”. Although these concepts are part of the perspectivist's toolkit, their content and interrelationship have not yet been (...) critically and comprehensively analyzed. The purpose of this article is to clarify the conceptual basis of perspectivism as an epistemological program, which began in the works of F. Kaulbach (1990) and W. Stegmaier (2008). For this purpose, a systematic conceptual analysis will be carried out, a detailed presentation of the logical content of perspectivist notions and their reduction into a single coherent model, which can become the conceptual basis of perspectivism. Perspectivist concepts constitute a “population” or matrix of the concept “epistemic situation”. Being consistently expounded and correlated in a conceptual model, they can be used as a tool for a detailed analysis of epistemic situations and their results (theories, positions, views, etc.). The final part of the article will formulate a number of significant implications of the new programmatic understanding of perspectivism: the status of perspectivist concepts, the distinction of perspectivism from similar epistemological programs, and the challenges for its further development. (shrink)

In recent decades, perspectivism has developed into an epistemological research program claiming its independence. This autonomy stems from Perspectivism’s potential ability to resolve the contradictions between realist and constructivist programs. Perspectivism is based on the idea that the object depends on perspective, which constitutes any subjective attempt to cognize it. Perspectivists reconstruct and explain the factors involved in the formation of perspective, identifying the conditionality of epistemic acts, using concepts such as “position”, “point of view”, “view”, “angle”, “horizon”, “focus”, “picture”, (...) “context”, “aspect”, etc. Although these concepts are part of the perspectivist’s toolkit, their meanings and interrelation have so far been taken for granted and have not yet been critically and comprehensively analyzed. The purpose of this article is to take steps toward clarifying the conceptual basis for defending perspectivism as an epistemological program. Once consistently uncovered and correlated in a conceptual model, Perspectivist concepts can be used as a tool for a detailed analysis of theories, positions, and beliefs. The article begins with a preliminary description of the concept of perspectivism and its brief history as an epistemological program. In particular, the first modern attempts to outline perspectivist epistemology are described in the works of F. Kaulbach (1990), W. Stegmaier (2008), and M. Massimi (2017, 2020). The problem of identifying the special a priori status of perspectivist notions as a strategy for justifying the autonomy of Perspectivism is then posed. A method for demonstrating such a status, based on Kant’s transcendentalism and P. Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics, is then suggested. (shrink)

Eine Untersuchung zu Nietzsches Kritik am Deutschen Idealismus im Rahmen seiner allgemeinen Idealismuskritik und seiner Lehre vom Willen zur Macht.

Since Nietzsche, the term “perspectivism” has been used as the name for an ill-defined epistemological position. Some have tried to find an adequate meaning for the word “perspectivism,” tacitly investing it with a set of different predicates, such as “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” “anti-universalism,” “epistemic humility,” etc. This approach is related to two contestable attitudes: the monolateral linguistic paradigm and the metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs. The monolateral linguistic paradigm proceeds from the assumption that (...) there is no obligatory connection between word and meaning. This makes it possible to denote logical content by any possible sign, and to explicate the sign in any number of ways. The metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs encourages the support of artificial antagonism in the theory of cognition and the creation of “new” positions with different denotations. These attitudes can be contrasted with the method of empirical “originalist” analysis within the bilateral paradigm, as well as the theory of one epistemology and universal epistemic language. The content of the term “perspectivism” can be reconstructed by analyzing the original meanings of its individual constituent morphemes and their combination. The extremely precise and empirically provable definition of the word “perspectivism” is “the tendency to act by seeing through something”. This points to the problem of the impossibility of analytically deducing from it “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” and other predicates. The same problem of inconsistency between the name of the epistemological position and its content is also encountered, for example, in the literature on relativism. It freely attributes a set of doctrinal beliefs to the term “relativism” without explicit linguistic signification of the predicates and blurs the difference between perspectivism and relativism. This points to the inexpediency of constructing epistemological positions on the basis of words denoting one of all possible interrelated cognitive actions, and the need to rethink epistemological practice. (shrink)

In the later Fichte the reflection splits the world into a fivefoldness of its possible view. To get through all the a priori arranged levels from sensuality to the Doctrine of Science means to use up all the possibilities of the views of the world. I will examine whether Fichte can offer us a direct proof of completeness of the standpoints or at least show indirectly that there must be exactly five of them. Which answer would he give us if (...) we argued that history, skepticism and nonentity could complement the array? -/- Keywords Fivefoldness-worldviews-completeness-proof-history-skepticism -/- Die Reflexion spaltet nach Fichte die Welt in eine Fünffachheit ihrer möglichen Ansicht. Das Durchlaufen der a priori geordneten Stufen von der Sinnlichkeit bis zur Wissenschaftslehre stellt zugleich ein Ausschöpfen der Möglichkeiten dar, sich zur Welt zu verhalten. Ich werde prüfen, ob Fichte uns einen direkten Beweis der Vollständigkeit der Standpunkte geben oder zumindest indirekt dafür argumentieren kann, dass es genau fünf sein müssen. Was würde er uns antworten, wenn wir behaupteten, die Geschichte, der Skeptizismus und die Nullität könnten die Reihe ergänzen? -/- Schlüsselbegriffe Fünffachheit-Weltansichten-Vollständigkeit-Beweis-Geschichte-Skeptizismus. (shrink)

How surprising is the insight, that being equals I in the 15th lecture of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II? It might have been indeed an unexpected turn for his contemporaries in Berlin listening to Fichte for the first time, but should it be surprising for us, having at least since 2012 (the year the last volume of [Gesamtausgabe] appeared) access to all his published and unpublished works? I want to propose a way of reading Fichte, which bypasses two popular and (...) contradictory interpretations of his philosophy in the post-Jena period: (a) the Absolute is the new first principle (hence the I is just a shadow of the much higher being) and (b) his system basically remains unchanged (hence the being is nothing more than the I). At first, I analyze the functions of later Fichte’s improved version of the Kantian and Reinholdian abstract subject-object-symbolism and assign specific content to it. This will shed light on the structure and the first principle of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II. In the second section I give reasons why Fichte calls both God and I “absolute” and “pure being” and explain their relation to each other referring to a thought experiment sometimes used by Kant—an analogy between the divine and human (pure) reason. The analogical thinking of this kind remains within the borders of transcendental philosophy as long as it is used only for certain didactic purposes. (shrink)

The book (I) deals systematically with a conception of reason that creates and deploys ‘ideas’ as pure representations of something that is not or only partially given in experience. This conception—developed in Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic, unfolded throughout his works and set as the highest point in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre—is the most important key to understanding transcendental philosophy and classical German philosophy. Moreover, the book (II) argues that the set of theories regarding reason ‘in the narrower sense’ (the faculty of ideas) constitutes (...) a research program that can be developed further and compete / cooperate with alternate projects (theories of rationality and reasonability) in contemporary contexts; it can also be successfully defended against Pyrrhonical objections and the post-idealistic critique of reason. (shrink)

The frequent use of the term ‘metaphilosophy’ and the corresponding research in the 1960s may lead to the conclusion that there has been a development of a new discipline, a formation of a new kind of philosophical discourse. Such questions as, “What is philosophy?”, “What kind of questions does philosophy ask?”, “Which methods does it adopt to answer them?” and “Is there progress in philosophy?” are put at the center of attention. They constitute a separate research field. Just as the (...) laws of logic, nature and natural sciences, epistemology, morals, freedom and law, philosophy is one of its own normal topics. Several sources of the need for metaphilosophy can be named, such as the re-orientation in philosophy due to its diversity and possible dissent within itself, justification of philosophy and its relevance against the backdrop of the progress in sciences, or the re-evaluation of a research tradition, such as analytic philosophy or phenomenology. The overall goal of metaphilosophy could be understood as the development of theoretical means for a better understanding of philosophy and for a better philosophical practice. (shrink)

This third 2021 issue of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" contains a main dossier of new research articles guest edited by Leif Weatherby (New York University) and devoted to the topic of early German romanticism and science. In addition to the papers of this main section issue number 3 of SYMPHILOSOPHIE includes translations of primary sources and book reviews. All contents are freely available online.

[The review is in German] Theunissen has developed an interesting account of metaphilosophy that–as a discipline–does not start in 1960s, but already and especially with Kant, Fichte and Hegel. The constant growth of philosophical theories around 1800 (what Koselleck called “Sattelzeit”) made metaphilosophical constructions necessary. He reads–and is not the first author who does so–Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as a metaphilosophical theory. Although I like and share many ideas with Theunissen, there are three objections that I raise in my review: (...) (i) His account of isosthenia as a basic problem behind all philosophical positions (which makes metaphilosophy necessary) undermines the importance of dissent, dogmatism and intra-philosophical struggles; (ii) Theunissen’s understanding of metaphilosophy is not neutral (just as any account of metaphilosophy): it is predetermined by Hegel’s thought and the author’s understanding of Phenomenology of Spirit; (iii) Therefore, it fits well to this particular work of Hegel, but not (a) to the overall system of Encyclopedia and (b) Kant’s metaphilosophical deliberations (which Theunissen misses). I end the review with the statement that we need to ask ourselves how metaphilosophy is possible as a unified discipline despite of different philosophical backgrounds of authors–we need a meta-metaphilosophy or a critique of metaphilosophical reason. (shrink)

This book is a collection and reworking of research done by Pascal Salin since around 1990. Salin is an economist in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics. He emphasizes the centrality of individual choice in an uncertain world in which individual actions interact to produce spontaneous orders. But he is no mere conduit of established ideas. He also offers his own highly original insights honed after a lifetime as an economist, one who has earned the respect in which (...) he is now held by his peers worldwide. The book makes delightful reading. Salin covers a lot of ground in this book, mostly within the topics indicated by the title, though in the final two chapters he goes beyond these and into the foundations of economic science. The book is divided into five parts: (1) firms, markets and competition, (2) globalization and international economic problems, (3) monetary integration, (4) money, finance and economic policies, and (5) foundations of economic theory. (shrink)

The ML community recognizes the importance of anticipating and mitigating the potential negative impacts of benchmark research. In this position paper, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to areas of ethical risk that lie at the technical and scientific core of ML benchmarks. We identify overlooked structural similarities between human IQ and ML benchmarks. Human intelligence and ML benchmarks share similarities in setting standards for describing, evaluating and comparing performance on tasks relevant to intelligence. This enables us (...) to unlock lessons from feminist philosophy of science scholarship that need to be considered by the ML benchmark community. Finally, we outline practical recommendations for benchmark research ethics and ethics review. (shrink)

It is a well-known fact that mathematics plays a crucial role in physics; in fact, it is virtually impossible to imagine contemporary physics without it. But it is questionable whether mathematical concepts could ever play such a role in psychology or philosophy. In this paper, we set out to examine a rather unobvious example of the application of topology, in the form of the theory of persons proposed by Kurt Lewin in his Principles of Topological Psychology. Our aim is (...) to show that this branch of mathematics can furnish a natural conceptual system for Gestalt psychology, in that it provides effective tools for describing global qualitative aspects of the latter’s object of investigation. We distinguish three possible ways in which mathematics can contribute to this: explanation, explication and metaphor. We hold that all three of these can be usefully characterized as throwing light on their subject matter, and argue that in each case this contrasts with the role of explanations in physics. Mathematics itself, we argue, provides something different from such explanations when applied in the field of psychology, and this is nevertheless still cognitively fruitful. (shrink)

The received view has it that Hans Reichenbach and his friends of the Berlin Group worked close together with the more prominent Vienna Circle. In the wake of this view, Reichenbach was often treated as a logical positivist – despite the fact that he decisively opposed it. In this chapter we follow another thread. We shall show the “third man”– besides Reichenbach and Walter Dubislav – of the Berlin Group, Kurt Grelling, as a man who could grasp the academic trends (...) of the time faster than anybody else, who was better informed about logic and philosophy of nature than his two prominent colleagues and thus, could better delineate, although tentatively, central threads of research of the Berlin Group. Grelling did this on several occasions, but most ostensibly in the last years of his life when he was focused on problems of formal ontology. On the basis of this analysis, we shall see that in the early 1920s, Reichenbach too was led by a project in ontology of science that he elaborated together with the psychologist Kurt Lewin. Moreover, Reichenbach’s later philosophy of nature was also shaped by this project. We present this direction of philosophy of science as a “road less travelled” which, however, if revived, can point to a new direction that will more closely connect philosophy and science. (shrink)

One reason for the renewed interest in Austrian philosophy, and especially in the work of Brentano and his followers, turns on the fact that analytic philosophers have become once again interested in the traditional problems of metaphysics. It was Brentano, Husserl, and the philosophers and psychologists whom they influenced, who drew attention to the thorny problem of intentionality, the problem of giving an account of the relation between acts and objects or, more generally, between the psychological environments of cognitive subjects (...) and the different sorts of external (physical, geographical, social) environments which they inhabit. The present essay addresses this environmental version of the problem of intentionality. It draws not only on the work of Husserl and Scheler but also on the Gestalt psychological writings of Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin. It considers the influential subjective idealist theory of animal environments put forward by J. von Uexküll and contrasts this with a realist theory of organism-environment interaction based on the work of the ecological psychologists J. J. Gibson and Roger Barker. This realist theory is then exploited as a basis for an ontology of social objects of a range of different sorts. (English translation is appended to the French text.). (shrink)

This volume brings together a range of influential essays by distinguished philosophers and political theorists on the issue of global justice. Global justice concerns the search for ethical norms that should govern interactions between people, states, corporations and other agents acting in the global arena, as well as the design of social institutions that link them together. The volume includes articles that engage with major theoretical questions such as the applicability of the ideals of social and economic equality to the (...) global sphere, the degree of justified partiality to compatriots, and the nature and extent of the responsibilities of the affluent to address global poverty and other hardships abroad. It also features articles that bring the theoretical insights of global justice thinkers to bear on matters of practical concern to contemporary societies, such policies associated with immigration, international trade, and climate change. -/- Contents: Introduction; Part I Standards of Global Justice: (i) Assistance-Based Responsibilities to the Global Poor: Famine, affluence and mortality, Peter Singer; We don't owe them a thing! A tough-minded but soft-hearted view of aid to the faraway needy, Jan Narveson; Does distance matter morally to the duty to rescue? Frances Myrna Kamm. (ii) Contribution-Based Responsibilities to the Global Poor: 'Assisting' the global poor, Thomas Pogge; Should we stop thinking about poverty in terms of helping the poor?, Alan Patten; Poverty and the moral significance of contribution, Gerhard Øverland. (iii)Cosmopolitans, Global Egalitarians, and its Critics: The one and the many faces of cosmopolitanism, Catherine Lu; Cosmopolitan justice and equalizing opportunities, Simon Caney; The problem of global justice, Thomas Nagel; Against global egalitarianism, David Miller; Egalitarian challenges to global egalitarianism: a critique, Christian Barry and Laura Valentini. Part II Pressing Global Socioeconomic Issues: (i) Governing the Flow of People: Immigration and freedom of association, Christopher Wellman; Democratic theory and border coercion: no right to unilaterally control your own borders, Arash Abizadeh; Justice in migration: a closed borders utopia?, Lea Ypi. (ii) Climate Change: Global environment and international inequality, Henry Shue; Valuing policies in response to climate change: some ethical issues, John Broome; Saved by disaster? Abrupt climate change, political inertia, and the possibility of an intergenerational arms race, Stephen M. Gardiner; Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change, Elinor Ostrom. (iii) International Trade: Responsibility and global labor justice, Iris Marion Young; Property rights and the resource curse, Leif Wenar; Fairness in trade I: obligations arising from trading and the pauper-labor argument, Mathias Risse; Name index. -/- See: www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calctitle=1&pageSubject=483&sort=pubdate&forthcoming=1&title_i d=9958&edition_id=13385. (shrink)

One reason for the renewed interest in Austrian philosophy, and especially in the work of Brentano and his followers, turns on the fact that analytic philosophers have become once again interested in the traditional problems of metaphysics. It was Brentano, Husserl, and the philosophers and psychologists whom they influenced, who drew attention to the thorny problem of intentionality, the problem of giving an account of the relation between acts and objects or, more generally, between the psychological environments of cognitive subjects (...) and the different sorts of external (physical, geographical, social) environments which they inhabit. The present essay addresses this environmental version of the problem of intentionality. It draws not only on the work of Husserl and Scheler but also on the Gestalt psychological writings of Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin. It considers the influential subjective idealist theory of animal environments put forward by J. von Uexküll and contrasts this with a realist theory of organism-environment interaction based on the work of the ecological psychologists J. J. Gibson and Roger Barker. This realist theory is then exploited as a basis for an ontology of social objects of a range of different sorts. (shrink)

The author asks whether there was a “scientific ‘68”, and focuses on aspects of two specific methodological proposals defined in the 1940s and 50s by the terms “action research” and “mixing methods”, applied particularly to social sciences. In the first, the climate surrounding the events of 1968 contributed to heightening the participative element to be found –by definition– in “action research”; that is: the importance of making the research subjects themselves participants in the design, execution and application of the study (...) of which they are the focus. This approach captured the democratic and anti-authoritarian spirit at the heart of the proposal, which was part of the prevailing climate in those days. The repercussions of 1968 on “mixing methods” focused on studying what had actually occurred, especially between the youth and workers, and therefore, particularly from the point of view of sociology and social psychology, using a “mixed methods” approach. The author explores the proposal of Norman Denzin; but traces the recent origins of both “mixing methods” and “action research” back to the proposals of mainly Kurt Lewin and the Chicago School. (shrink)

The most prominent theories of rights, the Will Theory and the Interest Theory, notoriously fail to accommodate all and only rights-attributions that make sense to ordinary speakers. The Kind-Desire Theory, Leif Wenar’s recent contribution to the field, appears to fare better in this respect than any of its predecessors. The theory states that we attribute a right to an individual if she has a kind-based desire that a certain enforceable duty be fulfilled. A kind-based desire is a reason to (...) want something which one has simply in virtue of being a member of a certain kind. Rowan Cruft objects that this theory creates a puzzle about the relation between rights and respect. In particular, if rights are not grounded in aspects of the particular individuals whose rights they are, how can we sustain the intuitive notion that to violate a right is to disrespect the right-holder? I present a contractualist account of respect which reconciles the Kind-Desire Theory with the intuition that rights-violations are disrespectful. On this account, respect for a person is a matter of acknowledging her legitimate authority to make demands on the will and conduct of others. And I argue that kind-based desires authorize a person to make demands even if they do not correspond to that person’s well-being or other non-relational features. (shrink)

The paper presents basic Gestalt psychological concepts of ego and self. They differ from other concepts in the way that they do not comprehend ego and self as fixed entities or as central controlling instances of the psyche, but as one specific organized unit in a psychological field in dynamic interrelation with the other organized units—the environment units—of this field. On this theme, well-known representatives of Gestalt theory have presented some general and special theories since the early days of this (...) approach that could partly be substantiated experimentally. They illuminate the relationship between ego and world in everyday life as well as in the case of mental disorders. Not only the spatial extension of the phenomenal ego is subject to situational changes, but also its place in the world, its functional fitting in this world, its internal differentiation, its permeability to the environment, and much more. The German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger emphasizes the significant functional role that this dynamic plasticity of the phenomenal world and its continuously changing segregation of ego and environment have for human life by designating the phenomenal world as a “Central Steering Mechanism.” In this article, ego and self as part of this field in their interrelation with the total psychological field will be illuminated from the perspective of the thinking of the Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, Mary Henle, Edwin Rausch, and Giuseppe Galli. (shrink)

Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Tzvetan Todorov; David Bellos The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared by Henry Rousso; Lucy B. Golsan Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison by Ian Kershaw; Moshe Lewin Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the use of a Notion by Slavoj Zizek.

One reason for the renewed interest in Austrian philosophy, and especially in the work of Brentano and his followers, turns on the fact that analytic philosophers have become once again interested in the traditional problems of metaphysics. It was Brentano, Husserl, and the philosophers and psychologists whom they influenced, who drew attention to the thorny problem of intentionality, the problem of giving an account of the relation between acts and objects or, more generally, between the psychological environments of cognitive subjects (...) and the different sorts of external (physical, geographical, social) environments which they inhabit. The present essay addresses this environmental version of the problem of intentionality. It draws not only on the work of Husserl and Scheler but also on the Gestalt psychological writings of Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin. It considers the influential subjective idealist theory of animal environments put forward by J. von Uexküll and contrasts this with a realist theory of organism-environment interaction based on the work of the ecological psychologists J. J. Gibson and Roger Barker. This realist theory is then exploited as a basis for an ontology of social objects of a range of different sorts. (This is the English original of the French translation.). (shrink)

Die Berliner Gruppe um Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Lewin, Walter Dubislav, Alexander Herzberg, Kurt Grelling und Carl Gustav Hempel, die die »Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Philosophie« in Berlin leitete, verstand sich als gleichberechtigter Partner der Wiener Kollegen und schlug durchaus einen eigenständigen Weg zu »einer an der exakten Wissenschaft geschulten Philosophie« (Reichenbach) ein. Im öffentlichen und geistigen Leben der deutschen Hauptstadt spielte sie eine bedeutende Rolle, bevor ihre Mitglieder durch den Nationalsozialismus ins Exil gezwungen wurden. Nach ihrer Emigration haben Reichenbach, Hempel (...) und andere für die Entwicklung der analytischen Philosophie und der modernen Wissenschaftstheorie im angelsächsischen Sprachraum eine bedeutende Rolle gespielt. Der Band fasst erstmals in einer repräsentativen Auswahl die Texte der Berliner Gruppe in einer Anthologie zusammen und zeigt die Bedeutung und die Einheitlichkeit der Gruppe als – neben dem Wiener Kreis – zweitem Entstehungsort exakter Philosophie. (shrink)

The paper introduces the concepts at the heart of point-set-topology and of mereotopology (topology founded in the non-atomistic theory of parts and wholes) in an informal and intuitive fashion. It will then seek to demonstrate how mereotopological ideas can be of particular utility in cognitive science applications. The prehistory of such applications (in the work of Husserl, the Gestaltists, of Kurt Lewin and of J. J. Gibson) will be sketched, together with an indication of the field of possibilities in (...) linguistics, perceptual psychology, cate¬gorization and geographic information systems. Topological structures will be shown to play a central role in studies of naive physics not least in virtue of the fact that even well-attested departures from true physics on the part of common sense leave the topology and vectorial orientation of the underlying physical phenomena invariant: our common sense would thus seem to have a veridical grasp of the topology and broad general orientation of physical phenomena, both static and dynamic, even where it illegitimately modifies the relevant shape and metric properties. The implications of this and related insights for the methodology of psychology will be explored. (shrink)

When an organization is born, a leader is required to steer it to success. It is the leader whose leadership can make or break the organization. What is leadership in actuality? It is the attitude and manner through which one provides direction to implement plans and achieve goals by way of a tremendous amount of motivation which he pours into the hearts and minds of his people. This was found by Kurt Lewin (1939) who led a group of researchers (...) to identify various manners and styles of leadership. "This early study has been very influential and established three major leadership styles.” (Lewin, LIippit, White,1939). (shrink)

The dissertation investigates whether virtue ethics can provide the normative ground for the justification of rights. Most justificatory accounts of rights consist in different explanations of the function of rights. On the view I will defend, rights have a plurality of functions and one of the main functions of rights is to make the right-holder more virtuous. The idea that the possession of rights leads to the development of virtues, called the function of virtue acquisition, is the core of a (...) virtue-based justification of rights elaborated in this dissertation. Based on Leif Wenar’s Kind-Desire Theory of rights and Nancy E. Snow’s Minimal Virtue of the Folk, I argue that there are two general types of rights, enabling rights and protective rights, and that both types are essential to the development of virtues. Enabling rights have the function of virtue acquisition because they allow the right-holder to strive for approximation of ideal role models while performing duties and other tasks. Such models are called heuristic models of virtues for they define what virtues are and how these virtues should be expressed in action. Some protective rights, namely promissory rights and the power-right to promise, behave like enabling rights when it comes to their ability to develop virtues. Other protective rights, especially children’s rights, make right-holders more virtuous via protecting their essential needs. The dissertation succeeds in elaborating the virtue-based justification of many rights, hence it suggests that people hold and should have rights because rights make them better people. (shrink)

part, whole, ideal quality, foundation, unity, space, topoontology, topophilosophy, formal ontology, topology, mathematical philosophy, topology, topology of the person, topology of mind, mathematics in philosophy, mereology, mereotopology, phenomenology, Benedict Bornstein, Edmund Husserl, Roman Ingarden, Kurt Lewin, René Thom.

In a 1995 interview, contemporary American composer John Zorn stated: ‘I got involved in music because of fi lm […] There’s a lot of fi lm elements in my music’ (Duckworth, 1995, p. 451). Scholars and critics have since widely noted these cinematic elements, with emphasis being placed on Zorn’s genre of so-called ‘fi le card compositions’. Whilst these studies have primarily concentrated on how the arrangement of sound blocks – the disjointed segments of Zorn’s compositions – can be compared (...) to cinematic montage, this article instead focusses on how sound blocks suggest the visual aspects of cinema. To delve deeper into the visuo-cinematic qualities of Zorn’s fi le card compositions, an idealised cinematic listener will be constructed, aided by various psychological, semiotic, philosophical and fi lm theories. I will suggest that a listener occupying a hypnogogic state projects moving images, akin to those of cinema, onto what Bernard Lewin fi rst called a ‘dream screen’. These projections occur due to intertextual associations made between fi le card compositions and the artistic fi gures to whom they are dedicated. These images combine with the sounds that brought them into being to form an audio-visual diegesis, which can be considered a type of half-imagined fi lm. The cinematic listener then actively draws out of this diegesis a narrative, via the semi-conscious process Boris Eikhenbaum called ‘inner speech’. I will conclude by giving some broader justifi cation for the methodology that brought this cinematic listener into being and suggest how the cinematic listener may be further utilised to provide musical analyses for fi le card works. (shrink)

All’interno dell’essere umano si situa, forse, una delle facoltà più peculiari, sulla quale sono stati costruiti interi sistemi morali e giuridici: la libertà. La relazione si propone di cogliere il libero arbitrio come spazio liminale dal quale emerge in modo singolare l’inscindibile rapporto tra le cosiddette scienze dure e la filosofia, che sin dai suoi albori si è occupata di questo argomento. Si analizzeranno in particolare le ricadute che hanno avuto sulla riflessione del libero agire umano le scoperte della fisica (...) classica prima e il notevole cambio di prospettiva fornito dalla meccanica quantistica dopo. Fine ultimo del contributo è quello di individuare un approccio sintetico alla questione del libero arbitrio. (shrink)

Recensione a: Adriano Pessina (a cura di), Vulnus. Persone nella pandemia, Mimesis (I nodi del tempo n. 1), Milano 2022, pp. 171.