Die Beiträge des Bandes untersuchen die Genese der Rechtsphilosophie Kants und zeigen auf, dass deren grundlegende Thesen lange vor der „Metaphysik der Sitten“ existierten. Das erfordert die Analyse der kantischen Vorlesungen zum Naturrecht in den handschriftlichen Quellen, die die Interpretation der veröffentlichten Werke entscheidend ergänzen können: Kant hielt in Königsberg von 1767 bis 1788 Vorlesungen zum Naturrecht, von denen nur eine einzige handschriftliche Abschrift aus dem Sommersemester 1784 erhalten ist – „Naturrecht Feyerabend“. Mit der philosophischen Analyse der Vorlesungsnachschrift, die bislang (...) von Forschern unter rechts-, moral- und kulturphilosophischen Aspekten nur in Ansätzen untersucht wurde, soll durch die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Recht und Moral eine grundlegende theoretische Vorarbeit für einen internationalen Dialog über die normativen Grundlagen des modernen Rechtsstaates geleistet werden. Nach der Wiederentdeckung der normativen Ethik Kants sowie seines politischen Denkens in der internationalen Kantforschung und den „Humanities“ vervollständigt die Neubewertung der Rechtslehre die Renaissance der praktischen Philosophie Kants – sicherlich eines der wichtigsten Phänomene der moralischen und der Rechts-Kultur unserer Zeit. (shrink)

In recent decades, Kant's philosophy of law has increasingly moved into the focus of moral-philosophical discussions. In this context, the "Naturrecht Feyerabend" is of particular importance. On the one hand, it is the only surviving transcription of the lectures on natural law that Kant gave twelve times between 1767 and 1788; on the other hand, it is based on his lectures in the summer semester of 1784 and thus provides important evidence of Kant's reflections during an important phase in the (...) development of his moral philosophy. Despite this special significance, the text has received little attention in previous research. Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner and Gianluca Sadun Bordoni present here a volume that emphasizes this special significance. The ten contributions in the volume ask about the relationship of "Naturrecht Feyerabend" to the tradition of natural law as well as its relationship to critical moral philosophy and the late "Doctrine of Right". Contributors are: Manfred Baum, Franz Hespe, Philipp-Alexander Hirsch, Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner, Markus Kohl, Gabriel Rivero, Gianluca Sadun Bordoni, Michael Städtler, and Gideon Stiening. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 3 Seiten: 482-486.

Este artículo presenta por primera vez en castellano la “Introducción” de las lecciones kantianas conocidas como Naturrecht Feyerabend, a partir de la nueva edición del manuscrito preparada por Heinrich P. Delfosse, Norbert Hinske y Gianluca Sadun Bordoni. La traducción está antecedida por un estudio crítico en el que sostenemos la tesis de que la obra en cuestión constituye una fuente jurídico-política crucial para entender la formación del pensamiento práctico de Kant. Intentamos mostrar que si bien el texto (...) puede ser leído como complemento de la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres, la preocupación central de la “Introducción” de Naturrecht Feyerabend gira en torno a tres ejes conceptuales que recaen, por entero, dentro del reino de la filosofía jurídica y política. En primer lugar, encontramos en el curso una preocupación por definir el concepto de la obligación jurídica desde la idea de coacción, distinguiéndolo así del de la obligación ética y asociándolo a la definición de derecho subjetivo como potestad o título para ejercer coacción de manera legítima. En segundo lugar, es central la tesis propiamente kantiana de que el derecho debe fundarse en la libertad externa y en la posibilidad de su compatibilidad universal, y no en la felicidad entendida como fin natural que todos los individuos deberían perseguir y como propósito del Estado. En tercer lugar, aparecen in nuce los fundamentos conceptuales por los cuales Kant delimita la obligación jurídica desde la realidad práctica del derecho político, esto es, de un Estado, y no desde una supuesta confluencia pre-jurídica de intereses privados. (shrink)

This is the Editorial of the Research Topic (Special Issue) in Frontiers in Psychology and Frontiers in Neurorobotics: Intrinsic motivations and open-ended development in animals, humans, and robots.

Uno dei principali problemi nello studio della mente e della sua "collocazione" consiste nell'identificazione del corretto Livello di Astrazione a cui le varie descrizioni fenomeniche e le corrispondenti ipotesi esplicative possono essere sviluppate e confrontate. L'articolo contribuisce all'attuale dibattito metodologico in filosofia della mente analizzando due nozioni fondative, quella di modello e quella di simulazione, sulla base del concetto di Livello di Astrazione. L'ambito è quello del Metodo delle Astrazioni, proposto in Floridi e Sanders [2003]. Il Metodo delle Astrazioni si (...) basa su una particolare branca dell'informatica teorica, quella dei Metodi Formali (Roever e Engelhardt [1998]; Woodcock e Davies [1996]), dove la matematica discreta è utilizzata per descrivere analiticamente le specifiche del comportamento di sistemi che elaborano informazioni. I sistemi sono descritti in termini di osservabili e regole di transizione, cioè come sistemi di transizione. Le descrizioni comportano l'utilizzo di variabili che rappresentano osservabili nella realtà, astraendo da altri eventuali osservabili. L'idea di fondo del Metodo delle Astrazioni è che tale processo di filtraggio sia ineliminabile in qualsiasi accesso alla realtà. Il tentativo di sondare un sistema in maggiore profondità produce una maggiore astrazione delle teorie e degli oggetti teorici che descrivono tale sistema. Il Metodo delle Astrazioni si presenta quindi come uno strumento per organizzare e chiarificare le varie teorie che intendono fornire una spiegazione della realtà o della conoscenza. La principale tesi dell'articolo è che "modello" e "simulazione" non possano essere pensati come nozioni a sé stanti, ma che la loro natura possa essere chiarita nei termini di tipi di relazioni tra sistemi di transizione. Nello specifico, si argomenta che la relazione di simulazione è una relazione tra gli osservabili di sistemi di transizione, mentre il modello è una relazione tra le regole di transizione di questi sistemi. Dati questi due nuovi tipi di relazioni, è possibile arricchire con ulteriori strutture di analisi il Metodo delle Astrazioni, estendendo la sua applicabilità. Queste strutture sono discusse nell'articolo come "Reti di Astrazione". (shrink)

Compared to other philosophies of special sciences, the scope, object, and definition of the philosophy of political science remain vague. This article traces this vagueness to the changing subject matter of political science throughout its history, but argues that all social sciences are subject to radical changes in what count as their defining characteristics. Accordingly, the only legitimate definition of “philosophy of political science” is “the philosophical study of whatever happens to conventionally fall within the scope of political science at (...) a given moment.” Moving from this assumption, this article makes the case for a unified philosophy of social science. (shrink)

In this paper, we report on an experiment with The Walking Dead (TWD), which is a narrative-driven adventure game with morally charged decisions set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies. This study aimed to identify physiological markers of moral decisions and non-moral decisions using infrared thermal imaging (ITI). ITI is a non-invasive tool used to capture thermal variations due to blood flow in specific body regions that might be caused by sympathetic activity. Results show that moral decisions seem to (...) elicit a significant decrease in temperature in the chin region 20 seconds after participants are presented with a moral decision. However, given the small sample involved, and the lack of significance in other regions, future studies might be needed to confirm the results obtained in this work. (shrink)

Staging, writing, editing – war. In the sequence of these three acts, the path of this essay unfolds. From the play La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu we get the idea that war is a spectral presence hovering everywhere. As difficult as it is to see, it appears inescapable. Its ambivalence questions the human gaze itself in its in-ability to see war coming, even when the signs are more than evident. The analysis of the regimes of visibility that, yesterday (...) as today, superintend the event of a conflict constitutes the point of arrival of this interrogation. (shrink)

Classical first-order logic \ is commonly used to study logical connections between statements, that is sentences that in every context have an associated truth-value. Inquisitive first-order logic \ is a conservative extension of \ which captures not only connections between statements, but also between questions. In this paper we prove the disjunction and existence properties for \ relative to inquisitive disjunction Open image in new window and inquisitive existential quantifier \. Moreover we extend these results to several families of theories, (...) among which the one in the language of \. To this end, we initiate a model-theoretic approach to the study of \. In particular, we develop a toolkit of basic constructions in order to transform and combine models of \. (shrink)

Classical first-order logic \ is commonly used to study logical connections between statements, that is sentences that in every context have an associated truth-value. Inquisitive first-order logic \ is a conservative extension of \ which captures not only connections between statements, but also between questions. In this paper we prove the disjunction and existence properties for \ relative to inquisitive disjunction Open image in new window and inquisitive existential quantifier \. Moreover we extend these results to several families of theories, (...) among which the one in the language of \. To this end, we initiate a model-theoretic approach to the study of \. In particular, we develop a toolkit of basic constructions in order to transform and combine models of \. (shrink)

This study aimed to evaluate if eye blinks can be used to discriminate players with different performance in a session of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Tetris. To that end, we developed a state-of-the-art method for blink extraction from EAR measures, which is robust enough to be used with data collected by a low-grade webcam such as the ones widely available on laptop computers. Our results show a significant decrease in blink rate per minute (blinks/m) during the first minute of playing (...) Tetris. After having defined 3 groups of proficiency based on in-game performance (Novices, Intermediates, and Experts) we found out that expert players display a significantly lower decrease in blinks/m compared to novices during the first minute of gameplay, which shows that Tetris players' proficiency can be detected by looking at eye blinks/m variations during the early phase of a game session. This difference in blinks/m is observed throughout the entire game session, which supports the general conclusion that proficient Tetris players have a lower decrease in blinks/m, even when playing more difficult levels. Finally, we offer some interpretations of this effect and the relationship that our results may have with the visual cognitive workload experienced during the gameplay. (shrink)

Inquisitive first order logic is an extension of first order classical logic, introducing questions and studying the logical relations between questions and quantifiers. It is not known whether is recursively axiomatizable, even though an axiomatization has been found for fragments of the logic. In this paper we define the \—classical antecedent—fragment, together with an axiomatization and a proof of its strong completeness. This result extends the ones presented in the literature and introduces a new approach to study the axiomatization problem (...) for fragments of the logic. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman is a shrewd observer of modernity and the mind behind the brilliant concept of liquid society. He has developed an original theoretical construct to innovate the orientation of the social sciences and restore an active role to society. The metaphor of liquidity is one of the most effective because it is the essence of the world we live in: its rapidity, permeability and mutability. Not a kind of liberating chaos, where everything can be done and undone in the (...) absence of rules, but a dangerous “interregnum” for humanity. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the issue of context-dependence of mechanism-based explanation in the social sciences. The different ways in which the context-dependence and context-independence of mechanism-based explanation have been understood in the social sciences are often motivated by different and apparently incompatible understandings of what explanatory mechanisms are. Instead, we suggest that the different varieties of context-dependence are best seen as corresponding to different research goals. Rather than conflicting with one another, these goals are complementary to each other and (...) therefore pave the way to a methodologically more cooperative approach to mechanism-based explanation in the social sciences. (shrink)

Hierocles of Alexandria was a Neoplatonic philosopher of the fifth century AD. Hermann S. Schibli surveys his life, writings, and pagan and Christian surroundings, and succintly examines the major points of his philosophy, both contemplative and practical. He includes the first modern English translations, with helpful notes, of Hierocles' Commentary on the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans and of the remnants of his treatise On Providence.

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) is often considered one of the staunchest defenders of toleration, especially in the domain of religion. His Commentaire philosophique, published in 1686, one year after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, argued for a broad idea of toleration, to be extended with no exceptions to all sects and religions. However, his thought can hardly be reduced to an exaltation of the “rights of the conscience,” for he realized very soon that such an exaltation risks bringing forth (...) religious fanatism, which in turn is the cause of religious wars and acts of violence. Toleration, in these conditions, is only a political remedy for the sickness of the human mind. (shrink)

In the sixth century BC, Pherekydes of Syros, the reputed teacher of Pythagoras and contemporary of Thales and Anaximander, wrote a book about the birth of the gods and the origin of the cosmos. Considered one of the first prose works of Greek literature, Pherekydes' book survives only in fragments. On the basis of these as well as the ancient testimonies, the author attempts to reconstruct the theo-cosmological schema of Pherekydes. An introductory chapter on the life of Pherekydes is followed (...) by four chapters on the contents of his book. From Pherekydes' mythopoeic creation account, his colourful narratives of a divine marriage and a battle of the gods, and finally from his remarks on the soul, Professor Schibli is careful to unfold the philosophical implications. Pherekydes emerges as a figure who moved in that fascinating frontier between myth and philosophy. The theogonies of Hesiod and the Orphics, the cosmological speculations of certain Presocratics, and the Pythagorean tenets on the soul are all profitably compared with the remnants of Pherekydes' book. Pherekydes is thus shown to be an important witness to early Greek thought in its various manifestations. This is the first book-length study in English dedicated to Pherekydes. It includes a comprehensive appendix of the fragments and ancient testimonies, along with limited critical apparatus and English translations. (shrink)