Ich werde zunachst die zentralen Thesen der Tugendethik referieren (I), um sie dann mit Hilfe der Aristotelischen Begrifflichkeit (II) und in unmittelbarer Auseinandersetzung mit Texten von Tugendethikerinnen und Tugendethikern (III) in systematischer Absicht zu prufen. Schliesslich mochte ich versuchen, das Anliegen der Tugendethik zu verstehen (IV). (edited).

In this article Ricken indicates how James reacts to the physicalistic way of thinking in religious matters. James stresses the crucial difference between opting for a scientific hypothesis and opting for a religious belief. His claim is not merely that religious belief has the same rights as religious unbelief , but moreover that religious belief is more in accordance with the depths of human nature. The study of mysticism reveals the possibility of human self-surrender and the force of the (...) abstractions of religious doctrine. (shrink)

Gegenüber dem Begriff der moralischen Welt und dem Begriff des Reichs der Zwecke setzt der Begriff des ethischen gemeinen Wesens zwei neue Akzente. Die GMS hat die Freiheit betont; die RGV zeigt, dass es sich um eine gefährdete Freiheit handelt. Nach KrV und GMS sind die moralische Welt beziehungsweise das Reich der Zwecke nur eine Idee; die RGV betont die Pflicht, diese Idee zu verwirklichen. Kants Vision vom ethischen gemeinen Wesen zeigt die Aufgabe der historischen Religionen; Kritik verdient sein abwertendes (...) Urteil über sie. Welche Kriterien für eine positive Bewertung historischer Religionen lassen sich aus Kant gewinnen? (shrink)

Der Beitrag ist eine Besprechung von T. Irwin, The Development of Ethics, vol. 1: From Socrates to Reformation, Oxford 2007. Er gibt einen Überblick über die großen historischen Zusammenhänge, um dann auf den systematischen Schwerpunkt des Buches, den aristoteli-schen Naturalismus, näher einzugehen. Irwin spricht von Naturalismus, weil Aristoteles im Ergon-Argument seine These über das Gut des Menschen mit Aussagen über die Natur des Menschen begründet. Das ist jedoch kein Naturalismus im Sinne der gegenwärtigen Naturalismusdiskussion; die Tatsache, von der Aristoteles ausgeht, (...) ist die Vernunft, und sie ist eine normative Größe. In einer solchen naturalistischen Ethik müssen nicht nur die Mittel, sondern auch die Ziele der Vernunft entsprechen. Damit ist eine zentrale Frage des Buches angesprochen: Wie verhält sich Aristoteles‘ Begriff der boulêsis, des auf das Ziel gerichteten Strebens, zu Thomas‘ Begriff der voluntas? Nach Irwin sind beide ein wesentlich vernünftiges Streben. Das ist für Aristoteles aufgrund von NE I 13 zu bestreiten. Nach Thomas gehört der Wille zum Strebevermögen, das ein passives Vermögen ist; er ist rational, weil er durch den amor intellectualis bewegt wird.The paper is a review of T. Irwin, The Development of Ethics, vol.1: From Socrates to Re-formation, Oxford 2007. It gives an overview of the historical connections and discusses the central systematic issue of the book: Aristotelian Naturalism. Irwin uses the word ‘naturalism’ because Aristotle in his Function Argument uses the nature of the human being as an argument for his thesis about the human good. But this is not the concept of naturalism of the present discussion because the nature of the human being is reason and reason is a normative entity. In such a naturalistic ethics not only the means but also the ends must be rational. This leads to the question: What is the relation of the Aristotelian concept of boulesis to Aquinas’ concept of voluntas? According to Irwin, both are essentially rational desire. But this interpretation does not agree with EN I 13. According to Aquinas, voluntas belongs to appetitus which is a potentia passiva; it is rational because it is moved by amor intellectivus. (shrink)

Linguistics, Anthropology and Philosophy in the French Enlightenment treats the development of linguistic thought from Descartes to Degerando as both a part of and a determining factor in the emergence of modern consciousness. Through his careful analyses of works by the most influential thinkers of the time, author Ulrich Ricken demonstrates that the central significance of language in the philosophy of the enlightenment is how it reflected and acted upon contemporary understanding of humanity as a whole. Although primarily focused (...) on French thought between 1650 and 1800, the author discusses contemporary developments in England, Germany and Italy and covers an unusually broad range of writers and ideas, including Leibniz, Wolff, Herder and Humboldt. This study places the history of language philosophy within the broader context of the history of ideas, aesthetics and historical anthropology and will be of interest to scholars working in these disciplines. (shrink)

Michel Foucault entwickelt sich gegenwartig zweifellos zu einer der neuen Bezugsgrossen des padagogischen Diskurses: Nach einer langen Phase grosser Widerstande innerhalb der deutschsprachigen Erziehungswissenschaft werden jetzt die ...

To question power means also to ask what makes us governable and enables us to govern. This paper addresses this issue by rephrasing the question ‘what is power?’ into the question: ‘to what problem can power be seen as a response?’. This transformation allows us to keep the ‘power of power’ in sight. It then elucidates the ‘how’ of power through some conceptual explorations and theoretical clarifications as well as through an explicitly anthropological problematisation of power, as the way in (...) which power is understood depends always also on the way in which people understand themselves. Reassessing Foucault's rejection of anthropological reflections, the paper sketches a structural matrix of human self‐conceptions through which power and also critique can be reconstructed systematically. (shrink)

To question power means also to ask what makes us governable and enables us to govern. This paper addresses this issue by rephrasing the question ‘what is power?’ into the question: ‘to what problem can power be seen as a response?’. This transformation allows us to keep the ‘power of power’ in sight. It then elucidates the ‘how’ of power through some conceptual explorations and theoretical clarifications as well as through an explicitly anthropological problematisation of power, as the way in (...) which power is understood depends always also on the way in which people understand themselves. Reassessing Foucault's rejection of anthropological reflections, the paper sketches a structural matrix of human self‐conceptions through which power and also critique can be reconstructed systematically. (shrink)

The current discussion on the role of the universities often starts off with a perspective on the university as a scientific and/or pedagogical institution and consequently runs into a conflict between both logics in which each element is somehow devalued from the other perspective. Therefore, it may be productive to analyse the university from a standpoint in between, a perspective of knowledge as such. In order to conceptualise such a third perspective of knowledge, the history of the European university is (...) reconstructed and interpreted as a process of reflection on the ‘spiral of knowledge’. Before this background the idea of the university is renewed in terms of knowledge and summarised in the idea of a ‘deliberate university’. (shrink)