We use large collections of online product reviews, in Chinese, English, German, and Japanese, to study the use conditions of expressives (swears, antihonorifics, intensives). The distributional evidence provides quantitative support for a pragmatic theory of these items that is based in speaker and hearer expectations.

The collection focuses on meaning change as a topic of interdisciplinary research.

Since the spectrum of possibilities in linguistic theory construction is much broader and more variegated than students of linguistics have perhaps been led to believe, the Current Issues in Linguistic Theory series has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. CILT is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards (...) the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning, and development. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory is especially designed, by offering an alternative outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, to furnish the community of linguists the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. (shrink)

Wunsch und Versuch, die Philosophie Meister Eckharts und Johann Gottlieb Fichtes zu vergleichen, gehören zu den problematischen Anstrengungen des vergangenen 20. Jahrhunderts. Einerseits ist nämlich unumstritten: Es gibt keinen Hinweis dafür, daß Fichte Schriften oder Zitate oder auch den Namen Meister Eckharts gekannt hätte. Was immer Fichte auch gedacht und geschrieben haben mag, es ist nicht auf eine Kenntnis oder Lektüre Eckharts zurückzuführen: Eine historische Arbeit findet hier keinen Anknüpfungspunkt oder nur einen ganz allgemeinen: die weitere Geschichte des Neuplatonismus. Andererseits (...) ist das Thema systematisch verstellt: Geschärft durch den Klang einer Blut-und-Boden-Ideologie, die alles, was deutsch war oder zu sein vorgab, in das Konstrukt eines,!deutschen Wesens’ zwanghaft zu vereinen suchte, wird sich jede Hinwendung zu diesem Thema daran messen lassen müssen, ob und inwieweit es ihr gelingt, ihre Methode philosophisch und philosophiehistorisch zu rechtfertigen. Erinnert sei an die Schriften von Hermann Schwarz, Alfred Rosenberg und Heinz Finke, die als Vergleichsgrundlage an,!rassegebunde Volksseelen‘ oder etwa an ein spezielles,!germanisches Lebensgefühl‘ appellierten. (shrink)

Wunsch und Versuch, die Philosophie Meister Eckharts und Johann Gottlieb Fichtes zu vergleichen, gehören zu den problematischen Anstrengungen des vergangenen 20. Jahrhunderts. Einerseits ist nämlich unumstritten: Es gibt keinen Hinweis dafür, daß Fichte Schriften oder Zitate oder auch den Namen Meister Eckharts gekannt hätte. Was immer Fichte auch gedacht und geschrieben haben mag, es ist nicht auf eine Kenntnis oder Lektüre Eckharts zurückzuführen: Eine historische Arbeit findet hier keinen Anknüpfungspunkt oder nur einen ganz allgemeinen: die weitere Geschichte des Neuplatonismus. Andererseits (...) ist das Thema systematisch verstellt: Geschärft durch den Klang einer Blut-und-Boden-Ideologie, die alles, was deutsch war oder zu sein vorgab, in das Konstrukt eines,!deutschen Wesens’ zwanghaft zu vereinen suchte, wird sich jede Hinwendung zu diesem Thema daran messen lassen müssen, ob und inwieweit es ihr gelingt, ihre Methode philosophisch und philosophiehistorisch zu rechtfertigen. Erinnert sei an die Schriften von Hermann Schwarz, Alfred Rosenberg und Heinz Finke, die als Vergleichsgrundlage an,!rassegebunde Volksseelen‘ oder etwa an ein spezielles,!germanisches Lebensgefühl‘ appellierten. (shrink)

There is a relationship between time and technology which has been obvious since the classical philosophies of time. Even telling the time necessitates technologies relating to measuring and counting. Technological developments have changed the temporal state of our reality. Key terms such as deceleration, synchronisation, prevention and de-temporalisation point to relevant problem areas in this respect. This yearbook, whose thematic focus is 2021, endeavours to reveal new technological and philosophical perspectives on the temporal conditions in which we think, communicate, work (...) and live. With contributions by Cornelius Borck, Stefan Böschen, Christopher Coenen, Olivier Del Fabbro, Andreas Folkers, Yvonne Förster, Alexander Friedrich, Steve Fuller, Gabriele Gramelsberger, Thilo Hagendorff, Thomas Hilgers, Dirk Hommrich, Erich Hörl, Sebastian Lederle, Janne Mende, Jürgen Meutgens, Carl Mitcham, Oliver Müller, Alfred Nordmann, Tom Poljanšek, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ludger Schwarte, Astrid Schwarz, René von Schomberg, René Umlauf, Sarine Waltenspül, Bastian Weiß, Langdon Winner and Yongmou Liu. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should replace the common classification of theories of welfare into the categories of hedonism, desire theories, and objective list theories. The tripartite classification is objectionable because it is unduly narrow and it is confusing: it excludes theories of welfare that are worthy of discussion, and it obscures important distinctions. In its place, the paper proposes two independent classifications corresponding to a distinction emphasised by Roger Crisp: a four-category classification of enumerative theories (about which items constitute (...) welfare), and a four-category classification of explanatory theories (about why these items constitute welfare). (shrink)

Group-based reasons are reasons to play one’s part in some pattern of action that the members of some group could perform, because of the good features of the pattern. This paper discusses three broad conceptions of such reasons. According to the agency-first conception, there are no group-based reasons in cases where the relevant group is not or would not be itself an agent. According to the behaviour-first conception, what matters is that the other members of the group would play their (...) parts in the relevant pattern, not whether they would have the cooperative intentional states constitutive of group agency in doing so. This paper argues against these conceptions and in favour of the powers-first conception, according to which what matters is that the members of the group have practically relevant powers. (shrink)

Are we witnessing progress or regress in the recent increasing popularity and electoral success of populist politicians and parties in consolidated democratic nations? ... Is the innovative use of popular referendum in Great Britain to settle fundamental constitutional questions a progressive or regressive innovation? ... Similarly, is the increasing use of constituent assemblies to change constitutions across the world evidence of progress in democratic constitutionalism, or, a worryingly regressive change back toward unmediated popular majoritarianism? ... This paper reflects on some (...) of the perils and promise of framing such questions with the conceptual couplet of progress and regress. It considers four compelling critiques of the use of ‘progress’ and its cognates in sociopolitical theory, as well as arguing that such concepts are nevertheless ineliminable for our normative theories. The paper concludes by suggesting that we can avoid the most serious problems by employing only conceptions of political progress and regress that are piecemeal, pragmatic, and processual. (shrink)

This article proposes a way of understanding Kantianism, act-utilitarianism and some other important ethical theories according to which they are all versions of the same kind of theory, sharing a common structure. I argue that this is a profitable way to understand the theories discussed. It is charitable to the theories concerned; it emphasizes the common ground between them; it gives us insights into the differences between them; and it provides a method for generating new ethical theories worth studying. The (...) article briefly discusses the relationship between these ideas and some other recent proposals that emphasize the common ground between Kantianism and versions of consequentialism. (shrink)

This chapter surveys hybrid theories of well-being. It also discusses some criticisms, and suggests some new directions that philosophical discussion of hybrid theories might take.

Difficult Atheism shows how contemporary French philosophy is rethinking the legacy of the death of God in ways that take the debate beyond the narrow confines of atheism into the much broader domain of post-theological thinking. Christopher Watkin argues that Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy and Quentin Meillassoux each elaborate a distinctive approach to the post-theological, but that each approach still struggles to do justice to the death of God.

Theorists of public reason such as John Rawls often idealize constitutional courts as exemplars of public reason. This paper raises questions about the seduction and limits of analogies between theorists’ account of public reason and actual constitutional jurisprudence. Examining the work product of the United States Supreme Court, the paper argues that while it does engage in reason-giving to support its decisions—as the public reason strategy suggests— those reasons are (largely) legalistic and specifically juristic reasons—not the theorists’ idealized moral-political reasons (...) on matters of fundamental principle. But if constitutional courts do not engage on matters of fundamental principle, then a public reason strategy for assuaging democratic worries about judicial review would no longer be open: prominent liberal and deliberative democratic theorists could no longer point to the alleged superiority of constitutional courts to speak in the name of, and for, the people’s shared political principles. The paper extends beyond the U.S. case study by pointing to three institutional factors explaining the disanalogy between what some constitutional courts do and what public reason theories require them to do. It concludes with considerations about whether the public reason strategy might be more successfully applied to international courts. (shrink)

One recently popular strategy for avoiding the moral error theory is via a ‘companions in guilt’ argument. I focus on those recently popular arguments that take epistemic facts as a companion in guilt for moral facts. I claim that there is an internal tension between the two main premises of these arguments. It is a consequence of this that either the soundness or the dialectical force of the companions in guilt argument is undermined. I defend this claim via (i) analogy (...) with philosophical debates concerning the indispensability of mathematical objects to natural science, and (ii) discussion of the ‘entanglement’ of epistemic concepts and moral concepts in deliberation. I conclude by proposing a positive view of what kind of argument must be used if moral error theories are to be successfully undermined. (shrink)

Authentizitat ist ein in unserem kulturellen Raum allgegenwartiges Phanomen. Doch wem oder was begegnen wir, wenn wir meinen, uns selbst verwirklichen oder alternativ einfach uns selbst treu sein zu mussen? Christoph Wiesinger zeigt, dass wir auf ein Selbst geworfen werden, das zwar als homogener Nukleus der Person projiziert werden kann, sich aber bei genauerem Hinsehen als komplexe sozial verinnerlichte Struktur entpuppt. Das Selbst ist keineswegs objektiv zu fassen, sondern unterliegt sozialen Genesen und wird durch soziale Adressierung unterschiedlich formiert. Das (...) Ereignis von Authentizitat gibt somit Anlass zur Reflexion der Differenz zwischen Erwartung und Erfahrung. Christoph Wiesinger legt die Strukturen des Phanomens der Authentizitat frei, zeigt die theologischen Implikationen auf und diskutiert die praktisch-theologischen Konsequenzen. (shrink)

This paper connects two ideas. The first is that some common responses to ethical views are responses to their degrees of pragmatism, where a view’s degree of pragmatism is its sensitivity to ethically relevant changes in the actor’s circumstances. I claim that we feel the pull of opposing pro-pragmatic and antipragmatic intuitions in certain cases. This suggests a project, of searching for an ethical view capable of doing justice to these opposing intuitions in some way. The second central idea is (...) that a theory of pattern-based reasons looks more promising than the obvious alternatives to fulfil this role, amongst Teleological theories at least. Pattern-based reasons are reasons to perform some action because of the goodness or rightness of a larger pattern of action—such as a pattern that a group could perform or that the actor could perform over an extended period—of which the immediate action is a mere part. Existing theories of such reasons share two features that prevent them explaining the intuitions we wish to explain: they consider only one pattern at a time (they are monist), and they treat patterns as eligible only if the agents concerned are willing to realise them (they accept the Willingness Requirement). But we need not accept these doctrines. Moreover, a theory of patternbased reasons without them is able to explain the pro- and anti-pragmatic intuitions in an elegant way, and has other attractive features. (shrink)

Die Kernthese der Paracelsischen Naturphilosophie, die Ahnlichkeit von Mensch und Welt, festgelegt in der Analogie von Mikro- und Makrokosmos, enthullt einen -Code-, der als konstitutives Moment samtliche Aussagen auf einer prakonzeptionellen Ebene organisiert, samtliche Teilbereiche in ihrer funktionalen Bedeutung fur das -Ganze- markiert und schliesslich im Sinne Foucaults zu einer -diskursiven Formation- werden lasst. Die auf diese Weise vorgefuhrte Erfahrungsform von Welt und Natur steht zu dem neuzeitlich-technischen Verfugungswissen in einer historischen Diskontinuitat.".

In the Gorgias, Plato explores the relationship between statesmanship and rhetoric. Socrates argues that the true statesman uses the true rhetoric in the attempt to make others better through speeches. In the conversation with Gorgias, Socrates forces him to see the potentially disastrous consequences of teaching a kind of rhetoric that is morally neutral, which suggests the need for an uncompromisingly true or just rhetoric. In the exchange with Polus, Socrates attempts the just reformation of rhetoric into true rhetoric to (...) counter the unjust rhetoric of Polus. In his discussion with Callicles, Socrates uses the true rhetoric to try to moderate him, but his failure reveals the limits of true statesmanship. By examining these three exchanges, I shed light on a unique and neglected paradox of the Gorgias. As clearly as the dialogue articulates what constitutes a true statesman, it challenges his own practice. Socrates, as the true statesman possessing the true rhetoric, is powerless to achieve his goals. However, a potential way to expand the success of the true statesman can be seen by going back to the discourse between Socrates and Gorgias and forging an alliance between them. (shrink)

Basing his view on the object relations theories of the "British School" of psychoanalysis, Christopher Bollas examines the human subject's memories of its earliest experiences (during infancy and childhood) of the object, whether it be mother, father, or self. He explains in well-written and non-technical language how the object can affect the child, or "cast in shadow," without the child being able to process this relation through mental representations of language.

Here, for the first time, Christopher Kul-Want brings together twenty-five texts on art written by twenty philosophers. Covering the Enlightenment to postmodernism, these essays draw on Continental philosophy and aesthetics, the Marxist intellectual tradition, and psychoanalytic theory, and each is accompanied by an overview and interpretation. The volume features Martin Heidegger on Van Gogh's shoes and the meaning of the Greek temple; Georges Bataille on Salvador Dal’'s The Lugubrious Game; Theodor W. Adorno on capitalism and collage; Walter Benjamin and Roland (...) Barthes on the uncanny nature of photography; Sigmund Freud on Leonardo Da Vinci and his interpreters; Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva on the paintings of Holbein; Freud's postmodern critic, Gilles Deleuze on the visceral paintings of Francis Bacon; and Giorgio Agamben on the twin traditions of the Duchampian ready-made and Pop Art. Kul-Want elucidates these texts with essays on aesthetics, from Hegel and Nietzsche to Badiou and Rancire, demonstrating how philosophy adopted a new orientation toward aesthetic experience and subjectivity in the wake of Kant's powerful legacy. (shrink)

In this article Cristoph Wulf examines the basic concepts of pedagogy and educational science in the German-speaking world, looking at education and socialization from the perspective of educational anthropology. He makes evident that the complex German concept of Bildung, in particular, can only be fully understood by means of a historical and philosophical analysis.

The idea of the ‘executive technician’ or the teacher who follows theoretically prescribed rules is outlined. Through a discussion of the ideas of Oakeshott the idea of a rule‐following rigid practitioner of prescribed protocols is developed. The advantages of this conception of teaching as well as its disadvantages are outlined. Some practical applications of the executive technician conception of the teacher in both developed and developing countries are presented.

This chapter will outline a third conception of the role of the teacher, the professional technician or professional for short. The professional teacher is one who most corresponds to the description of professional occupations described in the literature already discussed. The professional described in this chapter will be an ideal type, whose attributes will be found to a greater or lesser degree in actual teachers around the world. Should this be a preferred model of what a teacher should be? The (...) answer depends on what kind of education system a society wants and the degree to which it is prepared to invest in such a kind of education system. (shrink)

It was not so long ago that the dominant picture of Kant’s practical philosophy was formalistic, focusing almost exclusively on his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason. However, the overall picture of Kant’s wide-ranging philosophy has since been broadened and deepened. We now have a much more complete understanding of the range of Kant’s practical interests and of his contributions to areas as diverse as anthropology, pedagogy, and legal theory. What remains somewhat obscure, however, is (...) how these different contributions hang together in the way that Kant suggests that they must. This book explores these different conceptions of humanity, morality, and legality in Kant as main ‘manifestations’ or ‘dimensions’ of practical normativity. These interrelated terms play a crucial role in highlighting different rational obligations, their source, and their applicability in the face of changing circumstances. (shrink)

Intelligence on mass media audiences was founded on representative statistical samples, analysed by statisticians at the market departments of media corporations. The techniques for aggregating user data in the age of pervasive and ubiquitous personal media build on large aggregates of information analysed by algorithms that transform data into commodities. While the former technologies were built on socio-economic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, media preferences, Big Data technologies register consumer choice, geographical position, web movement, and behavioural information in (...) technologically complex ways that for most lay people are too abstract to appreciate the full consequences of. The data mined for pattern recognition privileges relational rather than demographic qualities. We argue that the agency of interpretation at the bottom of market decisions within media companies nevertheless introduces a ‘heuristics of the algorithm’, where the data inevitably becomes translated into social categories. In the paper we argue that although the promise of algorithmically generated data is often implemented in automated systems where human agency gets increasingly distanced from the data collected, one can observe a felt need among media users and among industry actors to ‘translate back’ the algorithmically produced relational statistics into ‘traditional’ social parameters. The tenacious social structures within the advertising industries work against the techno-economically driven tendencies within the Big Data economy. (shrink)