Research on the division of cognitive labor has found that adults and children as young as age 5 are able to find appropriate experts for different causal systems. However, little work has explored how children and adults decide when to seek out expert knowledge in the first place. We propose that children and adults rely on “mechanism metadata,” information about mechanism information. We argue that mechanism metadata is relatively consistent across individuals exposed to similar amounts of mechanism information, and it (...) is applicable to a wide range of causal systems. In three experiments, we show that adults and children as young as 5 years of age have a consistent sense of the causal complexity of different causal systems, and that this sense of complexity is related to decisions about when to seek expert knowledge, but over development there is a shift in focus from procedural information to internal mechanism information. (shrink)

Back cover: Meister Eckhart betont in seinen Predigten und Traktaten die Gelassenheit als einen radikal freien Lebensvollzug in geistiger Tätigkeit. Anna Keiling vollzieht diese Konzeption anhand des Leitparadigmas der Musse nach. So können Darstellungen der Abgeschiedenheit, Gelassenheit, ledecheit und ruowe in mystischer Literatur in ihrem spezifischen Zusammenhang gesehen werden.

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

Well–being, health and freedom are some of the many phenomena of interest to science whose definitions rely on a normative standard. Empirical generalizations about them thus present a special case of value-ladenness. I propose the notion of a ‘mixed claim’ to denote such generalizations. Against the prevailing wisdom, I argue that we should not seek to eliminate them from science. Rather, we need to develop principles for their legitimate use. Philosophers of science have already reconciled values with objectivity in several (...) ways, but none of the existing proposals are suitable for mixed claims. Using the example of the science of well-being, I articulate a conception of objectivity for this science and for mixed claims in general. _1_ Introduction _2_ What Are Mixed Claims? _3_ Mixed Claims Are Different _3.1_ Values as reasons to pursue science _3.2_ Values as agenda-setters _3.3_ Values as ethical constraints on research protocols _3.4_ Values as arbiters between underdetermined theories _3.5_ Values as determinants of standards of confirmation _3.6_ Values as sources of wishful thinking and fraud _4_ Mixed Claims Should Stay _4.1_ Against Nagel _5_ The Dangers of Mixed Claims _6_ The Existing Accounts of Objectivity _6.1_ The perils of impartiality _7_ Objectivity for Mixed Claims _8_ Three Rules _8.1_ Unearth the value presuppositions in methods and measures _8.2_ Check if value presuppositions are invariant to disagreements _8.3_ Consult the relevant parties _9_ Conclusion. (shrink)

The argument against need[Need: the belonging of the essence of mortals to, a belonging which is appropriated in the event.]Metaphysically, and t...

Heideggers Philosophie nach Sein und Zeit ist von dem Gedanken geprägt, dass Sein geschichtlich verstanden werden muss. Zugleich vertritt Heidegger aber etwa in Bauen Wohnen Denken und Das Ding die These, dass es einzelne Dinge sind, an denen die Welt erscheint. Wie diese beiden Überlegungen zusammengehen können, lässt sich nur in einer systematischen Interpretation erschließen. Heideggers Denken wird so als "phänomenologischer Realismus" verständlich. Tobias Keiling zeigt, wie sich dieser phänomenologische Realismus aus Heideggers Interpretationen von Kant und Hegel ergibt und (...) sich auf die Phänomenologie Husserls zurückbezieht. Einleitend wird die Bedeutung von Heideggers Denken in aktuellen Debatten um einen metaphysischen Realismus verortet. Im Gedanken, dass Dinge kulturelle Formationen erschließen, wird Heidegger auch zum Vordenker einer Diskussion um Dinglichkeit und Materialität in den Kulturwissenschaften. (shrink)

The 1994 US spectrum auction is now a paradigmatic case of the successful use of microeconomic theory for policy-making. We use a detailed analysis of it to review standard accounts in philosophy of science of how idealized models are connected to messy reality. We show that in order to understand what made the design of the spectrum auction successful, a new such account is required, and we present it here. Of especial interest is the light this sheds on the issue (...) of progress in economics. In particular, it enables us to get clear on exactly what has been progressing, and on exactly what theory has – and has not – contributed to that. This in turn has important implications for just what it is about economic theory that we should value. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate composition models of incarnation, according to which Christ is a compound of qualitatively and numerically different constituents. We focus on three-part models, according to which Christ is composed of a divine mind, a human mind, and a human body. We consider four possible relational structures that the three components could form. We argue that a ‘hierarchy of natures’ model, in which the human mind and body are united to each other in the normal way, and (...) in which they are jointly related to the divine mind by the relation of co-action, is the most metaphysically plausible model. Finally, we consider the problem of how Christ can be a single person even when his components may be considered persons. We argue that an Aristotelian metaphysics, according to which identity is a matter of function, offers a plausible solution: Christ's components may acquire a radically new identity through being parts of the whole, which enables them to be reidentified as parts, not persons. (shrink)

Heidegger’s later philosophy is marked by two conflicting claims about phenomenology. On the one hand, phenomenology and philosophy generally is tasked with “responding to the claim of what is to be thought” in a novel and unprecedented manner. On the other hand, Heidegger recognizes that there have been earlier attempts at thus doing justice to phenomena; in the ontological commitments of earlier thinkers, Heidegger finds accounts of the “things themselves,” each of which has different implications for what phenomenology should concern (...) itself with. Phenomenology, as Heidegger conceives it, should thus both incorporate the history of philosophy and exceed it, yet it is unclear how these ideas can be reconciled. This chapter calls this problem the “dilemma of the historicity of phenomenology” and identifies different versions of it in Heidegger’s works after 1935/6. (shrink)

Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years the rise of interest and research in phenomenology and embodiment, the emotions and cognitive science has seen the concept of agency move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency is an outstanding reference source to this topic and the first volume of its kind. It comprises twenty-seven chapters written by leading international contributors. Organised into two (...) parts, the following key topics are covered: * major figures * the metaphysics of agency * rationality * voluntary and involuntary action * moral experience * deliberation and choice * phenomenology of agency and the cognitive sciences * phenomenology of freedom * embodied agency Essential reading for students and researchers in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of cognitive science The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency will also be of interest to those in closely related subjects such as sociology and psychology. (shrink)

In the recently published manuscript “The Argument against Need” (ca. 1963), Heidegger discusses the notion of being-in-itself (Ansichsein) with regard to entities that predate the existence of knowers. Section 1 introduces the problem of so-called “ancestral facts,” which Meillassoux and Boghossian have used to argue for a specific form of realism. Sections 2 identifies a specific understanding of time as the basis for their argument. Sections 3–4 show how Heidegger rejects this account of time. Section 5 describes the general form (...) of ontologies that deny entity independence (dependence ontology). Section 6 turns to Heidegger’s account of a resistance to ontological sense-making in what he calls “beingless” (seinlos) entities. Discussing work by Haugeland and Wrathall, I conclude in section 7 that Heidegger’s response to the “argument against need” is to reject the idea of unidirectional dependence in favor of a triadic interdependence between being, entities, and us. (shrink)

Many political theorists today deny that citizenship can be defended on liberal grounds alone. Cosmopolitans claim that loyalty to a particular state is incompatible with universal liberal principles, which hold that we have equal duties of justice to persons everywhere, while nationalist theorists justify civic obligations only by reaching beyond liberal principles and invoking the importance of national culture. In Liberal Loyalty, Anna Stilz challenges both views by defending a distinctively liberal understanding of citizenship. Drawing on Kant, Rousseau, and (...) Habermas, Stilz argues that we owe civic obligations to the state if it is sufficiently just, and that constitutionally enshrined principles of justice in themselves--rather than territory, common language, or shared culture--are grounds for obedience to our particular state and for democratic solidarity with our fellow citizens. She demonstrates that specifying what freedom and equality mean among a particular people requires their democratic participation together as a group. Justice, therefore, depends on the authority of the democratic state because there is no way equal freedom can be defined or guaranteed without it. Yet, as Stilz shows, this does not mean that each of us should entertain some vague loyalty to democracy in general. Citizens are politically obligated to their own state and to each other, because within their particular democracy they define and ultimately guarantee their own civil rights. Liberal Loyalty is a persuasive defense of citizenship on purely liberal grounds. (shrink)

The article sketches two accounts of failure. On a broadly Aristotelian view, failure is conceived as the privation of success; on a view I call existential failure, failure and the capacity to begin anew are seen as explanatorily more basic than success. I distinguish three types of existential failure with regard to (i) individual existence, (ii) a cultural system, (iii) humanity as a whole. While the senses in which agents fail are different on each case, an underlying feature of failing (...) in its different instances is its indirect affirmation of human freedom. To be free is to be capable of failure. I conclude by contrasting these two accounts with the scenario of human extinction. Is it a failure if our species ceases to exist? Drawing on Hans Jonas, I argue that here the contrast between excess and failure returns in a different form. (shrink)

This article is a mutual introduction of the science of well-being to philosophy of science and an explanation of how the two disciplines can benefit each other. In the process, I argue that the science of well-being is not helpfully viewed as a social or a natural, but rather as a mixed, science. Hence, its methodology will have to attend to its specific features. I discuss two of its methodological problems: justifying the role of values, and validating measures. I suggest (...) that tackling them calls for developing mid-level rather than high theories of well-being. (shrink)

Heidegger’s understanding of technology advances a conceptual critique of what he calls “the enframing” (Gestell), the epistemological and ontological presuppositions underlying technology. Reconstructing the central argument of Country Path Conversation (1945), the chapter focuses the positive contrast to “the enframing” Heidegger finds in the idea of Gelassenheit (“releasement”): releasement defines a form of life marked by an intellectual independence from technology achieved through a specific form of thinking. Drawing from Haugeland, section 1 establishes “enabling” as genuine sense of the German (...) verb lassen (to let); in contrast to the form of thinking determinative of technology, which Heidegger describes as imposing, the “released” and genuine form of human thinking is an enabling thinking. In sections 2 and 3, I reconstruct the reductio ad absurdum Heidegger uses to distance this form of thinking from forms of transcendental philosophy embracing (mediational) representationalism. In section 4, I highlight the (ontic) correlate of such thinking, namely the individual things (Dinge) manifest outside the horizon of understanding presupposed by technology. Not based on or anticipating any positive ontology, I argue that “enabling” thinking is ontologically non-committal. Section 5 contrasts this understanding of Gelassenheit with views advanced by Dreyfus, Rojcewicz, Belu, and Feenberg. (shrink)

This book defends an account of justice to nonhuman beings – i.e., to animals, plants etc. – also known as ecological or interspecies justice, and which lies in the intersection of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, against the background of the current extinction crisis this book defends a global non-ranking biocentric theory of distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings, because the extinction crisis does not only need practical solutions, but also an account of how it is (...) the outcome of large-scale injustice. This book not only provides a novel theoretical framework that supports such a claim, but it also develops the theoretical tools to find just compromises between the entitlements of intraspecies and intra-human global distributive justice to ecological space for the purpose of working towards a vision of just conservation. -/- Content: 1. Introducing Ecological Justice 2. Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism 3. The Community of Justice 4. The Currency of Distributive Justice 5. The Principles of Distributive Justice 6. Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach 7. Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? 8. Who Owns the Earth? 9. Visions of Just Conservation 10. Outlook for Implementation . (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 406 - 428 Interpretations of the so-called _Black Notebooks_ have emphasized the interaction between Heidegger’s philosophy, particularly his notion of a “history of being”, on the one hand, and his affiliation with National Socialism and his anti-Semitic views on the other. The paper proposes to understand this interaction as in part determined by the inherent logic of Heidegger’s ontological reasoning: Heidegger takes power, violence and brutality as the key for understanding his present day (...) and turns to these phenomena as confirmation of the ontology he envisages at the time. But the notes published so far, ranging from 1931 to 1948, document Heidegger’s incapacity to assign to the events of these years a plausible position in his ontology. This failure deepens a trauma both personal and philosophical. Rather than reject the notion of a history of being altogether, I propose an alternative understanding of its logic motivated by Heidegger’s failure to bring his ontological project to the anticipated completion. (shrink)

Kant's radical criticism of the passions has a central but largely overlooked moral-psychological component: for Kant, the passions promote a kind of self-deception he calls ‘rationalizing’. In analysing the connection between passion and rationalizing self-deception, I identify and reconstruct two essential traits of Kant's conception of the passions. I argue (1) that rationalizing self-deception, according to Kant, contributes massively to the emergence and consolidation of passions. It aims to resolve a psychological conflict between passion and moral duty when in fact, (...) it does not resolve but perpetuates this conflict. I then argue (2) that rationalizing does not necessarily aim to devalue moral duty, as Kant seems to suggest in the Groundwork. It can also aim to revalue the ‘counterweight’. By analysing Kant's presentation of several individual passions in the Anthropology, I demonstrate that rationalizing here is concerned with elevating these passions and making them pass as morally (or at least prudentially) justified. (shrink)

Heidegger’s discussion of the concept and the phenomenology of ‘world’ is defined by its dual meaning, referring to both the unity of a single, encompassing whole and a number of different meaning contexts, i.e., ‘worlds’ in the plural. Heidegger’s emphasis on the verbal meaning of world (‘worlding’) and the discussion of problems such as the ‘world entry’ of an entity articulate the tension and dynamic between these two meanings. This contribution develops Heidegger’s account by (i) elucidating Heidegger’s early and late (...) discussion of ‘worlding’; (ii) connecting ‘worlding’ to the discussion of ontological pluralism in recent work by Kris McDaniel; and (iii) delineating a specific notion of a metaphysically neutral ‘phenomenological realism’ compatible with Heidegger’s version of ontological pluralism. (shrink)

Abstract: Spatial metaphors have peculiar prominence in accounts of rationality, such as in the phrase “space of reason” made prominent by Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell. This article attempts to understand the potential of such comparisons of reason to space, taking Wittgenstein’s metaphor of “logical space” as exemplary. As Hans Blumenberg observes in his reading of Wittgenstein and in contrast to its stated aim, the account of “logical space” in the Tractatus does not achieve a final delimitation of reason. Wittgenstein’s (...) discussion of different forms of rationality rather leads him to consider a plurality of spaces. Asking how these different spaces or fields of meaning can be congruent at all, Wittgenstein is led to consider the indeterminacy of space itself in contrast to the different localizations it allows. (shrink)

Building on the author's earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (from Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the “shackles” (Barrett, 2006) of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. The (...) use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus “opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychological experience” (Goddard, 2007). (shrink)

We can understand implicit bias as a person’s disposition to evaluate members of a social group in a less favorable light than members of another social group, without intending to do so. If we understand it this way, we should not presuppose a one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how implicit cognitive states lead to skewed evaluations of other people. The focus of this paper is on implicit bias in considered decisions. It is argued that we have good reasons to (...) assume that imagination plays a vital role in decision making. If this assumption is correct, it offers an explanation for implicit bias in many considered decisions: Human beings who have been frequently exposed to stereotypes have stereotype-congruent expectations as part of their background knowledge. They feed into their imagination, sometimes without their awareness. This model would allow us to explain the key characteristics of implicit bias without recurring to any unconscious attitudes over and above such background knowledge. (shrink)

Anna Alexandrova on value judgements and the measurement of well-being.

Editorial Board: Karl P. Ameriks, Margaret Atherton, Frederick Beiser, Fabien Capeillères, Faustino Fabbianelli, Daniel Garber, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Steven Nadler, Alan Nelson, Christof Rapp, Ursula Renz, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Denis Thouard, Paul Ziche, Günter Zöller The series publishes monographs and essay collections devoted to the history of philosophy as well as studies in the theory of writing the history of philosophy. A special emphasis is placed on the contextualization of philosophical historiography into the areas of the history of science, culture, and (...) the wider scope of intellectual history. (shrink)

The article provides an introduction to Heidegger's manuscript “The Argument against Need”. It comments on the nature of the manuscript, the circumstances of its composition, and its major philosop...

Die hier versammelten Aufsätze fragen nach dem Sinn des Gegenständlichen, dem Erscheinen der Kunst und der Realität des Raums. Ausgehend von Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik hat Günter Figal dieses Fragen neu angestoßen, als er die Gegenständlichkeit der Welt ins Zentrum seiner Philosophie gestellt hat. Kollegen, Weggefährten und Freunde widmen ihm die vorliegenden Beiträge.

Philosophie ist auch auf Bilder angewiesen, die jedoch nicht selten ihre eigene Logik entfalten - auch gegeneinander. Das gilt nicht weniger, wenn es Bilder sind, die sich im Medium Sprache - und damit im Medium der Philosophie - zeigen. Heideggers philosophische Meisterschaft hat bekanntlich viel damit zu tun, dass er die originären Möglichkeiten der Sprache und Übersetzung wie wenig andere Denker zu nutzen weiß. Dieser Beitrag untersucht das Wort "Erklüftung" als Beispiel eines scheiternden Versuchs, ein philosophisches Bild zu entwerfen.

This paper discusses the notion of a thing in Heidegger. Its aim is to explain the systematic place of that notion in Heidegger’s thought in relation to his ontological discourse: as what is explained through different understandings of being, things allow for a simultaneous differentiation and discussion of the different epochs in the so-called history of being. Thus a henomenology of things and thingness serves as frame of reference for all explications of ‘what there is.’ If Heidegger is a realist, (...) it is not because he attributes reality to all that is, but rather because all explanations of being refer back to how things are discovered as meaningful. (shrink)

»Mit Heideggers Eintreffen in Marburg begann … für das philosophische Denken eine neue Epoche.« – So erinnert sich Hans-Georg Gadamer an Heideggers Marburger Zeit, und nicht nur Heideggers eigenes Schaffen, auch die anhaltende Wirkung von Sein und Zeit und den anderen in Marburg verfassten Schriften und Vorlesungen, geben diesem Diktum recht. Seit diese Texte in der Gesamtausgabe vorliegen, wird immer deutlicher, wie sich Heidegger in Marburg philosophisch entwickelt hat, welche Ideen, Lektüren und Begegnungen diese Zeit prägten und welche Wege Heideggers (...) Denken in Marburg nahm. Als Ergebnis der »Übergangsarbeit« der Marburger Zeit hat Heidegger mit Sein und Zeit einen Text geschaffen, der zur Mitte seines Denkens werden sollte, und dies auch und gerade deshalb, weil dieses Werk Heideggers unvollendet geblieben ist. In einer Anmerkung zur letzten Seite heißt es in diesem Sinne, das Buch stelle einen Weg des Denkens da, aber »nicht ›den‹ einzigen«. Dass Sein und Zeit das in der Einleitung gesteckte Ziel nicht erreicht und Fragment geblieben ist, ist nur ein Anzeichen für die Komplexität, die wesentliche Schwierigkeit und innere Spannung der Themen, Argumente und Konstellationen, mit denen Heidegger sich in Marburg beschäftigt hat. ... (shrink)

Heid eg ger führt die Wahrheitsthematik am Ende des ersten Abschnitts von Der Ursprung des Kunstwerks ein. In der Beschreibung des Gemäldes von Van Gogh findet sich zum ersten Mal jene axiomatische Definition, die mehrmals wiederkehrt: Die Kunst ist das „Sich-ins-Werk-Setzen der Wahrheit“ (GA 5, 21; vgl. 25, 44 , 59, 62, 63, 65, besonders 70). Heid eg ger geht, wenn er die ästhetische Wirkung des Gemäldes beschreibt, zur Neubestimmung von Kunst und Wahrheit über. Das Gemälde ist keine bloße Abbildung (...) von Schuhen, sondern „Van Goghs Gemälde ist die Eröffnung dessen, was das Zeug, das Paar Bauernschuhe, in Wahrheit ist. Dieses Seiende tritt in die Unverborgenheit seines Seins heraus.“ (GA 5, 21) Was es heißt, dass „Seiendes“ wie das Paar Schuhe in eine „Unverborgenheit“ kommt, die die „Unverborgenheit“ dieses Seienden in seinem Sein ist, wird erst am Ende des Textes ganz deutlich. Dann wird sich auch klären, wie genau Wahrheit hier als Unverborgenheit im Unterschied zum gängigen Wahrheitsbegriff der Übereinstimmung verstanden werden soll: Einer Auffassung von Wahrheit als Übereinstimmung, Adäquation oder Korrespondenz zufolge wäre ein Kunstwerk wie Van Goghs Gemälde etwas, das (wie ein Aussagesatz) wahr oder falsch sein könnte, weil es mit dem übereinstimmt, was der Fall ist. Das Bild würde, wenn es ‚wahr‘ im Sine der Übereinstimmung wäre, die Wirklichkeit so abbilden, wie ein wahrer Satz einen Sachverhalt richtig wiedergibt.... (shrink)

Das Argument gegen den Brauch[Brauch: die im Ereignis ereignete Zugehörigkeit des Wesens der Sterblichen in das.]Metaphysisch und das heißt zugleich...

One of the most prominent notions in Heidegger’s thinking about art is that of the earth. This paper probes the phenomenological potential of Heidegger’s concept by turning to the work of contemporary British artist Andy Goldsworthy. Drawing from Heidegger’s theoretical writings as well as his analysis of a poem by C.F. Meyer in “The Origin of the Work of Art” and his 1936–37 seminar on Schiller, I show that Goldsworthy’s sculptural art exemplifies different phenomenal traits of the “earth.” To supplement (...) Heidegger’s discussion, both Husserl’s claim that the earth defines the “spatiality of nature” and the role of the earth in Hegel’s philosophy of nature are taken into account. (shrink)

Der Raum ist eines der ersten Themen nicht zuletzt der Phänomenologie, nicht zuletzt der Art und Weise, wie Heidegger diese gegenüber Husserl entwickelt. Am Leitfaden eines Begriffs und Phänomens, dem des "Ortes", und seiner Fassung bei Husserl und Heidegger lässt sich zeigen, wie sich eine Phänomenologie des Ortes entwickeln lässt und warum Orte für die Phänomenologie von herausgehobener Bedeutung sind. Es sollte aus sich heraus klar werden, dass dieses Phänomen Möglichkeiten bietet, die Grundlinien gemeinsamer Anliegen der Phänomenologie ebenso abzuheben wie (...) Phänomenologien in ihrer Differenz. (shrink)

Dem phänomenologischen Philosophieren liegt ein spezifisches Verständnis von Freiheit zugrunde, an dem sich eine negative und eine positive Seite unterscheiden lassen. Negativ ist die phänomenologische Freiheit die Freiheit von philosophischen Vorurteilen, positiv eine Freiheit zum philosophischen Neuanfang. Sie benennt die Fähigkeit, sich in einer Erfahrungssituation auf das für diese Situation Wesentliche einzulassen, dieses philosophisch zu erfassen und entsprechend zu handeln. Aufgrund dieser Kontinuität im Phänomen der Freiheit selbst lässt sich die phänomenologische Freiheit weder allein als negative, noch allein als positive (...) Freiheit verstehen, noch lässt sie sich Theorie oder Praxis zuordnen. Ihr Gebrauch ist zwar ein Tun, das mit der Kritik gegenüber bestehenden Theoriebildungen anhebt. Aber dieses Tun verfolgt kein vorgegebenes Ziel, sondern besteht darin, eine theoretische Tätigkeit zu beginnen, die durch den Anspruch der Phänomenologie auf deskriptives Wissen lediglich umrissen ist. Phänomenologische Freiheit ist demnach Freiheit auch und gerade gegenüber den epistemischen und praktischen Voraussetzungen des eigenen Handelns und so erst jene radikale Zuwendung zu den Sachen, wie sich in der Phänomenologie realisieren soll. Mit dieser Bestimmung soll nicht geleugnet werden, dass Freiheit primär ein Gegenstand der praktischen Philosophie ist. Aber in einer phänomenologischen Bestimmung von Freiheit muss auch dies sich aus dem Phänomen selbst ergeben. ... (shrink)

Theoretische Philosophie aus phänomenologischer Perspektive Das Verhältnis von Phänomenologie und Metaphysik ist ambivalent. Einerseits richtet sich phänomenologische Deskription gegen leere Spekulation. Andererseits betonen Husserl und seine Nachfolger die Möglichkeit einer kritischen Erneuerung der Metaphysik. Die zwanzig Beiträge dieses Kompendiums untersuchen das Problem einer phänomenologischen Metaphysik von Husserl bis in die Gegenwart und bieten so Antworten auf die Frage, was phänomenologische Metaphysik sein kann und sein sollte.

The article discusses the place of leisure in Hans Blumenberg’s philoso- phical anthropology, focusing on “Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit” (2007). According to Blumenberg, the tradition of philosophical anthropology unjustly reduces human rationality to the attempt of self-preservation. Not only is the actual process of anthropogenesis better described as led by a logic of prevention, not of preservation. Sedentary life, product of preventive behavior, not only secures survival but grants leisure as the condition of culture. Yet cultural practices, although an eminent product (...) of human rationality, cannot be explained by the logic of either self- preservation or prevention. Blumenberg thus argues that within philosophical anthropology, rationality can best be explained in is orientation towards happiness, an orientation encompassing not only preventive, conceptual forms of reason, but also contemplative, non-conceptual uses, such as in myth and mysticism. As the condition for articulating a self-understanding more adequate than self-preservation or prevention, leisure thus assumes a central place in determining human nature. It is in leisure that rationality is experienced as a source of happiness. (shrink)

Der Beitrag untersucht Gerhard Richters Gemälde "Betty" (1988, WV 663-5) als bildliche Darstellung der elementaren Verletzlichkeit menschlichen Lebens. Als Theorie solcher Verletzlichkeit wird die politische Philosophie Judith Butlers herangezogen, methodisch orientiert sich die Untersuchung an Überlegungen der Bildhermeneutik Gottfried Boehms. So entwickelt der Beitrag den Gedanken einer präreflektiver normativer Verpflichtung, der in Richters Gemälde anschaulich wird. Zum Vergleich wird die Interpretation eines Gemäldes von Werner Scholz herangezogen (Antigone), die Hans-Georg Gadamer entwickelt hat.

Der Raum ist nicht alles, die Welt schon. Dieser Gedanke legt das Nachdenken über den Raum darauf fest, etwas in der Welt oder an der Welt zu sein: offenbar kein Gegenstand unter anderen, aber doch auch nur etwas, das an Gegenstän- den nicht so vorkommt, dass es deren Zugehörigkeit zum Ganzen der Welt de- nierte. Räumlich zu sein ist, folgt man dieser Überlegung, lediglich ein Aspekt der Zugehörigkeit zur Welt unter anderen. Es gibt andere kategorial-phänomen- ale Charakteristika, die nicht weniger (...) ausmachen, was es heißt, zur Welt zu ge- hören. Über den Raum nachzudenken, heißt dann, die Welt und das Wirkliche nur in einer Hinsicht zum Thema zu machen. (shrink)

Different arguments in favor of the moral relevance of the concept of biodiversity (e.g., in terms of its intrinsic or instrumental value) face a range of serious difficulties, despite that biodiversity constitutes a central tenet of many environmentalist practices and beliefs. That discrepancy is considerable for the debate on potential moral reasons for protecting biodiversity. This paper adds a new angle by focusing on the potential of the concept of natural otherness—specifically individual and process otherness in nature—for providing additional moral (...) reasons in favor of the protection of biodiversity as variety. Four arguments are presented. Two arguments draw on the individual natural otherness of nonhuman living beings and two additional arguments draw on the process otherness of active nature. The upshot is that each of these arguments—if successful—provides a moral reason in favor of the protection of biodiversity. (shrink)