The shape of theological humanism -- Ideas and challenges -- The humanist imagination -- Thinking of God -- The logic of Christian humanism -- On the integrity of life -- The task of theological humanism -- Our endangered garden -- A school of conscience -- Masks of mind -- Religion and spiritual integrity -- Living theological humanism.

: The paper discusses the concepts of obligation and moral evidence in Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s prize essays. I argue that Mendelssohn departs in significant ways from Christian Wolff’s position, and that Kant intends to overcome Wolffian philosophy with Newtonian methodology while still owing a lot to Wolff and to the project of an ethics within the limits of metaphysics. Although quite akin to Francis Hutcheson’s philosophy, it becomes clear that Kant intended to lay the foundation of an innovative concept (...) of obligation, which shares some similarities with Christian August Crusius’s interpretation of it. (shrink)

NA PRIMEIRA PARTE DO PRESENTE ARTIGO, COMEÇO POR UM ESBOÇO SOBRE A RELAÇÃO ENTRE LIBERDADE, MORAL E MUNDO EM KANT. NA SEGUNDA PARTE DISCUTO OS EXEMPLOS DE CHRISTIAN WOLFF E CHRISTIAN AUGUST CRUSIUS COMO DUAS VERSÕES MODERNAS DO INDIFFERENTISMUS MORAL. NA TERCEIRA PARTE, PROPONHO A IDÉIA DE QUE A CONCEPÇÃO DE DEVER MORAL, EXPLICITADA POR KANT NOS ANOS 1780 E 90, PRESSUPÕE A LIBERDADE HUMANA DE PODER ESCOLHER ENTRE UMA AÇÃO POR DEVER, UMA AÇÃO CONFORME AO DEVER E (...) UMA CONTRÁRIA AO DEVER. NA QUARTA E ÚLTIMA PARTE, POR FIM, TENTAREI MOSTRAR QUE A CRÍTICA DE KANT À CONCEPÇÃO DA LIBERTAS INDIFFERENTIAE NA METAFÍSICA DOS COSTUMES NÃO ESTÁ EM CONTRADIÇÃO COM SUA IDÉIA DE QUE, DO PONTO DE VISTA MORAL, O HOMEM PODE E TEM DE SE DETERMINAR LIVREMENTE À AÇÃO. CERTAMENTE ESSA INTERPRETAÇÃO CONDUZ A ALGO COMO UMA DISCRETA ANTINOMIA DA RAZÃO PURA PRÁTICA, EMBORA ESTA NÃO SEJA UMA DENOMINAÇÃO DO PRÓPRIO KANT. (shrink)

This essay is a response to the proposals of David Klemm and William Klink concerning the construction and testing of theological models. A number of issues are raised for critical attention. The exclusive attention to Christian theology, with no discussion of other religions, poses some significant problems, not the least of which is that cognitive claims of religious thinking are not universal but rather are defined by the particularities of the religious context in which they are made. Although (...) the authors wish to transcend confessionalism, their focus on Christianity and on the concept of God as a basic assumption can be construed as a kind of confessionalism. The argument that theological and scientific models stand in analogy to each other requires more critical examination, particularly with respect to the issues of explanation, prediction, falsification, nesting, and openness. While the argument is persuasive when referred to certain theologians, such as Paul Tillich, it requires some adjustment if it is to apply to other theological systems, such as Process theology. (shrink)

This two volume work is a comprehensive reader in modern philosophical and theological hermeneutics. David E. Klemm has selected essays representing acknowledged classics in hermeneutics and the best modern hermeneutical thinkers. Volume One collects essays on the hermeneutics of texts. Volume Two collects works on the hermeneutics of existence. Each essay is preceded by an informative contextualizing introduction. Included in Volume One are works by: F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Rudolf Bultmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Tillich, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gerhard Ebeling, Paul (...) Ricoeur, Norman Perrin, and Robert P. Scharlemann. (shrink)

This two-volume work is a comprehensive reader in modern philosophical and theological hermeneutics. David E. Klemm has selected essays representing acknowledged classics in hermeneutics and the best modern hermeneutical thinkers. Volume One collects essays on the hermeneutics of texts. Volume Two collects works on the hermeneutics of existence. Each essay is preceded by an informative contextualizing introduction. Volume Two includes essays by: F. Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, R. Bultmann, P. Tillich, P. Ricoeur, J. Habermas, H-G. Gadamer, (...) and R. Scharlemann. (shrink)

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims – namely, ‘first-person realism’, ‘non-solipsism’, ‘non-fragmentation’, and ‘one world’ – but that any three of the four claims are mutually consistent. So, theories of consciousness face a ‘quadrilemma’. Since it will be hard to achieve a consensus on which of the four claims to retain and which to give up, we arrive at a landscape of competing theories, all of which have pros (...) and cons. I will briefly indicate which kinds of theories correspond to the four horns of the quadrilemma. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British PhilosophersHeiner F. KlemmeJohn W. Yolton, John Valdimir Price, John Stephens, general editors. The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers. Vols. 1, 2. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1999. Pp. xxiii + 1,013. Cloth, $550.00.Good dictionaries are like good maps of a city: they indicate the main and minor quarters, give you an impression of its internal developments, and they indicate to where its highways eventually lead. (...) In philosophy, comprehensive subject dictionaries have a long history, and they do seem to experience a revival these days. To be sure, the lives and works of the leading figures of the history of ideas are generally well explored and documented. We even know which French dishes Hume liked to cook or which types of wine Kant preferred. But the lives and works of lesser known philosophers and men of letters still seem to be more or less neglected. The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers fills this gap for the period and the subject it covers. It comprises entries on almost six hundred persons as well as a number of entries on anonymous works. The work of close to a hundred scholars from several countries, it is unique in its attempt to bring together in two extensive volumes all minor and major British philosophers of the period between John Locke and Dugald Stewart. Since "British" is to be understood in a broad sense meaning authors who lived under British rule, it also includes Americans writing before 1776, Irish philosophers (like George Berkeley) and the French thinker Pierre Desmaizeaux, who lived and worked for a long period in Britain. Nor is the Dictionary restricted to philosophers in today's sense of the word, comprising entries on people who made in one way or the other a contribution to the history of ideas, even if their contributions are of marginal importance. Besides historians, poets, translators, mathematicians and physicists, dissenting ministers and physicians are well represented.In almost all cases, the selection makes sense. The boundaries between philosophy and, say, natural sciences were not as nicely drawn in the eighteenth century as they are today. But there are a few entries where one might wonder whether the subject's work had any specific philosophical importance or influence at all, as for example: Charles Burnet, author of a history of music; John Ellicott, who wrote on Electricity, and Thomas Innes, who published in 1729 a book on "Ancient Inhabitants on the Northern Parts of Britain or Scotland." One might also wonder if Gaelic scholar Beg Eolach Moidhach would appreciate being remembered today as a British philosopher.The length of the entries varies from several lines to up to seven pages. Generally, each entry gives the details of the life and work of the person covered, provides a bibliography of his or her main works, references to "other relevant works," and a section of "further reading." While the larger entries are naturally devoted to the better known figures, most of the authors dealt with in the minor sections cannot complain either. In many cases, information about the life and work of these minor authors is scarce and the entries are useful for this reason alone. But unfortunately, there are also cases in which essential references to "classical" biographical accounts are not listed in the bibliography, like Williams Smellie´s account of James Gregory or George Skene Keith´s biography of John Campbell.The entries on Lord Kames and George Turnbull lay, as far as their length is [End Page 282] concerned, somewhere in the middle between the shorter and longer contributions. They nevertheless are highly informative, densely argued, and are good reading. Knud Haakonssen sees in Kames "perhaps the most complete 'Enlightenment man' among the eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers´" because he covers like no other author "the whole spectrum of human knowledge and its applicability to his society" (503). The most philosophical work of Kames is his Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751). According to Haakonssen, it is important because in it Kames "turns the previous moral-sense criticism of moral scepticism into a refutation of general epistemological scepticism" (504). By arguing that our... (shrink)

A vision of a living code of ethics is proposed to counter the emphasis on negative phenomena in the study of organizational ethics. The living code results from the harmonious interaction of authentic leadership, five key organizational processes (attraction–selection–attrition, socialization, reward systems, decision-making and organizational learning), and an ethical organizational culture (characterized by heightened levels of ethical awareness and a positive climate regarding ethics). The living code is the cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestation of an ethical organizational identity. We draw (...) on business ethics literature, positive organizational scholarship, and management literature to outline the elements of positive ethical organizations as those exemplary organizations consistently practicing the highest levels of organizational ethics. In a positive ethical organization, the right thing to do is the only thing to do. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of (...) modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

One of the hallmark themes of Karl Popper’s approach to the social sciences was the insistence that when social scientists are members of the society they study, then they are liable to affect that society. In particular, they are liable to affect it in such a way that the claims they make lose their validity. “The interaction between the scientist’s pronouncements and social life almost invariably creates situations in which we have not only to consider the truth of such pronouncements, (...) but also their actual influence on future developments. The social scientist may be striving to find the truth; but, at the same time, he must always be exerting a definite influence upon society. The very fact that his pronouncements do exert an influence destroys their objectivity.” (Popper 1963. (shrink)

One of the oldest inquiries of philosophical and theological thought is addressed to the question who or what "God" is. Negative theology provides a way of answering that question by identifying what God is not. In recent years certain critical trends, such as deconstruction, have resembled features of negative theology in that they cancel the apparent meanings of the written word. Similarly, the Buddhist concept of nothingness has raised questions about the meaning of negation and theism. These trends have caused (...) philosophers and theologians to reconsider negation and theology in new ways, which are explored in this collection. In Negation and Theology a group of distinguished philosophers and theologians take up issues that illuminate the character of negative thinking and seek to make connections both with traditional negative theologies and with current theological and philosophical discussions. One essay, for example, is concerned with the problem of reconciling Paul Tillich's statement that God is being-itself with the Buddhist conception of an ultimate nothingness or with the tradition of negative theology. The format of the book distinguishes it from mere collections of essays. Scharlemann assumes the role of editor, introducer, and interlocutor, questioning the contributors and allowing them to respond. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Ethik und Technik" verfügbar.

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

Western economically driven instrumental ethics fuel the dominant institutional logic in many business schools and are associated with the negative social and environmental situation widely linked to the mode of global development. Other ethical framings have been subordinated, marginalized, or denied. Through the explicit commitment of prominent international certifying bodies of management education, educators, researchers, and practitioners will be encouraged to give increasing effect to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The PRME is a United Nations‐led, institution‐level mechanism for (...) reorienting the direction of business schools and for increasing both educator and student capacities to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable mode of development globally. We propose greater emphasis be given to various forms of relational ethics from which to guide the functional aspirations of institutions. We explore the creative opportunity for institutional change by contrasting the prevailing Western economically driven instrumental institutional logic with indigenous ethical framings. We draw upon Seo and Creed's conceptual framework of institutional change to discuss two films—Mann v. Ford and Waste = Food—to bring greater attention to the generative potential of indigenous perspectives in institutional praxis. Our examples could equally invite an application of other systems of relational ethics that have been overshadowed by the current domination of economic instrumentalism in almost all realms of decision making. We conclude by providing some teaching resources that can be used or adapted for geographical‐ or disciplinary‐specific attention to the issues we raise. (shrink)

This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information at www<dot>beyondspacetime<dot>net.) This chapter introduces causal set theory and identifies and articulates a 'problem of space' in this theory.

Relational dimensions of ethical decision making are a potentially interesting focus to enrich our understanding of decision-making processes. This study examines decision preferences and reactions to decisions in a situation of possible harm. Two ethical value orientations, just value orientation and relational value orientation , are introduced. Participants chose relational cooperation, instrumental cooperation, or independence in dealing with an uncertain situation of possible harm. JVO contributes to a decision of relational cooperation. Only RVO was related to expected mutual benefit and (...) relational connection. Overall, this study supports our central thesis that a relational dimension of ethical decisions provides interesting insights into behavioral ethics in organizations and could expand the scope of ethical decision research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British PhilosophersHeiner F. KlemmeJohn W. Yolton, John Valdimir Price, John Stephens, general editors. The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers. Vols. 1, 2. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1999. Pp. xxiii + 1,013. Cloth, $550.00.Good dictionaries are like good maps of a city: they indicate the main and minor quarters, give you an impression of its internal developments, and they indicate to where its highways eventually lead. (...) In philosophy, comprehensive subject dictionaries have a long history, and they do seem to experience a revival these days. To be sure, the lives and works of the leading figures of the history of ideas are generally well explored and documented. We even know which French dishes Hume liked to cook or which types of wine Kant preferred. But the lives and works of lesser known philosophers and men of letters still seem to be more or less neglected. The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers fills this gap for the period and the subject it covers. It comprises entries on almost six hundred persons as well as a number of entries on anonymous works. The work of close to a hundred scholars from several countries, it is unique in its attempt to bring together in two extensive volumes all minor and major British philosophers of the period between John Locke and Dugald Stewart. Since "British" is to be understood in a broad sense meaning authors who lived under British rule, it also includes Americans writing before 1776, Irish philosophers (like George Berkeley) and the French thinker Pierre Desmaizeaux, who lived and worked for a long period in Britain. Nor is the Dictionary restricted to philosophers in today's sense of the word, comprising entries on people who made in one way or the other a contribution to the history of ideas, even if their contributions are of marginal importance. Besides historians, poets, translators, mathematicians and physicists, dissenting ministers and physicians are well represented.In almost all cases, the selection makes sense. The boundaries between philosophy and, say, natural sciences were not as nicely drawn in the eighteenth century as they are today. But there are a few entries where one might wonder whether the subject's work had any specific philosophical importance or influence at all, as for example: Charles Burnet, author of a history of music; John Ellicott, who wrote on Electricity, and Thomas Innes, who published in 1729 a book on "Ancient Inhabitants on the Northern Parts of Britain or Scotland." One might also wonder if Gaelic scholar Beg Eolach Moidhach would appreciate being remembered today as a British philosopher.The length of the entries varies from several lines to up to seven pages. Generally, each entry gives the details of the life and work of the person covered, provides a bibliography of his or her main works, references to "other relevant works," and a section of "further reading." While the larger entries are naturally devoted to the better known figures, most of the authors dealt with in the minor sections cannot complain either. In many cases, information about the life and work of these minor authors is scarce and the entries are useful for this reason alone. But unfortunately, there are also cases in which essential references to "classical" biographical accounts are not listed in the bibliography, like Williams Smellie´s account of James Gregory or George Skene Keith´s biography of John Campbell.The entries on Lord Kames and George Turnbull lay, as far as their length is [End Page 282] concerned, somewhere in the middle between the shorter and longer contributions. They nevertheless are highly informative, densely argued, and are good reading. Knud Haakonssen sees in Kames "perhaps the most complete 'Enlightenment man' among the eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers´" because he covers like no other author "the whole spectrum of human knowledge and its applicability to his society" (503). The most philosophical work of Kames is his Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751). According to Haakonssen, it is important because in it Kames "turns the previous moral-sense criticism of moral scepticism into a refutation of general epistemological scepticism" (504). By arguing that our... (shrink)

Our exemplar of a Native American relational ethic is depicted through the Seven Grandfather Teachings, an ancient sacred story of Potawatomi and Ojibwe peoples. These teachings state that human beings are responsible to act with wisdom, respect, love, honesty, humility, bravery, and truth toward each other and all creation. We illustrate the possible uses of this ethic through exercises wherein students reflect on the values and learn lessons related to ethics, leadership, teamwork, and relationships, or create stories using Native American (...) story form. (shrink)

This anthology is based on a symposium in the series "Young Philosophy of Religion," jointly organized by the Catholic Academy in Berlin and the Research Institute for Philosophy Hanover. German text.

Benefit corporation legislation has rapidly disseminated in the United States. Its advocates claim it is a necessary corporate form to address the unique needs of for-profit social enterprises, despite many scholarly and legal practitioners who doubt the need for or wisdom of adopting this organizational form. Others suggest that the legislation is flawed and deficiencies should be addressed. After reviewing the present status of benefit corporation legislation, this article contributes to the discourse arguing that benefit corporations are unnecessary under the (...) law; benefit corporation legislation does not enhance corporate law; benefit corporation laws create unnecessary new legal risks for both traditional and benefit corporations, and their respective directors; and third party certification in entity formation law is inappropriate. (shrink)

Die Erforschung des historischen und systematischen Kontextes von Kants Philosophie weist bis auf den heutigen Tag signifikante Lücken auf. Dies gilt umso mehr für unser Verständnis der Bedeutung der gegenüber Kants Philosophie erhobenen Einwände und Kritikpunkte sowohl für die verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen seiner Philosophie wie für ihre Rezeption und Darstellung in späteren Jahrhunderten. Die im vorliegenden Band versammelten Beiträge wollen einen Beitrag zur Schließung dieser Lücken leisten. Sie gehen auf Vorträge zurück, die auf dem VII. Multilateralen Kant-Kolloquium zum Thema „Kant und (...) seine Kritiker – Kant and his critics – Kant et ses critiques“ gehalten worden sind, das vom 28.-30. April 2017 an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg stattfand. There are still significant gaps in the study of the historical and systematic contexts of Kant’s philosophy. This is true even more of our understanding of the significance of the objections and criticisms levelled at Kant’s philosophy and of the development of his philosophy and its reception and depiction in later centuries. The essays in this volume seek to close these gaps. They are based on the papers given at the 7th multilateral Kant Colloquium with the theme “Kant und seine Kritiker – Kant and his critics – Kant et ses critiques” which took place from 28th-30th April 2017 at the Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg. (shrink)