In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Affectivity and Personality: Mediated by the SocialMartin Heinze (bio)Keywordsaffectivity, sociality, personalism, psychiatric anthropologyBy emphasizing the concept of the person, Rosfort and Stanghellini are to be congratulated for overcoming a reductive concept self driven by the limits of neurobiological research. In this commentary, I emphasize some points about the context of these thoughts concerning the dialectic of nature and freedom and the social realm in which the connections of affectivity (...) and personhood are situated.As discussed in philosophical anthropology, the concept “person” involves both the human capacity for freedom and the legal status given to an individual in society. Nevertheless, even in its most intensive understanding as personality and lived freedom, human existence cannot be separated from its being natural (including being emotional). Moreover, being natural is the condition sine qua non for a free conduct of life. The dialectic of freedom and naturality is addressed by Rosfort and Stanghellini as “ontologic ambiguity” or, to use an older phrase, the structure of “homo duplex”. The aspect of passivity in human existence in which we are determined by our physiology, our environment, and our biography becomes visible. On the other hand, we also see the active dimension of personhood: the possibility to put ourselves into question, to relate to ourselves, to undergo change, and to invent ourselves anew. In the Plessnerian sense, the “ec-centric” nature of the human condition enables us to become active in this way. Plessner supplanted the dialectic between passivity and activity with his notion of Leidenschaft—passion. In the German word Leiden we find the double meaning of suffering and being passionate. Humans are bound to act between the spheres of nature and free will. They suffer from being in the world and can also be passionate by acting in this reality. Leidenschaft thematizes both passivity and activity as well as their unity. Human beings are passive through being dependent on their circumstances. They are passionate, however, when they reflect on these conditions or attempt to come to terms with them. From the dialectical understanding, a unique structure emerges as mutually conditioned, both active and passive. The “passionate man” (a term that Plessner uses to define humanity) synthesizes his being dependent on others with his own freedom to create himself. Passion can be understood as an enhancement of sensuality and spirituality in the context of the conditio humana: “Human reflectivity does not stop in front of sensuality but rather enhances it or weakens it—and both directions can be dangerous for sensuality.” (Plessner 1976, 167, author's translation). [End Page 273]With Kierkegaard, we have to express this even more intensively: a human being is not only shaped by the dialectic of freedom and nature, but—through living—is himself this dialectic. Thus, human personality and human freedom cannot be disconnected from the dimension of passivity that lies at the very heart of freedom. In Jacob Böhme's words, the human situation is that of Naturfreiheit—being free by and through its very own nature. It is neither apart from nature (naturlos) nor is its freedom abstract.The fundamental characteristics of human personality, as described by Rosfort and Stanghellini, are activity, responsibility, freedom, will, reflexivity, and self-distance, but also corporality. In the conduct of life, the realm where this is all realizes is the realm of human relationships to other human beings, that is, a shared world only out of which a successful self-relation can develop. In this sense, the authors quote Grøn: “The normative dimension thus pertains to the self that one already is in relating to others, to a world in between, and to oneself.” Grøn refers to Kierkegaard's attempt—but now with regard to psychopathology—to overcome the duality of human nature by transforming the concept of the self to that of the person. For psychiatric anthropology, there is no way to circumvent this. Thus, psychiatric theories that concern human being inevitably involve a personalistic perspective.Ferdinand Tönnies was the first to use the concept of person to describe social realities. In his classical study from 1887, “Community and Society” (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft), he contributed to philosophical personalism. Insofar as the person seeks... (shrink)

Cognitive failures are lapses in attention, cognition, and actions that everybody experiences in everyday life. Self-reports are mainly used for assessment but those instruments are memory-biased and more related to personality aspects than to actual behavior. Ambulatory assessment is already used for capturing emotions or addictive behavior, but not yet for cognitive failures. The newly developed Questionnaire for Cognitive Failures in Everyday Life was applied via mobile phones wherein an acoustic signal asked participants 4 times daily to answer 13 questions (...) for 1 week. The new instrument showed satisfying reliability and was compared with a self-report method in terms of correlations with cognitive abilities , personality traits, and demographical aspects. Although further validation is needed, first results are promising and eKFA enriches cognitive failures research. (shrink)

For the time being African philosophy is treated regularly in research and in teaching at two European scientific institutions: at the University of Vienna and at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In October 1993 there have been held two conferences of Western and African philosophers at both universities. Eleven African and nine Western scholars participated as speakers in these conferences. Four African speakers gave lectures at the Vienna and at the Rotterdam conference. The Vienna conference dealt with general questions of postcolonial philosophy (...) in Africa. The conference at Rotterdam focused on the processes of democratization in African countries since 1989. This volume contains the papers of both conferences. En ce moment la philosophie Africaine est traité regulièrement dans les recherches et dans l'enseignement à deux instituts scientifiques Européens: à l'Université de Vienne et à l'Université Erasme de Rotterdam. En Octobre 1993 deux conférences de philosophes Occidentals et Africains ont été organisé aux deux universités. Onze savants Africans et neuf savants Occidentals ont participé à ces deux conférences. Quatre savants Africains ont présenté des communications à tous les deux conférences de Vienne et de Rotterdam. La conférence Viennoise s'occupait de questions générales de la philosophie postcoloniale en Afrique. La conférence de Rotterdam focusait aux procès de démocratisation dans des pays africains depuis 1989. Se trouvent en ce volume les contributions à les deux conférences. (shrink)

CASUS is an authoring system, which should enable physicians to produce problem-based computer learning programs with minimal technical effort and give them sound instructional support. The theoretical background of CASUS are constructivist approaches to learning and instruction, which deal mainly with the question, how to design problem-based learning environments. The paper presents the constructivist concept of CASUS and results of a forma-tive evaluation. Four authors were observed and interviewed while developing a learning case with CASUS. The evaluation pursued mainly the (...) question of which difficulties arise while producing a case with CASUS and which measures are necessary in order to improve the authoring system. Results show that with regard to technical aspects physicians can produce learning cases even without any special prior knowledge. There were far more problems with instructional aspects of the production of cases. Most of these difficulties were very specific to the content of the cases. Therefore, it seems that an appropriate way to design learning cases with high quality, is a cooperation between some authors with different expertise. (shrink)

In Homer’s account of the adventurous journey of Odysseus, the song of the sirens was so appealing and tempting that it lured sailors to their deaths. Warned by the goddess Kirke, Odysseus overcame the trap by plugging his crew’s ears with wax. An archaeo-acoustical research expedition undertaken by members of Humboldt University Berlin made sound propagation experiments at the supposedly historical scene at the Galli Islands where it’s said that the sirens originally sung. At the site we broadcasted both synthetic (...) signals and natural voices via loudspeakers in the direction Odysseus most probably should have approached the Siren’s island. Subjective listening as well as objective acoustic analysis of the recorded signals revealed evidence for a combination of site-specific acoustic effects, which may explain the nature and origin of the song of the sirens in Homer. The local arrangement of the three islands deforms the acoustic signals by amplification and by changes in timbre. Two female singers from the Berlin State Opera were asked to sing differently pitched musical intervals to be tested in the Li Galli environment. The experiment evinced that the first overtones would be merged by the echo of the rocks; yet when singing pure thirds and less consonant intervals, which yield higher orders in the overtone series, the voices appear recognisable as being two. As a result, and particularly because Homer stresses the number of exactly two sirens several times, the evidence of our research supports the musicological theory for a rather early existence of enharmonic tunings and most prominently a two-part polyphonic singing of Greek songs. Given that the rocky formation of the Galli Islands most likely didn’t change during the geological tick of just 2,700 years, we conclude that there has been a real acoustic basis for the myth reported by Homer and that a “song of the Sirens”, most probably based on natural voices, was transformed by the particular acoustic conditions of the landscape in such a way that signals were amplified and sent out in one concrete direction. Based on these results, we continue to discuss further leading acoustic theories that offer new insights into the mythology and which were essential to motivate our expedition in the first place. After all, the question remains open what kind of beings the first emitters of the song might have been. (shrink)

In 1792, with the aim of defending Kant's doctrine of freedom, Reinhold redefined freedom of will as the ability to decide for or against the moral law. Thus freedom of will represents a foundation of moral philosophy, if not of philosophy as a whole. The present volume seeks to reinterpret and to discuss this chapter of the post-Kantian discourse on freedom from various perspectives.

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

A survey on the knowledge and attitudes towards the Austrian organ donation legislation (an opt-out solution) of selected groups of the Austrian population taking into account factors such as age, gender, level of education, affiliation to healthcare professions and health related studies was conducted.

ObjectiveHopelessness and depression are strongly associated with suicidality. Given that physical and psychological outcomes can be altered with hope, hope is a therapeutic goal of increasing importance in the treatment of brain tumor patients. Moreover, it is not yet understood which factors affect the perception of hope in brain tumor patients. In addition, it remains uncertain whether lower-grade brain tumor patients suffer less from psycho-oncological distress than higher-grade brain tumor patients.MethodsNeuro-oncological patients were examined perioperatively with the Distress Thermometer and the (...) Herth Hope Index. In addition, psychological comorbidities and an assessment of general psycho-oncological distress were recorded.ResultsSixty-six brain tumor patients were included. No differences between higher- and lower-grade brain tumor patients were observed for general psycho-oncological distress and hope. However, higher-grade brain tumor patients showed a significantly higher level of depression and more negative expectations regarding therapeutic success. The extent of depression correlated negatively with hope.ConclusionUnexpectedly, higher-grade brain tumor patients remained as hopeful as lower-grade brain tumor patients despite the devastating diagnosis, higher levels of depression, and a worse expectation of therapeutic success. Conversely, lower-grade brain tumor patients experience as much psycho-oncological distress as patients with a higher-grade brain tumor, underpinning the imperative need for comprehensive psycho-oncological screening. For all brain tumor patients, considering hope is important to avoid suicides resulting from hopelessness and depression. (shrink)

English summary: Questions about the origins and reality of good and evil and about their mutual relationship play a central part in the history of philosophy and religion from their very beginning. Giving answers to these questions had a decisive influence on how the world and its civilization(s) as well as human beings and their ethics were perceived in their relations to higher beings (god or gods). The contributions within this conference volume illustrate which concepts regarding these questions were developed (...) in ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean, from the early literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Iran and Greece to biblical, Qumranic and ancient Christian texts as well as the writings of the Manichaeans and the Quran. Thus this volume gives a representative overview of the responses of the ancient world to one of the fundamental questions of mankind. German description: Die Frage nach Herkunft und Wirklichkeit des Guten und des Bosen sowie nach ihrem Verhaltnis zueinander hat in der Philosophie- und Religionsgeschichte von Anfang an eine zentrale Rolle gespielt. Ihre Beantwortung hatte entscheidenden Einfluss darauf, wie man Welt und Kultur, Mensch und Ethik in der Beziehung zu Gott bzw. den Gottern wahrnahm. Die Beitrage des Konferenzbandes stellen dar, welche Auffassungen hierzu in Altertum und Antike entwickelt wurden. Dabei reicht der Bogen von den fruhen Literaturen aus Agypten und Mesopotamien, Iran und Griechenland uber biblische, qumranische und antik-christliche Texte bis zu dem Werk Manis und dem Koran. So vermittelt der Band einen reprasentativen Eindruck von den Antworten der alten Welt auf eine Lebensfrage der Menschheit. Mit Beitragen von: Wilhelm Blumer, Devorah Dimant, Jan Dochhorn, Therese Fuhrer, Philip Kreyenbroek, Catherine Mittermeyer, Angelika Neuwirth, Bernd Schipper, Konrad Schmid, Markus Stein, Martin Tamcke, Ulrich Volp. (shrink)

European-Western philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche and to Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein has rightly claimed to represent a high standard. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages there were vivid exchanges with non-Western traditions, especially Egyptian and Arabic philosophies. But since the philosophy of European Enlightenment, a large part of European-Western philosophy maintains that philosophy of a high standard exists only here. This statement can be called Eurocentric and is (...) highly contestable. The clearest and strictest foundation of philosophical Eurocentrism is given by Hegel. By analyzing and criticizing his concept of philosophy in Section II, I will discuss Eurocentrism in philosophy. In Section III, I will proceed to indicate the conditions necessary to overcome it. (shrink)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) gilt weithin als Autor des literarischen Sturm und Drang bzw. der philosophischen und theologischen Spataufklarung. Dass er jedoch auf vielen Gebieten die Klassische Deutsche Philosophie massgeblich beeinflusste, wird eher selten in den Blick genommen. Der Band untersucht dieses sowohl kritische als auch affirmative Rezeptionsverhaltnis Kants, Schellings, Schlegels, Humboldts oder Hegels zu Herder auf den Gebieten der Geschichtsphilosophie, der Metaphysik, der Ethik und Politik sowie der Asthetik und Anthropologie. - Mit Beitragen von Andreas Arndt, Manfred Baum, Christoph (...) Binkelmann, Martin Bondeli, Nigel De Souza, Stefan Greif, Andree Hahmann, Cornelia Klinger, Christian Krijnen, Stephan Nachtsheim, Angelica Nuzzo, Ludger Roth, Gideon Stiening, Violetta Stolz und Gunter Zoller. (shrink)

Especially where a patient's ability to communicate is limited, the receptive use of art visually offers an entry point into contemplation and insight. Here, receptive work with visual art can help to dissolve limitations in verbal communication. In receptive art therapy, an independent therapeutic resource is attributed to the artistic work and its symbolic pictorial content, which can initiate a healing process. A form of indirect communication is stimulated, in which not only a change on the symbolic but also on (...) the emotional level takes place through the emotionally highly charged pictorial-symbolic expression in the confrontation. Different approaches and basic concepts of the method are presented. This conference volume is addressed to the patients, therapists and clinical as well as inclusive companions in these processes. With contributions by Dr. Alexandra Daszkowski, Prof. Dr. Georg Franzen, Dr. Barbara Laimböck, Prof. Andreas Mayer-Brennenstuhl, Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Menzen, Karolina Sarbia, Prof. Dr. Martin Schuster and Ass.-Prof. Dr. Karla Villavicencio. (shrink)

Herders Metakritik aus dem Jahr 1799 ist ein Generalangriff auf Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft und den beginnenden Kantianismus an der Universitat Jena, zu dem Herder offensichtlich auch die Philosophie Fichtes rechnet. Bei den Zeitgenossen war dieses Werk Herders Ruf als Philosoph nicht eben zutraglich. Die Nachwelt aber kann Herders auf Hamann gestutzte, sprachanalytisch verfahrende Kritik auch einer kritisch bereinigten Metaphysik als Vorbereitung des linguistic turn der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts ganz neu schatzen und interessiert sich fur den Ansatz eines (...) holistischen, lebensphilosophischen Naturalismus und seine unausgeschopften Potentiale. - Die in diesem Band versammelten Beitrage versuchen, die schwierigen Lehrstucke dieses Werks transparent zu machen, und werfen ein Licht auf den Entstehungs- und Wirkungskontext dieser so lange vernachlassigten Schrift. - Mit Beitragen von Andreas Arndt, Manfred Baum, Oswald Bayer, Martin Bondeli, Markus Buntfuss, Marion Heinz, Petra Lohmann, Angelica Nuzzo, Violetta Stolz, Pierluigi Valenza, Rainer Wisbert und Gunter Zoller. (shrink)

Angesichts der gegenwärtigen Krisen des Kapitalismus hat das Werk von Karl Marx wieder an Aktualität gewonnen. Dieses Buch wirft grundlegende Fragen einer undogmatischen und kritischen Beschäftigung mit Marx und seinem Denken auf und stellt sie zur Diskussion. Es präsentiert internationale Forschungsansätze nach dem Scheitern der sich auf Marx berufenden politischen Regime. Aufgrund einer konsequenten Historisierung wird deutlich: Marx war durch seine Herkunft, seine Lebensstationen, sein Denken und seine politischen Aktivitäten fest im westeuropäischen Radikalismus verwurzelt. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersuchen die Beiträge (...) auch die Tragfähigkeit von Marx zur Analyse gesellschaftlicher Konstellationen im 21. Jahrhundert. Die Aufsätze behandeln exemplarisch Marx‘ ideengeschichtliche Kontexte, sein Engagement für die entstehende internationale Arbeiterbewegung, seine Kapitalismusanalyse, seine Kanonisierung und Nachwirkung. Mit Beiträgen von Heinz Bude, Axel Honneth, Jürgen Kocka, Gerd Koenen, Christina Morina, Wilfried Nippel, Jonathan Sperber, Gareth Stedman Jones u.a. • Renommierte Historiker und Sozialwissenschaftler ziehen Bilanz • Perspektiven für die Krisen des 21. Jahrhunderts. (shrink)

Inhalt: I. Philosophie und Akademiegedanke: Gideon Freudenthal: Leibniz als Transzendental-Philosoph malgre lui. Der Status der Erhaltungssatze - Conrad Grau: Hertzberg und das Leibnizsche Akademiekonzept II. Theologie und Einheit der Kirchen: Ursula Goldenbaum: Die "Commentatiuncula de judice" als Leibnizens erste philosophische Auseinandersetzung mit Spinoza nebst der Mitteilung uber ein neuaufgefundenes Leibnizstuck / Beilage: Leibniz' Marginalien zu Spinozas Tractatus theologico-politicus im Exemplar der Bibliotheca Boineburgica in Erfurt, also zu datieren auf 1670-71 - Hartmut Rudolph: Zum Nutzen von Politik und Philosophie fur die (...) Kirchenunion. Die Aufnahme der innerprotestantischen Ausgleichsverhandlungen am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts / Beilage: Daniel Ernst Jablonski: Kurtze Vorstellung der Einigkeit und des Unterscheides (1697) III. Sprache und Geschichte: Gerda Hassler: Leibniz' Stellung in der Diskussion des Zeichencharakters - Heinz Entner: Leibniz und Pufendorf. Bemerkungen zu zwei Gedichten - Rudiger Otto: Leibniz als Historiker. Beobachtungen anhand der Materialien zum Sachsen-Lauenburgischen Erbfolgestreit - Andre Robinet: Das "Haus" bei Leibniz. (shrink)

Nature, History, State: 1933-1934 presents the first complete English-language translation of Heidegger's seminar 'On the Essence and Concepts of Nature, History and State', together with full introductory material and interpretive essays by five leading thinkers and scholars: Robert Bernasconi, Peter Eli Gordon, Marion Heinz, Theodore Kisiel and Slavoj Žižek. The seminar, which was held while Heidegger was serving as National Socialist rector of the University of Freiburg, represents important evidence of the development of Heidegger's political thought. The text consists (...) of ten 'protocols' on the seminar sessions, composed by students and reviewed by Heidegger. The first session's protocol is a rather personal commentary on the atmosphere in the classroom, but the remainder have every appearance of being faithful transcripts of Heidegger's words, in which he raises a variety of fundamental questions about nature, history and the state. The seminar culminates in an attempt to sketch a political philosophy that supports the 'Führer state'. The text is important evidence for anyone considering the tortured question of Heidegger's Nazism and its connection to his philosophy in general. (shrink)

In their recent paper in this journal, Heinz and colleagues accuse proponents of cognitive enhancement of making two unjustified assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that neuroenhancing drugs will be safe; the second is that research into cognitive enhancement does not pose particular ethical problems. Heinz and colleagues argue that both these assumptions are false. Here, I argue that these assumptions are in fact correct, and that Heinz and colleagues themselves make several assumptions that undermine (...) their argument. Neuroenhancement does raise several ethical concerns, but safety and research in this area pose no unique difficulties. (shrink)

Prozessrecht und Eid: Recht und Rechtsfindung in antiken Kulturen. Teil 1. Edited by Heinz Barta, Martin Lang, and Robert Rollinger. Philippika, vol. 86.1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015. Pp. xiii + 240. €56.