Scientists are seekers of truth; but where science breaks into the everyday world should they be held accountable for the outcome of their actions? The contributors to this volume believe that scientists are more than mere cogs in a machine - science, technology and politics are inseparable. Part 1 describes current scientific practice from three personal perspectives; part 2 looks at the ways in which science, society and the environment could interact given the chance; and part 3 examines the more (...) general aspects of Western science and their relevance to our relationship with the environment, society and all global issues. (shrink)

The article gathers five new autographed testimonies from Kant’s life: a dedication copy to Hasse, a fragment on plagiarism, a letter of office from the second rectorate (1788), and two album-amicorum entries with a Persius quotation via Alexander Pope.

This miscellany reports on a newly found dedication copy of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason (1793) to his dear friend and former student Carl Gottlieb Fischer.

An unrecognised copy (1665) in Kant’s private library of Michael Piccart’s Isagoge (1605), an introduction to the system of Aristotelian philosophy together with Kant’s own remarks on this author (Refl 4160, AA 17, p. 439) can be established as an original source for the Kantian ‘ideosphere’. First, I point out contexts and consequences of Piccart’s Altdorfian Aristotelianism, in contrast to the Königsbergian Aristotelianism (emphasised by Tonelli’s research). To further check the quality of Piccart as a source of Kant’s, a conceptual (...) case-study is elaborated with Kant’s critical distinction between analytics as a “logic of truth” (KrV, B 85) and dialectics as a “logic of illusion” (KrV, B 86). Hereby, dialectics is understood as part of an Aristotelian division of logic in analytics, dialectics and sophistics (Königsberg/Rabe versus Altdorf/Piccart). As will be shown by the paradigmatic case of the famous Königsbergian proponent of Aristotelianism, Paul Rabe, Kant cannot have received the suggestion for his own critical distinction from Rabe’s Cursus Philosophicus. Instead, Piccart refers to a passage of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which suggests the very distinction between an analytic philosopher who searches for scientific truth and dialecticians and sophists. For different reasons, they do not claim any scientific seriousness. (shrink)

In his Treatise on the Figure of the Stars (1732), Maupertuis described bright and elliptic phenomena in the night sky. Based on Maupertuis’s account of these astronomical observations, Kant developed an explanation of his own in his early book on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). For him, these figures were seemingly stars, suns and even whole galaxies, subsystems orbiting a central body or a central sun, held by Kant to be the middle of the universe (...) and a whole, an immense and immeasurable system of many uncountable solar systems. Since Kant did not read Maupertuis’s treatise, he derived his knowledge from a review of the Collected Essays of Maupertuis, in which the Treatise was published (1744). This review appeared in the Nova Acta Eruditorum in April 1745. Alongside this known source, another possible and complementary source on Maupertuis’s theory may have influenced Kant in his thinking: Gottsched’s philosophical textbook First Elements of all Philosophical Disciplines (5th edition, Theoretical part, Vol. I, 1748). The plate beneath the front matter of this book shows a picture of many solar systems. It depicts in detail, and according to Maupertuis’s account, comets signifying the center of different solar systems by the alignment of their tails, pointing in the opposite direction of the center. Gottsched’s book was known to Kant, who mentioned it in at least three lectures on logic. In addition, it was widely read in Königsberg’s intellectual and academic circles, since Gottsched was born not far from Königsberg and was a friend of Knutzen, Flottwell, Scheffner, the Imperial Countess of Keyserlingk, and others. (shrink)

Recently (2019/20), a new autograph written by Immanuel Kant in October 1786 was found and identified. It is a quotation from Horace’s Epistles I. 1, 60 dedicated to Johann Friedrich Lange (1760–1826), a preacher and former student of Kant’s at the Albertina University: “Let this be a man’s brazen wall (rule of life), to be conscious of no ill, to turn pale with no guilt.” Kant quoted the passage several times; one time in his MS. Horace was one of Kant’s (...) favorite Latin poets. (shrink)

A well-known argument by Wittgenstein can naturally be expanded to provide additional information on the logic of folk psychological concepts. Exemplary for this is the concept of pain. Even the concept of one's own pain – and related: the use of the sentence "I am in pain" – turns out to be quite complex; it is the result of a two-stage construction. Ordinary descriptive use of the sentence at an upper level is based on non-descriptive, expressive use of the sentence (...) at a lower level. But the higher level is only achieved if the concept of someone else's pain is available. (shrink)

It is shown that the famous quote from Fontenelle in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, “I bow before an eminent man, but my spirit does not bow,” comes from the book On Principles of Morality, written by Abbé Mably. The Fontenelle quote is found in a review of this very book in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung (No. 21, 1785). This review should further be considered Kant’s source.

It is shown that the famous quote from Fontenelle in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, “I bow before an eminent man, but my spirit does not bow,” comes from the book On Principles of Morality, written by Abbé Mably. The Fontenelle quote is found in a review of this very book in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung (No. 21, 1785). This review should further be considered Kant’s source.

O presente texto narra uma experiência de formação de alfabetizadores de jovens e adultos: uma alfabetização filosófica de 40 horas com 300 alfabetizadores em julho de 2022, como primeira etapa do Programa “Supera RN” em Pau dos Ferros, dentro da Política de Superação do Analfabetismo do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte (RN). O texto tematiza em que sentido a experiência de Alfabetização filosófica se inspira e ao mesmo tempo se diferencia do curso de Alfabetização oferecido por Paulo Freire em (...) Angicos em 1963. Inspirado na curiosidade e no compromisso de Paulo Freire com os esfarrapados do mundo, o conceito “alfabetização filosófica” propõe uma formação experiencial sustentada nas seguintes disposições: escutar atentamente o mundo humano e não humano que nos rodeia; pensar juntos com cuidado e calma; relacionarmo-nos cooperativa e não competitivamente com as ideias das outras pessoas; perguntarmo-nos, colocando em questão, nossa vida e a maneira como nos relacionamos com ela, num tempo especial, singular, suspendido; conversar como iguais na busca de enfrentar as exigências de nossa comunidade; inventar novas formas de estar com outras e outros. O texto apresenta como essas disposições foram pensadas e praticadas durante a alfabetização filosófica em Pau dos Ferros, RN, através de cinco princípios (perguntar; escutar; tempo de infância; igualdade; pensar juntos) e lança algumas perguntas sobre possíveis desdobramentos da alfabetização filosófica no campo de formação de professores. (shrink)

O presente texto narra uma experiência de formação de alfabetizadores de jovens e adultos: uma alfabetização filosófica de 40 horas com 300 alfabetizadores em julho de 2022, como primeira etapa do Programa “Supera RN” em Pau dos Ferros, dentro da Política de Superação do Analfabetismo do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte (RN). O texto tematiza em que sentido a experiência de Alfabetização filosófica se inspira e ao mesmo tempo se diferencia do curso de Alfabetização oferecido por Paulo Freire em (...) Angicos em 1963. Inspirado na curiosidade e no compromisso de Paulo Freire com os esfarrapados do mundo, o conceito “alfabetização filosófica” propõe uma formação experiencial sustentada nas seguintes disposições: escutar atentamente o mundo humano e não humano que nos rodeia; pensar juntos com cuidado e calma; relacionarmo-nos cooperativa e não competitivamente com as ideias das outras pessoas; perguntarmo-nos, colocando em questão, nossa vida e a maneira como nos relacionamos com ela, num tempo especial, singular, suspendido; conversar como iguais na busca de enfrentar as exigências de nossa comunidade; inventar novas formas de estar com outras e outros. O texto apresenta como essas disposições foram pensadas e praticadas durante a alfabetização filosófica em Pau dos Ferros, RN, através de cinco princípios (perguntar; escutar; tempo de infância; igualdade; pensar juntos) e lança algumas perguntas sobre possíveis desdobramentos da alfabetização filosófica no campo de formação de professores. (shrink)

Im ersten Hauptstück dieser Vorlesung interpretiert Heidegger die Wahrheitsfrage bei Aristoteles, insbesondere das Kapitel 10 des IX. Buches der Metaphysik. Das zweite Hauptstück entfaltet ein radikalisiertes Fragen nach der Wahrheit im Sinne der Zeitproblematik, wie sie die Daseinsanalytik ermöglicht; hier steht die Interpretation von Kants 'Kritik der reinen Vernunft' im Zentrum. Zum Verständnis der Genese von Heideggers Denken ist die Kenntnis dieser Vorlesung unentbehrlich.

In his latest paper on animal agency, Glock (2019) presents a series of arguments to the extent that non-linguistic animals are capable of acting rationally and for reasons. This notwithstanding, he still denies them the ability to conceptualise reasons as reasons. I will argue that, in using Glock’s account, one can in fact claim that non- linguistic animals are capable of conceptualising reasons as reasons. For this, I will apply Glock’s own criteria for concept-possession to the concepts of a reason (...) and of intention. My argument will thus be twofold. First, I will directly argue for the idea that animals can conceptualise reasons as reasons. Second, I will refer to empirical research suggesting that animals attribute intentions to others. If the ability to conceptualise intentions really is necessary for conceptualising reasons, then this research should provide further plausibility to the claim that animals can conceptualise reasons as reasons. I thus submit that my arguments will further improve upon Glock’s account by (1) showing that animals can conceptualise reasons as reason, (2) lending further support to the idea that non-human animals can act rationally, and (3) providing some initial foundation for the claim that they can reason. (shrink)

[English] Overlooked Generic Masculine Forms – Consistency in Usage of Gender-Conscious Language in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie" (German Journal of Philosophy) in 2020 The present article examines to what extent and how consistently gender-conscious language is used in academic papers. We analysed every paper published in 2020 in the journal “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie” (transl.: German Journal for Philosophy) that contained overlooked usages of generic masculine forms in otherwise gender-conscious language. Our results showed that only 16 out of 35 (...) papers used gender-conscious language. Out of those 16, only 5 used gender-conscious language in more than 50% of possible usages. None of the articles consistently used gender-conscious language. This means that in each of those 16 papers that used gender-conscious language, at least one “overlooked generic masculine form” was detected. Our hypotheses that generic masculine forms are more often overlooked if they are either (i) not related to the thematic focus of the article, or (ii) technical terms, were confirmed. -/- [German] Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, inwiefern und wenn ja wie konsequent in wissenschaftlichen Artikeln gegendert wird. Analysiert wurden alle 2020 erschienen Artikel in der Deutschen Zeitschrift für Philosophie, in denen übersehene generische Maskulina vorkommen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass lediglich in 16 von 35 Artikeln gegendert wurde. Von diesen 16 Arbeiten gendern wiederum nur fünf in mehr als 50% der Fälle. In keinem der analysierten Artikel wird jede Personenbezeichnung, die potentiell gegendert werden könnte, auch tatsächlich gegendert. Das heißt, in jedem einzelnen dieser 16 Artikel gibt es mindestens ein “übersehenes generisches Maskulinum”. Unsere Hypothesen, dass generische Maskulina öfter “übersehen” werden, wenn sie entweder nicht im thematischen Fokus des Artikels stehen oder Fachbegriffe sind, konnten bestätigt werden. (shrink)