Is rabbinic Judaism as a religious philosophy basically critical of the state as a form of human life? Does it contain an ethics of cohabitation with non-Jews? The paper argues that rabbinical Judaism is essentially in favor of states, but against a special Jewish state. The rabbinic principle “Dina de Malkhut Dina” combined with the universalistic principles of the “noahidic covenant” is the adequate formula for statehood in the era of globalization. Concerning modern Jewish philosophy the paper argues that Leo (...) Strauss fulfills the requirements of a political philosophy, while the thought of Emmanuel Levinas remains in the moral domain. (shrink)

English summary: Was Paul of Tarsus a philosopher? Does he even rank amongst those philosophers who influenced occidental live and thought? The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben says, that the Epistle to the Romans is the fundamental messianic text of the western culture. The Jewish scholars Jacob Taubes and Daniel Boyarin insist on the philosophical and political Force of Pauline thinking. Long before that, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger dealt intently with the Epistle. Was Paul a Philosopher? In any case he (...) received a lot of attention from the modern philosophers. The collection of contributions by theologians and philosophers gives profound insights into his thinking. German description: War Paulus aus Tarsus ein Philosoph? Zahlt er gar zu jenen bedeutenden Philosophen, die das abendlandische Leben und Denken massgeblich mit pragten? Der italienische Philosoph Giorgio Agamben bezeichnet jedenfalls den Romerbrief des Apostels als "grundlegenden messianischen Text der westlichen Kultur". Nachdrucklich weisen auch judische Gelehrte wie Jacob Taubes und Daniel Boyarin auf die philosophisch-politische Sprengkraft paulinischen Denkens hin. Lange zuvor setzten sich bereits Friedrich Nietzsche und Martin Heidegger intensiv mit den Briefen des Apostels auseinander. War Paulus ein Philosoph? In jedem Fall geniesst er unter den Philosophen der Moderne und Spatmoderne eine bemerkenswert grosse Aufmerksamkeit. Die hier versammelten Beitrage von Philosophen und Theologen geben einen profunden Einblick in sein denkerisches Potential. (shrink)

This book presents Jewish thought as a new perspective for perceiving and examining Heidegger's philosophy in relation to the Western intellectual tradition, offering new and constructive directions for the current Black Notebooks debate and featuring work by the leading authors of that debate.

In 2003 my book After the Terror in its German translation was condemned as anti semitic by a professor of education at Frankfurt University, Micha Brumlik, also the director of an institute for the study of the Holocaust. The next day the famous German philosopher Jurgen Habermas wrote in the same liberal newspaper, The Frankfurter Rundschau , that the book was not anti semitic. However, he wrote so condescendingly as to distance himself from something charged with anti semitism (...) -- and also as to make it incomprehensible why he himself had secured its translation by the distinguished publishing house, Suhrkamp. (shrink)

Es gehorte zu den Grunduberzeugungen der Aufklarung, dass die Evolution des normativen Bewusstseins - von den archaischen Mythen bis hin zu den neuzeitlichen Ideen von Demokratie und Menschenrechten - einer inneren Logik folgt. Jurgen Habermas hat diese Konzeption in den 1970er Jahren im Rekurs auf Lawrence Kohlberg aufgegriffen. In den letzten Jahrzehnten ist sie allerdings in den Hintergrund getreten - in erster Linie aufgrund des Verdachts, dass sie einer spekulativen Geschichtsphilosophie verhaftet bleibe und eurozentrische Zuge trage. Der Sammelband verfolgt das (...) Ziel, die Tragfahigkeit der Idee einer normativen Entwicklungslogik auszuloten. Mit Beitragen von Micha Brumlik, Hauke Brunkhorst, Klaus Erich Kaehler, Matthias Kettner, Friederike Kuster, Georg Lohmann, Stefan Muller-Doohm und Smail Rapic. (shrink)

The areas of interest of the scholar of religious studies, Karl E. Grozinger, are diverse. His research is concentrated on the religious and cultural history of Judaism throughout the ages: Israel in antiquity, the era of rabbinical traditional literature, philosophy of religion during the Middle Ages, the kabbalistic tradition, as well as Jewish thinkers and devout movements in contemporary times. On the occasion of Professor Grozinger's seventieth birthday, numerous scholars present the first fruits of their current research as a first (...) look into the tendencies of future research in Jewish studies. In accordance with this scholar's broad interests, the volume Jewish Lifeworlds and Jewish Thought, edited by Nathanael Riemer, is comprised of contributions to a wide variety of topics of Jewish cultural history.With contributions by Hermann Lichtenberger, Hanna Liss, Ronit Meroz, Yoav Elstein, Susanne Talabardon, Nathanael Riemer, Giuseppe Veltri, Dirk Westerkamp, Thomas Meyer, Daniel Jutte, Frederek Musall, Robert Jutte, J. Friedrich Battenberg, Admiel Kosman, Rella Kushelevsky, Elvira Grozinger, Simon Bronner, Avidov Lipsker, Jascha Nemtsov, Rebekka Denz, Micha Brumlik, Micha? Galas, Manja Herrmann, Hans-Michael Haussig, Anat Feinberg, Adam Lipszyc, Vivian Liska, Julius H. Schoeps, Edward D'browa, Ewa Geller, Manfred Voigts, Mordechai Lewy and Stanislaw Krajewski. (shrink)

English summary: Focusing on religious fundamentalism, different authors represent Christian, Jewish and Islamic theology as well as sociological, educational, psychological and politological sciences. They provide insights into the current discussion to prevent religious fundamentalism and to profile religious convictions on sound fundaments without fundamentalism. German description: Die Autoren nehmen den religiosen Fundamentalismus aus den Perspektiven der christlichen, judischen und islamischen Theologie sowie unterschiedlicher humanwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen in den Fokus und fragen, wie Pravention aussehen kann und wie religiose Orientierungen in der Identitatsbildung (...) positiv wirken konnen. Mit Beitragen von Friedrich Schweitzer, Wilhelm Eppler, Thomas Pola, Micha Brumlik, Mouhanad Khorchide, Friedrich Erich Dobberahn, Florian Karcher, Christiane Schurian-Bremecker, Jurgen Eilert, Andre Armbruster, Stefan Piasecki und Dietmar Molthagen. (shrink)

Die Philosophie von Hans Jonas hat eine tiefe Wirkung auf ein weites Spektrum von Lesern in Europa, Asien und in Amerika entfaltet. Mit seinem ethischen Entwurf "Das Prinzip Verantwortung" gewann er insbesondere in Deutschland in der ökologischen Bewegung in den 70er Jahren einen enormen Einfluss. Die Autoren dieses von Christian Wiese und Eric Jacobson herausgegebenen Bandes (u.a. Micha Brumlik, Konrad Liessmann, Michael Löwy) versuchen hier eine Neubewertung seines herausragenden Beitrags zum religionsgeschichtlichen und philosophischen Diskurs seiner Zeit. Erstmals liegt (...) hier der Versuch vor, die vier zentralen Elemente des Werkes von Hans Jonas in ihrer Gesamtheit und ihrem inneren Zusammenhang zu beleuchten: deutsch-jüdische Geistesgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Erforschung der spätantiken Gnosis, Ethik und Philosophie der Verantwortung für die technologische Zivilisation sowie theologische Reflexionen nach dem Zivilisationsbruch von Auschwitz. Die international anerkannten Forscherinnen und Forscher arbeiten die vielfältigen Facetten des Denkens von Hans Jonas heraus. Sein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer für die "Weiterwohnlichkeit der Welt" ist vor diesem Hintergrund von bleibender Aktualität. (shrink)

Michael Walzer zahlt zu den bedeutendsten politischen Theoretikern der Gegenwart. Gleichwohl weist die weltweite Aufmerksamkeit einen `blinden` Fleck auf, wenn es darum geht, Walzers kommunitaristische Gerechtigkeitsphilosophie vor dem Hintergrund der judischen politischen Theorie zu situieren. Diese Lucke will der Sammelband schliessen, indem erstmals im deutschsprachigen Raum die vielschichtigen Interdependenzen zwischen Religion und Politik in Walzers Werk unter dem Stichwort der Politischen Theologie systematisch interpretiert werden. Mit Beitragen von:Edmund Arens, Thomas Bedorf, Micha Brumlik, Martin Hartmann, Michael Haus, Otto Kallscheuer, (...) Joachim J. Krause, Skadi Krause, Michael Kuhnlein, Jurgen Manemann, John Milbank, Peter Nitschke, Henning Ottmann, Rolf Schieder, Christoph Seibert, Michael Walzer, Jean-Pierre Wils und einer Replik von Michael Walzer. (shrink)

At Protagoras 353de, Socrates gives three possible reasons for calling some pleasures ‘wrong’. Scholarly attention has focused on the second of these, according to which pleasures are ‘wrong’ when they have negative consequences. This paper argues that the first reason corresponds to beliefs held by Democritus, among others; and that the third reason is the view adopted by Socrates in the dialogue.

Speakers’ perception of a visual scene influences the language they use to describe it—which objects they choose to mention and how they characterize the relationships between them. We show that visual complexity can either delay or facilitate description generation, depending on how much disambiguating information is required and how useful the scene's complexity can be in providing, for example, helpful landmarks. To do so, we measure speech onset times, eye gaze, and utterance content in a reference production experiment in which (...) the target object is either unique or non-unique in a visual scene of varying size and complexity. Speakers delay speech onset if the target object is non-unique and requires disambiguation, and we argue that this reflects the cost of deciding on a high-level strategy for describing it. The eye-tracking data demonstrate that these delays increase when speakers are able to conduct an extensive early visual search, implying that when speakers scan too little of the scene early on, they may decide to begin speaking before becoming aware that their description is underspecified. Speakers’ content choices reflect the visual makeup of the scene—the number of distractors present and the availability of useful landmarks. Our results highlight the complex role of visual perception in reference production, showing that speakers can make good use of complexity in ways that reflect their visual processing of the scene. (shrink)

The book introduces a conception of discourse ethics, an intersubjectivist version of Kantian ethics. Analyzing contributions from Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel, Wolfgang Kuhlmann, Albrecht Wellmer, Robert Alexy, Klaus Günther, Rainer Forst, Marcel Niquet and others, it reconstructs critical discussions on the justification of the principle of morality (part I) and on the various proposals on how to apply it (part II). It defends an alternative model of how discourse ethics can provide guidance under non-ideal circumstances and avoid both arbitrariness and (...) rigorism. (shrink)

In der Technikethik spielt das Konzept der Verantwortung eine zentrale Rolle. ›Verantwortung‹ ist ein Basiskonzept, das, ähnlich wie die Konzepte ›Pflicht‹ oder ›Schuld‹, in vielfältigen Kontexten gebraucht wird. Dennoch lassen sich einige allgemeine Aussagen über seine Bedeutung treffen. Gerade Autoren, die im Bereich der Technik- und Wissenschaftsethik aktiv sind, haben sich nachdrücklich um eine Klärung des allgemeinen Verantwortungsbegriffs und seiner verschiedenen Aspekte und Gebrauchsweisen bemüht.

The playful discussion of 'horsemanship' that opens Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie has been variously interpreted as a straightforward anecdote about the chivalric arts, or an oblique rhetorical flourish, or something in between. This essay suggests a new context for Sidney's exordium by focusing primarily on its affiliation to the genre of the 'Art of Poetry'. In Horace's Ars poetica and other classical, scholastic and Renaissance treatises, horse–men and other unnatural hybrids embody the tension between decorum and poetic liberty. (...) Three major traditions inform this trope: by the Renaissance the centaur could be an allegory of reason's struggle with the passions, an emblem of the poetic imagination, or a figure for compositional hybridity associated, especially, with Lucianic satire. Reading Sidney in the light of these traditions, finally, this essay explores aspects of the centaur's significance in the Defence and the Arcadia, and suggests that this kind of attention to metaphor might provide a bridge between critical and creative modes of Renaissance poetic thought. (shrink)

The article examines philosophical conceptions of responsibility found in the contributions of Martin Buber, Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Levinas. It argues that, despite the significant differences of these contributions, they all share important goals, significant structural features, and corresponding challenges. All three thinkers try to overcome the solipsistic limitations of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology as well as the egocentrism of Heidegger’s concept of "solicitude" or "self-care." All three try to overcome the Kantian subject-object dichotomy. All three understand responsibility as a bipolar (...) relation only. In consequence, all of them face similar challenges resulting from new forms of dichotomies and the exclusion of “thirdness” that are the result of their conceptual decisions. (shrink)

Hatte Jeremy Bentham den von ihm geprägten Begriff deontology in seinem gleichnamigen Werk noch im etymologisch buchstäblichen Sinne als »Lehre vom Sollen« verstanden und mit der »Wissenschaft von der Moral« gleichgesetzt, so dient das Adjektiv ›deontologisch‹ heutzutage ausschließlich der Kategorisierung einer spezifischen Teilklasse allgemeiner Konzeptionen normativer Ethik. ›Deontologische‹ Theorien normativer Ethik werden dann in der Regel ›teleologischen‹ Theorien, und/oder ›konsequentialistischen‹ Theorien gegenübergestellt.

The article reviews the various ramifications in the discussion on leadership, focusing on the view of leadership as relationships between leaders and followers. Three main types of leader-follower relations are discussed, and their specific characteristics are described: regressive relations, symbolic relations, and developmental relations. After analyzing the major implications, as well as the conceptual limitations, of these perspectives, the article suggests directions for a more integrative conceptualization of leader-follower relations.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

Two questions are addressed in this article: 1. Why are people attracted to leaders? 2. How are leaders' images construed? The first question is analyzed by using the concept of “deity” as a frame of reference for an “ideal model” of leadership. God as a “screen of projections” can satisfy the believer's fundamental needs and desires, as well as serving as a reference for causal attributions and a provider of transcendental meaning. Using Construal Level Theory, deity, as a frame of (...) reference, also facilitates analysis of the second question. This analysis explains universal principles underlying the leadership construal, and the psychological principles and culture-bound processes relevant to construing different images of leadership in different collectives. (shrink)

Two questions are addressed in this article: 1. Why are people attracted to leaders? 2. How are leaders' images construed? The first question is analyzed by using the concept of “deity” as a frame of reference for an “ideal model” of leadership. God as a “screen of projections” can satisfy the believer's fundamental needs and desires, as well as serving as a reference for causal attributions and a provider of transcendental meaning. Using Construal Level Theory, deity, as a frame of (...) reference, also facilitates analysis of the second question. This analysis explains universal principles underlying the leadership construal, and the psychological principles and culture-bound processes relevant to construing different images of leadership in different collectives. (shrink)

1. In the opening chapter of his arresting book on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of international and cosmopolitan right, Kant and the Law of War,1 Arthur Ripstein presents Kant’s position as a respon...

A l'été 2019, le parlement français se saisira de la loi sur la bioéthique. Ajouter une pierre au débat, tel est l'objectif de ce court livre qui aborde les différentes questions liées à l'éthique et aux sujets actuellement en débat au sein de la société française et sur lesquels le parlement sera amené à délibérer : - procréation (PMA, GPA), - fin de vie (assistance au suicide, accompagnement des malades en fin de vie), - dons d'organes, - intelligence artificielle.

Open access-introduction into moral philosophy in German language that contains chapters on the concept of morality, on the development and the main positions of normative ethics, on meta-ethics, and on the various fields of applied ethics. One of its distinctive features is that it explicitly reflects on the role of morality and ethics in modern society and that it analyses the import of alternative conceptual and normative positions for determining this role. The book can be freely downloaded from the publisher's (...) website via the URL below. (shrink)

One of the few points of consensus in the Kantian literature is that Kant’s Moral Law is binding universally and unconditionally. Hence, the Moral Law is binding for all human agents (universally) irrespective of the agents’ particular interests (unconditionally). Whether or not we intend to act on the Moral Law, this is the law we ought to follow. Beyond this point of consensus, however, even the most important details are matters of controversy. What exactly does the Moral Law require of (...) us? What, if anything, grounds its bindingness? In particular, does Kant argue that the Moral Law is binding because it is ‘self-legislated’? What is the relation between the Moral Law (supreme principle of morality) and substantive moral laws such as the law that we ought to promote the happiness of others? What does Kant mean by his claim that the will has autonomy? In the four articles discussed in this special issue, Kleingeld proposes novel answers to these questions. This introduction presents the articles and brings to the fore the larger theme tying them all together. (shrink)

Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia contains one of the earliest and best-known criticisms of John Rawls’s theory of justice in general and the difference principle in particular. The discussion of Nozick’s critique of Rawls in the literature has focused on his argument against “patterned” conceptions of justice, of which the difference principle as Nozick understands it constitutes merely one version among others. In this article I consider the objection Nozick raises against the difference principle specifically, namely that it unfairly (...) favors the “worse endowed” over the “better endowed” members of society. I argue that Nozick’s charge of unfairness against the difference principle is ambiguous between two distinct interpretations of the difference principle and as such divides into two distinct objections, the pre-cooperative and the cooperative fairness objection. I then argue that neither of these two interpretations of the difference principle represents the actual, Rawlsian difference principle accurately and that, more fundamentally, Nozick lacks the concept of politics as the distinctive moral category implicitly at work in Rawls’s theory of justice. Not as much of Nozick’s charge of unfairness against the difference principle therefore remains on reflection as may have appeared at first sight. (shrink)

Notre temps est, dit-on, celui des catastrophes. Sur les nouveaux fronts de l’écologie, du changement climatique ou de la menace nucléaire, les idéologies du progrès ont cédé la place à l’angoisse. Mais la résurgence des thèmes apocalyptiques est bien plus que le symptôme d’une période de crise : dès les XVIe et XVIIe siècles, avec la disparition du cosmos comme ordre hiérarchisé au sein duquel l’homme occupait une position privilégiée, est née une nouvelle inquiétude : celle de devoir vivre « (...) après la fin du monde ». Ce livre voudrait montrer que le plus urgent n’est pas d’éviter la catastrophe à venir, mais de repenser et de réinvestir le monde de manière nouvelle. Michaël Foessel interprète les peurs apocalyptiques actuelles à partir des expériences contemporaines où les sujets se sentent dépossédés du monde : triomphe de la technique sur l’action, du capital sur le travail, du besoin sur le désir. Pour cela, il propose une généalogie de l’idée de « fin du monde » qui distingue deux voies de la modernité : celle qui privilégie la vie et sa conservation, aujourd’hui à l’oeuvre dans la plupart des conceptions écologiques et précautionneuses du réel ; celle qui fait du monde le thème principal de la philosophie en même temps qu’un enjeu politique de premier ordre. Nous sommes désormais face à une alternative : perpétuer la vie ou édifier un monde. Les théories de la catastrophe ne se soucient plus de savoir quel monde mérite d’être défendu. En ce sens, le fait que la fin du monde a déjà eu lieu est une bonne nouvelle : cela nous invite à inventer des espaces pour l’action et à fonder un nouveau cosmopolitisme. (shrink)

" L'énigme, c'est précisément qu'il semble évident que le monde existe pour nous. " C'est à cette énigme que se confronte Kant dès ses premiers écrits. Le projet critique de Kant prend son origine dans la critique de la cosmologie classique. A chaque étape de son développement, des écrits pré-critiques à l'Opus postumum, le rapport au monde est spécifié, que ce soit du point de vue de la sensibilité, de la connaissance ou de la morale. Avec Kant s'ouvre un nouvel (...) horizon pour l'homme, comme " habitant du monde ". Le monde moral et surtout le concept de liberté dont l'origine est cosmologique prennent une nouvelle dimension et se substituent à un hypothétique " monde intelligible ". C'est l'occasion pour Michaël Foessel de revisiter la " maison Kant " dans ses coins et recoins, de mettre à l'épreuve la rationalité de l'édifice, dans une confrontation féconde entre Kant, Husserl et Heidegger. Une lecture forte et vivifiante. (shrink)