The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market. Like the Commission on European Contract Law's "Principles of European Contract Law", the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance (...) the process of Europeanisation of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law. The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for moulding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model. The "Principles of European Law" are published in co-operation with Stämpfli, Bern. For other co-operation-partners and for more information see www.sellier.de. (shrink)

Against the background of the creation of an EU-wide frame of reference for private law relevant to the Common Market, this study, which was requested by the EU Commission, analyses the dovetailing between contract and tort law on the one hand, and between contract and property law on the other. The study examines the legal orders of almost all the Member States of the EU, illustrates the differences between contractual and non-contractual liability and evaluates the different systems of the transfer (...) of property, of movable and immovable securities as well as trust law. The study comes to the conclusion that the intensive considerations on the creation of a model-law in the area of European private law do not allow these thoughts to be limited to contract law. Such a limitation to the scope of the regarding of this area would probably cause more problems than it would solve, or at any rate not do justice to the needs of the Common Market. (shrink)

Das Buch weist die Fruchtbarkeit einer strukturgenetisch fundierten Rekonstruktionsperspektive für die Analyse der historisch und kulturell differenten Weltbilder nach. Anhand der für die Geschichte der Denksysteme zentralen Vorstellungen über die Natur-Kultur-Differenz und die physikalische Kausalität werden Reichweite und Grenzen der These einer universalen Entwicklungslogik kritische geprüft. Die historischen Studien bieten dabei einen neuartigen Blick auf die Aristotelische Physik und ihre mittelalterlichen Fortentwicklungen. Schließlich werden die materialen Ergebnisse in Richtung einer differenztheoretisch orientierten Theorie der Entstehung des Neuen in der Entwicklung ausgedeutet.

The explanation of animal communication by means of concepts like information, meaning and reference is one of the central foundational issues in animal behaviour studies. This book explores these issues, revolving around questions such as: • What is the nature of information? • What theoretical roles does information play in animal communication studies? • Is it justified to employ these concepts in order to explain animal communication? • What is the relation between animal signals and human language? The book approaches (...) the topic from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including ethology, animal cognition, theoretical biology and evolutionary biology, as well as philosophy of biology and mind. A comprehensive introduction familiarises non-specialists with the field and leads on to chapters ranging from philosophical and theoretical analyses to case studies involving primates, birds and insects. The resulting survey of new and established concepts and methodologies will guide future empirical and theoretical research. (shrink)

Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal‐producing and signal‐consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny’s proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring (...) representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer‐based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.; e‐mail: ulrich[email protected]. (shrink)

Als eine wesentliche Schwäche des strukturalistischen Theorienkonzepts musste die Vagheit erscheinen, mit der die Unterscheidung zwischen bezüglich einer Theorie theoretischen und nichttheoretischen Funktionen bisher belastet war. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird ein formal präzises, pragmatisch nichtrelativiertes Kriterium für T-Theoretizität vorgestellt. Erste Schritte zur Klärung seiner Bedeutung für die holistische Sichtweise erfahrungswissenschaftlicher Theorien werden unternommen.

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with remarks (...) on the legitimacy and the effectiveness of norms generated by TNNs. Through this, we aim to contribute a new theoretical foundation to the analysis of CSR standards, which enables us to undertake a more differentiated description of TNN structures which have hitherto been ignored in academic literature. Secondly, we will contribute to the practical debate on ISO 26000 and the Global Compact by proposing new perspectives on the conditions of their legitimacy and effectiveness based on the voice-entitlement nexus. (shrink)

Eine tragfähige affektive Beziehung wird als Grundlage für reflexive kooperative Prozesse in der psychoanalytisch orientierten Therapie erachtet. Was ist die Essenz dieser affektiven Bindung (des Attachments)? Es werden zwei bildhafte Konzepte entwickelt: das affektive Feld und die Trajektorie. Letztere ist als ein Weg der affektiven Information zwischen den Protagonisten gezeichnet. Jedes Selbst hat ein affektives Feld. Die Felder zwischen zwei Selbsten werden verknüpft, jedoch nicht im Sinne der Feldtheorie, die eine eigen­ständige Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Feldes postuliert. In einem wissenschaftstheoretischen Exkurs (...) werden die Ansätze »Feld« und »two singles« als gleichwertige Möglichkeiten diskutiert, Intersubjektivität zu verstehen. Die affektive Beziehung entwickelt sich zunächst zu den beiden Funktionen der resonanten und der responsiven Relation, um dann zunehmend durch die kognitive überlagert zu werden. Affektive Kommunikation ist nicht identisch mit der affektiven Bindung. Es werden Störungen im Bereich der Psychosen und Formen früher Störungen beschrieben. Die Ergebnisse der Bindungsforschung sind bekannt, spielen aber in dieser klinisch ausgerichteten Arbeit nur hintergründig eine Rolle. (shrink)

Ulrich Meyer defends a novel theory about the nature of time, and argues against the consensus view that time and space are fundamentally alike. He presents the first comprehensive defense of a 'modal' account, which emphasizes the similarities between times and possible worlds in modal logic, and is easily reconciled with the theory of relativity.

The goal of this article is to show that the structuralist approachprovides a powerful framework for the analysis of certain holistic phenomena in empirical theories.We focus on two aspects of holism. The first refers to the involvement of comprehensive complexes of hypothesesin the theoretical treatment of systems regarded in isolation. By contrast, the second refers to thecorrelation between the theoretical descriptions of different systems. It is demonstrated how these two aspectscan be analysed by making use of the structuralist notion of (...) theory-nets, and how they are reflected by a refinedversion of the Ramsey sentence. Furthermore, it is argued that there exists a tight correlation between theoccurrence of these two holistic phenomena, a specific form of underdetermination of terms which occur in thefundamental principles of an empirical theory, and the shaping of the theory's protective belt. After having dealtwith these questions in abstracto, the relevance of these considerations for a better understanding of the dynamicsof empirical theories is demonstrated in a concrete case study. It refers to the role holistic phenomenaplayed in the investigation of the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion and in the various attempts to eliminate this anomaly. (shrink)

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...

Having as starting point Nietzsche's controversy with Pascal, this paper intends to demonstrate to what extent, and by what means, he is involved in a constant debate with Christianity. As the previous research of the author has demonstrated, Nietzsche occupied himself all his life with the figure of Jesus, who never ceased both to fascinate and to irritate him. Pascal, on the other hand, took as central point of his reflection Jesus' salvific mediation. The confrontation of the two ways of (...) thinking, thus, will contribute to the mutual clarification of their positions. The paper sheds a special light on both the moral and non-moral option of the two thinkers, who precisely in the radicality of their thinking show traits of a certain similitude, although in the prosecution of their objectives each one represents diametriccally opposed worlds. Nietzsche, in fact, debated intensely not only with Pascal's Christian character but also with his apology of the Christian faith. To Nietzsche the apologist of Christianity became, as such, vulnerable to the temptation of denying Man, Nature and History. His admirable faith in Christ, to which equally belong non-moral moments, remains, according to Nietzsche, within the horizon of moral ontology. The article shows, in other words, to what extent, after all, Pascal anticipated much more than he himself dared to understand. /// Tomando como ponto de partida a sua controvérsia com Pascal, o presente artigo pretende demonstrar até que ponto, e por que meios, Nietzsche se debateu com o cristianismo. Como as investigações do autor tinham já demonstrado, Nietzsche ocupou-se durante toda a sua vida com a figura de Jesus, figura esta que nunca deixou tanto de o fascinar como de o irritar. Pascal, por outro lado, tomou como ponto central da sua reflexão a mediação salvifica de Jesus. Deste modo, o confronto dos dois modos de pensar não poderá deixar de contribuir para uma clarificação mútua das duas posições. O artigo projecta uma luz especial tanto sobre a opção moral como não moral dos dois pensadores, os quais justamente na radicalidade do seu pensamento demonstram possuír traços de uma certa similitude, muito embora na prosecucao dos seus objectivos represente cada um mundos diametralmente opostos. – Nietzsche, na realidade, debateu-se intensamente não só com o carácter cristão da pessoa de Pascal, mas também com a sua intensa apologia da fé cristã. Para Nietzsche, o apologeta do cristianismo tornou-se, enquanto tal, vulnerável à tentação de negar o Homem, a Natureza e a História. A sua admirável fé em Cristo, a que igualmente pertencem momentos não-morais, permanece segundo Nietzsche dentro do horizonte da ontologia moral. O artigo mostra, por outras palavras, até que ponto, no final de contas, Pascal antecipou muito mais do que ele próprio foi capaz de ousar compreender. /// An seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Pascal läßt sich studieren, wie sehr und mit welcher Methode Nietzsche sich am Christentum abarbeitete. Da er sich lebenslang mit Jesus befaßte (dazu die Forschungen des Autors U. W.) und sich immer neu auf die Spur seiner faszinierenden wie irritierenden Lebensgestalt begab, da andererseits Pascal zentral die Heilsmittlerschaft Jesu reflektierte, verspricht die Konfrontation beider Denkweisen eine bisher meist unterschätzte Erhellung der einen wie der anderen Position. Ein besonderes Licht fällt dabei auf die moralische bzw. nichtmoralische Option der beiden Denker, die in der Radikalität ihres Denkens verwandte Züge zeigen, zugleich aber in der Durchführung diametral verschiedene Welten repräsentieren. – Nietzsche hat sich sowohl auf die Person Pascals in ihrer Christlichkeit als auch auf seine Apologie des christlichen Glaubens intensiv eingelassen. Der Apologet des Christentums sei durch eben dieses zur Verneinung von Mensch, Natur und Geschichte verfuhrt worden. Sein staunen machender Glaube an Christus, dem auch nichtmoralische Momente eignen, verbleibe im Horizont der moralischen Ontologie. Pascal habe mehr davon geahnt, als er sich selbst einzugestehen wagte. (shrink)

In this paper we present a modern version of the classic theory of “ultimate psychological hedonism” . As does the UPH, our two-dimensional model of metatelic orientations also postulates a fundamentally hedonistic motivation for any human action. However, it makes a distinction between “telic” or content-based goals of actions and “metatelic” or emotional reasons for actions. In our view, only the emotional reasons for action, but not the goals of action, conform to the UPH. After outlining our model, we will (...) elucidate the similarities and differences between our model and classic UPH. In this context we will clarify several basic misconceptions regarding classic UPH. In a next step, two major criticisms of the theory of ultimate psychological hedonism will be discussed, that is the statement that the hedonistic principle has no motivating effect at all and the argument that the hedonistic motivation is only one of many motivations of human actions. We believe that both of these arguments can be refuted. Finally, we will discuss the compatibility of our model with evolutionary theory. (shrink)