Ist Geschichtsdarstellung ein transparentes Fenster zu einer faktischen Vergangenheit? Oder verlieren Fakten ihre Verbindlichkeit zugunsten der Repräsentation? Der vorliegende Band weist einen vermittelnden Weg zwischen diesen Extremen. Jenseits der positivistisch verstandenen historischen Fakten sowie der infolge des linguistic turn häufig behaupteten Unzugänglichkeit und Unentscheidbarkeit der faktischen Vergangenheit wird die Geschichtsdarstellung selbst als das eigentlich Greifbare zur Geltung gebracht. Geschichte ist demnach in ihrer Darstellung zu suchen – unabhängig davon, ob es sich um historiographische Quellen, literarische Texte, Gemälde oder um Museen (...) als mediale Darstellungsräume handelt. Die Beiträge gehen einem breiten Spektrum unterschiedlicher Dimensionen von Geschichtsdarstellung nach. Medien, Methoden und Strategien bilden dabei die zentralen Koordinaten, anhand derer Geschichtsdarstellung mit ihren narrativen und bildlichen Ausdrucksformen exemplarisch erörtert wird. Mit Beiträgen von Wolfgang Frühwald, Werner Goez, Thomas Kirchner, Wolfgang Müller-Funk, Otto Gerhard Oexle, Antonios Rengakos, Hermann Schäfer, Jörg Schönert, Howard Weinbrot, Horst Wenzel und Gernot R. Wieland. (shrink)

Inhalt: G. Funke: "Zu den Sachen selbst" oder "ist alles Interpretation?" - A. Riethmueller: "Interpretation" in der Musik. Eine Skizze - O. Zwierlein: "Interpretation" in Antike und Mittelalter.

Was ist Natur oder was könnte sie sein? Diese und weitere Fragen sind grundlegend für Naturdenken und -handeln. Das Lehr- und Studienbuch bietet eine historisch-systematische und zugleich praxisbezogene Einführung in die Naturphilosophie mit ihren wichtigsten Begriffen. Es nimmt den pluralen Charakter der Wahrnehmung von Natur in den philosophischen Blick und ist auch zum Selbststudium bestens geeignet.

Ascriptive solidarity is a fundamental relationship in human societies. Sociologists have often stated this social fact but they have seldom explained this kind of solidarity. Karl Otto Hondrich has elaborated fundamental social laws which are useful for the explanation of the evolutionary dominance of ascriptive solidarity. In the context of sociological knowledge I intend - following this account - to sketch variations of ascriptive solidarity in an evolutionary perspective and to describe structural problems of social integration in modern societies.

In his preface to the English edition, Apel (identified with critical theory) explains that the title of his two-volume German collection connotes both a reconstruction of the process of hermeneutic transformation in recent philosophy and the author's semiotical transformation of transcendental logic. The emphasis here is on the latter with discussions of the a priori nature of language per Wittgenstein, Peirce, and Chomsky, and its implications for a rational foundation for ethics in modern science. Includes a new foreword. Name index (...) only. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate unification as a virtue of explanation. In the first part of the paper (sec. 1-2) I give a brief exposition of the unification account of Schurz and Lambert (1994) and Schurz (1999). I illustrate the advantages of this account in comparison to the older unification accounts of Friedman (1974) and Kitcher (1981). In the second part (sec. 3) I discuss several comments and objections to the Schurz-Lambert account that were raised by Weber and van Dyck (...) (2002), Gijsbers (2007) and de Regt (2005). In the third and final part (sec. 4), I argue that explanation should be understood as a prototype concept which contains nomic expectability, causality and unification as prototypical virtues of explanations, although none of these virtues provides a sufficient and necessary "defining condition" of explanation.El artículo analiza la unificación como virtud explicativa. En su primera parte hago una breve exposición del enfoque de la unificación de Schurz y Lambert (1994) y Schurz (1999). Ilustro las ventajas de este planteamiento sobre otros anteriores, como Friedman (1974) y Kitcher (1981). En la segunda parte (secc. 3)discuto varios comentarios y objeciones al enfoque Schurz-Lambert planteados por Weber y van Dyck (2002), Gijsbers (2007) y de Regt (2005). En la tercera y última parte (secc. 4) argumento que la explicación debería entenderse como un concepto prototipo que contiene la esperabilidad nómica, la causalidad y launificación como virtudes prototípicas de las explicaciones, aunque ninguna de estas virtudes ofrece una condición “definitoria”, suficiente y necesaria, de la explicación. (shrink)

Critical Rationalism has become an influential philosophy in many areas including a great number of scientific disciplines. Yet only few studies have been devoted to the role of the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper in the vast field of education. This volume undertakes to fill this gap. Leading scholars in the educational science and in the philosophy of education have critically written for this volume in an attempt to elaborate Popper's methodological and socio-political views and confront them with a globally (...) relevant spectrum of scientific objectives and cultural values. Among the topics discussed are moral values, education for freedom and its consequences for the student, and the critical attitude in political education. Attention is also paid to the historiography of this significant philosophical movement. Regarding pedagogical research, the empirical paradigm, the falsificatory approach to educational research, the complex relationship between educational theory and practice as well as the problem of value-neutrality in educational science are objects of critical analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the German morphological tradition made a major contribution to twentieth-century study of form. Several scientists paved the way for this research: paleontologist Adolf Seilacher, entomologist Hermann Weber, and biologist Johann-Gerhard Helmcke together with architect Frei Otto. All of them sought to examine morphogenetic processes to illustrate their inherent structural properties, thus challenging the neo-Darwinian framework of evolutionary theory. I point out that the German theoretical challenge to adaptationist thinking was possible through an (...) exchange and transfer of practices, data, technologies, and knowledge between biologically oriented students of form and architects, designers, and engineers. This exchange of practices and knowledge was facilitated by the establishment of two collaborative research centers at the beginning of the 1970s. Hence, by showing the richness of topics, methods, and technologies discussed in German-speaking morphology between 1950 and the 1970s, this paper paves the way to a much broader comprehension of the shifts that have shaped twentieth-century evolutionary biology. (shrink)

In this book the author gives a broad overview of different areas of research in nonmonotonic reasoning, and presents some new results and ideas based on his research. The guiding principles are: clarification of the different research activities in the area, which have sometimes been undertaken independently of each other; and appreciation of the fact that these research activities often represent different means to the same ends, namely sound theoretical foundations and efficient computation. The book begins with a discussion of (...) the various types of nonmonotonic reasoning, their applications and their logics. Theorem proving techniques for these logics are also described. The following chapters deal with formulations of nonmonotonic inheritance, and nonmonotonic reasoning based on nonmonotonic rules. The final chapter discusses the achievements in the field in the light of the Yale shooting example. The book will be welcomed by researchers in theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Following its publication in Germany in 1963, Otto Friedrich Bollnow's Human Space quickly became essential reading within a cross-disciplinary field of subject areas including architecture, anthropology, and philosophy. In this first English translation, Bollnow conceives the human experience of space not merely as a philosophical problem but also as an extension of his research into psychology, human behavior, and the conventional domains of architecture: living in a building, in an apartment, in a house. Human Space is a remarkable investigation (...) of space as we experience it, by a man many consider to be the father of spatial and architectural anthropology. This lush hardcover edition includes an afterword by Joseph Kohlmaier that situates the work in the context of philosophical and architectural discussion. (shrink)

The expansion or revision of false theories by true evidence does not always increase their verisimilitude. After a comparison of different notions of verisimilitude the relation between verisimilitude and belief expansion or revision is investigated within the framework of the relevant element account. We are able to find certain interesting conditions under which both the expansion and the revision of theories by true evidence is guaranteed to increase their verisimilitude.

Nonmonotonic reasoning in its broadest sense is reasoning to conclusions on the basis of incomplete information. Given more information, previously drawn inferences may be retracted. Commonsense reasoning has a nonmonotonic component; it has been argued that almost all commonsense inferences are of this sort. From the end of the 1980s to the present there has been an explosion in research in nonmonotonic reasoning. It is now possible to understand more clearly the properties of the major formalisms from a metatheoretical point (...) of view, the relationships among the formalisms and their connection to independently developed proof methods. The goal of this monograph is to make this understanding more accessible. (shrink)

Seventeen specially written essays by eminent philosophers and linguists appear for the first time in this anthology, all with the central theme of logical form -- a fundamental issue in analytic philosophy and linguistic theory. Logical Form and Language brings together exciting new contributions from diverse points of view, which illuminate the lively current debate about this topic.