In this article the author tries to give an answer - from the point of view of the transcendental pragmatic foundation of discourse ethics - to the title question, which was raised by the Unesco conferences entitled `Universal Ethics' in Paris (27 March 1997) and Naples (December 1997). The article should be understood as a supplement to the empiristic-comparative responses of S. Bok and H. Küng, and especially to the communitarian approach of M. Walzer, proposed at the first conference. Unlike (...) traditional rationalism, this approach does not try to deduce concrete moral norms from axiomatic first principles; it begins with transcendental reflection on the undeniable moral presuppositions of argumentative discourse (which is not circumventable in philosophy). The approach first deduces from these presuppositions only the ideal procedures for the moral discourses through which all concrete moral problems ought to be solved, if possible. The second step provides a strategic-counter-strategic supplementation principle for those cases where undistorted moral discourses are not possible. (shrink)

Inhalt: K.-O. Apel: Vorwort - G. Calabro: Gesprach uber Hobbes mit Karl-Heinz Ilting - I. Grundfragen der praktischen Philosophie: H.-G. Gadamer: Die Gegenwart der sokratischen Frage in Aristoteles - P. Lorenzen: Politische Ethik - J. D'Hondt: Die Ethik und der Weltlauf - K.-O. Apel: Faktische Anerkennung oder einsehbar notwendige Anerkennung? - H. Schnadelbach: Rationalitat und Normativitat - F. W. Veauthier: Vom sozialen Verantwortungsapriori im phanomenologischen Denken - K. Lorenz: Der Antagonismus von Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit - P. Rohs: Moralische (...) Praferenzen - H. Hoppe: Normenbegrundung ohne naturalistischen Fehlschluss? - W. Kuhlmann: Solipsismus in Kants praktischer Philosophie und die Diskursethik - R. Maliandi: Anerkennung oder Argumentation? - L. H. Meyer: Anerkennung, Zumutbarkeit und Diskussion als praktische Prinzipien - A. Cortina: Substantielle Ethik oder wertfreie Verfahrensethik? - R. Zimmer: Der Selbstbezug des asthetischen Zeichens - II. Zur Geschichte der praktischen Philosophie: P. R. Franke: Zu einem Munzbildnis des Stoikers Chrysippos - V. Hosle: Recht und Geschichte bei Giambattista Vico - M. Riedel: Imputation der Handlung und Applikation des Sittengesetzes - A. Buha: Moral und Geschichte - C. Cesa: Zum Begriff des Praktischen bei Fichte - N. Bobbio: Hegel und das Recht - L. W. Beck: Reformation, Revolution und Restauration in Hegels politischer Philosophie - D. Losurdo: Moralisches Motiv und Primat der Politik bei Hegel - P. Becchi: Die Wurzeln der Ethik der Uberzeugung - R. Pozzo: 'Bourgeois' oder 'citoyen'? Zu Hegels Begriff der burgerlichen Gesellschaft - Die Veroffentlichungen K.-H. Iltings von P. Becchi - Personenregister - Sachregister. (shrink)

Riedel, M. Teleologische Erklärung und praktische Begründung.--Tuomela, R. Erklären und Verstehen menschlichen Verhaltens.--Hertzberg, L. Sich Entscheiden.--Kim, J. Intention und praktischer Schluss.--Stoutland, F. Die kausale Theorie der Handlung.--Martin, R. Erklären und Verstehen in den Geschichtswissenschaften.--Niiniluoto, I. Induktive Erklärung, Disposition und Handlung.--Meggle, G. Eine Handlung verstehen.--Wright. G. H. v. Erwiederungen.

_The purpose_ of this article is to explain in religious, secular, and post-secular contexts the functional potential of conceptualizing the miracle as a text or message with a motivational effect. _Theoretical basis._ Max Weber, Ernst Tugendhat, Alexander Geppert and Till Kössler analysed the processes of enchantment and disenchantment of the world on a philosophical basis. The representatives of the Frankfurt school (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin) and their followers describe the cultural processes of post-secularism (Jürgen Habermas, Peter Sloterdijk) in (...) detail. The logic of cultural and social representation of amazing events and their descriptions can be realized by combining hermeneutic analysis with a functionalist approach based on the model of Niklas Luhmann and the discursive ethics of Karl-Otto Apel. _Originality._ Desired cultural, social and political situations in society often arise unexpectedly and suddenly, which provokes to characterize them as a miracle. However, at the basis of the emergence of such situations are the rules of social communication, in particular those that provide for asymmetric communication with questions that await answers. A miracle appears at the moment of transformation of asymmetric communication into a symmetrical one: each specific miracle-phenomenon needs its own metaphorical understanding and interpretation as a message. _Conclusions._ The article proposes an analysis of miracle phenomenon in its cosmological, anthropological and educational implications. Some tendencies fixed by communicative turn of the contemporary philosophy are also contributed to considering the miracle in its objective and subjective representations. The semantics of the miracle is analysed according to the relevant problem fields. The functionality of miracle is examined on its ability to show orientation for the contemporary societies with their tendency to post-secularity. The fusion of Pre-modernity and Late Modernity is taking into account when the semantics of miracle is described accordingly to their communication functionality. The enchanting and disenchanting dialectic is explained on semantics of miracle as a world and cosmic events. (shrink)

This essay explores a modern American poem—its verse form, imagery, diction, and rhythm, and, in particular, its cultural echoes, resonances, and overtones. I examine the poem’s explicit invocation of Apelles and crow mythology, but I also show that the implicit context from which it arises, and the one that allows it to speak with the great- est fullness and power, is work that Shakespeare wrote or published between 1606 and 1609. This context allows us to see that, at the heart (...) of the poem, lies the Shakespearean and Platonic analogy between the creation of children and the creation of intellectual work. (shrink)

In a response to John Rawls’s 1993 article entitled, “The Law of Peoples,” Karl-Otto Apel argues that the concept of “overlapping consensus” is not sufficient for a basis or foundation for global justice. Apel makes the claim that when Rawls transfers the problem of justification from a general moral conception of justice to overlapping consensus the “weight of justification” is transferred to a “freestanding” conception of justice. To the extent that it does this, Rawls’s theory fails to show (...) why a freestanding conception of justice ought to be acceptable. In order to do so, Apel believes that, since citizens’ reason must be addressed, the weight of justification for a freestanding view must be based on a philosophical consensus theory. This would not mean that the need of a factual consensus would be dispensed with. Rather, it would mean that a freestanding view would be grounded philosophically “by a conception of an ideal consensus that serves as a regulative principle for searching and also for questioning an overlapping consensus.”. (shrink)

This article provides somephilosophical ``groundwork'' for contemporary debatesabout the status of the idea(l) of critical thinking.The major part of the article consists of a discussionof three conceptions of ``criticality,'' viz., criticaldogmatism, transcendental critique (Karl-Otto Apel),and deconstruction (Jacques Derrida). It is shown thatthese conceptions not only differ in their answer tothe question what it is ``to be critical.'' They alsoprovide different justifications for critique andhence different answers to the question what giveseach of them the ``right'' to be critical. It is (...) arguedthat while transcendental critique is able to solvesome of the problems of the dogmatic approach tocriticality, deconstruction provides the most coherentand self-reflexive conception of critique. A crucialcharacteristic of the deconstructive style of critiqueis that this style is not motivated by the truth ofthe criterion (as in critical dogmatism) or by acertain conception of rationality (as intranscendental critique), but rather by a concern forjustice. It is suggested that this concern should becentral to any redescription of the idea(l) ofcritical thinking. (shrink)

Metaphysics, understood as the first philosophy, that is, the science of the ultimate foundations and principles of being, has long been declared an anachronism in the postmodern period.1 The pluralistic character of being, the heterogeneity of types of philosophical discourse and their mutual irreducibility, the spatiotemporal discreteness of various ontologies and epistemologies, the understanding of tradition as a given that needs to be overcome rather than continued—all these indicators point to the paradigm of new thinking within which flows the mainstream (...) of twentieth-century philosophical thought. Outside this stream stands the figure of K.-O. Apel, who is devoted to the idea of a single philosophy and continues to uphold it in the face of criticism from all sides. Apel's quixotic unwillingness to relinquish his stance is demonstrated by his new book, published in 1998, in which he continues to develop his ideas, which constitute a complete conception of transcendental pragmatism.2 Inasmuch as a theory that had apparently been relegated to books on the history of philosophy has become topical again, my task is to return to its sources and to reconstruct3 and analyze its basic propositions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Transcendental Arguments The Linguistic Turn Differences From Apel.

It is common knowledge that pragmatism acquired a new and quite relevant space within European philosophical debate during the second half of Nineteen Century, and the leading actors of such a renewed interest for the classics of American thought have been Karl Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. Especially in Italy, the so called revival of pragmatism took place via their neo-kantianianism, and actually one could say that the pragmatist thought has been, so to speak, cleared from previous discred...

The author reviews recent books by Alasdair MacIntyre and Garrett Barden that critique the impulse to foundational theory and transhistorical argumentation in moral theory; these arguments are then set in relation to books by Franklin Gamwell and Karl-Otto Apel that seek, in new ways, to defend that impulse. Although far more sympathetic to the latter perspective, the author maintains that all four of these second-order theoretical discussions lack an appropriate understanding of and engagement with the post-Enlightenment tradition of moral (...) theorizing. (shrink)

This article studies one specific aspect of two of the most important contemporary ethical theories for the rational foundation of morals norms: R. M. Hare's universal prescriptivism, and the discursive ethics of the German philosopher Karl- Otto Apel. In this way, and bearing in mind the necessity of always establishing a mediation between the universal ethics of principles, and the concrete historical contexts of the communities which apply the aforementioned norms, this last question is studied in the theories of (...) both philosophers. In Hare's case, besides the inherent difficulty of the formalism he adopts, he cannot account for the problems indicated, inasmuch as, on the one hand, the incorporation of the utilitarianism that he proposes for this request is not justified and, on the other hand, with the method of interpersonal transferences, it is difficult to get to know the people's desires and interests, because of the impossibility of putting oneself in the other's place. As regards Apel, although he proposes a more coherent thesis, he does not in fact appropriately take into account the problems of the justification of decisions, and of the application of principles to historical situations. All these issues, pose the necessity of considering the feasibility of complementation with Habermas 's conception of discursive ethics.En este artículo se analiza un aspecto específico de dos de las más importantes teorías éticas contemporáneas para la fundamentación racional de las normas morales: el prescriptivismo universal de R.M. Hare, y la ética discursiva del filósofo alemán Karl- Otto Apel. Teniendo en cuenta la necesidad de establecer siempre una mediación entre la ética universal de principios, y los contextos históricos concretos de las comunidades que aplican dichas normas, se aborda esta última cuestión en las teorías de ambos filósofos. En el caso de Hare, además de la dificultad propia del formalismo que adopta, no puede dar cuenta de los problemas en cuestión en la medida en que, por un lado, la incorporación del utilitarismo que para este requerimiento propone no está justificada y, por el otro lado, con el procedimiento de las transferencias interpersonales es difícil conocer los deseos e intereses de las personas por la imposibilidad de ocupar el lugar del otro. En relación con Apel, el autor considera que, aunque propone una tesis más coherente, en realidad no tiene en cuenta adecuadamente los problemas de justificación de las decisiones y de la aplicación de los principios en las situaciones históricas. Lo antes mencionado plantea la necesidad de considerar la viabilidad de complementación con la concepción habermasiana de la ética discursiva. (shrink)

A la hora de describir aquellos elementos que intervienen en la situación hermenéutica desde la cual comprendemos e interpretamos la realidad, es posible poner el acento en unos aspectos u otros. Mientras que la interpretación tradicional de la propuesta hermenéutica de Heidegger ha hecho hincapié en el modo previo de ver, el lenguaje de la comunidad o incluso las cosas mismas objeto de interpretación son puestas de relieve en el modelo hermenéutico de la antropología del conocimiento de Apel. A (...) comparar críticamente ambas propuestas está dedicado el presente trabajo, con el objetivo de señalar las ventajas que la transformación gnoseo-antropológica de la situación hermenéutica presenta en el panorama filosófico actual. When it comes to describe the ingredients of the hermeneutic situation from which reality is understood and interpreted, it is possible to emphasize some of them or others. Whereas the traditional interpretation of Heidegger's hermeneutic proposal has highlighted the previous way of seeing, the community language or even the things themselves subject of interpretation are emphasized in the hermeneutic model of Apel's anthropology of knowledge. The main aim of this paper is to compare and evaluate both proposals, showing the advantages of the gnoseo-anthropological transformation of the hermeneutic situation within the contemporary philosophical framework. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation of the distinction, endorsed for example by James McAllister and Bruce Glymour, which identifies phenomena with patterns in data (...) sets. Furthermore, I point out that other interpretations of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction do not specify the relationship between phenomena and theories in a satisfying manner. In order to avoid this problem I propose a contextual understanding of scientific phenomena according to which phenomena are states of affairs which play specific roles in scientific practice and to which we adopt a special epistemic attitude. Second, I evaluate the epistemological significance of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction with respect to the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists. Contrary to what Bogen and Woodward claim, I argue that the distinction does not provide a convincing argument against constructive empiricism. (shrink)

Enrique Dussel's writings span the theology of liberation, critiques of discourse ethics, evaluations of Marx, Levinas, Habermas, and others, but most importantly, the development of a philosophy written from the underside of Eurocentric modernist teleologies, an ethics of the impoverished, and the articulation of a unique Latin American theoretical perspective. This anthology of original articles by U.S. philosophers elucidating Dussel's thought, offers critical analyses from a variety of perspectives, including feminist ones. Also included is an essay by Dussel that responds (...) to these essays. (shrink)

Der Wissenschaftskonzeption der "kritischen Theorie" der zu verändernden Gesellschaft wird im wesentlichen zugestimmt. Sie wird verteidigt insbesondere gegen ein Selbstverständnis der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, das sich im Namen der "Freiheit von Forschung und Lehre" auf einen Begriff "der" interesse- bzw. wertfreien Wissenschaft zurückzieht. Andererseits will der Autor die genannte Konzeption ergänzen bzw. präzisieren: Zwar stellt die Einheit von Theorie und Praxis ein Postulat philosophischer Reflexion dar, letztere erweist aber auf ihrer höchsten Stufe das politisch interessierte Engagement und das wissenschaftliche Interesse (...) an entdogmatisierender Reflexion jedes Engagements unter den Bedingungen menschlicher Endlichkeit als polar-entgegengesetzte, auseinandertretende Momente. (shrink)