Saner onderzoekt de mythe van Orfeus. Hij beschrijft de oudere 'Ishtar mythe', waarin de macht van muziek reeds aan bod komt, en wijst op de relatie tussen deze mythe en de Orfeusmythe. Het essay handelt over de onmacht van Orfeus.

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) ist ein Philosoph von bleibender Aktualität. Viele der hier versammelten Aufsätze zur Philosophie waren zuletzt nur schwer oder überhaupt nicht greifbar. Da Jaspers ohne Jargon schrieb, sind seine Texte gegenwärtig und modern geblieben - vom frühesten Essay über die Einsamkeit (1915/16) bis zum spätesten über das Verhältnis von Philosophie und Mythos (1964).

For many innovations, oversight fits nicely within existing governance mechanisms; nevertheless, others pose unique public health, environmental, and ethical challenges. Synthetic artemisinin, for example, has many precursors in laboratory‐developed drugs that emulate natural forms of the same drug. The policy challenges posed by synthetic artemisinin do not differ significantly in kind from other laboratory‐formulated drugs. Synthetic biofuels and gene drives, however, fit less clearly into existing governance structures. How many of the new categories of products require new forms of regulatory (...) oversight, or at least extensive forms of testing, remains unclear.Any effort to improve the governance of synthetic biology should start with a rich understanding of the different possible science‐policy interfaces that could help to inform governance. CBA falls into a subset of the overall range of possibilities, and which interface is appropriate may turn out to depend on context, on the demands of the decision at hand. In what follows, we lay out a typology of interfaces. After that, we turn to the question of how to draw upon the range of possible interfaces and effectively address the factual and moral complexities of emerging technologies. We propose a governance model built around structures that we call “governance coordinating committees.” GCCs are intended to be mechanisms for accommodating the complexities of innovations that have far‐ranging societal impacts. The production of biofuels, for example, could contaminate water supplies and have a destructive environmental impact if not managed correctly. The introduction of a gene drive could have economic and environmental impacts that are not restricted to one nation. Forging appropriate means for determining and evaluating those societal impacts, to the best of a corporation's, industry's, or government's ability, is central to responsible research and innovation. Public policy must be shaped in a manner that accommodates as many concerns as possible and minimizes risks. (shrink)

This book presents an innovative reading of Daoist philosophy that highlights the critical and therapeutic functions of satire and humor. Moeller and D'Ambrosio show how the Zhuangzi expounds the Daoist art of "genuine pretending" the paradoxical skill of enacting social roles without submitting to them or letting them define one's identity.

I LAW AND NATURE i. The "Pure" Theory The Pure Theory of Law is a theory of positive law. It is a theory of positive law in general, not of a specific legal ...

The discussion of migrants’ education focuses generally on whether and how host countries should educate their migrant populations, examining the goals and moral principles underlying educational services for immigrants. While apparently innocuous, such formulations of the issue stipulate a framework with clear roles: host countries are posited as providers and immigrants as recipients of services. Host countries are, thus, placed in a hierarchical position of ‘granting’ belonging, ‘granting’ services, ‘granting’ education, as benefactors, whether for the purposes of duty, utility, or (...) justice. In this paper, I challenge this unidirectional order of beneficence. I propose that the inclusion of migrants in public institutions should more properly be viewed (also) as providing a necessary good/service for the host communities. The encounter with the alien, the foreign, the migrant, in oneself and in one’s world, forces individuals and communities to reflect on what and who they are as well as what and who they want to be – their identity and their future development. I argue that migrant populations with diverse linguistic traditions and customs are uniquely situated to bring to consciousness and help denaturalize the given traditions and culture of their host communities and thus make possible a more self-aware, informed, and freer path of development for their host countries. (shrink)

Bryan Norton proposes a "convergence hypothesis'* stating that anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists can arrive at common environmental policy goals if certain constraints are applied. Within his theory he does not, however, address the consideration ofnonconsequentualist issues, and, therefore, does not provide an argument for the convergence between consequentualist and nonconsequentualist ethical positions. In the case of biotechnology, nonconsequentualist issues can dominate the debate in both the fields of environmental ethics and bioethics. I argue that, the convergence hypothesis must be rejected when (...) tested against the case of biotechnology, and this limitation of convergence applies to any theory of reconciliation within the "health" concept because the achievement and preservation of "health "emphasizes a consequentualist outlook. I conclude that an inclusive ethics for ecosystem and human health should be explicit about this limitation. (shrink)

Ludwik Fleck, Edmund Husserl : on the historicity of scientific knowledge -- Gaston Bachelard : the concept of "phenomenotechnique" -- Georges Canguilhem : epistemological history -- Pisum : Carl Correns's experiments on Xenia, 1896-99 -- Eudorina : Max Hartmann's experiments on biological regulation in protozoa, 1914-21 -- Ephestia : Alfred Kähn's experimental design for a developmental physiological -- Genetics, 1924-45 -- Tobacco mosaic virus : virus research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes for Biochemistry and Biology, 1937-45 -- The concept of (...) the gene : molecular biological perspectives -- The liquid scintillation counter : traces of radioactivity -- The concept of information : the writings of François Jacob -- Intersections -- Preparations -- The economy of the scribble. (shrink)

The concept of negative liberty as non-interference is operative in the concept of a free market and stipulates that market relations remain outside the purview of social control. As a purported self-regulating system, however, the market functions as a system of necessity that facilitates and rules social life. I argue that Isaiah Berlin’s defense of negative liberty leads to a paradox as it entails subjection to the external necessity of a self-regulating market. The argument for the self-defeating nature of negative (...) liberty relies on two philosophical insights that have their roots in G. W. F. Hegel’s theory of self-determination. First, negative liberty fails to account for the inner and outer conditions of freedom and thus reduces to mere whim or arbitrariness, subject to heteronomous forces but masquerading as license. Second, individual freedom is intersubjectively mediated in its deliberative process and framed by social and political institutions in its exercise; thus, free agency must be theorized as embedded agency. I challenge the association of freedom and the market and the automatic and unchallenged implication of deregulation and freedom. Deregulation, rather, leaves the community’s future development to the whims of economic players using a rhetoric of freedom as both lure and principle. (shrink)

"Social ontology, conventionally defined, is not primarily about us. Rather, it is about the social world (or worlds), about social reality (or realities), or about the domain(s) of social facts. Social ontology aims at providing an inventory of the basic kinds of entities that make up the social world(s) - items such as norms, institutions, social practices, status positions, power structures, and artifacts. It is the study of the basic kinds of properties of these entities, and of how the social (...) world exists, how it is constituted, or constructed"--. (shrink)

1947 legt Hans Blumenberg aus Bargteheide in Holstein an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel seine unter schwierigsten persönlichen Umständen entstandene Dissertation 'Beiträge zum Problem der Ursprünglichkeit der mittelalterlich-scholastischen Ontologie" vor. Hinter diesem Titel verbirgt sich eine mit ständigem Bezug auf die Philosophie Heideggers und seine "Fundamentalontologie' geführte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Denken des christlichen Mittelalters, in dem die Frage nach dem Grund des Seins eine so krisenhafte wie produktive Zuspitzung erfahren hatte. Die Dissertation wird von den Gutachtern Ludwig Landgrebe und Rudolf (...) Schneider mit "ausgezeichnet" bewertet, aber sämtliche Bemühungen, zeitnah einen Verlag für die Arbeit zu finden, scheitern. Blumenbergs brillantes Erstlingswerk blieb mehr als 70 Jahre ungedruckt. Nun wird es erstmals publiziert in einer leserorientierten Edition, die unter anderem Übersetzungen der zahlreichen altsprachlichen Zitate wie auch ein "Verzeichnis der Referenzliteratur" bietet, das die Lücke des im Original fehlenden Literaturverzeichnisses schliesst und dieses darüber hinaus durch heute zugängliche Ausgaben ergänzt. In ihrem Nachwort beleuchten die Herausgeber den Entstehungskontext dieses Werks, das überraschende Perspektiven auf Blumenbergs Biographie und Denkentwicklung eröffnet. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children (P4C) practice and its distinctive method of cultivating communities of philosophical inquiry model two main functions of democratic civil society. Civil society makes explicit the implicit agreement of communal membership and common belonging and mediates the diverse interests and values of community members. An essential principle of civil society that underlies these two functions is that its members possess intrinsic and political equality, fostering a unique space for civic engagement and democratic will-formation. P4C programs enact these functions (...) of civil society: as children encounter philosophical questions, speak their minds, listen to one another, disagree, and puzzle out the reasons for their disagreements, the main aim is that they engage in collaborative inquiry. I argue that free and open-access P4C programs at public libraries are microcosms of civil society in the serendipitous accidental coming together of strangers. These programs enact civil society insofar as they motivate and exercise civic virtues of collaboration and critical reflection by practicing community of inquiry through self-correcting dialogue. (shrink)

Using picture books to prompt philosophical conversations with children is an effective means to raise awareness of environmental issues and invite children to think creatively about their responsibility for their community and environment. In our Philosophy for Children (P4C) program at Kern County Public libraries in Bakersfield, we address environmental ethics issues as part of our regular curriculum as well as for Earth Day conversations. Children discuss how they may reuse and recycle objects that they ordinarily discard, how small acts (...) of care may have big consequences for their community, and how they share reciprocal relationships to other living creatures, even insects. Most importantly, during such conversations children reflect and deliberate on how they can act on their insights to expand their moral imagination and empower them as citizens of their community and the world. (shrink)

Jaspers' vision of an ideal university stipulates an institution devoted to the search for truth by virtue of communication. I argue that such an institution requires students who are willing and able to collectively pursue open and free inquiry as well as academics who uphold this value. Such a desideratum as well as an overall capacity for participation in the university's mandate needs to be cultivated in students at an early age. While a desire for truth and open-ended inquiry requires (...) that economic and instrumental considerations for education do not exhaust the students' reasons for seeking a university education, an interest in truth and learning for its own sake is best cultivated when one aims to foster children's natural curiosity about big questions, such as, for example, the beginning of the universe, personal identity, the meaning of life, or the nature of friendship. Furthermore, the capacity for participation in a community of learning and research requires that the virtues of critical thinking, intellectual empathy, and intellectual integrity are familiar to students—that their interaction with teachers and academic personnel is not based on their status as authority figures and disciplinarians, thereby following stereotypes of early schooling, but rather that they are also seen as being fellow inquirers and thinkers. These two Jaspersian goals of university education—(1) the open inquiry for truth and (2) communication as the method for such inquiry—are best supported if philosophical thinking is introduced to students at an early age. (shrink)

In this dissertation I argue that Hegel‘s analysis of freedom based on the concept of self-determination provides us with an opportunity to radically rethink personal freedom and restore it to its necessary domain: the political. I reconstruct Hegel‘s exposition of the dynamic of self-determination in the Logic by focusing on a central premise: that the exposure and overcoming of the conceptual indifference [Gleichgültigkeit] between categories – between, for example, something and other, identity and difference, or universality and particularity – is (...) the driving force of the argument leading to the Concept, i.e., the concept of self-determination. I show that Hegel‘s critiques of abstract universal free will as well as of particular arbitrary freedom use the same strategy, that of exposing the claims of indifference that sustain the legitimacy of these conceptions of freedom. I argue that the critique of indifference, explicit in the analysis and exposition of self-determination in the Logic and implicit in Hegel‘s discussion of the free will in the Philosophy of Right, offers a new perspective for thinking personal freedom. (shrink)