We live in the self-proclaimed time of difference, when particular identities and localities worry about or actively resist the global forces of modernization. This is the time of the other, the exception, the multicultural. Why, then, look again at Hegel, who is reputed to be the philosopher of unity, sameness, and absorption into the whole? Things may not be what they seem. Hegel may be surprisingly relevant; in a world in which particularity is alternately triumphant and resentful, Hegel offers more (...) sophisticated ways to think about individual and social unity. Agree with him or not, you can learn from him. (shrink)

Introduction to a volume on Hegel, asking why his thought continues to be relevant today.

RÉSUMÉ Le texte tente de voir dans l'espace que l'esthétique allemande récente réserve à la notion de rationalité esthétique, une percée en vue d'élargir ou de « régler » d'une façon ou d'une autre, la controverse sur les critères esthétiques. L'intérêt se porte aux distinctions supplémentaires apportées par M. Seel à ce débat, ainsi qu'aux sources adorniennes et communicationnelles que son approche charrie. Enfin les avancées que la notion en question accomplit et les failles qu'elle ne peut contrer sont pesées. (...) ABSTRACT This article attempts to seek what breaks the path to enlarge or to "stop" in either way, the controversy about aesthetical critereas in the recent research on rationality in German Aesthetics. The interest holds on the supplementary distinctions brought by M. Seel in this debate, and also on what its adomian and communicative sources sustained in his approach. Finally, we also mesure the break through accomplished by this notion and what it's fails to cross. (shrink)

Le texte tente de voir dans l'espace que l'esthétique allemande récente réserve à la notion de rationalité esthétique, une percée en vue d'élargir ou de « régler » d'une façon ou d'une autre, la controverse sur les critères esthétiques. L'intérêt se porte aux distinctions supplémentaires apportées par M. Seel à ce débat, ainsi qu'aux sources adorniennes et communicationnelles que son approche charrie. Enfin les avancées que la notion en question accomplit et les failles qu'elle ne peut contrer sont pesées.This article (...) attempts to seek what breaks the path to enlarge or to "stop" in either way, the controversy about aesthetical critereas in the recent research on rationality in German Aesthetics. The interest holds on the supplementary distinctions brought by M. Seel in this debate, and also on what its adomian and communicative sources sustained in his approach. Finally, we also mesure the break through accomplished by this notion and what it's fails to cross. (shrink)

Peut-on s'entendre en matière d'esthétique? Y a-t-il une objectivité possible des jugements dans ce domaine marginal de la philosophie? La question du sens commun dans la Critique de la faculté de juger, semble, aux dires de certains, mener directement à cette problématique contemporaine. Nous ne reprendrons pas ici les multiples articles et ouvrages sur le sensus communis parus dans la dernière décennie à la suite de l'impact conceptuel du thème de la rationalité communicationnelle. Notre intention est plutôt, au-delà de la (...) “dérive” du célèbre paragraphe 40 vers une idée plus actuelle de “consensus”, de repérer les tensions entre le versant transcendantal et le versant empirique du sens commun qui surgissent significativement à l'occasion de cette dérive. Avant d'aborder le sens esthétique défini dans la troisième Critique et de le confronter aux interprétations qui nous semblent plus déterminantes comme celles de L. Ferry de J.-F. Lyotard ou de J. Habermas nous voudrions d'abord examiner l'usage général de cette notion dans l'histoire de la philosophie précritique pour vérifier ensuite la spécificitÉ qu'elle acquiert chez Kant. (shrink)

Les efforts pour déterminer par des voies non kantiennes les frontières de la raison dépendent de perspectives ouvertes par les idéalistes postkantiens, comme le soutient Rolf-Peter Horstmann, dans un ouvrage d'abord publié en 1991 chez l'éditeur Anton Hain. L'avant-propos présente d'intéressantes idées sur l'«utilité pratique» de l'histoire de la philosophie et sur la question métaphilosophique de la différence entre la matière des problèmes et la manière de les poser. Une nouvelle théorie philosophique pourrait élucider d'anciens problèmes sans en réviser les (...) présupposés, ou reprendre carrément les fondements des tentatives antérieures. Des structures de rationalité auraient une genèse, culmineraient à un moment donné, puis deviendraient désuètes. Rendre justice à la signification et à la dynamique de l'idéalisme allemand exige de comprendre son évolution comme un processus visant l'établissement de normes de rationalité différentes de celles de la tradition des Temps modernes. L'ouvrage analyse ainsi les motifs d'une formulation nouvelle des fondements de ce «courant» de pensée. (shrink)

F. J. W. Schelling a la réputation d'être l'idéaliste qui a le plus assigné de limites à l'idéalisme allemand. La «dernière philosophie» de Schelling, dont il est en grande partie question ici, contournerait l'interdit que Kant avait jeté sur l'intuition intellectuelle, d'une manière différente de ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler sa «première philosophie». Schelling poursuivrait un projet que Walter Schulz qualifie d'«achèvement de l'idéalisme allemand». Mais en quoi consiste cet achèvement? Si le programme ultime de ce philosophe conduit à de (...) tels confins, selon l'auteure M.-C. Challiol-Gillet, c'est dû à la reconnaissance de la structure extatique à la fois de la conscience humaine et de l'être divin. Les transformations philosophiques constantes chez Schelling n'excluraient pas une «profonde cohérence» qui a trait à l'«exigence d'un commencement scientifique de la philosophie positive». Aborder la philosophie de la dernière période, c'est admettre, en outre, l'existence de deux visages dans le projet philosophique schellingien, le négatif et le positif. L'ouvrage a pour tâche propre de les rendre observables, non seulement à partir des Leçons de Munich qui les avaient thématisés, mais depuis les premiers écrits où surgit la philosophie de l'identité. Si la philosophie «négative» est traditionnellement associée à cette dernière, on constate qu'elle a trait à ce qu'il reste de métaphysique classique dans la pensée de Schelling, tandis que la philosophie «positive» touche l'extériorisation de la raison, le passage à la considération de l'existence. Entre Munich et Berlin, endroits où le philosophe a enseigné durant la troisième période de son œuvre, l'«exigence positive» est établie comme celle d'un absolu qui se verse dans la différence, qui se met à «exister», qui se «potentialise», pour ainsi dire. S'agit-il d'une rupture entre le négatif et le positif? La raison qui s'«extasie» est davantage une première critique radicale du visage philosophique précédent. (shrink)

While artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied for decision-making processes, ethical decisions pose challenges for AI applications. Given that humans cannot always agree on the right thing to do, how would ethical decision-making by AI systems be perceived and how would responsibility be ascribed in human-AI collaboration? In this study, we investigate how the expert type (human vs. AI) and level of expert autonomy (adviser vs. decider) influence trust, perceived responsibility, and reliance. We find that participants consider humans to be (...) more morally trustworthy but less capable than their AI equivalent. This shows in participants’ reliance on AI: AI recommendations and decisions are accepted more often than the human expert’s. However, AI team experts are perceived to be less responsible than humans, while programmers and sellers of AI systems are deemed partially responsible instead. (shrink)

In dialogues ranging from the Symposium to the Timaeus, Plato appears to propose that the philosopher’s grasp of the forms may confer immortality upon him. Whatever can Plato mean in making such a claim? What does he take immortality to consist in, such that it could constitute a reward for philosophical enlightenment? And how is this proposal compatible with Plato’s insistence throughout his corpus that all soul, not just philosophical soul, is immortal? In this chapter, I pursue these questions by (...) applying the distinction between general and earned immortality to the Phaedo and the Symposium. I argue that, while Plato attributes general immortality to all soul in the Phaedo, in the Affinity Argument, he proposes that the philosopher’s soul can achieve earned immortality through contemplating forms. It is this form of immortality that Plato claims is unavailable to humankind in the flux passage of the Symposium. At the same time, in the ascent passage, he holds out the possibility – albeit with significant reservations – that the philosopher’s soul may transcend its humanity and achieve earned immortality through its communion with the form. (shrink)

Translator's Preface LA LOGIQUE DE HUSSERL, etude sur "Logique for- melle et logique transcendentale" the original of the present translation, was published ...

Connects the work of Merleau-Ponty to environmental studies.

_Philosophically explores the topic of emotional depth._.

Amidst increasing concerns about harmful ecological change brought about by human actions upon the earth, environmental thinkers and activists attempt to envision human relations with the earth in new ways. Such thinking, however, frequently comes up against an inability to conceive of the more-than-human world as something towards which we can empathize or sympathize or to which we owe justice. As such, a powerful force in environmental discourse sees this problem as intractable and sees ecological change as a problem to (...) be solved and the future of the earth as something to be managed rather than to explore new forms of relations with. This chapter explores Robert Waters’ art project uncover RECOVER in terms of this problem. His project activates a reflection on human life and social relations that fosters social healing and transformation. Is there a way to activate a similar process, but in terms of a natural healing of the earth and a social transformation of our relations to the earth? In considering this question, I explore Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel’s concept of “reparation ecology” and analyse how the idea of the Anthropocene blocks our capacities to think the reparation of human relations with the more-than-human world. I suggest that that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of becoming and sympathy offer a way of thinking human relations with earth others that could generate ethical and political responses to ecological change where the more-than-human world is considered as a co-participant and collaborator in human action and a subject to whom justice is owed. Sympathy with the non- human world acknowledges that human capacities are constituted by non-human materials and affects that do not respect the boundaries that tend to frame our thinking. Rather than continuing to allow our traditional assumptions about the separation of humans and nature to shape our relations to non-human world, imagining the human in new ways makes possible new forms of relations with the earth. I argue that attending to the ways that humans co-become with the non-human world affords opportunities for transforming human relations with the more-than-human world by fostering spaces for the emergence of new ecological sensibilities and potentials for social-ecological justice. (shrink)

This research aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance and CSR: What are the major factors that play a direct role in the establishment of this relationship? How does context and institutional background impact upon the relationship between CSR and Governance? Using in-depth semi-structured interviews from two types of governance systems in three countries over three years, this study has demonstrated that in practice, within different settings, CSR is being used both as a strategy as well as a reaction (...) to different drivers. We call this adaptive governance where governance can be defined as a flexible system of action incorporating strategic and monitoring activities that determines the way a company enacts its responsibilities to its shareholders and stakeholders and which is determined at any given time by the interrelationship of institutional drivers and behavioural norms. Governance systems and their interrelationships with CSR are demonstrated as fluid according to the national and institutional context, economic situation and industry impact. In the eyes of practitioners corporate governance includes both structural and behavioural factors as well as responsibilities and actions towards shareholders and stakeholders. Contextual factors that this research highlights to be important to the incorporation of CSR into governance include the economic environment, national governance system, regulation and soft law, shareholders, national culture, behavioural norms and industry impacts. Hypotheses on the impact of institutional contexts, industry impacts and economic situations on different types of CSR actions are proposed for further research. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

Has exclusion of Darwin's views on evolution distorted 20c philosophy? Cunningham suggests a reappraisal.

: This essay examines the increasing commodification of the body with respect to tissues, gametes, and embryos. Such commodification contributes to a diminishing sense of human personhood on an individual level, even as it erodes commitments to human flourishing at the societal level. After the case for social harm resulting from the increasing commodification of the body is made, the question becomes whether that harm is best remedied by following any of three approaches by which government traditionally seeks to promote (...) the flourishing of its citizens. The author concludes that it is not, and that what is needed is a pragmatic and somewhat casuistic approach to the regulation of contested commodities--that which legal scholar Margaret Jane Radin calls "incomplete commodification.". (shrink)

Nature, a topic central to art history, is concurrently a dominant concept in contemporary art, art theory and its related disciplines such as cultural theory, philosophy, aesthetic theory and environmental studies. The project Naturally Hypernatural questions lines of tradition and predetermined categories that coexist with the topic of nature. Currently, nature in art surpasses the simple depiction of art as a material or object. To clarify and analyze the interrelations between nature and art is the aim of the project Naturally (...) Hypernatural. Concepts of Nature - the first volume of this project - argues that contemporary art is predominantly concerned with concepts of nature regarding the depth of their implications in order to reveal and analyze their internal structure. (shrink)

This article examines questions of trust in cinema through the lens of Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010). With its self-referential allusion to the mechanical “eye” of a camera, a stage-managed fantasy embedded within its plot and image of a dark lighthouse, Shutter Island explores its spectators' and its own cinematic sense of suspicion. The plot revolves around a protagonist who has locked himself out of certain memories and into a fantasy world. The article links pathological and therapeutic aspects of trust (...) with interpersonal and institutional trust issues in ways that blur distinctions between trusting others and trusting oneself, and shows how reliant each is on the other. Construing trust as a type of participant attitude and highlighting techniques used to render it cinematically, the article tracks its emergence and erosion, both in terms of the diegesis and its bearing on film spectatorship. As a post-classical commentary on film-making, Shutter Island is viewed as intricately exemplifying what Robert Sinnerbrink (2016) describes as an action-driven film with “a highly reflective consciousness of cinematic spectatorship” (p. 70), as well as what Thomas Elsaesser (2009) describes as a “mind-game film”. To make sense of its ending, which may strike viewers as baffling and unnerving, and show how the protagonist's seemingly irrational decision is part of its film-philosophical point, traumatic disturbances in subjectivity and “monstrosities” depicted in the film are linked to Jean Epstein's notion of “something monstrous” in cinematic imagery. The protagonist's deliberately chosen fate is interpreted as a reparative gesture, expressing a desire for psychological healing and a way of helping him to marshal and recover a semblance of moral order and integrity under demoralizing circumstances. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

Throughout his life, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) recorded his experiences and reflections in diaries and correspondence. This comprehensive biography is the first to explore these extensive and candid private writings that illuminate not only Jaspers’ life and relationships but also the ideas he proposed in Way to Wisdom, The Question of German Guilt, and many other published works. Suzanne Kirkbright provides a sensitive and intimate portrait of the philosopher whose work on truth, personal integrity, and the capacity for (...) communication contrasted acutely with the erosion of such values in Germany in his lifetime. She describes how Jaspers’ Jewish wife, Gertrud, influenced his thinking, the loss in 1937 of his professorship at Heidelberg University, and his relationship with such celebrated colleagues as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Kirkbright examines the unshakeable ethical content of Jaspers’ philosophy and demonstrates his unique and scrupulous personal adherence to the philosophical principles he espoused. (shrink)

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue (...) that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)

Discusses the ethical issues involved in the use of human embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine.

summary, crtiques, strengths and limitation of the article.

Individuals are faced with the many opportunities to pirate. The decision to pirate or not may be related to an individual''s attitudes toward other ethical issues. A person''s ethical and moral predispositions and the judgments that they use to make decisions may be consistent across various ethical dilemmas and may indicate their likelihood to pirate software. This paper investigates the relationship between religion and a theoretical ethical decision making process that an individual uses when evaluating ethical or unethical situations. An (...) ethical decision making model was studied for general unethical scenarios and for the unethical behavior of software piracy. The research model was tested via path analysis using structural equation modeling and was found to be appropriate for the sample data. The results suggest that there is a relationship between religion and the stages of an ethical decision making process regarding general ethical situations and software piracy. (shrink)