Daß sprachliche Praxis eine soziale Praxis ist, gilt der Sprachphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts als selbstverständlich. Aber wie genau sollen wir das Verhältnis der einzelnen Sprecherinnen und Sprecher zueinander und zu der Gemeinschaft, die sie als Sprecherinnen und Sprecher einer Sprache bilden, im Rahmen einer philosophischen Theorie sprachlicher Bedeutung konzipieren? Sind Sprecher als solche notwendig auf die Existenz anderer Sprecher oder einer Sprachgemeinschaft, der sie angehören, angewiesen? In welcher Weise sind sie von den sprachlichen Normen einer Gemeinschaft bestimmt? In welcher Weise (...) bestimmen sie diese Normen? Und in welcher Weise bestimmen sie einander? Jasper Liptow untersucht das Für und Wider von zwei Antworten auf diese Fragen, die sich vor allem dadurch unterscheiden, wie sie das Verhältnis zwischen Sprachgemeinschaft und sprechendem Individuum bestimmen. Die eine Antwort zielt darauf, den sozialen Aspekt von Sprache unter Bezug auf einen bestimmten Begriff der sprachlichen Regel zu verstehen. Sie gibt dem Begriff eines Kollektivs von Sprechern, das geteilte sprachliche Regeln zur Geltung bringt und so geteilte sprachliche Bedeutungen schafft, einen grundlegenden theoretischen Stellenwert und behandelt den Begriff des sprechenden Individuums als abgeleitet. Die andere setzt statt dessen auf einen bestimmten Begriff der Interpretation sprachlichen Verhaltens. Sie gibt damit den einzelnen Individuen, die sich ihr sprachliches Verhalten wechselseitig verständlich zu machen suchen, einen grundlegenden Stellenwert und begreift den Begriff eines sprachlichen Kollektivs als abgeleitet. Mit einer aus den Sozialwissenschaften bzw. der Sozialphilosophie vertrauten Terminologie kann man den ersten der beiden Ansätze als Kollektivismus, den zweiten als Individualismus bezeichnen. Die systematisch zentralen Kapitel dieser Arbeit bieten eine Rekonstruktion dieser beiden grundlegenden bedeutungstheoretischen Alternativen sowie eine Diskussion ihrer jeweiligen Vorzüge und Nachteile. Auf dieser Basis entwickelt Liptow eine den bisherigen Varianten überlegene Form des Individualismus. Seine Rekonstruktion einer sozialen Variante des Individualismus erfolgt im Anschluß an die Arbeiten von Donald Davidson, die er um einen Begriff der gelingenden sprachlichen Verständigung ergänzt. Das führt zu einem theoretischen Modell sprachlicher Praxis als einer sich selbst stabilisierenden und regulierenden Praxis, in der die Standards, an denen sich das Gelingen einzelner Akte sprachlicher Verständigung messen läßt, selber als ein Produkt weiterer solcher Akte begriffen wird. Damit kommt eine historische Dimension sprachlicher Praxis zum Tragen, die Davidson außer Acht läßt. Sprachliches Verstehen basiert zwar nicht auf geteilten Regeln, wohl aber auf einer gemeinsamen Tradition gelingender Verständigung. Im Rahmen dieses individualistischen Modells können die Probleme des Kollektivismus entweder gelöst werden oder entstehen erst gar nicht. Jasper Liptow ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentrum für Philosophie und Grundlagen der Wissenschaft der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. Zusammen mit Georg Bertram hat er im Velbrück Verlag herausgegeben: Holismus in der Philosophie. Inhalt Einleitung 1 Philosophische Bedeutungstheorien 2 Bedeutung und Gebrauch 3 Ein kollektivistisches Modell sprachlicher Praxis 4 Auf der Suche nach einem pragmatistischen Regelbegriff 5 Elemente einer Kritik des bedeutungstheoretischen Kollektivismus 6 Interpretation und Verständigung 7 Ein individualistisches Modell sprachlicher Praxis Literatur Register. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 The “Context Principle”, as the author understands it in this paper, is the claim that sub-sentential linguistic expressions have meaning only in the context of complete meaningful sentences. The author reconstructs the version of the Context Principle that Wittgenstein holds in the _Tractatus_, shows that it has intuitive plausibility and can be defended against alleged counterexamples, and develops an argument for its truth that can be found in the _Tractatus_. In short, the author argues that (...) the “fit” between the meanings of sentences and the meanings of the expressions they contain can only be adequately explained if one acknowledges that for a sub-sentential expression to have meaning _is_ for it to make a contribution to the meaning of a sentence. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that the customary understanding of epistemic progress as a kind of belief change is incomplete and that conceptual change has to be acknowledged as a crucial driving force in epistemic progress. The author’s argument for the epistemological relevance of conceptual change proceeds as follows. First, he develops an account of conceptual change that clearly distinguishes conceptual change from belief change. He then takes a closer look at two kinds of conceptual change that (...) are of special interest from an epistemological point of view. He calls them “disclosing” conceptual change and “revisionary” conceptual change. He then shows that the idea of epistemic value that demarcates the realm of epistemological inquiry applies to concepts and conceptual change. (shrink)

To explain fundamental aspects of human thinking like its systematicity and productivity we need an account of how thoughts - mental acts and states with propositional content - can ‘consist of parts’ with subpropositional content. Concepts as they are investigated here are nothing but these ‘parts’ of thoughts. The Representational Theory of Mind takes concepts and thoughts to be mental representations - material bearers of content with a syntactic form and a specific content - in a ‘language of thought’. Concepts (...) can then be understood as being literally parts of thoughts just as words are parts of sentences. In this paper I try to develop the main lines of an alternative account of concepts. According to this account - which has been hinted at by Peter Geach and Gareth Evans - concepts are mental abilities that are actualized in mental acts like judgments. I try to show that on this basis systematicity and productivity can be explained without invoking mental representations. (shrink)

Es wird eine Theorie bildlicher Darstellung skizziert, die der basalen Intuition gerecht zu werden sucht, dass das Verstehen bildlicher Darstellungen in einer Weise auf unsere Wahrnehmung angewiesen ist, in der das für das Verstehen von Beschreibungen nicht gilt. Die zentrale These lautet, dass das Verstehen bildlicher Darstellungen von Gegenständen eine abgeleitete Form des Gebrauchs von Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten beinhaltet, die die Funktion haben, uns diese Gegenstände in natura erkennen zu lassen.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 3 Seiten: 584-589.

The idea that only those things can happen that actually do happen seems to be incompatible with the idea that a person can act or decide otherwise than she actually does. If being able to act otherwise is a necessary condition for freedom, freedom and determinism seem to be incompatible. A common compatibilist strategy, which Ansgar Beckermann pursues in his Gehirn, Ich, Freiheit, attempts to reconcile the two ideas by pointing to an ambiguity of the verb »can«: in the first (...) case, »can« is said to express the possibility that some event happens; in the second case, it is taken to express a person’s ability to do something. It is shown that the compatibilist strategy runs into trouble because, albeit »can« does in fact have these two meanings, reference to abilities is of no help in explicating the »principle of alternative possibilities«. (shrink)

Im Zentrum des Aufsatzes steht die Entwicklung eines Arguments für den sozialen Charakter des Denkens. Im Anschluss an Donald Davidson wird argumentiert, dass sich das für den Gehalt von Gedanken konstitutive kausale Element, das der Externalismus zu Recht behauptet, nur als ein Element von Situationen der gelingenden sprachlichen Verständigung zweier Wesen mit Bezug auf einen von beiden wahrgenommenen Gegenstand verständlich machen lässt. Diese Überlegungen haben Konsequenzen für den kausalen Externalismus: Die für den Gehalt von Gedanken konstitutive Kausalität lässt sich nicht (...) vom Standpunkt eines unbeteiligten Beobachters, sondern nur aus der Perspektive einer an der Verständigung beteiligten Interpretin explizieren. Aus diesem perspektivischen Charakter des semantischen Externalismus lässt sich schließlich ein Argument für Davidsons These gewinnen, dass unsere Überzeugungen im Großen und Ganzen wahr sein müssen. (shrink)

Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, Robert Brandoms Begriff des Explizit-Machens explizit zu machen. Zu diesem Zweck werden zunächst verschiedene Formen des Explizit-Machens unterschieden. Dabei erweist sich allein der Begriff des logischen Explizit-Machens als haltbar. Anschließend wird gezeigt, dass diesem Begriff eine Schlüsselstellung im Rahmen von Brandoms Philosophie zukommt. Sowohl seine philosophische Methodologie als auch sein zentrales philosophisches Projekt einer Zurückführung von Semantik auf Pragmatik lassen sich höchstens soweit verständlich machen wie der Begriff des logischen Explizit-Machens. Dieser weist allerdings ein erhebliches (...) Defizit auf: Im Rahmen einer Inferentialistischen Semantik lässt sich die expressive Funktion wichtiger Teile des logischen Vokabulars nicht verständlich machen. Das Ergebnis ist, dass sich zwei der Grundpfeiler von Brandoms Sprachphilosophie, die Inferentialistische Semantik einerseits und deren Zurückführung auf eine normative Pragmatik andererseits, nicht gleichzeitig konsequent durchhalten lassen. (shrink)

A collection of essays by German philosophers on the question of the dispensability or indispensability of language for human capacities of thought, perception, and agency.

This book attempts to give a systematic account of the development of semantic holism within the philosophy of language in the 20th century. One of the things that might make it interesting is that it covers philosophers from the analytic tradition (Hilbert, Schlick, Sellars, Davidson, McDowell) as well as structuralist and post-structuralist philosophers (Saussure, Jakobson, Hjelmslev, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida). It is not only claimed that these philosophers address what can intelligibly be recognized as the same systematic questions concerning the constitution of (...) linguistic meaning, but also that the development of holistic approaches in the two traditions follows the same course, leading from formalist to post-formalist varieties of holism. This course implies the rejection of the myth of a pure or autonomous structure of language in favour of a view of language which sees linguistic practice as necessarily interwoven with the natural and social world. (shrink)

The book collects the papers presented at a conference held at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2007, which celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the publication of James’ Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. It contains contributions from leading scholars, who discuss the relevance of pragmatism for addressing current problems in epistemology, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, political philosophy, the philosophy of religion etc. It also contains papers that...

This article is a reply to the comments on my book Gehirn, Ich, Freiheit by Geert Keil, Jasper Liptow and Gerson Reuter. My main concern is to show that we humans may be free and responsible even if we are thoroughly natural beings. But what exactly is a thoroughly natural being? In section 1, I try to answer this question by elaborating in more detail what, in my view, naturalism amounts to. In sections 2 and 5, I address (...) the question what it may mean for natural beings to be able to act or decide otherwise. In section 3, I distinguish two versions of libertarianism which I call,standard‘ and,non-standard libertarianism‘; furthermore I explain some of the main problems non-standard libertarians are confronted with. Section 4 is devoted to Geert Keil’s version of non-standard libertarianism. My main objection to this theory is that Keil has so far given no answer to the questions why a process of deliberation ends when it ends and what it may mean that a person is able to continue deliberating. (shrink)

Nietzsche claimed to be a philosopher of the future, but he was appropriated as a philosopher of Nazism. His work inspired a long study by Martin Heidegger and essays by a host of lesser disciples attached to the Third Reich. In 1935, however, Karl Jaspers set out to "marshall against the National Socialists the world of thought of the man they had proclaimed as their own philosopher." The year after publishing Nietzsche , Jaspers was discharged from his professorship at Heidelberg (...) University by order of the Nazi leadership. Jaspers does not fall into the same trap as idealogues do, citing bits and pieces from Nietzsche's work to reinforce already held opinions. Instead, he openly shows the wide range of Nietzsche's views, including his endorsement of wars and warriors, his prophecies of world struggle and "new masters," and the cruel arrogance of the supermen. Yet Jaspers finds Nietzsche's philosophy to be extraordinary not only because he foresaw all the monstrosities of the twentieth century, but also because he saw through them. "The appearance which Nietzsche's work presents can be expressed figuratively: it is as though a mountain wall had been dynamited the rock, already more or less shaped, conveys the idea of a whole. But the building for the sake of which the dynamiting seems to have been done has not been erected. However, the fact that the work lies about like a heap of ruins does not appear to conceal its spirit from the one who happens to have found the key to the possibilities of construction for him, many fragments fit together. But not unambiguously many functionally suitable pieces are present in numerous, only slightly varied repetitions, others reveal themselves as precious and unique forms, as though each were meant to furnish a cornerstone somewhere or a keystone for an arch." -- Karl Jaspers, from the introduction. (shrink)

Dieses Buch ist die erfolgreichste Einführung in die Philosophie der Nachkriegszeit. Ein klassischer Text eines bedeutenden Philosophen dieses Jahrhunderts. Ausgehend von der Strittigkeit der Philosophie werden in 12 Vorträgen Grundlagen und Bedingungen des Philosophierens entfaltet. Im Anhang werden Lektürevorschläge zum eigenen philosophischen Studium gegeben. (Ec).

Nicht Themen, Schulen und Epochen, sondern der philosophierende Mensch steht im Zentrum von Jaspers' Philosophiegeschichte. Und dazu zahlen nicht nur Platon und Kant, sondern eben auch Jesus und - aus der auaereuropaischen Philosophie - Buddha und Konfuzius. Dieser interkulturelle Ansatz setzt sich in der Behandlung der Metaphysik fort. So portratiert Jaspers neben Plotin und Spinoza auch Laotse und Nagarjuna. Unter Berucksichtigung der im Jaspers-Nachlass vorliegenden Originalmanuskripte erscheint der Text hier in einer um zahlreiche Abschreibfehler bereinigten Form. Im Stellenkommentar werden samtliche (...) Zitate nachgewiesen; hierauf hatte Jaspers bewusst verzichtet, dies spater aber bedauert. Auaerdem sind im Kommentar ausgewahlte Textpassagen des Manuskripts vermerkt, die Jaspers aus Platzgrunden streichen musste. Das kurze "Foreword for the American Reader", das Jaspers 1960 fur die von Hannah Arendt herausgegebene englische Ubersetzung verfasste, wird hier erstmals im deutschen Original publiziert. (shrink)

Many ethical concerns have been voiced about Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs). Special attention has been paid to the effect of CDSSs on autonomy, responsibility, fairness and transparency. This journal has featured a discussion between Rosalind McDougall and Ezio Di Nucci that focused on the impact of IBM’s Watson for Oncology (Watson) on autonomy. The present article elaborates on this discussion in three ways. First, using Jonathan Pugh’s account of rational autonomy we show that how Watson presents its results might (...) impact decisional autonomy, while how Watson produces knowledge might affect practical autonomy. Second, by drawing an analogy with patient decision aids we identify an empirical way of estimating Watson’s impact on autonomy (ie, value-congruence). Lastly, McDougall introduced the notion of value-flexible design as a way to account for the diverging preferences patients hold. We will clarify its relation with the established domain of value-sensitive design. In terms of the tripartite methodology of value-sensitive design, we offer aconceptualclarification using Pugh’s account of rational autonomy, anempiricaltool to evaluate Watson’s impact on autonomy and situate a group oftechnicaloptions to incorporate autonomy in Watson’s design. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers gehört zu den Ziehvätern der Psychopathologie, einer der Grundlagenwissenschaften der Psychiatrie. In diesem Zusammenhang wird gemeinhin auf sein systematisches Lehrbuch verwiesen, die Allgemeine Psychopathologie von 1913. Die wesentlichen Züge seiner Methodologie und den Gegenstand der neuen Wissenschaft fixierte Jaspers jedoch schon in den hier versammelten Arbeiten, die zwischen 1909 und 1913 erschienen: Seine Kritik am dominanten Reduktionismus und an der damals noch jungen Psychoanalyse sind in diesen Texten bereits gültig formuliert, ebenso - und nicht zuletzt - die Dichotomie (...) zwischen Erklären und Verstehen. Neben der Dissertation “Heimweh und Verbrechen” enthält der vorliegende Band unter anderem den bahnbrechenden und wirkungsvollen Aufsatz “Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychiatrie” sowie die bis heute kontrovers diskutierte Abhandlung “Kausale und 'verständliche' Zusammenhänge zwischen Schicksal und Psychose bei der Dementia praecox (Schizophrenie)”. Der Kommentar verortet die einzelnen Beiträge sowohl im wissenschaftshistorischen als auch im werkgeschichtlichen Kontext. (Quelle: buchhandel.de). (shrink)

Makins1 formulates a deference principle which states that patients’ attitudes towards the health outcomes associated with different treatment options should drive decision-making and not physicians’ attitudes towards these health outcomes. Although this deference principle is widely agreed on, it is less obvious which role patients’ risk attitudes should play. Makins takes patients’ attitudes towards health outcomes to be sufficiently analogous to patients’ risk attitudes in order to extend his deference principle. His extended deference principle states that patients’ attitudes towards the (...) health outcomes and risks associated with different treatment options should drive decision-making and not physicians’ attitudes towards these health outcomes and risks. This extension is not only taken to be ethically preferable, but also practically realisable as one can reliably trace patients’ (risk) attitudes. Problematic situations arise when patients exhibit risk attitudes they do not reflexively endorse. For instance, patients might systematically make more risky choices than they think they should make. In response to these kinds of situations, Makins proposes to revise his deference …. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to counter a belief, still widely held in the secondary literature, that Anne Conway espoused a theory of monads. By exploring her views on the divisibility of both bodies and spirits, I argue that monads could not possibly exist in her system. In addition, by offering new evidence about the Latin translation of Conway's Principles and the possible authorship of its annotations, I argue that she never even suggested that there could be such things (...) as monads. Alongside this, I explore the theories of monads that did get developed by the philosophers closest to Conway—Henry More, Francis Mercury van Helmont, and Christian Knorr von Rosenroth—thereby further underlining Conway's originality and philosophical daring. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a qualitative study on the ethical aspects of inclusion practice for radiotherapy patients taking part in clinical research. The study focused on the standards and values of this process. Patients and physicians were interviewed about their views and experiences. Analysis of these interviews showed that candidate research participants need better protection from unwanted factors that could influence their choice about participation. Researchers need proper education about regulation, codes and directives in the field of research (...) ethics, and they should be aware of the underlying ethical concepts of these regulations. A sound institutional ethics policy is necessary in order to guide medical staff in decisions about the inclusion of patients in trials. (shrink)

In a new foreword to this edition, Richard M. Owsley provides a brief overview of Jaspers' life and achievement.

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

The book surveys the key metaphysical contributions of the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More (1614–1687).

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Delusions in schizophrenia are commonly approached as empirical false beliefs about everyday reality. Phenomenological accounts, by contrast, have suggested that delusions are more adequately understood as pertaining to a different kind of reality experience. How this alteration of reality experience should be characterised, which dimensions of experiential life are involved, and whether delusional reality might differ from standard reality in various ways is unclear and little is known about how patients with delusions value and relate to these experiential alterations. (...) This study aimed to investigate the nature of delusional reality experience, and its subjective apprehension, in individuals with lived experience of delusions and a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis. METHODS: In this qualitative phenomenological study, we recruited individuals with lived experience of delusions and a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis from two psychiatric-hospital services in Belgium using homogenous sampling. Criteria for participation were having undergone at least one psychotic episode with occurring delusional symptoms, present at least 1 year before participation, on the basis of clinical notes assessed by the attending psychiatrist; a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis, ascertained through clinical interview by the attending psychiatrist upon admission; being aged between 18 years and 65 years; and having the capacity to give informed consent. Exclusion criteria included worries concerning capacity to consent and risk of distress caused by participation. We did phenomenologically driven semi-structured interviews with the participants to explore the nature of delusional reality experience and their subjective valuation of these experiences. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative method tailored to the in-depth exploration of participants’ first-person perspective, to analyse their accounts. FINDINGS: Between March 2, 2020, and Sept 30, 2020, 18 adults participated in the interview study. The findings suggest that delusions are often embedded in wide-ranging alterations of basic reality experience, involving quasi-ineffable atmospheric and ontological qualities that undermine participants’ sense of the world as unambiguously real, fully present, and shared with others. We also found that delusional reality experience can differ from standard reality in various ways, across multiple dimensions, and that participants are often implicitly or explicitly aware of the distinction between delusional and standard reality. Delusional experience can have an enduring value and meaning that is not fully captured by a strictly medical perspective. INTERPRETATION: Increased awareness and recognition of the distinctive nature of delusional reality experience, in both clinical and research settings, can improve diagnostic accuracy, explanatory models, and therapeutic support for individuals with delusions whose lived realities are not always evident from an everyday perspective. FUNDING: FWO Flanders. TRANSLATION: For the Dutch translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section. (shrink)

Jaspers sieht die moderne Gesellschaft in einem Widerstreit. Sie errichtet sich als Massenordnung zur technischen Daseinsfürsorge einer Vielzahl von Menschen und zerstört damit gleichzeitig jene Welt von Schicksal und Autorität, Vertrautheit, Nähe und Entscheidung, in der eigentliche menschliche Existenz allein möglich ist. Nivellierung und Funktionalisierung des Menschen sind der Preis der Moderne. Politisch sorgt sich Jaspers um das Ausbleiben echten Führertums, von dem allein Reformen des zum Erstarren neigenden Apparats der Daseinsfürsorge zu erwarten sind. Die politischen Bewegungen des Faschismus und (...) des Bolschewismus deutet Jaspers nur am Rande als gefährliche Auswege des Menschen aus der allgegenwärtigen Krise in die Leichtigkeit des Gehorchenkönnens. Zwar schenkt er aktuellen politischen Strömungen und Strukturen nur geringe Aufmerksamkeit, aber die geistige Haltung und persönliche Verantwortlichkeit des Einzelnen implizieren den Abscheu gegen den sich ankündigenden politischen Wahnsinn in Deutschland. Der Staat gilt ihm als Phänomen der Macht. Nachdenklich blickt Jaspers auch auf die Wissenschaften vom Menschen. Für ihre unbestreitbaren Erfolge zahlt der Mensch mit der Verdinglichung seiner selbst. Er wird sich zum Objekt. (shrink)

Jesper Ahlin Marceta published an article in this journal in which he formulated his “argument from testability”, stating that it is impossible, at least practically, to operationalize procedural authenticity. That is, using procedural accounts of authenticity, one cannot reliably differentiate between authentic and inauthentic desires. There are roughly two ways to respond to the argument from testability: top-down and bottom-up. Several authors have endeavored the top-down approach by trying to show that some conceptions of authenticity might be operationalizable after all. (...) At present, however, the bottom-up approach has not been put to the test. That is, no attempt has been made to use a currently existing assessment tool to guide the development of an account of authenticity. In this paper, I will investigate what it means to develop an account of authenticity bottom-up based on measures of concordance. More specifically, I will investigate the following three research questions. First, how do concordance and authenticity relate at a conceptual level? As crucial similarities exist between these concepts, concordance measures seem to offer a good starting point for the bottom-up approach. Second, how do judgements of concordance differ from judgements of authenticity? Both their scope and the way they are justified will turn out to be different. This suggests novel ways to react to Marceta’s argument from testability. Third, should we develop a theory of concordance? The positive answer to this question will point towards a central limitation of the bottom-up approach. (shrink)

Als Fritz Linder, Schtiler und Nachfolger von K. H. Bauer auf dem Heidelberger Lehrstuhl rur Chirurgie, am 12. Juli 1978 am Grabe seines Lehrers im Namen aller Freunde und Schuler sprach, erfuh­ ren wir, daB der Entschlafene "auf dem todlichen Krankenlager" noch seinen Briefwechsel mit Karl Jaspers las und ordnete. Diese letztwillige Vergegenwartigung einer freundschaftlichen Ver­ bindung aus den Jahren nach 1945 schien uns groBe menschliche Bedeutung zu haben, und wir waren erfreut, spater von Frau Bauer und Heinz Gotze, Mitinhaber (...) des Springer-Verlages, den Auftrag zur Herausgabe der Briefe zu erhalten, zumal sich mit beiden Kor­ respondenzpartnern eigene, dankbare Erinnerungen seit 1940 ver­ banden. Der Briefwechsel begann unmittelbar nach der ersten Begegnung yom 5.4. 1945 im Hause von Jaspers, als der Krieg rur Heidelberg vorbei war und politisch unbelastete Professoren vor der Aufgabe standen, die inzwischen geschlossene Universitat im Einvernehmen mit der Besatzungsbehorde wieder zu eroffnen und die Vorausset­ zungen rur die Wiederaufnahme freier Forschung und Lehre zu schaff en. Fur diesen Neubeginn, der natiirlich ein Neubeginn im Geiste des unveranderlich Gultigen sein sollte, war die daran anknupfende Freundschaft zwischen Bauer und Jaspers entscheidend. Die Person­ lichkeiten erganzten sich, und was beide damals suchten, war jeweils beim Partner zu finden: bei Jaspers die lebendige Idee in ihrem kla­ ren, wenn auch geschichtlich wandelbaren Wahrsein, bei Bauer die anpassungsfahige Vitalitat und die Gabe, Denken und Handeln zu verbinden. (shrink)

: The Cartesians have often been read as if they denied spatial presence to incorporeal substances, reserving it for extended things alone. This article explores whether this common interpretation is accurate, examining the cases of both created minds and the divine substance of God Himself. Through scrutiny of the relevant texts of both Descartes himself and his followers, it demonstrates that, in the divine case, this common interpretation is incorrect, and that the Cartesians did believe that God’s own substance really (...) was omnipresent in a literal sense. In the case of created minds, by contrast, the article suggests that the standard reading is probably correct after all, and that these substances were indeed excluded from the spatial world: but it also suggests that, in the hands of at least some of the Cartesians, this position caused certain philosophical tensions and potential inconsistencies within their systems. (shrink)

The correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers begins in 1926, when the twenty-year-old Arendt studied philosophy with Jaspers in Heidelberg. It is interrupted by Arendt's emigration and Jasper's 'inner emigration' and resumes in the fall of 1945. From then until Jaspers's death in 1969, the initial teacher-student relationship develops into a close friendship. Three countries figure prominently in the correspondence: Germany, Israel, and the United States. Among the topics are Fascism, the atom bomb and the threat of global (...) destruction, German guilt for the Holocaust, Jewishness, the State of Israel, American politics and American universities, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Arendt and Jaspers discuss people both famous and obscure. They gossip, joke complain, and argue. They commiserate with each other over the illnesses and infirmities of old age. And they converse about the world's great philosophers: Spinoza, Kant, Marx, Max Weber, Heidegger. Here is a fascinating dialogue between a woman and a man, a Jew and a German, a questioner and a visionary, both uncompromising in their examination of our troubled century. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art overview of the ethical challenges that arise in the context of antimicrobial resistance, which includes an introduction to the contributions to the symposium in this issue. We begin by discussing why AMR is a distinct ethical issue, and should not be viewed purely as a technical or medical problem. In the second section, we expand on some of these arguments and argue that AMR presents us with a broad range of ethical problems that (...) must be addressed as part of a successful policy response to emerging drug resistance. In the third section, we discuss how some of these ethical challenges should be addressed, and we argue that this requires contributions from citizens, ethicists, policy makers, practitioners and industry. We conclude with an overview of steps that should be taken in moving forward and addressing the ethical problems of AMR. (shrink)