From the early 1790s until after the turn of the century, a very productive but also controversial exchange took place between Reinhold and Fichte. Though many key aspects of post-Kantian philosophy were discussed, the philosophical confrontation between Reinhold and Fichte is most instructive for the understanding of post-Kantian philosophy. The exchange started when Fichte published his verdict on Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie and disapproved of its fundamental principle. In 1794 Fichte challenged Reinhold by presenting his Wissenschaftslehre. Reinhold was not convinced of Fichte's (...) foundation of philosophy at first, but announced that he accepted the Wissenschaftslehre in 1797. While Reinhold and Fichte officially collaborated in the following three years, tensions concerning fundamental questions were still present. When Reinhold adopted Rational Realism, his relation to Fichte deteriorated and the exchange between the two finally ended. The contributions in the present collection focus on the central systematic issues at the different stages of the confrontation between Fichte and Reinhold, thereby illuminating questions that are essential to the understanding of the evolution of post-Kantian German philosophy. (shrink)

Ding und Begriff stellen den Kern von Peter F. Strawsons Philosophie dar: Worauf beziehen wir uns in unserem alltaglichen Denken und Sprechen und unter welchen Bedingungen konnen wir uns darauf beziehen? Mit dieser Frage, wie wir die Welt begrifflich erfassen, sind eine Reihe von Problemstellungen metaphysisch-ontologischer, epistemologischer, logischer und sprachphilosophischer Natur verbunden. An sie knupfen die hier versammelten Beitrage an. Die systematische Auseinandersetzung mit Strawsons Themen zeigt einige Schwachen seiner Positionen auf, weist aber auch Wege zu moglichen Losungen und bettet (...) Strawsons Philosophieren dadurch in aktuelle Debatten ein.". (shrink)

In the first paragraph of the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre Fichte gives an extended exposition of his first principle. The aim of the article is to show that, first, this exposition is in fact an argument in favour of the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre, and, second, that it answers the central point of the sceptical criticism put forward by Jacobi, Maimon and Schulze against Kantian philosophy. In order to corroborate these theses, the central point of the sceptical critique has (...) to be identified in a first step. Next, I examine Fichte’s strategy to meet the sceptical challenge. As a result, only a pre-systematic form of argument is adequate for Fichte to establish a principle that is immune to sceptical doubts, and, therefore, is a suitable starting point for a transcendental deduction. Finally, Fichte’s argument against the sceptics can be reconstructed in the following way: He takes up the central point of the sceptical critique and reformulates it as a criterion for a first principle. He then shows that the criterion is fulfilled by the I, if it is conceived in his own way, i.e. as pure activity.Fichte entwickelt im ersten Paragraphen der Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre eine ausführliche Exposition seines ersten Grundsatzes. Der Beitrag hat zum Ziel zu zeigen, dass diese Exposition ein Argument für das erste Prinzip der Wissenschaftslehre darstellt und dass es ein Argument gegen den zentralen Punkt der skeptischen Kritik an der Transzendentalphilosophie, wie sie Jacobi, Maimon und Schulze formulierten, ist. Um diese Thesen zu untermauern, wird in einem ersten Schritt der zentrale Punkt der skeptischen Kritik identifiziert. Dem folgt eine Untersuchung der Strategie, mit der Fichte der Kritik begegnet, wobei sich eine vorsystematische Argumentation als geeignet erweist, einen ersten Grundsatz aufzustellen, der gegen die vorgebrachten Zweifel resistent und daher als Basis einer transzendentalen Deduktion tauglich ist. Fichtes Argumentation gegen den Skeptizismus kann dann folgendermaßen rekonstruiert werden: Fichte nimmt den zentralen Punkt der skeptischen Kritik auf und formt ihn in ein Kriterium für ein erstes Prinzip um. Er kann dann zeigen, dass das Ich das Kriterium erfüllt, sofern es als reine Tätigkeit aufgefasst wird. (shrink)

Concluding the deduction of imagination in § 4 of the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte remarks that one lesson of the Wissenschaftslehre is that all reality is a product of imagination. One of the greatest thinkers of the age, Fichte writes, is teaching the same, but calls it a deception of imagination. Fichte’s remark is aimed at Salomon Maimon, and it shows that his deduction shouldn’t be read only as part of the systematic development of the theoretical Wissenschaftslehre, but should (...) also be considered as an argument against a specific kind of scepticism. In order to examine this overlooked anti-sceptical aim in the first Wissenschaftslehre, an overview of the deduction of § 4 with a focus on the systematic role of imagination will first be given. Second, Maimon’s sceptical argument against transcendental philosophy will be explained. In the centre again will stand Maimon’s Humean concept of imagination. Finally, it will be shown in which sense Fichte’s deduction of imagination has to be taken in order to be an adequate response to Maimonian scepticism.An die Deduktion der Einbildungskraft in § 4 der Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre schließt Fichte die Bemerkung an, es werde hier gelehrt, dass alle Realität durch die Einbildungskraft hervorgebracht wird. Einer der größten Denker des Zeitalters – gemeint ist Salomon Maimon – lehre das Gleiche, nur nenne er es eine Täuschung durch die Einbildungskraft. Diese Bemerkung lässt erkennen, dass die Deduktion der Einbildungskraft nicht nur im Dienst der Entwicklung des theoretischen Teils der Wissenschaftslehre steht, sondern dass sie auch im Sinne eines antiskeptischen Arguments verstanden werden muss. Um diesen Aspekt von Fichtes Konzeption der Einbildungskraft genauer zu beleuchten, wird erstens die Deduktion in § 4 mit Blick auf die systematische Rolle der Einbildungskraft dargestellt. Zweitens wird Maimons skeptisches Argument gegen die Transzendentalphilosophie präzisiert, auf das sich Fichte mit seiner Äußerung bezieht, wobei Maimons sich an Hume orientierendes Verständnis der Einbildungskraft im Zentrum steht. Zuletzt wird geprüft, in welchem Sinn Fichtes Deduktion der Einbildungskraft als Antwort auf Maimons Skeptizismus verstanden werden muss. (shrink)

In 1791 Karl Leonhard Reinhold expressed full agreement with Kant’s verdict that appeal to common understanding is not acceptable in philosophy. Only three years later Reinhold presented a philosophical methodology in which common understanding was explicitly assigned an essential function. In my contribution, I shall first reconstruct Reinhold’s account of the relation between common understanding and philosophising reason (Section 2). According to this account, common understanding is supposed to provide a multitude of empirical facts of consciousness. Philosophising reason takes these (...) facts as the starting point of philosophical analysis and establishes their a priori, transcendental grounds. Common understanding and philosophising reason thus fulfil complementary roles: philosophy analyses, explains, and justifies the basic beliefs of common understanding; philosophical claims are, in turn, substantiated through their reference to the facts provided by common understanding. I shall also show that the account of the relation between common understanding and philosophising reason enables Reinhold to deal with some objections against his philosophical system. The appeal to common understanding thus serves the purpose of corroborating the structure and the contents of the Elementarphilosophie. In Section 3, I shall suggest that Reinhold’s introduction of common understanding was not influenced by common-sense philosophy but rather by the Wolffian conception of the relation between common cognition and philosophical cognition. Reinhold accepted the general outline of Wolff’s rationalist conception but adopted it to the framework of critical philosophy. In my concluding remarks (Section 4) I shall briefly indicate that the main characteristics of the account of the relation between common understanding and philosophical reason withstood Reinhold’s later changes of philosophical systems. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 199-202.

This PhD thesis provides an extended evaluation of evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics. Such arguments attempt to show that evolutionary theory, together with a commitment to robust moral objectivity, lead to moral scepticism: the implausible view that we lack moral knowledge or that our moral beliefs are never justified (e.g. Joyce 2006, Street 2005, Kahane 2011). To establish that, these arguments rely on certain epistemic principles. But most of the epistemic principles appealed to in the literature on evolutionary debunking arguments (...) are imprecise, confused or simply implausible. My PhD aims to rectify that. Informed by debates in cutting-edge contemporary epistemology, Chapter 1 distinguishes three general, independently motivated principles that, combined with evolution, seem to render knowledge of robustly objective moral facts problematic. These epistemic principles state that (i.) our getting facts often right in a given domain requires explanation – and if we cannot provide one, our beliefs about that domain are unjustified; (ii.) higher-order evidence of error undermines justification; and (iii.) for our beliefs to be justified, our having them must be best explained by the facts they are about. Chapters 2-4 develop and critically assess evolutionary debunking arguments based on those principles, showing that only the one inspired by (iii.) succeeds. Chapter 2 investigates the argument that evolution makes explaining why we get moral facts often right impossible. I argue that Justin Clarke-Doane’s recent response (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) works, yet neglects an issue about epistemic luck that spells trouble for robust moral objectivity. Chapter 3 discusses the argument that evolution provides higher-order evidence of error regarding belief in robustly objective moral facts. I show that such an argument falls prey to Katia Vavova’s (2014) self-defeat objection, even if evolutionary debunkers tweak their background view on the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence. Chapter 4 develops the argument that evolution, rather than robustly objective moral facts, best explains why we hold our moral beliefs. I offer a systematic, comprehensive defence of that argument against Andreas Mogensen’s (2015) charge of explanatory levels confusion, Terrence Cuneo’s (2007) companion in guilt strategy, and David Enoch’s (2012, 2016) appeal to deliberative indispensability. Chapter 5 brings everything together. It investigates whether robust moral objectivity survives the worry about epistemic luck raised in Chapter 2 and the explanatory challenge developed in Chapter 4. Making progress, however, requires a better idea of how we form true, justified beliefs about and acquire knowledge of robustly objective moral facts. Since it offers the most popular and best-developed epistemology of robustly objective morality, my inquiry in Chapter 5 focuses on contemporary moral intuitionism: the view that moral intuitions can be the source of basic moral knowledge. I argue that its success is mixed. While moral intuitionism has the conceptual tools to tackle the problem of epistemic luck from Chapter 2, it cannot insulate knowledge of robustly objective moral facts against the sceptical worry raised by the evolutionary debunking argument developed in Chapter 4. Thus, evolutionary theory, together with a commitment to robust moral objectivity, does lead to a form of unacceptable moral scepticism. (shrink)

Recently, Tomas Bogardus (2016), Andreas Mogensen (2017) and – at least on one plausible reconstruction – Sharon Street (2005) have argued that evolutionary theory debunks our moral beliefs by providing higher-order evidence of error. In response, moral realists such as Katia Vavova (2014) have objected that such evolutionary debunking arguments are self-defeating. The literature lacks any discussion of whether this self-defeat objection can be handled. My overall aim is to argue that it cannot, thus filling that lacuna – and vindicating (...) Vavova’s worry. To achieve my aim, I proceed in two steps. First, I propose a novel, prima facie promising strategy for avoiding self-defeat: evolutionary debunkers should reject Conciliationism, as defended by David Christensen (2007, 2009, 2011) and others, and instead explore Thomas Kelly’s (2010) Total Evidence View as their background view on the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence of error. Then, I show that evolutionary debunkers face insuperable difficulties trying to successfully implement that strategy. Depending on the kind of higher-order evidence of error that evolutionary considerations putatively provide, they either struggle with evidential weight or are committed to inconsistent assumptions about evolutionary counterparts. Either way, the evolutionary debunking argument from higher-order evidence of error fails. (shrink)

Die Kant-Krise 1801 ist seit 200 Jahren Gegenstand der Kleistforschung. Der Autor systematisiert und testet alle bisher zum Thema vorgelegten Hypothesen. Im Zentrum steht Kleists Grüne-Gläser-Gleichnis als Zeugnis seiner Krise. Sowohl analytische Zugänge wie die Frage nach der logischen Struktur desselben als auch rezeptionsgeschichtliche Zugänge wie die Frage nach der Referenzschrift des Gleichnisses können die Qualität einer Hypothese bestimmen. Philosophiehistorische Untersuchungen zu Kleists Weltbild vor 1801 belegen die Hypothese von Kants transzendentaler Dialektik als Krisenschrift. Andere Hypothesen erweisen sich dieser als (...) unterlegen oder können widerlegt werden. Kleists poetologische und literarische Texte werden auf dieser Basis mit der transzendentalen Dialektik interpretiert. (shrink)

Interpersonal coordination is a key factor in team performance. In interactive team sports, the limited predictability of a constantly changing context makes coordination challenging. Approaches that highlight the support provided by environmental information and theories of shared mental models provide potential explanations of how interpersonal coordination can nonetheless be established. In this article, we first outline the main assumptions of these approaches and consider criticisms that have been raised with regard to each. The aim of this article is to define (...) a theoretical perspective that integrates the coordination mechanisms of the two approaches. In doing so, we borrow from a theoretical outline of group action. According to this outline, group action based on a priori shared mental models is an example of how interpersonal coordination is established from the top down. Interpersonal coordination in reaction to the perception of affordances represents the bottom-up component of group action. Both components are inextricably involved in the coordination of interactive sports teams. We further elaborate on the theoretical outline to integrate a third, constructivist approach. Integrating this third approach helps to explain interpersonal coordination in game situations for which no shared mental models are established and game situations that remain ambiguous in terms of perceived affordances. The article describes how hierarchical, sequential and complex dimensions of action organization are important aspects of this constructivist perspective and how mental models may be involved. A basketball example is used to illustrate how top-down, bottom-up and constructivist processes may be simultaneously involved in enabling interpersonal coordination. Finally, we present the implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Recently, companions in guilt strategies have garnered significant philosophical attention as a response to arguments for moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and that our moral beliefs are thus systematically mistaken. According to Cuneo (The normative web: an argument for moral realism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007), Das (Philos Q 66:152–160, 2016; Australas J Philos 95(1):58–69, 2017), Rowland (J Ethics Soc Philos 7(1):1–24, 2012; Philos Q 66:161–171, 2016) and others, epistemic facts would be just as (...) metaphysically problematic (or ‘guilty’) as moral facts. But since epistemic error theory is implausible, arguments for moral error theory prove too much and should be rejected. My aim is to argue that the success of this strategy is limited. In particular, the companions in guilt response fails against error-theoretic arguments motivated by concerns about explanatory dispensability, as recently developed by Joyce (The evolution of morality, MIT press, Bradford, 2005) and Olson (Moral error theory: history, critique, defence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014: Ch. 7). To succeed, the response would require a prima facie plausible argument to the effect that epistemic facts are metaphysically dubious because they, too, are explanatorily dispensable. But, as I show, any such argument proves self-effacing: its premise commits us to believing in epistemic facts, while its conclusion forces us to deny their existence. Consequently, companions in guilt strategies don’t offer a panacea against arguments for moral error theory. (shrink)

Several stages can be identified in Darwin's effort to formulate natural selection. The first stage corresponded, roughly speaking, to the period up to 1844. It was characterized by Darwin's attempt to base his model of geographic speciation on an individualistic dynamics, with species understood as reproductively isolated populations. Toward the end of this period, Darwin's ignorance of the laws of variations and heredity led him to adopt varieties and species as the units of variations. This had the extremely important effect (...) of stimulating him to consider the process of speciation as involving populations. At the end of this period, Darwin also began to regard adaptation as being exclusively toward places in the economy of nature. Thus he faced the problem of integrating the process of natural selection with the process of speciation. Individual variants were the units that fueled the first process, whereas varieties produced new speices. There was no link between adaptation and speciation, except whatever could be supplied by a quasi-historical, developmental idea of optimizing the amount of life.In the second stage, I contend, Darwin's reading of Milne-Edwards crystallized his previous insights into a coherent whole. Milne-Edwards' comments on the advantage of functional specialization could readily be understood in terms of the advantage accruing to the individual, relative to other members of its species, from occupying a different niche. Milne-Edwards' discussion of the division of labor suggested that organisms which moved into unoccupied niches would enjoy reduced competition, and hence a differential advantage in survival and reproduction; thus they would induce the species to do likewise. Rather than base his explanation on an analogy with the artificial economy, Darwin chose the principle of the optimalization of the amount of life per unit area as the overall explanatory principle. The difficulties connected with integrating different levels of description were therefore circumvented, insofar as the problem of diversity and speciation was concerned. Although natural selection considered individuals as the units of selection, and the units of variations were varieties and species, the dynamics of the process understood in terms of natural selection, competition, division of labor and niches could give a plausible account of how individual advantage could be transferred to the species, and how diversity resulted from this mechanism. The problem of the different levels of descriptions was confined to how the properties of variations in individuals (in particular, the frequency of variations and their transmission) were responsible for the assumed variability characteristic of varieties and species. This problem Darwin never solved.A third stage occurred in 1858 with the amalgamation of the tree-of-life vizualization of the process of speciation. Speciation, geographic distribution, and systematics were all then embedded in a conceptual matrix with vast explanatory powers. (shrink)

In my essay, I will argue that evolution does not undermine naturalism. This is because Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism rests on a false and unmotivated premise and is thus invalid. My argument consists of two parts: In the expository part, I outline Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism in considerable detail (section 2). In the argumentative part, I firstly pose William Ramsey’s challenge to Plantinga’s probabilistic claim that the reliability of human cognitive faculties is low and critically examine Plantinga’s (...) response in order to reinforce it (section 3). Secondly, I attack Plantinga’s understanding of human evolution, which motivates his cognitive skepticism, as being unduly narrow (section 4). (shrink)

ArgumentJ. Robert Oppenheimer was a complex person. His work in physics during the 1930s, at Los Alamos during the 1940s, and as governmental advisor in the immediate postwar period, gave him a deep sense of connection with communities that had distinctive purposes. But he found it difficult to conceive an overall creative vision for himself or to devise a compelling objective for the community he belonged to if one had not been formulated at the time he assumed its leadership. I (...) analyze the reasons for his successes: the vision and demands of physics during the 1930s, the make-up of Los Alamos, and the challenges of the postwar atomic world. In each of these enterprises he assumed a distinctive role and came to represent a distinctive persona – but he could not integrate his activities into a coherent whole that might be a model for the intellectual in the new world he had helped to shape. (shrink)

There is sufficient evidence to believe that variations in the error-related negativity (ERN) are linked to dispositional characteristics in individuals. However, explanations of individual differences in the amplitude of the ERN cannot be derived from functional theories of the ERN. The ERN has a counterpart that occurs after correct responses (correct-response negativity, CRN). Based on the assumption that ERN and CRN reflect an identical cognitive process, variations in CRN might be associated with dispositional characteristics as well. Higher CRN amplitudes have (...) been found to reflect task engagement. In the present study, a simple-choice-reaction task was used to investigate ERN and CRN amplitudes in relation to their score on a conscientiousness scale. The task consisted of a simple rule that required pressing the left or right key when a circle or square appeared, respectively. During alternative conditions that occur infrequently, participants were instructed to violate or reverse the previously established response rules. Smaller ΔERN amplitudes (manifested in almost equal CRN and ERN amplitudes) and a tendency of better task performance from participants scoring high on the conscientiousness scale might indicate a greater focus on the task and higher motivation of responding correctly. In addition, higher Pc amplitudes directly following the CRN indicated that the response monitoring system of less conscientious participants showed a higher disengagement. The role of individual differences in CRN amplitude should be studied in future experiments on performance monitoring. (shrink)

ArgumentThe paper is an exploration of the interactions between Einstein and Oppenheimer. It highlights the sharp differences in Einstein's and Oppenheimer's approach to physics, in their presentation of self as iconic figures, and in their relation to the communities they considered themselves part of. To understand their differing approaches to physics it briefly reviews the kinds of unifications that took place in physics during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century and points to the 1961 MIT centennial celebration to demonstrate (...) the potency of Einstein's vision that there might be a fundamental theory from which all known theories could be derived. It also briefly reviews various aspects of the development of theoretical physics and of general relativity in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, to better understand the context of the sharp, negative remarks that Oppenheimer made about Einstein and about his theory of general relativity in 1965 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Einstein's death. To answer the question: “Why the antagonism on Oppenheimer's part?” it looks at Oppenheimer's and Einstein's relation to their Jewish roots, their stance regarding nationalism, and their philosophical commitments. (shrink)

The capability of logical systems to express their own satisfaction relation is a key issue in mathematical logic. Our notion of self definability is based on encodings of pairs of the type (structure, formula) into single structures wherein the two components can be clearly distinguished. Hence, the ambiguity between structures and formulas, forming the basis for many classical results, is avoided. We restrict ourselves to countable, regular, logics over finite vocabularies. Our main theorem states that self definability, in this framework, (...) is equivalent to the existence of complete problems under quantifier free reductions. Whereas this holds true for arbitrary structures, we focus on examples from Finite Model Theory. Here, the theorem sheds a new light on nesting hierarchies for certain generalized quantifiers. They can be interpreted as failure of self definability in the according extensions of first order logic. As a further application we study the possibility of the existence of recursive logics for PTIME. We restate a result of Dawar concluding from recursive logics to complete problems. We show that for the model checking Turing machines associated with a recursive logic, it makes no difference whether or not they may use built in clocks. (shrink)