Der vorliegende Band vereinigt die Akten des internationalen Schleiermacher-Kongresses 2021 und nimmt den Philosophen, Theologen, Pädagogen und Übersetzer Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) als Kommunikationstheoretiker in den Blick. Ob als Universitätslehrer, Kanzelredner, als politischer Reformer, Publizist, Salongänger oder Briefeschreiber – Schleiermacher war selbst ein begnadeter Kommunikator und im Begriff der Kommunikation bündeln sich wie in einem Brennglas viele zentrale Aspekte seines Denkens. Seine Philosophie, Theologie und philologische Praxis zeichnen sich durch ihre emphatische Prozesshaftigkeit jenseits starrer Systeme aus. Sich in Sprache manifestierendes Wissen, (...) moralisches Handeln, religiöses Erleben und der Entwurf gemeinschaftlicher Institutionen sind im beständigen Werden und nur im Austausch der miteinander streitenden, sich liebenden und hassenden, Ideen und Sinn entwerfenden und um Gemeinschaft und Individualität ringenden Menschen wirklich. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes gehen Schleiermachers Werk ebenso wie seiner gesellschaftlichen, kirchlichen und philologischen Praxis vor dem Hintergrund ihrer ideengeschichtlichen Verflechtung nach und aktualisieren sein Denken in Auseinandersetzung mit unterschiedlichen Positionen der Gegenwart. (shrink)

Was macht das Besondere der menschlichen Lebensform aus? Wie können wir es verstehen, dass unsere Art wie alle anderen natürlich evolviert ist und dennoch als einzige Art die Fähigkeit entwickelt hat, unter dem Anspruch der Freiheit und in reflexiver Distanz zu handeln, damit aber die Umwelt auf eine Welt hin zu transzendieren? Jung argumentiert, dass sich diese Fragen nur beantworten lassen, wenn man philosophische, evolutionstheoretische und kognitionswissenschaftliche Ansätze aufeinander bezieht. Der Schlüssel hierfür ist der Begriff der Bedeutung. Alle Lebewesen erfassen (...) ihre Umwelt im praktischen Umgang mit ihr als bedeutsam. Auch der Geist des Menschen ist essentiell verkörpert und basiert auf erlebten Bedeutsamkeiten. Die Fähigkeit zur symbolischen Artikulation und kulturellen Weiterentwicklung solcher Lebensbedeutungen erlaubt es ihm aber auch, die lokale Umwelt zu transzendieren und dabei Werte, Normen und objektive Geltungsansprüche zu entwickeln. Eine zeitgemäße Anthropologie muss in der Lage sein, diese qualitativen Besonderheiten des menschlichen Geistes als Resultate von Naturprozessen verständlich zu machen. Sie verbindet methodischen Naturalismus mit Offenheit für die Transzendenz des Geistes über die Umwelt. Damit leistet der Autor einen wichtigen Beitrag zu einem nichtreduktionistischen Verständnis des Menschen, das Leib und Geist nicht dualistisch trennt, sondern ihre spannungsvolle Einheit sichtbar macht. (shrink)

The concept of “Heimat” has recently become a subject of lively debate in society and science. In the course of this debate it has become clear that this concept has been endowed with very different, even controversial meanings, the consequences being methodological and political confusion on the issue. The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept using linguistic-hermeneutic analysis. Two terms borrowed from Georg Misch, “discursive” and “evocative” language, allow for the differentiation of two forms of discourse on (...) “Heimat”. In the first case, the word “Heimat” is used as a description and appears to be an objective reality with distinct temporal and spatial qualities. This understanding dominates recent social discourse on the topic. In the second case, “Heimat” has a function of pure meaning and serves as a myth. The hermeneutics of the myth of “Heimat” and its role in human life is the primary focus of this paper. (shrink)

This paper aims at providing an epistemic defense of democracy based on John Dewey’s idea that democracies do not only find problems and provide solutions to them but they also articulate problems....

This paper aims at providing an epistemic defense of democracy based on John Dewey’s idea that democracies do not only find problems and provide solutions to them but they also articulate problems. According to this view, when citizens inquire about collective issues, they also partially shape them. This view contrasts with the standard account of democracy’s epistemic defense, according to which democracy’s is good at tracking and finding solutions that are independent of political will-formation and decision-making. It is also less (...) vulnerable to the criticisms that have been raised against the standard account. To show this, the paper develops a theory of expressive domination and argues that problem-articulation works best when it is inclusive and domination-free. It also shows that democratic conflict represents a fundamental element for problem-articulation. (shrink)

Prior to A Process Model, Gendlin’s theoretical and practical work focused on the interfacing of bodily-felt meaningfulness and symbolization. In A Process Model, Gendlin does something much wider and more philosophically primary. The hermeneutic and pragmatist distinction between the concept of experience, on the one hand, and actual experiential process, on the other, becomes for Gendlin the methodological basis for a radical reconceptualization of the body. Wittgenstein’s formulation of “meaning” as “language-use in situations” is spelled out by Gendlin in embodied (...) terms, yielding a profound new grasp of language, meaning, situation, language-use and culture as interactional body-process. Gendlin, in building his text, answers the pragmatist critique of a wrong progression of thinking where the results of an inquiry are read back to be its premises. With his central concept “eveving” Gendlin shows how the seeming determinacy of preceding structure is opened in the actual occurring. He thereby elaborates a new conception of continuity where the possibility for responsive novelty is emergent in the event itself. The conceptual development of the text itself instances this kind of emergent novelty. We will somewhat follow Gendlin’s own path in using language-in-situations as entry-point into his more fundamental process-thinking, thereby asking ourselves how to engage his new kind of model. In the last part, we introduce some of the philosophical roots of Gendlin’s A Process Model. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that positions from the historical tradition of pragmatism can offer insights into the role that values play in ameliorative projects. By focusing on Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative project regarding gender, I will try to show how the Deweyan idea of the circuit provides a convincing understanding of the mutual interplay between values and conceptual revision within ameliorative approaches. I propose to understand this circuit as a process of articulation, through which our understanding of an initially vague (...) value becomes more detailed and fine-grained. To this end, I will focus on a specific aspect of Haslanger's recent intellectual production, namely the idea that ameliorative projects are inspired and organized by partially indeterminate values. In the final part of the paper, I will discuss a potential moral and political pitfall associated with ameliorative projects – i.e. the proliferation of cultural bubbles which are mutually exclusive and unable to communicate among themselves. This discussion addresses a further challenge for implementation, which is connected to the field of values, and not merely to the domain of concepts. (shrink)

The relationship between action and sociality is one of the fundamental problems in social theory and philosophy. In this paper I strive to contribute to an action theoretical approach that conceives of individual action and sociality as intrinsically related. I will do so by drawing on two distinct strands of cultural and social theory: the sociological pragmatism of Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead, and the cognitive cultural psychology of Michael Tomasello. Since the work of Tomasello is – at (...) least in detail – relatively unknown to philosophers or social scientists, the primary focus will be on his seminal studies in comparative and developmental cognitive psychology. By means of a detailed analysis I will delineate a cognitive, motivational and cultural dimension of the sociality of action in Tomasello. The results of this discussion will then be compared with the central tenets of sociological pragmatism. In the end, it will become clear why cognitive scientists like Tomasello can help us to reformulate pragmatist social theory against the background of recent findings in the human sciences. By doing this, we can remain true to the transdisciplinary approach of pragmatist thought that has long been neglected in social theory. Conversely, such a comparison may reveal some of the limits of Tomasello’s account with regard to social theory. (shrink)

Transformative theories of what distinguishes human beings from animals face the problem of conceptually managing the transition from animal to human. This paper will show that this transition contains logical problems that are more rhetorically glossed over than logically solved by the concept of second nature. In the first part, I develop two main concepts of transformative theories, namely that of Hinzutreten (additive capacities occurring in humans) and that of Verwandeltsein (humans already being of a different kind), before outlining in (...) the second part Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological approach as one that elaborates not a transformation, but a holistic difference in the structure of human life as well as a non-metaphysical process of nature’s self-differentiation in human beings as opposed to animals. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the thesis that emotions are conceptual phenomena. It is assumed that the capacity to acquire a language and thereby the capacity to possess concepts in an exacting sense fundamentally changes the human mind and, ultimately, the human being as a whole, including in relation to its physical condition. Although emotions do not presuppose language, the capacity to use and understand a language can nonetheless change their content. In recent discussions on affective intentionality, emotions are conceived (...) primarily as modes of qualitative awareness of something. In an emotion, one is connected sufficiently to a section of the world that one can feel this relation. With regard to the question of whether emotions are conceptual phenomena, a distinction between a conceptuality thesis and a propositionality thesis is made. In essence, the considerations speak in favour of the conceptual character of emotions without viewing them as linguistically or propositionally structured phenomena. Three understandings of the view that emotions are conceptual are elucidated. The view is defended that registering the content of emotions presupposes concepts, though these emotions are not therefore made up of concepts. Bei diesem Beitrag handelt es sich um eine nur geringfügig veränderte deutsche Fassung des ursprünglich in englischer Sprache erschienenen Textes Demmerling (2021). Dem Verlag Routledge ist für die Genehmigung eines Abdrucks in deutscher Sprache zu danken. (shrink)

When perception is made the subject of philosophy, it is primarily understood as pre-theoretical sensual knowledge, and the question of its truth content becomes the focus of attention. In contrast, approaches that fall within the philosophy of embodiment quite rightly point out that perception is bodily anchored and closely linked to interests in action. The primacy of knowledge is therefore substituted by a primacy of praxis. This article aims to point out the blind spots that such a hegemony of the (...) practical entails. In a phenomenological way, it is to be shown that beside the aspect of instrumentality, perceptive situations are also experienced as pleasant or unpleasant as such. This points to the importance of the pathical character of perception. However, it is not a call to enthrone the primacy of affect instead of the primacy of practice. The paper concludes with a thought on the philosophy of pedagogy and education. Proceeding from that perceptive position, it is argued that film in particular offers a chance to apply the phenomenology of pathical perception to the field of intersubjectivity. (shrink)