The human being’s mastery of itself, on which the self is founded, practically always involves the annihilation of the subject in whose service that mastery is maintained, because the substance which is mastered, suppressed, and disintegrated by self-preservation is nothing other than the living entity.

Gerontologists have proposed different concepts for ageing well such as ‘successful ageing’, ‘active ageing’, and ‘healthy ageing’. These conceptions are primarily focused on maintaining health and preventing disease. But they also raise the questions: what is a good life in old age and how can it be achieved? While medical in origin, these concepts and strategies for ageing well also contain ethical advice for individuals and societies on how to act regarding ageing and old age. This connection between gerontology and (...) ethics is overlooked by both schools of thought. We thus develop this research programme for a systematic geroethics in four steps. First, we analyze ‘successful ageing’ as put forward by Rowe and Kahn as a paradigmatic example of a gerontological conception of ageing well. Then, in a second step, we move from criticisms within gerontology to an ethical perspective; in particular, we want to clarify the problem of the claim of universal validity of conceptions of the good life. In a third constructive step, we explain how the ‘capabilities approach’ could be applied in this context as a normative foundation for the implicit normative assumptions of gerontological conceptions of ageing well, such as a particular choice of functionings, the ethical relevance of human agency, and the resulting claims of individuals towards society. Finally, using a concept developed by the German philosopher Ursula Wolf, we systematically develop the different aspects of the connection between ageing well and the theory of the good life in their full complexity and show their interconnectedness. (shrink)

Some of the recent criticisms published during and after the last revision process of the Declaration of Helsinki are directed at its basic legitimacy. In this article we want to have a closer look at the two criticisms we consider to be the most fundamental. The first criticism questions the legitimate authorship of the World Medical Association to publish a document such as the Declaration. The second fundamental criticism we want to examine argues that the last revision process failed to (...) meet the standards for fair, democratic procedures. Although both criticisms deny the formal legitimacy of the Declaration in the most fundamental way, they have never been addressed in detail in a single article. We refute most of the related arguments. However, acknowledging some of the points made, improvements for future revision processes and versions of the Declaration of Helsinki are outlined. (shrink)

Much has been written on Claude Bernard as a relentless promoter of the experimental method in physiology. Although the paper will touch Bernard’s experimental intuitions and his experimental practice as well, its focus is slightly different. It will address the laboratory, that is, the space in which experimentation in the life sciences takes place, and it will analyze the scattered remarks that Bernard made on the topic both in his books and in his posthumously published writings. The paper is divided (...) into four parts. The introduction briefly sketches the coming into being of the physiological laboratory in the first half of the nineteenth century. The second section will give an overview of Claude Bernard’s own itinerary in physiology and his personal laboratory experience. The third part of the paper will have a look at the image of the laboratory that Claude depicted in his Introduction to Experimental Medicine. In the subsequent section and by contrast, the image of the laboratory will come into focus as it can be reconstructed from Bernard’s notebook that he kept between 1850 and 1860, the Cahier rouge. Finally, the fifth part of the paper will spotlight Claude Bernard’s comparison of the sciences and the arts and their respective practices. A brief concluding statement tries to summarize Bernard’s epistemological position toward experimentally practiced science. (shrink)

The vast majority of empirical research on stakeholder management has traditionally focused on multinational corporations. Only in recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to the stakeholder management concept in relation to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The few existing studies in this area, however, discuss SMEs as a context free category or remain focused on single country analysis. This cross-national empirical research investigates SME owner-managers' perceptions of stakeholder management in six European countries. The comparative analysis is followed by (...) a discussion of how institutional, cultural and linguistic contexts can influence owner-managers' sensemaking of stakeholder management. Our study questions the universality of specific management terms and proposes that more attention should be paid to the institutional, cultural and linguistic environments that shape economic activity in different parts of Europe. (shrink)

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The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is a key contribution to political philosophy, media history, democratic theory and political economy – published almost 60 years ago – that left a deep imprint on the process of democratic consolidation of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the same time, the Habermasian model of the public sphere was used to test out the possibilities of democratisation beyond the nation-state. The theory of the public sphere was, however, mainly discussed as a contribution (...) to normative political theory and, as such, the applicability of its normative standards remained contested. In this article, I focus instead on a second sociological reading of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere as an exploration of the cognitive foundations of modern society. The relevance of this approach can be shown in an exemplary way by discussing the functioning of publicity, which, by creating social visibility and facilitating public opinion formation, on the one hand, provides the knowledge base of a shared social world and, on the other hand, becomes the main driver of social change through critical self-reflection. The article goes on to take a look at recent public sphere transformations in the context of digitalisation and globalisation, and argues that public sphere principles are both undermined and gain new relevance when facing the challenges of new and digital media. (shrink)

The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity: its basic purpose and rationale, its institutional design and its future trajectory. It correlates with pro-European discourse and (...) the attempts to promote the (democratic) legitimacy of the EU. Secondly, we argue that Euroscepticism unfolds primarily through mass media. As such, it is given public expression through general news values, drama and narratives that are targeted to draw the attention of the wider audience. Understanding this responsive and public nature of Euroscepticism leads us, in the end, to a comprehensive typology of six forms of polity evaluation of the EU. (shrink)

In this paper we propose that the concept of mediatization should be used not only in the narrow sense to analyze the impact of media on the operational modes of the political system, but also in more general terms to capture the transformation of the public sphere and the changing conditions for the generation of political legitimacy. More specifically and with regard to the role of political communication on the internet, we focus on the transformative potential of online media in (...) terms of a) publicity: the capacity of the online media to focus public attention on the political process of the EU; b) participation: the capacity of the online media to include plural voices and activate the audience; and c) public opinion formation: the capacity of the online media to enable informed opinions. We test our mediatization model on the online debates that took place during the 2009 EU elections in 12 member-states and at the trans-European level. The findings confirm the mediatizing impact of online political communication on the generation of the political legitimacy of the EU. Online media constitute a virtually shared forum for political communication that political actors and users increasingly occupy developing homogenous patterns of evaluating European integration. Furthermore, the stronghold of offline media in the EU e-sphere and the tendency to discuss the EP elections within the frame of domestic politics reaffirm the key role of national political and media cultures. (shrink)

The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of European institution-building and governance and is fostered (...) by collective learning processes in which definitions of the collective good as well as conditions for appropriate forms of political participation are negotiated. In discussing the case of the EU’s constitutional reform, a theory of democratic functionalism is proposed which accounts for this specific form of democratization of the EU. (shrink)

This volume outlines a model of language that can be characterized as functionalist, usage-based, dynamic, and complex-adaptive. The core idea is that linguistic structure is not stable and uniform, but continually refreshed by the interaction between three components: usage, the communicative activities of speakers; conventionalization, the social processes triggered by these activities and feeding back into them; and entrenchment, the individual cognitive processes that are also linked to these activities in a feedback loop. Hans-Joerg Schmid explains how this multiple (...) feedback system works by extending his Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model, showing how the linguistic system is created, sustained, and continually adapted by the ongoing interaction between usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Fulfilling the promise of usage-based accounts, the model explains how exactly usage is transformed into collective and individual grammar and how these two grammars in turn feed back into usage.0The book is exceptionally broad in scope, with insights from a wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. It provides a coherent account of the role of multiple factors that influence language structure, variation, and change, including frequency, economy, identity, multilingualism, and language contact. (shrink)

Book notice Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9588-3 Authors Nicolas Rasmussen, School of History and Philosophy, University of NSW, Sydney, 2052 Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

in a nervous system of a given species. This chapter provides a critical perspective on the role of connectomes in neuroscientific practice and asks how the connectomic approach fits into a larger context in which network thinking permeates technology, infrastructure, social life, and the economy. In the first part of this chapter, we argue that, seen from the perspective of ongoing research, the notion of connectomes as “complete descriptions” is misguided. Our argument combines Rachel Ankeny’s analysis of neuroanatomical wiring diagrams (...) as “descriptive models” with Hans-Joerg Rheinberger’s notion of “epistemic objects,” i.e., targets of research that are still partially unknown. Combining these aspects we conclude that connectomes are constitutively epistemic objects: there just is no way to turn them into permanent and complete technical standards because the possibilities to map connection properties under different modeling assumptions are potentially inexhaustible. In the second part of the chapter, we use this understanding of connectomes as constitutively epistemic objects in order to critically assess the historical and political dimensions of current neuroscientific research. We argue that connectomics shows how the notion of the “brain as a network” has become the dominant metaphor of contemporary brain research. We further point out that this metaphor shares (potentially problematic) affinities to the form of contemporary “network societies.” We close by pointing out how the relation between connectomes and networks in society could be used in a more fruitful manner. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Science provides an expert guide to the major twentieth-century French and German philosophical thinking on science. A comprehensive introduction by the editor provides a unified interpretative survey of continental work on philosophy of science. Interpretative essays are complemented by key primary-source selections. Includes previously untranslated texts by Bergson, Bachelard, and Canguilhem and new translations of texts by Hegel and Cassirer. Contributors include Terry Pinkard, Jean Gayon, Richard Tieszen, Michael Friedman, Joseph Rouse, Mary Tiles, Hans-Jöerg Rheinberger, Linda (...) Alcoff, Todd May, Axel Honneth, and Penelope Deutscher. (shrink)

EUVÉ, François. Science, foi, sagesse . Faut-il parler de convergence? João Batista Libanio MUTSCHLER, Hans-Dieter. Physik und religion . Perspektiven und Grenzen eines Dialogs. João Batista Libanio RIEGER, Joerg. Remember the poor . The callenge to theology in the twenty-first century. João Batista Libanio RIBEIRO, Fernando. Os Incas . As plantas do poder e um tribunal espanhol. João Batista Libanio SOUZA, Alberto de Mello e (Org.). Dimensões da avaliação educacional . Suzana dos Santos Gomes BOFF, Leonardo. Virtudes para um (...) outro mundo possível . v. I: Hospitalidade: direito e dever de todos. BOFF, Leonardo. Virtudes para um outro mundo possível . v. II: Convivência, respeito & tolerância . Paulo Agostinho Nogueira Baptista LIBANIO, João Batista. Qual o futuro do Cristianismo? Paulo Agostinho Nogueira Baptista. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

In seinem 1960 erschienenen Hauptwerk "Wahrheit und Methode" nimmt Gadamer die bis in die Antike zuruckreichende hermeneutische Tradition auf, um vor allem im Anschluss an Hegel und Heidegger eine philosophische Hermeneutik zu begrunden. Das Buch brachte seinem Autor internationalen Ruhm, und die philosophische Hermeneutik ist eine der massgeblichen Konzeptionen der neueren Philosophie geworden. Nach wie vor bildet "Wahrheit und Methode" den Ausgangspunkt fur eine philosophische Klarung des Verstehens und seiner von Gadamer behandelten Auspragungen in Kunst, Geschichte und Sprache. Der vorliegende (...) Band rekonstruiert und diskutiert in Form eines kooperativen Kommentars, der Gliederung des Werkes folgend, Gadamers Gedankengang, zeigt aber auch die Perspektiven einer Philosophie auf, die sich gegenuber ihrem eigenen hermeneutischen Charakter nicht verschliesst.". (shrink)

Albert approaches critical rationalism as an alternative to other philosophical standpoints dominant in Germany: the conceptions of the Frankfurt School, hermeneutical thinking as represented by Gadamer, analytic philosophy, and logical empiricism. The author's purpose is to find a way out of the foundationalism of classical philosophy without falling back on the skeptical views so prevalent in today's philosophical thinking. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the (...) distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Undersøgelser af sammenhængen mellem tysk filosofi og nazismens teorier med særlig vægt på Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

The central aim of this paper is to present a Boolean algebraic approach to the classical Aristotelian Relations of Opposition, namely Contradiction and (Sub)contrariety, and to provide a 3D visualisation of those relations based on the geometrical properties of Platonic and Archimedean solids. In the first part we start from the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis of expressions for comparative quantification to build the Comparative Quantifier Algebra CQA. The underlying scalar structure allows us to define the Aristotelian relations in Boolean terms (...) and to propose a 3D visualisation by transforming a cube into an octahedron. In part two, the architecture of the CQA is shown to carry over, both to the classical quantifiers of Predicate Calculus and to the modal operators—which are given a Generalized Quantifier style re-interpretation. In this way we provide an algebraic foundation for Blanché’s Aristotelian hexagon as well as a 3D alternative to his 2D star-like visualisation. In a final part, a richer scalar structure is argued to underly the realm of Modality, thus generalizing the 3D algebra with eight (2 3 ) operators to a 4D algebra with sixteen (2 4 ) operators. The visual representation of the latter structure involves a transformation of the hypercube to a rhombic dodecahedron. The resulting 3D visualisation allows a straightforward embedding, not only of the classical Blanché star of Aristotelian relations or the paracomplete and paraconsistent stars of Béziau (Log Investig 10, 218–232, 2003) but also of three additional isomorphic Aristotelian constellations. (shrink)

This essay traces the roots of Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism to Mauthner, and argues that Wittgenstein’s later views moved even closer to those of Mauthner, although Wittgenstein never became as thoroughgoing a Pyrrhonian as Mauthner had been. It is argued that Mauthner’s neo-Pyrrhonian view of language was “responsible for the linguistic turn in Wittgenstein’s thinking and thereby indirectly also for the whole linguistic turn in 20th-century analytic philosophy”.

The major focus of the article is on Georg Forster’s mode of elaborating a “science of man” in its theoretical and cultural contexts. The study aims at identifying Forster’s distinct interests in the specificity of mankind and his interpretation of both the reasons for its diversity and its different stages of development. Forster, the article argues, used a historicized version of Enlightenment natural history in order to analyse man as a natural as well as a cultural being. At the same (...) time, put anachronistically, Forster constituted the reciprocity of physical and cultural anthropology. However, he differs from Enlightenment historical thinking in that he interprets history as a contingency. Finally, the article maintains that Forster deliberately conceived of the “science of man” as a multidisciplinary empirical science. (shrink)

Extensive measurement is called weak if the axioms allow two objects to have the same scale value without being indifferent with respect to the order. Necessary and/or sufficient conditions for such representations are given. The Archimedean and the non-Archimedean case are dealt with separately.

A selection from the correspondence of the logician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896?1962) is presented in this article. The most significant letters were exchanged with Bernays, Scholz and Lorenzen, from which extensive passages are transcribed. Some remarks from other letters, with quotations, are also included.