Problem: The paper’s main focus is on the question of whether Mitterer’s non-dualising philosophy is able to show a way out of the antagonistic opposition of fact and fiction, realism and constructivism. In addition, since Mitterer’s philosophy has hardly been discussed so far in historiography and theory of history, I also examine the question of whether his approach can provide new theoretical insights in these disciplines. Method: I follow a close reading of Mitterer’s texts and relate them to the propositions (...) of a variety of publications from the field of theory of history. Results: Mitterer’s arguments show, on the one hand, how to expel the idea of creation from our historical thinking as there is no authenticity waiting behind our world of descriptions. On the other hand, they make clear that historiography no longer has to decide between realism and relativism. Rather, it is a relationist approach that shows a way to research the many entanglements and complexities between past realities and their descriptions. A different way to write history becomes visible: a history of realities. Implications: The discussion of Mitterer’s non-dualism not only shows how historical research might benefit from this philosophy (in leaving behind some dualistic foundations of the discipline or the search for historical origins) but also how non-dualism might profit from the insights of history (with regard to power, processuality, and temporality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDespite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship b...

Health-care goods are goods with peculiar properties, and where they are scarce, societies face potentially explosive distributional conflicts. Animated public and academic debates on the necessity and possible justice of limit-setting in health care have taken place in the last decades and have recently taken a turn toward procedural rather than substantial criteria for justice. This article argues that the most influential account of procedural justice in health-care rationing, presented by Daniels and Sabin, is indeterminate where concrete properties of rationing (...) institutions are concerned. Such properties inscribe substantial norms into institutions. These norms can derive validity only from democratic majority decisions, which must be seen as an instance of pure procedural justice. We therefore have to move the discussion to a meta-level and ask how concrete properties of institutions are being chosen. I suggest four criteria for sufficiently democratic institutional design choice and conclude that as institutional properties are likely to have effects on the resulting distribution of health care, design choices should be empirically informed and taken both democratically and deliberately. (shrink)

In the eyes of its citizens, liberal democracy is connected to at least three promises—the promises of autonomy, equality and rationality. To what extent citizens can view these promises as being fulfilled will affect political trust and support for democracy. The rise of populism and trends towards technocratic government have rightly been interpreted as arising from a gap between normative aspirations and institutional and practical realities. Does this mean that we should adjust our ideals to reality, or that we should (...) strive to bring realities closer to the ideal? Self-proclaimed ‘realists’ argue that democratic ideals are unattainable and that we should therefore settle for a second-best alternative, such as a competitive oligarchy. Against this position, we point out that deliberative democracy offers an attractive ideal for successful representation that can inform democratic innovation. However, deliberative democracy also remains institutionally underdetermined and needs to develop better criteria that enable us to determine if, how and under what conditions the attempt to fulfil democracy’s promises succeeds in practice. In this paper, we suggest a criterion of deliberative responsiveness as a measure for representative democracy’s success in fulfilling promises of autonomy, equality and rationality. We go on to show in what respects these promises tend to be broken in contemporary representative democracies and discuss strategies for institutional reform that have potential to counteract these problems. (shrink)

Steffen Ganghof’s Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism can improve existing typologies in comparative government and has great potential for discussions about democratic innovation and reform. So far, democratic innovations like deliberative mini-publics have remained mostly additive, leaving the underlying decision-making logics of representative political systems unchanged. Ganghof’s ideas can move debates about how deliberative democracy is to be institutionalized forward. Semi-parliamentary government constitutes an intriguing option to meet both demands for legislative flexibility and responsiveness to citizens’ concerns and demands for stability (...) and accountability. At the same time, I identify a limitation of the book in the fact that Ganghof’s normative theory of democracy remains thin. To appeal to citizens in constitutional reform processes, proposals for semi-parliamentary reform need to do more than reconcile conflicting visions of majority rule. They need to speak to democracy’s central promises of equal autonomy and rationality. (shrink)

This book presents a system of spiritual psychology, integrating astrology and the chakras, including detailed case studies for each chakra.

In this comment on Cristina Lafont’s new book Democracy without Shortcuts, I apply some of her ideas to the Brexit case in order to show that her identification of problematic shortcuts has significant analytical potential when it comes to understanding contemporary challenges to democracy. I argue that the push for Brexit can be viewed as a response to ‘expertocratic’ shortcuts in European Union decision-making, while David Cameron’s attempt to resolve the conflict once and for all by referendum constituted a ‘proceduralist’ (...) shortcut. I conclude by asking whether Lafont’s suggestion to ‘constitutionalize’ discourses and decisions could also imply seeking a meta-deliberative assessment of democratic institutions. (shrink)

Im alltagssprachlichen Gebrauch beziehen wir den Begriff der Gerechtigkeit sowohl auf Verteilungen von Gütern als auch auf die Verfahren, durch die eine entsprechende Verteilung zustande gekommen ist. Rawls’ Konzeption von Gerechtigkeit als Fairness (Rawls 1999) bezieht sich auf die Verteilung von Gütern und Rechten und ist somit eine Konzeption substantieller Gerechtigkeit. Zugleich ist die Begründung seiner Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien prozedural: durch die Konstruktion des Urzustandes, in dem Parteien hinter dem Schleier des Nichtwissens Prinzipien auswählen, wird die Auswahl ebendieser Prinzipien determiniert.

Die zunehmende Komplexität von Entscheidungsgegenständen und die Vielzahl von Entscheidungen, mit denen Regierungen und Verwaltungsapparate konfrontiert sind, stellen diese vor erhebliche Herausforderungen. Ob in der Hoffnung auf sachkundigere, glaubwürdige Politikstrategien oder aus Angst, an der Wahlurne für Fehlentscheidungen verantwortlich gemacht zu werden, haben Regierungen in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten zunehmend Entscheidungskompetenzen an spezialisierte, nicht-majoritäre Gremien delegiert, welche in der Regel mit Experten besetzt sind.

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of ...

A. H. Louie's More Than Life Itself is an exploratory journey in relational biology, a study of life in terms of the organization of entailment relations in living systems. This book represents a synergy of the mathematical theories of categories, lattices, and modelling, and the result is a synthetic biology that provides a characterization of life. Biology extends physics. Life is not a specialization of mechanism, but an expansive generalization of it. Organisms and machines share some common features, but organisms (...) are not machines. Life is defined by a relational closure that places it beyond the reach of physicochemical and mechanistic dogma, outside the reductionistic universe, and into the realm of impredicativity. Function dictates structure. Complexity brings forth living beings. (shrink)

This book argues for the use of nonideal theory in social ontology. The central claim is that a paradigm shift is underway in contemporary social ontology, from ideal to nonideal, and that this shift should be fully followed through. To develop and defend this central claim, the first step is to show that the key questions and central dividing lines within contemporary social ontology can be fruitfully reconstructed as a clash between two worlds, referred to as ideal and nonideal social (...) ontology. Ideal social ontology is characterized by consensus and cooperation, while nonideal social ontology is characterized by conflict and contestation. The second step is to show that, when taken together, objections to the standard model of ideal social ontology (the dominant version of ideal social ontology) imply that this model needs to be given up in favor of nonideal social ontology. In other words, we should look to nonideal rather than ideal social ontology for core concepts. The third step is to offer a positive account, called the power view, of nonideal social ontology. This account places the concept of social power at the core of a general theory of the social world and replaces the flat and narrow conception of power in ideal social ontology with a richer and more extensive conception. In addition, it rectifies a shortcoming in nonideal social ontology by attending to class, which has been notably and oddly overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed (...) new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities. (shrink)

I. Ókor -- II. A középkor és a reneszánsz -- III. Az újkor.

On fundamentals of Vedanta and science; a study.

Desde la aparición, en 1927, de su obra central Ser y tiempo, Martin Heidegger ha sido y sigue siendo considerado por amplios sectores de opinión como el filósofo más importante del siglo XX. Frente a esta sobrevaloración del filósofo de los Bosques Negros, Heleno Saña procede, en su documentadísimo libro, a una crítica de la filosofía heideggeriana, intentando demostrar que está basada en una tergiversación e instrumentalización sistemáticas de la terminología y los conceptos esenciales de la filosofía clásica. El resultado (...) final de sus ejercicios hermenéuticos y sus continuos malabarismos lingüísticos, es un irracionalismo de índole claramente nihilista, por su culto implícito y explícito a la muerte. En este sentido es altamente significativo que a la biografía y a la filosofía heideggerianas pertenezcan su adhesión al nacionalsocialismo y la glorificación de Alemania como la “raza de los señores” por excelencia, tema al que Heleno Saña dedica la debida atención. Uno de los signos distintivos de este ensayo es el de la claridad con que expone sus tesis, de manera que el libro no está pensado solo para eruditos, sino para todas las personas interesadas en ampliar sus conocimientos culturales y filosóficos. (shrink)

La admirable riqueza cultural y artística del Renacimiento esconde una desoladora miseria y aquella "edad de la abundancia" contrasta con una inmensa pobreza. Lejos de ser una broma o una pesadilla, la celebrada Utopía de Tomás Moro fue antes que nada un desafío insoslayable, pues proponía que ninguna sociedad merece tal nombre si tolera la miseria de un solo pobre. Rico y pobre explora la cuestión en ese libro de 1516 y en otros del escritor londinense para concluir con un (...) esbozo de su vida a la luz de la pobreza como virtud indispensable y libertadora. He aquí un hombre afortunado que no fue indiferente ante el infortunio de tantos y que vio en la humanitas la virtud por excelencia que lleva a una constante atención y cuidado del prójimo. Inspirado por un cambio de actitud en su época, así como por su fe cristiana y la mejor tradición estoica, mostró una robusta preocupación sobre el tema subrayando el valor social que debe tener toda riqueza, tanto a nivel estatal como individual, destacando la grave obligación cívica de los ricos y la necesidad que tienen todos, ricos y pobres, de empeñarse en la práctica de cierto desprendimiento y generosidad si no quieren mermar su propia humanidad y fallecer en su avaricia. La percepción de la miseria había cambiado de tal manera que su remedio ya no podía estar en una u otra limosna en plazas e iglesias, sino en la acción bien pensada y perentoria de todo gobierno que se tenga por justo. Sir Tomás Moro, privilegiado desde la cuna y seguro en su trabajo profesional, vio la pobreza de tantos como un desastre social, pero uno que, al mismo tiempo, debería llevar a todo ser humano a ver en el desprendimiento y generosidad una excelencia o virtud que alumbra la "otra" libertad, y tan íntima y valiosa que en su caso brilló aun en la prisión y ante el horror de una muerte injusta y atroz." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

A. A. Long’s study of Greek notions of mind and human selfhood is anchored in questions of universal interest. What happens to us when we die? How is the mind or soul related to the body? Are we responsible for our own happiness? Can we achieve autonomy? Long shows that Greek thinkers’ modeling of the mind gave us metaphors that we still live by.