This book contributes to current bioethical debates by providing a critical analysis of the philosophy of human death. Bernard N. Schumacher discusses contemporary philosophical perspectives on death, creating a dialogue between phenomenology, existentialism, and analytic philosophy. He also examines the ancient philosophies that have shaped our current ideas about death. His analysis focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) the definition of human death, (2) the knowledge of mortality and of human death as such, and (3) the question of whether (...) death is nothing to us or, on the contrary, whether it can be regarded as an absolute or relative evil. Drawing on scholarship published in four languages and from three distinct currents of thought, this volume represents a comprehensive and systematic study of the philosophy of death, one that provides a provocative basis for discussions of the bioethics of human mortality. (shrink)

During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger. The younger Menger never finished the work. While working in the Menger collections at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, we discovered draft chapters of the biography, a valuable source of information given that relatively little is known about Carl Menger’s life nearly a hundred years after (...) his death. The unfinished biography covers Carl Menger’s family background and his life through early 1889. In this article, we discuss the biography and the most valuable new insights it provides into Carl Menger’s life, including Carl Menger’s family, his childhood, his student years, his time working as a journalist and newspaper editor, his early scientific career, and his relationship with Crown Prince Rudolf. (shrink)

Paris, 1943. In a flash, a book is published that will shape post-war Europe like none other. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness discloses utterly new insights about human freedom, about feelings such as shame and desire, and about death. The new edition of the renowned book of commentary on the magnum opus of French existentialism opens access to the work through the latest state of research.

A leading Catholic philosopher, he won a wide audience through such books as The Four Cardinal Virtues and About Love.This book is one of few extended studies ...

Der Autor setzt sicht kritisch mit der Definition des so genannten personalen Todes auseinander und behauptet, dass die Negation der biologischen Dimension des Todes – entsprechend einer von Locke begründeten dualistischen Anthropologie, der sich zahlreiche zeitgenössische Bioethiker verschrieben haben – eine Banalisierung des menschlichen Todes darstellt. Der Autor nimmt einen biologistischen Standpunkt ein, wonach die Zerstörung des Körpers in dieser Welt gleichbedeutend ist mit dem Tod der Person. Er diskutiert in einem zweiten Schritt die Radikalisierung dieser biologischen Todesdefinition, die den (...) menschlichen Tod entpersonalisiert, indem sie ihn auf eine bloße natürliche Dysfunktion des menschlichen Organismus reduziert und sich weigert, in ihm ein Drama beziehungsweise ein Übel an sich zu sehen. (shrink)

One of the main targets of Barry Stroud’s criticism in his recent book ‚The Quest for Reality. Subjectivism and the Metaphysics of Colour’ are eliminativist theories of colour which he regards as a version of the metaphysical project of the unmasking of colours (Stroud, 2000). According to this view, no physical objects have any of the colours we see them or believe them to have. However, although this error theory describes all our colour perceptions as illusory, and all our colour (...) beliefs as false, it cannot deny that we actually perceive colours and that we do believe that physical objects are coloured. Therefore, it has to account for these psychological facts without relying on any assumptions about the colours of things. Thus, the central question for the unmasking project is whether it is possible to acknowledge someone’s perceiving a certain colour or having beliefs about the colours of things without holding that anything anywhere has any colour at all. Contrary to Stroud, this paper defends the view that we can acknowledge that people believe in colours without having ourselves to accept their existence. (shrink)

Since our visual perception of physical things essentially involves our identifying objects by their colours, any theory of visual perception must contain some account of the colours of things. The central problem with colour has to do with relating our normal, everyday colour perceptions to what science, i.e. physics, teaches us about physical objects and their qualities. Although we perceive colours as categorical surface properties of things, colour perceptions are explained by introducing physical properties like reflectance profiles or dispositions to (...) cause certain experiences in normal human perceivers. Hence, it seems as if colours as they are experienced by us have no place in the physical world, because they are fundamentally different from the properties which we ascribe to physical objects in scientific accounts of colour perceptions. This special issue on perspectives on colour perception presents new suggestions to solve to this major problem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gender Ideology and the “Artistic” Fabrication of Human Sex: Nature as Norm or the Remaking of the Human?Michele M. SchumacherUntil quite recently,” the famous English novelist C. S. Lewis remarked in 1959, “it was taken for granted that the business of the artist was to delight and instruct his public”: that is to say, to address simultaneously their passions and their intellects. “There were, of course, different publics.... And (...) an artist might lead his public on to appreciate finer things than they had wanted at first; but he could do this only by being; from the first, if not merely entertaining, yet entertaining, and if not completely intelligible, yet very largely intelligible.” This constraint—let us call it intelligent (or purposeful) design, in keeping with a basic analogy that we will draw upon in these pages—had however been lost, Lewis observed. Hence, even “in the highest aesthetic circles one now hears nothing about the artist’s duty to us. It is all about our duty to him. He owes us nothing; we owe him ‘recognition,’ even though he has never paid the slightest attention to our tastes, interests, or habits.”1 In short, the artist of modernity need not pay the slightest attention to an intention, not even his own. Modern art need not be an expression of intelligence or [End Page 363] understanding; it is expression as such (tout court): personal and autonomous.2Lewis’s remarks do not point merely to the increasingly relativist tendencies of art in the Western world, to the lack of objective criteria or norms governing the artistic disciplines. They also point to the growing disregard among artists for the sociocultural expectations of their publicum. Mediating between the two is, without a doubt, the basis upon which both artistic and social norms were traditionally founded: nature, which served as a classic analogy for both art (understood in the broad sense, so as to include not only the fine arts, but also technology and practical sciences) and ethics in virtue of nature’s intrinsic inclination towards its defining end and perfection.With regard to the first of these analogies (that of art and nature), Mark Schiefsky explains that although art does bring about “results that nature itself cannot,” it does so in the classic understanding “by acting in a natural way—the way nature would act if it could generate the products of art.”3 As for the difference between the two, nature is moved to its specifying end by way of intrinsic inclinations that are implicit to it, whereas a work of art is moved to its end extrinsically, and thus with more or less violence.4 A sculptor, for example, who introduces a form into a piece of marble, does so by chiseling [End Page 364] and hammering away at the fine stone.5 “Art is,” Aristotle explains, “the principle and form of the thing that comes to be [let us say, a sculpture]; but it is located elsewhere [in, for example, the artist’s mind or in a sketch that he has made] than in that thing, whereas the movement of nature is located in the thing itself that comes to be [a tree, for example, or a baby], and is derived from another natural organism [a tree or human parents] which possessed the form in actuality.”6This classic distinction between art and nature parallels the distinction between art and ethics. Ethics “does not affect human action in the same way as do art and technique,” Servais Pinckaers explains. Unlike art and technique, which are concerned with “the external work produced by human action”—this painting or that machine, for example—ethics is concerned with an immanent principle, qualifying the actor as such: the stable dispositions (or habitus: virtues or vices) at the origin of “the active willing that is the principle source of the action.”7 This immanent principle at the source of ethical action is—to complete our analogy—creative in only a limited sense. The human person is indeed free to choose, but he or she is not free to decide “what is good or evil” as such, nor what is “good or bad for... (shrink)

The desire for founding educational reform on a sound empirical basis has coincided with a period of impressive progress in the field of neuroscience and wide public interest in its findings, leading to an ongoing debate about the potential of neuroscience to inform education reform. But is neuroscience really suited to provide specific instructions for improving learning conditions at school? This paper explores the educational implications of neuroscience.

The working situation prevailing in theoretical and experimental physics today is held to be inseparable from the interpretation of quantum theory, and constitutes an embodiment of its implicit difficulties. Such an understanding of the present situation in fundamental physics provides a quite different basis for ideas than the formulation of alternative courses of action (experiments) or alternative forms of knowledge (theories), which proceeds from the belief in a full separation of theory from experiment in this field. It is argued that (...) this underlying belief is not well founded. One must therefore consider the technical details of the field together with its foundations, and thus especially the situation produced by fundamental physics, including, in particular, the growth of high-energy technology, which exerts a determining influence on the further course of the subject. (shrink)

From the structure of quantum dynamics for closed and open systems, we describe several general results about information flow between interacting systems, which can be expressed in diagrammatic form. Conditions on information flow (e.g., that no information is transferred from system A to system B) imply that the overall dynamical evolution has a particular structure. We also remark that one simple type of two-qubit interaction, the unitary CNOT gate, cannot be represented by local operations and a single simultaneous information exchange.

Recent evidence from studies on DNA repair systems that are implicated in accelerated aging syndromes, have revealed a mechanism through which low levels of persistent damage might exert beneficial effects for both cancer prevention and longevity assurance. Beneficial effects of adaptive responses to low doses of insults that in higher concentrations show adverse effects are generally referred to as hormesis. There are numerous examples of hormetic effects ranging from mild stresses of irradiation to heat stress, hypergravity, pro‐oxidants, or food restriction. (...) Although the notion of hormesis is supported by many observations in various organisms, at least two major caveats have thus far prevented the application of hormesis for disease prevention in humans. First, the very nature of hormesis using toxins as a treatment regimen harbors the inherent danger of detrimental consequences. Second, the molecular mechanisms through which insults might exert beneficial effects have thus far remained elusive. Here, I discuss a mechanistic basis for hormesis and its implications for cancer prevention and healthy aging. (shrink)

Deux questions sont abordées : l'individu peut-il conceptualiser sa mort? Celle-ci est-elle un mal? Trois problèmes sont soulevés : la nature de la mort, sa connaissance par l'individu et sa perception, ou non, comme un mal. L'auteur analyse les textes classiques anciens et contemporains traitant de l'approche de la mort, et se livre à une intégration critique des philosophes thanatologues.

Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit steht die Frage, ob sich Aussagen über die Grenzen der Irrationalität von Personen a priori rechtfertigen lassen: Gibt es bestimmte Rationalitätsanforderungen, die mit rein begrifflichen Argumenten als für alle Personen verbindlich ausgewiesen werden können ? Um diese Frage differenziert zu beantworten, wird eine Unterscheidung zwischen zwei Arten von Rationalitätsanforderungen eingeführt: Rationalitätsstandards und Rationalitätsbedingungen. Es wird dafür argumentiert, daß sich unabhängig von der Erfahrung ausschließlich Aussagen über den Umfang der Rationalität von Personen begründen lassen. Personen müssen demnach (...) wenigstens minimal rational sein, damit ihnen propositionale Einstellungen wie Überzeugungen und Absichten zugeschrieben werden können. Hingegen läßt sich anhand rein begrifflicher Argumente nicht entscheiden, welche Rationalitätsstandards von Personen erfüllt werden müssen, um Träger propositionaler Einstellungen sein zu können. Dies ist durchaus damit verträglich, daß sich a priori Rationalitätsbedingungen festlegen lassen, welche die Eingangsbedingungen dafür darstellen, daß Subjekte überhaupt als Kandidaten für rationales oder irrationales Verhalten aufgefaßt werden können. (shrink)

Optische Täuschungen ändern ihr Aussehen nicht in Abhängigkeit von unserem Kenntnisstand. Sie sind damit gegenüber unseren Überzeugungen kognitiv undurchdringbar. Wie läßt sich dies erklären, und kann die kognitive Undurchdringbarkeit optischer Täuschungen als Beleg dafür interpretiert werden, dass es völlig theoriefreie Wahrnehmungen gibt? Im folgenden wird dafür argumentiert, dass Berkeleys Wahrnehmungstheorie überzeugendere Antworten auf diese Fragen liefert als Jerry Fodors Theorie der Modularität des Geistes. Berkeleys Ansatz ist deshalb besonders interessant, weil er die Fähigkeit zur visuellen Wahrnehmung geometrischer Eigenschaften als Resultat (...) von Lern- und Assoziationsprozessen darstellt. Wie die Dinge für uns aussehen, hängt demnach davon ab, welche Erfahrungen und Gewohnheiten wir erworben haben. Im Unterschied zu Fodors Theorie ist Berkeleys Ansatz in der Lage, die kognitive Undurchdringbarkeit optischer Täuschungen zu erklären und dabei gleichzeitig ihrem epistemischen Charakter Rechnung zu tragen. (shrink)

A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris. Modern scholarship has often dismissed (...) this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of Aristotle, paving the way for truly revolutionary figures like John Duns Scotus. But as the selections in this reader show, it was this earlier generation that initiated this break with precedent. The compilers of the Summa Halensis first articulated many positions that eventually become closely associated with the Franciscan tradition on issues like the nature of God, the proof for God’s existence, free will, the transcendentals, and Christology. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the ways in which medieval thinkers employed philosophical concepts in a theological context as well as the evolution of Franciscan thought and its legacy to modernity. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology is available from the publisher on an open-access basis. (shrink)

For researchers who study technology designs, the application and execution of so-called design-oriented research projects are a common way of funding their research. Against this background, we propose a new methodical approach with which VSD can easily be implemented in such projects and which we call “value declaration”. We share our experience with this method which we gained in two design-oriented research projects.

For \(n\in \omega \), the weak choice principle \(\textrm{RC}_n\) is defined as follows: _For every infinite set_ _X_ _there is an infinite subset_ \(Y\subseteq X\) _with a choice function on_ \([Y]^n:=\{z\subseteq Y:|z|=n\}\). The choice principle \(\textrm{C}_n^-\) states the following: _For every infinite family of_ _n_-_element sets, there is an infinite subfamily_ \({\mathcal {G}}\subseteq {\mathcal {F}}\) _with a choice function._ The choice principles \(\textrm{LOC}_n^-\) and \(\textrm{WOC}_n^-\) are the same as \(\textrm{C}_n^-\), but we assume that the family \({\mathcal {F}}\) is linearly orderable (...) (for \(\textrm{LOC}_n^-\) ) or well-orderable (for \(\textrm{WOC}_n^-\) ). In the first part of this paper, for \(m,n\in \omega \) we will give a full characterization of when the implication \(\textrm{RC}_m\Rightarrow \textrm{WOC}_n^-\) holds in \({\textsf {ZF}}\). We will prove the independence results by using suitable Fraenkel-Mostowski permutation models. In the second part, we will show some generalizations. In particular, we will show that \(\textrm{RC}_5\Rightarrow \textrm{LOC}_5^-\) and that \(\textrm{RC}_6\Rightarrow \textrm{C}_3^-\), answering two open questions from Halbeisen and Tachtsis (Arch Math Logik 59(5):583–606, 2020). Furthermore, we will show that \(\textrm{RC}_6\Rightarrow \textrm{C}_9^-\) and that \(\textrm{RC}_7\Rightarrow \textrm{LOC}_7^-\). (shrink)

This book is about the nature of sensory perception. Contributions focus on five questions, i.e.: (1) What distinguishes sensory perception from other cognitive states? Is it true, for instance, that perceptual content, in contrast to the phenomenal content of sensations like pain, always depends on the perceivers conceptual resources? (2) How do we have to explain the intentionality of perceptual states? (3) What is the nature of perceptual content? (4) In which sense do the objects of sensory perception depend on (...) the constitution of the perceiver? How, for instance, do secondary qualities like colours, sounds and smells depend on the perception of human subjects? (5) How can we account for the intentionality of misperceptions? These questions are addressed through the interpretation of classical historical texts as well as in the context of systematical reflections. With contributions by Margaret Atherton, Michael Ayers, Peter Baumann, Martha Brandt Bolton, Thomas Grundmann, Gary Hatfield, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Andreas Kemmerling, Bertram Kienzle, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Dominik Perler, Jay F. Rosenberg, Katia Saporiti, Ralph Schumacher, Gerald Vision, and Russell Wahl. (shrink)

This article answers several calls—coming as well from corporate governance practitioners as from corporate governance researchers—concerning the possibility of complying simultaneously with requirements of innovation and ethics. Revealing the long-term orientation as the variable which permits us to link the principal goal of organization, being “survival,” with innovation and ethic, the article devises a framework for incorporating ethics into a company’s processes and strategies for innovation. With the principal goal of organizations being “survival” in the long-term, it is assumed that (...) innovation is necessary in order to realize a going concern. Firms that do not innovate and adapt to rapidly changing business environments are less likely to be sustainable. Thus, it is in a business’ best interests to adopt an innovation process for long-term success. We posit that there are two simultaneous sources of innovation and change that are unavoidable and embedded in the corporate landscape. First, we argue for genetically embedded, Darwinian explanations for adaptations that enable an entity’s survival. This view is combined with more conventional, social science explanations for change. Our new, comprehensive model of the governance of innovation processes hinges on the one hand on an organization’s long-term orientation, which we argue, is not possible without a consideration of an ethical dimension. On the other hand, the model employs, for the first time, the concept of duality, in order to make the positive coexistence of innovation and ethic analytically visible. Guided by this concept the roots of the ethic within innovation are traced from both natural science forces for change, and cultural pressures operating on members of an organization. We present our Integrated Causal Model of Innovation and propose theoretical relationships that will generate numerous avenues for future research in the field, and help managers to reorient their governance strategies. (shrink)

The interplay of content and context is observable in a moment to moment manner as propositional content unfolds. The current contribution illustrates this through data from real-time language comprehension indicating that propositional content is not computed in isolation but relies in important ways on context during every step of the computation of meaning. The relevant notion of context that we have to adopt includes all aspects of possible worlds and draws on a variety of knowledge representations, which in a first (...) processing phase serve to generate expectations for upcoming words. In a second phase, the discourse representation is assessed and if necessary updated by means of inferential reasoning and enrichment to reflect the speaker’s intended meaning. (shrink)