The topic of this book is self-consciousness, which is a kind of knowledge, namely knowledge of oneself as oneself, or self-knowledge.

Specific Chinese models for theories of knowledge were premised upon a structurally ordered external reality; since natural (or cosmic) order is organic, it naturally follows the 'flow' of structural patterns and operates in accordance with structural principles that regulate every existence. In this worldview, our mind is also structured in accordance with this all-embracing, but open, organic system. The axioms of our recognition and thought are therefore not arbitrary, but follow this rationally designed structure. The compatibility of both the cosmic (...) and mental structures is the basic precondition that enables humans to perceive and recognize external reality. The present study shows that this paradigm of structural epistemology can already be found in the earliest Chinese theories of knowledge. The introduction of Chinese models and their incorporation into Western discourses fills an important theoretical gap in the Western model of structuralism. This book offers an insight into epistemological systems that arose outside the discourses of the Euro-American tradition. It can thus help us to eliminate and supersede certain culturally conditioned prejudices as to the superiority and omnipresence of Western theoretical models, while demonstrating incontrovertibly that the results of Western discourses are by no means the only force driving theoretical innovation at the present time. (shrink)

Remarks on the Relations between Neurophysiology and Psychology. In the last decades of Analytical Philosophy, contributions to the so-called mind-body-problem have been suffering by several serious methodological misunderstandings: they have failed, for instance, to distinguish between explanations of particular and strictly general ("necessary") properties and between two important senses of existential statements; and they have overlooked the role conceptual explanations play in the development of science. Changing our methodological premisses, we should be able to put questions like that of the (...) relation between (neuro)physiological and psychological phenomena in a new way - and we should be able to see that such newly understood questions allow answers which evade the pitfalls of both reductionist and holistic positions. The paper tries to illustrate and to defend these contentions by reference to a very elementary example: the rational re-building of our concepts to identify behaviour by which a subject controls the position of his body in space. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Fuer unseren Begriff der Gegenstaende der Biologie ist es charakteristisch, dass diese Gegenstaende eine Geschichte haben. Das unterscheidet sie von den Grundgegenstaenden der Physik, die wir so definieren, dass sie als Elemente in geschichtliche Ablaeufe zwar eingehen, ohne dabei indes selbst historischen Wandlungen unterworfen zu sein. Deswegen ist es im Rahmen biologischer Forschungen ueblich, Erklaerungen einmal fuer Veraenderungen und einmal fuer Entstehungen eines Lebewesens (einer Art) anzustreben.

This section aims to summarize and conclude Part I in the form of a taxonomy of legitimate and illegitimate corporate moral responsibility attributions. I believe we can categorise four types of corporate moral responsibility attributions two of which are legitimate and two which are illegitimate with regard to our concept of moral agency and our moral intuition of fairness.

Die analytische Philosophie hat selbst da, wo sie explizit an Kant anschließt, erhebliche Schwierigkeiten mit dessen Idee eines synthetischen Wissens a priori. Damit verliert sie eine ganze Dimension der philosophischen Tradition. Das vorliegende Buch gewinnt diese Idee zurück, indem es gerade den Anschauungsbezug und damit den Zeitbezug des menschlichen Denkens zum Gegenstand einer logischen Untersuchung macht. Nur wenn man die Zeit als inneres und formbildendes Merkmal des menschlichen Aussagens erkennt, versteht man den Begriff empirischer Wahrheit und sinnlich vermittelter Erkenntnis. In (...) diesem Gedanken, so zeigt sich, liegt die Einheit einer philosophischen Tradition, die Aristoteles mit Kant und beide mit dem späten Wittgenstein verbindet. (shrink)

Auf die Rede von Begriffen und vergleichbaren Entitäten, so behauptet Quine, könne man verzichten. Mit einer solchen Einstellung handelt Quine sich jedoch Schwierigkeiten ein, die z.B. an seinem Konzept des Setzens von Gegenständen sowie an seinem Verständnis von Existenzaussagen sichtbar werden (§ 1 und 2). Im Hintergrund jener Einstellung steht ein unzureichendes Verständnis der Funktion von Begriffen (§ 3). Zudem hat Quine bisher nicht zur Kenntnis genommen, daß Wittgenstein in seiner Spätphilosophie Vorschläge zum Verständnis der Rede von Begriffen entwickelt hat, (...) welche es erlauben, zahlreiche Defizite des neuzeitlichen Verständnisses von Begriffen zu beheben (§ 4). (shrink)

We show that if Ƒ is any "well-behaved" subset of the Borei functions and we assume the Axiom of Determinacy then the hierarchy of degrees on $P(^\omega \omega )$ induced by Ƒ turns out to look like the Wadge hierarchy (which is the special case where Ƒ is the set of continuous functions).

In [9] we have considered a wide class of "well-behaved" reducibilities for sets of reals. In this paper we continue with the study of Borel reducibilities by proving a dichotomy theorem for the degree-structures induced by good Borel reducibilities. This extends and improves the results of [9] allowing to deal with a larger class of notions of reduction (including, among others, the Baire class ξ functions).

Ro explores the philosophical and religious dimensions of Korean neo-Confucianism as expounded by one of its foremost thinkers, Yi Yulgok.

Common sense supposes that general terms, which are negative, non-referring or contradictory, may be quite understandable, i.e. meaningful. But attempts to give a theoretical explanation of this fact very oftenly came to the conclusion, that this must be false. This paper tries to show that Leibniz - thanks to his new understanding of ideas and notions - has been able to resolve a great part of meaning paradoxes, which are the consequences of that contradiction. The paper includes a comparison of (...) Leibniz's position with that of some other philosophers, especially that of Aristode and Locke. (shrink)

The assurance of corporate sustainability reporting has long been a controversial field. Corporate management and assurance providers are routinely accused of 'capturing' what should be an exercise in public accountability. This article responds to recent calls for an analysis of the process by which Capture' takes place. Integrating elements of neo-institutional theory and the arena concept, the article sets out a fresh conceptual framework for investigating the dynamics of the interactions between the various bodies active in the assurance field in (...) the UK. (shrink)

Dieses Buch schlägt - unter dem Titel "synthetischer Materialismus" - einen neuen Weg zur Klärung des Geist-Materie-Problems vor. Ausgangspunkt ist die These, dass wir als Betrachter der Welt frei sind, dieselben Gegenstände in unterschiedlich komplexe raum-zeitliche Zusammenhänge einzuordnen, und dass sich daraus unterschiedliche Möglichkeiten der Klassifikation von Gegenständen ergeben können: Wenn wir von "Lebewesen", "Handlungssubjekten" und "Personen" sprechen, und ihnen psychische Phänomene zuschreiben, nutzen wir den Umstand, dass die Konstellationen von Kohlehydraten, Eiweißen, Wasser und Nukleinsäuren, die jene Entitäten auch sind, (...) in einer besonderen Weise mit Teilen ihrer Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft in Verbindung gebracht werden können. Der synthetische Materialismus vermag so zu zeigen, dass es zwischen einem ausschließlich "materialistischen" Verständnis der Welt und jenen Sichtweisen, innerhalb derer wir manche Komplexe von materiellen Phänomenen als Individuen mit ihnen selbst bewussten Empfindungen, Absichten und Überzeugungen verstehen, Übergänge gibt, die methodisch-wissenschaftlich nachvollzogen werden können und die nicht zu nutzen töricht wäre. (shrink)

The search for knowledge has been the driving force behind mankind's existence since the dawn of civilization, and different cultures have developed their own theories of knowledge. _Searching for the Way: Theory of Knowledge in Premodern and Modern China_ deals with the analyses and interpretations of modern Chinese philosophical discourses, especially those concerning theories of knowledge. The author looks at how contemporary Chinese philosophy is awakening from a long slumber and substantiates the hypothesis that this new awakening is fully prepared (...) for fruitful confrontations with the new challenges presented by a globalized world. The study of 20th-century Chinese philosophy has not been the subject of any extensive and systematic discussion in neither the West in general nor in Western Sinology in particular. Hence, this book will be of immense interest to those who are interested in the emerging fields of comparative philosophy, Chinese studies and theology. (shrink)

This Open Access book (see link to Taylor & Francis below) critically examines the recent discussions of powers and powers-based accounts of causation. The author then develops an original view of powers-based causation that aims to be compatible with the theories and findings of natural science. Recently, there has been a dramatic revival of realist approaches to properties and causation, which focus on the relevance of Aristotelian metaphysics and the notion of powers for a scientifically informed view of causation. In (...) this book, R.D. Ingthorsson argues that one central feature of powers-based accounts of causation is arguably incompatible with what is today recognised as fact in the sciences, notably that all interactions are thoroughly reciprocal. Ingthorsson’s powerful particulars view of powers-based causation accommodates for the reciprocity of interactions. It also draws out the consequences of that view for the issue of causal necessity and offers a way to understand the constitution and persistence of compound objects as causal phenomena. Furthermore, Ingthorsson argues that compound entities, so understood, are just as much processes as they are substances. A Powerful Particulars View of Causation will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and neo-Aristotelian philosophy, while also being accessible for a general audience. (shrink)

Answering some of the main questions from [L. Motto Ros, The descriptive set-theoretical complexity of the embeddability relation on models of large size, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic164(12) (2013) 1454–1492], we show that whenever κ is a cardinal satisfying κ<κ=κ>ω, then the embeddability relation between κ-sized structures is strongly invariantly universal, and hence complete for (κ-)analytic quasi-orders. We also prove that in the above result we can further restrict our attention to various natural classes of structures, including (generalized) trees, graphs, or (...) groups. This fully generalizes to the uncountable case the main results of [A. Louveau and C. Rosendal, Complete analytic equivalence relations, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.357(12) (2005) 4839–4866; S.-D. Friedman and L. Motto Ros, Analytic equivalence relations and bi-embeddability, J. Symbolic Logic76(1) (2011) 243–266; J. Williams, Universal countable Borel quasi-orders, J. Symbolic Logic79(3) (2014) 928–954; F. Calderoni and L. Motto Ros, Universality of group embeddability, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.146 (2018) 1765–1780]. (shrink)

Comparative study of religions and philosophies, in spite of its significance and urgency, has been neither fully appreciated nor developed in the study of religion or philosophy. Comparative study, historically speaking, is still young and complex in its approach. Religious Studies as an intellectual discipline has traditionally concentrated on the investigation of a single tradition, enabling a student to become an ‘expert’ in that particular tradition. The world in which we live, however, no longer allows us to be content with (...) the idea, the value, the way of thinking in our own tradition alone. In short, we no longer live in a ‘provincial’ age but in a ‘global’ age. (shrink)

Remarks on the Relations between Neurophysiology and Psychology. In the last decades of Analytical Philosophy, contributions to the so-called mind-body-problem have been suffering by several serious methodological misunderstandings: they have failed, for instance, to distinguish between explanations of particular and strictly general properties and between two important senses of existential statements; and they have overlooked the role conceptual explanations play in the development of science. Changing our methodological premisses, we should be able to put questions like that of the relation (...) between physiological and psychological phenomena in a new way - and we should be able to see that such newly understood questions allow answers which evade the pitfalls of both reductionist and holistic positions. The paper tries to illustrate and to defend these contentions by reference to a very elementary example: the rational re-building of our concepts to identify behaviour by which a subject controls the position of his body in space. (shrink)

A systematic review of studies on space and on gender in general anthropology, sociology, architecture and other related social science fields allows us to distinguish four different types of approaches. Studies on gender, space, on gender and space (including gendered space), and the gender of space. Unlike genderized space, where biologically determined gender is a factor, gender of space is a symbolic genderization of space wherein three levels may be distinguished: 1) imagery, 2) iconography, 3) choreography. Gender of space is (...) here illustrated by a rather unique case of a rich, behaviorally-relevant genderization of space in the Andes, where not only time and space and landscape are genderized, but also agricultural fields, village space, living space, and sacrificial space. Deriving from genderized agricultural space, people and people's offices are also genderized. Data are reported on ten different symbolic genders of people, all highly relevant (and sanctioned in case of deviation) in everyday behavior and in religious ritual. Thus, genderized space-deduced symbolic human gender creates a highly complicated choreography in a multitude of further genderized spaces. (shrink)

Having initially not had the attention of Sartre or Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty's work is arguably now more widely influential than either of his two contemporaries. "Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts" presents an accessible guide to the core ideas which structure Merleau-Ponty's thinking as well as to his influences and the value of his ideas to a wide range of disciplines. The first section of the book presents the context of Merleau-Ponty's thinking, the major debates of his time, particularly existentialism, phenomenology, the history of (...) philosophy and the philosophy of history and society. The second section outlines his major contributions and conceptual innovations. The final section focuses upon how his work has been taken up in other fields besides philosophy, notably in sociology, cognitive science, health studies, feminism and race theory. (shrink)

Feministische Aktivist*innen haben sich schon immer verschiedener Medien bedient, um zu kommunizieren, sich zu artikulieren und zu vernetzen. Durch die Digitalisierung und die damit verbundenen Möglichkeiten erweitern sich feministische Aktionsräume und verlagern sich zunehmend ins Social Web. So lässt sich feststellen, dass Plattformen wie twitter, instagram oder auch facebook vielfach genutzt werden, um feministische Anliegen in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen. Der gegenwärtige mediale Diskurs um feministische Ideen und Forderungen wird dabei maßgeblich durch antifeministische Akteur*innen beeinflusst, deren Anliegen es ist, feministische (...) Stimmen aus dem medialen Raum zu verbannen. Die vorliegende Arbeit greift diese Thematik auf und geht der Frage nach, wie feministische Aktivist*innen antifeministische, digitale Gewalt wahrnehmen und damit umgehen. Die Ergebnisse verweisen darauf, dass insbesondere Aspekte der Sexuellen Identität und der Mehrfachdiskriminierung entscheidend sind für das Ausmaß der digitalen Gewalt, die erfahren wird. Weiterhin wird deutlich, welche Rolle Solidarität, Vernetzung und Empowerment im Kampf gegen den Antifeminismus spielen. Die Autorin Anja Roß studierte Pädagogik und Soziologie an der Universität Bielefeld. Sie arbeitet als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Pädagogik an der Universität Oldenburg. Hier promovierte sie 2024 zum feministischen Aktivismus im Social Web und den Umgang mit digitaler Gewalt. (shrink)