We observe that removing contraction from a standard sequent calculus for first-order predicate logic preserves completeness for the modal fragment.

In recent decades, Kant's philosophy of law has increasingly moved into the focus of moral-philosophical discussions. In this context, the "Naturrecht Feyerabend" is of particular importance. On the one hand, it is the only surviving transcription of the lectures on natural law that Kant gave twelve times between 1767 and 1788; on the other hand, it is based on his lectures in the summer semester of 1784 and thus provides important evidence of Kant's reflections during an important phase in the (...) development of his moral philosophy. Despite this special significance, the text has received little attention in previous research. Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner and Gianluca Sadun Bordoni present here a volume that emphasizes this special significance. The ten contributions in the volume ask about the relationship of "Naturrecht Feyerabend" to the tradition of natural law as well as its relationship to critical moral philosophy and the late "Doctrine of Right". Contributors are: Manfred Baum, Franz Hespe, Philipp-Alexander Hirsch, Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner, Markus Kohl, Gabriel Rivero, Gianluca Sadun Bordoni, Michael Städtler, and Gideon Stiening. (shrink)

ResumoNo presente texto (“O Eu de Fichte”), no qual identifica duas épocas distintas na história da filosofia concernente ao desenvolvimento da teoria da consciência, D. Henrich volta-se, após caracterizar os componentes de cada período, à teoria da consciência do primeiro Fichte, o da Doutrina da Ciência de 1794, pondo ênfase sobre algumas aporiaspresentes nessa sua primeira formulação, na medida em que Fichte foi o primeiro a encarar o problema da consciência em sua perspectiva, no fundo, mais agônica, deixado sem tratamento (...) pela tradição da filosofia pré-kantiana e kantiana. AbstractIn the present text (Fichte’s Self), in which he identifies two distinct epochs in the history of philosophy concerning the development of the theory of consciousness, D. Henrich turns, after characterizing the components of each period, to the theory of consciousness of the first Fichte, that of the Doctrine of Science of 1794, placing emphasis on some of the aporias present in his first formulation, insofar as Fichte was the first to face the problem of consciousness in its essentially more agonistic perspective, left untreated by the tradition of pre-Kantian and Kantianphilosophy. (shrink)

Esse paper pretende introduzir alguns argumentos no debate atual em Filosofia da Religião, especialmente na controvérsia contra o Naturalismo. Nossa abordagem irá focar no significado moral da ideia de Deus, bem como em outros conceitos morais relevantes, a saber, os conceitos de consciência moral, mundo moral e a ideia mesma de “bem”. Em suma, é nossa intenção demonstrar que a maioria de nossas ideias morais está relacionada a uma Pessoa: Deus. Essa conclusão, como pretendemos demonstrar, refuta o Naturalismo.

Der Nachweis, dass sowohl die Einladung Peter Singers wie auch Thilo Sarrazins zu Vorträgen an deutsche Universitäten durch das grundgesetzlich verankerte Recht auf Wissenschaftsfreiheit gedeckt ist, kann sehr leicht geführt werden. Viele Menschen sind aber dennoch der Auffassung, Peter Singer sollte aufgrund seiner angeblich ableistischen Thesen an Universitäten keine Vorträge halten; auch sind viele Menschen der Auffassung, Thilo Sarrazin sollte aufgrund seiner angeblich rassistischen Thesen an Universitäten keine Vorträge halten. Es wird gezeigt, dass es keinen substantiellen Unterschied zwischen dem Fall (...) Sarrazin und dem Fall Singer gibt, der es rechtfertigen würde, in dem einen Fall die Einladung zu Vorträgen an Universitäten zu verteidigen, in dem anderen Fall aber nicht. Wer denkt, Singer dürfe an eine Universität eingeladen werden, muss auch denken, Sarrazin dürfe an eine Universität eingeladen werden; und wer das Recht verteidigt, Singer an eine Universität einzuladen, muss auch das Recht verteidigen, Sarrazin an eine Universität einzuladen. (shrink)

Dieter Henrich is one of the most respected and frequently cited philosophers in Germany today. His extensive and highly innovative studies of German Idealism and his systematic analyses of subjectivity have significantly impacted on advanced German philosophical and theological debates. Dieter Henrich and Contemporary Philosophy presents a comprehensive analysis of Henrich's work on subjectivity, evaluating it in the context of contemporary debates in both continental and analytic traditions. Familiarising the non-German reader with an important development in contemporary German (...) philosophy, this book explains the significance of subjectivity for any philosophy that attempts to offer existential orientation and contrasts competing conceptions in analytic philosophy and in the social philosophy of Juergen Habermas. Presenting Henrich's philosophy of subjectivity as a credible alternative to analytic philosophy of mind and a radical challenge to Heideggerian, Habermasian, neo-pragmatist, and postmodern positions, Freundlieb argues that a philosophy of the kind developed by Henrich can regain the cultural significance philosophical thinking once possessed. Dieter Freundlieb is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Griffith University, Australia. (shrink)

"Dieter Jähnig's life's work has been devoted to uncovering and exploring the field of tension between philosophy and art. The combination of comprehensive expertise in the field of the arts, together with the willingness of philosophy to radically question itself, has yielded a wealth of critical insights that can have a liberating and objectifying effect on the subject sciences. The many years of study with Jacob Burckhardt have produced an analysis of the different presences of the arts in time (...) that may be considered groundbreaking for the understanding of their 'relation to the world'. This differentiation of the character of works not only touches on methodological questions of reception aesthetics, but also has repercussions on the concept of history in general, which guides the historical-critical sciences." Robert Kudielka. (shrink)

Auf den ersten Blick scheint Selbstbewusstsein zu dem zu gehören, was sich nahezu von selbst versteht. In anhaltendem Nachdenken stellt sich aber heraus, dass mit ihm der Philosophie eines ihrer schwierigsten und folgenreichsten Probleme aufgegeben ist. Vor über fünfzig Jahren erschien Dieter Henrichs Abhandlung Fichtes ursprüngliche Einsicht, welche dieses Problem ausarbeitete. Sie zeigte, dass es Fichte war, der als erster das Problem sicher erfasste und zum Leitthema seines Denkens werden liess. Dem unveränderten Abdruck dieses Textes folgt nun -- als (...) um ein Vielfaches umfangreicherer Haupttext -- eine neue Folge von Überlegungen. Sie betreffen Selbstbewusstsein im Zusammenhang einer philosophischen Grundlegung und die Probleme, die Fichtes Systembildung unter dem Leitgedanken seiner ursprünglichen Einsicht in eine Bewegung ohne definitive Lösung versetzten. Henrichs Buch lässt sich als eine Erneuerung von Kants Denkart betrachten - in der Beziehung auf ein Thema, dessen Bedeutung für die Philosophie kaum noch bestritten wird, in einer der Erfahrungsart der Gegenwart gemässen Perspektive und in der Folge von Klärungen, die zu gewinnen sind, wenn man der Dynamik in Fichtes Systembildungen nachdenkt."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

We review the psychological literature on the organization of valence, discussing theoretical perspectives that favor a single dimension of valence, multiple valence dimensions, and positivity and negativity as dynamic and flexible properties of mental experience that are contingent upon context. Turning to the neuroscience literature that spans three levels of analysis, we discuss how positivity and negativity can be represented in the brain. We show that the evidence points toward both separable and overlapping brain systems that support affective processes depending (...) on the level of resolution studied. We move from large-scale brain networks that underlie generalized processing, to functionally specific subcircuits, finally to intraregional neuronal distributions, where the organization and interaction across levels allow for multiple types of valence and mixed evaluations. (shrink)

Wer kennt GOTTLOB FREGE (1848-1925)? Nur wenige verbinden mit seinem Namen einen der groaten Logiker aller Zeiten, ohne dessen "Logik von Funktion und Argument" die heutige Computertechnik kaum denkbar ist. Frege fuhlte sich zeitlebens zu seiner Heimat im Norden Deutschlands hingezogen. In Wismar verbrachte er seine Kindheit und in Bad Kleinen, in unmittelbarer Nahe, seinen Lebensabend. Das im Jahre 2000 gegrundete Gottlob-Frege-Zentrum der Hochschule Wismar organisierte ihm zu Ehren im Mai 2013 in seiner Geburtsstadt eine internationale Konferenz, an der Forscher (...) aus der mathematischen Grundlagenforschung und der Analytischen Philosophie teilnahmen. Im Konferenzband erfahren Sie von bekannten Wissenschaftlern u.a., begin{itemize} item was Frege zur Entwicklung der Mathematik, Logik und Philosophie leistete, item welche wissenschaftlichen Auffassungen Frege vertrat und welche er scharf kritisierte, item mit welchen bekannten Wissenschaftlern Frege korrespondierte und wer sein Werk fortsetzte oder in Frage stellte, item was wir heute noch aus Freges Arbeiten lernen konnen. (shrink)

Hence, there is still controversy over which of the two versions of the deduction deserves priority and whether indeed any distinction between them can be maintained that would go beyond questions of presentation and involve the structure of the proof itself. Schopenhauer and Heidegger held that the first edition alone fully expresses Kant's unique philosophy, while Kant himself, as well as many other Kantians, have only seen a difference in the method of presentation.

Dieter Birnbacher is professor of philosophy at the University of Düsseldorf and a member of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations’ scientific board. In 1988 he published the book Verantwortung für zukünftige Generationen ; which was translated into French and Polish. Hanna Schudy is an ethicist and environmentalist interested in questions of intergenerational responsibility concerning the natural environment. She is a doctoral student at the University of Wroclaw and a DAAD scholarship holder. The interview was conducted in (...) December 2011 at the Heinrich Heine Universität; Duesseldorf. It is part of Ms. Schudy’s current research into “The principle of responsibility in Hans Jonas’ and Dieter Birnbacher’s environmental ethics”. (shrink)

Review text: "... ist diese Einführung als solche uneingeschränkt zu empfehlen, da sie ihrem "analytischen? Charakter im besten Sinne des Wortes gerecht wird."Werner Wolbert in: Salzburger Theologische Zeitschrift 2/2008.

Constitutionalism: Past, Present, and Future will offer a definitive collection of Professor Dieter Grimm's most important scholarly writings on constitutional thought and interpretation. The essays included in this volume explore the conditions under which the modern constitution could emerge; they treat the characteristics that must be given if the constitution may be called an achievement, the appropriate way to understand and interpret constitutional law under current conditions, the function of judicial review, the remaining role of national constitutions in a (...) changing world, as well as the possibility of supra-national constitutionalism.Many of these essays have influenced the German and European discussion on constitutionalism and for the first time, much of the work of one of German's leading scholars of public law will be available in the English language. (shrink)

Dieter Flader explores how current social and cultural concerns are connected to the unconscious, and how this affects our responses to them. Flader focuses on the role of the ego, assessing how our feelings about these issues in adulthood grow from childhood fears and desires, and integrating the existing psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott, Lacan, Kohut and others with sociological and political theory. The interdisciplinary approach not only analyses current social issues but also generates new perspectives and solutions, and examines (...) examples including climate change, bullying and vegetarianism. (shrink)

Dieter Flader explores how current social and cultural concerns are connected to the unconscious, and how this affects our responses to them. Flader focuses on the role of the ego, assessing how our feelings about these issues in adulthood grow from childhood fears and desires, and integrating the existing psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott, Lacan, Kohut and others with sociological and political theory. The interdisciplinary approach not only analyses current social issues but also generates new perspectives and solutions, and examines (...) examples including climate change, bullying and vegetarianism. (shrink)

The neurological discovery of mirror neurons is of eminent importance for the phenomenological theory of intersubjectivity. G. Rizzolatti and V. Gallese found in experiments with primates that a set of neurons in the premotor cortex represents the visually registered movements of another animal. The activity of these mirror neurons presents exactly the same pattern of activity as appears in the movement of one's own body. These findings may be extended to other cognitive and emotive functions in humans. I show how (...) these neurological findings might be “translated” phenomenologically into our own experienced sensations, feelings and volitions. (shrink)

The Socratic method has a long history in teaching philosophy and mathematics, marked by such names as Karl Weierstra, Leonard Nelson and Gustav Heckmann. Its basic idea is to encourage the participants of a learning group (of pupils, students, or practitioners) to work on a conceptual, ethical or psychological problem by their own collective intellectual effort, without a textual basis and without substantial help from the teacher whose part it is mainly to enforce the rigid procedural rules designed to ensure (...) a fruitful, diversified, open and consensus-oriented thought process. Several features of the Socratic procedure, especially in the canonical form given to it by Heckmann, are highly attractive for the teaching of medical ethics in small groups: the strategy of starting from relevant singular individual experiences, interpreting and cautiously generalizing them in a process of inter-subjective confrontation and confirmation, the duty of non-directivity on the part of the teacher in regard to the contents of the discussion, the necessity, on the part of the participants, to make explicit both their own thinking and the way they understand the thought of others, the strict separation of content level and meta level discussion and, not least, the wise use made of the emotional and motivational resources developing in the group process. Experience shows, however, that the canonical form of the Socratic group suffers from a number of drawbacks which may be overcome by loosening the rigidity of some of the rules. These concern mainly the injunction against substantial interventions on the part of the teacher and the insistence on consensus formation rooted in Leonard Nelson's Neo-Kantian Apriorism. (shrink)

Thanks to the editorial work of David Pacini, the lectures appear here with annotations linking them to editions of the masterworks of German philosophy as they ...

Den an den gewaltigen Umwälzungen unserer Zeit Interessierten bewegen heute in erster Linie die Probleme des sozialen Wandels - oder besser des dringend not wendigen Umbaus unserer Welt. Erst dahinter tritt seit einiger Zeit die Forderung nach dem Umbau des Menschen auf 1. Sie ist von der öffentlichkeit noch relativ wenig beachtet und offenbar als unangenehm fast tabuiert. Von den die Frage initiierenden Biologen ist diese Forderung aber durchaus ernst gemeint. Ihre Ten denz ist radikal. Außerhalb dieser Tendenz laufen aber (...) bereits unentwegt Prozesse, die zuerst Eingriff in die Physis und Psyche des Menschen, dann eben doch schon Veränderung bedeuten oder bedeuten können. Der Massenausstoß von Chemikalien bis ins Trinkwasser und in die Zahnpasta hinein und die permanente massenhafte Massenbeeinflussung teilgeplanter Art, zum Beispiel durch Werbung, deren Wirkung (besonders insgesamt!) völlig unbekannt ist, ist damit gemeint. Hier setzt unser Interesse ein. Die Idee einer Veränderung des Menschen ist einmal überhaupt bewegend. Zum anderen gilt ihr deshalb unser Fachinteresse, weil eine an der Kulturanthropologie und der sogenannten Philosophischen Anthropologie orientierte Soziologie durch die Behauptung und Verbreitung des Konzeptes von der »Offenheit« und »Plasti zität«, der unbegrenzten Beeinflußbarkeit und Lernfähigkeit des Menschen, zu sammen mit einer untheoretischen Evolutionstheorie erst den Hintergrund für die Idee der Möglichkeit eines »Umbaus« des Menschen geliefert hat. Ist der Mensch total offen, nicht festgelegt, dann kann er auch beliebig angepaßt werden. (shrink)

Irony has a suspicious moral reputation, especially in popular media and internet culture. Jonathan Lear (2011) introduces a proposal which challenges this suspicion and identifies irony as a means to achieve human excellence. For Lear, irony is a disruptive uncanniness which arises from a gap between aspiration and actualisation in our practical identity. According to Lear, such a disruptive experience of ironic uncanniness reorients us toward excellence, because it passionately propels us to really live up to that practical identity. However, (...) Lear’s understanding of irony is idiosyncratic and his proposal overlooks that disruption often results from value incompatibility between different practical identities. The disruption which follows from value incompatibility does not inherently reorient us toward excellence. The point is exactly that achieving excellence in one practical identity is sometimes incompatible with excellence in the other. Pace Lear, I do not identify this disruptive experience as a central example of irony. Instead, I consider irony a virtuous coping strategy for such disruption, because it introduces the necessary distance from our moral imperfection to sustain practical deliberation and maintain good mental health. Such virtuous irony negotiates a golden mean between too little disruption (complete insensitivity toward one’s imperfection) and too much disruption (a complete breakdown of practical deliberation and mental health). I argue that ironic media in popular culture provide a rich source of such virtuous irony, which I demonstrate through analysis of satirical examples. (shrink)

The study ties in with former considerations concerning the problem of phenomenal perception of higher animals. Accordingly the phenomenal character, qualia included, results from the adjustment of perceptions to (typal) behavioral dispositions under the principle of self-preservation: an emergence phenomenon provided by the constitutive system unity of perception and behavior, here characterized as percept-act-system. Thereby the subject of behavior can be explained as an emergent instance of the – system-theoretically highest rank – percept-act-level. In terms of the principle of self-preservation (...) it subjects all sensations to an valuation. Perception thus gaining existential sense for the subject, a psychic sense-dimension is spanned which as such does not own physical but ideal character. Accessing Hegel this is further interpreted: Accordingly the ontological basis of this view is the lawfulness of nature, understood as the ideal essence underlying it. In virtue of this – basically Hegelian-type idealistic – conception the material being of nature always encloses the possibility of the psychic, according to that ideal substratum of nature. (shrink)