The topic of "Einladung zur Odyssee" is the knowledge of the human individual. As knowledge nowadays is always associated with scientific knowledge, and as scientific knowledge is always collective knowledge - and not individual knowledge - this book is not only not scientific, it also tackles a non-topic, a topic that, from the point of view of today's people, simply does not exist. The consequences of this point of view and of this concept that there is no knowledge other than (...) scientific knowledge can be seen in our current educational systems: The mind of a young person can either be adapted to science or it has to be broken. The author of this book is in no manner unscientific and does not have any tendency to the belief in esoteric truths; he just misses (and missed in his life) the understanding of teachers and university professors for the necessity of the individual student to find his own approach to a topic and to find answers to his own questions. This book was inspired by personal experiences during my studies at the University of Vienna like the following: When I tried, in a seminar, to express that I have now understood a certain concept which I did not understand before, and what that means for me, how it modifies other related concepts in my mind, I was regularly shut down by the professor who was offended by my practice of relating a concept to myself, to my own person. Instead of doing that I should relate it to that which is of general interest. (In this occasion I also learned that my professors confunded universality with that which is of general interest.) In short, university professors and persons of scientific character seem to lack the understanding that the head of a student has to wire itself in order to function. This process of wiring itself of students' brains is called learning. Nowadays people seem to have no respect of learning, they do not understand that learning is a sensitive and fragile process which can easily be harmed by professors shutting down students without kowing and even caring about what is currently happening in their brains. (shrink)

"Ist der Patient ein Mensch?" is a collection of articles. Its central topic is the question if the object of modern medicine is still the human being or if just organs and tissues are treated by medical doctors? The drawing on the book cover shows a lung instead of a human patient lying in a hospital bed. The approaches to this topic are diverse and surprising. E.g. the surgeon Ankersmit argues that it is impossible for him to see the human (...) being in the body lying on the operation table because then he would be unable to perform his work professionally. Other texts stretch the topic of the book to the questions whether medical doctors are human beings or if the human being of today is a "patient" in the sense of a current crisis of anthropology. Also questions like patient autonomy and communication with patients are tackled. The book is edited by Helmut Hofbauer, Lukas Kaelin, Hendrik Jan Ankersmit & Walter Feigl. Authors are: Lukas Kaelin, Gabriele Baumann, Hendrik Jan Ankersmit, Renate Heinz, Claus G. Krenn, Alexander Lapin, Sigrid Pilz, Margot Ham-Rubisch, Petra Herzeg, Klaus Spiess, Lucie Strecker, Paul Ferstl, Helmut Hofbauer & Peter Kampits. (shrink)

The book "Wer hat das Wissen in der Wissenschaft versteckt?" [Who had hidden knowledge in science?] is about the organisational character of science - "science" as understood in continental Europa as social & natural sciences. The reason for this interest is that, as it is the case with other things, human beings undertake scientific enquiries because they, as individuals, have certain interests related to the content of their activities, they want to know certain things. Then, when an activity is organised, (...) the organisation (or organisational structure) itself develops own interests and imposes them on the individuals. Soon, the individuals do not follow anymore (so much) their own interests but the interests of the organisation. This phenomenon is exemplarified by an analysis of the foreword of Wilhelm Schmid's book: "Philosophie der Lebenskunst" (1998) [Philosophy of the art of living], his habilitation at the University of Erfurt: The analysis shows how Schmid in this foreword is trying hard to present the art of living (which is first and foremost useful for the individual human person) as something which is useful for society because this is what science, represented by the academic environment in which we are socialized requires. In total, the book comprises 12 individual studies of which the analysis of the foreword of Schmid's "Philosophie der Lebenskunst" is one. The other 11 studies analyse texts by: Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Sandra Beaufays, andreas Hütig, Carl Djerassi, Monika Wogrolly, Friedericke Hassauer, Michel Foucault, John Stuart Mill, Erich Visotschnig & Siegfried Schrotta, Gordon A. Frutschnigg, and Oliver Sacks. One important aspect of the book is the relationship between philosophy and science, analysed e.g. with the help of Gordon A. Frutschnigg's diploma theses on the diploma theses completed at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Vienna between 2005 and 2007: Can philosophy, which primarily serves for the orientation of the individual in life be scientific in the sense of the organisational character of science (which tries to exclude individual interests as best as it can for they are deemed to bring subjectivity into science striving for objective truth). The choice of the books/texts which are analyzed in this study was partly (admittedly) random; however, they bear a common characteristic which is: these are texts which show/make visible the organisational character of science. The character of the studies in this book is phenomenological because they provide a close look at 12 texts/books and their use of language, supported by extensive quotes. (shrink)