Numerous studies show that humans tend to be more cooperative than expected given the assumption that they are rational maximizers of personal gain. As a result, theoreticians have proposed elaborated formal representations of human decision-making, in which utility functions including “altruistic” or “moral” preferences replace the purely self-oriented "Homo economicus" function. Here we review mathematical approaches that provide insights into the mathematical stability of alternative ways of representing human decision-making in social contexts. Candidate utility functions may be evaluated with (...) help of game theory, classical modeling of social evolution that focuses on behavioral strategies, and modeling of social evolution that focuses directly on utility functions. We present the advantages of the latter form of investigation and discuss one surprisingly precise result: “Homo economicus” as well as “altruistic” utility functions are less stable than a function containing a preference for the golden rule or for the common welfare that is only expressed in social contexts composed of individuals with similar preferences. We discuss the contribution of mathematical models to our understanding of human other-oriented behavior, with a focus on the classical debate over psychological altruism. We conclude that human can be psychologically altruistic, but that psychological altruism evolved because it was generally expressed towards individuals that contributed to the actor’s fitness, such as own children, romantic partners and long term reciprocators. (shrink)

The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy's most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it. In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem (...) of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault's fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle's notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty, a notion of sovereignty as power over "life" is implicit. The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt's idea of the sovereign's status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective "naked life" of all individuals. (shrink)

Published posthumously in 1908, Ecce Homo was written in 1888 and completed just a few weeks before Nietzsche’s complete mental collapse. Its outrageously egotistical review of the philosopher’s life and works—featuring chapters called Why I Am So Wise and Why I Write Such Good Books—are redeemed from mere arrogance by masterful language and ever-relevant ideas. In addition to settling scores with his many personal and philosophical enemies, Nietzsche emphasizes the importance of questioning traditional morality, establishing autonomy, and making a (...) commitment to creativity. Essential reading for students of philosophy, this unique memoir is crucial to an understanding of Nietzsche’s other works. (shrink)

이 논문은 이른바 놀이하는 존재Homo ludens로서의 인간에 대한 정의를 중심으로 인간을 이해하기 위한 의도로 기획한 글이다. 전통적인 관점에서 인간에 대한 정의는 이성적 존재Homo sapiens, 도구적 존재Homo faber 등으로 이해되어왔으나, 그러한 이해는 인간에 대한 특수적 관점만을 부각시키고 있기에 인간에 대한 전일적 이해에 걸림돌이 되어왔다. 이성적 존재로 인간을 이해하는 한 21세기에 비약적인 과학적 발전을 바탕으로 전개되고 있는 초인류 사회에서 인간에 대한 이해는 새로운 문제점에 봉착하게 된다. 이러한 논의를 유발 하라리의 『사피엔스』와 『호모데우스』에서의 주장에 근거해서 논의를 전개하였다. 한편, 인간에 대한 도구적 존재로서의 이해 방식 (...) 역시 인간이해에 있어서 단편적인 이해라는 난점을 지니고 있다. 신체의 확장으로서 도구의 제작과 사용이 인간을 정의하는데 있어서는 매우 유효할 것 같지만 인간의 문화를 이해하는 차원에서 한계를 드러낸다고 하겠다. 필자는 놀이하는 존재Homo ludens로서의 인간이야말로 인간을 이해하는데 매우 적절한 이해 방식이라고 본다. 이른바 피로사회로 정의되는 현대사회의 지평에서 인간의 이해방식을 통해 피로사회의 극복 방안을 모색하는 차원에서 이 글을 작성하였다. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Was Socrates the First Stand‐up Comedian? Humor and the Existentialists The Laughing Buddha.

Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes that ignore information. In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy. We review the major progress made so far: the discovery of less-is-more effects; the study of the ecological rationality of heuristics, which examines in which environments a given strategy succeeds or fails, and why; an advancement from vague labels to computational models of heuristics; the (...) development of a systematic theory of heuristics that identifies their building blocks and the evolved capacities they exploit, and views the cognitive system as relying on an “adaptive toolbox;” and the development of an empirical methodology that accounts for individual differences, conducts competitive tests, and has provided evidence for people’s adaptive use of heuristics. Homo heuristicus has a biased mind and ignores part of the available information, yet a biased mind can handle uncertainty more efficiently and robustly than an unbiased mind relying on more resource-intensive and general-purpose processing strategies. (shrink)

Homo sacer : sovereign power and bare life -- State of exception -- Stasis : civil war as a political paradigm -- The sacrament of language : an archaeology of the oath -- The kingdom and the glory : for a theological genealogy of economy and government -- Opus Dei : an archaeology of duty -- Remnants of Auschwitz : the witness and the archive -- The highest poverty : monastic rules and form-of-life -- The use of bodies.

Homo Juridicus focuses on the normative foundations underlying all socio-cultural formations. The book uses the concept of ''normativity'' in an inclusive sense. It includes law, but it is not limited to it. As such, it explores the various social and cultural forces that persuade, incite, seduce, influence, direct, restrain, repress or control behavior. It is a major interdisciplinary study cutting across several disciplines of social science, such as law, anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. Its primary audience is law (...) students, as well as the scholarly community across law and the social sciences. ''Isaak Dore is one of the very few scholars who straddles a broad range of legal and nonlegal disciplines. This important book deconstructs the idea of normativity in culture and illuminates it through various strains of thought in anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. Its grasp of these disciplines is impressive in terms of nuance, breadth, particularity and lucidity. It is a unique work, brilliantly executed, providing a rich background against which the promotion of social order through legal and nonlegal norms can be evaluated. It both provokes and compels one to think outside of the conventional structures and assumptions of law and social order. I know of no other work that offers the broad intellectual reach that this ambitious book presents.'' - Laura S. Underkuffler, J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. (shrink)

Since the beginning of business research and teaching, the basic assumptions of the discipline have been intensely debated. One of these basic assumptions concerns the behavioral aspects of human beings, which are traditionally represented in the construct of homo economicus. These assumptions have been increasingly challenged in light of findings from social, ethnological, psychological, and ethical research. Some publications from an integrative perspective have suggested that homo economicus embodies to a high degree dark character traits, particularly related to (...) the construct of psychopathy, representing individuals who are extremely self-centered and ruthless, without feelings of remorse or compassion. While a growing body of research notes such a similarity on a more or less anecdotal basis, this article aims to explore this connection from a more rigorous perspective, bridging insights from psychological, economic, and business research to better understand the potentially dark traits of homo economicus. The analysis shows that homo economicus is not simply some kind of psychopath, but specifically a so-called subclinical or Factor 1 psychopath, who is also referred to as a “corporate psychopath” in business research. With such an analysis, the paper adds an additional perspective and a deeper psychological level of understanding as to why homo economicus is often controversially debated. Based on these insights, several implications for academic research and teaching are discussed and reflected upon in light of an ethics of virtue and care. (shrink)

Artigo publicado em 1909, no diário A Imprensa. Nele, o autor o discorre sobre a recente autobiografia de Nietzsche, traduzida para o francês por Henri Albert. Ele se concentra em algumas partes do livro, destacando sobretudo aquelas nas quais o filósofo trata de sua alimentação e de suas distrações literárias.

Technik bestimmt auf die mannigfaltigste Weise unser Leben und Zusammenleben. Obgleich sie von Platon und Aristoteles bis in das zwanzigste Jahrhundert in Einzelaspekten betrachtet worden ist, wurde sie erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu einem eigenständigen Gegenstand der Philosophie. Dennoch werden ihre philosophischen Probleme immer noch eher beiläufig behandelt. So geht es um die Klärung ganz zentraler und herausfordernder Aufgaben – von der menschlichen Schöpferkraft über eine Klärung, was ein technisches Artefakt ist, zum technischen Wissen, in all diesen Elementen verknüpft (...) mit dem Verantwortungsproblem. Das Ziel ist eine Darstellung dieser faszinierenden philosophischen Fragen vor dem Hintergrund der Tradition. (shrink)

Ogni tentativo di ripensare le nostre categorie politiche deve muovere dalla consapevolezza che della distinzione classica fra zoé e bios, tra vita naturale ed esistenza politica (o tra l'uomo come semplice vivente e l'uomo come soggetto politico), non ne sappiamo piú nulla. Nel diritto romano arcaico homo sacer era un uomo che chiunque poteva uccidere senza commettere omicidio e che non doveva però essere messo a morte nelle forme prescritte dal rito. È la vita uccidibile e insacrificabile dell' 'uomo (...) sacro' a fornire qui la chiave per una rilettura critica della nostra tradizione politica. Quando la vita diventa la posta in gioco della politica e questa si trasforma in biopolitica, tutte le categorie fondamentali della nostra riflessione, dai diritti dell'uomo alla democrazia alla cittadinanza, entrano in un processo di svuotamento e di dislocazione il cui risultato sta oggi davanti ai nostri occhi. Seguendo il filo del rapporto costitutivo fra nuda vita e potere sovrano, da Aristotele ad Auschwitz, dall'Habeas corpus alle Dichiarazioni dei diritti, il libro di Agamben cerca di decifrare gli enigmi - prima di tutti il fascismo e il nazismo - che il nostro secolo ha proposto alla ragione storica. Fino a vedere, nel campo di concentramento, il paradigma biopolitico nascosto della modernità in cui città e casa sono diventate indiscernibili e la possibilità di distinguere tra il nostro corpo biologico e il nostro corpo politico ci è stata tolta una volta per tutte. (shrink)

Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Nietzsche passes under review all his previous books and reaches a final reckoning with his many enemies. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career.

Ayant depuis son premier livre exploré son hypothèse d'une naissance de notre langage articulé, humain, à partir de l'expérience de la mort d'autrui comme autre soi-même, Gérard Bucher expose dans un dernier ouvrage les raisons des travaux d'une vie entière. La poésie, pour Bucher, c'est ce qui reste (et qui, ainsi, nous est légué, génération après génération), d'une scène (ou archiscène) au cours de laquelle rien de moins que les clés de notre humanité nous sont données. Dans Homo divinans, (...) complété et relu avant sa disparition fin 2018, le philosophe nous propose les raisons pour lesquelles la poésie demeure notre avenir, dans et malgré nos temps difficultueux."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In Homos, he studies the historical, political, and philosophical grounds for the current distrust, within the gay community, of self-identifying moves, for the ...

Diese phänomenologische Studie bietet im historisch orientierten ersten Teil eine umfassende mentalitätsgeschichtliche Analyse der Deutung und Bewertung des Lachens von der europäischen Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Kritisch analysiert werden die vier wichtigsten und folgenreichsten Argumentationsmodelle: - die ethisch orientierte platonisch-stoisch-augustinische Argumentationstradition, die dem Lachen misstrauisch bis feindlich gegenübersteht; - die anthropologisch orientierte Argumentationstradition, die von Aristoteles über Joubert und Kant bis herauf zu Plessner und Schmitz reicht und die das Lachen als ein proprium hominis deutet und rechtfertigt; - die physiologisch-mechanistisch-energetische (...) Argumentationstradition, die mit Descartes beginnt und mit Freud immer noch nicht beendet ist; - die evolutionsgeschichtlich-ethologische Argumentationstradition, die von Darwin begründet wurde und heute die wohl dominanteste ist. Der zweite, systematische Teil führt die anthropologisch orientierte Argumentationstradition auf der Grundlage der Neuen Phänomenologie von Hermann Schmitz fort und beschreibt das Lachen in seinen drei Grundtypen als Bekundungs-, Interaktions- und Resonanz-Lachen auf den verschiedenen ontogenetischen Stufen von Lachmündigkeit als Spiel von personaler Emanzipation und personaler Regression wie auch als synergetischsynästhetisches Gesamtverhalten bei verschiedenen Einstellungen und in verschiedenen Situationen. Die beiden letzten Kapitel bieten Überlegungen zur Lebensfunktion des Humors und Empfehlungen zum Vertrauen in die je eigene Leiblichkeit als dem tragenden Grund personalen Seins. (shrink)

This edition of Marcel's inspiring Homo Viator has been updated to includle fifty-seven pages of new material available for the first time in English, making this the first English-language edition to conform to the standard French edition. Here, Christianity's foremost existentialist of the twentieth century gives us a prodigious personal insight on `man on the way' that will reinforce and commend our own pilgrimages in hope. "Homo Viator - "Homo Viator - or as Marcel calls him, `itinerate (...) man' - is an outstanding example of the philosophy concerned, not with technical problems, but with the urgent problems of man. Marcel talks to our condition, emphasizing our urgent need of hope, thus discovering beyond the lack of stability the values on which we may depend. "A subtle mind, a dramatist as well as a philosopher, close to the texture of human experience, he goes far beyond current platitudes to show that our Western tradition contains living truths that are as essential to our contemporary life as they were to our ancestors when they discovered them." - Eliseo Vivas "The theme of Marcel's Homo Viator is close to the center of all preoccupations: man in his pilgrim condition. With great virtuosity in the use of his own philosophical method, he probes into interpersonal relations and the threat to ethical values. Marcel excels here in his concrete analyses of the attitude of hope, the family community in its temporal and supratemporal aspects, and the forgotten virtue of personal fidelity." - James Collins. (shrink)

The current stage of the development of amateur stayer running practices can be characterized as personality-building, since the main goals of runners (especially marathon runners and super marathon runners) are not so much related to strengthening health, as to the sphere of personal improvement and self-knowledge: the development of will, character, testing yourself in an extreme situation, testing previously inaccessible emotions and states of consciousness. The object of the study is ego texts (books for a wide audience, including the online (...) "samizdat") of modern Russian running enthusiasts. The method of studying these texts is the biographical method, which makes it possible to determine the multidimensional influence of running activity on fundamental changes in personality development and the formation of her life path. The analyzed biographies inherit both the confessional tradition of Augustine (the contrast of the aimless and vicious "pre-race" life, as well as the traumatic experience of running neophyte and significant achievements in many areas of personal development after the adoption of the values expressed through running Coubertin's "religio athleticae"), and the adventurous and heroic biographical tradition noted by M. M. Bakhtin, inherent in the Renaissance, as well as romanticism and Nietzscheanism with their focus on the formation (in our case, through a stayer run) of a new (or "super-") person. The qualitative result of running activity is the achievement by the subject of a new stage of development – a person running (homo currens), which is characterized by activity, mobility, heroism, asceticism, striving for maximum self-realization, achieving harmony of body and spirit. Homo currens opposes both virtual pastime and the fetishization of comfort culture, suggesting, referring to the concept of Viktor Frankl, filling life with new meanings and values through overcoming the inevitable suffering for a stayer run. Amateur running is considered by writers as a publicly available and effective means of gaining physical, mental and social well-being, which expresses its humanistic essence and gives philosophical and anthropological significance to the works under study. (shrink)

Nietzsche coins the enigmatic term homo natura to capture his understanding of the human being as a creature of nature and tasks philosophy with the renaturalisation of humanity. Following Foucault's critique of the human sciences, Vanessa Lemm discusses the reception of Nietzsche's naturalism in philosophical anthropology, psychoanalysis and gender studies. She offers an original reading of homo natura that brings back the ancient Greek idea of nature and sexuality as creative chaos and of the philosophical life as outspoken (...) and embodied truth, perhaps best exemplified by the Cynics' embrace of social and cultural transformation. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed to explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. Theoretical basis. Secularity is considered in three aspects with reference to Taylor’s and Habermas’ ideas: as a common public sphere, as a phenomenological experience of living in a Secular Age, and as a background for happiness to become a major common value among other secular values in the Age of Authenticity. The modifications of happiness interpretation are traced from Early (...) Modernity till nowadays. The preconditions of the contemporary appeal to Aristotle’s eudaimonic theory of happiness are elucidated. The main characteristics of homo economicus anthropological model and reasons for its collapse in the contemporary world are analyzed. Specificities of the contemporary interpretations of eudaimonia are described with reference to the works of MacIntyre, Haybron, Hamilton, Kekes, Melnick, and others. A moral foundation and a behavioral strategy of homo eudaimonicus model are expounded and the role of this model in the life of a contemporary individual person and society is revealed. Originality. For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity; and it is argued that homo eudaimonicus is the result of overcoming the values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective behavior strategy of a contemporary person facing the current social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. Conclusions. According to the contemporary interpretation, happiness as eudaimonia is a combination of the good life and the meaningful life; it is a human flourishing in this world through the accomplishment of a person’s life plan in the sphere of secularity. Homo eudaimonicus manifests the overcoming of values crisis and the rediscovery of purpose and meaning, this time on the secular basis. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person’s project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities. (shrink)

In Homo Aestheticus, Luc Ferry argues that this central problem of aesthetic theory is fundamentally related to the political problem of democratic individualism.

This edition of Marcel's inspiring Homo Viator has been updated to includle fifty-seven pages of new material available for the first time in English, making this the first English-language edition to conform to the standard French edition. Here, Christianity's foremost existentialist of the twentieth century gives us a prodigious personal insight on `man on the way' that will reinforce and commend our own pilgrimages in hope. "Homo Viator - "Homo Viator - or as Marcel calls him, `itinerate (...) man' - is an outstanding example of the philosophy concerned, not with technical problems, but with the urgent problems of man. Marcel talks to our condition, emphasizing our urgent need of hope, thus discovering beyond the lack of stability the values on which we may depend. "A subtle mind, a dramatist as well as a philosopher, close to the texture of human experience, he goes far beyond current platitudes to show that our Western tradition contains living truths that are as essential to our contemporary life as they were to our ancestors when they discovered them." - Eliseo Vivas "The theme of Marcel's Homo Viator is close to the center of all preoccupations: man in his pilgrim condition. With great virtuosity in the use of his own philosophical method, he probes into interpersonal relations and the threat to ethical values. Marcel excels here in his concrete analyses of the attitude of hope, the family community in its temporal and supratemporal aspects, and the forgotten virtue of personal fidelity." - James Collins. (shrink)

Although many of the pioneers of present-day bioethics came from religious and theological backgrounds, the recent controversy about the role of religion in bioethics has elicited much attention. Timothy Murphy would ban religion from bioethics altogether. Much of the ado hinges on conflicting understandings of just what bioethics is and just what religion is. This paper attempts to make more explicit how the fields of bioethics and religion have been understood in this context, and how they should not be understood. (...) We begin by looking at bioethics as a field: its origins, purpose, scope, and its methods. We then examine the notion of religion, looking especially at its importance for bioethics. Humanity is not just Homo sapiens but also Homo religiosus. Religion is more than a code of ethics; it gives insight into many of the foundational matters of bioethics. (shrink)

У статті представлено концептуалізацію дихотомії категорій «дух/розум-тіло», в основі якої необхідність формування креативного класу, який несе в собі зміни для держави і сприяє розвитку і самоствердженню особистості. Дихотомія категорій «дух/розум-тіло» пов’язана з формуванням креативної особистості в умовах нових технологій, які сприяють формуванню креативного світогляду, в основі якого інформаційна творчість та інновації. Постановка завдання. Зроблено акцент на те, що філософія економіки направлена на формування креативного класу, який повинен розвивати іманентні сили, які розширяють горизонти дихотомії «дух/розум-тіло», раніше обмежені як людиною, так і (...) суспільством. Аналіз останніх досліджень і публікацій. Філософія економіки використовує різноманітні економічні моделі науково-технічного прогресу Є. Бріньолфссона, Е. Макафі, Ю. Трінкса, М. Фюрст, Р. Флориди та інших, в основі яких вирішення проблем людини. Виділення недосліджених частин загальної проблеми – концептуалізація дихотомії «дух/розум-тіло» та вплив її складових на формування «homo creativus» у філософії економіки та їх значення для сучасності. В основі дослідження - концептуалізація базових понять дух, тіло, розум, креативність та їх вплив на формування креативного класу. Методологія – застосування методів економічної антропології та синергетики для вирішення складних проблем дихотомії «дух/розум-тіло» та їх вплив на формування «homo creativus» у філософії економіки. Виклад основного матеріалу. Розглянуто предмет вивчення філософії економіки, в основі якої глибинна внутрішня сутність дихотомії «дух/розум-тіло» і представлено її основні характеристики. Розкрито сутність економічної антропології та синергетики, які допомагають проникнути в глибину феномена дихотомії «дух/розум-тіло». Досліджено умови формування Homo creativus як визначального чинника нового типу особистості з відповідною поведінкою, здібностями, ціннісними орієнтаціями. Висновки. Виявлено умови, які відкривають нові можливості для творчості, креативності, інтелекту, що сприяють формуванню сталого буття завдяки сучасним технологіям, представленим «другою епохою машин». (shrink)

Why did the scientific revolution take place in the West and not in China or the Islamic world? How did humanity's progress in science and technology, which had been moving along at a relatively steady pace for tens of thousands of years, end up taking such an unprecedented leap? Subjecting the history of thought and technology to a novel interpretation based on the relationship between theory and practice, Ahmet Selami Çalışkan argues that the industrial revolution and modern science-and the scientific (...) revolution that preceded both-did not alone suffice to sort out the philosophical problems of their day or to produce the institutions of the modern age. Both required a new sort of human: Homo economicus faber. Tracing the historical emergence of this figure and its persistence in our own age, this book offers an innovative and holistic assessment of the economic, cultural, and political effects of centuries of interaction between East and West and their repercussions in our world today. (shrink)