Die Fragestellungen der Metaphysik, so scheint es, sind nicht mehr zeitgemäß. Der Begriff erinnert an abgehobene Systeme ohne jeden Realitätssinn. Dabei gibt es kein Denken ohne Metaphysik. Unter Bezugnahme auf die Traditionen der Phänomenologie und der französischen Philosophie versteht Robert Hugo Ziegler Endlichkeit als eine positive Auszeichnung, während der Begriff der Zeitlichkeit die erste Dimension von Sein beschreibt. Sein grundlegender Beitrag zur Reflexion über Mensch und Welt zeigt, wie sich die Philosophie selbstbewusst einer Erneuerung der Metaphysik stellen kann.

Nature quality in relation to farming is a complex field. It involves different traditions and interests, different views of what nature is, and different ways of valuing nature. Furthermore there is a general lack of empirical data on many aspects of nature quality in the farmed landscape. In this paper we discuss nature quality from the perspective of organic farming, which has its own values and goals in relation to nature – the Ecologist View of Nature. This is in contrast (...) to the Culturist View characteristic of much conventional agriculture and the Naturalist View characteristic of the traditional biological approach to nature quality. This threefold distinction forms a framework for exploration of nature quality criteria in the farmed landscape. The traditional work on nature quality has mainly focused on biological interests based on a Naturalist View of Nature. In this paper we will explore how criteria for nature quality based on the Ecologist View can be developed and thereby feed into the ongoing discussion of the development of the organic farming practices. We suggest additional criteria for nature quality based on an Ecologist View of Nature: biodiversity, habitat diversity, extent and structure, functional integrity of habitats and agro-ecosystems, landscape integrity, accessibility, and experientiality. The larger set of Naturalist and Ecologist criteria can provide a wider and more balanced basis for developing nature quality indicators that are relevant in the farmed landscapes. This broader approach to nature quality is also expected to benefit the general societal discussions and decisions on farming and nature. (shrink)

Hugo A Meynell; On the Aims of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 10, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 79–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.

Hugo A Meynell; On the Aims of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 10, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 79–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A WAY OF LOOKING AT HEIDEGGER HUGO MEYNELL University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta IN THE FOLLOWING essay I w;ant to examine some of rthe ba1Sic ~deas of Heidegger from SIOmething of a " transcendiental Thomist " pevspective, 1 as represented by Bernard Lonergian's " generalized empirical method." I believe that there are a nlllmber of important insights :to be gained from Heidegger's work but that it contains a (...) fow very perilous oversights as well. To my mind, Heidegger shows with more conviction and power than any other thinker how our anxieties and our trivi1al everyday concerns are apt to shut us out from 1apprehending the deep my;stery of things, and how great art :and poetry, together with a,sustained thinking-through of the nmbure of consciousness :and of the woJ.'11d 1 wihich it reveals, have the power of opening up this mystery to us again.. I ailso agree with Heidegger when he says that the technicaiL fanguages of the scieDJoes and of traditional metaphysics as weH al'le, to a consiiew, one has to dismantle the conceptual appa- :vaitus which we take for granted, an appara;bus wherein the answers are given or presuppos,ed, but the questions al'e never e1q>erienced any more-least of all those aborut orur own nature, desbiny, and state in the wol'l1d. In asking these questions, we must be constantly ·aware of the limitations which aiccrue mom our particular historical sitruation.5 These were not sufficiently taken account of in the dassicaJ. phenomenology of Husserl, with its "transcendental subjectivity " based on an allegedly "d!isintel'ested observer." For all. its determination to 11eturn :to" the things themselves," this phenomerno~ogy did not attend sufficiently to the manner in which its own aims :and IJ[>ocedures we:ve determined historicaUy.6 Husserl, as he himself aJC1knowledged, was very much in the tradition of Descartes, who was trying to find an uns:hakabJe basis for the practice of phll.osophy. But it is just this basis which Heidegger seeks to prut into qruestion.7 We have to a.sk what is the decisiY.e matter for,thinking: "Is it consciousness and its objectivity or is it the Being of beings in its unconcealedness and concealment?" 8 Access to the things themselves is best thought of in true Greek fashion as " aletheia, the unoonceaJ.edness of what is present, iits being revealed, its showing itself." 9 (A,s he quite often does, Heidegger is here making capital out of ·an etymological point; " aletheia," the Greek word for """.t-1.,, • • 1 " i-th. " cealm t),..,ruuu, iI.S eqwv:a1ent to a- e ei,a, non~con · en. So what is basic to truth, irt must be inferred, is not the 00['rectness of assertions, or their cor11espondence with states of a:fiaim, or the :agreement of subjoot and object express1 ed by them; it is the self-showing which is necessary for things if 5 Cf. Krell, "Introduction," 21. 6 Ibid., 13. 7 Cf. Walter Biemel, Martin Heidegger (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 8-9; Krell, 31. On the alleged errors of Descartes, see BT 123-33. sHeidegger, On Tflrne and Bemg (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 79; Krell, 14. oHeidegger, loc. cit., Krell, 13. 616 HUGO MEYNELL they 1arie to become objects of assertions.at all.10 The £.act is that.rulil (lO!l'respondence, " rudequation "11 or whatev. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FROM EPISTEMOLOGY TO METAPHYSICS WHAT I HOPE to do in what follows is to sketch how one might go about constructing a rational, ritical, and in a sense 'scientific' metaphysics. It goes without saying that a great many current conceptions of ' metaphysics ' are abusive. On one account, ' metaphysics ' is whatever isn't science or common sense, where science and common sense are assumed to be good (...) things. On another, 'metaphysics' consists of an abuse of language which is brought about by a wrenching of it out of its normal context. Again, ' metaphysics ' is supposed to substitute a bloodless dance of categories for the spontaneous outflow of religious feeling, or idolatrous human constructions for the Word of God. However, it seems in general much clearer that metaphysics is to be contemptuously repudiated than exactly what it is. A traditional definition of metaphysics is ' the study of being qua being'. It is perhaps understandable that many should complain, when confronted by such a sententious formula, that such an inquiry is a waste of time, and one had much better get on with the more fruitful business of pursuing one of the particular sciences. (Ezra Pound once remarked that, since the Renaissance, a philosopher had been someone who was too damned lazy to work in a laboratory; and the same may be felt to apply a fortiori to the metaphysician.) And yet there are problems which do not seem to go away, however often it is confidently asserted that they have done so or are about to do so, problems which might be said to be concerned with ' being ' or ' reality ' at a very high level of generality. Those who brush the problems aside may perhaps sometimes be suspected of arbitrarily taking sides on them. For example, the psychological doctrine known as behaviorism is ~05 206 HUGO MEYNELL based on the assumption that all talk about thoughts, feelings, and emotions is in the final analysis reducible to talk about the behavior of organisms. But it is one thing to allow such an assumption to dominate one's work, another to set it clearly, another still to examine and to justify it. If any examination of the account of the relation of mind to matter implied by behaviorism has to be of such generality as to enter the realm of the 'metaphysical ', it would seem to be still worth carrying out, unless indeed we are to accept behaviorism quite uncritically as a dogma. Just the same applies to writing which assumes the existence of non-existence of a Deity. The fact is that every passage of speech or writing which exists, and makes claims as to matters of fact, involves certain assumptions about the ultimate constituents of things, and about the nature and interrelations of appearance, reality, mind, matter, experience, causality, things, properties, events, space, time, God, and so on. Let us call each such set of basic assumptions (including the ones mentioned earlier, that talk about minds is reducible to talk about the behavior of organisms, that there is or is not a God) a 'metaphysic'. Let us say that 'metaphysics ' is an attempt to discuss, and to come to well-founded conclusions on, the question as to whether any such ' metaphysic ' is to be preferred, as more closely approximating to the truth about how things are in the world, to any other. Empiricism, idealism, materialism, critical realism, and naive realism, will at this rate each be a 'metaphysic'; that is to say, each consists of theses about the existence, nature and interrelations of actual or alleged basic constituents of reality like those listed above. Any attempt to discuss the rival merits of any of them, or.to defend any one as more appropriate than the others, will count as ' metaphysics '. The arguments by which Plato, Leibniz, or Hegel established their conclusions about the ultimate nature of things evidently count as ' metaphysics ' according to our conception; and this does seem in conformity with ordinary usage. Perhaps it is obvious that one such 'metaphysic' (say, materialism) is to be preferred to the rest; FROM EPISTEMOLOGY TO METAPHYSICS 207 or at least that another such (say, idealism) should be repudiated ; but it would be as... (shrink)

Karl Barth was the most prolific theologian of the twentieth century. Avoiding simple paraphrasing, Dr Gorringe places the theology in its social and political context, from the First World War through to the Cold War by following Barth's intellectual development through the years that saw the rise of national socialism and the development of communism. Barth initiated a theological revolution in his two Commentaries on Romans, begun during the First World War. His attempt to deepen this during the turbulent (...) years of the Weimar Republic made him a focus of theological resistance to Hitler after the rise to power of the Nazi party. Expelled from Germany, he continued to defy fashionable opinion by refusing to condemn communism after the Second World War. Drawing on a German debate largely ignored by Anglo-Saxon theology Dr Gorringe shows that Barth responds to the events of his time not just in his occasional writings, but in his magnum opus, the Church Dogmatics. In conclusion Dr Gorringe asks what this admittedly patriarchal author still has to contribute to contemporary theology, and in particular human liberation. (shrink)

Nursing research using concept analysis plays a critical role for knowledge development, particularly when concerning to broad and foundational concepts for nursing practice, such as dignity. This study aimed to synthesize research concerning concept analysis of dignity in nursing care. Based on a literature review, electronic databases were searched using the terms “dignity,” “human dignity,” “concept analysis,” and nurs*. Papers in Portuguese or English were included. The research synthesis was conducted independently by two reviewers. A total of 35 citations were (...) identified and seven papers were included. Six studies were elected using Walker and Avant concept analysis methodology while one applied the Beth Rodgers evolutionary model. The concept of dignity has been studied by nurses, and its attributes, antecedents, consequences, and similar concepts were synthesized into a definition. Dignity emerged as a fundamental concept in nursing ethics and the main attributes synthesized were personhood, sociability, respect, and autonomy. The antecedents identified were: facilitators—patient focus care, recognition, education, and ethical competence; threats—vulnerability and organizational environment. The consequences were positive coping, empowerment, and dignity preservation. The synthesis of these seven studies using concept analysis provided a clear definition of dignity. These findings challenge future research and education, particularly for the study of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing education programs to enhance skills for preserving patient dignity in clinical practice. (shrink)

Background Contemporary societies are rife with moral disagreement, resulting in recalcitrant disputes on matters of public policy. In the context of ongoing bioethical controversies, are uncompromising attitudes rooted in beliefs about the nature of moral truth?Methods To answer this question, we conducted both exploratory and confirmatory studies, with both a convenience and a nationally representative sample (total N = 1501), investigating the link between people’s beliefs about moral truth (their metaethics) and their beliefs about moral value (their normative ethics).Results Across (...) various bioethical issues (e.g., medically-assisted death, vaccine hesitancy, surrogacy, mandatory organ conscription, or genetically modified crops), consequentialist attitudes were associated with weaker beliefs in an objective moral truth. This association was not explained by domain-general reflectivity, theism, personality, normative uncertainty, or subjective knowledge.Conclusions We find a robust link between the way people characterize prescriptive disagreements and their sensibility to consequences. In addition, both societal consensus and personal conviction contribute to objectivist beliefs, but these effects appear to be asymmetric, i.e., stronger for opposition than for approval. (shrink)

This book is also concerned with world economics, but it is approached from the viewpoint of ethics. It argues that the hubris of the present global market is destroying communities and wreaking irrevocable damage to the planet: we live in a modern version of the Midas myth.Justice in its broadest sense -- fair shares for all -- is eloquently held up as the prime virtue of human communities. Timothy Gorringe, Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Exeter, offers (...) practical suggestions for an ethical transformation to replace the spiraling profit-driven economy with a steady-state economy that meets human needs and encompasses the well-being of other species and the environment. (shrink)

"A book from the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics." Includes bibliographical references (p. [141]-195) and index.

There are relatively few empirical studies on the impacts of corporate social responsibility policies and programs. This article addresses the research gap by analyzing the incidence of, and the conditions that affect, decoupling among CSR policies, implementation of CSR programs, and CSR impacts for various environmental and social issues. Complete decoupling is a condition of full divergence among policies, programs, and impacts amounting to purely ceremonial CSR. Using ratings from a sustainability rating agency on a sample of about 1,000 large (...) companies in 24 countries, the authors find empirical evidence not supporting a conclusion of complete decoupling. The empirical evidence suggests four levels of nondivergence in the sample. First, for most CSR issues examined, CSR policies of high quality do have relatively strong effects on CSR implementation. Second, CSR programs of high quality do have relatively strong effects on CSR impacts. Third, for most CSR issues, even low-quality CSR policies enforce the incidence and quality of programs in comparison with having no policy at all. Fourth, weak programs have more impact on the realization of CSR goals than having no program at all. The authors also find that the quality of CSR reporting and locating the responsibility for CSR at the board level reduce decoupling by strengthening the quality of CSR programs. (shrink)