In der klassischen Metaphysik war der alle speziellen Aspekte der Wirklichkeit übergreifende Gesichtspunkt der des „Seins". Dem entspricht in Puntels Buch ein Theorierahmen für das uneingeschränkte „universe of discourse". Methodisch angemessen ist ihm ein nicht-fundamentalistisches kohärentiell-reflexives Begreifen, dem sich auch die Sache selbst in eben dieser Struktur darstellt, nämlich als Beziehungseinheit von Begriff und Wirklichkeit, von Semantik und Ontologie, woraus sich sowohl eine an der Sprache orientierte Sicht der Dinge ergibt als auch eine mit dem Ganzen koextensive, also sich selbst (...) einschließende Geist-Strukur als reflexiver Maßstab allen Begreifens. Damit ist eine „prima philosophia" wiedergewonnen, die als methodisch-inhaltlicher Rahmen für das Begreifen der einzelnen Bereiche des Universums geeignet ist, nämlich der Naturphilosophie und Anthropologie, der Ethik und Ästhetik, der Geschichts- und Religionsphilosophie.In classical metaphysics, „Being" constituted the one viewpoint, which encompassed all particular aspects of reality. In Puntel's book, corresponding to this viewpoint is a theoretical framework for the unrestricted „universe of discourse." For him, a non fundamentalist comprehension of reality will be methodologically adequate, insofar as it is both coherent and reflexive. For only in and though the structure of this comprehending can the subject matter present itself as a relational unity of concept and reality, and of semantics and ontology. This structure will yield both a view of things that is linguistically orientated, as well as a mind-structure that is coextensive with the whole of reality, itself included. This mind-structure serves, then, as a reflexive criterion for all acts of comprehension. With this, the book regains a „prima philosophia," understood as a methodological and content-filled framework suitable for the comprehension of individual spheres of the universe, namely, the philosophy of nature and anthropology, ethics an aesthetics, as well as the philosophy of history and religion. (shrink)

The question of whether homeopathy is a science is currently discussed almost exclusively against the background of the modern concept of natural science. This approach, however, fails to notice that homeopathy—in terms of history of science—rests on different roots that can essentially be traced back to two most influential traditions of science: on the one hand, principles and notions of Aristotelism which determined 2,000 years of Western history of science and, on the other hand, the modern concept of natural science (...) that has been dominating the history of medicine for less than 200 years. While Aristotle’s “science of the living” still included ontologic and teleologic dimensions for the sake of comprehending nature in a uniform way, the interest of modern natural science was reduced to functional and causal explanations of all phenomena for the purpose of commanding nature. In order to prevent further ecological catastrophes as well as to regain lost dimensions of our lives, the one-sidedness and theory-loadedness of our modern natural–scientific view of life should henceforth be counterbalanced by lifeworld–practical Aristotelic categories. In this way, the ground would be ready to conceive the scientific character of homeopathy—in a broader, Aristotelian sense. (shrink)

T. 1/2. Zugänge und Entwicklung -- T. 3. Metaspurenlesen tut not.

Comparing knowledge with belief can go wrong in two dimensions: If the authors employ a wider notion of knowledge, then they do not compare like with like because they assume a narrow notion of belief. If they employ only a narrow notion of knowledge, then their claim is not supported by the evidence. Finally, we sketch a superior teleological view.

Problem: Mitterer's critique of the central argumentations of radical constructivists has been mostly neglected until today. The paper presents and evaluates his criticism and, in the second part, outlines a format of constructivism that tries to draw appropriate consequences. Solution: In his critique Mitterer explains why the radical constructivism represented above all by Maturana, Varela, von Glasersfeld or Roth still remains in a dualistic format. In his view Neurobiology is used in their writings as the indisputable basis for deriving far-reaching (...) epistemological consequences. Therefore constructivism evades self-application. To overcome this serious critique a different approach to constructivist thinking is sketched that operates without using any biological or psychological theories, tries to avoid dualism, and elaborates Mitterer's basic argument that the description of an object and the object under description are the same. Benefits: The paper shows what constructivism can learn from a serious critique and how it can be rewritten in a non-dualistic way. (shrink)

SJ Schmidt als bekannter Geisteswissenschaftler und Walter Schwertl Praktiker im Bereich Business-Coaching nähern sich in Dialogform der Frage, wie ein Geisteswissenschaftler und ein Praktiker eine hinreichend gemeinsame Konzeption von Kommunikation erarbeiten können. Gerade zwischen hoch abstrakten Theorien selbstreferentieller Systeme und dem, was als systemische Praxis bezeichnet wird, erscheint die Kluft unüberwindbar. Die Autoren spannen einen Bogen zwischen philosophischen Diskursen und Fragen alltäglichen Handelns. Der Hinweis auf die Vorgeschichte des Buches lässt erahnen, dass die Protagonisten Neugierde auf die Argumente des (...) Anderen, Vertrauen und respektvollen Kommunikationsstil der Kluft erfolgreich entgegensetzen. (shrink)

Mark Coeckelbergh starts his book with a very powerful picture based on a real incident: On the 9th of January 2020, Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested by Detroit police officers in front of his two young daughters, wife and neighbors. For 18 hours the police would not disclose the grounds for his arrest (American Civil Liberties Union 2020; Hill 2020). The decision to arrest him was primarily based on a facial detection algorithm which matched Mr. Williams’ driving license photo with (...) the picture of a man who was suspected of watch theft two years earlier. Not only did the computer ‘get it wrong’ as one of the detectives said, when Mr. Williams made them aware that the picture of the suspect obviously wasn’t resembling him, the probably unreliable algorithm very likely contributed to racial discrimination (Hill 2020). It is well documented that many available facial detection algorithms at this time had significant problems (e.g. a comparably high false positive rate) with respect to black persons, like Mr. Williams (NIST 2019). Multiple causes may exist, such as unbalanced training datasets and insufficient optimization. Coeckelbergh compares the disturbing case of Mr. Williams with a political interpretation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, where the protagonist, Josef K., is accused of an unspecified crime by an opaque, oppressive and absurd bureaucracy: “In the 21st-century United States, Josef K. is black and is falsely accused by an algorithm, without explanation” (p. 2). (shrink)

Das Buch beschreibt die Transformation des Diskurses der Kulturwissenschaft, der seit seinem Entstehen um die Jahrhundertwende auch die deutsch-jüdische Interkulturalität retten sollte, in einem Diskurs der politischen Theologie (Carl Schmitt und Gerschom Scholem), über den sich der katastrophale Trennungsprozess beider Kulturen vollstreckt.

The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. The first (...) aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

This work is both an introduction to, and a reader in, contemporary hermeneutics. Included are papers by Betti, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Apel and Habermas.

Given the recent interest in the subjective or phenomenal dimension of consciousness it is no wonder that many authors have once more started to speak of the need for pheno- menological considerations. Often however the term ‘phenomenology’ is being used simply as a synonym for ‘folk psychology', and in our article we argue that it would be far more fruitful to turn to the argumentation to be found within the continental tradition inaugurated by Husserl. In order to exemplify this claim, (...) we criticize Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory as well as Strawson's recent contribution in this journal, and argue that a phenomenological analysis of the nature of self-awareness can provide us with a more sophisticated and accurate model for understanding both phenomenal consciousness and the notion of self. (shrink)

It is often argued that there are no practical reasons for belief because we could not believe for such reasons. A recent reply by pragmatists is that we can often believe for practical reasons because we can often cause our beliefs for practical reasons. This paper reveals the limits of this recently popular strategy for defending pragmatism, and thereby reshapes the dialectical options for pragmatism. I argue that the strategy presupposes that reasons for being in non-intentional states are not reducible (...) to reasons to act. Pragmatists who want to preserve a motivational constraint on reasons therefore have exactly two options: either arguing that there are irreducible reasons for being in non-intentional states ; or arguing that we can believe directly for practical reasons. I argue that the prospects for the former option are dim because irreducible reasons to be in states are hard to square with the motivational constraint on reasons. Returning to the more traditional route of arguing for pragmatism by defending a version of doxastic voluntarism therefore seems to be the more promising way for pragmatists to go. (shrink)

Justice at Nuremberg traces the history of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial held in 1946-47, as seen through the eyes of the Austrian bliogemigrbliogé psychiatrist Leo Alexander. His investigations helped the United States to prosecute twenty German doctors and three administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The legacy of Nuremberg was profound. In the Nuremberg code--a landmark in the history of modern medical ethics--the judges laid down, for the first time, international guidelines for permissible experiments on humans. One of (...) those who helped to formulate the code was Alexander. Justice at Nuremberg provides a detailed insight into the origins of human rights in medical science and into the changing role of international law, ethics and politics. (shrink)