This Husserlian transcendental-phenomenological investigation of interkinaesthetic affectivity first clarifies the sense of affectivity that is at stake here, then shows how Husserl’s distinctive approach to kinaesthetic experience provides evidential access to the interkinaesthetic field. After describing several structures of interkinaesthetic-affective experience, I indicate how a Husserlian critique of the presupposition that we are “psychophysical” entities might suggest a more inclusive approach to a biosocial plenum that includes all metabolic life.

It has been proposed that the design of robots might benefit from interactions that are similar to caregiver-child interactions, which is tailored to children's respective capacities to a high degree. However, so far little is known about how people adapt their tutoring behaviour to robots and whether robots can evoke input that is similar to child-directed interaction. The paper presents detailed analyses of speakers' linguistic behaviour and non-linguistic behaviour, such as action demonstration, in two comparable situations: In one experiment, parents (...) described and explained to their nonverbal infants the use of certain everyday objects; in the other experiment, participants tutored a simulated robot on the same objects. The results, which show considerable differences between the two situations on almost all measures, are discussed in the light of the computer-as-social-actor paradigm and the register hypothesis. Keywords: child-directed speech (CDS); motherese; robotese; motionese; register theory; social communication; human-robot interaction (HRI); computers-as-social-actors; mindless transfer. (shrink)

For Husserl, the body is not an extended physical substance in contrast to a non-extended mind, but a lived “here” from which all “there’s” are “there”; a locus of distinctive sorts of sensations that can only be felt firsthand by the embodied experiencer concerned; and a coherent system of movement possibilities allowing us to experience every moment of our situated, practical-perceptual life as pointing to “more” than our current perspective affords. To identify such experiential structures of embodiment, however, Husserl must (...) clarify and set aside not only the ways in which the natural sciences approach the body, but also the ways in which we have tacitly taken over natural-scientific assumptions into our everyday understanding of embodiment. Husserl’s phenomenological investigations eventually lead to the notion of kinaesthetic consciousness, which is not a consciousness “of” movement, but a consciousness or subjectivity that is itself characterized in terms of motility, that is, the very ability to move freely and responsively. In Husserl’s phenomenology of embodiment, then, the lived body is a lived center of experience, and both its movement capabilities and its distinctive register of sensations play a key role in his account of how we encounter other embodied agents in the shared space of a coherent and ever-explorable world. (shrink)

This investigation explores the methodological implications of choosing an unusual example for phenomenological description (here, a bodily awareness practice allowing spontaneous bodily shifts to occur at the leading edge of the living present); for example, the matters themselves are not pregiven, but must first be brought into view. Only after preliminary clarifications not only of the practice concerned, but also of the very notions of the “body” and of “protentionality” is it possible to provide both static and genetic descriptions of (...) the phenomena in question, leading to concluding meditations on the differences between an “integrating” consciousness engaged in a project of knowing and an “improvisational” consciousness open to radical transformation. In the end, however, the Urzeitigung in which what is protended is simply “more time” holds good as the invariant governing the deep structure of both of these styles of consciousness. (shrink)

Like the history of much of Husserl’s work, the history of his contribution to a phenomenology of the body is in part a history of understandable misunderstandings and subsequent reevaluations concerning the scope and significance of his achievements. To a certain extent, this is due not so much to what he actually said on this topic, but to the circumstances under which he said or wrote it—university lecture course? unpublished book draft? published work? research manuscript? conversation noted down by others?—and (...) to the sequence and manner in which this work gradually became available to the larger phenomenological community. For example, it was widely held at one time, primarily on the basis of Ideas I (see, e.g., III: §§ 39, 53–54),2 that Husserl dealt only with a disembodied and desituated consciousness, and that it was only with the advent of existential phenomenology that the body truly became an important phenomenological theme. However, we now know that Merleau-Ponty, for example, drew upon Husserl’s manuscripts for many of the descriptions and insights developed in the extensive and influential discussions of the body in Phenomenology of Perception (see Van Breda 1962/1992). Moreover, though it is now more readily acknowledged that Husserl did indeed take the body into account, some still assume or imply that he did so only toward the end of his life. Yet a closer examination of material published to date reveals that Husserl was concerned with bodilihood in texts from many different periods.3 A fuller appreciation of the range and richness of Husserl’s work in phenomenology of the body is nevertheless emerging only slowly.4 It is the purpose of this essay to help establish a basis for such appreciation by sorting out and summarizing certain key contributions to a phenomenology of the body in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, and by indicating the continuing relevance of Husserl’s achievements in this text to current issues. (shrink)

We investigated teachers' and children's experiences of philosophy with children by analysing the content of interviews with primary school teachers and discussions with groups of primary school pupils. The results show that regular philosophy sessions with children can have an impact on teachers’ view of themselves as educators, their approach to teaching and their personal development. From the children’s point of view, the most important and meaningful aspect, aside from the content of philosophical discussion, was the opportunity to think together (...) in an open-ended way. A key component of the collective construction of meaning was uncertainty, which is an integral feature of philosophical discussion. These findings link with the idea of “citizen as agent” in a variety of ways. Philosophising with children leads to a more collaborative and democratic teaching style, giving children the space to bring their own interests and activities to the discussion. This aligns with pupils’ enjoyment of the openness and uncertainty of philosophical issues, their appreciation of the opportunity to engage with different ideas and viewpoints, and their willingness to rise to the challenge of revising their own positions and changing their thinking. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of the “animal patient” to academic debates on animal ethics, veterinary ethics and medical ethics. This move reflects the prioritization of the animal patient in the veterinary profession’s own current ethical self-conception. Our paper contributes to the state of research by analysing the conceptual prerequisites for the constitution and understanding of animals as patients through the lens of two concepts fundamental to the medical field: health and disease. The first (...) section describes, how these concepts are inextricably entangled with the animal’s becoming a patient. The understanding of health and disease, we determine, has a great impact on the actual treatment of animals as patients. We show that a naturalistic perspective on health and disease still prevails in the veterinary field. By contrast, we use a historical study to demonstrate how a socio-historical perspective on animal diseases enriches our understanding of veterinary practice and its ethical dimensions. This perspective will prove not only able to deal with the wide variety of veterinary patients, but also to release underlying normative processes to ethical reflection and research. We elaborate on that assertion by spelling out the constructive dimension between the veterinary gaze and the objects of its experience. The final section brings veterinary medicine’s ethical relationship to the animal patient into the picture. The discipline is guided by an ethical principle of advocacy, defined as the responsibility to recognise and defend the animal patient’s interest in health. Our principle conclusion is that ethical philosophical thinking on interactions between specific notions of health and disease and animal patients makes a substantial contribution to surmounting this moral challenge. As ‘health’ and ‘disease’ determine the options for the articulation of an animal patient’s interest, investigation into the ever-changing and particular conceptualisations of these notions fosters its recognition. We conclude with a prospect resulting from those theoretical insights: meeting the animal patient’s interest could furthermore mean seeking an articulation of the specific interactions between concrete, living animal patients and veterinary concepts. (shrink)

This article will investigate Rawls's claim that his theory is Kantian in origin. In drawing on the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, I will show that Rawls's claim to be Kantian cannot be conclusively explained and assessed without the Lectures. An investigation of the Lectures shows that Rawls forces onto Kant's theory a Rawlsian interpretation which crucially alters Kant's theory. So far the secondary literature has neglected to subject Rawls's Lectures to detailed philosophical scrutiny. This article aims to (...) fill this gap in the literature on Rawls's Kantianism. I will identify three points in Rawls's interpretation of Kant (need for CI-procedure, willing condition, true human needs) which are questionable. I argue that the similarities of Rawls's theory to Kant are due to these (mis)interpretations, which makes Rawls's claim to be Kantian ultimately not legitimate. (shrink)

Husserl’s legacy of research manuscripts has been revered as a resource containing the deepest insights of his later work and criticized because such manuscripts present work in progress rather than completed “results.” I suggest that these materials are far more than fragments calling for careful interpretation; instead, they belong to a different genre and should be taken up in an attitude of research directed toward working out unsolved problems rather than in an attitude focused on interpreting pregiven texts. After sketching (...) some elements of the research practice this entails, I review some of the ways in which Husserl’s research results have been appropriated and emphasize the need for further phenomenological investigation in the spirit of the “rigorous science” Husserl envisioned. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron introduced the notion of rights supersession into the philosophical discussion about restitutive justice in cases of historic injustices. He refers to land claims by indigenous peoples as a real-world example and as an application of his theory of rights supersession. He implies that the changes that have taken place in settler states since the first years of colonialism are the kind of changes that lead to a supersession of land rights. The article proposes to unbundle property rights into (...) rights of benefit, control, use, and access and to distinguish between different forms of attachment. This strategy allows for a third option of restitution and supersession, namely partial restitution. Partial restitution grants current land holders those rights that they need to satisfy their attachments and basic distributive justice claims. At the same time, rights that are not needed for either purpose will revert back to indigenous peoples as the original owners. The article argues that the notion of partial restitution allows for far more extensive land rights than a less nuanced application of the supersession thesis. (shrink)

With the foundation of the journal,,Evrejskaja Starina" in 1909, the Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society of St. Petersburg wanted to create a forum for the study of the history of Jews in Russia and Poland. This article investigates whether the journal was able to live up to its goal, and to which extent,,Evrejskaja Starina" served as a basis for the further development of a Russian-Jewish historiography.

Our ability to select relevant information from the environment is limited by the resolution of attention – i.e., the minimum size of the region that can be selected. Neural mechanisms that underlie this limit and its development are not yet understood. Functional MRI was performed during an object tracking task in 7- and 11-year-old children, and in young adults. Object tracking activated canonical fronto-parietal attention systems and motion-sensitive area MT in children as young as 7 years. Object tracking performance improved (...) with age, together with stronger recruitment of parietal attention areas and a shift from low-level to higher-level visual areas. Increasing the required resolution of spatial attention – which was implemented by varying the distance between target and distractors in the object tracking task – led to activation increases in fronto-insular cortex, medial frontal cortex including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and supplementary motor area, superior colliculi, and thalamus. This core circuitry for attentional precision was recruited by all age groups, but ACC showed an age-related activation reduction. Our results suggest that age-related improvements in selective visual attention and in the resolution of attention are characterized by an increased use of more functionally specialized brain regions during the course of development. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze what effects indicators of a shared situation have on a speaker’s persuasiveness by investigating how a robot’s advice is received when it indicates that it is sharing the situational context with its user. In our experiment, 80 participants interacted with a robot that referred to aspects of the shared context: Face tracking indicated that the robot saw the participant, incremental feedback suggested that the robot was following their actions, and comments about, and gestures towards, the (...) shared physical situation and linguistic references to the dialog history indicated to participants that the robot had learned from the interaction and perceived its surroundings. The results show that especially the linguistic and gestural references to the shared context have a significant influence on participants’ compliance with the robot’s suggestions. Thus, indicating that it is ‘in the same boat’ with the user, i.e. that it is sharing the situational context, increases a robot’s persuasiveness during advice giving. (shrink)

The visual behaviour of consumers buying products in a supermarket was measured and used to analyse the stages of their decision process. Traditionally metrics used to trace decision-making processes are difficult to use in natural environments that often contain many options and unstructured information. Unlike previous attempts in this direction, our methodology reveals differences between a decision-making task and a search task. In particular the second stage of a decision task contains more re-dwells than the second stage of a comparable (...) search task. This study addresses the growing concern of taking eye movement research from the laboratory into the ‘real-world’, so findings can be better generalised to natural situations. (shrink)

Kerstin Thomas revaluates the famous dispute between Martin Heidegger, Meyer Schapiro, and Jacques Derrida, concerning a painting of shoes by Vincent Van Gogh. The starting point for this dispute was the description and analysis of things and artworks developed in his essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art”. In discussing Heidegger’s account, the art historian Meyer Schapiro’s main point of critique concerned Heidegger’s claim that the artwork reveals the truth of equipment in depicting shoes of a peasant woman (...) and thereby showing her world. Schapiro sees a striking paradox in Heidegger’s claim for truth, based on a specific object in a specific artwork while at the same time following a rather metaphysical idea of the artwork. Kerstin Thomas proposes an interpretation, which exceeds the common confrontation of philosophy versus art history by focussing on the respective notion of facticity at stake in the theoretical accounts of both thinkers. Schapiro accuses Heidegger of a lack of concreteness, which he sees as the basis for every truth claim on objects. Thomas understands Schapiro’s objections as motivated by this demand for a facticity, which not only includes the work of art, but also investigator in his concrete historical perspective. Truth claims under such conditions of facticity are always relative to historical knowledge, and open to critical intervention and therefore necessarily contingent. Following Thomas, Schapiro’s critique shows that despite his intention of giving the work of art back its autonomy, Heidegger could be accused of achieving quite the opposite: through the abstraction of the concrete, the factual, and the given to the type, he actually sets the self and the realm of knowledge of the creator as absolute and not the object of his knowledge. Instead, she argues for a revaluation of Schapiro’s position with recognition of the arbitrariness of the artwork, by introducing the notion of factuality as formulated by Quentin Meillassoux. Understood as exchange between artist and object in its concrete material quality as well as with the beholder, the truth of painting could only be shown as radically contingent. Thomas argues that the critical intervention of Derrida who discusses both positions anew is exactly motivated by a recognition of the contingent character of object, artwork and interpretation. His deconstructive analysis can be understood as recognition of the dynamic character of things and hence this could be shown with Meillassoux to be exactly its character of facticity – or factuality. (shrink)

While universalist theories have come under increasing attack from relativist and post-modern critics, such as Walzer, MacIntyre and Rorty, Kantian constructivism can be seen as a saviour of universalist ethics. Kantian constructivists accept the criticism that past universalist theories were foundational and philosophically comprehensive and thus contestable, but dispute that universalist principles are unattainable. The question then arises if Kantian constructivism can deliver a non-foundational justification of universal principles. Rawls, the first Kantian constructivist, has seemingly retreated from the universalist ambitions (...) of Kantian constructivism. However, others have taken up the project of Kantian constructivism. One of them is O’Neill, who argues that she can succeed where Rawls failed and provide a truly universal non-foundational constructivism. Her requirements for such a constructivism are a constructive justification of the procedure of construction and the use of only abstract, non-ideal starting points. I will argue that O’Neill fails on both accounts. Instead of justifying the principle of practical reason constructively she gives an instrumental and therefore conditional justification. Instead of relying on purely abstract starting points her account builds on an underlying value assumption. This indicates inherent contradictions within constructivism, and might force defenders of universalism to look elsewhere to answer the relativist and post-modern critic. (shrink)

In einem an den Präsidenten des Basler Konzils, den Kardinallegaten Giuliano Cesarini gerichteten Brief vom 9. Februar 1436 erzählt der Konzilsgesandte Johannes de Ragusio aus Konstantinopel von seinen mit dem Patriarchen Ioseph II. geführten Verhandlungen über die geplante Kirchenunion. Er spricht von dem greisen Patriarchen im Ton größter Bewunderung und erzählt, daß er sich auch nach vier- oder fünfstündigen Gesprächen von ihm nur schweren Herzens trennen könne: certe, quando venio ad ipsum solus, cum interprete tamen Bathomio calogero, qui fuit in (...) Concilio cum Ysidoro, per quatuor aut per quinque horas, non valeo ab ipso separari. (shrink)

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) have become a widely used tool to reconcile societies in the aftermath of widespread injustice or social and political conflict in a state. This article focuses on TRCs that take place in non-transitional societies in which the political and social structures, institutions, and power relations have largely remained in place since the time of injustice. Furthermore, it will focus on one particular injustice that TRCs try to address through the practice of truth-telling, namely the eradication (...) of epistemic injustice. The article takes the Canadian and Norwegian TRCs as two examples to show that under conditions of enduring injustice, willful ignorance of the majority, and power inequality, TRCs might create a double bind for victims which makes them choose between epistemic exploitation and continued injustices based on the majority's ignorance. The article argues that the set-up and accompanying measures of TRCs are of the utmost importance if TRCs in non-transitional societies are to overcome epistemic injustice, instead of creating new relations of exploitation. (shrink)

This paper argues that land and resource rights are often essential in overcoming colonial inequality and devaluation of indigenous populations and cultures. It thereby criticizes global welfare egalitarians that promote the abolition of national sovereignty over resources in the name of increased equality. The paper discusses two ways in which land and resource rights contribute to decolonization and the eradication of the associated inequality. First, it proposes that land and resource rights have acquired a status-conferring function for colonized peoples so (...) that possession of full personhood and relational equality is partially expressed through the possession of land and resource rights. Second, it suggests that successful internal decolonization depends on access to and control over land and resources, especially for indigenous peoples. (shrink)

In connection with the Carolingian renewal of education Charlemagne also cared for a homogeneous reckoning of time. He organized the Carolingian reform of the calender with the help of Alkuin of York, an Anglo‐Saxon scholar. Having heard of Alkuin's learning and teaching abilities, the Frankish King invited him to lead his Palace school at Aachen. Moving to Francia 782, Alkuin became the key counselour of Charlemagne for science, education and church matters.Among other subjects Alkuin taught the King especially calendrical reckoning (...) (computus) and astronomy, in which he took a special personal interest. Charlemagne discussed these subjects often with Alkuin, sometimes even in letters, still preserved today. For this correspondence on astronomy and calendrical reckoning it was assumed that Alkuin was the author of four short anonymous writings on computus. Moreover, Charlemagne comissioned Alkuin to write a standard work on computus, which is lost today. But three Carolingian manuals on computus survived.Which of the four anonymous writings really stem from Alkuin himself? What influence he had upon the manuals? These two questions are investigated here on the basis of the most important matter of computus: the calculation of the age of the moon in the 19‐year lunar cycle, necessary for dating the movable feast of Easter (on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring). These facts were discussed in detail, even vehemently, in the correspondence between Alkuin and Charlemagne. (shrink)

Der "im Januar 1945" datierte Text darf nur dann als Vorwort der 1953 publizierten Fassung der "Philosophischen Untersuchungen" betrachtet werden, wenn nachzuweisen ist, daß Wittgenstein selbst diesen Text zum Vorwort der gedruckten Version bestimmt hat. Nimmt man dies versuchsweise an, so sollen die Philosophischen Untersuchungen dem Leser einen Gesamteindruck eines "Gedankengebiets" vermitteln, in dem die "Ergebnisse" verschiedener "Untersuchungen" versammelt sind. Die nach Gegenständen geordnete Zusammenfassung dieser Ergebnisse ist schwierig, weil die Gegenstände jeweils in verschiedenen Untersuchungen behandelt werden, und gleicht deshalb (...) einer Reise "kreuz und quer". Da jedoch nicht die Zusammenfassung, sondern das Konglomerat der Untersuchungsergebnisse dokumentiert werden soll, muß der Leser wie aus einem "Album" einen Gesamteindruck des "Gedankengebiets" erschließen und darf sich nicht auf die isolierte Betrachtung einzelner Textelemente beschränken. (shrink)

Der "im Januar 1945" datierte Text darf nur dann als Vorwort der 1953 publizierten Fassung der "Philosophischen Untersuchungen" betrachtet werden, wenn nachzuweisen ist, daß Wittgenstein selbst diesen Text zum Vorwort der gedruckten Version bestimmt hat. Nimmt man dies versuchsweise an, so sollen die Philosophischen Untersuchungen dem Leser einen Gesamteindruck eines "Gedankengebiets" vermitteln, in dem die "Ergebnisse" verschiedener "Untersuchungen" versammelt sind. Die nach Gegenständen geordnete Zusammenfassung dieser Ergebnisse ist schwierig, weil die Gegenstände jeweils in verschiedenen Untersuchungen behandelt werden, und gleicht deshalb (...) einer Reise "kreuz und quer". Da jedoch nicht die Zusammenfassung, sondern das Konglomerat der Untersuchungsergebnisse dokumentiert werden soll, muß der Leser wie aus einem "Album" einen Gesamteindruck des "Gedankengebiets" erschließen und darf sich nicht auf die isolierte Betrachtung einzelner Textelemente beschränken. (shrink)

The article analyses the compulsory care of drug misusers in Sweden. An historical analysis of this field of work as a part of the Swedish welfare state highlights historically changing legislations, institutions, understandings and practices. Following Foucault, it is argued that it is impossible to distinguish between power and care and that confusion about coercive care is a result of not acknowledging power. Empirical studies of current social work point to the significance of different institutional settings. The author's study of (...) the Swedish probation service shows that social workers and clients may adopt different positions in relation to each other and that their experiences of the practice of social work depend on the congruence or disparity between these positions. The problematic role of motivation in coercive care is highlighted. While some scholars claim that motivation is not possible in coercive institutions, the author relates motivation to the caring power arguing that social work is always aimed at normality and that care is exercised to achieve normality. The promise of an improved life situation may make people in need of help adapt to the demands of the helper, and the caring power can be seen as a way to provide help for individuals who do not realize that they are in need of care. (shrink)

(2012). Practising Social Work Ethics Around the World: Cases and Commentaries. Ethics and Social Welfare: Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 418-419. doi: 10.1080/17496535.2012.735818.