Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universitèat Berlin.

Zusammenfassung: Fehlinterpretierte Dokumente und ignorierte physikalische Fakten: Die Geschichte von,Hitlers Atombombe‘ muss korrigiert werden. Warum haben die deutschen Physiker während des Zweiten Weltkriegs keine Atombombe entwickelt? Seit mehr als 25 Jahren sind sich die Historiker einig, dass die deutschen Physiker wussten, wie eine Atombombe gebaut werden muss, dass aber ein Programm wie das amerikanische Manhattan‐Projekt zu ihrer Realisierung in Deutschland, erst recht während des Krieges, unmöglich war. Eine genaue Analyse aller erhaltenen Original‐Dokumente über die Arbeit an der Atombombe während des,Dritten (...) Reichs‘ zeigt jedoch erhebliche Fehler der Autoren durch unvollständige Analyse der Dokumente, falsches Verständnis naturwissenschaftlicher Erläuterungen und Ignorieren physikalischer Fakten. Es wird nachgewiesen, dass die deutschen Physiker bis zum Ende des Krieges nicht bemerkt hatten, dass eine Atombombe nur mit schnellen Neutronen realisiert werden kann. Nur Heisenberg hatte das richtige Prinzip spät erkannt, es aber nicht eindeutig kommuniziert und auch in keiner Weise physikalisch vertieft. Die physikalisch korrekte Interpretation der Dokumente zeigt, dass die deutschen Physiker während des Krieges erfolglos versuchten, einen Reaktor zu entwickeln, der auch eine Voraussetzung für den Bau einer Plutonium‐Bombe gewesen wäre. Aber sie wussten nicht, wie eine Bombe realisiert werden kann, weil sie nie an einer realistischen Theorie der Atombombe gearbeitet hatten. Summary: Misinterpreted Documents and Ignored Physical Facts: The History of ‘Hitler's Atomic Bomb’ needs to be corrected. Why have the German physicists not developed an atomic bomb during World War II? For more than 25 years, the historians agree that they knew how to build the bomb, but that a bomb‐development programme of the size of the US‐Manhattan‐Project would not have been possible in wartime Germany. A detailed analysis of all preserved documents on the German atomic bomb research during the ‘Third Reich’, however, reveals considerable mistakes by the authors due to incomplete analysis of documents, misinterpretations of scientific explanations and ignoring of physical facts. It is shown that until the end of the war the German physicists did not know that an atomic bomb can only be made with fast neutrons, except Heisenberg, who, however, discovered it rather late, did not communicate it clearly and did not study any bomb physics. The physically correct interpretation of the documents reveals that the German physicists worked unsuccessfully on a reactor, which would have been a prerequisite for a plutonium bomb. But they did not know how to build a bomb because they never worked on a realistic bomb theory. (shrink)

Explores the philosophical contributions and contemporary relevance of early German Romanticism.

Biologists studying short-lived organisms have become aware of the need to recognize an explicit temporal extend of a population over a considerable time. In this article we outline the concept and the realm of populations with explicit spatial and temporary boundaries. We call such populations “temporally bounded populations”. In the concept, time is of the same importance as space in terms of a dimension to which a population is restricted. Two parameters not available for populations that are only spatially defined (...) characterise temporally bounded populations: total population size, which is the total number of individuals present within the temporal borders, and total residence time, which is the sum of the residence times of all individuals. We briefly review methods to estimate these parameters. We illustrate the concept for the large blue butterfly (Maculinea nausithous) and outline insights into ecological and conservation-relevant processes that cannot be gained without the use of the concept. (shrink)

English summary: It was not until the publication of Schelling''s Munich and Berlin lectures that we learned the decisive source for his theory of an identity of identity or identity doubled in itself. Schelling referred to what he called an older logic that was still acquainted with the figure of reduplication, for instance in Leibniz and Wolff. Philosophers in this tradition employed this term to refer to the specification of an aspect under which the subject-term is being considered. An often (...) quoted example: As consul, Fabius Maximus has authority over his father, but as son he stands under his fathers authority. Schelling gave the following turn to reduplication: Nature as nature does not coincide with the mind; and the mind as mind does not coincide with nature. Both have different truth conditions, so as to integrate an essential moment of difference into the identity formula. There is an X, however, which is strictly (seamlessly) identical with itself (the absolute subject = X) while transitively being both of them in turn; and it is only via X that the relata (nature and mind) are indirectly identified with each other: X is B and X is A (and X is strictly identical to itself). In addition to this, Schelling held a view of predication as kind of identification. He became acquainted with this view at the Tubingen Seminary through his teacher Gottfried Ploucquet. This insight helps us understand why Schelling reasonably thought that the identity-formula A=A is the genuine matrix of all veridical judgments. Taken together with his conviction that judging (Kant''s relative position) is a minor (or inferior) form of existential being (Kant''s absolute position) sheds light on why in 1806 Schelling made the radical contention in his Aphorisms: The strict sense of being (absolutely posited seamless self-sameness) is taken over by the looser sense of the copulative is which identifies subject and predicate; yes, this copula alone is existence itself and nothing else. Why should Schelling''s conception of nature-mind identity interest recent philosophers of mind? Because Schelling presents an ontologically neutral solution: Identity is a symmetrical relation that does not favor mind or matter, and prevents the idealistic reduction of nature to the mind. Nor can we conceive of the nature-mind identity as a fact inwardly disclosed to the mind (McGinn, Levine). Consciousness remains an enigma for itself; so does its identity with nature. Schelling teaches us that identity theories are not justified by self-evidence, but by an inference to the best explanation. German description: Nie ist genau erklart worden, was Schelling unter Identitat von Natur und Geist verstand. Dabei hat er sein reifes Denken Identitatssystem genannt und sich zeitlebens um kein zweites Problem begrifflich ahnliche Muhe gegeben. Da er aber seine Uberlegungen in Schriften verpackte, deren grosser systematischer Ausgriff sie schier erdruckte, ist, was er bis hinein in die Weltalter-Periode daruber herausfand, kaum eigens gewurdigt oder auch nur klar benannt worden. Die Schellingliteratur arbeitete entweder historisch oder liess sich vom Systemgedanken oder einzelnen in die Augen springenden Problemen blenden (z. B. Natur, Organismus, Freiheit, Existenz). Dabei ist Schellings Starke in einzelnen entscheidenden Argumenten versteckt, die, waren sie bekannt, die gegenwartige, auch analytische Diskussion durchaus zu inspirieren vermochten. Wir konnen heute urteilen, dass schon der junge Schelling in seiner Schrift Form der Philosophie eine differenzsensitive Form der Identitat im Sinn hatte, die er in den kommenden Jahrzehnten immer genauer auszubuchstabieren unternahm. Seine eigentlichen Quellen hat er kunstvoll verborgen. Es sind erstens die Identitatstheorie der Pradikation seines Universitatslehrers Ploucquet, die den Stiftlern in Tubingen eingeblaut wurde und die ihre merkwurdige Fixierung auf die ganz unkantische Auffassung vom Urteil als Subjekt-Pradikat-Identifikation (mit quantifiziertem Pradikator) erklart. Und zweitens Schellings Entdeckung einer alteren Logik, die mit der Figur der reduplicatio arbeitete. - So auch das Absolute: Als Geist ist es nicht Natur (und umgekehrt; Aussagen uber beide haben unterschiedliche Wahrheitsbedingungen), aber Geist und Natur werden beide vom Absoluten gewesen (transitiv ins Sein gehoben), und dies Absolute ist im striktest denkbaren Sinne mit sich identisch. So lasst sich die Schelling''sche Formel von der Identitat der Identitat und Differenz dem gesunden Menschenverstand vermitteln und Schellings aufrichtiger Jugendgedanke (Marx) aktualisieren. Er schneidet respektabel ab im Wettbewerb mit allerlei heutigen Leib-Seele-Identitatstheorien. (shrink)

A lengthy critique of Kant's apriorism precedes discussions on the ethical principles of eudaemonism, utilitarianism, pragmatism, and positivism.

The essential task of the philosophy of style is to uncover the irreducibility of the singular to any kind of universal, static structure or metalinguistic code. Style is not only a surplus element that exceeds propositional meaning, but also a clue of the ineradicable contingency of “intersubjective”‐communicational relationships. The receiver must respect the unique individuality of the sender's style as what demonstrates the cognitive inexhaustibility of the world. Consequently, philosophy can no longer regard literature as foreign and incorrigible by asserting (...) a radical difference of genre and thereby reserving truth exclusively for itself. Rather, I go on to argue, the difference is merely one of quantity. The picture of the world drawn by literature is simply fuller and richer than any comparatively monochromatic system of philosophical propositions. However, within the history of philosophy, there have been instances when the philosophical import of literature has been accorded its due. One example is the dialogical approach of early German Romanticism. The other example is a writer most frequently considered the purest thinker of philosophical sense and meaning – namely, Ludwig Wittgenstein. I conclude by reading Wittgenstein as a philosopher concerned, above all, with the ineffable that style reveals. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is unrealistic, but so are rational-choice models of democracy. The elements of reality that rationalistic theories of democracy leave out are the very elements that deliberative democrats would need to subtract if their theory were to be applied to reality. The key problem is not, however, the altruistic orientation that deliberative democrats require; opinion researchers know that voters are already sociotropic, not self-interested. Rather, as Schumpeter saw, the problems lie in understanding politics, government, and economics under modern—and postmodern—conditions. (...) Modernity entails levels of complexity that stymie voters' attempts to be well informed about which political promises will actually solve social problems. Postmodernity adds to complexity an overabundance of fragmented information experienced impatiently and fleetingly by citizens who confuse entertainment with knowledge, and whose political demands are as unrealistic as their personal desire for a unique identity. These factors can be added, one by one, to the minimalist rational-choice model of politics, with each step leading us farther away from deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Der vorliegende dritte Band der Briefedition dokumentiert den Briefwechsel der Jahre 1734 und 1735. Mit seiner Ernennung zum Professor für Logik und Metaphysik und seiner Heirat mit Luise Adelgunde Victorie Kulmus ist Gottsched Mitte der 1730er Jahre in Leipzig fest etabliert. Die Briefe bieten wichtige Einblicke in die Entwicklung der von ihm geleiteten Deutschen Gesellschaft (vor allem zu dem von ihr herausgegebenen ersten Periodikum zur Literaturwissenschaft), in die Aufnahme und Wirkung seiner Werke, u.a. der Theaterstücke, und in seine Übersetzertätigkeit. Sie (...) sind daneben eine hervorragende Quelle für Studienbetrieb und Studentenleben des 18. Jahrhunderts. (shrink)