Eva Buddeberg: Verantwortung im Diskurs: Grundlinien einer rekonstruktiv-hermeneutischen Konzeption moralischer Verantwortung im Anschluss an Hans Jonas, Karl-Otto Apel und Emmanuel Lévinas Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10677-012-9366-3 Authors Norbert Anwander, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.

The purpose of the presented paper is to showcase the links between Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s libertarian argumentation ethics and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental pragmatics with a special reference to the consensus theory of truth proposed by the latter thinker. More specifically, the author contends that Hoppe’s theory is logically contingent on Apel’s views on truth in that some crucial gaps in Hoppe’s grounding of the so-called “a priori of communication and argumentation” are filled by Apel’s original arguments. Additionally, the paper provides (...) a case for interpreting Hoppe's ethics as a theory of rational conflict-freedom, which seems to cohere best with the transcendental-pragmatist approach. Finally, the author offers a few remarks on how the most common objections against Hoppe's theory can be overcome on the basis of the transcendental pragmatics and the conflict-freedom principle. (shrink)

In this article I try to investigate the possible insights one may reach by considering the development on the level of socio-philosophical theories as a symptom of the development taking place on the level of social practice.

As a consequence of the successful 1984 meeting of these two research groups at Bochum - the proceedings of which have been published as Hegels Rechtsphilosophie im Zusammenhang der europäischen Verfassungsgeschichte, edited by Hans-Christian Lucas and Otto Pöggeler - this conference constituted a further step toward continuous cooperation between French and German Hegel scholars. It was held in Poitiers on December 3–5, 1986, at the CRDHM, which, since its founding in 1970 by Jacques D’Hondt, its first director, has coordinated (...) the translation of Hegel into French and published its Bulletin to provide information about all aspects of Hegel and Marx research. The conference was excellently organized by its host, Guy Planty-Bonjour, and by Hans-Christian Lucas and Otto Pöggeler on the German side, with funding from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and from the University of Poitiers. During the three full days of the meeting, about ten scholars from each side had a splendid opportunity to discuss not only the twelve papers presented, but also numerous other aspects of their work. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper deals with the question of the logicality of modal logics from a proof-theoretic perspective. It is argued that if Dos̆en’s analysis of logical constants as punctuation marks is embraced, it is possible to show that all the modalities in the cube of normal modal logics are indeed logical constants. It will be proved that the display calculus for each displayable modality admits a purely structural presentation based on double-line rules which, following Dos̆en’s analysis, allows us to claim that (...) the corresponding modal operators are logical constants. (shrink)

Das Ideal einer vorhersagenden Medizin in Kombination mit wirkungsvollen, kausalen Strategien der Prävention auf molekularer Ebene ist noch immer weit davon entfernt, klinische Realität zu werden. Es ist jedoch schon heute festzustellen, dass zwischen Medizin und Gesellschaft verhandelte Konzepte von Gesundheit in immer stärkerem Maße auf zukünftige Gesundheit ausgerichtet sind, mithin einen immer präventiveren Charakter aufweisen. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Frage, ob neue Konzepte einer prädiktiv-präventiven Medizin – insbesondere Public Health Genetics bzw. Public Health Genomics – das Kriterium der (...) Verbesserung der sozialen Erreichbarkeit von Gesundheit erfüllen. Diese Analyse wird vor dem Hintergrund der Rolle sozialer Grundwerte, insbesondere dem der Gerechtigkeit, für Funktionen der Medizin in unserer Gesellschaft einerseits sowie der Bedeutung des Wandels der medizinischen Schlüsselkonzepte „Gesundheit“ und „Krankheit“ andererseits vorgenommen. (shrink)

In this paper we use proof-theoretic methods, specifically sequent calculi, admissibility of cut within them and the resultant subformula property, to examine a range of philosophically-motivated deontic logics. We show that for all of those logics it is a (meta)theorem that the Special Hume Thesis holds, namely that no purely normative conclusion follows non-trivially from purely descriptive premises (nor vice versa). In addition to its interest on its own, this also illustrates one way in which proof theory sheds light on (...) philosophically substantial questions. (shrink)

Novel immune therapies are increasingly based on the molecular differentiation of disease patterns. The related clinical studies are thus more often characterized by the so-called adaptive study designs (umbrella or basket studies including platform studies), which are continuously adjusted based on novel results. This paper analyses new study designs beyond the often-postulated need for regulation in order to identify ethical problems based on typical structural features and to—whenever possible—suggest solutions. To do so, it addresses the following topics: the relationship between (...) social and scientific values of a study as well as aspects of the scientific validity of new forms of evidence; the inclusion of study subjects under the condition of relative uncertainty; specific challenges in the process of ethical approval, and ethical and practical challenges in the process of informing patients and receiving informed consent. Additionally, the topic of a potential risk–benefit assessment of such therapies is addressed. (shrink)

Rationalities of Knowledge Production: On Transformations of Objects, Technologies and Information in Biomedicine and the Life Sciences. Since decades, scientific change has been interpreted in the light of of paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions. The Kuhnian interpretation of scientific change however is now more and more confronted with non‐disciplinary thinking in both, science and studies on science. This paper explores how research in biomedicine and the life sciences can be characterized by different rationalities, sometimes converging, sometimes contradictory, all present at (...) the same time with varying ways of influence, impact, and visibility. In general, the rationality of objects is generated by fitting new objects and findings into a new experimental context. The rationality of hypotheses is a move towards the construction of novel explanatory tools and models. This is often inseparable meshing with the third, the technological rationaliy, in which a technology‐driven, self‐supporting and sometimes self‐referential refinement of methods and technologies comes along with an extension into other fields. During the second and the third phase, the new and emerging fields tend to expand their explanatory reach not only across disciplinary boundaries but also into the social sphere, creating what has been characterized as “exceptionalism” (e.g. genetic exceptionalism or neuro‐exceptionalism). Finally, recent biomedicine and life‐sciences reach a level in which experimental work becomes more and more data‐driven because the technologically constructed experimental systems generate a plethora of findings (data) which at some point start to blur the original hypotheses. For the rationality of information the materiality of research practices becomes secondary and research objects are more and more getting out of sight. Finally, the credibility of science as a practice becomes more and more dependent on consensus about the applicability and relevance of its results. The rationality of interest (and accountability) has become more and more characteristic for a research process which is no longer primarily determined by the desire for knowledge but by the desire for relevance. This paper explores in which ways object‐driven and hypotheses‐driven experimental life‐sciences transformed into domains of experimental research evolving in a technologically constructed, data‐driven environment in which they are subjected to constant morphing due to the forces of different rationalities. (shrink)

The RSPO and RTRS are global private partnerships that have been set up by business and civil society actors from the North to curb de-forestation and to promote sustainable production of palm oil or soy in the South. This article is about the launch of new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil that are look-alikes of the global standards but have been set up and supported by government or business actors from the South. The two main questions of this article (...) are: do the new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil provide a fundamental challenge to the RSPO and RTRS, or do they demonstrate the successful diffusion and adoption of global private rules into national contexts? Do the new national standards help or undermine the RSPO and RTRS in their efforts to reduce de-forestation? Combining the theoretical notions of proto-institution and rival governance network, a comparative analysis is offered of the launch of the new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil. The conclusion is that, whilst the RSPO and RTRS have served as models for the general design and principles of the national standards, they really differ from the global standards in terms of normative contents: the national standards offer more room to palm oil plantations and large-scale soy producers to expand production at the expense of forests and other high conservation areas. Governments and producer associations in Indonesia and Brazil have not launched national standards to implement the RSPO or RTRS but to challenge these interventions from the North. (shrink)

In her authoritative collection of contemporary sources on the Black Death, Rosemary Horrox subdivided the part dedicated to 'explanations and responses' in three sections: 'The religious response', 'Scientific explanation', and 'Human agency'.2 Even if there are overlaps between these categories, they offer explicit or implicit explanations of pestilence and suggest adequate responses to it in different terms. Documents in the first are centered on God's anger and punishment for human sins, those in the second on natural mechanisms not immediately dependent (...) on God's will, while those in the third on alleged conspiracies and secret machinations of the Jews. If we look at the... (shrink)

Normally, if A knows B, B knows A, and ‘Lake Garda knows me’ is a poetic way of saying ‘I know Lake Garda’. The exchange of subject and object elevates diction and sentiment, but it can also help with the metre, especially where nouns such as gloria. and femina are concerned. Thus in 1.8. 46 the poet says ista meam norit gloria canitiem when in strict logic he should have said istam mea norit gloriam canities. Similarly here what he really (...) wants to says is qua dum iter faciam feminam nullam norim. He must have been aware that the relationship is reciprocal, and something like oblitusque mearum, obliuiscendus et illis may well have been in his mind. But his main desire was to forget and not to know anything of women any more. (shrink)

This article overviews the scholarly history of research centred on the Socratic problem. Eight breaking points in this history are identified and the developments emerging from them are analysed. 1) The pre-history of the Socratic problem began with the varying and conflicting portrayals of Socrates that sprang up during his lifetime and shortly after his death. 2) The problem was first explicitly admitted in the 18 th century with the earliest historical investigations critically pursuing the truth behind the fiction. 3) (...) The problem was then established in research in the 19 th century as a result of the influential remarks of Schleiermacher and Hegel on the discrepancies in Plato’s and Xenophon’s portrayals of Socrates. 4) In the beginning of the 20 th century, an emerging disapproval of Xenophon as a reliable source was accompanied by an elevation of the source value of Plato. 5) The crisis of the mid-20 th century took the form of a denial of the very possibility of reaching genuine knowledge of the historical Socrates. 6) The reaction to the crisis assumed the two-folded shape of a broadened study of the sources and a partial reappraisal of Plato’s trustworthiness. 7) Beginning from the 1990s, an optimistic program claiming that all of Plato’s early dialogues recreates the philosophy of the historical Socrates gained ground. 8) Today’s research climate is characterised by a renewed pessimism regarding the possibility of approaching the historical Socrates. (shrink)

Ausgangspunkt des zum Spätwerk zählenden Dialogs ist die Fragestellung nach einer Wesensbestimmung des Sophisten, des Staatsmannes und des Philosophen. Im Verlauf steht jedoch die Frage nach dem Wesen der Philosophie im Vordergrund.