Freud speculated that the course all living beings travel from birth to death is determined by a contest between a life instinct (Eros) and a death instinct (Thanatos). He believed that instinctual repression required by civilization tended to strengthen Thanatos. Herbert Marcuse argued that civilization did not require quite as much repression as Freud assumed. This joyous suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm by the countercultural political movements of the 1960s. I ask whether Marcuse was overly optimistic, given the fact that (...) humanity appears to be hell-bent on destroying itself due to its inability to deal with global warming. (shrink)

This book makes a bold announcement for the beginning of a postethnophilosophical phase in modern African thought.

This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific (...) inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences. (shrink)

This book represents the views of one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century on the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain.

Concepts of International Relations, for Students and Other Smarties is not a stereotypical textbook, but an instructive, entertaining and motivating introduction to the field of International Relations (IR). Rather than relying on figures or tables, Concepts of International Relations, for Students and Other Smarties piques the reader's interest with a pithy narrative that presents apposite nutshell examples, stresses historical breaks and throws in the odd pun to get the big picture across. While there are other brief, introductory IR titles, Iver (...) Neumann's book remains fully within the academic genre, and is comparatively long on history. It is based on his repeatedly offered introductory lectures to first-year IR students and students from other disciplines looking for an overview course at the LSE. With a relaxed lecturing style, this textbook introduces the long-term historical emergence of concepts such as state (European), state (global), empire, non-state agents, foreign policy, state system, nationalism, globalization, security, international society, great powers, diplomacy, war and peace, balance of power, international law, power and sovereignty, intervention, gender and class. It demonstrates how such phenomena have been understood in very different ways. First, the reader is alerted to how the use of concepts is an integrated part of politics. Secondly, the reader is sensitized to how social change has worked in the past, and is working now. Thirdly, the book demonstrates how historical and social context matters in ongoing international relations. (shrink)

This article aims to sketch a phenomenological approach to Heidegger’s concept of Ereignis. In understanding Ereignis as the presencing of being, the fun­damental question is whether and how this presence of being, i.e., presence as such, can be experienced. While this experience is incompatible with a transcendental ap­proach, the suggestion here is that Ereignis can be experienced not as my own, but as an anonymous presence. To flesh out this suggestion, a close reading of Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity in the (...) Contributions will elaborate on why presence can belong neither to humanity nor to being. In a second step, a motif in Heidegger’s reception of Schelling is discussed which clarifies that the experience of Ereignis involves a necessity that goes beyond subjectivity. In a third step, the idea of “letting-presence” shows how the coming into being of experience has to remain anonymous in order to be the experience of Ereignis. (shrink)

Historical Justice and Memory highlights the global movement for historical justice—acknowledging and redressing historic wrongs—as one of the most significant moral and social developments of our times. Such historic wrongs include acts of genocide, slavery, systems of apartheid, the systematic persecution of presumed enemies of the state, colonialism, and the oppression of or discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities. The historical justice movement has inspired the spread of truth and reconciliation processes around the world and has pushed governments to make (...) reparations and apologies for past wrongs. It has changed the public understanding of justice and the role of memory. In this book, leading scholars in philosophy, history, political science, and semiotics offer new essays that discuss and assess these momentous global developments. They evaluate the strength and weaknesses of the movement, its accomplishments and failings, its philosophical assumptions and social preconditions, and its prospects for the future. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Rip‐Off Account Musical Traditions Recorded Music: The Blues Rock and Race The Music Business Sensibilities The Evolution of Taste Conclusion Notes.

Auf der Grundlage der Lehre von C.G. Jung, den Erfahrungen des Zweiten Weltkrieges und der atomaren Bedrohung Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts entwirft der Autor eine neue Ethik der Tiefenpsychologie, die der psychologischen Situation des modernen Menschen gerecht werden soll.

_Kwasi Wiredu was a pivotal modern African philosopher who passed on in 2022. In 2021, Barry Hallen published a monograph on this revered Ghanaian thinker that analyzes his various discursive preoccupations and conceptual development. However, Hallen seems more concerned with establishing Wiredu’s merits as an analytic philosopher than with focusing on his contributions to African philosophy as a whole. In evaluating Wiredu as a first-rate thinker_, _this essay critiques the somewhat limited focus of Hallen’s book while also offering a much (...) broader analysis of Wiredu’s contributions to modern African philosophy._. (shrink)

The dynamic development of science and technology in the last decades has led to new challenges in jurisprudence. This holds for individual fields of doctrinal law as well as the concerned fields of jurisprudence. It is especially significant for the structure of justice, the efficiency of law as a steering instrument of society, and the empirical conditions of legal responsibility. In a jurisprudential perspective, the philosophy of law is rather engaged with the adaptiveness of its traditional principles and categories or (...) the capacity to come to terms with the new developments and less concerned with concrete matters of law. (shrink)

Anstatt die Herkunft von Leibniz' Monadenkonzept in rezeptionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive nachweisen zu wollen, erklärt die vorliegende Studie die offensichtliche Präsenz und Virulenz des Monadenbegriffs im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert selbst zu ihrem Untersuchungsgegenstand.Sie rekonstruiert den frühneuzeitlichen Bildungskanon zum Pythagoreismus, in dem der Monadenbegriff tradiert worden ist, und analysiert vor diesem Hintergrund die monadologischen Philosophien von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff und Andreas Clavius. An reichem Quellenmaterial zeigt sie, wie die ahistorisch argumentierenden Monadologien von Leibniz und Wolff von deren Zeitgenossen rehistorisiert bzw. (...) "repythagoreisiert", in das Raster des Antike-Moderne-Verhältnisses verortet und auf diese Weise evaluiert worden sind.Ein die Studie beschließender Ausblick fasst die Ergebnisse zusammen und weist selektiv auf die Wege der Monaden in die Moderne hin. (shrink)

The influence of emotion on episodic and autobiographical memory in schizophrenia was investigated. Using an experiential approach, the states of awareness accompanying recollection of pictures from the IAPS and of associated autobiographical memories was recorded. Results show that schizophrenia impairs episodic and autobiographical memories in their critical feature: autonoetic awareness, i.e., the type of awareness experienced when mentally reliving events from one’s past. Schizophrenia was also associated with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories. The impact of stimulus valence on memory (...) performance was moderated by clinical status. Patients with schizophrenia recognized more positive than negative pictures, and recalled more positive than negative autobiographical memories while controls displayed the opposite pattern. A hypothesis in terms of a fundamental executive deficit underlying these impairments is proposed. (shrink)

In light of scientific advances such as genomics, predictive diagnostics, genetically engineered agriculture, nuclear transfer cloning, and the manipulation of stem cells, the idea that genes carry predetermined molecular programs or blueprints is pervasive. Yet new scientific discoveries—such as rna transcripts of single genes that can lead to the production of different compounds from the same pieces of dna—challenge the concept of the gene alone as the dominant factor in biological development. Increasingly aware of the tension between certain empirical results (...) and interpretations of those results based on the orthodox view of genetic determinism, a growing number of scientists urge a rethinking of what a gene is and how it works. In this collection, a group of internationally renowned scientists present some prominent alternative approaches to understanding the role of dna in the construction and function of biological organisms. Contributors discuss alternatives to the programmatic view of dna, including the developmental systems approach, methodical culturalism, the molecular process concept of the gene, the hermeneutic theory of description, and process structuralist biology. None of the approaches cast doubt on the notion that dna is tremendously important to biological life on earth; rather, contributors examine different ideas of how dna should be represented, evaluated, and explained. Just as ideas about genetic codes have reached far beyond the realm of science, the reconceptualizations of genetic theory in this volume have broad implications for ethics, philosophy, and the social sciences. Contributors. Thomas Bürglin, Brian C. Goodwin, James Griesemer, Paul Griffiths, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Evelyn Fox Keller, Gerd B. Müller, Eva M. Neumann-Held, Stuart A. Newman, Susan Oyama, Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Sahotra Sarkar, Jackie Leach Scully, Gerry Webster, Ulrich Wolf. (shrink)

"Das Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist es, die Frage nach dem Wesen und dem Begriff der menschlichen Freiheit als ein philosophisches Grundproblem vor den phänomenologischen Blick zu bringen und nicht nur im Rahmen einer bereits vorausgesetzten philosophischen Teildisziplin - wie etwa in der Ethik oder als Gegenstand einer praktischen Philosophie - abzuhandeln. Diese Aufgabe führt uns in das Zentrum von Heideggers Philosophie. Heidegger gewinnt seinen eigenen Freiheitsbegriff jedoch in der grundlegenden Auseinandersetzung mit den großen Denkern des Abendlandes. Auch und gerade bei (...) Leibniz wird der Freiheitsbegriff in einer weit ausgreifenden Auseinandersetzung mit der philosophischen und theologischen Überlieferung eingeführt und auf dem Boden seines eigenen Denkens, der Monadenlehre, neu positioniert. Durch die Entgegensetzung der beiden Denker kann der jeweilige Standpunkt zum Freiheitsproblem noch schärfer in den Blick gebracht und im Rahmen der abendländisch-europäischen Geistesgeschichte erörtert werden. Zudem ermöglicht es gerade die Auseinandersetzung mit Leibniz, die Frage nach dem Wesen und dem Begriff der menschlichen Freiheit und andere wesentliche Fragen, die sich daraus ergeben, auf unsere Gegenwartsprobleme, insbesondere die Deutung oder gar Leugnung der Freiheit durch die Neurowissenschaften, zu beziehen und anzuwenden."--. (shrink)

Am Beispiel des lutherischen Erbauungsschriftstellers Johann Arndt (1555-1621) läßt sich ein naturtheologisches Frömmigkeitsverständnis aufzeigen, das vom Florentiner Neuplatonismus, von Paracelsus, vom Paracelsismus und von der Alchemie Heinrich Khunraths beeinflußt ist. Der Autor vorliegender Studie zeichnet die relevanten Traditionslinien quellennah nach und analysiert deren Einbindung und Interpretation in Arndts Schriften. Eine systematische Darstellung der Kohärenz von Naturphilosophie und Mystik in der frühen Neuzeit beschließt vorliegende Studie.

The symbolism of Jacob and Esau -- On the collective symbolism of the brother motif -- Layers of the unconscious: the interpretation of mythology.

A devastating critique of the presumed theological basis of the Jewish social justice movement-- the concept of healing the world.

This article addresses Bruce Janz’s “enactivist” reading of African philosophy from two perspectives. The space in which African philosophy finds itself remains problematic, and, thus, this article attempts to unpack this issue. Janz argues that African philosophy allows for only a few or no possibilities for radical thought. However, his own reading of the Nigerian philosopher Sophie Oluwole serves to debunk this claim. Oluwole’s thought highlights the challenges of building a modern African philosophy within the context of postcoloniality, in which (...) problems of untranslatability are encountered when utilizing a metropolitan language, which, in her case, is English. But, beyond the problem of untranslatability, she is able to delineate a holistic cosmology that, in multiple ways, incorporates, complicates, and extends the borders of philosophy. (shrink)

The debates concerning what ought to be the nature and orientations of African philosophy are long drawn-out. These debates reflect the different conceptual approaches to the invention of contemporary practices of African philosophy between Anglophone and Francophone modes of philosophizing. This article reflects on these differences as well the continuing problems of creating modern African philosophical traditions. In doing so, it demonstrates why some methodological presuppositions are inadequate in grappling with some forms of sociality and the more general dilemmas of (...) modernity and also applauds the efforts of some contemporary African thinkers who have adopted a multidisciplinary approach to overcome internal discursive limitations within the field. (shrink)

The debates concerning what ought to be the nature and orientations of African philosophy are long drawn-out. These debates reflect the different conceptual approaches to the invention of contemporary practices of African philosophy between Anglophone and Francophone modes of philosophizing. This article reflects on these differences as well the continuing problems of creating modern African philosophical traditions. In doing so, it demonstrates why some methodological presuppositions are inadequate in grappling with some forms of sociality and the more general dilemmas of (...) modernity and also applauds the efforts of some contemporary African thinkers who have adopted a multidisciplinary approach to overcome internal discursive limitations within the field. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu (1931- ) Kwasi Wiredu is a philosopher from Ghana, who has for decades been involved with a project he terms “conceptual decolonization” in contemporary African systems of thought. By conceptual decolonization, Wiredu advocates a re-examination of current African epistemic formations in order to accomplish two aims. First, he wishes to subvert unsavory aspects […].

The invitation of the Organizing Committee for me to speak about “Unsolved problems in mathematics” fills me as it should with considerable trepidation and a prevailing feeling of personal inadequacy. Hilbert gave a talk on this subject at the similar congress about 50 years ago and this is a very formidable precedent. He stated about a dozen unsolved problems in another widely separated areas of mathematics, and they proved to be prototypical for much of the development that followed in the (...) next decades. It would be absolutely foolish, if I tried to emulate this quite singular feat. In addition I do not know the future and the future at any rate can only be predicted ex post with any degree of reliability. I will, therefore, define what I am trying to do in a much more narrow way, hoping that in this manner I have a better chance of not failing. I will limit myself to a particular area of mathematics which I think I know and I will talk about it and about what its open ends appear to be, particularly in some directions which are not the ones that the evolution so far has mainly emphasized and which are, I think, quite important. (shrink)

The Afro-Brazilian connections between the coast of West Africa and Brazil date back to the transatlantic slave trade and the Muslim uprising in Bahia in 1933. After this major rebellion, many former slaves returned to West Africa bearing a large Brazilian cultural imprint consisting of architectural skills, culinary traditions, and song and dance. They also brought back Brazilian names and cosmopolitan outlooks. From Africa, enslaved Africans carried with them to Brazil philosophical and cosmological outlooks and indeed, culture generally. Some of (...) these cross-fertilizations are what are interrogated in this intellectual and cultural exchange. (shrink)