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)

In this essay I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to gauge/gravity dualities. I expound what I argue to be their contribution to questions about: the nature of spacetime in quantum gravity; broader philosophical and physical discussions of spacetime. - proceed by analysing duality through four contrasts. A duality will be a suitable isomorphism between models: (...) and the four relevant contrasts are as follows: Bare theory: a triple of states, quantities, and dynamics endowed with appropriate structures and symmetries; vs. interpreted theory: which is endowed with, in addition, a suitable pair of interpretative maps. Extendable vs. unextendable theories: which can, respectively cannot, be extended as regards their domains of application. External vs. internal intepretations: which are constructed, respectively, by coupling the theory to another interpreted theory vs. from within the theory itself. Theoretical vs. physical equivalence: which contrasts formal equivalence with the equivalence of fully interpreted theories. I will apply this scheme to answering questions - for gauge/gravity dualities. I will argue that the things that are physically relevant are those that stand in a bijective correspondence under duality: the common core of the two models. I therefore conclude that most of the mathematical and physical structures that we are familiar with, in these models, are largely, though crucially never entirely, not part of that common core. Thus, the interpretation of dualities for theories of quantum gravity compels us to rethink the roles that spacetime, and many other tools in theoretical physics, play in theories of spacetime. (shrink)

Eva Schmidt argues that facts about incoherent beliefs can be non-evidential epistemic reasons to suspend judgment. In this commentary, I argue that incoherence-based reasons to suspend are epistemically superfluous: if the subjects in Schmidt’s cases ought to suspend judgment, then they should do so merely on the basis of their evidential reasons. This suggests a more general strategy to reduce the apparent normativity of coherence to the normativity of evidence. I conclude with some remarks on the independent interest that reasons-first (...) epistemology might have within an evidentialist framework. (shrink)

Hiermit liegt der Kommentar zu Nietzsches Werk Die fröhliche Wissenschaft vor, das 1882 in erster und 1887 in stark erweiterter zweiter Auflage mit dem neuen Untertitel la gaya scienza erschienen ist. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft gehört zu Nietzsches bekanntesten Schriften und gilt als besonders "ausgewogenes" Werk.

Many of our attitudes are non-culpable: there was nothing that we should have done to avoid holding them. I argue that we can still be blameworthy for non-culpable attitudes: they can impair our relationships in ways that make our full practice of apology and forgiveness intelligible. My argument poses a new challenge to indirect voluntarists, who attempt to reduce all responsibility for attitudes to responsibility for prior actions and omissions. Rationalists, who instead explain attitudinal responsibility by appeal to reasons-responsiveness, can (...) make sense of blameworthiness for non-culpable attitudes. In response, voluntarists could propose a revision of our actual practices. This would lead us into a quite different debate. (shrink)

The publication of Frege’s Begriffsschrift in 1879 forever altered the landscape for many Western philosophers. Here, Sebastian Rödl traces how the Fregean influence, written all over the development and present state of analytic philosophy, led into an unholy alliance of an empiricist conception of sensibility with an inferentialist conception of thought. -/- According to Rödl, Wittgenstein responded to the implosion of Frege’s principle that the nature of thought consists in its inferential order, but his Philosophical Investigations shied away from (...) offering an alternative. Rödl takes up the challenge by turning to Kant and Aristotle as ancestors of this tradition, and in doing so identifies its unacknowledged question: the relation of judgment and truth to time. Rödl finds in the thought of these two men the answer he urges us to consider: the temporal and the sensible, and the atemporal and the intelligible, are aspects of one reality and cannot be understood independently of one another. In demonstrating that an investigation into the categories of the temporal can be undertaken as a contribution to logic, Rödl seeks to transform simultaneously our philosophical understanding of both logic and time. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band bietet eine repräsentative Auswahl der wichtigsten Forschungsmanuskripte zur Methode der transzendental-phänomenologischen Reduktion aus Husserls Spätwerk. Werkgeschichtlich orientiert sich diese Edition an den Arbeitsphasen ab 1926, in denen Husserl wiederholt ein `System der Phänomenologie' bzw. ein phänomenologisches Grundwerk zu verfassen beabsichtigte. In den chronologisch angeordneten Texten, die Husserl im Rahmen seiner Manuskriptordnung vom Frühjahr 1935 einer eigenen Sektion (der `B-Gruppe' mit dem Titel 'Die Reduktion') zuwies, führt er aus Vorlesungen und Forschungsmanuskripten der zwanziger Jahre bekannte Themen fort. Neben (...) der Erörterung verschiedener Wege zur phänomenologischen Reduktion und Strategien der Einleitung in die transzendentale Phänomenologie behandelt Husserl das Problem der Phänomenologie als einer eigenständigen, zur intentionalen Psychologie parallelen, transzendentalen Bewußtseinswissenschaft. Hierzu gehören systematisch die Probleme der Unterscheidung von natürlichem und transzendentalem Ich, des Übergangs von natürlicher zu phänomenologischer Einstellung, des Status des unbeteiligten Zuschauers sowie das Problem der `Verweltlichung' des Transzendentalen und dessen `Einströmen' in die vorphilosophische Lebenswelt. In diesen hauptsächlich der Methodik gewidmeten Forschungsmanuskripten wird das Ganze einer phänomenologischen `Systematik' im Umriß erkennbar. (shrink)

I argue that believing at will – i.e. believing for practical reasons – is in some sense possible and in some sense impossible. It is impossible insofar as we think of belief formation as a re-sult of our exercise of certain capacities (perception, memory, agency). But insofar as we think of belief formation as an action that might lead to such a result (i.e. a deliberation or an in-quiry), believing at will is possible. First I present and clarify the problem (...) and its philosophical relevance (section 1). I then argue that a belief formation as an immediate reaction to practical reasons is not necessarily equivalent to believing at will because the causal mechanism that leads to the formation might be deviant (section 2). Finally, I explain the difference between the two above mentioned meanings of “belief formation” in order to clarify the possibility and impossibility of believing at will (section 3). (shrink)

This chapter locates our overall approach within the dialectic of contemporary philosophical debates and provides an overall framework for discussion. First, I introduce the problem of mental normativity. I show how this problem poses a prima facie threat to the common assumption in epistemology and metaethics that beliefs and other attitudes are governed by robust normative requirements. Secondly, I motivate philosophical inquiry about an ethics of mind by tracing this field back to recent debates in the ethics of belief. I (...) characterize the ethics of mind as being concerned with two main questions: 1. How can we be responsible for our attitudes? 2. What attitudes should we have? Finally, I give an overview over the structure of the book and summarize the chapters. (shrink)

Zu den wichtigsten Wirkungen Nietzsches gehört seine produktive Rezeption durch jene Autoren des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, die der sogenannten Konservativen Revolution zugerechnet werden. Der Band bietet einen breiten problemgeschichtlichen Überblick im interdisziplinären Zusammenspiel von literatur-, philosophie- und politikgeschichtlichen Zugängen und erschließt damit erstmals umfassend Nietzsches Bedeutung für die Konservative Revolution.

BackgroundClustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-associated technology may allow for efficient and highly targeted gene editing in single-cell embryos. This possibility brings human germline editing into the focus of ethical and legal debates again.Main bodyAgainst this background, we explore essential ethical and legal questions of interventions into the human germline by means of CRISPR-Cas: How should issues of risk and uncertainty be handled? What responsibilities arise regarding future generations? Under which conditions can germline editing measures be therapeutically legitimized? For this (...) purpose, we refer to a scenario anticipating potential further development in CRISPR-Cas technology implying improved accuracy and exclusion of germline transmission to future generations. We show that, if certain concepts regarding germline editing are clarified, under such conditions a categorical prohibition of one-generation germline editing of single-cell embryos appears not to be ethically or legally justifiable.ConclusionThese findings are important prerequisites for the international debate on the ethical and legal justification of germline interventions in the human embryo as well as for the harmonization of international legal standards. (shrink)

Although the ethical aspects of transformational leadership have attracted considerable attention, very little is known about followers’ reactions to the moral and immoral conduct of transformational leaders. Against this background, this study examined whether and how transformational leadership interacts with moral and authoritarian leadership behaviors in predicting followers’ in-role and extra-role efforts. Building on attribution theory, we hypothesized that the positive and negative effects of these leadership behaviors would be particularly pronounced for highly transformational leaders given that this leadership style (...) elicits strong attention and sense-making efforts among followers. We tested our model in a sample of 228 individuals comprising 114 leader–follower dyads from a wide range of organizations and industries. In line with our hypotheses, results revealed that for highly transformational leaders, moral leadership behaviors related positively to employees’ in-role and extra-role efforts whereas authoritarian leadership behaviors related negatively to employees’ in-role and extra-role efforts. In contrast, moral and authoritarian leadership behaviors did not significantly affect followers’ reactions to leaders low in transformational leadership. Taken together, these findings suggest that transformational leadership, contrary to its largely positive perception in the literature, can be a rather mixed blessing. Implications for theory, future research, and managerial practice are discussed. (shrink)

Although the proportion of women in leadership positions has grown over the past decades, women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, which poses an ethical challenge to society at large but business in particular. Accordingly, a growing body of research has attempted to unravel the reasons for this inequality. Besides theoretical progress, a central goal of these studies is to inform measures targeted at increasing the share of women in leadership positions. Striving to contribute to these efforts and drawing on (...) several theoretical approaches, the present study provides a contemporary examination of whether women and men differ in their levels of power motivation and whether potential gender differences in this motivation contribute to the unequal distribution of women and men in leadership positions. Results from four studies provide converging support for these assumptions. Specifically, we found that women consistently reported lower power motivation than men. This in turn mediated the link between gender and leadership role occupancy. These results were robust to several methodological variations including samples from different populations, diverse operationalizations of power motivation and leadership role occupancy, and study design. Implications for theory and practice, including ways to contribute to a more equal gender distribution in leadership positions, are discussed. (shrink)

Researchers in applied ethics, and some areas of bioethics particularly, aim to develop concrete and appropriate recommendations for action in morally relevant real-world situations. When proceeding from more abstract levels of ethical reasoning to such concrete recommendations, however, even with regard to the very same normative principle or norm, it seems possible to develop divergent or even contradictory recommendations for action regarding a certain situation. This may give the impression that such recommendations would be arbitrary and, hence, not well justified. (...) Against this background, we, first, aim at showing that ethical recommendations for action, although being contingent in some sense, are not arbitrary if developed appropriately. For this purpose, we examine two types of contingencies arising in applied ethics reasoning based on recent examples of recommendations for action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, we refer to a three-step model of ethical reasoning towards recommendations for actions. This, however, leaves open the question of how applied ethics may cope with contingent recommendations for action. Therefore, in a second step, we analyze the role of bridge principles for developing ethically appropriate recommendations for action, i.e., principles which connect normative claims with relevant empirical information to justify certain recommendations for action in a given morally relevant situation. Finally, we discuss some implications for reasoning and reporting in empirically informed ethics. (shrink)

Die analytische Philosophie hat selbst da, wo sie explizit an Kant anschließt, erhebliche Schwierigkeiten mit dessen Idee eines synthetischen Wissens a priori. Damit verliert sie eine ganze Dimension der philosophischen Tradition. Das vorliegende Buch gewinnt diese Idee zurück, indem es gerade den Anschauungsbezug und damit den Zeitbezug des menschlichen Denkens zum Gegenstand einer logischen Untersuchung macht. Nur wenn man die Zeit als inneres und formbildendes Merkmal des menschlichen Aussagens erkennt, versteht man den Begriff empirischer Wahrheit und sinnlich vermittelter Erkenntnis. In (...) diesem Gedanken, so zeigt sich, liegt die Einheit einer philosophischen Tradition, die Aristoteles mit Kant und beide mit dem späten Wittgenstein verbindet. (shrink)

Research on value congruence rests on the assumption that values denote desirable behaviors and ideals that employees and organizations strive to approach. In the present study, we develop and test the argument that a more complete understanding of value congruence can be achieved by considering a second type of congruence based on employees’ and organizations’ counter-ideal values. We examined this proposition in a time-lagged study of 672 employees from various occupational and organizational backgrounds. We used difference scores as well as (...) polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our hypotheses. Consistent with our hypotheses, results reveal that counter-ideal value congruence has unique relations to employees’ trust in the organization that go beyond the effects of ideal value congruence. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this expanded perspective on value congruence. (shrink)

This volume includes the commentaries on two works from the third volume of the Critical Studies Edition of Nietzsche's Works: Morgenröthe (The Dawn), and Idyllen aus Messina (Idylls from Messina). Volume 3.2 will be devoted to commentary on The Gay Science. This volume includes the manuscript facsimiles of the Idyllen aus Messina.

Mindfulness as a clinical and nonclinical intervention for a variety of symptoms has recently received a substantial amount of interest. Although the application of mindfulness appears straightforward and its effectiveness is well supported, the concept may easily be misunderstood. This misunderstanding may severely limit the benefit of mindfulness-based interventions. It is therefore necessary to understand that the characteristics of mindfulness are based on a set of seemingly paradoxical structures. This article discusses the underlying paradox by disentangling it into five dialectical (...) positions - activity vs. passivity, wanting vs. non-wanting, changing vs. non-changing, non-judging vs. non-reacting, and active acceptance vs. passive acceptance, respectively. Finally, the practical implications for the medical professional as well as potential caveats are discussed. (shrink)

Nietzsches Ausnahmestatus als Philosoph gründet nicht zuletzt in seinem künstlerischen Verhältnis zur Sprache. Der Grenzen sprengende Denker erweist sich zugleich als ein Grenzen sprengender Sprachartist, der den traditionellen Unterschied zwischen Philosophie und Dichtung zum Verschwimmen bringt. Während die Forschung meist den Hauptakzent auf den Denker Nietzsche legt, widmet sich der vorliegende Band dem Dichter Nietzsche. Untersucht wird ein großes, von der Forschung bislang erst ansatzweise erschlossenes Korpus von Gedichten und Gedichtfragmenten. Betrachtet werden darüber hinaus auch weitere literarische Ausdrucksformen Nietzsches sowie (...) ausgewählte Stationen seiner Rezeption als Dichter. (shrink)

Research on the asymmetric effect of negative versus positive affective states on scope of attention, both at a perceptual and a conceptual level, is abundant. However,...

The thirteen original essays in this book examine the status and development of the sciences in the eighteenth century. The last generation has seen a revolution in the methodology adopted by historians of science: The development of science is no longer described as a steady progress towards truth - certainties have given way to questions. The essays in this volume scrutinize these changing perspectives in historiography and recommend paths for future study. The eighteenth century has been a neglected and much-misunderstood (...) era in the development of science, all too often viewed as something of a trough between the towering achievements of the 'Scientific Revolution' and the nineteenth century. Yet it was a period of notable developments; it saw the establishment of such fields as electricity and heat, the 'chemical revolution', the new science of gases, the isolation of oxygen, the nebular hypothesis in cosmology, the foundation of rational mechanics, and the birth pangs of biology, geology and psychology. It was, indeed, an age when knowledge was in ferment. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to examine whether the “step back and watch” attitude of mindfulness manifests in less emotional behavior. We hypothesized that the “acceptance” facet of mindfulness, but not the “presence” facet, is negatively associated with the magnitude of emotional behavior in four tests, i.e., rating of words, rating of aversive and neutral pictures, and evaluative conditioning . Additionally, we hypothesized that the acceptance facet is associated with increased reaction time in an emotional Stroop test, and that (...) the presence facet is associated with decreased RT and lower error rate. The sample consisted of N = 247 non-clinical adults and was tested in a cross-sectional study. The results provide partial evidence that the acceptance facet of mindfulness may be associated with less aversive reactions towards aversive stimuli. Future studies should substantiate these findings but also determine their clinical relevance. (shrink)

Data-sharing among genomic researchers is promoted for its potential to accelerate our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer. However, with genomic data sharing the risks of re-identifying study participants, revealing personal genomic information and data misuse might increase. This study aims at exploring perceptions of patients and physicians in Oncology regarding their assessment of the informational risks resulting from participating in whole genomic research studies in order to improve the informed consent process. For this purpose, we conducted a qualitative (...) focus group study at the National Center for Tumor Diseases. Patients and oncologists assessed the informational risks either as minimal or as greater than minimal, depending on the context factors of occupational status, age, and patients’ prognosis. Interestingly, even patients who assumed a greater risk did not refrain from participating in genomic research, provided that certain informational and institutional safeguards are implemented. Moreover, they expected comprehensive disclosure of the risks resulting from genomic data sharing. These results suggest comprehensive disclosure of the risks of genomic research to potential study participants in genomic research to facilitate risk assessment and sound decision making, establishing independent governance entities in order to minimize the informational risks of genomic research, and implementing data sharing policies which offer guidance for physicians and researchers involved in genomic research. (shrink)

De acuerdo con la postura dominante sobre la laicidad, ésta debe ser concebida en relación con el reconocimiento del pluralismo y prestando atención a no reprodu- cir sesgos antirreligiosos. El artículo defiende una propuesta alternativa: la laicidad como anticlericalismo, cuyo elemento distintivo consiste en instaurar un arreglo institucional de separación estricta y de exclusión de los contenidos religiosos de las instituciones del Estado. Se argumenta que esta forma de concebir la laicidad responde adecuadamente a la pregunta por el lugar de (...) la religión en la esfera pública en el contexto de los Estados liberales y democráticos latinoamericanos. (shrink)

Die sogenannte individualisierte Medizin (IM) ist in den letzten Jahren zu einem Schlagwort in Wissenschaft, Politik und Öffentlichkeit geworden. Wie jede technologische Neuentwicklung hat sie jedoch (potentielle) ethische Implikationen, die es zu berücksichtigen gilt, um eine angemessene Entwicklung und Anwendung individualisierter Präventions- und Therapiemaßnahmen zu ermöglichen. Allerdings steht eine ethische Bewertung der IM vor verschiedenen methodischen Herausforderungen, die sich insbesondere aus der Heterogenität des Problembereichs, begrifflicher Unklarheit sowie dem Frühstadium ihrer Entwicklung ergeben. Der vorliegende Beitrag spezifiziert zunächst den Begriff der (...) IM, um den Kontext der weiteren Überlegungen einzugrenzen. Anschließend wird eine heuristisch zu verstehende Typologie (möglicher) individual- und sozialethischer Implikationen der IM entwickelt. Sie verdeutlicht, dass die IM vorwiegend ethische Probleme aufwirft, die aus anderen biomedizinischen Bereichen bekannt sind. Welche dieser Probleme tatsächlich relevant sind, ist allerdings abhängig von der jeweils spezifischen IM-Maßnahme. Eine adäquate ethische Bewertung kann daher nur durch die Evaluation jedes einzelnen individualisierten Ansatzes erfolgen. (shrink)

Los textos publicados sobre el poshumanismo han ido creciendo en los últimos años, asimismo, la recepción del fenómeno se ha hecho cada vez más matizada y los análisis diversos. Tampoco han faltado las metáforas usadas para acercar el fenómeno, un tanto nuevo y desconocido, a otros más familiares. Entre estas metáforas, una de las primeras y, a nuestro juicio, más interesantes es la de Frankenstein. No obstante, su amplio uso, consideramos que falta un análisis más detallado de los motivos antropológicos (...) y las estrategias narrativas que encierra el uso de esta metáfora como critica al poshumanismo. El artículo busca desarrollar dicho análisis. (shrink)

This book re-examines the roles of causation and cognition in early modern philosophy. The standard historical narrative suggests that early modern thinkers abandoned Aristotelian models of formal causation in favor of doctrines that appealed to relations of efficient causation between material objects and cognizers. This narrative has been criticized in recent scholarship from at least two directions. Scholars have emphasized that we should not think of the Aristotelian tradition in such monolithic terms, and that many early modern thinkers did not (...) unequivocally reduce all causation to efficient causation. -/- In line with this general approach, this book features original essays written by leading experts in early modern philosophy. It is organized around five guiding questions: -/- What are the entities involved in causal processes leading to cognition? What type(s) or kind(s) of causality are at stake? Are early modern thinkers confined to efficient causation or do other types of causation play a role? What is God's role in causal processes leading to cognition? How do cognitive causal processes relate to other, non-cognitive causal processes? Is the causal process in the case of human cognition in any way special? How does it relate to processes involved in the case of non-human cognition? -/- The essays explore how fifteen early modern thinkers answered these questions: Francisco Suárez, René Descartes, Louis de la Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, John Sergeant, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. The volume is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate relationship between causation and cognition to open up new perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics. (shrink)

Starting with an empirical study of several Jehovah’s Witnesses1 congregations we aim to highlight the social mechanisms of religious conversion and the phases an individual passes through before becoming a Witness. By applying Lewis Rambo’s systemic stage model of conversion we are able to identify a series of elements that characterize the conversion to this religion in Romania, such as: social filtering, delegitimation of the previous religion, and incipient identification with the Witnesses’ group. The article asserts that the Witnesses’ decision (...) to convert implies the deliberate assumption of the others’ disapproval and even social stigmatization. Nevertheless they opt for this religious status because the immediate benefits brought by the religious community and the future benefits of the earthly Heaven offer them sufficient motives for becoming Witnesses. (shrink)

na parte importante de la literatura sobre la ontología de las normas jurídicas se ha decantado por entenderlas como algún tipo de objeto o entidad abstracta. Sin embargo, más allá de los matices propios de cada concepción, aún no se presenta una discusión en torno a qué implica que las normas jurídicas sean entendidas de esta manera. Esta omisión se podría explicar porque en el propio debate filosófico todavía no hay una articulación teórica respecto de qué subyace a la dicotomía (...) concreto/abstracto, sino más bien distintas maneras de explicar la distinción. De ahí que, en el intersticio entre dos problemáticas no suficientemente abordadas, este trabajo se propone enmendar uno de dichos vacíos explicativos a través de contribuir a determinar si corresponde (o no) entender las normas jurídicas como objetos abstractos. (shrink)

This article looks into mining in central Germany in the late eighteenth century as one area of highly charged exchange between science and the state. It describes bureaucratic knowledge as socially distributed cognition by following the steps of a high-ranking official that led him to discover a rich silver ore deposit. Although this involved hybridization of practical/artisanal and theoretical/scientific knowledge, and knowers, the focus of this article is on purification or boundary work that took place when actors in and around (...) the mines consciously contributed to different circuits of knowledge production. For the sake of analysis, the article suggests a way of opposing bureaucratic versus scientific knowledge production, even when the sites, actors involved in, and practices of that knowledge production were the same or similar. Whereas the science of the time invoked consensus among equals to conflate competing knowledge claims, bureaucracies did so by applying a hierarchy among ranked individuals. (shrink)

During the 1980s, empirical social sciences and normative theory seemingly converged within ethical debates. This tendency kindled new debates about the limits and possibilities of empirical-normative collaboration. The article asks for adequate ways of collaboration by taking a closer look at the philosophy of science of empirical social sciences as well as normative theory development and its logical groundings. As a result, three possible modes of cooperation are characterized: first, the empirical assessment of conditions that actually necessitate the translation of (...) normatively derived basic principles into practice rules; second, the empirical assessment of conditions for application of a moral norm which are formulated by bridging principles; third, the empirical assessment of social practice which allows to measure whether adopted norms actually are implemented in practice or not and to encounter new moral problems which are in need of ethical guidance. Finally, the article defends a symbiotic position in Weaver ’s and Trevino's triad of possible approaches to empirical-normative collaboration in ethics. (shrink)

The article examines the subject of ‘primitive’ art in Johannes Volkelt’s System der Ästhetik (1905–1927) against the backdrop of the broad debate on the ethnological refounding of aesthetics around 1900. Unlike contemporaries such as the ethnologist Ernst Grosse, Volkelt tries to prove that the art of ‘primitive peoples’ is an inadequate basis for aesthetics. In doing so, he follows 19th-century idealistic metaphysics of beauty. However, his argumentation against Grosse and others, which contradicts itself in crucial points, attests the challenge of (...) philosophy by ethnology as the leading discipline of aesthetics at the beginning of the 20th century. (shrink)

Will to Power, Eternal Recurrence, and the Being of Entities. Heidegger’s “Aus-einander-setzung” with Nietzsche. The article examines the internal dynamics of Heidegger’s influential interpretation of Nietzsche, focusing on his lectures written between 1936 and 1942, which form the basis for Heidegger’s two-volume book Nietzsche, first published in 1961. Speaking of Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche is potentially misleading, however, since Heidegger gave a series of different interpretations that contradict one another in some essential points. In the first two lectures from 1936/37, (...) we can still observe a far-reaching identification with Nietzsche as the mastermind of a ‘new beginning’ in the ‘history of being’. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, Heidegger makes Nietzsche’s metaphysics responsible for the domination of modern technology and thus for the last stage of the ‘forgetting of being’. As such, Heidegger no longer views Nietzsche as a thinker of ‘transition’, but merely as the philosophical founder of a hopeless ‘end time’. Against this backdrop, and after the Second World War, Heidegger declared that this particular critique of Nietzsche entailed an “intellectual resistance” against National Socialism. This assertion is discussed at the end of the article together with Heidegger’s rapprochement with Nietzsche during the early 1950s. (shrink)