Globalisierung steht in jeder Zeitung und ist in aller Munde. Doch was meinen wir, wenn wir von Globalisierung sprechen? Und welche kulturellen Konsequenzen hat die wachsende weltweite Vernetzung? Der neue Themenband der Akademie Studienbücher zeigt, was ein globaler Blickwinkel konkret für die Kulturwissenschaften bedeuten kann - jenseits von Hedgefonds und McDonald’s. - Dimensionen der Globalisierung: historische, soziologische, politische und ökonomische Aspekte - Globalisierung als kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektive - global turn in den Kulturwissenschaften? - Theorien des Globalen und Methoden globaler Interpretation: Pluralisierung (...) der kulturellen Bezugsrahmen - Das Globale als Beobachtungs- und Interpretationsperspektive: Literatur, Musik, Kunst, Film, Medien und Stadt global - Kosmopolitismus, kosmopolitisches Denken und Handeln. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following can be considered as a part of his criticism of metaphysics: Naturalistic as well as non-naturalistic ontologies fail to present us an adequate explanation of the normative dimension of linguistic behavior. In this paper, we will reconstruct this criticism of metaphysics and show that thereby we gain an important philosophical insight: Wittgenstein's criticism implies that the normativity of language is not a phenomenon that stands in need for an explanation but rather – to the contrary – (...) has to be considered as a primitive, non-reducible condition that we have to presuppose in order to show how linguistic meaning is possible at all. In this sense, the notion of rule-following gives rise to a transcendental semantics. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Odysseus-Verfügung ist als besondere Form der Patientenverfügung zumindest in der Literatur hinlänglich bekannt. Die Verwendung des Begriffs und damit sein Gegenstandsbereich sind hingegen noch immer umstritten. Zudem wird oft nicht beachtet, dass es innerhalb dieses Gegenstandsbereichs Varianten von OVs zu differenzieren gilt, die sich auch in ihrer moralischen Rechtfertigung unterscheiden. Nicht zuletzt ist die Grundstrukturstruktur dieser Rechtfertigung umstritten. Vor diesem Hintergrund plädieren wir im Folgenden zunächst für eine Eingrenzung des Begriffs, mit der argumentative und klinisch-praktische Verwirrungen vermieden werden können. (...) Anschließend betrachten wir zwei Varianten von – Zwang legitimierenden – OVs, die sich in der individuellen Kompetenz des Destinatärs unterscheiden. Schließlich zeigen wir, dass deren Rechtfertigung ungeachtet des Umstandes, dass OVs auf Wiedererlangung der Urteils- und Steuerungsfähigkeit des Patienten angelegt sind, weder in einer gemutmaßten noch gar in einer faktischen retrospektiven Billigung von Zwang durch den Patienten liegt. Die primäre Legitimationsgrundlage von OVs besteht vielmehr in der ex ante erfolgenden Autorisierung durch den Betroffenen selbst. Die hier einzuräumende Autorität wiederum basiert auf dem Recht jeder Person auf lebensplanerische Selbstbestimmung. In einem kurzen abschließenden Teil skizzieren wir dann noch die besondere Bedeutung der Odysseus-Vereinbarung als einer Unterform der OV. (shrink)

Novelty is central to the study of memory, but the wide range of experimental manipulations aimed to reveal its effects on learning produced inconsistent results. The novelty/encoding hypothesis suggests that novel information undergoes enhanced encoding and thus leads to benefits in memory, especially in recognition performance; however, recent studies cast doubts on this assumption. On the other hand, data from animal studies provided evidence on the robust effects of novelty manipulations on the neurophysiological correlates of memory processes. Conceptualizations and operationalizations (...) of novelty are remarkably variable, and were categorized into different subtypes, such as stimulus, context, associative or spatial novelty. Here, we summarize previous findings about the effects of novelty on memory and suggest that predictive coding theories provide a framework that could shed light on the differential influence of novelty manipulations on memory performance. In line with predictive coding theories, we emphasize the role of unexpectedness as a crucial property mediating the behavioral and neural effects of novelty manipulations. (shrink)

Moral Relativism can be considered an attractive alternative to realism because relativists can make good sense of cultural and societal disagreements by seeing them as faultless. However, we can show that this advantage is made possible by systematically disagreeing with moral phenomenology. Relativists make a substantial distinction between intercultural and intracultural discourses which turns out to be incoherent. This can be shown by making use of Crispin Wright’s notion of Cognitive Command.

§ 219a of the German Penal Code (StGB) – the so-called ban on advertising abortions – has been subject of an increasing legal-political controversy since 2017 and was dropped by legislation in July 2022. This paper examines and reconstructs the extent to which the aforementioned ‘ban on advertising’ was (in–)‌compatible with recognized standards of medical ethics. For this purpose, arguments put forward in public discourse on both sides of the conflict, insofar as they go beyond basic attitudes toward abortion, will (...) be subjected to a plausibility test from the perspective of medical ethics. This will show that (I.) according to the standard understanding of autonomy in medical ethics by Beauchamp and Childress, the provision of information about abortions is not an undue influence, but a necessary precondition for autonomous decisions by pregnant women; that (II.) the feared undesirable social developments after the abolition of § 219a StGB are empirically unfounded and largely implausible; but that on the other hand (iii) a multi-perspective communication landscape with accessible expert information promises to effectively counteract the self- and external stigmatization of unintentionally pregnant women. As a result, this analysis provides two things: a coherent medico-ethical justification for the annulment of § 219a StGB and an argumentative basis for the defense against future efforts to support biopolitical positions by censoring available information. (shrink)

One of the basic notions of ethics is certainly the concept of the will. Although in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein excludes that ethical sentences can be meaningfully formulated, the conception of the will occupies a prominent position in his book. This supposed tension in the Tractatus is not accidental, but an integral part of Wittgenstein's concern to reach a new, non-philosophical approach towards ethics.

Are persons rational because they are self-conscious or are they self-conscious because they are rational? Wittgenstein's remarks on the grammatical peculiarities of first-person expressions are not only a criticism of the conception of a Cartesian Ego but also give rise to systematical extensions which help to answer our question. The distinction between subject- and object-usage of ,,I” – which is made in the ,,Blue Book” – enables Wittgenstein to conceive of sentences like ,,I am in pain” as non-referential expressions. With (...) this distinction, Wittgenstein criticizes the ontological commitment to an Ego which results from the referential usage of ,,I”. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein's distinction stands in need of an addition: We will distinguish an epistemic form of expression from a phenomenal form. On this basis, we can show that self-consciousness systematically builds on rationality – and not the other way around. Competent usage of epistemic-expressive I-sentences is antecedent to talking meaningfully of a self-conscious person. In turn, the competent usage of such sentences is embedded in a social structure. Self-consciousness has a social place. (shrink)

Whether there are philosophically relevant connections between the expressive role of first-personal vocabulary and self-knowledge is an on-going debate in analytical philosophy. We will take a look at this debate by considering Ludwig Wittgenstein’s distinction between the two uses of ‘I’ as object and as subject and work out a further distinction within the subject-use of ‘I’. This relates to a problem that is inherent in Robert Brandom’s inferentialist program regarding the role of first-personal vocabulary. It can be shown that (...) subject-related aspects of language are necessary elements of inferentially articulated discourses—and not, like Brandom assumes, merely contingent features. (shrink)

During the last century of meta-ethical debates, moral realism was much criticized for its ontological assumptions. These assumptions arise from the semantic intuition that lies at the heart of realist theories – namely, the intuition that language represents states of affairs. This makes moral realism hardly compatible with a naturalist world view and gives rise to consider ontologically more economic approaches. Moral constructivists can explain objectivity in ethics without inheriting the realist’s ontological burden. Nevertheless, constructivists tend to ignore the semantic (...) task of giving an account of what moral sentences mean. The semantics of moral discourse, however, cannot be considered representational because, then, constructivism would lapse back into realism. I argue that semantic pragmatism is an appropriate partner for moral constructivism. Thereby, we can see the personal standpoint as an engagement in asserting moral sentences. (shrink)

One branch of practical philosophy in whichWittgenstein’s writings might be fruitful, is political philosophy. The concept “forms of life” gives rise to a pluralistic interpretation of society. However, the question arises how societal conflicts in such a pluralistic view con be solved. We will develop a method of criticism which relies on Wittgenstein’s later work and which combines the normative demands of practical philosophy with methodological standards from ethnology and cultural anthropology.

Zusammenfassung Personen, die nicht bereits sind, als postmortale Organspender zur Verfügung zu stehen, sollten nachrangig versorgt werden, falls sie selbst einmal ein Organ benötigen, so wird in diesem Aufsatz argumentiert. Postmortale Organspenden sollten demnach grundsätzlich gerichtete Spenden zugunsten von anderen Spendewilligen sein. Diesem Ansatz zufolge sollten Organe nicht als öffentliche Ressource betrachtet werden und der Staat sollte respektieren, dass die Entscheidung darüber, was nach dem Tod mit dem Körper geschehen soll, bei der betreffenden Person selbst liegt. Während einige Formen der (...) gerichteten Spende moralisch problematisch sein können, ist ein allgemeines System von gerichteten Spende an andere Spendewillige diesem Vorschlag zu folge moralisch erlaubt, weil es die Grundsätze der Autonomie- Achtung, der Reziprozität sowie der Solidarität wahrt und niemanden unangemessenen Schwierigkeiten aussetzt, der im Notfall keine schlechteren Aussichten auf ein Spenderorgan haben möchte. (shrink)

T. 1. Synthese und Theorie. Trägerschichten.

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex moral decision-making have a deep connection? What are the moral responsibilities of the artist, critic, and reader? What can religious perspectives—from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon—contribute to literary criticism? Thirty well known contributors reflect on these questions, including iterary theorists Marshall Gregory, James Phelan, (...) and Wayne Booth; philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Richard Hart, and Nina Rosenstand; and authors John Updike, Charles Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, and Bernard Malamud. Divided into four sections, with introductory matter and questions for discussion, this accessible anthology represents the most crucial work today exploring the interdisciplinary connections between literature, religion and philosophy. (shrink)

Erscheint anlasslich des 15. Weltkongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (IVR) vom 18. bis 24. August 1991 in Gottingen und enthalt eine Selbstdarstellung der deutschen Sektion der IVR. Die Autoren berichten uber ihre eigene theoretische Position oder uber neuere Diskussionszusammenhange, die ihnen wichtig erscheinen. Aus dem Inhalt: K. Adomeit: Menschenrechte und Rechtsphilosophie u H. Albert: Erkenntnis, Recht und soziale Ordnung u R. Alexy: Idee und Struktur eines vernunftigen Rechtssystems u O. Ballweg: Analytische Rhetorik als juristische Grundlagenforschung u R. (...) Dreier: Zur gegenwartigen Diskussion des Verhaltnisses von Recht und Moral u W. Eichhorn: Wege und Irrwege einer Transformation u M. Frommel: Mannliche Gerechtigkeitsmathematik versus weiblicher Kontextualismus? u H. Garrn: Zur rechtspraktischen Bedeutung einer Theorie der juristischen Rhetorik u G. Haney: Das Widerspruchsvolle des Rechtsbegriffs u W. Hassemer: Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtswissenschaft, Rechtspolitik - am Beispiel des Strafrechts u A. Kaufmann: 45 Jahre erlebte Jahre Rechtsphilosophie u H. Klenner: Die ontologische und gnoseologische Dimension der Sein/Sollen-Problematik u U. Klug: Multidimensionale Rechtsphilosophie u H.-J. Koch/H. Russmann: Juristische Methodenlehre und analytische Philosophie u M. Kriele: Die demokratische Weltrevolution u K. Kuhl: Rehabilitierung und Aktualisierung des kantischen Vernunftrechts u E.-J. Lampe: Moderne Rechtsanthropologie u K.A. Mollnau: Vom Beginn der Niedergangsjurisprudenz in der DDR u U. Neumann: Sprachphilosophische Ansatze in der neueren Rechtsphilosophie u u.a. (Franz Steiner 1991). (shrink)

The present paper concerns the motivational underpinnings and behavioral correlates of the prevention or stopping of negative stimulation – a situation referred to as relief. Relief is of great theoretical and applied interest. Theoretically, it is tied to theories linking affect, emotion, and motivational systems. Importantly, these theories make different predictions regarding the association between relief and motivational systems. Moreover, relief is a prototypical antecedent of counterfactual emotions, which involve specific cognitive processes compared to factual or mere anticipatory emotions. Practically, (...) relief may be an important motivator of addictive and phobic behaviors, self destructive behaviors, and social influence. In the present paper, we will first provide a review of conflicting conceptualizations of relief. We will then present an integrative relief model (IRMO) that aims at resolving existing theoretical conflicts. We then review evidence relevant to distinctive predictions regarding the moderating role of various procedural features of relief situations. We conclude that our integrated model results in a better understanding of existing evidence on the affective and motivational underpinnings of relief, but that further evidence is needed to come to a more comprehensive evaluation of the viability of IRMO. (shrink)

Recent work on epistemic integration in the life sciences has emphasized the importance of integration in thinking about explanatory practice in science, particularly for articulating a robust alternative to reductionism and anti-reductionism. This paper analyzes the role of models in balancing the relative contributions of lower- and higher-level epistemic resources involved in this process. Integration between multiple disciplines proceeds by constructing a problem agenda (Love 2008), a set of interrelated problems that structures the problem space of a complex phenomenon that (...) is investigated by many disciplines. The usage of models, it is argued, mark changes in a phenomenon’s problem agenda depending on the task that is expected of it. Particularly, it emphasizes the sensitivity of a problem agenda to changing attitudes in the solutions to the conceptual and empirical items constituting that agenda. The analysis will proceed by means of a case study, the Reichardt motion detector, a model that has been vital to the methodological and conceptual development of research on motion detection, especially in invertebrates. As will be seen, the history of the Reichardt model will exemplify the dynamic changes that occur in the interdisciplinary negotiations that comprise the active efforts of various sciences working to integrate their resources. (shrink)

In 1969 Jasia Reichardt curated an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London called Play Orbit. Although it has not achieved the landmark status of Reichardt's Cybernetic Serendipity, which was presented in London a year earlier, it caught the intellectual and artistic mood of a newly emergent constituency of (largely British) artists who had benefited from a post-war revision of art education and a de-centring of intellectual energy away from the economic capitals. It may be that (...) Play Orbit will eventually be regarded in much the same way as Cybernetic Serendipity that is, as a significant footnote in the history of contemporary art. By turning artists' attention to toys through this project, the categories of painting and sculpture dissolved and the Modernist imperative of the enduring observation that had informed the arts and letters in a centred intellectual regime was seen for what it was: a colonial anachronism. The unapologetic relativism of play and the provisional truths of games coalesced in Play Orbit as confrontations to the essentialist materialism of the prevailing orthodoxy. In this sense Play Orbit, and its extensive catalogue of images and essays, foreshadowed not only the critical style that followed the influence of Continental Theory in the mid 1970s but also anticipated the agenda of virtually all that has been written about games in the last decade. For all its apparent whimsy and reification of idiosyncrasy, Play Orbit can now be seen as, above all, a constructively political intervention levered through the arts. For example, one of the more enduring and least contested impacts of the intellectual revisions of the last thirty years that Play Orbit foreshadowed is evident in the practice of history not least the practice of history as a game to be played. This paper elaborates on these assertions and asks how games and games theory might be connected with their own political and intellectual history, and how contemporary artists who choose to benefit from the licence that play endows might situate their work within what might be called Art Ludistory: a political play on the history of play. (shrink)

This paper offers an inconsistent model of motion perception. It was prompted by work on inconsistent motion due to Hegel and, following him, Priest. But the paper skirts Hegel's full scale idealism, by proposing that the inconsistency is with the cognitive contents of motion perception. The paper draws on work in the psychology of perception, and in the theory of inconsistency. I begin by noting the prima facie argument that temporal change threatens inconsistency, and canvassing ways in which this might (...) be avoided. The orthodox reply to the prima facie argument is that one and the same thing can have different incompatible properties at different times. This is plausible when applied to motion in the physical world. However, applied to cognition, it can be seen that the phenomenon of phi or beta, combined with the mechanism of a Reichardt detector, lends support to one key step in the prima facie argument, namely re-identification over time. The inconsistency of the model is then seen to follow from application of the Fade Principle. Advantages of the model are stressed: including a simple explanation of the debilitating condition of akinetopsia, that is, motion blindness; and a suggestion as to how to account for the “moving now.”. (shrink)

Following the American indie cinema boom of the 1990s and the creation of "specialty" divisions by several Hollywood studios, many predicted an end to both the indie sector's viability and the making of films with ambitions beyond the commercial mainstream. Yet, as Geoff King demonstrates, plenty of distinct indie productions continue to thrive, even in the face of difficult economic circumstances. Recasting the term "indie" to denote a particular form of independent feature production that has risen to prominence in the (...) twenty-first century, King identifies and discusses the new opportunities available to indie filmmakers. These new options and techniques include low-cost digital video and a range of Internet and social-media ventures providing funding, distribution, promotion, and sales. He also covers the ultra-low-budget "mumblecore" movement; the social realism of such filmmakers as Kelly Reichardt and Ramin Bahrani; the "digital desktop" aesthetics of Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation and Arin Crumley and Susan Buice's Four Eyed Monsters ; and the affect of certain dominant discourses, such as the articulation of notions of "true" indie film and its opposition to what some see as the quirky contrivances of crossover hits such as Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. King ultimately locates a strong vein of continuity in indie practice, both industrially and in the textual qualities that define individual features. (shrink)

Hoewel enorm invloedrijk in Duitstalig Europa, heeft de conceptuele geschiedschrijving (Begriffsgeschichte) tot nu toe weinig aandacht in het Engels gekregen. Dit genre van intellectuele geschiedschrijving verschilt van zowel de Franse geschiedschrijving van mentalités als de Engelstalige geschiedschrijving van verhandelingen door het concept. Aan de hand van practische voorbeelden in de geschiedschrijving wordt deze vorm toegelicht door Bram Kempers, Eddy de Jongh en Rolf Reichardt.

Ästhetische und politische Diskurse standen im späten 18. Jahrhundert in einem untrennbaren Wechselverhältnis. Die ästhetischen Entwürfe und literarischen Fiktionen von Autoren wie Karl Philipp Moritz, Salomon Maimon, Daniel Jenisch, Johann Friedrich Reichardt oder dem jungen Wilhelm von Humboldt sind sowohl Reflexionen als auch normative Vorwegnahmen des Wandels von der noch weitgehend höfisch dominierten Residenzkultur der friderizianischen Epoche zur emanzipierten Stadtkultur des Reformzeitalters. Der in der Studie verfolgte topographische methodische Zugang ermöglicht es, die untersuchten ideellen Diskurse institutionen- und mediengeschichtlich zu (...) verankern und als Argumentationsstrategien innerhalb konkreter Debatten zu verstehen. Durch die lokale und temporale Konzentration lässt sich der Gegenstand zudem quer zur disziplinären Arbeitsteilung (Geschichte, Literatur, Philosophie) und zu literatur- und kulturgeschichtlichen Epochengrenzen untersuchen. (shrink)