“Anchoring” is a tactic used to manipulate negotiation outcomes. It exploits the fact that people base their estimates of unknown quantities on initial values. If they are given these initial values, their estimations are influened by them. We will address whether there is a rational justification for people to be manipulated by anchoring. We will also look at how to recognize in a negotiation situation whether the anchor effect is being used against you, how to use the anchor effect to (...) your benefit, or at least how to defuse it if it is being used against you. (shrink)

Tugendhat’s remarks on religion and mysticism are explored in section 5 and 6 of this paper. To this end I outline, in section 1, the role that the criticism of religion has played from its beginnings in philosophy’s self-understanding and its focus on reasoning, which philosophers opposed to the non-reasoning justification of religion. In section 2, I consider philosophy’s relation to empirical statements and to the empirical sciences; in section 3, I discuss Tugendhat’s substitution of anthropology for metaphysics; and in (...) section 4, his moral theory. (shrink)

Biographical note: Thomas Alkemeyer (Dr. phil.) ist Professor für Soziologie und Sportsoziologie an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. Ulrich Bröckling (Dr. phil.) ist Professor für Kultursoziologie an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Tobias Peter (Dr. rer. pol.) ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Soziologie der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

The paper reformulates empirical naturalism by 4 theses, points out a Popperian trend to its resuscitation, argues for its central thesis by rejecting formal objections that the good cannot be defined by any, any descriptive, or any empirical, concept, and material objections that the good is something different from happiness, esp, that it is justice, and conjectures about a motive for rejecting naturalism.

In the first part of the paper, I describe the role labour, under conditions no longer existent, played for the perfection of individuals in Locke′s political philosophy. Or to use a more up-to-date term, I describe labour′s emancipatory role. In the second part, I examine the conditions for realizing Locke′s aim of a society of autonomous individuals with a minimum of state power and market coercion, starting from a society whose members are becoming increasingly economically superabundant.

Die englische Wikipedia erklärt ihn als »a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle.« Doch diese Beschreibung trifft auch auf den Liberalismus zu. Den Libertarismus unterscheidet vom Liberalismus etwas, das ihn öffentlichkeitswirksam und in den USA zu einer politischen Partei machte.

This book answers questions about secularization: Does it dissolve religion, or transform it into faith in a universally valid value? Is it restricted to the west or can it occur everywhere? Using ideas of Max Weber, the book conceives secularization as a process comparable to the rational development of science and production. What is the value secularization propagates? Sifting historical texts, Steinvorth argues the value is authenticity, to be understood as being true to one's talents developed in activities that are (...) done for their own sake and provide life with meaning, and as unconditionally commanded. How can a value be unconditionally demanded? This question leads to an investigation of the self that combines Kant's ideas on the conditions of the possibility of experience with modern brain science, and to the metaphysical deliberation whether to prefer a world with creatures able to do both good and evil to one without them. It is not enough, however, to point to facts. We rather need to understand what secularization, religion and their possible rationality consist inches Max Weber's sociology of religion has provided us with the conceptual means to do so, which this book develops. Secularization is rediscovered as the same progress of rationality in the sphere of religion that we find in the development of the spheres of science, art, the economy and politics or public affairs. It proves to be the perfection rather than the dissolution of religion - a perfection that consists in recognizing authenticity as the successor of the absolute of religion. (shrink)

Does the modern age have a specific attitude to the world, a way to make sense of the myriad stimuli that impinge on human organisms or, as I call it, a metaphysics? This book claims it has. It shows that what crucially changed Europe from the 16th century on was the spreading idea that things are best done for their own sake, for goals inherent in an activity, such as the goal of telling a good story or having a lively (...) chat, inheres in the telling or chatting itself. (shrink)

The article critically analyses the gaps and the analytical potential in Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere concerning corporate discourses and debates. It is shown that Habermas only analyses the field of work in abstract terms, neglecting in particular corporate public spheres. In contrast, corporate public spheres are developed as an analytical concept, expressed by companies in the form of institutionalized co-determination, situationally granted opportunities for participation and self-willed public spheres of workers. These three fields are discussed (...) using empirical examples. It is shown that corporate public spheres are eroded by precarization and instrumentalized by management. Furthermore, digitalization is working towards a comprehensive algorithmic control of corporate public spheres by companies, but also towards new autonomous communication networks that establish proletarian public spheres, so that both refeudalization and revitalization of corporate public spheres can be observed. (shrink)

Bei den von Ingenieuren verwendeten Dezisionsmechanismen wird aufgrund der Fortentwicklung der Technik die methodologische Sicherung der Objektivität der Bewertungsverfahren immer dringlicher. Der Stand der Debatte zu diesem Problem wird knapp wiedergegeben. Besonders wird auf die Entwicklung in der DDR hingewiesen . Nach der Kritik der Hauptpositionen der Debatte wird der Charakter von Werturteilen anhand eines dreiteiligen Klassifikationsschemas näher analysiert. Als Bewertungshilfe wird auf dem Wege einer Analogiekonstruktion der Webersche Idealtypus für die methodologische Diskussion der Technik vorgeschlagen und seine potentielle Funktion (...) erörtert. (shrink)

The concept of transformation has become a buzzword within the last few years. This has to do, first, with the ever broader recognition of the profound character of the environmental crisis, secondly, with increasingly obvious limits to existing forms of (global) environmental governance, thirdly, with the emergence of other dimensions of the crisis since 2008 and, fourthly, with intensified debates about required profound social change, especially of societal nature relations. However, the term transformation itself is contested. It largely depends on (...) theoretical assumptions as well as the plausibility and applicability of the arguments which are made. In this paper, a historical-materialist approach to social-ecological transformation is outlined by referring to a theoretically sophisticated understanding of 'subject(s)' of transformation as well as the 'object(s)' of what is to be transformed. Theoretical concepts like the capitalist mode of production, regulation and hegemony, a critical understanding of the state and governance as well as the term societal nature relations are key. Such a perspective contributes to a more sophisticated understanding of the obstacles and requirements of real-world transformation. Finally, the argument has implications for visions and strategies, i.e., an emancipatory and democratic shaping of social relations and societal nature relations. (shrink)

What does it mean to do philosophy historically, and when does the legend of philosophy begin? When Hegel tried to give a logical explanation of philosophy's history, was he doing the same thing as Eduard Zeller in his account of Creek thought, or Kuno Fischer in his narrative of modern philosophy? l do not believe so, and I shall sugges t in the following that we should carefully differentiate between the different activities commonly referred to as the history of philosophy. (...) I will point out the enormous productivity of the 19th century in terms of printed books devoted to the history of philosophy. I will also point to the context in which these were produced and used rather than examining individual works or authors. There is an entirely new context in the 19th century, which is the study of philosophy. A proper culture developed around the historical interest in philosophy, and it is this culture I want to sketch here. (shrink)

Many studies show that punishment, although able to stabilize cooperation at high levels, destroys gains which makes it less efficient than alternatives with no punishment. Standard public goods games (PGGs) in fact show exactly these patterns. However, both evolutionary theory and real world institutions give reason to expect institutions with punishment to be more efficient, particularly in the long run. Long-term cooperative partnerships with punishment threats for non-cooperation should outperform defection prone non-punishing ones. This article demonstrates that fieldwork data from (...) hunter-gatherers, common pool resource management cases and even PGGs support this hypothesis. Although earnings in PGGs with a punishment option may be lower at the beginning, efficiency increases dramatically over time. Most ten-period PGGs cannot capture this change because their time horizon is too short. (shrink)

With this article we introduce a new article category in the journal, as announced in this issue's editorial--Viewpoints & Discussion. Articles under this category are intended to provide authentic and qualified opinions on topics relevant to the journal. These articles and follow-up discussions will pass through an accelerated, mainly editorial, review process. We invite readers to respond to such articles by sharing their personal thoughts and experiences, as well as to initiate new discussions. We hope these contributions will make the (...) journal a site for lively discussions on research practice. For this first "Viewpoint" we have selected a topic that should be of interest to many readers: What key research competencies will researchers and professionals need to have in the future? To introduce the topic, we look into a recent comparative study on this question that compares the situation in eight research-intensive countries. Reports on the study are available for free download, which can serve as a basis for discussion. In keeping with the idea of "Viewpoints & Discussion," no claim to offering a systematic and scholarly account of the topic is intended; the only aim is to throw a spotlight on a theme of current interest and to suggest a few pertinent conjectures and questions for discussion. (shrink)

Inexact limits. On the heap-paradox, Darwinism and recursive grammar. The heap-paradox can be reinforced by a combination with the basic idea of Achilles. The logical pattern of the reinforced heap-paradox will be analysed in a new manner by distinguishing between limited and unlimited transitivity. This analysis makes explicit the constructive character of the paradox. Finally it is shown that the logical pattern of the heap-paradox is applied in popular presentations of Darwinism, in the debate about abortion and in the foundation (...) of recursive theories of grammar. (shrink)

Studia Tibetica et Mongolica. Redigenda curaverunt Helmut Eiger, Michael Hahn, Maria Schetelich et Peter Wyzlic., Indica et Tibetica Verlag, Swisttal-Odendorf 1999. xxix, 346 pp. ISBN 3-923776-34-9.

Moses Isegawa's Abyssinian Chronicles sets out to rewrite history in that it corrects the distorted colonial vision by creating symbols for a new national identity—dealing with self-consciousness, loss of self-identity, and search for identity in coming to terms with the wreckage of war and independence. In Snakepit, Isegawa returns to his native Uganda haunted by greed and megalomania, a period when Idi Amin's dictatorship turned men in power into agents of deception, extortion, and murder. This article critically analyzes the “postcolonial“ (...) imagery in Snakepit as forms of resistance in the aftermath of colonialism and in the story “The Return of Shadow” in Viviane Sassen's collection of photographs Flamboya, and so challenge the way Western eyes have perceived the African continent. Snakepit and Flamboya thus both function as tools with which Africa's collective identity is redefined, the former coping with Uganda's post-European struggle for independence and fight against African corruption, the latter shedding light on the “darkness” Africa has been associated with by casting a post-European shadow on the image of Africa. (shrink)