Dieses Fachbuch verteidigt einen kritischen Realismus und diskutiert im Rahmen des de Broglie-Bohm-Ansatzes neuere Arbeiten zum modernen Realismus von Smolin, Dürr, Goldstein, Tumulka, Zanghi und anderen.

Das Buch enthält eine informative und klare Darstellung der Entstehung des Antirealismus unter dem Einfluß der Suche nach absoluter Gewißheit. Der Verfasser konfrontiert diese für die moderne Philosophie charakteristische Denkweise mit der realistischen und fallibilistischen Auffassung des Kritischen Rationalismus. H. Albert.

Der Begriff „Globalisierung“ wird zunehmend nicht nur in den Disziplinen der Ökonomie und der Kommunikationswissenschaft diskutiert, sondern auch in den Gesellschafts- und Erziehungswissenschaften sowie insbesondere in der Interkulturellen Philosophie. Der Diskurs über Globalisierung verläuft dabei teilweise analog demjenigen über Inter- und Multikulturalität.Die Beiträge dieses Bandes geben ein breites Spektrum wieder. Sie reichen von der Konstatierung der Globalisierung als einer Rahmenbedingung, zu der man sich als Wissenschaftler reflexiv oder reaktiv zu verhalten habe, über die Analyse diverser Teilaspekte und über visionäre Einforderungen (...) utopischer Globalisierungsauslegungen bis zur Negierung ihrer erkenntnistheoretischen Bedeutung. Das Gemeinsame dieser Vielfältigkeit ist die Bestimmung des Globalen als eines Szenarios der Begegnung. (shrink)

Der Begriff „Globalisierung“ wird zunehmend nicht nur in den Disziplinen der Ökonomie und der Kommunikationswissenschaft diskutiert, sondern auch in den Gesellschafts- und Erziehungswissenschaften sowie insbesondere in der Interkulturellen Philosophie. Der Diskurs über Globalisierung verläuft dabei teilweise analog demjenigen über Inter- und Multikulturalität. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes geben ein breites Spektrum wieder. Sie reichen von der Konstatierung der Globalisierung als einer Rahmenbedingung, zu der man sich als Wissenschaftler reflexiv oder reaktiv zu verhalten habe, über die Analyse diverser Teilaspekte und über visionäre (...) Einforderungen utopischer Globalisierungsauslegungen bis zur Negierung ihrer erkenntnistheoretischen Bedeutung. Das Gemeinsame dieser Vielfältigkeit ist die Bestimmung des Globalen als eines Szenarios der Begegnung. (shrink)

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)

The subject-matter of the paper is the theory of class struggle proposed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the leading representatives of libertarian political philosophy in the radical tradition of Murray N. Rothbard. The author reconstructs and critically comments on the theory at hand. The author's remarks focus on the ethical and methodological background of Hoppe's approach, the main question being whether the latter theory is consonant with the thinker's positions on ethics and methodology, as well as with his political (...) standpoint. The author argues that not only does class analysis not contradict other core beliefs of Hoppe but it also represents an indispensable element of his libertarian philosophy. There is, however, a significant tension between the class approach and Hoppe's secondary philosophical position – his historical idealism. The article is concluded by indicating some further issues in the Hoppean theory of class that, in the author's opinion, should be subject to future inquiry. (shrink)

Dass sich Hegel und Hermann Cohen trotz scheinbarer Gegensatze miteinander versohnen lassen, ist eine Grunduberzeugung des Werkes von Myriam Bienenstock, welches sich stets durch die doppelte Ausrichtung auf Hegel und das judische Denken auszeichnete. Mit diesem Band wird Myriam Bienenstock, seit 1997 Professorin fur Philosophie an der Universitat Francois Rabelais in Tours, anlasslich ihres 70. Geburtstages geehrt. Mit Beitragen von Dominque Bourel, Bernard Bourgeois, Christophe Bouton, Pierfrancesco Fiorato, Jean-Francois Goubet, Dana Hollander, Helmut Holzhey, Gerhard Kurz, Claudia Melica, Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, (...) Ludwig Siep, Guy Stroumsa und Norbert Waszek. (shrink)

Résumé Avant de devenir l’un des pères fondateurs de l’école de Marbourg, Hermann Cohen avait rédigé un article dans lequel il cherchait à mettre en évidence les liens entre Heinrich Heine et le judaïsme. L’article révèle une double préoccupation : théologico-philosophique et politico-philosophique. Cohen affirmait que le panthéisme de Heine, inspiré de Spinoza, serait compatible avec le monothéisme juif, et que c’est ce panthéisme qui aurait mené Heine vers les « idées socialistes » que, comme Heine, il acceptait. Cohen (...) changea ensuite d’attitude envers Spinoza mais il demeura, sa vie durant, un grand admirateur de Heine, alors que Rosenzweig, qui pourtant se présenta comme l’héritier et le successeur de Cohen en pensée juive, développa une forte aversion contre le poète, ce qui ne peut être expliqué que si l’on prend en considération son propre engagement religieux. (shrink)

The book is divided into three sections. The first provides a general historical overview for the Jewish thought that follows. The second summarizes the variety of basic kinds of popular, positive Jewish commitment in the twentieth century. The third and major section summarizes the basic thought of those modern Jewish philosophers whose thought is technically the best and/or the most influential in Jewish intellectual circles. The Jewish philosophers covered include Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Mordecai Kaplan, (...) and Emil Fackenheim. The text includes summaries and a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources. (shrink)

This article is a response to the 1994 Star Island conference on the “Decade of the Brain” from a Jewish perspective. After a brief introduction about the logical function of models and maps, I compare and contrast three models of the human: Ezekiel's vision of the chariot in the Hebrew Scriptures, Franz Rosenzweig's geometry of the human face in Der Stern der Erlosung (the Star of Redemption), and a standard anatomical picture of the human brain. Whereas Rosenzweigs face is seen (...) to be compatible with Ezekiel's chariot, both are seen to be radically distinct from the implicit conception of what a human being is in modern medical science. I conclude with a suggestion that the differences are to be understood in terms of their different intended functions and express my hope for some new kind of model that will incorporate the functional advantages of both. (shrink)

While the opposing paradigms of globalization and fragmentation compete in often bloody and destructive ways in the world today, this book convincingly reminds us of the importance of finding out more about the complex and changing ways in which we are connected. The authors demonstrate that the more we understand our connectedness and deal with its consequences, the less dependent and helpless we become. The critical, multidisciplinary perspectives they offer cover a wide range of subjects, from the world wide web (...) to medieval poetry, nations and gender, cancer narratives and money, emotion management and the financial markets, and the American civilizing process and the repression of shame. The contributions bear witness to Elias's innovative achievements while the authors continue his stunning explorations, extending them into other areas of the humanities and the sciences, and presenting their own wide-ranging and penetrating insights into our mutual dependence. Contributors are Jorge Arditi, Godfried Van Benthem Van Den Bergh, Reinhard Blomert, Stephen Guy-Bray, Thomas M. Kemple, Hermann Korte, Helmut Kuzmics, Stephen Mennell, Thomas Salumets, Thomas J. Scheff, Ulrich C. Teucher, Annette Treibel, and Cas Wouters. (shrink)

La théorie générale du contrôle et de la communication, mieux connue sous le nom de ‘cybernétique’, est habituellement considérée comme le fruit des recherches liées à la deuxième guerre mondiale aux Etats-Unis, menées principalement par le mathématicien américain Norbert Wiener . Dans le cadre de son travail pour l'armée, Wiener a développé une théorie générale des régulations. Nous nous intéressons aux origines de la théorie générale des régulations en Allemagne , montrant qu'elle prend naissance dans un contexte bien différent. (...) class='Hi'>Hermann Schmidt , le principal acteur dans ce domaine en Allemagne, bien que physicien de formation, formula sa version de la théorie du contrôle à la fin des années 30, grâce aux différents systèmes de régulation qu'il était amené à étudier au bureau des brevets du Reich . A partir de l'analyse d'une combinaison de facteurs contextuels, nationaux, politiques et contingents, nous proposons une explication de la moindre influence de la théorie de Schmidt.The general theory of control and communication, better known as ‘cybernetics’, is usually considered to be the result of research done during the Second World War in the United States, principally by the American mathematician, Norbert Wiener . Based on his military work, Wiener developed a general mathematical theory of control and feedback system. We discuss the origins of control and feedback theory in Germany , showing that it arose in a very different context.Hermann Schmidt , the principal actor in Germany, though trained as a physicist, formulated his version of control theory based on his extensive hands-on experience with control mechanisms gained during his work as a patent officer in the late 1930s at the German State Patent Office. We also offer an explanation for why Schmidt's general theory of control did not have a great influence based on a combination of national, political, and contingent contextual factors. (shrink)

Résumé La théorie générale du contrôle et de la communication, mieux connue sous le nom de ‘cybernétique’, est habituellement considérée comme le fruit des recherches liées à la deuxième guerre mondiale aux Etats-Unis, menées principalement par le mathématicien américain Norbert Wiener (1894–1964). Dans le cadre de son travail pour l'armée, Wiener a développé une théorie générale des régulations. Nous nous intéressons aux origines de la théorie générale des régulations en Allemagne (Allgemeine Regelungskunde), montrant qu'elle prend naissance dans un contexte (...) bien différent. Hermann Schmidt (1894–1968), le principal acteur dans ce domaine en Allemagne, bien que physicien de formation, formula sa version de la théorie du contrôle à la fin des années 30, grâce aux différents systèmes de régulation qu'il était amené à étudier au bureau des brevets du Reich (Reichspatentamt). A partir de l'analyse d'une combinaison de facteurs contextuels, nationaux, politiques et contingents, nous proposons une explication de la moindre influence de la théorie de Schmidt. (shrink)

In the range of his intellectual interests and the profundity of his mathematical thought Hermann Weyl towered above his contemporaries, many of whom viewed him with awe. This volume, the most ambitious study to date of Weyl's singular contributions to mathematics, physics, and philosophy, looks at the man and his work from a variety of perspectives, though its gaze remains fairly steadily fixed on Weyl the geometer and space‐time theorist. Structurally, the book falls into two parts, described in the (...) general introduction by the editor: Part 1 contains four essays on particular aspects of Weyl's work, highlighting ideas he developed in various editions of his classic Raum‐Zeit‐Materie. Part 2 presents a lengthy study by Robert Coleman and Herbert Korté covering nearly the whole gamut of Weyl's mathematical research, an impressive feat. Both in the introduction as well as in footnotes to the articles Erhard Scholz's editorial voice chimes in discreetly, helping tie all five studies together.Coleman and Korté begin chronologically with Weyl's early work in analysis and the modern theory of Riemann surfaces before turning to differential geometry, unified field theory, and the space problem, a topic they use as a springboard for a discussion of their own recent work on the foundations of space‐time. They then take up Weyl's shift to group representation theory and its applications to quantum mechanics, ending with his much earlier research on the structure of the continuum. All of these topics are well handled, but the authors' own agendas coupled with their penchant for overlooking chronology in order to package Weyl's work into neat little bundles leave one feeling rather stranded and far removed from the sources of Weyl's inspiration. Moreover, the narrative style makes this part of the volume read like a technical appendix, albeit a most informative one. Readers who tackle Scholz's far more contextualized essay will be amply rewarded by comparing his views with the opinions set forth by Coleman and Korté in Part 2.Scholz gives a masterful account of Weyl's intellectual journeys from 1917 to 1925 in a study that serves as a fulcrum for the entire volume. Drawing on a number of recently published studies, including his own, on the interplay between mathematics and physics inspired by Einstein's theory of general relativity, Scholz describes how Weyl responded to this challenge by developing a truly infinitesimal space‐time geometry that generalized classical Riemannian geometry. Although unconvinced by Einstein's critique of his unified field theory, Weyl shifted his focus from this realm to the classical space problem, analyzed earlier with more primitive techniques by Hermann Helmholtz and Sophus Lie. In this connection, it should be mentioned that Thomas Hawkins has given a probing analysis of Weyl's related work on the representation of Lie groups in his tour‐de‐force work, Emergence of the Theory of Lie Groups . Scholz argues that Weyl's struggle to tame his modernized version of the space problem stemmed from a deep‐seated belief in his geometrical ideas, which in turn were nourished by philosophical musings. By demonstrating the closely related conceptual links that motivated Weyl's research in infinitesimal geometry, space‐time physics, and the foundations of mathematics, Scholz nicely illuminates the underlying fabric of epistemological concerns that occupied Weyl's attention during this fertile period.The three remaining essays in Part 1 focus on other aspects of Weyl's work in mathematical physics and cosmology. Skuli Sigurdsson's “Journeys in Spacetime” offers a broad interpretation of Weyl's career, one that emphasizes Weyl's sensitivity to cultural tensions as reflected in his philosophical roots, which combined phenomenology with facets of German idealism. Shaken by the annihilation of cultural values in Nazi Germany, Weyl became deeply aware of the gulf that separated his earlier life in Göttingen and Zurich from the one he took up at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in 1933. He tried to adapt, but felt out of place in an Anglo‐American scientific culture openly hostile toward metaphysics and speculative philosophy. Sigurdsson stresses these tensions, contrasting the introspective, creative individual against the backdrop of the collective in the age of the machine, but without spelling out which collective were most important for him. Wolfgang Pauli thought he knew and, like Einstein before him, he had no compunction about bluntly telling Weyl he was a mathematician, not a physicist.Pauli's opinions notwithstanding, Weyl did far more than just dabble around the mathematical edges of the new physics. If Coleman and Korté perhaps press their case for his visionary accomplishments too far, Norbert Straumann's essay “Ursprünge der Eichtheorien” suggests why Weyl's reputation among physicists has risen steadily ever since the advent of Yang‐Mills theory in the 1950s. In the course of describing Weyl's adaptation of his gauge transformation formalism to Dirac's electron theory, Straumann sheds considerable light on Pauli's role as self‐appointed watchman guarding the disciplinary boundary that separated theoretical physics from physical mathematics . He further suggests that disciplinary jealousy was a major reason why Pauli dismissed Weyl's two‐component formalism for spinors out of hand.In the realm of cosmology, on the other hand, Weyl's work has long since passed into the dustbins of history, as Hubert Goenner remarks in recounting a fascinating chapter in the infancy of space‐time physics. While doing so, Goenner shows how initially Weyl almost slavishly adopted what Einstein called Mach's principle, which asserts that the metric structure of space‐time is solely determined by the distribution of matter in the universe. This notion was quickly challenged by Willem De Sitter, who showed that Einstein's matter‐free field equations admitted a global solution with non‐zero constant curvature. Both Einstein and Weyl tried to argue that invisible masses must be present just over the “spatial horizon” of De Sitter's world in order to account for its curvature. Goenner meticulously analyzes the physical and mathematical issues at stake in this debate, stressing how Weyl gradually moved away from a strong physical interpretation to one in which mathematics models rather than physics models simply reveal natural phenomena. He argues further that Weyl's cosmological principle arose as the final expression of his search for a deeper physical meaning.Given the quality of these essays, it is regrettable that this book contains so little about Weyl's professional career, a weakness the editor could have redressed at least partially in his general introduction. This omission is all the more unfortunate given the dearth of readily accessible information about Weyl's life available elsewhere. For however mundane his outward existence may have been, the reader cannot be expected to appreciate the interplay between the world Weyl knew and his creative responses to it without fairly detailed knowledge of his biography. Shorn from these contexts, it becomes difficult to form a flesh‐and‐blood image of Weyl beyond the cliché‐ridden stereotype that sees him as a “heroic thinker in the grand German tradition.” While none of the authors falls into this trap, the collective impression they leave suggests a most enigmatic figure. Either Weyl the man tends to get lost in the shadows of his collected scientific output or he appears as a mystic loner, an outcast who abhorred the machine age in which he lived. Closer attention to the people in his life would no doubt produce a very different picture of the man and his interests. This major lacuna notwithstanding, the present volume will surely remain an indispensable resource for any future investigations of Weyl's staggering intellectual achievements. (shrink)

Originally published in 1985, this is a short meditation by a great old man on people relating to other people who are dying, and the need for all of us to open ...

Anwander questions "the role that Pogge assigns to benefiting from injustice in the determination of our duties toward the victims of injustice... challenging his claim that there is a negative duty not to benefit from injustice.".

Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this (...) crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specificFOXP2mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977). (shrink)

Why do laws and regulations marking boundaries between humans and other animals proliferate amid widespread proclamations of the waning of the species concept and the consensus that life is a continuum? Here I consider a recent spate of new guidelines and regulations in the United Kingdom and United States that work to estrange human bodies from other animals in biomedicine. Using the idea of a bioconstitutional moment to understand how state institutions deliberate over “human–animal chimeras,” I address how nations differently (...) establish separations between humans and other animals. New chimeric entities, containing human hereditary material, have consecrated regulatory ground and signify increased attention to fields of research that have long used interspecies mixing. Regulators and policy makers now find themselves in a curious position. On the one hand, they continue to regulate the estrangement between humans and other animals, but on the other, they support the creation of chimeric life––a form of life that draws into question the very basis of such separations. (shrink)

This article explores the contemporary scientific practice of human genome science in light of Michel Foucault’s articulation of the problem of population. Rather than transcending the politics of social categories and identities, human genome research mobilizes many different kinds of populations. How then might we aim to avoid overgeneralized readings of the refiguring of human difference in the life sciences and grapple with the multiple and contradictory logics of population classification? In exploring the study of human variation through the case (...) of the ‘Quebec founder population’ at a private genome research laboratory in Canada, the article argues that the power to define and shape meanings of human variation and to organize vitality is not held by any one institution or form of scientific practice. While molecular genomics may be transforming conceptions of human difference, the laboratory is only one of many places where human genomic variation accrues value, meaning and relevance. Molecular configurations of human difference gain meaning through a traffic in populations that extends beyond the laboratory. In the case explored here this traffic in populations is constituted within a nexus of empire, national census practices and contemporary articulations of multicultural policies. (shrink)

Michel Foucault entwickelt sich gegenwartig zweifellos zu einer der neuen Bezugsgrossen des padagogischen Diskurses: Nach einer langen Phase grosser Widerstande innerhalb der deutschsprachigen Erziehungswissenschaft werden jetzt die ...

English summary: With his research on early Greek philosophy, Hermann Diels created the definitive works of his era, and his Fragments of the Presocratics remains the standard work on the topic. However, the scholar never published a panorama of his unmatched knowledge. For the first time, a transcript of the lecture in which Diels represented his vision of Hellenic thought is now available. The script from the 1897/98 winter semester documents the oratory and pedagogy of the great Hellenist and (...) was provided by one of his exceptional students, the Munich-based Egyptologist Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing. Diels proved himself as a clear-headed thinker discussing the historical course of early proverbial wisdom, the natural and political theory of Plato, and the conceptual precision of Aristotle. Central figures such as Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus are concisely drawn and colored. Thus the text offers an absorbing picture of the origins of theoretical consciousness in Europe. German text. German description: Mit seinen Forschungen zur fruehgriechischen Philosophie hat Hermann Diels Epoche gemacht; seine aFragmente der Vorsokratiker sind weiterhin das Standardwerk zum Thema. Nie jedoch hat der Gelehrte ein Panorama seines unerreichten Wissens veroffentlicht. Erstmals wird nun eine Mitschrift jener Vorlesung zuganglich, in der Diels seine Sicht des hellenischen Denkens darstellte. Das Skript aus dem Wintersemester 1897/98 dokumentiert vorzueglich Sprachkraft und Padagogik des grossen Grazisten; es stammt von einem Ausnahme-Studenten, dem spateren Muenchner Agyptologen Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing.Im historischen Gang von frueher Spruchweisheit bis zur Natur- und Staatslehre Platons und der begrifflichen Prazisionsarbeit des Aristoteles hebt Diels besonders das Fortwirken grosser Denkmuster hervor. Zentrale Gestalten wie Anaximander, Heraklit, Parmenides oder Demokrit sind pragnant und farbig gezeichnet. So bietet der Text ueber seinen fachhistorischen Wert hinaus ein fesselndes Bild der Urspruenge theoretischen Bewusstseins in Europa. (shrink)

Conscious existence is the product of a neural brain mechanism, which is largely identical with Immanuel Kant's Oneness Function, a service performed by 200 million neurons in the prefrontal lobe, & makes possible our interior cosmos, the record of our interconnected, or general, experience. Essential for us humans is the well-being of our interior cosmos, or Saint Teresa of Avila's interior castle, in all interactions with each other \& the greater environment. Any disorders of our cosmos are liable to make (...) us fall ill, setting our existence on a path of psychosomatic etiology of a large class of mysterious undiagnosed diseases. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroscience lead to a wider realm for philosophy to include the science of the Darwinian-evolved computational brain, our inner world producing organ, a non-recursive super- Turing machine combining 100B synapsing-neuron DNA-computers based on the genetic code. The whole system is a logos machine offering a world map for global context, essential for our intentional grasp of opportunities. We start from the observable contrast between the chaotic universe vs. our orderly inner world, the noumenal cosmos. So far, philosophy (...) has been rehearsing our thoughts, our human-internal world, a grand painting of the outer world, how we comprehend subjectively our experience, worked up by the logos machine, but now we seek a wider horizon, how humans understand the world thanks to Darwinian evolution to adapt in response to the metaphysical gap, the chasm between the human animal and its environment, shaping the organism so it can deal with its variable world. This new horizon embraces global context coded in neural structures that support the noumenal cosmos, our inner mental world, for us as denizens of the outer environment. Kant’s inner and outer senses are fundamental ingredients of scientific philosophy. Several sections devoted to Heidegger, his lizard debunked, but his version of the metaphysical gap & his doctrine of the logos praised. Rorty and others of the behaviorist school discussed also. (shrink)

Impressions, energy radiated by phenomena in the momentary environmental scene, enter sensory neurons, creating in afferent nerves a data stream. Following Kant, by our inner sense the mind perceives its own thoughts as it ties together sense data into an internalized scene. The mind, residing in the brain, logically a Language Machine, processes and stores items as coded grammatical entities. Kantian synthetic unity in the linguistic brain is able to deliver our experience of the scene as we appear to see (...) it. Uniquely, the brain records its own history, synthesizing a Movie-in-the-Brain, called the Noumenal Cosmos. Attempting thereby to represent the actual Universe, this makes for a sovereign brain that governs itself. The brain is domicile of an Ego, with its selfhood at stake at all times. Yet, it can know itself only by its actions, in which it appears as an actor in its own movie. Phenomena enter garbled, as confused apparitions, and must be put in good form using top–down feedback control by Ego, so that each movie frame makes rational sense within the overall context of the Noumenal Cosmos. A stack of frames is processed typically in 40 Hz rhythm with 300 ms process time each, for about 12 in the stack at any time. Successive neural centers are processing the stack in the brain assembly line, based on data from increasingly global receptive fields. Ego stitches together the movie frames, but only the top frame is in consciousness for 25 ms. The top frame contains the whole scene where the Ego makes an appearance as the actor that imposes Kantian synthetic unity on the scene, merely an assembly of grammatical texts, in a system-internal coded process language, fitting the scene into the Noumenal Cosmos. But Ego observes Ego only to the extent permitted by the objectivity rule, only what it does and thinks, not its true face. From the Noumenal Cosmos, the Ego receives grammatical messages in the internal sense code. They are integrated into a whole in the reaction of the Ego to the momentary scene. The voluntary nature of Ego’s decisions is explained, based on its ability to code in advance its own actions sequentially in time, as it sees fit with a view to an orderly Noumenal Cosmos, records of code being arranged spatially in neural structures. (shrink)

Carey's book on conceptual change and the accompanying argument that children's biology initially is organized in terms of naïve psychology has sparked a great detail of research and debate. This body of research on children's biology has, however, been almost exclusively been based on urban, majority culture children in the US or in other industrialized nations. The development of folkbiological knowledge may depend on cultural and experiential background. If this is the case, then urban majority culture children may prove to (...) be the exception rather than the rule, because plants and animals do not play a significant role in their everyday life. Urban majority culture children, rural majority culture children, and rural Native American children were given a property projection task based on Carey's original paradigm. Each group produced a unique profile of development. Only urban children showed evidence for early anthropocentrism, suggesting that the co-mingling of psychology and biology may be a product of an impoverished experience with nature. In comparison to urban majority culture children even the youngest rural children generalized in terms of biological affinity. In addition, all ages of Native American children and the older rural majority culture children gave clear evidence of ecological reasoning. These results show that both culture and expertise play a role in the development of folkbiological thought. (shrink)

Das Gewissen spielt im Leben und Werk von John Henry Newman eine zentrale Rolle. Seine Lehre uber das Gewissen ist im allgemeinen bekannt und anerkannt. Ebenso charakteristisch ist fur ihn aber das Streben nach dem Licht der Wahrheit. Der Autor behandelt in dieser Studie das Verhaltnis von Gewissen und Wahrheit bei Newman: ein Thema, das in dieser Weise in der Newman-Forschung bisher nicht erortert worden ist; ein Thema, das im Kontext der heute um sich greifenden Subjektivierung und Autonomisierung des Gewissens (...) von grundlegender Bedeutung ist.". (shrink)

The objective of this article is to analyse and compare four methods of ethical case deliberation. These include Clinical Pragmatism, The Nijmegen Method of ethical case deliberation, Hermeneutic dialogue, and Socratic dialogue. The origin of each method will be briefly sketched. Furthermore, the methods as well as the related protocols will be presented. Each method will then be evaluated against the background of those situations in which it is being used. The article aims to show that there is not one (...) ideal method of ethical case deliberation, which fits to all possible kinds of moral problems. Rather, as each of the methods highlights a limited number of morally relevant aspects, each method has its strengths and weaknesses as well. These strengths and weaknesses should be evaluated in relation to different types of situations, for instance moral problems in treatment decisions, moral uneasiness and residue, and the like. The suggestion arrived at on the basis of the findings of this paper is a reasonable methodological plurality. This means that a method can be chosen depending on the type of moral problem to be deliberated upon. At the same time it means, that by means of a method, deliberation should be facilitated. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of the debate about ethical expertise for the practice of clinical ethics. We present definitions, explain three theories of ethical expertise, and identify arguments that have been brought up to either support the concept of ethical expertise or call it into question. Finally, we discuss four theses: the debate is relevant for the practice of clinical ethics in that it (1) improves and specifies clinical ethicists' perception of their expertise; (2) contributes to improving the perception (...) of moral competence of non-ethicists; (3) gives insight into complementary styles of argumentation of ethicists and non-ethicists; and (4) contributes to the awareness of the problem of profession-building of (clinical) ethicists. (shrink)