Integration und Desintegration sind ein zentrales Thema der Geisteswissenschaften. Auf makropolitischer Ebene gilt das besondere Interesse dem Entstehen und Vergehen von Staaten, entscheiden sich doch hiermit existenzielle Fragen des Seins einer politischen Gemeinschaft. Auf mikropolitischer Ebene geht es um die Frage, inwieweit dem Bürger "aufgegeben" ist, sich in Gesellschaft und Staat zu integrieren. Supranationalisierung und Globalisierung lassen die Kraft des Nationalstaates schwinden. Dem Übergang der Moderne in die Postmoderne entspricht der Übergang von der Welt der Staaten mit ihren durch Grenzen (...) abgeschlossenen Territorien zur Welt der Kontinente, Gemeinschaften und Netzwerke. Doch gibt es viele Stimmen, die meinen, der Staat sei auf absehbare Zeit nicht wegzudenken und als politische Gemeinschaft zu schützen.Werner Mäder ist anderer Auffassung: "Deutschland ist kein Staat mehr..." lautet sein Befund. Der Autor zieht Parallelen zu Hegels Schrift "Kritik der Verfassung Deutschlands" aus dem Jahre 1801 und seinen Kriterien des Staates. Nach Mäder ist das Grundgesetz nur noch eine "Gedankenverfassung", seine fundamentalen Voraussetzungen Staat, Souveränität, Nation, Volk und Demokratie substanziell ausgezehrt. Für Europa bedeutet dies, sich mit eigener Identität selbst zu behaupten, um den Souveränitätsverlust seiner Länder auszugleichen und auf eine neue Multipolarität der internationalen Beziehungen hinzuarbeiten. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the (...) limits of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-looking in time (...) leads to the unattractive conclusion that every truth is necessary. I argue that the classic dispositionalist should be troubled by this result and in the second part of the paper I suggest a novel variant of dispositionalism that avoids it. This extended form of dispositionalism allows that some propositions are only indirectly underwritten by dispositions. (shrink)

Stance-independent nonnaturalist moral realism is subject to two related epistemological objections. First, there is the metaethical descendant of the Benacerraf problem. Second, there are evolutionary debunking arguments. Standard attempts to solve these epistemological problems have not appealed to any particular moral epistemology. The focus on these epistemologically neutral responses leaves many interesting theoretical stones unturned. Exploring the ability of particular theories in moral epistemology to handle these difficult epistemological objections can help illuminate strengths or weaknesses within these theories themselves, as (...) well as opening up potentially unexplored avenues for responding to deeply entrenched concerns about our epistemic access to the moral properties. In this paper, I assess the prospects of an empiricist and perceptualist model of moral knowledge for responding to epistemological arguments against non-skeptical moral realism. I argue that such a view has powerful responses to these objections that are not open to other moral epistemologists. The upshot is that if some version of the view is correct, then the realist has less to fear from Benacerraf and evolutionary debunking–style epistemological objections. Insofar as one is already a committed realist, then, this provides some indirect support for moral perceptualism. (shrink)

Affective congruency effects in the evaluation task can be explained by either spreading of activation or response competition. Eliminating effects of response compatibility by using other tasks (semantic categorisation, naming task) typically also eliminates affective congruency effects. However, there is no need for processing the affective information of the stimuli in these tasks either, which could be necessary for an affectively mediated spreading of activation (Spruyt et al., 2007, 2009, 2012). We introduced a new task to further test this hypothesis. (...) The valent/neutral-categorisation task does not confound affective congruency with response compatibility, but still requires a processing of the stimuli's valence. No affective congruency effect was obtained with this task in two experiments, disfavouring a conditional spreading activation account. On the other hand, a significant priming effect was found for associated word pairs in Experiment 1, providing evidence for the sensitivity of the task to detect spreading activation processes. (shrink)

Schon seit ihrer Gr ndung in den 1970er-Jahren ist die Reihe Germanistische Linguistik (RGL) exponiertes Forum des Faches, dessen Namen sie im Titel f hrt. Hinsichtlich der thematischen Breite (Sprachebenen, Variet ten, Kommunikationsformen, Epochen), der Forschungsperspektiven (Theorie und Empirie, Grundlagenforschung und Anwendung, Inter- und Transdisziplinarit t) und des methodologischen Spektrums ist die Reihe offen angelegt. Das Aufgreifen neuer Trends hat in ihr ebenso Platz wie das Fortf hren von Bew hrtem. Die Publikationsformen reichen von Monographien und Sammelb nden bis zu (...) W rterb chern. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat (ab November 2011): Prof. Dr. Karin Donhauser (Berlin) Prof. Dr. Stephan Elspa (Augsburg) Prof. Dr. Helmuth Feilke (Gie en) Prof. Dr. J rg Fleischer (Marburg) Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid (Siegen) Prof. Dr. R diger Harnisch (Passau). (shrink)

This paper argues that institutions are higher-level autonomous systems enacted by patterns of participatory sense-making. Therefore, unlike in the standard equilibrium theory, institutions are not themselves thought of as behavioural patterns. Instead, they are problem domains that these patterns have brought forth. Moreover, these are not merely any patterns, but only those devoted to maintaining a specific strategy of problem solving, called the strategy of ‘letting be’. The latter refers to, following Hanne de Jaegher, a balance between underdetermination and overdetermination (...) of individual behaviour by a collective. Such an understanding of institutions becomes an option once a hybrid ‘equilibrium + rules’ theory of institutions, such as the one proposed by Frank Hindriks, is supplemented with insights from enactivism. In this light, drawing a connection between these two areas is the additional, meta-theoretical goal of this paper. This connection is beneficial, I argue, in particular since it allows for a satisfactory, in-depth account of the normative character of institutions as well as their local character. (shrink)

The article examines philosophical conceptions of responsibility found in the contributions of Martin Buber, Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Levinas. It argues that, despite the significant differences of these contributions, they all share important goals, significant structural features, and corresponding challenges. All three thinkers try to overcome the solipsistic limitations of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology as well as the egocentrism of Heidegger’s concept of "solicitude" or "self-care." All three try to overcome the Kantian subject-object dichotomy. All three understand responsibility as a bipolar (...) relation only. In consequence, all of them face similar challenges resulting from new forms of dichotomies and the exclusion of “thirdness” that are the result of their conceptual decisions. (shrink)

Marx’s polemic against Proudhon represents a crucial stage in the development of his dialectical method and his conception of history and progress. The critique of Proudhon demonstrates Marx’s hostility towards the very teleological account of social change of which he has himself been accused. In order to redress this imbalance, the break with Proudhon is presented here as a result of Marx’s rejection of the speculative Hegelian dialectic. This rejection is an exercise in self-criticism that is highly relevant to our (...) understanding of Marxian theory in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Between Deleuze and DerridaMary Beth MaderPaul Patton and John Protevi, editors. Between Deleuze and Derrida. New York: Continuum, 2003. Pp. ix + 207. Cloth, $105.00. Paper, $29.95.One of the many provisions of Gilles Deleuze's prodigious philosophical invention, Difference and Repetition, is an ontological account of how invention is actual. That book itself is an instance of that of which it offers an account. An element of this account (...) is the notion of an intensive system. The intensive system is proposed as a way in which novelty and movement come about. It requires as its basic constituents two heterogeneous organized series which are put into communication through their differences, producing a resonance internal to the system which then yields a novel forced movement. Several of the essays in Between Deleuze and Derrida so put the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida into communication as to themselves amount to intensive systems: movement and novelty emerge in our grasp of the separate oeuvres of the two philosophers.Essays by Daniel W. Smith and Leonard Lawlor tackle in detail the task of comparative explication. Since Deleuze and Derrida treat many of the same philosophical topics, often employing identical terms, these clear cases for their divergences and similarities are especially useful. Smith's historical situation of Deleuze and Derrida relative to the thought of Duns Scotus, Spinoza, Kant and Nietzsche is exemplary. Dense with connections, Lawlor's decisive expositions pursue the implications of his interpretative distinctions rigorously to their ends, tracing the divergent constructions of the two thinkers to a common source in the notion of a simulacrum. Smith and Lawlor themselves part company, however, over the issue of whether Derrida and Deleuze are best characterized as philosophers of immanence or transcendence. Paul Patton crafts a sophisticated cross-reading of their shared vision of philosophy as a "utopian vocation," without homogenizing the differing voices they hear in this call or its unshared ontology.Branka Arsiæ's imaginative contribution on the topic of passive events and Melville's Bartleby is enlightening even without mention of Deleuze's notion of static ordinal genesis. The essays of John Protevi and Tamsin Lorraine are also rich in philosophical imagination. Protevi's extension of Derrida's aporias of the gift and friendship to an "aporia of love" illuminates Derrida's own evolution while refusing a version of undecidability that remains in static indecision. His discussion of Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the girl, with its isotropic implications for sexuality per se, is one of the best in print. Lorraine displays the novelty of Deleuze and Derrida's post-Heideggerian thought on the temporality of sense and the limits of representation in readings of Alice in Wonderland and Hamlet that clarify by example some of the more forbiddingly elaborate proposals in the philosophy of time that these thinkers offer.Arkady Plotnitsky's chapter addresses the crucial questions of Deleuze's and Derrida's relations to various sub-fields of mathematics and happily considers Derrida, with his deployment of a notion of undecidability, as a legatee of Gödel. It is confusing, however, that this stimulating essay treats Deleuze's and Derrida's invocations of algebra, geometry and topology by means of the "tropes" of "algebra, geometry and topology." This is especially puzzling in the case of Deleuze, whose use of mathematics in Difference and Repetition is avowedly not metaphorical. Further, although algebra is said to be the prime instrument of Plotnitsky's analysis, it turns out that "the general quasi-algebraic inscriptive structure or operation" (111; my italics) is most fundamental to that analysis. For this reason, it would be preferable to locate in both Deleuze and Derrida a post-structuralist concern with structure itself, making "algebra" another in the Derridean syntagmatic chain of names for a descendent of "structure."The book does contain some disappointing stretches. Eric Alliez's chapter does not read well despite its reliable translation. Alphonso Lingis's ruminations of a blithely bewildered Western roamer ("you" and then "me") on his "detour into exoticism" thanks to the "willing" concupiscence of an Asian female bed-mate ("she" and never "you" or "me") make one regret the era of easy... (shrink)

Wenn die Rede auf den Fortschritt kommt, geht es um die Verbesserung der menschlichen Lebensverhältnisse. Doch die Erfahrungen modernen Gesellschaften mit Tyrannei, Kriegen, Wirtschaftskrisen und Umweltzerstörung haben das Vertrauen in die Überwindung natürlicher Abhängigkeiten und sozialer Über erschüttert. Viele sehen heute im Fortschritt eine bloße Illusion oder einen Mythos. Es scheint mir angesichts der allgegenwärtigen scharfen Kritik an der Fortschrittsidee im zeitgenössischen Denken angebracht, von einer Psychologie des Fortschritts zu sprechen. Damit meine ich nicht das Fühlen und Verhalten, das Fortschritt (...) bedingt oder umgekehrt durch ihn hervorgerufen wird; ich meine die Psychologisierung des Fortschritts: die Annahme, er sei eine reine Kopfsache, etwas Ausgedachtes oder Erhofftes, das sich durch seine Projektion auf historische oder soziale Prozesse zu einer gefahrvollen Erzählung verfestigt. "Psychologisierung des Fortschritts" ist also meine Chiffre für die projektivistische Fortschrittskritik, die ich hier ihrerseits kritisiere und der ich ein kulturalistisches Menschenbild entgegensetze. (shrink)

The modern idea of progress assumes that time will bring a steady improvement in all things human. This idea was always a contested one. However, since the mid-20th century at the latest philosophical thought about progress has been almost exclusively critical. The present paper introduces the standard arguments of progress’s detractors, particularly the notion that progress should be understood dialectically as the transformation of good intentions into their opposite. It attempts to sketch a more timely conception of progress in opposition (...) to this line of thought. (shrink)

This paper discusses a puzzle raised by Sharon Berry, published in Analysis. The question in the background of this puzzle is how we should deal with seemingly plausible possibility judgements that commit us to counterfactual truths that find no basis in reality. Three answers to this question and their corresponding solutions to the puzzle will be discussed. The last answer provides a way to make sense of the claim that it is in some cases indeterminate whether a proposition is possible (...) and offers an account of indeterminate modal status. (shrink)

Die hier versammelten Beiträge analysieren Typen und Funktionen der Ambiguität an Beispielen aus der mittelalterlichen bis zur zeitgenössischen Kunst.

INTRODUCTION WERNER ABRAHAM, LACI MARÁCZ, SJAAK DE MEY & WIM SCHERPENISSE University of Groningen The Groningen Conference on Topic, ...

The main designs of modern theories of syntax assume a process of syntagmatic organization. However, research on first language acquisition leaves no doubt that the structured combination of single lexical items cannot begin until a critical mass of lexical items has been acquired such that the lexicon is structured hierarchically on the basis of hierarchical feature bundling. Independent of a decision between the main views about the design of a proto language (the grammarless “Holophrastic view”,Arbib & Bickerton 2010: 1,Bickerton 2014) (...) or the ‘Compositional View’ as taken byRizzi (2010),Carstairs-McCarthy (2010), and others. What seems to be the minimal offset for language is the existence of grammatical categories like verb and noun, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, functional categories as needed for the expression of all kinds of agreement between the distinct categories to form recursively structured complexes. I follow the different stages of complexification asking whether there is paradigmatic next to syntagmatic organization and what its added value is for the evolution of grammar. The conclusion will be that paradigmatics is an indismissible part of the organization of early language in that it structures the lexicon so as to make primary and secondary syntactic merge possible and, consequently, is also a prerequisite for movement. The guiding idea of this position is Roman Jakobson’s insistence on the twofold organization of language and grammar. The two organizational designs, syntagmatics and paradigmatics, are manifest within each module: in the phonetic, the morphological, the syntactic, the semantic, and the pragmatic form (consider Jakobson’s1971a,breiterated argument). (shrink)

This collection broadens the scientific discussion of modularity by bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, including artificial life, ...