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Critical anthropology? On the relation between philosophical anthropology and critical theory
(2022)
This article compares Max Horkheimer's and Theodor W. Adorno's foundation of the Frankfurt Critical Theory with Helmuth Plessner's foundation of Philosophical Anthropology.
While Horkheimer's and Plessner's paradigms are mutually incompatible, Adorno's << negative dialectics >> and Plessner's << negative anthropology >> (G. Gamm) can be seen as complementing one another.
Jurgen Habermas at one point sketched a complementary relationship between his own publicly communicative theory of modern society and Plessner's philosophy of nature and human expressivity, and though he then came to doubt this, he later reaffirmed it. Faced with the << life power >> in << high capitalism >> (Plessner), the ambitions for a public democracy in a pluralistic society have to be broadened from an argumentative focus (Habermas) to include the human condition and the expressive modes of our experience as essentially embodied persons. The article discusses some possible aspects of this complementarity under the title of a << critical anthropology >> (H. Schnädelbach).
The aim of the paper is to defend the project of transforming philosophy carried out in my book 'Vernunft und Temperament. Eine Philosophie der Philosophie'.
In section 1, I distinguish between five philosophical genres in which transformation plays a role: 1. academic texts in which transformation is simply a topic; 2. texts meant to adequately articulate through their form the transformative experiences of their authors; 3. texts aiming to enable the reader to transform herself; 4. texts on other texts; 5. manifestos defending the project of transforming philosophy.
Section 2 is such a manifesto. Its main thesis is: "What makes somebody - anybody - a good philosopher is that she is a real human being. " Many of the remaining 16 theses of the manifesto are elaborations on this main thesis. One example is the thesis that the philosophical activity is essentially a becoming - the development of an individual human being.
Skepticism
(2022)
This dissertation offers new and original readings of three major texts in the history of Western philosophy: Descartes’s “First Meditation,” Kant’s “Transcendental Deduction,” and his “Refutation of Idealism.” The book argues that each text addresses the problem of skepticism and posits that they have a hitherto underappreciated, organic relationship to one another. The dissertation begins with an analysis of Descartes’ “First Meditation,” which I argue offers two distinct and independent skeptical arguments that differ in both aim and scope. I call these arguments the “veil of ideas” argument and the “author of my origin” argument. My reading counters the standard interpretation of the text, which sees it as offering three stages of doubt, namely the occasional fallibility of the senses, the dream hypothesis, and the evil demon hypothesis. Building on this, the central argument of the dissertation is that Kant’s “Transcendental Deduction” actually transforms and radicalizes Descartes’s Author of My Origin argument, reconceiving its meaning within the framework of Kant’s own transcendental idealist philosophy. Finally, I argue that the Refutation of Idealism offers a similarly radicalized version of Descartes’s Veil of Ideas argument, albeit translated into the framework of transcendental idealism.
Ein Recht gegen das Recht
(2022)
The conception of property at the basis of Hegel’s conception of abstract right seems committed to a problematic form of “possessive individualism.” It seems to conceive of right as the expression of human mastery over nature and as based upon an irreducible opposition of person and nature, rightful will, and rightless thing. However, this chapter argues that Hegel starts with a form of possessive individualism only to show that it undermines itself. This is evident in the way Hegel unfolds the nature of property as it applies to external things as well as in the way he explains our self-ownership of our own bodies and lives. Hegel develops the idea of property to a point where it reaches a critical limit and encounters the “true right” that life possesses against the “formal” and “abstract right” of property. Ultimately, Hegel’s account suggests that nature should precisely not be treated as a rightless object at our arbitrary disposal but acknowledged as the inorganic body of right.
In his 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx famously claims that the human being is or has a ‘Gattungswesen.’ This is often understood to mean that the human being is a ‘species-being’ and is determined by a given ‘species-essence.’ In this chapter, I argue that this reading is mistaken. What Marx calls Gattungswesen is precisely not a ‘species-being,’ but a being that, in a very specific sense, transcends the limits of its own given species. This different understanding of the genus- character of the human being opens up a new perspective on the naturalism of the early Marx. He is not informed by a problematic speciesist and essentialist naturalism, as is often assumed, but by a different form of naturalism which I propose to call ‘dialectical naturalism.’ The chapter starts (I) by developing Hegel’s account of genus which provides us with a useful background for (II) understanding Marx’s original notion of a genus-being and its practical, social, developmental character. In the last section, I show that (III) the actualization of our genus-being thus depends on the production of a specific type of ‘second nature’ that is at the heart of Marx’s dialectical naturalism.
Die "europäischen Wilden"
(2023)
The art of second nature
(2022)
Der Kunst wird seit langem nachgesagt, dem Subjekt ein anderes Verhältnis zur Natur zu eröffnen, als dies die gewöhnliche theoretische oder praktische Erkenntnis ermöglicht. Statt die Natur zum distanzierten Objekt unserer Betrachtung zu machen oder zum bloßen Material und Mittel unserer praktischen Konstruktionen, erschließt sich uns in der Kunst eine Intelligibilität der Natur, die weiter reicht als unsere Begriffe, und eine Natürlichkeit unserer selbst, die uns mit dem verbindet, was uns sonst bloß gegenübersteht. Vor diesem Hintergrund scheint es nicht verwunderlich, dass die jüngeren Diskussionen um das problematische Verhältnis zur Natur, die das Anthropozän geprägt haben, immer wieder den Blick auf die Kunst richten und ihr Vermögen hervorheben, den problematischen modernen Gegensatz von Subjekt und Objekt, Geist und Natur zu überwinden, der uns in diese missliche Lage gebracht hat. Wenn die Kunst hier aber weiterführen soll, dann muss sie über die klassischen ästhetischen Paradigmen des Schönen und des Erhabenen hinausführen. Das Schöne träumt von einer Passung von Subjekt und Natur, die im Anthropozän gerade in Frage steht, und das Erhabene verwendet die Übermacht der Natur als Vehikel, um eine Macht im intelligiblen Subjekt zu markieren, die von der natürlichen Übermacht unberührt bleibt. Diese klassischen Figuren ästhetischer Erfahrung verstellen so, wie tiefgreifend wir das Naturverhältnis neu bestimmen müssen, um auf das Anthropozän zu antworten.
Ausgehend von Überlegungen des anthropologisch orientierten Psychiaters Erwin Straus geht dieses Buch der Frage nach, welche Bedingungen vorliegen, wenn bestimmte Ereignisse von Personen als bedeutsam erlebt werden. Des Weiteren wird ausführlich erörtert, wie sich Personalität im Menschen ausbildet und inwieweit sie von der gelingenden Integration bedeutungsvoller Ersterlebnisse abhängt. Das dabei zugrundeliegende Person-Konzept stellt einen eigenständigen Syntheseversuch der vier Konzepte von Erwin Straus, Viktor Emil von Gebsattel, Helmuth Plessner und Max Scheler dar. Der Autor arbeitet in oberärztlicher Funktion am Klinikum Schloss Lütgenhof in Dassow, einer Akutklinik für Personale Medizin, integrierte Psychosomatik, Innere Medizin und Psychotherapie
I argue that Hegel’s Logic traces an emergent-purposive, logical method that entails two key identities in reason. These identities are (1) between a logic of freedom and necessity, and (2) between the possibilities of a priori and a posteriori reasoning in a purposive method. The purposive method of the Logic is the basis for these identities and, in Hegel’s view, facilitates the transition from Kant’s transcendental idealism to absolute idealism. I suggest that this method is Hegel’s attempt to rework a critique of philosophy according to Kant’s insight about the principle grounding the formal purposiveness of the faculties, what Hegel calls, “one of Kant’s greatest services to philosophy.”
Introduction
(2021)
Kant wrote in the Critique of Pure Reason, “For the law of reason to seek unity is necessary, since without it we would have no reason, and without that, no coherent use of the understanding, and, lacking that, no sufficient mark of empirical truth.” This unity of reason, taken as a holistic condition, was central to the convictions of the idealists. To them, Kant layed bare the right path forward, but also fundamental failings in his execution of a critique of reason which needed to be overcome in order for reason to secure its own, internal end. In this chapter, I discuss key themes in the positive inheritance of Kant’s thought in classical German philosophy and offer an overview of the arguments and significances of each contribution to this volume. The aim is not to minimize important differences between Kant and post-Kantian Idealists, but rather to emphasize core retentions of Kant’s thought.
Scholarship on German Idealism typically couches the systems of Idealism in terms of a rejection of or departure from Kant's critical philosophy. The few accounts that do look to the positive influence of Kant on the Idealists typically focus on the perceived need among the Idealists to revise Kant's system due to various shortcomings arising from his dualism. This volume seeks to reverse this norm. It does this by bringing together an original set of critical reflections on the ways in which the German Idealists maintain specific and fundamental Kantian qualities in their own systems. At the same time, the aim of this volume is not a reduction of German Idealism to Kant's thought. Instead, this volume highlights a set of core ways in which the German Idealists retain specific, fundamentally Kantian principles and qualities. To that extent, this volume paves the way for new interpretations by laying the ground for identifying those significant components of German Idealism that can defensibly be called "Kantian.
The mirror stage is one of Jacques Lacan's most well-received metapsychological models in the English-speaking world. In its many renditions Lacan elucidates the different forms of identification that lead to the construction of the Freudian ego. This article utilizes Lacan's mirror stage to provide a novel perspective on autistic embodiment. It develops an integrative model that accounts for the progression of four distinct forms of autistic identification in the mirror stage; these forms provide the basis for the development of four different clinical trajectories in the treatment of autism. This model is posed as an alternative to the clinical and diagnostic framework associated with the autistic spectrum disorder.
Hegel's many remarks that seem to imply that philosophy should proceed completely a priori pose a problem for his philosophy of nature since, on this reading, Hegel offers an a priori derivation of empirical results of natural sciences. We show how this perception can be mitigated by interpreting Hegel's remarks as broadly in line with the pre-Kantian rationalist notion of a priori and offer reasons for doing so. We show that, rather than being a peculiarity of Hegel's philosophy, the practice of demonstrating a priori the results of empirical sciences was widespread in the pre-Kantian rationalist tradition. We argue that this practice was intelligible in light of the notion of a priori that was still quite prominent during Hegel's life. This notion of a priori differs from Kant's in that, while the latter's notion concerns propositions, the former concerned only their demonstration. According to it, the same proposition could be demonstrated both a posteriori and a priori. Post-Kantian idealists likewise developed projects of demonstrating specific scientific contents a priori. We then make our discussion more concrete by examining a particular case of an a priori derivation of a natural law, namely the law of fall, by both Leibniz and Hegel.
On the classical understanding, an agent is fully excused for an action if and only if performing this action was a case of faultless wrongdoing. A major motivation for this view is the apparent existence of paradigmatic types of excusing considerations, affecting fault but not wrongness. I show that three such considerations, ignorance, duress and compulsion, can be shown to have direct bearing on the permissibility of actions. The appeal to distinctly identifiable excusing considerations thus does not stand up to closer scrutiny, undermining the classical view and giving us reason to seek alternative ways of drawing the justification/excuse distinction.
Aging in speech production is a multidimensional process. Biological, cognitive, social, and communicative factors can change over time, stay relatively stable, or may even compensate for each other. In this longitudinal work, we focus on stability and change at the laryngeal and supralaryngeal levels in the discourse particle euh produced by 10 older French-speaking females at two times, 10 years apart. Recognizing the multiple discourse roles of euh, we divided out occurrences according to utterance position. We quantified the frequency of euh, and evaluated acoustic changes in formants, fundamental frequency, and voice quality across time and utterance position. Results showed that euh frequency was stable with age. The only acoustic measure that revealed an age effect was harmonics-to-noise ratio, showing less noise at older ages. Other measures mostly varied with utterance position, sometimes in interaction with age. Some voice quality changes could reflect laryngeal adjustments that provide for airflow conservation utterance-finally. The data suggest that aging effects may be evident in some prosodic positions (e.g., utterance-final position), but not others (utterance-initial position). Thus, it is essential to consider the interactions among these factors in future work and not assume that vocal aging is evident throughout the signal.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was perhaps the last polymath among the great Germanic philosophers. Switching with ease and elegance between epistemic positions and fields as diverse as idealism and empiricism, fideism and rationalism, realism and nominalism, art and religion, jurisprudence and politics, psychology and occultism, Schopenhauer erected an imposing edifice bearing testimony to his universal learning. This study is an investigation into the very conclusion of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and endeavours to answer the following question: did Schopenhauer’s doctrine of salvation issue forth organically from his intellectual output or was it annexed to his philosophy as a result of his critical engagement with religion? The labyrinthine paths through which Schopenhauer arrives at the soteriological culmination of his philosophy are subjected to critical assessment; the picture that emerges is of a philosopher who seemed convinced that he had solved some of the most pressing cosmic riddles to have tormented mankind through the ages.
Dotting the “I think”
(2023)
This chapter discusses a central problem in Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In a statement of the form “I think p”, the words “I think” do not contribute to the content, and yet they are not redundant. In other words, a thinking subject is not something and yet not nothing. But then in what sense is a thinking subject a part of the world? The problem is intractable on a merely negative understanding of “I think”, like Anscombe’s merely negative thesis, endorsed by Rödl, that “I” is not a referring expression. In search of a positive understanding, this chapter proposes to understand “I think” by comparison to “hello”. A speaking subject is the expression of mutual presence in conversation – in that sense a limit of the world. Such expression may be compared to facial expression, with the crucial difference that a verbal expression can be taken up – i.e., repeated – in the third person. A speaking subject, then, is potentially absent from conversation, and in that sense a part of the world.
In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity and self-consciousness can only be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant’s account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel’s account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with Rödl’s characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature.
Ein Recht gegen das Recht
(2022)
Dispersing the fog
(2020)
Countries in the Middle East generally fare poorly in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. One of the biggest challenges for the anti-corruption-regime in the Middle East are the many forms of corruption that are not being recognised as such on the local level, if assessed against a culturally relativistic benchmark. Our paper seeks to establish a unifying ground by providing a functional analysis of corruption which is both, normatively guiding and culturally sensitive. We demarcate our work as follows: (1) our reference point will be the phenomenon of institutional corruption, whereas (2) our working definition of corruption will conceive of corruption as a violation of role-specific norms that is motivated by the role-occupier’s private motives. In an attempt to offer a comprehensive approach, corruption will be viewed on two differing levels. On the external level, we will begin with an investigation of features within a norm-order that typically instantiate corruption. We will argue that corruption is externally conditioned by an authority’s inability to enforce and (re)establish the norms of conduct that ought to be action-guiding in office. This changes the expectation-structure within a norm-order and erodes public trust in the authorities, giving rise to willing perpetrators. Complementing this, the internal level of our framework will emphasize the motivational deficits of corrupt acts. It will be argued that this deficit can typically be found in societies that lack civic virtues. This, we suspect, is the functional reason why corrupt societies have such a hard time to overcome the problem: they lack both features and are, as a consequence, caught in a vicious circle as they struggle to strengthen civil society and consolidate institutional structures – whereas corruption increasingly disappears from the radar as it becomes accepted reality.
Zeitreisen erklären
(2023)
Die vorliegende Arbeit dreht sich um die Frage, wie sich schlüssig und im Einklang mit gängigen philosophischen Modellen von Zeit und Identität über Zeitreisen sprechen lässt. Dabei läuft die Darstellung nicht auf einen einzelnen theoretischen Ansatz hinaus, sondern zeigt verschiedene Implikationen von Zeitreisen angesichts unterschiedlicher Konzepte von Zeit und Persistenz auf.
Gearbeitet wird mit den Zeitreise-Modellen von Jack Meiland (1974), Geoffrey Goddu (2003) und Peter van Inwagen (2010) und insbesondere Überlegungen zu growing block-Universen und vierdimensionaler Identität werden weitergeführt.
Schwerpunkte der Arbeit liegen einerseits auf Erklärungen zu Veränderungen der Vergangenheit und andererseits auf dem Problem der Bilokation durch Zeitreisen in Zeiten, zu denen die Zeitreisende bereits existiert.
Nicholas J. J. Smith (2015) hat als notwendige Voraussetzung für die Erklärbarkeit von Veränderungen der Vergangenheit dia-hyper-chrone Identitätsbedingungen für Jahre gefordert. Ich zeige, dass es sich hierbei um eine zu starke Forderung handelt. Demnach ist die Erklärung von Veränderungen der Vergangenheit durch Annihilation in growing block-Universen, wie Goddu und van Inwagen sie einführen, legitim.
Bilokation stellt eine Herausforderung für personale Identität dar. Ich schlage eine überarbeitete Definition von gegenwärtigen zeitlichen Teilen vor, die es zulässt, dass mehr als ein zeitlicher Teil einer diachron identischen Person synchron präsent sein kann. Auf diese Weise muss nicht zwischen zeitlichen Teilen und Personenstadien differenziert werden, wie Ted Sider (2001) es tut.
Ich komme im Rahmen dieser Arbeit zu den Ergebnissen, dass erstens bisher kein Modell von Zeit oder Persistenz bekannt ist, für das Zeitreisen grundsätzlich auszuschließen sind. Eine umfangreiche Systematik über Möglichkeiten und Implikationen von Zeitreisen bleibt jedoch lückenhaft, solange keine präsentistischen Modelle von Zeitreisen vorliegen. Zweitens erweisen sich Zeitreisen, die keine Veränderungen verursachen, nicht als weniger problematisch als Zeitreisen, die Veränderungen verursachen. Erstere werfen eigene Probleme auf, wie das Motivationsproblem und die Frage nach der Determination durch Zukunftsfakten. Drittens lassen sich trotz all der geleisteten Erklärungen weiterhin Szenarien entwickeln, die suspekt bleiben. Dies verweist auf die weiterführende Frage, inwiefern Chronologie wesentlich und unverzichtbar ist für die Intelligibilität beispielsweise sozialer Interaktionen und Institutionen.
In this paper, I discuss Karen Ng's reconstruction of Hegel's concept of life. On Ng's account, Hegel's conception of life has a remarkable double role to play: Life is both the proper object of judgment as well as a fundamental characterization of the activity of the judging subject. In a first step, I highlight the insight that Ng's account sheds on the internal connection of life and self-consciousness and the peculiar normativity of life. In a second step, I raise three concerns about Ng's strong focus on the logical notion of life which she characterizes as non-empirical and a priori. I argue that in order to uncover the full significance of the notion of life for Hegel we have to turn to his Philosophy of Nature and Spirit.
Any conception in linguistics and linguistic philosophy that prioritizes the world-disclosing function over the world-representing function of language can be regarded as a kind of linguistic hermeneutics. The paper tries to specify this general thesis by picking up and analysing historical trends in the philosophy of language. It spells out the relationship between the situatedness of locutors in the medium of linguistic practices and the way in which they (through their speech acts) articulate this medium by actualizing possibilities for personal expressivity and interpersonal communication. It is argued that the starting point from the medium that always already transcends the particular speech acts offers an alternative to inferential semantics. From the perspective of linguistic hermeneutics, the world is disclosed and exposed to ongoing articulation in characteristic hermeneutic situations of language use. The concepts of linguistic medium and discursive articulation of the world are treated in terms of hermeneutic trans- subjectivity as enabling all forms of communicative intersubjectivity. If one ignores the fore-structuring role of the former, one would hypostatise the latter. With regard to this claim, the theory of formal pragmatics is critically discussed.
Der geistig-kulturelle Umgang mit der Covid-19-Pandemie und ihrer Wirtschaftskrise als Testfall
(2021)
Why has the global West (North America, Europe) handled the covid-19 pandemic and the corresponding economic crisis so much worse than the global East (East Asia)? The crises demonstrate the degree to which the West is shaped by its forms of competition and the East by its forms of cooperation. In the West, we have become habitualised to American neoliberalism over the last two generations. In the East, varieties of neo-Confucianism and neo-Buddhism have been transformed into national cultures. The way humans understand their position in the world intellectually and react to crises according to corresponding habit makes an effective difference. The present comparison between global East and West makes use of Hannah Arendt's conception of politics and the shared world as well as of Helmuth Plessner's conception of mediated immediacy in forms of modern biopower. The pandemic is a catalyst within the decline of the West and the rise of the East.
Taking up some of W.'s paradoxical remarks about the existence of 'mental things' the paper investigates, what exactly he is criticizing. After a discussion of the mistaken idea of a private baptizing of one's own 'mental events' W.'s general criticism of the 'object-and-name model' is treated with a view on the consequences it has for our understanding of the mental. This treatment includes a discussion of figurative kinds of language use as well as a discussion of the difference between 'things' and 'objects of reference': With respect to figurative uses of language it often makes no sense to treat constituent expressions as names of objects, and not all objects of reference are things in an unproblematic ordinary-life sense. So what at first sight appears to be a limitation of our understanding of the nature of an object and consequently seems to ask for more empirical research often turns out to be a limitation of our understanding of how we use our language. The paper concludes that one important aspect of what the later W. opposes is dualism: The mental cannot be conceived of as an additional 'something' a description of which could be just added to a description of a person as a physical being. Thus W.'s anti-dualism can also be read as turning against a dualism in his Tractatus: The mental realm as well as other provinces of `the higher' are no longer seen as areas of entities about which we have to be silent.
What is it that we encountered with in our aesthetic experience of natural beauty? Does nature "figuratively speaks to us in its beautiful forms", 2 to use Kant's phrasing in the third Critique, or is it merely our way of interpreting nature whether this be its purpose or not? Kant does not answer these questions directly. Rather, he leaves the ambiguity around them by his repeated use of terminology of ciphers when it comes to our aesthetic experience in nature. This paper examines Kant's terminology of ciphers in the Critique of Judgment and demonstrate through it the intimate link aesthetic experience in natural beauty has with human morality. A link whose culmination point is embodied in the representation of beauty as a symbol of morality.
In this introductory paper, I discuss the second-personal approach to ethics and the theory of recognition as two accounts of the fundamental sociality of the human form of life. The first section delineates the deep affinities between the two approaches. They both put a reciprocal social constellation front and center from which they derive the fundamental norms of moral and social life and a social conception of freedom. The second section discusses three points of contrast between the two approaches: The accounts differ in that the second-personal approach opts for a narrower conception of recognition focusing on mutual moral accountability, whereas recognition theory suggests a broader conception including relations of love, respect, and esteem. Secondly, the accounts differ as to how they conceive of the interrelation of the I-thou and the I-We relationship. Finally, they differ with regard to the way they think of struggles for recognition. Whereas the second-personal approach suggests that we can understand struggles on the basis of a transcendental infrastructure of second-personal address, the theory of recognition considers norms of recognition as themselves constituted by dialectical social struggles. The paper closes with a reflection on the ways in which both approaches can help us understand the social vulnerability of the human form of life.
Los Libros del Tábano estrena su carrera editorial con la traducción de Kanten. Esbozos kantianos , un conjunto de ensayos escritos por Jacob Ro - gozinski entre los años ochenta y noventa que se remontan a los aspectos menos estudiados, pero que, irónicamente, resultan ser los más problemá - ticos de la filosofía de Kant. Rogozinski va a los Kanten (palabra alemana que designa los cantos, las esquinas o los bordes de un objeto) para elabo - rar el camino de un «retorno a Kant». Pero este retorno corre en dirección inversa a la de una clásica reconstrucción o estudio, siempre determinado por la intención de dar una «imagen global» del pensamiento kantiano; lo que tenemos enfrente es una lectura a contrapelo.
According to Plessner, both adaptation and selection can be conceived not just as requested by the environment but also as actively proceeding from the organism. In this respect, Plessner finds in Uexküll’s new biology a powerful counterweight to the constraints of Darwinism. However, despite all the points in common in their respective understanding of the problem, Plessner reproaches to Uexküll to have entirely missed the intermediate layer of the lived body [Leib] between the organism and its environment. Unlike Uexküll, concerning the more developed animals, Plessner took up elements of animal psychology from Wolfgang Köhler and Frederik Jacobus Johannes Buytendijk. Finally, Plessner finds insufficiencies also in Uexküll’s distinction between the notion of world and the notion of environment, which would lead to the parallel positing of different environments. In reaction to Uexküll’s leveling of all environments, Plessner drafted a philosophical-anthropological spectrum between the intelligent way of living observed in the great apes, whose intelligence had been demonstrated, and the co-wordly life of the symbolic mind as seen in the personal sphere of human life.
In this article, I discuss the specific ways in which Hegel's account of life and organisms advances upon Kant's account of natural purposes in the third Critique. First of all, I argue that it is essential for Hegel's account that it contains two levels. The first level is that of logical life, the discussion of which does not depend on any empirical knowledge of natural organisms. I provide my reconstruction of this logical account of life that answers to the objection made by a number of Hegel scholars to the effect that Hegel does in fact rely on empirical knowledge at this place in the logic. The second level is that of natural organisms themselves. I argue that it is with the help of this separation of the logical and natural levels, as well as his doctrine of the impotence of nature, that Hegel, unlike Kant, (a) is able to claim that not everything in natural organisms is purposive, and (b) provide a philosophical, and not merely empirical, account of the distinction between plants and animals. In both of these respects, Hegel's position can be seen as a welcome advance over Kant.
Naturalism is the current orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Naturalism is the conjunction of the (ontological) claim that all that truly exists are the entities countenanced by the natural sciences and the (epistemological) claim that the only true knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge. Drawing on some recent work in Critical Theory, this article argues that naturalism qualifies as an ideology. This is the case because naturalism meets three key aspects shared by paradigmatic cases of ideology: (i) naturalism has practical consequences and implications of a specific kind, (ii) those endorsing naturalism fall prey to a dual deception: having false meta-level beliefs about naturalism as being without alternative, and (iii) naturalism has a tendency towards self-immunisation. The article ends by suggesting we pull naturalism out of our collective cognitive backgrounds onto the main stage of critical discourse, making it a proper topic for philosophical critique again.
Gattungswesen
(2022)
In which sense can human beings be conceived as social animals? To elucidate this question, the present paper (I) distinguishes the logical sociality of all living beings from the material sociality of social animals and the political sociality of self-conscious social animals. (II) The self-conscious political sociality that characterises the human genus-being requires a complex interplay of first and second person through which alone we can participate in our form of life and determine its content. (III) The human form of life thus constituted is characterised by a particularly open, and at the same time precarious, membership which involves specific forms of vulnerability and power. (IV) Against this background, forms of objective spirit are necessary which grant us a generalized recognition and relieve us from the contingency of each particular second-personal recognition, without abandoning the openness of the sociality of the human form of life. This double requirement has led to paradoxical institutions in modern society which strive to protect and ensure the sociality of the human form of life precisely by naturalising and individualising our access to it.
Is religion natural?
(2020)
In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be untenable. I first distinguish an uninteresting modest naturalism from the more ambitious and relevant scientific naturalism. Secondly I survey three different kinds of attempting to naturalize religion: naturalizing the social aspect of religion, naturalizing religious experience, and naturalizing reference to the transcendent. Thirdly I argue that these projects operate with a conception of nature which is insufficiently clear. I suggest three ways of charitably explicating that tacit conception of what is natural before arguing that neither of these three positions works. Lastly I offer an irenic proposal: we would do good in giving up the scientific naturalism that underlies projects of naturalizing religion in order to embrace Lynne Rudder Baker's recently proposed notion of near-naturalism which allows the naturalist to retain a 'science first' attitude while avoiding problematic, overly restrictive notions of what is natural.
Lebenswissen nach Cavell
(2009)
Wiederholte Wiederholung
(2009)
In Quest of Subjectivity
(2009)
Happy Days
(2009)
Moralische Überzeugungen hat jeder. Aber schwierig wird es, wenn die Überzeugungen vor anderen begründet und verteidigt werden sollen. Das Arbeitsbuch führt in die wichtigsten Techniken des ethischen Argumentierens ein. Dabei besteht die Besonderheit darin, dass praktische Übungen präsentiert werden, mit denen sich das ethische Argumentieren an Beispielen einüben lässt. In einem einführenden Teil werden die Grundlagen präsentiert: Es geht um das moralische Urteil und um den Unterschied zwischen deskriptiven und normativen Prämissen eines moralischen Arguments. Im ersten Hauptteil wird dann ein historischer Überblick über die wichtigsten Argumentationsweisen der Ethik gegeben: Wie würde ein Deontologe ein bestimmtes moralisches Problem im Gegensatz zu einer Utilitaristin oder einem Intuitionisten lösen? Im zweiten Hauptteil geht es um etablierte Argumentationsformen der Angewandten Ethik: Wie funktioniert ein Dammbruchargument, was ist ein Doppelwirkungsargument etc.? – In 2-farbiger Gestaltung, mit zahlreichen Übungen, Tipps und weiterführender Literatur.
Conspiracy theories are currently all the rage in philosophy and broader intellectual culture. One of the most common background assumptions in the discourse on conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists exhibit certain epistemic vices in the sense of cognitive misconduct. This epistemic vice is mostly seen as a form of irrationality; the corresponding "remedy", as suggested by some commentators, is a return to the ideals of the Enlightenment. This article argues that this idea is wrongheaded. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that conspiracy theorists are actually motivated by the rational Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking in the first place. In contrast to the standard discourse, the article posits that conspiracism is based on a certain form of social scepticism, according to which conspiracy theorists radically mistrust a certain form of expert testimony, namely "official" statements. This form of social scepticism in turn facilitates a naive appropriation of the Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking. The article closes by drawing connections to the ethical and epistemological debate on trust and offers the pessimistic assessment that there are no easy solutions based on individual epistemic virtues.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the relation between our experience in everyday life and ontological reflection. While many accounts in contemporary ontology still defend the idea that the world consists only of material objects, some new views on everyday metaphysics or social ontology which try to articulate the specific properties of the objects used and found in ordinary life have been established during the last years. In the critical ontology of Nicolai Hartmann, the social and cultural dimension of our life is situated in the sphere of spiritual being [Geistiges Sein]. By investigating the methodical relation of phenomenology and critical ontology as well as specific entities (objective spirit, cultural objects), it is established that Hartmann offers a wide and methodologically reflected view which could be able to satisfy the practical significance of these entities.
The Clash of the Images
(2022)
In everyday life, we take there to be ordinary objects such as persons, tables, and stones bearing certain properties such as color and shape and standing in various causal relationships to each other. Basic convictions such as these form our everyday picture of the world: the manifest image.
The scientific image, on the other hand, is a system of beliefs that is only based on scientific results. It contains many beliefs that are not contained in the manifest image. At first glance, this may not seem to be a problem. But Mulamustafi? shows convincingly that this is a mistake: The world as it is in itself cannot be both the way the manifest image depicts it and the way the scientific image describes it to be.
Adem Mulamustafic studied and completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Potsdam. His areas of specialization are metaphysics, philosophy of science, and critical thinking.
The final end of imagination
(2017)
One main quandary that emerges in the context of Immanuel Kant’s moral ideal, The Highest Good, is that on the one hand Kant sets it as a moral demand, that is, as a principle that must be comprehended as an attainable end for man in practice while, on the other hand, it is set as a moral ideal, i.e. as something that cannot be concretized and realized within the empirical world. The main goal of this paper is to argue for the realizability of the moral ideal by means of the principle of reflective judgment as a form of judgment that in fact clarifies human limitation. I assert that the very recognition of this limitation constitutes the possibility for hope in that ideal, or for striving towards it, and that this striving is the only way that the moral ideal can be concretized. I examine man’s recognition of self-limitation as a response to the moral demand to realize the moral ideal and the necessity of the power of imagination for this, used reflectively.
Die vorliegende Arbeit verteidigt die von Richard Foley entwickelte Wissenstheorie, der zufolge propositionales Wissen nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger als adäquate Information ist. Wissen ist eine Funktion der Güte von Informationszuständen. Glaubt ein Subjekt wahrerweise, dass p, ohne zu wissen, dass p, so fehlt dem Subjekt mindestens eine wichtige Information im Umfeld der Zielüberzeugung. Die Adäquatheitstheorie ist eine minimalistische und pragmatische Wissenstheorie. Sie ist minimalistisch, weil es über wahre Überzeugung hinausgehend keiner weiteren epistemischen Schlüsseleigenschaft bedarf. Sie ist pragmatisch, weil Adäquatheit epistemische Signifikanz voraussetzt. Klassische Zusatzbedingungen für Wissen, beispielsweise Rechtfertigung oder verlässliche Meinungsbildung, sind lediglich Begleitphänomene.
Die vorliegende Arbeit vertritt die These, dass Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik mit einer Konzeption von Absolutheit Ernst zu machen versucht, nach der es kein Außerhalb des Absoluten geben kann. Dies macht sich bereits im Anfang der Logik bemerkbar: Wenn es nichts außerhalb des Absoluten geben kann, dann darf auch der Anfang nicht außerhalb des Absoluten sein. Folglich kann der Anfang nur mit dem Absoluten gemacht werden. Das Setzen des Anfangs als absolut ist aber gleichzeitig ein Testen des Anfangs auf seine Absolutheit. Diese Prüfung kann der Anfang nicht bestehen. Denn es liegt im Wesen eines Anfangs, nur Anfang und nicht das Ganze und somit nicht das Absolute zu sein. Der Anfang ist am weitesten davon entfernt, das Ganze zu sein, und muss folglich als das Nicht-Absoluteste innerhalb der Logik betrachtet werden. Also ist er beides: Er ist ein Anfang mit dem Absoluten und er ist ein Anfang mit dem Nicht-Absolutesten. Die Logik widerspricht sich bereits in ihrem Anfang. Von diesem Widerspruch muss sie sich befreien. Diese Befreiung treibt den Gang vom Anfang fort. Dies erzeugt den Fortgang der Logik. Die anfängliche Bestimmung hebt sich auf und geht in ihre Folgebestimmung über. Die Folgebestimmung wird ihrerseits absolut gesetzt, kann dieser Setzung aber ebenfalls nicht gerecht werden und hebt sich in ihre Folgebestimmung auf. Eine jede Bestimmung, die auf den Anfang folgt, durchläuft diese Bewegung des Absolutsetzens, Daran-Scheiterns und Sich-Aufhebens, bis – ganz am Ende der Logik – ebendiese Bewegung als dasjenige erkannt wird, was allein vermögend ist, dem Anspruch auf Absolutheit zu genügen. Denn wenn eine jede Bestimmung dieser Bewegung unterworfen ist, dann gibt es kein Außerhalb zu dieser Bewegung. Und also muss sie das gesuchte Absolute sein.
Auf ihrem Weg hin zur wahren Bedeutung des Absoluten kehrt die Logik immer wieder in die Bestimmung ihres Anfangs zurück, um Voraussetzungen einzuholen, die in Zusammenhang mit ihrem Anfang gemacht werden mussten. Für das Einholen dieser Voraussetzungen werden folgende Textstellen von Interesse sein: der Übergang in die Wesenslogik, der Übergang in die Begriffslogik und das Schlusskapitel. Denn auch zuallerletzt, in ihrem Ende kehrt die Logik in ihren Anfang zurück. Entsprechend kann mit Hegel gesagt werden: Das Erste ist auch das Letzte und das Letzte ist auch das Erste.
On the basis of many years of personal experience the paper describes Buddhist meditation (Zazen, Vipassanā) as a mystical practice. After a short discussion of the role of some central concepts (longing, suffering, and love) in Buddhism, William James’ concept of religious experience is used to explain the goal of meditators as the achievement of a special kind of an experience of this kind. Systematically, its main point is to explain the difference between (on the one hand) a craving for pleasant ‘mental events’ in the sense of short-term moods, and (on the other) the long-term project of achieving a deep change in one’s attitude to life as a whole, a change that allows the acceptance of suffering and death. The last part argues that there is no reason to call the discussed practice irrational in a negative sense. Changes of attitude of the discussed kind cannot be brought about by argument alone. Therefore, a considered use of age-old practices like meditation should be seen as an addition, not as an undermining of reason.
Martin Heideggers Hölderlin-Lesungen – im Zeichen von Norbert von Hellingrath and Stefan George
(2017)
Martin Heidegger hat Anfang der 1960er Jahre 10 Gedichte Hölderlins für eine Sprechschallplatte des Günther Neske-Verlags in Pfullingen eingesprochen. Die insgesamt rund 50 Minuten dauernde Langspiel-Schallplatte wurde seit 1964 gewerblich vertrieben. Was hat einen Philosophen dazu bewogen, hinter dem Dichter zurückzutreten, um nur noch dessen Sprachrohr zu sein? Heidegger knüpfte mit seinem Hölderlin-Verständnis an Norbert von Hellingraths Auffassung vom Dichterpropheten und der Dichtung als heiligem Wort an. Seine rhythmischen Rezitationen in monoton psalmodierendem Stil leiten sich vortragsgeschichtlich von Hellingrath und der George-Schule her.
Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a (scientific) image (Sellars, W. 1962. “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man.” In Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, Reality, 1–40. Ridgeview Publishing), a Weltanschauung (Loewer, B. 2001. “From Physics to Physicalism.” In Physicalism and its Discontents, edited by C. Gillett, and B. Loewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Stoljar, D. 2010. Physicalism. Routledge), or even a “philosophical ideology” (Kim, J. 2003. “The American Origins of Philosophical Naturalism.” Journal of Philosophical Research 28: 83–98). This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis (e.g. in contrast to the justified true belief-theory of knowledge). However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea – naturalism being a worldview – presents. This paper draws on (somewhat underappreciated) remarks of Dilthey and Jaspers on the concept of worldviews (Weltanschauung, Weltbild) in order to demonstrate that naturalism as a worldview is a presuppositional background assumption which is left untouched by arguments against naturalism as a thesis. The concluding plea is (in order to make dialectical progress) to re-organize the existing debate on naturalism in a way that treats naturalism not as a first-order philosophical claim, but rather shifts its focus on naturalism’s status as a worldview.
Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a (scientific) image (Sellars, W. 1962. “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man.” In Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, Reality, 1–40. Ridgeview Publishing), a Weltanschauung (Loewer, B. 2001. “From Physics to Physicalism.” In Physicalism and its Discontents, edited by C. Gillett, and B. Loewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Stoljar, D. 2010. Physicalism. Routledge), or even a “philosophical ideology” (Kim, J. 2003. “The American Origins of Philosophical Naturalism.” Journal of Philosophical Research 28: 83–98). This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis (e.g. in contrast to the justified true belief-theory of knowledge). However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea – naturalism being a worldview – presents. This paper draws on (somewhat underappreciated) remarks of Dilthey and Jaspers on the concept of worldviews (Weltanschauung, Weltbild) in order to demonstrate that naturalism as a worldview is a presuppositional background assumption which is left untouched by arguments against naturalism as a thesis. The concluding plea is (in order to make dialectical progress) to re-organize the existing debate on naturalism in a way that treats naturalism not as a first-order philosophical claim, but rather shifts its focus on naturalism’s status as a worldview.
Bezug nehmend auf Rainer E. Zimmermanns Buch "Metaphysik als Grundlegung von Naturdialektik. Zum Sagbaren und Unsagbaren im spekulativen Denken" wird der von Zimmermann entwickelte Ansatz eines transzendentalen Materialismus in der Traditionslinie Schellingscher Dialektik einerseits und dem Spin-Schaum-Ansatz der Quantengravitationstheorie andererseits erörtert. Die Rückführung von Wirklichkeitsstrukturen auf mathematische Strukturen - auf das Prozessieren von Zahlen - wird problematisiert.
Bezug nehmend auf Rainer E. Zimmermanns Buch "Metaphysik als Grundlegung von Naturdialektik. Zum Sagbaren und Unsagbaren im spekulativen Denken" wird der von Zimmermann entwickelte Ansatz eines transzendentalen Materialismus in der Traditionslinie Schellingscher Dialektik einerseits und dem Spin-Schaum-Ansatz der Quantengravitationstheorie andererseits erörtert. Die Rückführung von Wirklichkeitsstrukturen auf mathematische Strukturen - auf das Prozessieren von Zahlen - wird problematisiert.
Intentionality in Sellars
(2021)
This book argues that Sellars’ theory of intentionality can be understood as an advancement of a transcendental philosophical approach. It shows how Sellars develops his theory of intentionality through his engagement with the theoretical philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
The book delivers a provocative reinterpretation of one of the most problematic and controversial concepts of Sellars' philosophy: the picturing-relation. Sellars' theory of intentionality addresses the question of how to reconcile two aspects that seem opposed: the non-relational theory of intellectual and linguistic content and a causal-transcendental theory of representation inspired by the philosophy of the early Wittgenstein. The author explains how both parts cohere in a transcendental account of finite knowledge. He claims that this can only be achieved by reading Sellars as committed to a transcendental methodology inspired by Kant. In a final step, he brings his interpretation to bear on the contemporary metaphilosophical debate on pragmatism and expressivism.
Intentionality in Sellars will be of interest to scholars of Sellars and Kant, as well as researchers working in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy.
Ausgehend von Andreas Arndt Buch "Die Reformation der Revolution. Friedrich Schleiermacher in seiner Zeit" wird die Bedeutung der von Schleiermacher konzipierten Dialektik für dessen praktisches Wirken erörtert. Mit der Dialektik stieß er eine Revolutionierung von Mathematik und Logik durch die Gebrüder Graßmann an. Mit seinem Engagement im Rahmen der Humboldtschen Bildungsreform hatte er einen wesentlichen Anteil an der inhaltlichen Neugestaltung der Elementar- und Volksschulbildung. Schleiermachers philosophischer Impuls griff dergestalt - in wohl historisch einmaliger Weise - von der Elementarschulbildung auf die Wissenschaft, insbesondere Mathematik, über.
Ausgehend von Andreas Arndt Buch "Die Reformation der Revolution. Friedrich Schleiermacher in seiner Zeit" wird die Bedeutung der von Schleiermacher konzipierten Dialektik für dessen praktisches Wirken erörtert. Mit der Dialektik stieß er eine Revolutionierung von Mathematik und Logik durch die Gebrüder Graßmann an. Mit seinem Engagement im Rahmen der Humboldtschen Bildungsreform hatte er einen wesentlichen Anteil an der inhaltlichen Neugestaltung der Elementar- und Volksschulbildung. Schleiermachers philosophischer Impuls griff dergestalt - in wohl historisch einmaliger Weise - von der Elementarschulbildung auf die Wissenschaft, insbesondere Mathematik, über.
Dass das Wohlergehen künftig lebender Individuen moralische Berücksichtigung verdient, ist unbestritten. Sowohl im Rahmen des öffentlichen Diskurses als auch in der akademischen Umwelt- oder Zukunftsethik wird diese Ansicht vertreten.Durch das Problem der Nicht-Identität wird sie jedoch auf empfindliche Weise in Frage gestellt: Wie kann eine Handlung wie die Verschwendung begrenzt verfügbarer Ressourcen falsch sein, wenn die faktisch davon betroffenen künftig lebenden Individuen nur durch sie in die Existenz gelangen konnten? Gilt dann nicht, dass diese Handlung für niemanden schlecht ist und keine Schädigung darstellt? Dieses Buch verfolgt das Ziel zu verdeutlichen, wie das moralische Unrecht, das künftig lebende Individuen durch Handlungen gegenwärtig lebender Akteur:innen erfahren – trotz des Faktums der Nicht-Identität – mithilfe eines nicht-personenbezogenen Prinzips identifiziert und das Problem der Nicht-Identität somit gelöst werden kann.
Analytic Kantianism
(2017)
Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell can both be read as proponents of Analytic Kantianism. However, their accounts differ in important detail. In particular, McDowell has criticized Sellars’s account of sensory consciousness in a number of papers (most notably in LFI and SC), both as a reading of Kant and on its systematic merits. The present paper offers a detailed analysis of this criticism and a defense of Sellars’s position against the background of a methodology of transcendental philosophy.
Urteil und Anschauung
(2021)
Wie hier durch textnahe und argumentative Rekonstruktion erstmals gezeigt wird, entwickelt Kant in der Metaphysischen Deduktion in drei Schritten: (i) einen Begriff des Urteils, auf dem die Tafel logischer Funktionen beruht; (ii) einen Begriff der Synthesis der Anschauung, der die Inhalte der Kategorien erklärt; und (iii) einen Begriff des Verstandes, demzufolge die Kategorien a priori zu demselben Vermögen gehören, durch das wir auch urteilen.
Die vorliegende Untersuchung ist eine argumentative Rekonstruktion von Kants Text. Der rekonstruierte Text ist der „Leitfaden der Entdeckung aller reinen Verstandesbegriffe" auf A 64 bis 83 / B 89 bis 113 der Kritik der reinen Vernunft in ihren beiden Auflagen von 1781 (A) und 1787 (B). Zudem werden andere, für ein Verständnis der Überlegungen in diesem Kapitel erforderliche oder zumindest erhellende Textstellen aus der Kritik herangezogen; aus Schriften, die Kant nach der Kritik geschrieben hat; sowie schließlich aus Kants Nachlass-Notizen und aus Nachschriften zu seinen Vorlesungen jeweils seit der Entstehungszeit der Kritik. Von entscheidender Bedeutung sind dabei vor allem vier weitere Passagen der Kritik selbst: i) die rückblickende Beschreibung der Aufgabe der Metaphysischen Deduktion auf B 159, ii) die rückblickende Beschreibung des Vorgehens im „Leitfaden" auf A 299/B 355 f., iii) der Abschnitt „Von den Gründen a priori zur Möglichkeit der Erfahrung" auf A 95 bis 110 der Transzendentalen Deduktion der Kategorien in der ersten Auflage und schließlich iv) die §§ 15 bis 21 auf B 128 bis 148 der Transzendentalen Deduktion der Kategorien in der zweiten Auflage der Kritik.
Vor dem Hintergrund einer umfassenden und detaillierten Analyse des „Leitfadens", bei Hinzuziehung verwandter Stellen aus dem umgrenzten Textbestand und nicht zuletzt bei Berücksichtigung des Verhältnisses des „Leitfadens" zu den genannten vier Passagen der Kritik legt sich eine Interpretation der Metaphysischen Deduktion nahe, die sich nur schwer bestreiten lässt, sobald diese Texte einmal gemeinsam betrachtet und auf eine bestimmte Weise zueinander ins Verhältnis gesetzt werden. Dabei kann eine durchgehend wohlwollende, argumentative Rekonstruktion dazu beitragen, auch die philosophische Überzeugungskraft der Position Kants deutlich zu machen.
Philosophie der Personalität
(2021)
Die Philosophie der Person tritt mit dem Anspruch an, unser Selbstverständnis als Individuen artikulieren zu wollen. Wird die gängige Lesart von Personen als rationalen, selbstbewussten Individuen diesem Anspruch wirklich gerecht? In Auseinandersetzung mit unterschiedlichen Ansätzen der Gegenwart arbeitet Moritz von Kalckreuth neben der rationalen auch die leibliche, emotionale und soziokulturelle Dimension von Personalität heraus und fragt nach der Möglichkeit, sie alle in einem „Syntheseversuch“ zusammenzuführen. Im Anschluss an Helmuth Plessners Philosophische Anthropologie, Nicolai Hartmanns Neue Ontologie und Max Schelers Phänomenologie lassen sich verschiedene Lesarten von Geist gewinnen, die sich für eine solche Verknüpfung der einzelnen Dimensionen von Personalität besonders eignen.
Im Aufsatz wird die These erörtert, dass Bildung auch im Zeitalter wissenschaftlich-technischer Revolutionen zuvörderst "Befähigung zur Freiheit" ist. Ausgehend von Kant und Hegel, Marx, Liebknecht, Gramsci und Duncker wird das "Prinzip Freiheit" zerfällt in das "Prinzip des Selbst", das "Prinzip der Kompetenz", das "Prinzip der Antizipation" und das "Prinzip der Partizipation", deren Synthese wiederum in das "Prinzip der Humanität" mündet. Der philosophische Ansatz verweist auf eine Reformbedürftigkeit sozialistischer Bildung unter den Bedingungen des wissenschaftlich-technischen Fortschritts.
Anerkennung und Macht
(2021)
In der vorliegenden Untersuchung habe ich das Ziel verfolgt, einen sachlich-eigenständigen Beitrag für eine Debatte gegen Honneths kritische Gesellschaftstheorie zu leisten. In dieser Debatte wird Honneth dahingehend kritisiert, dass es ihm mit seiner kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie entgegen seiner eigenen systematischen Zielsetzung nicht gelingt, in modernen liberaldemokratischen Gesellschaften sämtliche Phänomene von sozialer Herrschaft kritisch zu hinterfragen. Denn soziale Anerkennung, die Honneth als Schlüsselbegriff für diese kritische Hinterfragung behandelt, bei der soziale Herrschaft in Verbindung mit sozialer Missachtung (als mangelnde soziale Anerkennung) steht, kann laut der Kritik faktisch selbst ein Medium für die Stiftung von sozialer Unterwerfung sein. Dies geschieht in Prozessen von Identitätsentwicklung, in denen soziale Anerkennung für Individuen als Anerkannte bestimmte Identitätsmöglichkeiten einräumt und auf diese Weise gleichzeitig andere Identitätsmöglichkeiten ausschließt, womit sie auf diese Identität einschränkend und insofern herrschend wirkt. Es handelt sich um eine Form von sozialer Herrschaft, die durch soziale Anerkennung gestiftet wird. Honneth zieht dem Vorwurf zufolge nicht in Erwägung, dass soziale Anerkennung bei Individuen als Anerkannte einen solchen negativen Effekt erzielen kann. Hieraus ergeben sich die Fragen, ob soziale Anerkennung in Prozessen von Identitätsentwicklung jeweils mit sozialer Herrschaft einhergeht und wie dieser Typus von sozialer Herrschaft kritisiert werden kann. Diese Fragen hat Honneth zuletzt in einem persönlichen Gespräch mit Allen und Cooke (als zwei Teilnehmerinnen der Debatte gegen Honneth) beantwortet. An dieser Stelle vertritt er mit beiden Gesprächsteilnehmerinnen die Auffassung, dass die Operation der Einschränkung von Identitätsmöglichkeiten an sich keine Operation darstellt, welche, wie sonst in der Debatte gegen seine kritische Gesellschaftstheorie behauptet wird, auf soziale Herrschaft zurückführt. Diese Auffassung beruht auf der Idee, wonach soziale Anerkennung sich in jenem praktischen Kontext nur unter der Bedingung als herrschaftsstiftend erweist, dass sie immanente Prinzipien verletzt, die substanziell kritische Maßstäbe definieren.
Mein Beitrag zu dieser Debatte gegen Honneth besteht auf der einen Seite in der Erklärung, dass sowohl jene Auffassung als auch jene Idee argumentativ mangelhaft sind, und auf der anderen Seite in der Ausführung des Vorhabens, diesen argumentativen Mangel selbst zu beheben. Gegen jene Auffassung behaupte ich, dass die drei Autoren in ihrem Gespräch nicht erläutern, inwiefern soziale Anerkennung nicht herrschend wirkt, wenn sie die Identitätsmöglichkeiten von Individuen als Anerkannte einschränkt, denn mit dieser Einschränkung wird vielmehr faktisch über diese Individuen geherrscht – die Debatte gegen Honneth, so zur Unterstützung dieser Ansicht, baut hauptsächlich auf ebendiesem Faktum auf. Gegen jene Idee habe ich fünf problematische Fragen gestellt und beantwortet, die Bezug eigentlich nicht allein auf diese Idee selbst, sondern überdies auf weitere, naheliegende Ideen nehmen, welche die drei Autoren angesprochen haben.
George Santayana
(2021)
A central claim by Hoerl & McCormack is that the temporal reasoning system is uniquely human. But why exactly? This commentary evaluates two possible options to justify the thesis that temporal reasoning is uniquely human, one based on considerations regarding agency and the other based on language. The commentary raises problems for both of these options.
The aim of this paper is to discuss Nicolai Hartmann’s conception of personhood as developed in his philosophy of spiritual being. Many contemporary accounts of personhood are systematically focused on rational phenomena as self-consciousness or practical reasoning, which are understood as ‘conditions of personhood’. Apart from having some technical problems, those accounts limit our self-under-standing as persons on distinct rational properties and often fail to consider the sociocultural aspects of the personal situation. Nicolai Hartmann — although respecting the role of reason — understands personhood particularly as participation in a shared spiritual sphere called Objektiver Geist (objective spirit), which includes various intersubjective phenomena as languages, religion, moral, arts, and the
sciences. Being part of this sphere seems to be more fundamental than having distinct rational properties, which requests a spiritual frame to be exerted. Further it is shown that Hartmann’s ontology of person also includes a notion of being affected by the existential weight of situations and other person’s actions — an idea often maintained by phenomenological positions. By regarding rational, intersubjective and affective aspects, Hartmann’s philosophy of person succeeds in offering a broad articulation of our self-understanding and may also be seen as providing a background to understand certain phenomena that are part of the personal situation.
This article aims to sum up the main results of a research project made in 2016 and 2017 about the situation of 1190 Romanian migrants in Western Europe and to give an overview about the push and pull factors, transnational family structures, as well as the challenges and difficulties of the Romanian survey respondents living in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy. It also considers the role of personal networks which represent an important motor of migration and constitute the main motive for the choice of a certain destination region. These migration networks lead to the construction of transnational social spaces between Romania and the destination country and have high influence in the search for housing or jobs but can also influence the integration process abroad.
In honour of Seymour Papert
(2018)
Forth is nice and flexible but to a philosopher and teacher educator Logo is the more impressing language. Both are relatives of Lisp, but Forth has a reverse Polish notation where as Logo has an infix notation. Logo allows top down programming, Forth only bottom up. Logo enables recursive programming, Forth does not. Logo includes turtle graphics, Forth has nothing comparable. So what to do if you can't get Logo and have no information about its inner architecture? This should be a case of "empirical modelling": How can you model observable results of the behaviour of Logo in terms of Forth? The main steps to solve this problem are shown in the first part of the paper.
The second part of the paper discusses the problem of modelling and shows that the modelling of making and the modelling of recognition have the same mathematical structure. So "empirical modelling" can also serve for modelling desired behaviour of technical systems.
The last part of the paper will show that the heuristic potential of a problem which should be modeled is more important than the programming language. The Picasso construal shows, in a very simple way, how children of different ages can model emotional relations in human behaviour with a simple Logo system.
Der vorliegende Beitrag erörtert das Verhältnis einer Philo-sophie der Person zur Religionsphilosophie bzw. einer Philosophie religiöser Phänomene. Dabei soll die These vertreten werden, dass der personale Lebenszusammenhang bestimmte Phänomene aufweist, die nur in einem religiösen Kontext adäquat verstanden werden können. Die Interpretation dieser Phänomene kann einen Zugang zu bestimmten Aspekten von Personalität ermöglichen, die von den meisten Persontheorien der Gegenwart kaum beachtet werden.
Wird Metaphysik realistisch verstanden, so ist sie mit dem Anspruch verbunden, in objektiver Weise von der grundlegenden Beschaffenheit und Ordnung der Welt (oder Realität, Wirklichkeit etc.) zu handeln. Damit beansprucht sie die Möglichkeit von Objektivität, d. h. die Möglichkeit der Repräsentation der grundlegenden Beschaffenheit und Ordnung einer Welt, die von uns und unserer Repräsentation verschieden ist.
Realistisch verstandene Metaphysik verfährt dogmatisch, wenn sie ihre eigene Möglichkeit einfach voraussetzt. Eine dogmatische Metaphysik ist unkritisch, weil sie ohne eine Untersuchung der Frage betrieben wird, wie eine objektive und adäquate Repräsentation der grundlegenden Beschaffenheit und Ordnung der Welt überhaupt möglich ist. Im Unterschied dazu nennen wir eine realistische Metaphysik in einem vorläufigen Sinne kritisch, sofern sie ihren Ausgang von einer Untersuchung dieser Möglichkeit nimmt und erst auf der Grundlage positiver Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchung einen – vor diesem Hintergrund nunmehr gerechtfertigten – Objektivitätsanspruch erhebt.
J. Dewey and H. Plessner both and independently of one another treated the central question of what new task philosophy must set itself if the assumption is correct that the life-form of mind, i.e., the mental life-form of humans, arose in nature and must also sustain itself in the future within nature. If nature has to reconceived so as to make the irreducible qualities of life and mind truly possible, then it can no longer be restricted to the role of physical material. Conversely humans cannot no longer take on the role of God outside and independent of nature. Instead these philosophers distinguish between three plateaus (Dewey) or stages (Plessner), between physical (inorganic) nature, psycho-physical (living) nature and the nature that is mental life. This distinction is drawn such that a connection between the plateaus is truly possible. The third level, that of the mental form of life, answers mentally within conduct to the break with the first two levels. Hence it depends in the future as well on the continuously renewed difference (between the precarious and the stable for Dewey, between immediacy and mediation for Plessner) in our experience of nature. Within this difference nature as a whole remains an open unknown, which is why we can credit Dewey with a philosophy of diversified and negative holism, Plessner with a differential philosophy of the negativity of the absolute.
Errata zu: Denken und Welt – Wege kritischer Metaphysik. dzph. Band 67, 2019, Heft 1, S. 76–97
(2019)
We begin by considering two common ways of conceiving critical metaphysics. According to the first (and polemical) conception, critical metaphysics analyzes nothing more than the form of thought and thereby misses the proper point of metaphysics, namely to investigate the form of reality. According to the second (and affirmative) conception, critical metaphysics starts from the supposed insight that the form of reality can’t be other than the form of thought and is thus not required to analyze anything but that form. We argue that the first conception is too weak while the second is too strong. Then we sketch an alternative conception of critical metaphysics, a conception we find expressed both in Kant’s B-Deduction and in the way Barry Stroud has recently investigated the possibility of metaphysics. According to such a conception, a properly critical metaphysics needs to proceed in two steps: first, it needs to analyze the most general and necessary form of any thought that is about an objective reality at all; second, it needs to investigate how that form of thought relates to the reality it purports to represent. But unlike Kant, Stroud remains sceptical regarding the possibility of a satisfying transition from thought to reality in metaphysics. We argue that this dissatisfaction can be traced back to a notion of objectivity and reality in terms of complete mind-independence. Then we sketch an alternative notion of objectivity and reality in terms of distinctness from subjects and acts of thinking, and argue that it is that notion that allows Kant, with his Transcendental Idealism, to make the transition required for any satisfying metaphysics, namely that from the form of thought to reality.
Philosophische Tugenden
(2020)
Worin besteht gutes Philosophieren? Und weshalb ist gerade John Stuart Mill ein außergewöhnlich guter Philosoph? Joachim Toenges-Hinn verbindet in diesem Band die metaphilosophische Suche danach, was gute Philosophie ausmacht, mit einer historischen Betrachtung des Philosophen John Stuart Mill. Dabei fungiert Mill zugleich als Urheber von und Verkörperung des Strebens nach zwei philosophischen Tugenden, die Toenges-Hinn aus Mills philosophischem Werk ableitet und anschließend systematisch verteidigt. Diese als „Bentham-Ideal“ und „Coleridge-Ideal“ bezeichneten Tugenden stehen dabei ebenso im Fokus seiner Untersuchung wie die Bedeutung von Lebensexperimenten für philosophische Biografien.
Fatale Orthodoxie
(2018)
Our reply to Fabian Freyenhagen’s article “Was ist orthodoxe Kritische Theorie?” (DZPhil 65.3 [2017], 456-469) raises the question whether his proposal that Critical Theory only “be adequately and appropriately critical” without a program of justification spares the search for any general criteria. Answering negatively we conversely want to recall, particularly with regard to Horkheimers’s and Adornos’s Dialectic of Enlightment as well as Habermas‘s concept of an emancipatory interest, that such a criterion as a normative foundation of critique is crucial not only for systematical purposes, but also recognised as necessary in this respect by Adorno, who Freyenhagen wants to play off against programs of justification. Critical Theory needs to be clear in this respect. Against this background we are questioning Freyenhagen‘s recourse to an “interest in abolishing social injustice” as the “only criterion for Critical Theory.” Because Freyenhagen ignores the fact that Critical Theory has been understood by its representatives in a twofold manner – as a theoretical program of justification for one and secondly as a cultural diagnosis – his plea for an orthodox Critical Theory is endangered by decisionism.
Eine Gruppe, gar eine innerlich verbundene Gemeinschaft, können Intellektuelle im Normalfall nur bilden, soweit sie von gleichem Denken und Wollen bewegt werden […]. Wo dagegen die von den Intellektuellen vertretenen Ansichten weit divergieren, da kann es nur unter sehr kritischen Umständen geschehen, daß die verschieden gearteten (sozialen, politischen, rechtlichen, kulturellen, religiösen) Standpunkte und Anliegen – auf Zeit – sich zusammenfinden […]. Das polemische Element, das kritischen Intellektuellen ja wesensmäßig zu eigen ist, bringt am ehesten eine gemeinsame Front zwischen ihnen zustande.
This dissertation aims to deliver a transcendental interpretation of Immanuel Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft, considering both its coherence with other critical works as well as the internal coherence of the work itself. This interpretation is called transcendental insofar as special emphasis is placed on the newly introduced cognitive power, namely the reflective power of judgement, guided by the a priori principle of purposiveness. In this way the seeming manifold of themes, varying from judgements of taste through culture to teleological judgements about natural purposes, are discussed exclusively in regard of their dependence on this faculty and its transcendental principle. In contrast, in contemporary scholarship the book is often treated as a fragmented work, consisting of different independent parts, while my focus lies on the continuity comprised primarily of the activity of the power of judgement.
Going back to certain central yet silently presupposed concepts, adopted from previous critical works, the main contribution of this study is to integrate the KU within the overarching critical project. More specifically, I have argue how the need for the presupposition by the reflective power of judgement follows from the peculiar character of our sense-dependent discursive mind. Because we are sense-dependent discursive minds, we do not and cannot have immediate insight into all of nature's features. The particular constitution of our mind rather demands conceptually informed representations which mediately refer to objects.
Having said that, the principle of purposiveness, namely the presupposition that nature is organized in concert with the particular constitution of our mind, is a necessary condition for the possibility of reflection on nature's empirical features. Reflection refers on my account to a process of selecting features in order to allow a classification, including reflection on the method, means and selection criteria. Rather than directly contributing to cognition, like the categories, reflective judgements thus express our ignorance when it comes to the motivation behind nature's design, and this is most forcefully expressed by judgements of taste and teleological judgements about organized matter. In this way, reflection, regardless whether it is manifested in concept acquisition, scientific systematization, judgements of taste or judgements about organized matter, relies on a principle of the power of judgement which is revealed and justified in this transcendental inquiry.
Einführung
(2020)
Zyklizität & Rhythmik
(2020)