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August Boeckh (1785–1867) verfügte über eine umfangreiche private Büchersammlung mit einem beeindruckenden Facettenreichtum. Diese spiegelt Boeckhs Philologiebegriff wider, der sämtliche Lebensbereiche umfasste, und ermöglicht durch die in seinen Büchern hinterlassenen Marginalien einen gut nachvollziehbaren Einblick in den wissenschaftlichen Arbeitsprozess des Philologen.
Aufbauend auf der rekonstruierten Boeckhschen Bibliothek blickt Julia Doborosky auf die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Boeckh und seinem Kritiker Gottfried Hermann um die Ausgestaltung der philologischen Disziplin, das wissenschaftliche Werk Boeckhs selbst und auf seine Interaktion innerhalb eines wissenschaftlich-institutionellen Netzwerks. Anhand dieser drei Säulen zeigt sie die unterschiedlichen Modalitäten auf, in denen Boeckh seinen Philologiebegriff entwickelte, darlegte und zur Anwendung brachte – und wie hierbei seine Büchersammlung als greifbares Zeugnis einer geisteswissenschaftlichen Ideen- und Disziplingeschichte stets präsent ist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Material und Begriff
(2019)
Moskauer Passagen
(2019)
Hat für Personen eine ethische Auseinandersetzung mit ihrem Leiden an Problemen und Konflikten gegenüber strategischen und technischen Lösungen eine Bedeutung? Diese Abhandlung zeigt, dass Ansätze philosophischer Ethik, die von formalen Prinzipien, menschlichen Lebensformen oder sozialen Praktiken ausgehen, diese Frage unzureichend beantworten. Zu deren Beantwortung werden stattdessen ethische Subjektivität in der Klage über Leid, ethische Überlegungen als Negation von Leid und ethischer Dialog als Überwindung von Leid erörtert.
Im Netz der Zeit
(2019)
In der vorliegenden Schrift, die aus der Dissertation der Zwillinge Konstantin und Kornelius Keulen im Fach Philosophie hervorgegangen ist, werden die vielfältigen Verwebungs- und Vernetzungszusammenhänge des Internet zeit- und ereignisphilosophischer Ausdeutung weist nach Meinung der Autoren den Weg, das Konglomerat Internet als technomediales menschliches Produkt in seinen sozio-kulturellen, politisch-ökonomischen und psychosozialen Komplexitäten ausdeutbar zu machen.
Einführung
(2020)
Galileis "Platonismus" als Reaktion auf das prinzipielle Manko der aristotelischen Bewegungslehre
(2020)
Zyklizität & Rhythmik
(2020)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Purpose Modern food technology allows designing products aiming to simulate and replace traditional food. In affluent societies there is a rising tendency to consume foods derived from plants including milk imitations or plant drinks based on cereals, nuts, legumes, oil seeds or other plant families. Herein we review production and composition of such drinks, summarize consumers' motivations to change from milk to plant drinks and highlight nutritional and health implications of consuming plant drinks instead of milk, in particular if non-fortified and if consumed by infants, children, adolescents and the elderly. Results Whereas the macronutrient concentrations of some plant drinks (soy) may approach in some cases (protein) that of cow's milk, the nutritional quality of most plant drinks, e.g., the biological value of protein and the presence and amount of vitamins and essential minerals with high bioavailability does not. If cow's milk is exchanged for non-fortified and non-supplemented plant drinks consumers may risk deficiencies of calcium, zinc, iodine, vitamins B2, B12, D, A, and indispensable amino acids, particularly in infants and toddlers who traditionally consume significant portions of milk. The vegetable nature, appearance and taste of such plant drinks may be appealing to adult consumers and be chosen for adding variety to the menu. However, in young children fed exclusively such plant drinks severe metabolic disturbances may occur. Conclusion Parents, dietitians, physicians and consumers should be aware of such potential risks, if non-fortified plant drinks are consumed instead of milk.
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.
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.
Purpose:
Modern food technology allows designing products aiming to simulate and replace traditional food. In affluent societies there is a rising tendency to consume foods derived from plants including milk imitations or plant drinks based on cereals, nuts, legumes, oil seeds or other plant families. Herein we review production and composition of such drinks, summarize consumers' motivations to change from milk to plant drinks and highlight nutritional and health implications of consuming plant drinks instead of milk, in particular if non-fortified and if consumed by infants, children, adolescents and the elderly.
Results:
Whereas the macronutrient concentrations of some plant drinks (soy) may approach in some cases (protein) that of cow's milk, the nutritional quality of most plant drinks, e.g., the biological value of protein and the presence and amount of vitamins and essential minerals with high bioavailability does not. If cow's milk is exchanged for non-fortified and non-supplemented plant drinks consumers may risk deficiencies of calcium, zinc, iodine, vitamins B2, B12, D, A, and indispensable amino acids, particularly in infants and toddlers who traditionally consume significant portions of milk. The vegetable nature, appearance and taste of such plant drinks may be appealing to adult consumers and be chosen for adding variety to the menu. However, in young children fed exclusively such plant drinks severe metabolic disturbances may occur.
Conclusion:
Parents, dietitians, physicians and consumers should be aware of such potential risks, if non-fortified plant drinks are consumed instead of milk.
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.
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.
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.
Scholars have long recognised the importance of contexts of reception in shaping the integration of immigrants and refugees in a host society. Studies of refugees, in particular, have examined groups where the different dimensions of reception (government, labour market, and ethnic community) have been largely positive. How important is this merging of positive contexts across dimensions of reception? We address this through a comparative study of Vietnamese refugees to West Germany beginning in 1979 and contract workers to East Germany beginning in 1980. These two migration streams converged when Germany reunified in 1990. Drawing on mixed qualitative methods, this paper offers a strategic case for understanding factors that shape the resettlement experiences of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in Germany. By comparing two migration streams from the same country of origin, but with different backgrounds and contexts of reception, we suggest that ethnic networks may, in time, offset the disadvantages of a negative government reception.
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.
George Santayana
(2021)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.