100 Philosophie und Psychologie
Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (131)
- Doctoral Thesis (89)
- Part of a Book (40)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (34)
- Postprint (13)
- Review (12)
- Lecture (4)
- Master's Thesis (4)
- Other (4)
- Bachelor Thesis (1)
Keywords
- Philosophie (25)
- philosophy (23)
- Anthropologie (11)
- anthropology (11)
- Dialektik (8)
- Ästhetik (5)
- Jaspers (4)
- Kant (4)
- Metaphysik (4)
- Philosophische Anthropologie (4)
Institute
- Institut für Philosophie (134)
- Extern (27)
- Institut für Künste und Medien (24)
- Historisches Institut (19)
- Institut für Romanistik (19)
- Institut für Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft (18)
- Department Psychologie (15)
- Fachgruppe Politik- & Verwaltungswissenschaft (12)
- Institut für Germanistik (12)
- Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (8)
Pride is linked to conviviality, to the practice of life-with-an-other, and to an awareness of the limitations of the life forms and life norms which guide and regulate the life of culturally, socially, and historically defined communities. Assuming this link, pride in living-together and conviviality appear as concepts creating a framework for future perspectives. But these concepts need a space in which they can unfold critically and confidently with a view to the future. For millennia, the literatures of the world have created this space of simulation and experimentation in which knowledge of how-to-live-with-an-other has been put down on paper through the open-ended tradition of writing. It is the space of the life forms and life norms of conviviality: it offers us prospective knowledge for the future by translating the imaginable into the thinkable, and the readable into the livable.
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.
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.
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.
In Berlin two rabbinical seminaries, a Reform and a Conservative, have recently been established. The historical and intellectual roots of these institutions in the nineteenth century is sketched, and then contrasted with the present curriculum and the religious profile of the students. Some theological questions for the future of these projects conclude the article.
Deleuze and the digital
(2021)
In his short and often quoted essay 'Postscript on the Societies of Control', Gilles Deleuze famously describes the structures of power in the dawning twenty-first century as driven by 'machines of a third type, computers', as novel and predominantly digital infrastructures. In fact, from a Deleuzian perspective the entire ecosystem of the digital transformation can be described as a larger shift in modes of production and the political economy. This essay proposes to read this 'technological evolution' as the power of algorithms and their material substance - digital infrastructures that entail a different mode of interaction between humans and technology. In looking at these infrastructures from a materialist position, my essay reconceptualises the digital as the unfolding logic of assemblages that have been shaping a 'long now' of technological modernity. In bringing a Deleuzian reading of infrastructures to the study of technology and society, this essay seeks to shed a new light on the political function-and the increasing abstraction-of infrastructures in the realm of the digital.
Más allá de la oscuridad
(2020)
En los últimos años, la crítica ha vuelto a enfatizar el vínculo de la escritura gongorina la épica y los subgéneros denominados “heroicos” (Mercedes Blanco, Jesús Ponce Cárdenas). Esta nueva perspectiva significa un cambio importante respecto a la recepción del poeta instaurada por la Generación del 27 y en particular por Dámaso Alonso. Limitándose a las Soledades de Góngora, el presente artículo explora las consecuencias de este nuevo paradigma, más allá de un Góngora puramente lírico. Metodológicamente, proponemos dejar atrás la dialéctica idealista o marxista de forma-contenido (la ideología de la forma de Fredric Jameson), por considerarla un enfoque anacrónico en el caso de Góngora. Sin embargo, encontramos un acercamiento filológico viable en el compromiso de la forma del temprano Barthes, que trata de esquivar la dialéctica de forma-contenido y volver a un gesto de escritura (écriture). La hipótesis del presente artículo sería, pues, que no se ha reflexionado suficientemente sobre el gesto de la escritura gongorina en las Soledades: una escritura que piratea el lenguaje épico.
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.
For the longest time historians have treated the infamous Libelo de Sevilla (1480) as an authentic document of the heresy of "Judaizing" allegedly wide spread among the so-called marrano or converso population. However, a closer look however reveals that the pamphlet is much more likely to be the fabrication of Old Christian agitators aiming to discredit both converts from Judaism and their allies.
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.
Alien Horrors
(2022)
H. P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre abounds with stereotypes of the racialized poor. As scholars have noted, Lovecraft’s work turns those he viewed as ‘Others’ into ‘aliens.’ Poor people of color (as opposed to the orderly White rural population and White working class) in Lovecraft’s stories are foreign, diseased, and criminal, and they threaten social and cosmic orders as they are in league with a nebulous entity that waits to wreak indescribable havoc. This chapter analyzes three ‘Lovecraftian’ novels published in 2016 - Cassandra Khaw’s Hammers on Bone,Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, and Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. These works elucidate the connection of Trump’s 2016 rhetoric in campaign and presidential speeches and the White supremacist imagery used by Lovecraft. In these novels, the racialized poor have a special connection to an astronomical, evil entity à la Lovecraft. As carriers of numinous genes or parasitic entities (literally having ‘an alien within’) they become empowered. They thus occupy a pivotal position in forestalling or bringing about the destruction of societal order; that is, of White supremacy. Exploring the alleged risk posed by this ‘underclass,’ these works seem to foretell current representations of protesters as ‘riotous mobs’ that threaten the body politic Trump sought to make great (and White) again.
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.
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.
Das muss ich nicht tun!
(2022)
Das Argument der Supererogation „Das tue ich nicht, weil es nicht Pflicht ist“ hat wohl jeder schon einmal vorgebracht. Es dient der Abgrenzung von allzu anspruchsvollen moralischen Anforderungen. Es ist allerdings nicht immer überzeugend. Eine Nierenspende kann man mit dem Argument anstandslos verweigern. Es wirkt jedoch unanständig, wenn ein Freundschaftsdienst ausgeschlagen werden soll. Vielleicht gibt es gar keine Supererogationen? Das Buch zeigt gegen den Antisupererogationismus der angelsächsischen Supererogationsforschung, dass es rationale Gründe gibt, aus denen manche Handlungen trotz ihres moralischen Werts keine Pflicht sein sollten. Das Unanständigkeitsproblem wird durch die Unterscheidung von Ultraerogationen und Anstandserogationen als zwei Arten von Supererogationen gelöst.
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.
Wiederholte Wiederholung
(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.
Aim: We aimed to examine the distribution and secular changes of conscript body height in the geographic network of Norway since 1878 and to study its association with the degree of urbanization, and population density. Material and methods: Data on body height of Norwegian military conscripts were provided by the Statistics Norway Department (SSB). The sample comprised eight cohorts with the following measurement years: 1st 1877, 1878 and 1880, 2nd 18951897, 3rd 1915-1917, 4th 1935-1937, 5th 1955-1957, 6th 1975-1977, 7th 1995-1997, and 8th 2009-2011. For determining neighborhood correlations, a network was created consisting of neighboring counties, sharing a common border. Results: Average body height of Norwegian men increased by 10.9 cm between 1878 and 2010, but this trend was heterogeneous. Some counties increased by more than 1 cm per decade (Finmark) others by only 7 mm per decade (Sor-Trondelag). Urban counties and counties with higher population density showed stronger height trends than rural counties. The largest spread in body height between the various counties was observed in 1936 when for the first time people living in the more urban counties got taller than rural people. The height advantage of urban counties however, disappeared after 1996. At this time, also the secular trend in height had come to a halt. The secular trend in height had become obvious after the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 and World War I, and was strongest between 1936 and 1956. During this period maximum between-county heterogeneity in height existed with body height differences of more than 6 cm between the tallest and the shortest county. The end of this period was characterized by social democratic reforms that flattened the income distribution, eliminated poverty, and ensured social services after World War II. Conclusion: The temporal coincidence between the trends in height, the degree of urbanization and the onset of the political transition of Norway from a Swedish province into an independent democratic wealthy modern European state after World War I and particularly after World War II, and the abatement of this trend after this period of transition had stabilized, suggest social and political components interfering with the regulation of physical growth in humans.
There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which implies an entirely disenchanted worldview. However, one of the main problems of scientific naturalism are placement problems. A reenchanted worldview does have the conceptual resources to avoid placement problems, yet seems to throw out the baby (a reasonable appeal to science as an authority) with the bathwater (placement problems). A dilemma results: the Scylla of an undesirable scientific naturalism and the Charybdis of a rampant, seemingly prescientific reenchanted worldview. In this article I argue that there is a safe middle passage between these two options, i.e. the recently proposed liberal naturalism which allows for a moderate normative reenchantment. Liberal naturalism lets us have it both ways: avoiding the placement problems while retaining a necessary and reasonable adherence to science, thereby avoiding both an all-too restrictive scientific naturalism.
In this paper, we have two goals. First, we argue for a blueprint for hermeneutical injustice that allows us to schematize existing and discover new varieties of hermeneutical injustices. The underlying insight is that Fricker provides both a general concept of hermeneutical injustice and a specific conception thereof. By distinguishing between the general concept and its specific conceptions, we gain a fruitful tool to detect such injustices in our everyday lives. Second, we use this blueprint to provide a further example of hermeneutical injustice that draws our attention to yet another distinction: Some hermeneutical injustices result from a lack or distortion in the collective conceptual resource and some are due to problems in the application of existing concepts. We argue that to combat hermeneutical injustices, we have to make sure not only that individuals have accurate concepts at their disposal but that they have the capabilities to use these concepts adequately.
Welterleben/Weiterleben
(2017)
Welterleben and Weiterleben are what determine the second globalization (of four previously explored) whose constantly accelerating dynamic, vectorization, this essay explores. On the basis of selected writings of Georg Forster, Alexander von Humboldt, and Adelbert von Chamisso, the author highlights the increasing speed with which knowledge, especially in the experiential sciences, is produced and disseminated following the routes of ever-widening trade speeded along by globalization. The notion of ‘vectopia’ stands for the connection of utopia and uchronia in space and time in such a way that the experience of the world, expanded worldwide, contains within it a Weiter-Leben, a ‘living-further’ that is to be understood first in a spatial, and not yet temporal, sense, of what Forster called Erfahrungswissen, or ‘experiential knowledge.’ Vectopia, as elaborated here, has a material dimension that relates to the physical person, the body, the experience of the world that cannot occur without the constant changing of place, without a journeying that is again and again recommenced. Vectopia develops the projection of a life not from space or from time alone, but by their combination. Vectopia is more than a concept, it is a thought-figure: it is vitally connected to life, and thus a life-figure. It opens itself to a type of knowledge that stands almost at the threshold of a further life, indeed, of a Weiterleben that, opening itself to a ‘living-onward,’ resides beyond space, time, and movement.
This study explores the identity of the Bene Israel caste from India and its assimilation into Israeli society. The large immigration from India to Israel started in the early 1950s and continued until the early 1970s. Initially, these immigrants struggled hard as they faced many problems such as the language barrier, cultural differences, a new climate, geographical isolation, and racial discrimination. This analysis focuses on the three major aspects of the integration process involving the Bene Israel: economic, socio-cultural and political. The study covers the period from the early fifties to the present.
I will focus on the origin of the Bene Israel, which has evolved after their immigration to Israel; from a Hindu–Muslim lifestyle and customs they integrated into the Jewish life of Israel. Despite its ethnographic nature, this study has theological implications as it is an encounter between Jewish monotheism and Indian polytheism.
All the western scholars who researched the Bene Israel community felt impelled to rely on information received by community members themselves. No written historical evidence recorded Bene Israel culture and origin. Only during the nineteenth century onwards, after the intrusion of western Jewish missionaries, were Jewish books translated into Marathi . Missionary activities among the Bene Israel served as a catalyst for the Bene Israel themselves to investigate their historical past . Haeem Samuel Kehimkar (1830-1908), a Bene Israel teacher, wrote notes on the history of the Bene Israel in India in Marathi in 1897. Brenda Ness wrote in her dissertation:
The results [of the missionary activities] are several works about the community in English and Marathi by Bene-Israel authors which have appeared during the last century. These are, for the most part, not documented; they consist of much theorizing on accepted tradition and tend to be apologetic in nature.
There can be no philosophical explanation or rational justification for an entire community to leave their motherland India, and enter into a process of annihilation of its own free will. I see this as a social and cultural suicide. In craving for a better future in Israel, the Indian Bene Israel community pays an enormously heavy price as a people that are today discarded by the East and disowned by the West: because they chose to become something that they never were and never could be. As it is written, “know where you came from, and where you are going.” A community with an ancient history from a spiritual culture has completely lost its identity and self-esteem.
In concluding this dissertation, I realize the dilemma with which I have confronted the members of the Bene Israel community which I have reviewed after strenuous and constant self-examination. I chose to evolve the diversifications of the younger generations urges towards acceptance, and wish to clarify my intricate analysis of this controversial community. The complexity of living in a Jewish State, where citizens cannot fulfill their basic desires, like matrimony, forced an entire community to conceal their true identity and perjure themselves to blend in, for the sake of national integration. Although scholars accepted their new claims, the skepticism of the rabbinate authorities prevails, and they refuse to marry them to this day, suspecting they are an Indian caste.
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.
Im Sog der Säkularisierung
(2022)
Kaum etwas trennt Ost- und Westdeutsche bis heute so sehr wie die religiösen Bindungen. Doch obwohl die Zahl der Kirchenmitglieder in der DDR ungleich schneller und dramatischer zurückging, machte sich auch in der Bundesrepublik die Tendenz der westlichen Moderne zur Säkularisierung deutlich bemerkbar.
Der Band beschreibt vor diesem Hintergrund das Verhältnis zwischen christlichen Kirchen und Politik in beiden deutschen Staaten. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt dabei auf dem unterschiedlichen Umgang mit Religion in Schule und Jugendarbeit, den gesellschaftlichen Debatten über Krieg und Frieden, den grenzübergreifenden Kontakten und der Bedeutung der Kirchen in der friedlichen Revolution und im Prozess der Wiedervereinigung.
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.
Boyle, T.C.
(2022)
T.C. Boyle, or Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, is probably best known for his 1995 novel Tortilla Curtain , which quickly became a staple of high school and college syllabi. Tortilla Curtain deftly illustrates what Boyle does best: acerbically tracing the irrationality that governs human thought and the resulting contradictory and often unethical behavior (mostly in relation to xenophobia, environmentalism, and the intersections of gender). Despite often casting a critical eye over US American society, Boyle's works are accessible reads with fast-paced and eventful plots. This combination has produced a number of international bestsellers. In fact, Boyle is so popular in Germany that translations of his works have been published before the original versions came out in English. However, his talent for depicting the impotence of reason in the face of base desires, selfishness, group dynamics, and indoctrinated ideologies is also a weakness: at times, Boyle's satire reproduces what it means to criticize, coming close to naturalizing the hedonistic, prejudiced, and emotionally charged behavior of his characters.