William James in his Problems of Philosophy speaks about the Faith Ladder, enumerating a whole scale of standpoints individuals are likely to take with respect to a particular view of the world from “there is nothing absurd in a certain view of the world being true, nothing contradicting,” up to the remark “It must be true,” or “It shall be true, at any rate true for me.”.

Empathy is sharing and understanding others’ emotions. Recently, researchers identified a culture–sex interaction effect in empathy. This phenomenon has been largely ignored by previous researchers. In this study, the culture–sex interaction effect was explored with a cohort of 129 participants (61 Australian Caucasians and 68 Chinese Hans) using both self-report questionnaires (i.e., Empathy Quotient and Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and computer-based empathy tasks. In line with the previous findings, the culture–sex interaction effect was observed for both trait empathy (i.e., the generalized (...) characteristics of empathy, as examined by the self-report questionnaires) and state empathy (i.e., the on-spot reaction of empathy for a specific stimulus, as evaluated by the computer-based tasks). Moreover, in terms of state empathy, the culture–sex interaction effect further interacted with stimulus traits (i.e., stimulus ethnicity, stimulus sex, or stimulus emotion) and resulted in three- and four-way interactions. Follow-up analyses of these higher-order interactions suggested that the phenomena of ethnic group bias and sex group favor in empathy varied among the four culture–sex participant groups (i.e., Australian female, Australian male, Chinese female, and Chinese male). The current findings highlighted the dynamic nature of empathy (i.e., its sensitivity toward both participant traits and stimulus features). Furthermore, the newly identified interaction effects in empathy deserve more investigation and need to be verified with other Western and Asian populations. (shrink)

Prospective memory is the ability to perform a planned action at a future time, while carrying on with other unrelated tasks. Implementation Intentions is a promising metacognitive strategy for improving PM in older adults, though its generalization and longer-term effects are not well-understood. We examined the effects of II on PM in 48 community-dwelling older adults and 59 young adults. Participants were randomly allocated to a conventional instruction or II group and administered a laboratory-based PM task in the first session. (...) In the second session, participants returned to complete a similar but new laboratory-based PM task and an ecological PM task without prompts to use a strategy. We found strong age effects on PM performance whereby older adults performed worse than young adults across all PM tasks. While the overall facilitation effect of II was not statistically significant, there was a trend that this strategy facilitated PM performance on the laboratory-based PM task in the first session for older adults with a medium sized effect. The generalization and longer-term effect of II were not significant for either the similar laboratory-based or the ecological PM task. These results suggest that a single-session II intervention may not be sufficient to elicit transfer to other similar new PM tasks in healthy populations. (shrink)

Prospective memory is the ability to perform a planned action at an intended future time. This study examined the neural correlates of PM using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This study employed a within-participants design. A laboratory PM task was adapted for use with fNIRS to investigate regions of interest and levels of brain activation during task performance in 32 participants. Participants first completed a working memory task followed by a WM plus PM task while neural activity was measured using fNIRS. Behavioral (...) results revealed an interference effect for reaction time on the WM task, whereby participants were significantly slower to respond in the WM plus PM task compared to the WM task. Ongoing task accuracies did not differ between the two conditions. fNIRS results revealed a higher level of neural activity in the fronto-polar prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the WM plus PM task compared to the WM Condition. These findings highlight that fNIRS is a suitable tool for studying and understanding the neural basis of PM. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is altering dynamics in academia, and people juggling remote work and domestic demands – including childcare – have felt impacts on their productivity. Female authors have faced a decrease in paper submission rates since the beginning of the pandemic period. The reasons for this decline in women’s productivity need to be further investigated. Here, we analyzed the influence of gender, parenthood and race on academic productivity during the pandemic period based on a survey answered by (...) 3,345 Brazilian academics from various knowledge areas and research institutions. Productivity was assessed by the ability to submit papers as planned and to meet deadlines during the initial period of social isolation in Brazil. The findings revealed that male academics – especially those without children – are the least affected group, whereas Black women and mothers are the most impacted groups. These impacts are likely a consequence of the well-known unequal division of domestic labor between men and women, which has been exacerbated during the pandemic. Additionally, our results highlight that racism strongly persists in academia, especially against Black women. The pandemic will have long-term effects on the career progression of the most affected groups. The results presented here are crucial for the development of actions and policies that aim to avoid further deepening the gender gap in academia. (shrink)

Erscheint anlasslich des 15. Weltkongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (IVR) vom 18. bis 24. August 1991 in Gottingen und enthalt eine Selbstdarstellung der deutschen Sektion der IVR. Die Autoren berichten uber ihre eigene theoretische Position oder uber neuere Diskussionszusammenhange, die ihnen wichtig erscheinen. Aus dem Inhalt: K. Adomeit: Menschenrechte und Rechtsphilosophie u H. Albert: Erkenntnis, Recht und soziale Ordnung u R. Alexy: Idee und Struktur eines vernunftigen Rechtssystems u O. Ballweg: Analytische Rhetorik als juristische Grundlagenforschung u R. (...) Dreier: Zur gegenwartigen Diskussion des Verhaltnisses von Recht und Moral u W. Eichhorn: Wege und Irrwege einer Transformation u M. Frommel: Mannliche Gerechtigkeitsmathematik versus weiblicher Kontextualismus? u H. Garrn: Zur rechtspraktischen Bedeutung einer Theorie der juristischen Rhetorik u G. Haney: Das Widerspruchsvolle des Rechtsbegriffs u W. Hassemer: Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtswissenschaft, Rechtspolitik - am Beispiel des Strafrechts u A. Kaufmann: 45 Jahre erlebte Jahre Rechtsphilosophie u H. Klenner: Die ontologische und gnoseologische Dimension der Sein/Sollen-Problematik u U. Klug: Multidimensionale Rechtsphilosophie u H.-J. Koch/H. Russmann: Juristische Methodenlehre und analytische Philosophie u M. Kriele: Die demokratische Weltrevolution u K. Kuhl: Rehabilitierung und Aktualisierung des kantischen Vernunftrechts u E.-J. Lampe: Moderne Rechtsanthropologie u K.A. Mollnau: Vom Beginn der Niedergangsjurisprudenz in der DDR u U. Neumann: Sprachphilosophische Ansatze in der neueren Rechtsphilosophie u u.a. (Franz Steiner 1991). (shrink)

Das Verhaltnis von Regel und Fall ist ein Grundthema der Rechtsphilosophie und der juristischen Methodenlehre. Im Zentrum stehen dabei meist Probleme der Regelanwendung. Die nachstehend aufgefuehrten Beitrage zur Tagung der Deutschen Sektion der IVR stellen demgegenueber Fragen der Regelbildung in den Vordergrund. Das Generalthema wird unter Gesichtspunkten der Moralphilosophie, der Rechtsdogmatik, der juristischen Methodenlehre, der Rechtsinformatik und der gerichtlichen Praxis behandelt. Aus dem Inhalt: Einfuehrungsreferat zum Generalthema (A. Kaufmann) u Regel und Fall in der juristischen Methodenlehre (L. Kuhlen/K. Luederssen) u (...) Zur Regelbildung in der Dogmatik des Zivilrechts (J. Schmidt/K. Wietholter) u Das Universalisierbarkeitsproblem in der Moralphilosophie (G. Meggle) u Normbegruendung und Normanwendung in Recht und Ethik (K. Guenther) u Probleme der Regelbildung in der richterlichen Entscheidungspraxis (G. Ellscheid/J. Berkemann) u Stile der Reprasentation juristischen Wissens unter besonderer Beruecksichtigung von Individualisierung und Generalisierung (U. Moncke). (shrink)

It is difficult to describe this book without praising it. Collected here in one volume are some thirty-six high quality translations into English of the most important foreign-language works in mathematical logic, as well as articles and letters by Whitehead, Russell, Norbert Weiner and Post. The contents of the volume are arranged in chronological order, beginning with Frege's Begriffsschrift—translated in its entirety—and concluding with Gödel's famous "On Formally Undecidable Propositions" and Herbrand's "On the Consistency of Arithmetic". The translation of the (...) Gödel article is a small masterpiece, and is especially welcome in view of some of the rather poor efforts which have been made to render this important work into English. But this is more than a paste-pot job of anthologizing. Van Heijenoort and others have written prefaces to each of the included selections, in which are provided background historical and bibliographical information, comments on the intellectual currents which led to the production of the article, and, in many cases, a digest of the important theorems and concepts in the article itself. Each selection is a classic in its own right. In reading through the selections in this volume, one is struck by the extent to which purely mathematical problems and issues have controlled recent logical inquiry and have determined the development of various philosophies of mathematics. In the early stages, Frege and Peano were concerned with the logical reconstruction of arithmetic, and this led to the work of Russell and the logicist philosophy. Already in the development of the new logic there were certain problems which were resolved with Russell's theory of types—a device which many mathematicians felt to be rather artificial. The use of set theory, beginning with Cantor and reaching its maturity in Zermelo's 1904 proof of the well-ordering theorem, gave rise to a new set of difficulties concerning the axioms of choice, the continuum problem, and infinite sets. The two traditions are brought together in a common nexus of foundational problems by Weiner in 1914 and by Skolem's form of the Löwenheim theorem, given in 1920. Hereafter, the way is open for the rise of mathematical inquiry into the foundations of number systems, set theory and logic by Post, Skolem, von Neumann, Hilbert, Bernays, Gödel and many others. The work was far from completed by 1931, but a new and important tradition in mathematical inquiry had been established, and had come into its own. This book is, in effect, the record of an important chapter in the history of thought. No serious student of logic or foundations of mathematics will want to be without it.—H. P. K. (shrink)

A splendid introduction to set theory. By leaning heavily on modern logic, Quine develops a substantial amount of set theory axiomatically without either being naive about the antinomies or prejudicing the issue of infinite classes. This development felicitously allows Quine a neutral ground on which, in his concluding chapters, to describe, compare and connect various conflicting full-blooded systems: Russell's theory of types, Zermelo's system, two of Quine's own, and von Neumann's. This treatment of set theory, allowing formalism without sectionalism, (...) is singular and should instruct and delight the theorist as well as the beginning reader.—K. J. (shrink)

Here is a fine semipopular book about the ideas which have motivated the much-talked-about revolution in the theories of information, control and communication. Jagjit Singh is one of those rare science writers who knows how to present intricate technical concepts to the less-than-expert reader without compromising the original sense or significance. The book begins, appropriately enough, with a discussion of the concept of information, culminating in the technical definition which enables us to assign numerical values to its quantity. The following (...) chapters present the conceptual heart of the Shannon-Weaver theory, the theories of automatic computing machines and the intriguing neurological theories of Warren McCulloch and John Von Neumann. The chapter on Turing Machines does not pay enough attention to the purely mathematical applications of these devices for the present reviewer's taste. The closing chapters deal with mathematical theories of intelligence and the brain. The text is accompanied by many good drawings and appropriate mathematical demonstrations. A book of this quality could have been produced only by an author with absolute command of his topic.—H. P. K. (shrink)

A lattice L is coordinatizable, if it is isomorphic to the lattice L of principal right ideals of some von Neumann regular ring R. This forces L to be complemented modular. All known sufficient conditions for coordinatizability, due first to von Neumann, then to Jónsson, are first-order. Nevertheless, we prove that coordinatizability of lattices is not first-order, by finding a non-coordinatizable lattice K with a coordinatizable countable elementary extension L. This solves a 1960 problem of Jónsson. We also (...) prove that there is no [Formula: see text] statement equivalent to coordinatizability. Furthermore, the class of coordinatizable lattices is not closed under countable directed unions; this solves another problem of Jónsson from 1962. (shrink)

The illusion that Kant respects persons comes from ascribing contemporary meanings to purely technical terms within his second formulation of the categorical imperative, “[A]ct so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only”. When we realize that “humanity” means rational nature and “person” means the supersensible self (homo noumenon), we find that we are to respect, not human selves in all their diversity (homo phaenomenon), (...) but rational selves in all their sameness, in their unvarying conformity to the universal principles of pure practical reason. Contemporary individualism gets no support from Kant. (shrink)

In light of scientific advances such as genomics, predictive diagnostics, genetically engineered agriculture, nuclear transfer cloning, and the manipulation of stem cells, the idea that genes carry predetermined molecular programs or blueprints is pervasive. Yet new scientific discoveries—such as rna transcripts of single genes that can lead to the production of different compounds from the same pieces of dna—challenge the concept of the gene alone as the dominant factor in biological development. Increasingly aware of the tension between certain empirical results (...) and interpretations of those results based on the orthodox view of genetic determinism, a growing number of scientists urge a rethinking of what a gene is and how it works. In this collection, a group of internationally renowned scientists present some prominent alternative approaches to understanding the role of dna in the construction and function of biological organisms. Contributors discuss alternatives to the programmatic view of dna, including the developmental systems approach, methodical culturalism, the molecular process concept of the gene, the hermeneutic theory of description, and process structuralist biology. None of the approaches cast doubt on the notion that dna is tremendously important to biological life on earth; rather, contributors examine different ideas of how dna should be represented, evaluated, and explained. Just as ideas about genetic codes have reached far beyond the realm of science, the reconceptualizations of genetic theory in this volume have broad implications for ethics, philosophy, and the social sciences. Contributors. Thomas Bürglin, Brian C. Goodwin, James Griesemer, Paul Griffiths, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Evelyn Fox Keller, Gerd B. Müller, Eva M. Neumann-Held, Stuart A. Newman, Susan Oyama, Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Sahotra Sarkar, Jackie Leach Scully, Gerry Webster, Ulrich Wolf. (shrink)

The influence of emotion on episodic and autobiographical memory in schizophrenia was investigated. Using an experiential approach, the states of awareness accompanying recollection of pictures from the IAPS and of associated autobiographical memories was recorded. Results show that schizophrenia impairs episodic and autobiographical memories in their critical feature: autonoetic awareness, i.e., the type of awareness experienced when mentally reliving events from one’s past. Schizophrenia was also associated with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories. The impact of stimulus valence on memory (...) performance was moderated by clinical status. Patients with schizophrenia recognized more positive than negative pictures, and recalled more positive than negative autobiographical memories while controls displayed the opposite pattern. A hypothesis in terms of a fundamental executive deficit underlying these impairments is proposed. (shrink)

The recent political “left turn” in Latin America has led to an increased emphasis on social policy and poverty alleviation programs aimed at women. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in a rural village in Nicaragua, I argue that one of the consequences of such programs is an increase in women’s daily workload, which I call the gendered burden of development. By exploiting women’s unpaid community care labor, these non-governmental organizations and state-led programs entrench established gender roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, (...) through their selective interventions, these programs reinforce the neoliberal ideal of self-sufficiency in women’s everyday lives, contributing to the formation of a particular kind of developmental subject who assumes responsibility for her own hardships. Although these programs have produced some tangible improvements in women’s lives, they ultimately do little to alter the structural conditions affecting the precariousness of women’s survival. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the prosthetic phenomenon during the First World War and Weimar Germany. As opposed to contemporary trends, with their inflationary use of the ‘prosthesis’, sometimes even hypothesizing ‘prostheticization’ as a paradigm, I seek to return the debate about the prosthesis to its historical concreteness. I describe the phenomenology of the prosthesis in three senses: first, in the statistical sense, in the form of a dramatic growth in the number of prostheses; second, in the visual sense, in (...) the form of a dramatic growth in the visibility of the prosthesis. Basing myself on the Heideggerian perception of the ‘phenomenon’, I seek to reveal an additional, third, aspect of the phenomenology of the prosthesis. It is my contention, against the background of the major catastrophe of the First World War and the frequent crises that afflicted Weimar Germany, but also in the light of additional contexts — technological, economic, cultural — that the prosthesis was increasingly perceived as a phenomenon, i.e. as something which appeared in a wide range of ways — as prosthesis, as tool (hammer, writing instrument), as an organic limb (hand, leg), and even as a paradigm (man as ‘prosthetic God’, man as ‘Dasein’). (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive view of an important new field in human geography and interdisciplinary studies of nature-society relations. Tracing the development of political ecology from its origins in geography and ecological anthropology in the 1970s, to its current status as an established field, the book investigates how late twentieth-century developments in social and ecological theories are brought together to create a powerful framework for comprehending environmental problems. Making Political Ecology argues for an inclusionary conceptualization of the field that (...) absorbs empirical studies from urban, rural, First World and Third World contexts and the theoretical insights of feminism, poststructuralism, neo-Marxism, and non-equilibrium ecology. Extracts from the writings of key figures in political ecology provide an empirical grounding for these abstract concepts. Neumann's book will convince readers of political ecology's particular suitability for grappling with the most difficult questions concerning social justice, environmental change, and human relationships with nature. (shrink)

Morphogen gradient theories have enjoyed considerable popularity since the beginning of this century, but conclusive evidence for a role of morphogens in controlling multicellular development has been elusive. Recently, work on three secreted signalling proteins, Activin in Xenopus, and Wingless and Dpp in Drosophila, has stongly suggested that these proteins function as morphogens. In order to define a factor as a morphogen, it is necessary to show firstly, that it has a direct effect on target cells and secondly, that it (...) affects the development of target cells in a concentration‐dependent manner. With these criteria in mind, the evidence available for a variety of proposed morphogens is discussed. While the evidence is not conclusive in most of the cases considered, there is a strong case in favour of the three proteins mentioned above, which suggests that morphogens are potentially of general importance in controlling the development of multicellular organisms. (shrink)

The results of three experiments suggest that pre-existing mood increases the intensity of affectively congruent emotions while dampening the intensity of incongruent emotions independent of attributional knowledge. This result was obtained using a new method for inducing mood states unobtrusively and with minimal or no cognitive concomitants. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that for participants who were exposed to positive feedback a pre-existing positive mood led to stronger feelings of pride in comparison to negative mood. The results of Experiments (...) 2 and 3 suggest that pre-existing mood directly influences the experience of subsequently elicited emotions independent of what one knows about the causes of this feeling. When participants were required to differentiate between the funniness of a cartoon and their subjective humour response, mood influenced only the latter judgement (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, reminding participants of the mood induction resulted in a contrast effect in judging the funniness of a cartoon. However, the pre-existing mood continued to exert an assimilation effect on the overt mirth response. In conclusion, these results suggest that the feeling and knowledge component are partly independent bases of emotional responses. (shrink)

Es ist mir eine grosse Genugtuung, die vorliegende Sammlung von Ar­ beiten eines Autors einzufuhren, der es verdient hatte, dass seine philo­ sophischen Schriften schon Hingst ihren Weg zum Verleger gefunden hatten. Da Dr. Frederick Neumann aber, nach seiner Auswanderung nach Amerika, seine ganze Zeit seinen Theologiearbeiten in englischer Sprache gewidmet hatte, war es seiner Witwe, Edith Neumann, be­ schieden, dieselben erst nach seinem Tode an wiirdiger Stelle zu ver­ offentlichen. Ich selbst bin die Witwe seines Freundes Philip (...) Merlan, der, wie ich, diese Arbeiten unseres Studienkameraden aus der Wiener Universitats­ zeit ungemein hochgeschatzt und Frederick Neumann immer zur Aus­ gabe seiner J ugendschriften zugeredet hat. Frederick Neumann ist am IO. Januar I899, in Wien, geboren und hat, wahrend und nach Beendigung seiner Studienzeit, bei Gomperz, Husserl und Heidegger gearbeitet. Er ist spater seiner eigenen Ge­ dankenrichtung gefolgt und hat gehofft einmal, in Musse, seine philo­ sophischen Arbeiten, moglicherweise in kompletterer Fassung, dem Druck zu ubergeben. Sein Interesse fur Religionsphilosophie und Theologie leitete ihn fruh zur praktischen Seelsorge und, im Jahre I938, zur Ordination als Minister der "Congregational Union of England and Wales." Nach vielseitiger Tatigkeit als Pfarrer und Lehrer, wurde er, nach seiner Auswanderung nach Amerika, Pastor der Bushwick A venue Congrega­ tional Church in Brooklyn, New York und in den letzten sechs J ahren seines Lebens ubte er, als "Visiting Professor" der Hartford Seminary Foundation, einen besonderen Einfluss auf einen grossen Kreis von Student en und Kollegen aus. (shrink)

Concepts of International Relations, for Students and Other Smarties is not a stereotypical textbook, but an instructive, entertaining and motivating introduction to the field of International Relations (IR). Rather than relying on figures or tables, Concepts of International Relations, for Students and Other Smarties piques the reader's interest with a pithy narrative that presents apposite nutshell examples, stresses historical breaks and throws in the odd pun to get the big picture across. While there are other brief, introductory IR titles, Iver (...) Neumann's book remains fully within the academic genre, and is comparatively long on history. It is based on his repeatedly offered introductory lectures to first-year IR students and students from other disciplines looking for an overview course at the LSE. With a relaxed lecturing style, this textbook introduces the long-term historical emergence of concepts such as state (European), state (global), empire, non-state agents, foreign policy, state system, nationalism, globalization, security, international society, great powers, diplomacy, war and peace, balance of power, international law, power and sovereignty, intervention, gender and class. It demonstrates how such phenomena have been understood in very different ways. First, the reader is alerted to how the use of concepts is an integrated part of politics. Secondly, the reader is sensitized to how social change has worked in the past, and is working now. Thirdly, the book demonstrates how historical and social context matters in ongoing international relations. (shrink)

Critical pedagogy has often been linked in the literature to faith traditions such as liberation theology, usually with the intent of improving or redirecting it. While recognizing and drawing from those previous linkages, Jacob Neumann goes further in this essay and develops the thesis that critical pedagogy can not just benefit from a connection with faith traditions, but is actually, in and of itself, a practice of faith. In this analysis, he juxtaposes critical pedagogy against three conceptualizations of faith: (...) John Caputo's blurring of the modernist division between faith and reason, Paul Tillich's argument that faith is “ultimate concern,” and Paulo Freire's theology and early Christian influences. Using this three-pronged approach, Neumann argues that regardless of how it is seen, critical pedagogy manifests as a practice of faith “all the way down.”. (shrink)

This article takes a phenomenological approach to thinking about ways in which the future comes to pass without being derived from the present, i.e. without being based on our current and past objective engagements. In the first part, I look at Husserl’s idea of “protention” in order to discuss how phenomenology has conceptualized the indeterminacy of the present moment. In the second part, the Heideggerian notion of “projection” is discussed as a modification of protention. In the third part, I argue (...) for an empty teleology of time in which our temporal engagement in the world is distinguished from our existential concern with temporal things. The basic idea of the paper is that for the future to arrive “as future” (instead of as another present), it has to happen in spite of the present, i.e. in spite of the interested stance that defines our present engagement in the world. (shrink)

The comprehension of norms in complex social systems is one of the most active fields of research in agent-based modelling. This is faced with the challenge to comprehend the recursive interaction between inter- and intra-agent processes. In this article, a comparative analysis of selected cases of normative agent architectures will be given based on a review of theories of norms in the social sciences. This allows to identify the prerequisites for a representation of the cognitive processes of norm recognition. As (...) yet, there is no unequivocal concept for the design of normative agents. Different approaches are compared along the line of different theoretical accounts. (shrink)

The connection of the structure of statistical selection procedures with measure theory is investigated. The methods of measure theory are applied in order to analyze a mathematical description of preparation and registration of physical systems that is used by G. Ludwig for a foundation of quantum mechanics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:On Inception by Martin HeideggerDaniel NeumannHEIDEGGER, Martin. On Inception. Translated by Peter Hanley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2023. xi + 171 pp. Cloth, $40.00This translation [End Page 548] of Heidegger's On Inception (written in 1941 and published in German in 2005 as Über den Anfang) is an important addition to the translated corpus of texts on the themes of Ereignis (event) and the history of beyng (Seynsgeschichte) that (...) occupied Heidegger's thinking from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, and that resulted in a series of writings that remained unpublished during his lifetime. Similar to those other volumes, On Inception does not follow a linear train of thought but offers short and often fragmentary notes and musings that, nonetheless, build on one another. There is a considerable thematic overlap with the other writings on the event. Many of the themes found here, such as the role of technology in exposing contemporary understanding of being, Hölderlin as the poet of the saying of beyng, or the notion of another beginning of the unconcealment of beyng, can be found in Contributions to Philosophy, Mindfulness, and The Event as well.What sets On Inception apart from these other volumes is the focus on the inceptual aspect of the thinking of beyng. In this regard, the first and longest of the six sections comprising the book (entitled "The Incipience of Inception") offers the most extended original contribution Heidegger makes here. It concerns the question of how one can think from out of the unconcealment of beyng. Exploring this topic throws more light on many of the questions that the reading of the other volumes raises, such as whether the event should be thought of as a one-time historical occurrence; how one can think from out of the event, that is, how it constitutes the possibility of thinking it; and the relationship between beings, being (referring to the truth of the presence of beings), and beyng (referring to the truth of the presencing of being). All of these issues concern the inceptual character of the event, whose understanding affords a better sense of paradigmatic change in thinking and dwelling associated with it. To understand the inceptual character of the event gives the reader a clue as to where to begin thinking (about) it. This does not remove the considerable and intentional obscurity surrounding these ideas, but it shows Heidegger as constantly altering and refining how to think of the history of the concealment and unconcealment of beyng. One of the biggest disagreements among interpreters has been whether to read this in transcendental or realist terms, that is, whether we should take the unconcealment of beyng as the proffering of a real, mind-independent totality or as a cipher for our transcendental ability to understand and make sense of the appearance of being. In this regard, the question of incipience goes toward elucidating who or what is thought to begin this unconcealment.What, then, does an inceptive thinking of beyng amount to? Put negatively, it can concern neither beyng as some sort of cause of beings, nor beings themselves as what appear as a consequence of beyng's unconcealment: "[I]nception is not the inception of something other than what it itself is; equally, inception is not the inception of itself, as if what were being thought of were a producing and causing." To think beyng as inception puts emphasis on the emergent nature of the opening of the clearing in which beings can come to presence for someone. That is, the [End Page 549] word "inception" names the very opening up of the possibility to consider the truth of beyng, that is, to think the event. What is at stake is therefore the incipient nature of inception—the fact that grasping what the term means cannot be based on any one incipient thing, but on incipience (Anfängnis). There is a processual (or, to use Daniela Vallega-Neu's more Heideggerian term, poietic) aspect to the way Heidegger thinks the event, and incipience in many ways expresses this poietic nature because it both suggests that there is something that begins and unfolds, but also conceals what... (shrink)

In the Wissenschaftslehre 1804-II, Fichte claims to both continue and correct Kant’s transcendental philosophy. I reject this double claim by demonstrating that Fichte’s engagement with Kant is guided by altered premises that make the affiliation to Kant’s transcendental philosophy seem implausible. These divergences culminate in an opposing understanding of unity between the two philosophers, which can be revealed by attention to Fichte’s objections to the KdU. Fichte’s thesis that Kant established three absolutes instead of one absolute is based on Fichte’s (...) own demand for an absolute unity that is not differentiated in itself, which is also reflected in his transposition of Kant’s concept of the root to the KdU. In section 2, I attempt a precise exegetical reconstruction of Fichte’s concept of the absolute, as well as of his thesis of Kant’s triple absolute. In section 3, I raise three interconnected objections to this: first, Fichte’s critique is actually based on an accusation of dualism, which is suggested both by his own concept of the absolute and the programme of the KdU (section 3.1). Second, however, Kant’s two absoluta should be seen more as constructions by Fichte rather than as revealing problems immanent to Kant’s philosophy (section 3.2). Third, these divergences can be traced back to Fichte’s own understanding of unity, which gives rise to his objections to the KdU in the first place (section 3.3). (shrink)

This article aims to sketch a phenomenological approach to Heidegger’s concept of Ereignis. In understanding Ereignis as the presencing of being, the fun­damental question is whether and how this presence of being, i.e., presence as such, can be experienced. While this experience is incompatible with a transcendental ap­proach, the suggestion here is that Ereignis can be experienced not as my own, but as an anonymous presence. To flesh out this suggestion, a close reading of Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity in the (...) Contributions will elaborate on why presence can belong neither to humanity nor to being. In a second step, a motif in Heidegger’s reception of Schelling is discussed which clarifies that the experience of Ereignis involves a necessity that goes beyond subjectivity. In a third step, the idea of “letting-presence” shows how the coming into being of experience has to remain anonymous in order to be the experience of Ereignis. (shrink)

Phenomenology of Time and Temporality in Husserl and Heidegger Since objective time cannot be presupposed in phenomenology, the question of the constitution and nature of time represents a central task of every phenomenological analysis. The purpose of this contribution is to offer a comparison of the phenomenological analyses of time and temporality in Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and thereby to set out the fundamental differences of their approaches. In addition to the foundational lectures and texts On the Phenomenology of (...) the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893 – 1917), Husserl’s Bernau Manuscripts on time-consciousness (1917/18) and the late texts on temporal constitution (1929 – 1934), the C-Manuscripts, are considered. In the case of Heidegger, besides Being and Time and the lecture series The Basic Problems of Phenomenology from summer semester 1927, attention is focused primarily on the early lecture series and texts in which the development of his thinking becomes evident. Thereby it becomes clear that Heidegger’s question concerning the nature (Wesen) of time and history, with its point if departure from factical-historical life, from the outset moved in a different direction to that of Husserl. In conclusion, the principal differences of the two phenomenological approaches to time are drawn out and clarified in relation to the phenomenon of death. (shrink)

There are several problems in conceiving of value experience in early phenomenology. What exactly does the experience of a value consist in? How are we to determine the morality of an action that is based on a value which is, as a reality in and of itself, imposed on us from without? How is the experience of values related to the person and in what way can an intuitive value response be reconciled with the application of acquired, personal value stances? (...) In a joint reading of the early works of Max Scheler and Dietrich von Hildebrand, I propose a systematic solution to these various problems which revolve around the non-reflective self-awareness that a value experience entails: we cannot experience the real, material value quality without changing as persons. Rather than reflecting on an object, we experience the value as ourselves, dynamically reacting to it in the context of a given situation. (shrink)

In the present paper, it is shown that Kant in his theory of fine art from the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment proves to be a proponent of aesthetic cognitivism, according to which art is, first, a source of non-trivial knowledge and, second, this knowledge also has aesthetic relevance. This issue has been raised several times in the recent research literature, but has not been substantiated, or only briefly. Central to this is Kant's conception of aesthetic ideas, with which fine art (...) symbolizes intellectual ideas of various genesis and with which his theory of art acquires a content-aesthetic dimension. Discussing recent research literature, an interpretation for the conception of aesthetic ideas and the accompanying expressive dimension of fine art is offered in a first part. Based on this, it will be shown in a second part that Kant hereby proves to be a representative of aesthetic cognitivism; this is shown by the fact that his theory of art confirms both criteria of aesthetic cognitivism. (shrink)

This article is devoted to one of the most important discoveries of Jerzy Grotowski, the total act, a specific kind of action and experience. It was created as part of theatrical practice, but apart from the function related to the dramaturgy of performances, it had a higher purpose, associated with the search for the essence of humanity and sources of experience of reality. Jerzy Grotowski sought to transform actors and observers, open them to what is authentic, alive and present. This (...) achievement was a kind of experience in which the sacrum and the profanum are overcome. The total act allowed "to become watched” and, paradoxically, allowed to participate in the duality of passive action, in which man becomes an observer and agent at the same time. My goal is to describe the role of the principle of coexistence of opposites in the work of J. Grotowski. I am describing the total act as an opportunity to reach an experience of reality in which the mind and the body merge with each other. Man as a psychophysical unity precedes all differences in this archetypal experience, he is able to reach the very center of his own self, that which Jung called Selbst. (shrink)

If, as is universally acknowledged, the proper goal of the mathematical sciences is the discovery of the least possible number of principles from which the universal laws of empirically given facts emerge with mathematical necessity, and thus the discovery of principles equivalent to those empirical facts, then it must appear as a duty of indubitable importance to reflect carefully on the principles that have already surfaced with some certainty in one area of the natural sciences and present them in a (...) form that really fulfills the equivalence requirement. (shrink)

The Bible does not in general tell us to maximize or minimize anything. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount do n·ot, for example, tell us to maximize the glory of God. Instead they say, do this, don't do that, where ‘this’ and ‘that’ are replaceable by the name for such categories of action as stealing, committing adultery, and loving thy neighbour.Until recently, at least, non-maximizing moralists have appeared irrational when confronted with such questions as: what if stealing (...) or lying will save a life? Because they exclude consideration of particular circumstances, the dicta of traditional morality seem myopic and prejudiced next to ‘end-state’ doctrines like utilitarianism, which require that careful empirical investigation accompany virtually every moral decision. To many, traditional morality seems sincere and straightforward, but lacking in intellectual respectability. (shrink)

The importance of the justification of our beliefs is a long-debated question. The question of how our memory beliefs are justified, however, is a question we have usually neglected as our memory does not seem to draw much attention to itself. As long as it works, we do not even notice that we use it most of the time. In my opinion, the question of how our memory beliefs are justified, however, should play a bigger role in the philosophical debate. (...) The reason for this claim is that most of our beliefs are memory beliefs. A position, I will argue for in this paper. Based on empirical findings in Cognitive Science, I will explain that our memory is not only involved in forming beliefs about the past but more controversially in forming beliefs about the present, in reasoning processes and even more controversially in forming beliefs about the future. If beliefs about what has been, about what is the case in the present and even about what will have been the case in the future are memory beliefs, reconsidering our strict focus on the justification of mere beliefs seems to be a change in debate worth considering. (shrink)

Zgodnie z klasycznym podejściem kultura jest przeciwieństwem natury, a człowiek jako istota przekształcająca świat jest motorem rozwoju cywilizacji. Pisma C. G. Junga zawierają nieklasyczną koncepcję kultury, zgodnie z którą nieświadomość zbiorowa determinuje sposób interpretacji i rozumienia rzeczywistości, a tym samym rozwój kultury. Psychiatra uważał człowieka za istotę tworzącą symbole. Pisał o „popędzie symbolu”, który sprawia, że powstają one spontanicznie. Istnieje związek między działaniem instynktów, które mają podłoże biologiczne, a archetypowym źródłem symboli. W nieświadomości tkwią siły natury – w szczególności popęd (...) libido i instynkty. Kultura powstaje pomiędzy nieświadomością a świadomością, a przy tym proces jej rozwoju ma aspekt gatunkowy. (shrink)