Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 3, Page 450-466, June 2022.

Raimo Tuomela’s most important contribution to the philosophy of collective intentionality was his development of the notion of the we-mode. In my chapter I extend the notion of we-mode to that of role-mode, the mode in which individual and collective subjects feel, think and act as occupants of roles within groups and institutional structures. I focus on how being in role-mode is manifest in the minds of subjects and on the following points. First, I argue that both we-mode and role-mode (...) are best thought of as further modifications of I-consciousness, respectively we-consciousness. Second, role-mode is further characterized by the fact that subjects will take positions as role occupants that they won’t take as mere individuals, or we-mode group members, or in other roles. Third, such divergences are only possible against a background of agreements between positions taken in different modes. Fourth, such divergences are also grounded in decision making procedures and the accessibility and admissibility of sources of evidence. Fifth, role-mode goes all the way down, that is, it is also manifest in how subjects feel, move and comport themselves when they occupy their roles. To put it into fashionable jargon, it is embodied and enacted. (shrink)

Schmitz zieht in diesem Buch die Bilanz eines mehr als fünfzigjährigen Fortschreitens im Dienst der Aufgabe, den Menschen ihr wirkliches Leben begreiflich zu machen. Er stellt zu diesem Zweck vier Säulen seines Werkes vor - unter den Titeln: Subjektivität, Mannigfaltigkeit, Leib und Gefühl, Welt - und bringt grundlegende Fragestellungen der Neuen Phänomenologie zur Sprache: Der Leib war seit der...

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit" verfügbar.

Since the turn of the century, however, a double upheaval has occurred, the formulation of the quantum theory and the theory of relativity, providing the ground for the development of modern physics. These theories issued from the problems of light that, in their strict forms, could not be assimilated by Newtonian physics. Before the turn of the century the wave theory had been victorious over the emission theory, and an hypothetical ether was assumed which was intended ultimately to represent absolute (...) space and to play a role similar to that of Anaximander's apeiron or Aristotle's prima materia. This last role seemed required since many philosophers of nature believed that they should see in matter and its elementary components the singularities, the exceptional peculiarities of the ether. However, since the ether held itself strictly incognito, Albert Einstein renounced it and declared that all systems in uniform, rectilinear motion are equivalent. The first portentous ontological consequence of this renunciation was that statements concerning spatial and temporal separation become relative. True relativity means, however, that objectivity and subjectivity enter equally into all statements, for to everything relative, as Max Planck once said, an absolute belongs. In this case the absolute was the combination of space and time into a four-dimensional spatio-temporal unity, which observers in different systems split into different space and time determinations. Our statements concerning space and time are thus neither merely subjective nor merely objective; rather a subject-object relation enters into them and makes them all relative. There is, to be sure, within the four-dimensional spatio-temporal unity a region of a spatial type within which the space-axes of the different observers lie, and the same is true for the temporal region. But even if there is no one universal time or simultaneity, temporality nevertheless plays its own role in contradistinction to spatiality, though both are expressible mathematically. We can say in the sense of critical realism that our spatial and temporal measurements are commensurate with the ordering relations of things and events. (shrink)

This paper presents and illustrates the concept of sustainable corporate finance. Sustainability is a well-established concept in the disciplines of environmental economics and business ethics. The paper uses a broader definition of what is called the firm to pinpoint sustainability to the finance literature. The concept of sustainable finance is compared to traditional and behavioral finance. Four criteria are used to systematically analyze the basic differences. First on the order is the theory of the firm: the definition of the firm (...) is reconsidered by integrating behavioral aspects and by expanding financial analysis to a three-dimensional goal setting. Secondly, a closer look is taken at the assumed behavior of economic agents and its consequences for the applied methodology. The shareholders paradigm is discussed against the background of growing stakeholder importance. Finally, the fourth criterion deals with the different ethical framework and its implication for financial behavior. (shrink)

In this paper I propose three steps to overcome the force-content dichotomy and dispel the Frege point. First, we should ascribe content to force indicators. Through basic assertoric and directive force indicators such as intonation, word order and mood, a subject presents its position of theoretical or practical knowledge of a state of affairs as a fact, as something that is the case, or as a goal, as something to do. Force indicators do not operate on truth- or satisfaction evaluable (...) entities as on the traditional view, but complete and unify them. Second, higher-level acts such as interrogative, logical and fictional acts create higher-level unities that may suspend commitment to the assertions and directions they operate on. But they do not cancel their force, but transfer the meaning of force indicators into the new unities they create. For example, in the context of asking a theoretical or practical question, the assertoric or directive force indicator now presents the kind of knowledge the subject is seeking. Third, the Frege point conflates different varieties of force. We neither need Frege’s assertion sign, nor Hare’s neustic, nor Hanks’s cancellation sign, but only ordinary force indicators and interrogative, logical and fictional markers. Propositions are not forceless contents to which a subject commits by forceful acts, but forceful acts put forward by higher-level acts which may suspend commitment to them. (shrink)

Bunnik and colleagues argued that financial barriers do not promote informed decision-making prior to prenatal screening and raise justice concerns. If public funding is provided, however, it would seem to be important to clarify its intentions and avoid any unwarranted appearance of a medical utility of the testing.

Financiële technologische ontwikkeling, de zogeheten fintech, is hot en happening. De ontwikkelingen gaan snel maar leiden geregeld tot moreel kwetsbare praktijken. Een geautomatiseerd systeem de schuld geven van economische uitbuiting, uitsluiting en privacyschending is onzinnig. De auteurs gaan in op de vraag wat de rol van financiële ethiek (nog) is als de besluitvorming en gedragssturing bij en in het ontwerp van allerlei systemen (grotendeels) vooraf bepaald wordt. -/- Dit artikel is relevant voor financieel professionals die fintech vormgeven en/of gebruiken. Helaas (...) zijn er geen kant-en-klare oplossingen om moraliteit te programmeren. De auteurs roepen lezers daarom op om bij het managen van de nieuwe innovatiegolf te blijven streven naar vormen van goed bestuur en best practices. (shrink)

In the absence of pre‐established communicative conventions, people create novel communication systems to successfully coordinate their actions toward a joint goal. In this study, we address two types of such novel communication systems: sensorimotor communication, where the kinematics of instrumental actions are systematically modulated, versus symbolic communication. We ask which of the two systems co‐actors preferentially create when aiming to communicate about hidden object properties such as weight. The results of three experiments consistently show that actors who knew the weight (...) of an object transmitted this weight information to their uninformed co‐actors by systematically modulating their instrumental actions, grasping objects of particular weights at particular heights. This preference for sensorimotor communication was reduced in a fourth experiment where co‐actors could communicate with weight‐related symbols. Our findings demonstrate that the use of sensorimotor communication extends beyond the communication of spatial locations to non‐spatial, hidden object properties. (shrink)

The following text is the first ever translation into English of a writing by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz (*1928). In it, Schmitz outlines and defends a non-mentalistic view of emotions as phenomena in interpersonal space in conjunction with a theory of the felt body’s constitutive involvement in human experience. In the first part of the text, Schmitz gives an overview covering some central pieces of his theory as developed, for the most part, in his massive System of (...) Philosophy, published in German in a series of volumes between 1964 and 1980. Schmitz’s System is centred on the claim that the contemporary view of the human subject is the result of a consequential historical process: A reductionist and ‘introjectionist’ objectification of lived experience culminating in the ‘invention’ of the mind (or ‘soul’) as a private, inner realm of subjective experience and in a corresponding ‘grinding down’ of the world of lived experienced to a meagre, value-neutral ‘objective reality’. To counter this intellectualist trend, Schmitz puts to use his approach to phenomenology with the aim of regaining a sensibility for the nuanced realities of lived experience—hoping to make up for what was lost during the development of Western intellectual culture. Since both this text and the overall style of Schmitz’s philosophising are in several ways unusual for a contemporary readership, a brief introduction is provided by philosophers Jan Slaby and Rudolf Owen Müllan, the latter of whom translated Schmitz’s text into English. The introduction emphasises aspects of Schmitz’s philosophy that are likely to be of relevance to contemporary scholars of phenomenological philosophy and to its potential applications in science and society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plausibility in the Greek OratorsThomas A. SchmitzWhen Tzvetan Todorov edited a special issue of the journal Communications on vraisemblance (verisimilitude) in 1968, he described the origin of the concept as follows (I paraphrase):One day during the fifth century B.C., there was a trial in some Sicilian city. Neither the plaintiff nor the defendant could produce witnesses or any other form of evidence to corroborate their version of the events, (...) so they had to convince the judges by the sheer power of their arguments. This was the day the principle of vraisemblance was discovered.Todorov's tongue-in-cheek explanation refers to a concept which in Greek was called. The word combines two aspects that modern logic differentiates: the "objective" meaning of probability (what is probable by the laws of nature) and the "subjective" meaning of plausibility (what the addressee of a message considers plausible). Aristotle's use of the word shows that the Greek concept does not draw a sharp distinction between these two elements.1 Their intricate connection becomes evident in, e.g., his Rhetoric (2.25 1402b14-16) where he defines enthymemes. They are drawn from probability, he explains, when they are based upon things which occur regularly or are perceived to occur regularly (). The same definition combines objective, purely statistical probability () and subjective plausibility ().Ancient rhetorical theory in general highlighted the subjective aspect, as is evident in the definition of that Anaximenes (?) gives in his Rhetorica ad Alexandrum (7.3.4 1428a27-35): [End Page 47]Plausibility is achieved if the listeners have examples of what is said in mind. To wit, if somebody were to say that he wants his fatherland to be great and his friends to be lucky and his enemies to be unlucky and similar things, this, in short, will seem plausible. For every listener is aware that he himself has similar desires about these and like matters. Hence we must always take care in our speeches to secure our listeners' concurrence in the matters about which we are speaking. For they are likely to trust these statements most.Anaximenes thus defines as an attentiveness to the public's assumptions rather than an objective quality inherent in certain facts. His aim is to train future orators. Whereas a philosopher such as Aristotle wants to explore the very foundations of rhetorical persuasion and thus is interested in all aspects of, orators will be concerned with persuading their audiences instead of speculating about the laws of nature. Yet it could be argued that the modern distinction is largely illusory. Even the most "objective" probability must appear probable to someone; if there are no observers bringing in their own experiences and presuppositions, there is no probability.From its earliest period, Greek oratory made extensive use of this concept. It is impossible to pinpoint its exact origin2—it probably was "discovered" several times. Anastassiou's suggestion (1981, 358-60) that was first used as a means of reaching a decision in cases of insufficient evidence and was not employed by orators as a strategy of persuasion until later3 strains the imagination. As soon as there was a case of insufficient evidence, both parties were sure to use to further their point of view, trying to persuade the judges of the plausibility of their [End Page 48] version. From early times, certainly was no less a means of discourse than a tool of knowledge about the world.One of our earliest examples for this rhetorical use comes from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. When Apollo accuses Hermes of having stolen his cattle, Hermes answers that he, a mere baby, is not likely to be a cattle thief (, 265). So far, discussions of this passage4 have seldom mentioned one important feature: Hermes is lying. Against all appearances and probabilities, the mere baby did indeed steal Apollo's cattle. Thus not only is the author of the hymn familiar with this particular form of argument, he also knows that it can be employed deceptively. His use of the device appears to be a playful parody of arguments that he considered typical of court speeches. This seems to presuppose that at the time of... (shrink)

After outlining why the notion of conscious control of action matters to us and after distinguishing different challenges to that notion, the contribution focuses on the challenge posed by the literature on unconscious goal pursuit. Based on a conceptual clarification of the notion of consciousness, I argue that the understanding of consciousness in that literature is too restricted. The hypothesis that the behaviors reported can be accounted for by nonconceptual forms of consciousness, such as emotions and motor experiences, rather than (...) by—conscious or unconscious—conceptual level intentions tends to be disregarded, even though it promises to be empirically fruitful. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 420-463.

The reflection on the preconditions and evolution of science has played a decisive role in the development of Ernst Cassirer's philosophy, contributing to its functional and thus inherently pluralistic and holistic view of knowledge. To present Cassirer's conception of physics as an open symbolic formation enables us to reveal and study the radical features of his epistemological model: (1) the fundamental process of generating sense-units and meaning in its constitutive character for each attempt of objectification, (2) its driving and structuring (...) dynamics that touches and transforms all elements of knowledge, the a priori included, (3) the strategies of justification that allow maintaining the claim of truthfulness in spite the fact that Cassirer's open model integrates contingency and transitoriness as an inherent part of knowledge. It thus becomes clear that Cassirer's term 'symbol' cannot be reduced to its habitual representational acceptation, for its key theoretical function is to overcome the inconsistencies of dualistic epistemological models. It is this re-orientation, a kind of 'second Copernican revolution', that allows Cassirer to go beyond traditional dichotomies and to propose a larger frame in which to appreciate the diversity of human understanding. (shrink)

Constitutional review was the most original idea stemming from the Austrian Federal Constitution of 1920. It is argued that the politician Karl Renner gave birth to the idea of a constitutional court. Hans Kelsen played the predominant role in the drafting of constitutional provisions. The new Constitutional Court provided for a centralized system of review, with an eye to a number of politically important issues. Owing to the pressure that stemmed from various discussions between and among the politicians of the (...) national state and the Länder, Kelsen was obliged to depart from the German model of the federal state and to develop in its place a new theory. (shrink)

Henry Pietersma’s Phenomenological Epistemology presents a thoughtful reflection upon the great figures active in what may be called “the transcendental turn.” Originating with Kant, Pietersma traces its development in Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. The book can be read as an informed and unusually clear exposition of an aspect of their thought, but it is more than that. Its philosophical acuity stems from two factors: first, the decision—no doubt, controverted by others—to illuminate the thought of these seminal philosophers in the light (...) of epistemological issues, and second, to view these issues against the background of their shared repudiation of modern realism—a repudiation, however, that haunts Pietersma’s own reflection. For throughout his work, he addresses “the character of transcendental epistemology and its relation to realism.”. (shrink)