Emerging research has highlighted the utility of measuring individual differences in decision-making competence (DMC), showing that consistently following normatively rational principles is associated with positive psychosocial and health behaviors. From another level of analysis, functional theories of personality suggest that broad trait dimensions represent variation in underlying self-regulatory systems, providing a mechanistic account for robust associations between traits and similar life outcomes. Yet, the degree to which broad dispositional personality dimensions predict global tendencies to respond rationally is less understood. In (...) a large online community sample (N = 804), we tested the associations between HEXACO personality dimensions, a 6-factor structural trait model, and a subset of DMC indicators (Applying Decision Rules, Resistance to Framing, Recognizing Social Norms, and Consistency in Risk Perception). Additionally, we examined gender differences across the DMC, first considering the potential for measurement non-invariance across groups for the DMC. We observed partial measurement invariance between men and women; only the Applying Decision Rules scale showed evidence of differential functioning across groups. Controlling for these differences, analyses revealed that higher Conscientiousness, Honesty/Humility, and Openness were associated with higher DMC scores. In contrast, Emotionality and Extraversion demonstrated gender-specific associations. Speci... (shrink)

Contemporary theories of criminalisation address, with varying emphasis, themes concerning the harmfulness and the wrongfulness of the conduct. In his article for the present issue, Antony Duff relies chiefly on notions of wrongfulness as the basis for his proposed criminalisation doctrines; whereas in their 2011 volume on criminalisation, Andrew Simester and Andreas von Hirsch invoke both wrongfulness and harmfulness as prerequisites for prohibiting conduct. The present article assesses the comparative merits of these approaches, and argues in favour of (...) the latter, two-element perspective. In this article, the author puts forward a number of reasons suggesting why the two-element approach is preferable. These reasons include, firstly, an inductive argument—that the kinds of wrongful conduct for which criminalisation seems a plausible response are those that include an element of harm or risk of harm. Secondly, a defining role for the state is one of resource-protection: of safeguarding the means and resources through which citizens can live good lives. Thus the concept of citizens’ living resources—and the related conception of harm—should be made a constitutive and explicit element of criminalisation theory, rather than subsuming resource-protection under a general rubric of wrongfulness. Thirdly, a two-element approach provides reciprocal limiting principles concerning the scope of criminalisation. One can, for example, employ wrongfulness requirements to limit the criminalisation of conduct that has remote harmful consequences; and, conversely, use a harmfulness requirement as means for restricting the criminalisation of wrongful acts. (shrink)

We discuss and respond to the contributions of Tatjana Hörnle, John Kleinig, and John Stanton-Ife, and clarify some aspects of the arguments made in Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs.

We discuss and respond to the contributions of Tatjana Hörnle, John Kleinig, and John Stanton-Ife, and clarify some aspects of the arguments made in Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs.

This book celebrates Andreas (Andrew) von Hirsch's pioneering contributions to liberal criminal theory. He is particularly noted for reinvigorating desert-based theories of punishment, for his development of principled normative constraints on the enactment of criminal laws, and for helping to bridge the gap between Anglo-American and German criminal law scholarship. Underpinning his work is a deep commitment to a liberal vision of the state. This collection brings together a distinguished group of international authors, who pay tribute to von (...) Hirsch by engaging with topics on which he himself has focused. The essays range across sentencing theory, questions of criminalisation, and the relation between criminal law and the authority of the state. Together, they articulate and defend the ideal of a liberal criminal justice system, and present a fitting accolade to Andreas von Hirsch's scholarly life. (shrink)

Whereas liberals tend to emphasize harm as the decisive criterion for legitimizing criminalisation, moralists take a qualified notion of wrongfulness as sufficient even when no harm is at hand. This comment takes up Andreas von Hirsch ’s “dual element approach” requiring both harm and wrongfulness as necessary conditions for criminalisation and argues that Joel Feinberg’s account of harming as violation of moral rights is perfectly compatible with it. Subsequently, two issues from the liberalism-moralism debate on criminalisation are examined: (...) The difficulty of how to determine wrongfulness beyond the scope of harming, and the so far disregarded question of whether the democratic legislator is free within the framework of constitution to criminalise whatever conduct he wants to prevent irrespective of philosophical constraints. (shrink)

Andrew Simester and Andreas von Hirsch’s Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs: On the Principles of Criminalisation (Simester and von Hirsch 2011) is an important contribution to the philosophical debate over the nature and ethical limits of criminalisation. As they note in their reply in this symposium, one of the novel aspects of their account is that they do not advance one “unified, grand theory”. Rather, they analyse each ground of criminal prohibition—wrongfulness, harm-based, offense, and paternalistic prohibitions aimed at (...) preventing self-harm—so as to develop guiding principles for their use (or, in the case of paternalism, the absence of an independent principle that would underwrite its use).The result is a rich set of arguments that advance a number of debates across the field of criminalisation.However, that is not all: the participants share the view that, as Tatjana Hörnle puts it, “any theory of criminalization presupposes assumptions about the functions of the criminal law. The q. (shrink)

Claire Katz & Lara Trout, Emmanuel Levinas. Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers ; Thomas Bedorf, Andreas Cremonini, Verfehlte Begegnung. Levinas und Sartre als philosophische Zeitgenossen ; Samuel Moyn, Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics ; Pascal Delhom & Alfred Hirsch, Im Angesicht der Anderen. Levinas’ Philosophie des Politischen ; Sharon Todd, Learning from the other: Levinas, psychoanalysis and ethical possibilities in education ; Michel Henry, Le bonheur de Spinoza, suivi de: Etude sur le spinozisme (...) de Michel Henry, par Jean-Michel Longneaux ; Jean-François Lavigne, Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie. Des Recherches logiques aux Ideen: la genèse de l’idéalisme transcendantal phénoménologique ; Denis Seron, Objet et signification ; Dan Zahavi, Sara Heinämaa and Hans Ruin, Metaphysics, Facticity, Interpretation. Phenomenology in The Nordic Countries ; Dimitri Ginev, Entre anthropologie et herméneutique ; Magdalena Mărculescu-Cojocea, Critica metafizicii la Kant şi Heidegger. Problema subiectivităţii: raţiunea între autonomie şi deconstrucţie. (shrink)

In this article, I comment on Simester and von Hirsch’s theory of criminalization and discuss general principles of criminalization. After some brief comments on punishment theories and the role of moral wrongdoing, I examine main lines of contemporary criminalization theories which tend to focus on the issues of harm, offense, paternalism and side-constraints. One of the points of disagreement with Simester and von Hirsch concerns the role of the harm principle. I rely on a straightforward normative concept of (...) “rights of others,” not in the sense of rights granted in positive law but in the sense of rights which are to be justified in political philosophy. With a rights-centered rather than a harm-centered approach, a prima facie reason for criminalization is the violation of others’ rights. It is unnecessary to develop a separate category of “offense to others,” and paternalistic interventions can be criticized straightforwardly because rights can be waived. (shrink)

In Andreas Stokke (ed.), Festschrift for Matti Eklund, 2024. -/- Replies to Katharina Felka and Nils Franzén, Eli Hirsch, Dan Korman, David Liebesman, Øystein Linnebo, Anna-Sofia Maurin and Debbie Roberts. Topics discussed concern metaethics, metaphysics and philosophy of language. More specifically, issues discussed are thick concepts (Felka and Franzén; Roberts), ontology (Hirsch, Linnebo), indifferentism and fictionalism (Korman), alien languages and alien metaphysics (Liebesman), and Bradley's regress (Maurin).

Aristotle’s most fundamental distinction between changes and other activities is not that ofMetaphysicsΘ.6, between end-exclusive and end-inclusive activities, but one implicit inPhysics3.1’s definition of change, between the activity of something incomplete and the activity of something complete. Notably, only the latter distinction can account for Aristotle’s view, inPhysics3.3, that ‘agency’—effecting change in something, e.g. teaching—does not qualify strictly as a change. This distinction informsDe Anima2.5 and imparts unity to Aristotle’s extended treatment of change inPhysics3.1-3.

In den letzten Jahren hat sich eine Vielfalt unterschiedlicher Gremien zur Ethikberatung entwickelt: vom Konsil mit einem einzelnen Berater bis zum Ethikkomitee. In dem Band werden die Ethikberatung, ihre Entwicklung und Anwendung, sowie die Gründung von Gremien in Krankenhäusern, Pflegeeinrichtungen, Hospizen und von niedergelassenen Ärzten anhand von Fallbeispielen erläutert. Dabei schlagen die Autoren eine Brücke zwischen traditioneller philosophischer Ethik und anwendungsbezogener klinischer Ethik. Auch rechtliche Fragen werden erörtert.

This thesis consists of four essays and an introduction dedicated to two main topics: indexicality and presupposition. The first essay is concerned with an alleged problem for the standard treatment of indexicals on which their linguistic meanings are functions from context to content. Since most indexicals have their content settled, on an occasion of use, by the speaker’s intentions, some authors have argued that this standard picture is inadequate. By demonstrating that intentions can be seen as a parameter of the (...) kind of context that characters operate on, these arguments are rejected. In addition, it is argued that a more recent, variable-based framework is naturally interpreted as an intention-sensitive semantics. The second essay is devoted to the phenomenon of descriptive uses of indexicals on which such an expression seems to contribute, not its standard reference as determined by its character, but a property to the interpretation. An argument that singular readings of the cases in question are incoherent is shown to be incorrect, and an approach to descriptive readings is developed on which they arise from e-type uses akin to other well known cases. Further, descriptive readings of the relevant kind are seen to arise only in the presence of adverbs of quantification, and all sentences in which such an adverb takes scope over an indexical are claimed to be ambiguous between a referential and an e-type reading. The third essay discusses a version of the variable analysis of pronouns on which their descriptive meanings are relegated to the so-called phi-features – person, gender and number. In turn, the phi-features are here seen as triggering semantic presuppositions that place constraints on the definedness of pronouns, and ultimately of sentences in which they appear. It is argued that the descriptive information contributed by the phi-features diverges radically from presuppositional information of both semantic and pragmatic varieties on several dimensions of comparison, and instead the main role of the phi-features is seen to be that of guiding hearers’ attempts to ascertain the speaker’s intentions. The fourth essay addresses an issue concerning the treatment of presuppositions in dynamic semantics. Representing a semantic treatment of pragmatic presuppositions, the dynamic framework is shown to incorrectly regard conversational infelicity as sufficient for semantic undefinedness, given the standard way of defining truth in terms of context change. Further, it is shown that a proposal for a solution fail to make correct predictions for epistemic modals. A novel framework is developed on which context change potentials act on contexts that have more structure than the contexts usually countenanced by dynamic semantics, and it is shown that this framework derives truth from context change while making correct predictions for both presuppositions and modals. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band umfasst den Briefwechsel Schleiermachers von April 1806 bis Ende 1807, dem Zeitpunkt seiner endgültigen Übersiedlung nach Berlin. Im Sommer 1806 lehrt Schleiermacher das letzte Semester an der Hallenser Universität, wobei er zum ersten Mal Kirchengeschichte und Christliche Sittenlehre liest. Mit dem Zusammenbruch Preußens und der Besetzung Halles durch französische Truppen im Oktober 1806 findet Schleiermachers akademische Wirksamkeit ein abruptes Ende durch die Schließung der Universität und die Vertreibung der Studenten. Er bleibt zunächst in Halle, um das Schicksal (...) der Universität abzuwarten, beginnt aber im Sommer 1807 mit Privatvorlesungen in Berlin, wohin er Ende 1807 endgültig übersiedelt, in der Hoffnung auf eine Berufung an die neu zu gründende Berliner Universität. Der drohende Krieg und die Niederlage Preußens sind zentrale Themen des Briefwechsels. Eine große Rolle spielen die beruflichen Perspektiven Schleiermachers und die Hoffnung auf die neu zu errichtende Berliner Universität. Von den insgesamt 425 Briefen dieses Bandes sind 240 an Schleiermacher gerichtet und 185 von ihm selbst geschrieben. 127 der hier dokumentierten Briefe konnten nur erschlossen werde; von ihnen ist kein Text überliefert. Von den übrigen Briefen waren bisher nur 80 vollständig gedruckt. 41 Briefe waren bisher im Verhältnis zu den überlieferten Texten bzw. Textzeugen nur gekürzt publiziert; sie werden hier erstmals entsprechend der Überlieferungslage vollständig ediert. 177 Briefe werden im vorliegenden Band überhaupt erstmals ediert. (shrink)

The discussion about the possibilities of human freedom is by far not tinished yet, Iet alone worn out. The discourse on freedom again became the focus of critical discussion, especially due to the immensely pushed and successful neurosciences and their findings and- following in their wake- newly established philosophical concepts. But also inner-philosophical problems demand re-orientation. This has tobe of interest for theology, too, as freedom is at the core of Christian self-understanding and theological explication.

In this paper, I investigate whether the intuitions that make connexive logics seem plausible might lie in pragmatic phenomena, rather than the semantics of conditional statements. I conclude that pragmatics indeed underwrites these intuitions, at least for indicative statements. Whether this has any effect on logic choice, however, heavily depends on one’s semantic theory of conditionals and on how one chooses to logically treat pragmatic failures.

This commentary compares the P-FIT model with psychometric and developmental models of intelligence and shows that there are isomorphisms and divergences between them. All three models involve some common dimensions, but the P-FIT model lacks many of the dimensions of the other models. Then we point to research that can lead to the integration of brain models with cognitive-developmental models.

Platons Dialog Parmenides bietet eine Auseinandersetzung mit innerakademischen Kritiken. Im ersten Teil legt Platon nahe, dass gewisse Einwande gegen die Ideenlehre auf einem unangemessenen Verstandnis der Sache beruhen: sie entstehen vor dem Hintergrund der Bewusstseinsgestalt der Verdinglichung. Die Brisanz dieser Diagnose wird im zweiten Teil des Dialoges verdeutlicht. Hier demonstriert Platon sozusagen ad nauseam, was geschieht, wenn diese Denkform gegen die Auffassung der Kritiker gewendet wird. Andreas Graeser untersucht den Platons Dialog genauer.

Dieses Lehrbuch behandelt zentrale naturphilosophische Probleme, die durch Theorien der modernen Naturwissenschaften aufgeworfen werden. Es fragt, welches Bild von Raum, Zeit, Materie, Leben und Bewusstsein sich aus ihnen ergibt, aber auch nach den Konsequenzen der aktuellen Umweltkrise für unser praktisches Verhältnis zur Natur. Der Autor Prof. em. Dr. Andreas Bartels hat Mathematik, Physik und Philosophie studiert und ist emeritierter Professor für Natur- und Wissenschaftsphilosophie an der Universität Bonn.

‘Op zeker moment in de loop van die stille dagen besliste ik dat dat was wat ik wilde: de geest in al haar complexiteit bestuderen [...] Ik lees in mijn dagboek dat een handschrift, door mij ternauwernood herkend als het mijne, schrijft met heel de kwetsbare overmoed van een haast twintigjarige: ‘Volgens mij is het observeren van het leven, het brein, de ziel enzovoort, net zoiets als het bestuderen van elektronen: de gevolgde methode, de aanvangssituatie, die bepalen de uitslag. Een (...) andere methode kan een andere uitslag opleveren, waarvan je niet kunt zeggen dat die fout is.’. (shrink)

This article discusses why the theme of exile, marginality and the role of outsiders occupied Judith N. Shklar and how it impacted on her teaching and writing. More specifically it draws on Shklar’s last Harvard lectures and essays in which she reflects systematically on the questions of obligation and exile. It maintains that the relatively late turn towards exile is neither accident nor retrospective construction. Throughout her adult life Judith Shklar argued from a position of ‘optimal marginality’ – what has (...) been called ‘exile from exile’ − that allowed her to situate and present herself simultaneously as an outsider and to present her political theory as a kind of pedagogic and maieutic discourse. This was a way of turning traumatic personal experiences into a creative academic performance marked by true intellectual curiosity. (shrink)

Glauben und unser Begriff von ihm stehen seit wenigstens hundert Jahren mit im Zentrum der theoretischen Philosophie. Glauben im weitesten Sinn: jederlei Art des Fürwahrhaltens. Die Frage, was es ist und welchen Begriff wir davon haben, war und bleibt ein Thema insbesondere auch der Erkenntnistheorie, der Philosophie des Geistes und der Ontologie. Welche Auskünfte bietet die Philosophie heute darüber, was das Glauben ist? Wie gut sind sie? Inwieweit lassen sie sich aus dem Begriff begründen, den wir vom Glauben haben? Was (...) für ein Begriff ist das eigentlich? Können wir Wissen vom Glauben haben, wenigstens vom eigenen? Solchen Fragen geht dieser Essay nach, oft ohne definitive Antwort. Es ist eher der Versuch, erkennbar werden zu lassen, weshalb die Erwartung, es gebe solche Antworten, keinen guten philosophischen Grund hat. Und daß dies kein Grund ist, die Wirklichkeit des Glaubens in Frage zu ziehen. (shrink)

This English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken offers a rare, intimate view of the philosopher by Lou Salomé, a free-thinking, Russian-born intellectual to whom Nietzsche proposed marriage at only their second meeting. Published in 1894 as its subject languished in madness, Salomé's book rode the crest of a surge of interest in Nietzsche's iconoclastic philosophy. She discusses his writings and such biographical events as his break with Wagner, attempting to ferret out the man in the midst of his (...) works. Salomé's provocative conclusion -- that Nietzsche's madness was the inevitable result of his philosophical views -- generated considerable controversy. Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, dismissed the book as a work of fantasy. Yet the philosopher's longtime acquaintance Erwin Rohde wrote, "Nothing better or more deeply experienced or perceived has ever been written about Nietzsche." Siegfried Mandel's extensive introduction examines the circumstances that brought Lou Salomé and Nietzsche together and the ideological conflicts that drove them apart. (shrink)

The concept of measurement is fundamental to a whole range of different disciplines, including not only the natural and engineering sciences, but also laboratory medicine and certain branches of the social sciences. This being the case, the concept of measurement has a particular relevance to the development of top-level ontologies in the area of knowledge engineering. For this reason, the present paper is concerned with ontological aspects of measurement. We are searching for a list of concepts that are apt to (...) characterize measurement methods in a general manner. To establish such means of characterization, we will primarily deal with the semantics of measurement values. (shrink)

Without doubt Richard Rorty is one of the most honored, famous and disputed philosophers of our days. All over the world interest in his inspiring and provoking thoughts goes beyond the circles of academic philosophy. The present volume includes "The Brain as Hardware, Culture as Software" and "Philosophy-Envy" of Richard Rorty, papers presented by students of the philosophy department at university of Munster and Rorty's responses to and comments on them. Rorty's lecture has been publicly presented at the 8. Munstersche (...) Vorlesungen zur Philosophie on may 26th 2004. The students presented their intensively prepared papers on the following day. The volume gives an overview of the main topics of his philosophy as well as a detailed analysis of central concepts. "The papers are of very high quality indeed, and the level of discussion during the day I spent with the students was equally high. I have never, in any university, encountered students who combined such detailed knowledge of my writings with such penetrating criticisms of my views." (Richard Rorty)". (shrink)

Der Band repräsentiert in 30 Einzelbeiträgen den Stand der internationalen Nietzsche-Forschung und -interpretation.

Slightly revised version of the author's dissertation--Universiteat Basel, 1998.

Whether meaning is compositional has been a major issue in linguistics and formal philosophy of language for the last 2 decades. Semantic holism is widely and plausibly considered as an objection to the principle of semantic compositionality therein. It comes as a surprise that the holistic peculiarities of scientific language have been rarely addressed in formal accounts so far, given that semantic holism has its roots in the philosophy of science. For this reason, a model-theoretic approach to semantic holism in (...) the language of science is presented here. This approach preserves compositionality to a large extent. *Received September 2009; revised February 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Seminar for Philosophy, Logic, and Theory of Science, Hauspostfach 49, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich 80539, Germany; e-mail: holger.andreas@lrz.uni-muenchen.de. (shrink)

Analysing the profession of ministers in terms of sociologically and ethically funded profession ethics makes a mode of regulation and control in knowledge-based professional action - profession ethics - describable which is closely linked to trust. To adopt trust as an imperative of figuration however, it must be discussed ethically. A theoretical discourse of implementation in an institutional ethics perspective leads to alternative recommendations for figuration: Trust in the profession of ministers is no longer generated by conscious intransparancy, by smothering (...) up mistakes and fallacies and the concealment of control of ministers but by transparancy, feeling obliged to visions, having clear aims, common identity and cooperation structures between professionals and parishioners. (shrink)

Résumé: L’interprétation des concepts clefs de saint Paul à partir des intuitions fondamentales de la phénoménologie de la vie cherche surtout à nous faire saisir l’intersubjectivité possible dans l’immanence de la chair acosmique. Le corps mystique du Christ correspond, ainsi, à cette intersubjectivité acosmique qui peut d’ailleurs fonder, en tant que communauté transcendantale, une inter- subjectivité intramondaine qui se veut pacifique. Il nous semble que, de cette façon, une nouvelle ontologie sociale émerge dans l’appropriation que Henry fait de l’ecclésiologie paulinienne. (...) Il s’agit d’une ontologie qui, pour respecter la singularité de chaque individu n’a pas besoin de l’isoler ou de le concevoir par le biais d’une abstraction totalement séparée d’une quelconque relation aux autres egos. Ce faisant, Henry élabore une ontologie sociale qui n’est réfléchie ni par l’idée de contrat social des philosophes libéraux ni par les vues des communautariens, pour qui l’individu est socialement produit comme être essentiellement déjà-au-monde. Mots-clés: Michel Henry. Corps mystique. Chair. Intersubjectivité. (shrink)