Frontmatter -- Inhalt -- Formen und Inhalte der Bedeutungsbeschreibung: Definition, Explikation, Repräsentation, Simulation / Weber, Nico -- Zeichen, Bedeutung, Objekt aus kommunikationssemantischer Sicht / Juchem, Johann G. -- Was ist philosophische Logik der Zeit? / Stuhlmann-Laeisz, Rainer -- Zum Kompositionalitätsprinzip in der Semantik / Schröder, Bernhard -- Kognitiv orientierte Lexikographie / Figge, Udo L. -- Wortbedeutungen in Wörterbüchern, Wortbedeutungen in Texten / Seewald, Uta -- Lexikon und Universalgrammatik / Bierwisch, Manfred -- Enzyklopädische Informationen in Wörterbüchern / Bergenholtz, Henning (...) / Kaufmann, Uwe -- Ansichten von Bedeutung: fachsprachliche vs. gemeinsprachliche Semantik / Schaeder, Burkhard -- On Compound Explication in a Byzantine Greek Dictionary / Steiner-Weber, Astrid -- Lexikographische Erschließung des Wendekorpus / Hellmann, Manfred W. -- Les temps d'un dictionnaire de TAO sont-ils venus? / Zemb, Jean-Marie -- Semantische Relatoren / Engel, Ulrich -- Die Beschreibung von Sätzen ohne Subjektsphrase in der kopfgesteuerten Phrasenstrukturgrammatik / Klenk, Ursula -- Representation of Verb-alternations in an Inheritance-based Lexicon / Wolting, Suzanne -- Probleme der Extraktion semantischer Relationen aus maschinenlesbaren Wörterbüchern / Mehl, Stephan -- Können Verben semantische Relationen markieren? / Büchel, Gregor -- On the Verification of Lexical Descriptions in Text Corpora / Heid, Ulrich -- Automatische Generierung natürlichsprachlicher Paraphrasen formaler Bedeutungsbeschreibungen / Küstner, Herbert -- Verb Semantics in Multilingual Sentence Generation / Stede, Manfred -- ADRESSEN DER AUTOREN. (shrink)

Studies in experimental philosophy claim to document intuition variation. Some studies focus on demographic group-variation; Colaçoet al., for example, claim that age generates intuition variation regarding knowledge attribution in a fake-barn scenario. Other studies claim to show intuition variation when comparing the intuition of philosophers to that of non-philosophers. The main focus has been on documenting intuition variation rather than uncovering what underlying factor(s) may prompt such a phenomenon. We explore a number of suggested explanatory hypotheses put forth by Colaçoet (...) al., as well as an attempt to test Sosa's claim that intuition variance is a result of people ‘filling in the details’ of a thought experiment differently from one another. We show (i) that people respond consistently across conditions aimed at ‘filling in the details’ of thought experiments, (ii) that risk attitude does not seem relevant to knowledge ascription, (iii) that people's knowledge ascriptions do not vary due to views about defeasibility of knowledge. Yet, (iv) we find no grounds to reject that a large proportion of people appear to adhere to so-called subjectivism about knowledge, which may explain why they generally have intuitions about the fake-barn scenario that vary from those of philosophers. (shrink)

Self-fulfillment of theories is argued to be a threat to social science in at least two ways. First, a realist might worry that self-fulfillment constitutes a threat to the idea that social science is a proper science consistent with a realist approach that develops true and successful statements about the world. Second, one might argue that the potential self-fulfilling nature of social science theories potentially undermines the ethical integrity of social scientists. We argue that if one accepts that social science (...) theories are not based on laws akin to those that govern natural reality or acknowledges that if one can predict self-fulfillment via a meta-theory that explains the underlying regularities of the self-fulfilling change, the threat to realism is dismantled. Furthermore, on the basis of these arguments, we show that if one is unable to predict the consequences of a theory, it is difficult to ascribe moral responsibility at the individual level. It is, therefore, not the potential self-fulfillment of theories per se that poses an ethical challenge, in contrast to claims in the literature. (shrink)

When experimental philosophers carry out studies on thought experiments, some participants are excluded based on certain exclusion criteria, mirroring standard social science vignette methodology. This involves excluding people that do not pay attention or who miscomprehend the scenario presented in thought experiments. However, experimental philosophy studies sometimes exclude an alarmingly high number of participants. We argue that this threatens the external and internal validity of the conclusions being drawn and we show how a simple visualization of thought experiments can reduce (...) exclusion rates significantly. Furthermore, we argue that focus should not merely be on how many are excluded, but also why they are excluded, and we highlight the role of comprehension questions in this regard. Philosophical thought experiments often rely on the acceptance of certain key premises that may be regarded contestable, and asking comprehension questions involving such key assumptions could be problematic as that may result in some participants being inadvertently excluded from the study, potentially creating a selection bias. (shrink)

In What Is Philosophy?, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari distinguish the functions of philosophy, art and science. According to this distinction, the primary purpose of philosophy is to invent concepts, the purpose of art to bring forth percepts, or sensorial aggregates, and that of science to delineate functions. This article aims to show that these distinctions are not as clear-cut as they appear. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s proposition that ‘philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts’ as a (...) reference point, it suggests that the corresponding philosophical practice is intimately connected to art and science. Studying the conceptual drawings in Deleuze’s texts, the article situates his philosophy in the French tradition of epistemology (Cavaillès, Bachelard and Canguilhem). As a result, the conceptual work of this philosophy can be seen as intensively responding to the creative problems posed by the dynamics of science in contemporary societies. (shrink)

CSR has become an important element in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide. A large number of initiatives have been developed that aim to support companies in developing, implementing, and communicating about CSR. The Global Compact (GC), initiated by the United Nations, stands out. Since its launch in 2000, it has grown to about 2900 companies and 3800 members in total. The GC combines several mechanisms to support CSR strategies: normative principles, networks for learning and co-operation, (...) and communication and transparency about CSR activities. However, up to now only a few empirical evaluations of the contribution of the GC to CSR strategies have been conducted that however have not differentiated between different types of companies (regarding type of industry or regarding the maturity of CSR). This paper aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by a case study examination of three frontrunner companies in the telecommunications industry. The results show that the GC is only one of the many initiatives that these companies employ in shaping, implementing, and reporting about their CSR strategies, and that its role is at most modest. There are two important reasons. One is that many of the CSR issues that these companies deal with are industry specific and are hence addressed in specific networks. The second reason is that the GC principles are perceived as minimum requirements that do not provide many incentives to the three case study companies to perform better. A differentiation of norms for GC members is expected to enhance the contribution of the GC to CSR strategy employment, not only for frontrunner companies but as well for other categories of companies. (shrink)

In this paper, I review some of the discussions on procreative beneficence and procreative autonomy in the context of postponed motherhood and compare the considerations to the context of advanced paternal age. In doing so, I will give an overview of the main scientific findings with regard to how older age in men affects the health of future offspring. I shall demonstrate how the discrepancy between the media coverage and policies on postponed motherhood and postponed fatherhood mistakenly suggests that women (...) are more responsible than men for the health of offspring. (shrink)

Is phenomenology a method or a philosophy (of ?ontological? character)? This question is discussed here with a recent philosophical collection of articles about the phenomenology of sport at hand. However, one finds very few concrete phenomena in this volume, but much abstract talk about the authoritative philosophers of ontology and existentialism. This gives the ?phenomenological school? a somewhat sectarian character, which is not typical in recent contributions of phenomenology. This review essay broadens out from the current volume under consideration towards (...) a history of phenomenology and a differential phenomenology of phenomenology. It is not clear how much value the volume itself, however, has for the understanding of sport as well as for the understanding of phenomenology. Nevertheless, it documents how phenomenological scholastics approach sport, which may serve as a warning at a time when positivist reductionism seems to have also become mainstream in human and social sciences. (shrink)

In this chapter, we describe three areas within the broad field of ecogenomics or postgenomics: epigenetics, proteomics, and microbiomics. We argue that these fields challenge traditional bioethics in different ways. Since epigenetic, proteomic, and microbiomic data may contain phenotypical information, they may intensify discussions about consent, privacy, and return of results. But these fields also firmly position organisms, including human beings, as deeply entangled with their environments, as constituted by context, history, and experiences as much as genes. This yields new (...) insights into concepts of health and development. We discuss precision medicine as an example of a systemic approach to health. We argue that acknowledging the entanglement of organism and environment also means recognizing the importance of interdisciplinarity for bioethics and thinking together biomedical ethics and environmental ethics. (shrink)

Following a detailed study of the views of reid and wittgenstein on philosophy and language, I conclude that reid's position represents an extremely pivotal stage in the upgrading of the importance of language in philosophy which, Taken up and carried along by moore, Culminates in the later philosophy of wittgenstein and that the latter owes much to views on philosophy and language which have their origin in reid.

This article applies the idea of political reconciliation to current debates on global injustices. My underlying thesis is that the idea of reconciliation fits better to the nonideal circumstances of global exploitation and domination. Originally, political reconciliation defines a transitional process from a state of severe injustice to a state of renewed social peace and cooperation under conditions of serious disagreement and in the absence of a well-ordered social structure. What the theory of political reconciliation has to add to nonideal (...) theorizing is that political stability and unity are to be based on a societal healing process that depends on institutional measures of trust-building, truth telling and forgiveness. (shrink)

Arguments for moral consequentialism often appeal to an alleged structural similarity between consequentialist reasoning in ethics and rational decision-making in everyday life. Ordinary rational decision-making is seen as a paradigmatic case of goal-oriented, teleological decision-making, since it allegedly aims at maximizing the goal of preference satisfaction. This chapter describes and discusses a neglected type of preference change, “predictable preference accommodation.” This phenomenon leads to a number of critical cases in which the rationality of a particular choice does not depend on (...) features of the outcome of the chosen act. On the basis of these cases, it is argued that consequentialists cannot point to everyday decision-making as an uncontroversial example of consequentialist reasoning. On the contrary, it is suggested that an adequate account of rationality in prudential choice may need a Kantian notion of respect. (shrink)

Gilbert Simondons Abhandlung Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958) operiert im Übergangsraum zwischen Heideggers Technikphilosophie und zeitgenössischer Kybernetik. Darüber hinaus skizziert Simondon ein explizit politisches Programm, das in der Forderung kulminiert, die technischen Objekte durch menschliche Repräsentanten in der Kultur der heutigen Gesellschaft besser zur Geltung zu bringen. Grundlage für dieses Programm ist seine Auffassung des technischen »Dings« als Medium. Gilbert Simondon's essay (1958 [On the mode of being of technical objects]) operates in the transitional space between Heidegger's philosophy (...) of technology and contemporary cybernetics. Furthermore, Simondon outlines an explicitly political program that culminates in the demand to emphasize the status of technical objects in the culture of contemporary society by way of human representatives. The basis for this program is his conception of the technical »thing« as a medium. (shrink)

Habermas on genealogy, metaphysics and religion Habermas’s impressive history of philosophy presents itself both as a comprehensive account of the history of Western philosophy from its beginning to the 19th century and as a genealogy of post-metaphysical thinking. In this paper I argue that this twofold goal creates a serious methodological problem. I also find Habermas’s understanding of metaphysics unclear and partly misguided. If that is correct it has consequences not only for the very notion of post-metaphysical thinking but also (...) for the understanding of the dialogue between philosophy, religion, and modern secular society that Habermas advocates. (shrink)

Twelve years after his famous Essay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological (1943), the philosopher Georges Canguilhem (1904–1995) published a book-length study on the history of a single biological concept. Within France, his Formation of the Reflex Concept in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1955) contributed significantly to defining the “French style” of writing on the history of science. Outside of France, the book passed largely unnoticed. This paper re-reads Canguilhem’s study of the reflex concept with respect (...) to its historiographical and epistemological implications. Canguilhem defines concepts as complex and dynamic entities combining terms, definitions, and phenomena. As a consequence, the historiography of science becomes a rather complex task. It has to take into account textual and contextual aspects that develop independently of individual authors. In addition, Canguilhem stresses the connection between conceptual activities and other functions of organic individuals in their respective environments. As a result, biological concepts become tied to a biology of conceptual thinking, analogical reasoning, and technological practice. The paper argues that this seemingly circular structure is a major feature in Canguilhem’s philosophical approach to the history of the biological sciences. (shrink)

This paper argues that Husserl’s ethics do not fit into any one of three commonly recognized kinds of ethical theory: virtue (Aristotelian), deontological (Kantian), and consequentialist (especially, utilitarianism). Husserl’s mature ethical theory, in particular, combines a modern, Kantian or Fichtean approach based on a strong concept of a free and active ego capable of shaping its life autonomously through its own will with a more Aristotelian theory of the virtues that help us to shape our lives in order to reach (...) happiness or eudaimonia. The paper presents a historical overview of Husserl’s writings on ethics, divided into two main periods with distinct emphases. It concludes that, on the one hand, Husserl’s theory of the ethical person clarifies the origin of the virtues in the free activity of the subject, and on the other, it extends the voluntaristic conception of subjectivity to encompass the passively constituted habits. In this way, Husserl combines an Aristotelian-style virtue ethics with modern theories of subjectivity. It is this combination of modern and Aristotelian elements in Husserl’s ethics that makes it a systematically fruitful and promising contribution to ethical theory. (shrink)

Suppose we can save either a larger group of persons or a distinct, smaller group from some harm. Many people think that, all else equal, we ought to save the greater number. This article defends this view (with qualifications). But unlike earlier theories, it does not rely on the idea that several people's interests or claims receive greater aggregate weight. The argument starts from the idea that due to their stakes, the affected people have claims to have a say in (...) the rescue decision. As rescuers, our primary duty is to respect these procedural claims, which we must do by doing what these people would decide, in a process where each is given an equal vote on the matter. So in cases where each votes in their own self-interest, respect for their equal right to decide, or their autonomy, will lead us to save the greater number. The argument is explained in detail, with special attention to the questions of how, exactly, it avoids aggregation, and of why majority rule is superior to lottery procedures. The view has further advantages. Especially, it explains the “partial” relevance of numbers in cases involving unequal harms, and it does so in a way that dissolves the appearance of paradox that besets theories of “partial aggregation.”. (shrink)