The present contribution elucidates Husserl’s relationship to Lotze in the light of Winthrop Bell’s notes on Husserl’s 1912 seminar on Lotze’s theory of knowledge. Once again, these notes make it clear that Husserl highly appreciated the chapter on Plato’s theory of ideas from Lotze’s 1874 Logic and his anti-psychologistic view of logic, as far as it goes. However, it also becomes clear that Husserl rejected both Lotze’s account of the origins of objectivity in terms of the doctrine of “achievements of (...) thinking (Denkleistungen)” and the discussion of skepticism in the 1874 Logic against the background of his own (Bolzano-inspired) conception of intentionality and his treatment of the epistemological “problem of transcendence” in the framework of the “phenomenological reduction”. (shrink)

A.S. Geyser was professor of New Testament at the University of Pretoria from 1946 to 1961, when he accepted an appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was one of the most active and outspoken critics of apartheid and played a leading role in the establishment of the Christian Institute and the appointment of Beyers Naude as the first director of the Institute. However, Geyser received very little attention either in church history or in the history (...) of South Africa. This contribution, presented as the Third A.S. Geyser Commemorative Lecture at the University of Pretoria, reflects on Geyser’s ecclesiology. It is quite remarkable that Geyser chose ecclesiology as point of entry into the discourse on apartheid. He engaged in fundamental theological criticism of segregation in church and state based on his understanding of the unity of the church in Christ and a humanity unified under the kingship of Christ. (shrink)

Was ist der Mensch? Der Autor behandelte diese Frage anhand der Strukturelemente, die für unser vorgängiges Selbst- und Weltverständnis konstitutiv erscheinen - etwa die Idee eines Bewusstseinssubjekts, einer in der objektiven Welt mit anderen interagierenden Person oder eines moralisch verantwortlichen Akteurs - und der rationalen Beziehungen zwischen diesen Elementen. Der traditionelle Rahmen derartiger Untersuchungen wird in dieser Studie insofern erweitert, als neben philosophischen auch neuere psychologische Debatten Berücksichtigung finden.

This collection examines the instrumental role of intersubjectivity in Husserl's philosophy and explores the potential for developing novel ways of addressing and resolving contemporary philosophical issues on that basis. This is the first time Iso Kern offers an extensive overview of this rich field of inquiry for an English-speaking audience. Guided by his overview, the remaining articles present new approaches to a range of topics and problems that go to the heart of its core theme of intersubjectivity and methodology. Specific (...) topics covered include intersubjectivity and empathy, intersubjectivity in meaning and communication, intersubjectivity pertaining to collective forms of intentionality and extended forms of embodiment, intersubjectivity as constitutive of normality, and, finally, the central role of intersubjectivity in the sciences. The authors' perspectives are strongly influenced by Husserl's own methodological concerns and problem awareness and are formed with a view to applicability in current debates - be it within general epistemology, analytic philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, meta-ethics or philosophy of science. With contributions written by leading Husserl scholars from across the Analytic and Continental traditions, Husserl's Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity is a clear and accessible resource for scholars and advanced students interested in Husserl's phenomenology and the relevance of intersubjectivity to philosophy, sociology, and psychology. (shrink)

Philosophical Intuitions: Their Target, Their Source, and Their Epistemic Status; Naturalism and Intuitions; Intuitions: Their Nature and Epistemic Efficacy; The Nature of Rational Intuitions and a Fresh Look at the Explanationist Objection; Philosophical Knowledge and Knowledge of Counterfactuals; The Possibility of Knowledge; Transcendental Arguments: a Plea for Modesty; A Priori Existence.

The remarkable movement known as Solidarity recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in Poland. This essay provides a theoretical appreciation of the values and principles that guided and undergirded the movement, which greatly contributed to the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. This systematic overview of the ethic of the Solidarity movement fills a lacuna in the field of ethics because ethicists who are interested in the concept of solidarity have largely overlooked the Polish experience of the 1980s. This (...) essay attempts to describe the key ingredients of the Polish ethic of solidarity by analyzing both Polish treatises on the subject and accounts of events on the ground. It elaborates conceptual categories and describes characteristic features of the movement in order to provide a phenomenological account of the nature of solidarity embodied in Poland during this era. These categories and characteristics include unity among differences, the foundation of hope at the movement's roots, self-sacrifice and heroism, promoting the equality and dignity of all, the centrality of participation, the affirmation of "bread and freedom," an option for the poor, and the insistence on life in truth. Although this essay does not attempt to demonstrate the relevance of this "thick" ethic of solidarity to capitalist, democratic societies today, by way of conclusion it raises questions pertaining to the contemporary significance of the Polish ethic of solidarity. (shrink)

Proceedings of a symposium held Nov. 26-28, 2009 at Georg-August-Universit'at.

The paper presents and defends a metadoxastic view on (intentional) consciousness that is novel in four respects: (1) It is motivated both by Husserl’s dynamic approach, which looks upon mental acts as momentary components of certain cognitive structures – “dynamic intentional structures” – in which one and the same object is intended throughout a period of time (during which the subject’s cognitive perspective upon that object is constantly changing) and by his conception of consciousness in terms of internal time-consciousness (temporal (...) awareness). (2) It combines a dispositionalist higher-order judgment theory about the structure of (intentional) consciousness with the claim that the contents of these judgments are such that they can be expressed by essentially indexical sentences containing the temporal indexical “now,” thus accommodating the basic role of internal time-consciousness. (3) It is immune against the “objection from lack of mental concepts” raised, e.g., by Dretske against any higher-order representation theory, as it employs counterfactuals in the framework of a disjunctive account of (intentional) consciousness. (4) It explains the unity of consciousness at a time as well as across time. (shrink)

The notion of empathy has more recently seen a considerable revival—notably (first) in connection with Quine's empathy model of radical interpretation, in contrast to which Davidson has developed his triangulation model, and (secondly) in the context of the debate between simulation theory vs. theory theory about propositional attitude ascription. So far, these debates have been carried on fairly independently of each other. This paper is an attempt to utilize the interpretation-theoretical discussion in order to argue for a moderate version of (...) simulation theory. To this end, Davidson's explanation of the radical interpretation scenario in terms of triangulation is reconstructed by comparison to some relevant ideas of Husserl's. (shrink)

This article presents and compares Frege’s and Husserl’s conceptions of sense, also taking into account their 1891 and 1906 correspondence. It is argued that while the similarities between their views speak in favour of a Fregean interpretation of Husserl’s notion of noematic sense, there are also important differences. With regard to the latter, it is argued that Husserl’s view yields a more general criterion of propositional difference and also provides a more detailed conception of the use of indexicals and non-descriptive (...) singular terms, and of their reference. In this context, Husserl’s conceptions of constitution and genetic constitution analysis, respectively, are invoked and interpreted in terms of the epistemic notion of processing mental files or individual “concepts”. (shrink)

I propose to apply a version of contextualism about knowledge to the special case that represents the topic of this volume. I begin by motivating my preferred version of contextualism, which may be labelled as conventionalist contextualism; here I start from a well-known problem that besets epistemic internalism (section I). Following this, I pose a problem for conventionalist contextualism and argue that it can be solved by invoking, first, the idea of what I shall call the lifewordly background of epistemic (...) justifi cation, an idea originating from Husserl and Wittgenstein, and, secondly, the associated notion of normality, to be found in Husserl (section II). Finally, I apply the resulting conception of justification to philosophical knowledge, particularly focussing on the special role of intuitions (section III). (shrink)

It is not well known that in his Göttingen period (1900–1916) Edmund Husserl developed a kind of direct reference theory, anticipating,among other things, the distinction between referential and attributive use of adefinite description, which was rediscovered by Keith Donnellan in 1966 and further analysed by Saul Kripke in 1977. This paper defends the claim that Husserl''s idea of the mental act given voice to in an utterance sheds new light on that distinction and particularly on cases where semantic referent and (...) speaker''s referent diverge. It is argued that whenembedded in a dynamic theory of intentionality, the idea of giving-voice-to allows for a pragmatic (as opposed to a purely semantic) analysis of such cases. In Section 1 an example involving a referentially used description is presented, and the view that descriptions that can be used both attributively and referentially are thus ambiguous is criticized. Section 2 is concerned with Husserl''s discussion of a case where someone seems to demonstratively refer to something that he mistakes for something else. On thebasis of this discussion, a dynamic conception of the intentional content (and referent) of the mental act given voice to in an utterance is developed. Section 3 applies this neo-Husserlian conception to the example described in Section 1. Finally, it is shown how this conception serves to elucidate the referential/attributive distinction. (shrink)

John Searle''s hypothesis of the Background seems to conflict with his initial representationalism according to which each Intentional state contains a particular content that determines its conditions of satisfaction. In Section I of this essay I expose Searle''s initial theory of Intentionality and relate it to Edmund Husserl''s earlier phenomenology. In Section II I make it clear that Searle''s introduction of the notion of Network, though indispensable, does not, by itself, force us to modify that initial theory. However, a comparison (...) of this notion to the notion of horizon from Husserl''s later phenomenology and an interpretation of Husserl''s conception of the determinable X as providing a solution to the problem of perceptual misidentification lead me to conclude that in his discussion of ''twin examples'' Searle had better modified his initial theory. Finally, I critically examine Searle''s claim that anyone who tries seriously to follow out the threads in the Network will eventually reach a bedrock of non-Intentional capacities. In Section III I show in detail, partly in a rather Husserlian vein, that Searle''s four official arguments for the Background thesis, though containing some very valuable contributions to a theory of linguistic skills, are not convincing at all if they are to be understood as going beyond the scope of Searle''s ''content-cum-Network'' picture of Intentionality. The upshot of these considerations is that the Background thesis should be read as a thesis concerning the causal neurophysiological preconditions of human Intentionality rather than concerning the logical properties of Intentional states in general. Recently Searle himself has come to the same result, but he does not say for which reasons. The present essay makes it clear why Searle just had to arrive at this important result. (shrink)

In Section 1, the author argues that Bolzano does not have a Meinongian view of merely possible objects, not even in the context of his theory of intentionality. In section 2, it is argued that Williamson’s necessitist conception, according to which there is a merely possible golden mountain, was not anticipated by Bolzano. An eternalist reconstruction is rejected as well. The argument takes recourse to Bolzano’s semantics of temporal statements, which also underlies his argument for the eternity of substances and (...) makes it plausible to assume that Bolzano had a perdurantist view, according to which there are merely possible objects just in case there are actual objects whose generation is to be metaphysically explained, in terms of grounding, by recourse to a merely possible object’s being replaced by an actual object. Furthermore, it is argued that merely possible objects à la Bolzano are not substances, in his narrow sense of the term, and that his case for such objects in connection with his view of generation is less than convincing. However, section 3 argues that Bolzano’s conception combines with his view of substance to yield an interesting perdurantist conception of personal identity. (shrink)

Wie vermag ich eigentlich die Annahme zu rechtfertigen, daß der Andere eine Person ist, die zumindest für einige ihrer Handlungen moralisch verantwortlich ist? Die theoretische Option, die ich ergreife, um diese Frage zu beantworten, lautet: Simulationstheorie des Personenverstehens plus Metavolitionstheorie der moralischen Personalität. Ich skizziere zunächst Frankfurts metavolitionale Personenkonzeption. Sodann kritisiere ich seine Theorie der Verantwortung und unterbreite einen Alternativvorschlag. Anschließend wird das Verhältnis zwischen Metavolitionen und evaluativen Metaeinstellungen beleuchtet. In diesem Zusammenhang diskutiere ich Watsons Kritik an Frankfurt, die auf (...) die Unterscheidung zwischen Bewertungs- und Motivationssystem zurückgreift. Ich weise Watsons Kritik zurück und argumentiere, daß diese Unterscheidung in metarepräsentationaler Begrifflichkeit zu interpretieren ist. Daraufhin wird der systematische Ort der Bewertungen erster Stufe bestimmt. Abschließend untersuche ich das Verhältnis zwischen Rationalität, Moralität und Personenverstehen aus Sicht der Metavolitions- und Simulationstheorie. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei die Ideen der kritischen Selbstbewertung, der partikularen Lebensweise und der gemeinsamen Lebensform. Als dialektische Reibungsfläche dient eine Wittgensteinsche Sicht auf moralische Bewertungen. (shrink)

Based on a turn to the rational human subject in Descartes, Kant and Feuerbach, this paper critically examines four efforts at shaping sustainability discourse: the definition of sustainability in Our common future; stewardship Christian theology; forms of partisan justice; and GDP as measure of economic growth. These efforts made certain advances, but because they share the underlying anthropocentric bias of Western philosophy, they fail to step out of the current sustainability paradigm. The paper closes with two suggestions of how (...) to de-centre the human subject and to build a network-view of all species. (shrink)

In this work, I argue for the overall explanatory superiority of philosophical naturalism to a theistic worldview. Pursuant to that, this piece develops and defends a functionalist theory of explanation, which is then used in addressing several particular topics in the philosophy of religion: the law-governed nature of the world, the intelligibility of the world, alleged "fine-tuning", reports of religious experiences and the occurrence of evils. In each case, I argue that a naturalistic explanation is as good or superior to (...) a theistic worldview in helping us to understand such phenomena. Some original parts of the work include developing out a naturalistic explanation of religious experiences grounded in normal human perceptual and cognitive fallacies, an explanatory critique of several traditional theodicies, and a rebuttal of contemporary fine-tuning arguments on the basis of their reliance on unestablished assumptions that add no explanatory improvement. (shrink)

ÿ"The public rationality of Christian faith is demonstrated in the way that Christian convictions make contributions to the contents and substance of intellectual, pluralistic public discourses on themes like economic justice and human rights. The impact of Christian faith for all walks of life, from the most intimate individual life to the most social, global and cosmic life, are dealt with in this great work of Public Theology from the African soil." - Prof Nico Koopman.

This article starts with a brief statement on the well-known contradictory nature of the Reformed tradition in South Africa, defending injustice and struggling for justice in the name of the same tradition. By following the work of Reformed systematic theologian D.J. Smit, it argues that the justice-affirming potential of the Reformed tradition is a hermeneutical task built on three specific re-interpretations: the reinterpretation of Scripture from the perspective of the weak, the poor and the oppressed a rereading of John Calvin (...) to affirm the dignity and freedom of all humans a rereading of Karl Barth with a focus on God's inclusive grace, Christian confessions and the nature of the Christian life. The article closes with a brief look into the agenda for social transformation faced by us in the second decade of the 21st century, and under what conditions the Reformed faith will be able to make an enduring contribution to public life in Africa. (shrink)

This article evaluates the activities of the church, especially the Pentecostal Movement in Nigeria, and their contribution to national development. It identifies the social, economic and political problems in Nigeria and discusses their interconnections and impacts on the development in Nigeria. It also identifies and analyses the approaches of the African Pentecostal Movement to socio-economic and political problems and evaluates the impact of these responses to the Nigerian society. Finally, it explores the role of the African Pentecostal churches in nation (...) building and the transformation of the people of the south-western part of Nigeria. The church as a religious and social organisation, driven by moral and social principles as contained in the fundamental teachings and doctrine of Christian faith, is expected to play an important role towards the social change and the improvement on society's value system. This will lead to the transformation of the social life and put society in a holistic growth- and development-oriented direction. This article investigates and evaluates the assumption that Christianity is capable of influencing the society positively, using the Pentecostal movement as a case study. The article looks at the Pentecostals' contribution to social, political and economic lives of the people of the Nigerian society, especially the south-western part of Nigeria since the inception of the Pentecostal Movement in Nigeria. This article argues that Pentecostalism as a movement is fast growing and gaining attention from both Christians and non-Christians and has a major role to play in transforming the socio-political and economic lives of the people of south-western Nigeria. As such, this article offers a critique of the Pentecostal Movement using the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Deeper Life Bible Church and Living Faith Church as case studies. (shrink)

Water has always played a significant role in religions. This contribution seeks to investigate comparatively the figure of the rainmaker as presented in Traditional African religions and biblical texts. The phenomenon of the rainmaker is at the centre of this investigation. In Traditional African religions, the rainmaker is not only a figure controlling rain but also has a substantial social standing. In biblical texts, the rainmaker (of which Samuel and Elijah can be considered as examples), functions more like a prophet (...) without an elite social and political status. Despite the differences in the status of the rainmaker among Traditional African religions and biblical texts, both traditions make it abundantly clear that rain originates with God. God sends or withholds the rain. The figure of the rainmaker as a social leader can today contribute to instilling a sense of using water responsibly and guiding communities in considering climate action to ensure sustainable living on land and water. A sense of concern over the responsible use of water will bind communities together. In this way, water can be a binding factor and stimulating topic-enhancing interreligious dialogue.Contribution: This contribution is a comparative study of the phenomenon of the rainmaker as presented in Traditional African religions and biblical texts. It aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, number 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation); number 13 (Climate Action) and number 15 (Life on Land). (shrink)

The ‘dramatic poem’, Nathan der Weise [Nathan the Wise], was written in 1779 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Germany. The scene is set in medieval Jerusalem, where Sultan Saladin rules and where the wealthy merchant Jew, Nathan, lives with his adopted daughter Recha, who is saved from a burning house by a Christian Templar knight. It is clear from the characters that the poem has the making of a fine example of interreligious dialogue. The culmination of the interreligious encounter (...) in the poem is the account of what is now known as the parable of the Three Rings. The principle behind the parable has theological and socio-ethical implications that may guide us in understanding how religions can and ought to engage. This contribution presents a critical reflection of the Three Rings parable to add to the current debate on interreligious relations. The text of the poem is read from a theological socio-ethical perspective. The conclusion drawn from this reflection is that theological reasons may sometimes not be enough to ensure peaceful relations between religions. It may be that religions can together address socio-ethical challenges. Such co-action may transcend theological differences and mitigate interreligious dialogue. Contribution: This contribution wants to critically discuss the dramatic poem ‘Nathan der Weise’ and determine how the Three Rings parable can contribute to current interreligious relations. The research addresses United Nations Sustainable Development Goals numbers 11 and 16, contributing to peaceful co-existence in sustainable communities. (shrink)

Learning from the past prepares one for being able to cope with the future. History is made up of strings of relationships. This article follows a historical line from colonialism, through apartheid to post-colonialism in order to illustrate inter-religious relations in South-Africa and how each context determines these relations. Social cohesion is enhanced by a post-colonial theology of religions based on the current context. By describing the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the 17th–18th centuries in the Cape Colony, lessons (...) can be deduced to guide inter-religious relations in a post-colonial era in South Africa. One of the most prominent Muslim leaders during the 17th century in the Cape Colony was Sheik Yusuf al-Makassari. His influence determined the future face of Islam in the Cape Colony and here, during the 18th century, ethics started playing a crucial role in determining the relationship between Christians and Muslims. The ethical guidance of the Imams formed the Muslim communities whilst ethical decline was apparent amongst the Christian colonists during the same period. The place of ethics as determinative of future inter-religious dialogue is emphasised. Denial and exclusion characterised relationships between Christians and Muslims. According to a post-colonial understanding of inter-religious contact the equality and dignity of non-Christian religions are to be acknowledged. In the postcolonial and postapartheid struggle for equality, also of religions, prof Graham Duncan, to whom this article is dedicated, contributed to the process of acknowledging the plurality of the religious reality in South Africa. (shrink)

The depiction of negative emotions in neo-Latin tragedies of the 14th and 15th centuries is to a great extent influenced by the Younger Seneca, whose works of the same genre furnished numerous descriptions of the highly destructive emotion furor (conceived as an aggravation of ira) and its physical effects on the characters on stage. This accords strongly with Seneca's philosophical doctrines on anger described especially in ‘De ira’. On the basis of three texts – Albertino Mussato's ‘Ecerinis’ (Padua 1315), Leonardo (...) Dati's ‘Hyempsal’ (Florence 1440) and Carlo and Marcellino Verardi's ‘Fernandus servatus’ (staged in Rome 1493) – this essay examines the reception and modification of the theme of furor, taking into account especially the tragedies' contexts and their intended effect. In none of the cases presented was the author's main interest directed towards emotions per se. They rather act as a means of morally classifying the characters on stage. There is also (compared to Seneca's tragedies) an increased interest in the remedies against negative emotions. The Stoic theory of affects, according to which emotions are always negative and act as a kind of illness of the soul, is not fully adopted. Rather, many passages imply an Aristotelian or Christian understanding of emotions, which involve both justified anger and damnable apathy. (shrink)

BackgroundThe preferable position of Deep Brain Stimulation electrodes is proposed to be located in the dorsolateral subthalamic nucleus to improve general motor performance. The optimal DBS electrode localization for the post-operative improvement of balance and gait is unknown.MethodsIn this single-center, retrospective analyses, 66 Parkinson’s disease patients were assessed pre- and post-operatively by using MDS-UPDRS, freezing of gait score, Giladi’s gait and falls questionnaire and Berg balance scale. The clinical outcome was related to the DBS electrode coordinates in x, y, z (...) plane as revealed by image-based reconstruction. Binomial generalized linear mixed models with fixed-effect variables electrode asymmetry, parkinsonian subtype, medication, age class and clinical DBS induced changes were analyzed.ResultsSubthalamic nucleus-deep brain stimulation improved all motor, balance and FoG scores in MED OFF condition, however there were heterogeneous results in MED ON condition. DBS electrode reconstructed coordinates impacted the responsiveness of axial symptoms. FoG and balance responders showed slightly more medially located STN electrode coordinates and less medio-lateral asymmetry of the electrode reconstructed coordinates across hemispheres compared to non-responders.ConclusionDeep brain stimulation electrode reconstructed coordinates, particularly electrode asymmetry on the medio-lateral axis affected the post-operative responsiveness of balance and FoG symptoms in PD patients. (shrink)