With a novel approach to Aristotle's zoology, this study looks at animals as creatures of nature and reveals a scientific discourse that, in response to his predecessors, exiles logos as reason and pursues the logos intrinsic to animals' bodies empowering them to sense the world and live. The volume explores Aristotle's conception of animals through a discussion of his ad hoc methodology to study them, including the pertinence of the soul to such a study, and the rise of zoology as (...) a branch of natural philosophy. For Aristotle, animal life stems from the body in the space of existence and revolves around sensation, which is entwined with pleasure, pain, and desire. Lack of human reason is irrelevant to an understanding of the richness of animal life and cognition. In sum, the reader will acquire knowledge of the animal as such, which lay at the core of Aristotle's agenda and required a study of its own, separate from plants and the elements. This book is intended for students of history of science, ancient biology and philosophy and all those who, from different fields, are interested in animal studies and the human/animal relation. (shrink)

I argue for a novel answer to the question “What is hope?”. On my view, rather than aiming for a compound account, i.e. analysing hope in terms of desire and belief, we should understand hope as an irreducible concept. After criticizing influential compound accounts of hope, I discuss Segal and Textor's alternative of describing hope as a primitive mental state. While Segal and Textor argue that available developments of the standard definition do not offer sufficient conditions for hope, I question (...) the deep‐seated idea that desire and belief are even necessary conditions for hope. My suggestion is that we should take seriously the fact that we hope in a great variety of ways and should question the search for elements that are common to all cases. A promising alternative follows the Wittgensteinian idea that cases of hope are related in terms of family resemblance, i.e. are multiply realizable on the ontological level while falling under the non‐definable concept of hope. (shrink)

The dynamic organisational processes in businesses dilute the boundaries between the individual, organisational, and societal drivers of corporate philanthropy. This creates a complex framework in which charitable project selection occurs. Using the example of European tour operators, this study investigates the mechanisms through which companies invest in charitable projects in overseas destinations. Inextricably linked to this is the increasing contestation by local communities as to how they are able to engage effectively with tourism in order to realise the benefits tourism (...) development can bring. This research furthers such debates by exploring the processes through which tour operators facilitate community development through charitable giving. Findings show, with no formal frameworks in existence, project selection depends upon emergent strategies that connect the professional with the personal, with trust being positioned as a central driver of these informal processes. Discretionary responsibilities are reworked through business leaders’ commitment to responsible business practises and the ethical subjectivity guiding these processes. (shrink)

The central question of this article is what hope contributes to a good life. The starting point is the assumption that living a good life involves having a good relation to the past, present and future. Hope is a central attitude towards the future that contributes, I argue, to having an own future. I distinguish three ways in which there is reference to an "own future" and thus different ways in which hope contributes to the good life. Finally, I discuss (...) the objection that hope is detrimental to a good life precisely because of its reference to the future, insofar as a good life essentially takes place "in the present". (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that an adequate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is a critical component of scientific literacy and a major goal in science education. However, we still do not know many specific details regarding how students and teachers learn particular aspects of NOS and what are the most important feature traits of instruction. In this context, the main objective of this review is to analyze articles from nine main science education journals that consider the teaching of (...) NOS to K-12 students, pre-service, and in-service science teachers in search of patterns in teaching and learning NOS. After reviewing 52 studies in nine journals that included data regarding participants’ views of NOS before and after an intervention, the main findings were as follows: (1) some aspects of NOS (empirical basis, observation and inference, and creativity) are easier to learn than others (tentativeness, theory and law, and social and cultural embeddedness), and subjective aspects of NOS and “the scientific method” seemed to be difficult for participants to understand; (2) the interventions most frequently lasted 5 to 8 weeks for students, one semester for pre-service teachers, and 1 year for experienced teachers; and (3) most of the interventions incorporated both decontextualized and contextualized activities. Given the substantial diversity in the methods and intervention designs used and the variables studied, it was not possible to infer a pattern of more-effective NOS teaching strategies from the reviewed studies. Future investigation should focus on (a) disentangling whether a difference exists between the easy and difficult aspects of learning NOS and formulating a theoretical explanation for distinguishing the two types of aspects and (b) assessing the effectiveness of different kinds of courses (e.g., history of science, NOS or informal) and strategies (e.g., hands-on vs. drama activities; SSI vs. HOS). (shrink)

In political philosophy, trust, legality and violence are interdependent, with different weights, connecting and excluding. Trust structures suffer most from an anticipation of violence or violence itself. Violence systematically takes place in three stages, according to the german sociologist Jan-Philipp Reemtsma: expulsive, abusive, and homicidal violence, all of which have their distinctive and recurring verbal and nonverbal equivalents. The hyperviolence phenomenon goes beyond this, however, and even mutilates the dead body, whether actually physically, or through massive propaganda that declares the (...) enemy a killable non-human. The goal of hyperviolence is a demonstration of absolute power over victim and bystander by means of a traumatizing violation of trust, reason, and individuality. At the same time, hyperviolence is an atavism in modernity (a historical regression); therefore the practitioner of hyperviolence is the anti-modern type par excellence. The french philosopher Georges Bataille introduces here the concept of "sovereignty" and the "sovereign" as the perpetrator also of hyperviolence. The sovereign's sovereignty is the immediate experience of the moment, free of any responsibility, with a rhetoric of mock justification of each of the three types of violence including hyperviolence. With the ahistorical view of escalating violence and the denial of any rational legitimation by the sovereign as the actor of hyperviolence, the structure of trust and the contract system of democracy itself is also endangered. So the question is, how does one unmask the "sovereign" on his way to undermine legal relations already in his linguistic patterns, in his non-linguistic codes, and how can escalation be prevented by early detection? Keywords: violence, hyperviolence, criminal linguistics, Georges Bataille, sovereign. (shrink)

Considering the high impact strain that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic has put on medical personnel worldwide, identifying means to alleviate stress on healthcare professionals and to boost their subjective and psychological wellbeing is more relevant than ever. This study investigates the extent to which the relationships between the status of working in healthcare and the subjective and psychological wellbeing are serially mediated by work recovery experiences and the need for recovery. Data were collected from 217 Romanian (...) employees using a cross-sectional design with self-report instruments, during the first stage of the nationwide lockdown. The results of the serial mediation analyses revealed that working in the medical field is indirectly related to subjective and psychological wellbeing through the following: mastery experiences and mastery experiences as an antecedent of the need for recovery. As such, our findings indicate that working in the medical field is, in fact, linked to healthcare professionals’ subjective and psychological wellbeing, and they provide some input on how recovery experiences and the need for recovery intervene in these relationships. Based on these findings, theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were suggested, and future research directions were proposed to maximize healthcare professionals’ wellbeing. (shrink)

It has been argued that Kants actions. However, it would be uncompromising to allow for only two possibilities: either full responsibility or none. Moreover, in the Metaphysics of Morals Kant himself claims that there can be degrees of responsibility, depending on the magnitude of the obstacles that have to be overcome when acting. I will show that this claim is consistent with Kant’s theory as a whole and thereby make transparent how degrees of responsibility are possible for Kant. The solution (...) is based on the distinction between two senses of responsibility: taking oneself to be an accountable person is an all-or-nothing affair, whereas praise- or blameworthiness for a particular action can still be a matter of degree. (shrink)

This chapter shows that taboos erected around crimes inhibit individuals and nations' work of mourning for the victims of crimes. The work of mourning is the precondition that individuals and nations take responsibility for past crimes, show solidarity with the victims and their descendants, and make sure that such crimes are not repeated. I bring Theodor W. Adorno and Sigmund Freud in conversation to explain the connection between taboos and the failure to mourn. I further detail this connection with Antigone (...) as an example of taboo and denied mourning. I also explain that the taboos erected around the National Socialist genocide on Roma and Sinti ("gypsies") do not allow Austrians to mourn the loss of this population. As a result, their taking responsibility for this crime remains stifled, and they fail to show solidarity with the Roma and Sinti genocide victims. (shrink)

This chapter combines the insights of Sigmund Freud and Theodor W. Adorno to explain some of the psychoanalytic mechanisms that contributed to a scenario where people voted for a leader who undermines their very existence. Trump successfully exploited the feelings of failure of the millions of Americans who have not lived up to the liberal capitalist ideology of success. By replacing their ego ideal with their leader, Trump voters could get rid of the frustration generated by such an ideology. The (...) people “fell in love” with Trump because he gave them the illusion that they “can become great again.” Moreover, by lifting moral restrictions to being openly classist, racist, and sexist, Trump generated a permanent festival where the American people can feel better than classed, raced, and gendered Others and thus satisfied with themselves again. (shrink)

Contextualism in philosophy of language and in epistemology are two distinct but closely entangled projects. The epistemological thesis is grounded in a semantic claim concerning the context-sensitivity of the predicate “know”: we gain insight into epistemological problems by investigating our linguistic intuitions concerning knowledge attribution sentences. Our aim here is to evaluate the plausibility of a project that takes the opposite starting point: the general idea is to establish the semantic contextualist thesis on the epistemological one. According to semantic contextualism, (...) virtually no sentences of a natural language express complete propositions – meaning underdetermines truth conditions. In our paper, instead of assuming the traditional view of meaning in terms of truth conditions, we suggest that a theory of meaning as justification may shed new light on the contextualist approach. We thus show how the notion of justification can be contextualized, arguing that our attempt provides an interesting and quite straightforward way of contextualizing meaning. (shrink)

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s approach to the human sciences is the relation between his ‘transcendental psychology’ and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I argue that Kant (...) distinguishes between the transcendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive faculties, and regards the transcendental functions as configuring the empirical faculties of human consciousness, or as giving them the structure that they require to become faculties of cognition. I then show that the cognitive faculties of human beings may vary in their empirical operation, even while they are configured by the same transcendental structure. Finally, I characterize Kant’s transcendental psychology in the first Critique as an account of the faculties that are required for a mind to be an agent or subject of cognition, corresponding to his account of the conditions that are required universally and necessarily for something to be an object of cognition.Keywords: Immanuel Kant; Anthropology; Psychology; Cognition; Transcendental; Empirical. (shrink)

Admixture, the genetic exchange between differentiated populations appears to be common in the history of species, but has not yet been comparatively studied across mammals. This limits the understanding of its mechanisms and potential role in mammalian evolution. The authors want to summarize the current knowledge on admixture in non‐human primates, and suggest that it is important to establish a comparative framework for this phenomenon in humans. Genetic observations in domesticated mammals and their wild counterparts are discussed, and a brief (...) global overview on other clades is presented. Based on this, some of the consequences of gene flow, including incompatibilities and their genomic footprint, as well as adaptive introgression are discussed, and suggestions for a functional genomics approach are made. It is proposed that the field is moving beyond descriptive observations in single species, to a comprehensive analysis of admixture and its impact. Admixture is becoming an integral part of mammalian evolution. (shrink)

In response to Helmut Heid's critique of domesticated philosophical critique, I focus on the metaphor of domestication, which is central to his article. Drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida, I offer a deconstructive critique of the opposition between domesticated and undomesticated critique, arguing that a clear conceptual demarcation between the two is impossible, and that ‘domesticated’ and ‘undomesticated’ critique always carry each other's traces. I explore connections between the undomesticated and das Unheimliche (Freud's ‘Uncanny’), as well as differences between (...) Helmut Heid's and Paulo Freire's interpretation and use of the concepts of ‘domestication’ and ‘liberation’. Lastly, I examine how educators might go about a pedagogy of critique. I argue that critique can and should be understood and taught as a tradition, but one that is heterogeneous rather than monolithic. A careful reception of this translated and metonymic tradition of critique will enable students to see the spaces in which new critique—and critique of critique— is possible. (shrink)

This special issue responds to the current discourse on cinema and education from a philosophical point of view. Considering the fact that young people worldwide are watching films and series via their smartphones or personal computers, we here explore the educative aspects of this popular activity. Does this wide-ranging habit mis-educate the next generation? Or does cinema carry a potential for ethical-political education, parallel to the ancient Greek tragedies and the modernist Bildungsroman? The authors of this special issue deliberate this (...) question by exploring the intersection between cinema and philosophy and the potential powers of cinematic education. (shrink)

Au § 74 de l’Anthropologie d’un point de vue pragmatique, Kant propose une définition remarquable de l’affect comme une « surprise par la sensation (Überraschung durch Empfindung) ». La vie affective serait, dans cette perspective, une vie de surprises. Mais l’on peut sans doute aller encore plus loin et viser à montrer que la surprise ne recouvre et n’exprime pas seulement le surgissement de l’affect, mais aussi, plus fondamentalement, le mouvement de la phénoménalisation. En proposant dans...

Derogatory epithets are terms such as “nigger” and “faggot” targeting individuals and groups of individuals on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. There is no consensus on the best treatment of derogatory epithets. The aim of my paper is to evaluate a proposal recently put forward by Rae Langton, the speech acts account. Assessing SAA is far from an easy task, since the proposal is little more than an outline, deeply intertwined with Langton’s general view on (...) hate speech and pornography. My goal is first of all to disentangle a coherent account from Langton’s observations; second, I will raise and partially address some key objections against it. I will argue that, although SAA gives us significant insights into a number of phenomena, it is in need of a clearer formulation and further investigation. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of stroking vs. simple human presence on later reactions of dairy cows to routine veterinary handling. While in two groups of cows the experimenter stroked the ventral part of the neck or the withers for three consecutive weeks, the third group was exposed to close visual presence. After the treatment period the cows were subjected to rectal palpation. The three groups differed significantly in stepping during rectal palpation, which occurred less often in Neck- and Withers-animals (...) than in control animals. Heart rate increase was significantly higher in the control group than in the two stroking groups. Previous stroking led to fewer stress reactions during the rectal palpation, possibly due to a combined effect of improved relationship towards and thus perception of humans and lasting anti-stress effects of tactile stimulation. Keywords: cattle; tactile stimulation; human–animal relationship; animal welfare. (shrink)

The paper discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thought in relation to the German Bildung tradition. For many, Bildung still signifies a valuable achievement of modern educational thought as well as a critical, emancipatory ideal which, frequently in a rather nostalgic manner, is appealed to in order to delineate problematic tendencies of current educational trends. Others, in an at times rather cynical manner, claim that Bildung through its successful institutionalization has shaped vital features of our present educational system and has thus served (...) its time and lost its critical potential. When thinking through Emerson’s variations on Bildung I argue against the nostalgic appeals to Bildung that the criticism against it has to be taken seriously. Against the cynical assessment of Bildung having run its course, I will hold that with Emerson we can develop the idea of an ‘aversive education’ as a call for Bildung to be turned upon itself, allowing to revive it as a conceptual tool for transformation, drawing particular attention to its political dimension. (shrink)

La question que nous souhaitons soulever et qui motive les analyses proposées dans cet article est stratifiée, car elle recoupe de fait plusieurs interrogations connexes. La première est celle de savoir si, lorsqu’elle parle de l’événement dans une acception tellement généralisée qu’elle va jusqu’à l’identifier à la notion même de phénomène, la phénoménologie contemporaine conserve encore une référence fondamentale à l’événement historique. L’événement historique détient-il une fonction pro...

The paper describes tableaux based proof methods for temporal logics of knowledge allowing non-trivial interaction axioms between the modal and temporal components, namely those of synchrony and no learning and synchrony and perfect recall. The interaction axioms allow the description of how knowledge evolves over time and makes reasoning in such logics theoretically more complex. Such logics can be used to specify systems that involve the knowledge of processes or agents and which change over time, for example agent based systems, (...) knowledge games or security protocols. Soundness, completeness and termination results for the tableaux are proved. (shrink)

From the viewpoint of Political Theory, digital technology presents both risks and opportunities for the democratic public sphere. Public discourse is now more complex and fragmented than ever before. Against this background, this paper uses the metaphor of a “communicative universe” to analyze the latest structural change of the public sphere. It emphasizes the significance of achieving a balance between different actors and powers in contemporary political discourse. Patterns in media communication can not only be identified but also influenced and (...) constructed in ways that support the democratic functionality of political discourses. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to Laury Naranch’s and Mary Caputi’s discussion of my book Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism (2017). In response to Naranch, I clarify how the political subject-in-outline translates into collective political action through the figure of the Chicana working-class woman. I also explain why the proletariat, more so than the precariat, implies a radical political imaginary if we rethink this concept in the context of my idea of the political subject-in-outline. I also clarify that my (...) chapters on Marx expose how Adorno and Marx have problematic imaginations of the working-class woman, which counter their otherwise radical imaginary. In response to Caputi, I clarify the meaning of capitalism in my book and underline that we need a rigorous critique of capitalism to counter the rise of the Far Right. I also explain why the fluid subject does not have agency and why the subject-in-outline is a better way to theorize transformative feminist agency. I also clarify that my conception of feminist political subjectivity does not assume a privileged vantage point outside power structures. (shrink)

El aumento de la complejidad sintáctica evidencia el desarrollo lingüístico de los niños. El uso de ciertas medidas de lenguaje permite dar cuenta de dicho proceso, lo que ha sido corroborado en niños preescolares hispanohablantes y en niños en etapas tardías de desarrollo. Este trabajo propone explorar dicho desarrollo contrastando a un grupo de niños chilenos con desarrollo típico que asisten a preescolar con un grupo de primer año básico. Las medidas incluyeron índices primarios y secundarios de complejidad y se (...) obtuvieron a partir de recontados narrativos producidos por los niños. En los resultados se observa que no todos los índices aumentan al contrastar los dos grupos. Solo aumenta un índice primario de densidad clausular dentro de las oraciones complejas y el número de subordinadas sustantivas, particularmente en las etapas narrativas de presentación y final; en paralelo, disminuye el número de subordinadas adverbiales en la fase de final. Estos resultados evidencian que, si bien se observa un aumento en algunas medidas de complejidad al contrastar los grupos, el desarrollo de estas habilidades no presenta un mismo patrón en todas las dimensiones, lo que puede deberse a factores discursivos o del propio proceso de desarrollo lingüístico. (shrink)

Le questionnement phénoménologique portant sur la sexuation, la différence sexuelle et la relation érotique est assurément ancien : au § 55 de la Krisis, à un moment où il s’interroge sur « le domaine des problèmes transcendantaux, Husserl soulève « le problème des sexes (das Problem der Geschlechter) » (Hua VI, p. 192, trad. p. 214) », et ses manuscrits de recherche montrent qu’il avait commencé à s’attaquer à ce problème – par exemple lorsque, dans les années vingt déjà, il (...) souligne combien... (shrink)

How can we, in our times, understand the biblical concept that human beings have been created in the image of an invisible God? This is a perennial but increasingly pressing question that lies at the heart of theological anthropology. Humanity in God's Image: An Interdisciplinary Exploration clarifies the meaning of this concept, traces different Jewish and Christian interpretations of 'humanity in God's image', and re-considers the significance of the imago Dei in a post-Holocaust context.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 66.4 (2005) 557-576 [Access article in PDF] The Writing in the Wittenberg Sky: Astrology in Sixteenth-Century Germany Claudia Brosseder University of Munich It probably was a delightful summer day when the celebrated humanist Willibald Pirckheimer, best known as a friend of Albrecht Dürer and Erasmus of Rotterdam, strolled, with an unknown friend, through the streets of Nuremberg. When they saw a girl (...) standing at the streetside, it occurred to the friend to predict the girl's future by reading her palm. So he did, foretelling a forthcoming marriage and a blissful life. After the girl had passed on, Pirckheimer's unknown friend admitted that, unfortunately, he had not seen the girl's blithe life but her impending death. In order not to scare her, however, he had not revealed this message to the girl; only his learned friend Pirckheimer could know the truth. Some years later, the Nuremberg philologist Joachim Camerarius, who narrated this rather trivial event with great excitement in 1576, does not display any sign of bewilderment that in this instance a chiromantic had told untruths to somebody.1 On the contrary, he praises this art and admires Italy's scholars, who practiced, besides chiromancy, other wonderful divinatory arts based on astrology. Camerarius was perceptibly impressed by Italian astrology and her divinatory stepsisters. Presumably he was thinking about De subtilitate (1554) by Girolamo Cardano who, at least in this work, counted astrology and chiromancy among the arts of natural divination.2 And so, as if inspired by Cardano's acute judgment years afterward, Camerarius [End Page 557] read in Cardano, in the same breath, the idea that there had been only twelve significant scholars in the history of civilization, who were capable of divination: such were, among others, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Alchindi, and Vitruvius. However, no contemporary of Cardano was among them.This anecdote provides but a glimpse of the sixteenth-century enthusiasm for the divinatory art of chiromancy and, relatedly, astrology. My contribution will show that academic Protestant Germany was actually in the grips of an astrology fever. Throughout the sixteenth century, many German scholars were under the spell of astrology. In this, Germany did not essentially differ from Italy and France, but in one specific place astrology presented itself in a peculiar shape.In the sixteenth century astrology flourished particularly in one German site of erudition: in Wittenberg, 51°52' latitude, 12°38' longitude. Particularly here at the University of Wittenberg, attracted by Philipp Melanchthon's pedagogic enterprise, a series of scholars came together who shaped the image of astrology in sixteenth-century Germany. They were humanists, physicians, astronomers, mathematicians, municipal surgeons, and scholars of Greek. There were at least forty-six of them. In one way or another, each of them was interested in astrology. Many of them composed astrological analyses for wealthy clients. "Pene innumberabiles" mathematicians came from the University of Wittenberg, as the Tübingen professor of rhetorics Nikodemus Frischlin grudgingly asserted. By this he meant astrologers, and he did not try to conceal his aversion to them.3 He was unequivocal: astrologers are swindlers.With this opinion, Frischlin joined the ranks of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,4 Martin Luther,5 Erasmus of Rotterdam,6 and others. This is not a novelty, and yet Frischlin's caustic remark can still teach us something today: regarding the history of German astrology, one should resist the temptation to see Melanchthon as the one and only spiritus rector of German sixteenth-century astrology. Instead, it is reasonable to concede much more weight to the sway of Wittenberg and its numerous astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians, who did not only gravitate toward the personality of Melanchthon. The large number of scholars and the variety of ideas preempts any attempt [End Page 558] to reduce the number of astrologers to a so-called Melanchthon circle.7 This circle did not exist, not least because his pupils did not monistically adhere to Melanchthon's thoughts on astrology. In particular, a personality as industrious in publishing as Melanchthon's son-in... (shrink)

Michael Quante, Menschenwürde und personale Autonomie. Demokratische Werte im Kontext der Lebenswissenschaften Content Type Journal Article Pages 601-603 DOI 10.1007/s10677-011-9278-7 Authors Claudia Wiesemann, Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medical Center Göttingen, Humboldtallee 36, 37073 Göttingen, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820 Journal Volume Volume 14 Journal Issue Volume 14, Number 5.