The United Nations Global Compact has generated a lively debate among academics, activists, and policy practitioners. Given the scope and ambition of this program, and the prestige of the United Nations associated with it, its supporters believe it will fundamentally reshape how businesses practice corporate social responsibility. Its critics view it as a flawed program because it does not impose verifiable obligations and does not compel its participants to adhere to their program obligations. We present an approach to study CSR (...) programs grounded in rational-choice institutionalist theory, building on previous work viewing CSR programs as clubs which can produce reputational benefits for members as well as positive societal externalities, provided that they incorporate institutional mechanisms to prevent member shirking. This perspective puts the focus squarely on the institutional rules of the UNGC and their impacts on member behavior. While we conclude that the UNGC has not yet demonstrated a capacity to generate across-the-board improvements in CSR performance beyond what member firms would have done otherwise, we are hopeful that its sponsors and leaders can undertake worthwhile changes in program design to align member incentives with program objectives. (shrink)

Daniel Dumouchel | : Le nom de Johann Georg Sulzer reste attaché à la naissance de l’esthétique philosophique en Allemagne, principalement à travers son oeuvre majeure, la Théorie générale des beaux-arts. Il s’agira de montrer ici comment ce membre influent de la classe de philosophie spéculative de l’Académie de Berlin, fortement influencé par la pensée de Leibniz et de Wolff, mais également très attentif aux particularités psychopathologiques de l’esprit humain et aux composantes corporelles de l’activité psychique, prétend fournir (...) une assise métaphysique à la théorie du beau en la fondant sur ce que, depuis Wolff, on appelle la psychologie. À partir de l’étude d’une série de Mémoires dont la rédaction s’étend de 1751 à 1763, on portera une attention particulière au projet de déduction des sentiments agréables et désagréables, que Sulzer entend opérer à partir du principe d’activité de l’âme, pour mieux saisir la nature des plaisirs que nous procure la beauté. Sur cette base, on reviendra en fin de parcours à la question de la fonction des beaux-arts dans la pensée de Sulzer, pour soutenir l’idée que l’énergie de l’art ne peut être réduite à la question de la beauté. | : Johann Georg Sulzer’s name is associated with the birth of philosophical aesthetics in Germany, above all through his major work, General Theory of the Fine Arts. The paper will show how this influential member of the division of speculative philosophy at the Berlin Academy, who was deeply influenced by the thought of Leibniz and Wolff but who was also attentive to psychopathological particularities of the human mind and to the corporeal components of psychic activity, claims to present a metaphysical foundation for the theory of beauty, by basing it on what, since Wolff, was called psychology. Starting from a study of a series of ‘Mémoires’ composed between 1751 and 1763, we will focus our attention on the project of the deduction of pleasant and unpleasant feelings, something that Sulzer understands to proceed from the principle of activity of the soul, in order better to grasp the nature of the pleasures that beauty affords us. On this basis, we will return at the end to the question of the function of the fine arts in Sulzer’s thought, in order to defend the idea that the energy of art cannot be reduced to the question of beauty. (shrink)

In Isaiah Berlin, John Gray interprets Berlin as having made value pluralism the basis of an anti‐rationalist, “agonistic” liberalism. Gray argues that Berlin's value pluralism actually stands in tension with his liberalism, and that a whole‐hearted affirmation of value pluralism should have led him to reject the claim that liberal institutions are morally superior. But Berlin's pluralism is more moderate than that ascribed to him by Gray, in that it does not allow for diminishing the value (...) of liberty beyond a certain point. This version of pluralism is more compatible with the objectivity Gray claims for pluralism than is his own version. (shrink)

Evidence about whether reflective thinking may be induced and whether it affects utilitarian choices is inconclusive. Research suggests that answering items correctly in the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) before responding to dilemmas may lead to more utilitarian decisions. However, it is unclear to what extent this effect is driven by the inhibition of intuitive wrong responses (reflection) versus the requirement to engage in deliberative processing. To clarify this issue, participants completed either the CRT or the Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT) (...) – which does not require reflection – before responding to moral dilemmas. To distinguish between the potential effect of participants’ previous reflective traits and that of performing a task that can increase reflectivity, we manipulated whether participants received feedback for incorrect items. Findings revealed that both CRT and BNT scores predicted utilitarian decisions when feedback was not provided. Additionally, feedback enhanced performance for both tasks, although it only increased utilitarian decisions when it was linked to the BNT. Taken together, these results suggest that performance in a numeric task that requires deliberative thinking may predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. The finding that feedback increased utilitarian decisions only in the case of BNT casts doubt upon the reflective-utilitarian link. (shrink)

Someone’s first encounter with Logical Empiricism is very likely to be through a book or an article on the Vienna Circle. This is not surprising because research about Logical Empiricism is in most cases research about the Vienna Circle. There is no question that this is an important research field for the history of scientific philosophy but the overwhelming quantity of literature may obscure the fact that the history of Logical Empiricism is not just the history of the Schlick Circle. (...) Exactly this is the starting point of The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism: Edited by Volker Peckhaus and Nikolay Milkov, the book reminds us that at least one other group took part in this scientific endeavor and their book investigates (and promotes) the philosophy of its members. The Berlin Group is not unknown to scientific philosophers but investigations on the group are still scarce (compared to the mass of literature on the Vienna circle). The question is whether or not the b .. (shrink)

In “Two Concepts of Liberty”, I. Berlin asserts, referring to Mill, that there is no necessary link between freedom as non-interference and freedom as self-government. If, by contrast, we focus our attention on freedom of expression, the assertion of Berlin loses its footing. Freedom of expression is, according to Mill, a public good:either because it serves to control the rulers, or because it allows the collective search for truth. Non-interference in the consciousness of individuals is not an end (...) in itself, but a first step in the formation of collective will. (shrink)

Les avancées rapides dans les technologies numériques ont considérablement changé et amélioré la façon dont les données, informations et outils peuvent être diffusés, gérés, utilisés et réutilisés dans la recherche, et ont créé de nouvelles opportunités pour accélérer le progrès dans la science et l’innovation. Ces développements sont principalement dus au large mouvement formel ou informel de la peer production et à la diffusion globale de l’information mobilisant la coopération de communautés distribuées œuvrant dans des environnements en réseaux. Les initiatives (...) comme celle de Science Commons s’appuient sur un modèle économique de la science évoluant dans un environnement numérique et plus précisément sur un socle de partage et d’échange entre communautés de pairs comme modalité de production. Beaucoup d’autres initiatives de ce type sont en cours . Nous avons choisi Science Commons, dont l’objectif, au-delà de la communication scientifique, vise à accélérer la traduction des données en découverte – en débloquant tous les verrous y compris juridiques qui empêchent que la société bénéficie plus rapidement des résultats scientifiques. La philosophie et les outils pratiques de Science Commons seront décrits comme constitutifs d’une approche résolument ouverte de la connaissance scientifique, dans la lignée de la déclaration de Berlin .Rapid advances in the digital technologies have profoundly changed and improved the way in which data, information and tools can be disseminated, managed, used and re-used in research, and have created new opportunities to speed up progress in science and innovation. These developments are mainly due to an emerging broader movement in support of formal and informal « peer production » and global dissemination of information drawing on the cooperation of distributed science and knowledge communities working in open networked environments. Initiatives like the Science Commons rely on an economic model where science evolves in a digital environment, and more specifically on sharing and exchanges between peer communities as a basis for production. Many other initiatives of this kind are under way . We have chosen the Science Commons, whose objective, over and above scientific communication, is to speed up the translation of data into discovery by removing all barriers, including legal obstacles, that prevent society from enjoying the benefits of scientific results as quickly as possible. The philosophy and practical tools of the Science Commons are described as making up a resolutely open approach to scientific knowledge, as recommended by the Berlin Declaration. (shrink)

Conventional quantum mechanics with a complex Hilbert space and the Born Rule is derived from five axioms describing experimentally observable properties of probability distributions for the outcome of measurements. Axioms I, II, III are common to quantum mechanics and hidden variable theories. Axiom IV recognizes a phenomenon, first noted by von Neumann (in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1955) and independently by Turing (Teuscher and Hofstadter, Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker, Springer, (...) class='Hi'>Berlin, 2004), in which the increase in entropy resulting from a measurement is reduced by a suitable intermediate measurement. This is shown to be impossible for local hidden variable theories. Axiom IV, together with the first three, almost suffice to deduce the conventional rules but allow some exotic, alternatives such as real or quaternionic quantum mechanics. Axiom V recognizes a property of the distribution of outcomes of random measurements on qubits which holds only in the complex Hilbert space model. It is then shown that the five axioms also imply the conventional rules for any finite dimension. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung The 18th century philosopher Salomon Maimon, who originated from a small village in Eastern Europe and who, despite having been destined to become a rabbi at a young age, emigrated to Berlin and other German locations to study philosophy, showed a strong bond to the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, most obviously by his self selected surname. Besides this, Maimon’s philosophical works have been significantly influenced by the rationalistic philosophy and theology of Maimonides. Most importantly, Maimonides’ theory of divine (...) reason, which in turn refers to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, is incorporated into the philosophy of Maimon, who decisively transformed this conception into his own notion of an infinite intellect. In this article, it shall be demonstrated that Maimon uses this concept, derived from Maimonides’ thought to a large extent, yet significantly differing from it in important aspects, to argue against Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy: At first by rejecting the Kantian dualism of sensibility and intellect, then by trying to uncover Kant’s notion of the thing in itself as meaningless and eventually by trying to eliminate this notion from the system of transcendental philosophy in general. To present this specific constellation of argumentation, at first Maimon’s reception of central Maimonidean thoughts shall be examined in a strongly selective manner. In a second step, the application of these thoughts to the difficulties of Kant’s philosophy by Maimon has to be drafted. By inquiring the multifaceted relation of Maimon to the medieval philosopher in these important aspects, Maimonides’ particular relevance for German philosophy in the late 18th century shall be revealed. (shrink)

Este artículo relativiza la tesis de que Benjamin Constant es un antecedente directo de la distinción entre libertad positiva y negativa de Isaiah Berlin. Según aquella postura, habría una línea clara entre Dos conceptos de libertad, de Berlin, y el Discurso de Constant. En un primer momento, refiero al modo en que Berlin remite a Constant para dar cuenta de su distinción. Después examino una dificultad relevante que enfrenta la filiación propuesta por Berlin, que remite al (...) tono republicano de Constant. En la tercera parte, examino el pensamiento de Constant, para tratar de determinar el papel que juega ese tono republicano, lo que, a su vez, resulta indispensable para medir su distancia con Berlin. Concluyo con algunas reflexiones en torno a la relación entre ambos autores. (shrink)

The article reconstructs Leibniz’s theory of the relation between perceptions and reality. Leibniz’s position is different both from that of Descartes, according to whom the perceptions of the senses, unlike those of the mind, are never perceptions of reality, and from that of Locke, according to whom only the perceptions of primary qualities have a resemblance to reality, whereas secondary qualities do not correspond to anything real. The author shows that, according to Leibniz, the expressive link between perception and reality (...) can be pursued in both directions: the analysis of ordinary perception allows us, on the one hand, to arrive at distinct perceptions of reality; on the other hand, Leibniz shows against Locke that even secondary qualities express a certain reality, namely that of the constitution of our body and of our sensory apparatus. (shrink)

Mendelssohn's Philosophical Writings, published in 1761, bring the metaphysical tradition to bear on the topic of 'sentiments'. Mendelssohn offers a nuanced defence of Leibniz's theodicy and conception of freedom, an examination of the ethics of suicide, an account of the 'mixed sentiments' so central to the tragic genre, a hypothesis about weakness of will, an elaboration of the main principles and types of art, a definition of sublimity and analysis of its basic forms, and, lastly, a brief tract on probability (...) theory, aimed at rebutting Hume's scepticism. This volume also includes the essay 'On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences', selected in 1763 by the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences over all other submitted essays, including one by Kant, as the best answer to the question of whether metaphysical sciences are capable of the same sort and degree of evidence as mathematics. (shrink)

Essays on one of Fichte's best known and most controversial works. One of J. G. Fichte’s best-known works, Addresses to the German Nation is based on a series of speeches he gave in Berlin when the city was under French occupation. They feature Fichte’s diagnosis of his own era in European history as well as his call for a new sense of German national identity, based upon a common language and culture rather than “blood and soil.” These speeches, often (...) interpreted as key documents in the rise of modern nationalism, also contain Fichte’s most sustained reflections on pedagogical issues, including his ideas for a new egalitarian system of Prussian national education. The contributors’ reconsideration of the speeches deal not only with technical philosophical issues such as the relationship between language and identity, and the tensions between universal and particular motifs in the text, but also with issues of broader concern, including education, nationalism, and the connection between morality and politics. Daniel Breazeale is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Tom Rockmore is Humanities Chair Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Peking University, China. Both have authored, edited, and translated many books. Together, they are the coeditors of Fichte’s Vocation of Man: New Interpretive and Critical Essays, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

Jean Bernard Mérian is one of the main representatives of empiricism at the Academy of Berlin. This article seeks to show how Mérian articulates both his critique of systematic metaphysics, which is based on a synthetic method borrowed from mathematics, and his defence of a new philosophical ethos: an academic or eclectic spirit. I point out a relation of interdependence between terms like “empirical,” “academic” and “eclectic” in Mérian, and I examine how the eclectic approach to philosophy provides him (...) with a method for comparing and critiquing the pretensions of philosophical systems, opening up the possibility of an eclectic conception of the history of philosophical debates. (shrink)

Hegel's understanding of why the state should be founded on religious values but not itself be influenced by religious piety or congregations is explored. There is some discussion of the tension between his philosophy and Prussian authorities in Berlin. Hegel's political liberalism appears to have compromised by both civil and religious authorities of his day.

This paper is concerned with a quality space model as an account of the intelligibility of explanation. I argue that descriptions of causal or functional roles (Chalmers Levine, 2001) are not the only basis for intelligible explanations. If we accept that phenomenal concepts refer directly, not via descriptions of causal or functional roles, then it is difficult to find role fillers for the described causal roles. This constitutes a vagueness constraint on the intelligibility of explanation. Thus, I propose to use (...) quality space models to develop a systematic way of studying different modalities of perception and feelings, e.g., visual and auditory perception, pain, and emotion, that can reveal some structural relations among these modalities. It might turn out that topological explanation can be more intelligible than causal explanation in this case. I discuss two accounts of a quality space for color vision (Clark, 2000; Rosenthal, 2010) and propose how to construct a quality space for pain. Daniel Kostic is Associated Researcher at Berlin School of Mind and Brain. (shrink)

The twentieth-century rediscovery of Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) by scholars such as Erich Auerbach and Isaiah Berlin was partly driven by the profound resonance of his hermeneutics for the valorisation of cultural alterity. Yet the actual content of his philological investigations is often difficult to square with this reading of his thought. The representation of China in his works is a case in point; despite the enthusiasm with which many of his contemporaries in Naples embraced China, Vico seems to view (...) the intellectual and artistic achievements of Chinese civilisation with a certain disdain, characterising Confucianism as a “rough and ungainly” philosophy typical of the most primitive stage of civilisational development. Scholars who have maintained Vico’s contemporary relevance have tried to brush aside his apparent Eurocentrism in favour of his hermeneutics, whereas others have cited his treatment of China as symptomatic of the reactionary nature of his thought. The present study does not deny the importance of China to Vico’s polemic with libertinism but argues that his representation of China is best understood in view of its theological significance to contemporary Jesuit accommodations of Confucianism. (shrink)

This book’s goal is to give an intellectual context for the following manuscript. -/- Includes bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-123. 1). Philosophy. 2). Metaphysics. 3). Philosophy, German. 4). Philosophy, German -- 18th century. 5). Philosophy, German and Greek Influences Metaphysics. I. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich -- 1770-1831 -- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus. II. Rosenzweig, Franz, -- 1886-1929. III. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, -- 1775-1854. IV. Hölderlin, Friedrich, -- 1770-1843. V. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. [Translation (...) from German into English of the-- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus.]. -/- Note: the manuscript is in the handwriting of G.W.F. Hegel, but the actual authorship is disputed. No date is given. Franz Rosenzweig made up the title as it is known today. He published the text in 1917. At that time, F. Rosenzweig thought F.W.J. Schelling was the author. No one has read this book for errors. As always, any errors, mistakes or oversights etc. are mine alone. Given a couple more years, I could improve this book. This is a philosophical translation and not a philological translation. Martin Luther who did the famous early translation of the Bible into German wrote in a letter, “If anyone does not like my translation, they can ignore it… (September 15, 1530)”. There are no ‘correct’ translations. Some are just better than other translations. -/- The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism. The German title is: Das Älteste Systemprogramm Des Deutschen Idealismus. This title was made up by Franz Rosenzweig in 1917, when he first published the manuscript. He found the manuscript in the Royal Library in Berlin in 1913. The manuscript suggested date is around 1796 and was done by handwriting research. However, the manuscript is not dated. The Prussian State Library auctioned in March 1913 from the auction of the house Liepmannssohn in Berlin a single sheet on the front and back with Hegel's cursive handwriting. The manuscript was lost during WWII. But Dieter Henrich found it again in 1979 in the “Biblioteka Jagiellonska” in Krakow (Poland), where it is today. Address: Jagiellonian Library, Jagiellonian University, al. Mickiewicza 22, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. Later research suggests that manuscript had come from the estate of Hegel’s student Friedrich Christoph Förster (1791-1868). He was one of the editors of Hegel’s posthumous works and most likely had access to a number of Hegel’s manuscripts. This text actually being one of them. Hegel traveled around Bohemia with Marie and Friedrich Christoph Förster around the year 1820-21 (see Klaus Vieweg). -/- Philosophical mystery -- who is the author or authors of this text? -/- Take a plunge into the deep and cold waters. Maybe a quagmire or quandary, but decidedly interesting. This project is to contextualize an old handwritten manuscript which is about 225 years old. The actual author is a mystery. I offer my own assessment. You can make your own assessments. The mystery has continued to unfold since 1917. There is plenty to read. Otherwise, think about the authorship and read more of the German philosophers and authors from this period and enjoy the depth of thinking and philosophizing. On one hand, there is just the sheer fun in the puzzle of the authorship questions; and on the other hand, these are the alluring thoughts that lead to the nascent stage of German Idealism and our intellectual heritage. There is no end to the accolades for this group of philosophers. A heritage that we still hear in in our attempts to move forward into our future. -/- Do your own astute exegesis (ἐξήγησις) as all paths are still open. Let your thought take to the wings of what is called thinking with this text. Critical encounters (Auseinandersetzung, or a Gegenüberstellung) with at least: Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854), and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) --- starts here! German Idealism. We are not going to study this situation endlessly, instead we make some broad strokes and provide you a general context. You are allowed to read between the lines too. Goal: to understand the overall affinity and differences between the intellectuals of this period in German history; and to come to grips with this demanding text within its large scholarly context in the last 100 years. There are no final answers. (shrink)

The main purpose of the study is to analyze the feasibility and necessity of an EU Constitution. Briefly, the history of the draft constitution is as follows: The draft treaty aims to codify the two main treaties of the European Union - the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001). The debate on the future of Europe is believed to have begun (...) with a speech by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin in 2000. The process began after the Laeken Declaration, when the European Convention was set up, chaired by former French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, with the aim of drafting a constitution. The draft contract was published in July 2003. After lengthy discussions and debates over the proposal for qualified majority voting, the final text was approved in June 2004 and signed by representatives of the Member States on 29 October 2004. The failure of the treaty in France and the Netherlands is a serious blow to the European Union because these two countries are considered to be loyal supporters of the European project. The text of the treaty was subsequently rewritten by the Amato Group, officially the Active Committee on European Democracy (ACED), a group of high-ranking European politicians. During the German presidency of the Union, a new treaty was proposed - the Treaty of Lisbon - to replace the original draft of the Constitution. On 12 June 2008, the Lisbon Treaty was also rejected in a referendum in Ireland. But if we want to look beyond history, we can ask - Why does the EU need a Constitution and how can the Constitution be the roadmap to an advanced future for the EU? The answers to this question can be found by analyzing several directions (these are the main points of the article): historical reflexivity; socio-cultural analysis of the philosophical concepts of well-known political and social philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, John Locke; the modern constellation through the prism of Jürgen Habermas and the decision to make a text as a Constitution which its aim is to reach the starting point of an entire community like the EU. Keywords: constitution, EU, philosophy, law, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Jurgen Habermas. (shrink)

Kritik: Michael Butter, »Nichts ist, wie es scheint«. Über Verschwörungstheorien, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2018.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.3 (1999) 22-39 [Access article in PDF] Review Article Language, or No Language Daniel Heller-Roazen Werner Hamacher. Maser: Bemerkungen im Hinblick auf Hinrich Weidemanns Bilder. Berlin: Gallerie Max Hetzler, 1998. All translations from this text are my own. [M] ________. pleroma--Reading in Hegel. Trans. Nicholas Walker and Simon Jarvis. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998. [pl] ________. Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature from Kant to Celan. Trans. (...) Peter Fenves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996. [P] Trans. of Entferntes Verstehen: Studien zu Philosophie und Literatur von Kant bis Celan. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998. [EV] 1. The Rest of Language When Aristotle, at the opening of his treatise on interpretation, defines the nature and function of language, he does so by referring "the things in the voice [ta en tei phonei]" to impressions on the soul (pathe¯mata), which, in turn, he refers to "things [pragmata]" [De interpretatione 16a4 ff.]. Aristotle's text establishes, in this way, that vocal utterances are signs of things. The philosophical significance of this gesture could not be more decisive. Once De interpretatione determines the canonical form of the statement as a "meaningful sentence [logos se¯mantikos]" and, more precisely, as a "proposition [logos apophantikos]" bearing truth or falsity, and once it asserts that truth and falsity reside in the composition (synthesis) of elements [16a10-15], 1 the consequence is inevitable: the paradigmatic form of true speech must be that of the "statement of one thing concerning another thing [legein ti kata tinos]" [17a25]. 2 Here it matters little whether the relation of speech to things is grasped as one of imitation or constitution, reproduction or production; it matters little, moreover, whether the things at issue--that which language means--are understood as sensible objects or supersensuous entities, material beings or logical idealities. In every utterance, speech, by virtue of its very form, is necessarily capable of being dissolved into those things of which it speaks. Indeed, the Aristotelian principle of analysis (literally, "loosening up") demands this [End Page 22] dissolution as the end toward which all speech, insofar as it is both assertive and predicative, ultimately tends. Language is thus posited only in order to be effaced; its specific constituents are identified only to be returned, in the end, to the world of things. When Augustine writes, in a lapidary formula at the start of his De doctrina christiana, that "things are learned by signs [res per signa discuntur]" [1.2.2.20], he simply summarizes what is already stated in the Aristotelian locus classicus: words, the elements of language, function in the service of things; when words show what exists, their task is accomplished.Werner Hamacher's works constitute perhaps the most powerful contemporary attempt to delineate and interrogate this aporetic structure, by which language, in its classical philosophical and theoretical elaboration, is simultaneously constructed and effaced, identified as such and destituted of all propriety. The implications of this structure, which are both logical and metaphysical, extend not only to the Aristotelian, but even to the most modern theories of language and its operation. "At the end of every semantic theory of language and its truth," Hamacher thus writes in Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature from Kant to Celan, "stands the aporetic verdict: language does not speak; it has nothing to say" [P 338; EV 325]. When language is determined by its "semantic and referential functions," we read, it follows that at "the end and thus the site of its destination, it no longer means anything and no longer refers to anything" [P 338; EV 325]. If Hamacher's texts often take as their point of departure contemporary doctrines of literary production and language, it is because, in the field of literary studies, the invocation of the semantic determination of language thus leads thought to eliminate the very element that might have been its subject of examination: language. The one discipline that might have resisted the apophantic dissolution of language proves itself not to be, as the German term has it, a "science of literature [Literaturwissenschaft]" but, rather, "more or less clandestinely a science against literature" [P... (shrink)

ExcerptFollowing the heated architectural debates in the 1990s about how to rebuild Berlin Mitte, there emerged a more general discussion that moved beyond the confines of the new capital to include not just other German cities but most of the European Union as well. The question of how to build in Berlin was transformed into a discussion of “the European city.”1 This innocuous phrase has become a source of considerable concern among urban planners, architects, and sociologists because “the (...) European city” is consistently described as under siege—by a great variety of forces, globalization, the decline of municipal funding, leading to…. (shrink)

I argue that Schelling’s construction of symbolic language is to be understood as an application of Naturphilosophie; indeed, more generally, that the concept of the symbol theorised anew in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany was predominantly a naturphilosophische concept, and its transfer into the discourses of aesthetics and ultimately linguistics was one instance of a broader project to understand aesthetic phenomena through the explanatory framework of naturalism. That is, Schelling is here understood as continuing a project of “aesthetic naturalism,” (...) which consists in the explanation of aesthetic phenomena naturalistically. In their theories of symbolic language, Schlegel and Schelling both extend such naturalistic accounts to the production of linguistic sense, and I go on to trace this Naturphilosophie of meaning through Schlegel’s 1801 Berlin lectures on aesthetics, Schelling’s lectures on the philosophy of art and into his later essays. (shrink)

Historical studies on the relationship between science and diplomacy tend to focus on events since World War II and on initiatives for the maintenance of peace or to achieve cooperation over contentious matters. This article presents the case of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a Portuguese zoologist who had formal diplomatic responsibilities in a context of competition for the colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century. He used his knowledge in African geography to implement colonial and diplomatic strategies that (...) aimed at outcompeting rival powers. The development of a network of actors with scientific, colonial, and diplomatic expertise was crucial for the negotiations that involved the partition of the Congo basin, which resulted in victories for Portugal that surpassed the country's marginal political relevance at the international level and had long‐lasting consequences. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to clarify the basic perspective that Immagini cristiane e cultura antica adopted to read the relationship between early Christian iconographic production – the main subject of the book – and the development of the forms of later figurative art, as well as the path leading to modern aesthetics.For this purpose, the article compares the positions of Auerbach – that had an explicit influence on the book – with those of Benjamin, regarding the different ways (...) in which the two Berliner authors interpreted the meaning and the function of allegory. In Auerbach, allegory is understood as the past of the figura whose logic, according to Immagini cristiane e cultura antica, underlies not only the Christian literary production of the first centuries, but also the figurative one. In Benjamin, conversely, allegory is understood as the future of the figura, followed to the definitive crisis of Christian messianism. (shrink)

Daniel Marcelle, Aron Gurwitsch, The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch, Volume I: Constitutive Phenomenology in Historical Perspective, Dordrecht: Springer, 2009; Volume II: Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010; Volume III: The Field of Consciousness: Theme, Thematic Field, and Margin, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010; Claudia Șerban, Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes negatives, Paris: Grasset, 2010; Christian Rössner, Hans-Dieter Gondek, László Tengelyi, Neue Phanomenologie in Frankreich, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011; Daniel Dwyer, Hans-Helmuth Gander, Husserl-Lexikon, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010; Délia Popa, Jean-François (...) Lavigne, Acceder au transcendantal? Reduction et idealisme transcendantal dans les Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie pure et une philosophie phénoménologique de Husserl, Paris: Vrin, 2009; Mădălina Diaconu, Lambert Wiesing, Das Mich der Wahrnehmung. Eine Autopsie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2009; Mădălina Diaconu, Sam B. Girgus, Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption. Time, Ethics, and the Feminine, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010; Rolf Kühn, Frédéric Seyler, ≪ Barbarie ou culture ≫ : L’ethique de l’affectivitedans la phenomenologie de Michel Henry, Paris: Kimé, 2010; Stephan Steiner, Mette Lebech, On the Problem of Human Dignity. A Hermeneutical and henomenological Investigation, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009. (shrink)

Ernst Brücke’s 1861 essay Die Elementarorganismen has often been cited as a watershed in the history of physiology as well as in the history of cell theory. In its time it was widely read as a reform of animal cell theory, shifting the concept of the cell away from Schleiden and Schwann’s original cell schema of a membranous vesicle with a nucleus, and towards the protoplasm theory that had developed in botany, centered on the cell’s living contents. It was also (...) notorious for its arguments against the necessity of both the nucleus and the cell membrane. An English translation of “The Elementary Organisms” is presented for the first time in this journal issue, with annotations and illustrations, doi:10.1007/s10739-024-09773-9. Brücke’s essay was not only an intervention into cell theory: historians can read it as a continuation of debates on the nature of the organism and theories of organization, and as an epistemological meditation on the microscope. In addition, although Brücke was known as a founder of the Berlin school of organic physics, “The Elementary Organisms” shows how he combined an avant-garde physicalist physiology with a much older tradition of comparative anatomy and physiology. The following introductory essay will provide a scientific biography of Ernst Brücke up to 1863, with background on debates on biological organization, cell theory, and muscle histology. (shrink)

This paper aims to think or rethink the concept of home as the contemporary avatar of the age-old question of self-identity. In dialogue with Shlomo Biderman, a comparative philosopher without borders who feels at home both in Jewish and Indian sources, the author assembles a philosophical jigsaw-puzzle made of different materials from different thinking traditions in attempt to reveal a new picture of home (and self) compatible with the changing world of immigration, relocation, dislocation and displacement, a world of emigrants, (...) refugees and exiles, in which we live. The puzzle pieces include Plato’s cave, Isaiah Berlin’s “inner citadel”, Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s “Ad Hena”, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, Salman Rushdie’s “Imaginary Homelands”, Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, the Bhagavadgītā and Śaṅkara, Paul de Man on translation and Zarina Hashmi’s artwork “Home is a Foreign Place”. The discussion culminates in reflection on translation and the foreignness embedded even in one’s own mother tongue which only the translator (or Rushdie’s “translated man”) can see and feel. If foreignness and alienation are recognized as the common human denominator, and one can sober up from the fantasy of restoring an Edenic past (and language), primordial and complete, then perhaps from within the shards of language, of humanity, a different type of home can be envisioned, based on solidarity and compassion. (shrink)

The career of J. G. Fichte, a central figure in German idealism and in the history of philosophy, divides into two distinct phases: the first period, in which he occupied the chair of critical philosophy at the University of Jena ; and the following period, after he left Jena for Berlin. Due in part to the inaccessibility of the German texts, Fichte scholarship in the English-speaking world has tended to focus on the Jena period, neglecting the development of this (...) major thinker's mature development. The essays collected in this book begin to correct this imbalance. Concerned in a variety of ways with Fichte's post-Jena philosophy, these essays by distinguished and emerging scholars demonstrate the depth and breadth of Fichte scholarship being done in English. With an introduction that locates the essays in philosophical and historical terms, the book divides into three related categories: Fichte’s development, his view of religion, and other aspects of his "popular" philosophy. From a wide range of perspectives, the essays show how Fichte’s later development reflects the philosophical concerns of his time, the specific debates in which he engaged, and the complex events of his philosophical career. (shrink)