Gibt es eine autonome Methodik der Geisteswissenschaften und speist sich diese aus der Quelle einer eigenstandigen, besonderen Vernunft, die das Denken und Forschen in diesen Disziplinen charakterisiert? Dieser Fragestellung gehen die Beitrage dieses Bandes am Leitfaden der Begriffsgeschichte des Konzepts der Phronesis nach. Hatte diese in der Antike ihren Platz primar in der Ethik und erfullte als Kategorie eine Abgrenzungsfunktion fur die Bestimmung einer spezifisch praktischen Vernunft im Unterschied zur theoretisch-wissenschaftlichen, so scheint sich der Begriff in Neuzeit und Moderne zunehmend (...) in einen wissenschaftstheoretischen Reflexionsbegriff verwandelt zu haben, der das Potential hat, den aus dem Trivium hervorgegangenen Geisteswissenschaften im Streit mit den Naturwissenschaften und im Streit um Autarkie und Abhangigkeit von Theologie und Philosophie eine eigene Form der Vernunft zuzuordnen.Die scheinbar rein wissenschaftsmethodische Fragestellung fuhrt somit, so zeigen es die Beitrage mit grosser Deutlichkeit, unmittelbar in die virulente Frage nach der Geschichte der verschiedenen Vernunftbegriffe und ihrer Transformationen.Mit Beitragen von Arbogast Schmitt, Hans Buchheim, Rainer Thiel, Christoph Markschies, Christel Meier, Friedo Ricken, Steven Harvey, Peter-Andre Alt, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Klaus W. Hempfer, Emil Angehrn, Ludger Honnefelder und Gyburg Radke-Uhlmann. (shrink)

Plato’s dialogues often end in a seemingly unsatisfactory conclusion, or aporia. Such aporetic endings are regularly interpreted as examples of Socratic irony, in which Socrates mocks his interlocutors by feigning ignorance and deliberately leading them into an aporia. Alternatively, they are seen as reflecting skepticism about the attainment of certain and consistent empirical knowledge. This paper revisits Plato’s Euthyphro and argues that the arguments and attempts at definition provide methodological criteria for the acquisition of knowledge and do not fail entirely, (...) but only in certain aspects. It shows how a new, comprehensive understanding of piety can be developed by collecting the unrefuted, fragmented insights on piety from Euthyphro and integrating them with pieces of knowledge from the Politeia. The paper also explores the reasons for the deliberate presentation of failure in the Aporetic dialogues, namely to highlight the pitfalls of believing in one’s illusory expertise about something without fully understanding it, and thus to encourage the pursuit of sound, reliable knowledge by overcoming ›double ignorance‹. (shrink)

The article discusses Berlin’s Poor Relief Policy from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, posing the question: how can premises of theoretical and political feminist discussion be put into practice? In analysing the shift in poor relief, I have taken up three essential aspects: (1) power relations must be examined in a context that cannot be reduced simply to the opposition between ruler and subject or men and women; (2) when does gender become a principle of social order?; (...) and (3) gender as a construct and women’s way of action need to be linked. I show how a method that combines the different statements made by the texts as conflicts and discourse is useful, in that it facilitates working out the diversity of poor relief politics and historicizing the term ‘poor women’. At the same time it can show how social change in everyday life was structured and established. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of social capital has become quite fashionable in social science research. Especially Robert Putnam’s ‘Making Democracy Work’ has provoked an enormous amount of research on this societal resource. It has become customary to make a distinction between network and attitudinal approaches of social capital, focusing on individual network positions and the role of civic attitudes respectively.We argue that these two approaches do not exclude one another: it is just as legitimate to study the larger societal (...) benefits of social capital as it is to study the individual benefits of networks positions . The question on how social capital can be generated seems more promising for future research, and here we can distinguish society-based approaches and institutional approaches . The available research demonstrates that day-to-day interaction can have significant effects on democratic attitudes, e.g., by a process of value convergence. There is, however, also considerable evidence to show the effect of institutions, boosting social capital levels by ensuring impartiality and transparency and by promoting income inequality.Both from a political science, as from a social perspective, we urge the scientific community to pay more attention to the question how social capital might be generated by the political system. (shrink)

Warum hat Platon Dialoge geschrieben? Diese Frage formuliert eines der größten Rätsel der Philosophiegeschichte. Das Buch diskutiert die Antwortversuche der gegenwärtigen Platonforschung, präsentiert erstmals ausführlich die neuplatonischen Deutungen zur literarischen Form der Philosophie Platons und zeigt, warum diese als Alternative zu modernen Ansätzen und Aporien erwogen werden können.

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 44, Issue 4, Page 339-351, December 2021.

This introduction clarifies the ideas behind the Logic, Reasoningand Rationality congress from which the papers in this issue are selected.These ideas are situated in the history of 20th century philosophy. We also give an overview of the papers in this issue.

ObjectivesPrevious studies found a general increase in prejudice against Chinese people during the first months of the pandemic. The present study aims to consider inter-individual heterogeneity in stability and change regarding prejudice involving Chinese people during the pandemic. The first objective is to identify and describe different trajectories of prejudice over a seven-month period during the pandemic. The second and third objectives are to test the association between trajectory group membership and antecedent variables such as: socio-demographic factors (i.e., age, gender, (...) political affiliation) and two psychological mechanisms, namely economic threat and global citizenship identification.MethodsA representative Canadian sample (N = 3,617) according to age, gender and province of residence, was recruited for a 10-wave survey starting from April 2020 to December 2020. First, a group-based modeling approach was used to identify trajectories of prejudice. Second, a multinomial logistic regression model was used to test associations between membership in trajectories and antecedents.ResultsFour trajectories were identified. The first three trajectories have a low (71.4% of the sample), high (18.5%) or very high (5.3%) level of prejudiceagainstChinese people which is relatively stable over time. The fourth trajectory (4.9%) reports low levels of prejudicein favorof Chinese people which become more positive throughout 2020. Regarding socio-demographic factors: gender is not associated with trajectory group membership, younger people are more likely to follow the trajectory in favor of Chinese people and conservatives are more likely to follow the highest trajectories against Chinese people. Regarding some psychological mechanisms: personal but not collective economic threat is associated with the trajectory in favor of Chinese people. Finally, the highest levels of prejudice are found when the strategy of identification is more local rather than global.ConclusionThe present study shows that Canadians differ in terms of both their level and change in prejudice against Chinese people throughout the pandemic with some socio-demographic groups being more likely than others to be associated with prejudice. The results also suggest that a promising way to tackle the major social issue of prejudice is to highlight a vision of the world where individuals are all “global citizens” facing the same challenge. (shrink)

Die jungsten Finanzkrisen haben die Diskussion uber die Moral der Markte wiederbelebt: Welche Verantwortung haben Unternehmen, Banken, Politik und letztlich jeder Einzelne in unserer Gesellschaft? Droht die Okonomisierung aller Lebensbereiche, der Ausverkauf des Menschen? Ist der Markt moralfrei? Brauchen wir neue Perspektiven und Werte? Diese drangenden Fragen werden im vorliegenden Buch von namhaften Autorinnen und Autoren wie Franz Muntefering und Rita Sussmuth beantwortet: Der Mensch muss wieder ins Zentrum rucken, Verantwortung und Moral sollten grundlegender Massstab auch des wirtschaftlichen Handelns sein. (...) Mit diesen Forderungen appellieren die BeitragerInnen an einen echten Dialog zwischen Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Ethik. Mit Beitragen von Bernhard Emunds, Jurgen Hardt, Linus Hauser, Esther Junger, Josef Kaiser, Siegfried Karl, Andreas Lenz, Uta Meier-Grawe, Franz Muntefering, Thomas Petersen, Marcus K. Reif, Rainer Schwarz, Rita Sussmuth und Joachim Wiemeyer". (shrink)

This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far (...) as it is based on logic. Later, this belief came under attack and logic was deemed inadequate to explicate actual cases of human reasoning. Today, there is a growing interest in reconnecting logic, reasoning and rationality. A central motor for this change was the development of non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks. The book contains contributions in various non-classical formal frameworks, case studies that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns, and studies of the philosophical implications for our understanding of the notions of rationality. (shrink)