Most formalisms for representing common-sense knowledge allow incomplete and potentially inconsistent information. When strong negation is also allowed, contradictory conclusions can arise. A criterion for deciding between them is needed. The aim of this paper is to investigate an inherent and autonomous comparison criterion, based on specificity as defined in [POO 85, SIM 92]. In contrast to other approaches, we consider not only defeasible, but also strict knowledge. Our criterion is context-sensitive, i. e., preference among defeasible rules is determined dynamically (...) during the dialectical analysis.We show how specificity can be defined in terms of two different approaches: activation sets and derivation trees. This allows us to get a syntactic criterion that can be implemented in a computationally attractive way. The resulting definitions may be applied in general rulebased formalisms. We present theorems linking both characterizations. Finally we discuss other frameworks for defeasible reasoning in which preference handling is considered explicitly. (shrink)

Prof. Dr. Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, provides an overview of the main currents of modern humanism in Germany. He describes the central stream of German humanism as practical, in that it combines the principled imperative to overcome all structures and situations in which people are not treated as human beings with seeking to widen the horizons of humane existence in the arts and sciences and in capabilities of leading a fulfilling life. This humanism compels (...) resort to other criteria than nature, such as those logical, emotive, cultural, in order to gauge the acceptability of value claims. The practical efforts to humanize society and widen human horizons requires engagement in public policy debates and social organizing and programming on consensus issues. Accordingly, the HVD works on such diverse issues as strengthening the rights to bodily integrity and sexual autonomy, preventing economic collapse, accommodating immigrants, protecting personal privacy, limiting the use of military force, building intra- and international peace, and exposing anti-humanist prejudice. (shrink)

Political epistemology has become a popular field of research in recent years. It sets itself the ambitious task to intertwine epistemology with social and political theory in order to do justice to the relationships between truth and politics, or reason and power. Yet many contributions either expand arguments and concepts from traditional epistemology to political phenomena or use existing theories and frameworks from social and political theory to address the politics of epistemological questions. The former approach (prominent, e.g., in the (...) epistemic injustice debate) leads to an epistemisation of political phenomena and concepts coupled with their de-politicization, the latter approach (prominent, e.g., in Frankfurt School critical theory) leads to a politicization of epistemic phenomena and concepts coupled with their de-epistemisation. Instead, it is argued that political epistemology requires reworking even basic concepts, due to its three foundational commitments: It is committed to the claim that socio-material conditions of existence matter epistemically (minimal materialism), to the self-reflection of the socio-material conditions of political epistemology's own arguments and theories (radical self-reflexivity), and to a specific form of epistemic humility (epistemic non-sovereignty). Using the notion of normativity as an exemplary problem, the article closes by highlighting the difficulty of maintaining these three commitments. (shrink)

Although the various interpretations of Foucault’s model of critique often seem to differ only in minor details, they seriously diverge by situating critique on different levels of abstraction in Foucault’s work. Mapping interpretations of Foucault’s critique according to this criterion shows that none of them pays full attention to all three of Foucault’s methodological imperatives which he calls nihilism, nominalism and historicism. The article offers such a reading of Foucault’s critique, interpreting it as a diagnostic practice of prefigurative emancipation. The (...) task of diagnosing the present explains how Foucault’s critique functions as a philosophical practice, and by making explicit in which ways it emancipates us, it gives us reasons why we might be interested in doing critique like that. (shrink)

In this paper, we will discuss Peter van Inwagen’s contribution to the epistemological debate about revealed peer disagreement. Roughly, this debate focuses on situations in which at least two participants disagree on a certain proposition based on the same evidence. This leads to the problem of how one should react rationally when peer disagreement is revealed. Van Inwagen, as we will show, discusses four possible reactions, all of which he rejects as unsatisfying. Our proposal will be to point to hidden (...) assumptions in van Inwagen’s reasoning and ask whether he is willing to reject at least one of these to get rid of the problem. In short, our thesis amounts to the following: Of the two epistemological claims, which we call “Weak” and “Full-blown Fallibilism”, van Inwagen cannot simultaneously accept the first and reject the latter, while this is what he seems to suggest. Revealing this potential dilemma for van Inwagen’s position will lead to a more detailed discussion of how “rationality”, “truth”, “evidence” and “justification” interrelate and how a closer look at their relation might help solving the puzzle of revealed peer disagreement. (shrink)

Currently, the rise of science denialism is met by a new positivism that is equally detrimental for the natural and social sciences and humanities. Both paint an unrealistic picture of science in the singular, based on an idealist epistemology. In stark opposition, the article argues for a materialist epistemology that can support a realistic understanding of scientific practices by taking seriously their plurality, historicity and contextuality.

Truth is a contested concept, yet the current contest takes place within an idealistic picture that accords all conceptions of truth three features: truth is singular, atemporal and independent. Because of these features, conceptions of truth within the idealist picture are ‘sovereign’ conceptions of truth that lead to serious obstacles in different parts of philosophy, e.g. regarding the concept of normativity or the relationship between truth and politics. The article makes a case for changing the underlying philosophical picture in which (...) truth is conceptualised. To that end, it sketches a materialist picture that can account for the contextuality, historicity and plurality of truth, leading to ‘non-sovereign’ conceptions of truth. Thinking of truth as a force that emerges from social practices but is not reducible to them, that is weak in comparison to other forces (like affects or social power), that exclusively targets subjectivities and that has a ‘ratchet effect’ on these subjectivities provides enough details of the materialist picture to overcome the obstacles mentioned. (shrink)

Most people would agree that we should behave and act in a responsible way. Yet only 200 years ago, ‘responsibility’ was only of marginal importance in discussions of law and legal practice, and it had little ethical significance. What is the significance of the fact that ‘responsibility’ now plays such a central role in, for example, work, the welfare state, or the criminal justice system? What happens when individuals are generally expected to think of themselves as ‘responsible’ agents? And what (...) are the consequences of the fact that the philosophical analysis of ‘responsibility’ focuses almost exclusively on conditions of agency that are mostly absent from real life? -/- In this book, Frieder Vogelmann demonstrates how large parts of philosophy have fallen under responsibility’s spell, and he uses a Foucauldian approach in an attempt to break it. The three axes of power, knowledge, and self are used in a detailed analysis of the practical regimes of labour (including the welfare state), criminality (including policing, punishment practices, and criminal proceedings), and philosophy, and of the two subject positions required by ‘responsibility’ – those of the attributors and bearers of responsibility – within them. The power relations between these positions, which Vogelmann carefully excavates from the grounds of our practices, reveal that the deck is stacked unevenly from the start. (shrink)

Political epistemology is the name of an ambitious task. In order to aptly conceptualise the internal relationship between truth and knowledge on one side, and politics and society on the other side, political epistemology must reformulate the concepts of epistemology and social and political theory. For the concept of knowledge, this task implies to consider the truth and the force of knowledge equally. Frieder Vogelmann shows in his book the far-reaching consequences of this endeavour: for the contemporary debate about (...) untruth in politics, for the possible forms of social critique, and for the reflection upon philosophy and its history. (shrink)

Although the governmentality literature has occasionally acknowledged the importance of the concept of a liberal truth-regime, there has never been a thorough investi-gation of the role it plays in Foucault’s governmentality lectures. Therefore, this paper begins with an examination of the lectures’ “archaeological dimension” that leads to two claims: First, it shows that the crucial conceptual tool in the lectures is the question about the relation to truth that a particular political rationality possesses. Only by looking at the changing truth-regimes (...) of the liberal governmentalities will their differences and continuities come into full contrast. The article’s second claim is that this conceptually sharpened understanding of the political rationalities is required for a diagnosis of the present, which reveals that today’s dominant governmentality is no longer neo-liberalism but a new liberal rationality: neosocial market economy. (shrink)

Kant’s revolutionary new approach to philosophy was accompanied by the introduction of a largely novel terminology. With the Kant-Lexikon, a lexical reference gives the modern reader access to his work on the basis of present-day editions and takes into account 20th century and contemporary research and advances in lexicology. The Kant-Lexikon includes 2395 entries authored by 221 scholars.

In seinen letzten beiden Vorlesungen untersucht Foucault anhand der historischen Praxis des freimütigen Sprechens auch seine eigenen methodologischen Begriffe. An den aus den antiken Quellen herausgearbeiteten Formen der parrhesia – als demokratische Politik, als philosophische Subjektivierungstechnik und als kynische Kritik – prüft Foucault so zugleich sein eigenes Vorgehen, Philosophie als Politik der Wahrheit zu betreiben.

The use of the journal impact factor (JIF) as a measure for the quality of individual manuscripts and the merits of scientists has faced significant criticism in recent years. We add to the current criticism in arguing that such an application of the JIF in policy and decision making in academia is based on false beliefs and unwarranted inferences. To approach the problem, we use principles of deductive and inductive reasoning to illustrate the fallacies that are inherent to using journal (...) based metrics for evaluating the work of scientists. In doing so, we elaborate that if we judge scientific quality based on the JIF or other journal based metrics we are either guided by invalid or weak arguments or in fact consider our uncertainty about the quality of the work and not the quality itself. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Disbelief/Dissent/Unbelief/Atheism After Positivism Against False Simplifications Transforming Metaphysical Questions from Urgent Problems into Interesting Puzzles Rejecting Any Answers From Presumed “Higher Instances” Scientific Solutions to Problems and Philosophical Answers to Questions Struggling Toward Humanism Notes.

Does truth have a history? Whereas Bernard William denies it and only allows a history of truthfulness, I defend the possibility of a critical history or genealogy of truth. Because a trifling relativistic historicization of truth leads to a paradoxically a-historic and pacifistic conception of truth, one must first establish the methodological concepts with which a genealogy of truth can avoid both problems. Three first steps towards such concepts can be found in some of Michel Foucault’s lectures, which lead the (...) genealogy of truth to focus on the origins of truth’s force. (shrink)

All theories of critique rely on a – often implicit – description of the activity that doing critique is supposed to consist in. These “pictures of critique” frame all further distinctions and justifications in the debate about critique and critique’s normativity. After distinguishing three pictures of critique – measuring, disrupting and emancipating critique – I ask whether the theoretical reflection in which a certain conception of critique is elaborated is itself accurately captured by the picture of critique it employs. In (...) other words: Is the theoretical reflection of critique a critical activity according to its own picture of critique? I propose to call only those theories of critique critical theories the theoretical activity of which is a critical activity on their own picture of critique - which are surprisingly few. Most critical theories are thereby revealed to be rather traditional when it comes their own theorizing of critique. (shrink)

Begriffe herrschen, so können wir im Anschluss an Wittgenstein und Nietzsche sagen, wenn sie unsere Denk-, Handlungs-, und Seinsweisen bestimmen und uns zugleich vergessen machen, dass sie Ergebnisse einer langen Geschichte von Konflikten um jene sozialen Praktiken sind, in denen sie gebraucht werden. Denn ihre heutige Bedeutung ergibt sich aus dem Sieg eines bestimmten Gebrauchs – mit jeder unreflektierten Verwendung bekräftigen wir daher unhinterfragt die Sieger der Begriffsgeschichte. Die Responsibilisierung unseres Denkens ist die in diesem Sinne verstandene Herrschaft eines bestimmten (...) Gebrauchs von „Verantwortung“. Die heute selbstverständliche Verwendung von „Verantwortung“ resultiert aus der Entwicklung des Begriffs in Recht, Politik und Philosophie, in der „Verantwortung“ an ein spezifisches Selbstverständnis des verantwortlichen Subjekts gebunden wird. Darin verbirgt sich eine Objektivierung von Machtbeziehungen im Inneren des Subjekts, damit dieses sich allen Einschränkungen zum Trotz souverän fühlen kann. Insofern haben wir gute Gründe, die Responsibilisierung des Denkens zu kritisieren. (shrink)

Während es in der Praktischen Philosophie und Angewandten Ethik ausführliche Debatten und Konzepte etwa zu den Fragen gibt, wie mit Problemen globaler Armut und Ungerechtigkeit umzugehen ist, welche Rechte und Pflichten Nationalstaaten angesichts zunehmender Flüchtlings- und Migrationsströme haben und welche Umweltschäden wir zukünftigen Generationen zumuten dürfen, bleiben einige andere innerstaatliche und naheliegende moralische Fragestellungen oftmals auf der Strecke: Welche moralischen Ansprüche haben sozial ausgegrenzte, ökonomisch benachteiligte und in Notlagen lebende Personen, die zu unserer Gesellschaft dazugehören? Mit den Problemen in der (...) Lebensgestaltung von Personengruppen wie Drogenabhängigen, Obdachlosen, Menschen mit Behinderungen und Arbeitslosen beauftragt der Sozialstaat – oftmals über subsidiär übertragene Kompetenzen – soziale Einrichtungen und ihre Sozialarbeiterinnen und Sozialarbeiter. Mit Blick auf diese „Dreieckskonstellation“ stellen sich zwei grundlegende ethische Fragen: Welche moralisch relevanten Gesichtspunkte bestimmen das Verhältnis von Sozialstaaten und gesellschaftlich ausgeschlossenen und benachteiligten Bürgerinnen und Bürgern bzw. – weiter gefasst – Bewohnerinnen und Bewohnern? Welche moralisch relevanten Gesichtspunkte sollten die Interaktion von Sozialarbeiterinnen und Sozialarbeitern mit ihren Klientinnen und Klienten in Beratungs- und Hilfskontexten bestimmen? Diesen basalen Fragen einer Ethik der Sozialen Arbeit wird, so unsere zentrale These, bisher von Seiten der Praktischen Philosophie noch zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit entgegengebracht. Diesem Zustand soll der vorliegende Themenschwerpunkt der Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie entgegenwirken, indem die darin enthaltenen Beiträge besonders auf die zweite Frage reagieren. Diese befassen sich insbesondere mit theoretischen und methodologischen Fragen einer Ethik der Sozialen Arbeit, etwa der Arbeitsteilung zwischen empirischen und normativen Ansätzen, der Funktion eines Rawls’schen weiten Überlegungsgleichgewichts und der Rolle und angemessenen Verständnisweise des Prinzips des Respekts vor Autonomie in der Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit. Wir verstehen unseren Themenschwerpunkt zugleich als ein Plädoyer und einen Aufruf zu weiterer Auseinandersetzung auch von Philosophinnen und Philosophen mit Fragen der Ethik der Sozialen Arbeit. (shrink)

We characterize preservation of superstability and ω-stability for finite extensions of abelian groups and reduce the general case to the case of p-groups. In particular we study finite extensions of divisible abelian groups. We prove that superstable abelian-by-finite groups have only finitely many conjugacy classes of Sylow p-subgroups.

In this paper the structuralist approach of theory reconstruction is applied to International Trade Theory. In the basic element the universal laws of the theory are stated and the general concepts are defined in terms of three sets and seven functions. Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage and the Factor Proportions Theory by Heckscher and Ohlin are reconstructed as specialisations of the basic element. Two intratheoretical constraints are formulated in order to ensure the consistency of the theory. A number of empirical (...) studies are shown to be paradigmatic, successful or questionable applications of International Trade Theory. The reconstruction allows the assessment of the theory from a metatheoretical angle and illuminates the logical interdependencies of its components. (shrink)

The present article discusses the relation of Th. Nagel’s ethics of altruism with kantian ethics. According to Nagel himself, his position resembles that of Kant in two respects: it defends the thesis of the autonomy of moral motivation, and it bases moral on a determinate self-conception of persons. However, differently from Kant, the principle of Nagel’s ethics is just the modest presupposition that persons essentially understand themselves as being one among a plurality of other persons. Starting from the nagelian argument (...) in The Possibility of Altruism (1970), but contemplating also Nagel’s more recent position in The Last Word (1999), it is argued that in order to defend his conception of a rational ethics in a convincing way, Nagel has to approximate himself more to the kantian foundation of ethics than he wants to admit. (shrink)

A collection of essays on politics, philosophy, and the crisis of Marxism, referring back to Althusser's theoretical initiatives of the late 1970s and the Portuguese revolution of 1974.

Contemporary concerns about the increase in untruths in politics have renewed interest in the relationship between truth and politics. Is democracy losing its foundations in a ‘post-truth era’ because it is becoming disconnected from reality? Or are facts, to which a technocratic mindset cannot tolerate alternatives, threatening to suppress political debate? In twelve contributions, political theorists investigate the relationship between truth and politics against the background of the current discussion. With contributions by Floris Biskamp, Oliver Flügel-Martinsen, Eva Marlene Hausteiner, Oliver (...) Hidalgo, Anna Hollendung, Dominik Klein, Gundula Ludwig, Franziska Martinsen, Johannes Marx, Martin Nonhoff, Frank Nullmeier, Samuel Salzborn, Hagen Schölzel, Frieder Vogelmann and Lucas von Ramin. (shrink)

Die Behauptung, dass Verantwortung eine Subjektform sowie die Technik zu ihrer Herstellung bezeichnet, wird kaum Erstaunen auslösen. Wozu wären all die auf Verantwortung sich stützenden ethisch-moralischen Normen auch gut, wenn sie nicht unsere Subjektivität formen könnten? Dieses Selbstverständnis als verantwortliche Subjekte ist Nietzsches zentralen Angriffspunkt in der zweiten Abhandlung von "Zur Genealogie der Moral". Doch sein Verständnis von Verantwortung als Subjektivierungstechnik und Subjektform war im Kontext des philosophischen Diskurses, in dem er sich selbst verortet, alles andere als eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Der (...) junge Begriff »Verantwortung« war noch zu eng am Recht orientiert, um ein Selbstverhältnis zu besitzen, und wurde von der Philosophie nur in der metaphysischen Schlacht um die Willensfreiheit gebraucht. (shrink)

Does Habermas have the conceptual resources to not only rationally reconstruct the political shape of the European Union as a supranational democracy with a “shared sovereignty” between European citizens and member states, but to also rationally reconstruct the economic practices and processes? My answer will be in the affirmative, and my argument takes the form of an exemplary sketch how such a reconstruction might look like. It is, however, nothing more than a sketch because both rational reconstructions are so far-reaching (...) that they amount to reconstructive revolutions. Obviously, some presuppositions need to be addressed. My question is triggered by an asymmetry in Habermas’ writings on Europe, an asymmetry I will explicate together with the methodological premises of those writings. Hence, I will first turn to the method of rational reconstruction which Habermas uses for his analysis of the European Union. My third step will be to suggest that the economy is unnecessarily excluded from these considerations and I will present one possibility how a rational reconstruction of economic practices might look like – and where it gets a footing in those practices even if we strive to uphold the distinction between system and lifeworld. Finally, I will answer two obvious objections. (shrink)

A collection of essays on philosophy and politics on the occasion of the 65th birthday of the radical philosopher Frieder Otto Wolf.

Was bedeutet die steile Karriere von Verantwortung (nicht nur) in der Philosophie, und welchen Preis zahlen wir dafür? Dass große Teile der modernen Philosophie ihr verfallen sind, so die zentrale These, bezahlt diese mit Blindheit für die theoretischen wie praktischen Auswirkungen von Verantwortung. Um sie zu analysieren, muss Verantwortung als diskursiven Operator verstanden werden, dessen Einheit im ambivalenten Selbstverhältnis der Verantwortung Tragenden liegt. Seine praktischen Auswirkungen werden exemplarisch in den Praktiken der Arbeit und der Kriminalität studiert, in denen das verantwortliche (...) Selbstverhältnis intensiviert und zugleich von der Voraussetzung substantieller Handlungsmacht entkoppelt wird. So hilft Verantwortung, eine unternehmerische Logik in die Selbstverhältnisse zunehmend entmachteter Lohnarbeiterinnen und »Arbeitsloser« einzuschmelzen sowie die Bürgerinnen aktiv in die präventiv gewendete Kriminalpolitik einer auf öffentliche Sicherheit fixierten Gesellschaft einzubinden. Die theoretischen Auswirkungen werden anhand der Genealogie von Verantwortung innerhalb der Philosophie analysiert, in der sich Verantwortung vom Instrument in der metaphysischen Debatte um Willensfreiheit zu einem eigenständigen moralischen Problem und schließlich zur Gewissheit wandelt, mit der andere philosophische Fragen erklärt werden. Fixpunkt aller Reflexionen bleibt das ambivalente verantwortliche Selbstverhältnis als aktiver Umgang mit dem Faktum des eigenen Unterwerfens – sowohl dem Unterworfen-sein als auch dem Unterwerfen Anderer. Das zum Faktum erklärte Unterwerfen erlaubt dem Subjekt, sich unabhängig von seiner tatsächlichen Handlungsmacht als souverän zu erleben, und bildet den verborgenen Kern des verantwortlichen Selbstverhältnisses. Weil Verantwortung aber zunehmen gebraucht wird, um die Bindungskraft von Normativität als ureigenes Gebiet der Philosophie zu explizieren, verleitet ihre Attraktivität dazu, diese Selbstobjektivierung zu übersehen oder zu leugnen und den praktischen Gebrauch der philosophischen Legitimierungen von Verantwortung auszublenden. Dagegen setzt dieses Buch eine diagnostische Kritik, die den Bann der Verantwortung wenn nicht bricht, so doch entlarvt. (shrink)

In this article, three theses are proposed. The first is that ›force‹ and ›normativity‹ are not just two fundamental concepts in philosophy today but two paradigms: Each claims to structure how we view the world, to name what is specifically human and to determine the task of philosophy. Their confrontation repeats, according to the second thesis, the dispute between neo-Kantian normativism and life-philosophy in the 19th century, best captured by the concepts of ›life‹ and ›validity.‹ Third, the differences within this (...) repetition concern the position, status and nature of subjectivity: Whereas theories of validity in the 19th century are at least partially anti-subjectivist, and thus accused of being abstract, scholastic and hostile to ›life‹ by life-philosophy, today it is the paradigm of ›force‹ which regards the subject as a contingent result of forces. In contrast, contemporary normativism argues for the autonomy of a sovereign subject whose activity is the source of non-indifference in his or her world. (shrink)

Die Debatte um die Differenz von „Verantwortung“ und „Pflicht“ ist kein bloßer Streit um Wörter, geht es doch um Begriffe, für die der Anspruch erhoben wird, sie seien konstitutiv für moralische Normativität oder gar für Normativität per se. Doch welchen Unterschied macht es, die besondere Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder über Pflicht zu explizieren? Die Genealogie der philosophischen Reflexionen auf Verantwortung lokalisiert die Differenz zwischen Pflicht und Verantwortung in den jeweiligen Selbstverhältnissen, die mit diesen Begriffen verbunden werden. Die Analyse (...) der Struktur dieser Selbstverhältnisse erklärt sowohl, warum Verantwortung häufig als moderner Ersatzbegriff für Pflicht gedacht wird, als auch, welchen Unterschied die Explikation der Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder Pflicht macht: Je nachdem, mit welchem Begriff normative Kraft erläutert wird, wandert das entsprechende Selbstverhältnis in die Verfasstheit von Normativität ein. (shrink)

How is philosophical knowledge related to the world in which it is produced – and how should it be related? In the article, “world” refers to the whole of historically established, politically contested and materially constituted practices. Three ideal-type relationships are distinguished: affirmatively in the world, negatively against the world, and with the world. The article argues for the latter because it combines the two decisive insights of the first two relationships: the insight into philosophy’s facticity, i. e., it being (...) bound to the world, and the insight into philosophy’s freedom, i. e., that it can, nevertheless, turn against that world. Political epistemology is needed to explicate any philosophy with the world because it holds together, in a productive tension, minimal materialism as the core of the insight into philosophy’s facticity and the irreducibility of thought as the core of the insight into philosophy’s freedom. (shrink)