Ernst Haeckel, vor 100 Jahren am 9. August 1919 in Jena verstorben und im Garten seines Hauses beigesetzt, hat als Wissenschaftler und Person so polarisierend gewirkt wie kaum eine andere Figur des ausgehenden 19. und des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Es ist unmöglich, sich der Figur Haeckel zu bemächtigen, ohne sofort inkompatibel auftretende Beschreibungen zu gebrauchen: In seiner zoologischen Forschung war er mit größter Hingabe mit der mikroskopischen Erforschung kleinster Meereslebewesen befasst. Dies betraf insbesondere einzellige Radiolarien, von denen (...) er hunderte neuer Arten erstmals beschrieb und klassifizierte. (shrink)

With Carl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel, inspiredby Darwin and the cell theory, comparativeanatomy and embryology became established andflourished in Jena. This tradition wascontinued and developed further with new ideasand methods devised by some of Haeckelsstudents. This first period of innovative workin evolutionary morphology was followed byperiods of crisis and even a disintegration ofthe discipline in the early twentieth century.This stagnation was caused by a lack ofinterest among morphologists in Mendeliangenetics, and uncertainty about the mechanismsof evolution. Idealistic morphology was (...) stillinfluental in Germany, which prevented a fullappreciation of the importance of Darwinstheory of natural selection for comparativemorphology. Evolutionary morphology andembryology failed to contribute significantlyto the modern synthesis of evolutionarybiology, thereby probably delaying theintegration of developmental biology intomodern evolutionary biology. However, Haeckelsstudent Oscar Hertwig, as well as Victor Franzand Alexej N. Sewertzoff from a youngergeneration, all tried to forge their ownsynthetic approaches in which (inspired byHaeckels work) embryology played an importantrole. Important for all three researchers wereattempts to refine, and sometimes redefine, thebiogenetic law, and to find new scientificexplanations for it (and for the manyexceptions to it). Their research was latermore or less forgotten, and had littleinfluence on the architects of the modernsynthesis. As the relationship betweenevolutionary and developmental biology is nowagain rising in importance in the form ofEvo-Devo, we would like to draw attention tohow this earlier research tradition grappledwith similar questions to those now on theagenda, albeit from sometimes quite differentperspectives. (shrink)

It has been noted before in the history of logic that some of Frege's logical and semantic views were anticipated in Stoicism. In particular, there seems to be a parallel between Frege's Gedanke (thought) and Stoic lekton; and the distinction between complete and incomplete lekta has an equivalent in Frege's logic. However, nobody has so far claimed that Frege was actually influenced by Stoic logic; and there has until now been no indication of such a causal connection. In this essay, (...) we attempt, for the first time, to provide detailed evidence for the existence of this connection. In the course of our argumentation, further analogies between the positions of Frege and the Stoics will be revealed. The classical philologist Rudolf Hirzel will be brought into play as the one who links Frege with Stoicism. The renowned expert on Stoic philosophy was Frege's tenant and lived in the same house as the logician for many years. In der Geschichte der Logik ist häufig bemerkt worden, dass einige der logischen und semantischen Auffassungen Freges in der Stoa antizipiert worden sind. Genannt wurden insbesondere die Parallelen zwischen dem Fregeschen Gedanken und dem stoischen Lekton sowie die Unterscheidung zwischen vollständigen und unvollständigen Lekta, die bei Frege ihre Entsprechung hat. Ein Wirkungszusammenhang ist allerdings nicht behauptet worden. Dazu gab es bislang auch keinen Anlass. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht erstmalig, einen detaillierten Indizienbeweis für das Bestehen eines solchen Zusammenhangs vorzulegen. Dabei werden weitere charakteristische Übereinstimmungen zwischen Frege und der Stoa aufgewiesen. Als Mittelsmann wird der Altphilologe Rudolf Hirzel vorgestellt. Er wohnte lange Jahre als Mieter zusammen mit Frege im selben Haus und war ein anerkannter Experte der stoischen Philosophie. (shrink)

Rudolf Eucken (1846-1926) war Philosophieprofessor in Jena, der einen lebensphilosophisch angehauchten Neoidealismus vertrat und dessen Schriften im gebildeten Bürgertum breite Resonanz fanden. 1908 erhielt er den Nobelpreis für Literatur und galt seitdem als einer der renommiertesten deutschen Intellektuellen mit internationaler Ausstrahlungskraft. Eucken sammelte in den Jahren vor 1914 einen Kreis von Anhängern und Gleichgesinnten um sich, der sich als geistig-moralische - "kulturkritische" - Sammlungsbewegung verstand. Während des Ersten Weltkriegs trat Rudolf Eucken als unermüdlicher Propagandist der deutschen Sache im Inland (...) wie im neutralen Ausland auf. Nach dem Krieg gab sich die von ihm ins Leben gerufene Bewegung mit der Gründung des "Euckenbunds" eine feste organisatorische Gestalt mit 20-25 Ortsgruppen und mehr als 1000 Mitgliedern (darunter auch Gustav Stresemann). Der Euckenbund und die vierteljährlich erscheinende Zeitschrift des Bundes ("Die Tatwelt") existierten auch nach dem Tod Rudolf Euckens 1926 weiter. Seit 1928 betrieben die Witwe des Philosophen, Irene Eucken, und ihre Tochter Ida zudem ein "Rudolf-Eucken-Haus" als internationale Begegnungsstätte der Universität Jena. Auch der Sohn Euckens, der heute viel bekanntere Nationalökonom Walter Eucken, war zeitweise in der "Eucken-Bewegung" stark engagiert. Euckenbund, Euckenhaus und "Die Tatwelt" bestanden auch nach 1933 weiter und betätigten sich, subventioniert vom Auswärtigen Amt, in der deutschen Kulturpropaganda, ohne sich aber vom Regime im Sinne der NS-Ideologie,,gleichschalten" zu lassen. Im Jenaer Rudolf-Eucken-Haus fanden seit Mitte der 1930er Jahren philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Tagungen statt, an der eine ganze Reihe bekannter Geistes- und Naturwissenschaftler teilnahmen (u. a. Helmut Schelsky, Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Gotthard Günther, Pascual Jordan, Gerhard Ritter, Walter Eucken). Erst nach dem Tod Irene und Ida Euckens 1941/43 löste sich der Euckenbund auf. Die Studie verfolgt den Werdegang Rudolf Euckens, setzt sich mit seiner Philosophie und Weltanschauung auseinander und zeigt die programmatische und organisatorische Entwicklung der,,Eucken-Bewegung" und deren Aktivitäten auf. Allgemein beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit den geistigen und politischen Befindlichkeiten des kulturkritisch gesinnten liberal-konservativen Bildungsbürgertums zwischen dem wilhelminischen Kaiserreich, der Weimarer Republik und dem Nationalsozialismus. (shrink)

Abstract.The German zoologist and geneticist Ludwig Plate was a pupil and successor of the “German Darwin” Ernst Haeckel as the director of the Institute of Zoology at Jena University. Plate campaigned for a revival of the original Darwinism. His research program, which he labelled “old-Darwinism”, proclaimed the synthesis of selectionism with “moderate Lamarckism” and orthogenesis.This article reconstructs and analyses Plate’s “old-Darwinian” synthesis and sheds light on Plate’s controversial biography, especially his conflict with Haeckel.

In historical literature, Edouard van Beneden is mostly remembered for his cytological discoveries. Less well known, however, is that he also introduced evolutionary morphology – and indeed evolutionary theory as such – in the Belgian academic world. The introduction of this research programme cannot be understood without taking both the international and the national context into account. It was clearly the German example of the Jena University that inspired van Beneden in his research interests. The actual launch of evolutionary (...) morphology at his University of Liège was, however, also connected with the dynamic of Belgian university reforms and the local rationale of creating a research “school.” Thanks to his networks, his mastering of the rhetoric of the “new” biology, his low ideological profile and his capitalising on the new academic élan in late-19th century Belgium, van Beneden managed to turn his programme into a local success from the 1870s onwards. Two decades later, however, the conceptual underpinnings of evolutionary morphology came under attack and the “Van Beneden School” lost much of its vitality. Despite this, van Beneden’s evolutionary morphology was prototypical for the research that was to come. He was one of the first scientific heavyweights in Belgium to turn the university laboratory into a centre of scientific practice and the hub of a research school. (shrink)

The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel's prints, still influence artists and designers to this day. This volume highlights the research and findings of this natural scientist. Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel's prints, which even in their day, became world famous. Haeckel's portfolio, first published between 1899 and 1904 in separate installments, is described in the opening essays. The plates illustrate Haeckel's fundamental monistic notion of the (...) "unity of all living things" and the wide variety of forms are executed with utmost delicacy. Incipient microscopic organisms are juxtaposed with highly developed plants and animals. The pages, ordered according to geometric and "constructive" aspects, document the oness of the world in its most diversified forms. This collection of plates was not only well-received by scientists, but by artists and architects as well. Rene Binet, a pioneer of glass and iron constructions, Emile Galle, a renowned Art Nouveau designer, and the photographer Karl Blossfeld all make explicit reference to Haeckel in their work. (shrink)

The controversy about creation.--The struggle over our genealogical tree.--The controversy over the soul.--Appendix: Evolutionary tables.--Postscript: Evolution and Jesuitism.

本书作者简要勾勒出了一种“一元论的宗教”,试图把整个科学领域中进化思想的基本概念阐发出来,试图对人类探讨和思维的各个方面的内在联系加以论证。.

Generelle Morphologie der Organismen - Allgemeine Grundzuge der organischen Formen-Wissenschaft mechanisch begrundet durch die von Charles Darwin reformierte Deskendenz-Theorie ist ein unveranderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1866. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernahrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres.Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur.Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitaten erhaltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bucher neu und tragt damit (...) zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch fur die Zukunft bei. (shrink)

Jeffrey Hause - Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth Century - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 328-329 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Jeffrey Hause Creighton University István P. Bejczy and Richard G. Newhauser, editors. Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth Century. Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 130. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. vi + 393. Cloth, $189.00. The essays collected in this fascinating volume on virtue reveal both the increasing (...) debt twelfth-century thinkers owe to Augustinian moral psychology, as well as the extent to which those thinkers integrate classical moral philosophy and its canons of rationality into their medieval Christian worldview. However, the authors also explore the historical, social, economic, and theological genesis of.. (shrink)

Deep neural network models have revived long-standing debates on the value of explanation versus prediction for advancing science. Bowers et al.'s critique will not make these models go away, but it is likely to prompt new work that seeks to reconcile explanatory and predictive models, which could change how we determine what constitutes valuable scientific knowledge.

In this study, Daniel Westberg offers readers an account of Aquinas’s ethics and the action theory that underlies it. Both friends and enemies of Aquinas have covered this subject matter before, but early commentators misunderstood central parts of Aquinas’s ethical theory, and they handed down their misinterpretations in traditions that continue into the present. Against the traditional view that Aquinas’s medieval Christian inheritance, with its focus on the will, and on grace and love, required an action theory fundamentally different from (...) Aristotle’s, Westberg shows that the core of Aquinas’s action theory is authentically Aristotelian. Aquinas is neither a natural law theorist nor a voluntarist, as he is commonly thought to be. Instead, he holds a complex yet plausible account of human action that gives a greater role to practical reason and prudence than commentators generally recognize. This central contention is important, for it counters centuries of misinterpretation, and Westberg argues effectively for it. For this reason, anyone with a serious interest in medieval ethics should read Westberg’s study. (shrink)

The subject of intercultural exchange is complex and demands that we keep the basic issues that shape our views of the world in mind. And one of these basic issues is what we mean by “European identity.” The ideological concerns over the norms of identity became necessarily entangled in the post-1989 interests and agendas of Europe’s various nations. So the great challenge for us as academics as well as for the policymakers in Brussels and Strasburg is to focus on these (...) dialectics. European identity is too varied to be a unitary and homogenous thing; indeed, one of the battles within it is between the advocates of a unitary identity and those who see the whole as a complex that is irreducible to a unified identity. In this article I explore how the theatre, in the aftermath of the Second World War, served as a laboratory for the investigation, analysis, and constuction of dramatic models that became a means of transcultural communication. As attested by the continuing success of the experimental approaches of Brecht, Grotowski, La Mama, and Suzuki, this endeavour reflected the struggle of people from different cultural backgrounds to understand and accept each other. One of the reasons the theatre continues to have the potentiality to promote transcultural integration is that it deals in concrete particulars with universal resonances. As I will demonstrate with examples from my own work in various countries, the production and directing of plays by these and other dramatists shows that it is only in the performance—by transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar, by making the habitual and customary seem strange and unexpected—that the motives, relationships, and events enclosed in the written play are released so as to stimulate the audience to re-examine their own contemporary realities. Transcultural theatre thus creates dramatic experiences that are adequate and responsive to the changing world of migration and mobility in which both practitioners and audiences actually live. As such it offers the kind of transcultural education that promotes communication and understanding and that fosters an open-eyed and open-hearted attitude to the changing realities of Europe. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBuddha’s fundamental philosophy mainly addresses the issue of suffering and the ways of preventing suffering in life. Accordingly, his commendable stance on the protection of animals is und...

The spectacle of the relentless use and abuse of animals in various human enterprises led some human beings to formulate animal welfare policies and to offer philosophical arguments on the basis of which the humane treatment of animals could be defended rationally. According to the animal welfare concept, animals should be provided some comfort and freedom of movement in the period prior to the moment when they are killed. This concept emphasizes the physiological, psychological, and natural aspects of animal life (...) with the focus on freedom. Ironically, however it is not concerned with the rights of animals; nor is it interested in their remaining alive. So, animals are least benefitted by such provisions, which is the major concern for those who defend animal rights. It seems dubious to demand comfort for a being in life, but not security for its actual life, since rights and freedom are essential for the maintenance of a normal life. This paper aims to critically analyze the animal welfare system, which prioritizes only freedom; to demonstrate how animal welfare is incomplete without animal rights and how they are closely related to each other; and to bridge the gap between animal welfare and animal rights. The underlying principle of animal welfare concept is restricted by its anthropocentric framework with the result that the ethical element is missing. Mere ‘freedom’ is not sufficient for constituting an ideal animal welfare domain. In order to achieve real animal well-being, it is necessary to consider both the rights as well as the welfare of animals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMahatma Gandhi’s profound theory of non-violence takes into account both human beings and animals. His fundamental thought on the subject of protecting animals is the outcome of a cluster of theories, including the non-violence of Jainism, the teachings of the Gitā, Sānkhya, Christianity, and Tolstoy. While retaining the literal meaning of non-violence i.e. non-killing, Gandhi attributes to it certain features that expand its scope and yet also determine its limitations. He suggests that non-violence does not merely imply non-hurting in thought (...) and deed, but that it entails an extension of love and compassion. He identifies its limitation by unmistakably denying the possibility of absolute non-violence. He defends his stance on animals on the basis of a wide range of perspectives: religious, scientific, political, as well as economic. Gandhi demands protection of their lives and also enhancement of their welfare. This paper aims to philosophically analyse Gandhi’s doctrine of non-viol... (shrink)

This paper develops a structural parallel between the maternal/feminine body in Greek mythology and the figure of the body in Plato’s Timaeus. HistoricallyPlato is often portrayed as a thinker who is concerned with the corporeal only insofar as philosophy is engaged in transcending bodily limitations. Yet the Timaeus is not engaged in producing a dualistic opposition between the intelligible and the sensible, nor is Platonic philosophy a rejection of life in favor of the perfect wisdom that comes with death. The (...) following work will suggest that the Timaeus is a dialogue deeply concerned with the question of birth and corporeality and that this concern is disclosed (and not repressed) in and through Timaeus’s evocation of the body. (shrink)

What kind of society do we live in? What kind of politics can help us to live in a good society? The first of these questions is essential to theory of society, the second to political theory. The contributions in this volume investigate the relationship between these two questions and, thus, open new perspectives for assessing politics and the society. The opposing terms "renewal" and "disenchantment" are herein used as leading ideas by which political theory could provide impulses to theory (...) of society. (shrink)