[1. Heft]. Beiträge von Kolloquien des Arbeitskreises Philosophie-Naturwissenschaften, insbesondere vom 31. 5. und 7. 6. 1972.--2. Heft. Beiträge von der wissenschaftlichen Tagung des Arbeitskreises Philosophie-Naturwissenschaften am 9. und 10. April 1974. v.

Im Jahre 1762 erschütterte ein Korruptionsskandal über die Machenschaften des Landvogts von Grüningen, den drei junge Theologiestudenten -- Johann Caspar Lavater, Johann Heinrich Füssli und Felix Hess -- aufgedeckt hatten, den gesamten Kanton Zürich. Aufgrund der politischen Brisanz dieses Ereignisses sahen sich die drei jungen, für Gerechtigkeit kämpfenden 'Rebellen' gegen das Ancien régime veranlasst, zeitweise ihre Heimat zu verlassen, um ihre literarischen, theologischen und philosophischen Studien beim Aufklärungstheologen Johann Joachim Spalding in Barth in Schwedisch-Pommern vom Frühjahr 1763 bis Anfang (...) 1764 fortzusetzen. Spalding hatte mit seiner Schrift 'Die Bestimmung des Menschen' ethische Massstäbe gesetzt, die nicht nur die drei Zürcher Theologen faszinierten. Damit ging damals von Barth ein Geist der Aufklärung und Rechtschaffenheit aus, der nicht allein die Entwicklung der Ideale der Aufklärung in Europa vorantrieb, sondern an seiner Aktualität bis heute nichts eingebüsst hat. Die Ausstellung und der Begleitband präsentieren erstmals in diesem Kontext die Werke der Literatur und Malerei, die im Umkreis und Nachwirkung dieses helvetisch-deutschen Dialogs von 1763/64 entstanden sind,und stellen sie in einen zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The political scientist and former Bavarian Minister of Culture Hans Maier has created a historically profound, theologically educated, literarily and musically highly sensitive, politically mature body of work, with which he has inscribed himself in the (intellectual) history of the Federal Republic. This book is the first to contain contributions by renowned scholars and politicians on the rich work and impact of the Catholic scholar and politician Hans Maier. It thematises and appreciates in detail his view of German history and (...) the traditions of political thought, his critique of political language, political theology, totalitarianism and political religions, but also his contributions on Catholicism and modernity, his writings on literature and music, and finally his influence as an academic teacher, public intellectual and politician. With contributions by Udo Bermbach, Thomas Brose, Ahmet Cavuldak, Horst Dreier, Hermann-Josef Große Kracht, Jens Hacke, Oliver Hidalgo, Hans Günter Hockerts, Patrick Horst, Horst Möller, Heinrich Oberreuter, Henning Ottmann, Mark Edward Ruff, Hans Otto Seitschek, Michael Stolleis, Bernhard Vogel, Peter Graf von Kielmansegg, Theo Waigel and Markus Zimmermann. (shrink)

Matthias Vogel challenges the belief, dominant in contemporary philosophy, that reason is determined solely by our discursive, linguistic abilities as communicative beings. In his view, the medium of language is not the only force of reason. Music, art, and other nonlinguistic forms of communication and understanding are also significant. Introducing an expansive theory of mind that accounts for highly sophisticated, penetrative media, Vogel advances a novel conception of rationality while freeing philosophy from its exclusive attachment to linguistics. Vogel's media of (...) reason treats all kinds of understanding and thought, propositional and nonpropositional, as important to the processes and production of knowledge and thinking. By developing an account of rationality grounded in a new conception of media, he raises the profile of the prelinguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions of rationality and advances the Enlightenment project, buffering it against the postmodern critique that the movement fails to appreciate aesthetic experience. Guided by the work of Jürgen Habermas, Donald Davidson, and a range of media theorists, including Marshall McLuhan, Vogel rebuilds, if he does not remake, the relationship among various forms of media -- books, movies, newspapers, the Internet, and television -- while offering an original and exciting contribution to media theory. (shrink)

Questions about the nature of the relationship between language and extralinguistic cognition are old, but only recently has a new view emerged that allows for the systematic investigation of claims about linguistic structure, based on how it is understood or utilized outside of the language system. Our paper represents a case study for this interaction in the domain of event semantics. We adopt a transparency thesis about the relationship between linguistic structure and extralinguistic cognition, investigating whether different lexico-syntactic structures can (...) differentially recruit the visual causal percept. A prominent analysis of causative verbs like move suggests reference to two distinct events and a causal relationship between them, whereas non-causative verbs like push do not so refer. In our study, we present English speakers with simple scenes that either do or do not support the perception of a causal link, and manipulate (between subjects) a one-sentence instruction for the evaluation of the scene. Preliminary results suggest that competent speakers of English are more likely to judge causative constructions than non-causative constructions as true of a scene where causal features are present in the scene. Implications for a new approach to the investigation of linguistic meanings and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

The essays are grouped in three sections. In Part I Vogel considers the relationship between feminism and socialism.

Argues that the tradition of critical theory has had significant problems dealing with the concept of nature and that their solutions require taking seriously the idea of nature as socially constructed.

In claiming that 'nature speaks', authors such as Scott Friskics and David Abram implicitly agree that language use is linked to moral considerability, adding only that we need to extend our conception of language to see that non-humans too use it. I argue that the ethical significance of language use derives from its role in dialogue, in which speakers make truth-claims, question and potentially criticise the claims of others, and provide justifications for the claims they raise themselves. Non-human entities (as (...) a contingent matter) seem not to engage in dialogue in this sense, and none of the examples Friskics and Abram offer suggest that they do. Thus the conception of language such authors employ is too weak to support the ethical conclusions they implicitly wish to defend. (shrink)

I show how Hans Jonas, one of Heidegger's most distinguished Jewish students, traces his mentor's susceptibility to Nazism to a moral nihilism at the heart of Heidegger's teaching in "Being and Time". I then demonstrate how Jonas's own "existential interpretation of the biological facts" and metaphysical grounding of "an imperative of responsibility" provide one of the most systematic and challenging rejoinders to the moral failings of Heidegger's thought.

This qualitative study used descriptive phenomenology to examine experiences of healing and reconciliation, for children of Holocaust survivors, through dialogue with children of the Third Reich. Descriptive phenomenological interviews with 5 participants yielded several common essential elements. The findings indicated that participants experienced a sense of healing of intergenerational trauma, a reduction in prejudice, and increase in motivation for pro-social behaviors. The degree to which these findings may reflect a shift in sense of identity, as well as the implications of (...) the findings for conflict resolution, intergroup conflict reduction and peace psychology are discussed. (shrink)

A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. -/- Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept (...) of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. -/- Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”. (shrink)

"Ratgeber für das tägliche Leben, Lebenshilfe-Breviere, Literatur zum Zeitmanagement erlebt im Moment eine große Konjunktur. Psychologen, Theologen und Philosophen, aber auch Manager und ehemalige Mönche kümmern sich um dieses Themenfeld. Solche alltagsethische Orientierungsliteratur versucht, die gegenwärtige starke Nachfrage zu bedienen und gleichzeitig alte Traditionen aus der Philosophie der Antike, aus der Theologie der Kirchenväter und des Klosterlebens sowie aus der Alltagspsychologie aufzunehmen. Dieses Phänomen bedarf der theologischen Analyse aus Perspektiven der Sozialethik, der praktischen wie der systematischen Theologie. Es ergeben sich (...) Fragen nach dem Verständnis von Alltag, nach einer zeitgemäßen modernen Spiritualität. Im vorliegenden Band werden aktuelle alltagsethische Entwürfe analysiert; in einem zweiten Schritt werden konstruktive theologische Perspektiven entwickelt.". (shrink)