In this article, we discuss recent evidence from experimental economics on the impact of social preferences on workplace behavior. We focus on situations in which a single employer interacts with multiple employees. Traditionally, equity and efficiency have been seen as opposing aims in such work environments: individual pay-for-performance wage schemes maximize of efficiency but might lead to inequitable outcomes. We present findings from laboratory experiments that show under which circumstances partially incomplete contracts can create equitable work environments while at the (...) same time reaching surprisingly efficient outcomes. (shrink)

Psychology and philosophy have long reflected on the role of perspective in vision. Since the dawn of modern vision science—roughly, since Helmholtz in the late 1800s—scientific explanations in vision have focused on understanding the computations that transform the sensed retinal image into percepts of the three-dimensional environment. The standard view in the science is that distal properties—viewpoint-independent properties of the environment (object shape) and viewpoint-dependent relational properties (3D orientation relative to the viewer)–are perceptually represented and that properties of the proximal (...) stimulus (in vision, the retinal image) are not. This view is woven into the nature of scientific explanation in perceptual psychology, and has guided impressive advances over the past 150 years. A recently published article suggests that in shape-perception, the standard view must be revised. It argues, on the basis of new empirical data, that a new entity—perspectival shape—should be introduced into scientific explanations of shape perception. Specifically, the article’s centrally advertised claim is that, in addition to distal shape, perspectival shape is perceived. We argue that this claim rests on a series of mistakes. Problems in experimental design entail that the article provides no empirical support for any claims regarding either perspective or the perception of shape. There are further problems in scientific reasoning and conceptual development. Detailing these criticisms and explaining how science treats these issues is meant to clarify method and theory, and to improve exchanges between the science and philosophy of perception. (shrink)

Normativität hat in den Sozialwissenschaften noch immer etwas Anrüchiges, fast Abschreckendes. Es gibt eine lange Traditionslinie in den Sozialwissenschaften, die versucht, ihre Disziplin gegenüber normativen Argumenten „sauber“ zu halten. Das wird in der Regel damit begründet, dass im wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisprozess Gesinnungsmotive nicht hilfreich sind und im Extremfall Ergebnisse verzerren. Befürworter normativer Sozialwissenschaften halten dagegen, dass die fehlende Thematisierung etwa von sozialen Ungleichheits- und Herrschaftsverhältnissen die Welt, so wie sie gerade ist, einmal mehr bestätigt – und das ist eben auch nicht (...) normfrei und kann es auch nicht sein, weil, so eine zentrale These des vorliegenden Bandes, Theorien notwendig mit normativen Bezügen behaftet sind. Damit ist das Spektrum der Positionen angedeutet, die in diesem Sammelband zu finden sind. Er hat einerseits das Ziel, normative Verwicklungen auch in den sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen aufzuspüren, die stärker auf die Idee einer wertfreien Wissenschaft verpflichtet sind. Andererseits werden Ansätze, die explizit herrschaftskritische Positionen vertreten, auf die Plausibilität ihrer normativen Setzungen hin überprüft. Die normativen Hintergründe sozialwissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung aufzuzeigen und eine Debatte über die normativen Bezüge der Sozialwissenschaften anzuregen ist das Anliegen dieses Bandes. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Habermas fragt vor dem Hintergrund geschwächter Kräfte der sozialen Integration in kritischem Bezug auf Carl Schmitt nach dem vernünftigen Sinn der alteuropäischen Kategorie des Politischen. Schmitt versteht seinen Begriff des Politischen im Sinne des jus reformandi, mit dem sich die Reformatoren für das Politische in seiner klassischen Gestalt und für religiösen Zwang entscheiden. Habermas erhofft sich einen komplementären Lernprozess von religiösen und säkularen Bürgern und vom eschatologischen Denken einer unter demokratischen Bedingungen erneuerten Politischen Theologie, dass es gegenüber einem idealisierenden, (...) normativen Denken ‚Zeitempfindlichkeit‘ einklagt. Sein Ansatz bei der in Geschichte und Sprache inkarnierten Vernunft ist einer am Ereignis des Wortes Gottes und der Kommunikation des Evangeliums orientierten Theologie eng verbunden und hilft deren Bedeutung für das Politische zu klären. (shrink)

Simulation modeling, the core thesis of Calculated Surprises, is transforming the established conception of mathematical modeling in fundamental ways. These transformations feed back into philosophy of science, opening up new perspectives on longstanding oppositions. The book integrates historical features with both practical case studies and broad reflections on science and technology.

Philosophers and historians have long been suspicious of modal and counterfactual claims. I argue, however, that historians often legitimately use modal and counterfactual claims for a variety of purposes. They help identify causes, and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events. I defend these uses of modal claims against two arguments often used to criticize modal reasoning, using the philosophy of science to ground the truth (...) of modal claims. This analysis puts several important points into perspective, including how certain we can be about our claims about what might have been, and the role that determinism plays in those claims. The proper analysis of modality shows, I argue, that counterfactual claims are legitimate and important, if often uncertain, and that issues of determinism are irrelevant to the modal claims used in historical analysis. (shrink)

Several promising approaches have been developed to represent conscious experience in terms of mathematical spaces and structures. What is missing, however, is an explicit definition of what a ‘mathematical structure of conscious experience’ is. Here, we propose such a definition. This definition provides a link between the abstract formal entities of mathematics and the concreta of conscious experience; it complements recent approaches that study quality spaces, qualia spaces, or phenomenal spaces; and it provides a general method to identify and investigate (...) structures of conscious experience. We hope that ultimately this work provides a basis for developing a common formal language to study consciousness. (shrink)

The goal of the present article is to contribute to the epistemology and methodology of computer simulations. The central thesis is that the process of simulation modeling takes the form of an explorative cooperation between experimenting and modeling. This characteristic mode of modeling turns simulations into autonomous mediators in a specific way; namely, it makes it possible for the phenomena and the data to exert a direct influence on the model. The argumentation will be illustrated by a case study of (...) the general circulation models of meteorology, the major simulation models in climate research. (shrink)

Der Beitrag fragt nach den historischen Bedingungen heutiger Einstellungen zum Bereich des Privaten, zeichnet insbesondere die Entstehung des europäischen autonomen Subjekts nach und formuliert die These, dass dessen gesellschaftliche Konstitution den Einzelnen mit einer unerfüllbaren Forderung nach Einheit und Allgemeinheit überfordert, wodurch er zu einem Wesen wird, das etwas zu verbergen hat. Deswegen muss ihm ein Raum des Geheimen zugebilligt werden, der jedoch unweigerlich zum Gegenstand der Erforschung wird. Die Psychoanalyse hat daran einen besonderen Anteil, weil sie durch die Grundregel (...) das Verbergen aufhebt und damit die Konstitution des individuellen Subjekts, die sie doch zu fördern verspricht, zugleich untergräbt. Dies führt zu der paradoxen Erkenntnis, dass Psychoanalyse nur unter dem Schutz absoluter Vertraulichkeit möglich ist, strikt eingehaltene absolute Vertraulichkeit aber gleichzeitig die Psychoanalyse als Praxis unmöglich macht. (shrink)

The original version of the article unfortunately contained a mistake. In the Acknowledgments section of the original version of the article, the grant number of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship supporting the author’s work was misstated.

In patristic ethics there are many differing formulations of the Golden Rule, the greatest difference being perhaps that between the negative and the positive version. The Golden Rule was typically considered a matter of natural law, but it is rarely considered the exclusive principle to be applied in practice. Often it was considered an instrument for recognizing generally true principles, such as those of the second table of the Decalogue, or, in Augustine, to direct attention to a “law of the (...) heart.” While Chrysostom saw it solely as a regulative principle for horizontal relationships between human beings, Augustine believed it to regulate the believer’s relationship with God as well. The rule was not, in patristic ethics, an abstract philosophical principle, but something that structured not only particular actions or types of actions, but practices in a more contextual sense. For these reasons the Golden Rule should, in patristic ethics, always be understood against the background of a broader context of values. Though the Golden Rule may seem to express a universal ethics, its meanings and functions depend on the larger moral-philosophical framework. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 58 Heft: 1 Seiten: 16-38.

Although the doctrine of the affections constitutes an essential part of both psychology and ethics for Classical Greek philosophy, the passion of sorrow was seldom discussed. The Bible, by contrast, frequently mentions the feeling of sorrow, and Christianity, unlike Stoic ethical ideals, assigns sorrow a positive significance—at least to a degree.While it is true that the Gospels generally prefer to paint a picture of Christ as a quiet teacher and master, a few pericopes—especially within the Gospel of John—narrate the sorrow (...) of Jesus in some detail. Integrating the Johannine depictions of Jesus’s sorrow proved quite a challenge for patristic and medieval exegetes, including Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Both thinkers wrote a Commentary on the Gospel of John and, in their systematic works, both treated the emotions in a principled and philosophical manner. Having engaged Classical Greek and Hellenistic theories on the emotions, Augustine and Aquinas went on to develop a uniquely Christian understanding of the passiones animae, which, in turn, became paradigmatic for the generations that followed. Focusing on their respective commentaries on the Gospel of John, this essay explains what the passiones animae are and why they were seen as an ethical problem in the patristic and medieval periods. It highlights the connection between Augustine and Aquinas as well as their respective contributions both to the doctrine of affections in general and to Christianity’s understanding of sorrow in particular. (shrink)

Is Feminism without the agency of sexed subjects possible? Can the problems of a highly gendered world be formulated and tackled without resorting to the notion of fundamental sexual difference? Is it possible for a Feminism that is not based on the assumption of sexed beings to gain any consistency and follow any concerted strategy? The project of this study is not only to show that all these questions can be answered with a full-hearted – Yes! – but to explore (...) the huge scope of conceptual and also practical possibilities that are created by this change of paradigms. Possibilities that are foreclosed – as the first chapters attempt to work out – by Judith Butler’s so important theory of gendered subjects, and limited by Rosi Braidotti’s or Elizabeth Grosz’s endeavours to read Deleuzian concepts under the assumption of Irigarayan sexual difference. Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s thinking provides us with conceptual tools for a thorough analysis of the status quo – and means for conceptualising resistance that do not perpetuate the power structures it is fighting against. This book is an invitation to get in touch with these tools, join the alliance (no matter whether ‘queer’ or ‘feminist’) – and ‘Make Rhizomes’! "Zugegeben: Ich habe nicht alles verstanden. Und habe mich doch maßlos bereichert an diesem reichen Buch. So viel Beglückendes, so viel Verqueres liegt in diesem schwerelosen Denken." "Admittedly, I have not understood it all. Yet I feel enriched beyond measure by this book. So much delightfulness, so much queer quirkiness, lies within these weightless thoughts." (Antje Rávic Strubel). (shrink)

This important philosophical statement by an eminent scientist is written with such clarity and directness, and derives from so broad a humanistic perspective, that the thoughtful reader will find it as rewarding as it is instructive. The author's purpose in this undertaking is to: "...outline a system of thought in which notions or values can find a place along with the ideas of causal relationships that are applied in the physical sciences. The essential doctrine of this system, which is taken (...) from the metaphysical picture developed by Alfred North Whitehead... is the assumption that, in every act occurring in the universe, experience derived from that which has gone before is integrated with conceptions concerning possibilities in the future." Analyzing and extending Whitehead's picture, Dr. Burgers argues that the physical view of causality in itself is too restrictive for a general description of the universe, and is valid only for those phenomena where values are irrelevant. His concern is to introduce the entire panorama with its complementary physical and conceptual aspects in such a way that a wider view of causality is obtained, whereby an opening is found for the explanation of life. The author points out that the concept of "organism" implies "purpose," and is thus not amenable to complete description in the terms of molecular biology. Although most evolutionary steps are the result of unplanned chance effects, the recognition and conception of future possibilities are factors in the evolutionary trend: "The existence of matter is the result of persistent repetition of certain patterns. Matter is a set of habits of the universe; it is these habits which are studied in physics. [But] life is more than habit: it is the coordination of spontaneity... a struggle against mere randomness.... "It is the key of the philosophy here presented to consider expectations and valuations not as accidental by-products of physical states of matter, but as essential forms of functioning.". (shrink)

To what extent does the common claim that childhood is ‘socially constructed’ affect the ethical debate on the ‘intrinsic’ and ‘special’ goods of childhood? Philosophers have referred to this kind of goods in their critique of overly adult-centred and future-oriented conceptions of childhood. The view that some goods are child-specific, in the sense that they are only good for children, not for adults, seems to presuppose an understanding of what children ‘are’, and how they differ from adults. However, if the (...) social-constructionist view is accepted, it cannot be assumed that childhood is a given. This essay claims that the social-constructionist understanding of childhood does not undermine the debate on the moral status and the goods of childhood, but that nevertheless important lessons can be drawn from the insight that childhood, as we know it, is not a natural and universal phenomenon. (shrink)