Ethics in the modern context is under the dual pressure of scientific-technological rationality and market commercialization, which has led to breakthroughs in the original boundaries of knowledge and academic methodology. The gradual separation of the domain of public life and that of private life in modern society and the former's increasing pressure on the latter, in addition to the above dual pressure on ethics, is causing a dramatic transformation of the structure of ethical knowledge itself. All of these raise new (...) theoretical problems for ethics and ethicists in the modern context. Answering and solving these problems makes sense for the future development of ethics as one of the classic humanities, and tests modern ethicists' ability to realize their moral and theoretical duties. /// 现代语境中的伦理学面临着科技理性主义和市场商业化的双重挤压，致使伦 理学原有的知识边界和学理方法均被突破。现代社会之公共生活领域与私人生活领 域的日趋分化以及前者对后者日益增强的压迫，又使得伦理学在不得不承受双重挤 压的同时，还经历着自身知识结构的急剧转型。凡此种种都给现代社会的伦理学和 伦理学家提出了诸多新的理论课题，如何应对和处理这些课题，将不仅关系到作为 一门经典人文科学的伦理学之未来发展，而且也将考验当代伦理学家承诺自身学术 道义和理论责任的能力。. (shrink)

Ethics in the modern context is under the dual pressure of scientific-technological rationality and market commercialization, which has led to breakthroughs in the original boundaries of knowledge and academic methodology. The gradual separation of the domain of public life and that of private life in modern society and the former’s increasing pressure on the latter, in addition to the above dual pressure on ethics, is causing a dramatic transformation of the structure of ethical knowledge itself. All of these raise new (...) theoretical problems for ethics and ethicists in the modern context. Answering and solving these problems makes sense for the future development of ethics as one of the classic humanities, and tests modern ethicists’ ability to realize their moral and theoretical duties. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Why should we act morally? What justification is to be found in moral demands? This lucid, pithy, and eminently readable book examines the arguments in favor of the claims of moral demands to be found in contemporary ethical theory, arguments deriving from Kant's attempt to provide a foundation for morality.

r esumo: Minha proposta é perguntar-me em que sentido a Enciclopédia é um dicionário racional das ciências, artes e ofícios. Se foram estudados, sobretudo, os dezessete volumes do texto da Enciclopédia para conhecer o estado do conhecimento no século XVIII, as ilustrações constituem um terreno de estudos muito mais abandonado e suscitam principalmente um interesse estético. Ainda, essas ilustrações tiveram um papel de primordial importância na realização da Enciclopédia. Elas tiveram um papel essencial, como tentarei mostrá-lo através do exemplo do (...) ofício de tecelagem de meias, na transmissão das técnicas. Para começar, gostaria de lembrar a história tumultuosa da edição da Enciclopédia e a maneira que Diderot se serviu das ilustrações para bem conduzir a empreitada enciclopédica. Depois procurarei pensar a Enciclopédia inteira colocando em relação o discurso e as ilustrações, através do exemplo do tratamento em imagem e em texto de um ofício: a tecelagem de meias. a bstract: My purpose is to question in what sense the Encyclopédie is a reasoned dictionary of sciences, arts and trades. The seventeen texts’ tomes of the Encyclopédie have been the object of several researches for understanding the state of knowledge in the seventeenth century, but the eleven plates’ tomes have not been so studied and have been seen more as an object of esthetical fascination than as an object of researches. Nevertheless, the plates played a great role in the making of the Encyclopédie. The plates were an essential medium to hand down technical knowledge. To begin with, I am going to tell the story of the tumultuous edition of the Encyclopédie and the way Diderot used the plates in order to manage well the encyclopaedic enterprise. Then I shall give an example to show how the text and the plates can be connected: the stockings weaving. (shrink)

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover a new perspective (...) on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

While most Akkadian dialects use two coordinators, a phrase and clause level u= and a clause level =ma, in the Neo-Assyrian period both are mostly missing from native Assyrian texts. Not only is lack of overt coordination exceptional among the Semitic languages, cross-linguistically asyndeton is a rare strategy, only attested in languages with no writing tradition. In this paper, we will concentrate on u=. We sketch the various environments where u= is no longer used in Neo-Assyrian and consider what other (...) strategies are used to mark coordination in this dialect. Finally, we propose a diachronic path to explain which processes contributed to the loss of the coordinator u=. (shrink)

Nous voudrions mettre en question une vision réductrice des encyclopédistes : contrairement à une représentation convenue émanant d ’ une lecture biaisée de l ’Encyclopédie due à la lunette déformante des positivistes et des scientistes du XIX e siècle, les encyclopédistes sont loin d ’ être des chantres du progrès mais développent plutôt, notamment dans le Discours préliminaire de l'Encyclopédie et les articles épistémologiques et scientifiques, une conception sceptique de l ’ esprit humain et de sa capacité à connaître l (...) ’ Univers. Ajoutons que cette lecture biaisée a été reprise haut et fort au XX e siècle par l ’ École de Francfort qui n ’ a pas hésité à forcer le trait du prétendu optimisme rationaliste des philosophes des Lumières jusqu ’ à en faire les initiateurs des formes contemporaines de totalitarisme. C ’ est contre cette lecture que le présent article s ’ inscrit. (shrink)

Inhalt Einfuhrung - Staat im Wandel. Rudiger Voigt zum 65. Geburtstag I. Konzeptualisierung und Systematisierung von Staatswandel Ralf Walkenhaus: Entwicklungslinien moderner Staatlichkeit.

In this paper a set of categorical sentences called an antilogistic tetrad is presented as a perspective on Aristotle's square of opposition. An antilogistic tetrad is formed by collecting the premises of a pair of valid syllogisms the conclusions of which are contradictory categorical sentences. A set of such premises serves to bring together Aristotle's concern with debate and the syllogism, and as such may be seen as a way of “completing” Aristotle's analysis of the square of opposition.The debate context (...) is characterized by opposing views for which arguments are offered. The square of opposition captures that contending of opposing views; and is also basic to the presentation of categorical sentences, a necessary condition for the syllogism. By using C. S. Peirce's notion of abductive argument to produce the middle term, and hence to construct deductive syllogistic arguments, antilogistic tetrads may be formed on any contended subject. For that reason, the process sketched above for forming antilogistic tetrads is called “completing the square of opposition.”. (shrink)

In this volume, Peter Burke, a prominent "Western" historian, offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically "Western Historical Thinking".

The debate between Uniqueness and Permissivism concerns whether a body of evidence sometimes allows multiple doxastic attitudes towards a proposition. An important motivation for Uniqueness is the so-called ‘arbitrariness argument,’ which says that Permissivism leads to some unacceptable arbitrariness with regard to one's beliefs. An influential response to the argument says that the arbitrariness in beliefs can be avoided by invoking epistemic standards. In this paper, I argue that such a response to the arbitrariness argument is unsuccessful. Then I defend (...) a new response: contrary to common conception, the arbitrariness resulted by Permissivism is acceptable. The basic idea is that the arbitrariness resulted by Permissivism is analogous to the arbitrariness in permissive actions and the latter arbitrariness is intuitively acceptable. I answer three possible objections against this analogy, which are all motivated by the thought that beliefs aim at the truth. In addressing the last objection, I draw inspiration from the recent debate on transformative experience. (shrink)

Politik und Moral, von A. Rüstow.--Die Staatsverfassung als moralische Anstalt betrachtet, von A. Rüstow.--Macht und Moral, von M. J. Hillenbrand.--Ethik und Aussenpolitik, von F. A. Hermens.

Hans Blumenberg wollte allein durch seine Philosophie sprechen. Seine Person sollte den Blicken der Öffentlichkeit entzogen bleiben. Und doch ist die Lesbarkeit seiner Welt nur durch das Licht seiner Zeit und ihrer Kämpfe möglich. Unter dem Nationalsozialismus wegen seiner jüdischen Mutter verfolgt, geprägt vom katholischen Milieu seines Vaters und einem humanistischen Elitegymnasium in der Hansestadt Lübeck, ist er am Ende ein typischer Vertreter der alten Bundesrepublik. Seit frühester Jugend ein obsessiver Leser, hat er Literatur, Philosophie, Theologie, Naturwissenschaften und Zeitgeschichtliches gleichermassen (...) aufgesaugt und daraus ein herausragendes Werk geschaffen. Im Rückgriff auf bisher unerschlossene Archivquellen legt Rüdiger Zill in seinem reich bebilderten Buch die lebensgeschichtlichen Wurzeln dieses Werks frei und zeigt, dass es keineswegs so monolithisch ist, wie es auf den ersten Blick erscheint. Vielmehr versteht man es nur, indem man seine Wege und Umwege nachvollzieht sowie die Vernetzungen mit den Wissenschaften in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Der absolute Leser gewährt erstmals einen umfassenden Einblick in die Werkstatt eines Autors, der wie kein zweiter die Entwicklung seiner Arbeit akribisch dokumentiert hat. Hans Blumenberg beim jahrzehntelangen Lesen, Entwerfen und Formulieren über die Schulter zu sehen heisst auch, etwas über das faszinierende Handwerk des Denkens selbst zu lernen."--Dust jacket flap. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: Concerning the debate on euthanasia, a widely held position is that it should be accepted in its so-called passive and indirect form, while so-called active euthanasia should be rejected. The problem, now, is that at least some of the usual arguments to defend this view are invalid. Arguments: Three kinds of failures are examinded: First, if taken seriously, some of the arguments against active euthanasia undermine the accepted passive and indirect forms, too. For example, this is (...) the case concerning the claim that the patient's decision can be manipulated. Second, the rejection of active euthanasia partly rests on empirical data unsuited for this task. Euthanasia in The Netherlands as evidence for the so-called slippery slopes is presented as an example. Third, some of the objections against active euthanasia rest on assumptions that contradict our empirical knowledge, e.g. in the field of motives of patients asking for euthanasia. Conclusion: Those who want to defend the view mentioned above have to present more conclusive arguments. (shrink)

Ruttenauer beschaftigt sich mit Schelling als dem sprachbegabten Philologen und leidenschaftlich interessierten Altertumsforscher, der sich in die Diskussion der damals noch jungen wissenschaftlichen Bibelauslegung einmischte, dabei aber seine philosophische Narrenfreiheit zu wahren wusste. Er tut dies vor dem Hintergrund eines an Goethe anschliessenden, fur die Kulturen aller Zeiten und Volker offenen Universalismus, der gerade fur unsere Zeit uberraschende und anregende Impulse bereithalt.

Resumo: Para Paul Auster, um quarto é, em essência, “a própria substância da solidão”, uma solidão espacialmente definida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno transcendeu suas limitações físicas e assumiu significado existencial e filosófico. Em seus escritos, uma sala é, antes de tudo, um espaço arquitetônico que um escritor solitário ocupa; além disso, é metaforizado como a mente que é a sala - um espaço construído intelectualmente; e, por fim, é um lugar narrado em suas histórias, onde seus personagens meditam e compõem, (...) um espaço que existe em palavras. O artigo realiza estudos sobre os escritos da vida de Auster e uma de suas ficções, Homem no Escuro, para apresentar a complexidade das três formas de quartos solitários e sua mútua inclusão na solidão intersubjetiva. (shrink)

Richard Foley has presented a puzzle purporting to show that all attempts in trying to find a sufficient condition of rationality are doomed. The puzzle rests on two plausible assumptions. The first is a level-connecting principle: if one rationally believes that one's belief that p is irrational, then one's belief that p is irrational. The second is a claim about a structural feature shared by all promising sufficient conditions of rationality: for any such condition, it is possible that one's belief (...) satisfies it and yet one rationally believes that it doesn’t. With the two assumptions, Foley argues that a sufficient condition of rationality is impossible. I explain how exactly the puzzle goes and I try to offer a solution. If my solution works, all theorists of rationality who accept certain level-connecting principles need to add an extra condition to their favourite rationality-making condition. (shrink)

BackgroundLeft-behind children in China have aroused widespread concern in society and the academic field because they have a high risk of psychological problems. For left-behind children, depression is the most serious problem. Bullying victimization has been evidenced as one of the most common causes of children’s depression. However, less is known about its longitudinal association and the process for how bullying victimization influences depression among left-behind children. Thus, the presentation aims to explore the mechanisms underlying by considering the roles of (...) left-behind children’s negative thoughts and self-compassion.MethodsThe 3-wave longitudinal data were collected from a sample of 605 aged 8–11 from central China. We used the Olweus bully and victimization questionnaire, the children’s automatic thoughts scale, the depression scale, and the self-compassion scale.ResultsBullying victimization positively predicted the depression level of left-behind children. Negative thoughts and self-compassion mediate the relationship between bullying victimization and depression. In the mechanism of bullying victimization on depression exists gender differences among left-behind children.ConclusionThe present study suggested the association between bullying victimization and left-behind children’s depression and revealed the internal mechanism of negative thoughts and self-compassion. These findings provide a new perspective for left-behind children’s mental health education and intervention. (shrink)

One of the century's greatest philosophers, without whom there would be no Sartre, no Foucault, no Frankfurt School, Martin Heidegger was also a man of great failures and flaws, a Faustus who made a pact with the devil of his time, Adolf Hitler. The story of Heidegger's life and philosophy, a quintessentially German story in which good and evil, brilliance and blindness are inextricably entwined and the passions and disasters of a whole century come into play, is told in this (...) brilliant biography. Heidegger grew up in Catholic Germany where, for a chance at pursuing a life of learning, he pledged himself to the priesthood. Soon he turned apostate and sought a university position, which set him on the path to becoming the star of German philosophy in the 1920s. Rüdiger Safranski chronicles Heidegger's rise along with the thought he honed on the way, with its debt to Heraclitus, Plato, and Kant, and its tragic susceptibility to the conservatism that emerged out of the nightmare of Germany's loss in World War I. A chronicle of ideas and of personal commitments and betrayals, Safranski's biography combines clear accounts of the philosophy that won Heidegger eternal renown with the fascinating details of the loves and lapses that tripped up this powerful intellectual. The best intellectual biography of Heidegger ever written and a best-seller in Germany, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil does not shy away from full coverage of Heidegger's shameful transformation into a propagandist for the National Socialist regime; nor does it allow this aspect of his career to obscure his accomplishments. Written by a master of Heidegger's philosophy, the book is one of the best introductions to the thought and to the life and times of the greatest German philosopher of the century. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the Dogmatism Puzzle presented by Gilbert Harman, knowledge induces dogmatism because, if one knows that p, one knows that any evidence against p is misleading and therefore one can ignore it when gaining the evidence in the future. I try to offer a new solution to the puzzle by explaining why the principle is false that evidence known to be misleading can be ignored. I argue that knowing that some evidence is misleading doesn't always damage the credential of (...) the evidence, and therefore it doesn't always entitle one to ignore it. I also explain in what kind of cases and to what degree such knowledge allows one to ignore evidence. Hopefully, through the discussion, we can not only understand better where the dogmatism puzzle goes wrong, but also understand better in what sense rational believers should rely on their evidence and when they can ignore it. (shrink)