Die Ausbildung der Transzendentalphilosophie verband sich auch bei Fichte mit der Vertiefung der ihr immanenten historischen Tendenz. Basierend auf dem Gedanken der Einheit des Bewusstseins stellte sich die Aufgabe, die verschiedenen Erscheinungen in ihrem inneren Zusammenhang wie auch ihrer geschichtlichen Erscheinungsweise zu erklären. Hierzu erfuhr das transzendentale Subjekt eine tiefgreifende Historisierung durch den Versuch, eine Phänomenalogie des Geistes zu erarbeiten. Im Artikel wird weiterhin insbesondere das methodische Vorgehen Fichtes und dessen Dogmatismuskritik analysiert. For Fichte, too, the development of transcendental philosophy (...) was combined with the deepening of the historical tendency inherent in it. Based on the idea of the unity of consciousness, the task was to explain the various phenomena in their inner context as well as their historical appearance. To this end, the transcendental subject experienced a profound historicization through the attempt to develop a phenomenology of spirit. The article continues to analyze in particular Fichte's methodological approach and his criticism of dogmatism. И для Фихте развитие трансцендентальной философии сочеталось с углублением присущей ей исторической тенденции. На основе идеи единства сознания возникла задача объяснения различных явлений как в их внутреннем контексте, так и в их историческом облике. С этой целью трансцендентальный субъект претерпел глубокую историзацию посредством попытки разработать феноменологию духа. В статье продолжается анализ, в частности, методологического подхода Фихте и его критики догматизма. También para Fichte, el desarrollo de la filosofía trascendental se combinó con la profundización de la tendencia histórica inherente a ella. Partiendo de la idea de la unidad de la conciencia, se planteó la tarea de explicar los diversos fenómenos en su contexto interno así como su fisonomía histórica. Para ello, el sujeto trascendental experimentó una profunda historización a través del intento de desarrollar una fenomenología del espíritu. El artículo continúa analizando en particular el enfoque metodológico de Fichte y su crítica al dogmatismo. (shrink)

In this essay, I address the question of whether the indisputable progress being made by the neurosciences poses a genuine threat to the language game of responsible agency. I begin by situating free will as an ineliminable component of our practices of attributing responsibility and holding one another accountable, illustrating this via a discussion of legal discourse regarding the attribution of responsibility for criminal acts. I then turn to the practical limits on agents' scientific self-objectivation, limits that turn out to (...) be mirrored philosophically in the conceptual problems that plague reductionist strategies. Having shown that free will is rooted in unavoidable performative presuppositions belonging to agents' participant perspective, I then take up the difficult issue of how to reconcile an epistemic dualism of participant and observer perspectives with the assumption of ontological monism. I critically review a range of proposed physicalist solutions, including non-reductionist and (standard) compatibilist approaches. An underlying problem with scientistic, physicalist approaches is the methodological fiction of an exclusive ?view from nowhere? which relies on the problematic move of disengaging the objectivating perspective of the scientific observer from the investigators' participant perspective of those engaged in scientific practice. Since there is no way of getting around the requisite complementarity of both the observer's encounter with the objective world and the participant's involvement in shared lifeworld practices, the remaining option is to take an epistemological turn. But even the recognition that science is ultimately constituted from within the lifeworld still leaves us with the question as to how the human mind can understand itself as the product of natural evolution. I conclude with some tentative suggestions as to how this difficult question might be addressed. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question of how the unity of science can adequately be characterized. A mere classification of scientific fields and disciplines does not express the unity of science unless it is supplemented with a perspective that establishes a systematic coherence among the different branches of science. Four ideas of this kind are discussed. Namely, the unity of scientific language, of scientific laws, of scientific method and of science as a practical‐operational enterprise. Whereas reference to the unity of scientific (...) language and of scientific laws does not provide a viable basis for the unity of science, the methodological and practical unity might. The unity of science can be characterized by the way in which methodological criteria enter into the assessment or evaluation of theories, and, moreover, by a transdisciplin‐ary approach to problems. Accordingly, the unity of science is not expressed by theoretical uniformity but by the unity of scientific practice. (shrink)

The placozoan Trichoplax adhaerens is a tiny hairy plate and more simply organized than any other living metazoan. After its original description by F.E. Schulze in 1883, it attracted attention as a potential model for the ancestral state of metazoan organization, the “Urmetazoon”. Trichoplax lacks any kind of symmetry, organs, nerve cells, muscle cells, basal lamina, and extracellular matrix. Furthermore, the placozoan genome is the smallest (not secondarily reduced) genome of all metazoan genomes. It harbors a remarkably rich diversity of (...) genes and has been considered the best living surrogate for a metazoan ancestor genome. The phylum Placozoa presently harbors three formally described species, while several dozen “cryptic” species are yet awaiting their description. The phylogenetic position of placozoans has recently become a contested arena for modern phylogenetic analyses and view‐driven claims. Trichoplax offers unique prospects for understanding the minimal requirements of metazoan animal organization and their corresponding malfunctions. (shrink)

Bringing together writings on united Germany, this volume addresses the consequences of German history, the challenges and perils of the post-Wall era, and Germany's place in contemporary Europe. The author argues that 1945 - not 1989 - was the crucial turning point in German history.

The essays in this collection provide an unusually intense portrait of a society and an age.

This article investigates whether investors consider the reliability of companies’ sustainability information when determining the companies’ market value. Specifically, we examine market reactions (in terms of abnormal returns) to events that increase the reliability of companies’ sustainability information but do not provide markets with additional sustainability information. Controlling for competing effects, we regard companies’ additions to an internationally important sustainability index as such events and consider possible determinants for market reactions. Our results suggest that first, investors take into account the (...) reliability of sustainability information when determining the market value of a company and second, the benefits of increased reliability of sustainability information vary cross-sectionally. More specifically, companies that carry higher risks for investors (e.g., higher systematic investment risk, higher financial leverage, and higher levels of opportunistic management behavior) react more strongly to an increase in the reliability of sustainability information. Finally, we show that the benefits of an increase in the reliability of sustainability information are higher in times of economic uncertainty (e.g., during economic downturns and generally high stock price volatilities). (shrink)

The attentional blink (AB) is an impairment of attention, which occurs when subjects have to report a target stimulus (T2) following a previous target (T1) with a short delay (up to 600 ms). Theories explaining the AB assume that processing of T2 is more vulnerable to decay or substitution, as long as attention is allocated to T1. Existing models of the AB, however, do not account for the fact that T2 detection accuracy reaches the minimum when T2 is presented after (...) about 300 ms and not immediately following T1. Therefore, a new model is suggested, which is based on chronometrical considerations together with recent neurophysiological findings concerning the relation between the P3 event-related potential and the AB, the interaction between P3 and gamma oscillations, and the significance of the early evoked gamma band response. We hypothesize that suppression of the early gamma response to T2, accompanying the P3 related to T1, causes the AB. (shrink)

In this book Jürgen Habermas addresses some of the most pressing social and political issues of our time: the consequences of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; the resurgence of nationalism and right-wing violence in Europe; and the prospects for a transformation of international relations and the building of a more just and peaceful world order. Most of the book takes the form of an extended interview which covers a wide range of contemporary (...) topics and events, from German unification to the Gulf War, from the limits of theory to the role of intellectuals. While Habermas draws on ideas developed in his more theoretical works, he states his views here with exceptional clarity and force. The Past as Future will be of great interest not only to students of social and political theory, but to anyone concerned with the current state and future of Europe and the West. (shrink)

Anknüpfend an Untersuchungen von J. D. Sneed, hat W. Stegmüller eine Explikation von "'revolutionärem' wissenschaftlichem Fortschritt" vorgeschlagen, die auf einer bestimmten Definition der intertheoretischen Relation der Reduktion beruht. Zumindest in seiner bisherigen Fassung erweist sich das von Stegmüller vorgebrachte Kriterium für "revolutionären" wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt jedoch nicht nur als zu weit, sondern auch, wie das Beispiel klassische vs. relativistische Kinematik zeigt, als zu eng.

CHAPTER 1 Narrative Psychology and Historical Consciousness Relationships and Perspectives DONALD E. POLKINGHORNE Postmodern theory has severely undercut ...

In the children's book ``The Phantom Tollbooth'' by Norton Juster one can find the following passage:``Yes, please,'' said Milo. ``Can you show me the biggest number there is?''.

The commercialization of ‘big science’ is in full swing, leading to situations in which the ethical principles of academia are beginning to be compromised. This is exemplified by the profitable business of genetic ancestry testing. The goals of this sort of ‘big science’ are not necessarily in any way novel, however. In particular, large genotyping projects have a certain start‐up time when their design is frozen in, so that the projects often lag behind the development of genetic knowledge. On the (...) other hand, extremely provisional knowledge about potential disease markers is being rapidly turned into questionable ‘tests’, purporting to determine risk factors for complex disorders, by private companies that are eager to get their share of a profitable market of the future. The flow of money generated by such concerns looks likely to erode traditional research operations and small‐scale projects, which risk becoming pebbles on the ‘big science’ landscape. BioEssays 30:1246–1251, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Die öffentliche Wahrnehmung der Forschung mit extrakorporalen Embryonen bildet den Kern des vorliegenden Beitrags. Hierzu wurden über 400 Personen schriftlich befragt. Die Art der Embryonengewinnung (künstliche Erzeugung vs. überzählige Embryonen) wird als bedeutsam für die Bewertung der Forschung angesehen. Mehrheitlich besteht der Wunsch nach rechtlich klaren Grenzen. Die größte Ambivalenz zeigt sich hinsichtlich der Frage nach einer gesetzlichen Erlaubnis der Embryonenforschung. Umgekehrt hat die Bevölkerung eine eindeutigere Meinung zum Verbot von Embryonenforschung und zur Einführung strikter rechtlicher Regelungen. Die Wahl der (...) Mittelkategorie bei der Untersuchung der Einstellung ist durch das Ausmaß der Ambivalenz mitbestimmt. Es konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass Laien das Dilemma der Embryonenforschung ähnlich bewerten wie Experten. Der Wunsch nach einer Freigabe der Forschung mit Embryonen besteht bei einer Teilgruppe, jedoch ist dieser Wunsch von einem hohen Ausmaß an Ambivalenz begleitet. (shrink)

The present volume contains 14 contributions presented at a colloquium on "Structure and Approximation in Physical Theories" held at Osnabruck in June 1980. The articles are presented in the revised form written after the colloquium and hence also take account of the results of the discussion at the colloquium. It is a striking feature that the problem of approximation in physical theories has only recently found some attention in the philosophy of science, although the working physicist is con stantly confronted (...) with those questions. No interesting theory of exact science exactly fits its experimental data; almost every relation between different theories is an approximate one. There fore an adequate reconstruction of physical theories must take into account and conceptualize the moment of approximation. The majority of the articles in this book is centered around this subject. There are at least two elaborate, 'structuralistic' approaches to the formalization of physical theories in which the aspect of approximation has been incorporated: the approach due to P. Suppes, J. Sneed, W. Stegmuller ("S-approach") and the approach of G. Lud wig and his co-workers ("L-approach"). The articles in this book correspondingly fall into three classes: presentation, elaboration and critique of the L-approach [Hartkamper/Schmidt, Ludwig, Neumann, Werner, Schmidt, Mayr, Kamiah, Majer, Grafe] or of the S-approach [Moulines, Balzer, Cooke], and articles referring to both approaches or concerned with related matters [Scheibe, Pfarr, Castrigiano]. Of course, this is only a rough classification and each article must be appraised in its own right. (shrink)

In this new collection of recent essays, Habermas takes up and pursues the line of analysis begun in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. He begins by outlining the sources and central themes of twentieth–century philosophy, and the range of current debates. He then examines a number of key contributions to these debates, from the pragmatic philosophies of Mead, Perice and Rorty to the post–structuralism of Foucault. Like most contemporary thinkers, Habermas is critical of the Western metaphysical tradition and its exaggerated (...) conception of reason. But he cautions against the temptation to relinquish this conception altogether. In opposition to the radical critics of Western philosophy, Habermas argues that postmetaphysical thinking can remain critical only if it preserves the idea of reason while stripping it of its metaphysical trappings. Habermas contributes to this task by developing further his distinctive approach to problems of meaning, rationality and subjectivity. This book will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, sociology and social and political theory, and it will be essential reading for anyone interested in the continuing development of Habermas′s project. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

Rothacker’s concept of humanities is based on the cohesive idea of participation (»Teilhabe«; by perception, in tradition, in community) which is not modified in his works all over the years. His texts offer dimensions of ›characteristic form‹ (»geprägte Form«: J. W. Goethe, »Urworte. Orphisch«), which bind the style of life (»Lebensstil«) of individuals and nations. The structure of Rothacker’s approach allows modifications (for example in adressing national socialistic thought) without the necessity to rearrange the concept itself. Rothacker’s interpretation of ›characteristic (...) form‹ is founded on values concerning worthy cultural developments. (shrink)

Dieses Buch widmet sich der ebenso alten wie aktuellen Frage, wie das Handeln des Menschen plausibel und nachvollziehbar erklärt werden kann. Es wird das Ziel verfolgt, dieses brisante und immer noch kontrovers diskutierte Problem der Handlungserklärung philosophisch zu bedenken und adäquate Losungen zu entwickeln. Dabei wird zunächst ein Umweg eingeschlagen, der sich jedoch als besonders lohnenswert erweist, nämlich den über die philosophische Handlungstheorie von Wilfrid Sellars, die untrennbar mit seiner weitbekannten Philosophie des Geistes verknüpft ist und, obgleich bereits zur traditionellen (...) Handlungstheorie gehörend, von bemerkenswerter Aktualität ist. Seine Handlungstheorie wird in diesem Buch erstmalig systematisch, vollständig und kritisch rekonstruiert. Über Sellars hinausgehend wird anschließend der anspruchsvolle Versuch unternommen, alternative Wege zur Lösung des Problems der Handlungserklärung aufzuzeigen, die sich besonders dadurch auszeichnen, dass sie die bekannten Unzulänglichkeiten traditioneller Grunde- und Kausalerklärungen von Handlungen überwinden. (shrink)

-Grenzen und Spielraume des Menschen in der anthropologischen Diskussion-. Internationale Berliner Konferenz aus Anlass des 100. Geburtstages von Helmuth Plessner. Philosophie- und wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Analysen sowie systematisch orientierte Darstellungen sind wichtige Beitrage zur weiteren Erschliessung des Denkens von Plessner. Seine anthropologische Konzeption, seine Auffassung der geschichtlich-gesellschaftlichen Situation des Menschen in der Moderne gehoren zu den grossen philosophischen Entwurfen unseres Jahrhunderts.".

This article discusses the complex space of the city as an urban milieu of vitality. On the skin of the city, a permanent change of its physical and physiognomic appearance takes place. The alternation of urban “faces” is constituted situationally in the structures and wrinkles of the skin. However, characteristic features of urban quarters do not only appear visually; they become bodily felt and are perceptible as holistic impressions, emanating from atmospheric “vital qualities”. Therefore, lively urban districts are discussed as (...) “body islands” in urban space. Seen from this vitalistic perspective, the city is not only a world of rational actors—as it is common ground in the social sciences—but also an unpredictable space of performativity. (shrink)

Habermas s’en prend ici à la thèse conservatrice de la continuité de la «nation» allemande par une critique du concept même d’État-nation. Contribuant au débat des historiens, il expose les limites de l’État-nation dans le contexte de la globalisation. En effet, l’importance de 1989 repose sur l’idée de restauration de la nation allemande telle qu’elle se présentait à partir de l’empire guillaumien. Or,l’État national ne serait plus à la hauteur du défi qu’impose la globalisation des interactions sociales, politiques, culturelles et (...) systémiques. Il lui faut, de l’avis de Habermas, se départir d’un reliquat d’ethnicité et de nationalisme pour épouser pleinement la dimension républicaine qui, elle, n’admet que le processus démocratique de délibération publique pour l’intégration sociale des individus. L’Union européenne, dans la mesure oú elle restreint la souveraineté des nations qui la composent, permet justement d’accorder plus d’importance à l’héritage républicain au détriment du nationalisme allemand.In this article, Habermas challenges the conservative thesis of the continuity of the German “nation” through a critique of the very concept of Nation-State. Further pursuing the historian debate, he exposes the limits of the Nation-State in the context of globalization. Indeed, the importance of1989 lies in the idea of the restoration of the German nation as it exists since the Wilhelmine empire. Habermas suggests that the national State would no longer be up to the challenge imposed by globalization of social, political, cultural and systemic interactions. It must do away with a remainder of ethnicity and nationalism if it is to embrace fully the republican dimension, which only admits democratic process of public deliberation for the social integration of individuals. The European Union, insomuch as it restricts the sovereignty of its members, allows precisely to put more importance on the republican heritage than on German nationalism. (shrink)