Sukale, M. Wahrheit, Referenz und Bedeutung in der modernen Sprachphilosophie.--Carnap, R. Empirismus, Semantik und Ontologie. Bedeutungspostulate.--Quine, W. V. O. Bemerkungen zur Referenztheorie. Bedeutung und Übersetzung.--Davidson, D. Wahrheit und Bedeutung.--Field, H. Tarskis Theorie der Wahrheit.--Grandy, R. E. Referenz, Bedeutung und Glaube.--Harman, G. Bedeutungstheorien und Wahrheitstheorien.--Rorty, R. Die glücklich abhandengekommene Welt.--Kripke, S. Identität und Notwendigkeit.--Benacerraf, P. Mathematische Wahrheit.

The problem of psychologism.--Husserl's philosophy of arithmetic.--Sartre and the Cartesian ego.--The ego and consciousness in rival perspectives: Sartre and Husserl.--World and epoché in Husserl and Heidegger.--Heidegger and Dewey.

Since Quine has claimed that there is no absolute distinction between analytical and synthetical sentences the question whether logical laws might not be high order empirical laws about the ways humans actually think has become once more relevant. The affirmative answer was defended in the nineteenth century as the doctrine of psychologism. Frege and Husserl were vehemently opposed to this doctrine and many believe that they have destroyed it once and for all. This essay restates the doctrine of psychologism and (...) critically examines the counter arguments of Frege and Husserl. The conclusions reached are as follows: 1. Psychologism is a hard doctrine to state, because at its heart lies both a sceptical claim concerning the possibility of knowledge, in the strong sense of the word and a tendency towards idealism; 2. Frege defends the possibility of knowledge in the strong sense and ridicules the idealistic tendencies of psychologism but he cannot and does not refute the sceptical claims involved in any other than a polemical fashion; 3. Husserl tries to refute psychologism by attacking its roots: scepticism, but his sustained attempts are not successful; 4. Psychologism stands therefore unharmed by Frege and Husserl and is a viable, though perhaps unattractive philosophical option. The laws of logic might not be empirical claims about how humans think but they might be nevertheless empirical claims about how the world as a whole is cemented together. (shrink)

Bd. 1 Das Absolute-Gesellschaft.-Bd.2 Gesetz-Relation.

Current academic philosophy is being challenged from several angles. Subdisciplinary specialisations often make it challenging to articulate philosophy’s relevance for the societal questions of our day. Additionally, the success of the ‘scientific method’ puts pressure on philosophers to articulate their methods and specify how these can be successful. How does philosophical progress come about? What can philosophy contribute to our understanding of today’s world? Moreover, can it also contribute to resolving urgent societal challenges, such as anthropogenic climate change? This edited (...) volume evaluates the place of philosophy in the age of science. It addresses three related sub-themes: philosophical progress, philosophical method and philosophy’s societal relevance. Fourteen authors engage with these sub-themes, focusing on the topics of their philosophical expertise, such as the philosophy of religion, evolutionary ethics and the nature of free will. In doing so, they explore their methods of enquiry, and look at how progress in their research comes about. (shrink)

The redundant-signals paradigm (RSP) is designed to investigate response behavior in perceptual tasks in which response-relevant targets are defined by either one or two features, or modalities. The common finding is that responses are speeded for redundantly compared to singly defined targets. This redundant-signals effect (RSE) can be accounted for by race models if the response times do not violate the race model inequality (RMI). When there are violations of the RMI, race models are effectively excluded as a viable account (...) of the RSE. The common alternative is provided by co-activation accounts, which assume that redundant target signals are integrated at some processing stage. However, ‘co-activation’ has mostly been only indirectly inferred and the accounts have only rarely been explicitly modeled; if they were modeled, the RSE has typically been assumed to have a decisional locus. Yet, there are also indications in the literature that the RSE might originate, at least in part, at a non-decisional or motor stage. In the present study, using a distribution analysis of sequential-sampling models (ex-Wald and Ratcliff Diffusion model), the locus of the RSE was investigated for two bimodal (audio-visual) detection tasks that strongly violated the RMI, indicative of substantial co-activation. Three model variants assuming different loci of the RSE were fitted to the quantile reaction time proportions: a decision, a non-decision, and a combined variant both to vincentized group as well as individual data. The results suggest that for the two bimodal detection tasks, co-activation has a shared decisional and non-decisional locus. These findings point to the possibility that the mechanisms underlying the RSE depend on the specifics (task, stimulus, conditions, etc.) of the experimental paradigm. (shrink)

The power of technology to transform religions, science, and political institutions has often been presented as nothing short of revolutionary. Does technology have a similarly transformative influence on societies’ morality? Scholars have not rigorously investigated the role of technology in moral revolutions, even though existing research on technomoral change suggests that this role may be considerable. In this paper, we explore what the role of technology in moral revolutions, understood as processes of radical group-level moral change, amounts to. We do (...) so by investigating four historical episodes of radical moral change in which technology plays a noteworthy role. Our case-studies illustrate the plurality of mechanisms involved in technomoral revolutions, but also suggest general patterns of technomoral change, such as technology’s capacity to stabilize and destabilize moral systems, and to make morally salient phenomena visible or invisible. We find several leads to expand and refine conceptual tools for analysing moral change, specifically by crystallizing the notions of ‘technomoral niche construction’ and ‘moral payoff mechanisms’. Coming to terms with the role of technology in radical moral change, we argue, enriches our understanding of moral revolutions, and alerts us to the depths of which technology can change our societies in wanted and unwanted ways. (shrink)

Precision medicine and molecular systems medicine (MSM) are highly utilized and successful approaches to improve understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of many diseases from bench-to-bedside. Especially in the COVID-19 pandemic, molecular techniques and biotechnological innovation have proven to be of utmost importance for rapid developments in disease diagnostics and treatment, including DNA and RNA sequencing technology, treatment with drugs and natural products and vaccine development. The COVID-19 crisis, however, has also demonstrated the need for systemic thinking and transdisciplinarity and the limits (...) of MSM: the neglect of the bio-psycho-social systemic nature of humans and their context as the object of individual therapeutic and population-oriented interventions. COVID-19 illustrates how a medical problem requires a transdisciplinary approach in epidemiology, pathology, internal medicine, public health, environmental medicine, and socio-economic modeling. Regarding the need for conceptual integration of these different kinds of knowledge we suggest the application of general system theory (GST). This approach endorses an organism-centered view on health and disease, which according to Ludwig von Bertalanffy who was the founder of GST, we call Organismal Systems Medicine (OSM). We argue that systems science offers wider applications in the field of pathology and can contribute to an integrative systems medicine by (i) integration of evidence across functional and structural differentially scaled subsystems, (ii) conceptualization of complex multilevel systems, and (iii) suggesting mechanisms and non-linear relationships underlying the observed phenomena. We underline these points with a proposal on multi-level systems pathology including neurophysiology, endocrinology, immune system, genetics, and general metabolism. An integration of these areas is necessary to understand excess mortality rates and polypharmacological treatments. In the pandemic era this multi-level systems pathology is most important to assess potential vaccines, their effectiveness, short-, and long-time adverse effects. We further argue that these conceptual frameworks are not only valid in the COVID-19 era but also important to be integrated in a medicinal curriculum. (shrink)

Discours prononcé par Helmholtz en 1862 pour la prise de fonction de prorecteur à l’université de Heidelberg. Le texte original de référence est : Hermann von Helmholtz, « Über das Verhältnis der Naturwissenschaften zur Gesammtheit der Wissenschaft » (1862), in _Philosophische und populärwissenschaftliche Schriften_, 3 vol., Michael Heidelberger, Helmut Pulte und Gregor Schiemann (éds.), Hamburg : Felix Meiner Verlag, 2017, vol. 1, p. 181–207. Nous indiquons entre crochets dans la marge la pagination allemande de cette édition (NdT).

This chapter is about Grete Hermann, a philosopher-mathematician who productively and mutually beneficially interacted with the founders of quantum mechanics in the early period of that theory's elaboration. Hermann was a neo-Kantian philosopher. At the heart of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy lay the question of the conditions under which we can be said to know something objectively, a question Hermann found to be particularly pressing in quantum mechanics. Hermann's own approach to Neo-Kantianism was Neo-Friesian. Jakob Friedrich (...) Fries, like Kant, had understood critical philosophy to be an essentially epistemic project. Fries departed from Kant in his account of the elements involved in our cognition. In this chapter it is discussed how, beginning from a neo-Friesian understanding of critical philosophy, Hermann is led to conclude that quantum mechanics shows us that physical knowledge is fundamentally split; that the objects of quantum mechanics are only objects from a particular perspective and in the context of a particular physical interaction. It will be seen how Hermann's solution to the problem of objectivity in quantum mechanics is a natural one from a neo-Friesian point of view, even though it disagrees with those offered by more orthodox versions of Kantian doctrine. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Absicht -Gemeinwohl -- Bd. 2. Gerechtigkeit-Praxis -- Bd. 3. Quantität-Zweifel.

In an opinion piece penned at the Great War’s onset yet apparently unpublished until now, the historian of religion Hermann Gunkel outlined the opportunities he saw for the German people in anticipation of their triumph. He believed this war could consummate what the Napoleonic Wars and the Unification of Germany had not. Gunkel hoped for true German unity, more liberal domestic politics, and spiritual restoration. Further still, he referred to a resurgence of piety on account of the conflict. On (...) the Great War’s centenary, this documentation speaks to the mobilizing, nationalist activities of Gunkel in particular and of academicians and theologians more generally. (shrink)

Hermann Heller’s critique of liberalism was both theoretical and conjunctural. He derided liberalism’s erosion of the concept of sovereignty and lamented liberalism’s complicity with the substantive inequality of his time. It its place, he argued for a restoration of the concept of popular sovereignty, as a dialectical formation of political unity and material equality through the democratic process. As a matter of political practice and strategy, however, Heller equivocated in his stance on the constitutional politics of the Weimar Republic. (...) He initially tolerated the abrogation of parliamentary democracy due to his faith in the neutrality of the state, before diagnosing the regime as a form of authoritarian liberalism determined by the capitalist economy. This article examines Heller’s theoretical and political critique of liberalism. It outlines Heller’s conception of popular sovereignty against both Kelsen’s legal rationalism and Schmitt’s political decisionism. It also examines the significance of the interwar conjuncture, highlighting that the turn of the bourgeoisie to authoritarianism and ultimately to fascism represented a continuity of the liberal elision of the principle of popular sovereignty. (shrink)

English summary: Hermann Heller developed a modern theory of politics as a whole which made him the father of political science in Germany. Michael Henkel traces the internal development of Heller's work, provides the first analysis of his basic concepts of social theory and does a systematic reconstruction of Heller's later theories. German description: Hermann Heller (1891-1933) ist einer Gruppe von deutschen Staatsrechtslehrern der Weimarer Republik zuzurechnen, die sich gegen eine positivistische Beschrankung der Staatsrechtslehre auf rechtsnormative Fragen (...) wandte und die eine Berucksichtigung sozialer, politischer und historischer Aspekte des Staates in eine juristische Wissenschaft vom Verfassungsstaat einforderte. Im Unterschied zu den anderen Vertretern einer solchen antipositivistischen Position zielte Heller nicht nur auf eine Neubesinnung der juristischen Staatslehre, sondern daruber hinaus auf die theoretische Grundlegung einer modernen Politikwissenschaft. Dies suchte er durch die Ausfuhrung einer systematischen Theorie der Politik und des Staates zu realisieren, die vor allem in seinem Hauptwerk Staatslehre entfaltet ist.Michael Henkel unternimmt eine systematische Rekonstruktion dieser Theorie Hellers. Dabei werden die Genese der Theorie und sodann erstmals in der Forschung die sozialtheoretischen Grundlagen von Hellers Ansatz detailliert offengelegt und in ihren theoriegeschichtlichen Zusammenhang eingeordnet. Der Autor zeigt auch, wie Hellers wissenschaftliches Unternehmen als die spezifisch politikwissenschaftliche Auspragung einer Sozialtheorie begriffen werden muss, die er im Leipzig der Zwischenkriegszeit gemeinsam mit seinen Kollegen Theodor Litt und Hans Freyer formuliert hat.Schliesslich wird Hellers Theorie im Lichte aktueller Debatten in der Politikwissenschaft und der deutschen Staatsrechtslehre auf ihre Aktualitat hin befragt. Hierbei erweist sich Hellers Ansatz als fur eine Selbstverstandigung der heutigen Politikwissenschaft uberaus fruchtbar. (shrink)

Aus dem vielfältigen Werk von Hermann von Helmholtz versammelt diese Ausgabe die im engeren Sinne philosophischen Abhandlungen, vor allem zur Wissenschaftsphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie, sowie Vorträge und Reden, bei denen der Autor seine Ausnahmestellung im Wissenschaftsbetrieb nutzte, um die Wissenschaften und ihre Institutionen in der bestehenden Form zu repräsentieren und zu begründen. Ein Philosoph wollte Helmholtz nicht sein, aber er legte der philosophischen Reflexion wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis und wissenschaftlichen Handelns große Bedeutung bei. Vor allem bezog er, in der Regel ausgehend von (...) seinen fachwissenschaftlichen Forschungen, in den verschiedensten Kontexten zu erkenntnistheoretischen und methodologischen Problemen der Wissenschaften Stellung. Bereits »Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft« (1847) lässt erkennen, wie verwoben naturwissenschaftliche Grundlagenforschung und philosophische Grundlagenreflexion in seinem Werk sind. Die aus den frühen sinnesphysiologischen Forschungen hervorgegangene empiristische Wahrnehmungslehre trug ihm den Ruf ein, ein maßgeblicher Vertreter des Neukantianismus zu sein. Spätere Arbeiten v.a. zur Geometrie und Arithmetik – das zeigt die vorliegende Ausgabe – stellen jedoch eine radikale Absage an den konstitutiven Kern des Kantianismus (nämlich die Existenz synthetischer Urteile a priori) dar. Helmholtz’ philosophische Beiträge sind bisher in ihrer Vollständigkeit nicht annähernd so gut zugänglich wie sein naturwissenschaftliches Werk. Die Ausgabe enthält außerdem bibliographische Vorberichte zur Einordnung, detaillierte Namens- und Sachregister sowie mit 575 Einträgen für den Zeitraum zwischen 1842 und 2012 die erste umfassende Bibliographie von Helmholtz verfasster Werke überhaupt. »Ich glaube, dass der Philosophie nur wieder aufzuhelfen ist, wenn sie sich mit Ernst und Eifer der Untersuchung der Erkenntnissprocesse und der wissenschaftlichen Methode zuwendet. Da hat sie eine wirkliche und berechtigte Aufgabe.« Helmholtz in einem Brief um 1875. (shrink)

Considering his literary works especially his novels together with his writings on literature, philosophy, and politics, Hermann Broch is one of the most innovative German-language writers of the 20th century. This handbook was created in cooperation with an international research team. It presents Broch s life history along with all of his literary and essayistic output, analyzing and reassessing Broch s work in its multiple contexts.".

Er was een niet te overbruggen kloof tussen de officiële barok-cultuur van het Habsburgse keizerrijk en het kritisch modernisme van de late negentiende eeuw. Herman Broch was een van de moderne schrijvers, die het meest afwijzend tegenover de officiële esthetische normen stond. Ook als politieke balling in de Verenigde Staten bleef hij een gelouterd verlichtingsidee aanhangen, dat hem met de na-oorlogse sociale filosoof Habermas verbindt.

Diese Festschrift für Michael Fischer ist ein Patchwork und eine wunderbare Mischung aus Wissenschaft, Persönlichem, Freundschaft und Genuss. Sie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen und vielseitigen Texten, Zeichnungen und Bildern zusammen, von Menschen, die ihn begleitet haben, manche viele Jahre, manche nur eine kurze, aber entscheidende Zeit. Studentinnen und Studenten, die von ihm gelernt haben, Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die mit ihm Ideen entwickelt, Projekte initiiert und geforscht haben, Freunden aus Kunst und Kultur, Theater, Oper und den Bühnen des Lebens, nämlich: (...) Eric Hobsbawm, Claudio Magris, André Glucksmann, Wolf Singer, Johannes Hahn, Volker Gerhardt, Thomas Fischer, Rudolf (+) und Gundl Hradil, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Gerard Mortier, Jürgen Flimm, Brita Steinwendtner, Veit Heinichen, Peter Ruzicka, André Tubeuf, Thomas Oberender, Stefan Zweifel, Hermann Lübbe, Eduardo Chitas, Wilhelm Donner, Hans Eichhorn, Reinhard Kacianka, Tina Perisutti, Ulrich H. J. Körtner, Markus Hengstschläger, Henriette und Conrad Ulrich-Hürlimann, Michael Hagner, Thomas Macho, Johann Weyringer, Birgit Recki, Walther Ch. Zimmerli, Andreas Cesana, Kurt Seelmann. (shrink)