Falk Wagner was the leading Hegelian in late 20th century German Protestant theology. Wagner who had studied philosophy with Theodor W. Adorno and Wolfgang Cramer in Frankfurt am Main and Systematic Theology with Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Mainz taught Systematic Theology at the Universities of Munich and, since 1988, Vienna. He published several influential books. In his lectures and seminars he frequently handed out short theory papers to his students which should serve as the basis for debate. The (...) five texts presented here for the first time deal with the problems of individual in society and of the modern history of theology, with the doctrine of God, with the significance of the Bible for the systematic theology and finally with the concept of „Subjektivität“ in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. These texts are an essential source for the development of Wagner’s thought when teaching at the university of Munich until 1988. (shrink)

Gerhard Gentzen has been described as logic’s lost genius, whom Gödel called a better logician than himself. This work comprises articles by leading proof theorists, attesting to Gentzen’s enduring legacy to mathematical logic and beyond. The contributions range from philosophical reflections and re-evaluations of Gentzen’s original consistency proofs to the most recent developments in proof theory. Gentzen founded modern proof theory. His sequent calculus and natural deduction system beautifully explain the deep symmetries of logic. They underlie modern developments in computer (...) science such as automated theorem proving and type theory. (shrink)

Solidarity is one of the central concepts in social theory and has gained much attention due to the multiple challenges that the EU has been facing the last decade and due to the most recent COVID-19 pandemic. Although the debate on the nature and conditions of solidarity has been revitalized, there remains a large variety in how to conceptualize solidarity. In contrast to other approaches, we do not conceive solidarity as normative concept, but as descriptive–analytical one. Therefore, we provide a (...) theory-based definition that is prone to capture the empirical dimensions of solidarity. Accounting for the dynamic and interactive character of solidarity as subject to permanent societal and political renegotiation, we conceptualize solidarity from a discourse perspective and follow a multilevel design breaking down the understandings of solidarity on different levels. This approach contributes to the research of solidarity that is interested to capturing the ‘real world’ dimensions of solidarity. (shrink)

English summary: In this volume, the Munich and Vienna-based theologian Falk Wagner's work in the fields of philosophical theology, sociology and lived religion is taken up for the first time against the backdrop of current theological and philosophical controversies. The essays integrate Wagner's thinking into the history of theology and philosophy in the twentieth century, reconstruct fundamental elements of his philosophical theology between the poles of speculative theology and lived religion, while also highlighting the constellations and context wherein his theology (...) is situated. The authors explore from a work- and problem-historical perspective the contribution of the systematic theologian to the relevant twenty first century debates. German description: Der vorliegende Band thematisiert erstmals vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwartigen theologischen und philosophischen Kontroversen das Gesamtwerk des Munchener und Wiener Theologen Falk Wagner im Spannungsfeld von philosophischer Theologie, Sozialwissenschaften und gelebter Religion. Die einzelnen Beitrage ordnen dessen Denken in die theologie- und philosophiegeschichtliche Entwicklung des 20. Jahrhunderts ein, rekonstruieren grundlegende Aufbauelemente seiner philosophischen Theologie und beleuchten die Konstellationen, in denen seine Theologie steht. Dabei loten die Autoren sowohl in werkgeschichtlicher als auch in problemgeschichtlicher Perspektive den Beitrag des systematischen Theologen fur die theologischen Debatten im 21. Jahrhundert aus. Mit Beitragen von: Christine Axt-Piscalar, Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz, Wilhelm Grab, Kathrin Mette, Michael Murrmann-Kahl, Jan Rohls, Ewald Stubinger, Folkart Wittekind, Kurt Walter Zeidler, Manuel Zelger. (shrink)

Religion ist der Kritik ausgesetzt und steht unter Rechtfertigungsdruck. Beides verbindet sie mit der Vernunft. Doch um das Thema «Vernunft und Religion», ein klassisches Thema philosophischer Theologie, ist es gegenwärtig still geworden. Neuzeitliche Metaphysikkritik und Plausibilitätsschwund des Christentums verlangen eine Neuausrichtung philosophischer Theologie. Sie muss die modernen Lebenswelten und Sozialverhältnisse, unter denen die christliche Religion heute gelebt wird, aufgreifen. Zugleich muss sie den Anspruch des Christentums, dass seine Gehalte von allgemeiner Bedeutung für den Menschen sind, gedanklich entfalten. Philosophische Theologie steht (...) dafür, Religion im Diskurs mit der Vernunft zu halten - ein Diskurs, der Strittiges nicht ausschließt und sich nicht in lebensferner Begriffsscholastik erschöpft. (shrink)

The two dominant theories of consciousness argue it appeared in living beings either suddenly, or gradually. Both theories face problems. The solution is the realization that a foundational consciousness was always here, yet varying conscious states were not, and appeared gradually. Michael Tye explores this idea and the key questions it raises.

English summary: This volume looks at the so far little studied connections between the philosophy of Schelling and the historiographic waves in theological, philosophical and historical discourse during the first half of the 19th century. The reception of Schelling in theology, philosophy and history relates primarily to his writings around 1800. The essays in this volume firstly analyze the considerable impact that these texts had on the structure of contemporary debate. Secondly, they analyze the interdependence of the historical theology that (...) was beginning to take root and Schelling's emerging later philosophy. Thirdly, they examine the reception of Schelling's philosophy of history from the perspective of Friedrich Schleiermacher and historical academic discourse, as well as David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Landhut Romantics. German description: Der vorliegende Band thematisiert die bislang nur wenig erforschten Zusammenhange zwischen der Philosophie Schellings und den Historisierungsschuben in den theologischen, philosophischen und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Diskursen der ersten Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Rezeption Schellings in Theologie, Philosophie und Geschichtswissenschaft bezieht sich vor allem auf dessen Schriften um 1800. Die Beitrage des Bandes untersuchen sowohl die breite Wirkung dieser Texte in den zeitgenossischen Debattenkonstellationen sowie die Wechselwirkungen zwischen der sich etablierenden historischen Theologie und der Herausbildung von Schellings Spatphilosophie als auch die Rezeption der Geschichtsphilosophie Schellings bei Friedrich Schleiermacher sowie in den geschichtswissenschaftlichen Diskursen, bei David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur sowie in der Landshuter Romantik. Mit Beitragen von: Christopher Arnold, Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz, Georg Essen, Malte Dominik Kruger, Christof Landmesser, Michael Murrmann-Kahl, Georg Neugebauer, Jan Rohls, Oliver Wintzek, Johannes Zachhuber. (shrink)

The monograph Drei Wurzeln des Krieges. Und warum nur eine nicht ins Verderben führt by Bernhard Taureck was published in 2019. It is one of the few current philosophical contributions on the theory of war that is not limited to the question of the moral justification of war (such as Michael Walzer’s work). Instead, the book contains not only various references to the war discourses of antiquity and their multiple references to actuality, but also a detailed examination of the (...) question of how radically war determines our history, present and future. In this book, interdisciplinary statements on Taureck’s concisely summarised approach make critical reference to this question in the common interest of finding ways out of this situation. With contributions by Lothar Brock, Hans-Georg Ehrhart, Martin Kahl, Wolfgang Knöbl, Barbara Kuchler, Ishay Landa, Burkhard Liebsch, Herfried Münkler, Max Mutschler, Norman Paech, Christopher Pollmann, Bernhard H. F. Taureck and Pascal Weitmann. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityThe ancient concept of ‘self-cultivation’ with its roots in Confucianism and Hellenistic philosophy can also be utilised as tool for understanding the prac...

Does human life have meaning? Ever since Darwin, there has been great skepticism about whether a "meaning of life" was possible outside of religious belief. Is it possible to find meaning in human life? Philosopher of science Michael Ruse examines the question of meaning in life within Darwinian views of human nature. He argues that meaning in the Darwinian age can be found if we turn to a kind of Darwinian existentialism, seeing our evolved human nature as the source (...) of all meaning, both in the intellectual and social worlds. (shrink)

The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the (...) best treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. (shrink)

Individuals of some animal species have been taught simple versions of human language despite their natural communication systems failing to rise to the level of a simple language. How is it, then, that some animals can master a version of language, yet none of them deploy this capacity in their own communication system? I first examine the key design features that are often used to evaluate language-like properties of natural animal communication systems. I then consider one candidate animal system, bird (...) song, because it has several of the key design features or their precursors, including social learning and cultural transmission of their vocal signals. I conclude that although bird song communication is nuanced and complex, and has the acoustic potential for productivity, it is not productive – it cannot be used to say many different things. Finally, I discuss the debate over whether animal communication should be viewed as a cooperative information transmission process, as we typically view human language, or as a competitive process where signaler and receiver vie for control. The debate points to a necessary condition for the evolution of a simple language that has generally been overlooked: the degree of to which the interests of the signaler and receiver align. While strong cognitive and signal production mechanisms are necessary pre-adaptations for a simple language, they are not sufficient. Also necessary is the existence of identical or near-identical interests of signaler and receiver and a socio-ecology that requires high-level cooperation across a range of contexts. In the case of our hominid ancestors, these contexts included hunting, gathering, child care and, perhaps, warfare. I argue that the key condition for the evolution of human language was the extreme interdependency that existed among unrelated individuals in the hunter-gatherer societies of our hominid ancestors. This extreme interdependency produced multiple prosocial adaptations for effective intragroup cooperation, which in partnership with advanced cognitive abilities, set the stage for the evolution of language. (shrink)

Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know provides a balanced look at the topic, considering atheism historically, philosophically, theologically, sociologically and psychologically.

Evolutionary biology distinguishes differences in survival and reproduction rates due to selection from those due to drift. The distinction is usually thought to be founded in probabilistic facts: a difference in (say) two variants' average lifespans over some period of time that is due to selection is explained by differences in the probabilities relevant to survival; in the purest cases of drift, by contrast, the survival probabilities are equal and the difference in lifespans is a matter of chance. When there (...) is a difference in actual average lifespans there is always a difference in causal histories, but in drift, the causal differences make no contribution to the relevant probabilities. Some writers have claimed that the framework that determines which causes contribute to the probabilities, and so the framework that determines when the relevant probabilities differ and when they are equal, is imposed by modelers rather than being an objective fact of nature, and so that the distinction between selection and drift, however practically useful, is unreal. This paper uses my work on biological probabilities (Bigger than Chaos) and probabilistic explanation (Depth) to argue for the objectivity of, and the importance of the objectivity of, the distinction between selection and drift. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was a mystic, philosopher and scientist whose ideas were decades ahead of their time. A proponent of a unificatory vision of science, he was both a champion of the occult as Newton would be after him, and a torch-bearer for the sort of holistic dreams that Leonardo had cherished before him. As such he is perfect material for the third in Michael White's loose trilogy of science biographies - after Newton, the last sorcerer, and Leonardo, the (...) first scientist, we have Bruno, science's first martyr. THE POPE AND THE HERETIC re-creates not just the vibrancy of intellectual life at the height of the Renaissance but also the horrific cost of pursuing ideas which ran counter to the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. After almost eight years' imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Inquisition, Bruno was burned at the stake for his beliefs - or rather, his refusal to accept that intellectual investigation was limited by the dictats of Rome. His life and martyrdom are the subjects of this fascinating book. (shrink)

A new study of Porphyrian soteriology, or the concept of the salvation of the soul, in the thought of Porphyry of Tyre.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 1, April 1998, pp. 71-94 Hume on the Very Idea of a Relation MICHAEL COSTA I think it is a productive strategy in interpreting Hume's philosophy to examine very carefully exactly what constitutes for Hume the cognitive state of having a certain idea or belief. More often than not, interpretive pressures arise almost immediately when one comes to address the details in such (...) cases. Attempting to relieve these interpretive pressures can have substantial payoffs in understanding and evaluating Hume's philosophy, even when the attempts are not entirely successful.1 In this paper, I am going to raise the question, "What is the very idea of a relation for Hume?" which I will understand to mean, "What exactly constitutes the cognitive state of having an idea of a relation for Hume?" First I will argue for a particular account of what an idea of a relation must consist in for Hume. The account that I describe is essentially the same as one that has already been introduced by some recent work of Don Garrett,2 but I will offer here a new way of arriving at it. Also, I will examine in detail the capacity of the account to deal with each of Hume's categories of relation. Hume has extensive discussions of some of these (the "matters of fact" relations of space, time, identity, and causation), but almost nothing to say about some of the others (the "relations of ideas" of resemblance, contrariety, degree of quality, and quantity and number). All of them raise interpretive problems, and attempting to resolve them will suggest new ways of understanding a number of important issues in Hume's philosophy including: the nature of the cognitive process of comparing ideas and Michael Costa is at the Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208 USA. email: [email protected] 72 Michael Costa deriving a general idea from the comparison, the distinction between having a belief and making an assertion or explicit judgment on the basis of one's beliefs, the nature of a fiction or fictitious idea, how Hume thinks that language and symbols enhance cognitive processing, and how we should understand Hume's empiricist criterion of meaning. The obvious place to start in addressing the question of what ideas of relation consist in for Hume is the section "Of relations" that appears early in the Treatise? Just prior to this section Hume indicates that he thinks of relations as complex ideas. He says, "complex ideas may be divided into Relations, Modes, and Substances" (T 13). He goes on in the section to draw a distinction between natural and philosophical relations as a distinction between those relations that are connected to associations in thought (the natural relations) and all relations whatsoever that can be conceived (the philosophical relations) (T 13-14). But that distinction does not in itself shed any light on the nature of our ideas of the latter as complex ideas. Nor, initially, do Hume's brief remarks on each of the seven categories of relations (T 14-15), although we will find some interesting issues to mine here after getting a better understanding of Hume's account of relations as complex ideas. We can get some help by recalling the way in which Hume draws the distinction between simple and complex ideas. This division is into Simple and Complex. Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these, and may be distinguished into parts. Tho' a particular colour, taste, and smell are qualities all united together in this apple, 'tis easy to perceive they are not the same, but are at least distinguishable from each other. (T 2) A complex idea is one that can be distinguished into parts. Hume's illustration of the apple can easily mislead. He seems to be talking about an apple (physical object) as a collection of qualities. But for this to serve as an illustration of the distinction under discussion we must read him as talking about an impression or idea of an apple being a collection of impressions... (shrink)

Written by well-known professor and author Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice is an accessible examination of the moral and normative underpinnings of ...

Michael Bradie does not share Blackmore's enthusiasm for the ‘new science of memetics’.

In this work, Michael Steinmann provides a systematic reconstruction of Heidegger's thoughts on language, based on his early works on logic, on 'Being and Time' and 'On the Way to Language.

Herbert, Michael The World Health Organization and the UN reports indicate the need of an integrated approach to tackle the dependence on legal psychoactive substances, such as tobacco and alcohol, as well as illegal ones. The effective clinical and societal responses to the existence of substance misuse are discussed, suggesting that realistic, timely investment, influenced by the best scientific evidence indicating what works, for whom, under what circumstances, and an increased degree of collaboration within and between governments and their (...) agencies are essential. (shrink)

Elizabeth Bounds and Tyler Roberts press for the inclusion of critical voices that "hegemonic" discourse seems to exclude, but the polarity is less marked than they suggest. The newly assertive voices of minority communities criticize social practices not from some alien cultural perspective, but in the name of such broadly shared American values as equality, inclusion, and freedom. They not only expose the power relations that determine the distribution of social goods, but they also exemplify the practice of social criticism (...) by which the contours of shared understanding are regularly redefined. However, because the incorporation of local values is not an additive process, the elements that constitute the cultural synthesis can never be expected to achieve equal standing, and the success of the synthesis cannot properly be judged by that standard. (shrink)

_Something that has been needed for decades: a leftist foreign policy with a clear moral basis_ Foreign policy, for leftists, used to be relatively simple. They were for the breakdown of capitalism and its replacement with a centrally planned economy. They were for the workers against the moneyed interests and for colonized peoples against imperial powers. But these easy substitutes for thought are becoming increasingly difficult. Neo-liberal capitalism is triumphant, and the workers’ movement is in radical decline. National liberation movements (...) have produced new oppressions. A reflexive anti-imperialist politics can turn leftists into apologists for morally abhorrent groups. In Michael Walzer’s view, the left can no longer take automatic positions but must proceed from clearly articulated moral principles. In this book, adapted from essays published in _Dissent_, Walzer asks how leftists should think about the international scene—about humanitarian intervention and world government, about global inequality and religious extremism—in light of a coherent set of underlying political values. (shrink)

This is a book about why Jean-Jacques Rousseau can be seen as one of the first theorists of the concept of civil society and a key source of the idea of a federal system.