Today’s food production and consumption go hand in hand with immense damages to humans and nature. Change is needed, but where to start and which direction to go? This article tries to give an interdisciplinary answer by taking recourse to a vision, that is, an ideal image of the future which is drawn upon ethical reflection and beyond the limits of actual political and economic constraints. The main purpose of this paper is to show that generating and discussing visions can (...) be a powerful process in order to regain ability to act in the face of the complex challenges of our time and that Education for Sustainable Development plays an important role to enable current and future generations to become actors of change. First, a students vision on agriculture and society in 2050 is presented, followed by a theoretical examination of visions, their potentials, limits and practical implications. Subsequently, the results of a field analysis of current innovative solutions to local agriculture are given. These include intercultural gardens and community supported agriculture. Claiming that a sustainable development can only be reached if people are not only able to envision a desirable future, but to develop small scale, locally adapted solutions as answers to challenges such as climate change, this paper then focuses on the competence oriented educational concept of ESD. Here, an approach of integrating ethics in the course of studies of agricultural sciences implemented by a student’s initiative serves as practice example. (shrink)

The human body was made legible long ago. But what of the human mind? Is it possible to ‘read’ the mind, for one human being to know what another is thinking or feeling, their beliefs and intentions. And if I can read your mind, how about others – could our authorities, in the criminal justice system or the security services? Some developments in contemporary neuroscience suggest the answer to this question is ‘yes’. While philosophers continue to debate the mind-brain problem, (...) a range of novel technologies of brain imaging have been used to argue that specific mental states, and even specific thoughts, can be identified by characteristic patterns of brain activation; this has led some to propose their use in practices ranging from lie detection and security screening to the assessment of brain activity in persons in persistent vegetative states. This article reviews the history of these developments, sketches their scientific and technical bases, considers some of the epistemological and ontological mutations involved, explores the ecological niches where they have found a hospitable environment, and considers some implications of this materialization of the readable, knowable, transparent mind. (shrink)

Global sourcing largely occurs from so-called emerging markets and developing economies. In these contexts, substantial leverage effects for sustainability in supply chains can be expected by reducing adverse impacts on society and minimising related risks. For this ethical end, an adequate understanding of the respective sourcing contexts is fundamental. This case study of South Africa’s mining sector uses institutional theory and the notion of institutional uncertainty to empirically analyse the challenges associated with establishing social sustainability. The case study research is (...) informed by 39 semi-structured interviews with top management representatives and various state and non-state decision makers in SA. Our findings suggest that sustainability in the institutional field is mainly shaped by the Social and Labour Plan institution, induced by state actors and mining companies’ practices. However, four weakening factors were identified that adversely affect this regulative institution, drive institutional uncertainty and allow for mining companies’ gradual decoupling. Contrastingly, complementing pressures of non-state actors limit institutional uncertainty and push toward mainstreaming the stipulations of the institution. This study contributes to the business ethics literature by providing an in-depth exploration of institutional uncertainty’s drivers and barriers within an upstream SC setting and shedding light on multiple actors’ interplay and relevance in sector-wide sustainability. The findings are condensed into three main propositions as well as an analytical framework as a basis for follow-up research. This case study helps practitioners understand and manage complexity that results from actor plurality and institutional uncertainty in EMDEs. (shrink)

The Hard Question of memory is the following: how are memory representations stored and organized so as to be made available for retrieval in the appropriate circumstances and format? In this essay, I argue that philosophical theories of memory should engage with the Hard Question directly and seriously. I propose that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially (...) selected and stabilized, but also systematically modified and integrated into generalized, model-like representational structures. Further, I propose a hybrid theory of remembering, which takes into account both the nature of the cognitive processes underlying remembering and the norms that govern representational success in relevant cognitive/epistemic contexts. (shrink)

The basic idea of conversational contextualism is that knowledge attributions are context sensitive in that a given knowledge attribution may be true if made in one context but false if made in another, owing to differences in the attributors’ conversational contexts. Moreover, the context sensitivity involved is traced back to the context sensitivity of the word “know,” which, in turn, is commonly modelled on the case either of genuine indexicals such as “I” or “here” or of comparative adjectives such as (...) “tall” or “rich.” But contextualism faces various problems. I argue that in order to solve these problems we need to look for another account of the context sensitivity involved in knowledge attributions and I sketch an alternative proposal. (shrink)

In the philosophy of memory, singularism is the view that episodic memories are singular mental states about unique personally experienced past events. In this paper, I present an empirical challenge to singularism. I examine three distinct lines of evidence from the psychology of memory, concerning general event memories, the transformation of memory traces and the minimized role temporal information plays in major psychological theories of episodic memory. I argue that singularist views will have a hard time accommodating this evidence, facing (...) a problem of transitional gradation. I then look at some potential consequences for the larger debate, highlighting the way in which singularism has featured in three important recent arguments in the philosophy of memory. (shrink)

In this paper I examine problems besetting forms of philosophical and social critique that are motivated by the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' and normatively oriented to the goal of 'unmasking'. I argue that there is an urgent need to correct the one-sided emphasis on 'unmasking', and we can do this by reorienting critique to the practice of individual and social transformation. The argument goes like this. The practice of unmasking critique has split off from utopian projects in whose service it was (...) originally placed, and has become the vehicle of a self-consuming, practice-crippling skepticism that - from Friedrich von Schlegel to Paul de Man and Richard Rorty - goes by the name of irony or ironist theory. Postmodernism, in one of its aspects, is the latest form of this skepticism. I interpret postmodernism as the manifestation of a crisis of confidence (in our ideals and in our agency) and as an ironization of critique. Drawing upon Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, I reformulate the normative demands of critique such that its practice avoids the problem of self-reference while responding to the problem of self-reassurance. Key Words: confidence • critique • irony • postmodernism • reason • skepticism. (shrink)

In Critique and Disclosure, Nikolas Kompridis argues provocatively for a richer and more time-responsive critical theory. He calls for a shift in the normative and critical emphasis of critical theory from the narrow concern with rules and procedures of Jürgen Habermas's model to a change-enabling disclosure of possibility and the enlargement of meaning. Kompridis contrasts two visions of critical theory's role and purpose in the world: one that restricts itself to the normative clarification of the procedures by which moral (...) and political questions should be settled and an alternative rendering that conceives of itself as a possibility-disclosing practice. At the center of this resituation of critical theory is a normatively reformulated interpretation of Martin Heidegger's idea of "disclosure" or "world disclosure." In this regard Kompridis reconnects critical theory to its normative and conceptual sources in the German philosophical tradition and sets it within a romantic tradition of philosophical critique.Drawing not only on his sustained critical engagement with the thought of Habermas and Heidegger but also on the work of other philosophers including Wittgenstein, Cavell, Gadamer, and Benjamin, Kompridis argues that critical theory must, in light of modernity's time-consciousness, understand itself as fully situated in its time--in an ever-shifting and open-ended horizon of possibilities, to which it must respond by disclosing alternative ways of thinking and acting. His innovative and original argument will serve to move the debate over the future of critical studies forward--beyond simple antinomies to a consideration of, as he puts it, "what critical theory should be if it is to have a future worthy of its past.". (shrink)

According to a traditionally infl uential idea metaphors have mostly ornamental value. Current research, on the other hand, stresses the cognitive purposes metaphors serve. According to the Conceptual Theory of Metaphor (CTM, for short), e.g., expressions are commonly used metaphorically in order to conceptualize abstract and mental phenomena. More specifically, proponents of CTM claim that abstract terms are understood by means of metaphors and that metaphor comprehension, in turn, is embodied. In this paper, I will argue that CTM fails on (...) both counts. (shrink)

This article explores contemporary biopolitics in the light of Michel Foucault's oft quoted suggestion that contemporary politics calls `life itself' into question. It suggests that recent developments in the life sciences, biomedicine and biotechnology can usefully be analysed along three dimensions. The first concerns logics of control - for contemporary biopolitics is risk politics. The second concerns the regime of truth in the life sciences - for contemporary biopolitics is molecular politics. The third concerns technologies of the self - for (...) contemporary biopolitics is ethopolitics. The article suggests that, in these events, human beings have become `somatic individuals': personhood is increasingly being defined in terms of corporeality, and new and direct relations are established between our biology and our conduct. At the same time, this somatic and corporeal individuality has become opened up to choice, prudence and responsibility, to experimentation, to contestation and so to a politics of `life itself'. (shrink)

The paper presents an example of unified theory bearing interest from both a historical and systematic point of view. The example is chosen from evolutionary population genetics (neo-Darwinian synthetic theory). It exhibits various aspects of theoretical change in science that have been shown in Part I (Geiger, 1988) to be characteristic of syntheses of theories.

Ob Kunstwerke, im emphatischen Sinne des Wortes, in der Moderne überhaupt produziert werden können, hat Heidegger philosophisch in Zweifel gezogen. Sofern ästhetische Praxis an einem historischen Wahrheitsanspruch gemessen werden soll, muss ihre Bewertung letztlich prekär bleiben. Trotz dieser skeptischen Haltung Heideggers haben nicht nur Kunsttheoretiker, sondern auch zahlreiche Künstler und Schriftsteller seine Überlegungen nachhaltig rezipiert und in die Reflexion der eigenen Praxis eingebunden. Nikola Mirkovic folgt den Spuren von vier Lesern von Heideggers Kunstphilosophie, - Günther Anders, Heinrich Besseler, Paul Celan (...) und Peter Zumthor - die verschiedene Motive von Heideggers Denkens aufgreifen, kritisieren und weiterentwickeln. Erst durch die Transformation von Heideggers Grundbegriffen im Zuge der jeweiligen Architektur-, Literatur- und Musiktheorie zeigt sich ihr phänomenologisches Potential. (shrink)

The paper presents an example of unified theory bearing interest from both a historical and systematic point of view. The example is chosen from evolutionary population genetics (neo-Darwinian synthetic theory). It exhibits various aspects of theoretical change in science that have been shown in Part I (Geiger, 1988) to be characteristic of syntheses of theories.

Struggles for recognition are at the same time struggles over what it means to recognize and be recognized. Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth propose two mutually exclusive ways to understand recognition: either as a matter of justice (Fraser) or as a matter of identity (Honneth). This article argues against the limitations of both of these construals of recognition, and offers a third way of construing it: as a matter of freedom. Recognition is not reducible, empirically or normatively, to any of (...) these, however. Moreover, it needs to be regarded both more critically and more openly since what we are dealing with is a practice and an ideal that is by its very nature deeply contestable and therefore (more than most practices and ideals) subject to unforeseeable historical and normative change. Rather than trying to fix the meaning of recognition in order to give it a determinate role in ambitious theories of justice, it would be better to proceed more sceptically, attentive both to the complexities of recognition relations and to alternative ways of conceiving them and going on with them differently from before. (shrink)

This article argues that a new diagram is emerging in the criminal justice system as it encounters developments in the neurosciences. This does not take the form that concerns many ‘neuroethicists’ — it does not entail a challenge to doctrines of free will and the notion of the autonomous legal subject — but is developing around the themes of susceptibility, risk, pre-emption and precaution. I term this diagram ‘screen and intervene’ and in this article I attempt to trace out this (...) new configuration and consider some of the consequences. (shrink)

Using the mathematical frameworks of economic preference ranking, subjective probability, and rational learning through empirical evidence, the epistemological implications of teleological ethical intuitionism are pointed out to the extent to which the latter is based on cognitivist and objectivist concepts of value. The notions of objective value and objective norm are critically analysed with reference to epistemological criteria of intersubjectively shared valuative experience. It is concluded that one cannot meaningfully postulate general material theories of morality that could be tested, confirmed (...) or refuted by intersubjective empirical evidence of preferences and values, however loosely the empirical evidence of values may be interpreted. This situation is explained with reference to the ways in which preceived values become systematically influenced by the concomitants of individual valuative experience, but which have nothing to do with contingent subjective interests. (shrink)

_Philosophical Romanticism _is one of the first books to address the relationship between philosophy and romanticism, an area which is currently undergoing a major revival. This collection of specially-written articles by world-class philosophers explores the contribution of romantic thought to topics such as freedom, autonomy, and subjectivity; memory and imagination; pluralism and practical reasoning; modernism, scepticism and irony; art and ethics; and cosmology, time and technology. While the roots of romanticism are to be found in early German idealism, _Philosophical Romanticism_ (...) shows that it is not a purely European phenomenon: the development of romanticism can be traced through to North American philosophy in the era of Emerson and Dewey, and up to the current work of Stanley Cavell and Richard Rorty. The articles in this collection suggest that philosophical romanticism offers a compelling alternative to both the reductionist tendencies of the naturalism in 'analytic' philosophy, and deconstruction and other forms of scepticism found in 'continental' philosophy. This outstanding collection will be of interest to those studying philosophy, literature and nineteenth and twentieth century thought. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 500-531, Fall 2024.

Social theory has much to gain from taking up the challenges of conceptualizing ‘mental health’. Such an approach to the stunting of human mental life in conditions of adversity requires us to open up the black box of ‘environment’, and to develop a vitalist biosocial science, informed by and in conversation with the life sciences and the neurosciences. In this paper we draw on both classical and contemporary social theory to begin this task. We explore human inhabitation – how humans (...) inhabit their ‘ecological niches’ – and examine a number of conceptual developments that ‘deconstruct’ the binary distinction between organism and environment. We argue that we must understand the neurological, ecological and social pathways and mechanisms that shape human (mental) life if we are to address the central concerns of our discipline with inequity and injustice as these are inscribed into the bodies and souls of human beings. (shrink)

Cognition, it is often heard nowadays, is embodied. My concern is with embodied accounts of language comprehension. First, the basic idea will be outlined and some of the evidence that has been put forward in their favor will be examined. Second, their empiricist heritage and their conception of abstract ideas will be discussed. Third, an objection will be raised according to which embodied accounts underestimate the cognitive functions language fulfills. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to arguing for (...) the cognitive indispensability of non-embodied, abstract representations by highlighting some of the cognitive benefits they bestow upon us. (shrink)

Mainstream news broadcasting pursues an authentication project, to bolster its claims to serious, weighty and factual news reporting. News review contributes to this project when it seeks to humanize front-stage news personnel. It moves away from the traditional, institutionalized concern with `authenticity-from-above' and works to generate `authenticity-from-below'. As an extreme instance of resistance to the `from-above' formulation, this article considers data from a televised UK weekday morning show, The Big Breakfast, and specifically its `review of the papers' slot. The show's (...) orientation is iconoclastic, from the establishment perspective on news, partly by its high degree of reflexivity about the television medium. Its main presenter, Johnny Vaughan, extrapolates from newsprint sources well beyond the conventional bounds of the review genre. He delivers a thoroughly performed, burlesque response to more and less trivial aspects of the day's print news. His stylized vocal and visual representations of figures in the news achieve a populist moral consensus, as a key process in constructing a `from-below' authenticity. Even in this thoroughly tabloidized and comic performance, the show retains a clear critical dimension, strikingly at odds with authorized modes of news and news review. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is the critique of poststructuralist theory of art, and particularly thesis about the avant-garde peace of art as a kind of transgression. As a starting point of this critique, the ordinary language philosophy developed by American philosopher Stanley Cavell is used, particularly his film theory. While poststructuralist philosophy was developed around the notion of ideology, Cavell interprets film and arts in general around the notion of skepticism. While poststructuralism, because of thesis about avant-garde as (...) a kind of transgression within the field of ideology, is a kind of philosophy of negation, we point out that Cavell?s philosophy is a utopian theory of transcending of skepticism where avant-garde film has significant but not crucial place. Cavell?s thesis is used as a basis for re-thinking of modernism, which is in opposition to postmodernist turn realized by poststructuralism. nema. (shrink)

"Als Habilitationsschrift auf Empfehlung... der Universit'at M'unchen gedruckt"--Verso t.p.

Summary The concept of unified theory is defined in logical and abstract semantic terms, and employed in the analysis of relations between empirical scientific theories. The conceptual framework of the approach applies to binary relations such as the reduction or replacement of one theory by another, and to multiple intertheory relations. Historically, unified theories tend to arise within the contexts of scientific conflicts which they may show susceptible of solution even in the most controversial cases of the logical incompatibility or (...) conceptual incommensurability of competing theories. These conclusions are exemplified by the Planck-Einstein quantum theory of thermal radiation. The analysis shows in which sense it can, and in which it cannot, be said that this theory unifies Wien's law and the Rayleigh-Jeans law of black-body radiation. (shrink)

The distinction between sociology of science on the one hand and methodology and systematics on the other, is an established historical fact. Thus, even in modern methodologically orientated philosophy, epistemological analyses still tend to disregard the pragmatic contexts within which scientific knowledge is produced, processed and applied. This situation also reflects the well-known fact that philosophy of science has largely ignored the conceptual and methodological foundations of technology, that is, those disciplines directly and explicitly linked to the practical implications and (...) intended applications of scientific research. The following considerations suggest that the methodology of technology provides useful and generally applicable criteria of the evaluation and acceptance of the hypotheses and theories of empirical science. (shrink)

The general idea of this text is to reflect biopolitical constitution of the society and its implications related to the issues of animal welfare. Since animal in biopolitical formation is technically reduced to an object - commodity for contentment of the industry and of the people needs - critical public advisories are calling from moral, ethical and legal standpoint for attention to the fact that is necessary to protect animals from the unnecessary exploitation. It is obvious that animal protection is (...) evoking animal rights question. But in the last instance protection of animal rights is related to the nutritional dilemma of animal food use. Question is arising: does animal rights in particular also envisage change in food politics, what is for instance the extreme vegan option taking for granted? This challenge sent to the culture of all-food eaters is opening up new questions and dilemmas. First of all, there is a question linked to the right of men to choose his own nutritional option, and of course dilemma which is related to scruples about meat-eaters and their ability to love animals. Opsta ideja ovog teksta je promisliti biopoliticnu konstituciju savremenog drustva i njene implikacije vezane za status zivotinja. Posto je zivotinja u biopolitickoj konstituciji tehnoloski gledano svedena na objekt - na predmet za zadovoljavanje potreba industrije i populacije - kriticna masa upozorava sa moralnog, etickog i pravnog gledista, da je potrebno zastiti zivotinje pred neopravdanom eksploatacjom. Zastita zivota evocira pitanje prava zivotinja, koja nas dovode u poslednjoj instanci do dileme vezane za upotrebu zivotinja u prehrani. Postavlja se pitanje: da li zastita prava zivotinja podrazumeva i promenu politike ishrane - napustanje ishrane mesom - kako zahteva ekstremna veganska opcija? Taj izazov upucen kulturi svastojeda povlaci za sobom pre svega onu vrstu pitanja koja se ticu prava coveka da sam iazbere nacin na koji ce se prehranjivati, odnosno dilemu da li je covek sposoban za ljubav prema zivotinjama uprkos cinjenici da se njima prehranjuje. (shrink)

I first discuss two aspects of a social order and cooperation which might be of high relevance: the problem of a spontaneous emerging of a social order, and the relation between exchange and cooperation. In doing so, I also discuss the role of production in separating areas of cooperation from those of competition. Second, I look more closely at the motivations for cooperative behaviour. It is argued that of the four kinds of motivation mentioned by Leist only two, self-interest and (...) altruism, are really necessary to explain cooperation. (shrink)

First it is shown that in order to function well markets depend on some preconditions even if there are no external effects and there is complete information. One of these conditions is that individuals follow some moral norms. Then it is asked whether these norms are non-consequentialist. There might be some norms for which no consequentialist foundation can be constructed. However, these are not the norms which have to be followed in order that a market system functions well. Such norm-following-behaviour (...) can successfully be analysed with the economic model of behaviour, if the motivational assumption of this model is not artificially restricted to consider only financial incentives. Finally it is pointed to the fact that it is reasonable to employ the economic model of behaviour not only for analysing social processes but also for developing policy recommendations. (shrink)

After a short description of the economic model of behaviour it is shown that there are two reasons why problems arise if this model is applied to political processes and decisions. First, such decisions are often ‘low cost’, i.e. ‘wrong’ decisions have hardly any impact on the decision maker. Second, the behaviour of single individuals or small groups of individuals is to be explained. The common root of this problem is the difficulty to predict behaviour which is mainly preference governed (...) and not guided by (changing) restrictions. Nevertheless, this should not lead to abolish the economic model because (i) it can be usefully applied also in this area and (ii) a better alternative is hardly available. (shrink)