Rational agency is of central interest to philosophy, with evolutionary accounts of the cognitive underpinnings of rational agency being much debated. Yet one building block—our ability to argue—is less studied, except Mercier and Sperber’s argumentative theory :57–74, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x10000968, 2011, in The enigma of reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2017). I discuss their account and argue that it faces a lacuna: It cannot explain the origin of argumentation as a series of small steps that reveal how hominins with baseline abilities of (...) the trait in question could turn into full-blown owners of it. This paper then provides a first sketch of the desired evolutionary trajectory. I argue that reasoning coevolves with the ability to coordinate behavior. After that, I establish a model based on niche construction theory. This model yields a story with following claims. First, argumentation came into being during the Oldowan period as a tool for justifying information ‘out of sight’. Second, argumentation enabled hominins to solve collective action problems with collaborators out of sight, which stabilized argumentative practices eventually. Archeological findings are discussed to substantiate both claims. I conclude with outlining changes resultant from my model for the concept of rational agency. (shrink)

Das Bild ist ohne Zweifel ein interkulturelles Grundphänomen. In verschiedenen kulturellen Kontexten finden sich stets bestimmte Formen und Praktiken bildlicher Darstellung, die sich zudem als Ausdruck der jeweiligen Welt- und Selbstansichten lesen lassen. Zugleich drängen Fragen nach universalen Strukturen der Bildlichkeit und der Bildwahrnehmung in den Vordergrund. Damit verweisen das Kulturelle und das Bildliche in spannungsreicher Form aufeinander. Dieser Band unternimmt einen ersten Brückenschlag zwischen Ansätzen der Bildtheorie und der interkulturellen Philosophie und liefert damit auch neue Zugänge zu aktuellen bildethischen (...) und bildpolitischen Debatten. Der Inhalt Bildtheorie und Interkulturalität.- TheorieBildungen.- WeltBilder.- BildPolitiken Die Zielgruppen BildtheoretikerInnen und BildwissenschaftlerInnen PhilosophInnen Kultur- und SozialwissenschaftlerInnen ÄsthetikerInnen und KunstwissenschaftlerInnen PhänomenologInnen Die HerausgeberInnen Mag. Sergej Seitz, MA ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. Dr. Anke Graness ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. Prof. Dr. Georg Stenger ist Inhaber der Professur für Philosophie in einer globalen Welt und Interkulturelle Philosophie am Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. (shrink)

This book extends philosophy's engagement with the double beyond hierarchized binary oppositions. Brian Seitz explores the double as a necessary ontological condition or figure that gets represented, enacted, and performed repeatedly and in a myriad of configurations. Seitz suggests that the double in all of its forms is simultaneously philosophy's shadow, its nemesis, and the condition of its possibility. This book expands definitions and investigations of the double beyond the confines of philosophy, suggesting that the concept is at (...) work in many other fields including politics, cultural narratives, literature, mythology, and psychology. Seitz approaches the double by means of a series of case studies and by engaging loosely in eidetic variation, a methodological maneuver borrowed from phenomenology. The book explores the ways in which wide-ranging instances of the double are connected by the dynamics of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

This essay explores the digital challenge, how to humanize technology, and the need to rethink the digital-human divide. This is imperative in view of superintelligent Al, which may escape human control. The information age poses quandaries regarding the uses and abuses of technology. A major critique concerns the commercial design of digital technologies that engenders compulsive behavior. All technologies affect humans in a reciprocal way. The new digital technologies-from smartphones to the Internet—where humans are tethered to machines, can impair our (...) autonomy, hijack attention, rewire the brain, and diminish concentration, empathy, knowledge, and wisdom. The remedy is to restore deep reading, human interactions, personal conversations, real friendships, and respect for autonomy and privacy, building a nurturing culture of tolerance, coupled with transcendent norms and ideals worthy of a creature created in the image and likeness of God. This aspiration should be at the center of a new interdisciplinary field of inquiry—a phenomenology of communications. (shrink)

Thesis Reprinted From Illinois Studies In The Social Sciences, V18, No. 1-2.

While the motif of the double serves a prominent role in Freud’s writings from early on, this essay is an examination of the determinative power of the double in two key texts, texts in which specific, new sets doubles emerge for the first time in Freud’s career. Totem and Taboo features a double that manifests itself primarily in the form of ambivalence. Beyond the Pleasure Principle features a double that manifests itself primarily in the form of a very peculiar conflict (...) that also entails complicity. (shrink)

The word “power” tends toward divergent formations, and this paper is prompted by the intersection of two of them. The first form taken up here is power as control, while the second form is material power as fuel. The typical modern configuration of the first form implies an understanding of the second form as subordinate. But what I argue here is that insofar as fuel is a condition of the possibility of being human, the identity of the human being has (...) always been embedded in an assemblage consisting of fuel-subject/intersubject. (shrink)

Heidegger’s representation of Dasein’s death relation in Division Two of Being and Time remains a singularly prominent reflection on death in the canon of twentieth century continental philosophy. At the same time, though, it is a representation whose limitations have been established by commitments made in Division One, specifically in Heideggers’s account of being-with. My interests in this paper are in the intimate relation between intersubectivity and death, and I engage in a comparative phenomenology in order to free things up. (...) More specifically, I provide a critique of certain key aspects of Heidegger’s account of Dasein, and then I contrast this with the radically different way that the Iroquois practice and experience the connection between intersubjecivity and death. The Iroquois tribe establish their connection between themselves through formal condolences rituals. As I articulate in the paper, for the Iroquois, the relationship to the dead is the source of my relations with those who are living. Dead people are not just an anonymous “they,” and the words said about them are not just idle chatter, but the source of responsibility to continue the community. (shrink)

Explaining humans as rational creatures—capable of deductive reasoning—remains challenging for evolutionary naturalism. Schechter 437–464, 2011, 2013) proposes to link the evolution of this kind of reasoning with the ability to plan. His proposal, however, does neither include any elaborated theory on how logical abilities came into being within the hominin lineage nor is it sufficiently supported by empirical evidence. I present such a theory in broad outline and substantiate it with archeological findings. It is argued that the cognitive makeup of (...) any animal is constituted by being embedded in a certain way of life. Changing ways of life thus foster appearances of new cognitive abilities. Finally, a new way of life of coordinated group behavior emerged within the hominins: anticipatory group planning involved in activities like making sophisticated spears for hunting. This gave rise to human logical cognition. It turned hominins into domain-general reasoner and adherents of intersubjective norms for reasoning. However, as I argue, it did not—and most likely could not—give rise to reason by deductive logic. More likely, deductive reasoning entered our world only a few thousand years ago: exclusively as a cultural artifact. (shrink)

Heinz Kohut was arguably the most influential modern day psychoanalyst. Because current interest in Kohut's work has focused so completely on self psychology, however, certain aspects of Kohut's thinking, in particular his nonreductive synthesis of Freudian theory, are in danger of being lost. Prior to his development of self psychology, Kohut was a legendary teacher of Freudian theory at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In this volume, Philip Rubovits-Seitz presents Kohut's previously unavailable lectures from his course on psychoanalytic psychology (...) along with an illuminating summary statement on Freudian theory jointly written by Kohut and Rubovits-Seitz. Rubovits-Seitz continues with his own insightful analysis of Kohut's distinctive approach to Freudian theory. And he concludes by arguing persuasively why Kohut's later contributions should best be viewed as a continuation, rather than an abandonment, of this early vision. _Kohut's Freudian Vision _not only repairs an outstanding tear in received psychoanalytic history but also challenges self psychologists and contemporary Freudian psychoanalysts alike to renewed reflection. (shrink)

The ‘smart city’ has been driven by advances in information and communication technologies, with the aim of integrating these technologies with urban infrastructures for improved optimisation, automation and control. Smart cities have emerged as a response to the challenges faced by megacities and are likely to manifest the ‘datafying’ society in the public space. However, the pervasive nature of data collection, continuous analysis and inference, and long-term data storage result in a potentially problematic reconfiguration of society that undermines individual and (...) collective autonomy. This article proposes the concept of ‘data autonomy’ as a guiding principle for the development of smart cities, addressing challenges related to the potential misuse of personal data, sphere transgression, and datafied gentrification. Section II. explores concerns related to data protection law, which can be understood as a proxy for the relationship between the individual and society, highlighting power dynamics and the autonomy of individuals and communities. Section III. discusses the concept of sphere transgression, where tech giants expand their influence in society without adequate expertise or accountability. Section IV. examines the potential impact of datafied gentrification on individual and collective autonomy. Building on the challenges identified throughout these sections, this paper proposes ‘data autonomy’ as a guiding principle for smart city development in section V., promoting a value-based approach centred on human dignity. To make it practicable, increased interdisciplinary collaboration in the development of smart cities is needed, with a particular focus on improved design and impact assessment methodologies. (shrink)

Brent Kious has recently attacked several arguments generally adduced to support anti-doping in sports, which are widely supported by the sports medicine fraternity, international sports federations, and international governments. We show that his attack does not succeed for a variety of reasons. First, it uses an overly inclusive definition of doping at odds with the WADA definition, which has global, if somewhat contentious, currency. Second, it seriously misconstrues the position it attacks, rendering the attack without force against a more balanced (...) construal of an anti-doping position. Third, it makes unwarranted appeals to matters Kious considers morally ‘clear’, while simultaneously attacking a position many others take to be equally morally ‘clear’, namely that of anti-doping. Such an inconsistency, attacking and appealing to the moral status quo as befits one’s argument, is not acceptable without further qualification. Fourth, his position suffers from a general methodological flaw of over-reliance upon argumentation by analogy. Moreover, it is argued that the analogies, being poorly selected and developed, fail to justify his conclusion that the anti-doping lobby lacks philosophical and moral authority for its stance. These issues are symptomatic of a more fundamental problem: any attempt at providing a blanket solution to the question of whether doping is morally acceptable or not is bound to run up against problems when applied to highly specific contexts. Thus, rather than reaching any particular conclusion for or against doping products or processes in this article, we conclude that an increased context-sensitivity will result in a more evenhanded appraisal of arguments on the matter. (shrink)

This article employs Bonnie Honig’s concepts of refusal and intensification to conceptualize the ancient practice of ‘parrhesia’ as a form of conflictual, political truth-telling. This entails envisaging political truth-telling as an intense, agonal practice that does not establish unalterable foundations but takes part in world-building practices. To this end, I first reconstruct parrhesia as an agonistic practice of truth-telling. Against this background, I take up Honig’s concept of intensification to make sense of parrhesia’s intricate political stakes with reference to Euripides’s (...) Ion tragedy. Finally, I reenvisage the bacchants’ secession to Cithaeron against the backdrop of Michel Foucault’s analysis of the cynic tradition, where parrhesia turns into a subversive political practice of displaying and prefiguring other forms of existence and social relations. (shrink)

As Axel Honneth argues in his early essay “The Other of Justice,” Derrida and Levinas offer convincing arguments for offsetting practical philosophy’s traditional focus on justice with a focus on care. In Honneth, this leads to a strict dichotomy of justice (as equal treatment) and care (as singular responsibility). I show that Derrida and Levinas think of justice and responsibility not as dichotomic, but rather as aporetic. In all ethico-political conflicts, aspects of responsibility and justice are in play that are (...) irreducible to, and in constant tension with, one another. Derrida and Levinas disclose a constitutive. This aporia opens up new perspectives on normativity. (shrink)

This editorial highlights the remarkable contributions in this JIS volume that explore the arts as a gateway to the transcendentals of beauty, truth and goodness. It focuses on the recurring notions of order, telos, and creativity reflecting the essential attributes of human nature as imago Dei. Apart from the arts as art therapy, how can the arts connect one to the transcendentals? Can homo musicus aspire to self-transcendence? A shining example of music as self-transcendence is the life and times of (...) Tony Bennett, the legendary singer and an American icon of traditional pop, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett’s love of music, in particular, transcends his physical limitations engendered by the onset of Alzheimer’s in later life. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Weighing the Value of Meat Stalking the Essence of Hunting Same As It Ever Was The End of Hunting Notes.

The notion of compositional development in the text of Job is directed at a simplistic view of the book, and of the problem of suffering and rewards; it does not touch the difficult view of God that pervades all levels of tradition in the present book.

Reprint of the 1st ed. (1923) which was published in Bd. 6 of the Jahrbuch f'ur Philosophie und ph'anomenologische Forschung.

The darwinistic doctrine of a continuous transformation of the animal world cannot be certified by Paleontology. On the contrary the building-plans of the animals present themselves ready made in the history of the earth. That may be shown before all at the oldest vertebrates which appear in the Silur and Devon in types fundamentally differentiated. Also the higher fishes, the amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals present themselves ready made and are not to be derived one from another. Beyond the reach (...) of families descendance is unknown; it can, if anyhow, be maintained in the sense of a modification within typologically determined boundaries.Beurlen's Neomorphosis must be refused. The will for might, i.e. the will for dominating the world around, does not exist as a formgiving element, and can, before all, not be responsible there where the new type is separated from the old one by not adaptive, and therefore building constructive qualities.Remonstrances showing that the tradition having gaps in paleontology should not admit the above made conclusions are refused. The things found are, on the contrary, fully sufficient, asHeribert-Nilsson also showed for the fossil floras. The typological manner of contemplating has deciding importance in paleontology, whereas that of the theory of descendance only has a secondary one.La doctrine darwinienne d'une transformation continue du monde animal ne peut pas être confirmée par la paléontologie. Les plans constructifs des animaux apparaissent plutôt achevés dans l'histoire de la terre. Cela se montre avant tout aux plus anciens vertébrés qui font leur apparition dans le silure et le devon par des types variés et différenciés fondamentalement. Aussi les poissons de genres plus élevés, les amphibiens, les reptiles, les oiseaux et les mammifères se présentent achevés et ne sont pas dérivés les uns des autres. En dehors du domaine de la famille la descendance est inconnue, et elle ne pourrait être maintenue que dans le sens de modification au dedans de limites prescrites typologiquement. Il faut rejeter la néomorphose deBeurlen. La volonté du pouvoir, c'est-à-dire la volonté de dominer le milieu n'existe pas comme un facteur créateur de formes et ne peut pas avant tout être responsable là où le nouveau type est séparé de l'ancien par des qualités non adaptives, donc des qualités constructives.Les objections qui veulent prouver qu'une tradition paléontologique, pleine de lacunes, n'admet pas les conclusions faites ci-dessus, sont complètement réfutées. Les découvertes suffisent plutôt complètement, commeHeribert-Nilsson l'a démontré, pour les flores fossiles. La manière typologique de contempler a une signification décisive dans la paléontologie, celle de la théorie de la descendance a seulement une signification secondaire. (shrink)

In this communication recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience is presented showing that believing is a fundamental brain function. It integrates the perception of information from the environment with personal perspective taking (“what does it mean to me?”) as the basis for predictive coding of action. Observing that another person becomes injured can make one believe that the pain in the injured person is similar to pain that oneself has experienced previously. This first-person perspective has been called empathy and includes primal (...) beliefs about potentially pain eliciting objects and painful events in the sense of “what does it mean to you?”. Furthermore, observing other people to suffer involves the conceptual belief that their condition is aversive and burdensome. Believing in love and peace involves the perspective of “what does it mean to us?”. Contradictory events may cause the sensation of pain and suffering in the afflicted individuals resulting in mutual distrust and eventually disruption of social bonds. In conclusion, beliefs play an important, though long underestimated role in cognitive neuroscience of pain and suffering and more generally for the cultural notions of deities and evil. (shrink)

Spätestens mit dem Aufkommen der modernen Naturwissenschaften im 19. Jahrhundert wird die Rolle der Metaphysik für die naturwissenschaftliche Begriffsbildung in Frage gestellt. Bereits Kant identifiziert die Schwächen einer Metaphysik, die in ihren wesentlichen Begriffen allein dem aristotelischen Vorbild treu geblieben ist. Das heißt aber nicht, dass bewährte traditionelle metaphysische Begriffe völlig aufgegeben werden müssen. Gerade in den modernen Naturwissenschaften gibt es Fragen, die aus der einzelnen Wissenschaft heraus nicht beantwortet werden können, ohne begriffliche Anleihen bei traditionellen metaphysischen Konzepten zu nehmen. (...) Anhand der metaphysischen und naturphilosophischen Konzeptionen Kants und Whiteheads untersucht Gordon Seitz den von Whitehead behaupteten Gegensatz zwischen Prozess- und Transzendentalphilosophie im Hinblick auf die Idee einer Einheit der Natur und unter Berücksichtigung moderner naturwissenschaftlicher Theorien. (shrink)

The impetus for exploring the relationship between Sartre and Foucault may be informed more by Foucault than by Sartre, as it would seem to be geared toward a Foucauldian determination of the discursive parameters of a particular dimension of modern philosophy; that is, of the history of philosophy, including, by extension, the history of existentialism. But insofar as this determination opens up a significant dimension of the situation of philosophy today - of our situation and of the situation of existentialism (...) - it is also Sartrean in nature, as are the effects of this determination, a determination situated somewhere between Sartre's philosophy of freedom and the freedom afforded to Foucault and to us all by the practice of philosophy, and by its future possibilities, which include the possibility "… that I do not believe a word, not one little word, of all I've just scribbled.". (shrink)

The United Nations confirmed that privacy remains a human right in the digital age, but our daily digital experiences and seemingly ever-increasing amounts of data suggest that privacy is a mundane, distributed and technologically mediated concept. This article explores privacy by mapping out different legal and conceptual approaches to privacy protection in the context of datafication. It provides an essential starting point to explore the entwinement of technological, ethical and regulatory dynamics. It clarifies why each of the presented approaches emphasises (...) particular aspects and analyses the tensions that arise. The resulting overview provides insight into the main strengths and limitations of the different approaches arising from specific traditions. This analytic overview therefore serves as a key resource to analyse the usefulness of the approaches in the context of the increasing datafication of both private and public spheres.Specifically, we contrast the approach focusing on data subjects whose data are being ‘protected’ with others, including Fair Information Practice Principles, the German right to ‘informational self-determination’, and the South American ‘habeas data’ doctrine. We also present and contrast emerging approaches to privacy and discuss their intersection with datafication. In conclusion, we put forth that rather than aiming for one single solution that works worldwide and across all situations, it is essential to identify synergies and stumbling blocks between the various regulatory settings and newly emerging approaches. (shrink)

Mit dem Anfang des Mittelalters und der Renaissance setzt eine Denkrichtung ein, die fur die Erkenntnis der Welt keine andere Autoritat gelten lassen will als die der Vernunft." Damit hat Oskar Ewald die Idee der Aufklarung in ihren Grundsatzen auf den Punkt gebracht. Ewald, bis 1928 Privatdozent fur Philosophie in Wien, spater von den Nationalsozialisten politisch verfolgt, zeichnet in seinem Werk von 1924 die Ideengeschichte der Aufklarung in Frankreich nach. Aus der skeptischen Perspektive eines religiosen Sozialisten stellt er die (...) wichtigsten Vertreter und unterschiedlichen Stromungen in Frankreich vor, arbeitet dabei Unterschiede heraus und zeigt Gemeinsamkeiten auf. Ewald gelingt der Spagat zwischen Darstellung und Analyse. Seine ambivalente Bewertung und der angenehme Erzahlstil seiner Darstellung machen Die Franzosische Aufklarungsphilosophie" heute noch zu einem lesenswerten Werk fur alle Philosophieinteressierten.". (shrink)

"La distinción que suele hacerse entre el Derecho político y la Teoría general del Estado no obedece, en realidad, a una exigencia lógica; la separación ni es clara, ni tiene fundamento. Son dos aspectos del mismo problema científico: estudio jurídico del Estado. La Teoría general del Estado se ocupa generalmente de definir los principales aplicables a todo Estado y en todas sus manifestaciones. El Derecho político, partiendo de estos conceptos generales que sienta la Teoría, investiga más en concreto la vida (...) orgánica del Estado, sus funciones internas y exteriores y las relaciones del Poder Público con los individuos". Oskar Georg Fischbach. (shrink)

Explores the role of dance education both inside and outside the arts.