The present volume contains the lectures and papers given at the 1994 international conference on hermeneutics in Halle (Germany). The conference aimed at a state of the art in the light of recent developments in science and humanities. The place in which the conference was held is renowned for its centuries-old tradition in hermeneutics and among the lectures there are indeed some devoted to this history. For the most part, however, the papers concentrate on present-day problems in fields as different (...) as comparative literature, religious studies, bible exegesis, esthetics, social sciences, intercultural dialogue. The theme of the conference, "strangeness and familiarity", reflects the tension in which any interpretation process is situated and that any theory of interpretation has to account for. The contributions to the volume are in German and French. (shrink)

A mechanism-based approach was developed focusing on the psychodynamic, psychological and neuronal mechanisms in healthy and depressed persons. In this integrative concept of depression, the self is a core dimension in depression. It is attributed to negative emotions (e.g., failure, guilt). The increased inward focus in depression is connected with a decreased environmental focus. The development of neuropsychodynamic hypotheses of the altered self-reference is based on the investigation of the emotional-cognitive interaction in depressed patients. It may be hypothesized that the (...) increased negative self-attributions—as typical characteristics of an increased self-focus in depression—may result from altered neuronal activity in subcortical-cortical midline structures in the brain, especially from hyperactivity in the cortical-subcortical midline regions and hypoactivity in the lateral regions. The increased resting state activity in depression is especially associated with an increased resting state activity in the default mode network (DMN) and a dysbalance between DMN and executive network (EN) activity. Possible therapeutic consequences of the neuropsychodynamic approach to depression involve the necessary emotional attunement in psychotherapy of depressed patients and the adequate timing of therapeutic interventions. The hypotheses which have been developed in the context of the neuropsychodynamic model of depression may be used for more specific psychotherapeutic interventions, aiming at specific mechanisms of compensation and defence, which are related to the increased resting state activity and the disturbed resting state-stimulus-interaction. (shrink)

The central thesis of this article is that film is directing and directed kinaesthesis understood as an opening of world beyond the relation of “subjective” and “objective”. Thus the analysis does not focus on the recipients of a movie but on the origins filming finds in specific ways of experiencing, that is, in the living bodies of the persons who decide on the perspective of a take by using the camera’s body. Moved by its filmmakers, the body of the camera (...) is directed as the product of its authors, and is directing insofar as it establishes a world by its own means. The article explains basic forms of opening world by kinaesthetic processes in general, and applies this investigation to the corpus of film. Finally, the results of these analyses will be put in concrete terms by relating them to basic film features and a few samples of movies. (shrink)

Is there an anthropological difference within the basic style by which human beings exist ‘in’ world? The central problem of Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis and the specific status of his animality can be focused by this question. Perhaps this difference manifests itself only when the human being has become estranged from any normal relation to world: when it has been changed into a shape of subjectivity that no longer shares the common net of a world of sense, and remains only an (...) ‘animal.’ The moment is tragic in that the attempt to live an alternative style of worldly being results in the ‘animalyzed’ subject’s condemnation to death. (shrink)

The body wall of Hydra is organized as an epithelial bilayer with an intervening extracellular matrix (ECM). Molecular and biochemical analyses of Hydra ECM have established that it contains components similar to those seen in more complicated vertebrates such as human. In terms of biophysical parameters, Hydra ECM is highly flexible; a property that facilitates continuous movements along the organism's longitudinal and radial axis. A more rigid ECM, as in vertebrates, would not be compatible with this degree of movement. The (...) flexible nature of Hydra ECM can now be explained in part by the unique structure of the organism's collagens. Interestingly, some aspects of the structural features of Hydra collagens mimic what is seen in Ehlers‐Danlos syndrome, an inherited condition in humans that results in an abnormally flexible ECM that can be debilitating in extreme cases. This review will focus on structure–function relationships of the ECM of Hydra. BioEssays 23:716–724, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Over the past 15 years, Rainer Forst has developed a fundamental research programme within the tradition of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. The core of this programme is a moral account of the basic right of justification that humans owe to one another as rational beings. This account is put to work by Forst in articulating - both historically and philosophically - the contexts and form of justice and of toleration. The result is a powerful theoretical framework within which to (...) address issues such as transnational justice and multicultural toleration. In this volume, Forst sets out his ideas in an extended essay, which is responded to be influential interlocutors including: Andrea Sangiovanni, Amy Allen, Kevin Olson, Anthony Laden, Eva Erman and Simon Caney. The volume concludes with Forst's response to his interlocutors. (shrink)

I defend Spinoza's claim that extension is an attribute that an indivisible substance, such as God, could have. However, in order to explain why, we must abandon two long held orthodoxies in Spinoza scholarship. First, Spinoza acknowledges only parts that do not depend on their whole. Second, God, considered as natura naturans, has no parts of any kind. Against these orthodoxies, I show that having parts which depend on their whole, for Spinoza, does not entail divisibility and that God, considered (...) as natura naturans, must have such parts in order to be extended. Along the way, we will have a closer look at Spinoza’s mereology and address apparently conflicting statements that Spinoza makes about the relation of part and whole that have long vexed commentators. (shrink)

_Contexts of Justice,_ highly acclaimed when it was published in Germany, provides a significant new intervention into the important debate between communitarianism and liberalism. Rainer Forst argues for a theory of "contexts of justice" that leads beyond the narrow confines of this debate as it has been understood until now and posits the possibility of a new conception of social and political justice. This book brings refreshing clarity to a complex topic as it provides a synthesis of traditions and (...) theories that leads to a truly original approach. Forst makes a four-part distinction to decipher the debate between communitarianism and liberalism. These four parts concern the constitution of the self, the neutrality of law, the ethos of democracy, and the opposition between universalism and contextualism. He shows that a comprehensive theory of justice needs to take these different contexts adequately into account. He discusses recent debates about discursive democracy and feminist critiques of liberalism, and addresses such topics as multiculturalism and civil society. (shrink)

Evidence on the coherence between emotion and facial expression in adults from laboratory experiments is reviewed. High coherence has been found in several studies between amusement and smiling; low to moderate coherence between other positive emotions and smiling. The available evidence for surprise and disgust suggests that these emotions are accompanied by their “traditional” facial expressions, and even components of these expressions, only in a minority of cases. Evidence concerning sadness, anger, and fear is very limited. For sadness, one study (...) suggests that high emotion–expression coherence may exist in specific situations, whereas for anger and fear, the evidence points to low coherence. Insufficient emotion intensity and inhibition of facial expressions seem unable to account for the observed dissociations between emotion and facial expression. (shrink)

This article argues that alienation should be understood as a particular form of individual and social heteronomy that can only be overcome by a dialectical combination of individual and collective autonomy, recovering a deontological sense of normative authority. If we think about alienation in Kantian terms, the main source of alienation is a denial of standing or, in the extreme, losing a sense of oneself as a rational normative authority equal to all others. I call the former kind of alienation, (...) where persons deny others equal standing as a normative authority in moral or political terms, first order noumenal alienation, as there is no proper mutual cognition and recognition of each other in such a social context. I call the latter kind of alienation, where a subject does not consider themselves an equal normative authority – or an ‘end in oneself’ – second order noumenal alienation. In this sense, alienation violates the dignity of humans as moral and political lawgivers – a dignity seen by Rousseau, Kant and Marx as inalienable: It can be denied or violated, but it cannot be lost. (shrink)

The existence of predatory animals is a problem in animal ethics that is often not taken as seriously as it should be. We show that it reveals a weakness in Tom Regan's theory of animal rights that also becomes apparent in his treatment of innocent human threats. We show that there are cases in which Regan's justice-prevails-approach to morality implies a duty not to assist the jeopardized, contrary to his own moral beliefs. While a modified account of animal rights that (...) recognizes the moral patient as a kind of entity that can violate moral rights avoids this counterintuitive conclusion, it makes non-human predation a rights issue that morally ought to be subjected to human regulation. Jennifer Everett, Lori Gruen and other animal advocates base their treatment of predation in part on Regan's theory and run into similar problems, demonstrating the need to radically rethink the foundations of the animal rights movement. We suggest to those who, like us, find it less plausible to introduce morality to the wild than to reject the concept of rights that makes this move necessary to read our criticism either as a modus tollens argument and reject non-human animal rights altogether or as motivating a libertarian-ish theory of animal rights. (shrink)

Based on the belief that computational modeling (thinking in terms of representation and computations) can help to clarify controversial issues in emotion theory, this article examines emotional experience from the perspective of the Computational Belief–Desire Theory of Emotion (CBDTE), a computational explication of the belief–desire theory of emotion. It is argued that CBDTE provides plausible answers to central explanatory challenges posed by emotional experience, including: the phenomenal quality,intensity and object-directedness of emotional experience, the function of emotional experience and its relation (...) to cognition and motivation, and the relation between emotional experience and emotion. In addition, CBDTE avoids most objections that have been raised against cognitive theories of emotion. A remaining objection, that beliefs are not necessary for the emotions covered by CBDTE, is rejected as empirically unsupported. (shrink)

Mental time travel and theory of mind develop, both phylo- and ontogenetically, at the same stage. We argue that this synchrony is due to the emergence of a shared competence, namely, the ability to become aware of frames of reference.

This essay presents Mendelssohn’s neglected vindication of theism through a refutation of Spinoza’s philosophy in the Morgenstunden and highlights its relevance for discussions in contemporary philosophy of religion. For this purpose, I (i) contextualise Mendelssohn's argument within the reception of Spinoza at the dawn of the 18th century, (ii) trace the path of Mendelssohn's argument to theism, (iii) and examine Mendelssohn's argument in light of Linda Zagzebski's account of divine omniscience showing that her account is not only incoherent but also (...) undermines the theistic assumption that the world has an existence outside of God. (shrink)

Die Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg hat ihre Neu grundung seit 1990 unter das Motto "Aufbruch und Erneuerung" gestellt. Eine Besinnung auf erneuerungsfahige und erneuerungs bedurftige Elemente ihrer Vorgeschichte kann es sich nicht leisten, die epochalen Vorzeichen der Aufklarung zu vernachlassigen, un ter denen ihre ruhmreiche Vorgangerin, die Friedrichs-Universi tat, 1694 gegrundet wurde. * Die Zeit der Aufklarung ist indessen noch langst nicht vorbei. Die Aufklarungsbedurftigkeit der Menschen ist keine Angelegen heit von Epochen oder von Episoden. Sie gehort vielmehr zur con ditio humana. (...) Seit dem revolutionaren Gestaltwandel, den die Na turwissenschaften seit dem 17. Jahrhundert durchgemacht haben, sind immer mehr Menschen von der Frage beunruhigt worden, in wiefern die Wissenschaften uberhaupt zur Aufklarung beitragen konnen. Immerhin war die staatliche Forderung der wissenschaft lichen Lehre und Forschung im organisatorischen Rahmen von Universitaten seit der Wende zum 18. Jahrhundert Teil einer op timistischen Antwort auf diese Frage. Der politisch institutionalisierte Optimismus der Erwartung, daB die Aufklarung durch Wissenschaft moglich sei, hat wahrend der vergangenen drei Jahrhunderte mancherlei Bewahrungspro ben durchgemacht. Das Zutrauen, von dem der Optimismus des Programms einer Aufklarung durch Wissenschaft getragen wird, bedarf daher schon langst einer Uberprtifung seiner Berechtigung, wenn weder die Wissenschaft noch die Aufklarung durch Uberfor derung oder durch Unterforderung lei den soIl. (shrink)

It is surprising how far one can get by thinking things through. (Alec Fisher [2004], The logic of real arguments, p. 1)In the first part of the article, the central role of theory in emotion psych...

Data analytics and data-driven approaches in Machine Learning are now among the most hailed computing technologies in many industrial domains. One major application is predictive analytics, which is used to predict sensitive attributes, future behavior, or cost, risk and utility functions associated with target groups or individuals based on large sets of behavioral and usage data. This paper stresses the severe ethical and data protection implications of predictive analytics if it is used to predict sensitive information about single individuals or (...) treat individuals differently based on the data many unrelated individuals provided. To tackle these concerns in an applied ethics, first, the paper introduces the concept of “predictive privacy” to formulate an ethical principle protecting individuals and groups against differential treatment based on Machine Learning and Big Data analytics. Secondly, it analyses the typical data processing cycle of predictive systems to provide a step-by-step discussion of ethical implications, locating occurrences of predictive privacy violations. Thirdly, the paper sheds light on what is qualitatively new in the way predictive analytics challenges ethical principles such as human dignity and the (liberal) notion of individual privacy. These new challenges arise when predictive systems transform statistical inferences, which provide knowledge about the cohort of training data donors, into individual predictions, thereby crossing what I call the “prediction gap”. Finally, the paper summarizes that data protection in the age of predictive analytics is a collective matter as we face situations where an individual’s (or group’s) privacy is violated using dataotherindividuals provide about themselves, possibly even anonymously. (shrink)

Empathy means understanding another person’s emotional or intentional state by vicariously sharing this state. As opposed to emotional contagion, empathy is characterized by the self–other distinction of subjective experience. Empathy develops in the second year, as soon as symbolic representation and mental imagery set in that enable children to represent the self, to recognize their mirror image, and to identify with another person. In experiments with 126 children, mirror recognition and readiness to empathize with a distressed playmate were investigated. Almost (...) all recognizers showed compassion and tried to help, whereas nonrecognizers were perplexed or remained indifferent. Several motivational consequences of empathy are discussed and its special quality is outlined in comparison with theory of mind and perspective taking. (shrink)

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with regard to (...) their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones. Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critique of a number of contemporary approaches in political philosophy and critical theory. Finally, he also addresses the question of the utopian horizon of social criticism. (shrink)

The concept of toleration plays a central role in pluralistic societies. It designates a stance which permits conflicts over beliefs and practices to persist while at the same time defusing them, because it is based on reasons for coexistence in conflict - that is, in continuing dissension. A critical examination of the concept makes clear, however, that its content and evaluation are profoundly contested matters and thus that the concept itself stands in conflict. For some, toleration was and is an (...) expression of mutual respect in spite of far-reaching differences, for others, a condescending, potentially repressive attitude and practice. Rainer Forst analyses these conflicts by reconstructing the philosophical and political discourse of toleration since antiquity. He demonstrates the diversity of the justifications and practices of toleration from the Stoics and early Christians to the present day and develops a systematic theory which he tests in discussions of contemporary conflicts over toleration. (shrink)

A new experimental paradigm involving a computerised quiz was used to examine, on an intra-individual level, the strength of association between four components of the surprise syndrome: cognitive (degree of prospectively estimated unexpectedness), experiential (the feeling of surprise), behavioural (degree of response delay on a parallel task), and expressive (the facial expression of surprise). It is argued that this paradigm, together with associated methods of data analysis, effectively controls for most method factors that could in previous studies have lowered the (...) correlations among the components of emotion syndromes. It was found that (a) the components of the surprise syndrome were all positively correlated; (b) strong association existed only between the cognitive and the experiential component of surprise; (c) the coherence between syndrome components did not increase with increasing intensity of surprise; and (d) there was also only moderate coherence between the components of the facial expression of surprise (eyebrow raising, eye widening, mouth opening), although in this case, coherence tended to increase with intensity. Taken together, the findings support only a weakly probabilistic version of a behavioural syndrome view of surprise. However, the component correlations seem strong enough to support the existence of strong associations among a subset of the mental or central neurophysiological processes engaged in surprise. (shrink)

Mental-threshold egalitarianism, well-known examples of which include Jeff McMahan’s two-tiered account of the wrongness of killing and Tom Regan’s theory of animal rights, divides morally considerable beings into equals and unequals on the basis of their individual mental capacities. In this paper, I argue that the line that separates equals from unequals is unavoidably arbitrary and implausibly associates an insignificant difference in empirical reality with a momentous difference in moral status. In response to these objections, McMahan has proposed the introduction (...) of an intermediate moral status. I argue that this move ultimately fails to address the problem. I conclude that, if we are not prepared to give up moral equality, our full and equal moral status must be grounded in a binary property that is not a threshold property. I tentatively suggest that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is such a property, and a plausible candidate. (shrink)

The ability of predicting upcoming events or conditions in advance offers substantial selective advantage to living beings. The most successful systematic tool for fairly reliable prognoses is the use of dynamical causal models in combination with memorised experience. Surprisingly, causality is a fundamental but rather controversially disputed concept. For both models and memory, symbol processing is requisite. Symbols are a necessary and sufficient attribute of life from its very beginning; the process of their evolutionary emergence was discovered by Julian Huxley (...) a century ago. In behavioural biology, this universal symmetry-breaking kinetic phase transition became known as ritualisation. Symbol use for predicting future dynamical processes has culminated in the unprecedented complexity of mental models used in science and technology, coining the historical ascent of modern humans. Observation and measurement transform structural information of physical exchange processes into symbolic information from which state quantities are derived by means of mental models. However, phylogenetically inherited models such as naïve realism do not necessarily explain the sophisticated insights revealed by modern experiments with, say, entangled quantum states. It is suggested to carefully distinguish observed exchange quantities from predicted unobservable state quantities, and physical reality from mental models thereof. (shrink)

The theory of emotions as affective position-takings (PT) is investigated from the perspective of a computational model of the belief-desire theory of emotions (CBDTE) proposed by the author. Both theories assume that a core subset of typical emotion episodes are the products of an evaluation process in which cognized states of affairs are evaluated for their congruence with the person's desires; and that emotions are, on the conscious level, feelings of pleasure and displeasure. However, according to PT the evaluation is (...) a concern-based construal and emotional feelings are intrinsically object-directed, whereas according to CBDTE, the evaluation is performed by a hardwired mechanism that produces nonintentional feelings. Furthermore, CBDTE suggests that hedonic feelings are simultaneously reactions to the detection of value, and representations of the detected value. (shrink)

Self–other distinction, as documented by mirror self-recognition (MSR), allows for empathy which offers a motivational base for helping a person in need. Kärtner and Keller propose a different, culture-related, possibility of helping based on shared intentional relations and emotional contagion which could explain helping behavior in Indian children not yet capable of MSR. Due to the experimental setting, however, other releasers of children’s sadness and helping behavior have to be considered. An alternative setting is proposed. With respect to MSR, the (...) question of false negatives is discussed. The issues mentioned by Klann-Delius address fundamental theoretical questions that cannot be answered briefly. (shrink)