Rudolf Arnheim has been known, since the publication of his groundbreaking _Art and Visual Perception_ in 1974, as an authority on the psychological interpretation of the visual arts. Two anniversary volumes celebrate the landmark anniversaries of his works in 2009. In _The Power of the Center_, Arnheim uses a wealth of examples to consider the factors that determine the overall organization of visual form in works of painting, sculpture, and architecture. _The Dynamics of Architectural Form_ explores the unexpected perceptual (...) consequences of architecture with Arnheim's customary clarity and precision. (shrink)

The pursuit of science is a specific form of cognitive activity that is guided by concrete heuristic objectives and corresponding standards in terms of its methodological approach. The philosophy of science pursues the goal of analyzing scientific cognitive activity against the background of epistemology. The core problem of traditional philosophical epistemology, and with it the current philosophy of science, according to my thesis, consists in the heuristic short-circuiting of the content with the object of knowledge. This manifests itself directly in (...) its focus on the heuristic standard of certainty of our knowledge, based on the metaphysical assumption of the determinacy of things in themselves (which correlates with the supposition of the mode of description as the paradigm of cognitive activity in general). The main thesis of this paper will be that this short-circuit leads to a suppression of the role of heuristics as a fundamental factor of cognitive activity, and in its consequence to a descriptive misunderstanding of the deconstructive mathematical heuristic of physics (with its focus on dynamical phenomena) in terms of mere decomposition. Owing to the role of physics as a fundamental science, the consequences of this misunderstanding are far-reaching. Particularly for the scientific self-understanding of biology, namely in the sense of the heuristic goal of analytically decomposing biological entities into physical ones and reducing biological phenomena to physical laws. This goal clearly contradicts the deconstructive methodological approach of physics, whose only yardstick is the appropriateness of the reconstruction of the phenomena under consideration. (shrink)

Traditional epistemology bases its understanding of cognition on the heuristic short-circuiting of the content with the object of cognition. This short-circuit corresponds to the idea of truth in the sense of some kind of correspondence between the content and the object of knowledge. The problem that arises from this is the question of the verifiability of this correspondence, which would presuppose a transcendent standpoint that, for lack of existence, becomes a mere vanishing point of reflection. The standpoint of reflection corresponds (...) to the adoption of a transcendent standpoint that is nevertheless anchored in the cognizing subject. The question of correspondence thus becomes a question of certainty. This leads to a second, this time theoretical short-circuit, namely the conflation of the actual question of a theory of the phenomenon of cognition, the question of the genesis (or generation) of the content of cognition, with the question of the certainty of this content. This conflation ultimately leads to the question of which (by definition subjective) elements of the cognitive process can guarantee certainty, and thus to a further, third, namely methodological short-circuit through the definition of the (in truth holistic) cognitive situation in terms of a subject-object opposition and the associated exclusion of the knowledge of the empirical natural sciences from cognitive reflection. The aim of this short paper (which is the introduction to a recent publication entitled 'Rehabilitation of Pure Reason') is to find an adequate understanding of the phenomenon of cognition by reversing these short-circuits in reverse order, i.e. by starting from the affirmative acknowledgement of the holism of the real cognitive situation, which excludes subjective certainty as a reasonable goal of cognition from the outset. (shrink)

Face à des enjeux planétaires qui se multiplient et à leurs pronostics de plus en plus inquiétants, les injonctions à agir vite s’imposent avec une certaine évidence. Si la proposition semble tenir du bon sens et ne pas nécessiter qu’on s’y arrête, il convient de prendre un peu de recul, au contraire. S’autoriser à prendre le temps : le temps de la déconstruction des évidences, à commencer par celle de la définition de l’urgence qui invite à de nouveaux engagements, suivi (...) d’un temps nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une réponse appropriée, et ainsi de suite… Sans parler du temps du partage nécessaire, dès lors que la cause se doit d’être collective et non simplement individuelle et personnelle. Sans remettre en cause la légitimité des alertes écologiques, il convient de réfléchir à des modalités d’action permettant tout à la fois des engagements fermes en matière de transformation sociale et la prise en compte d’imprévus. L’article conclut par la présentation de quelques innovations dans le domaine des projets urbains qui tentent de combiner ces deux enjeux. La discussion s’oriente pour finir par une réflexion sur la nécessité de renouer avec un art menacé, celui de faire société. (shrink)

This book is a collection of contributions written by philosophers and scientists active in different fields, such as mathematics, logics, social sciences, computer sciences and linguistics. They comment on and discuss various parts of and subjects and propositions introduced in the Handbook of Analytical Philosophy of Medicine from Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh, published by Springer in 2012. This volume reports on the fruitful exchange and debate that arose in the fuzzy community upon the publication of the Handbook. This was not only very (...) much appreciated by the community but also seen as a critical starting point for beginning a new discussion. The results of this discussion, which involved many different perspectives from science and the humanities and was warmly encouraged by Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh himself, are accurately reported in this volume, which is intended to be a critical companion to Kadem Sadegh-Zadeh ́s handbook. Rudolf Seising is currently an adjunct researcher at the European Centre for Soft Computing in Mieres, Asturias (Spain) and a college lecturer at the Faculty of History and Arts, at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (Germany). Marco Elio Tabacchi is currently the Scientific Director of the Italian National Research & Survey Organization Demopolis, and a research assistant in the Soft Computing Group at University of Palermo (Italy). (shrink)

Rudolf Arnheim has been known, since the publication of his groundbreaking _Art and Visual Perception_ in 1974, as an authority on the psychologicalinterpretation of the visual arts. Two anniversary volumes celebrate the landmark anniversaries of his works in 2009. In _The Power of the Center_, Arnheim uses a wealth of examples to consider the actors that determine the overall organization of visual form in works of painting, sculpture, and architecture. _The Dynamics of Architectural Form_ explores the unexpected perceptual consequences (...) of architecture with Arnheim's customary clarity and precision. (shrink)

Introduction: Public health ethics addresses moral dilemmas arising from balancing individual healthcare needs with societal interests. Ethical considerations in public health during pandemics and disasters aim to reduce mortality rates and minimize social injustice through fair principles. Objective: This paper analyzes public health ethics and ethical values in allocating resources during mass casualty incidents. The intersection of public health ethics, applied bioethics, and ethics of social consequences (through non-utilitarian consequentialism) guides addressing serious public health challenges in catastrophic scenarios. The application (...) of the given interaction is significant for professional medical ethics. Methodology: The paper employs inductive, deductive, and normative methods of bioethics and the methodology of ethics of social consequences. Conclusion: The paradigmatic disparity between the bioethics of pandemics and disaster bioethics lies in the fluid application of bioethical principles and the accentuation of utilitarian demands depending on the severity and scale of mass casualty incidents. Applied bioethics in crisis situations respects the approaches of public health ethics and attempts to increase positive social outcomes. The application of (scarce) resource allocation criteria and triage of patients is derived from ethical decisions beneficial to public health and lege artis approaches of medical bioethics. The paper presents professional and ethical criteria for medically inappropriate treatment within the framework of patient triage; we approach crisis ethics from the perspective of maximization of benefit. Age is not an exclusion criterion of acute healthcare provision in crisis situations. Ethics of social consequences as a form of non-utilitarian consequentialism allowing for social consequences bridges public health ethics and applied bioethics. (shrink)

Glauben und Wissen bei Habermas In dem zweibändigen Spätwerk "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie" (2019) hat Habermas eine umfassende Genealogie nachmetaphysischen Denkens vorgelegt. In einer Tagung an der Universität Wien im Jahr 2021 sind die zehn Hauptkapitel des opus magnum analysiert worden. Da das nachmetaphysische Denken nach Habermas aus den okzidentalen Diskursen über die Beziehungen zwischen „Glauben und Wissen“ hervorgegangen ist, beziehen sich die Beiträge auf ein breites Spektrum an Themen: • einerseits auf die geistigen Aufbrüche der Achsenzeit und die (...) christlichen Theologien und Philosophien von der Spätantike bis zu Luther • andererseits auf die Philosophie der Aufklärung, die sich nach Habermas mit Hume und Kant in zwei Stränge aufspaltet, auf Hegel als Begründer des Diskurses der Moderne und auf das nachidealistische Denken von Feuerbach bis Peirce. Zu den detailreichen Studien über seine Geschichte der Philosophie nimmt zudem Habermas in einer Replik ausführlich Stellung. (shrink)

The immediate source of Grotius’s etiamsi-claim (natural law would be valid even if there were no God or human affairs were no concern for him) has never been convincingly identified. This paper argues that Grotius’s formulation of the claim derives from a very similar sentence of Bartolomé de Medina (1527–1580), a Spanish scholastic and eminent member of the School of Salamanca, whose work Grotius quotes in De iure belli ac pacis. Medina ascribes the sentence to Seneca, but there is apparently (...) no such proposition in Seneca’s extant works. Nevertheless, related propositions were attributed to Seneca in the medieval period, not least in sermons and pastoral writings, even in vernacular languages. This shows that, even outside academic debates, counterfactual reasoning involving God’s non-existence or indifference to human affairs was not considered illicit or dangerous in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

The habit of separating the intuitive from the abstractive functions, as they were called in the Middle Ages, goes far back in our tradition. Descartes, in the sixth Meditation, defined man as "a thing that thinks," to which reasoning came naturally; whereas imagining, the activity of the senses, required a special effort and was in no way necessary to the human nature or essence. The passive ability to receive images of sensory things, said Descartes, would be useless if there did (...) not exist in the mind a further and higher active faculty capable of shaping these images and of correcting the errors that derive from sensory experience. A century later Leibnitz spoke of two levels of clear cognition.1 Reasoning was cognition of the higher degree: it was distinct, that is, it could analyze things into their components. Sensory experience, on the other hand, was cognition of the lower order: it also could be clear but it was confused, in the original Latin sense of the term; that is, all elements fused and mingled together in an indivisible whole. Thus artists, who rely on this inferior faculty, are good judges of works of art but when asked what is wrong with a particular piece that displeases them can only reply that it lacks nescio quid, a certain "I don't know what." · 1. Leibnitz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain , bk. 2, chap. 29. Rudolf Arnheim is the author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Toward a Psychology of Art, The Dynamics of Architectural Form, and Visual Thinking. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On the Nature of Photography" and "A Stricture on Space and Time". (shrink)

"O fim do direito é a paz, e o meio para atingi-lo é a luta. Enquanto o direito precisar estar pronto ante a agressão da injustiça, o que ocorrerá enquanto existir o mundo, não poderá ele poupar se da luta. A vida do direito é luta, uma luta dos povos, do poder do estado, das classes, dos indivíduos." O jurista Rudolf von Ihering expõe neste livro de 1872 sua ideia de que o direito não é cedido ao povo naturalmente, (...) mas sim que deve haver uma luta social para conquistá-lo. O autor expressa que o processo é de fato difícil e doloroso, contudo é justamente essa dor que desenvolve uma ligação mais forte e perene entre o Direito conquistado e o povo que sangrou para conquistá-lo. E vai além: essa luta seria não apenas um dever moral do indivíduo para consigo mesmo como também um dever cívico dele para com a sociedade. A luta pelo Direito tece críticas a todos os que sacrificam seus direitos individuais em nome de uma paz pessoal, e reafirma o poder e o dever de cada um perante a coletividade. Obra fundamental em tempos de mudanças sociais e jurídicas tão profundas. (shrink)

Starting with the analysis of the diary kept by Constantijn Huygens Jr in the second half of the 17th century, this book sketches a panoramic view of life among Dutch regents and at the court of William and Mary, including an eyewitness account of the Glorious Revolution, and highlighting themes such as scientific progress, book and art collecting.

Excerpt from Thomas von Aquino und Kant: Ein Kampf Zweier Welten Der freundlichen Anregung der Redaktion der, Kantstudien," den in dieser Zeitschrift (Jahrg. 1901) veroffentlichten Auf Satz auch im Sonderabdruck erscheinen Zu lassen, habe ich gern Folge geleistet. Denn so sehr ich mir des aphioristischeii Charakters jenes Aufsatzes bewusst bin, er behandelt Probleme. deren Bedeutung uber die Gelehrtenkreise hinaus in das all gemeine Leben reicht, und er sucht bei diesen Problemen die grossen Gegensatze moglichst einfach herauszuheben, zwischen denen die geistige (...) Bewegung der Gegenwart verlauft. Bei diesen Lebens und wesensfragen kann alle Verdunklung, alle Abschwachiiiig nur schaden; mochte die kleine Arbeit ein wenig dazu beitragen, die Notwendigkeit einer klaren und kraftigen Entscheidung Zu deutlicherem Bewusstsein zu bringen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)