This article investigates the theory of an imperative mandate as presented in the radical French revolutionary Jean-François Varlet’s text Project for a Special and Imperative Mandate from 1792. This text is taken as, and shown to be, representative for a widespread understanding of radical democracy during the French Revolution in which deputies were not understood as ‘representatives’ but as ‘mandataries’ who were legally bound to follow the instructions of their commettants. As an essential part of this radical conception of democracy, (...) social movements were to be constantly mobilized and able to supervise the political system. This entails a shift in the balance of power from the state to the social movements, and as such it expresses a different conception of democracy than that of liberal democracy with its rule of law and state monopoly of violence. (shrink)

Imperial ceremony was a vital form of self-expression for late antique society. Sabine MacCormack examines the ceremonies of imperial arrivals, funerals, and coronations from the late third to the late sixth centuries A.D., as manifest in the official literature and art of the time. Her study offers us new insights into the exercise of power and into the social, political, and cultural significance of religious change during the Christianization of the Roman world.

Theories of practical reason must meet a psychological requirement: they must explain how normative practical reasons can be motivationally efficacious. It would be pointless to claim that we are subject to normative demands of reason, if we were in fact unable to meet those demands. Concerning this requirement to account for the possibility of rational motivation, internalist approaches are distinguished from externalist ones. I defend internalism, whilst rejecting both ways in which the belief‐desire model can be instantiated. Both the Humean (...) and the Kantian instantiation of that model fail to account for the internal connection between normative and motivating reasons required by internalism. The two classes of reasons rather come to be seen as mutually exclusive. Opposing the belief‐desire model, I argue that rational motivation can only be established by reference to emotion. Emotions are affective perceptions. They have motivational force so that they can contribute to the explanation of action. At the same time they can rationalise actions because they have an intentional content which resembles the content of sensory perception in being representational. Because of this, the emotions can noninferentially justify judgements, which in turn can justify actions. I conclude by outlining the Aristotelian account of practical reason and ethics that emerges from integrating the emotions into practical reasoning. Doing the right thing is much more a matter of seeing things right than of drawing the right inferences. Seeing things right, in its turn, is not only to justify an action: it necessarily implies to be motivated to act accordingly. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically review the game-theoretic discussion of Hobbes and to develop a game-theoretic interpretation that gives due attention both to Hobbes's distinction between “moderates” and “dominators” and to what actually initiates conflict in the state of nature, namely, the competition for vital goods. As can be shown, Hobbes's state of nature contains differently structured situations of choice, the game-theoretic representation of which requires the prisoner's dilemma and the assurance game and the so-called assurance dilemma. (...) However, the “state of war” ultimately emerges from situations that cannot be described by any of these games because they represent zero-sum games in which the outcome of mutual cooperation does not exist. (shrink)

I discuss two ways in which emotions explain actions: in the first, the explanation is expressive; in the second, the action is not only explained but also rationalized by the emotion's intentional content. The belief-desire model cannot satisfactorily account for either of these cases. My main purpose is to show that the emotions constitute an irreducible category in the explanation of action, to be understood by analogy with perception. Emotions are affective perceptions. Their affect gives them motivational force, and they (...) can rationalize actions because, like perception, they have a representational intentional content. Because of this, an emotion can non-inferentially justify a belief which in its turn justifies or rationalizes an action; so emotions may constitute a source of moral knowledge. (shrink)

Platons Uberlegungen zur Okonomie verdienen mehr Aufmerksamkeit. Dies zeigt die systematische Untersuchung seiner zentralen Texte. Sie erhellt die allgemeinen Grundlagen von Platons Okonomie sowie die Ansatze seiner Regulierungsvorschlage und zeigt die Verbindung zu modernen wirtschaftstheoretischen Reflexionen uber den homo oeconomicus und die Bedeutung kultureller Faktoren fur das wirtschaftliche Handeln des Individuums. ".

A contrarian scientist wrestles with the big questions that modern physics raises, and what physics says about the human condition Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious (...) is difficult to rule out entirely. According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate. In this lively, thought-provoking book, Hossenfelder takes on the biggest questions in physics: Does the past still exist? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? She lays out how far physicists are on the way to answering these questions, where the current limits are, and what questions might well remain unanswerable forever. Her book offers a no-nonsense yet entertaining take on some of the toughest riddles in existence, and will give the reader a solid grasp on what we know-and what we don't know. (shrink)

Using the example of architecture, this article defends the thesis that designing should not be regarded as a kind of experimenting. This is in contrast to a widespread methodological claim that design processes are equivalent to experimentation processes. The contrary thesis can be proven by focusing on actual practices, techniques and design strategies. Closely connected with the thesis is an even more important epistemological claim, which contends that designing serves not only to develop artefacts but is also a means of (...) acquiring genuine knowledge. When the epistemic relevance of said practices, techniques and strategies is reassessed, designing emerges clearly as an independent epistemic praxis. To defend the thesis, the present article draws on and analyses empirical material from an ethnographic field study in order to back up the conceptual analysis. (shrink)

Beauchamp and Childress have performed a great service by strengthening the principle of respect for the patient's autonomy against the paternalism that dominated medicine until at least the 1970s. Nevertheless, we think that the concept of autonomy should be elaborated further. We suggest such an elaboration built on recent developments within the neurosciences and the free will debate. The reason for this suggestion is at least twofold: First, Beauchamp and Childress neglect some important elements of autonomy. Second, neuroscience itself needs (...) a conceptual apparatus to deal with the neural basis of autonomy for diagnostic purposes. This desideratum is actually increasing because modern therapy options can considerably influence the neural basis of autonomy itself.Sabine MNeuroScienceAndNorms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging at Bonn University Hospital, Germany. Her main research interests are in neuroethics. She is coauthor of three German books about neuroethics and bioethics.Henrik Walter, M.D., Ph.D., is Full Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of Bonn, Germany, and vice-director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Clinic of Bonn. He is author of Neurophilosophy of Free Will and editor of the book From Neuroethics to Neurolaw?. His research fields are biological psychiatry, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, neurophilosophy, and neuroethics. (shrink)

‘Scientific advice to politics’, the ‘nature of expertise’, and the ‘relation between experts, policy makers, and the public’ are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of ‘participation’ (...) and ‘accountability’ has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science – politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?", "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?", "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?" Scientific knowledge and the ‘experts’ that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new régime of governance. (shrink)

The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s conception and critique of sovereignty has won him wide and well-deserved acclamation. In this article, however, it is argued that Agamben’s conception of sovereignty is somewhat misplaced, and, as a consequence, his positive political project of developing a ‘destituent power’ is highly deficient in terms of construing a popular and viable political alternative. The critique of Agamben is developed through a close reading of Aristotle’s Politics and his notion of kurion. It is argued that Agamben’s (...) flawed conception of sovereignty reemerges symptomatically in his extremely problematic reading of Aristotle’s Politics, and that a viable political alternative to both Agamben’s own project and the conception of politics that he criticizes can be developed through an alternative and closer reading of Aristotle. (shrink)

How can we understand the intensifying interactions of science and society? The answers are found in part in the interdisciplinary field called science studies. This field provides us with a rich inventory of analytical approaches. It helps us explore science as a practice, a subsystem, a culture, and an institution. Its observation is that science today is part and parcel of what has come to be known as "knowledge society." Nine exemplary studies that inquire into, or are themselves examples of (...) the dynamics of scientific knowledge are included in this book. They cover issues as diverse as eugenics, climate research, and the role of historiography, and make use of different tools such as evolutionary reasoning, metaphor, and bibliometrics. Finally, they ponder the need for science to go public as well as for society to regulate knowledge and restructure universities as the building blocks of our science system. The message is that science studies can and should assume an active role in observing, reflecting, and communicating the intricate encounters of science and society today. Sabine Maasen teaches sociology at Basel University, Switzerland. Matthias Winterhager is senior researcher and coordinator of bibliometric studies at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany. (shrink)

Intellectual historians have tended to focus on the most radical intellectuals of the counter-revolution such as Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald, but the counter-revolution was an intellectually composite movement with many intellectual currents and ideas. In this article, I shed light on the composite character of the counter-revolution by focusing on one of its most moderate members, the comte de Montlosier. The article presents contextualised analysis of Montlosier’s conception of moderation, his theory of politics, his critique of fellow (...) counter-revolutionaries, and his ideas for a new aristocratic order build on public opinion and separation of powers. I argue that Montlosier’s moderate politics reflected a moderate enlightenment approach to politics, which was neither wholly rationalist nor wholly traditionalist. Rather, it was an attempt to find a middle ground between the two integrating a conservative view of history with a sociological approach to power and politics. I furthermore argue that even if Montlosier was unsuccessful in his endeavours to moderate the counter-revolution, he nonetheless provided a moderate response to it that would become integral to nineteenth-century conservative and liberal ideas. (shrink)

Bezugnahmen sowie das Anknüpfen an Traditionen und Erfahrungen prägen und stützen das menschliche Leben, Verweisen erscheint als kulturelle Standardsituation, als Universalie des Menschseins. Verweisen und Verknüpfen sind keine Errungenschaften der Gegenwart oder einer Neuzeit, sondern sind immer schon mit Wissen und Wissenschaftlichkeit verbunden. Der vorliegende Band widmet sich dieser zentralen Praktik der Ordnung von Wissen und Wissensebenen in der Kultur des Mittelalters. Er fasst die Ergebnisse eines interdisziplinären Austausches an der Herzog August Bibliothek zusammen, der Formen und Spielarten des Verweisens (...) im Bereich der Philosophie, der Literaturwissenschaft, der Kunstgeschichte und der Rechtsgeschichte darlegt und exemplarisch an einzelnen Texten, Artefakten und Wissensbereichen untersucht. Dabei wird das in dem jeweils zugrunde gelegten Untersuchungskorpus textlich erzählte, diskutierte oder ikonographisch bzw. materiell gefasste Wissen dahingehend ausgelotet, wie es auf Traditionen aufbauende sowie neu entwickelte Verweisstrategien aufbereitet, neu strukturiert und wiederverwendbar macht. (shrink)

Science, engineering and technology are still male-dominated fields, and thus all over Europe much effort is expended on activities which, it is hoped, will lead to a sustainable gender balance. Scholarly work has frequently focused on the topic of how to motivate women to enter SET fields or to choose a corresponding education. In contrast to this one-sided approach, recent scholarly contributions have begun to emphasize the vital role of gendered structures and indirect exclusion mechanisms of technological institutions and their (...) professional self-understandings which discourage women from entering or staying in SET organizations. In particular, taken-for-granted knowledge as a mechanism for maintaining specific norms and values is considered a primary hindrance towards more inclusive and less oppressive organizational cultures. Since this taken-for-granted knowledge is often implicit, a primary goal of research can be said to make the invisible visible. Thus this article presents selected empirical results of a research project which makes use of an investigative tool called mind-scripting. Here the aim is to identify the main barriers, in terms of unquestioned taken-for granted knowledge, currently hindering an open and critical review of gendered structures and gender codes in the SET field, or in organizations in general, particularly with respect to professional norms. (shrink)

We critically analyze the rationale of arguments from finetuning and naturalness in particle physics and cosmology, notably the small values of the mass of the Higgs-boson and the cosmological constant. We identify several new reasons why these arguments are not scientifically relevant. Besides laying out why the necessity to define a probability distribution renders arguments from naturalness internally contradictory, it is also explained why it is conceptually questionable to single out assumptions about dimensionless parameters from among a host of other (...) assumptions. Some other numerological coincidences and their problems are also discussed. (shrink)

I argue that, in experiencing a recalcitrant emotion, one does not violate a rational requirement of any sort. Rational requirements, as the expression has come to be used, are requirements of coherence. Accordingly, my argument is that there is nothing incoherent in any way about experiencing a recalcitrant emotion. One becomes incoherent only if one allows the emotion to influence one's reasoning and/or action, in which case one violates the ‘consistency principle’ and/or the ‘enkratic principle’. From the standpoint of rationality, (...) it would even be counterproductive to put subjects under the obligation that their emotional experiences and their evaluative judgements must always fit together. When we nevertheless intuitively sense that the subject is irrational in experiencing a recalcitrant emotion this is in cases in which the emotion challenges the subject's agential identity. However, emotions can, but need not, challenge one's agential identity, and, furthermore, perceptions can do so as well. In any case, challenges of this kind do not involve the violation of a rational requirement. (shrink)

Since industrial trade fair Hannover Messe 2011, the term “Industrie 4.0” has ignited a vision of a new Industrial Revolution and has been inspiring a lively, ongoing debate among the German public about the future of work, and hence society, ever since. The discourse around this vision of the future eventually spread to other countries, with public awareness reaching a temporary peak in 2016 when the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos was held with the motto “Mastering the Fourth Industrial (...) Revolution.” How is it possible for a vision originally established by three German engineers to unfold and bear fruit at a global level in such a short period of time? This article begins with a summary of the key ideas that are discussed under the label Industrie 4.0. The main purpose, based on an in-depth discourse analysis, is to debunk the myth about the origin of this powerful vision and to trace the narrative back to the global economic crisis in 2009 and thus to the real actors, central discourse patterns, and hidden intentions of this vision of a new Industrial Revolution. In conclusion, the discourse analysis reveals that this is not a case of visioneering but one of a future told, tamed, and traded. (shrink)

Experiences of contact with nature in school education might be beneficial for promoting ecological lifestyles and the wellbeing of children, families, and teachers. Many theories and empirical evidence on restorative environments, as well as on the foundations of classical pedagogical approaches, recognize the value of the direct experience with natural elements, and the related psychological and educational outcomes. In this work we present two studies focusing on the contact with nature in outdoor education interventions with primary and secondary school students (...) in Italy. A questionnaire measuring connectedness to nature, psycho-physical wellbeing, pro-environmental attitudes, students’ life satisfaction, pro-social behavior, empathy and anxiety was completed before and after the education program by the participants to the intervention group and by students of a control group. The students in the intervention groups participated in environmental education programs consisting in guided activities in contact with the nature during four visits in one of two natural protected areas. The students in the control groups attended the same schools as the intervention group but they were not involved in the environmental education program. The students in both the groups completed the questionnaire in the same weeks of the year. Findings show that taking part to the outdoor education program has positive outcomes on psycho-physical wellbeing, on connectedness to nature and on pro-social behavior of students in the intervention group, compared to the control group. The implications related to the effectiveness of outdoor education interventions and future directions of research and practice in environmental psychology and education are discussed. (shrink)

Denne artikel diskuterer de politiske idéer, som lå til grund for den radikale strøm- ning i Den Franske Revolution. Gennem kontekstualiserede læsninger af Elysée Loustallot, François Robert og Jean Varlet viser jeg, hvorledes franske revolutionære gradvist udviklede en teori om semi-direkte demokrati. Denne teori blev udviklet på baggrund af konkrete erfaringer i Paris’ lokalforsamlinger, klubber og borgermi- lits, men trak også på idéer – dog ikke ukritisk – fra tænkere som eksempelvis Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Fokus var på at udvikle en (...) teori og praksis om folkesuverænitet, hvori almindelige mennesker ville have den størst mulige grad af indflydelse og kontrol. Den lovgivende magt skulle udøves i netværk af lokalforsamlinger, politiet skulle være en demokratisk kontrolleret borgermilits, og Frankrig skulle regeres gennem imperativmandater, der ville tillade lokale forsamlinger at kontrollere den nationale regering. Som jeg viser, var denne radikale republikanisme ikke modstan- der af repræsentation, men i modsætning til et liberalt begreb om parlamentarisk repræsentation gennem nationale valg var fokus her på semi-direkte demokratiske modeller, der sikrede folkets aktive deltagelse. (shrink)

Much in contemporary metaethics revolves around the two positions known as ‘motivational internalism’ and the ‘Humean theory of motivation’. The importance of these positions is mostly due to their role in what is considered to be the most powerful argument for metaethical non-cognitivism: the so-called ‘motivation argument’. In my paper, I want to argue that widely accepted renditions of the MA, such as the rendition recently forwarded by Russ Shafer-Landau, are flawed in two senses. First, they fail to sufficiently distinguish (...) between conceptual claims and empirical psychological claims, thereby somewhat obscuring the status of the argument and its conclusion. Secondly, they start from definitions of motivational internalism that are, in crucial respects, too strong. Motivational internalism is usually formulated as the claim that moral judgements necessarily motivate; as I want to argue, however, the claim that moral judgements potentially motivate is all the motivational internalism a noncognitivist defender of the MA is ever going to need. (shrink)