ROLF KÜHN, Jean Reaidy, Michel Henry, la passion de naître : méditations phénoménologiques sur la naissance; SEBASTIAN KNÖPKER Rolf Kühn, Praxis der Phänomenologie: Einübungen ins Unvordenkliche; EVELINE CIOFLEC, Chan-fai Cheung, Kairos: Phenomenology and Photography; DENISA BUTNARU, Hisashi Nasu, Lester Embree, George Psathas, Ilja Srubar, Alfred Schutz and His Intellectual Partners; ȘTEFAN NICOLAE, Martin Endreß, Alfred Schütz; ȘTEFAN NICOLAE, Schutzian Research. A Yearbook of Lifewordly Phenomenology and Qualitative Social Science, Vol. 1/2009; BENCE MAROSAN, Csaba Olay, Hans-Georg Gadamer: Phänomenologie der ungegenständlichen (...) Zusammenhänge; ADRIAN NIȚĂ, François Jaran, La métaphysique du Dasein. Heidegger et la possibilité de la métaphysique. (shrink)

The 2018 eligibility regulation for female competitors with differences of sexual development (DSD) issued by World Athletics requires competitors with DSD with blood testosterone levels at or above 5 nmol/L and sufficient androgen sensitivity to be excluded from competition in certain events unless they reduce the level of testosterone in their blood. This paper formalises and then critically assesses the fairness-based argument offered in support of this regulation by the federation. It argues that it is unclear how the biological advantage (...) singled out by the regulation as an appropriate target for diminishment, is relevantly different from other biological advantages that athletes may enjoy, and specifically that Sigmund Loland’s recent attempt to drive a wedge between heightened levels of blood testosterone and other biological advantages fails. The paper also suggests that even if heightened blood testosterone levels do differ relevantly from other types of biological advantage, the regulation is further challenged by studies indicating that athletes with blood testosterone at the high end of the normal range have a competitive advantage over athletes with blood testosterone levels at the low end of it. Finally, the paper contends that the premises of the fairness-based argument do not unequivocally support the conclusion that DSD athletes with heightened levels of testosterone should diminish those levels, since, just as powerfully, they support allowing athletes with normal levels of testosterone to use performance-enhancing drugs in the name of fairness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, DavosSebastian LuftPeter E. Gordon. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 448. Cloth, $39.95.Much ink has been spilled on the dispute between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger that took place in the Swiss resort town Davos in 1929—famous since Thomas Mann staged his Magic Mountain there—and which has since been referred to as the “Davos Dispute.” While the debate (...) itself and accounts accompanying it have been widely known to historians [End Page 508] of philosophy, Harvard historian Peter E. Gordon shows in this marvelous new book how memory has shaped the event into something much larger than anyone could have foreseen. It is, Gordon claims, the silent work of memory that has made this debate, rather innocuous at the time, into what can be retrospectively be considered the truly earth-shattering philosophical event of the twentieth century.In hindsight, the symbolism of the debate between a German who became a leading Nazi philosopher in 1933 and a Jew who, in the same year, was dismissed from his professorship and forced to flee Germany, could not be greater. It only grows if one connects the historic events with their respective philosophies: on the one side the liberal modern Cassirer, whose philosophy allegedly glorified the Weimar stalemate, and on the other side the radical Heidegger, whose call for “authentic existence” took on a bone-chilling reality as he embraced Hitler in 1933 as the führer to lead Germany back to its authentic roots.Two volumes—the 1999 collection, 70 Jahre Davoser Disputation, edited by E. Rudolph and D. Kaegi, and, in 2000, A Parting of the Ways by Michael Friedman—were the first to delve into the debate’s symbolic meaning. It was Friedman’s thesis that the fateful “parting of the ways” between Continental and Analytic philosophy could be traced to this meeting, which was also attended by Rudolf Carnap. Despite these studies, there has until now not been a comprehensive treatment that pulls together all threads into one narrative, covering the entire intellectual, historical, cultural, and philosophical landscape of the time. Gordon’s book achieves just that and will be, for years to come, the landmark work on this encounter.The book begins from the background in post-World War I philosophy in Germany, which was perceived, along with culture, as being in crisis (ch. 1), to “set the stage” on the “Magic Mountain” (ch. 2). It proceeds to summarize the individual lectures by Cassirer and Heidegger, giving a detailed interpretation of the protocol prepared by students of the interlocutors (chs. 3–4). The author then takes a deep breath in chapter 5 to place the debate in the larger context of Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies. But the story does not end there, as chapter 6 examines the relation between both thinkers after the debate. Finally, in chapter 7, Gordon assesses the newer debates concerning this dispute up to the debate between Bourdieu and Habermas concerning Heidegger’s Nazi involvement, though it does not re-engage with Friedman’s thesis, as might have been desired.Regarding his interpretation, Gordon juxtaposes Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s philosophies along the Kantian distinction between spontaneity and receptivity, where both paradigms make different claims on the “normative image of humanity” (5 ff.). Whether humanity is interpreted as spontaneous and world-creating, in optimistic Enlightenment terms (Cassirer), or as receptive and open to the world, i.e. as the “shepherd” rather than the “lord of being” (Heidegger), both are answering the fourth of Kant’s questions, “What is man?” While this distinction is useful for understanding the basic relation between them, it is also—as the author would concede—somewhat too coarse to do justice to their mutual differences and commonalities. Were one to assert a systematic critique, Gordon does not really make up his mind as to the true significance of these paradigms: are they mutually exclusive oppositions or, as he implies elsewhere, two alternative versions of philosophical modernism with a common ground? There is evidence for both readings. This question, however, is for the philosopher to answer—the philosopher who wants to push... (shrink)

The debate between critics of syntactic and semantic approaches to the formalization of scientific theories has been going on for over 50 years. I structure the debate in light of a recent exchange between Hans Halvorson, Clark Glymour, and Bas van Fraassen and argue that the only remaining disagreement concerns the alleged difference in the dependence of syntactic and semantic approaches on languages of predicate logic. This difference turns out to be illusory.

Why do we seek out and enjoy uncertain success in playing games? Game designers and researchers suggest that games whose challenges match player skills afford engaging experiences of achievement, competence, or effectance—ofdoing well. Yet, current models struggle to explain why such balanced challenges best afford these experiences and do not straightforwardly account for the appeal of high- and low-challenge game genres like Idle and Soulslike games. In this article, we show that Predictive Processing (PP) provides a coherent formal cognitive framework (...) which can explain the fun in tackling game challenges with uncertain success as the dynamic process of reducing uncertainty surprisingly efficiently. In gameplay as elsewhere, people enjoydoing better than expected, which can track learning progress. In different forms, balanced, Idle, and Soulslike games alike afford regular accelerations of uncertainty reduction. We argue that this model also aligns with a popular practitioner model, Raph Koster’sTheory of Fun for Game Design, and can unify currently differentially modelled gameplay motives around competence and curiosity. (shrink)

In a reconstruction of the theories of Freud and Klein, Sebastian Gardner asks: what causes irrationality, what must the mind be like for it to be irrational, to what extent does irrationality involve self-awareness, and what is the point of irrationality? Arguing that psychoanalytic theory provides the most penetrating answers to these questions, he rejects the widespread view of the unconscious as a 'second mind', in favour of a view of it as a source of inherently irrational desires seeking (...) expression through wish-fulfilment and phantasy. He meets scepticism about psychoanalytic explanation by exhibiting its continuity with everyday psychology. (shrink)

This article describes a process of developing, implementing and evaluating a clinical ethics support service intervention with the goal of building up a context-sensitive structure of minimal clinical-ethics in an oncology department without prior clinical ethics structure. Scholars from different disciplines have called for an improvement in the evaluation of clinical ethics support services for different reasons over several decades. However, while a lot has been said about the concepts and methodological challenges of evaluating CESS up to the present time, (...) relatively few empirical studies have been carried out. The aim of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it describes a process of development, modifying and evaluating a CESS intervention as part of the ETHICO research project, using the approach of qualitative-formative evaluation. On the other hand, it provides a methodological analysis which specifies the contribution of qualitative empirical methods to the evaluation of CESS. We conclude with a consideration of the strengths and limitations of qualitative evaluation research with regards to the evaluation and development of context sensitive CESS. We further discuss our own approach in contrast to rather traditional consult or committee models. (shrink)

Autor omawia ontologię polityczną współczesnego anarchizmu, nawiązujący przy tym do klasycznego anarchizmu oraz do myślicieli postanarchizmu, w szczególności do Saula Newmana. Wskazuje przy tym, jak współcześni filozofowie związani z postanarchizmem pracują nad statyczną ontologią polityczna anarchizmu poprzez myśl poststrukturalną oraz jak za pomocą współczesnych pojęć filozoficznych dekonstruują oświeceniowe podstawy anarchizmu. Zamiarem tekstu jest wskazanie nie tylko na różnice pomiędzy anarchizmem a postanarchizmem, ale raczej dostrzeżenie pomiędzy nimi silnej zależności. Tekst stanowi przegląd i omówienie koncpecji postanarchizmu w kontekście ontologii politycznej, współczesnej (...) filozofii politycznej oraz historii idei. (shrink)

Observations of ultrafast cognition in human performance challenge intuitive information processing and computation metaphors of cognitive processing. Instances of ultrafast cognition are marked by ultrafast response times of reliable, accurate responses to a relatively complex stimulus. Ultrafast means response times that are as fast as a single feedforward burst of activity across the nervous system connecting eye to hand. Thus the information processing and computation metaphors in question are those in which some amount of time is required to decide and (...) initiate a response, over and above the minimum time required, physiologically, for the eye-hand chain of action potentials—these are metaphors in which the brain does work that has a measurable duration in time. Ultrafast cognition can be explained by synergies spanning the mind and body. Synergies are temporary dynamical structures that anticipate context-appropriate behaviour. An anticipatory state poises the mind and body in symmetry among equivalent options for behaviour, and only a minimal change in context, favouring one option over any other, is sufficient to break symmetry and enact an ultrafast cognitive response. (shrink)

Die öffentliche Diskussion um die „personalisierte Medizin“ legt nahe, dass mit diesem medizinischen Ansatz hohe Erwartungen an einen Beitrag zur klinischen Versorgung verbunden werden. Über die Wahrnehmungen und Bewertungen klinisch tätiger Ärzte ist jedoch wenig bekannt. Die vorliegende qualitative Interviewstudie gibt einen Einblick bezüglich des Einflusses „personalisierter Medizin“ auf die klinische Praxis aus ärztlicher Perspektive. Die Ärzte im vorliegenden Sample nehmen „personalisierte Medizin“ zwar als einen medizinischen Fortschritt wahr, sehen allerdings keine grundsätzliche Veränderung der bisherigen medizinischen Praxis. Als zentrales Problem (...) wird die Handhabung und Verwertung von molekulargenetischen Informationen für Diagnose und Therapie in der klinischen Praxis thematisiert. In Anbetracht der Ergebnisse muss infrage gestellt werden, ob „personalisierte Medizin“ nicht das Gegenteil von dem, was ihr Name nahe legt – eine personenorientiertere Medizin – bewirkt. Die Strategien im Umgang mit den Informationsmassen produzieren selbst neue Herausforderungen, die ein Hindernis für eine personenorientierte Medizin darstellen könnten. (shrink)

The 'late' Foucault and his purported 'return to the subject' is a much discussed issue. Over the past twenty years, various suggestions have been made as to how to integrate Foucault's ethics into his oeuvre as a whole. This paper holds that there is a 'conceptual continuity', rather than a break, between Foucault's earlier works on normalizing power, and his later works on ethical self-constitution. On the basis of a conceptual framework, which is developed in Section II, a reading of (...) two themes concerning certain practices of the self is offered in the following sections (namely, dietetics and spiritual guidance). The material, drawn from the recently published lecture series L'herméneutique du sujet as well as from other published works, is related back to Foucault's ideas on the process of 'subjectivation', in order to support the claim that 'fabrication' and 'self-constitution' are but two aspects of subjectivation. Keywords: late Foucault, ethics, practices of the self, self-constitution, discipline, power, surveillance, spiritual guidance, meditation, parrhesia, dietetics, art of living, aesthetics of existence, return of the subject, subjectivation, relation to self. (shrink)

A relatively detailed review (~ 4000 words) of Christopher Mole's (2010) book "Attention is Cognitive Unison". I suggest that Mole makes a good case against many types of reductivist accounts of attention, using the right kind of methodology. Yet, I argue that his adverbialist theory is not the best articulation of the crucial anti-reductivist insight. The distinction between adverbial and process-first phenomena he draws remains unclear, anti-reductivist process theories can escapte his arguments, and finally I provide an argument for why (...) no personal level adverbialism can provide a complete and unified theory of attention. Despite my disagreements, I have learned a lot from engaging with Mole's book. It's a central contribution to the new philosophical literature on attention. (shrink)

This contribution examines the media history of swarm research and the significance of swarming techniques to current socio-technological processes. It explores how the procedures of swarm intelligence should be understood in relation to the concept of cultural techniques. This brings the concept into proximity with recent debates in posthuman (media) theory, animal studies and software studies. Swarms are conceptualized as zootechnologies that resist methods of analytical investigation. Synthetic swarms first emerged as operational collective structures by means of the reciprocal computerization (...) of biology and biologization of computer science. In a recursive loop, swarms inspired agent-based modelling, which in turn provided biological researchers with enduring knowledge about dynamic collectives. This conglomerate led to the development of advanced, software-based ‘particle systems’. Swarm intelligence has become a fundamental cultural technique related to dynamic processes and an effective metaphor for the collaborative efforts of society. (shrink)

In this article, we present two accounts of intersubjectivity in Jaspers and Husserl, respectively. We argue that both can be brought together for a more satisfying account of empathy and communication in the context of psychiatric praxis. But while we restrict ourselves for the most part to this praxis, we also indicate the larger agenda that drives Jaspers and Husserl, despite all disagreement. Here we spell out, in particular, how a phenomenologically inspired account of empathy and intersubjectivity can have larger (...) ramifications for a theory of social life and interaction. Finally, we argue for a ‘relaxed' view concerning the relation between pure and applied phenomenology, such that both can mutually benefit from one another. (shrink)

The extent to which philosophy and theology not only belong together, but also can be identified is one of the main problems in mediaeval philosophy. Out of this arises also the conflict of a supposedly free philosophy with the institutionalized theology administered by the Roman Catholic church. Here the thesis is argued that piety must be seen as the true cause of what is incompatible with philosophy – namely piety in the sense of a spiritual method concerning the possibility of (...) cognition. With the help of different positions of Duns Scotus it will be shown that piety, if there is such, posseses no relation to philosophy and that Scotus’ contribution – which was to save the unity of theological and philosophical thought through a rational foundation of the individual intelligible – can be seen as even excluding spiritual piety. (shrink)

This essay attempts a renewed, critical exposition of Husserl’s theory of the phenomenological reduction, incorporating manuscript material that has been published since the defining essays of the first generation of Husserl research. The discussion focuses on points that remain especially crucial, i. e. the concept of the natural attitude, the ways into the reduction, and the question of the “meaning of the reduction”. The reading attempted here leads to two, not necessarily related, focal points: a Cartesian and a Life-world tendency. (...) In following these two paths, Husserl was consistent in pursuing two evident leads in his philosophical enterprise; however, he was at the same time unable to systematically unify these two strands. Thus, I am offering an interpretation which might be called a modified “departure from Cartesianism” reading that Landgrebe proposed in his famous essay from the nineteen-fifties. This discussion should make apparent that Husserl’s theory of the phenomenological reduction deserves a renewed look in light of material that has since appeared in the Husserliana and by incorporating the most important results of recent tendencies in Husserl research. (shrink)

The last technological developments have introduced in life of human beans a enormous amount of hardware’s, communication systems, informatic systems. But it has brought too a multiplicity of images, objects and sensitive experiences that has a direct effect in social life. It can be said that this amount of present elements deserve to be subject of analysis, to tray to clarify the nature of informatic technology and its political impact. That means that far over history of scientific developments, its is (...) precise to take on a critic task of the paper that fulfils the informatic technique in different levels in society (moral, social and economics), but after all the paper that plays in the way that we perceive the World. For that, we treat some of the technological developments related with virtual reality; then, we handle the concept of simulation, and finally, we establish the distinction between reality and virtuality. (shrink)

The continuous substantial and flexible material support of the bankers Joseph and Alexander Mendelssohn were of essential importance for Alexander von Humboldt's outstanding scientific expeditions and his work as a publicist, coordinator and supporter of fellow scientist and scientific projects in Berlin for decades. New sources present this support of Humboldt by the Mendelssohns in all its depth and variety. At the same time, the enduring funding of one of Prussia's most important Bildungsbürger clearly illustrates that the business policy of (...) the Mendelssohn bankers was based on a canon of values in which the acceptance of responsibility in different fields of society were of equal importance as pure economic success. (shrink)