ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag baut auf Niklas Luhmanns Unterscheidung zwischen verschiedenen Typen sozialer Systeme auf, nämlich Interaktionen, Organisationen und einer durch funktionale Teilsysteme strukturierten Gesellschaft. Auf dieser Basis wird der Fall zweier Schüler in einer Schweizer Sekundarschule analysiert, die ihren Lehrerinnen mit religiöser Begründung den Handschlag verweigerten. Gezeigt wird, wie dieses Ereignis von verschiedenen Systemtypen als Problem bearbeitet und jeweils unterschiedlich beobachtet wurde, wobei speziell auch die Frage nach dem Stellenwert des Teilsystems Religion gestellt wird. Insbesondere der Zeitbedarf und der Stellenwert schriftlicher (...) Kommunikation der verschiedenen Systeme erweisen sich als Faktoren, über die sich die unterschiedliche Rolle verschiedener Systemtypen in der Affäre verstehen lässt. Religion beeinflusste zunächst zwar die Interaktion im Klassenzimmer, schließlich fungierte sie aber eher als Thema von Recht, Politik und Massenmedien, als dass sich religiöse Kommunikation über den ursprünglichen Interaktionszusammenhang hinaus als einflussreich erwiesen hätte. (shrink)

Essays cover Marx, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, Louis Althusser, Jurgen Habermas, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier.

With his writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, ideology, and religion, Paul Ricoeur has single-handedly redefined and revitalized the hermeneutic tradition. From Text to Action is an essential companion to the now classic The Conflict of Interpretations. Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its own philosophical background: Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K.O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own (...) theorization of ideology to their version of ideology critique. (shrink)

« La médecine reste en quête d’une épistémologie propre, car l’opposition entre science des maladies et art de soigner ne parvient pas à rendre compte de l’unité d’une pratique. Cette épistémologie peut être dégagée en ressaisissant ce qui se produit dans la clinique, véritable laboratoire de la médecine : lieu de son effectuation et lieu de son élaboration, où l’expérience vécue et l’expérience acquise fournissent les coordonnées d’une expérimentation. La clinique a un point de départ : la demande d’un malade (...) en proie à une intrication symptomatique maladive qui convoque le corps mais aussi le langage, et dont le médecin fait cas. La complexion symptomatique fait l’objet d’une analyse critique (diagnostic) qui débouche sur la détermination d’une thérapie. La clinique est alors une technique productive de remédiations diverses qui mobilise un ensemble hétéroclite de savoirs et de facultés pour trouver des solutions aux problèmes concrets des individus qui s’adressent à elle. Quand bien même la clinique importe pour son usage des biotechnologies et des algorithmes, elle reste incertaine et conjecturale car individuée. Si bien qu’en son cœur, la pratique médicale garde des allures infra-techniques, mobilisant des esthésies, une praxis, une sagacité pratique. Cette hétérogénéité épistémologique est la seule qui soit adéquate à son objet. ». (shrink)

This article offers an encompassing interpretation of Paul Ricœur’s reception of Max Weber’s sociology. Three main domains in which Ricœur redeployed and revised insights from Weber are examined: political responsibility and the definition of the state, significant categories for understanding social interaction and the social ontology implied by this view on action and, finally, the role of explanation in the interpretive social sciences. As a whole, this article argues that Weber was a significant interlocutor of Ricœur on (...) a number of significant themes in the philosopher’s work. In particular, the article profiles the Weberian aspect of Ricœur’s social and political philosophy. (shrink)

Dans l’œuvre de Max Weber, la sexualité renferme un vaste monde d’oppositions : entre le champ du conscient et celui de l’inconscient ; au sein du monde de l’éthique, quand la religion judaïque s’élève contre la débauche des sens et le polythéisme ; au cœur de l’économie capitaliste, quand la passion des amants ravage tout jusqu’à la « communauté des frères ». Cependant, faute de représenter un fait social, elle ne fait pas l’objet d’une théorisation de la part de (...) Max Weber qui en marque la limite en la bordant d’un côté par le champ de l’instinct, qui ne relève pas de la compréhension, et de l’autre par le solipsisme des amants, qui ouvre sur la mort. (shrink)

De plus en plus procédurale, normée et digitalisée, la société contemporaine est en voie de pétrification du point de vue de l'action, de la parole et de la pensée. Pour tenter d'y remédier, cet essai invite à recourir à l'imagination, en s'appuyant sur la philosophie développée sur ce thème par Paul Ricœur. Après en avoir présenté les grandes articulations, l'auteur met en lumière les perspectives ouvertes par Ricœur en introduisant l'imagination comme ressource anthropologique fondamentale. Il le fait sous la forme (...) de mises en dialogue entre Ricœur et un autre philosophe - Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Kant, Wittgenstein - ou une tradition philosophique, telles que l'utilitarisme ou le libéralisme politique. En définitive, cette réflexion invite chacun de nous à œuvrer à un climat de confiance qui accrédite l'imagination, les deux étant liés."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a perspective on Ricœur’s ethico-political thought in Course of Recognition and, by extension, on that of his entire work. The point of departure is the hypothesis that Ricœur’s (singular) reading of Weber on political responsibility provides one with an invaluable vantage point from where to identify a recurrent pattern in the French philosopher’s ethico-political thought. After a brief presentation and illustration of this hypothesis a close reading, principally of study III of (...) Course of Recognition, is offered. This reading affirms the hypothesis. It also allows a number of conclusions regarding the continuities, or a trait of ‘narrative identity’ in Ricœur’s ethico-political thought. This in turn enables one to better identify the stakes and objectives of Ricœur’s argument in the selected text and to qualify the relation this may be considered to have to his religious convictions. (shrink)

The conceptual basis of the paper is the difference between two types of responsibi- lity: the agent’s responsibility for his own acts and their effects; a responsibi- lity which is primarily oriented to the Other, about whom one is concerned and for whom one guarantees. The paper deals with this second meaning of responsibility: an imputation of a deed to somebody as its agent. The author explores the origins of the modern concept of imputation, its specific character and effectiveness, as (...) well as its limitations. She focuses on three approaches: those of M. Weber, A. Giuliani and P. Ricœur. Weber’s responsibility means a causal imputation. But it was not Weber, who introduced this way of defining the act’s ethical value. Giuliani shows, how the theological concept of imputation is related to its later laicization in the theory of natural law. Ricœur argues that the real history of responsibility began after responsibility has been separated from the theological context. In conclusion it is showed, that although responsibility rooted in one’s realizing the vulnerability of the Other differs from the responsibility of the agent for his own deeds, these are neither historically, nor theoretically two independent realms. (shrink)

Nietzsche stellt alles in Frage. Sein Denken gehört zu den einschneidenden intellektuellen Erfahrungen der Moderne. Entsprechend vielgestaltig fielen und fallen die Versuche aus, auf dieses Denken und auf die Person dahinter zu reagieren. Was kann von den eigenen Überzeugungen noch bleiben angesichts von Nietzsches Einsicht, dass alle Überzeugungen Gefängnisse sind? Dieses Buch will erschließen, welche Rollen Nietzsche auf so unterschiedlichen Feldern wie der Literatur und der bildenden Kunst oder der Religion und der Politik bis heute spielt. Dazu wird es nötig (...) sein, ein eigenständiges Verständnis seines Denkens zu entwickeln, das sich emanzipiert von den populären Schlagworten, die man mit Nietzsche gemeinhin verbindet, wie „Wille zur Macht“, „Übermensch“ oder „Ewige Wiederkunft des Gleichen“. Das Kaleidoskop seiner Folgen verhilft zu einem neuen Zugang zu Nietzsche selbst – und zur Moderne. Die 2. Auflage wird um den Anhang "Fake Nietzsche. Vom Nutzen und Nachteil falscher Nietzsche-Zitate" sowie ein Personenregister ergänzt. (shrink)

This volume contains the papers read at the conference on 'Semantics from different points of view' that took place at Konstanz University in Septem ber 1978. This interdisciplinary conference Vias organized by the':Sonderfor schungsbereich 99 - Linguistik' and sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsge meinschaft. Li~guists, philosophers, logicians, and psychologists met to dis cuss recent developments in the study of the semantics of natural language from the point of view of their disciplines. But this is not to say that there was (...) one particular topic shared by all the participants. The conference was organized because the seven research groups that constitute the Sonderforschungsbereich wanted to discuss their results in an international context and to get advice and guidance for the work still to be done. Therefore, quite a number of topics were covered, though at different levels of precision, under the general label 'semantics'. And the selection of topics, as well as the relative importance given to them, is due to the research interests currently represented in the Sonderforschungs bereich. (shrink)

This paper provides strong evidence challenging the self-interest assumption that dominates the behavioral sciences and much evolutionary thinking. The evidence indicates that many people have a tendency to voluntarily cooperate, if treated fairly, and to punish noncooperators. We call this behavioral propensity “strong reciprocity” and show empirically that it can lead to almost universal cooperation in circumstances in which purely self-interested behavior would cause a complete breakdown of cooperation. In addition, we show that people are willing to punish those who (...) behaved unfairly towards a third person or who defected in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game with a third person. This suggests that strong reciprocity is a powerful device for the enforcement of social norms involving, for example, food sharing or collective action. Strong reciprocity cannot be rationalized as an adaptive trait by the leading evolutionary theories of human cooperation (in other words, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, and costly signaling theory). However, multilevel selection theories of cultural evolution are consistent with strong reciprocity. (shrink)

Traditionell gelten Fragen der Ernährung nicht als seriöse philosophische Fragen: Dem reinen Geist darf demnach die physische Ernährung des von ihm temporär bewohnten Körpers herzlich gleichgültig sein. Im 18. und im 19. Jahrhundert wandelt sich allerdings das Bild: Mit der Problematisierung des Leib-Seele-Dualismus wird diese Gleichgültigkeit in Ernährungsfragen selbst zweifelhaft. Ludwig Feuerbach und Friedrich Nietzsche benutzen die für Philosophen scheinbar so abseitige Frage nach der Ernährung zu einer gezielten Destabilisierung philosophischer Grundüberzeugungen: Ludwig Feuerbach tut dies, um eine materialistische Ontologie an (...) die Stelle einer idealistischen zu setzen und egalitär-demokratische Folgerungen zu ziehen. Friedrich Nietzsche hingegen stellt Ontologie jedweder Ausrichtung zur Disposition und individualisiert die Ernährungsfrage radikal, um damit ein Exempel seines moral- und seines auto-genealogischen Verfahrens zu geben und zugleich elitäre Selbst-Selektion zu propagieren. Beide Denker reflektieren auf die angemessene Ernährung, um philosophische Wahrheits- und Geltungsansprüche insgesamt zu relativieren. Sie geben Beispiele einer neuen philosophischen Relativierungskunst. (shrink)

The last posthumous manuscripts from 1888 bear witness to an enormous stylistic and intellectual radicalization. The Antichrist purports to be a total "reevaluation of all values." In Ecce homo, Nietzsche explores the genealogy of his own thinking, opening up new dimensions of self-reflection. Nietzsche contra Wagner sums up the many years of Nietzsche's continuing critique of Wagner, while the Dionysian Dithyrambs seek to breathe new life into lyric poetry.

ABSTRACTDo truth tables—the ordinary sort that we use in teaching and explaining basic propositional logic—require an assumption of consistency for their construction? In this essay we show that truth tables can be built in a consistency-independent paraconsistent setting, without any appeal to classical logic. This is evidence for a more general claim—that when we write down the orthodox semantic clauses for a logic, whatever logic we presuppose in the background will be the logic that appears in the foreground. Rather than (...) any one logic being privileged, then, on this count partisans across the logical spectrum are in relatively similar dialectical positions. (shrink)

Although there is a consensus among philosophers of mathematics and mathematicians that mathematical explanations exist, only a few authors have proposed accounts of explanation in mathematics. These accounts fit into the unificationist or top-down approach to explanation. We argue that these models can be complemented by a bottom-up approach to explanation in mathematics. We introduce the mechanistic model of explanation in science and discuss the possibility of using this model in mathematics, arguing that using it does not presuppose a Platonist (...) view of mathematics and allows one to gain insight into why a theorem is true by answering what-if-things-had-been-different questions. (shrink)

In this paper we identify six theses that constitute core results of philosophical investigation into the nature of mechanisms, and of the role that the search for and identification of mechanisms play in the sciences. These theses represent the fruits of the body of research that is now often called New Mechanism. We concisely present the main arguments for these theses. In the literature, these arguments are scattered and often implicit. Our analysis can guide future research in many ways: it (...) provides critics of New Mechanism with clear targets, it can reduce misunderstandings, it can clarify differences of opinion among New Mechanists and it helps to define a research agenda for New Mechanists. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

El autor recoge el tema de la justicia social, a partir de las propuestas de John Rawls, para preguntarse por las consecuencias de la globalización respecto del tema de la justicia. Recoge la pregunta fundamental de Rawls sobre la posibilidad de encontrar principios de justicia universalmente obligatorios; pero releva que su límite son las sociedades democráticas occidentales modernas, y que otros órdenes sociales no encajan, por lo que Rawls no ofrece una teoría universal. Analiza luego otros autores, en especial a (...) Sen, para explorar nuevos fundamentos para una justicia social universal dentro del contexto globalizado. (shrink)

The papers collected in this volume shed light on the question of how linguistic expressions establish reference and anaphoric relations.

Ce livre est la brillante synthèse d'une œuvre qui figure au premier plan de la pensée catholique au XXe siècle. L'élan qui anime tous les écrits de Hans Urs von Balthasar ne s'affirme dans aucun livre mieux que dans cette Théologie de l'histoire. Celle-ci est parfaitement centrée sur le temps du Christ : Dieu toujours présent parmi les hommes. Depuis l'incarnation, l'histoire se déroule dans ce temps nouveau ; il est la norme de l'évolution humaine ; c'est lui qui mesure (...) le cours de l'existence, le progrès vertical et horizontal de l'humanité. Une fresque extraordinaire se déploie sous les yeux du lecteur l'histoire s'intériorise en un destin personnel, la vocation de chacun se situe dans un destin historique universel. Cette vision eschatologique, d'un réalisme éblouissant et pathétique, nous montre que la fin des temps et les temps nouveaux sont déjà commencés. (shrink)

In the current literature on scientific explanation unification became unfashionable in favour of causal approaches. We want to bring unification back into the picture. In this paper we demonstrate that resemblance questions do occur in scientific practice and that they cannot be properly answered without unification. Our examples show that resemblance questions about particular facts demand what we call causal network unification, while resemblance questions about regularities require what we call mechanism unification. We clarify how these types of unification relate (...) to Philip Kitcher’s account, but also to causal and mechanistic accounts of explanation. (shrink)

Casuistry, which involves analogical reasoning, is a popular methodological approach in bioethics. The method has its advantages and challenges, which are widely acknowledged. Meta-philosophical reflection on exactly how bioethical casuistry works and how the challenges can be addressed is limited. In this paper we propose a framework for structuring casuistry and analogical reasoning in bioethics. The framework is developed by incorporating theories and insights from the philosophy of science: Mary Hesse’s ideas on horizontal and vertical relations in analogical reasoning in (...) the sciences, Paul Bartha’s articulation model of analogical reasoning and Daniel Steel’s insights on mechanism-based extrapolation in biomedical research. Adopting our framework results in two practical benefits: it sets methodological standards for analogical reasoning and enables us to compare and evaluate diverging lines of analogical reasoning in a systematic way. Adopting the framework also has theoretical benefits: it helps to understand how analogical reasoning can have moral normativity; it pinpoints exactly where moral principles or theories enter analogical reasoning; and it helps to understand why casuistry is an attractive method in bioethics and in applied ethics more generally. (shrink)