Suchergebnisse

Many normative theorists have advocated constructivism as a way of overcoming skepticism and nihilism. They have produced three types of constructivism that correspond to three conceptions of rationality: formal (Hare and Gewirth), instrumental (Gauthier), and ideal (Rawls). In this book, T.K. Seung examines these three types and vindicates Rawls' claim that only the constructivism of ideal rationality - which accepts Kantiam ideals as its basis - is viable. Unlike Rawls, however, Seung traces Kantian ideas to Platonic forms. Without this Platonic move, he shows, ideal constructivism cannot avoid collapsing to normative positivism. Seung maintains that Platonic forms are the obects of normative intuition and that they are only schematic ideas and principles that must be articulated into a system of concrete normative standards. This process of articulation is normative construction. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that constructivism and intuitionism are in competition with each other, Seung demonstrates the necessity of their natural dependence. That is, their happy union alone can provide a secure foundation for normative theories and save them from the twin evils of scepticism and nihilism

This book contains seminal discussions of central issues in the philosophy of language, mathematics, mind, religion and time. Is common language conceptually prior to idiolectics? What is a theory of meaning? Does constructivism provide a satisfactory account of mathematics? What are indefinitely extensible concepts? Can we change the past? These are only some of the very important questions addressed here. Both the papers written by the contributors and Dummett's replies provide a great wealth of stimulating ideas for those who currently do research in the respective areas touched upon without making the reading exceedingly tedious. This feature, common to most of the papers in this book, makes it possible to use the material presented in undergraduate courses at university level

I: Fundamentals of Moral Action -- Empirical and Intelligible Character in the Critique of Pure Reason -- Morality as Freedom -- On the Formalism of Kant's Ethics -- Agency and Anthropology in Kant's Groundwork -- The Submission of our Sensuous Nature to the Moral Law in the Second Critique -- II: Moral Practice and Knowledge -- Theory as Practice in Kant -- Autonomy, Omniscience and the Ethical Imagination: From Theoretical to Practical Philosophy in Kant -- The Interests of Reason: From Metaphysics to Moral History -- III: From Morality to Justice and History -- Kant's Principle of Justice as Categorical Imperative of Law -- Histoire et Guerre chez Kant -- Freedom as a Regulative Principle: On Some Aspects of the Kant-Herder Controversy on the Philosophy of History -- IV: Kant in Contemporary Contexts -- How Kantian is Rawls's "Kantian Constructivism"? -- The Ideal Speech Situation: Neo-Kantian Ethics in Habermas and Apel -- Kant: Respect, Individuality and Dependence.

Selforganization — the Convergence of Ideas. An Introduction -- I. Epistemological Foundations -- Science and Daily Life: The Ontology of Scientific Explanations -- Self-Organization, Emergent Properties and the Unity of the World -- On a Fundamental Paradigm Shift in the Natural Sciences -- The Cognitive Program of Constructivism and a Reality that Remains Unknown -- II. Selfreference and Selfregulation in Social Systems -- How the Law Thinks: Toward a Constructivist Epistemology of Law -- Self-Regulation in Social Systems -- Systemic Therapy — A Particular Drift Between Systems Theory and Psychotherapy -- Literary Systems as Self-organizing Systems -- Chekhov's Letter: Linguistic System and its Discontents -- III. The Appearance of Structure -- Concepts of Self-Organization in the 19th Century -- Cognitive Systems as Self-Organizing Systems -- IV. The Selforganization of Science -- Self-Organization and Autopoiesis in the Development of Modern Science -- The Selforganization of Science — Outline of a Theoretical Model -- Actor-Networks versus Science as Self-Organizing System: A Comperative View of two Constructivist Approaches -- Self-Organization and New Social Movements -- Person Index.

About the Origins of this Volume -- Section 1: Culture-Specific Psychosomatic Paradigms -- Are functional syndromes culture-bound? -- The Medical Anthropology of Viktor von Weizsäcker in the Present Clinical Context of Heidelberg -- Ethnomedical Fundaments in the Work of Viktor von Weizsäcker -- Phenomenology of the Body: The Subject-Object Problem in Psychosomatic Medicine and the Role of traditional Medical Systems herein -- Memory within the Body: Women's Narrative and Identity in a Southern Italian Village -- Section 2: Sociosomatics and Ethnicity -- The Symbolic and the Physiological: Epigastric Patients in Family Medicine in Flanders -- Nerves and Nostalgia: Greek-Canadian Immigrants and Medical Care in Québec -- The Development and Change of Health Research among Migrant Workers in West-Germany: Ideologies and Practice between 1956 and 1986 -- Section 3: Local Cultures of Biomedicine -- The Practice of Biomedicine and the Discourse on Hope: A Preliminary Investigation into the Culture of American Oncology -- Culture, Cancer, and Communication in Italy -- Images and Interpretations of Severe Illness: Ethnological Aspects of Dealing with Cancer -- Emil Kraepelin and the Origins of American Psychiatric Diagnosis -- Section 4: From Patients' Complaints to Cultural Narrative -- The Love-Lorn Consumptive: South Asian Ethnography and the Psychosomatic Paradigm -- Traditional European and Chinese Definitions of Illness and Medical Practice -- Section 5: Medical Systems and Cultural Change: An Analysis of Facts and Theories -- The Hierarchies of Medicines: A Contextual Analysis of Schismogenic Processes -- Cultural Constructivism: Sickness Histories and the Understanding of Ethnomedicines beyond Critical Medical Anthropologies -- Holistic Health and a Changing Western World View -- List of Contributors.