Nanomaterials and the Precautionary Principle in the EU

This article focuses on the risks of nanomaterials and nanotechnologies, and the challenges they pose to European consumer law. These risks are exemplary for the sociological phenomenon of modern risk society, living under the condition of uncertainty with regard to the likelihood and the extent of possible negative effects. Generally, in law important functions in risk societies are fulfilled by the precautionary principle. It serves both, as a justification for state measures vis-à-vis other legal interests, especially economic human rights, and as a request for state action in response to possible risks. This paper will argue that the precautionary principle applies at least to health protection as a core part of consumer protection and basically EU law is well equipped to deal with uncertainties. This is established in case law and practice. However, although there is pressure to apply the precautionary principle to nanomaterials and nanotechnologies, the European Commission has adopted a rather modest approach. That has been criticized especially by the European Parliament. For dealing with the gap in basic research and methodology, this article suggests a burden sharing in financing taking into account both, the precautionary principle and the principle of proportionalit

The Temporality of Anti-Aging: A Short History of the Fight Against Time

This article offers a first analysis of the temporality of anti-aging, which, astonishingly enough, has been missing almost completely from anti-aging and life-prolongation discussions heretofore. While anti-aging experiments have existed throughout history, culminating in the 19th and 20th century, and are still booming today in most industrialized countries, the underlying temporal structures of this man-made tempering with human life experience and life cycle has not yet been the object of any comprehensive investigation. In the beginning, the article in hand will explain the essential differences between archaic and modern scientific conceptualizations and representations of anti-aging techniques and introduce the category of "progenesis" for the premodern approach. This will be followed by a short overview over the history of anti-aging and life-prolongation experiments in the 19th and 20th centuries. The article then discusses parameters, such as "longevity", "eternity", "rejuvenation", "anti-aging", in order to clarify experimental frameworks in life extension as a basis for the following analysis of the temporality involved. Finally, the paper introduces various concepts of time closely related to experiments on life prolongation such as grafting, blood transfusion and parabiotic techniques ranging from the 19th century up to our times: While the term "heterochrony" can be traced back to the 19th century, its meaning is gaining additional dimensions in the article in hand, and the concepts of "uchronia" and "pseudo-autochrony" are especially developed here for the first time in order to clarify the temporality of anti-aging processes and their biopolitical and philosophical dimensions

Gelingende Prozesse der Veränderung. Ein Kernmodell der Adaptivität

Wenn wir im Alltag von „Gelingen“ sprechen, so ist das Verständnis dieses Begriffs (scheinbar) klar und eindeutig. Versuchen wir jedoch, den Begriff wissenschaftlich zu beschreiben, so ist fraglich, ob dies überhaupt möglich ist: Gelingen ereignet sich überaus individuell in unvorhersehbaren Interaktionsprozessen und ist prospektiv kaum erfassbar. Der gedankliche Ausgangspunkt für diesen Artikel lautet deshalb, Gelingen als eine Folge von adaptiven Veränderungen in den Interaktionsprozessen anzusehen, die erst mit einem retrospektiv erfolgenden Sprechakt (Austin, 1986) benannt werden können. Hiervon ausgehend entwickeln die Autor*innen auf Basis der Prozessphilosophie Gendlins (2015) ein Kernmodell der Adaptivität. Hierin werden Ansatzpunkte dafür formuliert, welche Arten von Interaktionsprozessen einen solchen Sprechakt wahrscheinlich machen. Sie leiten konkrete Interventionsmöglichkeiten (in Form von handlungsleitenden und reflexionsfördernden Fragen) für die sonderpädagogische Praxis und Überlegungen zu einer prozessorientierten sonderpädagogischen Diagnostik ab, die die Wahrscheinlichkeit für gelingende Interaktionsprozesse erhöhen können. (DIPF/Orig.

The Impact of Refugee Migration on Germany’s Aging Society: A Gerontological Critique

This paper presents a gerontological critique of the events that made up the so-called “welcome culture” in the European Refugee Crisis in 2015/16 and of the discourses analyzing and presenting this crisis. It starts by showing how gerontological aspects are systematically overlooked in analyses of this crisis, and that the failure to include gerontological concerns in a world that is overall characterized by skewed distribution of aging societies and rejuvenating societies is also visible in the fixation on nation states as sole agents in refugee crisis scenarios. For this argument the paper resorts to Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of “liquid lives” and his assessment of international refugee scenarios. The paper also aims to contribute to a more careful understanding of the unique German role in the European Refugee Crisis in 2015/16. It will also show that, although the impact on demographic development of the aging society in Germany was limited, the refugee crisis and concomitant “welcome culture” did have a positive influence on the group of senior citizens in a social perspective and on the future ratio of German residents with migration background. The paper critically discusses terminology and data provided by the German government and the Federal Office for Statistics and provides information on the specific impact of this refugee crisis on senior citizens and their role in German “welcome culture”. The article in hand was supported by MEXT grant-inaid:17H05116