Beyond a Dichotomy of Perspectives: Understanding Religion on the Basis of Paul Natorp’s Logic of Boundary

Based on Paul Natorp’s (1854–1924) late post-Neo-Kantian “Logic of Boundary” (German: “Grenzlogik”) I will offer a methodically controlled, non-reductionist and equally anti-essentialist reconstruction of the notion of religion. The pre-eminent objective of this reconstructive work is to overcome the well-known epistemological as well as methodological problem of a dichotomy between inside and outside perspectives on the subject of religion. Differently put, the objective consists in an attempt to demonstrate that there actually is “reason in religion” that is intellectually accessible for academic knowledge production. Following Natorp’s splendid formulation I will argue that religion operates neither ‘within’ nor ‘beyond’ the ‘boundary of humanity’ but exactly on [or ‘in’] this boundary. More precisely, I will explicate that religious praxis (including its specific production of knowledge) from Natorp’s standpoint can be understood as the performative realization, and habitual embodiment of the (contextually concrete) boundary of humanity or human reason itself. Due to its principial self-referentiality this boundary carries the crucial sense of a first and last positive and, therefore, both in theoretical terms definitive and in practical terms eminently instructive notion of boundary with no outside. This paradoxically all-enclosing, positive boundary, while explicitly including life’s inevitable negativity but, nonetheless, able to ideally sublate it, is the reason why the practice of religion, as empirical evidence unmistakably documents, can provide an incommensurably fulfilling, significant and meaningful closure with regards to the innermost self-perception of its practitioners (concerning their self-determination or agency)

Personality psychology: Lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts reveal only half of the story—Why it is time for a paradigm shift

This article develops a comprehensive philosophy-of-science for personality psychology that goes far beyond the scope of the lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts that currently prevail. One of the field’s most important guiding scientific assumptions, the lexical hypothesis, is analysed from meta-theoretical viewpoints to reveal that it explicitly describes two sets of phenomena that must be clearly differentiated: 1) lexical repertoires and the representations that they encode and 2) the kinds of phenomena that are represented. Thus far, personality psychologists largely explored only the former, but have seriously neglected studying the latter. Meta-theoretical analyses of these different kinds of phenomena and their distinct natures, commonalities, differences, and interrelations reveal that personality psychology’s focus on lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts entails a) erroneous meta-theoretical assumptions about what the phenomena being studied actually are, and thus how they can be analysed and interpreted, b) that contemporary personality psychology is largely based on everyday psychological knowledge, and c) a fundamental circularity in the scientific explanations used in trait psychology. These findings seriously challenge the widespread assumptions about the causal and universal status of the phenomena described by prominent personality models. The current state of knowledge about the lexical hypothesis is reviewed, and implications for personality psychology are discussed. Ten desiderata for future research are outlined to overcome the current paradigmatic fixations that are substantially hampering intellectual innovation and progress in the field

Figuration/Figure/Form

It is still Weizsäcker to show that rather than a clear contrast (usually already referring to the names of Plato and Aristotle and to the competition between the concepts of eidos and morphé) it is a necessary correlation and a way through which the fundamental problem of unity of knowledge is placed

Global Climate Change in the Wider Context of Sustainability

Over the last few years, the political discussion on global change has become focused on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the wider context of sustainability. This broadens the view and changes the focus to issues of global ethics and the necessity for industrial countries to drastically reduce their resource consumption. Insurance companies can influence global climate change (GCC) directly through their investment and underwriting strategies, but also in daily operations. An overview and examples are given in the paper. The biggest impact insurance might have is in helping to speed up the adaptation to GCC, for instance by making available its pool of knowledge in prevention measures through risk engineering services. By promoting a stricter application of the concept of “insurability of risks”, politicians could exploit the link between insurance, technological innovation and sustainable development to develop numerous opportunities within the market economy. A rapid adaptation to the challenges of GCC will give industrialised countries a competitiveness pull, or enable less developed countries to leapfrog industrialised countries. But the key to a new vision of the future may be the development of a holistic view of nature, man and climate, and science and technology as a source of innovative ideas and solutions. The Geneva Papers (2008) 33, 507–529. doi:10.1057/gpp.2008.21