Herbarts Kantkritik und die Idee einer Philosophischen Psychologie. Vortrag, gehalten am Kongress "I confini dell'anima. Filosofia e psicologia da Herbart a Freud" in l'Aquila, 11.-14. Mai 1994. (Deutsche Fassung)

Es wird die These ausgeführt, daß Herbart mit seiner Kantkritik die Grundrichtung der Kantischen Philosophie verfehlte, daß er aber - vielleicht gerade wegen dieses Mißverständnisses - einen Philosophiebegriff entwickelte, der bis heute Aktualität beanspruchen kann

Bildbegriff und Bildwissenschaft

Seit einiger Zeit rückt die Bild-Forschung in den Blickpunkt des öffentlichen wie des wissenschaftlichen Interesses. Unterschiedliche Disziplinen beschäftigen sich mit Teilbereichen der Bildthematik. Kann es gelingen, einen gemeinsamen Theorierahmen zu entwickeln, der ein integratives Forschungsprogramm liefert? Es werden zentrale theoretische Problembestände des Bildgbegriffs skizziert, um sodann für die Auffassung von Bildern als "wahrnehmungsnahe Zeichen" zu plädieren

Virtual Institutes: Between Immersion and Communication

In the two expressions "virtual reality" and "virtual community", the term "virtual" has different meanings. A virtual reality is a depiction or, more generally speaking, a sensuous representation of reality that allows - mainly by means of interactivity - to experience various features of reality without actually being in contact with the reality depicted. Therefore, any interactive depiction that is able to imitate reality to such an extent that a high degree of sensory-motor immersion becomes possible is called a virtual reality (Heim 1998, 6f). Since reality is always much more complex than its depiction and full of unpredictable surprises, hardly ever a user has doubts about the difference between the depiction and the thing depicted. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for preferring the imitation to the reality: at least, the imitation is usually not as dangerous as reality sometimes turns out to be. Accordingly, quite different platforms for virtual institutes may be used emphasizing either the immersion aspect or the communication aspect. The decision for a platform depends on the goals pursued with the institute: text-based chat systems allow virtual communities to flourish, single-user VRML scenes convey a highly immersive 3D impression to its users. This is particularly true for virtual institutes realized as a 3D environment, as well as for corresponding virtual communities since 3D environments are adequate for certain tasks only. As an overall framework for the evaluation it is helpful to distinguish three major application areas: research, presentation, and communicative work. The Virtual Institute for Image Science (VIB), which we would like to describe in the following (3) as a case study, is almost exclusively designed for the third task: communicative working. It intends to provide a working space persons can share for joint projects despite being physically separated. Before describing the VIB in more detail we would like to give an overview of virtual institutes between the poles of realistic immersion and of communication in a community (2). The discussion of the case study leads to some more general considerations about the balance virtual institutes must find along that bi-polar dimension (4). In the concluding remarks we focus on the technical tools for virtual communities in 3D presently available

To Show and To Say: Comparing the Uses of Pictures and Language

There has been a long tradition of characterizing man as the animal that talks. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also only belongs to human beings, after all we know empirically so far. Are there conceptual reasons for that coincidence? Such a question belongs to the philosophy of language just as well as to philosophical visualistics. Comparing the two abilities to use words or pictures yields several similarities as well as distinctions. A well-known conceptual disparity between pictures and words appears in their relation to perception: the difference can be further determined in an act-theoretic manner by four modes of use of the sign vehicles during the corresponding sign acts. Furthermore, the figure/ground dichotomy means something different for language uses and picture uses. In both cases, however, there is a close relation to the function of context building, by which humans are able to communicate not only with respect to the present situation of behavior but with respect to arbitrary contexts as well. Although the structural comparison does clarify the conceptual relations, it cannot explain that the conceptual structure ought to be like that. Therefore, the paper concludes with the programme of a "concept-genetic" consideration of the two abilities (i.e., to use propositional language or to use pictures) that is able to give us such a foundation

El poder de las imágenes

Images increasingly structure our experiences and our lives to the point of seeming to replace the experience of reality. I would like to discuss the question raised by Plato as to whether images do not have a deficient status and serve, rather than for the search for truth, for the manipulation of human convictions and desires. (1.) We would therefore do well to clarify the conditions of the connection between image and power. (2.) I will then link the concept of image with a theory of human image processing (3.). In this way, I will try to show that our cognitive system is capable of processing pictorial content in a special way, but ambivalent. This will be illustrated by the example of photography (4.).Las imágenes estructuran cada vez más nuestras experiencias y nuestras vidas al punto de parecer sustituir la experiencia de la realidad. A continuación me gustaría discutir la pregunta planteada por Platón sobre si no tienen las imágenes un estatus deficiente y si no sirven, más que para la búsqueda de la verdad, para la manipulación de las convicciones y deseos humanos. (1.) Por ello haríamos bien en aclarar las condiciones de la conexión entre imagen y poder. (2.) Luego vincularé el concepto de imagen con una teoría del procesamiento humano de la imagen (3.). De este modo, intentaré mostrar que nuestro sistema cognitivo es capaz de procesar el contenido pictórico de un modo especial, aunque ambivalente. Esto se ilustrará con el ejemplo de la fotografía (4.)

VON DER INTERDISZIPLINÄREN GRUNDLAGENFORSCHUNG ZUR COMPUTERVISUALISTISCHEN ANWENDUNG: DIE MAGDEBURGER BEMÜHUNGEN UM EINE ALLGEMEINE WISSENSCHAFT VOM BILD

Seit den ersten Höhlenzeichnungen haben bildhafte Darstellungen für Menschen eine zwar immer umstrittene, aber doch nie entbehrliche Orientierungsaufgabe besessen. Das Bild geriet hierbei oft in Konkurrenz zur Schrift: Als Ausdruck abstrakter Gedanken war es jener unterlegen, doch wurde ihm im Gegenzug eine geradezu magische Aura zugesprochen. Diese ambivalente Haltung den Bildern gegenüber hatte zur Folge, dass alle Erfindungen neuer Bildmedien immer zugleich höchste Begeisterung wie tiefste Skepsis hervorriefen. Sie ist vermutlich ebenfalls dafür verantwortlich, dass sich bis heute eine einheitliche und im strengeren Sinn wissenschaftliche Erforschung der Bilder nicht etablieren konnte. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz werden die Bemühungen skizziert, die hierzu in jüngster Zeit an der Magdeburger Universität unternommen worden sind. Damit verbunden, möchten wir unseren Vorschlag einer Konzeption von Bildwissenschaft zur Diskussion stellen

Anthropology in systematic image science

Postoji običaj da se ljude karakterizira kao jezično nadarene životinje. Pritom se naročito misli na uporabu predikativnih rečeničnih struktura.No, izvanredna sposobnost da se misli u slikama, jest, prema svemu što empirijski znamo, svojstvena samo ljudima. Postoje li pojmovni razloziza ovu empirijsku podudarnost? Je li, drugim riječima, homo sapiens u biti homo pictor? Takvo pitanje jednako dobro zalazi u filozofsku antropologiju,kao i u sustavnu znanost o slici

Anthropology in systematic image science

Postoji običaj da se ljude karakterizira kao jezično nadarene životinje. Pritom se naročito misli na uporabu predikativnih rečeničnih struktura.No, izvanredna sposobnost da se misli u slikama, jest, prema svemu što empirijski znamo, svojstvena samo ljudima. Postoje li pojmovni razloziza ovu empirijsku podudarnost? Je li, drugim riječima, homo sapiens u biti homo pictor? Takvo pitanje jednako dobro zalazi u filozofsku antropologiju,kao i u sustavnu znanost o slici