Hegel’s modal argument against Spinozism. An interpretation of the chapter ‘Actuality’ in the Science of Logic

I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Science of Logic. On this reading, the main purpose of the chapter is a critical engagement with Spinoza’s modal metaphysics. Hegel first reconstructs a rationalist line of thought — corresponding to the cosmological argument for the existence of God — that ultimately leads to Spinozist necessitarianism. He then presents a reductio argument against necessitarianism, contending that as a consequence of necessitarianism, no adequate explanatory accounts of facts about finite reality can be given

What is Wrong with Blind Necessity? Schelling’s Critique of Spinoza’s Necessitarianism in the Freedom Essay

Spinoza’s necessitarianism—the doctrine that everything that is actual is necessary—is an important matter of debate in German Idealism. I examine Schelling’s discussion of Spinoza’s necessitarianism in his 1809 Freedom Essay and focus in particular on an objection that Schelling raises against this view, namely, that it has “blind necessity” govern the world. While Schelling draws on Leibniz’s critique of Spinoza’s necessitarianism in this context, he rejects the assumption of divine choice that stands behind Leibniz’s version of the charge of blind necessity. I develop an interpretation that shows both how Schelling consistently avoids necessitarianism despite denying divine choice, and how his own version of the charge of blind necessity offers objections against Spinoza’s necessitarianism that focus on the issues of divine personhood and love.acceptedVersio

Brandom on Postmodern Ethical Life: Moral and Political Problems

Under embargo until: 2021-08-07On Robert Brandom’s reading, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel holds that the conceptual content of language, thought, and action is constituted by normative attitudes, through which participants of a discursive practice assign each other authority and responsibility. Pusillanimity is, on Brandom’s account, the characteristic normative meta-attitude of modernity, which replaces the naive form of magnanimity that had characterized ancient ethical life: a form of magnanimity that simply assumed objective norms as given part of reality. This chapter argues that magnanimous trust has deeply troublesome consequences. These consequences provide moral reasons that speak against any attempt to establish postmodern ethical life (PEL) in real practice. PEL in Brandom’s sense also requires trust in a more ordinary sense, namely that of an attitude of assuming that others will respect other persons’ roles as participants in PEL.acceptedVersio

Sellars on Self-Knowledge

Under embargo until: 2021-01-27Wilfrid Sellars had an elaborate theory of self-knowledge about one’s own thoughts that anticipates some crucial claims and topics of current work on self-knowledge. In this contribution, I reconstruct Sellars’s theory of self-knowledge, and explore connections with more recent work on the topic. I argue that Sellars’s account undermines Shoemaker’s and Burge’s influential arguments against “perceptual” accounts of self-knowledge, and I discuss whether Sellars’s position is apt to give a plausible account of the relation between self-knowledge and phenomenal consciousness.acceptedVersio

Institutional mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in Austrian pre-service teacher education

Based on the Austrian government\u27s program of the XXIVth legislation period, which recommends to "offer incentives so that more qualified people with a migration background start pedagogical training," 1 (Bundeskanzleramt, 2008, p. 203) the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture funded a nationwide project named \u27Diversity and multilingualism in pedagogical professions\u27 to reduce the underrepresentation of teachers with a so-called migration background. 35 expert interviews were conducted with teachers of seven Austrian universities of education. This article gives a summary of the results of a secondary analysis; they are presented as a reconstruction of different ways of talking about teachers and teacher students in a context of migration and multilingualism, including attributions of specific responsibilities and de-qualifications of teachers seen as migrant others. The results show that language ideologies, in particular the concept of \u27native speakerism\u27 serve to legitimize gate-keeping measures. (DIPF/Orig.

Engineered turns of a recombinant antibody improve its in vivo folding

Using recombinant antibodies functionally expressed by secretion to the periplasm in Escherichia coli as a model system, we identified mutations located in turns of the protein which reduce the formation of aggregates during in vivo folding or which influence cell stability during expression. Unexpectedly, the two effects are based on different mutations and could be separated, but both mutations act synergistically in vivo. Neither mutation increases the thermodynamic stability in vitro. However, the in vivo folding mutation correlates with the yield of oxidative folding in vitro, which is limited by the side reaction of aggregation. The in vivo folding data also correlate with the rate and activation entropy of thermally induced aggregation. This analysis shows that it is possible to engineer improved frameworks for semi-synthetic antibody libraries which may be important in maintaining library diversity. Moreover, limitations in recombinant protein expression can be overcome by single amino acid substitution

"An erring conscience is an absurdity": The later Kant on certainty, moral judgment and the infallibility of conscience

This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philosophy, that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. We argue that Kant’s infallibility claim must be seen in the context of a major shift in Kant’s views on conscience that took place around 1790 and that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. This shift led Kant to treat conscience as an exclusively second-order capacity which does not directly evaluate actions, but one’s first-order moral judgments and deliberation. On the basis of this novel interpretation, we develop a new defence of Kant’s infallibility claim that draws on Kant’s account of the characteristic features of specifically moral judgments.publishedVersio

Schreibend werden: Subjektivierungsprozesse in der Migrationsgesellschaft

Schreibentwicklung im Kontext migrationsgesellschaftlicher und sprachenbezogener Machtverhältnisse steht im Mittelpunkt dieser Dissertation. Die Autorin lotet aus, welchen Stellenwert die Aushandlung von Viabilität - eines individuell, institutionell und gesellschaftlich gangbaren Wegs - für die Subjektivierungsprozesse der Schreibenden hat. 58 Schreibbiografien ein- und mehrsprachiger Studierender werden unter dem Aspekt ausgewertet, dass Schreiben eine Möglichkeit ist, um Positionen in einem sozialen Gefüge auszuhandeln. Auf der Grundlage der Subjektivierungstheorien von Michel Foucault und Judith Butler untersucht die Autorin, wie sich diese Aushandlung vollzieht und wie sie von Lehrkräften unterstützt werden kann. Die Arbeit richtet sich an Leser:innen, die sich für Schreibforschung und Schreibpädagogik, auch im Rahmen von Deutsch als Zweitsprache, Deutsch als Fremdsprache und Mehrsprachigkeit, interessieren