Zur Standardkritik an Max Schelers Anthropologie und ihren Grenzen

Die Annahme von ontologischen Stufenmodellen bildet einen Grundzug der modernen philosophischen Anthropologie. Die Standardkritik an derartigen Modellen ist exemplarisch von Ernst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger mit Blick auf Max Schelers Anthropologie formuliert worden. Im Rückgriff auf Nicolai Hartmanns Kategorienlehre lässt sich jedoch zeigen, dass diese Kritik unbegründet ist. Es ist daher an der Zeit, deren Problemlösungspotential für die gegenwärtige philosophische Anthropologie neu auszuloten

Philosophie der Tierforschung: Milieus und Akteure

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Im Mittelpunkt stehen bislang die Frage nach dem Geist der Tiere, das Problem des Tier-Mensch-Unterschiedes und die Themenfelder der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet und ergänzt es durch eine stärkere Berücksichtigung des gesamten Kontextes der naturwissenschaftlichen Tierforschung, inklusive der philosophischen Hintergrundannahmen, der Forschungsverfahren und -orte, der Handlungslogiken, Denkstile und Sprachspiele der Forscherkollektive sowie der jeweils ausgewählten Modellorganismen. Stellten die ersten beiden, bereits erschienenen Bände der Reihe die Methoden und Programme sowie die Maximen und Konsequenzen der Tierforschung in den Mittelpunkt, widmet sich der dritte Band unter dem Leitgedanken der Forschungsumwelten den Milieus und Akteuren. Im Ausgang von der Tier-Mensch-Relationalität der Tierforschung werden dabei die verschiedenen Rollen der Forschenden und der erforschten Tiere mit dem Ziel einer Neukonfiguration des Untersuchungsfeldes herausgearbeitet

JOHN MCDOWELL – BETWEEN PLATONIC AND SCIENTISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

Autor kritički vrednuje filozofsku antropologiju američkog filozofa Johna McDowella, izloženu u knjizi Mind and World (1994). Polazište je McDowellove antropologije klasično određenje da su ljudi racionalne životinje, odnosno životinje čija su priroda i animalnost “prožete” racionalnošću, odnosno spontanošću. Ljudi su sastavljeni od dvije komponente. Prva komponenta obuhvaća najveći dio one raznolikosti koja je zajednička ljudima i životinjama; druga komponenta, racionalnost, odnosno, spontanost, kod ljudi je od određene dobi povezana s prvom, ali ostaje izvanjska. McDowell pokušava racionalnost i spontanost pojmiti kao nešto prirodno, i to na način da predlaže proširenje prirodoznanstvenog pojma prirode posežući za pojmom takozvane “druge prirode”. Dok prvoj prirodi pripadaju naši biološki temelji, druga priroda ljudi sastoji se, prema McDowellu, od onih sposobnosti i svojstava koja se mogu povezati s racionalnošću i spontanošću: radi se o sposobnostima pojmovnog ili apstraktnog predočivanja, o sposobnosti hotimičnog postupanja, a osobito o sposobnosti razumijevanja razloga. Svoju drugu prirodu ljudi stječu “odgojem” i “obrazovanjem”. Tijekom tih procesa našem se ustrojstvu ne dodaje ništa izvananimalno, ništa što bi nadilazilo našu prirodu. McDowell vjeruje da racionalnost može (čime proširuje drugu prirodu) smjestiti unutar prirode ne poričući njezin sui generis karakter, te da ne mora ustvrditi kako je njezino djelovanje kao takvo objašnjivo sredstvima prirodnih znanosti. McDowellovo je razmišljanje teorijski izazovan pokušaj da se mimoiđu granice i izbjegnu prepreke platonističke i scijentističke antropologije. Autor pokazuje da u tome ipak nije uspio jer nije uspio uspostaviti uravnotežen odnos između prve i druge prirode, te zaključuje kako je pomoću McDowellove koncepcije nemoguće osloboditi ikakav prostor s onu stranu platonističke, odnosno scijentističke antropologije.The author puts forward a critical evaluation of the philosophical anthropology of American philosopher John McDowell, as set forth in his book Mind and World (1994). The starting point of McDowell’s anthropology is the classical tenet that humans are rational animals. According to McDowell, humans are animals characterized by a nature and animality “permeated” by rationality, i.e. by spontaneity. Humans consist of two components. The first encompasses most of the diversity common to humans and animals, while the second, rationality, i.e. spontaneity, is connected with the first component up to a certain age, but it remains extrinsic. McDowell strives to conceive of rationality and spontaneity as natural traits, and he does so by suggesting an expansion of the natural-scientific concept of nature to include the concept of so-called “second nature”. While the first nature encompasses our biological foundations, the second nature of humans, according to McDowell, consists of the faculties and qualities which can be related with rationality and spontaneity: the faculties of conceptual or abstract representation, of deliberate action, and, in particular, of responsiveness to reasons. Humans acquire their second nature through “upbringing” and “education”. These processes do not add to our organism anything that is extra-animal or that exceeds our nature. McDowell believes that he is able to embed rationality into nature (thereby expanding the second nature) with no negation of its character sui generis, and that he is not forced to conclude that its activity as such can be elucidated by the tools of natural sciences. McDowell’s line of thought is a theoretically challenging attempt to sidestep the boundaries and avoid the obstacles of Platonic and scientistic anthropology. The author shows that the attempt was unsuccessful after all, since it failed to establish a well-balanced relation between the first and second nature. He concludes that McDowell’s conception does not make it possible to reach beyond the Platonic, i.e. scientistic anthropology

Philosophie der Tierforschung: Kulturelle und ethische Dimensionen methodischer Tier-Mensch-Interaktionen

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. In ihrem Mittelpunkt standen bislang Fragen nach dem Geist der Tiere, der Tier-Mensch-Unterschied oder Probleme der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet mit dem Ziel einer strukturierten Untersuchung der Tier-Mensch-Verhältnisse in den methodischen Zugängen der Tierforschung. Der Band widmet sich den »Maximen und Konsequenzen« der Tierforschung. Damit öffnet sich das zu untersuchende Feld in Richtung auf kulturelle und ethische Aspekte, auf gesellschaftliche und politische Horizonte der Forschung. Hatte der erste Band deutlich gemacht, dass Tiere in den betreffenden Forschungsumwelten nicht nur die Rolle passiver Objekte spielen, sondern auch subjektive und aktive Qualitäten erlangen, und sei es in Form der Widerständigkeit, so erweisen sich die Forschungsumwelten samt der in ihnen stattfindenden Interaktionen zwischen forschenden Menschen und erforschten Tieren damit unter ethischen und kulturellen Vorzeichen als Machtsysteme, deren Mechanismen der Anerkennung und Unterdrückung philosophisch zu thematisieren sind

Philosophie der Tierforschung: Die methodologische Signatur von Forschungsprogrammen

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. In ihrem Mittelpunkt standen bislang Fragen nach dem Geist der Tiere, der Tier-Mensch-Unterschied oder Probleme der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet mit dem Ziel einer strukturierten Untersuchung der Tier-Mensch-Verhältnisse in den methodischen Zugängen der Tierforschung. Der erste Band »Methoden und Programme« stellt die Geschichte und Systematik der biologischen Tierforschung, insbesondere der Verhaltensforschung, in den Mittelpunkt. Die philosophische Analyse der verschiedenen Forschungsansätze folgt dem Gedanken des Milieus und berücksichtigt so die mannigfaltigen Faktoren der jeweiligen Forschungsumwelten. Dazu dient ein theoretischer Rahmen, dessen Schlüsselkonzept der Begriff der methodologischen Signatur von Forschungsprogrammen ist. Diese umfasst eine Reihe von Kenngrößen, die solche Programme identifizieren und sie mit anderen Ansätzen vergleichbar machen. Dazu gehören an zentraler Stelle die bevorzugten Referenztiere und deren primär untersuchte Vermögen, aber auch kategoriale Vorentscheidungen (etwa bezüglich der Konzeption des Tierlichen oder der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung) sowie die verwendeten Forschungsmethoden, die gewählten Forschungsorte, das zugrunde liegende Wissenschaftsideal, die Positionierung zu anderen Forschungsansätzen oder die philosophischen Hintergrundannahmen und Implikationen

The end-state comfort effect in 3- to 8-year-old children in two object manipulation tasks

The aim of the study was to compare 3- to 8-year-old children’s propensity to anticipate a comfortable hand posture at the end of a grasping movement (end-state comfort effect) between two different object manipulation tasks, the bar-transport task, and the overturned-glass task. In the bar-transport task, participants were asked to insert a vertically positioned bar into a small opening of a box. In the overturned-glass task, participants were asked to put an overturned-glass right-side-up on a coaster. Half of the participants experienced action effects (lights) as a consequence of their movements (AE groups), while the other half of the participants did not (No-AE groups). While there was no difference between the AE and No-AE groups, end-state comfort performance differed across age as well as between tasks. Results revealed a significant increase in end-state comfort performance in the bar-transport task from 13% in the 3-year-olds to 94% in the 8-year-olds. Interestingly, the number of children grasping the bar according to end-state comfort doubled from 3 to 4 years and from 4 to 5 years of age. In the overturned-glass task an increase in end-state comfort performance from already 63% in the 3-year-olds to 100% in the 8-year-olds was significant as well. When comparing end-state comfort performance across tasks, results showed that 3- and 4-year-old children were better at manipulating the glass as compared to manipulating the bar, most probably, because children are more familiar with manipulating glasses. Together, these results suggest that preschool years are an important period for the development of motor planning in which the familiarity with the object involved in the task plays a significant role in children’s ability to plan their movements according to end-state comfort

No interrelation of motor planning and executive functions across young ages

The present study examined the developmental trajectories of motor planning and executive functioning in children. To this end, we tested 217 participants with three motor tasks, measuring anticipatory planning abilities (i.e., the bar-transport-task, the sword-rotation-task and the grasp-height-task), and three cognitive tasks, measuring executive functions (i.e., the Tower-of-Hanoi-task, the Mosaic-task, and the D2-attention-endurance-task). Children were aged between 3 and 10 years and were separated into age groups by 1-year bins, resulting in a total of eight groups of children and an additional group of adults. Results suggested (1) a positive developmental trajectory for each of the sub-tests, with better task performance as children get older; (2) that the performance in the separate tasks was not correlated across participants in the different age groups; and (3) that there was no relationship between performance in the motor tasks and in the cognitive tasks used in the present study when controlling for age. These results suggest that both, motor planning and executive functions are rather heterogeneous domains of cognitive functioning with fewer interdependencies than often suggested

Feasibility Study for a Chemical Process Particle Size Characterization System for Explosive Environments Using Low Laser Power

The industrial particle sensor market lacks simple, easy to use, low cost yet robust, safe and fast response solutions. Towards development of such a sensor, for in-line use in micro channels under continuous flow conditions, this work introduces static light scattering (SLS) determination of particle diameter using a laser with an emission power of less than 5 µW together with sensitive detectors with detection times of 1 ms. The measurements for the feasibility studies are made in an angular range between 20° and 160° in 2° increments. We focus on the range between 300 and 1000 nm, for applications in the production of paints, colors, pigments and crystallites. Due to the fast response time, reaction characteristics in microchannel designs for precipitation and crystallization processes can be studied. A novel method for particle diameter characterization is developed using the positions of maxima and minima and slope distribution. The novel algorithm to classify particle diameter is especially developed to be independent of dispersed phase concentration or concentration fluctuations like product flares or signal instability. Measurement signals are post processed and particle diameters are validated against Mie light scattering simulations. The design of a low cost instrument for industrial use is proposed