Theoretische PhilosophieHead of Research Unit Prof. Dr.Markus WildOverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & CollaborationsProjects & Collaborations OverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & Collaborations Projects & Collaborations 10 foundShow per page10 10 20 50 "'The Power of Thought and Feeling' - Mary Shepherds Theorie des Geistes" Research Project | 1 Project MembersMein Postdoc.Mobility-Forschungsprojekt widmet sich der Theorie des Geistes der schottischen Philosophin Mary Shepherd (1777-1847) mit dem Ziel eine Forschungslücke zu schliessen und ein neues Forschungsgebiet zu eröffnen. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht dabei die Frage, wie Shepherd die Beziehung zwischen Geist und Körper auffasst (d. i., wie löst sie das sog. «Leib-Seele-Problem»?). Mein Augenmerk liegt dabei auf Shepherds beiden Hauptwerken: EPEU und das 'Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect' (ERCE). Für deren Analyse bediene ich mich einer kritischen Textexegese sowie einer systematischen Rekonstruktion. Shepherds Argumentation wird damit nicht einfach wiedergegeben, sondern auf Unklarheiten, Inkonsistenzen oder Widersprüche geprüft und hinsichtlich ihrer Plausibilität kommentiert. Dies ist besonders wichtig, da sich die Shepherd-Forschung noch im Anfangsstadium befindet und viele Aspekte ihres Denkens erst erschlossen werden müssen. Dieser Umstand erklärt sich dadurch, dass Shepherds Beitrag - wie jener vieler anderer Autorinnen in der Geschich-te der Philosophie - während Jahrhunderten systematisch negiert wurde (vgl. Eileen O'Neills «Disappearing Ink»). In diesem Sinne fügt sich mein Projekt, in eine grössere Forschungsbewegung ein, welche darum bemüht ist, Denkerinnen wie Shepherd zu ihrem rechtmässigen Platz im philosophiehistorischen Kanon zu verhelfen, um damit auch die (philosophische) Sichtbarkeit bis anhin unterrepräsentierter Gruppen zu verbessern. Beastly Politics Research Project | 1 Project MembersThere is broad consensus in contemporary animal ethics that sentient nonhuman animals matter morally in their own right. As a consequence, it is widely recognized that humans have negative duties (that is, duties of non-interference and non-maleficence) towards them. In other words, humans should not inflict unnecessary harms upon animals. Less attention, however, has been paid to the question of whether humans have positive duties (that is, duties of assistance) towards animals, and if so, what those duties encompass, whether those duties vary according to the type of animal under consideration, and what should be done if those duties are in conflict with others that we hold. Additionally, it is unclear who bears such duties and responsibilities: is it merely individuals, or are these collective duties all members of a society share? If the latter is the case, do these duties have to be implemented on a political level? Do animals have a claim for having their interests represented on a political level, and should their interests thus be taken into consideration in the process of political decision-making? However, since animals cannot voice their interests themselves in political deliberations (similar to future generations, young children and cognitively disabled individuals), new ways have to be found to represent their interests. Furthermore, the project will explore how such positive duties might be appropriately balanced and prioritized given scarce resources and the pressing existing obligations towards humans, and how these duties can be institutionalized on a political level. Die Evolution der Moral. Wissenschaftliche Erklärungen und normative Vorannahmen Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn meiner Habilitation analysiere ich zeitgenössische Theorien der Evolution der Moral (vgl. etwa Tomasello 2016, Kitcher, 2011, Churchland 2011, Prinz 2007) mit den Mitteln der Wissenschaftstheorie, der philosophischen Begriffsklärung und der Ideologiekritik. Vorhandene Theorien stützen sich auf ein geringes Maß an historischen Daten. Stattdessen arbeiten sie zentral mit funktionalen Erklärungen, Analogieschlüssen und fiktionalen Modellen. Die Arbeit erstellt eine Typologie der verschiedenen Erklärungsformen und gibt für diese jeweils Qualitätskriterien an. Mit Verweis auf diese Kriterien lassen sich vorhandene Theorien der Evolution der Moral erstmals vergleichen und evaluieren. Durch die Vielfalt an Erklärungsformen und die eklektische Verwendung indirekter Evidenz öffnen sich die Arbeiten unreflektierten Vorannahmen darüber, was die menschliche Moral überhaupt ist und welche Merkmale des Menschen ihn moralfähig machen. Die Analyse zeitgenössischer Arbeiten wird durch eine historische Einbettung ergänzt. Die Arbeit zeigt so wie die Entstehung der Evolutionstheorie im 19. Jahrhundert und die mit ihr verbundenen ideologischen Diskussionen über die Natur des Menschen sowie Nietzsches genealogische Methode die heutige Debatte prägen. Left Wittgensteinianism: A Non-Foundationalist Ameliorative Framework for Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn terms of which concepts should we think? This kind of concern now looms large in philosophy, as there has been a marked turn to questions of how we can improve rather than just describe our conceptual practices. This turn has involved a radical break with Wittgensteinian ideas. While Wittgenstein has convinced many that we should not seek to derive the one definitively right set of concepts from timeless rational foundations, what he advocates instead has widely been felt to be overly conservative: he insists that justifications come to an end in the "bedrock of practice," that we should defer to the practices we find ourselves with. Many have concluded from this that Wittgensteinianism inevitably leads to a conservative or Right Wittgensteinianism . Contemporary approaches seeking to improve our concepts try to break free from Wittgensteinian conservatism by breaking free from Wittgensteinianism. Yet this total abandonment of Wittgensteinian insights introduces fresh failings. One contemporary approach, conceptual engineering, takes progress through conceptual innovation in science as its model and seeks to forge new concepts in order to ask better questions; but it suffers from a tendency to treat the motley of our practices as something that can be designed from the philosopher's drawing board, like artificial languages in logic. Similarly, the ameliorative metaphysics approach seeks to decide which (if any) of the warring conceptions of concepts like human nature we should use by appealing to ethical and political criteria; but it remains overly abstract in asking whether we should use any of these conceptions tout court , thereby overlooking the needs in actual situations from which each of these conceptions might derive a point in practice. These are failings which Wittgensteinian attention to what our concepts do for us in practice can remedy. What is needed is a middle path between Right Wittgensteinianism and the revisionary approaches. The long-term aim of this project is to trace such a middle path between Wittgensteinian conservatism and more revisionary approaches by developing a Left Wittgensteinian Framework that combines the revisionary ambitions of conceptual engineering and ameliorative metaphysics-hence "Left"-with Wittgensteinian attention to the point of our concepts given our needs in actual situations -hence "Wittgensteinian." It thereby aims to offer a concrete model for how philosophy can function as a humanistic discipline-i.e., in integration with other disciplines. The short-term aim over the first eleven months is to develop a Stratified View of our practices that reveals a non-foundationalist basis for ameliorating our concepts in a layer of changeable and context-sensitive practical needs. Animal Ethics in ecological research Research Project | 2 Project MembersDie Verwendung von Tieren in der Forschung wird sowohl in der Wissen- schaft als auch in der breiten Öffentlichkeit zunehmend kontrovers diskutiert. Ethische Fragen werden jedoch in der Wildtierforschung selten gestellt, obwohl diese viele sogenannte invasive Methoden beinhaltet, welche das Tierwohl beeinträchtigen und Leiden verursachen. Darüber hinaus ist die Wildtierforschung bei der Ausbildung der Fachpersonen in Ethik und Tierschutz hinter anderen Disziplinen wie Medizin und Human- genetik zurückgeblieben. Animalfree Research finanziert eine der ersten Initiativen, die sich mit der Frage der Tierethik und des Tierschutzes in der Wildtierforschung befasst. Dieses Projekt ist einzigartig in der Schweiz. Authenticity, Narrative and Neural Modification Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe development of ever more potent and specific methods for neural modification, for instance Deep Brain Stimulation or psychotropic drugs, poses a challenge for our self-image and requires a careful and responsible handling. On this note the influence of neural modifications on authenticity is seen as an important topic. In the current research the concept of authenticity is mainly discussed in the context of enhancement and psychotropic drugs, tough often authenticity is only covered incidentally and with a simplified definition. In this doctoral thesis neural modifications with regard to authenticity are investigated thoroughly and based on a profound analysis of the concept of authenticity. In the first part a genealogy of authenticity will be compiled, to show how the concept developed and became a virtue as well as to illustrate the different functions and interpretations that have been ascribed to the concept. Moreover, authenticity will be differentiated from related concepts such as autonomy or identity via this historical exposition. Based on this investigation a narrativistic approach to authenticity will be developed, which does justice to its functions and to our intuitions on the concept. The second part will cover a discussion on neural modifications. Following an overview what neural modifications encompass and how the different methods influence a person and his/her brain they will be characterized along frame concepts such as naturalness, innovation or enhancement. The third part will combine the results of the first two parts to asses which modifications and which properties of these modifications support or threaten authenticity as understood in the narrativistic approach and why we consider some neural modifications as unproblematic whereas others are perceived as controversial. Respect for Foxes and Hedgehogs: Animal Agency and Kantian Ethics of Respect Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe project: Kant's moral philosophy is a predominant paradigm in contemporary ethics. However, one thing modern readers of Kant are often unimpressed with is his account of animal ethics. The question this dissertation attempts to answer is: What if we took Kant's moral philosophy and modified it so that it can account for respect for nonhuman animals? In answering this question, I provide an in-depth account of the relation between Kant's views about what animals are and his views about how we ought to treat them. By bringing together Kant's philosophy with the newest advances in the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency, I then provide a new framework for animal ethics which I call the Ethics of Respect.Realisation: The project answers its central question in two steps spanning three semesters each: First, it corrects Kant's rather crude views about what animals are and what their capabilities are. In Kant's view, animals lack practical reason and are steered wholly by behavioral automatisms - a view I criticize and replace with a pluralist view of animal practical capabilities. Secondly, the project accordingly corrects Kant's views on how we morally ought to treat animals. In the course of taking the second step, the project outlines the moral philosophy Kant should have defended had he not been oblivious to the extent and diversity of animal practical capabilities - the Ethics of Respect. This is effectively a Kantian system of ethics equipped with tools from the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency to deal with moral questions relating to animals. Its heart is a Categorical Imperative that is sensitive to the differences in practical capabilities we find in the animal world. Finally, the project spells out the implications of this renewed Categorical Imperative for our moral practice. The formats of mental representation: Explaining differences in human and nonhuman animal thought Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe very nature of thought has often been understood to be constitutively related to language use. This view, lingualism, falls foul of David Hume's animal test, according to which the plausibility of a theory about the mind is, in part, determined by its implications regarding nonhuman animals. Lingualism about thought does not pass Hume's animal test because it implies that animals which do not make use of language are ipso facto unable to think. A theory that meets the demands of the animal test is Jerry Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis (LOTH), according to which thought is not constitutively connected to any natural language such as English or Italian, it rather bears the form of mental representations, which are structured according to the principles of a mental language, which is innate. However, the LOTH also faces a problem regarding animal thoughts, namely the problem of indeterminacy in translating animal thoughts. Since, according to the LOTH, animal thoughts bear a language-like sentential format, namely the format of the Language of Thought, they should in principle be translatable into sentences of some natural language. But, as both empirical and theoretical research suggest, there are strong reasons to believe that insurmountable indeterminacies as regards the interpretation of animal thought into sentential formats would strongly distort the contents of the thoughts. This problem of indeterminacy can be tackled if we distinguish different formats of thought: sentential formats and non-sentential formats, such as cartographic thought. Motivated by the problems animal minds pose for classical accounts of the mind, this PhD project will elaborate how non-sentential formats of thought help to explain both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities between humans and nonhuman animals. This will help us to better understand the aspects of our thoughts that we share with animals and what makes some of our thoughts distinctly human. Causation and the Self-Constitution of the Conscious Mind Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn the thesis I advocate a pragmatic explanatory non-reductive naturalistic account of subjectivity compatible with the state of the art in empirical consciousness studies and able to accommodate strongly held intuitions regarding conscious phenomena. I do this by suggesting and adopting a line of approach that diverges from the standard approach to the mind-body problem in contemporary philosophy of mind. I focus on phenomenal consciousness and I try to explain why conscious phenomena exist in the actual world. I call the latter the "Natural Problem of Consciousness". I claim that contingent conscious "mental" phenomena are in fact nothing but subjective biological phenomena - phenomena that some living beings contingently have. I argue that the kind of explanation we need in order to explain the contingent existence of biological phenomena (including consciousness) is a diachronic biological explanation such as one deriving from the theory of evolution by natural selection. I hold that it is a fact that consciousness, in the actual world, has not been selected against. I suggest that the only explanatorily satisfactorily explanation for this is that the very fact of feeling can play (or, at least, can have played) a causal role in the actual natural world. The main challenge posed by the Natural Problem of Consciousness consists then in putting forward a plausible theory suggesting why and how the fact of feeling could increase some beings' biological fitness. I advance an hypothesis in this sense. Biosemantik und Normativer Pragmatismus: Auf dem Weg zu einem einheitlichen Bild des menschlichen Geistes in der natürlichen Welt Research Project | 4 Project MembersHuman beings are a species of animals. Yet how can human thought and language be part of the natural world? Teleosemantical theories hold the promise of an integrated naturalistic theory of thought and language, especially Ruth Millikan's Biosemantics. Her account is sometimes seen to have shortcomings, when it comes to understand our rational and social practices. Robert Brandom's Normative Pragmatism provides answers to those issues. His program suffers from problems that can be solved from a biosemantical perspective. The general aim of the project is to integrate Normative Pragmatism in the perspective of Biosemantics. The focus of the subprojects will be on concepts, norms, and subjectivity. The project aims at a naturalistic understanding of those essential features of the human mind. 1 1 OverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & Collaborations
Projects & Collaborations 10 foundShow per page10 10 20 50 "'The Power of Thought and Feeling' - Mary Shepherds Theorie des Geistes" Research Project | 1 Project MembersMein Postdoc.Mobility-Forschungsprojekt widmet sich der Theorie des Geistes der schottischen Philosophin Mary Shepherd (1777-1847) mit dem Ziel eine Forschungslücke zu schliessen und ein neues Forschungsgebiet zu eröffnen. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht dabei die Frage, wie Shepherd die Beziehung zwischen Geist und Körper auffasst (d. i., wie löst sie das sog. «Leib-Seele-Problem»?). Mein Augenmerk liegt dabei auf Shepherds beiden Hauptwerken: EPEU und das 'Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect' (ERCE). Für deren Analyse bediene ich mich einer kritischen Textexegese sowie einer systematischen Rekonstruktion. Shepherds Argumentation wird damit nicht einfach wiedergegeben, sondern auf Unklarheiten, Inkonsistenzen oder Widersprüche geprüft und hinsichtlich ihrer Plausibilität kommentiert. Dies ist besonders wichtig, da sich die Shepherd-Forschung noch im Anfangsstadium befindet und viele Aspekte ihres Denkens erst erschlossen werden müssen. Dieser Umstand erklärt sich dadurch, dass Shepherds Beitrag - wie jener vieler anderer Autorinnen in der Geschich-te der Philosophie - während Jahrhunderten systematisch negiert wurde (vgl. Eileen O'Neills «Disappearing Ink»). In diesem Sinne fügt sich mein Projekt, in eine grössere Forschungsbewegung ein, welche darum bemüht ist, Denkerinnen wie Shepherd zu ihrem rechtmässigen Platz im philosophiehistorischen Kanon zu verhelfen, um damit auch die (philosophische) Sichtbarkeit bis anhin unterrepräsentierter Gruppen zu verbessern. Beastly Politics Research Project | 1 Project MembersThere is broad consensus in contemporary animal ethics that sentient nonhuman animals matter morally in their own right. As a consequence, it is widely recognized that humans have negative duties (that is, duties of non-interference and non-maleficence) towards them. In other words, humans should not inflict unnecessary harms upon animals. Less attention, however, has been paid to the question of whether humans have positive duties (that is, duties of assistance) towards animals, and if so, what those duties encompass, whether those duties vary according to the type of animal under consideration, and what should be done if those duties are in conflict with others that we hold. Additionally, it is unclear who bears such duties and responsibilities: is it merely individuals, or are these collective duties all members of a society share? If the latter is the case, do these duties have to be implemented on a political level? Do animals have a claim for having their interests represented on a political level, and should their interests thus be taken into consideration in the process of political decision-making? However, since animals cannot voice their interests themselves in political deliberations (similar to future generations, young children and cognitively disabled individuals), new ways have to be found to represent their interests. Furthermore, the project will explore how such positive duties might be appropriately balanced and prioritized given scarce resources and the pressing existing obligations towards humans, and how these duties can be institutionalized on a political level. Die Evolution der Moral. Wissenschaftliche Erklärungen und normative Vorannahmen Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn meiner Habilitation analysiere ich zeitgenössische Theorien der Evolution der Moral (vgl. etwa Tomasello 2016, Kitcher, 2011, Churchland 2011, Prinz 2007) mit den Mitteln der Wissenschaftstheorie, der philosophischen Begriffsklärung und der Ideologiekritik. Vorhandene Theorien stützen sich auf ein geringes Maß an historischen Daten. Stattdessen arbeiten sie zentral mit funktionalen Erklärungen, Analogieschlüssen und fiktionalen Modellen. Die Arbeit erstellt eine Typologie der verschiedenen Erklärungsformen und gibt für diese jeweils Qualitätskriterien an. Mit Verweis auf diese Kriterien lassen sich vorhandene Theorien der Evolution der Moral erstmals vergleichen und evaluieren. Durch die Vielfalt an Erklärungsformen und die eklektische Verwendung indirekter Evidenz öffnen sich die Arbeiten unreflektierten Vorannahmen darüber, was die menschliche Moral überhaupt ist und welche Merkmale des Menschen ihn moralfähig machen. Die Analyse zeitgenössischer Arbeiten wird durch eine historische Einbettung ergänzt. Die Arbeit zeigt so wie die Entstehung der Evolutionstheorie im 19. Jahrhundert und die mit ihr verbundenen ideologischen Diskussionen über die Natur des Menschen sowie Nietzsches genealogische Methode die heutige Debatte prägen. Left Wittgensteinianism: A Non-Foundationalist Ameliorative Framework for Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn terms of which concepts should we think? This kind of concern now looms large in philosophy, as there has been a marked turn to questions of how we can improve rather than just describe our conceptual practices. This turn has involved a radical break with Wittgensteinian ideas. While Wittgenstein has convinced many that we should not seek to derive the one definitively right set of concepts from timeless rational foundations, what he advocates instead has widely been felt to be overly conservative: he insists that justifications come to an end in the "bedrock of practice," that we should defer to the practices we find ourselves with. Many have concluded from this that Wittgensteinianism inevitably leads to a conservative or Right Wittgensteinianism . Contemporary approaches seeking to improve our concepts try to break free from Wittgensteinian conservatism by breaking free from Wittgensteinianism. Yet this total abandonment of Wittgensteinian insights introduces fresh failings. One contemporary approach, conceptual engineering, takes progress through conceptual innovation in science as its model and seeks to forge new concepts in order to ask better questions; but it suffers from a tendency to treat the motley of our practices as something that can be designed from the philosopher's drawing board, like artificial languages in logic. Similarly, the ameliorative metaphysics approach seeks to decide which (if any) of the warring conceptions of concepts like human nature we should use by appealing to ethical and political criteria; but it remains overly abstract in asking whether we should use any of these conceptions tout court , thereby overlooking the needs in actual situations from which each of these conceptions might derive a point in practice. These are failings which Wittgensteinian attention to what our concepts do for us in practice can remedy. What is needed is a middle path between Right Wittgensteinianism and the revisionary approaches. The long-term aim of this project is to trace such a middle path between Wittgensteinian conservatism and more revisionary approaches by developing a Left Wittgensteinian Framework that combines the revisionary ambitions of conceptual engineering and ameliorative metaphysics-hence "Left"-with Wittgensteinian attention to the point of our concepts given our needs in actual situations -hence "Wittgensteinian." It thereby aims to offer a concrete model for how philosophy can function as a humanistic discipline-i.e., in integration with other disciplines. The short-term aim over the first eleven months is to develop a Stratified View of our practices that reveals a non-foundationalist basis for ameliorating our concepts in a layer of changeable and context-sensitive practical needs. Animal Ethics in ecological research Research Project | 2 Project MembersDie Verwendung von Tieren in der Forschung wird sowohl in der Wissen- schaft als auch in der breiten Öffentlichkeit zunehmend kontrovers diskutiert. Ethische Fragen werden jedoch in der Wildtierforschung selten gestellt, obwohl diese viele sogenannte invasive Methoden beinhaltet, welche das Tierwohl beeinträchtigen und Leiden verursachen. Darüber hinaus ist die Wildtierforschung bei der Ausbildung der Fachpersonen in Ethik und Tierschutz hinter anderen Disziplinen wie Medizin und Human- genetik zurückgeblieben. Animalfree Research finanziert eine der ersten Initiativen, die sich mit der Frage der Tierethik und des Tierschutzes in der Wildtierforschung befasst. Dieses Projekt ist einzigartig in der Schweiz. Authenticity, Narrative and Neural Modification Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe development of ever more potent and specific methods for neural modification, for instance Deep Brain Stimulation or psychotropic drugs, poses a challenge for our self-image and requires a careful and responsible handling. On this note the influence of neural modifications on authenticity is seen as an important topic. In the current research the concept of authenticity is mainly discussed in the context of enhancement and psychotropic drugs, tough often authenticity is only covered incidentally and with a simplified definition. In this doctoral thesis neural modifications with regard to authenticity are investigated thoroughly and based on a profound analysis of the concept of authenticity. In the first part a genealogy of authenticity will be compiled, to show how the concept developed and became a virtue as well as to illustrate the different functions and interpretations that have been ascribed to the concept. Moreover, authenticity will be differentiated from related concepts such as autonomy or identity via this historical exposition. Based on this investigation a narrativistic approach to authenticity will be developed, which does justice to its functions and to our intuitions on the concept. The second part will cover a discussion on neural modifications. Following an overview what neural modifications encompass and how the different methods influence a person and his/her brain they will be characterized along frame concepts such as naturalness, innovation or enhancement. The third part will combine the results of the first two parts to asses which modifications and which properties of these modifications support or threaten authenticity as understood in the narrativistic approach and why we consider some neural modifications as unproblematic whereas others are perceived as controversial. Respect for Foxes and Hedgehogs: Animal Agency and Kantian Ethics of Respect Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe project: Kant's moral philosophy is a predominant paradigm in contemporary ethics. However, one thing modern readers of Kant are often unimpressed with is his account of animal ethics. The question this dissertation attempts to answer is: What if we took Kant's moral philosophy and modified it so that it can account for respect for nonhuman animals? In answering this question, I provide an in-depth account of the relation between Kant's views about what animals are and his views about how we ought to treat them. By bringing together Kant's philosophy with the newest advances in the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency, I then provide a new framework for animal ethics which I call the Ethics of Respect.Realisation: The project answers its central question in two steps spanning three semesters each: First, it corrects Kant's rather crude views about what animals are and what their capabilities are. In Kant's view, animals lack practical reason and are steered wholly by behavioral automatisms - a view I criticize and replace with a pluralist view of animal practical capabilities. Secondly, the project accordingly corrects Kant's views on how we morally ought to treat animals. In the course of taking the second step, the project outlines the moral philosophy Kant should have defended had he not been oblivious to the extent and diversity of animal practical capabilities - the Ethics of Respect. This is effectively a Kantian system of ethics equipped with tools from the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency to deal with moral questions relating to animals. Its heart is a Categorical Imperative that is sensitive to the differences in practical capabilities we find in the animal world. Finally, the project spells out the implications of this renewed Categorical Imperative for our moral practice. The formats of mental representation: Explaining differences in human and nonhuman animal thought Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe very nature of thought has often been understood to be constitutively related to language use. This view, lingualism, falls foul of David Hume's animal test, according to which the plausibility of a theory about the mind is, in part, determined by its implications regarding nonhuman animals. Lingualism about thought does not pass Hume's animal test because it implies that animals which do not make use of language are ipso facto unable to think. A theory that meets the demands of the animal test is Jerry Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis (LOTH), according to which thought is not constitutively connected to any natural language such as English or Italian, it rather bears the form of mental representations, which are structured according to the principles of a mental language, which is innate. However, the LOTH also faces a problem regarding animal thoughts, namely the problem of indeterminacy in translating animal thoughts. Since, according to the LOTH, animal thoughts bear a language-like sentential format, namely the format of the Language of Thought, they should in principle be translatable into sentences of some natural language. But, as both empirical and theoretical research suggest, there are strong reasons to believe that insurmountable indeterminacies as regards the interpretation of animal thought into sentential formats would strongly distort the contents of the thoughts. This problem of indeterminacy can be tackled if we distinguish different formats of thought: sentential formats and non-sentential formats, such as cartographic thought. Motivated by the problems animal minds pose for classical accounts of the mind, this PhD project will elaborate how non-sentential formats of thought help to explain both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities between humans and nonhuman animals. This will help us to better understand the aspects of our thoughts that we share with animals and what makes some of our thoughts distinctly human. Causation and the Self-Constitution of the Conscious Mind Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn the thesis I advocate a pragmatic explanatory non-reductive naturalistic account of subjectivity compatible with the state of the art in empirical consciousness studies and able to accommodate strongly held intuitions regarding conscious phenomena. I do this by suggesting and adopting a line of approach that diverges from the standard approach to the mind-body problem in contemporary philosophy of mind. I focus on phenomenal consciousness and I try to explain why conscious phenomena exist in the actual world. I call the latter the "Natural Problem of Consciousness". I claim that contingent conscious "mental" phenomena are in fact nothing but subjective biological phenomena - phenomena that some living beings contingently have. I argue that the kind of explanation we need in order to explain the contingent existence of biological phenomena (including consciousness) is a diachronic biological explanation such as one deriving from the theory of evolution by natural selection. I hold that it is a fact that consciousness, in the actual world, has not been selected against. I suggest that the only explanatorily satisfactorily explanation for this is that the very fact of feeling can play (or, at least, can have played) a causal role in the actual natural world. The main challenge posed by the Natural Problem of Consciousness consists then in putting forward a plausible theory suggesting why and how the fact of feeling could increase some beings' biological fitness. I advance an hypothesis in this sense. Biosemantik und Normativer Pragmatismus: Auf dem Weg zu einem einheitlichen Bild des menschlichen Geistes in der natürlichen Welt Research Project | 4 Project MembersHuman beings are a species of animals. Yet how can human thought and language be part of the natural world? Teleosemantical theories hold the promise of an integrated naturalistic theory of thought and language, especially Ruth Millikan's Biosemantics. Her account is sometimes seen to have shortcomings, when it comes to understand our rational and social practices. Robert Brandom's Normative Pragmatism provides answers to those issues. His program suffers from problems that can be solved from a biosemantical perspective. The general aim of the project is to integrate Normative Pragmatism in the perspective of Biosemantics. The focus of the subprojects will be on concepts, norms, and subjectivity. The project aims at a naturalistic understanding of those essential features of the human mind. 1 1
"'The Power of Thought and Feeling' - Mary Shepherds Theorie des Geistes" Research Project | 1 Project MembersMein Postdoc.Mobility-Forschungsprojekt widmet sich der Theorie des Geistes der schottischen Philosophin Mary Shepherd (1777-1847) mit dem Ziel eine Forschungslücke zu schliessen und ein neues Forschungsgebiet zu eröffnen. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht dabei die Frage, wie Shepherd die Beziehung zwischen Geist und Körper auffasst (d. i., wie löst sie das sog. «Leib-Seele-Problem»?). Mein Augenmerk liegt dabei auf Shepherds beiden Hauptwerken: EPEU und das 'Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect' (ERCE). Für deren Analyse bediene ich mich einer kritischen Textexegese sowie einer systematischen Rekonstruktion. Shepherds Argumentation wird damit nicht einfach wiedergegeben, sondern auf Unklarheiten, Inkonsistenzen oder Widersprüche geprüft und hinsichtlich ihrer Plausibilität kommentiert. Dies ist besonders wichtig, da sich die Shepherd-Forschung noch im Anfangsstadium befindet und viele Aspekte ihres Denkens erst erschlossen werden müssen. Dieser Umstand erklärt sich dadurch, dass Shepherds Beitrag - wie jener vieler anderer Autorinnen in der Geschich-te der Philosophie - während Jahrhunderten systematisch negiert wurde (vgl. Eileen O'Neills «Disappearing Ink»). In diesem Sinne fügt sich mein Projekt, in eine grössere Forschungsbewegung ein, welche darum bemüht ist, Denkerinnen wie Shepherd zu ihrem rechtmässigen Platz im philosophiehistorischen Kanon zu verhelfen, um damit auch die (philosophische) Sichtbarkeit bis anhin unterrepräsentierter Gruppen zu verbessern.
Beastly Politics Research Project | 1 Project MembersThere is broad consensus in contemporary animal ethics that sentient nonhuman animals matter morally in their own right. As a consequence, it is widely recognized that humans have negative duties (that is, duties of non-interference and non-maleficence) towards them. In other words, humans should not inflict unnecessary harms upon animals. Less attention, however, has been paid to the question of whether humans have positive duties (that is, duties of assistance) towards animals, and if so, what those duties encompass, whether those duties vary according to the type of animal under consideration, and what should be done if those duties are in conflict with others that we hold. Additionally, it is unclear who bears such duties and responsibilities: is it merely individuals, or are these collective duties all members of a society share? If the latter is the case, do these duties have to be implemented on a political level? Do animals have a claim for having their interests represented on a political level, and should their interests thus be taken into consideration in the process of political decision-making? However, since animals cannot voice their interests themselves in political deliberations (similar to future generations, young children and cognitively disabled individuals), new ways have to be found to represent their interests. Furthermore, the project will explore how such positive duties might be appropriately balanced and prioritized given scarce resources and the pressing existing obligations towards humans, and how these duties can be institutionalized on a political level.
Die Evolution der Moral. Wissenschaftliche Erklärungen und normative Vorannahmen Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn meiner Habilitation analysiere ich zeitgenössische Theorien der Evolution der Moral (vgl. etwa Tomasello 2016, Kitcher, 2011, Churchland 2011, Prinz 2007) mit den Mitteln der Wissenschaftstheorie, der philosophischen Begriffsklärung und der Ideologiekritik. Vorhandene Theorien stützen sich auf ein geringes Maß an historischen Daten. Stattdessen arbeiten sie zentral mit funktionalen Erklärungen, Analogieschlüssen und fiktionalen Modellen. Die Arbeit erstellt eine Typologie der verschiedenen Erklärungsformen und gibt für diese jeweils Qualitätskriterien an. Mit Verweis auf diese Kriterien lassen sich vorhandene Theorien der Evolution der Moral erstmals vergleichen und evaluieren. Durch die Vielfalt an Erklärungsformen und die eklektische Verwendung indirekter Evidenz öffnen sich die Arbeiten unreflektierten Vorannahmen darüber, was die menschliche Moral überhaupt ist und welche Merkmale des Menschen ihn moralfähig machen. Die Analyse zeitgenössischer Arbeiten wird durch eine historische Einbettung ergänzt. Die Arbeit zeigt so wie die Entstehung der Evolutionstheorie im 19. Jahrhundert und die mit ihr verbundenen ideologischen Diskussionen über die Natur des Menschen sowie Nietzsches genealogische Methode die heutige Debatte prägen.
Left Wittgensteinianism: A Non-Foundationalist Ameliorative Framework for Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn terms of which concepts should we think? This kind of concern now looms large in philosophy, as there has been a marked turn to questions of how we can improve rather than just describe our conceptual practices. This turn has involved a radical break with Wittgensteinian ideas. While Wittgenstein has convinced many that we should not seek to derive the one definitively right set of concepts from timeless rational foundations, what he advocates instead has widely been felt to be overly conservative: he insists that justifications come to an end in the "bedrock of practice," that we should defer to the practices we find ourselves with. Many have concluded from this that Wittgensteinianism inevitably leads to a conservative or Right Wittgensteinianism . Contemporary approaches seeking to improve our concepts try to break free from Wittgensteinian conservatism by breaking free from Wittgensteinianism. Yet this total abandonment of Wittgensteinian insights introduces fresh failings. One contemporary approach, conceptual engineering, takes progress through conceptual innovation in science as its model and seeks to forge new concepts in order to ask better questions; but it suffers from a tendency to treat the motley of our practices as something that can be designed from the philosopher's drawing board, like artificial languages in logic. Similarly, the ameliorative metaphysics approach seeks to decide which (if any) of the warring conceptions of concepts like human nature we should use by appealing to ethical and political criteria; but it remains overly abstract in asking whether we should use any of these conceptions tout court , thereby overlooking the needs in actual situations from which each of these conceptions might derive a point in practice. These are failings which Wittgensteinian attention to what our concepts do for us in practice can remedy. What is needed is a middle path between Right Wittgensteinianism and the revisionary approaches. The long-term aim of this project is to trace such a middle path between Wittgensteinian conservatism and more revisionary approaches by developing a Left Wittgensteinian Framework that combines the revisionary ambitions of conceptual engineering and ameliorative metaphysics-hence "Left"-with Wittgensteinian attention to the point of our concepts given our needs in actual situations -hence "Wittgensteinian." It thereby aims to offer a concrete model for how philosophy can function as a humanistic discipline-i.e., in integration with other disciplines. The short-term aim over the first eleven months is to develop a Stratified View of our practices that reveals a non-foundationalist basis for ameliorating our concepts in a layer of changeable and context-sensitive practical needs.
Animal Ethics in ecological research Research Project | 2 Project MembersDie Verwendung von Tieren in der Forschung wird sowohl in der Wissen- schaft als auch in der breiten Öffentlichkeit zunehmend kontrovers diskutiert. Ethische Fragen werden jedoch in der Wildtierforschung selten gestellt, obwohl diese viele sogenannte invasive Methoden beinhaltet, welche das Tierwohl beeinträchtigen und Leiden verursachen. Darüber hinaus ist die Wildtierforschung bei der Ausbildung der Fachpersonen in Ethik und Tierschutz hinter anderen Disziplinen wie Medizin und Human- genetik zurückgeblieben. Animalfree Research finanziert eine der ersten Initiativen, die sich mit der Frage der Tierethik und des Tierschutzes in der Wildtierforschung befasst. Dieses Projekt ist einzigartig in der Schweiz.
Authenticity, Narrative and Neural Modification Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe development of ever more potent and specific methods for neural modification, for instance Deep Brain Stimulation or psychotropic drugs, poses a challenge for our self-image and requires a careful and responsible handling. On this note the influence of neural modifications on authenticity is seen as an important topic. In the current research the concept of authenticity is mainly discussed in the context of enhancement and psychotropic drugs, tough often authenticity is only covered incidentally and with a simplified definition. In this doctoral thesis neural modifications with regard to authenticity are investigated thoroughly and based on a profound analysis of the concept of authenticity. In the first part a genealogy of authenticity will be compiled, to show how the concept developed and became a virtue as well as to illustrate the different functions and interpretations that have been ascribed to the concept. Moreover, authenticity will be differentiated from related concepts such as autonomy or identity via this historical exposition. Based on this investigation a narrativistic approach to authenticity will be developed, which does justice to its functions and to our intuitions on the concept. The second part will cover a discussion on neural modifications. Following an overview what neural modifications encompass and how the different methods influence a person and his/her brain they will be characterized along frame concepts such as naturalness, innovation or enhancement. The third part will combine the results of the first two parts to asses which modifications and which properties of these modifications support or threaten authenticity as understood in the narrativistic approach and why we consider some neural modifications as unproblematic whereas others are perceived as controversial.
Respect for Foxes and Hedgehogs: Animal Agency and Kantian Ethics of Respect Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe project: Kant's moral philosophy is a predominant paradigm in contemporary ethics. However, one thing modern readers of Kant are often unimpressed with is his account of animal ethics. The question this dissertation attempts to answer is: What if we took Kant's moral philosophy and modified it so that it can account for respect for nonhuman animals? In answering this question, I provide an in-depth account of the relation between Kant's views about what animals are and his views about how we ought to treat them. By bringing together Kant's philosophy with the newest advances in the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency, I then provide a new framework for animal ethics which I call the Ethics of Respect.Realisation: The project answers its central question in two steps spanning three semesters each: First, it corrects Kant's rather crude views about what animals are and what their capabilities are. In Kant's view, animals lack practical reason and are steered wholly by behavioral automatisms - a view I criticize and replace with a pluralist view of animal practical capabilities. Secondly, the project accordingly corrects Kant's views on how we morally ought to treat animals. In the course of taking the second step, the project outlines the moral philosophy Kant should have defended had he not been oblivious to the extent and diversity of animal practical capabilities - the Ethics of Respect. This is effectively a Kantian system of ethics equipped with tools from the philosophy of animal minds and animal agency to deal with moral questions relating to animals. Its heart is a Categorical Imperative that is sensitive to the differences in practical capabilities we find in the animal world. Finally, the project spells out the implications of this renewed Categorical Imperative for our moral practice.
The formats of mental representation: Explaining differences in human and nonhuman animal thought Research Project | 1 Project MembersThe very nature of thought has often been understood to be constitutively related to language use. This view, lingualism, falls foul of David Hume's animal test, according to which the plausibility of a theory about the mind is, in part, determined by its implications regarding nonhuman animals. Lingualism about thought does not pass Hume's animal test because it implies that animals which do not make use of language are ipso facto unable to think. A theory that meets the demands of the animal test is Jerry Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis (LOTH), according to which thought is not constitutively connected to any natural language such as English or Italian, it rather bears the form of mental representations, which are structured according to the principles of a mental language, which is innate. However, the LOTH also faces a problem regarding animal thoughts, namely the problem of indeterminacy in translating animal thoughts. Since, according to the LOTH, animal thoughts bear a language-like sentential format, namely the format of the Language of Thought, they should in principle be translatable into sentences of some natural language. But, as both empirical and theoretical research suggest, there are strong reasons to believe that insurmountable indeterminacies as regards the interpretation of animal thought into sentential formats would strongly distort the contents of the thoughts. This problem of indeterminacy can be tackled if we distinguish different formats of thought: sentential formats and non-sentential formats, such as cartographic thought. Motivated by the problems animal minds pose for classical accounts of the mind, this PhD project will elaborate how non-sentential formats of thought help to explain both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities between humans and nonhuman animals. This will help us to better understand the aspects of our thoughts that we share with animals and what makes some of our thoughts distinctly human.
Causation and the Self-Constitution of the Conscious Mind Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn the thesis I advocate a pragmatic explanatory non-reductive naturalistic account of subjectivity compatible with the state of the art in empirical consciousness studies and able to accommodate strongly held intuitions regarding conscious phenomena. I do this by suggesting and adopting a line of approach that diverges from the standard approach to the mind-body problem in contemporary philosophy of mind. I focus on phenomenal consciousness and I try to explain why conscious phenomena exist in the actual world. I call the latter the "Natural Problem of Consciousness". I claim that contingent conscious "mental" phenomena are in fact nothing but subjective biological phenomena - phenomena that some living beings contingently have. I argue that the kind of explanation we need in order to explain the contingent existence of biological phenomena (including consciousness) is a diachronic biological explanation such as one deriving from the theory of evolution by natural selection. I hold that it is a fact that consciousness, in the actual world, has not been selected against. I suggest that the only explanatorily satisfactorily explanation for this is that the very fact of feeling can play (or, at least, can have played) a causal role in the actual natural world. The main challenge posed by the Natural Problem of Consciousness consists then in putting forward a plausible theory suggesting why and how the fact of feeling could increase some beings' biological fitness. I advance an hypothesis in this sense.
Biosemantik und Normativer Pragmatismus: Auf dem Weg zu einem einheitlichen Bild des menschlichen Geistes in der natürlichen Welt Research Project | 4 Project MembersHuman beings are a species of animals. Yet how can human thought and language be part of the natural world? Teleosemantical theories hold the promise of an integrated naturalistic theory of thought and language, especially Ruth Millikan's Biosemantics. Her account is sometimes seen to have shortcomings, when it comes to understand our rational and social practices. Robert Brandom's Normative Pragmatism provides answers to those issues. His program suffers from problems that can be solved from a biosemantical perspective. The general aim of the project is to integrate Normative Pragmatism in the perspective of Biosemantics. The focus of the subprojects will be on concepts, norms, and subjectivity. The project aims at a naturalistic understanding of those essential features of the human mind.
