Band 64, Heft 5

The paper aims to clarify the aesthetic as well as artistic status of videogames by placing it in a broader context of considerations in philosophical aesthetics. It develops those perspectives in three steps. The first step (i) aims to show that, contrary to what one might think, it is not possible to classically define videogames in terms of solely necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, because such a definition treats singular videogames as mere cases of the general concept of video games and thus abandons a genuinely aesthetic perspective. The second step (ii) analyses the aesthetics of videogames in terms of its complex relation to other aesthetic mediums and shows how aesthetically significant videogames negotiate what it means to be a videogame at all. The third step (iii) finally discusses the possibility of videogames being works of art and argues that some video games are works of art by affording a reflection on ourselves in and through the process of playing such a videogame.

Spatial metaphors have peculiar prominence in accounts of rationality, such as in the phrase “space of reason” made prominent by Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell. This article attempts to understand the potential of such comparisons of reason to space, taking Wittgenstein’s metaphor of “logical space” as exemplary. As Hans Blumenberg observes in his reading of Wittgenstein and in contrast to its stated aim, the account of “logical space” in the Tractatus does not achieve a final delimitation of reason. Wittgenstein’s discussion of different forms of rationality rather leads him to consider a plurality of spaces. Asking how these different spaces or fields of meaning can be congruent at all, Wittgenstein is led to consider the indeterminacy of space itself in contrast to the different localizations it allows.

As a philosophy with human problems at its centre and in a time of rapidly changing social conditions, classical Pragmatism engaged an ethics of social radicalism, an ethics that extended as far as human problems do: to the global. To understand how ideas like global justice are generated within pragmatism, it is important to examine not only the thought, but also the activism of pragmatists and how the experimental method of pragmatism was applied to global problems of its day. The life and work of Jane Addams is particularly rich for this kind of investigation. Addams met human problems at both local and global levels with the working hypothesis of applying and observing what a democratic attitude of radical social justice brings to felt indeterminacies. This article begins by comparing and contrasting a pragmatist approach to global justice as opposed to one better known, that of John Rawls, and moves on to examining the difference that Addams’s experience as a woman and an activist makes to how she practiced the pragmatist method in relation to global problems of the Progressive Era.

This paper presents the ongoing dispute between luck-egalitarians and relational egalitarians and inquires into its implications at the global level. It briefly outlines a theory of global relational equality and claims that such an understanding of the ideal of equality matches well with insights from the pragmatist tradition.

This article explores the Pragmatist and Rawlsian forms of cosmopolitanism that have emerged in recent decades in efforts to extend theories of justice to the global level. The Pragmatist approach is critical and problem-centred, using an account of the problematic situation and a reconstruction of inherited ideals to develop normative theories for action in a specific political context. The Rawlsian approach is abstract and systemic, deducing ideal institutional principles from thought experiments that require later implementation in the non-ideal world. The main argument of the article is that Pragmatists employ three methodological elements that give them important practical advantages over Rawlsians in providing action-guiding norms. First, a detailed account of the problem of injustice provides an indispensable empirical grounding that frames normative responses. Second, a critical reconstruction of the normative vocabulary relating to the problem ensures that the ideals used to guide action are historically relevant to the community of action. And finally, an account of normative theories in terms of their concrete requirements and means of realisation in the particular situation ensures they are attuned to its political constraints and possibilities for change.

The article explicates how the pragmatic account of justice which is called ‘justice as historic experimentalism’ can be applied to the debate on global justice. It investigates thereby the role that normative justifications of the nation-state ought to play in global theories of justice. It argues that one distinctive element of pragmatic approaches, as opposed to the dominant approaches in the field of global justice, is that arguments on the role of the nation-state do not occupy a central position. Rather, it is concrete problems of justice and their experimental and historic examination that guide the pragmatist inquiry. The role of the nation-state has to fall in line. The problem of global economic in equalities is invoked to illustrate the merits of the pragmatist approach to justice here presented.

This letter reports on the current state of philosophy in Turkey, describing in detail the academic landscape with its specificities and the principal traditions and fields of interest within the university faculty and amongst students. Furthermore, it gives an overview of the specific importance of political philosophy for Turkey, elaborating on how the Enlightenment, hierarchisation, polarisation and cultural conflict shape the country’s intellectual discussions and political practice. The letter closes with a short summary of problems plaguing the Turkish educational sector and contains some practical counsel to foreign philosophers wanting to work in Turkey or with Turkish philosophy students.

Jürgen Habermas explicates the concept of communicative reason. He explains the key assumptions of the philosophy of language and social theory associated with this concept. Also discussed is the category of life-world and the role of the body-mind difference for the consciousness of exclusivity in our access to subjective experience. as well as the role of emotions and perceptions in the context of a theory of communicative action. The question of the redemption of the various validity claims as they are associated with the performance of speech acts is related to processes of social learning and to the role of negative experiences. Finally the interview deals with the relationship between religion and reason and the importance of religion in modern, post-secular societies. Questions about the philosophical culture of our present times are discussed at the end of the conversation.