Volume 67, Issue 2

The paper aims at a reconstruction of the specificity of an aesthetic of design and aims at a new understanding of aesthetics taking into account that there are diverse kinds of aesthetic objects, i. e. art, nature and design. I argue that traditional concepts such as beauty and sensuality are not apt if we want to understand what is specific for an aesthetic of design. Instead of proposing another basic concept such as “function”, in the first part of the paper I present a broader systematical outline to incorporate various kinds of aesthetic objects. I draw on Kant, Hegel and Aristotle to understand different kinds of aesthetic objects as aesthetic in a formally different way: In the aesthetic of art, what it means to be aesthetic is formally different from what it means to be aesthetic in the aesthetic of design – I propose to differentiate varying forms of aesthetic practices. In the second part of the paper I look at this idea with regard to design: Whereas works of art develop self-sufficient forms that allow for a reflective self-understanding of those experiencing them, design is bound up in our practical ends. I propose to understand it as an internally aesthetic endeavour insofar as the ends are renegotiated in the design via the forms they are embodied in. Thus the singular embodiment of the practical ends is a major part of what it means to understand a design object.

For Hegel, what ought to be the case is the case and is, at the same time, not the case. I call this proposition „Hegel’s Proposition“. The elucidation, which Hegel’s Proposition obviously invites, moves from distinguishing two kinds of Ought and Is, respectively, through looking at the concepts of will and action, to reminding us of ways in which the world is both perfect and defective. Examined in this way, the so-called relation between Is and Ought turns out to be just that: a so-called, i. e. not a real, relation.

In what way is Phenomenology a realistic philosophy? To give an answer to this difficult question I propose to understand Phenomenology as the project of a universal epistemology and operative realism. This means especially to conceive Phenomenology not as a dogmatic doctrine but as an open (free from any bias) method and methodology. I propose the following solution: in one and the same procedure Phenomenology explores the possibilities and limits of human cognition and thus, at the same time, gives an answer to the question in what way Phenomenology is a realistic philosophy. Therefore the answer to this question can’t be given by a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’; it can only be given in form of an extensive research process and its results. Moreover, one can say that every serious realism must proceed in the same manner: every realistic position has to justify itself by an extensive epistemology

Representatives of ‘philosophy of mind’ such as Michael Pauen think about the issue of mind and brain as if they were solving a linguistic puzzle. At first glance this approach appears to be particularly objective, but actually it contains misleading simplifications, logical failures and categorical mistakes at crucial points in the train of thought. This article demonstrates that the claim of identity of mind and brain only makes sense if one presupposes neuroconstructivism and strong naturalism already in the very composition of the identity-oriented argument. According to naturalism, every occurrence, thus also our subjectivity and our personal acts, are conditioned sufficiently by the causal mechanism of actions. Intentionality is thus reduced to a causal mechanism and consciousness to a psychophysical state. When theorists like Gerhard Roth or Michael Pauen interpret observations of brain science to the effect that our lives are determined by neurobiological processes and that freedom of will in a strong sense is impossible, then they will only find in their interpretations what they ideologically put in beforehand.

Rudolf Carnap’s intellectual autobiography was published in 1963. The specific characteristics of this kind of text and its reception shape his self-testimony. This article examines how these characteristics – typical narrative position and structure, problems of truth and veracity, well-rounded self-presentation – are manifest in the story Carnap tells of his life. In Carnap’s case, the subjective narrative position is the one of the successful philosopher, and Carnap meets the expectation of presenting one’s life as a unity, framed by considerations of his general attitude towards life. In line with the history of autobiographical writing in pietism, Carnap’s autobiography also includes a kind of self-justification in addition to a conversion experience, although the latter is secularized as a conversion from religion to logic-centred philosophy. In this regard, the United States are presented as a blessed country, where Carnap has reached his New Zion which he helped flourish

The article presents the various functions that notebook-writing had for Kurt Gödel as a philosopher. It is shown in how far he is in the tradition of the ancient hypomnemata and in how far this activity is associated with his individual ethics. Self-admonition and self-perfection as an ethical project do belong for Gödel to the development of a thinker and his philosophy. Some comparisons with personal testimonies of other members of the Vienna Circle are drawn.

Apart from the coded part of the Notebooks 1914–1916 and a diary of the 1930s (published as Denkbewegungen ), there are numerous so called diarian remarks scattered throughout Wittgenstein’s philosophical manuscripts, many of them written in code. Even though my article will focus on the personal diarian entries, I will hint at the tight connection to Wittgenstein’s philosophical remarks – above all with regard to the ethical impulse determining Wittgenstein’s way of life as well as his way of writing philosophy, where an obsessive search for clarity and perfection can be observed.

This letter focuses on both the recent history of academic philosophy in Switzerland and its present status. Historically, institutional self-consciousness of philosophy came to life during World War II as a reaction to the isolation of international academic life in Switzerland; moreover, the divide between philosophy in the French part and the German part of the country had to be bridged. One important instrument to achieve this end was the creation of the “Schweizerische Philosophische Gesellschaft” and its “Jahrbuch” (today: “Studia philosophica”) in 1940. At the same time the creation of the journal “Dialectica” (1947), the influence of Joseph Maria Bochensky at the University of Fribourg and Henri Lauener at the University of Berne prepared the ground for the flourishing of analytic philosophy in Switzerland. Today analytic philosophy has established a very successful academic enterprise in Switzerland without suppressing other philosophical traditions. Despite the fact that academic philosophy is somewhat present in the public, there is much more potential for actual philosophical research to enter into public consciousness. The outline sketched in this letter is, of course, a limited account of the recent history and present state of philosophy in Switzerland. There is only very little research on this topic.