Volume 72, Issue 2

In environmental ethics, many approaches are searching for a justification of the protection of nature and biodiversity via an account of the intrinsic or inherent value of non-human nature, i. e. a justification that does not rely on the perspective of human beings. This leads to intricate problems regarding value theory. This paper proposes to avoid those problems by investigating explicitly anthropocentric pathways. It discusses what kinds of reasons for the protection of nature can be developed from the consistent practical self-understanding of agents. First, it is argued that the practical commitments of agents necessarily involve some normative commitments to the protection of the generic conditions of agency, which are particularly relevant for the ecological conditions that enable us to act and to realise goals. Second, it is discussed whether the presence of non-human nature is particularly relevant from the perspective of philosophical anthropology. Is it not important for human beings to experience non-human nature as an environment that is not fully planned and designed by human beings? The general aim is to show that it is worthwhile to search for justifications of the protection of nature and biodiversity from the practical self-understanding of human beings.

This article explores both the significance and difficulty of the work of Paul Valéry (1871–1945), arguing that his challenging ideas on Europe and its crisis have much to contribute to recent debates on the philosophy of Europe. For Valéry, Europe is inseparable from its (spiritual) history, caught up in the process of self-understanding and self-alienation. In order to examine this process, the article focuses on Valéry’s tripartite composition of Europe’s “influences,” namely the institutions and laws of the Roman Empire, the self-examination of Christianity, and the discipline of spirit and development of science in ancient Greek culture.

This paper approximates a definitional distinction between philosophical problems and scientific problems. It defends the claim that philosophical problems can be defined as certain inconsistent sets 𝕄 of propositions. This set is characterised by its minimality, the plausibility of its individual propositions, the non-empirical character of some of these propositions, and by the fact that a discursive context exists within which some of 𝕄’s non-mathematical non-empirical assumptions are rejected by argument. In particular, this extrinsic and pragmatic criterion constitutes the novel character of the definition presented. Starting from the concept of philosophical problem, a classification of philosophy as an academic and intellectual discipline is presented. The last part of the paper deals with the question whether such an analytical understanding of philosophy is to be understood exclusively, or whether other kinds of philosophy should still be considered possible.

Contemplative and explanatory theories are distinguished. The corpus of European philosophy includes many sorts of texts. Only a few have explanatory value. Some are contemplative. But there are also therapeutic and sceptical texts. It was an old ideal of philosophy to lead a theoretical life. What could that mean? What does “life” mean in this context? We cannot choose forms of life, because all choices and preferences come up in life. Nevertheless a theoretical life is possible. What kind of life is it – one spent in contemplation, in explanation, or a sceptical one?

The essay outlines modelling theory in terms of an active form of thinking. In contrast to concepts of theory whose validity can be described by a scientific explanatory approach with a systematic character and the claim to universalization regarding a specific field of research, the question here is about varieties of theory building. The focus is on theoretical activity , not on theory as a result . Based on ancient implications of the term θεωρία (theoria), models of a theoretical activity, attitude or stance are brought into focus, whereby ways of distancing are constitutive in each case. What does theorizing mean from the perspective of a spectator and to what extent is purposelessness to be thought of as a critical potential? Does the theoretical performance of thought include a sense of possibility and to what extent is this articulated in the aesthetic forms of language? Do theoretical realizations in the literary medium move on a threshold between historical determinisms and the freedom of a conceivable future? To what extent do theoretical views have a synaesthetic dimension, and can we imagine poetic language as a medium of theoretical reflection? Is the nuanced linguistic nature of theoretical articulation modes the very condition of critical intervention? All these modellings of aesthetic distancing ask about the forms in which theory can be expressed, including ways of writing theoretical activity.

Regarding the question of “theory”, the paper takes the perspective of creation, i. e. of producing texts that exhibit theoretical qualities and that in this sense both do justice to a – certainly complex – “function” of philosophical theory and also “work” as theory (namely in a sustainable way, and perhaps also beyond the current scientific orthodoxies) and can thus be received in the long line of the philosophically relevant reading canon. On the one hand, it is proposed to take the project character of philosophical theory seriously. On the other hand, the conditions for the success of philosophical (theoretical) prose have to be looked at carefully. In addition to scholarship and a critical concern with and deep knowledge of discourse, literary qualities are also relevant. There is interplay between time-bound – i. e. historically changing – requirements and a paradoxically persistent style of philosophizing that proceeds despite the plurality of canonical references. “Philosophy”, of course, is not something timeless; it remains something provincial on an intercultural scale and, in principle, something that can be lost.

This essay reconstructs the relationship between critique and theory constitutive for Critical Theory. Based on Max Horkheimer’s 1937 program, the first part shows that “critical behaviour” must, on the one hand, seek proximity to social practice. On the other hand, such behaviour is dependent on the distance from its object that all “theoretical work” entails. Since the inception of a genuinely critical theory in the early works of Karl Marx, the proximity to practice goes hand in hand with the demand to work towards its change, implying a proximity to political movements. The second part shows that, for historical reasons, Horkheimer’s program distances itself from such movements. The third part interprets this dialectical attitude towards social practice as conditioning the peculiar – ideology-critical – capacity of Critical Theory. In conclusion, the fourth part problematises two current tendencies towards dissolving said dialectics: a return to what Horkheimer calls traditional theory on the one hand, and the abandonment of the demanding social-theoretical program in favour of political positioning on the other.