Claus Beisbart

What is it to judge something to be a natural end? And what objects may properly be judged natural ends? These questions pose a challenge, because the predicates “natural” and “end” seemingly can not be instantiated at the same time – at least given some Kantian assumptions. My paper defends the thesis that Kant’s “Critique of Teleological Judgment”, nevertheless, provides a sensible account of judging something a natural end. On the account, a person judges an object O a natural end, if she thinks that the parts of O cause O and if she is committed to approach O in a top-down manner, as if the parts were produced in view of the whole. The account is non-realist, because it involves a commitment. With the account comes a characterization that provides necessary and sufficient conditions on objects that may properly be judged natural ends. My paper reconstructs the argument in CTJ, §§64-65 where the account and the characterization are derived

With this Editorial, we’d like to inform our readers about some news concerning the editorship of the Journal for General Philosophy of Science:Since its foundation by Alwin Diemer , Lutz Geldsetzer and Gert König in 1970, JGPS was edited by the three founders until 2004. In 2005 and 2008, respectively, Helmut Pulte and Gregor Schiemann joined JGPS as new editors, while Lutz Geldsetzer and Gert König retired by the end of 2008. In 2013, Ulrich Krohs joined the editorial team and thereby restored the ‘trinity’ of the starting years of JGPS.Gregor Schiemann has decided to resign from his editorship with the end of 2014 and has assigned Claus Beisbart as his successor in consultation with the other editors and the publisher. Since 2012, Prof. Dr. Dr. Beisbart is working as a philosopher of science at the University of Bern . His areas of expertise include philosophy of physics, particularly of cosmology, epistemology of model building and simulation ..