Martin Hartmann

Als William James im Jahre 1907 sein Buch Pragmatism veröffentlichte, ahnte er nicht, dass er am Anfang einer philosophischen Bewegung stand, die zu einer der mächtigsten Denkrichtungen des 20. Jahrhunderts avancierte, deren Einfluss bis heute ungebrochen ist. Aber welche Rolle können pragmatistische »Denkweisen« in der Gegenwartsphilosophie tatsächlich spielen? Der Band gibt Einblick in eine der lebendigsten Diskussionen zeitgenössischer Philosophie und versammelt Aufsätze international renommierter Forscherinnen und Forscher aus den Feldern der Politischen Philosophie, der Erkenntnistheorie sowie der Sprach- und Religionsphilosophie. Mit Texten von Philip Kitcher, Cheryl Misak, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Seel, Susan Haack und Christopher Hookway.

This paper discusses recent interpretations of Jean‐Paul Sartre's early theory of emotions, in particular hisSketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Despite the great interest that Sartre's approach has generated, most interpretations assume that his approach fails because it appears to be focussed on ‘malformed’, ‘irrational’ or ‘distorted’ emotions. I argue that these criticisms adopt a rationalistic or epistemically biassed perspective on emotions that is wrongly applied to Sartre's text. In my defence of Sartre I show that the directional fit of emotions is not towards an evaluatively loaded world which is independently given and, at best, represented by emotions, but towards a world shaped through the impact of emotions themselves. Sartre's idea of emotions ‘magically transforming’ reality for the subject so that the latter is better able to cope with problematic aspects of practically relevant situations encapsulates the world‐shaping capacities of emotions, which are thus not reserved for a restricted class of emotions. Recognition of the transformative powers of emotions will also direct attention away from their seemingly representative elements to their normative and practical aspects and offer a new basis for delineating the criteria for judging them. The plausibility of this position is discussed with reference to some of Sartre's examples, such as fear, sadness and horror, but also with reference to Joan Didion's account of grief inThe Year of Magical Thinking.

Body movement is a primary nonverbal communication channel in humans. Coordinated social behaviors, such as dancing together, encourage multifarious rhythmic and interpersonally coupled movements from which observers can extract socially and contextually relevant information. The investigation of relations between visual social perception and kinematic motor coupling is important for social cognition. Perceived coupling of dyads spontaneously dancing to pop music has been shown to be highly driven by the degree of frontal orientation between dancers. The perceptual salience of other aspects, including postural congruence, movement frequencies, time‐delayed relations, and horizontal mirroring remains, however, uncertain. In a motion capture study, 90 participant dyads moved freely to 16 musical excerpts from eight musical genres, while their movements were recorded using optical motion capture. A total from 128 recordings from 8 dyads maximally facing each other were selected to generate silent 8‐s animations. Three kinematic features describing simultaneous and sequential full body coupling were extracted from the dyads. In an online experiment, the animations were presented to 432 observers, who were asked to rate perceived similarity and interaction between dancers. We found dyadic kinematic coupling estimates to be higher than those obtained from surrogate estimates, providing evidence for a social dimension of entrainment in dance. Further, we observed links between perceived similarity and coupling of both slower simultaneous horizontal gestures and posture bounding volumes. Perceived interaction, on the other hand, was more related to coupling of faster simultaneous gestures and to sequential coupling. Also, dyads who were perceived as more coupled tended to mirror their pair's movements.

This book analyzes the impact that large socio-economic inequalities have on how we relate to each other emotionally and intellectually. How, the question is, could these inequalities not influence the goods we aspire to or the content of what we imagine to be (or what could be) the case? How could they not influence our capacity to empathize with those who are either higher or lower on the socio-economic ladder? The book thus sets itself the task of proving that the impact of inequality reaches far beyond measurable differences of income or capital. Inequalities have emotional impacts and influence our aspirational, imaginative, and empathic capacities. Further, the study suggests that feelings do not just passively register given inequalities but serve themselves as engines of social differentiation. This is particularly true of relative feelings such as envy, contempt, shame, or hatred that structure social relations and mark social distance and differentiation. The book sketches a relational theory of democracy that construes equality as a social relationship and thereby questions the strong focus most studies of inequality put on distributional questions. In a wide sense, questions of inequality should be tackled within a frame not just highlighting relative economic standing but also relative emotional standing.

Ever since Michel Foucaults lectures on The Birth of Biopolitics were posthumously published in 2004, a debate has raged on the question of Foucaults precise relation to the politico-economic school of neoliberalism. While some qualified his lectures as straightforwardly neoliberal in spirit and criticized them as such, others saw in them abundant material for a critique of neoliberalism as a transformative post World War Two regime of governmentality. Yet others suggested that there was no telling whether Foucault was a neoliberal or not as he had not written enough on the subject to allow for a substantial final judgment. This paper reviews recent attempts to grapple with the difficult question of Foucaults relation to neoliberalism. It presents recent research literature that tries to locate Foucaults lectures in their historical context in order to free them from the many quick attempts to enlist him as either friend or foe of neoliberalism. Further, it suggests that the growing literature on neoliberalism can help to better recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Foucaults approach in The Birth of Biopolitics.Wendy Brown, Die schleichende Revolution. Wie der Neoliberalismus die Demokratie zerstört, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015. 333 S. -, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism. The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West, New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. 248 S.; Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, Michel Foucaults letzte Lektion: Über Neoliberalismus, Theorie und Politik, Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2018. 148 S.; Philip Mirowski, Untote leben länger. Warum der Neoliberalismus nach der Krise noch stärker ist, Berlin: Matthes + Seitz, 2019. 352 S.

Introduction: There is evidence from earlier trials for the efficacy of music therapy in the treatment of depression among working-age people. Starting therapy sessions with relaxation and revisiting therapeutic themes outside therapy have been deemed promising for outcome enhancement. However, previous music therapy trials have not investigated this issue.Objective: To investigate the efficacy of two enhancers, resonance frequency breathing and listening homework, when combined with an established music therapy model.Methods: In a 2 × 2 factorial randomised controlled trial, working-age individuals with depression were allocated into groups based on four conditions derived from either the presence or absence of two enhancers. All received music therapy over 6 weeks. Outcomes were observed at 6 weeks and 6 months. The primary outcome was the Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale score.Results: There was a significant overall effect of treatment for the primary outcome favouring the breathing group. The effect was larger after adjustment for potential confounders. Treatment effects for secondary outcomes, including anxiety and quality of life, were also significant, favouring the breathing group. The homework enhancer did not reach significant treatment effects.Conclusion: We found that the addition of RFB to a music therapy intervention resulted in enhanced therapeutic outcome for clients with depression.

Vertrauen ist als Thema allgegenwärtig. Ob von Politikverdrossenheit, Bankenkrise oder Mißbrauchsskandalen die Rede ist - stets wird vorausgesetzt, daß Vertrauen eine zentrale Ressource sozialen Handelns ist, die nur schwer hergestellt, aber schnell zerstört werden kann. Aber was ist Vertrauen? Wie wird es geschaffen, wie zerstört? Wem sollten wir vertrauen, wem eher mit Mißtrauen begegnen? Martin Hartmann unternimmt in dieser profunden Studie den Versuch, Vertrauen sowohl begrifflich als auch historisch zu klären. Er veranschaulicht seine theoretischen Überlegungen immer wieder mit konkreten Beispielen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Familie. Vertrauen, so zeigt er, reduziert nicht Komplexität, wie oft vermutet, es ist selbst ein hochkomplexes Phänomen, das deutlich macht, wie zerbrechlich und anspruchsvoll Prozesse der Vertrauensbildung sind.

Inwieweit kann die Rolle, die einzelne Emotionen wie Scham, Eifersucht oder Ekel in den Shakespeare-Deutungen Cavells spielen, für eine allgemeinere Theorie der Emotionen fruchtbar gemacht werden? Leitende Annahme ist, dass eine narrative Konstruktion einzelner Emotionen im Kontext eines Selbstverständnisses den ‘direkten Repräsentationalismus’ korrigieren kann, der viele gegenwärtige Emotionstheorien bestimmt. Es geht vor allem um den Nachweis, dass eine Einbettung des Emotionsphänomens in narrativ zu rekonstruierende Selbstverständnisse einhergeht mit einer Neubestimmung der Grundlage der Beurteilung einzelner Emotionen. Cavells Begriff der Anerkennung liefert erste Bausteine der ethischen Basis der Beurteilung dieser Emotionen