Moritz Kalckreuth

The aim of this paper is to explore the cultural and historical dimension of morality, seldom discussed in contemporary moral philosophy. Referring to Nicolai Hartmann and his theory of the spiritual being, I show how morality fits into the totality of objective spirit and which general and specific features of morality may be discerned therein. Next, I discuss several promising insights following from that approach: regarding the relation between common morality and conscience, the emergence of generational conflicts concerning moral principles, and interactions between morality and other areas of culture and society.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss two metaphysical concepts of epistemology in the works of Nicolai Hartmann and Helmuth Plessner. The discussion of both concepts focuses on one of the most critical problems of modern epistemology, known as “Satz des Bewußtseins” or “Satz der Immanenz” (Theorem of Immanence). The problem can be briefly summarized by the question why we should assume that things can be real, autonomous entities if we only know them through our subjective capacities, commonly referred to as awareness or intentionality. Hartmann and Plessner develop distinct solutions to this problem. Hartmann’s approach is described as a-centristic while Plessner’s approach is introduced as an alternative, ex-centristic solution. The discussion of both approaches is motivated by the intent to clarify which notion of epistemological distance necessitates consideration to recognize and understand the autonomy of things.

The Idea of an objective hierarchy of values is a center-piece in value-ethics of Scheler und Hartmann. While many objections against value-objectivism, the claim, that there are enteties called “values” at all, the hierarchy-claim hasn’t been objected and discussed in a comparable prominent way. The question, how such a hierarchy is grounded, is crucial both to understanding and defending the hierarchy-claim and for making clear, how value-objectivism could be understood at all. After discussion about some differences in the understanding in the concepts of value-order of Scheler and Hartmann, I will offer a way, how the structure of value hierarchy can be deduced from implications of a meaning-principle. In this way, I try to defend the hierarchy claim in a way, which is explicitly refused by Hartmann and Scheler, although both claimed similarities between the valueorder and orders in geometry, in whose inherent relations are available both for intuition and formal deducing. Despite some unsolved problems concerning conditions of reliability of concrete value-judging and -balancing, the work in deducing structures of hierarchy of values can provide insights about range and borders of what could be subject of apriori-value-theories and how it is related to contingent features such as concrete situations, personal meaningfulness, social norms.

While Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann both develop notions of person and personhood in their philosophical works, these notions still differ in many aspects. Analysing the critics formulated by Hartmann on Scheler’s theory of person and also Scheler’s discussions of Hartmann’s ontology, it is to be shown that despite some fundamental disagreements regarding the connection between subjectivity and personhood as well as the notion of collective and absolute persons, both thinkers in some way influence each other’s positions.

The aim of this text is to discuss the various concepts of Personhood developed by Helmuth Plessner, Nicolai Hartmann and Max Scheler. It is to be shown that many approaches in contemporary analytical philosophy try to offer “conditions” of personhood, which are on one hand philosophical categories (as self-consciousness, a free will etc.), but on the other hand understood as functions which can be observed reliably in everyday-behaviour. In contrast, Plessner, Hartmann and Scheler differ the categorical descriptions of personhood developed in philosophy from empirical behaviour, in which these categories become accessible. Finally, they all have in common not just to clarify philosophically what a Person is, but also to show which concrete phenomena have to be interpreted in terms of a personal sphere.

In this paper I intend to bring together three different, but somehow connected problems: First of all, I will discuss the possibilities and prospects of a philosophy of value (axiology). This philosophical discipline may rely on our experience of meaningfulness in our everyday life but nevertheless its usual theoretical framework is challenged by different fundamental objections. I shall argue that to be capable of articulating the tension between the historical character of our goods and valuations on one hand and the conceptual relations between values on the other, a general philosophy of value requests a broad perspective including notions of history, society and culture. Secondly, I will discuss the idea of “religious values” and the objects we might have in mind when using this concept. Here I will argue that talking about religious or sacred values might bring about the special role which some artefacts, places, rituals etc. can have in religious practice. At last it is to be shown that a philosophical theory of values with a rich conceptual framework (including for example the difference between values themselves and valuable goods, virtues or sentiments) may also be suitable for the cooperation with social and cultural studies or other humanities.

The aim of this paper is to show that value-experiences and -attachments are to be understood as interwoven within the structure of a person’s life. Whereas the assumption of value-experiences as isolated mental states often fails to explain why we do not experience given values, referring to the person’s life allows to understand that our value-experiences are favoured, made difficult or excluded by other emotional phenomena or shared life forms. This model, though, differs from biological or psychological models by referring to a broad account of personhood instead of mere biological functions or psychological needs.

In the debates of value-theory, it is often assumed that the problem of relativism is to be addressed in a general way, taking moral values as archetype of values. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a differentiation of this debate by facing the problem of relativism in terms of a specific kind of values, namely that of cultural values ascribed to heritage. It shall be shown that by involving both cultural and value-dimensions, the case of cultural heritage does require an approach more open to historical change and cultural differences. After elaborating the various aspects of cultural heritage, some features of cultural values and their experience are to be described. Discussing the problems of radical absolutist and relativist approaches, I will defend a ‘middle way’ that is able to articulate the historicity and cultural diversity of our reception of heritage and its values without giving up the idea of an irreducibility of value-phenomena: Such a view has to recognise the culturally produced character of objects of heritage, the culturally mediated nature of our experience of its values and finally the specific feature of cultural values, whose realisation is interwoven with cultural acts of recognition and collective identification.

Innerhalb der Community ist Wolfgang Eßbach nicht nur für seine Arbeiten zur Kultursoziologie sowie zur Ideen- und Intellektuellengeschichte bekannt, sondern auch für seine Forschungsbeiträge im Umfeld der philosophischen Anthropologie und seine Tätigkeit als Gründungspräsident der Helmuth-Plessner-Gesellschaft. Zudem dürften viele Studierende sowie Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler der Universität Freiburg und darüber hinaus seine instruktiven Vorlesungen ‚im Ohr‘ haben, nicht zuletzt wegen ihrer Verbreitung als Podcast.

Sofern man sich die Zeit nimmt, die Auflistung von ‚Klassikern‘ im Umfeld der sogenannten Philosophischen Anthropologie auf der Website der Helmuth-Plessner-Gesellschaft zu betrachten, so springt neben einigen bekannten Namen wie Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner und Arnold Gehlen auch der Name Paul Alsberg ins Auge. Während sich noch mühelos in Erfahrung bringen lässt, dass Alsberg der Autor des Buches Das Menschheitsrätsel – Versuch einer prinzipiellen Lösung von 1922 war und dass in diesem Werk der Begriff der „Körperausschaltung“ bzw. „Organausschaltung“ eine zentrale Rolle zu spielen scheint, so lassen sich zu ihm kaum weitere Informationen finden.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the notion of value presupposed by empirical value-surveys such as the World Values Survey (WVS) or the European Values Study (EVS), using some basic distinctions of philosophical value-theory. I intend to show that the framework of these surveys is grounded on definitions or implicit claims that are systematically problematic, having also a certain impact on the empirical realisation and some of the survey’s outcomes. First, it is shown that the assumption of values as “that what is valued” is not consistent with a taxonomy of four value-groups. Whereas the former leads to an inflation of values, the latter is too narrow even for the conceptualisation of some values mentioned in the survey’s questionnaire. Referring to the philosophical distinction of values and (valuable) goods, it is also shown that the survey’s framework is not able to articulate cases in which we value the same good over time but because of different value-aspects. Second, it is shown that an understanding of the value-groups as fundamentally conflicting does not withstand a critical review: Whereas the conflict of materialist and post-materialist values should be understood as a mere difference of preferences regarding goods that are all evaluated positively, the assumed conflict of traditional and secular-rational values depends on a rigorous, intolerant articulation of value-based worldviews.

The aim of this paper is to provide a basic understanding of the phenomenon of embarrassment by connecting two general questions. Starting with two illustrative examples, it first examines how the phenomenon could be described and what different aspects can be identified. Apart from having an obvious affective or emotional aspect and being embodied in various forms of expression, embarrassment can be considered as having a social aspect because of its close connection to the social setting of a situation. Furthermore, it seems to have an atmospheric quality in that it is experienced not only by the embarrassed person but also by all those present. Secondly the role that embarrassment plays in the context of a person’s life is addressed. Though it is experienced as unpleasant, it can be understood as a form of adequately responding to certain social situations structured by ambiguity.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relation between our experience in everyday life and ontological reflection. While many accounts in contemporary ontology still defend the idea that the world consists only of material objects, some new views on everyday metaphysics or social ontology which try to articulate the specific properties of the objects used and found in ordinary life have been established during the last years. In the critical ontology of Nicolai Hartmann, the social and cultural dimension of our life is situated in the sphere of spiritual being [Geistiges Sein]. By investigating the methodical relation of phenomenology and critical ontology as well as specific entities (objective spirit, cultural objects), it is established that Hartmann offers a wide and methodologically reflected view which could be able to satisfy the practical significance of these entities.

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag erörtert das Verhältnis einer Philo-sophie der Person zur Religionsphilosophie bzw. einer Philosophie religiöser Phänomene. Dabei soll die These vertreten werden, dass der personale Lebenszusammenhang bestimmte Phänomene aufweist, die nur in einem religiösen Kontext adäquat verstanden werden können. Die Interpretation dieser Phänomene kann einen Zugang zu bestimmten Aspekten von Personalität ermöglichen, die von den meisten Persontheorien der Gegenwart kaum beachtet werden.

Wie kann der Mensch in seiner Vieldeutigkeit als Naturwesen, kulturell-geistige Person und als Inhaber normativer Ansprüche auf nicht-reduktionistische Weise verstanden und in der Welt verortet werden? Diese Frage verbindet die Neue Ontologie Nicolai Hartmanns und die Philosophischen Anthropologien Max Schelers, Helmuth Plessners etc. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt den Versuch, beide Denkrichtungen miteinander in Beziehung zu setzen. Hierzu werden wesentliche Momente der Philosophie Nicolai Hartmanns mit Denkfiguren Plessners, Schelers und anderer verglichen, so etwa die Fragen nach dem Selbstverständnis der Philosophie, nach der Spezifik organischer Individuen, nach der personalen Geistsphäre sowie nach Wertbindungen menschlicher Individuen.