In criminal law theory, the idea of a strictly relational understanding of criminal wrongdoing has recently become popular again. It advocates a second-person approach instead of the third-person standpoint, which is characteristic of the currently prevailing views. An example of such a third-person approach is – from a German perspective – the so-called legal goods doctrine (“Rechtsgutslehre”), which is widely regarded as one of the most important achievements of German criminal law theory. According to this doctrine, the specific task of (...) criminal law is to protect legal goods. Its proponents argue that this seemingly simple insight has an important function in the interpretation and systematisation of the criminal law provisions of the Special Part. Moreover, and above all, it is supposed to help determine the limits of permissible criminal law legislation and thus provide the legislator with legal or at least ethical guidelines. This article shows that the latter claim is not justified. The legal goods doctrine does not give a viable answer to the question of where the limits of legitimate criminal law lie. Therefore, whether a second-person approach could offer more convincing solutions deserves closer consideration. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThough the Situationist International was a network connecting artists and theorists across Europe, scholars have mainly focused on its Paris branch. Guy Debord, its leading French member, has been cast as the undisputed author of situationist praxis and his ‘Rapport sur la construction des situation’ understood as the SI’s launching manifesto. By situating Debord’s ‘Rapport’ in its original context, this paper argues that the ‘Rapport’ should be seen less as an articulation of the SI’s aesthetic project than as the conceptual (...) basis for an incipient transnational co-operation between the movement’s branches. Engaging the thought of the Danish artist Asger Jorn, who organised the conference at which the ‘Rapport’ was first delivered, Debord started a conversation in which the non-French participants were invited to be critical interlocutors. Through their discussion, I suggest, these theorists and artists not only together brought the SI into existence as a continental formation but also, by moulding the ‘Rapport’s’ concepts to new ends, shaped its organisational praxis. I conclude by considering how this reading of the SI’s emergence recasts our understanding of later situationist developments and theory. (shrink)

Bernard Nieuwentijt ist in der Mathematikgeschichte bekannt als Kritiker der Leibnizschen Differentialrechnung. Im Gegensatz zu dem, was häufig angenommen wird, war die Kritik an Leibniz' Methode kein Hauptanliegen Nieuwentijts. Das Ziel seines bedeutendsten mathematischen Werks, Analysis infinitorum , war die Systematisierung und logische Deduzierung der ihm bekannten Infinitesimalmethoden, besonders derer von den Engländern wie Barrow, Wallis u. a. Das Werk Leibnizens war ihm anfangs völlig unbekannt. In dem System, das Nieuwentijt selbständig entwarf, rechnete er nicht mit Infinitesimalen höheren Grades: ihre (...) Existenz hielt er für unmöglich. Dies brachte ihn zur Kritik der Leibnizschen Methode, als er später auf dessen Werk stieß. Später aber erkannte er die Unhaltbarkeit seiner Kritik, wie klar wird aus seinem posthumen Werk Gronden van zekerheid . Der Aufsatz gibt überdies zur Fundierung dieser Thesen einen sehr kurzen Überblick über Nieuwentijts mathematische Arbeiten und eine Besprechung neuerer Interpretationen. (shrink)

Neben Amerika und Nordafrika hat sich Tocqueville auch für den indischen Subkontinent und dessen Kultur, aber auch und besonders für die erfolgreiche und auf den ersten Blick ›geheimnisvolle‹ Kolonisierung Indiens durch die Engländer interessiert.

Neben Amerika und Nordafrika hat sich Tocqueville auch für den indischen Subkontinent und dessen Kultur, aber auch und besonders für die erfolgreiche und auf den ersten Blick ‚geheimnisvolle‘ Kolonisierung Indiens durch die Engländer interessiert.In diesem Kapitel soll zunächst das Erwecken des Tocquevilleschen Wissensdurstes thematisiert werden, um dann auf das Thema der englischen Kolonisierung zu kommen. Abschließend werden Tocquevilles Aussagen über die indische Religion und die Spuren eines im Orient zu findenden aristokratischen Geists besprochen.

This chapter considers the meanings inherent in Fromm’s elaborations on love and solidarity against the backdrop of war and genocide. It sheds light on the powerful parallels that exist between Fromm’s exploration of human connection and the letters that his aunts, Gertrud Brandt and Sophie Engländer, wrote shortly before their deportations and deaths. These ideas are expressed in Fromm’s best known work, The Art of Loving (1956), and in his belief that love is a necessary countervailing force to cruelty and (...) destructiveness. It also draws on Fromm’s psychoanalytic writings, which are often overlooked and are the source from which much of his thinking about love and solidarity emerged. The book and the chapter conclude by considering the nature of one’s ethical obligation to others and the moral responsibilities that are associated with belonging to a perpetrator group or inheriting a perpetrator history. The chapter asks what can be learned from Fromm and the Holocaust correspondence when seeking to respond to the social and political crises, and the renewed threat of fascism in the modern age. (shrink)

This chapter documents for the first time the extent of the trauma and tragedy experienced by Erich Fromm’s German Jewish family members and his many unsuccessful attempts to save them. It begins with a brief biographical overview of Fromm’s early life in Germany before presenting the unpublished letters. It divides the family correspondence into three parts: the first section presents the plight of Heinz Brandt, a Communist Party activist and cousin of Fromm’s who was sent first to a prison and (...) then to a concentration camp; the second section presents the correspondence of Gertrud Brandt, Heinz’s mother, whose letters were written from the ghetto of Ostrow-Lubelski in southeast Poland; and the third section presents the letters of Fromm’s aunt in Berlin, Sophie Engländer. The letters reveal the powerful emotions of suffering, loss, and longing experienced by Fromm’s family members and give us a glimpse into what their daily lives were like up until their deportations and deaths. They also detail the tremendous strength and courage shown by Fromm’s aunts and shed light on the experience of German Jewish women in the unfolding catastrophe. (shrink)

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components (...) of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies. (shrink)