The Four Causes
Aristotle's distinction of four causes can be derived by combining the distinction between natural things and processes with the distinction between that out of which something comes to be and what it comes to be. It follows that the matter of a thing is something that potentially is this thing and the formal cause of this thing is what it potentially is. Likewise, the efficient cause of a process may be taken to be something that potentially is this process, and the final cause may be taken to be the typical course of the process it comes to be. Submitted as Habilitationsschrift, Leipzig 2009. Preview of table of contents, Introduction, and Conclusion (pdf).

Conscientia bei Descartes
Descartes used "conscientia", which is commonly translated as "consciousness," according to the traditional meaning of the Latin term that we also find in the writings of St. Paul, Augustine, Aquinas and later scholastics. Thus for Descartes, conscientia is not a kind of speculative self-knowledge, inner observation or reflective awareness. Rather, it is a kind of practical knowledge. Extract from the PhD thesis and abstract available online. The book is published by Alber Verlag, May 2006.

Gibt es eine Rehabilitation der Cartesischen Psychologie?
According to Descartes, substances are correlates of distinct ideas, that is, of ideas that may be defined without reference to other ideas. The key concepts of psychology cannot be distinct and therefore cannot correspond to substances. Therefore, psychology cannot be an independent discipline. Master thesis, Leipzig 2000.

 by topic 

 Eine Verteidigung des typologischen Artbegriffs (excerpt, pdf)

The biological species concept rests on the notion of reproduction, which we can only apply if we know what counts as a result of successful reproduction. Therefore, it presupposes the typological species concept and cannot, as Ernst Mayr thinks, replace it.

The Four Causes (abstract, pdf)

The Aristotelian doctrine of four causes naturally arises from the combination of the two distinctions (a) between things and changes, and (b) between that which potentially is a certain thing or change and what it potentially is.

 Tugenden und Absichten (abstract, pdf)

Intentions are not events that cause an action, but that in terms of which we describe and action when we describe it as intentionally. Likewise, virtues are not character traits that reliably cause certain behaviour, but that in terms of which we describe certain generic behaviour.

Intention and Virtue (pdf)

This is not a translation of "Tugenden und Absichten," but a presentation with similar content. Among other things, I argue that intentions are terms in which intentional actions are properly classified and described; and virtues are for generic actions what intentions are particular actions.

Substance, Reality, and Distinctness (abstract, pdf)

Descartes claims that God is a substance and that mind and body are two different and separable substances. This paper provides some background that renders these claims intelligible.

Der Fortbestand von Lebewesen ( abstract, pdf)

For something to be a living being is to engage in activities whose success is determined by criteria that emerge exclusively from a proper account of the nature of the living being in question.

Korrigierbarkeit als Merkmal des Mentalen ( pdf)

Descartes defines the mind as something whose activities are subject to an evaluation according to which they are, in principle, corrigible.

The Inner Man as Substantial Form (abstract, pdf)

When Descartes calls the soul of a human being an immaterial substance, he does not contradict the Aristotelian doctrine according to which the soul of a person is the substantial form of her body.

Matter in Z3 (pdf)

In Metaphysics Z3, Aristotle suggests that matter may be that about a composite substance or "this such" to which a bare "this" would refer in isolation. However, since a bare "this" would refer to nothing, Aristotle rejects this conception of matter.

Al-Ghazali on the Incoherence of "Substance" (pdf)

Forms and potentials inhere in a receptacle that exemplifies them, whereas universals and possibilities may inhere in a substratum that does not exemplify them, such as the intellect.

Naturteleologie, reduktiv (abstract, pdf)

Life is not a describable property of things. In order to understand what life is, we must start with our conception of the life that we know, human life, and reduce the notion of this life to a notion of mere life.

Generic Ways of Functioning (pdf)

A close paraphrase of Heidegger's Being and Time §18 on how we make sense of items in the world in terms of their generic ways of functioning. Items are related to systems of interrelated ways functioning that are related to purposes that fit into our lives.

Documents (draft; HTML / pdf)

Something is a document insofar as its official function is to compensate for the impossibility of immediately acquiring information that has a function (= plays a role in a practice).

Cartesian Conscientia (abstract, pdf)

Descartes uses 'conscientia' in the traditional sense, roughly meaning 'moral conscience'.

Social Facts Explained and Presupposed (draft; pdf)

Individualistic theories of Social Facts are not altogether circular, but they still start on the wrong foot.

Sportethik? ( pdf)

Review of Pawlenka, ed., Sportethik

Schuld und Gewissen bei Abelard ( pdf)

Moral conscience in early medieval ethics.

Holistic arguments for Individualism (pdf)

Holism, in one of its varieties, is not the opposite of individualism. Rather, individualism is its consequence.

Überblick zum Personbegriff ( pdf)

Some details on the history of the term "person".

Luhmann und die Formale Mathematik ( pdf)

The use of George Spencer Browns Logic of Distinctions by the Sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

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