Understanding World, Other, and Self beyond the Anthropological Paradigm

The Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research (BSKR) series aims to foster systematic research into the variety of forms of knowledge as well as to uncover aspects of their underlying unity. The conception of the discipline of epistemology it seeks to promote is a generous-one which encompasses a study of the full variety of forms, practices and dynamics of knowledge, as well as their mutually interacting points of contact and their respective mechanisms of interpenetration. It seeks thereby to bring about a reorientation of the discipline of epistemology, undoing artificial restrictions in its scope and achieving a greater appreciation of the heterogeneity of different forms of knowledge. The series BSKR is associated with the Innovationszentrum Wissensforschung (IZW) / Center for Knowledge Research at the TU Berlin, Germany.

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Pasgaard-Westerman rethinks the ontological and epistemological understanding of world, other and self by opposing the general anthropological paradigm within contemporary philosophy. Signs and interpretations are not functions of Man; instead Man is conceived as certain "signo-interpretational" relations to world, other and self. Opposing more traditional hermeneutical approaches the signo-interpretational relations towards world, other and self are understood as a "skeptical disposition". This skeptical disposition undercuts usual epistemological problems of skepticism and instead designates the permanent incompleteness of the process of interpretation and formulates an ethical imperative. This ethical imperative aims at an active dissolution of fixed signs; an openness towards other signs; and the holding back of definite interpretations. The book discusses how world appear as a sign-world, how the other appear within interpretational patterns, and how our signs of self are experienced. Discussing a wide range of epistemological and ontological questions and taking into account the perspectives of a broad range of philosophical traditions, a signo-interpretational account of reality, world-versions, other persons and self is presented.