This article discusses a complexity-informed review and evaluation project. Complexity-informed methods and techniques are used to fashion understanding of the relationships and processes implicated between the service agencies constituting the Youth Accommodation Interagency - Nepean (YAIN) and their Resource Worker, the influence of these relationships and processes on the achievement of desired and required goals, and the potential for replication of these relationships and processes elsewhere. The article concludes with critical reflection regarding what was learnt from utilizing complexity in this (...) qualitative inquiry. (shrink)

Abstract The increasing prevalence of armed drones in the conduct of military operations has generated robust debate. Among legal scholars, the crux of the dispute generally pits those who herald the new technology's unparalleled precision against those who view such newfound capabilities as an inducement to employ excessive force. Largely overlooked in the discussion over how drone strikes can be accomplished lawfully is a more fundamental question: Can a model of warfare that eschews any risk of harm to one party (...) be squared with the ethical framework that informs the law of war? This matter has less to do with the technology per se than with a policy orientation that utilizes such technology as a strategy in itself, as opposed to one military tool in a larger arsenal. A corollary to the incongruity of riskless warfare is to query whether the ensuing breakdown of ethical and legal norms unwittingly encourages the very instability that the law of war attempts to control, thereby endangering the civilian populations of all parties to the conflict. While other authors have previously addressed the challenges posed by asymmetry to the law of armed conflict in different formats, this article explores these issues through a hypothetical scenario and seeks to elucidate some of the potential ramifications of the pursuit of physical impunity in war. (shrink)

Spinoza Contra Phenomenology fundamentally recasts the history of postwar French thought, typically presumed to have been driven by a critique of reason indebted to Nietzsche and Heidegger. Although the reception of phenomenology gave rise to many innovative developments in French philosophy, from existentialism to deconstruction, not everyone in France was pleased with this German import. This book recounts how a series of French philosophers used Spinoza to erect a bulwark against the nominally irrationalist tendencies of phenomenology. From its beginnings in (...) the interwar years, this rationalism would prove foundational for Althusser's rethinking of Marxism and Deleuze's ambitious metaphysics. There has been a renewed enthusiasm for Spinozism of late by those who see his work as a kind of neo-vitalism or philosophy of life and affect. Peden counters this trend by tracking a decisive and neglected aspect of Spinoza's philosophy—his rationalism—in a body of thought too often presumed to have rejected reason. In the process, he demonstrates that the virtues of Spinoza's rationalism have yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

There are some verses in the Qur'an that can be understood at first glance to mean that Allah Almighty knew certain things afterwards. Based on such verses, it has been claimed that Allah Almighty knew the voluntary acts of the slaves afterwards. This view, whose historical origin goes back to Cehmiyya, is defended by Abdülaziz Bayındır today. Adopting an approach that understands and explains the verses he refers to as the main reference on the subject, Abdülaziz Bayındır argues that the (...) thirty-first verse of the chapter of Muhammad and other verses with a similar notion indicate that Allah does not know beforehand the optional actions of His servants. In this study, the rational and narrative evidences that Bayındır presented as a justification for his views were examined within the framework of the basic procedural principles of the science of tafsir. In our study, the method of analysis and criticism has been adopted. While interpreting the verses that Bayındır examined as a basis for his thesis, the method he put forward was verified through different verses, and it was seen that this method did not offer an accurate and authentic methodology of understanding and interpretation. It has been seen that the verses that Bayındır put forward as a basis for his thesis do not indicate that Allah knows the voluntary actions of the servants afterwards, but that he reveals what he knows in his pre-eternal knowledge. (shrink)

Despite the efforts of Bosanquet, Muirhead, Basch, and many others, it is still frequently stated or implied, in both popular and scholarly literature, that Hegel constructed his philosophy of the State with an eye to pleasing the reactionary and conservative rulers of Prussia in his day, and condoned, supported, and, through his teaching, became partly responsible for some of the most criticized features in “Prussianism” and even of present-day National-Socialism.5 Ijn this article I propose to give reasons for denying that (...) Hegel the man is justly accused of servility to the Prussian Government, and that there is any warrant in the text of his Philosophie des Rechts for the charge that Hegel the philosopher was an exponent of “Prussianism” and “ frightfulness.”. (shrink)

I Introduction Since the time of Descartes probably the most fundamental problem of philosophy, and indeed of Western thought, has been the relationship of ...

Recent discussions of emergence in physics have focussed on the use of limiting relations, and often particularly on singular or asymptotic limits. We discuss a putative example of emergence that does not fit into this narrative: the case of phonons. These quasi-particles have some claim to be emergent, not least because the way in which they relate to the underlying crystal is almost precisely analogous to the way in which quantum particles relate to the underlying quantum field theory. But there (...) is no need to take a limit when moving from a crystal lattice based description to the phonon description. Not only does this demonstrate that we can have emergence without limits, but also provides a way of understanding cases that do involve limits. (shrink)

This paper examines public conflict over the rapid growth of the Tasmanian salmon aquaculture industry and associated environmental and social impacts. By conducting a media analysis, triangulated...

V današnjih humanističnih vedah ne manjka sklicevanj na antropocen in ontološke premike, ki naj bi jih ta domnevno sprožil. Esej se osredotoči na več fiktivnih in kritičnih del – predvsem na roman Paula Bowlesa The Sheltering Sky iz leta 1949 – zato da bi podal vrsto trditev glede težavnosti predstavljanja razmerja med naravo kot področjem kavzalnosti, ki se podreja naravnim zakonom, na eni strani ter nominalno človeškim ali razumskim področjem, kamor sodijo dejanja, namere in različni upravičeni ali neupravičeni razlogi, na (...) drugi strani. Predvsem pa ga zanima raziskovanje želja, ki motivirajo prizadevanja po kontrastnih načinih reprezentiranja tega razmerja in na koncu vztraja na ključni vlogi reprezentacije, ki naredi upodabljanje takšnih dilem razumljivo, njihove predpostavke pa problematične. (shrink)

Pain is the single most common reason patients seek care in the emergency department. Given the prevalence of pain as a presenting complaint, one might expect emergency physicians to assign its treatment a high priority; however, pain is often seemingly invisible to the emergency physician. Multiple research studies have documented that the undertreatment of pain, or oligoanalgesia, is a frequent occurrence. Pain that is not acknowledged and managed appropriately causes dissatisfaction with medical care, hostility toward the physician, unscheduled returns to (...) the emergency department, delayed return to full function, and potentially, an increased risk of litigation. Failure to recognize and treat pain may result in anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, increased oxygen demands with the potential for end organ ischemia, and decreased movement with an increased risk of venous thrombosis. (shrink)

Pain is the single most common reason patients seek care in the emergency department. Given the prevalence of pain as a presenting complaint, one might expect emergency physicians to assign its treatment a high priority; however, pain is often seemingly invisible to the emergency physician. Multiple research studies have documented that the undertreatment of pain, or oligoanalgesia, is a frequent occurrence. Pain that is not acknowledged and managed appropriately causes dissatisfaction with medical care, hostility toward the physician, unscheduled returns to (...) the emergency department, delayed return to full function, and potentially, an increased risk of litigation. Failure to recognize and treat pain may result in anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, increased oxygen demands with the potential for end organ ischemia, and decreased movement with an increased risk of venous thrombosis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genevieve Lloyd’s assessment of Spinoza’s rationalism shows how imagination and sensibility are integrated with reason in his metaphysics and equally makes clear how his philosophy illuminates a number of aesthetic works and political situations. This response considers the limitations of the aesthetic analogy she draws from Flaubert and also queries the contrast she sees between Spinoza’s account of reason and finitude and Pascal’s account of the same. Turning from Pascal, it concludes with a consideration of Spinoza’s response to Augustine’s (...) doctrine of original sin in the Political Treatise in order to indicate some problems that stem from a vision of politics grounded in a Spinozist metaphysics of multiplicity. (shrink)

It is argued that statements about the ways in which objects appear entail the existence of appearances; in other words, ?A appears ?? ('appears? used phenomenologically) entails ?(Ex) ?x?. The argument turns on the proper analysis of comparative appearance statements, such as ?A feels warmer (to someone) than B?. Here A and B are not being compared directly with respect to the complex character of feeling warm. One is not, in other words, saying that A feels warm more than does (...) B ? an ambiguous statement. Instead, one is saying that A's feel or appearance, or way of feeling or appearing, is warmer than B's. And in making this statement one asserts the existence of appearances. This result is then extended to cover statements of the form ?A appears ??. It is maintained that this generalized result serves to reinstate most of the traditional problems of perception. (shrink)

In the summer of 1921 the newspapers in this country carried long reports of a Conference of Modern Churchmen at Cambridge. Many of the contributions to their proceedings were unorthodox; they resulted from an historical and philosophical approach to the New Testament and certain fundamental Christian doctrines. There was nothing particularly new to scholars in all that was said, but the eminence of some of the speakers, their intellectual distinction, and their outspokenness created a public sensation. It looked almost as (...) if the Modernist movement which had been stifled in the Roman Church were advancing in the Anglican. (shrink)

I argue that the need to understand spacetime structure as emergent in quantum gravity is less radical and surprising it might appear. A clear understanding of the link between general relativity's geometrical structures and empirical geometry reveals that this empirical geometry is exactly the kind of thing that could be an effective and emergent matter. Furthermore, any theory with torsion will involve an effective geometry, even though these theories look, at first glance, like theories with straightforward spacetime geometry. As it's (...) highly likely that there will be a role for torsion in quantum gravity, it's also highly likely that any theory of quantum gravity will require us to get to grips with emergent spacetime structure. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the study of economic activity from two points of view; the first is that of the man of business, and his problem is “Of what use or value is the study of the activity to those who are actually engaged in the activity?” He has continually to grapple with individual and concrete situations and thus feels the clash between them and the abstract general pronouncements of certain economic studies: consequently he is bound to ask whether (...) the latter have in fact any relevance for him at all. (shrink)

Several modern accounts of explanation acknowledge the importance of abstraction and idealization for our explanatory practice. However, once we allow a role for abstraction, questions remain. I ask whether the relation between explanations at different theoretical levels should be thought of wholly in terms of abstraction, and argue that changes of the quantities in terms of which we describe a system can lead to novel explanations that are not merely abstractions of some more detailed picture. I use the example of (...) phase transitions as described by statistical mechanics and thermodynamics to illustrate this, and to demonstrate some details of the relationship between abstraction, idealization, and novel explanation. (shrink)