This essay proposes that, in order to bring to fruition in our empirical research the profound critical discoveries that have characterized anthropology since the late 1950s, anthropology must adopt a 'door in the middle'. That is, to assume a position of minimal realism, to work with a notion of limited interest in the study of the human condition, to capture the process of triangulation in the constitution of meaning, to open once again the debate concerning universals by a more complex (...) approach to the issue of determination, to re-engage creatively with systemic analysis through a mitigated structuralism, and to adopt a theory of relations of domination that avoids the pitfalls of the notion of power as violence. (shrink)

This book presents a transdisciplinary approach to the Gothic-Romantic legacy in different artistic media, revealing how theatre, performance, lm, literature, visual arts and architecture intersect in the construction of theoretical and aesthetic landscapes. Through an ethical-political and ecophilosophical assessment, it contributes towards a much-needed reevaluation of the Gothic-Romantic mode in the eld of Art Studies, at a time of widespread popularity of Gothiclike imagery in global contemporary cultural production. The Gothic-Romantic tradition mapped here is broad, addressing philosophical concepts and devised (...) theatre experiences; literary works by Alexandre Herculano, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, J. W. Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Percy Shelley and Alexandre Dumas père; lms by Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Lars von Trier, David Lynch, Alejandro Amenábar and Guillermo del Toro; architectural and visual design by Horace Walpole, William Beckford and Luigi Manini. (shrink)

In this paper I address some philosophical questions regarding the impact quantum mechanics has in the classical conceptions about reality and knowledge. I stress that onto-gnosiological realism still is an option to the issues regarding the relationship between knowledge and reality. Rejecting some radical aspects of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum formalism, I emphasize the advantages of de Broglie’s realistic and causal model. To finish with, I discuss the limits of the Cartesian concept of matter and the split between matter and (...) mind. (shrink)

In social science research, Pragmatic Paradigm was proposed as a philosophical basis for mixed methods research, supporting a third option to qualitative and quantitative methods dichotomy. The paradigm wars between these approaches often encouraged the application of rigid methodological frameworks and the temptation of creating ‘one size fits all’ epistemological solutions. To overcome these issues, pragmatism focused on obtaining the necessary data to answering research questions, rejecting pre-established methods design. Several studies performed analysis of mixed methods research presence in information (...) science but those which mentions the pragmatic paradigm are poorly known. In this paper, we explore the rationale and the foundations of the pragmatic paradigm and its applications in information science research. Using a recent literature review, the main objective is to understand pragmatic paradigm presence in information science literature, understanding if mixed methods researchers and others refer pragmatism as their philosophical basis. The analysis shows that information science research is not aware of the pragmatic paradigm as a methodological foundation neither recognize it as a basis for mixed methods research. Nevertheless, knowledge acquisition about information science field is still enriched through the study and observation of this paradigm choice. (shrink)

In recent years we have seen the rise of a new framework within the study of the mind, namely Predictive Processing. This framework essentially holds that the brain is a prediction machine constantly postulating perceptual models which are tested against incoming information. At the same time, the notion of the minimal or core self has become very influential as a way of explaining, or explaining away, pre-reflective self-awareness. The four most widely discussed alternatives for thinking through the metaphysical implications the (...) pre-reflective sense of self are the standard phenomenological view, the substance view, the no-self view and by now the relational view. In this paper, it is our objective to rethink the notion of the sense of self in the context of PP. Now, PP is often held to be a unifying framework that offers a new integrated account of perception, cognition, imagination, and indeed the pre-reflective sense of self. We will show, however, that PP has been taken to endorse rather too many different metaphysical accounts of self: that is, views about how we should regard the ultimate nature of self. What we need to do, if possible, is to use PP to constrain the theories on offer. Here we focus upon two central constraints that we think PP implies. These are, the mutability constraint and the multi-layereredness constraint. We argue that self-views laid out in terms of the PP framework are usually – to some degree – located within the four standard metaphysical accounts of self. However, we think that realist versions of self-accounts seem to have more trouble in respecting the PP constraints or requirements. The reason, or so we believe, is PP’s mutability constraint. This does not have to be the case and we, therefore, propose an alternative realist view – namely the pre-reflective situational self view – which is more adequate to fit the PP framework. (shrink)

Humanity is facing to be increasingly immersed in the digital world, becoming hackable concerning self-, personhood and our sociality. Companies and even states are engaged in the digital governance of our behaviour and our extended digital doubles and interconnected bodily selves by profiling, tracking, surveillance, automated decision- making and big data that redefine values and our humanity. Big Data and AI do not always empower diversity. Besides aiding and opening up new fields of research that could not previously exist as (...) in complex systems or any endeavour that has to handle vast amounts of data, AI and Big Data confront us in face-recognition und attribution of values such as emotions with inherent biases of data sets and preselected data. With this paper, we heed the perils of Big Data and AI such as our loss of privacy, sociality, autonomy and democracy in data-driven engineered determinism of programmed and automatically reckoned faciality. Programmed Faciality will be hacked into with artistic, aesthetic dramaturgies and media strategies, as a starting point to overcome participation without democracy. Hacking into datafied surveillance might be trailblazing a more just and fairer digital and Big data era leading us beyond a mere algorithmic participative "Use-Age". (shrink)

Taking its cue from the untimely paradoxes manifesting themselves in some of the most visible instances of Hegel’s and Marx’s reception in the twentieth century, this essay proceeds to explore the ground between the two thinkers with particular reference to their philosophico‑historical grasp of repetition. After a number of preliminary observations on the ideological subtext involved in Marx’s reference to Hegel in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the temporality their intertextual conjuncture stages, I focus on four major complications (...) that attend the comparison of Hegelian and Marxian notions of repetition, as well as on their correlation to the historical events of Revolution, Counter‑Revolution and Restoration. I conclude with some reflections on the “exit strategies” Marx and Hegel adopt vis‑à‑vis the specter of iteration as a sign of submission to the gravitational pull of the past upon the present and future. (shrink)

My article does not aim at a comparison between Hegel’s and Marx’s points of view on Asia as such. The Hegelian motives are employed to understand the place and the significance of the Orient in Marx’s writings from the 1850s onwards. The more Marx learns from original and/or updated sources on the Oriental societies, the more Hegel’s authority seems inadequate to provide a reliable and comprehensive account of their history and social organization. Yet his “spirit” still holds together the different (...) perspectives from which the subject is approached by Marx. In other words, Marx’s interest in Asia is here considered through the lens of Hegel’s legacy in order to reflect on the endless effort of the materialistic dialectic to encompass the complexity of reality and global history. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium, as a methodology for the "formation of logics," fails on the *fringe*, where intricate details can make or break a logical theory. On the fringe, the process of theorification cannot be methodologically governed by anything like reflective equilibrium. When logical theorising gets tricky, there is nothing on the pre-theoretical side on which our theoretical claims can reflect of---at least not in any meaningful way. Indeed, the fringe is exclusively the domain of theoretical negotiations and the methodological power of (...) reflective equilibrium is merely nominal. (shrink)

This article by Graça P. Corrêa and Szabolcs Musca follows the production process of Passajar, an immersive participatory theatre project collaboratively created by four theatre-makers and refugees from Congo, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Zimbabwe. Developed under the curatorship of Portuguese choreographer Madalena Victorino for Festival Todos in Lisbon, this multilingual experimental work focused on representing migrant experiences through a postdramatic artistic gaze. The production refused the forms of testimonial theatre and with it the contradictory role of facilitators, opting instead for (...) a multidimensional fictional aesthetics practice. In this article the authors explore how Passajar performance and dramaturgical processes address difference in actual creative practice; and what are the ‘refugeedom’ aesthetics and ethical affects being generated by working with refugee participants. Similar to a growing number of non-verbatim migrant theatre initiatives, Passajar switched from the real to the fictitious via non-realistic representations and processes of abstraction. Arguably, this practice went against victimhood narratives, but does suspending traditional means of identification and empathy help develop new understandings on migration, or, on the contrary create detachment in audiences? What are the ethical consequences to audiences and refugee participants alike? Drawing upon philosophical concepts by Henri Bergson, Baruch Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze, the article examines how they critically contribute towards a discussion of the dramaturgies of alterity and empathy that were deployed in Passajar. By reflecting on both rehearsal process and final production, it reveals the ethical affects of Passajar, as well as transformative alternatives for migrant representation beyond the stage. (shrink)

Mechane in Aristotle designates the theater machine, which provided for illusion and the effects and dramaturgies of overpowering as in the aleatory principle of Deus ex machina. The creation of an absolute experience machine—as an AI sex robot that as well is a companion and even is wished for as a lifetime partner as imagined by David Levy or recently described in a retro-fiction novel entitled “Machines like me” by the author Ewan McEvan 20192 lies at the core of contemporary (...) uncanny human artistic endeavors reflected as well in techno-scientific praxis. Kathleen Richardson—the initiator of the manifesto and sex robots ban campaign—as a scholar reread the cyborg as a “polemical tool to critique social relations, and in this sense, it is similar to the robot”. Thus, it seems that the transgressive 90’s with its drive for critical post-humanism 20 to 30 years later has to rethink the topic of human’s real limits of transgression with machinic agential entities that are build under the pretense of gaining or at least simulating full agency, when thinking on how hacking human social relations with artificial agential technical objects might even install our need to renegotiate practical and ontological boundaries especially between technical objects and human beings that many technological post-human- ist and ideologists of transhumanism had hoped for. This is one of the reasons that philosophy of technology today is facing entirely new tasks and questions that bounce our questions back to the foundation of techno-anthropology: it has to describe a world full of human, technical transformations induced by new technical objects and systems, including contemporary techno-visions of a human future and sex robotics and its alterity evasion by use and interaction with ICT technologies. (shrink)