There are possible worlds in which time is circular and finite in duration, forming a loop of, say, 12,000 years. There are also possible worlds in which time is linear and infinite in both directions, and in which history is repetitive, consisting of infinitely many 12,000 year epochs, each two of which are exactly alike with respect to all intrinsic, purely qualitative properties. Could one ever have empirical evidence that one inhabits a world of the first kind (...) rather than a world of the second kind? We argue for the affirmative answer, contra Quine (1979), Newton-Smith (1980), and Bergström (2013). Our argument for that conclusion differs from an argument for the same conclusion due to Susan Weir, reported by Richard Sorabji (1988). Weir’s argument is probabilistic and explicitly requires having evidence against determinism. Our argument is a direct appeal to the simplicity of laws, and it involves no probabilistic component. It is modeled on Shoemaker’s (1969) argument that one could have evidence of time without change. (shrink)

According to the standard definition of time travel due to David Lewis, an object time travels if and only if the separation in time between departure and arrival does not equal the duration of its journey. After arguing that the standard definition of time travel is inadequate by discussing a world with circular time, I suggest a new definition of time travel that does not fail in situations involving circular time.

A model for kinetics of circular substrate cleavage by restriction endonuclease was formulated. The aim of the analysis of the model was to extract kinetic constants for all target sites from time- dependence of fragment concentration in reaction products. That was proved to be possible for molecules with an odd number of fragments only. A symmetry of the molecules with an even number of fragment is the cause. A solution for molecules with an odd number of fragments was (...) found and methods for dealing with the other molecules were suggested. (shrink)

Circular economy is a critical approach to realize the coordinated development of society, economy, and ecological environment. Given the fact that urban is a complex system in which human beings integrate material, energy, information, and natural environment and interact and influence each other, reviewing the urban circular economy research and development could benefit for having a better and comprehensive understanding on urban complexity. Mainly based on the Chinese literature studies from 1999 to 2020, this study aims to present (...) an in-depth analysis of the research themes, policy systems, and index system of Chinaʼs urban-scale circular economy, discuss the changes and evolution trends of themes, levels, and perspectives in time series, sort out the policy systems at both the national and local levels, and analyze the design principles and application fields of indicators. Finally, we propose that future development of an urban circular economy should be built based on modern techniques, technologies, and models. The construction of development mechanism on the circular economy should be framed as “government-led, market-driven, legal norms, policy support, technological support, and public participation” and inject concepts such as “Internet +,” “sharing economy,” “Internet of Things,” and “artificial intelligence.”. (shrink)

Sosa's work on epistemic circularity has significance beyond his own brand of virtue epistemology, with its characteristic distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. On the contrary, it demonstrates the necessity of embracing foundationalism and externalism in epistemology, while at the same time answering various charges (some perennial) against epistemology in general. This paper distinguishes six kinds of epistemic circularity that are discussed in Sosa's work: two virtuous, two vicious, and two benign. This framework is used to reconstruct Sosa's responses (...) to various problems involving charges of epistemic circularity. In particular, we look at Sosa's response to e Problem of the Criterion. (shrink)

In his recent book, Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit propounds a version of the psychological criterion of personal identity.1 According to the variant he adopts, the numerical identity through time of persons consists in non-branching psychological continuity no matter how it is caused. One traditional objection to a view of this sort is that it is circular, since psychological continuity presupposes personal identity. Although Parfit frequently denies the importance of personal identity, he considers his own psychological account of (...) identity important enough to attempt to defend it against the charge of circularity. The aim of this paper is to argue that Parfit's attempted defence is unsuccessful because it ultimately rests on an analysis of the unity of consciousness that is itself either circular or otherwise inadequate. (shrink)

The validity of psychological measurement is crucially connected to a peculiar form of epistemic circularity. This circularity can be a threat when there are no independent ways to assess whether a certain procedure is actually measuring the intended target of measurement. This paper focuses on how Gustav Theodor Fechner addressed the measurement circularity that emerged in his psychophysical research. First, I show that Fechner's approach to the problem of circular measurement involved a core idealizing assumption of a shared human (...) physiology. Second, I assess Fechner's approach to this issue against the backdrop of his own epistemology of measurement and the measurement context of his time. Third, I claim that, from a coherentist and historicallysituated perspective, Fechner's quantification can be regarded as a first successful step of a longer-term quantification process. To conclude, I draw from these insights some general epistemological reflections that are relevant to current quantitative psychology. (shrink)

Preface -- Introduction -- Absolute becoming -- From becoming to time -- The time-atom theory -- Motion, ways, and time -- Gateway and lanes -- Linear and circular time -- The eternal perspective -- The way of greatness.

For some time now I have been arguing that Fichte's theory can be read as circular, antifoundationalist, and systematic, and further arguing that it is the source of an epistemological revolution in philosophy. Fichte and most of his interpreters mainly see him as carrying forward the critical philosophy. But I see him as breaking with it in crucial ways in a profoundly innovative theory. The aim of this paper is to pull together aspects of this argument in a (...) single place in order to describe Fichte's theory as I see it, using a wider range of texts than I have so far employed, drawing consequences that follow from my interpretation and responding to recent criticism of it. In so doing, I intend to reaffirm my conviction that the interest of Fichte's theory is not merely archival, something historians of philosophy are interested in because they cannot do philosophy, or something that philosophers might concern themselves with when they are not concerned with philosophy, but directly relevant to the contemporary discussion. But as I see it, the contemporary relevance of the Fichtean view largely depends on an unorthodox, anti-foundationalist reading of it. For if it is read in an orthodox, Cartesian, foundationalist manner, favored by most writers on Fichte, it has nothing or almost nothing to contribute to our increasingly anti-foundationalist debate on knowledge. (shrink)

Sometimes pernicious circularities appear in definitions of fundamental concepts of argumentation theory. For instance, in pragma-dialectical theory, the concept of a fallacy and that of a critical discussion aiming at resolving a difference of opinion mutually presuppose one another. A similar relationship obtains, in argumentation theory at large, between the concept of argumentation and that of rationality. Again, the concept of an argumentative dialogue presupposes a concept of statement. Yet, statementhood is sometimes claimed to be determined by a locution’s function (...) in dialogue. Similarly, for the concepts of proof and argument. Are these circularities really objectionable? Are they resolvable? If they are not, how can we live with them? It will be argued that some of these problems can be neglected some of the time, but not all of them all of the time. Though there may be no royal road towards resolution, several strategies can be applied. But sometimes patience is what is needed. (shrink)

Basic yet familiar and non-technical features of time are investigated. Two novel and detailed arguments are advanced defending the common view that 'time rolls relentlessly'. A number of hitherto neglected but important differences between spatio-temporal location and every other physical property are discussed. Also explored are the locations of circular time; the uniformity of nature, temporal positions and possible worlds, as well as the famous, unresolved problem, 'Why do we know so much more about the past (...) than about the future?'. For those who wish to delve deeper, a portion of the book consists of problems to ponder and their possible solutions. (shrink)

Drawing on research data from a recent project, this paper reveals how cultural, organizational, professional and personal dimensions of time affect nurses’ availability to care and patients’ experiences of being cared for. Here, I will philosophize these dimensions of time through both the philosophical stance of the research methodology used in the study – phenomenological hermeneutics – and by engaging in philosophical theory that explores and challenges nurse and patient talk during interview. Patients’ experiences of time tend (...) to be embodied, whereas nurses choose between a disembodied structure of linear clock time or an embodied more spiritual experienced sense of time. To capture differences and their significance to caring, this paper first explores the way cursive time shapes and controls caring encounters. Following this, research data will be explored to demonstrate how an expanded notion of time as both cursive and circular enables nurses to sense patients’ illness patterns and to move with the ebb and flow of patients’ life/illness experiences. Next, the moment or the act of caring is explored as a presence, as a moral stance or presencing of the nurse for the patient. Finally, the notion of timelessness or what Kristéva calls ‘monumental time’ is explored in the context of the nurse/patient giving and gifting relationship, particularly their giving/gifting of voice and words to each other. Sensual, cultural and historical appreciation of these time dimensions is invited through the use of visual imagery. Exposure of the limitations, locations and dislocations of language reveals the therapeutic power of silence, quiet and stillness. Consequently, poetry will be used to expand the visual imagery and engage the reader in the silence from which words emerge, and the silence that lives between and within words, the silence of timelessness. O O’Donohue says ‘When we forget or neglect this silence we empty our world of its secret and subtle presences’. (shrink)

"The book is divided into 8-10 chapters that are each only 2 or 3 pages long... this feels like a nice feature of the book, since you can dip in and just read a short bite before moving on. The author clearly has some interesting ideas and at times I found his writing to be quite engaging." MAA Review "I did enjoy reading (and re-reading) this book very much. Reading it deserves a warm recommendation not only for mathematicians but for (...) anybody... this book makes you think about how and what you think you are thinking." European Mathematical Society "Circularity" is the story of a Janus-faced conceptual structure, that on the one hand led to deep scientific discoveries, and on the other hand is used to trick the mind into believing the impossible. Alongside mathematical revolutions that eventually led to the invention of the computer, the book describes ancient paradoxes that arise from circular thinking. Another aspect of circularity, its ability to entertain, leads to a surprising insight on the time old question "What is humor." The book presents the ubiquity of circularity in many fields, and its power to confuse and to instruct. (shrink)

A common justification for abortion rights is that the death of the fetus does not violate any of the fetus’s time-relative interests. The time-relative interest account (TRIA) of harm and wrongdoing tells us that a necessary condition for harming someone is that his or her time-relative interests are frustrated. Regarding the justification for abortion, this account falls prey to impairment arguments. Impairment arguments entertain cases of prenatal injury, such as the mother using illicit drugs that disable the (...) child. The intuition is that the child who is born with such disabilities is harmed by the mother’s drug use. But it is unclear what time-relative interest is violated in cases of prenatal harm. Typical responses to impairment arguments point out that the abortion case is different because the child does not exist to experience such harms; but in prenatal injury + survival cases, the child does live to experience those harms. Thus, the TRIA justification for abortion is not impugned by impairment counter-examples. This article argues that this response to impairment arguments is viciously circular. The response must say that so long as you kill the child, no harm is done. But this assumes that killing itself is morally inconsequential and is not itself a case of harm. The response to impairment arguments, then, assumes the permissibility of abortion. (shrink)

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The (...) model-based account clarifies the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules, and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. 1 Introduction2 Making Time Universal2.1 Stability and accuracy2.2 Multiple realizability2.3 The challenges of synchronicity2.4 Divergent standards2.5 The leap second3 The Two Faces of Stability3.1 An explanatory challenge3.2 Conventionalist explanations3.3 Constructivist explanations4 Models and Standardization4.1 A third alternative4.2 Stability reconceived4.3 Legislative freedom4.4 Discovering gaps4.5 Nature and society entangled4.6 Remark on scope5 Conclusions. (shrink)

According to externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism, it's possible to gain knowledge through a perceptual experience without being in a position to know that the experience is reliable. As a result, both of these views face the problem of making knowledge of perceptual reliability too easy, for they permit deducing perceptual reliability from particular perceptual experience without already knowing that these experiences are trustworthy. Ernest Sosa advocates a two-stage solution to the problem. At the first stage, a rich body of (...) perceptual animal knowledge is acquired. At the second stage, perceptual knowledge becomes reflective after deducing perceptual reliability from the initial body of perceptual animal knowledge. I defend the alternative approach of rejecting both externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism. According to the alternative view, perceptual knowledge and knowledge of perceptual reliability require each other. Such a cognitive structure seems viciously circular. I propose that the appearance of vicious circularity dissipates when the relationship in question is viewed, not as one of temporal priority, but instead as synchronic mutual dependence. At a given time, one cannot have perceptual knowledge without knowledge of perceptual reliability, and vice versa. Such mutual dependence, I argue, is benign. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Arguments for Divine Timelessness * Arguments for Divine Temporality * Eternity and the Nature of Time * Notes.

Both Martin Heidegger and Harry Frankfurt have argued that the fundamental feature of human identity is care. Both contend that caring is bound up with the fact that we are finite beings related to our own impending death, and both argue that caring has a distinctive, circular and non-instantaneous, temporal structure. In this paper, I explore the way Heidegger and Frankfurt each understand the relations among care, death, and time, and I argue for the superiority of Heideggerian version (...) of this nest of claims. Frankfurt claims that we should conceive of the most basic commitments which practically orient a person in the world and define his identity (“volitional necessities”) as naturalistic facts, foundational for and located completely without the normative space of reasons. In support of this he appeals to the supposedly foundational role played in human life by the instinct for self-preservation, what Frankfurt calls the “love of living.” The claim is that in questions of practical identity there is a definite priority of the factual over the normative. Frankfurt’s naturalistic model of volitional necessity is motivated by a misunderstanding of the temporal structure of care, a misunderstanding that helps lead him to an implausible conception of the basic structures of human identity. Heidegger advances an anti-naturalistic conception of caring, one bound up with his way of understanding how human beings relate to their own future. I argue that the existential, temporal, and normative significance that Frankfurt attributes to the naturalized “love of living” is better captured by the Heideggerian claim that human identity is defined by being “for-the-sake-of” certain projects and commitments, a way of being lived out in the way Heidegger calls “being-towards-death.”. (shrink)

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case-study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity-concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The model-based account (...) clarifies the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. (shrink)

The International System of Units tries to find or construct something that does not change with time and place, since such constancy is the best possible ground for definitions of fundamental measurement units. This problem of constancy has received scant attention within the philosophy of science, but is the topic of the paper. The paper first highlights inevitable kinds of circularities, semantic and epistemic, that belongs to the search for constancy, and then discusses contingent dependencies between unit definitions. The (...) New SI proposal is criticized for not paying due attention to the fact that it defines units for one kind of quantity by means of a constancy that belongs to another. This inattention flaws the kilogram definition. The New SI definitions of the mole and the second neglect the distinction between discrete and continuous quantities; which make the definitions refer to constancies that are not invariants of nature. (shrink)

While in Being and Time Heidegger criticizes Kant for presupposing the very objects that he then goes on to examine, in his 1935–1936 lecture course What Is a Thing? he argues that the differentiation of subject and object with which Kant begins enables him to point to the temporal nature of thought. In following Kant’s own description of his project, Heidegger deems the presupposition of the objects of experience not detrimental to the inquiry, but determinative of its circular (...) method. In this paper I investigate whether such circularity offers an entrance to Heidegger’s own hermeneutic circle. (shrink)

High-dimensional data analysis has become the most challenging task nowadays. Dimensionality reduction plays an important role here. It focuses on data features, which have proved their impact on accuracy, execution time, and space requirement. In this study, a dimensionality reduction method is proposed based on the convolution of input features. The experiments are carried out on minimal preprocessed nine benchmark datasets. Results show that the proposed method gives an average 38% feature reduction in the original dimensions. The algorithm accuracy (...) is tested using the decision tree, support vector machine, and K-nearest neighbor classifiers and evaluated with the existing principal component analysis algorithm. The average increase in accuracy is 8.06 for DT, 5.80 for SVM, and 18.80 for the KNN algorithm. The most significant characteristic feature of the proposed model is that it reduces attributes, leading to less computation time without loss in classifier accuracy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Arguments for Divine Timelessness Arguments for Divine Temporality Eternity and the Nature of Time Notes.

Aristotle's definition of time as 'a number of motion with respect to the before and after' has been branded as patently circular by commentators ranging from Simplicius to W. D. Ross. In this book Tony Roark presents an interpretation of the definition that renders it not only non-circular, but also worthy of serious philosophical scrutiny. He shows how Aristotle developed an account of the nature of time that is inspired by Plato while also thoroughly bound up (...) with Aristotle's sophisticated analyses of motion and perception. When Aristotle's view is properly understood, Roark argues, it is immune to devastating objections against the possibility of temporal passage articulated by McTaggart and other 20th century philosophers. Roark's novel and fascinating interpretation of Aristotle's temporal theory will appeal to those interested in Aristotle, ancient philosophy and the philosophy of time. (shrink)

Some Indigenous Australians have embraced developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) and epigenetic discourses to highlight the legacies of slow violence in a settler colonial context. Despite important differences between Indigenous and scientific knowledges, some Indigenous scholars are positioning DOHaD and epigenetics as a resource to benefit their communities. This article argues that time plays a crucial role of brokering disparate knowledge spaces in Indigenous discourses of postgenomics, with both Indigenous cosmological frames and DOHaD/epigenetics centring a circular (...) temporal model. Drawing on interview data with scientists who work in Indigenous health, and broader ethnographic work in Indigenous Australian contexts where epigenetics is deployed, this article explores how different circularities of space and time become entangled to co-produce narratives of historical trauma. We use the concept of biocircularity to understand the complex ways that Indigenous and postgenomic temporalities are separated and connected, circling each other to produce a postcolonial articulation of postgenomics as a model of collective embodiment and distributed responsibility. (shrink)

No one theory of time is pursued in the essays of this volume, but a major theme that threads them together is Wolfson’s signature idea of the timeswerve as a linear circularity or a circular linearity, expressions that are meant to avoid the conventional split between the two temporal modalities of the line and the circle.

The circular arc swept out by the angular displacement of a clock indicator (or its equivalent representation) measuring time is shown to be a Lorentz invariant, representing “universal” time. The concepts of time dilation and transverse Doppler effect are accordingly not physically observable. The experiments on these effects when examined critically are found to be inconclusive. Length contraction, also experimentally unconfirmed, and kinematic temporal phase, both consequences of the Lorentz transformations, are as a matter of logical (...) consistency also physically unobservable. (shrink)

The thesis revolves around the following questions. What is time? Is time tensed or tenseless? Do things endure or perdure, i.e. do things persist by being wholly present at many times, or do they persist by having temporal parts? Do causes bring their effects into existence, or are they only correlated with each other? Within a realist approach to metaphysics, the author claims that the tensed view of time, the endurance view of persistence, and the production view (...) of causality naturally combine into what is called the dynamic view of temporal reality, and that the tenseless view of time, the perdurance view of persistence, and the correlation view of causality naturally combine into what is called the static view of temporal reality. The author argues in favour of a dynamic view. During the discussion a number of metaphysical problems are addressed. First, it is argued that the charges that the dynamic view is contradictory, made by J.M.E. McTaggart and David Lewis, are viciously circular. Secondly, it is argued that the static view cannot account for change, and deprives metaphysics of essential means to provide natural explanations to empirical phenomena. Thirdly, the author presents a novel account of the nature of necessary causal production. He suggests that the traditional conception of causes as essentially being external to the effects should be abandoned, and that causal production instead should be explicated in terms of reciprocal interactions between coexistent substances. (shrink)

Personal time, as opposed to external time, has a certain role to play in the correct account of death and immortality. But saying exactly what that role is, and what role remains for external time, is not straightforward. I formulate and defend accounts of death and immortality that specify these roles precisely.

I this paper I give minimal axioms for the ontology of time, especially A-theories and B-theories and I derive philosophically interesting lemmas. The exercise is set-theoretical, defining all notions and indicating assumptions and philosophical points of disagreement, while being easy to translate to other formal expressions . The issue of a logic for A-theories of time is treated towards the end, where I sketch ‘copresent’ operators for capturing the idea of temporal passage. The main conclusion will be that, (...) while circularity threatens both families of theories, the growing block theory (belonging to the A-theory) is the least objectionable philosophically. (shrink)

The Energy-Time Uncertainty (ETU) has always been a problem-ridden relation, its problems stemming uniquely from the perplexing question of how to understand this mysterious Δ t . On the face of it (and, indeed, far deeper than that), we always know what time it is. Few theorists were ignorant of the fact that time in quantum mechanics is exogenously defined, in no ways intrinsically related to the system. Time in quantum theory is an independent parameter, which (...) simply means independently known . In the early 1960s Aharonov (1961-64) and Bohm (1961-64) mounted a spirited attack against the ETU, which sealed its fate to the present date. By emphasising that time is always “well-defined” in quantum theory, they were led to the conclusion that no ETU should exist, a view shared by many in the 1990s, if Busch (1990) is to be believed. In a similar vein, I emphasize that (a) physical systems occupy a particular energy state at a particular instant of time, if at all; (b) even in absence of all time-measuring instruments, it is still trivially warranted that one can measure a system's energy as accurately as one pleases, and simply announce “The system's energy is exactly E NOW!”, a possibility which no quantum mechanics of any sort, or any physical theory whatsoever, can afford to tamper with or change, except circularly. One never loses one's own perception of time, when one measures the energy, a fact which no measurement conceivable can interfere with or affect. Both (a) and (b) uniquely entail that energy and time are compatible, if not indeed intimately interconnected, contrary to what the relevant uncertainty seems to affirm. In response to Aharonov's and Bohm's initial problem, I reinterpret ΔEΔt ≥ h , as directly derived from authentic quantum principles, without however having to assume a direct incompatibility between its related concepts, attributing their complementarity to conditions other than ordinarily assumed. (shrink)

On the reading of Kant's resolutions of the first two antinomies advanced here, Kant not only denies that the empirical world has a ground floor of empirical objects lacking proper parts in the resolution of the second antinomy, but he also denies that it has a ceiling consisting in a composite whole enclosing all other empirical objects in the resolution of the first antinomy. Indeed, the order of explanation in the first antinomy runs from wholes to the proper parts they (...) spatially enclose, whereas the order of explanation runs in the opposite direction in the second antinomy. But this appears to involve viciously circular explanation, and hence to generate the problem of circular conditioning. Working out a solution to this problem involves closer investigation of Kant's account of real conditioning relations, and how these relations are connected to the structure of space and time. (shrink)

Programs in quantum gravity often claim that time emerges from fundamentally timeless physics. In the semiclassical time program time arises only after approximations are taken. Here we ask what justifies taking these approximations and show that time seems to sneak in when answering this question. This raises the worry that the approach is either unjustified or circular in deriving time from no–time.

This is a well-written book on a topic which has been central to Hegel studies for some time. But, in addition to the question of circularity in Hegel’s system in general—with attention focused on the circularity of knowledge in particular—there is a second theme which has recently received some needed attention. Professor Rockmore unravels for us the theme of circularity not in Hegel alone, but as it found its way through the history of philosophy to Kant, and then through (...) several contemporaries of Kant to whom scant attention is paid generally in the literature. By focusing almost completely on the latter—in particular on Kant, and then on Bardili, Reinhold, Schulze, and Maimon, in addition to Fichte and Schelling—he explains, in a way which nicely complements the recent study and translations by Henry S. Harris and George di Giovanni, the evolution of philosophy from the critical position of Kant to the absolute idealist position of Hegel. So, in a more specific way than the title itself might suggest, we have here a fine historical study of evolution of the problem of the circularity of knowledge. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to partially describe underpinning economics for the circular economy. A circular economy is an advancement from the linear economy which behaves according to the hierarchy of 6R, preferring reuse, remanufacture or recycle solutions insead of disposal. This new approach is a trigger of new business models seeking many times vor various kinds of support from the side of government. However, governmental support is not neither the only option nor the most functional one. Underpinning (...) economics for the circular economy can be based also at market-based tools. What we have in mind under this term for the purspose of this paper is the game in the market being played between buyers and sellers. Methodology: We have analyzed this interaction using game theory tool. The scietific goal of our paper was to suggest a quick market-based solution how to support circular economy business models whilst helping to the society to solve certain social problems. Our findings have led to a newly proposed way, how the current game in pricing could be changed. An emphasis shall be placed on strategies how to rise prices of linear economy products whilst offering wider social benefits to small sellers of such products. The price increase of linear economy products is considered in this paper as a market-based incentive to support recycled, remanufactured ones, whilst circular economy products are becoming more economically feasible in comparison with more expensive linear economy products. (shrink)

It is a classical argument against the objectivity of the flow of time that it would not be possible to make sense of its direction without stepping into a vicious circularity. This paper is dedicated to discuss some of the objections Tim Maudlin has recently put forward against this argument, while outlining an alternative and more effective way out of it.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.1 (2000) 49-77 [Access article in PDF] The Time of the King Gift and Exchange in Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio Joan Ramon Resina There is something paradoxical about José Zorrilla's revision of the Don Juan legend, a certain contradiction between the play's structure and the logic of the action. The character of the protagonist, the form and implications of Don Juan's salvation, the strategies and temporality of (...) seduction, even the play's generic status--all come under the law of self-cancellation. And so does the historical time in which the play is set: the time of absolute monarchy. The proportionality between terrestrial and eschatological time, organic to the play's Golden Age precursor, 1 is strangely neutralized in Zorrilla's work through an expanding temporality without equivalent in the afterlife; and the same is true of the king's dramatic role through his removal from the scene, which he regulates nonetheless as deus ex machina of the social edifice.A nineteenth-century reader, Francesc Pi i Margall, remarked that "Zorrilla hace a Don Juan escéptico o creyente según lo van exigiendo las peripecias de su drama, y merced a esa indeterminación del carácter, le pone repetidamente en contradicción consigo mismo" (Zorrilla makes Don Juan a skeptic or a believer depending on the drama's events, and by virtue of this indeterminacy, he brings his character repeatedly into contradiction with himself) [204]. This indeterminacy affects not only the libertine's relation to religion but also the doctrinal coherence of the play, which has been the object of debate [see Mazzeo; Abrams; Wang; Romero]. Others, curiously, detect a contradiction between the play's sound theological conception and the author, who "quizá no sabe apenas nada de teología" (perhaps knows next to nothing about theology) [Alberich 16]. Yet not only Don Juan's piety but also his seductions appear self-annulling. For Luis Fernández Cifuentes, Zorrilla's most original and thus most revealing decision is "presentar el acto de seducción engañosa en el momento mismo en que deja de serlo: la carta con que comienza el drama participa de una tradición que también cancela. En el curso de la obra, es y no es un instrumento de seducción; sin cambiar de palabras, es a la vez falsa y verdadera... " (to present the act of deceitful seduction at the very moment in which it stops being deceitful: the letter with which the play starts participates in a tradition which it also cancels. Throughout the play the letter is and is not a tool of seduction; its words are at once true and false...) [83]. In the same line of structural contradictions must be included the play's temporality, which runs counter to the causal logic of the action. As Gustavo Pérez Firmat points out: "In Juan's verses normal temporal and causal sequence collapses, for future events are always catching up and outstripping the present, as if time were circular and past, present, and future travelled the circle at different speeds" [7]. Even the play's representativeness as a privileged [End Page 49] instance of Spanish romanticism has been flatly denied in light of its inconsistencies with the patterns of that movement [Gies, "José Zorrilla"]. 2 But perhaps the most telling contradiction is the one between the play's undiminished popularity for almost a century and its author's sedulous efforts to undermine its prestige. 3Author's second thoughts? A repentant artist in ascetic revulsion against mundane acclaim? It seems reasonable to assume a link between the play's popularity and the contradictions to which it gives expression. Thus, taking at face value the tired notion that Don Juan presents a fundamentally Spanish profile, 4 I will inquire whether the play's manifest contradictions are culturally efficient. 5 To this end, I will need to consider a possible incongruity between nineteenth-century forms of consciousness and the objective historical conditions. Joaquín Casalduero already pointed out a discrepancy between historical changes and... (shrink)

In the field of comparative religion, many scholars believe that there are essentially two groups: the historical religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the mystical religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism. These, respectively, represent the basic spiritual attitude of the Western and Eastern worlds. Is it really the case that the Eastern world knows nothing about history, or is their idea of history different from that of the West? In this article, I will focus on a Japanese (...) philosopher, Keiji Nishitani, a representative of the Kyoto School, and examine his constructive engagement with the Buddhist and Christian ideas of historicity for the purpose of constructing “a proper view of history suitable for future mankind.” I will unfold this “proper” view of history in three parts: 1) time: linear or circular; 2) history and karma; 3) eschatology and nirvāṇa. (shrink)

Contemporary education now appears to be dominated by the continual drive for improvement measured against the assessment of what students have learned. It is our contention that a foundational relation with assessment organises contemporary education. Here we draw on a 'way of thinking' that is deconstructive in its intent. Such thinking makes clear the vicious circularity of the argument for improvement, wherein assessment valorised in discourses of improvement provides not only a rationalisation for improvement via assessment, but also the very (...) means of achieving such possibilities via targets grounded in limited specifications of assessment. On reading Heidegger's 'question concerning technology' we sought to reconsider the vicious circle of improvement in relation to Being. We claim that the means-ends driven technology of assessment, rather than being at our disposal and under our control, only serves to reveals the Real to us in accordance with the restricting principle of reason. The principle of reason, we argue, grounds 'Enframing' that ranks and orders the very beings of education as objects to produce an objective 'world as picture', rather than opening the possibility of their identity as belongings with a movement of difference. So, 'improvement' becomes normative and binding for institutions and practices on grounds of the principle of assessment, and renders agents of education as functionaries of 'Enframing'. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extraordinary Rendition:On Politics, Music, and Circular MeaningsRandall Everett AllsupThe purpose of this symposium is to look at music, education, and politics. I will begin with an examination of how musical meanings are politically rendered, and how these understandings are attached to moral consequences. Highly resistant to classification, musical meanings are those things we come to understand about ourselves through music, as opposed to musical knowledge which is demonstrable (...) know-how. While marching bands and flute sonatas can be judged with scores estimated to the 100th decimal point, the meanings that are created between the standards of practice of a given genre and the worldview of the listener or performer are provisional at best. Seen in this light, even seemingly secure or knowable realms like Christian heavy metal or anti-war movies are in fact highly un-objective and unpredictable. (More on Christian rock and movies in a moment). The challenge this paper seeks to uncover is participation on the hither side of fact, where understandings are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion. What better example of the unclassifiable than the moving axes of politics and art?So what occurs between art and human or so-called "world" experience? [End Page 144] Let's agree that there is always motion, non-neutral, political movement in this interaction. We need not be students of French post-structuralism to recognize that we are part of many ever-evolving human-made systems, some of control, regulation, reward, punishment, and pleasure, but each with their own gravitation pull.1 I like Susan Sontag's take the best when she wrote that every place, every history has its own "sensibility," its own ineffable way of being in the world.2 Sensibilities—perhaps a clearer way of referring to politics in the context of art and experience—do not exist apart from their environment, yet they are more elusive than an idea or recognizable behavior.3 The sensibility of a time and place makes possible multiple discourses through which we make meaning.4 Some discourses, Foucault would remind us, are intensified by a history's particular sensibility and so appear louder than others. Such a discourse might speak so loudly that it shapes the meanings we make, drowning out options, and thus appearing obvious or commonsensical. The logic of musical assessment and evaluation—scoring marching bands and flute sonatas to the 100th decimal—is one such example.In spite of authoritative voices and reasonable discourses, each history's sensibility has its own escape routes, its own distortions and contradictions. I am fascinated by how we comply with or resist these pulls, as they are matters of agency and identity, matters of equity and social justice. In the present-day context of neo-liberalism and conservative values, especially 21st Century American fundamentalism, we would do well to ask how—not whether—such a fundamentalist sensibility shapes our ways of doing and knowing.5 My attempt is to locate music education in such a project.Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote a short piece on the fundamentalist imagination and its pull on the arts and education.6 This research took place at the 2003 MENC biennial where Bennett Reimer asks philosophy SRIG participants to consider (among other things) the role of metaphor in music education.7 I viewed the fundamentalist imagination as antithetical to metaphor: to paraphrase, the fundamentalist philosophy of education was "a philosophy for, not with, its initiates. Judgments are passed, not reached; answers are given, not argued... [Most importantly,] it is an educational method that emphasizes and then measures what is literal."8Since then, the voices of American literalism have appeared in increasingly loud volume seeking to discourage interpretation and argument in favor of handed-down teachings and binary logic. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia decries the folly of a "living" constitution, in favor of a strict or literal reading. Retired Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, in response to a common ground initiative by the late Joseph Bernadin, labels an appeal to "dialogue" a "fundamental flaw."9 Law sniffed, "Dissent from revealed truth or the authoritative [End Page 145] teaching of the church cannot... (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Circularity and the Micro-Macro-Difference” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: Circularity is a foundational concept, able to bridge multiple levels of observation across the sciences and humanities. Yet, it is unnecessary to invoke the concept of causality or temporal stamps to understand circular dynamics. Because of the paradoxical coexistence of mathematical, fractal, and other complex phenomena inside as well as outside of time, it is more useful to conceptualize circularity through acausal lenses.

Mereotopology is the discipline obtained from combining topology with the formal study of parts and their relation to wholes, or mereology. This article develops a mereotopological theory of time, illustrating how different temporal topologies can be effectively discriminated on this basis. Specifically, we demonstrate how the three principal types of temporal models—namely, the linear ones, the forking ones, and the circular ones—can be characterized by differently combining two sole mereotopological constraints: one to denote the absence of closed loops, (...) and the other one to denote the absence of branches. (shrink)

Contemporary education now appears to be dominated by the continual drive for improvement measured against the assessment of what students have learned. It is our contention that a foundational relation with assessment organises contemporary education. Here we draw on a ‘way of thinking’ that is deconstructive in its intent. Such thinking makes clear the vicious circularity of the argument for improvement, wherein assessment valorised in discourses of improvement provides not only a rationalisation for improvement via assessment, but also the very (...) means of achieving such possibilities via targets grounded in limited specifications of assessment. On reading Heidegger's ‘question concerning technology’ we sought to reconsider the vicious circle of improvement in relation to Being. We claim that the means‐ends driven technology of assessment, rather than being at our disposal and under our control, only serves to reveals the Real to us in accordance with the restricting principle of reason. The principle of reason, we argue, grounds ‘Enframing’ that ranks and orders the very beings of education as objects to produce an objective ‘world as picture’, rather than opening the possibility of their identity as belongings with a movement of difference. So, ‘improvement’ becomes normative and binding for institutions and practices on grounds of the principle of assessment, and renders agents of education as functionaries of ‘Enframing’. (shrink)

Time–space synesthetes report that they experience the months of the year as having a spatial layout. In Study 1, we characterize the phenomenology of calendar sequences produced by synesthetes and non-synesthetes, and show a conservative estimate of time–space synesthesia at 2.2% of the population. We demonstrate that synesthetes most commonly experience the months in a circular path, while non-synesthetes default to linear rows or rectangles. Study 2 compared synesthetes’ and non-synesthetes’ ability to memorize a novel spatial calendar, (...) and revealed better performance in synesthetes. The capacity to learn mappings between arbitrary spatial forms and temporal sequences is present in all individuals, and time–space synesthetes’ enhanced visuo-spatial memory abilities may underlie their creation of idiosyncratic spatial calendar forms. (shrink)

This dissertation includes an introduction, five main chapters, and a conclusion. In the chapter “The Definition of Change”, I expound Aquinas’ account of change. I maintain that Aquinas’ account is meant to describe both spiritual and material changes. Hence, the hylomorphic account of change as the passage from form-less matter to enformed matter is unable to describe all changes. Contrary to Brower, I suggest that Aquinas’ favorite model involves a passage from potentiality to actuality. In addition, I state that ‘change’ (...) is identical to the second potentiality/first actuality of a process that includes three steps, a first potentiality, a second potentiality, and a second actuality. In the chapter on “Aquinas, Presentism, and Adverbialism”, I analyze the semantics of propositions that describe changing processes. I maintain that Aquinas subscribed to the view that past and future tense statements can have a truth-value. Chapter 4 is devoted to the so-called principle of plenitude, i.e. the thesis that all possibilities are realized at some point in the future. Aquinas is believed to have subscribed to the principle, whereas Aristotle’s texts are much more disputed. In this chapter, I offer a new interpretation, according to which Aristotle accepted a restricted version of the principle of plenitude, but Aquinas rejected the principle in all its formulations. In chapter 5 “Aquinas on Future Contingents”, I expound Aquinas’ theory of future contingents events. In this chapter, I make two claims. I state that Aquinas’ theory entails that future events do not exist, according to the ‘actual’ sense of existence. My second claim is about the logic of future contingents. I claim that Aquinas’ argument is logically sound, but presupposes that the so-called K-formula is not a tautology of Aquinas’ modal system. In chapter 6 I expound Aquinas’ definition of time. I maintain that Aquinas’ definition is not circular and time is distinct in both definition and in essendo from change. I conclude by stating that time has extra-mental existence. (shrink)

In this introduction to the special section ‘Biocircularities: New Formations of Embodied Time’, we introduce the concept of ‘biocircularity’. Drawing on case studies from Senegal, Australia and the United States, we argue that (bio)circularities provides a new tool to understand transformations of embodiment and embodied time in response to rapid technoscientific, social and environmental change. We situate the potential of biocircularity by distinguishing the approach from cycles and ‘looping’. We lay out why we think biocircularity is an important (...) concept now, when we stand on the brink of ecological crisis and reproductive futures appear deeply precarious and uncertain. Biocircularity, we argue, offers new ways of understanding how people live out embodiment and understand biological time. The concept offers new possibilities for theorising and realising scientific practice and public health interventions. (shrink)