In our everyday life, we have the genuine feeling that when something we use works very well, we forget that we are doing something that is mediated by something else. It happens when we read through our glasses, or when we drive home, or when we play guitar. In all those cases, it can be said that the device becomes an extension of our body, or that we have incorporated it. In this paper I want to discuss the extension/incorporation dichotomy (...) as presented in contemporary cognitive sciences. I will present the state of the art in the debate in order to promote a methodological shift, namely to adopt two concept borrowed from Material Engagement Theory developed by Lambros Malafouris. By advocating the concepts of temporality and metaplasticity, I will argue for two different but related things: 1) extension and incorporation don’t have to be conceived only spatially, but temporally. This shift leads to two distinctive implications: first, the sooner two entities establish a prosthetic contact, the higher the chances to reach incorporation; second, extension temporally precedes incorporation; the former being an early-staged phenomenon of – a condition of possibility for – the latter. 2) Such a temporal perspective is at the base of metaplasticity, which describes, in the context of MET, the constant, co-constitutive loop between humans and things: metaplasticity deflates the privileged role traditionally attributed to the subject in the making of phenomenal experience. Finally, I will discuss extension and incorporation in media theory, relying on the concept of radical mediation. (shrink)

Law and economics scholarship has traditionally analyzed efficient breach cases monolithically. By grouping efficient breach cases together, this literature treats the subjective motives and the distributive effects of the breach as immaterial. The Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment introduced a distinction based on the intent and the effects of the breach, allowing courts to use disgorgement remedies in cases of ‘opportunistic’ breach of contract (i.e., ‘deliberate and profitable’ breaches). In this article, we evaluate this approach, focusing on the (...) effects of disgorgement remedies on allocative and productive efficiency, information-forcing and competitive effects, and restraint of breach-searching incentives. We show that, even from a purely consequentialist perspective, disgorgement remedies may be normatively warranted, especially when involving sellers’ breach. Recent experimental evidence revealed that the preferences and reactions of ordinary people are in line with our evaluation of the effects of opportunistic breach. (shrink)

Structured argumentation systems, and their implementation, represent an important research subject in the area of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Structured argumentation advances over abstract argumentation frameworks by providing the internal construction of the arguments that are usually defined by a set of (strict and defeasible) rules. By considering the structure of arguments, it becomes possible to analyze reasons for and against a conclusion, and the warrant status of such a claim in the context of a knowledge base represents the main (...) output of a dialectical process. Computing such statuses is a costly process, and any update to the knowledge base could potentially have a huge impact if done naively. In this work, we investigate the case of updates consisting of both additions and removals of pieces of knowledge in the Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP) framework, first analyzing the complexity of the problem and then identifying conditions under which we can avoid unnecessary computations—central to this is the development of structures (e.g. graphs) to keep track of which results can potentially be affected by a given update. We introduce a technique for the incremental computation of the warrant statuses of conclusions in DeLP knowledge bases that evolve due to the application of (sets of) updates. We present the results of a thorough experimental evaluation showing that our incremental approach yields significantly faster running times in practice, as well as overall fewer recomputations, even in the case of sets of updates performed simultaneously. (shrink)

This Article analyzes the interaction between the burden of proof and evidentiary discovery rules. Both sets of rules can affect incentives for prospective injurers to invest in evidence technology. This interaction becomes acutely important in the private international law setting, where jurisdictions are split on the question whether the burden of proof should be treated as a substantive or procedural matter. When a tort occurs in Europe, but the case is litigated in American courts, treating the burden of proof as (...) a procedural matter preserves the complementarity of incentives created by the burden of proof and evidentiary rules. Conversely, treating the burden of proof as a substantive matter creates a mismatch in incentives created by the burden of proof and evidentiary rules. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics provides a broad overview of numerous current and developing topics in the field of law and economics. With contributions by over one-hundred experts in the field within one work, the volume covers issues ranging from as far as Law and Neuroeconomics to European Union Law and Economics to Feminist Theory and Law and Economics. Its detail and breadth make it an invaluable reference book and contribution to the field.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics provides a broad overview of numerous current and developing topics in the field of law and economics. With contributions by over one-hundred experts in the field within one work, the volume covers issues ranging from as far as Law and Neuroeconomics to European Union Law and Economics to Feminist Theory and Law and Economics. Its detail and breadth make it an invaluable reference book and contribution to the field.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics provides a broad overview of numerous current and developing topics in the field of law and economics. With contributions by over one-hundred experts in the field within one work, the volume covers issues ranging from as far as Law and Neuroeconomics to European Union Law and Economics to Feminist Theory and Law and Economics. Its detail and breadth make it an invaluable reference book and contribution to the field.

In this article we propose to overlap aesthetic experience with medial experience, starting from the assumption that every aesthetic experience is always a medial experience. Adopting a naturalistic approach, in which we explain what we mean with the term naturalization, we suggest a partial review of the issue. First, we state that human natural language is a kind of technology, made possible by certain physical, cognitive and social features; this sort of biological technology must be considered as an underlying condition (...) for aesthetic experience. Secondly, we suggest the importance of social relationships among various species, demonstrating the role played by this relationships in natural selection: a new perspective will emerge. Thirdly, we explain in more detail why aesthetic experience can be likened to medial experience; in doing so, we offer an epistemological comparison between evolutionary theory and Marshall McLuhan’s approach to media studies. Resulting comparison will offer an original definition of aesthetic experience which rises through the interaction engaged by our natural technologies interacting prosthetically with environment. (shrink)