Cybersecurity research often describes people as understanding internet security in terms of metaphorical mental models (e.g., disease risk, physical security risk, or criminal behavior risk). However, little research has directly evaluated if this is an accurate or productive framework. To assess this question, two experiments asked participants to respond to a statistical reasoning task framed in one of four different contexts (cybersecurity, plus the above alternative models). Each context was also presented using either percentages or natural frequencies, and these tasks (...) were followed by a behavioral likelihood rating. As in previous research, consistent use of natural frequencies promoted correct Bayesian reasoning. There was little indication, however, that any of the alternative mental models generated consistently better understanding or reasoning over the actual cybersecurity context. There was some evidence that different models had some effects on patterns of responses, including the behavioral likelihood ratings, but these effects were small, as compared to the effect of the numerical format manipulation. This points to a need to improve the content of actual internet security warnings, rather than working to change the models users have of warnings. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence tools used in employment decision-making cut across the multiple stages of job advertisements, shortlisting, interviews and hiring, and actual and potential bias can arise in each of these stages. One major challenge is to mitigate AI bias and promote fairness in opaque AI systems. This paper argues that the equal opportunity merit principle is an ethical approach for fair AI employment decision-making. Further, explainable AI can mitigate the opacity problem by placing greater emphasis on enhancing the understanding of (...) reasonable users and affected persons as to the AI output. Both the equal opportunity merit principle and explainable AI should be integrated in the design and implementation of AI employment decision-making systems so as to ensure, as far as possible, that the AI output is arrived at through a fair process. (shrink)

Los autores abordan el desafío de integrar la medicina convencional, la medicina psicosomática, y la medicina alternativa, necesario, según señalan, no sólo por razones clínicas y económicas, sino por el desafío de crear una teoría comprehensiva que integre la riqueza de datos aparentemente disparatados y teorías de la salud y la enfermedad en un todo organizado. Se trata de llegar a una medicina integrada. En este trabajo los autores identifican ocho visiones fundacionales sobre la naturaleza, cada una de las cuales (...) genera hipótesis diferentes acerca de la naturaleza y de la medicina, y han conducido a tres diferentes conceptos de medicina. El artículo aborda cómo el conocimiento de tales hipótesis puede alcanzar el objetivo de integrar la medicina. (shrink)

Die Lebermodelle aus Boğazköy. By An de Vos. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten, Beiheft 5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013. Pp. 274, 56 plts. €76.

The following reflections are intended as a preliminary to a more extended and in-depth series of case studies, focused analyses of actual artworks, and the issues arising from their particularity within what will be described here as a Heideggerian post-aesthetic aesthetics. The essay is not written from the perspective of a professional or academic philosopher or of a practising artist (even though I am one), neither fields of which have sufficiently engaged with the existential and aesthetic predicament sketched out below. (...) Thus, the attraction of both Heidegger and Blanchot is not just related to their well-known discussions of inbetween-ness, but, more essentially, to the peculiarly in-between location of their own thought and trajectory of thinking: Heidegger from "out of" philosophy "drawn" towards art; Blanchot from within the space ofliterature towards the exteriority of ontological thinking. The intention is to identify similarities and differences in their thought, but this is only perceived as relevant to the extent that it allows an initial reassessment of a de-subjectivized existential and aesthetic mode of thinking that has been largely abandoned by academic philosophy and art practice alike (albeit for very different reasons). If nothing else, the hope is that a different voice might be heard in the clamorous exchange between philosopher and artists, one that is sensitive to the complex predicament of the artist in a post-Heidegerrian world, and which above all remains faithful to the project of the artist and the artwork in the face of the philosophical valorization of "Art". Las siguientes reflexiones se presentan como preliminares a una serie de estudios de caso mas extensos y profundos, analisis focalizados de obras de artes reales, y los temas que surgen de sus particularidades dentro de lo que se describira aqui como una estetica heideggeriana post-estetica. El ensayo no esta escrito desde la perspectiva de un filosofo profesional o academico ni de un artista operante (aunque yo lo soy), ninguno de cuyos campos se ha comprometido suficientemente con el dilema bosquejado mas adelante. Asi pues, la atraccion de Heidegger y Blanchot no solo tiene que ver con sus bien conocidas discusiones sobre la inbetween-ness, sino, mas esencialmente, con la ubicacion particularmente in-between de su propio pensamiento y trayectoria del pensar: Heidegger desde "fuera de" la filosofia "sacado" hacia el arte; Blanchot desde dentro del espacio de la literatura hacia la exterioridad del pensar ontologico. La intencion es identificar similitudes y diferencias en su pensamiento, pero esto solo es percibido como relevante en la medida en que permite una reevaluacion de un modo de pensar existencial y estetico des-subjetivado, que ha sido ampliamente abando-nado por la filosofia academica y la practica del arte (aunque por razones distintas). Sin mas pretensiones, la esperanza es que se pueda escuchar una voz diferente en el intercambio clamoroso entre el filosofo y los artistas; voz que es sensible al complejo dilema del artista en un mundo post-heideggeriano, y que sobre todo permanece fiel al proyecto del artista y a la obra de arte frente a la valorizacion filosofica del "Arte". (shrink)

The essay motivates and provides a semantics for pictorial representations. A taxonomy of pictorial denoting symbols is developed that determines a semantics which defines the following: S if true in picture Y, S is false in picture Y, S is neither true nor false in picture Y, Z is the content of Picture Y, Picture Y entails that S, Picture Y implies that S. The semantics is then applied to solve or resolve a number of puzzles concerning pictorial representation.

Este artículo describe el papel representado por los musulmanes andalusíes en el desarrollo temprano y posterior función pedagógica de las madrasas en Egipto, desde el período fāṭimí tardío hasta el final de la época ayyūbí. Este papel está relacionado con la riḥla, el viaje que hacían los andalusíes a Oriente «en busca de la ciencia». El artículo se inicia con una breve exposición de la situación de las escuelas legales en el Egipto fāṭimí. A esto sigue el estudio de los (...) andalusíes que participaron en el movimiento de las madrasas en Alejandría y la difusión de esta institución en Fusṭāṭ, El Cairo y otros lugares en Egipto, bajo Saladino y sus sucesores ayyūbíes. La presencia de andalusíes en las madrasas mālikíes más importantes subraya su doble contribución, en general, a la ortodoxia en Egipto y, en particular, a la comunidad mālikí. (shrink)

Does the relation of seeing something as another really differ from seeing the one as resembling the other? Does seeing a cloud as a camel really differ from seeing a resemblance between the cloud and a camel? It is easy to think not, but I claim that the logic of the relation B sees x as resembling y differs markedly from that of B sees x as y and thus that we have two relations, not one. Aspect-perception is nontransitive, nonsymmetric, (...) irreflexive and categorical. Perceived or subjective resemblance is weakly or faintly transitive, symmetric, reflexive and graded. (shrink)

Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in der westlichen Oberstadt von Ḫattuša I. Edited by Andreas Schachner and Jürgen Seeher. Boğazköy- Ḫattuša, vol. 24. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016. Pp. x + 225, illus. $140.

Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in der westlichen Oberstadt von Ḫattuša II. Edited by Andreas Schachner. Boğazköy-Ḫattuša, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen, vol. 25. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2017. Pp. xi + 401, illus., 2 plans. €129.95.

The Calm before the Storm: Selected Writings of Itamar Singer on the End of the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Levant. By Itamar Singer. Writings from the Ancient World Supplements, vol. 1. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Pp. vii + 766, illus. $69.95. Pax Hethitica: Studies on the Hittites and Their Neighbours in Honour of Itamar Singer. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten, vol. 51. Edited by Yoram Cohen, Amir Golan, and Jared L. Miller. Wies baden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2010. (...) Pp. xiv + 439, illus., portrait. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz on Purely Extrinsic DenominationsGary L. CesarzDennis Plaisted. Leibniz on Purely Extrinsic Denominations. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 128 Cloth, $70.00.Interpreting Leibniz is like trying to flatten a balloon without deflating it; press it here and it bulges there. Press one of his controversial principles and problems result for another. Leibniz on contingent and necessary truths exemplifies this difficulty. So does Leibniz's denial that (...) there are "extrinsic denominations which have no foundationin the denominated thing" (NPE).Plaisted questions the meaning and challenges the current interpretations of this principle. Does "foundation" mean "included in a thing," or "reducible to an intrinsic denomination"? Furthermore, what is the thing denominated? Is it the individual concept of a substance, or an intrinsic denomination in the concept of the substance? Leibniz holds, "for all truths the predicate is contained in the subject" (PS) which, in some sense, includes both denominations (Leroy E. Loemker, ed., Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976], 268). This suggests that both denominations have the same status as predicates. However, such statements as, "there is no denomination so extrinsic that it does not have an intrinsic denomination as its basis" (Loemker, 527) and "all extrinsic denominations are founded in intrinsic denominations" (Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989], 225) suggest that the former reduce to the latter. The last two quotes seem to trump all hands. But textual citations are seldom enough to settle disputes of this sort.This has inspired two approaches to the question, one reductionistic, the other non-reductionistic. Plaisted adopts a non-reductionistic approach but regards those prior to his as implausible and unsatisfactory (1, 113 n.34). As for reductionism, he claims to "stand [End Page 494] [it] on its head" (1) and denies its "textual merit" (14). Given Plaisted's broad grasp of Leibniz's writings, this is not an oversight of the passages quoted above. Rather, his case depends on reinterpreting the same passages in light of his version of NPE.A reduction, according to some, requires that a relational proposition be logically equivalent (or at least truth-functionallyequivalent) to a set of non-relational propositions. For others, implication is sufficient, i.e., for a given relational proposition z, and two non-relational propositions x and y, it is impossible that (x & y) is true but z false (Mates, 218). In response, Plaisted examines NPE from four angles, including Leibniz's predicate-in-subject notion of truth, the identity of indiscernibles, and two others. However, since all that follows rides on his understanding of PS, let us focus on it.Plaisted's interprets NPE to mean "There are no extrinsic denominations of an individual... that are not included in that individual's concept" (11). To support this, he observes that Leibniz applies PS to all truths and often derives NPE from PS. But to justify substituting "included in" for Leibniz's use of "foundation in," Plaisted elects to interpret PS in a troubling way. Now, Leibniz insists that necessary truths state an identity between a subject and predicate, either explicit or implicit, and that the latter are reducible to the former by an a priori proof of finite length. Leibniz further says that identity, as explained above, is the reason that PS holds for necessary truths. Thus, Plaisted infers that "identity" and "having a reason" are equivalent, that this sense of PS generalizes to all truths (24-25), and claims support for his version of NPE. This is a positive result for Plaisted, for from it he infers that extrinsic denominations are included in the individual's concept as directly as intrinsic denominations, hence the latter cannot serve as the foundation for the former (25ff.). But this is problematic.First, it leads him to affirm that some denominations are both extrinsic and intrinsic (75). This is a strange conclusion to consider positive, for it implies that there are two types of intrinsic plus extrinsic denominations. Surely this strains the boundaries of "textual merit" at least as much as Plaisted charges against reductionists. More importantly, even if the equivalence Plaisted presses holds for necessary... (shrink)

This essay is my review of Colleen Dyble’s book, Taming Leviathan: Waging a War of Ideas around the World. Dyble is affiliated with the legendary classical liberal British think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs. Her anthology is a collection of essays by people around the world who have been involved with similar free-market think tanks in countries with historically statist economic systems. These writers include Greg Lindsay, founder of the Center for Independent Studies in Australia; Margaret Tse, of the (...) Instituto Liberdade in Brazil; Michael Walker, co-founder of the Fraser Institute in Canada; Cristian Larroulet, of Libertad y Desarrollo in Chile; Giancarlo Ibarguen, of the Center for Economic and Social Studies in Guatemala (which actually founded a free-market-oriented university); Parth Shah, founder of the Center for Civil Society in India; Daniel Doron, co-founder of the Israeli Center for Social and Economic Progress; Alberto Mingardi, of the Instituto Bruno Leoni in Italy; Masaru Uchigama, founder of the Japanese for Tax Reform; Elena Leontjeva, co-founder of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute; Alexander Magno, co-founder of the Foundation for Economic Freedom in the Philippines; and last, Leon Louw, of the Free Market Foundation of South Africa. I then discuss seven important reasons why classical liberal think tanks are so important in modern societies. (shrink)

John Roemer's comment succinctly summarizes the logical structure of his own theory of capitalist exploitation, but misunderstands the main points of our critique. He reduces his argument to two propositions. The first is an “empirical proposition”about the “root causes of exploitation”: X + Y → Z, where X is the existence of differential ownership of means of production, Y is coercion in the labor process, and Z is the capitalist class structure and exploitation. The second is the strictly theoretical proposition (...) X + not- Y -” Z, the truth of which he demonstrates, given most of the assumptions of a Walrasian economic model. He concludes that these two propositions, taken together, demonstrate the primacy of DOPA in explaining capitalist class relations. This much is true – subject to the various limitations we have indicated in our article – but only within the restricted confines of a Walrasian framework. This purely theoretical conclusion has no force as an empirical conclusion: this is the point at which Roemer's interpretation goes awry. For obviously, DOPA is a crucial element of empirical reality. But because Roemer's Walrasian framework precludes other equally crucial elements of empirical reality, an irreducible distance remains therein between the theoretical and the empirical. (shrink)

Behrendt & Young's (B&Y's) theory offers a potentially important perspective on the neurobiology of schizophrenia, but it remains incomplete. In addition to bottom-up contributions, such as those associated with disturbances in sensory constraints on cognitive processes, a comprehensive model requires the integration of the consequences of abnormal top-down modulation of input processing for the evolution of “underconstrained” perceptions. Dysfunctional cholinergic modulation of input functions represents a necessary mechanism for the generation of false perceptions.

An essential overview of this important intellectual movement. This latest volume in the longest-standing and most influential series in the field of the philosophy of science extends and expands on the discipline's recent historical turn. These essays take up the historical, sociological, and philosophical questions surrounding the particular intellectual movement of logical empiricism--both its emigration from Europe to North America in the 1930s and 1940s and its development in North America through the 1940s and 1950s. With an introduction placing them (...) in their philosophical and historical context, these essays bear witness to the fact that the history of the philosophy of science, far more than a mere repository of anecdote and chronology, might be able to produce a decisive transformation in the philosophy of science itself. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo sostiene que algunas Meta-Picto-Poesías del Paisaje compuestas por el poeta estadounidense Gary Snyder toman como tema la pintura china del paisaje con las características de la antigua poesía china, resplandeciente de incomparable encanto artístico y sustancia cultural. La poesía de este tipo es una combinación perfecta de elementos orientales y occidentales, que integra las culturas, los pensamientos y las artes de ambas partes, cuya apreciación crea una experiencia compleja con un híbrido de formas artísticas y espacios (...) estéticos. Gary Snyder no es sólo un eco-poeta, sino también un estilista y un hombre de práctica. Sus obras poéticas revelan la relación de fomento entre literatura, cultura y naturaleza. El artículo pretende hacer un intento transcultural, interdisciplinar y multidisciplinar en la crítica de Snyder, con métodos analíticos que incluyen culturas orientales y occidentales, visiones antiguas y actuales, así como experiencias dinámicas y estáticas. (shrink)

El ensayo pretende reconstruir los debates filosóficos franco-alemanes de los años80. La llegada del pensamiento francés de Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Althusser, entre otros,generó en la filosofía alemana la polaridad asimilación-rechazo. Sostenemos que dichapolaridad es producto del rechazo o integración de las propias tradiciones alemanas que losautores franceses poseen. En esa dirección, las obras de Manfred Frank sobre elpensamiento francés son claves para entender tanto el debate franco-alemán como susderivaciones en las discusiones acerca: modernidad-posmodernidad, sujeto-no-sujeto,deconstrucción-hermenéutica y racionalidad-irracionalidad. A tales fines, primeropresentamos, (...) a partir de las reconstrucciones de Alain Badiou y Gary Gutting, algunascaracterísticas del pensamiento francés que nos permitan entender los supuestos que Frankcrítica. En segundo lugar, puntualizamos cuáles son las críticas que Frank le realiza alpensamiento francés mediante la recuperación de la estética romántica, en particular, delconcepto de individualidad romántica que se podría derivar de la hermenéutica de FriedrichSchleiermacher. Por último, proponemos reconocer dos derivaciones que resultaron de larecepción del postestructuralismo de las obras de Frank. (shrink)

La importancia de Montserrat como santuario se puede medir no sólo por la extensión de su culto, sino también como centro irradiador de modelos narrativos. La leyenda de Garí fue elaborada en el medievo por los benedictinos y proviene de dos fuentes conocidas: el eremita tentado y la historia del hombre salvaje. En ella se aúnan legados de origen oriental y europeo. El hallazgo de la imagen se suma más tarde a esta narración, lo que pone de manifiesto cómo se (...) van hilvanando las leyendas, su proceso de elaboración: 1º una leyenda de fundación del monasterio santuario como la de Garí. En 2º lugar una leyenda de origen de culto a una imagen. La leyenda mariana de Montserrat forma parte de la cultura devocional dedicada a ciertos santos y a san Miguel, así como también al culto a las imágenes. (shrink)

Partiendo de la noción de “arte de gobierno liberal”, que encuentra su configuración en la forma de una Economía Política y su modelo normativo en un gobierno frugal, pretendemos elevar nuestro estudio hacia un análisis del tipo de subjetividad que funciona como correlato de la racionalidad política liberal: el homo oeconomicus y su actualización en la forma de sujeto “empresario de sí mismo”. Para tal fin nos veremos en la necesidad de señalar la mutación epistemológica planteada por el análisis neoliberal (...) –iniciado por la Escuela de Friburgo y, más específicamente, desarrollado por la Escuela de Chicago en el ámbito norteamericano–, el cual tiende un puente entre el análisis de los procesos económicos y el estudio de la racionalidad interna del comportamiento humano. Asimismo, haremos una incursión en la teoría del Capital Humano a través de intelectuales como Theodore W. Schultz y Gary S. Becker y sus derroteros actuales. Lejos de iniciar una relectura en términos puramente académicos, con nuestro análisis –y siguiendo un método praxeológico– pretendemos llamar la atención sobre una de las numerosas vías de investigación que Foucault dejó abiertas. Con esto pretendemos abrir el espacio para un ejercicio crítico que tome por objeto las derivas de esta comprensión de los sujetos en términos de “riqueza” en ámbitos de la vida que no son estrictamente económicos. (shrink)

Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the validity of the DSM's (...) diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

The burgeoning literature on global value chains has recast our understanding of how industrial clusters are shaped by their ties to the international economy, but within this context, the role played by corporate social responsibility continues to evolve. New research in the past decade allows us to better understand how CSR is linked to industrial clusters and GVCs. With geographic production and trade patterns in many industries becoming concentrated in the global South, lead firms in GVCs have been under growing (...) pressure to link economic and social upgrading in more integrated forms of CSR. This is leading to a confluence of “private governance”, “social governance”, and “public governance”. This new form of “synergistic governance” is illustrated with evidence from recent studies of GVCs and industrial clusters, as well as advances in theorizing about new patterns of governance in GVCs and clusters. (shrink)

This is the first detailed assessment of the life and work of Felix Guattari--"Mr. Anti" as the French press labelled him--the friend of and collaborator with..

This book offers a detailed look at Guattari's working methods in transdisciplinary experimentation from the time of his youth to his final years.His youthful adventures in the post-war Youth Hostels movement, decisive contact with institutional pedgagogy and the mentor figures of Fernand Oury and his brother Jean, give rise to an extraordinary penchant for organizational innovation in his life at Clinique de La Borde in Cour-Cheverny, France, and collective forms of expression manifested in publishing ventures and diverse collaborative research formations.Guattari's (...) highly original and hitherto neglected theories of a-signifyng semiotics and minor cinema are explored in depth with reference to the political goals of the critique of infoculture and the molecular revolutionary tendencies that are released in the search for a people to come.Guttari's engagement with eco-politics and art practices displays his originality as a political thinker and is firmly grounded on his exporation of how subjectivity is produced inlate capitalism.Guattari's ground-breaking conception of transversal politics is fully explored in relation to Michel Foucault's sense of the concept and its role in global political theory. (shrink)

There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. This thought-provoking book argues that, ironically, science's credibility is being undermined by tools created by scientists themselves. Scientific disinformation and damaging conspiracy theories are rife because of the internet that science created, the scientific demand for empirical evidence and statistical significance leads to data torturing and confirmation bias, and data mining is fuelled by the technological advances in Big Data and the development of ever-increasingly powerfulcomputers. Using a wide (...) range of entertaining examples, this fascinating book examines the impacts of society's growing distrust of science, and ultimately provides constructive suggestions for restoring the credibility of the scientific community. (shrink)

In the voluminous literature on the subject of bovine growth hormone (bGH) we have yet to find an attempt to frame the issue in specifically moral terms or to address systematically its ethical implications. I argue that there are two moral objections to the technology: its treatment of animals, and its dislocating effects on farmers. There are agricultural biotechnologies that deserve funding and support. bGH is not one of them.

In Chapter 4 of [2] Grünbaum sets out to refute Einstein's philosophy of physical geometry. The latter's theory is seen as lying within the tradition of "anti-empiricist conventionalism" of Duhem and Quine as opposed to the "qualified empiricism" of Poincaré, Carnap and Reichenbach. Consequently Grünbaum sets the stage for his critique of Einstein by discussing certain of the views of these other thinkers. But in these preliminary discussions the various theses are confused and misrepresented in such a way as to (...) make it almost impossible to evaluate Grünbaum's final treatment of Einstein's thesis. For this reason I will deal only with those parts of this chapter in which the roots of Grünbaum's confusion are to be found. This will involve analyses of two theories which are not clearly distinguished by Grünbaum. The first is Duhem's denial of the "crucial experiment" in physics; the second is Quine's version of "pragmatism.". (shrink)

We model happiness as a measurement tool used to rank alternative actions. Evolution favors a happiness function that measures the individual’s success in relative terms. The optimal function, in particular, is based on a time-varying reference point –or performance benchmark –that is updated over time in a statistically optimal way in order to match the individual’s potential. Habits and peer comparisons arise as special cases of such updating process. This updating also results in a volatile level of happiness that continuously (...) reverts to its long-term mean. Throughout, we draw a parallel with a problem of optimal incentives, which allows us to apply statistical insights from agency theory to the study of happiness. (shrink)

A new position in the philosophy of mind has recently appeared: the extended mind hypothesis (EMH). Some of its proponents think the EMH, which says that a subject's mental states can extend into the local environment, shows that internalism is false. I argue that this is wrong. The EMH does not refute internalism; in fact, it necessarily does not do so. The popular assumption that the EMH spells trouble for internalists is premised on a bad characterization of the internalist thesis—albeit (...) one that most internalists have adhered to. I show that internalism is entirely compatible with the EMH. This view should prompt us to reconsider the characterization of internalism, and in conclusion I make some brief remarks about how that project might proceed. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive overview of what sound means in this century. It's primary argument is that sound is the newest sense, having been elevated with the advent of sound recording approximately 100 years ago. With chapters ranging from sound recording to the acquisition of language, this study is meant to engage readers on what the author argues is our primary sense. Chapters on the weaponization of sound, sound refuges, and sound design are also part of these extensive study (...) by a scholar focused on contemporary rhetoric and mass media. (shrink)

What is the value of interdisciplinary theory? Are there any boundaries left which social theory must recognize? This book argues that the vital questions in theory are being posed and followed at the interdisciplinary level. Our awareness of this is curtailed by the institutional organization of social theory which still tends to assume a canon and clear boundaries. According to Gary Genosko, postmodernism has provided the main challenge to institutional myopia. Yet postmodernism is too often treated as an aberration (...) or a blind alley. The challenge for social theorists today is to develop and practice `undisciplined theories' which constantly question the limits of the canon and expose the porous character of boundaries. The book contains rigorous and original analyses of the writings of Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari, McLuhan, Freud and St Augustine. The author uses these materials to point the way to credible forms of undisciplined theory. Three tasks emerge as urgent issues for social theory: the need to think and feel ambivalence; to track the circulation of anomalies in theoretical texts; and to learn from the fascination with interpretative boundlessness. Undisciplined Theory will be of interest to academics of social and cultural theory. (shrink)