The economic crisis in Europe exposes the European Union’s political fragility. How a polity made of very different states can live up to the motto “Europe united in diversity” is difficult to envisage in practice. In this paper I attempt an “exegesis”—a critical explanation or interpretation of a series of published pieces (“the Series”) which explores, first, if European unity is desirable at all. Second, it presents a new methodology—analogical hermeneutics—used throughout the Series to approach the problem of unity. Third, (...) it conceptualises the source of unity as political identity. Fourth, it advances that the vehicle to share such identity is an analogical language: the political culture of human rights. Fifth, it submits the conditions under which such political culture could ground political identity through an open public sphere. Finally, it presents a way in which solidarity can grow as the increasingly diverse citizens of the European Union interact with each other. Even though the economic crisis can be solved by means of sound economic strategy (which is not the main object of my work), any successful economic strategy requires—as a precondition—a certain degree of political unity (the central concern of my research). (shrink)

The European project was aimed from the outset, alongside reconciliation (peace) and economic reconstruction (prosperity), at a degree of political integration too. Political integration has progressed modestly. Not everybody is convinced of its benefits. Besides, the notion of a European polity opens the question about its sources of cohesion. Those sources are more or less evident in the member states – language, history, legal, political and religious traditions, for instance. They give, say, Latvia, Italy or Hungary a certain degree of (...) unity – a national identity. But what ought to be that source of cohesion – or identity – for the European Union (EU) considered as a whole? This paper analyses five normative conceptions about such ‘European identity’ (EI) – cultural, legal, economic, international and cosmopolitan – and suggests that they are not mutually exclusive, but can be combined in a synthetic notion that promises to reflect in a more comprehensive and accurate way the sources of the minimal unity required to hold the EU polity together. (shrink)

In the present article we propose to approach and think about the event, the difference and the abyss. This is extremely important because it allows us to think about the individuation of the new. For this, we expose the positions of Heidegger and Deleuze. In the conclusions, we try to make dialogues both philosophies so that they are pushing each other trying to avoid justifying one position over the other.

Aura & Transvestment is a transmedia project consisting of a series of generative images, an experimental form of cryptomedia and a video essay. By describing its own powers and contradictions, the work explores notions of value, ownership, authenticity, artificial scarcity and abundance in the digital realm. The project is a critical analysis of non-fungible tokens used as proof of ownership for digital art, taking Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura as a starting point. It argues that, for tokenized art, cryptography serves (...) as an artificial source of auratic power that reverts the political potential of reproducibility falling back to a magical and ritual notion of aura. This time around the ritual performed is that of property, authenticity, ownership, markets and commodification. Finally, the article outlines alternative uses of cryptography and distributed ledger technologies to support artistic labour and proposes transvestment as a temporary counter-action for the reallocation of value from capitalist forms of production and into commons-based models of social coordination. Submitted to this journal is an adaptation of the script for the video essay, alongside other elements of the project. Please visit: https://aura-transvestment.art/. (shrink)

El propósito del presente trabajo es examinar la concepción kantiana del pensamiento y de su negativo a la luz de la crítica deleuziana a la imagen del pensamiento. Luego de cotejar las afirmaciones del filósofo francés con la letra de Kant, sostendremos que, si el concepto de ilusión trascendental se aparta de la misma en tanto cuestiona la buena naturaleza de la razón y la afinidad del pensamiento con lo verdadero, la ilusión es conjurada mediante su legitimación moral y, así, (...) Kant continúa postulando su rectitud natural. Mediante el análisis de la concepción kantiana del error, mostraremos asimismo que las afirmaciones deleuzianas relativas a la superación del concepto clásico de error como desviación del pensamiento por parte de Kant no pueden sostenerse sino que, por el contrario, Kant concebía las facultades como naturalmente rectas, pudiendo ser desviadas solo por interposiciones externas. (shrink)

Conditional independence tests have received special attention lately in machine learning and computational intelligence related literature as an important indicator of the relationship among the variables used by their models. In the field of probabilistic graphical models, which includes Bayesian network models, conditional independence tests are especially important for the task of learning the probabilistic graphical model structure from data. In this paper, we propose the full Bayesian significance test for tests of conditional independence for discrete datasets. The full Bayesian (...) significance test is a powerful Bayesian test for precise hypothesis, as an alternative to the frequentist’s significance tests (characterized by the calculation of the p-value). (shrink)

Sponsored by the Argentine Association for the Progress of Sciences, Ciencia e Investigación magazine released its first issue in 1945. In order to circulate the discoveries in the areas of medical and natural sciences, and to instruct on scientific thought, the magazine was introduced as a knowledge disseminating one and attempted to address a general audience. However, during its first publication decade the CEI editors faced two challenges related to scientific communication. On the one hand, they exhibited the conflicts implied (...) in research writing and the typical conditions of the language of science. On the other, they manifested their interest to bestow a discursive style on the magazine which, although simple and oriented to a wide audience, would not corrupt scientific veracity. This paper follows the French approach to discourse analysis, whose purpose is the simultaneous and reciprocal study of the verbal and the socio-institutional dimension of discourses, and analyses the sociolinguistic representations of the language of science and of its dissemination formulated in CEI between 1945-1955, a period - besides - complex for the scientific development in Argentina, characterized by state interventionism in different institutions. To this aim, editorials and articles that address the aforementioned problems have been selected and examined. The results exhibit the discursive complexities of scientific dissemination in an environment unaware of this practice and, consequently, the difficulty of determining a reader profile for the magazine. In general terms, they reveal the importance of the reflection on the language for the development and communication of science. (shrink)

Speculative realists have directed a radical critique towards what they call “correlationism,” the stance according to which we only have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. Both Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier have used Gilles Deleuze’s ontology as a paradigmatic example of correlationism. Instead of defending Deleuze from this accusation, I argue that we need to accept it, but that the correlation is drastically transformed when we take into (...) account Deleuze’s panpsychism. I hence contend that Deleuze is a panpsychist, grounding my argument in (a) his theory of contemplations and (b) his account of the universe as a cinema in itself. This changes everything, since a panpsychist type of correlationism avoids the main problem that leads both Meillassoux and Brassier to try to overcome correlationism, namely, that of the possibility of existence before and after humans. (shrink)

En este trabajo se analizan los documentales del período silente de la Revolución mexicana, específicamente aquellos que fueron realizados durante el fragor de la contienda armada entre 1910 y 1917. El objetivo es reflexionar acerca del modo en que las imágenes fílmicas contribuyeron a forjar el mito de la Revolución como mexicanidad y, a partir de esa mitificación, problematizar la temporalidad de las imágenes y su devenir social y político. Se sostiene que los documentales del período revolucionario favorecieron de manera (...) significativa (junto con otras prácticas culturales: pintura, literatura, teatro) la estructuración de un imaginario social que concibió la lucha armada como seña de identidad. El análisis de los documentales rodados durante el proceso revolucionario mostrará cómo esas imágenes fílmicas hicieron legible una historicidad de la Revolución y, al mismo tiempo, inscribieron una nueva matriz cultural que instituyó, por ejemplo, al campesinado rebelde como discurso sobre el cual construir esa nueva mexicanidad. De este modo, la Revolución como mexicanidad se instauró como un nuevo paradigma sociopolítico sobre el cual se cimentó el nacionalismo populista que se irá conformando como ethos cultural dentro de la sociedad mexicana a lo largo del siglo XX. (shrink)

La matriz del problema de la demarcación se instala en la función misma de la filosofía de la ciencia, sin embargo, su contenido puede ser aplicado al ámbito de las teorías sociales. En este sentido, el siguiente paper tiene el cometido de analizar a partir del libro del 2015 de Judith Butler «Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly», como en el campo de los social el problema de la demarcación produce la distinción entre aquellos que pueden ser considerados como (...) humanos y dignes de la posesión de los derechos básicos de aquellos que no. En consecuencia, en primer lugar, se indicará el itinerario teórico dentro de la obra de Karl Popper del problema de la demarcación y como su aplicación puede ocupar los ámbitos de lo práctico y lo político. En segundo lugar, mostrar cómo se puede aplicar el problema de la demarcación en los planteos de Judith Butler, tanto en el sentido de una formación legítima de la subjetividad humana, como dentro del campo de lo colectivo. En tercer lugar, mostrar cómo en el espacio público asambleario se da una respuesta ético-política a la separación que produce la demarcación entre sujetos precarizados y sujetos dignos de derechos. Finalmente, reflexionar y ofrecer algunas conclusiones. (shrink)

Existe-t-il une « politique deleuzienne »? Comment se saisir aujourd’hui du legs philosophique, aussi stimulant que problématique, que nous laisse Gilles Deleuze? La boîte à outils que constitue l’ensemble de ses développements prend des voies différentes en fonction de l’appareil avec lequel il se conjugue. On propose ainsi une présentation critique des principales lignes interprétatives de l’œuvre de Deleuze sur la question politique.

“Deleuze and the Inversion of Kantism”. In this paper we aim to look into French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s work in order to see whether there is such a thing as a ‘reversal of Kantianism’, parallel to his more well-known reversal of Platonism. To this end, we will propose, firstly, to read in the key of reversal the movements made by Deleuze regarding intensity and extension, on the one hand, and the paradox of inner sense, on the other. Then, we will (...) analyze why Kant had already accomplished two great reversals, regarding the classical conception of both time and law, and consequently, we will develop the Deleuzean conception of Nietzschean eternal return as a simultaneous reversal of both aspects. Finally, we will inquire about the tropos of the aforementioned reversal, calling on the concepts of humor and irony. (shrink)

This paper examines Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment”. We will show a) that the author holds an interpretative thesis according to which the third Kantian Critique would not be a complement but rather a foundation of the previous ones, inasmuch as the determined agreements of the first two Critiques presuppose the possibility of an indeterminate agreement between the faculties; b) that the demand for a genesis of the sensus communis by Deleuze can (...) be summed up in three requisites: discordance, contingency, and vivification; and c) in which senses Deleuze considers that the aforementioned requirements are satisfied in the Kantian text. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone analizar el concepto de entendimiento infinito tal como es presentado por Salomon Maimon en el Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie y por Kant en los parágrafos §§76-78 de la Crítica de la facultad de juzgar. Nos guiará la hipótesis de que Kant pudo haberse visto influenciado por Maimon, tanto en la formulación de dicho concepto como en el modo de abordar el problema que este viene a resolver, a saber, el de la indeterminación material de los (...) objetos de la filosofía trascendental. La comparación entre los planteos de ambos filósofos servirá para poner de relieve una problemática común. Sostendremos que, mientras que Kant ya había considerado un concepto de entendimiento infinito en la primera Crítica, es solo a partir del problema de la indeterminación que defenderá, luego de leer el manuscrito de Maimon, un uso crítico de dicho concepto. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of Gilles Deleuze’s interpreta- tion of the Critique of Pure Reason such as it appears in his 1963 monographic work La Philosophie critique de Kant. We will show that the originality of Deleuze’s reading lies in reading the critical project in retrospect, taking the sensus communis problem from the Critique of the Power of Judgment and applying it to the first Critique. In so doing, he points out the survival of (...) a pre-established harmony, now interiorized, both between heterogeneous faculties and between the matter of phenomena and the Ideas of reason. This implies a reinterpretation of the critical project that has passed unnoticed within Kantian studies and that places the Third Critique as the ground of the previous ones, unveiling common sense as a condition of possibility of knowledge. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analiza los relatos de Matilde Sánchez “Amsterdam, ‘79” y “Berlín, ‘86”, crónicas de viajes iniciáticos incluidos en La canción de las ciudades. En ambos casos, la protagonista y narradora nos presenta el viaje como un experimento sobre la propia subjetividad, consistente en la inmersión y exposición del cuerpo propio y la lengua materna a una proliferación de signos urbanos extraños, habitando y habituándose a aquellas ciudades. Se propone aquí pensar dichas crónicas a partir de los conceptos deleuzianos (...) de aprendizaje, percepto y afecto, y adentrarse en la composición de la canción en cuestión como una operación que involucra una temporalidad triple. El aprendizaje perceptivo, afectivo y lingüístico de los viajes remite a un pasado de la expectativa y a un futuro de la escritura, y los signos aprendidos se constituyen en notas de la canción de las ciudades solo en la resonancia entre los tres momentos. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se procurará subrayar la dimensión política del concepto de sentido común en la filosofía de Gilles Deleuze, señalando algunas transformaciones al respecto desde Diferencia y repetición hasta sus textos de los años ‘80. Mostraremos que el sentido común implica una presencia implícita de la comunidad en el ejercicio de las facultades, que sin embargo invisibiliza y despolitiza su propia presencia, y rastrearemos la letra kantiana para señalar que la comunidad implícita en el sensus communisse revela como (...) una comunidad “mayoritaria” relativa a un modelo que no se corresponde con los devenires efectivos. (shrink)

De los tres modos de acercamiento entre el pensamiento de Gilles Deleuze y el idealismo alemán señalados por Amanda Núñez García, en los que priman, respectivamente, Fichte, Kant y Schelling, el presente trabajo se propone proseguir la segunda vía y, rastreando las fuentes de las afirmaciones deleuzianas relativas al tiempo como fisura en la identidad subjetiva, mostrar la existencia de una concepción del cogito distinta de la cartesiana, en la cual el yo no consigue identificarse plenamente consigo mismo. Mostraremos asimismo (...) que dicha concepción encuentra su origen en la paradoja del sentido interno kantiana, se continúa en Hölderlin y llega hasta Deleuze, y que el elemento clave para pensar esta torsión es el tiempo como forma pura y vacía. Tomaremos como punto de partida el análisis de la tercera síntesis pasiva del tiempo desarrollada por Deleuze en _Diferencia y repetición_ para luego examinar la letra de Kant y de Hölderlin con el objetivo de reconstruir la posición deleuziana. (shrink)

La deconstrucción es la apertura al porvenir, hacia el otro como porvenir absoluto. Sin embargo, ese otro se encuentra ante nosotros y tras nosotros, es un pasado por venir, un pasado que nunca ha sido presente. De este modo, la obra de Derrida puede ser leída como la preocupación constante por esa memoria del porvenir, por la herencia y el duelo, por la apertura al acontecimiento. En este sentido, la memoria en Derrida no puede comprenderse como «reunión en el pensamiento», (...) como «Versammlung» y, por tanto, supone quizás una distancia radical en la obra de Derrida con respecto al pensamiento heideggeriano. (shrink)

BackgroundAlcohol use is one of the main risk factors that leads to detrimental health effects and support for a transdiagnostic approach to alcohol use disorders is growing. However, the role of transdiagnostic predictors of problematic alcohol consumption in Ecuador are understudied.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to examine gender differences in psychological stress and inflexibility as transdiagnostic predictors of problematic alcohol consumption in a large sample of college students in Ecuador.MethodsA total of 7,905 college students were surveyed using the following (...) standardized scales: Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Perceived Stress Scale-14, and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire. Macro Process for SPSS was used to analyze mediation and moderation effects.ResultsReported alcohol consumption was significantly higher in men than women students. On the other hand, women reported significantly higher levels of perceived stress and psychological inflexibility than men students. Gender, age, psychological stress, and inflexibility were significant predictors of alcohol consumption. Moreover, psychological inflexibility mediated the impact of stress on alcohol consumption, particularly in women.DiscussionResults of this study support psychological stress and psychological inflexibility as critical transdiagnostic variables related to increased rates of alcohol consumption among Ecuadorian college students. These conclusions contribute to the development of transdiagnostic comprehensive programs, which encompasses promotive, preventive, and treatment services that allow to alleviate the burden of alcohol, as well as to enrich the growing research on alcohol consumption in this population from a gender perspective. (shrink)

En este texto se lleva una lectura de la obra lacaniana a través del estudio de sus figuras topológicas. En este sentido, se afirma que el psicoanálisis lacaniano no hace uso de la topología como si no de una herramienta externa si tratase, es decir, como un modo a través del cual obtener ejemplos ilustrativos y explicaciones, sino que el propio pensamiento lacaniano es en sí mismo topológico y, por tanto, no puede ser comprendido al margen de esta dimensión que (...) atraviesa la totalidad de su recorrido. Para ello se estudiarán seis figuras: el grafo del deseo, la cinta de Moebius, el toro, la botella de Klein, la esfera provista de un cross-cap y el nudoborromeo. (shrink)

En este texto se estudia la tensa relación entre lugar y espacio en el “segundo” Heidegger, tomando textos posteriores a Sein und Zeit. Se comprende el espacio como espaciar, concebido desde lo abierto y por lo tanto desde el Claro como des-ocultamiento de la verdad en el lugar. De este modo, el lugar del desocultamiento se define como la obra de arte, como “poema”. Así, se sugiere que el lugar constituye una dimensión del lenguaje y por lo tanto el espacio (...) es el hacer espacio para el habitar de los hombres, si bien el lugar como espacio del lenguaje resulta ser un lugar imposible. (shrink)

La cuestión de la traducción, como afirma Derrida, es «la» cuestión de la deconstrucción. En este sentido, comprende Derrida que la traducción no consiste en la «transferencia» de significantes entre las lenguas, proceso que respetaría los significados ideales-inmateriales. Por el contrario, Derrida apunta hacia una traducción de un «original» que nunca ha sido, un texto que necesita esencialmente de la traducción y, por tanto, afirma la traducción como una tarea «im-posible», como la continua creación del otro y de lo otro, (...) como recepción de la herencia e imposible afirmación del duelo. En este sentido, cabría plantear la posibilidad de «traducir» los textos de Derrida hacia el pensamiento heideggeriano, donde también se establecería de manera explícita el rechazo a la noción de traducción en cuanto «intercambio», es decir, como tarea técnica o mecánica, apuntando así hacia la traducción como la verdadera esencia del pensamiento y del lenguaje. No obstante, se comprueba en esta aproximación la im-posibilidad de traducir los textos de Derrida al corpus heideggeriano. (shrink)

On 20 December 1973, an attack by ETA put an end to the lives of Franco's head of government, his chauffeur and his bodyguard. This had important consequences for both the dictatorship and the terrorist group. Based on the existing sources, historians have developed a fairly credible account of the events. Nevertheless, the fact that ETA had managed to assassinate such a prominent politician, combined with some loose ends in the police investigation and the absence of a sentence gave rise (...) to all kinds of speculation. Furthermore, the case of Carrero Blanco has inspired narratives of uneven quality. In this paper we examine the interrelationship between history, conspiracy theories and fiction surrounding the attack. (shrink)

This paper proposes a conceptual model that fosters interdisciplinary thinking and critical thinking by connecting the three main philosophical traditions that impact modern thinking – British empiricism, Continental Europe subjective idealism, and realism – with their epistemological foundations and in combination with modern social disciplines: ethics, social responsibility, and political economy. Through a statistical analysis this paper shows which of the three epistemologies produces better social outcomes.

Recensión de la obra de Byung-Chul Han "El aroma del tiempo", donde analiza la visión aceptada de una aceleración del tiempo moderno, a través de autores como Lyotard, Baudrillard o Arendt, señalando que, más que ésta, debe considerarse la pérdida de un fundamento, de un elemento ordenador del tiempo. De este modo, no se padece tanto una aceleración de los tiempos como una ausencia de sentido, de dirección, que posibilite así la experiencia de una duración.

Esta conversación tuvo lugar durante una visita de varios días de Pablo Posada Varela a la casa de Marc Richir en Haut-Vaucluse en junio de 2012. He aquí tres extractos (de extensión variable) de una conversación del 8 de junio, y algunos otros fechados el 10 de junio.

This text proposes an interpretation of the work of Franklin Leopoldo e Silva based on the reading of some of his numerous published articles and books, without neglecting the classes and guidance received from the stage of Scientific Initiation to Postdoctoral studies. Precisely, by highlighting the importance of three thinkers widely studied by Professor Franklin – Berkeley, Bergson and William James –, we suggest that at the heart of this philosophical experience there would be a constant: empiricism. Whether in the (...) classical or radical version, the line we draw in this multiplicity reveals an openness to concrete empiricism. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate a semantics for first-order logic originally proposed by R. van Rooij to account for the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, that is, for the principle that if x is P, then y should be P whenever y is similar enough to x. The semantics, which makes use of indifference relations to model similarity, rests on the interaction of three notions of truth: the classical notion, and two dual notions simultaneously defined in terms of it, (...) which we call tolerant truth and strict truth. We characterize the space of consequence relations definable in terms of those and discuss the kind of solution this gives to the sorites paradox. We discuss some applications of the framework to the pragmatics and psycholinguistics of vague predicates, in particular regarding judgments about borderline cases. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a way to add a transparent truth predicate to classical logic, such that and A are everywhere intersubstitutable, where all T-biconditionals hold, and where truth can be made compositional. A key feature of our framework, called STTT (for Strict-Tolerant Transparent Truth), is that it supports a non-transitive relation of consequence. At the same time, it can be seen that the only failures of transitivity STTT allows for arise in paradoxical cases.

To what degree can language be acquired from linguistic input alone? This question has vexed scholars for millennia and is still a major focus of debate in the cognitive science of language. The complexity of human language has hampered progress because studies of language–especially those involving computational modeling–have only been able to deal with small fragments of our linguistic skills. We suggest that the most recent generation of Large Language Models (LLMs) might finally provide the computational tools to determine empirically (...) how much of the human language ability can be acquired from linguistic experience. LLMs are sophisticated deep learning architectures trained on vast amounts of natural language data, enabling them to perform an impressive range of linguistic tasks. We argue that, despite their clear semantic and pragmatic limitations, LLMs have already demonstrated that human-like grammatical language can be acquired without the need for a built-in grammar. Thus, while there is still much to learn about how humans acquire and use language, LLMs provide full-fledged computational models for cognitive scientists to empirically evaluate just how far statistical learning might take us in explaining the full complexity of human language. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common practice of presenting perdurantism, endurantism, and other views about persistence and time as solutions to an alleged puzzle about change. Various recent attempts to generate a puzzle about change are examined and found unsuccessful. This does not mean, however, that the relevant views about persistence and time are not well motivated, but rather that their interest and purpose is independent of their suitability for solving the alleged puzzle.

Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is human dignity, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights? -/- This book offers a sophisticated and comprehensive defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of human rights. First, it clarifies the network of concepts associated with dignity. Paramount within this network is a core notion of human dignity as (...) an inherent, non-instrumental, egalitarian, and high-priority normative status of human persons. People have this status in virtue of their valuable human capacities rather than as a result of their national origin and other conventional features. Second, it shows how human dignity gives rise to an inspiring ideal of solidaristic empowerment, which calls us to support people's pursuit of a flourishing life by affirming both negative duties not to block or destroy, and positive duties to protect and facilitate, the development and exercise of the valuable capacities at the basis of their dignity. The most urgent of these duties are correlative to human rights. Third, this book illustrates how the proposed dignitarian approach allows us to articulate the content, justification, and feasible implementation of specific human rights, including contested ones, such as the rights to democratic political participation and to decent labour conditions. Finally, this book's dignitarian approach helps illuminate the arc of humanist justice, identifying both the difference and the continuity between the basic requirements of human rights and more expansive requirements of social justice such as those defended by liberal egalitarians and democratic socialists. -/- Human dignity is indeed the moral heart of human rights. Understanding it enables us to defend human rights as the urgent ethical and political project that puts humanity first. (shrink)

Social scientific and humanistic research on synthetic biology has focused quite narrowly on questions of epistemology and ELSI. I suggest that to understand this discipline in its full scope, researchers must turn to the objects of the field—synthetic biological artifacts—and study them as the objects in the making of a science yet to be made. I consider one fundamentally important question: how should we understand the material products of synthetic biology? Practitioners in the field, employing a consistent technological optic in (...) the study and construction of biological systems, routinely employ the mantra ‘biology is technology’. I explore this categorization. By employing an established definition of technological artifects drawn from the philosophy of technology, I explore the appropriateness of attributing to synthetic biological artifacts the four criteria of materiality, intentional design, functionality, and normativity. I then explore a variety of accounts of natural kinds. I demonstrate that synthetic biological artifacts fit each kind imperfectly, and display a concomitant ontological ‘messiness’. I argue that this classificatory ambivalence is a product of the field’s own nascence, and posit that further work on kinds might help synthetic biology evaluate its existing commitments and practices. (shrink)