law's oscillation between power and meaning -- Law's screen life : visualizing law in practice -- Images run riot : law on the landscape of the neo-baroque -- Theorizing the visual sublime : law's legitimation reconsidered -- The digital challenge : command and control culture and the ethical sublime -- Conclusion : visualizing law as integral rhetoric : harmonizing the ethical and the aesthetic.

The article describes the way in which law-related events are represented in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Based on a narrative analysis, the paper will posit that In Cold Blood played a particular role in originating and shaping an innovative mode of representing law-related events, a mode that was widely employed since, in various artistic mediums and in popular culture. As the paper further elaborates, Capote’s work paved new ways for challenging the conventional boundaries between “reality” and “fiction” with regard (...) to the representation of law-related events. The paper will also maintain that in addition to its contribution to the law and literature discourse, In Cold Blood can be also seen as an early prototype to the digital legal spectacles that are now common. Revisiting In Cold Blood reveals not only its standing as originating model of many present-day cultural representations of the legal system in action, but also the essential difference between the almost unrestrainedly produced digital law-related content, to a artistic enterprise, characterized by poetic distinctiveness. (shrink)

Exploring the history of our experience, Hannah Arendt reveals not only a radical transformation of its structure, but also the loss of experience as such and its replacement with technology. In order to identify the place of law in this process, we are trying to clarify the legal aspect of experience in terms of phenomenological hermeneutics and to trace its transformation in the digital age. The experience of law is thought of as one of the aspects of our mode (...) of being-in-the-world, which is based on openness to the world and consists in the mutual recognition of people in their dignity. Digital technologies, in turn, contribute to replacing fundamental openness with illusory freedom in cyberspace. The latter, unlike the public realm as a realm of action of many, and in this sense legal realm, is based primarily on productive activities of one and no longer requires law. (shrink)

Exploring the history of our experience, Hannah Arendt reveals not only a radical transformation of its structure, but also the loss of experience as such and its replacement with technology. In order to identify the place of law in this process, we are trying to clarify the legal aspect of experience in terms of phenomenological hermeneutics and to trace its transformation in the digital age. The experience of law is thought of as one of the aspects of our mode (...) of being-in-the-world, which is based on openness to the world and consists in the mutual recognition of people in their dignity. Digital technologies, in turn, contribute to replacing fundamental openness with illusory freedom in cyberspace. The latter, unlike the public realm as a realm of action of many, and in this sense legal realm, is based primarily on productive activities of one and no longer requires law. (shrink)

The article analyzes the impact of modern digital technologies used in the information society on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in general. Both positive and negative aspects of such impact are considered. The importance of this topic is due to the need for further deepening of scientific knowledge related to the development of the rule of law in the information society and insufficient research from the legal point of view of current theoretical problems of the rule (...) of law in the digital era. The purpose of this article is to study the rule of law as a principle of the modern state of the 21st century and to study the problems in matters of human rights that have arisen with the development of modern digital technologies. The study of this issue is quite relevant, considering the conclusions, made as a result of our work, can be taken into account in further theoretical developments of international and national human rights protection aimed at improving the effectiveness of human rights judicial protection and improving current legislation. (shrink)

Election interference is one of the most widely discussed international phenomena of the last five years. Russian covert interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election elevated the topic into a national priority, but that experience was far from an isolated one. Evidence of election interference by foreign states or their proxies has become a regular feature of national elections and is likely to get worse in the near future. Information and communication technologies afford those who would interfere with new tools (...) that can operate in ways previously unimaginable: Twitter bots, Facebook advertisements, closed social media platforms, algorithms that prioritize extreme views, disinformation, misinformation, and malware that steals secret campaign communications. Defending Democracies examines the problem through an interdisciplinary lens and focuses on: defining the problem of foreign election interference, exploring the solutions that international law might bring to bear, and considering alternative regulatory frameworks for understanding and addressing the problem. The result is a deeply urgent examination of an old problem on social media steroids, one that implicates the most central institution of liberal democracy: elections. The volume seeks to bring domestic and international perspectives on elections and election law into conversation with other disciplinary frameworks, escaping the typical biases of lawyers who prefer international legal solutions for issues of international relations. Taken together, the chapters in this volume represent a more faithful representation of the broad array of solutions that might be deployed, including international and domestic, legal and extra-legal, ambitious and cautious. (shrink)

This paper considers a key text in the field of Cultural Studies for its relevance to questions about the identity of knowledge in education. The concept of ‘aura’ arises as being of special significance in ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ as a way of understanding the change that occurs to art when mass reproduction becomes both technologically possible and industrially realised. Aura seems to signify something of the symbolic halo generated by objects of special significance (...) that is both powerful and indefinite. This paper argues that aura is in fact the necessary property of symbolic representation—and that it attaches as much to the figure of Walter Benjamin as it does to any canonical work of art. But the paper also claims that Benjamin’s argument about the significance of popular forms of art—particularly photography and film—can be updated and applied to critical questions about the established order of knowledge in education. This is particularly relevant to those curriculum domains where specific objects—texts, for example—are invested with powerful auras. It may also be applicable to all forms of established knowledge and curricula. (shrink)

Courts, Litigants, and the Digital Age examines the ramifications of technology for courts, judges, and the administration of justice. It sets out the issues raised by technology, and, particularly, the Internet, so that conventional paradigms can be updated in the judicial context. In particular, the book dwells on issues such as proper judicial use of Internet sources, judicial ethics and social networking, electronic court records and anonymization techniques, control of the courtroom and jurors' use of new technologies, as well (...) as the Internet's impact on judicial appointments and the diversity of the judiciary. The second edition includes discussion of current issues in this rapidly developing area, such as privacy protection, the "right to be forgotten," cyber intimidation, freedom of digital speech, and litigant anonymity. Through examination of relevant practical, legal, and ethical issues, it endeavours to extract lessons from the developing issues surveyed and proposes forward-thinking approaches based on proportionality principles. (shrink)

The arrival of the digital technology in the documentary has changed the existing modes of production, distribution and reception. Some film scholars see the digital as a threat to indexically-­based photographic realism and believe that this feature is neglected or lost in the digital image. New media and technological changes have always been quickly embraced by documentary filmmakers from the early days till today since they provide more possibilities in filmmaking and also invite the users to be (...) more active. New media documentary comes out as a result of the interplay of different media and new technologies, but that does not necessarily lead to the crisis of representation, and the use of digital technologies is less radical and threatening to the nature of cinema than it was first voiced in scholarship. (shrink)

Electronic commerce is important, and perhaps, inevitable. Thus to consider the legal implications of the growth and development of electronic commerce is essential. However, the lack of suitable dispute resolution mechanisms in cyberspace will constitute a serious obstacle to the further development of electronic commerce. Bearing this in mind, this paper argues that when Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) moves to cyberspace, particularly arbitration and mediation as the main types of ADR, the form of online alternative dispute resolution (OADR) can maximise (...) the growth of e-commerce. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to intervene in debates about the digital and, in particular, framings that imagine the digital in terms of epochal shifts or as redefining life. Instead, drawing on recent developments in digital methods, we explore the lively, productive and performative qualities of the digital by attending to the specificities of digital devices and how they interact, and sometimes compete, with older devices and their capacity to mobilize and materialize social and (...) other relations. In doing so, our aim is to explore the implications of digital devices and data for reassembling social science methods or what we call the social science apparatuses that assemble digital devices and data to ‘know’ the social and other relations. Building on recent work at CRESC on the social life of methods, we recommend a genealogical approach that is alive to the ways in which digital devices are simultaneously shaped by social worlds, and can in turn become agents that shape those worlds. This calls for attending to the specificities of digital devices themselves, how they are varied and composed of diverse socio-technical arrangements, and are enrolled in the creation of new knowledge spaces, institutions and actors. Rather than exploring what large-scale changes can be revealed and understood through the digital, we argue for explorations of how digital devices themselves are materially implicated in the production and performance of contemporary sociality. To that end we offer the following nine propositions about the implications of digital data and devices and argue that these demand rethinking the theoretical assumptions of social science methods: transactional actors; heterogeneity; visualization; continuous time; whole populations; granularity; expertise; mobile and mobilizing; and non-coherence. (shrink)

'Image Ethics in the Digital Age' brings together leading experts in the fields of journalism, media studies, & law to address the challenges presented by new technology & assess the implications for personal & societal values & behavior.

The use of AI-generated videos centered on the face raises various concerns among professionals and audiences due to the difficulty of providing coherent descriptive tools of their cultural significance. At the same time, the focus of artists and their audiences shifts from the art as a text to the collaboration process between artificial intelligence (AI) and the involved social actors. This raises significant concerns between policymakers and other social actors looking for guidelines for the appropriate use of AI as a (...) tool, collaborator or substitute for creative workers, which can have immediate and long-term impacts on society and culture. Semiotics of culture provides descriptive tools for understanding and evaluating artistic texts and their role in semiotic space, the semiosphere. This article addresses how Lotman’s theory can contribute to the methodology for analyzing AI-generated texts as dynamic models. The theoretical framework developed by Lotman in his research on artistic text, dynamic systems and culture can be applied to the studies of current shifts related to AI-generated arts. This paper looks at the reception of AI-generated videos focused on face representations. In doing so, it analyses the dynamic processes in the creation process of AI-generated videos through their reception in related texts. The findings of this article highlight how Lotman’s theoretical framework can contribute to the methodology to analyze the cultural dynamics evoked by AI-generated artistic texts. (shrink)

This article is the first attempt to justify the "next" milestone in the development of legal realism: hyperrealism. The implications of digitalization have become the new fuel for the legal realist's jurisprudence prediction theory, that is, empirical research to predict the judge's or the court's decision. Indeed, that was impossible for American realists in the early twentieth century, and all the attempts failed. Therefore, tools such as Judicial Analytics allow us to prove that personal motives and prejudices affect a dispute's (...) resolution. Based on a systemic, comparative, and interdisciplinary analysis that intermingles legal theory, data analytics and digital technologies, the article substantiates the concept of hyperrealism itself. It evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of its primary tool—judicial analytics. The authors state the necessity of creating regulatory mechanisms of "curbing" to use them to improve justice and minimize the risk of rights violations. They propose using tools of expert evaluation, standardization, and ethical regulation of forensic analysis. (shrink)

We live in the digital age where our sense of self and identity has moved beyond the body to encompass hardware and software. Cyborgs, online representations in social media, avatars, and virtual reality extend our notion of what it means to be human. This approachable book looks at the progression of self from the biological to the technological using a multidisciplinary approach. It examines the notion of personhood from philosophical, psychological, neuroscience, robotics, and artificial intelligence perspectives, showing how (...) the interface between bodies, brains, and technology can give rise to new forms of human identity. Jay Friedenberg presents the content in an organized and easy-to-understand fashion to facilitate learning. A gifted researcher, author, and classroom teacher, he is one of the most influential voices in the field of artificial psychology. (shrink)

The digital age brings with it novel forms of data flow. As a result, individuals are constantly being monitored while consuming products, services and content. These abilities have given rise to a variety of concerns, which are most often framed using “privacy” and “data protection”-related paradigms. An important, oft-noted yet undertheorized concern is that these dynamics might facilitate the manipulation of subjects; a process in which firms strive to motivate and influence individuals to take specific steps and make particular (...) decisions in a manner considered to be socially unacceptable. That it is important and imperative to battle manipulation carries with it a strong intuitive appeal. Intuition, however, does not always indicate the existence of a sound justification or policy option. For that, a deeper analytic and academic discussion is called for. This Article begins by emphasizing the importance of addressing the manipulation-based argument, which derives from several crucial problems and flaws in the legal and policy setting currently striving to meet the challenges of the digital age. Next, the Article examines whether the manipulation-based concerns are sustainable, or are merely a visceral response to changing technologies which cannot be provided with substantial analytical backing. Here the Article details the reasons for striving to block manipulative conduct and, on the other hand, reasons why legal intervention should be, in the best case, limited. The Article concludes with some general implications of this discussion for the broader themes and future directions of privacy law, while trying to ascertain whether the rise of the manipulation-based discourse will lead to information privacy’s expansion or perhaps its demise. (shrink)

In recent years, the phenomenal development and application of technology have given rise to new means and forms of international commercial dispute resolution. In particular, in the post-COVID era, the demand for efficient, flexible and cost-saving dispute resolution methods has increased significantly. Therefore, technology-enabled digital methods such as online arbitration, have become more widely accepted and applied. At the same time, globalisation has turned international commercial disputes increasingly complex, which often involves the interests of third parties. According to data (...) released by arbitral institutes, about 40% of arbitration cases worldwide involve more than two parties. As there is an increasing number of multi-party arbitration cases, multi-party dispute resolution mechanisms have played a more prominent role in such circumstances. Digitalisation and globalisation have facilitated multi-party projects, but they have also inevitably increased risks in multi-party disputes. For instance, arbitration is a business-friendly process, but the consensual nature of arbitration does not easily accommodate multi-party disputes. Although digitalisation in the conduction of arbitrations has made it more efficient and increased the access of multi-party commercial disputes to resolution, it still has not helped arbitration overcome the basis of party’s consent. This paper will examine the joinder mechanism in international commercial arbitration, focusing on its interaction with traditional theories and principles of arbitration, the joinder provisions in the rules of several leading arbitral institutions (e.g. ICC, LCIA, HKIAC and SCAI), and the value of the joinder mechanism in the context of digitalisation. (shrink)

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

From Descartes to designer babies, The Philosophy Gym poses questions about some of history's most important philosophical issues, ranging in difficulty from pretty easy to very challenging. He brings new perspectives to age-old conundrums while also tackling modern-day dilemmas -- some for the first time. Begin your warm up by contemplating whether a pickled sheep can truly be considered art, or dive right in and tackle the existence of God. In this radically new way of looking at philosophy, Stephen Law (...) illustrates the problem with a story, then lets the argument battle it out in clear, easily digestible and intelligent prose. This perfect little mental health club is sure to give each reader's mind a great workout. (shrink)

What remains invisible in the discourse, contributes to perpetuating multilayered inequalities through discourse. Stereotypical representations, under-representations, hyper-representations, or misrepresentations regulate rape myths, and consequently, particular ways of seeing and behaving of those inside or outside the cultural boundaries. It has, therefore, been studied if and how rape victims and perpetrators have been visually represented and framed in the digital illustrations on rape in Pakistan. Discrepancies concerning identity construction of the rape victims and rapists as well as (...) the depiction of multifarious socio-semiotic dimensions of rape have been analyzed. Thirty-five digital illustrations appearing in 32 blogs and news articles published on rape cases in Pakistan have been purposively selected and studied based on ideational metafunction suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen. Results reveal under-representation of rapists and perpetrators, law enforcement, survivors, and existing myths regarding revenge rape, child abuse, gang rape, marital rape, and gender-based victimhood. The study has implications for semiotics, rape studies, gender studies, and digital discourse. (shrink)

This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of digital sovereignty in China, which are addressed mainly from political, legal and historical point of views. The text leverages a large number of native Chinese experts among the authors at a time when literature on China’s involvement in internet governance is more widespread in the so-called “West”. Numerous Chinese-language documents have been analysed in the making of this title and furthermore, literature conceptualising digital sovereignty is still limited to journal articles, making (...) this one of the earliest collective attempts at defining this concept in the form of a book. Such characteristics position this text as an innovative academic resource for students, researchers and practitioners in international relations (IR), law, history, media studies and philosophy. (shrink)

Cyberspace, a term popularized in the 1984 novel Neuromancer, was used by William Gibson to describe the ‘consensual hallucination’ and interstitial online world that lies between the reality of our world and that of the surreal terrain of dreamscapes. While many attempts have been made to describe this intangible, yet seemingly perceptible space, the digital domain as a metaphor mirrors in many ways our own inadequate understanding of consciousness. Conversely, the physicist Michio Kaku explains that our reality is bounded (...) by hyperspace – a multi-dimensioned space beyond our quotidian 3D existence that runs parallel, or tangential, to us along with the phenomenon of time. Indeed, if space and time (here considered as space–time) are a consolidated whole in the physical sense, perhaps our consciousness, as a structure manifest within this continuum may itself be thought of as a sensorial projection of this amalgam that attempts to observe and make sense, or meaning, of this condition. In truth, what if our need and delight in storytelling is driven by the evolution of our biology, as well as our impulse to locate our place in the universe? This article will attempt to examine and delimit the narrative confines of space–time as an appeal to, and an endeavour at, uncovering the alterity of storytelling as a function of consciousness. It will visit the realms of the holograph, quantum mechanics, virtual and augmented realities, as well as other scientific and philosophical tracts as a means to investigate and explore the physiology of space and our imperative desire to share stories. (shrink)

Law in the Age of Pluralism contains a collection of essays on the intersection of legal and political philosophy. Written within the analytical tradition in jurisprudence, the collection covers a wide range of topics, such as the nature of law and legal theory, the rule of law, the values of democracy and constitutionalism, moral aspects of legal interpretation, the nature of rights, economic equality, and more. The essays in this volume explore issues where law, morality and politics meet, and discuss (...) some of the key challenges facing liberal democracies. Marmor posits that a liberal state must first and foremost respect people's personal autonomy and their differing, though reasonable, conceptions of the good and the just. This basic respect for pluralism is shown to entail a rather skeptical attitude towards grand theories of law and state, such as contemporary constitutionalism or Dworkin's conception of 'law as integrity'. The values of pluralism and respect for autonomy, however, are also employed to justify some of the main aspects of a liberal state, such as the value of democracy, the rule of law, and certain conceptions of equality. The essays are organized in three groups: the first considers the rule of law, democracy and constitutionalism. The second group consists of several essays on the nature of law, legal theory, and their relations to morality. Finally, the collection concludes with essays on the nature of rights, the limits of rights discourse, and the value of economic equality. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore the changes that representative democracy is experiencing as a result of the transformation of communication channels. In particular, it focuses on non-electoral representation in the form of movements that emerged throughout the 2010s and that were defined by a strong social media presence (e.g. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Yellow Vests). Despite not attempting to gain political power via elections, these movements, through online and offline activities, nonetheless managed to shape the realm of (...) politics. The paper thus analyzes the movements’ inner representative dynamics and the ways they reshape representative democracy. It engages with a critical reading of Hanna Pitkin’s concept of symbolic representation and draws on Michael Saward’s framework of the representative claim to reevaluate Bernard Manin’s notion of “audience” democracy as today’s form of representative government. The argument is that, as digital development provides citizens with less demanding modes of political participation and platforms of representative claim-making, it enhances the sphere of opinion formation and the role of non-electoral representation. This sphere entails a tendency towards a re-depersonalization of politics, thus leading towards the transformation of “audience” democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medicine-Based Values?Åge Wifstad (bio)KeywordsEthics committees, judgment, common moralityToulmin's DiagnosisIn his classical article with the unforgettable title "How medicine saved the life of ethics" (Toulmin 1982), Stephen Toulmin claims that medicine saved ethics by giving the philosophers a positive reality check through medical challenges: (1) Ethics in medicine is a serious topic, not just something to discuss at seminars. If, for example, both A and B need treatment and there (...) are only enough resources for one, the fundamental interests of these two people compete against each other. (2) In clinical medicine, the individual case might demand a different approach than that suggested by theory. Similarly, an ethicist who is confronted by a diversity of medical cases becomes aware of the fact that solutions drawn from ethical theory can be irrelevant in practice. (3) The moral philosopher has often focused on the individual and his or her universal commitments. The fact that ethical dilemmas can have deep roots in practical challenges and must be understood within a certain context has been "forgotten." (4) In clinically relevant ethics, it is important to find solutions that all involved parties find reasonable. This revitalizes central Aristotelian schools of thought on, for example, ethical judgment and situational understanding.Today, there is a common understanding that in both the education of doctors and in the implementation of medical knowledge and technology there needs to be ethical guidelines and control. Toulmin wants us to see that the background for this agreement is multifaceted. It was not just the ethicists who saved the doctors. The doctors helped the ethicists to escape their academic isolation.Ethics CommitteesThe establishment of ethics committees is perhaps the most interesting example of this. Here it is especially clear how ethical judgment establishes a basis for decision making: Each case presented to an ethics committee is special because one cannot reference decisions made in similar cases. At the same time, we are expected to handle similar cases equally. Consideration of the concrete, individual case must be balanced with the principle of similar treatment. Second, as a committee member, one must interpret and respect ethical principles that cannot be easily defined. Every principle must be interpreted and implemented within a specific and concrete context. Third, one must consider the law, but seen isolated, the implications of relevant rules can be difficult to determine. Fourth, the status of principles and rules are open for interpretation. The most important example of this is the Declaration of Helsinki, which was established through cooperation between the worlds' doctors unions. The strength and end result of such a document can be discussed. Fifth, multiple but partly conflicting juridical and ethical considerations can be [End Page 179] relevant at the same time. An example: Decisions about confidentiality can prevent data gathering that is crucial in ensuring that a research project is scientifically acceptable. Two important ethical considerations are then put up against one another. As a sixth and final point, it can be mentioned that the ethics committee is expected to make a qualitative, scientific judgment. But what kind of quality judgment and how detailed it should be is up for discussion.Two Definitions of Ethical JudgmentThe fact that the committee must base their holistic decision on ethical judgment means that the committee, in an important sense of the word, stands freely: It can be difficult to refer to specific ethical rules or laws when making an external review of the committee's decision. Unless the committee has clearly not followed known principles and rules, then the committee is able to confront criticism by replying that the decision is based on holistic considerations, where many views have been taken into account. In this way, the usage of ethical judgment makes sure that the committee has freedom to act. The catch here is that the committee's responsibility becomes even more obvious. One cannot simply say that the decision is made based on rules and principles formulated by others, such as the state. The committee must, as a unit, be able to defend their decision.The complexity of the work of the committee can, however, make it more tempting to think about ethics in... (shrink)

This book provides a philosophical analysis of the notion of selfhood that underlies identity politics. It offers a unique theory of the self that combines previous scholarly work on recognition and the phenomenology of space. The politics of identity occupy the centre of a contested terrain. Marginalised and oppressed peoples continue to seek the transformation of our shared social world and our political institutions required for their lives to be liveable. Public criticism and academic treatments of identity politics often take (...) a disparaging view that treats it as subordinate to more general political questions about justice and the organisation of society and its institutions. This book argues that these polemics ignore the numerous ways in which all politics is concerned with matters of selfhood and identity. Through a rereading of Hegel's account of recognition as an ongoing and dynamic process that constitutes the self, it presents selves-and the categories of identity that qualify these selves-as fundamentally conditioned by the environments in which they appear before themselves and others. It also argues that we do the work of identity in public spaces-particularly digital spaces-and that these spaces shape what identities we can assume and what those identities mean. Contemporary social media technologies facilitate the production of particular forms of selfhood through the combined logics of the interface, the profile, and the post. The Politics of Recognition in the Age of Digital Spaces will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in a wide range of disciplines including political philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of technology, sociology, political theory, and critical theory. It will also appeal to anyone with an interest in contemporary identity politics, whether as a matter of study or lived experience. (shrink)

Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Mass incarceration and the theory of punishment -- Reasons to criminalize -- Formalism and pragmatism in criminal procedure -- Responsibility without resentment.

In medieval Jewish perception and representation of self and other there was a propensity toward viewing current happenings through the prism of the past. The general human inclination toward patterning, acting in combination with a strong Jewish sense of historic continuum, produced a pronounced tendency toward archetypical representation, such as that found in rabbinic literature and synagogue liturgy, as well as in the chronicles penned in the wake of the crusader assaults of 1096. At- the same time, a host of (...) specific needs and a similarly broad human inclination towards particularity engendered perceptions and descriptions that were remarkably free of stereotyping -perceptions and descriptions that are rooted in full awareness of the inevitable complexity of everyday human experience. (shrink)

This article considers the changing perceptions, expressions and representations of violence in South Africa post-1994, with particular reference to photography. Following the evolution of the documentary tradition in its relationship to the political history of South Africa, I will suggest that since the release of Nelson Mandela and the first democratic elections in South Africa, photography has taken a new turn, particularly with regard to its representation of violence, which had been its primary iconography up to that watershed moment. (...) I will follow three arguments in my explication of the ways in which violence has both altered South African society and assumed a different place in the collective mind of South Africans living in a country that is politically free but grappling with an ever-rising wave of violent crime. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This paper argues that Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility” provides a rich analytic framework for understanding how the many dimensions of aesthe...

What might it be to write a post-colonial social science? And how might the intellectual legacy of Chinese classical philosophy—for instance Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu—contribute to such a project? Reversing the more usual social science practice in which EuroAmerican concepts are applied in other global locations, this paper instead considers how a “Chinese” term, _shi_ might be used to explore the UK’s 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic. Drawing on anthropological insights into mis/translation between different worlds and their alternative ways of knowing (...) and being, the paper explores that epidemic in three differently inspired _shi_-inflected “empirical” accounts. The first uses Sun Tzu’s strategic understanding of _shi_ to tell a conventionally representational story. The second resists the causes and background factors implied in standard social science by offering a “light” and _shi_-inflected form of knowing. And the third combines the referentiality of social science with a Lao Tzu-informed commitment to the paradoxes of normative epigram. This third narrative thus illustrates the possible features of a situated and _shi_-inflected social science that recognizes that it participates in the contexted and immanent flows and counterflows of things in the world. The paper concludes by noting that such a _shi_-inflected social science is experimental, and suggests that it is important to explore a range of ways of reversing the flow of concepts between EuroAmerica and other global locations. (shrink)

The integration of digital phenotyping in psychiatry promises unprecedented insights into mental health, particularly in college settings where mental well-being is a growing concern. The COVID-19...

The article investigates the role of symbolic means of knowledge representation in concept development using the historical example of medieval diagrams of change employed in early modern work on the motion of fall. The parallel cases of Galileo Galilei, Thomas Harriot, and René Descartes and Isaac Beeckman are discussed. It is argued that the similarities concerning the achievements as well as the shortcomings of their respective work on the motion of fall can to a large extent be attributed to their (...) shared use of means of knowledge representation handed down from antiquity and the Middle Ages. While the interpretation of medieval diagrams was unproblematic in the scholastic context from which they arose, in the early modern context, which was characterized by the confluence of natural philosophy and practical mathematics, it became ambiguous. It was the early modern mathematicians’ work within this contradictory framework that brought about a new conceptualization of motion which, in particular, eventually led to an infinitesimal concept of velocity. In this process, the diagrams themselves remained largely unchanged and thus functioned as a catalyst for concept development. (shrink)

This article considers the changing perceptions, expressions and representations of violence in South Africa post-1994, with particular reference to photography. Following the evolution of the documentary tradition in its relationship to the political history of South Africa, I will suggest that since the release of Nelson Mandela and the first democratic elections in South Africa, photography has taken a new turn, particularly with regard to its representation of violence, which had been its primary iconography up to that watershed moment. (...) I will follow three arguments in my explication of the ways in which violence has both altered South African society and assumed a different place in the collective mind of South Africans living in a country that is politically free but grappling with an ever-rising wave of violent crime. (shrink)

The main aim of this study is to test the validity of the Motivation, Engagement, and Thriving in User Experience model in higher education. We propose a process model in which we investigate how the need-satisfaction of digital learning tools within the interface sphere and task sphere accounts for engagement, learning, and well-being. A total of 426 higher education students drawn from two subsamples participated in this cross-sectional study. A structural equation model shows that interface autonomy and competence satisfaction (...) positively predict task autonomy and competence. Task competence, in turn, negatively predicts focused attention and positively predicts perceived usability and well-being. Task autonomy positively predicts perceived usability and reward. Based on our results, we provide some initial support for the METUX model in higher education. However, more validation work is needed to improve the scale that measures need-satisfaction in the interface and task spheres. Moreover, we find no support for the effect of task sphere on learning. Further investigations are needed into how METUX can be used in domain- and situation-specific contexts to account for increases in engagement, learning, and well-being. Finally, future studies need to include all aspects of the METUX model in order to fully test its validity. (shrink)

People increasingly form beliefs based on information gained from automatically filtered Internet ‎sources such as search engines. However, the workings of such sources are often opaque, preventing ‎subjects from knowing whether the information provided is biased or incomplete. Users’ reliance on ‎Internet technologies whose modes of operation are concealed from them raises serious concerns about ‎the justificatory status of the beliefs they end up forming. Yet it is unclear how to address these concerns ‎within standard theories of knowledge and justification. (...) To shed light on the problem, we introduce a ‎novel conceptual framework that clarifies the relations between justified belief, epistemic responsibility, ‎action, and the technological resources available to a subject. We argue that justified belief is subject to ‎certain epistemic responsibilities that accompany the subject’s particular decision-taking circumstances, ‎and that one typical responsibility is to ascertain, so far as one can, whether the information upon which ‎the judgment will rest is biased or incomplete. What this responsibility comprises is partly determined by ‎the inquiry-enabling technologies available to the subject. We argue that a subject’s beliefs that are ‎formed based on Internet-filtered information are less justified than they would be if she either knew how ‎filtering worked or relied on additional sources, and that the subject may have the epistemic ‎responsibility to take measures to enhance the justificatory status of such beliefs.‎. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the nature and sense of legal reasoning as reasonableness, i.e. as judgement and equilibrium between normativity and factuality, and as constant approximation between these two dimensions. By phrasing the intertwinement between legal hermeneutics and the nature and function of writing, the structure of the article is constructed so that the focus is on the changes currently occurring with the so-called ‘digital revolution’: in imagining a juridical system administrated through data analysis and algorithms, some contradictions (...) emerge, especially concerning the nature, sense and task of legal hermeneutics. The current shift of paradigm should be first of all addressed starting from the grammatological nature of the revolution at stake. Only from this perspective can the shift be entirely grasped and, at the same time, only from this perspective can the methodological conundrum be deconstructed. (shrink)

How philosophy transformed human knowledge and the world we live in Philosophical investigation is the root of all human knowledge. Developing new concepts, reinterpreting old truths, and reconceptualizing fundamental questions, philosophy has progressed—and driven human progress—for more than two millennia. In short, we live in a world philosophy made. In this concise history of philosophy's world-shaping impact, Scott Soames demonstrates that the modern world—including its science, technology, and politics—simply would not be possible without the accomplishments of philosophy. Firmly rebutting the (...) misconception of philosophy as ivory-tower thinking, Soames traces its essential contributions to fields as diverse as law and logic, psychology and economics, relativity and rational decision theory. Beginning with the giants of ancient Greek philosophy, The World Philosophy Made chronicles the achievements of the great thinkers, from the medieval and early modern eras to the present. It explores how philosophy has shaped our language, science, mathematics, religion, culture, morality, education, and politics, as well as our understanding of ourselves. Philosophy's idea of rational inquiry as the key to theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom has transformed the world in which we live. From the laws that govern society to the digital technology that permeates modern life, philosophy has opened up new possibilities and set us on more productive paths. The World Philosophy Made explains and illuminates as never before the inexhaustible richness of philosophy and its influence on our individual and collective lives. (shrink)

Philosophical and technoculture studies surrounding the existential understanding of the human–technology–world experience have seen a slow but steady increase that makes a turn to material hermeneutics in the second decade of the twenty-first century (Ihde in Postphenomenology: essays in the postmodern context. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1993; Capurro in AI Soc 25(1):35–42, 2010; Romele in Digital hermeneutics: philosophical investigations in new media and technologies. Routledge, Abingdon, 2020; among others). This renewed focus makes sense because human–technology–world experiences need to be (...) interpreted. And many of these are more complicated to study, precisely because technology is at the root of the experiences. One interesting subset of technologies is media technologies, also called digital media, which intertwines the device and the content to mediate together in the world (Irwin in Digital media: human-technology connection. Lexington Books, Lanham, 2016). Visual media technologies and media content, together, through what is called moving image technologies, create virtual role-playing, virtual and augmented reality, video games, and social media focused worlds that have become central experiences in contemporary culture. Just as image-based scientific instruments read the world in different ways, so to do these visual mediated experiences. How might this comingled “reading” of technology explain the digital film language and experience? I contend that understanding the existential “early” film experience helps understand the new age of cinema, with implications for digital media, digital representation of the visual, and technoscience and technoculture studies. The material hermeneutics perspective called postphenomenology is one way to study these visually focused human–technology–world perceptual and interpretive experiences. Don Ihde’s methodological framework (1990, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2019) is both an idea from technoscience studies and a set of nuanced vocabulary that helps to explore and reveal variations, patterns, and trajectories of the whole-body experience of technology. This use case will first explore traditional cinema and then the “new age” term “moving image”, to learn more about this complicated and radically transforming technological experience. Work by Don Ihde and Vivian Sobchack is considered. (shrink)

This paper investigates the transformative influence of generative AI on the arts, connecting it with Walter Benjamin's insights regarding the aura of art in the mechanical reproduction era. It scrutinizes how generative AI not only redefines art's traditional aura but also introduces a dynamic interplay between technological liberation and dependency. The analysis extends to the democratization of artistic expression and its broader societal impacts, highlighting a shift in art creation, perception, and interpretation in the digital age. This research encapsulates (...) the evolving nature of authenticity, creativity, and human–machine collaboration, marking a significant paradigm shift in art's conception and its role in society. (shrink)

Following the trend of sharing, and associating being on-line with being 'on-life', many people are now demanding the ownership and control of their data across all processing phases, including the erasure of their presence on the web. In Europe, recent proposals for regulation include an explicit 'Right to be Forgotten'; this right stated in the European Commission Proposal for Regulation COM 2011/12 does not emerge without controversy. It is being criticised on several grounds, including clashing with other rights, such as (...) freedom of expression, as well as setting the terrain for censorship. Besides the purely legal aspects of the proposed provisions, the chapters of this volume discuss how those legal provisions correspond in practice to worldviews and how individual and collective memory must be governed. They look into the deeper consequences of such provisions to construction of identity, culture and community formation, and how such a right affects how, what and why individuals, groups and societies remember and forget. (shrink)