The problem of change recurs across Frantz Fanon's writings. As a philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutionary, Fanon was deeply committed to theorizing and instigating change in all of its facets. Change is the thread that ties together his critical dialogue with Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche and his intellectual exchange with Césaire, Kojève, and Sartre. It informs his analysis of racism and colonialism, négritude and the veil, language and culture, disalienation and decolonization, and it underpins his reflections on Martinique, Algeria, the (...) Caribbean, Africa, the Third World, and the world at large. Gavin Arnall traces an internal division throughout Fanon's work between two distinct modes of thinking about change. He contends that there are two Fanons: a dominant Fanon who conceives of change as a dialectical process of becoming and a subterranean Fanon who experiments with an even more explosive underground theory of transformation. Arnall offers close readings of Fanon's entire oeuvre, from canonical works like Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth to his psychiatric papers and recently published materials, including his play, Parallel Hands. Speaking both to scholars and to the continued vitality of Fanon's ideas among today's social movements, this book offers a rigorous and profoundly original engagement with Fanon that affirms his importance in the effort to bring about radical change. (shrink)

A first in English, this book engages with the ways in which Hegel and Sartre answer the difficult questions: What is it to be human? What place do we have in the world? How should we live? What can we be?

Police killings of unarmed Black people have ignited a national and international response unlike any in decades. But differing from their civil rights-oriented predecessors, today’s activists do not think that the institutions and values of liberal democracy can eradicate structural racism. They draw instead on a Black radical tradition that, Terrence L. Johnson argues, derives its force from its unacknowledged ethical and religious dimensions. We Testify with Our Lives traces Black religion’s sustained influence from SNCC to the present, reconstructing (...) a radical lived ethics of freedom and justice. Johnson demonstrates that Black Power fundamentally contests liberalism’s abstract understanding of democracy, calling instead for new embodied frameworks to achieve human flourishing and dignity. Black bodies represent the primary form of resistance against violent and oppressive regimes of white supremacy and exploitation, and the individual and collective struggles of Black life bear witness to the dogged determination to cultivate beauty, rage, and joy. Considering the writings of Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, We Testify with Our Lives makes its case through a new narrative of the evolution of Black radicalism from the civil rights movement through the Movement for Black Lives. It forges new insights into Black Power’s vital contributions to debates on ethics, transnational politics, democracy, political solidarity, and freedom—and its potent resources for the ongoing struggle to build democratic possibilities for all. (shrink)

This book explores the diverse understandings of the archaeological record in both historical and contemporary perspective, while also serving as a guide to reassessing current views. Gavin Lucas argues that archaeological theory has become both too fragmented and disconnected from the particular nature of archaeological evidence. The book examines three ways of understanding the archaeological record - as historical sources, through formation theory, and as material culture - then reveals ways to connect these three domains through a reconsideration of (...) archaeological entities and archaeological practice. Ultimately, Lucas calls for a rethinking of the nature of the archaeological record and the kind of history and narratives written from it. (shrink)

Prince of Networks is the rst treatment of Bruno Latour speci cally as a philosopher. Part One covers four key works that display Latour’s underrated contributions to metaphysics: Irreductions, Science in Action, We Have Never Been Modern, and Pandora’s Hope. Harman contends that Latour is one of the central gures of contemporary philosophy, with a highly original ontology centred in four key concepts: actants, irreduction, translation, and alliance.

Big Data has been variously defined in the literature. In the main, definitions suggest that Big Data possess a suite of key traits: volume, velocity and variety, but also exhaustivity, resolution, indexicality, relationality, extensionality and scalability. However, these definitions lack ontological clarity, with the term acting as an amorphous, catch-all label for a wide selection of data. In this paper, we consider the question ‘what makes Big Data, Big Data?’, applying Kitchin’s taxonomy of seven Big Data traits to 26 datasets (...) drawn from seven domains, each of which is considered in the literature to constitute Big Data. The results demonstrate that only a handful of datasets possess all seven traits, and some do not possess either volume and/or variety. Instead, there are multiple forms of Big Data. Our analysis reveals that the key definitional boundary markers are the traits of velocity and exhaustivity. We contend that Big Data as an analytical category needs to be unpacked, with the genus of Big Data further delineated and its various species identified. It is only through such ontological work that we will gain conceptual clarity about what constitutes Big Data, formulate how best to make sense of it, and identify how it might be best used to make sense of the world. (shrink)

The paper describes the approach by which ethics are integrated into the undergraduate curriculum at Northern Illinois University''s College of Business. Literature is reviewed to identify conceptual frameworks for, and issues associated with, the teaching of business ethics. From the review, a set of guidelines for teaching ethics is developed and proposed. The objectives and strategies implemented for teaching ethics is discussed. Foundation and follow-up coursework, measurement issues and ancillary programs are also discussed.

This book provides a fresh perspective on what it takes to be a successful and effective leader in higher education.

By means of a chapter-by-chapter textual analysis of the Proslogion, Ortlund makes the case that Anselm's goal, far more than an argument for God's existence, is a meditation on God as the chief happiness of the human soul.

ARISTOTLE often claims that words are "homonymous" or "multivocal". He claims this about some of the crucial words and concepts of his own philosophy—"cause," "being," "one," "good," "justice," "friendship." Often he claims it with a polemical aim; other philosophers have wrongly overlooked homonymy and supposed that the same word is always said in the same way. Plato made this mistake; his accounts of being, good, and friendship are rejected because they neglect homonymy and multivocity. In Aristotle’s view Plato shared the (...) Socratic assumption about words and definitions. Socrates thought that when he asked "What is F?" some single definition of F could always be found to match the name "F." Aristotle thinks the Socratic question is important, but argues that it must be controlled by awareness of homonymy and multivocity. (shrink)

Cohen’s (2023) mapping exercise of possible bioethical issues emerging from the use of ChatGPT in medicine provides an informative, useful, and thought-provoking trigger for discussions of AI ethic...

We give an overview of the practice of developing and using complex climate models, as seen from experiences in a major climate modelling center and through participation in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. We discuss the construction and calibration of models; their evaluation, especially through use of out-of-sample tests; and their exploitation in multi-model ensembles to identify biases and make predictions. We stress that adequacy or utility of climate models is best assessed via their skill against more naïve predictions. The (...) framework we use for making inferences about reality using simulations is naturally Bayesian, and has many points of contact with more familiar examples of scientific epistemology. While the use of complex simulations in science is a development that changes much in how science is done in practice, we argue that the concepts being applied fit very much into traditional practices of the scientific method, albeit those more often associated with laboratory work. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have been transformative. They are pre-trained foundational models that are self-supervised and can be adapted with fine tuning to a wide range of natural language tasks, each of which previously would have required a separate network model. This is one step closer to the extraordinary versatility of human language. GPT-3 and more recently LaMDA can carry on dialogs with humans on many topics after minimal priming with a few examples. However, there has been a wide range (...) of reactions and debate on whether these LLMs understand what they are saying or exhibit signs of intelligence. This high variance is exhibited in three interviews with LLMs reaching wildly different conclusions. A new possibility was uncovered that could explain this divergence. What appears to be intelligence in LLMs may in fact be a mirror that reflects the intelligence of the interviewer, a remarkable twist that could be considered a Reverse Turing Test. If so, then by studying interviews we may be learning more about the intelligence and beliefs of the interviewer than the intelligence of the LLMs. As LLMs become more capable they may transform the way we interact with machines and how they interact with each other. Increasingly, LLMs are being coupled with sensorimotor devices. LLMs can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? A road map for achieving artificial general autonomy is outlined with seven major improvements inspired by brain systems. LLMs could be used to uncover new insights into brain function by downloading brain data during natural behaviors. (shrink)

By recourse to the fundamentals of preference orderings and their numerical representations through linear utility, we address certain questions raised in Nover and Hájek 2004, Hájek and Nover 2006, and Colyvan 2006. In brief, the Pasadena and Altadena games are well-defined and can be assigned any finite utility values while remaining consistent with preferences between those games having well-defined finite expected value. This is also true for the St Petersburg game. Furthermore, the dominance claimed for the Altadena game over the (...) Pasadena game, and that would have been claimed for the St Petersburg game over the Altadena, can be contradicted without fear of inconsistency with the axioms of utility theory. However, insistence upon dominance can be made to yield a contradiction of the Archimedean axiom of utility theory. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Today’s bodies are akin to ‘walking sensor platforms’. Bodies either host, or are the subjects of, an array of sensing devices that act to convert bodily movements, actions and dynamics into circulative data. This article proposes the notions of ‘disembodied exhaust’ and ‘embodied exhaustion’ to conceptualise processes of bodily sensorisation and datafication. As the material body interfaces with networked sensor technologies and sensing infrastructures, it emits disembodied exhaust: gaseous flows of personal information that establish a representational data-proxy. It is this (...) networked actant that progressively structures how embodied subjects experience their daily lives. The significance of this symbiont medium in determining the outcome of interplays between networked individuals and audiences necessitates that it is carefully contrived. The article explores the nature and function of the data-proxy, and its impact on social relations. Drawing on examples that depict individuals engaging with their data-proxies, the article suggests that managing a virtual presence is analogous to a work relation, demanding diligence and investment. But it also shows how the data-proxy operates as a mode of affect that challenges conventional distinctions made between organic and inorganic bodies, agency and actancy, mortality and immortality, presence and absence. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to theory in archaeology--but with a difference. Archaeological Situations avoids talking about theory as if it was something you apply but rather as something embedded in archaeological practice from the start. Rather than see theory as something worked from the outside in, this book explores theory from the inside out, which means it focuses on specific archaeological practices rather than specific theories. It starts from the kinds of situations that students find themselves in and learn (...) about in other archaeology courses, avoiding the gap between practice and theory from the very beginning. It shows students the theoretical implications of almost everything they engage in as archaeologists, from fieldwork, recording, writing-up and making and assessing an argument, to exploring the very nature of archaeology and justifying its relevance. Essentially, it adopts a structure which attempts to pre-empt one of the most common complaints of student's taking theory courses: how is this applicable? Aimed primarily at undergraduates, this book is the ideal way to engage students with archaeological theory. (shrink)

This paper explores the embedding of data producing technologies in people's everyday lives and practices. It traces how repeated encounters with digital data operate to naturalise these entities, while often blindsiding their agentive properties and the ways they get implicated in processes of exploitation and governance. I propose and develop the notion of ‘data doxa’ to conceptualise the way in which digital data – and the devices and platforms that stage data – have come to be perceived in Western societies (...) as normal, necessary and enabling. The ‘data doxa’ concept also accentuates the enculturation of many individuals into a data sharing habitus which frames digital technologies in simplistic terms as panaceas for the problems associated with contemporary life, figures of progress and convenience, and mediums of knowledge, pleasure and identity. I suggest that three types of data-based relations contribute to the formation of this doxic sensibility: fetishisation, habit and enchantment. Each of these relations come to mediate public understandings of digital devices and the data they generate, obscuring the multifaceted nature and hidden depths of data and their propensity to double up as technologies of exposure and discipline. As a result of this situation, imaginative educational programs and revamped regulatory frameworks are urgently needed to inform individuals about the contribution of data to the leveraging of value and power in today's digital economies, but also to protect them from experiencing data-based harms. (shrink)

Exploring a wide range of sonic practices, from birdsong in the Marshall Islands to Zulu ululation, the contributors reorient the field of sound studies toward the global South in order to rethink and decolonize modes of understanding and listening to sound.

This book uses controversies as a gateway through which to explore the origins, ethics, key moments and people in the history of anthropology. It draws on a variety of cases including complicity in 'human zoos', Malinowski's diaries, and the Human Terrain System to explore how anthropological controversies act as a driving force for change, how they offer a window into the history of and research practice in the discipline, and how they might frame wider debates such as those around reflexivity, (...) cultural relativism, and the politics of representation. The volume provokes discussion about research ethics and practice with tangible examples where grey areas are brought into sharp relief. The controversies examined in the book all involve moral or practical ambiguities that offer an opportunity for students to engage with the debate and the dilemmas faced by anthropologists, both in relation to the specific incidents covered and to the problems posed more generally due to the intimate and political implications of ethnographic research. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic represents the most significant global challenge in a generation. Based on extant data from previous pandemics, demographic, occupational, and psychological factors have been linked to distress and for some vulnerable members of society. COVID-19 has added to the layers of grief and distress of existing trauma. Evidence-based frameworks exist to guide our individual and collective response to reduce the trauma associated with the experience of a pandemic. Pandemic and post-pandemic measures to ameliorate impacts require a multi-disciplined approach, (...) central to which is community connectedness, resilience, and access to support. We advocate for the acceptance and broader application of Dadirri, a healing practice held by the Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngen'giwumirri Aboriginal people of the Daly River region in the Northern Territory, Australia. This modality engages therapeutic phases that are comparable with other practiced trauma therapies. The demonstrated therapeutic outcomes from Dadirri can be attained through an individualistic or in a relational engagement context. This practice is accessible to all ages, is non-specific to gender and is suitable for people constrained in their mobility or limited by resources, pertinent in pandemic affected settings. (shrink)

In the wake of two decades in which postmodern theory has become very popular in university humanities and social science departments around the world, Gavin Kitching claims that postmodernism is causing harm to students intellectually. Postmodern theory has engaged the hearts and heads of the brightest students because of its apparent political and social radicalism. Yet Kitching writes: “At the heart of postmodernism is very poor, deeply confused, and misbegotten philosophy. As a result even the very best students who (...) fall under its sway produce radically incoherent ideas about language, meaning, truth, and reality.” This is not another conservative attack on postmodern theory. Rather, it is a carefully considered analysis from a dedicated university teacher who is convinced that we have gone terribly astray. He analyzes why typical postmodern theoretical approaches simply aren’t effective tools for dealing with the realities of people and their activities, and he describes the philosophical confusion that lies at the heart of the problem. He also demonstrates the political implications for students, their universities, and society when students learn to use poorly constructed arguments as the basis of their writing. _The Trouble with Theory _is essential reading for all students writing a thesis in the humanities and the social sciences and for their teachers. (shrink)

Religion and the Philosophy of Life considers how religion as the source of civilization transforms the fundamental bio-sociology of humans through language and the somatic exploration of religious ritual and prayer. Gavin Flood offers an integrative account of the nature of the human, based on what contemporary scientists tell us, especially evolutionary science and social neuroscience, as well as through the history of civilizations. Part one contemplates fundamental questions and assumptions: what the current state of knowledge is concerning life (...) itself; what the philosophical issues are in that understanding; and how we can explain religion as the driving force of civilizations in the context of human development within an evolutionary perspective. It also addresses the question of the emergence of religion and presents a related study of sacrifice as fundamental to religions' views about life and its transformation. Part two offers a reading of religions in three civilizational blocks-India, China, and Europe/the Middle East-particularly as they came to formation in the medieval period. It traces the history of how these civilizations have thematised the idea of life itself. Part three then takes up the idea of a life force in part three and traces the theme of the philosophy of life through to modern times. On the one hand, the book presents a narrative account of life itself through the history of civilizations, and on the other presents an explanation of that narrative in terms of life.". (shrink)

Carl Jung has always lain at the edge of sociology's consciousness, despite the existence of a long-established Freudian tradition. Yet, over the years, a small number of sociological writers have considered Jung; one or two Jungian writers have considered sociology. The range of perspectives is quite wide: Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Levi-Strauss, feminism, mass society, postmodernism. These scattered writings, however, have had little cumulative impact and inspired little debate. The authors seem often not to have known of each other, while the (...) sociological mainstream has remained unmoved or unaware. This is the situation that this book seeks to change. Jung and Sociological Theory brings together a selection of articles and excerpts in a single volume, together with some writings from anthropology, and seeks to begin the task of critical evaluation. Presented in three parts, the book covers anthropology, sociology and an appraisal of Jung and sociological theory. Gavin Walker explores the relationship between Jung and sociology, asking what the writers included here wanted from Jung, how we should locate Jung on the sociological landscape, and how this might link to anthropology. In conclusion he suggests that sociology's problem with Jung is less that he is difficult to place, than that he compels sociology to face some of its own inconsistencies and evasions. Jung and Sociological Theory will be of interest to all academics and students working in the fields of Jungian studies, analytical psychology and psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, feminism, comparative religion and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Historians of science have often presented the inter-war period as a time when British scientific communities radically questioned existing scholarship on ‘race’. The ascendancy of genetics, and the perceived need to challenge Nazi ‘racial’ theory have been highlighted as pivotal issues in shaping this British revision of ‘racial’ ideas. This article offers a detailed analysis of British scientific thinking in the inter-war period. It questions whether historians have exaggerated or oversimplified the prevalence of anti-‘racial’ reform. It uses a wide range (...) of scientific writings to consider issues of continuity and change in ‘racial’ thinking in mainstream British scientific communities. The article probes the relationship between science and politics, focusing on the extent to which ideological factors affected both the scientific agenda and conclusions as regards ‘racial’ issues. Far from dismissing the idea that events in the inter-war period triggered changes in the way in which British scientists dealt with ‘race’, the article argues that the seeds of the post-Second World War international scientific rejection of ‘race’ were sown in inter-war Britain amid considerable ambivalence and discord.We must remember that the investigator, whether a biologist, an economist, or a sociologist, is himself a part of history, and that if he ever forgets he is a part of history he will deceive his audience and deceive himself.J. B. S. Haldane, Heredity and Politics, 1938. (shrink)

To explore how molecules became signs I will ask: “What sort of process is necessary and sufficient to treat a molecule as a sign?” This requires focusing on the interpreting system and its interpretive competence. To avoid assuming any properties that need to be explained I develop what I consider to be a simplest possible molecular model system which only assumes known physics and chemistry but nevertheless exemplifies the interpretive properties of interest. Three progressively more complex variants of this model (...) of interpretive competence are developed that roughly parallel an icon-index-symbol hierarchic scaffolding logic. The implication of this analysis is a reversal of the current dogma of molecular and evolutionary biology which treats molecules like DNA and RNA as the original sources of biological information. Instead I argue that the structural characteristics of these molecules have provided semiotic affordances that the interpretive dynamics of viruses and cells have taken advantage of. These molecules are not the source of biological information but are instead semiotic artifacts onto which dynamical functional constraints have been progressively offloaded during the course of evolution. (shrink)

'We will overcome it [and] I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, and those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any' Her Majesty The Queen The Coronavirus pandemic forced the great British people to dig to the very depths of their resolve. It was during this crisis, the gravest crisis the country has faced since the Second World (...) War, that members of the Greatest Generation - Tom Moore, Dame Vera Lynn, the Queen - proved vital reminders of the self-effacing stoicism required in times of emergency; to summon our 'Blitz spirit' and to 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. Taking twelve qualities of the wartime generation, including fellowship, courage and integrity, and drawing on personal interviews with over two hundred Second World War veterans - from SAS officers to London firewomen to Dame Vera herself - Guidance from the Greatest shows us how we can improve our individual character and our collective approach to life. Guidance from the Greatest reminds us of all that is great about Britain and shows how we can build upon that greatness for the future. (shrink)

This review sets out the central arguments of Onora O’Neill’s book Justice Across Boundaries: Whose Obligations? and argues that whilst she puts forward a variety of incisive criticisms of the international human rights movement she fails to present any positive argument for improving it. Ultimately the book is an exceptional piece of criticism that lacks any significant attempt to solve the many problems that O'Neill highlighted.

This winsome and accessible apologetics book for a new generation makes the case that Christianity offers a compelling explanatory framework for making sense of our world.