Algorithms are used across a wide range of societal sectors such as banking, administration, and healthcare to make predictions that impact on our lives. While the predictions can be incredibly accurate about our present and future behavior, there is an important question about how these algorithms in fact represent human identity. In this paper, we explore this question and argue that machine learning algorithms represent human identity in terms of what we shall call the statistical individual. This statisticalized representation (...) of individuals, we shall argue, differs significantly from our ordinary conception of human identity, which is tightly intertwined with considerations about biological, psychological, and narrative continuity—as witnessed by our most well-established philosophical views on personal identity. Indeed, algorithmic representations of individuals give no special attention to biological, psychological, and narrative continuity and instead rely on predictive properties that significantly exceed and diverge from those that we would ordinarily take to be relevant for questions about how we are. (shrink)

In this paper, we study the effects of using an algorithm-based risk assessment instrument (RAI) to support the prediction of risk of violent recidivism upon release. The instrument we used is a machine learning version of RiskCanvi used by the Justice Department of Catalonia, Spain. It was hypothesized that people can improve their performance on defining the risk of recidivism when assisted with a RAI. Also, that professionals can perform better than non-experts on the domain. Participants had to predict whether (...) a person who has been released from prison will commit a new crime leading to re-incarceration, within the next two years. This user study is done with (1) general participants from diverse backgrounds recruited through a crowdsourcing platform, (2) targeted participants who are students and practitioners of data science, criminology, or social work and professionals who work with RisCanvi. We also run focus groups with participants of the targeted study, including people who use RisCanvi in a professional capacity, to interpret the quantitative results. Among other findings, we observe that algorithmic support systematically leads to more accurate predictions from all participants, but that statistically significant gains are only seen in the performance of targeted participants with respect to that of crowdsourced participants. Among other comments, professional participants indicate that they would not foresee using a fully-automated system in criminal risk assessment, but do consider it valuable for training, standardization, and to fine-tune or double-check their predictions on particularly difficult cases. We found that the revised prediction by using a RAI increases the performance of all groups, while professionals show a better performance in general. And, a RAI can be considered for extending professional capacities and skills along their careers. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing role of automation throughout the economy, culture and our personal lives has generated a large literature on the risks of algorithmic decision-making, particularly in high-stakes legal settings. Algorithmic tools are charged with bias, shrouded in secrecy, and frequently difficult to interpret. However, these criticisms have tended to focus on particular implementations, specific predictive techniques, and the idiosyncrasies of the American legal-regulatory regime. They do not address the more fundamental unease about the prospect that we might one (...) day replace judges with algorithms, no matter how fair, transparent, and intelligible they become. The aim of this paper is to propose an account of the source of that unease, and to evaluate its plausibility. I trace foundational unease with algorithmic decision-making in the law to the powerful intuition that there is a basic moral and legal difference between showing that something is true of many people just like you and showing that it is true of you. Human judgment attends to the exception; automation insists on blindly applying the rule. I show how this intuitive thought is connected to both epistemological arguments about the value of statistical evidence, as well as to court-centered conceptions of the rule of law. Unease with algorithmic decision-making in the law thus draws on an intuitive principle that underpins a disparate range of views in legal philosophy. This suggests the principle is deeply ingrained. Nonetheless, I argue that the powerful intuition is not as decisive as it may seem, and indeed runs into significant epistemological and normative challenges. At an epistemological level, I show how concerns about statistical evidence's ability to track the truth can be resolved by adopting a probabilistic, rather than modal, conception of truth-tracking. At a normative level, commitment to highly individualized decision-making co-exists with equally ingrained and competing principles, such as consistent application of law. This suggests that the “rule of law” may not identify a discrete set of institutional arrangements, as proponents of a court-centric conception would have it, but rather a more loosely defined set of values that could potentially be operationalized in multiple ways, including through some level of algorithmic adjudication. Although the prospect of replacing judges with algorithms is indeed unsettling, it does not necessarily entail unreasonable verdicts or an attack on the rule of law. (shrink)

An argument to the effect that non-relativistic quantum particles can be understood as individual objects in spite of the empirical evidence seemingly lending support to the opposite conclusion. Ways to understand quantum indistinguishability and quantum statistics in terms of individuals are indicated.

The aim of this study is to justify the belief that there are biological normative mechanisms that fulfill non-trivial causal roles in the explanations (as formulated by researchers) of actions and behaviors present in specific systems. One example of such mechanisms is the predictive mechanisms described and explained by predictive processing (hereinafter PP), which (1) guide actions and (2) shape causal transitions between states that have specific content and fulfillment conditions (e.g. mental states). Therefore, I am guided by (...) a specific theoretical goal associated with the need to indicate those conditions that should be met by the non-trivial theory of normative mechanisms and the specific models proposed by PP supporters. In this work, I use classical philosophical methods, such as conceptual analysis and critical reflection. I also analyze selected studies in the field of cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neurology, information theory and biology in terms of the methodology, argumentation and language used, in accordance with their theoretical importance for the issues discussed in this study. In this sense, the research presented here is interdisciplinary. My research framework is informed by the mechanistic model of explanation, which defines the necessary and sufficient conditions for explaining a given phenomenon. The research methods I chose are therefore related to the problems that I intend to solve. In the introductory chapter, “The concept of predictive processing”, I discuss the nature of PP as well as its main assumptions and theses. I also highlight the key concepts and distinctions for this research framework. Many authors argue that PP is a contemporary version of Kantianism and is exposed to objections similar to those made against the approach of Immanuel Kant. I discuss this thesis and show that it is only in a very general sense that the PP framework is neo-Kantian. Here we are not dealing with transcendental deduction nor with the application of transcendental arguments. I argue that PP is based on reverse engineering and abduction inferences. In the second part of this chapter, I respond to the objection formulated by Dan Zahavi, who directly accuses this research framework of anti-realistic consequences. I demonstrate that the position of internalism, present in the so-called conservative PP, does not imply anti-realism, and that, due to the explanatory role played in it by structural representations directed at real patterns, it is justified to claim that PP is realistic. In this way, I show that PP is a non-trivial research framework, having its subject, specific methods and its own epistemic status. Finally, I discuss positions classified as the socalled radical PP. In the chapter “Predictive processing as a Bayesian explanatory model” I justify the thesis according to which PP offers Bayesian modeling. Many researchers claim that the brain is an implemented statistical probabilistic network that is an approximation of the Bayesian 7 rule. In practice, this means that all cognitive processes are to apply Bayes' rule and can be described in terms of probability distributions. Such a solution arouses objections among many researchers and is the subject of wide criticism. The purpose of this chapter is to justify the thesis that Bayesian PP is a non-trivial research framework. For this purpose, I argue that it explains certain phenomena not only at the computational level described by David Marr, but also at the level of algorithms and implementation. Later in this chapter I demonstrate that PP is normative modeling. Proponents of the use of Bayesian models in psychology or decision theory argue that they are normative because they allow the formulation of formal rules of action that show what needs to be done to make a given action optimal. Critics of this approach emphasize that such thinking about the normativity of Bayesian modeling is unjustified and that science should shift from prescriptive to descriptive positions. In a polemic with Shira Elqayam and Jonathan Evans (2011), I show that the division they propose into prescriptivism and Bayesian descriptivism is apparent, because, as I argue, there are two forms of prescriptivism, i.e. the weak and the strong. I argue that the weak version is epistemic and can lead to anti-realism, while the strong version is ontic and allows one to justify realism in relation to Bayesian models. I argue that a weak version of prescriptivism is valid for PP. It allows us to adopt anti-realism in relation to PP. In practice, this means that you can explain phenomena using Bayes' rule. This does not, however, imply that they are Bayesian in nature. However, the full justification of realism in relation to the Bayesian PP presupposes the adoption of strong prescriptivism. This position assumes that phenomena are explained by Bayesian rule because they are Bayesian as such. If they are Bayesian in nature, then they should be explained using Bayesian modeling. This thesis will be substantiated in the chapters “Normative functions and mechanisms in the context of predictive processing” and “Normative mechanisms and actions in predictive processing”. In the chapter “The Free Energy Principle in predictive processing”, I discuss the Free Energy Principle (hereinafter FEP) formulated by Karl Friston and some of its implications. According to this principle, all biological systems (defined in terms of Markov blankets) minimize the free energy of their internal states in order to maintain homeostasis. Some researchers believe that PP is a special case of applying this principle to cognition, and that predictive mechanisms are homeostatic mechanisms that minimize free energy. The discussion of FEP is important due to the fact that some authors consider it to be important for explanatory purposes and normative. If this is the case, then FEP turns out to be crucial in explaining normative predictive mechanisms and, in general, any normative biological mechanisms. To define the explanatory possibilities of this principle, I refer to the discussion of its supporters on the issue they define as the problem of continuity and discontinuity between life and mind. A critical analysis of this discussion and the additional arguments I have formulated have allowed me to revise the explanatory ambitions of FEP. I also reject the belief that this principle is necessary to explain the nature of predictive mechanisms. I argue that the principle formulated and defended by Friston is an important research heuristic for PP analysis. 8 In the chapter “Normative functions and mechanisms in predictive processing”, I start my analyzes by formulating an answer to the question about the normative nature of homeostatic mechanisms. I demonstrate that predictive mechanisms are not homeostatic. I defend the view that a full explanation of normative mechanisms presupposes an explanation of normative functions. I discuss the most important proposals for understanding the normativity of a function, both from a systemic and teleosemantic perspective. I conclude that the non-trivial concept of a function must meet two requirements which I define as explanatory and normative. I show that none of the theories I have invoked satisfactorily meets both of these requirements. Instead, I propose a model of normativity based on Bickhard's account, but supplemented by a mechanistic perspective. I argue that a function is normative when: (1) it allows one to explain the dysfunction of a given mechanism; (2) it contributes to the maintenance of the organism's stability by shaping and limiting possible relations, processes and behaviors of a given system; and when (3) (according to the representational and predictive functions) it enables explaining the attribution of logical values of certain representations / predictions. In such an approach, a mechanism is normative when it performs certain normative functions and when it is constitutive for a specific action or behavior, despite the fact that for some reason it cannot realize it either currently or in the long-term. Such an understanding of the normativity of mechanisms presupposes the acceptance of the epistemic hypothesis. I argue that this hypothesis is not cognitively satisfactory, and therefore the ontic hypothesis should be justified, which is directly related to adopting the position of ontic prescriptivism. For this reason, referring to the mechanistic theory of scientific explanations, I formulate an ontical interpretation of the concept of a normative mechanism. According to this approach, a mechanism or a function is normative when they perform such and such causal roles in explaining certain actions and behaviors. With regard to the normative properties of predictive mechanisms and functions, this means that they are the causes of specific actions an organism carries out in the environment. In this way, I justify the necessity of accepting the ontic hypothesis and rejecting the epistemic hypothesis. The fifth chapter, “Normative mechanisms and actions in predictive processing”, is devoted to the dark room problem and the related exploration-exploitation trade-off. A dark room is the state that an agent could be in if it minimized the sum of all potential prediction errors. I demonstrate that, in accordance with the basic assumption of PP about the need for continuous and long-term minimization of prediction errors, such a state should be desirable for the agent. Is it really so? Many authors believe it is not. I argue that the test of the value of PP is the possibility of a non-trivial solution of this problem, which can be reduced to the choice between active and uncertainty-increasing exploration and safe and easily predictable exploitation. I show that the solution proposed by PP supporters present in the literature does not enable a fully satisfactory explanation of this dilemma. Then I defend the position according to which the full explanation of the normative mechanisms, and, subsequently, the solution to the dilemma of exploration and exploitation, involves reference to the existence of constraints present in the environment. The constraints 9 include elements of the environment that make a given mechanism not only causal but also normative. They are therefore key to explaining the predictive mechanisms. They do not only play the role of the context in which the mechanism is implemented, but, above all, are its constitutive component. I argue that the full explanation of the role of constraints in normative predictive mechanisms presupposes the integration of individual models of specific cognitive phenomena, because only the mechanistic integration of PP with other models allows for a non-trivial explanation of the nature of normative predictive mechanisms that would have a strong explanatory value. The explanatory monism present in many approaches to PP makes it impossible to solve the problem of the dark room. Later in this chapter, I argue that the Bayesian PP is normative not because it enables the formulation of such and such rules of action, but because the predictive mechanisms themselves are normative. They are normative because they condition the choice of such and such actions by agents. In this way, I justify the hypothesis that normative mechanisms make it possible to explain the phenomenon of agent motivation, which is crucial for solving the dark room problem. In the last part of the chapter, I formulate the hypothesis of distributed normativity, which assumes that the normative nature of certain mechanisms, functions or objects is determined by the relations into which these mechanisms, functions or objects enter. This means that what is normative (in the primary sense) is the relational structure that constitutes the normativity of specific items included in it. I suggest that this hypothesis opens up many areas of research and makes it possible to rethink many problems. In the “Conclusion”, I summarize the results of my research and indicate further research perspectives. (shrink)

By reviewing most of the neurobiology of consciousness, this article highlights some major reasons why a successful emulation of the dynamics of human consciousness by artificial intelligence is unlikely. The analysis provided leads to conclude that human consciousness is epigenetically determined and experience and context-dependent at the individual level. It is subject to changes in time that are essentially unpredictable. If cracking the code to human consciousness were possible, the result would most likely have to consist of a temporal pattern (...) code simulating long-distance signal reverberation and de-correlation of all spatial signal contents from temporal signals. In the light of the massive evidence for complex interactions between implicit (non-conscious) and explicit (conscious) contents of representation, the code would have to be capable of making implicit (non-conscious) processes explicit. It would have to be capable of a progressively less and less arbitrary selection of temporal activity patterns in a continuously developing neural network structure identical to that of the human brain, from the synaptic level to that of higher cognitive functions. The code’s activation thresholds would depend on specific temporal signal coincidence probabilities, vary considerably with time and across individual experience data, and would therefore require dynamically adaptive computations capable of emulating the properties of individual human experience. No known machine or neural network learning approach has such potential. (shrink)

We critically survey explicit discussions of the narrativity of economic agents by economists. Narrativity broadly refers to the way humans construct and use stories, notably to define their personal identity. We borrow from debates outside of economics to provide the critical dimension of our survey. Most contributions on the narrativity of economic agents do not discuss one another. To establish communication, we suggest a structure of oppositions that characterize these contributions taken as a whole. These oppositions are notably characterized (...) by three tensions: in terms of methodological attitudes, of underlying theories of personal identity postulating the existence of a unique sense of self or not and of the normative implications of narrativity. The main goal is to clarify the structure of opposite positions within a more or less explicit debate about the identity of individuals in economics. (shrink)

This work first explicates the philosophy of classical and quantum fields and particles. I am interested in determining how science can have a metaphysical dimension, and then with the claim that the quantum revolution has an important metaphysical component. I argue that the metaphysical implications of a theory are properties of its models, as classical mechanics determines properties of atomic diversity and temporal continuity with its representations of distinct, continuous trajectories. ;It is often suggested that classical statistical physics (...) requires that many particle states be represented so that permuting properties leads to distinct states; this implies that individuals can be reidentified across possible worlds in a non-qualitative way. I show there is no evidence for this conclusion, an important result, for it is claimed that quantum particles are not individuals. This claim is based on the misconception about classical statistics, but also on a conflation of notions of identity; I show that, while transworld identity is incompatible with quantum mechanics, other classical notions may be consistently ascribed. I also give a field-particle distinction that applies usefully in both quantum and classical domains. In the former the distinction helps defeat claims of underdetermined by data, in the latter it helps provide a minimal field metaphysics. ;Next I tackle renormalisation: I show how divergences occur in approximate, perturbative calculations, and demonstrate how finite, empirically verified, answers are obtained. These techniques seem to show that the predictions are not logical consequences of the exact theory. I use the techniques of the renormalisation group to establish that perturbative renormalised quantum field theory does indeed approximate the consequences of field theory. ;Finally, I discuss the idea that renormalisation proves that there can be no quantum theory of everything, only a patchwork of effective theories. The preceding chapter shows that renormalisation demonstrates only that the picture is consistent, and this is insufficient to show that physics must be phenomenological. (shrink)

Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly able to leverage crime statistics to make risk predictions for particular individuals, employing a form of inference that some condemn as violating the right to be “treated as an individual.” I suggest that the right encodes agents’ entitlement to a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the rule of law. Rather than precluding statistical prediction, it requires that citizens be able to anticipate which variables will be used as predictors and act intentionally to (...) avoid them. Furthermore, it condemns reliance on various indexes of distributive injustice, or unchosen properties, as evidence of law-breaking. (shrink)

The meaning of most words in language depends on their context. Understanding how the human brain extracts contextualized meaning, and identifying where in the brain this takes place, remain important scientific challenges. But technological and computational advances in neuroscience and artificial intelligence now provide unprecedented opportunities to study the human brain in action as language is read and understood. Recent contextualized language models seem to be able to capture homonymic meaning variation (“bat”, in a baseball vs. a vampire context), as (...) well as more nuanced differences of meaning—for example, polysemous words such as “book”, which can be interpreted in distinct but related senses (“explain a book”, information, vs. “open a book”, object) whose differences are fine‐grained. We study these subtle differences in lexical meaning along the concrete/abstract dimension, as they are triggered by verb‐noun semantic composition. We analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activations elicited by Italian verb phrases containing nouns whose interpretation is affected by the verb to different degrees. By using a contextualized language model and human concreteness ratings, we shed light on where in the brain such fine‐grained meaning variation takes place and how it is coded. Our results show that phrase concreteness judgments and the contextualized model can predict BOLD activation associated with semantic composition within the language network. Importantly, representations derived from a complex, nonlinear composition process consistently outperform simpler composition approaches. This is compatible with a holistic view of semantic composition in the brain, where semantic representations are modified by the process of composition itself. When looking at individual brain areas, we find that encoding performance is statistically significant, although with differing patterns of results, suggesting differential involvement, in the posterior superior temporal sulcus, inferior frontal gyrus and anterior temporal lobe, and in motor areas previously associated with processing of concreteness/abstractness. (shrink)

People perceive that if their memories and moral beliefs changed, they would change. We investigated why individuals respond this way. In Study 1, participants judged that identity would change more after changes to memories and widely shared moral beliefs versus preferences and controversial moral beliefs. The extent to which participants judged that changes would affect their relationships predicted identity change and mediated the relationship between type of moral belief and perceived identity change. We discuss the role that social relationships play (...) in judgments of identity and highlight implications for psychology and philosophy. (shrink)

People perceive that if their memories and moral beliefs changed, they would change. We investigated why individuals respond this way. In Study 1, participants judged that identity would change more after changes to memories and widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., about murder) versus preferences and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., about abortion). The extent to which participants judged that changes would affect their relationships predicted identity change (Study 2) and mediated the relationship between type of moral belief and perceived identity change (...) (Study 3). We discuss the role that social relationships play in judgments of identity and highlight implications for psychology and philosophy. (shrink)

In order to extract the regularities underlying a continuous sensory input, the individual elements constituting the stream have to be encoded and their transitional probabilities (TPs) should be learned. This suggests that variance in statistical learning (SL) performance reflects efficiency in encoding representations as well as efficiency in detecting their statistical properties. These processes have been taken to be independent and temporally modular, where first, elements in the stream are encoded into internal representations, and then the (...) co‐occurrences between them are computed and registered. Here, we entertain a novel hypothesis that one unifying construct—the rate of information in the sensory input—explains learning performance. This theoretical approach merges processes related to encoding of events and those related to learning their regularities into a single computational principle. We present data from two large‐scale experiments with over 800 participants tested in support for this hypothesis, showing that rate of information in a visual stream clearly predicts SL performance, and that similar rate of information values leads to similar SL performance. We discuss the implications for SL theory and its relation to regularity learning. (shrink)

The use of algorithms to support prediction-based decision-making is becoming commonplace in a range of domains including health, criminal justice, education, social services, lending, and hiring. An assumption governing such decisions is that there is a property Y such that individual a should be allocated resource R by decision-maker D if a is Y. When there is uncertainty about whether a is Y, algorithms may provide valuable decision support by accurately predicting whether a is Y on the basis of known (...) features of a. Based on recent work on statistical evidence in epistemology this article presents an argument against relying exclusively on algorithmic predictions to allocate resources when they provide purely statistical evidence that a is Y. The article then responds to the objection that any evidence that will increase the proportion of correct decisions should be accepted as the basis for allocations regardless of its epistemic deficiency. Finally, some important practical aspects of the conclusion are considered. (shrink)

This paper explores the intersection of René Girard's mimetic theory and the algorithmic society, particularly in the context of the potential advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Girard's theory, which elucidates the dynamics of desire, rivalry, scapegoating, and the sacrificial crisis, provides a unique lens through which to examine the complexities of our relationship with AI and its role in the creation of the sacred. As individuals increasingly rely on AI recommendations, the distinction between personal choice and algorithmic manipulation becomes (...) less clear, raising concerns about the authenticity of cultural expressions and the role of algorithms in shaping cultural narratives. The triangular structure of desire, with AI as the model and individuals as the imitators, underscores the power of algorithms in this process. The sacrificial crisis, a key concept in Girard's theory, becomes a critical point of reflection in the algorithmic society. The exposure of the scapegoating mechanism reveals the destructive potential of algorithmic manipulation and calls for new forms of understanding, empathy, and non-violent solutions. This paper argues that recognizing the sacrificial crisis can prompt individuals and society to critically examine the impact of AI's influence, challenge the narratives it perpetuates, and reclaim agency in the face of algorithmic dominance. This paper further discusses the potential implications of the emergence of AGI, which could intensify the influence of algorithms on the creation of the sacred due to its advanced cognitive capabilities and deep understanding of human desires and behaviors. This could fuel a rapid evolution of the mimetic ecosystem, with profound implications for personal freedom, independent decision-making, and the formation and preservation of individual identity. This paper concludes by emphasizing the need for responsible algorithmic practices and ethical considerations to ensure that the creation of the sacred serves the common good in the algorithmic society. (shrink)

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self that I collectively refer to (...) as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (2014, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media. (shrink)

The heart of my dissertation project is the proposal of a new updating rule for responding to learning experiences consisting of continuous streams of evidence. I suggest characterizing this kind of learning experience as a continuous stream of stipulated credal derivatives, and show that Continuous Probability Kinematics is the uniquely coherent response to such a stream which satisfies a continuous analogue of Rigidity – the core property of both Bayesian and Jeffrey conditionalization. In the first chapter, I define neighborhood norms (...) of rationality with reference to Kenny Easwaran’s definition of neighborhood properties. I summarize and comment on some of the key arguments in the dispute between time-slice epistemologists, who argue that there are no fundamentally diachronic norms of rationality, and the proponents of diachronic norms. I am sympathetic to two of the key motivations often given in support of the synchronist position: mentalist internalism and the idea that metaphysical disputes about the identity of persons in bizarre puzzle cases should not play a central role in epistemologists’ assessments of the rationality of agents. However, I argue that time-slice epistemology cannot adequately address the rationality of temporally-extended processes like reasoning and learning. Neighborhood norms present a viable third way between these two positions, capturing much of the spirit of the previously-discussed synchronist motivations while still providing just enough temporal structure to meaningfully guide and evaluate temporally-extended rational processes. Continuous Probability Kinematics is an example of one such neighborhood norm. In the second chapter, I develop my updating rule CPK and establish many of its core properties. Of special note here are the deep connections to Jeffrey’s Probability Kinematics, as well as some key differences. The net result of any CPK updating process will always be representable as a Jeffrey shift on the refined partition generated by the propositions that the agent is receiving direct evidence concerning. However, one crucial difference is that CPK provides an intuitive account of how to combine the effects of learning experiences that are each about fundamentally different underlying partitions. In CPK’s formalism, an agent can receive simultaneous evidence streams about an arbitrary (finite) number of propositions, which can themselves be evidentially related in any way. At any given instant, the result of the combination is a simple sum of the effects that learning about the individual propositions would have separately. CPK is concerned with a novel kind of learning experience and involves a novel characterization of evidence. The third and final chapter of this dissertation is concerned with explaining what this characterization of evidence means and with arguing that it can be the basis for genuine learning. I begin by characterizing learning experiences in terms of the Value of Information, and prove a Value of Information theorem for CPK learning experiences under the assumption of a Martingale constraint on the agent’s prior distribution over the signals that they might receive. I examine Timothy Williamson’s arguments that evidence must be propositional and express my skepticism. I then explore two different routes to model agents who update by CPK as if they are learning some propositional content and updating the rest of their credences by Bayesian conditionalization on this content. The second of these two routes provides a very interesting lens to reexamine the evidential commitments that underwrite updating by CPK, which I analyze. (shrink)

The monograph is an English, expanded and revised version of the book Cheshko, V. T., Ivanitskaya, L.V., & Glazko, V.I. (2018). Anthropocene. Philosophy of Biotechnology. Moscow, Course. The manuscript was completed by me on November 15, 2019. It is a study devoted to the development of the concept of a stable evolutionary human strategy as a unique phenomenon of global evolution. The name “An Evolutionary Metaphysics (Cheshko, 2012; Glazko et al., 2016). With equal rights, this study could be entitled “Biotechnology (...) as a result and factor of the evolutionary processˮ. The choice in favor of used “The Evolutionary Metaphysics of Human Enhancement Technologiesˮ was made in accordance with the basic principle of modern post-academician and human-sized science, a classic example of which is biotechnology. The “Metaphysics of Evolution” and “Evolutionary Metaphysics” concepts are used in several ways in modern philosophical discourse. In any case, the values contain a logical or associative reference to the teleological nature of the evolutionary process (Hull, 1967, 1989; Apel, 1995; Faye, 2016; Dupre, 2017; Rose, 2018, etc). In our study, the “evolutionary metaphysics” serves to denote the thesis of the rationalization and technologization of global evolution and anthropogenesis, in particular. At the same time, the postulate of an open future remains relevant in relation to the results of the evolutionary process. The theory of evolution of complex, including the humans system and algorithm for its constructing are а synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern science. ln other words, natural philosophy is regaining the status bar element theoretical science in the era of technology-driven evolution. The co-evolutionary concept of 3-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based оn the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined bу descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot bе instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of blological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution Ьу two gear mechanism genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them сап estimated Ьу the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization / dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the blological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). It is seem necessary to make three clarifications. First, logical construct, “evolutionary metaphysics” contains an internal contradiction, because it unites two alternative explanatory models. “Metaphysics”, as a subject, implies deducibility of the process from the initial general abstract principle, and, consequently, the outcome of the development of the object is uniquely determined by the initial conditions. Predicate, “evolutionary”, means stochastic mechanism of realizing the same principle by memorizing and replicating random choices in all variants of the post-Darwin paradigm. In philosophy, random choice corresponds to the category of “free will” of a reasonable agent. In evolutionary theory, the same phenomenon is reflected in the concept of “covariant replication”. Authors will attempt to synthesize both of these models in a single transdisciplinary theoretical framework. Secondly, the interpretation of the term “evolutionary (adaptive) strategyˮ is different from the classical definition. The difference is that the adaptive strategy in this context is equivalent to the survival, i.e. it includes the adaptation to the environment and the transformation (construction) of the medium in accordance with the objectives of survival. To emphasize this difference authors used verbal construction “adaptiveˮ (rather than “evolutionaryˮ) strategy as more adequate. In all other cases, the two terms may be regarded as synonymous. Thirdly, the initial two essays of this series were published in one book in 2012. Their main goal was the development of the logically consistent methodological concept of stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominines and the argumentation of its heuristic possibilities as a transdisciplinary scientific paradigm of modern anthropology. The task was to demonstrate the possibilities of the SESH concept in describing and explaining the evolutionary prospects for the interaction of social organization and technology (techno-humanitarian balance) and the associated biological and cultural mechanisms of the genesis of religion (gene-cultural co-evolution). In other words, it was related to the sphere of cultural and philosophical anthropology, i.e. to the axiological component of any theoretical constructions describing the behavior of self-organizing systems with human participation. In contrast, the present work is an attempt to introduce this concept into the sphere of biological anthropology and, consequently, its main goal is to demonstrate the possibility of verification of its main provisions by means of procedures developed by natural science, i.e. refers to the descriptive component of the same theoretical constructions. The result of this in the future should be methods for assessing, calculating and predicting the risk of loss of biological and cultural identity of a person, associated with a permanent and continuously deepening process of development of science and technology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.2 (2000) 187-191 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences. Ed. Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. Pp. 393. $59.50, cloth; $19.95, paperback. According to its editors, the point of this anthology of previously published essays is to (...) "illustrate the ways in which 'narrative' has been used as an organizing concept in the human sciences over the last few decades" (ix). They argue that a "paradigm shift" is occurring in the human sciences, "one that leads away from nomological models and toward a more humanistic language and approach, in which narratives are central." Accordingly, the collection features essays about narrative written by authors who represent fields as disparate as philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, religion, law, gender studies, political science, speech communication, and environmental studies. The collection reprints a few essays that are well known within the humanities. For example, the Hinchmans include an excerpt from Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981), as well as Gertrude Himmelfarb's often-reprinted attack on social history, entitled "History With the Politics Left Out."As their title indicates, the editors divide their collection into three sections entitled "Memory," "Identity," and "Community." Their rationale for this division is that memory serves humans as a narrative stream that makes sense of the otherwise inchoate data given by experience. The narrative structured by memory produces what the Hinchmans call identity. Identity in its turn is influenced by narratives that circulate in the communities in which an individual exists. This collection aims to demonstrate that narrative plays a fundamental role within all three of these conceptual categories. The Hinchmans put it this way: As historians, social scientists, or (for that matter) prophets and bards weave narratives of the second order--stories that connect the individual mind to the social world--they create artifacts that soon take on a life of their own. These stories, told and retold, furnish the stock from which individual life narratives can be constructed. In other words, the story of an individual life usually plays off of one or more historically and socially transmitted narratives, which serve as prototypes of the elaboration of personal identity. Narrative theory is thus always implicitly a theory of how communities are formed and maintained, and how individuals are drafted into available social roles. (xxii-xxiii) [End Page 187]Each of the three major sections contains one or two theoretical essays, as well as two or three more that consider ways in which the concepts of memory, identity, and community play out in specific disciplinary contexts. For example, the section on community is introduced with MacIntyre's meditation on the relation of narrated selves to communities. It contains a theoretical essay by Edward M. Bruner on the malleability of community narratives, entitled "Ethnography as Narrative," and Walter Fisher's "Narration, Reason, and Community." Philip Abbott examines the use of narrative in political theory in an essay entitled "Storytelling and Political Theory," while Jim Cheney demonstrates the fruitfulness of communal narrative to environmental rhetoric in "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative." (Cheney's is the most intriguing piece in the collection).The editors introduce each section of the collection with brief essays that raise interesting questions. For example, introducing the section called "Memory," they ask: "Is the past something that can be reconstructed, on the basis of memories, or can it only be constructed?" and "Is there such a thing as prereflective, prenarrative, unemplotted experience, or does all experience possess at least an implicit narrative structure?" (1-2). Two of the essays collected under this head, David Carr's "Narrative and Real World: An Argument for Continuity" and Stephen Crites's "The Narrative Quality of Experience," are theoretical attempts to answer these questions. Other essays in this section investigate the role played by memory and narrative in the construction of specific discourses. W. Lance Bennett examines the role played by storytelling in criminal trials, and Misia... (shrink)

Algorithmic probability and friends: Proceedings of the Ray Solomonoff 85th memorial conference is a collection of original work and surveys. The Solomonoff 85th memorial conference was held at Monash University's Clayton campus in Melbourne, Australia as a tribute to pioneer, Ray Solomonoff, honouring his various pioneering works - most particularly, his revolutionary insight in the early 1960s that the universality of Universal Turing Machines could be used for universal Bayesian prediction and artificial intelligence. This work continues to increasingly influence and (...) under-pin statistics, econometrics, machine learning, data mining, inductive inference, search algorithms, data compression, theories of intelligence and philosophy of science - and applications of these areas. Ray not only envisioned this as the path to genuine artificial intelligence, but also, still in the 1960s, anticipated stages of progress in machine intelligence which would ultimately lead to machines surpassing human intelligence. Ray warned of the need to anticipate and discuss the potential consequences - and dangers - sooner rather than later. Possibly foremostly, Ray Solomonoff was a fine, happy, frugal and adventurous human being of gentle resolve who managed to fund himself while electing to conduct so much of his paradigm-changing research outside of the university system. The volume contains 35 papers pertaining to the abovementioned topics in tribute to Ray Solomonoff and his legacy. (shrink)

With the advanced methods of analysing old biological material, it is pressing to discuss what should be allowed to be done with human remains, particularly for well documented historical individuals. We argue that Queen Christina of Sweden, who challenged the traditional gender roles, has an interest in maintaining her privacy when there are continued attempts to reveal her ‘true’ gender. In the long-running philosophical debate on posthumous wronging, the fundamental question is: Who is wronged? Our aim is to find this (...) ‘missing subject’ using narrative theory.Narrative identity emphasises the fact that no person is alone in knowing or telling their life story. People’s lives are entangled and parts of the life story of a deceased person can remain in the living realm. Since the narrative identity of a person does not necessarily end upon their death, and this narrative continues to relate directly to the person who once existed, it is the narrative subject that can continue to be posthumously wronged. Queen Christina can no longer maintain her own identity, but we maintain it by our research into her life. We propose three duties relevant for posthumous wronging: the duty of truthfulness, the duty of recognition and the duty to respect privacy. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to prove the thesis that the attempts to transpose the cultural differentiation into the social and economical universalism and globalism must lead to repressive psychosocial totalitarianism on a large scale. Modern human sciences and politics tend to classify the individual in respect to his adaptive efficiency in interactive relation with programmed environment and to qualify him according to given imposed criteria of social functionalism. The correctly socialized individual is expected to be an exchangeable (...) functional unit assessed according to its usefulness in performing a set of particular tasks, despite his cultural background being considered as a second-rate factor, which may affect the social acceptance and correctness of his behavior. However, no community is an exact representation of society because it is held together not by functions but by the values aswell as the forms of their actualization and implementation into the common organization and their way of life. The community is not a contract upon which society is based. The identity of the individual must not be removed from the culture of the community in which he lives and from its constitutive values. It is also rooted in the past and history of striving for self-determination and cultural as well as personal subjectivity. Without these significant cultural and historical components the individual identity is nothing but an operational, programmable algorithm of functional living unit assigned to perform short-term utilitarian tasks. This approach stands in contradiction to the Aristotelian concept of wellbeing and happiness considered as striving for the common good of spiritual values by individuals as well as by human communities. Any extensive and effective civilization neglecting the higher values of moral, symbolic and religious sense of the individual, must face totalitarianism or extinction. (shrink)

& Functional brain imaging offers new opportunities for the begin with single-subject (preprocessed) scan series, and study of that most pervasive of cognitive conditions, human consider the patterns of all voxels as potential multivariate consciousness. Since consciousness is attendant to so much encodings of phenomenal information. Twenty-seven subjects of human cognitive life, its study requires secondary analysis from the four studies were analyzed with multivariate of multiple experimental datasets. Here, four preprocessed methods, revealing analogues of phenomenal structures, datasets from the (...) National fMRI Data Center are considered: particularly the structures of temporality. In a second Hazeltine et al., Neural activation during response competi- interpretive approach, artificial neural networks were used tion; Ishai et al., The representation of objects in the human to detect a more explicit prediction from phenomenology, occipital and temporal cortex; Mechelli et al., The effects of namely, that present experience contains and is inflected by presentation rate during word and pseudoword reading; and past states of awareness and anticipated events. In all of 21 Postle et al., Activity in human frontal cortex associated with subjects in this analysis, nets were successfully trained to spatial working memory and saccadic behavior. The study of extract aspects of relative past and future brain states, in consciousness also draws from multiple disciplines. In this comparison with statistically similar controls. This exploratory article, the philosophical subdiscipline of phenomenology study thus concludes that the proposed methods for provides initial characterization of phenomenal structures ‘‘neurophenomenology’’ warrant further application, includ- conceptually necessary for an analysis of consciousness. These ing the exploration of individual differences, multivariate structures include phenomenal intentionality, phenomenal differences between cognitive task conditions, and explora- superposition, and experienced temporality.. (shrink)

In typical statistical learning studies, researchers define sequences in terms of the probability of the next item in the sequence given the current item (or items), and they show that high probability sequences are treated as more familiar than low probability sequences. Existing accounts of these phenomena all assume that participants represent statistical regularities more or less as they are defined by the experimenters—as sequential probabilities of symbols in a string. Here we offer an alternative, or possibly supplementary, (...) hypothesis. Specifically, rather than identifying or labeling individual stimuli discretely in order to predict the next item in a sequence, we need only assume that the participant is able to represent the stimuli as evincing particular similarity relations to one another, with sequences represented as trajectories through this similarity space. We present experiments in which this hypothesis makes sharply different predictions from hypotheses based on the assumption that sequences are learned over discrete, labeled stimuli. We also present a series of simulation models that encode stimuli as positions in a continuous two‐dimensional space, and predict the next location from the current location. Although no model captures all of the data presented here, the results of three critical experiments are more consistent with the view that participants represent trajectories through similarity space rather than sequences of discrete labels under particular conditions. (shrink)

Whereas using artificial intelligence (AI) to predict natural hazards is promising, applying a predictive policing algorithm (PPA) to predict human threats to others continues to be debated. Whereas PPAs were reported to be initially successful in Germany and Japan, the killing of Black Americans by police in the US has sparked a call to dismantle AI in law enforcement. However, although PPAs may statistically associate suspects with economically disadvantaged classes and ethnic minorities, the targeted groups they aim to protect (...) are often vulnerable populations as well (e.g., victims of human trafficking, kidnapping, domestic violence, or drug abuse). Thus, determining how to enhance the benefits of PPA while reducing bias through better management is important. In this paper, we propose a policy schema to address this issue. First, after clarifying relevant concepts, we examine major criticisms of PPAs and argue that some of them should be addressed. If banning AI or making it taboo is an unrealistic solution, we must learn from our errors to improve AI. We next identify additional challenges of PPAs and offer recommendations from a policy viewpoint. We conclude that the employment of PPAs should be merged into broader governance of the social safety net and audited publicly by parliament and civic society so that the unjust social structure that breeds bias can be revised. (shrink)

Chapter 1 First Person Access to Mental States. Mind Science and Subjective Qualities -/- Abstract. The philosophy of mind as we know it today starts with Ryle. What defines and at the same time differentiates it from the previous tradition of study on mind is the persuasion that any rigorous approach to mental phenomena must conform to the criteria of scientificity applied by the natural sciences, i.e. its investigations and results must be intersubjectively and publicly controllable. In Ryle’s view, philosophy (...) of mind needs to adopt an antimentalist stance to achieve this aim. Antimentalism not only definitively rejects the idea that mind is a substance separated from the body, it also denies that mental phenomena radically differ from physical phenomena by virtue of several unique features. Most problematically, mental phenomena have a conscious character (mental states are related to specific qualitative feelings) and are accessible only to the first-person (only the subject knows directly what s/he is experiencing inside his/her mind). Ryle takes a strong stance on antimentalism going so far as to maintain that an approach to mind which aims to meet the criteria of scientificity set by the natural sciences must avoid any reference to internal, unobservable mental states. In his view (which is considered a specifically philosophical version of psychological behaviorism and also addresses questions put forward in psychological research), mental states can be redescribed in terms of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, we address the historical roots of the antimentalist view and analyze its relation to the later tradition of research on mind. We show that, compared to the antimentalist stance, functionalism and cognitivism take a step back when they maintain that direct reference to mental states is necessary since mental states cause and therefore explain human behavior. This step backwards is often interpreted as a return to mentalism. However, this is only partially true. Indeed, we suggest that these later traditions retain one important element of Ryle’s antimentalism, i.e. the idea that mental states must be uniquely identified using external and publicly observable criteria, while excluding any reference to introspection and those qualitative dimensions of a mental state, which are accessible only to the first-person. According to the perspective we put forward, this epistemological stance has continued to influence contemporary research on mind and current philosophical and psychological theories which both tend to exclude the subjective qualities of human experience from their accounts of how the mind works. The issue we raise here is whether this is legitimate or whether subjective qualities do play a role with respect to the way our mind works. The conclusion of this chapter anticipates the argument the book makes in in favor of this latter position, starting from a particular angle, i.e. the problem of how we categorize concepts related to our internal states. -/- Chapter 2 The Misleading Aspects of the Mind/Computer Analogy. The Grounding Problem and the Thorny Issue of Propriosensitive Information -/- Abstract. After the crisis of behaviorism, cognitivism and functionalism became the predominant models in the field of psychology and of philosophy, respectively. Their success is mainly due to the new key they use for interpreting mental processes: the mind/computer analogy. On the basis of this analogy, mental operations are seen as cognitive processes based on computations, i.e. on manipulations of abstract symbols which are in turn understood as informational unities (representations). This chapter identifies two main problems with this model. The first is how these symbols can relate to and communicate with perception and thus allow us to identify and classify what we perceive through the senses. Here we limit ourselves to presenting this issue in relation to the classical symbol grounding problem originally put forward by Harnad on the basis of Searle’s Chinese room argument. An attempt to address the problem raised here will be made in chap. 3. The second point we discuss in relation to the mind/computer analogy concerns the idea of information it fosters. Indeed, following this analogy, information is something available in the external world which can be captured by the senses and transmitted to the central system without being influenced or modified by the procedures of transmission. This perspective does not take into account that – unlike computers – in living beings information is acquired by means of the body. As Ulric Neisser has already pointed out, the body is itself an informational source that provides us with additional sensory experience that influences (modifies or complements) the information extracted from the external world by the senses. To develop this line of analysis and to determine exactly what information is provided by the body and how this might influence cognition, we examine Sherrington’s and Gibson’s positions. Moving on from their views, we qualify bodily information in terms of ‘proprioception’. We use ‘proprioception’ in a broad sense to describe any kind of experience we have of our internal states (including postural information as well as sensations related to the general state of the body and its parts). Following Damasio’s and Craig’s studies, we further elaborate this position, arguing that living beings are equipped with an internal propriosensitive monitoring system which maps all the changes that constantly occur in our body and that give us perceptual (‘proprioceptive’ or propriosensitive) information about what happens inside us. Moreover, relying on Goldie’s and Ratcliffe’s view, we show that emotional information can also be considered as a form of ‘proprioception’ which contributes to determining everything we perceive. This analysis leads us to the second main thesis of this book: ‘proprioception’ is a form of internal perception and it is an essential component of the sensory information we can access and use for all cognitive purposes. -/- Chapter 3 Semantic Competence from the Inside: Conceptual Architecture and Composition -/- Abstract. Concepts are essential constituents of thought: they are the instruments we use to categorize our experience, i.e. to classify things and group them together in homogeneous sets. Here we define concepts as the internal mental information (representations) that allows us, among other things, to master words in natural language. By analyzing the way in which individuals master word meanings we explore a number of hypotheses regarding the nature of concepts. Following Diego Marconi’s research, we differentiate between two kind of abilities that underpin lexical competence – so-called ‘referential’ and ‘inferential competence’ – and we suggest that, in order to support these abilities, concepts must also include two corresponding kinds of information, i.e. inferential and referential information. We point out that the most widely used and acknowledged theories of concepts do not make this distinction, instead broadly characterizing the information used for categorization in terms of propositionally described feature lists. However, we show that while feature lists can explain inferential competence, they do not account for referential competence. To address the issue of referential competence we examine Ray Jackendoff’s hypothesis that to account for the possibility of linking perceptual and conceptual information we need to assume the existence of a (visual) representation that encodes the geometric and topological properties of objects and bridges the gap between the percept and the concept. Furthermore, we analyze the extension of this work by Jesse Prinz who introduced the notion of a proxytype, a perceptual representation of a class of objects that incorporates structural and parametric information related to their appearance. However, as we point out, proxytypes can only explain the relationship between perception and concepts with respect to instances that can be perceived through the senses and that belong to the same class by virtue of their physical similarity. We suggest that this notion be extended to include larger conceptual classes. To accomplish this, we further develop Mark Johnson, George Lakoff and Jean Mandler’s idea of a schematic image and argue that conceptual representations include a perceptual schema. Perceptual schemata are non-linguistic, structured experiential gestalts (patterns or maps) that make use of information taken from all sensory modalities, including body perception. They accomplish a quasi-conceptual function: they allow us to recognize and to classify different instances. In this work, we hypothesize that perceptual schemata are an essential component of concepts, but not identical to them. Instead, we suggest that concepts include both perceptual and propositional information with perceptual schemata providing the ‘perceptual core concept’ that grounds related propositional information. -/- Chapter 4 In the Beginning There Were Categories. The Bodily Origin of Prelinguistic Categorical Organization: The Example of Folkbiological Taxonomies -/- Abstract. Studies of categorization in psychology and the cognitive sciences have made use of the notions of ‘category’ and ‘concept’ without precisely defining what is meant by either; in fact, often these terms have been used as synonyms, making it difficult to address specific issues related to conceptual development. This chapter begins by discussing the definitions of, as well as the distinctions between, ‘categories’ and ‘concepts’ in the classical philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Kant and Husserl). We introduce our view of categories with reference to Husserl. Categorization is defined as the way in which our experience is originally (pre-linguistically) organized in a passive and fully unconscious manner on the basis of universal structuring principles. Conceptualization is explained as a later process in which the earlier categorical macro-classes are further subdivided into more specific and detailed sets; this later process also relies on linguistic learning and exposure to culture. On the basis of Ray Jackendoff, Jean Mandler, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s work, we hypothesize that categorization is a two-step process that begins with the formation of homogeneous sets of entities partitioned into regions that describe the ontological boundaries of the objects that humans perceive (categories) and continues at a later stage with the development of more specific classifications (concepts). In this chapter, we mainly address three related issues: Why should we assume that there is categorical organization which precedes the development of a conceptual system? How do categories and concepts relate to each other? Shall we hypothesize that categories are innate or that they are formed before concepts on the basis of information and organizational structure available at a very early developmental stage? We show that categorical partitions are necessary for categorization and, following Mandler, that the general categories we form at an early age do not match our adult superordinate concepts. As for the third issue, we argue that there might be no need to assume that categories are innately present in the human mind, since their formation can be explained – at least in certain cases – by basic mechanisms that work on body (propriosensitive) information. This hypothesis will not be discussed in general, but in relation to a particularly relevant example of categorical partition, i.e. the folk-biological dichotomy between ANIMATE/INANIMATE. This is compared with other dichotomies that derive from it, but are not directly categorical such as LIVING/NON-LIVING and BIOLOGICAL/NON-BIOLOGICAL. -/- Chapter 5 Internal States: From Headache to Anger. Conceptualization and Semantic Mastery -/- Abstract. Here we ask if we can also apply the distinction between referential and inferential competence we introduced in Chapter 3 to words that do not refer to things that are perceived using the external senses, especially to words/concepts that denote bodily experiences (such as pain, thirst, hunger, etc.) or emotions. We introduce and discuss the hypothesis that – even though such words/concepts do not refer to intersubjectively identifiable entities in the external world – they do have a kind of referent that can be accessed via direct perception, more specifically ‘proprioception’, as we have defined it in terms of all propriosensitive information we can consciously access. In the first part of the chapter, we specifically consider terms denoting bodily experiences such as ‘pain’ or ‘hunger’ and argue that their referents are identified and classified from a first-personal point of view on the basis of four main characteristics: their specific intensity, their localization in the body, their co-occurrence with other signals and above all their specific qualitative sensations. Emotions are addressed in the second part of the chapter. We suggest that there is a continuity between bodily experiences and emotions. In particular, we argue for a perceptual theory of emotions in line with that proposed by James and Lange at the end of the 19th century and developed more recently by authors such as Damasio (see also chap. 2§5, §6). The hypothesis we put forward is that the referential information that supports the categorization of emotions and therefore also our mastery of terms referring to emotions consists in the perception (i.e. the ‘proprioception’) of those bodily states and changes in bodily states which constitute our emotional experience. In the context of this discussion we examine some objections to this line of reasoning that arise from a cognitivist perspective and following authors such as Oatley, Johnson-Laird and Frijda, we distinguish between basic emotions that can be identified and classified solely on the basis on how they feel and complex emotions whose identification and classification additionally depends on cognitive factors. To describe how emotions are identified and classified on the basis of how they feel, we rely on Marcel and Lambie’s distinction between an ‘emotion state’ and an ‘emotion experience’. Both notions indicate kinds of feelings that we consciously experience. However, they describe first-order and second order emotion awareness respectively. The emotion state is the feeling we have of the bodily states and changes that occur when we are experiencing an emotion, while the emotion experience is the fully developed and integrated emotion we both experience and are, with reflection, aware of experiencing. On the basis of this differentiation, we also show that the same characteristics that aid in the identification and classification of bodily experiences (specific qualitative sensations; somatic localization; specific intensity; presence/absence of specific concomitant sensations) can also be used for the identification and classification of emotions – at least basic emotions. In the last two sections of the chapter we present some clinical evidence on the semantic competence of people who suffer from Alexithymia and Autism Spectrum Disorder which supports the conclusions of our preceding analyses. -/- Chapter 6 The ‘Proprioceptive’ Component of Abstract Concepts -/- Abstract. In this chapter, we address the issue of whether the mastery of abstract words requires only inferential knowledge and thus, if the concepts that support the mastery of abstract words include only linguistic information. We start by differentiating the notions of ‘abstract’ and ‘general’ which are often erroneously confused. We then identify a strict definition of abstract, as contrasted with ‘concrete’, that applies to words or concepts whose referent cannot be experienced by the senses. We argue that abstract words/concepts would be better described as theoretical, because they are usually conceived as structured sets of inferential knowledge expressed linguistically; that is, as small theories. Pointing out parallels with Carnap’s analysis of this issue in philosophy of science, we hypothesize that words/concepts denoting non-observable entities are not all ‘equally theoretical’, because their link to sensory experience can be stronger or weaker. We revive the distinction, inspired by Quine, between theoretical and intertheoretical concepts/words. This distinction relies on the fact that the former – unlike the latter – retains a strong, although indirect, connection with perception. In Quine’s discussion, perception is understood uniquely in terms of observability, i.e. of external sensory experience. Here we argue, however, that bodily, ‘proprioceptive’ (i.e. propriosensitive) experience can also serve to referentially ground theoretical (i.e. abstract) concepts/words. We frame this issue using the example of the theoretical concept ‘freedom’ and Lakoff’s hypothesis that this concept is developed on the basis of bodily information. We contrast this with the example of ‘democracy’ which more closely resembles an intertheoretical concept/word. Furthermore, we show that one of the classical views put forward in psycholinguistic research to explain how abstract concepts are mentally represented – i.e. Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory – points in the same direction as our analysis. The same is true of Barsalou’s work suggesting that we use internal information to understand at least some abstract words. To sustain this position, we put forward two lines of evidence: the first comes from psycholinguistic studies while the second examines deficits of semantic competence exhibited by people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. On the basis of our analysis, we put forward a classification that distinguishes between different kinds of concreteness and different degrees of abstraction: concepts/words referring to body experiences and basic emotions are described as analogous to concrete concepts/words because they are grounded in perceptual (i.e. propriosensitive) experience, while abstract concepts/words are considered more or less abstract depending on whether they are intratheoretical (and rely entirely on inferential information) or theoretical (and are partially grounded in perceptual – or more often in propriosensitive perceptual – information). In the last section of the chapter we consider two scales that have been used in psycholinguistic research to measure the degree of concreteness vs. abstractness of words and we show that – used conjointly – they can provide a measure of the internal vs. external grounding of specific words. (shrink)

This paper presents four theorems that connect continuity postulates in mathematical economics to solvability axioms in mathematical psychology, and ranks them under alternative supplementary assumptions. Theorem 1 connects notions of continuity (full, separate, Wold, weak Wold, Archimedean, mixture) with those of solvability (restricted, unrestricted) under the completeness and transitivity of a binary relation. Theorem 2 uses the primitive notion of a separately continuous function to answer the question when an analogous property on a relation is fully continuous. Theorem 3 provides (...) a portmanteau theorem on the equivalence between restricted solvability and various notions of continuity under weak monotonicity. Finally, Theorem 4 presents a variant of Theorem 3 that follows Theorem 1 in dispensing with the dimensionality requirement and in providing partial equivalences between solvability and continuity notions. These theorems are motivated for their potential use in representation theorems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 23-24 [Access article in PDF] Schechtman's Narrative Account of Identity Grant Gillett Keywords personal identity, narrative self, memory I have long been an admirer of Schechtman's sensitive and psychologically realistic account of personal identity. In the present piece, she addresses the issues surrounding personal identity through Locke's view and problems attending that view and the psychological continuity theories descended from it.She (...) examines the claim that the person is more extensive than the conscious mind and includes aspects of nonconscious mental activity. Schechtman argues that one must have a self-conception that includes a trajectory where present experience unfolds meaningfully out of one's past replete with implications for what one does and how one does it. She locates, in current writing on the self, the idea of a perceiver or narrator self who tries to make sense out of herself as a human being with certain thoughts and feelings and is sometimes at a loss to do so. To this potentially very rich starting point we need only add the fact that a person draws on discursive and narrative skills that have been inscribed in her being to do this narrative, editorial, and judicial task and that many of these skills have been imbibed with mother's milk (and father's voice). From this discursively inscribed set of resources and orientations arise guilt, shame, pride, aspiration, vulnerability, and that crucial sense of who one is as a person among others.It follows that here we might also find the source of the discontents that induce a person to apply to a psychiatrist or counselor for help with the narrative work required to fashion a liveable self. If Schechtman is right, the cognitive capacities contributing to memory and "keeping track of oneself"(in a deep and satisfying way) are to be found in part in the nonconscious domain rather than the thin layer of consciousness and propositional attitude psychology that enters the mind of an analytic philosopher or a psychiatrist uninterested in depth.I think she is right and that this paper and her more extensive work on the constitution of self represent a fertile point at which psychiatrists and psychotherapists can begin the task of understanding the nature of identity and the challenges involved in finding one that will serve the unfolding project of understanding and forming the self. I believe that the resources that individuals need for this task are derived from one's rootedness in culture and human relationships where the levels of self that support consciousness can be nurtured according to what Michel Foucault calls the techniques proper to the care of the self. Schechtman has done us a favor in taking the debates surrounding neo-Lockean [End Page 23] views of personal identity and outlining a perspective on identity and memory that can lead us to develop our understanding of the complexity of the human psyche as it roams through the jungle/jumble of discursive life and tries to nourish itself on what it finds there.Grant Gillett is a Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He is also a practicing neurosurgeon. His philosophical work is in philosophy of mind and psychiatry, continental philosophy, and bioethics. His most recent books are The Mind and Its Discontents (Oxford University Press) and Bioethics in the Clinic (Johns Hopkins University Press). He works on postmodern and traditional analytic approaches to mind, language, and psychiatry. He can be reached at Dunedin Hospital and Otago Bioethics Centre, University of Otago Medical School, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand, or via e-mail at [email protected].... (shrink)

The purpose of this dissertation is to present and defend a view regarding the freedom of human action which I call "Causationism," a view which incorporates some of the more fundamental commitments of traditional Determinism while allowing for the possibility of statistically regular actions or components of actions. Premise I of Causationism essentially maintains that all human actions are caused either by statistical regularities or deterministically. The inclusion of statistically regular events or components of actions in a causal account (...) is based on an appeal to the Dretske-Snyder thesis of "Causal Irregularity." Premise II of Causationism is essentially identical to the Incompatibility Thesis of traditional Determinism. My theory then proceeds along traditional Deterministic lines, concluding with the claim that "No one is morally responsible for his or her actions." ;Premise I is defended by appeal to empirical evidence. It is then demonstrated that traditional Libertarian arguments intended to weaken the force of this evidence fail. ;In Chapter III, I consider objections to the Incompatibility Thesis. I argue that a hypothetical reading of "he could have done otherwise" not only fails to capture what we mean when we speak of an individual's "acting freely," but also that a hypothetical reading of this phrase fails to provide a sufficient condition for a morally relevant sense of "freedom." ;In Chapter IV, I argue, by appeal to the concept of "novelty" and to Davidson's Mind/Body Theory, that, contrary to the opinion of some philosophers, an event's being caused does not require that it be predictable or subsumable under statements of probability expectations. ;Chapter V addresses the claim that if all actions are caused, then no action can be rational. A variety of arguments are formulated to demonstrate that various versions of the "Determinist Dilemma" fail. ;Finally, in Chapter VI, I argue that adoption of Causationism does not destroy morality although the denial of moral responsibility significantly alters traditional morality and requires a reanalysis of certain basic ethical terms. I offer the required reanalyses and consider the ramifications of their adoption to ethical theory. (shrink)

The Green Revolution is often seen as epitomising the dawn of scientific and technological advancement and modernity in the agricultural sector across developing countries, a process that unfolded from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Despite the time that has elapsed, this episode of the past continues to resonate today, and still shapes the institutions and practices of agricultural science and technology. In Brazil, China, and India, narratives of science-led agricultural transformations portray that period in glorifying terms—entailing pressing national imperatives, (...) unprecedented achievements, and heroic individuals or organizations. These “epic narratives” draw on the past to produce meaning and empower the actors that deploy them. Epic narratives are reproduced over time and perpetuate a conviction about the heroic power of science and technology in agricultural development. By crafting history and cultivating a sense of scientific nationalism, exceptionalism, and heritage, these epic narratives sustain power-knowledge relations in agricultural science and technology, which are underpinned by a hegemonic modernization paradigm. Unravelling the processes of assemblage and reproduction of epic narratives helps us make sense of how science and technology actors draw on their subjective representations of the past to assert their position in the field at present. This includes making claims about their credentials to envision and deliver sustainable solutions for agriculture into the future. (shrink)

Doctors’ survival predictions for terminally ill patients have been shown to be inaccurate and there has been an argument for less guesswork and more use of carefully constructed statistical indices. As statisticians, the authors are less confident in the predictive value of statistical models and indices for individual survival times. This paper discusses and illustrates a variety of measures which can be used to summarise predictive information available from a statistical model. The authors argue that (...) models and statistical indices can be useful at the group or population level, but that human survival is so uncertain that even the best statistical analysis cannot provide single-number predictions of real use for individual patients. (shrink)

Temporal regularities in speech, such as interdependencies in the timing of speech events, are thought to scaffold early acquisition of the building blocks in speech. By providing on-line clues to the location and duration of upcoming syllables, temporal structure may aid segmentation and clustering of continuous speech into separable units. This hypothesis tacitly assumes that learners exploit predictability in the temporal structure of speech. Existing measures of speech timing tend to focus on first-order regularities among adjacent units, and are overly (...) sensitive to idiosyncrasies in the data they describe. Here, we compare several statistical methods on a sample of 18 languages, testing whether syllable occurrence is predictable over time. Rather than looking for differences between languages, we aim to find across languages (using clearly defined acoustic, rather than orthographic, measures), temporal predictability in the speech signal which could be exploited by a language learner. First, we analyse distributional regularities using two novel techniques: a Bayesian ideal learner analysis, and a simple distributional measure. Second, we model higher-order temporal structure—regularities arising in an ordered series of syllable timings—testing the hypothesis that non-adjacent temporal structures may explain the gap between subjectively-perceived temporal regularities, and the absence of universally-accepted lower-order objective measures. Together, our analyses provide limited evidence for predictability at different time scales, though higher-order predictability is difficult to reliably infer. We conclude that temporal predictability in speech may well arise from a combination of individually weak perceptual cues at multiple structural levels, but is challenging to pinpoint. (shrink)

We suggest that the hierarchical predictive processing account detailed by Clark can be usefully integrated with narrative psychology by situating personal narratives at the top of an individual's knowledge hierarchy. Narrative representations function as high-level generative models that direct our attention and structure our expectations about unfolding events. Implications for integrating scientific and humanistic views of human experience are discussed.

A stubborn problem for reflectance physicalism about color is to account for individual differences in normal trichromat color perception. The identification of determinate colors with physical properties of visible surfaces in a universal, perceiver-independent way is challenged by the observation that the same surfaces in identical viewing conditions often look different in color to different human subjects with normal color vision. Recently, leading representatives of reflectance physicalism have offered some arguments to defend their view against the individual differences challenge. In (...) this paper I challenge their defense. I argue thateven though individual differences are present in shape perception as well as in color perception, the mechanisms of shape perception and those of color perception differ in ways which make them completely different regarding their evidential status for certain identity claims. Thus comparing color perception to shape perception offers no support for identifying hues with reflectances. On the other hand, drawing a parallel between the temperature-mean kinetic energy of molecules (MKE) identification and the proposed hue-reflectance identities is no support for reflectance physicalism either, since there is an important disanalogybetween the two cases. While individual differences obtain in color perception, the effects of temperature (e.g., melting, thermal expansion) do not exhibit analogous variation, which makes the temperature-MKE identification unproblematic compared to the hue-reflectance identification. One motivation for this ongoing debate is that the success or failure of reflectance physicalism has far-reaching consequences regarding externalist theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dominion over Wildlife? An Environmental Theology of Human–Wildlife Relations by Stephen M. VantasselColeman FanninDominion over Wildlife? An Environmental Theology of Human–Wildlife Relations Stephen M. Vantassel Eugene, OR: Resource, 2009. 232pp. $26.00In Dominion over Wildlife?, Stephen Vantassel, a scholar with professional experience in animal damage control, provides a substantive examination of the neglected subject of human–wildlife relations. For this, he is to be commended. Although ultimately disappointing, his argument (...) indicates that much work remains to be done in this area.Vantassel’s subtitle is somewhat misleading since he devotes the bulk of the book to a polemic against a small group he terms “Christian Animal Rights (CAR) activists”—especially Anglican theologian Andrew Linzey and his followers—who question the idea that God grants humans dominion over creation (“Dominionism”), including the moral right to manage, kill, and eat animals. “The critical question... is whether CAR activists are correct in their belief that Scripture exhorts us to adopt a vegetarian and non-violent stance toward animals” (14). Vantassel’s response is more exegetical than theological, and in the mode of conservative evangelical apologetics, he devotes chapters to refuting CAR activists’ appeals to the Old Testament (specifically the covenant of Creation, the narratives of the Fall and Noah, the sacrificial system, and passages that support humane treatment of animals); the New Testament (Christ’s concern for animals, a Christus Victor view of the atonement, and an Edenic eschatology); ethics (compassion, restraint, and stewardship); and science (a case study of whether trapping is unnecessarily cruel and environmentally irresponsible). Only in the final chapter does he propose his model of “Shepherdism,” which “avoids the negative stereotypes held against Dominionism, while upholding God’s decree that humans maintain their superintendence over animals” (160). Shepherdism centers on the principles that creation is “God’s property,” that humans are charged with being its caretakers, and that Christ is a model for behavior toward it. Vantassel insists that humans should treat wildlife humanely and not exterminate species.For Vantassel, theology is a matter of individuals—largely apart from church or tradition—reading an inerrant Bible to discern God’s commands. Likewise, ethics is a matter of individuals using reason to construct arguments that “stand on their own merits” and “may still be sufficient to persuade, if not compel, Christian behavior even if Scripture does not mandate the behavior” (99). This [End Page 193] is not the forum for criticizing these approaches, but they not only distance Vantassel’s argument from scholarship in the field—which he does not engage—but also make it unlikely that it will persuade those who do not read the Bible or view God in the same way. To note two examples, on the basis of Amos 4, he contends that “some environmental problems are caused not through our direct abuse of the land but through our disobedience, which God then punishes through sending environmental catastrophes” (165n13), and on the basis of Christ’s acceptance of fishing with nets (Luke 5:4), he contends that “Christians are permitted to not only eat animals, they may employ means to capture them that will cause pain and injury” (171). Indeed, as a lifelong hunter who shares Vantassel’s basic position, I found myself more sympathetic to the CAR activists’ arguments toward which he is frequently uncharitable; he associates them with Darwinism and feminist and liberation theologies, labels their hermeneutics “modernistic” for stressing narrative, and variously calls their ideas “absurd,” “incredulous,” and “strange.”Vantassel discusses a number of helpful statistics and studies, and he rightly points out the problems posed by factory farming, the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on the poor, and the practical difficulties of vegetarianism. However, his preoccupation with exegesis means that he underemphasizes these issues and overlooks others, including hunting becoming a trophy-obsessed, technology-dominated “sport.” Hopefully he and other scholars will produce more on this subject in the near future.Coleman FanninBaylor UniversityCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the ‘mechanization’ of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize[1], even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late ‘60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata[2]. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of (...) human cognition to cybernetic systems. -/- The emergence of the world-wide-web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. -/- I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities. (shrink)

The use of algorithmic prediction in insurance is regarded as the beginning of a new era, because it promises to personalise insurance policies and premiums on the basis of individual behaviour and level of risk. The core idea is that the price of the policy would no longer refer to the calculated uncertainty of a pool of policyholders, with the consequence that everyone would have to pay only for her real exposure to risk. For insurance, however, uncertainty is not only (...) a problem – shared uncertainty is a resource. The availability of individual risk information could undermine the principle of risk-pooling and risk-spreading on which insurance is based. The article examines this disruptive change first by exploring the possible consequences of the use of predictive algorithms to set insurance premiums. Will it endanger the principle of mutualisation of risks, producing new forms of discrimination and exclusion from coverage? In a second step, we analyse how the relationship between the insurer and the policyholder changes when the customer knows that the company has voluminous, and continuously updated, data about her real behaviour. (shrink)

Research in face recognition has tended to focus on discriminating between individuals, or “telling people apart.” It has recently become clear that it is also necessary to understand how images of the same person can vary, or “telling people together.” Learning a new face, and tracking its representation as it changes from unfamiliar to familiar, involves an abstraction of the variability in different images of that person's face. Here, we present an application of principal components analysis computed across different photos (...) of the same person. We demonstrate that people vary in systematic ways, and that this variability is idiosyncratic—the dimensions of variability in one face do not generalize well to another. Learning a new face therefore entails learning how that face varies. We present evidence for this proposal and suggest that it provides an explanation for various effects in face recognition. We conclude by making a number of testable predictions derived from this framework. (shrink)

Motivation: There is an ongoing search for definitive and reliable biomarkers to forecast or predict imminent seizure onset, but to date most research has been limited to EEG with sampling rates <1,000 Hz. High-frequency oscillations have gained acceptance as an indicator of epileptic tissue, but few have investigated the temporal properties of HFOs or their potential role as a predictor in seizure prediction. Here we evaluate time-varying trends in preictal HFO rates as a potential biomarker of seizure prediction.Methods: HFOs were (...) identified for all interictal and preictal periods with a validated automated detector in 27 patients who underwent intracranial EEG monitoring. We used LASSO logistic regression with several features of the HFO rate to distinguish preictal from interictal periods in each individual. We then tested these models with held-out data and evaluated their performance with the area-under-the-curve of their receiver-operating curve. Finally, we assessed the significance of these results using non-parametric statistical tests.Results: There was variability in the ability of HFOs to discern preictal from interictal states across our cohort. We identified a subset of 10 patients in whom the presence of the preictal state could be successfully predicted better than chance. For some of these individuals, average AUC in the held-out data reached higher than 0.80, which suggests that HFO rates can significantly differentiate preictal and interictal periods for certain patients.Significance: These findings show that temporal trends in HFO rate can predict the preictal state better than random chance in some individuals. Such promising results indicate that future prediction efforts would benefit from the inclusion of high-frequency information in their predictive models and technological architecture. (shrink)

The last two centuries have been the centuries of the discovery of the cell evolution: in the XIX century of the germinal cells and in the XX century of two groups of somatic cells, namely those of the brain-mind and of the immune systems. Since most cells do not behave in this way, the evolutionary character of the brain-mind and of the immune systems renders human beings formed by two different groups of somatic cells, one with a deterministic and another (...) with an indeterministic (say Darwinian) behavior. An inherent consequence is that of the generation, during ontogenesis, of a dual biological identity. The concept of the dual biological identity may be used to explain the Kantian concept of the two metaphysical worlds, namely of the causal necessity and of the free will (Azzone, 2001). Two concepts, namely those of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and of emergence (Holland, 2002), are useful tools for understanding the mechanisms of adaptation and of evolution. The concept of complex adaptive systems indicates that living organisms contain series of stratified components, denoted as building blocks, forming stratified layers of increasing complexity. The concept of emergence implies the use of repeating patterns and of building blocks for the generation of structures of increasing levels of complexity, structures capable of exchanging communications both in the top-down and in the bottom-up direction. Against the concept of emergence it has been argued that nothing can produce something which is really new and endowed of causal efficacy. The defence of the concept of emergence is based on two arguments. The first is the interpretation of the variation-selection mechanism as a process of generation of information and of optimization of free energy dissipation in accord with the second principle of thermodynamics. The second is the objective evidence of the cosmological evolution from the Big Bang to the human mind and its products. Darwin has defended the concept of the continuity of evolution. However evolution should be considered as continuous when there is no increase of information and as discontinuous when there is generation of new information. Examples of such generation of information are the acquisition of the innate structures for language and the transition from absence to presence of morality. There are several discontinuity thresholds during both phylogenesis and ontogenesis. Morality is a relational property dependent on the interactions of human beings with the environment. Piaget and Kohlberg have shown that the generation of morality during childhood occurs through several stages and is accompanied by reorganization of the child mental organization. The children respect the conventions in the first stage and gradually generate their autonomous morality. The transition from absence to presence of morality, a major adaptive process, then, not only has occurred during phylogenesis but it occurs again in every human being during ontogenesis. The religious faith does not provide a logical justification of the moral rules (Ayala, 1987) but rather a psychological and anthropological justification of two fundamental needs of human beings: that of rendering Nature an understandable entity, and that of increasing the cooperation among members of the human societies. The positive effects of the altruistic genes in the animal societies are in accord with the positive effects of morality for the survival and development of the human societies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sources of MemoryJeffrey Andrew Barash“What does it mean to remember?” This question might seem commonplace when it is confined to the domain of events recalled in past individual experience; but even in this restricted sense, when memory recalls, for example, a first personal encounter with birth or with death, the singularity of the remembered image places the deeper possibilities of human understanding in relief. Such experiences punctuating everyday (...) life highlight the central place of memory as a source of human identity.With a few notable exceptions, such as Henri Bergson or Maurice Halb-wachs, this central role of memory was rarely a topic of interest in the theoretical orientations of our century. It played only a peripheral role in the different philosophical orientations and in the human sciences of this century until, very recently, new attempts have been made to comprehend the significance of memory, above all in the fields of intellectual history and philosophy. Without dealing exhaustively with the bibliography of works on memory, I will mention what seem to me to be the signs of a recent renewal of questioning in this area of interest to historians and philosophers alike. This will lead me to the specific problem I will address in the pages that follow.One of the chief sources of the historian’s recent interest in memory has been the historians’ conflict (Historikerstreit) of the 1980s concerning the interpretation of the German and European past since the rise to power of Nazism and in the aftermath of World War II. As the generations who lived through and—from a given perspective—remembered these events increasingly disappear, the question concerning their precise historical meaning has reemerged with a new urgency. In this vein, for example, as the relatively new periodical History and Memory: Studies in the Representation of the Past and the collection of essays Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the “Final Solution,” edited by Saul Friedlander, amply attest, the relation of memory to historical narrative is as important as it is problematic: to the extent that eyewitness memory claims a status of objectivity beyond the fictional sphere of [End Page 707] the imagination, its role in informing historical narrative involves the very issue of objectivity itself. 1Independently of this query concerning the relation of memory and history in recent scholarship focusing on the twentieth century, a number of studies have attempted to place the idea of memory in historical perspective during premodern periods. In this regard, we may cite Janet Coleman’s recently published work, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past and Mary Carruthers’s treatment of the subject of memory in the medieval period in The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. 2 A number of other recent works in the field of intellectual history have attempted to grapple with the intriguing problem of the historicity of the phenomenon of memory in the West. This idea of the historicity of memory has been inspired at least in part by Pierre Nora’s essay, “Between Memory and History,” which introduced the multi-volume series he directed, Les Lieux de mémoire. In this vein, Patrick H. Hutton’s History as an Art of Memory, Matt K. Matsuda’s The Memory of the Modern, and Richard Terdiman’s Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis all center on the historical transforma-tions to which, according to the different perspectives of their works, “memory” has been subject. 3 Like Nora, they link this historicity of the social and cultural role of memory to the radical transformations that Western civilization has undergone in the modern period.In a philosophical perspective David Farrell Krell’s work, Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing: On the Verge, presents a very different idea of the phenomenon of memory. 4 Where the intellectual historians of modernity stress the mutations in the role of memory, Krell, following in the footsteps of Jacques Derrida, emphasizes one essential line of continuity that, to his mind, has tied [End Page 708] together the tradition of philosophical reflection on memory from Plato and Aristotle up until Freud: the metaphoric reference to memory as the faculty... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 347-352 [Access article in PDF] Idem, Ipse, and Loss of the Self Gerrit Glas The case histories of Dr. Wells and the comments on them require first of all more conceptual clarity. In this article I will first introduce, with Paul Ricoeur, a distinction between idem identity and ipse identity. Then, I will discuss the merits and pitfalls of applying narrative theory (...) to pathologies of the self. Behind the discussion on the breakdown of narrative unity, deep questions loom, most notably about conceivability and meaning of the notion of breakdown of self-relatedness as such; and about the moral basis for clinical action given the lack of a self to treat. These questions amount to the acknowledgment of a normative component in the concept of self and personhood, which can not be accounted for by idem identity solely. Individual and Structural Identity Let us begin with identity. When I identify a tree, at least two aspects, are implied in the act of identification. The first aspect concerns the recognition of the tree as member of a certain class (or family) of living things. In the tree we recognize certain features, or aspects, that are typical for this particular class (or family) of trees. This recognition is based on similarity or sameness. The second aspect in the act of identification consists of the recognition of the tree as this individual tree. We are dealing here with a basic, rather mysterious capacity: the capacity to distinguish one individual entity from the other; or: the capacity to know individuals.Both aspects, the recognition of similarity and of individuality, are interwoven in everyday acts of identification. So, we discern the specific features of a particular tree against the background of an overall (or general) image of trees. At the same time we recognize these general features given our capacity to distinguish one tree from the other. There are, accordingly, two sides in the concept of identity: structural identity and individual identity. Individual identity refers to the uniqueness of a thing and structural identity to the properties a thing shares with others things.This distinction can be applied to human beings, but only in a certain way and to a certain extent. So, John is a human being, and as a human being he has both distinctive and general features. However with regard to John himself, that is, the particular person I aim at when I speak about John, the picture is slightly different. Individuality and similarity (universality) refer here to one and the same person. The uniqueness of John is now commonly referred to as numerical identity. There is only one singular John. Even if there were a John with the same birth date, fingerprint and DNA profile, this would be another John, John 2 so to say. This uniqueness is sometimes articulated in terms of the position John 1 and John 2 occupy in the space-time continuum. Because John 1 and John 2 cannot occupy the same spatiotemporal position, [End Page 347] they must be separate, two distinct entities. This is of course a limited view on uniqueness of persons; so, we will have to say more about this in a moment.The structural (or general) characteristics of John, the John-ness of John so to say, is commonly called qualitative identity. Qualitative identity consists of the sum of all those enduring properties which could serve as criterion to distinguish John from other persons in the world. Qualitative identity, however, does not completely coincide with structural identity, mentioned earlier. This is obvious from the fact that the John-ness of John refers to those structural (enduring, general) properties for which only this particular John qualifies, whereas the human being-ness of John refers to the properties John shares with all other human beings. So, in those cases in which the structural dimension of identity refers to only one entity, for instance in the case of the John-ness of John, the emphasis is not on intersubject similarity but on intrasubject similarity. This intrasubject similarity refers to continuity in time and to... (shrink)

Writing, the exigency of writing: no longer the writing that has always (through a necessity in no way avoidable) been in the service of the speech or thought that is called idealist (that is to say, moralizing), but rather the writing that through its own slowly liberated force (the aleatory force of absence) seems to devote itself solely to itself as something that remains without identity, and little by little brings forth possibilities that are entirely other: an anonymous, distracted, deferred, (...) and dispersed way of being in relation, by which everything is brought into question – and first of all the idea of God, of the Self, of the Subject, then of Truth and the One, then finally the idea of the Book and the Work so that this writing (understood in its enigmatic rigor), far from having the Book as its goal rather signals its end: a writing that could be said to be outside discourse, outside language. – Maurice Blanchot ( The Infinite Conversation , xi) The Compendium * Beginning with the idea and practice of writing, and moving to the subject or self, then to truth and the One, and arriving at the Book and the Work, Blanchot’s words reflect the trajectory of the following work of writing. True to the embeddedness of the subject in the work of writing, the term “Compendium” has been a metonym for me over the past few years as I have thought about the concept of totality alongside its expression in figures such as the One, the Whole, or the All. In the following I aim to share some of the content of this metonym, and to enrich it by making some distinctions. 1 Here the term “Compendium” will refer to a concept of totality that is ontological (pertaining to being, and the copula) and also textual (pertaining to the symbolic, and the signifier-signified relationship). The Compendium is a figure for thinking the world as a Book, in the broadest sense—an approach to reality that is by no means new, but one that is due for renewal. 2 In partial answer to the question of the Compendium we will say that the word ‘Compendium’ stands in for expressions which seek to totalize, or concepts which seek to approach the concept of ‘everything,’ particularly when these expressions are bound up in the question of the Book (both the book as a physical object and the Book as a metaphysical figure: a way of thinking about the work in and of writing). The question of the Compendium is strongly associated with the physical and metaphysical form of the Book, like the mysterious and symbolic books which are opened in the Biblical book of Revelation, the book of life and the book of death, which together constitute an important couplet. 3 Parataxis & Hypotaxis There are two helpful distinctions that will bring us closer to an answer to the question “What is a Compendium?” The first distinction is between two figures in and for writing: parataxis and hypotaxis . Typically paired in contrast to one another as literary techniques, with parataxis indicating a side-by-side placement of textual elements and hypotaxis referring to subordinate arrangements of textual elements, the two figures can be understood as having a philosophical significance in addition to their practical function as devices for writers. For us these two terms will remain between philosophical theory and writing practice, and serve as a perspective for our writing and creation of texts. Here I take texts to refer to anything from the concrete written words in a book, to the ontological text of the world that we experience. Parataxis , as a figural way of thinking about the ontological structure of texts, refers to texts which are tightly woven and interdependent – texts within which each sentence bears the weight of the entire work. Parataxis often involves repetition, great density, and fragility. One of the best examples of this sort of text is Theodor Adorno’s posthumous magnum opus , Aesthetic Theory . In addition to the text itself, the translation history of the book may also help us to better understand parataxis and its relation to hypotaxis . The final published version of Aesthetic Theory , in German, was a text that Adorno intended to revise and rewrite, but this intention was never realized because of his untimely death. Where the German text of Aesthetic Theory certainly exemplifies the concept of parataxis , the first English edition took this densely woven text and carved Adorno’s lengthy paragraphs and lengthy sentences into manageable ‘bite-sized’ pieces of English text. The first translator took further liberty and inserted headings and new paragraph breaks where there were none in the original. Aesthetic Theory was eventually retranslated by Robert Hullot-Kentor and is now available in a form that is much more faithful to the original work. 4 The pertinent idea that this translation history points to is the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis . Where parataxis describes texts which are repetitive, densely woven, and often fragile, hypotaxis describes texts which are hierarchical and in which the primary relation is linear – the latter of which is very similar to the first English translation of Aesthetic Theory . On the other hand, the original German text that Adorno wrote was very dense, often repetitive, and contained long sections of text unbroken by paragraphs or headings. This example of parataxis was then turned towards hypotaxis through the initial translation which took a text that was, in many ways, nonhierarchical and nonlinear, and artificially subjected it to a hierarchy that was not its own (and here I take the word of Fredric Jameson who comments on the two translations in a note at the beginning of his book Late Marxism ). 5 The point here is not about translation, but rather the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis precisely as they are figures for discourse, written or otherwise. The concept of parataxis looks far more postmodern and rhizomic than the concept of hypotaxis which remains very modern and arborescent. This is a more figural way of talking about the distinction. However, if we wanted to take a more precise and analytical approach we could say that on the level of form parataxis involves a relationship between sentences and paragraphs in which each part bears an equally crushing responsibility to present the whole content of the text. As well, on the level of content, parataxis requires that each concept in a work take on the full conceptual weight of the total work. Continuing the analysis, we could say that parataxis describes texts in which there is no (or very little) linear or causal move from antecedent to consequent, whether in content or form. Instead, parataxis describes texts which weave together concepts via conjugations or associations. The concept of hypotaxis , on the other hand, requires that texts submit themselves to hierarchy, one example of which is logical argumentation. The contingency of the conclusion upon premises in hypotaxis is certainly distinct from the repetition, re-presentation, and conjugation of concepts in parataxis , and I think that this is evident in the difference between the writing styles prevalent in contemporary Analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. It is not the case that the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis absolutely corresponds with the writing styles of Continental and Analytic philosophy (respectively). There are thinkers who take exception to this pattern, such as Badiou’s more formal approach in the discourse of Continental philosophy to give one example. However, when Analytic philosophy takes its writing lessons from the sciences, and seeks to do philosophy via the clean linear move from antecedent to consequent, then I think that Analytic philosophy writes with hypotaxis in mind. On the other hand, when Continental (particularly German and French) philosophy takes its writing lessons from narrative or poetry then Continental philosophy writes with parataxis in mind. It is not fair to say that all those writing Continental philosophy are looking to narrative and poetry for stylistic direction, just as it is not the case that all those writing Analytic philosophy have mathematics and science as their writing format, however there are some striking ways in which the differing epistemologies of Continental and Analytic philosophy encourage writing with parataxis and hypotaxis in mind (respectively). For some, writing with parataxis or hypotaxis in mind is a conscious decision and a product of stylistic self-consciousness, and for others it is an unconscious discursive and epistemic requirement that must be met in order to be involved in a particular discourse. Before moving on to our second distinction, and then an examination of the question of the Book, it is important to point out that both totality and figurations like the One, the Whole, and the All, come out of very human desires to totalize or to actualize our being-towards-totality. The relationship between identity and totality then can be construed, with Heidegger in mind, as striving toward wholeness, completion, or fulfillment, each of which is a quality of compendia. 6 Compilation & Selection The first distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis pertains to both form and content, and to both the mechanics of writing and the ideas to which writing refers. The second distinction pertains to both as well. In the process of writing and in the process of perception as well, there is a tension between compilation and selection . To begin with, in the work of theory-writing there is compilation, and this is because writing theory requires a broad perspective and certain measure of totalization. On the other hand, writing theory requires that the writer select an idea or a combination of ideas to individuate out of a radical and infinite multiplicity of identities and combinations. The concern here is not primarily for the writing of a theory about a specific idea, like a secondary work or a reference text. But rather the concern is with the writing of grand theories: Marx and Marxism, Derrida and Deconstruction, Husserl and Phenomenology, Sartre and Existentialism, Saussure and Structuralism —each of which strives along a trajectory towards being all-encompassing, whether it intends to or not. Today, we could even say that Speculative Realism has embarked on this journey, and perhaps now we could say that the discourse of Speculative Realism has reached the inevitable point after which a grand theory leaves the hands of its writer or writers and becomes a possession of the collective consciousness of the academy, or (perhaps now) the mass consciousness of the blogosphere—and this is a true pharmakon , a poison and a cure, a blessing and a curse. 7 When we write theory, whether the scope is that of a grand theory or a particular theory, we write in the tension between compilation (making good on the desire to be all encompassing) and selection (being required to decide and discern and to judge what is included in the work and what is deleted or appended or abridged or given over to ellipses). Generally speaking, the work of theory-writing often comes out of a desire to totalize, that is, to develop a theory of everything that is able to apprehend new experiences and ideas while still remaining whole. I grant that this is not a universal desire, and that not everyone who sits down to write a work (or book) of theory does so because of their will-to-totality, but it remains that this drive to totalize does condition a great many writers of theory (especially those who seek to develop grand theories like those mentioned previously). At the beginning of his book of interviews, Between Existentialism and Marxism , Sartre is quoted as saying, after completing the first volume of his Critique of Dialectical Reason : “I no longer feel the need to make long digressions in my books, as if I were forever chasing after my own philosophy. It will now be deposited in little coffins, and I will feel completely emptied and at peace—as I felt after Being and Nothingness . A feeling of emptiness: a writer is fortunate if he can attain such a state. For when one has nothing to say, one can say everything .” 8 This is where our two initial distinctions come to bear on the being-towards-totality as it is expressed in the concrete practice of writing: the first being between parataxis and hypotaxis , and the second being between compilation and selection. Where this second distinction is concerned there is a certain paradox at play given that selection is inescapable, and compilation is unachievable. Selection is inescapable (with the figure of the Compendium in mind) because, even when the imperative to compile is followed to excruciating lengths, selection still has the last word. This is why the Compendium is a figure rather than some material thing that can actually be accomplished or actualized. No matter how far one goes along with the will-to-archive and the will-to-compile, it is only ever a question of minimizing selection and never eliminating it. This leads to the second point, which is that total compilation is unachievable. The closest thing to total compilation that we have before us is the ontological and textual fabric of the world. Even in the case of the world, compilation cannot be enacted in a total fashion because of the need to include both the sphere of the actual and the sphere of the possible or potential. This as another way in which compilation is always-already selection, and further evidence that total compilation is practically impossible. Discursive Figuration and Total Writing Rather than figuration referring to a figure of speech or an image, here the term points to a way in which to think about the work of writing, both the work put into writing, and the work that is the result of writing: the finished yet incomplete final piece. As figures or figurations, the Book and the Compendium are ways of thinking about the work of writing and the human desire for the wholeness, completion, and fulfillment that are made manifest in the completed form of the book (whether a published or printed or saved document put to rest by the author). These two figures bear more strongly upon works that seek to be all-encompassing, and works that strive towards expressions of totality such as the One, the Whole, or the All. Moving on to the topic of the subtitle, and on a more prescriptive note, I would say that there is more hope for theory-writing to be found in parataxis than hypotaxis . Part of the reason for this claim is the poststructuralist critique of hierarchies, and yet another part is the compelling line of thinking called “weak thought” (in theology by John D. Caputo, and in philosophy by Gianni Vattimo, among others). 9 The consequences of these two convictions are such that if one is to strongly assert the truth of a grand theory without leaving the realm of hierarchy-critique and weak thought, then one must write paradoxically with parataxis in mind, and in so doing write weakly and non-hierarchically. This does not mean avoiding a sort of topography or topology when writing theory, rather it means avoiding both subjugation and oppression in thought by pursuing a nonviolent sort of ontology. In order to do this, theory writing does not present itself as an exercise in logical analysis where one mechanically moves from a set of premises (via contingency) to the inevitable conclusion (via necessity). Instead, theory approaches the idea of a Compendium. Given that the figural Compendium places parataxis and compilation above hypotaxis and selection, then the question becomes: is placing one part of a binary term before another not just another way of selecting, or another expression of hypotaxis ? Counter to the urge to resign oneself to the reign of selection, with some qualification one can nonetheless write without deciding whether selection and hypotaxis should be subservient to compilation and parataxis (which is to say that writing-without-decision is somewhere between and beyond possibility and impossibility). This dilemma can be disarmed by stating that theory writing is not about primacy, and not about having-decided-beforehand, both stylistically and also where content is concerned. This is the paradox of writing: always striving along a trajectory ( telos ) towards totality via parataxis and compilation, but always being drawn back to finitude and making selections, and placing one idea before another with hypotaxis in mind. In light of this paradox, the question of the Compendium as a figure for discourse and a figural Book has resonance with Jacques Derrida’s essay on Edmund Jabès’ Book of Questions , found in his Writing and Difference . The Question of the Book “Little by little the book will finish me.” 10 Derrida quotes Jabès, and proceeds to outline the reflexive relationship between the author of the book and the book itself, each of which are subjected to the other through a sort of chiasmus, both ontological and textual (not that the two are entirely separable). The Book, for Derrida like Blanchot in the introductory quotation, “infinitely reflects itself” and “develops as a painful questioning of its own possibility”, and in light of this we can draw an association with the painful tension between the practical reality of selection and the ideal trajectory of compilation. 11 This tension in writing, between the will to total compilation and the necessity of abridgment, is an ontological tension between part and whole just as it is a textual tension between signifier and signified. The ontological tension in writing that Derrida expresses in his essay on Jabès is between everything and nothing – a contradiction which Derrida finds in Jabès’ Book of Questions and also in the divine, in God. When one writes between compilation and selection one writes towards totality, and here we can follow Derrida who states that the lapse in signification, presumably in the signifier-signified discrepancy, is a “ rupture with totality itself” and furthermore that this lapse cannot be rectified through deductive reason or even philosophical discourse. 12 This rupture with totality, found in the troubled relation between signifier and signified, can also tell us a lot about the Book and about writing. Given an understanding of writing as an ontological act that strives towards (but never accomplishes) totality, we can see the written book as the manifested and given body of that striving. Perhaps in other disciplines or even other schools of philosophy there is a cultural climate within which the article is prized above the book, but I am fairly confident, especially when referring to the grand theories of Continental thought, that there is a respect for the book as a uniquely meaningful object capable of apprehending totality. Derrida writes, Between the too warm flesh of the literal event and the cold skin of the concept runs meaning. This is how it enters into the book. Everything enters into, transpires in the book. This is why the book is never finite. It always remains suffering and vigilant. 13 Here the vitality of the literal event is compromised by the deadening weight of the concept, and the figure of the Book assists in this lapse of meaning. The Book is a totalizing object, much like the figure of the Compendium, and yet this totalization lacks its final object of completed totality both because the figural Book is necessarily incomplete, and because the physical book is always-already a product of selection. Instead of achieving its end of being a place where everything takes place, it suffers from the lapse of writing, the discrepancy between event and concept. Derrida continues his exposition on Jabès by bringing to light yet another reflexive relation, a reversal of the relationship between the Book and the world. Derrida writes that, for Jabès, “the book is not in the world, but the world is in the book.” 14 In addition to what was stated before, I take figuration to mean that the concepts employed, such as the Book or the Compendium, are not subject to the supposed rigor of analysis that is so prized by Enlightenment or Capitalist realisms. The figure of the Book and the figure of the Compendium cannot be held accountable to standards imported from scientific method, given an understanding that these standards require a concept to be replicable, consistent, falsifiable, measurable, and so on… This is an important point to make, especially in the present atmosphere within which theory must justify itself under conditions that are not its own. Instead of being held to these standards, figuration serves as a way in which to think about writing that leaves thought open to idealistic speculation, imperfect analogies, and most importantly the ever-present gain and loss that occur in the relationship between thought and being. By extension the figural way of addressing writing indulges in enough generalization to accommodate the excess/lack relationship between the ideal form of the Book or the Compendium, and the manifested and given body of a text (as it is practically completed and closed). Here we speak against the hostile atmosphere which would have theory submit itself to hierarchical rigor, rather than Blanchot’s “enigmatic rigor”, by being explicit about the discursive conditions and epistemic conditions under which theory operates. To write with parataxis in mind is, to a certain degree, to write with weakness as one’s methodology (with weak thought being in opposition to hypotaxis and hierarchy as much as weak thought can be in opposition to anything). Rather than asserting the strength of hierarchical theory, and rather than employing antagonistic argumentation with the goal of refutation different discursive and epistemic conditions for theory writing must be cultivated (and these are by no means new). First the critical and theoretical spirit reveals itself as being concerned with the task of complication—especially the complication and critique of binaries, dichotomies, dualities, polarities, paradoxes, parallaxes, hybridities, and especially antinomies. Second, theory positions itself as a sort of showing or revealing, rather than being ultimately focused on coming to full agreement or disagreement. This is where figuration can help theory-writing, both by placing emphasis on teleologies and trajectories (like parataxis and compilation), and by shifting focus away from pure primacy, power, or absolute origin. Figuration then, assists theory writing by placing the concern of theory outside of the concerns of the hard or soft sciences, and into the realm of thought or the idea. To speak of ‘the’ Compendium or ‘the’ Book, here, is to generalize not regarding the perfect form of the Compendium or Book, but to engage speculatively with an abstract idea which remains singular and yet complicated by multiplicity. The question of the Book that Derrida asks through Jabès is a question of everything and nothing, totality and nonbeing, and this question is a concern for writing and a concern for the figure of the Compendium so defined by the tension between compilation and selection, and parataxis and hypotaxis . On the note of nonbeing, we can look to the final page of Derrida’s first essay on Jabès in Writing and Difference and notice the introduction of his neologism, différance (with an ‘a’). Derrida writes: Life negates itself in literature only so that it may survive better. So that it may be better. It does not negate itself any more than it affirms itself: it differs from itself, defers itself, and writes itself as différance . Books are always books of life (the archetype would be the Book of Life kept by the God of the Jews) or of afterlife (the archetype would be the Books of the Dead kept by the Egyptians). 15 This introduction of différance into the equation of the Book, alongside ontological affirmation and negation, hearkens back to the discussion of the symbolic lapse earlier in his essay. Differing and deferring, the Book is always a Book of Life and a figure for the intersection of the vital (life) and the total in writing. In a way, the writer of the Book may be someone who lives life, and in another way the writer of the book-as-object may be someone who engages in the act of writing, both practically (by inscribing words on paper, or typing script on a computer) and ontologically or symbolically (by investing their existence and inexistence into a work worthy of the figural Book). In addition to the writer as writer, the writer also serves as an editor, and the editorial role alongside the idea of the Compendium shows the editor to be one who collects and compiles, while being restrained by eventual selection and decision. Beyond this the editor of works and texts, in both the Book and the world, is engaged in a process of inscribing notation—of annotating (on) the Compendium. Eternal commentary is a feature of the textual Compendium, just as open-ended totality describes the ontological Compendium. The writer as writer does not simply write texts, but rather engages in a profoundly ontological act of inscribing their existence into the world, and the writer as editor does not merely annotate or alter texts as they are, but rather comments upon the text of the world. In/Conclusion So as we create texts, and as we write and create theory, let us be and remain attentive to the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book. These two concurrent metonymies are essential for total writing (grand theories, etc.), and may be forgettable for those concerned with fragmentary or hierarchical writing (which are valid in their own right). From the ontological and symbolic text of the world and phenomenological experience, to concrete texts such as books or mixed media, the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book are important for the actualization of the human will to be all-encompassing. The figure of the Compendium teaches writers of theory that the repetition, density, and fragility of parataxis offers a strong sort of weakness which does not become yet another variety of oppressive and hegemonic thought. Rather than write with hypotaxis in mind, subjugating one thought to another via cause and effect or antecedent and consequent, I would hope that theory-writing could guiltlessly indulge in the dialectical and contradictory conjugation of ideas, and take this as a legitimate methodology. Rather than being ashamed of showing resonances or giving way to abridgment or ellipses, it is my own authorial (but not authoritative) conviction that one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the fact that complete totalization is impossible, and one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the worry of violence, for the Book and the Compendium lack their completed object and are ever incomplete trajectories. NOTES * UPDATED 7/19/13: we've updated the HTML version to reflect the (correct) PDF version. Our apologies to the author—eds. 1. I would like extend thanks to Dr. Peter Schwenger of the University of Western Ontario for his comments on this paper and his hospitality as it was presented as a Theory Session at the Centre for Theory and Criticism on October 26th 2012. I would also like to thank Andrew Weiss for conversation and critique. 2. I should clarify my use of the term ‘figure’ at the outset. Given the use of the term by Jean-Francois Lyotard in Discourse, Figure (and also Gilles Deleuze in Francis Bacon ), I should state clearly that my use of the term will not correspond to the term ‘figure’ understood as the representation of an object. Instead, my use of the term ‘figure’ and its variations (‘figural’, ‘figurative’, ‘figuration’) will refer to the illustrative or metaphorical use of the Compendium or the Book as models or ways of thinking about writing and discourse. 3. Cf. Revelations 20:12-15. 4. Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory , Trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London & New York: Continuum Press, 1997). 5. Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or the Persistence of the Dialectic (London & New York: Verso, 1990), ix-x. 6. I have written about this concept of being-towards-totality elsewhere in two pieces of writing: the first is called Notes on the Compendium (an unfinished draft) which addresses some very wide theoretical concerns, being structured as a sort of itinerary or archive, and the second is Dialectics Unbound (Punctum Books, 2013) which outlines a concept of totality without the violence of totalization. While these works are more concerned with ontological totality, here I would like to focus on the idea of the Compendium as a textual totality. 7. Cf. Louis Morelle, “Speculative Realism: After Finitude and Beyond, A vade mecum” in Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism . Issue 3 (Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, 2012), 241-272. 8. Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism . Trans. John Matthews (London & New York: Verso, 1974), 9. 9. Cf. John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006). 10. Jacques Derrida, “Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book” in Writing and Difference . Trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 65. 11. Ibid, 65. 12. Ibid, 71. 13. Ibid, 75. 14. Ibid, 76. 15. Ibid, 78. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

Predictive algorithms are playing an increasingly prominent role in society, being used to predict recidivism, loan repayment, job performance, and so on. With this increasing influence has come an increasing concern with the ways in which they might be unfair or biased against individuals in virtue of their race, gender, or, more generally, their group membership. Many purported criteria of algorithmic fairness concern statistical relationships between the algorithm’s predictions and the actual outcomes, for instance requiring that the rate (...) of false positives be equal across the relevant groups. We might seek to ensure that algorithms satisfy all of these purported fairness criteria. But a series of impossibility results shows that this is impossible, unless base rates are equal across the relevant groups. What are we to make of these pessimistic results? I argue that none of the purported criteria, except for a calibration criterion, are necessary conditions for fairness, on the grounds that they can all be simultaneously violated by a manifestly fair and uniquely optimal predictive algorithm, even when base rates are equal. I conclude with some general reflections on algorithmic fairness. (shrink)

What is a disaster? This paper explores the different hermeneutic levels that need to be taken into consideration when approaching this question through the case of Japan. Instead of a view of disasters as spatiotemporal events, we approach disasters from the perspective of the milieu. First, based on the Japanese «dictionaries of disasters», the Japanese vocabulary of disaster is described. Second, this paper reviews briefly the Japanese interdisciplinary disaster-management tradition. To highlight the human-made aspect of disasters, the idea of fūdo (...) 風土 is introduced. This concept allows us to see disasters as a phenomenon of the milieu, which emerges from the co-constitutive relations between individuals, communities, and the local environment. The final part debates the narratives by some national and international political actors that link «Japanese identity and culture» to disaster management and sometimes include nationalist claims rooted in the essentialization of the «Japanese exception». Given the cruciality of sociocultural and political representations of disasters tied to identity politics, and the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, a long-term, local people-focused and culturally sensitive perspective on disasters might be better adapted to the climate change era. (shrink)

This article recapitulates and develops the attempts in the Nietzschean traditions to address and overcome the proliferation of nihilism that Nietzsche predicted to unfold in the next 200 years (WP 2). Nietzsche approached nihilism not merely as a psychology but as a labyrinthic and pervasive historical process whereby the highest values of culture and founding assumptions of philosophical thought prevented the further flourishing of life. Therefore, he thought nihilism had to be encountered and experienced on many, often opposing, fronts to (...) be fully consumed and left behind. Thus, just as Nietzsche captured the subtle reinventions of nihilism in new forms in his time, in the new doers assumed behind new deeds (WP 488), this article focuses on the contemporary tectonic shifts brought by digital technology and challenges subjectivation and narrativization of algorithmic will to power in human-like interfaces such as ChatGPT. Having identified philosophers and himself as the most advanced nihilists in their overvaluation of truth, in the 4th part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche grappled with the difficult, perhaps impossible, temporality of post-nihilistic historicity that oscillates between highest creativity and highest truths, especially in the sections entitled The Shadow and At Noon whereby he explored new temporal techniques to evade the relapses into temporal nihilisms of the notions of linear progress or eternity (TSZ, 4). By drawing on this juncture, this article offers ways to address transfigurations of nihilism behind new technological performances of subjectivity. The article points toward creative temporalities beyond narrativity and subjectivity insofar as the statistical operations and probabilistic estimations of language-models exceed grammatical construction of meaning. This multifaceted application of his thought on the contemporary ontic reality is necessary to perceive our comet's incalculable movement as a veritable ray of sunshine. (shrink)

Evidence from functional neuroimaging of the human brain indicates that information about salient properties of an object¿such as what it looks like, how it moves, and how it is used¿is stored in sensory and motor systems active when that information was acquired. As a result, object concepts belonging to different categories like animals and tools are represented in partially distinct, sensory- and motor property-based neural networks. This suggests that object concepts are not explicitly represented, but rather emerge from weighted activity (...) within property-based brain regions. However, some property-based regions seem to show a categorical organization, thus providing evidence consistent with category-based, domain-specific formulations as well.Acronyms and DefinitionsBiological motion: motion of animate agents characterized by highly flexible, fully articulated motion vectors, in contrast to the rigid, unarticulated motion vectors associated with most tools.Category-specific disorder: a relatively greater impairment in retrieving information about members of one superordinate object category (e.g., animals) as compared with other categories following brain injury or diseaseIPS: intraparietal sulcusLO: lateral occipital cortexObject concept: memory representations of a class or category of objects. Necessary for numerous cognitive functions including identifying an object as a member of a specific category and drawing inferences about object propertiespMTG: posterior middle temporal gyruspSTS: posterior superior temporal sulcusRepetition suppression: decreased neural response associated with repeated presentation of an identical, or a semantically/conceptually related, stimulusSD: semantic dementiaSemantic memory: a large division of long-term memory containing knowledge about the world including facts, ideas, beliefs, and conceptsSemantic priming: a short-lasting facilitation in processing a stimulus due to the prior presentation of a semantically related stimulusTMS: transcranial magnetic stimulationVPMC: ventral premotor cortex. (shrink)

‘Soul’, ‘self’, ‘substance’ and ‘person’ are just four of the terms often used to refer to the human individual. Cutting across metaphysics, ethics, and religion the nature of personal identity is a fundamental and long-standing puzzle in philosophy. Personal Identity and Applied Ethics introduces and examines different conceptions of the self, our nature, and personal identity and considers the implications of these for applied ethics. A key feature of the book is that it considers a range of different approaches to (...) personal identity; philosophical, religious, and cross-cultural, including perspectives from non-Western traditions. Within this comparative framework, Andrea Sauchelli examines the following topics: -Early views of the soul in Plato, Christianity, and Descartes -The Buddhist ‘no-self’ views and the self as a fiction -Confucian ideas of our nature and the importance of self-cultivation as constitutive of the self -Locke’s theory of personal identity as continuity of consciousness and memory and objections to Locke’s argument by Butler and Reid as well as contemporary critics -The theory of ‘animalism’ and arguments concerning embodied concepts of personal identity -Practical and narrative theories of personal identity and moral agency -Personal identity and issues in applied ethics, including abortion, organ transplantation, and the idea of life after death -Implications of life-extending technologies for personal identity. Throughout the book Sauchelli also considers the views of important recent philosophers of personal identity such as Sydney Shoemaker, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman, and Christine Korsgaard, placing these in helpful historical context. Chapter summaries, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading make this a refreshing, approachable introduction to personal identity and applied ethics. It is an ideal text for courses on personal identity that consider both Western and non-Western approaches and that apply theories of personal identity to ethical problems. It will also be of interest to those in related subjects such as religious studies and history of ideas. (shrink)

The object of this thesis is the examination of the concept of political representation in the corpus of Hobbes, Locke, Hegel and Marx. Through the method of textualreconstruction I foreground the concept’s salience in their writings. Political representation constitutes a unitary political society as the basis of representative government by entrusting to a separate part of the political community the exercise of the legislative and executive functions on behalf of the political society. Hobbes’s author-actor model grounded the concept of political (...) representation by introducing the act of the transfer of will to a representative by authorisation. Thereby he established the problematic relationship of permanently alienated, absolute, representative power acting in the name of the political community. Locke conceptualised political representation in a way that restored to political society the power to determine the legitimacy of its representative government in case the latter transgressed the norm of acting for the public good of society. Hegel, in turn, assigned to political representation the crucial function of integrating civil society into the power system of the state thus securing the identity of subjective and objective freedom in the rational state, though political representation bestows only formal freedom to civil society’s involvement in the affairs of the state. For Marx, the relationship of political representation makes the representative polity appear as a democratically governed political society within which individual freedom and the public good are secured. This is vitiated by the rift between political society/state and civil society. Marx censures liberal and republican theory for ignoring the primacy of civil/bourgeois society over the representative political society. As a consequence,he argues,the representative polity is not a form of self-government but other-determined and neither freedom nor the public good are realised. Instead, under the regime of private property, money assumes the authorial function of organising social exchange and human relations, shaping the representative polity after its own image, and thus it renders democracy as popular sovereignty a lie. (shrink)