In this article, I apply a structural-phenomenological conception of experience and self to the anthropological theorizing of spirit possession. In particular, I argue that a phenomenology of the alien, as elaborated by the philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels, allows for a more differentiated understanding of possession phenomena. Following a characterization of alienness—in conceptual distinction from the more common term “otherness”—as a dimension that necessarily eludes experience, I describe spirit possession as a cultural technology to appropriate the experiential alien by transforming it (...) into the symbolic other. I discuss this relation to the alien in thematic areas central to the anthropology of possession: illness and therapy, symbolism and naming, embodiment and self. (shrink)

This chapter challenges the assumption of attention functioning as a means of preventing consciousness from getting overloaded, and also challenges the assumption of any relationships between management of scarce resources and the original biological function of attention. It emphasizes that attention is directly derived from mechanisms governing the control of basic movements. The author establishes the theoretical stage through discussions on the implications of the brain’s preference to stimulus events and action plans in a feature-based manner and processing information through (...) different mechanisms. The chapter also discusses many empirical findings supporting the conception of action planning and action control having the potential to determine perception and attention. (shrink)

Wiredu argues intriguingly that some philosophical questions only arise in certain linguistic settings. So philosophical questions are, on occasion, linguistically relative or, more vividly, Tongue Dependent. The phenomenon however does not rest on expressive differences between languages, or, better, on failures of translation. Though rejecting his example, I endorse the general possibility he constructs. I do so provided that there is a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. Indeed I point out that the possibility of Tongue Dependency is both necessary (...) and sufficient for a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. I then offer a solution to the Paradox of Analysis in a Fregean setting, by distinguishing within the cognitive value of a claim between cognitive accomplishment and cognitive significance. The results of analysis involve cognitive accomplishment, though have no cognitive significance. I recommend my account as dealing well with a problem Salmon raised for the Church-Frege account. Finally, I direct my account on vocabularies rather than claims and note that, though possible, actual cases of Tongue Dependency within natural languages are highly doubtful. The phenomenon does not have the cultural significance Wiredu claims for it. (shrink)

This paper seeks to introduce cultural techniques to an Anglophone readership. Specifically geared towards an Anglophone readership, the paper relates the re-emergence of cultural techniques (a concept first employed in the 19th century in an agricultural context) to the changing intellectual constellation of postwar Germany. More specifically, it traces how the concept evolved from – and reacted against – so-called German media theory, a decidedly anti-hermeneutic and anti-humanist current of thought frequently associated with the work of Friedrich Kittler. Post-hermeneutic rather (...) than anti-hermeneutic in its outlook, the reconceptualization of cultural techniques aims at presenting them as chains of operations that link humans, things, media and even animals. To investigate cultural techniques is to shift the analytic gaze from ontological distinctions to the ontic operations that gave rise to the former in the first place. As Siegert points out, this shift recalls certain concurrent developments within the North American posthumanities; the paper therefore also includes a discussion of the similarities and differences between German and North American posthumanism. (shrink)

This comment deals with some basic elements Searle uses in order to construct social reality, i.e. togetherness, we-intentionality and the distinction between institutional and brute facts. The commentator argues that Searle’s theory tends to a partial biologism because lacking a sufficient concept of embodiment. Consequently ‘pre-institutional facts’ such as eating, copulating, working or torturing are systematically underdetermined. On the deontic level the theory relies on natural processes of conventional power. So the distinction between factual acceptance and acceptability is blurred by (...) a sort of conformism, and one neglects the status of dissidents and victims whose belonging to the predominant ‘we’ remains highly dubious. (shrink)

Biodiversity sciences witness a double dynamic. Whereas the need for interdisciplinary approaches is increasingly appreciated, most disciplinary studies are still confined to developing operational, discipline-specific indices. We show that a reassessment of the general notion of biodiversity is needed to clarify this situation. We advocate a new approach, according to which the main usefulness of this notion is not to capture quantitatively biological objects or processes, but to organize meaningful and coherent interdisciplinary interactions by constructively criticizing disciplinary studies. We apply (...) this approach to ecological-economic models, in the hope of launching more fruitful critical dialogs between economists and biologists. (shrink)

We define a generalized notion of rank for stable theories without dense forking chains, and use it to derive that every type is domination-equivalent to a finite product of regular types. We apply this to show that in a small theory admitting finite coding, no realisation of a nonforking extension of some strong type can be algebraic over some realisation of a forking extension.

Abstractabstract:This article explores the specific profiles of the understanding of ultimate reality in Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to ask whether there are points of contact between the Christian-Muslim and the Christian-Buddhist conception of divine reality. Thereby, the soteriological interest of Christian trinitarian thinking and the differences to the apophatic thinking in Islam but also the personal understanding of divine reality and the transnumeric unity of God come into view. Moreover, there are Muslim positions that assign the instances of divine Word (...) and divine Spirit as eternal prestige and attributive to the essence of God, whereby a new basis for discussion could be gained. On the other hand, the differences between Buddhist thinking of emptiness and Christian apophatism boil down to the question of whether nirvāṇa as the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) of transcendent reality (lokottara) as a notborn (ajātaṁ), a not-brought-to-being (abhūtaṁ), a not-conditioned (asaṇkhataṁ) may be understood as a reality that is not separate from, but distinct from saṃsāra. Then emptiness or "śūnyatā is non-śūnyatā (aśūnyatā); therefore, it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyanta-śūnyatā)" (Abe). In this way, Buddhist thinking of emptiness can come into conversation with Christian thinking of self-emptying (kenosis). Muslim and Buddhist thinking on the subject of transcendence invite Christians to accentuate the apophatic side of the divine, and to locate the Trinitarian differentiation both within the divine and in the history of salvation in a cataphatic movement. With these indications, the difference between the Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist galaxies of thinking ultimate reality is not abolished, but points of contact and possible mutual suggestions become visible, which allow a further and deepening conversation. (shrink)

This research commentary proposes a conceptual framework for studying big tech companies as “technical systems” that organize much of their operation around the mastery and operationalization of key technologies that facilitate and drive their continuous expansion. Drawing on the study of Large Technical Systems (LTS), on the work of historian Bertrand Gille, and on the economics of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), it outlines a way to study the “tech” in “big tech” more attentively, looking for compatibilities, synergies, and dependencies between (...) the technologies created and deployed by these companies. Using Google as example, the paper shows how to interrogate software and hardware through the lens of transversal applicability, discusses software and hardware integration, and proposes the notion of “data amalgams” to contextualize and complicate the notion of data. The goal is to complement existing vectors of “big tech” critique with a perspective sensitive to the specific materialities of specific technologies and their possible consequences. (shrink)

Studies investigating differences in mental health problems between self-employed and employed workers have provided contradictory results. Many of the studies utilized scales validated for employed workers, without collecting validity evidence for making comparisons with self-employed. The aim of this study was to collect validity evidence for three different scales assessing depressive symptoms, emotional exhaustion, and sleep disturbances for employed workers, and combinators; and to test if these groups differed. We first conducted approximate measurement invariance analysis and found that all scales (...) were invariant at the scalar level. Self-employed workers had least mental health problems and employed workers had most, but differences were small. Though we found the scales invariant, we do not find them optimal for comparison of means. To be more precise in describing differences between groups, we recommend using clinical cut-offs or scales developed with the specific purpose of assessing mental health problems at work. (shrink)

Generics exhibit genericity, and though a theory of generics is closely connected to a theory of genericity, the two are distinct. They raise a host of interesting linguistic and philosophical issues, both separately and in their interaction. This chapter begins with a fairly manifest phenomenon one can observe in natural language. There is a range of sentences that, speaking intuitively, one can use to talk about kinds. It argues that there's no simple statistical criterion that systematically captures the patterns of (...) the truth and falsity of generics. Generics seem to not just be substantially independent of statistical facts in the world and at the time with respect to which they are evaluated. The chapter points‐out a likely form of context dependence in generics, and argues that on a quantificational approach to generics, the restrictor of the generic quantifier must be determined at least in part by the predicate at issue. (shrink)

We characterize the tree of functions with finite support in terms of definability. This turns out to have various applications: a new kind of tree dichotomy for ω1 on the one hand. On the other hand, we prove a reflection principle for trees on ω2 under SPFA. This reflection of trees implies stationary reflection.

We present a modal logic for the class of subset spaces based on discretely descending chains of sets. Apart from the usual modalities for knowledge and effort the standard temporal connectives are included in the underlying language. Our main objective is to prove completeness of a corresponding axiomatization. Furthermore, we show that the system satisfies a certain finite model property and is decidable thus.