This article attempts to outline some critical aspects of the accelerationist movement. More specifically, it argues that light can be shed on key aspects of the political proposals of Williams and Srnicek by considering them from the perspective of the socio-political reflections of both Lacan and Deleuze and Guattari. Anti-Oedipus is one crucial starting point for accelerationist thinking, in terms of the concept of the ‘machinic’ and the explicit reference to ‘acceleration’, but it is equally obvious that Lacan has been (...) an important figure in the debate on the topic of ‘desire’. Likewise, and for the same reasons, accelerationism offers the potential for a fruitful reconsideration of Deleuzian philosophy, and of the difficult relationship between schizo- analysis and psycho-analysis. We argue that, in the light of accelerationism, the perspectives of Deleuze and Guattari and Lacan do converge, in particular around the theoretical articulation of the concept of the ‘political’. Accelerationism, as many critics have noted, has numerous implications in the field of subjectivity and often falls into a general plea for a strong neo-Enlightenment. Hence we will attempt to explicate these implications by attempting to read accelerationism via the psychoanalytic categories of jouissance and fantasy. This last category, as Stavrakakis has shown, is directly linked to the political category of ‘Utopia’, and therefore provides an adequate theoretical basis for such a psychoanalytic reading of accelerationism. Should accelerationism be considered the only way out of the socio-political constraints of neoliberalism today? However we approach this question, the argument pursued here is that the best starting points for a critique of accelerationism are the concepts of jouissance, the state/capital relationship, schizo-analysis and paranoid ways of functioning. (shrink)

This book explores how philosophical realisms relate to psychoanalytical conceptions of the Real, and in turn how the Lacanian framework challenges basic philosophical notions of object and reality. The author examines how contemporary psychoanalysis might respond to the question of ontology by taking advantage of the recent revitalization of realism in its speculative form. While the philosophical side of the debate makes a plea for an independent ontological consistency of the Real, this book proposes a Lacanian reassessment of the definition (...) of the Real as ‘what is foreign to subjectivity itself’. In doing so, it reframes the question of the Real in terms of what is already there beneath the supposedly linguistic constitution of subjectivity. The book then goes on to engage the problem of cognition in the realm of Nature qua materiality, focusing on the centrality of the body as a linguistic-material hybrid. It argues that it is possible to re-establish the theoretical dignity of Ricoeur’s notion of ‘suspicion’, by building a dialogue between Lacanian psychoanalysis and three main domains of inquiry: desire, objects and bodily enjoyment. Borrowing from Piera Aulagnier’s theory of the Other as a word-bearer, it considers the genesis of desire and sense of reality both explainable through a hybrid framework which comprises psychoanalytical insights and material dynamics in a comprehensive account. This created theoretical space is an opportunity for both philosophers and psychoanalysts to rethink key Lacanian insights in light of the problem of the Real. (shrink)

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange (...) that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

The European Union Data Protection Regulation will have profound implications for public health, health services research and statistics in Europe. The EU Commission's Proposal was a breakthrough in balancing privacy rights and rights to health and healthcare. The European Parliament, however, has proposed extensive amendments. This paper reviews the amendments proposed by the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and their implications for health research and statistics. The amendments eliminate most innovations brought by the Proposal. Notably, (...) derogation to the general prohibition of processing sensitive data shall be allowed for public interests such as the management of healthcare services, but not health research, monitoring, surveillance and governance. The processing of personal health data for historical, statistical or scientific purposes shall be allowed only with the consent of the data subject or if the processing serves an exceptionally high public interest, cannot be performed otherwise and is legally authorised. Research, be it academic, government, corporate or market research, falls under the same rule. The proposed amendments will make difficult or render impossible research and statistics involving the linkage and analysis of the wealth of data from clinical, administrative, insurance and survey sources, which have contributed to improving health outcomes and health systems performance and governance; and may illegitimise efforts that have been made in some European countries to enable privacy-respectful data use for research and statistical purposes. If the amendments stand as written, the right to privacy is likely to override the right to health and healthcare in Europe. (shrink)

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange (...) that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

A novel and versatile polarization-entanglement scheme is adopted to investigate the violation of the EPR local realism for a non-maximally entangled two-photon system according to the recent “nonlocality proof” by Lucien Hardy. In this context the adoption of a sophisticated detection method allows direct determination of any “element of physical reality” (viz., determined “with probability equal to unity” in the words of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) for the pair system within complete measurements that are largely insensitive to the detector quantum-efficiencies (...) and noise. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Fuzzy Logic and Applications held in Naples, Italy, in October 2003. The 40 revised full papers presented have gone through two rounds of reviewing and revision. All current issues of theoretical, experimental and applied fuzzy logic and related techniques are addressed with special attention to rough set theory, neural networks, genetic algorithms and soft computing. The papers are organized in topical section on fuzzy sets and systems, (...) fuzzy control, neuro-fuzzy systems, fuzzy decision theory and application, and soft computing in image processing. (shrink)

Julia Driver has argued that there is a special set of actions, lodged between neutral actions and wrongful actions called suberogatory actions. These actions are not impermissible, according to Driver, but still strike us as troubling or bad, and are therefore worse than morally neutral (1992). Since this paper was written 20 years ago, many philosophers have utilized or alluded to this moral territory. The existence of some action-types that are not wrong but still carry some dis-value has become a (...) staple in the realm of moral evaluation. However, Driver's argument for the existence of this moral territory amounts to three types of moral cases that, according to Driver, can only be explained by the existence of the suberogatory. In this short paper, I will respond by saying that we can account for these cases using our traditional notions of moral neutrality and moral wrongness. The temptation of invoking the suberogatory is that it can be used as a substitute for answering a variety of hard ethical questions. However appealing this substitute may be, we should resist it so long as the problem cases put forward to motivate the new evaluative realm can be handled, and handled well, by our traditional apparatus. (shrink)

Objectives: To foster the development of a privacy-protective, sustainable cross-border information system in the framework of a European public health project. Materials and methods: A targeted privacy impact assessment was implemented to identify the best architecture for a European information system for diabetes directly tapping into clinical registries. Four steps were used to provide input to software designers and developers: a structured literature search, analysis of data flow scenarios or options, creation of an ad hoc questionnaire and conduction of a (...) Delphi procedure. Results: The literature search identified a core set of relevant papers on privacy. Technicians envisaged three candidate system architectures, with associated data flows, to source an information flow questionnaire that was submitted to the Delphi panel for the selection of the best architecture. A detailed scheme envisaging an “aggregation by group of patients” was finally chosen, based upon the exchange of finely tuned summary tables. Conclusions: Public health information systems should be carefully engineered only after a clear strategy for privacy protection has been planned, to avoid breaching current regulations and future concerns and to optimise the development of statistical routines. The BIRO project delivers a specific method of privacy impact assessment that can be conveniently used in similar situations across Europe. (shrink)

Knowing is an activity through which agents and world produce themselves. This is often expressed by the enactive claim that agents bring forth a world. I analyse this idea for different modes of agent–environment engagement: interactional, transactional, and constitutional. Something is produced in each case. Bringing forth a world is not only an epistemic but an ontological claim. Acts in their fine structure result from a process of fact production, or f/acts. F/acts co-emerge with their 'preconditions', e.g.intentions, affordances, across the (...) subject/object divide. F/acts define their inner temporality and affectivity, comprising both event and experience. A plurality of worlds is admitted in this enactive view, without entailing antirealism. We cannot bring forth just any world. World resistance organizes action and experience. I touch on the implications for objectivity and free will and discuss the primordiality of activity, community, and relationality. From a notion of groundlessness in early enactive work, I suggest that a participatory universe is better conceived as a meshwork of groundless grounds. (shrink)

Jerrold Levinson’s Contemplating Art provides the readers with a variety of heterogeneous topics and issues. The discussants who took part in the Forum about Levinson’s book chose four different “tracks” dealt with, offering four different reflections. The main topics of the debate are: music, historicity, aesthetic properties and aesthetic contextualism. Starting on the fact that music is one of the main fields of Contamplating Art Alessandro Bertinetto focus his paper on the ‘musical’ chapters of the book that 1) defend the (...) theory of musical expressivity presented by Levinson in his previous books ; 2. articulate it in reference to particular aspects of musical experience, and 3. examine its contribution for the understanding of the narrative and dramatic dimension of music as well as 4., in general, for its artistic value. Michele Di Monte’s aim is to focus on the questions raised by the alleged essential historicality of the concept of art and the formal definition of the concept itself. He discusses, in particular, the epistemic basis and status of what Levinson calls ‘our present concept of art’, the logical outcomes of its role in defining and identifying the art of the past and the problematic relationship between a universality requirement and the theory’s pretension to historicality. Filippo Focosi discusses in the first place the passages of Levinson’s book where his paradigmatic aesthetic principle explicitly occurs; secondly, he shows how such a principle, as is there articulated, can disclose interest perspectives on other aspects of Levinson’s theories about art and aesthetic properties. The paper by Lisa Giombini focuses on on the role of context in Levinson’s definition of art.Afterdefining Levinson’s version of aesthetic contextualism, Giombiniunderlines how Levinson’s intentional-historical definition may provide fertile ground for a peculiar form of contextualism where the relevant context is constituted by the history of art and the practice of art alone. Finally she inquires whether Levinson’s identifying works of art with wholly relational intentionally-historically defined concepts may interfere with his adhesion to aesthetic realism. (shrink)

al-Mujallad al-awwal. Muqaddimāt al-taḥqīq wa-muqaddimat al-Imām al-Zubaydī lil-Itḥāf -- al-mujallad al-thānī. Kitāb al-ʻIlm ilá nihāyat al-bāb al-thālith -- al-mujallad al-thālith. Tatimmat kitāb al-ʻilm min al-bāb al-rābiʻ ilá ākhir al-kitāb -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ. Kitāb Qawāʻid al-ʻaqāʼid -- al-mujallad al-khāmis. Kitāb Asrār al-ṭahārah -- al-mujallad al-sādis. Kitāb Asrār al-ṣalāh ilá nihāyat shurūṭ al-jumʻah min al-bāb al-khāmis -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ. Tatimmat kitāb asrār al-ṣalāh min ādāb al-jumʻah ilá ākhir al-kitāb -- al-mujallad al-thāmin. Kitābā Asrār al-zakāh wa-asrār al-ṣawm -- al-mujallad al- tāsiʻ. Kitāb asrār (...) al-ḥajj -- al-mujallad al-ʻāshir. Kitābā ādāb tilāwat al-Qurʼān wa-al-adhkār wa-al-daʻawāt -- al-mujallad al-ḥādī ʻashar. Kitābā tartīb al-awrād wa-tafḍīl iḥyāʼ al-layl wa-ādāb al-akl -- al-mujalladal-thānī ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-Nikāḥ wa-ādāb al-Kasb wa-al-maʻāsh -- al-mujallad al-thālith ʻashar. Kitāb al-Ḥalāl wa-al-ḥarām -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ ʻashar. Kitāb al-Ulfah wa-al-ukhuwwah -- al-mujallad al-khāmis ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-ʻUzlah wa-ādāb al-Safar -- al-mujallad al-sādis ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-Samāʻ wa-al-wajd wa-al-Amr bi-al-maʻrūf wa-al-nahy ʻan al-munkar -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-maʻīshah wa-akhlāq al-nubūwah wa-sharḥ ʻajāʼib al-qalb -- al-mujallad al-thāmin ʻashar. Kitābā riyāḍat al-nafs wa-tahdhīb al-akhlāq wa-kasr al-shahwatayn -- al-mujallad al-tāsiʻ ʻashar. Kitābā āfāt al-lisān wa-dhamm al-ghaḍab -- al-mujallad al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-dunyā wa-dhamm al-bukhl -- al-mujallad al-ḥādī wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-jāh wa-dhamm al-kibr wa-al-ʻajab -- al-mujallad al-thānī wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-ghurūr wa-al-tawbah -- al-mujallad al-thālith wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā al-ṣabr wa-al-shukr -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā al-rajā wa-al-khawf -- al-mujallad al-khāmis wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-zuhd wa-al-faqr -- al-mujallad al-sādis wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-tawḥīd wa al-tawakkul -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-maḥabbah wa-al-shawq wa-al-uns wa-al-riḍā -- al-mujallad al-thāmin wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kutub al-ikhlāṣ wa-al-nīyah wa-al-murāqabah wa-al-muḥāsabah wa-al-tafakkur -- al-mujallad al- tāsiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʻdih ilá nihāyat al-bāb al-thāmin -- al-mujallad al-thalāthūn. Kitāb dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʻdih ilá ākhar al-kitāb wa-yalīhi maṣādir al-taḥqīq. (shrink)