O presente artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre a campanha "Pichação é Crime. Denuncie.", iniciativa da Associação Comercial do Paraná e da Prefeitura Municipal de Curitiba que mobilizaram esforços na repressão da pichação. A campanha buscou associar a pichação ao vandalismo e o pichador a um ser desprezível que emporcalha a cidade, representado pelo personagem Zé Sujeira. É possível identificar na codificação da campanha a reprodução do discurso dominante que tem impacto apenas em parte da sociedade.

O estudo descreve o julgamento da translucência relativa de substantivos, verbos e modificadores em quatro Sistemas de Comunicação Alternativa e Suplementar (Bliss, PIC, PCS e ImagoAnaVox) por meio do emprego de um software (Sonda) que apresentava os símbolos e registrava a pontuação atribuída, o te..

A modularidade massiva pode ser descrita como um programa de pesquisa, nos termos da filosofia da ciência de Lakatos. Cumpre, para tanto, identificar o núcleo, mostrar evidências de que ele é assumido como infalsificável e examinar estratégias de articulação e sofisticação do cinto de proteção. No presente trabalho, faço isso com o intuito de responder à pergunta lançada no título. Em atenção a três desenvolvimentos recentes, cujas predições encontraram corroboração empírica, sou levado a inferir que esse programa é, de fato, (...) empiricamente progressivo. (shrink)

Echoing Socrates’ remarks to Phaedrus — namely, that it is by “perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars, that one may make clear by definition the particular thing which he wishes to explain”, and that we shall divide things “where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver” —, one could say that in some ways each of the papers in this special issue aims at carving an (...) aspect of cognition, or language, or both, at its joints. This does not imply that this is a volume of Platonist variations. However, it calls our attention to the metaphysical framework of contemporary understandings of cognition and language. (shrink)

The connection between language and the body has become a significant topic of research over the last decades. On the one hand, those who hold that language has an embodied nature endorse a close link between linguistic and sensorimotor processing. As a result, language processing is understood as an online activity, i.e., as something that stands in relationship to the local environment and engages in here-and-now tasks. On the other hand, for those who contend that language is fundamentally disembodied, linguistic (...) processing is a matter of mental manipulation of amodal symbols according to a set of rules. On this view, language is an offline activity and is considered to be something that grants us interesting cognitive advantages due to its independence from sensorimotor contingencies. This paper [i] offers a comprehensive presentation of these two views; [ii] highlights a crucial challenge for each of them: the scaling phenomenon and the grounding problem, respectively; and [iii] argues that all attempts to overcome these two challenges have major shortcomings. (shrink)

O artigo propõe um balanço atualizado da abordagem computacional da mente, minudenciando aspectos conceituais e críticos. O balanço é pautado por três afirmações ‒ α) A mente humana é um sistema computacional; β) A mente humana pode ser descrita como um sistema computacional; γ) Sistemas computacionais precisam de conteúdo representacional ‒, a partir das quais mostro que o computacionalismo clássico se articula em termos de α∧γ e que as vertentes contemporâneas são melhor caracterizadas em termos de α∧~γ ou β∧~γ. Por (...) fim, após analisar uma série de objeções, argumentamos que o computacionalismo do século XXI é um programa de pesquisa filosoficamente relevante e que os críticos da abordagem computacional da mente incorrem em anacronismo quando se limitam a criticar as vertentes clássicas. (shrink)

In answer to the question in the title, I suggest that philosophy of cognition and language benefits from (i) a problem-oriented approach, (ii) a distinction between an epistemological and a metaphysical stance, (iii) the embracing of one of many ways of handling empirical information, and (iv) a distinction between a synchronic and a diachronic view of the object of study.

The paper aims to highlight similarities between computational routines of mentally traveling the present time, on the one hand, and routines of mentally traveling other times, on the other hand. The first and second sections, in which I lay out an eternalist view of the world and the massive modularity account of the architecture of the human mind, are intended to set the stage. Subsequently, I clarify the idea that we mentally travel the present. This explanation resorts to a cognitive (...) mechanism I have proposed elsewhere. Finally, I submit that a similar computational routine takes place when we travel other times, be they earlier or later than the present moment. Keywords: eternalism, modularity, episodic memory, four-dimensionalism. (shrink)

Can a lonely long-distance run instantiate a meditation? Based on personal experience with running, I develop an affirmative answer to this question. First, I distinguish contemplation from meditation, proposing that the former is a non-reflexive activity focused on the monitoring of one’s own body, and that the latter is a reflexive activity that includes a “self” in memories of episodes from the personal past as well as in episodic counterfactual thoughts and in episodic future thinking. Next, I suggest that meditation, (...) by its characteristics, promotes a distancing from the sensorimotor contingencies of the present and that such detachment is dependent on our linguistic abilities. Finally, I question whether these remarks shed light into the debate about the embodied status of language. (shrink)

Portuguese introduction to volume 2, issue 2.

Es para nosotros un gusto presentar el tercer número de la revista Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies (ERRS) dedicado a la reflexión ética de Paul Ricœur. .

Entendida em sentido amplo, como reconstrução autotranscendente, a aprendizagem requer, para potencializar a razão crítico-discursiva, uma dimensão intersubjetiva e uma relação assimétrica entre professor e estudante. No ciberespaço, âmbito linguístico específico que ocasiona processos de socialização e de individualização, o entendimento do que constitui aprendizagem válida passa, necessariamente, pelo diálogo entre educadores. A partir de interrogações de índole epistemológica, o artigo insere-se nesse diálogo. Depois de caracterizar a hipermídia como a linguagem do ciberespaço e identificar diferentes perfis de leitores de (...) hipermídia, duas afirmações são ensaiadas: (i) as tecnologias digitais possuem potencial para amplificar a aprendizagem; e (ii) as tecnologias digitais não minimizam a importância da mediação docente na forma escolar da aprendizagem. (shrink)

This study delved into the Senior High School Technical-Vocational-Livelihood (TVL) track in Bohol Province for the 2022-2023 school year, aiming to evaluate policy implementation, recognize barriers, and propose interventions. Employing a mixed-method approach, integrating quantitative-descriptive surveys and qualitative-descriptive research methods as recommended by Creswell and Plano Clark (2017), the findings unveiled a predominantly positive perception of policy implementation across various dimensions of the TVL track. These encompass curriculum development, teacher training, resource allocation, industry partnerships, assessment and evaluation, student support services, (...) monitoring and quality assurance, policy adaptation and improvement, stakeholder engagement, legal framework and compliance, data collection and analysis, and inclusivity and equity. Despite variations among teachers and administrators, a general commitment to policy implementation emerged. The study identified barriers in curriculum and instruction, readiness and preparedness, resource limitations, and teaching and learning, emphasizing evidence-based strategies and interdisciplinary approaches to surmount challenges. It underscores the crucial role of research and policy development in elevating the quality and efficacy of TVL education. (shrink)

Although there is broad support in the current Brazilian legislation and many curricular documents published in the last three decades, we still face the challenge of the inclusive education in our classrooms. This is a qualitative research in which we investigate the perception of three school pedagogical coordinators about the inclusion of disabled children in regular classes of Elementary and High School of the schools that self-declared favorable to the Inclusive Education. The results suggest perceptions of Inclusive Education with specific (...) goal to comply with current legislation, which aims exclusively at the socialization of the disabled as a target of charity, without great teaching learning goals that allow equal access to school knowledge and continuity of study in the educational system. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como objetivo abordar os conceitos esclarecimento, educação e autonomia na concepção do filósofo Immanuel Kant. Para tanto, no primeiro momento, faz-se a leitura do Opúsculo Kantiano de 1783, Resposta à pergunta: que é esclarecimento?, com o propósito de analisar o conceito esclarecimento, a fim de compreender de que modo, em Kant, se dá a passagem do homem de seu estado de menoridade à maioridade. Num segundo momento, a partir da leitura da obra publicada em 1803, Sobre a (...) pedagogia, ainda que haja dúvidas se, de fato, essa obra tenha sido escrita por Kant ou, mais provavelmente, por seu aluno, Theodor Rink, busca-se evidenciar a tese kantiana de que a emancipação do homem não se dá sem a educação. E, por fim, num terceiro momento, à luz da análise feita dos dois conceitos-base deste trabalho, esclarecimento e educação, investiga-se a conexão entre ambos, na obra sobre filosofia moral kantiana de 1785, Fundamentação da metafísica dos costumes, tentando sustentar a tese de que esclarecimento e educação estão conectados com a autonomia moral, terceiro conceito-base desta investigação. A partir desses três momentos, salienta-se, por conseguinte, que a educação, segundo a proposta de Kant, possibilita ao homem desenvolver, aprimorar cada vez mais a capacidade e a coragem de sair do estado de menoridade e alcançar a maioridade, tornando-se, progressivamente, um sujeito esclarecido, autônomo e, consequentemente, moral. (shrink)

This article examined the personal profiles of the Heads of Government of countries in South/North America and how they communicated with their audiences on institutional measures to contain COVID-19. Analyses were carried out on data collected from Twitter from November-2019 to November-2020. This study includes: i)quantitative analysis, measuring categories and emphases in the communication of tweets, retweets, likes, and comments on matters relevant to the pandemic; ii)qualitative analysis that allowed evaluating speeches to identify political interference and the effectiveness of communication (...) at critical moments of the pandemic. It was possible to infer that each president has his singularities and understanding about Social Media’s use as a more direct communication tool with his audience. It was also found that successful communication is not directly proportional to the volume of messages on Twitter, but to socio-political aspects and institutional leadership that can make a difference in Social Media in combating COVID-19. (shrink)

En medio de la potencial relación entre Fernando González y la Filosofía se presenta un recorrido por su obra escrita, y desde ella, sus hermenéuticas, viajes, retratos, métodos, parábolas, vivencias y contemplaciones. Ello con el fin de culminar en una exhortación metodológica para los nuevos estudios sobre su obra desde perspectivas particulares, para no hallarse como muchos en la paradoja de lo parcial y de la anécdota en medio de una obra armónica; si bien este ensayo es una reflexión (...) a partir de otra posible lectura parcial. (shrink)

The book explores Peirce's non standard thoughts on a synthetic continuum, topological logics, existential graphs, and relational semiotics, offering full mathematical developments on these areas. More precisely, the following new advances are offered: (1) two extensions of Peirce's existential graphs, to intuitionistic logics (a new symbol for implication), and other non-classical logics (new actions on nonplanar surfaces); (2) a complete formalization of Peirce's continuum, capturing all Peirce's original demands (genericity, supermultitudeness, reflexivity, modality), thanks to an inverse ordinally iterated sheaf of (...) real lines; (3) an array of subformalizations and proofs of Peirce's pragmaticist maxim, through methods in category theory, HoTT techniques, and modal logics. The book will be relevant to Peirce scholars, mathematicians, and philosophers alike, thanks to thorough assessments of Peirce's mathematical heritage, compact surveys of the literature, and new perspectives offered through formal and modern mathematizations of the topics studied. (shrink)

If personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person, brainhood could name the quality or condition of being a brain. This ontological quality would define the `cerebral subject' that has, at least in industrialized and highly medicalized societies, gained numerous social inscriptions since the mid-20th century. This article explores the historical development of brainhood. It suggests that the brain is necessarily the location of the `modern self', and that, consequently, the cerebral subject is the anthropological figure inherent (...) to modernity (at least insofar as modernity gives supreme value to the individual as autonomous agent of choice and initiative). It further argues that the ideology of brainhood impelled neuroscientific investigation much more than it resulted from it, and sketches how an expanding constellation of neurocultural discourses and practices embodies and sustains that ideology. (shrink)

We introduce a herbrandized functional interpretation of a first-order semi-intuitionistic extension of Heyting Arithmetic and study its main properties. We then extend the interpretation to a certain system of second-order arithmetic which includes a (classically false) formulation of the FAN principle and weak König's lemma. It is shown that any first-order formula provable in this system is classically true. It is perhaps worthy of note that, in our interpretation, second-order variables are interpreted by finite sets of natural numbers.

Both questions as abstract objects and the speech acts, here called requests, by which we ask them play an enormous role in all argumentative practices. Nonetheless, there is hardly a proper systematic treatment of questions and requests in current argumentation theories. This paper is a first attempt at providing such a systematic treatment. This is achieved by following the ideal model of a critical discussion as elaborated over the years by the Amsterdam school of pragma-dialectics. After introducing the distinction between (...) questions and requests, the paper sets forth and illustrates the norms of questioning which implicitly underlie the four stages of a critical discussion in the standard order: confrontation, opening, argumentation, and conclusion. Among other things, it is shown that crucial insights of pragma-dialectics are illuminated by the questioning perspective, in particular the distinction between single and multiple differences of opinion, the duties of the antagonist and protagonist roles, the precise character of the argumentation stage, and the different ways in which a disagreement can be resolved. (shrink)

Many natural connections between Peirce and Whitehead have been appearing since Peirce’s manuscripts began to be published in Harvard’s Collected Papers edition. The resemblances are profound, based on speculative philosophies founded on interactions between science and philosophy, in turn erected over a wide understanding of mathematical thought. Some doctoral dissertations have explored the field, but a full monograph was still needed in order to clarify the panorama. Maria Regina Brioschi’s Creativity Between Experience and Cosmos. C.S. Peirce and A.N. Whitehead on (...) Novelty provides the sound, exact, and extremely... (shrink)

Através de estudo realizado junto a 111 esposas/companheiras de policiais militares da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, procurou-se avaliar o impacto do trabalho policial sobre a família. A partir da definição de duas formas de impacto, direto (relativo à incidência de fatores circunstanciais do trabalho p..

The article deals with the chances of illustration of Mohammed: is it forbidden to depict Mohammed in the Islam? What the history or the religion say about it? The following sentences try to get a brief but deep approaching to that issue, underlying the importance that just a few time ago when several problems related to misunderstanding and hatred set the Muslim world in front of the Western people as violent in a behavior that no one could share. Through the (...) article we will see the lack of respect there was in some images that were published provoking all kind of reactions in the world. (shrink)

Since its emergence in the early 2000s, neuroethics has become a recognized, institutionalized and professionalized field. A central strategy for its successful development has been the claim that it must be an autonomous discipline, distinct in particular from bioethics. Such claim has been justified by the conviction, sustained since the 1990s by the capabilities attributed to neuroimaging technologies, that somehow ‘the mind is the brain’, that the brain sciences can illuminate the full range of human experience and behavior, and that (...) neuroscientific knowledge will have dramatic implications for views of the human, and challenge supposedly established beliefs and practices in domains ranging from self and personhood to the political organization of society. This article examines how that conviction functions as neuroethics’ ideological condition of possibility. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new categorical approach which attempts to provide an original understanding of QM. Our logos categorical approach attempts to consider the main features of the quantum formalism as the standpoint to develop a conceptual representation that explains what the theory is really talking about —rather than as problems that need to be bypassed in order to allow a restoration of a classical “common sense” understanding of what there is. In particular, we discuss a solution to (...) Kochen-Specker contextuality through the generalization of the meaning of global valuation. This idea has been already addressed by the so called topos approach to QM —originally proposed by Isham, Butterfiled and D ̈oring— in terms of sieve-valued valuations. The logos approach to QM presents a different solution in terms of the notion of intensive valuation. This new solution stresses an ontological reading of the quantum formalism and the need to restore an objective conceptual representation and understanding of quantum physical reality. (shrink)

On 22 July, 2011, we were confronted with the horror of the actions of Anders Behring Breivik. The instant reaction, as we have seen with similar incidents in the past—such as the Oklahoma City bombings—was to attempt to explain the incident. Whether the reasons given were true or not were irrelevant: the fact that there was a reason was better than if there were none. We should not dismiss those that continue to cling on to the initial claims of a (...) wider Jihadist plot behind the actions of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as Islamophobes (or merely lacking common sense): for, it is often easier to rely on reason—no matter how fictional—than not to have anything to cling on at all. In many ways, it is even better if the reason is fictional: for, if grounded in a certain fact, or reality, it can then go away. However, if it is in the realm of the imaginary, it is then always already metaphorical: thus, can be applied to any and every situation. And it is this, if we echo Friedrich Nietzsche, that gives us our “metaphysical comfort”; that we can know what is going on. This is why conspiracy theories are so popular: underlying them is the logic that someone—no matter how implausible—is in control of the situation. One would rather believe that all acts of terror stemmed from Osama bin Laden (and the narrative worked even better when he was in a ‘cave in Afghanistan’) than if they were the actions, and decisions, of singular individuals. For, if there is a head organizing everything, it can be cut off; there is no controlling a mass of singularities. As Jean Baudrillard continues to teach us, the term ‘mass’ is not a concept. It is a leitmotif of political demagogy, a soft, sticky, lumpen-analytical notion. A good sociology would attempt to surpass it with ‘more subtle’ categories: socio-professional ones, categories of class, cultural status, etc. This is wrong: it is by prowling around these soft and acritical notions (like ‘mana’ once was) that one can go further than intelligent critical sociology. Besides, it will be noticed retrospectively that the concepts ‘class’, ‘social relations’, ‘power’, ‘status’, ‘institution’, and ‘social’ itself—all these too-explicit concepts which are the glory of the legitimate sciences—but also only ever been muddled notions themselves, but notions upon which agreement has nevertheless been reached for mysterious ends: those of preserving a certain code of analysis. To want to specify the term ‘mass’ is a mistake—it is to provide meaning for that which has none.1 And it is this lack of meaning—this nothingness of not only the mass, but our inability to know in general—that truly scares us. For, if we are never able to legitimately make a generalizing statement, this suggests that we can never actually posit beyond a singular, situational, moment. Hence, we can never claim to know anyone: at best, we can only catch momentary glimpses. It is for this very reason that the insanity plea Breivik’s lawyer will attempt is the one that horrifies us the most. For, if Breivik is insane, this foregrounds our inability to understand, know. And as Aristotle has taught us, it is more important that something is plausible than if something were probable—in this context, we would rather have Breivik as a calculating mass murderer than someone who was completely out of his mind. This is especially ironic in the light of the fact that none of us would say that we have any similarity with Breivik. If that were so, the declaration that he was mad should be no more than a logical consequence. However, we also want Breivik to be accountable for his actions. And in order for that to be so, we need him to be of sound mind. But if that were true, we can then no longer distinguish ourselves from him. And it is precisely this that scares us. For, we are horrified not when there are abnormalities to our way of life. There are usually two different reactions to this—either oppose and destroy it; or subsume it under the dominant logic. We see this most clearly in reactions to immigration: there are either calls for immigrants to ‘pack up and leave’ or pseudo-liberal notions of ‘we are all alike’. Both of which are merely version of “all men are brothers”—the brutal translation of which is that you are my brother if you live the same way as me; otherwise not only are you not my brother, you are also potentially not part of mankind (you might as well be, to echo Giorgio Agamben, bare life ). This is played out in our age of what is commonly termed post-political bio-politics —an instance of horribly awkward theoretical jargon that Slavoj Žižek channeling Agamben unpacks rather elegantly: “ post-politics is a politics which claims to leave behind old ideological struggles and, instead, focus[es] on expert management and administration, while bio-politics designates the regulation of the security and welfare of human lives as its primary goal.”2 Žižek continues: Post-political bio-politics also has two aspects which cannot but appear to belong to two opposite ideological spaces: that of the reduction of humans to ‘bare life,’ to Homo sacer , that so-called sacred being who is the object of expert caretaking knowledge, but is excluded, like prisoners at Guantanamo or Holocaust victims, from all rights; and that of respect for the vulnerable Other brought to an extreme through an attitude of narcissistic subjectivity which experiences the self as vulnerable, constantly exposed to a multitude of potential harassments [….] What these two poles share is precisely the underlying refusal of any higher causes, the notion that the ultimate goal of our lives is life itself. That is why there is no contradiction between the respect for the vulnerable Other and […] the extreme expression of treating individuals as Homini sacer .3 This is why the ones that are harshest towards new immigrants are the recently naturalized citizens of any country. For, if there is no longer any “ideological struggle” and all life is reduced to mere automaton-living, there is the realization that we are all the same—not in a tree-hugging hippie sense—but that the immigrant is the same as us precisely because we are all immigrants. And since all nations, and by extension peoples in a nation (especially those who believe in the notion of nationality, and national identity), have to find some manner, no matter from where or what it is, to distinguish themselves from those around them, the other (in spite, and especially in the light, of its absence) is the most crucial aspect of the discourse of nationality. More precisely, in the interests of what Baudrillard calls “preserving a certain code of analysis” (nationality in this case), what has to be maintained is the absolute otherness of the other. Very rarely is Boris Johnson right: “it is not enough to say he is mad. Anders Breivik is patently mad.”4 However, much like Breivik in his manifesto, he should have stopped whilst he was ahead. By attempting to diagnose Breivik—“the fundamental reasons for their callous behavior lie deep in their own sense of rejection and alienation. It is the ideology that gives them the ostensible cause … that gives them an excuse to dramatize the resentment … and to kill.”—Johnson falls into the same trap that he accuses others of: “to try to advance any other explanation for their actions … is simply to play their self-important game.” More crucially, and this is the point that Johnson completely misses, attempting to rationalize Breivik’s actions—to rehabilitate reason—is a desperate attempt at maintaining his otherness. In fact, we’ll end up going one step further, insist on Breivik’s sanity, put him on the stand, and hope that he will display such a difference from all of us that we can rest safe that we are unlike him and his kind. That, in itself, is a dangerous game to play. One should not forget that the turning point in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is in the central part of her novel where she lets the monster speak. At that moment, the monster moves from an ‘it’ to a fully subjectivized person; with his own stories, historicities, emotions, and so on. In Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Frankenstein , this is the moment where “the ultimate criminal is thus allowed to present himself as the ultimate victim. The monstrous murderer reveals himself to be a deeply hurt and desperate individual, yearning for company and love.”5 But, in the case of Breivik, this goes beyond just a risk of us feeling for him: for, no right-minded person should ever deny another the opportunity to put forth her or his own case. The problem lies with us trying to deny the madness of Breivik’s act by putting him back under reason. The problem is in our inability to differentiate the act from the person; the singular from the universal.6 In our desperation to preserve the notion that we are rational beings incapable of becoming monsters, we’ve had to deny the meaninglessness—in the strict sense of it lying outside of reason—of Breivik’ act; we’ve had to “provide meaning where there is none.” For, if this act were a moment of madness—a moment that comes from elsewhere—we cannot say that it will not descend upon us one day. If Breivik’s actions were that of a sane person, one who is in control of his being, his self, we can then locate the otherness in his being. More importantly, this would allow us to distinguish ourselves from that said being. Breivik’s sanity is the only thing that allows us to say that ‘this act of terror is borne out of one with an ultra-right ideology’; and ‘since I am not of that ideology, I would never do such a thing’. By doing that, we attempt to protect ourselves by claiming that people who share Breivik’s ideology are foreign to us, other to us. However, if Breivik’s act was a moment of insanity, his otherness is no longer locatable: and the notion of ‘us and them’ shifts from a geographical, physical, religious, or cultural notion, to one in the realm of ideas. And this is what truly scares us. For, if what is foreign is not phenomenological, then it cannot be seen, detected, sensed. Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, and Terry Nichols, terrify us not merely for the fact that they were white in a white society, but more pertinently that their skin color did not matter: we would not be able to spot them even if they were blue, even if they were right next to us, even if we had known them all our lives. Even as we are grappling with holding Breivik accountable by declaring him of sound mind, what truly terrifies us is that deep down we know that Breivik’s act is a moment of madness; beyond all comprehensibility. And this means that we would not be able to spot the idea; even if it were in our heads at this very moment. We have gone to lengths to rehabilitate Breivik, McVeigh, Nichols, and such perpetrators of massive incomprehensible violence, in order to preserve our difference from them. What we have really been trying to deny is the fact that everyone, at any given moment, could have a moment of madness. And this is the true radicality of Mary Shelley: in allowing us to momentarily enter the head of the monster, she shows us not just the fact that he is like any one of us, but that any one of us could, in the right (or wrong) circumstance, be like him. Perhaps here, there is a lesson to be learned from Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street . The most dangerous thing that one could do on Elm Street was to mention Freddy’s name—once you had knowledge of him, you were open to the possibility of a visit during your dreams. This suggests that Freddy is a combination of externalities (after all, when you die, he survives) and your self (if you have never heard of him, he cannot come for you). In this sense, Freddy would be the manifestation par excellence of what Avital Ronell calls a “killer text”—it is one’s relationality with the text (and the ideas, notions, in the said text) that opens oneself to it, to the lessons of the text, to being changed, affected, even to the dangers of the text. After all, one should never forget Plato’s warning that ideas can corrupt, can be perilous. To compound matters, as Ronell reminds us, “the connection to the other is a reading—not an interpretation, assimilation, or even a hermeneutic understanding, but a reading.”7 Thus, in attempting to differentiate ourselves from Breivik by concocting some reason(s) why we are not like him, we have done nothing but read him, open a connection to him. *** Bang bang, he shot me down Bang bang, I hit the ground Bang bang, that awful sound Bang bang, my baby shot me down. “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” Sonny Bono, 1966. This is the part that we all know and remember. Whilst never quite remembering that this is a song that is not so much about violence, love, but about remembering. For, after the bridge comes the accusatory stanza: “Now he's gone, I don't know why/ And till this day, sometimes I cry/ He didn't even say goodbye/ He didn't take the time to lie.” Bang Bang is a game that the two lovers used to play; and all she has now is the memory of the game to remember him by. And the only reason she has to recall this game is: he never provided her a reason for his leaving, his death. Not that she will, can, ever get that satisfactory answer. This is precisely the game we are playing with Anders Behring Breivik. Even though he has left a 1500 page manifesto, even though we will allow him to use the court-room as his platform, we will continue screaming at him “tell me why …” For, what we want him to say is that we are not like him: what we really want him to do is, “take the time to lie …” Perhaps here, we should allow the echo of the infans to resound in baby . As Christopher Fynsk reminds us, the infans is one that is pre-language, pre-knowing, pre-understanding: it is the very finitude, and exteriority, of relationality itself.8 And thus, it is a position of openness to the fullness of possibility—and nothing else. This would be, in Ronell’s terms, a “connection to the other” that knows nothing other than the fact that it is a connection. The true horror of 22 July, 2011, is the fact that it is not Anders Behring Breivik who is mad, but the act itself that is. And this is precisely why only “my baby” that could have “shot me down.” For, it is an act that is from beyond, a sheer act of madness that—as Plato warns us—is whispered into our ears (and can so easily be mistaken for inspiration, and even wisdom), an act that can both seize, and cease, us at the same time. And what can this utter openness to an other, the other, be but a moment of love, a true ‘falling in love’. At the moment of whispering, nothing can be known as we are babies as our baby shoots us down …. Hence, all attempts at analyzing this event (including this one) are not only futile, but border on the farcical. The real tragedy is that we forget that all of us have the possibility of becoming Breivik. NOTES Jean Baudrillard. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities . Trans. Paul Foss, John Johnston, Paul Patton, & Andrew Berardini. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007. p. 37. Slavoj Žižek. Violence: Six Sideway Reflections . London: Profile Books, 2009. p. 34 Ibid: 35-36. Boris Johnson. “ Anders Breivik: There is nothing to study in the mind of Norway’s mass killer .” The Telegraph . (25 July, 2011): Slavoj Žižek. Violence: Six Sideway Reflections . London: Profile Books, 2009. p.39. What is killing us is the notion that Breivik’s act is beyond reason, beyond knowing, outside understanding itself. This is why Boris Johnson’s plea was for us to ignore Breivik as a madman. But to do so, Johnson conflates the notion of the act and the person; the singular and the universal. This is exactly the same gesture as insisting on his sanity: the ‘madman’ is merely the absolute other, one that we are not. Avital Ronell. The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989: 380. Christopher Fynsk. Infant Figures: The Death of the Infans and Other Scenes of Origin . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.  . (shrink)

Finite-state methods are applied to the Russell-Wiener-Kamp notion of time (based on events) and developed into an account of interval relations and semi-intervals. Strings are formed and collected in regular languages and regular relations that are argued to embody temporal relations in their various underspecified guises. The regular relations include retractions that reduce computations by projecting strings down to an appropriate level of granularity, and notions of containment for partiality within and across such levels.

The first goal of this paper is to reply to a number of criticisms levied by Gunnar Breivik and Robert L. Simon against an account of sporting skills I published almost 20 years ago in which I distinguished between constitutive and restorative skills and examined their normative significance. To accomplish this goal, I first summarize my characterization and classification of skills and then detail the criticisms. After responding to the latter, and thus reconsidering and hopefully strengthening my account of skill (...) in sport, I turn my attention to Scott Kretchmar and Tim Elcombe’s inquiry into the skills involved in competitive sport. These authors claim that contesting skills demand the same respect usually accorded to testing skills. The second goal of this paper is then to explore Kretchmar and Elcombe’s inquiry under the light of my reconsidered analysis of skill. I specifically advocate a plausible relationship, both in terms of their distinctive character and relative import, between testing and contesting skills and constitutive and restorative skills. In doing so, I seek to present a more comprehensive account of skill in non-competitive and competitive sport. (shrink)