What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the (...) needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she's responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why. From the Hardcover edition. (shrink)

This article explores an overlooked motif in the Critique of Pure Reason: the Damsel in Distress. Kant uses the trope to motivate his first Critique on a narrative level. Reason is depicted as a high-born female subject in a hopeless predicament, unable to free herself. A hero rescues her, not by liberation, but by discipline, mirroring the myth where the rescued female is appropriated through marriage. The paper examines the parallels between this popular trope and the narrative of the first (...) Critique, arguing that Kant’s choice of this motif is due to cultural and political biases. While this narrative aligns with Kant’s goal of establishing philosophy as a strict science, it marginalizes the also present, progressive potential of Kant’s concept of the highest faculty as a hermeneutical, world-making, and orienting capacity as means for universal cum critical thinking. The discussion proceeds from (1) argumentatively relevant methodological considerations, to showing that Kant (2) does use the damsel in distress in the Critique of Pure Reason. Subsequently, (3) with regard to the reasons for the choice of the narrative, it is argued that it is based on the convictions about the nature of women that Kant advocates in the Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime and in his Anthropology. (4) Insofar as narratives and metaphors shape convictions and delineate the realm of the conceivable, Kant’s narrative choice undermines his own conception of reason, according to which the highest faculty is to be understood positively as an active, hermeneutic and orienting ability as well as a selfreflective basis for critical thinking. The discussion ends (5) with a conclusion. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur, em “O si-mesmo como outro” define sua perspectiva ética como “o desejo de viver bem com e para os outros em instituições justas”. Tal concepção possui uma tríplice estrutura, a saber: a ipseidade, a alteridade e a igualdade. Sendo apresentadas como a “estima de si”, a “solicitude” e a “justiça”, momentos determinantes para que se possa responder à pergunta sobre a identidade ética, norteadora de sua filosofia moral – “ quem é o sujeito capaz de imputação moral?”. Por (...) isso, cumpre ao presente artigo analisar cada um de seus elementos constitutivos a fim de compreender sua lógica interna, bem como ressaltar o viés aristotélico-teleológico da filosofia ricoeuriana. (shrink)

Em diversos momentos de sua trajetória filosófica Deleuze recorre à Leibniz. Num primeiro momento para pensar a síntese ideal da diferença em Diferença e Repetição, não sem antes ter tecido duras críticas ao infinito leibniziano. Neste artigo nos consagraremos a este momento. Buscaremos demonstrar a importância do conceito de causa imanente de Espinosa, assim como do princípio de razão suficiente e de suas funções no pensamento leibniziano. Apresentaremos a crítica deleuziana do conceito de identidade em Leibniz e a interpretação do (...) cálculo diferencial que serve de base para a construção do processo de determinação conceitual, ou seja, para a síntese ideal da diferença, tema do capítulo IV de Diferença e repetição. A relevância deste artigo está na tentativa de demonstrar que a tese da univocidade do ser não pode ser compreendida sem sua contrapartida, a equivocidade dos sentidos através dos quais o ser se diz e em explorar consequências desta tese para a reconstrução deleuziana da relação empírico-transcendental. Procuraremos demonstrar que Deleuze precisa recorrer a Leibniz para pensar a diferença ilimitada. (shrink)

Deleuzian criticisms of representational thinking converge on the understanding of thought as a recognitive process. To recognize is to think. Among all the problems concerning such a model of thought, there is a fundamental obstacle to recognition: it does not recognize what does not fit into its previously established premises and which delimit the linearity of correct thinking. Thus, as Deleuze warns us, the difference has never been thought for itself. In such a notion, the difference is just an opposition (...) to the equal. In one of his dialogues with the philosophical tradition, the French thinker found a punctual gap in the thinking of the Greek philosopher Aristotle where difference is brought up. A moment when the difference emerged and was almost considered by itself, and which was called "the happy Greek moment" by Deleuze. It is about Aristotelian thought of difference, that Greek moment and the conceptual criticism that Deleuze conducts to compose his theory that the article will deal with. (shrink)

Una idea casi universalmente aceptada es que es que la filosofía y la ciencia por naturaleza buscan la verdad. No obstante, para que alcancen la Verdad requieren a fortiori de la fe. A partir de estas ideas, nuestra reflexión está organizada en tres apartados: en el primero abordamos la necesidad de la metafísica como disciplina que encuentra los principios en la naturaleza. Así como, la ciencia gracias a la metafísica encuentra las leyes de esta, pero sólo con ayuda de la (...) fe; en la segunda idea nos centramos en explicar el método de la ciencia y nos preguntamos sí sus formas y metodologías van de acuerdo con la fe. La última idea, trata la dimensión de las ciencias sociales cara al Desarrollo Humano (DH). El argumento que se desarrolla en este apartado sostiene que, el motivo por el cual el hombre, con su razón, busca la verdad; es para dar sentido a su existencia. No obstante, hay que reflexionar sobre el devenir de las Ciencias Sociales puesto que ante el establecimiento de linderos, la inflexión de métodos y metodologías se ha desdibujado e incomprendido de los hechos presentes en la realidad y no se ha tendido a la búsqueda de la verdad. Finalmente, se presentan nuestras conclusiones que ahondan en la propuesta del DH y la bibliografía utilizada para elaborar este trabajo. (shrink)

The article is concerned with the everyday activities of sociology, focusing on ethnography. It argues that empirical study of the ethnomethods of ethnography allows for a deeper insight into the dynamics and procedures of this research practice. Based on empirical data from two ethnographic studies, I suggest to observe how such an investigation is conducted in various situations: in the field, on the ethnographer’s desk, in data sessions, in conferences and in written papers. This serves to gather and produce empirical (...) traces from the field. These are de- and re-contextualized while they are taken into the sociological field. This process can be analyzed drawing on Goffman’s notion of Frame Analysis, particularly drawing on his notion of keyings. Ethnography can thus be described as a trans-situational practice that systematically couples situations and communications in order to understand and reconstruct other social practices for sociological reasons. (shrink)

The identification of facial expressions is critical for social interaction. The ability to recognize facial emotional expressions declines with age. These age effects have been associated with differential age-related looking patterns. The present research project set out to systematically test the role of specific facial areas for emotion recognition across the adult lifespan. Study 1 investigated the impact of displaying only separate facial areas versus the full face on emotion recognition in 62 younger and 65 middle-aged adults. Study 2 examined (...) if wearing face masks differentially compromises younger versus middle-aged to older adults’ ability to identify different emotional expressions. Results of Study 1 suggested no general decrease in emotion recognition across the lifespan; instead, age-related performance seems to depend on the specific emotion and presented face area. Similarly, Study 2 observed only deficits in the identification of angry, fearful, and neutral expressions in older adults, but no age-related differences with regards to happy, sad, and disgusted expressions. Overall, face masks reduced participants’ emotion recognition; however, there were no differential age effects. Results are discussed in light of current models of age-related changes in emotion recognition. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Volume: 2013 Issue: 195 Pages: 169-196.

Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child's active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection (...) via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children's knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests that understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory, and their complex interaction, is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work. (shrink)

In § 60 of theCritique of Judgment, entitled ‘On the doctrine of method of taste,’ Kant suggests that the study of so-calledhumaniora(ancient Roman and Greek literature) will help one to become a good artist. I will argue that a proper, namely emotional, engagement withhumaniorawill further the two components of humanity in ourselves: the feeling of sympathy and the ability to communicate feelings. I will discuss two options of how a strengthening of these two components might contribute to the creation of (...) good artworks: it will help one to create artworks that arouse the universal communicable pleasure in the beautiful, or it will help one to create artworks that arouse sympathetic feelings. Siding with the latter option, I will argue that emotions can contribute to the enlivening of aesthetic ideas and, thus, to good art. (shrink)

Outrem como desafio à diferença. Por uma nova ética dos afetos no mundo contemporâneo. Resumo: O artigo apresenta o conceito de Outrem através das perspectivas histórica e filosófica em conexão com o plano estético. O foco do trabalho consiste em apresentar as dinâmicas de Outrem a partir da obra Sexta-feira ou os limbos do pacífico, de Michel Tournier, precisamente por meio das novas versões dos personagens Robinson Crusoé e Sexta-feira em comparação com a proposta inicial de Daniel Defoe. Para tanto, (...) pensamos com Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari a apreensão de uma ética a partir de Outrem capaz de contribuir com a criação de outros mundos possíveis na passagem da literatura colonial para a literatura decolonial. Na relação entre os personagens observamos uma experiência de mundo mediada por uma troca horizontal. Sexta-feira e Robinson compõem outra existência ética a ser experienciada. O que desnaturaliza todo o ethos cultural europeu (de matriz colonizadora) responsável por estabelecer aquilo que é, ou não, civilizado. Palavras-chave: Outrem; Ética: diferença; Colonial; Decolonial. Others as a challenge to difference. For a new ethics of affections in the contemporary world. Abstract: The article presents the concept of Others through the historical and philosophical perspectives in connection with the aesthetic plane. The focus of this article is to present the dynamics of Others from Friday or the other Island, by Michel Tournier, precisely through the new versions of the characters Robinson Crusoé and Friday in comparison with the initial proposal of Daniel Defoe. For that, we examine Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s apprehension of the ethics from Others, capable of contributing to the creation of other possible worlds in the passage from colonial literature to decolonial literature. In the relationship between the characters, we observe an experience of the world mediated by a horizontal exchange. Friday and Robinson make up another ethical existence that would be experienced, which denaturalizes the whole European cultural ethos (of a colonizing matrix) responsible for establishing what is, or not, civilized. Keywords: Others; Ethics: Difference; Colonial; Decolonial. Outrem como un desafío a la diferencia. Por una nueva ética de los afectos en el mundo contemporâneo. Resumen: El artículo presenta el concepto de Outrem a través de las perspectivas históricas y filosóficas en conexión con el plan estético. El foco del trabajo es presentar la dinámica de Outrem desde la obra Sexta-feira ou os limbos do pacífico, de Michel Tournier, precisamente a través de las nuevas versiones de los personajes Robinson Crusoé y Sexta-feira en comparación con la propuesta inicial de Daniel Defoe. Para ello, pensamos con Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari la aprehensión de una ética de Outrem capaz de contribuir a la creación de otros mundos posibles en la transición de la literatura colonial a la decolonial. En la relación entre los personajes, observamos una experiencia del mundo mediada por un intercambio horizontal. Sexta-feira e Robinson conforman otra existencia ética aún por vivir. Lo que desnaturaliza todo el ethos cultural europeo (de matriz colonizadora) responsable de establecer lo que es, o no, civilizado. Palabras llave: Otro; Ética: diferencia; Colonial; Decolonial. Data de registro: 23/03/2021 Data de aceite: 15/03/2022. (shrink)

A DIGNIDADE DA PESSOA HUMANA E SEUS SUBPRINCÍPIOS.

apresentamos uma comparação entre leituras distintas do caso do homem dos lobos visando explicitar e explicar as críticas deleuzo-guattarianas à psicanálise e, por consequência, os limites técnicos e teóricos desta. Serão abordadas as seguintes questões: a centralidade do complexo de Édipo na psicanálise, a castração em Freud e seus significados e limitações e, por fim, o caráter qualitativo da libido. O objetivo desta exposição é apresentar algumas das principais teses da esquizoanálise e expor a relevância de um conceito renovado de (...) inconsciente para a compreensão da relação entre desejo, política e vida social. (shrink)

Desde ines del siglo XX, el Desarrollo Humano (DH) ha planteado la necesidad de un cambio de paradigma que centre su atención en la mejora de la condición de vida de las personas —no únicamente desde la perspectiva de un aumento de ingreso— sino en torno al desarrollo de las capacidades fundamentales o esenciales pertenecientes al ser humano. Esta postura parte de la crítica al utilitarismo y sostiene que el DH tiene que partir de una comprensión profunda del ser humano. (...) Hasta entonces, la pregunta central del desarrollo había sido sobre la capacidad de producción de una nación. Pero, el nuevo planteamiento se preocupa por el estatus de las personas no en cuanto a la felicidad entendida como el poder de generar bienestar en función de obtener placer y evitar el dolor, sino cómo está la gente en sí misma. Entonces, el DH se reiere a un proceso y a un in en sí mismo, mediante el cual la gente accede a oportunidades para ampliar sus capacidades y funcionamientos, puesto que el sujeto de éstas es el hombre mismo. El DH como paradigma tiene que desarrollar un cuerpo teórico de carácter interdisciplinar y, en este punto, la incorporación de la ilosofía se hace urgente. Es necesario incorporar la metafísica del hombre dentro de la antropología social (AS) a la metodología de investigación del DH, a in de responder ¿Cuáles son las capacidades esenciales que le competen a los seres humanos? (shrink)

This paper presents Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0. IIT aims to account for the properties of experience in physical (operational) terms. It identifies the essential properties of experience (axioms), infers the necessary and sufficient properties that its substrate must satisfy (postulates), and expresses them in mathematical terms. In principle, the postulates can be applied to any system of units in a state to determine whether it is conscious, to what degree, and in what way. IIT offers a parsimonious explanation of (...) empirical evidence, makes testable predictions, and permits inferences and extrapolations. IIT 4.0 incorporates several developments of the past ten years, including a more accurate translation of axioms into postulates and mathematical expressions, the introduction of a unique measure of intrinsic information that is consistent with the postulates, and an explicit assessment of causal relations. By fully unfolding a system's irreducible cause-effect power, the distinctions and relations specified by a substrate can account for the quality of experience. (shrink)

Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to cultivate prosocial behavior. However, the lack of diverse representation within both scientific and participant populations in contemplative neuroscience may limit generalizability and translation of prior findings. To address these issues, we propose a research framework calledIntersectional Neurosciencewhich adapts research procedures to be more inclusive of under-represented groups. Intersectional Neuroscience builds inclusive processes into research design using two main approaches: 1) community engagement with diverse participants, and 2) individualized multivariate neuroscience methods to accommodate neural (...) diversity. We tested the feasibility of this framework in partnership with a diverse U.S. meditation center (East Bay Meditation Center, Oakland, CA). Using focus group and community feedback, we adapted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) screening and recruitment procedures to be inclusive of participants from various under-represented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, gender and sexual minorities, people with disabilities, neuropsychiatric disorders, and/or lower income. Using person-centered screening and study materials, we recruited and scanned 15 diverse meditators (80% racial/ethnic minorities, 53% gender and sexual minorities). The participants completed the EMBODY task – which applies individualized machine learning algorithms to fMRI data – to identify mental states during breath-focused meditation, a basic skill that stabilizes attention to support interoception and compassion. All 15 meditators’ unique brain patterns were recognized by machine learning algorithms significantly above chance levels. These individualized brain patterns were used to decode the internal focus of attention throughout a 10-min breath-focused meditation period, specific to each meditator. These data were used to compile individual-level attention profiles during meditation, such as the percentage time attending to the breath, mind wandering, or engaging in self-referential processing. This study provides feasibility of employing an intersectional neuroscience approach to include diverse participants and develop individualized neural metrics of meditation practice. Through inclusion of more under-represented groups while developing reciprocal partnerships, intersectional neuroscience turns the research process into an embodied form of social action. (shrink)

In his theory of beauty, Kant introduces the free and harmonious play of the faculties as a kind of judging. This judging should precede the pleasure in the beautiful. But being the determining ground of the judgement of taste, the pleasure should precede the judgement. Regarding this problem, two opposing models have been proposed: Paul Guyer's ‘two-acts model’ and Hannah Ginsborg's ‘one-act model’. I propose a third model that, I argue, resolves the difficulty and does not fall prey to the (...) problems of the other two resolutions: the ‘subsumption model’, according to which the pleasure is followed by a subsumption under the concept ‘beautiful’. (shrink)

Decades of feminist research has revealed the dismal labor conditions for women in global supply chains. Given this reality, why does Walmart use women in its supply chain as icons of female empowerment? Combining the Marxist notion of a “spatial fix” with a feminist analysis of symbolic resources, we develop the concept of a “gender fix” to understand a growing field of corporate programs that use women as symbolic resources to restore the image of firms as ethical actors. The gender (...) fix encompasses a wide range of corporate empowerment strategies to capture a broad pattern of action. A second term is necessary to situate Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy within its corporate positioning as leader of a vast supply chain network. We identify Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy as “outsourcing feminism.” Walmart’s use of the outsourcing feminism strategy stems from its commanding position in supply chains, which allows it to extract a symbolic surplus from women business owners from whom it sources products. When Walmart argues that it uplifts these women, its strategy targets the consumer end of the supply chain, emphasizing sourcing practices that promote a racially diverse, selfless, and middle-class femininity. In so doing, Walmart deflects attention from the treatment of women in other segments of its supply chain (e.g., its stores and factories). (shrink)

Para comprender la visión peirceana acerca de la subjetividad semiótica es necesario establecer antes tres referentes. Cada uno de estos referentes tiene un constructo teórico efectuado por otra serie de nociones, que en este momento no me detendré a explicar, sin embargo, será necesario más adelante acudir a varias de estas nociones para intentar exponer mi tema de investigación. La filosofía peirceana es un sistema amplio y complejo, va madurando en el tiempo. Peirce va definiendo y redefiniendo sus conceptos, hasta (...) cierto punto lo realiza de una manera imbricada, este es su método. Se presenta la dificultad de que la construcción teórica peirceana depende de conceptos que se explican entre sí, lo que hace la labor de investigación y exposición difícil, pues para fin de exponer una idea se requiere acceder a diferentes referentes conceptuales simultáneamente hasta llegar a una noción central. (shrink)

This paper reads Antigone from the perspective of the Chorus. Whereas most interpreters read Antigone from the perspective of Creon and Antigone’s respective laws, I maintain that the protagonists represent laws that are distinctly apolitical. Alternatively, I argue that the Chorus make the polis—past, present, and future—the center of their thought and action and are therefore uniquely political. Through close attention to the Chorus’s composition as a body that is both one and many at the same time, and by tracing (...) their evolving position throughout the action of the drama and in their choral odes, I argue that they model a reflective and political orientation to judgment rooted in plurality, tradition, and innovation. (shrink)

As social, locative, and mobile media render the intimate public and the public intimate, this volume interrogates how this phenomenon impacts art practice and politics. Contributors bring together the worlds of art and media culture to rethink their intersections in light of participatory social media. By focusing upon the Asia-Pacific region, they seek to examine how regionalism and locality affect global circuits of culture. The book also offers a set of theoretical frameworks and methodological paradigms for thinking about contemporary art (...) practice more generally. (shrink)

Vinícius de Moraes, no Soneto de Fidelidade, elabora a fidedigna atuação do eu-lírico sobre a dedicação ao amor. A propulsão da fidelidade está na forma de anular-se para o outro, distanciando-se do raciocínio ao pensá-lo, pois pensar no que ama deslumbra o encanto para além da visão. Argumenta-se sobre as angústias, os relacionamentos e o amor que influenciavam nas tomadas de decisões e na aceitação dos fatos e das desilusões. Inserido na ótica histórica da Segunda Grande Guerra, sob a condição (...) de reler sobre o uso do amor enquanto cura (ou loucura), identifica-se a vivência do poema com a fidelização eufórica, passional, irracional até o ponto de tornar-se banal. Recorre-se, então, à Banalidade, categoria sublinhada por Arendt como a ocorrência que interfere no raciocínio, na capacidade de pensar e na relação humana, por intermédio da ausência de reflexão e adesão irrestrita ao cumprimento da lei, mesmo em acordo com o usufruto do mal. Neste ensaio, encontra-se a aproximação da lírica ao contexto da guerra, o adorno do sentimento ao extremo do amor à pátria, a expressão de Eichmann, de cujo relato se extrai o magnetismo de governança do III Reich que conduziu a massificação de seus súditos a um ideário manipulador no conceito de fidelidade. (shrink)

When animals share decisions with others, they pool personal information, offset individual errors and, thereby, increase decision accuracy. This is termed ‘swarm intelligence.’ But what if those decisions involve conflicts of interest between individual decision-makers? Should animals share decisions with individuals whose goals are different from, and partially in conflict with, their own? A group decision model developed by Larissa Conradt and colleagues finds that, contrary to intuition, conflicting goals often increase both decision accuracy and the individual gains derived (...) from shared decisions. Thus, conflicts of interest, far from hampering effective decision making, can actually improve decision outcomes for all stakeholders, as long as they also have some goals in common. By contrast, conflict-free decisions shared by animals which all have the same goals are often surprisingly poor. (shrink)

This is a persona] account of an Aboriginal woman who went through the education system in Australia to obtain finally her law degree. Aboriginal people experience many hurdles in the education system. Many Aboriginal children feel alienated within the legal system which until recently focused on a colonial history of Australia, ignoring the experiences, indeed the presence, of indigenous people in Australia. The Australian government had a policy of not educating Aboriginal people past the age of 14. The author was (...) one of the first generation that could go straight from high school to university. She speaks of the debt she feels towards the generations of her people that fought for her right to access to higher education. The author went on to become the first Aboriginal person to be accepted into Harvard Law School which brought different personal challenges and allowed for reflection on comparisons of the sensitivity towards race in both education systems. When the author returned to Australia, she took a position teaching at the University of New South Wales. She had to come to terms with working within a system that she had felt alienated within as a student. Her position at the front of the class has created a sense of empowerment that she can pass on to her Aboriginal and female students. (shrink)

Morin envisions the adaptive landscape of graphic codes as an unfertile valley where writing rises as an isolated peak that humans managed to reach only on four occasions throughout all of history. By exploring the different paths to cultural convergence, we suggest an alternative landscape occupied by a mountain range of visual art systems. We conclude that graphic communication through visual art worked well enough to render writing contingent but not necessary in most cases.

To be true of every experience, the axioms of Integrated information theory are necessarily basic properties and should not be “over-psychologized.” Information, for example, merely asserts that experience is specific, not generic. It does not require “access.” The information a system specifies about itself in its current state is revealed by its unfolded cause–effect structure and quantified by its integrated information.

Post-Soviet Belarus: The Transformation of National Identity The paper deals with the formation of a new national identity in Belarus under conditions of post-Soviet transformation. Under the term of "national identity" the author means the identity of the population of the Republic of Belarus that will be adequate to its status of a newly independent state acquired after 1991. Special attention is paid to the existing major research approaches to the problem of constructing this national identity. According to the author's (...) view, both major approaches are inadequate; the author puts forward a new approach that goes beyond discussions on language and national culture, and corresponds to the concept of plurality of identities. The author describes some paradoxes of national identity based on the opposition of "nation" and "people". These correspond to the Western model of the "creation of modern nations", which is not fully applicable to post-Soviet Belarus. All attempts to apply this model to contemporary Belarus lead scholars to several "cultural paradoxes" that can, however, be explained within a new approach. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to reveal the genesis of the concept of digital reality and its connection with the millennial Pyphagorean tradition in European philosophy and culture, based on the logic and dialectic of the number as a metaphysical entity. The article implements an attempt to historically and philosophically consider the phenomenon of digital reality: the conclusions of modern researchers are confirmed about the key importance of this philosophical tradition as a special system of thought, which defined modern (...) ideological and scientific paradigms and contributed to the formation of the social model of post-industrial, information-digital society. Scientific novelty is to reveal a modern scientific understanding of the notion that numbers can materialize the world by reflecting reality and returning it to man through knowledge derived through the programming or construction of digital reality on the basis of symbolic-applied logic. As a result of the analysis of philosophical sources, it has been proved that information in our world can be considered as another kind of movement of matter, and the Internet is not only an "information technology" but a "social form", a "universal social space" that appeared not overnight – with the invention of "breakthrough" technology, but formed by centuries of cultivated scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Causal reductionism is the widespread assumption that there is no room for additional causes once we have accounted for all elementary mechanisms within a system. Due to its intuitive appeal, causal reductionism is prevalent in neuroscience: once all neurons have been caused to fire or not to fire, it seems that causally there is nothing left to be accounted for. Here, we argue that these reductionist intuitions are based on an implicit, unexamined notion of causation that conflates causation with prediction. (...) By means of a simple model organism, we demonstrate that causal reductionism cannot provide a complete and coherent account of ‘what caused what’. To that end, we outline an explicit, operational approach to analyzing causal structures. (shrink)

This Article argues that ownership is a form of authority that is constitutionally basic in liberal societies. At the same time, I argue, neither the particular benefits nor burdens that accede to the position of ownership are. By distinguishing between a principle of sovereignty, which I argue constitutes the core authority of owners, and a principle of accession, which I argue regulates the distribution of benefits attached to the position, we can see how this is so. Taxation, regulation, expropriation, by (...) means of which benefits are withheld or burdens imposed, are not then attacks on property that undermine the position of ownership itself. Attacks on the office of ownership as such would be, rather, acts by the state that deny the basic sovereign authority of owners to set the agenda that regulates private activity with respect to a thing, e.g., by subordinating owners to the private choices of others. (shrink)

This article investigates the notion of sensus communis as being introduced in the Critique of Judgment. I argue that, within the framework of Kant's philo- sophy, the general notion of a sensus communis, that is, a faculty that leads to sensuous and universal results, is paradoxical. An analysis of the theoretical sensus communis, understood as an awareness of the faculties' accord in cases of cognition, reveals that it is unclear why this faculty should amount to a sense. The aesthetic sensus (...) communis is the best candidate for a sensuous and communal faculty. However, I show that the communality of its results, that is, the community of the pleasure in the beautiful as being felt on the occasion of a given object, is insufficiently developed. (shrink)

Marr's seminal work laid out a program of research by specifying key questions for cognitive science at different levels of analysis. Because dynamic systems theory focuses on time and interdependence of components, DST research programs come to very different conclusions regarding the nature of cognitive change. We review a specific DST approach to cognitive-level processes: dynamic field theory. We review research applying DFT to several cognitive-level processes: object permanence, naming hierarchical categories, and inferring intent, that demonstrate the difference in understanding (...) of behavior and cognition that results from a DST perspective. These point to a central challenge for cognitive science research as defined by Marr—emergence. We argue that appreciating emergence raises questions about the utility of computational-level analyses and opens the door to insights concerning the origin of novel forms of behavior and thought. We contend this is one of the most fundamental questions about cognition and behavior. (shrink)

The material interrelations between bodies and objects are a wide, worthwhile and absorbing field, which has not been sufficiently examined yet. Focusing on such interrelations within air travel, this article contributes to the exploration of this field. It delineates that such interrelations do not simply happen, but that they have to be accomplished continuously by different participants with a certain risk to fail at many points. Within mobilities, such processes of interrelating occur under the specific circumstances of a moving vehicle. (...) Based on empirical data from an ethnographic study on air travel, the paper is concerned with the ongoing dynamics of body-object-interrelations. Based on this analysis, it suggests emphasizing the continuous modification that material assemblages built of people and objects undergo even when “only” staying immobile during a flight. Passengers do not simply enter and exit a vehicle staying identical with themselves. Rather, they are continuously adapting to a material infrastructure that shapes and adjusts their corporeal needs and capacities, including their senses. (shrink)

Resumo: A partir de uma apresentação do contexto político e social no interior do qual a obra de Guattari se insere, buscamos definir o debate político francês da década de 60, no campo do marxismo, sobretudo do materialismo histórico em torno da questão do sujeito da história. O objetivo deste artigo é explicitar as razões que levam Guattari a romper com o estruturalismo, representado na psicanálise por Lacan e no marxismo por Althusser. A relevância deste texto está na apresentação do (...) conceito de máquina, que se define em oposição ao conceito de estrutura e que, unindo história e inconsciente, visa a traçar o espaço de emergência de um sujeito da história, de um sujeito político.: From a presentation of the political and social context within which Guattari’s work fits in, we seek to define the French political debate of the 1960s in the field of Marxism - especially historical materialism - on the question of the subject of history. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons that lead Guattari to break with structuralism, represented in psychoanalysis by Lacan and Marxism by Althusser. The relevance of this article lies in the presentation of the concept of machine, which is defined in opposition to the concept of structure and that, joining history and unconscious, aims to trace the emergence space of a subject of history, of a political subject. (shrink)

Research indicates that consumers are particularly concerned about the safety of meat. More highly processed meat is perceived as more unsafe than fresh or natural meats, i.e., consumers trust processed meat less. This paper studies the relationship between perceived trust and day-to-day purchase behavior for meat, giving special attention to the degree of meat processing. Controlling for trust in food chain actors and demographic and socio-economic variables, actual meat purchases of Canadian households are linked to answers from a commissioned food (...) attitudes survey completed by the same households. Expenditures for processed and total meat (but not for fresh meat) are significantly different by three levels of trust in the food industry. Consumer with the lowest trust levels consume less (especially of processed meat) compared to those with higher trust levels. However, in a multivariate setting, trust shows no effect on fresh or processed meat purchases with or without demographic and socio-economic control variables, suggesting that the impact of trust on meat purchases is only small. However, the low trusting consumer segment could potentially be a target for marketing strategies focused on reputation and quality to increase sales in this particular group. (shrink)