Digital organizations form part of the new wave of blockchain technologies, following Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. “Utopia ofion” offers an analysis of the utopian promise of digital organizations through a reading of one such project, Colony. We provide a critique of the ideology of Colony's white paper, supplemented by readings of pages from its website, as a member of a genre of texts that promote their products through seemingly neutral, technical descriptions. Colony's texts suggest an abstract, contextless and scaleless organizational (...) solution—powered by smart contracts on a blockchain—that, according to its proponents, might be applied to any social situation, from small firm to state-level governance. For its users, this organization combines a promise of sovereignty removed from that of the state, as well as implied financial returns. Our reading of Colony echoes the critiques of scholars arguing that cyberlibertarianism is a dominant politic of blockchain technologies. Furthermore, drawing on critiques of code as law and the elision of the social in smart contracts, we argue that Colony's vision presents a model of technical organization that substitutes for the state in the context of waning popular sovereignty. We ultimately suggest an understanding of digital organizations reminiscent of the settler colonial situation: the assumption of an empty social space to be filled, and the promise of sovereignty and riches for those occupying it. Analysis of these logics is relevant as hype increases around non-fungible tokens, Web3, and the corporate metaverse as well as data practices more widely. (shrink)

While this is not the first study of reception histories of Indian and European ideas across East-West boundaries, Thomas J. Green's distinctive contribution is to show–via a microscopic focus on two thinkers whose intellectual trajectories cannot be fully understood within the history of any single nation–how the macroscopic processes of modernity and secularisation in the long nineteenth-century must be seen as transnational phenomena. The argument is centred on the German scholar of comparative religion, Friedrich Max Müller and the Bengali advocate (...) for Hindu socio-religious reform, Swami Vivekananda. Green masterfully brings to light the surprising convergences between these two figures... (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over (...) salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

Published posthumously in the early 1920's, Max Weber's Economy and Society has since become recognized as one of the greatest sociological treatises of the 20th century, as well as a foundational text of the modern sociological imagination. The first strictly empirical comparison of social structures and normative orders conducted in world-historical depth, this two volume set of Economy and Society—now with new introductory material contextualizing Weber’s work for 21st century audiences—looks at social action, religion, law, bureaucracy, charisma, the city, and (...) the political community. Meant as a broad introduction for an educated general public, in its own way Economy and Society is the most demanding textbook yet written by a sociologist. The precision of its definitions, the complexity of its typologies, and the wealth of its historical content make the work an important challenge to our sociological thought: for the advanced undergraduate who gropes for her sense of society, for the graduate student who must develop his own analytical skills, and for the scholar who must match wits with Weber. (shrink)

The book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" is an engaging criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of a Wittgensteinian philosophy of ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the left hemisphere thinks" are integral to cognitive neuroscience but that they are meaningless because they commit the mereological fallacy—ascribing to parts of humans, properties that make sense to predicate only of whole humans. The authors claim that this fallacy is at the heart of Cartesian (...) dualism, implying that current cognitive neuroscientists are Cartesian dualists. Against this claim, we argue that the fallacy cannot be committed within Cartesian dualism either, for this doctrine does not allow for an intelligible way of asserting that a soul is part of a human being. Also, the authors' Aristotelian essentialistic outlook is at odds with their Wittgensteinian stance, and we were unconvinced by their case against explanatory reductionism. Finally, although their Wittgensteinian stance is congenial with radical behaviorism, their separation between philosophy and science seems less so because it is based on a view of philosophy as a priori. The authors' emphasis on the a priori, however, does not necessarily commit them to rationalism if it is restricted to conceptual or analytical truths. (shrink)

A variety of theoretical frameworks predict the resemblance of behaviors between two people engaged in communication, in the form of coordination, mimicry, or alignment. However, little is known about the time course of the behavior matching, even though there is evidence that dyads synchronize oscillatory motions (e.g., postural sway). This study examined the temporal structure of nonoscillatory actions—language, facial, and gestural behaviors—produced during a route communication task. The focus was the temporal relationship between matching behaviors in the interlocutors (e.g., facial (...) behavior in one interlocutor vs. the same facial behavior in the other interlocutor). Cross-recurrence analysis revealed that within each category tested (language, facial, gestural), interlocutors synchronized matching behaviors, at temporal lags short enough to provide imitation of one interlocutor by the other, from one conversational turn to the next. Both social and cognitive variables predicted the degree of temporal organization. These findings suggest that the temporal structure of matching behaviors provides low-level and low-cost resources for human interaction. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps, and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may (...) freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

What, in essence, characterizes the mind? According to Searle, the potential to be conscious provides the only definitive criterion. Thus, conscious states are unquestionably "mental"; "shallow unconscious" states are also "mental" by virtue of their capacity to be conscious (at least in principle); but there are no "deep unconscious mental states" - i.e. those rules and procedures without access to consciousness, inferred by cognitive science to characterize the operations of the unconscious mind are not mental at all. Indeed, according to (...) Searle, they have no ontological status - they are simply ways of describing some interesting facets of purely physiological phenomena. (shrink)

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated how and when pointing gestures and location descriptions affect target identification. The experiments investigated the effect of gestures and referring expressions on the time course of fixations to the target, using videos of human gestures and human voice, and animated gestures and synthesized speech. Ambiguous, yet informative pointing gestures elicited attention and facilitated target identification, akin to verbal location descriptions. Moreover, target identification was superior when both pointing gestures and verbal location descriptions were used. These findings (...) suggest that gesture not only operates as a context to verbal descriptions, or that verbal descriptions operate as a context to gesture, but that they complement one another in reference resolution. (shrink)

The late John Austin's William James Lectures 1 might well have borne the subtitle ‘In Pursuit of a Vanishing Distinction’. Although the chase is remorseless, glimpses of the quarry become increasingly equivocal and the hunter is left empty-handed at last. It is hard to know what has gone awry. Has the wrong game been pursued—and in the wrong direction?

This reply to five continuing commentaries on my 1991 target article on “Is human information processing conscious” focuses on six related issues: 1) whether focal attentive processing replaces consciousness as a causal agent in third-person viewable human information processing, 2)whether consciousness can be dissociated from human information processing, 3) continuing disputes about definitions of "consciousness" and about what constitutes a “conscious process” , 4) how observer-relativity in psychology relates (and does not relate) to relativity in physics, 5) whether the first-person (...) viewable causal efficacy of consciousness counts as ‘real’ causal efficacy and 6) a clarification of the sense in which first- and third-person causal accounts of mental processing are complementary and mutually irreducible. (shrink)

These essays are intended to illustrate various ways in which ideas about language may be used to clarify philosophic problems. They contain careful interpretations and criticisms of theories of language.

Population counts and longitude and latitude coordinates were estimated for the 50 largest cities in the United States by computational linguistic techniques and by human participants. The mathematical technique Latent Semantic Analysis applied to newspaper texts produced similarity ratings between the 50 cities that allowed for a multidimensional scaling (MDS) of these cities. MDS coordinates correlated with the actual longitude and latitude of these cities, showing that cities that are located together share similar semantic contexts. This finding was replicated using (...) a first‐order co‐occurrence algorithm. The computational estimates of geographical location as well as population were akin to human estimates. These findings show that language encodes geographical information that language users in turn may use in their understanding of language and the world. (shrink)

Reproduktion auf Grundlage der Ausgabe: Verlag von Friedrich Cohen; Bonn 1929. - Die hier gesammelten Aufsätze aus der letzten Schaffensperiode Max Schelers sind zwar unabhängig voneinander entstanden und veröffentlicht worden - Näheres sagen die Anmerkungen am Schluß des Bandes -, aber sie schließen sich doch zur Einheit zusammen durch die metaphysische Haltung, die der kurze, an die Spitze gestellte und für den Gesamttitel maßgebende Aufsatz mit großer Deutlichkeit offenbart. Er ist auch die letzte von Max Scheler selbst abgeschlossene Schrift. Die (...) wenigen an dem Text der Erstveröffentlichungen vorgenommenen inhaltlichen Änderungen gehen auf eigenhändige Notizen des Verfassers zurück. (shrink)

Are there universals of reading? There are three ways of construing this question. Is the region of the brain where reading is implemented identical regardless of what writing system the reader uses? Is the mental information-processing system used for reading the same regardless of what writing system the reader uses. Do the word's writing systems share certain universal features? Dehaene offers affirmative answers to all three questions in his book. Here I suggest instead that the answers should be negative. And (...) I ask: if reading is not universal in any sense, what does this imply about Dehaene's Neuronal Recycling hypothesis for reading? (shrink)

This paper develops a critique of the concept of ‘ethical identity’ as this has been used recently to distinguish between ‘cynical’ and ‘authentic’ forms of corporate responsibility. Taking as our starting point Levinas’ demanding view of responsibility as ‘following the assignation of responsibility for my neighbour’, we use a case study of a packaging company—PackCo—to argue that a concern with being seen and/or seeing oneself as responsible should not be confused with actual responsibility. Our analysis of the case points first (...) to the allure of programmes of strategic corporate responsibility and the ways in which, through identification, they can provide a tacit form of moral sanction to managers in their aggressive pursuit of profit. It then contrasts the responses of different managers to negative staff feedback to illustrate the difference between managers’ attempts to defend their identity of being ‘responsible’ managers, and responsible conduct itself. The paper concludes that a potent danger of programmes of corporate responsibility is that they allow managers to deceive not just others, but also themselves in relation to the exercise of responsibility. (shrink)

This philosophy book is written for students who are not interested in philosophy or who are struggling to understand it. Professor Malikow makes it easy to understand the sophisticated ideas and profound truths of philosophy by his use of everyday language, analogies, examples, and humor.

Bd. 2. Erkenntnislehre und Metaphysik -- Bd. 3. Philosophische Anthropologie -- Bd. 4. Philosophie und Geschichte -- Bd. 5. Varia I -- Bd. 6. Varia II.

This paper responds to continuing commentary on Velmans (2002a) “How could conscious experiences affect brains,” a target article for a special issue of JCS. I focus on the final question dealt with by the target article: how free will relates to preconscious and conscious mental processing, and I develop the case for preconscious free will. Although “preconscious free will” might appear to be a contradiction in terms, it is consistent with the scientific evidence and provides a parsimonious way to reconcile (...) the commonsense view that voluntary acts are freely chosen with the evidence that conscious wishes and decisions are determined by preconscious processing in the mind/brain. I consider alternative interpretations of how “conscious free will” might operate by Libet and by Mangan and respond to doubts about the extent to which the operations of mind are revealed in consciousness, raised by Claxton and Bouratinos. In reconciling commonsense attributions of freedom and responsibility with the findings of science, preconscious free will can be shown to have practical consequences for adjudications in law. (shrink)

English summary: The study of the philosophy of history is currently divided into two largely irreconcilable approaches. The methodological and scientific analysis of historical practice stands opposed to an approach based on the reflection on the historicity of human identity. Previous attempts to overcome this discrepancy have been prevented from seeking recourse in Hegel's historical thought, since it is still seen as representing a substantialist and tangible philosophy of history and therefore as being theoretically obsolete. Max Winter shows that Hegel (...) not only possesses a theoretically sophisticated and formal philosophy of history, but one that is also able to bridge gaps within philosophy of history today, in that it combines an epistemology of historical knowledge with a theory of historical identity. German description: Die gegenwartige Geschichtsphilosophie in ist in zwei relativ unvermittelte Ansatze geschieden: Der methodologisch-wissenschaftstheoretischen Analyse geschichtswissenschaftlicher Praxis steht die Reflexion auf die Geschichtlichkeit menschlicher Identitat gegenuber. Bisherigen Versuchen zur Uberwindung dieser Diskrepanz scheint der Ruckgriff auf Hegels Geschichtsdenken versperrt, da dieses weiterhin als Beispiel einer substantialistischen, materialen Geschichtsphilosophie und mithin als theoretisch uberholt gilt. Max Winter zeigt, dass Hegel nicht nur uber eine theoretisch anspruchsvolle, formale Geschichtsphilosophie verfugt, sondern dass diese daruber hinaus auch geeignet ist, Graben innerhalb der gegenwartigen Geschichtsphilosophie zu uberbrucken, indem sie eine Epistemologie historischen Wissens mit einer Theorie geschichtlicher Identitat verbindet. (shrink)

Was ist die Zeit? Diese Frage erlebt nach Kant eine Blutephase in der Phanomenologie. Eine Verbindung, die hier lange ubersehen wurde, betrifft Levinas' Interesse und Kritik an Kants Moralphilosophie. Der Stein des Anstosses ist die Zeit und ob sie im Sinne Kants eine Anschauungsform ist, in der uns jene Pflicht erscheint, die dem Dasein einen Sinn verleiht. Fur Levinas ist die Zeit weniger die Form einer solchen Erkenntnis als die Kluft, die uns von der Bedeutung unserer Verantwortung trennt. Levinas' gespaltenes (...) Verhaltnis zu Kant in diesem Punkt nachzuzeichnen, ist Ziel dieses Buches. (shrink)

This paper summarised the main arguments presented in "Consciousness, brain and the physical world" Philosophical Psychology (1990) to introduce a symposium on that paper. This was the first symposium on Velmans' Reflexive Model of Perception (the departure point for Reflexive Monism). This summary of the 1990 paper was followed by three critiques (by Robert Rentoul, Norman Wetherick, and Grant Gillett) followed by two replies. At the time of this upload (25 years later) many of the points in the 1991 paper (...) have become common currency, however some of the confusions about the implications of the reflexive model persist, so the discussion continues to have contemporary relevance. See academia.edu link for the entire symposium. (shrink)

Wallace, Max In trying to find an accurate way to describe the relationship between government and religion, I devised the term 'soft theocracy' and defined it as a 'state where church and government purposes coincide to garnishee taxpayers' money and resources, structurally through tax exemptions and functionally through grants and privileges'.

Wallace, Max 1215 - Magna Carta raises the principle of equality through a 'fair trial for all', leading to the notion of the rule of law. 1517 - Martin Luther posts a document on the front door of the Catholic Church in Wittenberg, Germany. It contains 95 theses attacking church indulgences. Luther later spreads his ideas through the newly invented printing press. It is the start of the Reformation.

Wallace, Max; Wallace, Meg On 31 July this year submissions closed to the government's Constitutional Advisory Panel concerning a constitution for New Zealand. New Zealand, like England, does not have a written constitution. On 13 July there was a day-long seminar sponsored by the Law Faculty at Victoria University in Wellington on the question of separation of church and state. One reason for this seminar was the lack of constitutional separation in New Zealand.

Wallace, Max This paper poses a paradox: the post-Gonski situation appears uncertain for mainly low socio-economic status government schools as the apparent government- in-waiting, the Coalition, have made a number of ominous statements as to whether they will follow through on the Gillard government's embrace of the Gonski funding reform.

A current, comprehensive summary of Velmans' theoretical work that updates and deepens the analysis given in Edition 1. Part 1 reviews the strengths and weaknesses of all currently dominant theories of consciousness in a form suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers focusing mainly on dualism, physicalism, functionalism and consciousness in machines. Part 2 gives a new analysis of consciousness, grounded in its everyday phenomenology, which undermines the basis of the dualism versus reductionist debate. It also examines the consequences for realism (...) versus idealism, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity, and the relation of consciousness to brain processing. Part 3 gives a new synthesis, with a novel approach to understanding what consciousness is and what consciousness does. It also introduces Reflexive Monism, an alternative to dualism and reductionism that is consistent with the findings of science and with common sense. (shrink)

A recent article in this journal (Patterson & Plaut, 2009) argued that cognitive neuropsychology has told us very little over the past 30 or 40 years about “how the brain accomplishes its cognitive business.” This may well be true, but it is not important, because the principal aim of cognitive neuropsychology is not to learn about the brain. Its principal aim is instead to learn about the mind, that is, to elucidate the functional architecture of cognition. I show that this (...) is so (a) via extensive quotations from leading figures in this field and (b) by analysis of the subject matter of articles in the leading journal in the field, Cognitive Neuropsychology. Recent reviews of the past 25 years of work in this field (Coltheart & Caramazza, 2006) have concluded that cognitive neuropsychology has told us much about the functional architecture of cognition in a variety of cognitive domains. Patterson and Plaut (2009) did not consider this aim of cognitive neuropsychology. Therefore, their conclusions that cognitive neuropsychology has not been successful, and that this is because the particular methods it uses are flawed, are not justified. (shrink)