The Ethics of Uncertainty asks what it means to live, act, decide, and respond responsibly, in the aporia of freedom itself - a freedom which on one hand opens us to the open space of possible possibilities, and on the other, leaves us no stable ground or measure for pre/determined decision making. The aporia of freedom is conditioned by the indeterminate space of knowing we must make decisions, and yet, at the same time, we cannot call on an absolute authority (...) or measure as a guide. Aporias open us to freedom, the place where, as Derrida has taught us, an ethical decision may occur. Allowing indeterminacy to exist in our becoming allows a continuous coming to be with others - a becoming always open to the "to come" (Derrida) of the future. Always drawing us toward the possibility of making a decision within the fabric of indecision, aporias give us the possibility of ethical becoming. Overall, this text points us to the possibility of living an ethical life in a world without absolute measure - an ethics, in other words, of uncertainty. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at developing a poetic ontology of the senses through an understanding of poetry, or more importantly the poetic as such, i.e., the movement, temporality, and various antinomies within poetic gesturing which interrupt the logic of closed meaning and totalization. Through a range of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy, amongst others, and primarily the poetry of Pessoa and Rilke, the paper investigates how poetry (poetics) may not only show us a path toward (...) a poetic ontology (thus an ontology in correlation with the senses and movements of natural and material existence), but furthermore point us toward the possibility of an ethical becoming which mirrors the movements of poetry, in contrast to following the rigid structures of absolute and fixed meaning. The overall intention in this analysis is not to find a clear, complete, or overarching thought which may point us toward the ethical or the good. The attempt here is to show that ethics is an activity, a continuous becoming (analogous to poetics) that can be sensed through a way of being in the world, and "being-with" the world, as compared to simply understood through cognitive forms of abstract knowledge. (shrink)

‘Left melodrama’ is a form of contemporary political critique that combines thematic elements and narrative structures of the melodramatic genre with a political perspective grounded in a left theoretical tradition, fusing them to dramatically interrogate oppressive social structures and unequal relations of power. It is also a new form of what Walter Benjamin called ‘left melancholy’, a critique that deadens what it examines by employing outdated and insufficient analyses to current exploitations. Left melodrama is melancholic insofar as its use of (...) older leftist critical methods disavows its attachments to the failed promises of left political-theoretical critique: that it could provide direct means to freedom and moral rightness. Left melodrama is melodramatic insofar as it incorporates the specific melodramatic narrative, style and promise of the text that stands in for its disavowed attachments: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Whereas the Manifesto's critical power promised radical political transformation, left melodrama incorporates the Manifesto's melodramatic style in an effort to revivify that promise. It thus inhibits the creation of new critical methods appropriate to our current historical moment and occludes Marx and Engels' warning that the possibility of radical transformation is diminished when the past furnishes the vision for the future. Left melodrama can be found in the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; their reincorporation of the Manifesto's melodrama both contributes to their widespread success and undercuts their critical capacities to examine and challenge the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that shape the present moment. (shrink)

1;Band 1;4 1.1;Inhalt;6 1.2;Einfuhrung in das Gesamtprojekt;8 1.3;Einfuhrung in den Band 1;26 1.4;Medienpolitik im Zeichen von Demokratisierung, Kontrolle und Teilautonomie;42 1.4.1;Tagespresse im Saargebiet 1918 1945;44 1.4.2;Demokratisierung im inneren Widerspruch;68 1.4.2.1;Franzosische und saarlandische Printmedienpolitik 1945 1955;68 1.4.3;Kirchen, Medien, Offentlichkeiten;108 1.4.3.1;Eine medienpolitische Kirchengeschichte der Saarautonomie 1945 1959;108 1.5;Rundfunk und Fernsehen;134 1.5.1;Die Saarlandmacher;136 1.5.1.1;Der Aufbau des Saarlandischen Rundfunks und die Autonomie des Landes 1946 1955;136 1.5.2;Musik als Anker politischer und medialer Attraktivitat;200 1.5.2.1;Umfang und Grenzen der franzosischen Impulse in der musikalischen Programmgestaltung des (...) Rundfunks an der Saar 1945 1957;200 1.5.3;Horspiel bei Radio Saarbrucken von 1946 bis 1955;224 1.5.4;Die Anfange des kommerziellen Rundfunks im Saarland;248 1.5.4.1;Die Geschichte der Saarlandischen Fernseh AG ;248 1.6;Zeitungslandschaft;316 1.6.1;Die Saarbrucker Zeitung in der saarlandischen Zeitungslandschaft 1945 1955;318 1.6.2;Die Saarproblematik in der Berichterstattung der Saarbrucker Zeitung 1947 1955;352 1.6.2.1;Eine qualitativ-quantitative Analyse von Inhalten und Sparten;352 1.6.3;Parteipresse und Presselandschaft in der Autonomiezeit 1945 1955;380 1.6.4;Die saarlandische Sportpresse im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Identitat und Selbstbehauptung 1945 1960;416 1.6.5;Ja oder Nein?;438 1.6.5.1;Die saarlandischen Zeitungen im Abstimmungskampf 1955;438 1.6.6;Resumee;458 1.7;Abkurzungsverzeichnis;466 1.8;Abbildungsnachweis;470 1.9;Personen- und Medienregister;472 1.10;Detailliertes Inhaltsverzeichnis;484 1.11;ubersicht uber das Gesamtwerk;490 2;Band 2;496 2.1;Inhalt;500 2.2;Einfuhrung in den Band 2;502 2.3;Grundzuge und Strukturen;512 2.3.1;Entscheidungssituationen saarlandischer Medienpolitik;514 2.3.2;Die Struktur der saarlandischen Horfunk-und Fernsehinstitutionen;544 2.3.3;Die Entwicklung der Zeitungslandschaft;572 2.3.4;Monopole, Marktverstopfer, Mitbewerber;612 2.3.4.1;Die Landschaft der Zeitschriften und Anzeigenblatter;612 2.4;Organisations- und Kommunikationsprozesse;644 2.4.1;Binnen- und AuSSenkommunikation beim Saarlandischen Rundfunk;646 2.4.2;Binnen- und AuSSenkommunikation bei der Saarbrucker Zeitung;684 2.4.3;Offentlichkeitsarbeit und offentliche Aktionen;722 2.4.3.1;Saarlandischer Rundfunk, Radio Salu und Saarbrucker Zeitung seit den 1970er Jahren;722 2.4.4;Horerforschung beim Saarlandischen Rundfunk;752 2.5;Berufsorganisation und Berufsbilder;776 2.5.1;Die Entwicklung der Berufsbilder im Horfunk;778 2.5.1.1;Der Saarlandische Rundfunk;778 2.5.2;Die Entwicklung der Berufsbilder im Fernsehjournalismus;822 2.5.2.1;Der Saarlandische Rundfunk;822 2.5.3;Die Veranderungen der Berufsbilder in der Printpresse;864 2.5.3.1;Die Saarbrucker Zeitung;864 2.5.4;Soziale Kommunikation und politische Organisation im saarlandischen Journalismus 1947 2008;892 2.5.5;Resumee;938 2.6;Abkurzungsverzeichnis;946 2.7;Abbildungsnachweis;950 2.8;Personen- und Medienregister;952 2.9;Detailliertes Inhaltsverzeichnis;962 2.10;ubersicht uber das Gesamtwerk;968 3;Band 3;974 3.1;Inhalt;978 3.2;Einfuhrung in den Band 3;980 3.3;Programme und Angebote im Rundfunk;990 3.3.1;Mehr Programm, weniger Inhalt?;992 3.3.1.1;Zur Programmgeschichte der Horfunksparte des Saarlandischen Rundfunks;992 3.3.2;Ein Land ein Sender;1098 3.3.2.1;50 Jahre Programmgeschichte des saarlandischen Fernsehens;1098 3.3.3;Der Aktuelle Bericht im Fernsehen des Saarlandischen Rundfunks 1994 2006;1136 3.4;Inhalte und Angebote in der Printpresse;1158 3.4.1;Die Berichterstattung der Saarbrucker Zeitung im Wandel;1160 3.4.2;Visualisierungsstrategien in der Printpresse;1200 3.4.2.1;Eine quantitative Analyse des Bildmaterials der Saarbrucker Zeitung;1200 3.4.3;Die Wah. (shrink)

New brain-computer interface and neuroimaging techniques are making differentiation less ambiguous and more accurate between unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients and patients with higher cognitive function and awareness. As research into these areas continues to progress, new ethical issues will face physicians of patients suffering from total locked-in syndrome, characterized by complete loss of voluntary muscle control, with retention of cognitive function and awareness detectable only with neuroimaging and brain-computer interfaces. Physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees should be aware of (...) and prepared to handle ethical issues unique to these totally locked-in patients. Several thought experiments are discussed, to highlight potential ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogate decision-making, autonomy, end-of-life care, and pediatric care, which will be unique to total LIS patients. These, along with other ethical problems especially relevant to total LIS patients, merit further discussion among physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees, to facilitate consensus regarding these issues, and improve patient care. (shrink)

In this book, Michael Madary examines visual experience, drawing on both phenomenological and empirical methods of investigation. He finds that these two approaches—careful, philosophical description of experience and the science of vision—independently converge on the same result: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. Madary first makes the case for the descriptive premise, arguing that the phenomenology of vision is best described as on ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. He discusses visual experience as being perspectival, (...) temporal, and indeterminate; considers the possibility of surprise when appearances do not change as we expect; and considers the content of visual anticipation. Madary then makes the case for the empirical premise, showing that there are strong empirical reasons to model vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment. He presents a range of evidence from perceptual psychology and neuroscience, and reinterprets evidence for the two-visual-systems hypothesis. Finally, he considers the relationship between visual perception and social cognition. An appendix discusses Husserlian phenomenology as it relates to the argument of the book. Madary argues that the fact that there is a convergence of historically distinct methodologies itself is an argument that supports his findings. With Visual Phenomenology, he creates an exchange between the humanities and the sciences that takes both methods of investigation seriously. (shrink)

In previous work I have argued against internalism by means of a dilemma intended to force all internalists to accept one of two undesirable options: either their internalism is unmotivated or it is saddled with vicious regress problems. Recently it has been argued that Phenomenal Conservatism—a theory of justification according to which justification depends on seemings—is a kind of internalism that can escape this dilemma. In this paper, I argue that Phenomenal Conservatism cannot escape my dilemma for internalism. In order (...) to do this, it is helpful to get clear on what Phenomenal Conservatism is saying, and for that reason I begin, in section I, by examining in some detail what seemings are. I then argue, in the remainder of the paper, that, whichever horn of the dilemma for internalism they take, Phenomenal Conservatives are in trouble. (shrink)

The paper explains why an ontology of permanent point particles that are individuated by their relative positions and that move on continuous trajectories as given by a deterministic law of motion constitutes the best solution to the measurement problem in both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. This case is made by comparing the Bohmian theory to collapse theories such as the GRW matter density and the GRW flash theory. It is argued that the Bohmian theory makes the minimal changes, (...) concerning only the dynamics and neither the ontology nor the account of probabilities, that are necessary to get from classical mechanics to quantum physics. There is no cogent reason to go beyond these minimal changes. (shrink)

Since heaven is the most perfect state or position possible – namely of loving God perfectly – and sinning is failing to love God, it will not be possible to sin in heaven. However, if freedom is a mark of perfection, and loving God is only possible when one freely loves God, will we be loving God at all if we are not free not to love him? Three cumulative arguments for an affirmative answer are developed. The first is to (...) distinguish the ability to love or sin from the opportunity to do so. In heaven we are loving God in an infinite variety of ways, so we are freely exercising our ability to love, even when God has taken away any opportunities for sinning. However, one might reply that our freedom will only be the freedom to love God in various ways, not the freedom to love God or not. Hence the second argument is that in heaven are only people who have freely chosen to love God while on earth, where there was a real opportunity not to love God. Since the free choice to love God was made before entering heaven, loving God in heaven remains a free choice. Moreover, since in heaven God takes away the opportunity to sin, and stopping to love God would be a sin, you will remain steadfast in that free choice. However, one might reply that also having the opportunity to sin would add an extra possibility for willing something, so one would be 'more free' in heaven, and heaven would be more perfect, if one would also have the opportunity to sin. Hence the third argument is that freedom is a perfection shared by both God and humans, and the freedom of God is in an important respect a freedom to create. Hence, our human freedom is also greater if our creative power is greater. We have no creative power but by participating in God’s creative power, which is necessarily directed towards the good. So by willing what is good we extend and perfect creation and thereby extend and perfect our possibilities for willing, hence we become more free. On the contrary, by sinning we destroy creation and possibilities for willing and we become less free, so an opportunity to sin is not a possibility that increases our freedom. (shrink)

Introduction : from victims and perpetrators to implicated subjects -- The transmission belt of domination : theorizing the implicated subject -- On (not) being a descendant : implicated subjects and the legacies of slavery -- Progress, progression, procession : William Kentridge's implicated aesthetic -- From Gaza to Warsaw : multidirectional memory and the perpetuator -- Under the sign of suitcases : the Holocaust internationalism of Marceline Loridan-Ivens -- "Germany is in Kurdistan" : Hito Steyerl's images of implication -- Conclusion : (...) transfiguring implication : eleven theses. (shrink)

Martin O'Shaughnessy _Jean Renoir_ Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000 ISBN 0719050626 hb; 0719050634 pb 251 pp.

At a time in medicine where the cost of human clinical labor continues to rise, with an overall shortage of providers at all levels, improved AI performance raises critical, pressing questions with...

This book, first published in 2000, adopts a balanced perspective on the subject to offer a serious examination of both Darwinism and Christianity. He covers a wide range of topics, from the Scopes Monkey Trial to claims about the religious significance of extraterrestrials. He deals with major figures in the current science/religion debate and considers in detail the claims of the new creationism, revealing some surprising parallels between Darwinian materialists and traditional thinkers such as St. Augustine. Michael Ruse argues (...) that, although it is at times difficult for a Darwinian to embrace Christian belief, it is by no means inconceivable. At the same time he suggests ways in which a Christian believer should have no difficulty accepting evolution in general, and Darwinism in particular. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas conceives of our lives as fundamentally interpersonal and ethical, claiming that our responsibilities to one another should shape all of our actions. While many scholars believe that Levinas failed to develop a robust view of political ethics, Michael L. Morgan argues against understandings of Levinas’s thought that find him politically wanting or even antipolitical. Morgan examines Levinas’s ethical critique of the political as well as his Jewish writings—including those on Zionism and the founding of the Jewish state—which (...) are controversial reflections of Levinas’s political expression. Unlike others who dismiss Levinas as irrelevant or anarchical, Morgan is the first to give extensive treatment to Levinas as a serious social political thinker whose ethics must be understood in terms of its political implications. Morgan reveals Levinas’s political commitments to liberalism and democracy as well as his revolutionary conception of human life as deeply interconnected on philosophical, political, and religious grounds. (shrink)

After outlining why the notion of conscious control of action matters to us and after distinguishing different challenges to that notion, the contribution focuses on the challenge posed by the literature on unconscious goal pursuit. Based on a conceptual clarification of the notion of consciousness, I argue that the understanding of consciousness in that literature is too restricted. The hypothesis that the behaviors reported can be accounted for by nonconceptual forms of consciousness, such as emotions and motor experiences, rather than (...) by—conscious or unconscious—conceptual level intentions tends to be disregarded, even though it promises to be empirically fruitful. (shrink)

Throughout this compelling work, Jackson demonstrates that existentialism, far from being a philosophy of individual being, enables us to explore issues of ...

This collection is the first book devoted to Paulo Freire's ongoing global legacy to provide an analysis of the continuing relevance and significance of Freire's work and the impact of his global legacy. The book contains essays by some of the world's foremost Freire scholars - McLaren, Darder, Roberts, and others - as well as chapters by scholars and activists, including the Maori scholars Graham Hingangaroa Smith and Russell Bishop, who detail their work with the indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand. (...) The book contains a foreword by Nita Freire as well as chapters from scholars around the world including Latin America, Asia, the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. With a challenging introduction from the editors, Michael A. Peters and Tina Besley, this much-awaited addition to the Freire archive is highly recommended reading for all students and scholars interested in Freire, global emancipatory politics, and the question of social justice in education. (shrink)

One of the most foundational and continually contested questions in the cognitive sciences is the degree to which the functional organization of the brain can be understood as modular. In its classic formulation, a module was defined as a cognitive sub-system with nine specific properties; the classic module is, among other things, domain specific, encapsulated, and implemented in dedicated neural substrates. Most of the examinations—and especially the criticisms—of the modularity thesis have focused on these properties individually, for instance by finding (...) counterexamples in which otherwise good candidates for cognitive modules are shown to lack domain specificity or encapsulation. The current paper goes beyond the usual approach by asking what some of the broad architectural implications of the modularity thesis might be, and attempting to test for these. The evidence does not favor a modular architecture for the cortex. Moreover, the evidence suggests that best way to approach the understanding of cognition is not by analyzing and modelling different functional domains in isolation from the others, but rather by looking for points of overlap in their neural implementations, and exploiting these to guide the analysis and decomposition of the functions in question. This has significant implications for the question of how to approach the design and implementation of intelligent artifacts in general, and language-using robots in particular. (shrink)

This leading scholar draws on extensive research from four plurinational states - the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Canada - to provide a radical rethink of the very nature of sovereignty and the state. This innovative account demonstrates how transnational integration and other demands on the nation-state have broken the automatic link between state and nation, and goes on to provide a major new analysis of the subsequent challenges of recognition of nationality and democracy.

While some conclude from the revolutions of 1989 that socialism is dead, interest in socialism continues because of persisting problems of contemporary capitalism. In this exciting text, Michael W. Howard offers critiques of liberal, communitarian, postmodern and some Marxist perspectives in order to develop a 'left-liberal' defense of a model of self-managed market socialism that includes a basic income for all. Specific applications of his view include analyses of its implications for the global marketplace, the changing nature of workplaces, (...) and media restructuring and ownership. This work is sure to be of interest to social scientists, public policy makers, and economists as well as to feminists, ecologists, and others concerned with how market socialism is relevant to their social issues. (shrink)