Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid to digital capitalism’s cultural underpinnings and the beliefs of those who develop most digital technologies. In this paper, we argue that a solutionist order of worth – in which value derives from solving social problems through technology – has become central to an emerging spirit of digital capitalism. We use supervised learning to trace the (...) relative importance of different orders of worth in three novel text corpora. We find that solutionism is indeed central to the normative beliefs of digital elites and the broader digital milieu, but not to capitalist discourse at large. We illustrate the importance of these findings by discussing how the spirit of digital capitalism motivates, legitimates, and orients the actions of digital capitalists. (shrink)

Verschwörungserzählungen erleben im Zuge der Corona-Krise eine breite gesellschaftliche Beachtung und Anschlussfähigkeit. Dabei bleibt es nicht bei bloßen Agitationsversuchen seitens ihrer Anhänger:innen, sondern es kam zu Übergriffen auf vermeintlich an der Pandemie Schuldige sowie einer versuchten Stürmung des Reichstagsgebäudes im Kontext einer Querdenken-Demonstration. Von Verschwörungsgläubigen kann also tatsächlich eine konkrete Gefahr für diejenigen ausgehen, die innerhalb der Verschwörungserzählung als das Böse markiert werden. Es stellt sich also die Frage, auf welchem Wege hier bereits präventiv gewirkt werden kann. In seinen Überlegungen (...) zur conspiracy theory of society kam Karl Popper zu dem Schluss, dass es sich bei Karl Marx aufgrund seiner Analyse der Gesellschaft um einen wichtigen Akteur gegen Verschwörungserzählungen handele. Popper begründete dies damit, dass Marx den Fokus auf gesellschaftliche Strukturen als Ursache für konkrete Entwicklungen lege, anstatt diese auf das Handeln von Individuen zurückzuführen. Sofern der Bezug auf das individuelle, geheime Handeln verborgener Personen eine Grundstruktur von Verschwörungserzählungen ist, ließe sich also ableiten, dass politische Akteure, deren Gesellschaftsanalyse sich in einer marxistischen Tradition bewegt, deutlich seltener auf Verschwörungserzählungen zurückgreifen dürften. Die Ergebnisse der Leipziger Autoritarismusstudie 2020 bestätigen diese Überlegung insofern, als der Verschwörungsglaube stark mit menschenverachtenden Einstellungen und rechtsradikalen Positionen korreliert. Gleichzeitig konnte bei den Querdenken-Demonstrationen eine breite Beteiligung von Personen jenseits der radikalen Rechten beobachtet werden, was durch Oliver Nachtwey mit den Worten „von links kommend, nach rechts gehend“ beschrieben wurde. Die mögliche Anschlussfähigkeit von Verschwörungserzählungen auch für Personen aus einem sich selbst als links definierenden Spektrum stellt das immunisierende Potential marxistischer Gesellschaftskritik gegenüber dem Verschwörungsglauben in Frage. Der Aufsatz unternimmt den Versuch, die Vereinbarkeit einer marxistischen Gesellschaftsanalyse mit dem Glauben an Verschwörungserzählungen zu prüfen. Dazu werden grundlegende Strukturen von Verschwörungserzählungen, wie etwa das manichäische Weltbild oder der Glaube an die absolute menschliche Handlungsmacht, mit den Prinzipien Marx’schen Denkens kontrastiert. Hierbei soll geprüft werden, welchen Beitrag eine marxistische Analyse zur Kritik an Verschwörungserzählungen leisten kann. (shrink)

This paper sketches an account of the standard of acceptable proof in mathematics—rigour—arguing that the key requirement of rigour in mathematics is that nontrivial inferences be provable in greater detail. This account is contrasted with a recent perspective put forward by De Toffoli and Giardino, who base their claims on a case study of an argument from knot theory. I argue that De Toffoli and Giardino’s conclusions are not supported by the case study they present, which instead is a very (...) good illustration of the kind of view of proof defended here. (shrink)

Are there moral constraints on the pursuit of the good? Our intuitions suggest that we may not use another person as a means to achieve a good outcome, even if that good outcome reduces the amount of using-as-a-means that occurs overall. These intuitions are assumed to be incompatible with consequentialism and to show the need for a deontological constraint on using others as a means. This assumption is a mistake. In this paper, I show that consequentialists can justify the same (...) case-based intuitions that are thought to support a moral constraint on using others as a means. (shrink)

Almost all set theorists pay at least lip service to Cantor’s definition of a set as a collection of many things into one whole; but empty and singleton sets do not fit with it. Adapting Dana Scott’s axiomatization of the cumulative theory of types, we present a ‘Cantorian’ system which excludes these anomalous sets. We investigate the consequences of their omission, examining their claim to a place on grounds of convenience, and asking whether their absence is an obstacle to the (...) theory’s ability to represent ordered pairs or to support the arithmetization of analysis or the development of the theory of cardinals and ordinals. (shrink)

The extreme length of chromosomal DNA requires organizing mechanisms to both promote functional genetic interactions and ensure faithful chromosome segregation when cells divide. Microscopy and genome‐wide contact frequency analyses indicate that intra‐chromosomal looping of DNA is a primary pathway of chromosomal organization during all stages of the cell cycle. DNA loop extrusion has emerged as a unifying model for how chromosome loops are formed in cis in different genomic contexts and cell cycle stages. The highly conserved family of SMC complexes (...) have been found to be required for DNA cis‐looping and have been suggested to be the enzymatic core of loop extruding machines. Here, the current body of evidence available for the in vivo and in vitro action of SMC complexes is discussed and compared to the predictions made by the loop extrusion model. How SMC complexes may differentially act on chromatin to generate DNA loops and how they could work to generate the dynamic and functionally appropriate organization of DNA in cells is explored. -/- . (shrink)

The present study investigates whether quantifier scope is computed incrementally during online sentence processing. We exploited the free word order in German to manipulate whether the verbal predicate preceded or followed the second quantifier in doubly quantified sentences that required the computation of inverse scope. A possessive pronoun in the first quantifier that had to be bound by the second quantifier was used to enforce scope inversion. We tested whether scope inversion causes difficulty and whether this difficulty emerges even at (...) a point before comprehenders have encountered the main verb. We report three pretests and two reading time experiments. The first two pretests were offline tests that established (1) that the sentences exhibited the assumed scope preferences and (2) that variable binding forced scope inversion. The third pretest employed self-paced reading to show that interpreting a bound variable is not difficult per se and that difficulty in the critical construction must thus be due to inverting scope. Incremental processing of quantifier scope was investigated in a self-paced reading experiment. We observed difficulty right after the second quantifier, but only if it appeared after the main verb, that is, after the predication was complete. Further evidence for late scope inversion comes from an eyetracking experiment. Again, a scope inversion effect could only be observed at the end of the sentence. Taken together, our study demonstrates that in German inverse scope is only computed at the sentence boundary. (shrink)

This paper was presented as the opening keynote lecture at the 2011 meeting of the German Association of Religious Studies in Heidelberg. It discusses the international presence of contemporary German scholarship in Religious Studies and proposes four theses: that Religious Studies is a transnational discipline; that German scholars of religion focus their research interests increasingly on Europe, in particular on contemporary Europe; that their participation in the transnational discourse has been low and is further declining; and that the latter two (...) points are related. It ends with a call for a broader scope of study and a more active participation in international discussions. (shrink)

The effective collection and management of personal data of rapidly migrating populations is important for ensuring adequate healthcare and monitoring of a displaced peoples’ health status. With developments in ICT data sharing capabilities, electronic personal health records (ePHRs) are increasingly replacing less transportable paper records. ePHRs offer further advantages of improving accuracy and completeness of information and seem tailored for rapidly displaced and mobile populations. Various emerging initiatives in Europe are seeking to develop migrant‐centric ePHR responses. This paper highlights their (...) importance and benefits, but also identifies a number of significant ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) and challenges to their design and implementation, regarding (1) the kind of information that should be stored, (2) who should have access to information, and (3) potential misuse of information. These challenges need to be urgently addressed to make possible the beneficial use of ePHRs for vulnerable migrants in Europe. (shrink)

Reciprocal interactions between the host circadian clock and the microbiota are evidenced by recent literature. Interestingly, dysregulation of either the circadian clock or microbiota is associated with common human pathologies such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, or neurological disorders. However, it is unclear to what extent a perturbation of pathways regulated by both the circadian clock and microbiota is involved in the development of these disorders. It is speculated that these perturbations are associated with impaired growth hormone (GH) secretion and (...) sexual development. The GH axis is a broadly neglected pathway and could be the main converging point for the interaction of both circadian clock and microbiota. Here, the links between the circadian clock and microbiota are reviewed. Finally, the effects of chronodisruption and dysbiosis on physiology and pathology are discussed and it is speculated whether a common deregulation of the GH pathway could mediates those effects. (shrink)

Amidst the surge in AI-oriented commercial ventures, music is a site of intensive efforts to innovate. A number of companies are seeking to apply AI to music production and consumption, and amongst them several are seeking to reinvent the music listening experience as adaptive, interactive, functional and infinitely generative. These are bold objectives, having no clear roadmap for what designs, technologies and use cases, if any, will be successful. Thus each company relies on speculative product visions. Through four case studies (...) of such companies, I consider how product visions must carefully provide a clear plan for developers and investors, whilst also remaining open to agile user-centred product development strategies, which I discuss in terms of the ‘blind search’ nature of innovation. I suggest that innovation in this area needs to be understood in terms of technological emergence, which is neither technologically determinist nor driven entirely by the visions of founders, but through a complex of interacting forces. I also consider, through these cases, how, through the accumulation of residual value, all such start-up work risks being exapted for more familiar extractive capitalist agendas under the general process that Doctorow calls “enshittification”. Lastly, I consider a number of other more specific ways in which these projects, if their growth is achieved, could influence music culture more broadly. (shrink)

This article, based on a desk study, connects African spirituality to the phenomenon of poverty and argues that mundane poverty alleviation strategies that ignore the cultural perspective of a people are doomed to fail, especially in the African context. Within this context, a domain such as transcendence is as ‘real’ to the people as the material world. This article delves into the alchemy of the traditions of African people from a Zimbabwean perspective in an attempt to understand some of the (...) causes of poverty. The authors aver that development practitioners stand to gain if they take into account such (African) worldviews. The article shows that there is a disconnect between western culture and indigenous cultural beliefs and suggests that it is necessary to use phenomenological methods to unpack this disconnect because the spiritual world can support or limit the extent to which poverty alleviation programmes are effective. This means that the notion of development rooted in western knowledge frames may require opening discourses that imagine different social ontologies to find solutions in an (African) context. Thus, the challenge for phenomenologists is to research culturally-appropriate approaches to development using phenomenology. (shrink)

Society is transforming from the industrial era to an information based, network society. Thereis widespread consensus that due to this revolution in society, education needs to make aparadigm shift in order to stay relevant to the changing needs of society. Although thisparadigm shift is promoted widely in academic literature, it seems as if in practice there arestumbling blocks preventing higher education to make positive strides into a new directionwithin the South African context. This research highlights some of the hurdles that (...) OpenDistance Learning higher education in South Africa is experiencing and also suggests apossible way forward to overcome these obstacles through the implementation of selfdeterminedlearning. In order for heutagogy to be implemented successfully,student support is of the upmost importance both in the curriculum design and the actualteaching and presenting of courses. (shrink)

Though emotional faces preferentially reach awareness, the present study utilised both objective and subjective indices of awareness to determine whether they enhance subjective awareness and “blindsight”. Under continuous flash suppression, participants localised a disgusted, fearful or neutral face (objective index), and rated their confidence (subjective index). Psychopathic traits were also measured to investigate their influence on emotion perception. As predicted, fear increased localisation accuracy, subjective awareness and “blindsight” of upright faces. Coldhearted traits were inversely related to subjective awareness, but not (...) “blindsight”, of upright fearful faces. In a follow-up experiment using inverted faces, increased localisation accuracy and awareness, but not “blindsight”, were observed for fear. Surprisingly, awareness of inverted fearful faces was positively correlated with coldheartedness. These results suggest that emotion enhances both pre-conscious processing and the qualitative experience of awareness, but that pre-conscious and conscious processing of emotional faces rely on at least partially dissociable cognitive mechanisms. (shrink)

This essay explores the important role played by the figure of the virgin girl at the centre of The Beast and The Sovereign. Derrida hints that she may offer a figure between the beast and the sovereign, between the two marionettes of Nature and Culture. Moreover, it seems that she is both what props up the fabled distinction between man and animal and at the same time that upon which man erects himself as sovereign lord and master. Taking Derrida's suggestions (...) further, I argue that the virgin girl both does and undoes sovereign power as phallic power. She is the figure behind the erection of sovereignty. Indeed, her appearance is both necessary and threatening insofar as she both erects sovereign phallic power and threatens to reveal its impotence. In this way, the girl operates between feminine and masculine, between Nature and Culture, between the beast and the sovereign, particularly as her virginity and its deflowering are essential to the cut between the two sides of these traditional binaries. Finally, her appearance is telling in relation to the movements and rhythms of Derrida's deconstructive approach to philosophy and literature in this seminar and in his work more generally. (shrink)

En primer lugar, la presente comunicación describe brevemente un suceso un tanto insólito: el que una página web haya puesto en jaque al considerado gobierno nacional más poderoso del mundo. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una posible perspectiva teórica para interpretar tal acontecimiento: la teoría de la opinión pública, principalmente desde su articulación en el seno de la Teoría Crítica de Jürgen Habermas. En tercer lugar, se evalúan someramente las luces y las sombras tanto de WikiLeaks como de Habermas mediante (...) la comparación crítica. En general, este trabajo se propone iniciar el análisis de las potencialidades de internet como herramienta y espacio en favor de la democracia y la emancipación de una ciudadanía participativa y no encerrada en sus clásicos límites estatales. (shrink)

An introduction to the life, works, and ideas of modern philosopher Michel Foucault.

The relation of knowledge to action and of theory to practice constitutes one of the most vital problems for human thought to-day. The classical philosophy, which the Catholic Church has inherited from the master-minds of ancient Greece, tends on the whole to rank theory above practice, and to maintain that ultimately we act for the sake of knowing. Characteristically modern thought, on the other hand, in most of its multifarious forms, inverts this order of precedence. We are commonly taught to-day (...) that knowledge exists for the sake of action, and that theories are to be judged true or false according to their tendency to promote or hinder those severely practical aims, the attainment of which must constitute the main business of living. It is with the causes of this change of mind, and the judgment which we ought to pass upon its general value, that I propose to deal in this article. (shrink)

The eight essays contained in this book explore the portrayal of women, and various philosophical responses to that portrayal in contemporary post-civil rights society. They bring feminist voices to the conversation about gender and attests to the importance of feminist critique in what is sometimes claimed to be a post-feminist era.

abstract: This essay explores the connections between speculation, spectacle, and the death penalty, particularly insofar as they bear on what is “proper to man” and on the man–animal distinction. Returning to a scene of death from Derrida's seminar The Beast and the Sovereign, specifically the scene of an elephant's autopsy, we see how what he calls “the globalization of the autopsic model” of sovereignty requires the death of the animal (Derrida 2009, 296). Following Derrida, we see how man's dominion over (...) other animals is built on a model of sovereignty as necropsy that erects itself through the autopsic model of power, which ultimately is built on the scaffolding of death and the death penalty. Following the history of the death penalty, however, we see that it becomes the property of man through its exercise on animals, particularly through the capital punishment of animals, which inaugurated the codification of law in Europe, and Thomas Edison's electrocution of animals, which inaugurated the electric chair as a form of execution in the United States. Moreover, the case of Edison (who invented both the electric chair and the first moving pictures, many of which were images of execution) makes manifest the connection between spectacle, animals, and the death penalty. (shrink)

In the January number of the quarterly journal published by The British Institute of Philosophy, called Philosophy, Sir James Jeans with extraordinary ability has represented the view of the universe which may be held now in the twentieth century by a mathematician, and concludes that this representation contributes to and upholds an idealistic philosophy. Now with the contention that an idealistic philosophy is superior to any other, that is to say nearer the truth, we may be allowed to sympathize. Several (...) physicists, even in the nineteenth century, were inclined to sustain the essence of Berkeley's view, or to consider that metaphysical truth must lie somewhere in that direction. G. F. FitzGerald, for instance, was notably of that opinion. But he was not prepared on that account to abandon the physical view of existence, and to take refuge in mere mathematical abstractions. (shrink)