This essay engages with two large themes in order to address the social and intellectual practices of nyāya scholars in early colonial Bengal. First, I examine networks that connected scholars with each other and, to a lesser extent, students and households. Exemplified in historical documents of the period, these networks demonstrate that nyāya scholars were part of larger scholar communities in Bengal and across India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I map these networks and examine their relevance for how (...) nyāya scholars were organized in early colonial Bengal. Second, I examine circulation patterns of manuscripts of nyāya texts composed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Bengal. I argue that a contraction in the distribution of nyāya manuscripts of works written in Bengal during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place, especially into southern India. The essay concludes by situating nyāya scholars within the context of colonialism and drawing larger conclusions about nyāya intellectual practices in Bengal during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (shrink)

Originally published in 2004 in the Common Knowledge symposium “Talking Peace with Gods,” this article elaborates the nature and consequences of the perspectivist cosmologies of Amerindian societies. Contemporary Western cosmologies regard humans as ex-animals who became differentiated from other nonhuman species through the acquisition of advanced cognitive capacities. Amerindian cultures, by contrast, regard animals as ex-humans who became differentiated from both modern humans and other animal species via a series of physical adaptations. Underneath these physical differences, both humans and nonhumans (...) retain a shared human soul; what is more, each species perceives its own kind as human and all other kinds—including humans—as animals. Viveiros de Castro distinguishes this “perspectivism” from relativism: whereas Western relativism assumes multiple valid cultural models, Amerindian perspectivism holds that human and nonhuman species possess a common values system and cultural framework. While this commonality is ordinarily obscured by biologically grounded, perceptual differences, the gap in perspective may be bridged by shamans, whose gift of adopting nonhuman subjectivities enables them to see other species as they see themselves—namely, as humans partaking in human culture. Perspectivism influences both the practices that Amerindian peoples adopt toward nonhuman species and their attitudes toward other human groups, especially in the context of warfare. The Amerindian warrior’s capacity to overcome an enemy ultimately depends on a shaman-like entry into the subjectivity of another: rather than denying the personhood of his enemy, the Amerindian warrior must acknowledge the affinity between them. (shrink)

The principle of creativity constitutes a central point in the philosophical-anthropological as much as in the psychoanalytic work of the Greek philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis. In Castoriadis’s thought the creative praxis of the human being is dependent on the innate imaginary force. The purpose of this article is to elaborate the way that subjectivity and the social field are constituted and interconnected through the unfolding of two fundamental concepts of Castoriadis, the radical imagination which applies to the psyche and the social (...) imaginary significations which applies to the social. The text aims to point out that Castoriadis’s intention was to make thinkable the content of autonomy in psychoanalytic terms of an “exchange” between the conscious and the unconscious that unleashes the creative potentiality of the psyche, and also becomes a precondition of political autonomy. (shrink)

What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to (...) generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true. We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse; (iii) Offers and acceptances, together with the contractual obligations and claims they bring about, lie at the heart of all cases of exchange. (shrink)

The central motivating idea behind the development of this work is the concept of prespace, a hypothetical structure that is postulated by some physicists to underlie the fabric of space or space-time. I consider how such a structure could relate to space and space-time, and the rest of reality as we know it, and the implications of the existence of this structure for quantum theory. Understanding how this structure could relate to space and to the rest of reality requires, I (...) believe, that we consider how space itself relates to reality, and how other so-called "spaces" used in physics relate to reality. In chapter 2, I compare space and space-time to other spaces used in physics, such as configuration space, phase space and Hilbert space. I support what is known as the "property view" of space, opposing both the traditional views of space and space-time, substantivalism and relationism. I argue that all these spaces are property spaces. After examining the relationships of these spaces to causality, I argue that configuration space has, due to its role in quantum mechanics, a special status in the microscopic world similar to the status of position space in the macroscopic world. In chapter 3, prespace itself is considered. One way of approaching this structure is through the comparison of the prespace structure with a computational system, in particular to a cellular automaton, in which space or space-time and all other physical quantities are broken down into discrete units. I suggest that one way open for a prespace metaphysics can be found if physics is made fully discrete in this way. I suggest as a heuristic principle that the physical laws of our world are such that the computational cost of implementing those laws on an arbitrary computational system is minimized, adapting a heuristic principle of this type proposed by Feynman. In chapter 4, some of the ideas of the previous chapters are applied in an examination of the physics and metaphysics of quantum theory. I first discuss the "measurement problem" of quantum mechanics: this problem and its proposed solution are the primary subjects of chapter 4. It turns out that considering how quantum theory could be made fully discrete leads naturally to a suggestion of how standard linear quantum mechanics could be modified to give rise to a solution to the measurement problem. The computational heuristic principle reinforces the same solution. I call the modified quantum mechanics Critical Complexity Quantum Mechanics (CCQM). I compare CCQM with some of the other proposed solutions to the measurement problem, in particular the spontaneous localization model of Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber. Finally, in chapters 5 and 6, I argue that the measure of complexity of quantum mechanical states I introduce in CCQM also provides a new definition of entropy for quantum mechanics, and suggests a solution to the problem of providing an objective foundation for statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and the arrow of time. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Kant’s conception of free speech. Free speech is understood as the kind of speech that is constitutive of interaction respectful of everybody’s right to freedom, and it requires what we with John Rawls may call ‘public reason’. Public reason so understood refers to how the public authority must reason in order to properly specify the political relation between citizens. My main aim is to give us some reasons for taking a renewed interest (...) in Kant’s conception of free speech, including his account public reason. Kant’s position provides resources for dealing with many of the legal and political problems we currently struggle to analyze under this heading, such as the proper distinction between the sphere of justice and the sphere of ethics, hate speech, freedom of speech, defamation, and the public guarantee of reliable media and universal education. (shrink)

Over the course of the last four decades, William Leon McBride has distinguished himself as one of the most esteemed and accomplished philosophers of his generation. This volume—which celebrates the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday—includes contributions from colleagues, friends, and formers students and pays tribute to McBride’s considerable achievements as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

This article is a reflection on Balibar's account of the concept of Gewalt in Marx, Engels and Marxism. The German term contains both the meanings of power and violence. At the centre of the analysis is the structural link between the notion of Gewalt and the capitalist mode of production and state-form. The problem is whether Gewalt can be understood in relation to the actions of the working class. Balibar rightly refuses any sort of counter-politics of power set against the (...) power of the state which would retain the same overall logic as the latter. However, the question is how such a critique of the ahistorical ontology of violence can interact with Marx's idea of capital as a constitutively violent entity which threatens to subordinate to itself any stance of non-violence. (shrink)

Theoretical explication of a growing body of empirical data on consciousness-related anomalous phenomena is unlikely to be achieved in terms of known physical processes. Rather, it will first be necessary to formulate the basic role of consciousness in the definition of reality before such anomalous experience can adequately be represented. This paper takes the position that reality is constituted only in the interaction of consciousness with its environment, and therefore that any scheme of conceptual organization developed to represent that reality (...) must reflect the processes of consciousness as well as those of its environment. In this spirit, the concepts and formalisms of elementary quantum mechanics, as originally proposed to explain anomalous atomic-scale physical phenomena, are appropriated via metaphor to represent the general characteristics of consciousness interacting with any environment. More specifically, if consciousness is represented by a quantum mechanical wave function, and its environment by an appropriate potential profile, Schrödinger wave mechanics defines eigenfunctions and eigenvalues that can be associated with the cognitive and emotional experiences of that consciousness in that environment. To articulate this metaphor it is necessary to associate certain aspects of the formalism, such as the coordinate system, the quantum numbers, and even the metric itself, with various impressionistic descriptors of consciousness, such as its intensity, perspective, approach/avoidance attitude, balance between cognitive and emotional activity, and receptive/assertive disposition. With these established, a number of the generic features of quantum mechanics, such as the wave/particle duality, and the uncertainty, indistinguishability, and exclusion principles, display metaphoric relevance to familiar individual and collective experiences. Similarly, such traditional quantum theoretic exercises as the central force field and atomic structure, covalent molecular bonds, barrier penetration, and quantum statistical collective behavior become useful analogies for representation of a variety of consciousness experiences, both normal and anomalous, and for the design of experiments to study these systematically. (shrink)

Planning has lent legitimacy to the development of society through the application of different theories and practices. With its embodied concepts and values, planning influences the direction of change that a society may achieve. Given the great role that planning plays in shaping societies over long periods of time, in situations where it is planning knowledge that is subject to travel between nations, consideration of the context specificity is particularity essential. This thesis deals with the complex process of transferring collaborative (...) planning knowledge to a different institutional and cultural context. The research adopts a proactive approach, examining the practical and theoretical potential imbued in a new context. It is argued, in this work, that an exogenous planning model has to be re-contextualized and landed in a new context through its assimilation with that context’s history and cultural values. The research focuses on Egypt and is directed towards understanding the specificities of the Egyptian institutional context and the cultural values inherited from the history of Egyptian society. The author’s interest lies in addressing the ways in which such an understanding can contribute to the development of collaborative planning knowledge. The research strategy is designed with reference to the cross-cultural transfer of knowledge and the study utilises an action research approach through which the author plays the dual role of practitioner and action researcher. Implementing collaborative planning in the Egyptian urban context of the city of Zifta provided a valuable opportunity to understand how planning knowledge may be transferred between different cultural contexts. The intellectual foundations for the collaborative principle is scrutinised, and complemented by an examination of Egyptian social philosophy. A conceptual framework for the joint development of knowledge in cross-cultural planning research is put forward, which derives from a combination of the practical and theoretical investigations carried out. (shrink)

The present article takes as its point of departure the recent tributes to Bhaskar published on the occasion of the latter's death. Laudable and understandable though it was to prioritize the career trajectories of younger scholars, one of the unforeseen consequences was to marginalize those of their more mature colleagues. The latter perforce arrive upon the scene of critical realism already burdened with their own overdetermined legacies, which demand rather more in the way of complex renegotiation. Taking as exemplary his (...) own career path, from a traditional ‘lit crit’ of empiricist and Hegelian extraction, through psychoanalysis, to structural marxism, the author of the present article focuses upon his own ‘Bhaskarian moment’, upon the benefits accrued therefrom, but finally upon the difficulty in reconciling structural marxism with critical realism, insofar as the former prioritizes the notion of a social formation, structured on the basis of a mode of production, the latter the individual/structure dichotomy. Bhaskar's subsequent spiritual turn, it is argued, further aggravated the paradigmatic incommensurabilities, with damaging consequences for those younger scholars attempting to steer a course between both traditions. (shrink)

Anonymity is accepted as necessary for the generation of empirical knowledge concerning human research participants, especially for members of “vulnerable” groups. In particular, anonymity has been given a role in easing the challenges of giving voice to experiences that disrupt familiar and convenient paradigms of knowledge. This paper troubles such a notion, on the grounds that anonymity may undermine the acceptance of such experiences as evidence and reinforce the kind of epistemic politics that treats some assertions as incontrovertible, while silencing (...) others. An uncritical acceptance of anonymity generates concerns about representation, voice, and authorship in research, particularly amongst disadvantaged communities. (shrink)

The ‘ontic’ form of structural realism , roughly speaking, admits a complete elimination of the objects in the discourse of scientific theories, leaving us with structures only. As put by the defenders of such a claim, the idea is that all there is are structures and, if the relevant structures are to be set-theoretical constructs , as it has also been claimed, then the relations which appear in such structures should be taken to be ‘relations without the relata’. As far (...) as we know, there is not a definition of structure in standard mathematics which fits their intuitions, and even category theory seems not to correspond adequately the OSR claims. Since OSR is also linked with the semantic approach to theories, the structures to be dealt with are taken to be set-theoretical constructs. But these are ‘relational’ structures where the involved relations are built from basic objects , and so no complete elimination of the relata is possible, although it would be adequate for characterizing OSR. In this paper we present a definition of a kind of relation that does not depend on the particular objects being related in the sense that the ‘relation’ continues to hold even if the relata are exchanged by suitable objects. Although there is not a ‘complete’ elimination of relata, our definition might be viewed as an alternative way of finding adequate mathematical ‘set-theoretical’ frameworks for describing at least some of the intuitions regarding OSR within a ‘set-theoretical’ framework. (shrink)

Lawyers and judges cannot adequately address the nature of text, meaning, or interpretation without reference to the insights provided by linguists and philosophers of language. Exploring some of those insights, this article focuses upon what linguists and philosophers of language call “pragmatics.” Pragmatics examines the relations between words and users rather than the relations of words to words (syntax) or the relations of words to the world (semantics). In other words, pragmatics studies how language users actually use and interpret words (...) and other signs in communication. -/- Pragmatics recognizes that speaker meaning can differ from (and even contradict) linguistic meaning, including the literal meaning of text. In its proper context, for example, “Bob is indeed a good lawyer” can ironically mean just the opposite. Pragmatics also recognizes that relevant text is not a thing-in-itself that is simply given. Good lawyers look at such things as purpose and cohesion when determining relevant text. They do not simply take their opponent’s (or even their client’s) assertions of relevance. -/- Pragmatics also provides lawyers with a number of specific concepts and tools which are helpful in determining speaker meaning. For user convenience, this article attempts to set out in one place a number of such concepts and tools. These include: (1) types of cohesion that help determine relevant text, (2) types of context that help determine meaning, (3) pragmatic principles of construction such as principles of relevance and politeness, and (4) important pragmatic notions or devices such as anaphora, cataphora, ellipsis, deixis, presupposition, unstated premises, entailment, and implementives. -/- Finally, as a recurring example (among others) of pragmatics in action, this article examines from multiple perspectives textual issues raised in King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. __ (2015). -/- Keywords: Pragmatics, Semiotics, Interpretation, Textualism, Plain Meaning, King v. Burwell, Affordable Care Act, Text, Meaning, Speaker Meaning, Implicature. (shrink)

The notion of an individual and the related issues on individuation are topics that appear in the philosophical discussion ever since the antiquity. The idea of an individual thing is intuitively clear: an individual is something of a specific kind that is a unity, having its own identity, and being so that it is possible at least in principle to discern it from any other individual, even of similar species. But when we try to leave the intuitive realm and push (...) this idea to a logical analysis, we find a cluster of problems that are difficult to overcome within standard logico-mathematical contexts. In this work, we shall be concerned with some aspects of this intuitive concept of an individual and on some related facts about individuation taken from recent discussions that arose ever since the inception of quantum theory, pushing the discussion to a “logical” view, which in our opinion is still lacking in the usual debates on such issues. In the final part of the paper, we propose a metaphysics where the notion of identity is substituted, for some objects, by a weaker notion of indiscernibility, and we try to justify such a move. In most of the uses of the expression “quantum theory”, we shall not make explicit the distinction between the non-relativistic and the relativistic approaches, although they of course are quite different, for we think that the problems as we shall present them appear in both versions. But, as the text goes, the context will distinguish between them and these questions will become clear to the reader. (shrink)

Phenomenology has remained a sheltering place for those who would seek to understand not only their own “first person” experiences but also the first person experiences of others. Recent publications by renowned scholars within the field have clarified and extended our possibilities of access to “first person” experience by means of perception (Lingis, 2007) and reflection (Zahavi, 2005). Teaching phenomenology remains a challenge, however, because one must find ways of communicating to the student how to embody it as a process (...) rather than simply to learn about it as a content area. Another challenge issues from the fact that most writings on applied phenomenology emphasize individual subjectivity as the central focus, while offering only indirect access to the subjectivity of others (for example, by way of analyzing written descriptions provided by the individual under study). While one finds in the literature of psychotherapy plentiful elucidations of the “we-experience” within which therapists form impressions of their clients’ experience, there is still need for a more thoughtful clarification of our rather special personal modes of access to the experience of others in everyday life. This paper will present “second person perspectivity” as a mode of resonating with the expressions of others and will describe class activities that can bring students closer to a lived understanding of what it means to be doing phenomenology in the face of the other. (shrink)

This paper critically reviews phenomenological philosophy of the body in light of postmodern and postcolonial critiques of universalism. It aims to recast the notion of the lived body in plural rather than singular terms. It does so within the context of phenomenology and dance, using cultural anthropology to highlight the sense in which bodies are culturally and corporeally specific. The notion of corporeal specificity is applied to the perception of dance, paying particular attention to questions of power and hegemony. This (...) is not to reject phenomenology, but to differentiate it according to its social, historical and kinaesthetic milieux. (shrink)

It is often held that according to Aristotle the city is a natural organism. One major reason for this organic interpretation is no doubt that Aristotle describes the relationship between the individual and the city as a part-whole relationship, seemingly the same relationship that holds between the parts of a natural organism and the organism itself. Moreover, some scholars (most notably Jonathan Barnes) believe this view of the city led Aristotle to accept an implicit totalitarianism. I argue, however, that an (...) investigation of the various ways Aristotle describes parts and wholes reveals that for Aristotle the city has a unity (and thus a nature) quite different from that of a natural organism. (shrink)

This article explores the links between strategic goals, enterprise risk management, and ethics. We offer a typology of managerial attitudes toward strategic goals and rationality and explore the interaction between strategic and ethical decision making. In so doing, we offer a practical framework for managers to approach ethical dilemmas in the highly complex, volatile, and risky economy that we currently find ourselves in.

In this work we discuss logical structures related to indistinguishable particles. Most of the framework used to develop these structures was presented in [17, 28] and in [20, 14, 15, 16]. We use these structures and constructions to discuss possible ontologies for identical particles. In other words, we use these structures in order to characterize the logical structure of quantum systems for the case of indistinguishable particles, and draw possible philosophical implications. We also review some proposals available in the literature (...) which may be considered within the framework of the quantum logical tradition regarding the problem of indistinguishability. Besides these discussions and constructions, we advance novel technical results, namely, a lattice theoretical structure for identical particles for the finite dimensional case. This kind of approach was not present in the scarcely literature of quantum logic and indistinguishable particles. (shrink)

This article reinterprets a recentexploratory study of the academic freedom ofAustralian social scientists in an increasinglycommercialised university environment. Thestudy revealed that academics are experiencingseveral conditions that undermine academicfreedom: the intensification of work at theexpense of quality; pressure to choose `safe'research topics; the erosion of intellectualcapital and student standards; and increasingcorporate governance. We position thesefindings within the transition to `Mode 2'knowledge production, arguing that thisprovides a more appropriate basis forreconceptualising the traditional concept ofacademic freedom and renegotiating its socialpractice.

Entrepreneurship is an essential aspect of economic growth because of its contribution to people’s welfare through employment opportunities. Universities offer compulsory entrepreneurship subjects for students with the support of government policies. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the factors that influence the students’ intentions to become green entrepreneurs using contextual aspects as moderators. The applied theoretical model was the planned behavior that adds cultural values and cognitive knowledge. The sample included 305 students from 10 private universities in Jakarta. The results (...) showed that green entrepreneurial intentions are affected by perceived behavioral control, cultural values, cognition knowledge, and contextual factors. However, they lack a significant effect on attitudes toward behavior and subjective norms. Second, the contextual factors can moderate the relationship between variables and significantly affect green entrepreneurial intentions. Third, they moderate attitudes toward behavior and cognitive knowledge with green entrepreneurial intentions. Contrastingly, other factors had no effect when contextual factors moderated the relationship. (shrink)

According to the received view Feynman diagrams are a bookkeeping device in complex perturbative calculations. Thus, they do not provide a representation or model of the underlying physical process. This view is in apparent tension with scientific practice in high energy physics, which analyses its data in terms of “channels”. For example the Higgs discovery was based on the observation of the decay H → γγ – a process which can be easily represented by the corresponding Feynman diagrams. I take (...) issue with this tension and show that on closer analysis the story of the Higgs discovery should be told differently. (shrink)

The terms ‘interactivity’ and ‘interactive media’ became significant buzzwords during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the multi-media euphoria fascinated politicians, economists, and researchers alike. However, right from the beginning of the scientific debate, the inconsistent usage of the term ‘interactivity’ massively complicated the comparability of numerous empirical studies. This is where this article joins the discussion. First, the article sheds light on the terminological origins of ‘interactivity’ and distinguishes the term from cognate expressions. Further, it restructures and extends (...) existing findings on the basis of a new analysis framework which considers three levels of interactive communication. Finally, it delivers a systematic overview of specific criteria of interactive communication. (shrink)

The Relational Blockworld (RBW) interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) is introduced. Accordingly, the spacetime of NRQM is a relational, non-separable blockworld whereby spatial distance is only defined between interacting trans-temporal objects. RBW is shown to provide a novel statistical interpretation of the wavefunction that deflates the measurement problem, as well as a geometric account of quantum entanglement and non-separability that satisfies locality per special relativity and is free of interpretative mystery. We present RBW’s acausal and adynamical resolution of the (...) so-called “quantum liar paradox,” an experimental set-up alleged to be problematic for a spacetime conception of reality, and conclude by speculating on RBW’s implications for quantum gravity. (shrink)

This article examines John Milbank's deconstruction of secular social theory, and the counter master narrative that he proposes. Milbank depicts secular social theory as based on an ontology of 'violence'. Instead, he proposes a participatory Christian master narrative based on an ontology of peace. Two questions are posed in this article. First, is Milbank's description of secular thought as undergirded by an ontology of violence valid? Second, does the Christian counter narrative that he proposes provide an adequate and viable social (...) theory? After explicating Milbank's analysis of secular social theory and his alternative of an ontology of peace, the article comes to the conclusion that Milbank's analysis of secular theory is seriously flawed because of the very comprehensive and universal content that he gives to the term 'violence'. His alternative social theory is also not viable because of the ecclesiocentric nature of his model. It is argued that Milbank's alternative narrative displays contradictions and does not escape theocratic, relativist and 'violent' elements. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss some questions proposed by Prof. Newton da Costa on the foundations of quasi-set theory. His main doubts concern the possibility of a reasonable semantical understanding of the theory, mainly due to the fact that identity and difference do not apply to some entities of the theory’s intended domain of discourse. According to him, the quantifiers employed in the theory, when understood in the usual way, rely on the assumption that identity applies to all entities in (...) the domain of discourse. Inspired by his provocation, we suggest that, using some ideas presented by da Costa himself in his seminars at UFSC and by one of us in some papers, these difficulties can be overcome both on a formal level and on an informal level, showing how quantification over items for which identity does not make sense can be understood without presupposing a semantics based on a ‘classical’ set theory. (shrink)

I thought the organizer had invited me primarily to let everyone take a rest while I spoke, because what I had to say was relatively simple and superficial. I would be talking not about academic subjects, but mostly about my personal impressions.

The Type VI secretion system is a multiprotein and mosaic apparatus that delivers protein effectors into prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells. Recent data on the enteroaggregative Escherichia coli T6SS have provided evidence that the TssA protein is a key component during T6SS biogenesis. The T6SS comprises a trans-envelope complex that docks the baseplate, a cytoplasmic complex that represents the assembly platform for the tail. The T6SS tail is structurally, evolutionarily and functionally similar to the contractile tails of bacteriophages. We have shown (...) that TssA docks to the membrane complex, recruits the baseplate complex and initiates and coordinates the polymerization of the inner tube with that of the sheath. Here, we review these recent findings, discuss the variations within TssA-like proteins, speculate on the role of EAEC TssA in T6SS biogenesis and propose future research perspectives. In the environment, bacteria have to cope with other microbial species and therefore have evolved anti-microbial mechanisms. The bacterial Type VI secretion system transports toxins into bacterial and/or eukaryotic cells using a contractile mechanism. At the architectural level, the T6SS could be viewed as a nano-speargun assembled in the bacterial cytoplasm and anchored to a trans-envelope complex. We describe and speculate on recent findings demonstrating that the TssA subunit is involved in the different stages of T6SS biogenesis. (shrink)