The art of legislation, that had got lost, is reborn in this book from the classic tradition, which conceives the laws like wise and eloquent civic speeches, and the rhetoric as its basic method, of a such way, that the return to the ancient will be a true progress.

This article argues that the aesthetics of the oppressed—a series of artistic practices elaborated by Augusto Boal (1931-2009) that comprises the theatre of the oppressed, the rainbow of desire technique, and legislative theatre—utilizes art in order to resist epistemic injustice and promote democratic freedom.

Kant uses the concept of the symbol to show the complicated relationship between the autonomy of beauty and its systematic function as a transition from nature to freedom, which are the two most important topics in the third Critique. Beauty’s symbolism of morality lies in the analog between aesthetic reflection and moral disposition; concretely, it lies in the purity or disinterestedness and self-legislation as negative and positive freedom in both subjective states of mind. In this scenario, beauty’s symbolism does (...) not refer to aesthetic ideas that either involve intelligent interests (in the beauty of nature) or presuppose an end (in the beauty of art); it also cannot be grounded in the supersensible substrate, which is an elevated and metaphysical principle of the judgment of taste given in the Dialectic but not the original principle of subjective purposiveness in the Analytic. With this formal relationship, beauty and morality accelerate each other in the empirical-anthological sense—but they are also not a sufficient or necessary condition for each other. Furthermore, through symbolism, taste looks toward the intelligible and serves as a transition from nature to freedom from the transcendental perspective. (shrink)

The art of legislation, that had got lost, is reborn in this book from the classic tradition, which conceives the laws like wise and eloquent civic speeches, and the rhetoric as its basic method, of a such way, that the return to the ancient will be a true progress.

Open science (OS) is considered the new paradigm for science and knowledge dissemination. OS fosters cooperative work and new ways of distributing knowledge by promoting effective data sharing (as early and broadly as possible) and a dynamic exchange of research outcomes, not only publications. On the other hand, intellectual property (IP) legislation seeks to balance the moral and economic rights of creators and inventors with the wider interests and needs of society. Managing knowledge outcomes in a new open research (...) and innovation ecosystem is challenging and should become part of the EU’s IP strategy, underpinning EU policies with the new open science–open innovation paradigm. (shrink)

What kind of rhetoric frames French reproductive policy debate? Who does such policies exclude? Through an examination of the “American import” of gender studies, along with an analysis of France’s Catholic heritage and secular politics, I argue that an unwavering belief in sexual difference as the foundation of French society defines the productive reproductive citizen. Sylviane Agacinski is perhaps the most vocal public philosopher who has framed the terms of reproductive policy debate in France, building an oppositional platform to reproductive (...) technology around anthropological assertions of sexual difference. This paper engages with Agacinski to examine rhetorical claims of sexual difference and how such claims delayed passage of France’s revised bioethics legislation that extends access of assisted reproductive technology (ART) to “all women.” Though the “PMA pour toutes” [ART for all women] legislation was eventually passed, such rhetoric motivated the explicit exclusion of all trans person from its extension, thus hardly permitting ART to all women. (shrink)

The theory and culture of the arts has largely focused on the arts of objects, and neglected the arts of action – the “process arts”. In the process arts, artists create artifacts to engender activity in their audience, for the sake of the audience’s aesthetic appreciation of their own activity. This includes appreciating their own deliberations, choices, reactions, and movements. The process arts include games, urban planning, improvised social dance, cooking, and social food rituals. In the traditional object arts, the (...) central aesthetic properties occur in the artistic artifact itself. It is the painting that is beautiful; the novel that is dramatic. In the process arts, the aesthetic properties occur in the activity of the appreciator. It is the game player’s own decisions that are elegant, the rock climber’s own movement that is graceful, and the tango dancers’ rapport that is beautiful. The artifact’s role is to call forth and shape that activity, guiding it along aesthetic lines. I offer a theory of the process arts. Crucially, we must distinguish between the designed artifact and the prescribed focus of aesthetic appreciation. In the object arts, these are one and the same. The designed artifact is the painting, which is also the prescribed focus of appreciation. In the process arts, they are different. The designed artifact is the game, but the appreciator is prescribed to appreciate their own activity in playing the game. Next, I address the complex question of who the artist really is in a piece of process art — the designer or the active appreciator? Finally, I diagnose the lowly status of the process arts. (shrink)

This paper examines Nietzsche’s conflicted relation to Epicurus, an important naturalistic predecessor in the ‘art of living’ tradition. I focus in particular on the Epicurean credo “live unnoticed” (lathe biōsas), which advocated an inconspicuous life of quiet philosophical reflection, self-cultivation and friendship, avoiding the public radar and eschewing the larger ambitions and perturbations of political life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea looms largest and is most warmly received in Nietzsche’s middle period writings, where one finds a repeated concern with prudence, withdrawal (...) and concealment, and where the primary emphasis is on private pluralistic experiments in therapeutic self-cultivation among small groups of free spirits. The idea of the Epicurean Garden appeals greatly to Nietzsche at this time as well, and I suggest that Zarathustra’s Blessed Isles are best understood as a friendship community along these lines. However, Nietzsche’s growing impatience with human imperfections and the siren song of great politics eventually lead him away from Epicurus and back to Plato. Beginning with Zarathustra, the paradigm of the modest, hidden helpful philosopher-therapist is replaced by the more ambitious philosopher-legislator who takes upon himself the task of determining the future of humanity. Nonetheless, I argue that we can profit more from the modest, practical insights of Nietzsche’s Epicurean art of living. (full version). (shrink)

This article first of all attempts to assess the proposals of 2006–2007 to amend Poland’s Constitution, aimed mostly at strengthening constitutional protection of unborn human life. Parliamentary work on this proposal begins with the submission of the Deputy’s bill on amendment of the Constitution, published in the Sejm Paper No. 993 of September 5, 2006, and ends with a series of votes at the 39th sitting of the Sejm of the fifth term of office, held on April 13, 2007, on (...) which it was decided not to adopt any amendment. In the course of the legislative process, several modifi cation were offered not only to Article 38 concerning protection of life, but also to Article 30 dealing with dignity as a source of rights. Each of these proposals had drawbacks, including inter alia: the lack of a definite period of protection or entitlement to dignity, resulting in the decreased protection in relation to issues concerning euthanasia; the application of new categories granting a specific status to unborn human life; specifying the standards for protection by means of legislative acts ranking lower than a constitution, resulting in the transfer of life protection into the sphere of regulation of ordinary legislation. The most conducive for strengthening of the protection of unborn human life, even if not free of imperfections, was an amendment of Article 30 proposed by the Committee in the following wording: “The inherent and inalienable dignity, conferred on the person from the moment of conception, shall be a source of freedoms and rights of persons and citizens. It shall be inviolable; the respect and protection thereof shall be the obligation of public authorities.” From the rejection of the proposals it is diffi cult to draw conclusions that are vital for interpretation of the existing provisions. However, a conclusion that the intention of the authors of the constitution was not to strengthen the constitutional protection of life is not legitimate, mostly because of their doubts about formal correctness of the proposed amendments (when deciding to reject them), particularly the doubts about legal consequences of their adoption. -/- Streszczenie Zasadniczym celem opracowania jest próba całościowej oceny propozycji nowelizacji Konstytucji RP mającej miejsce w latach 2006-2007, zmierzającej przede wszystkim do wzmocnienia konstytucyjnej ochrony życia człowieka przed narodzeniem. Prace parlamentarne nad analizowaną nowelizacją otwiera poselski projekt ustawy o zmianie Konstytucji zawarty w druku sejmowym 993 z dnia 5 września 2006 (projekt wpłynął do Sejmu 7 września); zamyka seria głosowań na 39 posiedzeniu Sejmu V kadencji, dnia 13 kwietnia 2007 roku; głosowań, które przesądziły o niewprowadzeniu żadnych zmian. W trakcie procesu legislacyjnego proponowano szereg formuł, zmieniających nie tylko art. 38 dotyczący ochrony życia, ale także art. 30, który dotyczy godności jako źródła praw. W zasadzie wszystkie zgłoszone propozycje posiadały wady, wśród których najważniejsze to: brak domknięcia okresu ochrony lub przysługiwania godności, skutkujący obniżeniem ochrony w kwestiach związanych z eutanazją; stosowanie nowych kategorii, prowadzące do nadania specyficznego statusu człowiekowi przed narodzeniem; określanie standardu ochrony za pośrednictwem aktów o randze niższej od konstytucji, prowadzące do przesunięcia ochrony życia przed narodzeniem w sferę ustawodawstwa zwykłego. Z punktu widzenia celu, jakim było wzmocnienie konstytucyjnej ochrony życia człowieka przed narodzeniem i wzmocnienie jego pozycji prawnej, najlepsza, choć nie pozbawiona usterek, była zaproponowana przez Komisję zmiana brzmienia art. 30 prowadząca do formuły: „Źródłem wolności i praw człowieka i obywatela jest przyrodzona i niezbywalna godność człowieka, przynależna mu od chwili poczęcia. Jest ona nienaruszalna, a jej poszanowanie i ochrona jest obowiązkiem władz publicznych.”. Na podstawie odrzucenia propozycji zmian trudno wyciągać wnioski istotne dla interpretacji aktualnie obowiązujących przepisów; wniosek, że ustrojodawca nie chciał wzmocnienia konstytucyjnej ochrony życie nie jest prawomocny, przede wszystkim ze względu na – istotne w procesie podejmowania decyzji o odrzuceniu propozycji zmian – wątpliwości, co do formalnej poprawności formułowanych propozycji, w tym wątpliwości co do konsekwencji prawnych ich przyjęcia. (shrink)

This paper examines Nietzsche’s conflicted relation to Epicurus, an important naturalistic predecessor in the ‘art of living’ tradition. I focus in particular on the Epicurean credo “live unnoticed” (lathe biōsas), which advocated an inconspicuous life of quiet philosophical reflection, self-cultivation and friendship, avoiding the public radar and eschewing the larger ambitions and perturbations of political life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea looms largest and is most warmly received in Nietzsche’s middle period writings, where one finds a repeated concern with prudence, withdrawal (...) and concealment, and where the primary emphasis is on private pluralistic experiments in therapeutic self-cultivation among small groups of free spirits. The idea of the Epicurean Garden appeals greatly to Nietzsche at this time as well, and I suggest that Zarathustra’s Blessed Isles are best understood as a friendship community along these lines. However, Nietzsche’s growing impatience with human imperfections and the siren song of great politics eventually lead him away from Epicurus and back to Plato. Beginning with Zarathustra, the paradigm of the modest, hidden helpful philosopher-therapist is replaced by the more ambitious philosopher-legislator who takes upon himself the task of determining the future of humanity. Nonetheless, I argue that we can profit more from the modest, practical insights of Nietzsche’s Epicurean art of living. (short version). (shrink)

Although artistic activity has been a major social phenomenon in the western world, aesthetics has not always reflected the changes in techniques, processes, themes and uses through which the arts have developed and had their effect. Theory most often comes after the fact, and properly so. Yet aesthetics in its history has not only displayed an unfitting hubris, with thinkers attempting to legislate about style, suitability and materials to the artist; aesthetics has also lagged far behind the living edge of (...) artistic activity and discussed it in anachronistic terms. (shrink)

Listening and polyphony lead us directly to reflection on the musical form of the fugue. Starting with M. Heidegger’s considerations about the juncture of beyng, we will phe-nomenologically ask about the essence of the fugue, and the musical work put under analysis will be The Art of Fugue by J.S. Bach. The article aims to show the convergence between Heidegger’s philosophy and the essence of the musical form of fugue as an artis-tic mode of the essential occurrence of beyng as (...) an event. (shrink)

Recent years have illustrated how the reproductive realm is continuously drawing the attention of medical and legal experts worldwide. The availability of technological services to facilitate reproduction has led to serious concerns over the right to reproduce, which no longer is determined as a private/personal matter. The growing technological options do implicate fundamental questions about human dignity and social welfare. There has been an increased demand for determining (a) the rights of prisoners, unmarried and homosexuals to such services, (b) concerns (...) over child’s information and health needs, (c) claims for wrongful birth and wrongful life, (d) the role of donors and physicians, (e) posthumous reproduction etc. In addition, the role of national and international law has been emphasized for an efficient system of functioning and delivery. This paper is an attempt to explore the pressing claims to reproductive choices, coupled with a marked increase in demand for legislative intervention in India. (shrink)

The primary aim of this chapter is to outline the consensuses that have emerged in recent philosophical works tackling normative questions about responding to immoral artist’s art. While disagreement amongst philosophers is unavoidable, there is actually much agreement on the ethics of media consumption. How should we evaluate immoral artist’s art? Philosophers generally agree that we should not always separate the artist from the art. How should we engage with immoral artist’s art? Philosophers generally agree that we should not always (...) reflexively turn away from them. In turn, these responses reveal that moral value is not autonomous from aesthetic value, and neither dominates the other. The secondary aim of this chapter is to explore the ramifications of this revelation. I argue that, in addition to an ethics of media consumption, we need an aesthetics of media consumption that is fundamentally social rather than solitary. (shrink)

This article analyses the moral status of racial profiling from a consequentialist perspective and argues that, contrary to what proponents of racial profiling might assume, there is a prima facie case against racial profiling on consequentialist grounds. To do so it establishes general definitions of police practices and profiling, sketches out the costs and benefits involved in racial profiling in particular and presents three challenges. The foundation challenge suggests that the shifting of burdens onto marginalized minorities may, even when profiling (...) itself is justified, serve to prolong unjustified police practices. The valuation challenge argues that although both costs and benefits are difficult to establish, the benefits of racial profiling are afflicted with greater uncertainty than the costs, and must be comparatively discounted. Finally, the application challenge argues that using racial profiling in practice will be complicated by both cognitive and psychological biases, which together reduce the effectiveness of profiling while still incurring its costs. Jointly, it is concluded, these challenges establish a prima facie case against racial profiling, so that the real challenge consists in helping officers practice the art of the police and not see that which it is useless that they should see. (shrink)

This article presents an analysis of a short treatise entitled Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓarah (The art of discussion and disputation) by the celebrated Ottoman scholar Abu al-Khayr ‘Iṣām al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafā ibn Khalīl Ṭāshkubrīzādah or Ṭaşköprüzade (d. 968 AH/ 1561 CE). An overview of the nomenclature and a brief introduction about the author and his work will be presented along with an annotated English translation of the text in order to highlight Ṭaşköprüzade’s contribution to this nearly forgotten discipline.

The central aim of the present investigation is to shed light on Nietzsche’s understanding of happiness and a good life, starting from Nietzsche’s appropriation of Plato’s and Aristotle’s doctrine of a hierarchy of human beings and forms of life.

Confirmational holism is at odds with Jeffrey conditioning --- the orthodox Bayesian policy for accommodating uncertain learning experiences. Two of the great insights of holist epistemology are that (i) the effects of experience ought to be mediated by one's background beliefs, and (ii) the support provided by one's learning experience can and often is undercut by subsequent learning. Jeffrey conditioning fails to vindicate either of these insights. My aim is to describe and defend a new updating policy that does better. (...) In addition to showing that this new policy is more holism-friendly than Jeffrey conditioning, I will also show that it has an accuracy-centered justification. (shrink)

Short overview of the From Small Beginnings Project and its relevance for resisting eugenics in contemporary society.

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on three aspects of Nietzsche’s art of living that have become relevant today especially in the United States (but not only here): first, regarding some facets of the economic-political conditions of any contemporary art of living; second, the widespread adoption of Nietzsche’s notion of self-overcoming and artistic self-design in entrepreneurship and individual’s lives; and third, how his notion of ‘incorporation’ has been further developed in current approaches to habit design. Eventually I will show via the example of (...) Anthony Robbins that some notions of Nietzsche’s art of living have become most popular outside of academia, namely in the commercial industries of what has been called ‘self-growth’ or ‘self-development.’. (shrink)

On Oct. 24, 2019, French philosopher Sylviane Agacinski was scheduled to speak at the Université de Bordeaux-Montaigne on « l’être humain à l’époque de sa reproductibilité technique » [the human being in the era of its technological reproducibility]. Amidst “violent threats” and their purported inability to assure the safety of Agacinski, the organizers cancelled the event. Agacinski and other French intellectuals lament what they perceive to be part of a “drifting liberticide”, a form of censorship that forbids the exchange of (...) ideas and forecloses open space for debate. The story goes that Agacinski, notable for her staunch opposition to surrogacy and extending assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) to non- heterosexual couples, as well as her anthropological claim that the fabric of our social order relies on the heteronormative structure of sexual difference, has been silenced. In a communiqué to the university, student organizations such as Riposte Trans and Mauvais Genre-s pleaded “no platform”, indicating that Agacinski’s reactionary homophobic and transphobic positions run contrary to the university’s mission of safeguarding against discrimination. What to do when an incitement to (epistemic) violence masks itself as free speech? Bring Sara Ahmed’s hammer to France. (shrink)

I argue that European schools of thought on memory and memorization were critical in enabling growth of the scientific method. After giving a historical overview of the development of the memory arts from ancient Greece through 17th century Europe, I describe how the Baconian viewpoint on the scientific method was fundamentally part of a culture and a broader dialogue that conceived of memorization as a foundational methodology for structuring knowledge and for developing symbolic means for representing scientific concepts. The principal (...) figures of this intense and rapidly evolving intellectual milieu included some of the leading thinkers traditionally associated with the scientific revolution; among others, Francis Bacon, Renes Descartes, and Gottfried Leibniz. I close by examining the acceleration of mathematical thought in light of the art of memory and its role in 17th century philosophy, and in particular, Leibniz’s project to develop a universal calculus. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant describes schematism as a (A141/B180–1). While most commentators treat this as Kant's metaphorical way of saying schematism is something too obscure to explain, I argue that we should follow up Kant's clue and treat schematism literally as Kunst. By letting our interpretation of schematism be guided by Kant's theoretically exact ways of using the term Kunst in the Critique of Judgment we gain valuable insight into the nature of schematism, as well as its (...) connection to Kant's concerns in the third Critique. (shrink)

In this essay it is shown that the imaginative art of scientific theorizing – at its technical best – animates Quine's philosophy as importantly as the more Spartan norms honored in his present pantheon of virtues. By drawing a contrast between the standing of theories in philosophy and theories in science, it will be shown that the speculative reaches of philosophy, along with developments in semantic theory, now oblige an internal revision of Quine's stance against meaning as it was announced (...) in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” So, corollary to this proposed revision, I argue that in natural philosophy, the muse of the “art of science” deserves an address along with the more Spartan norms in Quine's present philosophical pantheon. As semantic theory and analyticity thus gain a measure of philosophical tenability, Quine's holism emerges as the more central doctrine of his mature vision. (shrink)

I wholeheartedly sympathize conceptually with Coeckelbergh’s paper. The dialectical relationship between vulnerability and technology constitutes the core of Hegel’s Master and Slave. Yet, the empirical dimension is underdeveloped and Coeckelbergh’s ideas could profit from exposure to case studies. Building on a movie/novel devoted to vulnerability coping and living with ICT, I challenge the claim that modern heroism entails overcoming vulnerability with the help of enhancement and computers.

One of the many notable virtues of Igor Douven's The Art of Abduction is that it is open access. Since a well-written chapter-by-chapter overview of the book is.

Much has been written about Schopenhauer’s use of Kant’s aesthetics as well as Schopenhauer’s adherence to and departures from Kant’s theoretical philosophy, not least by Schopenhauer himself. The hypothesis I propose in this paper combines these two research trajectories in a novel way: I wish to argue that Schopenhauer’s main theoretical innovation, the doctrine of the will, can be regarded as the development of an aspect of Kant’s aesthetic theory, specifically that the intransitive, goalless striving of the will in Schopenhauer (...) is the intellectual air to Kant's understanding of the mental processes required for the appreciation of beauty as 'conforming to law without a law'. (shrink)

Purpose This paper discusses ethical principles that are implicit in second-order cybernetics, with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of how second-order cybernetics frames living in a world with others. It further investigates implications for second-order cybernetics approaches to architectural design, i.e. the activity of designing frameworks for living. -/- Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates the terminology in the second-order cybernetics literature with specific attention to terms that suggest that there are ethical principles at work. It further relates second-order (...) cybernetics to selected notions in phenomenology, pragmatism and transcendental idealism. The comparison allows for conclusions about the specificity of a second-order inquiry. In line with the thematic focus of this journal issue on the framing of shared worlds, the paper further elaborates on questions relating to the activity of designing “worlds” in which people live with others. -/- Findings The paper highlights that a radical openness toward the future and toward the agency of others is inscribed in the conception of second-order cybernetics. It creates a frame of reference for conceiving social systems of all kinds, including environments that are designed to be inhabited. -/- Originality/value The paper identifies an aesthetics grounded in the process of living-with-others as an ethical principle implicit in second-order cybernetics thought. It is an aesthetics that is radically open for the agency of others. Linking aesthetics and ethics, the paper’s contributions will be of specific value for practitioners and theoreticians of design. Considering second-order cybernetics as a practice generally dealing with designing, it also contributes to the wider second-order cybernetics discourse. (shrink)

The philosophy of the art of living asks the age-old question of orienting one’s own life: ‘How can I live well?’ An art of living is always called for when people do not know what to do and how to go on, when the ways of life are no longer self-evident, when traditions, conventions, rules, and norms lose their plausibility and individuals begin to worry about themselves. The art of living and of its philosophy has a practical aim: It is (...) not concerned with ethical principles, but with the concrete practice of people’s everyday life, with their individual and successful lives. Friedrich Nietzsche, as he often did, pushed the problem of the art of living to the extreme, making it palpable both in its dignity and in its force. For him, the modern uncertainty of human orientation caused by nihilism pointed to art and aesthetics, which, he supposed, makes life if not justifiable, at least bearable. The arts open up a multi-perspectival seeing and hearing, they experiment with alternative forms and techniques, and create the finest sensibilities for both – Nietzsche himself, with his rich forms of philosophical writing, is an outstanding example of this. -/- The volume we present here, entails contributions of German-speaking scholars on Nietzsche and the ways of living he proposes, especially, but not alone in Dawn. The papers are selected from a book series on the common issue “Critical Art of Living,” edited by Günter Gödde, Jörg Zirfas, and others, and translated on behalf of the Foundation for Philosophical Orientation. (shrink)

Movie is considered to be an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten and inspire audiences. -/- Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as — in metonymy — the field in general. The origin of the name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures (or just pictures or “picture”), the silver screen, (...) photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks — and commonly movies. (shrink)

This article examines Hegel’s aesthetic judgment of the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, which only first came to light in 1995 with the publication of the separate edition of the Ascheberg transcript of Hegel’s first lecture course on aesthetics, held at the University of Berlin in the winter semester of 1820/21. Firstly, before interpreting Hegel's criticism in more detail, I consider the current state of research on the relationship between Hegel and Caspar David Friedrich. It is striking to note (...) how little resonance Hegel’s judgment has found in the secondary literature. Going beyond some of the more speculative results of earlier scholarship, I show that by consulting a number of overlooked original German sources and documents from the years 1820-1821 it is possible to precisely determine those paintings of Caspar David Friedrich that Hegel would have known about and even viewed in person at that time. By comparing Hegel’s criticism in the Ascheberg transcript with these particular paintings of Friedrich viewed by Hegel in Dresden, and by furthermore reading this criticism in the larger context of Hegel's considerations on style and the topic of mysteriousness in painting, I argue that a number of consequences can be drawn from the philosopher’s two key reproaches of severity and affectation that are significant for both Hegel scholarship and Caspar David Friedrich research. (shrink)

The central idea upon which plays of Micheal Frayn are established is that a text or event is reborn and reconstructed every time it is recited or recalled. He sublimated history, physics, and various dramatic techniques into splendid drama to reflect upon the dilemmas thrown to the human in today’s world of indeterminacy. It will be explored how Frayn has plied the ‘uncertainty principle’ to drama with a distance from Becket and Brecht by analyzing three plays. Furthermore, his expressed perspective (...) on the Brechtian notion of the ‘alienation effect’ is discussed. The plays chosen for this article are Noises Off (1982), Audience (1991), and Copenhagen (1998). (shrink)

This essay begins with the claim that intercultural dialogue is an art rather than a science or technique and it attempts to point out what it takes to learn the art of intercultural dialogue. In PART ONE some basic forms of intercultural dialogue are presented which correlate to some basic forms of human life, such as family, politics, economy, science, art and religion. Also a few common traits about how intercultural dialogue is practised today are specified. PART TWO is pointing (...) out that cultural pluralism is not merely a political ideology, but rather a realistic political attitude towards the social realities in all cultures. Cultural pluralism means to accept that a certain variety of different forms of life is existing already within every culture, country or nation. Further it it argued that any society whether it is governed by a modern democracy or by a more traditional political system, such as a monarchy, needs some ethical, legal and political orientation in order to guarantee civil liberties, but also to limit civil, economic and political freedom. A common normative orientation being based on ethical ideals, principles, norms and values can only be established by philosophy and jurisprudence and neither by science nor by religion and neither by democracy nor by economy alone. Finally, PART THREE presents and discusses shortly a few reflections about three philosophical models of dialogue by Buber, Jaspers and Gadamer which are relevant to intercultural dialogue, to interreligious dialogue and last, but not least to philosophical dialogue. (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

Alongwith the major organ of the doctrinal operations, the Permanent Resolution Act, this research presented a situation review article on the Doctrine of the Chittagong Peace Process in Bangladesh with few global strikeable issues. Unarmed surviving Parbatya Chittagong nation of Buddhists population in Bangladesh has not yet been able to form their government since 1997 to 2023, so it has been assumed that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina & Awami League Government of Bangladesh (ALGOB) cheated to weaponless freedom fighters Buddhists people (...) by taking their weapons through the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord 1997 that was signed between Bangladesh and Chittagong HillTracts in order to a Commonwealth of Independence of Autonomy Government, Formation of Legislative Assembly House and Parliament Building Construction, which is also the last official initiative of the Parbatya Peace Process in the Chinese Belt and Road. Following the theater of war between the US-led NATO—Ukraine alliance and the Russian Federation, the 3rd World War situations intended to expand between Bangladesh and Myanmar. This doctrinal paper has been presented through codification of situations of the post-seizure war-fighting battles surviving cold and silent conflicts in Parbatya, Chittagong Hill Tracts, in order to deliver the seized nation onto a free pathway. (shrink)

An introduction to the philosophical study of theatrical magic.

In this chapter, I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to (...) Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing wrong with the prosecution of Alfred Dreyfus (France), and that there was nothing wrong with imperialism (UK). According to Twain, lying is unavoidable. Since lying is unavoidable, one must simply avoid injurious lies, and tell beneficial lies. (shrink)

In Foucault, thought is spatial, and unfolds within the density of becoming, in the void that separates the subject and the object. It is ontologically independent from the authority of the contemplating self, the ‘I’. Thought is a being of its own, and comes from the outside – the world of relationships. The present study poses to itself the following question: if thinking indeed comes from the outside, then under what condition thinking can encounter itself – its colour, texture and (...) topography? That is, under what condition can man encounter himself and the world? Since this problem does not have its origin in Foucault’s work, this work does not arrive at any conclusion merely by analysing and evaluating his work alone. Rather, it aims to explore how Foucault has incorporated Kant and Nietzsche into his thinking, on the one hand, and contextualises him within the Western tradition in general and his responses to contemporaries Deleuze and Derrida, in particular, on the other. Consequently, this study is limited by the sheer weight of its own problematisation. However, the problem of ‘under what condition thought encounters itself?’ is here posed not for the sake of constituting a form of knowledge on it, but rather, it is asked from the point of view of ethics. This, in fact, demands a reordering of the forms of ontology that Foucault has developed at different stages of his career. There are three forms of ontology in Foucault’s work: the first analyses man as the subject of truth; the second takes up man as the subject of power; and the third analyses man as an ethical being. The present study reverses the order and examines his work in its totality from the standpoint of his later writings that deal with the problem of truth and ethics. It tries to connect two problems that pop up at different stages of Foucault’s career. The Order of Things asks the question, “what is man?” and in his later writings Foucault labours on the question, “how should I live my life?” This study tries to relate these two questions, as it unfolds itself. (shrink)

Can pornographic depictions have artistic value? Much pornography closely resembles art, at least in many superficial respects. Films, photographs, paintings—all of these can have artistic value. Of course, films, photographs and paintings can also be pornographic. If some photographs have artistic value, and some photographs are pornographic, can pornographic photographs have artistic value too? I argue that pornography may only possess artistic value despite, not by virtue of, its pornographic content.

Ong, Caroline Whilst the reason and purpose of suffering may never be fully understood, there are ways of enduring, transcending and growing resilience to how it affects us. Our experience of suffering lies in the web of perceptions that involve our physical, spiritual and cosmological beliefs. Referencing Pain Seeking Understanding: Suffering, Medicine and Faith, edited by Margaret E. Mohrmann and Mark J. Hanson, this article gives a brief exploration of some propositions as to why an all-powerful, good God would allow (...) suffering to exist. From these various perspectives and using examples cited in the book, the article proposes that the healing art of medicine, honed through years of experience, knowledge and wisdom, can help individual patients endure and transcend suffering, and be whole once again. (shrink)

Art among Iranian and Islamic philosophers has always been associated with moral, so that many philosophers have considered art to be synonymous with virtue. By examining Farabi's opinions, it is possible to extract his special ideas about art and artist. In Farabi's theory of Virtuous Art, the artist is on the second floor of utopia and carries religious truths and reasonable happiness. Also, the theory of Virtuous Art has all the aesthetic features and artistic creativity, and in fact, all artistic (...) values are the presupposition of being an art of Virtuous Art. By reflecting on Suhrawardi’s numerous works and intellectual foundations, we can also see that he also paid special attention to the virtuous art and the supreme aspects of art; although he did not directly theorize about the basics of art, but by examining his theories, we can infer the basics of Ishraghi's Virtuous Art. Moreover, Suhrawardi has written some of his works in allegorical and artistic language, and this is a manifestation of Suhrawardi’s Illuminating Art. Among contemporary thinkers, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Titus Burckhardt have presented an approach with the title of Sacred Art, considering the sacred foundations of art and Traditionalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scrutinizing the Art of TheaterAaron Meskin (bio)IntroductionIn his 1992 address to the American Society for Aesthetics, Peter Kivy suggested that philosophers of art might do best by giving up on “grand theorizing” (that is, pursuing the definition of art).1 In its place he proposed that they pursue the “careful and imaginative philosophical scrutiny of the individual arts and their individual problems.”2 Of course John Passmore and others had said (...) similar things at earlier points,3 but philosophical aesthetics has, it seems to me, finally and robustly taken the turn toward the philosophies of the arts. Much of the best work in philosophical aesthetics over the last fifteen years or so has pursued the route Kivy suggested. James Hamilton’s The Art of Theater is part of this turn—it is careful and imaginative scrutiny of the art of theater done at the very highest level, and I am delighted to have this opportunity to comment on it.4In what follows I shall address a number of issues raised by Hamilton’s work: the definition of theatrical enactment; the place of pretending and imagining in theatrical performance; the nature of Hamilton’s “ingredients model” and its relation to more traditional accounts of the work/performance relation; the account of theatrical style on offer; and the question of what we have learned from experimental theater.But before I move on to address those aspects of the book’s content in detail, let me say something about the pedagogical significance of this work. Although there are a number of legitimate ways to teach introductory courses on aesthetics and the philosophy of art (for example, by following a historical progression or by structuring it around certain key issues), one increasingly attractive option is to teach a course that focuses on those aforementioned individual arts and their individual problems. So, for example, I used to regularly teach graduate seminars in aesthetics to students enrolled [End Page 51] in a fine arts doctoral program. These students studied music, art education, the visual arts, theater, and dance; the seminars were designed to provide them with a broad foundation in philosophical aesthetics. Since they typically had no background in philosophy, I made the effort to assign readings and topics relevant to their own artistic practices and interests. Providing them with contemporary cutting-edge philosophical material on music and the visual arts was not hard. Kivy’s work, as well as that by Jerrold Levinson, Arthur Danto, Richard Wollheim, and others, makes that fairly easy. And intriguingly—since philosophers are commonly said to have ignored the art of dance—there’s even a decent amount of recent philosophical work on that art form by such authors as Graham McFee, Frances Sparshott, and Noël Carroll and Sally Banes.5 But where to turn to for the theater students? I would often read some of Aristotle’s Poetics with them, but I have to admit that the serious students of the theater that I encountered in those seminars typically knew that text much better than I did. (Still, I hope I challenged their breezy assumptions about catharsis!) We would read Hume on tragedy together—fun, but not really so much about the theater—and sometimes a bit of Nietzsche. But there was never much to give them from contemporary philosophers on the subject—a few articles here and there, of course, but nothing that clearly laid out the big and distinctive issues that the art form of theater raises. Nothing, to put the point a bit differently, that would provide any evidence that there really was a lively and extant philosophy of theater out there, as there are lively and extant philosophies of film, music, literature, and photography. In short, for those attracted to the prospect of teaching aesthetics as the philosophies of arts, the dearth of good work on theater by contemporary philosophers has been a significant source of frustration and even a bit of an embarrassment.The book in question is not the only recent philosophical work on theater. There are fine articles on the topic by David Osipovich, David Saltz, and Paul Woodruff, among others. Hamilton himself has a string of... (shrink)

This book historically analyzes the art of memory, surveying multiple cultures, examining Chinese, Indian and Greek meditation, I then construct a new universal language using Aristotelian, and Daoist philosophy. The language utilizes Newtonian physics and a symbolic form of binary. -/- The inspiration for the language was Leibniz's charastica universalis, along with Bruno and Ramon lull wheels. The language attempts to mathematically define archetypes across the stated cultures. If the language hasn't made any worthwhile discoveries within mathematics and physics, I (...) hope it signifies my attempt to understand something just beyond my grasp. Bruno spoke extensively of signs. (shrink)

Beginning from Hegel's notion of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) as a mode of consciousness governed by the norms of a historical community, this essay examines the role of education in shaping contemporary communities of autonomous people. It does so by defending a version of the idea that an educator has, among her other tasks, the role of helping her students appreciate the values that are shared across her community. In the course of the examination I relate this idea to trends in (...) the European Enlightenment, and I draw on research concerning political polarization in Europe and North America today and its impact on the academy. In the process I argue that the modern university educator has the task of cultivating in her students an attitude of critical inquiry whose results are not coerced by the social conditions under which that inquiry takes place, and I offer some pedagogical proposals for the university educator facing the situation we are today. (shrink)