In accordance with the critical women’s health literature recounting the ways that women are encouraged to submit themselves to various sorts of health “imperatives”, I investigate the messages tacitly conveyed to women in “campaigns for the cure” and breast cancer awareness efforts, which, I argue, overemphasizes a “positive attitude”, healthy lifestyle, and cure rather than prevention of this life-threatening disease. I challenge that the message of hope pervading breast cancer discourse silences the despair felt by many women, furthers (...) a tacit blaming for disease infliction via a rhetoric of personal responsibility, underemphasizes other cogent health determinants like environmental toxicity, and undermines legitimate critiques of current biomedical practices like widespread mammography. While finding a cure for breast cancer is a laudable and worthwhile healthcare goal that can understandably be shared by women’s health activists, corporate sponsors, and the medical community, this paper resists the current formation of campaigns for the cure and “pink ribbon activism” in general. (shrink)

In the 6th century, Paul the Persian used his own pen to write a summary of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias in the Persian language. Severus Sebokht translated it into Syriac. This book is a transcription and translation of the Syriac manuscript of Paul the Persian's Peri Hermeneias and a comparison of it with Aristotle's original Greek text.

In this paper I shall discuss the relationship between the two known Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Burhān. I shall argue that Avicenna relies on both (1) Abū Bishr Mattā’s translation and (2) the anonymous translation used by Averroes in the Long Commentary as well as in the Middle Commentary (and also indirectly preserved by Gerard of Cremona’s Latin translation of Aristotle’s work). Although, generally speaking, the problem is relevant to the history of the transmission of (...) the Posterior Analytics from Greek through Syriac into Arabic, I do not intend to give a systematic presentation of the historical setting in which Aristotle’s work became readily available to the Arabo-Islamic culture. My aim here is rather to isolate and discuss some pieces of evidence concerning the texts that seem to have been available to Avicenna. In addition to that, I shall also provide evidence concerning the relationship with the Greek commentary tradition (in particular Philoponus and Themistius) that is likely to have influenced Avicenna in his discussion of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration and scientific knowledge. (shrink)

A collection of essays published in 2022.

This work examines Michel Foucault’s critique of the present, through his analysis of our hidden but still active historical legacies. His works from the Eighties are the beginning of what he called a “genealogy of the desiring subject,” in which he shows that practices such as confession—in its juridical, psychological, and religious forms—have largely dictated how we think about our ethical selves. This constrains our notions of ethics to legalistic forbidden/required dichotomies, and requires that we engage in a hermeneutics of (...) the self which consistently fails to discover its imagined authentic self, or to find the happiness and freedom promised by contemporary ethics. In order to think the modern self in different terms, Foucault’s later works analyzed Classical and Hellenistic ethical sources, emphasizing their distance from today. He hoped doing so would allow us to rethink our current assumptions about ethical matters, the truth of oneself, and the relation to others. While Foucault’s genealogical descriptions critically diagnosed contemporary ills such as these, he did not prescribe a cure, preferring to let his readers experiment with new practices of their own design. This work attempts such an experiment, supplying concrete solutions to our ethical ills, in order to help us improve, as well as understand, our ethical selves. To that end, this work demonstrates that a form of subjectivity based on Benedict Spinoza’s ethical and political works avoids the pitfalls of modern ethics as diagnosed by Foucault. Additionally, the practices of the self found in Spinoza can be used to directly counter and displace each central element of “desiring subjectivity,” and thus supplies the kind of effective positive move which should follow after genealogical critique. (shrink)

Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and he is now almost forgotten. His Wiki is good but inevitably incomplete so here are a few missing details and viewpoints. Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to (...) found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated. He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of various forms of yoga and of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen. He was a computer pioneer who forsaw the rapid advances in A.I. and it's inevitable clash with humans. He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine (" vitamin K "), and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. It cured his lifelong daily migraine headaches (see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/Gorightly.htm). And all this happened before most of us were born! He had courage, honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins (he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world. He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as his books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them. I very briefly review and comment on his life and work. -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

Salvador Dali titled one of his books Diary of a Genius. You might think that anyone who would title his book thus must be a spoilt brat and should be “cured” of the illusion that he, or she, is so amazing. But it seems to me that there is a “position” one can occupy in which this is difficult.

Wittgenstein's Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition is the only CD-ROM to give you instant facsimile and text access to the 20,000 pages of the philosopher's Nachlass as catalogued by Professor von Wright in his 1982 publication The Wittgenstein Papers. -/- The result of 10 years of academic research and editorial work by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen this electronic edition is the first scholarly resource to apply a uniform, well-documented, consistent set of editorial principles to the writings. (...) The CD-ROM is a joint publication between Oxford University Press and the Wittgenstein Archives and is published in Text & Facsimile and Text Only formats. (shrink)

In Writing the Book of the World, Ted Sider argues that David Lewis’s distinction between those predicates which are ‘perfectly natural’ and those which are not can be extended so that it applies to words of all semantic types. Just as there are perfectly natural predicates, there may be perfectly natural connectives, operators, singular terms and so on. According to Sider, one of our goals as metaphysicians should be to identify the perfectly natural words. Sider claims that there is (...) a perfectly natural first-order quantifier. I argue that this claim is not justified. Quine has shown that we can dispense with first-order quantifiers, by using a family of ‘predicate functors’ instead. I argue that we have no reason to think that it is the first-order quantifiers, rather than Quine’s predicate functors, which are perfectly natural. The discussion of quantification is used to provide some motivation for a general scepticism about Sider’s project. Shamik Dasgupta’s ‘generalism’ and Jason Turner’s critique of ‘ontological nihilism’ are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Theodore Sider's book, Writing the Book of the World. It raises some puzzles about Sider's favoured methodology for finding out about naturalness (or 'structure').

Précis for a book symposium, with contributions from Meg Wallace, Louis deRosset, and Chris Tillman and Joshua Spencer.

In this book, author Gene Fendt shows how Plato's Republic provides a liturgical purification for the political and psychic delusions of democratic readers, even as Socrates provides the same for his interlocutors at the festival of Bendis. Each of the several characters is analyzed in accord with Book Eight's 6 geometrically possible kinds of character showing how their answers and failures in the dialogue exhibit the particular kind of movement and blindness predictable for the type.

This collection of poetry named The Book of Lips, which is in Persian and some in Arabic, is a small subset of the complete set of my quatrain poems and it includes poetry about the lips and kiss of the loved one. In the future, I will publish my complete set of quatrain poems in a separate book or within my collection of all poems. One can have two different perspectives toward this collection. The first perspective is the (...) mystical point of view which considers the loved one, the lips, and the kiss as God, metaphor for His grace, and moving toward Him, respectively. The second point of view is a romantic one in which the loved one, the lips, and the kiss are a beautiful girl, her lips, and kissing her, respectively. Furthermore, one can read this collection of poetry having both perspectives in mind. (shrink)

The problems of contemporary states are in large part “affective disorders”; they are failures of states to properly understand and coordinate the emotions of the individuals within and in some instances outside the state. By excluding, imprisoning, and marginalizing members of their societies, states create internal enemies who ultimately enervate their own power and the possibility of peace and freedom within the state. Spinoza’s political theory, based on the notion that the best forms of state are those that coordinate the (...) power and emotions of those within a state, offers us both a diagnosis of and a cure for these affective disorders. In this paper I will outline Spinoza’s notion of the power of the state as a function of the power and coordination of the emotions of its citizens, and show that when the state contracts an affective disorder, such as excessive crime, rebellion, terrorism, etc. the state has failed to properly empower, include and coordinate the passions of the multitude of its citizens and subjects. (shrink)

The Enlightenment project took root in the modern West. It was not a natural outgrowth of Christianity but, rather, a repudiation of its sacred tenets. Prior to the gradual secular trajectory of the West, the Christian tradition shared a common metaphysical understanding of reality with other spiritual traditions of the world. It is this sacred epistemology that provides a unitive understanding of the human being and a psychology or “science of the soul” that integrally connects the person to the Divine. (...) The development of modern Western psychology as a distinct discipline is due to the European Enlightenment and its desacralization and reductionism, which is its inescapable legacy that it still has not come to terms with. Paradoxically, psychology is the study of the psyche or soul, yet its science denies the existence of Spirit and therefore it cannot be an authentic psychology. In fact, in the Middle Ages we nd the Latin expression cura animarum, or “cure of souls,” which conveys the integration of spirituality and psychology, always situating the human psyche within the spiritual domain that transcends and includes it. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the universe, and about ourselves and other living things as a part of the universe; and learning how to create a good, civilized, enlightened, wise world. We have solved the first great problem of learning – we did that when we created modern science and technology in the 17th century. But we have not yet solved the second one. That combination of solving the first problem, failing to solve the second one, (...) is very, very, dangerous. Almost all our current global problems have arisen as a result. Modern science and technology immensely increase our powers to act (for some of us), but not our power to act wisely. Modern science and technology lead to modern industry, modern agriculture, travel, medicine, hygiene and armaments, and these in turn lead to much that is of benefit, but also to all our current global problems: population growth, habitat destruction, loss of wild life, mass extinction of species, lethal modern war, the menace of nuclear weapons, pollution of earth, sea and air, antibiotic resistance, degradation of democracy facilitated by the internet and, most serious of all, the climate crisis. Now that we have modern science and technology, wisdom has become, not a private luxury, but a public necessity. But how is it to be achieved? Here is the solution. We can learn from the solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second one. That was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment, but in implementing it, the philosophes of the Enlightenment blundered. They got the progress-achieving methods of science wrong; they failed to generalize them properly; and they applied them, not to social life but to creating social science. Their mistakes are still built into academia today. In order to learn how to create a civilized, enlightened world, the key thing we need to do is to cure academia of the structural blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment. We need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more broadly so that the basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge – wisdom being the capacity, active endeavour and desire to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. The outcome of the revolution we need would be universities radically transformed, so that they become rationally and actively devoted to helping people solve problems of living, including global problems, thus making progress to as good, civilized, enlightened a world as possible. (shrink)

Part of a symposium devoted to ‘Prediction, Understanding, and Medicine’, in which Alex Broadbent argues that the nature of medicine is determined by its competences, i.e., which things it can do well. He argues that, although medicine cannot cure well, it can do a good job of enabling people not only to understand states of the human organism and of what has caused them, but also to predict future states of it. From this Broadbent concludes that medicine is (at (...) least in part) essentially a practice of understanding and predicting, not curing. In reply to this bold position, I mount two major criticisms. First, I maintain that the reasons Broadbent gives for doubting that medicine can cure provide comparable reason for doubting that medicine can provide an understanding; roughly, the best explanation of why medicine cannot reliably cure is that we still lack much understanding of health and disease. Second, I object to the claim that a practice is medical only if it facilitates understanding and prediction. Although Broadbent has brought to light certain desirable purposes of medicine that are under-appreciated, my conclusion is that he has not yet provided enough reason to think that understanding and prediction are essential to it. Instead of supposing that medicine has an essence, in fact, I suggest that its nature is best understood in terms of a property cluster. (shrink)

Some early phase clinical studies of candidate HIV cure and remission interventions appear to have adverse medical risk–benefit ratios for participants. Why, then, do people participate? And is it ethically permissible to allow them to participate? Recent work in decision theory sheds light on both of these questions, by casting doubt on the idea that rational individuals prefer choices that maximise expected utility, and therefore by casting doubt on the idea that researchers have an ethical obligation not to enrol (...) participants in studies with high risk–benefit ratios. This work supports the view that researchers should instead defer to the considered preferences of the participants themselves. This essay briefly explains this recent work, and then explores its application to these two questions in more detail. (shrink)

Book review : The philosophy of person‐centred healthcareBy Derek Mitchell, Michael Loughlin, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023.201 pp. £64.99. ISBN (10): 1‐5275‐9058‐5, ISBN (13): 978‐1‐5275‐9058‐8.

It is argued that the many-worlds interpretation is by far the best interpretation of quantum mechanics. The key points of this view are viewing the wave functions of worlds in three dimensions and understanding probability through self-locating uncertainty.

This paper analyzes and synthesizes concepts and alternative perspectives of sociologist and author Allan G. Johnson’s book “Privilege, Power, and Difference” through the lens of the sociological imagination. The first phase of the review addresses the different chapter dimensions of the concept (or purported abstraction) of ‘inequality’ as social, economic, and historical concretion. The model is later elaborated upon, and the work is extrapolated into a meta-theoretical analysis of the first seven chapters of the textbook. By identifying and reviewing (...) the principal points within the book, we present a multitude of vantage points by which continuation and assimilation of material in qualitative sociology at the undergraduate level can be both experimental and comprehensive for students interested in the subject. (shrink)

Augustine is considered one of the originators of the metaphor of the book of nature, but what did he say about it? This article examines all the metaphors with which Augustine seems to refer to the visible world as a divine book. It is found that four of the often-cited passages have a different meaning, but two of them refer to sensible nature as a book. The article further explores how the idea of God’s two books – (...) nature and Scripture – influences Augustine’s literal interpretation of Genesis and his trinitarian theology. Finally, it argues that the ultimate foundation for the Augustinian book of nature should be sought in his theology of the Word. (shrink)

Social science is often described as a product of 19th century Europe, and as a handmaiden to its imperial and colonial projects. However, centuries prior to the Western social science enterprise, Islamic imperial scholars developed their own ‘science of society.’ This essay provides an overview of the historical and cultural milieu in which 'Islamic' social science was born, and then charts its development over time through case studies of four seminal scholars -- al-Razi, al-Farabi, al-Biruni and Ibn Khaldun -- who (...) played pivotal roles in establishing fields that could be roughly translated as psychology, political science, anthropology and sociology. The axioms undergirding Islamic social science are subsequently explored, with particular emphasis paid to the relations between said axioms and the discursive tradition, 'Islam.' The essay concludes with an exploration of how looking to social science enterprises beyond the ‘modern’ West can clarify the purported relationships between social science and empire. (shrink)

No reader of The Relevance of Charles Peirce will fail to be impressed by what Max Fisch calls "The Range of Peirce's Relevance.' This exciting volume invites scholars in many of the fields of contemporary philosophy to see what Peirce has to contribute to their methods and their conclusions. Articles in the collection offer a more divided interpretation, however, of the meaning of Peirce's relevance. For some, Peirce's relevance is "extensive": like a Renaissance genius, his intellect surveys the universe of (...) human expression, and, by Jove, he has some• thing smart to say about everything! The authors of these articles show us how Peirce enriches the various, established disciplines of philosophy of interest to them, pointing out both the significance and the limitations of his contribution. For others, Peirce's relevance is "intensive": like some philosophic physician, Peirce struggles to cure a malady that infects the Cartesian-Kantian tradition to which he ultimately belongs. Selecting particular instances of this struggle, the authors of these articles try to show how Peirce challenges accepted practices in contemporary philosophy, succeeding in his critical task without necessarily offering unproblematic alternatives. As a whole, the collection successfully promotes the first interpretation of Peirce's relevance, but fails to give sufficient attention to the second. Perhaps the failure is prudent. For the sake of attracting interest among the uninitiated, The Relevance of Charles Peirce offers the most Peirce with the least offense. For that, we are indebted to Eugene Freeman, editor of the collection, as well as of The Monist Library of Philosophy. Freeman first proposed devoting two issues of The Monist to "Peirce's Relevance" (Vol. 63, No. 3, and Vol. 65, No. 2), then did us the service of publishing the present volume by binding The Monist articles together with five other already published pieces. (shrink)

Since March of 2020, the world has been brought to its knees by unscientific and unethical mandates. These mandates have destroyed the world economy and the lives of countless innocent individuals. The “cure” that has been offered by medical bureaucrats and politicians has been more deadly than the disease (COVID-19). The imposition of ludicrous lockdowns, mask-wearing, coerced vaccination, and vaccine passports have not only proved to be ineffective, but also much more harmful than SARS-CoV-2 and all its variants. COVID-19 (...) has a recovery rate of close to 99% for most of the world’s population, however, despite this, institutions and power-hungry individuals have trampled upon our civil liberties and ignored our inalienable human rights. It is precisely as Thomas Paine famously stated: “The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.” -/- Many lives have been gratuitously lost because of the administration of deadly medical treatments, and the rejection of effective treatments that follow genuine science. In the process, informed consent has been disparaged and desecrated. For over two years, we were instructed to “trust the science,” but the “science” advocated by medical bureaucrats and greedy politicians was the reason why the world was turned upside-down. In the face of these crimes against humanity, justice will only be brought by real courts and real judges, but this will require the awakening of a critical mass. This book serves as an instrument for this awakening. (shrink)

The Journal of Oriental Research was started in 1927 by Prof. S Kuppuswami Sastri, who was also the founder of the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute. Originally an annual journal, its regularity has been disturbed due to financial difficulties. Th e present issue comprises volumes eighty-three to eighty-four and has been funded by the Dr V Raghavan Memorial Endowment.

This paper introduces an obvious interpretation of what Milan Kundera is “saying” about his characters the students Gabrielle and Michelle: don’t be like this. It contrasts the satirical way of developing character with a Tompkins’ paradox situation. I also raise a rather subtle question about the translation.

Reading Anthony Gregory's massive tome on the development of habeas corpus from fourteenth century England through its incorporation into Common Law, and then into Article One of the US Constitution and finally, down to the Patriot Act and other more recent modifications of the “great writ,” I am reminded of something that I heard as a graduate student many decades ago, when I asked a professor about reading a particularly demanding book. I was urged to plunge into that text, (...) providing I could spare a few months. Unlike the book I asked about then, which was a total waste of time (as I soon discovered), Gregory's study is a monument to meticulous research. (shrink)

Bornstein, David. The Price of a Dream: The Idea of the Grameen Bank and the Idea That Is Helping the Poor to Change Their Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 370 pp. $25.00 (cloth).

This book is co-written in a lively, engaging form by Karen Carr, from the discipline of religious studies and Philip Ivanhoe, whose background is in the disciplines of religious studies and Asian languages and philosophy. Unlike typical co-authorship, these two authors write separate pieces about Zhuangzi and Soren Kierkegaard and then together offer a combined vision. Refreshingly, the emphasis is on contrast of exemplars of two different and irreconcilable ways instead of comparison between similar thinkers. The two authors are (...) to be congratulated for this in-depth interchange both with each other and with these two iconoclastic thinkers. It is hoped that this innovative genre-a study of contrasts that partially crosses disciplines, maintains the integrity of each coauthor, and yet attempts a comprehensive vision-will provide inspiration for comparative studies in the future. (shrink)

Heidegger famously said that the best treatment of the emotions in western history was Book 2 of Aristotle's RHETORIC. Heidegger then did an analysis of this material prior to the publication of Being and TIme (1927). This engages engages with Heidegger's treatment of Aristotle's treatment of the emotions in relation to Heidegger's design distinction of affectivity (Befindlichkeit), understanding, and discourse (Rede).

“Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness.”(BBB p18). -/- “Many words then in this sense then don’t have a strict meaning. But this is not a defect. To think it is would be like saying that the light of my reading lamp is no real light at all because (...) it has no sharp boundary.” BBB p27 -/- "Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us." BBB p6 -/- “Every sign is capable of interpretation but the meaning mustn’t be capable of interpretation. It is the last interpretation” BBB p34 -/- “Our method is purely descriptive, the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations.” BBB p125 -/- These quotes are not chosen at random but (along with the others in my reviews) are an outline of behavior (human nature) from our greatest descriptive psychologist. In considering these matters we must keep in mind that philosophy is the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (HOT), which is another of the obvious facts that are totally overlooked –i.e., I have never seen it clearly stated anywhere. Sadly Wittgenstein's brilliant exposition of behavior is still understood well by only a handful. -/- Much of the work is aimed at undermining the idea of introspection and private language via clever examples and of course there is a mountain of literature on this topic since but neither W nor anyone else ever makes it clear that the basic argument is trivial—if you don’t have a test that distinguishes between two words they cannot have a role in language and there cannot be any such test for private mental phenomena. In between he is describing how System 1 (the automatic functions of the brain) is described by intransitive uses of verbs such as seeing, remembering (i.e., they are Causally Self Reflexive) and differs from and blends into System 2- the deliberative linguistic system (e.g. p101, 161, 166 etc). He spends much time showing that disposition words (S2) such as thinking, meaning, judging, interpreting, knowing, understanding, believing, intending, reading, calculating, recognizing, comparing, deciding, counting, imaging etc. are not mental states with a precise duration but that their use depends on their having a clear public outcome-i.e., being transitive verbs (i.e., having Conditions of Satisfaction, which is the phrase Searle invented decades later). They are abilities to act. -/- Finally, let me suggest that with this perspective, W is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) Amazon ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) Amazon ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) Amazon ASIN B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

I propose a reading of The Book of Ruth that takes seriously the pastoral concern for refugees, migrants, and their families that was embodied in the life and teaching of Pope John Paul II.The Book of Ruth models virtues and practices that can help build up a society in solidarity, kindness, and peace. Ruth’s decision to stand beside Naomi demonstrates the value of solidarity in creating a hopeful future for families and communities. Naomi’s role in bringing Ruth and (...) Boaz together shows prudence and a sense of responsibility for shaping the common good. As for Boaz, he is an exemplary model of generosity and kindness. With respect to peacemaking, The Book of Ruth shows how enmity and distrust between nations might be overcome, with God’s help. (shrink)

It is this very contention that sits at the heart of Matthew Flisfeder’s, Algorithmic Desire: Towards a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (2021). In spite of the accusation that, today, our social media is in fact hampering democracy and subjecting us to increasing forms of online and offline surveillance, for Flisfeder (2021: 3), ‘[s]ocial media remains the correct concept for reconciling ourselves with the structural contradictions of our media, our culture, and our society’. With almost every aspect of our (...) contemporary lives now mediated through the digital, the significance of the algorithm maintains a pertinent importance in making sense of the social and psychic investments that our interactions on social media, as well as other forms of digital media, rely upon and encourage. The socio-political tensions and contradictions that such interaction prescribes remains a reoccurring theme throughout Algorithmic Desire, with Flisfeder masterfully navigating the problems and pitfalls of a burgeoning digital infrastructure that is redefining our lives as social beings. What becomes apparent from Flisfeder’s account is how debates and discussions regarding the algorithm can be couched in a number of pressing concerns, including the proliferation of online misinformation and the contradictions inherent to our freedom and security. While these debates are drawn together through the prism of the algorithm, it is mostly with regards to the medium of social media that Flisfeder examines how our desire and enjoyment are algorithmically organized. This focus is expertly followed throughout the book’s eight chapters, producing a critically engaging inquiry that continually considers the socio-political tensions and ambiguities that frame and sustain our digital media interactions. Ultimately, it is this contention that lends further support to Flisfeder’s assertion that algorithms play a key role in reading our desire. In the discussion that follows, this reading will be critically considered by tracing and outlining a number of key significances underpinning Flisfeder’s approach. Most notably, this will require a discussion of the Lacanian conception of desire; the effects of disavowal and cynical perversion; the importance of ‘maintaining appearances’; and, finally, the significance of the social media metaphor. (shrink)

In an era of digital revolution, artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, technology has shifted from being a tool of communication to a primary medium of experience and sociality. Some of the most basic human capacities are increasingly being outsourced to machines and we increasingly experience and interpret the world through digital interfaces, with machines becoming ever more ‘social’ beings. Social interaction and human perception are being reshaped in unprecedented ways. This book explores this technologisation of the social (...) and the attendant penetration of permanent liminality into those aspects of the lifeworld where individuals had previously sought some kind of stability and meaning. Through a historical and anthropological examination of this phenomenon, it problematises the underlying logic of limitless technological expansion and our increasing inability to imagine either ourselves or our world in other than technological terms. Drawing on a variety of concepts from political anthropology, including liminality, the trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and the void, it interrogates the contemporary technological revolution in a manner that will be of interest to sociologists, social and anthropological theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the digital transformation of social life. -/- Table of Contents -/- Introduction: The Technologisation of the Social: A 21st-Century Megamachine? Paul O’Connor -/- 1. Communication as Theatricalisation: Self-Presentation in the Digital Age Arpad Szakolczai -/- 2. Parasites of the Social: Digital Disruptions of the Labour Market Tom Boland -/- 3. Possessed by Technology: The Metastasis of Absence Agnes Horvath -/- 4. Technologisation of the Social: Symbiosis, Parasitism, or Predation? Daniel Gati -/- 5. J'accuse Zéro: The Technology of Zero and the Making of a Personal Void Ray Griffin -/- 6. Digital Affordances and the Liminal Stephen Turner -/- 7. The Smart Womb: Digital Technologies and the Maze of Trickster Politics Marius Ion Benta -/- 8. Brave New Industry? The Dark Side of Dematerialisation and Industry 4.0 Thomas S.J. Smith -/- 9. ‘What Have You Caught?’: Nannycams and Hidden Cameras as Normalised Surveillance of the Intimate Janos Mark Szakolczai -/- 10. Coercive Visibility: Discipline in the Digital Public Arena Paul O’Connor -/- Conclusion: Is There a Way Out of the Technologisation of the Social? Marius Ion Benta. (shrink)

How to participate proactively in a process of change and transformation, to shape our path within an uncertain future? With this publication, the State Of The Art Network marks a waypost on a journey which started in 2018, when like-minded Nordic and Baltic art organisations and professionals initiated this network as a multidisciplinary collaboration facing the Anthropocene. Over five years, ten organisations and around 80 practitioners from different disciplines, like the arts, natural sciences and humanities came together, online and in (...) person, for workshops, seminars and discussions. The aim was to find ways to create resilience and concrete actions on how to live through the change in culture, economy and the environment and to find concrete, hands-on methods to deal with the Anthropocene and the environmental crisis. As an outcome of this process, this publication takes a closer look at how we as practising artists, researchers and cultural actors can create elements for critical thinking and doing which can assist us in navigating the complexities of the present. -/- Edited for the State Of The Art Network by Erich Berger, Mari Keski-Korsu, Marietta Radomska and Line Thastum. -/- Produced and published by Bioart Society 2023. (shrink)

Of the Contract is a version of a text that is as old as any memory, or a form of legal instrument that constitutes the basis of the world in which its terms have been translated. The text remains as open to renewal as that world remains to future alteration, and the terms are both already past, and always yet to come. The notion of the debt that is presented by the contract corresponds to a conception of accountancy and finance (...) that provide a new approach to the contemporary problem of the sense of that external to the terms of human access.A reinterpretation of the philosophical tradition that runs through Levinas and Heidegger to Kant, Of the Contract is also grounded in the medieval tradition that was centered on the notion of ¿contraction,¿ and its writing was inspired by forms of life such as those found in the development of monastic constitutions, and the novels of knight errantry. It is also an oblique contribution to the recent discussions on the nature of debt, and is deeply marked by an awareness of climate change, and the insufficiencies of capital to overcome this crisis.All of these concerns however were contracted in a more acute awareness of the process of expression, and the work is given first of all as literature. It is the nature of the terms that they are open to untold interpretations. (shrink)

Рецензия на книгу: Э.Д. Бакулина, А.В. Яблоков. Волшебный браслет. Москва, Детская литература, 1971 г.

تُعلمنا الفلسفة كيف نُفكر»، عبارةٌ تتردد كثيرًا على ألسنة أساتذة الفلسفة أمام طلابهم الجُدد، وربما في حواراتهم وحلقاتهم البحثية التي لا تعكس قطعًا نمط حياتهم اليومية. قد تصيبك العبارة بالدهشة، ليس فقط لأن مجرد حضورك لدرسٍ فلسفي يُعد دليلاً كافيًا على أنك تعرف كيف تفكر! بل ولأنك قد تتساءل ساخرًا: حتى إن لم أكن أعرف كيف أفكر، فماذا أفعل بالتفكير في مكانٍ وزمانٍ يُعد فيه التفكير جريمة تودي بمقترفها إلى الهلاك، وتُلقي به في غيابة الحُزن والفقر والمعاناة والنبذ المجتمعي؟! لكنك (...) ستُدرك بعد حين مدى قوة وصواب العبارة؛ فالفلسفة تُعلمنا حقًا كيف نُفكر في العالم بطرقٍ جديدة، وكيف نرى أنفسنا وواقعنا بأعينٍ كُشفت عنها حُجب الإدراك، لاسيما في لحظاتنا الحياتية الفارقة، وكيف نخلع المعنى على وجودنا البائس، وكيف نصنع التاريخ ونُعيد توجيه مسيرته: علمًا وفنًا وثقافة. (shrink)

(English translation from the text in Korean) -/- The assertion that both humanity and the external world share a fundamental unity has gained increasing recognition, particularly in light of the growing discourse surrounding quantum physics. This perspective draws parallels with conceptual frameworks found in Western idealism, Eastern Buddhism, and the philosophy of Zhuangzi. In examining the current state of scientific inquiry, one cannot overlook the profound impact of quantum mechanics on the field of physics, alongside the rising influence of quantum (...) technology in shaping our information-driven culture. These developments are ushering our contemporaries into an era of heightened engagement with an extended reality. -/- However, amidst this transformative landscape, a notable tension emerges. While we have made significant strides in understanding the world through the lens of classical mechanics, the central thesis positing the essential unity of ourselves and the world seems to encounter unease and perplexity. A conspicuous discord arises when we consider that our lived experiences of humans and objects occur solely within the confines of three dimensions, while we are confronted with the assertion that these three dimensions are considered 'abstract,' while eleven dimensions are held to be 'fundamental.' This disjunction between our experiential reality and its explanatory framework gives rise to a pressing question that beckons exploration. -/- In response to this challenge, various endeavors have been undertaken to bridge the perceptible gap. One such undertaking is exemplified in the work of A. Ney, titled "The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics." Ney takes as her primary inquiry the profound question of how the macroscopic realm can be intricately constructed from the microscopic realm, a question that stands at the forefront of quantum physics. In her pursuit, Ney endeavors to illuminate her thesis, positing that both we and the objects that populate our reality are composed of wave functions. -/- This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Ney's work, encapsulating the content of its initial half. Subsequently, it will offer a critical analysis in the latter portion, engaging with the merits and potential limitations of her proposed metaphysical framework. (shrink)

I respond to Karin de Boer, Thomas Land, and Claudio La Rocca’s comments on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (CUP 2023). I first provide a quick outline of some of the main claims I make in the book. I then directly address their criticisms, which I group into three categories. The first group of comments raises doubts concerning my characterization of the central tasks of the critique of pure reason. The second targets the fact (...) that I downplay faculty analysis as an essential characteristic of the critique. The third has to do with my claim that the Critique of Pure Reason aims to show that metaphysics is capable of architectonic unity, where this unity is only achievable when we construe metaphysics according to the worldly concept of philosophy. (shrink)

When an organization is born, a leader is required to steer it to success. It is the leader whose leadership can make or break the organization. What is leadership in actuality? It is the attitude and manner through which one provides direction to implement plans and achieve goals by way of a tremendous amount of motivation which he pours into the hearts and minds of his people. This was found by Kurt Lewin (1939) who led a group of researchers to (...) identify various manners and styles of leadership. "This early study has been very influential and established three major leadership styles.” (Lewin, LIippit, White,1939). (shrink)

Book Review of Christopher Alexander, 'The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book Two, The Process of Creating Life'.

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on whether naturalism or theism can successfully explain the distribution of suffering in our world. Wheras another section covers the possibility that suffering is evidence against theism, my essay is concerned only with the ability for either naturalism or theism (...) to explain suffering. I argue that, for naturalists, suffering is not to be explained by either philosophers of religion or theologians. Instead, naturalists believe that suffering should be explained by the cognitive and social sciences, perhaps in conjunction with political philosophy and philosophy of mind. Moreover, naturalists may take suffering to be an important reason for action. In a world without a transcendent, supernatural being to watch over us, we can only depend upon each other to ameliorate existing conditions, to the extent that they can be ameliorated. On the other hand, theistic explanations of the distibution of suffering slip very easily into problematic theologies when they try to offer explicit explanations for suffering. For example, the world's most vulnerable people are often those who suffer the most, whereas oppressors are often able to prosper. That is, theistic explanations of our world's suffering easily slip into, e.g., the just world fallacy, racist ideology (i.e., that God favors some race(s) of people over others), or patriarchal ideology. Instead of offering an explicit explanation, theists should instead be skeptical theists -- i.e., they should argue that an explanation for our world's suffering is beyond our ken. While skeptical theism avoids the aforementioned problematic implications, if skeptical theism is true, then our world's suffering cannot be fully explained. (shrink)

Purpose:The research aims to see the effect of using digital books based on the RANDAI learning model on students' problem-solving skills and information literacy in biology learning. -/- Theoritical Framework: The integration of local wisdom will make the material more contextual so that learning becomes more meaningful. Digital books that are integrated with local wisdom can be concretized through digital books based on the RANDAI learning model. -/- Methodology:The study was conducted at a secondary school in the province of West (...) Sumatra, Indonesia. The learning applied in this study uses the theoretical framework of the RANDAI model (Reciting, Analyzing the problem, Narrating the solution, Doing the solution, Assessing the solution, and Implementing the solution) which is problem-based learning integrated with local wisdom. Data collection was carried out through a test referring to Polya's problem-solving skills while for information literacy using a questionnaire referring to the Association of College and Research Library indicators. Data were analyzed using a parametric t-test and n-gain analysis. -/- Result and discussion: This study found that problem-solving skills and information literacy through learning with the RANDAI learning model assisted by digital books can promote students' problem-solving skills in science learning. -/- Conclusion: the RANDAI learning model with the help of digital books has an effect on the problem-solving abilities and information literacy of high school students. (shrink)