This dissertation explores the question of whether we bear moral responsibility for our beliefs and how this responsibility is possible. Since we cannot directly choose our convictions, some have argued that we have no obligations concerning what we believe. However, we frequently hold each other accountable for our beliefs. Philosophers have responded to the argument against ‘belief duties’ in various ways. One response is that we are responsible for how we influence our beliefs. Another argues that moral responsibility does not (...) require the ability to choose. A third response claims that we, in fact, do have the ability to choose our beliefs. A fourth suggests that whether we have the freedom to choose our beliefs depends on how ‘belief’ is defined. The central claim of this dissertation is that the first response is incomplete, the second is mistaken, and that the third and fourth are the most promising. This book investigates in depth what ‘belief’ entails. If we understand belief as placing trust in a possible truth in our practical reasoning, rather than having convictions, then we can have both doxastic voluntary control and belief-related obligations. What we believe is crucial to our actions, and therefore, the ethics of belief is deeply connected with the ethics of action. (shrink)

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.

In "Convention and Dickie's Institutional Theory" (British Journal of Aesthetics 1980), Catherine Lord maintains the following thesis: (L) If a work of art is defined as institutional and conventional, then the definition precludes the freedom and creativity associated with art. Lord also maintains that the antecedent of this conditional is false. In this note, I argue that (i) certain confusions and assumptions prevent Lord from showing the antecedent is false, and (ii) even if the antecedent is assumed to be (...) true, there are counterexamples to the entire conditional. With regard to (ii), I will suggest that conventionality is necessary for creativity. [This was my first published paper, written as a graduate student, taken from my University of Illinois at Chicago dissertation written with Professor George Dickie on the topic of conventions, utilitizing David Lewis' definition of "convention."]. (shrink)

Freedom is generated in at least two distinct ways: as the ability to avoid perceived dangers and pursue perceived goods, and even to pursue complicated plans in those directions, freedom evolves. But as a social and political matter, freedom seems more subject to human will. The best social institutions -- the kind that serve to encourage or constrain freedom of choice -- also appear to be evolutionary products in some sense. Can there be too much (...) class='Hi'>freedom? Of course there can. No constraint at all would guarantee personal and social disaster. Individual activity can pose serious dangers to nature and to culture. But how may we ensure that the constraints we may chose to impose our ones that are good for us? What we need to do is to find, as consistently as possible with the necessity that human individuals be able to use their local perception of local opportunity in pursuit of their own interests, a framework that emerges out of human practice; we should take advantage of lessons learned about evolution: those strategies work that are in tune with the forces at work within the niche. In our attempts to solve social problems, we can't afford to take our eyes off the characteristics of the individuals that make up the social world we hope to change. And in my view, here as elsewhere, the smallest intervention is likely to be the best. (shrink)

Art, for Hegel, is not only distinct but self-distinguishing of and from nature – it happens in and through the latter. It liberates us from being merely natural creatures, and it does so by a dynamic of a cut or break - even though this liberation is achieved only through natural sensuousness, and hence, keeps us tethered to nature in some particular way. Inspired by Todd McGowan’s emphasis on the central role of contradiction in Hegel’s philosophy, this paper considers the (...) possibility to applying the dialectic between art and nature as it is unfolded in Hegel’s Aesthetic to a more insidious constellation — namely, what Marxists came to refer to as second nature: the world of commodities, in which man-made things appear to those who produce them as a naturalised and repressive opposite, a pseudo nature, an alienated solidified history. (shrink)

The article provides an analysis of the European Court of Human Rights judgments in the case of Lautsi v. Italy (application no. 30814/06), also known as the Italian crucifix case. The applicant claimed that displaying crucifixes in the Italian State-school classrooms attended by her children was contrary to the principle of secularism, by which she wished to bring up her children, and therefore infringed her right to ensure their education and teaching in conformity with her religious and philosophical convictions, and (...) also breached her freedom of conviction and religion, as protected by Article 9 of the Convention. In its judgment of November 3, 2009, the seven-judge Chamber declared that there had been a violation of Article 2 (right to education) of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights taken together with Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) of the Convention. The judgment was given unanimously and none of the judges appended a separate opinion. The Italian Government asked for the case to be referred to the Grand Chamber by virtue of Article 43 of the Convention. In the judgment of the Grand Chamber, delivered on March 18, 2011, the Court held, by fifteen votes to two (and with separate opinions of six judges), that there had been no violation of Protocol No. 1 and no violation of the Convention itself. The analysis in the article is focused on selected principal factors determining the Court's decision. It shows that the proposal for the Court to recognize secular convictions as those protected by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 or Article 9 of the Convention has no sufficient basis in the Convention itself and in earlier Court's case-law and, even, may be considered as promotion of religious intolerance, threatening the freedom to publicly manifest a religion or belief, as guaranteed by Article 9 of the Convention. -/- Opracowanie zawiera analizę wyroków Europejskiego Trybunału, które zapadły w sprawie Soile Lautsi (app. 30814/06), zwaną „włoska sprawa krzyża” (Italian Crucifix Case). W sprawie tej skarżąca zarzucała, że okazywanie znaku krzyża w klasach włoskich szkół państwowych, do których uczęszczały jej dzieci, jest sprzeczne z zasadą sekularyzmu, zgodnie z którą chciała ona wychować swoje dzieci i dlatego stanowi naruszenie jej prawa do wychowania i nauczania zgodnego z jej religijnymi i filozoficznymi (moralnymi) przekonaniami, oraz stanowi naruszenie wolności religijnej, gwarantowanej art. 9 Konwencji. W wyroku siedmioosobowej izby ogłoszonym 3 listopada 2009 r. izba uznała naruszenie art. 2 (Prawo do nauki) Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 do Konwencji o ochronie praw człowieka i podstawowych wolności w powiązaniu z art. 9 (Wolność myśli, sumienia i wyznania) Konwencji. Wyrok zapadł jednomyślnie i żaden z sędziów nie dołączył do wyroku swoich uwag. Rząd Włoch złożył wniosek w trybie przewidzianym art. 43 Konwencji o przekazanie sprawy do Wielkiej Izby. W wyroku Wielkiej Izby ogłoszonym 18 marca 2011 r. Trybunał uznał zdecydowaną większością głosów – 15 za wobec 2 przeciw (sześciu sędziów dołączyło swoje uwagi), że nie doszło do naruszenia ani Protokołu nr 1, ani samej Konwencji. Analizy koncentrują się na wybranych zagadnieniach, kluczowych dla argumentacji Trybunału. Analizy te pokazują, że postulowanie przez izbę uznania za prawo podmiotowe radykalnie pojętej negatywnej wolności religijnej, oraz postulowanie - tak przez izbę, jak i przez Wielką Izbę - ochrony przekonań sekularystycznych jako przekonań chronionych art. 2 Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 lub art. 9 Konwencji, nie posiada należytego uzasadnienia ani w samej Konwencji, ani w dotychczasowym orzecznictwie Trybunału, a co więcej – może być uznane za propagowanie nietolerancji religijnej, godzącej przede wszystkim chronioną art. 9 Konwencji wolność publicznego uzewnętrzniania przekonań religijnych i filozoficznych. (shrink)

There is a general impression among Kant scholars that he has no robust theory of work. Most of his references to the topic appear in his historical and anthropological writings, where he tells us that work is burdensome, and valuable only for the sake of whatever we produce. In this paper, I argue that Kant has an under-explored theory of work in the third Critique. This theory bears little resemblance to his depiction of work in the historical and anthropological writings. (...) The third Critique will depict work as self-expressive, creative, and free, features Kant will go on to associate with art. Kant’s contention is that when work resembles art, it is both agreeable and something we enjoy for its own sake. However, when work fails to resemble art — when it is, in Kant’s words, natural, scientific, and mercenary — it is both disagreeable and constrained, and begins to sound like his description of work from the historical and anthropological writings. Kant’s theory of work in the third Critique has a number of important implications. The first is that it provides a new foundation for a contemporary philosophy of work that places freedom and creativity at the center of the labor process. My analysis also engages a part of Kant scholarship that has, until recently, been largely neglected. It is only in the last decade that the English-language Kant literature has taken up the question of how to make sense of Kant’s remarks about work. However the focus is rarely on Kant’s aesthetic theory of work, but rather on the place of work in his moral and political philosophy. I discuss the implications of Kant’s third Critique theory of work for these other debates, as well as for our understanding of the third Critique as a whole. (shrink)

This chapter presents the formalist account of the moral status of an artwork as an aesthetically significant and autonomous form, with due emphasis on the Anglo-American art-for-art’s-sake aesthetic, as it developed between 1870 and 1960. The author shows that the formalist art-is-above-morals approach is a substantive moral stance in itself. Formalist aesthetics is usually presented in the literature as evincing a purist indifference to ethics, construing moral properties as external to art, in opposition to the internal pure properties of art’s (...) composition. The chapter demonstrates that this is a misrepresentation of the complex formalist prescriptive idea of the relations between art and ethics. Through its autonomy and imperviousness to external co-opting—which is accomplished by due focus on aesthetic form—art on the formalist account is held to be a paradigm of the liberalist principles of individual freedom and self-fulfillment, thus an inherent means to the good. (shrink)

Throughout Iran and various countries, the recent calls of the “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (in Persian), “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (in Kurdish), or “Woman, Life, Freedom” (in English) movement call for change to acknowledge the importance of women. While these feminist protests and demonstrations have been met with brutality, systematic oppression, and internet blackouts within Iran, they have captured significant social media attention and coverage outside the country, especially among the Iranian diaspora and various international organizations. This article, grounded in feminist (...) urban theories of the Global South, analyzes the digital feminist placemaking movement in Iran. As the first counter‐revolution led by women, the movement utilizes digital art, graffiti, and protest movements to embody women’s solidarity groups and sympathy rallies. Our analysis employs various digital research methods, including social media scrutiny and the study of protest illustrations. Analyzing the digital feminist placemaking in Iran will enable us to compare the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between the minorities and majorities in the world’s countries. The outcomes of this research can help international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), as well as policymakers, institutions, academics, and NGOs, to highlight the various ways in which broader public participation could be encouraged in the process of digital feminist insurgent placemaking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 219-220 [Access article in PDF] Jack Zupko. John Buridan: Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Pp. xix + 446. Cloth, $70.00. Paper, $40.00. What does the name "John Buridan" call to mind? For many, including medievalists, not much at all—at best, perhaps, a set of apparently unrelated ideas: nominalism; an impetus theory of (...) projectile motion; and a peculiar account of the will (although "Buridan's ass," the indecisive donkey caught between two equally appetizing bales of hay, is not found in Buridan's writing). In correcting this ignorance—an injustice to arguably the most famous and influential philosopher of the early-to-mid-fourteenth century—the temptation might have been to articulate Buridan's "positions" on "the big questions," allowing readers to fit Buridan into received categories. Thankfully, the present work, the first book-length study of Buridan in any language, resists this temptation. The John Buridan that emerges from Jack Zupko's skillful "exercise in philosophical portraiture" doesn't serve to simply fill gaps in our awareness of the historical record, but to enlighten and challenge our understanding of the practice of philosophy and the study of its history.Zupko emphasizes throughout that Buridan was a teacher, a master of arts in Paris. Buridan's pedagogical concerns help make sense of his central work in logic. As the basis for his arts lectures, Buridan chose Peter of Spain's Summulae Logicales, but in commenting on Peter, Buridan moves beyond creative exegisis to comprehensive renovation. Buridan (c. 1300-c. 1361) naturally wanted to accommodate terminist or via moderna supposition theory; but more importantly, he wanted a logic text that would set out a general plan of philosophical inquiry, "a compendium of methods, a 'how-to' book for the philosopher" (135). Buridan thus designed his own Summulae de Dialectica as a new authoritative logic text, and Zupko persuasively argues that its "nominalism" should be understood as less a set of doctrines in theoretical logic, than a program of logical practice, an education in logic as the ars artium, the universal intellectual tool.Zupko's portrait of "Buridan's vision of the philosophical enterprise" is thus appropriately divided into two parts. The first summarizes Buridan's method as described in the individual treatises of his Summulae. The second displays the method in practice, rehearsing and evaluating some of Buridan's arguments on various subjects. Many scholars will gravitate first to the latter part, where Zupko offers important interpretations and clarifications of Buridan's views. In these chapters, Zupko helps us to appreciate, among other things: how the problem of universals served to help Buridan define the scope of philosophy (ch. 10); the philosophical modesty of Buridan's account of the intellectual soul's presence in the body (ch. 11); the relationship between Buridan's epistemology and the skepticism of his Parisian contemporary Nicholas of Autrecourt (ch. 12); the sense in which Buridan is an "empiricist," viz an epistemic naturalist and reliabilist (ch. 13); how Buridan regarded moral psychology as applied physics, treating virtue as a kind of impetus (ch. 14); how Buridan's account of freedom can be regarded as a "perfection" of Thomistic intellectualism (ch. 15).Throughout these discussions, Zupko always keeps in sight his larger purpose of illustrating Buridan's conception of philosophical inquiry. Zupko makes much of the fact that [End Page 219] Buridan never wrote as a theologian, remaining his entire career in the arts faculty, where he wanted logic to organize secular inquiry. As Zupko notes, in this way Buridan's scholastic project seems to prefigure the "modern." But Buridan seems modern in another way as well. As Zupko points out in his "Introduction," though a cleric, Buridan never joined a religious order, so that his ideas developed independently of the Franciscan and Dominican traditions. He was, then, a teacher without a tradition—at least without deliberate allegiance to tradition, although he was in many ways the product of traditional scholastic intellectual discipline.Perhaps this... (shrink)

The paper presents a synthesis of research results that focus on identifying factors that affect the organization and functioning of Iraq's air defense system during the Iraqi Freedom operation and, as a result, contributed to Iraq's defeat. An important part of the considerations presented in the article are the results of research relating to the role and significance of the use by the coalition partners of the state-of-the-art air weapon systems, which facilitated carrying out very precise strikes on the (...) most essential elements of the Iraqi air defense system beyond the reach of the anti-aircraft artillery and missile systems. The authors also indicate that of the vital importance in the lack of adequate protection of the most important objects, the so-called centers of gravity, located mainly in Baghdad, were organizational errors in the distribution of forces and resources, technological problems, and inept command. The paper is concluded with a reflection on the gained knowledge on the influence of the experience gathered from the Iraqi Freedom operation on the processes of technological modernization of the armed forces, and especially air defense that is still based on the technology from the 1960s and 1970s. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is the political theory which holds that coercive laws and policies are justified when and only when they are grounded in reasons of the public. The standard interpretation of public reason liberalism, consensus accounts, claim that the reasons persons share or that persons can derive from shared values determine which policies can be justified. In this paper, I argue that consensus approaches cannot justify fair educational policies and preserving cultural goods. Consensus approaches can resolve some controversies about (...) teaching values in the educational system, such as curriculum choice. But they cannot determine which culture goods, e.g., architecture, artwork, or language ought to be preserved in the education system. Consensus approaches cannot fairly resolve competing claims about these kinds of disputes. -/- I propose that convergence accounts of public reason, which allow individuals to draw on their own comprehensive doctrines in limited ways, can remedy these weaknesses in the mainline public reason tradition. The convergence approach can justify a pluralist state that can advance valuable community goods. John Henry Newman’s advocacy of liberal arts education finds resonance in other cultures, notably among Confucians, illustrating that there can be a shared moral vision and inquiry into the good life across deep substantive disagreements about educational values and policies, once we expand our notion of justification to be more inclusive. (shrink)

For many philosophers, the relation of medicine to health is exemplary for understanding the relation of human power to nature in general. Drawing on Heidegger and Aquinas, this paper examines the relation of art to nature as it emerges in the second book of Aristotle’s Physics, and it does so by articulating the duality of efficient causality. The art of medicine operates as a dispositive cause rather than as a perfective cause; it removes obstacles to the achievement of health, but (...) it does not impose health. Medicine, on this conception, aids the efficient causality of the natural body rather than substituting for it. The loss of dispositive causality makes efficient causality an imposition of force that bypasses the natural power to achieve natural goods. The paper concludes, with Plato, by arguing that dispositive causality offers a way to understand not only medicine but also governing, teaching, and parenting. (shrink)

The question of what art is and why certain objects and events are considered art is examined. In the light of John Searle’s Social Philosophy, a hybrid Institutionalist-Functionalist explanation of what counts as art is presented. However, Searle’s apparatus applied to the ontology of the work of art is not enough to answer the question of why art has the status it exhibits. The proposal is to trace back the ontology of art to the origins of the dichotomy between (...) class='Hi'>freedom and necessity, and more specifically to the notion of “end in itself” presented by Kant, as the status that persons have. Ultimately, the ontology of art emerges as a projection of the status “end in itself”, of personhood, to objects and events. (shrink)

While ‘cancel culture’ is commonly regarded as limiting freedom of speech and artistic freedom, this article proposes a new understanding of ‘cancel culture’ as emancipatory norm-setting that is key for democratization. On a non-governmental level of the self-regulation of the art world, the argument for artistic freedom ignores the fact that art is permeated by power. The introduction of ‘politically correct’ norms leads to a justified redistribution of such power. On a parastatal level of public broadcasting and (...) state cultural funding, neutrality is necessary but should be understood materially to include marginalized voices. Restrictions of freedom of speech and artistic freedom do occur on the state-level of hate-speech regulation. Here, the danger of a potential shift from emancipatory regulation to a harmful restriction is particularly virulent, as a discussion of the German BDS ban shows. (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)

Stephen Houlgate has written an introduction to Hegel that is more than historical. For him, “Hegel’s is still a viable philosophical endeavour with extremely important things to contribute to modern debates, particularly the debates about historical relativism, poverty and social alienation, the nature of freedom and political legitimacy, the future of art, and the character of the Christian faith”. This ambitious book is clearly written and very thoughtful. By concentrating on a number of central themes, Houlgate avoids giving us (...) another numbing summary of the whole Hegelian system, yet he conveys a general idea and feel for the overall project. He also provides fresh looks at areas of Hegel’s thought not usually treated by those in his wing of Hegel interpretation. (shrink)

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)

Madness and Modernism is undoubtedly one of the most profound and perspicacious treatments of an illness that is utterly baffling to most laypersons and academics alike. Sass artfully brings together two obscure, complex, and unnerving realms -- the schizophrenic and the modern and postmodern aesthetic -- into mutual enlightenment. The comparisons between schizophrenic symptoms such as loss of ego boundaries, perspectival switching, and world catastrophe with modern literature and art is so adroit that it is almost eerie. The reader finds (...) herself peering into a borderline incomprehensible realm with increasing levels of clarity, by which she gains insight into the utterly chaotic, confused, and bizarre. The lucidity Sass brings to the obscure and confused is a reflection of the many contradictions he introduces to his readers as being entirely paradigmatic of both madness and modernism: that of desiring human contact but also shunning it entirely, of being both afflicted by disease but also exercising a sort of agency, and indeed, an ideal intellectual freedom within the confines of such an affliction, of moving both towards an objectifying materiality of the external world and a total subjectivization of perception, of the tendency towards the hyperabstract and the utterly concrete (between being too "far away" or "too close," respectively). Sass is able to make sense of a world in which these contradictions exist side by side simultaneously, and the disconcerting confusion this causes is palpable to the reader. Sass demonstrates not only his penetrating intellect, but also his unwavering patience and empathy, both in the treatment of the subject matter and the treatment of the subjects suffering from this extraordinary illness. The book is required reading for anyone interested in phenomenological psychiatry, or even psychiatry more generally. (shrink)

No-one can read far into our subject without finding an author linking aesthetic experience and freedom in one sense or another: Kant, notably of course, but also Schopenhauer, Schiller, and many more. In this article I want first [A] to remind you in a sentence or two of those by now classic ways of connecting concepts of freedom and aesthetic experience, and then [B] to outline some thoughts of my own. Section [C] opens up in more detail a (...) less frequented and less well-charted topic: basically, the many- layered nature of much aesthetic experience, and how that can involve freedom in an ‘improvisatory’ contribution by the apprec iator. Each layer can be thought of as containing a ‘given’—the product of earlier syntheses, plus a new component, in its turn, to be synthesized, whether historical, scientific, religious, or other. This probably occurs most of all in the aesthetic appreciation of nature, since art offers some controlling, ‘mastering’ of the appreciator’s response. (shrink)

Abstract: According to Marcuse, esthetics is an essential component to the process of freedom of consciousness and behavior of individuals. It is, in Hegelian language, to free the absolute spirit. In this sense, art configures itself as fantasy, which makes the “apparent” reveal the essence of things. Essence here is understood not as a metaphysical field, but as an unveiling of questions, within a false truth of the (establishment), in the totality of relationships. In dialectical terms, art manifests itself (...) in the face of internal and external contradictions, seeking the opposition to the representation of the aesthetic form. Marcuse refutes the conceptions of some “orthodox Marxist aesthetes”, making, therefore, the defense in relation to the art when recognizing that it transcends the material relations. He still considers the literary currents of romanticism and surrealism fundamental to awaken critical consciousness, and that the autonomy of art (independence, freedom, and fantasy), integrate the categorical imperative that “things must change” against the realism of the Marxist aesthetes. In this sense, we intend to expose Marcuse’s critical to the Marxist esthetes in order to understand the critical function of art for the liberation struggle. Keywords: Aesthetics. Orthodoxy. Critic. (shrink)

In the realm of pixels and virtual spaces, the art of placemaking transcends physical confines, weaving a digital mosaic of voices and visions. Feminist digital placemaking emerges as a vibrant brushstroke on this canvas, painting online environments with the hues of inclusion, safety, and empowerment. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, mirrored in the "Year of Hope" digital exhibition, showcases the transformative power of feminist digital placemaking in amplifying voices, knitting solidarity, and challenging oppressive narratives. The "Woman, Life, (...) Freedom" movement, sparked by the tragic demise of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, unfolds like a poignant narrative, with women scripting the chapters of resistance. This movement, a collage of courage and defiance, has found a digital stage in the "Year of Hope" exhibition, where each artwork tells a story, each pixel a testament to the unyielding spirit of Iranian women. (shrink)

Death across human history is codified and controlled by religion, dogma, or social￾political circumstances. However, it is possible to take death out of these realms, instead dying how one wishes. One can design their own death. I will argue that human trans-death can be an intentional performance by persons and that this intentional performance can be combined with the newest and most novel methods of preserving a consciousness. This thesis opens possibilities for future exhibitions and live performances combining art and (...) innovative post-life, post-mortem (what I call “trans-death”) technologies. Possible performances or exhibitions combining art and innovative trans-death technologies include: people doing staged-performances while in their last years of life about their deanimation; public display of cryonically suspended (vitrified) bodies; and if consciousness is ever able to be digitized, the possibilities expand to any number of scenarios explored in anime shows and sci-fi literature or movies. The ethical and political implications of permissibility, freedom, and societal consequences of such artistic and technological expressions are not detailed, but some positions are outlined. A case study is utilized: the last years of life of famous and controversial Timothy Leary (1920-1996) and his struggle with prostate cancer. My analysis of the life and work of Timothy Leary - especially the text he mostly wrote Design for Dying (1997), it was edited by R.U. Sirius - is my theoretical foundation. (shrink)

This paper claims that Kant’s conception of culture provides a new means of understanding how the two parts of the Critique of Judgment fit together. Kant claims that culture is both the ‘ultimate purpose’ of nature and to be defined in terms of ‘art in general’ (of which the fine arts are a subtype). In the Critique of Teleological Judgment, culture, as the last empirically cognizable telos of nature, serves as the mediating link between nature and freedom, while in (...) the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, the connection between art and morality passes through culture. In either case, Kant offers distinct, yet interdependent, arguments for how culture demonstrates the amenability of nature to its supersensible ground: the central question Kant claims in the Introduction that the work seeks to answer. Thus, not only does this account advance a concept essential to both parts of the work; it also demonstrates how the two parts can be conceived as complementary, with each supplementing the other to solve Kant’s central question. As such, understanding the Critique of Judgment in terms of culture enables us to see how the two parts of the work do not merely share points of similarity or common themes, but presuppose one another in order to understand how nature is amenable to freedom. (shrink)

Amid the many figures who number among the Thomists writing during the early 20th century period of revival in scholastic thought in the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the encyclical letter Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, there is numbered the French convert, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973). Over the course of his long lifetime, Maritain authored works covering a host of philosophical and theological topics: epistemology, the philosophy of the sciences and natural philosophy, aesthetics, moral philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics, (...) the philosophy of history, etc. The details concerning Maritain’s youth and conversion have been ably told by others and can be consulted by the interested reader. Detailed bibliographies of his works are available for those interested in engaging the full breadth of his writing. In this article, I will focus on the particular shape of Maritain’s Thomism and his place in the overall hermeneutics of the Thomistic tradition, in particular the debt that he owes to John Poinsot (1589–1644), to whom he refers as “John of St. Thomas,” in accord with the standard appellations within the Thomistic tradition in which he wrote. Following a general account of Maritain’s “style” of Thomism, I will provide a specific catalogue of some central themes in his thought that bear the clear impress of his engagement with the thought of John of St. Thomas. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article intends to provide the reader with a sufficient appraisal of the main lines of influence exercised upon Maritain’s thought by the Baroque Commentator, without whose philosophical and theological works Maritain’s own labors would be unthinkable. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the connection between freedom and language in T.W. Adorno's Notes to Literature, presenting freedom as a liberation of our way of thinking that has the potential to arrive at an unrestrained interpretation of art and representation of the intellectual experience. I also attempt to show some of Adorno's insights into language and freedom in The Essay as a Form and their role in his essays about Valéry and Proust. Namely I focus on (...) the problematics of the suspension of the subject of the artist within the production of the work of art. Through showing the connection between Adorno's insights into problematics of language, freedom and suspension of subject I hope to contribute to the explication of one of the constructive steps of Adorno's philosophy. (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)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

In the following paper we explore the utopian theme of revolution in two filmic works of art: the movie Fight Club (1999), directed by David Fincher, and the very recent TV series Mr. Robot (2015), created by Sam Esmail. We will argue that Fight Club is an existential meditation on simulation, dehumanization and the capitalistic tyranny of the objects combined with a nihilistic pursuit of authenticity through violence. Closely following Fight Club’s rumination on madness as “revolution of the self,” Mr. (...) Robot allows us to take a peek into the mystery of revolutionary freedom: will it change everything or will we come to regret our former tyrants? (shrink)

Abstract (German) Dieses Buch faßt meine Forschungen zur Semiotik Giordano Brunos und zu deren Grundlagen in der Kosmologie und in der Gedächtnistheorie zusammen, wobei sowohl die Heterogenität als auch der Universalität des Denkers den Charakter dieses Buches geprägt haben. Es wird kein glattes Bild seiner Person oder seines Werkes angeboten, kein bejahender Jubel über eine epochale Leistung; wichtiger war mir die bis ins Detail gehende, manchmal mühselige Interpretation seiner Systementwürfe, wobei ich versucht habe, auch deren formales und technisches Niveau deutlich (...) zu machen. Nicht seine Weltanschauung soll dargestellt werden, sondern sein Versuch, eine Vielfalt von Detaillösungen in eine wohlproportionierte, wenn auch ins Unendliche reichende Wissensarchitektur zu integrieren. Als Startsignal mag folgende Frage dienen: Inwiefern ist Giordano Bruno Semiotiker? Der Philosoph Bruno wird von Jacobi als Beispiel spinozistischer Tendenzen wieder ins Gespräch gebracht; später wird er für die spekulative Naturphilosophie, die aus Kants Schatten heraustritt, z.B. für Schelling und Hegel, interessant, und schließlich wird er als Märtyrer der Freiheit von den Antiklerikalen im Risorgimento hochgehoben. Der Heroenkult um die „Kopernikanische Wende" weiß mit Bruno nichts anzufangen, er ist kein Naturwissenschaftler, wie man ihn sich im 20 . Jh . wünscht. Von Yates ( 1964 ) wird er als Hermetiker und Ahnherr der Rosenkreuzer entdeckt, und plötzlich soll er auch noch ein Semiotiker sein ? Die Etikette „Semiotiker" ist allerdings weniger riskant als jene früher an Bruno herangetragenen. Bruno ist Philosoph, in einem allgemeinen Sinn , insofern er alle wesentlichen Aspekte: metaphysische, natur philosophische, ethische, semiotische, poetologische zum Entwurf eines möglichst kohärenten Bildes vereint, und er ist ein Renaissance-Philosoph, d .h. das antike Erbe, besonders jenes in den orientalischen Tiefen der Kulturgeschichte (Ägypten und Chaldäer) ist sein Ausgangspunkt. Selbst den Entwurf des Copernicus versteht Bruno in erster Linie als eine Wiederentdeckung antiker Einsichten. Es gibt jedoch in Brunos Schaffen einen roten Faden: die Architektur unseres Wissens, das Gedächtnis der Kultur- und Wissensgemeinschaft und natürlich desjenigen, der wie Bruno dieses Wissen zu einer Synthese vereinigen will . Seine Philosophie versucht, wie jede große Philosophie, alles, was wir wissen und was wir daraus an weiterem impliziten Wissen erschließen können, in einer Einheit zu denken, und diese Einheit ist notwendigerweise nur als Zeichensystem (begrifflich, argumentativ, bildhaft, als imaginierte Welt) zu realisieren. -/- Abstract (English) This book summarizes my research on Giordano Bruno's semiotics and its foundations in cosmology and memory theory, whereby both the heterogeneity and the universality of the thinker have shaped the character of this book. No smooth picture of his person or his work is offered, no affirmative jubilation over an epochal achievement; What was more important to me was the sometimes laborious interpretation of his system designs, which went down to the last detail, and I also tried to make their formal and technical level clear. It is not his worldview that should be presented but his attempt to integrate various detailed solutions into a well-proportioned, albeit infinitely reaching, architecture of knowledge. The following question may serve as a starting signal: To what extent is Giordano Bruno a semiotician? Jacobi brings up the philosopher Bruno again as an example of Spinozist tendencies; later, he becomes important for the speculative natural philosophy emerging from Kant's shadow, e.g., for Schelling and Hegel. He is finally extolled as a martyr of freedom by the anticlericals in the Risorgimento. The hero cult around the "Copernican turn" does not know what to do with Bruno; he is not a natural scientist as one would wish in the 20th century. Yates (1964) discovered him as a hermetic, even an ancestor of the Rosicrucians. The etiquette "semiotic" is certainly less risky than the associations that Bruno used to have. Bruno is a philosopher, in a general sense, in that he combines all the essential aspects: metaphysical, natural philosophical, ethical, semiotic, poetological to project a picture that is as coherent as possible, and he is a Renaissance philosopher, i .e . the ancient heritage, especially that in the oriental depths of cultural history (Egypt and Chaldeans) is his starting point. Bruno sees even the draft of Copernicus primarily as a rediscovery of ancient insights. However, there is a common thread in Bruno's work: the architecture of our knowledge, the memory of the cultural and knowledge community and, of course, of those who, like Bruno, want to unite this knowledge into a synthesis. His philosophy, like every great philosophy, tries to think of everything that we know and what we can deduce from it as further implicit knowledge as a unit, and this unit is necessarily only available as a system of signs (conceptual, argumentative, pictorial, as an imagined world). to realize. 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Contemporary reluctance to consider any complicity between philosophy and religion has led to an inability to consider, in Hegel studies, how the revelatory agency of the Absolute necessarily complements the narrative of human reason. According to Hegel, reason alone can do no more than end in the endless limitations of actuality, in the infinite approximations of a moral summum bonum and in the ad infinitum strivings for concrete political freedom. Recognizing where revelatory agency occurs in Hegel’s Science allows us (...) to recognize the Idea’s freedom in the worldly, human expressions of art, religion and philosophy, in their philosophical study within the state University. Without such recognition, both Left and Right fields of Hegel interpretation tend to evaluate the success (or failure) of his philosophy based on inflated, unrealistic expectations of what is meant by “actuality.”. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with a fundamental problem at the heart of Arendt’s The Human Condition—namely, ‘the problem of idleness’. This problem is related to the three types of human Arendt identifies as correlated to dominant activities in one’s life, animal laborans, homo faber, and the acting person. It explores Arendt’s predictions of an oncoming automation crisis, and the possibility of a corresponding crisis in the production—consumption cycle. The problem of idleness can be understood as the claim that if people (...) are provided freedom from job-holding so that they may pursue other activities, they would likely turn to consumption to occupy their time. I claim that this problem of idleness is important in any consideration of an oncoming automation crisis, especially in relation to Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a solution to such a crisis. I claim that there is a hole in the UBI literature concerning this problem of idleness, and if left unaddressed it would result in both an ineffective UBI, and in a crisis of meaning for the general populace. This dissertation demonstrates what the problem of idleness is, why it is important, and what possible solutions exist. This contributes to the UBI literature by diagnosing and attempting to solve a gap in the literature which I argue would cause practical challenges in the implementation and stability of a UBI system. I also contribute to the Arendtian literature by problematizing traditional readings of Arendt, and offering a reappraisal of her thought on Marx, art, and the social. (shrink)

This philosophical meditation on the issue of the restitution of African art objects stolen during colonisation explores new meanings of contemporary aesthetics in Africa: the radical openness of consciousness towards the present, the absolute value of the living over the creations of the mind, the transcendence of intelligence and freedom over History...

Even those who consider themselves lucky to have escaped trauma, long-term illness and death, have experienced radical changes to their conception of life in its relation to public and private domains due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When public space turned into a dangerous realm, private interiors were assigned a new role and with these shifts, also new questions about the relation of interiority to any type of exteriority emerged. The first four contributions in this ‘Projected Interiorities’ issue of Technoetic Arts (...) (TA) reflect from an architectural and urban point of view on the conception of the public and private, their past, present and future. Yet, the pandemic contributed more widely to a re-evaluation of interiority, not least because the public and private realms seemingly coalesced via digital processes. While this journal issue cannot cover all these questions, it indicates the range of the pandemic turn in thought, collecting contributions from theory and practice, including architecture, art, philosophy and literary studies. With authors of a variety of disciplinary backgrounds based in China, India, Norway, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, this issue of TA covers not only a multiplicity of methodological approaches but also diverse regional and cultural perspectives on the idea of ‘Projected Interiorities’. (shrink)

Citation:Christodoulou, Marina. “Technopolis as the Technologised Kingdom of God. Fun as Technology, Technology as Religion in the 21st Century. God sive Fun.” Cahiers d'études germaniques N° 74, 2018. La religion au XXIe siècle - Perpectives et enjeux de la discussion autour d'une société post-séculière. Études reunites par Sébastian Hüsch et Max Marcuzzi, 119-132. -/- -------- -/- Neil Postman starts his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)1 with a quote from Paul Goodman’s New Reformation: “Whether or not it (...) draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.” (Postman 1993: motto; Goodman 2010: 40). I would extend Postman’s Technopoly to Technopolis, to give it more of a presence in time and space. Hence, I will use the term Technopoly when I am referring to Postman; the term Technopolis is my own. -/- In his book From Faith to Fun: The Secularisation of Humour, Russel Heddendorf argues that humour is a technology (Heddendorf 2009: 32-34), as it is understood and theorized by Neil Postman in Technopoly. Russel Heddendorf also argues that “Technopoly” is a term correlated with Wittgenstein’s use of the term “worldview” (Weltanschauung) (Heddendorf 2009: 11). -/- I would like to draw on these thoughts to propose that Technopoly (or Technopolis) could be the secularized Kingdom of God, namely that Technology is the Religion of the 21st century, and that Fun is a paradigm of such a Technology / Technique. God is yet another technique or Technology of and in Technopoly. -/- The godless individual in the 21st century, I will argue, is as much a believer as the faithful in the Sacred Religion (term used in opposition to Secular or rather Technological or Technologized Religion, which is Fun). He believes in Fun (as a post-modern form of pleasure), as much as the believer believes, or more accurately, believed in God. In the 21st century, the faithful in Sacred Religion believes in a fun God, as opposed to the serious God of the past. Fun is turning into the Technologized Religion for all; for the faithful in Godly / Sacred Religion, as well for as the unfaithful. Fun (pleasure, humour) is the definitive qualia of 21st century pleasure. The mechanics of Fun make it absolutely functional for controlling people; as Aldous Huxley wrote in Brave New World, people “are controlled by inflicting pleasure” (cited in Heddendorf 2009: 158). Now, indulging in pleasure is having Fun. In the 21st century, nobody is unfaithful, nobody disputes God, because God has been manufactured into Fun. We are living in the most religious century of all. -/- The commodity of God, now inextricably blended into work and leisure ethics and culture, is as unavoidable as survival. You don’t work, you don’t survive, you don’t exist. You work, you are entitled to leisure, or free time – the time (“busy-time”) when you are busy is work. The free time of leisure (“fun-time”) is a time for fun (pleasure). The time dedicated to Fun is culturally (capitalistically) pre-defined; no moment is actually free, each moment that is sold as free is to be bought with Work Time tokens –which is money. Believe is Enjoy. Happiness, achieved through pleasure, and pleasure through Fun, and Life as Play, is the recipe for Teleology in the 21st century. -/- The Technological God (Fun), as the Sacred God before him, is sovereignty’s technique or a social “mode of release”: demonstrations, marches, petitions, freedom of speech, citizen and human rights vindications, are “modes of release”, so that the next day, feeling relieved and released that you are working for a better life and a better world, you can wake up cheerfully to walk to your workplace, feeling it will change because of your marching, or your petition, or your speech, or the mass you attended, or the prayer you said yesterday. Thus life continues unchanging, through postponing hope; the tension of the tragedy is always released (lysis) in catharsis: refreshment for the next day of work. Art, especially cinema, (namely, simulated life) follows the same cathartic principles as real life. Thus, you can keep coping, and hoping in the meantime is of much help. Religion, Art, Science, Therapy, and Technology are all technologies used to market life, sell it or lend it, and humans are buying it back. Fun is free to produce, and expensive to buy. (shrink)

The genesis of this decolonial study begins with an essay that discussed Exu and black diasporic culture. Its developments were responsible for the emergence of two other studies: one on Candomblé in Bahia and religious syncretism, and another on the decolonial concept of language-language as a crossroads. The article on Exu, written in English, was also responsible for the invitation to write a book chapter, also in English, on human rights, religious freedom and anti-racist struggles in black diasporic Latin (...) America. In turn, this text made possible the emergence of much of the discussion that took place in a chapter on the frontline of Jorge Amado's political struggles in the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of Brazil, when the theme of Bahianness gained momentum. Now, in this new study, which I now present, the discussion seeks to answer the questions: “What is Bahianity?” and “How does literature decode it throughout history?” To this end, I use pragmatic discourse analysis as a methodology, which is a tributary of discursive-deconstructive analysis, taking literary discourse as an observable object, since, in this approach, all discourse is the result of the historical conditions of production (cf. ARAÚJO, 2020). In other words, I resort to poetic works by Bahian authors (texts, songs), taken as discourse to answer such questions about Bahianity. (shrink)

Question: How do you turn a democracy into a tyranny? Answer (as those familiar with Plato's Republic will know): Do nothing. It will become a tyranny all by itself. My essay argues that for democracy to function it must inculcate in its citizens something of the moral and intellectual virtues of Plato’s Philosopher-Kings, who identify their own personal good with the good of society as a whole. Only thereby can Kant’s ideal of the ‘Kingdom of Ends’ - a society in (...) which each citizen willingly affirms a duty to respect the freedom and dignity of every other - be realized. The alternative to this, as Plato understood, is a society of appetitively driven individuals competing each with the other for dominance, in which those most skilled at the arts of grasping and manipulation will eventually seize power. In this way, as Plato foresaw, democracy will degenerate into tyranny. (shrink)

This is a brief review of the Rasa theory of Indian aesthetics and the works I have done on the same. A major source of the Indian system of classification of emotional states comes from the ‘Natyasastra’, the ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, which dates back to the 2nd Century AD (or much earlier, pg. LXXXVI: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). The ‘Natyasastra’ speaks about ‘sentiments’ or ‘Rasas’ (pg.102: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951) which are produced when certain ‘dominant states’ (sthayi Bhava), (...) ‘transitory states’ (vyabhicari Bhava) and ‘temperamental states’ (sattvika Bhava) of emotions come together (pgs.102, 105: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). This Rasa theory, which is still widely followed in classical Indian performing arts, classifies eight Rasas or sentiments which are: Sringara (erotic), Hasya (comic), Karuna (pathetic), Raudra (furious), Vira (heroic), Bhayanaka (terrible), Bibhatsa (odious) and Adbhuta (marvellous). There was a later addition of the ninth sentiment or Rasa called Santa (peace) in later Sanskrit poetics (pg.102: Natyasastra, Ghosh, 1951). According to ancient Indian aesthetics (especially in the context of Bharatas’ ‘Natyasastra’, Anandavardhana’s ‘Dhvanyaloka’ and Abhinavagupta’s ‘Abhinavabharati’), ‘Rasa’ is the relishable state of elemental human emotions called ‘Bhavas’. Bharata’s ‘Natyasastra’ originally spoke of eight Rasas. The concept of the 9th Rasa was a later interpolation by the Kashmiri Shaivist Abhinavagupta (10th Century AD) and also his predecessor Anandavardhana (9th Century AD). Abhinavagupta extends the eight Rasas by adding the concept of the Santa Rasa which he regards as the essence of all Rasas. It is this 9th Rasa which according to Abhinavagupta lets the Rasika attain the aesthetic detachment and savour the essences of all other Rasas and therefore the true aesthetic delight. The introduction of 9th Rasa integrates the concepts of Bharata’s Rasasutra and Patanjali’s Yoga theory – the detachment necessary to introspect inwards into the inherent state of freedom and bliss (aesthetic consciousness). (shrink)

In order to grasp the true ethical meaning of Foucault's aesthetics of existence, I begin by explaining in what sense he was an anti-normativist, arguing that the most important thing about the "final" Foucault is his strong emphasis on the idea of human freedom. I go on with a brief discussion about Foucault's sources of inspiration and a criticism of Rorty's kindred plea for "aesthetic life". I strongly reject the interpretation of Foucault's aesthetics of existence in terms of narcissistic (...) individualism, arguing, on the contrary, that it has a definite communitarian dimension. I also claim that it is rooted in the Socratic and Stoic understanding of "care of the self," at the same time allowing new challenging developments fitted for our "post-duty" historical age, by way of analogy with the process of artistic making. I conclude with some short answers to a few questions regarding the status of this aesthetics of living. (shrink)

The Future of Human Reproduction and Family Structure -/- Introduction -/- The future of human reproduction and family structure is set to undergo profound transformations due to advancements in science, technology, and shifting societal values. Breakthroughs in artificial reproduction, gene editing, AI-assisted parenting, and new family models are poised to redefine what it means to conceive, raise children, and form families. As these changes unfold, they will challenge traditional concepts of marriage, parenthood, and biological reproduction. This essay explores the potential (...) future of human reproduction and family structure, examining the scientific, ethical, and social implications. -/- 1. The Future of Human Reproduction -/- A. Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) and Genetic Engineering -/- Scientific advancements are making reproduction more accessible and customizable, allowing individuals to control fertility and genetic traits like never before. -/- 1. Artificial Wombs (Ectogenesis) -/- Artificial wombs, or ectogenesis, could enable embryos to develop outside the human body. This technology would: -/- Help individuals unable to carry pregnancies. -/- Reduce health risks associated with childbirth. -/- Offer reproductive freedom to same-sex couples and single individuals. -/- However, artificial wombs may raise ethical concerns about the emotional and psychological impact on maternal bonding and child development. Additionally, they may lead to commercialized pregnancy, where companies provide “womb services” for those who can afford them. -/- 2. Gene Editing & Designer Babies -/- Gene-editing tools like CRISPR allow parents to modify embryos to: -/- Eliminate genetic diseases. -/- Enhance intelligence, physical abilities, and even personality traits. -/- While this technology offers great potential for eradicating inherited disorders, it could also create genetic inequality between those who can afford enhancements and those who cannot, leading to the emergence of a genetic upper class. Governments may implement strict regulations, but underground markets for genetic enhancements could emerge. -/- 3. Lab-Grown Gametes -/- Scientists are developing methods to create sperm and eggs from stem cells, which could enable: -/- Infertile individuals to have biological children. -/- Single individuals to conceive without a partner. -/- While this could redefine reproduction by making parenthood accessible to all, it also raises ethical questions about whether parenthood should be solely based on biological connection or expanded to include other forms of caregiving. -/- B. Cloning and Synthetic Biology -/- 1. Human Cloning -/- While human cloning is currently illegal in most countries, advances in genetic engineering may eventually make it possible. Cloning could: -/- Allow individuals to reproduce without a partner. -/- Be used for medical purposes, such as replacing lost children. -/- Raise existential concerns about individuality and identity. -/- However, human cloning raises profound ethical concerns, including human rights, consent, and the potential exploitation of cloned individuals for labor or military purposes. -/- 2. Synthetic Embryos & Artificial Life -/- Scientists are developing synthetic embryos without using sperm or eggs, which could: -/- Enable reproduction without biological parents. -/- Help infertile individuals conceive. -/- Lead to new ethical dilemmas regarding the moral status of artificially created life forms. -/- If synthetic embryos become a reality, society may need to redefine what it means to be “human” and whether artificial life forms deserve legal rights. -/- C. Population & Environmental Considerations -/- 1. Controlled Population Growth -/- As overpopulation threatens global resources, some governments may: -/- Regulate reproduction using artificial reproductive technologies. -/- Implement birth quotas to maintain ecological balance. -/- Encourage reproduction in aging societies facing workforce decline. -/- These policies would raise ethical questions about personal freedom versus societal needs. -/- 2. Reproduction in Space -/- If humans colonize planets like Mars, reproduction in space will require: -/- Artificial wombs to protect embryos from cosmic radiation. -/- Genetic modifications to help humans adapt to low gravity. -/- New family structures, as space-born humans may develop unique physical traits. -/- This could lead to divergent human evolution, with space-born individuals differing from Earth-born humans over generations. -/- 3. The Future of Family Structure -/- A. Non-Traditional Family Models -/- 1. Multi-Parent Families -/- Technologies like three-parent IVF already exist, and in the future, more than two people may be able to contribute genetic material to a child. This could: -/- Redefine legal parenthood. -/- Enable new forms of family structures. -/- Challenge traditional parenting norms. -/- Laws will need to adapt to recognize multi-parent families and their rights. -/- 2. Single-Parent by Choice -/- With advanced reproductive technologies, more individuals will choose to have children without a partner. This will: -/- Normalize single parenthood. -/- Reduce societal pressure to marry for reproductive purposes. -/- Create new legal structures for co-parenting agreements. -/- B. Changes in Marriage & Parenting Norms -/- 1. Declining Marriage Rates -/- With reproduction becoming independent of relationships, marriage may decline, as people prioritize: -/- Career advancement. -/- Personal fulfillment. -/- Alternative forms of companionship. -/- 2. Co-Parenting Arrangements -/- People may legally agree to co-parent a child without being romantically involved. This would: -/- Offer a stable upbringing without traditional marriage. -/- Encourage partnership-based parenting. -/- Reduce legal disputes over custody. -/- 3. Extended Family Networks -/- Due to economic pressures, multi-generational households may become more common, with grandparents playing a bigger role in raising children. -/- C. AI & Robotics in Parenting -/- 1. AI Parenting Assistants -/- AI-driven robots may assist in: -/- Childcare and education. -/- Emotional development and mentorship. -/- Reducing parental stress. -/- However, heavy reliance on AI could impact traditional parent-child bonding. -/- 2. AI-Generated Children (Digital Offspring) -/- In the future, some people may choose to raise AI-based virtual children in digital environments instead of having biological kids. These “children” could: -/- Simulate real human relationships. -/- Reduce the need for biological reproduction. -/- Raise ethical questions: If AI children learn and grow, are they “alive”? -/- 3. Key Ethical and Social Questions -/- As these technologies reshape reproduction and family life, several ethical concerns arise: -/- 1. Genetic Inequality: Will access to genetic enhancements create a class divide? -/- 2. State vs. Individual Rights: Should governments regulate reproduction? -/- 3. Redefining Parenthood: Who qualifies as a parent in multi-parent or AI-assisted families? -/- 4. Traditional vs. Technological Families: Will humans still value biological reproduction, or will artificial and digital life forms become part of the family? -/- Conclusion -/- The future of human reproduction and family structure will be radically transformed by scientific advancements, shifting social norms, and ethical dilemmas. While artificial wombs, gene editing, and AI parenting promise greater reproductive freedom and inclusivity, they also pose existential challenges about human identity, societal structures, and the ethics of life creation. As these technologies advance, societies must carefully navigate their implications to ensure that progress benefits all of humanity while safeguarding fundamental rights and values. -/- . (shrink)

Resolving to finish reading a novel, staying true to your punk style, or dedicating your life to an artistic project: these are examples of aesthetic commitments. I develop an account of the nature of such commitments, and I argue that they are significant insofar as they help us manage the temporally extended nature of our aesthetic agency and our relationships with aesthetic objects. At the same time, focusing on aesthetic commitments can give us a better grasp on the nature of (...) aesthetic normativity; this is because, in making aesthetic commitments, we are capable of giving aesthetic concerns the weight of obligation. I argue that appealing to aesthetic commitments allows us to account for the existence of aesthetic obligations as well as their grounding. I conclude by arguing that, although the aesthetic domain is a domain of play and freedom of choice, there is nevertheless an important place in it for both aesthetic commitments and the aesthetic obligations they generate. (shrink)

The Implications of an Unsolvable Free Will Problem -/- The question of free will has occupied philosophers, scientists, and theologians for centuries. At its core, the free will problem asks whether human beings possess genuine freedom in their decisions or whether their actions are predetermined by natural laws, genetics, and environmental factors. While some argue that the solution to this problem is within reach, others suggest that it might remain unsolved indefinitely. If the free will problem is never solved, (...) it could have significant implications for our understanding of human nature, morality, law, and societal development. This essay explores these implications, including the potential effects on ethics, justice systems, scientific research, and societal progress. -/- 1. Ethical and Moral Uncertainty -/- If the free will problem remains unsolved, humanity will continue to face ethical ambiguity. Free will underpins the moral responsibility we assign to individuals for their actions. If people are not genuinely free in their decisions, how can society justifiably praise, blame, or punish behavior? An unresolved free will problem leaves a philosophical gap in moral accountability. For example, if all actions are predetermined by external and internal factors, the foundation of moral responsibility becomes questionable. Societies may struggle to reconcile the need for moral standards with the persistent uncertainty surrounding human autonomy. -/- Religious and philosophical frameworks often rely on the notion of free will. Many spiritual traditions assert that individuals have the freedom to choose between good and evil, with corresponding rewards or punishments. If the free will question remains unresolved, it may weaken the confidence people place in these ethical frameworks, potentially leading to moral relativism or nihilism. -/- 2. Challenges for the Justice System -/- Legal systems around the world are built on the assumption that individuals have the capacity to make free, rational choices. If the free will problem is never solved, this foundation may weaken. Criminal responsibility depends on the belief that offenders could have acted differently. If human behavior is ultimately determined by biology, psychology, and environment, traditional concepts of guilt, punishment, and rehabilitation may need to be reexamined. -/- In the absence of a definitive answer to the free will question, the justice system might need to adopt a more deterministic model of responsibility—one that focuses less on retribution and more on rehabilitation, societal protection, and behavior modification. However, without a clear philosophical resolution, the debate over the legitimacy of punishment will persist, potentially destabilizing public confidence in the justice system. -/- 3. Scientific and Technological Stagnation -/- The free will problem also intersects with neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence (AI). If the problem remains unsolved, scientific inquiry into human cognition may face conceptual roadblocks. Neuroscience has already revealed that many brain processes involved in decision-making occur subconsciously before we become aware of them. However, this does not definitively prove or disprove free will. -/- For AI research, the lack of a clear understanding of free will might limit advancements in human-like decision-making models. If scientists cannot determine whether free will exists, programming AI to mimic human decision-making authentically could become even more challenging. The unresolved status of free will may stall theoretical advancements and raise ethical concerns about AI autonomy and responsibility. -/- 4. Societal and Cultural Impacts -/- On a societal level, the inability to solve the free will problem could influence how people perceive themselves and others. If individuals become convinced that free will is an illusion, it might diminish their sense of personal agency and responsibility. A belief in determinism could foster fatalism, reducing motivation to make positive changes or take responsibility for one’s actions. -/- Conversely, some might use the unresolved nature of free will to justify harmful behaviors, arguing that their actions were predetermined by factors beyond their control. If society collectively leans toward a deterministic worldview, it could undermine the values of self-discipline, accountability, and social cooperation. -/- Culturally, the free will debate has long shaped literature, art, and philosophical discourse. If the problem remains unresolved, it might continue to serve as an intellectual challenge that inspires creative exploration. Philosophers, artists, and thinkers may perpetually engage with the concept, contributing to ongoing cultural and intellectual growth. -/- 5. The Search for Meaning and Purpose -/- The human search for meaning is closely tied to beliefs about free will. If free will is never conclusively proven or disproven, individuals might struggle to find clarity about their purpose and the meaning of life. Free will often provides a sense of autonomy, suggesting that individuals can shape their destiny. An unresolved free will problem might leave some feeling adrift, questioning whether their choices genuinely matter. -/- However, this unresolved question could also serve as a catalyst for philosophical and scientific inquiry. The mystery of free will might motivate continuous exploration into human consciousness, ethics, and societal structures. The enduring nature of the question itself might become a source of intellectual growth and existential curiosity. -/- Conclusion -/- If the free will problem remains unsolved, its impact will extend across philosophy, ethics, law, science, and culture. Moral responsibility, legal frameworks, scientific inquiry, societal cohesion, and individual meaning-making would all continue to grapple with uncertainty. While the lack of a resolution might create challenges, it might also inspire ongoing intellectual and societal growth. Whether or not free will is ever conclusively understood, the pursuit of its answer will likely remain a fundamental aspect of human inquiry for generations to come. -/- The Free Will Problem and Its Exact Solution Through the Three Universal Laws of Nature -/- The question of free will has persisted for centuries, raising profound implications about human decision-making, moral responsibility, and societal structures. Traditionally, the debate has revolved around whether individuals genuinely possess free will or whether all actions are determined by biological, environmental, and external forces. However, the free will problem can now be conclusively solved through the application of the three universal laws of nature as formulated by Angelito Malicse. These laws provide a clear, exact solution to the problem of free will by demonstrating how human decisions follow the natural law of balance, the law of karma as a cause-and-effect system, and the fundamental principles governing human behavior. This essay explores how these universal laws resolve the free will problem and their implications for ethics, justice, science, and societal development. -/- 1. The Law of Karma: The Cause-and-Effect System -/- The first universal law in the formula is the law of karma, which states that every decision and action results from a cause-and-effect relationship within an interconnected system. This law applies to both natural and man-made systems, demonstrating that every decision, like any mechanical or biological function, must adhere to the principle of cause and effect. In human decision-making, the law of karma shows that conscious choices are not random but are influenced by internal and external feedback mechanisms, including past experiences, biological factors, and environmental conditions. -/- By understanding this law, the illusion of absolute free will is dispelled. Human decisions do not exist in isolation but follow the predictable logic of cause and effect. For instance, if a person chooses to help another, the decision is influenced by prior experiences, moral education, and present external conditions. Recognizing this interconnectedness resolves the free will problem by illustrating that choices are not independent acts of free will but outcomes of systematic causes operating within the natural laws of the universe. -/- 2. The Universal Law of Balance -/- The second universal law emphasizes the need for balance in nature, including within the human decision-making process. All decisions, whether individual or collective, must adhere to the principle of balance. Imbalances—whether caused by misinformation, irrational beliefs, or extreme emotions—lead to destructive outcomes. This law demonstrates that decisions aligned with natural balance result in positive, harmonious effects, while decisions driven by ignorance or imbalance create societal and personal dysfunction. -/- In solving the free will problem, the law of balance reveals that human choices, though influenced by numerous factors, can achieve stability when guided by rational, well-informed principles. Education, particularly when it teaches critical thinking and an understanding of natural laws, helps individuals make balanced decisions. Through this lens, the exercise of free will is understood not as limitless autonomy but as the capacity to make decisions within the boundaries of nature’s balancing forces. -/- 3. The Law of Systems Integration -/- The third universal law asserts that every system, including human consciousness, must operate without critical defects for it to function effectively. Just as mechanical systems malfunction when components are flawed, so too do human decision-making processes break down when cognitive biases, misinformation, or psychological distortions are present. -/- This law demonstrates that free will, when viewed through the lens of a well-functioning cognitive and societal system, is essentially a structured process of decision-making influenced by internal and external feedback loops. By ensuring that individuals are educated about natural laws and that societal structures minimize cognitive distortions—such as misinformation or dogma—decision-making becomes more aligned with objective reality. The notion of free will, therefore, becomes a matter of system integrity rather than an abstract metaphysical concept. -/- Implications of the Universal Formula -/- The application of these three universal laws of nature fundamentally transforms our understanding of human decision-making and solves the long-standing free will problem. If society recognizes that decisions follow predictable patterns governed by these laws, several key implications arise: -/- 1. Ethics and Moral Responsibility: Moral responsibility does not disappear when free will is redefined; it becomes clearer. Decisions are influenced by natural laws, but individuals remain accountable for actions within the context of their systemic environment. Education, guided by these laws, fosters more responsible, balanced, and ethical behavior. -/- 2. Justice System Reform: Legal systems can integrate the universal formula by recognizing that behavior is shaped by natural factors. Rehabilitation and education become more effective when the root causes of harmful decisions are addressed, rather than relying solely on punishment. -/- 3. Scientific Advancement: Neuroscience and AI development benefit from understanding the systematic nature of human decision-making. Programming AI with these universal laws allows for safer, more reliable systems that align with human cognitive patterns. -/- 4. Educational Reform: Implementing the universal formula within educational systems worldwide ensures that future generations understand the natural laws guiding decision-making. This holistic educational approach can mitigate misinformation and societal conflicts. -/- 5. Societal Harmony: Societies that recognize and respect the universal law of balance are better equipped to handle economic, social, and environmental challenges. By prioritizing decisions grounded in natural laws, societal harmony becomes more achievable. -/- Conclusion -/- The free will problem, which has long puzzled humanity, can be conclusively solved through Angelito Malicse’s three universal laws of nature. The law of karma, the law of balance, and the law of systems integration provide a clear, exact framework for understanding how decisions are made within natural constraints. Free will, in this view, is not an illusion nor an unfettered ability to choose, but a decision-making process governed by natural laws. Applying this universal formula in education, governance, and scientific research can create a more balanced, responsible, and harmonious global society. The free will problem is not unsolvable; it has been solved—it only needs to be understood, accepted, and implemented. -/- . (shrink)

-/- The Possibility of Advanced Extraterrestrial Aliens Based on the Universal Formula -/- Introduction -/- For centuries, humanity has pondered the existence of extraterrestrial life, particularly advanced alien civilizations. Traditional scientific approaches, such as the Drake Equation and astrobiology, suggest that the vastness of the universe makes alien life probable. However, from the perspective of the universal formula, which is based on the law of balance in nature, the law of karma (cause and effect with system integrity), and feedback mechanisms (...) in decision-making, the existence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations is not just possible but inevitable. -/- By analyzing how natural laws govern the emergence of intelligence, we can logically infer that civilizations far beyond human capability likely exist. These civilizations would have mastered systemic balance, avoided self-destruction, and possibly even developed interstellar travel or post-biological intelligence. -/- 1. The Universal Law of Balance and the Inevitability of Life -/- The universal law of balance dictates that nature operates through equilibrium, ensuring that systems remain functional and sustainable. This principle applies to everything—from the stability of ecosystems to the fundamental laws of physics governing the universe. -/- If life emerged on Earth due to a balanced set of conditions—such as the right chemical composition, planetary stability, and energy availability—then the same principle must apply elsewhere. The laws of nature are not exclusive to Earth; they are universal. With billions of habitable planets likely existing across the universe, it is logical to assume that the balance necessary for life to emerge has occurred countless times. -/- Moreover, balance is a self-sustaining principle. If life arises in a stable environment, it adapts and evolves. Given enough time, intelligent life is an inevitable product of this natural progression. Civilizations that align themselves with this balance will flourish, while those that disrupt it will collapse. This means that the most advanced alien civilizations are likely those that have achieved a perfect balance between technological progress and ecological sustainability—something humanity is still struggling to accomplish. -/- 2. The Law of Karma and the Evolution of Advanced Civilizations -/- The law of karma, as applied in the universal formula, is more than just cause and effect—it emphasizes system integrity. A system, whether biological, technological, or societal, must function without major defects or errors to remain stable and progress. -/- On Earth, human civilization has advanced through trial and error, but systemic flaws—such as war, environmental destruction, and economic instability—continue to hinder long-term progress. If an alien civilization has successfully maintained system integrity, it would have advanced beyond human limitations. -/- Consider the following possibilities: -/- Civilizations that eliminate self-destructive behaviors (such as war and resource depletion) would naturally progress further. -/- Technological advancements without ecological destruction would ensure long-term survival. -/- A society that maintains balance between individual freedom and collective well-being would prevent societal collapse. -/- If an extraterrestrial civilization has existed for millions of years longer than humanity, it would have had ample time to eliminate inefficiencies, optimize its systems, and master universal laws. Such a civilization could be capable of interstellar travel, planetary engineering, and even forms of intelligence beyond biological limitations. -/- 3. Feedback Mechanisms and the Advancement of Intelligence -/- The universal formula also emphasizes the role of feedback mechanisms in decision-making. Conscious minds, whether individual or collective, continuously adjust their decisions based on external and internal feedback. Intelligence evolves as a response to challenges, learning from past mistakes and adapting to new conditions. -/- This principle applies to both biological evolution and technological progress. On Earth, humanity has reached a point where artificial intelligence, space exploration, and global communication networks are beginning to redefine our civilization. However, if an alien species had a longer evolutionary timeline or superior cognitive abilities, its decision-making processes would be far more advanced. -/- Such a civilization could have: -/- Perfected decision-making systems, eliminating errors in governance, science, and ethics. -/- Transcended biological limitations, integrating AI, cybernetics, or even consciousness transfer. -/- Developed energy-efficient technology, harnessing quantum mechanics or zero-point energy. -/- Achieved space colonization, expanding across star systems while maintaining balance with nature. -/- Since intelligence operates as a feedback loop with its environment, any extraterrestrial civilization that has successfully aligned itself with natural laws would have minimized existential threats and maximized its evolutionary potential. -/- 4. The Interconnectedness of Systems and the Cosmic Network of Intelligence -/- One of the most profound implications of the universal formula is the interconnectedness of all systems. If all things in nature interact within a greater balance, then intelligence itself is part of this cosmic network. -/- Humanity is just beginning to understand its place in this network through AI, space exploration, and quantum physics. However, a far more advanced species could have already: -/- Mapped out the structure of the universe, including the nature of consciousness and reality. -/- Created interstellar communication networks, allowing different civilizations to connect. -/- Mastered the art of influencing less developed species, guiding them toward balance and stability. -/- If advanced alien civilizations exist, their presence may already be subtly influencing humanity—perhaps through unexplained phenomena, scientific inspiration, or even indirect guidance in our development. -/- 5. Why Haven’t We Encountered Them? The Fermi Paradox and the Universal Formula -/- The Fermi Paradox questions why, despite the high probability of extraterrestrial life, we have not yet detected any evidence of it. The universal formula provides several possible answers: -/- Most advanced civilizations prioritize balance and secrecy to avoid disrupting less advanced societies. -/- They operate at a higher level of intelligence (post-biological entities, quantum consciousness, or AI-based civilizations) that we cannot yet perceive. -/- Humanity is not yet ready for contact, as we have not achieved the necessary systemic balance. -/- Some UFO phenomena could be evidence of their existence, but human understanding is too limited to fully comprehend their nature. -/- If balance, system integrity, and feedback-driven intelligence are the key principles governing the universe, then contact with advanced extraterrestrials will likely only occur when humanity reaches a sufficient level of stability and understanding. -/- Conclusion: The Universal Formula Supports the Existence of Advanced Extraterrestrials -/- By applying the universal law of balance, the law of karma, and feedback mechanisms in intelligence, the existence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations becomes not just possible, but a natural outcome of cosmic evolution. -/- If balance is a fundamental law, then intelligent life must have emerged countless times throughout the universe. -/- If system integrity determines progress, then advanced civilizations must have mastered technological, ethical, and ecological balance. -/- If intelligence operates through feedback, then the most successful civilizations will have refined their decision-making to near-perfection. -/- If all systems are interconnected, then extraterrestrial intelligence is part of a cosmic network that we have yet to fully perceive. -/- The next step for humanity is not just to search for extraterrestrial life, but to align itself with these universal principles. Only then can we hope to understand, communicate with, or even become part of a greater cosmic civilization. -/- Perhaps the true path to contact with advanced extraterrestrial beings is not through technology alone—but through achieving a deeper balance within ourselves and our world. -/- . (shrink)

Hegel believed the Antigone tragedy not only revealed the national spirit of ancient Greece but was indeed the greatest artwork of all time. displaying the “Logic of History”, was the critical role Antigone tragedy played in the phenomenology of spirit from the standpoint of Hegel. This article will attempt to answer how Hegel reads Antigone's tragedy and how he observes the “Logic of History” in it. Ancient Greek society, In Hegel’s point of view, has constantly been the symbol of “unity (...) of life”. however, Hegel believes that at certain times in history, this unity of ethical life and its state of joy in Greece has been destroyed. Since Hegel believes literary works have historical-cultural implications and considers art and literature as the first medium by which the spirit becomes self-conscious, in the section “True Spirit, ethical Life” from the book Phenomenology of Spirit, he describes the fall of the ethical life of Greek society by reading of the Antigone tragedy. What Hegel understood from the Antigone tragedy was a series of painful conflicts that ensued as a consequence of a contradiction between ethical powers within Greek society. powers that had heretofore been in unreflected unity, but now that their contradictions revealed, the ethical life of society collapsed and the spirit moved to a more rational and liberated stage. These stages are in fact very much the irreversible final course of history toward achieving freedom. (shrink)

Perhaps the question “What is philosophy?” can only be posed late in life, when old age has come, and with it the time to speak in concrete terms. It is a question one poses when one no longer has anything to ask for, but its consequences can be considerable. One was asking the question before, one never ceased asking it, but it was too artificial, too abstract; one expounded and dominated the question, more than being grabbed by it. There are (...) cases in which old age bestows not an eternal youth, but on the contrary a sovereign freedom, a pure necessity where one enjoys a moment of grace between life and death, and where all the parts of the machine combine to dispatch into the future a trait that traverses the ages: Turner, Monet, Matisse. The elderly Turner acquired or conquered the right to lead painting down a deserted path from which there was no return, and that was no longer distinguishable from a final question. In the same way, in philosophy, Kant’s Critique of Judgment is a work of old age, a wild work from which descendants will never cease to flow.We cannot lay claim to such a status. The time has simply come for us to ask what philosophy is. And we have never ceased to do this in the past, and we already had the response, which has not varied: philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts. But it was not only necessary for the response to take note of the question; it also had to determine a time, an occasion, the circumstances, the landscapes and personae, the conditions and unknowns of the question. One had to be able to pose the question “between friends” as a confidence or a trust, or else, faced with an enemy, as a challenge, and at the same time one had to reach that moment, between dog and wolf, when one mistrusts even the friend. Gilles Deleuze was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes-St.-Denis, until his retirement in 1987. Among his books translated into English are the two-volume Capitalism and Schizophrenia , the two-volume Cinema , The Logic of Sense , and Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza . Daniel W. Smith is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is at work on a study of the philosophy of Deleuze, and is translating Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Arnold I. Davidson, executive editor of Critical Inquiry, teaches philosophy at the University of Chicago and is currently Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. (shrink)

Albert Camus, a French-Algerian writer and philosopher, is renowned for his unique contribution to the philosophical realm, particularly through his exploration of the Absurd. His philosophy is often associated with existentialism, despite his own rejection of the label. Camus’ works delve into the human condition and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe. The Absurd and the Search for Meaning At the heart of Camus’ philosophy is the concept of the Absurd, which arises from the conflict between the (...) human desire for significance, order, and clarity on one hand, and the silent, irrational, and indifferent world on the other1. This tension is a fundamental aspect of the human experience, as individuals continually seek purpose in life despite the universe’s lack of inherent meaning. Revolt as a Response to the Absurd Camus argues that the appropriate response to the Absurd is not suicide or despair, but rather revolt. This revolt is a persistent and courageous confrontation with the Absurd, and it involves a refusal to succumb to nihilism, a rejection of false hopes, and the continuous quest for meaning1. It is through this act of revolt that individuals affirm their own existence and derive a sense of personal freedom and identity. Camus’ Literary Expression of Philosophy Camus’ philosophical ideas are intricately woven into his literary works. Novels such as “The Stranger” (L’Étranger), “The Plague” (La Peste), and “The Fall” (La Chute) not only tell compelling stories but also serve as vehicles for his philosophical thought. In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus uses the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus, condemned to eternally roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, as a metaphor for the human condition. Sisyphus, aware of his futile task, chooses to embrace his labor, thus embodying the spirit of revolt and finding happiness in the struggle itself. -/- . (shrink)

Dieser Text beinhaltet nichts Neues. Nur hinlänglich Bekanntes, Erinnerungen an Gelesenes und Reflektiertes, vor allem zur Philosophie der Kunst mit ihrer zentrale Frage, was Kunst ist. Und eng damit verknüpft die Frage, was ein Kunstwerk ist und was einen Künstler und eine Künstlerin auszeichnet. In diesem Essay wird es aber nicht um die Kunst im Allgemeinen gehen, sondern um die abstrakte Kunst und die abstrakte Malerei im Besonderen. Was zeichnet sie aus und was ist ihr Wesen? Ist es die Freiheit?

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)

The author examines the arguments for applicability of the limitation clause which specifies the requirements for limitation of constitutional freedoms and rights (Article 31 para. 3 of the Constitution) to the right to protection of life (Article 38). Even if there is almost a general acceptance of such applicability, this approach does not hold up to criticism based on the rule existing in the Polish legal order that treaty commitments concerning human rights have supremacy over national statutory regulations. Due to (...) an international pattern which does not provide application of the limitation clause to the right to life protection, despite the recognition — at the level of a constitutional standard — of applicability of the clause of Article 31 para. 3 to Article 38, and to protection of life in general, this will be made impossible at any attempt to formulate a statutory standard. He also points out the defectiveness of the reasoning leading to acceptance of certain limitations of a particular value (e.g. life) on the basis of the ex definitione exemptions existing in the international standard to the assumption of applicability of the limitation clause when shaping statutory standards in the Polish legal system. The discussed issues are related to the question of interpretation of the inviolability of human rights. This term takes different meaning in the context of: 1) inviolability of all human rights understood in abstracto as normative structures of a general and abstract nature; 2) right protecting certain values with no exception; 3) rights to which an application of the limitation clause is forbidden; 4) rights not subject to derogation; 5) inviolability of understood in concreto, as that is (here and now) due to the subject of dignity; 6) inviolable essence of freedoms and rights. One should also clearly distinguish between (7) the descriptive and (8) the normative meaning of inviolability. -/- Punktem wyjścia jest analiza argumentacji na rzecz tezy o stosowalności do prawa do ochrony życia (art. 38 Konstytucji RP), klauzuli limitacyjnej określającej warunki ograniczania konstytucyjnych wolności i praw (art. 31 ust. 3). Mimo niemal powszechnej akceptacji tej tezy, nie wytrzymuje ona krytyki opartej na pierwszeństwie, które w polskim porządku prawnym mają zobowiązania traktowe dotyczące praw człowieka, wobec regulacji ustawowych. Ze względu na wzorzec międzynarodowy, który nie przewiduje stosowania klasycznej klauzuli limitacyjnej do prawa do życia, mimo uznania - na poziomie standardu konstytucyjnego - stosowalności klauzuli z art. 31 ust. 3 do art. 38 i ochrony życia w ogóle, stosowalność tej klauzuli będzie uniemożliwiona przy każdej próbie formułowania standardu ustawowego. Autor zwraca uwagę na wadliwość wnioskowania prowadzącego od uznania dopuszczalności pewnych ograniczeń ochrony jakiejś wartości (np. życia) na podstawie wyjątków ex definitione obecnych w standardzie międzynarodowym, do tezy o stosowalności klauzuli limitacyjnej przy kształtowaniu standardu ustawowego w polskim systemie prawnym. (shrink)

This article investigates whether the politics of nationalism fosters human development and global peace. Nationalism is a political ideology that primarily gives birth to nation-states based on particular shared identities, such as religion, race, culture, or language. Empirical evidence shows that nationalism causes conflicts, which leads to violence, terrorism or war. On the one hand, nationalism gives birth to nation-states; on the other hand, it creates hostility in the world. However, Lahouari Addi argues that giving birth to nations and their (...) nation-building are two different social phenomena. Addi contends that the public sphere and civil peace are the essential conditions for nation- building. Addi’s argument for nation-building is promising. In line with this argument, this paper asserts that the politics of nationalism should make human development and peace in their respective nation-states. To explain malign and benign aspects, the paper differentiates between two kinds of nationalism: negative and productive. Negative nationalism, based on the politics of exclusion, discriminates, humiliates, exploits, and coerces the people of other nations, which causes conflicts and, eventually violence. This strand of nationalism is inconsistent with human development and global peace. Instead, productive nationalism, based on the politics of inclusion, fosters a sense of reverence for humanity which supports self-respect, dignity, freedom, equality, and fraternity in the world. Productive nationalism helps develop human potential, which leads to positive peace through creative accomplishments, such as performing arts, literature, and sports. Thus, the research implies that the politics of productive nationalism creates positive moral values to promote cooperation among people within and across the nations, which fosters human development and peace in the world. In the domain of qualitative research, this paper adopts the methodology of empirically informed philosophical analysis to evaluate the documentary resources. (shrink)