Motivation serves as a pivotal driver for achieving optimal work performance, especially in the realm of local government operations. Through a qualitative multiple-case study design, the researchers analyzed the pivotal connection between employees' performance and overall organizational success. Thirteen (13) participants from the first-class municipalities in the first district of Batangas were selected using purposive sampling techniques. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to get the opinions of the participants and were subsequently subjected to thematic analysis. The findings highlight the strong connection (...) between motivational tools and employee preferences. Despite the local government's emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, employees exhibit a strong preference for incentives, rewards, and acknowledgment. Advocating for the systematic integration of employee feedback into motivational strategy formulation and the necessity of comprehensive evaluations of existing tools. Additionally, it underscores the importance of cultivating an inclusive environment where employees actively participate in discussions about motivational approaches. By embracing the proposed motivational plan that considers both organizational and employee perspectives, this research seeks to cultivate a culture of heightened productivity and performance enhancement within local government units. (shrink)

If an AI makes a significant contribution to a research paper, should it be listed as a co-author? The current guidelines in the field have been created to reduce duplication of credit between two different authors in scientific articles. A new computer program could be identified and credited for its impact in an AI research paper that discusses an early artificial intelligence system which is currently under development at Lawrence Berkeley National. One way to imagine the future of artificial (...) intelligence is that it will be much less expensive to develop new technologies than to create new ways of thinking. Now we have done this technology, and now we go and ask why in the end it is the artificial intelligence that takes over? Well, it is not that artificial intelligence is bad, but it is not as effective as human minds or as intelligent as machine minds. Even in the past, when computers were more intelligent than humans, not all the AI programs have been so intelligent as to be intelligent enough to be called intelligent. (shrink)

A complimentary assessment of Blum's award-winning book about racism and its affects. Well written as it is, it needs to be supplemented with a definition of racial injustice, and also to analyze racism not only on the level of individual morality but from a human rights perspective that discredits political and economic motives for racism (e.g., by drawing on Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism).

"...T S Eliot was unimpressed by Freud. Eliot preferred the more approachable Roger Vittoz. It was only Scofield Thayer, who in his prolonged therapy with Sigmund Freud can be said to have brought anything Freudian in the classically psychoanalytic sense to Modernism." This is from the review. The review of the book is contrarian as the book under review is. The salient points of the book are interrogated in this review.

There can be no doubt that discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs should not be tolerated in academia. Surprisingly, however, in recent years, policies of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity(DIE), officially introduced to counteract discrimination, have increasingly led to quite the opposite result: the exclusion of individuals who do not share a radical 'woke' ideology on identity politics (feminism, other gender activisms, critical race theory, etc.), and to the suppression of the academic freedom to discuss such dogmas. This (...) subversion of academia ― disguised Trojan-horse style as universal human rights advocacy ― is unacceptable because academia must be politically neutral and protect freedom of speech, a cornerstone of professional scholarly activity without which universities as we know them will slowly but surely suffocate. -/- Our purpose here is to put together some particularly illustrative cases of such repression in a single book, testifying to a ubiquitous trend within western culture, irreducible to a few isolated complaints. The essays contained here illustrate the abuse of power, censorship and witch-hunts at many universities and research centres in the name of DIE. -/- List of coauthors in alphabetical order: Dorian Abbot, Tomonori Agoh, Gerhard Amendt, Ivar Arpi, David Benatar, Peter Boghossian, Civitas Research Team, David Díaz Pardo de Vera, Pedro Domingos, Janice Fiamengo, Étienne Forest, Jorge Gibert Galassi, Norman Goldstuck, José L. González Quirós, Lawrence M. Krauss, Patrick LaBelle, Martín López Corredoira, Heather Mac Donald, Martin Malmgren, Erik. J. Olsson, Jordan Peterson, Constantin Polychronakos, Philip C. Salzman, Alessandro Strumia, Tom Todd, Andrei Yafaev. (shrink)

The accent on scientific and empirical character of alchemy, especially from the field of the history of science, promotes the idea that one can understand the cryptic and metaphorical language of alchemy mainly through the laboratory chemical practice. As a result, the tendency is to interpret the spiritual and esoteric language of alchemy, as metaphors for laboratory work and the most representative research on historiography of alchemy that point the spiritual character as being contaminated by esoteric sciences and Victorian occultism. (...) This paper is paying attention to this dichotomy by attempting to understand the exclusivist position of the position that alchemy is a proto-chemistry and to see the consequences of such an interpretation. It is reviewed one of the most representative voices that interpret alchemy as spiritual by Carl. G. Jung and Mircea Eliade, and their rejection, as it is illustrated by William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, showing the boundaries of both approaches and the hazarded character of understanding alchemy merely as part of the history of chemistry. (shrink)

Michael Hunter, The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle. With contributions by Edward B. Davis, Harriet Knight, Charles Littleton and Lawrence M. Principe. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007. Pp. xiii + 674. US$139.95/£70.00 HB. -/- The publication by Michael Hunter of this revised edition of the catalogue of the Boyle Papers contributes admirably to the renaissance in Boyle studies which has taken place over the past decade and a half. Robert Boyle (1627–91), arguably the most influential (...) British scientist of the late seventeenth century, was a pioneering experimenter, profound thinker, and figure-head of the new science in its early years of development. This volume brings together the materials necessary for understanding the Boyle archive, one of the most important archives from this period, which has been at the Royal Society since 1769. (shrink)

Prior to the nineteenth century, those who are now regarded as scientists were referred to as natural philosophers. With empiricism, science was claimed to be a superior form of knowledge to philosophy, and natural philosophy was marginalized. This claim for science was challenged by defenders of natural philosophy, and this debate has continued up to the present. The vast majority of mainstream scientists are comfortable in the belief that through applying the scientific method, knowledge will continue to accumulate, and that (...) claims to knowledge outside science apart from practical affairs should not be taken seriously. This is referred to as scientism. It is incumbent on those who defend natural philosophy against scientism not only to expose the illusions and incoherence of scientism, but to show that natural philosophers can make justifiable claims to advancing knowledge. By focusing on a recent characterization and defense of natural philosophy along with a reconstruction of the history of natural philosophy, showing the nature and role of Schelling’s conception of dialectical thinking, I will attempt to identify natural philosophy as a coherent tradition of thought and defend it as something different from science and as essential to it, and essential to the broader culture and to civilization. (shrink)

contents -/- ONT vol 1 i. short review: Beyond the Black Rainbow ii. as you die, hold one thought iii. short review: LA JETÉE -/- ONT vol 2 i. maya means ii. short review: SANS SOLEIL iii. vocab iv. eros has an underside v. short review: In the Mood for Love -/- ONT vol 3 i. weed weakens / compels me ii. an Ender's Game after-party iii. playroom is a realm of the dead iv. a precise german History v. short (...) review: STATUES ALSO DIE vi. Kenneth Clark, curator for Fascism vii. a protest poem, in industry lit viii. Lawrence and the English Romance -/- ONT vol 4 i. short review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye ii. vR is efficient R iii. all thru Asia, robes for monks iv. same of God, and of the one God sent v. i thought of the Messiah / muse would be vi. conscience is strong vii. a monk's exalted end -/- ONT vol 5 -/- i. for Shakespeare's Richard the Third ii. the truth is i pass over so many words iii. the boori nazar / nadhar iv. i've awe for jihaad v. short review: Hail, Caesar! vi. a minute of Nothing, gone from YouTube vii. we were rivalrous friends, again viii. my bardo pdf ix. within i'm a weak old mandarin -/- ONT vol 6 i. short review: The Intern ii. the confusion of Chinatown iii. we'll remember water, in Theology iv. Respironics versus ResMed v. i'd bet my life for what vi. the Mad Max deity vii. they'd kill my rat, not heal him -/- ONT vol 7 i. Austen would eroticize all life ii. Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right iii. Ellie Arroway / Agent Starling iv. abattoir / l’abattoir / laboratoire v. von Neumann's brain an anomaly vi. was terrified of death, delighted in the a-bomb vii. the Greatest Brain is variously named -/- ONT vol 8 i. the day they shot the sacrifice ii. Yay or Nay, on Animal Testing iii. an ought is an is / an is is an ought iv. Behaviorism is for zombies v. a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy vi. i’ve never had discernible abs vii. a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually -/- ONT vol 9 i. Day of the Locust / Triffids ii. we're wide on a Paramount soundstage iii. HOLLYWOOD, an ecologic history iv. yet one more site of end-time art v. he's "a bookworm with bulging lobes" vi. apartment is my state of being apart vii. enlightenment means a weight's release -/- ONT lates and xtras i. re Gödel's ontological argument ii. deep in pi's numeric noise iii. from Nothing, something iv. endless in the wrong direction, tragic v. they give you all Eternity to answer vi. what of God's mercy? vii. informed consent and prayer viii. i won't live on. a deed i've done may ix. my selective memory x. Janus means: in close-up foam, two faces xi. a liveable world is a readable world xii. what Supervenes from this? xiii. at each extreme our naming is anachronism xiv. Cat is a collapsing of the wave-function xv. diminishing returns in the history of Experiment xvi. all those undershared Nobels xvii. ice preserves the Cold from heat xviii. a desert spreads xix. Pinker's wit, on jokes xx. Rome surrounds St. Paul / Paul is now the center xxi. each is a gathering Ministry xxii. white boy shot execution-style xxiii. the McDonald's Statement of Claim xxiv. first & last: Don Quixote / Ulysses xxv. The Summer of Rave xxvi. this electro is intrinsically anonymous xxvii. all thru Asia, Drake-Rihanna xxviii. WHO IS BETTER: PLATON OR KANT? (shrink)

Antes de entrar cuidadosamente no estudo de cada filósofo, em suas respectivas ordens cronológicas, é necessário dar um panorama geral sobre eles, permitindo, de relance, a localização deles em tempos históricos e a associação de seus nomes com sua teoria ou tema central. l. OS FILÓSOFOS PRÉ-SOCRÁTICOS - No sétimo século antes de Jesus Cristo, nasce o primeiro filósofo grego: Tales de Mileto2 . Ele e os seguintes filósofos jônicos (Anaximandro: Ἀναξίμανδρος: 3 610-546 a.C.) e Anaxímenes: (Άναξιμένης: 586-524 a.C.) tentaram (...) expressar/elucidar o que é a arché, ou constitutivo fundamental do Universo. 4 Também sobressaem as teorias de Pitágoras (Ὁ Πυθαγόρας: 570 a.C.- 495 a.C.), completas de misticismo e Matemática; a de Heráclito (Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος: 540-470 a.C.), o filósofo do devir e o de seu oponente, Parmênides (Παρμενίδης: 530-460 a.C.), que elucida a primeira teoria do ser, e para qual é alcunhado como o iniciador da Metafísica. Anaxágoras (Ἀναξαγόρας: 500 a.C.- 428 a.C.) esboça uma teoria sobre o Nous, o espírito divino. Por outro lado, Demócrito (Δημόκριτος: Grécia: 460-370 a.C.) e Empédocles (Ἐμπεδοκλῆς: 490 a.C.-430 a.C.) insistem no materialismo. Em contrapartida, os sofistas (Parmênides, Cálicles (Καλλικλῆς: personagem platônico cuja existência é duvidosa) e Górgias (Γοργίας: 485 a.C.-380 a.C.)) gozam das suas aptidões à dialética, e colocam o relativismo como uma posição filosófica. Sócrates será o inimigo mais temível dessa posição. Este é o começo do movimento filosófico de Atenas, que culmina nos séculos quinto e quarto, tal qual, posteriormente, veremos. 2. O APOGEU GREGO – Sócrates (Σωκράτης: 469 a.C.-399 a.C.), Platão (Πλάτων: 428/427- 348/347 a.C.) e Aristóteles (Ἀριστοτέλης: 384 a.C.-322 a.C.) formam o triunvirato dos grandes filósofos gregos. O primeiro (Sócrates), com seu método "maiêutico" e sua teoria do conceito; o segundo (Platão), com sua teoria das ideias e seu estilo literário (dialogista); e o terceiro (Aristóteles), com a estruturação dos principais ramos filosóficos, como a Lógica, a Metafísica, a Ética, a Psicologia racional e a Política; todos eles elevaram a Filosofia para um posto de primeira ordem. Doravante, todos os filósofos tornam-se credores das contribuições desses gênios. Em certos autores, é clara a influência de Platão ou de Aristóteles. Sendo que, ambos os filósofos, tiveram influência absoluta de Sócrates, uma vez que Platão fora seu discípulo, e Aristóteles discípulo de Platão. A Idade Média, por exemplo, foi toda ela, em sua gênese e desenvolvimento, alicerçada no pensamento e nas ideias platônicas; tal era histórica é caracterizada pela luta em favor de um ou de outro autor; o platonismo tomou precedência nos primeiros séculos do cristianismo; somente após o décimo século Aristóteles foi redescoberto. 3. A FILOSOFIA CRISTÃ MEDIEVAL - Santo Agostinho (354 a.C.-430 a.C.) se destaca, no quinto século, com sua teoria da iluminação e a aplicação da teoria platônica ao Cristianismo. No século XIII, São Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274), sintetiza Aristóteles com o Cristianismo. Os dois autores formam o núcleo da filosofia cristã em seus respectivos séculos. A escolástica teve seu tempo de decadência. Se mencionam, principalmente, dois autores: João Duns Escoto (1266-1308) e Guilherme de Ockham (1285-1347). O primeiro é o "Doutor Sutil ", e o segundo cai em um fideísmo e um nominalismo, para todos os conceitos criticáveis. Em uma segunda parte, tentaremos explicar os respectivos pensamentos dos autores mencionados, e outros que pertencem ao mesmo tempo, antigos e medievais. Naquela época, a Filosofia era puramente realista, aplicada ao mundo e ao homem. Somente na Idade Moderna, a Filosofia assumirá o problema do conhecimento como a base e o começo de todo filosofar. 4. A FILOSOFIA RACIONALISTA (MODERNA) - Na Idade Moderna, sobressai o racionalismo de Descartes (1596-1650) prolongado, então, com Malebranche (1638-1715) (ocasionalismo), Espinosa (1632 -1677) (panteísmo) e Leibniz (1646-1716) (teoria das mônadas). Estamos nos séculos XVII e XVIII. A atenção será focada nas disputas filosóficas da corrente empirista contra a racionalista. 5. A FILOSOFIA EMPIRISTA – O empirismo é florescido, principalmente, na Inglaterra. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), primeiro, e depois Locke (1632-1704) com sua rejeição de ideias inatas, Berkeley (1685-1753) com postura e ideias paradoxais, também idealistas e Hume (1711-1776), com suas famosas críticas contra o princípio da causalidade e o conceito de substância, são os principais autores. 6. KANT E OS IDEALISTAS ALEMÃES - Como a tentativa de sintetizar o racionalismo e empirismo, está a teoria de Kant (1724-1804), no século XVIII. Para o seu gênio seguido pelos três idealistas alemães mais importantes: Fichte (1762-1814) (idealismo subjetivo), Schelling (1775-1854) (idealismo objetivo) e Hegel (1770-1831) (idealismo absoluto). Esses Autores representam o ápice da especulação filosófica. A análise, a profundidade, a complexidade da expressão e o espírito sistemático são as características do gênio alemão idealista. 7. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XIX - Antes de tudo, é necessário mencionar, no século dezenove, aos dois grandes críticos de Hegel, que são Kierkegaard (1813-1855) (precursor do existencialismo) e Marx (1818-1883) (com seu materialismo dialético). O próximo é outro casal: Nietzsche (1844-1900) (teoria do Super-homem) e Schopenhauer (1788-1860) (com seu absoluto pessimismo). Comte (1798-1857) com sua doutrina positivista, completará o quadro desses filósofos. Numa outra oportunidade, vamos desmembrar sobre o pensamento e principais ideias acerca desses autores. 8. OS FILÓSOFOS DO SÉCULO XX - Antes de tudo, há um autor que iluminou a filosofia do século XX: Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), fundador do método fenomenológico. Em seguida, existem dois fluxos que são derivados diretamente de Husserl, a saber, o existencialismo e a axiologia. Dentro da corrente axiológica, estudaremos Scheler (1874-2928). Por outro lado, o existencialismo tem quatro autores principais; dois são alemães: Heidegger (1889-1976) e Jaspers (1883-1969); e os demais são franceses: Sartre (1905-1980) e Marcel (1889-1973). Heidegger insiste em que seu tema tratado em sua filosofia não é a unicidade do homem, mas o ser em geral. Jaspers é famoso por seu conceito de transcendência (Deus). Sartre é um antiteísta sincero, e seu existencialismo é definido como um pensamento que assume todas as consequências da negação de Deus. Em contraste, Gabriel Marcel é um filósofo Católico, que conseguiu uma análise profunda das situações humanas, que aparecem em íntima concordância com as verdades cristãs. Vamos terminar com Russell (1872-1970), autor básico do positivismo lógico. Cronologia de filósofos e suas escolas até nossos dias ➢ Filosofia Antiga - Escola naturalista da Jônia: Tales, Anaximandro e Anaxímenes; - Escola matemática da Itália: Pitágoras e os pitagóricos; - Escola idealista de Eléia: Xenófanes (570-475 a.C.), Parmênides, Zenão (490/85-420 a.C.) e Meliso (h.443); - Escola empirista: Heráclito, Empédocles e Anaxágoras; - Escola atomista de Abdera: Leucipo (h.437) e Demócrito; - Escolas de Atenas: - Sofistas: Protágoras (480-410), Górgias (484-375?); Sócrates, Platão e Aristóteles; - Pirronismo: Pirro (h.365-h.275); - Estoicismo: Zenão de Cítio (359/33-262) e Crisipo (281/77-208); - Epicurismo: Epicuro (341-270); - Nova Academia: Arcesilau (315-241) e Carnéades (214-129); Romanos: Sêneca (4 a.C.-65 d.C.), Marco Aurélio (121-180) e Cícero (106-43). - Escola greco-judia: Fílon de Alexandria (25 a.C.-50 d.C.); - Neoplatonismo: Plotino (204/5-270), Porfirio (h.233-304), Jâmblico (h.250-330) e Proclo (h.411-485). ➢ Filosofia patrística - Apologistas: São Justino (100/10-165), Ireneu de Lyon (h.140-h.l 77) e Atenágoras (fines s. II); - Alexandrinos: São Clemente (h.145/50-215) e Orígenes (h.185-255); - Africanos: Tertuliano (h.160-230), Arnóbio (h.260-h.327) e Lactâncio (nascido h. 250); - Gregos: São Basílio (h.330-379), São Gregório de Nazianzo (330-390), São Gregório de Níssa (330-390) e Pseudo-Dionísio (h.500); - Latinos: São Hilário (h.315-367), Santo Ambrósio (333-397) e Santo Agostinho; - Outros: Claudiano (+h.473), Boécio (480-524), São Isidoro (h.560-633) e Beda (672/3-735). ➢ Filosofia Medieval/Escolástica - Judeus: Isaac Israeli (+h.940), Salomão Ibn Gabirol (h.l020-p.l058) e Maimônides (1135- 1204); - Árabes: Alquindi (h. 796-874), Al-Farabi (870-950), Avicena (980-1037), Algazali (1058- 1111) e Averróis (1126-1198); - Escola palatina: Alcuíno de Iorque (730/5-804), Rábano Mauro (h.784-856), Escoto Erígena (h.810-h.870) e Papa Silvestre II (+1003); - Dialéticos: Santo Anselmo (1033/4-1109) e Pedro Abelardo (1079-1142); - Tradutores: Domingo Gundisalvo (meados s. XII), Gerardo de Cremona (h. 1114-1187); - Enciclopedistas: Teodorico de Chartres (+1155), Hugo de São Vitor (+1141) e Vicente de Beauvais (+1264); - Universidades: Guilherme de Auvergne (1180- 1249) e Sigerio de Brabante (+h.l284); - Dominicanos: São Alberto Magno (1206-1280) e Santo Tomás de Aquino; - Franciscanos: Alexandre de Hales (1170/80-1245), São Boaventura (1217-1274), Roger Bacon (h.1210/14-1292), João Duns Escoto, Raimundo Lulio (1235-1315) e Guilherme de Ockham (h.1285-1349). ➢ Filosofia Moderna - Humanistas Renascentistas: Ficino (1433-1499), Erasmo (1467-1536), Maquiavel (1469- 1527), Thomas More (1480-1535), Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) e Giordano Bruno (1548- 1600); - Racionalismo: Descartes, Malebranche, Espinosa e Leibniz; - Empiristas: Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Locke, Berkeley e Hume; - Escola escocesa: Thomas Reid (1710-1796); Iluministas: Voltaire (1694-1778), Condillac (1715-1757), Diderot (1713-1784) e J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778). - Idealismo transcendental: Kant; - Idealismo subjetivo: Fichte; - Idealismo objetivo: Schelling; - Idealismo absoluto: Hegel; - Pessimismo: Schopenhauer; - Ecletismo: Cousin (1792-1867); - Positivismo: A. Comte, J. S. Mill (1806-1873) e H. Spencer (1820-1900); - Socialismo: H. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Ch. Fourier (1772-1837) e K. Marx; - Vitalismo: Nietzsche e W. Dilthey (1833-1912). ➢ Filosofia Contemporânea - Intucionismo: H. Bergson (1859-1941); - Pragmatismo: Ch. S. Peirce (1839-1914), W. James (1842-1910) e J. Dewey (1859-1952); - Fenomenologia: Husserl, Scheler, N. Hartmann (1882-1950) e M. Merleau-Ponty (1908- 1961); - Existencialismo: Jaspers, Heidegger, Marcel e Sartre; - Atomismo lógico: B. Russell (1872-1970) e L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951); - Positivismo lógico: M. Schlick (1882-1936), R. Carnap (1891-1970 ) e A. J. Ayer (1910- 1990). - Filosofia analítica: J. L. Austin (1911-1960), G. Ryle (1900-1976), W.V.O. Quine (1908- 2000), P. F. Strawson (1919-2003) e H. Putnam (1926-); - Hermenêutica: H. G. Gadamer (1900-2002), P. Ricoeur (1913-2007) e J. Habermas (1929-). - Estruturalismo e pós-estruturalismo: F. de Saussure (1857-1913), C. Lévi-Strauss (1908- 2009) e M. Foucault (1926-1984). - Filosofia pós-moderna: J. F. Lyotard (1924-1999), G. Deleuze (1925-1995), J. Derrida (1930- 2004), R. Rorty (1931-2007) e G. Vattimo (1936-). - Comunitaristas: A. Maclntyre (1929-), Ch. Taylor (1931-). REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS CHAUÍ, M. Iniciação à Filosofia. Vol. Único. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2013. 460 p. SANTOS, R. dos. Filosofia: Uma breve introdução. 1ª ed. Pelotas: Dissertativo Incipiens, 2014. 108 p. . Rua do Riachuelo, 303, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Casa Histórica de Osório CEP: 20230-011 E-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

After the discoveries of such scholars as J. H. Poincaré, E. N. Lorenz, I. Prigogine, etc. the term ‘chaos’ is used actively by representatives of various scientific fields; however, one important aspect remains uninvestigated: which attitude one should have toward chaotic phenomena. This is a philosophical question and my dissertation aims to find the answer in the history of philosophy, where chaos theme has had its investigators from ancient philosophy to the philosophical theories of the 21st century. My dissertation is (...) based on the idea that sciences and philosophy can achieve significant success in exploring chaos theme when their efforts are combined. This dissertation research is designed to help in the planning of conscious, rational actions towards chaotic phenomena, since it is aimed at exploration and systematic presentation, as well as comprehension of possible systems of such actions – philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos. -/- Results of the dissertation are the following. I reveal, reconstruct, and explain the content of six possible strategies for interacting with chaos that were worked out in history of philosophical thought: ordering, avoiding, transfiguring, preventing, controlling, and integrating. I argue that the first philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos were worked out in the 19th century by German philosophers K. W. F. Schlegel and F. W. Nietzsche on the basis of their rethinking the ideas which were expressed by different thinkers during classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern period. I show that ideas of strategic views towards chaos were also elaborated by such 20th-century thinkers as H. Rickert, N. Berdyaev, I. Prigogine, H. Haken, G. Deleuze, Q. Meillassoux, and others. I outline the main stages of the evolution of philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos as well as its regularities. The dissertation shows perspectives of further development of each one of the six strategies for interacting with chaos. -/- In contemporary scientific and philosophical research on chaos, my exploration contributes to the new approach to improving the understanding of aims of acts towards chaotic phenomena. I think that knowing a range of different strategic views of chaos help researchers of chaotic phenomena to choose the most appropriate and rational reactions. In the area of history of philosophy, my research contributes detailed data about development and conceptual transformations of the notion of ‘chaos’ through all periods of Western philosophy. -/- The dissertation consists of five chapters: 1) Literature Review, Methodology and Key Research Terms, 2) Ancient and Medieval Philosophical Ideas about Chaos, 3) Genesis of the First Strategies for Interacting with Chaos, 4) Strategies for Interacting with Chaos in the 20th and 21st Centuries, 5) Regularities and Prospects of the Development of Philosophical Strategies for Interacting with Chaos. In the first chapter I analyze more than five hundred books, articles, and other philosophical and scientific sources in which the chaos theme is raised. I also argue the necessity of applying methods such as analysis, the structural method, the hermeneutic method of interpretation, and the comparative method in my dissertation research. Moreover, in this chapter, I define key terms for my dissertation – ‘chaos’ and ‘philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos.’ -/- Then, in the next chapter, I analyze the appearance and development of Ancient and Medieval philosophical ideas about chaotic phenomena and order. Particularly, I explore thoughts of philosophers such as Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard Silvestris, Ramon Llull, etc. In this chapter I also compare the first Western ideas about chaos with similar thoughts from Eastern philosophy, analyzing Indian and Chinese philosophical ideas about disorder. -/- In the third chapter I explore transformations in understanding the meaning of the term ‘chaos’ in philosophy from the 15th to the end of the 19th century. I analyze ideas about chaos and order from thinkers such as M. Ficino, Paracelsus, F. Bacon, P. Bayle, Voltaire, J. G. Herder, I. Kant, F. W. J. Schelling and other philosophers from the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the German idealist period, showing that these thinkers’ new approaches to interpreting the notion of ‘chaos’ were the background for K. W. F. Schlegel’s and F. W. Nietzsche’s creations of the first strategies for interacting with chaos in the 19th century. I finish the chapter with detailed analysis of K. W. F. Schlegel’s strategy for transfiguring chaos and F. W. Nietzsche’s strategy for ordering chaos. -/- The development of philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos in the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century is the topic of the fourth chapter. I research new ideas about ordering chaos (H. Rickert) and transfiguring chaos (N. Berdyaev). Also, I reveal thoughts about avoiding chaos (A. Camus), preventing chaos (J. Ortega y Gasset), integrating chaos (G. Deleuze, Q. Meillassoux). Moreover, I analyze a philosophical component of the strategy for chaos control (I. Prigogine, H. Haken). In the final fifth chapter of the dissertation I trace the major features of philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos and find out the main conditions and periods of their development. Then I outline the prospects for the development of the philosophical strategies for interacting with chaos and show the most productive ways of their progress. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Approaching Cognitive-Behavioral and Existential Therapy Through Neo-Confucianism (December 1984). Joffre Denis Meyer, B. A. Texas A&M University Chairman of Graduate Committee: Dr. William R. Nash -/- The thesis is an effort to bring Neo-Confucian insights to modern cognitive- behavioral and existential therapy. The adaptability of Neo-Confucianism is illustrated through the growth-system inherent in its concepts. Frequently, Neo-Confucian sages and modern psychologists used virtually identical statements. Moreover, humanity faces the same basic issues while the particularizations vary. The importance of reason, (...) manners, appropriate behavior and self-actualization remains constant. However, the methods of their attainment change with time. The history of the Confucian/Neo-Confucian tradition is filled with such conceptual modifications. -/- Neo-Confucianism is a syncretic philosophy that utilized elements of Zen, Taoism, and Legalism within Confucian teachings. This adaptation increased the sages' ability to communicate with a wider range of people. In effect, the Neo-Confucian movement was perhaps the earliest practice of eclectic counseling. Neo-Confucianism itself has undergone development from its eleventh-century origins to the present-day scholarly journals. -/- The researcher does not believe the key issue in inter- disciplinary studies is whether psychology is being applied to philosophy or vice-versa. Neo-Confucianism pragmatically asserts that the true test of a philosophy rests in its ability to help the individual. Mere intellectual exercise contradicts the unity of knowledge and action. The thesis has five chapters. The existential therapy chapter uses a predominantly Western psychology format while the cognitive-behavioral therapy chapter uses Wang Yang-ming's Four Axiom Teaching as an outline. -/- The thesis also includes Neo-Confucian cognitive-moral development observations reminiscent of Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theories. Neo-Confucianism could be described as an education in evolving from preconventional to principled reasoning. Occasional parallels are drawn between process philosophy and Neo-Confucianism as well. -/- There is also a chapter in which Confucian commentaries are provided to actual case studies faced by Albert Ellis and Maxie Maultsby. A Chinese glossary is provided at the end of the introduction. There are five figures in the text, two of which are summarizing models in the conclusion. -/- . (shrink)

We consider emergence from the perspective of dynamics: states of a system evolving with time. We focus on the role of a decomposition of wholes into parts, and attempt to characterize relationships between levels without reference to whether higher-level properties are “novel” or “unexpected.” We offer a classification of different varieties of emergence, with and without new ontological elements at higher levels. -/- Submitted to a volume on Real Patterns (Tyler Milhouse, ed.), to be published by MIT Press.

The study aimed to identify the role of administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the educational institutions in the Islamic University in Gaza. To achieve the research objectives, the researchers used the analytical descriptive approach to collect information. The researchers used the questionnaire distributed to three categories of employees at the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 questionnaires were retrieved (...) with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter process and analyze data. The results of the research showed a positive role for the administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, teaching staff and their assistants and the administrative body), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs (73.728%). The analysis of the results revealed that the administrative procedures at the Islamic University in Gaza are used to an acceptable degree. The relative weight of all the paragraphs is 70%. This indicates a relationship between administrative procedures and regulations and the performance of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The study found that there was a good degree of approval from the sample regarding the administrative procedures and their relationship to the job performance. There exist a sufficient degree of powers to the deans and department managers to carry out their tasks, with the use of plans as control tools. And that there are rules and procedures provided for decision-making in the University Council. It also has full powers to manage the university to improve the teaching and learning environment. The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the need to follow up on the procedures and systems of management and update them continuously in the light of changes that may occur and to ensure the existence of a strong system of electronic information systems within the university. There is a need to provide mechanisms for obtaining information about the surrounding external environment, and effective mechanisms to provide managers with the necessary information in a timely manner. The importance of providing channels of communication that enables staff to communicate information about any violations and breaches. The study also recommended the follow-up, review, procedures and administrative systems, and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the objectives that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

Diabetes is a major public health issue that affects the nations of our time to a large extent and is described as a non-communicable epidemic. Diabetes mellitus is a common disease where there is too much sugar (glucose) floating around in your blood. This occurs because either the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin or the cells in body have become resistant to insulin. The concentration in this paper is on diagnosis diabetes by designing a proposed expert system. The main goal (...) of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosing of the illness, dealing with it quickly, and tips for permanent treatment whenever possible is given out. SL5 object expert system language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. (shrink)

Extensive measurement is the standard measurement-theoretic approach for constructing a ratio scale. It involves the comparison of objects that can be concatenated in an additively representable way. This paper studies the implications of extensively measurable welfare for social choice theory. We do this in two frameworks: an Arrovian framework with a fixed population and no interpersonal comparisons, and a generalized framework with variable populations and full interpersonal comparability. In each framework we use extensive measurement to introduce novel domain restrictions, independence (...) conditions, and constraints on social evaluation. We prove a welfarism theorem for these domains and characterize the social welfare functions that satisfy the axioms of extensive measurement at both the individual and social levels. The main results are simple axiomatizations of strong dictatorship in the Arrovian framework and classical utilitarianism in the generalized framework. (shrink)

Automatic detection of diseases and anatomical landmarks in medical images by the use of computers is important and considered a challenging process that could help medical diagnosis and reduce the cost and time of investigational procedures and refine health care systems all over the world. Recently, gastrointestinal (GI) tract disease diagnosis through endoscopic image classification is an active research area in the biomedical field. Several GI tract disease classification methods based on image processing and machine learning techniques have been proposed (...) by diverse research groups in the recent past. However, yet effective and comprehensive deep ensemble neural network-based classification model with high accuracy classification results is not available in the literature. In this thesis, we review ways and mechanisms to use deep learning techniques to research on multi-disease computer-aided detection about gastrointestinal and identify these images. We re-trained five state-of-the-art neural network architectures, VGG16, ResNet, MobileNet, Inception-v3, and Xception on the Kvasir dataset to classify eight categories that include an anatomical landmark (pylorus, z-line, cecum), a diseased state (esophagitis, ulcerative colitis, polyps), or a medical procedure (dyed lifted polyps, dyed resection margins) in the Gastrointestinal Tract. Our models have showed results with a promising accuracy which is a remarkable performance with respect to the state-of-the-art approaches. The resulting accuracies achieved using VGG, ResNet, MobileNet, Inception-v3, and Xception were 98.3%, 92.3%, 97.6%, 90% and 98.2%, respectively. As it appears, the most accurate result has been achieved when retraining VGG16 and Xception neural networks with accuracy reache to 98% due to its high performance on training on ImageNet dataset and internal structure that support classification problems. (shrink)

This paper presents a new kind of problem in the ethics of distribution. The problem takes the form of several “calibration dilemmas,” in which intuitively reasonable aversion to small-stakes inequalities requires leading theories of distribution to recommend intuitively unreasonable aversion to large-stakes inequalities. We first lay out a series of such dilemmas for prioritarian theories. We then consider a widely endorsed family of egalitarian views and show that they are subject to even more forceful calibration dilemmas than prioritarian theories. Finally, (...) we show that our results challenge common utilitarian accounts of the badness of inequalities in resources. (shrink)

Is well-being the kind of thing that can be summed across individuals? This paper takes a measurement-theoretic approach to answering this question. To make sense of adding well-being, we would need to identify some natural "concatenation" operation on the bearers of well-being that satisfies the axioms of extensive measurement and can therefore be represented by the arithmetic operation of addition. I explore various proposals along these lines, involving the concatenation of segments within lives over time, of entire lives led alongside (...) one another or in sequence, and of evaluatively basic propositions via conjunction. All of these proposals turn out to carry highly controversial commitments about the good. I do not claim that these commitments are unacceptable. But they suggest that we cannot simply take for granted, as many philosophers do, that there is any such thing as the sum of well-being. (shrink)

I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher‐order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping‐by‐fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget's (2017) arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping‐by‐fulfilling cannot be a species of propositional knowledge or belief, (...) and that it is not essentially connected to justification. I motivate a revisionary epistemology on which achieving propositional knowledge and coming to grasp are dual epistemic aims. My account makes sense of a common occurrence—that we are often unmoved to act on our beliefs until we come to phenomenally experience them in some way. It also explains puzzling features of human inquiry. (shrink)

How should we choose between uncertain prospects in which different possible people might exist at different levels of wellbeing? Alex Voorhoeve and Marc Fleurbaey offer an egalitarian answer to this question. I give some reasons to reject their answer and then sketch an alternative, which I call person-affecting prioritarianism.

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

Publication date: 29 September 2016 Source: Author: Samy S. Abu Naser, Mazen J. Al Shobaki, Youssef M. Abu Amuna This paper aims to measure knowledge management maturity in higher education institutions to determine the impact of knowledge management on high performance. Also the study aims to compare knowledge management maturity between universities and intermediate colleges. This study was applied on five higher education institutions in Gaza strip, Palestine. Asian productivity organization model was applied to measure Knowledge Management Maturity. Second dimension (...) which assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was. Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study shows that maturity level is in the second level. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, knowledge management leadership, People, knowledge management Outcomes. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study between universities and intermediate colleges in Gaza Strip that explores the status of knowledge management maturity using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

Despite extensive discussion of naïve realism in the wider philosophical literature, those influenced by the phenomenological movement who work in the philosophy of perception have hardly weighed in on the matter. It is thus interesting to discover that Edmund Husserl’s close philosophical interlocutor and friend, the early twentieth-century phenomenologist Johannes Daubert, held the naive realist view. This article presents Daubert’s views on the fundamental nature of perceptual experience and shows how they differ radically from those of Husserl’s. The author argues, (...) in conclusion, that Daubert’s views are superior to those of Husserl’s specifically in the way that they deal with the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate central temporal and spatial notions in the second part of Plato’s Parmenides and argue that also these notions, and not only the metaphysical ones usually discussed in the literature, can be understood as a response to positions and problems put on the table by Parmenides and Zeno. Of the spatial notions examined in the dialogue, I look at the problems raised for possessing location and shape, while with respect to temporal notions, I focus on the (...) discussion of ‘being in time’ and exaiphnês (the latter notion will be shown to be also an important influence for Aristotle’s Physics). In displaying a paradoxical character and taking up crucial notions from Parmenides, the second part of the Parmenides seems to display some resemblance to Zeno’s paradoxes. I will show, however, that in contrast to Zeno, the second part of Plato’s Parmenides also demonstrates Parmenides’ One to be problematic on its own terms. Furthermore, the dialogue presents not only important problems that these spatial and temporal notions seem to lead us into, but also establishes some positive features necessary to think of time and space. In this way, Plato’s Parmenides can be seen as contributing to the development of temporal and spatial conceptualisations in ancient Greek thought. (shrink)

Welfarism is the view that individual welfare is the only thing that matters. One important contribution of social choice theory has been to provide a precise formulation and axiomatic characterization of welfarism using Amartya Sen's framework of social welfare functionals. This paper is motivated by the observation that the standard formalization of welfarism is too restrictive, since a welfarist social planner need not be committed to maximizing a preference ordering or any other binary relation over alternatives. We therefore provide a (...) characterization of welfarism in a more general choice-functional setting and show that welfarism, so understood, carries no commitment to rationalizability. This characterization is compatible with welfare values having any structure whatsoever. It also sheds light on different formulations of anonymity, revealing only some of these to be fundamental requirements of impartiality. (shrink)

In this article, I apply Australian logician and ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, specifically its alternative logic of “the dance of interaction,” to a controversial community-engagement program in my home state of Alabama. At Rural Studio, Auburn University students design free housing and public works for one of the poorest regions in the United States, known as the “Black Belt.” Through the lens of Plumwood’s ecofeminist dancing logic, the marginalized source of Rural Studio’s survival is (...) revealed to be the resilience of the disempowered majority-Black community. Inspired thereby, I sketch an ecofeminist choreography with three “dancing” concepts (namely Plumwood’s “the master model,” Vandana Shiva’s “nature’s logic,” and Ariel Salleh’s “holding”), acknowledging the resilience of the disempowered as a necessary step toward an ethically-sustainable aesthetics. (shrink)

Stephen Law developed a challenge to theism, known as the evil-god challenge (Law (2010) ). The evil-god challenge to theism is to explain why the theist’s responses to the problem of evil are any better than the diabolist’s – who believes in a supremely evil god – rejoinders to the problem of good, when all the theist’s ploys (theodicy, sceptical theism, etc.) can be parodied by the diabolist. In the first part of this article, I extend the evil-god challenge by (...) showing that additional theist replies to the problem of evil (more theodicies, the privation view of evil, and others) also may be appropriated, with just as much plausibility, in support of the diabolist position. In the second part of the article, I defend the evil-god challenge against several objections. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van der Linden’s (...) call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

According to the person-affecting restriction, one distribution of welfare can be better than another only if there is someone for whom it is better. Extant problems for the person-affecting restriction involve variable-population cases, such as the nonidentity problem, which are notoriously controversial and difficult to resolve. This paper develops a fixed-population problem for the person-affecting restriction. The problem reveals that, in the presence of incommensurable welfare levels, the person-affecting restriction is incompatible with minimal requirements of impartial beneficence even in fixed-population (...) contexts. (shrink)

This project was provoked by the almost nonexistent pushback from the Democratic liberal establishment to the (2020) exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse, despite his acknowledged killing of two Black Lives Matters protesters against the police murder of George Floyd. It builds on three prior articles arguing for the revival of ancient Dionysian practice, Haitian Vodou, and Indigenous South American shamanism to empower leftist revolution. In essence, I propose an assemblage of spiritual practices that are accessible today for the neo-colonized 99% of (...) the global population, by synthesizing and reconstructing three democratic, lower-SES, Indigenous religions, all of which share a militant defiance of their respective tyrannical plutocracies. To avoid cultural appropriation, I center these reconstructed spiritual practices on the figure of the “mage,” a psychosocial healer loosely analogous to a shaman. And the mage’s signature activity, “magic,” I redefine naturalistically as free interpersonal performative action, practiced using two theoretical disciplines (philosophy and psychology) and two practical disciplines chosen by each mage. More precisely, Spirit/Dance channels the “spirits” of dead ancestors, historical figures, legendary heroes, mythical beings, and fictional characters, into the three ultimate objectives of “mindfulness” for psyches/souls, “liberation” for mindful bodies, and “social justice” for liberated communities, indirectly empowering long-term revolution. (shrink)

Building on my previous exploration of the role of dance in the contemporary French political philosopher Jacques Rancière’s Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art, first published in French in 2011, the present essay turns to another book originally published in the same year, The Intervals of Cinema. Having previously established that the core of Rancière’s philosophical method is an analysis of philosophical homonyms into figurative dancing conceptual partners, I begin by applying that method to the first chapter of (...) Intervals, “Cinematic Vertigo: Hitchcock to Vertov and Back.” There I identify two series of such dancing partners, as follows: Hitchcock’s image-controlling, capitalist vertiginous fall, and Vertov’s movement-equalizing, communist balanced dance. I then critique the implicit marginalizing of women and female bodies in the films and chapter, including Hitchcock’s protagonist’s best friend and ex-fiancé, and Vertov’s cosmetologists and switchboard operators. Finally, I offer a corrective from the proto-feminist life of my grandmother, a onetime cosmetologist, switchboard operator, and Glamour Shots amateur model, my grandmother, Louise Nunnelley, or “Mamaw.” Such are the unacknowledged material basis of Rancière’s radical democratic philosophy, the specifically-embodied and positioned female dancers who continue to get lost in his figurative dance. (shrink)

In this paper, we developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for detect the absence or presence of lung cancer in human body. Symptoms were used to diagnose the lung cancer, these symptoms such as Yellow fingers, Anxiety, Chronic Disease, Fatigue, Allergy, Wheezing, Coughing, Shortness of Breath, Swallowing Difficulty and Chest pain. They were used and other information about the person as input variables for our ANN. Our ANN established, trained, and validated using data set, which its title is “survey lung (...) cancer”. Model evaluation showed that the ANN model is able to detect the absence or presence of lung cancer with 96.67 % accuracy. (shrink)

This study identifies global factors conditioning the global problematics of the direction of social development. Global threats were evaluated and defined as dangerous processes, phenomena, and situations that cause harm to health, safety, well-being, and the lives of all humanity, and require removal. The essence of global risks was defined. These risks were defined as events or conditions that may cause a significant negative effect for several countries or spheres within a strategic period if they occur. Global problems were conceptualized. (...) These problems were defined as phenomena, matters, and situations that are not completely understandable, interesting, actual, require solving and regulation, and in addition do not have unified solutions. Current global challenges were analyzed, defined as strategic guidelines that cause transformational changes and are receiving attention from humanity. Global trends were defined as courses of social development. The composition and role of global actors were described, and defined as international organizations, leading states, regional organizations, powerful corporations, institutional investors, large cities, and well-known personalities. The directions of positive courses of social development were developed by means of using the authors’ mechanism of solving the global problematics. (shrink)

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly evolved, offering transformative capabilities for business decision-making. This paper explores how AI can be leveraged to enhance strategic decision-making in business contexts. It examines the integration of AI-driven analytics, predictive modeling, and automation to improve decision accuracy and operational efficiency. By analyzing current applications and case studies, the paper highlights the opportunities AI presents, including enhanced data insights, risk management, and personalized customer experiences. Additionally, it addresses the challenges businesses face in adopting AI, such (...) as data privacy concerns, integration issues, and the need for skilled personnel. The paper concludes with recommendations for effectively implementing AI solutions to maximize their benefits while navigating potential pitfalls. (shrink)

Comparative religion scholar Thomas Berry’s influential concept of “Earth jurisprudence” has been helpfully elaborated in three principal books. My first section identifies four of their common themes, deriving therefrom an implicit narrative: (1) the basis of ecology is autopoiesis, which (2) originally generated human communities and Indigenous vernacular laws, which were (3) later reasserted by forest defenders who fought to create the Magna Carta’s “Charter of the Forest,” which is (4) now championed globally by the Indian physicist and eco-activist Vandana (...) Shiva’s Earth Democracy movement. My next three sections identify mutually exclusive elements of the three books, deriving the following alternative narrative: self-conscious new dancing rituals (Cullinan) could empower an historically informed reconstruction of private property (Burdon) via commons-based vernacular law (Weston and Bollier). And my conclusion offers one template for such a strategy, namely a new environmental variation on my dancing-poetic conception of legal justice, christened “emerald star-law.”. (shrink)

Can the best arguments for a privation theory of evil be parodied, with equal plausibility, as arguments for a privation theory of good? The privation theory of evil claims that evil has no positive existence, and it is but a privation of good. The privation theory of good claims the opposite. I approach this topic as one element in the so-called evil-God Challenge. Stephen Law has argued that the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God (...) (theism) is on a par with the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, but completely evil-God (maltheism). In fact, he concludes, the arguments for an evil God are symmetrical with, and isomorphic to, those for a good God. The privation theory of evil has often been used to defend theism against the argument from evil. Thus, part of the evil-God Challenge is to evaluate arguments for the privation theory of evil for their vulnerability to maltheist parody. I consider a broad range of arguments for the privation theory of evil, and I argue that most of them are vulnerable to parodic neutralization. Furthermore, I argue that although the thesis of the convertibility of being and goodness is often held to entail the privation theory of evil, or to be entailed by it (or to be equivalent to it), it is independent of the privation theory. I do find that David Oderberg’s recent argument for the privation theory of evil resists any easy maltheist parody, but I argue that it has a defect. I sketch an argument according to which his good-as-fulfillment account is compatible with a perfectly evil god. My tentative conclusion is that the privation theory of evil enjoys little more plausibility than does the privation theory of good. (shrink)

As I have explored elsewhere, the Birmingham Philosophy Guild, which my former students and I re-founded in 2012, is a team of community members who engage in theoretical discussion, support group self-cultivation, and community activism. To further promote the guild as a catalyst for progressive social change, the present article connects it to both the popular cultural phenomenon of the “X-Men”—to make the guild more appealing to students and laypeople—and to the cutting-edge contemporary French philosophy of Étienne Balibar—to make the (...) guild more appealing to professors and culture workers. Moreover, the article connects these low- and high-brow phenomena to each other as well, thereby illustrating the political relevance of the lower, as well as a weakness in the higher, pursuant to social justice activism today. (shrink)

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

In Wollstonecraft’s early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of (...) values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft’s own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the specific shift in the meaning of “civilization” that took place in texts and documents of early American philosophical naturalism. Particularly, it will focus on the specific role that naturalization plays in the edification of a newly secularized, science-oriented, and democratic society, as well as of a naturalized conception of culture and civilization. Indeed, as the work of many philosophers and intellectuals of the Forties highlights, naturalism represents not only the banner of a new idea of civilization, (...) but at the same time becomes the symbol of a powerful postwar ideology. (shrink)

In his influential history of the post-1967 history of the Palestinian Occupation, radical Israeli architect Eyal Weizman show how even well-meaning decolonial efforts from privileged allies can be coopted by the colonizers, in what I call “de-decolonizing.” Here I focus on one of his examples, namely IDF (Israeli Defense Force) military professors repurposing the anarcho-communist philosophy of French postmodernist Gilles Deleuze into a weapon against Palestinian guerrilla resistance. My conclusion is that attempted decolonizing via (inevitably complicit) privileged allies must include (...) what Weizman calls “co-resistance,” and I call “reconstruction.” In other words, when a Deleuzian “line of flight” to “escape” is impossible, as arguably for Palestinians today, then one should follow the heroic example of the Bedouins, who (as Weizman acknowledges) are the only Arabs who have never stopped rebuilding their Palestine. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put (...) it: "...we propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

Wil Waluchow has advanced perhaps the most convincing argument in favour of what he eloquently termed ‘inclusive legal positivism’, the view that a given legal system could make legal validity depend on moral truths. This chapter refocuses the case for the opposing view of exclusive positivism on the metaphysical tension in seeing law as an institutional social fact and yet for its validity to depend on something that is not a social fact, developing an understanding of official mistake as a (...) way of highlighting that tension. If legal validity itself is understood as a socially constructed status (something with which any legal positivist would agree), key officials (as a group) cannot be wrong about the criteria sufficient for institutional membership having been met. While the officials cannot be wrong about the sufficient conditions, they can be wrong about the necessary (gatekeeping) ones and the moral criteria that inclusive positivists say could be included among the criteria of validity are invariably understood to be necessary conditions. That might look like a point in favour of inclusive positivism, but it is only the sufficient conditions that are constitutive of legal validity. Two facets of legal decisions are then marshalled to buttress the case for exclusive positivism: that almost every legal decision is also a determination of validity, and that all such decisions are systemically treated as correct until reviewed by a court of superior jurisdiction (which is itself a sufficient condition for membership). The implication of this is that moral criteria, understood as gatekeepers for legal validity, cannot be constitutive of legal validity. (shrink)

I argue that there is methodological space for a functional explanation of the nature of law that does not commit the theorist to a view about the value of that function for society, nor whether law is the best means of accomplishing it. A functional explanation will nonetheless provide a conceptual framework for a better understanding of the nature of law. First I examine the proper role for function in a theory of law and then argue for the possibility of (...) a neutral functional theory, addressing issues raised by Leslie Green, Stephen Perry, Michael Moore and John Finnis. (shrink)

This essay is part of larger project in which I attempt to show that Western formal logic, from its inception in Aristotle onward, has both been partially constituted by, and partially constitutive of, what has become known as racism. More specifically, (a) racist/quasi-racist/proto-racist political forces were part of the impetus for logic’s attempt to classify the world into mutually exclusive, hierarchically-valued categories in the first place; and (b) these classifications, in turn, have been deployed throughout history to justify and empower (...) racism/quasi-racism/proto-racism. In other words, (a) an important part of the chaos and messiness that so troubles logic has been the natural bio-cultural diversity of human beings as described by concepts such as race and ethnicity; and (b) once these concepts were historically in place, taken for granted, buttressed with pseudo-science, and had their origins forgotten, they became tools for the oppression of diverse human groups. The central thesis of this essay is that close readings of a variety of Leibniz’s writings (including several essays and one letter) will reveal a pattern of mutual dependency and creation in regard to logic and racism in Leibniz. My conclusion will be that there is a meaningful connection between logic and racism (or at least between logic and politics in general) in Leibniz such that one should be skeptical of his logic’s claim to offer transparent and neutral descriptions of the world as well as imperatives for action. Put differently, I want to ask the following specific question: how do Leibniz’s own racially-informed political goals, along with the emergence of race-centric European colonialism, both invest and disguise themselves within Leibniz’s mathematizing of logic? (shrink)

This essay is divided into two parts, deeply intermingled. Part I examines not only the origin of conscious experience but also how it is possible to ask of our own consciousness how it came to be. Part II examines the origin of experience itself, which soon reveals itself as the ontological question of Being. The chief premise of Part I is that symbolic communion and the categorizations of language have enabled human organisms to distinguish between themselves as actually existing entities (...) and their own immediate experience of themselves and their world. This enables them to reflect upon abstract concepts, including “self,” “experience,” and “world.” Symbolic communication and conceptualization grow out of identification, the act of first observing conscious experiencing and intimating what it is like, mimesis, a gestural protolanguage learned through imitation, and reflection, seeing oneself through the eyes of others. The step into actual intentional speech is made through self-assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity. These three become the spiral of human cultural development that includes not only the adaptive satisfaction of our biological needs, but also the creativity of thought. With the mental-conceptual separation of subject and object – of self and world – the human ability to witness the universe (and each other) is the ground of our genuinely human quality. Consciousness gives human life its distinctively human reality. It is, therefore, one and the same ability that enables us to shape planet Earth by means of conceptual representations (rather than by means of our hands alone) while also awakening us to the significance of being. -/- Looking beyond human self-consciousness to investigate the origin and nature of awareness itself in Part 2, reductive objective materialism is found to be of little use. Direct experience also falls short in that, in order to be transformed into objective knowledge about itself, it must always be interpreted through and limited by the symbolic contexts of culture and the idiosyncratic conceptualizations of the individual. Awareness-in-itself must thus be considered ultimately unexplainable, but this may more indicate its inexpressible transcendence of all symbolic qualifiers than its nonexistence. It is suggested that awareness is not “self-aware” (as in deity) but is instead unknowing yet identical with the only true universal: the impetus of creative unfolding. Our human knowledge, as an expression of this unfolding, is seen to emerge from our conscious experiencing and, in turn, to have the power – and enormous responsibility – of directing that experience. Our underlying symbolic worldviews are found to be autopoietic: They limit or open our conscious experience, which, in turn, confirms those worldview expectations. As we explore a future of unforeseeable technological breakthroughs on an ailing planet who patiently copes with our “success,” truly vital decisions about the nature, meaning, extent, and future of conscious experience will have to be made. (shrink)

In Morality & Mathematics, Justin Clarke-Doane argues that it is hard to imagine being "a realist about, for example, the standard model of particle physics, but not about mathematics." I try to explain how that seems very possible from the perspective of a physicist. What is real is the physical world; mathematics starts from descriptions of the natural world and extrapolates from there, but that extrapolation does not imply any independent reality. -/- Submitted to an Analysis Reviews symposium on Clarke-Doane's (...) Morality & Mathematics. (shrink)

Readers assume that commonplace properties of the real world also hold in realistic fiction. They believe, for example, that the usual physical laws continue to apply. But controversy exists in theories of fiction about whether real individuals exist in the story’s world. Does Queen Victoria exist in the world of Jane Eyre, even though Victoria is not mentioned in it? The experiments we report here find that when participants are prompted to consider the world of a fictional individual (“Consider the (...) world of Jane Eyre…”), they are willing to say that a real individual (e.g., Queen Victoria) can exist in the same world. But when participants are prompted to consider the world of a real individual, they are less willing to say that a fictional individual can exist in that world. The asymmetry occurs when we ask participants both if a real person is in the character’s world and if the person would appear there. However, the effect is subject to spatial and temporal constraints. When the person and the character share spatial and temporal settings, interchange is more likely to occur. These results shed light on the author’s implicit contract with the reader, which can license the reader to augment a fictional world with features that the author only implicates as part of the work’s background. (shrink)