Aristotle's conception of being is dynamic. He believes that a thing is most itself when engaged in its proper activities, governed by its nature. This paper explores this idea by focusing on Metaphysics , a text that continues the investigation of substantial being initiated inMetaphysics Z. Q.1 claims that there are two potentiality-actuality distinctions, one concerned with potentiality in the strict sense, which is involved in change, the other concerned with potentiality in another sense, which he says is more useful (...) for the present project. His present project is the investigation of substantial being, and the relevant potentiality is the potentiality for activity, the full manifestation of what a thing is. I explore Aristotle's two potentiality-actuality distinctions AND argue that the second distinction is modeled on the first, with one crucial modification. Whereas a change is brought about by something other than the object or by the object itself considered as other (as when a doctor cures himself), an activity is brought about byte object itself considered as itself. This single modification yields an important difference: whereas a change leads to a state other than the one an object was previously in, an activity maintains or develops what an object already is. (shrink)

A doctorate-holding editor/columnist at an alternative newsweekly, Cooperman dissects the symbolism of and women's ambivalence toward their domestic roles as depicted in recent culturally diverse US feminist fiction. Conceiving housework as "an art and science of the boundaries," she discusses individual authors, novels, and shared motifs: domesticity as ordering chaos, the unappreciated hollow woman, sustaining home ties, powers of life and death, the sacred in the mundane, and reasons for making a home. Includes a decent categorized bibliography, but no index. (...) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In October 1998, Irene Mary Taylor penned a letter to the mother of Cometan, Louise J. Counsell regarding the baptism of Cometan. However, in the letter Irene Mary covers topics not just related to her grandson baptism but also regarding her Catholic faith. The letter has come to form the basis of Cometan's understanding of the beliefs and teachings that his grandmother held so dear to which has come to influence the foundations of her Cause for Beatification and her (...) recognition as a Traditionalist Catholic figure. In this work Irene Mary's October Letter: An Introduction to Irenianism, Cometan provides an exegesis to his grandmother's letter from twenty-three years prior in which the foundations of Irenian theology, or Irenianism, were established. (shrink)

Among semanticists and philosophers of language, there has been a recent outburst of interest in predicates such as delicious, called predicates of personal taste (PPTs, e.g. Lasersohn 2005). Somewhat surprisingly, the question of whether or how we can distinguish aesthetic predicates from PPTs has hardly been addressed at all in this recent work. It is precisely this question that we address. We investigate linguistic criteria that we argue can be used to delineate the class of specifically aesthetic adjectives. We show (...) that there are, in fact, good motivations for keeping PPTs and aesthetic predicates apart: the semantic structure of the former, but not the latter, entails an experiencer. There are many adjectives whose semantic structure arguably also entails an experiencer, yet which are readily used in expressing aesthetic judgments. Adjectives such as provocative or moving are a case in point, since as adjectives they arguably maintain the experiencer argument from the verb they are derived from. Nevertheless, when we describe, say, a sculpture as provocative, or a theater performance as moving, we clearly make aesthetic judgments. The difficult question, then, is to articulate the relationship between an aesthetic predicate (of which beautiful and ugly are paradigms) and other predicates that just happen to be used in making an aesthetic judgment. Tightly related to this point is the more general question of the relationship between an evaluative predicate and a predicate that occurs in an evaluative judgment. One of our aims is to make some progress in addressing these questions. (shrink)

Clarifies some of the biases embedded in patriarchal language discussed in the previous 9 papers.

Illusions are thought to make trouble for the intuition that perceptual experience is "open" to the world. Some have suggested, in response to the this trouble, that illusions differ from veridical experience in the degree to which their character is determined by their engagement with the world. An understanding of the psychology of perception reveals that this is not the case: veridical and falsidical perceptions engage the world in the same way and to the same extent. While some contemporary vision (...) scientists propose to draw the distinction between veridical experience and illusion in terms of the satisfaction or non-satisfaction of “hidden assumptions” deployed in the course of normal perceptual inference, I argue for a different approach. I contend that there are, in a sense, no illusions – illusions are as “open” as veridical experiences. Percepts lack the kinds of intentional content that would be needed for perceptual misrepresntation. My view gives a satisfying solution to a philosophical problem for disjunctivism about the good case/bad case distinction: with respect to illusions, every "bad case" of seeing an X can be equally well construed as a "good case" of seeing some Y (different from X). -/- . (shrink)

It is a commonly held view that the existence of moral value somehow depends upon the existence of God. Some proponents of this view take the very strong position that atheism entails that there is no moral value; but most take the weaker position that atheism cannot explain what moral value is, or how it could have come into being. Call the first position Incompatibility, and the second position Inadequacy. In this paper, I will focus on the arguments for Inadequacy. (...) There are two main arguments for this position: the Argument from Arbitrariness and the Screening-Off Argument. I’ll discuss each in turn., and argue that neither is successful. To conclude, I’ll sketch what I think is a promising beginning to a naturalistic account of morality. (shrink)

As a libertarian studying, embracing, and teaching a philosophy of individual freedom, John Hospers, like many of us, was heavily influenced by the philosophical writings of Ayn Rand. Rand’s major novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged continue to delight and empower readers through embracing the heroic creator or inventor, technological and scientific progress, and the competent individual. These are some of the archetypes of the Randian hero. At the other end of the scale were the incompetent looters and moochers who (...) could only function in her world by controlling those with ability and the savages of ancient or undeveloped cultures who could not comprehend ability, seizing the means of progress before killing the inventor, then retreating into mysticism and magic. Rand was not an archaeologist and wrote at a time before scholars of prehistory focused on the rational and productive aspects of ancient civilizations upon which enabled the present to emerge in fits and starts. These aspects include technology, record keeping, maritime trade, and pre- monetary economies. This paper will consider the emergence of globalized connectivites in the Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700-1300 BCE) which was arguably the first age of globalization in human history. It was also one of the first ages of social acceleration characterized by a confluence of increasing technological and economic interdependency, yet fragile in its susceptibility to climate change, plagues, and authoritarian city-states and small empires ruled by kings claiming divinity or divine authority. Thus, the Late Bronze Age was also an economically fragile era with a high concentration of wealth distributed among supra-regional global elite plutocrats unified more by wealth and shared symbolism than by cultural tradition or ideology. This era was susceptible to populist resistance in the form of piratical activity and banditry. This paper explores the globalist and populist aspects of the ancient Mediterranean. In doing so, I suggest that some globalized elites of the present day perpetuate another Randian archetype, the moochers and looters. In doing so, it transcends ideology to focus on how the non-productive in current society acquire vast concentrations of wealth and power. (shrink)

Philosophy has a language problem. A recent study by Schwitzgebel, Huang, Higgins and Gonzalez-Cabrera (2018) found that, in a sample of papers published in elite journals, 97% of citations were to work originally written in English. 73% of this same sample didn’t cite any paper that had been originally written in a language other than English. Finally, a staggering 96% of elite journal editorial boards are primarily affiliated with an Anglophone university. This is consistent with earlier data suggesting that journal (...) submissions from countries that are outside the Anglophone world and Europe have disturbingly low chances of being accepted. The route forward is not entirely clear. What is clear, however, is that this structural disadvantage deserves closer philosophical and empirical attention. We owe this to current and future members of our philosophical community who speak English non-natively. We also need this if we want to make sure philosophy is enriched by a diverse group of thinkers who have a grasp of different languages, and of the cultures strongly associated with them. (shrink)

Well-Being in African Philosophy: Insights for a Global Ethics of Development, edited by Bolaji Bateye, Mahmoud Masaeli, Louise Müller, and Angela Roothaan, explores the notion of well-being in African and intercultural philosophy and its insights into global ethics of development. Drawing from longstanding debates on communitarianism in the context of personhood in African philosophy, as well as those in intercultural philosophy, the diverse contributors present manifold ways to philosophize about well-being from African contexts. Hailing from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and (...) the Middle East, they address questions of human well-being related to the major global challenges of our time, such as climate change and socio-economic, gender, and racial inequality in society, education, and organization. This collection, building on the work of African independence philosophers as well as oral traditions from a critical development studies perspective, offers fresh views on well-being, development, and morality, thus contributing to global ethics from an African vantage point. (shrink)

Mechanisms are said to consist of two kinds of components, entities and activities. In the first half of this chapter, I examine what entities and activities are, how they relate to well-known ontological categories, such as processes or dispositions, and how entities and activities relate to each other (e.g., can one be reduced to the other or are they mutually dependent?). The second part of this chapter analyzes different criteria for individuating the components of mechanisms and discusses how real the (...) boundaries of mechanisms are. (shrink)

Some time ago, the philosopher Luciano Floridi suggested that Western philosophy, and the mainstream contemporary approach to it traditionally called ‘analytic philosophy’, is in dire need of a reboot. The concern was that the discipline might be in a period of decadence. Analytic philosophy would be benefited by greater internationalization, wider and more transparent decision-making, and the reduction (as much as possible) of conflicts of interest as well as of its current habit of hiring and providing publication opportunities on the (...) basis of contacts, networking, and academic pedigree. If we are right, then we need a reconditioning of the institutional framework of analytic philosophy that adjusts it to the current global and interconnected world. (shrink)

This article focuses on the religious information inside Ghanaian and Nigerian video movies regarding Akan and Yoruba women. More specifically, it focuses on the indigenous religious, Christian, and Islamic messages inside these movies in relation to women. The article demonstrates that Akan and Yoruba filmmakers, who dominate the Ghanaian and Nigerian video movie industries, are part of networks of religious institutions, predominantly Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian and modest Islamic ones. These organizations sponsor filmmakers to spread religious messages that promote hierarchical gender relations (...) and the suppression of equal rights for women, e.g., economic independence. By providing an overview of Akan and Yoruba belief systems, in respect of indigenous, Christian, and Islamic gender-related positional concepts and ideological communication on what is appropriate behavior for women, the author will show and support the hypothesis that these movies contribute to women’s demonization and (economic) discrimination. (shrink)

Government transparency and accountability during Covid 19: The data underpinning decisions.

The reality of spirits? A historiography of the Akan concept of 'mind' (La réalité des esprits: Vers une historiographie de la conception akan de l'esprit). In this article the following thesis is considered: the classifications used to define African Indigenous Religions are 'inventions' of Western scholars of religion who employ categories that are entirely "non-indigenous". The author investigates the presumptions of this statement and discusses the work of scholars of religion studying the Akan and in particular the Akan concept of (...) mind. In the analytic philosophical tradition the precise meaning of Akan concepts of mind such as okra and sunsum, described by various scholars of religion in different eras, are reviewed. The pre-colonial, colonial and the postcolonial era all have had specific influence on the conceptualisation of the mind. On the basis of an historiography of the Akan mind the author concludes that, contrary to the originally thesis under review, 'cultural background' and 'academic discipline' are relatively unimportant in the classification of 'indigenous religions'. The 'paradigm' prevailing within a discipline , 'personal belief' and the spatio-temporal context in which conceptualisations are created, turn out to be far more significant. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other than bereavement are properly termed ‘grief’. To do so, we focus on widespread experiences of grief that have been reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. We consider two potential objections to a more permissive use of the term: grief is, by definition, a response to a death; grief is subject to certain norms that apply only to the case of bereavement. Having shown that these objections are unconvincing, (...) we sketch a positive case for a conception of grief that is not specific to bereavement, by noting some features that grief following bereavement shares with other experiences of loss. (shrink)

This paper ties some less well-known names to the bigger categories of embedded male-bias in names (see other papers) that patriarchy made in its development of language, making the masses believe in phallic-based fantasy, the male as superior and mind of the species.

Patriarchy's timeline showing how the Lords of patriarchy developed language in its own self-interest. Exposes the need patriarchy had to make and use language as a political tool to achieve its political ends, control, power and domination.

In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence experience. I argue that whilst some absence experiences that occur in grief might be explained by extant philosophical accounts of absence experience, others need different treatment. I propose that grieving subjects' descriptions of feeling as if the world seems empty or a part of them seems missing can be understood as referring to a distinctive type of absence experience. In these profound absence experiences, I will argue, (...) the absence of a person as a condition on various possibilities is made manifest in the structure of experience over time. Thus, by paying close attention to grief, we can see that even accounts of absence experience that are presented as in competition with one another may not be so, and that to explain all kinds of absence experience we sometimes need to appeal to something overlooked in other accounts, and which is neither straightforwardly perceptual or cognitive. I also suggest that we would have good reason to take such experiences to be part of and not merely psychological effects of grief. (shrink)

Door de eeuwen heen hebben talloze vrouwen zich verdiept in een veel-heid aan filosofische thema’s, maar vaak zijn deze denkers onzichtbaar gebleven. Van de 17e-eeuwse filosofe Anna Maria van Schurman zullen sommigen wel hebben gehoord, maar wie kent haar tijdgenote Anne Conway? Uit de 20e eeuw is Hannah Arendt inmiddels wereldberoemd, maar de namen Susanne Langer, Gloria Anzaldúa en Werewere Liking zullen misschien alleen de specialisten bekend in de oren klinken. Vele vrouwelijke denkers waren uitgesloten van officiële onderwijsin-stellingen en namen (...) hun toevlucht tot andere vormen van filo so fie -beoefening, zoals briefwisselingen en essays. En dat levert een onschat-bare rijkdom aan filosofische bronnen op. In dit nieuwe standaardwerk worden 67 vrouwelijke denkers bij elkaar gebracht; van de Oudheid tot onze eeuw; van islamitische en katholieke mystica’s, een 18e-eeuwse Nederlandse logica tot een Nigeriaanse politiek filosofe. (shrink)

In this article the author concentrates on the use of Indigenous Religion among the Akuapem in Ghana for the construction of their group identity. She discusses the way in which the Akuapem make use of the celebration of an annual indigenous religious festival (Odwira) to strengthen their group identity by self-identification, differentiation and the perception of other cultural groups. Her specific focus is on the common Asante-Akuapem history, the foundation of the Akan Golden Stools, akom dancing and the Odwira festival (...) procession and Durbars. She concludes that Indigenous Religion should not be left out in the study of the construction of group identities in the social sciences. (shrink)

Introduction to genericity in the nominal, verbal and sentential domain.

In the last decade, the UK Government has attempted to implement improved processes and procedures in modelling and analysis in response to the Laidlaw report of 2012 and the Macpherson review of 2013. The Laidlaw report was commissioned after failings during the Intercity West Coast Rail (ICWC) Franchise procurement exercise by the Department for Transport (DfT) that led to a legal challenge of the analytical models used within the exercise. The Macpherson review looked into the quality assurance of Government analytical (...) models in the context of the experience with the Intercity West Coast franchise competition. This paper examines what progress has been made in the 8 years since the Laidlaw report in model building and best practise in government and proposes several recommendations for ways forward. This paper also discusses the Lords Science and Technology Committees of June 2020 that analysed the failings in the modelling of COVID. Despite going on to influence policy, many of the same issues raised within the Laidlaw and Macpherson Reports were also present in the Lords Science and Technology Committee enquiry. We examine the technical and organisational challenges to progress in this area and make recommendations for a way forward. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Christianity was predominantly a white Euro- American religion with 83 per cent of all Christians living in the Global North. Today, it is a global religion where over two-thirds of Christians are non-Westerners residing in the Global South. Christianity is on the rise in Latin America, Asia and especially Africa: a trend that is predicted to continue in the second half of the twenty-first century. I will explore explanations for the appeal of Christianity, (...) and Pentecostalism in particular, for contemporary Africans. (shrink)

Call for Written evidence - Risk Assessment and Risk Planning.

The aim of this research was to find out what the most popular films among the Akan in southeast Amsterdam (The Netherlands) are and how these films are used by this West African diaspora in the formation of a new religious identity after their migration to Europe. The outcome of this research is that the most popular films among the Akan are those with Pentecostal-Charismatic proselytizing messages. The Akan use these films to create an ‘imagined diasporic community’ to remain culturally (...) connected to West Africa. The second most popular films are those of an Akan indigenous religious nature. However, because the name of these films does not fit with the newly acquired European Christian identity of the Akan people in the diaspora, they have slightly changed the name of these movies to ‘cultural films’ in order to overcome the contradiction between over three centuries of ‘Akan spirits of migration’ to Europe with the recent ‘migration of spirits’ via Ghanaian films. (shrink)

Psychological eudaimonism is the view that we are constituted by a desire to avoid the harmful. This entails that coming to see a prospective or actual object of pursuit as harmful to us will unseat our positive evaluative belief about that object. There is more than one way that such an 'unseating' of desire may be caused on an intellectualist picture. This paper arbitrates between two readings of Socrates' 'attack on laziness' in the Meno, with the aim of constructing a (...) model of moral education based on PE's implied moral psychology. In particular, we argue against the view that when we come to see - through prudential reasoning - that our blatant evaluative beliefs and desires disserve eudaimonism, we will no longer perceive their intentional objects as choice-worthy. We suggest, instead, that it is by experiencing shame that we cease to see the intentional objects of our evaluative beliefs and desires as worthy of pursuit. This form of 'hydraulic education' bypasses reason-responsiveness altogether. As such, it only allows for practical norms to be derived from the nature of agency indirectly, namely by enabling the use of discursive practical reasoning. (shrink)

Some commentators have condemned Kant’s moral project from a feminist perspective based on Kant’s apparently dim view of women as being innately morally deficient. Here I will argue that although his remarks concerning women are unsettling at first glance, a more detailed and closer examination shows that Kant’s view of women is actually far more complex and less unsettling than that attributed to him by various feminist critics. My argument, then, undercuts the justification for the severe feminist critique of Kant’s (...) moral project. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, the focus of African Philosophy has predominantly been Afrocentric, and with an emphasis on racial issues, as a reaction to Eurocentrism. To hold an open intercultural dialogue on African Philosophy with African and other philosophers is, therefore, not-self-evident. This article will argue that intercultural dialogues or (in case of more than two participants) ‘polylogues’ can and should become a more central point of focus in the academic study of African Philosophy. The author will center on how three (...) renowned African(a) philosophers with a focus on the Akan people of Ghana have initiated intercultural dialogues for the enhancement of human wellbeing. These are Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye and Kwame Anthony Appiah. What these philosophers have in common is their belief that all human beings are interdependent and that an emphatic, ethic orientation to one another and mutual communication helps to live together in social harmony, which enhances the wellbeing of mankind. Discussing these African philosophers’ insights into depth will pave the way for other scholars to explore the intercultural dialogue as a weak or non-centric and non-racial focused philosophical method and to enhance understanding of its relation to African(a) Philosophy and a Global Ethics of care. Keywords: Global Ethics, African(a) Philosophy, Akan, intercultural philosophical dialogue, human wellbeing. (shrink)

The literature of Twelve Step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous contains apparently contradictory implications regarding powerlessness and personal responsibility. In this essay I examine the treatment of these concepts in Twelve Step literature and their implications for the self-conception of people in these programs. In the first section, I examine the literature to demonstrate that addicts are presented as powerless over, yet responsible for, their addictive behaviors. In the second section, I outline two potential ways people in Twelve Step programs (...) might reconcile this contradiction within their self-conception, but I argue that neither is satisfactory. In the third section, I draw on Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative identity to develop an account of how someone ni a Twelve Step group could coherently understand herself as both powerless and responsible. (shrink)

In this paper I will first examine Williamsons case where he posits that ‘Justified Belief’ is not acceptable to use in the cases where one is deceived in some way, regardless of how the belief has been formed. Williamson aims to eradicate the use of the term ‘justified’ in these cases and instead impose the term unjustified but blameless. I counter this by suggesting that Williamson sets the bar too high to attain knowledge and does not give enough weight to (...) the manner in which beliefs are formed. I then offer another way to describe the situation. The structure of the essay is as follows: I will present Williamson’s main argument, define his concept of ‘norms’ and present some examples to illustrate this. I will then move on to Williamson’s formulation of blamelessness whilst unjustified in a belief as an alternative to simply justified or unjustified beliefs. I will again illustrate this with examples. Then we will explore some objections to this theory. (shrink)

This is my (Subhasis Chattopadhyay's) draft of PhD pre-submission. Dr. Scriver has (had) put it up online in her blog and I found it today, that is 1:06 pm, 28th May, 2017. I am grateful to her since intellectual ideas can otherwise be hijacked. She has done a wonderful editorial job.

The central aim of this article is to specify the ontological nature of constitutive mechanistic phenomena. After identifying three criteria of adequacy that any plausible approach to constitutive mechanistic phenomena must satisfy, we present four different suggestions, found in the mechanistic literature, of what mechanistic phenomena might be. We argue that none of these suggestions meets the criteria of adequacy. According to our analysis, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are best understood as what we will call ‘object-involving occurrents’. Furthermore, on the basis (...) of this notion, we will clarify what distinguishes constitutive mechanistic explanations from etiological ones. 1 Introduction 2 Criteria of Adequacy 2.1 Descriptive adequacy 2.2 Constitutive–etiological distinction 2.3 Constitution 3 The Ontological Nature of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena 3.1 Phenomena as input–output relations 3.2 Phenomena as end states 3.3 Phenomena as dispositions 3.4 Phenomena as behaviours 4 Phenomena as Object-Involving Occurrents 4.1 What object-involving occurrents are and why we need them 4.2 The object in the phenomenon 4.3 The adequacy of option 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

In the contemporary life sciences more and more researchers emphasize the “limits of reductionism” (e.g. Ahn et al. 2006a, 709; Mazzocchi 2008, 10) or they call for a move “beyond reductionism” (Gallagher/Appenzeller 1999, 79). However, it is far from clear what exactly they argue for and what the envisioned limits of reductionism are. In this paper I claim that the current discussions about reductionism in the life sciences, which focus on methodological and explanatory issues, leave the concepts of a reductive (...) method and a reductive explanation too unspecified. In order to fill this gap and to clarify what the limits of reductionism are I identify three reductive methods that are crucial in the current practice of the life sciences: decomposition, focusing on internal factors, and studying parts in isolation. Furthermore, I argue that reductive explanations in the life sciences exhibit three characteristics: first, they refer only to factors at a lower level than the phenomenon at issue, second, they focus on internal factors and thus ignore or simplify the environment of a system, and, third, they cite only the parts of a system in isolation. (shrink)

This autodidactic paper wraps up an earlier epistemic art project and compactly collates the main unfolded scientific and philosophical strategies for epistemic resiliency against epistemic doom in the deepfake era. Retrospectively speaking, the existence of a dense condensate within which explanatory blockchain (EB) based science, EB-based philosophy and EB-based art overlap acts as a pointer to untapped non-algorithmic epistemic resources that could (if ever activated) exhibit the natural tendency to compel the reach of algorithmic computations – noticeably at the "cost" (...) of increasing non-algorithmic self-determination. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the legal right to free speech, identifies ways that speech can be harmful, and discusses pornography hate speech, and lies. It is also written for a non-technical audience.

Artificial Intelligence is becoming widespread and as we continue ask ‘can we implement this’ we neglect to ask ‘should we implement this’. There are various frameworks and conceptual journeys one should take to ensure a robust AI product; context is one of the vital parts of this. AI is now expected to make decisions, from deciding who gets a credit card to cancer diagnosis. These decisions affect most, if not all, of society. As developers if we do not understand or (...) use fundamental modelling principles then we can cause real harm to society. Recently more serious effects of AI have been observed. Dehumanisation is the human reaction to overused anthropomorphism and lack of social contact caused by excessive interaction with, or addiction to, technology. This can cause humans to devalue technology and to devalue other humans. This is a contradiction of the use of ‘social robots’ and ‘chatbots’, indicating that the negative effects of this technology would outweigh any perceived positive effects. Also, within cyberspace, anthropomorphism and similar techniques based on deep philosophical principles can, and are, being used to alter the behaviour of humans. These techniques are used to manipulate human behaviours at a basic level in the human mind. As these types of techniques are becoming more widespread, it is clear that we are entering unchartered territory that holds a vast array of consequences for society. (shrink)

This paper investigates Descartes’s understanding of the imago Dei, that it is above all in virtue of the will that we bear the image and likeness of God. I challenge the key assumption of arguments that hold that Descartes’s comparison between the human will and the divine will is problematic—that in his conception of the imago Dei Descartes is alluding to Scholastic conceptions of analogy available to him at the time, which would place particular constraints on the legitimacy of the (...) comparison. I argue instead that Descartes is evoking a different tradition regarding the nature of image and imitation, stemming from Augustine and Aquinas, and thus, that those constraints do not apply. I then argue that Descartes thinks the likeness between the human will and God’s will is that both are infinite in “extent.” This means that human will can “extend itself” not only to things that can be the object of some other will, but to things that can be the object of God’s will. This is notable because Descartes famously thinks that absolutely anything can be the object of God’s will. I explain why this interpretation is not implausible, contrary to first appearances. (shrink)

Over the past few years we have seen an increasing number of legal proceedings related to inappropriately implemented technology. At the same time career paths have diverged from the foundation of statistics out to Data Scientist, Machine Learning and AI. All of these new branches being fundamentally branches of statistics and mathematics. This has meant that formal training has struggled to keep up with what is required in the plethora of new roles. Mathematics as a taught subject is still based (...) in decades old teaching specifications and has not been updated centrally as a curriculum to include new technologies, coding or ethics. This subject area is firmly split between ICT and Mathematics in secondary school, continuing on to be split between Computer Science and Mathematics at University. As we move forwards with technology we see these once seperate fields becoming increasingly intertwined. We propose that existing provision for concepts such as ethics and societal responsibility in analysis currently exist but have not been incorporated into the mainstream curriculum of School or University. This is partially due to the split between fields in an educational setting but also the speed with which education is able to keep up with Industry and its requirements. Principles and frameworks of socially responsible modelling beginning at school level means that ethics and real-life modelling are introduced much earlier than normal. Integrating these concepts with philosophical principles of society and politics ensures a suitable background for future modellers and users of technology to draw on. Modelling is currently undertaken in technical sciences at University but the Subject Benchmark Statements are not current (Subject Benchmark Statements describe the nature of study and the academic standards expected of graduates in specific subject areas. They show what graduates might reasonably be expected to know, do and understand at the end of their studies). Even in 2019 the UK did not yet have Benchmark Statements that discuss the learning to be done in Higher Education around AI and advanced Machine Learning. Where there is provision for AI and Data Science within degree courses ethics is not generally highlighted as a key concept. As such there can be a lack of focus on the teaching of modelling or ethics as specific skills. The skills required to use a basic statistical model, for example would not be sufficient to start from scratch and build an ethical model reflecting real-world scenarios with which to inform policy or organisational decision making. This is a skill in itself and includes such aspects as awareness of data quality, ethics, user implementation problems, context and an understanding of the environment that the model is being created in. As the field of analytics has progressed so quickly in the last decade modules such as those covering AI have simply been bolted on to Maths or Computing degrees rather than being fully detailed as key areas of study or driving new, more integrated courses of study. This paper posits that gaps at primary, secondary and tertiary educational levels need to be addressed. Implementing and integrating key concepts from school level is essential so that areas such as assumptions, caveats, quality assurance and answering the right questions with constructive challenge become a cultural fixture. This not only helps developers of technology but users of rapidly developing technology also. In addition, leadership and soft skills as part of this education will ensure that a cultural shift can take place and promote continuous improvement in analysis within organisations. The addition of key concepts throughout the educational system and the updating of potentially outdated curriculums is key to ensuring a functional society. A society where every citizen is a user of tech and those that develop it can be ethical and socially responsible in its development. (shrink)

This paper argues that an addressee's failure to recognize a speaker's authority can constitutes another form of silencing.

Paper 18 Defines patriarchal radicalization, imprinted on the mind to change it from being a thinking organ to being a belief-organ. I claim that rights to correct information and factual names about the speech-making species can only be sapient rights.

Quotes re the situation of the 10,000 embedded male-biased names in language about our species making people believe the basis of mind is male.

Paper 3 This paper discusses how patriarchy made the name 'man' their Brand. It would guarantee their entitlement to rule and control the masses by repeating man in so many names. Partial lists are shown.