An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based on substantive data: the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

This Thesis engages with contemporary philosophical controversies about the nature of dispositional properties or powers and the relationship they have to their non-dispositional counterparts. The focus concerns fundamentality. In particular, I seek to answer the question, ‘What fundamental properties suffice to account for the manifest world?’ The answer I defend is that fundamental categorical properties need not be invoked in order to derive a viable explanation for the manifest world. My stance is a field-theoretic view which describes the world as (...) a single system comprised of pure power, and involves the further contention that ‘pure power’ should not be interpreted as ‘purely dispositional’, if dispositionality means potentiality, possibility or otherwise unmanifested power or ability bestowed upon some bearer. The theoretical positions examined include David Armstrong’s Categoricalism, Sydney Shoemaker’s Causal Theory of Properties, Brian Ellis’s New Essentialism, Ullin Place’s Conceptualism, Charles Martin’s and John Heil’s Identity Theory of Properties and Rom Harré’s Theory of Causal Powers. The central concern of this Thesis is to examine reasons for holding a pure-power theory, and to defend such a stance. This involves two tasks. The first requires explaining what plays the substance role in a pure-power world. This Thesis argues that fundamental power, although not categorical, can be considered ontologically-robust and thus able to fulfil the substance role. A second task—answering the challenge put forward by Richard Swinburne and thereafter replicated in various neo-Swinburne arguments—concerns how the manifestly qualitative world can be explained starting from a pure-power base. The Light-like Network Account is put forward in an attempt to show how the manifest world can be derived from fundamental pure power. (shrink)

Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the Declaration (...) of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with Lincoln’s promise of democracy; therefore, there is a need for a critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change. The result was the construction of two frameworks: the demoralization process that triggers social change, and a formal grounded theory that (...) could explain democratic social change endeavors across different domains and levels of analysis. This democratic social change grounded theory answers the research question: How do the principles of the American founding documents provide an understanding of the process of American democratic social change? (shrink)

The polarities of democracy framework is used to achieve human emancipation by simultaneously managing multiple paradoxes by employing Johnson’s polarity management as the conceptual framework. Although Johnson’s framework may be appropriate for managing other tension-dependent pairs, it is less suitable for managing multiple democratic values when the goal is human emancipation and sustainable democratic social change. Managing multiple polarities is exacerbated by the problem-shifting and problem-creation effect inherent in a tension-driven framework. The aim was to develop a constructivist grounded theory (...) to answer the research question: How can the first principles of democracy be used to reduce dynamic tension and achieve human emancipation? This gap has been filled by a parsimonious conceptual framework based on three democratic principles: human dignity, fairness, and knowledge. The principles of democracy conceptual framework can synthesize the tension between democratic values in order to manage, plan, and evaluate democratic social change initiatives. (shrink)

Background: The United States symbolizes democracy in the new world and contributes to global prosperity. Nevertheless, incrementalism is a historically dominant national approach to public policy implementation that delays democracy and undermines human dignity. Human flourishing and national development are endangered by slow-moving democratic changes. This necessitates a social justice framework that traces the exploitation of incrementalism and the consequences of opportunity gaps. Objectives: This study aims to construct a grounded theory to address and answer the following research question: Are (...) anti-democratic concepts part of a process or strategy that hinders democratic change, and what reinforces it, if anything? Methods: Two categories emerged from a grounded theory of democratic social change. This combination of anti-democratic tenets and democratic principles led to abductive reasoning to fill the research gap. Results: The key finding was the existence of a systematic approach that led to democracy while simultaneously disempowering the same group through legal and extralegal means. Two processes hinder democracy: incrementalism and an anti-democratic demoralizing process. A constructivist social justice grounded theory was developed to analyze and evaluate public policy for barriers and facilitators of democracy. A thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact and consequences of public policy is recommended to better understand how such policies impede democracy and influence American perceptions of justice. (shrink)

Great Britain subjugated colonists using various power strategies, including dehumanization, misinformation, fear, and other divisive strategies. The Founders described these oppressive strategies as “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Throughout the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers imbued the people with hope in a government for the people: one unlike that of the monarchy, which sought to protect itself at the expense of colonists. As a result, the Founders created a government more likely to lead (...) with fairness, demonstrate respect for human dignity, unite Americans as one people, empower citizens through hope, and lead the nation toward security. This socio-ethical framework was an abductive discovery nested within a grounded theory study where it had been concluded that the first principles of democracy were woven within the American founding documents. Using Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory, the first principles of democracy—knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security—were used to answer an emerging research question: Are there two democratic frameworks in the founding documents, and how do they differ? The first principles of democracy promote a culture of ethics, resilience, and freedom. Their empowering disposition makes them suitable as a normative framework for a democratic government for the people. (shrink)

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

Customer behavior, market dynamics, and technological advances have made it challenging for marketing theorists to provide comprehensive explanations and actionable insights. Although there are numerous substantive marketing frameworks, no formal marketing theory exists. This study aims to develop the first formal grounded theory in marketing by incorporating artificial intelligence and Forde's conceptual framework as a guiding lens. Charmaz's constructivist grounded theory tradition and Forde's conceptual framework and data analysis strategy were employed for this purpose. The data analysis strategy used with (...) grounded theory’s constant compare-and-contrast method comprises holistic and systems thinking, dramaturgical and situational analysis, perspective-taking, and deconstruction. To evaluate Glaser’s assertion that all is data, artificial intelligence was incorporated into the research as the data source for retrieving the theoretical samples to address the primary research question: How can Forde's conceptual framework and artificial intelligence be leveraged to develop a formal marketing theory grounded in evidence? Of significance was the emergence of democratic marketing behaviors and the normalization of anti-democratic marketing approaches leveraged to manipulate buyers or gain access to segments of customers. Buyers and sellers can simultaneously benefit from and be prejudiced by marketing exchange dynamics. This finding lends credibility to the newly emerged framework of strategic actions where empowerment and disempowerment are leveraged to achieve specific goals. Considering this finding, it is suggested that businesses view marketing as a symbiotic relationship between two power centers, buyers and sellers, who respectively strive to maintain human dignity and sustainability. Researchers are encouraged to apply the framework across substantive areas, international markets, public relations, political campaigns, and others. (shrink)

Grounded theory methodology is perceived as challenging due to its systematic and rigorous process. However, this is because most people do not realize that the strategies used in the grounded theory data analysis process are used by laypeople and professionals regularly, if not daily. This article aims to help others interested in grounded theory with a background in qualitative data analysis feel comfortable engaging in the methodology and constructing multiple theories in the same study. It shares my latest experience incorporating (...) various data analysis strategies with the constructivist approach: holistic and systems thinking, situational analysis, dramaturgical analysis, perspective taking, and abstraction. The examples remove the mystery from abstraction and abductive reasoning. (shrink)

Val Plumwood’s 1993 paper, “The politics of reason: towards a feminist logic” (hence- forth POR) attempted to set the stage for what she hoped would begin serious feminist exploration into formal logic – not merely its historical abuses, but, more importantly, its potential uses. This work offers us: (1) a case for there being feminist logic; and (2) a sketch of what it should resemble. The former goal of Plumwood’s paper encourages feminist theorists to reject anti-logic feminist views. The paper’s (...) latter aim is even more challenging. Plumwood’s critique of classical negation (and classical logic) as a logic of domination asks us to recognize that particular logical systems are weapons of oppression. Against anti-logic feminist theorists, Plumwood argues that there are other logics besides classical logic, such as relevant logics, which are suited for feminist theorizing. Some logics may oppress while others may liberate. We provide details about the sources and context for her rejection of classical logic and motivation for promoting relevant logics as feminist. (shrink)

Existing research has shown that norm violations influence causal judgments, and a number of different models have been developed to explain these effects. One such model, the necessity/sufficiency model, predicts an interac- tion pattern in people’s judgments. Specifically, it predicts that when people are judging the degree to which a particular factor is a cause, there should be an interaction between (a) the degree to which that factor violates a norm and (b) the degree to which another factor in the (...) situation violates norms. A study of moral norms (N = 1000) and norms of proper functioning (N = 3000) revealed robust evidence for the predicted interaction effect. The implications of these patterns for existing theories of causal judgments is discussed. (shrink)

This thesis examines the key moral principles that should govern decision-making by police and military when using lethal force. To this end, it provides an ethical analysis of the following question: Under what circumstances, if any, is it morally justified for the agents of state-sanctioned security institutions to use lethal force, in particular the police and the military? Recent literature in this area suggests that modern conflicts involve new and unique features that render conventional ways of thinking about the ethics (...) of armed conflict, and the use of lethal force, as inadequate or redundant. In particular, there is an increased concern with the moral difficulties created by “non-standard” cases. This is where the police or military are obliged to operate outside their conventional contexts. In such non-standard cases, on what moral basis can (or should) state actors – especially the police and military – use lethal force? One approach argues that there is nothing morally exceptional about the use of lethal force by police or military. This says the only available moral justification for using lethal force is killing in self-defence or defence of others. In contrast, I use an institutional approach to develop a moral framework for the state’s morally exceptional use of lethal force. The institutional approach is concerned with the ends (telos) or purpose of a social institution. It says that the moral purpose of a social institution alters the moral responsibilities of its agents; what is referred to as role morality. My analysis demonstrates that there is an important moral distinction between justified killing in self-defence and state-sanctioned uses of lethal force. My claim is that police and military uses of lethal force are not morally justified in the same way as the average person’s use of lethal force (i.e. self-defence or defence of others). Instead, I argue that the state-sanctioned institutional role of police and military give these state actors special moral duties, and therefore exceptional moral justification, for using lethal force. I argue that the institutional end of the police is the preservation of public safety. This includes using lethal force where it is necessary to protect life and prevent serious injury to jurisdictional inhabitants. In contrast, a morally responsible state uses military force to defend the “common good.” That is, when it is necessary to defend the peaceful functioning of a state from armed threats or other forms of political violence. I then conclude that non-standard cases require the addition of jus ad vim (or the just use of military force short-of-war) as a hybrid element to the moral framework for the state-sanctioned use of lethal force. This provides a better way of applying ethics to the use of military force when defending the common good against serious threats in non-standard cases. This is because jus ad vim complements the conventional military paradigm by permitting the use of military capabilities to defend the common good. But, at the same time, it inhibits the move towards the more destructive levels of violence characteristic of conventional warfighting. (shrink)

The US-Australia strategic relationship has evolved from more or less an adversarial position in the 19th century to an Australia largely dependent on the US during the Cold War to the interdependent partnership we see today. Strategic interdependence means that the US-Australia relationship is not merely a one-sided affair; that Australia has something of substance to offer the strategic relationship. Part of the reason that the relationship is strong is because of a shared language, similar social values, and compatible political-legal (...) systems. Moreover, the relationship has been thoroughly institutionalised via intelligence cooperation, defence science collaboration, and extensive personal relationships. But what the US really seems to value is Australia’s reliability as an ally. I argue that Australia best demonstrates its reliability as an ally, however, when it follows US strategic decision-making for the right reasons. This sense of reliability is more akin to trustworthiness than it is to loyalty. History demonstrates that Australia has not always agreed with the US. But agreeing doesn’t matter so much when Australia has established a track record of consistently applying sound reasoning to its strategic decisions and it has made substantive contributions to jointly sought after strategic outcomes. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the importance of ethics education for senior military officers with responsibilities at the strategic level of government. One problem, as I see it, is that senior commanders might demand “ethics” from their soldiers but then they are themselves primarily informed by a “morally skeptical viewpoint” (in the form of political realism). I argue that ethics are more than a matter of personal behavior alone: the ethical position of an armed service is a matter of the (...) collective responsibility of the people who constitute it, and senior military officers, having authority to give the orders, have a particularly important role. First, I discuss the continued prominence of a neorealist mindset in strategic thinking. Neorealist theory assumes that ethics is a largely irrelevant concern for strategic decision-makers. In contrast, I argue that consideration of moral values should be at the center of strategic theory and practice. Then, in the second section, I explore the “professional ethics” of senior military officers in order to develop an appreciation of the shared values and expectations regarding required conduct within any professional military service. I argue that senior military leaders should be concerned with what it means to be “good” and that this concept of the good can, and should, be applied across cultures and national boundaries. In the final section, I examine armed conflict and briefly discuss the moral reasoning involved to justify deliberate killing and destruction. I conclude that senior military officers require an understanding of sound moral reasoning to implement effective strategy. (shrink)

Standard theories in mereotopology focus on relations of parthood and connection among spatial or spatio-temporal regions. Objects or processes which might be located in such regions are not normally directly treated in such theories. At best, they are simulated via appeal to distributions of attributes across the regions occupied or by functions from times to regions. The present paper offers a richer framework, in which it is possible to represent directly the relations between entities of various types at different levels, (...) including both objects and the regions they occupy. What results is a layered mereotopology, a theory which can handle multiple layers (analogous to the layers of a lasagna) of spatially or spatiotemporally coincident but mereologically non-overlapping entities. (shrink)

This essay explores the evolving systems ofjustz$5cation and morality that emerge fiom mother and child dialogues. Contrasting a mother's ethic of care with a surrounding cultural climate of violence, I argue that children are capable of providing insigljt to this seeming socialcontradiction.Ifocus on a series cfconversa- tionsI've had with my nowJiveyear oldson with regard to naturally occurringharm (i.e.yfloods,disease...) and human createdharm (i.e. war, violence,physical intimi- dation). I argue that my son's effortsto "makethe symbolic reap are consistent with philosopher Gareth Matthews' (...) (1980) claim that young children are capable of complexphilosophicalthinkingthoughitmaygodormantatabouteightornineyears of age. M y view is thatphilosophicalthinking between mother and child typifies the feminist ideal that respecful investigation can occur between two parties who are uneyual in terms of socialpower. Though my son is smaller, less experienced, and physically weaker, he has come to believe that these qualities will not be relevant in others' assessment of his explanations of the world. (shrink)

Detailed exploration of the Allegory of the Cave, utilizing notions from film studies, may provide us with insight regarding the identity of the puppet masters in Plato's allegory.

Euthyphro is a Socratic interlocutor claiming enormous religious expertise, while his portrayal in the eponymous dialogue raises questions the reliability of his beliefs. This paper closely examines how Euthyphro justifies his case against his father, identifying an argument that relies on the concept of miasma (pollution). In so far as miasma is considered in isolation, Euthyphro has a good argument. Unfortunately, there is more than miasma at stake when considering why one could prosecute one’s own parent. Introducing the other relevant (...) concepts, honor and shame, we find his case reflects a dilemma at the source of ancient Greek religious thought. It would not be possible for Euthyphro or anyone else to know what to do in his case. (shrink)

This paper provides an axiomatic formalization of a theory of foundational relations between three categories of entities: individuals, universals, and collections. We deal with a variety of relations between entities in these categories, including the is-a relation among universals and the part-of relation among individuals as well as cross-category relations such as instance-of, member-of, and partition-of. We show that an adequate understanding of the formal properties of such relations – in particular their behavior with respect to time – is critical (...) for formal ontology. We provide examples to support this thesis from the domain of biomedicine. (shrink)

This paper examines G. W. F. Hegel’s interpretation of Plato from his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, situating his interpretation historically and noting features that resonate with contemporary Plato scholarship. Hegel forms his interpretation prior to stylometric studies of the dialogues, and distinguishes his Plato from Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher’s views. Hegel responds to important interpretive concerns: 1) the relationship between Socratic and Platonic thought, 2) the dialogue form, 3) Platonic Anonymity and 4) Platonic myth. (...) His treatment of these issues is illustrative with respect to understanding Hegelian philosophy and the history of Plato interpretation. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that we can have defensible attributions of responsibility without first answering the question whether determinism and free will are compatible. The key to such a defense is a focus on the fact that most actions for which we hold one another responsible are quite ordinary—trespassing traffic regulations, tardiness, or breaking a promise. As we will show, unlike actions that problematize our moral competence — e.g. akratic and ‘moral monster’- like ones—ordinary ‘wrong’ actions often disclose (...) this competence. Hence, no counterfactual assumption is needed to establish that some of us are sometimes responsible for some of the actions we perform. (shrink)

We propose an ontological theory that is powerful enough to describe both complex spatio-temporal processes and the enduring entities that participate therein. For this purpose we introduce the notion a directly depicting ontology. Directly depicting ontologies are based on relatively simple languages and fall into two major categories: ontologies of type SPAN and ontologies of type SNAP. These represent two complementary perspectives on reality and employ distinct though compatible systems of categories. A SNAP (snapshot) ontology comprehends enduring entities such as (...) organisms, geographic features, or qualities as they exist at some given moment of time. A SPAN ontology comprehends perduring entities such as processes and their parts and aggregates as they unfold themselves through some temporal interval. We give an axiomatic account of the theory of directly depicting ontologies and of the core parts of the metaontological fragment within which they are embedded. (shrink)

Suppose that there is no real distinction between 'mad' and 'bad' because every truly bad-acting agent, proves to be a morally incompetent one. If this is the case: should we not change our ordinary interpersonal relationships in which we blame people for the things they do? After all, if people literally always act to 'the best of their abilities' nobody is ever to blame for the wrong they commit, whether these wrong actions are 'horrible monster'-like crimes or trivial ones, such (...) as cycling on a footpath. This paper offers a skeptical solution, i.e., a solution that does not depend upon the existence of individual responsibility for extreme wrongdoing. I conclude that even in the 'worst case' that skepticism about the distinction between mad and bad is warranted, we are nevertheless justified to treat one another; in general, as morally competent agents who are often to blame for the wrong they commit. (shrink)

Cyberspace relies on information technologies to mediate relations between different people, across different communication networks and is reliant on the supporting technology. These interactions typically occur without physical proximity and those working depending on cybersystems must be able to trust the overall human–technical systems that support cyberspace. As such, detailed discussion of cybersecurity policy would be improved by including trust as a key value to help guide policy discussions. Moreover, effective cybersystems must have resilience designed into them. This paper argues (...) that trustworthy cybersystems are a key element to resilient systems, and thus are core to cybersecurity policy. The paper highlights the importance of trustworthiness for resilient cybersystems. The importance of trustworthiness is shown through a discussion of three events where trustworthiness was the target or casualty of cyberattacks: Stuxnet, hacking of communications and the Edward Snowden revelations. The impact of losing trust is highlighted, to underpin the argument that a resilient cybersystem ought to design in trustworthiness. The paper closes off by presenting a general set of policy implications arising from recognition of the interplay between trust, trustworthiness and resilience for effective cybersecurity. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine the key moral issues for the intelligence community with regard to the use of robots for intelligence collection. First, we survey the diverse range of spy robots that currently exist or are emerging, and examine their value for national security. This includes describing a number of plausible scenarios in which they have been (or could be) used, including: surveillance, attack, sentry, information collection, delivery, extraction, detention, interrogation and as Trojan horses. Second, we examine several areas (...) in which spy robots present serious ethical and legal challenges. We conclude by examining some moral concerns with shifting from intelligence collection to action, as enabled by robotics technology. (shrink)

Political liberals ask citizens not to appeal to certain considerations, including religious and philosophical convictions, in political deliberation. We argue that political liberals must include a demanding requirement of intellectual modesty in their ideal of citizenship in order to motivate this deliberative restraint. The requirement calls on each citizen to believe that the best reasoners disagree about the considerations that she is barred from appealing to. Along the way, we clarify how requirements of intellectual modesty relate to moral reasons for (...) deliberative restraint. And we argue against attempts to weaken our requirement of intellectual modesty by emphasizing those moral reasons. (shrink)

Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise, that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence – species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation – are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties (...) can be maintained by selection on clades, and (4) clade selection extends the explanatory power of the theory of evolution. (shrink)

This chapter takes a longitudinal approach to the survey of intelligence research published in Australia, or by Australian authors overseas, in the decade 2007–2017, analyses it, and compares these findings with trends overseas. It then undertakes a quantitative and qualitative survey of intelligence education programs at Australian and Western tertiary institutions in order to show how Australia fares in an international context. It concludes by offering some suggestions on the way ahead for Intelligence Studies in Australia.

There are important similarities between moral thought and talk and thought and talk about gender: disagreements about gender, like disagreements about morality, seem to be intractable and to outstrip descriptive agreement; and it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be a woman in terms of particular social, biological, or other descriptive features, just as it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be good or right in terms of any set of (...) descriptive properties. These similarities give us reason to investigate the idea that, like moral thought and talk, gender thought and talk is inherently normative. This paper proposes a normative account of gender thought and talk in terms of fitting treatment. On this fitting treatment account, to judge that A is gender G is just to judge that it is fitting to treat A as a G. This account is a descriptive or hermeneutical account of our gender thought and talk rather than an ameliorative account of our gender concepts or a metaphysical account of gender properties in social metaphysics. This paper argues that other descriptive accounts of gender thought and talk face problems that the fitting treatment account overcomes. (shrink)

Understanding community-level selection using Lewontin’s criteria requires both community-level inheritance and community-level heritability, and in the discipline of community and ecosystem genetics, these are often conflated. While there are existing studies that show the possibility of both, these studies impose community-level inheritance as a product of the experimental design. For this reason, these experiments provide only weak support for the existence of community-level selection in nature. By contrast, treating communities as interactors (in line with Hull’s replicator-interactor framework or Dawkins’s idea (...) of the “extended phenotype”) provides a more plausible and empirically supportable model for the role of ecological communities in the evolutionary process. (shrink)

This article interrogates how both visual culture and queer futurity can be made visible in and through the Philippine archive as a case in point. It begins by problematizing a paradoxical specter of futurity that seems to haunt more the Global North. But despite such haunting, the Philippines in the Global South continues to have thin to nil (i.e., nearly absent) envisioning toward a queer futurity, for most Filipino LGBTQIA + scholars seem to still be engaged in recovering “lost histories” (...) from the archives and “thick descriptions” of the present, while focusing more on the textual than the visual. The article then proceeds to discuss mobilizing ekphrasis and representation as main conceptual tools in bridging the temporally opposite projects of queer archiving and queer futurity. It analyzes through ekphrastic re-reading the various LGBTQIA + representations from the Philippine archive – that is, a “palimpsestic site” of colonial confrontations, national (re)construction, and potentially global queer critique. These re-readings along the archival grain juxtapose the archival representations as historically authentic vis-à-vis their more present-day representations as visual proxies. Yet more crucially, the potency of these ekphrastic re-readings – in lieu of visually actual – lies in their capacity to reverberate queer possibilities, re-awakening them from their sleep within the archives, and thus re-mobilizing them toward becoming a useful part of academics, activists, and artists’ “shared arsenal” in re-envisioning and, hopefully in time, reifying such past possibilities into future queer actualities anew. (shrink)

Библиогр.: с. 190-206.В настоящей книге мы стремились обрисовать контуры нормативной модели смены фундаментальных научных теорий продемонстрировать эффективность ее применения на примере перехода «Лоренц – Эйнштейн». Нелишне еще раз подчеркнуть, что ни сама модель, ни задаваемые ей теоретические реконструкции ни в коей мере не являются окончательными. Единственное, на что претендует автор, – это лишь на то, что они лучше – в определенных аспектах – предложенных к настоящему времени моделей и реконструкций. Поэтому не только нельзя констатировать, что все проблемы – методологического и (...) историко-научного характера (даже сформулированные в начале данного исследования) – полностью и окончательно решены. Напротив, предлагаемая концепция ставит (а иногда по-новому формулирует) ряд сложных и интеречных задач. Перечислим вкратце некоторые из них. Во-первых, желательно выяснить, насколько данная концепция является универсальной, уточнить область ее применимости. Может ли она претендовать на реконструкцию всех процессов смены в истории физики, и если не может, то каких именно? Ответ на последний вопрос представляет для модели исключительный интерес, поскольку он может указать на возможные направления ее дальнейшего совершенствования. Скажем, способна ли наша концепция дать достаточно адекватные описания переходов «Птолемей – Коперник» или «Аристотель – Галилей – Ньютон»? Далее, применима ли наша модель к развитию других естественных наук, скажем, к историям химии и биологии? Может ли она описать переходы «Пристли – Лавуазье» или «Ламарк – Дарвин»? Во-вторых, как «работает» модель в современной физике? Способна ли она указать определенные направления крайне актуального сейчас синтеза общей теории относительности и квантовой теории поля? Некоторые попытки (см., например, Нугаев, 1987) обнадеживают, но до реальных результатов еще далеко. В-третьих, реконструкция научной революциив физике в начале XX века также ставит не меньше проблем чем решает. Несмотря на то, она ориентирует исследователей на единое, целостное рассмотрение двух рассматривавшихся, как правило, изолированно, научных революций – квантовой и релятивистской – встает вопрос о более детальном рассмотрении взаимодействия «эйнштейновской» и «боровской» программ. Дальнейшее продвижение в этом направлении предполагает рассмотрение, возможно, под новым углом зрения, истории становления квантовой механики начиная с 20-х годов. И, наконец, последней (отнюдь не по важности) является проблема взаимодействия когнитивных и социальных факторов в процессе смены фундаментальных теорий. Иногда отказ от стандартной гипотетико-дедуктивной интерпретации естественнонауч-ной теории (см. подробнее введение) воспринимается как свидетельство в пользу так называемой «сильной программы» социологии науки, сформулированной Д. Блуром, с. Барнсом и др. (см., например, обзор «Современная западная социология науки», 1988). С точки зрения сторонников этой программы, движущие силы развития научного познания определяются не внутренними факторами развития науки, а ее социокультурным окружением. Именно последнее оказывает решающее влияние на смену фундаментальных теорий. Например, согласно работе американского историка науки П. Формана «Веймарская культура, причинность и квантовая теория», причиной перехода от классической механики к квантовой было распространение среди немецких физиков экзистенциалистской « философии жизни», характеризующейся антагонизмом к рациональности. Одним из каналов, через который индетерминистские настроения «проникали» в среду немецких ученых, была философия Шпенглера (см. подробнее Мамчур, 1987). Как справедливо (там же) отмечает Е. А. Мамчур, необходимо проводить различие между социальной природой познания, его социокультурной обусловленностью и социокультурной детермина-цией. Концепция социальной природы познания – важнейший принцип гносеологии: подлинным субъктом познания является все человеческое общество. Согласно тезису о социокультурной обусловленности познания, разделяемому подавляющим большинством исследователей (см., например, Бляхер и Волынская, 1976; Казютинский, 1979; Карпинская, 1980; Кузнецова, 1984; Пахомов, 1985 и др.), социокультурные факторы через философию, картину мира, идеалы научного познания оказывают определенное влияние на процесс научного познания. Но тезис о социокультурной детерминации требует, чтобы социокультурные факторы определяли саму внутреннюю логику развития науки и, как таковой, вызывает определенные трудности в интерпретации различных периодов развития науки (подробнее см. Мамчур, 1987). (shrink)

Despite their centrality to medicine, drugs are not easily defined. We introduce two desiderata for a basic definition of medical drugs. It should: (a) capture everything considered to be a drug in medical contexts and (b) rule out anything that is not considered to be a drug. After canvassing a range of options, we find that no single definition of drugs can satisfy both desiderata. We conclude with three responses to our exploration of the drug concept: maintain a monistic concept, (...) or choose one of two pluralistic outcomes. Notably, the distinction between drugs and other substances is placed under pressure by the most plausible of the options available. (shrink)

Graduates' employability indicates the excellent education and relevant preparation they obtained from their respective degrees. Tracer studies have enabled higher education institutions to profile their graduates while also reflecting on the quality of education they provide. With the foregoing, a tracer study determined the demographic and academic profile of teacher education graduates from 2017 to 2020 in a state university in the West Philippines. It also ascertained the advanced studies they attended after college, their employment data, the relevance of college (...) preparation with their current employment, difficulties they encountered while securing employment and in their present job, and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program. The study utilized a descriptive survey research design with 80 non-random samples chosen based on availability. The survey was based on the Philippine Commission on Higher Education with modifications elucidated from previous studies. Results showed that graduates took the teacher education program with a strong passion for the teaching profession. More graduates received honors and awards, passed the licensure examinations for teachers, attended advanced studies for professional development, and are employable. Besides, the graduates’ college preparation is relevant to their current employment. Further, difficulties and problems encountered and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program were noted. These findings may serve as a baseline for curriculum review and give suggestions for future tracer studies. (shrink)

The potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) to attain technological singularity—the point at which artificial intelligence (AI) surpasses human intellect and autonomously improves itself—is a critical concern in AI research. This paper explores the feasibility of current LLMs achieving singularity by examining the philosophical and practical requirements for such a development. We begin with a historical overview of AI and intelligence amplification, tracing the evolution of LLMs from their origins to state-of-the-art models. We then proposes a theoretical framework to assess (...) whether existing LLM technologies could satisfy the conditions for singularity, with a focus on Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) and autonomous code generation. We integrate key component technologies, such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), into our analysis, illustrating how these could enable LLMs to independently enhance their reasoning and problem-solving capabilities. By mapping out a potential singularity model lifecycle and examining the dynamics of exponential growth models, we elucidate the conditions under which LLMs might self-replicate and rapidly escalate their intelligence. We conclude with a discussion of the ethical and safety implications of such developments, underscoring the need for responsible and controlled advancement in AI research to mitigate existential risks. Our work aims to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the future of AI and the critical importance of proactive measures to ensure its beneficial development. (shrink)

A survey of color science and color vision.

I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the police should primarily (...) be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role. (shrink)

For years now, unionization has been under vigorous attack. Membership has been steadily declining, and with it union bargaining power. As a result, unions may soon lose their ability to protect workers from economic and personal abuse, as well as their significance as a political force. In the Name of Liberty responds to this worrying state of affairs by presenting a new argument for unionization, one that derives an argument for universal unionization in both the private and public sector from (...) concepts of liberty that we already accept. In short, In the Name of Liberty reclaims the argument for liberty from the political right, and shows how liberty not only requires the unionization of every workplace as a matter of background justice, but also supports a wide variety of other progressive policies. (shrink)

The Upanishads reveal that in the beginning, nothing existed: “This was but non-existence in the beginning. That became existence. That became ready to be manifest”. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.15.1) The creation began from this state of non-existence or nonduality, a state comparable to (0). One can add any number of zeros to (0), but there will be nothing except a big (0) because (0) is a neutral number. If we take (0) as Nirguna Brahman (God without any form and attributes), then (...) from where and how did the universe come into existence? -/- The neutral power (0) cannot produce anything without having an element of duality in it. Although Nirguna Brahman is neutral, it has a positive, negative, and neutral pole, constituting its Prakriti or nature. Prakriti has three latent Gunas (modes or qualities): Satva, Rajas, and Tamas. They are related to Gyana Shakti (the power of knowledge) Sankalpa Shakti (the power of ideation), and Kriya Shakti (the power of action). Science says that Atom is the basic element from which the universe evolved. The Atom has three nuclei- electron, pluton, and neutron. The Satva, Rajas, and Tamas in Indian spirituality are nothing but the mystical names for the nuclei of an atom. -/- According to Bhagavata Purana, Prakriti is also constituted of the elements of Time, Karma (action/destiny) and Swabhava (innate nature). Time disturbs the equilibrium of Gunas. From the aspect of Karma is produced an entity called Mahat, in the form of intelligence. Mahat is dominated by Satva and Rajas. From Mahat manifests the next evolute dominated by Tamas with three predominant qualities – Dravya (substance), Kriya (action), as well as intelligence. It forms to become the Ego principle (Ahamkara). -/- Ahamkara has three modes – Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Satvic is Jnana oriented, Rajasic action-oriented and Tamasic Dravya (substance) oriented. From the Tamasic Ahankara, five gross elements are produced (ether, air, fire, water, and earth - Akash, Vayu, Agni, Jal and Prithvi). From the Satvic Ahamkara, guardian deities (the sun and moon, deities of sense organs, and organs of action) and from Rajasic Ahamkara, ten senses (Indriyas), five senses of perception, five organs of action, the faculties of intellect and Prana (life breath) are produced. -/- Bhagavata says that since these energies, elements, and faculties remained disassociated, they were combined to form a Cosmic Egg. The egg floats in the primal waters for a thousand years. Then God enters this Cosmic Egg and manifests himself as the Cosmic Purusha. He is the first nucleus, the God particle equivalent to the number (1) which is the embodiment of everything in the universe. The concept of creation and dissolution in Hinduism can be compared to the waves in an ocean that appear and disappear incessantly. The Manvantaras are such successive episodes of creation emerging from the Cosmic Person, the Manu who is embodied God-Consciousness, God himself. These episodes of creation are measured in Hinduism in terms of Manvantaras, the epochs of Manus. -/- Manu is the ‘First-Born’ (1) of God, the Cosmic Purusha from whom the world has originated. This Cosmic Person (Purusha) has been described as having fourteen biospheres (heavens) that are inhabited by various life forms in the order of evolution of consciousness. If we begin from the human biosphere (Bhuloka), there are ten astral biospheres that a man must transcend to attain liberation or Mukti from the cycle of births and deaths. -/- The number (1) produces the primary numbers up to (9) through the transmutation of the creational energies and qualities. The process can be related to the descent and cyclical evolution of (1) through ten spiritual stages, finally merging with the nondual (0). The number (10) marks the merger of (1) with (0). The Hindu worldview is that all life forms in an episode of creation must evolve to become one with the non-dual state (0) to attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths in a cyclical process. -/- . (shrink)

A popular argument is that peer disagreement about controversial moral topics undermines justified moral belief in a way that peer disagreement about non-moral topics does not undermine justified non-moral belief. Call this argument the argument for moral skepticism from peer disagreement. Jason Decker and Daniel Groll have recently made a companions in guilt response to this argument. Decker and Groll argue that if peer disagreement undermines justified moral belief, then peer disagreement undermines much non-moral justified belief; if the argument for (...) moral skepticism from peer disagreement succeeds, then a kind of non-moral skepticism holds too. And we should not hold that the status of such non-moral beliefs are undermined by peer disagreement. In this paper, I shows that Decker and Groll’s companions in guilt argument fails. I then draw out the implications of my argument for the epistemology of disagreement and the epistemology of moral disagreement more generally. For instance, I then argue that peer disagreement about morality does not undermine all justified moral belief but that peer disagreement about morality does preclude most moral beliefs from being justified and constituting knowledge in a way that peer disagreement about non-moral topics does not preclude most non-moral beliefs from being justified and constituting knowledge. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, and Marx and (...) Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

In the half century since the formulation of the prokaryote : eukaryote dichotomy, many authors have proposed that the former evolved from something resembling the latter, in defiance of common (and possibly common sense) views. In such ‘eukaryotes first’ (EF) scenarios, the last universal common ancestor is imagined to have possessed significantly many of the complex characteristics of contemporary eukaryotes, as relics of an earlier ‘progenotic’ period or RNAworld. Bacteria and Archaea thus must have lost these complex features secondarily, through (...) ‘streamlining’. If the canonical three-domain tree in which Archaea and Eukarya are sisters is accepted, EF entails that Bacteria and Archaea are convergently prokaryotic.We ask what this means and how it might be tested. (shrink)

To make out in what way Einstein’s 1905 ‘annus mirabilis’ writings hang together one has to hang on Einstein’s strive for unity evinced in his stubborn attempts to coordinate with one another the basic research traditions of classical physics. Light quanta hypothesis and special theory of relativity turn out to be mere milestones of maxwellian electrodynamics and statistical thermodynamics reconciliation programme. The conception of luminiferous ether was an insurmountable stumbling block for Einstein’s statistical thermodynamics programme in which the leading role (...) was played by the light quanta paper . (shrink)