This article explores the relationship between the bodily presence of other humans in the lived urban world and the experience of everyday architecture. We suggest, from the perspectives of phenomenology and architecture, that being in the company of others changes the way the built environment appears to subjects, and that this enables us to perform simple daily tasks while still attending to the built environment. Our analysis shows that in mundane urban settings attending to the environment involves a unique attentional (...) mode, which does not rely on concentrating on, or appreciating the architectural objects, but rather on social attention and on the subject’s kinesthesis in relation to the built environment. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the interpretive view that locates an “undifferentiated mode” – a mode in which Dasein is neither authentic nor inauthentic – in Being and Time. Where Heidegger seems to be claiming that Dasein can exist in an “undifferentiated mode”, he is better understood as discussing a phenomenon I call indifferent inauthenticity. The average everyday “Indifferenz” which is often taken as an indication of an “undifferentiated mode”, that is, is better understood as a failure to distinguish (...) between the possibilities of authentic and inauthentic self-understanding. Dasein's average everyday self-understanding is indifferent to this distinction, and I show that this is precisely what renders it inauthentic. Recognizing this distinction, however, is not enough to render Dasein authentic. Rather, it opens up the possibility of a non-indifferent inauthenticity and what Heidegger calls the possibility of “genuine failure”. To read an “undifferentiated mode” into Being and Time is to misunderstand its methodological progression from Dasein's average everyday, inauthentic self-understanding to its authenticity – “to the thing itself”. A select few passages may at first seem to indicate otherwise. However, Being and Time – like both being in general and Dasein itself – cannot be properly understood “without further ado”.\. (shrink)

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self-understandings. In this paper, I argue that while such practical self-understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment (...) specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self-understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self-understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility-constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self-understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity. (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s early work on the metaphysics of persons has had a vast influence on Western philosophical debates about the nature of personal identity and moral theory. Within the study of Buddhism, it also has sparked a continuous comparative discourse, which seeks to explicate Buddhist philosophical principles in light of Parfit’s conceptual framework. Examining important Parfitian-inspired studies of Buddhist philosophy, this article points out various ways in which a Parfitian lens shaped, often implicitly, contemporary understandings of the anātman doctrine and (...) its relation to Buddhist ethics. I discuss in particular three dominant elements appropriated by Parfitian-inspired scholarship: Parfit’s theoretical categories; philosophical problems raised by his reductionist theory of persons; and Parfit’s argumentative style. I argue that the three elements used in this scholarship constitute different facets of one methodological approach to cross-cultural philosophy, which relies on Western terminology and conceptual schemes to establish a conversation with non-Western philosophy. I suggest that while this methodology is fruitful in many ways, philosophy as a cosmopolitan space may benefit significantly from approaching Buddhist philosophy using its own categories and terminology. (shrink)

Classical presentations of the Buddhist path prescribe the cultivation of various good qualities that are necessary for spiritual progress, from mindfulness and loving-kindness to faith and wisdom. Examining the way in which such qualities are described and classified in early Buddhism—with special reference to their treatment in the Visuddhimagga by the fifth-century Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa—the present article employs a comparative method in order to identify the Buddhist catalog of virtues. The first part sketches the characteristics of virtue as analyzed by (...) neo-Aristotelian theories. Relying on these accounts, the second part considers three lists from early Buddhism as possible catalogs of virtue: the components of ethical conduct, the 37 factors that contribute to awakening, and the wholesome or beautiful mental factors. I then raise the question of why the Buddhist tradition developed several classifications of virtue, whereas the Western tradition of virtue ethics used a single category. Appealing to the connection between the virtues and living well in the eudaimonistic version of virtue ethics, I propose that one of the reasons why Buddhism developed multiple lists of virtues is its pluralistic acceptance of different modalities of living well and associated practices, in MacIntyre’s sense of the term. These modalities and practices are not equal, but are ordered hierarchically. Accordingly, I conclude that Buddhist ethics ought to be seen as a pluralist-gradualist system rather than a universalist theory. (shrink)

Throughout the history of philosophy, ethics has often been a source of guidance on how to live a meaningful life. Accordingly, when the ethical foundations of mindfulness are considered, an important question arises concerning the role of meditation in providing meaning. The present article proposes a new theoretical route for understanding the links between mindfulness meditation and meaningfulness by employing the terminology of Susan Wolf’s contemporary philosophical account of a meaningful life. It opens by examining the question of what kinds (...) of life-meanings are made available by Buddhist doctrine, considering the two alternatives of a cosmic, human-independent meaning of life versus the subjective meanings that humans give to their individual lives. After surveying current psychological theories that aim to explain the correlation between mindfulness as a trait and meaning in life, all of which see mindfulness as a mediating factor in the production of meaning, I argue that Wolf’s framework offers a promising theoretical basis for clarifying the relationship between mindfulness and meaning in that it explains why mindfulness has a direct bearing on meaning in life. I then show that mindfulness meditation, as understood in Buddhism, can respond to some of the philosophical worries that arise from Wolf’s theory, specifically her concern with the standards for securing the objective value of meaningful activities and projects. My claim is that mindfulness meditation is representative of a broader class of activities that are non-subjectively valuable insofar as they are required for any exploration of objective meaning or standards of values, as well as for engagement in objectively valuable projects and activities. (shrink)

Is Buddhism’s attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations and profound analytical (...) insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems—scepticism and Buddhism—that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time. (shrink)

This article reviews the reasons scholars hold that driverless cars and many other AI equipped machines must be able to make ethical decisions, and the difficulties this approach faces. It then shows that cars have no moral agency, and that the term ‘autonomous’, commonly applied to these machines, is misleading, and leads to invalid conclusions about the ways these machines can be kept ethical. The article’s most important claim is that a significant part of the challenge posed by AI-equipped machines (...) can be addressed by the kind of ethical choices made by human beings for millennia. Ergo, there is little need to teach machines ethics even if this could be done in the first place. Finally, the article points out that it is a grievous error to draw on extreme outlier scenarios—such as the Trolley narratives—as a basis for conceptualizing the ethical issues at hand. (shrink)

The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary) is a pivotal treatise on early Buddhist thought composed around the fourth or fifth century by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. This work elucidates the Buddha’s teachings as synthesized and interpreted by the early Buddhist Sarvāstivāda school (“the theory that all [factors] exist”), while recording the major doctrinal polemics that developed around them, primarily those points of contention with the Sautrāntika system of thought (“followers of the scriptures”). Employing the methodology and terminology of (...) the Buddhist Abhidharma system, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya offers a detailed analysis of fundamental doctrines, such as early Buddhist theories of mind, cosmology, the workings of karman, meditative states and practices, and the metaphysics of the self. One of its unique features is the way it presents the opinions of a variety of Buddhist and Brahminical schools that were active in classical India in Vasubandhu’s time. The work contains nine chapters (the last of which is considered to have been appended to the first eight), which proceed from a description of the unawakened world via the path and practices that are conducive to awakening and ultimately to the final spiritual attainments which constitute the state of awakening. In its analysis of the unawakened situation, it thus covers the elements which make up the material and mental world of sentient beings, the wholesome and unwholesome mental states that arise in their minds, the structure of the cosmos, the metaphysics of action (karman) and the way it comes into being, and the nature of dispositional attitudes and dormant mental afflictions. In its treatment of the path and practices that lead to awakening, the treatise outlines the Sarvāstivāda understanding of the methods of removing defilements through the realization of the four noble truths and the stages of spiritual cultivation. With respect to the awakened state, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya gives a detailed description of the different types of knowledge and meditational states attained by practitioners who reach the highest stages of the path. (shrink)

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics, that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu's theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for embracing the ethics (...) of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future. (shrink)

Business ethics journals have appeared on a few ranked lists that are specific to this niche discipline. As with more traditional academic disciplines, these rankings are used for academic rewards such as faculty tenure and promotion, along with department and school ratings. Journal ranking has been subject to considerable criticism even as its administrative use persists. Among the criticisms are that journal quality is a poor proxy for article quality, citation rate is an imperfect reflection of article influence, and bias (...) may be introduced into rankings by visibility characteristics such as journal age, size, circulation, and experience of the rater with a journal. This research note studies the effect of journal age and size on the rankings of business ethics journals compiled by Beets, Lewis, and Brower, by Albrecht, Thompson, Hoopes, and Rodrigo, and by Serenko and Bontis. Significant correlation was found for journal age with the administratively derived Beets et al. ranking. No significant correlation was found for size in any ranking study. Results were not significant for the Albrecht et al. and the Serenko and Bontis rankings representing the perspectives from surveys of active researchers or citation analysis. Perhaps sometimes a journal’s reputation precedes it, as perception of journal quality may be biased by journal visibility, either because it has been published and available for a number of years, or because it is well known and likely to be cited. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a number of scholarly attempts to illuminate the philosophical affinity between the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, the two main systems of thought in the Mahāyāna stream of Buddhism. Both schools originated in India in the first centuries of the common era, and had a significant impact on the doctrines of Asian Buddhism in such countries as China, Korea, Tibet, and Japan. Consequently, their views concerning reality have been documented in various textual sources, ranging from early philosophical treatises (...) by their chief founders, Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu and Asaṅga, to sūtras and later commentaries. These sources indicate that the two schools shared certain core... (shrink)

This paper assesses the state of research ethics in low- and middle-income countries and the achievements of the Fogarty International Center's bioethics training program since 2000. The vision of FIC for the next decade of research ethics education is encapsulated in four proposed goals: (1) Ensure sufficient expertise in ethics review by having someone with long-term training on every high-workload REC; (2) Develop LMIC capacity to conduct original research on critical ethical issues by supporting doctoral and postdoctoral training and career (...) paths for research ethicists; (3) Make research training and review at LMIC institutions sustainable by identifying additional funding mechanisms and models; (4) Make institutional research systems more ethical and efficient through context-specific training integrated into all levels of scientific training. (shrink)

As a type of evidence glass can be very useful contact trace material in a wide range of offences including burglaries and robberies, hit-and-run accidents, murders, assaults, ram-raids, criminal damage and thefts of and from motor vehicles. All of that offer the potential for glass fragments to be transferred from anything made of glass which breaks, to whoever or whatever was responsible. Variation in manufacture of glass allows considerable discrimination even with tiny fragments. In this study, (...) we worked glass classification and testing of artificial neural network model created by the JustNN. The aim of the study is help investigator in identifying the type of glass found in arena of the crime. The Neural Network model was trained and validated using the type of glass dataset. The accuracy of model in predicting the type of glass reached 96.7%. Thus neural network is suitable for predicating type of glasses. (shrink)

Call the view that it is possible to acquire aesthetic knowledge via testimony, optimism, and its denial, pessimism. In this paper, I offer a novel argument for pessimism. It works by turning attention away from the basis of the relevant belief, namely, testimony, and toward what that belief in turn provides a basis for, namely, other attitudes. In short, I argue that an aesthetic belief acquired via testimony cannot provide a rational basis for further attitudes, such as admiration, and that (...) the best explanation for this is that the relevant belief is not itself rational. If a belief is not rational, it is not knowledge. So, optimism is false. After addressing a number of objections to the argument, I consider briefly its bearing on the debate concerning thick evaluative concepts. While the aim is to argue that pessimism holds, not to explain why it holds, I provide an indication in closing of what that explanation might be. (shrink)

Contemporary phenomenal externalists are motivated to a large extent by the transparency of experience and by the related doctrine of representationalism. On their own, however, transparency and representationalism do not suffice to establish externalism. Hence we should hesitate to dismiss phenomenal internalism, a view shared by many generations of competent philosophers. Rather, we should keep both our options open, internalism and externalism. It is hard, however, to see how to keep open the internalist option, for although transparency and representationalism have (...) not yet definitively established externalism, they have indeed made it quite intuitive. Internalism, by comparison, comes across at first sight as antiquated and ridden with difficulties. This is why I propose the Stained Glass model of consciousness. I do so with the following two aims: first, to make internalism intuitive in the age of transparency, and second, to show how to resist the many recent anti-internalist arguments. In particular, I argue that phenomenal internalism need not be epistemically worrisome, that it is compatible at once with transparency, representationalism, and content externalism, and that although it requires an error theory, this error theory is a harmless one. (shrink)

To improve oneself and grow professionally, career development has been found to be crucial, as it serves as a roadmap for the professional growth of employees. However, a barrier, known as the glass ceiling, hinders the progress of employees, especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community. This study explores the impact of the glass ceiling on the career development of selected LGBTQIA+ individuals, shedding light on the barriers faced by this community in the workplace. The researchers used a qualitative (...) multiple-case study and selected ten (10) LGBTQIA+ participants from large enterprises via the judgmental sampling technique. Through thematic analysis, psychological impact, workplace discomfort, lack of recognition, and career progress challenges emerged as the impacts of the glass ceiling on the participants. Strategies for overcoming glass ceiling barriers, such as resilience, self-reflection, and community support, are identified. Thus, the study found that glass ceilings are really evident in the context of businesses. With this, the proposed advocacy plan in the study suggests interventions like workplace inclusion training, mentorship networks, and seminars on employee rights. Furthermore, it emphasizes the call for ongoing research and advocacy efforts to dismantle barriers and cultivate workplaces that not only embrace diversity but also provide equitable opportunities for career growth. (shrink)

This study aims to grasp the two distinct artworks one is from the literary field: Penal Colony, written by F. Kafka and the other one is from painting: The Large Glass, designed by M. Duchamp. This text tries to unravel the similarities betwe- en these artworks in terms of two main significations around “The Officer” from Penal Colony and “The Bachelors” from The Large Glass. Because of their vital role on the re-production of status-quo, this text asserts that (...) there is a similarity between them in the name of being part of the dispositions of body and desire. First of all, the text focuses on Penal Colony, especially on “The Officer” in or- der to observe his obsession towards the order that ruled by former and the late officer of colony. Deleuze & Guattari conceptualize it as “abstract-machines” and it refers to a contingent state of being which is produced as an obligatory entity. Besides, The Officers’ application via a “labeling machine” on inmates creates a framewok of a dispositif in Foucauldian terminology. Secondly, it is emphasized that The Bachelors from the Large Glass for his context, due to its reference for the concept of desire and a metaphorical connotation for desire as “cocoa”. The Large Glass is also turn around the dispositif in a different way: love. It is stated that criticizing the love to nowhere which belongs to The Bachelors and it can be found that there is an abstract-machine again in back of this practice and it converts The Bachelors’ energeia to make an apparatus possible and operative. (shrink)

A two part presentation beginning with a short fictive and imaginal setting on the grounds of a glass house by a lake where an artist conducts psycho-dramas with his audience that explore the interface between the observer and the observed, interiority and exteriority and patiency and agency. Followed by a second part exploring a proto-dialectical logic that deals with the fundamentals of cerebral thought's claim to rationally order and process the "world," phenomenal, scientific or otherwise.

Bayesian confirmation theory is rife with confirmation measures. Zalabardo focuses on the probability difference measure, the probability ratio measure, the likelihood difference measure, and the likelihood ratio measure. He argues that the likelihood ratio measure is adequate, but each of the other three measures is not. He argues for this by setting out three adequacy conditions on confirmation measures and arguing in effect that all of them are met by the likelihood ratio measure but not by any of the other (...) three measures. Glass and McCartney, hereafter “G&M,” accept the conclusion of Zalabardo’s argument along with each of the premises in it. They nonetheless try to improve on Zalabardo’s argument by replacing his third adequacy condition with a weaker condition. They do this because of a worry to the effect that Zalabardo’s third adequacy condition runs counter to the idea behind his first adequacy condition. G&M have in mind confirmation in the sense of increase in probability: the degree to which E confirms H is a matter of the degree to which E increases H’s probability. I call this sense of confirmation “IP.” I set out four ways of precisifying IP. I call them “IP1,” “IP2,” “IP3,” and “IP4.” Each of them is based on the assumption that the degree to which E increases H’s probability is a matter of the distance between p and a certain other probability involving H. I then evaluate G&M’s argument in light of them. (shrink)

This paper examines how professionals (N = 32) working on artificial intelligence (AI) view structural AI ethics challenges like injustices and inequalities beyond individual agents' direct intention and control. This paper answers the research question: What are professionals’ perceptions of the structural challenges of AI (in the agri-food sector)? This empirical paper shows that it is essential to broaden the scope of ethics of AI beyond micro- and meso-levels. While ethics guidelines and AI ethics often focus on the responsibility of (...) designers and the competencies and skills of designers to take this responsibility, our results show that many structural challenges are beyond their reach. This result means that while ethics guidelines and AI ethics frameworks are helpful, there is a risk that they overlook more complicated, nuanced, and intersected structural challenges. In addition, it highlights the need to include diverse stakeholders, such as quadruple helix (QH) participants, in discussions around AI ethics rather than solely focusing on the obligations of AI developers and companies. Overall, this paper demonstrates that addressing structural challenges in AI is challenging and requires an approach that considers four requirements: (1) multi-level, (2) multi-faceted, (3) interdisciplinary, and (4) polycentric governance. (shrink)

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

ABSTRACT Dormandy’s ‘True Faith’ presents two views on the proper epistemological stance towards faith: doxastic-partialism and evidentialism. Here, I argue for a third option that cuts across the evidentialism/partialism distinction. I first analyze the Pascalian conception of faith, arguing that Pascal begins with the cognitive attitude of acceptance rather than belief. Next, I discuss Dormandy’s case for evidentialism, and contend that some evidence—the kind gained through transformative experiences—presents a difficulty for her argument. Finally, I offer my proposed view—Partialist Evidentialism—and argue (...) that this approach is necessary for acquiring some unique kinds of evidence for religious faith. (shrink)

This paper explores how the diagnosis of mental disorder may affect the diagnosed subject’s self-concept by supplying an account that emphasizes the influence of autobiographical and social narratives on self-understanding. It focuses primarily on the diagnoses made according to the criteria provided by the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and suggests that the DSM diagnosis may function as a source of narrative that affects the subject’s self-concept. Engaging in this analysis by appealing to autobiographies and memoirs written by (...) people diagnosed with mental disorder, the paper concludes that a DSM diagnosis is a double-edged sword for self- concept. On the one hand, it sets the subject’s experience in an established classificatory system which can facilitate self-understanding by providing insight into subject’s condition and guiding her personal growth, as well as treatment and recovery. In this sense, the DSM diagnosis may have positive repercussions on self-development. On the other hand, however, given the DSM’s symptom-based approach and its adoption of the Biomedical Disease model, a diagnosis may force the subject to make sense of her condition divorced from other elements in her life that may be affecting her mental- health. It may lead her frame her experience only as an irreversible imbalance. This form of self-understanding may set limits on the subject’s hopes of recovery and may create impediments to her flourishing. (shrink)

The scope of the essay is limited by the ideas behind the mechanisation of desire as conceptualised in The Large Glass by Marcel Duchamp. This glass-based installation depicts a convoluted mechanism, as the full-title of the work suggests, representing The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even. Using tropes and figures from his earlier studies, the artist designed a machine for the production of desire, rendering the unconscious mechanical and dynamic. The paper aims to present selected aspects of (...) the installation, including mechanical reproduction (1), technological fetishism (2), transparency (3), as well as to discuss its significance with reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the Body without Organs (4). The interpretive force of the machine metaphor in the work of Duchamp is analysed in the context of integrative and non-integrative attitudes to technology. (shrink)

In his Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant presents four anti- nomies. In his attempt to solve the first of these antinomies he examines and analyzes"thesis" and "antithesis" more thoroughly and employs the terms `part', `whole' and `boundary' in his argumentation for their validity. According to Kant, the whole problem surrounding the antinomy was caused by applying the concept of the world to nature and then using both terms interchangeably. While interesting, this solution is still not that much more than (...) a well thought out idea if it does not also include an adequate formal explication. Since the aforementioned terms all have counterparts in modern mereotopology, a discipline that has seen significant progress in recent times, we will apply these concepts to Kant's analysis in an attempt to evaluate Kant's solution in light of modern analytic philosophy. (shrink)

[Winner of the 2017 AILACT Essay Prize Prize.] I argue against the skeptical epistemological view exemplified by the Groarkes that “all theories of informal argument must face the regress problem.” It is true that in our theoretical representations of reasoning, infinite regresses of self-justification regularly and inadvertently arise with respect to each of the RSA criteria for argument cogency (the premises are to be relevant, sufficient, and acceptable). But they arise needlessly, by confusing an RSA criterion with argument content, usually (...) premise material. (shrink)

[Winner of the 2017 AILACT Essay Prize Prize.] I argue against the skeptical epistemological view exemplified by the Groarkes that “all theories of informal argument must face the regress problem.” It is true that in our theoretical representations of reasoning, infinite regresses of self-justification regularly and inadvertently arise with respect to each of the RSA criteria for argument cogency (the premises are to be relevant, sufficient, and acceptable). But they arise needlessly, by confusing an RSA criterion with argument content, usually (...) premise material. (shrink)

This article owes a lot to Arthur C. Danto's heuristic writings about the Artworld, which have shown us, that the ontological status of works of art is, at least when we discuss some current, maybe even dominating trends in contemporary art, dependent on our more or less philosophical interpretations of them. The effects of the Dantoan atmosphere of theory and art historical consciousness are, still, decisive for just some contemporary art. Danto's interest in the philosophical side of contemporary art makes (...) his philosophy of art exclusive in relation to art which is less philosophically appealing than the readymade tradition, to the extent that Danto did not, for a long time, even try to incorporate problems of beauty, aesthetic experience, and formal qualities, to his theory of the Artworld. (Opening paragraph.). (shrink)

c.4,000 word critical discussion of Fabre's book. Provides an overview of the book plus comments on the themes of (i) loyalty and treason and (ii) the ethics of spying and sex.

In the life and work of Marcel Duchamp, there is the combination of the visual and the ideational in works such as The Large Glass, the combination of art and chess within his productive activity, the combination of this productive activity and the ways he made money to live, and the combination of the artwork and the viewer in art’s ongoing developmental movements. These combinations provide a content that can be used to create an understanding of the operation of (...) combination itself. This combination can then be conceptualised through a demarcation of its general features: the layered structural basis of how multiple combinations constitute a combinational whole, and the way in which the purpose of combination becomes the driver of its developmental movements. Another purpose could be to open other terrains of thought for the development of philosophy, allowing a renewed source of momentum through a combinational method. (shrink)

Visitors is a hybrid art film fusing photography and music into a complex abstract texture for the attention of the viewer. It is also a requiem for our ‘New Order for the Ages’ in which humanity grows more and more technologically interconnected and communality means being alone together. We argue that Visitors can be experienced as a seeing aid designed to situate the viewer bewilderingly as needing to reacquire the capacity to see human beings as human beings. This is achieved (...) by various cinematic strategies of dépaysement, which render the familiar uncommon again by enabling us to recapture the uncanniness of what it is to be human. Most strikingly, seeing one another anew is facilitated in Visitors by the autonomous gradual musical processes of Philip Glass’s minimalist score, which not only affords a musical narrative for the imagery but also binds the film ironically to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. (shrink)

Augmented Reality (AR), driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), is transforming how we interact with the world. Recent technologies, like AI-powered smart glasses, are increasingly blending the physical and digital realms. While AR presents exciting new possibilities, it also raises deeper philosophical questions about what we consider reality.

In this first edition of Introduction to materials and production technologies, the reader will find a practical guide to agile a conceptual approach to materials and processing technologies. The text is organized into seven main chapters: ceramics, composites, wood and derivatives, metal alloys, paints, plastics and glass. Through alphabetic tables, various commercial types are listed. Each chapter culminates with picture and analytical development of various technologies applicable in each case. Moreover, the text is supplemented with photos, explanatory images, spreadsheets (...) and commercial grading prepackaged measures. This work is based on the Scientific Report Final Adopted (Resolution CIC No. 685/02) on the topic "Relationship between new materials and durability of goods or products", held at the Department of Industrial Design at the National University of La Plata, under the Scholarship Program of the Committee on Scientific Research of the Province of Buenos Aires, granted by Decree No. 4468/98 and Resolution CIC No. 1919/99. This publication is intended for students, technical and professional disciplines proyectuales. It is a useful tool for those who wish to have a clear and comprehensive picture of the different materials and production processes query. -/- RESUMEN. En esta primera edición de Introducción a los materiales y tecnologías de producción, el lector encontrará una guía práctica ágil para una aproximación conceptual a los materiales y sus tecnologías de transformación. El texto está organizado en siete capítulos principales: cerámicos, compuestos, maderas y derivados, aleaciones metálicas, pinturas, plásticos y vidrios. A través de cuadros alfabéticos, se enumeran los diversos tipos comerciales. Cada capítulo culmina con el cuadro y desarrollo analítico de las distintas tecnologías aplicables en cada caso. Además, el texto se complementa con fotos, imágenes explicativas, planillas de clasificación y medidas comerciales de preelaborados. Este trabajo está basado en el Informe Científico Final Aprobado (Resolución CIC N° 685/02) sobre el tema: “Relación entre nuevos materiales y la durabilidad en bienes o productos”, realizado en el Departamento de Diseño Industrial de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, en el marco del Programa de Becas de la Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, otorgadas por Decreto Nº 4468/98 y Resolución CIC Nº 1919/99. Esta publicación está dirigida a estudiantes, técnicos y profesionales de disciplinas proyectuales. Es una herramienta de consulta útil para todos aquellos que deseen tener una idea clara y comprensiva de los distintos materiales y los procesos de producción. (shrink)

Perceptual experiences are not immediately responsive to reasons. You see a stick submerged in a glass of water as bent no matter how much you know about light refraction. Due to this isolation from reasons, perception is traditionally considered outside the scope of epistemic evaluability as justified or unjustified. Is perception really as independent from reasons as visual illusions make it out to be? I argue no, drawing on psychological evidence from perceptual learning. The flexibility of perceptual learning is (...) a way of responding to new epistemic reasons. The resulting perceptual experiences are epistemically evaluable as justified or unjustified. (shrink)

There has been a surge of interest over cases where a subject sincerely endorses P while displaying discordant strains of not-P in her behaviour and emotion. Cases like this are telling because they bear directly upon conditions under which belief should be ascribed. Are beliefs to be aligned with what we sincerely endorse or with what we do and feel? If belief doesn’t explain the discordant strains, what does? T.S. Gendler has recently attempted to explain all the discordances by introducing (...) a controversial new cognitive category—associative clusters called ‘alief’. Others think that belief explains all the discordancy cases, while others argue that in-between belief does the trick, and so on. Most advocates of the different positions, indeed, assume that their favoured analysis will explain the whole range of discordancy cases. This paper defends what I call the ‘contextual view’, where I argue that overturning this assumption of uniformity leads to more nuanced account of belief-ascription. On the contextual view, which analysis applies to which case depends on the discordancy case at hand. Perhaps a height-phobic stepping on a glass platform deserves different treatment to a hesitant stepper. I ground the contextual view in a biologically functional account of the alief/belief distinction, which construes alief as a real cognitive category but without the explanatory reach Gendler gives it. This functional distinction yields a principled strategy for determining the correct application of analysis to discordancy case. (shrink)

Using Riemann’s Rearrangement Theorem, Øystein Linnebo (2020) argues that, if it were possible to apply an infinite positive weight and an infinite negative weight to a working scale, the resulting net weight could end up being any real number, depending on the procedure by which these weights are applied. Appealing to the First Postulate of Archimedes’ treatise on balance, I argue instead that the scale would always read 0 kg. Along the way, we stop to consider an infinitely jittery flea, (...) an infinitely protracted border conflict, and an infinitely electric glass rod. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Max Deutsch argues that there is no “qua problem” for purely causal theories of reference, according to which the extensions of some expressions are grounded in causal relations to members of their extensions during dubbing acts. The qua problem is the difficulty in specifying the facts in virtue of which the reference of “elephant” is grounded by causal contact with something _qua_ elephant and not _qua_ its other properties. If no such specification can be given, reference (...) remains unacceptably indeterminate. This has led many to abandon purely causal reference grounding. Deutsch’s argument for the dissolution of the problem goes as follows: we usually agree that an event can cause its effect _qua_ some of its properties and not _qua_ others. For example, a hot acidic solution causes a glass beaker to break due to its heat and not due to its acidity. Given this assumption, we can simply say that an event caused a dubbing act _qua_ the causally relevant property and not _qua_ the causally irrelevant properties, thus grounding the reference of the term; the qua problem has vanished. I will argue that causal mechanisms, and in particular the facts about causal relevance appealed to by Deutsch, are insufficient to dissolve the qua problem. It is not generally the case that a _unique_ property is causally relevant in purely physical cases of causation; but this is precisely what is required to avoid the referential indeterminacy highlighted by the qua problem. I will demonstrate that if we rely on causal relevance to dissolve the qua problem, there is no way to respect the uniqueness requirement: there are too many properties that are causally relevant to the occurrence of any single dubbing act, including the intentional states of the dubber. (shrink)

Are materially constituted entities, such as statues and glasses of liquid, something more than their material constituents? The puzzle that frames this paper stems from conflicting answers to this question. At the core of the paper is a distinctive way of thinking about material constitution that posits two concepts of constitution, compositional and ampliative constitution, with the bulk of the discussion devoted to developing distinct analyses for these concepts. Distinguishing these concepts solves our initial puzzle and enriches the space of (...) possibilities for constitution views. (shrink)

One of the most conspicuous features of contemporary modeling practices is the dissemination of mathematical and computational methods across disciplinary boundaries. We study this process through two applications of the Ising model: the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model of spin glasses and the Hopfield model of associative memory. The Hopfield model successfully transferred some basic ideas and mathematical methods originally developed within the study of magnetic systems to the field of neuroscience. As an analytical resource we use Paul Humphreys's discussion of computational and (...) theoretical templates. We argue that model templates are crucial for the intra- and interdisciplinary theoretical transfer. A model template is an abstract conceptual idea associated with particular mathematical forms and computational methods. (shrink)

I distinguish among a range of distinct representational devices, which I call "frames", all of which have the function of providing a perspective on a subject: an overarching intuitive principle or for noticing, explaining, and responding to it. Starting with Max Black's metaphor of metaphor as etched lines on smoked glass, I explain what makes frames in general powerful cognitive tools. I distinguish metaphor from some of its close cousins, especially telling details, just-so stories, and analogies, in ordinary cognition (...) and communication. And I use these distinctions to illustrate different sorts of gaps that frames or models can open up between representation and reality. (shrink)

Michael Walzer’s use of John Stuart Mill’s A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859) helped to inaugurate it as a canonical text of international theory. However, Walzer’s use of the text was highly selective because he viewed the first half as a historically parochial discussion of British foreign policy, and his interest in the second was restricted to the passages in which Mill proposes principles of international morality to govern foreign military interventions to protect third parties. As a result, theorists tend (...) to see those canonized passages as if through a glass darkly. Attention to the detail and context of Mill’s first-half critique of Lord Palmerston’s opposition to the Suez Canal project reveals that his discussion of purely protective intervention is embedded in a broader exploration of the limits of self-defence, including the moral permissibility of preventive military force and the use of protective interventions for defensive purposes. Moreover, reading the text holistically facilitates a refutation of some objections directed at it by Michael Doyle to the effect that Mill’s conception of self-defence incorporates elements of aggression which makes it extremely dangerous when adapted for application to the contemporary world. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a line of argument against one form of realism about fictional characters : abstract artifact theory, the view according to which fictional characters like Harry Potter are part of our reality, but, they are abstract objects created by humans, akin to the institution of marriage and the game of soccer. I will defend artifactualism against an objection that Mark Sainsbury considers decisive against it: the category-mistake objection. The objection has it that artifactualism attributes to people (...) who produce and process sentences and thoughts about Harry Potter massive error, indeed, a category mistake about what kind of thing Harry Potter is; for an abstract object isn’t the sort of thing that can wear glasses, ride a double-decker bus, attend school. Given problems with this objection, artifactualism, I shall conclude, remains a tenable contender. (shrink)

Disintegration is the most important step for drug bioavailability because after, the disintegration process, the ingredients of solid dosage forms dissolve and become bioavailable. Generally, the tablets and capsules should be taken with a glass of water otherwise the manufacturer gives instructions to use the proper beverage. Several drugs are taken with different forms of beverages to ensure easy swallowing of the tablet, masking the bad taste of the drug and overcoming the drug aftertaste, these beverages can influence the (...) disintegration of the solid dosage form. The most common cold beverages consumed by the Libyan population are juice, milk, and Coca-Cola. These beverages are consumed without awareness of the possible effect of these beverages on drugs, especially over-the-counter drugs such as analgesic, antipyretic, and anti-inflammatory drugs that are taken without a prescription. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of three beverages, namely: orange juice, milk, and Coca-Cola on the disintegration time of four over-the-counter-drugs: Panadol, Congestal, Brufen, and Reality Extra using disintegration test of drugs in 0.1 N HCL and in hybrid medium prepared by combination of 150 ml 0.1 N HCL and 550 ml of beverage to simulate in vivo condition. The findings show that the orange juice significantly increases the disintegration time of all the investigated drugs. Coca-Cola significantly increases the disintegration time of Reality Extra, and slightly increases the disintegration time of Brufen, Congestal, and Panadol and the full-fat milk significantly increases the disintegration time of Reality Extra and Panadol while slightly increasing the disintegration time for Brufen and Congestal. It is concluded that commonly used beverages affect the disintegration time of the examined over-the-counter drugs. Patients should be advised to take these medications without beverages which may delay the disintegration and the onset of action of the drug. (shrink)