Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar uma perspectiva feminista da epistemologia social. A partir desta, criticar a ideia de universalização da verdade feita através do método tradicional da epistemologia analítica e das ciências, frequentemente ditas como neutras ou não corporificadas. Proponho demonstrar que o pesquisador é um corpo enquanto localização, isto é, está situado socialmente e historicamente, evidenciando suas consequência dentro da pesquisa científica. Para tanto, terei como principal escopo argumentativo as contribuições de Donna Haraway e Sandra Harding a (...) fim de articular a ideia de uma objetividade do conhecimento através de saberes que são localizados. Por fim, apontar essa perspectiva enquanto uma das ramificações essenciais para a epistemologia social. (shrink)

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2014). 'Hobbes and the question of power'. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 52(1), 61-86. Thomas Hobbes has been hailed as the philosopher of power par excellence; however, I demonstrate that Hobbes’s conceptualization of political power is not stable across his texts. Once the distinction is made between the authorized and the effective power of the sovereign, it is no longer sufficient simply to defend a doctrine of the authorized power of the sovereign; such (...) a doctrine must be robustly complemented by an account of how the effective power commensurate to this authority might be achieved. Nor is this straightforward: for effective political power can fluctuate, sometimes severely. In this light, the prevalent juridical reading of Hobbes’s political philosophy is inadequate. (shrink)

Since approval of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, it has been widely and repeatedly claimed that the GDPR will legally mandate a ‘right to explanation’ of all decisions made by automated or artificially intelligent algorithmic systems. This right to explanation is viewed as an ideal mechanism to enhance the accountability and transparency of automated decision-making. However, there are several reasons to doubt both the legal existence and the feasibility of such a right. In contrast to the (...) right to explanation of specific automated decisions claimed elsewhere, the GDPR only mandates that data subjects receive meaningful, but properly limited, information (Articles 13-15) about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of automated decision-making systems, what we term a ‘right to be informed’. Further, the ambiguity and limited scope of the ‘right not to be subject to automated decision-making’ contained in Article 22 (from which the alleged ‘right to explanation’ stems) raises questions over the protection actually afforded to data subjects. These problems show that the GDPR lacks precise language as well as explicit and well-defined rights and safeguards against automated decision-making, and therefore runs the risk of being toothless. We propose a number of legislative and policy steps that, if taken, may improve the transparency and accountability of automated decision-making when the GDPR comes into force in 2018. (shrink)

To create fair and accountable AI and robotics, we need precise regulation and better methods to certify, explain, and audit inscrutable systems.

This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorised power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats–whether drawing on Hobbes's 'sleeping sovereign' or on Spinoza's 'multitude'–understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as for instance popular plebsites or mass movements. However, the book argues that these (...) understandings reflect a residual scholasticism which Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book's revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity), and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism, or Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power. Three minute video summary available via HPBin3. Extended discussion on The Political Theory Review podcast. First chapter open access available via Oxford Scholarship Online. Videos of book talks at National University of Singapore (Centre for Legal Theory) and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani) available via YouTube. (See links below.). (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes has been hailed as the philosopher of power par excellence; however, I demonstrate that Hobbes’s conceptualization of political power is not stable across his texts. Once the distinction is made between the authorized and the effective power of the sovereign, it is no longer sufficient simply to defend a doctrine of the authorized power of the sovereign; such a doctrine must be robustly complemented by an account of how the effective power commensurate to this authority might be achieved. (...) Nor is this straightforward: for effective political power can fluctuate, sometimes severely. In this light, the prevalent juridical reading of Hobbes’s political philosophy is inadequate. (shrink)

Although high-performance human resource practices do not directly affect corporate social performance strengths, they do positively affect CSP strengths in companies that are highly innovative or have high levels of slack. High-performance human resource management practices also directly and negatively affect CSP concerns. Drawing on the resource-based view and using secondary data from an objective, third-party database, the authors develop and test hypotheses about how high-performance HRM affects a company’s CSP strengths and concerns. Findings suggest that HRM and innovation are (...) important capabilities because they create and enhance other capabilities. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

Introduction: Online eye-tracking has been used in this study to assess the impacts of different cultural backgrounds on information discernment. An online platform called RealEye allowed participants to engage in the eye-tracking study from their personal computer webcams, allowing for higher ecological validity and a closer replication of social media interaction. -/- Methods: The study consisted of two parts with a total of five visuals of social media posts mimicking news posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Participants were asked to (...) view examples of real and fake news taken from a news fact-checking website, Snopes, and their eye movements were recorded during the process. Participants were recruited through Prolific and SONA; the total sample size for study 1.1 was 29 participants, and the total for study 1.2 was 25 participants, after removing poor eye-tracking data. A total of five visual images comprising true and false news were shown to the participant, study 1.1 had three examples and study 1.2 had two examples. There were two main cultural backgrounds in focus: participants born in China or the United Kingdom. -/- Results: Results suggested that participants follow a similar visual pattern of attention to Areas of Interest (AOIs) on the posts, which leads us to believe that due to the global standardisation of popular social media platforms, a bias might have occurred during information discernment. -/- Discussion: It is suggested that regardless of country background, users may have similar eye-tracking results while viewing a social media post because social media platform formats are standardised globally. Further research would recommend looking at language and linguistic traits when seeking differences between country backgrounds during online information discernment. (shrink)

In May 2021, Alan Bechaz, Racher Du, Will Cailes and Thomas Spiteri interviewed Sandra Leonie Field for UPJA’s Conversations from the Region. A series of discussions that invites philosophers from or based in Australasia to share their student and academic experiences. The segment looks into what inspires people to study philosophy, how they pursue their philosophical interests, and gives our audiences a better idea of philosophy as an undergraduate.

ABSTRACT Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped differently by their various embodied social contexts. Furthermore, we can use the resources of the imagination to bring this ethos about. In my response, (...) I offer a friendly challenge to Lloyd’s characterisation of the lessons of Spinoza’s philosophy. I argue that Lloyd’s Spinoza remains excessively unpolitical, even in the moment that he is brought to bear on contemporary politics. An unpluralistic attitude may well be rationally inferior, but is it really explained by insufficient or inappropriate imagination? To the contrary, a properly Spinozist account of reason must include an account of the concrete determinants of reason’s imperfect realisation in the world. In Spinoza’s own oeuvre, this is carried out through an ever-increasing—and ever more sociological—interest in the political structures within which individual reason flourishes or withers. (shrink)

According to a recent interpretive orthodoxy, Spinoza is a profoundly democratic theorist of state authority. I reject this orthodoxy. To be sure, for Spinoza, a political order succeeds in proportion as it harnesses the power of the people within it. However, Spinoza shows that political inclusion is only one possible strategy to this end; equally if not more useful is political exclusion, so long as it maintains what I call the depoliticised acquiescence of those excluded.

Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I argue that Spinoza’s philosophy does not support Negri’s project. I argue that the Spinozist multitude avoids internal hierarchy through the mediation of political institutions and not in (...) spite of them; nor do these institutions merely emanate from the multitude as it is, but rather they structure, restrain and channel its passions. In particular, the required institutions are not those of a simple direct democracy. There may be other non-Spinozist arguments on which Negri can ground his theory, but he cannot legitimately defend his conception of the democratic multitude by appeal to Spinoza. (shrink)

Hobbes’s science of politics rests on a dual analysis of human beings: humans as complex material bodies in a network of mechanical forces, prone to passions and irrationality; and humans as subjects of right and obligation, morally exhortable by appeal to the standards of reason. The science of politics proposes an absolutist model of politics. If this proposal is not to be idle utopianism, the enduring functioning of the model needs to be compatible with the materialist analysis of human behaviour. (...) In this paper, I argue that Hobbes's attempts to render his science of politics compatible with his materialism are only partly successful; a fuller compatibility is achieved in the political writings of Spinoza. -/- Published with reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 221-224. Reprinted as: Sandra Field (2015), 'Hobbes and human irrationality', in T. Nardin (ed.) Rationality in Politics and its Limits, Abingdon: Routledge, 31-44. With reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 45-48. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author articulates two Hobbesian models of interpersonal power relations that can be used to understand gender relations: what he will call the dominion model and the deference model. Hobbes himself analyses the relation between men and women through the dominion model. The author lays out Hobbes's model of interpersonal power relations as dominion, including his application of the model to the case of gender relations. The centerpiece of Hobbes's method is his “state of nature” thought experiment. (...) Hobbes's analysis is radical insofar as he understands familial relations according to the general model of interpersonal relations just outlined, without any reference to sui generis principles. The author indicates some shortcomings of the dominion model for grasping contemporary social life. The much‐celebrated social contract between equal male citizens is quietly underpinned by the sexual contract, a contract of domination between men and women. (shrink)

It is common to assimilate Marx’s and Spinoza’s conceptions of democracy. In this chapter, I assess the relation between Marx’s early idea of “true democracy” and Spinozist democracy, both the historical influence and the theoretical affinity. Drawing on Marx’s student notebooks on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, I show there was a historical influence. However, at the theoretical level, I argue that a sharp distinction must be drawn. Philosophically, Spinoza’s commitment to understanding politics through real concrete powers does not support with Marx’s (...) anti-institutional conception of true democracy. And as a matter of social theory, the gap between civil society and the state which so troubles Marx is a development of modernity that has not entered Spinoza's premodern field of view. Marx’s true democracy was also influenced by his study of Rousseau, and theoretically, it is just as close if not closer to Rousseau as to Spinoza. (shrink)

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2012). 'Democracy and the multitude: Spinoza against Negri'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 59(131), 21-40. Translated by María Cecilia Padilla and Gonzalo Ricci Cernadas. Negri celebra una concepción de la democracia en la que los poderes concretos de los individuos humanos no se alienan sino que se agregan: una democracia de la multitud. Pero ¿cómo puede actuar la multitud sin alienar el poder de nadie? Para contestar esta dificultad, Negri explícitamente apela (...) a Spinoza. Sin embargo, en este trabajo, sostengo que la filosofía de Spinoza no respalda el proyecto de Negri. Por el contrario, argumento que la multitud spinozista evita la jerarquía interna por medio de la mediación de las instituciones políticas y no a pesar de ellas; de la misma manera, estas instituciones tampoco simplemente emanan de la multitud tal cual es, sino que estructuran, contienen y canalizan sus pasiones. En particular, las instituciones requeridas no son las de la democracia simple y directa. Puede ser que existan otros argumentos no spinozistas en los cuales Negri pueda basar su teoría, pero no puede defender legítimamente su concepción de la multitud democrática apelando a Spinoza. (shrink)

Integrity is often conceived as a heroic ideal: the person of integrity sticks to what they believe is right, regardless of the consequences. In this article, I defend a conception of ordinary integrity, for people who either do not desire or are unable to be moral martyrs. Drawing on the writings of seventeenth century thinker Huang Zongxi, I propose refocussing attention away from an abstract ideal of integrity, to instead consider the institutional conditions whereby it is made safe not to (...) be servile. (shrink)

Political protesters often don’t play by the rules. Think of the Occupy Movement, which brought lower Manhattan to a standstill in 2011 under the slogan, “We are the 99%”. Closer to home, think of the refugee activists who assisted a breakout from South Australia’s Woomera detention centre in 2002. Both are examples of contentious politics, or forms of political engagement outside the institutional channels of political decision-making. The democratic credentials of contentious politics are highly ambivalent. On the one hand, contentious (...) politics appears to have insufficient respect for democratic decision. Protesters are often forceful, uncivil and rowdy, aiming to disproportionately influence policy. But shouldn’t proposals be put forward with civility through the proper channels? And shouldn’t their proponents accept with good grace if they are democratically rebuffed? A closer look at the history of political thought can provide us with the framework to assess the case for and against the democratic reasonableness of contentious politics. (shrink)

The European Hobbes Society Online Colloquium featured my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics. This is a précis of the book.

This volume offers a collection of in-depth explorations of pragmatism as a framework for discussions in philosophy of science and metaphysics. Each chapter involves explicit reflection on what it means to be pragmatist, and how to use pragmatism as a guiding framework in addressing topics such as realism, unification, fundamentality, truth, laws, reduction, and more. -/- .

The European Hobbes Society Online Colloquium featured my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics, with critical commentaries from Alissa MacMillan, Chris Holman, and Justin Steinberg. This is my response to their commentaries.

In October 2016, the White House, the European Parliament, and the UK House of Commons each issued a report outlining their visions on how to prepare society for the widespread use of artificial intelligence. In this article, we provide a comparative assessment of these three reports in order to facilitate the design of policies favourable to the development of a ‘good AI society’. To do so, we examine how each report addresses the following three topics: the development of a ‘good (...) AI society’; the role and responsibility of the government, the private sector, and the research community in pursuing such a development; and where the recommendations to support such a development may be in need of improvement. Our analysis concludes that the reports address adequately various ethical, social, and economic topics, but come short of providing an overarching political vision and long-term strategy for the development of a ‘good AI society’. In order to contribute to fill this gap, in the conclusion we suggest a two-pronged approach. (shrink)

Students often have difficulty connecting theoretical and text-based scholarship to the real world. When teaching in Asia, this disconnection is exacerbated by the European/American focus of many canonical texts, whereas students' own experiences are primarily Asian. However, in my discipline of political philosophy, this problem receives little recognition nor is it comprehensively addressed. In this paper, I propose that the problem must be taken seriously, and I share my own experiences with a novel pedagogical strategy which might offer a possible (...) path forward. Recent scholarship has championed an active learning approach, where students engage in their own research, and deliver outward-facing products that have a meaning and purpose beyond the confines of the student-professor relationship. In this spirit, I have put into practice a strategy of course design, where active learning is used to overcome students' disconnection with the course content. In particular, as a major component of course assessment, students are required to write an 'opinion piece', which is then showcased on a public website. The opinion piece must address a real-world issue which the student himself or herself selects and deems important; furthermore, it must build on the theoretical tools of the course and be written in a style which makes it accessible to a wider audience. I discuss the implementation of this strategy in two political philosophy courses, including strategies to avoid 'dumbing down' and ‘diluting’ the process of critical thinking. While no formal analysis of impact of the strategy on learning outcomes has been conducted, an anonymous pedagogical survey has yielded an overwhelmingly positive response for students' self-reported perceptions of the curricular innovations. (shrink)

Is there something about the deep logic of democracy that destines it to succeed in the world? Democracy, the form of politics that includes everyone as equals – does it perhaps suit human nature better than the alternatives? After all, surely any person who is excluded from the decision-making in a society will be more liable to rise up against it. From ancient thinkers like Seneca to contemporary thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, we can see some version of this line of (...) thought. Seneca thought that tyrannies could never last long; Fukuyama famously argued that liberal democracy is the end of history. I want to focus instead on the person credited with giving the most direct and uncompromising statement of this thought: Benedict de Spinoza. However, in this article, I argue to the contrary that Spinoza’s view of aristocracy should give pause to radical democrats. He does not see a historical movement towards democracy, nor does he see the superiority of democracy as written into human nature. (shrink)

It has been over two decades since Miranda Fricker labeled epistemic injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their capacity as a knower. The philosophical literature has proliferated with variants and related concepts. By considering cases in popular music, we argue that it is worth distinguishing a parallel phenomenon of art-interpretive injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their creative capacity as a possible artist. In section 1, we consider the prosecutorial use of rap lyrics in court as (...) a central case of this injustice. In section 2, we distinguish art-interpretive injustice from other categories already discussed in recent literature. In section 3, we discuss the relationship between genre discourse and identity prejudice. The case for recognizing the category of art-interpretive injustice is that it allows one to recognize a class of harms as being importantly related in ways that one would otherwise overlook. (shrink)

This paper gives a theory of quantum gravity based on the Presentist Fragmentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is a dialogue with the AI Claude Ultra 3.0.

Presentist Fragmentalism is a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper develops the resulting theory of Quantum Gravity.

The concept of imperium is central to Spinoza's political philosophy. Imperium denotes authority to rule, or sovereignty. By extension, it also denotes the political order structured by that sovereignty, or in other words, the state. Spinoza argues that reason recommends that we live in a state, and indeed, humans are hardly ever outside a state. But what is the source and scope of the sovereignty under which we live? In some sense, it is linked to popular power, but how precisely, (...) and how is this popular grounding to be reconciled with the absolutist elements in Spinoza's texts? Against prominent liberal and radical democratic interpretations, I argue that Spinoza's insistence on linking imperium to the power of the people amounts to a normative attitude towards politics in which the formal features of a political system are less significant than the concrete everyday functioning of that system. Furthermore, I argue that its good functioning is importantly a product of an institutional order which does not simply defer to human individuality or to the primordial multitude, but instead, actively shapes them. While it may be worthwhile railing against monarchy and aristocracy and demanding liberal or radical democracy, the prior and more important challenge is to increase the robustness and resilience of the multitude within whatever form of state presents itself, through boring, meticulous, and incremental institutional design. For Spinoza, it is a robust and resilient political order that truly merits being called absolute. (shrink)

Two philosophical arguments gave the novel interpretation of quantum mechanics Presentist Fragmentalism. This paper gives the resulting theory of quantum gravity.

El objetivo de este artículo es indagar acerca de la noción de “pasividad” que caracteriza al sujeto en el proyecto ético de Emmanuel Levinas. Un sujeto que es y está entregado al Otro, más allá de toda decisión voluntaria y de cualquier relación fáctica. La “pasividad” es la noción que permite comprender la contextura de la subjetividad levinasiana, su modo de constituirse, de “realizarse”, así como algo que denominaremos su “condición segunda”. La pasividad aparece en el pensamiento de Levinas como (...) la noción que le permite articular su ética, en tanto que ésta se funda en una responsabilidad que acontece en el extremo abandono de las certidumbres del “si mismo”, del “yo”. (shrink)

Pekakak adalah salah satu tokoh yang memiliki pengetahuan mendalam dan perencanaan yang cermat. Saat fajar menyingsing, ia terlihat bertengger di atas pohon. Dengan kemampuan sempurna untuk mengontrol kecepatan penerbangan miliknya, seperti kapan harus memperlambat atau mempercepat, dia dapat dengan mudah menghitung cara optimal untuk menangkap ikan.

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone indagar acerca de la distinción entre el Decir y lo Dicho en la obra de Emmanuel Levinas. Esta distinción sirve a Levinas para proponer una comprensión ética del lenguaje, en la que la significación y la expresión sean capaces de superar las limitaciones y determinaciones del lenguaje sistemático de la ontología, del ser y las esencias. Sobre la base de que el “lenguaje de la ontología” es impertinente para comprender, expresar o comunicar esa “experiencia ética” fundamental (...) del encuentro “cara a cara” con el Rostro del Otro: la experiencia misma de la significancia misma, Levinas propone una comprensión pre-ontológica del lenguaje. Esta comprensión pre-ontológica sería capaz de dar respuesta a las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál es el lenguaje, la palabra propia, de ese sujeto pasivo, de ese sujeto que es rehén del Otro , que está sujeto a él? ¿Cuál es el lenguaje del dar-se, qué palabra puede hacerse cargo de lo que es siempre in-apropiable? ¿Cómo será ese lenguaje que intenta decir lo otro del ser, ese lenguaje capaz de “traducir” la significancia que se da en la experiencia ética originaria, aquella en la que la “unicidad insustituible de una persona se expone a otra persona”? En este sentido, proponemos que el Decir es, con respecto a lo dicho, su tener-lugar, la posibilidad misma de comunicación y expresión, en la que se expone la condición pasiva del sujeto. Por otra parte, en la medida en que el Decir es la expresión de la significancia que adviene en la proximidad con el Otro, el Decir es siempre testimonial.This text proposes an inquiry regarding the distinction between the Saying and the Said in Emmanuel Levinas works. Levinas uses this distinction to propose an ethical understanding of language, where significance and expression are capable of overcoming the limitations of ontology`s systematic language, of the being, and the essences. On the basis of that “the language of ontology” is impertinent to understand, express, or communicate this “ethical experience” fundamental for the “face to face encounter” with the Face of the Other: the experience of significance itself, Levinas proposes a pre-ontologic understanding of language. This pre-ontologic understanding would be capable of answering the following questions: What is the language, the word itself of that passive subject, that subject who is a hostage of the Other who is attached to him? Which is the language of giving oneself, which word can take charge of what is always non appropriable? What kind of language will it be that tries to say the other of the being, that language able to “translate” the significance given in the original ethical experience, that where the “irreplaceable uniqueness of a person is being exposed to another person”? In this respect, we propose that the Saying is, regarding the said, its having-occurred, the possibility itself of communicating and expressing, where the passive condition of the subject is exposed. On the other hand, in the measure that the Saying is the expression of the significance which occurs in the proximity with the Other, the Saying is always testimonial. (shrink)

Modern-day societies seem to be dominated by a hedonistic approach to happiness. A less short-term and more process-based definition of happiness - eudaimonism - has been proposed by Aristotle. Can this definition of happiness exist in consumer societies as proposed by Zygmunt Bauman and how can we begin to explore such a question? This essay will provide a comparison between two ideal types: eudaimonism and consumer society. With this comparison, we hope to provide a conceptual framework for further research within (...) this subject. (shrink)

This paper attempts to demonstrate that in Emmanuel Levinas’ thinking, justice is the necessary opening – and dissolution- of the “I” which makes fecundity – procreation – possible, and that in that same measure makes possible that the Logos transforms into a “desire to say” and the world into a “among us”. At the same time it wants to demonstrate that this notion of justice is directly related to the ideas of expression and nudity. Due to which the “Other” imposes (...) itself in front of the “same” , as man, singular and vulnerable, and that in the same measure it is linked to the notion of the Face and its particular mode of manifestation. In this respect, we propose that justice. As long as necessary condition, can fund an ethically constituted world, where an “erotic order” mandates over logic orderings. (shrink)

A pair of C functions are defined such that D has the halting problem proof's pathological relationship to simulating termination analyzer H. When H correctly determines that D correctly simulated by H cannot possibly reach its own line 06 and halt then H is necessarily correct to reject D as specifying non-halting behavior. This exact same reasoning is applied to the Peter Linz Turing machine based halting problem proof.

This paper is aimed at understanding one central aspect of Bolzano's views on deductive knowledge: what it means for a proposition and for a term to be known a priori. I argue that, for Bolzano, a priori knowledge is knowledge by virtue of meaning and that Bolzano has substantial views about meaning and what it is to know the latter. In particular, Bolzano believes that meaning is determined by implicit definition, i.e. the fundamental propositions in a deductive system. I go (...) into some detail in presenting and discussing Bolzano's views on grounding, a priori knowledge and implicit definition. I explain why other aspects of Bolzano's theory and, in particular, his peculiar understanding of analyticity and the related notion of Ableitbarkeit might, as it has invariably in the past, mislead one to believe that Bolzano lacks a significant account oï a priori knowledge. Throughout the paper, I point out to the ways in which, in this respect, Bolzano's antagonistic relationship to Kant directly shaped his own views. (shrink)

The problem considered in this chapter emerges from the tension we find when looking at the design and architecture of chatbots on the one hand and their conversational aptitude on the other. In the way that LLM chatbots are designed and built, we have good reason to suppose they don't possess second-order capacities such as intention, belief or knowledge. Yet theories of conversation make great use of second-order capacities of speakers and their audiences to explain how aspects of interaction succeed. (...) As we can all bear witness to now though, at the point of use chatbots appear capable of performing language tasks at a level close to that of humans. This creates a tension when we consider something like, for example, the classic Gricean theory of implicature. On a broad summary of this type of account, to utter p and implicate q requires the reflexive occurrence of an audience supposing a speaker believes that q, and the speaker believing that their audience can determine they believe it when they utter p. So taken at face value, if a chatbot doesn’t have the capacity for belief, then either in their role as speaker or audience, they would not seem capable of either generating or comprehending implicatures. Yet on the surface it does seem that chatbots are capable of dealing with (some) implicatures, and as such it raises questions about how we should then correlate this with what we think occurs in cases of implicature with chatbots. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore and defend the idea that musical works are historical individuals. Guy Rohrbaugh (2003) proposes this for works of art in general. Julian Dodd (2007) objects that the whole idea is outré metaphysics, that it is too far beyond the pale to be taken seriously. Their disagreement could be seen as a skirmish in the broader war between revisionists and reactionaries, a conflict about which of metaphysics and art should trump the other when there is a (...) conflict. That dispute is a matter of philosophical methodology as much as it is a dispute about art. I argue that the ontology of works as individuals need not be dunked in that morass. My primary strategy is to show, contra Dodd's accusation, that historical individuals are familiar parts of the world. Although the ontological details are open to debate, it is the standard opinion of biologists is that biological species are historical individuals. So there is no conflict here between fidelity to art and respectable metaphysics. What suits species will fit musical work as well. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida begins the first chapter of his book The Politics of Friendship1 with a statement attributed to Aristotle by both Diogenes Laertes and the 16th Century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. The statement is this: “O my friends, there is no friend.” Derrida points out the paradox and apparent contradication in such an impossible declaration. Who is Aristotle talking to, given that he is addressing friends to inform them that there are none? How can the statement be taken seriously? (...) We might say that the paradox is a result of a bit of philosophical licence on Aristotle’s part. Aristotle defines the friend as “another self”2 and since it is logically impossible that the friend could actually be another self, then this is simply a bit of philosophical hyperbole that Aristotle engages in, but about which he is not serious. Yet the fact that Derrida has written three hundred pages of text on this subject suggests that this interpretation would be hard to sustain. As the title of his text suggests, Derrida approaches the question of friendship via an analogy with politics, specifically with republican democracy. This paper focuses on three aspects of that analogy. (shrink)

Gerald Dworkin provides an insightful starting point for determining acceptable paternalism through his commitment to protecting our future autonomy and health from lasting damage. Dworkin grounds his argument in an appeal to inherent goods, which this paper argues is best considered as a commitment to human flourishing. However, socialconnectedness is also fundamental to human flourishing and an important consideration when determining the just limits of paternalistic drug controls, a point missing from Dworkin’ essay. For British philosopher Thomas Hill Green, regulation (...) of alcohol sales emerged from the social ideal. Green argued that policy interventions, including restricted opening hours and locations, improved the conditions for humans to flourish. Green offers a compelling political vision but fails to account for the fact pleasure is also an inherent good. He focused excessively on our social nature, excluding our more pleasure-seeking and egoistic characteristics. In contrast, a more realistic and complete vision of human flourishing can be found in an amended version of Gerald’s Dworkin’s arguments. In conclusion, this paper argues drug policy makers should remain committed to the harm principle as applied to criminal law whereby a person should never be criminalized for self-harm. Such a limit on paternalistic interventions is deemed necessary when eudaimonia is the end of government action. In practical terms, this means that the criminalization of drug use, as opposed to drug production, is always unjust. (shrink)

Jusqu'à maintenant, il semble qu'on n'ait pas établi de lien entre le rejet par Bolzano de la notation quantificationnelle des propositions universelles de la logique traditionnelle et l'articulation inédite de sa notion de validité universelle. C'est ce que je veux faire ici. En particulier, dans la mesure où l'analyticité est un cas spécial de la validité universelle, j'ai l'intention de défendre l'idée qui veut que la notion bolzanienne d'analyticité cherche à résoudre des problèmes qui sont intrinsèquement liés à la théorie (...) traditionnelle de la quantification universelle tels qu'ils surviennent, notamment avec le traitement kantien de l'analyticité. It seems that the connection between Bolzano's rejection of the traditional quantificational notation for universal propositions and the articulation of his notion of universal validity has remained, until today, perfectly unnoticed. In this paper, I will show that there is such a connection. Particularly, since analyticity is a special case of universal validity, my intention is to show that the problems to which Bolzano's perfectly original account of analyticity seeks to find an answer are intrinsically related to the traditional conception of universal quantification as it arises in the context of Kant's treatment of analyticity. (shrink)

This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that (...) love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections. (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)

On considère souvent, à la suite des ouvrages classiques de J. Bouveresse, que Wittgenstein veut opérer un rejet ou une critique de la subjectivité. Il semble cependant que les derniers textes de Wittgenstein consacrés à la philosophie de la psychologie permettent de modifier partiellement ce point de vue, et défaire place à une conception spécifique de la subjectivité, redéfinissant un sujet dépsychologisé voire désubjectivé, qui n'est plus le point sans étendue du Tractatus, ni le sujet métaphysique, ni le sujet de (...) la psychologie, mais simplement une voix ordinaire. Wittgenstein's later work is often held by critics in France, following e.g. Jacques Bouveresse's insights, to be operating a criticism of both interiority and subjectivity. A reading of Wittgenstein's later writings on the philosophy of psychology might somehow change such a point of view, and redefine a specific view — as a de-psychologized species — of subjectivity in Wittgenstein's writing, thus redefining the wittgensteinian subject in terms of an ordinary voice. (shrink)

The costs of agricultural inputs added to those of labor represent almost a third of the total cost of Brazilian sugarcane production. This study analyzes the behavior of the price per ton of sugarcane in Brazil, relating it to the main production costs of this cultivation. Twelve price indicators from January 2015 to December 2020 were evaluated. First, the data were adjusted to a multiple linear regression model to identify the significant variables on variation in the price per ton of (...) sugarcane. Then, the Monte Carlo simulation was used to measure the level of certainty of occurrence of these variables, and forecasts were obtained from the adjustment of ARIMA models. The results showed the influence of the costs of diesel oil, two agricultural pesticides, and daily laborers on the price of sugarcane, besides an increasing trend of its, providing relevant short-term projections for decision-making about investments in the agribusiness sector. (shrink)