This paper shall begin by exploring the work of R. Bourne and his concept of transnationalism. The case shall be made for its advantages in contrast to the melting-pot theory but this essay shall further argue that it alone is not a sufficient alternative. Instead, the paper shall shift its focus to H. Kallen and his notions of cultural pluralism. In conjunction with one another, they will be used to argue against the melting-pot theory and more specifically, against (...) Samuel Huntington and his assertions regarding contemporary Mexican and Latino immigrants. (shrink)

Globalization is resulting in complex decisions by businesses as to where and what to produce, while free trade is resulting in a greater menu of choices for consumers, often with the blending of products and goods from various cultures, called ‘glocalization.’ This paper reviews the theories and practices behind these current happenings, which are each economic, politicaleconomic, institutional, and sociological, first by looking at the supply side of why certain countries produce the goods that they do, and then at the (...) demand side, why consumers have particular, cultural tastes and preferences for goods. It also proffers theories to explain firm location and that of intra-industry trade. This occus when countries trade similar products rather than differentiating, as economic theory would suggest. After reviewing the literature, through numerous examples of political-economy and culture, it argues somewhat normatively that differences in culture and goods are a strength to the world community, and that globalization in the end will not likely result in a singular global culture with a uniformity of exactly identical economic goods anytime in the near future. (shrink)

From the political point of view, European Union (EU) integration implies some kind of unity in the community constituted by EU citizens. Unity is difficult to attain if the diversity of citizens (and their nations) is to be respected. A thick bond that melts members' diversity into a 'European pot' is therefore out of the question. On the other hand, giving up unity altogether makes political integration impossible. Through a meta-theoretical analysis of normative positions, this paper proposes a composed notion (...) of European identity that links without binding. It contains four facets – cultural, political, social, external – with nuances, expressed in three binaries, that cut across all of them – history-project, ethos-achievement, commonness-uncommonness. I will submit that a workable European identity (and the related concepts of unity, polity and citizenship) can be better conceived as analogical – a mid way between blending unity and irreconcilable diversity. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv to collect recordings of folk and extra-European music (...) and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Gifted in the field of science no less than in that of musicology, Stumpf developed an empirically-oriented approach to phenomenology, deeply divergent from Husserl’s and highly influential over the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology. A self-declared “outsider” among armchair philosophers, Stumpf experimentally investigated the perception of sounds and the origins of musical consonance. Developing the physiological studies of Ernst Weber on the sense of touch, Stumpf discovered that two sensations of tone, given at the same time, tend to mix in a certain degree. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Accordingly, no musical system can claim for preponderance over the others: Stumpf’s researches in comparative musicology served to corroborate his theses on “tonal fusion” and the psychological foundations of consonance. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The commitment for comparative musicology at the Berlin School is then no concession to a positivistic fashion for exoticism. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures. The Berlin school flourished until the Nazis forced most of its exponents to emigration and, for tragically obvious reasons, heavily discouraged researches on these topics. (shrink)

This article tries to present a possible way of proliferating bivalent, trivalent, etc. calculation. Beyond the controversies as to the effects that involve the presence versus the absence of the temporal factor, no significant attempts of adapting a bivalent logic to other pairs of values have been mentioned. Should the transformation of the alethiologic modalities into logic values be possible, five more bivalent calculations may be added to the classic bivalent calculation. All these new calculations are compatible with the traditional (...) one, to the extent that they submit to the conditions of non-contradictoriness and exhaustibility, and the connectors receive, even if partially, the corresponding value interpretations. (shrink)

Intentionality is a central feature of our understanding of the world. We daily attribute intentional states (like beliefs, desires or perceptual states) to explain the behavior of other agents, and many theories appeal to them to understand more complex notions. Nonetheless, intentional states are puzzling entities. This article explains what intentionality is and why it is so important and problematic at the same time. Secondly, it examines various naturalistic theories, which seek to show that intentionality is compatible with a scientific (...) worldview. Finally, given that all extant proposals face significant difficulties, it explores the available options in case no naturalistic theory can succeed. (shrink)

We are witnesses to a major reshaping of our world: the World and our lives as we used to know are ending and they are reshaping constantly and drastically under pressure. Everything we knew about this world, our old habits, values, human rights, ethical patterns et all. These days, since the pandemic outburst, I saw the perceptions we have/had on religious impositions and requirements changing for an unprecedented behavior and inconsiderably reshaping religious phenomenon could have ever think of. With the (...) title taken from the topic of this volume, Inspired by the conference titled, we have tried to envision the actual human environment through the ongoing pandemic that revolutions the entire human society in a way we had never considered as possible and so that we will not recognize in a year or so. Following the Philosophy of Dialectics and seeing a larger number of possibilities beyond those that were revealed to us in most obvious ways, we wonder thus, what makes us, in fact, do these changes – is the pandemic itself and its requirements or is it just US, humans, that were long longing for a change, a motif to do it all new again? It is though a human-divine desire to anew all from time to time and seek a reboot to all wrongness that grows in the world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The largest obstacle to saving people in today's world is from violence and wars. There is a long line of people waiting for peace so that they can survive the conflict. People will promise that no country can exploit another and that no country can produce weapons capable of mass murder. They believe that their plan can be realised by transforming the world's goodwill and efforts toward world peace into world peace in paradise. The whole world is waiting for (...) a human universe that seems to be taking us to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi). This article's main issue is an extinct political ideology that Mahatma Gandhi promoted many years ago as a supporter of nonviolent policy in search of the human world. Here, the communication style has been shown to have the missing Gandhian ideals. This post will attempt to analyse Mahatma Gandhi's policy & ideology in communication style as we approach his 150th birthday celebrations. Through extensive study, this article will attempt to determine how Gandhi's philosophy and communications relate to one another. As a method of exploration and analysis, Gandhi’s principles Nonviolence, and Chamber-Pots have been scientifically reviewed in this article. Keywords: Violence, principles, chamber pots, Mohandas K. Gandhi, mass murder. (shrink)

We can cause windows to break and we can break windows; we can cause villages to flood and we can flood villages; and we can cause chocolate to melt and we can melt chocolate. Each time these can come apart: if, for example, A merely instructs B to break the window, then A causes the window to break without breaking it herself. Each instance of A breaking/flooding/melting/burning/killing/etc. something, is an instance of what I call making. I argue that making (...) is an independent, theoretically important notion—akin but irreducible to causing—and metaphysicians should pay attention to it. (shrink)

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

Climate change appears to be a classic aggregation problem, in which billions of individuals perform actions none of which seem to be morally wrong taken in isolation, and yet which combine to drive the global concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) ever higher toward environmental (and humanitarian) catastrophe. When an individual can choose between actions that will emit differing amounts of GHGs―such as to choose a vegan rather than carnivorous meal, to ride a bike to work rather than drive a car, (...) or to take a reusable bag to the supermarket rather than send another plastic bag to landfill―does she have any reason to choose the lower-emitting actions? In this chapter I'll reject the claim that individuals don't make a difference when it comes to climate change. I first discuss making a difference with every action, as a way of getting clearer about how individuals' actions impact causally on the harms resulting from climate change, making a distinction so far overlooked in the climate ethics discussion between 'macro' thresholds like ice-cap melt, and 'micro' thresholds like severe weather events. I set aside making a difference with every action as implausible, and then move on to discuss both low probability of major difference, and high probability of minor difference. I argue that both of these are plausible characterizations of individuals' causal contributions to climate change. I conclude by noting some policy implications of having (probabilistic) individual difference-making back in play. (shrink)

Popper's well-known demarcation criterion has often been understood to distinguish statements of empirical science according to their logical form. Implicit in this interpretation of Popper's philosophy is the belief that when the universe of discourse of the empirical scientist is infinite, empirical universal sentences are falsifiable but not verifiable, whereas the converse holds for existential sentences. A remarkable elaboration of this belief is to be found in Watkins's early work on the statements he calls “all-and-some,” such as: “For every metal (...) there is a melting point.” All-and-some statements are both universally and existentially quantified in that order. Watkins argued that AS should be regarded as both nonfalsifiable and nonverifiable, for they partake in the logical fate of both universal and existential statements. This claim is subject to the proviso that the bound variables are “uncircumscribed” ; i.e., that the universe of discourse is infinite. (shrink)

Care este statutul moral al copiilor? Ce înseamnă egalitatea morală dintre copii şi adulți? Care sunt constrângerile pe care le impune acceptarea acestei egalități în ceea ce priveşte felul în care pot fi tratați copiii în familie sau în societate ? Cine are ce fel de responsabilitate pentru copii ? În capitolul de față voi discuta astfel de întrebări. Voi analiza relația dintre copii, părinți şi stat, în dimensiunea ei practică (felul în care ne raportăm la copii), din punct de (...) vedere legal (constrângerile legale asupra felului în care ne raportăm la copii) şi din punct de vedere moral (cum ar trebui să ne raportăm la copii). Voi începe cu o scurtă incursiune în istoria relațiilor dintre copii, părinți, şi stat, atât din punct de vedere legal, cât şi filosofic. Voi prezenta conceptul de statut moral şi ideea de egalitate morală între copii şi adulți. Voi ilustra schimbările sociale şi legislative în ce priveşte acceptarea statutului moral al copiilor şi a egalității morale între copii şi adulți, folosind exemple din România şi Suedia. Voi examina dinamica dintre aspirațiile legale şi morale la care aderă România în ce priveşte statutul moral al copiilor şi normele sociale despre copii, copilărie, şi familie, care nu sunt întotdeauna în acord cu aceste aspirații. Voi urmări apoi schimbările care au avut loc în ultimele decenii în ce priveşte limitele responsabilității parentale. (shrink)

This essay explains Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception using The Biological Framework for a Mathematical Universe proposed by Ronald Williams. According to Hoffman, what we perceive is more like a “desktop interface with icons representing complex underlying processes, rather than a direct window into the true nature of the world." The theory of a biological framework for a mathematical universes suggests that these complex underlying processes of “the desktop interface with icons” contain correspondences to biological systems. For example, “the (...) desktop icons” of the ocean’s arctic currents and the melting and freezing of Antartica contain “complex underlying processes” which mirror the processes of a circulatory system and beating heart. While indeed we do interpret reality from a superficial perspective as Hoffman suggests, our cognitive abilities are enhanced enough to recognize correspondences to these patterns pertaining to these biological systems which reveal the true nature of the world/universe/reality and thus highlight our evolved perceptual systems which can enable us how to recognize these patterns and organize ourselves to them in order to best survive it. Another example of a “desktop icon” is human society—the order and properties of human society contain “complex underlying processes” that are analogous to the order and properties of cellular society—thus “socioeconomic problems” can be understood through cellular economic problems. Moreover, the solution to the cellular economic problem is the solution to the socioeconomic problem. (shrink)

We review the history of the philosophy of fondue since Aristotle so as to arrive at the formulation of the paradox of Swiss fondue. Either the wine and the cheese cease to exist (Buridan), but then the fondue is not really a mixture of wine and cheese. Or the wine and the cheese continue to exist. If they do, then either they continue to exist in different places (the chemists), but then a fondue can never be perfectly homogenous (it is (...) a French fondue). Or the wine and the cheese continue to exist in the same place (the Stoïcs), but then wine and cheese have to be, oddly, penetrable and spatially expansible. Aristote attempted to solve this paradox by arguing that the cheese and wine continue to exist, but only potentially in the fondue. We sketch an alternative answer. The wine and the cheese continue to exist, but only non-spatially in the fondue. Wine and cheese, once mixed, become non-spatial constituents of the fondue, a bit like character traits are non-spatial constituents of persons. The wine and the cheese are in the fondue, but only the fondue is there in the fondue pot. (shrink)

Consider the most recent Yale-Harvard football game, an event which occurred on 11/20/21 in New Haven, lasting about three hours. This event, like many college football games before, was composed of four quarters, each of which was composed of possessions, each of which was composed of downs, each of which was composed of particular movements, tackles and decisions of the individual players. Each of these parts of the game was itself an event, occurring in a smaller region of space and (...) time than the game itself. Each of these events involved material objects like players, helmets, jerseys, etc. Each had causes and effects, and each instantiated qualitative properties, such as being a kickoff or being a tackle. These are paradigmatic examples of events. Events are many and varied; some other examples include the melting of an ice cube, the birth of a horse, the supernova of a star, the presidential election campaign and a winter snowstorm. Each of these took place in a certain region of spacetime, had other events as parts, involved certain objects, had causes and effects, and instantiated properties. Objects and their properties are not the only furniture in the world. Events are a crucial part of our manifest and scientific pictures of the world. We go to football games, think about and participate in elections, eagerly anticipate the birth of a child, and quantify over and explain such things in our scientific theories. Yet, events have received insufficient attention from metaphysicians. Some philosophers have been skeptical of events, holding that talk of events can be paraphrased away, or that events can be reduced to objects and properties.1 When philosophers have accepted events, their motivations have usually been extrinsic—events are introduced in order to play a role in a larger philosophical system. This tendency has led philosophers to miss a number of interesting features of events. In this paper, I wish to reverse that trend by developing an ontology of events which is not an afterthought with respect to another philosophical project. In so doing, I will provide answers to substantive metaphysical questions about the relations in which events stand and their identity conditions. In the next section, I identify four basic relations in which events stand: parthood, involvement, causation and instantiation, focusing in particular on involvement. Then, I argue that events are individuated by their involvements, and criticize the identity conditions which have been offered by other philosophers, notably Quine, Davidson and Kim. I then conclude. (shrink)

Rawlsian justice as fairness is neither fundamentally luck egalitarian nor relational egalitarian. Rather, the most fundamental idea is that of society as a fair system of cooperation. Collective pensions provide a case study which illustrates the fruitfulness of conceiving justice in these latter terms. Those who have recently reached the age of majority do not now know how long they will live in retirement or how well any investments they try to save up for their retirement would fare. From the (...) perspective of the beginning of their working lives, it is therefore rational for each to enter into an agreement with others, who also do not yet know their fates, that, if one turns out to be among the unfortunate whose private pension pots would not have yielded enough for one’s retirement, one will receive much more in retirement, whereas those whose pension pots would have overflowed their retirements will receive somewhat less. These terms are to each person’s expected advantage, which is made possible by a fair sharing of the fruits of social cooperation which arise through the efficiencies reaped by the pooling of the risk of outliving what one could save for one’s retirement on one’s own. It is rational for each to agree to share one another’s fates by pooling risks across both space and time, on fair terms of social cooperation for mutual advantage. Even when collective pensions arise from, and are proportional to, a baseline of unequal income, they can be defended on grounds of reciprocity involving regard for one another as equals. (shrink)

What happens to artist and to viewer when painting or sculpture emancipates itself from all physical mediums? What happens to art-world experts and to museum goers and amateurs when the piece of art turns immaterial, becoming indiscernible within its surrounding empty space and within the parergonal apparatus of the exposition site? What type of verbal depiction, of critical understanding and specific knowledge is attempted under these programmed and fabricated conditions? What kind of aesthetic experience–namely embodied and sensitive–is expected when a (...) performative utterance of the artist about his art takes the place of a real piece of artwork seen or perceived, or that may be seen or perceived? For Andy Warhol, «wasted space is any space that has art in it.» In the spring of 1958, in Paris, an artist already well-known among the neo-avantgardes and accredited by the international art-world, shows up empty-handed and presents himself as a painter without paintings in a empty space. In a singular never-wasted space, Yves Klein displays himself as a snob, with an extraordinary showbiz glamour and literally sine-nobilitate, without the traditional marks of artistic manual skills. Against the modernist issues, he writes: «Credit was given to me. The gesture alone was enough. The public had accepted the abstract intention.» What’s the matter with this powerful prestige and its influence on the critic and public? How to understand the public trust in the artist as a producer of an institutional “make-believe” without any objecthood, devoid of any individual artwork presented to the sight or to any other sense? For Modernism and Minimalism, the work of art seems to have an internal coherence, whether formal or expressive, and is thus autonomous from the surrounding world, existing with only the clear opposition to the living space and set as a specialized and situated objection to the enclosing field. Instead, now the object melts into the air and becomes undetectable, confused with the atmosphere of the theory of art and with the stylish and snobbish life of the artist. What type of interpretation is put on regarding this unclassifiable and ambiguous field, simultaneously an-aesthetic and existential, theoretical and sensitive, charismatic and motionless, at same time without a specialized position in the world made by the artist himself? And what kind of embodied experience is performed by the spectatorship? What type of phenomenology and pragmatics of aesthetic relationship is necessary to describe how the body of the beholder absorbs this vacated and boring space via a direct and immediate perception-assimilation? What kind of artistic rhetoric, what kind ontology of art? Until this day, after more than 50 years, Yves Klein’s The Void has not ceased asking these and other questions on aesthetics, philosophy and the history of art. (shrink)

I discuss a short string of five sentences in Metaphysics V.5, 1015b6-9 relating demonstration to necessity. My proposal is that Aristotle focuses his attention on the demonstration as a demonstration. Other interpretations reduce the necessity in question to the modality of the component sentences of the demonstrations (the conclusion and the premises). My view does not deny that the modality of the component sentences is important, but takes seriously the idea that a demonstration itself should be understood as necessary—as not (...) capable of being otherwise. A demonstration cannot be different from what it is in the sense that [i] its components cannot be different from what they are, [ii] its components must be related to each other exactly in the way they are related. Demonstrations aim at the fully appropriate explanation of a given explanandum—and each demonstration is individuated by the explanandum it takes. Thus, the basic idea is that, for the target explanandum that individuates a given demonstration, the premises delivering the fully appropriate explanation cannot be replaces with different ones. I show how this proposal, which explains Aristotle’s language in 1015b6-9 accurately, does not make demonstrations ‘melt down into conditional necessity’, first, because the modality of the component sentences is still importantly involved, second, because the explanatory relation expressed in a demonstration is a necessary fact in the real world, so that the demonstration itself is also necessary (in the way I have explained) inasmuch as it captures that fact. (shrink)

Solidarity could be defined in the broad sense either as a means or as an end. Considered as an end, solidarity is the motive of any virtuous action based on altruistic reasons, such as helping others to rescue someone in order to prevent a harmful situation. E. g. contributing to lift and rescue a heavy person, lying unconscious in the street on the floor, who is being handled by rescuers, but who might be needing an additional person, could express the (...) value of solidarity as an end, since an answer to others request for help is given in the situation of emergency and risk, without having a particular obligation to help. Solidarity as a means (to an end, not an end), could be understood as a property of dependency of a set of parts to a whole (in solidum), as when in a family or a professional group, individual and collective roles and responsibilities are melt together to some extent.This idea of benefiting others could be understood either as a way of sharing together moral sentiments as love, social virtues as friendship and shared commitments and common economic and educational interests, in a limited community circle, that of the family. Even if the division of labour is not simply based on patriarchal authority, mutual consent of family members to rules and to a common circle of interests, those of the family, resemble to a egoism of the group, and not yet to truly social and altruistic values. Solidarity as cohesion of human beings, by the means of "interchangeability of ideas, services, goods, of workforce, virtues and vices", is solidarity limited to the constitution of a process of exchange that is a means that could be used to different ends. (shrink)

‘Mapping accounts’ of applied mathematics hold that the application of mathematics in physical science is best understood in terms of ‘mappings’ between mathematical structures and physical structures. In this paper, I suggest that mapping accounts rely on the assumption that the mathematics relevant to any application of mathematics in empirical science can be captured in an appropriate mathematical structure. If we are interested in assessing the plausibility of mapping accounts, we must ask ourselves: how plausible is this assumption as a (...) working hypothesis about applied mathematics? In order to do so, we examine the role played by mathematics in the multiscalar modelling of sea ice melting behaviour and examine whether we can indeed capture the mathematics involved in the kind of mathematical structure employed by the mapping account. Along the way, we note that the cases of applied mathematics that appear in discussions of mapping accounts almost exclusively involve the employment of a single clearly circumscribed mathematical field or domain. While the core assumption of mapping accounts may appear plausible in such situations, we ultimately suggest that the mapping account is not able to handle the important added complexities involved in our sea ice case study. In particular, the notion of mathematical structure around which such accounts are framed does not seem to be able to capture the way in which some applications of mathematics require that very different pieces of mathematics be related to one another on the basis of both mathematical and empirical information. (shrink)

The distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification, this distinction dear to the projects of logical empiricism, was, as is well known, introduced in precisely those terms by Hans Reichenbach in his Experience and Prediction (Reichenbach 1938). Thus, while the idea behind the distinction has a long history before Reichenbach, this text from 1938 plays a salient role in how the distinction became canonical in the work of philosophers of science in the mid twentieth century. The new contextualist history (...) of philosophy that has arisen in recent years invites us into an investigation of the nuances of philosophical distinctions and their roles in shaping the development of disciplines. Logical empiricism played a key role in the historical development of philosophy of science and this contextualist history has revealed a much richer set of projects in logical empiricism than the potted histories had allowed. Many stories have been told about the contexts of justification and discovery; few of those stories have paid more than passing attention to the larger projects in epistemology and meta-epistemology that Reichenbach was pursuing when he drew the distinction. This brief essay will seek partially to rectify that lack in, I hope, a somewhat surprising way. I shall stress the connection between this canonical distinction and some other epistemological and social terms that loom large in Reichenbach’s text, arguing that the social relevance of scientific philosophy for Reichenbach cannot be set aside in understanding his use of the DJ distinction. My point is, therefore, historical and reflexive. If we attend to the larger significance of the project in scientific philosophy that Reichenbach was advancing, we can see more clearly why the DJ distinction was introduced and rethink the significance of questioning the distinction. (shrink)

The development of nuclear energy technologies in the second half of the 20th century came with great hopes of rebuilding nations recovering from the devasta-tion of the Second World War or recently released from colonial rule. In coun-tries like France, India, the USA, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom, nuclear energy became the symbol of development towards a modern and technologically advanced future. However, after more than six decades of experi-ence with nuclear energy production, and in the aftermath of the (...) Fukushima nuclear disaster, it is safe to say that nuclear energy production is not without its problems.Some of these problems have their origins in the very materiality of the technolo-gies involved. For example, not only does the use of highly radioactive materials give rise to risks for the current generation (e.g., in the potential for disaster when reactors melt down) but high-level radioactive waste from nuclear energy production presents a serious intergenerational problem for which an acceptable final solution or its implementation remains elusive. Moreover, nuclear energy technologies have specific social and political consequences. For example, they have been said to be authoritarian technologies (Winner, 1980), requiring cen-tralized authority, secrecy, and technocratic decision-making. While some of these problems could have been foreseen before nuclear energy technologies were introduced, others only arose after these technologies were already integrated into the social and infrastructural fabric of our lives. Addition-ally, new technologies (e.g., Generation III, III+ and IV reactors) are still being developed, bringing with them new and uncertain hazards and risks. Ignorance and uncertainty about the possible deleterious effects of introducing a new technology are inevitable, especially if the technology is complex, large time-scales are involved, or risks depend on social or political factors unforeseen in the design stage. However, this should not deter us from developing and intro-ducing new technologies. Rather, it should motivate us to organize these ‘exper-iments’ with new technologies in society in such a way that we can learn about their possible hazards and risks as effectively and responsibly as possible (van de Poel, 2011, 2015). In this way, it is possible to minimize risks and avoid unwant-ed moral, social or political developments. However, organizing such experi-ments responsibly also means that one could come to the conclusion that continuing an experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. Should we be prepared for such a scenario, and if so, how could we do that? One possible strategy to tackle this issue is that the technology and its introduction should be reversible. The aim of this thesis is to further explore this strategy by answering the following main research question (RQ) and accompanying subquestions (SQ):RQ: What are the implications of reversibility for the responsible develop-ment and implementation of nuclear energy technologies?SQ1: Under what conditions can nuclear energy technologies be considered reversible?SQ2: Why should nuclear energy technologies be reversible?SQ3: If so, how could the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies be achieved?After the introductory chapter 1, the chapters that form the main body of this dissertation each provide a distinct contribution to answering the three subques-tions and, by extension, the main research question. Guided by three historical case studies of nuclear energy technology development (i.e., India, France and the USA), chapter 2 answers the first subquestion by formulating the two condi-tions under which it can be considered reversible, i.e., 1) the ability to stop the further development and deployment of a that technology in society, and 2) the ability to undo the undesirable outcomes (material, institutional or symbolic) of the development and deployment of the technology. Chapter 3 subsequently tackles the second subquestion by establishing the general desirability of technological reversibility by virtue of its relation to responsibility in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It argues that technology development is a legitimate response to responsibility but inevitably falls short of the responsibility that inspires it, incessantly calling for technological and political change in the process. Having thus argued that nuclear energy technologies should ideally be reversible, chap-ters 4 and 5 work towards specific strategies to achieve technological reversibil-ity. Chapter 4 first investigates the processes that make it difficult to stop the further development and implementation of a nuclear energy technology in society, thus provid-ing input on how to fulfill the first condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies. To do so, it presents a phenomenological perspective on technology and its adoption based on the work of Alfred Schutz. It also explores different ways in which technology adoption drives the processes of path depend-ence towards technological lock-in. Chapter 5 examines the history of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the USA. It identifies a number of concrete policy pitfalls that could lead to lock-in and that should consequently be avoided. It also presents a number of general design strategies that could facilitate the undoing of undesirable consequences of a technology, thus providing input on how to fulfill the second condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technol-ogies.Chapter 6 summarizes the central findings of the thesis and explains how these help to answer the research questions. On top of this, it reflects on a number of complications connected to reversibility considerations. Based on this, it is concluded that the question of irreversibility and reversibility is context- and technology-specific and a matter of degree. The chapter concludes with a reflec-tion on generalizations and limitations of the results. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the implications of this dissertation’s results for responsibly experimenting with nuclear energy technologies in society. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Adorno’s controversial claim that human rationality is inherently mimetic. To do so, I break this claim down into three puzzles (the natural historical puzzle, the metaphysical puzzle, and the epistemic puzzle) and consider each in turn. The first puzzle originates in Adorno’s assertion that in the course of human history the mimetic moment of human thought “is melted together with the rational moment”. So whereas, on his narrative, mimesis has become an intrinsic component of human (...) rationality, it appears that we are oblivious to this state of affair and unable to recognize the workings of mimesis in what we otherwise refer to as rationality. The second puzzle concerns the traditional metaphysical question regarding the possibility of knowledge. Adorno holds that the key to this question lies in the “mimetic moment of knowledge”, which he characterizes as the “moment of the elective affinity between the knower and the known.” The third puzzle concerns his views on how the mimetic moment of thought plays out in our epistemic practices. As he puts it, “consciousness knows of its other as much as it resembles that other,” which seems to entail that our very efforts to conceptualize objects somehow rely on imitative processes. I work out what I take to be the basics of Adorno’s understanding of mimesis and use them to make sense of each puzzle. I argue that Adorno’s insistence on the mimetic component of human rationality isn’t meant to promote more mimetic modes of comportment, but a reflexive awareness of the extent to which our rational activities already rely on imitative (or immersive) processes, even those we view as embodying the strongest claims to the contrary. (shrink)

Simbolismul religios a trezit mereu interesul cercetătorilor din domenii diferite de activitate, lumea întreagă reprezentând un mare simbol ce trebuie să fie descifrat. În dorința de a înțelege sensurile universului înconjurător, oamenii de știință au folosit descoperirile din domenii conexe pentru a-și formula propriile teorii. În acest sens, se pot realiza conexiuni pertinente între felurile în care istoricul religiilor Mircea Eliade și teologul ortodox Alexander Schmemann au definit simbolul și felul în care acesta este prezent în viața de zi cu (...) zi a oamenilor, redefinind astfel și strânsa legătură ce există între istoria religiilor și teologie ca discipline de studiu academic. (shrink)

Henry Shue’s latest book, The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now, is an excellent read, both clear and comprehensive. It is written in a way that makes it accessible to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. The book argues persuasively that the people alive today must take immediate and drastic action to tackle climate change, as the current decade will be crucial for determining how severe the impacts will become. Shue warns how a sharp (...) division into past, present, and future is misleading when it comes to climate change and can obfuscate the extent of the responsibility that the current generations bear. For us to acknowledge our responsibility, we must recognise how deeply intertwined our lives are with both the past and the future. One of these innate deep connections between generations is the extensive time period that carbon emissions can continue to contribute to climate change, for dozens of centuries. -/- The current generations have been bequeathed an energy system that relies on fossil fuels and that continues to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. For over two centuries now, the planet has been getting warmer as an unintended side effect of industrialisation. We are the first humans to understand the dynamics of the Earth’s climate and how human actions cause anthropogenic climate change. With the rapidly advanced scientific knowledge, it has become apparent that there is a need to quickly transition to a different energy regime. Shue points out that this knowledge has made us the first humans to recognise that action is required, but the urgency of the problem also makes us possibly the last to still be able to act before certain major threats are aggravated. With many irreversible climate change impacts, the date-of-last-opportunity to take action to prevent them might be very soon. According to Shue (2021, p. 6), “This gives us an awesome responsibility. Humans have accidentally set our own house on fire, and if we do not douse the flames while they are no more extensive than they are now, it may not be possible ever to extinguish them”. That is why we alive now are the pivotal generation. -/- Although a sense of urgency runs through the book and the seriousness of the situation is made very clear, Shue steers away from fearmongering. He does not think that human extinction is around the corner, but underlines that we cannot rule out such threats until we stop feeding the beast. Unless we cap emissions at a relatively safe level and transform our infrastructure to net zero, we will keep on increasing risks to future people by “adding continuously to the mushrooming danger” (p. 23). The book stresses that the possibility of passing several tipping points adds to the urgency and the risks because when positive feedback mechanisms are triggered, climate change accelerates. These positive feedbacks can feed into each other, such as when warming seawater melts even more ice, with the possibility of a cascade of feedbacks if enough tipping points are passed. Such changes are irreversible and could themselves become further positive feedbacks. Shue (pp. 24–25) warns that it is “likely that the near future is the last chance to avoid passing significant tipping points and entirely possible that the near future is the last chance to avoid provoking a cascade of tipping points” (emphasis in original). -/- While I applaud the general message of Shue’s book, I find that the brushstrokes he uses when identifying those responsible are a little too broad. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, it is questionable as to how many of us really know enough about the risks we are leaving future generations with. Secondly, discussion in terms of generations underplays the big differences between the responsibility of different groups of actors within them. In what follows, I will elaborate on these points. I should note from the outset, however, that although I think that these are important issues, I find them to be points of clarification in an impressive and ambitious book on why our actions have such significance and why objections to urgent, large-scale climate action are misplaced. (shrink)

It’s natural for hyperbole to mix with metaphor and irony, and other figures of speech. How do they mix together and what kind of compound, if any, arises out of the mixing? In tackling this question, I shall argue that thinking of hyperbolic figures along the lines familiar from ironic metaphor compounds is a temptation we should resist. Looking in particular at hyperbolic metaphor and hyperbolic irony, I argue, they don’t yield a new encompassing compound figure with one figure building (...) on another. Instead, what we have is one dominant figure colored with hyperbolic tinges. So what does hyperbole bring to the mixing pot? I suggest we should think of hyperbole in hyperbolic figures as being an interpretive effect, modulating the working of the partner figure and thus rendering more emphatic. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- Walking, illegally, down main Montreal thoroughfares with students in nightly demonstrations, with neighbors whom I barely knew before, banging pots and pans, and with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people on every 22nd of the month since March—this was unimaginable a year ago.1 Unimaginable that the collective and heterogeneous body, which is the “manif [demonstration]”, could feel so much like home, despite its internal differences. Unimaginable that this mutual dependence on one another could enable not only (...) collective protection from traffic and police but the affective strength and audacity to take back the street—a mutual dependence that includes the masked demonstrators ready to help when gassed by police. Unimaginable too that we would be breaking the law daily,2 that blocking traffic and seeing the city from the center of the street would become habit, and that as the “printemps érable” becomes summer, we would be investing our time in neighborhood assemblies, in weaving social bonds, and in sustaining and deepening the mobilization. -/- I say these actions were unimaginable not merely because the context that motivated the enlargement of the student movement into a popular struggle combines a number of unique features. Nor were they simply unimaginable because the Quebec I previously knew was marred by the Islamophobia and cultural racism made visible during the reasonable accommodation debates, a society whose mapping excluded me and for whose sake it would have been difficult to protest.3 Rather, I say these actions were unimaginable because the possibility of this popular and inclusive mobilization had not yet been created. It is this possibility that the Quebec student movement has created, I argue, not only in quantitative terms by engaging so many, but at the level of lived subjectivities and intercorporeal solidarity. The evolution of the movement should be understood, then, both as a swelling of its popular base and as an intensification and qualitative transformation of ways of life. (shrink)

Aceasta nu este o carte de matematică, ci una despre matematică, care se adresează elevului sau studentului, dar şi dascălului său, cu un scop cât se poate de practic, anume acela de a iniţia şi netezi calea către înţelegerea completă a matematicii predate în şcoală. Tradiţia predării matematicii într-o abordare preponderent procedural-formală a avut ca efect o viziune deformată a elevilor asupra matematicii, ca fiind ceva strict formal, instrumental şi calculatoriu. Pierzând contactul cu baza conceptuală a matematicii, elevii dezvoltă pe (...) parcurs o "anxietate matematică" şi renunţă la a mai căuta înţelegerea matematicii, care devine "duşmanul tradiţional" din şcoală. Această lucrare şi-a propus materializarea rezultatelor cercetărilor inter- şi trans-disciplinare având ca obiect înţelegerea matematicii, care au concluzionat că domeniile care au potenţialul de a contribui în acest fel la educaţia matematicii, unificând abordările procedurală şi conceptuală, sunt epistemologia şi filosofia matematicii şi ştiinţei, precum şi fundamentele şi istoria matematicii. Aceste rezultate susţin teza că teama de matematică poate fi înlăturată prin abordarea conceptuală, iar un elev cu o bună înţelegere conceptuală va fi un rezolvitor de probleme mai bun. Autorul a identificat acele zone şi concepte aparţinând acestor discipline, care pot fi adaptate şi prelucrate în vederea familiarizării elevului sau studentului cu acest tip de cunoştinţe, care să însoţească conţinutul tradiţional al matematicii şcolare. Lucrarea a fost astfel organizată încât să contureze cititorului o imagine unificatoare asupra complexităţii naturii matematicii, precum şi o perspectivă conceptuală necesară, în final, înţelegerii de tip holistic a matematicii şcolare. Autorul vorbeşte despre matematică, pentru a convinge că a înţelege matematica înseamnă mai întâi să o înţelegem ca întreg, dar şi ca parte a unui întreg. Natura matematicii, conceptele sale primare (cum ar fi numerele şi mulţimile), structurile, limbajul, metodele, rolurile şi aplicabilitatea matematicii, sunt prezentate în conţinutul lor esenţial, iar explicarea conceptelor non-matematice este făcută într-un limbaj accesibil, însoţită de multe exemple relevante. Cartea este o unitate didactică concepută să reprezinte punctul de plecare şi un ghid de orientare către dobândirea înţelegerii de tip holistic a matematicii (pentru elev sau student) şi (pentru dascăl) către o predare de tip epistemic-conceptual, în care înţelegerea conceptuală este la fel de importantă ca antrenarea abilităţilor procedural-aplicative. (shrink)

Sinodul Bisericii Ortodoxe Române a declarat anul 2017 ca Anul Omagial al sfintelor icoane, al iconarilor și pictorilor bisericești, dar și Anul comemorativ Justinian Patriarhul și al apărătorilor Ortodoxiei în timpul comunismului în Patriarhia Română. Având în vedere tema propusă de organizatorii acestei dezbateri, dar și anumite reacții negative după Sfântul și Marele Sinod al Bisericii Ortodoxe, desfășurat în Creta între 18–26 iunie 2016, prezentarea mea va avea ca subiect legătura dintre Biserica Ortodoxă Română și Consiliul Mondial al Bisericilor (CMB) (...) în perioada comunistă dintre anii 1948–1989. Voi analiza critic anumite momente cheie din istoria acestei legături, care au lăsat anumite amprente în istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române și de care nu trebuie să uităm așa curând. În același timp, personalitățile care au marcat această perioadă nu pot fi trecute cu vederea, printre care personalitatea Părintelui Patriarh, Justinian Marina, rămâne una de amintit. (shrink)

Una din cele mai citite cărți din lume, considerată o metaforă a condiției umane, și pretabilă la o pluralitate de interpretări, Aventurile lui Pinocchio a avut un impact mare asupra culturii mondiale. Cartea răspunde unei prerogative care aparține doar capodoperelor: aceea de a fi în afara timpului. Cartea pune accent pe investigarea psihologică a personajului său central Pinocchio, în timp ce încearcă să descopere o umanitate pierdută în vidul tehnologiei și al științei. Mitul Pinocchio este folosit pentru a condamna cultura (...) violenței și a consumerismului. Collodi apelează cu succes la interacțiunile metaforice, bipolaritățile, și miracolele ambigue. Identitatea lui Pinocchio este adesea jucată la limită, imaginată de el însuși și de toți cei pe care îi întâlnește în drum. Pinocchio este numele vieții care este simultan anorganică, umană și animală. Aventurile lui Pinocchio explorează modul în care experiențele câștigate în spațiul heterotopic oferă individului capacitatea de a modifica viziunea panoramică, și cum aceste experiențe ne pot arăta în cele din urmă cum putem recupera sau restabili existența noastră ca subiecți individuali. -/- CUPRINS: -/- Abstract Carlo Collodi Aventurile lui Pinocchio Pinocchio Mitul Psihologia Dualitatea Heterotopia Identitatea Inteligența artificială Umanismul Devenirea Demiurgul Educația Bibliografie -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22089.67688. (shrink)

În lucrarea noastră despre însemnările lui Mircea Eliade cu privire la Sfântul Grigorie Palama şi la isihasm am încercat să propunem o altfel de abordare a învăţăturii ortodoxe, aşa cum a fost ea formulată în secolul al paisprezecelea. Dacă abordarea teologică este cea care scoate la iveală frumuseţea învăţăturii ortodoxe, ideile Sfântului Grigorie Palama fiind o continuare a tradiţiei creştine din primele secole, încercarea de a compara aceste învăţături, ca şi a tradiţiei isihaste, cu alte învăţături şi tradiţii, este un (...) subiect spre care se îndreaptă tot mai mulţi cercetători. Mircea Eliade, dincolo de formarea sa în spaţiul creştinismului ortodox, aşa cum remarcă din ce în ce mai mulţi cercetători ai operei sale, este un istoric al religiilor a cărui abordare este atât nouă, cât şi continuatoarea vechii cercetări fenomenologice. Mai mult decât atât, chiar dacă sunt destule voci care contestă acest lucru, Mircea Eliade rămâne unul dintre cei mai mari istorici ai religiilor din toate timpurile. În analiza operelor la care ne-am oprit în studiul nostru, Eliade scoate în evidenţă asemănările, dar mai ales deosebirile ce există între învăţătura isihastă şi anumite practici specifice altor tradiţii religioase. Astfel sunt însemnările despre Yoga, în care savantul, analizând practicile indiene, le compară cu cele din isihasm, subliniind diferenţele aşa cum se desprind din studiul celor două tradiţii. O părere asemănătoare se desprinde şi din analiza luminii mistice, prezentă în majoritatea religiilor lumii. Eliade evidenţiază asemănările, dar şi deosebirile cu privire la felul în care lumina mistică este percepută în creştinism şi în alte tradiţii. Studiul istoric asupra isihasmului şi a personalităţii Sfântului Grigorie Palama, prezent în Istoria credinţelor şi ideilor religioase, se îmbină cu studiul fenomenologic din celelalte surse. În ceea ce priveşte operele publicate după dispariţia savantului de origine română, Enciclopedia religiilor şi Dictionarul religiilor, se pot observa atât continuităţi cât şi discontinuităţi. Dicţionarul cuprinde, în mare parte, gândirea lui Culianu şi mai puţin pe cea a maestrului său, deşi urme ale acesteia sunt încă evidente. În Enciclopedie, capitolele despre Sfântul Grigorie Palama şi isihasm sunt semnate de cercetători ale căror opere au fost folosite de Eliade în scrierile precedente, subliniind astfel legăturile cu preocupările savantului în acest domeniu. Dincolo de concluziile studiului, trebuie să spunem că această cercetare este importantă şi dintr-un alt punct de vedere: în disciplina Istoria religiilor, a compara mai multe religii sau părţi din tradiţiile religioase ale lumii rămâne o metodă esenţială, evidenţiind importanţa creştinismului în lumea contemporană. (shrink)

What would happen if one morning you wake up clumsy, as if your sense of touch were unreliable, arbitrarily on and off? And what would this clumsiness look like if we could transfer it to the moral sense? The article expounds an interesting analogy between the sense of touch, loosely construed, and the moral sense: just as a sort of consistency is necessary for the sense of touch to do its job, so it is for the moral sense to play (...) its part. Touch enables us to navigate the everyday world of coffee pots and staircases; our moral sensibility comes into play when we act or when we judge our actions and those of others, and plays a directive role in what we feel, how we feel it, and how we react to it. Taking the analogy further, I will suggest that inconsistency causes, in both cases, a certain clumsiness, and that clumsiness is linked to arbitrariness – like the person that helps others in dire need, but only does so on some rainy days. (shrink)

Izolarea socială (desocializarea) presupune o lipsă completă sau aproape completă de contact între un individ și societate. Aceasta poate fi o problemă pentru persoanele de orice vârstă, deși simptomele pot diferi în funcție de grupul de vârstă. Izolarea socială poate include șederea acasă pentru perioade îndelungate de timp, și lipsa comunicării față în față cu familia, cunoștințele, prietenii sau colegii de servici. Izolarea socială poate duce la sentimente de singurătate, frica de ceilalți sau stima de sine negativă. Nu putem exista (...) independent de relațiile noastre cu ceilalți. Propria umanitate este redusă atunci când alții sunt tratați fără demnitate și respect. În același timp, provocarea de rău altei persoane poate afecta și percepțiile despre sine. Rezultă că umanitatea unei persoane depinde de umanitatea celor din jurul ei. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27847.32166. (shrink)

It is argued (a) that laws are assurances of protections of rights and (b) that governments are protectors of rights. Lest those assurances be empty and thus not really be assurances at all, laws must be enforced and governments must therefore have the power to coerce. For this reason, the government of a given region tends to have, as Max Weber put it, a "monopoly on power" in that region. And because governments are power-monopolizers, it is tempting to think that (...) the concepts of government and law are to be understood in terms of the concept of power. In actuality, the first two concepts are to be understood primarily in terms of the concept of morality--of rights-protection, to be specific--and only secondarily in terms of the concept of power. Contentions (a) and (b) appear to be inconsistent with obvious facts (e.g. the fact that Pol Pot's regime violated the rights of those over whom it had power). But (a) and (b) are compatible with those facts. This is a consequence of two principles. First, moral requirements have a "dimension of weight," as Dworkin put it, meaning that one moral imperative can be outweighed, without being obliterated, by another moral imperative. Second, sentential operators can have different degrees of scope. "It is hereby assured that" is such an operator. Linguistic surface structure may obfuscate the degree of scope that it has in a given sentence. That fact compatibilizes our analysis with the fact that there are evil laws and evil governments. (shrink)

Actualment en Filosofia, tenim dues caracteritzacions canóniques sobre la naturalesa de la Metafísica, la carnapiana i la quineana, tot i que són dues tesis diferenciades, ambdues coincideixen en que la Metafísica és reduïda a qüestions d'existència. No obstant, Kathrin Koslicki considera que aquestes caracteritzacions de la naturalesa de la Metafísica són errònies i que comporten una crítica explícita a la Metafísica o redueixen la resolució dels problemes metafísics a un pragmatisme. Per això, Koslicki considerant que els desacords metafísics són legítims (...) i profunds, tenint com a marc de referència la filosofia aristotèlica, considera que la tesi quineana i carnapiana no reflecteixen bé la naturalesa de la Metafísica, ja que, hi ha disputes metafísiques que es deuen a disputes no-existencials sobre temes de fonamentabilitat. Koslicki considera que la Metafísica no pot ésser reduïda a qüestions d'existència, sinó que ha de ser pensada com la reflexió de quines entitats són fonamentals, i quines són derivades d'aquestes. L'article està dividit en una primera part introductòria sobre els meus objectius, seguit d'una breu exposició de les tesis carnapiana i quineana de la metafísica, i per últim l'exposició de la proposta neo-aristotèlica de Koslicki. (shrink)

Virușii coabitează de cca. 300 milioane de ani cu oamenii. Uneori, virușii pot infecta oamenii pe scară largă. Dar, cum a fost posibilă actuala pandemie? Încălzirea globală determină fenomene meteorologice extreme care au dus la o creștere a bolilor infecțioase. Noul climat poate susține vectori epidemiologici pentru perioade mai lungi de timp, creând condiții mai favorabile replicării și apariția de noi vectori. În cazul bolilor infecțioase emergente, se consideră că există o graniță peste care s-a sărit deja. Virușii au, în (...) mod normal, o zonă nativă („rezervorul” lor), din care nu ar trebui să fie împinși afară. Se creează astfel o intimitate periculoasă, cu „puncte fierbinți” care includ locații precum piețele, care devin adevărate focare de epidemii. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16634.11202. (shrink)

L'objectiu d'aquest article és oferir un anàlisi dels arguments principals del Tractat sobre els Principis del Coneixement Humà, de G. Berkeley. Aquests arguments -que es troben a I, §4, I, §5-7 i I, §23 de l'obra de Berkeley- tenen como a objectiu demostrar la inconcebibilitat d'un món extern de caràcter físic. Argumentaré que la validesa d'aquests tres arguments depèn del anomenat «principi de semblança». La conclusió a la que arribaré és que l'acceptació del principi de semblança -i, en conseqüència, dels (...) arguments que d'ell en depenen- es problemàtica, però que, en qualsevol cas, el principi es manté com a una bona crítica reductiva al materialisme representacionalista de John Locke, en tant que aquest no pot negar les premisses que duen a la seva justificació i que la seva defensa contra dit principi presenta un seguit de problemes als quals sembla no haver-hi resposta. (shrink)

In ordеr to invеstigatе thе complеx naturе of cognition and its rеlationships, this rеsеarch articlе looks dееply into thе complеx intеrplay bеtwееn human thoughts and information from a philosophical standpoint. This study еxplorеs how psychology and nеurosciеncе intеrsеct in a philosophical sеtting in an еffort to prеsеrvе thoughts as an еxtеnsion of biology. By еxamining how a piеcе of information dеvеlops from a concеpt to an information hazard, thе rеsеarch еxplorеs thе potеntial еffеcts of hazardous information on both individuals and (...) largе groups. Thе study invеstigatеs thе history of information dangеrs and thеir еffеcts on human survival and moral viеwpoints while drawing inspiration from еvolutionary idеas. Thе kеy quеstion is: in tеrms of survival and morality, arе information hazards an assеt or a cursе? Throughout this rеsеarch, thе papеr sееks to clarify thе complеxity of human cognition and its nuancеd intеraction with information, offеring a philosophical prism through which to sее and discuss thе significant еffеcts of idеas in thе contеmporary еra. (shrink)

(Selection) In her provocative introduction to the interdisciplinary collection Extinction, Claire Colebrook diagnoses posthumanism as “delusional,” “symptomatic,” and “psychotic.” Now that we live in what geologists informally call the “anthropocene” – a new epoch in which a preponderance of the earth’s systems are irreversibly altered by human activity – she claims that it is dangerous, insane even, to imagine that the traditional, “Cartesian” idea of man as master of nature is invalid. The declaration of the death of man betrays a (...) willful denial of humanity’s destructive capacity. The dream that man is disappearing like a “face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea” is a symptom of a psychosis that protects us from the truth of man’s irretrievable imprint: eroding coral reefs, melting glaciers, gaping ozone, thousands of extinct species, and so much more. Colebrook’s is not only an indictment of French post-structuralism. She issues no less a challenge to feminist posthumanisms, which have launched influential assaults against the Cartesian figure of the self-possessed subject (who, we must admit, has few defenders in Continental philosophy generally). Does the heralding of the anthropocene demand a critical revival of Cartesian humanism? Must we affirm that humans are exceptional after all? (shrink)

The global Climate Change has unprecedented consequences in terms of scale and severity over human life. The accumulation of greenhouse gases and CFCs has increased environmental deterioration which is called global warming. Erratic changes in weather, brutal blizzards and floods, vicious heat wave etc. are only some of the effects of climate change. But the most dangerous effect of climate change is the melting of ice caps on the poles due to which sea levels are rising dangerously and life (...) at the poles is threatened. It is also a reality that habitation in several countries , not very much above the sea-level, for example, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia, which have a threat of huge displacement of human beings and domestic animals due to global warming. The survival of millions of people in developing countries like India is more vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change because of their limited capacity in terms of human financial and institutional resources. India is the world’s fourth largest economy and fifth largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, accounting for about 5% of global emissions. India’s emissions increased 65% between 1990 and 2005 and are projected to grow another 70% by 2020. The major impacts of Climate Change on India are major shifts in temperature, effect on monsoons, rising of sea levels, change in crop cycle, etc. India has prepared the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in 2008 for energy efficiency and sustainable development. India is a part to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, a National Inventory Management System (NIMS) has been formed to generate a comprehensive knowledge base on scientific issues related to climate change and mitigation. This paper highlights the issue of impacts of climate change and measures adopted by the government to minimize the dangers. (shrink)

Lucrările în care Pr. Dumitru Stăniloae analizează spiritualitatea românească, fie că este vorba de cele din perioada interbelică sau de cele de dinainte şi după 1989, reprezintă încercări ale marelui teolog, o voce respectate în toate mediile culturale din ţară şi străinătate, de a schiţa caracteristicile esenţiale ale poporului român şi drumul pe care acesta trebuie să-l urmeze în cadrul noilor structuri europene fără a-şi pierde identitatea culturală şi spirituală. Ideile Pr. Stăniloae trebuie analizate în această direcţie şi comparate cu (...) ale altor gânditori din perioadele în care a fost tratată tema elementelor specifice româneşti care să facă posibilă viaţa acestui popor într-un mediu de multe ori ostil. Pe de altă parte, gândirea teologului român se dovedeşte a fi unitară, ideile formulate în perioada de tinereţe fiind preluate şi amplificate structural la vârsta maturităţii. Însemnările Pr. Stăniloae referitoare la satul românesc pot fi extinse asupra tuturor caracteristicilor spirituale naţionale, reprezentând cheia de înţelegere a perspectivei marelui teolog: „Se cuvine să vedem spiritualitatea satului românesc aşa cum a fost trăită în tot cursul istoriei poporului român, spre a încuraja persistarea în ea, împotriva ispitelor influenţelor străine care ameninţă să ne desfiinţeze ca neam cu propria noastră fiinţă”. (shrink)

A stubborn problem for reflectance physicalism about color is to account for individual differences in normal trichromat color perception. The identification of determinate colors with physical properties of visible surfaces in a universal, perceiver-independent way is challenged by the observation that the same surfaces in identical viewing conditions often look different in color to different human subjects with normal color vision. Recently, leading representatives of reflectance physicalism have offered some arguments to defend their view against the individual differences challenge. In (...) this paper I challenge their defense. I argue thateven though individual differences are present in shape perception as well as in color perception, the mechanisms of shape perception and those of color perception differ in ways which make them completely different regarding their evidential status for certain identity claims. Thus comparing color perception to shape perception offers no support for identifying hues with reflectances. On the other hand, drawing a parallel between the temperature-mean kinetic energy of molecules (MKE) identification and the proposed hue-reflectance identities is no support for reflectance physicalism either, since there is an important disanalogybetween the two cases. While individual differences obtain in color perception, the effects of temperature (e.g., melting, thermal expansion) do not exhibit analogous variation, which makes the temperature-MKE identification unproblematic compared to the hue-reflectance identification. One motivation for this ongoing debate is that the success or failure of reflectance physicalism has far-reaching consequences regarding externalist theories of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

The mathematical universe hypothesis is a theory that the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is mathematics, specifically a mathematical structure. Our research provides evidence that the mathematical structure of the universe is biological in nature and all systems, processes, and objects within the universe function in harmony with biological patterns. Living organisms are the result of the universe’s biological pattern and are embedded within their physiology the patterns of this biological universe. Therefore physiological patterns in living (...) organisms can be used as models to structurally map analogies from the biological domain to any target domain to reveal and understand the biological nature of the target domain. Our paper explores various analogies, structurally mapping a red blood cell to a cup; proteins produced from ribosomes to music produced from instruments; a beating heart to the melting and freezing of Antartica; cells, tissue, organs and blood, to people, organizations, industries, and money, and; bio-economic concepts in cellular society to socioeconomic concepts in human society. It also discusses how phenomena in cellular mitosis can help explain phenomena in the universe, such as black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe. Building upon the concept of perennial wisdom, our research has provided evidence that the ideas of a biological universe were expressed across many past cultures and historical periods. The implications of this theory are vast, encompassing fields such as physics, science, philosophy, religion, law, economics, politics, and engineering, thus serving as a unifying theory for all knowledge. Our theory is supported by meta-analysis of scientific, historic, and religious literature, observations and first principles logic. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the publication of the pottery with a stamp design from the Kniazha Hora Old Rus fortress. During field seasons of 1958–1965, a representative collection of ceramic products was found on the settlement by a detachment of the Slavic-Rus archaeology of the Kaniv complex expedition under the direction of Halyna Mezentseva. Pots that are decorated with geometric figures-stamps are noteworthy because they are rare for the Kniazha Hora area. Studying ornamentation is very important because the décor (...) reflects some aspects of the spiritual culture of ancient population. However, these unique findings have not been given due attention by previous researchers. In the papers, the stamp type of ornament is associated with the West Slavonic tradition. It testifies one more peculiarity of the Old Rus society’s culture, in particular, of the Kniazha Hora fortress. (shrink)

Abstract: In this work, polystyrene/waste tires composites were prepared using the melt-mixing method. The viscoelastic properties of PS and PS/composite have been evaluated and compared. These properties were studied using ARES-Rheometer under nitrogen atmosphere in parallel plate geometry with diameter 8 mm. The measurements are carried out over a wide range of temperatures ranged from 120°C to 220°C and frequencies from 100 to 0.1 radians per second. The dynamic and complex viscosity of the PS composites were studied and compared with (...) those of unfilled PS. The results showed that the frequency,  is shifted from 0.46 to 0.072 radians/s and the value of dynamic viscosity increases from 5.0104 to 1.3105 Pa.s by the addition of the rubber for PS. Zero-shear viscosity, 0 was found to be increased from is 9.5104 for PS/waste tire composite to 4.5104 for PS. The flow activation energy is calculated from 0 by using the rheometric software to be 1.063 105 and 1.46 105 J/mol.K for Ps and PS composite, respectively. (shrink)

This article addresses the emergence of African– European business relationships. Its focus is on the role of bargaining power and information tech- nology and its impact on the different stakeholders in (electronic) markets (sellers, market maker, buy- ers). Information technology is seen as an enabling technology that facilitates reaching a wider cus- tomer base (called reach) and providing a channel for increased customer services (called richness). The central question is how African suppliers can create bargaining power by means of information (...) technology and therefore enter and improve their position in European markets. Research is carried out in the flower industry. In this industry African flower growers create competitive advantage and develop business relationships with European buy- ers (wholesalers, retailers). In this article we inves- tigate three flower markets (Tele Flower Auction, FloraHolland Auction, and Aalsmeer Auction), the role of African flower growers, and the use and impact of information technology in these markets. The results of our research show that there are pot- entials for African flower growers to enter the Euro- pean flower markets and to increase their position of bargaining power. A first potential is using and implementing information technology for the access to new and large European markets. African flower growers use information technology to streamline transaction processes and lower transac- tion costs. A second potential is related to the qual- ity and specificity of the produced flower products. Information technology can remove the quality uncertainty of products and can provide rich infor- mation services to buyers. The results in the flower industry suggest that information technology pro- vides opportunities for the African producers to expand the reach and richness of their product and service offerings, thus creating economic value. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Özet -/- Bu çalışmada modern endüstri toplumlarında teknolojinin, bireylerin ve bir bütün olarak toplumun rasyonalitesini nasıl etkilediği ve bunun da ötesinde nasıl belirlediği incelenecektir. Bu inceleme Herbert Marcuse’nin Tek Boyutlu İnsan adlı eserinde ortaya koyduğu teknolojiye ilişkin görüşleri üzerinden yapılacaktır. Rasyonalite, bilgi ve deneyim arasındaki ilişki teknoloji üzerinden irdelenecek ve daha sonra Marcuse’nin ‘teknolojik rasyonalite’ kavramı Claus Offe’nin eleştirileri bağlamında çözümlenecektir. Son olarak Marcuse’nin teknoloji eleştirisi günümüzde ortaya çıkan toplumsal pratiklerle ele alınarak değerlendirilecektir. -/- Anahtar Terimler Teknoloji, Bilgi, Eleştiri, Pratik, (...) Kapitalist Toplum, Politika, Rasyonalite. -/- Rationality, Experience and Knowledge in the Age of Technology: Problems & Criticisms -/- Abstract -/- The question of how human potential is imprisoned in contemporary capitalism is one of the central topics of the analysis on social reality by every social theory which claims to be critical. This question which can be concretized as a systematic occupation with the cultural-technical forms which caused by contemporary capitalism and as an analysis of new types of social subjectivity which emerge as a result of these forms, essentially includes the effort to specify at what level and by using what kind of tools the current system grabs the individual by the throat. Frankfurt School tradition as one of the foremost traditions which conducts such an investigation, discusses the analysis of society over fragility of the bourgeois individual. -/- According to Frankfurt School, the individual in contemporary capitalism is extorted from bourgeois ideals and is out of breath as a result of blockade of overgrown structures in social context in which s/he lives. In other words, the bourgeois individual has been erased. In the late capitalist society where personal histories are melted away, technological progress is one of the processes that led to the deletion of the individual. The clearest expression of this emphasis finds correspondence in the introduction of Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Marcuse proposes two opposite theses in this work which he examines advanced industrial societies: 1) Advanced industrial society have a structure that it can control the qualitative changes in predictable future, 2) However, trends and forces which can reverse this situation (which can break this limitation and destroy capitalist society) also exist. First one claims that relations of domination in the social structures are sustainable in the future; and the other thesis emphasizes that the opportunity of emancipation of people by getting free of these power relations is still possible. However, Marcuse does not dwell on too much on the latter (which is the claim about possibility of powers and trends that can change the current situation). Moreover it could be argued that his arguments relating to technological rationality and one-dimensionality draws us into the impossibility of attaining any moment of a positive social transformation. -/- The book is dominated by an atmosphere of immense feeling of being encircled and hopelessness, thus it follows from the work of Marcuse that in the system that we live in it is even impossible to breathe freely. Although in follow-up studies after the One Dimensional Man (especially in writings in which vitality of 68 movement and the axis of New Left), it can be observed that there is an attempt to convert despair into hope, it is clear that Marcuse’s designations regarding technological life mechanisms should be discussed again given the technological advancements of our times. Within this context, in the study, how the technology affects and furthermore determines the individuals and society as a whole in the modern industrial societies has been investigated. This investigation has been carried out through Herbert Marcuse's views on technology which are presented in his work One-Dimensional Man. The relationship between rationality, knowledge and experience has been examined on the basis of technology, and then Marcuse's concept of ‘technological rationality’ has been analysed in the context of Claus Offe's criticisms. -/- Finally, Marcuse's critique of technology has been assessed by considering the emerging social practices in this day and time. Herbert Marcuse refers to the rationality which is created by technology and is directly based on submissive efficiency, as ‘technological rationality’. Thinker argues that what is considered to be rational in a society is subject to change with technological developments, and social rationality is directly connected to the technological advancements. There are three different projections of technological rationality approach which are in turn ontological, epistemological and ethicalpolitical approaches. Claus Offe claims that it is possible to group these different dimensions under three theses. According to the first one; scientific rationality has become the organizational principle of domination. -/- According to Offe, in his second thesis Marcuse mentions the emergence of technology sui generis i.e. as a distinctive autonomous technological rationality. And the third thesis proceeds on the line of the argument that socialist societies are under the impact of technological rationality as well as capitalist societies. According to Offe, even though these three theses are consistent with each other, Marcuse has been violated the most fundamental principle of the Critical Theory by not offering any possibility of social transformation which are aimed at the problems of extensive manipulation and pacified existence that brought about by technological rationality. Hence although Marcuse's work is of utmost importance with regard to his analysis and the issues that he has covered, it would not be wrong to say that a problematic argument from the point of the tradition of Critical Theory has been proposed. The main reason for this is the argument which asserts that the technology turned into a mechanism of domination which is almost irreversible and unchangeable. Therefore, such mechanism does not offer any resistance point where human can take a breath. As a result of this, emancipation which is the main political purpose of the Critical Theory has been invalidated. What could be the problems which are created by the negative situation that results from Marcuse's thesis on technology? For instance, how could the basis for the existence of opposing movements which are organized over the internet or the foundations of anti-capitalist radical critique be explained on the axis of Marcuse’s thesis? -/- There is a fundamental problem that has to be solved: if we declare only the validity of oppressive, central and ideological functions of technological devices, then the idea which is referred by authoritarian governments that current opposing movements or rebel groups organized over internet might be organized from a centre which is defined as imperialist power or external power becomes an affirmable argument. In other words, does Marcuse's technological determinist approach serves to legitimize the discourses such as "foreign powers or imperialist enemies," and so on which authoritarian powers frequently resort to. Is it possible to think of another alternative with regard to the problems produced by this rationality apart from the negative comments that revealed by the concept of technological rationality. From what frameworks this question can be answered In the conclusion of the study, answers to these questions have been searched. -/- Keywords: Technology, Knowledge, Criticism, Practice, Capitalist Society, Politics, Rationality. (shrink)