In January 2024, non-consensual deepfakes came to public attention with the spread of AI generated sexually abusive images of Taylor Swift. Although this brought new found energy to the debate on what some call non-consensual synthetic intimate images (i.e. images that use technology such as AI or photoshop to make sexual images of a person without their consent), female celebrities like Swift have had deepfakes like these made of them for years. In 2017, (...) a Reddit user named “deepfakes” posted several videos in which he had used opensource machine learning tools to swap the faces of female celebrities on to the faces of female porn actors, displaying what appeared to be live video footage of the celebrity engaging in sex acts she never engaged in. Since that time, deepfake technology has advanced astronomically. What once were choppy sexualized videos are now nearly flawless videos that can be difficult to distinguish from a real video. According to recent research on deepfakes by Sensity AI, this technology has been used primarily on women to create sexual videos. These women’s sexual autonomy has been co-opted for the purposed of gratifying men’s sexual pleasure, but have also been used in campaigns to delegitimize and humiliate female journalists and politicians. In Canada, civil and criminal legislation has addressed the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, but in only a few provinces – British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan – does this offence include altered images that could include deepfakes. This paper explores the evolution of synthetic technology such as AI image generators and Canada’s legal responses to the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. (shrink)

The recent distribution of nude photos of a number of high profile Hong Kong celebrities has provoked intense discussion about the state of Hong Kong's obscenity and indecency laws. In this paper, I argue that Hong Kong's laws prohibiting the transfer of obscene and indecent information and images between consenting adults are both under-inclusive and over-inclusive. The Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance is under-inclusive in that it does not adequately criminalise grave violations of privacy. It is (...) also over-inclusive because it is a blanket prohibition against the transfer by all parties (including consenting adults) of all forms of obscene and indecent materials. The laws unnecessarily violate the free expression rights of both the producer and consenting viewer of the offensive materials. The producer/publisher of such materials does not harm his or her audience as they willingly view such materials. The justification for maintaining a blanket prohibition against all transfers of such materials is invalid and utterly and totally out of touch with modern life in Hong Kong. The proponents of such laws have used Victorian positive morality considerations to justify continued criminalisation. These laws should be abrogated and replaced with a new piece of legislation that is narrowly tailored to deal with those types of offensive displays that are wrongful in a critical rather than a mere positive morality sense. Criminalisation should be limited to those offences that target children or use children in the production process, violate the rights of non-consenting adult audiences not to receive certain intimate information in certain public contexts, and violate privacy rights by publishing a person's private and intimate information without consent. If x obtains y's profoundly private information and publishes it without y's consent, then x violates y's privacy rights in a grave way. The violation in the right circumstances will justify a criminal law response rather than a mere civil law response. Similarly, if x and y copulate on a public bus they subject the captive audience to an offensive display which violates the non-consenting audience's right not to receive certain intimate information. I argue below that these types of privacy violations give the lawmaker a legitimate justification for invoking the criminal law. (shrink)

This article argues that non-consensual vaccination is morally impermissible, for the same reasons for which sexual assault is not permissible. Likewise, mandatory vaccination is morally akin to sexual harassment, and therefore is not to be allowed.

The Riemann zeta function ζ(s) is a central object in number theory and complex analysis, defined for complex variables and intimately connected to the distribution of prime numbers through its zeros. The famous Riemann Hypothesis conjectures that all non-trivial zeros of the zeta function lie on the critical line Re(s) = 1 2 . In this paper, we explore the Riemann zeta function through the lens of set-theoretic and sweeping net methods, leveraging creative comparisons of specific sets to gain (...) deeper insight into the distribution of its zeros. By rewording and analyzing the Riemann Hypothesis using set-theoretic arguments, applying sweeping net techniques, and integrating modal logic interpretations, we aim to provide new perspectives and support for this profound conjecture. Our objectives are: • Define the zeta function and its properties relevant to the zeros. • Reword the Riemann Hypothesis using set-theoretic language and establish logical equivalence. • Introduce and compare specific sets related to the zeros of ζ(s). • Apply set-theoretic and sweeping net methods to analyze the distribution of zeros. • Provide rigorous proofs about the absence of zeros in certain regions, including mechanical justifi- cations with all steps. • Incorporate modal logic interpretations into the proof. • Discuss implications for the Riemann Hypothesis. (shrink)

In recent decades, interest in non-monogamous intimate relationships has grown rapidly. Polyamory, relationship anarchy, consensual or ethical non-monogamy, and more have become popular in academic and public discourse. These practices destabilize the privileging of heterosexual nuclear families and the assumption that romantic coupledom is the ultimate form of love. Non-monogamous approaches flout cultural norms of exclusivity by avowing that intimacy is compatible with multiple dyadic and/or multi-party relationships. This article explores Simone de Beauvoir's theory and practice of non-monogamy (...) in her theoretical writings and diaries. (shrink)

The fifth text-revised iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) defines paraphilia as “any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physically mature, consenting human partners”. Paraphilic disorders specifically denote a paraphilia that is “currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others”. A diagnosis of paraphilic disorder either demands the personal (...) distress and/or impairment of function that is caused by the atypical sexual urges and fantasies to be present, or the status of non-consent of the other person that these sexual fantasies and urges are directed towards when acted upon by the patient. This paper discusses how consent not only becomes the standard for permissible and legal sexual activity with other persons, but also, when the diagnostic criteria are taken at face-value, for sexual pathology in the DSM-5-TR when the patient acts on their sexual urges. After a close investigation of various possible interpretations of the element of non-consensuality in the diagnostic criteria for paraphilic disorders, this paper concludes that the DSM-5-TR does not offer a clarifying explanation on how mental health professionals should under-stand its approach to diagnosing paraphilic disorders, leaving us with an ambiguous, unclear and unsettled conceptualisation of what it would mean to fulfil its diagnostic criteria. (shrink)

A central tenet of medical ethics holds that it is permissible to perform a medical intervention on a competent individual only if that individual has given informed consent to the intervention. However, in some circumstances it is tempting to say that the moral reason to obtain informed consent prior to administering a medical intervention is outweighed. For example, if an individual’s refusal to undergo a medical intervention would lead to the transmission of a dangerous infectious disease to other members of (...) the community, one might claim that it would be morally permissible to administer the intervention even in the absence of consent. Indeed, as we shall discuss below, there are a number of examples of public health authorities implementing compulsory or coercive measures for the purposes of infectious disease control (IDC). The plausibility of the thought that non-consensual medical interventions might be justified when performed for the purpose of IDC raises the question of whether such interventions might permissibly be used to realize other public goods. In this article we focus on one possibility: whether it could be permissible to non-consensually impose certain interventions that alter brain states or processes through chemical or physical means on serious criminal offenders. We shall suggest that some such interventions might be permissible if they safely and effectively serve to facilitate the offender’s rehabilitation and thereby prevent criminal recidivism. (shrink)

Advanced medical imaging, such as CT, fMRI and PET, has undergone enormous progress in recent years, both in accuracy and utilization. Such techniques often bring with them an illusion of immediacy, the idea that the body and its diseases can be directly inspected. In this paper we target this illusion and address the issue of the reliability of advanced imaging tests as knowledge procedures, taking positron emission tomography in oncology as paradigmatic case study. After individuating a suitable notion of reliability, (...) we argue that PET is a highly theory-laden and non-immediate knowledge procedure, in spite of the photographic-like quality of the images it delivers; the diagnostic conclusions based on the interpretation of PET images are population-dependent; PET images require interpretation, which is inherently observer-dependent and therefore variable. We conclude with a three-step methodological proposal for enhancing the reliability of advanced medical imaging. (shrink)

When philosophers consider factors compromising autonomy in consent, they often focus solely on the consent-giver’s agential capacities, overlooking the impact of the consent-receiver’s conduct on the consensual character of the activity. In this paper, I argue that valid consent requires justified trust in the consent-receiver to act only within the scope of consent. I call this the Trust Condition (TC), drawing on Katherine Hawley’s commitment account of trust. TC constitutes a belief that the consent-receiver is capable and willing to (...) act as we expect from them. If such trust is not warranted, I argue, consent lacks the appropriate normative grounds. After establishing TC, I explore its application in the sexual arena, asserting that due to the non-contractual dimensions of sexual activity — such as the dynamic nature of sexual desires and the absence of external factors effectively binding sexual partners to the terms of consent—trust is warranted in sexual consent by means of care. I define care as a special sensitivity and attention toward the partner’s will and discuss how this approach leads to safer intimate relationships in practice. (shrink)

This paper investigates the notion of ‘distributed cognition’—the idea that entities external to one’s organic brain participate in one’s overall cognitive functioning—and the challenges it poses to the notion of personhood. Related to this is also a consideration of the ever-increasing ways in which neuroprostheses replace and functionally replicate organic parts of the brain. However, the literature surrounding such issues has tended to take an almost exclusively physicalist approach. The common assumption is that, given that non-physicalist theories (chiefly, dualism, and (...) hylomorphism) postulate some form of immaterial ‘soul’, then they are immune from the challenges that these advances in cognitive science pose. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to argue that this is not the case. The second aim of this paper is to attempt to elucidate a route available for the non-physicalists that will allow them to accept the notion of distributed cognition. By appealing to an Aristotelian framework, I propose that the non-physicalist can accept the notion of distributed cognition by appealing to the notion of ‘unitary life’ which I introduce, as well as to Aristotle’s dichotomy between active and passive mind. (shrink)

The 11 experimental, pseudo-avantgarde visual poems (wordless, other than title and date) are an indirect homage to the late-great filmmaker and photographer, Chris Marker (1921-2012), foremost to his penchant for utilizing disintegrating imagery in his film-essays and multimedia installations. All images were captured using a Research in Motion, BlackBerry 8520 cellphone, and subsequently 100-percent de-saturated, and 100-percent contrast-adjusted, using Microsoft Office Picture Manager. The images, as a result, resemble the primitive production values given to the pinhole camera, and (...) the “dogmatic” (uniform) adjustments (as above), applied to the original BB images, reference the early strictures applied to filmmaking by Lars von Trier. The above-mentioned, black-and-white adjustments notwithstanding, all images are used “as captured,” without cropping. The series begins and ends in Botwnnog, Northwest Wales, in May and August of 2013, respectively, with interregnums and brief idylls in Rijeka, Croatia, Trieste and Ancona, Italy, and Igoumenitsa, Ioannina, and Athens, Greece. Tracking the peregrinations of the author of the poems across Europe, and intimately associated with the then-nascent research and exhibition project, “Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art & Architecture,”* the poems are also a compressed form of scholarship, albeit operating in the shadow-lands of knowledge per se, and evoking the non-discursive side of literary-artistic production, a penumbral zone within cultural production that nonetheless references the discursive arts (essay and/or full-blown treatise), but favors the paradox and/or tautology – privileging, then, the much-desired destruction of dialectics. (shrink)

Jeanette Edwards tells us that she is often asked about why she did fieldwork in the English town of Bacup, whereas she has not heard anthropologists who did fieldwork in Papua New Guinea asked why there. She commits herself to a certain explanation for this: potential inquirers assume that non-Western societies are legitimate objects of study for social anthropology but this is not assumed for Western societies. I propose another explanation: it is not about the legitimacy of the object of (...) study, rather “your” levels of commitment. Would you do that for anthropology? (shrink)

Everyday media consumption leaves no doubt that the perception of moving images from various media is characterized by experience and understanding. Corresponding research in this field has shown that the stimulus patterns flooding in on us are not only processed mentally, but also bodily. Building on this, the following study argues that incoming stimuli are processed not only visually, but multimodally, with all senses, and moreover affectively. The classical binding of a sensory organ to a medium, on whose delimitation (...) the common understanding of multimodality is based, is thus abolished. Can arguments for this assumption be found? Building on the research of cultural anthropologist Ernst Cassirer and his successors, the two American philosophers Susanne K. Langer and John M. Krois, and supported by research from the life sciences in which, in parallel, the arts also play an important role in understanding image formation, as in the work of Heinz Werner and, following on from this, in the more recent research of the child psychologist Daniel N. Stern in collaboration with mirror neuron research by the group of neuroscientists around Giacomo Rizzolatti in Parma, justifications for this will be provided. What the multimodal processing of film images is concretely based on will finally be made clear by means of an exemplary analysis of a video film by the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. It aims to prove, that the prerequisites for the thesis can only lie in the fact, that both the modes of perception (visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, gustatory) as well as the medially conditioned modes of image formation are based on non-discursive, formal-abstract structures that are also processed affectively. At the same time, the analysis thus shows how the selection and composition of the vital experienced forms can provide information about the socio-culturally shaped self-image of the producer and the viewer. (shrink)

In “Reconciliation as Non-Alienation: The Politics of Being at Home in the World,” Catherine Lu develops a novel account of reconciliation. Put briefly, she claims that reconciliation aims to address agents’ alienation from the unjust social institutions and practices that structure their lives; it aims, in other words, to enable these agents to be at home in their social worlds. In these comments, I present two kinds of challenges that Lu’s account faces. Both challenges have their source in forms of (...) shame and fear that are apt to discourage socially privileged agents from participating in the process of reconciliation that Lu describes. My hope is that thinking through responses to the challenges that I discuss will deepen our understanding of the grounds for engaging in reconciliation at all, the relation between our ideals of reconciliation and our ideals of justice, and the burdens that may be associated with the pursuit of these ideals. (shrink)

Brand image constitutes one of the most salient, over-defined, heavily explored and multifariously operationalized conceptual constructs in marketing theory and practice. In this Chapter, definitions of brand image that have been offered by marketing scholars will be critically addressed in the context of a culturally oriented discussion, informed by the semiotic notion of iconicity. This cultural bend, in conjunction with the concept’s semiotic contextualization, are expected both to dispel terminological confusions in the either inter-changeable or fuzzily differentiated employment of such (...) terms as brand image, symbol, icon, as well as to address the function of brand image at a deeper level than a mere construct to be operationalized in quantitative studies of purchase drivers. This shift in focus is coupled with a critical turn from the cogito-centric view of the consuming subject through the cognitivist lens of the AI metaphor as decision-making centre at the origin of largely conscious meaning-making, in favor of a psychoanalytically informed approach that considers figurativity as an essential process whereby brand image is formed. In these terms, brand image will be intimately linked to brand images as figurative multimodal expressive units and rhetorical tropes, as figurative syntax, that are responsible for shaping an idiolectal brand language, as well as to distinctive levels of iconicity as textual condition of possibility of a brand language. In order to understand the role of iconicity as fundamental condition of brand textuality, rather than just a procedure for spawning brand images, the discussion is contextualized in a wider framework involving the culturally situated source of brand images, how they become correlated with brand image concepts and how correlations between brand images and brand image result in brand knowledge structures (Keller 1998). This opening up of the discussion on iconicity is enacted against the background of what I call the Brand Imaginarium which involves: (i) a critical engagement with the dominant cognitivist perspective in branding research that prioritizes individual memory in brand knowledge formation, through a cultural branding lens that involves two additional types of memory, viz. communicative and cultural (ii) a critical engagement with the cognitivist perspective on brand knowledge formation that prioritizes conscious processing of stimuli (as ‘brute facts’, rather than as already semiotized expressive units) in a cognitive mechanism from which the faculty of imagination has been expelled, by restoring the importance of imagination in brand knowledge formation, and, concomitantly, by showing that the highly figurative language of brands may not be researched thoroughly unless imagination is posited anew as processing correlate (iii) the adoption of an expansionist approach to the role of the imaginary in brand knowledge formation, from cognitive (or psychic) faculty, to a more sociologically inclined process of inter-subjective mirroring, and concomitantly as imaginary social significations (Castoriades 1985) that are shared by culturally conditioned and habituated subjects that engage in meaningful cultural practices, rather than individual processing monads. (shrink)

Contrary to the received view, I argue that Kant, in the “Doctrine of Right”, outlines a third, republican alternative to absolutist and voluntarist conceptions of political legitimacy. According to this republican alternative, a state must meet certain institutional requirements before political obligations arise. An important result of this interpretation is not only that there are institutional restraints on a legitimate state's use of coercion, but also that the rights of the state (‘public right’) are not in principle reducible to the (...) rights of individuals (‘private right’). Thus, for Kant, political obligations are intimately linked to the existence of a certain kind of republican institutional framework. (shrink)

This article is an inferential analysis of the Bloody Night and Open Truth: a Nollywood movie series that reflects the rot in Nigerian Police. The objective of this paper is to identify the image problems of the Nigerian Police as reflected by the Nollywood movie series. The study adopts a content analysis approach. Acts of bribery, false allegations, extra-judicial killings, torture and attempts to suppress justice are all exposed as perpetrated by the senior and junior officers of the Nigerian police. (...) Apart from the majority of corrupt officers; there are some non-corrupt Nigerian police officers who are emblems of justice and truth as shown in the behaviour of some characters in the movie. Their desire for truth represents a new and positive image of the Nigerian police. The study concludes that there is hope for a committed and rebranded Nigerian Police if the Nigerian Government should do the needful. The study recommends an improvement in wages, sustained retraining and punishment of police officers found wanting. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin with an account of the initial distinction between likenesses and appearances, a distinction which may resemble the difference between sophists and philosophers. That distinction first arises immediately after the puzzling appearance of the noble sophist, who seems to occupy an odd space in between sophist and philosopher. In the second section, I look more closely at the noble sophist, and on what that figure might tell us about images and the use of images. (...) I also attempt to use the insights provided by the noble sophist in an investigation of the kind of images that Plato the author produces. This raises the question of the general notion of image as it appears in the Sophist, and especially of the dual nature of all images, which in turn invites reflection on certain features of the examination of being and non-being late in the dialogue. Finally, I return to the deception inherent in images, and I argue that this dialogue does not present the possibility of completely honest images. Nevertheless, I hope to show that some uses of deceptions and images are better than others. (shrink)

An excerpt of "The SignalGlyph Project and Prime Numbers" (a chapter of the book THE IMAGE OF LANGUAGE) that attempts to illustrate how dimensional limitations of mathematical language have obscured recognition of the system of patterning in the distribution of prime numbers.

In situations where we ignore everything but the space of possibilities, we ought to suspend judgment—that is, remain agnostic—about which of these possibilities is the case. This means that we cannot sum our degrees of belief in different possibilities, something that has been formalized as an axiom of non-additivity. Consistent with this way of representing our ignorance, I defend a doxastic norm that recommends that we should nevertheless follow a certain additivity of possibilities: even if we cannot sum degrees of (...) belief in different possibilities, we should be more confident in larger groups of possibilities. It is thus shown that, in the type of situation considered (in so-called ‘classical ignorance’, i.e. “behind a thin veil of ignorance”), it is epistemically rational for advocates of suspending judgment to endorse this comparative confidence; while on the other hand it is shown that, even in classical ignorance, no stronger belief—such as a precise uniform probability distribution—is warranted. (shrink)

This chapter explores the role that non-textual narrations of biblical stories can play in Christian life and practice. Our case study is the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Kabuga, Rwanda. The stations at the shrine tell the story of Jesus’s life and passion, incorporating images from the Catholic devotional tradition of Divine Mercy and elements evoking the Rwandan genocide. While many philosophical accounts of narratives presuppose that narratives are textual, material and visual art like the Kabuga shrine can also (...) be narrative, in that, like text, material and visual art can selectively represent multiple events and connections between them. We argue that material-visual narratives like the shrine can be effective in achieving commonly identified functions of narratives, such as focusing attention, immersing in a story, engaging the emotions, and fostering a common perspective on the world. We further argue that material-visual art is well-suited to narrating the Gospel in particular, for it can present the Gospel story alongside other stories (in this case, the story of the Rwandan genocide) and in so doing reframe these other stories in light of the Gospel. (shrink)

Distributive justice deals with allocations of goods and bads within a group. Different principles and results of distributions are seen as possible ideals. Often those normative approaches are solely framed verbally, which complicates the application to different concrete distribution situations that are supposed to be evaluated in regard to justice. One possibility in order to frame this precisely and to allow for a fine-grained evaluation of justice lies in formal modelling of these ideals by metrics. Choosing a metric that (...) is supposed to map a certain ideal has to be justified. Such justification might be given by demanding specific substantiated axioms, which have to be met by a metric. This paper introduces such axioms for metrics of distributive justice shown by the example of needs-based justice. Furthermore, some exemplary metrics of needs-based justice and a three dimensional method for visualisation of non-comparative justice axioms or evaluations are presented. Therewith, a base worth discussing for the evaluation and modelling of metrics of distributive justice is given. (shrink)

Primary and secondary processes are the foundational axes of the Freudian mental apparatus: one horizontally as a tendency to associate, the primary process, and one vertically as the ability for perspective taking, the secondary process. Primary process mentation is not only supposed to be dominant in the unconscious but also, for example, in dreams. The present study tests the hypothesis that the mental activity during REM-sleep has more characteristics of the primary process, while during non-REM-sleep more secondary process operations take (...) place. Because the solving of a rebus requires the ability to non-contexually condensate the literal reading of single stimuli into a new one, rebus solving is a primary process operation by excellence. In a replication of the dream-rebus study of Shevrin and Fisher (1967), a rebus, which consisted of an image of a comb (German: “Kamm”) and an image of a raft (German: “Floß”), resulting in the German rebus word “kampflos” (Engl.: without a struggle), was flashed subliminally (at 1 ms) to 20 participants before going to sleep. Upon consecutive awakenings participants were asked for a dream report, free associations and an image description. Based on objective association norms, there were significantly more conceptual associations referring to Kamm and Floß indexing secondary process mentation when subjects were awakened from non-REM sleep as compared to REM-awakenings. There were not significantly more rebus associations referring to kampflos indexing primary process mentation when awakened from REM-sleep as compared to non-REM awakenings. However, when the associations were scored on the basis of each subject’s individual norms, there was a rebus effect with more idiosyncratic rebus associations in awakenings after REM than after non-REM-sleep. Our results support the general idea that REM-sleep is characterized by primary process thinking, while non-REM-sleep mentation follows the rules of the secondary process. (shrink)

This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more generally) from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.

Ronald Giere embraces the perspective of distributed cognition to think about cognition in the sciences. I argue that his conception of distributed cognition is flawed in that it bears all the marks of its predecessor; namely, individual cognition. I show what a proper (i.e. non-individual) distributed framework looks like, and highlight what it can and cannot do for the philosophy of science.

This paper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychological research on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debate on extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extended cognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural, bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary properties are integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the nature of remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarity argument, (...) say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “a non-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory as the study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, within nervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual and empirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms of cognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognition literature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), we develop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relations between agents and external resources, both technological and social. On this basis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysical claims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources, a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transform explanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical results as evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin. We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientific psychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empirical traditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory. We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering, aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups. Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition can thus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivated research programs in the cognitive psychology of memory. (shrink)

Students do not necessarily use the definitions presented to them when determining examples or non-examples of given mathematical ideas. Instead, they utilize the concept image they carry with them as a result of experiences with such examples and nonexamples. Hence, teachers should try exploring students‟ images of various mathematical concepts in order to improve communication between students and teachers. This suggestion can be addressed through error analysis. This study therefore is a descriptive-qualitative type that looked into the errors committed (...) by senior high school students in dealing with mathematical functions, explored the underlying reasons for such errors, and provided recommendations on how students could learn to manage their errors and how teachers could realize how to manage students‟ errors. Initial findings showed that the students generally demonstrated mathematical, logical and strategic errors. Mathematical error was generally exhibited in their inability to use properties and operations properly. Logical error was exhibited in their false arguments, rearranging concepts, improper classifications, arguing cyclically, and using equivalent transforms. Strategic error was manifested in their not being able to distinguish patterns, lack of integral concept, and not being able to transform a word problem into symbols. Errors prevailed despite the students‟ positive view and confidence in mathematics not only because of poor image concepts but because of lack of exposure to certain important mathematical tasks. Further investigation on the other sources of these errors is therefore necessary. (shrink)

In this paper, Lévinas’s criticisms and reformulations of Sartre’s phenomenology of imagination, in the early text “Reality and its Shadow,” are explored in detail. Levinas's own views on imagination and art are shown to be intimately linked to his critique of Sartrean temporality, insofar as they rely on a renewed phenomenological examination of sensation. As a result, understanding Lévinas’s discussion of the image provides benefits for grasping his notion of the instant and its importance for some of his own positions (...) vis-à-vis temporality, e.g. on the future and death. The manner in which Lévinas takes issue with Sartre through a phenomenology of the image and and its composition in sensation is first investigated by looking at Lévinas’s novel choice to situate his descriptions of the image with respect to the function and power of art. Nevertheless, despite this crucial decision on Lévinas’s part, departing from earlier phenomenological accounts, there are clear parallels can be drawn between Lévinas’s and Sartre’s descriptions of the image. The similarites and differences between their treatments of the image and the role played therein by the materiality of sensation are then elucidated in terms of the ‘amphiboly’ of the image, distinguishing the image in both its representational and anti-representational characteristics. From there, we proceed to examine the amphiboly of the image according to its temporality attributes, seeing how for Lévinas and Sartre the temporality of the image, as that of an instant, relates to the temporality of consciousness in general. (shrink)

Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, the civil rights advocate and the great rhetorician, has been the focus of much academic research. Only more recently is Douglass work on aesthetics beginning to receive its due, and even then its philosophical scope is rarely appreciated. Douglass’ aesthetic interest was notably not so much in art itself, but in understanding aesthetic presentation as an epistemological and psychological aspect of the human condition and thereby as a social and political tool. He was fascinated by the (...) power of images, and took particular interest in the emerging technologies of photography. He often returned to the themes of art, pictures and aesthetic perception in his speeches. He saw himself, also after the end of slavery, as first and foremost a human rights advocate, and he suggests that his work and thoughts as a public intellectual always in some way related to this end. In this regard, his interest in the power of photographic images to impact the human soul was a lifelong concern. His reflections accordingly center on the psychological and political potentials of images and the relationship between art, culture, and human dignity. In this chapter we discuss Douglass views and practical use of photography and other forms of imagery, and tease out his view about their transformational potential particularly in respect to combating racist attitudes. We propose that his views and actions suggest that he intuitively if not explicitly anticipated many later philosophical, pragmatist and ecological insights regarding the generative habits of mind and affordance perception : I.e. that we perceive the world through our values and habitual ways of engaging with it and thus that our perception is active and creative, not passive and objective. Our understanding of the world is simultaneously shaped by and shaping our perceptions. Douglass saw that in a racist and bigoted society this means that change through facts and rational arguments will be hard. A distorted lens distorts - and accordingly re-produces and perceives its own distortion. His interest in aesthetics is intimately connected to this conundrum of knowledge and change, perception and action. To some extent precisely due to his understanding of how stereotypical categories and dominant relations work on our minds, he sees a radical transformational potential in certain art and imagery. We see in his work a profound understanding of the value-laden and action-oriented nature of perception and what we today call the perception of affordances (that is, what our environment permits/invites us to do). Douglass is particularly interested in the social environment and the social affordances of how we perceive other humans, and he thinks that photographs can impact on the human intellect in a transformative manner. In terms of the very process of aesthetic perception his views interestingly cohere and supplement a recent theory about the conditions and consequences of being an aesthetic beholder. The main idea being that artworks typically invite an asymmetric engagement where one can behold them without being the object of reciprocal attention. This might allow for a kind of vulnerability and openness that holds transformational potentials not typically available in more strategic and goal-directed modes of perception. As mentioned, Douglass main interest is in social change and specifically in combating racist social structures and negative stereotypes of black people. He is fascinated by the potential of photography in particular as a means of correcting fallacious stereotypes, as it allows a more direct and less distorted image of the individuality and multidimensionality of black people. We end with a discussion of how, given this interpretation of aesthetic perception, we can understand the specific imagery used by Douglass himself. How he tried to use aesthetic modes to subvert and change the racist habitus in the individual and collective mind of his society. We suggest that Frederick Douglass, the human rights activist, had a sophisticated philosophy of aesthetics, mind, epistemology and particularly of the transformative and political power of images. His works in many ways anticipate and sometimes go beyond later scholars in these and other fields such as psychology & critical theory. Overall, we propose that our world could benefit from revisiting Douglass’ art and thought. (shrink)

From the perspective of distributed cognition I will stress how abduction is essentially multimodal, in that both data and hypotheses can have a full range of verbal and sensory representations, involving words, sights, images, smells, etc., but also kinesthetic – related to the ability to sense the position and location and orientation and movement of the body and its parts – and motor experiences and other feelings such as pain, and thus all sensory modalities. The presence of kinesthetic and (...) motor aspects demonstrates that abductive reasoning can be manipulative. We can also see, in this regard, how implicit factors take part in the abductive procedure, which consequently acquires the character of a kind of “thinking through doing”. This paper further describes 1) the fact that hypotheses in science can be built through different cognitive mediators and so they can also model the same cognitive aspect in different ways; how they can be carriers/ producers of knowledge in a multimodal way; 2) the problem of the possible non-explanatory and instrumental nature of abductive reasoning and the analysis of the consequences for induction; 3) the role of manipulative abduction in building new evidence/ experiments and how they trigger smart inductive inferences. (shrink)

This article addresses the definition of cinema by focusing on the related ontological question of which basic category circumscribes cinematic works. According to Noël Carroll, the definition of cinema consists both of ontological conditions that treat the moving image as a type and of other conditions that treat it as a display. But following Carroll’s ontological conditions, the digital encoding of a moving image enigmatically ends up being both a type and a token. Solving such a puzzle by clarifying the (...) relation between the cinematic type and the digital type leads us to define the moving image in general as a type that specifies a spatiotemporal distribution of pixels. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the temporal connective prima (‘before’) is a comparative adverb. The argument is based on a number of grammatical facts from Italian, showing that there is an asymmetry between prima and dopo (‘after’). On the ground of their divergent behaviour, I suggest that dopo has a different grammatical status from prima. I propose a semantic treatment for prima that is based on an independently motivated analysis of comparatives which can be traced back to Seuren (in: (...) Kiefer and Ruwet (eds.) Generative grammar in Europe, 1973). Dopo is analyzed instead as an atomic two-place predicate which contributes a binary relation over events to the sentence meaning. The different semantic treatments of the two connectives provide an explanation for the grammatical asymmetries considered at the outset; interestingly, they also shed some light on other asymmetries between prima and dopo, which are known to hold for the English temporal connectives before and after as well: these asymmetries are related to the veridicality properties, the distribution of NPIs, and the logical properties of these connectives first described in Anscombe (Philos Rev 73:3–24, 1964). (shrink)

The concept of non-arbitrage plays an essential role in finance theory. Under certain regularity conditions, the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing states that, in non-arbitrage markets, prices of financial instruments are martingale processes. In this theoretical framework, the analysis of the statistical distributions of financial assets can assist in understanding how participants behave in the markets, and may or may not engender arbitrage conditions. Assuming an underlying Variance Gamma statistical model, this study aims to test, using the FBST - Full (...) Bayesian Significance Test, if there is a relevant price difference between essentially the same financial asset traded at two distinct locations. Specifically, we investigate and compare the behavior of call options on the BOVESPA Index traded at (a) the Equities Segment and (b) the Derivatives Segment of BM&FBovespa. Our results seem to point out significant statistical differences. To what extent this evidence is actually the expression of perennial arbitrage opportunities is still an open question. (shrink)

There are various philosophical approaches and theories describing the intimate relation people have to artifacts. In this paper, I explore the relation between two such theories, namely distributed cognition and distributed morality theory. I point out a number of similarities and differences in these views regarding the ontological status they attribute to artifacts and the larger systems they are part of. Having evaluated and compared these views, I continue by focussing on the way cognitive artifacts are used in moral (...) practice. I specifically conceptualise how such artifacts (a) scaffold and extend moral reasoning and decision-making processes, (b) have a certain moral status which is contingent on their cognitive status, and (c) whether responsibility can be attributed to distributed systems. This paper is primarily written for those interested in the intersection of cognitive and moral theory as it relates to artifacts, but also for those independently interested in philosophical debates in extended and distributed cognition and ethics of (cognitive) technology. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg has recently argued that there is a logical incompatibility between God’s being perfectly loving and there being non-resistant nonbelievers in the proposition that God exists. In this paper I highlight the parallel between this claim and the claim made by the logical problem of evil. Following Plantinga’s strategy in undermining the logical problem of evil, I argue that all that is needed to undermine the alleged incompatibility of divine love with non-resistant non-belief is a counterexample showing how (...) the two might possibly co-exist. But whereas most attempts to show this have been grounded anthropologically, by drawing on forms of love-relationship that God and humans have in common, I offer a defense of the compatibility of perfect divine love with human non-resistant non-belief in God’s existence grounded theologically, in the unique sort of love relationship that God wants with us, which is the relationship of “imaging.”. (shrink)

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been carrying out a scaled-down moderator test program to simulate the CANDU-6 moderator circulation phenomena during steady state operation and accident conditions. The Moderator Circulation Test (MCT) facility was designed and constructed as 1/4 scale of the prototype of CANDU-6 reactor. In the present work spatial distribution of two-dimensional velocity in the MCT facility under isothermal condition was measured using planar Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system which consists of double pulsed laser, synchronizer, (...) and high speed camera. TSI’s Insight TM 4G software was used to perform PIV image capturing, PIV calculation and post processing. 10 μm sized silver-coated hollow sphere particles were used as flow tracer particles. Multiple experiments were conducted to cover large area of the MCT facility with limited field of view of a single camera. Instantaneous and averaged velocity field were analyzed for each spatial position and flow rate. This research is capable of offering validation data for self-reliant CFD tools to predict moderator subcooling margin in CANDU-6 reactor. (shrink)

Aesthetic evaluations of human bodies have important implications for moral recognition and for individuals’ access to social and material goods. Unfortunately, there is a widespread aesthetic disregard for non-white bodies. Aesthetic evaluations depend on the aesthetic properties we regard objects as having. And it is widely agreed that aesthetic properties are directly accessed in our experience of aesthetic objects. How, then, might we explain aesthetic evaluations that systematically favour features associated with white identity? Critical race philosophers, like Alia Al-Saji, Mariana (...) Ortega, Paul C. Taylor, and George Yancy, argue that this is because the perception of racialized bodies is affected by the social structures in which they are appreciated. The aim of this paper is to propose how social structures can affect aesthetic perception. I argue that mental imagery acquired through the interaction with aesthetic phenomena structures the perception of non-aesthetic properties of bodies, so that aesthetic properties consistent with racist stereotypes are attributed to individuals. (shrink)

Based on three recently published books on climate justice, this article reviews the field of climate ethics in light of developments of international climate politics. The central problem addressed is how idealised normative theories can be relevant to the political process of negotiating a just distribution of the costs and benefits of mitigating climate change. I distinguish three possible responses, that is, three kinds of non-ideal theories of climate justice: focused on (1) the injustice of some agents not doing (...) their part; (2) the policy process and aiming to be realistic; and (3) grievances related to the transition to a clean-energy economy. The methodological discussion underpinning each response is innovative and should be of interest more generally, even though it is still underdeveloped. The practical upshot, however, is unclear: even non-ideal climate justice may be too disconnected from the fast-moving and messy climate circus. (shrink)

Principles of distributive justice bind macro-level institutional agents, like the state. But what does justice require in non-ideal circumstances, where institutional agents are unjust or do not e...

The article discloses the problem of distributing state financial support based on an integrated approach. The study has proved the urgency and necessity of state support for the lowest priority territorial units (regions). It answers the research question of what components need to be included in the methodology for determining state financial support. A comprehensive method for estimating the share of public funds is proposed, taking into account the investment attractiveness of a region (oblast) and the risk of the corresponding (...) region (oblast). To achieve this goal, the following general scientific and special methods and research techniques were used in the work, such as comparative analysis of scientific literature and information sources based on methods of comparison, systematization, and generalization; generalization of the analysis results, as well as logical generation of conclusions and integral assessment. -/- Since the problem of financing the construction and reconstruction of bridges is relevant for a number of countries, this technique was tested using an example of bridge construction. -/- According to the obtained results, territorial units (regions) that are not leaders in priority for the investor and have a high level of riskiness of investing financial resources become eligible for state financial support. The problem of financing such regions can be solved only through state support. The results of calculations show that the distribution of financial resources with the available volume of public finances K=1 allocated for support is carried out proportionally. An integrated approach made it possible to identify 10 territorial units (oblasts) for funding, with the oblasts with the worst priority factors receiving the largest share of state financial support. -/- This study is of practical interest to government agencies in the distribution of public funds, and it is of theoretical importance to researchers dealing with issues of financial security and public administration. (shrink)

Distributive justice, defined as justice in distribution of income and wealth, is impossible. Income and wealth are distributed either unequally or equally. If unequally, then those with less are unjustly subject to social contempt. But equal distribution is impossible because it is inconsistent with bargaining to advance our own good. Hence justice in distribution of income and wealth is impossible. More generally, societies where social relations are mediated by money are necessarily unjust, and Marx was wrong to (...) think a socialist society which retained money would lead to communism. Contributive justice proposes that each flourishes by advancing the flourishing of others. To achieve this goal all labor, both simple and complex, must be shared among all capable of doing it. The good of contributing our abilities to benefit others is then available to all non-competitively. (shrink)

Kant’s distinction between intuitions and concepts attracts perennial interpretive interest. To the extent that they discuss the imagination at all, most Kant scholars maintain that the imagination’s primary role is to generate intuitions. This dissertation argues that “image” (Bild, Einbildung) is an overlooked technical term in Kant’s work and that images—and not intuitions—are products of the imagination. The project explains how, for Kant, the imagination (as image-maker) and the senses (as intuition-maker) make distinct but essential contributions to cognition and (...) perception. I begin by showing that “image” is a terminologically marked notion in Kant, and that the imagination is responsible for generating images (chapter 1). I call these claims the Image Thesis. I then show that for Kant, intuitions are representations that depend only on the senses for their essential features (chapter 2). I call this the Strong Independence Thesis. -/- How should we understand Kant’s ubiquitous references to the imagination, then? I argue that we should understand the imagination’s activities as image-producing activities (chapter 3). I argue that images and intuitions are fundamentally distinct representations, which I label the Distinctness Thesis. Though intuitions and images are had by both rational and non-rational beings, the capacity for consciousness or apperception found in rational beings makes a difference in the structure of images but not the structure of intuitions (chapter 4). I call this the penetration view of the imagination. With this account of images in hand, I indicate why images are a necessary ingredient in theoretical cognition for Kant (chapter 5). I call this the Image-Centric Cognition Thesis. The result is a novel account of sensibility—the counterpart of the understanding—that recognizes Kant’s systematic discussion of mental imagery. (shrink)

Bilattices, introduced by Ginsberg as a uniform framework for inference in artificial intelligence, are algebraic structures that proved useful in many fields. In recent years, Arieli and Avron developed a logical system based on a class of bilattice-based matrices, called logical bilattices, and provided a Gentzen-style calculus for it. This logic is essentially an expansion of the well-known Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic to the standard language of bilattices. Our aim is to study Arieli and Avron’s logic from the perspective of abstract (...) algebraic logic . We introduce a Hilbert-style axiomatization in order to investigate the properties of the algebraic models of this logic, proving that every formula can be reduced to an equivalent normal form and that our axiomatization is complete w.r.t. Arieli and Avron’s semantics. In this way, we are able to classify this logic according to the criteria of AAL. We show, for instance, that it is non-protoalgebraic and non-self-extensional. We also characterize its Tarski congruence and the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models, which in the general theory of AAL is usually taken to be the algebraic counterpart of a sentential logic. This class turns out to be the variety generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice, which is strictly contained in the class of algebraic reducts of logical bilattices. On the other hand, we prove that the class of algebraic reducts of reduced models of our logic is strictly included in the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models. Another interesting result obtained is that, as happens with some implicationless fragments of well-known logics, we can associate with our logic a Gentzen calculus which is algebraizable in the sense of Rebagliato and Verdú . We also prove some purely algebraic results concerning bilattices, for instance that the variety of distributive bilattices is generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice. This result is based on an improvement of a theorem by Avron stating that every bounded interlaced bilattice is isomorphic to a certain product of two bounded lattices. We generalize it to the case of unbounded interlaced bilattices. (shrink)

Perceptual filling-in for vision is the insertion of visual properties (e.g., color, contour, luminance, or motion) into one’s visual field, when those properties have no corresponding retinal input. This paper introduces and provides preliminary empirical support for filled/non-filled pairs, pairs of images that appear identical, yet differ by amount of filling-in. It is argued that such image pairs are important to the experimental testing of theories of consciousness. We review recent experimental research and conclude that filling-in involves brain activity (...) with relatively high integrated information (Phi) compared to veridical visual perceptions. We then present filled/non-filled pairs as an empirical challenge to the integrated information theory of consciousness, which predicts that phenomenologically identical experiences depend on brain processes with identical Phi. (shrink)

Written in broad strokes, this paper attempts to draw form Krishnamurti’s life and teachings, a hermeneutics of the human soul’s quest-journey towards transcendent wholeness. It begins with an attempt to frame K’s “process” (the name given to the painful ordeals in his youth that many believe were the catalyst responsible for his metamorphosis) through a variety of disciplines and cultural perspectives, some of which underscore the impasse of scientific objectivity and the limits of phenomenalist categories in general. It then explores (...) the procedures and conceits of present technologies of self-transformation via pseudomeditative body work and suggests that this subject can only be confirmed by an experience so intimately and subversively (to its own object) subjective that it risks undermining its own legitimacy in the face of our body-phobic Cartesian cultural ethos that holds sacrosanct the mind-body split. -/- It then explores the deeper origins and history of this problem from the pre-Socratics to the misconceptions of modern mathematics about the proper place of metaphor and paradox and underscores how present day false consciousness fails to discriminate between a “noumenal” world and its conditioned “phenomenal” counterfeit copy. It ends with a brief meditation on K’s process. (shrink)

Husserl’s extensive analyses of image consciousness (Bildbewusstsein) and of the imagination (Phantasie) offer insightful and detailed structural explications. However, despite this careful work, Husserl’s discussions fail to overcome the need to rely on a most problematic concept: mental images. The epistemological conundrums triggered by the conceptual framework of mental images are well known—we have only to remember the questions regarding knowledge acquisition that plagued British empiricism. Beyond these problems, however, a plethora of important questions arise from claiming that (...) mental images are structural moments of imaging and imagining. Any attempt to clarify the structure and conditions for the possibility of aesthetic experience must first provide an unambiguous account of pictorial depiction—a task unattainable through the mental images discourse. Similarly, exposing the import of the imagination for theoretical scientific inquiries (be they positive or eidetic) requires an initial explication of the structure of this consciousness; this explication, however, must address our ability to imagine non-spatially determined objects—something the conceptual framework of mental images utterly fails to accomplish. In this paper I argue against Husserl’s reliance on mental images in his phenomenological analyses of imaging and imagining and propose an alternative structural account for both. This account is free of this reliance and able to steer clear of its insidious implications for epistemology, aesthetics, and methodological reflections. By closely following the development of Husserl’s account I suggest alternative descriptions while building on Husserl’s important work. (shrink)

Extended and distributed cognition theories argue that human cognitive systems sometimes include non-biological objects. On these views, the physical supervenience base of cognitive systems is thus not the biological brain or even the embodied organism, but an organism-plus-artifacts. In this paper, we provide a novel account of the implications of these views for learning, education, and assessment. We start by conceptualising how we learn to assemble extended cognitive systems by internalising cultural norms and practices. Having a better grip on how (...) extended cognitive systems are assembled, we focus on the question: If our cognition extends, how should we educate and assess such extended cognitive systems? We suggest various ways to minimize possible negative effects of extending one’s cognition and to efficiently find and organise (online) information by adopting a virtue epistemology approach. Educational and assessment implications are foregrounded, particularly in the case of Danish students’ use of the Internet during exams. (shrink)

This paper is a new non-descriptivist defense of non- conceptualism, based on a new interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics of concepts. We advance the following claim: What distinguishes non-conceptual from conceptual singular representations is the way partial representations of the object’s features are integrated into the whole representation of the object: while at the non-conceptual level this integration takes the form of images of the object’s features that are stored and projected, at the conceptual level this integration takes the form (...) of the recognition that those features are properties of a same object, what Kant calls “synthetic unity of Aperception”. (shrink)

Socioeconomic inequalities are functions not only of intrinsic differences between persons or groups, but also of the dynamics of their interactions. Inequalities can arise and become stabilized if there are advantages (such as generalized wealth including “human capital”) which are self-enhancing, whereas depletion of limiting resources is widely distributed. A recent theory of biological pattern formation has been generalized, adapted and applied to deal with this process. Applications include models for the non-Gaussian distribution of personal income and wealth, for (...) overall economic growth in relation to inequalities and for effects of uncoupling strategies between developing and developed countries. Note added after publication: The equations (14) for the model of the income distribution, with its characteristic non-Gaussian extension towards higher incomes (fig.4), are closely related to the Fokker-Planck equation that is widely applied in many fields of physics. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to identify the effect of Service Quality and Corporate Image on Customer’s Loyalty .Questionnaires were distributed to collect responses from restaurant users in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were used to analyze the data and draw the conclusions. It was revealed that service quality and corporate image have strong positive association with customer’s loyalty .The study suggested that managers of restaurants provide needed logistics to aid frontline staff to (...) avoid delays in meeting customer demands. This will lead to high level of customer retention, loyalty, high market share and profitability. (shrink)