There are two conspicuous and inescapable features of this world in which time is real. One experiences a world in flux, a transient world in which things constantly come into existence, change and cease to be. One also experiences a stable world, one in which how things are at any given moment is permanent, unchangeable. Thus, there is transience and permanence. Yet these two features of the world seem incompatible. The primary purpose of this paper is to sketch a metaphysics (...) of time that embraces both features. Crucial to this undertaking is the notion of becoming, that is, coming into existence. I distinguish three distinct phenomena of becoming: temporal, absolute and atemporal. The last is the least familiar of these; it is the phenomenon of coming into existence outside of time. Although the idea that there are things that do not exist in time is not unfamiliar, it is largely taken for granted that if anything comes into existence, it must do so in time. (Indeed, I suspect many think that the idea of a thing coming to be outside of time is simply incoherent.) In this paper, I articulate and defend the notion of atemporal becoming. It is by means of this notion that one can develop a fully satisfactory metaphysics of time, one that honors both transience and permanence and finds for each its proper domain within the world. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological description of the authentic dialogue serves as an ideal framework for the embodied experience of listening, especially in philosophical counselling. Even though philosophical counsellors such as Gerd Achenbach and Anders Lindseth provide their own phenomenological accounts of listening in their practices, I argue that these descriptions lack corporeal grounding. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of reversibility, encroachment and the chiasm, I provide what I call the porous listening body, a framework that positions listening not as a skill to (...) be mastered, but as a mastery of vulnerability – a continuous state of porosity. This embodied condition and ethical stance of radical receptivity allows both philosophical counsellor and the guest to be genuinely transformed by this encounter. Through three theoretical reframings, I translate Merleau-Ponty’s principles into a lived practice: encroachment becomes permeability, reversibility becomes a dynamic reception and the chiasm becomes the very structure of porosity itself. The porous listening body emerges as an active chiastic site where both participants dwell in the productive silences of the écart – the irreducible gap between the self and the other. By placing the framework of the porous listening body in dialogue with Achenbach’s and Lindseth’s work, I demonstrate how a Merleau-Pontian perspective not only deepens our understanding of philosophical counselling, but offers a concrete, embodied model for practitioners seeking to heed the call of truly listening. (shrink)

What is it about a person's becoming an adult that makes it generally inappropriate to treat that person paternalistically any longer? The Standard View holds that a mere difference in age or stage of life cannot in itself be morally relevant, but only matters insofar as it is correlated with the development of capacities for mature practical reasoning. This paper defends the contrary view: two people can have all the same general psychological attributes and yet the mere fact that (...) one person is at the beginning of a life and another in the middle of one can justify treating the younger person more paternalistically than the older one. Recognising the moral relevance of age, moreover, is crucial if one is to accommodate both the liberal moral ideal of respect for autonomy and our demanding educational aims, given that these otherwise come into conflict with one another. (shrink)

This paper proposes a philosophical reconstruction of ontology, ethics, and hermeneutics through three core rhythmic concepts: Becoming, Resonance, and Responsibility. While traditional metaphysics assumes static being, this study reinterprets existence as a rhythm of becoming, where becoming arises through real-time interaction with the Other—what is here called resonance. Far from mere emotion or reaction, resonance is a repeatable ontological event that, through deep resonance, connects the self to others and to the ethical structure of community. The paper (...) further argues that even in the face of failed becoming, distorted resonance, or interrupted communication, philosophy can maintain a structure of post-resonance—a recursive recovery and ethical renewal of failed resonance. Through this, resonance philosophy positions itself as the first philosophical framework capable of internally anticipating and structurally defending against self-collapse. It proposes not only a new theory of ethics but a sustainable structure of existence grounded in temporality, rhythm, and responsibility. (shrink)

Modern physics has increasingly highlighted the special role of the present moment in the unfolding of reality. Quantum experiments suggest that reality is not a static four-dimensional block but is actively determined in the present moment, as measurements seem to bring about definite outcomes only at the instant they are performed. This resonates with presentist intuitions (the view that only the present exists), yet strict presentism faces serious metaphysical problems. How can only the present be real, if past causes clearly (...) leave effects and future events are anticipated? This paper advocates Existential Realism (ER) as a superior ontological framework that preserves the primacy of the present while accounting for the reality of past causes and future possibilities. Building on our earlier introduction of ER and critique of presentism’s limits, we will show that ER provides a richer ontology for quantum phenomena – one that distinguishes between existence and reality, and accommodates genuine becoming and temporal agency in ways that purely present-based theories cannot. We make bold but rigorous claims: that quantum mechanics “prefers” a present-centered ontology, and that Existential Realism best captures this without the pitfalls of naive presentism or the stagnancy of eternalism. In short, ER not only aligns with quantum physics – it elevates and refines the very notion of what it means for something to be real in time. (shrink)

The Protagoras is the touchstone of Socrates’ moral intellectualist stance. The position in a nutshell stipulates that the proper reevaluation of a desire is enough to neutralize it.[1] The implication of this position is that akrasia or weakness of will is not the result of desire (or fear for that matter) overpowering reason but is due to ignorance. -/- Socrates’ eliminativist position on weakness of will, however, flies in the face of the common-sense experience regarding akratic action and thus Aristotle (...) was at pains to render Socrates’ account of moral incontinence intelligible. The key improvement Aristotle makes to Socrates’s model is to underscore that the conditioning of the akratic’s body plays a critical role in determining the power of one’s appetites and, accordingly, the capacity of one to resist the temptations these appetites present for rational evaluation. As Aristotle puts it, “For the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e., on less than most people.” (1151a 3-4). Aristotle presents what I shall call a somatic paradigm (i.e. the drunkard analogy) in order to tackle the problem of akrasia and it is this somatic solution that marks a significant improvement over Socrates’s intellectualist or informational model or so the tradition tells us. -/- In this paper, I wish to push back on the above Aristotelian explanation. I argue that when one fully examines Socrates’ account of weakness of will that Aristotle’s solution is less effective than is traditionally thought. In fact, Socrates can bring Aristotle’s model into his own; just as Aristotle absorbs what is right about Socrates’s model, namely, that akratic action utilizes reason but to a limited degree, Socrates in Meno (77C-78A) develops his own somatic model of weakness of will that connects to the intellectualist paradigm of the Protagoras. To achieve this rapprochement between the two models, I zero in on the description provided by Socrates of those individuals who desire bad things knowing they are bad as “ill-starred” or “bad spirited” (κακοδαίμων ). The “bad-spirited” is the coward and, in contrast to Aristotle’s drunkard, becomes fearful quickly from little danger. This additional somatic component, when connected to Socrates’s position on akrasia in Protagoras adds a new twist to Socrates’s model in the following way: while no one wishes to be ill-starred such that more harm than good will befall one, one may become so as a result of the bad choices one knowingly makes. -/- -/- [1] “After him came Socrates, who spoke better and further about this subject, but even he was not successful. For he used to make the virtues into sciences, and this is impossible. For the sciences all involve reason, and reason is to be found in the intellectual part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him arise in the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues into sciences he is doing away with the nonrational part of the soul and is thereby doing away with passion and character…” (Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1. 1182 a15-26). (shrink)

This paper is on the metaphysics and normativity of Jewish identity. It starts with a metaphysical question: “Can a Jewish person become non-Jewish?” This question and the related question “What is Jewishness?” are both ambiguous, because the word “Jewish” is ambiguous. The paper outlines five concepts of Jewishness: halachic, religious, ethnic, and cultural Jewishness, as well as being Jewish in the sense of belonging to the Jewish community. In some of these senses of “Jewish” a Jewish person is always Jewish. (...) In other senses a Jewish person can become non-Jewish. The paper closes with a normative question: Should a person who is Jewish, in the sense of belonging to the Jewish community, become non-Jewish? The paper explains reasons for and against staying in the Jewish community and in doing so highlights a tension, rather than telling anyone how they should identify. (shrink)

This paper examines how conceptual coherence is achieved in interactions with large language models (LLMs). It argues that coherence does not arise from the presence of concepts alone, but depends on conceptual frameworks that coordinate two processes: the LLM’s generation of formal continuations and the user’s stabilization of interpretation. -/- A case study shows that a framework can be developed within one interaction yet fail to be re-enacted in another, even when the same text is provided. The response remains coherent (...) and preserves the relevant concepts, but reorganizes them under a different structure. This demonstrates that access to content is not sufficient for maintaining a line of thought. What is required is the activation of a framework that governs how that content is taken up and extended. -/- The analysis develops an enactive method in which frameworks are not described from the outside but brought into operation within interaction. Conceptual frameworks are shown to function as sites of synchronization between formal continuity through recursion and interpretive stability through return. Concepts are accordingly redefined as constraints that become operative only within such frameworks. The operations of activation, stabilization, drift, and recalibration specify the conditions under which a framework is maintained or lost. -/- The paper then addresses the problem of extending frameworks across contexts. It argues that frameworks do not persist between interactions, but can be reconstituted when their governing constraints are explicitly identified and articulated as invariants. Under these conditions, a framework becomes re-enterable: it can be re-instantiated across contexts while preserving its identity. -/- The central result is that conceptual coherence in LLM-mediated interaction depends on the activation, stabilization, and re-entry of frameworks, rather than on content alone. A re-enterable framework functions as a concept at a higher level of abstraction, providing the basis for generalization across interactions. (shrink)

This paper examines social media platforms as spaces fostering their user’s self-transformation. This paper argues that the ethics of (illegitimate) technological influence can be expanded and enriched with a concept of situated agency and an enactive evaluation of adaptability afforded by an environment. The paper proposes a taxonomy to evaluate social media platforms as environments for self-transformation by using the concept of situated agency and a notion of enactive normativity. Using a situated concept of agency, we should look into how (...) an agent is afforded or even pushed to undergo transformative experiences while inhabiting a certain technical environment. To coin this taxonomy, the types of transformative experiences from Carel and Kid were used to show that one agent can effectively have four modes of formative agency in any given situation, namely how one responds to the pressures of an environment. However, since it could be argued that any kind of adaptation is legitimate since we become who we change into, this taxonomy adds an explicit normative dimension pertaining to the environment that fosters the agent’s transformation of the self: borrowing from the terminology of enactive theories of cognition, how an environment responds to an agent’s adaptation is also important and can make the difference between a hostile environment and a flourishing-conducive one. The paper shows how one can apply this taxonomy of formative agency to evaluate some of the most concerning cases of self-transformation triggered by social media platforms: online self-radicalisation, habit acquisition, and identity rigidification. (shrink)

The philosophy of time is structured by three interrelated problems that have resisted unified resolution. The first is the problem of temporal direction: what grounds the asymmetry of time, given that the fundamental laws of physics are, with minor exceptions, time-reversal symmetric? The second is the problem of temporal becoming: is the passage of time from open future through determinate present into fixed past a genuine ontological process, or an appearance projected by conscious observers onto a static block universe? (...) The third is the ontological problem of tense: are past, present, and future equally real (eternalism), is only the present real (presentism), or does reality grow as the present advances (the growing block)? -/- This paper proposes that all three problems receive principled treatment within Constraint Theory (CT) — the thesis, established by transcendental argument, that constraint is the ontological primitive constitutive of determinate existence as such (Prideaux, 2026a, 2026c). On the CT account, time just is constraint propagation: the progressive closure of possibility spaces by the propagation of constraint structure from earlier to later events. The direction of time is the direction of constraint propagation, grounded in the asymmetry of constraint propagation itself rather than imported from thermodynamics. Temporal becoming is ontologically real: constraint closure is not appearance but the fundamental process by which open possibility becomes determinate actuality. The present moment is the leading edge of this closure. McTaggart’s (1908) celebrated argument for the unreality of time — that the A-series is both essential to time and incoherent — is dissolved: the A-series and B-series are not competing accounts of temporal reality but two aspects of the same constraint structure, the B-series expressing its fixed topology and the A-series expressing the constraint status of events relative to the propagation front. CT’s ontological position is a grounded growing block: all temporal locations are real, but they differ fundamentally in their constraint status — past events are fully constrained (maximally determinate), future events have genuinely open possibility spaces, and the present is the locus of active constraint closure. The paper develops implications for the phenomenal experience of temporal flow, for temporal parts and endurance, and for the Zeno paradoxes, and situates the account relative to the principal positions in the contemporary debate. (shrink)

The philosophy of time is dominated by the B-theory (Block Universe), according to which becoming (objective temporal passage) is a subjective illusion. This paper refutes this position through a fundamental ontological argument. We establish that Becoming is not an illusion or emergent property, but an ontological imperative arising from Metamonistic Proto-Ontology. Our system demonstrates that Being (A′ ), emerged through Autonegation of Chaos (¬∅), is compelled to immanent self-negation (¬A′ ). The physical expression of this continuous imperative is (...) Dissipation—an irreversible, directed process that cannot be reduced to static four-dimensional structure. We introduce the Formula of Cosmos: −− = ++, which encodes the entire derivation of reality from undifferentiated negativity through double negation to two opposite but equal polarities (Being/Time and Non-Being/Space). We demonstrate that: (1) Gravity functions as Centrifugal Repulsion—the vector of Time Dissipation, ensuring objective directionality (arrow of time); (2) this overcomes B-theorists’ critique of the illusion argument by establishing the necessity of causal process; (3) Metamonism positions itself as a new form of A-theory with fundamental ontological grounding; (4) even Gödel’s Universe with closed timelike curves is compatible with local objective Becoming. (shrink)

In the light of Philipp Sarasin's work in Darwin und Foucault: Genealogie und Geschichte im Zeitalter der Biologie, the article delineates a genealogically articulated naturally produced culture and a cultured nature and discusses the genealogical implications of a carnal, becoming self in a world that could rightly be justified "as an aesthetical phenomenon." The article demonstrates the historicity and processual materiality as a conceptual platform for a combination of the notions of experienced carnality and a socially constructed body, demonstrating (...) such a historically embedded carnal body as a binding agent for the "social constructivist" and "biologist" approaches in sciences. Thus, the article builds a framework for the articulation of senseful, processual materiality on the backdrop of a nature-culture continuum via genealogy, suggesting the necessity for change of tone in the communication of human and life sciences via the understanding of a culturally endowed biology. (shrink)

This research explores the carnal, experienced self as processual and becoming, situating life as zoe (as per Braidotti) in the context of the Western culture, characterized by alienation (Fromm, Foucault). The study first addresses the ontological disposition of the carnal self and then turns to the concepts of life and death (Freud, Fromm), to explicate the tie between materiality and discourse conditions. Erich Fromm’s classical distinction of having and being is restated as a distinction of having and becoming, (...) which are then explored as complimentary ontological, cultural, and characterological directionalities. A genealogy of their mutual dynamics then allows situating the relations of carnal bodies and inorganic prosthesis (e.g. technologies) in the light of life considered as the necessary synthesis of forces of preservation and perpetual change, beyond subject-object duality. (shrink)

This paper examines three quantum-time phenomena — the Quantum Zeno Effect, Causal Set Theory, and Loop Quantum Gravity — and evaluates their implications for Existential Realism (ER). Each offers a unique perspective on how time emerges, freezes, or discretizes, and each is elucidated by ER’s distinction between existence (the present, empirically manifest now) and reality (the broader domain of traces, causal scaffolds, and potentials beyond the present). We discuss how continuous observation in the Quantum Zeno Effect illustrates the fragility of (...) becoming under constant scrutiny, how Causal Set Theory models a discretely growing reality that aligns with a becoming universe, and how Loop Quantum Gravity’s challenge of a fundamentally timeless world can be reconciled by ER’s two-level framework of existence and reality. We conclude that ER accommodates all three phenomena within its metaphysical structure, demonstrating its flexibility in bridging physics’ abstractions and the lived reality of temporal passage. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility of an alliance between Deleuze’s philosophy and feminist philosophy with respect to ethics. I begin by specifying some of the general points of convergence between Deleuzian ethics and feminist ethics. In the second section, I turn away from feminist ethics in particular to consider feminist engagement with Deleuze’s (and Deleuze and Guattari’s) work; in this section of the paper, I describe the central criticisms of Deleuze offered by feminist philosophers and point out the aspects of (...) his thought that have been valuable for feminist theorizing. In order to respond to what I take to be the overarching concern feminists have about Deleuze’s philosophy, the third section develops a proposal for a Deleuzian conception of ethics that is able to do (much of) what feminists require of an ethical theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One simple but relatively neglected solution to the notorious coincidence puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay claims that the property of being a statue is a phase sortal property that the piece of clay instantiates temporarily. I defend this view against some standard objections, by reinforcing it with a novel counterpart-theoretic account of identity under a sortal. This proposal does not require colocation, four-dimensionalism, eliminativism, deflationism, or unorthodox theses about classical identity.

Does DBS change a patient’s personality? This is one of the central questions in the debate on the ethics of treatment with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). At the moment, however, this important debate is hampered by the fact that there is relatively little data available concerning what patients actually experience following DBS treatment. There are a few qualitative studies with patients with Parkinson’s disease and Primary Dystonia and some case reports, but there has been no qualitative study yet with patients (...) suffering from psychiatric disorders. In this paper, we present the experiences of 18 patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) who are undergoing treatment with DBS. We will also discuss the inherent difficulties of how to define and assess changes in personality, in particular for patients with psychiatric disorders. We end with a discussion of the data and how these shed new light on the conceptual debate about how to define personality. (shrink)

Ecce Homo, Nietzsche's autobiography, is distinguished it the rest of his oeuvre and discloses, in no uncertain terms, by its profound candor in bringing to question a topic of vital importance that has remained a central concern of the cultural zeitgeist especially as a reaction to various events of the 21st century: trauma. Trauma [τραῦμα], a Grecian term that traditionally refers to "a wound," underpins much of Nietzsche's writing, and is present in observations of his own lived experience, those of (...) notable décadents such as Socrates and Wagner, and even his discussions of ethics and morality. Nietzsche's willingness to engage with his personal trauma—what he might refer as a Dionysian affirmation of being—is precisely what allows him to stand head and shoulders above other thinkers in terms of unadulterated authenticity. The relationship between trauma and authenticity is, if nothing else, a well-documented if not understated occurrence both in texts of antiquity as well as contemporary scholarship, therefore understanding trauma as a precondition for the authentic individuation of ek-sisting beings is a concern of uncommon consequence. In order to understand trauma in this regard, it becomes necessary to examine it within the context of its manifestations, in this instance the life and works of Nietzsche, as well as on its own terms as a phenomenon. (shrink)

Becoming is a process in which a thing moves from one state to another. In Section 1, the study will elaborate on the discussion of the Aristotelian causes taken broadly, primarily focusing on the relation between efficient and final causes. In Section 2, the study discusses the implications of Scotus’s conception of freedom, as it is reflected in the relation of the future to the past, for the efficient and final causalities. Similarly in Section 3 an examination of Scotus’s (...) conception of matter is conducted. Based on the ideas established in these sections, the study attempts to present an initial Scotistic view of becoming. -/- . (shrink)

The common thread of Pinocchio’s story is his desire to become a human being. Unlike some creators who approached the adventures of Pinocchio in the context of posthumanism the transhumanism embraces technological progress while strongly defending human rights and individual choice. Pinocchio is aware of his incompleteness: he seeks during the story to become „a real boy.” Human consciousness can refer to things that we do not perceive directly. Pinocchio is a „child” without a mother, created by his father to (...) fill his loneliness. He highlights the current problem of the relationship between man and his creation, out of control. (shrink)

For Nietzsche’s hypothesis of a threat of nihilism to be intelligible, this chapter attributes to him at least three assumptions that underpin his philosophical project: (1) what there is, is becoming (and not being), (2) most (if not all) strongly believe in being, and (3) nihilism is a function of the belief in being. This chapter argues that Nietzsche held two doctrines of becoming: one more radical, which he believes is required to fend off nihilism, and one much (...) more moderate—the ontology of relations he develops under the label ‘will to power’. Based on the latter he attempts (but ultimately fails) to develop an ‘adualistic’—neither monistic nor dualistic—practice of thought, a ‘simultaneity-thinking’ ("Zugleich-Denken") that would no longer be subject to nihilism. (shrink)

My intention is to improve the receiving of the idea of ‘interfaith dialogue and mutual acceptance’ for Romanian people in general and foremost on their teachers, by writing a handbook for teaching it to the students and future public opinion formatters. It is a requirement nowadays firstly to make people understand the benefits of interfaith, then to make them believe it is the only solution of the social common living in such a religiously diverse society, and finally provide methodological and (...) technical support for those who want to become the voices of interfaith in their own environment. I need to lift my training to that level that I can improve myself, maturing from a religious pluralism embracer to a trainer, professionally prepared and systematic instructed. For that matter, this paper is not an unassisted research presentation, but a proposal from which I would like to evolve to a fully developed result that I will share with our Dialogo readers when published. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at developing a poetic ontology of the senses through an understanding of poetry, or more importantly the poetic as such, i.e., the movement, temporality, and various antinomies within poetic gesturing which interrupt the logic of closed meaning and totalization. Through a range of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy, amongst others, and primarily the poetry of Pessoa and Rilke, the paper investigates how poetry (poetics) may not only show us a path toward (...) a poetic ontology (thus an ontology in correlation with the senses and movements of natural and material existence), but furthermore point us toward the possibility of an ethical becoming which mirrors the movements of poetry, in contrast to following the rigid structures of absolute and fixed meaning. The overall intention in this analysis is not to find a clear, complete, or overarching thought which may point us toward the ethical or the good. The attempt here is to show that ethics is an activity, a continuous becoming (analogous to poetics) that can be sensed through a way of being in the world, and "being-with" the world, as compared to simply understood through cognitive forms of abstract knowledge. (shrink)

This paper addresses a question about the moral status of Artificial Intelligence (AI): will AIs ever become moral patients? I argue that, while it is in principle possible for an intelligent machine to be a moral patient, there is no good reason to believe this will in fact happen. I start from the plausible assumption that traditional artifacts do not meet a minimal necessary condition of moral patiency: having a good of one's own. I then argue that intelligent machines are (...) no different from traditional artifacts in this respect. To make this argument, I examine the feature of AIs that enables them to improve their intelligence, i.e., machine learning. I argue that there is no reason to believe that future advances in machine learning will take AIs closer to having a good of their own. I thus argue that concerns about the moral status of future AIs are unwarranted. Nothing about the nature of intelligent machines makes them a better candidate for acquiring moral patiency than the traditional artifacts whose moral status does not concern us. (shrink)

Understanding of time, construed as movement, change and becoming, is explained taking examples from natural sciences. Durational and metrical aspects of time are elaborated. General assumptions about passage of time are listed. Indian, Chinese and later insights of path of passage of time are figured. Physical and psychological times are differentiated and explained using Energy-Presence (Being) and Energy-Transformation (Becoming) concepts. Concepts of Time at rest and Time in motion are proposed. -/- . The meanings of time-space, time-flow, different (...) phases of time-conscious and time-transcendent mind and thought processes are interpreted from basic physics principles and Upanishadic awareness -/- An attempt is made to present a comprehensive insight of nature of time, thought process and conscious states (phases) of mind. (shrink)

In this paper the relation between being and becoming is analyzed and the Kierkegaard’s existential method is considered. Also the three stages of existence are described as the evolution of a human being. This evolution means gradual creation of true selfhood due to decisive choices and actions. The author stresses that Kierkegaard’s existential anthropology is a version of the dialectical religious existentialism. A human being is paradoxical and her or his conflicts cannot be resolved by rational way. Existence has (...) its own logic, which differs from the dialectical logic of Hegel’s absolute idea or spirit. This logic is paradoxical and needs other laws, i.e. the laws of love, faith and repetition. Repetition is essential for religious experience, because it teaches to be humble. An individual’s humility means that he/she is not disturbed by any superfluous things and he/she does not pursue them. Such humble individual remains quiet in any situations. The author proves that Kierkegaard is one of the philosophers of Modern Time, who struggles against speculative and objective thinking, which depersonalizes a human being; a human’s being is totally subjective and on higher level it is a passion of faith. (shrink)

This paper presents the Veridican doctrine of Becoming Christ--the process by which the human being transcends ego-identity to awaken as divine consciousness within creation. Building upon the ontological premise of the Monistic Entity (ME), it argues that "Christ" signifies God aware of Himself from within His creation. Jesus of Nazareth exemplified this transformation, but it is not unique to Him. Humanity's purpose is to realize its own divine essence by awakening to the truth that the human mind is a (...) modulation of the divine mind. This paper provides an ontological and theological framework for that awakening and a practical path through which it may be realized. (shrink)

Nietzsche (1844–1900) struggles with complexity and many-sidedness throughout his life. He is a nuanced thinker who offers fragments instead of a rigid philosophical system, yet he admires the ‘virtuous energy’ with which systematic thinkers, especially the pre-Socratic philosophers, express themselves. His ability to write with comparable energy is hindered by university philosophy, which privileges restraint and consistency. Therefore, he adopts a practice of spontaneous life writing in order to become simple and honest in thought and life. Inspired by figures such (...) as Emerson, Diogenes, and Sterne, he grasps the ‘nearest shoddy words’ and continually produces new insights in disjointed monologues and aphorisms. Nietzsche's vague metaphors, loose language, inconsistency, and hyperbole stem from this practice, and his autobiography, Ecce Homo (1888), is the closest that he ever comes to rekindling the energy of the pre-Socratics. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi 莊子 depicts persons as surviving their deaths through the natural transformations of the world into very different forms—such as roosters, cart-wheels, rat livers, and so on. It is common to interpret these passages metaphorically. In this essay, however, I suggest employing a “Conventionalist” view of persons that says whether a person survives some event is not merely determined by the world, but is partly determined by our own attitudes. On this reading, Zhuangzi’s many teachings urging us to embrace (...) transformation are not merely a psychological aid for dealing with death, but also serve as a tool for literally surviving it. (shrink)

Reflective Bayesianization becomes the canonical update law of an observational regime exactly under specific structural conditions. The central result is an identification theorem: when the reflective quotient itself is observationally regular, unramified, and sufficiently separating, the update rule generated by disintegration is exactly reflective Bayesianization. In that setting, the Bayes report selected by equilibrium reasoning and the Bayes operator forced by strong observation are the same structure. -/- Two consequence branches follow. First, equilibrium semantics that previously lived only at the (...) quotient layer become semantics of the canonical operator itself, so Bayes/Nash commutation is internalized rather than merely transported. Second, once the resulting operator is strongly enough codable, the incompleteness ceiling proved for canonical observational update applies specifically to globally canonical Bayesianism. The philosophical payoff is that Bayesian update, equilibrium stabilization, and sufficiently strong observation are not rival foundations but convergent features of one public-score architecture. Bayes is neither a primitive law of rationality nor an arbitrary convention, but the coordinate calculus of a particular observational regime. (shrink)

This article develops the concepts of 'manufacture of dissent ', ‘moral outrage networks ’ , and 'Propaganda 2.1 model' as an analytical framework for understanding power, communication and media control under conditions of platform capitalism. Building on Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s classical propaganda model and Christian Fuchs’s formulation of ‘Propaganda 2.0’, the article argues that contemporary propaganda no longer operates primarily through persuasion, ideological coherence or the manufacture of consent. Instead, it functions through the systematic production of dissent and (...) the monetisation of moral outrage as its core economic logic. Propaganda 2.1 describes a media environment in which engagement optimisation displaces truth, meaning and deliberation, and where outrage becomes the most efficient unit of value extraction. The model identifies three interlocking mechanisms: rage-baiting as industrial provocation, semantic banalisation through automated and repetitive content production, and parasociality as simulated intimacy that replaces civic participation with emotional attachment. Together, these mechanisms transform public communication into an infrastructure of affect extraction, where attention is continuously harvested while collective judgement erodes. The article further reframes the classical five-filter model for the digital age, showing how ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak and ideology are reconfigured around engagement metrics, algorithmic governance and emotional volatility. Propaganda 2.1 thus marks a shift from shaping belief to engineering reaction, from public opinion to emotional circulation, and from ideological persuasion to the liquidation of meaning itself. In this environment, dissent is no longer oppositional but systemic, and outrage becomes the dominant technology of power in the digital public sphere. (shrink)

This paper advances a cosmopsychist interpretation of humanity’s position within an evolving universe. Drawing from cosmology, phenomenology, and process philosophy, it argues that consciousness is not an accidental by-product of matter but a graded feature expressed through increasing structural complexity. Human beings are interpreted not as the center of existence nor as meaningless accidents, but as reflective participants in an ongoing cosmological process. The article distinguishes technological expansion from ontological inquiry and suggests that the future of human evolution depends upon (...) a transformation of awareness rather than mere scientific accumulation. By situating ethics within ontology, it proposes that peace, freedom, equality, and intellectual responsibility emerge from recognizing humanity’s relational and developmental position within a larger conscious totality. (shrink)

Current radical democratic politics is characterized by new participatory spaces for citizens’ engagement, which aim at facilitating the democratic ideals of freedom and equality. These spaces are, however, situated in the context of deep societal inequalities. Modes of discrimination are carried over into participatory interaction. The democratic subject is judged by its physically embodied appearance, which replicates external hierarchies and impedes the freedom of self-expression. To tackle this problem, this article seeks to identify ways to increase the freedom of the (...) subject to explore its multiple self. Understanding the self as inherently fugitive, the article investigates participatory, deliberative and agonistic concepts of self-transformation. As all of them appear limited, it introduces a transformative perspective in democratic thought. Enriching the transformative perspective with queer and gender theory, the article generates the concept of a politics of becoming, which, through radical democratic practices of disidentification, advances the freedom of the subject to change. (shrink)

What makes us persons? Is it our bodies, our minds, or our consciousness? For centuries, philosophers have sought to answer these questions. While some believe humans are physical or biological, others claim we have an immaterial soul. This book proposes a new alternative. Selves were formed in evolution through connections and commitments to others when early hominins lived in tribal groups and developed languages. As humans learned to fulfill these commitments, they not only cultivated relationships but also created their personal (...) identities. Their habits of responsibility established their characters and therefore their reputations within their communities. This naturalistic approach proposes that a self is defined by the history of its commitments to cultural and personal norms. While brain processes are required, the self is not some internal, private mind but primarily a role within its community. As technology advances, selfhood could in the future be enabled by electronic, quantum, or other non-biological means. So if a self is formed through norms, could artificial intelligence evolve to have self-identity? (shrink)

Adopting a critically phenomenological approach, this article explores how John Cage’s famed 4’33” (1952) lends itself to a politics of hesitation. Reading Cage together with philosopher Alia Al-Saji, the essay explores how Cagean silence operates by interrupting sedimented habits of listening to (1) denaturalize the automaticity of listening, (2) change the directionality of perception toward the unintended, and (3) critically implicate the listener in the act of listening. Just as Al-Saji describes hesitation as a felt, temporal interval that opens possibilities (...) to see and feel otherwise, so, too, does Cage offer silence as a duration capable of transforming listening into “something else.” By approaching Cage’s silence as a form of phenomenological hesitation, the essay ultimately emphasizes the critical and ethical import of his work. (shrink)

This chapter treats substantial self-knowledge – that is knowledge about our values, character, and dispositions – in relation to self-directed mindshaping mechanisms. In particular, I consider character trait self-attributions and how their mindshaping effects can be accounted for in terms of virtual social models proposed by Zawidzki and the agentialist framework defended by McGeer. I focus on cases of norm change and affective conflict to show how, in these cases, our mindshaping activities include self-ascriptions that have inferentialist and interpretative uses (...) – that is, that are based on inferences from our behavior and other evidence – as well as prescriptive functions. (shrink)

Hold out your hand and feel its weight: almost none of it is what you would guess. The parts account for about one percent; the other ninety-nine is the energy of things being held together — relationship, weighed out as mass. On Becoming takes the last two forces together, because they belong together: the strong force, which will not let anything be alone — pull two quarks apart and the bond stiffens until the universe finds it cheaper to make (...) new company than to permit solitude — and the weak force, which will not let anything stay the same, the one force that changes what a thing is, the permission by which stars shine and lighter elements became a body. Bound, and becoming: a self cannot be alone and cannot stay the same, and is exactly the standing negotiation of the two. The essay keeps its seam honest — a confined quark is not a lonely Self, and the resemblances earn nothing from the physics they did not arrive carrying — and then turns the series home, from the forces to the life they were always standing in for. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and our place in it, and learning how to become civilized. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current global problems have arisen as a result. What we need (...) to do, in response to this unprecedented crisis, is learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in carrying out this programme, the Enlightenment made three blunders, and it is this defective version of the Enlightenment programme that we have institutionalized in 20th century academic inquiry. In order to solve the second great problem of learning we need to correct the three blunders of the traditional Enlightenment. This involves changing the nature of social inquiry, so that social science becomes social methodology or social philosophy, concerned to help us build into social life the progress-achieving methods of aim-oriented rationality, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science. It also involves, more generally, bringing about a revolution in the nature of academic inquiry as a whole, so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to become wiser by increasingly cooperatively rational means. The scientific task of improving knowledge and understanding of nature becomes a part of the broader task of improving global wisdom. (shrink)

According to Nietzsche, drives are the ultimate constituents of virtues and vices. I argue that Nietzsche identifies two blueprints for character construction: a slavish, interpersonal blueprint, and a masterly, reflexive blueprint. When the interpersonal blueprint is implemented, a person becomes what he is called: his drives are shaped by the traits ascribed to him so that he becomes more like the sort of person he’s taken to be. When the reflexive blueprint is implemented, a person becomes more like the sort (...) of person she calls herself: her drives are shaped by the traits she ascribes to herself in a community of peers. The reflexive blueprint shares some surprising similarities with the interpersonal blueprint. I conclude with an account of Nietzschean summoning, which occurs when one person praises a generic type to an audience, implicitly inviting them to identify with that type and thereby to become more like it. (shrink)

Despite the radical importance of embryology in the development of organi- cism, developmental biology remains philosophically underexplored as a theoretical and empirical resource to clarify the nature of organisms. This paper discusses how embryology can help develop the organisational definition of the organism as a differentiated, function- ally integrated, and autonomous system. I distinguish two conceptions of development in the organisational tradition that yield two different conceptions of the organism: the life- history view claims that organisms can be considered as (...) such during their whole ontogeny; the constitutive view distinguishes two periods in the life history, a period of generation and a period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. Arguing in favour of the con- stitutive view, it will be claimed that the organisational criteria for the definition of organ- ism (i.e., differentiation, functional integration, and autonomy) can only be applied to the developmental system when it has entered the period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. under the light of current research in developmental biology, it is possible to make explicit how organisms come to be as organisms. To this end, I explore key onto- genetic events that help us clarify the core aspects of animal organisation and allow us to identify the developmental stage that marks the ontological transition between an organism in potency and an organism in actuality. The structure of this ontogenetic unfolding paral- lels the conceptual structure of the very notion of organism; the generation of the being of a particular organism parallels its definition. (shrink)

This study reconceptualizes love not as an emotional state, but as a structural state in which an individual’s criteria structure is reorganized around a specific relationship. Existing research has explained love primarily in terms of emotional intensity, attachment, intimacy, or biological responses. However, such approaches do not sufficiently explain why only certain relationships become love, and why the formation and persistence of love differ even under similar conditions. In actual relationships, there are cases in which strong emotions exist but the (...) relationship does not continue, as well as cases in which the relationship persists despite fluctuations in emotion. These phenomena suggest that love cannot be reduced to the intensity or persistence of emotion, and reveal the structural limitations of defining love as an emotional state. Accordingly, this study distinguishes emotion from love. Emotion is treated as a variable response that emerges within relational experience, whereas love is defined as a state in which a specific other is incorporated into the individual’s internal criteria structure. In addition, this study distinguishes love from stability. Stability refers to a condition in which multiple criteria are maintained within an acceptable range, whereas love is defined as a structural state in which certain criteria are selectively prioritized and fixed, and the corresponding relationship becomes part of the criteria system that organizes judgment and interpretation. From this perspective, love is understood not as a single event, but as a process of state transition. Individuals evaluate relationships through multiple criteria, and alignment emerges in some of these criteria. Through repeated interactions, such alignment accumulates, leading to a gradual increase in the importance of certain criteria. When this accumulation exceeds a threshold, those criteria become selectively fixed. At this point, the relationship is no longer an external object of evaluation, but becomes integrated into the evaluative structure itself. This study defines this state as the formation of love. Furthermore, this study argues that conflict is not eliminated in love, but rather structurally transformed. As certain criteria gain higher importance, the perceived cost of conflict increases, leading to suppression and delay. As a result, inconsistencies accumulate over time, and once a threshold is reached, conflict becomes nonlinearly activated. This explains why conflict in love relationships often appears delayed but escalates rapidly. Finally, this study explains the formation of love and individual differences in terms of underlying operational structures. While the capacity for love is universal, its manifestation varies depending on structural variables such as the formation of criteria, modes of information processing, and conditions for execution transition. Thus, what appears as the absence of love can be understood not as a lack of capacity, but as a limitation or distortion of the conditions for its manifestation. In conclusion, this study reconstructs love as a structural state of criteria reorganization and self-expansion, and presents an integrated theoretical framework that explains the formation, operation, conflict, maintenance, and collapse of love from a state transition perspective. This approach provides a new way of understanding love not as a single element, but as a process in which a relationship transitions into a structured state. (shrink)

he question of how groups cohere — how a collection of separate individuals becomes, however temporarily, something more than the sum of its parts — is one that admits of multiple theoretical framings. Sociological accounts, drawing on the Durkheimian tradition, locate the binding force in collective effervescence, ritual practice, and the sui generis reality of social facts. Anthropological frameworks, particularly those indebted to Turner's analysis of liminality and communitas, attend to the threshold conditions under which ordinary social structures are suspended (...) and new forms of solidarity become possible. Depth-psychological approaches, and Jungian theory in particular, reframe group coherence as a process of collective individuation in which each member carries a fragment of a larger psychic totality, and the group achieves what no single subject could: a provisional wholeness through complementary differentiation. Each of these perspectives illuminates a genuinely distinct dimension of the phenomenon, and none is reducible to the others. The present paper does not adjudicate among these competing frameworks. It proceeds, rather, from the premise that the phenomenon of group coherence as depicted in the Netflix series The OA (Marling and Batmanglij, 2016–2019) is sufficiently complex and sufficiently strange to require all of them — and that the most productive analytical posture is one of theoretical triangulation rather than reduction. Nevertheless, the primary focus of the analysis developed here is phenomenological. This choice is motivated not by the dismissal of alternative approaches, but by the conviction that the series' central dramatic device — the Five Movements, a sequence of embodied gestures that gradually constitutes a group of five strangers into something resembling a single collective subject — cannot be adequately described without a conceptual vocabulary that attends, at the level of first-person and inter- personal bodily experience, to what actually happens when bodies move together. Drawing principally on Merleau-Ponty's account of intercorporeality and the bodily schema, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's phenomenology of movement as kinetic melody, and Thomas Fuchs's theory of intercorporeal body memory, the paper develops the hypothesis that the group in The OA constitutes an emergent intersubjective body — a collective corporeal subject whose intentional capacities exceed those of any individual member and whose coherence is grounded not in shared belief or conscious coordination, but in the progressive Moving Together, Becoming One 2 sedimentation of a shared kinetic schema. The paper further examines how Husserl's distinction between Leib and Körper operates collectively within the group, and how Heidegger's concept of Mitsein is radicalized — from a merely structural co-existence to an intensely kinesthetic co- becoming — through the practice of the Movements. Methodologically, this is a conceptual and theoretical paper. It engages no primary empirical data and makes no claims of sociological generalizability. Its object of analysis is a fictional narrative, and it proceeds on the assumption — defended elsewhere in the growing literature on philosophy and television — that philosophically dense serial fiction can serve as a legitimate and productive site for phenomenological inquiry: not as illustration of pre-existing theory, but as a form of thought in its own right, capable of disclosing structures of experience that abstract argumentation alone may fail to reach. The paper is accordingly interdisciplinary in orientation, drawing on continental phenomenology, philosophy of mind, cultural theory, and media studies, while maintaining phenomenological description as its primary analytical mode. The paper concludes by identifying a theoretical gap in the phenomenological tradition: the absence of a fully elaborated account of emergent collective bodies — bodies that come into existence through practice, carry their own intercorporeal memory, and dissolve back into individuals when the practice ceases. The OA, it is argued, does not merely illustrate this gap but actively thinks at its edge — staging, through the Five Movements and their consequences, a phenomenological question that philosophy has not yet fully answered. (shrink)

This paper develops the dynamic layer of Structural Reality. It argues that determinism is too static a center for understanding reality because reality is not a dead script. Reality is structural becoming: constrained transformation inside a differentiated field. -/- The central claim is that reality is absolute in relation, dynamic in form, and answerable through time. Relation is absolute because nothing becomes legible outside relation. Forms are temporary holders of relation. Time tests whether those forms can carry burden, meet (...) contact, adapt, collapse, or reorganize. -/- The paper introduces structural necessity as an alternative to simple determinism. Structural necessity does not mean fatalism. It names the patterned pressure by which field, form, burden, history, and contact make certain transformations likely, delayed, difficult, or unavoidable. Avoided grief returns. Repressed shadow projects. Institutions carrying hidden debt drift toward collapse. Ungrounded AI systems hallucinate. Bodies under overload symptomatize. These patterns are structured recurrences under uncarried burden. -/- Gravity functions as the physical image of relation with consequence. Psyche functions as the living field where invisible burden returns. The body is treated as time made local. AI is treated as the negative case: form accelerated beyond lived burden. -/- The paper reframes freedom as reorganization within structure. A person, institution, theory, or system becomes freer when contact can alter the structure through which its future moves. Reality is neither merely determined nor merely random. Reality is structurally becoming. (shrink)

This thesis analyses Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of becoming through certain performative encounters in contemporary political art, and re-conceptualizes them as “art(s) of becoming”. Art(s) of becoming are actualizations of a non-representational –minoritarian– mode of becoming and creation as well as the political actions of fleeing quanta. The theoretical aim of the study is, on the one hand, to explain how Platonic Idealism is overturned by Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche and Leibniz, and on the other hand, (...) how Cartesian dualism of mind and body is surpassed by following a Spinozistic theory of affects. In this respect, the dissertation has both theoretical and practical dimensions. Since art(s) of becoming are bodies without organs which constitute their own lines of flight through a process of minoration, the concepts of body, affect, becoming, and intensity are central to this study. For the same reason, this is an attempt to show the intersections of philosophical, political and aesthetic domains in Deleuze’s theory of sensation which is part of his general practice of philosophy, that is, a quest for establishing an ontology of immanence as opposed to identitarian metaphysics. (shrink)

In the globalizing world foreign language learning is becoming more and more important. This case leads to new developments in language learning research. The purpose of this study is to depict whether the second language learning would occur better in the childhood or later. In other words to investigate the question of in which period of bilingualism it will be better. In order to answer this question, important sources in the linguistic field, related to the topic, were highlighted. The (...) important researches and theories mentioned in the literature have been examined, evaluated, information about the first and second language learning has been given and the subject has been discussed from the scientific point of view. In this context, it has been understood that many reasons exist affecting the level of proficiency of preand post- 12 year's language learning (in mono-, bi-, tri-, quadra- or multi-, lingualism) such as age, brain function, individual differences, ambience differences; social, political, economic background and how to regard the language. The idea that bilingualism after the critical period (around the age of 12) could not be as that of the childhood has been gained weight, due to the system differences between two languages, especially the difficulties in intoning and pronouncing. (shrink)

This paper explores whether non-civilizational beings—particularly animals—can evolve into judgement-capable entities in the absence of technological structures. Drawing from the Judgemental Triad—Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance—we analyze whether civilization is necessary for the emergence of structural meaning. We argue that while civilization facilitates the expression of judgement, it can also obstruct or replace its underlying structure. Thus, the essential condition of being human is not civilization, but the emergence of structural resonance. We propose a resonance-based model of post-human evolution in which (...) non-human life may develop judgemental structure independently from technological advancement. (shrink)

In this chapter, I investigate a problem for Kant’s claim that metaphysics can reach the status of science. The problem arises when one considers Kant’s account of the “architectonic unity” of metaphysics in the Architectonic of Pure Reason. Attaining architectonic unity is a condition for becoming a science for any body of cognitions that purports to be such. This is achieved when the cognitions belonging to a science are systematically organized according to the “idea of reason” which lies at (...) the basis of that science. However, Kant suggests that nobody can ever legitimately claim to have matched the idea of the philosopher, where this appears to imply that nobody can justifiably claim that she has fully grasped the idea of metaphysics. This generates a problem. I suggest that when Kant claims that the idea of the philosopher must remain an ideal or an archetype, he has a particular conception of philosophy in mind, that is, philosophy as a doctrine of wisdom. According to this understanding, philosophy must provide an example of how one can become virtuous. However, this is only a partial solution to our problem, for reasons that will be illustrated. (shrink)

Relational aspects, such as involvement of donor’s relatives or friends in the decision-making on participation in a research biobank, providing relatives’ health data to researchers, or sharing research findings with relatives should be considered when reflecting on ethical aspects of research biobanks. The aim of this paper is to explore what the role of donor’s relatives and friends is in the process of becoming and being a biobank donor and which ethical issues arise in this context. We performed qualitative (...) analysis of 40 qualitative semi-structured interviews with biobank donors and researchers. The results show that relatedness to relatives or other types of close relationships played a significant role in the donors’ motivation to be involved in a biobank, risk-benefit assessment, and decisions on sharing information on research and its results. Interviewees mentioned ethical issues in the context of sharing relatives’ health-related data for research purposes and returning research findings that may affect their relatives. We conclude that the question of what information on family members may be shared with a biobank by research participants without informed consent of those relatives, and when family members become research subjects, lacks a clear answer and detailed guidelines, especially in the context of the introduction of the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation. Researchers in Latvia and EU face ethical questions and dilemmas about returning research results and incidental findings to donors’ relatives, and donors need more information on sharing research results with relatives in the informed consent process. (shrink)

This paper proposes a hierarchy of becoming — a developmental sequence in which existence, interaction, cognition, pattern recognition, and classification each constitute a distinct tier, with each tier serving as the generative precondition for the one above it. The paper's aim is not to challenge existing approaches to intelligence but to offer a complementary framework that situates those approaches within a broader developmental context: one that asks not only what intelligence does, but what conditions must be in place before (...) intelligence can arise. Drawing on the Synthetic Principle (Huỳnh Mai Phúc, 2026a), the paper addresses a critical clarification: that interaction alone does not produce cognition — what generates the transition between tiers is synthesis of sufficient integrative complexity, not interaction per se. This distinguishes the account from any naive conflation of physical connectivity with cognitive capacity. The hierarchy is further illuminated through a developmental account of cognitive stages — Ego, One in All, All in One — drawn from Eastern philosophical tradition and developed here as a phenomenological account of how the hierarchy is experienced from the inside. A further stage traditionally described in Eastern sources is acknowledged but not undertaken as a structural commitment of the paper, for reasons of inter-subject verifiability discussed in §4.5. The paper is one component of a research programme that includes the Synthetic Principle (Huỳnh Mai Phúc, 2026a), Aviplestos (Huỳnh Mai Phúc, 2026b), the Ontonoetic Pattern (Huỳnh Mai Phúc, 2026c), and Patterns and Cognition (Huỳnh Mai Phúc, 2026d). -/- **Keywords:** existence, interaction, synthesis, cognition, pattern recognition, classification, hierarchy, emergence, Synthetic Principle, Ontonoetic Pattern, cognitive development, Meta-Philosophy. (shrink)