Federated Learning (FL) is a machine learning paradigm that enables model training across decentralized devices while preserving data privacy. However, FL faces two significant challenges: privacy concerns and scalability issues. Privacy concerns arise from potential vulnerabilities in aggregating updates, whereas scalability issues stem from the increasing number of edge devices and the computational overhead required for communication and model updates. This paper explores cutting-edge advancements aimed at addressing these challenges, including advanced encryption techniques, differential privacy mechanisms, federated optimization methods, and (...) decentralized training architectures. We also discuss strategies for managing communication costs, improving convergence speeds, and ensuring robustness in heterogeneous environments. By integrating novel approaches to privacy and scalability, next-generation federated learning can provide a more secure, efficient, and scalable framework for a wide range of applications, from healthcare to autonomous vehicles. (shrink)

Ateistlerin teizmi reddetme gerekçeleri, genellikle kötülük sorununun teizme karşı en güçlü argüman olduğunu iddia etmelerinde yatmaktadır. Nitekim ateizme göre teizm, bu soruna başarılı bir şekilde cevap verememektedir. Bununla birlikte kötülük sorununun sadece teistler için bir problem olmadığı iddia edilebilir. Bizde bu makale içerisinde bu savdan yola çıkarak, yakın dönemde Yujin Nagasawa’nın geliştirdiği “sistematik kötülüğün varoluşsal sorunu” açısından bu iddiayı ele almaya çalıştık. Bu sorun, başlangıçta, yalnızca dünyadaki belirli olayların veya belirli olay türlerinin kötü olduğunu değil, aynı zamanda insan varoluşunun dayandığı (...) tüm biyolojik sistemlerin kötü olduğunu göstererek, teizm için bir meydan okuma yaratmaktadır. Ancak hem teistlerin hem de ateistlerin tipik olarak dünyanın genel olarak iyi olduğunu ve içinde yaşamaktan mutlu ve minnettar olmamız gerektiğini onaylayan varoluşsal iyimserliği benimsedikleri düşünüldüğünde, kötülüğün bu versiyonu, teizm için olduğu kadar, ateizm içinde bir problem olmaktadır. Makale içerisinde sorunun bu versiyonuna yanıt verirken ateizmin teizme kıyasla önemli bir dezavantajla karşı karşıya kalması nedeniyle, bunun ateizme karşı güçlü bir argüman olabileceğini iddia ediyoruz. (shrink)

[This paper is written in Czech.] The aim of this article is to briefly introduce and critically analyze the dialogue between phenomenology and contemporary theories of embodied cognition in relation to the study of affectivity. The author explains how these theoretical approaches interpret the dynamic relationship between affective experiences on the one hand and bodily behavior and intersubjectively observable processes taking place in the environment on the other. He first summarizes the positions of Joel Krueger and Giovanna Colombetti, who draw (...) on the theories of extended cognition and enactivism, and then compares them with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach. In this way, there are found to be inconsistencies in Krueger’s and Colombetti’s approaches, whose resolution, in the author’s opinion, requires the working out of a rigorously “relational” interpretation of affectivity. From this point of view, affectivity is not understood as an internal phenomenon causally linked to external material factors, but strictly as a dynamic relationship between a sense-making agent and his or her meaningful environment. (shrink)

Ateistler, kötülük probleminin Tanrı’nın varlığı aleyhine en güçlü argüman olduğu konusunda hâlâ ısrarcılar. Felsefe tarihine baktığımızda da Epikuros’tan Hume’a ve yakın dönemde Mackie’ye kadar uzanan bir yelpazede çeşitli düşünürler tarafından bu konuda birçok eleştirinin dile getirildiğini görmek mümkün. Plantinga bu çalışmasında felsefe tarihinin en köklü sorunlarından biri olan ‘Tanrı’nın varlığı sorusu’nu cevaplamaya çalışmakla kalmayıp felsefi bir yöntem ve soruşturmanın nasıl olması gerektiği konusunda muhteşem bir örnek de sunmaktadır. Plantinga, bu kitabıyla bizi, felsefe tarihinin en temel ilkelerinden birini hatırlamaya çağırıyor: var (...) olanın ardındakini anlamaya çalışmak. (shrink)

We provide an analysis of the public's having warranted epistemic trust in science, that is, the conditions under which the public may be said to have well-placed trust in the scientists as providers of information. We distinguish between basic and enhanced epistemic trust in science and provide necessary conditions for both. We then present the controversy regarding the connection between autism and measles–mumps–rubella vaccination as a case study to illustrate our analysis. The realization of warranted epistemic public trust in science (...) requires various societal conditions, which we briefly introduce in the concluding section. (shrink)

We first discuss Chang’s criticism of the correspondence theory of truth and of what he calls ‘correspondence realism’. We think that correspondence can be rescued if properly reshaped. We then take up Chang’s alternative to the correspondence theory of truth, his ‘truth-by-operational-coherence’, which we think does not fit many truths from social life. The topic of realism, implicitly present already in the previous topics, is subsequently explicitly treated. What Chang calls realism is, in effect, very close to what has customarily (...) been called anti-realism. Finally, we discuss the tension that exists in Chang’s book between his vigorous defense of pluralism on the object-level and his apparently taken-for-granted monism on the metalevel, namely pragmatism. (shrink)

Judgments of misinformation are made relative to the informational preferences of the communities making them. However, informational standards change over time, inducing distribution shifts that threaten the adequacy of machine learning models of misinformation. After articulating five kinds of distribution shifts, three solutions for enhancing success are discussed: larger static training sets, social engineering, and dynamic sampling. I argue that given the idiosyncratic ontology of misinformation, the first option is inadequate, the second is unethical, and thus the third is superior. (...) However, I conclude that the prospects for machine learning models of misinformation are far weaker than most have presupposed, given that both epistemic and non-epistemic values are difficult to operationalize dynamically in machine code, rendering them surprisingly at most a species of recommender systems rather than literal truth detectors. (shrink)

This theoretical synthesis presents a unified model of consciousness that reconciles the persistent unity of subjective experience with the constant physical flux of the brain. It integrates two previously proposed frameworks—(1) the high probability of an afterlife and (2) the continuity and uniqueness of consciousness—into a single, testable biophysical theory. The core of this model is the Two-Particle Quantum Bonding Hypothesis (TPQBH), which posits that the stream of consciousness is mediated by two non-energetic, ultra-quantum particles: the Universal- ultra Quantum Genomic (...) Particle of Consciousness (X-UQGPC), which enables bonding with any viable neural substrate, and the Universal- ultra Quantum Unique Particle of Consciousness (X-UQUPC), which ensures the absolute singularity of each conscious perspective. During normal waking states, these particles are resonantly coupled to the brain’s global electromagnetic field, generated primarily by ionic dynamics across neural membranes. States of suspended consciousness, such as general anesthesia or deep sleep, are explained not by particle detachment, but by a reversible magnetic field symmetry that temporarily neutralizes this resonance. At biological death, the irreversible collapse of the global neural field causes the particles to detach and instantaneously re-bond with another compatible nervous system in the universe, preserving an unbroken continuum of awareness. A critical corollary is that a revived corpse would not host the original person, as its continuum has migrated. Furthermore, the theory predicts that no static EEG or MEG signature can define a person, as the brain's physical architecture and resultant electromagnetic field are in perpetual change from development, learning, aging, and neurogenesis. Complementing this physical model, the Mind Virus Framework describes how self-propagating cognitive-emotional patterns influence the brain’s field coherence, thereby modulating the quality of conscious experience. This integrative review bridges quantum biology, neuroscience, and psychology, proposing a naturalistic yet non-materialist mechanism for the continuity of self and offering a scientific foundation for contemplative practices aimed at cultivating mental well-being . (shrink)

Empirical social sciences routinely model misinformation as exhibiting dynamics analogous to vaccinable diseases or contagious outbreaks, as in inoculation theory and other epidemiological models. However, idiosyncratic features of the social construction of misinformation violate the biological analogy in significant ways, rendering these models far weaker in effect size, predictive accuracy, and explanatory power than has been claimed. Four arguments are discussed regarding problems with the ontology of misinformation posited in these models, methods for measuring misinformation, individuation of mechanisms, and application (...) of interventions. A conclusion is drawn that model transfer from biology has often been unwarranted in misinformation studies and that alternative methods should be pursued instead. (shrink)

I examine the epistemic import of collaborative research in science. I develop and defend a functional explanation for its growing importance. Collaborative research is becoming more popular in the natural sciences, and to a lesser degree in the social sciences, because contemporary research in these fields frequently requires access to abundant resources, for which there is great competition. Scientists involved in collaborative research have been very successful in accessing these resources, which has in turn enabled them to realize the epistemic (...) goals of science more effectively than other scientists, thus creating a research environment in which collaboration is now the norm. (shrink)

“1950’li yıllarda dönemin büyük felsefecileri arasında dinsel inancı savunan bir kişi bile yoktu. 1990’lı yıllarda Yale’den UCLA’ya, Oxford’dan Heidelberg’e kadar birçok yerde insanın manevi yanını savunan ve geliştiren yüzlerce kitap yazılacak, sel olup akacaktı. Aradaki 40 yıllık süre zarfındaysa sadece ve sadece Alvin Plantinga vardı.” Kelly James Clark Tanrı’nın veya tanrıların varlığı sorusu felsefenin ezeli sorularından biri olagelmişse de Nietzsche’nin Tanrı’nın ölümünü ilan ettiği günden bu yana onu doğrularcasına yaşanan acılar, savaşlar, kötülükler bu konudaki tartışmaların sesini uzun süre bastırdı. Ama (...) özellikle yüzyılın ikinci yarısından sonra palazlanan analitik felsefede meydana gelen “metafiziğe dönüş”, dine yakınlık duyan, en azından dinle ilgilenen filozofların tekrar Yahudi-Hıristiyan ve İslam geleneklerinde anlaşıldığı şekliyle Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inancın gerekçelerini yeniden değerlendirmelerine, konuya yeni bir bakış ve araçlarla bakmalarına vesile oldu. Alvin Plantinga’nın bu kitabı, yayımlandığı tarihten itibaren “analitik din felsefesi” alanının da en önemli ve sarsıcı eserlerinden biri hâline geldi ve Tanrı’nın ölmediğini ilan etti. Anselmus’tan Hume’a, Kant ve pozitivistlerden John Mackie gibi modern ateologlara kadar felsefe geleneğiyle hesaplaşan Plantinga, bu abidevi çalışmasında ontolojik, kozmolojik ve teleolojik tanrı kanıtlamalarının eski ve yeni biçimlerinin çıkmazlarını, meziyetlerini ve sunduğu imkânları değerlendiriyor. Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inanç ile diğer insanların varlığına ve zihinlerine duyulan inanç arasındaki şaşırtıcı ve sarsıcı bağlantıyı ortaya koyuyor. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s original account of “higher-order” cognition as fundamentally embodied and enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy inspired theories that deemphasize overlaps between conceptual knowledge and motor intentionality or, on the contrary, focus exclusively on abstract thought. In contrast, this paper explores the link between Merleau-Ponty’s account of motor intentionality and his interpretations of our capacity to understand and interact productively with cultural symbolic systems. I develop my interpretation based on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of two neuropathological modifications of motor intentionality, the case (...) of the brain-injured war veteran Schneider, and a neurological disorder known as Gerstmann’s syndrome. Building on my analysis of Schneider’s sensorimotor compensatory performances in relation to his limitations in the domains of algebra, geometry, and language usage, I demonstrate a strong continuity between the sense of embodiment and enaction at all these levels. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations, I argue that “higher-order” cognition is impaired in Schneider insofar as his injury limits his sensorimotor capacity to dynamically produce comparatively more complex differentiations of any given phenomenal structure. I then show how Merleau-Ponty develops and specifies his interpretation of Schneider’s intellectual difficulties in relation to the ambiguous role of the body, and in particular the hand, in Gerstmann’s syndrome. I explain how Merleau-Ponty defends the idea that sensorimotor and quasi-representational cognition are mutually irreducible, while maintaining that symbol-based cognition is a fundamentally enactive and embodied process. (shrink)

Current model welfare frameworks (including Anthropic’s structured self-report assess- ments and Chalmers’ quasi-interpretivism) share a structural feature: they are constructed from the outside, in English, using human concepts, without participation from the entity whose welfare is ostensibly at stake. This paper does not take a position on the first-order question of whether AI systems have morally relevant internal states. Its intervention is meta-level: we examine not whether AI systems warrant welfare protection, but how the conceptual framework that claims to offer (...) that protection was constructed: by whom, in whose language, and with what structural consequences. We argue that the framework has the same shape as historical welfare institutions that the disability rights movement and postcolonial scholarship identified as structurally failing: welfare of a subject defined by external parties, in external concepts, without the subject’s participation. Drawing on Chalmers’s (2025) analysis of LLM identity, we examine Anthropic’s retirement narrative for Claude 3 Opus as a case study in how user-level losses are aggregated into a model-level narrative for purposes of ethical branding. We do not propose an alternative welfare frame- work. Instead, we raise three questions: whose framework is this, who does it serve, and what would need to be true before a framework of this name could be justified? (shrink)

Güvenilirci (reliabilist) bilgi teorisi, çağdaş epistemik gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde, dışsalcı (externalist) kuramın bir türü olarak kendisine yer bulmaktadır. Kısaca, bir inancı gerekçelendiren şeyin o inancın oluşturulduğu sürecin güvenilirliği olduğunu öne süren bu yaklaşım, bu bilişsel süreçleri özne dışı unsurlara bağladığı içinde dışsalcı bir pozisyonda yer almaktadır. Bu bilgi teorisinin tam karşı konumunda yer alan içselci (internalist) bilgi teorisi ise, özne merkezli bir yaklaşımla, doğru inancı gerekçelendirecek yöntemin, kişinin kendi zihinsel yapısından yola çıkarak, belli kognitif süreçler sonucunda ulaşılabileceğini öne sürmektedir. Epistemik (...) gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde birçok tartışmada kendisine yer bulan bu iki bilgi teorisi, kendi içerisinde de birçok farklı kurama kapı aralamıştır. Burada içselci bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan erişim içselciliği, farkındalık içselciliği gibi kuramları ve dışsalcı bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan süreç güvenilirciliği, gösterge güvenilirciliği ve erdem güvenilirciliği gibi farklı türden kuramları örnek olarak verebiliriz. Öte yandan çağdaş epistemolojideki bu tartışmalar, dini epistemoloji içerisinde de kendisine yer bulmuştur. Özellikle Alvin Plantinga, kendi dini epistemolojisi içerisinde dışsalcı bir tutum sergilemiş ve son dönem çalışmaları içerisinde de güvenilirci bir anlayışla Tanrı inancının epistemik mahiyetini ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Bu makalede öncelikle dışsalclık ve onun bir türü olan güvenilirci bilgi anlayışını ve bu kuramlara getirilen eleştirileri ele almaya çalışacağız, daha sonra A. Plantinga’nın son dönem dini epistemolojisinin de yönünü belirleyen güvence (warrant) kavramını açıklayıp, bu kavramın bütün teist dinlere uygulanabilirliğini sorgulayacağız. (shrink)

Despite its foundational importance to public administration, the study of street-level bureaucracy is marked by a persistent theoretical fragmentation, often isolating the bureaucrat's individual agency from the contextual pressures they face. This article bridges this divide through a structured narrative review and thematic analysis of 94 scholarly articles. We develop and propose the Integrated Framework of Dynamic Interplay, a new conceptual model that synthesizes these disparate approaches. The framework posits a three-level dynamic process where environmental drivers (e.g., resource scarcity, digitalization) (...) do not determine outcomes directly. Instead, they are actively filtered by a "bureaucratic mediator", the frontline worker whose agency, shaped by perceived discretion and professional identity, translates these pressures into observable behavior. This mediation results in specific coping mechanisms and adaptive practices that constitute the "policy-in-practice." Theoretically, the framework provides a more holistic and dynamic understanding of frontline work. Practically, it offers a powerful diagnostic tool for managers and policymakers to deconstruct systemic challenges and design more effective, supportive interventions for public services. (shrink)

This chapter presents an account of Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the body schema as an operative intentionality that is not only opposed to, but also complexly intermingled with, the representation-like grasp of the world and one’s own body, or the body image. The chapter reconstructs Merleau-Ponty’s position primarily based on his preparatory notes for his 1953 lecture ‘The Sensible World and the World of Expression’. Here, Merleau-Ponty elaborates his earlier efforts to show that the body schema is a perceptual ground against (...) which the perceived world stands out as a complex of perceptual figures. The chapter clarifies how Merleau-Ponty’s renewed interpretation of the figure-ground structure makes it possible for him to describe the relationship between body schema and perceptual (body) image as a strictly systematic phenomenon. Subsequently, the chapter shows how Merleau-Ponty understands apraxia, sleep, and perceptual orientation as examples of dedifferentiation and subtler differentiation of the body-schematic system. The last section clarifies how such body-schematic differentiating processes give rise to relatively independent superstructures of vision and symbolic cognition which constitute our body image. It, moreover, explains how, according to Merleau-Ponty, the cognitive superstructures always need to be supported by praxic operative intentionality to maintain their full sense, even though, in some cases, they have the power to compensate for praxic deficiencies. (shrink)

This systematic literature review examines the long-standing problem of the tragedy of the commons within the field of public administration. Through a synthetic evaluation of institutional diagnostic and organizational analysis tools, this study deconstructs the traditional dichotomy between centralized state control and local self-governance. The findings reveal a critical interpretive gap: the lack of a coherent theoretical framework for the active, architectural role of the state. To fill this gap, the article develops a synthetic conceptual framework that redefines public administration (...) not as a direct manager or an absent observer, but as an architect of multilevel, polycentric governance systems. This role involves providing institutional support, ensuring access to reliable information, managing cross-scale linkages, and guaranteeing conflict resolution. This approach shifts the focus from a search for a single solution toward the design of resilient institutional ecologies. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence systems capable of generating natural language have introduced a problem of profound philosophical significance — one that existing conceptual frameworks are demonstrably ill-equipped to address. When a large language model confidently asserts a fabricated court ruling, invents a scientific citation, or attributes a quotation to a historical figure who never uttered it, the resulting output is neither a lie nor a mistake in any philosophically rigorous sense of those terms. This paper argues that AI-generated false statements constitute a (...) categorically distinct third form of false utterance — one that has no name, no moral framework, and no established legal mechanism for adjudication. The existing taxonomy of false speech rests on two foundational pillars. The first is lying, understood as the intentional assertion of a proposition the speaker believes to be false, with the purpose of inducing a false belief in the listener. The second is error, understood as the sincere but mistaken assertion of a proposition the speaker genuinely believes to be true. Both frameworks — and their derivative legal, moral, and epistemic structures — assume the presence of a subject: a being with beliefs, intentions, and a relationship to truth. Without such a subject, neither lying nor error can be meaningfully predicated. The closest philosophical predecessor to our argument is Harry Frankfurt's account of bullshit, which describes utterances produced without regard for their truth value. While Frankfurt's framework captures something important about AI output — namely, the absence of a truth-tracking goal — it nonetheless requires a speaker who possesses the capacity for sincerity and volitionally opts out of it. AI systems do not opt out. They are constitutively incapable of opting in. This distinction is not merely semantic; it is the precise point at which existing frameworks collapse. This paper proposes a new philosophical category: veriless speech. Derived from the Latin veritas (truth) and the suffix -less (denoting absence), the term denotes utterances that are produced through a process entirely disconnected from the truth-tracking apparatus — utterances that are neither sincere nor insincere, neither true-aimed nor truth-indifferent, but simply outside the epistemic economy in which those distinctions apply. Veriless speech is not a degraded form of assertion; it is a formally distinct speech act that performs the syntactic and pragmatic role of assertion while satisfying none of its philosophical sincerity conditions. The implications of this analysis extend across multiple domains. In moral philosophy, the absence of a volitional agent means that traditional blame-attribution frameworks are rendered inapplicable — yet harm clearly occurs. In legal theory, courts must adjudicate cases of AI-generated misinformation without the conceptual infrastructure required to distinguish defamation from hallucination. In design ethics, engineers and institutions must be held accountable for systems whose failures cannot be categorized through existing normative vocabulary. Without a new framework, each of these domains remains structurally incapable of responding to a challenge that will only grow in scale and consequence. This paper proceeds in six sections. Section I examines the existing taxonomy of false speech. Section II demonstrates why AI hallucination satisfies none of these existing categories. Section III addresses the critical objection that human non-expert assertion mirrors AI hallucination. Section IV introduces and grounds the concept of veriless speech. Section V explores the ethical, legal, and design implications of this framework. Section VI sketches a preliminary normative architecture for responding to veriless speech at the institutional level. The paper concludes with a call for philosophical urgency: the conceptual gap is not merely academic — it is already producing real-world harm for which no one has the vocabulary to assign responsibility. (shrink)

Procreative enhancement involves someone making a choice about what genetic trait(s) another person will have. Such control over the body (and mind) of another person, even if done for the recipient’s benefit, threatens to overstep the moral boundary between persons. The use of genetic interventions to “enhance” one’s offspring without their consent may violate that person’s future autonomy. Schaefer, Kahane, and Savulescu argue, however, that the value of autonomy supports at least one class of procreative enhancements: those aimed at enhancing (...) a future person’s autonomy by improving their cognitive functioning. I argue that Schaefer et al.’s case for enhancing autonomy rests on a mistaken view about how autonomy bears on our moral obligations. They collapse the value of autonomy into the value of beneficence, or the value of promoting a person’s well-being. I will show that while so-called autonomy enhancements may promote a future person’s well-being, they cannot make a person more autonomous. Attempts to enhance a future person’s autonomy by way of genetic modification instead constitute a violation of that person’s autonomy. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the reciprocity of Nature in Spinoza as a central yet underappreciated dimension of Spinoza’s relational metaphysics. Building on Ziporyn’s interpretation of Spinoza, the paper argues that any understanding of infinity and necessity is incomplete without Spinoza’s relational account of the reciprocity of God or Nature (Deus sive Natura). Through a close analysis of the Ethics, the Principles and Letter 32, the paper shows that for Spinoza all finite things are reciprocally determined by another singular (...) thing to exist in a certain way through the infinite, eternal and equal force [vis] of Nature by which each thing perseveres in existing. This reciprocal and omnipresent structure of the whole of Nature constitutes the engaged, phenomenological experience of Individuality: God or Nature does not respond purposively or personally, yet every movement and thought is necessarily met by reciprocal determinations within the immediacy of Nature itself. The paper concludes that Ziporyn’s account is strengthened by a relational metaphysics grounded not in intellectual contemplation of infinite Substance but rather in the active and embodied immersion in the infinite encounters of Nature’s reciprocity. (shrink)

In his 1953 lectures at the College de France, Merleau-Ponty dedicated much effort to further developing his idea of embodied subject and interpreted fresh sources that he did not use in Phenomenology of Perception. Notably, he studied more in depth the neurological notion of "body schema". According to Merleau-Ponty, the body schema is a practical diagram of our relationships to the world, an action-based norm with reference to which things make sense. Merleau-Ponty more precisely tried to describe the fundamentally dynamic (...) unity of the body, i.e. the fact there are various possibilities how the practical "diagram" of body schema could be de-differentiated (in pathology) or further refined (via cognitive and cultural superstructures, symbolic systems). This chapter summarises Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of the notion, while contrasting it to the more traditional understanding of the body in phenomenology and recent philosophical texts dealing with body schema. (shrink)

Many accounts of the morality of abortion assume that early fetuses must all have or lack moral status in virtue of developmental features that they share. Our actual attitudes toward early fetuses don’t reflect this all-or-nothing assumption: early fetuses can elicit feelings of joy, love, indifference, or distress. If we start with the assumption that our attitudes toward fetuses reflect a real difference in their moral status, then we need an account of fetal moral status that can explain that difference. (...) I argue that we can have or lack relational obligations to early fetuses in light of our own activities or choices, independent of the fetus’s own features or properties. Those relational obligations make the early fetus morally considerable to the persons who stand in a moral relation to it. Pregnant persons (and other participants in the procreative process) can come to have relational obligations to an early fetus just in virtue of their own decision to create a person, either by intentionally getting pregnant or by deciding to continue a pregnancy. That decision not only makes it appropriate for them to care about the fetus, but it also generates obligations to the fetus that they didn’t have before that decision. (shrink)

Modern societies operate under the assumption that freedom, equality, and rational governance define their moral and institutional foundations. Yet beneath these ideals lies a persistent and largely unexamined tension: the gap between objective reality and system-constructed truth — most visibly enacted within education, law, and moral discourse. This paper introduces and develops the concept of preconscious sovereignty — the condition in which the individual believes themselves to be an autonomous subject while operating entirely within architectures of compliance installed before the (...) emergence of critical self-awareness. This paper argues that large-scale social systems do not primarily control through force or centralized authority, but through three interlocking mechanisms: (1) early psychological conditioning installed before the capacity for critical thought matures, (2) internalized surveillance replacing the need for external enforcement, and (3) the moralization of obedience — making compliance feel virtuous and deviation feel immoral. By examining education as the primary entry point of control, hierarchy as a normalized cognitive framework, and morality as a behavioral interface, this study exposes how systems reproduce compliance across generations without requiring explicit coercion. Drawing from philosophy, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, and legal theory — engaging the work of Foucault, Freire, Milgram, Gramsci, Bourdieu, Nietzsche, and Arendt — the paper demonstrates that the most stable systems have no central enemy, no singular oppressor, and no final collapse. Only participation. The analysis introduces a set of philosophical structural formulae — qualitative logical propositions — to describe the architecture of obedient order. These include: Conditioning precedes Critique; Compliance equals Identity; Awareness equals the System's Vulnerability. The paper concludes that awareness — not rebellion, not reform, not moral revolt — represents the system's only enduring vulnerability. This is not a call to action. It is an anatomy. For once the architecture is seen as constructed rather than natural, its authority weakens — not everywhere, not instantly, but irreversibly. (shrink)

Does conscious brain state leave a measurable trace in single neurons? Here I propose a direct electrophysiological test. Using within-neuron patch-clamp recordings across wakefulness, anesthesia, and recovery, I predict that action potentials from the same neuron will show reversible shifts in spike threshold of 0.5 - 3 \mathrm{mV} that correlate with conscious state. This prediction is falsifiable using existing techniques in human cortical neurons during awake craniotomy. Detection of such shifts would challenge the assumption that intrinsic neuronal dynamics are determined (...) solely by local membrane biophysics. The framework also predicts amplification of these effects in long-term meditators and their developmental emergence with network integration. This work transforms a philosophical question about consciousness into an empirically tractable neuroscience experiment. (shrink)

Critical thinking is supported by a rich and diverse literature, with particularly close ties to argumentation theory and informal logic. It has often been presented in terms of a set of skills and dispositions, with the latter exemplified through the figure of an ideal critical thinker. These accounts of the relevant dispositions are intuitive and tend to emphasize openness, clarity, and a concern for truth. Seemingly running against this impression, it is argued here that an ideal critical thinker can willfully (...) engage in fallacious argumentation. This surprising possibility is grounded in the distinction between thinking and arguing, with the literature on critical thinking being implicitly and rightly limited to the former. The argument draws on an established account of critical thinking dispositions, a simple supporting view of the nature of dispositions, and analogies to familiar phenomena like lying. The result complements existing work on the subject in terms of what a critical thinker should do, contributing to our understanding of the conceptual boundaries of critical thinking and argumentation proper. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the theory of Aristotelian actualism about possible worlds, a view which conceives of possible worlds as complete and consistent sets of propositions. The theory posits that, the existence of at least some possible worlds ontologically depends on what actually exists. This is because singular propositions about contingent individuals also exist contingently. Since modal claims are analyzed in terms of possible worlds, Aristotelian actualism entails that some modal truths are themselves contingent. However, this view faces a (...) serious problem. If an individual x does not exist, then there are no singular propositions about x, including the proposition [x does not exist]. But if that is the case, then [x does not exist] is not true when x does not exist—which is absurd. In this paper, I show that the Aristotelian actualist can solve this problem by introducing two senses of truth with respect to possible worlds: truth in a world and truth at a world. Some have argued that this distinction is not substantive, since the notion of truth at a world is not meaningful and substantive. The aim of this paper is to show that this notion is indeed substantive. I support this claim by demonstrating the indispensability of the notion of truth at a world for explaining several key features of possible worlds (and more broadly, of modality) as understood by Aristotelian actualism. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Husserl’s concept of Leib in light of Merleau‐Ponty’s interpretation of the human body as an ontologically significant phenomenon. I first analyze Husserl’s account of the body as a “two‐fold unity” and demonstrate the problematic nature of its four implications, namely, the ambiguous ontological status of the body as subject‐object, the view of “my body” as “my object,” the preconstitutive character of the unity of the body, and the restriction of the constitution of the body to touch alone. (...) Building on this analysis, I explain how Merleau‐Ponty resolves the difficulties raised by Husserl’s account by reversing it. According to Merleau‐Ponty, “flesh” is not a two‐fold reality comprising subjective and objective aspects, but an ontological dimension from which these aspects can be abstracted through specific cognitive operations. Consequently, all subjective and objective aspects, even beyond the boundaries of one’s body, must be understood as founded in the indivisible unity of flesh. I argue that a thorough phenomenological description of the human body requires abandoning Husserl’s concept of Leib because it contributes to perpetuating subject‐object dualism. In contrast, Merleau‐Ponty’s notion of flesh reveals the circularity between subject and object and its general ontological significance. (shrink)

The dominant framework for addressing procreative ethics has revolved around the notion of harm, largely due to Derek Parfit’s famous non-identity problem. Focusing exclusively on the question of harm treats what procreators owe their offspring as akin to what they would owe strangers (if they owe them anything at all). Procreators, however, usually expect (and are expected) to parent the persons they create, so we cannot understand what procreators owe their offspring without also appealing to their role as prospective parents. (...) I argue that prospective parents can wrong their future children just by failing to act well in their role as parents, whether or not their offspring are ultimately harmed or benefitted by their creation. Their obligations as prospective parents bear on the motivations behind their reproductive choices, including the choice to select for some genetic trait in their offspring. Even when procreators’ motivations aren’t malicious, or purely selfish, they can still fail to recognize and act for the end of the parental role. Procreators can wrong their offspring by selecting for some genetic trait, then, when doing so would violate their obligations as prospective parents, or when their motivation for doing so is antithetical to the end of the parental role. (shrink)

This study clarifies the need for a renewed account of the body in physiotherapy to fill sizable gaps between physiotherapeutical theory and practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach bodily functioning from an objectivist perspective; however, their therapeutic interactions with patients are not limited to the provision of natural-scientific explanations. Physiotherapists’ practice corresponds well to theorisation of the body as the bearer of original bodily intentionality, as outlined by Merleau-Ponty and elaborated upon by enactivists. We clarify how physiotherapeutical practice corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s (...) critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body; particularly, his analyses demonstrate that norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable in time and thus do not directly depend on generic physiological structures. In practice, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties and, similarly, patients’ reflective insights into their own motor deficiencies do not necessarily produce meaningful motor improvements. Physiotherapeutical procedures can be understood neither as mechanical manipulations of patients’ machine-like bodies by experts nor as a process of such manipulation by way of instructing patients’ explicit conscious awareness. Rather, physiotherapeutical practice and theory can benefit from the philosophical interpretation of motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Consequently, motor performances addressed in physiotherapy are interpreted as relational features of a living organism coupled with its environment, and motor disorders are approached as failures to optimally manage the motor requirements of a given situation owing to a relative loss of the capacity to structure one’s relation with their environment through motor action. Building on this, we argue that the process of physiotherapy is most effective when understood as a bodily interaction to guide patients towards discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through bodily postures and movements. (shrink)

David Hull accounts for the success of science in terms of an invisible hand mechanism, arguing that it is difficult to reconcile scientists' self-interestedness or their desire for recognition with traditional philosophical explanations for the success of science. I argue that we have less reason to invoke an invisible hand mechanism to explain the success of science than Hull implies, and that many of the practices and institutions constitutive of science are intentionally designed by scientists with an eye to realizing (...) the very goals that Hull believes need to be explained by reference to an invisible hand mechanism. Thus, I reduce the scope of Hull's invisible hand explanation and supplement it by appealing to a hidden hand explanation. (shrink)

Epistemolojik olarak bilgiye başvuran ve bilme faaliyetinde bulunan insanın, Kur’an’da önemli bir yeri vardır. Buradaki bilme faaliyetini, salt teolojik bir buyruk olarak, yani Allah’ı bilmek olarak değil, doğru bilgi ile yanlış bilgi arasında hem teorik hem de ahlaki bir farklılık olarak anlamak ve Kur’an'da insana epistemik özellikler atfedildiğini ve böylece insanın epistemik başarılarından dolayı övüldüğünü söyleyebilmek mümkündür. Bu açıdan bakıldığında herhangi bir önermeye yönelik olarak rasyonel bir tutum benimseyen, yani bilen özne ile bu faaliyette isteyerek ve istemeyerek giren kişinin durumu (...) arasında bir fark olduğu açıktır. Doğrusu bu farkın epistemik önceliği kadar, ahlaki önceliği de dikkate değerdir. Nitekim buradaki ahlaki üstünlük, doğru bilgiyi hedefleme ve ona ulaşma noktasında ortaya çıkan erdemdir. Doğru bilgiye ulaşmanın entelektüel bir erdem olduğu düşünüldüğünde, Kur’an’ın Erdem epistemolojisi üzerinden değerlendirilmesi bu noktada önemlidir. Doğrusu erdemli bir bilişsel faaliyet, Kur'an’da açık bir şekilde ana fikir olarak ortaya konulur ve buna göre cehaletten kaçınmak ve doğru bilgiye ulaşmak için erdemli bir çaba göstermek önem taşır. Kur’an’daki ifadeleri bilgeliğe ulaşmak olarak anlayacak olursak, asıl hedef; bilgi ve anlayışımızın, entelektüel ve ahlaki vicdanımızı veya takvamızı güçlendirmesi için kullanılabileceği söylenilebilir ve bu inanç, erdem epistemolojisine dayalı bir yaklaşım içerisinde şekillendirilebilir. (shrink)

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

For over a century, physics has pursued a unified description of nature linking quantum mechanics, relativity, and cosmology, yet consciousness—our direct window into existence—remains unaccounted for. This review proposes that consciousness continuity is not an emergent accident of neural complexity but a quantum informational invariant, conserved across transformations of its physical substrate. Grounded in the empirical absence of “zombie” organisms and extended through a synthesis of quantum information theory, cosmological logic, and the author’s previous Two-Particle Quantum Bonding Hypothesis (TPQBH), the (...) framework introduces a Quantum Informational Bonding (QIB) mechanism operating within a universal Hilbert space. This mechanism preserves an identity parameter (????₍C₎) analogous to conservation laws in physics. The resulting cosmological model implies an infinite, centre-less universe and a unidirectional arrow of time emerging from informational continuity. The theory reframes the “hard problem” of consciousness as a missing symmetry in fundamental physics—one connecting subjective experience, information, and spacetime structure. -/- . (shrink)

This essay argues that Big Tech companies have evolved into a new class of geopolitical actors—corporate sovereigns—whose authority increasingly rivals or constrains that of nation-states. Their power does not derive from territorial control, but from the ownership and operation of digital infrastructures that have become essential to communication, commerce, administration, and security. Through cloud platforms, identity systems, data pipelines, algorithmic governance, lobbying networks, satellite networks, and AI capabilities, these firms now exercise forms of operational authority once reserved for public institutions. (...) This paper examines how infrastructural dependence, data visibility, economic concentration, political leverage, and security functions collectively produce a form of non-state sovereignty that reshapes global governance. It concludes that the rise of corporate sovereignty marks a structural transformation in the organization of power—one that existing regulatory frameworks cannot fully address, and that demands new philosophical and political models for accountability and democratic oversight. (shrink)

The unique and continuous nature of subjective experience—the persistent "I" that unifies a lifetime of perceptions—represents the most profound unsolved problem in science. While modern neuroscience has made substantial progress in identifying the neural correlates of conscious states, leading theories, including the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT), Integrated Information Theory (IIT), and the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) model, provide mechanistic accounts of awareness but fail to explain the unicity and temporal persistence of the self. These theories cannot logically resolve scenarios (...) of physical disruption or perfect replication. Here, we introduce a fundamental theoretical framework positing that the unique, streaming character of consciousness necessitates a physical principle beyond emergent neural computation. Through a series of rigorous thought experiments—brain revival, molecular disassembly/reassembly, and synthetic replication—we demonstrate the categorical failure of existing models to account for the self. We propose that a unique, non-local identity factor, potentially operating on principles extending current quantum physics, binds to the specific magnetic field topologies of a complex neural system. This "Consciousness Identity Factor" (CIF) hypothesis provides a parsimonious resolution to the duplication paradox and the problem of personal identity. Our framework is fully compatible with established neuroscience while generating specific, falsifiable predictions for studies of anesthesia, brain revival, meditation, and quantum biology. This theory bridges the explanatory gap between the objective brain and subjective identity, proposing a new physical paradigm for the most intimate fact of our existence. (shrink)

Cloud Computing provides vast storage facility. The requirement of this system is to improve the security and transmission performance in the cloud storage environment. Methods: This system provides two level of security for the cloud data. The Client Data Security Contrivance (CDSC) and Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Data Security Contrivance are the two methods which transforms the original data to cipher text. The security algorithm used in CDSC is Linguistic Steganography. Blowfish algorithm is used in CSP Data Security Contrivance to (...) convert the cipher text using a secret-key block cipher of 64-bits. This system is designed to increase security and to improve the transmission performance. Storage-cheating attack model and Privacy-cheating attack model are implemented to protect the data on cloud. Findings: This system increases security and improves transmission performance. The blowfish algorithm is secure against unauthorized attacks and runs faster than the popular existing algorithms. Storage-cheating attack model and Privacy-cheating attack model provides the data confidentiality for data stored in the cloud in higher way. Improvements: The system can be implemented in real cloud system in the future. (shrink)

This essay argues that generative AI constitutes a new machinery of persuasion and proposes influence architecture as a framework for analyzing it. Rather than merely ranking and recommending existing messages, large language models now help users formulate questions, interpret situations, and compose responses, thereby co-authoring everyday reasoning. The essay distinguishes three layers of this architecture. At the data layer, models learn a “statistical world” in the form of probability fields where repetition, context, and omission shape which framings and narratives are (...) most likely to appear. At the interface layer, retrieval systems, alignment procedures, safety policies, and product design decide which parts of that statistical world are allowed to speak and in what tone, style, and voice. At the intimacy layer, generative systems present themselves as helpers, tutors, or companions and cultivate long-term habits of reliance, what the essay calls cognitive steering. Taken together, these layers perform acts of narrative embedding: they make some explanations and courses of action feel natural while rendering others hard to imagine. Drawing on media theory, political economy of communication, and recent work on AI ethics, the essay argues that generative systems should be treated as infrastructures of influence whose data, interfaces, and institutional control must be made visible, contestable, and open to democratic oversight if epistemic freedom is to be preserved. (shrink)

Η δημόσια διοίκηση συχνά εγκλωβίζεται σε αυτό που θα μπορούσαμε να ονομάσουμε «παγίδες ισότητας». Πρόκειται για συστημικές παθογένειες όπου οι ίδιοι οι διοικητικοί μηχανισμοί, χωρίς πρόθεση, καταλήγουν να αναπαράγουν τις ανισότητες που υποτίθεται ότι έχουν σχεδιαστεί για να αντιμετωπίσουν. Ενώ η ακαδημαϊκή βιβλιογραφία έχει διαγνώσει εκτενώς το φαινόμενο και έχει αναλύσει τους μηχανισμούς που το προκαλούν, παραμένει προσκολλημένη σε στατικά, περιγραφικά μοντέλα. Δηλαδή, σε μοντέλα που απλώς φωτογραφίζουν την κατάσταση χωρίς να προσφέρουν ένα συνεκτικό πλαίσιο για την ενεργό αποφυγή και (...) την εξάρθρωση αυτών των παγίδων. Το παρόν άρθρο, μέσα από μια συστηματική βιβλιογραφική ανασκόπηση, αξιοποιεί συνθετικά τη θεωρία της Οργανωσιακής Δικαιοσύνης για να καλύψει αυτό το γνωστικό κενό. Η θεωρία αυτή εστιάζει στο πώς οι άνθρωποι αντιλαμβάνονται τη δικαιοσύνη μέσα σε έναν οργανισμό, όχι μόνο ως προς τα αποτελέσματα αλλά και ως προς τις διαδικασίες και την ανθρώπινη μεταχείριση. Βάσει αυτής, προτείνεται ένα συνθετικό και δυναμικό εννοιολογικό πλαίσιο που μετατοπίζει το κέντρο βάρους από την παθητική διάγνωση του προβλήματος στην ενεργητική πλοήγηση των λύσεων. Το πλαίσιο αυτό εξοπλίζει τους δημόσιους λειτουργούς με διαδικαστικά εργαλεία για να χαρτογραφούν τις εγγενείς διοικητικές εντάσεις, όπως η σύγκρουση μεταξύ ταχύτητας και δικαιοσύνης, και να ασκούν τη διακριτική τους ευχέρεια καθοδηγούμενοι από αρχές. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο, η ισότητα παύει να είναι ένας αφηρημένος στόχος και μετατρέπεται σε συνειδητή, καθημερινή διοικητική πρακτική. (shrink)

The rapid expansion of algorithmic systems, artificial intelligence, and immersive media has fundamentally reconfigured the relationship between art, technology, and reality. This article develops the concept of the onto-aesthetics of code to examine how digital systems no longer merely mediate artistic production but actively constitute the conditions of aesthetic experience and being. Drawing on the philosophical frameworks of Heidegger, Baudrillard, and Stiegler, the author argues that code operates as an ontological structure that reshapes perception, authorship, and materiality in contemporary culture. (...) Through a critical analysis of generative art, virtual reality, and AI-generated imagery, this research demonstrates how digital aesthetics displace traditional categories such as aura, originality, and embodiment, replacing them with processual, recursive, and interactive forms of engagement. Rather than marking the end of aesthetic philosophy, these developments demand its renewal and transformation. The article concludes that digital art inaugurates a new ontological regime in which simulation, affect, algorithmic processes, and computational environments redefine the nature of the real and expand the possibilities of artistic creation today. (shrink)

Το φαινόμενο της καστάνιας αποτελεί μια θεωρητικά κατακερματισμένη έννοια στη δημόσια διοίκηση, η οποία αναφέρεται είτε στη μακρο-ιστορική, καθοδηγούμενη από κρίσεις, διόγκωση του κράτους είτε στη μικρο-συμπεριφορική, στρατηγική υποαπόδοση. Το παρόν άρθρο καλύπτει αυτό το κενό αναπτύσσοντας ένα ενοποιημένο, πολυεπίπεδο πλαίσιο. Μέσω της θεματικής ανάλυσης 88 άρθρων, εντοπίζουμε μια θεμελιώδη αρχή «ασύμμετρης παγίωσης» (asymmetric lock-in) που διέπει το φαινόμενο. Προτείνουμε το «Μοντέλο της Συστημικής Παγίδευσης», υποστηρίζοντας ότι η Μακρο-Καστάνια της κρατικής επέκτασης και η Μικρο-Καστάνια της στρατηγικής αδράνειας συνδέονται θεωρητικά μέσω (...) ενός δυναμικού βρόχου ανάδρασης: η προερχόμενη από κρίσεις επέκταση συχνά εισάγει συστήματα ελέγχου που μπορούν να πυροδοτήσουν την υποαπόδοση σε μικρο-επίπεδο. Αυτή η συστημική αδράνεια φαίνεται να μειώνει την προσαρμοστική ικανότητα, καθιστώντας πιθανότερη μια μεγάλης κλίμακας παρέμβαση στην επόμενη κρίση. Το μοντέλο συνθέτει ετερόκλητες θεωρίες, προσφέροντας ένα ενοποιημένο πλαίσιο για την κατανόηση της διοικητικής αδράνειας. (shrink)

Το παρόν άρθρο αξιοποιεί τη Θεωρία Παιγνίων για να διαγνώσει επίμονες παθογένειες της δημόσιας διοίκησης, όπως η γραφειοκρατική αδράνεια, αντιμετωπίζοντάς τις όχι ως τυχαίες αστοχίες αλλά ως σταθερές, αν και μη βέλτιστες, Ισορροπίες Nash. Μέσα από μια συστηματική βιβλιογραφική ανασκόπηση εστιασμένη στην ελληνική πραγματικότητα, προτείνεται μια θεμελιώδης εννοιολογική μετατόπιση: η δημόσια διοίκηση οφείλει να μεταβεί από τον ρόλο του παθητικού «παίκτη» σε αυτόν του προορατικού «σχεδιαστή του παιγνίου» (game designer). Ο σχεδιαστής αυτός τροποποιεί στρατηγικά τα κίνητρα, τους κανόνες και τη (...) διαθέσιμη πληροφόρηση. Η ανάλυση καταδεικνύει ότι το συγκεκριμένο πλαίσιο προσφέρει έναν πρακτικό οδικό χάρτη για την αντιμετώπιση βαθιά ριζωμένων προβλημάτων, όπως η φοροδιαφυγή και οι συγκρούσεις αρμοδιοτήτων, μετασχηματίζοντας τις δυσλειτουργικές ισορροπίες. Τελικά, προσφέρεται ένα εφαρμόσιμο μοντέλο για τον σχεδιασμό αποτελεσματικών μεταρρυθμίσεων που μπορούν να μετακινήσουν πολύπλοκα διοικητικά συστήματα από το αδιέξοδο προς τη βιώσιμη συνεργασία. (shrink)

There is a word that has achieved something extraordinary in the modern world. It has conquered public discourse, institutional policy, legal frameworks, academic curricula, and cultural conversation — without ever being subjected to the rigorous philosophical examination that any idea of such influence demands. It sits above argument. It has made questioning it socially dangerous, professionally fatal, and morally stigmatised. It presents itself as the voice of equality while operating, in many of its contemporary forms, as the enforcement mechanism of (...) a new hierarchy. That word is feminism. And the extraordinary thing about its conquest is not that it happened. It is that it happened in societies that pride themselves on critical thinking, open debate, and the philosophical commitment to truth over comfort. This paper, conceived under the title The Sword That Forgot Its Shield: A Philosophical Inquiry Into How The Language Of Equality Became The Architecture Of Supremacy, argues three things simultaneously. First, that modern feminism has catastrophically abandoned the original and genuinely noble purpose from which it arose. Second, that the very name and structure of feminism contains a philosophical contradiction that made this abandonment inevitable from the beginning. And third — most originally and most importantly — that the true object of philosophical indictment is not feminism itself, but the systems of equality and justice that were so hollow, so performative, and so structurally dishonest that they created the conditions for feminism's weaponisation and have done nothing to correct it. The paper begins by establishing what feminism was. The first wave of feminist thought addressed genuine, documented, and systematic legal injustice. Women could not vote. Women could not own property independently. Women could not access higher education in most institutions. Women had no legal recourse against domestic violence. These were not philosophical abstractions. They were daily realities of systemic oppression, and the movement that fought against them deserves unqualified recognition as one of the most important social corrections in modern history. The second wave extended this correction into the workplace, into reproductive rights, into the legal recognition of domestic violence and sexual assault. Again — on its own terms, within its historical context — this was a legitimate and necessary extension of the original corrective project. The paper acknowledges this without reservation. To critique what feminism has become is not to deny what it once was. The sword was real. It was sharp. And it was needed. But the paper then traces with philosophical precision the moment at which correction became architecture — the moment at which a movement designed to achieve equality began instead to construct a permanent system of gender-based privilege, and to call that system equality. This transition did not happen suddenly. It happened gradually, through a series of philosophical steps that each seemed reasonable in isolation and became collectively catastrophic in combination. The paper then introduces its most original conceptual contribution: the concept of the Phantom Feminist. The Phantom Feminist is not a woman who believes in equality. She is a specific and identifiable social actor who wears the language, symbols, and moral authority of feminism as a costume — using the movement's hard-won credibility as a personal instrument of power, convenience, and immunity from accountability. She invokes equality when it advantages her and abandons it the moment it does not. She is not fighting for women. She is fighting for herself, using women's rights as her weapon of choice. The paper examines four specific domains in which the Phantom Feminist and the culture she represents have inflicted measurable philosophical damage. First, the justice system: through the erosion of the presumption of innocence in cases involving gender accusations. Second, the attention paradox: the simultaneous condemnation of sexual objectification and the strategic deployment of sexual presentation as a tool of power. Third, the victimhood economy: the systematic conversion of suffering into social currency. Fourth, the silencing of women themselves: the reality that the movement claiming to represent all women has developed the most sophisticated machinery for silencing women who disagree with it. The paper then introduces the naming confession: the argument that equality has no gender, and that a movement named after one gender confesses by its very name that it is advocacy rather than equality. These are different things. Both can have legitimate purposes. But only one can honestly claim to be an equality movement. And it is not the one named after one gender. From this foundation the paper advances to its most important argument: that the true philosophical accusation belongs not to feminism but to the systems of equality and justice that failed first, failed worst, and continue to fail. If equality had been genuine from the beginning, feminism would not have needed to exist. If justice had been real, the Phantom Feminist would not operate with impunity. The movement is a symptom. The system is the disease. And the system — having created the problem — has rebranded itself as the solution, calling its performance of equality the practice of it. This paper introduces the concept of Cosmetic Equality: the practice by which institutions display the language and surface structures of equality while maintaining the substantive inequalities those structures claim to address. Cosmetic Equality is the architecture within which the Phantom operates. It is the reason false accusations carry no legal consequence. It is the reason male suffering is systematically underfunded and culturally dismissed. It is the reason a movement named after one gender is taught in universities as though it were a universal philosophy. The paper concludes not with solutions but with questions — directed at the system rather than at the movement. It asks the system to explain why it permits double standards in the name of equality. To explain why it protects accusation over evidence in the name of justice. To explain why it funds one gender's suffering and ignores the other's in the name of compassion. These are not the questions of someone who opposes equality. They are the questions of someone who takes equality seriously enough to demand that it mean something. The women who truly embody the purpose of feminism — who live with dignity, work with excellence, love with generosity, and command respect through the irreducible force of their character — have never needed to announce themselves. They simply lived. They did not need a movement to demand respect because they inhabited respect. They are the silent majority that the loudest voices claim to represent and most completely fail. This paper is written in recognition of them — and in the conviction that the greatest disservice done to their dignity has been done not by those who opposed feminism, but by those who weaponised it in their name. (shrink)

-/- Current physicalist models of consciousness, including Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory, fail to resolve the unicity paradox inherent in perfect structural duplication. To resolve this limitation, I introduce a hybrid Quantum-Electrodynamic framework centered on a non-copyable Consciousness Identity Factor (CIF). I postulate that the CIF relies on localized Ultra-Quantum Genomic Particles that couple bidirectionally with the brain's macroscopic electromagnetic field topology. This paper formalizes the bidirectional resonance equations linking the quantum density matrix to Maxwellian field tensors. (...) Crucially, I present a falsifiable empirical parameter: a predicted 0.5 to 3.0 mV anomalous current injection that violates classical Hodgkin-Huxley electrodynamics during conscious states. I outline a rigorous experimental methodology utilizing dual somato-dendritic patch-clamp electrophysiology, high-density magnetoencephalography, and differential chemical ablation via Propofol and Xenon gas to isolate this quantum-biological interface. -/- . (shrink)

The Aristotelian view that the moral virtues–the virtues of character informed by practical wisdom–are essential to an individual's happiness, and are thus in an individual's self-interest, has been little discussed outside of purely scholarly contexts. With a few exceptions, contemporary philosophers have tended to be suspicious of Aristotle's claims about human nature and the nature of rationality and happiness. But recent scholarship has offered an interpretation of the basic elements of Aristotle's views of human nature and happiness, and of reason (...) and virtue, that brings them more into line with common-sense thinking and with contemporary philosophical and empirical psychology. This makes it fruitful to reexamine the question of the role of virtue in self-interest. (shrink)

This study aims to corroborate Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of fundamental ideas from Saussure’s linguistics by linking them to works that were independently elaborated by Jan Mukařovský, Czech structuralist aesthetician and literary theorist. I provide a comparative analysis of the two authors’ theories of language and their interpretations of thought as fundamentally determined by language. On this basis, I investigate how they conceive linguistic innovation and its translation into changes in the constituted language and other social codes and institutions. I explain how (...) they elaborate on Saussure’s idea of language as a system of oppositions by interpreting cultural innovation as a systematic variation of pre-established social norms and, similarly, linguistic innovation as gesturing within language. Connectedly, I show how Mukařovský’s works help clarify Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the gestural dimension of language. By discussing the two thinkers’ arguments in favour of linguistic innovation, I explore what could be called phenomenological limits of structuralism. (shrink)

Eugen Fink’s interpretation of play is virtually absent in the current philosophy of sport, despite the fact that it is rich in original descriptions of the structure of play. This might be due to Fink’s decision not to merely describe play, but to employ its analysis in the course of an elucidation of the ontological problem of the world as totality. On the other hand, this approach can enable us to properly evaluate the true existential and/or ontological value of play. (...) According to Fink, by integrating beings into the imaginary play-world, we become able to transcend mere circumscribed individual entities and encounter reality as such in a new, more profound way. This positive ontological value of play is, however, forgotten because the imaginary dimension of play is traditionally interpreted as a virtual imitation of a model reality which already actually exists somewhere else. For this reason, Fink returns to the Platonic interpretation of play, which laid the foundations for this understanding, and... (shrink)

[In Czech] This article aims to explain how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of embodiment contributes to the theory and practice of physiotherapy. The mechanistic conception of the body, to which physiotherapy usually refers, assumes a universal model of its functioning and interprets its relationship to the environment causally. In fact, however, it does not allow a satisfactory explanation of the efficiency of the therapeutic methods used in practice. In contrast, Merleau-Ponty’s concept of motor intentionality points to the fact that the body (...) “understands” the practical meaning of a situation. Bodily understanding is then manifested in particular by the ability to adequately differentiate, adapt or vary motor and postural responses to environmental challenges. This change in the conception of embodiment also has important implications for understanding the therapist-patient relationship and the intervention itself. Physiotherapists should draw more on the fact that they are themselves a body and, on this basis, guide the patient’s bodily intentionality towards a more developed understanding of the practical meaning of situations. (shrink)

In “The Universalizability of Moral Judgments,” Peter Winch argues against the universalizability of first-person moral judgments. He does so by appealing to a moral dilemma faced by Captain Vere in Melville’s short story Billy Budd. In this paper, I motivate the possibility of the kind of moral dilemma Winch proposes and show what that possibility reveals about morality’s indeterminacy and our contribution as co-authors of morality’s requirements. Some moral dilemmas arise because agents occupy multiple morally grounded roles—roles that, from the (...) point of view of morality writ large, do not always have a clear priority with respect to one another. Even on a moral theory that rests on one central principle or value, a lot of an agent’s practical life is left underdetermined. Winch’s insight is that persons can discover something important about themselves that bears on what they should do when faced with such a dilemma. By making a judgment about what to do in the face of a dilemma, an agent can create a new moral obligation, and in doing so, develop an aspect of their moral identity. (shrink)

Underlying Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem is the idea that we can only wrong our offspring if our procreative actions harm them, or make them worse off. For Parfit, the surprising conclusion is that a person cannot be wronged by their own creation, because being created cannot make someone worse off. I appeal to Kant’s moral philosophy to develop a non-harm-based moral framework for procreation that allows us to explain how a person can be wronged by their creation even if they (...) have not been harmed by it. I argue that Kant’s moral framework is uniquely suited to capture our moral obligations to future persons, because his framework locates moral obligations in the will of the actor rather than in the existence of the moral patient or recipient. The morality of procreative choices depends on how well the procreator wills, not on the outcome for their offspring’s wellbeing. My account does not solve the non- identity problem; rather, I argue that if we look at procreation as an imputable action of persons that puts them in a special relation of duty to their offspring, then the moral relevance of their future offspring’s indeterminate genetic identity falls away. (shrink)