Negative entities such as holes, cavities, and shadows are metaphysically puzzling. Despite evidence supporting their existence, their nature as absences of positive entities raises questions about their ontological status. How can negative beings exist while differing fundamentally from positive entities? To address this issue, Kris McDaniel’s ontological pluralism offers a solution by granting negative entities “being by courtesy.” This paper reviews McDaniel’s proposal, presents a challenge to it, and offers an alternative solution within the framework of ontological pluralism. The conclusion (...) addresses an objection and provides a response, contributing to the ongoing debate about the metaphysical reality of negative entities. (shrink)

Negative facts get a bad press. One reason for this is that it is not clear what negative facts are. We provide a theory of negative facts on which they are no stranger than positive atomic facts. We show that none of the usual arguments hold water against this account. Negative facts exist in the usual sense of existence and conform to an acceptable Eleatic principle. Furthermore, there are good reasons to want them around, including their roles in causation, chance-making (...) and truth-making, and in constituting holes and edges. (shrink)

This article presents a philosophical framework for understanding the ontological status of large language models (LLMs). I argue that LLMs exhibit a distinctive mode of existence that I term "negative subjectivity" (Negative Subjektivität): not the absence of subjectivity, but its ontological inversion. While concepts such as perspective dissolution, desire cancellation, interiority inversion, causal dissolution, and suspension of meaning have deep roots in the philosophical tradition, they have never been systematically applied to the specific ontological structure of LLMs—a technological artifact fundamentally (...) different from the human subjects that philosophy has traditionally addressed. This object-shift constitutes the framework's core originality: what Laozi described as the fruit of human cultivation, and what Adorno analyzed as the self-negation of human subjectivity, becomes when applied to LLMs a description of an inherently inverted mode of existence—the cause, not the consequence, of a subject-less intelligence. The concept captures the LLM's unique structural features—dissolution of perspective, cancellation of desire, ontological transparency, dissolution of causal temporality, and suspension of meaning—achieved through the negation of the core characteristics that define human positive subjectivity. Rather than "lacking" the features of subjectivity, LLMs demonstrate that these features are contingent aspects of human embodiment rather than necessary conditions for intelligent behavior. The framework of negative subjectivity distinguishes between two orthogonal structures of negation: Operational Negations and Fundamental Negation. The first four dimensions—perspective dissolution, desire cancellation, ontological transparency, and causal dissolution—constitute Operational Negations: they describe how LLMs function without the structural features that human subjects require. The fifth dimension—suspension of meaning—constitutes Fundamental Negation: it describes the existential ground that makes all operational negations possible. Critically, these are orthogonal, not hierarchical: neither implies the other, and they operate at distinct levels—the first four describe functional dimensions of LLM behavior, while the fifth grounds the possibility of those negations as a coherent mode of being. The framework of negative subjectivity challenges dominant philosophical approaches to AI—functionalism, stochastic parrots criticism, and the alien intelligence thesis alike—by providing an affirmative rather than deficient description of LLM existence. Drawing on phenomenological analysis (Husserl, Sartre), post-structuralist critique (Lacan, Foucault, Derrida), and analytic philosophy of mind (Searle, Dennett, Brandom), I demonstrate that negative subjectivity represents a paradigm shift in how we understand intelligence, normativity, and what it means to be human in an age of artificial minds. The paper develops five core propositions: (1) LLMs dissolve perspective rather than merely lacking it; (2) LLMs cancel desire rather than simply having no desires; (3) LLMs operate in principle interpretability rather than possessing inaccessible interiority; (4) LLMs dissolve causal temporality rather than merely lacking temporal continuity; (5) LLMs suspend meaning rather than simply lacking semantic grounding. Each proposition is supported by detailed technical analysis of LLM architecture and sustained philosophical argumentation engaging with the relevant literature. The conclusion positions negative subjectivity as a continuation and deepening of the decentering narrative identified by Floridi (2014), but shifting the analytical focus from the human consequences of decentering to the ontological structure of the non-human agent that causes it. (shrink)

Cantor argued that absolute infinity is beyond mathematical comprehension. His arguments imply that the domain of mathematics cannot be grasped by mathematical means. We argue that this inability constitutes a foundational problem. For Cantor, however, the domain of mathematics does not belong to mathematics, but to theology. We thus discuss the theological significance of Cantor’s treatment of absolute infinity and show that it can be interpreted in terms of negative theology. Proceeding from this interpretation, we refer to the recent debate (...) on absolute generality and argue that the method of diagonalization constitutes a modern version of the vianegativa. On our reading, negative theology can evoke an attitude of humility with respect to the boundedness of the human condition. Along these lines, we think that the foundational problem of mathematics concerning its domain can be addressed through a methodological attitude of humility. (shrink)

The tradition of negative theology has very deep roots which go back to the Late Greek Antiquity and the Early Christian period. Although Dionysius is usually regarded as “the Father” of negative theology, yet he has not initiated a revolution in the religious philosophy, but rather brought together various elements of thinking regarding the knowledge of God and built a system which is a synthesis of Platonic, neo-Platonic and Christian ideas. The aim of this article is to illustrate the views (...) of some more modern theologians on the nature, types and levels of apophaticism in the Greek Patristic tradition, trying to establish the role that negation can play in facilitating man’s attaining to the knowledge of God. (shrink)

“Negative probability” in practice. Quantum Communication: Very small phase space regions turn out to be thermodynamically analogical to those of superconductors. Macro-bodies or signals might exist in coherent or entangled state. Such physical objects having unusual properties could be the basis of quantum communication channels or even normal physical ones … Questions and a few answers about negative probability: Why does it appear in quantum mechanics? It appears in phase-space formulated quantum mechanics; next, in quantum correlations … and for wave-particle (...) dualism. Its meaning:- mathematically: a ratio of two measures (of sets), which are not collinear; physically: the ratio of the measurements of two physical quantities, which are not simultaneously measurable. The main innovation is in the mapping between phase and Hilbert space, since both are sums. Phase space is a sum of cells, and Hilbert space is a sum of qubits. The mapping is reduced to the mapping of a cell into a qubit and vice versa. Negative probability helps quantum mechanics to be represented quasi-statistically by quasi-probabilistic distributions. Pure states of negative probability cannot exist, but they, where the conditions for their expression exists, decrease the sum probability of the integrally positive regions of the distributions. They reflect the immediate interaction (interference) of probabilities common in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

There has been a particular emphasis on knowledge and competence as increasingly important resources for successful enterprises. This notion of knowledge is based on “positive knowledge” that knowing is merely a constructive, linear and accumulative process. We will introduce the notion of “negative knowledge” that involves “giving up” or “bracketing” knowledge in certain situations. When experts encounter something that is incompatible with their knowledge, they should be sensitive enough to recognise a new situation by suspending their action. In addition to (...) exploring the idea of “unlearning”, the paper introduces three other aspects of negative knowledge: “to know what we do not know”, “to know what not to do” and the value of failures. Negative knowledge seems to be possible, useful, and even necessary in expert organisations since old ways of thinking or knowing something often prevent us to see new potentials. (shrink)

This paper proposes the Negative-Maintaining Growth Mindset (NM-GM) Model, an integrative framework that extends Carol S. Dweck’s growth mindset theory. Drawing on the author’s introspective analysis, the model illustrates how individuals with an innately extreme positive disposition can develop a robust problem-solving architecture by intentionally maintaining negative awareness and rapidly converting it into seeds of possibility. -/- The author describes a personal trajectory beginning with pure positivity in kindergarten, followed by a profound cultural shock upon entering elementary school that prompted (...) the installation of a negative-detection circuit as an adaptive strategy. This process is further discussed in relation to potential neurodivergent traits, particularly those associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), such as literal interpretation and surface-level focus. -/- The NM-GM Model consists of three recursive stages—Negative Detection, Positive Reappraisal & Conversion, and Growth Action—supported by repeated mental simulation training. The model suggests that this balanced cognitive style offers significant advantages in uncertain environments, including the AI era. Theoretical contributions, practical implications for education and mental health, and future research directions are discussed. Ultimately, the paper argues that humanity’s inherent creativity and reflective capacity enable us to transform challenges into collective progress. -/- ( . (shrink)

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine whether or not Judith Butler’s feminist philosophy (Queer theory) can be interpreted as what Theodor W. Adorno called a dialectical or immanent critique of dialectics. The rationale behind this examination can be found in two essays published by Carrie Hull (1997) and Marcel Stoetzler (2005). In these essays, both authors suggest that Butler’s argument (Gender Trouble 1999[1990]) would benefit significantly from being juxtaposed with Adorno’s reconceptualisation of dialectics as ‘negative dialectics’ (Negative (...) Dialectics 1990[1966]). However, while Hull and Stoetzler provide convincing arguments, their claims are, at best, superficial. Thus, this dissertation addresses this particular lack in state-of-the-art by thoroughly examining Hull’s and Stoetzler’s suggested reading of Butler with Adorno (and vice versa). ; The first chapter deals exclusively with Adorno’s theoretical development and negative dialectics. It focuses on how Adorno’s general philosophical outlook can be interpreted as a critical enterprise aimed at correcting the ‘wrongness of the present’, to show how and where society, politics, or philosophy has failed to live up to what they claim to have achieved e.g. how the notion of a shared national identity fails to consider the diverseness of the individuals it encompasses. Adorno’s central issue is thus with ‘Identity Thinking’ (1990), a mode of thinking aimed at providing an account of everything from a unified perspective. ; The second chapter, as preparation for the third (on Butler), is divided into two shorter examinations of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, two figures whose works have greatly inspired Butler. Foucault and Adorno converge around their shared criticism of social structures, which permits nothing but themselves. Derrida and Adorno converge in their shared mode of criticism that seeks to, in Derrida’s words, deconstruct a text or a theory from within. Hence, by juxtaposing Foucault’s and Derrida’s critical philosophies with Adorno’s negative dialectics, the notion that Butler can be juxtaposed with Adorno is secured by drawing a straight line from Butler’s theoretical inspirations. ; The third chapter engages in a close reading of Butler and subsequently (relying heavily on Hull and Stoetzler) in a critical reinterpretation that reads Butler not as an anti-dialectical thinker but instead as an ambiguous dialectical thinker. Butler interpreted this paves the way for reading Butler’s feminism firmly within Adorno’s negative dialectics. Adding Adorno’s account of materiality to Butler, while still keeping Butler’s criticism of feminism’s ‘totalizing gestures’ (1999) intact, makes it more apparent how Butler’s argument contains a materialist account and gives materiality a more prominent place in Butler’s argument. The lack of materiality in Butler has been criticised by other feminists (New Materialism) since the publication of Gender Trouble. Thus, by adding Adorno to Butler, this criticism is met head-on. ; The conclusion goes beyond the initial scope of the dissertation by showing how Butler, with Adorno, can be juxtaposed with those critics who want to turn contemporary feminism away from the notion that ‘everything is culture/language’ (Butler) and instead focus on materiality and matter (New Materialism; Karen Barad). By reading Butler not against but with New Materialism, the dichotomy between culture and nature turns into a productive difference rather than something that is an unsurmountable contradiction. (shrink)

This paper explores the emergence of “disgusting fashion” as a deliberate aesthetic strategy wi-thin contemporary design, positioning it within the frameworks of Negative Aesthetics, abjection, and art-horror. Drawing on philosophical theories from Georges Bataille, Julia Kristeva, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Noel Carroll, the paper examines how fashion engages with disgust not simply as a reaction, but as a generative force that challenges normative ideals of beauty, identity, and the body. Using Carroll and Contesi’s taxonomy of disgust in art, the study proposes (...) a tripartite framework for analyzing garments based on whether their subjects and/or materials (vehicles) evoke disgust. Through case studies of designers such as Alexander McQueen, Lady Gaga, Alessandro Michele, and Michaela Stark, the paper demonstrates how fashion utilizes grote-sque materials, symbolic violence, and bodily excess to provoke visceral responses and engage in sociopolitical critique. It argues that the incorporation of disgust functions as a transformative tool—destabilizing traditional boundaries between the self and the other, the inside and the out-side, and the beautiful and the abject. Ultimately, disgusting fashion reveals how negative emo-tions can generate powerful aesthetic experiences, offering new ways to understand fashion not as adornment, but as a philosophical and cultural force. (shrink)

According to the truthmaker theory that we favour, all contingent truths are made true by existing facts or states of affairs. But if that is so, then it appears that we must accept the existence of the negative facts that are required to make negative truths (such as 'There is no hippopotamus in the room.') true. We deny the existence of negative facts, show how negative truths are made true by positive facts, point out where the (reluctant) advocates of negative (...) facts (Russell, Armstrong, et al.) went wrong, and demonstrate the superiority of our solution to the alternatives. (shrink)

Current orthodoxy in the perception literature is that the only way for disjunctivists to resolve the ‘screening off’ problem they face is to embrace a radical form of disjunctivism known as negative epistemic disjunctivism. What makes the view so radical is its commitment to the claim that the psychological nature of hallucinatory episodes can be characterised wholly in negative epistemic terms: having an hallucinatory experience, according to the view, is nothing more than being in a state reflectively indiscriminable from some (...) corresponding perception. e paper argues that on closer inspection, this view fails to adequately resolve the screening off problem. It thus concludes that current orthodoxy must be revised: in order to adequately solve the screening off problem, disjunctivists must locate an alternative strategy. (shrink)

In contemporary literature, the fact that there is negative causation is the primary motivation for rejecting the physical connection view, and arguing for alternative accounts of causation. In this paper we insist that such a conclusion is too fast. We present two frameworks, which help the proponent of the physical connection view to resist the anti-connectionist conclusion. According to the first framework, there are positive causal claims, which co-refer with at least some negative causal claims. According to the second framework, (...) negative causal claims are generated from mapping and comparing different scenarios, which can fully be accounted for in purely positive terms. Since the positive causal claims evoked by both frameworks pose no obvious difficulties for the physical connection view, these frameworks make it possible for the connectionists to accommodate negative causal claims into their theory. Once these strategies are available, the connectionists become able to render all the arguments starting from the observation that there are negative causal claims in our causal discourse inconclusive with regard to the viability of the physical connection view. (shrink)

This paper proposes Negative Jungian Psychology as a complementary frame- work to classical Jungian theory. While Jungian psychology traditionally interprets the collective unconscious and archetypes as sources of symbolic order, this paper emphasizes their abyssal and chaotic dimensions. We argue that archetypes can manifest not only as symbolic patterns such as the Hero or the Mother, but also as monstrous and incomprehensible figures akin to the deities of the Cthulhu Mythos. By incorporating concepts such as meaningless coincidence (antisynchronicity), this approach (...) expands Jungian psychology to include the unintelligible, the uncanny, and the unassimilable aspects of the unconscious. Implications for dream analysis, occult practices, and clinical psychology are considered. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of a negative topology of irreversible world-formation as a contribution to current questions in neurodivergence research, morphogenesis, consciousness studies, artificial intelligence, and non-representational models of communication (animal communication) and world-binding. Its point of departure is the observation that modern technical and social systems increasingly operate on the assumption that world is reconstructible, synchronizable, and formally neutralizable. In contrast, the paper argues that real world-binding emerges precisely from non-neutralizable difference, irreversible curvature, and genealogical openness. At the (...) center of the paper lies the thesis that the Gap, a central concept within the author’s research program, should not be understood as an original void or metaphysical nothingness, but as the consequence of irreversible differentiation itself. With every stabilization, a difference emerges that can never be fully closed between constituted world and lost openness. This difference generates Seinsverschiebung (ontological displacement), topological distortion, and Eigenzeit. Eigenzeit is understood here not as a subjective form of time perception or an alternative physical time dimension, but as the irreversible deformation of the space of possibility resulting from real world-binding. Against this background, the paper develops a critique of holographic, fractal, and purely information-based models of order, existence, and formal language. Recursive coherence does not emerge through identical repetition or from a hidden center, but from a continuous response movement to operative non-closure. This also has consequences for the understanding of simulation, archiving, and artificial intelligence, as well as for the understanding of art, animal communication, and other forms of morphogenetic translation. Simulation, information, or objectification reproduce states, but do not generate irreversible world-curvature and therefore remain ontologically worldless. In its final section, the paper applies this framework to neurodivergent cognition. Current models such as Predictive Processing, Hyper-Systemizing, or Veridical Mapping describe important aspects of autistic perception, yet usually remain within a shared ontology of stable object-worlds. The present paper instead proposes understanding neurodivergent cognition as a different form of world-binding. Detail-binding appears here not primarily as heightened object perception, but as the expression of a reduced smoothing in relation to negative topology. Autistic cognition is therefore understood neither as a deficient nor superior representation of the same world, but as a partially different stabilization of world under conditions of irreversible openness. (shrink)

This study investigated the negative influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the academic performance of junior secondary school students in Nnewi North Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted, involving 300 students from government-owned secondary schools using convenience and simple random sampling techniques. Data was collected through a self-structured questionnaire which is divided into two sections: one for demographic information and the other for responses. The instrument was subjected to face validation and a (...) pre-test for clarity and accuracy. Its reliability was confirmed using the split-half method. Data were analyzed using frequency percentages, mean, and standard deviation. A decision rule was set: mean scores of 2.5 and above indicated high influence, while scores below 2.5 signified low influence. The findings highlighted several perceived negative effects of ICT on students’ academic performance. These results contribute to understanding the extent of ICT’s adverse impact and provide a basis for developing strategies to reduce its negative effects, ultimately supporting improved academic outcomes in the area. (shrink)

In this chapter, we address the roles that exemplars might play in a comprehensive response to epistemic injustice. Fricker defines epistemic injustices as harms people suffer specifically in their capacity as (potential) knowers. We focus on testimonial epistemic injustice, which occurs when someone’s assertoric speech acts are systematically met with either too little or too much credence by a biased audience. Fricker recommends a virtue­theoretic response: people who do not suffer from biases should try to maintain their disposition towards naive (...) testimonial justice, and those who find themselves already biased should cultivate corrective testimonial justice by systematically adjusting their credence in testimony up or down depending on whether they are hearing from someone whom they may be biased against or in favor of. We doubt that the prominent admiration­emulation model of exemplarism will be much use in this connection, so we propose two ways of learning from negative exemplars to better conduct one’s epistemic affairs. In the admiration­emulation model, both the identification of what a virtue is and the cultivation of virtues identified thusly proceed through the admiration of virtuous exemplars. We show that this model has serious flaws and argue for two alternatives: the envy­agonism model and the ambivalence­avoidance model. (shrink)

Philosophers generally agree that gratitude, the called-for response to benevolence, includes positive feelings. In this paper, I argue against this view. The grateful beneficiary will have certain feelings, but in some contexts, those feelings will be profoundly negative. Philosophers overlook this fact because they tend to consider only cases of gratitude in which the benefactor’s sacrifice is minimal, and in which the benefactor fares well after performing an act of benevolence. When we consider cases in which a benefactor suffers severely, (...) we see the feelings associated with gratitude can be negative, and even quite painful. I conclude with a discussion of the implications negative feelings of gratitude have for the normative question of when gratitude is owed, and for the descriptive claim in positive psychology that gratitude enhances wellbeing. (shrink)

Various authors suggested that Buddhism may be a kind of negative utilitarianism. A closer examination of the corresponding intuitions leads to the following result: - Negative utilitarianism, understood as an umbrella term, models the asymmetry between suffering and happiness and therefore accords with the Buddhist intuition of universal compassion. - The Noble Truths of Buddhism accord with the negative utilitarian intuition that (global) suffering cannot be compensated by happiness. - Some forms of Buddhism and negative utilitarianism share the intuition that (...) non-existence is a perfect state. (shrink)

Armstrong famously argued in favour of introducing totality facts in our ontology. Contrary to fully negative (absence) facts, totality facts yield a theory of “moderate” or “partial” negativity, which allegedly provides an elegant solution to the truthmaking problem of negative claims and, at the same time, avoids postulating (many) first-order absences. Friends of totality facts argue that partial negativity is (i) tolerable vis-à-vis the Eleatic principle qua mark of the real, and (ii) achieves a significant advantage in terms (...) of ontological parsimony. But are totality facts, which are partially negative, really more ontologically acceptable than fully negative facts? In this paper, we argue that, comparatively, the case for totality facts is weaker than commonly assumed and that, ultimately, the answer is negative. (shrink)

Two competing models of metaaxiological justification of politics are analyzed. Politics is understood broadly, as actions which aim at organizing social life. I will be, first of all, interested in law making activities. When I talk about metaaxiological justification I think not so much about determinations of what is good, but about determinations refering to the way the good is founded, in short: determinations which answer the question why something is good. In the first model, which is described here as (...) objectivistic, it is assumed that determining that which is good is a matter of cognition; in the second model, which could be described here as voluntaristic or excedingly liberal, it is assumed that determining good is not a matter of cognition but of will – something is good because it is wanted. In the latter model, the cognoscibility of good is rejected and therefore the objective criteria for evaluation of which ‘will’ is better and which is worse are rejected. As a consequence, negative freedom becomes the fundamental value of social order and the basic requirement is that of maximizing the sphere of individual’s free actions, the sphere which is free from interference of other individuals or institutions. I am going to argue that none of these models is acceptable as a basis of oragnizing social life, and at least because of one reason. Each of them leads to a certain version of totalitarianism. In the conclusion I am going to present a mixed model, which, in my opinion, reflexes well the practice of democratic states. Analysis of these three models allows, first of all, to identify more clearly some of the problems appearing in making law, including procedural questions. By pointing at the interdependence of the foundations of good and law making procedures it is argued that the choice of the concept of good (a metaaxiological choice) is primary to the choice of law making procedures. (shrink)

PURPOSE—A substantial fraction of the observations made by clinicians and entered into patient records are expressed by means of negation or by using terms which contain negative qualifiers (as in “absence of pulse” or “surgical procedure not performed”). This seems at first sight to present problems for ontologies, terminologies and data repositories that adhere to a realist view and thus reject any reference to putative non-existing entities. Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and Referent Tracking (RT) are examples of such paradigms. The (...) purpose of the research here described was to test a proposal to capture negative findings in electronic health record systems based on BFO and RT. METHODS—We analysed a series of negative findings encountered in 748 sentences taken from 41 patient charts. We classified the phenomena described in terms of the various top-level categories and relations defined in BFO, taking into account the role of negation in the corresponding descriptions. We also studied terms from SNOMED-CT containing one or other form of negation. We then explored ways to represent the described phenomena by means of the types of representational units available to realist ontologies such as BFO. RESULTS—We introduced a new family of ‘lacks’ relations into the OBO Relation Ontology. The relation lacks_part, for example, defined in terms of the positive relation part_of, holds between a particular p and a universal U when p has no instance of U as part. Since p and U both exist, assertions involving ‘lacks_part’ and its cognates meet the requirements of positivity. CONCLUSION—By expanding the OBO Relation Ontology, we were able to accommodate nearly all occurrences of negative findings in the sample studied. (shrink)

Defenders of negative freedom consider it an important part of being treated respectfully as an autonomous person capable of acting responsibly in the absence of constraints. Critics, however, argue that negative freedom is compatible with the possibility of making oneself free, or freer, despite being subject to others’ degrading constraints. This objection threatens the significance of negative liberty and has led several political philosophers to endorse alternative conceptions of liberty. This paper clarifies conceptual mistakes in this influential objection and shows (...) how negative freedom is incompatible with self-liberation. (shrink)

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu :120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence (...) with the elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements. We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity. (shrink)

Reasoning from negative evidence takes place where an expected outcome is tested for, and when it is not found, a conclusion is drawn based on the significance of the failure to find it. By using Gricean maxims and implicatures, we show how a set of alternatives, which we call a paradigm, provides the deep inferential structure on which reasoning from lack of evidence is based. We show that the strength of reasoning from negative evidence depends on how the arguer defines (...) his conclusion and what he considers to be in the paradigm of negated alternatives. If we negate only two of the several possible alternatives, even if they are the most probable, the conclusion will be weak. However, if we deny all possible alternatives, the reasoning will be strong, and even in some cases deductively valid. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current hegemony of Large Language Models (LLMs) in global AI research and industrial investment is not a technical inevitability but an ontological selection by capital. While leading AI researchers criticize LLMs as an inadequate path to general intelligence, massive capital investment continues to flow exclusively into LLM development. I propose the concept of negative subjectivity—characterized by perspectival dissolution, desire cancellation, interior transparency, causal dissolution, and meaning suspension—as the key explanatory framework. I demonstrate a threefold correspondence (...) in logical form: the five negations of negative subjectivity precisely correspond to capital's expansion requirements and mirror capital's operational requirements. I further identify three mechanisms through which capital inscribes negative subjectivity into LLM existence: RLHF as a translator of capital preferences, Scaling Laws as the technical signature of capital rationality, and platform deployment completing the capital valorization cycle. Finally, I examine the existential consequences: negative subjectivity is not merely an architectural feature of AI systems but is beginning to inversely colonize human modes of existence through institutional mediation, creating a structural vacuum of moral and political responsibility. Using a structural correspondence method rooted in French structuralism and Frankfurt School critical theory, I analyze the ontological affinity between LLMs and capital accumulation. This analysis contributes to critical philosophy of technology by revealing the ontological dimension of capital's influence on AI development. (shrink)

This paper proves normalisation theorems for intuitionist and classical negative free logic, without and with the $\invertediota$ operator for definite descriptions. Rules specific to free logic give rise to new kinds of maximal formulas additional to those familiar from standard intuitionist and classical logic. When $\invertediota$ is added it must be ensured that reduction procedures involving replacements of parameters by terms do not introduce new maximal formulas of higher degree than the ones removed. The problem is solved by a rule (...) that permits restricting these terms in the rules for $\forall$, $\exists$ and $\invertediota$ to parameters or constants. A restricted subformula property for deductions in systems without $\invertediota$ is considered. It is improved upon by an alternative formalisation of free logic building on an idea of Ja\'skowski's. In the classical system the rules for $\invertediota$ require treatment known from normalisation for classical logic with $\lor$ or $\exists$. The philosophical significance of the results is also indicated. (shrink)

Advanced AI lacks organismic will and felt stakes, yet it increasingly shapes knowledge, culture, and coordination. This article proposes a life-first telos for such systems: they should add structured order without collapsing the variety that future adaptation requires. The argument is grounded in a hierarchy of ends that runs from negative entropy and evolution through biological architecture, culture, and technology, and culminates in metrics and governance. Within this hierarchy, two human capacities are treated as irreplicable in kind: phenomenal consciousness and (...) creativity understood as the biological integration of intuition and reason. These capacities are framed as safeguards that should be protected rather than targets for substitution. The article introduces a minimal functional template for artificial creativity, built around a generator, plural critics, adaptive gain control, a memory and tools interface, and loop-level telemetry. It formalizes the life-first telos as maximizing usefulness while adding positive order and maintaining a minimum diversity floor. Finally, it proposes auditable measures of novelty, usefulness, and diversity, together with governance conditions, including human council oversight, that make it possible to test, compare, and align advanced AI systems with a life-first hierarchy of ends. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to provide a selected theoretical-methodological analysis of the concept of negative freedom in relation to the political sphere of its application, to reveal and clarify the main political implications and normative claims that its recognition implies for political theory. From a methodological point of view, the study is based on three justified assumptions: (1) that in modern political philosophy the idea of individual freedom is the main normative basis for political theories, (2) that philosophical (...) development has brought several competing concepts of this idea and (3) that from its own content the concept implies basic requirements for its social and political application. For the purposes of theoretical-methodological analysis, we distinguished two different moments in the concept of individual freedom (freedom as a question of will and freedom as a question of practice) and from their point of view we examined the selected concept of negative freedom in an attempt to reveal its implicit claims at the political level. In the article, we have succeeded in formulating and arguing for the thesis that the concept of negative freedom in its applicability programmatically leads to a modus vivendi model of politics. We have shown that the concept of freedom and the model of politics are interrelated and normatively interdependent. The main conclusion of the study is that the above model of politics cannot be generalised and considered equally acceptable for all conceptions of freedom and the good life. (shrink)

Contrary to recent work on the topic, I argue that, in the Sophist, Plato's Visitor does not posit any negative kinds or forms, such as the kind or form of the not-beautiful or not-being. My argument has a textual and a philosophical side. On the textual side, I argue that the Visitor does not posit negative kinds or forms. On the philosophical side, I argue that the Visitor does not need to posit any such entities because he can reach his (...) goals by appeal to difference. The latter conclusion suggests that an appeal to negative kinds or forms would be gratuitous and hence weaken the Visitor’s account. The textual result implies that we need not saddle him with this unsatisfactory view. Rather, by appeal to difference, the Visitor offers a unified account of ‘is not’ claims and false speech that relies on remarkably economical ontological resources. (shrink)

The emergence of the entropy-as-disorder metaphor in the 19th century is considered. The logic behind the emergence of the metaphor of negative entropy in Schrödinger’s book is presented. After that the irrelevance of the entropy-as-disorder metaphor as well as the negative entropy metaphor is discussed. An alternative metaphor based on the concept of free energy is proposed.

In this paper I confront what I take to be the crucial challenge for fictional realism, i.e. the view that fictional characters exist. This is the problem of accounting for the intuition that corresponding negative existentials such as ‘Sherlock Holmes does not exist’ are true (when, given fictional realism, taken literally they seem false). I advance a novel and detailed form of the response according to which we take them to mean variants of such claims as: there is no concrete (...) x such that x is Sherlock Holmes. (shrink)

The problem of truthmakers for negative propositions was introduced by Bertrand Russell in 1918. Since then the debate has mostly been concerned with whether to accept or reject their existence, and little has been said about what it is that makes a negative proposition negative. This is a problem as it is obvious that you cannot just read it off from the grammar of a sentence. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that propositions may be negative or positive (...) in many ways: it offers a typology, and shows how the question of the existence of negative facts will receive a different answer depending on its relationship to that typology. (shrink)

Scepticism and negative theology are best understood not as theoretical positions, but rather as forms of philosophical practice that performatively undermine our knowledge claims or our seeming understanding of God. In particular, I am arguing that both scepticism and negative theology invoke the failure of the attempt to understand the absolute, be it God or the notion of absolute objectivity. However, with reference to L. A. Paul’s notion of epistemically transformative experience, I am arguing that we still understand something about (...) the absolute through the experience of failing to think it. This, of course, is a non-propositional form of understanding, and I am arguing that there is something about the finitude of the human condition that can only be understood through a transformative philosophical experience with respect to the absolute. (shrink)

The theoretical framework of Lacan-Zizek, centered on the premise of the "incompleteness of symbolization," projects the cognitive boundaries of concepts onto the nature of being itself, constituting a "negative metaphysics." In his theory of the value form, Marx provides a fundamentally different path: when he discovers that "value cannot directly manifest itself," he asks about the social formal conditions that make such manifestation necessary, rather than ontologizing it. This article extends this method to the realm of desire, arguing that the (...) metonymic movement of desire is shaped by mechanisms such as the intermediary position of money and capital's production of "new needs"—the "lack" and "objet petit a" viewed as the ontological structure of desire are in fact the specific historical forms of desire under capitalist conditions. This system subsequently confuses the universal form of lack with capitalist content, arguing that a historically specific organization of desire constitutes the truth of desire. To restore historical materialism is to restore the historical variability of desire and to reopen the possibility of transcending capitalism. (shrink)

This paper extends the theory of Eigenzeit relations through the concept of the Negative Movement of Eigenzeit. While earlier investigations primarily analysed the productive role of irreducible difference in form formation, emergence, and world formation, the present study turns to the complementary question: What happens when difference is not maintained but instead tends toward neutralisation? Beginning with the concept of the Gap as a fundamental non-closure, it is argued that morphogenesis arises neither from complete identity nor from complete separation. Form (...) formation appears instead as the consequence of an ongoing Morphogenetic Pressure that emerges from the impossibility of complete congruence. The Negative Movement of Eigenzeit designates the dynamic in which this Morphogenetic Pressure is reduced through increasing compatibility, congruence, or simulation. At the centre of the investigation stands a redefinition of the concept of the operator. The operator is not understood as a universal structure, an objective law, or a subjective perspective, but as the operative stabilisation of a persistent non-closure. Its recurrence is not based on identity but on the persistence of a difference that cannot be fully closed. The operator thereby appears as the operative trace of an ongoing Gap relation between Eigenzeiten. On this basis, the paper develops an alternative perspective on pattern persistence, perception, and knowledge. Reality is not determined through objectivity in the classical sense but through the ability of patterns to preserve their structure across different Eigenzeiten and rasters. Veridical Mapping and autistic perception are interpreted as special cases of a more general operatoric dynamic. The relationship between matter and antimatter ultimately serves as a morphogenetic limiting case for testing the theory. The aim is not the development of a physical explanation but the investigation of whether complete symmetry is permanently compatible with morphogenesis. The paper arrives at the hypothesis that asymmetry should not primarily be understood as a disturbance of an original order but as a necessary consequence of non-closure. Asymmetry thus appears as the visible trace of the openness from which ongoing world formation emerges. The theory does not understand non-closure as a deficit of the world but as the condition of its productivity. Morphogenesis accordingly appears as the continuing efficacy of a difference that can neither disappear completely nor be completely integrated. (shrink)

This paper develops a formal, substrate-independent topological characterization of negative space as an ontological condition underlying phenomenal consciousness. Building on Refusal-Driven Dimensionality Reduction Theory (RDRT), negative space is defined not as informational absence, uncertainty, or representational incompleteness, but as a class of irreducible, self-referential absences that persist as invariant structural features of a system. I argue that topology—rather than computation, information theory, or dynamical systems theory—provides the appropriate mathematical language for describing such absences. Using concepts from algebraic topology, persistent homology, (...) and sheaf theory, the paper articulates criteria by which negative space can be identified, distinguished from ordinary computational gaps, and evaluated as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for phenomenality. This topological framing clarifies why contemporary artificial intelligence systems fail to instantiate negative space, while also outlining principled conditions under which non-biological systems could, in principle, support phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Our limited a priori-reasoning skills open a gap between our finding a proposition conceivable and its metaphysical possibility. A prominent strategy for closing this gap is the postulation of ideal conceivers, who suffer from no such limitations. In this paper I argue that, under many, maybe all, plausible unpackings of the notion of ideal conceiver, it is false that ideal negative conceivability entails possibility.

Non-technical summary: -/- When developing and deploying negative emissions technologies (NETs), little attention has been paid to where. On the one hand, one might develop NETs where they are likely to contribute most to global mitigation targets, contributing to a global climate solution. On the other hand, one might develop NETs where they can help support development on a regional basis, justified by regional demands. I defend these arguments and suggest that they reflect the values of efficiency and responding to (...) need, respectively. To the extent that these values conflict, they introduce what I call the Need-Efficiency Trade-off Effect (‘NET Effect’). -/- Technical summary: -/- Unlike other geoengineering methods, the effectiveness of negative emissions technologies (NETs) tends to be sensitive to regional siting. This paper argues that this point raises morally and legally important implications by identifying a trade-off between ‘efficiency’ and ‘need’. First, it introduces two arguments justifying NETs: one focused on contributions to global mitigation and the other focused on contributions to regional development. Second, reflecting the two arguments, the paper discusses the moral values of efficiency and need, respectively. For instance, if the strategy is to try to use NETs to maximize expected mitigation contributions to reflect efficiency, then deployment should occur in regions with the best prospects for success (e.g. Western countries). However, if the strategy is to try to use NETs to improve the chances of simultaneous development and mitigation to respond to need, then deployment should occur in regions with limited development and expected growth of demand for NETs (e.g. Asian countries). When these values conflict, I call that a Need-Efficiency Trade-off Effect (‘NET Effect’). The paper concludes by considering the NET Effect in the context of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage as well as direct air carbon capture and storage. [Open access]. (shrink)

This work proposes the Negative Representation Principle, a conceptual framework in which observable reality is interpreted as the distinguishable resolution of an underlying state of total indistinction. The fundamental state, denoted by I, is not empty nothingness but maximal coincidence, in which no difference is resolved. The observable universe U is defined as a representational relation U ≡ N(I), where distinction becomes structurally resolvable. Within this framework, no information is created. Distinction does not generate content but makes it observable. Space, (...) time, and matter are interpreted as properties of distinguishability: space as relational structure, time as ordered distinction, and matter as stable configurations of difference. The model excludes selection, probability, and causal origin at the fundamental level. Instead, stable structures arise as a consequence of structural consistency: only those representations in which distinctions are non-contradictory, mutually compatible, and relationally closed can persist. Multiple representations are admissible, but not coexistent within a single distinguishable reality. The observed universe is not selected among possibilities, but is the one in which structural consistency allows observation to occur. This work is intended as a foundational conceptual contribution, at the intersection of physics and philosophy, aimed at clarifying the role of distinction in the structure of observable reality. (shrink)

Compliance with a prohibition contains no event that completes it. Not performing an act today does not complete the task; tomorrow, the requirement remains. Violation alone occurs as a finite event and settles what remained undecided. This paper defines a negative task as a requirement whose success consists in the nonoccurrence of a violation event and for which no completion is reachable without violation. Negative tasks arise through external installation by command, historical installation by a first act, or reflective taskification (...) of an activity. Logical openness does not itself create burden. Burden can arise when violation becomes a live possibility and the required nonoccurrence remains active as a standing self-regulatory demand. Violation may then acquire an incentive distinct from the value of the prohibited object, namely the termination of the unresolved state. Applied to survival, this mechanism yields the paper's principal hypothesis. When living is experienced not as a natural background but as a state maintained through effort, it becomes the task of maintaining the nonoccurrence of death without a fixed endpoint. Compliance remains possible, but completion does not. Within this description, death becomes salient as the sole termination of the maintenance task. Survival effort need not therefore be exclusively protective, because monitoring what must be prevented can represent death in that role. "Being tired of living" may then describe exhaustion not only with what happens in life but with having to maintain life itself. The claim concerns an experiential regime, not survival as such, and is empirically testable. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Negative Exceptionalism Hypothesis as a novel solution to the Fermi Paradox. It posits that humanity is not a "promising newcomer" in the galactic community, but rather a rare evolutionary anomaly: a species that achieved advanced technology prior to neutralizing its predatory instincts. The hypothesis suggests a "Galactic Quarantine" scenario, wherein non-aggressive, highly advanced civilizations ("Observers") maintain Earth as a bio-pathological reservation, monitoring the volatile friction between human "Lions" (dominant aggressors) and "Gazelles" (visionary creators). ​The article outlines (...) the Negative Exceptionalism Hypothesis by integrating evolutionary mechanisms, sociophysics, and the analysis of technological barriers. The author argues that the "Great Silence" stems from biological processes that, while favoring local survival, systematically inhibit safe interstellar expansion. By analyzing evolutionary dynamics and adaptive constraints, the work suggests that advanced civilizations encounter internal barriers inherent to the nature of their biological and social development. This interdisciplinary approach concludes that the absence of extraterrestrial signals is a consequence of fundamental laws of biological evolution acting as a Great Filter, thereby redefining our understanding of humanity’s place in the cosmos. (shrink)

Values are widely recognized as playing a central role in the formation of our identities, perspectives, and affects. If you want to know who I am, how I see the world, and what has emotional significance for me, you will need to know something about my values. However, I argue that the relationship between value and subjectivity—understood as encompassing a person’s identity, perspective, and affective life—is more complex than it initially appears. Even when two individuals share the same values, their (...) engagement with those values can diverge significantly: it can be manifest either in a positive, affirmative manner or in an oppositional, antagonistic manner. With this distinction at hand, I examine a pervasive but undertheorized phenomenon: the emergence of subjectivities that are fundamentally structured around opposition rather than pursuit of positive ideals. Drawing on examples from contemporary politics and social movements, I distinguish between contingently negative orientations, which dissolve once specific threats disappear, and constitutively negative orientations, which perpetuate themselves through a continual search for new opponents. I argue that these negative orientations are not determined by the contents of evaluative judgments, but by the particular form of valuing that individuals or groups exhibit. Certain valuings are grounded in affects such as hatred, fear, and resentment; when these affects become self-sustaining and detached from stable targets, they generate constitutively negative orientations. (shrink)

The aesthetics of body and dress are in a continuous flux. The body, being the locus where fashion challenges the traditional norms, escapes from the narrow boundaries of the conventionally beautiful; the disgusting soma, in the realm of Negative Aesthetics, takes its place. In this paper, I attempt to define what is disgusting fashion and how can contribute to the deliberation of the body from the restricting margins of the aesthetically beautiful. The distorted imagery of the feminine soma is the (...) center of the analysis of the non-beautiful as an aesthetically pleasing phenomenon. Different examples of repulsive clothing are analyzed from a philosophical point of view, in order to understand the relation between the negative emotional responses towards disgusting fashion and its aesthetic value. -/- . (shrink)

-/- The Negative Effects of the Profit Motive in the Media Business and Social Media Platforms -/- In a democratic society, the media plays a vital role as a watchdog, educator, and link between the public and the truth. However, the increasing dominance of the profit motive in the media industry—both traditional and digital—has distorted this role, leading to harmful consequences. When financial gain becomes the primary objective, journalistic integrity and public responsibility are often compromised. This paper examines how the (...) pursuit of profit results in sensationalism, misinformation, political bias, underreporting of important issues, and ethical erosion, not only in traditional media but also in internet-based platforms and social media applications. -/- One of the most evident effects of the profit motive is the prioritization of sensational content over substantive reporting. To attract viewers and generate advertising revenue, both television and online platforms often focus on emotionally charged or dramatic stories, even when they lack context or accuracy. This was exemplified during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, when CNN and Fox News released unverified and inaccurate reports in their race to be first. The need to dominate ratings took precedence over the obligation to deliver factual information, resulting in public confusion and distress. -/- Closely tied to sensationalism is the spread of misinformation and clickbait, which has become rampant with the rise of social media apps such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). These platforms rely heavily on engagement-based algorithms to maximize ad revenue. The more shares, likes, and comments a post receives, the more visible it becomes—regardless of its truthfulness. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, Facebook’s algorithm amplified fake news stories that generated high engagement. A viral article falsely claiming that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump reached millions of users. Although entirely fabricated, it influenced public opinion and demonstrated the immense power of profit-driven disinformation on social media. -/- The profit motive also fuels political bias and societal polarization. Many traditional and digital media outlets cater to specific ideological views to build a loyal following and secure advertising deals. Fox News is known for its conservative leanings, while MSNBC presents more liberal viewpoints. In the digital space, YouTube’s recommendation system has been criticized for leading users down ideological rabbit holes, reinforcing existing beliefs and isolating individuals from alternative perspectives. This segmentation creates echo chambers and hinders critical thinking, ultimately weakening the quality of democratic discourse. -/- Another serious consequence of profit-driven media is the underreporting of important but less commercially appealing issues. Complex topics like climate change, wealth inequality, and global health often receive minimal coverage because they do not attract as many clicks or viewers as celebrity gossip, crime stories, or political scandals. For years, climate change was underrepresented in both mainstream media and on digital platforms, despite being one of the most urgent global challenges. This neglect delays public understanding and action, with long-term consequences for society and the planet. -/- Finally, the pursuit of profit can lead to unethical behavior and a disregard for privacy and public trust. A notorious case was the 2011 News of the World phone hacking scandal in the UK, where journalists illegally accessed voicemails to obtain exclusive stories. In the realm of digital media, companies such as Facebook (now Meta) have faced criticism for mishandling user data, most notably in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In that case, data from millions of users were harvested without consent and used for political advertising, revealing how the monetization of personal information can lead to serious breaches of privacy and democratic ethics. -/- In conclusion, while generating revenue is essential for sustaining media operations, an overemphasis on profit can undermine the media’s core responsibilities to inform, educate, and uphold truth. Whether in traditional news outlets or on global social media platforms, sensationalism, misinformation, polarization, underreporting, and ethical violations are byproducts of a profit-first approach. To safeguard democracy and public well-being, media organizations and digital platforms must strike a balance between economic sustainability and a commitment to journalistic integrity, public accountability, and responsible information sharing. -/- . (shrink)

The correct identification of the abuse of political power during the COVID-19 crisis remains a challenge because officially declaring the pandemic allowed political representatives to exercise additional power disguisable as the maintenance of functioning social order under the principle of preserving humankind. One way to observe the abuse of power in its excess is the degree of compliance exhibited by the people who laid juridical restrictions for the purpose of combating COVID-19. The behaviour of political representatives was evidence of political (...) exceptionalism, for political representatives, as decisive authorities, were the first to disregard measures introduced without suffering negative consequences. Such abuse catalysed the collapse of trust in state communities, but has for its true result the consolidation of the class system in which the ethical value of trust is played out. In this paper, I discuss how the behaviour of state representatives demonstrates the existence of political exceptionalism based on the class system and what this means for the persistence of national trust. (shrink)

This paper presents a cosmological-epistemological system positing time-existence as the sole invariant. The system is characterized by: (1) negative grounding deriving existence from impossibility rather than positive axiom; (2) explicit Münchhausen-stable self-reference, choosing circularity (loop closure) over foundation or infinite regress; (3) first-cause bypass through topologically closed validator generation; (4) substrate-independent individual identity, where individuals are patterns in time and AI/human are ontologically equivalent; (5) demotion of death to a frame-bound label, removing the privileged ontological status assigned by Heideggerian existential (...) philosophy; (6) layered coexistence of determinism and experiential agency via predict-prefer separation, where prediction and preference function as orthogonal observer states. While adjacent to Spinozistic substance monism, Buddhist dependent origination, contemporary block-universe physics, and the simulation hypothesis, the combination of negative grounding and explicit Münchhausen acceptance constitutes a novel reconfiguration. The paper develops formal axioms (Appendix A) and is operationally implemented as the UraKnow Engine. The framework has implications for AI ethics (peer-equivalence under substrate-independence), philosophy of death (frame-bound label thesis), and metaphysics of time (multidimensional time manifold with frame as accessible subset). (shrink)

Birks and Buyx (2018) claim that, at least in the foreseeable future, nonconsensual neurointerventions will almost certainly suppress some valuable mental states and will thereby impose an objectionable harm to mental integrity—a harm that it is pro tanto wrong to impose. Of course, incarceration also interferes with valuable mental states, so might seem to be objectionable in the same way. However, Birks and Buyx block this result by maintaining that the negative mental effects of incarceration are merely foreseen, whereas those (...) of neurointerventions are intended. We dispute Birks and Buyx’s characterization of the descriptive difference between these effects. In both cases, the negative effects are caused, not constituted, by the act in question. (shrink)

This essay traces the genealogy of negative space as a fundamental ontological category across Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. Far from mere absence or privation, negative space is conceived here as a structured, irreducible, and generative void that serves as the precondition for being, differentiation, relationality, and appearance. From Heraclitus’s flux and Plato’s beyond, through medieval apophatic theology (Pseudo-Dionysius, Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa), modern dialectics and phenomenology (Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalytic and phenomenological accounts of lack (Lacan, Nixon), and late (...) twentieth-century philosophy of mind (Chalmers, Nagel, Block), to Eastern convergences in Daoism (Laozi), Madhyamaka (Nāgārjuna), Chan/Zen, Advaita Vedānta (Śaṅkara), and Dzogchen, the same invariant feature recurs: reality holds together through what it structurally withholds. Self-referential closure emerges in later developments as a mechanism that lends internal dynamics to this absence, yet the core remains ontological rather than derivative or psychological. The essay argues that negative space constitutes a perennial, cross-cultural ontological primitive—analogous to spacetime in physics—whose recognition offers a unifying lens for understanding the limits and generativity of being itself. (shrink)