This paper isolates a common spectral grammar behind three Millennium Problems which, in their classical formulations, appear to belong to different worlds. Each problem is associated with a shadow-symmetric spectral datum: a Hilbert space, an involution exchanging two spectral half-planes, and a fixed self-dual interface. For the Riemann zeta-function the interface is the critical line Re(s) = 1/2; for an elliptic L-function the interface is the central point s = 1; for Yang-Mills the interface separates the vacuum from the positive-mass (...) spectrum. Given such a datum, exactly three primitive spectral questions arise: whether all spectral support lies on the interface (location); what multiplicity the interface carries at a distinguished point (multiplicity); and whether the positive spectrum is separated from zero (exclusion). In the Shadow framework, the Riemann Hypothesis, Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer, and the Yang-Mills mass gap are the arithmetic, elliptic, and gauge-theoretic realizations of these three questions. The paper proves the abstract spectral trichotomy, identifies each classical problem with its spectral role, and maps the common Haar positivity mechanism underlying all three. The purpose is not to compress the dedicated proofs into a single argument, but to explain why the three problems belong to one spectral family: RH fixes location, BSD computes multiplicity, and Yang-Mills proves exclusion. (shrink)

Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity James Tully. these ambassadors from Haida Gwaii conciliate the goods which appear irreconcilable to us? To discover the answer, and learn our way around on this strange common ground, we need to ...

The Dhvani Theory is a prominent tool of literary criticism in Indian linguistics that emphasises the Dhvanyartha or the suggestive meaning, which is the third meaning in the three levels of meaning: literal meaning, intended meaning, and suggested meaning. The suggested meaning is, therefore, the most crucial level, as it enables the reader to commit to the work on a more resonant level and derive multiple interpretations. The Dhvani Theory has been limited to poetry and literature in Sanskrit and is (...) criticised for its subjectivity and emphasis on suggestion. This research paper focuses on the Dhvani Theory and its ability to give multiple meanings to singular sentences, statements or words in all languages. It argues that the Dhvani theory is still relevant, beneficial, and applicable in contemporary literature and language. The theory enables one to engage with language and literature more profoundly and derive multiple interpretations, which is essential in the modern world of diversity. The Dhvani theory ensures that its acceptance is valued. The paper concentrates on the Dhvani Theory in practice and responds to criticisms of the theory. It highlights its benefits, such as developing critical thinking ability, emotional intelligence, significant argumentation skills, brilliance in imagination and problem-solving ability. Ultimately, it demonstrates the significance of the Dhvani Theory and the strengths and benefits it provides by enabling the multiplicity of meaning and interpretation in literature. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of what the self is by reviewing neuropsychological research,which converges on the idea that the self may be more complex and differentiated than previous treatments of the topic have suggested. Although some aspects of self-knowledge such as episodic recollection may be compromised in individuals, other aspects—for instance, semantic trait summaries—appear largely intact. Taken together, these findings support the idea that the self is not a single, unified entity. Rather, it is a set of interrelated, functionally (...) independent systems. Implications for understanding the self in various areas of psychological research—e.g., neuroimaging, autism, amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and mirror self-recognition—are discussed in brief. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The connection between the unity of God and the multiplicity seen in the universe represents the central concern for the Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240). It deeply affected the thought of the Southeast Asian mystic, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī (d. 1590?), and his alleged disciple, Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatra’ī (d. 1630). Traces of this idea, through its popularisation in the poems of Fanṣūrī, exert a powerful influence on the Indonesian intellectual topography to this day. This article investigates the (...) concept of unity and multiplicity, of the One expressed as the many in the phenomenal world, in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Ringstones of Wisdom). Through a close textual reading of the chapters of Ādam (Adam) and Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and their various commentaries by the most influential followers of Ibn ‘Arabī, it concludes that the representation of ‘oneness of being’ (waḥdat al-wujūd), which was extensively taught by Fanṣūrī in Aceh, as an erasure of the God-Man divide, is untenable. (shrink)

There’s an argument around from so-called “linguistic theories of vagueness”, plus some relatively uncontroversial considerations, to powerful metaphysical conclusions. David Lewis employs this argument to support the mereological principle of unrestricted composition, and Theodore Sider employs a similar argument not just for unrestricted composition but also for the doctrine of temporal parts. This sort of argument could be generalised, to produce a lot of other less palatable metaphysical conclusions. However, arguments to Lewis’s and Sider’s conclusions on the basis of considerations (...) about vagueness are uncompelling, even if we accept the crucial premises about vagueness. And a good thing too, since the generalised form of the argument would prove far too much. (shrink)

This investigation constitutes an attempt towards (1) understanding issues and problems relating to the notions of one, many, part and whole in Parmenides and Plato; (2) extracting conditions for a successful account of multiplicity and parthood; (3) surveying Deleuzian conceptions and uses of these notions; (4) appraising the extent to which Deleuze’s metaphysics can answer some of these ancient problems concerning the status of multiplicity and the nature of mereological composition, that is, of the relations that pertain between (...) parts and the wholes that they compose. (shrink)

The neural basis of human memory is incredibly complex. We argue that the diversity of neural systems underlying various forms of memory suggests that any discussion of enhancing ‘memory’ per se is too broad, thus obfuscating the biopolitical debate about human enhancement. Memory can be differentiated into at least four major systems with largely dissociable neural substrates. We outline each system, and discuss both the practical and the ethical implications of these diverse neural substrates. In practice, distinct neural bases imply (...) the possibility, and likely the necessity, of specific approaches for the safe and effective enhancement of various memory systems. In the debate over the ethical and social implications of enhancement technologies, this fine-grained perspective clarifies—and may partially mitigate—certain common concerns in enhancement debates, including issues related to safety, fairness, coercion, and authenticity. While many researchers certainly appreciate the neurobiological complexity of memory, the political debate tends to revolve around a monolithic one-size-fits-all conception. The overall project—exploring how human enhancement technologies affect society – stands to benefit from a deeper appreciation of memory’s neurobiological diversity. (shrink)

Communication in law provides a space for alternatives, a Third Space, wherein boundaries between various systems are strongly anchored to a country’s language, history and societal development. Transfers, modifications, and integrations of such systems into other target languages may result in many effects of distortions and appropriations, reformulations and renewals as well as of misinterpretations in communication. Hence, Third Space is a necessary prerequisite for negotiation, transformation and translation from culture A to culture B, since it operates as a multi-stage (...) dynamic where such mechanisms should be analyzed in a fair and equitable manner. (shrink)

Philosophical and theological treatments of difference and relation are often limited to traditional discursive boundaries of substance metaphysics and transcendent causality. Eschewing the historic desire to categorize substance and doctrinal investments in cosmological mechanism, multiplicity theory experiments with immanent and relational ontologies that are materially attentive and immersed in difference. Tracing the emergence of multiplicity and its theorizing across philosophical and theological registers, I begin with Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead’s conceptually significant turn of the century work. (...) Noting both Bergson and Whitehead’s profound influence on Gilles Deleuze, I examine the appearance and development of multiplicity in Deleuze’s individual writings and his collaborative work with Felix Guattari. Seeking resonances in the more recently theological theorizations of multiplicity, I find that Whitehead and Deleuze surface as vital interlocutors for the relational and incarnational theologies put forth, respectively, by Catherine Keller and Laurel Schneider. Each concerned with theological formulations of embodied difference and divine relation, I suggest that both Keller and Schneider draw on theories of multiplicity to explore immanence and interdependence as ontological postures. I conclude that across philosophical and theological discourse diverse conceptions of multiplicity offer resources for alternative theorizations of complex difference and relation. (shrink)

This book argues that the subjective and the objective are crucially dependent on one another and neither is intelligible apart from the other. There is no such thing as a purely external, in-itself world. This book is not intended as a defense of epistemological relativism but as a strong recommendation for modest fallibilism and pluralism.

The essay examines the relation between the explicit aesthetic ideology of Proust’s Recherche and the structure of the “involuntary memory” that is supposed to serve as that ideology’s empirical basis. I challenge the apparent solipsism and idealism of the narrator’s aesthetics by focusing on the one experience of involuntary memory that he omits from his final reflections, in Time Regained, on the relation between memory and art: this is the involuntary memory, in the earlier volume Sodom and Gomorrah, of his (...) dead grandmother, a memory that he describes there as an experience of true otherness. Through a close reading of this passage, I argue that Proust’s interest in involuntary memory implies a concept of literary art as above all ethical in nature, in so far as it is the only means by which individuals can emerge from the solitude to which they are otherwise existentially condemned. In both the Sodom and Gomorrah passage and a later passage from Time Regained this emergence is cast in terms of a rhetoric of multiplicity that emphasizes both the disturbing and the productive dimensions connecting literature with life. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray classically challenges what she takes to be the masculine foundations of knowledge in Western liberal culture. The present article contends not only that this epistemological challenge implicates a radical feminist politics, but that it is also more helpful in formulating a multicultural feminist theory than is often acknowledged by her readers. This is because her account responds to the false neutrality of liberal feminist approaches to multiculturalism. It does so by supporting, at the socio-political level, transformative genealogical practices (...) that are aimed at fostering women's agency in culturally sensitive ways. However, Irigaray's recent work on multiculturalism does not sustain the necessary continuity between her core epistemological critique and her political claims. In particular, the continuity between her criticism of the West's sexual indifference and the cultural multiplicity of female identity becomes problematic in her recent work. The author finally contends that Irigaray's writings pose difficulties for a multicultural feminism, because they fail to specify the different forms of policy necessary to promote diverse women's equality in the postcolonial contexts on which she recently focuses. (shrink)

Anne Conway (1631–1679) is argued to be a relationist about time and possibly a weak absolutist about space. We deny the latter, arguing that Conway invokes ‘creatures’ (one of three metaphysical primitives in her system) to construct her account of space, showing that space is not metaphysically prior to the creatures inhabiting it. This places her in a broader tradition of philosophers who reduce space and time to real properties of existing things. However, Conway reduces these properties in an unexpected (...) way. Following her view that the essence of creatures consists in their ‘mutability’, spatial and temporal properties turn out to depend on creatures’ motions. We show this by investigating Conway’s notions of divisibility and multiplicity and their roles in the lives of individual creatures, revealing how space (and time) are grounded in their fundamental moral vocation. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new account of akrasia based on the idea that human psychology and self-narrativity are more complex and layered than we have traditionally thought. I begin by arguing that, if we have at least some different beliefs, desires, preferences, etc. in different situations, then we can rationally do what we think, at the time of action, is best for, or from the standpoint of, “part of me” while acting contrary to what we think, at the (...) time of action, is best for, or from the more comprehensive standpoint of, “me.” I then argue that many of us do, in fact, think and act this way in everyday life, and that this kind of action satisfies all the criteria for akrasia. Finally, I briefly argue that on my account of akrasia, akratic actions are not necessarily irrational or blameworthy, though they often will be. (shrink)

Many machine learning applications predict individual probabilities, such as the likelihood that a person develops a particular illness. Since these probabilities are unknown, a key question is how to address situations in which different models trained on the same dataset produce varying predictions for certain individuals. This issue is exemplified by the model multiplicity (MM) phenomenon, where a set of comparable models yield inconsistent predictions. Roth, Tolbert, and Weinstein recently introduced a reconciliation procedure, the Reconcile algorithm, to address this (...) problem. Given two disagreeing models, the algorithm leverages their disagreement to falsify and improve at least one of the models. In this paper, we empirically analyze the Reconcile algorithm using five widely-used fairness datasets: COMPAS, Communities and Crime, Adult, Statlog (German Credit Data), and the ACS Dataset. We examine how Reconcile fits within the model multiplicity literature and compare it to existing MM solutions, demonstrating its effectiveness. We also discuss potential improvements to the Reconcile algorithm theoretically and practically. Finally, we extend the Reconcile algorithm to the setting of causal inference, given that different competing estimators can again disagree on specific causal average treatment effect (CATE) values. We present the first extension of the Reconcile algorithm in causal inference, analyze its theoretical properties, and conduct empirical tests. Our results confirm the practical effectiveness of Reconcile and its applicability across various domains. (shrink)

The indistinguishability of bosons and fermions has been an essential part of our ideas of quantum mechanics since the 1920s. But what is the mathematical basis for this indistinguishability? An answer was provided in the group representation theory that developed alongside quantum theory and quickly became a major part of its mathematical structure. In the 1930s such a complex and seemingly abstract theory came to be rejected by physicists as the standard functional analysis picture presented by John von Neumann took (...) hold. The purpose of the present account is to show how indistinguishability is explained within representation theory. (shrink)

I. In analytic philosophy, so-called 'univocalism' is the prevailing interpretation of the meaning of terms such as 'being' or 'existence', i.e. the thesis that these terms have only one meaning (see Russell, White, Quine, van Inwagen). But some analytical philosophers, inspired by Aristotle, maintain that 'being' has many senses (Austin, Ryle). II. Aristotle develops an argument in favour of this last thesis, observing that 'being' and 'one' cannot be a single genus, because they are predicated of their differences (Metaph. B (...) 3). III. But 'being' for Aristotle has also a unity, i.e. 'focal meaning', which coincides with substance (Metaph. Γ 2), and substance has not only an ontological priority, but also a logical priority, in respect to the other beings, as was shown by G. E. L. Owen. IV. This 'focal meaning' cannot be identified with primary substance, i.e. with the unmovable mover, as some interpreters pretend, because this latter has only an ontological, not a logical, priority in respect to the world. V. The impossibility of this interpretation results from Aristotle's rejection of an essence and a substance of being (Metaph. B 4), i.e. the rejection of what the Christian philosophers called esse ipsum subsistens. (shrink)

Revered as the founding father of Chinese historiography, Sima Qian 司馬遷 (?145–86 BCE) has been an exemplar of the frustrated author in Chinese literary history. Despite the monumental position of his Shiji (Records of the Historian), Sima’s background story has long overshadowed the interpretations of the book. This biographical method, which has dominated the Chinese historiographical tradition, obscures the complex relationships among a historical text, the historian, and the reader. As the narratologist, Gerald Prince, has proposed, different readers do not (...) process narratives in exactly the same manner. Applying Prince’s analysis to the interpretations of Shiji, I argue that, even though numerous readers have consistently adopted the biographical approach, their individualized reading processes yield dissimilar interpretations of Shiji. The current study highlights the value of narratological theories in understanding the reception of Chinese historical works, illustrating the promise of opening Chinese historiography to narrative analysis. (shrink)

In this article I introduce a new reading of Jean-Paul Sartre's account of bad faith. The reading contrasts with previous accounts by denying that states of bad faith are exhausted by attitudes towards transcendence and facticity. Instead, I argue that bad faith can involve attitudes to many other aspects of the human being. I also respond to an argument which claims that affirmations of freedom are inconsistent with the motivations behind bad faith. The inconsistency is here resolved by demonstrating how (...) in bad faith we can still affirm a restricted version of freedom which avoids us acknowledging the unpleasant aspects of our full freedom. (shrink)

Let T be a strongly minimal theory with quantifier elimination. We show that the class of existentially closed models of T{“σ is an automorphism”} is an elementary class if and only if T has the definable multiplicity property, as long as T is a finite cover of a strongly minimal theory which does have the definable multiplicity property. We obtain cleaner results working with several automorphisms, and prove: the class of existentially closed models of T{“σi is an automorphism”: (...) i=1,2} is an elementary class if and only if T has the definable multiplicity property. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that explaining cognitive behavior can be achieved through what I call hybrid explanatory inferences: inferences that posit mechanisms, but also draw on observed regularities. Moreover, these inferences can be used to achieve unification, in the sense developed by Allen Newel in his work on cognitive architectures. Thus, it seems that explanatory pluralism and unification do not rule out each other in cognitive science, but rather that the former represents a way to achieve the latter.

In recent decades, innovation has reconfigured the ways in which public policies are designed and implemented, citizen participation is managed, and social interventions are produced. Considering the relevance of these new local development experiences, this article presents the results of a research project aimed at identifying and analyzing the innovation practices deployed in a citizen laboratory. This is a qualitative research based on a case study, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 members of the organization. The results identify (...) four forms of innovation: affective-community innovation, pragmatic-institutional innovation, self-formative-creative innovation, and infrastructural-contested innovation. It is concluded that these forms should not be understood as mutually exclusive categories or as distinct ideal models, but rather as ways of doing that coexist and are dynamically assembled within situated contexts, shaping a practical field traversed by relations of tension, articulation, and mutual dependence. (shrink)

The demographic of an ageing population in many countries is increasing the numbers of elderly who are resident in care homes especially in parts of South East Asia. The investments made into care-related activities in residential homes for the elderly largely reflect a medical approach in which priority is given to physical care through bodily maintenance and limited physical exercise, and only limited resources are allocated to other intellectual or imaginative engagements. The study introduces a very different culture of caring (...) practice into a Singaporean nursing home through an arts-based programme in which the medical benefits are secondary to an assertion that the imagination, creativity and self-expression should be intrinsic to how we conceive of human thriving, emancipation and vitality. This difference of purpose draws our attention to the specific practice of the arts practitioner in how they care for and manage the activities, the space and the atmosphere of the arts sessions in the nursing home. In contrast to the dominant containment culture of care of the nursing home, we introduce the notion of the caring artist to capture this culture of careful practice that is attentive to the participants’ own choices, supportive to the actions they wish to engage and reflexive of their own practice. (shrink)

Global climate change and modernization efforts in the Soviet era have affected the relationship between humans and lakes in Northeast Siberia and have compelled local Sakhas to perceive and renego...

To begin with, I would like to present something like a manifesto of Husserlian phenomenology. Therefore, in this chapter, I would rather not discuss this or that specific point related to Husserl’s phenomenology yet, but rather address some general questions about the particularity of phenomenology as such. More precisely, I would like to begin by suggesting a different way of answering one question that most readers have surely heard many times—adressed sometimes friendly, sometimes mockingly, sometimes aggressively—from students, friends, colleagues, and (...) critics. The dreadful and not-so-inevitable question is the following: “What is phenomenology actually all about?”. (shrink)

Whilst the notion of bioethical expertise might raise a host of questions concerning moral authority it is nevertheless the case that bioethicists continue to advance well thought out, detailed and comprehensive arguments concerning the ethical implications of the biosciences and healthcare. Not to make use of such work or those who produce it when it comes to the work of government and the development of policies would seem misguided at best. Thus, in the light of existing analysis of scientific expertise (...) and its proper contribution to democratic political processes, this essay explores the role expert bioethicists might legitimately play in the production of policy and broader public moral debates. However, given that ethics can shade into politics and, furthermore, does so in a way that is not the case for science and politics, the ethico-political limitations that constrains and constructs the exercise of bioethical expertise is examined. Particular attention is paid to the implications of this view when it comes to bioethical research predicated on religious perspectives in the context of public reason, the validity of which has recently been called into question. We conclude with the suggestion that, if they are to act as experts in political contexts, bioethicists cannot simply make expert contributions to policymaking processes, they should also acknowledge they are responsible for shaping the broader public moral discourses about science and medicine. (shrink)