The jargon of Japanese art criticism has always had an abundance of unique terms, categories, and concepts. This is not only true when discussing traditional Japan, since there are just as many new terms today as there were in the past. Some of the new terms have developed or evolved from old ones, while others have appeared with no seeming connection to any traditional tendency. Yet, only a few of these terms can be considered for the meta-level discussion of Aesthetics, (...) whether or not they can be linked with a certain historical linage, as they have a simple descriptive function. This article will first try to discern between aesthetic and non-aesthetic terms that are at the core of Japanese discourse today. Second, and accordingly, following the footsteps of the renowned modernist aesthetician Kuki Shūzō, this article will also try to convey a single linguistic map of the distinctive cultural Aesthetic that is in motion in Japan today. (shrink)

This article deals with the question of which kinds of deceptions vitiate consent to sexual relations. More specifically, it addresses the question of which characteristics of the perpetrator (e.g. their identity, wealth, or marital status), of their relations with the victim (e.g. marriage, long-term intentions), or of the sexual act itself (e.g. protected) vitiate consent when deception is involved. In this proposal, we offer our view on how this question should be answered: the criminalisation of deceptive sex should be cautiously (...) extended to include deception regarding any characteristic of the deceiver or the relationship on which the deceived’s consent was conditional, where the deceiver was aware of this conditionality. To support our proposal, we examine the different definitions of “deceptive sex” and diverse legal approaches taken to its criminalisation in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel, and discuss their respective merits and shortcomings. Surprisingly, different jurisdictions take strikingly different stances on these matters. This diversity ranges from the narrow definition of traditional English law (and its more opaque contemporary version in England, Canada, and Israel) to the minimalist approach of the German system. To counter the risk of over-criminalisation inherent in our proposal, we also propose using an offence lighter than rape and criminalising only those deceivers who actively lied and whose actual knowledge of the victim’s hypothetical refusal can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Overall, while our proposal would cautiously extend the criminalisation of deceptive sex to some types of cases that are currently not criminalised, it would also significantly limit the criminalisation of deceptive sex by enhancing the requirements regarding both the accused’s actus reus and their mens rea. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a "real", as opposed to "merely stipulative", definition of "pornography". The paper first argues that no extant definition of "pornography" comes close to being a real definition, and then goes on to defend a novel definition by showing how it avoids objections that plague its rivals.

Illusionists about consciousness boldly argue that phenomenal consciousness does not fundamentally exist — it only seems to exist. For them, the impression of having a private inner life of conscious qualia is nothing more than a cognitive error, a conjuring trick put on by a purely physical brain. Some phenomenal realists have accused illusionism of being a byproduct of modern Western scientism and overzealous naturalism. However, Jay Garfield has endorsed illusionism by explicitly drawing support from the classical Yogācāra Buddhist philosopher (...) Vasubandhu. In this paper, I assess the degree to which Garfield’s illusionist interpretation accurately captures the views of Vasubandhu and his commentator Sthiramati in their extant Sanskrit works. As it turns out, Vasubandhu and Sthiramati converge with contemporary illusionists in taking an unconscious causal basis of cognitive/linguistic processes to be responsible for generating the illusion of representational states with apparently phenomenal contents. Within their constitutive understanding of the mind as the “imagination of what is non-existent” (abhūtaparikalpa), I raise possible candidates for what might seem to be real instances of phenomenality — mental appearances (pratibhāsa), affective sensory experience (vedanā), and “intrinsic luminosity” (prakṛtiprabhāsvara) — and consider possible responses on behalf of an illusionist interpreter. I conclude that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati really do appear to be strong illusionists about phenomenal consciousness, particularly if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational. (shrink)

A book on the notion of fundamental length, covering issues in the philosophy of math, metaphysics, and the history and the philosophy of modern physics, from classical electrodynamics to current theories of quantum gravity. Published (2014) in Cambridge University Press.

An intuition about consciousness known as the 'Awareness Principle' states: For any mental state M of a subject S, M is conscious only if S has an 'inner awareness' of M. Some have recently defended this principle by revising the 'memory argument' first offered by the sixth-century Buddhist philosopher Dignāga: from the fact that an experience can be episodically remembered, it should follow that a subject must have been aware of that experience. In response, I argue that defenders of the (...) memory argument haven’t convincingly established the episodic memorability of experience, because they haven’t defused a countervailing claim that conscious perceptual experience is phenomenologically 'transparent'. This claim, if true, would suggest that what one can episodically remember is just how the (external or internal) world appeared through one's 'outer awareness', rather than how the past experience itself appeared through one's inner awareness. I further argue that the memory argument can accommodate phenomenological transparency only at the expense of making the Awareness Principle trivial. The memory argument defender may then claim that there is some non-introspectible feature of a past experience that is episodically memorable, namely, that experience's subjective character or phenomenal 'for-me-ness'. In response, I develop an objection from the tenth-century Śaiva philosopher Utpaladeva against the possibility of recalling a past experience's subjective character as such. Overall, while the objections this paper raises cannot falsify the Awareness Principle directly, they may motivate its proponents to recall their support for the memory argument. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the incisive counter-arguments against Gaṅgeśa’s defense of non-conceptual perception offered by the Dvaita Vedānta scholar Vyāsatīrtha in his Destructive Dance of Dialectic. The details of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments have gone largely unnoticed by subsequent Navya Nyāya thinkers, as well as by contemporary scholars engaged in a debate over the role of non-conceptual perception in Nyāya epistemology. Vyāsatīrtha thoroughly undercuts the inductive evidence supporting Gaṅgeśa’s main inferential proof of non-conceptual perception, and shows that Gaṅgeśa has no basis for thinking (...) that non-conceptual perception has any necessary causal role in generating concept-laden perceptual awareness. He further raises a number of internal inconsistencies and undesirable consequences for Gaṅgeśa’s claim that non-conceptual states are introspectively invisible. His own causal theory of perception is more parsimonious than the Nyāya account, and is equally compatible with direct realism. I conclude by noting several striking parallels between Vyāsatīrtha’s views and the conceptualism of John McDowell, while also suggesting that Vyāsatīrtha's own conceptualism is not unduly constrained by some of McDowell’s limiting assumptions about concepts and perceptual contents. (shrink)

Brings together the most recent discoveries in quantum physics and provides a powerful argument for transforming not only the way we view nature, but also how we view our own personal reality. The book also challenges readers to give up their prejudices regarding material realism.

The standard Bayesian solution to the paradox of the ravens maintains that the degree of confirmation provided by seeing a non-black non-raven is positive but negligible compared to that provided by seeing a black raven. I show that, unless we impose severe and unmotivated restrictions on the subject’s priors, this has the consequence that the cumulative confirmation provided by all the non-black non-ravens the subject expects to see is non-negligible compared to the cumulative confirmation provided by all the black ravens (...) the subject expects to see. If this is so, however, then the paradox retains its full force. (shrink)

Some have argued that a subject has an inner awareness of its conscious mental states by virtue of the non-introspective, reflexive awareness that any conscious state has of itself. But, what exactly is it like to have a ubiquitous and reflexive inner awareness of one’s conscious states, as distinct from one’s outer awareness of the apparent world? This essay derives a model of ubiquitous inner awareness (UIA) from Sebastian Watzl’s recent theory of attention as the activity of structuring consciousness into (...) an experiential center and periphery. I develop Watzl’s theory into an account of UIA by suggesting that a subject is acquainted with its own conscious mental states through being reflexively aware of how these states are structured by attention into a unified subjective perspective. I favorably compare this Watzl-inspired account of UIA against other contemporary analytic and classical Buddhist accounts of reflexive awareness and subjective character, which variously ground the inner awareness of conscious states on their intrinsic phenomenal quality of “for-me-ness,” their affective/hedonic valence, or a subject’s disposition to introspect them. The Watzl-inspired account also accommodates possible counter-examples to Watzl’s theory posed by states of minimal phenomenal experience such as lucid dreamless sleep and non-dual meditative awareness. (shrink)

The ethics of the company in a highly politicized time. Businesses are increasingly social actors. They fund political campaigns, take stances on social issues, and wave the flags of identity groups. As a highly polarized public demands political alignment from the businesses where they spend their money, what's a company to do? Everyone's Business revises our understanding of business ethics in a world of unchecked corporate power. Political theorists Amit Ron and Abraham Singer show that the increasingly human-like role (...) of companies in modern life is both the fundamental problem and inescapable fact of business ethics: corporate power makes business ethics necessary, and business ethics must strive to mitigate corporate power. Ron and Singer argue forcefully that the primary social responsibility of the modern business is to democracy, not politics. By wielding their newfound social influence on democratic institutions--elections, public debate, protest--businesses can be legitimated forces for good. Pragmatic and urgent, Everyone's Business offers an essential new framework for how we manufacture profit--and democracy--in our increasingly divided shared spaces. (shrink)

The neurophysiological evidence from the Miyashita group's experiments on monkeys as well as cognitive experience common to us all suggests that local neuronal spike rate distributions might persist in the absence of their eliciting stimulus. In Hebb's cell-assembly theory, learning dynamics stabilize such self-maintaining reverberations. Quasi-quantitive modeling of the experimental data on internal representations in association-cortex modules identifies the reverberations (delay spike activity) as the internal code (representation). This leads to cognitive and neurophysiological predictions, many following directly from the language (...) used to describe the activity in the experimental delay period, others from the details of how the model captures the properties of the internal representations. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Recent suggestions to supply quantum mechanics (QM) with realistic foundations by reformulating it in light of quantum information theory (QIT) are examined and are found wanting by pointing to a basic conceptual problem that QIT itself ignores, namely, the measurement problem. Since one cannot ignore the measurement problem and at the same time pretend to be a realist, as they stand, the suggestions to reformulate QM in light of QIT are nothing but instrumentalism in disguise.

I discuss the philosophical implications that the rising new science of quantum computing may have on the philosophy of computer science. While quantum algorithms leave the notion of Turing-Computability intact, they may re-describe the abstract space of computational complexity theory hence militate against the autonomous character of some of the concepts and categories of computer science.

This text is the introduction to V. Amit & N. B. Salazar, Pacing Mobilities. Timing, Intensity, Tempo & Duration of Human Movements, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, 202 p. It is also available on Berghahn publisher website.

A remarkable theorem by Clifton, Bub and Halvorson (2003) (CBH) characterizes quantum theory in terms of information--theoretic principles. According to Bub (2004, 2005) the philosophical significance of the theorem is that quantum theory should be regarded as a ``principle'' theory about (quantum) information rather than a ``constructive'' theory about the dynamics of quantum systems. Here we criticize Bub's principle approach arguing that if the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics remains intact then there is no escape route from solving the measurement (...) problem by constructive theories. We further propose a (Wigner--type) thought experiment that we argue demonstrates that quantum mechanics on the information--theoretic approach is incomplete. (shrink)

The authors use the theoretical notion of anomie to examine the impact of top management's control mechanisms on the environment of the marketing function. Based on a literature review and in-depth field interviews with marketing managers in diverse industries, a conceptual model is proposed that incorporates the two managerial control mechanisms, viz. output and process control, and relates their distinctive influence to anomie in the marketing function. Three contingency variables, i.e., resource scarcity, power, and ethics codification, are proposed to moderate (...) the relationship between control mechanisms and anomie. The authors also argue for the link between anomic environments and the propensity of unethical marketing practices to occur. Theoretical and managerial implications of the proposed conceptual model are discussed. (shrink)

A recent attempt to compute a (recursion‐theoretic) noncomputable function using the quantum adiabatic algorithm is criticized and found wanting. Quantum algorithms may outperform classical algorithms in some cases, but so far they retain the classical (recursion‐theoretic) notion of computability. A speculation is then offered as to where the putative power of quantum computers may come from.

This study examines unethical purchasing practices from the perspective of buyer–supplier relationships. Based on a review of the inter-organizational literature and qualitative data from in-depth interviews with purchase managers from diverse industries, a conceptual framework is proposed, and theoretical arguments leading to propositions are presented. Taking into consideration the presence or absence of an explicit or implicit company policy sanctioning ethically questionable activities, unethical purchasing practices are conceptualized as a three-tiered set. Three broad themes emerge from the analysis toward explaining (...) purchasing ethics from a buyer–seller perspective: Inter-organizational power issues, Inter-organizational relational issues, and Interpersonal relational issues. Theoretical and managerial implications of the conceptual framework are discussed. (shrink)

Chapter 3 detailed theGames!in extensive formnoncooperative games in which the players move simultaneously. Another way in which many strategic actions arise in everyday life, as well as in economics, involves players moving sequentially. For example, an investment made today may produce certain strategic advantages in the future. Such situations are modeled using extensive-form games. We discussed extensive-form games in Sect. 2.2.2. We start with some examples to demonstrate the elegance with which temporal problems can be represented with the help of (...) an extensive-form game tree. (shrink)

Loop quantum gravity predicts that spatial geometry is fundamentally discrete. Whether this discreteness entails a departure from exact Lorentz symmetry is a matter of dispute that has generated an interesting methodological dilemma. On one hand one would like the theory to agree with current experiments, but, so far, tests in the highest energies we can manage show no such sign of departure. On the other hand one would like the theory to yield testable predictions, and deformations of exact Lorentz symmetry (...) in certain yet– to–be–tested regimes may have phenomenological consequences. Exposing their shortcomings, here I discuss two arguments that exemplify this dilemma, and compare them to other cases from the history of physics that share their symptoms. (shrink)

Some recent surveys of the modern philosophical debate over the existence of non-conceptual perceptual content have concluded that the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual representations is largely terminological. To remedy this terminological impasse, Robert Hanna and Monima Chadha claim that non-conceptualists must defend an essentialist view of non-conceptual content, according to which perceptual states have representational content whose structure and psychological function are necessarily distinct from that of conceptual states. Hanna and Chadha additionally suggest that non-conceptualists should go “back to (...) Kant” to find the most defensible version of an essentialist content non-conceptualism. I propose instead that non-conceptualists go back even further to the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti, so that they may not only find historical precedent for an essentialist content view, but also some better arguments in its favor. This essay reconstructs Dharmakīrti's essentialist non-conceptualism about the contents of conscious sensory representations and the refined theory of conceptualization that it presupposes. In particular, I examine his arguments from the proprietary phenomenology of sensory experience, the cognitive encapsulation of sensory processing, as well as the iconic format of sensory representations, and assess the strength of these arguments relative to their modern counterparts. (shrink)

In the wake of the current financial crises triggered by risky mortgage-backed securities, the question of ethics and risk-taking is once again at the front and center for both practitioners and academics. Although risk-taking is considered an integral part of strategic decision-making, sometimes firms could be propelled to take risks driven by reasons other than calculated strategic choices. The authors argue that a firm's risk-taking propensity is impacted by its ethical climate (egoistic or benevolent) and its emphasis on output control (...) to manage its marketing function. The firm's long-term orientation is argued to moderate the control–risk propensity relationship. The authors also extend research on risk and performance and argue that the association of risk-taking propensity and firm performance is contingent on the ownership (publicly traded versus privately held) structure of the firm. Based on survey data from a sample of manufacturing industries in the United States, the results show significant impact of ethical climate and marketing output control on a firm's risk-taking propensity; also risk-taking propensity shows a stronger association with firm performance in privately held firms than in publicly traded firms. (shrink)

According to Kant’s dictum, morality leads inescapably to religion. Notably, this implies two unavoidable shifts: From ‘morality’ to the ‘religion of reason’ and from the ‘religion of reason’ to ‘positive religions’ (‘revelation’). I explain the grounds for each shift, focusing on the different kinds of necessity involved. I then analyze Fichte’s Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1792), which mainly addresses the second shift, discussed only briefly by Kant. As I show, whereas for Kant revelation is conditioned by a prior free (...) determination of the will, for Fichte it obtains a primordial status. I explain how Fichte’s approach fills in the Kantian gap between the concept of God, which seems to exclude the possibility of revelation, and the unavoidable human need to assume such an occurrence. (shrink)

This article analyzes how the medical gaze made possible by MRI operates in radiological laboratories. It argues that although computer-assisted medical imaging technologies such as MRI shift radiological analysis to the realm of cyborg visuality, radiological analysis continues to depend on visualization produced by other technologies and diagnostic inputs. In the radiological laboratory, MRI is used to produce diverse sets of images of the internal parts of the body to zero in and visually extract the pathology. Visual extraction of pathology (...) becomes possible, however, because of the visual training of the radiologists in understanding and interpreting anatomic details of the whole body. These two levels of viewing constitute the bifocal vision of the radiologists. To make these levels of viewing work complementarily, the body, as it is presented in the body atlases, is made notational. (shrink)

Finding the Raga is more than a book that tries to make sense of the raga, of Indian classical music, and of how Indian music challenges Western notions of what music might be. It is a work of self-inquiry, as might be expected from Amit Chaudhuri, a musician who is also a novelist; a novelist who is also a critic and essayist; a trained and recorded performer in the Indian classical vocal tradition who was also, once, a guitarist and (...) songwriter in the American folk music style and is now a composer and recorded performer in experimental music. Each one of these undertakings and selves signifies turns at different points in life, and each turn and change of direction brings a fresh perspective on music, writing, and what it means to take on and do these things. No category-Indian, Western-is a given in this book. Partly a record of one of the most important turns in the author's life, toward North Indian music, and of its long aftermath, Finding the Raga is also part autobiography set in 1970s Bombay, part essay, and part detailed analysis of how we might grasp the conceptual underpinnings as well as the experience of music. It explores the different ways in which music relates to the world-whether it's through representation or evocation, as in Western music, or through the raga being sung at different times of day and in different seasons, as in Indian music-and also tries to understand what the act of listening involves for individuals and cultures. (shrink)

The compartmental epidemiological model is commonly used to study dengue dynamics; some of these models precisely consider the mosquito population, and others indirectly capture its role in disease transmission term. In this article, we have performed a comparative analysis between a simple SIR model and a vector-host interaction model (VH model) by fitting the dengue fever data of the ongoing outbreak in America. Parameter estimations for both models have been performed using the Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm, considering the normalized root mean (...) square error (NRMSE) as an optimization function. The significance and reliability of the estimated parameters towards the models’ predictions have been analysed through uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. Uncertainty analysis utilizing the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method has been performed to evaluate how various parameters within the models influence the basic reproduction number ( $$\mathcal {R}_0$$ ). Sensitivity analysis for the basic reproduction number ( $$\mathcal {R}_0$$ ), has been carried out by the partial rank correlation coefficients (PRCC) method. Additionally, we have computed the parameter regions ensuring the persistence of equilibrium points of both models. This study offers profound insights into model selection, parameter estimation, and forecasting future data trends for the ongoing dengue outbreak in America. However, this article focuses on exploring two key scientific questions: (1) Which type of compartmental model (SIR or VH) is more suitable to capture the trend of data on dengue fever for the ongoing outbreak in America? (2) Is America likely to face a prolonged dengue outbreak in the near future? (shrink)

An individual’s accountability to oneself leads to self-regulatory behaviour. A field experiment afforded an opportunity to test this relation, given that external accountability conditions were absent. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used to test the hypothesis. A group of full-time resident management students, n ≈ 550, take four meals during the day in the institute mess. As a part of the experiment, food wastage in the form of leftovers on the plates of subjects was measured. As a pre-test, the (...) measurement occurred at two levels. Subjects could see how much they are adding to the total waste by looking at a weighing scale placed under a waste basket, and they could also see the total waste data for each of the four meals for the day and a day earlier displayed at a prominent place. After 105 days, the weighing scale under the basket was removed, and as a post-test measurement, the total waste data for the four meals were noted down for another 72 days. A manipulation test indicated that the experiment has had the desired effect of invoking self-accountability in subjects during the pre-test phase, and diluting it during the post-test phase. Time series analysis of pre-test and post-test data indicated that the wastage data decreased in the pre-test phase. However, the post-test waste data showed an increase over a period of time. The results indicate that accountability conditions like social norms invoke self-accountability cognition leading to self-regulatory behaviours in individuals. (shrink)

I discuss a rarely mentioned correspondence between Einstein and Swann on the constructive approach to the special theory of relativity, in which Einstein points out that the attempts to construct a dynamical explanation of relativistic kinematical effects require postulating a fundamental length scale in the level of the dynamics. I use this correspondence to shed light on several issues under dispute in current philosophy of spacetime that were highlighted recently in Harvey Brown’s monograph Physical Relativity, namely, Einstein’s view on the (...) distinction between principle and constructive theories, and the consequences of pursuing the constructive approach in the context of spacetime theories. r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Five Poems AMIT MAJMUDAR Observing Orpheus I hear the meaning turn back in his throat like Eurydice on the way up from the darkness. Music’s meaning is its making. As for me, I am one more animal in his entourage, learning a new thirst, finding a new south. None of us knew we had this instinct in us. If deserts hide wildflowers until first rain, bright ears are (...) blossoming out of our skulls. He doesn’t have much longer. I know this myth. A God douses the fire with a beehive. The Maenads smear their faces with a warpaint made of stoneground fireflies and pine sap. Hands—hands like his, that drew music through lyre strings into our forest like pieces of bread through a prison fence— are reaching for his body now, his lyre. Their weapons are hands, nothing but hands. They are infinite. They are enough. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Her Metamorphoses First a beetle, body armor forged of chitin, exoskeleton he’ll never bruise, Undiscovered, unapologetically hermetic on her own Galapagos. Next a fruit bat, echolocating tangerines like a blind woman singing up at stars. Then a patio lizard, sunning herself for as long as she needs, A better place for keeping warm than bed with him. Next a sleek water moccasin, quick to make out another woman’s heat signature on his neck, Even quicker to strike. A caterpillar to poke holes in his lying roses And from that destruction to fashion two beautiful wings for herself. A buzzard, to clean up the roadside pile he left of her. A woman in full with no more soft blind pupa stages of her life cycle left, No more forms to force herself to fit for the sake of his pleasure, No more shapeshifts, no more slimming stripes, no more abdominal crunches: Just this body, just this last name, just this apartment, just this bowl of midnight cereal. Just her. 106 five poems Sisyphus Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your boulder goes weightless and races ahead in descent. Force its dark door open inch by grim inch, Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent, Heels dug deep in hell’s steep hillside, teeth clenched. What gravity strips from you, gravity grants you again. Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your body goes weightless and races ahead in ascent. Amit Majmudar 107 A Trinket for Persephone A deathwatch beetle burrows in the pale hall of your marrow, your underground, your tube of bone on which you’re riding home alone. This blackwinged locket with your soul emerges rattling from a hole, a rattle in your emptied throat, the diva’s final, graceless notes, a clicking echoed in the rafters, this bugbear insect coming after to scuttle across the marshy chest, sinkhole navel, and pubic nest out to the yard, below the porch untrackable by any torch until this bug with you inside has burrowed to the other side. It drops into the underworld, as if from some cocoon unfurled, to scale a queenly wrist and rest your brooch of black upon her breast. 108 five poems Four Ways of Looking at Argus 1. His Vigil These hundred eyes, these hundred balloons Tied to the boy-small wrist of my mind Are down to ninety-nine. I lost one to a bee sting late last June— I never thought of them as fragile Until that pinprick broke my vigil. I’m slowing down. I didn’t blink in time. I have no inkling why I keep This vigil—surely not to watch, Panoptic from this mountaintop, A heifer drifting off to sleep? I’m here, I must be here, to see A signal fire from the east That warns of Olympus under siege And Ares gory from a rout, Athena’s owl’s eyes gouged out, The naiads naked in a pen, The whole world given up to men. The Gods will need a monster then. 2. After Martial Hermes was in a fix: He needed lullabies To shutter Argus’s one hundred eyes And get the tethered heifer—coal-eyed Io—free Of Hera’s... (shrink)

A recent proposal to solve the halting problem with the quantum adiabatic algorithm is criticized and found wanting. Contrary to other physical hypercomputers, where one believes that a physical process “computes” a (recursive-theoretic) non-computable function simply because one believes the physical theory that presumably governs or describes such process, believing the theory (i.e., quantum mechanics) in the case of the quantum adiabatic “hypercomputer” is tantamount to acknowledging that the hypercomputer cannot perform its task.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.2 (2001) 71-84 [Access article in PDF] Freedom from Speech (or the Silent Demand) Amit Pinchevski Speak, you also, speak as the last, have your say. —Paul Celan, "Speak, You Also" The language of awaiting—perhaps it is silent, but it doesnot separate speaking and silence; it makes of silencealready a kind of speaking; already it says in silence thespeaking that silence is. For mortal silence does not (...) keep still. —Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the DisasterWhereas ethical questions have challenged concepts of self, identity, and society, the concept of freedom of speech—and its place in recent discussions on pluralism and multiculturalism—has remained largely unproblematized. The challenge I wish to propose here does not touch directly on the positive right to speak, nor on the limitations impeding free speech, but rather on the other side of speaking, on the Other's side of this freedom. Does the concept of freedom of speech carry in itself and as such an ethical significance?Freedom of speech has been an important element in modern social philosophy, occupying the works of traditional liberalists such as John Stuart Mill, progressive thinkers like John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, as well as the critical pragmatist Jurgen Habermas, to name but a few. Such accounts regarded the freedom of speech as a social practice based on the stature of the speaking self, on its innate right to speak and to be heard. It is the right to a "podium"—a space and a time in the public sphere—and the right to declare a priori: "I have something to say important enough for others to hear." Hence, the first word of this speech is an assertion of importance, not only of the speech per se, but also the importance of the speaker: self-importance. Is this kind of speaker interested in something beyond his or her fully legitimate right and ability to perform as speaker? Is there any room for the silent Other? Moreover, doesn't the practice of freedom of speech tacitly presuppose that someone else is already relegated to listening, to the passive side of this action? If this is indeed true, such a way of communicating would be, to use Gemma Corradi Fiumara's thoughtful insight, a reduced-by-half notion of logos—an address by the one who knows how to speak but does not (need to) know how to listen [54-55]. A halved model of speaker and address would thereby constitute only half of an ethical discourse. The remaining half would lie where speech does not eclipse the Other's silence, where the Other's silence has its "say." How can [End Page 71] one speak and still hear the Other's call, whether silent or audible? And even more importantly, what is the Other's silence "saying"?It is my contention that free speech is never carried out in an "Otherless" sphere, that is, untainted by the Other's demand to be responded to. It follows that the moral veneration invested in the concept of free speech implies a certain heedlessness of otherness, and that radically free speech is self-absolved from its fundamental response-ability rather than rightfully free. A responsible speaker (or writer) may then be viewed as the one whose freedom to speak is exposed to the Other's demands, and for whom this freedom is his or her onus to respond to the Other's call. The witness speaks for someone who cannot speak for him- or herself; the witness's freedom of expression is subjected to the responsibility for Others. One remarkable witness was the writer Primo Levi, who devoted his life to responding to the living and to the dead: his greatest burden was his freedom to speak. Perhaps delaying or deferring the emergence of the speaking self might thereby allow the Other's call to emerge and summon witnessing. Beyond Speech Acknowledging the existence of Others in every address depends upon developing a sense of otherness, that is, sensitivity to the Other. It requires an awareness of the fundamental setting in which an... (shrink)

The field of Science and Technology Studies has long critiqued the idea that there is such a thing as a universal and singular ""Science"" that exists independently of human society, interpretation, and action. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to the colonial contexts in which the scientific endeavor has been practiced and on which scientific principles have been built. In this important book, Amit Prasad seeks to rectify this erasure, demonstrating that problematic idealized imaginaries of science, scientists, and (...) the scientific realm can be traced back to the birth of ""modern science"" during European colonialism. Such visions of science and technology have undergirded the imagination of the West (and thus its others), constructing hierarchies of technological innovation and scientific value, but also unexpectedly leaving society vulnerable to contemporary threats of misinformation and conspiracy theories, as has been strikingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from being an indictment of STS, this rigorous book seeks to highlight such concerns to make STS engage more carefully with issues of colonialism and thus to enable readers to understand the rapidly changing global topography of science and technology today, and into the future. (shrink)

Research suggests that presenting an action via multimodal stimulation (verbal and visual) enhances its perception. To highlight this, in most studies, assertive instructions are generally presented before the occurrence of the visual subevent(s). However, verbal instructions need not always be assertive; they can also include negation to contrast the present event with a prior one, thereby facilitating processing—a phenomenon known as contextual facilitation. In our study, we investigated whether using negation to guide an action sequence facilitates action perception, particularly when (...) two consecutive subactions contrast with each other. Stimuli from previous studies on action demonstration were used to create (non)contrastive actions, that is, a ball following noncontrastive and identical (Over–Over or Under–Under) versus contrastive and opposite paths (Over–Under or Under–Over) before terminating at a goal location. In Experiment 1, either an assertive or a negative instruction was provided as verbal guidance before onset of each path. Analyzing data from 35 participants, we found that, whereas assertive instructions facilitate overall action recall, negating the later path for contrastive actions is equally facilitative. Given that action goal is the most salient aspect in event memory due to goal-path bias in attention, a second experiment was conducted to test the effect of multimodal synchrony on goal attention and action memory. Experiment 2 revealed that when instructions overlap with actions, they become more tailored—assertive instructions effectively guide noncontrastive actions, while assertive–negative instruction particularly guides contrastive actions. Both studies suggest that increased attention to the goal leads to coarser perception of midevents, with action-instruction synchrony modulating goal bias in real-time event apprehension to serve distinct purposes for action conceptualization. Whereas presenting instructions before subactions attenuates goal attention, overlapping instructions increase goal attention and reveal the selective roles of assertive and negative instructions in guiding contrastive and noncontrastive actions. (shrink)

Recent success of Indian engineers, businessmen, as well as other technically qualified professionals has created an obsession with knowledge and creativity. Documents like India as a Knowledge Superpower have proliferated and we continually hear the mantra of investing in and harnessing of human capital. There are, however, several strands of human capital in India and not all of them harness knowledge and creativity. People on whom drugs are being tested represent one such human capital, which, even though it is being (...) energetically mobilized to provide India with a strategic advantage in the world market, also highlights the contradictions within India’s shifting imaginary, economy and politics. Drug trials in India, in the context of neoliberal globalization, not only challenge and complicate, but also operate within a constellation of divisions — labor/capital, west/non-west, colonial/sovereign, national/global and so on. In this article I analyze how the people on whom drug testing is being done in India are being ‘harnessed’ as human capital, which leads to politicization of ‘bare life’ through ‘inclusive-exclusion’. (shrink)

It is occasionally claimed that the important work of philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians in the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries made Kant’s critical philosophy of geometry look somewhat unattractive. Indeed, from the wider perspective of the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries, the replacement of Newtonian physics with Einstein’s theories of relativity, and the rise of quantificational logic, Kant’s philosophy seems “quaint at best and silly at worst”.1 While there is no doubt that Kant’s transcendental project involves his own conceptions (...) of Newtonian physics, Euclidean geometry and Aristotelian logic, the issue at stake is whether the replacement of these conceptions collapses Kant’s philosophy into an unfortunate embarrassment.2 Thus, in evaluating the debate over the contemporary relevance of Kant’s philosophical project one is faced with the following two questions: (1) Are there any contradictions between the scientific developments of our era and Kant’s philosophy? (2) What is left from the Kantian legacy in light of our modern conceptions of logic, geometry and physics? Within this broad context, this paper aims to evaluate the Kantian project vis à vis the discovery and application of non-Euclidean geometries. Many important philosophers have evaluated Kant’s philosophy of geometry throughout the last century,3 but opinions with regard to the impact of non-Euclidean geometries on it diverge. In the beginning of the century there was a consensus that the Euclidean character of space should be considered as a consequence of the Kantian project, i.e., of the metaphysical view of space and of the synthetic a priori character of geometry. The impact of non-Euclidean geometries was then thought as undermining the Kantian project since it implied, according to positivists such.. (shrink)

Vikram Kolmannskog, a Norwegian-Indian poet, writer, and activist, is a remarkable example of hybridity, combining multiple identities in his work—Eastern, Western, queer—and interests that are academic, literary, and psychological. He was born in Norway to a Norwegian father and Indian mother of Gujarati heritage. His doctorate (2014) is in the sociology of law. Prior to that he obtained a BA in Culture and Society in 2005, and an LLM degree from the University of Oslo in 2007. He has also obtained (...) several professional certifications in Gestalt Therapy, and is currently a professor and practitioner of Gestalt Therapy. He lives in Oslo but spends time in Mumbai in India as well. (shrink)

We explore the dynamical behavior of two f(T, B) gravity models with a scalar field: 1. $$f(T,B)=T-\gamma log\bigg [\frac{\psi B_{0}}{B}\bigg ]$$ and 2. $$f(T,B)=\eta T+\frac{\zeta }{B^{n}}$$, using the potential $$V(\phi )=V_{0}(\alpha +e^{-\beta \phi })^{-\delta }$$ and an interaction term $$\bar{Q} = \epsilon H \dot{\phi }^2$$. A phase space analysis reveals four fixed points in Model 3.1 (three stable, one saddle) and five in Model 3.2 (four stable), indicating transitions from matter to dark energy dominance. With interaction, Model 3.2 exhibits seven (...) fixed points, including five stable, one unstable (stiff matter era) and one saddle point. Evolution of the deceleration parameter q and the total EoS parameter $$\omega _{tot}$$ confirms sustained cosmic acceleration, with present values $$q_{0} = -1.005$$ and $$\omega _{0} = -0.556$$ (Model 3.1) and $$q_{0} = -1.245$$ and $$\omega _{0}=-1.0404$$ (Model 3.2). Comparisons of our observationally constrained parameters with $$\Lambda $$ CDM show strong consistency, supporting the viability of these models in describing the late-time accelerated expansion of the Universe. (shrink)

Background: This article aims to review research manuscripts in the past 5 years that focus on the effects of debt on depression, anxiety, stress, or suicide ideation in Asian countries.Methods: A search for literature based on the PRISMA guidelines was conducted on Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect, resulting in nine manuscripts meeting inclusion criteria. The studies were conducted in Thailand, Korea, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, and China.Results: The findings of the studies show that there is evidence to (...) support that being in debt is related to Asian participants experiencing depression, anxiety, stress, or suicide ideation. However, the studies are limited to quantitative studies only. The definition of debt is also unclear in most manuscripts. Few manuscripts also examined how other factors influence the relationship between debt and mental illness.Conclusion: There are limited studies on the psychological effects of debt on the Asian population. Future studies should focus on the relationship between debt and psychological well-being among this population. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 4 Seiten: 568-588.

The idea of a 'property-owning democracy' became central to John Rawls's re-evaluation of his theory of justice. This article traces the origins of Rawls's concept of `property-owning democracy' first to the writings of the economist James Meade and then to those of early twentieth-century British conservatives, focusing on the question of how the meaning of democracy was defined and re-defined throughout this history. I argue that Rawls inherited a discursive matrix from the British conservatives in which the notion of 'property-owning (...) democracy' refers to the limits that should be set on democratic practices to make democracy compatible with the needs and interests of property-owners. In addition to tracing the genealogy of the idea of a 'property-owning democracy', the article points toward more recent attempts, partially inspired by Rawls's 'political turn', to re-examine the distribution of property-ownership from the perspective of what is required for viable democratic deliberations. The article ends with an addendum lamenting the fact that when George W. Bush's administration adopted the British ideas and policies associated with 'property-owning democracy' it chose to omit 'democracy' altogether and to describe its initiative as 'ownership society'. (shrink)

The term ‘miracle’ generally refers to events that are not explicable by natural causes alone. Kant’s notion of miracles is usually understood along these lines. However, Kant’s occupation with miracles should be understood in a practical context. Belief in miracles plays a constitutive role in Kant’s philosophy of religion concerning the need to strengthen the will both before and after departing from original evil. I demonstrate how my argument sheds new light on Kant’s claim that theoretical reason precludes the possibility (...) of material miracles. (shrink)