Recently three studies have reported on the test-retest reliability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity; however, these studies were limited to comparatively small samples ( Ns = 39, 114, 58). The present study examined the temporal stability of the 7-item version of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity over a 15-week period among a sample of 581 English children aged between 10 and 12 years. Data demonstrated that stability across the two administrations was very (...) high ( r =.79); however, there was a significant change in mean scores between Time 1 and Time 2. (shrink)

Although reasoning has been characterized as the essence of our being, it is often prone to cognitive biases. Decades of research in the reasoning and decision making fields have shown that when fa...

This study examines the stability of trust and explores whether it differs across men and women using a panel dataset. Data were first collected in 2008 and later in 2019, from 1056 male and 1113 female respondents in the Netherlands. The analysis results suggest that trust is significantly correlated over time, irrespective of gender. Similarly, the subgroup analysis restricted to respondents with low levels of trust in 2008 showed a significant correlation between trust measured in 2008 and that measured (...) in 2019. Further, this study analyzes whether the correlation decays with time by comparing the correlation between trust in 2008 and 2019 with the correlation between trust in 2008 and 2013. The analysis reveals a significant decay in the correlation with time, and this decay is driven by men. A closer look shows that older men (with age ≥ median value) primarily caused this decay in correlation. These findings provide evidence of the interaction between gender and the stability of trust. (shrink)

Prospect Theory (PT) is widely regarded as the most promising descriptive model for decision making under uncertainty. Various tests have corroborated the validity of the characteristic fourfold pattern of risk attitudes implied by the combination of probability weighting and value transformation. But is it also safe to assume stable PT preferences at the individual level? This is not only an empirical but also a conceptual question. Measuring the stability of preferences in a multi-parameter decision model such as PT is (...) far more complex than evaluating single-parameter models such as Expected Utility Theory under the assumption of constant relative risk aversion. There exist considerable interdependencies among parameters such that allegedly diverging parameter combinations could in fact produce very similar preference structures. In this paper, we provide a theoretic framework for measuring the (temporal) stability of PT parameters. To illustrate our methodology, we further apply our approach to 86 subjects for whom we elicit PT parameters twice, with a time lag of 1 month. While documenting remarkable stability of parameter estimates at the aggregate level, we find that a third of the subjects show significant instability across sessions. (shrink)

We present a latent-space formulation of adaptive temporal reparametrization for continuous-time dynamical systems. The method, called temporal lifting, introduces a smooth monotone mapping t↦τ​(t) that regularizes near-singular behavior of the underlying flow while preserving its conservation laws. In the lifted coordinate, trajectories such as those of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on the torus T3 become globally smooth. From the standpoint of machine-learning dynamics, temporal lifting acts as a continuous-time normalization or time-warping operator that can stabilize physics-informed neural (...) networks and other latent-flow architectures used in AI systems. The framework links analytic regularity theory with representation-learning methods for stiff or turbulent processes. (shrink)

Biological individuality is a notoriously thorny topic for biologists and philosophers of biology. In this paper we argue that biological individuality presents multiple, interconnected questions for biologists and philosophers that together form a problem agenda. Using a case study of an interdisciplinary research group in ecology, behavioral and evolutionary biology, we claim that a debate on biological individuality that seeks to account for diverse practices in the biological sciences should be broadened to include and give prominence to questions about uniqueness (...) and temporality. We show that broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality draws attention to underrecognized philosophical issues and discussions and thereby organizes and enriches the existing debate. (shrink)

I investigate the structure of pro-tempore disjunctive intentions: intentions directed at two or more eventually incompatible goals that are nonetheless kept open for the time being, while the agent is waiting to acquire more information to determine which option is better. These intentions are the basic tool for balancing, in our planning agency, rigidity and flexibility, stability and responsiveness to changing circumstances. They are a pervasive feature of intentional diachronic agency and contribute to secure dynamic consistency in our plans. (...) I show how they differ from simple disjunctive intentions, where the agent is indifferent between the options. I argue that pro-tempore disjunctive intentions meet the distinctive pressures of intentions and that, contrary to the initial impressions, they are both stable and successful at settling practical matters. In closing, I argue that pro-tempore disjunctive intentions are all-out intentions that are more explanatorily powerful than Holton's "partial" intentions. (shrink)

In the economic history of twentieth-century Poland, two periods merit particular comparison: the interwar years and the time of systemic transformation. In 1918 and 1989, the Polish economy faced the formidable challenge of constructing a competitive economic order. Despite the temporal distance and substantial differences separating these two turbulent historical episodes, they share a common feature – strong destabilizing tendencies in the monetary sphere. The article aims to compare these two periods through the lens of the ordoliberal principle of (...) stable money. Ordoliberalism regards this principle as necessary for establishing and maintaining a competitive economic order. The article employs a comparative analytical method, drawing on an institutional approach and the theoretical framework of the ordoliberal competitive order. The analysis reveals that in both cases, monetary policy played a fundamental role in overcoming inflationary crises and restoring confidence in the state and the market. In both periods, efforts were made to ensure financial stability through the institutional establishment of independent central banks. Despite elements aligned with ordoliberal thinking, both cases lacked the complete embedding of monetary policy within a long-term, normative vision of economic order. (shrink)

In a related project, the social representation of public order among legal professionals has been explored by means of semi-structured interviews (Smejkalová et al. 2022). The participants of this research represent public order, inter alia, as a stable safeguard of fundamental social values while recognizing its vagueness and inherent propensity for change. This contradiction between its purpose to provide stability while being subject to social or temporal contexts seems akin to the structural approach to social representations. The social (...) representations approach (Moscovici 1961, 2001) is an approach used in social psychology, rooted in the idea that social objects or phenomena must be represented by a social group in order to perform any kind of social function. Within this approach, a structural (Abric 1993) differentiation between a stable, normative central core of a social representation, and flexible periphery has been developed. The contradictions between the stability and dynamics of public order the participants talk about are not dissimilar from the theoretical considerations of the structural approach to social representation. Moreover, Moscovici’s (2001) and Wachelke’s (2012) framing of social representations especially resonates when applied to public order, pointing towards its role as a system facilitating communication and orientation within a social group. The present study utilizes the data available from the transcripts of these interviews with a single focus on the themes of dynamics and stability. It aims to discuss these themes across various disciplines, offering links that might have been overlooked. This study further underscores the usefulness of the social representation approach in legal conceptualization, advocating for the necessity of more synthetic approaches merging philosophy, linguistics (semiotics), social psychology, and law to enrich further understanding in this domain. (shrink)

Auditory feedback perturbation studies have indicated a link between feedback and feedforward mechanisms in speech production when participants compensate for applied shifts. In spectral perturbation studies, speakers with a higher perceptual auditory acuity typically compensate more than individuals with lower acuity. However, the reaction to feedback perturbation is unlikely to be merely a matter of perceptual acuity but also affected by the prediction and production of precise motor action. This interplay between prediction, perception, and motor execution seems to be crucial (...) for the timing of speech and non-speech motor actions. In this study, to examine the relationship between the responses to temporally perturbed auditory feedback and rhythmic abilities, we tested 45 adult speakers on the one hand with a temporal auditory feedback perturbation paradigm, and on the other hand with rhythm perception and production tasks. The perturbation tasks temporally stretched and compressed segments (onset + vowel or vowel + coda) in fluent speech in real-time. This technique sheds light on the temporal representation and the production flexibility of timing mechanisms in fluent speech with respect to the structure of the syllable. The perception tasks contained staircase paradigms capturing duration discrimination abilities and beat-alignment judgments. The rhythm production tasks consisted of finger tapping tasks taken from the BAASTA tapping battery and additional speech tapping tasks. We found that both auditory acuity and motor stability in finger tapping affected responses to temporal auditory feedback perturbation. In general, speakers with higher auditory acuity and higher motor variability compensated more. However, we observed a different weighting of auditory acuity and motor stability dependent on the prosodic structure of the perturbed sequence and the nature of the response as purely online or adaptive. These findings shed light on the interplay of phonological structure with feedback and feedforward integration for timing mechanisms in speech. (shrink)

Building on Bernard Williams’ thesis about the intertwining of history and political philosophy, the essay explores how the problem of the history of dēmokratia after the late-eighteenth and over the nineteenth-century in Britain constituted a primary and critical field in which the philosophical meaning of democracy was debated. Configuring a new temporal perspective grounded in the relationship between ancient and modern democracy, historiographical works by John Gillies, William Mitford, and George Grote put forth an understanding of the concept as (...) a battlefield, involving several conflicting meanings, narratives and historical forces. This historiographical tradition highlighted the tensions underpinning the definition of democracy in the long-term temporal frame linking antiquity and modernity. So even more than contemporary philosophical and political writings, historical understanding constituted a unique concept of democracy that both concentrated and dispersed meaning; it was not just one vision of democracy, among others, but one that acquired the paradoxical power to forge some semantic stability and coherence over time, and to accentuate the threat of the concept’s break up into distinct political premises and historical moments that constituted it. (shrink)

Patient-derived xenografts are currently promoted as new translational models in precision oncology. PDXs are immunodeficient mice with human tumors that are used as surrogate models to represent specific types of cancer. By accounting for the genetic heterogeneity of cancer tumors, PDXs are hoped to provide more clinically relevant results in preclinical research. Further, in the function of so-called “mouse avatars”, PDXs are hoped to allow for patient-specific drug testing in real-time. This paper examines the circulation of knowledge and bodily material (...) across the species boundary of human and personalized mouse model, historically as well as in contemporary practices. PDXs raise interesting questions about the relation between animal model and human patient, and about the capacity of hybrid or interspecies models to close existing translational gaps. We highlight that the translational potential of PDXs not only depends on representational matching of model and target, but also on temporal alignment between model development and practical uses. Aside from the importance of ensuring temporal stability of human tumors in a murine body, the mouse avatar concept rests on the possibility of aligning the temporal horizons of the clinic and the lab. We examine strategies to address temporal challenges, including cryopreservation and biobanking, as well as attempts to speed up translation through modification and use of faster developing organisms. We discuss how featured model virtues change with precision oncology, and contend that temporality is a model feature that deserves more philosophical attention. (shrink)

How individuals reason deductively has concerned researchers for many years. Yet, it is still unclear whether, and if so how, participants’ reasoning performance changes over time. In two test sessions one week apart, we examined how the syllogistic reasoning performance of 100 participants changed within and between sessions. Participants’ reasoning performance increased during the first session. A week later, they started off at the same level of reasoning performance but did not further improve. The reported performance gains were only found (...) for logically valid, but not for invalid syllogisms indicating a bias against responding that ‘no valid conclusion’ follows from the premises. Importantly, we demonstrate that participants substantially varied in the strength of the temporal performance changes and explored how individual characteristics, such as participants’ personality and cognitive ability, relate to these interindividual differences. Together, our findings contradict common assumptions that reasoning performance only reflects a stable inherent ability. (shrink)

Violence tends to the destruction of meaningful entities and of that through which such entities are meaningful. Not all violence is annihilating in its effects, but violence aims towards a nothingness which discloses a certain fragility of meaning. The obliteration of the singular, the reduction of organic and structural unity to charred flesh and rubble, is not simply an event within a world, but an event that threatens worldly sense. The constitution of such worldly sense is dependent on time, on (...) the interweaving of temporal tendencies, or orientations, in Husserlian terms: retention and protention. But this interweaving of temporal orientations requires a minimal order of continuity whereby retention, both near and far, and near and far protention allow for a sense of temporal stretch which has a unity and a sense. This is true even though every now may be new, temporal relations being of self-differentiation. Annihilating violence—whether of the individual raped and tortured or the community left bereft through war, colonization or natural disaster—has a traumatizing effect which results in a disconnection from the past and derealization of that which profoundly modifies the retentional and protentional orientations. The vulnerability of temporal constitution, which violence discloses, reveals a fundamental absence at the core of time itself and a nothingness threatening the stability of normalized meaningful entities and spaces while revealing a groundless space of the emergence of meaning. (shrink)

Public understanding of climate change has been a topic of environmental social sciences research since the early 1990s. To date, temporal change in climate change understanding has been approached almost exclusively using quantitative, survey-based methodologies, which indicate that people's responses on a limited number of measures have indeed altered in response to changing circumstances. However, quantitative longitudinal evidence can be criticised for presenting an overly simplistic view of people's beliefs and values. The current study is the first to explore (...) changes in public understanding over an extended time period using in-depth qualitative methods. The study utilises a novel longitudinal methodology to explore changes in discourses across six separate datasets collected over the period 1997-2010, comprising a total of 208 public participants from across Great Britain. We find for the first time that discourses regarding the relevance of climate change to everyday life, and concerning rationales for personal action have exhibited subtle but important shifts over this period. By contrast, other aspects of public understanding have exhibited considerable stability over time, particularly with respect to ethical principles concerning stewardship of nature, justice and fairness. We conclude by distinguishing between three scales of change in public understanding of climate change: relatively short-lived movements in attitudes as revealed by survey data and influenced by transitory phenomena; slower shifts in public discourses that track changing cultural contexts; and enduring ways of understanding climate change that are tied to longer-term ethical foundations. (shrink)

For decades, eukaryotic circadian timing has been framed mainly through nuclear transcription–translation feedback loops (TTFLs). Here, we synthesize evidence supporting a broader organelle‐centered model in which cellular time emerges from dynamic coupling between TTFL clocks, post‐translational feedback loop (PTFL) oscillators, and entrained rhythmic modules across mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes, peroxisomes, Golgi apparatus, plasma membrane, and cytoskeleton. Metabolic flux, redox cycling, proteostasis, ion handling, membrane excitability, trafficking, and mechanotransduction act as temporal currencies that either sustain selected transcription‐independent rhythms or transmit (...) phase information within a TTFL‐coordinated network. In this layered architecture, the TTFL remains a central integrator that stabilizes inter‐organelle phase relationships, aligns intracellular rhythms with environmental Zeitgebers, and links biochemical state to epigenetic and RNA‐based regulation. We propose that circadian dysfunction reflects progressive intracellular desynchronization rather than isolated clock‐gene failure, opening diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities aimed at restoring subcellular temporal coherence. (shrink)

An aim of science is to increase our understanding of the natural world. A primary means for doing so is by providing explanations, which often proceed by tracing the causes of phenomena. How can a causal explanation lead to understanding? While explanations can take many forms, I argue that to succeed they must embody a conception of causation shared with their audience. The challenge then, is to describe this conception and detail its role in explanation. While there is good evidence (...) that scientists employ more than one causal concept, I argue that the concept of productive causation (centered on the notion of bringing about change via a connection) has a primary role in natural science explanations. After critiquing other philosophical accounts, I develop a new theory of productive causation and show how it provides an underpinning for successful explanations. The heart of the theory is a network of persisting processes that possess dispositions toward change-producing mutual interactions. I argue that in a good explanation, the scientific entities, properties and activities invoked will correspond to the theory’s depiction of causal structure. One important dimension of the theory describes how repeated patterns of interaction can give rise to a hierarchy of composite processes. This allows the theory to account for stabilized entities at various spatio-temporal scales. In turn, this enables the approach to be applicable throughout the natural sciences. After starting with simple examples, I show how the theory deals with more challenging cases from physics to biology. I conclude that the approach illuminates how explanations of various forms across diverse disciplines can lead to scientific understanding. (shrink)

Is consolidation needed to account for retroactive interference in free recall? Interfering mental activity during the retention interval of a memory task impairs performance, in particular if the interference occurs in temporal proximity to the encoding of the to-be-remembered information. There are at least two rival theoretical accounts of this temporal gradient of retroactive interference. The cognitive neuroscience literature has suggested neural consolidation is a pivotal factor determining item recall. According to this account, interfering activity interrupts consolidation processes (...) that would otherwise stabilize the memory representations of TBR items post-encoding. Temporal distinctiveness theory, by contrast, proposes that the retrievability of items depends on their isolation in psychological time. According to this theory, information processed after the encoding of TBR material will reduce the temporal distinctiveness of the TBR information. To test between these accounts, implementations of consolidation were added to the SIMPLE model of memory and learning. We report data from two experiments utilizing a two-list free recall paradigm. Modeling results imply that SIMPLE was able to model the data and did not benefit from the addition of consolidation. It is concluded that the temporal gradient of retroactive interference cannot be taken as evidence for memory consolidation. (shrink)

This article develops a temporal lens on theoretical formation to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the conditions under which concepts emerge, circulate, and stabilize. Rather than treating AI as a cognitive agent or a source of theoretical novelty, it integrates Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of objectification with Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance to propose a framework of Rhythmic Recursion, analyzing how internal experiential tensions interact with external genealogical encounters. The article distinguishes between first-order objectification structures (sedimented theoretical traditions, vocabularies, (...) and paradigms) and second-order objectification structures (reflexive articulations formed through engagement with those traditions). It argues that recursion in theory formation is not additive but revisionary: each recursive movement partially rewrites earlier objectified segments rather than simply accumulating new layers. AI functions as a temporal mediator that compresses recursive intervals, allowing these revisions to occur earlier, more frequently, and with greater visibility during the formative stages of a concept. Through this temporal compression, conceptual boundaries, points of tension, and incompatibilities that would traditionally surface only after extended scholarly circulation are exposed at an embryonic stage. To clarify this mechanism, the article introduces a five-step recursive protocol for analyzing accelerated theoretical formation under AI-mediated conditions. The argument is illustrated through a reflexive case in which the manuscript itself emerges through such recursive rewriting, highlighting both the generative potential and epistemic risks of accelerated recursion. (shrink)

This chapter establishes the book’s conceptual focus on legal stability by examining how States articulate this idea in relation to maritime zones. It synthesizes State views across historical and contemporary contexts, including the negotiation of the LOSC, the drafting of Article 5, and recent interventions before the UN General Assembly. Drawing on these sources, the chapter unpacks the concept of ‘the legal stability of maritime zones’ into three key elements: spatial stability, temporal stability, and the (...) stability of the legal status of features. These elements provide the foundation for analysing how legal stability informs the contemporary interpretation of the law of the sea. (shrink)

We propose a structural reformulation of presentism that rejects the need for ontological substrata such as temporal instants or persisting entities as the basis of temporal ontology. Instead, we define the present as a dynamically stabilized configuration within a stratified field of constraints. This framework replaces existential quantification over objects with a logic of stratified actualization, captured by a family of non-normal, layer-indexed modal operators. Drawing from field-theoretic and structural realist perspectives, we show how presence, causality, and persistence (...) can be grounded in the local propagation of constraint regimes rather than in the persistence of entities. The resulting model dissolves the meta- physical tension between presentism and the formal structure of physics, without collapsing into relativism. We introduce a formal apparatus Stratified Actualization Logic (SAL) to articulate this shift, and argue that presentness should be understood not as the occupa- tion of a temporal location, but as the local coherence of dynamic configurations within a constraint-regulated system. This offers a new foundation for presentist metaphysics that is both ontologically parsimonious and structurally robust. (shrink)

Background: Continuous viewing of ambiguous patterns is characterized by wavering perception that alternates between two or more equally valid visual solutions. However, when such patterns are viewed intermittently, either by repetitive presentation or by periodic closing of the eyes, perception can become locked or "frozen" in one configuration for several minutes at a time. One aspect of this stabilization is the possible existence of a perceptual memory that persists during periods in which the ambiguous stimulus is absent. Here, we use (...) a novel paradgim of temporally interleaved ambiguous stimuli to explore the nature of this memory, with particular regard to its potential impact on perceptual organization. Results: We found that the persistence of a perceptual configuration was robust to interposed visual patterns and, further, that at least three ambiguous patterns, when interleaved in time, could undergo parallel, stable time courses. Then, using an interleaved presentation paradigm, we established that the occasional reversal in one pattern could be coupled with that of its interleaved counterpart, and that this coupling was a function of the structural similarity between the patterns. Conclusions: We postulate that the stabilization observed with repetitive presentation of ambiguous patterns can be at least partially accounted for by processes that retain a recent perceptual interpretation, and we speculate that such memory may be important in natural vision. We further propose tha the interleaved paradigm introduced here may be of great value to gauge aspects of stimulus similarity that appeal to particular mechanisms of perceptual organization. (shrink)

This Article shows how three modern English thinkers — Hobbes, Locke and Bentham — construe the law as an intersection of secular eternity on the one one hand and transience in modernity on the other, allowing for immovability and movement at the same time, combining stability with change. It details how these theorists, who undoubtedly have earned themselves places of honor in the canon of modern political thought, tried to solve the problem of self-grounding in three different and yet (...) paradigmatically modern ways, each of them intertwining law and time in a different fashion, and each of them connecting both law and temporality to happiness. Thus this Article shows not only that these three British thinkers claim in one way or another that while natural desires may provide pleasure, only the law can bring happiness, but also emphasizes that, in their view, the transformation of the former into the latter entails a transformation of temporal consciousness. Thereby this Article foregrounds two elements that are crucial to an understanding of how seventeenth and eighteenth century British thinkers envisaged the transformation of pleasure into happiness by means of the law: first, the notion that the law creates or reinforces duration in social life, and second, the idea that the law can harness the immediacy of desires by assuring the legal protection of enduring pleasures, which lead to happiness. (shrink)

This article investigates how firms address the stability-change paradox inherent in sustainability transitions through the maintenance and utilization of a portfolio of sustainability-oriented partnerships. Drawing on a retrospective case study of Dong/Ørsted, a Danish energy company, we demonstrate the varying manifestations of the stability-change paradox during different phases of the company’s transition, influenced by both exogenous and endogenous factors. Furthermore, our findings reveal how Dong/Ørsted employed their partnership portfolio to implement diverse responses to manage the paradox. Based on (...) these findings, we argue that partnership portfolios can serve as spatiotemporal pockets, enabling organizations to effectively address and leverage the temporal and spatial aspects inherent in sustainability paradoxes. In addition, we highlight how partnership portfolios facilitate sustainability transitions by creating and leveraging different forms of collaborative value. (shrink)

This paper develops a non-metric model of causal structure based on the directed variation of a scalar field F(x)F. Departing from traditional frameworks that tie causality to spacetime metrics, we propose that causal precedence arises from internal asymmetries in F, independently of any geometric or temporal background. We formalize this idea via acyclic graphs, gradient structures, and threshold actualization, and show how regions of local stabilization in F give rise to emergent metric properties. The model supports a new type (...) of modal logic based on functional flow, with possibility and necessity defined relative to the direction of variation. We discuss the philosophical implications for structural realism, the direction of time, and the ontology of causation, and suggest that this framework offers a viable foundation for causal reasoning in background-independent physical theories such as quantum gravity. (shrink)

This chapter examines selected coastal States’ baseline legislation over time to assess whether international law implies a duty to update established baselines. It presents a baseline change study based on a representative group of low-elevation coastal States, analysing whether legislative action has been taken to revise baselines, and, if so, in what circumstances. The chapter finds that State practice is mixed and argues that, given the silence of the LOSC, there is insufficient support for an implied duty to update baselines. (...) In the absence of such a duty, the chapter concludes that the existing law accommodates a temporal dimension of legal stability, allowing baselines to be maintained over time. (shrink)

The author argues that in Mably's thought indignation is the theoretical pivot for understanding politics both as the government of the passions and as a prudential art rooted in natural law. Within a Platonic framework that reduces politics to morals, Mably distinguishes bodily passions from thymotic ones. Among the latter, indignation is the impulse that drives the individual beyond the private sphere, opens onto the public dimension, and can act as a "virtue by instinct". Its temporality is decisive: instantaneous in (...) its onset, yet capable of being held, guided, and transformed into duration by reason and by love of glory, the meta-­virtue that channels its thrust toward the common good. Fear and private interests neutralize indignation;; history, by contrast, prolongs its energy over time, converting the impulse into habits through exemplarity. Thus, indignation becomes both a temporal and a political device. It stabilizes steadfastness and courage, prepares the practice of republican virtues, and, in moments of crisis, preserves an operative residue of morality where reason falters. (shrink)

This paper develops a relational method for explaining systems whose identity unfolds through time. Standard object-first models treat objects as the basic units of analysis and explain change by adding internal features or temporal extensions. I argue that this approach systematically misrepresents temporal phenomena by assuming stability where none is primitive. This paper introduces a minimal inversion: take relations as ontologically basic and understand objects as the stable appearances generated when certain relational patterns persist within a field. (...) This shift reframes identity, meaning, and agency as relational invariants rather than intrinsic properties, offering a unified account of stability and change without metaphysical inflation. I articulate the structure of this relation-first ontology, develop a method for identifying relational invariants, and show how the approach resolves familiar tensions in the analysis of temporal systems. The result is a simple, general framework for explaining dynamic phenomena across cognitive, semantic, and social domains. (shrink)

We introduce a modal logic designed to capture directional modalities grounded in structural propagation. Unlike Kripke semantics, our logic interprets necessity not over accessible worlds, but over layers of actualization governed by constraint stability. The framework is non-normal, rejects the duality of □ and ♢, and supports asymmetric reasoning over stratified systems. We present the syntax, semantics, axiomatic foundations, and philosophical implications of this system.

Temporal stability and change in neutral contexts can transform continuous experiences into distinct and memorable events. However, less is known about how shifting emotional states influence these memory processes, despite ample evidence that emotion impacts non-temporal aspects of memory. Here, we examined if emotional stimuli influence temporal memory for recent event sequences. Participants encoded lists of neutral images while listening to auditory tones. At regular intervals within each list, participants heard emotional positive, negative, or neutral sounds, (...) which served as “emotional event boundaries” that divided each sequence into discrete events. Temporal order memory was tested for neutral item pairs that either spanned an emotional sound or were encountered within the same auditory event. Encountering a highly arousing event boundary led to faster response times for items encoded within the next event. Critically, we found that highly arousing sounds had different effects on binding ongoing versus ensuing sequential representations in memory. Specifically, highly arousing sounds were significantly more likely to enhance temporal order memory for ensuing information compared to information that spanned those boundaries, especially for boundaries with negative valence. These findings suggest that within aversive emotional contexts, fluctuations in arousal help shape the temporal organisation of events in memory. (shrink)

The article substantiates the social nature of the dichotomy of contemporary postmodern society through the analysis of the social content of possible forms of social activity. Using the terminology of S. Deetz’s theory of communication, the authors substantiate that today in Ukrainian society there are three main forms of social activity - consent; involvement; participation. The dominance of a certain form of social dialogue in society determines the nature, dynamics, direction, spatial and temporal social activity limitations. The results of (...) an empirical study on the distribution of forms of social activity in contemporary Ukrainian society are presented. Emphasis is placed on the fact that one of the conditions for reducing the social destructiveness of postmodern society is the value context of social dialogue as a manifestation of social activity that regulates relations between social groups. In postmodern society, there is a multiplicity of variations of social interaction. The social nature of the constructive social activity of contemporary Ukrainian society “lies” in the plane of “social interaction - social dialogue - social trust”. Effective social interaction between certain social groups leads to the formation of new social relations, that, in turn, form opportunities for social dialogue between them. This dialogue influences the evolution of the structural organization of society, which is a prerequisite for the stability of society, decreasing its potential social destructiveness. (shrink)

This article develops a comparative metaphysical inquiry into real time through a dialogue structured by formal analogy between al-Ghazālī’s theology of continuous creation (tajdīd al-khalq) and Lee Smolin’s relational, law-evolving physics. Against both timeless determinism and accounts of becoming that deny any further ontological grounding, it argues that real time may be understood as a structured horizon of actualization in which openness is progressively articulated into determinate actuality under constraint. Employing a non-reductive method of formal analogy, the analysis maps shared (...) problem-structures—discreteness, contingency, openness, and directionality—while foregrounding controlled disanalogies, especially the contrast between volitional grounding in al-Ghazālī and system-level, naturalistic actualization in Smolin. The article proposes three interpretive claims: (i) both frameworks may be read as relocating order within time rather than above it; (ii) the comparison brings into focus the philosophical problem of actualization, rather than mere succession, in accounts of real temporality; and (iii) stability and regularity are more plausibly understood as articulated within time than as timeless givens. The result is a layered account of temporal order in which volitional maintenance, ontological stabilization, and mathematical framing intersect, suggesting a way of viewing real time as ontologically significant and epistemically consequential within the present comparison. (shrink)

For over two millennia, the Münchhausen Trilemma has stood as an insurmountable barrier to foundationalist epistemology, asserting that all justification ends in infinite regress, circularity, or dogmatism. This paper presents a definitive resolution by transitioning from1D linear propositional logic to an infinite-dimensional fractal-temporal manifold. By applying the Ibaguner Fractal Operator (IFO), we demonstrate that the three “horns” of the trilemma are topological artifacts of Euclidean logical structures. We identify a fundamental stability threshold at the Ibaguner Constant (C_I ≈ (...) 0.3715), where the informational entropy of a justification chain collapses into a resonant fixed-point attractor. Drawing on the physics of White Hole Rebirth, we prove that logical singularities (paradoxes) undergo a process of topological inversion rather than termination. (shrink)

Time is of increasing concern in Black studies, with scholars studying the ways in which standardized narratives of time are historically imposed on racialized populations. This essay reads Safiya Sinclair’s 2016 poetry collection Cannibal as offering a fugitive temporality that ruptures the stability of the racializing present. In Cannibal, Sinclair’s speaker does not attempt to release herself from the racializing condemnation of the past. Rather, she summons a fugitive social past in the present, antagonizing the homogeneity of the present (...) by exposing it to the repressed and relegated wounds that haunt the foundations of modernity’s racializing program. In Cannibal, this summoning is occasioned through a practice of faith. Following J. Kameron Carter and Fred Moten, among others, this essay studies the ways in which this fugitive poetic temporality of faith builds on contemporary developments in the critique of time, religion, and whiteness in Black studies. (shrink)

Chapter 29 engages with the person-situation debate in social psychology to shed light on the existence of moral character from a particular measurement perspective—namely, naturalistic observation. The chapter reports on studies that examined the stability of moral daily behaviors using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), a digital audio-recorder that samples ambient sounds from participants’ daily lives. Across three studies, participants wore an EAR for one or two weekends. Positive (e.g., empathy, affection, gratitude) and negative (e.g., bragging, blaming, arrogance) moral (...) behaviors were coded from the audio files. In empirical analyses, the coded moral behaviors evidenced substantial temporal stability. Moreover, the stability of moral behavior was comparable to the stability of neutral linguistic behaviors (e.g., the use of articles and prepositions). Together, these findings indicate that moral character can be naturalistically observed in daily life and is substantially stable across time. (shrink)

This study investigates the procedural learning, retention, and reactivation of temporal sensorimotor sequences in children with and without developmental coordination disorder. Twenty typically-developing children and 12 children with DCD took part in this study. The children were required to tap on a keyboard, synchronizing with auditory or visual stimuli presented as an isochronous temporal sequence, and practice non-isochronous temporal sequences to memorize them. Immediate and delayed retention of the audio-motor and visuo-motor non-isochronous sequences were tested by removing (...) auditory or visual stimuli immediately after practice and after a delay of 2 h. A reactivation test involved reintroducing the auditory and visual stimuli after the delayed recall. Data were computed via circular analyses to obtain asynchrony, the stability of synchronization and errors. Firstly, an overall deficit in synchronization with both auditory and visual isochronous stimuli was observed in DCD children compared to TD children. During practice, further improvements were found for the audio-motor non-isochronous sequence compared to the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence in both TD children and children with DCD. However, a drastic increase in errors occurred in children with DCD during immediate retention as soon as the auditory stimuli were removed. Reintroducing auditory stimuli decreased errors in the audio-motor sequence for children with DCD. Such changes were not seen for the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence, which was equally learned, retained and reactivated in DCD and TD children. All these results suggest that TD children benefit from both auditory and visual stimuli to memorize the sequence, whereas children with DCD seem to present a deficit in integrating an audio-motor sequence in their memory. The immediate effect of reactivation suggests a specific dependency on auditory information in DCD. Contrary to the audio-motor sequence, the visuo-motor sequence was both learned and retained in children with DCD. This suggests that visual stimuli could be the best information for memorizing a temporal sequence in DCD. All these results are discussed in terms of a specific audio-motor coupling deficit in DCD. (shrink)

The vestibular system is critical for human locomotion. Any deteriorated vestibular system leads to gait instability. In the past decades, these alternations in gait patterns have been majorly measured by the spatial-temporal gait parameters and respective variabilities. However, measuring gait characteristics cannot capture the full aspect of motor controls. Thus, to further understand the effects of deteriorated vestibular system on gait performance, additional measurement needs to be taken into consideration. This study proposed using the margin of stability to (...) identify the patterns of dynamic control under different types of mastoid vibrations in walking. This study hypothesized that using the MOS method could facilitate the understanding of another aspect of motor control induced by different types of mastoid vibrations, and applying the mastoid vibrations could induce the asymmetric MOS. Twenty healthy young adults were recruited. Two electromechanical vibrotactile transducers were placed on the bilateral mastoid process to apply different types of vestibular vibrations. A motion capture system with eight cameras was used to measure the MOSap, MOSml, and respective variabilities. The results were in line with the hypotheses that both bilateral and unilateral mastoid vibrations significantly increased MOSap, MOSml, and respective variabilities p = 0.001, p < 0.001; p = 0.001, p < 0.01 when compared to the no vibration condition. Also, significantly larger MOSml, MOSml variability, MOSap, and MOSap variability were observed under the unilateral vibration condition than that observed under the bilateral vibration condition. The above-mentioned result found that different types of mastoid vibrations affected the MOS differently, suggesting different patterns of control mechanisms under different sensory-conflicted situations. Besides, a significant difference between the dominant and non-dominant legs was observed in MOSml. Moreover, applying the unilateral mastoid vibrations induced a greater symmetric index of MOSml, suggesting that more active control in balance was needed in the medial-lateral than in the anterior-posterior direction. (shrink)

Multiple sensory signals from visual, somatosensory and vestibular systems are used for human postural control. To maintain postural stability, the central nervous system keeps the center of mass (CoM) within the base of support. The influence of the stomatognathic motor system on postural control has been established under static conditions, but it has not yet been investigated during dynamic steady-state balance. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of controlled stomatognathic motor activity on the control and (...) stability of the CoM during dynamic steady-state balance. A total of 48 physically active and healthy adults were assigned to three groups with different stomatognathic motor conditions: jaw clenching, tongue pressing and habitual stomatognathic behavior. Dynamic steady-state balance was assessed using an oscillating platform and the kinematic data were collected with a 3D motion capturing system. The path length (PL) of the 3D CoM trajectory was used for quantifying CoM sway. Temporal dynamics of the CoM movement was assessed with a detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). An uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis was applied to assess the stability and control of the CoM with a subject-specific anthropometric 3D model. The statistical analysis revealed that the groups did not differ significantly in PL, DFA scaling exponents or UCM parameters. The results indicated that deliberate jaw clenching or tongue pressing did not seem to affect the sway, control or stability of the CoM on an oscillating platform significantly. Because of the task-specificity of balance, further research investigating the effects of stomatognathic motor activities on dynamic steady-state balance with different movement tasks are needed. Additionally, further analysis by use of muscle synergies or co-contractions may reveal effects on the level of muscles, which were not visible on the level of kinematics. This study can contribute to the understanding of postural control mechanisms, particularly in relation to stomatognathic motor activities and under dynamic conditions. (shrink)

Mixing Actor-Network Theory, empirical philosophy, and Heidegger’s notion of usability, this paper discusses a methodological strategy for approaching and temporarily stabilizing urban life based on an experimental epistemological exercise of decomposing a traffic light in Times Square, New York City, into its practices and relations. This strategy conceives of urban elements and formations as multiplicities of multiple and simultaneous practices and materials (useful things) and pays particular attention to the effervescences and heterogeneous associations they embody and enact. As a contribution (...) to the social approach of knowledge production, this essay explores the creation of concepts using any aspects and components taken from outside, unpacking them as analytical instruments and partial results of multimodal ethnographic practices. In a more concrete scenario, Region of usefulness, a sort of qualitative multiplicity, is proposed here as an unfinished epistemological tool for empirically grasping and representing urban life. It is unfinished since it has to be constantly reconstructed and resignified in relation to other elements and, at the same time, it has to be designed and assembled by following and translating those mixed associations composing urban life, using its modes and affordances as analytical resources for producing objective knowledge, that is, limited, embodied, and temporal. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the interplay of repetition and novelty as central themes of temporal orderings and explores their significance for personal experience, social structures, and cultural practices. Repetition offers stability and orientation, while novelty creates contrasts and enables inventive developments. Both elements work together (giving rise to ‘variation’) to avoid fatigue as well as chaos. With regard to well-being, new experiences are particularly relevant in monotonous environments, while stable rhythms provide orientation in variable environments. Socially, this interplay manifests (...) itself in timetables, holidays, and legal systems, which ensure stability through repetition but leave room for adaptation. Even rituals, such as religious ceremonies or public and private commemorations, not only have repetitive elements but also leave room for some novelty to keep their meanings alive. Something similar holds for the historical development of the understanding of time and is even true of clocks and clockmaking. This chapter ends with an analysis of how the timescales (or the frequency range) of human action expands and how this changes human perceptions and responsibilities—think of climate change for long-range and digitisation for short-term effects. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic critique of contemporary foundationalist metaphysics, specifically targeting grounding theory and dispositional essentialism through the lens of Ontological Instability. I argue that stability-based theories in analytic metaphysics are not merely empirically inadequate but logically impossible. Through three interconnected mechanisms—the Stabilization Paradox, Temporal Contradiction, and Relational Undermining—I demonstrate that foundationalist approaches necessarily undermine themselves. The paper provides detailed reductio ad absurdum arguments against Jonathan Schaffer's grounding theory and Alexander Bird's dispositional essentialism, supported by case studies (...) from quantum mechanics. I conclude that Ontological Instability represents a fundamental logical constraint that necessitates the development of post-foundationalist metaphysics based on dynamic processes rather than stable foundations. (shrink)

The Strange Situation procedure was developed by Ainsworth two decades agoas a means of assessing the security of infant-parent attachment. Users of the procedureclaim that it provides a way of determining whether the infant has developed species-appropriate adaptive behavior as a result of rearing in an evolutionary appropriate context, characterized by a sensitively responsive parent. Only when the parent behaves in the sensitive, species-appropriate fashion is the baby said to behave in the adaptive or secure fashion. Furthermore, when infants are (...) observed repeatedly in the Strange Situation,the pattern of behavior is said to be highly similar, and this pattern is said to predict the infants' future behavior in a diverse array of contexts. After an exhaustive review of the literature, it is shown that these popular claims are empirically unsupported in their strong form, and that the interpretations in terms of biological adaptationare misguided. There is little reliable evidence about the specific dimensions of parental behavior that affect Strange Situation behavior, although there does appear to be some relationship between these constructs. Temporal stability in security of attachment ishigh only when there is stability in family and caretaking circumstances. Likewise, patterns of Strange Situation behavior only have substantial predictive validity in similarly stable families. Implications for future research and theorizing — particularly as they relate to the use of evolutionary biology in psychological theory — are discussed. (shrink)

Basic understandings of subjectivity are derived from the principles of masculine embodiment such as temporal stability and singularity. But pregnancy challenges such understandings because it represents a sort of splitting of the body. In the pregnant situation, a subject may experience herself as both herself and an other, as well as neither herself nor an other. This is logically untenable—an impossibility. If our discourse depends on singular, fixed referents, then what paradigms of identity are available to the pregnant (...) subject? What could be the pregnant subject's ontology? -/- Eric Bapteste and John Dupré offer the idea that organisms are processual beings. In their view, the ecological interrelationships between the objects of biology are defining, and render them dynamic processes, rather than stable things. Does Bapteste and Dupré’s processual ontological account accommodate pregnant organisms, including pregnant people? -/- Here, I analyze the processual account and determine whether it can accommodate the phenomenon of pregnancy. I find that a processual ontology captures a great deal about pregnant embodiment and is a significant improvement over Cartesian and anti-metaphysical accounts. However, in order to accommodate pregnancy, what we still need from an ontology is the inclusion of subjectivity. (shrink)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an organization which seeks to identify the causes of human cancer. Per agent, such as betel quid or Human Papillomaviruses, they review the available evidence deriving from epidemiological studies, animal experiments and information about mechanisms (and other data). The evidence of the different groups is combined such that an overall assessment of the carcinogenicity of the agent in question is obtained. In this paper, we critically review the IARC’s carcinogenicity evaluations. First (...) we show that serious objections can be raised against their criteria and procedures – more specifically regarding the role of mechanistic knowledge in establishing causal claims. Our arguments are based on the problem of confounders, of the assessment of the temporal stability of carcinogenic relations, and of the extrapolation from animal experiments. Then we address a very important question, viz. how we should treat the carcinogenicity evaluations that were based on the current procedures. After showing that this question is important, we argue that an overall dismissal of the current evaluations would be too radical. Instead, we argue in favour of a stepwise re-evaluation of the current findings. (shrink)

In this paper we describe the basics of the measurement of human dignity at the individual level, as well as within social contexts such as teams and organizations. In accordance with the prevailing literature, we define human dignity as the unconditional belief in the intrinsic value of life. Based on this, we established a model that understands dignity as a latent construct by evaluating personal sense of worth as well as behaviors that either violate or honor such an intrinsic value (...) in social contexts. We developed and tested a 3-factor measure of dignity. The first factor assessed a personal sense of dignity (individual level), the second the extent to which leadership honors dignity and how work teams themselves express dignity to their members. The third factor assessed the extent to which the organizational culture honors and protects the dignity of its members. We examined the internal reliability, temporal stability, convergent, divergent, and predictive validity of our scales and presented a psychometrically sound assessment tool of intrinsic value for organizations, teams, and individuals. (shrink)

Classroom discourse is structured by asymmetry: a knowledgeable party solicits responses from learners to assess their understanding and guide instruction. This paper argues that when the epistemic goods at stake in these exchanges — attention, interpretive effort, and evaluative uptake — are allocated on nonpedagogical grounds, learners suffer a formative epistemic wrong. It develops formative epistemic injustice as a category of epistemic injustice that requires its own analytical framework rather than extension from Miranda Fricker’s testimonial model. Fricker’s framework centres on (...) credibility deficits in exchanges between epistemic peers, but pedagogical contexts operate under constitutive asymmetries that render credibility unsuitable as an allocative principle. The just distribution of epistemic goods in classrooms adheres instead to pedagogical norms. When these norms are violated, the primary wrong targets learners’ developing epistemic agency, distorting the capacities on which mature knowledgeproduction depends. This account explains how unjust allocation can become entrenched even without identity prejudice. Concentrated authority limits correction, developmental vulnerability weakens contestation, and temporal stability transforms momentary skew into persistent practice. Remedies combine teacher virtues of pedagogical discernment and transparency with institutional design that diffuses authority and makes patterns of attention and evaluation visible and revisable. (shrink)