The human species’ adaptive advantage is driven by its ability to build new material structures and artefacts. Engineering is the modern manifestation of this building instinct, and its advent has made the construction and use of technologies the central pattern of human life. In parallel, efficiency, the overarching narrative driving technology and related life practices, has pervaded most occupations as a value, forming a cultural backdrop that implicitly guides decisions and behaviour. We examine the process through which this backdrop has (...) developed, and argue that it emerged through the constant presence and use of built artefacts and structures, which function as manifestations of the engineering value of efficiency. The constant presence and use of built structures leads to the slow percolation of their building values into society, forming a cultural narrative that emphasises efficiency. This narrative then feeds back, to further reinforce efficiency-driven engineering processes. This loop creates a runaway building system that is highly resistant to change, even when faced with the prospect of the species going extinct. Any effort towards sustainability can be successful only when this all-pervading – and hence invisible – building loop is made explicit, and compensated for, through a counter-loop where building manifests sustainable engineering values. As a first step in revealing this structure, we characterise the emergence of the efficiency value as a cultural narrative, and analyse its wide-ranging environmental effects. We then present the design principle of ‘Solving for Pattern’ (SfP) as an illustrative contrast case. SfP, first articulated by Wendell Berry, focuses on interconnectedness and flourishing of all species as central design principles. We argue that these ecological principles can be extended to engineering, and can thus support the development of a robust operational-level building movement that manifests value systems oriented towards sustainability. To ground this proposal in actual practice, we outline two case studies of technology design that illustrates SfP. We also discuss three cases that illustrate SfP at a larger scale, and examine how these extend existing design approaches such as systems engineering. We conclude with a proposal to include SfP in engineering education curricula, to facilitate a faster cultural shift towards flourishing, which is required given the limited time window available to move to sustainable building practices. (shrink)

Human building activity – the making of new tools, materials, artifacts, external representations, scientific models, instruments etc., and the systematic recombination of these to reshape the environment – has significantly damaged the planet’s biosphere and climate. New engineering design approaches – such as green energy and circular economies – have been proposed to contain the environmental effects of humans’ runaway making activity. Parallel to these efforts to change the _external_ nature of making, we also need to characterize – and eventually (...) reshape – the _internal_ mechanisms underlying human making behavior itself, particularly now that generative-AI is set to radically change and accelerate making. As a starting point to develop such an internal characterization of making, we present an account of the cognitive mechanisms that lead up to human making, and show how changes to these mechanisms enable further making, thus creating a recursive loop that promotes runaway making. We discuss some theoretical implications of this account. (shrink)

In a bid to boost fertility levels, Iran and Japan have recently launched their own dating apps, with more countries likely to follow. The aim of this article is to consider whether state-run dating apps are morally desirable, which is a question that has not received any scholarly attention. It finds that such apps have at least two benefits that collectively, if not individually, render their introduction to be welcomed provided certain conditions are met. These benefits are that (...) they are better placed than commercial dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble, and Badoo to (i) help people find lasting love and to (ii) protect individuals from spending too much money and/or time on online dating. Several objections are discussed and shown to be unconvincing as arguments against state-run dating apps tout court, including the objection that for states to offer their own dating apps is unduly expensive; the objection that it gives them too much power; and the objection that they should invest in creating offline opportunities for meeting potential partners instead. (shrink)

What does morality require of individuals in their dating and sex life? In this article I challenge recent outlines of antidiscrimination duties in the dating sphere and present a plausible alternative: the deliberative duty. This duty avoids the risks and limitations of earlier outlines: it is time-sensitive regarding the malleability of intimate preferences, it avoids being too demanding on the duty-bearer and minimizes the risk of generating mere dutiful attraction behavior towards right-holders. In addition, it is better suited (...) for universal action guidance in the dating sphere than earlier outlines of individual antidiscrimination duties. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

How do hip-hop songs produced from 2017 to 2023 depict and rationalize online fraud? This study examines the depiction of online fraudsters in thirty-three Nigerian hip-hop songs on nine popular streaming platforms such as Spotify, Deezer, iTunes, SoundCloud, Apple Music, and YouTube. Using a directed approach to qualitative content analysis, we coded lyrics based on the moral disengagement mechanism and core themes derived from existing literature. Our findings shed light on how songs (a) justify the fraudulent actions of online fraudsters, (...) (b) blame and dehumanize victims of online romance fraud, (c) glamorize online fraud, and (d) provide insights into prevailing attitudes, indigenous linguistics, and worldviews regarding cybercrime victimization. Specifically, our analysis shows the presence of moral disengagement mechanisms, including "dehumanization," “minimizing own agency,” and "displacement of responsibility." Moreover, we identify core contextual themes pertinent to online fraud in the Nigerian context: (a) "cyber spiritualism" and (b) "the North-South divide." This research underscores the global influence of musicians whose songs are easily accessible on diverse music platforms in trivializing the plight of online fraud victims. We argue that these artists' persuasive messages not only downplay but also satirize the victims' predicaments, thus contributing to the cultural worldviews and dimensions of online fraud. We conclude by underscoring these songs' capacity to actualize, reshape, and actively engage with the narratives of glamorization, justification, spiritualism, colonial legacies, gender dynamics, and societal implications. We recommend that future research endeavors explore non-conventional data sources adept at capturing the intricate fabric of cultural attitudes and dynamics. (shrink)

Love, sex, and physical intimacy are some of the most desired goods in life and they are increasingly being sought on dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble, and Badoo. For those who want a leg up in the chase for other people’s attention, almost all of these apps now offer the option of paying a fee to boost one’s visibility for a certain amount of time, which may range from 30 min to a few hours. In this article, I (...) argue that there are strong moral grounds and, in countries with laws against unconscionable contracts, legal ones for thinking that the sale of such visibility boosts should be regulated, if not banned altogether. To do so, I raise two objections against their unfettered sale, namely that it exploits the impaired autonomy of certain users and that it creates socio-economic injustices. (shrink)

This article discusses places and practices of young heterosexual Malaysian Muslims dating in non-private urban spaces. It is based on research conducted in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in two consecutive summers 2016 and 2017. Malaysian law (Khalwat law) does not allow for two unrelated people (where at least one of them is Muslim) of opposite sexes to be within ‘suspicious proximity’ of one another in public. This law significantly influences behaviors and activities in urban spaces in KL. In addition to (...) the legal framework, the beliefs of Malaysian muslims significantly influence the way they perceive space and how they behave in the city. The article discusses the empirical theme, beginning with the participants’ narratives of their engagement with the dominant sexual and gender order in non-private spaces of KL. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews and observations, this paper draws upon a qualitative research project and questions the analytical usefulness of the notion of public space (as a Western construct) in the context of an Islamic, postcolonial, tropical, global city. (shrink)

The online dating application has in recent years become a major avenue for meeting potential partners. But while the digital public sphere has gained the attention of political philosophers, a systematic normative evaluation of issues arising in the ‘digital sexual sphere’ is lacking. I provide a philosophical framework for assessing dating app corporation conduct, capturing why people use these apps and their experience so often is unsatisfactory. Identifying dating apps as agents intervening in a social institution necessary (...) for the reproduction of society, with immense power over people's lives, I ask if they exercise their power in line with individuals’ interests. Acknowledging that people have claims to non-interference, equal standing, and choice improvement relating to intimacy, I find that the traditional, non-digital, sexual sphere poses problems to their realisation, especially for sexual minorities. In this context, apps’ potential for justice in the sexual sphere is immense, but unfulfilled. (shrink)

Ghosting is a major concern for those advocating for more ethical dating apps. It is often cited as an example of bad dating app behaviour, and some public commentators even consider it a form of abuse. In this chapter, I develop an ethics of ghosting that does not overstate the harms involved while provided with well-defined individual duties with respect to ghosting. I start by defining ghosting as the unilateral ending of interaction without an explicit communication that the (...) interaction is to end. Then, I give an account of why ghosting is wrongful in the case of committed relationships: because it deliberately worsens constitutional vulnerabilities concerning people's sense of meaningfulness. In the context of online dating, users are also constitutionally vulnerable, albeit on different grounds: with regards to their hopes and with regards to their status as social beings. I argue that users have a positive duty to an active exit when they foreseeably contribute to vulnerability, and a negative duty with respect to the essentially aggregative harms which constitutionally arise in dating apps. In this way, I conclude that users of dating apps must refrain from ghosting not only when they directly contribute to vulnerability, but also when a user is a likely victim of frequent interactional harm. In other cases, users are bound by a duty to collectively work towards more ethical dating apps, which should remove mechanisms conducive to ghosting. (shrink)

Michael Dummett has shown that the fragment ‘17 Kernsätze zur Logik’ is evidence that Frege knew Lotze's Logik Dummett’s dating of this fragment prior to 1879, however, must be rejected.The present paper shows that there are other articles of Frege’s which bear clear traces of Lotze's LogikFirst of all, the expressions Vorstellungsverlauf from ‘Über die wissenschaftliche Berechtigung einer Begriffsschrift’, and veranlassenden Ursachen, from ‘Logik’, certainly are borrowed from Lotze.Second, there are links between ‘Booles rechnende Logik und die Begriffsschrift’ and (...) Lotze's Logik. Furthermore, it is shown that Frege’s ‘Kernsätze’, the ‘Dialog mit Pünjer über Existenz’, and his ‘Logik’ are intimately connected.All of this indicates that these texts were written in roughly the same period, namely the early 1880s.Conclusive evidence for this is that the terms Vorstellung and Vorstellungsverbindung are used indiscriminately in both a psychological and a logical sense in the ‘Begriffsschrift’, a fact which contradicts the ‘Kernsätze’. (shrink)

Blog article on the relations between epistemic injustice and the language of modern dating.

The ethical and social implications of data mining, algorithmic curation and automation in the context of social media have been of heightened concern for a range of researchers with interests in digital media in recent years, with particular concerns about privacy arising in the context of mobile and locative media. Despite their wide adoption and economic importance, mobile dating apps have received little scholarly attention from this perspective – but they are intense sites of data generation, algorithmic processing, and (...) cross-platform data-sharing; bound up with competing cultures of production, exploitation and use. In this paper, we describe the ways various forms of data are incorporated into, and emerge from, hook-up apps’ business logics, socio-technical arrangements, and cultures of use to produce multiple and intersecting data cultures. We propose a multi-layered research agenda for critical and empirical inquiry into this field, and suggest appropriate conceptual and methodological frameworks for exploring the social and political challenges of data cultures. (shrink)

Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practice. In light of the contested nature of (...) the phenomenon, in this article we critically assess how knowledge about sugar dating is constructed in the emerging literature on the topic in the Global North, with a particular focus on the role attributed to sugar daters’ own experiential accounts. Alongside furthering the discourse on sugar dating by unravelling the epistemological underpinnings of existing research, we utilise the case of sugar-dating research to elaborate on the continued relevance of feminist debates on the epistemological status of experience. We call for a more comprehensive theoretical examination of experience in sugar-dating research and posit that some versions of feminist standpoint theory, as well as strands in feminist phenomenology, provide valuable theoretical tools for navigating between understanding experience as an ideological construct and/or as a privileged foundation of knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Mere Social Conventions Pseudo‐Pathologies Pathologies and Decisions Pathology and Utility.

Dating and hookup apps (DHAs) are now widely used and may be transforming our intimate relationships. The apps are beneficial in fostering intimate connections among those who are lonely, who are members of minority or marginalized groups, or who live nomadic lifestyles because of work or recreational travel. However, the wider social and relational changes that DHAs portend are merely beginning to be seriously discussed by academics (Arias et al., 2017). In this chapter, we employ concepts from the philosophy (...) of technology that inform our analysis of these changes. We also collate some of the morally significant impacts of DHAs and present some of the elements of the architecture of DHAs that facilitate them. Although there are many reasons to be concerned about DHAs, we argue that there is room for cautious optimism that DHAs may be vehicles of positive social and moral change. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to a critical revision of the source research within the framework of the "historical Jesus". The authors question the established chronological framework of New Testament texts in academic biblical studies, arguing that the traditional dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to the middle of the first century is unfounded. A key argument is presented regarding the priority of Marcion's "Gospel of the Lord" (circa 140 AD), which is considered the primary Synoptic text, (...) while the canonical Synoptics are viewed as later (second half of the second century) and tendentiously edited compilations. Within the Christian tradition, the authors doubt the reliability of the Synoptic Gospels, pointing to the "silence" of the apostle Paul, apostolic fathers, and early Christian authors who do not exhibit familiarity with these texts in their canonical form until the end of the second century. The authors employ both an interdisciplinary approach and a classic historical-critical method. Based on the analysis of non-biblical testimonies (Josephus, Tacitus, Mandaean literature), the conclusion is drawn regarding their extremely limited value due to their late origin and dependence on established narratives. A cardinal chronological shift in the dating of the Synoptic Gospels allows for the proposal of a new hierarchy of sources, with the Gospel of John and, especially, the Gospel of Thomas coming to the forefront. According to the authors, the Gospel of Thomas contains the most ancient layer of sayings (logia) of Jesus and can be considered a candidate for the role of the hypothetical Q source. The Synoptics, in turn, are further examined as a secondary source of questionable reliability. This revision leads to a radical rethinking of the image of Jesus: he emerges not as a messiah within the framework of Second Temple Judaism, but as an antagonist of the biblical tradition, a preacher of a different God—the Heavenly Father. Thus, the research offers a complete revision of the scientific paradigm of the "search for the historical Jesus," calling into question the established consensus regarding his Jewish context and the centrality of the Synoptic tradition. (shrink)

Erich Fromm hat 1956 in seinem zum Bestseller avancierten Buch „Die Kunst des Liebens“ zu Beginn drei Irrtümer unserer modernen Liebesauffassung moniert. Anstatt die eigene Fähigkeit zu lieben im Sinne einer charakterlichen Entwicklung möglichst gut auszubilden, gehe es den meisten erstens primär darum, geliebt zu werden und sich daher möglichst attraktiv darzustellen. Zweitens stehe die Suche nach einem passenden Liebesobjekt im Zentrum. Drittens schließlich würde Liebe mit Verliebtheit verwechselt. Die in Dating-Apps (implizit) vorausgesetzte Vorstellung romantischer Liebe scheint prima facie (...) allen drei Irrtümern anheimzufallen. In meinem Beitrag gehe ich daher erstens der Frage nach, welche Konzeption von Liebe dem Selbstverständnis und der Funktionalität von Dating-Apps (implizit) zugrunde liegt und inwiefern diese Konzeption den von Fromm konstatierten Irrtümern tatsächlich anheimfällt. Die unterstellte Vorstellung besteht darin, Liebe als eine unwillkürliche emotionale Reaktion auf eine möglichst gut „passende“ andere Person (das Liebesobjekt) zu sehen, weshalb es in Dating-Apps stets um Matchmaking geht. Diese Vorstellung fällt, wie ich argumentiere, tatsächlich allen drei von Fromm genannten Irrtümern anheim. Zweitens diskutiere ich vor dem Hintergrund dreier einflussreicher Theoriestränge romantischer Liebe (individualistische Theorien, interpersonale Theorien und Vereinigungstheorien), inwiefern es sich dabei tatsächlich um Irrtümer handelt, wie Fromm meint, d. h. inwiefern sich die Konzeption von Liebe, die Dating-Apps (implizit) zugrunde liegt, mit diesen einflussreichen Theoriesträngen romantischer Liebe vereinbaren lässt. In der Tat zeigt sich hier, wie ich argumentiere, eine weitgehende Inkompatibilität, so dass Dating-Apps Gefahr laufen, in theoretischer Hinsicht keinen Raum für diese einflussreichen Liebeskonzeptionen zu lassen. Abschließend diskutiere ich mögliche Antworten auf diese Kritik und argumentiere, dass ein Zugeben des dritten Irrtums diese Gefahr zwar auf theoretischer Ebene bannen kann, jedoch nur teilweise hinsichtlich der Alltagspraxis. (shrink)

Anyone who studies antiquity is surely accustomed to the tenuousness and often wild variances of the dating of many of our texts. But even if this is taken for granted, the dating of Demetrius' On Style seems more problematic than most: the text has been assigned a date anywhere from the late fourth century B.c. to the late first century C.e. Attempts to narrow this wide range have been made using internal linguistic data, but these have not proved (...) definitive, although a late date is now tentativel accepted by most. But a possibly more convincing argument for a late date may be found in a reference to architecture in paragraph 13 of On Style. (shrink)

Various fields have examined the activity of flirting, predominantly based on experimental and reported data; the interactional workings are therefore often overlooked. Based on emails and chats from two Danish online dating sites, this article investigates how users negotiate romantic connections through the flirting strategy of ‘imagined togetherness’, linguistically constructing imagery of a shared future. Using the notion of the chronotope, turn-by-turn analysis demonstrates how users, embedded in the activity of getting to know each other, tenuously communicate romantic interest (...) by alluding to future points at which they might be together. Central to the strategy is a sequential pattern of avoiding closure and thereby preserving the imagery’s implicitness. The article concludes by arguing that while imagined togetherness functions to probe interests and thus protects oneself from potential rejection, it also draws on fundamental dynamics of fantasy in nourishing the excitement of romantic possibility. (shrink)

Potential romantic partners often employ specific communicative strategies in computer-mediated communication based on their anticipation of future interactions. This conversation analytic study examines the practice of assessments used in WeChat conversations between potential romantic partners. We found that people recurrently mobilize the action of assessment to maintain or terminate their relationships. Especially, people tend to provide more assessments after an initial assessment, which we term ‘continuing assessment’. We show that continuing assessments are sequentially organized in conversational context between co-participants and (...) are essential for relational developments. When potential partners aim to maintain or advance their relationships, continuing assessments are used to prevent a structurally integrated conversation from falling into closure. In contrast, continuing assessments are applied to put an end to the dialogue and to manage face work. Our study furthers the understanding of the communicative strategies of online dating. (shrink)

The history of post-war climate science has been written with a strong focus on the role of global geopolitics and climate models. In this article, I will broaden this perspective with a smaller-scale approach and a different technology. Drawing on the history of a radiocarbon dating laboratory in Switzerland, I show, on one hand, how local political and cultural contexts could influence the development of climate science and, on the other, how research technology beyond computer modelling also played a (...) crucial role in this development. I argue that such a smaller-scale approach can help us to better understand the process of the interdisciplinarization of climate science, as well as the role of technology in this process. (shrink)

This study examines how potential romantic partners in speed-dating encounters use gender to both proffer and formulate mate-preferences as a means of establishing affiliation. Drawing on a corpus of 36 speed-dating interactions, a sequential discursive psychological approach was used to analyze how gendered mate-preferences were initially elicited and formulated, as well as the interactional effects of mate-preferences that were designed to appear complicit versus resistant to gender conventionality. The findings reveal that both mate-preference solicitations and formulations were categorically (...) gendered and were treated as incipient or expected, suggesting that gendering mate-preferences is a normative action in first encounters by potential romantic partners. Further, mate-preferences that were marked as conventional rarely promoted an environment of mutual affiliation, whereas mate-preferences that were formulated as resistant to gender-conventionality did tend to function as a preliminary for affective affiliation. The study reveals that the gendering of mate-preferences is a responsive social practice with an interactional design that has relational consequences for the ways potential romantic partners create connection. (shrink)

Social epistemologists use the term hermeneutical injustice to refer to a form of epistemic injustice in which a structural prejudice in the economy of collective interpretive resources results in a person’s inability to understand his/her/their own social experience. This essay argues that the phenomenon of unacknowledged date rapes, that is, when a person experiences sexual assault yet does not conceptualize him/her/their self as a rape victim, should be regarded as a form of hermeneutical injustice. The fact that the concept of (...) date rape has been widely used for at least three decades indicates the intractability of hermeneutical injustices of this sort and the challenges with its overcoming. (shrink)

Individuals in dating and marital relationships experience various transgressions that require forgiveness (e.g., hurtful communication, mistrust, lies, or infidelity). This study examines forgiveness-granting strategies in the context of forgiveness tendency, relationship length, commitment, satisfaction, and relational consequences to better understand relationship dynamics. 649 individuals (532 dating, 117 married), aged 18–65 (M = 26.00, SD = 8.82) participated. The sample included 517 women (79.7 %) and 132 men (20.3 %). Participants described a forgiven transgression and completed questionnaires, including the (...) Multidimensional Forgiveness-Granting Scale (MFGS), Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), and the commitment subscale from the Investment Model Scale. One open-ended question (types of forgiven transgressions) was analyzed consensually. Quantitative data were analyzed using correlational analysis, regression analysis, and t-tests. The most common transgression was infidelity. A linear regression analysis showed that the strongest positive predictor of relationship satisfaction was the tendency to forgive one’s partner. Nonverbal displays positively predicted relationship strengthening, while the discussion strategy predicted relationship deterioration negatively. These findings emphasize the importance of how forgiveness is communicated and may inform interventions to enhance romantic relationships. (shrink)

There has been little investigation of male adolescent violence against women as acknowledged by boys themselves, and even less on such violence in different contexts with comparative studies of behavior between those who perpetrate this violence and the population at large. This study used cluster analysis to establish a male adolescent typology based on boys’ self-reporting of violence against women in three contexts. The participants were 3,132 Spanish teenage boys aged 14–18 with experience of relationships with girls. Three discrete, identifiable (...) types were obtained: the first group (69.8%), ofnon-violentboys; the second group (26%), more involved insexual harassment onlineoutside a relationship but with a low incidence of dating violence offline; the third group (4.2%), withabuse in the three contextsbut less involved in sexual harassment online than the second group. The logistic regression analysis showed that justification of male dominance and violence was the main risk condition for inclusion in the second and third groups, followed by low self-esteem (for the third group) and risky sexual behaviors online (for the second and third groups). The findings based on these results are important for preventing male adolescent dating violence against women in the three male types detected. (shrink)

In 1988, three laboratories performed a radiocarbon analysis of the Turin Shroud. The results, which were centralized by the British Museum and published in Nature in 1989, provided ‘conclusive evidence’ of the medieval origin of the artefact. However, the raw data were never released by the institutions. In 2017, in response to a legal request, all raw data kept by the British Museum were made accessible. A statistical analysis of the Nature article and the raw data strongly suggests that homogeneity (...) is lacking in the data and that the procedure should be reconsidered. (shrink)

In a bid to boost their below-replacement fertility levels, some countries, such as China, India, Iran, and Japan, have launched state-sponsored dating apps, with more potentially following. However, the use of dating apps as tools for social engineering has been largely neglected by political theorists and public policy experts. This article fills this gap. While acknowledging the risks and historical baggage of social engineering, the article provides a qualified defense of using these apps for three purposes: raising below-replacement (...) birth rates, increasing social cohesion, and preventing certain genetic diseases. (shrink)

Author and speaker Rebekah Hamrick presents a humorous and informative nonfiction book on purity for teen girls that shows waiting for the man God intends may not always be easy, but it is worth the risk.

This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to ‘look behind’ people’s appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of (...) the question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people’s appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways. (shrink)

This study investigated the time-course characteristics of attentional bias, such as vigilance and maintenance, towards violent stimuli in dating violence (DV) survivors. DV survivors with PTSD symptoms (DV-PTSD group; n=14), DV survivors without PTSD symptoms (Trauma Control group; n=14), and individuals who were never exposed to dating violence (NDV group; n=15) viewed slides that presented four categories of images (violent, dysphoric, positive, and neutral) per slide, for ten seconds. Our results revealed that the DV-PTSD group spent more time (...) on violent stimuli than did the Trauma Control or NDV groups. The DV survivors, both with and without PTSD symptoms, spent more time on dysphoric stimuli and less time on happy stimuli than did the NDV group. In addition to the effects of PTSD, researchers should also be considering the effects of simple traumatic exposure. (shrink)

Dispositionalism is the theory of modality according to which all (metaphysical and natural) modal truths are made true by some actual irreducibly dispositional property. The relationship between Dispositionalism and time is yet to be satisfactorily explored. In this paper we contribute to this task by examining how Dispositionalism deals with ‘dated truths’: propositions involving a specific time, e.g. “It might rain at 12.30”. We examine two possible accounts: the first, 'Dated Manifestations Strategy', is the idea that powers are very fine-grained, (...) and tend towards temporally very specific manifestations. We argue that such strategy should not be adopted, for it leads to unnecessary violations of ontological parsimony; it is unable to accommodate an ontology of platonic universals; and it is incapable of offering a principled explanation of the forward-looking nature of powers. We offer an alternative account, the "Duration Strategy", which relies on an independently determined arrow of time and the existence of some “duration facts” that specify how long a power takes to bring about its manifestation. We argue that the Duration Strategy is to be preferred. We then flesh out the account by exploring the connection between powers, duration facts, and processes. (shrink)

In Hang The DJ, Amy and Frank meet via an online dating system that promises that if you stick with it, it will continue gathering information until it finds your soul mate, or “ultimate compatible other,” trumpeting a 99.8% success rate. In this chapter we explore the broad issue of digital relationships from the point of view of two particular philosophies of life: Stoicism and existentialism. The episode raises a multiplicity of philosophical issues concerning the choices we make about (...) romantic love. For example, does finding a perfect match really boil down to a formula? And if we could find such a formula, would that be a good way to find love? These two philosophical approaches help us to answer the question as to whether we should be relegating the task of finding a mate to computer algorithms. (shrink)

The present study aimed to investigate the importance of self-esteem for sociosexual orientation and to compare groups of dating online users in terms of engaging in casual sex, performed in one night stand (ONS) and friends with benefit (FWB). This issue seems particularly important in the context of psychosexual health. The exploratory study was conducted online among 416 adults who have participated in online dating. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R), the author’s questionnaire, (...) concerning having experiences in ONS and FWB, and motives for entering into expected types of relationships were used. The Kruskal-Wallis H test with post hoc pairwise comparisons. A statistically significant negative correlation between self-esteem and sociosexual orientation concerned the sociosexual attitude subscale. Differences were found between those engaging in ONS and FWB types of relationships. Those who engaged only in FWB had lower SOI-R scores than those who had only ONS experiences and both. Such results suggest that these relationships should be considered to be disparate and different functions should be attributed to them. Given the differences, it will be possible to use these results to support the design of public health interventions and reduce online sexual risk behavior. (shrink)

This article reveals how Muslim religious identity is impacted by Muslim dating apps. The development of Muslim dating apps within the last decade has led to Muslims seeking partners beyond their physical and social locality. The following research takes inner-Muslim discursive traditions into account in order to examine how Muslim males articulate and negotiate their Islamic identity in the process of partner selection. The research’s methodological approach draws from digital ethnography, with the smartphone as the primary field site. (...) The smartphone ethnography on the app of Muzmatch will demonstrate that users are physically embedded in doctrinally heterogenous contexts. Yet, the religious framework of the app promotes a “doctrinal homogeneity” that finds expression via the discursive articulations of the app users. It will be shown that users are being shaped by the app as they incorporate the religious framework provided by it. (shrink)

Leveraging a massive dataset of over 400 million potential matches between single heterosexuals on a leading mobile dating application we were able to identify numerous characteristics of effective matching. Effective matching is defined as the exchange of contact information with the intent to meet in person. The characteristics of effective match include alignment of psychological traits (i.e. extroversion), physical traits (i.e. height), personal choices (i.e., the relationship type they desired), and shared experiences. For nearly all characteristics, the more similar (...) the individuals were the higher the likelihood of them finding each other desirable and opting to meet in person. The only exception was introversion, where introverts rarely had an effective match with other introverts. Additionally, we investigated the preliminary stages of the choice process. We looked at the consistency between the choice of men/women, the time it took users to make these binary choices and the tendency of yes/no decisions. We used a biologically-inspired choice model to estimate the time allotted to a decision and could predict the decision and response time with nearly 60% accuracy. Given that people make their initial selection within no more than 11 seconds and ultimately converge to a partner who shares numerous attributes with them, we suggest that users are less selective in their early preferences and gradually converge to clusters with high degree of similarity in characteristics during their conversation. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to explore and to verify the utility of the five moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity) to differentiate between two understudied groups, namely, young offenders who use violence against their parents or dating partners, as well as to predict the extent to which these young people justify violence and perceive themselves as aggressive. Although both types of violence imply, by definition, harming someone (low care) and adopting a position of authority (high (...) authority), we hypothesize a very different role for at least these two moral foundations. Our results support this idea and show a much lower regard for the five moral foundations, including care and authority, in the child-to-parent violence group (CPV;N= 65) than in the dating violence group (DV;N= 69). Additionally, the authority foundation was able to increase the effectiveness of correctly classifying the participants in one group or the other by 29%. Finally, care and authority, along with fairness, served to predict justification of violence and self-perceived aggressiveness. The moral foundations approach provides preliminary evidence to better understand two specific types of youth violence and extract preventive educational and treatment strategies. (shrink)

When radiocarbon dating techniques were applied to archaeological material in the 1950s they were hailed as a revolution. At last archaeologists could construct absolute chronologies anchored in temporal data backed by immutable laws of physics. This would make it possible to mobilize archaeological data across regions and time-periods on a global scale, rendering obsolete the local and relative chronologies on which archaeologists had long relied. As profound as the impact of 14C dating has been, it has had a (...) long and tortuous history now described as proceeding through three revolutions, each of which addresses distinct challenges of capturing, processing and packaging radiogenic data for use in resolving chronological puzzles with which archaeologists has long wrestled. In practice, mobilizing radiogenic data for archaeological use is a hard-won achievement; it involves multiple transformations that, at each step of the way, depend upon a diverse array of technical expertise and background knowledge. I focus on strategies of triangulation and traceability that establish the integrity of these data and their relevance as anchors for evidential reasoning in archaeology. (shrink)

Progressing from the first flirtatious moment of eye contact to the selection of a “mate,” this enlightening book offers playful philosophical explorations of the dating game for anyone who has dated, is dating, or intends to date again. Offers amusing and enlightening philosophical insights into the dating game Helps demystify coupling in the 21 st century for those young daters just entering the fray, and those veterans returning to the game Features contributions from a wide range of (...) disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, communications, theology, economics, health sciences, professional ethics, and engineering and applied sciences Opens with Carrie Jenkins’ ground-breaking essay, _The Philosophy of Flirting,_ first published in _The Philosopher’s Magazine_. (shrink)