Ismael argues that the potential for negative interference creates a kind of instability in our representations of the future, thus preventing us from regarding the future as stable or fixed. However, this account of the sense of openness relies on an unjustified assumption that links instability of representations to representations of instability. In this paper, I argue that this assumption should be rejected, as its acceptance threatens to undermine our conception of the past as fixed. Towards the end of (...) this piece, I draw a comparison between Ismael’s account and the so-called ‘antirealism about the past’. This comparison will shed some light on how we can appreciate Ismael’s insight about the practicality of openness without relying on her notion of negative interference. (shrink)

Galleries, libraries, archives and museums are striving to retain audience attention to issues related to cultural heritage, by implementing various novel opportunities for audience engagement through technological means online. Although born-digital assets for cultural heritage may have inundated the Internet in some areas, most of the time they are stored in “digital warehouses,” and the questions of the digital ecosystem’s sustainability, meaningful public participation and creative reuse of data still remain. Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are used to bring (...) born-digital archives to light, aiming to enhance the public’s engagement and participation. At the core of this debate lies both the openness of data and issues of privacy. How open to the public should born-digital archives be? Should everything be open and available online, and what does it take to achieve balance between openness and privacy, especially through AI initiatives? The study is qualitative and builds on the rationale of grounded theory. The role of AI development is critically investigated in relation to opening up born-digital archives online, by considering privacy and ethics issues. Grounded in the context of the author’s PhD research, the paper proposes a human-centred approach to AI development for democratising its development towards fairness and social inclusion, contrary to the stereotypical cliché of blackboxing, allowing space for the plurality of born-digital archives to flourish. (shrink)

Under present conditions of multiple, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing crises, both the internal and external dimensions of citizenship have come under pressure. Externally, higher migration flows, growing multiculturalism, and the commodification of transnational belonging make it increasingly difficult – both morally and politically – to sustain hard boundaries between insiders and outsiders. Internally, democratic backsliding and the increasingly oligarchic character of contemporary societies weaken citizenship’s integrative function and, with it, its capacity to overcome difference and foster civic equality. This introduction (...) to the special issue Citizenship in Times of Polycrisis argues that these interlocking transformations generate a conflict over the breadth and depth of citizenship. Growing transnational interdependence, war, climate change – and the human mobility they trigger – simultaneously pressure the membership regimes of democratic states to become more open and fuel a conservative backlash that, by intensifying fragmentation and polarization, endangers democratic resilience. Yet while the global polycrisis may exacerbate tensions and contradictions already inherent in modern citizenship regimes, it may also catalyse their radical renewal, inviting political theorists, practitioners, and ordinary citizens to rethink the apparent conflict between citizenship’s broadening and deepening dynamics. This introduction begins that work by tracing the conflict through the history of political ideas, examining its present-day intensifications, and opening a new conversation about the normative reasons and political opportunities for expanding and reinvigorating citizenship in ways that make it both more just in access and more democratically robust. (shrink)

According to egalitarians, there is no privileged now-possible history. Egalitarianism seems to provide an attractive way to reconcile openness and omniscience, but, I argue, it does not.

The success of the atheistic hiddenness argument depends on the “consciousness constraint” it imposes on the divine-human loving relationship: namely, that this relationship requires human conscious awareness of being in the relationship with God. I challenge the truth of this proposition by introducing the concept of a physical relationship with God that is not subject to this constraint. I argue, first, that a physical relationship with God is metaphysically possible; second, that its plausibility is supported by natural theology; and third, (...) that a perfectly loving God would prefer physical relationships with human beings over consciousness-constrained relationships, because a perfectly loving God would prefer to preserve the integrity of human freedom of participation and allow inclusion of all people regardless of their natural cognitive capabilities. I also offer an interpretation of apparent divine hiddenness in the light of the idea of God’s openness for physical relationships. (shrink)

This paper explores the problem of racial privilege in US American feminist thought. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s analysis of ethics, particularly her ideas of epistemic discontinuity and teleopoietic reading, I argue that a specific kind of ethical openness can help feminist social-political philosophy better negotiate the legacy of white privilege. Spivak’s work calls for a reconsideration and reworking of the subject who theorizes. Her analysis of ethics suggests that racially privileged feminists must be able to confront their own complicity (...) in order to engage in political critique less likely to recreate historical patterns of racial domination and exclusion. (shrink)

Written by five scholars whose expertise extends across the disciplines of biblical, historical, systematic, and philosophical theology, this is a careful and ...

This article aims at introducing the matrixial theory of Bracha L. Ettinger to the field of academic teaching. As it intends to prove, feminist pedagogy would benefit from a matrix-informed approach to teaching, especially in the times of social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since of all student groups it is the university students who have been most directly affected by precarity and employment instability, they seem to be in an urgent need of openness, compassion, and understanding; the (...) matrixial theory – as this article demonstrates – responds to this necessity. Bracha L. Ettinger is a psychoanalyst, feminist, artist, and daughter of Holocaust survivors; her matrixial theory, based on the notions of the matrix and subjectivity-as-encounter, is a feminist supplement to psychoanalysis. The article begins with introducing the underpinnings of this psychoanalytical system and outlining its application in various areas, ranging from art history to trauma studies. Subsequently, the research joining Ettinger’s work and pedagogy is analysed; as it is shown, while these studies recognise the pedagogical potential of the matrixial theory, their scope is currently reduced to art-related disciplines. The next part is devoted to selected matrixial concepts that come out as especially relevant in the pedagogical context. What the article offers is a theoretical incentive to reflect on an approach to teaching based on reciprocity, responsibility, and participation despite the limit posed by the computer screen: an approach which – in the times of global precarity – can help define anew the student–teacher partnership. (shrink)

The ideal of scientific openness — i.e. the idea that scientific information should be freely accessible to interested parties — is strongly supported throughout the scientific community. At the same time, however, this ideal does not appear to be absolute in the everyday practice of science. In order to get the credit for new scientific advances, scientists often keep information to themselves. Also, it is common practice to withhold information obtained in commissioned research when the scientist has agreed with (...) his or her employer to do so. The secrecy may be intended for ever, as in the military area, but also temporarily until a patent application has been made. The paper explores to what extent such secrecy is undesirable, as seems to be suggested by the ideal of scientific openness. Should this ideal be interpreted as having certain exceptions which make the above-mentioned practices acceptable? Are there, on closer inspection, good arguments for the ideal of scientific openness, and for officially upholding it? Possible versions of the ideal of scientific openness are explored and the issue is found to be rather complex, allowing for wide variations depending on the acting parties, beneficiaries, types of information and moral requirements involved. We conclude that the arguments usually given in favour of this ideal are weaker than what seems to be generally believed, and that, on closer inspection, they leave plenty of room for exceptions to it. These exceptions only partly cover the actual practice of withholding scientific information, and there may still be good reason to advocate, teach and enforce the ideal of scientific openness within the scientific community. (shrink)

In this article, we present a reading of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology through the concept of openness upon the world. Through this reading, we show how the concept is important throughout his work, and we demonstrate the concept’s centrality as an organizing metaphor for his conception of subjectivity and perception. With ‘openness upon the world’ as his explicit basis, he attempts an ontology in his late works that more radically transcends the subject-object dichotomy. These developments facilitate a renewed account of (...) perception and, in turn, give a further ontological grounding for a psychological account of perception and subjectivity. (shrink)

The chapter addresses what is regarded as the main overarching issue in the morphogenic society, namely the complex mix of openness and closure. Some crucial social mechanisms amenable to the morphogenic condition of society are examined, with the aim of understanding how they tackled the question of openness and closure in various contexts. The text is organized as follows: In Sect. 4.2, I lay out a working definition, and explain how such a concept can serve to make my (...) substantive points. In Sect. 4.3 I quickly point out a few forms of social and individual life that seem to be disappearing. But the main focus is on the flipside of this argument, that is the identification of social phenomena that can legitimately be called new. I place some of them along a ‘scale of emergence’, interweaving levels of emergence with the levels of social organization (interaction, organization, and society) to present a landscape of social emergents. Based on such a picture, in Sect. 4.4 I present the example of social acceleration, highlighting its connection with the generative mechanism of unbound morphogenesis. In Sect. 4.5 I turn to the social environments which are responding to the increase in social complexity in the context of unfettered morphogenesis. Correspondingly, I focus on the notions of enclave, vortex and seed-bed as particular types of social environment. Then in Sect. 4.6 I present some illustrations of those concepts. Finally, in Sect. 4.7 some provisional conclusions are drawn about the emerging societal formation. (shrink)

The phenomenological conception of “life-world” lays the theoretical foundation for the openness of the world. The founding relationship between the individual and the world, the interactive relationship among different cultural worlds on the intersubjective level, the free nature of truth and its presence in the open world, the “ek-sistent” characteristics of the human-being, the structural constitution of the life-world – all these topics demonstrate the open nature of the world in a phenomenological way. Based on these ideas, “reflective judgment” (...) as “phronesis” and “fear” as ethic sentiment based on family experience become the practical stance, which is consistent with the “life-world” conception of phenomenology; the characteristics of publicness and intersubjectivity of the open world are thus maintained. In the face of the multicultural world, this attitude presents as a brand-new practice of intercultural philosophy, which is different from the centralism found under the framework of monism and the comparative philosophy under the framework of dualism. Such a practice of intercultural philosophy is “polylog”, i.e. based on the principles of difference and equality and searching for the “overlapping consensus” in full multi-participatory discussion. Through polylog, a harmonious life of human community is constructed. This paper attempts to derive a set of practical principles for maintaining the openness of the world and intercultural polylog in the era of globalization from the theoretical view of the phenomenological life-world. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to investigate two aspects, the unboundedness of the conceptual, and the openness of the mind towards the world. Benoist takes J. McDowell’s philosophy as a starting point and asks whether openness is a precondition for the unboundedness of the conceptual and whether it corresponds to understanding. The problem of the unboundedness of the conceptual is put in relation to perception and the experience gained from it. This is compared to E. Husserl’s view (...) of concepts as “cognitive generality”. The author considers openness a pre-requisite for the unboundedness of the conceptual and thus as a predisposing condition of conceptualization. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of trade openness on the economic growth of Southeast European countries for the period 2012–2022. The key factors analyzed include Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Government Spending (GE), Tax Revenues (TR), Unemployment (UN), Trade Deficit (DEF), and Trade Openness (TRO). A quantitative approach is adopted, using secondary annual data obtained from the World Bank and analyzed with Stata software. The results indicate that higher government spending, particularly when combined with elevated unemployment, tends to hinder (...) economic growth, whereas tax revenues, trade deficits, and trade openness positively contribute to economic performance in the region. The originality of this study lies in its integrated econometric analysis of multiple macroeconomic factors affecting Southeast European countries—a region that has been underexplored in the empirical literature. The study also provides practical implications for policymakers, suggesting that effective fiscal and trade policies can foster sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, the findings offer valuable insights into regional development strategies, highlighting how trade openness and macroeconomic management can enhance economic performance across Southeast Europe. (shrink)

The humane and workable solution to global poverty is freedom. We can help the poor—and help ourselves at the same time—by tearing down our walls and trade barriers. Both justice and good economic sense require that we open borders, free up international trade, and respect the economic liberties of people around the world. What global justice requires is an open world. Most books on global justice see the world’s poor as little more than mouths to be fed. Their authors see (...) justice as a zero-sum game: some must lose so that others may win. They rely on controversial moral intuitions and outdated or mistaken economic beliefs about economic growth. Van der Vossen and Brennan present global justice as a positive-sum game: the methods that can best help the world’s poor also help everyone else. Using mainstream development economics and common-sense moral intuitions, they argue that instead of treating the world’s poor as helpless victims who must be rescued by the rich, we should remove the coercive limits that keep people poor in the first place. We should offer people the freedom to work, produce, trade, and migrate, in ways that help better themselves and others who are willing to cooperate with them. In Defense of Openness offers a new approach to global justice: we don’t need to “save” the poor. The poor will save themselves, if only we would get out of their way and let them. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic severely hit small and micro-businesses. In the face of the impact of the pandemic, how to help entrepreneurs, especially small- and micro-businesses that are more sensitive to the impact of the pandemic, make decisions to reduce losses has become an issue worth paying attention to. From the perspective of personality approach, this article studied openness, which is the strongest predictor of entrepreneurial performance among the big five personality traits, and explored the impact of entrepreneurs’ openness (...) on entrepreneurial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the inconsistent mediating role of strategic decision comprehensiveness on entrepreneurial performance. An online questionnaire survey was conducted among 238 entrepreneurs of small- and micro-businesses when China was recovering from the pandemic and starting to resume work and production. Entrepreneurial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic was measured by comparing the business conditions before and after the pandemic. The results showed that entrepreneurs’ openness positively impacted strategic decision comprehensiveness and entrepreneurial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the two competing hypotheses proposed by summarizing previous research, the results supported that strategic decision comprehensiveness negatively affected entrepreneurial performance. It indicated that entrepreneurs who tend to collect and analyze information extensively and then make decisions during the pandemic could not seize opportunities and improve their entrepreneurial performance. The results further supported that strategic decision comprehensiveness was an inconsistent mediator between openness and entrepreneurial performance, showing that entrepreneurs with low openness can also reduce the loss of entrepreneurial performance during the pandemic by making incomplete but rapid strategic decisions. This study found that the openness of entrepreneurs had a positive impact on strategic decision comprehensiveness for the first time and provided more empirical evidence for the negative effect of strategic decision comprehensiveness on entrepreneurial performance in the context of information uncertainty and unanalyzable situations. The inconsistent mediating effect of strategic decision comprehensiveness revealed in this study also has practical significance for helping entrepreneurs make correct decisions to reduce the losses caused by the pandemic. (shrink)

Scholars have posited both a positive and a negative relationship between political openness and transnational activism, arguing that while closed opportunity structures positively affect activism by creating strong incentives for activists to “go transnational,” they also negatively affect activism by inhibiting local groups from participating. The author argues that these contrary arguments are largely the result of an insufficiently developed comparative approach to the study of transnational activism. By examining countries at different levels of openness and multiple types (...) of activism, she shows that different types of activism are affected in distinct ways by the level of political openness. (shrink)

This book delves into Carl Schmitt's early legal works and explores their hermeneutic nature. Drawing on the insights of the giants of existential hermeneutics, such as Heidegger and Gadamer, we illuminate the essence of hermeneutic thought - the existential openness inherent in us as human beings, and then examine its implications for Carl Schmitt's early legal thought. The journey that this text embarks on reveals that the openness inherent in human beings inevitably extends to the legal phenomenon. This (...) realisation exposes two potential pitfalls or flawed appropriations within juridico-hermeneutical activity. First, there's the scientism that restricts law strictly to positive legislation, depriving it of its broader scope. Second, there's what might be called legal romanticism, in which the interpreter, on the basis of whim and subjectivity, dictates what the law means. The book delves into Schmitt's early works, highlighting his awareness of these extremes and the ways in which he addresses them. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the relevance of the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer for contemporary feminist scholarship on epistemic injustice and oppression. Specifically, I set out to argue for the Gadamerian notion of hermeneutical openness as an important hermeneutic virtue, and a potential remedy for existing epistemic injustices. In doing so I follow feminist philosophers such as Linda Martín Alcoff and Georgia Warnke that have adopted the insights of Gadamer for the purpose of social and feminist philosophy. Further, (...) this paper is positioned in relation to a recent book chapter by Cynthia Nielsen and David Utsler in which they argue for the complementarity, and intersecting themes and concerns of Gadamer's hermeneutics and Miranda Fricker's work on epistemic injustice. However, Nielsen and Utsler solely focus on Fricker's conception of epistemic injustice and the two forms of epistemic injustice, testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice, that she identifies. In this paper I expand their analysis by considering other forms of epistemic injustice such as wilful hermeneutical ignorance and contributory injustice. Thus, this paper contributes to the budding literature on the relevance of Gadamer's work for the debates pertaining to epistemic injustice and oppression by expanding such analysis to other forms of epistemic injustice, and by further arguing for the strength of Gadamer's work in terms of offering relevant insights for the reduction and remedy of existing epistemic injustices. (shrink)

One of the foundational concepts for Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theological anthropology is his notion of ‘openness to the world.’ Openness to the world, according to Pannenberg, is essential to human identity in that one’s identity is established in their openness to the world, to the other, and, ultimately, to God. I aim to bring Pannenberg’s openness to the world into dialogue with the concept of the sensus divinitatis as articulated by John Calvin and further developed by Alvin (...) Plantinga. The question driving this paper is whether or not Pannenberg’s openness to the world can rightly be understood as the sensus divinitatis, and, if so, what might be some benefits of it. I conclude that Pannenberg’s understanding of openness to the world is a fruitful way of understanding the sensus divinitatis and a fruitful way of arguing for and explaining humanity’s innate knowledge of God. (shrink)

The Religious Openness Hypothesis argues that traditional religions have resources for integrating intellect with faith. In a test of this hypothesis, Hindu graduate students in India ( N = 320) responded to Hindu religious reflection, attitudes toward Hinduism, religious schema, religious orientation, and psychological openness scales. Faith and intellect oriented religious reflection correlated positively with each other and with the all three religious schemas, which also correlated directly. Linkages with attitudes toward Hinduism and intrinsic and extrinsic personal religious (...) orientations documented the compatibility of religious reflection and schema with Hindu commitments. Associations with greater openness to experience and need for cognition confirmed their psychological openness as well. Interactions between attitudes toward Hinduism and the intrinsic orientation suggested that Hinduism had more positive influences in those who were more sincerely religious. These data from India most importantly supported the Religious Openness Hypothesis. (shrink)

The understanding of God’s mode of existence as eternal makes a significant difference to a variety of issues in contemporary philosophy of religion, including, for instance, the apparent incompatibility of divine omniscience with human freedom. But the concept has come under attack in current philosophical discussion as inefficacious to solve the philosophical puzzles for which it seems so promising. Although Boethius in the early 6th century thought that the concept could resolve the apparent incompatibility between divine foreknowledge and human free (...) will, some contemporary philosophers, such as William Hasker, have argued that whatever help the concept of eternity may give with that puzzle is more than vitiated by the religiously pernicious implications of the concept for notions of God’s providence and action in time. In this paper, I will examine and respond to Hasker’s arguments against the doctrine of God’s eternity. (shrink)

Joint attention is characterized by openness: when two agents jointly attend to an object, they are immediately and fully aware of each other's attentional states. Existing accounts of openness involve a mental picture in which two agents attend to the same object and where openness is then 'added'. I argue that the experience of openness comes first. Young infants operate under a tacit assumption of openness: they behave as if attentional states were open even when (...) they aren't. The ability to engage in joint attention doesn't arise when infants begin to experience openness, but rather when they can limit these experiences to open interactions. For this, they depend on cognitive processes that detect non-open interactions. Some of these processes develop early and don't require the representation of others' mental states. Other processes develop later and require the infant to differentiate between herself and others as subjects of attentional states. (shrink)

This paper looks at a recent challenge to the liberal inclusivist view that everyone on the state’s territory should have a path to citizenship. Economists have argued that giving immigrants an inferior legal status would persuade wealthy countries to admit more, with beneficial consequences for global justice. Whilst this trade-off might seem appealing from the impersonal perspective of the policymaker it generates incoherence from the perpective of the collective of democratic citizens, since it requires them to treat their own unjust (...) attitudes as an objective constraint. The paper also rejects the idea that a voluntary choice to migrate can be taken as consent to an inferior status. (shrink)

This article develops a fairness-based criticism of the UK’s policy of promoting free admissions at major museums. With a focus on geographic inequalities and per-capita museums spending, I argue that free admissions can be a surprisingly bad way of promoting cultural opportunities for disadvantaged groups. My criticism emphasises the fact that free admissions consume resources without necessarily providing targeted benefits to disadvantaged groups and addressing background inequalities. Given that museums vary in their location, visitor profile, and operating costs, this critique (...) does not apply to all museums. It applies to the largest and most popular museums in the most advantaged areas, which can expect to keep drawing significant numbers while charging. If we are aiming to prioritise the interests of less advantaged groups, we should be in favour of charging at London’s major museums, to finance “levelling up” across regions, and more direct access-promoting measures in targeted outreach, collaboration, and programming. (shrink)

The paper argues that knowledge is not closed under logical inference. The argument proceeds from the openness of evidential support and the dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, to the conclusion that knowledge is open. Without attempting to provide a full-fledged theory of evidence, we show that on the modest assumption that evidence cannot support both a proposition and its negation, or, alternatively, that information that reduces the probability of a proposition cannot constitute evidence for its truth, the relation (...) of evidential support is not closed under known entailment. Therefore the evidence-for relation is deductively open regardless of whether evidence is probabilistic or not. Given even a weak dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, we argue that empirical knowledge is also open. On this basis, we also respond to the strongest argument in support of knowledge closure. Finally, we present a number of significant benefits of our position, namely, offering a unified explanation for a range of epistemological puzzles. (shrink)

Religious Reflection Scales yield cross-cultural data suggesting that religious traditions have potentials to integrate intellect with faith. This investigation extended analysis of that possibility to Sunni Muslim university students in Malaysia ( N = 211) and also examined the hypothesis that Islamic commitments to knowledge ( Ilm) promote religious openness. Faith and Intellect Oriented Religious Reflection correlated positively and predicted openness. The Truth of Texts and Teachings factor from the Religious Schema Scales essentially assesses a form of fundamentalism (...) and displayed direct linkages with religious openness as well. Ilm factors from the Ummatic Personality Inventory correlated positively with religious openness and mediated associations of Islamic Religious Reflection with other constructs. Quest as a presumed index of religious openness proved to be incompatible with sincere Muslim commitments. These findings supplemented previous Muslim, Christian, and Hindu data in confirming the potential openness of religious traditions. (shrink)

Being “open-minded” is considered a definite virtue in today’s world. What does it mean to be open-minded? What we refer to as ‘openness’ in this writing moves beyond the ability to see and entertain other views. It cuts deep into both the intentionality and content of what one contemplates. This work focuses on ontological openness, reflecting parallel and resonating thoughts by prominent continental philosophers Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Though Gadamer appears after Heidegger, we find it fruitful to (...) read Gadamer as leading to Heidegger. We compare their thoughts with those of Muslim mystics, focusing on the highly influential and ground-breaking thinker Ibn Arabi and thinkers in his tradition. (shrink)

Intrinsic to rigorous knowledge of God is the recognition that positive theological concepts and statements about God arising under the compelling claims of God's reality upon the human mind must have an open revisable structure. A similar combination of critical realism and ontological openness is apparent in the profound change that has taken place in the rational structure of rigorous science from the radical dualism and closed causal system of classical mechanics to the unifying world view and open dynamic (...) field‐theories of modern physics. It is argued that the intersection of theological and natural science in their epis‐temological foundations can enhance their ontological commitment and heuristic thrust. (shrink)

This editorial critically engages with the understanding of openness by attending to how notions of presence and absence come bundled together as part of efforts to make open. This is particularly evident in contemporary discourse around data production, dissemination, and use. We highlight how the preoccupations with making data present can be usefully analyzed and understood by tracing the related concerns around what is missing, unavailable, or invisible, which unvaryingly but often implicitly accompany debates about data and openness.

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual activity, Agassi called attention to rationality as the very starting point of every notable philosophical way of life. The essays present Agassi’s own views on critical rationalism. They also develop and expand upon his work in new and provocative ways. The authors include Agassi's most notable (...) pupils, friends, and colleagues. Overall, their contributions challenge the received view on a variety of issues concerning science, religion, and education. Readers will find well-reasoned arguments on such topics as the secular problem of evil, religion and critical thinking, liberal democratic educational communities, democracy and constitutionalism, and capitalism at a crossroad.“/div>divTo Joseph Agassi, philosophy is the practice of reason, where reason is understood as the relentless search for criticisms of the best available explanations that we have to the world around us. This book not only honors one of the most original philosophers of science today. It also offers readers insights into a school of thought that lies at the heart of philosophy. (shrink)

A positive reconceptualization of vulnerability involves a number of levels of inquiry; arguably, a fundamental or, at least, central level is the phenomenology of vulnerability with which I am concerned in my paper. By drawing on existential phenomenology and by engaging with Pamela Sue Anderson’s positive account of vulnerability, I develop a phenomenological conception of vulnerability as “openness” and pursue it in new directions which connect it to the metaphysics and epistemology of vulnerability. This approach brings to the fore (...) the possibility of resilience in the face of serious adversities which affect our lives, and draws some ethical implications in relation to this. I engage with recent work in the area of the phenomenology of illness to elaborate certain parts of the investigation. (shrink)

Openness implies bottom-up empowerment and top-down transparency. The Paradox of Openness analyses the tensions encountered when openness is applied to the quest for democracy and markets, freedom and truth, compliance and transparency, and consensus and dissent in progressive Nordic societies.

This article documents how biomedical researchers in the United Kingdom understand and enact the idea of “openness.” This is of particular interest to researchers and science policy worldwide in view of the recent adoption of pioneering policies on Open Science and Open Access by the U.K. government—policies whose impact on and implications for research practice are in need of urgent evaluation, so as to decide on their eventual implementation elsewhere. This study is based on 22 in-depth interviews with U.K. (...) researchers in systems biology, synthetic biology, and bioinformatics, which were conducted between September 2013 and February 2014. Through an analysis of the interview transcripts, we identify seven core themes that characterize researchers’ understanding of openness in science and nine factors that shape the practice of openness in research. Our findings highlight the implications that Open Science policies can have for research processes and outcomes and provide recommendations for enhancing their content, effectiveness, and implementation. (shrink)

Within artificial intelligence (AI) and machine consciousness research, social cognition as a whole is often ignored. When it is addressed, it is often thought of as one application of more traditional forms of cognition. However, while theoretical approaches to AI have been fairly stagnant in recent years, social cognition research has progressed in productive new ways, specifically through enactive approaches. Using participatory sense-making (PSM) as an approach, we rethink conceptions of autonomy and openness in AI and enactivism, shifting the (...) focus away from living systems to allow incorporation of artificial systems into social forms of sense-making. PSM provides an entire level of analysis through an overlooked autonomous system produced via social interaction that can be both measured and modeled in order to instantiate and examine more robust artificial cognitive systems. (shrink)

Openness is the strongest and most revealing multicultural value. It governs the distinctively multicultural interpretations of equality, freedom, recognition, and authenticity (as cultural equality, cultural freedom, cultural recognition, and ethical authenticity). Beyond its familiar and easily understood meaning as open borders, openness as a value also encompasses evidence-based policy making (Karl Popper) and the overcoming of ancient religious rivalries based on incompatible divine revelations by the universal adoption of a new faith in the future of humanity within a (...) universe that is “a machine for the making of gods” (Henri Bergson). The analysis of openness as a multicultural value thus takes the reader out of reflections about the past and into speculation about the future. (shrink)

In April 2024, the German parliament decided to introduce a payment card for asylum seekers. Referencing the goals of “reducing bureaucracy” and curbing the “financing of smuggler crime”, the payment card represents a technology designed to enable the provision of social benefits to asylum seekers predominantly without the use of cash. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to grasp the payment card as a “machine” in the Deleuzo-Guattarian sense, governing the agency and processes of subjectification of refugees. The aim is (...) to demonstrate how the payment card, as an expression of socio-technical relations, enables the modulation of individual freedoms and the stabilisation of prevailing state orders. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's diagnosis of the “control society”, the article hence argues that the payment card is not merely a reaction to challenges in migration policy but also a symbol of the technological transformation of power relations in modern societies. In this light, the analysis highlights how refugees are restricted in their freedom of movement, consumption options, and social integration through the socio-technical instrument of the payment card. With this in mind, the article conceptualises the payment card as a relational artefact—both an expression and a tool of state control policy. This argument is developed in three steps: First, the power-theoretical logic and political function of the payment card will be analysed. Next, the material consequences of the payment card for refugees are examined. Finally, the role of the payment card in the processes of the subjectivation of refugees is explored. (shrink)