Gallery 7 of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews [POLIN Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich], which is dedicated to the Shoah, depicts the catastrophe through the victims, and this is a sensitive and insightful approach; however, it falls short as a representation of the utmost atrocity in human history (the Shoah). In this paper I argue that Gallery 7 is a tribute to the memory of the three million Polish Jewish victims and a valuable contribution to the remembrance (...) of the six million European Jewish men, women, and children who were murdered in the ghettos, the transports, the massacres of the Einsatzgruppen, and the six extermination camps (Chełmno,Bełżec, Sobibór,Treblinka II, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek). I also criticize POLIN’s insufficient approach to antisemitism, while unpacking the significant problems stemming from trying to portray POLIN’s permanent exhibition as a celebration of life instead of a remembrance of the annihilation of European Jewry. I further argue that Gallery 7 is somewhat underwhelming and fails to truly portray the atrocities of the Shoah, while sug-gesting, since there is no Holocaust Museum in either Warsaw or Poland, that POLIN could use several galleries (and not just one) to portray the Shoah. (shrink)

Do responsibility voids exist? That is, are there situations in which the group is collectively morally responsible for some outcome although no member can be held individually morally responsible for it? To answer these questions, I draw a distinction between competitive and cooperative decision contexts based on the team-reasoning account of cooperation. Accordingly, I provide a reasoning-based analysis of cooperation, competition, moral responsibility, and, last, potential responsibility voids. I then argue that competitive decision contexts are free of responsibility voids. The (...) conditions for the existence of responsibility voids in cooperative decision contexts depend on the type of uncertainty the group faces, either external or coordination uncertainty. (shrink)

The void is deadly. If you were cast into a void, it would cause you to die in just a few minutes. It would suck the air from your lungs. It would boil your blood. It would drain the warmth from your body. And it would inflate enclosures in your body until they burst}.

Nineteenth-century readings of ornamental plenitude as an expression of “fear of emptiness” dismiss the style as a naïve rhetorical mannerism devoid of meaning. In contrast, in this article I introduce the dense ornamental systems of Romanesque sculptural programs and the later Gothic development as deeply embedded in the theological conceptualizations of creation out of nothing—an active opposition to privation through an infinite creative plenitude that bridges the gap between nothing and something. Horror vacui is revisited here considering ancient and medieval (...) philosophies of nature. Christian industries designed theological insights for their communities. Observing the function of words and images as Christianized conduits of spiritual epistemology highlights visuality as a theoretical caption, which may enfold or unfold theological insights, given the right epistemic context. (shrink)

Blemmydes’ Epitome physica is a complex and stratified text which relies upon many different sources, which have been rephrased and incorporated into a new text. Identifying them may help us to uncover the library Blemmydes had at his disposal while composing his textbook. A few relevant examples from chapter 31 will be analysed in this paper.

With a view to illuminating the role that architecture plays in Jacques Lacan’s seventh seminar, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, this paper undertakes to do three things: first, to place Lacan’s references to architecture in this seminar in the context of his description of artistic sublimation as “the elevation of the object to the dignity of a Thing”; second, to situate that formula within the context of his broader treatment of the Thing (das Ding); and third, to highlight the degree to (...) which his interest in the Thing is informed by an early and perduring preoccupation with the singular rapport that human animals establish with their environments as a result of the helplessness (Hilflosigkeit) that marks the earliest stages of their development. As I observe, that “elevation” Lacan invokes in his formula for artistic sublimation concerns the creation of an emptiness that he describes as marking the locus of an internally generated Unlust that he follows Freud in placing at the center of the Nebenmensch Thing. Such would be the connection between these two discussions of the Thing. Architecture plays a central role in forging this connection, since it is chiefly with reference to that art that Lacan links the emptiness that is the creator’s special product with a sinkhole of pain whose origin is endogenous. (shrink)

This essay addresses the problem of the representational movement of subjectivity, understanding this as a display of itself that results in an operation of apparent externalization of itself. To develop this idea, certain theoretical elements proposed by Hegel in his Phenomenology of the Spirit are considered, along with certain concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis. These theoretical perspectives are deployed in the interpretations of four scenes from the film The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, with the purpose of linking analytical relationships and (...) possibilities. (shrink)

Kabbalistic reading in harav Yehuda L(acute}e on Ashk(acute}enazi (manitou)'s historiosophic teachings.

This essay examines Gaspar Noë's film, Enter the Void, in light of the work of both Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou. Arguing that the film shows to viewers the 'void' that separates subjects from objects, the essay also considers Noë's film in the light of drug literature and the altered states induced by cinema and describe by Anna Powell. Finally, the essay proposes that Enter the Void is a work of 'unbecoming' cinema, which in turn points to (...) expansion of cinematic form through the use of digital technologies. (shrink)

We present evidence for the existence of ‘responsibility voids’ in committee decision-making, that is, the existence of situations where no member of a committee can individually be held morally responsible for the outcome. We analyse three types of reasons (causal, normative and epistemic) for the emergence of responsibility voids, and show that each of them can occur in committees. But the conditions for these voids are so restrictive as to reduce the philosophical or institutional significance they might be thought to (...) possess. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of void with the question of whether the concept forms a sign. A void in this article is defined as a spatio-temporal empty space existing in a representation. The aim of the analysis is to consider the hidden nature of signs, which cannot be highlighted only through an analysis of typical signs within social convention. As a semiotic tool to conduct the discussion, the notion of a zero sign of Lévi-Strauss is introduced. The (...) article considers all possible zeros that can exist within the Saussurian sign model and introduces three cases: an omitted sign, an ambiguous signified, and an ambiguous sign. After examining the features of each kind, the concept of void is considered in these terms, with the conclusion that it belongs to the ambiguous sign case. Analysis of void with respect to the zero sign highlights the nature of signs as being reflexive, holistic and speculative. Because the signifier is barely delimited, it influences the surrounding sign systems, including the one existing at the meta-level. An ambiguous sign is deemed to allow for concept sharing among people even when the signifier and the signified remain ambiguous. (shrink)

Why do multinational corporations frequently encounter corporate social responsibility crises in leading emerging markets in the new century? Existing research about institutional impacts on MNC CSR has developed a void-based account about how the flawed institutional system allows misdeeds to happen. But the fact that such misdeeds have turned into increasing CSR crises in the new century along with institutional change is rarely taken into account. This paper combines studies of institutional voids, institutional entrepreneurship, and stakeholder theory to develop (...) a concept of institutional sophistication, which refers to both the top-down maturation of the regulatory system that standardizes firm behavior and the bottom-up diversification and intensification of grassroots initiatives that redefine stakeholder membership. Based on this concept, we developed a framework to comprehensively demonstrate how both institutional voids and sophistication drive the MNC CSR crisis in leading emerging markets. Empirically, we established an original database that includes 309 publicized CSR crises encountered by major foreign MNCs in China, India, and Russia, 2000–2011. Through a content analysis, the paper reveals six common sophistication processes that drive the MNC crisis across contexts and also specifies stakeholder strategies that make these processes happen and vary by social problems and national contexts. We also discussed the value of studying corporate social irresponsible behavior in understanding the institution–MNC relationship. (shrink)

We establish a minimal, defect-free foundation for determinate existence and apply it to two problems: the structural impossibility of absolute non-existence, and the derivation of the fine-structure constant. Beginning from the single premise something exists determinately, we give a precise four-condition definition of "determinately": not vague, not self-contradictory, not flux, and—crucially—not vacuous. From this definition we prove that exactly three structural primitives are forced: a state space, a selective criterion, and an admissible transformation family. Two independent persistence conditions—Idempotent Closure (IC) (...) and Energetic Viability (EV)—are derived and shown to be necessary and sufficient for any form to persist determinately. The framework is machine-verified in Lean 4 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19023530). -/- We apply the filter to its own limiting case: the Void. Absolute non-existence with total potentiality and total absence simultaneously contains a Globally Coupled Contradiction (GCC) and fails both IC and EV. Leibniz's question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" presupposes a coherent alternative that does not exist. Existence is structural residue; the first distinction is a logical fixed point guaranteed by Lawvere and Kleene independently. -/- Finally, we apply the filter to the electromagnetic vacuum in a consistent five-dimensional geometric framework. The EV condition forces a solvency equation whose unique solution is \alpha = \frac{9}{16\pi^4}\left(\frac{\pi^5}{120}\right)^{1/4} \approx 1/137.036, derived without assuming its value. The relative error against CODATA 2022 is 6 \times 10^{-7}. The filter does not merely permit or forbid—it is the difference between form and formlessness, where formlessness, as proved, was never an option. (shrink)

We present evidence for the existence of `responsibility voids' in committee decision-making, that is, the existence of situations where no member of a committee can individually be held morally responsible for the outcome. We analyse three types of reasons (causal, normative and epistemic) for the emergence of responsibility voids, and show that each of them can occur in committees. But the conditions for these voids are so restrictive as to reduce the philosophical or institutional significance they might be thought to (...) possess. (shrink)

Urban void sometimes amplifies alienation within urban space, and thus leads the way to the human craving for authenticity. Juxtaposing urban void with the conventional notion of urban objects, furthermore, conforms to Nietzsche's distinction between Dionysian and Apollonian deportment. The Apollonian is at the founding of the Platonic myth of the Ideal City and its modern descendant, the myth of the Rational City. Modern urban planning has been object-directed and, consistent with the historical trend since the Renaissance, has (...) become a constituent of a Neo-Platonic mythology that insists on forging a city as an urban technological artifact. Most existing urban parks and squares, as well as suburban gardens, within this approach, only augment the subordinate standing of urban voids. Yet the significance of urban void, as the unplanned place that represents the pre-rational, the genuine and the unadulterated, ought to lead to its re-introduction into city-form as a conduit for self-reflection and authenticity. Recognizing urban void for its significance may reintroduce an important Dionysian feature into city-form, leading to deliberate carving of authentic urban spaces. (shrink)

In Chapter 18 of Murdoch’s Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals the concept of ‘void’ is offered as a label for a fourth dimension of moral thought, after ‘axioms, duties and Eros’ in the preceding chapter. Void, unlike the others, does not provide a mode of structuring a normative conception of some area or aspect of the moral life. It is rather described as a ‘tract of experience’—of evil, darkness, desolation, hopelessness, pain—offered as an antidote to overly optimistic (...) readings of her ethics of Eros. Murdoch draws heavily on Simone Weil’s work here, but a closer look at the chapter discloses a dissonance in her use of ‘void’, which in turn reveals a difference between these two thinkers. (shrink)

My essay will take as its point of departure the paragraph from Gershom Scholem’s “Reflections on Jewish Theology,” in which he depicts the modern religious experience as the one of the "void of God" or as "pious atheism". I will first argue that the "void of God" cannot be reduced to atheistic non-belief in the presence of God. Then, I will demonstrate the further development of the Scholemian notion of the ‘pious atheism’ in Derrida, especially in his Lurianic (...) treatment of Angelus Silesius, whose modern mysticism emerges in Derrida’s reading as the ‘almost-atheism’. The interesting feature of this development is that, while for Scholem, the ‘void of God’ is a predominantly negative experience, for Derrida, it becomes an affirmative model of modern – not just Jewish, but more generally, Abrahamic – religiosity which, on the one hand, touches upon atheistic non-belief in the divine presence here and now, yet, on the other, still insists on commemorating the ‘withdrawn God’ through his ‘traces.’ What, therefore, for Scholem, constitutes the ultimate cry of despair, best embodied in Kafka’s work – for Derrida, reveals the more positive face of the modern predicament in which God has absented himself in order to make room for the creaturely reality. And while Scholem envisages redemption as the full restoration of the divine presence – Derrida redefines redemption as the ‘pious’ work of deconstruction to be undertaken in the ‘almost-atheistic’ condition of irreversible separation between God and the world. (shrink)

Objectives Practitioners in contemplative traditions commonly report experiencing an awareness that is distinct from sensory objects, thoughts, and emotions (“awareness itself”). They also report experiences of a void or underlying silence that is closely associated with this awareness. Subjects who carry out the Headless Way exercises frequently report an experience of emptiness or void at the same time as other contents (void-like experiences). The goals of this study were to (1) assess the reliability of these methods in (...) eliciting the recognition of awareness and void-like experiences in participants who had no prior exposure to these techniques, (2) investigate the prevalence of these experiences in these tasks, and (3) to differentiate these experiences from closely related and potential precursor experiences. -/- Method Twenty adults participated in in-depth individual interviews in which they were guided through the Headless Way exercises. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts. -/- Results Twelve of the participants reported a void-like experience, and five participants reported an experience of awareness itself. These experiences were respectively categorized as subsets of the more general categories of perceptual absences and the sense of not being person-like. Another novel finding was the real-time reports of awareness and void-like experiences during the exercises. -/- Conclusions Our findings provide preliminary evidence that the Headless Way exercises can effectively induce experiences of emptiness and awareness in participants without prior experience. The findings suggest that such experiences can be elicited outside of a traditional meditation context, including in non-meditators. Furthermore, the experience of not being person-like and of perceptual absences may be precursors and more general forms of recognizing awareness itself and the void-like nature of the mind. (shrink)

The Stoics claim that only a body can be a substance (οὐσία). They also claim that the cosmos taken as a whole is one continuous body, finite in extent, comprising within itself all the bodies that there are. Given these claims, one might expect that when confronted with the question of what lies outside the cosmos, the Stoics would take the Aristotelian line: namely, that there is nothing whatsoever outside the cosmos. But this is not what the Stoics say. They (...) say, rather, that outside the cosmos lies an infinite expanse of void, conceived of as a three-dimensional extension empty of body.1Of course, the Stoics do not consider this void outside the cosmos to be a substance, since it is not a body. They class it .. (shrink)

What remains when you eliminate all matter? Can empty space-a void-exist? _Frank Close takes the reader on a lively and accessible tour through ancient ideas and cultural superstitions (including Aristotle, who insisted that the vacuum was impossible) to the frontiers of current scientific research. These newest discoveries tell us extraordinary things about the cosmos and may provide answers to some of our most fundamental questions: What lies outside the universe? If there was once nothing, then how did the universe (...) begin? (shrink)

In response to the insufficiency of the dominant yet limiting frames often heard and told as stories in educational contexts, I consider how the void can become a space for critical inquiry into topics that are frequently reduced in academic settings, which are ill-suited for complexity and nuance. Focusing on several black contemporary artists whose work engages, represents, or inquires with voids, the chapter contrasts the void as a potential place of knowing and being, resisting what has become (...) common sense. Finally, the chapter reflects on how entering the void implicates approaches to teaching and learning in social studies. (shrink)

Seeing one’s laptop to be missing, hearing silence and smelling fresh air; these are all examples of perceptual experiences of absences. In this paper I discuss an example of absence perception in the tactual sense modality, that of tactually perceiving a tooth to be absent in one’s mouth, following its extraction. Various features of the example challenge two recently-developed theories of absence perception: Farennikova’s memory-perception mismatch theory and Martin and Dockic’s meta-cognitive theory. I speculate that the mechanism underlying the experience (...) is a body schema that has failed to update itself. (shrink)

This article positions relational social theories against theories of non-relation. Relational social theories consider relations to be primary as opposed to objects. In contrast, two theoretical positions—psychoanalysis and Marxism—hold non-relation (or void) as the origin of any social relations. Not coincidentally, psychoanalysis and Marxism also hold the position of the subject, which relational social theories abolish as yet another object. What makes the link between non-relation and subject possible for psychoanalysis and Marxism, is the affirmation of a constitutive negativity (...) embodied in-and-through social antagonisms of sexuality and class-struggle. The article shows, therefore, that by precluding this constitutive negativity, relational social theories lose sight of these two critical sites. (shrink)

Void is at the heart of Stoic metaphysics. As the incorporeal par excellence, being defined purely in terms of lacking body, it brings into sharp focus the Stoic commitment to non-existent Somethings. This article argues that Stoic void, far from rendering the Stoic system incoherent or merely ad hoc, in fact reflects a principled and coherent physicalism that sets the Stoics apart from their materialist predecessors and atomist neighbors.

In this introductory chapter, MacKenzie makes his case for the alignment of Badiou’s thinking on art to that of the canonical modernists Eliot, Stevens, and Pound. For Badiou, that thinking has traditionally been anchored in the concept of the void, both the foreclosure and guarantee of coherent thought. Badiou’s more recent writing, however, exhibits a willingness to open and explore the void within his own discourse, a gesture away from his previously strict regime of metaphysics that echoes the (...) aspirations of the modernist writers examined herein. Indeed MacKenzie argues that where Badiou hopes to go, the modernists have already been. (shrink)

Prior to arguing against the existence of void in Physics IV.6–9, Aristotle offers an answer to what void is: place deprived of body. His refutations then target two different sorts of void, separated and inseparable voids. It is unsolved in Aristotelian scholarship what these two sorts of void are. This paper presents an interpretation. I find that the distinction between voids is philosophically rich and bears explanatory potential in a way unrecognized by studies on ancient (...) class='Hi'>void theory. Indeed, if my interpretation is correct, the distinction may be prescient, perhaps anticipating Newton’s own distinction between relative and absolute spaces. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 46 - 70 In this article, I analyze the idea of “stepping into the void”, which can be traced in the thinking of both Proclus and Damascius, but which sets their perspectives apart. Thus, I show how Proclus warns us that to speak about the absolute principle, taking it as an object of thought, is a negative “stepping into the void” that should be avoided. On the contrary, I show that Damascius (...) starts from this warning and tries to prove that the only adequate manner in which we can trace the absolute principle and approach it is precisely through “stepping into the void,” yet, this time, in a positive sense, as a constant attempt to understand that the principle is an absolute void which reverses our discourse. (shrink)

Reliable data transfer and energy efficiency are the essential considerations for network performance in resource-constrained underwater environments. One of the efficient approaches for data routing in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is clustering, in which the data packets are transferred from sensor nodes to the cluster head (CH). Data packets are then forwarded to a sink node in a single or multiple hops manners, which can possibly increase energy depletion of the CH as compared to other nodes. While several mechanisms (...) have been proposed for cluster formation and CH selection to ensure efficient delivery of data packets, less attention has been given to massive data communication processes with sink node. As such, failure in communicating nodes would lead to a significant network void-holes problem. Considering the limited energy resources of nodes in UWSNs along with the heavy load of CHs in the routing process, this paper proposes a void-holes aware and reliable data forwarding strategy (VHARD-FS) in a proactive mode to control data packets delivery from CH nodes to the sink in UWSNs. In the proposed strategy, each CH node is aware of its neighbor’s performance ranking index to conduct a reliable packet transmission to the sink via the most energy-efficient route. Extensive simulation results indicate that the VHARD-FS outperforms existing routing approaches while comparing energy efficiency and network throughput. This study helps to effectively alleviate the resource limitations associated with UWSNs by extending network life and increasing service availability even in a harsh underwater environment. (shrink)

Deleuze seeks to pry philosophy from the hands of those who would, grounding their judgments in a supposedly transcendent reality, distort or fail to recognize the true nature of things in the changing world. This task for a philosophy of the future, intended to project us beyond such moral categories as "good" and "evil" in favour of the alternative ethical categories, "good" and "bad", is to be achieved, Deleuze thinks, by overturning Platonism. Plato's doctrine of the forms is held by (...) Deleuze to be an example of the corruption of metaphysics by the will to judge, characteristic of Christian morality (whose origins in Platonic philosophy are undeniable). For Deleuze, the philosopher is primarily a producer of concepts, not an agent who generates through judgment. Chapter One sets the agenda for the thesis by opening questions about what is good for the human agent, specifically in terms of the relation between an agent and the products s/he might produce. A brief account is given of Deleuze's position on goodness, offered in the light of his criticisms of the Platonic tradition. Questions are raised about what measures Deleuze takes to avoid transcendence, and about what consequences might follow from this move. Chapter Two attempts to rescue Plato from some of Deleuze's more serious charges, and does so by considering Plato's concept of the Good in relation to his accounts of measure and of the chora, a concept of place. Contemporary Plato scholarship is used to show questionable presuppositions in Deleuze's account of Plato, for instance regarding the physics of the Platonic universe, the status of transcendence, and the nature of the eidos, or form. Chapter Three examines Deleuze's own metaphysics of Difference, Multiplicity and Event, in relation to traditional atomism, the philosophy of time (duration) of Henri Bergson, and certain alternative theories of event. The relation of event and action is explored in the context of naming and intention. Chapter Four presents Deleuze's theory of the Event as a theory of the Void, in relation to Deleuze's monism, and to time, goodness, and negativity. The relation between Deleuze's theory of the Event and his Ethics is further developed, in order to open questions about the motivation for and nature of action in Deleuzian philosophy. Chapter Five synthesizes the various themes, and contrasts Deleuze with Plato on the question of the good for the agent, love, and action, all in relation to Deleuze's Stoicism. (shrink)

This volume in the continuing series of translations of the ancient commentators on Aristotle contains three treatises related to Aristotle's Physics: the "Corollary on Place" and the "Corollary on Void" from John Philoponus's commentary on the Physics, and a section from Simplicius's commentary on the Physics which critiques another work by Philoponus on the eternity of the world. Each of these involves the sixth-century controversies surrounding the Christian commentator, John Philoponus, who is unique for his time in trying to (...) turn Aristotle's own arguments against themselves. (shrink)

The “formidably brilliant” Žižek considers sexuality, ontology, subjectivity, and Marxian critiques of political economy by way of Lacanian psychoanalysis. If the most interesting theoretical interventions emerge today from the interspaces between fields, then the foremost interspaceman is Slavoj Žižek. In Incontinence of the Void (the title is inspired by a sentence in Samuel Beckett's late masterpiece Ill Seen Ill Said), Žižek explores the empty spaces between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the critique of political economy. He proceeds from the universal dimension (...) of philosophy to the particular dimension of sexuality to the singular dimension of the critique of political economy. The passage from one dimension to another is immanent: the ontological void is accessible only through the impasses of sexuation and the ongoing prospect of the abolition of sexuality, which is itself opened up by the technoscientific progress of global capitalism, in turn leading to the critique of political economy. Responding to his colleague and fellow Short Circuits author Alenka Zupančič's What Is Sex?, Žižek examines the notion of an excessive element in ontology that gives body to radical negativity, which becomes the antagonism of sexual difference. From the economico-philosophical perspective, Žižek extrapolates from ontological excess to Marxian surplus value to Lacan's surplus enjoyment. In true Žižekian fashion, Incontinence of the Void focuses on eternal topics while detouring freely into contemporary issuesfrom the Internet of Things to Danish TV series. (shrink)

This paper presents a pilot study that explores instances of objectless awareness during sleep: conscious experiences had during sleep that prima facie lack an object of awareness. This state of objectless awareness during sleep has been widely described by Indian contemplative traditions and has been characterised as a state of consciousness-as-such; while in it, there is nothing to be aware of, one is _merely_ conscious (cf. Evans-Wentz, 1960 ; Fremantle, 2001 ; Ponlop, 2006 ). While this phenomenon has received different (...) names in the literature, such as ‘witnessing-sleep’ and ‘clear light sleep’ among others, the specific phenomenological profile of this state has not yet been rigorously studied. This paper aims at presenting a preliminary investigation of objectless consciousness during sleep using a novel tool in qualitative research that can guide future research. Five participants experiencing objectless consciousness during sleep were interviewed following the _Micro-phenomenological Interview_ technique (MPI; Petitmengin, 2005, 2006 ). All participants reported an experience they had during sleep in which there was no scenery and no dream. This period labelled as ‘No Scenery/Void’ was either preceded by the dissolution of a lucid dream or by other forms of conscious mentation. The analysis of the results advances four experiential dimensions during this state of void, namely (1) Perception of absence, (2) Self-perception, (3) Perception of emotions, and (4) Perception of awareness. While the results are primarily explorative, they refer to themes found in the literature to describe objectless sleep and point at potential avenues of research. The results from this study are taken as indications to guide future operationalisations of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Abstract This paper examines a fundamental, though relatively understudied, aspect of the physical theory of the physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, namely his doctrine of pores. My principal thesis is that this doctrine is dependent on a conception of void taken directly from Epicurean physics. The paper falls into two parts: the first half addresses the evidence for the presence of void in Asclepiades' theory, and concludes that his conception of void was basically that of Epicurus; the second (...) half focuses on the precise nature of Asclepiadean pores, and seeks to show that they represent void interstices between the primary particles of matter which are the constituents of the human body, and are thus exactly analogous to the void interstices between atoms within solid objects in Epicurus' theory. (shrink)

This book focuses on the problem of responsibility voids: these are cases where responsibility for a morally undesirable outcome cannot be attributed to any of the involved agents. Responsibility voids are thought to occur in collective decision-making and in the context of artificial intelligent systems. In these cases, philosophers worry that there is a shortfall of moral responsibility. In particular, such voids are often assumed to justify a notion of collective responsibility that cannot be reduced to individual responsibility. One of (...) the aims of the book is to study how collective responsibility and joint action relate to individual responsibility and individual actions. The book offers a unifying framework for modelling moral responsibility by drawing from modal logic and game theory. The book investigates the possibility and scope of the problem of responsibility voids. One of its characteristics is its pluralistic perspective on moral responsibility: in contrast to giving a unique and all-encompassing definition of it, the book makes progress by spelling out and modelling several conceptions of moral responsibility. One of the appealing features of the book is that a relatively small range of models is used to investigate a variety of conceptions of moral responsibility. The unifying framework can thus be used to characterize the conditions under which responsibility voids are ruled out. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about artificial intelligence governance often assume that the presence of human oversight preserves responsibility within algorithmic systems. This paper challenges that assumption by arguing that contemporary AI safety architectures increasingly reorganize decision-making in ways that dissolve the conditions under which responsibility can meaningfully arise. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s distinction between judgment, action, and bureaucratic administration, the paper develops the concept of post-agential governance to describe institutional regimes in which power operates through distributed optimization processes without identifiable agents publicly (...) appearing as the authors of decisions. I argue that reinforcement learning systems, audit infrastructures, and contemporary safety protocols increasingly replace discrete acts of judgment with continuous probabilistic adjustment, producing what I call the diffuse void, a condition in which governance remains operative while responsibility becomes structurally unlocatable. The paper examines the philosophical implications of this transformation for responsibility, institutional accountability, and the future of human judgment under algorithmic governance. (shrink)

Alternate directions such as super-fluidic vacuum theory are gaining attention in astrophysics, with a view to address ‘unified force’. They primarily consider the non-removable background of cosmos, the fundamental physical vacuum as a specialty medium that participates in gravitation and therefore characterizing this non-removable background is of paramount importance. Indian philosophical texts mention of a primordial state of space, where no matter exists, which is endowed with energy and consciousness to evolve as the cosmos. Siddha tradition, an essential branch of (...) indian knowledge system, is a good area to look for pertinent concepts and attributes, owing to its longevity and absence of mythological dimension. In this study, applying grounded theory approach, 72 verses of siddha tradition were shortlisted and studied, to arrive at 38 keywords, and 11 concepts that surround the term ‘paazh’ which refers to the primordial absolute space. In addition, main stream directions such as space foam, space-time curvature, singularity, higgs-field etc., are treated as constant comparison samples and have been looked for corroboration presence or absence. Our recommendations to the hypothesized unified force includes, 1. considering space-time continuum to have an inherent potential energy and corresponding force that participates in gravitation, 2. adjusting stress-energy tensor of general relativity to accommodate such a force or pressure, 3. assigning quantum scale vibration and thereby integrating time in space continuum, 4. a no-matter primordial space wherein localized energy intensification occurs with periodicity, 5. such a formless energy state surrounding cosmos, 6. absence of any big-bang but presence of infinite quantum energy spikes in primordial state of space resulting in fundamental particle emissions and 6. consciousness as an inherent non-computable quality of primordial space. (shrink)

This essay is a reflection on Albert Camus’s revival during the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s. The popularity of Camus’s novel, The Plague, is considered alongside his other writing as something that speaks to many throughout their lives. Such appraisal is interspersed with personal reflections on family life during pandemic lockdowns and the ways that Camus’s thought resounds in our everyday selves. Written in two parts at different times – mainly in 2020 and with a 2023 afterthought – the (...) essay critically acknowledges how Camus instructs us to live together with meaning and dignity in an age of catastrophe. (shrink)

In this study, I reconstruct and compare Alain Badiou’s Being and Event (2005) and Graham Priest’s One (2014), arguing that the ontologies pursued within the two texts are intriguingly analogous in a number of ways. Both Badiou and Priest are committed to thinking through classically ontological problems without denying the validity of the paradoxes they raise; both regard Plato’s Parmenides as an early and formative account of these paradoxes; both establish conclusions to the effect that unity – or “oneness” – (...) is indeed a contradictory phenomenon; and both, as a corollary of this conclusion, develop frameworks which confer ontological prominence upon "the void" and "emptiness" respectively, thereby arriving at what appears to be a shared ontological nihilism. In this comparative study, I not only enquire whether the frameworks adopted by Badiou and Priest really do lead to nihilist conclusions, but also attempt to clearly outline their trajectories of thought for the benefit of those who might be tempted to dismiss their seemingly outlandish theses out of hand. (shrink)

Void is important, then, because it points to a vulnerability in the tension that makes up one’s moral life. Using the concept of void, of a tensile moral self, and Murdoch’s general approach to virtue language, this chapter analyzes experiences of moral injury during the Bosnian war through Murdoch’s concepts and philosophy. It also examines the material and social structures that are critical for sustaining common moral subjectivities, such as norms, practices of daily life, social institutions, and public (...) and private spaces, and investigates how the war is violence marred or even eliminated them. This holistic approach shows how a virtue language can be combined with social-scientific approaches to illustrate the profound effect political violence can have on morality and identity. (shrink)

Some physical theories predict that almost all brains in the universe are Boltzmann brains, i.e. short-lived disembodied brains that are accidentally assembled as a result of thermodynamic or quantum fluctuations. Physicists and philosophers of physics widely regard this proliferation as unacceptable, and so take its prediction as a basis for rejecting these theories. But the putatively unacceptable consequences of this prediction follow only given certain philosophical assumptions. This paper develops a strategy for shielding physical theorizing from the threat of Boltzmann (...) brains. The strategy appeals to a form of phenomenal externalism about the physical basis of consciousness. Given that form of phenomenal externalism, the proliferation of Boltzmann brains turns out to be benign. While the strategy faces a psychophysical fine-tuning problem, it both alleviates cosmological fine-tuning concerns that attend physics-based solutions to Boltzmann brain problems and pays explanatory dividends in connection with time’s arrow. (shrink)

This paper investigates a structural void that, especially in the context of poor or developing nations, prevents economic growth from being more inclusive and benefiting wider sections of society. The authors initially examine the imperative for inclusive growth, one encompassing a focus on poverty and development. Utilizing social choice theory, and a capability deprivation perspective, we observe that the poor experience deprivations due to a deficiency in their personal autonomy. This in turn is deeply interwoven with the concept of (...) identity. Legally recognizing the poor as individuals, and providing them with proof of their identity, will empower them and facilitate inclusive growth and poverty alleviation. These conceptual arguments are illustrated with the description of a biometric-linked developmental initiative that is providing proof of identity to 1.2 billion residents of India. By establishing a robust identity management system, the project aims to ensure more inclusive growth and efficiently target welfare programs. The authors further investigate how the establishment of identity rights facilitates financial inclusion, property ownership, and necessity-driven entrepreneurial action. Biometric identification on this scale is, however, fraught with dangers to civil liberties and has other serious ethical consequences. In the last section, issues around privacy and security are debated while highlighting the need for external review and independent monitoring to define the project’s boundaries and usages. (shrink)

This study examines whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) that serve women borrowers at the base of the economic pyramid are likely to adopt a written code of positive organizational ethics (POE). Using econometric analysis of operational and economic data of a sample of MFIs from across the world, we find that two contextual factors—poverty level and lack of women’s empowerment—moderate the influence of an MFI’s percentage of women borrowers on the probability of the MFI having a POE code. MFIs that serve (...) more women borrowers are more likely to adopt a POE code, especially in negative contexts (where women borrowers face poverty and disempowerment and are therefore susceptible to abuse). This study provides evidence that MFIs can build positive ethical strength in negative contexts. (shrink)