This article analyzes the use of crowdsourcing to promote corporate sustainability by assessing compliance with supply chain disclosure laws. It draws on a case study of WikiRate.org as a novel example of crowdsourcing compliance with respect to the UK Modern Slavery Act and U.S. conflict minerals legislation (section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act). WikiRate is an open research platform whose mission is to crowdsource better companies by motivating corporations to be transparent about their environmental, social, and governance performance. (...) In particular, WikiRate’s projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals harness the power of citizens to evaluate the quality of corporate disclosures produced in accordance with these laws. Following an analysis of its projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals, I evaluate the challenges of using crowdsourcing to assess legal compliance, including the potential manipulation of data and the difficulty of relying on non-expert citizens to assess complex information in corporate disclosures. I argue that one must identify the appropriate “crowd” that would be most capable of assessing compliance with a given law. While crowdsourcing platforms such as WikiRate invite a broad range of stakeholders to assess compliance, the reality is that only a limited set of individuals may be able to meaningfully participate given the complexity of supply chain disclosures. Thus, “expertsourcing” may be a more appropriate tool for assessing compliance with certain laws as it limits participation to citizens with specialized expertise. (shrink)

The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing and Belonging in Psychoanalysis, introduces new perspectives on desire and longing, in and outside of the analytic relationship._ _This exciting volume explores the known and unknown, ghosts and demons, sexuality and lust. Galit Atlas discusses the subjects of sex and desire and explores what she terms the Enigmatic and the Pragmatic aspects of sexuality, longing, female desire, sexual inhibition, pregnancy, parenthood and creativity. The author focuses on the levels of communication that take place (...) in the most intimate settings: between mothers and their babies; between lovers; in the unconscious bond of two people— in the consulting room, where two individuals sit alone in one room, looking and listening, breathing and dreaming. Atlas examines the ways in which different languages, translations and integrations focus on birth, death, sexuality, and human bonds. In _The Enigma of Desire_ each chapter opens with a narrative, a therapeutic story which illustrates both the analyst’s and patient’s desires and the ways these interact and emerge in the consulting room. This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of sex and desire and of great appeal to psychoanalysts, therapists and mental health professionals. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names (like pound and meter) and gradable adjectives (like tall, short and happy), inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al. In Foundations of measurement: Additive and Polynomial Representations, 1971). Based on measurement theory’s four-way typology of measures, I claim that different adjectives are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases, as well (...) as unit-based comparisons between predicates (as in the table is longer than it is wide). All considered, my analyses support the view that the grammar of natural languages is sensitive to features of measurement theory. (shrink)

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants belonging to one of four groups were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual-task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non-musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual-task performance, musicians also (...) outperformed non-musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long-term musical training is associated with improvements in task switching and dual-task performance. (shrink)

This book is the first postphenomenological analysis of the important roles the cellphone plays in contemporary everydayness. It is an example of a new methodology to study everyday technologies that combines historical research with a philosophical investigation.

Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a pleiotropic recessive disorder characterized cerebellar ataxia, immunodeficiency, specific developmental defects, profound predisposition to cancer and acute radiosensitivity. Functional inactivation of single gene product, ATM, accounts for this compound phenotype. We suggest that ATM acts as a sensor of reactive oxygen species and/or oxidative damage cellular macromolecules, including DNA. In turn, ATM induces signalling through multiple pathways, thereby coordinating acute phase stress responses with cell cycle checkpoint control and repair of oxidative damage. Absence of ATM is proposed (...) to limit the repair of insidious oxidative damage that can occur under normal physiological conditions, ultimately leading to apoptosis of particularly sensitive cells, such as neurons and thymocytes. (shrink)

This paper provides a new account of positive versus negative antonyms. The data includes well-known linguistic generalizations regarding negative adjectives, such as their incompatibility with measure phrases (cf. two meters tall/ *short) and ratio phrases (twice as tall/ #short) as well as the impossibility of truly crosspolar comparisons (*Dan is taller than Sam is short). These generalizations admit a variety of exceptions, e.g., positive adjectives that do not license measure phrases (cf. #two degrees warm/cold) and rarely also negative adjectives that (...) do (cf. two hours late/early). Furthermore, new corpus data is presented regarding the use of twice with positive and negative adjectives. The analysis the paper presents supposes that grammar associates gradable adjectives with measure functions—mapping of entities to a set of degrees isomorphic to the real numbers (Kennedy, Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison, 1999). On this analysis, negative adjectives map entities to values that are linearly reversed and linearly transformed in comparison with their values in the positive antonyms. As shown, the generalizations, as well as their exceptions, directly follow. Negative polarity is explained in terms of function reversal, and non-licensing of measure phrases is explained in terms of transformation by an unspecified value. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the epistemological foundations of narrative research in education. In particular, I seek to explain how one can obtain knowledge, given its origin in teachers' subjective experiences. The problem with rhetorical and aesthetic criteria that narrative researchers use to warrant their knowledge claims is not that they don't meet a correspondence criterion of truth as post-positivists contend, but rather that they fail to connect teachers' ethical views with their practice. Since narrative research is (...) aimed at understanding teachers' actions and not at seeking some kind of mechanism in teachers' behaviour, the link between past experiences and present teaching practice is not causal but teleological. I suggest that although the knowledge claims of narrative researchers may not be justified (because they don't meet the criteria of truth as correspondence theory), we might nonetheless be intellectually entitled to accept them. Entitlement is an epistemic right or warrant that constitutes knowledge as justification, but uses different reasons—teleological not causal explanations. I offer three criteria to establish entitlement to accept narrative researchers' findings: (1) the meeting of rhetorical standards such as plausibility, adequacy, and persuasion; (2) the inclusion of teachers' stories about their pedagogical practice; (3) the meeting of ethical criteria that connects a teacher's actions to an articulate and defensible end-in-view or vision of the good. (shrink)

Writing is frequently analyzed as a mode of communication. But writing can be done for personal reasons, to remind oneself of things to do, of thoughts, of events. The cellphone has revealed this shift, commencing as a communication device and ending up as a memory prosthesis that records what we see, hear, read and think. The recordings are not necessarily for communicating a message to others, but sometimes just for oneself. Today, when machine learning algorithms read, write and transmit, a (...) new mode of communication arises that is not centered on the human. In this chapter the various phases of modern writing are modeled according to postphenomenology. As a branch of philosophy of technology, postphenomenology offers a set of analytical tools to study technologies and our relations to them. One of its central frameworks is the scheme of “I–technology–world.” The author proposes some modifications so that the scheme can systematically model the changes in the humans users, in machine learning algorithms imbued with non-human cognition and in the environments of readers, interlocutors and contexts. (shrink)

The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial and do not suffer from the biases that humans and older technologies express. It becomes evident, however, that gender and racial biases exist in some AI algorithms. The question is where the bias is rooted—in the training dataset or in the algorithm? Is it a linguistic issue or a broader sociological current? Works in feminist philosophy of technology and behavioral economics reveal the gender bias (...) in AI technologies as a multi-faceted phenomenon, and the linguistic explanation as too narrow. The next step moves from the linguistic aspects to the relational ones, with postphenomenology. One of the analytical tools of this theory is the “I-technology-world” formula that models our relations with technologies, and through them—with the world. Realizing that AI technologies give rise to new types of relations in which the technology has an “enhanced technological intentionality”, a new formula is suggested: “I-algorithm-dataset.” In the third part of the article, four types of solutions to the gender bias in AI are reviewed: ignoring any reference to gender, revealing the considerations that led the algorithm to decide, designing algorithms that are not biased, or lastly, involving humans in the process. In order to avoid gender bias, we can recall a feminist basic understanding—visibility matters. Users and developers should be aware of the possibility of gender and racial biases, and try to avoid them, bypass them, or exterminates them altogether. (shrink)

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are powerful computational models, which generate complex, high-level representations that were missing in previous models of human cognition. By studying these high-level representations, psychologists can now gain new insights into the nature and origin of human high-level vision, which was not possible with traditional handcrafted models. Abandoning DNNs would be a huge oversight for psychological sciences.

Based on a survey of 6,989 individuals aged 60 and up from six countries (Austria, Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain), this study aimed at exploring the extent to which digital media practices complement and/or replace print media among older internet users. Results indicated a relative strength of print media among this audience and pointed to four differentiated sub-segments: hybrid readers—who comprised the majority of sample respondents—, heavy print readers, heavy online readers and non-readers. The segment type significantly associated (...) with sociodemographic characteristics. The findings indicate that older readers are not a homogenous group and that their reading habits are affected by a complex configuration of factors: technological features of different media, specific individual psychosocial needs, unequal allocation of cultural capital among varied social groups that results in different levels and types of literacy, and—at least to some extent—idiosyncratic cultural and political conditions in each country. (shrink)

The article proposes to model the phenomenon of the cell phone as a wall-window. This model aims at explicating some of the perceptions and experiences associated with cellular technology. The wall-window model means that the cell phone simultaneously separates the user from the physical surroundings (the wall), and connects the user to a remote space (the window). The remote space may be where the interlocutor resides or where information is stored (e.g. the Internet). Most cell phone usage patterns are modeled (...) as a single dimension according to the level of distraction or attention of the user. In order to accommodate nuanced situations such as augmented reality, I suggest a two-dimensional layout: the wall-window. The wall represents the attention to the immediate physical environment, while the window represents the attention to a remote space. The wall-window model further evolves once a screen is woven into this layout. This addition is easily understood due to the screen’s etymology, which is associated with the concepts of shield or barrier. From a technical perspective, the screen has become an integral part of the cell phone. Furthermore, a screen itself is both a wall and a window. Lastly, once a cell phone is supplemented with a screen, it is easier to refer to it as media. And again, media fits into the wall-window model. (shrink)

In this reply to my reviewers, I touch upon Husserl’s notion of fantasy. Whereas Kant positions fantasy outside the scope of his own work, Husserl brings it back. The importance of this notion lies in freeing imagination from the tight link to images, as for Husserl imagination is an activity that functions as a “quasi perception.” Ihde and Stiegler enrich Husserl’s analysis of imagination with various aspects of technology: Ihde shows how changes in the technologies that mediate our imagination will (...) necessarily change our imagination; Stiegler broadens Husserl’s analysis of retention. The two theories can be combined into a new understanding of subjectivity that is modeled as layers. Some layers can be performed by AI. The second part deals with the question of whether AI can be imaginative. Traditionally, imaginative creativity is associated with art. Bioart and AI art are brought as examples of a new definition of art, according to which art is the arrangement of materials in a way that produces a meaning. This definition does not refer specifically to creativity. In both forms of art, the biological/artificial and the human cooperate so that the former arranges the materials and the latter produces the meaning, albeit this division of labor is not clear-cut. The result is a co-shaping process. My conclusion is that algorithms can be considered creative by human standards, but this entails a new mode of imagination that is co-shaped and co-shared by humans and algorithms. The layer paradigm explains how such co-shaping works in practice. (shrink)

Digital technologies are frequently considered as lacking material aspects. Today, it is evident that behind digital technologies lies a huge and complex material infrastructure in the form of fiber optic cables, servers, satellites, and screens. Postphenomenology has theorized the relations to material things as embodiment relations. Taking into account that technologies can also have hermeneutic aspects, this theory defines hermeneutic relations as those in which we read the world through technologies. The article opens with a review of some theoretical developments (...) to hermeneutic relations with a special focus on digital technologies. The article suggests that in the digital world, material hermeneutics needs to be updated as it shifts from a scientific to an everyday technological context. Now, technologies not only “give voice” to things, they also produce new meanings to informational structures and direct users to certain meanings. When it comes to digital technologies, especially those involving artificial intelligence (AI), the technology actively mediates the world. In postphenomenological terms, it possesses a technological intentionality. The postphenomenological formula should be updated to reflect this type of technological intentionality, by reversing the arrow of intentionality so that it points to the user, rather than from the user. (shrink)

Public procurement provides an excellent window into the shaping of corporate social responsibility of companies contracted by the government. To this emerging scholarly realization, we want to add that public procurement provides also the opportunity to examine corporate social responsibility as practiced by public sector organizations. This opportunity enables the investigation of the conditions under which public sector organizations endorse CSR guidelines, adherence to which demonstrates accountability for their service providers’ legal, employment-related practices. Our study examined the possibility that public (...) sector organizations’ CSR is enhanced by maintenance managers’ role dissonance emerging in response to an ethical mismatch between them and their organizations’ official stance concerning whether unethical employment practices of service providers should be sanctioned. We analyzed interviews with 13 managers in charge of contract administration in the area of cleaning and maintenance. Our findings suggest that the role dissonance that emerges in cases of mismatch in ethical orientation rarely enhances more responsible treatment of cleaning employees. We introduce a model indicating the conditions supporting this incident. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names and gradable adjectives, inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al 1971). Based on measurement theory's typology of measures, I claim that different predicates are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases.

Today's navigation is different, with no paper map or compass. Instead we use a cellphone that has a built-in GPS. Such cellphone is also equipped with an embedded camera that can read signs in various languages and barcodes that most humans cannot decipher. Combined, the GPS and the camera participate in the production and exercise of augmented reality, where reality is presented with layers of information which are accessible only through technological mediation. Currently such mediation is enabled by the cellphone, (...) thereby providing novel dimensions to our experience of mobility. Consequently it produces innovative ways of navigation and a new sensation of reality. (shrink)

Digital technologies are frequently considered as lacking material aspects. Today, it is evident that behind digital technologies lies a huge and complex material infrastructure in the form of fiber optic cables, servers, satellites, and screens. Postphenomenology has theorized the relations to material things as embodiment relations. Taking into account that technologies can also have hermeneutic aspects, this theory defines hermeneutic relations as those in which we read the world through technologies. The article opens with a review of some theoretical developments (...) to hermeneutic relations with a special focus on digital technologies. The article suggests that in the digital world, material hermeneutics needs to be updated as it shifts from a scientific to an everyday technological context. Now, technologies not only “give voice” to things, they also produce new meanings to informational structures and direct users to certain meanings. When it comes to digital technologies, especially those involving artificial intelligence (AI), the technology actively mediates the world. In postphenomenological terms, it possesses a technological intentionality. The postphenomenological formula should be updated to reflect this type of technological intentionality, by reversing the arrow of intentionality so that it points to the user, rather than from the user. (shrink)

Why does a cell phone have a screen? From televisions and cell phones to refrigerators, many contemporary technologies come with a screen. The article aims at answering this question by employing Emmanuel Levinas’ notions of the Other and the face. This article also engages with Don Ihde’s conceptualization of alterity relations, in which the technological acts as quasi-other with which we maintain relations. If technology is a quasi-other, then, I claim, the screen is the quasi-face. By exploring Levinas’ ontology, specifically (...) what can be identified as his tool analysis, as well as his notion of the face, a new understanding of contemporary technologies can be extracted. Some of these technologies hardly fit into the Heideggerian notion of the hand as the main interface to artifacts. Instead they require the face. Levinas’ notion of the face is analyzed from an ontological perspective and developed in conjunction with the screen. As the screen serves as a quasi-face, it enables the construction of quasi-other technological artifacts. (shrink)

As AI algorithms advance and produce surprising outputs, the question of imagination arises. Can we classify their output as imaginative? And what is their effect on human imagination? Apparently, algorithms follow Kant’s explanations on human imagination, thereby pushing us to update our understanding of imagination by taking into account the co-shaping between humans and their technologies. Such a new understating is offered in this article based on the theories of Don Ihde and Bernard Stiegler. With Ihde, imagination is conceived as (...) tightly linked to perception. Imagination evolves from the modernist task of seeking new points-of-view to a new mode in which technologies present imaginative layers of information on top of reality. With Stiegler, imagination is regarded as tightly linked to memory. He demonstrates how imagination complements memory, serves as a condition to memory/technology and at the same time how imagination itself is conditioned by memory/technology. In this article I develop a new synthesis: imagination as composed of perception and memory. This is the foundation of my layered model of digital imagination. In this model, the task of AI algorithms is the filling in of the layers with data. By producing endless possibilities, these technologies “automate” the Kantian “free play” of imagination, allowing us to examine more options and focus on the best of them. The model reserves the production of meaning to humans. Our role as humans is to generate meaning to the link between layers and establish new layers. (shrink)

La 4è de couv. indique : "Dans ce texte, l'auteur cherche à redéfinir le droit. Partant du positivisme juridique et tenant compte des critiques effectuées à l'égard de celui-ci, il propose de construire une pensée post-positiviste. Ce post-positivisme juridique et philosophique admet l'idée de hiérarchie des normes. Cependant, pour l'auteur, le droit ne peut être considéré de la sorte, s'il n'est pas juste. Or, selon lui un droit digne de ce nom ne peut qu'être celui qui laisse effectivement la place (...) qui convient à l'un et l'autre. Pour y parvenir, il faut savoir écouter chacun mais une telle mise en oeuvre ne saurait se réaliser que par le truchement de magistrats désignés, non pas seulement sur des critères formels mais aussi à partir de leur valeur effective. Le magistrat chargé d'appliquer le droit ayant ainsi pour mission de laisser une place effective à l'un et à l'autre, il aura d'autant plus de valeurs qu'il saura laisser cette place juste à ce tout qui ne saurait être confusément pensé. Droit et éthique ont trop souvent été séparés alors, qu'il est patent qu'aucun droit ne peut avoir de légitimité si d'une part, il ne se fonde pas sur une éthique et d'autre part, s'il n'est pas appliqué par des magistrats qui se nourriraient au quotidien de celle-ci, sans en être les dupes pour autant..". (shrink)

"Thought Projections Are Nothing but Scenarios We Construct About Others and Are the Products of Our Own Closed-Mindedness. Report on the ""Living Philosophy"" Project. This text is a reflection on Projections. The aim here is to show that it is necessary to go beyond the Freudian concept to offer a more open reading of the concept of projections. The term is taken in its true sense. Projection is mainly used today in the world of cinema and entertainment. To be victim (...) of a projection is to “make himself is proper film” of reality and live in an imaginary world. Our idea is to maintain that these projections develop in the era of the spectacle which is ours. The term “société du spectacle” is borrowed from Guy Debord. However, we distinguish ourselves from him by maintaining that the spectacle is only an epiphenomenon which is only the result of a culture of secret itself produced by contemporary narcissism. This work is the continuation of a series of conferences which are organized within the framework of a movement called Living Philosophy. This movement aims to bring philosophy back to life by leading it into living spaces and bringing it down into bodies, streets and villages. To do this, she wants to be creative and bring together the Ancients, the Moderns and the post-moderns. Living Philosophy is a movement built on the idea of dialogue and mediation. Keywords: philosophie vivante; Freud, Sigmund; projections; Debord, Guy; narcisism.". (shrink)

Pour des raisons souvent historiques, la pensée occidentale moderne a surtout pensé la norme et la loi. Elle a parfois aussi – mais plus rarement – réfléchi sur le principe mais elle a souvent négligé l'exception. Or cette dernière joue un rôle central en droit en ce qu'elle le crée réellement et en tous les sens du terme. Certains auteurs ont tenté de mettre en évidence l'importance de ladite exception mais leur vision a souvent été trop réductrice et l'exception a (...) trop souvent été réduite à l'idée négative de crise. L'auteur de ce travail, juriste et philosophe, après avoir envisagé les différents aspects pris par l'exception en droit et ouvert pour la première fois en philosophie du droit le sens de cette notion, propose ici de définir l'exception comme le hors du commun et de ne tenir vraiment pour exceptionnelles que les "belles" exceptions, à savoir celles qui rendent l'homme meilleur. Un droit ne peut en effet porter dignement ce nom que lorsqu'il aide chacun à devenir plus grand et à se tenir plus droit qu'il ne se tenait avant qu'il soit édicté. Cependant, pour ne pas se réduire aux simples déclarations d'intention, un tel droit ne peut réellement exister que par des beaux gestes – aussi modestes et quotidiens soient-ils – car ce sont eux en effet qui nous donnent chaque jour l'envie de devenir meilleur que nous le sommes et qui créent véritablement le droit. (shrink)

Nous vivons dans l'inversion et la confusion. Ce qui est en bas a pris la place du haut et ce qui a de la valeur est méprisé. Dans cette confusion des valeurs, le droit n'est pas épargné. Plus personne ne sait à quoi il correspond. Ce mot est désormais employé en toutes occasions, soit pour culpabiliser le plus faible, soit pour justifier des pratiques purement bureaucratiques mais vides de sens, soit pour signifier un ensemble formel de normes creuses, soit pour (...) glorifier celui qui souhaite ainsi légitimer sa violence sur autrui, soit tout simplement pour signifier l'égarement de celui qui exprime un sentiment d'injustice qui n'est pas toujours justifié. Une telle situation de confusion est dangereuse car une société sans un droit digne de ce nom est une société qui s'égare et qui finit tôt ou tard par sombrer. Dans ce texte, il s'agit donc de se saisir ce problème en distinguant deux types de droit : le droit au sens propre et le droit dénaturé. Seul un droit digne, propre, qui élève l'individu et qui lui redonne foi en l'existence peut être qualifié de véritable droit. Cependant un tel concept ne peut exister par de simples promesses ou de belles paroles. Il suppose, pour être crédible et légitime, une application concrète au quotidien qui n'est possible que si une élite de magistrats formés à une éthique rigoureuse – mais non pas susceptible de conduire au sacrifice de leur être ou de leur personne – existe et est sélectionnée non en fonction de critères formels ou de culture dite « générale » ou technique, mais d'une part en fonction de leur engagement pour le bien commun et singulier de chacun et d'autre part en raison de leur valeur personnelle et humaine. Pour redonner sens au droit il faut donc le repenser dans son essence mais aussi et surtout le mettre ensuite en œuvre en mettant au-dessus ce qui est digne de l'être et en confiant sa mise en œuvre à une élite digne de ce nom : une élite au sens propre du terme. (shrink)

Quel statut sémio-linguistique conférer à une réalité admise comme un allant de sol? Plusieurs disciplines sont concernées par cette recherche. Au premier chef, les sciences du langage, à partir de leurs différentes théorisations : l'herméneutique et la sémantique des textes, la linguistique textuelle, l'analyse du discours, les pragmatiques, la sémiotique narrative, la socio-sémiotique, ainsi que l'ensemble des disciplines qui rencontrent la problématique discursive du sens commun, comme un niveau d'analyse le plus souvent sous-estimé : l'histoire, la sociologie - fonctionnelle ou (...) compréhensive -, la praxéologie, la psychologie sociale, les sciences de l'éducation, ainsi que les sciences cognitives, etc. La compréhension et la modélisation des formations du sens commun intéressent encore l'ensemble des référentiels thérapeutiques - depuis la psychanalyse qui est leur source commune - puisqu'il y est toujours question de la manière dont le sujet se rapporte au monde commun, à partir de la problématisation de ses propres évidences. Un ouvrage au coeur de l'histoire de la philosophie. (shrink)

This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the (...) major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news. (shrink)

guest editors' introduction to a special issue on techno-anthropology.

Deleuze and Guattari’s Thousand Plateaus includes some useful concepts to understand technologies and their relations to humans as individuals and as a society. This article provides an introduction to their notions of machine and becoming and places them in the context of technological use in general, with a special focus on the cellphone. The concept of machine exceeds the technological context, yet it can be still relevant to technologies, especially digital ones. The concept of becoming assists in better understanding co-shaping (...) processes in which a technology and its users change in tandem. Becoming is analyzed as a set of five characteristics: [1] transduction, a change process in both the user and the technology; [2] rhizome, no starting or end point; [3] molecularity, small movement or change that can create a big difference; [4] partial simulation, creating a non-identical copy; and [5] anti-memory, forgetting the past. Based on this analysis, the concept of becoming-mobile is introduced as a new way of understanding the interrelations between humans and their cellphones. Becoming-mobile can be further developed either with Deleuze and Guattari’s own concepts such as nomadicism or with “external” concepts such as postphenomenology’s embodiment and new mobility studies’ virtual mobility. Machine, becoming, and becoming-mobile address some basic questions in philosophy of technology, thereby enabling us to refer to Deleuze and Guattari as philosophers of technology. (shrink)

Vagueness is an ultimate challenge. An enormous diversity of literature on the topic has accumulated over the years, with no hint of a consensus emerging. In this light, Section 1 presents the main aspects of the challenge vagueness poses, focusing on the category of adjectives, and then gives some brief illustrations of the pervasive manifestations of vagueness in grammar.Section 2 deals with theSorites paradox, which for many philosophers is the hallmark of vagueness: By assigning avague predicate step by apparently inescapable (...) step to more and more objects one is eventually led to assign it to entities of which it plainly isn’t true.It is hard to resist the force of the paradox once one has been exposed to it. The result of this has been that many see the philosophical problem presented by vagueness as nothing other than the problem of solving the Sorites.The efforts to solve the Sorites paradox have uncovered a range of important connections between vagueness and other aspects of language and thought. But most of these seem to lead further and further away from what some consider the core issues that vagueness raises.Given the challenge posed by the Sorites, it is rather remarkable to discover that there is a lot more to vagueness beyond the paradox. In fact, linguists traditionally leave it to the philosophers to deal with the Sorites and put their own efforts into dealing with other manifestations of vagueness in natural language and their consequences for grammar. Page 2 2Section 3 reviews some of these additional phenomena, centering around three issues: (i) the controversial connections between vagueness and morphological gradability, (ii) the similarity and differences between the phenomena of vagueness and imprecision, and (iii) the ways in which vagueness infiltrates various grammatical constructions we find in language, with consequences for the architecture of grammar.The aim of this section is to highlight the main questions which any theory of vagueness will ultimately have to address. (shrink)

Guest editor 's introduction to a special issue on the question of whether it is dangerous to drive while talking on the mobile phone and the philosophical questions that emerge from this debate.

The question of whether animals have technologies is studied in this article in three genealogical steps according to the development of human technologies: tools, machines and digital technologies. In the age of tools, animals were regarded as lacking technologies. In the age of machines, observations in animals show tool usage. However, Marx attributes both machines and tools only to humans in order to avoid a break between premodern humanity that had only tools, to modern humanity that invented and used machines. (...) In the age of digital technologies, animals have been observed using and inventing tools as well as complex technics like language and agriculture. These genealogical steps conform to Calarco’s mapping of animality into identity, difference and indifference, which allow us to think not only of the identity between humans’ and animals’ technologies but also of the differences. (shrink)

Attention has been addressed either as a distinction of a figure from background or as a searchlight scanning of a surface. In both ways, attention is limited to a single object. The aim of this article is to suggest a platform for an interpretation of multi-attention, that is, attention based on multiplicity of objects and spaces. The article describes how attention can be given to more than one object, based on the experiences of pilots, parents and car drivers.

The Onlife Manifesto rightfully points to the emergence of new forms of subjectivity in the digital age and how ICT calls for the re-distribution of tasks and responsibilities between humans and their technologies. However, Attention is still conceived in the Manifesto in modernist terms, as a problem of distraction. Within the terminology of Attention economy, the Manifesto is critical about the abuse of traditional forms of Attention, but does not make the next step to develop an alternative. In this chapter, (...) I elaborate on the notion of Attention and think of its new form in the digital age. A genealogy of the notion shows how Attention reflects the dominant technologies of a period. In the age of the printed book, Attention meant focusing on one activity at a time, and the background had to be silent and unnoticeable. In the age of radio and television, when stations and channels were switched with a single button, Attention was still focused on a single item but for shorter periods of time. Today, in the age of multi-processor computers and cell phones, Attention is distributed among tasks. In its distributed form, Attention can provide a subversive answer to the Attention economy that requires our undivided Attention. (shrink)

As part of the Special Section: Technology & Pandemic, this article exam­ines the experience of teaching and learning via Zoom. I examine how technologies mediate the learning process with the postphenomenological notions of embodiment and hermeneutic relations. This section serves as a basis for understanding the trans­formation of that process into online learning. The next section is named “the Zoom-bie”—a combination of the words Zoom and zombie. The figure of the Zoom-bie provides me a way to critically review the new (...) practices experienced in the spring semester of 2020. After analyzing the variations of the learning process with a fresh look at embodiment and hermeneutic relations, the last section titled “the digital classroom” examines this transformation from an alternative point-of-view, that of the classroom as a technology-saturated background. (shrink)

Israel is a country of many cultures and languages and of several religions. The majority of the population adheres to the Jewish religion. The Moslem and the Christian religions come next in size, in that order. Similarly to many other countries in the region, religion fills a more central role in the public sphere of Israel than in most Western countries. It also influences the private sphere immensely, as for example in the matter of marriages and funerals which in most (...) cases are conducted by state employees who have been appointed by the religious establishments of each of the official religions. We are thus discussing religion in a context where it matters highly. Power, welfare and the very right to reside in the country are connected with religion. Symbols of statehood and collective identity are lent from religious texts, objects and rituals. The symbol of the state, the seven-armed golden candelabra, suggests the memory of the temples of Solomon and Herod where a similar one was standing. (shrink)

BackgroundMost end-of-life decisions are made by family members. Current ethical guidelines for family decision making are based on a hierarchical model that emphasizes the patient’s wishes over his or her best interests. Evidence suggests that the model poorly reflects the strategies and priorities of many families.MethodsResearchers observed and recorded 26 decision-making meetings between hospital staff and family members. Semi-structured follow-up interviews were conducted. Transcriptions were analyzed using qualitative techniques.ResultsFor both staff and families, consideration of a patient’s best interests generally took (...) priority over the patient’s wishes. Staff generally introduced discussion of the patient’s wishes for rhetorical purposes, such as persuasion. Competing moral frameworks, which de-emphasized the salience of patients’ autonomy and “right to choose,” played a role in family decision making.ConclusionsThe priority given to the patients’ wishes in the hierarchical model does not reflect the priorities of staff and families in making decisions about end-of-life care. (shrink)

A fragment of a relief icon, made of steatite plaque, depicting a female saint,was recently found in Acre (Akko) in northern Israel. The plaque has lost the head of the saint, but enough is left of the figure to discern that the pose of the female saint is typically Byzantine. Moreover, the drapery shows stylistic affinities with Komnenian art. The plaque is the first steatite icon found in Palestine and could have arrived in Acre from abroad. The archeological context suggests (...) that it might have been venerated in Acre anytime between the Crusader and the Ottoman periods. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 1 Seiten: 97-108.

Persons with Parkinson’s disease are advised to use compensatory strategies such as external cues or cognitive movement strategies to overcome gait disturbances. It is suggested that external cues involve the processing of sensory stimulation, while cognitive-movement strategies use attention allocation. This study aimed to compare over time changes in attention allocation in PwP between prolonged walking with cognitive movement strategy and external cues; to compare the effect of cognitive movement strategies and external cues on gait parameters; and evaluate whether these (...) changes depend on cognitive function. Eleven PwP participated in a single-group pilot study. Participants walked for 10 min under each of three conditions: natural walking, using external cuing, using a cognitive movement strategy. Attention and gait variables were extracted from a single-channel electroencephalogram and accelerometers recordings, respectively. Attention allocation was assessed by the% of Brain Engagement Index signals within an attentive engagement range. Cognitive function was assessed using a neuropsychological battery. The walk was divided into 2-min time segments, and the results from each 2-min segment were used to determine the effects of time and condition. Associations between cognitive function and BEI signals were tested. Findings show that in the cognitive movement strategy condition, there was a reduction in the % of BEI signals within the attentive engagement range after the first 2 min of walking. Despite this reduction the BEI did not consistently differ from natural and metronome walking. Spatiotemporal gait variables were better in the cognitive movement strategy condition relative to the other conditions. Global cognitive and information processing scores were significantly associated with the BEI only when the cognitive movement strategy was applied. In conclusion, the study shows that a cognitive movement strategy has positive effects on gait variables but may impose a higher attentional load. Furthermore, when walking using a cognitive movement strategy, persons with higher cognitive function showed elevated attentive engagement. The findings support the idea that cognitive and attentional resources are required for cognitive movement strategies in PwP. Additionally, this study provides support for using single-channel EEG to explore mechanistic aspects of clinical interventions. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names and gradable adjectives, inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al 1971). Based on measurement theory's typology of measures, I claim that different predicates are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases.

In his book Byzantine Art in the Making; Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art 3 rd–7 th Century, Ernst Kitzinger describes three types of subjects represented in a group of ivory plaques most likely executed in the same Roman workshop c. 400. He begins with the famous pair of ivory panels inscribed with the names Nicomachi (Paris, Musée Cluny) and Symmachi (London, Victoria and Albert Museum), two of the old Roman senatorial families known for their efforts and actions (...) to preserve and protect pagan rites during the final decades of the fourth century in Rome [fig. 1]. Each of the two panels shows a priestess performing a rite before an altar. Kitzinger's main interest was in the classicistic style of the settings and figures, recruited to emphasize the patrons' purposes. He compares the priestess diptych with the official ivory diptych of Rufius Probianus. There in each part Probianus, vicarius of the city of Rome, is seen seated on a throne flanked by two notaries [fig. 2]. Below, two patricians stand in acclamation pose. The devotional pair of ivories and the official one, says Kitzinger, are closely related. The borders of the first diptych, made of “delicately wrought palmette ornament” are identical with the frames of the second one, including the borders dividing the Probianus panels into upper and lower zones. (shrink)