La couverture indique :"L'infini est le sujet le plus vaste que l'imagination puisse embrasser. Il a tout le temps fasciné les hommes, qu'ils soient artistes, philosophes ou scientifiques. Mais l'infini se manifeste-t-il vraiment dans la réalité physique, ou est-il seulement un concept de notre imagination, comme le pensait Aristote? Des artistes comme Escher, des écrivains comme Borges ont tenté de le représenter, mais c'est Georg Cantor qui assoit fermement l'infini dans le paysage des mathématiques et nous dévoile ses propriétés étranges (...) et magiques. L'univers est, par excellence, le lieu où l'infini se manifeste. Dans un univers infini, nous serions confrontés au paradoxe de l'éternel retour, où chacun de nous posséderait un nombre infini de sosies. Les avancées en physique de ces dernières décennies ont donné au mot "infini" un sens nouveau. Il se réfère non seulement à notre univers, mais aussi à une infinité d'univers parallèles, le tout formant un vaste et fantastique "multivers". A ces sujets vertigineux, Trinh Xuan Thuan apporte ses réflexions avec la pédagogie lumineuse, à la fois scientifique, philosophique et poétique qui lui est coutumière et qui fait le grand succès de La Mélodie secrète, du Chaos et l'harmonie, et, plus récemment, du Cosmos et le lotus.". (shrink)

Inferences that result from exhaustification of a sentence S depend on the set of alternatives to S. In this paper, we present some inference patterns that are problematic for previous theories of alternatives and propose some structural constraints on the derivation of formal alternatives which derive the observations.

Thomas Aquinas persistently defended the idea that the soul survives physical death. But what exactly is the rational soul that becomes separated from the body at death? When a person’s body dies, do they cease to exist? Over the past few decades, a nuanced debate has developed between “survivalists” and “corruptionists” over whether or not a separated soul is still a person, leading to impenetrable disagreements in which neither side can seem to sway the other. In this research, I propose (...) a previously unexplored answer to this contentious query: that a person whose soul has been separated from their body is an incomplete human being. (shrink)

In this collection of her provocative essays on Third World art and culture, award-winning filmmaker and theorist Trinh Minh-ha offers new challenges to Western regimes of knowledge. Bringing to her subjects an acute sense of the many meanings of the marginal, Trinh examines Asian and African texts, the theories of Barthes, questions of spectatorship, the enigmas of art, and the perils of anthropology. In one essay, taking off from ideas raised earlier by Zora Neale Hurston, Trinh considers (...) with astonishment the search by Western "experts" for the hidden values of a person or culture, a process of legitimized voyeurism that, she argues, ultimately equates psychological conflicts with depth , while inner experience is reduced to mere personal feeling. When the Moon Waxes Red is an extended argument against reductive analyses, even those that appear politically adroit. Feminist struggle is heterogeneous. The multiply-hyphenated peoples of color are not simply placed in a duality between two cultural heritages; throughout, Trinh describes the predicament of having to live "a difference that has no name and too many names already." She argues for multicultural revision of knowledge so that a new politics can transform reality rather than merely ideologize it. By rewriting the always emerging, already distorted place of struggle, such work seeks to "beat the master at his own game.". (shrink)

Breheny et al. argue against the structural approach to alternatives. The empirical force of their argument comes mostly from challenges raised against Trinh and Haida. This paper aims to respond to these challenges, showing how they can be met by a natural refinement of Trinh and Haida’s proposal which turns out to capture additional facts previously not accounted for. Another aim of this paper is to recount the debate with enough precision and explicitness in order to enhance understanding (...) and facilitate future discussions. (shrink)

This study contrasts the evidence exclusion principles within the adversarial legal system of the United States, particularly the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine, with the inquisitorial system of Vietnam. The U.S. model, emphasizing the exclusion of unlawfully obtained evidence to protect the presumption of innocence and ensure fair trials, relies on the Fourth Amendment to prevent police misconduct. Conversely, Vietnam, with its focus on uncovering the truth, has started to adopt adversarial elements, including evidence exclusion, to align with international (...) standards and enhance human rights protections within its criminal justice system. The research examines the application of the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine in the U.S. and its implications for Vietnamese legal reforms, especially the proposed amendments to Article 87 of Vietnam's Criminal Procedure Code. These reforms aim to exclude unlawfully obtained evidence while allowing for the use of evidence collected independently from illegal actions. Highlighting the need for a balanced approach that respects procedural rights and promotes justice, the study advocates for comprehensive legal reforms in Vietnam. It suggests amendments to refine evidence exclusion principles, ensuring they reflect both the Vietnamese context and the progressive features of U.S. criminal justice practices, thereby enhancing the fairness and integrity of criminal proceedings. (shrink)

We consider a fishery model with two sites: (1) a marine protected area (MPA) where fishing is prohibited and (2) an area where the fish population is harvested. We assume that fish can migrate from MPA to fishing area at a very fast time scale and fish spatial organisation can change from small to large clusters of school at a fast time scale. The growth of the fish population and the catch are assumed to occur at a slow time scale. (...) The complete model is a system of five ordinary differential equations with three time scales. We take advantage of the time scales using aggregation of variables methods to derive a reduced model governing the total fish density and fishing effort at the slow time scale. We analyze this aggregated model and show that under some conditions, there exists an equilibrium corresponding to a sustainable fishery. Our results suggest that in small pelagic fisheries the yield is maximum for a fish population distributed among both small and large clusters of school. (shrink)

I argue that there is tension in Wittgenstein’s position on trivialities (i.e. tautologies and contradictions) in the Tractatus, as it contains the following claims: (A) sentences are pictures; (B) trivialties are not pictures; (C) trivialities are sentences. A and B follow from the “picture theory” of language which Wittgenstein proposes, while C contradicts it. I discuss a way to resolve this tension in light of Logicality, a hypothesis recently developed in linguistic research. Logicality states that trivialities are excluded by the (...) grammar, and that under the right analysis sentences which look trivial are in fact contingent. The tools necessary to support Logicality, I submit, were not available to Wittgenstein at the time, which explains his commitment to C. I end the paper by commenting on some points of contact between analytic philosophy and the generative enterprise in linguistics which are brought into relief by the discussion. (shrink)

This paper discusses a set of observations, many of which are novel, concerning differences between the adjectival modals _certain_ and _possible_ and their adverbial counterparts _certainly_ and _possibly_. It argues that the observations can be derived from a standard interpretation of _certain_/_certainly_ as universal and _possible_/_possibly_ as existential quantifiers over possible worlds, in conjunction with the hypothesis that the adjectives quantify over knowledge and the adverbs quantify over belief. The claims on which the argument relies include the following: (i) knowledge (...) implies belief, (ii) agents have epistemic access to their belief, (iii) relevance is closed under speakers’ belief, and (iv) commitment is pragmatically inconsistent with explicit denial of belief. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Recent studies in pedestrian simulation have been able to construct a highly realistic navigation behaviour in many circumstances. However, when replicating the close interactions between pedestrians, the replicated behaviour is often unnatural and lacks human likeness. One of the possible reasons is that the current models often ignore the cognitive factors in the human thinking process. Another reason is that many models try to approach the problem by optimising certain objectives. On the other hand, in real life, humans do not (...) always take the most optimised decisions, particularly when interacting with other people. To improve the navigation behaviour in this circumstance, we proposed a pedestrian interacting model using reinforcement learning. Additionally, a novel cognitive prediction model, inspired by the predictive system of human cognition, is also incorporated. This helps the pedestrian agent in our model to learn to interact and predict the movement in a similar practice as humans. In our experimental results, when compared to other models, the path taken by our model’s agent is not the most optimised in certain aspects like path lengths, time taken and collisions. However, our model is able to demonstrate a more natural and human-like navigation behaviour, particularly in complex interaction settings. (shrink)

This paper aims to uncover the underlying metaphorical expressions regarding the importance of love to human life in English and Vietnamese poetry based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which suggests that metaphor is based on human thought as well as on language. For metaphor identification, the authors use a five-step procedure based on Pragglejaz Group’s method for metaphorical expressions and a self-proposed three-step procedure for conceptual metaphors. The findings reveal that love is metaphorically expressed to have a considerable influence on both (...) the physical and mental aspects of human life. This paper is also a comparative investigation showing both similarities and differences in the love-life metaphorical expressions between the two languages. The similarities are explained by the same grounding of metaphor-embodiment and the universality of conceptual metaphors. The differences are attributed to cultural distinction. (shrink)

It is thrilling to think – to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep. (Zora Neale Hurston, ‘How It Feels to Be Colored Me').

Case law retrieval is the task of locating truly relevant legal cases given an input query case. Unlike information retrieval for general texts, this task is more complex with two phases (legal case retrieval and legal case entailment) and much harder due to a number of reasons. First, both the query and candidate cases are long documents consisting of several paragraphs. This makes it difficult to model with representation learning that usually has restriction on input length. Second, the concept of (...) relevancy in this domain is defined based on the legal relation that goes beyond the lexical or topical relevance. This is a real challenge because normal text matching will not work. Third, building a large and accurate legal case dataset requires a lot of effort and expertise. This is obviously an obstacle to creating enough data for training deep retrieval models. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called supporting model that can deal with both phases. The underlying idea is the case–case supporting relation and the paragraph–paragraph as well as the decision-paragraph matching strategy. In addition, we propose a method to automatically create a large weak-labeling dataset to overcome the lack of data. The experiments showed that our solution has achieved the state-of-the-art results for both case retrieval and case entailment phases. (shrink)

Vietnam is home to a prospering technology community and numerous enterprises that range from small start-ups to development giants. Virtually all public services are offered online. In fact, the country even has a system for e-residency and “data embassies.” This achievement derives in part from the nation’s transparent and enduring political preferences, but more importantly from Vietnamese law and its regulatory system regarding information, the digital general public, and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. In this examination of the most pertinent (...) aspects of Vietnam’s digital economy legislation, this study explores the nation’s regulatory structure regarding copyright and patents within the context of digital transformation. The study discusses the relationship between foreign and national regulations in terms of IPR protection and the advancement of digitalization. Research on Vietnamese regulations and the practical application of major patent and copyright regulations has revealed that in many respects, the nation is highly reliant on the effective operation of a broader foreign institutional and legal framework. Thus, in the near future, technological advancement will necessitate the establishment of additional transnational regulatory systems. (shrink)

We use variation in corruption convictions across judicial districts in the US to examine the relationship between political corruption and risk-taking of public firms. Firms headquartered in regions with high levels of political corruption have lower total risk and lower idiosyncratic risk on average. Further analysis shows that corruption tends to encourage firms to pursue risk-decreasing investments, lower the riskiness of their operations, and decrease asset liquidity. While managerial ownership is intended to align the interests of managers and shareholders, the (...) presence of corruption appears to encourage undiversified managers to decrease risk-taking. Our evidence is consistent with agency theory and the asset-shielding argument that political corruption discourages managers from taking risks that expose firms to expropriation by politicians, resulting in suboptimal corporate policies. (shrink)

Deep learning models are powerful tools for representing the complex learning processes and decision-making strategies used by humans. Such neural network models make fewer assumptions about the underlying mechanisms thus providing experimental flexibility in terms of applicability. However, this comes at the cost of involving a larger number of parameters requiring significantly more data for effective learning. This presents practical challenges given that most cognitive experiments involve relatively small numbers of subjects. Laboratory collaborations are a natural way to increase overall (...) dataset size. However, data sharing barriers between laboratories as necessitated by data protection regulations encourage the search for alternative methods to enable collaborative data science. Distributed learning, especially federated learning, which supports the preservation of data privacy, is a promising method for addressing this issue. To verify the reliability and feasibility of applying FL to train neural networks models used in the characterization of decision making, we conducted experiments on a real-world, many-labs data pool including experiment data-sets from ten independent studies. The performance of single models trained on single laboratory data-sets was poor. This unsurprising finding supports the need for laboratory collaboration to train more reliable models. To that end we evaluated four collaborative approaches. The first approach represents conventional centralized learning and is the optimal approach but requires complete sharing of data which we wish to avoid. The results however establish a benchmark for the other three approaches, federated learning, incremental learning, and cyclic incremental learning. We evaluate these approaches in terms of prediction accuracy and capacity to characterize human decision-making strategies. The FL-based model achieves performance most comparable to that of the CL-based model. This indicates that FL has value in scaling data science methods to data collected in computational modeling contexts when data sharing is not convenient, practical or permissible. (shrink)

Physical activity is important for managing the side effects and long-term outcomes of cancer treatment, yet many adolescents and young adults diagnosed with cancer are not meeting PA guidelines. Body image and social support are two factors that can influence PA behavior and require further attention in this population. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between body image, social support, and PA among AYAs. An online cross-sectional survey administered through the Research Electronic Data Capture platform was (...) used to assess self-reported body image, social support, and PA in AYAs. Based on findings from path analyses, body image and social support were directly associated with PA. Social support was also directly associated with body image. However, there were no indirect effects. These findings provide preliminary support for the influential role of appearance and fitness body-related emotions and cancer-specific social support on PA. The results have important implications for the development of targeted strategies aimed at improving body image and social support, with the overall goal of increasing AYAs’ PA. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to ascertain the impact of data collecting awareness on perceived information security concerns and information-sharing behavior on social networking sites. Design/methodology/approach Based on communication privacy management theory, the study forecasted the relationship between information-sharing behavior and awareness of data collecting purposes, data collection tactics and perceived security risk using structural equation modeling analysis and one-way ANOVA. The sample size of 521 young social media users in Vietnam, ages 18 to 34, was made up of 26.7% men (...) and 73.3% women. When constructing the questionnaire survey method with lone source respondents, the individual’s unique awareness and experiences with using online social networks (OSNs) were taken into account. Findings The results of the investigation demonstrate a significant relationship between information-sharing and awareness of data collecting, perceptions of information security threats and behavior. Social media users have used OSN privacy settings and paid attention to the sharing restriction because they are concerned about data harvesting. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted among young Vietnamese social media users, reflecting specific characteristics prevalent in the Vietnamese environment, and hence may be invalid in other nations’ circumstances. Practical implications Social media platform providers should improve user connectivity by implementing transparent privacy policies that allow users to choose how their data are used; have clear privacy statements and specific policies governing the use of social media users’ data that respect users’ consent to use their data; and thoroughly communicate how they collect and use user data while promptly detecting any potential vulnerabilities within their systems. Originality/value The authors ascertain that the material presented in this manuscript will not infringe upon any statutory copyright and that the manuscript will not be submitted elsewhere while under Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society review. (shrink)

Cảm xúc là yếu tố cơ bản thúc đẩy con người đưa ra quyết định và xử lý thông tin. Sợ hãi là một trong những cảm xúc phổ biến nhất ảnh hưởng đến hành vi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trên thị trường chứng khoán. Mặc dù nhiều nghiên cứu đã được thực hiện để khám phá tác động của nỗi sợ hãi đối với hiệu quả đầu tư và hành vi giao dịch của nhà đầu tư cá (...) nhân, nhưng vẫn còn rất ít thông tin về các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến nỗi sợ hãi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm (hoặc những giai đoạn cực kỳ biến động). Vì thế, nghiên cứu này được thực hiện để tìm hiểu liệu các nguồn thông tin ảnh hưởng đến quyết định đầu tư của nhà đầu tư có ảnh hưởng đến sự sợ hãi của họ khi khủng hoảng xảy ra hay không. Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng phương pháp phân tích Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) trên bộ dữ liệu từ 1526 nhà đầu tư Trung Quốc và Việt Nam. Kết quả nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng các nhà đầu tư tiếp cận các loại thông tin khác nhau khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư sẽ ảnh hưởng đến tần suất phản ứng sợ hãi khác nhau. Cụ thể, các nhà đầu tư tham khảo thông tin từ chuyên gia hoặc tự phân tích khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư ít bị đóng băng (biểu hiện của tâm lý sợ hãi) hơn trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm. Ngược lại, những người đưa ra quyết định đầu tư dựa trên thông tin từ người quen hay bạn bè và trực giác sẽ bị đóng băng thường xuyên hơn. Kết quả nghiên cứu này giúp gợi ý nhà đầu tư cá nhân nên trang bị cho mình các kiến thức về tài chính cũng như tham khảo các ý kiến chuyên gia trên thị trường, hoặc những nguồn thông tin đáng tin cậy, khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư. Bên cạnh đó, cơ quan quản lý thị trường cần có hoạt động phổ cập kiến thức về thị trường chứng khoán, hạn chế ảnh hưởng của các kênh thông tin không chính thống, và khuyến khích nhà đầu tư ít kinh nghiệm mua chứng chỉ quỹ của các quỹ đầu tư. (shrink)

Nghiên cứu này được thực hiện để tìm hiểu liệu các nguồn thông tin ảnh hưởng đến quyết định đầu tư của nhà đầu tư có ảnh hưởng đến sự sợ hãi của họ khi khủng hoảng xảy ra hay không? Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng phương pháp phân tích Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) trên bộ dữ liệu từ 1,526 nhà đầu tư Trung Quốc và Việt Nam. Kết quả nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng, các nhà đầu tư tiếp cận (...) các loại thông tin khác nhau khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư sẽ ảnh hưởng đến tần suất phản ứng sợ hãi khác nhau. Cụ thể, các nhà đầu tư tham khảo thông tin từ chuyên gia hoặc tự phân tích khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư ít bị đóng băng (biểu hiện của tâm lý sợ hãi) hơn trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm. Ngược lại, những người đưa ra quyết định đầu tư dựa trên thông tin từ người quen hay bạn bè và trực giác sẽ bị đóng băng thường xuyên hơn. -/- [English Abstract] This study was conducted to explore whether the sources of information priority during decision-making contribute to their fear reactions during crises. The research utilized the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on data collected from 1,526 investors in China and Vietnam. The study results indicated that investors prioritizing different types of information when making investment decisions would have different frequency of fear reactions. Specifically, investors who prioritized information from experts or conducted self-analysis when making investment decisions experienced less freezing (an expression of psychological fear) during market downturns. Conversely, those who based their investment decisions on information from acquaintances, friends, and intuition tended to experience freezing more frequently. (shrink)

Trinh T. Minh-ha _Cinema Interval_ New York and London: Routledge, 1999 ISBN 0-415-92200-3 (hbk) 0-415-92201-1 (pbk.) 274 pp.

Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics takes a fresh look at the history of aesthetics and at current debates within the philosophy of art by exploring the ways in which gender informs notions of art and creativity, evaluation and interpretation, and concepts of aesthetic value. Multiple intellectual traditions have formed this field, and the discussions herein range from consideration of eighteenth century legacies of ideas about taste, beauty, and sublimity to debates about the relevance of postmodern analyses for feminist aesthetics. Forward (...) by Arthur C. Danto, 20 authors include Paul Mattick, Jr., Caroline Korsmeyer, Timothy Gould, Christine Battersby, Mary Devereaux, bell hooks, REnee Lorraine, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Elizabeth Ann Dobie, Adrian Piper, Anita Silvers, Susan Feagin, Mary D. Garrard, Ellen Handler Spitz, Noel Carroll, Joanne Waugh, Joseph Margolis, Rita Felski, and Hilde Hein, as well as Peg Brand's essay, "Revising the Aesthetic-Nonaesthetic Distinction: The Aesthetic Value of Activist Art.". (shrink)

Giải quyết biến đổi khí hậu và ô nhiễm môi trường đang và sẽ là thách thức lớn của nhân loại trong thế kỷ 21. Con người không còn nhiều thời gian để sửa chữa, phục hồi đưa hệ sinh thái môi trường (tự nhiên) trở về trạng thái an toàn. Trong khi các nỗ lực trong thời gian qua chưa thực sự hiệu quả thì COP26 mở ra cơ hội lớn để nhân loại tiến gần đến mục tiêu kiềm (...) chế nhiệt độ của trái đất không vượt quá 1.5 độ C. Mặc dù Việt Nam cùng với 146 quốc gia trên thế giới đã có cam kết mạnh mẽ nhất trong việc giảm phát thải vào năm 2050, tuy nhiên việc cụ thể hóa cam kết thông qua các giải pháp sáng tạo là rất quan trọng. Sử dụng (áp dụng, vận dụng) hệ sáng tạo 3D và nguyên lý bán dẫn giá trị, tác giả đề xuất hệ sinh thái “giải pháp trụ cột” cần thực hiện gồm có tăng cường thông tin, truyền thông, nghiên cứu khoa học về môi trường (biến đổi khí hậu, ô nhiễm môi trường...); xây dựng, chuyển đổi và nâng cao văn hóa và môi trường; đẩy mạnh phát triển kinh tế gia tăng phúc lợi; xây dựng (chuyển đổi) lớp doanh nhân có văn hóa, trách nhiệm môi trường; tăng cường mở rộng sự hợp tác quốc tế về mọi mặt đặc biệt là trong lĩnh vực kinh tế, truyền thông và khoa học; và thực thi các giải pháp nêu trên một cách kỷ luật. (shrink)

The structural approach to alternatives :669–690, 2007; Fox and Katzir in Nat Lang Semant 19:87–107, 2011; Katzir in Semantics, pragmatics and the case of scalar implicatures, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 40–71, 2014) is the most developed attempt in the literature at solving the symmetry problem of scalar implicatures. Problematic data with indirect and particularised scalar implicatures have however been raised :249–270, 2015). To address these problems, Trinh and Haida proposed to augment the theory with the Atomicity Constraint. Here we (...) show that this constraint falls short of explaining minimal variants of the original problems, and moreover that it runs into trouble with the inferences of sentences involving gradable adjectives like full and empty. We furthermore discuss how the structural approach suffers at times from the problem of ‘too many lexical alternatives’ pointed out by Swanson :31–36, 2010), and at other times from the opposite problem of ‘too few lexical alternatives’. These three problems epitomise the challenge of constructing just enough alternatives under the structural approach to solve the symmetry problem in full generality. Finally, we also sketch another recent attempt at solving the symmetry problem, Bergen et al., 2016), which is based on relative informativity and complexity. We argue that Bergen et al. do not provide a general solution to the symmetry problem either, by pointing to some of the open problematic cases that remain for this approach as well. We conclude that while important progress has been made in the theory of alternatives for scalar implicatures in the last few years, a full solution to the symmetry problem has not yet been attained. (shrink)

The structural approach to alternatives :669–690, 2007; Fox and Katzir in Nat Lang Semant 19:87–107, 2011; Katzir in Semantics, pragmatics and the case of scalar implicatures, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 40–71, 2014) is the most developed attempt in the literature at solving the symmetry problem of scalar implicatures. Problematic data with indirect and particularised scalar implicatures have however been raised :249–270, 2015). To address these problems, Trinh and Haida proposed to augment the theory with the Atomicity Constraint. Here we (...) show that this constraint falls short of explaining minimal variants of the original problems, and moreover that it runs into trouble with the inferences of sentences involving gradable adjectives like full and empty. We furthermore discuss how the structural approach suffers at times from the problem of ‘too many lexical alternatives’ pointed out by Swanson :31–36, 2010), and at other times from the opposite problem of ‘too few lexical alternatives’. These three problems epitomise the challenge of constructing just enough alternatives under the structural approach to solve the symmetry problem in full generality. Finally, we also sketch another recent attempt at solving the symmetry problem, Bergen et al., 2016), which is based on relative informativity and complexity. We argue that Bergen et al. do not provide a general solution to the symmetry problem either, by pointing to some of the open problematic cases that remain for this approach as well. We conclude that while important progress has been made in the theory of alternatives for scalar implicatures in the last few years, a full solution to the symmetry problem has not yet been attained. (shrink)

Most historical accounts of "the West" take it for granted that the guiding principles of the Western tradition—reason, progress, and freedom—have been passed down directly from ancient Greece to modern Europe, evolving in isolation from all non-Western cultures. Today, many political analysts and cultural critics maintain that the Western tradition is fast approaching its end, for better or worse, as it becomes more and more integrated with non-Western cultures in an increasingly globalized world. But what if we are witnessing something (...) else entirely—not the "end" of the West but rather another historical mutation of the idea of the West itself? This groundbreaking work shows that whether the West is hailed as the source of all historical progress or scorned as the root of all cultural imperialism, it remains a deeply problematic concept that is intrinsically connected to an ethnocentric view of the world. In a critical reading of the continental philosophers Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida as well as the postcolonial thinkers Said, Mohanty, Bhabha, and Trinh, Sean Meighoo strikes at the intellectual foundations of Western exceptionalism until its ideological supports show through. Deconstructing the concept of the West in his provocative interpretations of Martin Bernal's controversial publication Black Athena and the Beatles' second film Help!, Meighoo poses a formidable question to philosophers, writers, political analysts, and cultural critics alike: Can we mount an effective critique of Western ethnocentrism without reinforcing the very idea of the West? (shrink)

This essay considers how Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy, including his philosophical hermeneutics and narrative theory, could be employed to facilitate dialogue and understanding between feminists from different contexts. Authors such as bel hooks and Hélène Cixous frame feminist tenets of liberation from sexual oppression and validation of the body as a source of knowledge. Weaving together Ricoeur’s writing and theories with the work of two feminist scholars, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Grace M. Cho, illuminates the potential Ricoeur’s work has to (...) play a part in feminist discourse. (shrink)