v. 1. De la Renaștere la epoca "Luminilor".

Science communication in online media is a discursive domain where science-related content is often expressed through styles characteristic of popular journalism. This article aims to characterize some dominant stylistic patterns in magazine articles devoted to environmental issues by identifying the devices used to enhance newsworthiness, given the fact that for some readers environmental topics may no longer seem engaging. The analytic perspective is an adaptation of the newsworthiness framework that has been applied in news discourse studies. The material is a (...) sample of the 38 most-read environment-oriented articles in the online version of the international science magazine New Scientist collected between late 2013 and late 2014. The articles are analysed qualitatively to show the instantiations of such newsworthiness criteria as novelty and superlativeness, timeliness and impact, negativity and positivity as well as other strategies aimed at engaging the readers: rationalization and speculation, direct address and conversational style. The analysis reveals how, in this case study, science communication is turned into infotainment and considers the implications of this discursive shift for the public understanding of environmental science. (shrink)

El artículo recorre la obra de Rodolfo Kusch posicionando sus principales propuestas en la construcción de tres enfoques convergentes en su filosofía. El primer enfoque está relacionado con la fenomenología y la cultura. El segundo enfoque se refiere a la influencia de la antropología y el cuestionamiento por el símbolo. El tercer enfoque despliega una aproximación filosófico-política. Estos enfoques permiten introducir tres “horizontes de pregunta” principalmente relacionados con el método, con lo popular y con lo indígena, que son expuestos como (...) asuntos centrales en toda su obra. Estos “horizontes de pregunta” buscan comprender los alcances de la filosofía de Kusch y su contribución al pensamiento filosófico americano. This paper analyses the work of Rodolfo Kusch remarking his main philosophical proposals through three correlated perspectives. The first perspective refers to phenomenology and culture. The second focuses on the influence of anthropology and the problem of symbols. The third posits a political-philosophical approximation. These perspectives operate interdependently as the background for Kusch’s philosophy and allow us to introduce three “questioning horizons” related to the method, the popular and the indigenous as the central issues of his philosophical work. Thus, these “questioning horizons” build a platform to understand Kusch’s philosophy and his contribution to the Latin American philosophy. (shrink)

The squatting movement is a social movement that seeks to use unoccupied land or temporarily or permanently abandoned buildings as farmland, housing, meeting places, or centers for social and cultural purposes. Its main motivation is to denounce and at the same time respond to the economic difficulties that activists believe exist to realize the right to housing. Much of what we know about this movement comes from the informational and journalistic literature generated by actors that are close or even belong (...) to the movement. However, there is also a significant diversity of knowledge and scientific evidence on the squatters’ movement that is being produced by academia and that is worth knowing and grouping together. With the aim of defining and understanding how the squatters’ movement is constituted and organized, and how it acts, this research analyzes what the scientific literature affirms about it. Through qualitative research based on the systematic literature review method, information was sought in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The initial universe of 262 articles was finally reduced to a sample of 32 articles. These have been analyzed by means of a categorized classification content analysis. The results obtained allow us to establish the state of the art on the squatting movement, placing special emphasis on its dynamics of resistance, its process of political subjectivation and its mechanisms of action and self-management. The study suggests that the movement is understood based on collective actions with a political role of resistance to neoliberalism and the inequalities it generates, and of response to the basic and social needs of the communities through self-management.Systematic review registration[doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7179670], identifier [7179670]. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but (...) by the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but (...) by the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

A brief essay on taste -- The dreadful legacy of modernism -- Is Shakespeare any good? -- Mad theories -- Defining literature: the bete noir of academia -- Evaluation -- Popular literature -- Is literature any good for us?.

Since the establishment of the modern prison system in the early nineteenth century, prisons and prisoners have been construed as sites of moral, social, and biological contagion. Historic and contemporary studies show that most prisoners experience severe health inequalities, higher rates of addiction and mental health issues, and lower life expectancy than the rest of the population. They also come from deprived social strata. Yet, these aspects of Irish penal history have been largely neglected in academia and popular histories. (...) Our article discusses two public history projects—an art installation, _The Trial_, and a museum exhibition, _Living Inside_—that engaged different publics with the long history of health and welfare in Irish prisons. Developed by the research team on the Wellcome Trust Investigator Award “Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850-2000,” based at University College Dublin, the projects adopted different methodologies to engage their audiences and explore the experience and management of health and welfare in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish prisons. We further examine the different methodological approaches of each project, their varied aims and audiences, and the impacts reported by audiences and participants. The article also considers some of the challenges of doing this kind of public history, both in terms of working with marginalized communities and presenting research about difficult subjects to various audiences. (shrink)

Recent discussion, both in the academia-related popular media and in some professional academic venues, about the current state and role of mainstream Anglo-American analytic philosophy among the humanities, has revealed a certain uneasiness expressed by both champions of this approach and traditional adversaries of it regarding its perceived isolation from the other fields of humanities. The fiercer critics go as far as to claim that the image of this type of philosophizing in the contemporary world is one of a (...) discipline that is disconnected from reality, a veritable inbreeding academic cottage industry of empty scholasticism. Though I am unsympathetic to the critics who would question the very essence of how this kind of philosophy is pursued, myself being a representative of it, I nevertheless present some admittedly sketchy but, in my opinion, interesting and revealing statistical data on the evolution of several top journals of analytic philosophy over the last hundred years in terms of the style of papers that get published, which might also justify to some extent the above mentioned complaint against analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Collaboration is increasingly popular across academia. Collaborative work raises certain ethical questions, however. How will the fruits of collaboration be divided? How will the work for the collaborative project be split? In this paper, we consider the following question in particular. Are there ways in which these divisions systematically disadvantage certain groups? -/- We use evolutionary game theoretic models to address this question. First, we discuss results from O'Connor and Bruner (unpublished). In this paper, we show that underrepresented groups (...) in academia can be disadvantaged in such situations by dint of their small numbers. Second, we present novel results exploring how the hierarchical structure of academia can lead to bargaining disadvantage. We investigate models where one actor has a higher baseline of academic success, less to lose if collaboration goes south, or greater rewards for non-collaborative work. We show that in these situations, the less powerful partner is disadvantaged in bargaining over collaboration. (shrink)

Resumo Em 1747, John Wesley, spiritus rector do movimento metodista, publicou a primeira edição do seu guia medicinal Primitive Physic[k] . Qual era o seu propósito num mundo onde a academia real, herbalistas, curandeiros/as, exorcistas e charlatães competiam pela atenção da população? O artigo apresenta os diferentes grupos que atuaram, ou pretendiam atuar, em prol da saúde na Inglaterra do século 18, e compara o conteúdo do guia Primitive Physic[k] com suas propostas e estratégias terapêuticas. Conclua-se que uma parte (...) significativa do guia é composta por orientações da academia real de medicina, mas que sempre se favorecem remédios caseiros, com ingredientes acessíveis para as classes mais humildes. Quanto à chamada Spiritual Physick , menciona-se a oração como medida complementar, mas ignora-se plenamente a prática do exorcismo. Palavras-chave: John Wesley; saúde; Guia medicinal popular; Primitive Physic[k]; academia real de medicina; herbalismo; curandeirismo.In 1747, John Wesley, spiritus rector of the Methodist movement, published the first edition of his medical guide Primitive Physic[k] . What was its purpose in a world where the Royal Academy, herbalists, healers, exorcists and quacks competed for the attention of the population? The article introduces the different groups who promoted or pretended to promote health in 18th century England and compares the contents of the guide Primitive Physic[k] with their proposals and therapeutic strategies. The conclusion is that a significant portion of the guide consists of guidelines of the Royal Academy of Medicine, but that it always favors homemade remedies with ingredients available to humbler classes. In relation to the so called Spiritual Physick, prayer is mentioned as a complementary measure, but the practice of exorcism is totally ignored. Keywords: John Wesley; health; Popular Medicinal Guide; Primitive Physic[k]; Royal Academy of Medicine; herbalism; healers. (shrink)

Este artículo se pregunta qué se conmemorará realmente en el 40° aniversario de la guerra de Malvinas (1982-2022), contrastando las modalidades de recordación pública que tendrán lugar en 2022 y las lecturas que ha aportado la academia sobre lo sucedido en aquel entonces. La reflexión elabora comparativamente estos significados y describe qué hemos hecho los investigadores argentinos en ciencias sociales con el conflicto armado anglo-argentino por las Malvinas e Islas del Atlántico Sur, examina los fundamentos que subyacen a esos (...) significados y sostiene la tesis de que los académicos universitarios hemos ignorado el carácter bélico de la iniciativa de la tercera junta de la última dictadura militar, el autodenominado Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (1976-1983). Así, este artículo muestra que los protagonistas directos de la guerra y sus analistas postulan sentidos alternativos que se reelaboran como una paradoja de difícil comprensión: una causa popular originada en una cuestión de soberanía territorial pendiente fue acometida, con éxito y respaldo popular, por una ya antipopular y sangrienta dictadura militar. (shrink)

Collaboration is increasingly popular across academia. Collaborative work raises certain ethical questions, however. How will the fruits of collaboration be divided? How will the work for the collaborative project be split? In this paper, we consider the following question in particular. Are there ways in which these divisions systematically disadvantage certain groups? We use evolutionary game theoretic models to address this question. First, we discuss results from O'Connor and Bruner showing that underrepresented groups in academia can be disadvantaged (...) in collaboration and bargaining by dint of their small numbers. Second, we present novel results exploring how the hierarchical structure of academia can lead to bargaining disadvantage. We investigate models where one actor has a higher baseline of academic success, less to lose if collaboration goes south, or greater rewards for non-collaborative work. We show that in these situations, the less powerful partner can be disadvantaged in bargaining over collaboration. (shrink)

Reports in the popular press suggest that smart drugs or “nootropics” such as methylphenidate, modafinil and piracetam are increasingly being used by the healthy to augment cognitive ability. Although current nootropics offer only modest improvements in cognitive performance, it appears likely that more effective compounds will be developed in the future and that their off-label use will increase. One sphere in which the use of these drugs may be commonplace is by healthy students within academia. This article reviews the (...) ethical and pragmatic implications of nootropic use in academia by drawing parallels with issues relevant to the drugs in sport debate. It is often argued that performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited because they create an uneven playing field. However, this appears dubious given that “unfair” advantages are already ubiquitous and generally tolerated by society. There are concerns that widespread use will indirectly coerce non-users also to employ nootropics in order to remain competitive. However, to restrict the autonomy of all people for fear that it may influence the actions of some is untenable. The use of potentially harmful drugs for the purposes of enhancement rather than treatment is often seen as unjustified, and libertarian approaches generally champion the rights of the individual in deciding if these risks are acceptable. Finally, whether the prohibition of nootropics can be effectively enforced is doubtful. As nootropics use becomes widespread among students in the future, discussion of this issue will become more pressing in the years to come. (shrink)

Contrary to the popular belief that feminism has gained a foothold in the many disciplines of the academy, the essays collected in Theorizing Backlash argue that feminism is still actively resisted in mainstream academia. Contributors to this volume consider the professional, philosophical, and personal backlashes against feminist thought, and reflect upon their ramifications. The conclusion is that the disdain and irrational resentment of feminism, even in higher education, amounts to a backlash against progress.

As a style of writing and a form of communication, the modern scientific report enables the creation, sharing and continuous updating of natural knowledge in such a manner that the idiosyncrasies of ordinary language are reduced to a minimum. This article examines how the standards for scientific reporting were ‘born’ in the seventeenth century and their legacy. The first part of the article reviews the existing literature on this topic. The second part outlines the key features of the scientific report (...) and the common standards for scientific reporting. The third part presents detailed historical evidence to trace the emergence of these standards in seventeenth-century England. The final part discusses why the scientific report means so much for the progress of science, for understanding the history of science and science popularization, and even for the development of academia more generally. (shrink)

Contrary to the popular belief that feminism has gained a foothold in the many disciplines of the academy, the essays collected in Theorizing Backlash argue that feminism is still actively resisted in mainstream academia. Contributors to this volume consider the professional, philosophical, and personal backlashes against feminist thought, and reflect upon their ramifications. The conclusion is that the disdain and irrational resentment of feminism, even in higher education, amounts to a backlash against progress.

With the popularization of mobile Internet and smart terminals, mobile reading with diversity and mobility has become a hot issue in the industry and academia. This article comes up with a hypothetical model of mobile reading user acceptance behavior based on the technology acceptance model and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and conducts an analysis of the reliability and validity of questionnaire data. Based on this, the model fitness is analyzed as well as the path hypotheses (...) testing. We find that user-perceived ease of use greatly influences perceived usefulness, and user attitude and behavioral intention are significantly impacted by perceived usefulness. The impact of social influence on user attitude toward using mobile reading is significant, but the influence of perceived payment is not obvious. The moderating effect of living habit is not obvious because the absolute value of the critical ratio is under 2.58 with a significance level of 0.01. (shrink)

This fascinating study reveals the extensive influence of Cold War politics on academia, philosophical inquiry, and the course of intellectual history. From the rise of popular novels that championed the heroism of the individual to the proliferation of abstract art as a counter to socialist realism, the years of the Cold War had a profound impact on American intellectual life. As John McCumber shows in this fascinating account, philosophy, too, was hit hard by the Red Scare. Detailing the immense (...) political pressures that reshaped philosophy departments in midcentury America, he shows how the path of American philosophy was altered to follow a political agenda. McCumber begins with the story of Max Otto, whose appointment to the UCLA Philosophy Department in 1947 was met with widespread protest charging him as an atheist. Drawing on Otto’s case, McCumber details the conservative efforts that, by 1960, had all but banished existentialism and pragmatism—not to mention Marxism—from philosophy departments across the country. These paradigms were replaced with what McCumber calls Cold War philosophy, ideas that valorized scientific objectivity and free markets and which downplayed the anti-theistic implications of modern thought. As McCumber shows, the effects of this trend can still be seen at American universities today. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on three aspects of Nietzsche’s art of living that have become relevant today especially in the United States (but not only here): first, regarding some facets of the economic-political conditions of any contemporary art of living; second, the widespread adoption of Nietzsche’s notion of self-overcoming and artistic self-design in entrepreneurship and individual’s lives; and third, how his notion of ‘incorporation’ has been further developed in current approaches to habit design. Eventually I will show via the example of (...) Anthony Robbins that some notions of Nietzsche’s art of living have become most popular outside of academia, namely in the commercial industries of what has been called ‘self-growth’ or ‘self-development.’. (shrink)

It has been much debated whether epistemic relativism in academia, for instance in the form of social constructivism, the strong programme, deconstructionism, and postmodernism, has paved the way for the recent upsurge in science denial, in particular climate science denial. In order to provide an empirical basis for this discussion, an extensive search of the social science literature was performed. It showed that in the 1990s, climate science was a popular target among academic epistemic relativists. In particular, many STS (...) scholars used it as an allegedly clear example of claims by natural scientists that should be treated as mere social constructions, rather than as reports on the actual state of the natural world. A few connections between social constructivists and corporate science denialism were also uncovered, but the extent of such connections could not be determined. With few exceptions, the stream of criticism of climate science from academic relativists has dwindled since the 1990s. One reason for this seems to be that the contrarian position lost its attraction when it became associated with corporate and right-wing propagandists. (shrink)

Enterprise Network has increasingly gained popularity in academia. Over the past few decades, a substantial amount of EN studies have been published in China. Drawing upon a sample of 603 papers retrieved from the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index database between 1998 and 2020, this study aims to delve into the status quo, knowledge base, research focus, and evolutionary trends of EN research in China. A multifaceted bibliometric analysis was performed using CiteSpace. The findings mainly indicate that the research (...) on EN in China has a clear development context, and the research content gradually changes from macro to micro. In addition to foreign Social Network theories, the research results of domestic scholars have become the basic knowledge in this field. The research includes these topics: the conceptualization of EN, EN as indicators of enterprise development, EN’s impact on start-ups, mechanisms of EN’s effect and governance of EN. The potential direction for future research has been identified as the integration between EN and other forms of networks, and the structure of EN. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, Second Edition is the seminal reference in the burgeoning field of positive psychology, which, in recent years, has transcended academia to capture the imagination of the general public. The handbook provides a roadmap for the psychology needed by the majority of the population--those who don't need treatment, but want to achieve the lives to which they aspire. The 65 chapters summarize all of the relevant literature in the field, and each of the international (...) slate of contributors is essentially defining a lifetime of research. The content's breadth and depth provide an unparalleled cross-disciplinary look at positive psychology from diverse fields and all branches of psychology, including social, clinical, personality, counseling, school, and developmental psychology. Topics include not only happiness--which has been perhaps misrepresented in the popular media as the entirety of the field--but also hope, strengths, positive emotions, life longings, creativity, emotional creativity, courage, and more, plus guidelines for applying what has worked for people across time and cultures. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe continued rise of socio-economic inequality over the past decades with its connected political outcomes such as the Brexit vote in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump are currently a matter of intense debate both in academia and in journalism. One significant sign of the heightened interest was the surprise popularity of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the twenty-first Century. The book reached the top of the bestseller lists and was described as a ‘media sensation’, with Piketty himself (...) as a ‘rock star economist’. This paper, drawing from a major international and cross-disciplinary study, investigates the print media treatment in four European countries of economic policy proposals presented in Capital. Applying social semiotic and critical discourse analysis, we specifically focus on articles which are in disagreement with these proposals and identify five categories of counterarguments used against Piketty: authorisation, moralisation, rationalisation, portrayal of victimhood and inevitab... (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, academic dialogues on the relationships between the sciences and religions have flourished, albeit primarily within Judeo-Christian historical, theological and philosophical contexts. Can a Hindu tradition be brought into this dialogue? The Bhagavata Purana is one of the most well-known sacred texts of India, and biology, Darwinism in particular, has become one of the most spirited areas of the science and religion dialogue in academia, as well as in the popular media. This thesis examines the (...) possibility, scope and foundational topics involved in a dialogue between Vaisnava-Hindu theology as found in the Bhāgavata, and the theoretical, philosophical and theological issues surrounding contemporary biology. To examine the possibility and scope of a Bhāgavata-science dialogue, I focus on the theological, ontological, epistemological and teleological presuppositions that each tradition bring to the study of nature, outlining the similarities and differences in their approaches. I establish the grounds for further discussion through a comparative analysis of terms such as "consciousness," "knowledge" and "goal of knowledge" as they appear in the Bhagavata and noteworthy Darwinian texts. My argument is that although prima facie the two traditions appear different in their philosophical, scientific and theological approaches, there are a number of areas of common interest and parallels, especially in their epistemologies and teleologies. In the case of genuine differences, such as their views on the ontology of consciousness, I demonstrate the possibility of reconciliation. Clarifying the conceptual differences, establishing parallels and demonstrating areas of common interests opens the possibility and widens the scope for further dialogue. (shrink)

A detailed, clear, and comprehensive overview of the current philosophical debate on. The question of when, and under what circumstances, the practice of torture might be justified has received a great deal of attention in the last decade in both academia and in the popular media. Many of these discussions are, however, one-sided with other perspectives either ignored or quickly dismissed with minimal argument. In On the Ethics of Torture, Uwe Steinhoff provides a complete account of the philosophical debate (...) surrounding this highly contentious subject. Steinhoff’s position is that torture is sometimes, under certain narrowly circumscribed conditions, justified, basing his argument on the right to self-defense. His position differs from that of other authors who, using other philosophical justifications, would permit torture under a wider set of conditions. After having given the reader a thorough account of the main arguments for permitting torture under certain circumstances, Steinhoff explains and addresses the many objections that have been raised to employing torture under any circumstances. This is an indispensible work for anyone interested in one of the most controversial subjects of our times. (shrink)

This article seeks to address and dispel some of the popular myths and misconceptions surrounding authorship of a scientific publication as this is often misconstrued by beginners in academia especially those in the developing world. While ethical issues in publishing related to authorship have been increasingly discussed, not much has been written about the myths and misconceptions of who might be an author. Dispelling these myths and misconceptions would go a long way in shaping the thoughts and plans of (...) students, junior faculty and researchers in academia especially in the developing world. (shrink)

From social media to the halls of academia all the way to the White House, everyone is talking about “lived experience”. Yet, there is considerable confusion about what, precisely, the term means. Part of this confusion results from the lack of awareness about the origin of the term and the philosophical need that it was introduced to address. Accordingly, the first aim of this essay is to elucidate the meaning of “lived experience” by teasing out and enumerating its various (...) features as found in the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey, who first developed and popularized it as a philosophical concept. The second goal is to critique the use of “lived experience” in contemporary academic and political discourse. Lived experience is simultaneously denigrated by those who regard it as merely subjective and exalted by those who regard it as epistemically authoritative. A return to Dilthey’s original formulation reveals that both of these attitudes are predicated on misunderstandings of the nature of lived experience. (shrink)

This book examines the legacy of Antonio Gramsci and Leon Trotsky in the shadow of Stalinism in order to reassess the very different and distorted academic reception of the two figures, as well as to contribute to the revitalization of Marxism for our time. While Gramsci and Trotsky lived and died in a similar fashion, as revolutionary Marxist leaders and theoreticians, their reception in academia could not be more different. Gramsci has become tremendously popular, becoming a central figure in (...) many disciplines, while Trotsky remains largely ignored. Saccarelli argues that not only is Gramsci popular for the wrong reasons--being routinely distorted and depoliticized--even when rescued from his contemporary users, Gramsci remains inadequate. Conversely, the fact that Trotsky remains beyond the pale of "theory" is a terrible indictment of the current state of academic thinking. (shrink)

Os padres da Igreja receberam uma educação dentro do sistema grego romano que visava a tornar as pessoas cidadãs, membros da vida civil e comunitária. Pela educação eles se tornavam pessoas livres, capazes de coordenar serviços na sociedade. Essa era uma educação básica,popular, que possibilitava o conhecimento das ciências da época. A filosofia delineava valores comunitários e sociais. Eles frequentavam as escolas normais que o Império Romano oferecia a todos os povos dominados. As universidades não existiam na época, mas as (...) academias, porque se apontava essa instituição de modo que uma educação bemfundamentada ali era dada, pois se tratava de Ensino Superior. Os padres foram educados nesse sistema educacional, na retórica, último degrau no estudo, que os impulsionava a não só a bem falar ao público e a ter o domínio do saber, através dos argumentos, mas essa retórica servia para esclarecimento das coisas, na liturgia, na interpretação da Sagrada Escritura para o povo diante das heresias e na necessidade de dar respostas por parte da Igreja. O estudo favoreceu a elaboração de uma ideia e de uma educação para a vida e para o amor. Se os padres frequentavam escolas dos pagãos, com o tempo, elaboraram o valor da educação, a constituição de escolas próprias em vista da formação sacerdotal e escolas bíblicas e cristológicas. A seguir, damos uma visão de como os padres encararam a educação e de como a viveram em seu tempo. (shrink)

The term cosmopolitan is increasingly used within different social, cultural and political settings, including academia, popular media and national politics. However those who invoke the cosmopolitan project rarely ask whose experience, understanding, or vision of cosmopolitanism is being described and for whose purposes? In response, this volume assembles contributors from different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds to examine cosmopolitanism's possibilities, aspirations and applications--as well as its tensions, contradictions, and discontents--so as to offer a critical commentary on the vital but often (...) neglected question: whose cosmopolitanism? The book investigates when, where, and how cosmopolitanism emerges as a contemporary social process, global aspiration or emancipatory political project and asks whether it can serve as a political or methodological framework for action in a world of conflict and difference. (shrink)

Automation, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology have become topics of increasing interest in both academia as well as in popular media. The goal of this article is to establish which issues are the most pressing, and what are the underlying causes of the rise of robots. I demonstrate that fears of automation are well supported by current trends of automation as well as the inherent tendency within a capitalist system to automate at the expense of workers and working wages. Additionally, (...) I point to what appears to be a potential evolutionary divide between what Yuval Noah Harari calls the “god” class and the “useless” class. Finally, I discuss how the new role of information as the world’s most valued commodity can either exacerbate this coming divide or liberate society. I present the case that in order to diminish the negative effects we must move beyond the present capitalist economic system, towards one in which economic democracy and the free flow of information thrives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to NihilismWill SlocombeLaughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism, by John Marmysz. 209 pp. Albany: SUNY Press, 2003; $54.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.Nihilism has become a (relatively) more popular theme in academia in recent years. Aside from the revival of standby texts such as Goudsblom's Nihilism and Culture and Rosen's Nihilism, there has been a glut of books in (...) areas as diverse as economics (Ritzer's The Globalization of Nothing), theology (Cunningham's Genealogy of Nihilism), and theory (Clemen's The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory). John Marmysz's contribution, Laughing at Nothing, is a refreshing change inasmuch as he invites us to laugh at nihilism and, in effect, to laugh with him at much of the scholarly work on nihilism. Primarily philosophical in tone, Laughing at Nothing is an academic treatise on nihilism and humor, an exploration of contemporary American culture, and a plea for understanding in a hostile environment.Marmysz is determined, as few others are, to see a positive potential in nihilism. Although he never uncovers a "positive" nihilism, he is willing to accept the idea that nihilism may be a valuable cultural concept. In his introduction, he stresses the fact that most critics of nihilism "underplay the constructive and positive role of nihilism in both individual and collective human history" (p. 10). This book attempts to undermine such trite interpretations of nihilism; evident from his observation that, "too often scholars proceed to draw conclusions about nihilism itself on the basis of philosophies that are, in fact, very poor models" (p. 11). This is an important point, and one to which I will return.All exegeses on nihilism must include a history of the concept to orient the reader within the given intellectual milieu, and Marmysz's is no exception. Moving comfortably from late eighteenth-century debates between Friedrich Jacobi and Johann Fichte to contemporary theories by Michael Gillespie, Cornel West, Yukio Mishima, and Karen Carr, Laughing at Nothing guides the reader through the intricacies of the arguments in three brisk chapters without [End Page 449] ever sacrificing clarity. This is no mean feat given the task that Marmysz has taken upon himself: to summarize more than 200 years of history and avoid the pitfalls of saying that nihilism is an aspect of modernity is a significant achievement (and one for which I am grateful).For most readers, however, the most important part of Laughing at Nothing will be Marmysz's own definition of nihilism, which is essentially thwarted idealism: "The full impact of the problem of nihilism strikes only when an individual passionately desires ultimate meaning, value, and purpose, but believes those things to be out of reach" (pp. 84-85). There are thus two elements to a nihilistic worldview: an idealized desire for a better world coupled with a belief that this can never be realized—"the real world is denigrated in comparison to the ideal, and the ideal is believed to be hopelessly out of reach" (p. 85). This, for Marmysz, is the basis of a "nihilistic incongruity," upon which the solution—humor—is founded.After Marmysz's treatment of a history of nihilism, it is unsurprising that his discussion of humor is as accomplished, skilfully navigating theories of Kant, Freud, Bergson, and Morreall. Marmysz's treatment of "incongruous" humor is impressive, basing itself on the idea that "humor allows us to confront incongruities and, instead of being overwhelmed by them, to understand them in an unusual and original fashion" (p. 152). For this reason, humor creates "the capacity to make incongruities unthreatening and to interpret them in a manner that produces amusement" (p. 153). This is, of course, critical to avoid the potential problems of nihilistic incongruity. Through an analysis of jokes, and the application of different theories about humor, Marmysz demonstrates that the "solution" to nihilism is disarmingly simple: we must learn to laugh at ourselves. Marmysz writes: "Nihilism reminds us that humans are not gods, and that despite all our accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they only possess a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies... (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and conversational agents, emphasizing their potential benefits while also highlighting the need for vigilant monitoring to prevent unethical applications. Design/methodology/approach As AI becomes more prevalent in academia and research, it is crucial to explore ways to ensure ethical usage of the technology and to identify potentially unethical usage. This manuscript uses a popular AI chatbot to write the introduction and parts of the body of (...) a manuscript discussing conversational agents, the ethical usage of chatbots and ethical concerns for academic researchers. Findings The authors reveal which sections were written entirely by the AI using a conversational agent. This serves as a cautionary tale highlighting the importance of ethical considerations for researchers and students when using AI and how educators must be prepared for the increasing prevalence of AI in the academy and industry. Measures to mitigate potential unethical use of this evolving technology are also discussed in the manuscript. Originality/value As conversational agents and chatbots increase in society, it is crucial to understand how they will impact the community and how we can live with technology instead of fighting against it. (shrink)

The conviction that high self-esteem is beneficial both to the individual and to society in general has been pervasive both in academia and in popular culture. If it is indeed beneficial, it is a prime candidate for pharmacological enhancement. There is evidence to suggest, however, that the benefits of high self-esteem to the individual have been exaggerated; and that there are few - if any - social benefits. With this evidence in mind, I consider in what ways high self-esteem (...) is valuable, and suggest how enhancement could play a role in maximising its valuable aspects. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that we discuss the Gothic in terms of the margin. These two seem to be inseparable and associating them appears “just natural.” However, in light of the contemporary critical debate on the ubiquity of the Gothic, the mode’s “natural” marginality might appear somewhat out of place. While the Gothic is still increasingly popular in popular culture, it has also become incredibly popular among literary scholars. In fact, it not only permeates the culture we live in, but (...) it also appears to occupy a mainstream position in academia these days. Viewing the Gothic as a notion shaped to a certain extent by the critic, this article investigates-and reconsiders-the persistence of the Gothic margin in contemporary critical discourse. Following Paul A. Bové’s consideration of the ways in which institutionalized criticism partakes in discourse, it sees contemporary Gothic criticism as at least potentially operating within discourse in Michel Foucault’s terms, and thus considers the possibility of the Gothic margin being in fact a critical construct, functional within the contemporary discourse of criticism. Hence, the article poses questions about the origin of Gothic marginality, the contemporary status of the Gothic margin and its potential functionality, and finally, possible results of the loss of the marginal status for the Gothic as a critical object. It seeks the answers by means of scrutinizing critical accounts, such as Fred Botting and Dale Townshend’s introduction to the CriticalConcepts series on the Gothic, and by contrasting different attempts at presenting the Gothic and its status. Finally, it considers the distinction between the past-the era of critical neglect-and the present-allegedly the times of the vindication of the Gothic. In so doing, it aims at determining whether and why the marginality of the Gothic could indeed turn out to be constructed by the critics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 34.2 (2006) 3-13 [Access article in PDF] Biographical Illusion and Methodological Reality Leland De La Durantaye Pierre Bourdieu. Esquisse Pour Une Auto-Analyse. Paris: Raisons d'Agir, 2004. 1 Like his student and friend Nietzsche, Jacob Burckhardt often stressed the necessity for a scholar to work in solitude. Like Nietzsche, he also possessed a gift for acidic analogy and likened the world of academia to a group of dogs (...) sniffing one another.Few observers of the academic interactions of his time had such sharp senses as Pierre Bourdieu, and few have been as torn between solitary reflection and communal exchange. Trained by France's most elite academic institutions (such as the celebrated Parisian lycée Louis-le-Grand and the even more celebrated École Normale Supérieure), Bourdieu was grateful for the opportunities that this training afforded him. And he felt that this gratitude could best be repaid by submitting those elite academic institutions and their insular world to an unsparing critique, to unveiling the distance that separated their stated ideals from their real effects.Like Bergson and Jaurès, like Sartre and Aron, like Foucault and Derrida, Bourdieu studied that which was most difficult and most prestigious where it was most difficult and prestigious: philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure. Like those famous fellow alumni, he was a brilliant student, and like them, he longed to distinguish his personal vision from those around him. This led him to do something surprising, something that, despite their separate and significant dissatisfactions with the philosophy of their day, neither Bergson nor Sartre, neither Foucault nor Derrida ever did: he abandoned philosophy. He left what he saw as the intellectual royal road for the most pedestrian of paths—that of sociology.As he often reminded his readers, sociology was in a sorry state when he entered it. Both in academic appraisal and the popular imagination, it was considered dry and provincial. It was thought to have no true intellectual adventure in it—nothing of the ethnologist tramping through the rain forests of the Amazon, nothing of the lone philosopher working through the night on an opus to end metaphysics. It was laborious and abstract; it dealt in statistical generalities. Bourdieu repeatedly described sociology as "the pariah of disciplines."1 He had, however, a special mission for it in mind. [End Page 3]In Bourdieu's posthumous memoir Esquisse pour une auto-analyse, published in February 2004—two years after his death—by the small publishing house he helped found, Raisons d'Agir, he notes how, "a bit as a joke," he had often defined himself as "the leader of a liberation movement aiming to free the social sciences from philosophy's imperialism" [94].2 From early on in his career, he had wished to revolt against the "empire of the total philosopher"—an empire reigned over by, more than any other, Jean-Paul Sartre [cf. 25].3 Looking back upon this decisive period of his development, Bourdieu goes so far as to state that the shaping of his identity was done "against everything which the Sartrian enterprise represented for me" [37]. In historical accounts, Sartre is often given as counterfigure his friend and fellow normalien Raymond Aron. In his Esquisse, Bourdieu proposes a different, and less conventional, counterfigure for the imperial philosopher: the brilliant Austrian satirist and cultural critic Karl Kraus. Bourdieu notes the particular affection he had always felt for Kraus and attributes it to the latter's singular capacity for "critical reflectivenesss" [37]. Subtly, and appropriately, Bourdieu follows this remark with something that occurs nowhere else in his memoir: an epigram (the composing of which Kraus excelled in). Bourdieu writes: "there are a great many intellectuals who question the world, but there are very few intellectuals who question the intellectual world" [37]. The remark could not more compactly and precisely reflect what Bourdieu had aspired all his life to do: to excel in the art and science of questioning the intellectual world. 2 Leo Spitzer liked to cite Friedrich Gundolf's dictum "Methode ist Erlebnis" (method is lived experience). Nearing the end of his career... (shrink)

Ever since Plato expelled artists from his ideal republic, the question of aesthetics has enjoyed a dubious status within the civic realm as well as among more rarefied circles of academia. Aesthetics in general have not enjoyed the intellectual prestige accorded to, say, linguistic philosophy or political history, which have traditionally been thought to grapple with more serious and substantive issues. Even when not tarnished with the popular notion of aestheticism as betokening a Wildean hedonism, the field has frequently (...) been reductively compartmentalized in relation to a self-indulgent subjectivism, where issues of intellectual rigor simply become moot: de gustibus non est disputandum. The most influential .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 216-223 [Access article in PDF] Notes and Fragments Genre Fiction and "The Origin of the Work of Art" Nancy J. Holland I FIRST, A CONFESSION. Like, I suspect, many of my readers, I am an unpublished fiction writer. Unlike most of the closet fiction writers in academia, however, I write genre fiction. The question that immediately follows is how that writing is related (...) to the intellectual work I do in philosophy.This question, of course, is open to a broad range of answers, from the possibility that the two aren't related at all, to potential Freudian answers it might take years of therapy to unearth. Teaching informs one's life, however, as much as the reverse, and in teaching Martin Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art" to my Metaphysics class last year, I began to understand at least one dimension of the appeal that writing genre fiction has for me as a philosopher.But first, let me explain what I mean by genre fiction. In what follows, I will be referring primarily to four forms of genre fiction that have clear roots in the nineteenth century in Western Europe and North America: two gender-segregated genres, the western and the romance, and two gender-marked genres, science fiction and detective novels. I will be comparing these to two other forms of "popular culture" that also developed in the nineteenth century and have, I would argue, similar relationships to the older, more "legitimate," more elite art forms which they closely resemble: photography 1 and popular music, [End Page 216] especially those forms of popular music such as ragtime, blues, jazz, and rock that are informed by the African-American experience in the United States. 2These "low brow" art forms all appear to have arisen out of the growth of the middle class in developing parts of the world during the nineteenth century and the correlative confluence of greater leisure, greater aggregate prosperity, and higher levels of education across a broader spectrum of society. Further, these art forms all combine the surface appearance of their respective "high brow" correlate arts with the reassurance of repetition that is the cornerstone of the folk arts with which they are also correlated. Each of these forms of popular culture balances itself, then, between a demand for more and more "works of art" (and/or class aspirations based on the appearance of such) and a demand for the familiar in a rapidly changing, materially challenging world.Thus, photography gives us a frozen and thereby purified visual reality, an icon of memory to which we can return at will. The truth it reveals is most often starker than that of folk painting and portraiture, but also gives the appearance of being free from the subjectivity of the artist. Great iconic photographs such as the kiss on V-E day, I have heard it said, become more real than the reality they encapsulated.Popular music similarly combines often amazing musical complexity (which is not unknown, although rarer, in western folk music) with the reassurance of a form that not only repeats itself within a song, but also between songs of the same genre. Thus, blues can be recognized by both the minor chords in its melodies and the characteristic rhyme pattern of its lyrics. Moreover, most western popular music, even to some extent free-form jazz, has a familiar and reassuring beginning-middle-end structure, both melodically and dynamically, that locates a listener immediately within the song's "story-arc." 3This same beginning-middle-end structure is one clear hallmark of genre fiction. Another is repetition. We all immediately know the plot of a detective novel or science fiction adventure: where it will begin, what the key stages of the story will be, and how it will end—not just happily, but with a specific form of reassuring outcome, be it the victory of well-intentioned intelligence over cunning evil or humanity's ability to survive even the most alien (and so most familiar) of threats. At... (shrink)

CHAGAS, Wilson. O curso do Mundo - Livro com 188 páginas que "inicia com reflexões soltas e termina com fragmentos de um diário e notas de leitura", numa explicação do Autor. Wilson Chagas, escritor gaúcho, membro fundador da Academia Brasileira de Filosofia, nasceu em Jaguarão em 1921. Bacharel em Direito pela Universidade do seu estado natal, estudou filosofia na Universidade de Paris. É um dos fundadores da revista Quixote. Sua bibliografia inclui crítica e filosofia. Através de aforismos, diários, confidências, (...) medita filosoficamente com grande profundidade. Seu estilo é claro, incisivo, popular. A "orelha" vem assinada por Paulo Hecker Filho talvez o melhor escritor do Rio Grande do Sul; se não o mais importante, ao menos o mais ousado e criativo... E nos diz: "[... ] ele anda atrás da sua verdade. E a expõe com uma clareza que chega a ser didática, vantagem importante para quem lê crítica literária [... ]. Gosto que o livro saia [O Curso do Mundo] porque é bom no contexto de nossas letras. Desde muito, aprecio, por exemplo, Existência e Criação, o título que o abre. É uma visão existencial que, como essa filosofia quer, compromete a pessoa que a exerce, o que é raro no meio, exige pensar mais que reproduzir." Paulo Hecker Filho chama a atenção do leitor para os múltiplos assuntos enfocados pelo Autor que nos levam ao "raro e humanizante"[... ]. (shrink)

This research adopted the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to emphasize the use of the PX Pay mobile payment app for PX Mart, the most popular supermarket in Taiwan, and examine the degree of involvement as a moderator. The influence of factors related to PX Mart’s target customer groups on their shopping intentions and usage behaviors were discussed, with subsequent benefits and optimization directions. This study indicated the following results. First, performance expectations, ease-of-use expectations, and social impact (...) enhance consumers’ behavioral intention and behavioral intention significantly influence usage behavior. Second, gender has no significant moderating effect on the proposed model. Third, age has a moderating effect from performance expectations and ease-of-use expectations, social influence on behavioral intention. Fourth, use is more significantly affected by perceived stakeholders for customers over age 50 than for those age 30–39. Fifth, the degree of involvement significantly affects the relationship between behavioral intention and usage behavior in terms of social influence and facilitating conditions effects. Finally, we provided academic and practical implications and make contributions to both the online payment industry and academia. (shrink)

Amid England’s 17th and 18th centuries, coffee’s Turkish origins catalyzed a stark polarization of coffee consumption due to Turkish xenophobia. England’s long-regarded reservations towards Turkish commodities only changed because of one revolutionary institution: the coffeehouse. Unlike classically popular taverns, coffeehouses were unique, progressive establishments where patrons of all classes and genders safely shared news, debated politics, and discussed new discoveries in academia over a beverage costing mere pennies to consume. By adopting an accessible and intellectual premise, coffeehouses eclipsed England’s (...) xenophobic predispositions towards Turkey – forever revolutionizing the social sphere and English coffee consumption. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 1 Just what exactly “separated by degree” means is a bone of contention among those playing the game. But it seems to me that if you have actually met a person Xz, then you have knowledge by acquaintance of X, whereas if you meet someone who met Xz you are separated from Xz by one (...) degree. Thus, I never met the jazz great Sun Ra, but my friend Warren Allen Smith (former head of a recording studio) worked with him on several of his albums, so I am one degree of separation from Sun Ra. russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 30 (summer 2010): 63–7 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631 eu d’sprit “SIX DEGREES OF BERTRAND RUSSELL” Timothy J. Madigan Philosophy / St. John Fisher College Rochester, ny 14618, usa [email protected] One of the most quoted phrases in current popular culture is “six degrees of separation”. It expresses the idea that any human being is connected with any other human being by a chain of at most six acquaintances.1 While there is much debate as to whether this is literally true, it is an interesting thoughtexperiment, as well as the basis for many fun parlour games. One of these is entitled “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, in which Wlm fans try to connect the aforementioned actor with any other movie star in as few links as possible. I have been thinking of launching a similar parlour game called “Six Degrees of Bertrand Russell”, in which any Wgure from the past 200 years or so could be connected with Bertie in as few steps as possible. Why Bertie rather than, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein (who after all had a stated interest in games)? For two reasons: Wrst, Russell lived to the ripe old age of 97, and thus had the time to interact with a wide variety of people; and secondly he was for most of that long life a celebrity, who rubbed elbows with all manner of individuals, many of whom were either celebrities themselves at the time or came to be celebrated later. As is often pointed out, Russell’s list of acquaintances stretched from Lenin (V.yI.) to Lennon (zJohn), from the Bloomsbury Group to the Doomsday Prophets, from William Gladstone to Harold Wilson. Russell’s grandfather, LordJohn Russell, had as a young man visited Napoleon on the island of Elba and shaken his hand. When I shake the hand of Honorary Russell Archivist Ken Blackwell, September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 64 timothy j. madigan 2 Other historical writings by Russell are discussed in Kenneth R. Stunkel, “Bertrand Russell’s Writings and ReXections on History”, Russellz 21 (2001): 129–53. who met Bertie, I often think that I am only three degrees of separation from shaking Napoleon’s hand as well. And as for Napoleonz—zwell, who knows where that hand had been? Given this strong connection to history, it is not surprising that Russell himself would write an essay entitled “How to Read and Understand History”.2 In his Autobiographyz and other works such as Portraits from Memory, Russell made it quite clear that his aristocratic and privileged background gave him access to many of the most important movers and shakers in twentieth-century politics, literature, and academia, areas in which he himself excelled. He was aware that, unlike many of his fellow philosophers, who were known only to a small coterie of fellow deep thinkers, he was an historic Wgure, one who could interact on a personal level with cabinet ministers, Nobel prize-winners in all Welds, press lords, movie stars, presidents and premiers. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance, many concerned individuals tried to reach Kennedy and Khrushchev to give them advice, but Russell was one of the few outsiders whose letters actually got through, as he no doubt knew they would. For all of his concern with... (shrink)