We are at a turning point in the debate on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) because we are witnessing the rise of general-purpose AI text agents such as GPT-3 that can generate large-scale highly refined content that appears to have been written by a human. Yet, a discussion on the ethical issues related to the blurring of the roles between humans and machines in the production of content in the business arena is lacking. In this conceptual paper, drawing (...) on agenda setting theory and stakeholder theory, we challenge the current debate on the ethics of AI and aim to stimulate studies that develop research around three new challenges of AI text agents: automated mass manipulation and disinformation (i.e., fake agenda problem), massive low-quality content production (i.e., lowest denominator problem) and the creation of a growing buffer in the communication between stakeholders (i.e., the mediation problem). (shrink)

In this paper, we use a pseudo-algorithmic procedure for assessing an AI-generated text. We apply the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA) in evaluating the arguments produced by an Artificial Intelligence text generator, GPT-3, in an opinion piece written for the Guardian newspaper. The CAPNA examines instances of argumentation in three aspects: their Process, Reasoning and Expression. Initial Analysis is conducted using the Argument Type Identification Procedure (ATIP) to establish, firstly, that an argument is present and, secondly, (...) its specific type in terms of the argument classification framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA). Procedural Questions are then used to test the acceptability of the argument in each of the three aspects. The analysis shows that while the arguments put forward by the AI text generator are varied in terms of their type and follow familiar patterns of human reasoning, they contain obvious weaknesses. From this we can conclude that the automated generation of persuasive, well-reasoned argumentation is a far more difficult task than the generation of meaningful language, and that if AI systems producing arguments are to be persuasive, they require a method of checking the plausibility of their own output. (shrink)

AI researchers have developed sophisticated language models capable of generating paragraphs of 'synthetic text' on topics specified by the user. While AI text generation has legitimate benefits, it could also be misused, potentially to grave effect. For example, AI text generators could be used to automate the production of convincing fake news, or to inundate social media platforms with machine-generated disinformation. This paper argues that AI text generators should be conceptualised as a dual-use technology, outlines (...) some relevant lessons from earlier debates on dual-use life sciences research, and calls for closer collaboration between ethicists and the machine learning community to address AI language models’ dual-use implications. (shrink)

Religion moves into the realm of the rational the moment when specific and specified texts are generated, reproduced and disseminated according to Weber. As such, the capacity to generate, reproduce and disseminate concepts from texts is shown to be consequential. In Weber’s work, the presence of women is not overt. Scholarship has explored how women are positioned in religious texts, but comparatively little scholarship has engaged with how they generate, reproduce and disseminate texts. This article interrogates the position of women (...) in relation to a religious textual generation, reproduction and dissemination within an Islamic tradition. Ethnographic data from a Deobandi-aligned education institution or madrasa was drawn on. Data were analysed with regard to how the texts used in the institution of Islamic learning are generated, reproduced and disseminated and the position of women in this regard. Contribution: Findings illustrated that women are key disseminators of particular forms of Islamic (religious) texts. As such, there are opportunities for women to generate and reproduce their own meaning of the texts. The article enhanced scholarship with regard to how women are able to maintain, extend and expand theologies. In this way, it demonstrated how women might be empowered to do so. (shrink)

Religion moves into the realm of the rational the moment when specific and specified texts are generated, reproduced and disseminated according to Weber. As such, the capacity to generate, reproduce and disseminate concepts from texts is shown to be consequential. In Weber’s work, the presence of women is not overt. Scholarship has explored how women are positioned in religious texts, but comparatively little scholarship has engaged with how they generate, reproduce and disseminate texts. This article interrogates the position of women (...) in relation to a religious textual generation, reproduction and dissemination within an Islamic tradition. Ethnographic data from a Deobandi-aligned education institution or madrasa was drawn on. Data were analysed with regard to how the texts used in the institution of Islamic learning are generated, reproduced and disseminated and the position of women in this regard. Contribution: Findings illustrated that women are key disseminators of particular forms of Islamic (religious) texts. As such, there are opportunities for women to generate and reproduce their own meaning of the texts. The article enhanced scholarship with regard to how women are able to maintain, extend and expand theologies. In this way, it demonstrated how women might be empowered to do so. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Derrida’s concept of exteriorization in relation to texts generated by machine learning. I first discuss Heidegger’s view of machine creation and then present Derrida’s criticism of Heidegger. I explain the concept of iterability, which is the central notion on which Derrida’s criticism is based. The thesis defended in the paper is that Derrida’s account of iterability provides a helpful framework for understanding the phenomenon of machine learning–generated literature. His account of textuality highlights the incalculability and (...) mechanical elements characteristic of all texts, including machine-generated texts. By applying Derrida’s concept to the phenomenon of machine creation, we can deconstruct the distinction between human and non-human creation. As I propose in the conclusion to this paper, this provides a basis on which to consider potential positive uses of machine learning. (shrink)

Contrary to how it may seem when we observe its output, an [LLM] is a system for haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms it has observed in its vast training data, according to...

This study explores the capability of academic staff assisted by the Turnitin Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection tool to identify the use of AI-generated content in university assessments. 22 different experimental submissions were produced using Open AI’s ChatGPT tool, with prompting techniques used to reduce the likelihood of AI detectors identifying AI-generated content. These submissions were marked by 15 academic staff members alongside genuine student submissions. Although the AI detection tool identified 91% of the experimental submissions as containing AI-generated content, only (...) 54.8% of the content was identified as AI-generated, underscoring the challenges of detecting AI content when advanced prompting techniques are used. When academic staff members marked the experimental submissions, only 54.5% were reported to the academic misconduct process, emphasising the need for greater awareness of how the results of AI detectors may be interpreted. Similar performance in grades was obtained between student submissions and AI-generated content (AI mean grade: 52.3, Student mean grade: 54.4), showing the capabilities of AI tools in producing human-like responses in real-life assessment situations. Recommendations include adjusting the overall strategies for assessing university students in light of the availability of new Generative AI tools. This may include reducing the overall reliance on assessments where AI tools may be used to mimic human writing, or by using AI-inclusive assessments. Comprehensive training must be provided for both academic staff and students so that academic integrity may be preserved. (shrink)

Rapid handwriting, popularly known as shorthand, involves writing symbols and abbreviations in lieu of common words or phrases. This method increases the speed of transcription and is primarily used to record oral dictation. Someone skilled in shorthand will be able to write as fast as the dictation occurs, and these patterns are later transliterated into actual, natural language words. A new kind of rapid handwriting scheme is proposed, called the Pattern-Based Shorthand. A word on a keyboard involves pressing a unique (...) sequence of keys in a particular order. This sequence forms a pattern that defines the word. Such a pattern forms the shorthand for that word. Speech recognition involves identifying, by a machine, the words spoken by a speaker. These spoken words form speech input signals to a computer that is equipped to correctly recognize the words and do further action, such as convert it to text. From this text input, unique shorthand patterns are generated by the system. The system employs machine learning to improve its performance with experience, by creating a dictionary of mappings from word to patterns in such a way that the access to existing patterns is faster with progression. This forms a new knowledge representation schema that reduces the redundancy in the storage of words and the length of information content. In conclusion, the speech is converted into textual form and then reconstructed into Pattern-Based Shorthand. (shrink)

The article discusses the strategies of translation of «machine texts» on the example of generative transformers (GPT). Currently, the study and development of machine text generation has become an important task for processing and analyzing texts in different languages. Modern technologies of artificial intelligence and neural networks allow us to create powerful tools for activities in this field, which are becoming more and more effective every year. Generative transformers are one of such tools. The study of generative transformers (...) also allows developers to create more accurate and efficient machine translation algorithms, which improves the quality of translations and improves the user experience. In this context, the features of machine texts created by generative transformers, their patterns, errors and imperfections, which require special translation strategies, deserve special interest. Today we can say that the generation of unique and relevant texts is a routine task that has been automated. Nevertheless, certain restrictions for the use of such texts still exist, in particular, their use requires the use of appropriate translation strategies. The paper proposes the author’s typology of translation strategies, where, taking into account the features of AST, it is proposed to add a substrategy of tertiary-moderation translation. (shrink)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

Social media (SM) influence young adults’ communication practices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used for making recommendations on SM. Yet, its effects on different generations of SM users are unknown. SM can use AI recommendations to sort texts and prioritize them, shaping users’ online and offline experiences. Current literature primarily addresses technological or human-user perspectives, overlooking cognitive perspectives. This research aims to propose methods for mapping users’ interactions with AI recommendations (AiRS) and analyzes how embodied interactions mediated by a digital (...) agent can lead to changes in social and cultural practices. For this, this work proposes a comparative analysis of central practices evoked by AI recommendations-mediated communication on SM among users in Italy, Estonia, and the Netherlands in the age category 18–26 years old. The data used in the comparative analysis was collected via semi-structured interviews and elaborated based on cognitive psychology and semiotics. This research highlights the contextual significance of AI recommendations as a mediator in creating new communication practices. Findings confirm that young adults often choose practices that would enhance their digital representations according to AiRS’ dominant patterns and categories. AiRS impacts individual interpretations and practices and can further affect social and cultural levels. (shrink)

Extending his well-known investigations into the nature and logic of art and history in the cultural world, Joseph Margolis here offers a sustained account of how selves and the cultural phenomena they generate can be viewed as just as "real" as the physical nature from which they are emergent, while not being reducible to it. The book starts off with a review of prominent philosophies of art over the past half-century, focusing especially on Beardsley, Goodman, and Danto, so as to (...) highlight the need for carefully distinguishing between the metaphysical and epistemological features of physical nature and human culture. The second part of the book builds on the first part's analyses of artworks to propose a theory of selves as "self-interpreting texts." _Selves and Other Texts_ aims to develop new ways of understanding the conceptual inseparability of our analysis of physical nature and our analysis of ourselves. (shrink)

A key requirement for the automatic generation of argumentative or explanatory text is to present the constituent propositions in an order that readers will find coherent and natural, to increase the likelihood that they will understand and accept the author’s claims. Natural language generation systems have standardly employed a repertoire of coherence relations such as those defined by Mann and Thompson’s Rhetorical Structure Theory. This paper models the generation of persuasive monologue as the outcome of an (...) “inner dialogue”, where the author attempts to anticipate potential challenges or clarification requests. It is argued that certain RST relations such as Motivate, Evidence and Concession can be seen to emerge from various pre-empting strategies. (shrink)

Philosophy is an exciting and accessible subject, and this engaging text acquaints students with the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are and have been answered. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Eighth Edition, insists both that philosophy is very much alive today and that it is deeply rooted in the past. Accordingly, it combines substantial original sources from significant works in the history of philosophy and current philosophy with detailed commentary and (...) explanation that help to clarify the readings. The selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge essays in feminism, multiculturalism, and cognitive science. At the end of each chapter is a summary, a list of review questions, a glossary, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading. Important philosophical terms are carefully introduced in the text and also summarized at the end of each chapter, and brief biographies of the philosophers are provided at the end of the book. New to the Eighth Edition: Addressing the needs of a new generation of students, Robert C. Solomon has included for the first time more than 300 study and review questions. Appearing throughout the text and at the end of each chapter, these questions require immediate feedback from students. They encourage students to articulate the central ideas of what they have just read, instead of just "passing through" on the way to the next reading . New selections expand and update the chapters on religion, knowledge, mind and body, freedom, ethics, justice, and beauty. The selections include work by Charles Hartshorne, Cory Juhl, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sextus Empiricus, Edmund L. Gettier, David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson, Colin McGinn, Daniel Dennett, Harry Frankfurt, Gilbert Harman, Emma Goldman, and Arthur C. Danto. A companion website at www.oup.com/us/solomon8e features 300 study and review questions (100 multiple-choice, 100 true-or-false, and 100 fill-in-the-blank), discussion questions, chapter overviews and summaries, topical links, suggestions for further reading, and PowerPoint lecture aids. (shrink)

This paper discusses two debated questions about how best to interpret the contribution to the Symposium that Socrates pretends to derive from Diotima: Within the Lesser Mysteries, is the erōs that is being defined and characterized, with appeal to the notion of “generation in beauty”, a generic erōs that is equivalent to Socratic desire in general, or a specific erōs that is erotic in our sense? Within the Greater Mysteries, is interpersonal erōs maintained, or supplanted? I find that neither (...) answer to unproblematic, but argue that either can be reconciled with the text, and suggest that both leave open the really interesting questions. I then, in answer to, concede that there are radical shifts of focus, but conclude that it is most likely that interpersonal erōs has a continuing role in, eventually, making the lover worthy of “becoming dear to the gods and, if any man can, immortal himself also”. Here I appeal especially to the phrase “ungrudging philosophy”, taking it to signify an activity that is not kept to oneself, but shared with another. (shrink)

A Text Worthy of Plotinus makes available for the first time information on the collaborative work that went into the completion of the first reliable edition of Plotinus’ Enneads: Plotini Opera, editio maior, three volumes (Brussels, Paris, and Leiden, 1951-1973), followed by the editio minor, three volumes (Oxford, 1964-1983). Pride of place is given to the correspondence of the editors, Paul Henry S.J. and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, with other prominent scholars of late antiquity, amongst whom are E.R. Dodds, B.S. Page, (...) A.H. Armstrong, and J. Igal S.J. Also included in the volume are related documents consisting in personal memoirs, course handouts and extensive biographical notices of the two editors as well as of those other scholars who contributed to fostering the revival of Plotinus in the latter half of the 20th century. Taken together, letters and documents let the reader into the problems – codicological, exegetical, and philosophical – that are involved in the interpretation of medieval manuscripts and their transcription for modern readers. Additional insights are provided into the nature of collaborative work involving scholars from different countries and traditions. A Text Worthy of Plotinus will prove a crucial archive for generations of scholars. Those interested in the philosophy of Plotinus will find it a fount of information on his style, manner of exposition, and handling of sources. The volume will also appeal to readers interested in broader trends in 20th century scholarship in the fields of Classics, History of Ideas, Theology, and Religion. (shrink)

This paper describes a system for extracting typed dependency parses of English sentences from phrase structure parses. In order to capture inherent relations occurring in corpus texts that can be critical in real-world applications, many NP relations are included in the set of grammatical relations used. We provide a comparison of our system with Minipar and the Link parser. The typed dependency extraction facility described here is integrated in the Stanford Parser, available for download.

The structural theory of metaphor (STM) uses techniques from possible worlds semantics to generate and interpret metaphors. STM is presented in detail in The Logic of Metaphor: Analogous Parts of Possible Worlds (Steinhart, 2001). STM is based on Kittay’s semantic field theory of metaphor (1987) and ultimately on Black’s interactionist theory (1962, 1979). STM uses an intensional calculus to specify truth-conditions for many grammatical forms of metaphor. The truth-conditional analysis in STM is inspired in part by Miller (1979) and Hintikka (...) & Sandu (1994). STM is by no means a toy theory. It has been successfully tested on dozens of large texts taken from real authors. Its methods can be applied in very large linguistic databases like WordNet or MindNet. (shrink)

Online communities, created and sustained by people sharing and discussing texts on the internet, play an increasingly important role in social health movements. In this essay, we explore a collective mobilization in miniature through an in-depth analysis of two satiric texts from an online community for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). By blending a sociological analysis with a rhetorical exploration of these texts, our aim is to grasp the discursive generation of a social movement online community set up by (...) sufferers themselves to negotiate and contest the dominating biomedical perception of their condition. (shrink)

Performance Generating Systems (PGS) are rule- and task-based approaches to improvisation on stage in theatre, dance, and music. These systems require performers to draw on predefined source materials (texts, scores, memories) while working on complex tasks within limiting rules. An interdisciplinary research team at a large Western Canadian university hypothesized that learning to sustain this praxis over the duration of a performance places high demands on executive functions; demands that may improve the performers’ executive abilities. These performers need to continuously (...) shift attention while remaining responsive to embodied and environmental stimuli in the present, they are required to inhibit automated responses and impulses using the rules of the system, and they strive towards addressing multitasking challenges with fluidity and flexibility. This study set out to test the mentioned hypothesis deductively and identify mediating processes inductively, using mixed empirical methods. In a small sample experiment with a control group (28 participants; 15 in intervention group, 13 in control group), standardized quantitative tests of executive functions (D-KEFS) were administered before and after an eight-week intervention. Participant-reported qualitative observations from the praxis were also collected throughout the intervention for grounded analysis. Within the limitations of small sample data, we found both statistically significant and trending effects on inhibition, problem-solving initiation, fluidity, and cognitive flexibility. Examining the mediating process, we found that participants experienced significant challenges sustaining the practice halfway through the intervention. The participant-reported solutions to these challenges, which emerged as the strongest behavioural patterns when coding the qualitative data to saturation, were strategies of problem-solving and of re-directing attention. These strategies support and advance our understanding of the effects measured in the standardized tests. In terms of application, our results identify characteristics of PGS that could potentially maintain and strengthen executive functions over and above less demanding performing arts interventions. The results also deliver new insight into how PGS works, which may contribute to the development and teaching of this artistic practice. (shrink)

This study reconsiders Denis O'Brien's controversial thesis that it was Plotinus' position that the 'partial' soul generates matter. O'Brien relies principally on two core texts, 3.4 .1 and 3.9 .3, where he finds convincing evidence for his thesis. In the present study I take two approaches. First, I demonstrate that if we accept O'Brien's thesis, then we are compelled to accept as well that Plotinus is guilty of self-contradiction in his doctrine of soul's descent. Secondly, I offer a different interpretation (...) of what Plotinus has in mind as the source of matter's generation in 3.4.1 and 3.9.3. In several passages Plotinus states that the product of the partial soul's creative activity is the "trace" of soul that, in turn, combines with matter to form the 'qualified body.' I argue that it is this trace-soul, not matter, that Plotinus is referring to in these texts. (shrink)

Through a series of texts and phone calls, Michelle Carter encouraged her boyfriend Conrad Roy to act on his suicidal thoughts, and after Roy killed himself, Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The case has received widespread attention, generating reactions ranging from rage at Ms. Carter to disbelief that she was convicted. An issue emphasized up to now is what it might mean for the First Amendment right of free speech if we hold that words can kill. In presenting the (...) case against punishing Ms. Carter, I show how the free speech issue intertwines with several others: Should the intimate exchanges between Carter and Roy have remained private? While privacy is valuable, it should not be a shield for harmful conduct, but did Ms. Carter, through her words, cause harm? If she believed that suicide would relieve Conrad of unbearable suffering, did she even act badly? And should the fact that society judges an individual’s actions to be immoral mean that the individual should be legally punished? The case serves as a touchstone for addressing fundamental issues of political, moral and legal theory with implications broader than whether Ms. Carter goes to prison. (shrink)

The migration of texts and traditions assumes that philosophy is in some way linked to its places. But this is an assumption that has not been held by the majority of philosophers. For most, philosophy is by definition placeless, concerned with ideas, and not with the circumstances of their generation. However, this version of philosophy does not take into account the lived history of philosophers themselves. Philosophers have had much to say about place, but little about their place.

During the past twenty years there has been a growing interest in monastic education within the larger field of Buddhist studies. Within the last ten years in particular, a number of monographs and articles examining the training and education of monks in Korea, Tibet/India, Thailand/Laos, and Sri Lanka, have been published. Many of those works have paid particular attention to the texts used in monastic training, as well as to how the information contained in those very texts is imparted to (...) and embodied by monks and novices. While the growing attention to Buddhist education and training texts certainly provides us with a more considerable understanding of monastic culture, focusing exclusively on the contents of texts and handbooks used in the training of monks and novices neglects other forms of monastic learning. Indeed, several scholars have recently begun to explore more diffuse ways in which monastic ideals become transmitted to newcomers to the sangha as well as to examine how learning in monasteries generates monastic identities. (shrink)

Text-guided image generation models can be prompted to generate images using nonce words adversarially designed to robustly evoke specific visual concepts. Two approaches for such generation are introduced: macaronic prompting, which involves designing cryptic hybrid words by concatenating subword units from different languages; and evocative prompting, which involves designing nonce words whose broad morphological features are similar enough to that of existing words to trigger robust visual associations. The two methods can also be combined to generate images (...) associated with more specific visual concepts. The implications of these techniques for the circumvention of existing approaches to content moderation, and particularly the generation of offensive or harmful images, are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examines how young peoples’ lived experiences with personal technologies can be used to teach engineering ethics in a way which facilitates greater engagement with the subject. Engineering ethics can be challenging to teach: as a form of practical ethics, it is framed around future workplace experience in a professional setting which students are assumed to have no prior experience of. Yet the current generations of engineering students, who have been described as ‘digital natives’, do however have immersive personal (...) experience with digital technologies; and experiential learning theory describes how students learn ethics more successfully when they can draw on personal experience which give context and meaning to abstract theories. This paper reviews current teaching practices in engineering ethics; and examines young people’s engagement with technologies including cell phones, social networking sites, digital music and computer games to identify social and ethical elements of these practices which have relevance for the engineering ethics curricula. From this analysis three case studies are developed to illustrate how facets of the use of these technologies can be drawn on to teach topics including group work and communication; risk and safety; and engineering as social experimentation. Means for bridging personal experience and professional ethics when teaching these cases are discussed. The paper contributes to research and curriculum development in engineering ethics education, and to wider education research about methods of teaching ‘the net generation’. (shrink)

We describe research carried out as part of a text summarisation project for the legal domain for which we use a new XML corpus of judgments of the UK House of Lords. These judgments represent a particularly important part of public discourse due to the role that precedents play in English law. We present experimental results using a range of features and machine learning techniques for the task of predicting the rhetorical status of sentences and for the task of (...) selecting the most summary-worthy sentences from a document. Results for these components are encouraging as they achieve state-of-the-art accuracy using robust, automatically generated cue phrase information. Sample output from the system illustrates the potential of summarisation technology for legal information management systems and highlights the utility of our rhetorical annotation scheme as a model of legal discourse, which provides a clear means for structuring summaries and tailoring them to different types of users. (shrink)

Ibn Bāğğa’s commentary on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption (Kitāb al-Kawn wa-l-fasād, Latin De generatione et corruptione) is one of the first commentaries to elaborate on the essential aspect of Aristotle’s text, that is, the analysis of change (μεταβολή, taġayyur). The commentary’s extant parts comprise a consecutive exposition of the contents of Aristotle’s work. However, the commentary may be read more as an introduction or a guide to the topic of generation than as a substitution for the (...) original, as the paraphrases by Averroes seem to have become in the later tradition. The present study provides a new critical edition of the Arabic text and, for the first time, an English translation and a study of the structure of the commentary on the basis of the only two known manuscripts. (shrink)

These essays deal with the scholarly study of the genesis, transmission, and editorial reconstitution of texts by exploring the connections between textual instability and textual theory, interpretation, and pedagogy. What makes this collection unique is that each essay brings a different theoretical orientation-New Historicism, Poststructuralism, or Feminism-to bear upon a different text, such as Whitman's Leaves of Grass , Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, or hypertext fiction, to explore the dialectical relationship between texts and textuality. The essays bring (...) some of the textual theories that compete with each other today into contact with a broad range of primarily literary textual histories. That texts are intrinsically unstable, frequently consisting of a series of determinate historical versions, has consequences for all students of literature, because different versions of a literary work frequently help shape different readings independently of the interpretations brought to bear upon them. Textual instability of the works is relevant to our understanding of how the meanings of texts are generated. The contributors build on the numerous challenges to the Anglo-American editorial tradition mounted during the past decade by scholars as diverse as Jerome McGann, D.F. McKenzie, Peter Shillingsburg, D.C. Greetham, Hershel Parker, and Hans Walter Gabler. The volume contributes to the paradigm shift in textual scholarship inaugurated by these scholars. Index. (shrink)

Generation and Corruption II is concerned with Aristotle's theory of the elements, their reciprocal transformations and the cause of their perpetual generation and corruption. These matters are essential to Aristotle's picture of the world, making themselves felt throughout his natural science, including those portions of it that concern living things. What is more, the very inquiry Aristotle pursues in this text, with its focus on definition, generality, and causation, throws important light on his philosophy of science more (...) generally. This volume contains eleven new essays, one for each of the chapters of this Aristotelian text, plus a general introduction and an English translation of the Greek text. It gives substantial attention to an important and neglected text, and highlights its relevance to other topics of current and enduring interest. (shrink)

This paper examines the divergent accounts of generation in Physics I and On Generation and Corruption. While the former concerns an unqualified and absolute generation of substance from not-substance, the latter describes the unqualified and simple generation of the elements from each other. In each of these texts, an unusual instance of ὀρέγεσθαι appears in Aristotle’s analysis, regarding the unqualified generation of substance at Phys. I 9, 192a18 and 19, and the cyclical transformation of the (...) elements at GC II 10, 336b28. These passages employ the verb consistently, suggesting that generation involves an ambiguous ontological desire. Such orectic striving differs greatly from human or other animal striving for some good. The accounts of generation in these texts are developed in order to emphasize both the distinction between the two processes and the significance of ontological desire to unqualified generation in its strongest sense. (shrink)

A critical review of Aristote, De la génération et la corruption, texte établi et traduit par Marwan Rashed, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2005.

A computer-based language system exploring hybrid invention generation has been developed by Bill Seaman working in conjunction with the programmer Gideon May.1 The project was primarily funded by Intel. This work explores 3D visualization with related generative texts and recombinant audio/music, as well as a series of textual descriptions. Computer-based environmental meaning is explored through the inter-authorship and operative experiential examination of a diverse set of media-elements and media-processes, in this case focusing on the virtual construction of hybrid inventions. (...) Differing sets of media elements in the Hybrid Invention Generator convey their own fields of meaning through the juxtaposition of 3D models, texts and digital audio. Varying combinations of these fields of meaning are experienced through direct interaction with the system. The work explores notions surrounding machinic genetics. Nonsense relations can present seemingly off-kilter juxtapositions, providing the participant with an experience akin to surrealism. Lautréamont’s definition of surrealist beauty - ‘beautiful as the unexpected meeting, on a dissection table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella’ (Waldberg 1965) - describes an experience engendered through a unique juxtaposition of elements not unlike relations encountered within this particular techno-poetic environment. Yet the system can also be used to brainstorm actual devices, as well as their potential conceptual/functional construction. (shrink)

Jaap Mansfeld and Frans de Haas bring together in this volume a distinguished international team of ancient philosophers, presenting a systematic, chapter-by-chapter study of one of the key texts in Aristotle's science and metaphysics: the first book of On Generation and Corruption. In GC I Aristotle provides a general outline of physical processes such as generation and corruption, alteration, and growth, and inquires into their differences. He also discusses physical notions such as contact, action and passion, and mixture. (...) These notions are fundamental to Aristotle's physics and cosmology, and more specifically to his theory of the four elements and their transformations. Moreover, references to GC elsewhere in the Aristotelian corpus show that in GC I Aristotle is doing heavy conceptual groundwork for more refined applications of these notions in, for example, the psychology of perception and thought, and the study of animal generation and corruption. Ultimately, biology is the goal of the series of enquiries in which GC I demands a position of its own immediately after the Physics. The contributors deal with questions of structure and text constitution and provide thought-provoking discussions of each chapter of GC I. New approaches to the issues of how to understand first matter, and how to evaluate Aristotle's notion of mixture are given ample space. Throughout, Aristotle's views of the theories of the Presocratics and Plato are shown to be crucial in understanding his argument. (shrink)

My focus is the possibility of a unitary account of freedom that respects the major insights of both Kant and Hegel. I use Hegel’s remark from §22 in the Introduction to the Rechtsphilosophie as my central text. The argument unfolds over three parts: first, I use the passage to unpack key aspects of Hegel’s view of freedom, including its self-generating nature; second, I show how the passage can be read as a criticism of Kant; and third, I reposition Kant’s (...) view to elude this criticism. I conclude by suggesting that Hegel’s remark from §22 is better read as a criticism of empiricism that Kant would also endorse. Any significant differences between their respective accounts of freedom will thus lie further downstream from this broader unity. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to revise the dominating narrative of communism as male generational history. With the aid of memoirs of communist women, many of whom started their political activity before WWII and belonged to the power-wielding elites of Stalinist Poland, the author shows that the former constituted an integral part of the generation which had planned a revolution and ultimately took over power. Their texts were imbued with a matrilineal perspective on the history of communism: the (...) authors emphasized that other women had strongly motivated them to become involved in politics. However, the memoirs revealed something more: as an attempt to establish new models of emancipation and to transmit them to younger generations of women, they were to rekindle the memory of women as the active agent of that part of Polish history which contemporary feminists refuse to remember. (shrink)

The traditional college student of today is part of the Net Generation who has been raised in an era of instant access. Their communication and learning is complemented by the Internet, a major influence on this cohort. The regular method of contact is text messaging, instant messaging and cell phones. Learning methods for the Net Generation include Internet tools such as Web-CT, Blackboard, online courses, online journals and i-pod downloads. Are they ready to also change from print (...) textbooks to Internet based textbooks? This paper describes the attitudes of some Net Generation students towards the usage of electronic textbooks. Three case studies were conducted: one class used an online textbook and two other classes used e-chapter supplements. Students were questioned on their perceptions of using and learning with e-textbooks. Their views describe some changing thoughts towards network connected media that is the mantra of this generation. (shrink)

Introduction: On the Huang-Lao tradition of Daoist thought. Looking at the basic characteristics of Huang-Lao Daoism -- Reviewing past research and looking to the future -- How does the idea of a "Huang-Lao Daoist" school stand up to scrutiny? -- A brief introduction to the contents of this book -- Conclusions -- Huang-Lao Daoism research in light of excavated texts. Introduction -- Two types of theories regarding Dao and governance in the Huangdi Sijing -- Early Huang-Lao thought in bamboo manuscripts (...) from the ancient state of Chu -- Conclusions -- Huang-Lao thought and folk techniques and calculations: using clues from excavated texts. A look back at previous studies -- Techniques and calculations in textual images of the Yellow Emperor -- The relationships between the concepts of "forms and names" and "forms/punishment and virtue/bounty" and techniques and calculations -- Linguistic characteristics of techniques and calculations in Huang-Lao texts -- Conclusion -- The literary structure and characteristics of the thought in the bamboo manuscript known as All Things Flow into Forms (Fanwu Liuxing). Introduction -- The literary structure of the Fanwu Liuxing -- The characteristics of thought in the Fanwu Liuxing -- Some last observations -- From auto-creation to autonomy: an analysis of political philosophy in the Hengxian. Introduction -- Past research -- Self-generation from Pre-Qin, throughout Qin to the Han dynasties -- The parallel between the sections of the Hengxian -- Concluding remarks -- The idea of names or naming as one of the key concepts in the Huangdi Sijing: discussing the relationship between the concepts of the schools of Dao, names and legality. Preface -- The kinds of names seen in the Huangdi Sijing -- Surveying names in the Huangdi Sijing -- The relationship between ruler and names -- The relationship between names and law -- Conclusion. (shrink)

The author examines He Lin's interpretation of Zhu Xi's method of intuition from a phenomenological-hermeneutical perspective and by exposing Zhu's philosophical presuppositions. In contrast with Lu Xiangshan's intuitive method, Zhu Xi's method of reading classics advocates "emptying your heart and flowing with the text" and, in this spirit, explains the celebrated "exhaustive investigation on the principles of things (ge wu qiong li)." "Text," according to Zhu, is therefore not an object in ordinary sense but a "contextual region" or (...) "sensible pattern" that, when merged with the reader, generates meanings. Furthermore, by discussing the related doctrines of Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Hua-Yan Buddhism, Zhou Dunyi, and Zhu Xi's own "One principle with many manifestations (li yi fen shu)," the author identifies the philosophical preconditions of Zhu's method. Based on this analysis, the author goes on to illustrate Zhu's understanding of "observing potential yet unapparent pleasure, anger, sorrow and happiness" and "maintaining a serious attitude (zhu jing).". (shrink)