Research on perception without awareness has provoked strong emotional responses from individuals within and outside the scientific community, due in part to the perceived potential for abuse of subliminal techniques. In this paper, four basic issues regarding the use of subliminal techniques for propaganda purposes are discussed: whether exposure to subliminal stimuli can produce significant, predictable changes in affect, cognition and behavior; whether these effects are robust and powerful enough to make the use of subliminal techniques for (...) propaganda purposes feasible; whether the effects of subliminal stimulation are stable over time; and whether subliminal influences can be resisted by unwilling subjects. Research suggests that exposure to simple drive-or affect-related subliminal stimuli can produce ecologically significant, temporally stable changes in attitudes and behavior, and therefore may have potential for use as propaganda tools. Implications of these findings for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying subliminal perception are discussed. Technical problems which would need to be addressed before subliminal propaganda techniques could be employed are also discussed. Ethical issues raised by the use of covert attitude and behavior manipulation techniques are addressed. (shrink)

Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning, 2/e is an introductory volume that teaches students to recognize and construct correct deductions. It takes students through all logical steps--from premise to conclusion--and presents appropriate symbols and terms, while giving examples to clarify principles. Logic, 2/e uses models to establish the invalidity of arguments, and includes exercise sets throughout, ranging from easy to challenging. Solutions are provided to selected exercises, and historical remarks discuss major contributions to the theories covered.

Nous sommes dans une société où se multiplient les techniques de communication. Quelles sont-elles ? Quelles nouvelles formes de lien social accompagnent-elles ? Comment penser le rapport entre techniques et société ? Telles sont les interrogations avancées et qui s’appuient sur la demande sociale latente propre à nos sociétés et qui est à la source des progrès techniques, ceux-ci, ensuite, imposant leur propre logique.In our society, techniques of communication increase in number. What are they ? What (...) new forms of social link go with them ? How are we supposed to think the relationship between techniques and society ? Such are the questions we have to ask. They imply a social unconscious characteristic of modern societies and, in feed-back, the effects of the technical logic. (shrink)

The paper seeks to analyze children’s bodily vulnerability as grounded in generational order. The thesis is put forward, that the generational order is embodied via body techniques of vulnerability, deployed both by adults and children. In presenting results from research on professional responses to child maltreatment and neglect, three sets of age related body techniques of vulnerability are identified, concerning caregivers, professionals and the children itself.

Proving academic plagiarism is difficult. This volume borrows principles from textual criticism to illustrate new techniques for demonstrating plagiarism. These techniques can be used to persuade others—colleagues, editors, publishers, and research integrity committees—when academic plagiarism has been committed.

Collecting data using an appropriate sampling technique is a challenging task for a researcher to do. The researchers will be unable to collect data from all possible situations, which will preclude them from answering the study’s research questions in their current form. In light of the enormous number and variety of sampling techniques/methods available, the researcher must be knowledgeable about the differences to select the most appropriate sampling technique/method for the specific study under consideration. In this context, this study (...) also looks into the basic concepts in probability sampling, kinds of probability sampling techniques with their advantages and disadvantages. Social science researchers will benefit from this study since it will assist them in choosing the most suitable probability sampling technique for completing their research smoothly and successfully. (shrink)

For Ricœur any study of Freud, or of psychoanalysis more generally, needs to take into account the crucial dimension of the analytic experience itself. Psychoanalysis, as a “mixed discourse,” aims to anticipate questions of meaning and explication alongside technical questions of energies, repression, displacement, and so on. The analytic experience is one which is practical and intersubjective, but which is also guided by various techniques or methods. These techniques, I will argue, should be understood as a type of (...) techne, one which is less concerned with hermeneutic questions of meaning than with quasi-scientific questions of force, feedback, struggle, and process. The practice of psychoanalysis, on the other hand, deals with the ways in which these forces or drives become meaningful for a particular subject, and within a singular context or history. This article will aim to draw out both the interrelationship between techniques and practical understanding, and also the productive incommensurability between the two. (shrink)

Humanity is made of technical objects. Despite of this fact, technique is not considered as a cultural matter especially in engineering schools where it should be taught. As teachers and searchers at the INSA Lyon, we have experienced the way and the difficulties to develop this technical culture.

THE TECHNIQUE OF CONTROVERSY CHAPTER I THE PUZZLE OF MODERN REASONING / did not find anything on earth which was wholly superior to change. — Descartes. ...

This article reevaluates the mystical techniques and experiences peculiar to Abraham Abulafia’s Kabbalah and attempts to offer an alternative approach to their dominant understanding, which largely depends on Moshe Idel’s work. Current scholars of Jewish mysticism have a habit of highlighting the “unique character” of Abulafia’s mystical practices while asserting that they cannot be compared with the induction techniques and the psychophysical phenomena typical of hypnosis. While generally agreeing with the scholars discussed that the hyperactivation of the mind (...) found in Abulafian Kabbalah contrasts sharply with the mental relaxation attained through the mystical practices of other religious traditions, the present study takes issue with the current view of Abulafian Kabbalah’s relation to hypnotic procedures, processes, and states. This work addresses the issues present with the current view and offers a more inclusive model for interpreting Abulafia’s Kabbalah, drawing from psychiatrist Roland Fischer. (shrink)

In biology proteins are uniquely important. They are not to be classed with polysaccharides, for example, which by comparison play a very minor role. Their nearest rivals are the nucleic acids....The main function of proteins is to act as enzymes....In the protein molecule Nature has devised a unique instrument in which an underlying simplicity is used to express great subtlety and versatility; it is impossible to see molecular biology in proper perspective until this peculiar combination of virtues has been clearly (...) grasped. (shrink)

The need to align multiple experimental procedures and produce converging results so as to demonstrate that the phenomenon under investigation is real and not an artifact is a commonplace both in scientific practice and discussions of scientific methodology (Campbell and Stanley 1963; Wimsatt 1981). Although sometimes this is the purpose of aligning techniques, often there is a different purpose—multiple techniques are sought to supply different perspectives on the phenomena under investigation that need to be integrated to answer the (...) questions scientists are asking. After introducing this function, I will illustrate it by considering three of the major techniques in cognitive neuroscience for linking cognitive function with neural structure. (shrink)

Les réseaux socionumériques constituent des supports identitaires ambivalents pour leurs utilisateurs. À de nombreux égards, ils entretiennent des proximités avec les techniques de soi développées depuis l'antiquité dans la société occidentale. Cette similarité explique certainement leur adoption si enthousiaste. Cependant, ces plateformes possèdent des caractéristiques particulières qui les éloignent des objectifs usuels des techniques de soi, destinées au développement de l'autoréflexivité et au soin de soi. Elles constituent davantage des outils d'expression de soi que des techniques de (...) soi. Leur compréhension nécessite aussi de sortir d'une vision egocentrée de l'individu pour envisager la dimension fondamentalement co-construite de notre identité. (shrink)

The author considers the model-theoretic character of proofs and disproofs by means of attempted counterexample constructions, distinguishes this proof format from formal derivations, then contrasts two approaches to semantic tableaux proposed by Beth and Lambert-van Fraassen. It is noted that Beth's original approach has not as yet been provided with a precisely formulated rule of closure for detecting tableau sequences terminating in contradiction. To remedy this deficiency, a technique is proposed to clarify tableau operations.

There is considerable interest in the use of neuroimaging techniques for forensic purposes. Memory detection techniques, including the well-publicized Brain Fingerprinting technique (Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc., Seattle WA), exploit the fact that the brain responds differently to sensory stimuli to which it has been exposed before. When a stimulus is specifically associated with a crime, the resulting brain activity should differentiate between someone who was present at the crime and someone who was not. This article reviews the scientific (...) literature on three such techniques: priming, old/new, and P300 effects. The forensic potential of these techniques is evaluated based on four criteria: specificity, automaticity, encoding flexibility, and longevity. This article concludes that none of the techniques are devoid of forensic potential, although much research is yet to be done. Ethical issues, including rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, are discussed. A discussion of legal issues concludes that current memory detection techniques do not yet meet United States standards of legal admissibility. (shrink)

Les sciences et les techniques sont au coeur de nos vies quotidiennes et constituent les piliers de notre modernité. Elles ont transformé les modes de vie, les relations de pouvoir, nos identités et nos imaginaires. Controverses sur les OGM, enjeux du changement climatique et de sa prévision, nouveaux imaginaires véhiculés par Internet ou les jeux vidéo... Comment analyser dans ces cas qui font l'actualité les liens inextricables entre ce que l'on sait du monde, ce que l'on souhaite y faire (...) et la façon dont on le gouverne? Les théories et approches dominantes de l'économie, de la sociologie, de l'histoire ou de la science politique ont souvent ignoré ces enchevêtrements complexes. Cet ouvrage propose un panorama du champ "sciences, techniques et société", très interdisciplinaire, qui s'est justement donné pour objet l'étude des transformations récentes et conjointes des façons de savoir, des formes d'expertise, des marchés, des espaces publics et des formes de gouvernement. (shrink)

I. Théorie générale de la technique juridique.--II. La technique du conceptualisme juridique.--III. Les procédés les plus caractéristques du conceptualisme juridique: les présomptions et les fictions.

In accordance with societal norms and values, consumers readily indicate their positive attitudes toward sustainability. However, they hardly take sustainability into account when engaging in exchange relationships with companies. To shed light on this paradox, this paper investigates whether defense mechanisms and the more specific concept of neutralization techniques can explain the discrepancy between societal norms and actual behavior. A multi-method qualitative research design provides rich insights into consumers’ underlying cognitive processes and how they make sense of their attitude–behavior (...) divergences. Drawing on the Ways Model of account-taking, which is advanced to a Cycle Model, the findings illustrate how neutralization strategies are used to legitimize inconsistencies between norm-conforming attitudes and actual behavior. Furthermore, the paper discusses how the repetitive reinforcement of neutralizing patterns and feedback loops between individuals and society are linked to the rise of anomic consumer behavior. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans Gabriel Rockhill et Pierre-Antoine Chardel, Technologies de contrôle dans la mondialisation : enjeux politiques, éthiques et esthétiques, Paris, Kimé, 2009, p. 165-182. Nous remercions Yves Citton de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Lorsqu'il s'agit de théoriser les sociétés de contrôle, les techniques par lesquelles elles opèrent et les résistances qu'on peut opposer à leurs nuisances, c'est généralement chez Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri ou Paul - Comment penser le pouvoir dans (...) le monde contemporain? – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Nous commençons à le voir aujourd'hui : le règne de la technique a dévasté la nature et enfermé l'être humain dans un processus autodestructeur. Mais il ne trouve pas seulement son expression dans des appareils, des usines, des écrans, des réseaux. Il est ancré au plus profond de nous-mêmes, dans notre fascination pour tout ce qui relève de l'efficacité, de la nouveauté, de la rapidité. Mobilisant la notion de chair comme fil conducteur, ce livre explore le rapport de l'homme moderne (...) aux techniques, et montre comment il se fonde sur un imaginaire composé autant de mythes sensibles que d'idées abstraites. Cet imaginaire conduit ainsi nos contemporains à considérer comme un sacrifice le renoncement à la puissance que nous procurent les machines. Pourtant, c'est aussi parce que nous sommes des êtres de chair que le déploiement foudroyant de la puissance technicienne a des effets désorganisateurs, voire déshumanisants. Il est donc vital d'imposer un rythme plus lent et de nouvelles orientations au changement technique. Tâche à laquelle nous sommes bien mal préparés, et dont une des premières conditions est de procéder à une démystification de notre imaginaire technique. (shrink)

Il ne s'agit pas seulement ici de rendre compte de la philosophie de la technique que l'on trouve chez Platon et chez Simondon, et de quelques autres parmi les plus importantes, mais d'affronter véritablement la question : qu'est-ce que la technique? On voudrait faire apparaître d'abord le caractère exemplaire et décisif de Platon pour la compréhension de ce qu'a été la réalité technique de son temps aussi bien que pour la compréhension, aujourd'hui encore, de la réalité technique actuelle, des problèmes (...) qui sont liés à son identification comme telle et à la démarche qui convient pour son étude. C'est aller contre la tradition qui en fait un ignorant et un ennemi de la technique, préoccupé avant tout d'un monde d'Idées 'coupées' du monde sensible. Cette tradition, quasiment aussi ancienne que Platon lui-même, est toujours vivante, fondée désormais sur une représentation de la technique qui se voudrait moderne (la technique comme 'application de la science'). C'est un des intérêts de la pensée de la technique de Gilbert Simondon (prolongeant et systématisant une tradition qui passe en France notamment par Henri Bergson et Georges Canguilhem), que de délivrer de l'idée précipitée selon laquelle l'essence de la technique serait d'être une application de la science, idée dont la faiblesse est la plus évidente quand il s'agit d'une époque où la science n'existait pas encore au sens actuel. La lecture de Platon n'est pas seulement libérée par la compréhension de la technique que propose Simondon, elle est elle-même une préparation très utile à la lecture de ce dernier, reposant sur des exemples plus simples. Ce qu'apprend une philosophie de la technique, on le voit exemplairement chez Platon et chez Simondon, n'est pas seulement comment organiser des concepts et des idées (dont l'importance politique et sociale est évidente), c'est comment regarder précisément le réel, penser son existence et son évolution."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Both new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient? Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions—Freudian, (...) relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian—through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice. Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy. (shrink)

These introductory remarks outline the German concept of Kulturtechniken by tracing its various overlapping meanings from the late 19th century to today and linking it to developments in recent German theory. Originally related to the agricultural domain, the notion of cultural techniques was later employed to describe the interactions between humans and media, and, most recently, to account for basic operations and differentiations that give rise to an array of conceptual and ontological entities which are said to constitute culture. (...) In the second part of the essay, cultural techniques are analyzed as a concept that allows theorists to overcome certain biases and impasses characteristic of that domain of German media theory associated with the work of the late Friedrich Kittler. (shrink)

The concept of the future is re-emerging as an urgent topic on the academic agenda. In this article, we focus on the ‘politics of the future’: the social processes and practices that allow particular imagined futures to become socially performative. Acknowledging that the performativity of such imagined futures is well-understood, we argue that how particular visions come about and why they become performative is underexplained. Drawing on constructivist sociological theory, this article aims to fill this gap by exploring the question (...) ‘how do imagined futures become socially performative’? In doing so, the article has three aims to identify the leading social–theoretical work on the future; conceptualize the relationship of the imagination of the future with social practices and the performance of reality; provide a theoretical framework explaining how images of the future become performative, using the concepts ‘techniques of futuring’ and ‘dramaturgical regime’. (shrink)

On the example of the online game Akinator, the basic principles on which programs of this type are built are considered. Effective technics have been proposed by which artificial intelligence systems can build logical inferences that allow to identify an unknown subject from its description. To confirm the considered hypotheses, the terminological analysis of definition of the program "Akinator" offered by the author is carried out. Starting from the assumptions given by the author's definition, the article complements their definitions presented (...) by other researchers and analyzes their constituent theses. Finally, some proposals are made for the next steps in improving the program. The Akinator program, at one time, became one of the most famous online games using artificial intelligence. And although this was not directly stated, it was clear to the experts in the field of artificial intelligence that the program uses the techniques of expert systems and is built on inference rules. At the moment, expert systems have lost their positions in comparison with the direction of neural networks in the field of artificial intelligence, however, in the case considered in the article, we are talking about techniques using both directions – hybrid systems. Games for filling semantics interact with the user, expanding their semantic base and use certain strategies to achieve the best result. The playful form of such semantics filling programs is beneficial for researchers by involving a large number of players. The article examines the techniques used by the Akinator program, and also suggests possible modifications to it in the future. This study, first of all, focuses on how the knowledge base of the Akinator program is built, it consists of incomplete sets, which can be filled and adjusted as a result of further iterations of the program launches. It is important to note our assumption that the order of questions used by the program during the game plays a key role, because it determines its strategy. It was identified that the program is guided by the principles of nonmonotonic logic – the assumptions constructed by the program are not final and can be rejected by it during the game. The three main approaches to acquisite semantics proposed by Jakub Šimko and Mária Bieliková are considered, namely, expert work, crowdsourcing and machine learning. Paying attention to machine learning, the Akinator program using machine learning to build an effective strategy in the game presents a class of hybrid systems that combine the principles of two main areas in artificial intelligence programs – expert systems and neural networks. (shrink)

This paper seeks to introduce cultural techniques to an Anglophone readership. Specifically geared towards an Anglophone readership, the paper relates the re-emergence of cultural techniques to the changing intellectual constellation of postwar Germany. More specifically, it traces how the concept evolved from – and reacted against – so-called German media theory, a decidedly anti-hermeneutic and anti-humanist current of thought frequently associated with the work of Friedrich Kittler. Post-hermeneutic rather than anti-hermeneutic in its outlook, the reconceptualization of cultural (...) class='Hi'>techniques aims at presenting them as chains of operations that link humans, things, media and even animals. To investigate cultural techniques is to shift the analytic gaze from ontological distinctions to the ontic operations that gave rise to the former in the first place. As Siegert points out, this shift recalls certain concurrent developments within the North American posthumanities; the paper therefore also includes a discussion of the similarities and differences between German and North American posthumanism. (shrink)

Neoliberal Techniques of Social Suffering: Political Resistance and Critical Theory from Latin America and Spain is the result of the critical and political commitment of various Latin American and Spanish philosophers who share a critical approach to the global “stealth revolution” in recent decades, where neoliberalism has forced the well-being and reproduction of life to adapt to a system devastating for both humans and non-humans. The authors voice the shared concern of contemporary Spanish and Latin American societies to build (...) new conceptions of the public and the common through mobilizing affects usually disavowed in political theory. If, in Ancient Greece, the idea of strengthening the most vulnerable and weakest was deplored as the art of sophists, this collection edited by Laura Quintana and Nuria Sánchez Madrid explores the other side of our social world to revive grassroots strategies of resistance and emancipation, which are able to bring about new distributions of power, welfare, and discursive legitimation and to extend our goal of creating a radically democratic world. (shrink)

La pensée technique peut-elle être l’occasion d’un renouveau de la réflexion transcendantale, ou bien est-elle vouée à demeurer tributaire du « préjugé anthropologique » dont Foucault a repéré la mise en place au XIXe siècle avec la formation des sciences humaines, et qui a eu pour conséquence précisément la dissolution du transcendantal dans l’empirique? Cet article opte résolument pour la première solution, et examine les approches qui vont dans ce sens en refusant de penser les techniques à partir de (...) la finitude anthropologique. (shrink)

First published in 2010, Cornelia Vismann’s article has already attained the status of a classic. In a formulation inspired by linguistic theory, the author argues that the relation between cultural techniques and media can be understood in analogy to grammatical operations. Thus, cultural techniques define the agency of media and execute the procedural rules which the latter set in place. Together, they articulate a critique of subjectivity and sovereignty that proceeds by re-examining the notion of ‘culture’ via its (...) agricultural origins to the current moment when the ‘preservation of cultural techniques’ has entered legal and academic discourse. Ultimately, despite their apparent separation from praxis, cultural techniques continue to proliferate through axes of substitution and displacement. (shrink)