We review some of the main implications of the free-energy principle (FEP) for the study of the self-organization of living systems – and how the FEP can help us to understand (and model) biotic self-organization across the many temporal and spatial scales over which life exists. In order to maintain its integrity as a bounded system, any biological system - from single cells to complex organisms and societies - has to limit the disorder or dispersion (i.e., the long-run entropy) of (...) its constituent states. We review how this can be achieved by living systems that minimize their variational free energy. Variational free energy is an information theoretic construct, originally introduced into theoretical neuroscience and biology to explain perception, action, and learning. It has since been extended to explain the evolution, development, form, and function of entire organisms, providing a principled model of biotic self-organization and autopoiesis. It has provided insights into biological systems across spatiotemporal scales, ranging from microscales (e.g., sub- and multicellular dynamics), to intermediate scales (e.g., groups of interacting animals and culture), through to macroscale phenomena (the evolution of entire species). A crucial corollary of the FEP is that an organism just is (i.e., embodies or entails) an implicit model of its environment. As such, organisms come to embody causal relationships of their ecological niche, which, in turn, is influenced by their resulting behaviors. Crucially, free-energy minimization can be shown to be equivalent to the maximization of Bayesian model evidence. This allows us to cast natural selection in terms of Bayesian model selection, providing a robust theoretical account of how organisms come to match or accommodate the spatiotemporal complexity of their surrounding niche. In line with the theme of this volume; namely, biological complexity and self-organization, this chapter will examine a variational approach to self-organization across multiple dynamical scales. (shrink)

In this commentary, I first acknowledge points of common ground with the target article by Bruineberg and colleagues. Then, I consider how certain ambiguities could be resolved by considering spatiotemporal constraints on causality. In particular I show how blanket closure emerges from localized interactions between temporally separable subsystems, and how this points to valuable directions of future research. Finally, I close with a process note discussing the allegorical implications of the authors' creative title.

This chapter takes inspiration from Wittgenstein’s thinking to formulate a non-reductive toolbox for the study of religion associated with generative modelling, specifically as applied in complex adaptive systems theory. It converges on a communal perspective on religion as multiscale active inference that contrasts starkly with common ‘straw person’ perspectives on religion that reduce it to ‘erroneous’ theorising generated by the brain. In contrast, we argue, religious practices at the enculturated level of description involve implicit and explicit meanings, experienced both individually (...) and collectively. Firstly, we characterise these in terms of Wittgenstein’s notions of rule-following and language games. Secondly, we discuss how the collective and perspectival aspects of religion in enculturation with morals, doctrines, rituals, and expressions can be formalised in terms of deep active inference in multi-agent systems. This approach describes how religions are incommensurable with scientific methods due to the epistemic separation between the different kinds of language games of religious and scientific practices. Their touchpoints tend to give rise to perpetual confusion and unproductive discussions, requiring perspicuous presentations that can be formulated with our toolbox. In this sense, our account has implications for tackling complex societal challenges such as ethical policy-making. (shrink)

This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as _computational phenomenology_ because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, etc.). The first section presents a brief review of the overall project to naturalize phenomenology. The second section presents and evaluates (...) philosophical objections to that project and situates our version of computational phenomenology with respect to these projects. The third section reviews the generative modelling framework. The final section presents our approach in detail. We conclude by discussing how our approach differs from previous attempts to use generative modelling to help understand consciousness. In summary, we describe a version of computational phenomenology which uses generative modelling to construct a computational model of the inferential or interpretive processes that best explain this or that kind of lived experience. (shrink)

L'etude historique du principe de vie dans l'oeuvre de Descartes et dans celle de ses predecesseurs souligne notamment l'enjeu de la scission cartesienne entre l'ame et les phenomenes biologiques. Elle permet de comprendre, dans sa nouveaute radicale, la notion de principe de vie chez Descartes, qui associe la decouverte recente de la circulation du sang par W. Harvey, a une explication mecanique de la chaleur du coeur. Du traite de L'Homme aux Passions de l'ame, Descartes identifie en effet la notion (...) de principe de vie a la chaleur contenue dans le coeur, nourrie par la circulation du sang. Une telle conception s'oppose a la vision aristotelicienne, ou la biologie et la psychologie sont etroitement liees, ainsi qu'aux adeptes du panpsychisme que Descartes a critiques: Campanella et Henry More. (shrink)

This volume outlines a Deleuzian approach to analyzing science, culture and politics.

After explaining the well-known two-envelope paradox by indicating the fallacy involved, we consider the two-envelope problem of evaluating the factual information provided to us in the form of the value contained by the envelope chosen first. We try to provide a synthesis of contributions from economy, psychology, logic, probability theory (in the form of Bayesian statistics), mathematical statistics (in the form of a decision-theoretic approach) and game theory. We conclude that the two-envelope problem does not allow a satisfactory solution. An (...) interpretation is made for statistical science at large. (shrink)

This volume assembles supporters and critics of situated cognition research to evaluate the intricacies, prerequisites, possibilities, and scope of a 4E methodology. The contributions are divided into three categories. The first category entails papers dealing with a 4E methodology from the perspective of epistemology and philosophy of science. It discusses whether to support explanatory pluralism or explanatory unification and focuses on possible compromises between ecological psychology and enactivism. The second category addresses ontological questions regarding the synchronic and diachronic constitution of (...) cognitive phenomena, the localization of cognitive processes, and the theoretical issue of mutual manipulability. The third category analyzes how the theoretical and practical commitments of 4E approaches lead to empirically supported investigations of different phenomena, such as research on affordances and (chronic) pain. The book renews attention to the possible adverse consequences coming along with methodical fragmentation, as found among 4E positions. It provides an overdue first step towards a systematic and positive answer to methodological concerns in situated cognition research. Without this and further steps in the future, the growth of 4E ́s significance for the scientific study of the mind might stall or even decrease. With such steps, situated cognition research could realize its frequently highlighted but so far not comprehensively accessed potential to change radically the modalities of how cognitive phenomena are studied. This volume is of interest to scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Die philosophische Rede von der Schuld umgreift ein breites Bedeutungsspektrum, von der Existenz- und Religionsphilosophie bis zur Ästhetik. Hegel bestimmt den Begriff der Schuld jedoch vornehmlich im Zusammenhang seiner Lehre von der Handlung als einem konstitutiven Bestandteil seiner Moralitätskonzeption. Zentraler Gegenstand dieser Untersuchung sind deshalb Hegels Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts; sie bezieht jedoch auch handlungstheoretische Aspekte der Phänomenologie des Geistes, der Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte sowie der Wissenschaft der Logik ein. Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem von Hegel begründeten (...) und mit seiner Schuld- und Strafkonzeption untrennbar verwobenen Begriff der Handlung erfolgt jedoch nicht im rein philosophiehistorischen Interesse, sondern sie erweist Hegels Handlungskonzeption mit Blick auf aktuelle Diskussionen innerhalb der Rechtswissenschaft als bedeutenden historisch-systematischen Bezugspunkt sowie als mitunter notwendiges Korrektiv."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Based upon a brief outline of existential-phenomenological ontology we present a theoretical and practical understanding of humanbeing, which is suited for a methodologically reflected approach to qualitative research. We present the phenomenological distinction between threedimensions of corporeal intentionality(structural, generative and dialectic intentionality) that form elementary events and structures of meaning. Various aspects of human being are better scrutinized with these concepts of intentionality, such as the association of individual being or collective being (e.g. groups) with the less differentiated anonymity of (...) human being. The aim of our framework is to support the qualitative researcher in grasping the experience of the human life in closer accord with how this being actually unfolds and is lived. Application of the presented framework is illuminated with empirical examples from educational, health and psychological contexts. Finally, we discuss the methodological implications that our approach has for qualitative investigations of human being. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s concept of the mob has long been neglected. This paper aims to shine new light on the concept. It focusses on the mob’s role in Origins of Totalitarianism, as one of the key components in the rise of totalitarianism. First, this paper analyses Arendt’s definition of the mob. Next, it traces the mob’s origins, its growing influence, and two major ideological predispositions: tribal nationalism and rebellious nihilism. After further differentiation from Arendt’s concept of the masses, using the concept (...) of the mob, the paper counters Robert Paxton’s objection to theories of atomized societies leading to fascism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT If phenomenology is a research methodology uniquely positioned to enable us to learn from others, I aim to demonstrate the idea that cinema is a privileged site from which to investigate the notion of virtuality (sight and reality), even in an age where vision’s predominance is waning. In order to do so, I consider the painfully disruptive mother-daughter relationship found cross-culturally and discourse-analytically in contemporary patriarchal societies. This bond is arguably of central concern to feminists (and women in general) (...) since previous research has found that the fractious nature of this dynamic points to a very specific psychological deformation of the female psyche under conditions of sexist oppression. The views of French psychoanalyst and philosopher Julia Kristeva and other feminist contributors to the debate on this psychological construct are considered. The possibility of a cultural remedy inspired by a secularised trend of Chinese Buddhism in post-Maoist China, a society very different from that of the West, is investigated. This will involve the analysis of the film Curse of the Golden Flower (Chinese Mandarin soundtrack and English subtitles). I subsequently explore whether or not a valuable model for the compromised mother/daughter relationship is available within the context of the notion of a “slave economy” in the comparatively healthier mother/son relationship of (contemporary) Han Chinese culture. By means of cross-cultural analysis as research tool, this article finds confirmation for the proposition of a positive mother/daughter dynamic in the French novelist Colette’s relationship with her mother, Sido. In conclusion, I find that cinema (as an art form serving the eye, i.e. virtuality) is particularly well suited as a site to investigate psychological phenomena by way of interpretative phenomenology as a research methodology, even as vision – as the human sense of choice – has begun to wane amid a global crisis in masculinity. (shrink)

The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife. By Eric Rentschler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996) xviii + 456 pp. $60.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

In The Law of Blood, French historian Johann Chapoutot synthesizes an enormous number of writings from the Third Reich to give a rendering of the Nazi Weltanschauung—world-view—as both consistent a...

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a symmetrical anthropology (...) of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

Over the last decade, the Anthropocene has overrun the discourses of the humanities and social sciences. Remarkably, two of the most astute commentators, the cross-disciplinary theorist Barbara Herrnstein Smith and the unorthodox philosopher Isabelle Stengers, find inspiration for grappling with these issues in the same apparently odd place: the work of the Polish microbiologist and comparative epistemologist Ludwik Fleck. The first part of this essay explores the role of Fleck's radical constructivism in Smith's analyses of perplexing Anthropocene realities and Stengers's (...) arguments for slowing down science and learning to “compose with Gaia.” In conjunction, they generate a pattern of speculative, conceptual, practical, and political motifs for dealing with changing climates. The second half of the essay uses those insights to test a divergent series of proposals for how to conceive science, politics, theory, and environmental relations in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

The dichotomy between the conceptual and the empirical is part of common sense, yet its organizing force also extends to intellectual life more generally, including the disciplinary life of science and technology studies. This article problematizes this dichotomy as it operates in contemporary STS discussions, arguing instead that the conceptual and the empirical form unstable hybrids. Beginning with a discussion of the “discontents” with which the dominant theory methods packages in STS are viewed, it is suggested that STS has entered (...) a phase resembling Kuhnian normal science. Based on a discussion of the making of cognitive dissonance theory, it is then argued conceptual–empirical mixtures are unavoidable in actual research practice. This situation can be taken as an encouragement for more sustained exploration of conceptual–empirical relations and their inventive potentials. Invoking Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “continuous variation,” the article concludes that STS as a discipline is well served by promoting an ethos of empirical and conceptual experimentation. (shrink)

Williams Syndrome is a developmental disorder that is characterized by cardiovascular problems, particular facial features and several typical behavioral and neurological abnormalities. In Williams Syndrome patients, a heterozygous deletion is present of a region on chromosome 7q11.23 (the Williams Syndrome critical region), which spans approximately 20 genes. Two of these genes encode proteins that regulate dynamic aspects of the cytoskeleton of the cell, either via the actin filament system (LIM kinase 1, or LIMK1), or through the microtubule network (cytoplasmic linker (...) protein of 115 kDa, or CLIP‐115). The recent findings that knockout mice lacking LIMK1 or CLIP‐115 have distinct neurological and behavioural phenotypes, indicates that cytoskeletal defects might play a role in the development of neurological symptoms in Williams Syndrome patients. In this review, we discuss the properties of LIMK and CLIP family proteins, their function in the regulation of the actin and microtubule cytoskeletal systems, respectively, and the relationship with neurodevelopmental aspects of Williams Syndrome. BioEssays 26:141–150, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The proliferation, globalization, and fragmentation of law in world politics have fostered an attempt to re-integrate International Law and International Relations scholarship, but so far the contribution of realist theory to this interdisciplinary perspective has been meagre. Combining intellectual history, the jurisprudence of IL and IR theory, this article provides an analysis of John H. Herz’s classical realism and its perspective on international law. In retrieving this vision, the article emphasizes the political and intellectual context from which Herz’s realism developed: (...) the study of public law in Germany during the interwar period and in particular the contribution of Hans Kelsen and the pure theory of law to the study of international law. Herz was deeply inspired by Kelsen but he criticized the pure theory for ignoring the sociological foundations of law. Following his emigration to the United States, Herz embraced realism but without disregarding international law. Indeed, his mature, globally oriented realism offers a balanced, fruitful perspective for thinking about the relationship between politics and law that is deeply relevant for contemporary theory: it challenges modern, law-blind variants of realism and holds considerable potential for contributing to the approaches that have most successfully studied the law–politics nexus. (shrink)

Early in his career, Bruno Latour’s limited readership consisted mainly of the research community in science and technology studies that he helped to inaugurate. Today the situation could hardly be more different. Latour is now subject to the “translations”—the processes by which ideas travel—that he has provided such powerful tools for analyzing. He has become a “mutable mobile”—eminently transportable but always changing as he goes—that in different contexts exists as a variety of conceptual characters or figurations. As the Latour network (...) continues to see significant extensions and transformations, it offers an instructive case for understanding the potentials and dynamics of traveling texts and ideas—and of their relation to existing disciplinary formations—as ecologies of knowledge change. This article examines the reception and adaptation of Latour’s ideas in two quite different intellectual contexts: anthropology and literary studies. The proliferation of Latour figurations is shown to be a consequence of interactions between, on the one hand, existing disciplinary constellations of ideas, concerns, and practices, and, on the other hand, his own often ambiguous arguments on topics including theory and method, nonhuman agency and politics, and technical mediation. (shrink)

This introduction to the Common Knowledge symposium titled “Comparative Relativism” outlines a variety of intellectual contexts where placing the unlikely companion terms comparison and relativism in conjunction offers analytical purchase. If comparison, in the most general sense, involves the investigation of discrete contexts in order to elucidate their similarities and differences, then relativism, as a tendency, stance, or working method, usually involves the assumption that contexts exhibit, or may exhibit, radically different, incomparable, or incommensurable traits. Comparative studies are required to (...) treat their objects as alike, at least in some crucial respects; relativism indicates the limits of this practice. Jensen argues that this seeming paradox is productive, as he moves across contexts, from Lévi-Strauss's analysis of comparison as an anthropological method to Peter Galison's history of physics, and on to the anthropological, philosophical, and historical examples offered in symposium contributions by Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Marilyn Strathern, and Isabelle Stengers. Comparative relativism is understood by some to imply that relativism comes in various kinds and that these have multiple uses, functions, and effects, varying widely in different personal, historical, and institutional contexts that can be compared and contrasted. Comparative relativism is taken by others to encourage a “comparison of comparisons,” in order to relativize what different peoples—say, Western academics and Amerindian shamans—compare things “for.” Jensen concludes that what is compared and relativized in this symposium are the methods of comparison and relativization themselves. He ventures that the contributors all hope that treating these terms in juxtaposition may allow for new configurations of inquiry. (shrink)

This book presents a new nominalistic philosophy of mathematics: semantic conventionalism. Its central thesis is that mathematics should be founded on the human ability to create language – and specifically, the ability to institute conventions for the truth conditions of sentences. This philosophical stance leads to an alternative way of practicing mathematics: instead of “building” objects out of sets, a mathematician should introduce new syntactical sentence types, together with their truth conditions, as he or she develops a theory. Semantic conventionalism (...) is justified first through criticism of Cantorian set theory, intuitionism, logicism, and predicativism; then on its own terms; and finally, exemplified by a detailed reconstruction of arithmetic and real analysis. Also included is a simple solution to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes that have traditionally been recognized as semantic. And since it is argued that mathematics is semantics, this solution also applies to Russell’s paradox and the other mathematical paradoxes of self-reference. In addition to philosophers who care about the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics or the paradoxes of self-reference, this book should appeal to mathematicians interested in alternative approaches. (shrink)

In 1964 José Benardete invented the “New Zeno Paradox” about an infinity of gods trying to prevent a traveller from reaching his destination. In this paper it is argued, contra Priest and Yablo, that the paradox must be resolved by rejecting the possibility of actual infinity. Further, it is shown that this paradox has the same logical form as Yablo’s Paradox. It is suggested that constructivism can serve as the basis of a common solution to New Zeno and the paradoxes (...) of truth, and a constructivist interpretation of Kripke’s theory of truth is given. (shrink)

A method of supervaluation for Kripke’s theory of truth is presented. It differs from Kripke’s own method in that it employs trees; results in a compositional semantics; assigns the intuitively correct truth values to the sentences of a particularly tricky example of Gupta’s; and – it is argued – is acceptable as an explication of the correspondence theory of truth.

A modification of Kripke’s theory of truth is proposed and it is shown how this modification solves some of the problems of expressive weakness in Kripke’s theory. This is accomplished by letting truth values be grounded in facts about other sentences’ ungroundedness.

Two reverse supertasks—one new and one invented by Pérez Laraudogoitia —are discussed. Contra Kerkvliet and Pérez Laraudogoitia, it is argued that these supertasks cannot be used to conduct fair infinite lotteries, i.e., lotteries on the set of natural numbers with a uniform probability distribution. The new supertask involves an infinity of gods who collectively select a natural number by each removing one ball from a collection of initially infinitely many balls in a reverse omega-sequence of actions.