Epistemological foundationalism can be generally characterized as the thesis that in order for there to be any genuine knowledge at all, there must be some self-authenticating instances of knowledge which epistemically ground the whole edifice. This position can be seen to involve three distinct claims: there are self-authenticating, noninferential pieces of knowledge; these privileged instances can be infallibly recognized as such so as to be able to function in grounding other knowledge claims; and without some such instances functioning in this (...) way, knowledge would have no foundation and skepticism would ensue. Although adherents of this ideal run the gamut from Aristotle to Husserl, it is usually identified with the epistemological problematic introduced by Descartes and Locke. The particular formulations of this general ideal differ to the extent that the self-authenticating instances are recognized as being sense-data, phenomenological essences, or intellectual principles. (shrink)

This article outlines a research agenda that addresses the question of how contemporary interactive arts practice can evolve new strategies or ways of facilitating the development and representation of subjective experiences that induce an embodied felt sense of the humanmachine co-evolution. To help answer this question, the term symbiogenic has been created as a shorthand or umbrella term to better discuss these types of experiences and the concepts they introduce. The term symbiogenic is taken from symbiogenesis, the evolutionary theory introduced (...) in 1909 by Russian biologist Konstantin Mereschkowsky and expanded in the modern era by Dr. Lynn Margulis (1993, 1981). This theory emphasizes cooperation and other more complex interactions between organisms that go beyond mere competition. The research starts from the conception that there currently exists a range of interactive artworks that examine and engage with the increasing cooperation and co-evolution that humans are experiencing with their technological environment. However, what is proposed is that interactive or technological art can go further and provoke a bodily felt sense of this dynamic and thus bring into greater consciousness the co-dependent and co-evolutionary path of our relationship with technology. It is believed that these experiences can be both developed and identified within an artistic context but they lack a cohesive conceptual framework from which to study and analyse them. (shrink)

Whether considering vegetarianism, women's rights, or the "humanity" of pets, this book goes to the heart of the question of why all animals matter.

We are even less aware of our internal organs and the physiological processes that keep us alive. In this fascinating work, Drew Leder examines all the ways in which the body is absent—forgotten, alien, uncontrollable, obscured.