We describe how the set of tools, practices, and social relations known as “precision agriculture” is defined, promoted, and debated. To do so, we perform a critical discourse analysis of popular and trade press websites. Promoters of precision agriculture champion how big data analytics, automated equipment, and decision-support software will optimize yields in the face of narrow margins and public concern about farming’s environmental impacts. At its core, however, the idea of farmers leveraging digital infrastructure in their operations is not (...) new, as agronomic research in this vein has existed for over 30 years. Contemporary discourse in precision ag tends to favour emerging digital technologies themselves over their embeddedness in longstanding precision management approaches. Following several strands of science and technology studies research, we explore what rhetorical emphasis on technical innovation achieves, and argue that this discourse of novelty is a reinvention of precision agriculture in the context of the growing “smart” agricultural economy. We overview six tensions that remain unresolved in this promotional rhetoric, concerning the definitions, history, goals, adoption, uses, and impacts of precision agriculture. We then synthesize these in a discussion of the extent to which digital tools are believed to displace farmer decision-making and whether digital agriculture addresses the biophysical heterogeneity of farm landscapes or land itself has become an “experimental technology”—a way to advance the general development of artificial intelligence. This discussion ultimately helps us name a larger dilemma: that the smart agricultural economy is perhaps less about supporting land and its stewards than promising future tech and profits. (shrink)

Interpretation of first four sutras of Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa on the basis of Śaṅkarācārya's commentary on Vedanta.

Il saggio prende in considerazione il nesso istituito da Adorno fra la crisi dell'individuo e il suo tentativo di salvare la metafisica attraverso un rapporto rinnovato con le cose, ripensando poi il significato etico della patologia sociale dell'individualitÀ. Una ‘salvezza' dell'individuale, nell'epoca della sua liquidazione, puň essere ancora proposta, nei termini di Adorno, solo se si supera la falsa alternativa fra un individuo pensato come spazio intersoggettivo delle ragioni e un'individualitÀ ripiegata monologicamente su se stessa attraverso una rinnovata antropologia, etica (...) e critica insieme. (shrink)

Surrealism in North Africa and Western Asia : crossings and encounters -- Multiple surrealisms -- Surrealist encounters.

Supercommentary on Siddhāntabindu of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, exegesis of Daśaślokī, treatise of the Advaita school in Indic philosophy, by Śaṅkarācārya.

On the fundamentals of Advaita philosophy refuting theories of other schools in Indian philosophy.

The article is the consequence of some critical notes to the contribution of Paolo Bellan, arising from reading of essays of Francesco Emmolo and Carlo Sini and the assumption of a purely phenomenological perspective in the interpretation of the processes of acquisition of scientific knowledge.