Peirce’s philosophy can be interpreted as an integration of mysticism and science. In Peirce’s philosophy mind is feeling on the inside and on the outside, spontaneity, chance and chaos with a tendency to take habits. Peirce’s philosophy has an emptiness beyond the three worlds of reality , which is the source from where the categories spring. He emphasizes that God cannot be conscious in the way humans are, because there is no content in his “mind.” Since there is a transcendental (...) 3 nothingness behind and before the categories, it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead. Thus Peirce seems to be a panentheist. 4 It seems fair to characterize him as a mystic whose path to enlightenment is science as a social activity. (shrink)

This essay finds room for scepticism in the context of a Reformed understanding of how we come to know, and participate in, the work of God in the world. To disallow scepticism in the face of the impossible things God has promised is to impede the work of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. This work is done only when we step into that which is beyond anything we can ask or imagine. I develop this argument (...) first by considering how we might do a better job of including and conversing with sceptics in our midst. I then explore three theological themes in the Reformed tradition that suggest the potential value of scepticism. Finally, I suggest that scepticism secures a place for wonder in the face of God’s Kingdom, a place from which we can effectively work for God’s impossible promises to come to fruition. (shrink)

Rigby (Center for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Coventry U., England) investigates different approaches to "policing" the past, from mass purges ...

A transdisciplinary theory of cognition and communication based on the process self-organizing and autopoietic system theory of Niklas Luhmann integrated with a triadic semiotic paradigm of experience and interpretation with phenomenological and hermeneutical aspects of C.S. Peirce, goes beyond info-computationalism in its integrating of phenomenological and hermeneutical aspects of Peircean semiotic logic with a cybernetic and autopoietic systemic emergentist process view. This makes the emergence of mind and transdisciplinary view of sciences possible.

This article focuses on participatory research to understand, support and promote the implementation of skills assessment in Cycle 3 within a strengthened priority education network. The research falls within the theoretical and methodological framework of ergonomic analysis of teachers’ activities in their workplace and is enriched by a didactic analysis aimed at identifying the knowledge in circulation related to the tools implemented in skills assessment. Analysis of the results shows that the evaluation systems and their use(s) are characterized by the (...) massive recourse to external resources, the time-consuming construction of new tools, and the enhancement of behavioural and cross-curricular skills to the detriment of disciplinary knowledge. The difficulty of establishing continuity in the students’ pathways due to different professional cultures and sometimes dissonant prescriptions between network primary and middle schools is obvious. The discussion questions the conditions of implementation of prescriptions relating to skills assessment and the articulation of ergonomic and didactic approaches within participatory research. (shrink)

The use of virtual fencing in pasture-grazed farm systems is currently close to commercial reality but there are no studies applying the principles of responsible research and innovation, such as foresighting, to this technology. This paper reports results of a study aimed at foresighting potential implications associated with virtual fencing of cattle. A Delphi method was used to survey the opinions of farming practitioners and researchers, using pasture-grazed cattle farming in New Zealand as a case study. The key benefits were (...) identified as environmental protection, improved feed allocation, access to previously unavailable grazing areas, labour savings and individual animal management. The five most important potential barriers identified were device reliability, farmer perception of a value proposition, ethical issues related to community perception of negative animal welfare, lack of feed budgeting skills of farmers, and excessive training time. We suggest that more knowledge is needed on ethical issues associated with VF, including understanding public opinions of such technology developments. We suggest that development and use of VF has been focussed primarily on technical features and user benefits and needs to include consideration of wider socio-ethical principles to ensure responsible innovation processes. The findings from this study will aid focussed research and development to incorporate ethically acceptable development alongside technical factors. (shrink)

Principlism is an ethical framework that has dominated bioethical discourse for the past 50 years. There are differing perspectives on its proper scope and limits. In this article, we consider to what extent principlism provides guidance for the abortion and euthanasia debates. We argue that whilst principlism may be considered a useful framework for structuring bioethical discourse, it does not in itself allow for the resolution of these neuralgic policy discussions. Scholars have attempted to use principlism to analyse the ethics (...) and legality of abortion and euthanasia; but such efforts are methodologically problematic. We close with a consideration of the proper scope of principlism in bioethics–a vision that is more modest than the manner in which principlism is often deployed in contemporary academic bioethics and medical education. (shrink)

Dedicated to the life and work of Heinz Von Foerster, this is a double issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

This book brings together international experts on the application of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society as autopoietic communication. Luhmann’s sociological systems theory is counter-intuitive and in its detached coolness difficult for many to understand and accept. Naturally they ask: is it really worth the trouble to learn? This book demonstrates what this combination of systems theory, Batesonian information theory, von Foerster’s second-order cybernetics, Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis and Husserl’s phenomenology can offer. The book is produced in cooperation with the Sociocybernetic (...) Group and Copenhagen Business School. (shrink)

This special double issue of _Cybernetics and Human Knowing_ is comprised of a collection of papers devoted to the cybernetics and mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce with a special focus on its synergies with George Spencer-Brown's thinking. Peirce was a truly original American philosopher and logician working in the late 1800s and early 1900s; Spencer-Brown is an English polymath, best known as the author of _Laws of Form_. The contributions reflect the extraordinary richness of Peirce's work and his relevance to (...) present concerns in cybernetics. The similarities in the focus on some of the deep foundational subjects are astonishing, amongst those especially the concept of the void or Firstness and the continuity of mind and matter. (shrink)

S'intéresser au concept de 'catégorie' dans la philosophie d'Aristote c'est se pencher sur l'un des objets qui a le plus suscité de commentaires depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'à la modernité récente -- de Porphyre à Derrida en passant par les stoïciens, Alexandre et les philosophes arabes. Loin d'être limitée au traité qui a porté ce titre ("Des catégories"), traité dont l'objet et le sens même font difficulté, la kategoria se situe à la croisée des divers champs de questionnements philosophiques aristotéliciens et des (...) enjeux de la physique, de la logique, de la dialectique et de la science 'première'. L'objet de ce volume est d'éclairer, à partir de quelques-unes des lectures actuelles et des grandes approches interprétatives, les difficultés majeures d'interprétation que le concept de 'catégorie' (kategoria) a posé à la tradition, ainsi que d'en renouveler la compréhension à même les textes." -- Back cover. (shrink)

Scanning the Pharaohs: CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies. By Zahi Hawass and Sahar N. Saleem. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016. Pp. xviii + 318, illus. $59.95.

The guiding idea behind this collection of papers is a presentation of the transdisciplinary scope of the new semiotics offering a deeper and broader framework than the structuralist semiology that has been the foundation of most European semiotic analyses of culture, texts and languages.

In social scientific studies of Europe’s new democracies, there has emerged an analytical approach which transcends the teleology of ‘transitology’ and, focusing on the impact of culture and history, is sensitive to the contingencies and ‘eventfulness’ of social transformations. The main thrust of this article is that such a culturo-historical approach may prove useful not only in assessing the different results to which the processes of democratization lead at the national level, but also to assess the general direction of political (...) change after 1989 towards democracy. Building on Eisenstadt’s notion of modernity as a cultural and political program, this article therefore attempts to understand the revolutions of 1989 not only as the mere sum of particular national events, but also as part of an ‘entangled history’, that is, as a common, transnational phenomenon which was based on and articulated a shared cultural understanding. (shrink)

Dedicated to the life and work of Thomas Sebeok, this is an issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

How individuals reason deductively has concerned researchers for many years. Yet, it is still unclear whether, and if so how, participants’ reasoning performance changes over time. In two test sessions one week apart, we examined how the syllogistic reasoning performance of 100 participants changed within and between sessions. Participants’ reasoning performance increased during the first session. A week later, they started off at the same level of reasoning performance but did not further improve. The reported performance gains were only found (...) for logically valid, but not for invalid syllogisms indicating a bias against responding that ‘no valid conclusion’ follows from the premises. Importantly, we demonstrate that participants substantially varied in the strength of the temporal performance changes and explored how individual characteristics, such as participants’ personality and cognitive ability, relate to these interindividual differences. Together, our findings contradict common assumptions that reasoning performance only reflects a stable inherent ability. (shrink)

Any great new theoretical framework has an epistemological and an ontological aspect to its philosophy as well as an axiological one, and one needs to understand all three aspects in order to grasp the deep aspiration and idea of the theoretical framework. Presently, there is a widespread effort to understand C. S. Peirce's (1837–1914) pragmaticistic semeiotics, and to develop it by integrating the results of modern science and evolutionary thinking; first, producing a biosemiotics and, second, by integrating it with the (...) progress in cybernetics, information science, and system theory to create a cybersemiotics. In this paper, we focus on the understanding of the evolution of the universe that Peirce produced as an alternative to the mechanistic view underlying classical physics and try to place man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent. It is true that modern non-equilibrium physics has made a modern foundation for a profound physical understanding of the basic evolutionary processes in the universe. But science still has not produced a theory that can explain how the creativity of the universe could produce signification, interpretation, and first-person consciousness. To this end, Peirce's thoughts on agapastic evolution coupled with the aesthetically influence of the growth of ideas and reasonableness on man could make a contribution. (shrink)

This timely collection of essays by leading international scholars across religious studies and the environmental humanities advances a lively discussion on materialism in its many forms. While there is little agreement on what 'materialism' means, it is evident that there is a resurgence in thinking about matter in more animated and active ways. The volume explores how debates concerning the new materialisms impinge on religious traditions and the extent to which religions, with their material culture and beliefs in the Divine (...) within the material, can make a creative contribution to debates about ecological materialisms. Spanning a broad range of themes, including politics, architecture, hermeneutics, literature, and religion, the book brings together a series of discussions on materialism in the context of diverse methodologies and approaches. The volume investigates a range of issues including space and place, hierarchy and relationality, the relationship between nature and society, human and other agencies, and worldviews and cultural values. Drawing on literary and critical theory, and queer, philosophical, theological and social theoretical approaches, this ground-breaking book will make an important contribution to the environmental humanities. It will be a key read for postgraduate students, researchers and scholars in religious studies, cultural anthropology, literary studies, philosophy and environmental studies. (shrink)

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory. Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on (...) the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter constrains the former, but the former fuels the latter. The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical analysis of code-semiotics, which we see as the latest attempt to create paradigmatic foundation for solving the question of the emergence of life and consciousness. We view code semiotics as a an attempt to revise the empirical scientific Darwinian paradigm, and to go beyond the complex systems, emergence, self-organization, and informational paradigms, and also the selfish gene theory of Dawkins and the Peircean pragmaticist semiotic theory built on the simultaneous types of evolution. As such it (...) is a new and bold attempt to use semiotics to solve the problems created by the evolutionary paradigm’s commitment to produce a theory of how to connect the two sides of the Cartesian dualistic view of physical reality and consciousness in a consistent way. (shrink)

This study of the Confessions engages with contemporary philosophers and psychologists antagonistic to religion and demonstrates the enduring value of Augustine's journey for those struggling with theistic incredulity and religious narcissism. Paul Rigby draws on current Augustinian scholarship and the works of Paul Ricœur to cross-examine Augustine's testimony. This analysis reveals the sophistication of Augustine's confessional text, which anticipates the analytical mindset of his critics. Augustine presents a coherent, defensible response to three age-old problems: free will and grace; goodness, (...) innocent suffering, and radical evil; and freedom and predestination. The Theology of Augustine's Confessions moves beyond commentary and allows present-day readers to understand the Confessions as its original readers experienced it, bridging the divide introduced by Kant, Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and their descendants. (shrink)

Alexithymia is a dimensional trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings and an externally oriented thinking (EOT) style. Here, we explored interrelationships between alexithymia and measures assessing how individuals process and regulate their responses to environmental and body-based cues. Young adults (N= 201) completed self-report questionnaires assessing alexithymia, sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), interoceptive accuracy (IA), sensory processing styles, and current levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Whereas EOT was related to low orienting sensitivity, problems with emotional appraisal (difficulties identifying (...) feelings/difficulties describing feelings) were related to heightened sensory sensitivity. In addition, features of SPS improved the prediction of alexithymia above and beyond that accounted for by IA. We suggest that EOT is linked to problems maintaining a representation of one’s emotions in working memory and that low IA and problems with emotional appraisal are linked to atypicalities in sensory processing that may impact embodiment. A latent profile analysis revealed five classes of individuals distinguished by the relative strength of different alexithymic traits and by differences in IA and sensory processing styles. The classes identified included two lexithymic, one modal, and two alexithymic groups, showing different susceptibilities to SPS. Overall, our findings lend support to the view that alexithymia is associated with atypicalities in both bottom–up and top–down processes that impact emotion processing and regulation. They also raise the possibility that individuals with different alexithymia subtypes may differ with regard to a range of factors, including not only SPS but also early life experiences, mental health outcomes, and susceptibility to various personality disorders. (shrink)

This article aims to illustrate how racism could be addressed. Three pedagogies - a dangerous pedagogy as courageous dialogue, a pedagogy of discomfort and a critical pedagogy - are presented as examples to reframe the issue of racism. The contribution of James Cone is applied as a broad descriptive theoretical framework. Cone's views in this article resonate with the history of contemporary racism in South Africa and will therefore be juxtaposed by the contribution of South African theologians. A fourth pedagogy, (...) namely, a pedagogy of freedom and healing, is introduced to address gaps in the first three pedagogies. The objective is to realise freedom or healing between people of different races. (shrink)

This controversial book is an impassioned African response to the racial stereotyping of African people and people of African descent by prominent white scholars. It highlights how the media contributes to the growth of racist ideas, particularly in reporting current events in Africa, and demonstrates how some of America’s most revered intellectuals cloak racist ideologies in ostensibly egalitarian discourses. The author seeks to rewrite the image of 'race' in order to show the damage racism can cause serious scholarship.