The problem of teleology is one of the major challenges for theoretical biology and, in general, for every philosophy of life. The debate about the nature of the organism and its difference from inorganic matter cannot come to terms with, at one point or another, the problem that arises from the unavoidable impression of teleology exhibited by the living itself. In this respect, the advantages that a systematic thinker such as Hartmann can offer to the philosophical analysis of life are (...) remarkable. The first discussion by Hartmann on the problem of causality can be found in Philosophische Grundfragen der Biologie (1912), a work which, however accurate, takes a predominantly Kantian and neo-Kantian approach, and cannot rely on the original and fecund tools of Hartmann’s mature stratified ontology. Therefore, the present contribution will focus on Hartmann’s ontological works, in particular his Philosophie der Natur: Abriss der speziellen Kategorienlehre (1950), in order to highlight and discuss the theoretical advantages they present. In particular, the validity of Hartmann’s ontological approach will be revealed by three key points: 1) a careful categorial distinction between different forms of determination, and even of causality, present in nature; 2) the refusal of vitalism, with the resolute limitation of finality in the proper sense to human conscious action; and 3) a great openness to the possibility that the living could be a third realm, governed by an autonomous modality of determination whose nature has yet to be discovered. (shrink)

This study is an attempt to investigate the shaping stratum of the Markan passion narrative (PN). The ultimate focus is on discovering the factors behind the text of Mark that influenced the shaping of the passion account. Since early form criticism, there has been an assumed tradition of an early existing passion account prior to the Markan narrative, to which we do not have access in our contemporary world. However, this study argues that the PN is shaped not only (...) by a tradition to which we do not have access, as argued by previous form critics but also perhaps by how one would describe any crucifixion in antiquity. As we possibly know, this could be true of any early tradition, including the PN in Mark. In other words, this paper is thus proposing a shift from a possible oral source (tradition) to general literary influences that shaped the Markan PN. This means we can see possible influences that determine what would be part of a narrative of a noble death from within Graeco-Roman and Jewish literary influences despite the fact that we cannot get hold of Mark’s traditional sources. This paper utilises historical criticism as the method to investigate the shaping stratum of the Markan PN.Contribution: So, an access to these literary influences serves as an adequate tool to aid the contemporary reader to adequately understand Mark’s PN as the death and resurrection of Jesus are the integral part in the whole story of Christianity. An understanding of this remarkable account is very significant for churches in Africa and worldwide too. (shrink)

In his influential 1987 monograph, Kloppenborg identified three layers in the Sayings Gospel Q: the ‘formative stratum’ (or Q¹), the ‘main redaction’ (or Q²), and the ‘final recension’ (or Q³). He ascribed the cluster of sayings in Q 12:39–59 to the main redaction. Within this cluster appears the parable of the loyal and wise slave (Q 12:42–46). In my view, some portions of this parable actually originate with the formative stratum. The aim of the current article (...) is to reconsider the redactional make-up of this parable by appealing to Kloppenborg’s own criteria for distinguishing between Q1 and Q2, including those of ‘characteristic forms’, ‘characteristic motifs’ and ‘implied audience’. (shrink)

This article attempts to analyze Karsavin’s theory of revolution in the broader context of a Russian metaphysics of revolution in order to determine the place of Karsavin’s phenomenology of revolution both in his work and within Eurasianist ideology. His article “Phenomenology of Revolution” ontologically links two key concepts within Karsavin’s understanding: the “symphonic person” and the “ruling stratum.” The meaning of revolution consists in leading the symphonic person to a realization of its main tasks, which require the utmost exertion (...) and are related to the very existence of its historical form. This crisis can result in the person’s death, but in the death of the old person is born a new individuation of a higher order of personhood for whom that revolution has been a rebirth. If the symphonic person succeeds in “being revived through death or recovery,” then this will also be the birth of a new ruling stratum and a new government, that is, its new being as a state. Karsavin thus clarifies the historical functions both of the symphonic person and of the ruling stratum. The latter turns out to be a kind of entelechy of the symphonic person, providing its own personal content to the generic concept. The concept of the ruling stratum is explained in the metaphysical context of the symphonic-person theory. In light of the symphonic person’s mission, the ruling stratum is an organic connection among individuals of the active sociocultural segment of the population that has resonated with the spirit of history and the people. In this case, the stratum “rules” along with parties and institutions, eventually passing judgment on them. The main results of Karsavin’s work are (1) modeling a developmental phase of revolution and (2) the concept of the ruling stratum, which allows us to avoid formal sociological understanding of the active elite and direct our attention to the connection between personal activity and the “silent” but by no means “sleeping” substrate of the nation that manifests itself in critical epochs. (shrink)

들뢰즈와 과타리의 「도덕의 지질학」에서 중요한 역할을 하는 건 “덴마크의 스피노자주의자 지질학자” 옐름슬레우(Louis Hjelmslev)다. 들뢰즈와 과타리는 그가 언어활동에도 관심이 있었지만, 더 중요한 건 언어활동에서 ‘지층화’를 뽑아내는 일이었다고 진술한다. 요컨대 들뢰즈와 과타리의 전략은 옐름슬레우의 언어학을 바탕으로 ‘지층의 과학’, 즉 ‘지질학’을 구성하는 일이었다.이 고원에 등장하는 지층, 지층화, 평면 등의 개념은 모두 옐름슬레우한테서 왔다. 따라서 이들 개념이 옐름슬레우 본인한테는 어떤 의미였고 들뢰즈와 과타리가 어떻게 전유했는지 살피는 일은 충분히 의미 있는 작업이다.옐름슬레우의 ‘기호 함수’ 개념은 들뢰즈와 과타리한테서 ‘기호 기계’를 거쳐 ‘(추상적인) 기계’로 가공된다. 「도덕의 지질학」은 3개의 (...) 거대 지층, 즉 ‘물리-화학지층’, ‘유기체 지층’, ‘기호-사회 지층’을 다루는데, 이 셋을 관통하는 것이 ‘기계’의 작동 즉 지층화다. 따라서 후속 연구에서 각 지층에서 기계가 어떻게 다르게 작동하는지 파악할 수 있는 중요한 분석 도구를 마련했다.옐름슬레우의 언어 분석은 언어 ‘생산’의 논리를 알게 해주며, 궁극적으로는 의미론의 영역을 훨씬 넘어서는 일반 기호 이론으로 인도한다. 들뢰즈와 과타리는 기호 이론을 존재하는 모든 것의 작동 원리로 격상시킨다. 최소의 요소들로부터 우주 속 무한한 생성을 설명하는 원리, 들뢰즈와 과타리가 옐름슬레우한테서 찾아 낸 교훈이 그것이다. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to reveal the influence of articles about the spontaneous renewal of icons and church domes on the formation of the concept of a miracle among the population of Ukraine on the basis of publications in the Ukrainian press of the early 20s of the XX century. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time a layer of poorly accessible newspaper publications was analyzed, on the basis of which (...) it was established what information background was formed around rumors about miracles that occurred in 1920-1925, and how it could influence the emergence of the corresponding narratives. As a result, it was revealed that stories about miracles in Ukraine during this period were characteristic of both rural and urban environments, and affected almost all layers of society, including the emergence of a stratum of the population that ironically laughed at miracles. It is shown that miracles very quickly entered into everyday reality, and they ceased to see supernatural features. Concrete examples demonstrate that miracles in this period increasingly began to be left to the mercy of science and technology. (shrink)

How comes that two organisms can interact with each other or that we can comprehend what the other experiences? The theories of embodiment, intersubjectivity or empathy have repeatedly taken as their starting point an individualistic assumption (the comprehension of the other comes after the self-comprehension) or a cognitivist one (the affective dimension follows the cognitive process). The thesis of this book is that there are no two isolated entities at the origin which successively interact with each other. There is, rather, (...) an impersonal stratum – the original affectivity (Gefühlsdrang) – which lets the living organisms be constitutively attuned with the expressive dimension of the life from the very beginning. The book aims to rethink the issue of corporality on the basis of a biosemiotics of the interaction between lived body (Leib) and environment (Umwelt). The human emotions reveals themselves as devices that experiment further attunement levels and expose the human being – because of her ex-centricity – to the alienation in various forms of the psychopathological existence. This is an unprecedented perspective that turns to psychopathology to reread against the light the watermark weaving the structure of personal singularity. What emerges is an intermediate territory confining both with philosophy and psychiatry: the psychopathology of ordo amoris. The author advances the project of a new psychopathology of ordo amoris, not only tackling with the 19th-century tradition of psychiatry and phenomenological psychopathology, but also with the contemporary disputes on intersubjectivity in phenomenology and with those on schizophrenia as disruption of aida or as disembodiment process in psychiatry. What results from his project is the first systematic study on the international level showing the relevance of Schelerian concepts of body schema (Leibschema) and order of feeling (ordo amoris) to understand the disruptions of emotional regulation on the psychopathological dimension as well as on the formation process of the singularity. (shrink)

The development of modern information and communication technologies has enabled the spread of tools and procedures dedicated to the discretization of reality, already involving inconceivable and unprecedented swathes of informations. The diversity, volume and velocity of data has made possible a vast set of digital contents: this is not just a form of technical externalization, of data storage, or of symbolic representation, but also the tangible basis for a new form of power, ‘algorithmic governmentality’, which uses the mathematical analysis of (...) this vast gathering of data to prescribe and proscribe particular concrete behaviours. Evaluating these procedures for the discretization of reality, together with processes of dividualization, data behaviourism and personal profiling, this article examines the complex of techniques applied to digital contents. The basis for this examination is here the Deleuzian concept of stratoanalysis: this will initially involve studying the forms and spaces generated and composed by digital technologies, so as to assess the viability of the concept of ‘digital stratum’. By then analysing the relationship between the anthropomorphic stratum and the digital stratum, and the way that algorithmic governmentality strives to control this relationship, it will become possible to propose a line of flight that sets out and sets off from this logic of control. (shrink)

This volume recreates the received notion of reflective equilibrium. It reconfigures reflective equilibrium as both a cognitive ideal and a method for approximating this ideal. The ideal of reflective equilibrium is restructured using the concept of discursive strata, which are formed by sentences and differentiated by function. Sentences that perform the same kind of linguistic function constitute a stratum. The book shows how moral discourse can be analyzed into phenomenal, instrumental, and teleological strata, and the ideal of reflective equilibrium (...) reworked in these terms. In addition, the work strengthens the method of reflective equilibrium by harnessing the resources of decision theory and inductive logic. It launches a comparative version of decision theory and employs this framework as a guide to moral theory choice. It also recruits quantitative inductive logic to inform a standard of inductive cogency. When used in tandem with comparative decision theory, this standard can aid in the effort to turn the undesirable condition of reflective disequilibrium into reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

In beliefs we live, we move and we are [...] the beliefs constitute the base of our life, the land on which we live [...] All our conduct, including the intellectual life, depends on the system of our authentic beliefs. In them [...] lies latent, as implications of whatever specifically we do or we think [...] the man, at heart, is believing or, which is equal, the deepest stratum of our life, the spirit that maintains and carries all the (...) others, is formed by beliefs...We know that the human being is a social animal. This is a common fact. Moreover, the human being is defined as a rational being. It is clear and nobody can deny that human creations include logic, mathematics, philosophy, science, and jurisprudence. These are all products of rationality or abstract thought. Nevertheless, human sociability goes further that the sociability of an animal herd. Societies were founded, cohere, develop, degenerate and die based on their belief systems. Reason cannot prove the .. (shrink)

The article develops the idea of forming postcapitalist social relations as a social revolution of an individual, which consists in the fact that popularity becomes a key advantage, the “possession” of which is a desired goal and a significant resource of political influence. At the same time, it is shown that this process leads to forming a new dominant stratum — personalities (“people with personality”): celebrities, popular bloggers, social media influencers, micro- and nanosignature. It is substantiated that the personaliat (...) domination is a consequence of contradictory social relations between the new aristocracy represented by the representatives of the personaliat and many people who do not “possess” a popular personality - the impersonaliat (“extra people”, “lower” precariat, those who turn out to be outsiders in the world of social platforms). This contradiction is associated with the rooting of a celebrity’s culture, which encourages a lot of people to fight for popularity and focus on finding advantageous differences from others in the process of self-realization. However, this struggle in the end for the overwhelming majority turns into an increase in creative competition and subtraction. Various new forms of subtraction that appear in situations of widespread self-realization are revealed. Accordingly, arguments are given in favor of the fact that in the context of the “personality revolution”, the truly left will be rather an alternative that will call into question the ways of solving social problems formulated by popular personalities. In other words, it will be possible to oppose the total pursuit of popularity with the projects of society, in which the person is relied not as someone who rises above the others, but as an involved person who values life in harmony with others higher than his own “I”. (shrink)

With reference to Polish logico-philosophical tradition two formal theories of language syntax have been sketched and then compared with each other. The first theory is based on the assumption that the basic linguistic stratum is constituted by object-tokens (concrete objects perceived through the senses) and that the types of such objects (ideal objects) are derivative constructs. The other is founded on an opposite philosophical orientation. The two theories are equivalent. The main conclusion is that in syntactic researches it is (...) redundant to postulate the existence of abstract linguistic entities. Earlier, in a slightly different form, the idea was presented in [27] and signalled in [26] and [25]. (shrink)

This paper argues that the shared intersubjective accessibility of mathematical objects has its roots in a stratum of experience prior to language or any other form of concrete social interaction. On the basis of Husserl’s phenomenology, I demonstrate that intersubjectivity is an essential stratum of the objects of mathematical experience, i.e., an integral part of the peculiar sense of a mathematical object is its common accessibility to any consciousness whatsoever. For Husserl, any experience of an objective nature has (...) as its correlate a “we,” which he terms the “community of monads”. Thus, even before mathematical objects gain expression, formalization, and axiomatization through natural and scientific language, from a phenomenological viewpoint their objectivity has its roots in raw pre-linguistic though intersubjective experience. Accordingly, I demonstrate the different senses in which the experience of mathematical objects is permeated by intersubjectivity, suggesting a picture of mathematical intersubjectivity as pre-linguistic common experience based on Husserl’s idea of a “community of monads”. (shrink)

Frecuentemente se ha señalado a la fenomenología de Husserl como una "filosofía de la fundación última y radical auto-responsabilidad." Aquí, sin embargo, examinaremos qué sentido puede tener hablar de "fundación última" y "auto-responsabilidad radical" en filosofía. La "idea de la filosofía" que propone Husserl como una "ciencia universal y rigurosa" de "fundación última" ha sido malinterpretada por sus críticos contemporáneos, que no han prestado atención a su aclaración que esta idea "ha de ser realizada sólo mediante valideces relativas y temporales (...) en un proceso histórico infinito", ni tampoco al hecho que él ya ha replanteado la noción moderna de razón. Que la filosofía ha de proveer una fundación última a toda efectuación de la razón, así como su propia justificación sólo significa que es últimamente responsable de todo sentido y validez en general, así como de sí misma. Empero, el ego consciente activo, con sus efectuaciones racionales –cognitivas, volitivas y emotivas– como el "fundamento absoluto de todas mis validaciones", es precedido por un estrato más profundo, pre-consciente, irracional y pasivo de tendencias emotivas y desiderativas, impulsos e instintos hacia la conciencia y la racionalidad. Así, todo "evidenciar" y Geltungsfundierung se ve finalmente absorbido en una Genesisfundierung. En última instancia, ninguna "evidencia" racional puede ser "adecuada", sino que es esencialmente abierta e inadecuada. La tan criticada "conciencia absoluta" de Husserl está en efecto enraizada en un "absoluto más definitivo y verdadero", a saber, la identidad y diferencia del presente viviente estático-fluyente que pertenece a un ser finito, temporal, perspectivista, encarnado e intersubjetivo. La defensa de la razón y del "discurso fundacional" es para Husserl una cuestión de la "supervivencia de la humanidad" y su preservación de la barbarie. Pero no es una "adquisición permanente" sino la responsabilidad de una "tarea infinita". Así, la filosofía es una "ciencia todo-abarcadora fundada en un fundamento absoluto [...] aunque por cierto bajo la forma de un programa sin fin".Husserl’s phenomenology has been frequently referred to as a “philosophy of ultimate foundation and radical self-responsibility.” Yet here we will examine philosophy’s notion of “ultimate foundation” as “radical self-responsibility.” The “idea of philosophy” that Husserl proposes as a “universal and rigorous science” of “ultimate foundation” has been grossly misinterpreted by his contemporary critics, who have not paid heed to his clarifica-tion that this idea is “to be realized only by way of relative and temporary validities and in an infinite historical process,” nor to the fact that he has already recasted the traditional Modern notion of reason. That philosophy is called upon to provide an ultimate foundation to every accomplishment of reason, as well as its own justification, means that it is ultimately responsible for every sense and validity in general, and for itself. However, the active conscious ego, with its rational –cognitive, volitional and emotional– accomplishments, as the “absolute foundation of all my validations,” is preceded by a deeper, pre-conscious, irrational, and passive stratum of emotional and desiderative tendencies, impulses, instincts and strivings towards consciousness and rationality. Thus every “evidencing” and Geltungsfundierung is finally absorbed within Genesisfundierung. Ultimately no rational “evidence” can ever be “adequate,” but is essentially openended, and inadequate. Husserl’s much criticized “absolute consciousness” is in fact an “absolute” rooted in a “more definite and true absolute,” namely, the identity and difference of the static-fluent living present belonging to a finite, temporal, perspectivist, incarnate and intersubjective being. The defense of reason and of “foundational discourse” is for Husserl a question of “humanity’s survival” and its preservation from barbarity. Yet it is not a “permanent acquisition” but the responsibility of an “infinite task.” Thus philosophy is an “all-embracing science grounded on an absolute foundation [...] though of course in the form of an endless program.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 133-134 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Heidegger's Concept of Truth Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Heidegger's Concept of Truth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxx + 462. Cloth, $59.95. This somewhat trite and overly generic English title, from a Heideggerian perspective, is better specified by the title of the German original, which was perhaps too provocative for an analytical English (...) audience conditioned by Carnap's critique of Heidegger: "The Prejudice of Logic: Investigations into the Theory of Truth of the Early Heidegger." The author's more-than-literal, amplifying and supplementing translation of his own German text of 1994 aims to face up to all the "hard interpretive decisions" (xxii) that Heidegger poses by leaving no German term uninterpreted or untranslated, including even Dasein as "being-here." The translation is thus more illuminating from the start in the sense in which "logic" too narrowly conceived and claimed to be the sole arbiter of truth becomes a "disabling" prejudice (xvi) rather than the "enabling prejudice" that logic normally is for any discourse and thought. Dahlstrom's focus is on the early and so "logical" Heidegger (1912-29), before he decided to lose even logic (better, "onto-theo-logic") in a more original tornadic "whirl" of abyssal questioning in the "turning." Hence, the opening pages point to Heidegger's quest for a more original philosophical (transcendental, phenomenological, ontological, hermeneutical) "logic of philosophy" (Emil Lask's phrase) that "produces" the fundamental concepts or categories for any field of being, including itself. This original productive logic of category formation "transcends" the formal logic of judgment while founding it.It is the transcendental and material logic that Heidegger found in Kant, which is oriented toward the spatio-temporal schematisms of the imagination that emerge from the transcendental aesthetic to mediate the application of the judicative forms of the understanding into befitting categories of reality. But Dahlstrom does not get around to detail this quasi-Kantian account of material logic, or Lask's version of it, which finds its fundamental stratum in the already categorized (i.e., conceptually interpreted) originally unitary object, prior to its distinction into form and matter, subject and predicate, etc. Lask calls this a priori categorized realm of intentionally structured meaning (intelligibility, truth) a "panarchy of the logos," which Heidegger will readily transform into his "hermeneutics of facticity" (double genitive: "life lays itself out, interprets itself") and identify with the prejudicative, prepredicative temporal realm of truth as "disclosedness" and "unconcealment." [End Page 134]But Dahlstrom does find, in Husserl's unpublished logic courses of the early twenties in which "Analyses of Passive Synthesis" are carried out, a "genetic logic" on the level of the "transcendental aesthetic" in the "complicated intentional systems" of the sensing human body situating itself by constituting the time and space of its world prepredicatively and prejudicatively, a "logic" or logos which accordingly "anticipates much of the analysis of being-in-the-world undertaken in Being and Time" (155). And yet Heidegger, who as Husserl's trusted assistant was granted generous access to such unpublished manuscripts, "remained silent" about these clear anticipations. Instead he criticizes Husserl publicly in his own courses, culminating in Being and Time, for neglecting the question of the "being of intentionality" as well as of the "sense" of being as such, which Heidegger finds in "timeliness" (Zeitlichkeit), the originary time of being-here. Yet in arriving at this temporal sense of being, Heidegger "clearly appropriates the horizonal (allegedly preobjective and presubjective) character of time-consciousness elaborated by Husserl." Why, then, "Heidegger's silence"? "These breakthroughs of Husserl's later thinking are not mentioned by Heidegger because he wants to appropriate them in his own way and without the framework out of which they arose. An injustice and a disservice is thus done to Husserl's phenomenology... [which is] the price of the philosophical maturity of its most famous student... [as] his thinking moves to a plane beyond the reach of Husserlian phenomenology and terminology" (169f).This in-depth discussion of Heidegger's relationship with Husserl... (shrink)

This essay has two parts. In the first, Husserl's account of categorial forming and Schutz's account of common-sense constructs are used to sketch an interpretationist theory of culture. In the second part, the question is raised of whether that theory is adequate to account for cultural phenomena and the negative answer is supported with a sketch of the pre-conceptual constitution of intrinsic and extrinsic values and uses in valuational and volitional processes of secondary passivity. This stratum below thinking and (...) concepts is called "basic culture" and the full appreciation of this stratum is a counter to naturalism as well as the starting point for approaching problematics such as ethnicity, gender, and the environment in the perspective of the constitutive phenomenology of culture. (shrink)

We can locate the problematic of time within three philosophical questions, which respectively designate three central areas of philosophical reflection and contemplation. These are: 1) The ontological question, i.e. 'what is being?' 2) The epistemological question, i.e. 'what can we know with certainty?' 3) The existential question, i.e. 'what is the meaning of existence?' These three questions, which are philosophical, but also scientific and political, as they underline the political and moral question of truth and justice, arise from the phenomenon (...) of time, the irreversible constant flow of phenomena that undermines every claim to absolute knowledge. The purpose of this essay is to illuminate the importance of time for philosophical thought and, more generally, for human social and psychical life, in the context of the ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis. Castoriadis, who asserted that " being is time – and not in the horizon of time " , correlated history to society and being to temporality within the social-historical stratum, the ontological plane created by human existence, where " existence is signification ". Time is interpreted as the creation and destruction of forms in a magmatic, layered with a non-regular stratification, reality, where the social-historical manifests as the creation of collective human activity, in the manner of social imaginary significations. This notion of temporality is accompanied by a profound criticism of traditional rationalistic philosophy, to which Castoriadis assigns the name 'ensemblistic/identitary', that highlights the necessity of a new, magmatic ontology, based on the primacy of time. (shrink)

Facets and general categories used in bibliographic classification have been based on a disciplinary organization of knowledge. However, facets and categories of phenomena independent from disciplines can be identified similarly. Phenomena can be classified according to a series of integrative levels (layers), which in turn can be grouped into the major strata of form, matter, life, mind, society and culture, agreeing with Nicolai Hartmann’s ontology. Unlike a layer, a stratum is not constituted of elements of the lower ones; rather, (...) it represents the formal pattern of the lower ones, like the horse hoof represents the shape of the steppe. Bibliographic categories can now be seen in the light of level theory: some categories are truly general, while others only appear at a given level, being the realization of a general category in the specific context of the level: these are the facets of that level. In the notation of the Integrative Level Classification project, categories and facets are represented by digits, and displayed in a Web interface with the help of colours. (shrink)

The interrelation between the development of political institutions and the processes of scientific-technical revolution is twofold. On the one hand, there must exist the political preconditions of the rapid change in science and technology. On the other hand, the processes of rapid scientific and technical change produce important consequences in the politica life.From the point of view of the economic structure of the country, Poland has reached the threshold of scientific-technical revolution ; it now depends on the political conditions whether (...) the country wilt be able to achieve the stage of high technological development in reasonably short time.Three changes in the functioning of political institutions are directly related to the processes of scientific-technical revolution : they are changes in the system of management on all levels of authority, changes in the circulation of informations and development of autonomic structures of decision-making. Indirectly, however, other changes in the system of political institutions influence the processes of scientific and technological change. Two variants of future developments of the political institutions are discussed in this context : that of a rationalized centralism and the one of democratic self-management. The author expresses the opinion thatboth these variants would constitute conditions for rapid scientific and technological transformations but he favours the strategy of combining the strong elements of both and eliminating their weaknesses.In the second part of the paper, the author discusses the consequences of scientific-technological revolution for the political institutions. Five major factors could be hypothetically identified : 1° changes in classstructure and social stratification, particularly in the direction of increased role of the professional stratum and the increase of educational level of the working class ; 2° further political integration of the nation; 3° changesin the culture of work, increase of social discipline, and higher assessment of collective and individual efficacy of the Poles ; 4° achievement of the higher standard of living and on the basis of it leveling of economicinequalities; 5° increase of the amount of leisure time. All these changes wilt result in the formation of better and more harmonious society, which in its turn wilt make it both possible and necessary to considerablyincrease the scope of democratic self-management in all spheres of sociopolitical life. Potential restraints to this process may result from the inertia of old politica! institutions and/or from technocratic tendenciesamong some segments of the aparatus. Neither, however, is likely to become strong enough to stop the processes of democratic self-management.The main changes in the direction of greater self-management will include: 1° development of various forms of direct democracy on local levels ; 2° development of organizations which represent interests of varioussegments of the society; 3° bettering of the representative institutions ; 4° further differentiation between administrative and political authorities and further democratization of thelatter; 5° deepening of the leading role of the Communist party combined with development of its internal democracy. (shrink)

Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalytic project has been understood to be antithetical, or at best indifferent, to any project of sexual ontology. Against these dominant views, I argue for an interpretation of the schizoanalytic project that does justice to the differentiation of beings—particularly the human being—according to distinct forms of sexuate morphology. I claim that, although it is largely absent in Deleuze and Guattari’s writings, we can read this kind of determinate sexual difference into their project at both the organic (...) class='Hi'>stratum of the organism and the alloplastic stratum of human signification and meaning. Given its importance in structuring bodies and organizing generational reproduction, I consider how sexual difference is the historical condition of possibility for alloplastic subjectivity. Nevertheless, I argue that the innovative features of Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalytic project emerge from their recognition that neither the organismic structure of sexual difference nor its social and personal representation is static. As such, reading sexual difference into the schizoanalytic project not only supplements Deleuze and Guattari’s work but also opens possibilities for developing a sexual ontology that recognizes the dynamic embodiment of individuals without denying the structural reality of sexual difference. (shrink)

Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control has been the most common entry point for interrogating the ways in which contemporary digital technologies have altered the social and the subjective from a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective. It is, however, in A Thousand Plateaus that we find the most comprehensive set of resources for grappling with the Algocene, the contemporary digitally interconnected world of ubiquitous computing, drones, data mining, smart cities, social media, automated trading and other data-driven technologies that are heavily reliant upon (...) algorithmic processes and deep learning networks. In this broad survey, I argue that in order to grapple with these new technological assemblages and the implications of their deployment across society, we should posit a new major stratum, the algoplastic, and, along with it, new modes of operation of order-words and the regimes of signs they form part of. I conclude by posing some of the new problems that emerge with the Algocene. (shrink)

We are just beginning to understand the power of local history to enhance our understanding of ourselves, our cities, and our culture. It is, after all, that stratum of history that touches our lives most closely. Madison answers the basic questions of when, where, why, how, and by whom Madison, Wisconsin was developed. The book is richly detailed, fully documented, inclusive in coverage, and delightfully readable. More than 300 illustrations provide a vivid feeling for what life was like in (...) Madison during the formative years. David Mollenhoff's unique interpretive framework emphasizing public policies and community values, gives the book a consistent interpretive quality and reveals major themes that flow through time. This combination will allow you to see the city's growth and development with unusual clarity and coherence--almost as if you were watching time-lapse photography. When Mollenhoff began to study Madison's history, he was delighted by his early discoveries but frustrated because no one had written a book-length history of Madison since 1876. Finally, in 1972 he decided to write that book. His research required him to read five miles of microfilm, piles of theses and dissertations, shelves of reports, boxes of manuscripts and letters, and to study thousands of photographs. Soon after the first edition was published in 1982, readers declared it to be a classic. For this second edition Madison has been extensively revised and updated with new maps and photos. If you want to know the fascinating story of how Madison got to be the way it is, this book belongs on your bookshelf. It will change the way you see the city and your role in it. (shrink)

In Stratal OT, morphology and phonology are stratified and interleaved, as in traditional Lexical Phonology (Mohanan 1986), but the strata (Stem, Word, Postlexical) are characterized by systems of parallel constraints. The output of each morphological operation is submitted to the phonological constraints on its stratum: stems must satisfy the stem phonology, words must satisfy the word phonology, and Phrase must satisfy the phrasal phonology.1 For example, an affix which is added to stems to form words would enter into the (...) derivation in the following fashion. (shrink)

The thesis argues for the need to reexamine current theoretical conceptions or assumptions regarding Romantic self-consciousness and its perceived dependency on a productive dimension of expression. The origins of the allegedly aporetic relation between an inward form of consciousness and its linguistic "presentation" are traced in the Idealist reflection on self-consciousness by Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Inadvertently, language as a productive force reveals itself as the contingent "ground" for the highly elusive, though philosophically essential, "unity" of self-consciousness. Thus the respective (...) conception of self-consciousness as a relation , production , or re-membring is always grounded in a stratum of "immediacy" that can no longer be contained within a systematic philosophical idiom. Through an incisive critique of the Idealists, Schleiermacher demonstrates that any notion of "immediacy" is essentially homologous to the transformation that all language undergoes in each individual utterance. Pointing to the "coinherence" of the psychological and the grammatical poles of interpretation, Schleiermacher develops a theory of "style" whereby consciousness becomes readable rather than being postulated as an autonomous transcendental agency. ;Wordsworth's narrative poetry conceives of self-consciousness as originating in a purportedly primordial affect. Beginning with the dialogic poems in the Ballads, yet also in Tintern Abbey and in the 1799 Prelude, Wordsworth experiments with a densely figurative form of "presentation" of these affective origins. Yet as his revisions--both between discrete narrative segments in his poetry yet also between earlier and later versions of the Prelude--evidence, Wordsworth becomes increasingly weary of the opacity that inheres in the figurative presentation of this "original" affect. The densely allusive and deliberately self-referential diction of later versions of the Prelude not only compromises the earlier paradigm of self-consciousness as originating in an inward affect, but it also highlights the mutual and irreducible "coinherence" of rhetorical and psychological structures. The final chapter examines Shelley's ironic response to the Wordsworthian impasse in Epipsychidion where the autobiographical vision of a perfect self continues to disintegrate under the verbal onslaught of the very language that constituted it in the first place. (shrink)

Despite the long controversy on the date and composition of the First Philippic, we are no nearer, it would seem, to a satisfactory solution. F. Focke, apparently following a suggestion in Gercke-Norden, developed what is perhaps the most reasonable presentation of the view that the speech was delivered in the spring of 350 B.C.; but what vitiates his argument in the long run is Focke's constant presumption that all the various datable references must belong to one and the same speech (...) or stratum of composition. For although the view of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that the First Philippic really comprises two distinct speeches, has not in its extreme form won acceptance with modern scholars, other more moderate solutions are not impossible; and it would seem that Blass's revision theory suggests a more subtle way of handling the various inconsistencies between the first and the second parts of the speech. (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to the phenomenological analysis of the process of the inner perception as understood by Husserl and Pato?ka. It draws on the four stratas of the "stream of cogitationes" from Pato?ka´s Introduction to Husserl's Phenomenology: the stratum of the real transcendence , the stratum of the real immanence , the stratum of the reel immanence , and the stratum of reel transcendence . The author discusses the process of phenomenalization with the background (...) as its clue element, on which, like on a screen, the appearances are displayed. The background is seen as making the appearance "clare et distincte" in its original cartesian form possible. At the same time the background is seen as a whole, a context, a horizon. (shrink)

The disciplinary enterprises engaged in the study of consciousness now extend beyond their original paradigms providing additional knowledge toward an overall understanding of the fundamental meaning and scope of consciousness. A new transdisciplinary domain has resulted from the syncretism of several approaches bringing about a new paradigm. The background for this overarching enterprise draws from a variety of traditions. In this paper however elaboration is restricted to the quantum-mechanical account in David Bohm’s theoretical work in relation to his ideas about (...) “active information”, “protointelligence”, and “non-locality”. This leads to an adapted version of Bohm’s thesis concerning the implicate order and explicate order of the Universe - the Impression Order and the Expression Order, respectively. On this view, the Universe is formed on an actual-material level, the apparent properties of things, and a potential-material level, a constant process of becoming that exerts an attractive force on the present. The central thesis emerges from a radical reformulation of certain core concepts that transforms many ontological assumptions about the material basis of consciousness. That is, the above platform inclusively connects to a hypothesis that the concepts of ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘event’, and ‘motion’ can be unified to capture the notion of simultaneous activity at reducing levels to the Impression order. This notion coheres with a physical-theoretical model of Signature-Energy-Frequency which has been well demonstrated in the atomic, chemical, and information fields. This study embraces a holistic and creative worldview based on a triadic model wherein consciousness itself is postulated as the most basic, primordial stratum. Importantly, both orders are constantly conjoined since the Impression Order exists as potential energy of the quantum vacuum. The physical realm is formed by the proposed Triangulate-Three conditions as a principle of animation and ‘being’: Consciousness, Body-of-Experience and Intellect-Reflective in the Expression Order, one aspect of which emerge as lifelike properties. This Triangulate-Three principle inheres in every particle and organism to which it guides its development, adaptation, and survival. The conscious being thus possesses all three conditions in Expression Order through STEM-interactions via SEF transmissions, as a self-organising organism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 133-134 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Heidegger's Concept of Truth Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Heidegger's Concept of Truth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxx + 462. Cloth, $59.95. This somewhat trite and overly generic English title, from a Heideggerian perspective, is better specified by the title of the German original, which was perhaps too provocative for an analytical English (...) audience conditioned by Carnap's critique of Heidegger: "The Prejudice of Logic: Investigations into the Theory of Truth of the Early Heidegger." The author's more-than-literal, amplifying and supplementing translation of his own German text of 1994 aims to face up to all the "hard interpretive decisions" (xxii) that Heidegger poses by leaving no German term uninterpreted or untranslated, including even Dasein as "being-here." The translation is thus more illuminating from the start in the sense in which "logic" too narrowly conceived and claimed to be the sole arbiter of truth becomes a "disabling" prejudice (xvi) rather than the "enabling prejudice" that logic normally is for any discourse and thought. Dahlstrom's focus is on the early and so "logical" Heidegger (1912-29), before he decided to lose even logic (better, "onto-theo-logic") in a more original tornadic "whirl" of abyssal questioning in the "turning." Hence, the opening pages point to Heidegger's quest for a more original philosophical (transcendental, phenomenological, ontological, hermeneutical) "logic of philosophy" (Emil Lask's phrase) that "produces" the fundamental concepts or categories for any field of being, including itself. This original productive logic of category formation "transcends" the formal logic of judgment while founding it.It is the transcendental and material logic that Heidegger found in Kant, which is oriented toward the spatio-temporal schematisms of the imagination that emerge from the transcendental aesthetic to mediate the application of the judicative forms of the understanding into befitting categories of reality. But Dahlstrom does not get around to detail this quasi-Kantian account of material logic, or Lask's version of it, which finds its fundamental stratum in the already categorized (i.e., conceptually interpreted) originally unitary object, prior to its distinction into form and matter, subject and predicate, etc. Lask calls this a priori categorized realm of intentionally structured meaning (intelligibility, truth) a "panarchy of the logos," which Heidegger will readily transform into his "hermeneutics of facticity" (double genitive: "life lays itself out, interprets itself") and identify with the prejudicative, prepredicative temporal realm of truth as "disclosedness" and "unconcealment." [End Page 134]But Dahlstrom does find, in Husserl's unpublished logic courses of the early twenties in which "Analyses of Passive Synthesis" are carried out, a "genetic logic" on the level of the "transcendental aesthetic" in the "complicated intentional systems" of the sensing human body situating itself by constituting the time and space of its world prepredicatively and prejudicatively, a "logic" or logos which accordingly "anticipates much of the analysis of being-in-the-world undertaken in Being and Time" (155). And yet Heidegger, who as Husserl's trusted assistant was granted generous access to such unpublished manuscripts, "remained silent" about these clear anticipations. Instead he criticizes Husserl publicly in his own courses, culminating in Being and Time, for neglecting the question of the "being of intentionality" as well as of the "sense" of being as such, which Heidegger finds in "timeliness" (Zeitlichkeit), the originary time of being-here. Yet in arriving at this temporal sense of being, Heidegger "clearly appropriates the horizonal (allegedly preobjective and presubjective) character of time-consciousness elaborated by Husserl." Why, then, "Heidegger's silence"? "These breakthroughs of Husserl's later thinking are not mentioned by Heidegger because he wants to appropriate them in his own way and without the framework out of which they arose. An injustice and a disservice is thus done to Husserl's phenomenology... [which is] the price of the philosophical maturity of its most famous student... [as] his thinking moves to a plane beyond the reach of Husserlian phenomenology and terminology" (169f).This in-depth discussion of Heidegger's relationship with Husserl... (shrink)

This paper proposes a ‘geology’ of the new mediascape as an alternative way of studying today’s digital convergence. By geology, I mean a particular physical condition of media platforms, consisting of the lower stratum of fluid atomic particles or binary signals and the upper stratum of cultural sediments as the solidified patterns of these atoms, both of which are circulating through ceaseless re-sedimentation and re-atomization. The discourses of digital convergence that overwhelmed media studies for the first decade of (...) the twenty-first century could be reinterpreted from this geological perspective in relation to such questions; how the old cultural forms that have hitherto solidified into specific physical structures of ‘old media’ are re-atomized into a series of zeros and ones; and how they are re-sedimented into specific algorithms simulating these old forms. Tracing geological metaphors in the cultural historiography of the early twentieth century’s cultural critics, as in works by Siegfried Kracauer, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin, this article extends the origin of the convergence culture even to this so-called ‘age of technological reproduction’ in terms of how the human and technological modes of cultural production have converged upon a geological infrastructure of mediascape. The convergence was in this sense an event that happened between different agents of cultural production, namely humans and non-humans, as much as between different media forms. (shrink)

In all European countries, the eighteenth century was characterised by efforts to improve the vernaculars. The Transylvanian case study shows how both codified medical language and ordinary language were constructed and enriched by a large number of medical books and brochures. The publication of medical literature in Central European vernacular languages in order to popularise new medical knowledge was a comprehensive programme, designed on the one hand by intellectual, political and religious elites who urged the improvement of the fatherland and (...) the promotion of the common good by perfecting the arts and sciences. On the other hand, the imperial administration’s initiatives affected local forms of medical knowledge and the construction of vernacular languages. In the eighteenth century, the construction of vernacular languages in the Habsburg Monarchy took on a significant political character. However, in the process of building of the scientific and medical vocabulary, the main preoccupation was precision, clarity and accessibility of the neologisms being invented to encompass the medical phenomena being described. In spite of political conflicts among the ‘nations’ living in Transylvania, physicians borrowed words from German, Hungarian and Romanian. Thus they elevated several words used in everyday language to the upper social stratum of language use, leading to the invention of new terms to describe particular medical practices or phenomena. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese ReligionAnne Behnke KinneyIn Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion. By Mu-chou Poo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Pp. xiii + 331. $21.95.In Mu-chou Poo's new book, In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion, the author argues that "by studying relatively 'ordinary' factors, one reaches the basic (...) class='Hi'>stratum of the religious mentality of everyday, private life" (p. 3). Poo describes the religious mentality of ancient China at its most fundamental level as being based on a concern for personal welfare and personal access to mantic knowledge. His book investigates broadly shared religious beliefs and practices from China's earliest period up through the Han dynasty, taking into account not just the yearly religious cycle of the common people, but also the relationship between official and local cults.Poo begins with a discussion of archaeological evidence from the late Neolithic period and posits three levels in the development of religious expression in China. The first, appearing perhaps in the late Neolithic and certainly in Shang times, was a form of religious expression directed toward ancestors and nature deities that was divided according to the richness of ritual acts and distinctions derived from an increasingly [End Page 627] stratified society. The second level of religious expression, embraced by the ruling elite of the early Zhou and closely related to agricultural cycles, posited the idea of a moral Heaven that benefited the ruler and the entire state. The third, propounded by intellectuals of the Eastern Zhou, stressed personal piety toward a supreme being, but with little stress on material gain. Despite this threefold development, Poo points out the existence of a more fundamental religious mentality that extended from court to commoner, typified by its emphasis on gaining personal protection from evil spirits and establishing contact with benevolent spirits. Magic, mantic techniques, shamanic rites, and prayers were all utilized toward these ends. As Poo states, "The important matter was propitiation, not where or how the powers came from, or why the powers existed at all" (p. 207). Poo also argues that propitiation of extra-human powers and the use of efficacious apotropaic techniques mattered more than moral behavior, and reliance on these techniques resulted in a confidence that extra-human powers could be successfully dealt with before death. The central theme of religious beliefs in early China was therefore the search for personal welfare: to seek happiness and avoid misfortune.Poo has used a rich array of sources—traditionally transmitted texts as well as recently excavated archaeological texts and artifacts—to examine topics such as divination, exorcism, rishu or "daybooks," immortality, apotheosis, and the netherworld. Poo makes judicious use of the highly limited sources concerning the religious practices of ordinary individuals in early China, though these sources are far more numerous than one might imagine. Given these limitations, Poo's study is highly ambitious and raises questions that must be considered if our view of early China is not to be hopelessly skewed. Poo's reconstruction of the religious practices of the common people is moreover an important contribution to the study of religion in early China in that it helps correct the tendency to represent elite Eastern Zhou culture as the pervasive culture of all periods of early China. [End Page 628]Anne Behnke KinneyUniversity of VirginiaCopyright © 2000 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

"L'oeuvre d'art est une tentative vers l'unique, elle s'affirme comme un tout, comme un absolu et, en même temps, elle appartient à un système de relations complexes [...]. Elle est matière et elle est esprit, elle est forme et elle est contenu [...]. Elle est créatrice de l'homme, créatrice du monde et elle installe dans l'histoire un ordre qui ne se réduit à rien d'autre." Un Eloge de la main complète ce texte. "La main arrache le toucher à sa passivité (...) réceptive, elle l'organise pour l'expérience et pour l'action [...]. Elle se mesure avec la matière qu'elle métamorphose, avec la forme qu'elle transfigure. Educatrice de l'homme, elle le multiplie dans l'espace et dans le temps." [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

00 In this innovative analysis, Plato's four eleatic dialogues are treated as a continuous argument. In Kenneth Dorter's view, Plato reconsiders the theory of forms propounded in his earlier dialogues and through an examination of the theory's limitations reaffirms and proves it essential. Contradicted are both those philosophers who argue that Plato espoused his theory of forms uncritically and those who argue that Plato in some sense rejected the theory and moved toward the categorical analysis developed byAristotle. Dorter's reexamination of (...) Plato's insights implies an important new direction for modern philosophical inquiry. In this innovative analysis, Plato's four eleatic dialogues are treated as a continuous argument. In Kenneth Dorter's view, Plato reconsiders the theory of forms propounded in his earlier dialogues and through an examination of the theory's limitations reaffirms and proves it essential. Contradicted are both those philosophers who argue that Plato espoused his theory of forms uncritically and those who argue that Plato in some sense rejected the theory and moved toward the categorical analysis developed byAristotle. Dorter's reexamination of Plato's insights implies an important new direction for modern philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

In order to obtain continuous stratum information during TBM tunneling, using TBM tunneling parameters, stratum recognition is carried out through the K-nearest neighbor model, and the model is improved by the entropy weight method to improve the stratum recognition rate. By analyzing the correlation between TBM tunneling characteristic parameters and stratum, the tunneling characteristic parameter vector which is most sensitive to the stratum is obtained by sensitivity analysis, and the stratum recognition model based on (...) the K-nearest neighbor algorithm is established. Aiming at the problem that the model has a large error in complex formation recognition, a formation recognition model based on the entropy weight K-nearest neighbor algorithm is established, and the wrong data of the K-nearest neighbor model is recalculated. The recognition rate of the stratum in the new model is increased from 90.95% to 98.55%. The results show that the K-nearest neighbor model has a better recognition effect for the interval with single stratum distribution, and the recognition rate of entropy weight K-nearest neighbor model for complex stratum is significantly improved, which provides an effective method to obtain stratum information by using tunneling characteristic parameters. (shrink)