In this article, I argue that the recent emphasis on compassion in healthcare practice lacks conceptual richness and clarity. In particular, I argue that it would be helpful to focus on a larger concept of empathy rather than compassion alone and that compassion should be thought of as a component of this larger concept of empathy. The first part of the article outlines a critique of the current discourse of compassion on three grounds. This discourse naturalizes, individualizes, and reifies compassion (...) leading to a decontextualized and simplified understanding of failures in healthcare practice. The second part uses resources from phenomenology and contemporary moral philosophy to construct a “hybrid” concept of empathy that includes both pre‐reflective/intuitive and cognitive/imaginative components. This “hybrid” concept of empathy leads to a more complex understanding of the multiple responses to others' distress. I conclude that there are no straightforward normative naturalistic responses to others' distress. Rather than conceptualizing compassion as a naturalistic impulse or a character‐based trait, we need to consider the complexity of our empathic recognition of vulnerable others. (shrink)

Applying equity to health care is difficult and it is especially challenging when applied to cases that involve urgent military medicine care under resource scarcity. Part of the difficulty centers on the concept of equity itself. It is not clear what the best concept of equity applicable to medical care would be, or that there should be only one, or the same ones, across all levels of military health care. Despite the fact that equity is a key concern in health (...) care, particularly in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be that there is no single theory of justice that would be most justified for military physicians to use. This paper examines whether a hybrid position of equity might be both theoretically robust and applicable in practice. After briefly introducing the discussion, we outline four major philosophical definitions of equity – (1) Egalitarianism, (2) Prioritarianism, (3) Desertism, and (4) Sufficientism. We then report empirical findings suggesting that a practice-based hybrid concept of equity is used by physicians within the practice of micro-allocation. Our findings will shed lights on ethical justifications and reasoning which should guide medical rules for military and humanitarian health care providers. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about the nature of semantic reference have tended to focus on two competing approaches: theories which emphasize the importance of descriptive information associated with a referring term, and those which emphasize causal facts about the conditions under which the use of the term originated and was passed on. Recent empirical work by Machery and colleagues suggests that both causal and descriptive information can play a role in judgments about the reference of proper names, with findings of cross-cultural variation (...) in judgments that imply differences between individuals with respect to whether they favor causal or descriptive information in making reference judgments. We extend this theoretical and empirical line of inquiry to views of the reference of natural and nominal kind concepts, which face similar challenges to those concerning the reference of proper names. In two experiments, we find evidence that both descriptive and causal factors contribute to judgments of concept reference, with no reliable differences between natural and nominal kinds. Moreover, we find evidence that the same individuals’ judgments can rely on both descriptive and causal information, such that variation between individuals cannot be explained by appeal to a mixed population of “pure descriptive theorists” and “pure causal theorists.” These findings suggest that the contrast between descriptive and causal theories of reference may be inappropriate; intuitions may instead support a hybrid theory of reference that includes both causal and descriptive factors. We propose that future research should focus on the relationship between these factors, and describe several possible frameworks for pursuing these issues. Our findings have implications for theories of semantic reference, as well as for theories of conceptual structure. (shrink)

Psychologists of concepts’ traditional assumption that there are many properties common to all concepts has been subject to devastating critiques in psychology and in the philosophy of psychology. However, it is currently unclear what approach to concepts is best suited to replace this traditional assumption. In this article, we compare two competing approaches, the Heterogeneity Hypothesis and the hybrid theories of concepts, and we present an empirical argument that tentatively supports the former over the latter.

In contrast to earlier views that argued for a particular kind of concept, several recent accounts have proposed that there are multiple distinct kinds of concepts, or that there is a plurality of concepts for each category. In this paper, I argue for a novel account of concepts as pluralistic hybrids. According to this view, concepts are pluralistic because there are several concepts for the same category whose use is heavily determined by context. In addition, concepts are hybrids because they (...) typically link together several different kinds of information that are used in the same cognitive processes. This alternative view accounts for the available empirical data, allows for greater cognitive flexibility than Machery's recent account, and overcomes several objections to traditional hybrid views. (shrink)

Hybrid and pluralist accounts of concepts agree that the class of concepts includes a multiplicity of heterogeneous representational structures, such as prototypes, sets of exemplars and theories. In this paper I argue that these accounts agree on two additional central claims related to the ways in which they articulate those structures: each type of representational structure can be used independently in psychological processes, and co-referential concepts are associated in a distinctive way as representations of the same category. Although they (...) disagree on concept individuation, they seem to agree that on a processing dimension there are multiple independent representations for a given category and on a long-term storage dimension concepts that represent the same category conform an epistemic unity. (shrink)

When people combine concepts these are often characterised as “hybrid”, “impossible”, or “humorous”. However, when simply considering them in terms of extensional logic, the novel concepts understood as a conjunctive concept will often lack meaning having an empty extension (consider “a tooth that is a chair”, “a pet flower”, etc.). Still, people use different strategies to produce new non-empty concepts: additive or integrative combination of features, alignment of features, instantiation, etc. All these strategies involve the ability to deal with (...) conflicting attributes and the creation of new (combinations of) properties. We here consider in particular the case where a Head concept has superior ‘asymmetric’ control over steering the resulting concept combination (or hybridisation) with a Modifier concept. Specifically, we propose a dialogical approach to concept combination and discuss an implementation based on axiom weakening, which models the cognitive and logical mechanics of this asymmetric form of hybridisation. (shrink)

We seem to learn and use concepts in a variety of heterogenous “formats”, including exemplars, prototypes, and theories. Different strategies have been proposed to account for this diversity. Hybridists consider instances in different formats to be instances of a single concept. Pluralists think that each instance in a different format is a different concept. Eliminativists deny that the different instances in different formats pertain to a scientifically fruitful kind and recommend eliminating the notion of a “concept” entirely. In recent years, (...) hybridism has received the most attention and support. However, we are still lacking a cognitive-computational model for concept representation and processing that would underpin hybridism. The aim of this paper is to advance the understanding of concepts by grounding hybridism in a neuroscientific model within the Predictive Processing framework. In the suggested view, the different formats are not distinct parts of a concept but arise from different ways of processing a functionally unified representational structure. (shrink)

Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty-six lesbians, this article offers a feminist qualitative analysis of lesbian conception practices. The article examines the ways lesbian actors negotiate biomedical discourse in ways that reveal the co-constitutiveness of nature and culture, bodies and technologies, and biomedical and subjective knowledge. The article offers the concept of hybrid technologies, which are described as lesbian pragmatic negotiations of shifting control loci of technoscience. The author argues that lesbians' pathways to pregnancy are characterized by a (...) negotiation of discursive elements from alternative health discourses and biomedical knowledge, of various forms of technology, and of what is often termed the authoritative, objective, and scientific with the subjugated, subjective, and the embodied. In doing so these actors complicate through multiple agencies what is often interpreted as a totalizing force of biomedicalization. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Machery's case against hybrids rests on a principle that is too strong, even by his own lights. And there are likely important generalizations to be made about hybrids, if they do exist. Moreover, even if there were no important generalizations about concepts themselves, the term picks out an important class of entities and should be retained to help guide inquiry.

Wines with geographical indication can be classified and represented by such features as designations of origin, producers, vintage years, alcoholic strength, and grape varieties; these features allow us to define wines in terms of a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. However, wines can also be identified by other characteristics, involving their look, smell, and taste; in this case, it is hard to define wines in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions, as wine concepts exhibit typicality effects. This is a (...) setback for the design of computer science ontologies aiming to represent wine concepts, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. To solve this problem, we propose to adopt a hybrid approach in which ontology-oriented formalisms are combined with a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. As in conceptual spaces, concepts are identified in terms of a number of quality dimensions. In order to determine those relevant for wine representation, we use the terminology developed by the Italian Association of Sommeliers to describe wines. This will allow us to understand typicality effects about wines, determine prototypes and better exemplars, and measure the degree of similarity between different wines. (shrink)

This study presents the design and selected results of a comprehensive research on measuring the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship. We used the methodology of conjoint analysis and developed a hierarchical framework that lists all the multi-attributes that exist in the triple bottom line concept. In doing so, we collected data from 150 Greek food companies. The multi-attributes were categorized and ranked into the following four headings: internal social values, external social values, environmental values and economic values. Specifically, we found that (...) the creation of values that improve the safety and hygiene issues of products to consumers is the most important attribute for the ISV domain. Respectively, the most important attribute for the ESV domain is the creation of values that impact on the local economy. Accordingly, the creation of values for minimizing environmental impacts was found as the most important attribute for the ENV domain. And lastly, the establishment of ECV that increase long-run profitability was identified as the most important for the ECV dimension. Finally, all the categorized values offer rich feedback for entrepreneurship scholars and parishioners. And, to that extent, our findings are slightly different from those reported in previous researches to other contexts, as we have managed to build an aggregated instrument that promotes the hybrid nature of food companies towards international development. (shrink)

As biomedical research with volunteers was expanded in the United States, the rule of subject selection, constituting scientific and ethical criteria, was generated in 1981 to resolve selection bias in research. Few historical studies, however, have investigated the role of this new hybrid rule in institutional review systems. This paper describes how bioethics commissions and federal agencies have created the subject selection rule based on the concept of justice. I argue that the standardization of this rule as temporal measures, (...) linked with risk-benefit assessment, has reformed the review mechanism, specifically investigators’ modification of research plans, thereby developing justice as balancing. (shrink)

Résumé Contrairement à ce que l’on soutient souvent, la notion de présent, et par conséquent aussi celles de passé et de futur, ne sont pas subjectives ni dépendantes des conditions de leur énonciation. Elles sont aussi objectives que celles d’antériorité ou de simultanéité. Si le concept de réalité est un prédicat de deuxième ordre, celui de présent est un prédicat de troisième ordre. On en conclut que notre concept de temps est hybride et que notre schème conceptuel nécessite autant le (...) « temps-série » (relation d’ordre entre événements) que le « temps-devenir » (passage du présent au passé). (shrink)

The transgressive ontological character of hybrids—entities crossing the ontological binarism of naturalness and artificiality, e.g., biomimetic projects—calls for pondering the question of their ethical status, since metaphysical and moral ideas are often inextricably linked. The example of it is the concept of “moral considerability” and related to it the idea of “intrinsic value” understood as a non-instrumentality of a being. Such an approach excludes hybrids from moral considerations due to their instrumental character. In the paper, we revisit the boundaries of (...) moral considerability by reexamining the legitimacy of identifying intrinsic value with a non-instrumental one. We offer the concept of “functional value,” which we define as a simultaneous contribution to the common good of the ecosystem and the possibility to disclose the full variety of aspects of a being’s identity. We argue that such a value of hybrids allows us to include them into the scope of moral considerability. (shrink)

The transgressive ontological character of hybrids—entities crossing the ontological binarism of naturalness and artificiality, e.g., biomimetic projects—calls for pondering the question of their ethical status, since metaphysical and moral ideas are often inextricably linked. The example of it is the concept of “moral considerability” and related to it the idea of “intrinsic value” understood as a non-instrumentality of a being. Such an approach excludes hybrids from moral considerations due to their instrumental character. In the paper, we revisit the boundaries of (...) moral considerability by reexamining the legitimacy of identifying intrinsic value with a non-instrumental one. We offer the concept of “functional value,” which we define as a simultaneous contribution to the common good of the ecosystem and the possibility to disclose the full variety of aspects of a being’s identity. We argue that such a value of hybrids allows us to include them into the scope of moral considerability. (shrink)

Hybrid deduction–refutation systems are deductive systems intended to derive both valid and non-valid, i.e., semantically refutable, formulae of a given logical system, by employing together separate derivability operators for each of these and combining ‘hybrid derivation rules’ that involve both deduction and refutation. The goal of this paper is to develop a basic theory and ‘meta-proof’ theory of hybrid deduction–refutation systems. I then illustrate the concept on a hybrid derivation system of natural deduction for classical propositional (...) logic, for which I show soundness and completeness for both deductions and refutations. (shrink)

This paper defends a conception of epistemic value that I call the “Simpliciter Conception.” On it, epistemic value is a kind of value simpliciter and being of epistemic value implies being of value simpliciter. I defend this conception by criticizing two others, what I call the Formal Conception and the Hybrid Conception. While those conceptions may be popular among epistemologists, I argue that they fail to explain why anyone should care that things are of (...) epistemic value and naturally undercuts disputes about what is of epistemic value. I end by sketching and locating my conception within some increasingly popular views in meta-normativity. (shrink)

The recent resurgence of extreme-right movements and the nationalist turn of many governments across the world have reignited the relevance of discussions within educational philosophy about the teaching of national identity in schools. However, the conceptualisation of national identity in previous iterations of these debates have been largely Western and Eurocentric, making the past theoretical literature about these questions less relevant for post-colonial settings. In this paper, I imagine a new approach for teaching national identity in post- colonial contexts, founded (...) on postcolonial conceptions of identity and in particular, the concept of hybridity. I first develop a postcolonial account of national identity by drawing on Homi Bhabha’s thinking about cultural identity, drawing on his concepts of liminality, splitting, and ambivalence. Then, building on Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, I propose a distinction between national identity portrayals as either fixed or malleable. Finally, I demonstrate the implications of such a conceptual distinction on the way that national identity is taught in post-colonial schools; by way of an example, I envision a concrete approach to teaching national identity that views national identity as malleable rather than fixed, set in a hypothetical postcolonial school in the Philippines. By beginning from postcolonial assumptions about national identity, I hope to indicate new directions that the debates about the teaching of national identity in schools might proceed. (shrink)

This essay characterizes the perception of the visual hybrid as nonconceptual, introducing the terminology of nonconceptual content theory to aesthetics. The visual hybrid possesses a radical but nonetheless exemplary aesthetic composition and is well established in culture, art, and even design. The essay supplies a philosophical analysis of the results of cross-cultural experiments, showing that while categorization or conceptual hierarchization kicks in when the visual hybrids are juxtaposed with linguistic descriptions, no conceptual scheme takes effect when participants are (...) presented with mere visual hybrids. In isolation, the hybrids do not lend themselves to classification. I draw four conclusions from these experimental outcomes: 1. The perception of visual hybrids follows the structure of a nonconceptual mental content, because the original categories or concepts of the hybrids’ components are not combined into one, and their properties are not applied to one another, therefore none of the components reconstructs the other such that it is introduced to a new category. 2. Language freezes the hybridity of the visual hybrid into conceptuality. 3. Given that language has a freezing effect in the case of an extreme visual phenomenon such as the hybrid, it is all the more restraining in moderate artistic compositions, such as visual metaphors, in which properties of one component (the source) are applied to the other (the target). In those, nonconceptuality emerges from relatively organized compositions, forms, and relations, and from the dependence of objects and their properties on perceptual context. 4. Thus, the nonconceptualist terminology is suitable for the analysis of aesthetic perception in general and aesthetic perception’s relation to language. Keywords aesthetics, perception, nonconceptual content, hybrids, visual metaphors. (shrink)

Postcolonial theory has yielded productive methodologies with which to examine an institution such as the John Rylands Library. This paper reinterprets aspects of the Library‘s history, especially its collecting practices, using Bhabha‘s concept of hybridity. The Library‘s founder, Enriqueta Rylands, embodied hybridity and colonial talking back in her remarkable trajectory from a Catholic upbringing in Cuba, via her conversion to Nonconformity and her marriage to Manchester‘s most successful cotton manufacturer, to her usurpation of the cultural hegemony in purchasing spectacular aristocratic (...) collections for her foundation. Hybridity was embedded in many other aspects of the Library‘s development: it was established as a public library with a board of governors but its collections were largely shaped by Enriqueta‘s tastes and interests; it was independent until 1972, while maintaining very close links to the University of Manchester; it has always fulfilled a dual remit of addressing the research needs of scholars and attracting wider audiences; and it is simultaneously a library of printed books and manuscripts, an archive repository, and a gallery of visual materials. (shrink)

The recent resurgence of extreme-right movements and the nationalist turn of many governments across the world have reignited the relevance of discussions within educational philosophy about the teaching of national identity in schools. However, the conceptualisation of national identity in previous iterations of these debates have been largely Western and Eurocentric, making the past theoretical literature about these questions less relevant for post-colonial settings. In this paper, I imagine a new approach for teaching national identity in post-colonial contexts, founded on (...) postcolonial conceptions of identity and in particular, the concept of hybridity. I first develop a postcolonial account of national identity by drawing on Homi Bhabha’s thinking about cultural identity, drawing on his concepts of liminality, splitting, and ambivalence. Then, building on Bhabha's notion of hybridity, I propose a distinction between national identity portrayals as either fixed or malleable. Finally, I demonstrate the implications of such a conceptual distinction on the way that national identity is taught in post-colonial schools; by way of an example, I envision a concrete approach to teaching national identity that views national identity as malleable rather than fixed, set in a hypothetical postcolonial school in the Philippines. By beginning from postcolonial assumptions about national identity, I hope to indicate new directions that the debates about the teaching of national identity in schools might proceed. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, (...) we ask for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, (...) we ask for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. (shrink)

The 360° medium, an immersive dome-based video projection environment (immersive dome environment (IDE)) also called ‘fulldome’, is often seen as an old concept of a traditional planetarium setting. This article invites the reader to look at it as a unique, hybrid media format, which opens new ways of perception.

IN CRITICALLY ANALYZING THE DEADLY VIPER CONTROVERSY AND MARY Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church's social activism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we consider questions concerning the ability of Asian Americans to participate in public discourse in meaningful ways that spur social change while fostering solidarity with other marginalized ethnic groups in the United States. Drawing on Christian theo-ethical reflection on the racial or social identity of Jesus as a hybridized concept, we argue for a robust public discourse that recognizes (...) Asian Americans as a social group without succumbing to the ghettoization of Asian American identity or a withdrawal from engagement with other justice-seeking social groups. In doing so, we look toward constructive modes of public discourse carried out by multiple counterpublics that both give voice to the Asian American community and open the space for collaboration across ethnic, racial, class, religious, and national boundaries. (shrink)

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been playing a significant role in acoustic modeling. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are the advanced version of DNNs that achieve 4–12% relative gain in the word error rate (WER) over DNNs. Existence of spectral variations and local correlations in speech signal makes CNNs more capable of speech recognition. Recently, it has been demonstrated that bidirectional long short-term memory (BLSTM) produces higher recognition rate in acoustic modeling because they are adequate to reinforce higher-level representations of acoustic (...) data. Spatial and temporal properties of the speech signal are essential for high recognition rate, so the concept of combining two different networks came into mind. In this paper, a hybrid architecture of CNN-BLSTM is proposed to appropriately use these properties and to improve the continuous speech recognition task. Further, we explore different methods like weight sharing, the appropriate number of hidden units, and ideal pooling strategy for CNN to achieve a high recognition rate. Specifically, the focus is also on how many BLSTM layers are effective. This paper also attempts to overcome another shortcoming of CNN, i.e. speaker-adapted features, which are not possible to be directly modeled in CNN. Next, various non-linearities with or without dropout are analyzed for speech tasks. Experiments indicate that proposed hybrid architecture with speaker-adapted features and maxout non-linearity with dropout idea shows 5.8% and 10% relative decrease in WER over the CNN and DNN systems, respectively. (shrink)

In a very general sense, hybrid can be understood to be any organism that is the product of two (or more) organisms where each parent belongs to a different kind. For example; the offspring from two or more parent organisms, each belonging to a separate species (or genera), is called a “hybrid”. “Hybridity” refers to the phenomenal character of being a hybrid. And “hybridization ” refers to both natural and artificial processes of generating hybrids. These processes include (...) mechanisms of selective cross-breeding and cross-fertilization of parents of different species for the purpose of producing hybrid offspring. In addition to these processes, “hybridization ” also refers to natural and artificial processes of whole genome duplication that result in the doubling or trebling of the sets of chromosomes of the organism. This entry provides an overview of the impact of hybridity on agriculture. It begins with an historical sketch that traces the early horticulturalists’ and naturalists’ investigations of hybrids. This starts with the observations of Thomas Fairchild and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon; and leads to the explanation of its mechanism by Gregor Mendel, James Watson and Francis Crick, and Ernst Mayr; and the eventual manipulation of hybrids and hybridization by Barbara McClintock. Following this, the reader is introduced to a number of key terms and concepts in use within current research as well as highlighting diverse ethical concerns that center on hybridization. Recent research that attempts to ascertain the role of hybridization in adaptive change will be introduced. This will include research on the evolution of crop species, increased biodiversity, and the use of hybrids to manipulate phenotypically desirable traits in agricultural crops. The focus of the discussion is on a particularly significant type of naturally occurring hybridization, polyploidy hybridization. Polyploids are organisms which have more than two complete genomes in each cell. This kind of hybridization is ubiquitous among crop plants. The role of polyploidy in plant evolution and the affects of polyploidy on plants and animals will be reviewed. A critical discussion of its agricultural value in the production of fertile polyploid hybrids highlights key epistemological, ontological, and ethical issues. These are illuminated with reference to the distinct processes of artificial and natural hybridization. A survey of these different kinds of hybridization includes the ethical and economic impacts of hybridity on global nutrition, the environment, and considerations of some practical implications for the agricultural industry. Tracking the role of hybrids, the process of hybridization, and the current impacts of it for agriculture requires knowledge of the history of its early conceptualization, understanding, and use. This is the topic of the following section. (shrink)

Machery rightly points out a diverse set of phenomena associated with concepts that create challenges for many traditional views of their nature. It may be premature, however, to give up such views completely. Here I defend the possibility of hybrid models of concept structure.

We extend Moss and Parikh’s bi-modal system for knowledge and effort by means of hybrid logic. In this way, some additional concepts from topology related to knowledge can be captured. We prove the soundness and completeness as well as the decidability of the extended system. Special emphasis will be placed on algebras.

Sufism has two main dimensions: vertical (God's pleasure) and horizontal (harmony with nature, society and local wisdom). In reality, many Sufis are considered less concerned about the balancing between vertical and horizontal dimensions. The research explores the concepts and practices of hybrid Sufism undertaken by Kyais (religious leaders) and their followers in improving quality of life. Ethnography was used for exploring the mindset and activities of Kyai and his followers. This study involved four Kyais in Java and Kalimantan, Indonesia. (...) Research data were obtained through participant observations, in-depth interviews and documentation. The data were analysed by Spadley's ethnographic steps as follows: (1) domain analysis, (2) taxonomy analysis, (3) componential analysis and (4) cultural-thematic analysis. The results showed that hybrid Sufism could improve quality of life. Hybrid Sufism can better appreciate and interpret local wisdom with an attitude of preserving nature and a positive understanding of worldly wealth, increasing the hard work ethos to achieve material-spiritual qualities. CONTRIBUTION: This article shows that hybrid Sufism encourages the life of Sufis in harmony between vertical and horizontal aspects. This understanding and lifestyle give rise to respect for others, being friendly to the environment and interpreting life and local wisdom. (shrink)

Sufism has two main dimensions: vertical (God's pleasure) and horizontal (harmony with nature, society and local wisdom). In reality, many Sufis are considered less concerned about the balancing between vertical and horizontal dimensions. The research explores the concepts and practices of hybrid Sufism undertaken by Kyais (religious leaders) and their followers in improving quality of life. Ethnography was used for exploring the mindset and activities of Kyai and his followers. This study involved four Kyais in Java and Kalimantan, Indonesia. (...) Research data were obtained through participant observations, in-depth interviews and documentation. The data were analysed by Spadley's ethnographic steps as follows: (1) domain analysis, (2) taxonomy analysis, (3) componential analysis and (4) cultural-thematic analysis. The results showed that hybrid Sufism could improve quality of life. Hybrid Sufism can better appreciate and interpret local wisdom with an attitude of preserving nature and a positive understanding of worldly wealth, increasing the hard work ethos to achieve material-spiritual qualities. CONTRIBUTION: This article shows that hybrid Sufism encourages the life of Sufis in harmony between vertical and horizontal aspects. This understanding and lifestyle give rise to respect for others, being friendly to the environment and interpreting life and local wisdom. (shrink)

In this text an overview is offered of some of the most significant categories of the demonic from the Mesopotamian beliefs – of hybridity and liminality – through some examples of the conceptions of the demons Pazuzu and Lamaštu. Firstly, the logicaldialectical relations of the sphere of the demonic as external and foreign, opposed to the homely, familiar and close sphere are sketched; as well as the relation of the demonic as terrifying and potentially menacing, as opposed to the ordered (...) civilized sphere with norms of conduct. Then, several representations of the concepts of Pazuzu as an ambivalent demon are listed – he is an evil fighting against evil, his nemesis, Lamaštu, and precisely because of the need for him to be efficient in his protective function, he has to be a horrifying, dangerous demon. This is shown through the descriptions of the available incantations and preserved rituals. The terrifying threat of Lamaštu against the most precious part of the communities – the new generations - through her snatching and destroying of the newborns, is shown through the representations of her hybridity and monstrosity, and mainly through the incantations for her removal and (permanent) expulsion. (shrink)

This essay takes issue with the way the highly fashionable concept of hybridity has been used to skew our understanding of cultural identity, and render conceptually and normatively indefensible the political claims of culture. It also challenges the current 'anti-essentialist' orthodoxy about what culture 'really is,'and shows that neither 'essentialism'nor 'anti-essentialism'helps us get right the place of culture in politics, because both fail to recognize the identity and nonidentity of culture with itself.

The domestic spaces of the built environment are traditionally associated with residential architecture. But the domestic spaces can also extend out, metaphorically, into familiar public spaces in which one may feel at home, and also extend inwards into self-perception, insofar as you may say that you dwell within yourself. This article begins by recalling Vitruvius’ fundamental notion of architectural utilitas concerns accommodating not a building’s owners but foreigners and strange outsiders. Vitruvius’ view on utility heavily favoured architecture’s socio-political function, and (...) the guests he believed that architecture ought to accommodate were not merely a home’s owners or their visiting friends, but those people who are more distant from a home’s owners: those who are stranger and less well understood, known as xenos and who ought to be respected under the Ancient Greek religious and ethical principle of xenia. It is on these grounds that Vitruvius makes an ethical critique of residential architecture in favour of the virtue of public architecture. Next the reach of xenia is proposed to extend towards those who are different not merely because of ethnic differences but cognitive and sensory differences. Such accommodations are today accounted for as part of accessibility design and salutogenic design. Similar conceptions are noted in Nietzsche’s notion of an “architecture for the perceptive” and the surrealist’s interpretation of the minotaur as a hybrid not only of animal and human but a hybrid of civilised citizen and barbarian outsider. Together these sketch out an expanded sense of the domestic that includes public spaces designed to accommodate strange outsiders and the hybrid forms used to signify them. (shrink)

Analysis of the debate concerning the appropriate way of researching the effects of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments highlights the controversial issue of the mind–body bond in medical research. The article examines a range of approaches, extending from outright opposition to CAM research, through the demand to employ only rigorous trials, to suggestions to use a hierarchy of evidence, up to practice‐based research proposals. These diverse approaches are analysed using theoretical concepts from the field of sociology of science and (...) knowledge. The article uses the concept of “hybrid knowledge” to denote the knowledge being constructed in late modern CAM discourse—knowledge that hybridises differentiated and even contradictory modern categories of knowledge. The article suggests that the different approaches taken by sociologists of science and knowledge, such as strong anti‐dualism and the assertion that there are differences in our understanding of the natural and the cultural–social terrain, are all useful and are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The article seeks to clarify the debate concerning the appropriate way of researching CAM and to contribute to the ongoing development and application of sociology of knowledge. (shrink)

This essay takes issue with the way the highly fashionable concept of hybridity has been used to skew our understanding of cultural identity, and render conceptually and normatively indefensible the political claims of culture. It also challenges the current ‘anti-essentialist’ orthodoxy about what culture ‘really is,’ and shows that neither ‘essentialism’ nor ‘anti-essentialism’ helps us get right the place of culture in politics, because both fail to recognize the identity and non-identity of culture with itself.

Grasping the identity of hybrids, that is beings which cross the binarism of nature and technology (e.g. genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), syn-bio inventions, biomimetic projects), is problematic since it is still guided by self-evident dualistic categories, either as artefacts or as natural entities. To move beyond the limitations of such a one-sided understanding of hybrids, we suggest turning towards the categories of affordances and the juxtaposition of needs and patterns of proper use, as inspired by the Heideggerian version of phenomenology. Drawing (...) upon selected concepts by Heidegger, we argue that hybrids can be conceptualised as a regenerative design and use to serve the planet. We argue that the ideal type of non-exploitative account of hybrids consists of the adaptive approach to the environment, which does not, however, exclude the possibility of designing and constructing new beings. We also point out that hybrids undermine the divide of being destructive/regenerative which marks the boundaries of nature and technology. (shrink)

The present study examines the relationship between pictorial similes and hybrid pictorial metaphors. The results suggest that hybrid pictorial metaphors are perceived more strongly than pictorial similes when they are presented on their own and in corrective convention but not when they are verbalized. We argue that hybrid pictorial metaphors have transformational effects as the fusion of two concepts allow the reader to see one thing in terms of another. Juxtaposition in a pictorial simile merely suggests a (...) search for similarity, which is not explicit. Results also showed that verbalized metaphor (X is Y) or the simile (X is like Y) forms are often used to convey a similar meaning and strength for pictorial simile and pictorial metaphor. However, in corrective scenarios participants are forced to reassess visual features: in this situation, pictorial metaphors are considered more strongly than pictorial similes even when they are verbalized. (shrink)

In Hybrid artwork, whereby the digital and the real are mixed, the artist/creator has to additionally manage interaction. Interaction is seen as an added dimension to narration: the art piece turns from being a means towards a narration (or an understanding) to a path towards an experience. It is argued that strong metaphysical concepts give place to new more fragmented ones. This nihilism and fragmentation can be seen as a cause of concern but also as an opportunity.

In an increasingly technology-textured environment, smart, intelligent and responsive technology has moved onto the body of many individuals. Mobile phones, smart watches and wearable activity trackers are just some of the technologies that are guiding, nudging, monitoring and reminding individuals in their day-to-day lives. These devices are designed to enhance and support their human users, however, there is a lack of attention to the unintended consequences, the technology non-neutrality and the darker sides of becoming human-tech hybrids. Using the extended mind (...) theory and agential intra-action, we aim at exploring how human-technology hybrids gain collective skills and how these are put to use; how agency is expressed and how this affects the interactions; and what the darker sides are of being a human-technology hybrid. Using a qualitative method, we analyze the experiences of using a wearable activity tracker, with a specific focus on how the tracker and the individual solve tasks, share competences, develop new skills and negotiate for agency and autonomy. We contribute with new insight on human-tech hybridity and present a concept referred to as the agency pendulum, reflecting the dynamism of agency. Finally, we demonstrate how the extended mind theory and agential intra-action as a combined theoretical lens can be used to explore human-tech hybridity. (shrink)

Researchers are increasingly expected to deliver “socially robust knowledge” that is not only scientifically reliable but also takes into account demands from societal actors. This article focuses on an empirical example where these additional criteria are explicitly organized into research settings. We investigate how the multiple “accountabilities” are managed in such “responsive research settings.” This article provides an empirical account of such an organizational format: the Dutch Academic Collaborative Centres for Public Health. We present a cross-case analysis of four collaborative (...) research projects conducted within this context. We build on Miller’s notion of “hybrid management.” The article shows that the extended concept of hybrid management is useful to study the different accountabilities encountered in such settings. We analyze how the collaboration developed and which conflicts or dilemmas arose. We then focus on the different hybrid management strategies used in the collaboration. The empirical material shows how the different aspects of hybrid management feature in various configurations in the four projects. We highlight that hybrid management strategies may be used by different groups or at different moments, may reinforce or contradict each other, and may be more or less effective at different points in time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article addresses two main concerns: first, the relation between the truth/falsehood and purity/impurity criteria as applied to pleasure, and, second, the status of our pleasures of learning. In addressing the first, I argue that Plato keeps the truth/falsehood and purity/impurity criteria distinct in his assessment of pleasures and thus leaves room for the possibility of hybrid pleasures in the form of true impure pleasures and false pure pleasures. In addressing the second issue, I show that Plato's view (...) is perfectly able to accommodate an understanding of our pleasures of learning as pure pleasures even if such pleasures are preceded by awareness of a lack (ignorance).RÉSUMÉ: Cet article aborde deux concepts principaux: premièrement, la relation entre les critères de vérité/fausseté et de pureté/impureté appliqués au plaisir, et deuxièmement, le statut de notre plaisir d'apprendre. En abordant le premier concept, j'argumente que Platon tient distincts les critères de vérité/fausseté et de'pureté Iimpureté dans son évaluation du plaisir, laissant ouverte la possibilité de plaisirs hybrides sous forme de vrais plaisirs impurs et faux plaisirs purs. En abordant le deuxième concept, je montre que le point de vue de Platon est parfaitement capable d'accommoder la compréhension de nos plaisirs d'apprendre comme plaisirs purs si de tels plaisirs sont précédés par la conscience d'un manque (ignorance). (shrink)

This article provides an extract from the second half of Lestel's book Animality . His book is divided into two parts. In the first part Lestel considers a number of ways in which humans and animals have been represented, particularly with respect to their supposed differences and borderline cases, over the course of Western history. To this end one reads of various depictions, construc- tions, and erasures of animals, including those of feral children, the animal-machines of Des- cartes and company, (...) animals of ethological study, as well as artistic animals, suffering animals, speaking animals, cultural animals, and more. The first part is largely devoted, then, to past representations of animals as seen through Lestel's unique perspective. The second part, much of which is translated here, conveys Lestel's own observations, as developed most explicitly in his concept of “hybrid com- munities” between humans and animals. It is equal parts evolutionary and cultural anthropol- ogy, ethologi.. (shrink)

Looking at contemporary Japanese images of the self and how Japanese scholars have conceptualised the notion of the subjectivity three remarkable concepts of “the self” can be identified and distinguished from another: the Inner Self, the Political Self, the Social Self. In my paper I will discuss these concepts by high lightening their hybridity, plurality and their emphasis on the identity as an effect of self-realization. I shall argue that the investigation in the Japaneseunderstanding of the self is particularly fruitful (...) for a global understanding of subjectivity, because Japanese selfhood does not represent the “otherness” of the western thought but is actually crisscrossed by western and eastern ideas. What can be marked as the Inner Self combines ideas of the Buddhist “Non-Self” (anatman) and the European Idealistic Ego (Ich). Embedded in practises of meditation the Inner Self in the Japanese understanding is realized through the activity of finding and loosing oneself. The Political Self can be perceived as an amalgamation of the Asian art of the regime of the group and the western thought of Liberalism and personal identity. Somewhat discovered in Japan as a possibility of the self in the 19th century the Political Self comes into existence througheducational practise. Furthermore the Social Self brings together Chinese Confucian ethics and ancient Japanese Shintoism. Understood as a particle in the flow of social relations the Social Self is realized in Japan within the rituals of everyday live and physical hence tactical education in the childhood of a person. The Japanese concepts of the self exemplify on the level of their formal configuration the qualities of what can be called a plural anthropology. (shrink)

This article presents a Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony for uncapacitated examination timetabling. The ABC algorithm is a recent metaheuristic population-based algorithm that belongs to the Swarm Intelligence technique. Examination timetabling is a hard combinatorial optimization problem of assigning examinations to timeslots based on the given hard and soft constraints. The proposed hybridization comes in two phases: the first phase hybridized a simple local search technique as a local refinement process within the employed bee operator of the original ABC, while (...) the second phase involves the replacement of the scout bee operator with the random consideration concept of harmony search algorithm. The former is to empower the exploitation capability of ABC, whereas the latter is used to control the diversity of the solution search space. The HABC is evaluated using a benchmark dataset defined by Carter, including 12 problem instances. The results show that the HABC is better than exiting ABC techniques and competes well with other techniques from the literature. (shrink)

We extend Moss and Parikh’s modal logic for subset spaces by adding, among other things, state-valued and set-valued functions. This is done with the aid of some basic concepts from hybrid logic. We prove the soundness and completeness of the derived logics with regard to the class of all correspondingly enriched subset spaces, and show that these logics are decidable.