David Malament argued that Hartry Field's nominalisation program is unlikely to be able to deal with non-space-time theories such as phase-space theories. We give a specific example of such a phase-space theory and argue that this presentation of the theory delivers explanations that are not available in the classical presentation of the theory. This suggests that even if phase-space theories can be nominalised, the resulting theory will not have the explanatory power of the original. Phase-space theories thus raise problems for (...) nominalists that go beyond Malament's initial concerns. Thanks to Mark Steiner, Jens Christian Bjerring, Ben Fraser, John Mathewson, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The Snowden revelations about National Security Agency surveillance, starting in 2013, along with the ambiguous complicity of internet companies and the international controversies that followed provide a perfect segue into contemporary conundrums of surveillance and Big Data. Attention has shifted from late C20th information technologies and networks to a C21st focus on data, currently crystallized in “Big Data.” Big Data intensifies certain surveillance trends associated with information technology and networks, and is thus implicated in fresh but fluid configurations. This is (...) considered in three main ways: One, the capacities of Big Data intensify surveillance by expanding interconnected datasets and analytical tools. Existing dynamics of influence, risk-management, and control increase their speed and scope through new techniques, especially predictive analytics. Two, while Big Data appears to be about size, qualitative change in surveillance practices is also perceptible, accenting consequences. Important trends persist – the control motif, faith in technology, public-private synergies, and user-involvement – but the future-orientation increasingly severs surveillance from history and memory and the quest for pattern-discovery is used to justify unprecedented access to data. Three, the ethical turn becomes more urgent as a mode of critique. Modernity's predilection for certain definitions of privacy betrays the subjects of surveillance who, so far from conforming to the abstract, disembodied image of both computing and legal practices, are engaged and embodied users-in-relation whose activities both fuel and foreclose surveillance. (shrink)

What makes psychedelic psychotherapy work? Is it the induction of psychedelic experience, with its distinct patterns of hallucinations and insights, or is it the neural ‘shakeup’ that moves the brain out of its regular mode of functioning and into a more disordered state? We consider the role that attention-related phenomenological changes play in psychedelic transformation and psychotherapy. We review Letheby’s account of psychedelic psychotherapy, which appeals to increases in phenomenal opacity as the central mechanism of psychotherapeutic transformation. We argue that (...) there is an alternative vehicle of psychedelic transformation that this account overlooks, involving radically transparent experiences. We outline the common kinds of phenomenal transparency shifts typical of psychedelic experiences, and argue that in many cases, such shifts are responsible for the psychotherapeutic benefits. This argument motivates an alternative approach to possible mechanisms of psychedelic self-transformation, and opens up a new venue of empirical research into the role of attention and phenomenology in psychedelic psychotherapy. (shrink)

Governing by identity describes the emerging regime of a globalizing, mobile world. Governance depends on identification but identification increasingly depends on biometrics. This 'solution' to difficulties of verification is described and some technical weaknesses are discussed. The role of biometrics in classification systems is also considered and is shown to contain possible prejudice in relation to racialized criteria of identity. Lastly, the culture of biometric identification is shown to be limited to abstract data, artificially separated from the lived experience of (...) the body including the orientation to others. It is proposed that creators of national ID systems in particular address these crucial deficiencies in their attempt to provide new modes of verification. (shrink)

Surveillance is sometimes spoken of as a God’s eye view of the world. This idea is explored in relation to the ‘objective gaze’ of disengaged reason in the Enlightenment and its technologically-reinforced modes in the twenty-first century. The rise of the eye-centred viewpoint is coincident with the ‘great disembedding’ of individuals from the social. This in turn also prompted the self-disciplines of modernity, which are now key aspects of the power-base of modern institutions. A crucial moment in this shift was (...) Bentham’s panopticon proposal, in which the knowledge regime of secular ism started to shape social imaginaries in relation to surveillance. While secular omniscience was sought through the surveillance gaze, and explored later in the work of Foucault, Debord and others, the eye-centred view is not without critics. We draw upon some biblical resources, notably, the story of Hagar, that query the centrality of ‘objective vision’. Instead, an ethic of care is proposed, based in part on a fresh understanding of the ‘eye of God’. It is argued that the implications of the care ethic go far deeper than current appeals to privacy, data protection, civil liberties or human rights. (shrink)

The dead donor rule states that organ donors must be declared dead before any vital organs are removed. Recently, scholars and physicians have argued for the abandonment of the dead donor rule, based on the rule’s supposed connection with the concept of brain death, which they view as a conceptually unreliable definition of death. In this essay, I distinguish between methods of death determination and the question of whether or not the dead donor rule should be a guiding principle of (...) organ transplant ethics. In principle, the dead donor rule does not rely on any one definition of death, but only prohibits the taking of vital organs before a patient is declared dead. In light of this distinction, I argue that even if the dead donor rule is tied to brain death in practice, conceptual disagreement about brain death does not provide grounds for rejection of this rule. I then present evidence in support of the consistency and reliability of the diagnosis of brain death. I show that, when performed carefully and under specific clinical circumstances, the diagnosis of brain death is considered by most neurologists to be reliable. Finally, I argue that, without the dead donor rule, organ transplantation programs would become susceptible to violations of the ethical principle of respect for persons. (shrink)

Analyses of contemporary surveillance are considered in relation to the growing liquidity of contemporary social relations. When state surveillance is revealed by Edward Snowden to depend on consumer data, this illustrates Bauman’s observations about today’s rapidly mobile and “extraterritorial” power. Such power is increasingly based on highly asymmetrical visibility of watcher and watched but paradoxically also depends on “panoptic selfie-surveillance” which complicates both analysis and ethics in significant ways. Strongly panoptic power, where it still exists, is largely at the margins, (...) in Bauman’s writing, as seen for instance his gesturing towards Loic Wacquant’s. Here, as in Didier Bigo’s “banopticon” the power is exclusionary rather than inclusionary — which was the form of the original panopticon design. But the soft forms of “selfie surveillance” also have panoptic dimensions that demand consideration. The ethical questions now foregrounded go far beyond questions of “privacy”, narrowly conceived, to issues of social inclusion and democratic participation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce and explain display calculi for a variety of logics. We provide a survey of key results concerning such calculi, though we focus mainly on the global cut elimination theorem. Propositional, first-order, and modal display calculi are considered and their properties detailed.

It's no surprise that one shouldn't pray for bad things to happen, for it's always wicked to attempt to bring about evil. But perhaps surprisingly one shouldn't pray for good things either. For if there is an Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omni-Benevolent Deity who intervenes at all in the workings of the world, then He will do whatever is best anyway, and if you pray for what He wouldn't otherwise have done then it must, perhaps unknown to you, be wrong. If (...) there is no God then He will not answer your prayers, although they might be efficacious in other ways. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Mathematical Theory of Probability The Philosophical Theory of Probability Conclusion References.

Airports are crucial channels of mobility for the global citizens of the twenty‐first century. They are points of entry and exit for tourists, business persons, workers, students and of course, for some refugees as well. The scale of operations is huge ‐ international passenger travel increased twelve‐fold in the second half of the twentieth century and the vast majority of this is accounted for in air travel. In the USA alone there are two million daily airtravelers on 20,000 flights. Airports (...) are ‘placeless’ sites of temporary sojourn, air‐lock chambers for nomadic executives or sun‐seekers. But they have profound social and political significance, particularly in personal data handling. (shrink)

As social scientist, welfare state reformer and diplomat, Alva Myrdal made an important contribution to changing conceptions of modern womanhood. With her husband Gunnar, she drew up blueprints for a woman-friendly welfare state that continue to be of relevance to contemporary debates about women's dual roles in the public and private spheres. She was herself a working wife and mother of three children with a home publicly hailed for its efficient modernity. In retrospect, her domestic performance as wife and mother, (...) as well as her public writings on women and family welfare policy, have been subject to critical re-evaluation, a debate to which biographical material presented by each of her three children contributed. This article reflects on the situated nature of biographical writings about women and discusses the different constructions' of Alva Myrdal presented in these family narratives. From within Alva Myrdal's own feminist perspective, the author attempts to show the extent to which judgements about the contribution of women continue to be framed by conceptions of the duality of their place in the public and private domains. (shrink)

Black Elk's Story: Distinguishing Its Lakota Purpose. Julian Rice. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. ISBN 0‐8263‐1262‐4. Cloth. $29.95. Pp. 165.

With their methodical attention to detail, their tirelessness, their immunity to boredom, and their very high speed, all coupled now with reasoning power and information, machines are beginning to produce knowledge, often faster and better — “smarter” — than the human who taught them. By promising to replace man, the computer is giving us a new definition of man, as an “information processor,” and of nature, as “information to be processed.” It is not that we cannot live without computers, but (...) that we will be different people because we live with them. (shrink)

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