As architecture intersects with computer science to engage with large-scale data sets and informational systems, this demands new skills, competencies and commitments. Informed by the findings of an online survey, this article explores how, who and to what extent those in the profession of architecture are investing in technology knowledge and skills, and under what material conditions this occurs. Survey data collected from five large-scale architecture practices in Sydney, Australia finds that while technology-related skills are highly valued in the profession, (...) more men than women are engaging with computationally intensive software and technology skills building remains a largely unstructured and often self-directed enterprise. Drawing on feminist technology studies and digital labour perspectives, it is argued that the drive to computationalise the profession of architecture rests heavily on discretionary, aspirational and invisible labour practices that disadvantage employees with lesser reserves of economic and social capital, and particularly women. This further contributes to revealing neo-liberalism’s influence on the concrete practices of the architecture workplace and highlights how the diminished structural role of employers breeds uneven opportunities and inequitable working conditions. (shrink)

Recognizing the potential hidden artistic contributions of persons with dementia opens new opportunities for interpretation and potential communication. This visual essay explores the authors’ responses to the fragile objects of art produced by a person with severe dementia and examines what may be learned from them.

The book examines the philosophical foundations of private law, arguing that the foremost preoccupations of the law of obligations are grounded in and pervade the personal lives of individuals.

This chapter argues that Merleau-Ponty’s account of perception should be understood, not as a theory of perception in the usual sense, but as belonging squarely to transcendental philosophy. Contra the interpretation of Phenomenology of Perception as essentially a work in the philosophy of psychology, and the associated naturalistic construal of his ideas, it is suggested that Merleau-Ponty must be seen in the light of the history of transcendental philosophy and that an original form of idealism lies at the heart of (...) his philosophical project. The transcendental turn is presupposed by Merleau-Ponty’s claims regarding perception, and his key notion of ambiguity is a transcendental descendant of Kant’s strategy of establishing idealism by way of antinomy. (shrink)

_Art and Morality_ is a collection of groundbreaking new papers on the theme of aesthetics and ethics, and the link between the two subjects. A group of distinguished contributors tackle the important questions that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life. The volume is a significant contribution to philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include: the relation of (...) aesthetic to ethical judgement; the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness; the moral status of fiction; the concepts of sentimentality and decadence; the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music; the moral significance of tragedy; and the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The contributors share the view that progress in aesthetics requires detailed study of the practice of criticism. This volume will appeal both to the philosophical community and to researchers in areas such as literary theory, musicology and the theory of art. (shrink)

This article seeks to reframe the ethical discussion of genetic enhancement, which is the use of genetic engineering to supply a characteristic that a parent might want in a child that does not involve the treatment or prevention of disease. I consider whether it is likely that enhancement can be successfully prohibited. If genetic enhancement is feasible, it is likely that there will be demand for it because parents compete to produce able children and nations compete to accumulate human capital (...) in skilled workers. If some parents or nations begin using genetic enhancement, this will change these competitions in ways that increase the incentives for others to use it. Therefore, a ban on genetic enhancement would be unstable, because once the ban was breached by defectors the motivation of others to uphold it would weaken, making the ban liable to collapse. The argument provides a new perspective on slippery slopes to dangerous technology. Keywords: genetic enhancement, slippery slope argumentation CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The advent of formal definitions of the simplicity of a theory has important implications for model selection. But what is the best way to define simplicity? Forster and Sober ([1994]) advocate the use of Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), a non-Bayesian formalisation of the notion of simplicity. This forms an important part of their wider attack on Bayesianism in the philosophy of science. We defend a Bayesian alternative: the simplicity of a theory is to be characterised in terms of Wallace's Minimum (...) Message Length (MML). We show that AIC is inadequate for many statistical problems where MML performs well. Whereas MML is always defined, AIC can be undefined. Whereas MML is not known ever to be statistically inconsistent, AIC can be. Even when defined and consistent, AIC performs worse than MML on small sample sizes. MML is statistically invariant under 1-to-1 re-parametrisation, thus avoiding a common criticism of Bayesian approaches. We also show that MML provides answers to many of Forster's objections to Bayesianism. Hence an important part of the attack on Bayesianism fails. (shrink)

Our natural environment is in a lamentable state, notwithstanding today’s increasing ecological awareness. One cause frequently cited is our diminished perception of and relation to nature on ontological grounds. None of the alternative visions offered to date has been considered to really challenge the prevailing detached utilitarian and empirical framework. However, continued attempts on various levels are needed to rearticulate and reinvigorate the currently dormant and neglected plurality of approaches to nature. Although neither Heidegger nor Levinas was primarily concerned with (...) the relation of humans to nature, their works do seem to offer a voice to express our genuine way of being as a “Dasein in the world,” and the depth of its implications, as well as to reveal the “exteriority of nature.” A close examination of their views can show how they may contribute to a broadening of our perception, so that nature may appear to us not primarily as a commodity but foremost as an inspiring source of meaningfulness that at the same time appeals to our ethical ability. (shrink)

Despite a library full of literature on miRNA biology, core issues relating to miRNA target detection, biological effect, and mode of action remain controversial. This essay proposes that the predominant mechanism of direct miRNA action is translational inhibition, whereas the bulk of miRNA effects are mRNA based. It explores several issues confounding miRNA target detection, and discusses their impact on the dominance of “miRNA seed” dogma and the exploration of non‐canonical binding sites. Finally, it makes comparisons between miRNA target prediction (...) and transcription factor binding prediction, and questions the value of characterizing miRNA binding sites based on which miRNA nucleotides are paired with an mRNA. (shrink)

This paper describes a case study of a program called WATCH: Workshop for Actively Thinking Computationally and Historically. The focus of the program and this paper was on using mobile application development to promote historical thinking using a plantation site visit as the focus of inquiry. WATCH was delivered during an academic enrichment youth program at a major research university in the Southeast and served a total of 30 African American and Latino high school students from low socio-economic backgrounds. Through (...) the theoretical framework of historical thinking, this case study provides descriptions of the class sessions, students’ perceptions of and interests in history and students level of historical thinking through their apps. We make suggestions about how the instructional activities could be adapted for classrooms, discuss the tensions of using technology and inquiry pedagogy to support and promote historical learning, and review the program's impact on students’ agency as learners and critical consumers and producers of historical accounts. (shrink)

We investigated the interface between biomedia and humans by inviting participants to interact with biometric devices that measured and visualized their body data. At first, they struggled with the alienating and disembodying nature of the devices and the constrained, reductionist representation of data. Through their bodily interactions with these devices, however, participants reframed the data and inserted their bodies into the process of data collection. Drawing on the ideas of Bergson, Grosz, Merleau-Ponty and Bachelard, we argue that by working with (...) their subjectivity in a mediated process of becoming, participants ‘filled in the intervals’ of the visual representations of their bodies to interpret them in ways that marked the duration and meaning of their selves. We conclude that even when presented with artificial representations, individuals convert the representation of the data into narratives inspired by their embodied experience, and the ‘virtual’ pasts of their own lives. (shrink)

Adrian Moore argues that Kant’s transcendental idealism is incoherent, and that its incoherence gives us an invaluable insight into the fundamental nature of metaphysics, motivating the reconception of metaphysical inquiry with which Moore concludes his story of the development of modern philosophy. My discussion has three parts. First, I focus on the treatment of Kant’s transcendental idealism in Moore’s earlier book, Points of View, and highlight ways in which Moore is, I argue, open to challenge. Second, I suggest that the (...) historical record does not bear out Moore’s criticism of Kant’s transcendental idealism. Third, I compare Moore’s response to the alleged incoherence of transcendental idealism with that of the German Romantics. (shrink)

The recommendation that we encourage children to be open-minded has been gathering strength. Yet given the everyday meaning of ‘being open-minded about something’, we may decide to reject this recommendation because it proscribes teaching and learning. There again, recent philosophical accounts of open-mindedness seem to oppose everyday meaning and lead to the absurd conclusion that the Pope is open-minded about the existence of God. This paper suggests two ways of looking at these problems, the second of which reconciles ordinary usage (...) with open-mindedness as a desirable educational objective. (shrink)

Contrary to accepted ideas, questions of gender started to be raised around the end of the 19th century. The characters of problematic sex and sexuality who abounded in literature at that time had the function of emblems of the fears aroused by the erasure and divorce between the sexes in a civilization in disarray. The figure of the androgyne was used to name and depict those condemned to indecision. But its closeness to the invert led to the decline of the (...) myth, which in the meantime was taken over by turn-of-the-century clinical medicine. Just like homosexuality, hermaphroditism became an anomaly, and those affected by it were depicted as deviant, incomplete beings. However, it was from the explosive superimposition of those two denigrated figures – the homosexual and the androgyne – that the concept of gender emerged in its true nature, that is, as a mental construction as much as an anatomical destiny. (shrink)

I analyse Drenthen's article 'Ecological restoration and place attachment: emplacing non-places?' (Environmental Values 18(3): 285-312), focusing in particular on his use of the notions of 'appropriation' and 'estrangement' from the perspective of meaningfulness. I show that, for deeper meaningfulness as place attachment, within the appropriable there is always a tension with the non-appropriable; there is a successful connection between both. Estrangement and loss of meaning occur the moment the non-appropriable resides outside the familiar. Drenthen unintentionally causes confusion by failing to (...) take this subtlety into account systematically. (shrink)

This is my reply to five extended critical assessments of my book Law as a Leap of Faith, appearing together in a symposium issue of Law and Philosophy. The critics are Kevin Toh, Luís Duarte d’Almeida and James Edwards, Fábio Perin Shecaira, Cristina Redondo, and Matthew Smith. The topics include H.L.A. Hart’s philosophical legacy, the moral claims of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the doctrine of legal positivism, and the possibility of alienation from law.

Having only emerged in the past few decades, Feminist Philosophy is rapidly developing its own thrust in areas of particular importance to feminism-and women more generally-while also reevaluating and reshaping most other fields of philosophy, from ethics to logic and Marxism to environmentalism.

Almost all representations have both distributed and localist aspects, depending upon what properties of the data are being considered. With noisy data, features represented in a localist way can be detected very efficiently, and in binary representations they can be counted more efficiently than those represented in a distributed way. Brains operate in noisy environments, so the localist representation of behaviourally important events is advantageous, and fits what has been found experimentally. Distributed representations require more neurons to perform as efficiently, (...) but they do have greater versatility. (shrink)

The word 'archaic' derives from the Greek arkhaios, which in turn is related to the word archē, meaning 'principle', 'origin', or 'cause'; the notion of ecstasy, or ekstasis, implies standing outside or beyond oneself, a self-transcendence. How these two concepts are articulated and co-implicated constitutes the core question underlying this edited collection, which examines both the present day and antiquity in order to trace the insistent presence of the ecstatic amid the archaic. Presented in three parts, the contributors to this (...) diverse book take the concept of the archaic in an entirely new direction. Part I, 'Ecstasy and the psychological', covers topics including Jung, Freud, ancient psychotherapy, desire, and theatre. Part II, 'Ecstatic-archaic history', considers Ludwig Klages, Orestes and Dionysus. Finally, Part III, 'Ancient ecstatic in other worlds', examines Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms and Enki at Eridu. The collection offers a distinctive contextualisation of the dimension of the archaic in relation to the ecstatic experience. The Ecstatic and the Archaic will appeal to readers interested in the relationship between ancient and postmodern worlds, and in how the past manifests itself in the present. It will be of great interest to academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, classical religions and the history of ideas, as well as practitioners of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Otdvio Bueno, Empiricism, Mathematical Truth and Mathematical Knowledge 219 Commentary by Chuang Liu. Reply by Bueno. Chuang Liu, Coins and Electrons: A ...