Together with the Sophist, Plato’s Statesman is often taken to introduce and develop a new scientific form of theoretical inquiry, represented by the Eleatic visitor. This paper draws on recent scholarship on the Sophist and evaluates the reliability of this scientific approach when applied to political matters in the Statesman. It analyzes how the Eleatic visitor identifies and tries to mend two central mistakes in his own initial definition of the statesman and argues that the visitor’s treatment of three related (...) topics – eugenics, tyranny and law – makes his line of reasoning inconsistent. Relying on Plato’s dramatic use of similar forms of argumentation elsewhere, it suggests that the Statesman is not designed to defend the political significance of the visitor’s new form of scientific philosophy, but that its purpose instead is to test and to critically examine the consequences of this line of inquiry. (shrink)

A question dating to Mardešić and Prasolov’s 1988 work [S. Mardešić and A. V. Prasolov, Strong homology is not additive, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 307(2) (1988) 725–744], and motivating a considerable amount of set theoretic work in the years since, is that of whether it is consistent with the ZFC axioms for the higher derived limits [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] of a certain inverse system [Formula: see text] indexed by [Formula: see text] to simultaneously vanish. An equivalent formulation (...) of this question is that of whether it is consistent for all [Formula: see text]-coherent families of functions indexed by [Formula: see text] to be trivial. In this paper, we prove that, in any forcing extension given by adjoining [Formula: see text]-many Cohen reals, [Formula: see text] vanishes for all [Formula: see text]. Our proof involves a detailed combinatorial analysis of the forcing extension and repeated applications of higher-dimensional [Formula: see text]-system lemmas. This work removes all large cardinal hypotheses from the main result of [J. Bergfalk and C. Lambie-Hanson, Simultaneously vanishing higher derived limits, Forum Math. Pi 9 (2021) e4] and substantially reduces the least value of the continuum known to be compatible with the simultaneous vanishing of [Formula: see text] for all [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

This volume explores the themes of vanishing matter, matter and the laws of nature, the qualities of matter, and the diversity of the debates about matter in the early modern period. Chapters are unified by a number of interlocking themes which together enable some of the broader contours of the philosophy of matter to be charted in new ways. Part I concerns Cartesian Matter; Part II covers Matter, Mechanism and Medicine; Part III covers Matter and the Laws of Motion; (...) and Part IV covers Leibniz and Hume. Bringing together some of the world’s leading scholars of early modern philosophy, as well as some exciting new researchers, _Vanishing Matter and the Laws of Motion _stakes out new territory that all serious scholars of early modern philosophy and science will want to traverse. (shrink)

Barry Allen explores the concept of knowledge in Chinese thought over two millennia and compares the different philosophical imperatives that have driven Chinese and Western thought. Challenging the hyperspecialized epistemology of modern Western philosophy, he urges his readers toward an ethical appreciation of why knowledge is worth pursuing.

Our perceptual experience is largely based on prediction, and as such can be influenced by knowledge of forthcoming events. This susceptibility is commonly exploited by magicians. In the Vanishing Ball Illusion, for example, a magician tosses a ball in the air a few times and then pretends to throw the ball again, whilst secretly concealing it in his hand. Most people claim to see the ball moving upwards and then vanishing, even though it did not leave the magician’s (...) hand (Kuhn & Land, 2006; Triplett, 1900). But what exactly can such illusions tell us? We investigated here whether seeing a real action before the pretend one was necessary for the Vanishing Ball Illusion. Participants either saw a real action immediately before the fake one, or only a fake action. Nearly one third of participants experienced the illusion with the fake action alone, while seeing the real action beforehand enhanced this effect even further. Our results therefore suggest that perceptual experience relies both on long-term knowledge of what an action should look like, as well as exemplars from the immediate past. In addition, whilst there was a forward displacement of perceived location in perceptual experience, this was not found for oculomotor responses, consistent with the proposal that two separate systems are involved in visual perception. (shrink)

The vanishing point is a representational gap that organizes the visual field. Study of this singularity revolutionized art in the fifteenth century. Further reflection on the vanishing point invites the conjecture that the self is an absence. This paper opens with perceptual peculiarities of the vanishing point and closes with the metaphysics of personal identity.

: This article argues that the agreed-upon periodization of early Islam is an Abbasid-era construct that became a binding framework for later generations of historians down to modern times. It also contends that scholars have tended to ignore the fact that this periodization was first and foremost an Abbasid claim to power. It investigates the Abbasid-era construction of the past and demonstrates that alternative periodizations were used prior to these massive efforts to enclose the past into a rigid structure, and (...) so it sheds light on forgotten alternative pasts. The links between periodization and space are emphasized, focusing on the example of early Islamic Syria. Indeed, this province largely vanished from the map with the coming of the Abbasids to power since Syria’s memory came to be limited to its Umayyad past. Elaborating upon alternative periodizations, the paper offers a fresh attempt at a history of the meanings of a long Syrian eighth century, articulated around memory and power. (shrink)

The ' argument from queerness', made famous by J. L. Mackie, remains one of the most influential arguments in metaethics. However, many philosophers focus on just one or two of its strands, while others assume a particular but by no means universal reading of it. This essay attempts to disentangle and evaluate all strands of the argument. Surprisingly, when this is done, not much is left as a distinct argument from queerness. Much of the argument collapses into other types of (...) argument, and what is left, though intuitively appealing, is not viable as philosophical argument. (shrink)

The vanishing point is a representational gap that organizes the visual field. Study of this singularity revolutionized art in the fifteenth century. Further reflection on the vanishing point invites the conjecture that the self is an absence. This paper opens with perceptual peculiarities of the vanishing point and closes with the metaphysics of personal identity.

Introducing the sixth and final installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” Allen looks at the symposium retrospectively and concludes that it has mainly concerned “sage knowledge,” defined as foresight into the development of situations. The sagacious knower sees the disposition of things in an early, incipient form and knows how to intervene with nearly effortless and undetectable (quiet) effectiveness. Whatever the circumstance, the sage handles it with finesse, never doing too much but also never leaving anything undone (...) that must be accomplished. Quiet, when it is knowingly and effectively quiet (not pusillanimous or poor in spirit), is about what not to do, how not to approach a problem, what not to decide, what is not known, what will not work. Allen explains these principles in terms of traditional Chinese thought, Daoist and Confucian: wei we wei, or “doing-not-doing,” means effective inaction. What makes such wisdom possible is not mystical insight, he argues, but discipline in a certain kind of art. The sage has no need of reasons (let alone doctrines), only effectiveness; and he does not need truth or justice, only subtlety. The detachment of a quietist has little, if anything, to do with transcending perspectives. Detachment is good as a means to flexibility, and instead of transcending perspectives, a sage is skilled in the quiet art of never getting stuck in one. To be effectively quiet is not so much to be silent as to be inaudible, invisible; the sage “vanishes into things.”. (shrink)

Nation states in the twenty‐first century confront new challenges to their political legitimacy. Borders are more porous and less secure. Infectious disease epidemics, climate change, financial fraud, terrorism, and cybersecurity all involve cross‐border flows of material, human bodies, and information that threaten to overwhelm state power and expert knowledge. Concurrently, doubts have multiplied about whether citizens, subject to manipulation through the internet, have lost the critical capacity to hold rulers accountable for their expert decisions. I argue that the primary threat (...) to democracy is not the public's epistemic incompetence but a slow dissolution of the deliberative practices that are essential for self‐rule. We need a radical reimagining of the sites, forms, and performances of democratic deliberation. For this purpose, the American state needs to reconstitute a public square open to citizens who are deemed to be epistemically competent and capable of informed judgment. (shrink)

Barry Allen's Vanishing into Things discusses intellectual traditions of Chinese philosophy through the thematic thread of knowledge. The thread takes us chapter by chapter from Confucianism, Daoism, and The Art of War to Chan Buddhism and The Investigation of Things. The final chapter discusses "resonance" and the part it has played in Chinese intellectual history.It wouldn't be surprising if such an ambitious work, covering the range of intellectual traditions that Allen covers, became fragmentary and disparate. After all, such traditions (...) vary in significant ways and in certain respects are unrelated intellectually. What arrests this tendency is the commonality that Allen identifies in the treatment of knowledge.... (shrink)

Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling. Yet, little is known on why individual participation in a boycott declines and what type of consumer is more likely to stop boycotting earlier rather than later. Integrating research on drivers of individual boycott participation with multi-stage models and the hot/cool cognition system, suggests a “heat-up” phase (...) in which boycott participation is fueled by expressive drivers, and a “cool-down” phase in which instrumental drivers become more influential. Using a diverse set of real contexts, four empirical studies provide evidence supporting a set of hypotheses on promotors and inhibitors of boycott participation over time. Study 1 provides initial evidence for the influence of expressive and instrumental drivers in a food services context. Extending the context to video streaming services, e-tailing, and peer-to-peer ridesharing, Study 2, Study 3, and Study 4 show that the reasons consumers stop/continue boycotting vary systematically across four distinct groups. Taken together, the findings help activists sustain boycott momentum and assist firms in dealing more effectively with boycotts. (shrink)

In this essay, Brook Ziporyn’s reading of Zhuangzi 莊子 is explicated and broken down into what I take to be its two primary parts: first, Zhuangzi’s epistemological agnosticism and perspectivism, and second, Zhuangzi’s Wild Card. The former presents a unique set of philosophical problems through the specialized terminology of the classical Chinese lexicon, while the latter tries to remedy these problems. I take the first part of Zhuangzi’s position to be compelling and pertinent, while the second part is problematic. Carrying (...) out the project, I focus primarily on Ziporyn’s recent publication, Ironies of Oneness and Difference, as well as his translation of the Zhuangzi chapters that (allegedly —... (shrink)

“A stubborn problem of Catalonian urban history” is how Stephen Bensch recently characterized the question of why Catalonia's first communal magistracies were created so late and lasted so briefly. While consulates appeared in Italian towns circa 1100 and in the Midi circa 1130, the first sure attestations to Catalonian consulates date to the 1180s. Charters recording the establishment of consulates exist for Cervera , Perpignan , and Lleida . Barcelona's consuls are first mentioned in 1183, but, since no consular charter (...) survives for Barcelona , the date and the circumstances of the consulate's creation there remain unknown. There was an attempt to establish a consulate at Vic between 1175 and 1185, probably at a date closer to the latter year than the former. As Philippe Wolff has pointed out, the lapse of approximately half a century between the arrival of the consulate in the Midi and in Catalonia cannot be attributed to earlier and more complete urbanization in the Midi. Commercial development proceeded more quickly at Barcelona than at Toulouse, yet the consulate appeared at Toulouse before Barcelona. André Gouron has argued influentially that the chronology of the spread of Roman law determined the chronology of the consulate's diffusion. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why Species Matter Man Is the Measure Mild versus Wild Culture Clash.

Is the endeavour to restore perceptive brain functions by electronic implants the first step on the way to create bionic cyborgs? Can we augment or multiply our senses by directly contacting computer chips to the brain? Will bio-implants influence and permanently change human psyche?

Under the influence of neoliberalism, academic work faces mounting pressure to align with imperatives of visibility and perceptibility. Traditionally criticised for working in isolated ‘ivory towers’, academics are now compelled to showcase the societal value of their work through performance metrics and evaluations. Paradoxically, these efforts have unintentionally led to the rigidification and commodification of academic work, stifling the production of knowledge beyond predefined parameters. In this paper, we contend that academics should resist the imposition of this neoliberal ‘grid’ and (...) instead seek a path of ‘becoming‐imperceptible’, drawing inspiration from the insights of Deleuze and Guattari. Becoming‐imperceptible does not entail silent disengagement; rather, it represents a creative form of resistance challenging prevailing modes of assessment rooted in visibility and perceptibility. By incorporating the concept of ‘fast feminism’ to subvert Paul Virilio's hypermasculine speed theory, we uncover the transformative potential of temporary absences. Leveraging these moments of absence, academics can intensify their affective connections with both their peers and their work, making them undiscernible to the confines of the academic establishment. We argue that these instances of imperceptibility create fertile ground for creative and inventive academic endeavours on the margins of established boundaries, where original scholarship can flourish. Such a subversive approach is particularly relevant in fields like nursing and the health sciences, where it can challenge the dominant discourses that typify neoliberal academia. (shrink)

The author discusses prevalent social problems such as artificial insemination, abortion, euthanasia, suicide, capital punishment, contraception, sterilization and homosexuality. He examines and evaluates the current attitudes and conflicting positions that society, the law, the state, religion and individuals hold regarding these issues.

This account explores the divergent perspectives of supervisor and student interacting in self-study research, showing how both participants were transformed by the experience. Although both supervisor and student had faced similar problems as mature students engaging in doctoral study, and both possessed strong convictions about their chosen paths, their focus was very different. The student, being visually creative, was investigating the value of integrated arts as a transformational learning medium; the supervisor, from a linguistics background, was focused on exploring the (...) nature of written communication. The supervisor/student relationship comprises a complex nexus of interconnections between persons, material objects, times and places: it is never static, but always emerging, with the relationship often ending up being more collegial than at first, as with the authors of this paper. In the counterpoint dialogue presented by student and supervisor, it can be seen that both learned from each other: the student, the rigours of structuring a passionate argument intellectually; the supervisor, to express an intellectual argument more personally. Both authors were transformed by the supervisor/student interaction: the supervisor, in rediscovering the value of interpersonal communication; the student, in mastering a research approach which did justice to her belief in the creative power of the arts. The value of engaging with perspectives which initially appear to be irreconcilable is not just to ‘learn new things’, but to push the inner limits of our perspectives, transforming not only the ways in which we perceive things, but the ways in which we learn. (shrink)

Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two (...) warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes.’ Yet the most legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in the common law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their ova as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant. (shrink)

Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two (...) warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes.’ Yet the most legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in the common law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their ova as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant. (shrink)

No other technological advance has had as much impact on public perception of the police as the cellphone. After the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 police violence assumed a new public sa...

We adopt and extend the concept of ‘noncooperative space’ to analyze how (aspirant) black women intellectual activists attempt to sustain their efforts within settings that publicly endorse racial equality, while, in practice, the contexts remain deeply racist. Noncooperative spaces reflect institutional, organizational, and social environments portrayed by powerful white agents as conducive to anti-racism work and promoting racial equality but, indeed, constrain individuals who challenge racism. Our work, which is grounded in intersectionality, draws on an autoethnographic account of racially motivated (...) domestic violence suffered by our lead author. Our analysis suggests that (aspirant) black women intellectual activists must develop courage to sustain their ‘voice’ within noncooperative spaces. However, the three interlinked dimensions of noncooperative spaces—namely, deceiving design, hegemonic actors’ indifference to racism, and (some assimilated gatekeepers’) false equivalence—may gradually erode a black female scholar’s courage. This forces her ‘voice’ to vanish temporarily, or even permanently. Courage is thus fragile and depletable. Yet, courage can be regenerated, resulting in regaining voice. Consequently, we propose courageous collective action by white allies and black and brown individuals who voluntarily and officially cooperate within and across various spaces to achieve racial equality. (shrink)

The disjunction effect (Tversky and Shafir in Psychol Sci 3:305–309, 1992) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage’s (Cognition 57:31–95, 1954) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision-making. The phenomenon was attributed to a lack of (...) clear reasons for accepting an option (x) when the subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction into the text-problem of a non-relevant goal. (shrink)