This is the first full introduction written for a general audience to the life and teachings of Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240), regarded as the greatest mystical thinker in the history of Islam and known in the Islamic world as al-Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master).White Cloud Press, in a joint publishing effort with Anqa Publishing in the United Kingdom, presents the first in a series of books on the life and teachings of Ibn 'Arabi. Relatively unknown in the West until the 20th (...) century, he has been revered by Sufi mystics ever since he first burst upon the Islamic world at the turn of the 13th century. He wrote over 350 books and treatises that are recognized as classics of world spirituality.The Unlimited Mercifier is a new appreciation of Ibn 'Arabi, clarifying the meanings and relevance of his life and thought. It serves as a thorough introduction for those new to his work, as well as providing food for contemplation and further study for those already familiar with his genius.Divided into five sections, the book consists of seventeen alternating chapters of biography and thought. The biographical chapters chart the historical trajectory of his life, using his own descriptions as well as the latest research, and are richly illustrated with photographs and maps. Every second chapter discusses a facet of his thought, demonstrating Ibn 'Arabi's immediate relevance to our modern era. (shrink)

Umberto Eco’s notion of an “open work” embraces a Peircean pragmatism in order to avoid the extremes of both a bounded authorial intent and an unbounded post-structuralism, but this brand of pragmatism does not succeed in providing objective constraints on interpretation due to an unnecessary commitment to a Saussurrean net of meaning signification. Eco’s arguments for this commitment fail upon simple phenomenological reflection, and the whole commitment proves to be unnecessary for Eco’s fruitful insights of the open work. Successful interpretation (...) of an open work requires both intersubjectivity and actual presence. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, Ginsburg and Jablonka have developed a novel approach to studying the evolutionary origins of consciousness: the Unlimited Associative Learning framework. The central idea is that there is a distinctive type of learning that can serve as a transition marker for the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to conscious life. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion of the framework by providing a primer on its key claims and a clear statement of its main (...) empirical predictions. (shrink)

The big question at the end of Feferman is: Is it possible to find a foundation for unlimited category theory? I show that the answer is no by showing that unlimited category theory is inconsistent.

The target paper (building on Ginsburg and Jablonka in JTB 381:55–60, 2015, The evolution of the sensitive soul: Learning and the origins of consciousness, MIT Press, USA, 2019) makes a significant and novel claim: that positive cases of non-human consciousness can be identified via the capacity of unlimited associative learning (UAL). In turn, this claim is generated by a novel methodology, which is that of identifying an evolutionary ‘transition marker’, which is claimed to have theoretical and empirical advantages over (...) other approaches. In this commentary I argue that UAL does not function as a successful transition marker (as defined by the authors), and has internal problems of its own. However, I conclude that it is still a very productive anchor for new research on the evolution of consciousness. (shrink)

"What is the role of unlimited punishment in a (so-called) limit culture? What is the point of narratives that tell of endless, futile labors and sufferings? Trying to find their role in a dimension that involves much more than an obvious “moralizing” contribution, in the manner of a satire, the unlimited punishment will be researched, by reference to bios and thanatos, at the intersection of public cult, blood sacrifices and mysteries from ancient Greece, looking for its source in (...) civic religion as a punishment for wandering. Keywords: bios, thanatos, thambos, hybris, Sisyphus, Prometheus ". (shrink)

From a feminist perspective, unlimited procreative liberty risks treating children as property, distorts understanding of the family, and neglects moral concerns about how we reproduce.

Unlimited paid time off policies are currently fashionable and widely discussed by HR professionals around the globe. While on the one hand, paid time off is considered a key benefit by employees and unlimited paid time off policies are seen as a major perk which may help in recruiting and retaining talented employees, on the other hand, early adopters reported that employees took less time off than previously, presumably leading to higher burnout rates. In this conceptual review, we (...) discuss the theoretical and empirical evidence regarding the potential effects of UPTO on leave utilization, well-being and performance outcomes. We start out by defining UPTO and placing it in a historical and international perspective. Next, we discuss the key role of leave utilization in translating UPTO into concrete actions. The core of our article constitutes the description of the effects of UPTO and the two pathways through which these effects are assumed to unfold: autonomy need satisfaction and detrimental social processes. We moreover discuss the boundary conditions which facilitate or inhibit the successful utilization of UPTO on individual, team, and organizational level. In reviewing the literature from different fields and integrating existing theories, we arrive at a conceptual model and five propositions, which can guide future research on UPTO. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and societal implications of UPTO. (shrink)

Birch, Ginsburg, and Jablonka lay out a very convincing case for an important transition marker: unlimited associative learning. Especially welcome are the empirical predictions. I focus here not on the question of how to infer phenomenal consciousness from this behavioral metric, but on possible novel applications of this useful and fundamental framework. Specifically, I highlight two aspects of biology that are often not considered in philosophy of mind approaches that focus on natural species and evolutionary time scales. These are (...) the ability of minds and bodies to change drastically on the time scale of an individual experiencing subject, and bioengineering of novel living forms with no evolutionary history at the organism level. Both of these aspects provide interesting new contexts within which to explore UAL and its implications. (shrink)

One of the basic intuitions guiding Sartre's phenomenological works is that phenomena cannot be reduced to essences that are separate from appearances. Such a separation leads to a type of semiotic profusion that Sartre criticizes in L'Etre et le néant by evoking the example of Proust. Sartre's ontology must avoid this infinite proliferation of meaning without falling into a type of essentialism where things are merely what they appear to be. Sartre's references to Proust demonstrate not only the pitfalls of (...) essentialism and unlimited semiosis, but also why Sartre found it necessary to invent existential psychoanalysis as a response to the twin phenomenological challenge of situating intentional meaning neither on the side of the object, nor of the subject, but somewhere in between. The unsatisfactory nature of Sartre's solution is palpable in the contradictions we discover in his observations on Proust. (shrink)

All too often in contemporary discourse, we hear about science overstepping its proper limits—about its brazenness, arrogance, and intellectual imperialism. The problem, critics say, is scientism: the privileging of science over all other ways of knowing. Science, they warn, cannot do or explain everything, no matter what some enthusiasts believe. In Science Unlimited?, noted philosophers of science Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci gather a diverse group of scientists, science communicators, and philosophers of science to explore the limits of science (...) and this alleged threat of scientism. In this wide-ranging collection, contributors ask whether the term scientism in fact (or in belief) captures an interesting and important intellectual stance, and whether it is something that should alarm us. Is scientism a well-developed position about the superiority of science over all other modes of human inquiry? Or is it more a form of excessive confidence, an uncritical attitude of glowing admiration? What, if any, are its dangers? Are fears that science will marginalize the humanities and eradicate the human subject—that it will explain away emotion, free will, consciousness, and the mystery of existence—justified? Does science need to be reined in before it drives out all other disciplines and ways of knowing? Both rigorous and balanced, Science Unlimited? interrogates our use of a term that is now all but ubiquitous in a wide variety of contexts and debates. Bringing together scientists and philosophers, both friends and foes of scientism, it is a conversation long overdue. (shrink)

Many voices today call for a profound rethinking of European identity. If we wish to answer their call, however, it is necessary to start with a reconsideration of the notion of boundaries, particularly as they are at work in the Mediterranean region. The knowledge and cultural values of the Mediterranean may be the driving force able to overcome the impasse from which Europe seems unable to free itself. This volume focuses on the opportunity to employ Mediterranean knowledge and cultural values (...) as a stimulus for the review of European policies, in the interest of creating a solid bridge between different cultural legacies and over the daunting challenges of our shared future. This means being able to stay simul outside and inside the borders, within and beyond the un-limit; looking for an image of Europe which finally stops thinking about the Mediterranean as its internal vulnus, as its lesion and contamination. (shrink)

For a conference at my college I was asked to think about how my teaching —not my research— would be affected by rapid, cheap, and simple access by computer to all the published literature of the human race. Forget what impediments stand in the way of this hypothetical future and imagine that your campus has the means for you and your students to locate, search, sort, copy, and store anything in digital form that has ever been in print. How would (...) you answer? (shrink)

According to the standard view, the function of the unlimited dunamis argument (Physics VIII.10, Metaphysics Λ.7 1073a5–11) is to introduce a new property of the first immovable mover, namely its lack of magnitude. The paper challenges this view and argues that the argument at issue serves to prove that the eternal motion of the first heavenly sphere is caused by an immovable mover rather than by a moved mover. Further, the paper shows that, at least in Phys. VIII, the (...) unlimited dunamis argument is the main argument for the immobility of the Prime Mover. (shrink)

An unrestricted conception of actors and their interdependence in action has now been deployed effectively in various fields of study, but the question remains how we can discriminate reasonably in our action sharing if there is more to consider than simply putting persons ahead of things. By what general practical realizations can a universal action sharer be guided? I identify four primary levels of action sharing—-coexistence, cooperation, collaboration, and communion—-showing a distinctive complex of factual and directive considerations in each. I (...) further show how three orientations in which we approach fellow actors—-need, desire, and delight—-sustain different, partly divergent and partly complementary understandings of action sharing. This analysis helps us to anticipate the character of the strongest appeal that can be made for consideration of a fellow actor. (shrink)

In Proclus’ metaphysics, the One produces Being through a mediated set of principles which are the direct causes of Being. While the henads feature prominently as these principles, Proclus posits a second set of principles, the Limit and Unlimited, to explain the aspects of unity and plurality found in all beings. Initially there seems to be a tension in these two sets of principles: Proclus does not immediately clarify how they interact with each other or their relationship to each (...) other. In Elements of Theology Prop. 159, he even seems to say that the Limit/Unlimited produce the henads—which contradicts the henads’ nature as pure ‘ones’. This article analyzes this issue by surveying three contemporary solutions that have been posed to address the tension, while also offering a new alternative: the Limit and Unlimited, as the first henads to emerge from the One, causally determine all subsequent henads according to their respective unique character, while both sets are ultimately derived from the One according to their subsistence —preserving the henads’ natures as simply ‘one’ like the One-itself. (shrink)

We offer an original argument for the existence of universal fictions—that is, fictions within which every possible proposition is true. Specifically, we detail a trio of such fictions, along with an easy-to-follow recipe for generating more. After exploring several consequences and dismissing some objections, we conclude that fiction, unlike reality, is unlimited when it comes to truth.

The notion of maximal greatness is arguably part of the very concept of God: something greater than God is not even possible. But how should we understand this notion? The aim of this paper is to provide a Śaivist answer to this question by analyzing the form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition. First, I extract a model of divine greatness, the Hierarchical Model, from Nagasawa’s work "Maximal God". According to the Hierarchical Model, God is that than which nothing (...) could be greater by virtue of being better suited than all other beings in relation to certain great-making properties (§1). I then offer an analysis of the form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition by discussing passages from the works of Somānanda, the founder of the Pratyabhijñā school, and of Utpaladeva, the most prominent of Somānanda’s disciples. I argue that the Pratyabhijñā theist cannot account for divine greatness in terms of the Hierarchical Model. My argument is that the Hierarchical Model requires a comparison between God and other beings that cannot be made with the Pratyabhijñā God (§2). Finally, I develop an original alternative model, the Unlimited Nature Model, that accounts for God’s maximal greatness in a way that suits Pratyabhijñā’s theism. According to the Unlimited Nature Model, the nature of all ordinary beings is metaphysically limited as a result of realizing only a small portion of the potential of what could be, and God is maximally great because only he has a completely unlimited nature (§3). (shrink)

The theories of belief change developed within the AGM-tradition are not logics in the proper sense, but rather informal axiomatic theories of belief change. Instead of characterizing the models of belief and belief change in a formalized object language, the AGM-approach uses a natural language — ordinary mathematical English — to characterize the mathematical structures that are under study. Recently, however, various authors such as Johan van Benthem and Maarten de Rijke have suggested representing doxastic change within a formal logical (...) language: a dynamic modal logic. Inspired by these suggestions Krister Segerberg has developed a very general logical framework for reasoning about doxastic change: dynamic doxastic logic (DDL). This framework may be seen as an extension of standard Hintikka-style doxastic logic with dynamic operators representing various kinds of transformations of the agent's doxastic state. Basic DDL describes an agent that has opinions about the external world and an ability to change these opinions in the light of new information. Such an agent is non-introspective in the sense that he lacks opinions about his own belief states. Here we are going to discuss various possibilities for developing a dynamic doxastic logic for introspective agents: full DDL or DDL unlimited. The project of constructing such a logic is faced with difficulties due to the fact that the agent’s own doxastic state now becomes a part of the reality that he is trying to explore: when an introspective agent learns more about the world, then the reality he holds beliefs about undergoes a change. But then his introspective (higher-order) beliefs have to be adjusted accordingly. In the paper we shall consider various ways of solving this problem. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on the importance of attention skills in the development of universal associative learning, and it explains why the centrality of attention in UAL presents a considerable difficulty for the UAL approach. Attentional abilities are not just developmentally related to UAL but are in fact explanatory of UAL. The main problem is that all the types of attention involved in UAL can be dissociated from consciousness. This means that while attention skills for UAL might be necessary for consciousness, (...) they are not sufficient because they can all occur unconsciously. Thus, the possibility that UAL capacities might not be sufficient for consciousness cannot be eliminated, thereby challenging the key claim of the UAL approach. (shrink)

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and on (...) the body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world. Foreward by Carolyn Korsmeyer. Authors include Noel Carroll, Gregory Velazco Y Trianosky, Monique Roelofs, Whitney Davis, Eleanor Heartney, Diana Tietjens Meyers, Phoebe M. Farris, Mary Devereaux, Jo Ellen Jacobs, Karina L. Cespedes-Cortes and Paul C. Taylor, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Stephen Davies, Jane Duran, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, Keith Lehrer, Allen Douglas, Cynthia Freeland, Eva Kit Wah Man, Mary Bittner Wiseman, and Peg Brand's essay, "ORLAN Revisited: Disembodied Virtual Hybrid Beauty.". (shrink)

The Philebus is a difficult dialogue, often criticized for treating obscure ontological questions while neglecting the dramatic aspect characteristic of the Platonic dialogue. In this paper, I argue that, while subtle, the dramatic dimension is essential in understanding the ontological inquiries pursued and the dialogue as a whole. I argue that the Philebus should be read as an agon, a dramatic contest, between Socrates, the advocate of nous, and Philebus, the silent advocate of hēdonē. I show that this contest about (...) the nature of the Good must be executed dramatically because, as Plato brings to light, hēdonē belongs to the Unlimited, and as such, always and necessarily resists reduction to logos, which, as dianoia, is necessarily connected with nous and Limit. (shrink)

The Philebus is a difficult dialogue, often criticized for treating obscure ontological questions while neglecting the dramatic aspect characteristic of the Platonic dialogue. In this paper, I argue that, while subtle, the dramatic dimension is essential in understanding the ontological inquiries pursued and the dialogue as a whole. I argue that the Philebus should be read as an agon, a dramatic contest, between Socrates, the advocate of nous, and Philebus, the silent advocate of hēdonē. I show that this contest about (...) the nature of the Good must be executed dramatically because, as Plato brings to light, hēdonē belongs to the Unlimited, and as such, always and necessarily resists reduction to logos, which, as dianoia, is necessarily connected with nous and Limit. (shrink)

Birch, Ginsburg, and Jablonka, in an article in this issue of Biology and Philosophy, provided a much-needed condensation of their well-reasoned theory of Unlimited Associative Learning. This theory compellingly identifies the conscious animals and the time when the evolutionary transition to consciousness was completed. The authors convincingly explained their use of UAL as a “transition marker,” identified two more features by which UAL can be recognized, showed how UAL’s learning features relate to consciousness, and how investigating consciousness is analogous (...) to investigating life. My constructive criticisms are that I wish they had taken a stand on which organisms and entities are not conscious, and I feel they made too many predictions by which to test the UAL theory. That is, some of the proposed tests are unnecessary because parts of UAL are already supported by enough evidence, and other proposed tests are so ambitious as to be nearly impossible to complete. Finally, UAL has a major, detailed, sub-hypothesis that says such learning led to stress and to the evolution of mechanisms to cope with this stress; but this idea is speculative and requires the most basic testing to judge whether it could be valid. (shrink)

A common strategy in comparative cognition is to require that one reject associative learning as an explanation for behavior before concluding that an organism is capable of causal reasoning. In this paper, I argue that standard causal-reasoning tasks can be explained by a powerful form of associative learning: unlimited associative learning (UAL). The lesson, however, is not that researchers should conduct more studies to reject UAL, but that they should instead focus on 1) enriching the cognitive hypothesis space and (...) 2) testing a broader range of information processing patterns—errors, biases and limits, rather than successful problem solving alone. (shrink)

The article draws paralles between Bakhtin's literary theory and some of the Peirce's philosophical concepts. The comparisons with Bakhtin go beyond the theory of heteroglossia and reveal that related notions were implicitly originated by Dostoevsky. The elaboration of the concepts of dialogue, "self" and "other" continue into the ideas of consciousness, iconic effects in literature, and the semiotic aspect of thought. Especially important in this chapter is the aspect of Peirce's theory concerned with the endless growth of interpretation and sign (...) building, or unlimited semiosis. Peirce's discussion of unlimited semiosis is not among the less elaborated ones. Quite on the contrary, it is one of the most important of his ideas of sign. As a semiotic notion it is widely exploited in many related areas. However, it is not often used as an analytical tool to examine literature or to other works of art. Here, we will employ this notion in conjunction with Bakhtin's doctrine of heteroglossia. (shrink)

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and on (...) the body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world. (shrink)

Theories of consciousness divide over whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse in specific representational content and whether it requires cognitive access. These two issues are often treated in tandem because of a shared assumption that the representational capacity of cognitive access is fairly limited. Recent research on working memory challenges this shared assumption. This paper argues that abandoning the assumption undermines post-cue-based “overflow” arguments, according to which perceptual conscious is rich and does not require cognitive access. Abandoning it also (...) dissociates the rich/sparse debate from the access question. The paper then explores attempts to reformulate overflow theses in ways that don’t require the assumption of limited capacity. Finally, it discusses the problem of relating seemingly non-probabilistic perceptual consciousness to the probabilistic representations posited by the models that challenge conceptions of cognitive access as capacity-limited. (shrink)

The completeness of the axiomatization of contingency logic over symmetric frames has been thought of as a nontrivial job, the unimodal case of which cannot be generalized to the finitely multimodal case, which in turn cannot be generalized to the infinitely multimodal case. This paper deals with the completeness of symmetric contingency logic with unlimitedly many modalities, no matter whether the set of modalities is finite or infinite.

As far as ‘modern’ logical theories of vagueness are concerned, a main distinction can be drawn between ‘semantical’ ones and ‘pragmatical’ ones. The latter are defended here, because they tend to retake into account important contextual dimensions of the problem abandoned by the former. Their inchoate condition seems not alarming, since they are of surprisingly recent date. This, however, could very well be an accidental explanation. That is, the true reason for it might sooner or later turn out to be (...) bearing exactly on the fundamental human limitations, when it comes to theorizing, that these approaches are urging us to appreciate. (shrink)

Neuroplasticity is a core feature of the brain throughout the entire life of the individual. And when injury to the adult brain destroys part of the circuitry mediating behaviour and/or conscious experience, neuroplasticity is required to bring about the highest possible degree of post-traumatic functional recovery. But is the brain able to recreate the lost circuitry? Scrutiny of the impressive plasticity seen during development and in the adult brain reveals many similarities -- but also some crucial differences. And studies of (...) the mechanisms of functional recovery demonstrate that even an apparently 'full recovery' of the surface phenomena of behaviour and/or conscious representations is accomplished without a recreation of the lost circuitry. Instead, the post-traumatic process utilizes mechanisms, which have evolved to mediate problem solving in the intact brain. The newly developed REF model suggests how such dynamic reorganizations occur in the intact and injured brain. (shrink)

Following a discussion of various forms of set-theoretical foundations of category theory and the controversial question of whether category theory does or can provide an autonomous foundation of mathematics, this article concentrates on the question whether there is a foundation for “unlimited” or “naive” category theory. The author proposed four criteria for such some years ago. The article describes how much had previously been accomplished on one approach to meeting those criteria, then takes care of one important obstacle that (...) had been met in that approach, and finally explains what remains to be done if one is to have a fully satisfactory solution. (shrink)

In this paper I target the relationship between two prints that are roughly qualitatively identical and share a causal history. Is one an artwork if and only if the other is an artwork? To answer this, I propose two competing principles. The first claims that certain intentional relations must be shared by the prints (e.g., editioned prints vs. non-editioned prints). The second, which I endorse, appeals only to minimal print ontology, claiming that the two prints need only be what I (...) call 'relevantly similar' to one other. There are no trumping features over and above relevant similarity. For any pairwise comparison of relevantly similar prints, one print being an artwork is both necessary and sufficient for the other print being an artwork. (shrink)

The discussion on subjectivity isbased on the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan'sunderstanding of subjectivity as constructed inand through language, and the philosopherCharles Sanders Peirce's general ideas ofsignifying construction as an unlimitedsign-exchanging process – the idea of theunlimited semiosis. The article advocatescombining Lacanian subjectivity and Peirceansemiosis in a model of the formal structure ofthe semiosis of Lacanian subjectivity. In thelight of this model the article claims thatLacanian subjectivity opens to a process ofsubjectivization within the semiosis ofsubjectivity, whereby that which is other ismade our (...) own. Two researchers' differentarguments on subjectivity, both of which referto Lacan's ideas on subjectivity, are used asdiscussion partners in the exploration of thesemiosis of Lacanian subjectivity. While theone researcher claims that subjectivity is anideological construction, the other maintainsthat subjectivity is a free play of signs. Thearticle claims that neither of these tworesearchers considers that there may be aprocess of subjectivization in the semiosis ofsubjectivity. Thus the one researcher can claimthat subjectivity `is constituted outside ofitself', and the other can maintain that `thesubject is doomed to perpetual exile fromitself' in the construction of her or hissubjectivity. (shrink)