This chapter contains sections titled: Zack's Sensitivity Zack's Race Zack's Desire Zack's Violence Music Conclusion Notes.

Today, knowledge is considered the most strategically important resource and learning the most strategically important capability for business organizations. However, many initiatives being undertaken to develop and exploit organizational knowledge are not explicitly linked to or framed by the organization’s business strategy. In fact, most knowledge management initiatives are viewed primarily as information systems projects. While many managers intuitively believe that strategic advantage can come from knowing more than competitors, they are unable to explicitly articulate the link between knowledge and (...) strategy. This article, using examples from several companies, provides a framework for making that link and for assessing an organization’s competitive position regarding its intellectual resources and capabilities. It recommends that organizations perform a knowledge-based SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, comparing their knowledge to that of their competitors and to the knowledge required to execute their own strategy. It provides a framework for describing the degree of aggressiveness of a knowledge strategy for closing strategic knowledge gaps, and concludes with several implications for competing on knowledge. (shrink)

There is a growing feeling that analytic philosophy is in crisis. At the same time there is a widespread and prima facie attractive conception of analytic philosophy which implies that it equates to good philosophy. In recognition of these conflicting tendencies, my paper raises the question of whether anything could be wrong with analytic philosophy. In section 1 I indicate why analytic philosophy cannot be defined by reference to geography, topics, doctrines or even methods. This leaves open the (...) possibility that analytic philosophy is a style of philosophizing (section 2). According to what I call a rationalist conception, the distinguishing feature of analytic philosophy is that it is guided by the ideal of rational argument. This conception implies that ‘analytic philosophy’ is an honorific title. In section 3 I point out that the rationalist definition yields a different extension for ‘analytic philosophy’ than commonly recognized. Section 4 defends the appeal to ordinary use in debates about the nature of analytic philosophy. Section 5 grants that there is an honorific use of the label, while also pointing out that the rationalist-cum-honorific conception is at odds with a more wide-spread and entrenched taxonomic practice. Section 6 alleges that the rationalist conception boils down to a ‘persuasive definition’ of analytic philosophy, and argues in favour of a more neutral philosophical taxonomy. Section 7 argues that analytic philosophy is an intellectual tradition held together both by lines of influence and by family-resemblances. The consequences for my topic are two-fold. First, there could obviously be something wrong with this intellectual tradition; secondly, the question whether there is something wrong needs to be raised separately with respect to individual phases or sections of that tradition. (shrink)

There is a growing feeling that analytic philosophy is in crisis. At the same time there is a widespread and prima facie attractive conception of analytic philosophy which implies that it equates to good philosophy. In recognition of these conflicting tendencies, my paper raises the question of whether anything could be wrong with analytic philosophy. In section 1 I indicate why analytic philosophy cannot be defined by reference to geography, topics, doctrines or even methods. This leaves open the (...) possibility that analytic philosophy is a style of philosophizing. According to what I call a rationalist conception, the distinguishing feature of analytic philosophy is that it is guided by the ideal of rational argument. This conception implies that ' analytic philosophy' is an honorific title. In section 3 I point out that the rationalist definition yields a different extension for ' analytic philosophy' than commonly recognized. Section 4 defends the appeal to ordinary use in debates about the nature of analytic philosophy. Section 5 grants that there is an honorific use of the label, while also pointing out that the rationalist-cum-honorific conception is at odds with a more wide-spread and entrenched taxonomic practice. Section 6 alleges that the rationalist conception boils down to a 'persuasive definition' of analytic philosophy, and argues in favour of a more neutral philosophical taxonomy. Section 7 argues that analytic philosophy is an intellectual tradition held together both by lines of influence and by family-resemblances. The consequences for my topic are two-fold. First, there could obviously be something wrong with this intellectual tradition; secondly, the question whether there is something wrong needs to be raised separately with respect to individual phases or sections of that tradition. (shrink)

Harvey Brown’s Physical Relativity defends a view, the dynamical perspective, on the nature of spacetime that goes beyond the familiar dichotomy of substantivalist/relationist views. A full defense of this view requires attention to the way that our use of spacetime concepts connect with the physical world. Reflection on such matters, I argue, reveals that the dynamical perspective affords the only possible view about the ontological status of spacetime, in that putative rivals fail to express anything, either true or false. (...) I conclude with remarks aimed at clarifying what is and isn’t in dispute with regards to the explanatory priority of spacetime and dynamics, at countering an objection raised by John Norton to views of this sort, and at clarifying the relation between background and effective spacetime structure. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The most debated issue in aesthetics today Written by an international team of leading experts Addresses growing methodological concerns in the field Includes an extensive introduction which illuminates key issues Through much of the twentieth century, philosophical thinking about works of art, design, and other aesthetic products has emphasized intuitive and reflective methods, often tied to the idea that philosophy's business is primarily to analyze concepts. This 'philosophy from the armchair' approach contrasts with methods used by psychologists, sociologists, (...) evolutionary thinkers, and others who study the making and reception of the arts empirically. How far should philosophers be sensitive to the results of these studies? Is their own largely a priori method basically flawed? Are their views on aesthetic value, interpretation, imagination, and the emotions of art to be rethought in the light of best science? The essays in this volume seek answers to these questions, many through detailed studies of problems traditionally regarded as philosophical but where empirical inquiry seems to be shedding interesting light. No common view is looked for or found in this volume: a number of authors argue that the current enthusiasm for scientific approaches to aesthetics is based on a misunderstanding of the philosophical enterprise and sometimes on misinterpretation of the science; others suggest various ways that philosophy can and should accommodate and sometimes yield to the empirical approach. The editors provide a substantial introduction which sets the scene historically and conceptually before summarizing the claims and arguments of the essays. (shrink)

Giacomo Leopardi, a major Italian poet of the nineteenth century, was also an expert in evil to whom Schopenhauer referred as a “spiritual brother.” Leopardi wrote: “Everything is evil. That is to say, everything that is, is evil; that each thing exists is an evil; each thing exists only for an evil end; existence is an evil.” These and other thoughts are collected in the Zibaldone, a massive collage of heterogeneous writings published posthumously. Leopardi’s pessimism assumes a polished (...) form in his literary writings, such as Dialogue between Nature and an Islander (1824)—an invective against nature and the suffering of creatures within it. In his last lyric, Broom, or the flower of the desert (1836), Leopardi points to the redeeming power of poetry and to human solidarity as placing at least temporary limits on the scope of evil. (shrink)

There has been a push in recent years to provide better explanations for how AIs make their decisions. Most of this push has come from the ethical concerns that go hand in hand with AIs making decisions that affect humans. Outside of the strictly ethical concerns that have prompted the study of explainable AIs (XAIs), there has been research interest in the mere possibility of creating XAIs in various domains. In general, the more accurate we make our models the harder (...) they are to explain. Go playing AIs like AlphaGo and KataGo provide fantastic examples of this phenomenon. In this paper, I discuss a non-exhaustive list of the leading theories of explanation and what each of these theories would say about the explainability of AI-played moves of Go. Finally, I consider the possibility of ever explaining AI-played Go moves in a way that meets the four principles of XAI. I conclude, somewhat pessimistically, that Go is not as imminently explainable as other domains. As such, the probability of having an XAI for Go that meets the four principles is low. (shrink)

What does it mean for a proposition to be "true in a fiction"? According to the account offered by Kendall Walton in Mimesis as Make-Believe (1990), what is fictionally true, or simply fictional, is what a work of fiction invites or prescribes that we imagine. To say that it is fictional that Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, for example, is to say that we are supposed to imagine that event. Yet Walton gives no account of the (...) kind of imagining relevant to understanding fictionality. In this paper I argue that the relevant kind of imagining is imagining a storyworld. I propose an account of this sort of imagining, as well as the nature of the invitations or prescriptions to imagine generated by fiction. I show that this account can be defended against various criticisms of Walton's original view, including his own argument in 2015 that prescriptions to imagine provide only necessary conditions for fictionality. (shrink)

Political philosophers have traditionally focused on justice and regarded equality as an ideal despite its lack of factual support; normative universal human equality is a new, twentieth-century regulative moral construct. The theoretical focus on justice overlooks what most people care about in reality—injustice. In modern democratic society, formal or legal equality now co-exists with real inequality. One reason is that justice is not applied to all groups in society and applicative justice––applying justice to those who don’t now receive it––is a (...) remedy. But injustice theory also includes other forms of injustice such as legal, humanitarian, and injustice without blame or responsibility. (shrink)

Naomi Zack pioneers a new theory of justice starting from a correction of current injustices. While the present justice paradigm in political philosophy and related fields begins from John Rawls’s 1970 Theory of Justice, Zack insists that what people in reality care about is not justice as an ideal, but injustice as a correctable ill.

In Western society bicycling is commonly perceived as either a sport, a form of leisure, an activity for children, or at best, a utilitarian transportation technology. In this paper, I contest these assumptions by discussing ways in which both bicycling and bicycle technologies are politicized as a response to the cultural, social and political norms of Western society. Through historical examples that include 19th century Socialists, 'first wave' feminists, and 1960's Dutch Anarchists, I provide a theoretical context in which one (...) can understand how present day activists appropriate the bicycle through a dialectic of action and communication. In short, I demonstrate how a seemingly neutral technology (the bicycle) and an everyday activity (bicycling can be utilized as tools for dissent, protest, and cultural critique. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hard on Everything but the BodyJillian GuizzottiIn the fall of 2011, my first year of college, I took a course on Asian religions at Alfred University. I became interested in different kinds of religions, especially Buddhism. I was lucky that the professor who taught Asian religions also offered an introductory class on Buddhism the following semester. It was an upper-level course, generally not open to first-year students, but (...) the instructor let me enroll. The class met twice a week for two hours. At first it did not seem different in any way from my other classes, but during the second half of the semester, we spent fifteen to twenty minutes at the beginning of every class in meditation.Before I came to college, I believed I had decent reasoning and interpretive skills; intellectually I knew I could go toe-to-toe with alien concepts and master them. But I had heard from my sister and my two eldest cousins that college was a different world from high school; I should expect my perceptions to change. Every time I was told something like this I shrugged it off. The suggestion that a class could affect my core beliefs seemed far-fetched. I did not think college would change me that much, but the Buddhism course and the meditation practice affected me in ways I did not expect: academically, spiritually, and emotionally. The process was gradual. By the end of the spring semester, there were big dents in my usual ways of thinking about the world and about myself.Buddhism is a complex religion and some of its core ideas, such as the nature of human suffering, are not so easy to explain. Unlike other classes where I learn in traditional academic ways, meditation gave me an opportunity to understand Buddhism in new ways, more challenging and personal ways. After it was incorporated into the class, everything developed more color: things I thought I knew no longer seemed so black and white. I stopped feeling that tests and homework were the most important things about my classes; what matters is what I learn. And what I learn depends on me.Unlike a straightforward academic class, in which I usually regurgitate what I read in books and hear in lectures, meditation caused me to focus on myself. I have not had a class before or since that has seeped into my life outside the classroom so much. (How often can people say that a class they took comes back to haunt them, in a good way?) None of my other classes has made me think so hard, either. I felt as though I was problem solving on a whole new level. [End Page 115]Because I was a first-year student and most of the other students were juniors and seniors, in the beginning I felt as though I was barely holding on to everyone else’s coattails; they seemed to be grasping the material so much better. Reviewing the text only helped a little. I needed something to “click” so I could understand Buddhism better. I did not see how meditation could help anyone, however. I just saw it as a time to sit still and collect swarming thoughts. I did not get how it was supposed to advance anyone along their “path.” I doubted it would help me learn anything about Buddhism, let alone help me pass the course. Although I was wary, I was willing to try. After I did experience it for myself, the lessons became more comprehensible, because I could relate them to my own life and experiences. This made the class feel less stressful as well.After about a week of doing meditation, a few friends asked me how it felt. I told them it felt very foreign to go to class and sit in front of a white wall for fifteen to twenty minutes and count my breaths. It was very different from immediately taking out paper and pen and starting to take notes. Sitting for those minutes was sometimes rather fun, relaxing. It made me want to go to class more because I had something to look forward to. I told... (shrink)

Communicative acts of some women are perpetuating the dominance that DTM have over both women and OTM. Some women use language in a disdainful manner to reprimand oppressed men’s behavior in daily life situations, the same behavior that such women would not reproach to DTM. But NAM are reacting to this. This article analyzes the communicative acts employed in all these situations, both those produced by women and DTM, as well as NAM’s communicative acts in response to those offenses. Data (...) was collected using communicative daily life stories of give women and three men with diverse profiles and different levels of participation in women’s and men’s movements. Findings highlight, from the transformative dimension of the communicative methodology, that the use of language of desire in NAM’s reactions is effective not only to make justice with men who have never executed violence on women, but also to undermine the attractiveness of both DTM’s behavior and the comments of some women on such behavior. These findings complement previous research on preventive socialization of gender violence by broadening scientific knowledge on NAM’s communicative acts that prevent and eradicate gender-based violence. Further research ought to broaden the evidence of how some women who defend feminist values sometimes do not support and even tease or reprimand men who practice these values; moreover, an important line could analyze the way people talk about men with NAM attitudes to hold back reprimands in comparison to how people talk about men who follow a DTM model. (shrink)

Adi Da argues that no solutions currently proposed are sufficient to righten the present unsustainable trajectory of life on Earth, because there is no integrated approach to the ordering of society and use of the planet. The presumption of separateness—manifesting collectively as separate “tribes” vying for control—characterizes human affairs, rather than the prior (“a priori”) unity of existence. The struggle for dominance is the “stave in the wheels” of the Earth-system's inherent capacity to self-correct. A new institution, “the Global Cooperative (...) Forum,” is proposed—invoked by “everybody-all-at-once” (a global populace awakened as a single force, capable of cooperatively effecting global change). (shrink)

This paper discusses the empirical, Application Programming Interface -based analysis of very large Facebook Pages. Looking in detail at the technical characteristics, conventions, and peculiarities of Facebook’s architecture and data interface, we argue that such technical fieldwork is essential to data-driven research, both as a crucial form of data critique and as a way to identify analytical opportunities. Using the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook Page, which hosted the activities of nearly 1.9 million users during the Egyptian Revolution (...) and beyond, as empirical example, we show how Facebook’s API raises important questions about data detail, completeness, consistency over time, and architectural complexity. We then outline an exploratory approach and a number of analytical techniques that take the API and its idiosyncrasies as a starting point for the concrete investigation of a large dataset. Our goal is to close the gap between Big Data research and research about Big Data by showing that the critical investigation of technicity is essential for empirical research and that attention to the particularities of empirical work can provide a deeper understanding of the various issues Big Data research is entangled with. (shrink)

Our outline points out three aspects of a new post-modern methodology in psychology: liberal, pluralistic, and more tolerant: liberal because it rejects rules that are too strict in favor of more freedom in the choice of method, pluralistic because it conveys an “almost anything goes” attitude toward methods, and more tolerant because mutual tolerance among researchers is vital for a pluralism of methods. Psychological phenomena are complex and can best be understood by using different methods. However, to get things (...) working, tolerance must actively be lived. Of course, much depends on our own willingness as researchers but also on the system’s arrangements. Psychology could be more colorful, and we could all have more fun if we were to be more committed to such a methodology. (shrink)

The boundaries of social acceptance and models of convergence of human and non-human actors of digital reality are defined. The constructive creative possibilities of convergent processes in distributed neural networks are analyzed from the point of view of possible scenarios for building “friendly” human-dimensional symbioses of natural and artificial intelligence. A comprehensive analysis of new management challenges related to the development of cyber-physical and cybersocial systems is carried out. A model of social organizations and organizational behavior in the conditions of (...) cyberphysical reality is developed. The possibilities of reconciling human moral principles and “machine ethics” in the processes of modeling and managing digital reality are studied. The significance of various concepts of digital, machine and cyber-anymism for the socio-cultural understanding of the development of modern cyber-physical technologies, the anthropological dimension of a smart city is revealed. The article introduces the concept of hybrid society and shows the development of its models as self-organizing collective systems that consist of co-evolving biohybrid and socio-technical spheres. The importance of modern anthropogenic research for sustainable development is analyzed. The process of marking ontological boundaries between heterogeneous modalities in the digital world is investigated. Examples of acute social contexts that are able to set the vector of practical philosophy in the modern digital era are considered. (shrink)

The improvement of modern computer technology to achieve fundamentally new indicators can be carried out on the basis of various approaches. One of such approaches is the application of methods of physical informatics. Therefore, this paper considers the support of ensuring “digital immortality” based on physical computer science methods. On the basis of Wiener random processes, measures are proposed to ensure the security of computer nodes to ensure “digital immortality”. The calculated ratios from physical informatics adapted to determine the requirements (...) for the design of information systems to ensure the digitalization of the brain are given. (shrink)

인간의 도덕적 향상을 허용해야 하는지의 문제는 신경과학 시대에서 우리가 직면한 대표적인 윤리적 쟁점 가운데 하나이다. 도덕적 향상에 관한 대립적 입장은 생명보수주의와 초인본주의의 양 극단으로 분류된다. 생명보수주의는 인간의 도덕적 향상이 결국엔 인간다음과 인간 본성을 파괴할 위험성이 크다고 경고한다. 이와는 달리 초인본주의는 인류의 도덕적 향상은 더 나은 삶의 영위를 위해 필수불가결한 것이라고 주장한다. 생명보수주의는 인간 본성의 내재적 가치를 주장하지만, 초인본주의는 인간 본성은 문제가 많으므로 개선을 필요로 한다고 본다. 이에 이 논문에서는 초인본주의의 기본 개념과 철학, 초인본주의에서의 도덕적 향상 논리 및 생명정치학적 입장에 대하여 (...) 살펴본 후에, 초인본주의의 도전에 대응하기 위한 방안을 제안하고자 하였다. 이를 위해 이 논문에서는 초인본주의에서의 도덕적 향상 논리가 지닌 문제점을 지적함과 동시에 인간의 도덕성은 기술적 개입이 아닌 도덕교육을 통해 함양될 필요가 있음을 역설하였다. (shrink)

As a result of decomposition of a system consisting of two elements as a typical management pair “subject - object” or “manager – subordinate”, and interpretation of each of its components as an element that is characterized by a certain coefficient of transformation, it has been proposed to discover such systems as “subject - object”, “object - subject”, and “object - object” with the purpose of identifying one of the above mentioned modes that will be the most efficient in achieving (...) the planned results of common functioning. An analysis of contemporary publications helped to find examples off practical use of all of the variations of interaction between a manager and a subordinate that were planned for comparative research. The research of the process of interaction between a manager and a subordinate with the use of analytical description of a classic cybernetic system of two elements that are bound by feedback, discovered that the most effective pair is the “subject - subject” pair as the only mode of cooperation of the two elements on the basis of synarchy and sintelecsy receiving of synergetic result. (shrink)

Статья посвящена обсуждению корректности тезисов о гомогенности социокультурных оснований науки раннего Нового времени и механицизме как ее базовой мировоззренческой парадигме. Обсуждение строится на материале исследовательских программ Ф. Бэкона и Р. Декарта. Для этого в статье анализируется использование слова machina и его дериватов в текстах данных авторов. Сделанные наблюдения связываются с общими установками исследовательских программ Бэкона и Декарта, а также с культурным контекстом эпох Возрождения и Реформации, обращающим к античным и средневековым идеям. Показано, что в основании различий между программами Бэкона и (...) Декарта лежит различие между моделями мира, базовыми для античности (замкнутый на себя, самодостаточный космос) и Средневековья (творение Бога). (shrink)

Развитие биологических исследований Нового времени находилось в тесной связи с общим прогрессом научного познания. Разработка механики жидких и твердых тел, широкое применение в физике экспериментальных и индуктивных методов послужили основой гносеологическому оптимизму: задача усматривалась в открытии посредством разума единых для всей природы законов и тем самым окончательном объяснении всего сущего. На изучении методов науки сконцентрировалось внимание крупнейших философов эпохи. Интеллектуальное завоевание физического мира осуществлялось весьма успешно, казалось, что цель близка. Предстояло распространить механические представления на область органической природы и социальной жизни.В (...) XVII–XVIII вв. шло интенсивное формирование «биологической реальности», включающей совокупность теоретических представлений, разработку специфических методов исследования, научного языка и накопление фактуального материала. В этот период произошло становление ряда биологических дисциплин: систематики и сравнительной анатомии, эмбриологии и физиологии растений и животных, антропологии и др. Серия важнейших открытий продемонстрировала возможности применения экспериментального метода в биологии. Однако сфера его использования оставалась ограниченной. В качестве основного приема изучения фигурировало сравнительное описание. Совершенствование классификации живых организмов способствовало пониманию единства органического мира. В этот период развития науки сформировались направления, отличные от механицизма по своим онтологическим и гносеологическим установкам. Их сторонники считали, что представление об организмах как машинах приводит к утрате специфики объекта биологических исследований. Дискуссии в биологии XVII–XVIII вв. обозначили проблему оснований науки о живой природе. (shrink)

18 ноября 2003 г. в Институте философии РАН состоялось двенадцатое заседание семинара «Проблемы рациональной философии» (руководители А.И. Дубровский, И.Т. Касавин). С докладом на тему «Релятивизм как эпистемологическая проблема» выступила Л.А. Микешина, содоклад представил М.А. Розов. Кроме этого, выступали В.С. Степин, И.Т. Касавин, Е.А. Мамчур, Л.А. Маркова, В.М. Межуев, А.Л. Никифоров и др. Некоторые из представленных материалов мы и публикуем сегодня.

We construct a machine that knows its own code, at the price of not knowing its own factivity.

Se busca rastrear la imagen que Platón tiene de Heráclito y articularla con la estructura argumentativa del Cratilo, para comprender las necesidades textuales a las que responde la doctrina del flujo perpetuo, es decir, la discusión sobre la corrección (ὀρθότης) del nombre. Gracias a la inclusión del testimonio heraclíteo, resulta posible rastrear la presunta consolidación de la tesis sobre los nombres primarios y los secundarios como el eje de la separación entre dos planos de realidad (uno estable y uno móvil) (...) y de la teoría de las Ideas -es decir, como la base de la epistemología platónica presente en los diálogos de madurez-. The article seeks to trace the image Plato has of Heraclitus and connect it with the argumentative structure of the Cratylus in order to understand the textual needs that give rise to the doctrine of perpetual flux, that is, the discussion regarding the correctness (ὀρθότης) of names. The inclusion of Heraclitus's testimony makes it possible to trace the alleged consolidation of the thesis regarding primary and secondary names as the axis of separation between two levels of reality (one stable, the other, changing) and the theory of Ideas -that is, as the basis of Plato's epistemology as set forth in the late dialogues-. (shrink)