Philosophers have long been tempted by the idea that objects and properties are abstractions from the facts. But how is this abstraction supposed to go? If the objects and properties aren't 'already' there, how do the facts give rise to them? Jason Turner develops and defends a novel answer to this question: The facts are arranged in a quasi-geometric 'logical space', and objects and properties arise from different quasi-geometric structures in this space.

This paper investigates the tenability of wavefunction realism, according to which the quantum mechanical wavefunction is not just a convenient predictive tool, but is a real entity figuring in physical explanations of our measurement results. An apparent difficulty with this position is that the wavefunction exists in a many-dimensional configuration space, whereas the world appears to us to be three-dimensional. I consider the arguments that have been given for and against the tenability of wavefunction realism, and note that both (...) the proponents and the opponents assume that quantum mechanical configuration space is many-dimensional in exactly the same sense in which classical space is three-dimensional. I argue that this assumption is mistaken, and that configuration space can be taken as three-dimensional in a relevant sense. I conclude that wavefunction realism is far less problematic than it has been taken to be. Introduction Non-separability The instantaneous solution The dynamical solution Invariance What is configuration space, anyway? Conclusion. (shrink)

This essay attempts a phenomenological analysis of Descartes' statement, ‘my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself,’ and Buber's claim that God ‘is also the mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.’ I radicalize the implications of Descartes' and Buber's claims by drawing on the thought of Husserl and Levinas, and couching the analysis in terms of Merleau-Ponty's experiential notions of haunting and reversibility. This forces us to interrogate the subjective space in which (...) we think God qua recognize the other, and shows us a kind of necessity that underlies the I-Thou relation. My conclusion leaves us in a place of powerless subjective inwardness and awe. (shrink)

The present study sets out to discuss a literary work as a reflection of topophrenia, a space of anguish, which contains the data of both the abandoned space and of the new home, which are hypostasized in positive or negative emotions that the exiled writer experiences. Focusing on the exile and the space in Norman Manea’s works, this article proves the existence of an original view about this experience. Manea’s last novel, The Exiled Shadow (2021) is also (...) included in our analyses. (shrink)

With the rise of the so-called military-entertainment complex, critical scholars note with alarm the integration of the political economies of entertainment companies and the military, in particular its potential influence on millions of young people who consume its concomitant films, toys and especially video games. Seen from a broad perspective, a potentially productive means of understanding the complexities of this sphere is through the lens of Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality—a concept that ties together the actions and preferred outcomes of (...) the modern surveillance state with the microlevel actions of individual behavior. In this analytical framework, social norms are inculcated through subtle forms of coercion, where the state establishes the field of action in which state subjects ultimately perform self-discipline. This article argues that the first person shooter genre inculcates what I refer to as the governmentality of battlefield space: a form of discipline in which players adhere to gamic norms of performance—efficiency, proficiency, and masculine performativity—which are delineated by ludic structures and largely understood on terms which originate within the social ecology of gaming. The genre accomplishes this though disciplinary techniques such as informational verisimilitude, statistics, and masculinized “gamer” discourse, particularly during multiplayer instances, in which players constitute social understandings of what is “good” and “bad” play. It is on these terms that virtual combat performance and player performance become conflated in a kind of masculinized performance, which both adheres to and undermines traditional, hegemonic norms of (Western) military masculinity. This phenomenon transcends local social realities, and highlights the ways in which particular aspects of gaming and combat appear to have increasingly overlapping phenomenological and ontological qualities, working to produce a form of self-performance that may be required of tomorrow’s soldiers. (shrink)

This article questions the nature of the philosophical commitment to the problem of 'the public' in modernity. To what extent does the natural form of the public determine the use and value of the instruments of pragmatism in the public-private divide. In this interpretation, John Dewey's ideas about 'the public' are presented in terms of how to solve a specific problem through what he sees as 'co-operative inquiry'. The article also examines the role of public space in the process (...) of democratization through the potential of co-operative inquiry. More often than not, it appears that the politics of public space may be both detrimental and/or beneficial to its end-users in China, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the rest of Asia. (shrink)

Born and raised in French Algeria, Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous represent in their literary works signs of conflict and enmity, drawing on discordant histories so as to reappraise the political on the very basis of dissensus. In a rare comparison of these authors' writings, _Algerian Imprints_ shows how Cixous and Djebar consistently reclaim for ethical and political purposes the demarcations and dislocations emphasized in their fictions. Their works affirm the chance for thinking afforded by marginalization and exclusion and delineate (...) political ways of preserving a space for difference informed by expropriation and nonbelonging. Cixous's inquiry is steeped in her formative encounter with the grudging integration of the Jews in French Algeria, while Djebar's narratives concern the colonial separation of "French" and "Arab," self and other. Yet both authors elaborate strategies to address inequality and injustice without resorting to tropes of victimization, challenging and transforming the understanding of the history and legacy of colonized space. (shrink)

Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. However, combining information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from the different senses gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space. This volume brings together the leading researchers from a broad range of scientific (...) approaches to present the first overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

“Branching space-times” (BST) is intended as a representation of objective, event-based indeterminism. As such, BST exhibits both a spatio-temporal aspect and an indeterministic “modal” aspect of alternative possible historical courses of events. An essential feature of BST is that it can also represent spatial or space-like relationships as part of its (more or less) relativistic theory of spatio-temporal relations; this ability is essential for the representation of local (in contrast with “global”) indeterminism. This essay indicates how BST might (...) be seen to grow out of Newton’s deterministic and non-relativistic theory by two independent moves: (1) Taking account of indeterminism, and (2) attending to spatio-temporal relationships in a spirit derived from Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Since (1) and (2) are independent, one can see that there is room for four theories: Newtonian determinism, branching time indeterminism, relativistic determinism, and (finally) branching space-times indeterminism. (shrink)

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly (...) heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

In a recent paper on Heidegger, Frederick Olafson attacks Hubert Dreyfus for prioritizing our “social” existence (under the notion of das Man) over the individual. In a reply, Taylor Carman, defending Dreyfus, criticizes Olafson for his “subjectivist” notion of Dasein. This paper pursues the implication of this disagreement in the context of Heidegger’s theory of space. Dreyfus’ discussion of Heideggerian spatiality nicely displays the tension between the “public” vs. “individual” domains of being, and consistent with his overall approach, Dreyfus (...) claims that public space should be prioritized. Dreyfus concludes, however, that Heidegger is confused and prioritizes individual space. This paper argues that the categories of “public” and “individual” are inappropriate for analyzing Heidegger’s sense of the shared and personal characters of space. Heidegger’s “indexical” theory of space in fact saves both of these domains without raising the question of priority and without presupposing a “subjectivist” Dasein. On this reading, Olafson’s “individualized” account of presence does not commit him to subjectivism. The confusion Dreyfus attributes to Heidegger is cleared up by an indexical account of spatiality in Heidegger’s text. (shrink)

Kichul Kim, né en 1969 à Séoul, a ceci de remarquable qu’il prétend — et réussit — à sculpter le son. En effet, il a une formation de sculpteur. Mais il se fascine très tôt pour le son, pour des raisons spirituelles. L’énigme du bodhisattva Gwan-eum qui, selon l’étymologie de son nom, « voit ou fait voir les sons », l’intrigue. Une intuition lui révèle — pense-t-il — de quoi il s’agit. Il va s’efforcer de le faire voir à son (...) tour. Le son fait voir, visualiser, évoquer, et on peut donc, en ce sens, voir le son. Ses installations sonores sont en général réalisées dans des formes minimales et simplifiées. Ces formes pures ne correspondent qu’au son qu’il veut diffuser. C’est le son qu’émettent des haut-parleurs, un son qu’il a enregistré et qui parle. En effet, le son, tout invisible et intangible qu’il est, par l’espace qu’il recrée et modèle, est tridimensionnel, et sculptable. Le spectateur ne peut certes pas voir ce travail sonore par ses yeux de chair, pas plus qu’il ne peut le toucher de sa main, mais son œil de l’imagination, son imagination visuelle, le construit, et en ce sens il le perçoit bien : à partir du son se crée une image, une image dont l’intensité frôle l’illusion. On a là un véritable environnement créé par le son. Inspiré par l’Extrême-Orient ancien, son art et sa pensée, Kichul Kim puise dans ses sites historiques, religieux souvent, et dans la nature, son inspiration et ses enregistrements. L’environnement particulier d’origine est rendu présent par son son, si puissamment que l’auditeur devient spectateur, recréant activement la scène originelle : spect-acteur. Plongé si profondément en lui-même, il est graduellement conduit aux portes d’une sorte de méditation, ici et ailleurs à la fois, comme hors du temps. Kichul Kim, born in 1969 in Seoul, is remarkable in that he claims—and succeeds—to carve the sound. He trained as a sculptor but was fascinated very early with the sound, for spiritual reasons. The enigma of the Bodhisattva Gwan-eum which, according to the etymology of its name, “sees or makes one see sounds”, intrigued him. He understood intuititvely what it means and tried to examplify it himself. The sound makes you see, visualize, evoke, and you can, in this sense, see the sound. His sound installations are generally performed in minimal and simplified forms. These pure forms correspond only to the sound he wants to produce. This is the sound emitted through loudspeakers, a sound that he recorded and that speaks. Indeed, the sound, as invisible and intangible as it is, thanks to the space it recreates and models, becomes three-dimensional, and “sculptable”. The spectator certainly cannot see this sonic work through his/her eyes of flesh, any more than he/she can touch it with his/her hand. But his/her eye of the imagination, the visual imagination, builds it, and in this sense he/she perceives it well: from the sound is created an image whose intensity borders on illusion. This is a real environment created by sound. Inspired by the ancient Far East, its art and thought, Kichul Kim draws from historical sites, often religious, and from nature, for his inspiration, and recordings. The particular environment of which the sounds originates is made present by the sound, so powerfully that the listener becomes a spectator, actively recreating the original scene: spect-actor. So deeply immersed in himself, he is gradually led to the gates of a kind of meditation, here and elsewhere at once, as if out of time. (shrink)

In The Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans argues that the content of perceptual experience is nonconceptual, in a sense I shall explain momentarily. More recently, in his book Mind and World, John McDowell has argued that the reasons Evans gives for this claim are not compelling and, moreover, that Evans’s view is a version of “the Myth of the Given”: More precisely, Evans’s view is alleged to suffer from the same sorts of problems that plague sense-datum theories of perception. In (...) particular, McDowell argues that perceptual experience must be within “the space of reasons,” that perception must be able to give us reasons for, that is, to justify, our beliefs about the world: And, according to him, no state that does not have conceptual content can be a reason for a belief. Now, there are many ways in which Evans’s basic idea, that perceptual content is nonconceptual, might be developed; some of these, I shall argue, would be vulnerable to the objections McDowell brings against him. But I shall also argue that there is a way of developing it that is not vulnerable to these objections. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the Levinasian opposition between the violence of the production of identity and self-presence and its undermining in a charitable disburdening of the self for the sake of the monotheistic ethical other, is unable to provide all the resources required for a politically motivated critique of the present. As a critique of Levinas' almost Manichean opposition between identity and difference, I argue, by appealing to the Arendtian model of public space, that Levinas underestimates our (...) capacity to build and open up societal spaces within which a non-violent polytheistic political difference can proliferate. The identity of the built and legislated can constitute a non-violent stage upon which discursive political differences are played out. (shrink)

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC, has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Several studies have observed an inverse relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -related behavior of children, as reported by parents or teachers, and the amount of green space in their residential environment. Research using other, more objective measures to determine ADHD prevalence is scarce and could strengthen the evidence base considerably. In this study, it is investigated whether a similar beneficial association will be observed if the use of ADHD-related medication is selected as an outcome measure. More specifically, registry (...) data from a health insurance company on the reimbursement of ADHD-related medication in 2011 were available for 248,270 children between 5 and 12 years of age. Amounts of green space within 250 and 500 m of the home address were calculated. Multilevel logistic regression analyses for the prevalence of use were conducted, including the following covariates: sex, age, urbanity of the neighborhood, neighborhood socioeconomic status, and percentage of people with a non-Western migration background in the neighborhood population. Results showed that the amount of green space was inversely related to the prevalence of use of ADHD medication. Moreover, the relationship was strongest among children living in the least wealthy neighborhoods and absent among those living in the wealthiest neighborhoods. Results also show that in less wealthy neighborhoods, there is, on average, less green space available nearby: children who are likely to benefit most from nearby green space tend to have the least of it. (shrink)

This paper looks at the Parsi community in 19th century India and its role as an agent in the formation of public cultural space in Bombay. The Parsis provide a unique example of an indigenous community under colonial rule, who through acceptance of the values of modernity and enterprise culture, manage to negotiate a position of prominence within one of the power centres of the then dominant British empire. The notion of the public sphere thus employed, provides an interesting (...) contrast with the Habermasian theory of the bourgeois public sphere. Furthermore, it provides a model that directly challenges the somewhat simplistic subject-object relations that are often implicit within post-colonial theory. Indeed, there is a particular kind of desire for modernity that is reflected in the active participation of Parsis in the construction of imperial public space in Bombay. This leads to a reconsideration of the fluidity of the notion of the 'political' within the discussion of post-colonialism. (shrink)

In this paper, we will deal with some aspects concerning the representations of urban space as they are made in some selected passages from the book XV of Isidore of Seville‟s Etymologiae. In this book, Isidore exposes the main words which he employs for describing the urban space. From a grammar-based scrutiny in which we can find four principles of definition – etymology, analogy, gloss, and difference –, Isidore presents the appropriate nuances of the uerba which describe and, (...) at the same time, signifies the res of urban space: ciuitas, urbs, etc. (shrink)

Kant’s cosmopolitanism can be read from two main perspectives: temporal and spatial. Reading cosmopolitanism from a temporal perspective means paying attention to the historical realization of the ideal of cosmopolitanism and to its related issues such as: the progress of humankind, its final destination, the purpose of universal history, the highest purpose of nature. Instead, reading cosmopolitanism from a spatial perspective means paying attention, e.g. to the ‘fact’ of the sphericity of the earth and to its relationship with cosmopolitan right, (...) territoriality, borders and freedom of movement. In this paper I would like to show how adopting a spatial perspective is useful not only in order to delimit a field of inquiry, but also to shed new light on apparently well-known and thoroughly investigated notions of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, such as the notions of the citizen of the world, of the cosmopolitan right, and of the World republic. (shrink)

In the 1950s and 60s, Martin Heidegger turned to sculpture to rethink the relationship between bodies and space and the role of art in our lives. In his texts on the subject—a catalog contribution for an Ernst Barlach exhibition, a speech at a gallery opening for Bernhard Heiliger, a lecture on bas-relief depictions of Athena, and a collaboration with Eduardo Chillida—he formulates his later aesthetic theory, a thinking of relationality. Against a traditional view of space as an empty (...) container for discrete bodies, these writings understand the body as already beyond itself in a world of relations and conceive of space as a material medium of relational contact. Sculpture shows us how we belong to the world, a world in the midst of a technological process of uprooting and homelessness. Heidegger suggests how we can still find room to dwell therein. Filled with illustrations of works that Heidegger encountered or considered, _Heidegger Among the Sculptors_ makes a singular contribution to the philosophy of sculpture. (shrink)

This article proposes a communicative, imitative, and reflective account of musical learning and expertise. It starts from an affirmative yet critical reading of Høffding and collaborators, notably their idea of a musical arch, meant to bridge distinctions between low-level procedural enactment and high-level reflective cognition. While we embrace much of their analysis, we argue that they uphold tensions between these levels. Drawing on recent enactivist thought, phenomenological and hermeneutic resources, and developmental psychology, we propose a ‘linguistic turn’ that allows us (...) to situate the enactive body in what has been called an ‘original communication-situation’. The original communication-situation encompasses procedural proto-linguistic behaviour and a reflexive level of linguistic co-intentionality procedurally coupled with other bodies. From this perspective, musical co-creation within the normative space of the musical arch is a dialectical actualization of vertical and horizontal experience, reflecting transformative accomplishments of symbolic bodies within a linguistic field of participatory sense-making. The normative space of musical performance is the result of emergent features of music as embodied social practice. (shrink)

`It is a safe bet that Key Thinkers will emerge as something of a 'hit' within the undergraduate community and will rise to prominance as a 'must buy' -Environment and Planning `Key Thinkers on Space and Place is an engagingly written, well-researched and very accessible book. It will surely prove an invaluable tool for students, whom I would strongly encourage to purchase this edited collection as one of the best guides to recent geographical thought' -Claudio Minca, University of Newcastle (...) `Key Thinkers is the best encyclopedic tool for human geographers since the Dictionary of Human Geography. It takes into its orbit discussions of the lives and work of the last three decades' major thinkers on space and place. It is hugely useful for students who want an easy way to access the roots of where some major themes and debates in contemporary geography. It is organized so that each chapter details the scholar's biography, their contribution to spatial and place-based theory and the controversies that arise through their work' - Stuart Aitken, San Diego State University Key Thinkers on Space and Place is a comprehensive guide to the latest work on space. Each entry is a short interpretative essay of 2,500 words, outlining the contributions made by the key theorists, and comprises: · a concise biography, indicating disciplinary background, career trajectory and collaboration with others · an outline of the key theoretical, conceptual and methodological ideas each has introduced to human geography · an explanation of the reaction to, and uptake of, how these ideas has changed and evolved over time · an explanation of how these theories have been used and critiqued by human geographers · a selective bibliography of each thinker's key publications (and key secondary publications) The text is introduced by a contextual essay which outlines in general terms the shifting ways in which space and place have been theorised and which explains how Key Thinkers on Space and Place can be used. A glossary that defines key traditions, with cross-links to key theorists and a timeline of key article/book publication date is also included. (shrink)

Pamela conceived of vulnerability as a capability to enhance our lives in a continual creative process of transformation. She argued for recreating our perception of vulnerability as positive in our lives and in our relationships. I come to this exploration of transformation both as an academic and as Pamela’s sister, exploring my own lived experience of vulnerability and love as a result of her passing, and seeking to understand how her concept of creative transformation can relate to my personal experiences (...) as well as others’ stories of transformation. Pamela describes that an openness to vulnerability creates a space or a threshold for transformation. This space can be dark and disorienting yet as we move through it we have the freedom to make choices that enhance our personal lives as well as the social and political contexts within which we live and work. In my work that encourages a holistic mind–body–spirit view of health and healing I can see how Pamela’s conception of vulnerability as a capability opens us to a creative response for healing. My exploration of vulnerability and creative transformation reveals that Pamela’s work on vulnerability can be applied to creative transformation broadly and is especially relevant in a world currently torn apart by violence and fear. An openness to vulnerability may help the world to evolve toward love and hope. (shrink)

Grünbaum's three chief fields of research were space-time philosophy, the methodological credentials of psychoanalysis, and reasons given in favor of the existence of God. Grünbaum defended the so-called conventionality thesis of physical geometry. He partially followed Hans Reichenbach in this respect but developed a new ontological argument for the conventionality claim in addition. In addressing the physical basis of the direction of time, Grünbaum advocated that there is a physical basis for the distinction between the past and the future, (...) but no such basis for the idea of a ‘present’ moving through time. His main claim in scrutinizing Freud’s theory methodologically was that supporting the causal claims Freud made would have required data that go beyond the clinical setting. Finally, Grünbaum worked on the philosophy of religion and set out to undermine arguments for the existence of God. (shrink)

Feminist research on community care and ‘informal carers’ identified this as a women's issue but failed to address the interests and experiences of older and disabled women – those who received ‘care’ One consequence is that such feminist research has implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, undermined disabled women's rights to a home, children and personal relationships. Using qualitative research, the article highlights the actual experience of women whose physical impairment means that they need help with daily living activities, looking at the (...) different circumstances in which such help is received. The disability movement's concept of ‘independent living’ raises particular issues for disabled women. ‘Independent living’ is about having choice and control over the assistance needed, rather than necessarily doing everything for yourself. However, gender inequalities may also inhibit the choice and control that women have in their lives. Assistance can be given within a personal relationship as an expression of love, but disabled women may also experience abusive, restrictive or exploitative relationships. Public services do not generally provide assistance in a way which enables a woman to have choice and control in her life, or even to carry out child-caring or homemaking tasks. The research on the various ways of receiving personal assistance found that those women who were able to purchase their own help were most likely to be living independently, in the sense of exerting choice and control in their lives. Feminist research can help to create a space for disabled women's absent voices, and add to the pressure for change in the way that personal assistance needs are met. This is a human and civil rights issue which has a key impact on the control that disabled women have over their lives. (shrink)

We examine a condition in which units of time, such as months of the year, are associated with specific locations in space. For individuals with this time-space synaesthesia, contiguous time units such as months are spatially linked forming idiosyncratically shaped patterns such as ovals, oblongs or circles. For some individuals, each time unit appears in a highly specific colour. For instance, one of the synaesthetes we studied experienced December as a red area located at arms length to the (...) left of their body. For the same individual May was a blue area located roughly at arms length to the right of their body. We studied four synaesthetes who report spatial associations for the months of the year. We found that the time-space associations experienced by these individuals were consistent across test–retest. In addition, month names directed visual attention to particular locations in space. For some synaesthetes, this directing of spatial attention was quite rapid-in accord with their reports that month names involuntarily bring to mind spatial locations. (shrink)