In Voir l'invisible Michel Henry applies his philosophy of autoaffection (which is both inspired by, and critical of, Husserl) to the realm of aesthetics. Henry claims that autoaffection, as non-objective experience, is essential not only to self-experience, but also to the experience of objects and their qualities. Intentionality tempts us to experience objects merely from the 'outside', but aesthetic experience returns us to the inner life of objects as a lived experience. On the basis of an examination of Henry's aesthetic (...) theory in the light of Husserl's analysis of our experience of visible objects, I conclude that revisions are required in both Husserl's and Henry's approaches: Husserl's noema must be considered to be a lived-through experience, and non-objective lived-through experience must be recognized as primordial evidence; Henry's claim that intentionality makes unreal all that it objectifies must be replaced by a recognition of the interdependence between autoaffection and heteroaffection. (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * "… to sleep perchance to dream " 1 To dream: to be not quite asleep, yet not particularly awake. Or, rather: to be awake but not quite know it. For, it is only when we dream, when we are dreaming, that we know that we are not in that final sleep. But we can only know that we are dreaming, that we have dreamt, when we are awake, when we have awoken; after it is too late. When all we know is that the sleep beyond finitude, the sleep that is the step beyond, is not yet upon us, is only to come. To die to sleep … To dream: a sleep that refuses sleep. Perchance to dream: to drift—between sleep and sleep. Aye there's the rub For, can we even know if we have been sleeping? Or, if death has claimed us?—even if a little death. α Ω α Ω α Ω To drift: but from, to, what? For, to drift implies a certain direction that one was headed from, heading to, headed for; without these indications, markers, points in relation with each other, one would just be moving. Can one know—intend—one's drift? Certainly a stunt driver would say so. But even as (s)he is starting her slide, all that (s)he can know is that she is setting the car, herself, the car with herself in it, in motion: after which the drift itself takes over. After which, all (s)he can do is attend to it. At the point of the drift: both (s)he and the car are drifting—here, one might not even be able to separate the movement from those involved in it. Without either of them, there would not be a drift; there is no drifting without the drifter. Both the drifter and the drifting are in a relationality; in which, all that they can know is that they are in relation with each other. Hence, the drift itself is a relationality. A non-essence. But, it is not as if we cannot speak of it. Perhaps though: we can only speak of it as if we can speak of it. Always already an imaginary gesture; where what is being imagined is the relationality between the drift and the ones drifting. Thus, we have a situation where the drifter and drifting are in a relationality; where relationality itself is what is being imagined. Perhaps then, what are we drifting from, to? , is a moot question. As is, what is drifting? Perhaps then, all we can say is drift? To speak of drift is an attempt to speak of the unspeakable. Not that what is speakable and what is unspeakable are antonyms: if that were so, speaking the unspeakable would make no sense, be a contradiction. But that in every act of speaking, something unspeakable is potentially said: something that opens, ruptures, wounds even. And not just that—at the point where it punctures, speaking itself moves out of the way for the unspeakable; speaking itself disappears. "… the whole art is to know how to disappear before dying, and instead of dying. " 2 To disappear; or, to drift out of sight. Where the words themselves slip away. After all: "in the Beginning was the Word. It was only afterwards that Silence came." Perhaps the wish, the hope, is that "the end itself has disappeared …" (Baudrillard, 70) Remaining hidden from us. Perhaps only glimpsed when we dream. Secret. α Ω α Ω α Ω " Bury all your secrets in my skin " (Corey Taylor) Which is the problem: words cling. And they remain. Perhaps not ontologically; but they certainly remain to haunt us. And here, we should not forget Lucretius' lesson that communication occurs in the skin between the parties in communion with each other. Which is not to say that the encounter is determined by atoms—and more precisely atoms that move in straight lines until they collide with each other—that communication is pre-determined. For, one must not forget that will is found, discovered, enacted even, at the moment the atoms swerve. Clinamen . Drift. But even in their movement—drifting—they trace themselves into the skin between; a tangential touching. Perhaps only briefly. But even then, enough … "… there's always texture that betrays the place." (May Ee Wong) Here though, one must not forget that betrayal cannot happen in the absence of love. In fact, betrayal is the very excess of love: where one loves the other so much that one can no longer bear to see the other drift from what (s)he could have been. Whether that idealised other exists or is only in one's head is another question altogether. Perhaps, a fetishised other: keeping in mind that "fetishes are hinged around simulation." After all, "when one is supposed to show up as an oil rig diver no one is expecting actual crude oil" (Amanda Sordes); in fact, actualisation is the perfect way to destroy the fantasy. Perhaps then, the only way to maintain love for another is to maintain a proper distance, as it were, from love: allow the love to constantly alter, change. And here, one must not forget that if love is a relationality between one and another who remains wholly other (otherwise just a mere manifestation of the self), love is a relationality that knows nothing except for the fact that it is in a relation. For, to love one has to attend to—without subsuming another, some other, under oneself. Which means that to love, one has to be willing to risk, to open oneself, to allow oneself to be wounded, torn apart. In new ways, ways that we have yet to understand, come across, ways we do not yet have a name for. Thus, this movement in love is one that occurs in utter blindness; to not only the other, but to what love is. This is love as pure drifting. Perhaps always searching for love itself, without ever knowing what it is that it is looking for. Love: only at the very moment when the word love itself disappears. Perhaps all we can do is sit, and attend: watching the tides flowing away—as if they were having their "last swim of the summer." (Hendrik Speck) Like a butterfly. α Ω α Ω α Ω Isn't it quite amazing how the appearance of a butterfly can inject a stutter or pause into any conversation? Words and words pour out of the animals in assembly, before they are all of a sudden arrested by the passing flight. Heads turn to trace a lilting poetics, attempting to close the distance with this seemingly awkward beauty. There are no straight lines here, only a relative arrival and departure to bracket a brilliant and bewildering trajectory, surging and lurching in a vibrating and nomadic line avant la lettre. (Sean Smith, 'I Seek You: Countdown to Stereoscopic Tear') Before the letter. Before the possibility of naming. Before being sayable. Quite possibly also before language. And yet, a "surging and lurching," a movement with an effect—"vibrating and nomadic"—tracing itself before there is even anything to trace. Leaving something, even if that thing remains unknowable, for us to attend to. Drifting into us. I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee..." (Carly Simon) NOTES William Shakespeare, Hamlet , Act 3 Scene 1. Jean Baudrillard, Why hasn't everything already disappeared? , 25.  . (shrink)

The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

For all the talk there has been lately about privilege, few have commented on the moral obligations that are associated with having privilege. Those who have commented haven't gone much beyond the idea that the privileged should be conscious of their privilege, should listen to those who don't have it. Here we want to go further, and build an account of the moral obligations of those with a particular kind of privilege: race privilege. In this paper we articulate an understanding (...) of race privilege, say how a person can know when she has it, and argue that a race-privileged person has obligations to offset her privilege. We make concrete suggestions for how she can, at least approximately, do this. We use particular racial group disparities in the United States as our running example throughout the paper, although our conclusions generalize. (shrink)

How foreign policy embodies human values is an issue worth studying. Such a value not only refers to the interests of social and political elites but to the prevailing welfare of people. In 2016, t...

This book studies the diverse societies, cities, nations, economies, and regions of the Americas as they emerged in the Western hemisphere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on the paradigms of social imaginaries and civilizational analysis, it explores regions of Central America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America.

This paper provides a method for characterizing space events using the framework of conceptual spaces. We focus specifically on estimating and ranking the likelihood of collisions between space objects. The objective is to design an approach for anticipatory decision support for space operators who can take preventive actions on the basis of assessments of relative risk. To make this possible our approach draws on the fusion of both hard and soft data within a single decision support framework. Contextual data is (...) also taken into account, for example data about space weather effects, by drawing on the Space Domain Ontologies, a large system of ontologies designed to support all aspects of space situational awareness. The framework is coupled with a mathematical programming scheme that frames a mathematically optimal approach for decision support, providing a quantitative basis for ranking potential for collision across multiple satellite pairs. The goal is to provide the broadest possible information foundation for critical assessments of collision likelihood. (shrink)

This paper describes an AFOSR-supported basic research program that focuses on developing a new framework for combining hard with soft data in order to improve space situational awareness. The goal is to provide, in an automatic and near real-time fashion, a ranking of possible threats to blue assets (assets trying to be protected) from red assets (assets with hostile intentions). The approach is based on Conceptual Spaces models, which combine features from traditional associative and symbolic cognitive models. While Conceptual Spaces (...) are revolutionary, they lack an underlying mathematical framework. Several such frameworks have attempted to represent Conceptual Spaces, but by far the most robust is the model developed by Holender. His model utilizes integer linear programming in order to obtain an overall similarity value between observations and concepts that support the formation of hypotheses. This paper will describe a method for building Conceptual Spaces models for threats that utilizes ontologies as a means to provide a clear semantic foundation for this inferencing process; in particular threat ontologies and space domain ontologies are developed and employed in this approach. A space situational awareness use-case is presented involving a kinetic kill scenario and results are shown to assess the performance of this fusion-based inferencing framework. (shrink)

Civilizational analysis has not concerned itself too greatly with the historical experiences of the American New World. There are good reasons to correct this position and Shmuel Eisenstadt’s principal work on America’s distinct modernities goes some way to establishing the colonization of the Atlantic world as an opening phase of modernity. Nonetheless, a more far-reaching analysis of the distinctiveness of diverse American societies can be developed that goes beyond the image of a Protestant North America contrasted with southern Latin cultures. (...) This article outlines the basis for a more nuanced approach in three steps: a focus on intercivilizational engagement, examination of civilizational factors neglected by Eisenstadt and reconsideration of the conceptual range of the notion of ‘civilization’ itself. The archetype of two Americas is replaced by a model of four with some consideration given to indigenous civilizations as a fifth America. (shrink)

The social thought of Castoriadis and Lefort address Old World constellations. Yet both are positioned in a critical relationship to the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and pose questions about power, the political and citizenship relevant to different civilizational settings. Two political philosophies that emerged in the era of revolutionary critique are examined in this paper alongside Castoriadis and Lefort. Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy of republic and empire and Simon Bolivar’s creed of independence were American visions that connected with the political imaginary. Each (...) set down traditions open to interpretation and mythologisation. Both invoked an older rivalry of two images of the New World, as American or as Colombian, which was really a rivalry of Spanish and British Empires and their civilizational influences. Where earlier republican visions developed at the cusp of virtue and interest cultures had posed a particular range of questions about democracy, civic constitution and independence, American states now contained democratic and authoritarian potential. Even though Castoriadis and Lefort did not make these American contexts the centre of their work, each conceive the political and politics in ways that are relevant to American modernities. A key argument put in this paper with respect to Castoriadis and Lefort is that Castoriadis’s conception of creation is more salient to the republican revolutions more generally, while Lefort’s notion of political imaginary finds a strong case in the North American revolution. (shrink)

Despite its prominence in traditional societies and its apparent commonsense appeal, the moral tradition of Role Ethics has been largely neglected in mainstream normative theory. Role Ethics is the view that the duties and/or virtues of social life are determined largely by the social roles we incur in the communities we inhabit. This essay aims to address two of the main challenges that hinder Role Ethics from garnering more serious consideration as a legitimate normative theory, namely that it is ill-suited (...) to support a theory of right action that can enhance moral reasoning, and that it countenances certain unjust roles such as that of slave or slave-owner. Taking inspiration from contemporary social science, we argue that proponents of Role Ethics can adopt a view that reduces the apparent diversity of role obligations to four prototypical types of role duties. We propose a contemporary version of Role Ethics that coheres with human moral psychology, and which lends itself to a relatively pragmatic theory of right action that precludes the possibility of unjust roles. (shrink)

The overall goal of the approach developed in this paper is to estimate the likelihood of a given kinetic kill scenario between hostile spacebased adversaries using the mathematical framework of Complex Conceptual Spaces Single Observation. Conceptual spaces are a cognitive model that provide a method for systematically and automatically mimicking human decision making. For accurate decisions to be made, the fusion of both hard and soft data into a single decision framework is required. This presents several challenges to this data (...) fusion framework. The first is the challenge involved in handling multiple complex terminologies, which is addressed by drawing on a set of Space Domain Ontologies. Another challenge is the complex combinatorics involved when considering all possible feature combinations. This can be mitigated by using integer linear programming optimization that is outlined by the Complex Conceptual Spaces Single Observation mathematical model framework. A third challenge is the complicated physics that is involved in a spacecraft collision that must be addressed to obtain a better understanding of threat assessment. Overcoming these various challenges allows for a quantitative ranking for the potential of a kinetic kill collision across multiple spacecraft pairs. In addition to overcoming these challenges this paper will break down threat assessment into four domains and identify a ranking of threat both for each individual domain and for the four domains combined. Simulation results are shown to verify the developed concepts. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore our common-sense thinking about the relation between moral value, moral merit, and well-being. Starting from Ross’s observation that welfarist axiologies ignore our intuitions about desert, I focus on axiologies that take moral merit and well-being to be independent determinants of value. I distinguish three ways in which these axiologies can be formulated, and I then consider their application to the issue of punishment. The objection that they recommend penalties in circumstances in which intuitively we would (...) judge them to be unjustified is examined, and I suggest that it can be met by incorporating temporal information into the way in which value, well-being and moral merit are linked. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with the problem of giving a correct account of the semantics of vague predicates such as '...is tall', '...is bald' and '...is near...'. ;In Chapter 1 I present a definition of vagueness that aims to capture, in a useful form, all our fundamental intuitions about the vagueness of predicates such as those mentioned above; such a definition is lacking in the literature. I also present an abstract characterisation of the Sorites paradox: one that is independent of (...) the particular forms in which the paradox may be presented, and brings to light the essence of the paradox. ;In Chapter 2 I examine existing theories of vagueness. In light of the definition of vagueness defended in Chapter 1, I argue that we need a semantics for vague language that countenances degrees of truth. I distinguish two sorts of degree theory. One sort---which includes the degree form of supervaluation semantics---sees vagueness as an essentially semantic matter. The other sort---which includes accounts based on fuzzy set theory---accounts for vagueness in language in terms of vagueness in the world. I argue that we need a degree theory of the latter, worldly sort. ;In Chapter 3 I examine the fuzzy theory in detail. I show that many of the objections to the fuzzy view that have been raised in the literature do not carry weight. In particular, I defend the coherence of the idea of degrees of truth. However, I isolate a problem for the fuzzy view---the problem of higher-order vagueness---that is serious enough to render the view unacceptable. ;In Chapter 4 I present a new theory of vagueness: one that is intended to share the advantages of the fuzzy view, while avoiding its disadvantages. In particular, this theory accommodates the phenomenon of higher-order vagueness. The theory involves degrees of truth, but they are not the same as the degrees of truth involved in the fuzzy theory. Although the theory involves a non-classical semantics for vague language, this semantics validates classical logic. (shrink)

Previous work has shown that the Complex Conceptual Spaces − Single Observation Mathematical framework is a useful tool for event characterization. This mathematical framework is developed on the basis of Conceptual Spaces and uses integer linear programming to find the needed similarity values. The work of this paper is focused primarily on space event characterization. In particular, the focus is on the ranking of threats for malicious space events such as a kinetic kill. To make the Conceptual Spaces framework work, (...) the similarity values between the contents of observations on the one hand and the properties of the entities observed on the other needs to be found. This paper shows how to exploit Dempster-Shafer theory to implement a statistical approach for finding these similarities values. This approach will allow a user to identify the uncertainty involved in similarity value data, which can later be propagated through the developed mathematical model in order for the user to know the overall uncertainty in the observation-to-concept mappings needed for space event characterization. (shrink)

The new critical edition of the works and correspondence of Jeremy Bentham is being prepared and published under the supervision of the Bentham Committee of University College London. In spite of his importance as jurist, philosopher, and social scientist, and leader of the Utilitarian reformers, the only previous edition of his works was a poorly edited and incomplete one brought out within a decade or so of his death. Eight volumes of the new Collected Works, five of correspondence, and (...) three of writings on jurisprudence, appeared between 1968 and 1981, published by the Athlone Press. Further volumes in the series since then are published by Oxford University Press. The overall plan and principles of the edition are set out in the General Preface to The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 1, which was the first volume of the Collected Works to be published.An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Jeremy Bentham's best-known work, is a classic text in modern philosophy and jurisprudence. First published in 1789, it contains the important statement of the foundations of utilitarian philosophy and a pioneering study of crime and punishment, both of which remain at the heart of contemporary debates in moral and political philosophy, economics, and legal theory. Printed here in full is the definitive edition, edited by the distinguished scholars J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. An introductory essay by Hart, first published in 1982 and a widely acknowledged classic in its own right, is reprinted here. It contains an important analysis of Bentham's principle of utility, theory of action, and an account of the relationship between law and morality.A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F. Rosen, specially written for this Clarendon Paperback edition, provides students with a helpful survey of Bentham's main ideas and an extensive bibliographical study of recent critical work on Bentham. Professor Rosen's essay also contains a new analysis of the principle of utility in Bentham's philosophy which is compared with its use in Hume and J. S. Mill. (shrink)

This essay aims to examine metropolitan cities of Latin America with two aspects of the literature in anthropology, history, and sociology in mind. First, the essay addresses an imbalanced focus on cities in the USA and Canada by sketching the significance of migration, creation, and urban development in four major metropolises of Latin America. Second, in place of a framework of urban imaginaries, which has dominated the sociology of Latin American cities in recent years, I argue for a more precise (...) notion of metropolitan imaginaries that better frames the creativity of particular cities and their level of integration into international and regional networks. With this more precise notion, I distinguish southern cities as highly connected places, which attract migrants and bring economic and cultural traffic to their shores, ports, plazas, and streets. They are lively centers of Atlantic modernity with connections that generate greater magnitude for creativity and, as such, bear international significance as places of architecture and urban design. In their informal settlements, impulses of organic creation further distinguish southern metropolises from their North American counterparts. The quality of international and regional connections distinguishes these cities from other urban centers in Latin America, a point underestimated in the literature on urban imaginaries. In this essay, I examine 19th and 20th-century Buenos Aires, Mexico City, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Each is distinguished from most cities by the magnitude of migration, the diversity of their populations, and the connections they have to global and regional developments. Crucially, each one stands out for the quality and impact of their metropolis-making, particularly in creative architecture and urban design. (shrink)

One of the earliest and best-known of Bentham's works, the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation sets out a profound and innovative philosophical argument. This definitive edition includes both the late H. L. A. Hart's classic essay on the work and a new introduction by F. Rosen.

Scholars of modernity have taken a particular interest in processes of urbanization and—thinking of Simmel, Benjamin, Mumford and Weber—the character of different varieties of city. From a different angle, notions of urban imaginary have gained greater purchase in the field of contemporary urban studies in comparative analysis of varieties of city. This essay begins with notes on both classical accounts of the city in social theory and current concepts of urban imaginaries. The notes revolve around the essay’s main topic: the (...) institution of cities of New World, specifically those of the United States and Canada. Paralleling Castoriadis’ conception of the imaginary institution, the present author argues for a more exact notion of metropolitan imaginaries, differentiated from the broader subject of urban imaginaries. ‘Metropolitan imaginaries’ denotes processes of urbanization at the heart of networks of migration, transport, and flows of capital and culture. As part of larger imaginaries, metropolises generate immigrant cities. The specific kind of creation in question produces creativity also by concentrating intellectual and creative schools of design in architecture and visual culture. In sum, metropolises are not merely part of networks of connection and creation; they produce networks and act as the hubs of interaction and creativity within larger social imaginaries. The essay explores this argument in the contexts of US and Canadian modernity and state formation, with specific foci on New York, Chicago, and Toronto. The conclusion notes two limitations to the case presented here and sketches planned directions for future research. (shrink)

Why do some global health initiatives receive priority from international and national political leaders while others receive minimal attention? We propose a framework for analyzing this question consisting of four categories of factors: the strength of the actors involved in the initiative, the power of the ideas they use to frame the issue, the nature of the political contexts in which they operate, and characteristics of the issue itself.We apply this framework to the case of a global initiative to reduce (...) maternal mortality, launched in 1987. Using a process-tracing methodology commonly employed in qualitative research, we conducted archival research and interviewed actors involved in the initiative. We find that despite two decades of effort the initiative remains in an early phase of development, hampered by difficulties in all these categories. However, the initiative's twentieth anniversary year, 2007, presents opportunities to build political momentum. To generate political priority advocates will need to address several challenges, including the creation of effective institutions to guide the initiative and the development of a public positioning of the issue that convinces political leaders to act.We draw on the framework and case study to suggest areas for future research on the determinants of political priority for global health initiatives, a subject that has attracted much speculation but little scholarship. (shrink)

Transforming Early English shows how historical pragmatics can offer a powerful explanatory framework for the changes medieval English and Older Scots texts undergo, as they are transmitted over time and space. The book argues that formal features such as spelling, script and font, and punctuation - often neglected in critical engagement with past texts - relate closely to dynamic, shifting socio-cultural processes, imperatives and functions. This theme is illustrated through numerous case-studies in textual recuperation, ranging from the reinvention of Old (...) English poetry and prose in the later medieval and early modern periods, to the eighteenth-century 'vernacular revival' of literature in Older Scots. (shrink)

The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) requires hospitals to ask patients upon admission whether they have an advance directive. Although the PSDA has received extensive criticism, little attention has been paid to the cost of the law, either during its legislative course or following its implementation. Nonetheless, several tangible and intangible costs are associated with the PSDA. Such costs may be incurred by different parties. This paper examines the costs and benefits of the PSDA and illustrates the extent of some of (...) its tangible costs. The incremental start-up cost for one institution's response to the PSDA is estimated to be $49,304 ($1.31 per admission) and the total implementation cost of the program to be $114,528. In addition, the national incremental start-up cost for hospitals to implement the PSDA is estimated to be between $43,625,114 and $101,569,922. Finally, the potential implications of the PSDA for future governmental health care ethics regulation are discussed. (shrink)

Johann Arnason and Shmuel Eisenstadt's social theories have remarkably different origins. Yet each has moved onto common ground with the other over a period of time. They meet in historical sociology in dialogue over theories of state formation and images of civilisation. Each is engaged in a project of revising civilisations sociology that reaches an apex with the comparative study of Japan.Their groundbreaking contributions can be read critically against a wider background of debates about postcolonialism, the reputation of the notion (...) of civilisation and the state of area studies in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

Postwar approaches to Japan’s modern era have functioned within a metanarrative of modernization. Contemporary comparative analysis approaches Japan from the vantage point of civilisational sociology and a paradigm of multiple modernities. The development of sociological thought itself in Japan could also be interpreted through this framework, although there has been little research to date along these lines. This paper explores how Japanese social thought coalesced in global encounters in the 1870s and 1880s. It analyses the radical reinterpretation of classical Western (...) sociology in the reception of Comte, Mill and Spencer by Japan’s scholars and modernisers in the nascent public spheres of Meiji society. Special attention is paid to the philosophy of Nishi Amane. (shrink)

Johann Arnason’s exploration of the historical constellation of East Asia has helped reproblematize the conceptual framework of modernity and civilization. This article outlines Arnason’s innovations in civilizational analysis and social theory in the field of comparative studies of Japan. It sets out the terms on which a nuanced elaboration of Arnason’s framework could occur. Two areas warrant closer attention: state formation and the institution of capitalism. It is argued that there are signs of what might be termed a ‘tertiary’ phase (...) of state formation, implicit in Arnason’s discussion of advanced modernity. Moreover, this phase brought Japan into close contact with the newly unfolding context of the West’s civilizational imaginary, particularly in its ideological expressions of evolutionism. The article ends on the problematic of capitalism, raising questions about further potential theoretical developments based on Arnason’s conclusions and other inventive studies of Japanese capitalism. (shrink)

Possible worlds semantics for conditionals leave open the problem of how to construct models for realistic domains. In this paper, we show how to adapt logics of action and change such as John McCarthy’s Situation Calculus to conditional logics. We illustrate the idea by presenting models for conditionals whose antecedents combine a declarative condition with a hypothetical action.

A collaborative article by the Editorial Collective of Social Imaginaries. Investigations into social imaginaries have burgeoned in recent years. From ‘the capitalist imaginary’ to the ‘democratic imaginary’, from the ‘ecological imaginary’ to ‘the global imaginary’ – and beyond – the social imaginaries field has expanded across disciplines and beyond the academy. The recent debates on social imaginaries and potential new imaginaries reveal a recognisable field and paradigm-in-the-making. We argue that Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor have articulated the most important theoretical frameworks (...) for understanding social imaginaries, although the field as a whole remains heterogeneous. We further argue that the notion of social imaginaries draws on the modern understanding of the imagination as authentically creative. We contend that an elaboration of social imaginaries involves a significant, qualitative shift in the understanding of societies as collectively and politically-instituted formations that are irreducible to inter-subjectivity or systemic logics. After marking out the contours of the field and recounting a philosophical history of the imagination, the essay turns to debates on social imaginaries in more concrete contexts, specifically political-economic imaginaries, the ecological imaginary, multiple modernities and their inter-civilisational encounters. The social imaginaries field imparts powerful messages for the human sciences and wider publics. In particular, social imaginaries hold significant implications for ontological, phenomenological and philosophical anthropological questions; for the cultural, social, and political horizons of contemporary worlds; and for ecological and economic phenomena. The essay concludes with the argument that social imaginaries as a paradigm-in-the-making offers valuable means by which movements towards social change can be elucidated as well providing an open horizon for the critiques of existing social practices. (shrink)

Civilization, Modernity, and Critique provides the first comprehensive, cutting edge engagement with the work of one of the most foundational figures in civilizational analysis: Johann P. Arnason. In order to do justice to Arnason's seminal and wide-ranging contributions to sociology, social theory and history, it brings together distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts. Through a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers an enrichment and expansion of the methodological, theoretical, and applicative scope of civilizational analysis, by addressing (...) some of the most complex and pressing problems of contemporary global society. A unique and timely contribution to the ongoing task of advancing the project of a critical theory of society, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in historical sociology, critical theory and civilizational analysis. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way many people live their lives. The increasing amount of time spent indoors and isolated during periods of lockdown has been accompanied by an increase in the time people spend playing video games. One such game which soared in popularity during the early stages of the pandemic was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Through semi-structured interviews with players, and using a theory-informed qualitative analysis, we document and examine players’ motivations and experiences playing Animal Crossing: New (...) Horizons during the pandemic. Findings suggest that playing the game helped satisfy various psychological needs—autonomy, relatedness, and competence—as described by Self-Determination Theory. Conversely, players stopped playing the game when they found that their psychological needs were thwarted or better met through other activities. Our findings offer support that video games can offer psychological relief in stressful contexts by providing opportunities for people to satisfy key psychological needs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Political Imaginaries in Question Content Type Journal Article Pages 5-11 Authors Suzi Adams, School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Jeremy C. A. Smith, School of Education and Arts, University of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia Ingerid S. Straume, University of Oslo Library, University of Oslo, Norway Journal Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory Online ISSN 1568-5160 Print ISSN 1440-9917 Journal Volume Volume 13 Journal Issue Volume 13, Number 1 / 2012.

The Free Market and the Human Condition explores the human condition as situated in the free market from a variety of academic disciplines. By relying upon contributors who approach the topic from their respective disciplines, the book provides an accumulated picture of the free market, the human condition, and the relationship between them.