Predictive risk modelling is a computational method used to generate probabilities correlating events. The output of such systems is typically represented by a statistical score derived from various related and often arbitrary datasets. In many cases, the information generated by such systems is treated as a form of evidence to justify further action. This paper examines the nature of the information generated by such systems and compares it with more orthodox notions of evidence found in epistemology. The paper focuses on (...) a specific example to illustrate the issues: The New Zealand Government has proposed implementing a predictive risk modelling system which purportedly identifies children at risk of a maltreatment event before the age of five. Timothy Williamson’s conception of epistemology places a requirement on knowledge that it be explanatory. Furthermore, Williamson argues that knowledge is equivalent to evidence. This approach is compared to the claim that the output of such computational systems constitutes evidence. While there may be some utility in using predictive risk modelling systems, I argue, since an explanatory account of the output of such algorithms that meets Williamson’s requirements cannot be given, doubt is cast upon the resulting statistical scores as constituting evidence on generally accepted epistemic grounds. The algorithms employed in such systems are geared towards identifying patterns which turn out to be good correlations. However, rather than providing information about specific individuals and their exposure to risk, a more valid explanation of a high probability score is that the particular variables related to incidents of maltreatment are just higher amongst certain subgroups in a population than they are amongst others. The paper concludes that any justification of the information generated by such systems is generalised and pragmatic at best and the application of this information to individual cases raises various ethical issues. (shrink)

A major question for the relevant logics has been, “Under what conditions is Ackermann's ruleγ from -A ∨B andA to inferB, admissible for one of these logics?” For a large number of logics and theories, the question has led to an affirmative answer to theγ problem itself, so that such an answer has almost come to be expected for relevant logics worth taking seriously. We exhibit here, however, another large and interesting class of logics-roughly, the Boolean extensions of theW — (...) free relevant logics (and, precisely, the well-behaved subsystems of the 4-valued logicBN4) — for which γ fails. (shrink)

Notices Amer. Math. Sac. 51, 2004). Logically, such a "Grothendieck topos" is something like a universe of continuously variable sets. Before long, however, F.W. Lawvere and M. Tierney provided an elementary axiomatization..

Robert Pirsig wrote of Steve Hagen's first book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense, "For those who are certain that objectivity and intellect are the ground floor of all knowledge, this can be a valuable trip to the sub-basement." Now, in The Grand Delusion, Hagen drills deeper, into the most basic strengths, assumptions, and limitations of religion and belief, philosophy and inquiry, science, and technology. In doing so, he shines new light on the question Why is there (...) Something rather than Nothing?-and shines this light from an entirely unexpected (and largely unexplored) direction. Using a provocative mix of examples from physics, philosophy, religion, myth, neuroscience, and mathematics-and a clever, shade-throwing Socratic dialogue between Hagen and his foil, "ANYONE"-this book also offers a fresh perspective on other questions that science, philosophy, and religion have long grappled with. Such topics include: · What does it mean to exist? · What is mind? · What constitutes a measurement? · What exactly is motion? Layer by layer, Hagen examines the questions we ask, the way we ask them, the assumptions and beliefs we hold dear, and the ways in which we separate ourselves from the very answers we seek. In the process, he draws on sources that include Huang Po, Richard Feynman, Sir Arthur Eddington, Hui-Neng, Susan B. Anthony, Daniel Dennett, Joseph Campbell, Dogen, Emily Dickinson, Nagarjuna, Ikkyu, William I. McLaughlin, Sam Harris, and Henry David Thoreau. Ultimately, this book reveals how all of these fundamental questions-and many, many more-stem from a single error, a single unwarranted belief, a single Grand Delusion. The Grand Delusion helps readers move past this delusion into insight that can settle these age-old and seemingly intractable questions. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between skin, ego and second skins. It does so conceptually by re-examining Freud’s suggestion, in The Ego and the Id, that the ego is first and foremost a bodily entity, while also being a projection of a surface (i.e. skin). Drawing upon Anzieu, a dynamic model of inter-weaving surfaces can be seen to underpin an understanding of the ego — and skin ego. This model is fundamentally spatialized. Even so, an appreciation of the spatialities of (...) skin and ego can be developed further. To illuminate these spatialities, this article examines two key experiences of T.E. Lawrence during his military service in Arabia (c. 1917), as he describes them in his autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In a meeting with British military police, and in the notorious Deraa rape incident, what is at stake is Lawrence of Arabia’s skins. Reading these experiences using Freud and Anzieu, the article argues that these events re-present an ongoing chafing of Lawrence’s skin, ego and second skins, which can be called his ‘skin of suffering’. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the classical conceptions of justice and then examines the contemporary movements that arose to challenge these old concepts. It looks at Wakanda's record on justice. In the comics, the trial to become the Black Panther involves more than fighting, but ritual combat has always been the final and most glamorous test in Wakanda. The Wakandan philosopher Changamire quotes him in the 12‐issue run “A Nation Under Our Feet,” by Ta‐Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze. Changamire gathers not (...) just the powers that be (T'Challa the king and Aneka the rebel leader) but also ordinary citizens traumatized by the war, so that together they can navigate a path forward. Their interest is not retribution or reparation, but rather restorative justice. In the transformative justice movement, the work of justice is the work of building our capacity to take care of each other, as ordinary people in ordinary communities. (shrink)

At the interface of developmental biology and evolutionary biology, the very criteria of scientific knowledge are up for grabs. A central issue is the status of evolutionary genetics models, which some argue cannot coherently be used with complex gene regulatory network (GRN) models to explain the same evolutionary phenomena. Despite those claims, many researchers use evolutionary genetics models jointly with GRN models to study evolutionary phenomena. This dissertation compares two recent research projects in which researchers jointly use the two kinds (...) of models. I use methods from the empirical social sciences, such as digital corpus analysis, content analysis, and structured case analysis. I infer three primary conclusions about projects of the kind studied. First, they employ an implicit concept of gene that enables the joint use of both kinds of models. Second, they pursue more epistemic aims besides mechanistic explanation of phenomena. Third, they don’t work to create and export broad synthesized theories. Rather, they focus on phenomena too complex to be understood by a common general theory, they distinguish parts of the phenomena, and they apply models from different theories to the different parts. For such projects, seemingly incompatible models are synthesized largely through mediated representations of complex phenomena. (shrink)

Long-running horror series are reputed to yield diminishing returns (both in terms of profit and quality). At first glance, the A Nightmare on Elm Street series appears to fit that established pattern. For instance, lead antagonist Freddy supposedly ‘deteriorates’ from sinister, backlit child molester to comic-book ‘Las Vegas lounge’ stand-up act by the end of the 1980s (Schoell and Spencer 1992, 116). However, interviews from the period indicate that comedy was a central component from the outset of the series; it (...) is not, as has been often suggested, that the series’ horror was diluted by the introduction of humour in later sequels. Such misremembrances are entrenched by the writers’, directors’ and actors’ retrospective reflections on Elm Street, which colour how the series is understood more broadly. This chapter will focus on one of the most common misremembrances embedded into Elm Street’s lore; that the series began with hard rules about the relationship between dream and reality, which became looser (to the point of incoherence) as the series progressed. As close textual analysis and examination of archival interviews will demonstrate, the series’ “rules” were never as clearly established as creator Wes Craven intended. Moreover, rather than complaining that the continuing story did not hold together—indeed, Craven dismissed parts 2-6 of the series on these grounds—I argue that the series ought to be taken on its own terms. The individual films may vary in aesthetic and quality for various industrial reasons, but they are nevertheless chapters in a continuing narrative, and ought to be understood as such. Given that the diegesis is based on shared experiences—secrets held by Springwood’s parents, nightmares and abilities shared by the teens—it is reductive to understand the Elm Street films as anything other than an imbricated whole. As such, this chapter will demonstrate that the series’ narrative is best understood as a recurring nightmare. Its logic is dreamlike, being constituted by events, characters and motifs that are echoed across the series. Thus, this chapter contends that to dismiss the Elm Street sequels as a product of diminishing returns is to overlook the series’ narrative richness. More broadly, this chapter makes a case for understanding sequels as valuable parts of a whole, rather than dismissing them as inferior copies of the original. (shrink)

Wonder Woman has evolved considerably since the Golden Age. (Thank Hera!) Different writers in different eras have tinkered with her back story and her resulting character. Yet throughout her many retellings people can point to two consistent trends: she is a warrior, and she protects the abused. As a warrior, her honor code isn't so different from bushido, the code of the samurai. She is selfless, fearless, relentless, and she even has a magic lasso to enforce the samurai virtue of (...) honesty. In the hands of her best writers, Wonder Woman is not a generic do‐gooder, nor is she a milquetoast rule follower. Though her moral motivations may shift from one author to the next, what is consistent throughout her many incarnations is that Wonder Woman is uniquely placed to be the samurai feminist, the only one who can reconcile bushido and care ethics. (shrink)

Artistic Detachment in Japan and the West takes up the notion of artistic detachment, or psychic distance, as an intercultural motif for East-West comparative aesthetics. The work begins with an overview of aesthetic theory in the West from the eighteenth-century empiricists to contemporary aesthetics and concludes with a survey of various critiques of psychic distance. Throughout, the author takes a highly innovative approach by juxtaposing Western aesthetic theory against Eastern aesthetic theory. Weaving between cultures and time periods, the author focuses (...) on a remarkably wide range of theories: in the West, the Kantian notion of disinterested contemplation, Heidegger's Gelassenheit, semiotics, and pragmatism; in Japan, Zeami's notion of riken no ken, the Kyoto School's intepretation of nothingness, D. T. Suzuki's analysis of the function of no-mind, and the writings of Kuki Shuzo on Buddhist detachment. "Portrait of the artist" fiction by such writers as Henry James, James Joyce, Mori Ogai, and Natsume Soseki demonstrates how the main theme of detachment is expressed in literary traditions. The role of sympathy or pragmatism in relation to disinterest is examined, suggesting conflicts within or challenges to the notion of detachment. Researchers and students in Eastern and Western areas of study, including philosophers and religionists, as well as literary and cultural critics, will deem this work an invaluable contribution to cross-cultural philosophy and literary studies. (shrink)

Although the system T of ticket entailment is obviously related to its cousins E and R , it is motivated along quite distinctive lines in Anderson and Belnap [1975]. It would seem, accordingly, that T is more nearly akin to the system P W studied in Martin [1978] than to E and R. The result presented here, however, at least suggests the contrary.

Stephen White (1989) suggests that current reductionist orthodoxy has been too restricted in its concern with psychological facts only. But once we widen the range of facts that we allow, including, for example, certain cultural or technological facts (the metapsychological facts), the boundaries we draw around persons will be determined by factors that cannot be fixed absolutely. Whether one survives or not won’t be a matter merely of psychological continuity between one’s different person-stages; inter alia, it will be a matter (...) of what one’s society presupposes about such things as “personal identity, responsibility, and the unity and character of the self”. Such presuppositions differ across cultures and times. So, according to White, there are no universal facts about personal identity and survival; personal identity is a relative notion. In this paper I offer an alternative, and in so doing draw out some important morals for the methodology we apply in investigating questions of personal identity. (shrink)

Nobody knows what's going on -- Belief -- Knowledge -- Contradiction -- Certitude -- At ease with inconceivability -- Chaos -- Consciousness -- Immediacy -- What matters -- Inertia -- Becoming -- Totality.

Knowledge is a collective enterprise, all of whose members potentially benefit from any one of them managing to achieve, or at least approximate, the truth. However, it does not follow that the best way to do this is by trying to establish the truth for oneself as a fixed belief and then making it plain for all to hear or see, so that it might spread like a virus, or “meme”, as Richard Dawkins might say.

Everyone agrees that the Enlightenment hasn’t succeeded—in that the critical rationality associated with modern natural science has not been extended to society at large (and may even have retreated from science itself). Should we be relieved or disappointed that the Enlightenment has failed? I am disappointed but not discouraged by what is called the postmodern condition. But to move forward, we cannot simply deny the presence of the condition, as if it were the collective hallucination of weak minds. This is (...) what Dennett does. I fear that he is in denial rather than disappointment. Only when we are clear about the ideals that we want to promote can we see our way through the postmodern condition. (shrink)

In her 1983 work How the Laws of Phyiscs Lie [1] Nancy Cartwright argued for antirealism about fundamental laws alongside realism about phenomenological laws. Her position was considerably altered by 1989 when, in Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement [2], she argued for a realist construal of capacities (close relations of Powers, natures, tendencies, propensities and disptısitions), which she took fundamental laws to be about. Most realists about capaeities, and their ilk, are realist about fundamental laws as well. However this is (...) not true of Cartwright. In [2] she emphatically reaffirmed her antirealism about fundamental laws, stating that 'fundamental laws are not true, nor nearly true, nor true for the most part' [2, p.175]. In 'So the Laws of Physics Needn't Lie' [4] Chalmers argues that Cartwright's advocacy of realism about Nature's capacities in [2] undermines her antirealism about fundamental laws. He accuses Cartwright of apparent contradictions in her position as articulated in [2]. Given Chalmers' reading of Cartwright, an appearance of contradiction does seem to arise. Against Chalmers, I advocate an alternative reading of Cartwright, which is much more charitable to her. This alternative reading of Cartwright has the advantage of avoiding the charge of contradiction. Indeed, if this reading is accepted, the appearance of contradiction, that Chalmers taxeses Cartwright with, does not even arise. A further virtue of this reading of Cartwright is that it is consistent with Cartwright's more recent writing, as I will show. (shrink)

In the Rebels episode “Stealth Strike,” Kanan, Ezra, Rex, and Chopper rescue Commander Sato and his crew from the clutches of the Empire. Chopper occupies an uncomfortable moral position in Rebels, as do so many droids in the Star Wars canon. Many are highly intelligent, with unique personalities that aren't merely a function of their programming. The “organics” of the Star Wars universe, those sentient species made of flesh and blood seem to have relationships with droids similar to the kind (...) many of people have with their laptops and smartphones. Philosophers call beings who exhibit traits like self‐awareness, independent thought, and unique preferences persons. Mills says race is a social construct, not a biological fact. Social constructs, things that exist because societies create them, include things like money, empires, and rebellions, things so real that people are willing to die (or kill) for them. (shrink)

[10] offers two (cut-free) subscripted Gentzen systems, G 2 T + and G 2 R +, which are claimed to be equivalent in an appropriate sense to the positive relevant logics T + and R +, respectively. In this paper we show that that claim is false. We also show that the argument in [10] for the further claim that cut and/or modus ponens is admissible in two other subscripted Gentzen systems, G 1 T + and G 1 R +, (...) is unsound. (shrink)

Arthur Falk has proposed a new construal of faith according to which it is not a mere species of belief, but has essential components in action. This twist on faith promises to resurrect Pascal’s Wager, making faith compatible with reason by believing as the scientist but acting as the theist. I argue that Falk’s proposal leaves religious faith in no better shape; in particular, it merely reframes the question in terms of rational desires rather than rational beliefs.

"Whether you run your own business or work for someone else, you've probably got a lot on your plate. Along with the portion of your work that you truly feel like doing comes a generous helping of things you'd rather not do. As consultants, Steve Levinson and Chris Cooper have seen countless clients struggle--and often fail--to do the many success-producing things they know they should do but don't feel like doing. The Power to Get Things Done will teach you (...) how to consistently turn your good intentions into action so that you can be as successful as possible in the work you do. Don't feel like filing those pesky tax forms or making the follow-up calls you've been putting off? The Power to Get Things Done will show you how to get yourself--and keep yourself--in gear, "--Amazon.com. (shrink)

This paper presents completeness and conservative extension results for the boolean extensions of the relevant logic T of Ticket Entailment, and for the contractionless relevant logics TW and RW. Some surprising results are shown for adding the sentential constant t to these boolean relevant logics; specifically, the boolean extensions with t are conservative of the boolean extensions without t, but not of the original logics with t. The special treatment required for the semantic normality of T is also shown along (...) the way. (shrink)

Remedios and Dusek have provided a useful contextualization of Steve Fuller’s recent work in social epistemology. While they have provided some good criticisms of some of Fuller’s new ideas, they fail to provide a systematic critique of Fuller’s retreat from a naturalistic and materialist social epistemology for one embracing transhumanism, intelligent design, and the proactionary imperative. An alternative approach is developed, drawing on Fuller’s early work and incorporating recent work on our biological and cultural evolution as a species.

This paper is a study of four subscripted Gentzen systems G u R +, G u T +, G u RW + and G u TW +. [16] shows that the first three are equivalent to the semilattice relevant logics u R +, u T + and u RW + and conjectures that G u TW + is, equivalent to u TW +. Here we prove Cut Theorems for these systems, and then show that modus ponens is admissible — which (...) is not so trivial as one normally expects. Finally, we give decision procedures for the contractionless systems, G u TW + and G u RW +. (shrink)

What is the role and value of pleasure in addiction? Foddy and Savulescu have claimed that substance use is just pleasure-oriented behavior. They describe addiction as "strong appetites toward pleasure" and argue that addicts suffer in significant part because of strong social and moral disapproval of lives dominated by pleasure seeking. But such lives, they claim, can be autonomous and rational. The view they offer is largely in line with the choice model and opposed to a disease model of addiction. (...) Foddy and Savulescu are sceptical of self-reports that emphasize the ill effects of addiction such as loss of family and possessions, or that claim an absence of pleasure after tolerance sets in. Such reports they think are shaped by social stigma which makes available a limited set of socially approved addiction narratives. We will not question the claim that a life devoted to pleasure can be autonomously chosen. Nor do we question the claim that the social stigma attached to the use of certain drugs increases the harm suffered by the user. However our interviews with addicts reveal a genuinely ambivalent and complex relationship between addiction, value, and pleasure. Our subjects did not shy away from discussing pleasure and its role in use. But though they usually valued the pleasurable properties of substances, and this played that did not mean that they valued an addictive life. Our interviews distinguished changing attitudes towards drug related pleasures across the course of substance use, including diminishing pleasure from use over time and increasing resentment at the effects of substance use on other valued activities. In this paper we consider the implications of what drug users say about pleasure and value over the course of addiction for models of addiction. Well don't get me wrong, I love using mate. If I could use successfully I would. I'd still be using. I love using. I just don't like the shit that comes with it. (shrink)

Grace is a dance -- Sin is a sour note -- Jesus lived as us -- Grace isn't fair -- Jesus wasn't forsaken -- God isn't angry -- His faith changed everything -- Not your grandmother's hell -- Seeing through agape's eyes.

In his new book, Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History, Steve Fuller returns to core themes of his program of social epistemology that he first outlined in his 1988 book, Social Epistemology. He develops a new, unorthodox theology and philosophy building upon his testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in defense of intelligent design, leading to a call for maximal human experimentation. Beginning from the theological premise rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition that we are created in (...) the image of God, Fuller argues that the spark of the divine within us distinguishes us from animals. I argue that Fuller’s recent work takes us away from key insights of his original work. In contrast, I advocate for a program of social epistemology rooted in evolutionary science rather than intelligent design, emphasize a precautionary and ecological approach rather than a proactionary approach that favors risky human experimentation, and attend to our material and sociological embeddedness rather than a transhumanist repudiation of the body. (shrink)

Steven Higgins and Vivienne Baumfield have recently attempted to defend the much discussed idea of general thinking skills against attacks from three quarters: what they regard as a priori objections, which they liken to Zeno's paradox that Achilles will not catch the tortoise; domains theories of knowledge, which oppose the idea of thinking skills being general and transcending domains; and the claim that experts use subject specific knowledge, and don't use general thinking skills. We examine these defences and find them (...) flawed and worrying. We conclude that this is a domain in serious need of a priori approaches. (shrink)

Key to Steve Fuller’s recent defense of intelligent design is the claim that it alone can explain why science is even possible. By contrast, Fuller argues that Darwinian evolutionary theory posits a purposeless universe leaving humans with no motivation to study science and no basis for modifying an underlying reality. I argue that this view represents a retreat from insights about knowledge within Fuller’s own program of social epistemology. I argue for a Darwinian picture of science as a product (...) of cultural evolution building upon biological capabilities and liabilities bequeathed to us by biological evolution. Dual Inheritance or Gene-Culture Coevolution Theory can help us understand how complex social institutions emerged out of distinct, if connected, processes of biological and cultural evolution. Only by understanding how the unnatural nature of modern science emerged through cultural evolution can we consider where modern science functions well or poorly. (shrink)

Evidence‐based interventions have been developed and used to prevent HIV infections among black men who have sex with men (MSM) in Canada and the United States; however, the degree to which interventions address racism and other interlocking oppressions that influence HIV vulnerability is not well known. We utilize integrative antiracism to guide a review of HIV prevention intervention studies with black MSM and to determine how racism and religious oppression are addressed in the current intervention evidence base. We searched CINAHL, (...) PsychInfo, MEDLINE and the CDC compendium of evidence‐based HIV prevention interventions and identified seventeen interventions. Three interventions targeted black MSM, yet only one intervention addressed racism, religious oppression, cultural assets and religious assets. Most interventions' samples included low numbers of black MSM. More research is needed on interventions that address racism and religious oppression on HIV vulnerability among black MSM. Future research should focus on explicating mechanisms by which multiple oppressions impact HIV vulnerability. We recommend the development and integration of social justice tools for nursing practice that aid in addressing the impacts of racism and other oppressions on HIV vulnerability of black MSM. (shrink)

The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. Edited by Steve Heine and Dale Wright. Oxford University Press, New York 2000. xii, 322 pp. £30.00, 13.95. ISBN 0-19-511748-4, 0-19-511749-2.

Dans cette entrée, après une introduction qui servira de cadre à notre discussion (section 1.), nous allons présenter et analyser des définitions du concept « Art ». Nous discuterons brièvement les définitions classiques les plus influentes puis nous nous concentrerons sur les principales définitions contemporaines. -/- Nous verrons pourquoi les définitions classiques sont aujourd’hui considérées comme insatisfaisantes (2.a.), et comment les philosophes, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle ont tenté de pallier leurs défauts. Dans les grandes lignes, (...) le problème principal soulevé à l’encontre des théories classiques est qu’elles cherchent toutes l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique qui serait reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes. Les théories contemporaines répondent à ce problème principalement de quatre façons, comme on le verra dans les sections 2.b à 2.d. Les théories sceptiques (2.b.) défendent qu’il est dès lors impossible de définir l’art – qu’on peut au mieux en donner certains caractères typiques, des airs de famille. Les théories relationnalistes (2.c.) défendent que ce qui fait qu’une chose est de l’art est à trouver en dehors de celle-ci, notamment dans les relations qu’elle entretient avec son contexte de création ou de présentation. Les théories néo-classiques (2.d.) continuent à chercher l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes tout en prenant en compte les réactions sceptiques ou relationnalistes. Enfin, la théorie du ‘renvoi de la balle’ (2.e.) défend que l’on ne peut pas définir l’art mais seulement des sous-catégories comme la musique, la sculpture, les installations, les performances, etc. -/- Nous présenterons les avantages et les inconvénients principaux des théories contemporaines. Nous verrons qu’aucune n’est dénuée de problèmes, expliquant pourquoi il n’existe pas de consensus sur une définition de l’art aujourd’hui. Nous verrons également que – à l’exception d’un certain scepticisme qui jette, semble-t-il, trop vite l’éponge – chacune de ces théories amène, par son originalité, à une compréhension nouvelle et plus profonde de cette notion extrêmement complexe qu’est le concept « Art ». (shrink)

It is premature to conclude that music is an adaptation. Given the danger of overextending the adaptationist mode of explanation, the default position should be the byproduct hypothesis, and it should take very strong evidence to drag us into the adaptationist camp. As yet, the evidence isn't strong enough – and the proposed adaptationist explanations have a number of unresolved difficulties.

In the beginning of Star Trek Into Darkness, Mr. Spock descends into the heart of a raging volcano on the planet Nibiru. His mission: to detonate a cold fusion device that will solidify the bubbling magma before it erupts and destroys an entire civilization. Meanwhile, Captain James T. Kirk is on the bridge of the Enterprise facing a dilemma. He's duty‐bound never to violate the Prime Directive. One way to address the problem of the Prime Directive is to follow the (...) criteria used by Vulcans: reason and logic. This approach has been highly revered in the history of moral philosophy, and was most convincingly articulated by Immanuel Kant. Confucius and Aristotle would agree that while the Prime Directive is usually correct, there will be cases where it's wrong not to break it. The Prime Directive symbolizes just how difficult making good moral decisions can be. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)