Back to the Rough Ground is a philosophical investigation of practical knowledge, with major import for professional practice and the ethical life in modern society. Its purpose is to clarify the kind of knowledge that informs good practice in a range of disciplines such as education, psychotherapy, medicine, management, and law. Through reflection on key modern thinkers who have revived cardinal insights of Aristotle, and a sustained engagement with the Philosopher himself, it presents a radical challenge to the scientistic assumptions (...) that have dominated how these professional domains have been conceived, practiced, and institutionalized. (shrink)

I argue that, in George Eliot’s early, definitive statement of realism in the seventeenth chapter of Adam Bede, realism will only have been accomplished when readers have learned not merely to respect, but to desire, the dysphorically sexed bodies of others. In this sense, I argue, realism shares a central tenet with two of the more controversial and, frankly, neglected dimensions of Freudian thinking—which Sigmund Freud himself took to be indipensable components in the treatment of neurotics—castration complex and penis envy. (...) Though post-Freudian analysts have frequently found these dimensions of libidinal embodiment distasteful, to trans people they are central and in certain respects definitive aspects of social participation. Hence, while trans studies tends to eschew psychoanalysis altogether, and the only psychoanalysts to write about trans people tend to be Lacanians for whom Freud’s therapeutic ambitions were frequently mystified, reappraising the realist dimension of psychoanalytic practice can reveals the trans logic at the core of both Freud’s project and Eliot’s. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over the assumption (...) and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

Il apparaîtra, en des termes explicites, que nous cherchons, prioritairement, à nous distinguer de cette lecture à livre ouvert, immédiate, qui caractérise une certaine école du commentaire de l'œuvre, qui suppose que la vérité du ...

In this article, complete synchronization and antisynchronization in the identical financial chaotic system are presented. The proposed control strategies depend on first-order sliding mode and adaptive integral sliding mode for complete synchronization and antisynchronization of the identical financial chaotic system. In the primary case, the system parameters should be known, and first-order sliding mode control is utilized for synchronization and antisynchronization while in the second case, the system parameters are considered unknown. An adaptive integral sliding mode control strategy is utilized (...) for synchronization and antisynchronization of the system considering the parameters unknown. The error system is changed into a particular structure containing a nominal part and several unknown terms to utilize the adaptive integral sliding mode control. Then, this error system is stabilized using integral sliding mode control. The stabilizing controller is usually developed based on the nominal part plus the compensator control part. To suppress the high-frequency oscillation phenomenon, smooth continuous compensator control can be used rather than conventional discontinuous control. The compensator controller along with the adapted law is derived such that the time derivative of the Lyapunov function becomes strictly negative. The effectiveness of the proposed method was tested through computer simulations. The proposed control strategies are verified for that Identical 4D hyperchaotic financial system to attain complete synchronization and antisynchronization along with the improved performance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Turning the Tables on the Audience:Didactic Technique in Solon 13WKate StoddardSolon's great elegiac poem, variously called the "Hymn to the Muses" and the "Elegy Eis Heauton," is an odd work, one that has been the subject of exhaustive and varied study. Owing in part to its considerable length and to its complex paratactic style, the poem's unity continues to be the single most important issue for the scholars (...) who study it. The apparent interruption of the elegy's train of thought at line 33, as well as the puzzling statement about atē in lines 63-70 that seems to contradict the description of divine justice earlier in the poem, has caused many scholars to doubt the poem's integrity altogether.1 The interpretations of the elegy's structure range from those that discover in it little more than a rambling patchwork of philosophically inconsistent reflections to others that seek to demonstrate that the elegy is in fact a closely knit and conceptually coherent unity.2 [End Page 149]The great majority of scholars now accept the premise that Solon 13W is a unified whole that Solon composed more or less in the form that survives to us today. As a consequence of this admission, scholars are faced with the question of how to explain the breaks at lines 33 and 71. Beginning with Wilamowitz, the traditional way of explaining the structure of the elegy is to see it as a paratactic "chain" of observations in which each idea springs from the one that precedes it but is not necessarily connected to the other ideas in the poem.3 Wilamowitz argues that the poem's unity is rooted in the idea of the desire for wealth, which he sees as permeating every aspect of the elegy.4 Subsequent scholarship finds [End Page 150] different unifying themes of the elegy, with several scholars focusing on the last three lines of the poem (74-76) as the key to the poem's unity.5Allen, who argues that lines 74-76 restate the ideas of the first half of the poem and thus unify the poem by ring-composition, believes that the real unity of the poem depends on the content of the opening prayer: olbon moi pros theōn makarōn dote kai pros hapantōn / anthrōpōn aiei doxan echein agathēn (3-4). Allen interprets the prayer as a prayer not for wealth, over which the Muses have no jurisdiction, but for wisdom, specifically the wisdom needed to avoid committing injustice and falling victim to atē. In order, however, to make the content of the prayer harmonize with the last three lines of the poem Allen translates the kerdea of 74 to mean "unjust gains"6 rather than simply "gains," a qualification that is not at all justified by the text:7[End Page 151].8No limitation of wealth is visible for men,For those among us who now have the most abundant meansStrive twice as hard [to gain more]. Who could satisfy them all?The deathless gods grant gains to mortals,But ruin arises from these gains, which, whenever Zeus sends itAs punishment, afflicts now one man, now another.(71-76)It is this striking contradiction between the opening prayer for olbos (1-6) and the closing statement that atē arises from god-given wealth that is the subject of this article.9 In it I hope to demonstrate that the first half of the poem, and most especially the prayer itself, is "ironic" and set forth for the purpose of instructing the audience that the mindset it depicts represents a dangerous trap for mortals.At the beginning of Solon 13W the narrator prays for the traditional blessings of olbos and good repute:105Shining children of Memory and Olympian Zeus,Pierian Muses, hear me as I pray:Grant me to have wealth from the blessed godsAnd from all men always to have good repute;5 To be thus sweet to friends but bitter to enemies;An object of respect to the former, but to the latter an object ofdread to behold.(Solon 13.1-6)Although... (shrink)

Art is an aesthetic message and a means of human communication with its surroundings, as it influences and is influenced by everything that surrounds it, as scientific and intellectual development has a great role in developing the means used in it with the multiplicity of options offered in terms of raw materials and techniques. Undoubtedly, the art of ceramics is one of the arts developed in terms of technology, indicating the development and sophistication of societies throughout history. It offers an (...) aesthetic and utilitarian taste to the community. The color is one of the main elements in the process of adding an aesthetic touch to the surface of the ceramic piece, and this was evident in ceramics of all ages and times, and the implemented idea plays a role in showing an expressive and aesthetic vision in the ceramic surface and in order to keep pace with the rest of the plastic arts. Therefore, the potter always tries to innovate by experimenting with materials and techniques. Accordingly, the potter, especially the Arab potter, relied on coexistence with the modern intellectual dimensions of the era's culture, directing him to research, experimentation, modernization and acculturation from Western arts. This prompted research into Arab ceramics and the study of its ceramic products, especially the art of ceramics and the aesthetics of the raku technique, which is considered the Technique of most potters. The research is part of the methodological framework of the research, as it contains the research question, which concludes with the following question: What is the aesthetic of the raku technique in the works of potters Shunyar Abdullah and Yaqoub Al-Atoum, then the importance of the research, which lies in highlighting the aesthetic effects of the raku technique by identifying the features and characteristics of this Technique reflected in the formal structure of Arab ceramic work and identifying the different reduction processes in this Technique and its impact on the artistic works of potters Shunyar Abdullah and Yaqoub Al-Atoum, to benefit researchers and specialists and enrich scientific libraries and students in the field of ceramics. After that, the aim of the research was discussed: The objective of the research was to identify the raku technique in the works of potters Shinyar Abdullah and Yaqoub Al-Atoum, and then the limits of the research were reached in terms of the objective limits, which were determined by the aesthetic of the raku technique in the works of potters Shinyar Abdullah and Yaqoub Al-Atoum and the temporal limits, which were represented by the period between (2012-2021), the spatial limits (Iraq and Jordan) and the human limits of the potters Shinyar Abdullah and Yaqoub Atoum, and the chapter ends with the definition of the most important terms. (shrink)

The academic debate over the propriety of attributing moral responsibility to corporations is decades old and ongoing. The conventional approach to this debate is to identify the sufficient conditions for moral agency and then attempt to determine whether corporations possess them. This article recommends abandoning the conventional approach in favor of an examination of the practical consequences of corporate moral responsibility. The article’s thesis is that such an examination reveals that attributing moral responsibility to corporations is ethically acceptable only if (...) it does not authorize the punishment of corporations as collective entities, and further, that this renders the debate over corporate moral responsibility virtually pointless. (shrink)

Here we report that a specific form of yoga can generate controlled high-frequency gamma waves. For the first time, paroxysmal gamma waves were observed in eight subjects practicing a yoga technique of breathing control called Bhramari Pranayama . To obtain new insights into the nature of the EEG during BhPr, we analyzed EEG signals using time-frequency representations , independent component analysis , and EEG tomography . We found that the PGW consists of high-frequency biphasic ripples. This unusual activity is (...) discussed in relation to previous reports on yoga and meditation. It is concluded this EEG activity is most probably non-epileptic, and that applying the same methodology to other meditation recordings might yield an improved understanding of the neurocorrelates of meditation. (shrink)

Since the second half of the last century, intellectual productions in relation to the question of modern technification have been increasing; technique and the forms of social alienation have been the object of study of thinkers from the most diverse disciplines. One of the first figures to undertake this enterprise was Martin Heidegger, from hermeneutic phenomenology, while one of the most recent theorizations in this regard comes from the phenomenological critical sociology of Hartmut Rosa. In this paper, we will (...) start from both of them to think about the problem of availability. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The present paper addresses the concepts of cloth, fashion and wearable technologies and analysis the way in which cloths and fashion are theorized and the way in which the integration of electronic components and digital devices into the structure of the fabrics are creating precedencies for the transformation of cloth into a technology. By mapping some of the key concepts in fashion theory and their relationship to the definition of personhood, community and society, we are going to show how the (...) first wearable technologies have taken into consideration these concepts in their design processes. Based on our analysis we will emphasize the importance of political stance when it comes to the design of communicative cloths and fashionable technologies. (shrink)

Anthropological scholarship after Marilyn Strathern does something that might surprise lawyers schooled in the tradition of ‘law and society’, or ‘law in context’. Instead of construing law as an instrument of social forces, or as an expression of processes by which society maintains and reproduces itself, a new mode of anthropological enquiry focuses sharply on ‘law itself’, on what Annelise Riles calls the ‘technicalities’ of law. How might the legal scholar be inspired by this approach? In this article, I explore (...) one possible way of approaching law after anthropology, which is to find within law’s own archive a set of resources for an analogous representation of law itself. Drawing on the historical scholarship of Yan Thomas, I suggest that the Roman conception of law as object offers an engaging counterpart to the anthropological take on law as a specific set of tools or, technicalities, or as a particular art of making relations. (shrink)

In this paper, I deal with video data not as a transparent window on social interaction but as a situated product of video practices. This perspective invites an analysis of the practices of video-making, considering them as having a configuring impact on both on the way in which social interaction is documented and the way in which it is locally interpreted by video-makers. These situated interpretations and online analyses reflexively shape not only the record they produce but also the interactional (...) order itself as it is documented. Dealing with practices of video-making not as a resource but as a topic, I explore a particular editing practice, the use of the split-screen technique, consisting in combining various camera views within the same image. This technique is now widely used in cinema, professional settings, TV, and social research. I focus on its uses in TV talk shows and debates: through a systematic sequential analysis of the positions where split screen is introduced, I show that directors do orient to the sequential features of interaction in using this technique and that, conversely, their uses of split screen reveal their local understanding—and configuring—of what the interactional dimension of debates and interviews consist of, for all practical purposes. (shrink)

IntroductionBy ‘philosophy of consciousness’ we mean an assembly of different approaches such as philosophy of mind , perception, rational conclusions, information processing and contradictory conceptions such as holistic ‘all is mind’ perspectives and their atomistic counterparts.Since ancient Greeks philosophy has provided widespread debates on pneuma, nous, psyche, spiritus, mind, and Geist. In more recent times the philosophy of consciousness has become part of psychology, sociology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, communication science, information theory, cybernetic systems theory, synthetic biology, biolinguistics, bioinformatics and (...) biosemiotics.However, no matter what each of these approaches presents as a coherent explanation of the human mind, thinking, and consciousness, they remain alien to our self-awareness and self-reflection-based understanding because they do not offer a rational and at the same time .. (shrink)