The aim of this text is to develop an epistemological-technique approach which permit analyze the work of Juan Downey, and his use of technical medias and also include the struggle against the State in the political and cultural model of the primitive societies of the Yano- mani, particularly by the work of Pierre Clastres and Jacques Lizot, and also their point of view of the methods of production in the societies of abundance, as theorized the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, considering these (...) anthropological paradigms as a medium to understand the mediatic interaction and the technique development in the works of Juan Downey. (shrink)

Realities of the formed information society made actual for inclusive education a problem of formation of professionals of the new directions capable to apply information technologies to improvement of interaction between participants of process of distance learning. Until recent time the institute of distance learning had no analogs in our educational system. It has to become one of the most important elements of the organization of remote education. Inclusive education becomes the new strategic direction of modern education in Russia, its (...) program of development to 2020 is designated by the Federal law ‘About the education in the Russian Federation‘ which has come into force on September 1, 2013. Ideas of inclusive training were born from a pressing need of society to help children to be integrated with features of development into society. Without it a creation of a new civilized society, the education system that meets the requirements of the humanistic principles is not possible. In this connection, creation of a substantial and technological basis of the organization of inclusive education of children in the mode of distance learning is an extremely important for today social, moral and pedagogical problem. In its center are the development of the subject, granting equal opportunities to each pupil to build the individual educational trajectory, culturological cultivation of the person capable to take an independent position in relation to external conditions. Distance learning serves as strong and active technology of socialization of such children. However, in the theory and a technique of training, the problem of distance learning of children with disabilities is insufficiently solved that is caused by unavailability of most of teachers to apply these technologies. There is a contradiction between objective practical need of distance learning for children with disabilities and insufficient readiness of a theoretical and technological basis. This is a main problem discussed in the study. In theoretical plan, it is a problem of development of the practical-focused theoretical and technological basis of distance learning of children with disabilities. On the practical level, it is a problem of formation of the subject information and education environment, designing of the contents, definition of methods, pedagogical technologies, the conditions of formation promoting achievement of the planned educational results and development of cognitive independent activity without prejudice to health of children on the basis of the accounting of their individual abilities. Technological effectiveness of the purposes is provided with prediction of educational results, their expression through requirements to actions of pupils. Recent time, children only start studying and mastering remote technologies therefore, first of all, they have to seize rational ways of educational activity and learn to work with information, i.e. priority value has to be allocated for formation of informative and logical and informative and information universal educational actions. (shrink)

Progressions of iterated reflection principles can be used as a tool for the ordinal analysis of formal systems. We discuss various notions of proof-theoretic ordinals and compare the information obtained by means of the reflection principles with the results obtained by the more usual proof-theoretic techniques. In some cases we obtain sharper results, e.g., we define proof-theoretic ordinals relevant to logical complexity Π1 0 and, similarly, for any class Π n 0 . We provide a more general version of (...) the fine structure relationships for iterated reflection principles (due to U. Schmerl [25]). This allows us, in a uniform manner, to analyze main fragments of arithmetic axiomatized by restricted forms of induction, including IΣ n , IΣ n − , IΠ n − and their combinations. We also obtain new conservation results relating the hierarchies of uniform and local reflection principles. In particular, we show that (for a sufficiently broad class of theories T) the uniform Σ1-reflection principle for T is Σ2-conservative over the corresponding local reflection principle. This bears some corollaries on the hierarchies of restricted induction schemata in arithmetic and provides a key tool for our generalization of Schmerl's theorem. (shrink)

Some historians have always erred in ignoring oral history methods, as it is always assumed wrongly that the only reliable and trustworthy source of history is the written word. The aim of this article is to underscore the nature and significance of oral histories, which rely on the memory of the narrators. In the case of both Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s and Wole Soyinka’s literary works, their respective childhood experiences are well captured, as they employ both the use of postcolonial and (...) autobiography theories in their theoretical frameworks. In its methodology, this article relied heavily on extensive literature review, oral interviews and archival sources. In seeking to demonstrate the significance of oral history for the preservation of memory and for the writing of history in Africa, the author intends to build from both the above literary works and other theohistorical materials so as to convey the message that the methodology used in chronicling East African oral history, the history of Christian doctrines, Church history or social histories will require us to go beyond postcolonial theory and the theory of autobiography in order to harvest the rich and forward-moving historiographies that remain unexplored and/or unpublished altogether. Contribution: Memory as a critical tool that moves humanity forward is the main subject of this article. The article is relevant to the journal HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies and the world of scholarship as it undertakes a multidisciplinary approach in engaging literary works with theo-historical works in order to build the case for oral techniques in modern scholarship. (shrink)

The Platonic description of the cognitive development of the human being is a crucial part of his philosophy. This account emphasizes not only the existence of phases of rational growth but also the need that the cognitive progress of the individuals is investigated further. I will reconstruct what rational growth is for Plato in light of the deliberate choice of the philosopher to leave incomplete his schematization of human intellectual development. I will argue that this is a means chosen by (...) Plato to stimulate his readers to use his text as a starting point for an enquiry into the capabilities of human intellection. I will illustrate the presence of two phases in the process of human rational growth, highlighting the different techniques utilized by Plato to promote cognitive development during each of them. When the individuals are in the first phase of intellectual growth, they are rationally stimulated via conventional discursive material transmitted in written form. Human rational progress at the level of sophistication of theoretical adulthood is promoted through mathematics. (shrink)

Weakly Aggregative Modal Logic ) is a collection of disguised polyadic modal logics with n-ary modalities whose arguments are all the same. \ has interesting applications on epistemic logic, deontic logic, and the logic of belief. In this paper, we study some basic model theoretical aspects of \. Specifically, we first give a van Benthem–Rosen characterization theorem of \ based on an intuitive notion of bisimulation. Then, in contrast to many well known normal or non-normal modal logics, we show (...) that each basic \ system \ lacks Craig interpolation. Finally, by model theoretical techniques, we show that an extension of \ does have Craig interpolation, as an example of amending the interpolation problem of \. (shrink)

The concept of the future is re-emerging as an urgent topic on the academic agenda. In this article, we focus on the ‘politics of the future’: the social processes and practices that allow particular imagined futures to become socially performative. Acknowledging that the performativity of such imagined futures is well-understood, we argue that how particular visions come about and why they become performative is underexplained. Drawing on constructivist sociological theory, this article aims to fill this gap by exploring the question (...) ‘how do imagined futures become socially performative’? In doing so, the article has three aims to identify the leading social–theoretical work on the future; conceptualize the relationship of the imagination of the future with social practices and the performance of reality; provide a theoretical framework explaining how images of the future become performative, using the concepts ‘techniques of futuring’ and ‘dramaturgical regime’. (shrink)

At several places in this paper we have made use of a well-known rhetorical device: an argument was made; a character —dubbed “fictional reader” — was then evoked who voiced some objections against that particular argument; and finally, we answered those objections, thus bringing to a close, at least temporarily, our argument. The use of this device raises a question: “How is the presence of the ‘fictional reader” to be understood?” Is it a “mere” rhetorical tool, or does this character (...) designate some particular target? For instance, depending on the context, it could be seen as aimed at different straw men: traditionally minded sociologists, Whiggish historians, well-intentioned philosophers of science. Actually, none of these characters is behind the “fictional reader”. Rather, it refers, potentially, to any of the scientific actors (Milstein, Schwaber, Koprowski, Cohn, and so on) who inhabit our set of narratives. In other words, the “fictional reader” is an icon for the “native” reader/writer who simultaneously produces and questions the products of that particular literary activity known as scientific texts, by explicitly and implicitly raising the issue of the distinction between fact and technique.By following actors in their disputes about the novelty of K & M's contribution, it became apparent that it is not exactly clear which of the different elements of “hybridoma technology” should be regarded as “novel.” Was it the use of the P3 myeloma line? Was it the theoretical framework related to the notion of allelic exclusion? Was it ...? In each and every case, arguments can be made for or against the existence of a certain continuity or discontinuity with previous work. And in each case, the determination of novelty, as translated through the continuity/discontinuity issue, appeared to be hanging on the previous attribution of an epistemological status to the object that had allegedly been discovered: was it a fact or a technique?If one focuses on the relatively narrow network of immunogenetics, it could be argued that within that particular evidential context a series of “facts” had been established which, when transferred to other fields, such as the virological research being pursued in Koprowski's institute, were translated into a technique. However, as we have seen, even from an immunogenetic point of view the production of monoclonal antibodies can be viewed as being simultaneously a fact and a technique to establish that fact. Not only, as he himself noted,139 was Milstein not seeking to develop a technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies when the original experiments were carried out, but the significance later imputed to those experiments was not immediately attributed to them. The paper was seen as one among other papers that used cell fusion techniques to dissect the genetic control of antibody diversity. Distinctions that now appear crucial (e.g.: were the fusion partners two myelomas or a myeloma and a spleen cell?) were easily overlooked. At some point, around 1977, the production of monoclonal antibodies became a goal in itself, no longer linked to the initial immunogenetic network. The transformation of [MILSTEIN 75] into the foundational event of “hybridoma technology” was thus achieved. This transformation did not flow naturally from the original experiments. Rather, it involved specific investments which mobilized the activity of a large number of other scientific and industrial actors.140A tentative generalization can be deduced from our case study. The dichotomy between fact and technique that underlines much of contemporary science studies seem to be fundamentally misconceived, insofar as the determination of what counts as a fact and what counts as a technique is not possible on a priori grounds. Historians and sociologists of science are confronted with a field of heterogeneous interventions where particular pieces of work are constituted as discrete entities and simultaneously attributed a technical or a factual identity. “Novelty” and “innovation” are precisely the result of such polymorphic attributional processes. (shrink)

It is the aim of INDICES to document recent explorations in the various fields of philosophical logic and formal linguistics and their applications in other disciplines. The main emphasis of this series is on self-contained monographs covering particular areas of recent research and surveys of methods, problems, and results in all fields of inquiry where recourse to logical analysis and logical methods has been fruitful. INDICES will contain monographs dealing with the central areas of philosophical logic (extensional and intensional systems, (...) indexical logics, non-classical logics, philosophy of logic, etc.) as well as studies in which these systems are applied to specific issues in philosophy, in the formal semantics of natural languages, the foundations of linguistic theory, in computational linguistics, and in theoretical computer science. Constructive type theory was first presented in 1970, by the Swedish logician Per Martin-Lof. It has become one of the main approaches used in the foundations of mathematics and computer science. But it has remained relatively unknown among linguists and philosophers, although it provides a considerable extension of the concepts and techniques of logic. The book first gives an introduction to type theory from the point of view of linguistics and the philosophy of language. Type theory is then applied in the areas of quantification, anaphora, temporal reference, and the structure of text and discourse. By virtue of the type-theoretical concepts of proof object and context, various phenomena of dependence and progression in language can be discussed in precise terms, and several well-known problems can be solved. A categorial grammar is presented togenerate formally a fragment of English, together with an example of a computer implementation. (shrink)

Unlike a great deal of research on expert/non-expert communication, most of which is based on written materials, this article focuses on face-to-face communication. The analysis is based on a large corpus of transcribed recordings of medical seminars in rehabilitation centres and of interviews with chronically ill patients suffering from heart conditions. The focus is on procedures of illustration, which are often combined with reformulation procedures. Four main types are described: metaphors, exemplification, `scenarios', concretization. Whatever the type of illustration used, participants (...) in face-to-face interaction show a marked preference for procedures which relate abstract medical information to everyday life and experience. After a brief outline of the theoretical approach adopted the analysis proceeds in two steps: first, the emphasis is on techniques employed by the `experts', then on those used by `non-experts', i.e. patients. This is followed by an examination of the question how the roles of expert and non-expert are constituted in and by interaction. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss technique as utopia and ideology based on Bacon’s New Atlantis. First, it will be necessary to establish the meaning of utopia and ideology. The philosophical thought of Paul Ricoeur is the theoretical basis. On the one hand, Utopia is characterized by a critique of establishment and proposes other ways of exercising power. On the other hand, ideology intends to maintain a status quo. Thus, it will be possible to analyze Bacon's New Atlantis, regarding on (...) it the technique as utopia and how it becomes ideology when it assumes a role on power and authority legitimation. Considering the trends that try to replace politics and ethics by technique, like transhumanism, this paper concludes that it is necessary to strengthen horizontal power to ensure that technology does not become an instrument of oppression. (shrink)

The author considers the model-theoretic character of proofs and disproofs by means of attempted counterexample constructions, distinguishes this proof format from formal derivations, then contrasts two approaches to semantic tableaux proposed by Beth and Lambert-van Fraassen. It is noted that Beth's original approach has not as yet been provided with a precisely formulated rule of closure for detecting tableau sequences terminating in contradiction. To remedy this deficiency, a technique is proposed to clarify tableau operations.

to that goal, and it is hoped that it will incorporate further works dealing in an exact way with interesting philosophical issues. Zurich, April 1973 Mario Bunge Preface In this book I have investigated the logical and methodological role of the much debated theoretical concepts in scientific theories. The philosophical viewpoint underlying my argumentation is critical scientific realism. My method of exposition has been to express ideas first in general terms and then to develop and elaborate them within a (...) specific formal framework. It is assumed in the book that the reader has a relatively good knowledge of the basic techniques and results of modern symbolic logic, including model theory. Examples from actual science are mostly from the social sciences. I have deliberately omitted a treatment of a number of characteristic features which are particular to theoretical concepts in the more developed sciences, such as modern physics. This book owes very much to Professor Jaakko Hintikka, to whom I wish to express my deep gratitude. Especially at the begin ning of this project in 1968/69 when I was doing research for my doctoral degree at Stanford University I worked with him closely. (shrink)

We present a decision-theoretically motivated notion of contraction which, we claim, encodes the principles of minimal change and entrenchment. Contraction is seen as an operation whose goal is to minimize loses of informational value. The operation is also compatible with the principle that in contracting A one should preserve the sentences better entrenched than A (when the belief set contains A). Even when the principle of minimal change and the latter motivation for entrenchment figure prominently among the basic intuitions in (...) the works of, among others, Quine and Ullian (1978), Levi (1980, 1991), Harman (1988) and Gärdenfors (1988), formal accounts of belief change (AGM, KM – see Gärdenfors (1988); Katsuno and Mendelzon (1991)) have abandoned both principles (see Rott (2000)). We argue for the principles and we show how to construct a contraction operation, which obeys both. An axiom system is proposed. We also prove that the decision-theoretic notion of contraction can be completely characterized in terms of the given axioms. Proving this type of completeness result is a well-known open problem in the field, whose solution requires employing both decision-theoretical techniques and logical methods recently used in belief change. (shrink)

Many historical studies tend to underline two central Kantian themes frequently emerging in Georges Canguilhem’s works: (1) a conception of activity, primarily stemming from the Critique of Pure Reason, as a mental and abstract synthesis of judgment; and (2) a notion of organism, inspired by the Critique of Judgment, as an integral totality of parts. Canguilhem was particularly faithful to the first theme from the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s, whereas the second theme became important in the (...) early 1940s. With this article, I will attempt to show that a third important theme of technique arose in the second half of the 30s also in the wake of Kant’s philosophy, especially Sect. 43 of the Critique of Judgment. This section, which states that technical ability is distinguished from a theoretical faculty, led Canguilhem to a more concrete and practical conception of activity. I will then suggest that it was by considering technique that the concept of normativity, which characterizes Georges Canguilhem’s philosophy of life, also took shape. (shrink)

This text reflects cultural techniques in relation to other concepts in cultural and media studies by addressing their relation to selected Anglo-American and French discussions. It also investigates the relation of cultural techniques to more recent material and speculative turns. Suggesting that the cultural techniques approaches introduce their own important material dimension to media-specific analysis of culture, the article argues that cultural techniques should be read in relation to recent post-Fordist political theory and explorations of the (...) post-human in order to develop conceptual hybrids that are able to inject politics into media theoretical accounts, as well as excavate histories of cultural techniques of cognitive capitalism. (shrink)

This article considers `critique' as performative, being on the one hand a reiterative performance, that enacts the `critic' through the act of critique, and on the other hand reflecting the constitution of the subject. While this approach takes on the conceptual framework of Judith Butler's work, it differs by refusing critique — or its correlates; parody, subversion or similar — any special status. Like any other performance critique is taken here as a cultural practice, as a Foucauldian `technique of self', (...) though the complex genealogy of such a technique lies outside the scope of this article. In order to illustrate this argument I interpret a number of Butler's prefaces, interviews and digressions which diverge from her own theoretical framework, and argue that these `fictions' arise from critical `disavowals': that is, a `self-transformative' turn against power. The subjective `crisis' that prompts critique is then elaborated by comparison to Girard's work on imitation and sacrifice. (shrink)

Capable of being otherwise, human actions are in the field of variability and probability, not of constancy and necessity. Therefore it is not possible to find any fixed and complete set of moral rules and ethical principles, in accordance with which one can act morally. All those kinds of rules and principles are disputable – theoretically at least, and every new circumstance encountered in life requires a new deliberation and practical reasoning for deciding what is to be done, so that (...) the decisions taken are not unquestionable either. Nevertheless, this situation does not preclude attempts to set moral rules and ethical principles as guidelines leading actions, behaviours, and conducts; it is a matter of fact that the history of humanity is full of numerous examples of such attempts. Codes of ethics, which play a key role in professional ethics, can be regarded as reflections on the aforementioned general rules and principles in professional life. From this aspect, they also seem disputable and questionable, and they cannot offer a complete prescription fulfilling all the necessary requirements either, yet they fill a great gap in finding solutions to problems that occur in various forms of professional life. Another similarity between codes of ethics, and general moral rules and ethical principles, is that they are all based on an account of humanity and morals; especially, it is impossible to establish a normative ethical theory or to write a worthwhile code of ethics without any philosophical account of humanity and morals. This paper attempts to offer such an account through a philosophical interpretation of ‘non-finito’ sculpture technique and thus to provide a philosophical foundation for any codes of ethics. (shrink)

The notion of a “ptyx” is formalised in second-order arithmetic, and, using proof-theoretic techniques based on sequent-calculus, bounds are obtained for the ptykes of type 1 and 2 which can be proved to be ptykes using arithmetic comprehension.

Within the current theoretical and methodological conceptions that approach the educational processes and phenomena there are several levels that, with a systemic character, offer coherence and unity from their more general argumentation to the description of how they should be studied. However, this reality, that is implicit in the different theories, is unnoticed by the researchers and thus it brings about theoretical and methodological in-consequences in the investigation which damage the strictness of the research process. The aim of (...) this article is to analyse each level in the theoretical foundation of investigations about the educational process. A deep analysis of the various ways in which the state of the art has been approached by different authors from the theoretical and methodological points of view is made and the importance of each of one is analysed with new elements that can be enrich according to criterion of the author of this article. Dentro de las concepciones teóricas y metodológicas actuales que abordan los procesos y fenómenos educativos, existen varios niveles que con carácter de sistema les brindan coherencia y unidad, desde su argumentación más general hasta la prescripción de cómo deben ser estudiados. Sin embargo, esta realidad implícita en las teorías con frecuencia es inadvertida por los investigadores, provocando inconsecuencias teóricas y metodológicas en las investigaciones que lesionan la severidad del proceso investigativo. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los niveles en la fundamentación teórica de las investigaciones sobre el proceso educativo. Se valora el estado del arte acerca de cómo han sido abordados los niveles teóricos y metodológicos por parte de diferentes autores y posteriormente, se precisa cada uno, destacando nuevos elementos que, a juicio del autor, pueden enriquecerlos. (shrink)

Much of social life now takes place online, and records of online social interactions are available for social science research in the form of massive digital text archives. But cultural social science has contributed little to the development of machine-assisted text analysis methods. As a result few text analysis methods have been developed that link digital text data to theories about culture and discourse. This paper attempts to lay the groundwork for development of such methods by proposing metatheoretical and (...) class='Hi'>theoretical foundations suitable for machine-assisted semantic text analysis. Metatheoretically I draw on the work of Elder-Vass, Kaidesoja and others to argue that digital text analysis methods ought to be based on a realist constructionist ontology that treats discourses as ontologically real emergent social entities that have causal relationships with non-discursive social and cognitive processes. Theoretically I follow Feldman and many others in arguing that language is fundamentally shaped by processes of embodied cognition. Researchers developing digital text analysis techniques must theoretically account for such processes if they wish to produce algorithms that can interpret texts in ways that supplement, and not only amplify, human interpretation. I critically survey contemporary text analysis methods that implicitly share these metatheoretical and theoretical positions and discuss some ways these can be further developed with newly available software. (shrink)

This article aims to do two things. The first of these is to introduce the concept of reflexive body techniques into the debate on body modification/maintenance. The value of the concept in relation to this debate, in part, is that it ensures that we conceive of the body as both a subject and an object, modifier and modified, and that we thereby avoid the trap of conceptualizing modification in dualistic (mind/body or body/society) terms. Second, the article seeks to explore (...) the pattern of distribution of practices of modification (conceived as reflexive body techniques) through society and to reflect upon the potential usefulness of multi-dimensional scaling as a tool for doing this. This aim is related to the first aim as it is argued that the concept of reflexive body techniques serves to identify and anchor practices ofmodification in a way that is amenable to both quantitative and qualitative forms of analysis, as well as theoretical investigation. (shrink)

This volume, co-published with the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, presents the argument that a philosophy of technology is a central component of a contemporary political philosophy. It provides a theoretical groundwork for the encounter of phenomenology and critical theory. Written for courses in social and political theory, phenomenology and critical theory.

We present an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum formalism based on a Bayesian framework and devoid of any extra axiom or principle. Quantum information is construed as a technique for analyzing a logical system subject to classical constraints, based on a question-and-answer procedure. The problem is posed from a particular batch of queries while the constraints are represented by the truth table of a set of Boolean functions. The Bayesian inference technique consists in assigning a probability distribution within a real-valued probability (...) space to the joint set of queries in order to satisfy the constraints. The initial query batch is not unique and alternative batches can be considered at will. They are enabled mechanically from the initial batch, quite simply by transcribing the probability space into an auxiliary Hilbert space. It turns out that this sole procedure leads to exactly rediscover the standard quantum information theory and thus provides an information-theoretic rationale to its technical rules. In this framework, the great challenges of quantum mechanics become simple platitudes: Why is the theory probabilistic? Why is the theory linear? Where does the Hilbert space come from? In addition, most of the paradoxes, such as uncertainty principle, entanglement, contextuality, nonsignaling correlation, measurement problem, etc., become straightforward features. In the end, our major conclusion is that quantum information is nothing but classical information processed by a mature form of Bayesian inference technique and, as such, consubstantial with Aristotelian logic. (shrink)

Originally published in 2003, this article presents one of the first attempts to provide a systematic summary of the new concept of cultural technique. It is, in essence, an extended checklist aimed at overcoming the textualist bias of traditional cultural theory by highlighting what is elided by this bias. On the one hand, to speak of cultural techniques redirects our attention to material and physical practices that all too often assume the shape of inconspicuous quotidian practices resistant to accustomed (...) investigations of meaning. On the other hand, cultural techniques also comprise sign systems such as musical notation or arithmetical formulas located outside the domain of the hegemony of alphabetical literacy. The rise of the latter in particular is indebted to the impact of the digital – both as a domain of technology and a source of theoretical reorientation. Together, these aspects require a paradigmatic change that challenges and supersedes the traditional ‘discursivism’ of cultural theory. (shrink)

The Nikolais/Louis Dance Technique provides the definite resource for understanding and practicing the influential dance technique developed by two pioneers of modern dance, Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis. The Nikolais/Louis technique is presented in a week-to-week classroom manual, providing an indispensable tool for teachers and students of this widely studied movement practice. Theoretical background for further reading is set off from the manual for those interested in deeper study. Their philosophy and methodology span a broad readership and offer an (...) important addition to dance literature and American cultural history. (shrink)

I survey the syntactic technique of tiering which can be used to restrict the power of a recursion scheme. I show how various results can be obtained entirely proof theoretically without the use of a model of computation.

According to Karl Popper, who is the latest link in the chain of Western rationalist-empiricist debate, knowledge does not have any infallible base in either senses or reason. Taking modern science as the paradigm of human knowledge, he argues that the process of growth of scientic knowledge involves imaginative proposals of hypotheses or conjectures and their refutation on empirical grounds in a continuing series of steps. Thus, scientific knowledge continuously evolves in a series of revolutions whereby the accepted theoretic constructs (...) are falsified, therefore destroyed, and new ones accepted in their place. Experiment, as provoked and controlled stimulation of the senses, plays a critical role in this process of growth and so long as it fails to falsify the hypotheses these are provisionally accepted by the scientists. (shrink)

This study examined the effect of the pique technique preceded by a disrupting process. Passersby in the street were asked for money, either for a common amount of change (control) or 37 cents (pique technique). In half of the cases, the requester added a disrupting sentence at the beginning of the request. Results showed that the pique technique alone and the disrupting technique alone increased compliance with the request. Adding a first disrupting sentence to the pique also increased compliance compared (...) with the other three conditions. These results support the theoretical explanation that the initial disrupting sentence associated with the pique could reduce the influence of the refusal script activated by the money request. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that although data mining (DM) is being touted as a solution to many business problems and is basking in the glory of electronic business environments of today, as practiced currently, it reflects a preoccupation with short-run commercial applications and a neglect of the underlying theoretical issues. Although an argument can be made that theoretical precedence is not a necessary prerequisite for practical application or for commercial success, it can also be argued that (...) an exclusive reliance on data-driven and exploratory components of pattern recognition without a corresponding attention to the causal schemas underlying patterns is destined to limit the potential for DM to evolve into a long-term solution to business problems or into an intellectual discipline in its own right. This paper presents an overview of key features and assumptions in DM and examines some of the key practical, philosophical, and foundational issues in DM. (shrink)

By using the concept of a uniformity, the Structuralists have given us a most useful means of representing approximations. In the second section of this paper, I have made use of this technique to show how we can deal with errors of measurement — imprecise explananda — in the context of theoretical explanation. As well as (I hope) providing further demonstration of the power of the Structuralist approach, this also serves to support the ontic conception of explanation by showing (...) that it can help us resolve substantial problems in the theory of explanation. (shrink)

In order to develop efficient tools for automated reasoning with inconsistency (theorem provers), eventually making Logics of Formal inconsistency (_LFI_) a more appealing formalism for reasoning under uncertainty, it is important to develop the proof theory of the first-order versions of such _LFI_s. Here, we intend to make a first step in this direction. On the other hand, the logic _Ciore_ was developed to provide new logical systems in the study of inconsistent databases from the point of view of _LFI_s. (...) An interesting fact about _Ciore_ is that it has a _strong_ consistency operator, that is, a consistency operator which (forward/backward) propagates inconsistency. Also, it turns out to be an algebraizable logic (in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi) that can be characterized by means of a 3-valued logical matrix. Recently, a first-order version of _Ciore_, namely _QCiore_, was defined preserving the spirit of _Ciore_, that is, without introducing unexpected relationships between the quantifiers. Besides, some important model-theoretic results were obtained for this logic. In this paper we study some proof–theoretic aspects of both _Ciore_ and _QCiore_ respectively. In first place, we introduce a two-sided sequent system for _Ciore_. Later, we prove that this system enjoys the cut-elimination property and apply it to derive some interesting properties. Later, we extend the above-mentioned system to first-order languages and prove completeness and cut-elimination property using the well-known Shütte’s technique. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Merging Traditional Technique Vocabularies with Democratic Teaching Perspectives in Dance EducationA Consideration of Aesthetic Values and Their Sociopolitical ContextsBecky Dyer (bio)IntroductionConventional aesthetic values in dance traditionally have been wed to long-established authoritarian teaching approaches in American professional dance companies and university dance programs. Developed over time from a mixture of enduring cultural tastes, aesthetic ideals, and historical influences, aesthetic values play a significant role in teaching and learning processes (...) in the classroom, although the impact of their presence on learning is often indiscernible or paid little attention. As dance educators in higher education make efforts to move toward more democratic teaching perspectives, they often find themselves philosophically lodged between established approaches to teaching traditional, codified vocabularies and aesthetics and more contemporary, student-centered, and democratically oriented perspectives to teaching and learning dance. Attention to the sociopolitical contexts of dance training gives practitioners opportunities to consider aesthetic values of dance from differing cultural vantage points and the perspectives by which these values are taught and learned.Each learning circumstance in dance is a complex weaving of personal and social experience involving individuals, communities, movers, and viewers. Movement aesthetic values emerge from personal and communal morals and ideals as well as social mores of the body, which create contextual lenses for experiencing, interpreting, and making meaning of movement vocabularies created and perpetuated in dance communities. It is important that teachers who seek to incorporate more democratically oriented, student-centered teaching perspectives become mindful of ways social values and perceptual/contextual frameworks impact personal [End Page 108] and communal practices in dance. Approaches to learning technique that consider sociocultural factors of dance movement aesthetics—wherein teachers and learners are led to recognize and reflect upon personal, social, and aesthetic values embodied in movement and embedded in movement vocabularies—can lead teachers and learners to better understand the significance of learning in dance as it relates to personal and social worlds beyond the classroom.This article will suggest how movement analysis from a socially contextualized perspective can inform understanding about the significance of sociopolitical contexts and aesthetic values in Western dance training. Perspectives of movement analysis will provide groundwork for discussing perceivable ways to address discrepancies between democratic and authoritarian teaching viewpoints and to challenge the prominent linking of conventional aesthetic values and vocabularies, as well as codified techniques, to authoritarian practices. The discussion will address relationships between pedagogical perspectives and ideologies held by teachers concerning the place and worth of conventional aesthetic values and the nature of aesthetic experiences in the dance technique classroom, and the potential understandings and meanings their students construct.Foundations of Movement Analysis: The Ideas and Practices of Rudolf LabanRecognizing embedded personal and social aesthetic values in movement is an important initial stage in developing more critically reflective practices that promote meaning, agency, and student interest in learning. The task is challenging because the only values accessibly evident to the bystander, and often the mover, are visual ones. Yet, as Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) suggested, intangible values also inspire movement. Laban created a theoretical framework—referred to as Laban Movement Analysis—for movement exploration, description, and analysis to consider both noticeably apparent and less-tangible values of movement by investigating movement phenomena and factors that generate them.1 The praxis-oriented system involves reflecting on movement observations, considering emotional and mental facets of movement, and taking into account experiential bodily perspectives of the mover.2Although one of Laban's fundamental purposes for developing a descriptive vocabulary for movement was to facilitate the mastery of dance technique,3 his teaching emphasized the "harmonious expressiveness of the whole individual," as he aimed to facilitate dancers' ability to understand and use their bodies in order to discover individual ways of expressing themselves and communicating.4 Laban's attitudes toward training were in sharp contrast to approaches of the day, yet interestingly, they were not [End Page 109] opposed to them. For example, common dance gestures and postures were expanded into free exploration and studied from diverse points of view rather than a narrow range of perspectives, aesthetic values, and movement qualities.5Laban's theory of "Effort," which he linked to emotions as well as... (shrink)

The question of knowledge and judgment is a problem in the history philosophy. We can even predict that the conflicts in philosophical understanding are due to finding appropriate knowledge for suitable judgments. Discussion on this aspect was a part of the Indian philosophical tradition during the time of the Buddha. We here try to understand the concept of "denials and deny denials" introduced by Sanjaya Bellatthiputta whose philosophical school is known as Amaravikkhepa. Here we examine this concept in relation to (...) the other schools of philosophy at the time of the Buddha. Though the views of the Amaravikkhepas were criticized by the Buddha, we can see that later Buddhist thinkers like Nagarjuna and Aryadeva were influenced by the logical technique of "denials and deny denials." The prime aspect of this method is that it explains indirectly the implicit difficulties in accepting human knowledge about the world as the basic premise for making metaphysical judgments. The discussion shows that most of the philosophical schools of the period were enthusiastic about publishing theories based on personal choices and preferences. Sanjaya was not interested in finding a permanent theory or framework for understanding the phenomenal world. He wants the process of thinking to proceed uninhibitedly without seeking refuge in a theory and thereby struggling with it. He believes the ultimate aim of philosophy is to realize human freedom by invoking the difficulties of accepting theoretical positions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Comic Business: Theatricality, Technique, and Performance Contexts in Aristophanic ComedyC. W. MarshallMartin Revermann. Comic Business: Theatricality, Technique, and Performance Contexts in Aristophanic Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. xiv + 396 pp. 15 black-and-white plates. 3 black-and-white figs. 5 tables. Cloth, $115.The cover illustration of Martin Revermann's book on Aristophanic performance betrays the author's personal and intellectual debts: caricatures of five scholars thanked in the preface, drawn as (...) if they were characters in Clouds, including Oliver Taplin in a swing looking down from above like Socrates. It is a shame many libraries will not keep the cover, since the lighthearted image is quite revealing about the nature of this study, though without any intended association with the academic pedantry of the Thinkery. Following chapter 1, entitled "Comic Business" (3–7), really a short whirlwind of an introduction that raises many of the sorts of questions the book addresses, the structure of the book falls neatly into two parts: three chapters examine the nature of performance criticism of ancient comedy and address a wide range of specifics; three chapters address individual plays, Clouds, Lysistrata, and Wealth. Each chapter falls into well-labeled sections, which will facilitate ongoing reference to the book. Revermann's study aims at a theoretical sophistication that is needed if the study of ancient performance is to proceed meaningfully. While he does not engage with every issue he raises in sufficient depth, Revermann provides a crucial advance on previous discussions (the book comes thirty years after C. W. Dearden's Stage of Aristophanes and twenty-six years after Kenneth McLeish's Theatre of Aristophanes).Chapter 2, "Performance Criticism: Point and Methods" (8–65), addresses some important and underexplored methodological questions that often go unmentioned in such studies. After arguing that "no ancient statement known to [End Page 431] me... claims a necessary link between meaning and dramatic performance" (15), Revermann identifies a "nexus of competitive agendas and social performances" (22), building on those Wilson has described for the choregos. Many of the issues raised (non-competitive performances, pay for poets, the relative importance of dramatic festivals) are equally important for the study of tragedy, and the book generally raises issues that students of tragic performance will need to consider. A general vocabulary of theatre semiotics is introduced, helpfully, with specific examples examining how performance generally is framed.Revermann embarks on an ambitious project of replacing the "significant action" hypothesis (which assumes that every significant action within a Greek play is indicated by the words a character says) that has dominated discussions of ancient stagecraft. This is a very helpful discussion, and it is surely correct, culminating in a good articulation of Revermann's methodology (63–64). Again, the principal examples come from tragedy. However, when Revermann invokes the question of on-stage frogs (agreeing with my 1996 discussion, which in its way sought also to challenge the "significant action" hypothesis), I think he needlessly muddles the matter by imagining the possibility of subsequent, frogless performances, when, I would say, a great deal is lost as a result. Revermann's interest is more with the possibilities offered by performance generally (65: "'Why frogs?,' irrespective of their visibility"), and sometimes the nitty-gritty of specific staging choices is not pressed (comparison is made with the offstage songs of the cloud chorus on 200).Chapter 3 (66–106) addresses "Two Fundamental Problems." The first relates the performance script (as attested in our manuscripts) to a concept of authenticity, considering that many plays were reperformed in the fourth century and after. Given that issues of reperformance were barely acknowledged until the last decade (Easterling's 1994 discussion is subtitled "A Speculative Note"), Revermann provides a solid discussion, arguing that the scripts of both tragedy and comedy closely match what was performed in Athens. Inconsistencies exist, but they are mentioned; context-specific references in Aristophanes point to the primary script surviving. An appendix on the time allocated to a performance during a festival is relevant (333–37). Revermann argues that the scripts as we have them may not have been performed in their entirety during their initial performance, suggesting, for example, that one... (shrink)

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic is a phenomenon of great interest from the point of view of philosophy of technique. In this paper, we propose an interpretation of its causes and its current and foreseeable effects through a dual theoretical framework. On the one hand, we will use Edward Tenner’s concept of the revenge effect, which refers to the phenomenon by which a technique produces unexpected consequences that cancel its objective. In this case, modern mobility techniques, by spreading the (...) disease on a global scale, have produced the opposite effect, that is, the mobility limitations of lockdowns. On the other hand, we will embrace Jacques Ellul’s philosophy of technique, which shows how many problems produced by modern technique, such as the current pandemic, have an ultimate tendency toward the establishment of a centralized and authoritarian organization of humanity not compatible with the fundamental rights of liberal democracies. The conclusion drawn from these elements will be that the way the pandemic has been tackled supports Ellul’s prediction about the establishment of such an organization. (shrink)

In this textbook on elementary logic the authors present a rigorous treatment of first the propositional, and then the predicate calculi. The first two chapters deal with the former topic exclusively: there is much emphasis on translation of ordinary-language sentences into logic and testing their validity; also a proof notation consisting of nested boxes, similar to the Fitch subproof technique, is introduced and used. The third and fourth chapters are concerned with quantification theory in application to language analysis; the next (...) chapter discusses more theoretical topics including a proof procedure for formulae in prenex normal form and decision procedures for restricted classes of such formulae. Identity is treated next, with the following chapter on definite descriptions. The eighth chapter is more formal in approach and has as its subject the abstract approach to logical systems: the notion of the extension of a theory is introduced at this stage; two examples of formal theories—the theory of commutative ordered fields, and that of real numbers—are presented and come under extensive elaboration. The last chapter discusses variable-binding operations and presents the theory of convergence of series as an example of such a theory with these operations. Each chapter has numerous exercises, and most have historical remarks and lists of theorems of that chapter.—P. J. M. (shrink)

The present study tested the impact of attention training on cognition; secondary appraisal of perceived stress, and on metacognition; meta-worry in stressed students. Theoretically derived from the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model (S-REF model; Wells & Matthews, 1994a; 1996), the Attention Training Technique (ATT; Wells, 1990) is intended to promote flexible, voluntary external attention and has been shown to reduce symptoms of psychological distress. The present experimental study explored the effects of ATT on cognitive and metacognitive levels of appraisal, namely perceived (...) stress (primary outcome) and meta-worry (secondary outcome). Stressed students were randomized to an experimental ATT group (n = 23) or a control group (n = 23). The ATT group attended an initial training session followed by four weeks of individual (12 minutes) daily ATT practice. The control group waited for four weeks before receiving the intervention. The outcomes were scores on the Perceived Stress Scale 14 (PSS-14) and the Meta-Worry Questionnaire (MWQ) frequency and belief subscales at post study. Both measures decreased significantly following ATT with large pre to post effect sizes but there were minimal changes in the control group. The between group differences were statistically significant. The results add to the literature on the potential effects of ATT by demonstrating effects on the content of cognitive stress appraisals and on meta-worry in an academic setting in a stressed student sample. (shrink)

Evoked potentials in the amplitude-time spectrum of the electroencephalogram are commonly used to assess the extent of brain responses to stimulation with noxious contact heat. The magnitude of the N- and P-waves are used as a semi-objective measure of the response to the painful stimulus: the higher the magnitude, the more painful the stimulus has been perceived. The strength of the N-P-wave response is also largely dependent on the chosen reference electrode site. The goal of this study was to examine (...) which reference technique excels both in practical and theoretical terms when analyzing noxious contact heat evoked potentials in the amplitude-time spectrum. We recruited 21 subjects. We applied seven noxious contact heat stimuli using two temperatures, 51°C, and 54°C, to each subject. During EEG analysis, we aimed to identify the referencing technique which produces the highest N-wave and P-wave amplitudes with as little artifactual influence as possible. For this purpose, we applied the following six referencing techniques: mathematically linked A1/A2, average reference, REST, AFz, Pz, and mathematically linked PO7/PO8. We evaluated how these techniques impact the N-P amplitudes of CHEPS based on our data from healthy subjects. Considering all factors, we found that mathematically linked earlobes to be the ideal referencing site to use when displaying and evaluating CHEPS in the amplitude-time spectrum. (shrink)

Creativity is an emerging field of research for philosophy. A diachronic cultural value and fundamental human ability, creativity poses a host of questions that challenge us both on a theoretical and practical level. In this paper we explore creativity through the use of problem-solving lateral thinking techniques, as part of the C2Learn European Community research program. Lateral thinking is defined and then classified into three distinct kinds: conceptual, diagrammatic and emotive. Each kind is then explicated and its basic (...) principles examined, in an effort to shed light on the different ways the space of possible solutions is affected by each kind of lateral thought. It is this active engagement with the space of possibilities itself, that separates a mere problem-solver from an actual creator. (shrink)

I respond to H. M. Collins's claim (1985, 1990, 1993) that experimental inquiry cannot be objective because the only criterium experimentalists have for determining whether a technique is "working" is the production of "correct" (i.e., the expected) data. Collins claims that the "experimenters' regress," the name he gives to this data-technique circle, cannot be broken using the resources of experiment alone. I argue that the data-technique circle, can be broken even though any interpretation of the raw data produced by (...) class='Hi'>techniques is theory-dependent. However, it is possible to break this circle by eliminating dependence on even those theoretical presuppositions that are shared by an entire scientific community through the use of multiple independently theory-dependent techniques to produce robust bodies of data. Moreover, I argue, that it is the production of robust bodies of data that convinces experimentalists of the objectivity of their data interpretations. (shrink)

This qualitative research examines the phenomenon of online romance fraud, exploring it from contrasting perspectives. The study engaged two distinct groups of participants: (1) fraudsters actively involved in online romance scams (commonly referred to as “Sakawa Boys”) and (2) police officers with experience in investigating and policing internet crimes. We explore the usefulness of neutralization techniques in interpreting data within the cultural context of individuals’ subjective experiences. Thematic analysis of data reveals that both offenders and police officers employ certain (...) neutralization techniques, such as denial of responsibility, condemnation of the condemners, and appeals to higher loyalties, to justify their conduct. In particular, online romance offenders invoke higher loyalties, rationalizing their actions as reparative justice for colonial exploitation and framing their fraud as a means of reclaiming wealth unjustly taken during colonial rule. The findings suggest that participants perceive the enduring legacy of colonialism as a key factor driving the production of cybercrime. This research contributes to the scant body of direct testimonies from romance fraud offenders, which are significantly rarer than those from police officers, providing valuable insights into this global phenomenon. Methodologically and theoretically, this research contributes to understanding the global phenomenon of scammers targeting individuals worldwide. (shrink)

The article argues against the common notion ofdisciplinary medical traditions, i.e. Obstetrics, asmacro-structures that quite unilinearily structure thepractices associated with the discipline. It shows that the various existences of Obstetrics, their relations with practices and vice versa, the entities these obstetrical practices render present and related, and the ways they are connected to experiences, are more complex than the unilinear model suggests. What allows participants to go from one topos to another – from Obstetrics to practice, from practice to politics, (...) from politics to experience – is not self-evidently induced by Obstetrics, but needs to be studied as a surprising range of passages that connect (or don't). Techniques and devices to supervise the delivery, to render present the fetus during pregnancy, and to monitoring birth, are described in order to show that such techniques acquire different roles in connecting and creating Obstetrics as a system andobstetrical practices. (shrink)

Linkage (or genetic) maps are graphs, which are intended to represent the linear ordering of genes on the chromosomes. They are constructed on the basis of statistical data concerning the transmission of genes. The invention of this technique in 1913 was driven by Morgan's group's adoption of a set of hypotheses concerning the physical mechanism of heredity. These hypotheses were themselves grounded in Morgan's defense of the chromosome theory of heredity, according to which chromosomes are the physical basis of genes. (...) In this paper, I analyze the 1919 debate between William Castle and Morgan's group, about the construction of genetic maps. The official issue of the debate concerns the arrangement of genes on chromosomes. However, the disputants tend to carry out the discussions about how one should model the data in order to draw predictions concerning the transmission of genes; the debate does not bear on the data themselves, nor does it focus on the hypotheses explaining these data. The main criteria that are appealed to by the protagonists are simplicity and predictive efficacy. However, I show that both parties' assessments of the simplicity and predictive efficacy of different ways of modeling the data themselves depend on background theoretical positions. I aim at clarifying how preference for a given model and theoretical commitments articulate. (shrink)

This article shows how theorising the entanglement of securitisation and education can be enhanced by attending to the power of affect and emotion. The author proposes a methodological and theoretical framework that offers the potential of a rich and promising research agenda which includes the role of affects and emotions in exploring securitisation in education. It is argued that this framework would have to do two important things. First, it would have to show how biopolitical techniques emerge from (...) historicising securitisation processes to shape an understanding of the ways in which bodies are entangled with the invisible affective infrastructures of securitisation in educational institutions. Second, this framework would have to trace the capacities of educators and students for affecting and being affected in their engagements and negotiations with securitisation processes, and specifically how these capacities become normalised or enable counter-practices of interruption. The value of this framework is in its capacity to generate empirical work that extends beyond conventional securitisation theory’s focus on language and discourse analysis. As such, what this article offers is both new ways of researching affect and emotion in educational contexts of securitisation and some insights about the pedagogical consequences of this framework of research and theorisation. (shrink)

The starting point of this article is an old question asked by Feferman in his paper on Hancock's conjecture [6] about the strength of ${\rm ID}_{1}^{\ast}$. This theory is obtained from the well-known theory ID₁ by restricting fixed point induction to formulas that contain fixed point constants only positively. The techniques used to perform the proof-theoretic analysis of ${\rm ID}_{1}^{\ast}$ also permit to analyze its transfinitely iterated variants ${\rm ID}_{\alpha}^{\ast}$. Thus, we eventually know that $|\widehat{{\rm ID}}_{\alpha}|=|{\rm ID}_{\alpha}^{\ast}|$.

Focusing on a subject the author has extensively engaged with over the years (most notably in his 2010 study Der Diener), the article develops the notion of service as a cultural technique, and the media-theoretical figure of the servant as its servomechanism. The analysis follows three distinct scenarios that highlight, via different channels of perception (acoustic, optic and haptic), the interplay between corporeal practices and media objects in the production of specific cultural effects. In each of the examples chosen, (...) service implies highly regulated networks of recursive operational chains that regulate in their turn the production and distribution of power and knowledge. Thus, Krajewski argues, despite, or rather, precisely because of their apparent marginality and invisibility, the ‘small gestures’ of service join the ranks of already established, elementary symbolic techniques such as reading or writing. (shrink)