Closure and Causality

We present a model of causality which is defined by the intersection of two distinct closure systems, ${cal I}$ and ${cal T}$. Next we present empirical evidence to demonstrate that this model has practical validity by examining computer trace data to reveal causal dependencies between individual code modules. From over 498,000 events in the transaction manager of an open source system we tease out 66 apparent causal dependencies. Finally, we explore how to mathematically model the transformation of a causal topology resulting from unforlding events

Response to My Readers

I hope no one is disappointed when I say right at the start that I basically agree with my critics. Not all is irenic, of course, and in philosophy it should not be. What distinguishes the philosophical from the poetic or the narrative discourse is the expectation of questions and objections. Much as I appreciate Myron Tuman\u27s generous remarks on the occasionally poetic quality of Holding On to Reality (henceforth Holding), I have always enjoyed the give and take of philosophical exchanges though I have tried, over the years, to be gentler in giving and stronger in taking. There are then misunderstandings and confusions that I have discovered in the contributions of my readers, but I found insight to prevail, and the region between fundamental agreement and occasional misapprehensions I take to be the unsettled area that calls for collaborative and complementary investigations

Rosario Ferre's The house on the lago on Puerto rican ethnical an national identities under (de-) construction

En este artículo se presenta un enfoque general las nociones de nación y etnia bajo el prisma de las técnicas narrativas postmodernas y mayores preocupaciones ideológicas y estéticas. Más concretamente, y como el título de este artículo explicita, el principal foco de análisis singularizada en este contexto particular afectaría a gran novela puertorriqueña autora Rosario Ferré de La Casa en la Laguna (1995). A lo largo de una visión general de los temas clave de Ferré relacionados con la redefinición de la nación y etnicidad, tanto en la novela como en el resto de su obras, voy a tratar de esbozar las principales tendencias de la teoría posmodernista que han conferido una nueva perspectiva diversificada en las percepciones convencionales sobre tanto a nivel nacional y el origen étnic

“This Whole World Is a Story”: Popularizing Narrative Instability in Contemporary Film and Television

In this article, I examine the intersection of two trends in contemporary US popular culture: a tendency of recent films to obfuscate the process of narrative understanding (called narrative instability) and a move towards combining elements of narrative with those of play (ludic textuality). I introduce both trends in more general terms and then look at the film Inception and the TV series Westworld to exemplify these trends’ narrative dynamics. This allows me to argue that narrative instability characterizes contemporary popular culture by an embrace of incoherence and by pleasures that build on an audience willing to actively engage with the text and its narration. While this has originally been a predominant trend in films, more recently, fusions of narrative and play have allowed television’s seriality to adopt instability as well, a convergence that I investigate by looking at the synergies between Inception and Westworld

Beyond Narrative: Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work

This book calls for an investigation of the 'borderlands of narrativity' - the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the 'beyond' of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of "narrative liminality," which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years

Beyond Narrative

This book calls for an investigation of the ›borderlands of narrativity‹ — the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the ›beyond‹ of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of »narrative liminality,« which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years

Beyond Narrative

This book calls for an investigation of the ›borderlands of narrativity‹ — the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the ›beyond‹ of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of »narrative liminality,« which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years

Edna O’Brien as a postmodernist novelist.

Edna O’Brien is one of the most prolific and versatile writers of the twentieth century. She made her debut in 1960 with The Country Girls and since then has authored many novels, short stories, plays, poems, screenplays, children’s fiction and non-fictional prose. In spite of being a prolific writer, she is little known outside Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Though being a recipient of many literary awards, she has not been recognized worldwide. By and large, her works have suffered neglect from literary critics and scholars, and whatsoever has been written has been written from a limited and orthodox point of view. There are two main reasons for this neglect by the literary critical establishment. One is that critics focused more attention on the so-called ‘autobiographical’ nature of her works. This tendency proved very detrimental for the author. Amanda Greenwood writes, “The reductive tendency to identify the author with her female protagonists has been largely instrumental in her relegation to ‘popular fiction’.” The other reason is that her own dandyish personality, flamboyant nature and nationality, which made her to be stereotyped as Celtic and wild, attracted greater attention than any serious critical debate on her works. Claudia Pattison commented in a review that “with her flame-red hair, milky skin and mesmerising green-flecked eyes, [O’Brien] is a bewitching Celtic beauty.” Her beauty and persona led critics to doubt her writing ability. David Goodwin agreed that “because Edna is a more glamorous woman sometimes people don’t take her so seriously.”3 Edna O’Brien was herself well aware of this fact. She once remarked that “if you happen to have your hair done, well, then you can’t be a ‘serious’ writer.”4 Rebecca Pelan also points out that it was O’Brien’s public persona which led to “the relegation of [her] writing to the realm of popular fiction, a … category which allows the content of her writing to go virtually unnoticed.”However, she always insisted on being a serious writer. She once said to a reviewer, “I am a serious writer. Take more notice of the books than how i look.”Digital copy of Ph.D thesis.University of Kashmir

Die Wunderkritik Immanuel Kants

Die Problematik übernatürlicher Eingriffe in den gesetzesartigen Ablauf der Natur hat nicht nur Theologen sondern auch Naturphilosophen und Erkenntnistheoretiker immer wieder beschäftigt. Diese Frage ist nicht erst in der heutigen Diskussion entstanden. Sie hat tiefe Wurzeln, die bis in die Antike zurückreichen. Aber ihre moderne Gestalt stammt aus der Anfangszeit der modernen Naturphilosophie im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Als der prägende Philosoph der deutschen Aufklärung hat sich Immanuel Kant der von der jüdischen und christlichen Theologie immer bejahten Möglichkeit eines göttlichen Eingriffes in die realen Prozesse der Welt entschieden widersetzt. Merkwürdigerweise hat aber seine Analyse bisher wenig Beachtung gefunden. Daher liegt es nahe, die Wunderkritik Kants zum Gegenstand einer systematischen Studie zu machen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist aber nicht nur die historischen Abhängigkeiten und die zeitgenössische Begriffsgeschichte zu analysieren, sondern auch die Kant\u27sche Argumentation für die moderne Auseinandersetzung und das Problem des Naturalismus versus Theismus aufzuschließen. Kant hat seine Verpflichtung gegenüber dem schottischen Skeptiker, David Hume offen zugegeben. So wird in einem ersten Teil Hume\u27s Erkenntnistheorie im Hinblick auf dessen Betrachtungen über Wunder im zehnten Abschnitt seiner Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Verstand aufbereitet. Das leitet über zu Kant\u27s Analyse und dessen philosophischer Auswertung der damals neuen Newton\u27schen Mechanik und Gravitationstheorie. Danach wird Kants Argumentation in der Allgemeinen Naturgeschichte und im Einzig möglichen Beweisgrund im Detail verfolgt. Darnach widmet sich der Autor Kants erkenntnistheoretischem Ansatz in seiner kritischen Phase, da seine Schrift über die Zurückweisung jeglichen Wundergeschehens dieser Epoche angehört. Das Argument selber führt tief in Kants Konzeption von Raum und Zeit hinein und die formalen und materialen Voraussetzungen von Kants Beweisgang werden herausgehoben. Es wird dabei gezeigt, dass Kants Nachweis der Apriori-Unmöglichkeit von Wundern auf von ihm vorschnell als evident vorausgesetzten faktischen Annahmen beruht und aus heutiger Sicht nicht mehr aufrechterhalten werden kann. Der Schlußteil der Arbeit wendet sich mit den aus der historischen Analyse gewonnenen Erkenntnissen und Fragestellungen der heutigen immer noch hochaktuellen Diskussion zwischen einem konsequenten Naturalismus und einem supernaturalistischen Theismus zu.The issue of supernatural intervention in the law-like process of nature has always occupied not only theologians but also philosophers of nature and epistemologists. This question did not first arise during the modern discussion but has deep roots that go back as far as the ancient world. However, the modern discussion as such began to take shape at the beginning phase of modern Naturphilosophie, during the 17th and 18th centuries. Classic Jewish and Christian theology has always affirmed the possibility of divine intervention in the processes of the world. Immanuel Kant, as the formative philosopher of the German enlightenment, clearly opposed this position. Oddly, though, little attention has been paid to his analysis. Thus, it is appropriate to systematically examine Kant\u27s critique of miracles. The purpose of this study, though, is not simply to investigate historical dependencies and the development of terminology up to Kant, but also to use Kant\u27s argumentation as a foil for the examination of the modern conflict between naturalism and theism. Kant openly admitted his dependency upon the Scottish sceptic, David Hume. Thus, in the first part of this study, Hume\u27s epistemology is examined as the background to his comments about miracles in the 10th Chapter of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. This leads to Kant\u27s analysis and evaluation of the recently formulated Newtonian theories of mechanics and gravitation. A detailed investigation of Kant\u27s argumentation in the Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven and The Only Possible Ground of Proof of God\u27s Existence follows. The author then turns his attention to the epistemological approach characteristic of Kant\u27s \u27critical\u27 phase, since Kant\u27s essay rejecting any possible miraculous event belongs to that period. The argumentation itself leads the investigation deep into Kant\u27s conception of space and time and shows clearly the formal and material presuppositions of Kant\u27s chain of proof. It is shown that Kant\u27s argument for the apriori impossiblity of miracles rests upon his view that certain factual assumptions are incontrovertible. However, in light of modern knowledge, these assumptions can no longer be maintained. The concluding part of the study then takes the insights and issues gained from the previous historical analysis and turns to the highly relevant modern debate between consistent naturalism and supernatural theism