30,279 research outputs found
Relationships and events: towards a general theory of reification and truthmaking.
We propose a novel ontological analysis of relations and relationships based on a re-visitation of a classic problem in the practice of knowledge repre- sentation and conceptual modeling, namely relationship reification. Our idea is that a relation holds in virtue of a relationship's existence. Relationships are therefore truthmakers of relations. In this paper we present a general theory or reification and truthmaking, and discuss the interplay between events and rela- tionships, suggesting that relationships are the focus of events, which emerge from the context (the scene) they occur in
Commodified Desire: Negotiating Asian American Heteronormativity
This essay examines H.T. Tsiangs proletariat novel And China Has Hands and positions it within the diasporic network that it emerged from and suggest that, by satisfying the needs of capital by providing a constant source of labor, segregated Chinese spaces became, in Rodrick Fergusons words, the locations for possible critiques of state and capital..[because it did] not rely on normative prescriptions to assemble labor. Thus, if industrial imperialism helped create the terms by which heteronormative patriarchy became the norm, it also helped produce social formations that necessarily deviated from heteronormative familial relationships. Elaborating, I suggest that the novels basic logic relies on a strict adherence to a Marxist understanding of the reification of the commodity fetish in intimacy. I claim that, due to its rigidly Marxist reading, the novels logic problematically inscribes heteronormativity as a normative network of intimacy, even as it attempts to critique the heteropatriarchal nature of capitalist intimacy. Following Kevin Floyds recent attempt to rethink the categories of totality and reification, I also argue that, by shifting the focus away from the reification of the commodity fetish, And China Has Hands resolves itself by pointing to the impossibility of heteronormativity for Asian American men
Time, Self and Reified Artefacts
Discursive accounts of time tend to focus on a deconstruction of taken-for-granted notions of clock time, restricted to linear measurable units. By contrast the present article examines some of the discourses and practices deployed by managers in their attempts to control time; in the final instance, it shows how time can be a mystery that escapes such managerial pursuits and preoccupations. More specifically, we draw on Levinas’s ideas on time and the ‘Other’, and use two managerial discourses to illustrate how reification (through the use of technological and institutional artefacts) as attempts to control time tend to result in a proliferation of participation but, equally, an insistence on participation may invoke an intensification of control through reification. Reified relationships invariably result in a perpetual return to the Other, or what we have called participation. However, to varying degrees, our participatory mode is not possible without reification. Yet ‘relationships’ cannot be completely delegated to rationally calculating devices, formal institutions, or markets. Cooperation has its source not in reified forms of rationality (nor of irrationality), but in the human encounter with the Other. The organizational, social order is based on personal relations and personal responsibilities
Pattern Reification as the Basis for Description-Driven Systems
One of the main factors driving object-oriented software development for
information systems is the requirement for systems to be tolerant to change. To
address this issue in designing systems, this paper proposes a pattern-based,
object-oriented, description-driven system (DDS) architecture as an extension
to the standard UML four-layer meta-model. A DDS architecture is proposed in
which aspects of both static and dynamic systems behavior can be captured via
descriptive models and meta-models. The proposed architecture embodies four
main elements - firstly, the adoption of a multi-layered meta-modeling
architecture and reflective meta-level architecture, secondly the
identification of four data modeling relationships that can be made explicit
such that they can be modified dynamically, thirdly the identification of five
design patterns which have emerged from practice and have proved essential in
providing reusable building blocks for data management, and fourthly the
encoding of the structural properties of the five design patterns by means of
one fundamental pattern, the Graph pattern. A practical example of this
philosophy, the CRISTAL project, is used to demonstrate the use of
description-driven data objects to handle system evolution.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure
Reification and Truthmaking Patterns
Reification is a standard technique in conceptual modeling, which consists of including in the domain of discourse entities that may otherwise be hidden or implicit. However, deciding what should be rei- fied is not always easy. Recent work on formal ontology offers us a simple answer: put in the domain of discourse those entities that are responsible for the (alleged) truth of our propositions. These are called truthmakers. Re-visiting previous work, we propose in this paper a systematic analysis of truthmaking patterns for properties and relations based on the ontolog- ical nature of their truthmakers. Truthmaking patterns will be presented as generalization of reification patterns, accounting for the fact that, in some cases, we do not reify a property or a relationship directly, but we rather reify its truthmakers
Semantic Modeling of Analytic-based Relationships with Direct Qualification
Successfully modeling state and analytics-based semantic relationships of
documents enhances representation, importance, relevancy, provenience, and
priority of the document. These attributes are the core elements that form the
machine-based knowledge representation for documents. However, modeling
document relationships that can change over time can be inelegant, limited,
complex or overly burdensome for semantic technologies. In this paper, we
present Direct Qualification (DQ), an approach for modeling any semantically
referenced document, concept, or named graph with results from associated
applied analytics. The proposed approach supplements the traditional
subject-object relationships by providing a third leg to the relationship; the
qualification of how and why the relationship exists. To illustrate, we show a
prototype of an event-based system with a realistic use case for applying DQ to
relevancy analytics of PageRank and Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS).Comment: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE 9th International Conference on Semantic
Computing (IEEE ICSC 2015
DAOISM AS CRITICAL THEORY
Classical philosophical Daoism as it is expressed in the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi is often interpreted as lacking a capacity for critique and resistance. Since these capacities are taken to be central components of Enlightenment reason and action, it would follow that Daoism is incompatible with Enlightenment. This interpretation is being refuted by way of developing a constructive dialogue between the enlightenment traditions of critical theory and recent philosophy of action from a Daoist perspective. Daoism\u27s normative naturalism does neither rest on a primitivist call for a return to the past, nor does it suggest future-directed activism. By way of reconstructing its descriptive, explanatory and emancipatory dimensions, it is shown that Daoism constitutes an alternative form of critical theory. In contrast to future-directed purposive action or blind rule-following, Daoism\u27s key normative concept of wu-wei emphasizes effortless non-calculative responsiveness in the present. Drawing on recent insights in the philosophy of action, a reconstruction of wu-wei allows to conceive of a promising form of emancipatory agency
Learning architectures and negotiation of meaning in European trade unions
As networked learning becomes familiar at all levels and in all sectors of education, cross-fertilisation of innovative methods can usefully inform the lifelong learning agenda. Development of the pedagogical architectures and social processes, which afford learning, is a major challenge for educators as they strive to address the varied needs of a wide range of learners. One area in which this challenge is taken very seriously is that of trade unions, where recent large-scale projects have aimed to address many of these issues at a European level. This paper describes one such project, which targeted not only online courses, but also the wider political potential of virtual communities of practice. By analysing findings in relation to Wengers learning architecture, the paper investigates further the relationships between communities of practice and communities of learners in the trade union context. The findings suggest that a focus on these relationships rather than on the technologies that support them should inform future developments
A universal ontology-based approach to data integration
One of the main problems in building data integration systems is that of semantic integration. It has been acknowledged that the problem would not exist if all systems were developed using the same global schema, but so far, such global schema has been considered unfeasible in practice. However, in our previous work, we have argued that given the current state-of-the-art, a global schema may be feasible now, and we have put forward a vision of a Universal Ontology (UO) that may be desirable, feasible, and viable. One of the reasons why the UO may be desirable is that it might solve the semantic integration problem. The objective of this paper is to show that indeed the UO could solve, or at least greatly alleviate, the semantic integration problem. We do so by presenting an approach to semantic integration based on the UO that requires much less effort than other approaches.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
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