142 research outputs found
AlĘilbÄŤrÄŤâs Book of the rational conclusions. Introduction, Critical Edition of the Arabic Text and Materials for the History of the ḪawÄᚣᚣic Genre in Early Andalus
[eng] The Book of the rational conclusions, written perhaps somewhen in the 10th c. by a physician from IlbÄŤrah (Andalus), is a multi-section medical pandect. The author brings together, from a diversity of sources, materials dealing with matters related to drug-handling, natural philosophy, therapeutics, medical applications of the specific properties of things, a regimen, and a dispensatory. This dissertation includes three different parts. First the transmission of the text, its contents, and its possible context are discussed. Then a critical edition of the Arabic text is offered. Last, but certainly not least, the subject of the specific properties is approached from several points of view. The analysis of Section III of the original book leads to an exploration of the early AndalusÄŤ assimilation of this epistemic tradition and to the establishment of a well-defined textual family in which our text must be inscribed. On the other hand, the concept itself of âspecific propertyâ is often misconstrued and it is usually made synonymous to magic and superstition. Upon closer inspection, however, the alleged irrationality of the knowledge of these properties appears to be largely the result of anachronistic interpretation. As a complement of this particular research and as an illustration of the genre, a sample from an ongoing integral commentary on this section of the book is presented.[cat] El Llibre de les conclusions racionals dâun desconegut metge dâIlbÄŤrah (lâĂndalus) va ser compilat probablement durant la segona meitat del s. X. Es tracta dâun rudimentari però notablement complet kunnaix (un gènere epistèmic que ĂŠs definit sovint com a âenciclopèdia mèdicaâ) en què lâautor aplega materials manllevats (sovint de manera literal i no-explĂcita) de diversos gèneres. El llibre obre amb una secciĂł sobre apoteconomia (una mena de manual dâapotecaris) però se centra desprĂŠs en les diferents branques de la medicina. A continuaciĂł dâuns prolegòmens filosòfics lâautor copia, amb mĂnima adaptaciĂł lingĂźĂstica, un tractat sencer de terapèutica, desprĂŠs un altre sobre les aplicacions mèdiques de les propietats especĂfiques de les coses, una sèrie de fragments relacionats amb la dietètica (un règim en termes tradicionals) i, finalment, una col¡lecciĂł de receptes mèdiques. Cadascuna dâaquestes seccions mostren evidents lligams dâintertextualitat que apunten cap a una intensa activitat sintetitzadora de diverses tradicions aliades a la medicina a lâĂndalus califal. El text ĂŠs, de fet, un magnĂfic objecte sobre el qual aplicar la metodologia de la crĂtica textual i de fonts. LâediciĂł crĂtica del text incorpora la dimensiĂł cronològica dins lâaparat, que esdevĂŠ aixĂ un element contextualitzador. Quant lâestudi de les fonts, si tot al llarg de la primera part dâaquesta tesi ĂŠs nomĂŠs secundari, aquesta disciplina pren un protagonisme gairebĂŠ absolut en la tercera part, especialment en el capĂtol dedicat a lâanĂ lisi individual de cada passatge recollit en la secciĂł sobre les propietats especĂfiques de les coses
How Haag-tied is QFT, really?
Haag's theorem cries out for explanation and critical assessment: it sounds the alarm that something is (perhaps) not right in one of the standard way of constructing interacting fields to be used in generating predictions for scattering experiments. Viewpoints as to the precise nature of the problem, the appropriate solution, and subsequently-called-for developments in areas of physics, mathematics, and philosophy differ widely. In this paper, we develop and deploy a conceptual framework for critically assessing these disparate responses to Haag's theorem. Doing so reveals the driving force of more general questions as to the nature and purpose of foundational work in physics
Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe
Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe presents a collection of sixteen chapters that explore the themes of how migrants, refugees and citizens express and share their political and social causes and experiences through art and media. These expressions, which we term âcitizen mediaâ, arguably become a platform for postcolonial intellectuals as the studies pursued in this volume investigate the different ways in which previously excluded social groups regain public voice. The volume strives to understand the different articulations of migrantsâ, refugeesâ, and citizensâ struggle against increasingly harsh European politics that allow them to achieve and empower political subjectivity in a mediated and creative space. In this way, the contributions in this volume present case studies of citizen media in the form of âactivistic artâ or âartivismâ (Trandafoiu, Ruffini, Cazzato & Taronna, Koobak & Tali, NegrĂłn-Muntaner), activism through different kinds of technological media (Chouliaraki and Al-Ghazzi, Jedlowski), such as documentaries and film (DeniÄ), podcasts, music and soundscapes (Romeo and Fabbri, Western, Lazzari, Huggan), and activisms through writings from journalism to fiction (Longhi, Concilio, Festa, De Capitani). The volume argues that citizen media go hand in hand with postcolonial critique because of their shared focus on the deconstruction and decolonisation of Western logics and narratives. Moreover, both question the concept of citizen and of citizenship as they relate to the nation-state and explores the power of media as a tool for participation as well as an instrument of political strength. The book forwards postcolonial artivism and citizen media as a critical framework to understand the refugee and migrant situations in contemporary Europe
Know yourself better in and through peer disagreement
I aim to answer the following question in this dissertation: How far can one trust claims to self-knowledge based on privileged access in epistemic peer disagreements where those claims are the focus of the disagreement? The answer to this question is contained in the following Assessment Framework:
In a peer disagreement where the privileged self-knowledge claim of one disputant is crucially consequential for the disagreement, trust the claim prima facie only if there are no or little significant signs of âjudgmental awarenessâ and/or of observational evidence that implies the claim is questionable; and adjust credence in the privileged self-knowledge claim according to the following scale of such significance: No signs = highest credence; little signs = high credence; significant signs = low credence; highest signs = lowest credence.
This Assessment Framework is derived both from six crucial components (numbered in parenthesis below) of peer disagreements about privileged self-knowledge claims discussed throughout the chapters. I begin by arguing, based on empirical research, that both the observational-interpretive method for knowing oneself (component 1) and the privileged access method (2) are needed, and they work together as integrated with mindfulness (3) to form more reliable privileged self-knowledge claims. We show how scholars of peer disagreements make mistakes by not seeing how privileged self-knowledge claims are fragile (4). The remaining crucial components are the Prima Facie Norm (5), which says we should accept prima facie a privileged claim, and the Indirect Scrutability Norm (6) which says that the privileged claim can be scrutinized indirectly by the observational-interpretive method. The culminating sixth chapter derives the Assessment Framework from the six key factors, on one hand, and tests the Assessment Framework against four case studies given, on the other hand. The measure of the success of this framework is how well it naturally accounts for ordinary lived experiences. With the Assessment Framework the person with the privileged self-knowledge claim and the person critical of the privileged claim complete the expanded Delphic maxim Know Yourself (γν῜θΚ ĎξιĎ
ĎĎν) better in peer disagreements. Through the process of specifying how to better know yourself in peer disagreements you learn that humans need both ways of knowing yourself, that you need the feedback of others to help you make sure your mental states are what you think they are, that you can know yourself better through mindfulness, and that peer disagreements about privileged self-knowledge claims have value in that they are one of the best ways to deeply Know Yourself. So, the Delphic maxim used also by Socrates and Plato is extended to come to the following: Know Yourself (γν῜θΚ ĎξιĎ
ĎĎν) better in and through peer disagreements about privileged self-knowledge claims with mindfulness both in privileged and observational-interpretive access integrated
Building bridges for better machines : from machine ethics to machine explainability and back
Be it nursing robots in Japan, self-driving buses in Germany or automated hiring systems in the USA, complex artificial computing systems have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. Two major challenges arise from this development: machine ethics and machine explainability. Machine ethics deals with behavioral constraints on systems to ensure restricted, morally acceptable behavior; machine explainability affords the means to satisfactorily explain the actions and decisions of systems so that human users can understand these systems and, thus, be assured of their socially beneficial effects. Machine ethics and explainability prove to be particularly efficient only in symbiosis. In this context, this thesis will demonstrate how machine ethics requires machine explainability and how machine explainability includes machine ethics. We develop these two facets using examples from the scenarios above. Based on these examples, we argue for a specific view of machine ethics and suggest how it can be formalized in a theoretical framework. In terms of machine explainability, we will outline how our proposed framework, by using an argumentation-based approach for decision making, can provide a foundation for machine explanations. Beyond the framework, we will also clarify the notion of machine explainability as a research area, charting its diverse and often confusing literature. To this end, we will outline what, exactly, machine explainability research aims to accomplish. Finally, we will use all these considerations as a starting point for developing evaluation criteria for good explanations, such as comprehensibility, assessability, and fidelity. Evaluating our framework using these criteria shows that it is a promising approach and augurs to outperform many other explainability approaches that have been developed so far.DFG: CRC 248: Center for Perspicuous Computing; VolkswagenStiftung: Explainable Intelligent System
Suffering in Babylon: Ludlul bÄl nÄmeqi and the scholars, ancient and modern
Suffering in Babylon comprises a series of studies on Ludlul bÄl nÄmeqi. Part One examines the modern scholarship surrounding the poemâs textual reconstruction and translation. Ludlul exists today as a composite text, pieced together over the last 180 years from dozens of cuneiform tablets and fragments from various archaeological sites. With these disparate sources, Assyriologists have reconstructed three quarters of the poemâs original text, which is here translated anew with extensive epigraphic and philological notes.
Part Two explores the historical contexts of the poem and its reception among first-millennium scribes. Whether the poemâs protagonist is the historical Ĺ ubĹĄi-meĹĄrĂŞ-Ĺ akkan or not, his experiences as described in the poem provide insight into the worldview and concerns of the ancient scholars among whom the poemâs author was counted, likely from the ranks of the exorcists. The protagonistâs experience with divine revelation sheds light on those scholarsâ divinatory worldview. The anatomical and pathological vocabulary used to describe his suffering compares well to the vocabulary in exorcism texts. The ritual failures he experiences reflect the poemâs institutional agenda. And the structure and language of his first person account shows intertextual connections with incantation prayers, a genre distinctive to exorcism. The poemâs subsequent incorporation into various scribal curricula and tablet collections demonstrates the poemâs cultural stature among first-millennium scribes, who wrote a commentary on Ludlul and used the text in the creation of others.
Part Three offers a comparative study that bridges the ancient and modern scholarly horizons. Drawing on both ancient and modern scholarship, it compares the protagonistâs experience of the alĂť demon with the clinical condition known today as sleep paralysis. The bookâs underlying goal is to illustrate the potential of a multi-perspectival approach to Akkadian literature that acknowledges the contexts of both ancient and modern scholars involved in producing meaningful readings of this ancient literary gem
Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe
Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe presents a collection of six- teen chapters that explore the themes of how migrants, refugees and citizens express and share their political and social causes and experiences through art and media. These expressions, which we term âcitizen mediaâ, arguably become a platform for postcolonial intellectuals as the studies pursued in this volume investigate the different ways in which previously excluded social groups regain public voice. The volume strives to understand the different articulations of mi- grantsâ, refugeesâ, and citizensâ struggle against increasingly harsh European pol- itics that allow them to achieve and empower political subjectivity in a mediated and creative space. In this way, the contributions in this volume present case studies of citizen media in the form of âactivistic artâ or âartivismâ (Trandafoiu, Ruffini, Cazzato & Taronna, Koobak & Tali, NegrĂłn-Muntaner), activism through different kinds of technological media (Chouliaraki and Al-Ghazzi, Jedlowski), such as documentaries and film (DeniÄ), podcasts, music and soundscapes (Ro- meo and Fabbri, Western, Lazzari, Huggan), and activisms through writings from journalism to fiction (Longhi, Concilio, Festa, De Capitani). The volume argues that citizen media go hand in hand with postcolonial critique because of their shared focus on the deconstruction and decolonisation of Western logics and narratives. Moreover, both question the concept of citizen and of citizenship as they relate to the nation-state and explores the power of media as a tool for participation as well as an instrument of political strength. The book forwards postcolonial artivism and citizen media as a critical framework to understand the refugee and migrant situations in contemporary Europe
Fielding Design, Design Fielding:Learning, Leading & Organising in New Territories
A framing question; What does (meaningful) collaboration look like in action? led to the search for and identification of a polycontext, a site where advanced collaborative activity is intelligible. This research aims to explore how the epistemic foundations of learning and design theory can adapt to collaborative approaches to organizing, learning and leadership as the macro-economic transition of digital transformation proceeds. Through embedded ethnographic engagement within a learning organization facilitating group-oriented, design-led collaborative learning experiences, a case study investigates multiple sites within a global organizational network whose distinctive methodology and culture provides a setting emblematic of frontier digital economic activity. The organizationâs activity generates environments which notionally act as boundary sites where negotiation of epistemic difference is necessitated, consequently distinctive forms of expertise in brokerage and perspective-taking arise to support dynamic coordination, presenting a distinct take on group-oriented learning. Comprising interacting investigation of communities of facilitators and learning designers tasked to equip learners with distinctive forms of integrative expertise, with the objective of forming individuals adept at rapid orientation to contingent circumstances achieved by collaborative organizing. In parallel, investigating narratives of an organizationâs formation led to grounded theory about how collaborative activity is enabled by shared reframing practices. Consequently, the organization anticipates and reshapes the field it operates within, the research discusses scalar effects of learning communities on industry work practices. The inquiry interrogates design-led learning and expertise formation apt for transformative activity within and beyond the digital economy. Exploring how methodological innovations within collaborative learning organizations are enacted and scaled, primary perspectives on design-led, group-oriented learning are evaluated alongside relevant secondary theoretic perspectives on collaborative organizing, learning and leading. The study synthesizes contributions that point to expansions of existing learning paradigms and anticipates how collaborative learning by design intervenes with the schematic assumptions at work in individuals, communities and fields. Observational insight, systematic analysis and theoretical evaluation are applied to problematize assumptions underlying social theory to anticipate generational expansions to the design methods field which responds to inadequacies in planning and organizing approaches applied by design. The research attempts to habituate understanding from outside design methods to better equip an explanatory understanding of contemporary design-led learning and expertise formation occurring in modern professional structures, especially in the creative industries. Together, the research investigates how learners navigate challenges of organizing, learning and leading into unseen territories
Buddhist Poetics, Beat âCosmo-Politics,â and the Maker Ethos: Asian Americanist Critiques of Whiteness in Midcentury American Beat Writing
Buddhist Poetics, Beat âCosmo-Politics,â and the Maker Ethos: Asian Americanist Critiques of Whiteness in Midcentury American Beat Writing employs Walter Benjaminâs notion of the âruinââwhich is not just a noun or notion, but also a verb, a mode of criticismâto intervene in the ostensibly well-trodden ground of what is known as âBeat literature.â The project broadly argues for the âruinationâ of Beat literature, where ruination means not destruction or annihilation, but a return to an unkempt state (as in the image of a ruined building) that more accurately reflects this literatureâs many layers of cultural, interpersonal, and transpacific exchange and extraction. Though many have rightly suggested that Beat literature is broadly Orientalist and transpacific in nature, I reveal the specific cultural appropriations, adaptations, and translations that occurred in this period and in these literary texts: the broadly East Asian cultural materials (like Zen Buddhism) so valued in Beat literature and its social communities were derived not solely from âthe Eastâ nor from translated Chinese and Japanese texts, but also from the Asians in America with whom Euro Americans were friends and worked alongside. My chapters on Asian diasporic poetry, letters, and autobiographical writing highlight Beat literatureâs connections to ethnic studies, settler colonial studies, gender studies, and critical race theory, applying an interdisciplinary approach to text and culture and bringing forward the cultural productions and expertise of Asian/Americans during this midcentury period. Because I am suggesting the work of Asian/Americans be read alongside other canonical Beat texts, their work destabilizes or âruinsâ Beat literature, which has been seen as a body of texts that articulate a political, anticapitalist critique of post-WWII and Cold War-era America, but which I show to be reflective of a specific, European American identity grounded in a politics that does not accommodate the effects of settler colonialism and imperialism. The seeming stability and coherence of the category of âBeatâ has only been possible because the work of Asian/Americans in this period was erased, unacknowledged. My projectâs major intervention may be found in its combination of critiqueâwhere I show how whiteness influenced Euro Americansâ artistic choices and cultural appropriationsâand recovery, where I reveal from whom and how these appropriations occurred. Further, I suggest that we begin to analyze American Buddhist writing beyond the limited rubrics formerly available to us in âBeatâ and avant-garde literatures and in their communities of reception
The Origins of Agnosticism
Originally published in 1987. The Origins of Agnosticism provides a reinterpretation of agnosticism and its relationship to science. Professor Lightman examines the epistemological basis of agnostics' learned ignorance, studying their core claim that "God is unknowable." To address this question, he reconstructs the theory of knowledge posited by Thomas Henry Huxley and his network of agnostics. In doing so, Lightman argues that agnosticism was constructed on an epistemological foundation laid by Christian thought. In addition to undermining the continuity in the intellectual history of religious thought, Lightman exposes the religious origins of agnosticism
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