(Zen And The Art Of) Post-Modern Philosophy: A Partially Interpreted Model

Wittgenstein once wrote, “a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not part of the mechanism,” and Nyberg’s explanation as to why Hilary Putnam’s answer to the question of whether we might intelligibly suppose ourselves to be “brains in a vat” is wrong takes us, by way of Wittgenstein’s statement, to the intersection of metaphysics and epistemology, i.e., to the very cornerstone of western philosophy, where we find, waiting for us, the absolute I of solipsism. Yet, it is the solipsistic I which in its articulation most obviously violates the private language argument’s stricture against criterionless reference, though the solipsist has available a reply of sorts – the reply of silence, a complete silence which shrouds equally the blank slates of absolute solipsism and pure realism. Through silence, the I of solipsism becomes the eye of realism and, no longer visible even to itself, vanishes from the realm of analytic discourse, only to be reborn at the correspondent point of each successive incarnation of the paradigm. Other methods of philosophy must, thus, be adopted if we are ever to escape the analytic paradigm’s cyclic limits. It is here, at the point where analysis alone can carry us no further, that “Zen” transitions from an unusually-structured but still traditional philosophic essay into something else entirely, with the incorporation into its closing pages of 15 poetic pieces, each drawn from Nyberg’s 100, a longer text of philosophical poetry which takes up where “Zen” leaves off. [email protected] Iowa City, Iowa/Palo Alto, California/New York, New York/Los Angeles, California/Rapid City, South Dakota June 1982-January 202

Computation in Economics

This is an attempt at a succinct survey, from methodological and epistemological perspectives, of the burgeoning, apparently unstructured, field of what is often – misleadingly – referred to as computational economics. We identify and characterise four frontier research fields, encompassing both micro and macro aspects of economic theory, where machine computation play crucial roles in formal modelling exercises: algorithmic behavioural economics, computable general equilibrium theory, agent based computational economics and computable economics. In some senses these four research frontiers raise, without resolving, many interesting methodological and epistemological issues in economic theorising in (alternative) mathematical modesClassical Behavioural Economics, Computable General Equilibrium theory, Agent Based Economics, Computable Economics, Computability, Constructivity, Numerical Analysis

Wittgenstein and Biolinguistics: Building upon the Second Picture Theory

Circa 1930, Wittgenstein began to develop a theory of semantics in terms of distinct representational systems (calculi) each constructed from measure-ment scales. Impressed by the heterogeneity of measurement scaling, he eventually abandoned the effort. However, such a project can be continued in the light of later developments in measurement theory. Any remaining heterogeneity can be accounted for, plausibly enough, in terms of the facultative nature of the mind/brain. Developing such a theory is potentially a contribution to biolinguistics. The symmetries and asymmetries of the measurement scales suggest self-organization in brain activity, further suggesting a connection between such a neo-Wittgensteinian approach to the thought systems and minimalist approaches to syntax

How to be Nice and Get What You Want : Structural Referents of Self and Other in Experiential Education as (Un)Democratic Practice

This critical ethnography explores a social justice program utilizing nontraditional, democratic, experiential education practices. The author posits a historical legacy of pedagogy of self obscures its emancipatory, democratic potential while simultaneously expanding on contemporary discourses of self and other as aspects of the educational setting. Students\u27 labors to reference and enact oppressive, capitalistic idealizations of either self or other problematizes pragmatic theories of self, and the author draws upon critical pragmatism to reposition self and other as aspects of pedagogy and curriculum in democratic education

Structural changes in economics during the last fifty years

This essay portrays the major currents in recent economic thinking against the orthodoxy and dogmatism of neoclassical economics. It places behavioral economics, experimental economics, evolutionary economics, ecological economics, new institutional economics, agent-based computational economics and post-autistic economics vis-à-vis the classical and the neoclassical economics. It concludes that we may expect a synthesis of all these strands of economic thinking in the near future that will replace neoclassical economics from the citadel of mainstream. Teaching of these strands of new economics has already begun in many universities, although in an un-integrated manner. However, until the neoclassical microeconomics and macroeconomics are replaced by their alternatives and necessary as well as convincing tools of economic analysis are developed, neoclassicism would not give way to modern economics.Behavioral; experimental; evolutionary; ecological; new institutional; agent-based computational; post-autistic; classical; neoclassical, economics; bounded rationality; heterodox; individualism; pluralism

An Examination of the Key Features of Salman Rushdie’s Historiographic Metafiction: A Possible Worlds Theory Approach

This investigative study is informed by Ursula Kluwick’s contention that Salman Rushdie’s novels – Midnight’s Children and Shame – written within the postcolonial context, need to be approached and conceptualized differently from the magical realist fiction produced by Latin American novelists such as Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Laura Esquivel due to the fact that the relations between the realistic and magical/supernatural codes in Rushdie’s texts are not harmonious and are, for the most part, antithetical in ways that manifest and highlight the friction between the twin codes, which render them ‘contingent’ and ‘provisional,’ but beyond that destabilize the narrative text as fictional versus realistic. As Kluwick notes with respect to Rushdie’s works, “Definitions of magic realism as a harmonious combination of supernatural and realist representational codes ignore the productive tension created by epistemological incompatibilities and clashes.” (202) What has set my study apart from Kluwick’s approach, however, is my contention that Rushdie’s texts evince other salient features such as ‘spatialization’ and ‘metanarration’ that are inextricably intertwined and work in tandem with the magical realist elements in his fiction by creating highly political and ostentatiously self-conscious possible histories which aim at critiquing the actual socio-political geography and politico-historical trajectory of the Indian subcontinent. As such, throughout this study I have argued that Rushdie’s texts of historiographic metafiction need to be studied through a multipronged approach that not only analyzes their magical-realist recreation of the politico-historical trajectory of India-Pakistan’s postcolonial history through the lens of Dolezel’s four-dimensional system of possible worlds theory, but also uses that theory to analyze their seminal ‘spatialization’ and ‘metanarration’ features, which distinguish his works from other magical realist authors and are instrumental to Rushdie’s critical engagement with the politics of India-Pakistan. As such, I have endeavored to make the case that a multipronged approach, which analyzes the ‘magical realism,’ ‘spatialization’ and ‘meta-narration’ components in Rushdie’s texts is warranted to critique the multidimensional possible worlds/histories that are narrativized, spatialized and foregrounded with the insertion of meta-narratorial comments and episodic interventions

Ways of looking: Lexicalizing visual paths in verbs

The packaging of meaning in verbs varies widely across languages since verbs are free to encode different aspects of an event. At the same time, languages tend to display recurrent preferences in lexicalization, e.g. verb-framing vs. satellite-framing in motion. It has been noted, however, that the lexicalization patterns in motion are not carried over to the domain of vision, since gaze trajectory (‘visual path’) is coded outside the main verb even in verb-framed languages. This ‘typological split’ (Matsumoto 2001), however, is not universal. This article contains the first extensive report of verb-framing in the domain of vision based on data from Maniq (Austroasiatic, Thailand). The verbs are investigated using a translation questionnaire and a picture-naming task, which tap into subtle semantic detail. Results suggest the meanings of the verbs are shaped by universal constraints linked to earth-based verticality and bodily mechanics, as well as local factors such as the environment and the cultural scenarios of which looking is a salient part. A broader look across the whole Maniq verb lexicon reveals further cases of verbally encoded spatial notions and demonstrates a pervasive cross-domain systematicity, pointing to the language system itself as an important shaping force in lexicalization