New materialism and runaway capitalism: a critical assessment

The “return to materiality” is a burgeoning phenomenon in philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities. New materialists make a case against cultural constructionism and for a nondualist account of the world as comprised of fluid, ever-changing entities. This would allegedly offer grounds for an embodied, post-humanist emancipatory politics. The article problematizes such claim. By relying on techno-scientific accounts of materiality, new materialism embroils with the analytics of truth, neglecting how nondualist ontologies underpin today intensifying forms of domination over humans and nonhumans. A “critical” humanism is needed, which refrains from ambivalent post-humanist narratives without reverting to dualist thinking. To this purpose Heidegger offers valuable insights.El “regreso a la materialidad” es un fenómeno floreciente en la filosofía, las ciencias sociales y las humanidades. Los nuevos materialistas desarrollan argumentos en contra del construccionismo cultural y a favor de un relato no dualista del mundo, compuesto de entidades fluidas y en constante cambio. Esto presuntamente ofrecería fundamentos para una política emancipatoria de carácter post-humanista. El artículo problematiza tal afirmación. Al confiar en los relatos tecnocientíficos de la materialidad, el nuevo materialismo se ha embrollado con la analítica de la verdad, descuidando cómo las ontologías no dualistas sustentan hoy formas intensificadoras de dominación sobre los humanos y los no humanos. Se necesita un humanismo “crítico”, que se abstenga de las narrativas ambivalentes post-humanistas sin volver al pensamiento dualista. Con este propósito, Heidegger ofrece ideas valiosas

Analysis of Dynamic Memory Bandwidth Regulation in Multi-core Real-Time Systems

One of the primary sources of unpredictability in modern multi-core embedded systems is contention over shared memory resources, such as caches, interconnects, and DRAM. Despite significant achievements in the design and analysis of multi-core systems, there is a need for a theoretical framework that can be used to reason on the worst-case behavior of real-time workload when both processors and memory resources are subject to scheduling decisions. In this paper, we focus our attention on dynamic allocation of main memory bandwidth. In particular, we study how to determine the worst-case response time of tasks spanning through a sequence of time intervals, each with a different bandwidth-to-core assignment. We show that the response time computation can be reduced to a maximization problem over assignment of memory requests to different time intervals, and we provide an efficient way to solve such problem. As a case study, we then demonstrate how our proposed analysis can be used to improve the schedulability of Integrated Modular Avionics systems in the presence of memory-intensive workload.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS) 2018 conferenc

Responsibility and ultimate ends in the age of the unforeseeable: On the current relevance of Max Weber’s political ethics

Ethic of responsibility and ethic of ultimate ends are most discussed Weberian concepts. The article reflects on their heuristic value in the present. A common interpretation claims that, in a rationalized society, the ethic of responsibility supplants or integrates the ethic of ultimate ends. The two ethics, however, fundamentally differ according to their relationship with the unforeseeable. Moreover, contrary to the idea of a relentless rationalization of society, the unforeseeable is today gaining relevance, even ceasing to be regarded as a problem. As a result, the ethic of ultimate ends expands its scope. The article dwells on major implications of this. The enduring relevance of Weber’s conceptualization, it is concluded, lies in its independence from the historical conditions in which it was formulated

Anthropocene

The chapter focuses on the notion of Anthropocene. This appeared around the year 2000, quickly raising its status from a technical term and a scientific hypothesis to a keyword – or catchword – of major import in the public debate worldwide. It conveys the idea that humankind has acquired a capacity to intervene in the world which is on a par with – hence directly affects – the biophysical dynamics of the planet. The chapter addresses the Anthropocene as a result of a major transformation in late-modern accounts of reality and agency, largely coincident with the advent of post-Fordism in economics, neoliberalism in politics, complexity thinking in the life, matter and computational sciences, and post-foundationalism in the social sciences and humanities

Reassessing sustainability. An introduction

Debates over sustainable development highlight its inherently contentious character. Not only its three “pillars” (economic, ecologic and social) have enjoyed a varied scientific and policy success, the social dimension of sustainability remaining the weakest and most controversial, but there are different strategies as regards the way to give operational meaning to the concept. Some follow a pragmatic approach, where sustainability plays a boundary role thanks precisely to its ambiguities. Others choose a specific outlook, according to a preference for “stronger” or “weaker” interpretations of the role of technology. Still others elaborate on the political import of the notion, its use for political purposes and within social struggles. Hardly insignificant from this viewpoint is the connection between the emergence and spread of the sustainability discourse and the rise of neoliberalism. A reassessment of the issue in the light of ongoing social and environmental changes is mandatory. The articles included in this issues offer an updated discussion of major theoretical and empirical aspects, from biofuels to green urban management, from sustainable tourism to climate change policies, devoting particular attention to the strengths and weaknesses of current prevailing “reformist” approaches. Sustainability remains a wicked problem, the performative role of which in inducing social transformation calls for a renewed sociological inquiry

Embroiling nature and history: The philosophy of praxis and the challenges of the present

Building on a book by Andrew Feenberg, the article discusses the salient features of the 'philosophy of praxis' and classic Critical Theory, also with reference to current trends in social theory and technoscience

Intensifying embroilments: Technosciences, imaginaries and publics

A common thread in the contributions to this special issue can be found in the Foucauldian notion of intensification. Technoscientific imaginaries and publics have long been embroiled; yet, elements of novelty in their relationship can be detected in the ambivalence of the overcoming of traditional purification work; the expanding production of 'prototypical' truths; the uncertain threshold between publics of enquirers, witnesses and lookouts; and the growing indistinction of the everyday and the sublime, of trivial and non-trivial futures. The intensification of old patterns and recent trends determines a critical moment in a literal sense of the word: novel potentialities for a democratic governance of technosciences are opening up, but novel dominative opportunities are disclosing as well