Erich Fromm and the Critical Theory of Communication

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a Marxist psychoanalyst, philosopher and socialist humanist. This paper asks: How can Fromm’s critical theory of communication be used and updated to provide a critical perspective in the age of digital and communicative capitalism? In order to provide an answer, the article discusses elements from Fromm’s work that allow us to better understand the human communication process. The focus is on communication (section 2), ideology (section 3), and technology (section 4). Fromm’s approach can inform a critical theory of communication in multiple respects: His notion of the social character allows to underpin such a theory with foundations from critical psychology. Fromm’s distinction between the authoritarian and the humanistic character can be used for discerning among authoritarian and humanistic communication. Fromm’s work can also inform ideology critique: The ideology of having shapes life, thought, language and social action in capitalism. In capitalism, technology (including computing) is fetishized and the logic of quantification shapes social relations. Fromm’s quest for humanist technology and participatory computing can inform contemporary debates about digital capitalism and its alternatives

Quantum Complexity of Integration

It is known that quantum computers yield a speed-up for certain discrete problems. Here we want to know whether quantum computers are useful for continuous problems. We study the computation of the integral of functions from the classical Hoelder classes with d variables. The optimal orders for the complexity of deterministic and (general) randomized methods are known. We obtain the respective optimal orders for quantum algorithms and also for restricted Monte Carlo (only coin tossing instead of general random numbers). To summarize the results one can say that (1) there is an exponential speed-up of quantum algorithms over deterministic (classical) algorithms, if the smoothness is small; (2) there is a (roughly) quadratic speed-up of quantum algorithms over randomized classical methods, if the smoothness is small.Comment: 13 pages, some minor correction

Elements of Environmental Decoherence

In this contribution I give a brief introduction to the essential concepts and mechanisms of decoherence by the environment. The emphasis will be not so much on technical details but rather on conceptual issues and the impact on the interpretation problem of quantum theory.Comment: Latex, 16 pages. To be published in the proceedings of the Bielefeld conference on ``Decoherence: Theoretical, Experimental, and Conceptual Problems", edited by P. Blanchard, D. Giulini, E. Joos, C. Kiefer, and I.-O. Stamatescu (Springer 1999

Value Disagreement and Two Aspects of Meaning

The problem of value disagreement and contextualist, relativist and metalinguistic attempts of solving it are laid out. Although the metalinguistic account seems to be on the right track, it is argued that it does not sufficiently explain why and how disagreements about the meaning of evaluative terms are based on and can be decided by appeal to existing social practices. As a remedy, it is argued that original suggestions from Putnam's 'The Meaning of "Meaning"' ought to be taken seriously. The resulting dual aspect theory of meaning can explain value disagreement in much the same way as it deals with disagreement about general terms. However, the account goes beyond Putnam's by not just defending a version of social externalism, but also defending the thesis that the truth conditional meaning of many evaluative terms is not fixed by experts either and instead constantly contested as part of a normal function of language