Dual Forms on Supermanifolds and Cartan Calculus

The complex of "stable forms" on supermanifolds is studied. Stable forms on $M$ are represented by certain Lagrangians of "copaths" (formal systems of equations, which may or may not specify actual surfaces) on $M\times\mathbb R^D$. Changes of $D$ give rise to stability isomorphisms. The Cartan--de Rham complex made of stable forms extends both in positive and negative degree and its positive half is isomorphic to the complex of forms defined as Lagrangians of paths. Considering the negative half is necessary, in particular, for homotopy invariance. We introduce analogs of exterior multiplication by covectors and of contraction with vectors. We find (anti)commutation relations for them. An analog of Cartan's homotopy identity is proved. Before stabilization it contains some "stability operator" $\sigma$.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, uses package diagrams.sty (= diagrams.tex) by Paul Taylor, available at ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/taylor/ (or at any_mirror_of_CTAN/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/taylor/

Social Categories are Natural Kinds, not Objective Types (and Why it Matters Politically)

There is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types” (Haslanger 2000, 2006, 2012; Alcoff 2005). An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression and marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences

Misallocation, Education Expansion and Wage Inequality

This study offers a unified explanation for the perplexing fact that the education premium rises more for low-experienced workers, while the experience premium increases mainly for low-educated labor. The interaction of signaling, employer learning and credit constraints resolves this puzzle. When higher education expands, talented individuals acquire skills and abandon the uneducated pool. This decreases unskilled-inexperienced wages and boosts inequality, highlighting that talent misallocation compresses wage dispersion. This explanation fits US data, indicating that for three decades the rise in the education and the experience premium coincided with falling unskilled-inexperienced wages, while skilled or experienced wages remained relatively flat

13th: Ava Duvernay’s Stark Exploration of the Mass Incarceration Crisis Facing Black Men

This film review of 13th is featured in the journal Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities, volume 6

Relations as Plural-Predications in Plato

<p>Plato was the first philosopher to discover the metaphysical phenomenon of plural-subjects and plural-predication; e.g. you and I are two, but neither you, nor I are two. I argue that Plato devised an ontology for plural-predication through his Theory of Forms, namely, plural-partaking in a Form. Furthermore, I argue that Plato used plural-partaking to offer an ontology of related individuals without reifying relations. My contention is that Plato’s theory of plural-relatives has evaded detection in the exegetical literature because his account of plural-subjects through the Theory of Forms had not been recognised for what it is. I further submit that Plato’s handling of related individuals through plural-predication is not only a ‘first’ in philosophy, but also an ‘only’, having remained a unique account in the metaphysics of relations. I hope that Plato’s account will introduce a fresh approach to contemporary debates on</p> <p>the subject.</p