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Post-Cold War Predictions: Politicism in Practice (ISSN)
by Hanna Samir KassabPost- Cold War Predictions examines how the international order evolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union (and before the attacks on 9/11) by focusing on the ways we study and understand major powers’ security behavior within the evolving multipolar order. Beginning with an overview of Post-Cold War literature, Kassab summarizes and evaluates influential Post-Cold War texts to better understand scholarship’s need to predict. First, he discusses the central importance of power in international relations and drives home the central focus of international structures, linking findings to the broader structure-agent problem. He then reinterprets the purpose of theory, preferring explanatory theories to those that aim to predict outcomes. To understand the context by which political ideas were developed and followed as if they were political ideologies, Hanna Samir Kassab makes explicit the links between historicism and historiography, forwarding a new methodology for studying political science: Politicist analysis. Using simple jargon and defining terms where necessary, this succinct and enlightening text is required reading for all those interested in international politics.
Postanarchism and Critical Art Practices
by Professor Saul Newman Tihomir TopuzovskiEngaging with contemporary debates about the political role of art in an era of total market subsumption, this book shows how artists respond to the challenges of political authoritarianism, police violence, right-wing populism, 'post-truth' discourse, economic inequality, pandemics, and the environmental crisis, transforming the public sphere in new and unexpected ways. Going beyond sterile debates about identity politics, diversity and representation that beset the mainstream media, university campuses and other cultural domains, the volume illustrates the ways in which artists are opening up alternative sites of contestation, occupation, and autonomous political thought and action. Newman and Topuzovski examine here the artistic practices of multiple collectives and individuals deeply engaged with social and political activities such as Grupo de Arte Callejero (GAC) and Voina, arguing that the best way to understand these new critical discourses and practices is through an updated political theory of anarchism - or what we call postanarchism - where the insurrection against power and the politics of singularity are central. Featuring, for instance, an examination of significant movements such as Black Lives Matter, as well as its use of artistic tactics such as graffiti, graphic design and movement art, the book launches itself into a vibrant discussion of the extent to which art can produce a multiplicity of practices through the deconstruction of existing legal, political, and cultural identities. By developing an alternative way of exploring the nexus between art and politics through the idea of postanarchism, this book bridges the gap between the two, promoting an understanding of the political role that art can play today and introduces a theory of postanarchism to a non-specialist audience of artists, activists and those generally interested in new sites and directions for radical politics.
Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities (Routledge Advances in Game Studies)
by Poppy WildePosthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities explores the relationship between avatar and gamer in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft, to examine notions of entangled subjectivity, affects and embodiments – what it means and how it feels to be posthuman. With a focus on posthuman subjectivity, Wilde considers how we can begin to articulate ourselves when the boundary between self and other is unclear. Drawing on fieldnotes of her own gameplay experiences, the author analyses how subjectivity is formed in ways that defy a single individual notion of "self", and explores how different practices, feelings, and societal understandings can disrupt strict binaries and emphasise our posthumanism. She interrogates if one can speak of an "I" in the face of posthuman multiplicity, before exploring different analytical themes, beginning with how acting theories might be posthumanised and articulate the relationship between avatar and gamer. She then defines posthuman empathy and explains how this is experienced in gaming, before addressing the need to account for boredom, the complexity of nostalgia, and ways death and loss are experienced through gaming. This volume will appeal to a broad audience and is particularly relevant to scholars and students of cultural studies, media studies, humanities, and game studies. Chapters 2 and 7 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities (Routledge Advances in Game Studies)
by Poppy WildePosthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities explores the relationship between avatar and gamer in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft, to examine notions of entangled subjectivity, affects and embodiments – what it means and how it feels to be posthuman. With a focus on posthuman subjectivity, Wilde considers how we can begin to articulate ourselves when the boundary between self and other is unclear. Drawing on fieldnotes of her own gameplay experiences, the author analyses how subjectivity is formed in ways that defy a single individual notion of "self", and explores how different practices, feelings, and societal understandings can disrupt strict binaries and emphasise our posthumanism. She interrogates if one can speak of an "I" in the face of posthuman multiplicity, before exploring different analytical themes, beginning with how acting theories might be posthumanised and articulate the relationship between avatar and gamer. She then defines posthuman empathy and explains how this is experienced in gaming, before addressing the need to account for boredom, the complexity of nostalgia, and ways death and loss are experienced through gaming. This volume will appeal to a broad audience and is particularly relevant to scholars and students of cultural studies, media studies, humanities, and game studies. Chapters 2 and 7 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
The Postmodern Predicament: Existential Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
by Bruce AckermanOne of our most influential political theorists offers a boundary-breaking—and liberating—perspective on the meaning of life in the internet age Human beings have taken one thing for granted since our earliest days: we are bodily creatures dealing with one another on a face-to-face basis. The internet has shattered this fundamental feature of human existence. We are suddenly living our lives in two worlds at once—shifting endlessly from virtual to physical reality as we reach out to others. Worse yet, we are developing different personal identities in our two worlds. We say and do things in virtual reality that flatly contradict our face-to-face commitments to family, friends, and fellow-workers—and vice versa. The Postmodern Predicament explores these dilemmas at each phase of the life cycle, beginning at the moment a young child picks up a cell phone. The existentialist tradition of the twentieth century provides a precious perspective on our postmodern dilemmas. Thinkers and doers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre considered the fragmentation of modern life as a central source of contemporary anxieties. Like them, Ackerman views the challenges of the internet age as a political, no less than personal, problem—and proposes concrete reforms that that could mobilize broad-based support for democracy against demagogic assaults on its very foundations.
The Power of Du'a
by Aliyah Umm Raiyaan'Empowering....of great benefit to those who want their doors flung open by Allah' - Mufti MenkWhat seems impossible can become possible through du’aIn The Power of Du’a, Sunday Times bestselling author and revert, Aliyah Umm Raiyaan takes you on a journey that shows how faith and practising du’a (a personal supplication) can transform your life.Featuring inspirational real-life stories from those who have experienced miraculous results from living with du’a, this book is a comforting guide to revive and develop a close relationship with Al Mujeeb – The One Who Responds. Through life’s challenges and struggles, with tools from the Qur’an and Sunnah, you will learn how to:Sincerely prepare your heart before du’aAsk of Allah from a place of certainty, during du’aMove forward in faithful trust after He respondsYou will learn how to prepare your heart and then ask of Allah from a place of sincerity and certainty. This book provides tools to navigate the response to your du’a, developing a close and trusting relationship with The Most High.Deeply moving and uplifting, The Power of Du’a is for anyone looking to reflect, reshape their dialogue with the Divine and walk in complete faith – embracing the perfect plans Allah has for each and every one of us.
The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America
by Michael J. GraetzHow the antitax fringe went mainstream—and now threatens America&’s futureThe postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity. Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a &“second American Revolution,&” setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy. In The Power to Destroy, Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation&’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems.In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails &“the power to destroy.&” But The Power to Destroy argues that tax opponents now wield this destructive power. Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation&’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America&’s financial strength. The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric, and how—abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist&’s &“taxpayer protection pledge"—it evolved into a mainstream political force.The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.
A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Extensions (Elements in Quantitative and Computational Methods for the Social Sciences)
by null Matias D. Cattaneo null Nicolas Idrobo null Rocío TitiunikIn this Element, which continues our discussion in Foundations, the authors provide an accessible and practical guide for the analysis and interpretation of Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs that encourages the use of a common set of practices and facilitates the accumulation of RD-based empirical evidence. The focus is on extensions to the canonical sharp RD setup that we discussed in Foundations. The discussion covers (i) the local randomization framework for RD analysis, (ii) the fuzzy RD design where compliance with treatment is imperfect, (iii) RD designs with discrete scores, and (iv) and multi-dimensional RD designs.
The Practical Self
by Prof Anil GomesWe are self-conscious creatures thrown into a world which is not of our making. What is the connection between being self-conscious and being related to an objective world? Descartes and Kant, in different ways and with different emphases, argued that self-conscious subjects such as us must be related to an objective world. Philosophers in the twentieth century were less ambitious: self-conscious subjects must only think or experience the world as objective. The Practical Self argues that the answer to our question lies in a set of enigmatic remarks by the eighteenth-century philosopher, physicist, and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. 'One should say it is thinking, just as one says, it is lightning', Lichtenberg writes. 'To say cogito is already too much To assume the I, to postulate it, is a practical requirement.' Lichtenberg is raising a puzzle here about our grounds for recognising ourselves as the agents of our thinking. Its solution is to understand that we have practical grounds to think of ourselves as the intellectual agents. We are thus practical selves: intellectual agents who have distinctively practical grounds to recognise ourselves as such. And our faith in ourselves as practical selves is sustained through interaction with others. The argument of this book is that self-consciousness requires faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking and that this faith is sustained by a practices which relate us to other thinkers. Self-consciousness connects us to a world of others.
Practicing Pragmatism through Progressive Pedagogies: A Philosophical Lens for Grounding Classroom Teaching and Research (Studies in Curriculum Theory Series)
by Susan Jean MayerThis book contributes to the contemporary revival of pragmatism as a practical and ultimately, as Mayer argues, necessary philosophical stance within democratic schools. Given that pragmatism addresses the question of how people can move forward in the absence of transcendent Truth, the author shows how pragmatism also—and not incidentally—provides grounds for pluralistic democratic societies to move forward in the absence of shared belief systems. Weaving together philosophical analysis and classroom discourse research, Mayer explores the relationships among pragmatism, progressive educational theory, and democratic knowledge construction processes and their implications for enacting progressive educational practices in schools. Several original, research-based heuristics that can serve in reliably identifying, studying, and orchestrating distinctively democratic knowledge construction processes are presented. The importance of granting all students a share of interpretive authority is also emphasized. For in learning to observe and reflect on one’s own terms, attend closely to the observations and interpretations of one’s peers, and reason collaboratively in a transparent and principled manner, young people are enculturated into essential democratic values, commitments, and practices. This book is written for a general audience and is intended for all those concerned with strengthening the democratic character of schools and societies. It is likely to appeal to scholars, researchers, and practitioners with interests in philosophy and classroom discourse and curriculum studies, as well as philosophers of education and the social sciences more broadly.
Practicing Pragmatism through Progressive Pedagogies: A Philosophical Lens for Grounding Classroom Teaching and Research (Studies in Curriculum Theory Series)
by Susan Jean MayerThis book contributes to the contemporary revival of pragmatism as a practical and ultimately, as Mayer argues, necessary philosophical stance within democratic schools. Given that pragmatism addresses the question of how people can move forward in the absence of transcendent Truth, the author shows how pragmatism also—and not incidentally—provides grounds for pluralistic democratic societies to move forward in the absence of shared belief systems. Weaving together philosophical analysis and classroom discourse research, Mayer explores the relationships among pragmatism, progressive educational theory, and democratic knowledge construction processes and their implications for enacting progressive educational practices in schools. Several original, research-based heuristics that can serve in reliably identifying, studying, and orchestrating distinctively democratic knowledge construction processes are presented. The importance of granting all students a share of interpretive authority is also emphasized. For in learning to observe and reflect on one’s own terms, attend closely to the observations and interpretations of one’s peers, and reason collaboratively in a transparent and principled manner, young people are enculturated into essential democratic values, commitments, and practices. This book is written for a general audience and is intended for all those concerned with strengthening the democratic character of schools and societies. It is likely to appeal to scholars, researchers, and practitioners with interests in philosophy and classroom discourse and curriculum studies, as well as philosophers of education and the social sciences more broadly.
The Preface to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: A Re-Introduction
by Rajiv KaushikThis book offers a critical re-appraisal of what is perhaps Merleau-Ponty’s most widely read text, the Preface to his Phenomenology of Perception. Although open and enigmatic text, the Preface is still often used to introduce phenomenology in general and Merleau-Ponty’s work specifically to students, scholars in disciplines other than philosophy, and art practitioners. Taking advantage of the fact that many of his course notes have been posthumously published in the last few decades, this book situates the Preface to the Phenomenology of Perception in the context of Merleau-Ponty's later work and shows how it contains many of the threads on which Merleau-Ponty would later pull. In doing so, the book chapters elaborate key themes in the Preface: “Phenomenology and its Paradoxes,” “Phenomenology and its Method,” “Phenomenology and its Incompletion,” “Phenomenology and Non-Phenomenology." Readers will learn about the radicality of Merleau-Ponty’s early articulation of phenomenology, how much it already suggests the profound transformation of phenomenology usually associated with his more mature work.
Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today
by Paul Raekstad Sofa Saio GradinMany of us wonder what we could possibly do to end oppression, exploitation, and injustice. People have studied revolutions and protest movements for centuries, but few have focused on prefigurative politics, the idea of 'building the new society within the shell of the old'. Fed up with capitalism? Get organised and build the institutions of the future in radical unions and local communities. Tired of politicians stalling on climate change? Set up an alternative energy collective. Ready to smash racism and the patriarchy? Root them out in all areas of our lives, not just in 'high politics'. This is the first book dedicated to prefigurative politics, explaining its history and examining the various debates surrounding it. How can collective decision-making be inclusive? In what ways are movements intersectional? Can prefigurative organisations scale up? It is a must-read for students of radical politics, anarchism, and social movements, as well as activists and concerned citizens everywhere.
The Price of Life: In Search of What We're Worth and Who Decides
by Jenny KleemanA Radio 4 Book of the Week'Jon Ronson meets Louis Theroux in the style of Joan Didion' - Telegraph'Jaw-droppingly illuminating' - inewsWe say that life is priceless but in these surprising stories that explore the value of human life, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we're worth.The cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it’s just part of the job.In a series of extraordinary encounters – with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern day slaves – Kleeman discovers more questions than answers. What does it mean for our humanity when we crunch the numbers to decide who gets the expensive life-saving drugs, and who misses out? What do we learn about ourselves when philanthropic giving by the effective altruists in Silicon Valley is received by some, while others are left to suffer? Are some lives really worth more than others? And what happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Does it make for a fairer decision-making process – or for moral bankruptcy?Exploring the final frontier in monetization, Kleeman asks what we lose and what we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic._____'Compelling' - Literary Review'Reframes how you think about the world' - Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn'Gripping' - Daily Mail'Writing, thinking and storytelling at its best' - Ben Judah, author of This Is Europe
Primer in Critical Personalism: A Framework for Reviving Psychological Inquiry and for Grounding a Socio-Cultural Ethos (ISSN)
by James T. LamiellThis insightful book offers contemporary psychologists and other social theorists an understanding of the comprehensive system of thought developed by the German scholar William Stern (1871–1938) known as critical personalism.Expanding the author’s ongoing efforts in this area, the book considers, firstly, how critical personalism could ground a needed revival of psychological science, a need created by the field's gradual transformation, through its widespread adoption of aggregate statistical methods of investigation, into a discipline better characterized as 'psycho-demography.' Consistent with Stern's own view of the potential of critical personalism vis-a-vis socio-ethical concerns, the book then explores how the framework could facilitate a transcendence of thinking about racial and other social relationships beyond currently prevailing narratives about personkinds into narratives that are actually about persons. This part of the book includes a chapter discussing Stern's own historical efforts in this direction, serving to highlight the non-individualistic nature of critically personalistic thinking. Throughout, Lamiell constructs a clear case for the merits and applicability of critical personalism in modern psychology and social thought.Primer in Critical Personalism will interest established psychological scientists and advanced students in the field, as well as those who are concerned about our contemporary socio-cultural ethos and the prospects for its improvement, including philosophers, sociologists, educators, journalists, clerics, and thoughtful laypersons alike.
Primer in Critical Personalism: A Framework for Reviving Psychological Inquiry and for Grounding a Socio-Cultural Ethos (ISSN)
by James T. LamiellThis insightful book offers contemporary psychologists and other social theorists an understanding of the comprehensive system of thought developed by the German scholar William Stern (1871–1938) known as critical personalism.Expanding the author’s ongoing efforts in this area, the book considers, firstly, how critical personalism could ground a needed revival of psychological science, a need created by the field's gradual transformation, through its widespread adoption of aggregate statistical methods of investigation, into a discipline better characterized as 'psycho-demography.' Consistent with Stern's own view of the potential of critical personalism vis-a-vis socio-ethical concerns, the book then explores how the framework could facilitate a transcendence of thinking about racial and other social relationships beyond currently prevailing narratives about personkinds into narratives that are actually about persons. This part of the book includes a chapter discussing Stern's own historical efforts in this direction, serving to highlight the non-individualistic nature of critically personalistic thinking. Throughout, Lamiell constructs a clear case for the merits and applicability of critical personalism in modern psychology and social thought.Primer in Critical Personalism will interest established psychological scientists and advanced students in the field, as well as those who are concerned about our contemporary socio-cultural ethos and the prospects for its improvement, including philosophers, sociologists, educators, journalists, clerics, and thoughtful laypersons alike.
Primes and Particles: Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Physics
by Martin H. KriegerMany philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians have wondered about the remarkable relationship between mathematics with its abstract, pure, independent structures on one side, and the wilderness of natural phenomena on the other. Famously, Wigner found the "effectiveness" of mathematics in defining and supporting physical theories to be unreasonable, for how incredibly well it worked. Why, in fact, should these mathematical structures be so well-fitting, and even heuristic in the scientific exploration and discovery of nature? This book argues that the effectiveness of mathematics in physics is reasonable. The author builds on useful analogies of prime numbers and elementary particles, elementary structure kinship and the structure of systems of particles, spectra and symmetries, and for example, mathematical limits and physical situations. The two-dimensional Ising model of a permanent magnet and the proofs of the stability of everyday matter exemplify such effectiveness, and the power of rigorous mathematical physics. Newton is our original model, with Galileo earlier suggesting that mathematics is the language of Nature.
Principles and Praxis in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy in Honor of Fred D. Miller, Jr. (Philosophical Studies Series #155)
by David Keyt Christopher ShieldsThis collection of original articles draws from a cross section of distinguished scholars of ancient Greek philosophy. It is focussed primarily on the philosophy of Aristotle but comprises as well studies of the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Epicurus. Its authors explore a range of complementary topics in value theory, moral psychology, metaphysics, natural philosophy, political theory, and methodology, highlighting the rich and lasting philosophical contributions of the thinkers investigated. Opening with an engaging intellectual autobiography of its honoree, Fred D. Miller, Jr., the volume offers treatments of Socrates as a citizen; Plato’s attitude towards poetry; Socratic self-knowledge; Plato’s conception of law in his Republic; explorations of reason, goodness, and moral conduct in Plato; Platonic metaphysics; Aristotelian causation; Aristotelian metaphysics and normativity; natural philosophy in Aristotle; Aristotelian logic; political theory and approaches to justice in Aristotle’s Politics; methodological reflections on how best to approach Aristotle’s indefensible ideas; and closes with a reconsideration of Epicurus on death and the art of dying. Altogether, the volume reflects the richness of the ongoing community of philosophical scholars dedicated to reconstructing, assessing, and criticizing the principal philosophers of the ancient world, whose epoch-forming explorations of the key elements of human life—considered socially, politically, psychologically, and metaphysically—remain topics of lively investigation today. It will be of interest to philosophers of many stripes, including those with a primary interest in ancient philosophy but extending as well to those with systematic interests in the themes it explores. This volume will be a valuable addition to all libraries serving communities dedicated to researching and studying the origins of Western philosophy.
Priority of Needs?: An Informed Theory of Need-based Justice
by Bernhard Kittel Stefan TraubThis book develops an empirically informed normative theory of need-based justice, summarizing core findings of the DFG research group FOR2104 “Need-based Justice and Distributive Procedures”. In eleven chapters scholars from the fields of economics, political science, philosophy, psychology, and sociology cover the identification and rationale of needs, the recognition and legitimacy of needs, the dynamics and stability of procedures of distributions according to needs, and the consequences and sustainability of need-based distributions. These four areas are studied from the perspective of two mechanisms of need objectification, the social objectification by the discursive generation of mutual understanding (transparency) and the factual objectification by the transfer of decisions to uninvolved experts (expertise). The volume addresses academics in the fields of justice research, ethics, political theory, social choice and welfare, framing, individual and group decision making, inequality and redistribution, as well as advanced students in the contributing disciplines.
Private Higher Education and Inequalities in the Global South: Lessons from Africa, Latin America and Asia (Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development #17)
by Etienne GérardBased on original findings from research carried out in six low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this book brings together conceptual and empirical analyses of private higher education and social and academic inequality, a topic largely unexplored in the social science literature, particularly on private higher education. Field surveys of different categories of actors in numerous private universities have combined common methods and tools in countries chosen for the differences in their social structures and the characteristics, organization and development of their private higher education systems. Based on these qualitative surveys, combined with available quantitative data on higher education, this book analyzes the production and reproduction of social and academic inequalities in countries as diverse as Argentina, Mexico, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and Vietnam. Finally, the historical and social structuringof the private education systems in the selected countries provides the framework for analyses that go beyond the traditional higher education demand/supply and public policy approaches to explore the perspective of the actors – institutional administrators, teaching staff and students.
Probability and Statistics for STEM: A Course in One Semester (Synthesis Lectures on Mathematics & Statistics)
by Emmanuel N. Barron John G. Del GrecoThis new edition presents the essential topics in probability and statistics from a rigorous standpoint. Any discipline involving randomness, including medicine, engineering, and any area of scientific research, must have a way of analyzing or even predicting the outcomes of an experiment. The authors focus on the tools for doing so in a thorough, yet introductory way. After providing an overview of the basics of probability, the authors cover essential topics such as confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and linear regression. These subjects are presented in a one semester format, suitable for engineers, scientists, and STEM students with a solid understanding of calculus. There are problems and exercises included in each chapter allowing readers to practice the applications of the concepts.
The Problem of Free Will and Naturalism: Paradoxes and Kantian Solutions
by Christian OnofThe problem of free will is one of the oldest and most central philosophical conundrums. The contemporary debate around it has produced a range of sophisticated proposals, but shows no sign of leading to convergence. Christian Onof reviews these contemporary approaches and argues that their main shortcomings are ultimately due to paradoxical requirements on free will imposed by the naturalistic framework.Onof singles out Kant's critical solution as one that stands out among historical approaches insofar as it is based upon a rejection of this framework. By using the same methodological tool that he applies to contemporary proposals, namely a distinction between a volitional account of how we control our actions, a psychological account of the reasons for it and a metaphysical account of our status as agent, Onof shows that Kant's solution constitutes a coherent picture of free will. By exhibiting the structure running through several key publications of Kant's critical period and drawing upon unpublished notes, Onof addresses several debates which loom large in contemporary Kant literature. His exegetical work puts Kant's theory into conversation with contemporary analytic theories of free will and leads to defining a Kantian position that overcomes the issues plaguing existing approaches to the problem of free will.
The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery
by Matthew EliaA bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a world still haunted by slavery Over the last two decades, scholars have made a striking return to the resources of the Augustinian tradition to theorize citizenship, virtue, and the place of religion in public life. However, these scholars have not sufficiently attended to Augustine’s embrace of the position of the Christian slaveholder. To confront a racialized world, the modern Augustinian tradition of political thought must reckon with its own entanglements with the afterlife of the white Christian master. Drawing Augustine’s politics and the resources of modern Black thought into extended dialogue, Matthew Elia develops a critical analysis of the enduring problem of the Christian master, even as he presses toward an alternative interpretation of key concepts of ethical life—agency, virtue, temporality—against and beyond the framework of mastery. Amid democratic crises and racial injustice on multiple fronts, the book breathes fresh life into conversations on religion and the public square by showing how ancient and contemporary sources at once clash and converge in surprising ways. It imaginatively carves a path forward for the enduring humanities inquiry into the nature of our common life and the perennial problem of social and political domination.
Procedures of Resistance: Contents, Positions and the 'Doings' of Literary Theory
by Davor Beganović Zrinka Božić Andrea Milanko Ivana PericaThis volume explores the state of literary theory today, decades after the repeatedly proclaimed end of theory. It builds on the idea that theory is historically constituted as it is “always becoming something else” as Leslie Fiedler claimed in the 1950s, arguing that the historical constitution of theory relies on theory’s procedural nature. In order to assess theory’s procedural challenge to the fundamental notions that all the disciplines within an episteme have brought to the fore, it addresses these questions: What are the procedures theory has relied on? Are they a secret to its resistance, or is resistance its primary procedure? And if so, a resistance to what? Secondly, if resistance were theory’s principal vehicle, at which point does resistance, conceptualized only procedurally (as resisting something, questioning anything, criticizing whatever), display hallmarks of a disciplinary closure that must call for new resistances, and perhapsfor a fundamentally another kind? The book turns to what theory does in order to avoid a partial answer to what theory is.
Programming-Based Formal Languages and Automata Theory: Design, Implement, Validate, and Prove (Texts in Computer Science)
by Marco T. MorazánThis textbook introduces formal languages and automata theory for upper-level undergraduate or beginning graduate students. While it contains the traditional mathematical development usually employed in computational theory courses, it is also quite different from many of them. Machines, grammars, and algorithms developed as part of a constructive proof are intended to be rendered as programs. The book is divided into four parts that build on each other. Part I reviews fundamental concepts. It introduces programming in FSM and reviews program design. In addition, it reviews essential mathematical background on sets, relations, and reasoning about infinite sets. Part II starts the study of formal languages and automata theory in earnest with regular languages. It first introduces regular expressions and shows how they are used to write programs that generate words in a regular language. Given that regular expressions generate words, it is only natural to ask how a machine can recognize words in a regular language. This leads to the study of deterministic and nondeterministic finite-state machines. Part III starts the exploration of languages that are not regular with context-free languages. It begins with context-free grammars and pushdown automata to generate and recognize context-free languages, and it ends with a discussion of deterministic pushdown automata and illustrates why these automatons are fundamentally different from nondeterministic pushdown automata. Part IV eventually explores languages that are not context-free, known as context-sensitive languages. It starts by discussing the most powerful automaton known to mankind: the Turing machine. It then moves to grammars for context-sensitive languages, and their equivalence with Turing machines is explored. The book ends with a brief chapter introducing complexity theory and explores the question of determining if a solution to a problem is practical.