Search results for "metaphysics"
showing 10 items of 212 documents
On the limits to the long-period method in classical economics. A note
2001
On a first reading of Theory of Production, Kurz & Salvadori (1995) appear to confine the empirical domain of the long-period models of the classical theory of value and distribution to stationary economies with non-constant returns to scale and to growing economies with constant returns to scale. Such a reading is shown to be untenable since it merges the two levels of exploring the extension of a model and of testing a theoretical hypothesis. Conversely, the way Kurz & Salvadori tackle the problems of price dynamics and returns to scale in growing economies is shown to be compatible with what appears to be Sraffa's (implicit) strategy of research.
Analysis of Socio-Spatial Differences in Germany for the Definition of Online Milieus
2017
This research paper is part of a research project that analyses the influence of socioeconomic variables on the usage of online social networks to provide quality ensured social media supported business transactions. The research in this paper contains the analysing of the online milieu groups from the Responsibility-Driven Individuals and the Digital Vanguards, which were defined 2012 as milieu groups for online users in Germany. Both target groups are part of the in Germany well-established approach of lifeworlds and milieus for the differentiation of groups in the society. With such a distinguishing of customer groups, the communication with agents in social media communication will be m…
Balance Properties and Distribution of Squares in Circular Words
2008
We study balance properties of circular words over alphabets of size greater than two. We give some new characterizations of balanced words connected to the Kawasaki-Ising model and to the notion of derivative of a word. Moreover we consider two different generalizations of the notion of balance, and we find some relations between them. Some of our results can be generalised to non periodic infinite words as well.
La lettre galante et l'esprit géométrique : expression métaphysique et métaphysique des langues, ou la philosophie du discours de Fontenelle
2015
International audience; Il n'est paradoxal qu'en apparence d'affirmer que Fontenelle est un philosophe pour qui la question du style ne se pose pas. Pour le dire simplement, Fontenelle est pour une large part étranger à l'idée que la philosophie puisse constituer un corpus distinct d'objets et de thèses à propos duquel se poserait spécifiquement la question de son écriture ou de son expression. Fontenelle ne pose pas tant la question de savoir comment il convient d'écrire la philosophie, ni telle philosophie, y compris la sienne propre, qu'il ne défend par sa pratique scripturaire l'idée d'une écriture ou d'une récriture philosophique de tout ce qui s'écrit : oeuvres drama-tiques, lettres g…
Conceptual Confusion is Not Always a Bad Thing – The Curious Case of European Radical Right Studies
2018
Over the course of many years, as a teacher, scholar, and friend, Ruth Zimmerling has impressed on me the importance of precisely defining one’s concepts. After all, if there is no agreement on the intension and extension of a concept, it is impossible “to assess the truth or falsity or, more generally, the correctness or incorrectness, of propositions, hypotheses or theories” (Zimmerling 2005: 15). The statement is almost self-evident: Without precisely defined concepts, the whole endeavour of science becomes pointless, and scholarly discourses are bound to turn into dialogues of the deaf.
Nurtured by Nature
2015
This chapter is about the metaphysical and psychological assumptions underlying early Stoic epistemology. I show that, according to the Stoics, each thing is qualified by nature in such a way as to be both a kind of thing and a unique thing. I also show that the mind of a human adult is qualified by nature in such a way as to be able to form thoughts about all sorts of qualified things, as long as it has acquired notions about them. I then detail how notions are acquired, i.e. how nature operates in such a way that human beings first receive all sorts of information through the senses and then retain some of this information, so that we acquire the ability to recognize things in our environ…
'Traveling Barbies' and rolling blackouts Images of mobility in Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding
2003
AbstractThis article proposes to read Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding through a critical framework provided by transnational anthropology. Such a framework suggests that approaches celebrating transnational mobility must be balanced against nationally specific forms of constraint. It is argued that Monsoon Wedding bears out precisely such a balance. Nair's film suggests that the mobility of human lives may not be quite as unfettered as that of cultural commodities. Moreover, the filmic narrative insists on a differentiation within the Indian diasporic community. Similarly, some theorists of transnationalism have cautioned that the concept of a 'diasporic community' may serve to obfuscate c…
Kieślowski, the mysteries of screens and God
2019
The computer seems like a privileged personage in Decalogue 1 (Dekalog, jeden, 1987/88, prem. 1989, dir. K. Kieślowski): it is used by Paweł and his father to solve mathematical questions about Miss Piggy, to calculate the durability of the ice on the pond, to know what Mum is doing, and to control domestic devices. For Kieślowski the computer is not just a gadget: Krzysztof ’s lecture describes its potential and its possible autonomy. Independent from man (the computer switches itself on), it becomes his rival: Kieślowski proposes a critical interpretation of the computer as a new idol, promising unlimited memory and knowledge. A similar preoccupation can be found in the Black Mirror serie…
On Thinking the Tragic with Adorno
2016
This article seeks to provide a template for understanding the tragic dimension of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy through a reading of his early collaborative work with Max Horkheimer, the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). While Adorno’s view has often been considered to be tragic, little has been done to reconstruct the tragic dimension of his thought. I argue that the view of the human condition, presented in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, is founded on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical convictions that have structural similarities with the positions held by theorists and philosophers of tragedy and the tragic. Since traces of these tragic elements can be found throughout Adorn…
TRANSFORMING THEOLOGICAL SYMBOLS
2010
. In this essay I explore the need for transforming the Christian theological symbols of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Redemption, which arose in the context of neo-Platonic metaphysics, in light of late modern, especially Peircean, metaphysics and categories. I engage and attempt to complement the proposal by Andrew Robinson and Christopher Southgate (in this issue of Zygon) with insights from the Peircean-inspired philosophical theology of Robert Neville. I argue that their proposal can be strengthened by acknowledging the way in which theological symbols themselves have a transformative (pragmatic) effect as they are “taken” in context and “break” on the Infinite.