scholarly journals UNDER AN UNSTARRY SKY: KANTIAN ETHICS AND RADICAL EVIL

ARHE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (34) ◽  
pp. 241-274
Author(s):  
EMILIANO METTINI
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
High Level ◽  
Better Than

Kantian ethics and concept concerning “radical evil” represent one of the most interesting facets of moral reflection of German philosopher. Using anthropological and philosophical approach based on well-known critical method, I. Kant tried to find a comprise between “natural” behavior (i.e. not regulated by synthetic a priori judgments) but based only on sensation of pleasant unpleasant and “rational” behavior when humans tried to exit the realm of appearance and personal egoism for entering a new ethical dimension based on right (not pathological, if using I. Kant’s word) maxims being able to make human beings better than they are. In the paper it is underscored that main goal of Kantian ethics is the creation of a community where religion is a fact of reason and not of faith and reason, having as main actors men reaching an high level of self-consciousness and virtue that I. Kant granted as the greatest happiness one can have. The author tried to highlight the passage from “human being” as individuum (representative of a species) to ethically autonomous member of social consortium using as sources different Kantian works where this problem has been studied deeply and gave great emphasis to story of Job, representing in the best way the passage the Author wrote of. At the same time, he set for himself the goal of exploring progressive character of Kantian ethics aimed at making human beings better than they are, but not the best, considering noumenic nature of ethics hidden in the “Realm of goals”. Given such assumptions, the Author leads a debate with scholars distorting Kantian ethical thought by interpretation from Lacanian standpoints so that those scholars made I. Kant original source of totalitarianisms, where, in scholars’ opinion, humans do their duty both for saving their lives and express their sadistic tendencies and makes clear that Kantian ethics, throughout contradictory and complicated, is oriented to correction and education of human behavior for saving humans being from their own passions.

Scheler, Max Ferdinand (1874–1928)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Dunlop
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Personal Values ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Max Scheler ◽  
Phenomenological Movement ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Social Scientific

Max Scheler, usually called a phenomenologist, was probably the best known German philosopher of the 1920s. Always an eclectic thinker, he was a pupil of the neo-idealist Rudolph Eucken, but was also strongly influenced by the life-philosophies of Dilthey and Bergson. While teaching at Jena he regularly met Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement, and his mature writings have a strongly phenomenological, as well as a Catholic, stamp. Later he turned towards metaphysics and the philosophical problems raised by modern science. Scheler’s interests were very wide. He tried to do justice to all aspects of experience – ethical, religious, personal, social, scientific, historical – without doing away with the specific nature of each. Above all, he took the emotional foundations of thought seriously. Many of his insights are striking and profound, and sometimes his arguments are very telling, but his power to organize his material consistently and to attend conscientiously to the business of justification is poorly developed. Scheler is best known for his anti-Kantian ethics, based on an a priori emotional grasp of a hierarchy of objective values, which precedes all choice of goods and purposes. He himself describes his ethics as ‘personalist’, and makes personal values supreme, sharply distinguishing the ‘person’ from the ‘ego’, and linking this with his analysis of different types of social interaction. In epistemology he defends a pragmatist approach to science and perception; thus philosophy, as the intuition of essences, requires a preparatory ascetic discipline. His philosophy of religion is an attempt to marry the Augustinian approach through love with the Thomist approach through reason. In his later work, to which his important work on sympathy provides the transition, he defends a dualist philosophical anthropology and metaphysics, interpreting the latter in activist terms as a resolution of the tensions between spiritual love and vital impulse.

Social inequality in the evolution of human societies

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Georgi Derluguian
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
High Level ◽  
Political Economic

The author develops ideas about the origin of social inequality during the evolution of human societies and reflects on the possibilities of its overcoming. What makes human beings different from other primates is a high level of egalitarianism and altruism, which contributed to more successful adaptability of human collectives at early stages of the development of society. The transition to agriculture, coupled with substantially increasing population density, was marked by the emergence and institutionalisation of social inequality based on the inequality of tangible assets and symbolic wealth. Then, new institutions of warfare came into existence, and they were aimed at conquering and enslaving the neighbours engaged in productive labour. While exercising control over nature, people also established and strengthened their power over other people. Chiefdom as a new type of polity came into being. Elementary forms of power (political, economic and ideological) served as a basis for the formation of early states. The societies in those states were characterised by social inequality and cruelties, including slavery, mass violence and numerous victims. Nowadays, the old elementary forms of power that are inherent in personalistic chiefdom are still functioning along with modern institutions of public and private bureaucracy. This constitutes the key contradiction of our time, which is the juxtaposition of individual despotic power and public infrastructural one. However, society is evolving towards an ever more efficient combination of social initiatives with the sustainability and viability of large-scale organisations.

Visible Laser Probing (VLP) with GaP Solid Immersion Lens Demonstrating 110 nm Resolution in Common Laser Probing Applications

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Eiles ◽  
Patrick Pardy
Keyword(s):  
Gallium Phosphide ◽  
Fault Isolation ◽  
Solid Immersion Lens ◽  
Laser Probing ◽  
Isolation Methods ◽  
Visible Laser ◽  
High Level ◽  
Industry Needs ◽  
Diameter Reduction ◽  
Better Than

Abstract This paper demonstrates a breakthrough method of visible laser probing (VLP), including an optimized 577 nm laser microscope, visible-sensitive detector, and an ultimate-resolution gallium phosphide-based solid immersion lens on the 10 nm node, showing a 110 nm resolution. This is 2x better than what is achieved with the standard suite of probing systems using typical infrared (IR) wavelengths today. Since VLP provides a spot diameter reduction of 0.5x over IR methods, it is reasonable, based simply on geometry, to project that VLP using the 577 nm laser will meet the industry needs for laser probing for both the 10 nm and 7 nm process nodes. Based on its high level of optimization, including high resolution and specialized solid immersion lens, it is highly likely that this VLP technology will be one of the last optically-based fault isolation methods successfully used.

From Isovist to Spatial Perception: Wayfinding in Historic Quarter

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chih-Hung Chen ◽  
Ting-Ju Lin ◽  
Chih-Yu Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Spatial Perception ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Relative Area ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Historical District ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
A Priori Analysis ◽  
Better Than

Based on the assumption that human behaviours are mainly affected by physical and animate environments, this empirical research takes the changeful and complex historical district in Tainan to observe wayfinding behaviours. An a priori analysis of the isovist fields is conducted to identify spatial characteristics. Three measures, the relative area, convexity, and circularity, are applied to scrutinize the possible stopping points, change of speed, and route choices. Accordingly, an experiment is carried out to observe spatial behaviours and different influences of social stimuli. Results show that social interactions afford groups and pairs to perform better than individual observers in wayfinding.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, MalaysiaKeywords: wayfinding; isovist; spatial perception and social stimuli; historic quarter

scholarly journals Strategies for a Circular Economy in the Construction and Demolition Sector: Identifying the Factors Affecting the Recommendation of Recycled Concrete

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4113
Author(s):  
Valeria Superti ◽  
Cynthia Houmani ◽  
Ralph Hansmann ◽  
Ivo Baur ◽  
Claudia R. Binder
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Recycled Concrete ◽  
Recycled Aggregates ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Structural Applications ◽  
Adoption Of Innovation ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Behavioural Factors ◽  
High Level

With increasing urbanisation, new approaches such as the Circular Economy (CE) are needed to reduce resource consumption. In Switzerland, Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste accounts for the largest portion of waste (84%). Beyond limiting the depletion of primary resources, implementing recycling strategies for C&D waste (such as using recycled aggregates to produce recycled concrete (RC)), can also decrease the amount of landfilled C&D waste. The use of RC still faces adoption barriers. In this research, we examined the factors driving the adoption of recycled products for a CE in the C&D sector by focusing on RC for structural applications. We developed a behavioural framework to understand the determinants of architects’ decisions to recommend RC. We collected and analysed survey data from 727 respondents. The analyses focused on architects’ a priori beliefs about RC, behavioural factors affecting their recommendations of RC, and project-specific contextual factors that might play a role in the recommendation of RC. Our results show that the factors that mainly facilitate the recommendation of RC by architects are: a senior position, a high level of RC knowledge and of the Minergie label, beliefs about the reduced environmental impact of RC, as well as favourable prescriptive social norms expressed by clients and other architects. We emphasise the importance of a holistic theoretical framework in approaching decision-making processes related to the adoption of innovation, and the importance of the agency of each involved actor for a transition towards a circular construction sector.

A Two Phases Self-healing Framework for Service-oriented Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Amal Alhosban ◽  
Zaki Malik ◽  
Khayyam Hashmi ◽  
Brahim Medjahed ◽  
Hassan Al-Ababneh
Keyword(s):  
Web Services ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Fault Management ◽  
Service Selection ◽  
Exception Handling ◽  
Self Healing ◽  
Service Oriented Architectures ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
High Level

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) enable the automatic creation of business applications from independently developed and deployed Web services. As Web services are inherently a priori unknown, how to deliver reliable Web services compositions is a significant and challenging problem. Services involved in an SOA often do not operate under a single processing environment and need to communicate using different protocols over a network. Under such conditions, designing a fault management system that is both efficient and extensible is a challenging task. In this article, we propose SFSS, a self-healing framework for SOA fault management. SFSS is predicting, identifying, and solving faults in SOAs. In SFSS, we identified a set of high-level exception handling strategies based on the QoS performances of different component services and the preferences articled by the service consumers. Multiple recovery plans are generated and evaluated according to the performance of the selected component services, and then we execute the best recovery plan. We assess the overall user dependence (i.e., the service is independent of other services) using the generated plan and the available invocation information of the component services. Due to the experiment results, the given technique enhances the service selection quality by choosing the services that have the highest score and betters the overall system performance. The experiment results indicate the applicability of SFSS and show improved performance in comparison to similar approaches.

scholarly journals Sensorimotor priors in nonstationary environments

2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (5) ◽  
pp. 1259-1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devika Narain ◽  
Robert J. van Beers ◽  
Jeroen B. J. Smeets ◽  
Eli Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variables ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Systematic Change ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Environmental Variance ◽  
Adaptive Models ◽  
Priori Information ◽  
Human Nervous System ◽  
Better Than

In the course of its interaction with the world, the human nervous system must constantly estimate various variables in the surrounding environment. Past research indicates that environmental variables may be represented as probabilistic distributions of a priori information (priors). Priors for environmental variables that do not change much over time have been widely studied. Little is known, however, about how priors develop in environments with nonstationary statistics. We examine whether humans change their reliance on the prior based on recent changes in environmental variance. Through experimentation, we obtain an online estimate of the human sensorimotor prior (prediction) and then compare it to similar online predictions made by various nonadaptive and adaptive models. Simulations show that models that rapidly adapt to nonstationary components in the environments predict the stimuli better than models that do not take the changing statistics of the environment into consideration. We found that adaptive models best predict participants' responses in most cases. However, we find no support for the idea that this is a consequence of increased reliance on recent experience just after the occurrence of a systematic change in the environment.

scholarly journals When brain damage “improves” perception: neglect patients can localize motion-shifted probes better than controls

2015 ◽  
Vol 114 (6) ◽  
pp. 3351-3358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania de Vito ◽  
Marine Lunven ◽  
Clémence Bourlon ◽  
Christophe Duret ◽  
Patrick Cavanagh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Visual Fields ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Stimulus Motion ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Position Shift ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level ◽  
Better Than

When we look at bars flashed against a moving background, we see them displaced in the direction of the upcoming motion (flash-grab illusion). It is still debated whether these motion-induced position shifts are low-level, reflexive consequences of stimulus motion or high-level compensation engaged only when the stimulus is tracked with attention. To investigate whether attention is a causal factor for this striking illusory position shift, we evaluated the flash-grab illusion in six patients with damaged attentional networks in the right hemisphere and signs of left visual neglect and six age-matched controls. With stimuli in the top, right, and bottom visual fields, neglect patients experienced the same amount of illusion as controls. However, patients showed no significant shift when the test was presented in their left hemifield, despite having equally precise judgments. Thus, paradoxically, neglect patients perceived the position of the flash more veridically in their neglected hemifield. These results suggest that impaired attentional processes can reduce the interaction between a moving background and a superimposed stationary flash, and indicate that attention is a critical factor in generating the illusory motion-induced shifts of location.

scholarly journals A Systematic Framework for Drug Repositioning from Integrated Omics and Drug Phenotype Profiles Using Pathway-Drug Network

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erkhembayar Jadamba ◽  
Miyoung Shin
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Drug Repositioning ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Gene Expression Profiles ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Genomic Knowledge ◽  
High Level ◽  
Systematic Framework ◽  
Phenotype Expression

Drug repositioning offers new clinical indications for old drugs. Recently, many computational approaches have been developed to repurpose marketed drugs in human diseases by mining various of biological data including disease expression profiles, pathways, drug phenotype expression profiles, and chemical structure data. However, despite encouraging results, a comprehensive and efficient computational drug repositioning approach is needed that includes the high-level integration of available resources. In this study, we propose a systematic framework employing experimental genomic knowledge and pharmaceutical knowledge to reposition drugs for a specific disease. Specifically, we first obtain experimental genomic knowledge from disease gene expression profiles and pharmaceutical knowledge from drug phenotype expression profiles and construct a pathway-drug network representing a priori known associations between drugs and pathways. To discover promising candidates for drug repositioning, we initialize node labels for the pathway-drug network using identified disease pathways and known drugs associated with the phenotype of interest and perform network propagation in a semisupervised manner. To evaluate our method, we conducted some experiments to reposition 1309 drugs based on four different breast cancer datasets and verified the results of promising candidate drugs for breast cancer by a two-step validation procedure. Consequently, our experimental results showed that the proposed framework is quite useful approach to discover promising candidates for breast cancer treatment.

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