scholarly journals What's New About Fake News?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliot Michaelson ◽  
Rachel Sterken ◽  
Jessica Pepp

The term "fake news" ascended rapidly to prominence in 2016 and has become a fixture in academic and public discussions, as well as in political mud-slinging. In the flurry of discussion, the term has been applied so broadly as to threaten to render it meaningless. In an effort to rescue our ability to discuss—and combat—the underlying phenomenon that triggered the present use of the term, some philosophers have tried to characterize it more precisely. A common theme in this nascent philosophical discussion is that contemporary fake news is not a new kind of phenomenon, but just the latest iteration of a broader kind of phenomenon that has played out in different ways across the history of human information-dissemination technologies. While we agree with this, we argue that newer sorts of fake news reveal substantial flaws in earlier understandings of this notion. In particular, we argue that no deceptive intentions are necessary for fake news to arise; rather, fake news arises when stories which were not produced via standard journalistic practice are treated as though they had been. Importantly, this revisionary understanding of fake news allows us to accommodate and understand the way that fake news is plausibly generated and spread in a contemporary setting, as much by non-human actors as by ordinary human beings.

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Irina-Andreea Stoleriu

The present study is meant to underline the importance of a famous work from the baroque period, Las Meninas, made by the painter Diego de Silva y Velásquez who has become a source of inspiration for future generations of artists. Numerous modern and contemporary artists have integrally or partially ”paraphrased” Velásquez’s composition by intercepting the portrait of revolutionary group for the time when it was created, extremely innovative regarding its compositional qualities and its hidden meanings which underlined the role and status of the artist in the context of a conservative society. Thus, the painting becomes the living proof of the way in which the artist manages to overcome the limitations of the social status of ordinary human beings, by portraying himself as a close friend of the royal family and by opening, through this type of representation, an important chapter in the history of portraiture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 309-330 ◽  

The article centers on a discussion of Frank Ruda’s chapter in the anthology Reading Marx, in which he argues that the history of emancipatory thought is a series of footnotes to Plato’s Cave. In considering emancipation to be a way out of the non- or pre-human state, Marx becomes the thinker closest to Plato. According to Ruda, a critique of capitalism must be based on the refutation of the myth of the (unconditional) given, which he identifies with the ideological operation of naturalization. Capitalist naturalization dependent on abstraction and abstraction from abstraction ends by reducing the worker to the state of an animal. However, this is a strange animal that has nothing to do with real animals, and therefore should be called a non-animal. The way out of the Cave turns out to be the realization that the figure of the non-animal does not conceal within itself an unalienated substance and that no positive utopia lies beyond the Cave - on the contrary, the path to liberation leads to the Real of the shadows themselves, to a kind of negative utopia. Accepting Ruda’s general line of reasoning, the author of the article nevertheless wonders whether this interpretation that Ruda has put forward is the kind of new way to read Marx to which Reading Marx aspires. The author compares this interpretation with one from the Marxist legacy proposed by Michel Henry and with François Laruelle’s non-Marxism (which is an extension of Henry’s thought). Their example shows that naturalization could be not only a target in the criticism of capitalism but also a method for that criticism. The myth of the unconditional given has been countered by Henry with a myth about the given which coincides with its condition. Then according to non-Marxism, the myth of the givenness conditions is what is be overcome instead of the myth about the given. That argument is illustrated by Katerina Kolozova’s denunciation of the anthropocentric orientation of the critique of capitalism, which holds that the animal has been reduced to the non-animal in capitalism in exactly the same way as human beings have been and draws the conclusion that in the last instance both animal and human are generically identical.


2003 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 32-50

This chapter broadens the basis of the discussion in three respects. Firstly, the discussion will include examples which show how the history of reception of ancient texts and ideas is intermingled with and to some extent shaped by the artistic forms and cultural politics of receiving traditions. This means that in looking at examples of modern reception it is necessary to consider the routes through which the ancient text or idea itself has passed and the way in which subsequent cultural assumptions filter modern representations. Secondly, I have deliberately chosen examples which engage with the claim that the ancient world provides models, either in the sense of examples of how human beings might behave or, more subtly, ways in which Greek or Roman history or culture has been presented as a base from which subsequent generations might analyse and critique not just the ancient world, but also their own. In this aspect of the discussion I shall challenge the notion, put forward by a number of critics and most recently fostered by Page du Bois, that those looking to the ancient world as a source of insight, whether artistic, moral or political, are necessarily conservatives. Thirdly, in pursuing this argument I shall also begin to scrutinize and revise any easy assumptions that may linger concerning underlying differences in the ways in which it is possible to characterize Greek and Roman material and its reception or about restrictions in the variety and potential of either. The focus here will be on Roman ideas and texts. The next chapter will concentrate on Greek examples.


2019 ◽  
pp. 147-164
Author(s):  
Shamim Ara Pia

In the prehistoric time, there was an inclination of human beings to protect their existence by living in societies. They confine themselves in the society because of having their qualities of mutual love and amity. The general tendencies of human beings are to develop bonds. These bonds happen in various ways. Society cannot survive without bonds. Bonds have significance in philosophical discussion. In the history of contemporary philosophy, applied philosophy is one of the several other aspects. Applied philosophy deals with Human rights, Euthanasia, Feminism, Abortion, Animal rights, Bonds etc. Brenda Almond, a leading figure in applied philosophy, has offered arguments in favor of her viewpoint regarding the importance of human bonds. In this paper, Almond‟s view on the nature and significance of bond has been analyzed. However, bond has also been studied from ethical perspective in this paper. And finally, it is claimed that marriage and cosmopolitanism make bonds stronger. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 147-164


Vox Patrum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Stanisław Łucarz

The article focuses on the notion of femaleness and its role in the history of salvation in the works of Clement of Alexandria. Although these are not the central themes of his considerations, he reflects on this subject against the back­ground of his magnificent vision of the incarnation of the divine Logos. The be­getting or generating of Logos by Father is the first stage of the incarnation, which is followed by the next stages: the creation of the world and of human beings, the revelation in the Old Testament and – although not directly – in the Greek philosophy. The last stage is the incarnation in Jesus Christ. All this leads towards the divinization and the unity in God. Femaleness in Clement’s work should be considered as a part of cosmic dimensions. For him, men and women are substan­tially – i.e. on the level of their souls – equal, hence in the spiritual and intellectual dimension both sexes are vested with identical dignity and enjoy equal rights. The differences between sexes are located in the body and affect various aspects of human life, mostly biological and reproductive ones, not to mention the family, community and religious reality. In practice, it is the woman who is subordinated to man due to the fact, as Clement holds, that the female body is weaker than the male one, more subjugated to passivity, less perfect and more susceptible to pas­sions. For that reason, on the way to salvation, it is the man who is the head of the woman. However, it is not an absolute subjection. If the woman goes on the way to salvation (a Christian woman), and the man does not, the Lord is the head of the woman (the divine Logos, whom she follows). All these differences resulting from the possession of a body are eliminated in eschatology, in which will be the total equality. On that way to the eschatological fulfillment, the divine Logos is indispensable. He incarnates himself and comes to the world through a woman. He chooses what is weaker in order to reveal His power. This way it is a woman, and not a man, who first experiences His divinizing closeness and action.


Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492096908
Author(s):  
Brendan T Lawson

Across journalism, numbers and non-numbers are used in conjunction with each other in the process of storytelling. When literature within journalism studies examines this relationship, it tends to focus on how numbers contextualise the specific anecdote or how numbers provide scale to individual accounts. Both explanations rest on a specific-general paradigm that underpins much of the way academics research and theorise the topic. In this article, I reconceptualise the relationship between the quantitative and the qualitative through two metaphors that emerged during my interviews with journalists regarding their coverage of humanitarian crises. In doing so, I set my study within the long history of using metaphors in journalism studies. First, I point to the metaphor of colouring to outline how we can reimagine storytelling as the combination of data that provides form and shape and the personal that colours this structure. Second, I explore the metaphor of anchoring to appreciate the journalistic practice of connecting subjective personal accounts with the ontological solidity of data. I conclude by highlighting the differences between these two metaphors and the specific-general paradigm, whilst also pointing to the ramifications of my article for journalism studies and mediated ethics.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bartelmus

AbstractIn Kleist’s so called »Trauerspiel«Assuming this perspective on the text it is now possible to negotiate subjectivity and individuality as ideological constructions. This allows for approaching its deconstruction as well as other modes of being such as group-formation, hybrid and the pack. By associating Penthesilea to her dogs Kleist’s text aims at the fragile status of human beings in the Modernity. Penthesilea is thus turned into an animal. As a murderous pack the female protagonist stands amongst being aTo understand Kleist’s »ethnological view« on the constitutive self-descriptions of Modernity, it is expedient to read Penthesilea as an ontological experiment. With the help of the concept of theTo meet the significance of Penthesilea’s tragedy it is indeed necessary not to stop at the point of understanding the Becoming-Animal as a subversive and critical act. With Bruno Latour’s ethnological view on Modernity it is possible to re-construct Kleist’s strategy of talking about Becoming-Animal as shift to reconsider the way of assembling human and non-human actors. The pack will be understood as a specific group-formation and the Becoming-Animal as a mode of existence. In his latest workModernity, Latour argues, has always constituted Nature as an objective external place, whereas Society has always been constituted as the place of subjects. Around 1800 the practices of separation and purification of hybrids and group-formations are expressed through a dispositive of humanism that emerges amidst the tension of the discourses of romanticism, classicism, medicine, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy of the subject. The aim of the present article is to show that the entanglement of those mentioned theories by Latour and Deleuze/Guattari is important for the understanding of Kleist’s critical view on the fragile constructedness of the subject as a human being.Therefore the play makes use of a narrative strategy which is highly apt to show those compounds: the »teichoscopy«. With this seemingly detached way of observation Kleist is able to report not only on the practices of separation and purification, but also on the hybrids and group-formations.The article adopts this strategy to observe both sites of Kleist’s understanding of the Modernity. Hence, section 2 of the analysis starts with a first teichoscopy on hybrids and group-formations in the (self-)descriptions of Amazons and Greeks.On the basis of the state of war the protagonists in the play are always associated with animals, things and other humans. With the focus on Achilles and Penthesilea it is significant how language is involved in constructing, out of these hybrids, the dichotomy between subject and object and therefore unambig­uous ontological statuses. However, with the term of Becoming-Animal that dichotomy is suddenly uncertain. On this account the aim is to understand animals and things not asThat leads to the second teichoscopy in section 3. The focus shifts now to Penthesilea’s process of Becoming-Animal. This allows to show the power of Modernity as well as their concepts of »human« and »animal«. Therefore Penthesilea’s association with her dogs and the slaughter of her lover Achilles – as a dog, like a dog and with her dogs – is not displayed in the play, but it is reported by the Amazons. This uncertain form of report points to the crux of Kleist’s tragedy: Penthesilea and her dogs undermine the established regulatory power and the dispositive of humanism around 1800. Still, Kleist does not persist in an elaborated ideal. For that he demonstrates the counter-mechanisms of Modernity on Penthesilea: this includes turning Penthesilea literally into an animal, or in other words, transforming the Becoming-Animal into a solid state of being by means of performative speech.Under those circumstances the perspective changes in section 4: the play abandons the strategy of teichoscopy in favour of the monologue to execute on Penthesilea a radical re-subjectivation. The asymmetry of Modernity results in a desperate suicide: the pack yields the subject, instead of the group-formation a single human being comes to existence. Penthesilea has to remove all other non-human actors like her bow and her dogs from herself to understand herself as a human being in the way of Modernity.Consequently Becoming-Animal – as implied – is a mode of existence outside of established institutions. This mode breaks with the old institutions of Modernity established by the


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 188-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Van Trigt ◽  
Susan Legêne

In this paper, the relation between humanity and disability is addressed by discussing the agency of people with disabilities in colonial histories of humanitarianism. People with disabilities were often—as indicated by relevant sources—regarded and treated as passive, suffering fellow humans, in particular in the making and distribution of colonial photography. In the context of humanitarianism, is it possible to understand these photographs differently? This paper analyzes one photograph—from the collection of the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam—of people with leprosy in the protestant leprosarium Bethesda, in the Dutch colony Suriname, at the beginning of the twentieth century. It discusses the way the sitters in the photograph have been framed, and how the photograph has been made and used. The photograph makes it difficult to register agency, but easily reaffirms existing colonial categories. Therefore, this paper also uses another strategy of analysis. By following Actor-Network Theory, focusing on non-human actors, the second part of this paper offers a new and more convincing interpretation of the photograph. This strategy (a) understands agency as a phenomenon of interdependence instead of independence, and (b) approaches photographs as both real and performed. Combining the written history of humanitarianism and disability, it allows new histories of people with disabilities to develop, histories that move beyond the categories of colonialism.


Author(s):  
David Ephraim

Abstract. A history of complex trauma or exposure to multiple traumatic events of an interpersonal nature, such as abuse, neglect, and/or major attachment disruptions, is unfortunately common in youth referred for psychological assessment. The way these adolescents approach the Rorschach task and thematic contents they provide often reflect how such experiences have deeply affected their personality development. This article proposes a shift in perspective in the interpretation of protocols of adolescents who suffered complex trauma with reference to two aspects: (a) the diagnostic relevance of avoidant or emotionally constricted Rorschach protocols that may otherwise appear of little use, and (b) the importance of danger-related thematic contents reflecting the youth’s sense of threat, harm, and vulnerability. Regarding this last aspect, the article reintroduces the Preoccupation with Danger Index ( DI). Two cases are presented to illustrate the approach.


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