Adorno and the Uncoercive Gaze

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-38
Author(s):  
Gerhard Richter
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Primary Mode ◽  
The Moment

Chapter 1 develops in detail Adorno’s concept of the uncoercive gaze as the primary mode of reflective engagement with his objects of thinking. Proceeding from an explication of his conviction that the kind of thinking that philosophy performs cannot be performed without also considering its relation to questions of language, this chapter sets the stage for our understanding of the uncoercive gaze. By refusing to submit to the dictates of an obscene and transfixed Hinstarren—a mere staring—at the object, Adorno’s uncoercive gaze eschews the critical violence that attends to the moment in which a thinker or writer works to superimpose onto the object this or that set standard of measurement, premise, agenda, or assumption that, as a priori ossified modes of relating to the object, only ends up by missing a certain critical intimacy with the object—and thus its productive primacy, its critical Vorrang.

How Do We Know that We’re Not Brains in Vats?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
Priori Knowledge

In this chapter the contextualist Moorean account of how we know by ordinary standards that we are not brains in vats (BIVs) utilized in Chapter 1 is developed and defended, and the picture of knowledge and justification that emerges is explained. The account (a) is based on a double-safety picture of knowledge; (b) has it that our knowledge that we’re not BIVs is in an important way a priori; and (c) is knowledge that is easily obtained, without any need for fancy philosophical arguments to the effect that we’re not BIVs; and the account is one that (d) utilizes a conservative approach to epistemic justification. Special attention is devoted to defending the claim that we have a priori knowledge of the deeply contingent fact that we’re not BIVs, and to distinguishing this a prioritist account of this knowledge from the kind of “dogmatist” account prominently championed by James Pryor.

scholarly journals Personalized Biometrics of Physical Pain Agree with Psychophysics by Participants with Sensory over Responsivity

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Jihye Ryu ◽  
Tami Bar-Shalita ◽  
Yelena Granovsky ◽  
Irit Weissman-Fogel ◽  
Elizabeth B. Torres
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Theoretical Population ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Reported Data

The study of pain requires a balance between subjective methods that rely on self-reports and complementary objective biometrics that ascertain physical signals associated with subjective accounts. There are at present no objective scales that enable the personalized assessment of pain, as most work involving electrophysiology rely on summary statistics from a priori theoretical population assumptions. Along these lines, recent work has provided evidence of differences in pain sensations between participants with Sensory Over Responsivity (SOR) and controls. While these analyses are useful to understand pain across groups, there remains a need to quantify individual differences more precisely in a personalized manner. Here we offer new methods to characterize pain using the moment-by-moment standardized fluctuations in EEG brain activity centrally reflecting the person’s experiencing temperature-based stimulation at the periphery. This type of gross data is often disregarded as noise, yet here we show its utility to characterize the lingering sensation of discomfort raising to the level of pain, individually, for each participant. We show fundamental differences between the SOR group in relation to controls and provide an objective account of pain congruent with the subjective self-reported data. This offers the potential to build a standardized scale useful to profile pain levels in a personalized manner across the general population.

scholarly journals Assessing biases, relaxing moralism: On ground-truthing practices in machine learning design and application

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172110135
Author(s):  
Florian Jaton
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
William James ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Learning Algorithms ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Ground Truthing ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Moment

This theoretical paper considers the morality of machine learning algorithms and systems in the light of the biases that ground their correctness. It begins by presenting biases not as a priori negative entities but as contingent external referents—often gathered in benchmarked repositories called ground-truth datasets—that define what needs to be learned and allow for performance measures. I then argue that ground-truth datasets and their concomitant practices—that fundamentally involve establishing biases to enable learning procedures—can be described by their respective morality, here defined as the more or less accounted experience of hesitation when faced with what pragmatist philosopher William James called “genuine options”—that is, choices to be made in the heat of the moment that engage different possible futures. I then stress three constitutive dimensions of this pragmatist morality, as far as ground-truthing practices are concerned: (I) the definition of the problem to be solved (problematization), (II) the identification of the data to be collected and set up (databasing), and (III) the qualification of the targets to be learned (labeling). I finally suggest that this three-dimensional conceptual space can be used to map machine learning algorithmic projects in terms of the morality of their respective and constitutive ground-truthing practices. Such techno-moral graphs may, in turn, serve as equipment for greater governance of machine learning algorithms and systems.

Introduction: Sensing Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Mónica López Lerma
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Moment

The meaning of justice and the meaning of the aesthetic may both be sensed, but they can never be codified or entirely understood. They lack an essence, or a definition; they exist in specific performances rather than as general propositions. The aesthetic and the just alike deny the application of a priori models or abstract understandings and instead focus on the tangible and unrepeatable experience of singular events. The artwork and the moment of judgment come each time differently. Reproduction is forgery....

Welfare States in the Middle East and North Africa: Puzzles and Answers

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-51
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Eibl
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Regime Formation ◽  
General Terms ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 1 sets out the main empirical puzzles of the book, which are (i) the early divergence of welfare trajectories in the region and (ii) their long persistence over time. Drawing on literature from authoritarianism studies and political economy, it lays out the theoretical argument explaining this empirical pattern by developing a novel analytical framework focused on elite incentives at the moment of regime formation and geostrategic constraints limiting their abilities to provide welfare. It also outlines the author’s explanation for the persistence of social policies over time and broadly describes the three types of welfare regime in the region. It sbows the limitations of existing theories in explaining this divergence and bigbligbts the book’s contribution to the literature. The theoretical argument is stated in general terms and sbould thus be of relevance to political economy and authoritarianism scholars more broadly. The chapter ends with an outline of the chapters to come.

Anthology Publication and the Woman Poet

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-70
Author(s):  
Alexandra Socarides
Keyword(s):  
Literary Culture ◽  
American Woman ◽  
Women Poets ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time

Chapter 1 investigates the moment at mid-century when American women’s poetry was, for the first time, being collected and marketed to a wide audience. By looking closely at the structures and visual components of the anthologies of the late 1840s, this chapter shows just how vexed the placement of the “American woman poet” into literary culture was. While women poets had been deployed in the service of a narrative about American literary culture earlier, it was with the creation of these anthologies that a whole host of conventions got embraced by writers and editors alike. By highlighting the diversity of approaches and poems contained within these anthologies, this chapter returns to the ways in which women’s poetry resisted being flattened into one kind of poem and women poets into one image.

Unconscious mental states

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Rey
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Mental States ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pupillary Dilation ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Moment

Unconscious phenomena are those mental phenomena which their possessor cannot introspect, not only at the moment at which the phenomenon occurs, but even when prompted (‘Do you think/want/…?’). There are abundant allusions to many kinds of unconscious phenomena from classical times to Freud. Most notably, Plato in his Meno defended a doctrine of anamnesis according to which a priori knowledge of, for example, geometry is ‘recollected’ from a previous life. But the notion of a rich, unconscious mental life really takes hold in nineteenth-century writers, such as Herder, Hegel, Helmholtz and Schopenhauer. It is partly out of this latter tradition that Freud’s famous postulations of unconscious, ‘repressed’ desires and memories emerged. Partly in reaction to the excesses of introspection and partly because of the rise of computational models of mental processes, twentieth-century psychology has often been tempted by Lashley’s view that ‘no activity of mind is ever conscious’ (1956). A wide range of recent experiments do suggest that people can be unaware of a multitude of sensory cognitive factors (for example, pupillary dilation, cognitive dissonance, subliminal cues to problem-solving) that demonstrably affect their behaviour. And Weiskrantz has documented cases of ‘blindsight’ in which patients with damage to their visual cortex can be shown to be sensitive to visual material they sincerely claim they cannot see. The most controversial cases of unconscious phenomena are those which the agent could not possibly introspect, even in principle. Chomsky ascribes unconscious knowledge of quite abstract principles of grammar to adults and even newborn children that only a linguist could infer. Many philosophers have found these claims about the unconscious unconvincing, even incoherent. However, they need to show how the evidence cited above could be otherwise explained, and why appeals to the unconscious have seemed so perfectly intelligible throughout history.

Independent a priori information for reduced intercomparison errors between TROPOMI and TCCON retrievals of methane and carbon monoxide

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Lutzmann ◽  
Ralf Sussmann ◽  
Huilin Chen ◽  
Frank Hase ◽  
Rigel Kivi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Polar Vortex ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
The Status ◽  
Priori Information ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Stratospheric Intrusions

<p>Ground-based column measurements of trace gases by FTIR spectrometers within the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) provide accurate ground reference for the validation of the nadir-viewing hyperspectral Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on-board the ESA satellite Sentinel 5 Precursor (S-5P). In such intercomparisons of two independent remote soundings, errors can occur as the a priori profiles used in the respective retrievals are i) differing from each other, and ii) both different from the true atmospheric state at the moment of observation. In certain conditions of atmospheric dynamics, e.g. polar vortex subsidence or stratospheric intrusions, which strongly alter the shape of vertical concentration profiles, these intercomparison errors can become considerable (Ostler et al., 2014).</p><p>In our work funded by the German Space Agency DLR and performed as part of the ESA AO project TCCON4S5P, we search for potential sources of realistic common a priori profiles for S-5P and TCCON CH<sub>4</sub> and CO measurements which reduce these large errors. We examine the performance of a number of chemical transport models and data assimilation systems in reproducing dynamical effects and in minimizing intercomparison errors. In-situ profiles measured by AirCores are used as validation where they are available. We present the status and results of our ongoing work.</p><p>Reference:</p><p>Ostler, A., Sussmann, R., Rettinger, M., Deutscher, N. M., Dohe, S., Hase, F., Jones, N., Palm, M., and Sinnhuber, B.-M.: Multistation intercomparison of column-averaged methane from NDACC and TCCON: impact of dynamical variability, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 4081–4101, doi:10.5194/amt-7-4081-2014, 2014. Ostler, A., Sussmann, R., Rettinger, M., Deutscher, N. M., Dohe, S., Hase, F., Jones, N., Palm, M., and Sinnhuber, B.-M.: Multistation intercomparison of column-averaged methane from NDACC and TCCON: impact of dynamical variability, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 4081–4101, doi:10.5194/amt-7-4081-2014, 2014.</p>

A Playwright Relaxed or Overworked?

1963 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
R. Sri Pathmanathan
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Comedy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Grotesque

Having been associated with a recent production of Euripides' Cyclops in the original Greek at Ibadan, I feel prompted to reply to Peter Arnott's charges against Euripides' adaptation of the well-known episode in Homer's Odyssey, ix. We know very little about the origin and nature of satyric drama, and it seems unfair to discuss the structure of the Cyclops on a priori grounds or to compare it with the form of Greek tragedy. We do not subject Old Comedy to this kind of treatment because we are aware in this case of the dissimilar elements which came together to produce the disjointed articulation that Old Comedy displays. It may well be that ‘the pattern of decline’ in the composition of the choruses and episodes noted by Arnott is not the result of hasty composition and overwork but is merely indicative of a looser structure allowed by the conventions of the satyr play. On the other hand, the intervention of the chorus in the Cyclops is always eminently dramatic— not too long-drawn-out or too brief—and gives a life and impetus to the play which modern audiences, unfamiliar with the choral tradition of Greek tragedy, miss in more regularly constructed plays. The ‘miserable couplet’ which serves as exodos is not unparalleled even in tragedy, although the iambics in place of the more usual anapaests are certainly unexpected. In general, the choral odes are admirably suited to the grotesque personalities of the satyrs; they include two haunting lyrics, lines 495–502 and 511–18 (unfortunately somewhat mutilated) which rank in rhythm and imagery with some of the best of Euripides, and at the moment of greatest tension, in the third and fourth stasima, are commendably brief and onomatopoeic.

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