Ntu’ologico-Agnostic Reflections on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Premise

This paper proposes an ntu’ologically analytical questioning of the contentious Fourth Industrial Revolution phenomenon, as it suggests that an industrial revolution ought to be appreciated in causation or causality terms. The cause of an industrial revolution is required to comprise ‘adequacy quality causing interactions’ among entities of specific ntu categories. These interactions bring into being nine basic ntu’ological adequacy qualities or industrial revolution criteria. For that reason, nine selected modes of interaction, called in this paper, ntu’ological interactions forms, guide the analytical questioning of the possible existence of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. The aforementioned nine criteria are incontestable in respect of the First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions. This paper, however, takes the agnostic position that: the Fourth Industrial Revolution may exist, but we cannot prove this with theoretical reason.

The Reason for Miracles and the Miracles in Reason: Kant’s Practical Conception of Miracles

The term ‘miracle’ generally refers to events that are not explicable by natural causes alone. Kant’s notion of miracles is usually understood along these lines. However, Kant’s occupation with miracles should be understood in a practical context. Belief in miracles plays a constitutive role in Kant’s philosophy of religion concerning the need to strengthen the will both before and after departing from original evil. I demonstrate how my argument sheds new light on Kant’s claim that theoretical reason precludes the possibility of material miracles.

The Power and Limits of Reason: Al-Razı on the Possibility of General and Particular Metaphysical Knowledge

This article examines al-Rāzī’s views on the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Firstly, after outlining his classification of the metaphysical knowable into essence and existence as well as undetailed (ijmālī) and detailed (tafṣīlī), the article analyzes al-Rāzī’s acceptance of the possibility of general knowledge of metaphysics under a few headings by delving into some major themes. These include the claims that the category of existence is broader than the world of the sensible, that theoretical reasoning leads to metaphysical knowledge, and lastly that the theoretical evidence provides necessary knowledge about the existence of a creator. Al-Rāzī has also been demonstrated in al-Matālib to have inherited the arguments rejecting metaphysical knowledge, which he had attributed in his earlier works to a group with the name muhandisiyyūn, by restricting them to the issue of God’s essence being knowable. For al-Rāzī, theoretical reasoning could provide knowledge about the existence of a particular metaphysical being but not about its quiddity. The article further underlines the metaphysical and epistemic theses for the position on the unknowability of God’s essence and discusses its semantic interpretation. The debate on the potential of theoretical reason to provide uncertain knowledge of detailed metaphysics in the form of the best possible explanations (the metaphysics of the best explanation, or al-awlawiyya), however, is left to another article.

Geometry and Kinematics of Cylindrical Waterbomb Tessellation

Folded surfaces of origami tessellations have attracted much attention because they sometimes exhibit non-trivial behaviors. It is known that cylindrical folded surfaces of waterbomb tessellation called waterbomb tube can transform into wave-like surfaces, which is a unique phenomenon not observed on other tessellations. However, the theoretical reason why wave-like surfaces arise has been unclear. In this paper, we provide a kinematic model of waterbomb tube by parameterizing the geometry of a module of waterbomb tessellation and derive a recurrence relation between the modules. Through the visualization of the configurations of waterbomb tubes under the proposed kinematic model, we classify solutions into three classes: cylinder solution, wave-like solution, and finite solution. Furthermore, we give proof of the existence of a wave-like solution around one of the cylinder solutions by applying the knowledge of the discrete dynamical system to the recurrence relation.

Sensibility First

In the practical realm just as in the theoretical realm, everything comes down to human sensibility as an equally empirical and non-empirical primitive starting point that constitutively motivates, intentionally pervades, and intentionally structures our innately-specified yet also “human, all-too-human” capacities for theoretical and practical rationality, all the way up. Strong Kantian non-conceptualism says that according to Kant, the faculty of human intuition or Anschauung, that is, human inner and outer sense perception, together with the faculty of imagination or Einbildungskraft, jointly constitute this sensible starting point for objective cognition and theoretical reason; and Kantian non-intellectualism says that according to Kant, human affect, desire, and moral emotion—in a word, the human heart—jointly constitute this sensible starting point for free agency and practical reason. Conjoined, they provide what I call the Sensibility First approach, which, in a nutshell, says that human rationality flows from the groundedness of our discursive, intellectual, and embodiment-neutral powers in our sensible, non-intellectual, and essentially embodied powers, without in any way reducing the former to the latter. If I’m correct about all this, then the result is a sharply non-classical and unorthodox, hence “shocking,” nevertheless fully unified and textually defensible approach to Kant’s proto-Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1768 to 1772), Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1781 to 1787) and post-Critical philosophy (i.e., from the late 1780s to the late 1790s) that encompasses his theoretical philosophy and the practical philosophy alike.

Control of salinity in an estuary by a transition

A theoretical reason is developed to explain why the mouth of a vertically stratified estuary should act as a constraint on the amount of salt water available for mixing in the estuary. Flume experiments designed to test this idea are described. The effect of tides on the control action and application to various estuaries is discussed.

Razón, cuerpo, mundo: el arraigo de la razón en la vida según Husserl

En contraste con algunas concepciones muy difundidas acerca de la razón, los análisis de Husserl subrayan tanto sus múltiples maneras de darse, es decir, su multidimensionalidad, como su entrelazamiento con la vida, lo que significa que la razón está arraigada en la vida y la vida es racional desde sus raíces. La multidimensionalidad da cuenta de sus diferenciables aspectos teoréticos, prácticos y afectivo-valorativos, mientras que el arraigo se refiere al anclaje de esos aspectos en la experiencia “anónima” que es “previa” al pensamiento. Esto significa que la experiencia es racional en la medida que despliega una estructura constitutiva interna organizada en un sistema de niveles y estratos mediante los cuales se orienta hacia la racionalidad activa. Siguiendo las líneas de una articulación tripartita de la reflexión fenomenológica en los niveles estático, genético y mundovital, este trabajo procura mostrar que tales análisis, junto con este apuntar a una teleología implícita que exige una continuidad entre la vida y la razón, ponen de manifiesto el papel necesario que juega el cuerpo animado en este arraigo. La razón está arraigada en la vida por medio de la experiencia corporal en virtud de la función de “puente” que posee el cuerpo en su condición de cosa material y “órgano” estratificado del sentir y el mover del yo. Así la razón teórica está relacionada con los estratos de la sensibilidad y la cinestesia, la razón práctica se vincula con los estratos cinestésicos y volitivos, y la razón axiológica se asocia con el doble estrato de afección y sentir que subyacen y motivan la valoración. La constitución adopta nuevas formas en el tránsito de la egología a la intersubjetividad y a la experiencia completa mundovital, mientras que el arraigo puede ser ilustrado adicionalmente con el caso de la Tierra como suelo para la experiencia corporal.In contrast with widespread reductionistic conceptions of reason, Husserl’s analyses stress both its multifarious manners of givenness, i.e. its multidimensionality, and its intertwining with life, such that reason is rooted in life and life is rational from its roots. Multidimensionality accounts for distinguishable theoretical, practical and affective-valuing aspects of reason, while rootedness refers to the anchoring of these aspects in ‘anonymous’ experience ‘prior’ to thinking. This means that experience is rational insofar as it displays an inner constitutive structure organized as a system of levels and strata, by means of which it points to active rationality. Following the lines of a threefold articulation of phenomenological reflection in static, genetic and life-wordly levels, this paper aims to show that, together with this pointing to an implicit teleology, which calls for a continuity between life and reason, such analyses also unveil the necessary role played by the Body in this rootedness. Reason is rooted in life by means of Bodily experience, in virtue of the ‘bridging’ function of the Body as a material thing and as the stratified ‘organ’ of the Ego’s sensing and moving. Thus theoretical reason is related to the strata of sensibility and kinaesthesia, practical reason is related to the kinaesthetical and volitional strata, and axiological reason is related to the twofold strata of affection and feeling, which underlie and motivate valuation. This constitution takes on new forms in the transit from egology to intersubjectivity and to the full-fledged life-worldly experience, whereas rootedness can be further illustrated with the case of the Earth as basis-place for Bodily experience.

Does Diversity Undermine Trust and Cooperation? Theory and Evidence

It is often argued that diversity depletes the social capital of trust and cooperation. We argue there is no compelling theoretical reason for supposing that trust and cooperation will move together in response to diversity; and we provide new causal evidence that they do not. While diversity undermines trust, we find that people in more diverse societies are, surprisingly, better able to cooperate in both new aggregate and individual level observational data and in laboratory experiments. These results caution against the suggestion that diversity creates trade-offs for society: e.g. between innovativeness and solidarity or between freedom of movement and welfare state generosity.

First Person and Third Person Reasons and the Regress Problem

This chapter distinguishes two kinds of reasons for a belief. First person reasons are unique to the person who has them. They include other mental states than beliefs and they do not aggregate with theoretical reason. There are third person reasons that can be laid out on the table for all to consider. Foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism are all views on the structure of third person (theoretical) reasons. But the chain of theoretical reasons bottoms out in a first person reason, epistemic self-trust, which is also the foundation of other first person reasons. The rationality of epistemic self-trust is a condition for the rationality of everything else.