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181. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Nikolaos Smyrnakis Plato, Facebook and the Reversal of Utilitarianism
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Facebook is one of the most controversial and well-known social networking sites. This website indicates a possible form of surveillance of the activities of each user through appropriate software controlled by its creators and their associates The analysis of this surveillance is in direct relation to the ethical and political perceptions of Plato and of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham specific to the ideal State and the prison model Panoptikon This comparison brings to light the similarities and thorny differences of these three forms of surveillance and demonstrates the difference of the guardians’ transparent lifestyle of the state as opposed to the supervisors’ opaque mode of action on Facebook. We also try to pin-point the reversal of the theory of utilitarianism that takes place on Facebook, providing food for further thought and consideration.
182. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Golfo Maggini Dreyfus and Borgmann on the Late Heidegger
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Albert Borgmann’s account of modern technology is considered to be one of the leading positions in the American philosophy of technology which is informed by continental philosophical “paradigms”, such as hermeneutics. In particular Martin Heidegger’s late hermeneutics of the technological world has been a powerful source of inspiration for Borgmann, as has become evident in his Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. In our paper we will argue that, despite the strengths of Borgmann’s analysis both in the 1984 book as well as in his more recent studies, its obvious weakness pertains to the negligence or underestimation of Heidegger’s leading phenomenological line of thought. This negligence or underestimation compromises his approach to Heidegger’s account of technology, as becomes evident in the critiques addressed to him by phenomenologists, such as Hubert Dreyfus, and “postphenomenologists”, such as Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek.
183. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Rosa Rantanen Aging, Death, and the Ethics of Life Extending Technologies
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In his paper “Is Ageing Bad for us?” (2011) Michael Hauskeller claims that because aging and death are not bad for us, we are in no hurry to develop means for radical life extension. Looking into this claim, I argue that Hauskeller’s conclusion is too strong. Even if we accept that aging and death are not bad for us, it does not follow that we could not still appreciate a long life over them. More important, accepting the harmlessness of aging and death does not imply that we should restrict the development of considerable life extension technologies. I suggest that even though Hauskeller’s argument is interesting, it is not enough to make any statements about the overall desirability of developing life extension technologies. He ignores several other lines of argumentation (such as the meaning of individual freedom) that might change the way we see the technologies. The badness of death and aging are metaphysical concepts that are not very well adapted to a more practical context; they are not sufficient tools for dealing with the practical ethical challenges that we face when discussing considerable life extension technologies.
184. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Edgar Patiño Barreto Technological Artifacts and Complexity: Components Heuristic for Conceptual Basis of Technological Artifact
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If we assume that the artifacts have framed their functional level low the conceptual construction, under the planes defined from intentional functions and duties provided as givers of meaning, which has reduced its conceptualization instrumental for the design process. In this paper, we will focus on discussions of technological artifact referring the concept of the interface, which is defined in the processes of interaction with complex objects with their context. From approach defined the construct of technological artifacts from heuristics, beyond levels of functional troubleshooting framed isolated artifact in interaction, in from interaction with their technological context. This paper aims, first, interpreting technological artifacts from heuristic factors provided by the sciences of complexity. That interface defines the process as interactive relationship with the context and with the construction of heuristics that solve problems of varying degrees of complexity.
185. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Qian Wang Dao from the Perspective of Philosophy of Technology
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Dao in traditional Chinese philosophy references not just “the way” or nature (in Daosim) or human social order (in Confucianism) but also the way for best performing certain technical activities. Understanding the meaning and value of this aspect of Dao can be of use to philosophical reflection experience in the development of modern technology.
186. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Wei Zhang Can Morality be Materialized?
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The idea of “materialization of morality” is now attracting increasing attention in the field of philosophy of technology. It bears great theoretical and practical meanings. In terms of theoretical aspect, it provides a “material answer” to the traditional ethical question “how to act” for the disciplines of ethics; for philosophy of technology, it transforms the externalist study approach to the internalist study approach. In terms of practical aspect, it provides a material way on disciplining human being’s actions. Furthermore, it expands the view of industrial design, adding the new dimension of morality into design activity. However, it also confronts several challenges. One is that, if the choices of human are decided by technology, then, where is the free will? In what sense can we still be human? Should we still be responsible for the bad results in some special situations? If so, how much responsibility should we take? The second is that it may lead to technocracy. Last but not lest, But if the designer becomes the leading character in “doing’’ ethics, then what can ethicists and philosophers do? What is their new role? So, new answers must be figured out to solve these questions. In this paper, I will introduce the principle or method of “libertarian paternalism” and “field philosophy” into this approach.
187. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 64
Sabine Thuermel Potentiality and Actuality of Sociotechnical Environments
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Computer-based simulations provide a link between theory and experiment. They demonstrate how the actual and the potential may be linked in virtual environments and socio-technical spaces in general. The virtuality in technologically induced contexts is to be explained based on Hubig’s two-tiered presentation of technology in general as a medium. In order to understand agency and interagency in sociotechnical environments a concept of multi-dimensional, gradual agency is introduced. It is shown that technology in age of information no longer offers passive toolboxes to be used but provides a wide variety of active participants for our sociotechnical environments.
188. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Irina Beskova The Complexity of a Human Embodiment
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The paper is devoted to a problem of the human embodiment analysis from a systematic point of view. An understanding of three different levels of a human embodiment organization is proposed. It is shown that each of them has its own needs and capabilities of operating and problem-solving. It is argued that the human embodiment as no equilibrium and opened system generates different types of a complex behavior in the course of its natural development. And it is just the quality of a system’s complexity that lies in a basis of the forming of such emergent properties as a conscious capacity. From this point of view, the mind and the body represent two different kinds of displays of a common fundamental capacity of the system to demonstrate a complex behavior, leading to emergence of a new qualities and new forms of orderings. At the level of embodiment organization this capacity will be manifested in the born of a new level of structural organization: relatively independent uniqueness, acting in the outer space as a self-dependent entity, – from the one side; and capacity of consciousness, – from the other side.
189. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Andrejs Balodis Body Without Extension: Bergson’s Conception Revisited
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By the close of the century the body had become the key site of political, social, economic and cultural intervention. For large part it has happen due to the topicality of the body in philosophical debates in the 20th century. In my paper I deal with Henry Bergson’s conception of body, its origins and its later reception in phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty, Barbaras). Bergson occupies dual position in the history of philosophy – on the one hand he revaluates the heritage of modern philosophy, on the other hand his thinking and method kick start completely different approach to classical philosophical issues, including the conception of the body. Bergsonian treatment of the body in terms of durée is one of his many innovations. I focus on the notion of my body in Bergson’s philosophy to show that despite criticism of phenomenological philosophy, Bergson offers radically new perspective on mind/body relation due to the understanding of the body.
190. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Mark Joseph Calano Archiving Bodies: Kalinga Batek and the Impossibility of an Archive
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An archive is an integral part of literate life and is in the custody of political institutions for their historical value. It is a place and a reflection of social and institutional authority. It is first argued that societies who lack the faculty of recording histories contribute to the archive-making process in a different context. To advance this, the work of anthropologists on the Igorots, more specifically the Kalingas, of the Philippine Cordilleras and their tattooing practices are considered. It is claimed that in these societies, whose concept of the Western archive is absent, the body becomes a repository of significant life events and rituals concretized by tattoos. Tatooing becomes a form of memory on how bodies remember and create narratives. To better understand this point, Derrida’s two-fold understanding of the archive is discussed. The archive, on the one hand, as a commencement that evokes the writing of the archive and, on the other hand, the understanding of the tattoos as disjointed and incomplete allows us to understand tattoos as a trace.
191. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Jin-Woo Lee Body and the Limit of Human Enhancement
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In the heated debate about trans-humanism the main battleground remains, in my view, the human body. If trans-humanism holds that current human nature could be improved through the use of advanced science and technologies, it has become self-evident that human enhancement technology intends to overcome the corporality of human nature. Two questions arise at this point. One is, just what happens to our body? We need to ask first what is going on in or on our body when we apply human enhancement technology to ourselves and what exactly the costs are going to be. And, second, just what kind of moral role does the body play in making our life more human? The answer I want to give is that the ethical question how to live must be based on cultivating our body. In the following I will try to explore what is involved in modifying human nature. What can be “enhanced” and to what extent on and in our body through enhancement technology? While trying to answer these questions, I argue that body is the limit of human enhancement.
192. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Olga Gomilko ‘Saving Deficiency’ as Ontology of the Human Body
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This paper is a contribution in discussions about the nature of a human being. The global epoch reveals uncertainty as a fundamental characteristic of human existence. The knowledge of that is a driver to research into the areas, which are still beyond a philosophical consideration. Theoretical legitimization of the ‘prohibited knowledge’ about human nature 1) concerns its ‘the dark side’ defined as ‘inner demons’ (S. Pinker), 2) shatters illusory nature of own image as a crown of divine or natural creation, 2) gives birth to another illusion – on dehumanization and crisis of human existence. The problem of relation between mind and body constitutes a disputable core of the human nature. The dichotomy of mind and body presents an interpretation of the nature of a human being in a modern (Descartes’) vision. Denunciation of the mind-body dualism is a way of rethinking of a human being within emergence of a new philosophical ontology that is able to convey such aspects of reality as social instability, fragmentation, contingency, fragility, and unpredictability – the so-called ontological “negativity”. In contrast to human mind, human body is a substance that is open to chaos. Theoretic substantiation of chaos in corporality ontology enables overcoming of the mind-body dichotomy. Comprehension that chaos is a principal attribute of human corporality allows discerning an ontological substance in it, as no human existence is possible without it. The corporeal ‘uncertainty’ as a fundamental attribute of the human body, on the one hand, exposes it to chaos, destruction, and decay, but, on the other hand, enables a body to transform into the body that is to acquire the different cultural canons. Defining the ‘uncertainty’ as ‘saving deficiency’ contests conception of fallenness of the human body as its sinful and corrupted quality. After all fallibility as a condition of ‘saving deficiency’ opens horizon for numerous cultural canons to wit possibility for transformation of the human nature. An archaic body starts human’s battle against fear of own body that launch a process of human being transformations. The history of culture represents the stages of this battle. Homer’s archaic body is considered as ontological alternative of Descartes’ organism. Ontology of ‘saving deficiency’ of the human body allows going beyond the limits of the constructivist position in interpreting the history of the human body.
193. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Ilya Kanaev Awareness of the Body as a Form of Self-consciousness
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This paper deals with the problem of self-consciousness in connection with awareness of the body. The latter is a necessary component in the activity of perception and execution of action in space (such as the determination of subject’s own place in space and operations with the objects of the world). The author considers the simple forms of awareness of the body, as the basis of the self-consciousness. More complex structures of identity, such as a person and Self, are based on it. The main referred authors: American psychologist J. Gibson, Russian physiologist N. A. Bernstein and others. Self-consciousness is understood by the author as a special kind of knowledge, carried out by the subject in its interaction with the world.
194. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Helen Chapny, Anna Kucheryavskaya Corporal and Linguistic Depths of Cognitive Processes
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Within the frame of complexity paradigm the possibility of the psychophysical mind-body problem reconsideration is regarded, as well as elimination of its duality. The body is considered through the prism of embodied mind theory and the embodied cognition approach as the unity of five interconnected dimensions of a person’s embodiment. Corporal and mental is one and the same thing, appearing in different guises on a perception surface. The careful consideration is also given to the wholism of a body-consciousness, a body-environment, a body-brain. The idea of embodied cognition and linguistic processes is established. Corporal and linguistic determination of cognitive processes gains a foothold.
195. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Arturo Rico Bovio The Whole Body: A Philosophical Inquiry
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The author presents eleven theses summarizing his theory of a holistic philosophy of the body. Convinced that “body” is an indispensable category to meet the challenges of our time, explains his new concept that breaks the dualism of body and soul, while beyond the materialistic approach. The body we are is the totality of things visible and invisible. To approach it requires new categories, such as “bodily valences”, the “body coordinates”, besides others. Our body is the measure of the other bodies, the a priori of knowledge, but their results change because they depend on how we understand and live the body. The critique of culture and social, economic and political institutions, are to be examined from the body’s natural needs: biological, social and personal, which are the foundation and measure of values.
196. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Johanna Oksala Neoliberal Bodies and Normative Femininity
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The paper discusses the disciplinary production of the normative feminine body and analyses the shift that has taken place in the rationality underpinning our current techniques of gender. I argue that Foucault’s radical intervention in feminist philosophy, and more generally in the philosophy of the body, has been the crucial claim that any analysis of embodiment must recognize how power relations are constitutive of the embodied subjects involved in them. His studies of disciplinary technologies show how bodies are constructed through mundane, everyday habits and techniques as certain kinds of subjects. Similarly, feminist appropriations of Foucault’s thought have demonstrated how feminine subjects are constructed through patriarchal, disciplinary practices of beauty. My argument is that that there have been significant changes in the last decades in the rationality underpinning these techniques of gender, however, which have emerged in tandem with the rise of the neoliberal, economic subject. I will appropriate Foucault’s idea of governmentality, and particularly of neoliberal governmentality, as an alternative framework to discipline for studying the contemporary construction of the feminine body. I will show that it provides us with a more comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the construction of the feminine body in its current form.
197. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Daniel Wack Wittgenstein on the Practical Nature of Perception
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In introducing his discussion of seeing as in Part II of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein distinguishes between two uses of the verb ‘to see’. On the one hand, there is a use of ‘to see’ in which one succeeds in seeing in the relevant sense if one is able to represent the object seen. On the other, there is a use of ‘to see’ in which one succeeds if one recognizes a resemblance between two objects. In clarifying the relation between these two uses of ‘to see’ and thus the relation between perception and understanding, I articulate a Wittgensteinian account of perception in which one’s perception is organized and oriented by the demands of what one is going to do. Perception does not, for Wittgenstein, happen in stages, wherein understanding is brought to bear on a perceptual given. Instead, a practically oriented understanding orients and organizes our experience of what is salient, allowing us to go on in response.
198. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Carlos Hugo Sierra Merleau-Ponty and the Latent Opacity of Body: Analogies with East Asian Correlative Epistemology
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The main purpose in this paper is to present the philosophical affinities among the French phenomenological philosopher, M. Merleau-Ponty, and certain oriental traditions related to a very sophisticated cognitive hermeneutics as, for instance, the Buddhism doctrine with its different schools, certain epistemic foundations of Chinese ancient cosmology and, of course, the Daoism ontogenesis and alchemical processes of corporeal transformation, insofar as both prospects, in spite of the well-known cultural and historical distances, present an position against the mechanistic or substantialist understanding of body. In this sense, it seems clear that Merleau-Ponty’s strategic critique of cognitive paradigm about the constituent subject (in terms of an modernized Cartesian model of reality) and his philosophical alternative based on a pre-reflexive and silent experience that shows body and world as an indivisible unity, converts the carnal existence into an epistemological reference from which we can start to develop a theoretical confrontation or comparative study between his thought and key philosophical contents which belong to Eastern philosophical traditions.
199. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 65
Rachel Tillman The Matter of Health: Rethinking the Materiality of Living Bodies
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Concepts of health involve material dimensions that rely heavily on dominant theories of matter. Two approaches to understanding the nature of matter influence attempts to define health: scientific realism and social constructionism. Scientific realism assumes that bodily materiality is real and exists external to and independent of mind. On this view, definitions of health are objective and mind-independent. This view is permeates mainstream (allopathic) Western medical practice and theory. Social constructionism, on the other hand, insists that material configurations and even living bodies are socially constructed rather than natural. Critical theorists use a social constructionist approach to show the vulnerability of definitions of health to social and cultural forces. While these understandings of matter seem to be diametrically opposed, in this paper I show that they share a common assumption, which is that matter operates mechanistically; it is inert, passive, without agency. In both cases this assumption causes impasses that can be alleviated by a more dynamic account of matter. The work of feminist materialists Karen Barad and Elizabeth Wilson charts new paths for thinking matter more dynamically, and demonstrates how this shift can free us from the epistemological and political impasses that plague scientific realism and social constructionism. Furthermore, rethinking matter as more dynamic has significant implications for the task of defining health. It opens up the possibility for thinking the materiality of bodies in more accurate, just, and medically efficacious ways.
200. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 37
Benoit Gaultier Epistemic Purism and Doxastic Puritanism: Pragmatism and Clifford’s Principle
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The pragmatist epistemologist is supposed to defend the idea that there is no pure epistemic activity and, thereby, that the way we form our beliefs does not have to be assessed according to aims, or norms that rest on the illusory denial of the pragmatic encroachment of any inquiry. According to the pragmatist, the kind of epistemic purism that is widely endorsed in contemporary epistemology has in fact no other raison d’être than the doxastic puritanism that appears in W. K. Clifford’s ethical principle. But a belief being defective has in fact nothing to do neither with the kind of practical factors that pragmatism so (mis)conceived, considers as relevant nor with the rules or values that epistemic puritanism reveres. Between believing that P and believing that E (for “evidence”) establishes that P, there is no such thing as the distance there is between practical reasons to φ and φ-ing. The position I defend is closer to Peirce’s pragmatism than to any other pragmatist approach. Among other things, it explains why C. S. Peirce’s thesis that: 1) The “real man of science” does not give any weight to practical stakes in his inquiries not only goes hand in hand with the thesis that 2) He never believes of any hypothesis that it is true, but also with the thesis that 3) The inquiry to which such a man devotes is infinite. Peirce is right from an epistemic point of view to praise men, whose life is devoted to the disinterested search for truth.