Lessons from Antarctica. For an ecology of the Solar System
It seems plausible that the near future will see an ever greater expansion of human presence in several environments of the Solar System, such as the Moon and the planet Mars. This expansion will have multiple goals, of a scientific, exploitative-commercial, and perhaps military nature. This raises a series of ethical question, made even more pressing by the possibility that some of the extraterrestrial environments affected by human activities may host indigenous life forms. This article is meant to underline parallels and divergences of a future, hypothetical expansion of humanity in space with a process in many ways similar: human expansion in Antarctica. We intend to schematically describe the “Antarctic model”, i.e. the approach adopted so far by mankind as a whole towards the continent, highlighting its collective ethical, ecological and socio-political commitments and implications. Finally, on the basis of ideas taken from the literature on the philosophy of ecology, we will attempt to outline an “ecological mentality” that can be applied to the ethical problems relating to interaction with an extraterrestrial environment, be it entirely devoid of life or hosting a native biosphere.
ABSTRACT Unfortunately, when it comes to much of the research on fat people, the voices of fat people, including fat researchers and activists, are either marginalized or absent. We believe one way to address this shortcoming in the literature is through greater use of standpoint theory, particularly the application of standpoint approaches that emphasize the importance of situated-knowledge and the epistemic advantage of marginalized groups. In this introduction to the special issue on standpoint theory in fat studies we provide a brief overview of standpoint theory, discuss the achievement of fat standpoint, raise questions about the challenges of engaging in fat studies and fat activism as fat scholars, and highlight the importance of epistemology that is derived from fat people’s own experiences.
Il 2 ottobre, nella vigilia di Sukkot, festa ebraica che ricorda la fragilità della nostra dimora terrena, è mancato Claude Vigée, il grande poeta francese, ebreo alsaziano, che Testo e Senso ha avuto l’onore di ospitare nella sue pagine, alcuni anni fa, in quanto poeta, saggista e traduttore, nell’occasione di una tavola rotonda dedicata a Traduzione ed Etica1. Per lui, infatti, la parola poetica è stata sempre integralmente “poéthique” (poetica ed etica insieme): l’etica contro il nichilismo, e contro i dogmi del pensiero unico, contro la disgregazione, la disintegrazione, la distruzione dell’umano nell’uomo, contro il ritorno dei mostri e della barbarie; una lezione di vita, la sua, una lotta per la vita, in nome della vita, secondo l’imperativo della Scrittura: «Io ho posto davanti a voi la vita e la morte, la benedizione e la maledizione; scegli la vita, onde viviate tu e la tua discendenza» (Deuteronomio, 30 v. 19).
Computational linguistics. Natural language processing, Epistemology. Theory of knowledge
L’associazione Culturale in tempo ha promosso un “Manifesto per l’arte. Pittura e Scultura”, che reca nella sua prima versione la firma di una ventina fra artisti e critici ma la cui concezione fondamentale si può senz’altro attribuire al pittore Ennio Calabria. Già il gesto di un “Manifesto per l’arte” è da considerarsi coraggiosamente contro-corrente, e ancora più perché si tratta di un manifesto collettivo, tutto scritto alla prima persona plurale, aperto anzi programmaticamente a successive rielaborazioni e discussioni. Non sapremmo dire da quanto tempo non succedeva questo nella cultura italiana, ma certo è che nulla di simile sembra profilarsi a proposito delle arti della parola. Pittori e scultori sembrano assai più impegnati dei poeti e dei romanzieri a interrogarsi sul significato della propria attività di artisti, e lo fanno qui con un rigore, un impegno e una profondità teorica che non può non colpire: qui non si tratta infatti di sostenere qualche forma o modalità del loro fare arte contro altre forme (come accadeva nei “manifesti” storici del Novecento) e, soprattutto, qui non c’è proprio più nulla del disincanto sorridente ma non innocente del pensiero debole del post-moderno; al contrario, qui si cerca di articolare un pensiero forte, o fortisssimo, che si misura addirittura con il problema dell’essere degli umani, e che anzi da questo problema prende le mosse.
Computational linguistics. Natural language processing, Epistemology. Theory of knowledge
This article examines the material and ideational conditions in academia and broader society under neoliberalism and their effects on social psychology, both as an academic community and as a source of knowledge production. Social representations theory (SRT)—embedded in the discipline of social psychology—is taken as a case study, which mirrors not only the specific impacts of neoliberalism on the theory and scientific community of SRT, but by extension also on social psychology as a whole. Specifically, we observe how neoliberalism has impacted SRT's ability to address those features of social psychology which led many scholars to label it “a discipline in crisis” by the 1960s and which included its reliance on a realist ontology, positivist epistemology, and quantitative methods, as well as the absence of an axiological frame which led to its distancing away from a humanistic, action-oriented social psychology. Rather than lessening these challenges, it is argued that neoliberalism has, in fact, further entrenched them in two interconnected ways. First, at the level of academic practice, neoliberalism has structured academic work or labor in the neoliberal university/academia in ways that are more consistent with the production of knowledge that subscribes to positivist principles. Second, on a conceptual level, the hegemony of neoliberalism has been accompanied by a corresponding hegemony of conceptual and methodological individualism in the social sciences. This in turn has led to an environment conducive to and encouraging of positivist approaches in social psychology.
Whilst theorists in physics have been striving for a ‘theory of everything’ to explain the interconnections of matter across time and space (Hawking, 2006), western social theories are largely segmented and situated within a limited scope of time and space with little attention to the multiple dimensions of reality that western physics and indigenous knowledge have already validated (Blackstock, 2009a,b). Ten years ago, I developed the Breath of Life theory (Blackstock, 2011) to provoke a conversation about Indigenous ontological approaches that place human experience in an interconnected web of reality across time, space and dimensions of reality. The overall goal was to engage other theorists into the communal building of a ‘theory of everything’ to inform social sciences and to highlight the richness of Indigenous ontology and epistemology. This article revisits the Breath of Life theory and argues that a greater emphasis on equity within and between the relational worldview principles (Cross, 2007) would be a useful modification.
Relevance. The circulatory system diseases (CSD) are the leading cause of peoples’ death globally. Therefore the assessment of radiation risk of mortality for CSD is the most important task for radiation epidemiology, especially in low dose range (below 1 Gy). Aim: to establish the relationship between circulatory diseases incidence among the Chernobyl emergency accident workers (liquidators) and radiation dose they got. Materials and methods. The object under study is the cohort of liquidators with known individual doses of external gamma exposure of whole body. The group of potential risk is identified by values of excess relative risk (ERR) and relative risk (RR) estimated in the cohort of 134 thousand people, the average radiation dose is 0.11 Gy, maximum individual dose is about 1 Gy. For the period of follow up from 1986 through 2012 12400 deaths were caused by CSD. Results. The group of potential radiation risk comprises of the liquidators with accumulated doses 0.15 Gy and above, they arrived in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in the first year after the accident and stayed there less than 6 weeks. The total size of the identified group was 9.5 thousand people (7% of the cohort members). In the group of potential radiation risk the statistically significant value of RR is 1.44 (95% CI: 1.25; 1.66), averageaccumulated dose is 0.23 Gy. In this risk group 31% of deaths from CSD should be considered as associated with radiation. In the beginning of 2013 the size of the group of potential radiation risk was 6155 liquidators. Conclusions. For remained life about 950 radiation induced deaths from CSD are expected. Adherence of liquidators of the risk group to prevention and control of circulatory system diseases would significantly decrease years of life lost due to radiation exposure in this cohort.
O artigo versa sobre o período de 1933-1939 quando o poeta, dramaturgo e crítico teatral Bertolt Brecht exilou-se na Dinarmaca, a partir da ascensão do Partido Nacional Socialista ao poder na Alemanha (1933). Aborda o exílio como um tema historiográfico e sociológico e como fenômeno histórico no século XX. Caracteriza o período da República de Weimar como favorável às vanguardas artísticas, ao pensamento liberal, quando Brecht estabeleceu os princípios do seu teatro épico. Todo o intenso desenvolvimento teatral foi interrompido pela política de “alinhamento” que determinou a emigração dos maiores nomes da intelectualidade alemã. No exílio desde 1933, Brecht caracterizou a condição do exilado político e realizou a crítica ao nazifascismo através da poesia e da dramaturgia, em cartas, poemas, diários de trabalho. Através da abordagem da história intelectual é possível depreender a evolução de seu pensamento, assim como relações de amizade e solidariedade entre emigrados que consistiam em uma forma fundamental de sobrevivência, no sentido de atenuar o isolamento e permitir a continuidade dos trabalhos literários. Para Brecht, uma tarefa fundamental era mobilizar os emigrados, romper o conformismo, aproveitar-se de sua projeção literária para combater o regime nazista de fora do país.
Epistemology. Theory of knowledge, History (General)
Paying close attention to the Internet has revelatory potential for femme theory. Femme, a queerly feminine sexual and gender identity, has so far been under theorized and is often treated as unimportant or even suspect in queer and feminist studies (Martin, 1996; Harris and Crocker, 1997; Maltry and Tucker, 2002; Dahl, 2017). Work on femme has proliferated in response to this (mis)treatment of femme (Volcano and Dahl, 2008; Rose and Camilleri, 2002; Harris and Crocker, 1997; Duggan and McHugh, 1996; Nestle, 1992b), and looking to the Internet reveals a rich tradition of femme theorizing. In this paper I argue that femme theory is often produced through cultural and community forms and emphasize the potential of blogs and social media as sites of this knowledge production. Femme theory found online challenges the masculinist standards of queerness and, I argue, the masculinist standard of inquiry. I rely on a range of feminist, cultural, and queer theorists who engage with theories of epistemology to shift our understanding of the concept “theory” itself in order to make space for femme epistemology. In addition to challenging the superiority of masculinity, hegemonic femininity and patriarchal gender roles, and defying stereotypes about femmes, femme theory also complicates several aspects of formal knowledge production. Looking to the Internet is a crucial way to locate femme knowledge and attend to gaps in feminist and queer theory.