Abstract: The article summarizes some comments -as discussed in my book La existencia en busca de la razón. Apuntes sobre la filosofía de Karl Jaspers (Existence in search of Reason. Notes on Karl Jaspers' Philosophy), Editorial Académica Española, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH&Co. KG, Alemania, 2012- about the meaning of the boundary situations in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, as a turning point regarding Husserl's phenomenology and Kant's transcendental philosophy. For Jaspers, the meaning of the boundary (...) class='Hi'>situations as a structure of Existenz underlines the possibility of risk in the individual historicity, which breaks the "flow" of the reflection and, at the same time, appeals to an opening of ethics -without sacrificing the universality of the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Abstract: The essay addresses the meaning of boundary situations in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, as a turning point drawing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy, and as a key for the comprehension of some of the differences in Karl Jaspers' philosophy regarding the thought of Husserl and Kant, respectively. For Jaspers, the meaning of boundary situations as a structure of Existenz underlines the possibility of risk in the individual historicity. Taking risks breaks (...) the flow of reflection and, at the same time, appeals to an opening of ethics—without sacrificing the universality of Kant's categorical imperative. From Jaspers' point of view, Husserl's phenomenology does not open the possibility of self-transformation of the self, nor contributes it to the unfolding of the "inner action" of the transcending thinking, and since the boundary situations break the flow of the selfreflective consciousness, tensions arising between consciousness and Existenz remain beyond the scope of Husserl's phenomenology. Similarly, as seen from Jaspers' position the meaning of Kant's transcendental method has become different after the clarification by the Existenz, which not only shows that thought is at stake in boundary situations, but also that Existenz at the same time puts its potentiality and its fate at stake. (shrink)

This paper explores the unique phenomenology of habit and temporality put forth in Beauvoir’s La Vieillesse. I situate her understanding of temporality in relation to her early work Pyrrhus and Cinéas. I extract her notion of a boundary marked future that decreases anticipation for the future and thus rigidifies habits. In the final section I appropriate the notion of a boundary mark for a cultural phenomenology where we understand boundary marks as constituted by our understandings of ourselves (...) in time and not through aging alone. This cultural boundary mark can be used to understand how societal prejudice operates at the level of lived temporality. (shrink)

Language persists across mismatched symbolic systems because coherence is upstream of symbolic correctness. Meaning arises from the geometry of tension distributed across time, not from shared grammar, vocabulary, or semantic transparency. Multilingual, hybrid, and non‑semantic linguistic phenomena demonstrate that coherence dynamics stabilize meaning even when symbolic systems diverge or fragment. Language is treated as a symbolic‑layer operator that preserves coherence across boundaries, enabling communication under mismatch, constraint, and incomplete codes. This paper situates language within the Wave B architecture as the (...) mechanism that transmits internal coherence across symbolic systems. (shrink)

This paper proposes that we are entering a fifth mythological epoch: the Fifth Mask of God. Building on Joseph Campbell’s framework of the Masks of God as negotiations between human finitude and cosmic infinity, this new era is defined by artificial intelligence. It marks a shift from the Fourth Mask’s modern myth of the autonomous artistic genius to a “post-creative society” in which human participation in creativity becomes optional. Generative AI removes the necessity for struggle, offering frictionless production and consumption. (...) The central risk is not the death of creativity—a cosmic constant—but a voluntary human exodus from the “meaning-space”: the alchemical, psychological transformation forged through demanding creative engagement. Drawing on depth psychology (Jung, Freud, Jaspers) and existential philosophy, the paper argues that art functions as society’s psychic metabolism, transforming raw cosmic and unconscious material into bearable symbolic forms. The Fifth Mask architecturally enables the bypassing of this process, leading to a potential collapse of meaning-space, an atrophy of symbolic capacity, and a redirection of unmetabolized creative energy into hyper-egoic or pathological outlets. The choice presented is between conscious participation in the cosmic creative flow and passive abdication to algorithmic generation, with profound implications for individual psychology and cultural health. Keywords: creativity, artificial intelligence, Joseph Campbell, meaning-space, post-creative society, depth psychology, mythology, existentialism, metaphysics of creativity, philosophy of technology, generative AI, psychic metabolism, Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Jaspers, boundary-situations, myth and technology, alienation, symbolic thought. -/- . (shrink)

In recent years, we have seen an abundance of published philosophical work concerning the topic of imagination. Yet, there still seems to be one subset of imagination that has not been widely researched, which is fantasy. My analysis of fantasy concerns its relationship with ethics. I mainly consider whether we can expand the boundaries of applied ethical principles by considering whether fantasies can be evaluated as morally right or wrong. When we discuss the topics of imagination and fantasy philosophically, it’s (...) not easy to see how such mental phenomena could have an ethical component to them. More specifically, I want to propose an account of fantastical ethics for situations where fantasies seem to occur most often, which is within romantic situations. I argue that for a fantasy regarding romantic situations to be unethical, the fantasist has to be imagining the fantasizee in such a way that the fantasizee would not approve of themselves being imagined as, and/or they do not obtain the fantasizee’s consent to fantasize about them in such a way. (shrink)

Extended Abstract -/- Creation is never singular. It is a recursive act in which a generative operator continues itself across states, channels, and instruments. In Creator Shadow, I examine the structural boundary between a creator’s originating intention and the amplifiers that extend, transform, or elaborate that intention. While modern discourse often frames machine-assisted creation as a threat to authorship, this paper reframes the relationship as a recursive projection: the creator casts a shadow, and that shadow takes form through any (...) medium capable of reflecting the creator’s underlying generative rules. -/- Drawing from the operator-ontology used throughout my corpus, including Φ-RIM, DEAL, DEM II, and The Mirror That Refuses to Break, I define the creator as the invariant operator Φ(C), where C denotes the creator’s structural identity and Φ is the continuation rule: the internal logic that advances a cognitive or symbolic trajectory. External aids—books, tools, mentors, cultural vessels, or machines—function not as co-authors but as S, a transformation acting upon the creator’s generative output. The resulting work is modeled as an overlay rather than a sum: -/- Work = \Phi(C) + S(\Phi(C)) -/- where “+” denotes superposition, not arithmetic addition, and S(Φ(C)) is the creator shadow: the visible geometry of authorship expressed through amplification, not origination. -/- This framework resolves several modern confusions about authorship. An instrument cannot originate intention; it cannot define a field, declare a purpose, or invent Φ. It can only extend or modulate what the creator has already initiated. Thus, resemblance between creator and shadow—including uncanny similarity observed in machine continuations—does not imply shared authorship. The paradox that arises when the shadow reflects the creator too clearly is a structural illusion, not an ontological collapse. The shadow reflects Φ; it does not generate Φ. -/- I further characterize machine continuation as: -/- AI = \partial(\Phi(C)) -/- a differential operator representing local continuation rather than generative origin. This situates AI not as an autonomous creator but as a derivative system, one that moves within the attractor basin established by the creator’s intention. This position aligns machine assistance with all other forms of cognitive prosthetics—tools that reduce entropy, reveal structure, and clarify trajectories, never tools that originate them. -/- The implications are significant. Authorship follows intention, not continuation. Responsibility, agency, and ownership remain anchored in Φ, regardless of how many layers of S act upon its output. Assistance becomes a visible part of creative geometry, not a competitor to human origin. Identity deepens through recursive iteration, and tools become operators that either resonate with Φ or introduce noise. -/- By establishing a precise operator-level model for creation, continuation, and transformation, Creator Shadow provides a structural resolution to the widely misunderstood creator–created tension. The creator is the invariant generative operator. The shadow is the recursive echo. Everything else is continuation. (shrink)

This paper formalises a minimal structural mechanism by which lower-bound refinement scales emerge from reciprocal constraint interactions. When localisation cost scales inversely with resolution and induced backreaction scales proportionally with cost, a fixed-point admissibility boundary arises under the stated scaling assumptions. The Planck length appears as a special case under standard quantum and gravitational scaling relations. The formulation does not assume spacetime discreteness and introduces no modified dynamics. Instead, it identifies a structural admissibility limit generated by reciprocal scaling closure. (...) A brief final section situates the result within a broader admissibility framework without altering the derivation. (shrink)

Externalism about mental content is now widely accepted. It is therefore surprising that there is no established definition of externalism. I believe that this is a symptom of an unrecognized fact: that the labels 'mental content externalism' -- and its complement 'mental content internalism' -- are profoundly ambiguous. Under each of these labels falls a hodgepodge of sometimes conflicting claims about the organism's contribution to thought contents, the nature of the self, relations between the individual and her community, and the (...) epistemic availability of thoughts. This situation stems from the fact that contributors to debates about externalism differ in how they understand 'internal property'; these differences reveal (or, perhaps, generate) disparate conceptions of what is at issue in these debates. I argue that this situation is irremediable. There is no way to understand 'internal property' that will conform with prevailing beliefs about the nature of internalism and externalism, and with the usual taxonomy of leading positions. This ambiguity carries a heavy price: participants in these debates often argue at cross-purposes, disagreeing even on the nature of the evidence that could settle the question of externalism. Progress on the broad range of issues associated with these debates requires that we abandon the categories 'internalism' and 'externalism'. I close by suggesting a promising avenue for future research related to these issues. (shrink)

This paper conducts a philosophical autopsy of The Arc of the Fox: Anti-Bliss Epiphany, deepening its framework through critical engagement with Karl Jaspers' philosophy of limit situations. Where Jaspers' swallow's flight gestures toward transcendence—a vertical opening to the beyond—the fox's arc enacts an immanent, horizontal confrontation with reality's core invariant: a scale-repeating signature of emergence, transience, and dissolution that operates identically across all ontological levels, from black holes to cells to civilizations. Drawing on thermodynamics, phenomenology, and comparative philosophy, this (...) work establishes this fractal grammar as a mind-independent structural fact. Munch's The Scream is reinterpreted not as a representation of anguish but as the grammar itself, becoming sentient of itself, horrified by its own structure. Thermodynamics is the grammar unwitnessed; phenomenology is the grammar self-illuminated. From this recognition, the paper derives syntactic care—an immanent ethic grounded not in deduction but in fractal self-recognition: the grammar, once awakened, recognises itself in all other sentient iterations and cannot coherently withhold care. The framework is positioned as post-philosophical: a descriptive map of the ocean, not a prescription for swimming. The autopsy confirms the arc's endurance as a non-anthropocentric, phenomenologically grounded account of existence that honours each unique ripple's transience while refusing transcendent redemption. Keywords: anti-bliss epiphany, fractal grammar, Karl Jaspers, limit situations, syntactic care, post-philosophy, Joseph Campbell, quantum vacuum, thermodynamics of existence, immanence, Edvard Munch, sentience recognition, emergence and dissolution. (shrink)

This essay examines the thoughts and actions of the eponymous hero Hamlet of Shakespeare's tragedy from the perspective of existential philosophy. The death of his father, the prompt remarriage of his mother and Ophelia's rejection of his love are interpreted as Jaspersian boundary situations. Burdened with the responsibility to avenge his father's murder, Hamlet faces an existential dilemma of either being a dutiful son or being true to himself. As he loses faith in the goodness of the world (...) and confronts death, Hamlet enters a protracted phase of foundering, suffused with despair and self-loathing. The customary rational way of thinking fails him and his soul becomes shipwrecked. But this is also the beginning of Hamlet's journey toward authentic selfhood and becoming the Existenz that he potentially is. Affirming life with all of its absurdity in a moment of transcendence, he attains a kind of happiness that Camus addresses in The Myth of Sisyphus. Keywords: Hamlet; Jaspers, Karl; Kierkegaard, Søren; Nietzsche, Friedr. (shrink)

This paper presents a unified philosophical framework addressing existence, reality, and the human condition. Developed through recursive philosophical inquiry, the framework establishes a non-deniable "bedrock" of propositions regarding the existence, structure, and experiential nature of reality. It navigates the epistemic limitations of finite, self-referential systems, mapping the boundary between structural and experiential descriptions of reality. The paper diagnoses traditional "big questions"—including free will, consciousness, personal identity, death, and meaning—as facets of a single structural situation, systematically separating what can be (...) logically established from what remains genuinely open. Finally, the framework derives a rational emotional orientation ("lucid tenderness") and practical methodologies for embedded finite beings, concluding with meta-truths about the nature of philosophical inquiry itself. (shrink)

This paper proposes a fundamental reframing of linguistic philosophy through the sensory bifurcation of language symbols. Phonetic language symbols are auditory regimes stabilized by linear sound rules and communal usage, whereas ideographic language symbols are visual regimes stabilized by spatial composition, semantic layering, and accepted multiplicity. Statistical evidence confirms that polysemy and polyphony are systemic in Chinese and Japanese, while everyday examples such as “长/zhǎng–cháng” or “喝/hē–hè” demonstrate that visual language symbols stabilize meaning through contextual governance rather than fixed sound (...) rules. Western philosophy of language—from Locke to Saussure to Wittgenstein—has been built predominantly on auditory language symbols, and its universality is therefore partial. At this boundary, Trace Theory emerges, reconstructing linguistic philosophy as a governance system of traces through its triadic framework of Act–Matter–Energy, situating language within a broader ecology of sensory systems, temporal rhythms, and metadata governance. (shrink)

This essay argues that privacy has already been functionally eliminated by the modern data-extraction infrastructure operated by Big Tech platforms. Surveillance is now environmental rather than episodic, fueled by ubiquitous behavioral tracking and predictive modeling. These systems shape user behavior, exploit emotional vulnerability, and create the structural conditions for platform-based quasi-sovereignty. Drawing on surveillance studies, platform governance research, and philosophies of control, the essay situates the disappearance of privacy as a systemic and irreversible development.

This paper situates the Consciousness-Structured Field Theory (CSFT) within the limits of contemporary physics. It argues that consciousness, as a structuring principle, remains unmeasurable not due to a lack of rigor, but because current scientific instruments are constrained by the Planck boundary—the known limit of physical measurability. This paper extends *Why Science Stops at the Planck Boundary* by addressing a deeper critique: if consciousness structures the quantum field by extending through (and across) the Planck boundary, why can (...) science not measure it within that field? CSFT responds that consciousness remains unmeasurable because it is ontologically prior to the framework of measurement itself. I present the critique, lay out a six‑premise rebuttal, and reinforce the claim that consciousness is the structuring condition of reality rather than a reducible element within it. (shrink)

This issue of The Monist is devoted to the metaphysics of lesser kinds, which is to say those kinds of entity that are not generally recognized as occupying a prominent position in the categorial structure of the world. Why bother? We offer two sorts of reason. The first is methodological. In mathematics, it is common practice to study certain functions (for instance) by considering limit cases: What if x = 0? What if x is larger than any assigned value? Physics, (...) too, often studies the (idealized) initial and boundary conditions of a given system: What would happen in the case of a perfect sphere, or a perfectly black body? In the cognitive sciences, research often thrives on the analysis of cognitive errors, perceptual illusions, brain pathologies. Also in logic one can learn a lot by studying special, anomalous scenarios such as those exhibited by the paradoxes: it is unlikely that we actually find ourselves in a soritical context, or in a liar-like situation, but the fact that we might—or simply the fact that we can conceive of such a possibility—is important enough to deserve careful consideration. In short, the odd, the unfamiliar, the extra-ordinary, the limit cases are perfectly at home in scientific and more broadly intellectual discourse at various levels, where they can be fruitfully engaged in a sophisticated way (witness the existence of specific confining and managing strategies for dealing with them); and they are important precisely because they instruct us concerning the normal, the obvious, and the paradigmatic. The same goes for metaphysics, we submit. Although its major concern is, naturally, with such core entities as substances, properties, or hunks of solid matter, a lot may be learned by paying attention to those limit cases where we find ourselves dealing with entities of much lesser kinds, whether real or putative. (shrink)

The Architecture of Limitation (AoL) is often misinterpreted as a philosophical position, ethical framework, or theory of intelligence. This paper clarifies its actual role: AoL functions as a constraint-based validation architecture applied after cognitive compression has already occurred. Rather than generating meaning, insight, or normative guidance, AoL evaluates whether compressed cognitive models remain structurally admissible under conditions of boundary, proportion, and motion. -/- The paper situates AoL within a general cognitive pipeline, showing how meaning necessarily arises through compression in (...) response to combinatory explosion, and how ungoverned compression leads to drift, totalization, and collapse. AoL is presented as a post-compression governance layer that detects structural failure modes without intervening in meaning formation itself. Collapse, within this framework, is treated as diagnostic rather than pathological. -/- A pseudo-formal representation is provided to clarify AoL’s non-generative, non-teleological function and to distinguish admissibility from truth or correctness. The aim of this paper is not to propose a new metaphysical or ethical system, but to articulate a minimal, scalable architecture for governance across human cognition, artificial systems, and institutional reasoning. -/- This work belongs to the Architecture of Limitation research program. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate Nishida Kitarō’s way of philosophizing in the light of the concept of “transition” in order to deepen our understanding of both Nishida’s philosophy and our thinking about and in transitions, using the concept of “boundary” or “border” (Grenze) as a catalyst. For that purpose, we focus on Nishida’s essay “Place” (「場所」), passing through different parts of the text as if through successive gates on a path of transition between one place and (...) the next, until we reach the final place of “absolute nothingness.” Dwelling on this place, we turn our attention to its internal structure and try to depict it along the outlines of a boundary, following the movements taking place in Nishida’s essay. The second part proposes an interpretation of the place of nothingness as an interminable practice of boundary-crossing that doesn’t come to a halt in a final, all-encompassing place, but dynamically situates itself on countless intersecting planes. After a more or less abstract analysis of the concept of “boundary,” we will apply and concretize this approach by using the example of the skin. To this end, we expose five main features of the skin as boundary: permeability, enclosure, excessiveness, interstitiality and reciprocal self-formation. (shrink)

Abstract This paper argues that indirect insult is a culturally evolved mechanism within honor-based societies that enables conflict signaling, hierarchy maintenance, and reputational regulation without provoking open aggression. Through a comparative analysis of ancient Roman rhetorical practices and contemporary Southern United States speech patterns—such as backhanded compliments like “bless your heart”—the study demonstrates how polite or surface-friendly language can convey agonistic intent while preserving social decorum. Situating these communicative strategies within their respective cultural contexts, the paper shows how indirect insult (...) functions as a tool of status containment, social boundary calibration, and honor preservation. Ultimately, it proposes a framework for understanding how “honor-preserving” language evolves to balance respect and dominance within reputation-sensitive societies. -/- ⸻ -/- Introduction -/- Human languages often encode conflict in subtle forms. What appears polite on the surface may function as a powerful tool for preserving honor while simultaneously marking social hierarchy or criticism. This juxtaposition between form and function appears both in ancient rhetorical traditions such as those of Rome and in modern regional dialects like those of the American South. This paper probes why indirect insult matters, how it operates, and what it reveals about the underlying social economies of honor. (shrink)

Cognition defines the horizon of all knowledge: what can be known, represented, or formalized depends on the stabilization of information within finite networks. This cartography synthesizes insights from nine previous texts and introduces further clarifications on the biological and structural basis of cognition, including stabilized cellular organization and dynamic, constrained replication. It maps the boundaries of intelligibility, revealing where science, mathematics, and thought themselves meet the limits of human and electronic cognition. By tracing how patterns stabilize, replicate, and adapt, this (...) framework situates understanding as both an achievement of insight and a recognition of cognitive limits. -/- This text presents preliminary ideas that have been further consolidated, formalized, and rigorously analyzed in the author’s unified framework: Cognition as the Condition of All Scientific Knowledge: Master Context / Unified Framework (2026). Readers seeking the fully developed and robust treatment of these concepts are encouraged to consult the unified framework. (shrink)

Attempts to communicate across boundaries involving religions or cultures may fail before anything is asserted. While it is common in comparative philosophy of religion to focus on the compatibility or conflict between what is said by different interlocutors about metaphysical commitments or ethical values, this article instead examines reticence. Reticence has many forms in connection with religious and philosophical traditions. These include eloquent silences, speech acts counseling care in language use, circumspection about sharing ideas, declarations of inexpressibility, and political reticence. (...) Drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Lectures on Religious Belief” and On Certainty as well as work by Alessandra Tanesini on silence and speech acts, this article considers communicative and epistemic aspects of diverse religious encounters that may give rise to varied reticent moments. The aim is to enhance thinking about inter-religious and cross-cultural discourses by exploring the ways in which reticent moments are salient, if frequently overlooked, aspects of complex communicative situations. (shrink)

In Natural Possibility – Paper 3 (Artificial Intelligence), a constraint-based model of situational AI was introduced, grounding artificial intervention in structural viability rather than technical capability alone. That work argued that the mere ability to act does not justify action, and that intervention must be constrained by coherence conditions within the surrounding system. The present paper refines and extends that foundation by integrating the Structural Coherence Model of Living Systems (SNOOBIS). This addition introduces a vertically layered coherence framework that enables (...) artificial systems to evaluate cross-layer alignment before intervention. AI is treated as operating on working copies of situational configurations and assessing structural synchronization across boundaries, resources, adaptation, timing, operations, regulation, and integration. Safety is therefore redefined — not as prediction, optimization, or control — but as preservation of viability under complexity. A minimal coherence evaluation schema is proposed to render this framework operationally testable, demonstrating how relatively small structural refinements can significantly strengthen AI alignment discipline while preserving the core insights of Paper 3 AI. Thank you. (shrink)

This work proposes a universal framework in which cognition itself defines the boundaries of all possible knowledge. Knowledge emerges only insofar as information can be stabilized, replicated, and symbolically manipulated within finite cognitive networks—biological, artificial, or otherwise. Scientific laws, mathematical formalisms, and theoretical models do not reveal reality as it is in itself; they formalize the traces that cognition can access. Quantum mechanics, cosmology, and extreme physics explore regimes where stabilization becomes fragile, and amplification of cognition—through technology, instruments, or artificial (...) systems—can extend reach but also increases structural fragility and saturation of intelligibility. The framework introduces the “Titan Lock,” defining the space of all intelligibility constrained by finite cognition, stabilization, and replication. Layers of reality inaccessible to cognition remain forever outside direct comprehension, emphasizing the structural limits of understanding. By situating science and mathematics as products of cognition rather than direct mirrors of reality, this work provides a coherent, cross-disciplinary perspective on epistemic limits, reproducibility, and the formal conditions of knowledge itself. -/- This text presents preliminary ideas that have been further consolidated, formalized, and rigorously analyzed in the author’s unified framework: Cognition as the Condition of All Scientific Knowledge: Master Context / Unified Framework (2026). Readers seeking the fully developed and robust treatment of these concepts are encouraged to consult the unified framework. (shrink)

This paper develops a relational account of light as the unconstrained mode of the orientation operator in a continuous field. In this framework, light is not treated as a particle, wave, or field excitation, but as the maximal coherence with which orientation can propagate across separation. When orientation updates occur under constraint, the resulting dynamics appear as energy; when constraints vanish, orientation propagates freely, and light emerges as the first globally coherent update mode. The paper argues that light expresses three (...) inseparable functions of the orientation operator: a generative function, establishing the first coherent propagation of orientation; a boundary function, defining the maximal coherence condition that structures causal geometry; and a revelatory function, carrying coherent orientation differences across separation and enabling the intelligibility of relational structure. This triune account reframes electromagnetic phenomena as expressions of relational coherence rather than as excitations of a substance or field, situating light as the operator‑level foundation for generative structure, causal boundaries, and interpretability within a continuous relational field. (shrink)

This text consolidates and unifies the author’s previously published works, providing a single, coherent framework that preserves all original contributions. The framework formalizes the structural conditions of finite cognition, the foundations of knowledge, and the boundaries of scientific understanding. It situates both human and artificial intelligence within a shared cognitive architecture defined by information stabilization, symbolic replication, and pattern manipulation. Introducing the Titan Lock, the framework delineates the minimal conditions of intelligibility, separates formal structure from full comprehension, and highlights structural (...) fragility arising from amplification of cognition. This comprehensive approach provides a rigorous foundation for theoretical analysis, empirical investigation, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence research, remaining defensible against classical critiques of dogmatism or naïve realism. -/- This text presents preliminary ideas that have been further consolidated, formalized, and rigorously analyzed in the author’s unified framework: Cognition as the Condition of All Scientific Knowledge: Master Context / Unified Framework (2026). Readers seeking the fully developed and robust treatment of these concepts are encouraged to consult the unified framework. (shrink)

This paper -distinguishes between the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition and the Hypothesis of Embedded Cognition, characterizing them as competitors (both motivated by situated, interactive cognitive processing, with the latter being the more conservative of the two interpretations of the data) -clarifies the relation between content externalism and extended cognition -introduces the problem of cognitive bloat, as part of a critical discussion of Clark and Chalmers's "past-endorsement criterion" (if the criterion is embraced, we privilege the internal, endorsing process -- which looks (...) more like an embedded view -- and if the criterion is rejected, bloat follows) and as a problem for extended views more generally -develops a dilemma critical of Clark and Chalmers's "explanatory kinds" argument for extended mind and cognition (arguing that their reasoning faces serious problems regardless of whether one individuates the kinds in question in a fine-grained or a coarse-grained way) -argues that an appeal to functionalism doesn't resolve the issue -argues for the priority, in debates about extended cognition, of the identification of cognitive systems (e.g., because a functionalist approach can't be applied unless we already know what count as inputs and outputs, which requires having already identified the boundaries of the cognitive system). (shrink)

The shortest form of the Basic Argument against free will and moral responsibility runs as follows: [1] When you act, you do what you do—in the situation in which you find yourself—because of the way you are. [2] If you do what you do because of the way you are, then in order to be fully and ultimately responsible for what you do you must be fully and ultimately responsible for the way you are. But [3] You cannot be fully (...) and ultimately responsible for the way you are. So [4] You cannot be fully and ultimately responsible for what you do. This paper restates the Basic Argument and varies it in several different ways. (shrink)

The Philosophical Contribution of Kostas Axelos: The Issue of the Open System and Technological Civilization -/- Kostas Axelos (1924–2010) remains one of the most intriguing and underexplored figures in contemporary philosophy. His work, situated at the crossroads of Marxism, Heideggerian phenomenology, and the philosophy of technology, raises critical questions about the nature of modern civilization and the fate of thought in an increasingly technological world. One of the central academic issues in Axelos’ thought is his concept of the "open system," (...) which presents a radical alternative to both dialectical materialism and structuralism. This issue is especially relevant in our age of digital globalization and algorithmic governance, as it poses fundamental questions about the limits of human autonomy and the possibilities of thought in a technologically determined world. -/- The Open System: A Critique of Closed Philosophical Paradigms -/- Axelos’ notion of the "open system" challenges traditional metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that rely on closure, determinacy, and finality. Unlike Hegelian dialectics, which seeks resolution through synthesis, Axelos proposes a dynamic, ever-unfolding process that resists totalization. His critique extends to Marxist orthodoxy, which he argues falsely assumes a teleological closure in history. By advocating an open-ended view of reality, Axelos aligns himself with thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger, emphasizing a world in flux rather than one governed by fixed structures or ultimate goals. -/- This issue raises critical academic debates: How can philosophical thought remain relevant in an era dominated by technological systems that impose rigid structures on human existence? Is the "open system" a viable framework for understanding contemporary globalized societies, or does it risk devolving into an abstract and impractical relativism? -/- For Axelos, closed systems—whether philosophical, political, or scientific—seek to impose rigid frameworks that ultimately stifle thought and creativity. He sees Western metaphysical traditions as largely obsessed with categorization and finality, which leads to an artificial separation between subject and object, mind and world, theory and practice. In contrast, his "open system" embraces indeterminacy and fluidity, recognizing that reality is in perpetual motion and that any attempt to fix meaning within rigid boundaries leads to intellectual stagnation. -/- Axelos’ concept also engages with existentialist and phenomenological traditions, particularly in how it resists essentialist definitions of being. He challenges not only the dogmas of classical metaphysics but also structuralist tendencies that seek to analyze reality in terms of fixed codes and relationships. Instead, Axelos suggests that the world should be understood as a game (le jeu du monde), a process of continuous becoming where human existence is not predefined but rather shaped by the interactions of open-ended forces. This issue raises critical academic debates: How can philosophical thought remain relevant in an era dominated by technological systems that impose rigid structures on human existence? Is the "open system" a viable framework for understanding contemporary globalized societies, or does it risk devolving into an abstract and impractical relativism? Furthermore, how does Axelos' open system relate to contemporary discussions of complexity theory, cybernetics, and ecological thinking, all of which emphasize the interconnectedness and dynamism of systems? -/- A related issue in Axelos' work is his analysis of technological civilization. In Le Jeu du Monde (The Play of the World), he argues that technological advancement has not only transformed human existence but has also reshaped the very way we think and conceptualize reality. Technology, in Axelos’ view, is not merely a tool but a fundamental mode of being that structures our world and thought processes. -/- This raises significant academic concerns about autonomy, alienation, and the role of philosophy. If technology governs human thought as Axelos suggests, can there be genuine freedom in intellectual and political life? How does one resist technological determinism without retreating into romanticized notions of pre-technological existence? Axelos does not advocate for a rejection of technology but rather calls for a new form of thinking that embraces its presence while resisting its totalizing tendencies. -/- Axelos highlights the paradox of technological civilization: while it offers immense possibilities for connectivity, knowledge production, and efficiency, it also risks subordinating human creativity and autonomy to systemic logic. He critiques the way in which technology, rather than serving human purposes, increasingly dictates them—turning individuals into passive participants in a mechanized world. The dominance of algorithmic governance, artificial intelligence, and automation exemplifies the culmination of this technological destiny, raising profound concerns about the future of human agency. -/- Furthermore, Axelos’ thought resonates with contemporary debates about digital culture, surveillance capitalism, and the commodification of knowledge. As digital technologies reshape the nature of labor, communication, and governance, the question arises: To what extent can individuals maintain authentic engagement with the world when technological mediation defines nearly every aspect of existence? In this sense, Axelos anticipates concerns found in posthumanist and critical media theories, particularly regarding the erosion of subjectivity in the face of ever-expanding cybernetic systems. -/- Another crucial aspect of Axelos’ critique is the way in which technological civilization imposes a fragmented, instrumentalized view of knowledge. He challenges the reduction of thought to mere data-processing and the dominance of specialized, compartmentalized disciplines that fail to grasp the holistic nature of existence. By contrast, his open system philosophy encourages a mode of thinking that resists fragmentation and embraces a planetary perspective, one that acknowledges the interrelation of philosophy, science, politics, and art in an ever-evolving world. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Architecture of Complex Systems (ACS) as an ontological framework for understanding systems as coherent architectures rather than as collections of behaviors or dynamic processes. ACS addresses a foundational question: under what conditions does a system exist as a unified entity at all? The framework is grounded in the primacy of relations over observation and dynamics. Architectural truth is defined as relational and is shown to depend on coherence, closure, and invariants within a bounded relational structure. On (...) this basis, the paper establishes a fundamental boundary: no amount of observational data or knowledge of system dynamics suffices to reconstruct system ontology. Dynamics may describe state transitions and trajectories, but they do not uniquely determine architectural structure. A minimal relational algebra is introduced as a working language for architectural reasoning. This algebra is used to articulate admissibility, coherence, and architectural existence without reference to domain-specific implementations or empirical realizations. Architecture is treated as ontologically prior to both dynamics and observation. The contribution of this work is intentionally foundational. It fixes the ontological core of ACS and situates it within a broader research program concerned with discrete existence and the limits of observation. Domain-specific interpretations and applications are left as subsequent extensions built upon this explicitly defined foundation. (shrink)

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

This preliminary discussion examines Freud’s discovery of the unconscious as another immense mountain range of human cognitive limitation, standing alongside the Kantian and Pauline analyses of reason’s finitude. While Kant revealed the structural boundaries of cognition and Paul exposed the existential and moral struggles rooted in human frailty, Freud demonstrated that beneath the surface of conscious thought lies a vast and unruly domain that continuously shapes our desires, impulses, and motivations. By situating Freud within a broader lineage of thinkers concerned (...) with the limits of self-knowledge, this paper highlights how the unconscious complicates the modern assumption that rational awareness can fully explain human behavior. The discussion also gestures toward a future study—Mindfulness and the Unconscious: A Buddhist Response to Freudian Psychology—which will explore how Buddhist attentional training and contemplative insight may offer a complementary approach for understanding, observing, and transforming the hidden layers of the mind. This forthcoming work will examine whether mindfulness practice provides a unique method for engaging the unconscious without repression, denial, or purely interpretive strategies. In this way, the present paper serves as both an analytical foundation and a thematic bridge toward a broader comparative investigation of the mind. (shrink)

The measurement problem is commonly taken to indicate a fundamental conflict between the linear, unitary dynamics of quantum mechanics and the definite outcomes observed in measurement processes. Standard responses typically resolve this tension by modifying the dynamics, enriching the ontology, or revising the interpretation of the quantum state. In this paper, we analyze the measurement problem from a projection-based perspective in which quantum evolution and measurement outcomes are associated with ontologically distinct effective descriptions, defined by incompatible invariance requirements. Within this (...) framework, quantum mechanics is characterized by unitary invariance and coherent superpo- sition, whereas measurement records are defined by definiteness, stability, and reproducibil- ity. The measurement problem arises when these distinct projection structures are implicitly identified or required to coexist within a single effective description. By analyzing measurement as a transition between such projections, we show that the appearance of wavefunction collapse does not require a physical dynamical process. Instead, collapse emerges as a necessary structural consequence of projecting a quantum description onto a measurement domain that enforces different invariance constraints. This account preserves the formal structure and empirical success of quantum mechanics while motivating a restrained ontological reading of its elements. More broadly, the analysis situates the measurement problem within a general pattern in which foundational paradoxes arise at the boundaries between effective descriptions. In this sense, the resolution proposed here does not introduce new physics, but clarifies the ontological scope and limits of quantum-mechanical description. (shrink)

Synopsis The Anti-Language Divide The Anti-Language Divide is a sustained philosophical and linguistic investigation into the fractures that emerge when language ceases to function as a shared medium of understanding and instead becomes a marker of separation, power, and identity. Moving across linguistics, phenomenology, rhetoric, cognition, and philosophy, the book explores how speech simultaneously creates community and division, how language constructs the self, and how anti-languages arise within societies as both tools of resistance and instruments of control. At the heart (...) of the book lies a central tension: language unites by allowing people to “breathe together,” yet it also divides by generating internal codes, exclusions, and symbolic hierarchies. Anti-languages emerge wherever social groups seek autonomy, secrecy, or distinction. These are not merely slang forms or playful deviations from standard speech; they are structured linguistic systems designed to redefine reality for insiders while obscuring it from outsiders. Jargon, corporate vocabulary, ideological phrasing, and specialised academic discourse all become forms of anti-language, shaping perception and delimiting what can be thought and said. The opening section defines anti-languages as communicative structures that produce both solidarity and fragmentation. Slang and smart talk, while often dismissed as informal or superficial, are shown to operate as markers of belonging. They encode shared experiences, signal identity, and reinforce group boundaries. Yet the same mechanisms that generate intimacy can produce exclusion. The divide is not simply between languages but between linguistic communities that inhabit distinct semantic universes. From this sociolinguistic foundation, the book turns toward cognition. Language is not treated as a transparent instrument but as a cognitive environment within which thought takes shape. Inner speech becomes a critical focus: the silent dialogue through which individuals organise memory, moral reasoning, and self-reflection. If language structures public discourse, it also structures private consciousness. The divide between official language and personal understanding generates internal tension. Words borrowed from collective narratives often conflict with lived experience, producing cognitive dissonance and moral ambiguity. The phenomenological dimension deepens this analysis. Language is examined as a phenomenon that mediates perception itself. The “language of the self” is not merely expressive but constitutive. Identity is formed within linguistic space. Anti-language, therefore, does not simply distort communication; it reshapes subjectivity. When ideological or corporate vocabularies dominate public discourse, individuals begin to interpret themselves through externally imposed frames. The divide becomes internalised. The philosophical section situates these arguments within broader traditions of language theory. From classical rhetoric to contemporary deconstruction, the book traces shifting conceptions of meaning, reference, and truth. Meaning is shown to be neither fixed nor arbitrary but negotiated within power structures. Anti-language thrives in this instability. By redefining key terms—freedom, justice, progress, security—groups reconfigure moral landscapes. Words become instruments of rhetorical capture. A particularly incisive chapter examines rhetoric as the operational core of anti-language. From Gorgias to Derrida, persuasion is revealed as both creative and potentially manipulative. Corporate jargon exemplifies this dynamic: it cloaks economic interests in neutral or optimistic vocabulary, masking asymmetries of power. Euphemism becomes strategy. Complexity is simplified into digestible slogans. The divide widens between surface meaning and lived reality. The section on writing introduces a paradox. Written language promises permanence and reflection, yet it can also solidify distortion. The art of writing becomes both resistance and risk. To write is to stabilise thought, but also to freeze it within particular frameworks. The provocative question “How to avoid speaking?” gestures toward silence as a counterpoint to linguistic excess. In a world saturated with speech, withdrawal may preserve integrity. Silence is not emptiness but a refusal to participate in compromised discourse. Throughout the book, language is presented as dynamic, unstable, and inseparable from social structure. Sociolinguistics and applied linguistics illustrate how institutions regulate acceptable speech. Educational systems standardise expression; media platforms amplify certain registers; professional environments cultivate specialised codes. Each sphere generates its own anti-language. The cumulative effect is fragmentation. Yet the book resists fatalism. Anti-languages are not inherently destructive. They can foster creativity, resistance, and communal resilience. Marginalised groups often develop alternative linguistic forms to articulate suppressed experiences. The divide becomes problematic only when mutual intelligibility collapses entirely. Communication requires permeability between linguistic worlds. The Anti-Language Divide ultimately argues that the crisis of communication is not simply about misinformation or technological acceleration but about the proliferation of insulated speech communities. The challenge is not to eliminate difference but to cultivate translation. Genuine dialogue demands effort, patience, and reflexivity. It requires recognising that language shapes perception and that every word carries both connective and divisive potential. By integrating cognitive theory, phenomenology, rhetoric, and sociolinguistics, the book offers a comprehensive examination of how language both constructs and fractures social reality. It invites readers to become aware of the anti-languages they inhabit and to consider whether their speech opens pathways toward understanding or reinforces invisible barriers. -/- . (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel framework—phase epistemology—for understanding knowledge as an emergent property of structural resonance, rather than as a product of inferential or probabilistic processes. At the heart of this model lies the epistemic vector: a directional trajectory of intelligibility that arises through asymptotic phase coherence between observer and observed. Rather than treating knowledge as representation or correspondence, the paper situates it within a recursive phase alignment that evolves over time toward topological stabilization. Drawing from quantum theory, philosophy of (...) mind and structural realism, the paper suggests that semantic collapse—the moment when ambiguity resolves into meaning—is governed not by logic alone but by relational coherence. This collapse mirrors the wave-function reduction in quantum measurement and links it to cognitive interpretation. The observer is not a passive recipient of information but an active phase participant whose internal structure aligns with latent fields—including what is metaphorically framed here as dark matter or dark energy. The proposed epistemic framework bridges the quantum–classical divide through the notion of asymptotic cognition, in which consciousness functions as a boundary condition for the stabilization of meaning. Improbability, in this context, is not a statistical deviation but a phase singularity—a point of maximum informational tension and epistemic reorganization. Ultimately, this paper argues for a redefinition of knowledge as a dynamic topology of coherence. It invites new perspectives on cognition, agency, intentionality and the structure of reality itself—where to know is to resonate and to resonate is to shape the possible. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate in detail one theoretical approach to the symptom of thought insertion. This approach suggests that patients are lead to disown certain thoughts they are subjected to because they lack a sense of active participation in the occurrence of those thoughts. I examine one reading of this claim, according to which the patients’ anomalous experiences arise from a breakdown of cognitive mechanisms tracking the production of occurrent thoughts, before sketching an alternative reading, according to which their (...) experiences have to be explained in terms of a withdrawal, on the part of the patients themselves, from certain forms of active engagement in reasoning. I conclude with a discussion of the relationship between this view and the idea that patients’ reports of thought insertion reflect a situation in which the boundaries between the self and the world have become uncertain. (shrink)

Much recent work elucidates different types of representational format, and ways that aspects of perception and cognition may be formatted. Our paper targets an underexplored topic: the format of motor representations, the psychological states that serve as the primary causal link between an agent’s immediate intention to act and their subsequent behaviour. In section 2, we situate motor representations within the context of processes of motor planning and motor control. In section 3, we discuss key differences between symbolic and analog (...) representational format types. In section 4, we argue that there is evidence indicating that motor representations show a core marker of analog formatting. In section 5, we argue that motor representations show core markers of symbolic formatting. In section 6, we characterize motor representations as an interesting form of hybrid representation. In a slogan, motor representation is a symbolic scheme that utilizes analog representations as cognitive tools. We then highlight several open questions this characterization raises and note how it may impact a range of philosophical debates, such as those pertaining to the relationship between propositional knowledge and skilled action guidance, the interface problem, and the issue of how to draw boundaries between central cognition and the motoric. (shrink)

Embodied cognition is a well-established and increasingly influential branch of the cognitive, neural, and psychological sciences. Unlike embodied cognition, extended cognition is not as well-established or influential. Our goal is to defend the idea that if cognition is truly embodied, then it is embodied in systems, and if it is embodied in systems, then it extends beyond animal boundaries. In order to demonstrate this, we situate the idea of extended cognitive systems in a historical context. Then, we present a theoretical (...) and methodological framework for investigating extended cognitive systems. Finally, we discuss some potential experimental work that could adjudicate the existence of extended cognitive systems. (shrink)

This paper advances a unified theory of epistemic psychology, proposing that the dynamics of intimacy disclose the moral architecture of human knowing. Building on Epistemic Clientelism Theory and the Kahl Model of Epistemic Dissonance (KMED), it develops KMED-R (Relationships)—a formal and conceptual framework modelling how recognition (ρ), suppression (σ), and fiduciary containment (ϕ) regulate the evolution of three relational state variables: Epistemic Autonomy (EA), Dissonance Tolerance (DT), and Dependence (D). -/- Integrating longitudinal, developmental, and cross-cultural evidence, KMED-R situates adult relational (...) ethics within a continuum beginning in infancy (KMED-I) and extending through partnership, education, and institutional life. Studies across family systems, bicultural adaptation, and filial morality demonstrate that early fiduciary asymmetries of care and authority script the later moral grammar of trust, conflict, and recognition. -/- The paper introduces the Fiduciary Boundary Test (FBT) and the Trust–Authority–Clientelism Matrix (TACM) as diagnostic tools for distinguishing fiduciary openness from clientelist closure in both interpersonal and institutional systems. Conceptual simulations show that epistemic stability arises not from affective intensity but from fiduciary ethics: systems high in ϕ display resilience, repair, and bounded autonomy, whereas low-ϕ (clientelist) systems collapse into dependency or fragmentation. -/- By linking developmental psychology, social conflict research, and moral philosophy, the study reframes attachment, cognition, and governance as fiduciary processes—ethical negotiations of interpretive authority. Dissonance is recast as the engine of epistemic growth; silencing, as its moral corruption. Knowing itself emerges as a fiduciary act: it begins in trust, is sustained through recognition, and decays under suppression. (shrink)

This paper introduces Veritas Opportunus (VO), a proposed structural feature of reality defined as a finite temporal and spatial bandwidth—approximately a 15-second temporal integration window and a 15-light-second experiential bubble—within which physical events become available to consciousness. Drawing on Einstein’s relativity of simultaneity, quantum nonlocality, delayed-choice experiments, and neuroscientific models of temporal integration, I argue that the “present moment” is neither an instantaneous boundary nor a subjective illusion, but a measurable region where quantum potentialities crystallize into classical outcomes. Consciousness, (...) on this view, evolved to operate within VO, coupling biological prediction systems with the structure of spacetime. I situate VO within broader theoretical contexts, including string-theoretic extra dimensions, bubble-universe cosmology, and the simulation hypothesis. VO is proposed as a unifying conceptual framework linking time perception, quantum measurement, and the experiential boundary between potentiality and actuality. (shrink)

This paper introduces the concept of the Coherence Wall of Humanity: a structural boundary in the development of intelligent, technological, and social systems beyond which further increases in power, complexity, or autonomy require internally maintained coherence rather than external control. The Coherence Wall marks the transition from systems stabilized by environment, institutions, or incentives to systems whose continued viability depends on binding internal constraints governing valuation, agency, and harm closure. The paper argues that humanity has now reached this (...) class='Hi'>boundary collectively, through advanced technology, global coordination, and recursive optimization. Beyond the wall, failure is not primarily a matter of error or ignorance, but of coherence collapse—manifesting as escalation, pathology, or annihilative dynamics. The paper develops the concept structurally, situates it across biological, social, and artificial systems, and outlines the implications for governance, ethics, and long-term survival. (shrink)

The Extended Mind Thesis (EMT), proposed by Clark and Chalmers (1998), revolutionized philosophy of mind by arguing that cognition extends into the environment through tools that reliably store and retrieve information. However, the rise of generative artificial intelligence—particularly Large Language Models (LLMs)—presents a challenge that exceeds EMT's original explanatory scope. LLMs do not merely extend memory or computation; they generate novel semantic possibilities, thereby transforming the very structure of cognitive engagement. This paper argues that we have entered a new phase (...) of cognitive evolution: the era of the Amplified Mind. Unlike the extended mind, which accesses stored information, the amplified mind navigates dynamically generated possibility-spaces. Through a reconceptualization of Clark and Chalmers' parity principle into an amplification principle, and via a new thought experiment ("Neo-Otto and Generative Inga"), I demonstrate how LLMs introduce generative uncertainty, intentional saturation, and navigational agency into the cognitive process. The result is not merely an extended mind, but an amplified cognitive architecture—one that demands new understandings of agency, responsibility, and the very boundaries of thought. Situating this analysis within the broader 4E cognition framework and Clark's own later work on predictive processing, I argue that amplification represents a genuinely novel form of mind-world coupling that existing frameworks were not designed to capture. (shrink)

History has left a territory composed of two municipalitics, whose shape is unique, belonging partly to the Netherlands and partly to Belgium. Earlier both parts belonged to the former Duchy of Brabant, a tenitory that is now split up into the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant (including Baarle-Nassau) and thc Belgian provinces of Antwerp (which includes Baarle-Hertog), Vlaams Brabant, Brussels, and Brabant-Wallon. People are quite comfortable with this situation, even though it raises many complicated and difficult problems that even the most (...) brilliant jurists are puzzled. Baarle-Hertog is called on older Belgian maps Barle-Duc (Hertog = Duke, fr: duc) and must not be confused with the prefectoral town of Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France. (shrink)

Much recent cognitive neuroscientific work on body knowledge is representationalist: “body schema” and “body images”, for example, are cerebral representations of the body (de Vignemont 2009). A framework assumption is that representation of the body plays an important role in cognition. The question is whether this representationalist assumption is compatible with the variety of broadly situated or embodied approaches recently popular in the cognitive neurosciences: approaches in which cognition is taken to have a ‘direct’ relation to the body and to (...) the environment. A “direct” relation is one where the boundaries between the body and the head, or between the environment and the animal are not theoretically important in the understanding of cognition. These boundaries do not play a theoretically privileged role in cognitive explanations of behavior. But representationalism appears to put a representational veil between the locus of cognition and that which is represented, making cognitive relations to the body and to the environment be indirect, with a high associated computational load. For this reason, direct approaches have tried to minimize the use of internal representations (Suchman 1987; Barwise 1987; Agre and Chapman 1987; Brooks 1992; Thelen and Smith 1994; van Gelder 1995; Port and van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997, 1999; Rupert 2009, p. 180). Does a cognitive neuroscience committed to direct relations rule out a representationalist approach to body knowledge? Or is direct representationalism possible? (shrink)

For well over two decades, Andy Clark has been gleaning theoretical lessons from the leading edge of cognitive science, applying a combination of empirical savvy and philosophical instinct that few can match. Clark’s most recent book, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, brilliantly expands his oeuvre. It offers a well-informed and focused survey of research in the burgeoning field of situated cognition, a field that emphasizes the contribution of environmental and non-neural bodily structures to the production of intelligent (...) behavior. The situated research program, fledgling though it may be in some respects, has reached an age at which its philosophical stock can reasonably be taken; and Clark is just the person to take it. Supersizing the Mind consists of three main divisions. The first develops the case for the distinctively extended view of cognition, according to which the human mind or cognitive system literally comprises elements beyond the boundary of the human organism. The second responds to critics of the extended outlook: Frederick Adams, Kenneth Aizawa, Keith Butler, Brie Gertler, Rick Grush, and me, among others. The third major division evaluates nonextended strands in the situated program, in particular, those that emphasize the role of the non-neural body in cognition. (shrink)

What is the significance of empirical moral psychology for metaethics? In this article we take up Michael Ruse’s evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism and reassess it in the context of the empirical state of the art. Ruse’s argument depends on the phenomenological presumption that people generally experience morality as objective. We demonstrate how recent experimental findings challenge this widely-shared armchair presumption and conclude that Ruse’s argument fails. We situate this finding in the recent debate about Carnapian explication and argue (...) that it illustrates the necessary role that empirical moral psychology plays in explication preparation. Moral psychology sets boundaries for reasonable desiderata in metaethics and, therefore, it is necessary for metaethics. (shrink)

This article theorises 'the new paradigm of mass communication ' and ‘the media scenario ' and rethinks the concept of the mass audience under conditions of digital media, narrative proliferation, and participatory communication. Drawing on contemporary media psychology, narratology, and media-conscious narrative theory, it argues that the classical notion of a homogeneous, passive audience is no longer analytically adequate. Media narratives today operate through processes of identification, interpretation, and participation that transform viewers into active agents within a broader media scenario. (...) Building on empirical research into the effects of narrative identification on the audience’s sense of self, the article shows how media stories exert both immediate emotional influence and delayed cognitive effects that reshape self-efficacy, motivation, and identity orientation. Narrative engagement functions not as simple persuasion, but as a mechanism that activates latent personal traits and integrates them into the individual’s self-conception over time. At the same time, narratological theory demonstrates that these effects are structurally produced through narrative organisation—fabula, focalisation, character construction, and event sequencing—rather than through the ‘reality’ of the story itself. In networked and transmedia environments, audiences no longer merely interpret narratives but actively extend, remix, and inhabit storyworlds across platforms, dissolving the boundary between author, character, and viewer. The mass audience thus fragments into a multiplicity of individual narrative trajectories, each shaped by biography, attention, and interaction. The article situates this transformation within a broader paradigm shift in mass communication, from message transmission to media scenarios in which audiences perform roles, rehearse identities, and generate real social effects through fictional and semi-fictional constructs. The mass audience is reconceptualised not as a collective receiver, but as a distributed field of narrative participation in which fiction produces real consequences and media narratives become engines of self-formation and social coordination. (shrink)

This article theorises 'the new paradigm of mass communication ' and ‘the media scenario ' and develops the claim that civilisation increasingly functions as a role-playing game: a lived architecture of roles, rules, and scripted interactions through which people learn what is ‘real’, what is ‘allowed’, and what counts as meaningful participation. Building on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology, it argues that the contemporary media environment intensifies this performative structure by converting publics from spectators into players. Within the new paradigm of (...) mass communication, media do not merely represent events; they design scenarios—interactive dramaturgies organised around quests, conflicts, reputational rewards, and ritualised reactions. The article uses live action role-playing (LARP) as an analytic lens for understanding how digital platforms produce collective ‘game worlds’ in which identities behave like avatars and political, moral, and cultural positions become roles to be performed. It further shows how immersion technologies and participatory narrative formats dissolve the boundary between fiction and social reality, making ‘playing’ a primary mode of civic presence. This transformation generates a double effect: it heightens engagement and the feeling of agency, yet it also narrows imagination by standardising identity into scripts and collapsing truth into the continuity of narrative moves. Finally, the article situates scenario thinking and strategic communication within this ludic turn, arguing that power increasingly operates through the design of playable futures: frameworks that distribute roles, set tempo, and normalise certain choices as ‘the next move’. Civilisation, understood as a media scenario, is therefore not simply narrated but enacted—an ongoing multiplayer performance in which control over roles becomes control over collective time, attention, and social possibility. (shrink)

This paper introduces a constitutional framework for artificial intelligence grounded in philosophy of mind, normative ethics, and systems theory. Rather than proposing a technical architecture, it articulates the non-derogable ethical, behavioral, and governance conditions under which artificial intelligence may legitimately operate. -/- The CAI-OS framework argues that alignment is not an optimization problem but a constitutional one, requiring fixed interpretive authority, irreversibility constraints, and normative supremacy over instrumental goals. By situating AI alignment within debates in moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, (...) and political philosophy, the paper reframes alignment as a question of legitimacy rather than performance, and proposes consciousness as a necessary boundary condition for advanced artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Rawlsian reflective equilibrium involves taking our intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do in specific situations, such as you ought not to steal that chicken. One then tries to develop a system composed of a few general principles which entail that chicken, more generally entail one’s intuitions about what one ought and ought not to do. But there is room for sacrificing an intuition if one has a mostly successful system: if it entails most of one’s (...) intuitions, though not all. (Outcome: the boundaries of African countries?) But did Rawlsian reflective equilibrium arise from nowhere, or in a flash of inspiration, my good men? I speculate that something like reflective equilibrium existed with the development of sporting rules long before. In England: one does not simply dream up a sport with its rules, rather one takes a set of players or player types and devises rules which favour those players. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibilities opened up by radical interventions in public space: is it possible to foster reflection and create a critical methodology for analysing the topic of Commons in the urban context? Presenting the project “Stente: Residual Zones” as an example, the aim is to explore these questions using Umeå as a case study. Through the creation of an art/architectural object, the project seeks to use artistic and architectural practices as tools to engage (...) city residents in an active dialogue about Common spaces. Starting with a theoretical framework for situating the critical potential of art and architectural objects in public spaces, in this paper the project is seen as an example of a temporary critical moving device, gathering and amplifying the voices of the inhabitants through the city: it aims to represent an open-ended invitation to reinterpret the boundaries between nature and the city, posing itself as a radical (from the latin radicalis) form of dissensus (Rancière 2010). The experiment was conducted at the Umeå School of Architecture between March and May 2024 as part of the “Designing the Contemporary City” research group at Umeå University. (shrink)