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This document is a book review of "Spectres of Pessimism: A Cultural Logic of the Worst" by Mark Schmitt. The reviewer discusses the concept of radical utopianism and its connection to cultural studies. They argue that radical utopianism challenges the idea that the current state of the world is inevitable and promotes the belief that change is possible. The book review also mentions another book, "Fantasy: How It Works" by Brian Attebery, which explores the genre of fantasy and its unique tools for creating meaning. The reviewer emphasizes that fantasy should not be dismissed as escapist literature and highlights its potential for challenging oppressive systems. [Extracted from the article]

"Artificial Intelligence or the Challenge of the Century: Anatomy of a Radical Antihumanism" by Éric Sadin examines, from a phenomenology of artifacts perspective, the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and the challenges it poses. The author conceives AI as a global system composed of devices interconnected with beings and objects in the world, whose behavior is continuously monitored and digitally influenced through algorithms. Specifically, the power of this "algorithmic Leviathan" lies not only in its ability to handle vast amounts of information, rendering human minds dispensable, but also in its administration based on a numerical regime of truth. To comprehend this, Sadin introduces the concepts of "aletheic potency" and "kairos power." Aletheic potency refers to the persuasive capacity of AI to articulate "truths" that align with our preferences and expectations. On the other hand, kairos power enables AI to swiftly respond to its shortcomings through compensatory actions that minimize our dissatisfaction, thus keeping us captive within its infallible logic. In summary, the emergence of AI signifies a change in the status of technologies, challenging our relationship with the world, as it is expected to enunciate truth through automated interpretation of situations and make decisions on our behalf. This represents the stage of techno-logos of technique: not logos about technique produced by humans, but humans shaped by a technique capable of generating discourse or truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timothy J. Beck, in his recent book I Cybernetic Psychology and Mental Health: A Circular Logic of Control Beyond the Individual i , provides such a critical analysis. Though it is common for those in the "psy-disciplines" (psychology, psychiatry, social work, et al.) to concern themselves with the effects of technology - social media in particular - on mental well-being, it is less common to see discussions on the more systemic and far-reaching aspects of digital surveillance technologies as they track and shape our collective life-worlds. For Beck, each of these models of subjectivity - "(1) the individual psyche, (2) the individual organism, and (3) the individual brain" (p. 47) - belies certain "pre-individual" investments in the social field of the society that produced them. [Extracted from the article]

Chapter 6 examines Aristotle's syllogistic logic as the first recorded systematic exposition of deductive reasoning, and examines comparable work in Asian traditions. In the beginning of Chapter 2, Dutilh Novaes lays out her methodology, characterized as I integrative i and I synthetic i , and the rest of the chapter assembles the explanatory machinery that the coming chapters employ. Over the last decade, Catarina Dutilh Novaes has established a wide-ranging and systematic research program at the intersection of philosophical logic and its history, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mathematics (see Dutilh Novaes [1], [2], [3], [4]). [Extracted from the article]

To a degree perhaps unseen since the "golden age" of nuclear strategising in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kroenig maintains - bravely, it must be said - that all nuclear wars are not the same, and that the United States could meaningfully survive a general nuclear exchange with any of its rivals, including Russia. The logic of American nuclear strategy: Why strategic superiority matters: by Matthew Kroenig, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, 280 pp., £23.49, (HB), ISBN 9780190849184 Matthew Kroenig's I The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy i endeavours to demonstrate that the United States derives substantial advantages from deploying a large, war-winning nuclear arsenal. [Extracted from the article]

Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti's concept of technopopulism synthesises technocracy and populism. We are informed that the component definitions of populism and technocracy, as well as the overarching technopopulism definition, have the advantage of being "purely formal" because they do not 'imply a necessary connection with any substantive set of policies or category of agents' (p. 31). While Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti describe their definition of populism as "ecumenical", their cumbersome hybrid concept implies an uphill evangelical battle. If we thought in terms of a "vertical" and "horizontal" axis counterposed to an "intermediary" approach, it seems we might get closer to the underlying essence of what Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti have in mind with their concept of technopopulism. [Extracted from the article]

Are T. S. Eliot's notes on The Waste Land a scholarly resource or a literary hoax? This oft-repeated question gets to the heart of the poem, which thrives on its allusions, whether seriously or cynically. However, scholars have largely passed over the notes' (and the poem's) numberings, despite their complexity and superabundance—a panoply of quantitative relations running alongside the qualitative references. These numberings, with startling frequency, do not compute, which poses a philosophical dilemma greater than arithmetical errors would seem to imply. As a graduate student at Harvard, Eliot took course notes on mathematical logic and number theory that show him grappling again and again with a concept of numerical irrationality, a dilemma that, for him, seems to threaten the coherence of the world itself, the failures of enumeration auguring broader pandemonium. Under the tutelage of Bertrand Russell, Eliot turns to logic in an attempt to discern a coherent system for numbers (and therefore life), but he grows disenchanted with how logic's paradoxes of self-reference undermines that very possibility. In turn, these paradoxes inform The Waste Land as an irrational subtext, as small miscalculations in the poem and the notes herald impending physical disasters, psychological hazards, and metaphysical perils. In the end, how we count its numbers turns out to have important implications for how we account for The Waste Land 's puzzling and even deadly subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The I wh i -questions part examines how I wh i -questions are formed and how I wh i -elements are interpreted in Mandarin and English. Hu assumes that if a I wh i -question involves two I wh i -phrases, one must function to generate an accessible set so that the other one can be interpreted. In this sense, Hu's research constitutes both challenges and innovation for the approach to I wh i -questions and reflexives. [Extracted from the article]

(269) So for instance, Halvorson characterizes an antirealist positivist as having a liberal notion of equivalence. Going by such examples, Halvorson concludes in favor of these correlations: realist-conservative, antirealist-liberal. In contrast, if all realist-equivalent theories are positivist-equivalent, a positivist should have few qualms saying that realists are conservative about equivalent theories. [Extracted from the article]

In the cumulative process of integration of New collected data to refine the credence of the Theory, the Bayesian inference or update is presented as follows: Graph HT ht where I T i and I D i denote the Theory and Data, respectively. [Extracted from the article]

In particular, I Duhem and Holism i offers a surprisingly thin treatment of Duhem's actual arguments for holism. Those interested in a brief introduction to either Duhem's overall philosophy or his views on "good sense" will find I Duhem and Holism i to be an engaging and worthwhile read. I Duhem and Holism i is admirably clear and engaging in its discussion of both Duhem's philosophical views and some of the many responses that they have engendered over the last century. [Extracted from the article]

"Anyone who is interested in social movements should study Hegel." In similar vein, Miettinen argues that Blunden's interpretation of Hegel's notion of objective spirit as material culture downplays the political and moral dimensions of Hegel's social theory. And Hegel's failure himself to engage with social movements ensures that we must be skeptical of Hegel's legacy - and never can or should we say what Hegel really thought or meant when we read Hegel through a modern, social activist lens (we think Blunden could easily be persuaded to agree with this). 2 Hegel's Logic refers to several of Hegel's works, but Blunden recommends mainly the so-called "Shorter Logic" to be found in The Marxist Internet Archive: Hegel ([3]). [Extracted from the article]

In my review, I will focus on the activist interpretation of Hegel's I Logic i in Andy Blunden's book I Hegel for Social Movements i . Hegel in the Marxist light In his time, Marx wrote that he would greatly like to present Hegel's dialectical method in two or three printer's sheets to make it accessible to the ordinary human intelligence. His first study on the subject, I Meaning of Hegel's Logic i , appeared on the website Marxists Internet Archive in 1997.[1] For many years, Blunden headed the annual Hegel Summer Schools and the Hegel Reading group. Conclusion I believe that the reading of Hegel, proposed in Andy Blunden's new book, does allow us to better understand Hegel's I Logic i . [Extracted from the article]

States and scholars long described Indigenous peoples in exactly these terms, but Lea projects them back to us to describe development policy, too, as "primitive", "natural", "free", "savage", and "barbarous." These two concepts - policy ecology and policy hauntology - are central to understanding how policies of the past lay the foundation for the future. I Wild Policy: Indigeneity and the Unruly Logic of Intervention i follows Tess Lea's decade-long study of development interventions, and the policy landscape in which they are embedded, in Indigenous Australia. [Extracted from the article]

Many geographers work with policy's effects and explore how its formulation, enactment, legacy, and modes of opposition influence how people, places, and things relate. At the foundation of Tess Lea's argument in I Wild Policy i is a caution that such evaluative attempts "reinforce myths of original policy coherency" (p. 24). It doesn't so much correct geography's reliance on the representational aspects of policy, or providing a deep exploration of policy "spaces", but rather, it traces the tangents of policy at a meso-political scale, both wayward and anti-teleological. [Extracted from the article]

In these works Williams presents Hegel as an antidote to the nihilistic tendencies of modern life, "the death of God". Here the Hegel interpreter cast as Williams's I bête noire i is Robert Pippin, who, in the last two or three decades, has led an effort to free Hegel from various unwanted metaphysical doctrines (such as any immaterialist understandings of spirit) by stressing the continuity of Hegel's project with Kant's critical philosophy. Thus Williams has to secure Hegel's Kant-influenced critique of traditional metaphysics while keeping this Kantian influence to a minimum. [Extracted from the article]

Bridging carceral studies, political theory, and Derridean thought, Kelly Oliver, in her ([2]) book I Carceral Humanitarianism: The Logics of Refugee Detention i , offers a clear analysis and emphatic critique of contemporary humanitarianism's imbrication with practices of refugee detention. Such reification is another issue that Oliver tracks through the contemporary refugee crisis, particularly in its relation to the logic of autoimmunity that Derrida has shown to persist at the root of the democratic nation-state. In doing so, they contribute to the production of refugee populations who, rather than be welcomed by countries with supposedly democratic spirits, are shepherded into camps and detention centers that "operate as check-points and management centers designed to ensure that refugees do not enter the host country" (p. 1). [Extracted from the article]