Boredom: A History of Western Philosophical Perspectives The essayist Joseph Epstein has remarked, “Boredom is after all part of consciousness, and about consciousness the neurologists still have much less to tell us than do the poets and the philosophers.” Although not a major topic for Western philosophers, some important Western philosophers have spoken of it, and regarded it as a major philosophical theme of human

Surveillance Ethics Surveillance involves paying close and sustained attention to another person. It is distinct from casual yet focused people-watching, such as might occur at a pavement cafe, to the extent that it is sustained over time. Furthermore the design is not to pay attention to just anyone, but to pay attention to some entity (a person or group) in particular and for a particular

Square of Opposition The square of opposition is a chart that was introduced within classical (categorical) logic to represent the logical relationships holding between certain propositions in virtue of their form. The square, traditionally conceived, looks like this: The four corners of this chart represent the four basic forms of propositions recognized in classical logic: A propositions, or universal affirmatives take the form: All S

Edmond Husserl: Phenomenology of Embodiment For Husserl, the body is not an extended physical substance in contrast to a non-extended mind, but a lived “here” from which all “there’s” are “there”; a locus of distinctive sorts of sensations that can only be felt firsthand by the embodied experiencer concerned; and a coherent system of movement possibilities allowing us to experience every moment of our situated,

Paraconsistent Logic A paraconsistent logic is a way to reason about inconsistent information without lapsing into absurdity. In a non-paraconsistent logic, inconsistency explodes in the sense that if a contradiction obtains, then everything (everything!) else obtains, aussi. Someone reasoning with a paraconsistent logic can begin with inconsistent premises—say, a moral dilemma, a Kantian antinomy, or a semantic paradox—and still reach sensible conclusions, without completely exploding