We Have Always Been Biased

Public ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 20-33
Author(s):  
Kevin Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Data Mining ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Technical Issue ◽  
Biometric Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
The Human Condition

This paper aims to provide a historical context in which to appreciate the shared problems faced by social and computer scientists in using and creating biometric data. While historians of science are well aware of the trials (and errors) of previous attempts to quantify the human condition, this literature has not always made it into discussions of modern biometrics. Indeed, manuals for what are now called the computational social sciences often imagine that data mining and statistical averages are new, and that “Big Data” has only existed for the past decade. Such historical amnesia has led, this paper argues, to problems of modern bias emerging in the literature as a technical issue rather than a full-fledged conceptual barrier with long roots. Seen only in the light of present politics and practical concerns, I argue that these problems will remain intractable.

An Answer to a Question that Cannot Be Answered: A Pragmatist Approach to Viktor Frankl’s and Primo Levi’s Theoretical Perspectives on Humor

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jarno Hietalahti
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Future ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract This article offers a pragmatist approach to concentration camp humor, in particular, to Viktor Frankl’s and Primo Levi’s conceptualizations of humor. They both show how humor does not vanish even in the worst imaginable circumstances. Despite this similarity, it will be argued that their intellectual positions on humor differ significantly. The main difference between the two authors is that according to Frankl, humor is elevating in the middle of suffering, and according to Levi, humor expresses the absurdity of the idea of concentration camps, but this is not necessarily a noble reaction. Through a critical synthesis based on pragmatist philosophy, it will be claimed that humor in concentration camps expresses the human condition in the entirely twisted situation. This phenomenon cannot be understood without considering forms of life, how drastic the changes from the past were, and what people expected from the future, if anything.

Technic Self-Determination

2014 ◽  
pp. 203-224
Author(s):  
Franco Cortese
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Will ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Enhancement Technologies ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter addresses concerns that the development and proliferation of Human Enhancement Technologies (HET) will be (a) dehumanizing and a threat to human dignity and (b) a threat to our autonomy and sovereignty as individuals. Contrarily, HET can be shown to constitute the most effective foreseeable means of increasing the autonomy and sovereignty of individual members of society. Furthermore, this chapter elaborates the position that the use of HET exemplifies—and indeed even intensifies—our most human capacity and faculty, namely the desire for increased self-determination (i.e., control over the determining circumstances and conditions of our own selves and lives), which is referred to as the will toward self-determination. Based upon this position, arguably, the use of HET bears fundamental ontological continuity with the human condition in general and with the historically ubiquitous will toward self-determination in particular as it is today and has been in the past. HET will not be a dehumanizing force, but will rather serve to increase the very capacity and characteristic that characterizes us as human more accurately than anything else.

The Parable of the Rebellious Son(s)

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-405
Author(s):  
Colin Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Human Condition

The parable which we know as as ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’ and which the Germans call ‘Das Gleichnis vom verlorenen Sohn’ is the best loved of all Jesus' parables. It has given inspiration to Rembrandt and countless other artists. It has provided the theme for novels, ballet and film. It touches the human condition like no other story. It holds a mirror up to ourselves, whether we identify ourselves with the returning prodigal or see those around us unmasked as the elder brother. The parable has been examined by the best exegetes of the past and present.

scholarly journals A REALISTIC POLITICAL IDEAL

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Schmidtz
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract:Over the past decade, political philosophers and political theorists have had a common purpose: to reflect on the merits of realism and idealism when theorizing about the human condition and the nature of justice. We have settled that no one is against being realistic or against being idealistic per se. The contributions to this volume represent a conversation about what would make one attempt to articulate ideals better than another.

scholarly journals Diversity and public policy

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Boston ◽  
Paul Callister
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Social Diversity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
The Human Condition

The issues surrounding the nature and impact of diversity – and especially ethnic and social diversity – have attracted growing interest in many countries during the past decade. For the purposes of this discussion the term ‘social diversity’ is used to embrace diversity in values, religious beliefs, life circumstances, lifestyles and other aspects of the human condition. 

Integral Engagement: Christian Constructivism and the Social Sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-457
Author(s):  
Donald Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Human Condition

This article explores how Christian constructivism can guide educators who are Christians toward an integral engagement with the social sciences that is both critically reflective and humbly teachable. Such an engagement requires a recognition that all image-bearing human beings may contribute insights about the human condition, responsible stewardship of knowledge with the mind of Christ, and approaching the social sciences with gospel-directed critical realism that is neither fearful nor uncritically accepting of social science perspectives.

scholarly journals Using Big Data to Understand the Human Condition: The Kavli HUMAN Project

Big Data ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Okan Azmak ◽  
Hannah Bayer ◽  
Andrew Caplin ◽  
Miyoung Chun ◽  
Paul Glimcher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Human Condition

Beyond Realism

Renascence ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ascari ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Literary Character ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Human Condition

A complex and controversial novel, Atonement is at the core of a lively critical debate, opposing those who focus on the impossibility of Briony’s atonement – also in relation to the author’s atheist views – to those who conversely explore the redemptive quality of her “postlapsarian” painful self-fashioning. Far from concerning simply the destiny of a literary character, this debate has to do with the impact Postmodernist relativism has on both the conception of the human subject and the discourses of the past, from memory to history and fiction. Discarding any potentially nihilistic interpretations of Atonement as disempowering, this article delves into Ian McEwan’s multi-layered text in order to comprehend its ambivalences, its subtle investigation of the human condition, and its status as a postmemory novel reconnecting us to the events of World War Two.

“Men, Women, and Children Starving”: Archaeology of the Donner Family Camp

2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 627-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Dixon ◽  
Shannon A. Novak ◽  
Gwen Robbins ◽  
Julie M. Schablitsky ◽  
G. Richard Scott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Human Tissue ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Animal Tissue ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Wild Game ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Lake Site ◽  
The Human Condition

In spring of 1846, the George and Jacob Donner families and some 80 traveling companions began their overland trek to California. When the party ascended the Sierra Nevada in late October, a snowstorm forced the group to bivouac. At this point, the train became separated into two contingents; the larger party camped near Donner Lake and the smaller group—including the Donner families—settled at Alder Creek. Though written accounts from the Lake site imply many resorted to cannibalism, no such records exist for Alder Creek. Here we present archaeological findings that support identification of the Alder Creek camp. We triangulate between historical context, archaeological traces of the camp, and osteological remains to examine the human condition amid the backdrops of starvation and cannibalism. A stepped analytical approach was developed to examine the site’s fragmentary bone assemblage (n= 16,204). Macroscopic and histological analyses indicate that the emigrants consumed domestic cattle and horse and procured wild game, including deer, rabbit, and rodent. Bladed tools were used to extensively process animal tissue. Moreover, bone was being reduced to small fragments; pot polish indicates these fragments were boiled to extract grease. It remains inconclusive, however, whether such processing, or the assemblage, includes human tissue.

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