Anthropomorphism

Vielfach bezeichnet die Hebräische Bibel ein Verhalten Gottes, einen Handlungs- oder Absichtswandel, als seine Reue (vgl. etwa die Fluterzählung, die Geschichte vom sog. Tanz ums goldene Kalb, das Jonabuch und die berühmte Passage von Gottes Herzensumsturz in Hosea 11). Ist Gott demnach fehlbar? Vergisst sich Gott? Tut Gott, was er sagt? Kaum zufällig hat die alttestamentliche Exegese dieses irritierende Gottesbild weithin gemieden. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die hebräische Reuewurzel "nicham" in ihrer Breite. Sie gelangt nach methodischen und semantischen Vorüberlegungen zu einer narratologischen Beschreibung und theologischen Deutung des biblischen Reue-Motivs. Zentrale Bedeutung gewinnt dabei die Kategorie der Bewegung. Israels Gott ist beweglich, kann sich bewegen und bewegen lassen. Bewegen sich Menschen kehrt Gott um, bewegt sich Gott können Menschen sich zu ihm kehren.

The field of contact linguistics has produced valuable insights into the ways languages behave in contact environments, and the present essay represents an attempt to adapt a number of these insights to the study of cultural contact more broadly. The historical phenomenon under discussion is a theological strand shared by rabbinic and late antique Platonist sources, namely, the attempt to formulate a theory of sacrifice that does not entail an anthropomorphic conception of (the highest) God. After adducing some of the key sources that represent this attempt in the respective traditions, the essay examines how best to conceptualize such similarity, absent shared terminology, explicit cross-tradition citations or references, or any other traditional markers of "influence." Here I employ the contact-linguistic category of areal diffusion, that describes the tendency of languages in contact over time to gradually adopt common features, even though it is not possible to determine which language "borrowed" from the other. Taking the theological critique of sacrifice as the cultural analogue to a linguistic feature, it is possible to see how the feature is evident in certain streams within rabbinic Judaism, platonic Paganism, and early Christianity. The essay then turns to examine some of the ramifications of a contact-linguistic approach and, drawing on the work of Salikoko Mufwene, puts forth two arguments: that the distinction between internally-and externally-induced change is both theoretically and analytically inadequate; and the need to examine cultural continuity no less than cultural change as the result of contact dynamics. The present article attempts to apply insights from the field of contact linguistics to the motif of anti-anthropomorphic critique of sacrifice, and then to use this analysis as an entrée into a broader methodological discussion of contact. 1 Critique of sacrifice is of methodological interest for two reasons. First, it is attested in both rabbinic and pagan-philosophical sources, without explicit evidence of either source's familiarity with the other-no direct quotes, shared terminology, references to authors, or the like. This characteristic paves the way for a discussion of cultural contact that is not manifested through the introduction of foreign elements, but through contact-induced modification of native elements-essentially the cultural equivalent of a calque-including areal diffusion that occurs when different cultures are in close proximity over an extended period of time. Second, the critique of sacrifice is attested in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the writings of certain prophets, raising the 1 This paper is part of a larger project involving the adaptation of analytic categories developed in contact-linguistics for use in the study of cultural contact more broadly. I want to thank Annette Yoshiko Reed and Jae Han for their insightful and helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

In this essay I explore the resources Thomas Aquinas provides for enquiries concerning the psychological abilities of non-human animals. I first look to Aquinas’s account of divine, angelic, human, and non-human animal naming, to help us articulate the contours of a ‘critical anthropocentrism’ that aims to steer clear of the mistakes of a naïve anthropocentrism and misconceived avowals to entirely eschew anthropocentrism. I then address the need for our critical anthropocentrism both to reject the mental-physical dichotomy endorsed by ‘folk psychology’ and to articulate a more adequate ‘commonsense psychology’ that acknowledges most embodied animal behavior is observable psychological behavior.

Next, I argue that we can develop Aquinas’s doctrine of estimation and conation to formulate an account of nonhuman animal action that more adequately characterizes the purposeful behaviors of non-human animals. To do so, we first need to recognize a wider range of non-human animal behaviors that are captured by Aquinas’s ‘estimative sense’ and that all of these behaviors are specified by a finite variety of particular goods confined to the animals’ environmental niches. But we also need to supplement Aquinas’s account of human and non-human animal agency by exploring the ontogeny and ecology of how humans and other animals become attuned to affordances within these different environmental niches. I argue that we should look to Aquinas’s account of non-human animal capacities in ST I-II 6-17 for subtle insights that can expand our understanding of how non-human animals engage in purposeful behavior by exercising analogous non-rational and imperfectly voluntary forms of intention, deliberation, choice, execution, and enjoyment. I conclude with an outline for how future enquiry can seek to explain the nonrational purposeful problem-solving competencies of chimps, canines, corvids, cetaceans, cephalopods, and other nonhuman animal species.

Dans la peinture de vases grecque, c’est au début du VIe siècle qu'apparaissent les premières représentations de divinités sous forme anthropomorphe. On voit alors apparaître hommes et dieux du cycle épique côte à côte, sur le même plan et selon les mêmes codes iconographiques. Par la suite, ce mode de représentation deviendra tout à fait commun, comme dans les images de combat héroïque. Pourtant l’anthropomorphisme des dieux grecs n’est pas sans amener une certaine ambiguïté. En effet, si les dieux se présentent visuellement de la même façon que les hommes, comment les distinguer de ces derniers ? Et comment les reconnaître entre eux ? Cette double question servira de fil rouge à la présente étude, dont l’objectif sera de mieux comprendre comment ont été traduites les différentes facettes de l’anthropomorphisme divin dans les images.

This thesis presents the design, modeling, and development of adaptive robot hands that are capable of performing dexterous, in-hand manipulation. The robot hand comprises of anthropomorphic robotic fingers, which employ an adaptive actuation mechanism. The mechanism achieves both flexion/extension and adduction/abduction, on the finger’s metacarpophalangeal joint, by using two actuators. Moment arm pulleys are employed to drive the tendon laterally, such that an amplification on the abduction motion occurs, while also maintaining the flexion motion. Particular emphasis has been given to the modeling and the analysis of the actuation mechanism. Also, a model for spatial motion is provided that relates the actuation modes with the finger motion and the tendon force with the finger characteristics. For the hand design, the use of differential mechanisms simplifies the actuation scheme, as we utilize only two actuators for four fingers, achieving affordable dexterity. A design optimization framework assess the results of hand anthropometry studies to derive key parameters for the bio-inspired actuation design. The model assumptions are evaluated with the finite element method. The proposed finger has been fabricated with the Hybrid Deposition Manufacturing technique and the actuation mechanism’s efficiency has been validated with experiments that include the computation of the finger workspace, the assessment of the force exertion capabilities, the demonstration of the feasible motions, and the grasping and manipulation capabilities. Also, the hand design is fabricated with off-the-shelf materials and rapid prototyping techniques while its efficiency has been validated using an extensive set of experimental paradigms that involved the execution of grasping and in-hand manipulation tasks with everyday objects.

This article elaborates how the political television drama House of Cards presents the state as a gendered human body, anthropomorphised in the United States’ presidential couple Frank and Claire Underwood and Russia’s President Viktor Petrov for popular consumption. In an attempt to bring gender into conversation with the concept of sphere of influence, the article shows the tensions between militarist masculinity and queer subjectivity. In House of Cards, the viewer can identify statecraft as mancraft, and see how nonnormative behaviour is written off statecraft. The article focuses on bodily performances as signs of different approaches to power, and argues that House of Cards reinforces a militarised ideal of power over in the everyday practices in and around the White House, as well as in the form of spheres of influence. The series produces a choreography of militarist performance, an imagery which reinforces the understanding of world politics as a terrain for establishing spheres of influence. In the series, spheres of influence become manifest through the exacerbating of patriarchal conduct and centralisation of power, as well as in the premise of building security on the basis of enmities and influence. Sphere of influence, thus, represents a form of masculinised order, pinned against feminised anarchy, leading not only to the subordination of the influenced state, but nonnormative subjectivities, in particular.

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On observe actuellement une volonté grandissante de doter des êtres artificiels d’une intelligence sociale. Quelles interactions se nouent avec ces êtres ? Comment la sociologie peut-elle les étudier ? Cet article fait un état des lieux sur les travaux mobilisables et propose une orientation nouvelle. On s’appuie d’abord sur les travaux ayant remis en cause une approche dualiste en termes de grands partages pour constituer l’ontologie comme un objet. On rend ensuite compte des recherches sur l’anthropomorphisation des machines qui proposent d’enquêter sur les opérations de détermination ontologique des êtres artificiels, du côté de la conception et des usages. Cette littérature permet de souligner que la question de l’ontologie se pose au moment d’entrer en relation, qu’elle est motivée par le souci de trouver des modalités ajustées de cohabitation. On propose enfin d’enrichir cette perspective de recherche en prêtant davantage attention à la réflexivité ontologique des acteurs.

Bu çalışma, Nietzsche'ye göre genel olarak mantığın ve özel olarak ise mantığın bazı ilke ve yasalarının hangi saiklerle ortaya çıkarıldıkları sorusuna bir cevap vermeyi amaçlamak-tadır. Böylece, mantığın Nietzsche'ye göre mantık dışı olan temel(ler)ine işaret edebilmeyi ummaktadır.

In Nihil Unbound and other shorter works, Ray Brassier develops his contemporary transcendental realism by adopting the nihilistic aspects of thinkers such as Laruelle, Sellars and Badiou, while leaving behind their anthropic residuals. What is surprising is that Brassier has yet to publish any critical analysis of Nick Land despite their striking similarities and interactions at Warwick University (notwithstanding Brassier's introduction to Land's collected writings and a 2010 talk on Land). This paper aims to fill in this gap by showing how Brassier adheres to Land's initial philosophy of the negative while rejecting its humanist political corollaries in favor of an epistemological turn to science. I will first show how Brassier adopts Land's idea that we must come to terms with our future extinction as the transcendental condition for thinking a non-conceptual reality beyond our anthropic delusions of grandeur. Unlike Brassier, however, Land goes on to identify capitalism's destructive processes as the organon for death's transcendental critique. Consequently, Land's recent work develops a pro-capitalist, neoreactionary politics with deeply narcissistic tendencies insofar as it rests on gratifying individuals' basest passions and greed. Conversely, Brassier maintains Land's initial notion of death as the transcendental critique of anthropocentrism, but instead links it to cosmology's insight into the solar system's eventual demise beyond anthropic political processes within our control. Although Brassier thereby believes that he is able to appropriate Land's useful conceptual resources for de-anthropomorthizing philosophy while stripping him of his humanist political remnants, this paper will conclude by drawing on the suggestions of Mark Fisher and Reza Negarestani to proffer a Landian rejoinder to Brassier: even if capitalism is anthropomorphic, it is necessary to politically fight against it rather than abandon politics altogether in favor of science, if only to rid science of its ideological servitude under the reign of capital.

Blackfish​: A Rhetorical Analysis gives a brief summary of the 2013 documentary 'Blackfish' (dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite) and analyzes the rhetorical strategies Cowperthwaite uses to support her claim - specifically,  the organization of opposing claims stated before supporting claims, establishing a strong ethos, and using pathos by relying on anthropomorphic anthropocentrism.