Context and question: Vaisesika metaphysical premises are founded on a form of atomism, that the reality is composed of four substances (earth, water, air, fire). Each of these four are of two types: atomic (paramanu) and composite. An atom is, according to Vaisesika scholars, that which is indestructible (anitya), indivisible, and has a special kind of dimension, called "small" (anu). A composite, in this philosophy, is defined to be anything which is divisible into atoms. Whatever human beings perceive is composite, while atoms are invisible. The Vaisesikas stated that size, form, truths and everything that human beings experience as a whole is a function of atoms, their number and their spatial arrangements, their guna (quality), karma (activity), samanya (commonness), visesa (particularity) and amavaya (inherence, inseparable connectedness of everything).
What is not a function of atoms?
Answer: unanswerable
Context and question: Erik Erikson (1902-1994) became one of the earliest psychologists to take an explicit interest in identity. The Eriksonian framework rests upon a distinction among the psychological sense of continuity, known as the ego identity (sometimes identified simply as "the self"); the personal idiosyncrasies that separate one person from the next, known as the personal identity; and the collection of social roles that a person might play, known as either the social identity or the cultural identity. Erikson's work, in the psychodynamic tradition, aimed to investigate the process of identity formation across a lifespan. Progressive strength in the ego identity, for example, can be charted in terms of a series of stages in which identity is formed in response to increasingly sophisticated challenges. The process of forming a viable sense of identity for the culture is conceptualized as an adolescent task, and those who do not manage a resynthesis of childhood identifications are seen as being in a state of 'identity diffusion' whereas those who retain their initially given identities unquestioned have 'foreclosed' identities (Weinreich & Saunderson 2003 p7-8). On some readings of Erikson, the development of a strong ego identity, along with the proper integration into a stable society and culture, lead to a stronger sense of identity in general. Accordingly, a deficiency in either of these factors may increase the chance of an identity crisis or confusion (Cote & Levine 2002, p. 22).
In what tradition is Erikson's work to track identity formation throughout a lifetime?
Answer: the psychodynamic tradition
Context and question: United States v. LaMacchia 871 F.Supp. 535 (1994) was a case decided by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts which ruled that, under the copyright and cybercrime laws effective at the time, committing copyright infringement for non-commercial motives could not be prosecuted under criminal copyright law. The ruling gave rise to what became known as the "LaMacchia Loophole," wherein criminal charges of fraud or copyright infringement would be dismissed under current legal standards, so long as there was no profit motive involved.
What loophole did the ruling give rise to?
Answer:
LaMacchia Loophole