The idea that intelligence is embedded not only in a single brain network, but instead in a complex, well-optimized system of complementary networks, has led to the development of whole brain network analysis. Using graph theory to analyze resting-state functional MRI data, we investigated the brain graph networks (or brain networks) of high intelligence quotient (HIQ) children. To this end, we computed the “hub disruption index κ”, an index sensitive to graph network modifications. We found significant topological (...) differences in the integration and segregation properties of brain networks in HIQ compared to standard IQ children, not only for the whole brain graph, but also for each hemispheric graph, and for the homotopic connectivity. Moreover, two profiles of HIQ children, homogenous and heterogeneous, based on the differences between the two main IQ subscales (verbal comprehension index (VCI) and perceptual reasoning index (PRI)), were compared. Brain networks changes were more pronounced in the heterogeneous HIQ than in the homogeneous HIQ subgroups. Finally, we found significant correlations between the graph networks’ changes and the full-scale IQ (FSIQ), as well as the subscales VCI and PRI. Specifically, the higher the FSIQ the greater was the brain organization modification in the whole brain, the left hemisphere, and the homotopic connectivity. These results shed new light on the relation between functional connectivity topology and high intelligence, as well as on different intelligence profiles. (shrink)

This paper indicates how continental philosophy may contribute to a diagnostics of contemporary life sciences research, as part of a “diagnostics of the present”. First, I describe various options for an oblique reading of emerging scientific discourse, bent on uncovering the basic “philosophemes” of science. Subsequently, I outline a number of radical transformations occurring both at the object-pole and at the subject-pole of the current knowledge relationship, namely the technification of the object and the anonymisation or collectivisation of the subject, (...) under the sway of automation, ICT and big machines. Finally, I further elaborate the specificity of the oblique perspective with the help of Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses. Philosophical reflections on contemporary life sciences concur neither with a Master’s discourse, nor with university discourse, nor with what Lacan refers to as hysterical discourse, but rather with the discourse of the analyst, listening with evenly-poised attention to the scientific files in order to bring to the fore the cupido sciendi which both inspires and disrupts contemporary life sciences discourse. (shrink)

This paper addresses global bioethical challenges entailed in emerging viral diseases, focussing on their socio-cultural dimension and seeing them as symptomatic of the current era of globalisation. Emerging viral threats exemplify the extent to which humans evolved into a global species, with a pervasive and irreversible impact on the planetary ecosystem. To effectively address these disruptive threats, an attitude of preparedness seems called for, not only on the viroscientific, but also on bioethical, regulatory and governance levels. This paper analyses the (...) global bioethical challenges of emerging viral threats from a dialectical materialist (Marxist) perspective, focussing on three collisions: (1) the collision of expanding networks of globalisation with local husbandry practices; (2) the collision of global networks of mobility with disrupted ecosystems; and (3) the collision of viroscience as a globalised research field with existing regulatory frameworks. These collisions emerge in a force field defined by the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. Evidence-based health policies invoke discontent as they reflect the normative logic of a globalised knowledge regime. The development of a global bioethics or macro-ethics requires us to envision these collisions not primarily as issues of benefits and risks, but first and foremost as normative tensions closely entangled with broader socio-economic and socio-cultural developments. (shrink)

This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)

Human consciousness is widely understood to be underpinned by rich and diverse functional networks, whose breakdown results in unconsciousness. Candidate neural correlates of anesthetic-induced unconsciousness include: (1) disrupted frontoparietal functional connectivity; (2) disrupted brain network hubs; and (3) reduced spatiotemporal complexity. However, emerging counterexamples have revealed that these markers may appear outside of the state they are associated with, challenging both their inclusion as markers of conscious level, and the theories of consciousness that rely on their evidence. In this study, (...) we present a case series of three individuals in disorders of consciousness (DOC) who exhibit paradoxical brain responses to exposure to anesthesia. High-density electroencephalographic data were recorded from three patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) while they underwent a protocol of propofol anesthesia with a targeted effect site concentration of 2 μg/ml. Network hubs and directionality of functional connectivity in the alpha frequency band (8–13 Hz), were estimated using the weighted phase lag index (wPLI) and directed phase lag index (dPLI). The spatiotemporal signal complexity was estimated using three types of Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC). Our results illustrate that exposure to propofol anesthesia can paradoxically result in: (1) increased frontoparietal feedback-dominant connectivity; (2) posterior network hubs; and (3) increased spatiotemporal complexity. The case examples presented in this paper challenge the role of functional connectivity and spatiotemporal complexity in theories of consciousness and for the clinical evaluation of levels of human consciousness. (shrink)

Reading disability has been considered as a disconnection syndrome. Recently, an increasing number of studies have emphasized the role of subcortical regions in reading. However, the majority of research on reading disability has focused on the connections amongst brain regions within the classic cortical reading network. Here, we used graph theoretical analysis to investigate whether subcortical regions serve as hubs during reading both in Chinese children with reading disability and in age-matched typically developing children using a visual rhyming judgment task (...) and a visual meaning judgment task. We found that the bilateral thalami were the unique hubs for typically developing children across both tasks. Additionally, subcortical regions were also unique hubs for typically developing children but only in the rhyming task. Among these subcortical hub regions, the left pallidum showed reduced connectivity with inferior frontal regions in the rhyming judgment but not semantic task in reading disabled compared with typically developing children. These results suggest that subcortical-cortical disconnection, which may be particularly relevant to the phonological and phonology-related learning process, may be associated with Chinese reading disability. (shrink)

“To arrange in or analyse into classes according to shared qualities or characteristics; to make a formal or systematic classification” (OED). For many, classification provokes images of dull cataloging and arcane knowledge. However, in the eighteenth century it was neither dull nor arcane and had momentous import for natural philosophers and everyday individuals alike. Susannah Gibson has captured this expertly in her new book, and the subtitle accents the stakes: How Eighteenth-Century Science Disrupted the Natural Order. Although originating out of (...) a doctoral dissertation, this is not a dense monograph. Instead, Gibson targets a wider academic audience using compelling vignettes in digestible chapters with compact endnotes and helpful suggestions for further reading. On the whole, the book is a success, though more illuminating in some places than others. (shrink)

In the main body of colleges and universities, the effect of college teaching psychology management is an important standard to test the quality of college teaching psychology management and its effects on the development of college teaching psychology management. However, the psychology management system used by traditional colleges and universities is challenging to meet the needs of the innovation of the new talent training model of higher vocational education. The construction of the new micro-level teaching organization inevitably requires the psychology (...) management practice, structure, process, and technology at the medium and macro-levels to adapt to it. However, there are many mismatches in Higher Vocational Colleges’ internal and external administrative systems in China, such as low administrative efficiency, generalization of administrative power, low degree of specialization in administrative psychology management, and unreasonable administrative and organizational structure. This paper innovates the psychology management of colleges and universities reforms in combination with the characteristics of the digital age. Based on the collaborative innovation theory of colleges and universities, this paper puts forward the collaborative psychology management innovation network model of colleges and universities. The model combines the psychology management theory with the practical research of collaborative innovation in colleges and universities, expands the application and research field of innovation network theory, constructs the evaluation index system of students’ satisfaction in teaching psychology management in colleges and universities, and discusses it through reading and consulting materials and communication with teachers and students. A questionnaire of college teaching psychology management based on student satisfaction is formed. The experiment shows that teaching satisfaction is improved by nearly 31% compared with before innovation and reform. It can initially get the effect of innovation and reform, meet students’ needs, and promote the improvement of teaching psychology management quality. (shrink)

High and low alexithymia scorers were confronted with a modified visual oddball task that allowed the study of categorical perception of emotional expressions on faces. Participants had to quickly detect a deviant (rare) morphed face that shared or did not share the same emotional expression as the frequent one. Expected categorical perception effects, which were also neurophysiologically indexed, showed that rare stimuli were detected faster if they depicted a different emotional expression compared to rare stimuli depicting the same emotional expression (...) than the frequent one. Even if no differences were observed at a behavioural level, high alexithymia scorers evidenced overall delayed neurophysiological responses in components related to the attentional processing of rare emotional faces. Moreover, the categorical perception effects for event-related components associated with the attentional processing were smaller in high alexithymia scorers and were even absent for anger. These results show that high alexithymia scorers present discrimination delays that are already observed at the attentional level. (shrink)

I first visited the Galápagos Islands in June 1998, and little was as I expected. Rather than craggy barrens covered with scrub, lush foliage beautified many islands. Rather than flourishing coastal habitats, surface water temperatures were well above normal, and throughout the archipelago dead or dying sea lions, sea birds, and marine iguanas littered the shores. All of this was the result of increased rainfall and the disruption of the normal upwelling in waters surrounding the archipelago caused by the (...) 1997–1998 El Niño event. When I visited Galápagos again, in February 1999, the islands were suffering one of the driest periods on record, and terrestrial vegetation had died back; but the cool, nourishing upwelling had resumed, and the marine environment was thriving.A “study in contrasts” aptly describes the two extremes in environmental conditions in the Galápagos Islands in 1998 and 1999 and, as Edward Larson captures beautifully in this book, many aspects of their history. Indeed, a theme that emerges in Larson's historical account of the Galápagos is one of irony. Compare Herman Melville's characterization of the islands as “an archipelago of aridities, without inhabitant, history, or hope of either in all time to come” , with modern biologists' and eco‐tourists' view of the Galápagos as “hallowed ground” and “enchanting”; the view of Galápagos as a place where one can so easily see Creation with the view that is is a place where one can so easily see evolution ; the popular belief that Darwin used Galápagos finches as the basis of his theory of natural selection with the reality that a complete picture of Galápagos finch evolution didn't emerge until it was unveiled in 1947 by David Lack, who renamed “Galápagos finches” “Darwin's finches”; the treatment of Galápagos as a land of plenty from which early sailors, buccaneers, and greedy naturalists removed tens of thousands of tortoises with its current status as a land in which a single tortoise named Lonesome George is an icon for conservation worldwide; and its small stature in terms of geographical size with its monumental stature in terms of impact on the history of biological science.Expanding on the last contrast, Larson offers the following insight from Robert Bowman: “No area on Earth of comparable size has inspired more fundamental changes in Man's perspective of himself and his environment than the Galápagos Islands” . As such, the comprehensive history of the place provided by Larson is well justified. It is also fascinating, and Larson tells the tale well—concisely, occasionally with wit, and always with inclusive documentation. The text is divided into three parts, the first covering the period from the discovery of the New World, including Galápagos in 1535, to Darwin's legendary visit in 1835 and the subsequent publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859; the second, the explosion of interest in the archipelago by American and European naturalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and the third, the remarkable transformation of the Galápagos between World War II, during which it served as a military base for the United States, to the present. Following and cited in the text are sixty‐three pages of notes, a veritable gold mine of references to classic and obscure published material that demonstrate both how thoroughly Larson researched the topic and how persistently this small archipelago has pervaded scientific, governmental, religious, and public thought.This book is more than a historical account of scientific exploration in Galápagos; it is also a dramatic story of the history of Galápagos in human thought. By incorporating thoughts and findings of nearly every famous, infamous, and forgettable player in Galápagos exploration in roughly chronological order and in the context of prevailing social or scientific mores, Larson provides an extraordinary glimpse into human nature. Regarding the evolution of human thought in conceptualizing organic evolution, Larson demonstrates that spiritual concerns or other constraints prevent some individuals from progressing intellectually, others eagerly abandon all tradition to embrace new concepts, and still others find middle ground. As noted poignantly, no less than ironically, by Larson, creation science, not evolution, is taught in Galápagos schools, and this once‐pristine archipelago is now bustling with humans and the predictable problems that accompany us. The history of Galápagos, both in terms of its ultimate fate and its influence on human thought, is not finished. The sequel to Evolution's Workshop may be equally intriguing. (shrink)

The 1860s—the epoch of great reforms—brought to Russia a remarkable assortment of official actions that emancipated the serfs, liberalized the judicial system, created zemstva as experiments in limited local self‐government, granted universities an unprecedented scope of academic autonomy, and dramatically enlarged the number of young Russians enrolled in the leading Western universities in search of higher degrees in the sciences. These and similar reforms created an atmosphere favoring women's access to professional positions and contributing to the removal of the harshest (...) aspects of the lingering patriarchal system.Ann Hibner Koblitz's book offers a richly documented and judiciously analyzed portrayal of the widening scope of Russian women's active participation in the professional life of the nation. The book's analysis operates on two levels: the general dynamics of the rising social pressure to expand the range of professions open to women, and the personal experiences of individual women selected for special analysis. Koblitz is fully aware that the process of the emancipation and professional advancement of women was occasionally disrupted by adverse shifts in government policies. Concentrating primarily on the 1860s, this book makes many references to subsequent developments and provides enough documented information to create an adequate picture of the state of women's emancipation and professional employment during the waning decades of the nineteenth century.As might have been expected, Koblitz devotes the most interesting and penetrating analysis to the life and work of the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaia, the brightest star in the emancipation movement and a most respected model of high professional aspiration and achievement. Inspired by the philosophy and ideology of the Nihilist movement of the 1860s, Kovalevskaia decided to enter the challenging world of science, specializing in mathematics, the queen in the world of scientific thought. The Nihilists made the idea of close interdependence of science and democracy a pivotal point of their ideology. Encouraged and guided by the well‐known German mathematician Karl Weierstrass of Göttingen University, Kovalevskaia published a series of mathematical papers that attracted wide professional attention. Henri Poincaré, a leading mathematical physicist, referred to the paper that brought her the Prix Bordin from the Paris Academy of Sciences as a “celebrated memoir.” The Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected Kovalevskaia an honorary member, the first woman to receive such a high honor—she was not, however, allowed to work for a magisterial degree in Russia, a requirement for university employment.Koblitz shows that despite compounded obstructions on the path to professional achievement, women's gains in Russia were equal to those in the West. Her study provides solid information and cogent comments on the historical background and the educational role of the higher courses for women established in all major cities. Women, however, had less difficulty in acquiring higher education than in finding employment commensurate with their professional qualifications. Their employment by institutions devoted to scientific research was almost always at the level of auxiliary personnel. I. P. Pavlov's main laboratory showed that even at this level there were women who not only manifested originality in experimental work but also published advanced scientific papers. In his classic volume on the development of the theory of conditioned reflexes, Pavlov referred to the publications of eleven women.This book is welcome as the first solid effort to draw a general picture of the multiple ramifications of the ascent of Russian women to professional positions in science. It also contributes to a better understanding of the growing movement in favor of broader participation by women in the full spectrum of professional activities. This book is a rich source of topics for special studies. (shrink)

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are. _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions _is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty (...) years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, _Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- Disrupting the Impression of Stability in the Gender-Technology Relation -- Changing Images of Computers and its Users since 1980 -- Discursive Developments Within Computer Education -- Variations in Gender-ICT Relations Among Male and Female Computer Students -- Stories About Individual Change and Transformation -- Layered Meanings and Differences Within -- Is there an Elsewhere? -- References -- Endnotes -- Index.

Juxtaposing Cherríe Moraga's Loving in the War Years and Luce Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman, I explore the ways that sex and race intersect to complicate an Irigarayan account of the relations between mother and daughter. Irigaray's work is an effective tool for understanding the disruptive and potentially healing desire between mothers and daughters, but her insistence on sex as primary difference must be challenged in order to acknowledge the intersectionality of sex and race. Working from recent work on (...) the psychoanalysis of race, I argue that whiteness functions as a master signifier in its own right, and as a means of differentiation between the light-skinned Moraga and her brown-skinned mother. Irigaray's concept of blood deepens Moraga's account of her healing and subversive return to her mother. The juxtaposition of Moraga, Irigaray, and contemporary psychoanalysis of race can allow for a necessary revision of Irigaray's psychoanalysis that acknowledges the ways in which sexual difference is indexed by race and sheds new light on her account of the mother–daughter relation. (shrink)

Both individuals with diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and individuals high in psychopathic traits show reduced susceptibility to contagious yawning; that is, yawning after seeing or hearing another person yawn. Yet it is unclear whether the same underlying processes are responsible for the relationship between reduced contagion and these very different types of clinical traits. College Students watched videos of individuals yawning or scratching while their eye movements were tracked. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, the (...) Psychopathy Personality Inventory-Revised, and the Adolescent and Adult Sensory Processing Disorder Checklist. Both psychopathic traits and autistic traits showed an inverse relationship to contagious yawning, consistent with previous research. However, the relationship between autistic traits and contagious yawning was moderated by eye gaze. Furthermore, participants high in autistic traits showed typical levels of contagious itching whereas adults high in psychopathic traits showed diminished itch contagion. Finally, only psychopathic traits were associated with lower overall levels of empathy. The findings imply that the underlying processes contributing to the disruptions in contagious yawning amongst individuals high in autistic vs. psychopathic traits are distinct. In contrast to adults high in psychopathic traits, diminished contagion may appear amongst people with high levels of autistic traits secondary to diminished attention to the faces of others, and in the absence of a background deficit in emotional empathy. (shrink)

This article addresses the seemingly paradoxical proliferation of coded systems designed to guarantee our safety and crises that endanger us. These two phenomena, it argues, are not opposites but rather complements; crises are not accidental to a culture focused on safety, they are its raison d'être. Mapping out the temporality of networks, it argues that crises are new media's critical difference: its exception and its norm. Although crises promise to disrupt memory – to disturb the usual programmability of our machines (...) by indexing ‘real time’ – they reinforce codes and coded logic: both codes and crises are central to the production of mythical and mystical sovereign subjects who weld together norm with reality, word with action. Codes and states of exception are complementary functions, which render information and ourselves undead. Against this fantasy and against the exhaustion that crisis as norm produces, the article ends by arguing that we need a means to exhaust exhaustion, to recover the undecidable potential of our decisions and our information through a practice of constant care. (shrink)

Silence has gained a prominent role in the field of psychotherapy because of its potential to facilitate a plethora of therapeutically beneficial processes within patients’ inner dynamics. This study examined the phenomenon from a conversation analytical perspective in order to investigate how silence emerges as an interactional accomplishment and how it attains interactional meaning by the speakers’ adjacent turns. We restricted our attention to one particular sequential context in which a patient’s turn comes to a point of possible completion and (...) receives a continuer by the therapist upon which a substantial silence follows. The data collection consisted of 74 instances of such post-continuer silences. The analysis revealed that silence can retroactively become part of a topic closure sequence, can become shaped as an intra-topic silence, and can be explicitly characterized as an activity in itself that is relevant for the therapy in process. Only in this last case, the absence of talk is actually treated as disruptive to the ongoing talk. Although silence is often seen as a therapeutic instrument that can be implemented intentionally and purposefully, our analysis demonstrated how it is co-constructed by speakers and indexically obtains meaning by adjacent turns of talk. In the ensuing turns, silence indeed shows to facilitate access to the patient’s subjective experience at unconscious levels. (shrink)

Background Scientific and technological advancements in mapping and understanding the interrelated pathways through which biological and environmental exposures affect disease development create new possibilities for detecting disease risk factors. Early detection of such risk factors may help prevent disease onset or moderate the disease course, thereby decreasing associated disease burden, morbidity, and mortality. However, the ethical implications of screening for disease risk factors are unclear and the current literature provides a fragmented and case-by-case picture. Methods To identify key ethical considerations (...) arising from the early detection of disease risk factors, we performed a systematic scoping review. The Scopus, Embase, and Philosopher’s Index databases were searched for peer-reviewed, academic records, which were included if they were written in English or Dutch and concerned the ethics of (1) early detection of (2) disease risk factors for (3) disease caused by environmental factors or gene-environment interactions. All records were reviewed independently by at least two researchers. Results After screening 2034 titles and abstracts, and 112 full papers, 55 articles were included in the thematic synthesis of the results. We identified eight common ethical themes: (1) Reliability and uncertainty in early detection, (2) autonomy, (3) privacy, (4) beneficence and non-maleficence, (5) downstream burdens on others, (6) responsibility, (7) justice, and (8) medicalization and conceptual disruption. We identified several gaps in the literature, including a relative scarcity of research on ethical considerations associated with environmental preventive health interventions, a dearth of practical suggestions on how to address expressed concerns about overestimating health capacities, and a lack of insights into preventing undue attribution of health responsibility to individuals. Conclusions The ethical concerns arising with the early detection of risk factors are often interrelated and complex. Comprehensive ethical analyses are needed that are better embedded in normative frameworks and also assess and weigh the expected benefits of early risk factor detection. Such research is necessary for developing and implementing responsible and fair preventive health policies. (shrink)

Ukraine faces a threat of full-fledged default and deep financial and political crisis. The current deep recession is the country's second major economic crisis in ten years. Ukraine was severely affected by the global financial crisis in 2008, with its economy shrinking by 15% in 2009. The economy remained weak in the aftermath, as former government caused the business climate worsening. The lack of reforms limited growth of GDP to just 0.3% in 2012 and remained static in 2013. By the (...) end of 2013, Ukraine was already on the brink of collapse. The conflict in the eastern part of the country has further exacerbated the recession. Today the sources of economic growth in Ukraine have been exhausted, and the country is strongly increasing its debts trying to attract foreign investment. The government’s reform efforts have so far failed to significantly improve the country’s business climate. Ukraine is ranked 83rd out of 189 countries in the latest World Bank's ‘Doing Business’ 2016 index. This score is the second worst in Europe. Ukraine is still considered the most corrupt country in Europe as well. The persistent state of war has disrupted industrial production, which is mainly located in the eastern part. The article elucidates recent events in Ukraine as well as gives a brief historical overview. The influence of misleading governance of economic situation is revealed. The positive scenario, in which Ukraine overcomes default, is unlikely to happen unless the firm measures are to be taken. (shrink)

There are two main approaches to how statistical patterns are extracted from sequences: The transitional probability approach proposes that statistical learning occurs through the computation of probabilities between items in a sequence. The chunking approach, including models such as PARSER and TRACX, proposes that units are extracted as chunks. Importantly, the chunking approach suggests that the extraction of full units weakens the processing of subunits while the transitional probability approach suggests that both units and subunits should strengthen. Previous findings using (...) sequentially organized, auditory stimuli or spatially organized, visual stimuli support the chunking approach. However, one limitation of prior studies is that most assessed learning with the two-alternative forced-choice task. In contrast, this pre-registered experiment examined the two theoretical approaches in sequentially organized, visual stimuli using an online self-paced task—arguably providing a more sensitive index of learning as it occurs—and a secondary offline familiarity judgment task. During the self-paced task, abstract shapes were covertly organized into eight triplets (ABC) where one in every eight was altered (BCA) from the canonical structure in a way that disrupted the full unit while preserving a subunit (BC). Results from the offline familiarity judgment task revealed that the altered triplets were perceived as highly familiar, suggesting the learned representations were relatively flexible. More importantly, results from the online self-paced task demonstrated that processing for subunits, but not unit-initial stimuli, was impeded in the altered triplet. The pattern of results is in line with the chunking approach to statistical learning and, more specifically, the TRACX model. (shrink)

In the age of the digital generation, written public data is ubiquitous and acts as an outlet for today's society. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn have profoundly changed how we communicate and interact. They have enabled the establishment of and participation in digital communities as well as the representation, documentation and exploration of social behaviours, and had a disruptive effect on how we use the Internet. Such digital communications present scholars with a novel way to detect, observe, analyse (...) and understand online communities over time. This article presents the formalization of a Social Observatory: a low latency method for the observation and measurement of social indicators within an online community. Our framework facilitates interdisciplinary research methodologies via tools for data acquisition and analysis in inductive and deductive settings. By focusing our Social Observatory on the public Facebook profiles of 187 federal German politicians we illustrate how we can analyse and measure sentiment, public opinion, and information discourse in advance of the federal elections. To this extent, we analysed 54,665 posts and 231,147 comments, creating a composite index of overall public sentiment and the underlying conceptual discussion themes. Our case study demonstrates the observation of communities at various resolutions: “zooming” in on specific subsets or communities as a whole. The results of the case study illustrate the ability to observe published sentiment and public dialogue as well as the difficulties associated with established methods within the field of sentiment analysis within short informal text. (shrink)

Resumen: El estatuto teórico del concepto de la violencia escolar se ha resuelto parcialmente mediante el uso de definiciones. En el caso del campo científico chileno las definiciones de violencia escolar se formulan desde una episteme dualista, que establece la distinción entre lo escolar y lo no escolar, priorizan a un individuo abstracto, donde el espacio prima sobre el tiempo, las relaciones son causales y, en menor medida, de tipo covariación, constructiva de realidades y especular. El componente performativo es doble: (...) i) un modo de codificación y clasificaciones que estabilizan a un objeto que irrumpe en el campo científico y escolar; ii) producen una ausencia y exclusión de las relaciones y categorías posibles. No obstante, se observa que al interior de las propias definiciones se encuentran las semillas para un trabajo de transformación hacia epistemes no dualistas y complejas mediante las dimensiones de producción, reproducción y cruce de las violencias en la institución escolar según un enfoque tríadico. Esta reconstrucción se basa en un corpus de artículos indexados del campo de la educación sobre Chile entre los años 2001 a 2013.: The theoretical statute of the concept of school violence has been partly solved using definitions. In the case of the Chilean scientific field, the definitions of school violence are defined from a dualistic episteme that establishes the distinction between what is part of the school and what is not, that prioritizes an abstract subject, where space is more important than time, the relationships are of causal type and, to a lesser extent, of covariation type, that builds realities and that is speculative. The performative component has two aspects: i) a coding mode and classifications that stabilize an object that disrupts the scientific and school fields, and ii) produce a lack and exclusion of the relationships and potential categories. Nevertheless, it has been observed that there are some elements within the own definitions that could work for the transformation of dualistic and complex epistemes, through a dimension of production, reproduction, and the cross of different types of violence at school, following a triadic approach. This reconstruction is based on a corpus of articles from indexed journals about the Chilean educational field between 2001 and 2013. (shrink)

AimWhite matter changes in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR) may be involved in the transition to psychosis. Sleep-wake disturbances commonly precede the first psychotic episode and predict development of psychosis. We examined associations between white matter microstructure and sleep-wake disturbances in UHR individuals compared to healthy controls (HC), as well as explored the confounding effect of medication, substance use, and level of psychopathology.MethodsSixty-four UHR individuals and 35 HC underwent clinical interviews and diffusion weighted imaging. Group differences on global (...) and callosal mean fractional anisotropy (FA) was tested using general linear modeling. Sleep-wake disturbances were evaluated using the subjective measures disturbed sleep index (DSI) and disturbed awakening index (AWI) from the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire, supported by objective sleep measures from one-night actigraphy. The primary analyses comprised partial correlation analyses between global FA/callosal FA and sleep-wake measures. Secondary analyses investigated multivariate patterns of covariance between measures of sleep-wake disturbances and FA in 48 white matter regions of interest using partial least square correlations.ResultsUltra-high risk for psychosis individuals displayed lower global FA (F = 14.56, p < 0.001) and lower callosal FA (F = 11.34, p = 0.001) compared to HC. Subjective sleep-wake disturbances were significantly higher among the UHR individuals (DSI: F = 27.59, p < 0.001, AWI: F = 36.42, p < 0.001). Lower callosal FA was correlated with increased wake after sleep onset (r = −0.34, p = 0.011) and increased sleep fragmentation index (r = −0.31, p = 0.019) in UHR individuals. Multivariate analyses identified a pattern of covariance in regional FA which were associated with DSI and AWI in UHR individuals (p = 0.028), but not in HC. Substance use, sleep medication and antipsychotic medication did not significantly confound these associations. The association with objective sleep-wake measures was sustained when controlling for level of depressive and UHR symptoms, but symptom level confounded the covariation between FA and subjective sleep-wake measures in the multivariate analyses.ConclusionCompromised callosal microstructure in UHR individuals was related to objectively observed disruptions in sleep-wake functioning. Lower FA in ventrally located regions was associated with subjectively measured sleep-wake disturbances and was partly explained by psychopathology. These findings call for further investigation of sleep disturbances as a potential treatment target. (shrink)

This article re-evaluates the role of the manuscript tradition of the Historia Augusta in debates over the original contents and authorship of the text. Evidence for physical disruptions to the text before our oldest surviving manuscripts points to an earlier manuscript distributed across multiple codices. A multi-volume archetype eliminates critical arguments against the author's claims about lives missing before the Life of Hadrian as well as in the lacuna for the years a.d. 244–260. Other multi-volume codices of the eighth and (...) ninth centuries show that loss of an initial volume would have disrupted the textual tradition for the index, titles and authorial attributions. Comparison of our most complete early witness, Pal. lat. 899, to the independent branches of the textual tradition shows discrepancies between these paratextual elements as expected in a disrupted tradition. Ultimately, this article concludes that the current debates on authorship and the original scope of the Historia Augusta rest on paratextual elements from a single branch of the manuscript tradition, raising doubts about the centrality of these controversies to understanding the work. (shrink)

The total electron content in the ionosphere widely influences Global Navigation Satellite Systems especially for critical applications by inducing localized positional errors in the GNSS measurements. These errors can be mitigated by measuring TEC from stations located around the world at various temporal and spatial scales and using them for advanced forecasting of TEC. The TEC can be used as a tool in understanding space weather phenomena such as geomagnetic storms which cause disruptions in the ionosphere. This paper examines the (...) causal relationship between perturbations in TEC caused by geomagnetic storms. The causality between two geomagnetic indices auroral electrojet and disturbed storm index and TEC is investigated using Granger causality at two low-latitude stations, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The outcomes of this study strengthen the regional understanding and modeling of ionospheric parameters which can contribute towards the global efforts for modeling and reducing the ionospheric effects on trans-ionospheric communication and navigation. The causal inferences combined with the data-driven model can be useful in identifying the correct and informative physical quantities to improve the forecasting models. (shrink)

The current contents of visual working memory can be disrupted by previously formed memories. This phenomenon is known as proactive interference, and it can be used to index the availability of old memories. However, there is uncertainty about the robustness and lifetime of proactive interference, which raises important questions about the role of temporal factors in forgetting. The present study assessed different factors that were expected to influence the persistence of proactive interference over an inter-trial interval in the visual (...) recent probes task. In three experiments, participants encoded arrays of targets and then determined whether a single probe matched one of those targets. On some trials, the probe matched an item from the previous trial, whereas on other trials the probe matched a more distant item. Prior studies have found that recent negative probes can increase errors and slow response times in comparison to non-recent negative probes, and this offered a behavioral measure of proactive interference. In Experiment 1, factors of array size and inter-trial interval were manipulated in the recent probes task. There was a reduction in proactive interference when a longer delay separated trials on one measure, but only when participants encoded two targets. When working memory capacity was strained by increasing the array size to four targets, proactive interference became stronger after the long delay. In Experiment 2, the inter-trial interval length was again manipulated, along with stimulus novelty. Proactive interference was modestly stronger when a smaller number of stimuli were used throughout the experiment, but proactive interference was minimally affected by the inter-trial interval. These findings are problematic for temporal models of forgetting, but Experiment 3 showed that proactive interference also resisted disruption produced by a secondary task presented within the inter-trial interval. Proactive interference was constantly present and generally resilient to the different manipulations. The combined data suggest a relatively durable, passive representation that can disrupt current working memory under a variety of different circumstances. (shrink)

Due to the severe impairments in intra- and interpersonal interaction and communication, dementia will be hypothesized as a social disorder. Despite the increasing societal relevance of dementia this aspect is surprisingly under-researched in phenomenological philosophy. First, the symptomatic disturbance of the dynamic relationship between orientation, language and memory in Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD) is analyzed with the tools of a phenomenological psychopathology in terms of a lifeworld account. Due to the severe impairments of AD, two therapeutic strategies are discussed: first, the (...) situation-specific strategy, which examines communication resources in the here and now in the face-to-face situation; second, the context-specific strategy, which examines whether habitūs can soften the disruption of contextual knowledge by making it accessible as a resource of meaning that informs and thus orients the here and now. The guiding question of this enquiry is how AD changes the social experience in intra- and interpersonal terms. (shrink)

Emotional complexity means diversity, universality, and differentiation of individual emotions. This research consisted of two studies to demonstrate the constitution of the emotional complexity. In Study 1, the participants were asked to use 10 emotional words to record the variation of emotions over 30 days in daily life. In Study 2, the experimental materials were enriched. The participants were required to note the emotions with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule in a 3-day holiday—all the individuals in the two studies (...) needed to record the most important emotional event. As a result, the youth experienced complex emotions every day. Emotional complexity indicators included covariation index, component index, granularity index, and variability index. A four-factor model reflected a good model fit, with ????2/df = 0.33, CFI = 1.00, TLI = 1.03, RMSEA = 0.000, SRMR = 0.003, including positive differentiation, covariation of positive affect and negative affect, negative differentiation, and emotional variation. These indicators may reflect the complex experiences in everyday life. The results shed light on the emotional experience that can change greatly within 1 day and on episodes of emotional disruption resulting from an important event coupled with excessive excitement or extreme tension. (shrink)

What is silence? Is it a loss, an omission? Is it a stopping of the mouth, of the voice? An empty place where no meaning has come forward…or perhaps at times quite the opposite, an absence-as-presence Deleuze, 1990; Derrida, 1976)? Might silence evoke much more about what we assume is our monological, unitary reality, indexing possibilities yet unseen? This paper outlines the ways in which silence is typically understood according to scholarly orthodoxy: as omission in human communication or a silencing (...) of minoritized individuals or communities by those in power. It then moves to critique the preeminence of whitestream Western-centric academic authority, which self-perpetuates via the exclusion of outsider ways of doing, being and knowing such as those brought forward by silence, constituting a loss of meaning and knowledge from the social imaginary. This paper suggests that the pursuit of an articulate unknowing regarding silence as a creative, disruptive force beyond the control of rationality is a means of engaging with radical possibilities for a different, juster world. It proposes a socio-diologic politics of the real that welcomes silence as an unsettling of our current thinking about what is and will be possible, as well as who does and does not matter. It concludes by illustrating the ingenious force of silence in examples of subversive art that expose the hegemonizing, rational version of reality sold by academics and powerholders, bringing forward into the imagination what prospects for change, justice, and social transformation yet await. (shrink)

Drawing on Adorno and Horkheimer's oft-quoted 1944 essay, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” Bernard Stiegler’s The Age of Disruption affirms that the Frankfurt School duo scrupulously envisaged a “new kind of barbarism,” or an inversion of modernity’s Enlightenment project illustrated by our contemporary political semblance. Surveying the critical social fissures that index contemporary Western civil society—from 9/11 to the 2002 Nanterre massacre and the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting—Stiegler diagnoses that our epoch is plagued by the “absence (...) of epoch,” whereby computational capitalism and algorithmic governmentality have extirpated the “transcendental imagination” underlying vital primordial narcissism. In short, these are symptoms a world increasingly “going mad,” in a thousand ways, possible because we are the bearers of “a negative protention of a becoming without future,” yet “we prefer not to say so: we do not want to know about it.”. (shrink)

Latin America struggles to reach advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) development due to limited resources and talent retention. However, different public indexes indicate the region’s potential to become an AI hub. Our analysis of research databases indicates a growing trend towards NeuroAI — an interdisciplinary field emerging from neuroscience and artificial intelligence — suggesting that this area of study may be a driving force behind the potential for Latin America. This paper explores how NeuroAI could enable Latin America to bridge the (...) development gap with global AI leaders, leveraging its potential to overcome resource constraints. We analyze strategies for integrating NeuroAI advancements into the private sector, which could provide essential financial support for highimpact scientific research and foster regional innovation. (shrink)

This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities (...) worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. (shrink)

The key objective of this volume is to allow philosophy students and early-stage researchers to become practicing philosophers in technoscientific settings. Zwart focuses on the methodological issue of how to practice continental philosophy of technoscience today. This text draws upon continental authors such as Hegel, Engels, Heidegger, Bachelard and Lacan in developing a coherent message around the technicity of science or rather, “technoscience”. Within technoscience, the focus will be on recent developments in life sciences research, such as genomics, post-genomics, synthetic (...) biology and global ecology. This book uniquely presents continental perspectives that tend to be underrepresented in mainstream philosophy of science, yet entail crucial insights for coming to terms with technoscience as it is evolving on a global scale today. This is an open access book. (shrink)

This contribution addresses the anthropocenic challenge from a dialectical perspective, combining a diagnostics of the present with a prognostic of the emerging future. It builds on the oeuvres of two prominent dialectical thinkers, namely Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Hegel himself was a pre-anthropocenic thinker who did not yet thematise the anthropocenic challenge as such, but whose work allows us to emphasise the unprecedented newness of the current crisis. I will especially focus on his views on (...) Earth as a planetary process, emphasising that the “spirit” of technoscience is basically monitoring the impacts of its own activities on geochemistry and evolution. Subsequently, I will turn attention to Teilhard de Chardin, a palaeontologist and philosopher rightfully acknowledged as one of the first thinkers of the Anthropocene whose oeuvre provides a mediating middle term between Hegel’s conceptual groundwork and the anthropocenic present. Notably, I will discuss his views on self-directed evolution, on the on-going absorption of the biosphere by the noosphere, and on emerging options for “sublating” the current crisis into a synthetic convergence towards the Omega point. I will conclude that, after disclosing the biomolecular essence of life, biotechnology must now take a radical biomimetic turn ; that reflection itself must become distributed and collective; and, that the anthropocenic crisis must be sublated into the noocene. (shrink)

Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of theprinciple objects of monastic programs for moralexercise (askesis). During the seventeenth andeighteenth (...) century, food ethics was transformed interms of the increasing scientific interest in foodintake, while in the nineteenth century the socialdimension of food ethics was discovered, with theresult that more and more attention was given to theproduction and distribution of food products. Becauseof the increasing distance between the production andconsumption of food products ever since, theoutstanding feature of contemporary food ethics is itreliance and dependence on labeling practices. (shrink)

Concern for and interest in research integrity has increased significantly during recent decades, both in academic and in policy discourse. Both in terms of diagnostics and in terms of therapy, the tendency in integrity discourse has been to focus on strategies of individualisation. Other contributions to the integrity debate, however, focus more explicitly on environmental factors, e.g. on the quality and resilience of research ecosystems, on institutional rather than individual responsibilities, and on the quality of the research culture. One example (...) of this is the Bonn PRINTEGER Statement. This editorial to the LSSP thematic series entitled Addressing integrity challenges in research: the institutional dimension invites authors to contribute to the research integrity debate. Notably, we are interested in submissions addressing issues such as institutional responsibilities, changes in the research climate, duties of research managers and research performing or research funding organisations as well as new approaches to integrity education. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard occupies a unique position in the history of European thinking. As a philosopher of science, he developed a profound interest in genres of the imagination, notably poetry and novels. While emphatically acknowledging the strength, precision and reliability of scientific knowledge compared to every-day experience, he saw literary phantasies as important supplementary sources of insight. Although he significantly influenced authors such as Lacan, Althusser, Foucault and others, while some of his key concepts are still widely used, his oeuvre tends (...) to be overlooked. And yet, as I will argue, Bachelard’s extended series of books opens up an intriguing perspective on contemporary science. First, I will point to a remarkable duality that runs through Bachelard’s oeuvre. His philosophy of science consists of two sub-oeuvres: a psychoanalysis of technoscience, complemented by a poetics of elementary imagination. I will point out how these two branches deal with complementary themes: technoscientific artefacts and literary fictions, two realms of human experience separated by an epistemological rupture. Whereas Bachelard’s work initially entails a panegyric in praise of scientific practice, he becomes increasingly intrigued by the imaginary and its basic images, such as the Mother Earth archetype. (shrink)

This article addresses three paradoxes of biomimicry. First of all: how can biomimicry be as old as technology as such and at the same time decidedly innovative and new? Secondly: how can biomimicry both entail a ‘naturalisation’ of technology and a ‘technification’ of nature? And finally: how can biomimicry be perceived as nature-friendly but at the same time (potentially at least) as a pervasive biotechnological assault on nature? Contemporary (technoscientific) biomimicry, I will argue, aims to mimic nature at the level (...) of biomolecular processes and structures: contemporary biomimicry as micro-biomimicry. Moreover, building on Aristotle, Delbrück and Schrödinger, I will emphasise that what is mimicked by contemporary (technoscientific) biomimicry, in contrast to traditional (artisanal) instances of biomimicry, is not the morphological form (εi~δος), but rather the program or formula (δóγOς) of living systems. Contemporary biomimicry is ‘in accordance with nature’, but not in the traditional sense. Rather, building on decades of biomolecular research, it strives to reconcile nature and technology against the backdrop of advanced technicity. But biomimetics will only achieve its goals if it is not pursued purely as a technological endeavour, but complemented by an ethos of sustainability and respect for nature. These claims will be elucidated with the help of two case studies: a research project (namely the BaSyC project, launched in 2017 and aimed at producing a synthetic cell) and a science novel (namely Ian McEwan's Solar, which concerns the epistemic and moral challenges involved in artificial photosynthesis). (shrink)

Metaphors allow us to come to terms with abstract and complex information, by comparing it to something which is structured, familiar and concrete. Although modern science is “iconoclastic”, as Gaston Bachelard phrases it, scientists are at the same time prolific producers of metaphoric images themselves. Synthetic biology is an outstanding example of a technoscientific discourse replete with metaphors, including textual metaphors such as the “Morse code” of life, the “barcode” of life and the “book” of life. This paper focuses on (...) a different type of metaphor, however, namely on the archetypal metaphor of the mandala as a symbol of restored unity and wholeness. Notably, mandala images emerge in textual materials related to one of the new “frontiers” of contemporary technoscience, namely the building of a synthetic cell: a laboratory artefact that functions like a cell and is even able to replicate itself. The mandala symbol suggests that, after living systems have been successfully reduced to the elementary building blocks and barcodes of life, the time has now come to put these fragments together again. We can only claim to understand life, synthetic cell experts argue, if we are able to technically reproduce a fully functioning cell. This holistic turn towards the cell as a meaningful whole also requires convergence at the “subject pole”: the building of a synthetic cell as a practice of the self, representing a turn towards integration, of multiple perspectives and various forms of expertise. (shrink)

In various documents the view emerges that contemporary biotechnosciences are currently experiencing a scientific revolution: a massive increase of pace, scale and scope. A significant part of the research endeavours involved in this scientific upheaval is devoted to understanding and, if possible, ameliorating humankind: from our genomes up to our bodies and brains. New developments in contemporary technosciences, such as synthetic biology and other genomics and “post-genomics” fields, tend to blur the distinctions between prevention, therapy and enhancement. An important dimension (...) of this development is “biomimesis”: i.e. the tendency of novel technologies and materials to mimic or plagiarize nature on a molecular and microscopic level in order to optimise prospects for the embedding of technological artefacts in natural systems such as human bodies and brains. In this paper, these developments are read and assessed from a psychoanalytical perspective. Three key concepts from psychoanalysis are used to come to terms with what is happening in research laboratories today. After assessing the general profile of the current revolution in this manner, I will focus on a particular case study, a line of research that may serve as exemplification of the vicissitudes of contemporary technosciences, namely viral biomaterials. Viral life forms can be genetically modified (their genomes can be rewritten) in such a manner that they may be inserted in human bodies in order to produce substances at specific sites such as hormones (testosterone), neurotransmitters (dopamine), enzymes (insulin) or bone and muscle tissue. Notably, certain target groups such as top athletes, soldiers or patients suffering from degenerative diseases may become the pioneers serving as research subjects for novel applications. The same technologies can be used for various purposes ranging from therapy up to prevention and enhancement. (shrink)

This article aims to develop a Lacanian approach to bioethics. Point of departure is the fact that both psychoanalysis and bioethics are practices of language, combining diagnostics with therapy. Subsequently, I will point out how Lacanian linguistics may help us to elucidate the dynamics of both psychoanalytical and bioethical discourse, using the movie One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone as key examples. Next, I will explain the ‘topology’ of the bioethical landscape with the help of Lacan’s (...) three dimensions: the imaginary, the symbolical and the real. This will culminate in an assessment of the dynamics of bioethical discourse with the help of Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses. Bioethics, I will argue, is not a homogeneous discourse. Rather, four modalities of bioethical discourse can be distinguished, all of them displaying specific weaknesses and strengths, opportunities and threats. This will be elucidated with the help of two case studies, namely the debates on human reproductive technologies and on the use of animals as biomedical research models. (shrink)

1900 was a remarkable year for science. Several ground-breaking events took place, in physics, biology and psychology. Planck introduced the quantum concept, the work of Mendel was rediscovered, and Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams . These events heralded the emergence of completely new areas of inquiry, all of which greatly affected the intellectual landscape of the 20 th century, namely quantum physics, genetics and psychoanalysis. What do these developments have in common? Can we discern a family likeness, a (...) basic affinity between them, so that we can use the one to deepen our understanding of the other? One common denominator is that they open up realms of inquiry that are significantly different from the world of everyday experience, namely the realm of elementary particles, of genes and genomes, and of the unconscious. But to what extent can we meaningfully argue, for instance, that the genome is the biological unconscious, and the unconscious the psychic genome? To address these questions, I will build on the work of two key intellectual figures who have explored the affinities of these developments in depth, namely Erwin Schrödinger (a quantum physicist and avid reader of Schopenhauer who initiated molecular biology) and Jacques Lacan (who reframed the specificity of psychoanalysis with the help of 20 th century science: the era of structural linguistics, but also of quantum physics, molecular biology, bioinformatics and DNA). (shrink)

In recent years, Nietzsche’s views on (natural) science attracted a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Overall, his attitude towards science tends to be one of suspicion, or ambivalence at least. My article addresses the “Nietzsche and science” theme from a slightly different perspective, raising a somewhat different type of question, more pragmatic if you like, namely: how to be a Nietzschean philosopher of science today? What would the methodological contours of a Nietzschean approach to present-day research areas (such as neuroscience, (...) astrophysics, synthetic biology or climate studies) amount to? In other words, my paper reflects a shift of focus from author studies to extrapolation. The design of my article is as follows. I will start with the question (already widely discussed in the expert literature) to what extent Friedrich Nietzsche (a classical philologist by training) managed to familiarise himself with the natural sciences of his epoch. Subsequently, I will outline some basic methodological and conceptual ingredients of Nietzsche’s philosophy of science, focussing on core issues such as “genealogy”, “interpretation”, “enhancement” and “truth”. Next, I will elucidate Nietzsche’s genealogical methodology with the help of three case studies (three representative samples if you will) taken from Nietzsche’s writings and dealing with physiology, astronomy and neuro-psychology respectively. Finally, I will present the methodological contours of a Nietzschean understanding of contemporary technoscience. (shrink)

In 1968, Jürgen Habermas claimed that, in an advanced technological society, the emancipatory force of knowledge can only be regained by actively recovering the ‘forgotten experience of reflection’. In this article, we argue that, in the contemporary situation, critical reflection requires a deliberative ambiance, a process of mutual learning, a consciously organised process of deliberative and distributed reflection. And this especially applies, we argue, to critical reflection concerning a specific subset of technologies which are actually oriented towards optimising human cognition. (...) In order to create a deliberative ambiance, fostering critical upstream reflection on emerging technologies, we developed the concept of a mutual learning exercise. Building on a number of case studies, we analyse what an MLE involves, both practically and conceptually, focussing on key aspects such as ambiance and expertise, the role of ‘genres of the imagination’ and the profiles of various ‘subcultures of debate’. Ideally, an MLE becomes a contemporary version of the Socratic agora, providing a stage where multiple and sometimes unexpected voices and perspectives mutually challenge each other, in order to strength-en the societal robustness and responsiveness of emerg-ing technologies. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether skiing as a nature sport enables practitioners to develop a rapport with nature, or rather estranges and insulates them from their mountainous ambiance. To address this question, I analyse a recent skiing movie from a psychoanalytical perspective and from a neuro-scientific perspective. I conclude that Jean-Paul Sartre’s classical but egocentric account of his skiing experiences disavows the technicity involved in contemporary skiing as a sportive practice for the affluent masses, which actually represents an urbanisation (...) of the sublime, symptomatic for the current era. (shrink)

Life sciences and emerging technologies raise a plethora of issues. Besides practical, bioethical and policy issues, they have broader, cultural implications as well, affecting and reflecting our zeitgeist and world-view, challenging our understanding of life, nature and ourselves as human beings, and reframing the human condition on a planetary scale. In accordance with the aims and scope of the journal, LSSP aims to foster engaged scholarship into the societal dimensions of emerging life sciences (Chadwick and Zwart 2013) and via this (...) thematic series, the journal provides a podium for authors who intend to address concrete issues from a ‘continental philosophical’ perspective, which may in- clude (post)phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, (post)structuralism, psychoanalysis, critical theory and similar approaches. The series aims to contribute to a diagnostics of the present and a prognostics of the future, focusing on critical normative challenges (such as embodiment, intimate technologies, social justice, biopower, nanomedicine, human enhancement and the anthropocene) and building on the work of key authors such as Hegel (1830), Heidegger (1953, 1953/1954), Bachelard (1938), Canguilhem (1975), Lacan (1966, 1969-1970/1991), Habermas (1968), Serres (1972), Foucault (1969), Žižek (2006/2009), Stiegler (2010), Sloterdijk (2001, 2009) and others, but targeting con- crete up-to-date events and case studies against the backdrop of broader developments within the techno-scientific culture. (shrink)

Ten years after introducing the RRI concept, a reflection on its key ambitions seems called for, now that RRI enters the global arena. This paper focues on the key challenge that RRI is currently facing: epistemic inclusion. From the beginning, there has been the awareness that RRI must be open to multiple voices and perspectives, coming from academia, and also from society at large. Besides representing impressive bodies of knowledge, academic disciplines face knowledge gaps as well and must reach out (...) to other knowledge forms, e.g. practical, experiential, and indigenous knowledge. This paper analyses the challenges involved in epistemic inclusion while outlining viable pathways towards addressing them, based on experiences in European projects as our ‘laboratory'. After discussing interdisciplinarity, participatory research, and epistemic pluralism, while also addressing the academic reward system. Special attention is given to indigenous knowledge as a case study for epistemic pluralism. (shrink)