According to the normativists, dispositionalist theories of meaning fail because meaning is normative, not descriptive. One way to understand this notion of normativity is in terms of semantic correctness conditions. Anti-normativists typically accept that meaning implies semantic correctness but deny that this in turn implies that meaning is normative. Jeffrey Kaplan has recently argued that while semantic correctness may not imply full-blown normativity, semantic correctness is not descriptive either. I contend that Kaplan's argument has two main problems. First, his focus (...) on dispositionalism leaves it open for other descriptive facts to provide the basis of semantic correctness conditions. Second, he fails to show that the problems of dispositionalism are connected to semantic correctness in a way that demonstrates problems with descriptive theories of meaning. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the problem of embodied subjectivity, viewed from the perspective of spatiality. The questions I address arise from my ethnographic study on chronic pain. My main argument is that, in contrast to philosophical understanding of space as an a priori, or as a container, space and spatiality are shaped and reshaped through the body in pain. What characterizes most patients' experiences of space is movement. This can be understood through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological theory of the lived body (...) but needs in addition a cultural contextualization. Because of biomedical thinking, in Western settings chronic pain is liminal. It does not fit the biomedical categories of disease or space. This profoundly shapes patients' understanding of their subjectivity as homeless, and their experience of spatiality as estranged and exiled. (shrink)

The aging process involves changes in immune regulation, i.e. adaptive immunity declines whereas innate immunity becomes activated. NF‐κB signaling is the master regulator of the both immune systems. Two recent articles highlight the role of the NF‐κB system in aging and immune responses. Adler et al1 showed that the NF‐κB binding domain is the genetic regulatory motif which is most strongly associated with the aging process. Kwon et al2 studying HIV‐1 infection and subsequent immune deficiency process demonstrated that HIV‐1 Tat (...) protein binds to SIRT1 protein, a well‐known longevity factor, and inhibits the SIRT1‐mediated deacetylation of the p65 component of the NF‐κB complex. As a consequence, the transactivation efficiency of the NF‐κB factor was greatly potentiated, leading to the activation of immune system and later to the decline of adaptive immunity. These observations support the scenario where immune responses and aging process can be enforced by the potentiation of NF‐κB transactivation efficiency. Longevity factors, such as SIRT1 and its activators, might regulate the efficiency of the NF‐κB signaling, the major outcome of which is inflamm‐aging via proinflammatory responses. BioEssays 30:939–942, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article looks at negotiations with state authorities and the evidentiary criteria they create in culturally contrasting contexts when phenomena deal with elements that for the dominant society are conceptualized as “supernatural.” We draw from the level of experiences of other-than-human beings, especially spirits and “ungraspable” presences, as social practices in and of themselves as well as acts of mobilizing those which are meaningful for knowledge production in Indigenous Amazonia and North European contexts. Our two cases show how in state (...) territorial protection debates and health services, visibility, quantification, measurability, Euro-American dominant, mainly binary, and bounded concepts are employed to create the grounds of validity. Yet, for actual individual or collective experiences, new types of evidence work can emerge in collaborations. Thus, this article sheds light on the needs for contextual and communicative actions to overcome contrasting onto-epistemologies in the context of the state. (shrink)

Our aim was to study how nurses interpret patient autonomy in end-of-life decision making. This study built on our previous quantitative study, which evaluated the experiences of and views on end-of-life decision making of a representative sample of Finnish nurses taken from the whole country. We performed qualitative interviews with 17 nurses and analysed these using discourse analysis. In their talk, the nurses demonstrated three different discourses, namely, the ‘supporter’, the ‘analyst’ and the ‘practical’ discourses, each of which outlined a (...) certain position for patients and relatives, and a certain identity for the nurses in end-of-life decision making. The nurses’ talk showed notable differences when compared with that of physicians, highlighting the differences that take place in respect of the image of a person’s work, professional culture, professional identification and responsibilities. An important finding was that the nurses often described their participation in end-of-life decision making in terms of indirect influence. (shrink)

The foundations of AI design discourse are worth analyzing. Here, attention is paid to the nature of theory languages used in designing new AI technologies because the limits of these languages can clarify some fundamental questions in the development of AI. We discuss three types of theory language used in designing AI products: formal, computational, and natural. Formal languages, such as mathematics, logic, and programming languages, have fixed meanings and no actual-world semantics. They are context- and practically content-free. Computational languages (...) use terms referring to the actual world, i.e., to entities, events, and thoughts. Thus, computational languages have actual-world references and semantics. They are thus no longer context- or content-free. However, computational languages always have fixed meanings and, for this reason, limited domains of reference. Finally, unlike formal and computational languages, natural languages are creative, dynamic, and productive. Consequently, they can refer to an unlimited number of objects and their attributes in an unlimited number of domains. The differences between the three theory languages enable us to reflect on the traditional problems of strong and weak AI. (shrink)

It is commonplace that the modern world is more international than at any point in human history. Yet the sheer profusion of terms for describing political orders above the nation-state-including "international," "global," "transnational," and "cosmopolitan," among others-is but one indication of how conceptually complex this topic actually is. Taking a wide view of international projects in Europe since the eighteenth century, Nationalism and Internationalism Intertwined explores discourses and practices to challenge nation-centered histories and trace the entanglements that arise from international (...) cooperation. In this volume, a multidisciplinary group of scholars in history, political science, philosophy, computer science, and other fields ask how internationalism and adjacent concepts have been experienced, understood, constructed, debated, and redefined across different European political cultures. (shrink)

Para San Juan de Ávila la salvación de las almas es el principal negocio de Dios que estará unido, dada su situación histórica, a la reforma de la Iglesia y de los pastores. La Iglesia y el sacramento del orden, tienen un origen y una realización concomitante, obran simultáneamente la salvación, ninguno de ellos es consecuencia del otro sino que ambos son en Cristo. El objetivo de este artículo es presentar la identidad eclesial del sacramento del orden desde la doctrina (...) de San Juan de Ávila. Las consecuencias de esta reflexión sobre la identidad eclesial del sacerdocio nos llevará a comprender la profundidad de la doctrina avilista y saber enriquecer la actual reflexión teológica. (shrink)

This study investigated Finnish nurses’ experiences and views on end-of-life decision making and compared them with physicians’ views. For this purpose, a questionnaire was sent to 800 nurses, of which 51% responded. Most of the nurses had a positive attitude towards and respect for living wills, more often than physicians. Most also believed that a will had an effect on decision making. Almost all of the nurses considered it their responsibility to talk to physicians about respecting living wills. Do-not-resuscitate (DNR) (...) orders were often interpreted to imply partial or complete palliative (symptom-orientated) care, which may cause confusion. Half of the nurses reported that a DNR decision was discussed always or often with a patient who was able to communicate; physicians were more positive in this respect. Surprisingly, many nurses (44%) stated that active treatment continued too long. Two-thirds thought that their opinions were taken into account sufficiently, even though only half believed that, in general, they had some impact. (shrink)

During the past few years significant progress has been made in our understanding of the structure and function of the proteins involved in eukaryotic DNA replication. Data from several laboratories suggest that, in contrast to prokaryotic DNA replication, two distinct DNA polymerases are required for eukaryotic DNA replication, i.e. DNA polymerase delta for the synthesis of the leading strand and DNA polymerase alpha for the lagging strand. Several accessory proteins analogous to prokaryotic replication factors have been identified and some of (...) these are specific for pol delta whereas others affect both DNA replicases. The replicases and their accessory proteins appear to be highly conserved in eukaryotes, as homologous proteins have been found in species ranging from humans to yeast. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current status of ownership of patient information from a Lockean perspective and then present Datenherrschaft as a new model for patient ownership of patient information. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is theoretical in approach. It is based on arguments derived from Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. Legal examples of the current situation are derived from Finnish, UK and Swedish legislation. Findings – Current legislation concerning patient information is not clearly formulated (...) and so recognising a new right on the part of the patient, Datenherrschaft, would be an ethically justifiable way of remedying the issue. Research limitations/implications – The legal analysis was limited to Finland, the UK and Sweden, and so other legislation should be looked at in future research. Datenherrschaft is used as an example of an ethically justified way of regulating patient information ownership and should be analysed further. Originality/value – Patient information ownership is an issue that is not unambiguously solved in many countries, nor has it, in our view, been ethically justified. The potential solution presented in this paper is clear and has strong ethical justifications. (shrink)

In times of crisis, one of the areas heavily affected has been food, as a direct consequence of the damage caused to family farming and therefore to Food and Nutrition Security (SAN). Climate change, in turn, causes widespread crises, which, due to their impact on humanity, and above all, on SAN, provide complex humanitarian crises, worsening hunger. The military conflict imposes difficulties in access to food and production. This study aimed to critically describe the panorama of climate change and armed (...) conflicts in Africa, relating them to the pandemic of COVID-19 as a factor of aggravating the situation of food insecurity in African countries. A literature review study was carried out in various databases, journals and portals for this purpose, with emphasis on Google Scholar, CAPES and governmental portals. The results point to climate change, as being multicausal, and constitute a risk factor for agriculture and SAN, in African countries, characterized by the destruction of crops and the reduction of food availability. Armed conflicts makes difficult to produce and distribute food, especially for people who’s affected. (shrink)

O autor analisa a posição de Antero de Quental perante o movimento iberista do século XIX, destacando a origem peninsular deste e a sua tradição, com raízes no liberalismo. Aponta a influência nesse movimento de um proudhonismo ingénuo, e destaca o papel de José Félix Henriques Nogueira como transmissor de um ideal federativo com base na concepção de uma "pátria espanhola comum", em que a federação tende no limite paraa fusão.A propósito conclui que a formulação dada por Antero (...) a este pensamento, em Portugal perante a Revolução de Espanha não é mais radical que a de Nogueira, antes é uma consequência contida no pensamento deste precursor do republicanismo. Por outro lado, Teófilo Braga, além de partilhar do ideal liberalista, advogou a separação dos Açores do continente português, contrariamente a Antero de Quental, que pensava que os açorianos só podiam ser portugueses, devendo entrar, federados com o Continente, num estado ibérico. /// L'auteur analyse la position de Antero de Quental devant le mouvement ibériste du XlX.e siècle, en mettant en relief son origine péninsulaire et sa tradition enracinée dans le libéralisme portugais. Il remarque l'influence sur ce mouvement d'un proudhonisme naïf et met en relief l'importance de José Félix Henriques Nogueira en tant que diffuseur d'un idéal fédératif basé sur la conception d'une "patrie espagnole commune", dans laquelle la fédération, à la limite, tend vers la fusion. À ce propos il remarque que la formulation donnée à cette pensée par Antero dans Portugal perante a Revolução de Espanha n'est pas plus radicale que celle de Nogueira; elle est plutôt une conclusion contenue dans la pensée de ce précurseur du républicanisme portugais. Par ailleurs, Teófilo Braga non seulement partagea l'idéal ibériste, mais il a été partisant de la séparation des Açores du Portugal continental, contrairement à Antero de Quental, qui jugeait que les Açoréens ne pourraient être que Portugais, et devraient entrer en fédération avec le Portugal ibérique dans un état péninsulaire. /// The author analises the position of Antero de Quental within the Iberist movement of the XlXth century and emphazises its Peninsular origin and its tradition with roots in the Portuguese Liberalism. He points to the influence in this movement of a certain naive proudhonism and the rêle of José Félix Henriques Nogueira as a transmitter of a federative ideal based on the conception of a "common Spanish fatherland" in which the federation tends at the limit towards fusion. In this context he concludes that the formulation given by Antero in the opuscule Portugal perante a Revolução de Espanha is no more radical than that of Nogueira; it is rather a consequence of the thought of that forerunner of the republicanism in Portugal. On the other hand Teófilo Braga not only shared the Iberist ideal, but also defended the separation of the Azores from the Portuguese homeland, contrarily to Antero de Quental, who thought that the Azoreans could only be Portuguese and that they should accede to an Iberian state federated with the mainland. (shrink)

In recent years the study of local religious histories, especially in Europe, has gained in prominence. Because of the encounters between different cultural traditions in the Middle Ages and the voyages of discovery, the religious history of the Iberian Peninsula became one of the most complex in Europe. This article focuses on one portion of this history around the turn of the 19th/20th century, and in particular on two attempts to blame the Catholic religion for the general crisis in Spain (...) and Portugal at the start of the modern era. These two forms of critiquing religion are illustrated by the examples of Miguel de Unamuno and Antero de Quental, whose writings were characteristic of the typical relationship between religion and intellectuals in this period. Not only were the Spanish philosopher and the Portuguese poet influential on their own and later generations, but they are also truly representative of a certain tragic ”loss“ of religion in the Iberian Peninsula. (shrink)

This paper analyses the contribution to environmental philosophy of the twentieth century philosophy transformation and the historical contribution of Portuguese philosophy, Bento de Espinosa and Antero de Quental, Portuguese philosopher from XIX century. Both built their philosophy of nature in a critical perspective of the thinking of Ernest Haeckel; and also Jorge de Sena, philosophical poet and writer of the XX century. Their analytic perspective is that the fundamental pushes of environmental philosophy reflection, from Espinosa to Antero and (...) Sena, were the ethical issue and the moral problems. Unlike the history of philosophy, whose core problems are the human condition, the environmental philosophy drive their thoughts to the “raison d’ être” of the world and their phenomenology, without becoming a philosophy against the man, because the nature of the Human being, the nature of all entities and beings from the universe is the same “star dust”. The article postulates two fundamental theses: Environmental philosophy built a new ontology in criticizing anthropocentrism, but only in articulation with a new epistemology, founded in criticism of ethnocentrism, it could lead to a new ethics universal theory. (shrink)

A filosofia de Antero de Quental resume-se na sua célebre frase: "O drama do ser termina na libertação final pelo bem". Essa libertação supõe, em Antero, a Moral e o Sentimento Religioso que estão portanto no centro da sua filosofia e que aqui se analisam desde a reacção contra Hegel até à formulação da sua moral que tenta explicar o sentido final da vida humana como "o momento último e mais verdadeiro". /// La philosophie de Antero de (...) Quental se résume par la célèbre phrase: "le drame de l'être s'achève avec libération finale par le lien". Cette libération suppose, chez Antero, la Morale et le Sentiment religieux, que se trouvent donc en centre de sa philosophie et que l'on analyse ici daprès la réaction contre Hegel jusqu'à la formulation de sa morale, qui s'efforce d'expliquer le sens final de la vie humaine comme "le moment ultime et le plus vrai". /// The philosophy of Antero de Quental can be resumed in his own words: "The drama of being ends in the final liberation by the good". For Antero, liberation implies Moral and Religious Sentiment, which occupy a central place in his philosophy. It becomes thus understandable his reaction against Hegel and his own formulation of moral sentiment, which explains the final meaning of human life as "the ultimate and truest moment". (shrink)

Eva Hudlicka, Int. J. Mach. Conscious., 06, 29 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400058.

Para devenir una unidad orgánica y funcional, el ser vivo necesita conservar la distinción interna entre forma y materia en términos de causa y concausa de dicha unidad. Una reconsideración de los ejemplos del hacha y del ojo bajo la perspectiva de los criterios lógico-semánticos de antero-posterioridad permite explicar la diferencia interna entre cuerpo y alma, en un contexto que enfatiza la no-separación del alma respecto del cuerpo, y clarificar el estatuto ontológico de las partes orgánicas para salvar la (...) unidad sustancial de un organismo vivo. (shrink)

The primitive streak establishes the antero‐posterior body axis in all amniote species. It is thought to be the conduit through which mesoderm and endoderm progenitors ingress and migrate to their ultimate destinations. Despite its importance, the streak remains poorly defined and one of the most enigmatic structures of the animal kingdom. In particular, the posterior end of the primitive streak has not been satisfactorily identified in any species. Unexpectedly, and contrary to prevailing notions, recent evidence suggests that the murine (...) posterior primitive streak extends beyond the embryo proper. In its extraembryonic site, the streak creates a node‐like cell reservoir from which the allantois, a universal caudal appendage of all amniotes and the future umbilical cord of placental mammals, emerges. This new insight into the fetal/umbilical relationship may explain the etiology of a large number of umbilical‐associated birth defects, many of which are correlated with abnormalities of the embryonic midline. (shrink)

In vertebrates the antero‐posterior organization of the embryonic body axis is thought to result from the activity of two separate centers, the head organizer and the trunk organizer, as operationally defined by Spemann in the 1920s. Current molecular studies have supported the existence of a trunk organizer activity while the presence of a distinct head inducing center has remained elusive. Mainly based on analyses of headless mutants in mice, it has been proposed that the anterior axial mesoderm plays a (...) determining role in head induction. Recent gain‐ and loss‐of‐function studies in various organisms, however, provide compelling evidence that a largely ignored region, the anterior primitive endoderm, specifies rostral identity. In this review we discuss the emerging concept that the anterior primitive endoderm, rather than the prechordal plate mesoderm, induces head development in the vertebrate embryo. (shrink)

This essay argues that the Phaedrus’s Palinode articulates an account of love (erōs) in which the experience of love can morally and intellectually transform both lover and beloved. After situating this account of love within the dialogue’s thematization of soul-leading (psuchagōgia), I show how Socrates’s account of love makes an intervention into typical Greek thought on pederasty and argue against Jessica Moss’s contention that soul-leading love suffers severe limitations in its soul-leading capacity, showing that Moss is wrong to think that (...) love can only efficaciously lead souls that are already well-formed. By contrast, the Palinode portrays the moral and intellectual formation of the lover, who first approaches the beloved in the spirit of rapacity only to be turned by his experience of beauty toward genuine service, ordered to the beloved’s benefit. The beloved likewise undergoes such a transformation as a result of his nascent return-love (anterōs). (shrink)

Somites are transient structures which represent the most overt segmental feature of the vertebrate embryo. The strict temporal regulation of somitogenesis is of critical developmental importance since many segmental structures adopt a periodicity based on that of the somites. Until recently, the mechanisms underlying the periodicity of somitogenesis were largely unknown. Based on the oscillations of c-hairy1 and lunatic fringe RNA, we now have evidence for an intrinsic segmentation clock in presomitic cells. Translation of this temporal periodicity into a spatial (...) periodicity, through somite formation, requires Notch signaling. While the Hox genes are certainly involved, it remains unknown how the metameric vertebrate axis becomes regionalized along the antero–posterior (AP) dimension into the occipital, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral domains. We discuss the implications of cell division as a clock mechanism underlying the regionalization of somites and their derivatives along the AP axis. Possible links between the segmentation clock and axial regionalization are also discussed. BioEssays 22:72–83, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Somites are transient structures which represent the most overt segmental feature of the vertebrate embryo. The strict temporal regulation of somitogenesis is of critical developmental importance since many segmental structures adopt a periodicity based on that of the somites. Until recently, the mechanisms underlying the periodicity of somitogenesis were largely unknown. Based on the oscillations of c-hairy1 and lunatic fringe RNA, we now have evidence for an intrinsic segmentation clock in presomitic cells. Translation of this temporal periodicity into a spatial (...) periodicity, through somite formation, requires Notch signaling. While the Hox genes are certainly involved, it remains unknown how the metameric vertebrate axis becomes regionalized along the antero–posterior (AP) dimension into the occipital, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral domains. We discuss the implications of cell division as a clock mechanism underlying the regionalization of somites and their derivatives along the AP axis. Possible links between the segmentation clock and axial regionalization are also discussed. (shrink)

Table of Contents: -/- Panu Raatikainen: Varieties of Ideal Language Philosophy. Jani Sinokki: Descartes on Language: How Signification Leads to Direct Reference. Matti Eklund: Carnapian Frameworks Revisited. Joseph Almog & Andrea Bianchi: The Semantics of Common Nouns and the Nature of Semantics. Gabriel Sandu: The Fallacies of the New Theory of Reference: Some Afterthoughts. Genoveva Martí: Experimental Results on Kind Terms: A Critical Reflection. Michael Devitt: Type Specimens and Reference. Jussi Haukioja: Conceptual Engineering for Externalists. Panu Raatikainen: Fictional Names Revisited. (...) Teemu Tauriainen: Indeterminism about Discourse Domains. Anandi Hattiagandi: Is Logic Normative? Jaakko Reinikainen: Constitutive Rules and Internal Criticism of Assertion. Aleksi Honkasalo: What Could and What Should Be Said? On Semantic Correctness and Semantic Prescriptions. Pasi Valtonen: Rearticulated Psychological View of Generics and Worldly Truthmakers. Joonas Pennanen: The Dual Character of Essentially Contested Concepts. Teemu Toppinen & Vilma Venesmaa: Unified Metasemantics for Expressivists. (shrink)

Após um breve excurso por alguns dos momentos significativos da actividade política do nosso filósofo-poeta, pretende-se então anal isarostemas nucleares do social ismoproudhoniano (revolução, dialéctica, propriedade, Estado, moral) cuja pertinência seja relevante no socialismo de Antero. /// Après un bref excursus par quelques moments significatifs de l'activité politique de notre philosophe-poète, on analyse les thèmes fondamentaux du socialisme proudhonîen (révolution, dialectique, propriété, État, morale) dont la pertinence soit éclatante dans le socialisme d'Antero. /// After a brief excursus on (...) some of the most significant aspects of our philosopher-poet's political activity, an analysis is made of the main themes of the proudhonian socialism (revolution, dialectics, property, State, ethics) that have strongly influenced Antero's socialism. (shrink)