Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Ce´re´brale (LENA), Hoˆpital de La Salpeˆtrie`re, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

We argue that ecology in general and biodiversity and ecosystem function research in particular need an understanding of functions which is both ahistorical and evolutionarily grounded. A natural candidate in this context is Bigelow and Pargetter’s evolutionary forward-looking account which, like the causal role account, assigns functions to parts of integrated systems regardless of their past history, but supplements this with an evolutionary dimension that relates functions to their bearers’ ability to thrive and perpetuate themselves. While Bigelow and Pargetter’s account (...) focused on functional organization at the level of organisms, we argue that such an account can be extended to functional organization at the community and ecosystem levels in a way that broadens the scope of the reconciliation between ecosystem ecology and evolutionary biology envisioned by many BEF researchers. By linking an evolutionary forward-looking account of functions to the persistence-based understanding of evolution defended by Bouchard and others, and to the theoretical research on complex adaptive systems, we argue that ecosystems, by forming more or less resilient assemblages, can evolve even while they do not reproduce and form lineages. We thus propose a Persistence Enhancing Propensity account of role functions in ecology to account for this overlap of evolutionary and ecological processes. (shrink)

According to portfolio managers, agriculture in general, and farmland in particular, can be considered an emerging asset class. Specialized financial vehicles, such as private equity and mutual funds, are emerging and competing to attract potential investment in this asset class. In recent years, there has been significant development of such vehicles targeting South Africa’s farming sector. These innovations are led by a group of market intermediaries who endeavour to “re-shape” South African farmland as an opportunity for institutional investors. These “pioneers” (...) engage in a multifaceted mediation process between global financial investors on one hand, and the South African agricultural sector on the other. Drawing upon an empirical study of such intermediaries in South Africa, this paper analyses the concrete mechanisms that facilitate this particular form of commodification. The paper presents and compares the intermediaries, giving particular attention to their structure, governance mechanisms and asset allocations within this “market in the making”. It describes how intermediaries develop different paths of asset valorization to unlock the “financial value” of South African farmlands. But, it also highlights some of the difficulties faced in the process of translating between international investors and local managers, questioning the “land-asset fiction” that is materializing through the subordination of farmland to the needs of financial society. (shrink)

PLoS ONE 3(3): e1897. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.

Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were philosophers and theologians associated with Port-Royal Abbey, a centre of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. Their enormously influential Logic or the Art of Thinking, which went through five editions in their lifetimes, treats topics in logic, language, theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and also articulates the response of 'heretical' Jansenist Catholicism to orthodox Catholic and Protestant views on grace, free will and the sacraments. In attempting to combine the categorical theory of (...) the proposition with a Cartesian account of knowledge, their Logic represents the classical view of judgment which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers. This edition presents a new translation of the text, together with a historical introduction and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The capacity to stabilize the content of attention over time varies among individuals, and its impairment is a hallmark of several mental illnesses. Impairments in sustained attention in patients with attention disorders have been associated with increased trial-to-trial variability in reaction time and event-related potential deficits during attention tasks. At present, it is unclear whether the ability to sustain attention and its underlying brain circuitry are transformable through training. Here, we show, with dichotic listening task performance and electroencephalography, that training (...) attention, as cultivated by meditation, can improve the ability to sustain atten- tion. Three months of intensive meditation training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones, as indicated by both enhanced theta-band phase consistency of oscillatory neural responses over anterior brain areas and reduced reaction time variability. Furthermore, those individuals who showed the greatest increase in neural response consistency showed the largest decrease in behav- ioral response variability. Notably, we also observed reduced variability in neural processing, in particular in low-frequency bands, regardless of whether the deviant tone was attended or unattended. Focused attention meditation may thus affect both distracter and target processing, perhaps by enhancing entrainment of neuronal oscillations to sensory input rhythms, a mechanism important for controlling the content of attention. These novel findings highlight the mechanisms underlying focused attention meditation and support the notion that mental training can significantly affect attention and brain function. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The discovery of the concrete basis for genes, and especially the clarification of mechanisms regulating gene expressions (in particular those that bear on the stepwise processing of hereditary information from the sequences of DNA nucleotides to the proteins) was to give flesh to the concept of a genetic program, for these regulations introduce relationships of order between the various elements of information contained in the genes. These order relations are then revealed during the time-dependent expression of the genetic program. They (...) can lead, in the case of a given program, to a plethora of particular outcomes, because the number of possible combinations rapidly becomes enormous. Since the discoveries of Jacob and Monod, it is clear that the genes specifying the regulatory functions will be responsible for phenotypic variability, especially for the apparently ideal adaptation of a living organism to its environment, and more generally for all the genotype-bound manifestations as they unfold in time. -/- Thus we are led to consider three particular characteristics that allow for the representation of living beings: a program, which summarizes the hereditary constraints and is, in fact, the abstract notion underlying the definition of all individuals in a given class (species); an initial state of the system that represents the context in which the program must express itself at the time of the individual's birth; and a particular outcome of each program, which coincides with individual development. The set of all outcomes constitutes the genetic envelope and allows the essential characteristics of the program to be obtained by induction. Theoretically, a structured set equivalent to the aforementioned one could be reconstructed by providing the program, the initial state, and the totality of the events of the external environment, producing any interaction whatever with the individual. -/- As a consequence, the observation of a phenotype does not tell in any straightforward way, what is the direct consequence of the expression of a particular gene, or of a specific feature of the environment. A phenocopy is a particular example of a phenotype that is the result of a gene expression mimicking a particular gene-directed phenotype, without however corresponding to a pparticular mutation of a known gene. (shrink)

Danchin argues that if scientists can reach a level of understanding of genomes, they will be able to resolve the major biological puzzle of the 21st century: the enigma of the living machine that creates the living machine.

Applied Geography, A World Perspective reviews progress in applied geography in different regions of the world. It does this through the eyes of an international panel of highly regarded academic practitioners. The book offers new prospects on the use of established approaches and explores exciting new territories. Together, the contributors provide a comprehensive picture of applied geography today. This book is of relevance to faculty and graduate students in the fields of geography, planning, public policy, regional science and other related (...) social and behavioural sciences. (shrink)

Dans le chapitre 12 de son TTP, Spinoza définit le sacré de la sorte : « Mérite le nom de sacré et de divin ce qui est destiné à l'exercice de la piété et de la religion et ce caractère sacré demeurera attaché à une chose aussi longtemps seulement que les hommes s'en serviront religieusement ». De par cette définition première qui fait relever le sacré de la religion, Spinoza est en train d'exclure le sacré du domaine de la vérité (...) qui est propre à la philosophie. Quant à sa lecture désacralisante de la Bible, bien qu'elle s'appuie sur sa philosophie pour nier au surnaturel son existence, c'est par le biais de sa « méthode historico-critique », qu'elle va permettre à Spinoza d'atteindre son but. La question du sacré est donc loin d'être pour Spinoza une question de simple piété ou de soumission au divin. Elle est au contraire une source de problèmes. Cet article voudrait montrer comment Spinoza comprend ce problème, et d'examiner la solution qu'il y propose à travers son programme de désacralisation radicale de l'Écriture.In the 12th chapter of his Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza defines the sacred in this way: “A thing is called sacred and Divine when it is designed for promoting piety, and continues sacred so long as it is religiously used: if the users cease to be pious, the thing ceases to be sacred”. By this first definition that situates the sacred in the realm of religion, Spinoza is excluding the sacred from the domain of the truth proper to philosophy. As for his desacralizing reading of the Bible, though it denies, on the basis of his philosophy, any existence to the supernatural, it is thanks to the “historico-critical method” that this reading will enable Spinoza to attain his goal. For Spinoza, the question of the sacred is therefore far from being a question of simple piety or submission to the divine. On the contrary, it is a source of problems. This article will attempt to show how Spinoza deals with this situation and to examine the solution he proposes through his program of radical desacralisation of the Scriptures. (shrink)

La section des Principes de la philosophie du droit concernant « Le Bien et la conscience-morale » développe la dialectique de la subjectivité morale au sens strict. Il s’agit du procès par lequel le point de vue moral subjectif, dès lors qu’il se porte à l’absolu, conduit à l’impossibilité pour la conscience morale formelle de délivrer un critère réel de l’action, de sorte que Hegel déplace le Mal de son lieu traditionnel (le libre arbitre) pour en faire l’un des possibles (...) de la conscience morale elle-même. Trois points sont en outre à noter : 1. la fécondité maintenue, pour une part, de la moralité subjective, qui ne s’épuise pas dans le subjectivisme moral ; 2. l’originalité de ce passage au sein du corpus hégélien : la contradiction ne travaille pas ici la dualité de la conscience (Phénoménologie de l’esprit) ou de l’idée du bien (Science de la logique) et du monde, mais une opposition interne à la volonté, entre sa subjectivité immédiate et son essence abstraite; 3. le rapport Hegel-Kant qui se joue ici, car si la réception du kantisme par Fichte peut faire office de confirmation historique de la dialectique de la conscience morale, c’est au prix de deux déplacements décisifs, l’un opéré par Fichte, l’autre par Hegel lui-même. (shrink)

This essay shows that according to Kant the philosophy of history is a division of physical teleology, which only meaning is to be a confirmation of the moral teleology which grounds and seeks in the physical world a natural grounding for the standpoint of ends which nature itself is always powerless to bring about. The teleology of freedom seeks in the teleology of nature grounds for hope and its actual achievement, yet without ever filling the void of the separation that (...) prohibits all natural accomplishment of right. That explains the effects of rupture one can find in the Kantian texts, and which are only a problem for the continuist reading which is here refused. Finally, it is shown that genuine historical events consist rather in that which within history cannot knowingly be deduced from history, because they precisely escape from the natural world that is their invariable context. (shrink)

Deux décennies après les premières vagues de démocratisation en Afrique, le temps n'est-il pas venu d'instruire le " procès " de la démocratie ?

This paper reinforces the current consensus against the applicability of the selected effect theory of function in ecology. It does so by presenting an argument which, in contrast with the usual argument invoked in support of this consensus, is not based on claims about whether ecosystems are customary units of natural selection. Instead, the argument developed here is based on observations about the use of the function concept in functional ecology, and more specifically, research into the relationship between biodiversity and (...) ecosystem functioning. It is argued that a selected effect account of ecological functions is made implausible by the fact that it would conflict with important aspects of the understanding of function and ecosystem functional organization which underpins functional ecology’s research program. Specifically, it would conflict with (1) Functional ecology’s adoption of a context-based understanding of function and its aim to study the functional equivalence between phylogenetically-divergent organisms; (2) Functional ecology’s attribution to ecosystems of a lower degree of part-whole integration than the one found in paradigm individual organisms; and (3) Functional ecology’s adoption of a physiological or metabolic perspective on ecosystems rather than an evolutionary one. (shrink)

This paper discusses Millstein’s criticism of the consensus view formed against selected-effects ecological functions. I argue that Millstein’s defense of coevolution-based selected-effects ecological functions applies to a notion of function as an activity, whereas proponents of the consensus view are concerned with a notion of ecological function as the contribution of an organism, population, species, or abiotic item to the maintenance of its community and/or the functioning of its ecosystem. Millstein’s arguments hence do not invalidate the consensus view but draw (...) attention to a notion of function that has been neglected in philosophical discussions and that deserves more attention. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of ecologist Charles Elton’s “functional” concept of the niche and of the notion of function implicitly associated with it. It does so in part by situating Elton’s niche concept within the broader context of the “functionalist-interactionist” approach to ecology he introduced, and in relation to his views on the relationship between ecology and evolution. This involves criticizing the common claim that Elton’s idea of species as fulfilling functional roles within ecological communities committed him to an (...) idea of communities as units of selection. While such a claim implicitly attributes to Elton an understanding of function along the lines of the selected-effects theory of function advocated by many biologists and philosophers of biology, Elton’s use of the niche concept, I maintain, involves an understanding of function more along the lines of alternative nonselectionist theories such as the causal-role, goal-contribution, and organizational theories. I also briefly discuss how ecologists after Elton also tend to have typically adopted a nonselectionist understanding of the function concept, similar to his. (shrink)

Publie en 1683 comme un preambule a la refutation du Traite de la nature et de la grace de Nicolas Malebranche, l'ouvrage Vraies et fausses idees d'Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694) a connu un etonnant destin. Cette defense tres argumentee de la conception cartesienne des idees est peu a peu devenue un texte incontournable dans les debats de philosophie de la connaissance, cite et commente aussi bien par les auteurs classiques que dans les debats anglosaxons contemporains. Ce volume en propose la (...) premiere edition critique annotee en francais. Des annexes apportent en outre quelques outils pour se reperer dans l'important corpus de textes de philosophie de la connaissance rediges par Arnauld. (shrink)

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another’s pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis (...) was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.. (shrink)

La découverte récente de trois deniers en argent d'Othon et Vespasien, qui faisaient partie d'un dépôt de fondation placé sous le mur antérieur de la cella, permet de dater la construction du temple d'Aphrodite à Amathonte dans le dernier quart du Ier s. ap. J.-C. Le temple d'Apollon Hylatès à Kourion est à peu près contemporain et tous deux apportent un témoignage important sur la date des chapiteaux «nabatéens» de Chypre.

A epistemologia histórico-racionalista de Canguilhem, seu gosto pelo concreto, as áreas a que se refere - a medicina, o estudo da patologia, a fisiologia, a biologia - parecem longe dos grandes estudos metafísicos do "primeiro" Deleuze e de seu interesse pela sistematização conceitual abstrata. Mas nos situaremos aqui num outro nível: o dos problemas e projetos filosóficos. Sobre esse plano, apresentamos o entrecruzamento das leituras do Essai e de Nietzsche et la philosophie, para ver como é esclarecedor: enquanto um Canguilhem (...) menos exclusivamente racionalista aí aparece, vemos na pesquisa filosofia efetivada por Deleuze algo distinto de um gesto que eleva a reflexão a um grau suplementar de abstração. Mais profundamente, tal aproximação coloca sob novas perspectivas a tripla significação da refundação do criticismo kantiano como uma filosofia de valores, de sua relação com uma "filosofia de vida" e de seu ponto culminante na problematização da imagem do pensamento.  . (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between physics and metaphysics in Descartes’ philosophy. According to the standard account, Descartes modified the objects of metaphysics and physics and inverted the order in which these two disciplines were traditionally studied. This book challenges the standard account in which Descartes prioritizes metaphysics over physics. It does so by taking into consideration the historical reception of Descartes and the ways in which Descartes himself reacted to these receptions in his own lifetime. The book stresses the (...) diversity of these receptions by taking into account not only Cartesianisms but also anti-Cartesianisms, and by showing how they retroactively highlighted different aspects of Descartes’ works and theoretical choices. The historical aspect of the volume is unique in that it not only analyzes different constructions of Descartes that emerged in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but also reflects on how his work was first read by philosophers across Europe. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a fresh and up-to-date contribution to this important debate in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

In a series of papers, J. Baird Callicott criticizes the wilderness concept of nature and the associated approach to environmentalism which focuses on the preservation of areas of land free of human intervention. As he notes, this concept rests on a human/nature dualism which defines the natural in opposition to the cultural and the artefactual, and thus in principle places humans outside the natural realm. This makes it conceptually impossible for humans to intervene in nature without denaturing it. Callicott rejects (...) this concept of naturalness for two general kinds of reasons. First, because it is socio-politically oppressive, as it is frequently applied to areas where some aboriginal... (shrink)

Antoine Pecquet wrote in the eighteenth century during the reign of Louis XV. Although he included Pascal among those he admired, he considered Alexander Pope his true mentor. In Part 1 of "Diverse Thoughts on Man," Pecquet reflects on Man's responsibilities as an individual: in Part 2, on Man's responsibilities as a member of society. Among these responsibilities he includes human and social concerns, such as parental and filial obligations, and the transfer of wealth between generations. In the tradition (...) of Montaigne, Pecquet intended his "Diverse Thoughts on Man" to help his readers learn more about themselves. Although he felt that those who would profit most from his book were readers who had not greatly pondered about themselves, he believed that every reader could find something of value in it. (shrink)

Synthetic biology aims at reconstructing life to put to the test the limits of our understanding. It is based on premises similar to those which permitted invention of computers, where a machine, which reproduces over time, runs a program, which replicates. The underlying heuristics explored here is that an authentic category of reality, information, must be coupled with the standard categories, matter, energy, space and time to account for what life is. The use of this still elusive category permits us (...) to interact with reality via construction of self-consistent models producing predictions which can be instantiated into experiments. While the present theory of information has much to say about the program, with the creative properties of recursivity at its heart, we almost entirely lack a theory of the information supporting the machine. We suggest that the program of life codes for processes meant to trap information which comes from the context provided by the environment of the machine. (shrink)

Understanding the emergence of a tangible 4-dimensional space-time from a quantum theory of gravity promises to be a tremendously difficult task. This article makes the case that this task may not have to be carried. Space-time as we know it may be fundamental to begin with. I recall the common arguments against this possibility and review a class of recently discovered models bypassing the most serious objection. The generic solution of the measurement problem that is tied to semiclassical gravity as (...) well as the difficulty of the alternative make it a reasonable default option in the absence of decisive experimental evidence. (shrink)

in Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Zelazo P., Moscovitch M. and Thompson E. (2007).

This paper reflects on the presumption that there are distinct ethical differences between the supposedly ‘Anglo-Saxon liberal’ and ‘Latin (Southern European) paternalist’ ethical traditions. The predominance of the bioethical paradigm (principalism) is measured by a comparative analysis of regional moral opinion reflected in nation-state health laws. By looking at the way the ethico-legal concept figures into various national ordinances, we attempt to ascertain the extent and nature of variation (if any) between localities by exploring the understanding and application of principalism’s (...) keystone: patient autonomy. (shrink)