This article seeks to critically question the internal logic and coherence of ‘anti-doping’ through the case study of advantage-seeking practices in the sport of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu (BJJ). We provide an analysis of the recent controversy between high-profile fighters Gordon Ryan and Nicky Rod involving the relative morality of image and performance enhancing drug (IPED) use compared with ‘greasing’, whereby BJJ athletes apply substances, such as oil or lubricants, to the body to make it harder for opponents to establish (...) a grip or maintain control during grappling exchanges. We employ this case study to highlight the impasse between the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) ethical foundation of the ‘spirit of sport’ and the anti-doping industry’s ‘anti-policy’ stance. We then query why a host of non-chemical advantage-seeking practices are normalised and overlooked within the rigid and constrictive systems. Ultimately, we characterise WADA as a myopic compliance system that stifles moral debate around advantage-seeking in sport and is hamstrung by an ethical discord between anti-policy and the neo-Aristotelian ideal of the spirit of sport. We close with a call for a holistic ethical understanding of advantage-seeking in sport and the need to encourage stakeholders to ‘think institutionally’ in order to establish a malleable and reactive response to doping. (shrink)

This article seeks to critically question the internal logic and coherence of ‘anti-doping’ through the case study of advantage-seeking practices in the sport of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu (BJJ). We provide an analysis of the recent controversy between high-profile fighters Gordon Ryan and Nicky Rod involving the relative morality of image and performance enhancing drug (IPED) use compared with ‘greasing’, whereby BJJ athletes apply substances, such as oil or lubricants, to the body to make it harder for opponents to establish (...) a grip or maintain control during grappling exchanges. We employ this case study to highlight the impasse between the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) ethical foundation of the ‘spirit of sport’ and the anti-doping industry’s ‘anti-policy’ stance. We then query why a host of non-chemical advantage-seeking practices are normalised and overlooked within the rigid and constrictive systems. Ultimately, we characterise WADA as a myopic compliance system that stifles moral debate around advantage-seeking in sport and is hamstrung by an ethical discord between anti-policy and the neo-Aristotelian ideal of the spirit of sport. We close with a call for a holistic ethical understanding of advantage-seeking in sport and the need to encourage stakeholders to ‘think institutionally’ in order to establish a malleable and reactive response to doping. (shrink)

This essay argues that martial arts, especially Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), mediate the divine attributes of beauty, goodness, and truth just as much as the fine arts. Some may question the compatibility of martial arts with Christianity. Yet, according to the just war doctrine, fighting is permissible when defending oneself and others. Furthermore, instead of doing nothing about evil or injustice (pacifism) and escalating to violent killing, jiu-jitsu as a distinctive martial arts presents the creative alternative of nonviolence. (...) The essay considers various ways in which martial arts point to God through the analogy of being and the Tao. Jiu-jitsu resonates with Christian notions of perichoresis, self-awareness, rightness, flow, mystery, theosis, and epektasis. BJJ is beautiful in how it inspires existential wonder at the unique and particular gifts of the other. It searches for truth pragmatically and ethically, in a quest for combat effectiveness and social sustainability. Jiu-jitsu is good as it fosters inclusivity, respect, selflessness, and philanthropy. (shrink)

Anthony Bourdain committed suicide in 2018 and is now more popular than ever. He is famous for being brave enough to eat things most Americans would not regard as food, including a whole cobra, raw seal's eyeballs, and unwashed warthog rectum. His book Kitchen Confidential (2000) was his first best-seller but not his last. Though best known as an authority on food and international travel, Bourdain also wrote popular crime novels and books on history and other topics. He was a (...) fan and friend of The Ramones, and dedicated his hilarious book The Nasty Bits (2007) to the members of the band. Bourdain was a heavy user of multiple drugs, a practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and an exposer of sexual harassment both in the restaurant business and the movies. All his writings and recorded conversations are witty and penetrating, and express his strong personal opinions on many subjects, from vegetarianism to religion. Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy is a collection of chapters by a diverse group of philosophers on many aspects of Bourdain's life and work. Among the topics discussed: What counts as food, and what counts as good food? What can we learn from travel that we could not glean from books and movies? Do eating habits bring people together or drive them apart? Is suicide a moral issue or just a matter of personal preference? Is it okay for an addictive personality to indulge his many indications, including addictions to work and sports? Are vegetarianism and other progressive lifestyle features "first world luxuries"? Scott Calef is professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ohio Wesleyan University. He edited Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed (2009), and has written many scholarly articles on philosophy. (shrink)

Anthony Bourdain committed suicide in 2018 and is now more popular than ever. He is famous for being brave enough to eat things most Americans would not regard as food, including a whole cobra, raw seal's eyeballs, and unwashed warthog rectum. His book Kitchen Confidential (2000) was his first best-seller but not his last. Though best known as an authority on food and international travel, Bourdain also wrote popular crime novels and books on history and other topics. He was a (...) fan and friend of The Ramones, and dedicated his hilarious book The Nasty Bits (2007) to the members of the band. Bourdain was a heavy user of multiple drugs, a practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and an exposer of sexual harassment both in the restaurant business and the movies. All his writings and recorded conversations are witty and penetrating, and express his strong personal opinions on many subjects, from vegetarianism to religion. Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy is a collection of chapters by a diverse group of philosophers on many aspects of Bourdain's life and work. Among the topics discussed: What counts as food, and what counts as good food? What can we learn from travel that we could not glean from books and movies? Do eating habits bring people together or drive them apart? Is suicide a moral issue or just a matter of personal preference? Is it okay for an addictive personality to indulge his many indications, including addictions to work and sports? Are vegetarianism and other progressive lifestyle features "first world luxuries"? Scott Calef is professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ohio Wesleyan University. He edited Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed (2009), and has written many scholarly articles on philosophy. (shrink)

This narrative describes the making of a German electrical engineer, Kurt Beyer, into a micro-entrepreneur. He set for himself the goal of sailing around the world in his own vessel – without being able to afford to buy such a ship. Many people in Germany have in recent years started to build their own sea-going vessels in order to escape from the creativity-stifling and restrictive patterns of their lives and work. Only a few of them have ever finished building their (...) vessels. Firstly, this report describes the experiences of one of those few who have made it. Secondly, it tells the story of how this engineer himself turned into a micro-entrepreneur during the period of yacht-building and how later he started his own charter enterprise, centred around his yacht. Following the model of entrepreneurship described by Dassen-Housen in this issue of AI & Society, the narrative illustrates what it means to run such an enterprise in view of the international competition. Here follows the narrative of the engineer and ship-builder himself (translated by D. Brandt). (shrink)

We see nonviolent resistance all over today’s world, from Egypt’s Tahrir Square to New York Occupy. Although we think of the last century as one marked by wars and violent conflict, in fact it was just as much a century of nonviolence as the achievements of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and peaceful protests like the one that removed Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines clearly demonstrate. But what is nonviolence? What makes a campaign a nonviolent one, and how (...) does it work? What values does it incorporate? In this unique study, Todd May, a philosopher who has himself participated in campaigns of nonviolent resistance, offers the first extended philosophical reflection on the particular and compelling political phenomenon of nonviolence. Drawing on both historical and contemporary examples, he examines the concept and objectives of nonviolence, and considers the different dynamics of nonviolence, from moral jiu-jitsu to nonviolent coercion. May goes on to explore the values that infuse nonviolent activity, especially the respect for dignity and the presupposition of equality, before taking a close-up look at the role of nonviolence in today’s world. Students of politics, peace studies, and philosophy, political activists, and those interested in the shape of current politics will find this book an invaluable source for understanding one of the most prevalent, but least reflected upon, political approaches of our world. (shrink)

En 1685, le Code noir défendait « aux esclaves de porter aucunes armes offensives ni de gros bâtons » sous peine de fouet. Au xixe siècle, en Algérie, l'État colonial français interdisait les armes aux indigènes, tout en accordant aux colons le droit de s'armer. Aujourd'hui, certaines vies comptent si peu que l'on peut tirer dans le dos d'un adolescent tout en prétendant qu'il était agressif, armé et menaçant. Une ligne de partage oppose historiquement les corps « dignes d'être défendus (...) » et ceux qui, désarmés ou rendus indéfendables, sont laissés sans défense. Ce « désarmement » organisé des subalternes et des opprimés au profit d'une minorité jouissant d'un droit permanent à porter des armes et à en user impunément pose directement, pour tout élan de libération, la question du recours à la violence pour sa propre défense. Du jiu-jitsu des suffragettes aux pratiques insurrectionnelles du ghetto de Varsovie, des fusils des Black Panthers aux patrouilles queer, Elsa Dorlin retrace une généalogie philosophique de l'autodéfense politique. Derrière l'histoire officielle de la légitime défense, il est ici question du récit des « éthiques martiales de soi », ces histoires ensevelies où le Sujet ne préexiste pas à sa propre défense, où le fait de se défendre en attaquant apparaît à la fois comme la condition de possibilité d'un soi et la matière des mythologies politiques. Cette histoire – une histoire de la violence – conditionne la définition même de la subjectivité moderne. Elle s'écrit à la lumière d'une relecture critique de l'histoire de la philosophie politique, où Hobbes et Locke sont à confronter avec Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault ou Judith Butler. (shrink)

D'après Confucius, il y a six « arts libéraux » qui sont : la musique, le cérémonial, l'arithmétique, la calligraphie, l'escrime et « l'art de conduire un char ». Donc pas de gymnastique encore. L'escrime donne satisfaction à l'instinct combatif, mais il ne paraît pas que cet instinct ait suffi à la propager en Extrême-Orient. À remarquer que la première escrime naturelle n'a pu être celle du poing qui demande une contrainte et un assouplissement artificiels préalables. Il était plus naturel (...) à l'homme primitif de s'emparer d'un bâton ou même de lutter simplement corps à corps ou encore de chercher à frapper par le jet d'une pierre. Les escrimes d'Extrême-Orient sont demeurées des spectacles et n'ont donné naissance à aucune institution pédagogique sauf -- plus tard, au Japon -- le jiu-jitsu. (shrink)

I will take it that general intelligence is intelligence of the kind that a typical human being—Fred, say—manifests in his role as a cognitive agent, that is, as an acquirer, receiver and circulator of knowledge in his cognitive economy. Framed in these terms, the word “general” underserves our ends. Hereafter our questions will bear upon the all-purpose intelligence of beings like Fred. Frederika appears as Fred’s AI-counterpart, not as a fully programmed and engineered being, but as a presently unrealized theoretical (...) construct. Our basic question is whether it is in principle possible to equip Frederika to do what Fred does as an all-purpose participant in his own cognitive economy. Can she achieve a sufficiency of relevant similarity to him to allow us to say that she herself can do what Fred can do, perhaps even better? One of the things that Fred can do—or at least could learn from experience to do—is discharge the duties of an Appeals Court judge. As set down in the ancient doctrine of lex non scripta, Fred must be able to detect, understand and correctly apply certain tacit and implicit rules of law which defy express propositional formulation and linguistic articulation. Fred has an even more widespread capacity for the epistemically tacit and implicit, clearly one of his most cost-saving kinds of intelligence. Indeed, most by far of what Fred will ever know he will know tacitly and implicitly. So we must ask: how tightly bound to the peculiarities of Fred’s cognitive enablement conditions is the character of the intelligence that he manifests? And how far down Fred’s causal make-up does intelligence actually go? (shrink)

A new method of multiattribute decision making is proposed based on the max-min and min-max gray association degree. The gray association coefficients between the alternative, positive ideal solution and negative ideal solution are defined. Here, we construct a bi-objective programming model that maximizes the minimum gray association degree and minimizes the maximum gray association degree simultaneously. By using the linear weighted summation method, the bi-objective programming model is transformed into a linear programming model. Thus, we can obtain the weight vector (...) of attributes by solving the linear programming model. The ranking order of alternatives is generated according to the relative closeness. A numerical example is examined to demonstrate the applicability and implementation process of the decision method proposed in this paper. (shrink)

This volume presents the proceedings from the Eleventh Brazilian Logic Conference on Mathematical Logic held by the Brazilian Logic Society in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The conference and the volume are dedicated to the memory of professor Mario Tourasse Teixeira, an educator and researcher who contributed to the formation of several generations of Brazilian logicians. Contributions were made from leading Brazilian logicians and their Latin-American and European colleagues. All papers were selected by a careful refereeing processs and (...) were revised and updated by their authors for publication in this volume. There are three sections: Advances in Logic, Advances in Theoretical Computer Science, and Advances in Philosophical Logic. Well-known specialists present original research on several aspects of model theory, proof theory, algebraic logic, category theory, connections between logic and computer science, and topics of philosophical logic of current interest. Topics interweave proof-theoretical, semantical, foundational, and philosophical aspects with algorithmic and algebraic views, offering lively high-level research results. (shrink)

BackgroundSubjective cognitive decline, non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment are regarded to be at high risk of converting to Alzheimer’s disease. Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations can reflect functional deterioration while diffusion tensor imaging is capable of detecting white matter integrity. Our study aimed to investigate the structural and functional alterations to further reveal convergence and divergence among SCD, naMCI, and aMCI and how these contribute to cognitive deterioration.MethodsWe analyzed ALFF under slow-4 and slow-5 bands and white matter (...) fiber integrity among normal controls, SCD, naMCI, and aMCI groups. Correlation analyses were further utilized among paired DTI alteration, ALFF deterioration, and cognitive decline.ResultsFor ALFF calculation, ascended ALFF values were detected in the lingual gyrus and superior frontal gyrus within SCD and naMCI patients, respectively. Descended ALFF values were presented mainly in the LING, SFG, middle frontal gyrus, and precuneus in aMCI patients compared to CN, SCD, and naMCI groups. For DTI analyses, white matter alterations were detected within the uncinate fasciculus in aMCI patients and within the superior longitudinal fasciculus in naMCI patients. SCD patients presented alterations in both fasciculi. Correlation analyses revealed that the majority of these structural and functional alterations were associated with complicated cognitive decline. Besides, UF alterations were correlated with ALFF deterioration in the SFG within aMCI patients.ConclusionsSCD shares structurally and functionally deteriorative characteristics with aMCI and naMCI, and tends to convert to either of them. Furthermore, abnormalities in white matter fibers may be the structural basis of abnormal brain activation in preclinical AD stages. Combined together, it suggests that structural and functional integration may characterize the preclinical AD progression. (shrink)

During immune responses against invading pathogenic bacteria, the cytoskeleton network enables macrophages to implement multiple essential functions. To protect the host from infection, macrophages initially polarize to adopt different phenotypes in response to distinct signals from the microenvironment. The extracellular stimulus regulates the rearrangement of the cytoskeleton, thereby altering the morphology and migratory properties of macrophages. Subsequently, macrophages degrade the extracellular matrix (ECM) and migrate toward the sites of infection to directly contact invading pathogens, during which the involvement of cytoskeleton‐based (...) structures such as podosomes and lamellipodia is indispensable. Ultimately, macrophages execute the function of phagocytosis to engulf and eliminate the invading pathogens. Phagocytosis is a complex process that requires the cooperation of cytoskeleton‐enriched super‐structures, such as filopodia, lamellipodia, and phagocytic cup. This review presents an overview of cytoskeletal regulations in macrophage polarization, ECM degradation, migration, and phagocytosis, highlighting the pivotal role of the cytoskeleton in host defense against infection. (shrink)