New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the Stranger’s interest in keeping the philosopher and the sophist distinct is connected, primarily, to his assessment of the charges ofsophistry advanced against Socrates, which compels him to defend Socrates from these unduly advanced accusations. On this basis, I establish that the Stranger’s task in the Sophist, namely to keep philosophy distinct from sophistry, is intimately tied to the project of securing justice and is therefore not merely of theoretical importance but is also—and essentially—of (...) political and ethical significance. (shrink)

In the last three decades, the consideration of whether non-human animals should be ascribed any moral status, and if so in what way it ought to be ascribed to them, has become of central philosophical, political and economic importance. Thus, given thecontemporary significance of what may be called (jar simplicity’s sake) the “animal issue,” it is worthwhile to examine in what way Ancient Greek philosophy might contribute to our understanding of the issue and to our philosophical response to it. With (...) this in mind,in this essay I examine the issue of the moral status of animals from a “critical” Aristotelian perspective, on the basis of which I shall attempt: (§I) to show how, unlike the Cartesian view of animal nature, Aristotle’s conception of the non-moral status of animals stillinforms the prevailing contemporary view of the animal, and (§II) to establish that Aristotle’s failure to ascribe moral status to animals should be rejected (a) given his admission that animals are, by nature, capable of suffering while they are unable to engage in rational deliberation, and (b) given his understanding of the connection between moral blameworthiness, natural disposition, and various kinds of acts, particularly un-chosen and chosen willing acts. In this way, we shall show that although the prevailing contemporary view of the animal’s moral status represents a slightly more “elevated” view than Aristotle’s, insofar as (typically) we do not explicitly claim, as Aristotle did, that animals are due no moral consideration, by critically appropriating the relevant Aristotelian texts, we nonetheless findrich philosophical evidence that permits us to further elevate our conception of the moral status of animals such that we are prepared to grant them genuine moral significance, not just in theory but also in practice. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a compelling argument against the thesis that Aristotle’s understanding of the relation between the soul and the body can be construed asfunctionalist, despite some passages that would seem to support such an interpretation. Toward this end, in section I of the essay I offer an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the soul-body relation that emphasizes the non-contingent nature of the connection between the soul and a specific kind of body, arguing that Aristotle’s account of the (...) soul as the “form” and “actuality” of the living thing, and of the organic body as its “matter” and “potentiality,” shows their necessary relation with one another. In section II, I present the functionalist account of mind, placing especial emphasis on its post-Cartesian genesis, which takes seriously the “problematic” status of the relation between mind and body. I then attempt to show, in section III, how because functionalism holds that psychic capacities can be realized within a number of different material bases, including physical and artificial systems, it is incompatible with Aristotle’s conception of the necessary soul-body relation, and thus that Aristotle’s account of psuche is not best construed as functionalist. (shrink)

Burt Hopkins's The Philosophy of Husserl presents a challenging and thoughtful elucidation of Husserl's phenomenology that pays special attention to important methodological aspects of Husserl's philosophy, and, thereby, to Husserl's characterization of phenomenology as a pure and transcendental philosophy. Unlike other texts that attempt to elucidate Husserl's philosophy, Hopkins carries out his project in an unusual fashion, by beginning with a consideration of the conflict between Plato and Aristotle regarding the meaning and status of the eide, and ending with a (...) systematic critique of two of Husserl's most fierce opponents, Heidegger and Derrida. This review essay gives an overview of Hopkins's book and offers some critical remarks. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the just society is vegetarian. However, I do so in a way not commonly attempted by contemporary animal rights theorists, insofar as I appeal to Plato to make my case. Although there are certainly other ways to argue for this position, appealing to Plato is a significant and interesting way to lend historical credibility to this argument, and as such, the argument offered in this article provides an important contribution to existing analyses that attempt (...) to establish that humans ought to be vegetarians. (shrink)

Due to natural phenomena like global warming and climate change, agricultural production is increasingly faced with threats that transcend farm boundaries. Management practices at the landscape or community level are often required to adequately respond to these new challenges (e.g., pest migration). Such decision-making at a community or beyond-farm level—i.e., practices that are jointly developed by farmers within a community—can be aided by computing and communications technology. In this study, we employ a translational research process to examine the social and (...) behavioral drivers of adoption of smart and connected farm networks among commodity crop farmers in the United States. We implement focus groups and questionnaires to bring to the fore views on the use of digital technologies in collaborative contexts. We find that participating farmers are concerned with several issues about the potential features of the network (e.g., the ability to ensure data validity while maintaining data privacy) and the nature of their interactions with the various stakeholders involved in the network management. The participatory approach we adopt helps provide insights into the process of developing technologies that are both actionable and trusted by potential end users. (shrink)

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia that gradually disrupts the brain network to impair memory, language and cognition. While the amyloid hypothesis remains the leading proposed mechanism to explain AD pathophysiology, anti-amyloid therapeutic strategies have yet to translate into useful therapies, suggesting that amyloid β-protein and its precursor, the amyloid precursor protein are but a part of the disease cascade. Further, risk of AD can be modulated by a number of factors, the most impactful being the ɛ4 (...) isoform of apolipoprotein E. A recent study reported a novel isoform-dependent transcriptional regulation of APP by apoE. These interesting new results add to the myriad of mechanisms that have been proposed to explain how apoE4 enhances AD risk, highlighting the complexities of not only apoE and AD pathophysiology, but also of disease itself. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/yd14MBdPkCY APP transcription is differentially modulated by apoE and its isoforms: how does this novel mechanism fit with the existing hypotheses? (shrink)

L’esperienza dell’istante is a book with two faces. On one hand it is an introduction to and commentary on Carlo Sini’s work; on the other hand it investigates the relationship between time and writing, time and utopian thinking, time and ethics. The opening section of the book begins with an analysis of Socrates’ attitude toward writing as it is shown in the Phaedrus. Carrera offers that by refusing to write, while at the same time claiming the role of judge as (...) far as the viability of writing is concerned, Socrates lays out the blueprint for any metaphysical judgment to come: Metaphysics is entitled to question the role of writing insofar as it takes no part in it, claiming that its authority comes from the unwritten voice instead—the voice of the soul. In the same manner, metaphysics judges the world and imposes its values on it by pretending to be removed from the world’s contingency. (shrink)

In this article we present (1) a close paraphrase--virtually a translation--of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, §74, "Die Grundverfassung der Geschichtlichkeit," pp. 382-387, together with an analytical outline found in the Appendix; and (2) a brief commentary on the text. What Heidegger says about his own translation of Aristotle's Physics B 1 applies here as well: "The ‘translation' is already the interpretation proper. Thereafter only an explanation of the ‘translation' is called for.".

Western media coverage of female genital modifications in Africa has been hyperbolic and one-sided, presenting them uniformly as mutilation and ignoring the cultural complexities that underlie these practices. Even if we ultimately decide that female genital modifications should be abandoned, the debate around them should be grounded in a better account of the facts.

Les etudes ici rassemblees interrogent les articulations et desarticulations que Jean-Francois Lyotard place au principe du langage. Le volume dessine ainsi les lignes de force et les deplacements de sa pensee, ses presupposes et ses apories. Il montre les malentendus et les polemiques suscites par sa reecriture radicale de la rationalite. Pas de langage en general, dit Lyotard, mais des langages multiples, des types de discours heterogenes que la politique brasse sans pacifier leurs conflits. La recherche du consensus, dont l' (...) ethique de la discussion a souligne l'importance, tend a occulter les differends qui divisent les fins respectives des genres de discours. On ne peut pas etre pacifiste en matiere de phrases, et pas indifferent. Car tout enchainement discursif signe la victoire d'un genre et porte tort aux autres. Sans compter que la parole, quel qu'en soit le registre, eclipse par principe ce qui echappe aux contraintes linguistiques, ce champ de la sensation et du sentiment que Discours, figure explorait, des 1971, en inventant le figural. Apres 1983, apres l' ontologie des phrases du Differend, Lyotard cherche a cerner ce que les mots laissent en souffrance et dont ils doivent pourtant temoigner. Phrase-affect, infantia, donation sensible, Chose sont quelques-uns des noms sous lesquels il pense alors ce qui resiste au langage, le travaille de l'interieur et signe la difficulte de l'ecriture.Ont participe a ce volume Isabelle Aubert, Geoffrey Bennington, Gaelle Bernard, Corinne Enaudeau, Frederic Fruteau de Laclos, Alberto Gualandi, Laurence Kahn, Charlotte Murgier, Andreas Niederberger, Sophie Nordmann, Michel Olivier, Claire Pages, Ronit Peleg, Gerard Raulet, Jean-Francois Rey, Jean-Michel Salanskis, Francois-David Sebbah, Gerald Sfez, Rieke Trimcev. (shrink)

Les protestantes et leur contribution à l’émancipation des femmes sont sorties d’une zone d’ombre ces dernières années. Pourtant il reste encore beaucoup à apprendre sur les divers champs d’intervention et les luttes multiformes que rappelle Michelle Perrot, dans l’introduction de ce numéro thématique du Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme français : éducation des jeunes enfants, aide à l’enfance en difficulté, santé, hôpitaux, prisons… La modernité de l’analyse des protest...

This essay examines an aesthetics of disgust through an analysis of the work of Scottish painter Jenny Saville. Saville's paintings suggest that there is something valuable in retaining and interrogating our immediate and seemingly unambivalent reactions of disgust. I contrast Saville's representations of disgust to the repudiation of disgust that characterizes contemporary corporeal politics. Drawing on the theoretical work of Elspeth Probyn and Julia Kristeva, I suggest that an aesthetics of disgust reveals the fundamental ambiguity of embodiment, allowing us (...) to critically attend to the aesthetic and cultural objectification of the female body. (shrink)

How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and behaviourism arise?—The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometimes perhaps we shall know more about them—we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended (...) process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them. (shrink)

How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and behaviourism arise?—The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometimes perhaps we shall know more about them—we think. But that is just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended (...) process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them. (shrink)

Cretan icons often displayed a precious decoration of golden halos with incised, stippled, and/or impressed designs. The present study points out that these motifs should not be interpreted as manifestations of nostalgic and anachronistic attitudes on the part of post-Byzantine painters working in Candia for Greek Orthodox and Catholic clients. Rather, they appear already in several early Cretan works dating around 1400, which took inspiration from technical devices and ornamental motifs worked out in the workshops of Venice during the second (...) half of the fourteenth century and appropriated in icon painting probably through the mediation of mixed-style works produced in both the lagoon region and Venetian-ruled Candia. (shrink)

The problem of explaining color perception has fascinated painters, philosophers and scientists throughout the history. In many cases, the ideas and discoveries about color perception in one of these categories influenced the others, thus resulting in one of the most remarkable cross-fertilization of human thought. At the end of the nineteenth century, two models stood out as the most convincing ones: Young-Helmholtz’s trichromacy on one side, and Hering’s opponency on the other side. The former was mainly supported by painters and (...) scientists, although with some noticeable exceptions as, e.g., Otto Runge, while the majority of philosophers supported the latter. These two apparently incompatible models were proven to be two complementary parts of the hugely complex chain of events which leads to human color perception. Recently, a rigorous mathematical theory able to incorporate both trichromacy and opponency has been developed thanks to the use of the language and tools of quantum information. In this paper, we discuss the placement of this model within the philosophical theories about color. (shrink)

Article Paul Géhin/Michel Cacouros/Christian Förstel/Marie-Odile Germain/Philippe Hoffmann/Corinne Jouanno/Brigitte Mondrain avec la collaboration de Dominique Grosdidiers de Matons. Les manuscrits datés des XIIIe et XIVe siècles conservés dans les bibliothèques publiques de France was published on April 1, 2007 in the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift (volume 100, issue 2).

This essay analyses the way in which the relation between surface and depth in modern painting is endowed with philosophical significance in the work of Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry. Whereas Foucault considered the work of Magritte and Manet to undermine the notion of depth as such, by showing the movement of ‘similitude’, Merleau-Ponty and Henry saw post-impressionist painting as engendering an experience of depth that exceeds the Cartesian model of space as res extensa. The motif of painterly (...) surface thus brings into debate two significant movements in French twentieth-century thought: structuralism and phenomenology; in each case, the engagement with painterly technique becomes a way of grasping broader questions regarding the relation between perceptual experience and linguistic meaning. (shrink)

The fourth volume in the series "Jean-Franðcois Lyotard: Writings on Contemporary Art and Artists" contains 48 texts written by Lyotard between the early seventies and 1998, the year of his death. Nine of these texts are previously unpublished papers on general aesthetics and the theory of art. The remaining 39 essays deal with 27 specific artists: Luciano Berio, Richard Lindner, René Guiffrey, Gianfranco Baruchello, Henri Maccheroni, Riwan Tromeur, Albert Ayme, Manuel Casimiro, Ruth Francken, Barnett Newman, Jean-Luc Parant, François Lapouge, Sam (...) Francis, André Dubreuil, Joseph Kosuth, Sarah Flohr, Lino Centi, Gigliola Fazzini, Bracha Lichtenberger Ettinger, Henri Martin, Michel Bouvet, Corinne Filippi, Stig Brogger, François Rouan, Pierre Skira Pastels, and Béatrice Casadesus. Many of these texts are notes or contributions to catalogues; some were published in now inaccessible journals. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans Recherches en didactique des sciences et des technologies, N° 4, 2012. Nous remercions Maryline Coquidé, Michèle Dell'Angelo, Stanislas Dorey, Corinne Fortin, Magali Gallezot, Sandrine Henocq, Faouzia Kalali, Jean-Marc Lange, Guy Rumelhard et la RDST de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Les travaux de la biologie intégrative remettent en cause le déterminisme strict de l'organisation spatiale et temporelle du vivant. Ce texte, travail collectif de notre (...) - Biologie – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)

What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from (...) the pioneers of modern abstraction—"confronting them and within a common system, a figure at once opposed and complementary." Foucault's brief but extraordinarily rich essay offers a startling, highly provocative view of a painter whose influence and popularity continue to grow unchecked. _This is Not a Pipe_ also throws a new, piquantly dancing light on Foucault himself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.3 (2004) 107-115 [Access article in PDF] The Search for Narrative Laura Felleman Fattal The most cursory cultural investigator cannot help but notice that the visual arts have become a significant source and impetus for the narrative of contemporary books, theater, and dance. In recent memory, the following theatrical and dance performances "Contact" by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, "Art" by Yasmina Reza, "Sunday (...) in the Park with George" by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, "Les Miserables" by Claude-Michel Schfonberg/music and others, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" by Steve Martin, and "The Sleep of Reason," by Antonio Buero-Vallego have taken the not-so-dead-life (natura morta) or still life of painting into the vital arena of the performing arts. The quest to seek intra-discipline aesthetics among dance, music, theater, and the visual arts is not the charge, but instead a turn to establish a narrative that has brought about this invasion of interactivity between the arts. Clearly defined boundaries between the arts have beenfading since Fluxus, Happenings, and Performance Art for over half a century. In the early part of the twentieth century, Marcel Duchamp's chess games and use of the fourth dimension of time in his numerous produced and pondered pieces all speak to the interrelatedness of the arts.Contemporary novels based on historical themes and subjects have created characters based on the lives and works of famous and intriguing artists such as Michelangelo Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Jan Vermeer. The silence and pensive qualities of the figures of Jan Vermeer, the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, have been the catalyst for two books, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland and the Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.1 Vreeland combines the mystic of the Vermeer paintings' characters with the impoverished history of the refugee status of its owners. In various parts of Vreeland's book the authenticity of the Vermeer painting becomes a subtext for describing the work. [End Page 107] Just the lament of some Dutch art historians. Where has such a treasure gone, or some such thing? He turned to pour us both a brandy. So why could this not be? It's his same window opening inward at the left that he has used so often, the same splash of pale yellow light. Take a look at the figures in the tapestry on the table. Same as in nine other paintings. Same Spanish chair with lion's head finials that he used in eleven canvases, same brass studs in the leather. Same black and white tiles placed diagonally on the floor.2A few pages later the interest in the authenticity of the painting continues: No, no signature. But that was not unusual. He often failed to sign his work. Besides, he had at least seven styles of signature. For Vermeer, signatures are not definite evidence. Technique is. Look at the direction of the brush's stroke, those tiny grooves of the brush hairs. They have their lighted and their shaded side. Look elsewhere. You'll find overlapping layers of paint no thicker than silk thread that give a minute difference in shade. That's what makes it a Vermeer.3In Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer's slow and meticulous technique, obsessive involvement with his models and his assiduous composition of light over textures of both animate and inanimate surfaces in the painting become the core of the novel. He had come in and was standing in the studio, looking out a window. "Take a seat, please, Greit," he said, his back to me.I sat in the chair by the harpsichord. I did not touch it — I had never touched an instrument except to clean it. As I waited I studied the paintings he had hung on the back wall that would form part of the concert painting. There was a landscape on the left, and on the right a picture of three people — a woman playing a lute, wearing a dress that revealed much of... (shrink)

Pharmacy serving to propagate the Lutherian doctrine of justification: ‚Christus as a pharmacist’ is an interconfessional, but confessionally differentiated symbolic motif of Christian folklore art in German-speaking countries. The article investigates the sociocultural conditions and prerequisites for transfering the old metaphor and idea of Christ as a physician to the new vision of Christ as a apothecary who prepares and dispenses his heavenly medicine all by himself. In the early 17th century these requirements were fulfilled, so that the oldest known (...) witness to this motif transfer , a genre picture of 1619, will be the first pictural version of this motif in general. It was created by the protestant Painter Michel Herr of Nuremberg. In the abstract and reduced form of a devotional picture this motif then became widespread in churches and vicarages, in monasteries and their apothecaries as well as in private houses . The oldest yet known examples are works from around 1630. For the first time during the Thirty Year's War, it served in this form for propagating the Lutherian justification doctrine , saying that the belief in Christ is enough to be released from all sins . Around 1650, as a reaction to that, a catholic version of the devotional picture was created, claiming and picturing that in contrast eucharist is the highest and real ‚healing medium’ of Christ to redemption. All pictures of this version avoid quoting Jesaja 55, 1, whereas all protestant pictures quote this verse from the Bible word-for-word. (shrink)

In Marking Time, Paul Rabinow presents his most recent reflections on the anthropology of the contemporary. Drawing richly on the work of Michel Foucault, John Dewey, Niklas Luhmann, and, most interestingly, German painter Gerhard Richter, Rabinow offers a set of conceptual tools for scholars examining cutting-edge practices in the life sciences, security, new media and art practices, and other emergent phenomena. Taking up topics that include bioethics, anger and competition among molecular biologists, the lessons of the Drosophila genome, the (...) nature of ethnographic observation in radically new settings, and the moral landscape shared by scientists and anthropologists, Rabinow shows how anthropology remains relevant to contemporary debates. By turning abstract philosophical problems into real-world explorations and offering original insights, Marking Time is a landmark contribution to the continuing re-invention of anthropology and the human sciences. (shrink)

Shocking, brilliant, and eccentric, the French author, translator, and artist Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) exerted a profound effect on French intellectual culture throughout the twentieth century. The older brother of the painter Balthus, secretary to the novelist Andre Gide, friend to Geroges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, and heralded as one of the most important voices in the French "return to Nietzsche" by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, Klossowski pursued his singular vision of mortal embodiment through a variety of scholarly manifestations. (...) In Such a Deathly Desire, Klossowski's original interpretation of Nietzsche's eternal return is developed around the enigmatic figure of the "demon," then deepened with provocative readings of Gide's correspondence; Barbey d'Aurevilly's novel A Married Proest; and the intertwining of language and death in the work of Bataille, Blanchot, and Brice Parain. The book concludes with the powerful essay "Nietzsche, Polytheism, and Parody," in which Klossowski articulates the consequences of the eternal return and the meaning of Nietzsche's genealogy of the fabulation of the world. Intersecting with and confounding a range of disciplines - including psychoanalysis, literary criticism, gender studies, and philosophy - Klossowski's critical writings on language, literature, and the aesthetics of embodiment remain powerful and original contributions to contemporary concerns in the theoretical humanities. (shrink)

What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought (...) from the pioneers of modern abstraction. (shrink)

A concatenation of forces surrounded the rise of the photographic to the center of contemporary art practice. During the sixties the author-function was seriously critiqued. Roland Barthes announced the death of the author in 1967, and Michel Foucault answered his own question, what is an author? deconstructively in 1969, replacing what William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley had already termed the intentional fallacy with a model of the cultural constructedness of all notions of creative agency. At the same time, notions of (...) automatism generated by psychoanalytic models of mind and dada and surrealist conceptions of artistic and literary practice joined forces with sixties anticanonical, postexpressionist notions of the artwork as the deskilled, mechanical product of a consumerist society whose forces yielded the fantasy of individual will. Meanwhile, also during the sixties, painters such as Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg began to use found photographs very overtly either as part and parcel of the generative process of their work or inside their work along with other kinds of materials. And thus the medium-specific boundaries between the photographic and the painterly, just to take the two, began to crumble for good, though the art-school disciplines and museum departments dedicated to these two media continued to hold sway. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Somaesthetics and Racism:Toward an Embodied Pedagogy of DifferenceDavid A. Granger (bio)IntroductionThe philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that "The human body is the best picture of the human soul."1 There is a basic truth in this assertion that we recognize (I want to say) intuitively: the notion that human beings are parts both mental and physical, that these facets are ultimately interdependent, and that they are in some measure correlated (...) was a commonplace in the intellectual culture of ancient Athens, especially among Socratic thinkers. It can also be found as a central part of the basic ontology and ideals of self-cultivation espoused in much East Asian philosophy. In the West, however, this deep appreciation for the relationship between mind and body appears somewhat sporadically after the Socratics, only to be fervently reasserted as a main plank in the lived philosophy of the early American pragmatists, as when Henry David Thoreau proclaimed that "We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins to refine a mean's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them."2I use the word "sporadically" above because it is likewise a basic truism that canonical Western philosophy has a long and storied history of rejecting, ignoring, or degrading the human body—that most formative part of our being and connection to the world and to others. The position of the later, more metaphysical Plato is iconic in this regard, and it effectively set the tone for much Christian theology and the Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. For Plato and his adherents, the longing to escape our embodiedness, conceived as a necessary means to human (or perhaps superhuman) perfection [End Page 69] by achieving a godlike existence, requires effectively divorcing ourselves from the irrational brutes of terra firma. The body is conceived as a static constraint to human flourishing rather than a dynamic enabler. It is more or less an adversary, something that we must endeavor to be freed from or subdue.3 Its base senses and unruly passions deceive us epistemologically, while its inexorable power to situate us in space and time limits our objectivity. In its inevitable pains and infirmities, the body is also a constant reminder of the aging process and of our ultimate mortality. Deeming the body as at best a mere servant of the mind, philosophers typically have portrayed it as a veritable prison of deception, temptation, and suffering. Moreover, it is well-established that such thinking has been particularly pernicious in light of the historical identification of women and other marginalized groups with their variously enfeebled, depraved, or uncivilized bodies.4Against this disquieting backdrop, it is only relatively recently that the human body, and the significance of our existence as embodied beings, has received sustained positive attention by leading lights in Western philosophy and criticism. These luminaries include, among others, "feminist" thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and, of late, Susan Bordo and Judith Butler (with a nod to Michel Foucault, Pierre Bordeau, and others); pragmatists William James and John Dewey (with a nod to Emerson and Thoreau); phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (with a nod to Jean-Paul Sartre); analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (with a nod to James); and postmodernist Michel Foucault (with a nod to Friedrich Nietzsche, George Bataille, and the ancient Asian ars erotica tradition5). While these thinkers do not universally praise the body and its active, conscious cultivation for human flourishing (about which more later), they nonetheless acknowledge its necessity for all perception, action, and even thought.6 In short, they all seek to recognize and elucidate the significance—cognitive and affective, discursive and nondiscursive—of our full embodied intelligence.Looking specifically at the architectonics of the body espoused by the trio of Dewey, Foucault, and Wittgenstein, this article uses what philosopher Richard Shusterman terms "analytic somaesthetics" to examine some of the primary embodied dimensions of feeling, perception, action, and thought, particularly through the functioning of habit.7 In doing so, it seeks to expose the way various ideologies of domination (for example, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, ageism, etc.) are covertly (and at times overtly) materialized... (shrink)

ABSTRACTWriting in 2007, in The Wordsworth Circle, Jeffrey Robinson remarked on the “ephemerality” of improvisational poetry, its fundamental resistance to being “preserved.” Printed poetry is typically regarded as “fixed” and static: what any poem represents as improvisation is, at best, only a record, executed in a fixed medium, of a performance whose infinite variability is inherent in the nature of improvisation itself. Partly an homage to Rene Magritte’s This is Not a Pipe and to Michel Foucault’s 1973 essay on that (...) painting, and using as a test case The Improvisatrice, the long poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, herself a devotee of interdisciplinary and multimedia performance, this essay considers the physical, structural, and methodological challenges and limitations posed to printed “word art” by works that purport to be, or aspire to the condition of, “improvisations.” The improvisatrice who is the poem’s narrator claims to be both a painter and a songstress, but her “speech,” ca... (shrink)

Surging from the ontopoietic vital timing of life, human self-consciousness prompts the innermost desire to rise above its brute facts. Imaginatio creatrix inspires us to fabulate these facts into events and plots with personal significance attempting to delineate a life-course in life-stories within the ever-flowing stream – existence. Seeking their deep motivations, causes and concatenations, we fabulate relatively stabilized networks of interconnecting meaning – history. But to understand the meaning and sense of these networks’ reconfigurations call for the purpose and (...) telos of our endless undertaking; they remain always incomplete, carried onwards with the current of life, while fluctuating with personal experience in the play of memory. Facts and life stories, subjective desires and propensities, the circumambient world in its historical moves, creative logos and mythos, personal freedom and inward stirrings thrown in an enigmatic interplay, prompt our imperative thirst for the meaning of this course, its purpose and its fulfillment – the sense of it all. To disentangle all this animates the passions of the literary genius. The focus of this collection is to isolate the main arteries running through the intermingled forces prompting our quest to endow life with meaning. Papers by: Jadwiga Smith, Lawrence Kimmel, Alira Ashvo-Munoz, William D. Melaney, Imafedia Okhamafe, Michel Dion, Franck Dalmas, Ludmila Molodkina, Victor Gerald Rivas, Rebecca M. Painter, Matti Itkonen, Raymond J. Wilson III, Christopher S. Schreiner, Bruce Ross, Bernadette Prochaska, Tsung-I Dow, Jerre Collins, Cezary Jozef Olbromski, Victor Kocay, Roberto Verolini. (shrink)

This article explores the relation among illness, home, and belonging. Through a feminist phenomenological framework, I describe the disorientations of being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and living with mental illness. This research anticipates the consequences of illness and serious disorientations for a conception of belonging as seamless body–world compatibility. Instead, this article examines how the stability of bodily dwellings in experiences of disorientation can suggest ways of being in the world that are more attentive to interdependency, unpredictability, and change (...) in human experience. I argue that these types of dwellings function as a more capacious and apposite metaphor to account for variations in belonging. This discussion outlines the ethical importance of building worlds that make room for different ways of being at home in and through our interactions with others. Although my discussion does not supply norms for ethical action, I contend that a feminist phenomenology of illness generates saliences and illuminates sensibilities that can transform our ways of being with others. (shrink)

In October 2016, the White House, the European Parliament, and the UK House of Commons each issued a report outlining their visions on how to prepare society for the widespread use of artificial intelligence. In this article, we provide a comparative assessment of these three reports in order to facilitate the design of policies favourable to the development of a ‘good AI society’. To do so, we examine how each report addresses the following three topics: the development of a ‘good (...) AI society’; the role and responsibility of the government, the private sector, and the research community in pursuing such a development; and where the recommendations to support such a development may be in need of improvement. Our analysis concludes that the reports address adequately various ethical, social, and economic topics, but come short of providing an overarching political vision and long-term strategy for the development of a ‘good AI society’. In order to contribute to fill this gap, in the conclusion we suggest a two-pronged approach. (shrink)

The dissociation of ethics with practice -- Reconsidering approaches to moral reasoning -- Moral agency reconsidered -- Reconsidering values -- Leadership and accountability -- Reconsidering ethics management.

Resumen: El presente artículo analiza el problema de la afectividad en la concepción de la Fenomenología de la vida del filósofo francés Michel Henry, quien la concibe como fundamento de la subjetividad y esencia de la manifestación. Henry realiza un análisis de la obra del pintor Vasily Kandinsky, y muestra cómo la pintura abstracta, no figurativa, logra expresar en los colores y formas aquello invisible que es la esencia de la pintura y que coincide a su vez con la Vida. (...) La concepción de abstracción elaborada por Kandinsky refiere al contenido invisible e interior, que se expresa a través de colores y formas, pero que es la vida misma en su pathos subjetivo fundamental. De este modo, según Henry, el arte se transformaría en único lenguaje para expresar la radicalidad de la vida afectiva, porque no representa nada exterior o extraño, su contenido es la vida misma.: The present article analyzes the problem of affectivity in French philosopher Michel Henry's conception of Phenomenology of life, conceived of as the foundation of the subjectivity and the essence of the manifestation. Henry analyzes the work of the painter Vasily Kandinsky, showing how abstract and non-figurative painting expresses in colors and forms something invisible, which is the essence of the painting and coincides with the Life. Kandinsky's conception of abstraction refers to the invisible and the inner content, which expresses itself through colors and forms, being the life itself in its fundamental subjective pathos. In this way, the art becomes the only language capable to express the radicality of the affective life, because it does not represent anything exterior or foreign, being its content the life itself. (shrink)

This paper argues that corporate Codes of Ethics lose their ability to further moral responsiveness because of the narrow instrumental purposes that inform their adoption and use. It draws on Jacques Derrida's reading of Emmanuel Levinas to argue that, despite the fact that all philosophical language entails a certain violence, corporate Codes of Ethics could potentially play a more meaningful role in furthering ethical questioning within corporations. The paper argues that Derrida's reading of Levinas' notion of 'the third' could precipitate (...) the emergence of a broader sense of ethical responsibility towards multiple others within corporations. Codes may also present the opportunity for corporations to engage in the reconsideration of their own purposes in the light of questions of justice towards multiple others. How these changes in the establishment and use of Codes may be accomplished is explored towards the end of the paper. (shrink)

Louise Labé est-elle une femme? Et pourquoi l’œuvre serait-elle inauthentique autrement? Le petit drame critique engendré par un ouvrage de Mireille Huchon pose la question du rapport de l’œuvre à son auteur, ou l’Auteur comme instance et valeur. Une définition restreinte du lyrisme comme expression personnelle et sincère est corollairement mise en cause. L’émotivité du débat reflète l’angoisse de perdre une autorité féminine mythique. Le soupçon d’inauthenticité révèle aussi notre moment théorique en interrogeant l’articulation entre lyrisme et codes « genrés (...) ». On fait cependant bien parler en français une courtisane gauloise dans tous les sens, apte à rivaliser avec Laure et l’Italie…. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the ways in which European business schools are implementing sustainability and ethics into their curricula. Drawing on data gathered by a recent large study that the Academy of Business in Society conducted in cooperation with EFMD, we map the approaches that schools are currently employing by drawing on and expanding Rusinko’s :507–519 2010) and Godemann et al.’s matrice of integrating sustainability in business and management schools. We show that most schools adopt one or more of the four (...) approaches outlined by Godemann et al.. However, we also argue that a fifth dimension needs to be added as the existing matrices do not capture the systemic nature of such curricular initiatives and how these are influenced by internal factors within the business school and external factors beyond. We suggest calling this fifth dimension ‘Systemic Institutional Integration’ and demonstrate that any business school which aims to integrate sustainability further into the curricula cannot succeed without the following: Systemic thinking and systemic leadership, Connectedness to business, the natural environment and society and Institutional capacity building. Utilising further literature and the answers provided by the deans and faculty, we discuss each factor in turn and suggest paths towards the successful systemic institutional integration of sustainability and ethics into management education. (shrink)