Adult stem cell populations must coordinate their own maintenance with the generation of differentiated cell types to sustain organ physiology, in a spatially controlled manner and over long periods. Quantitative analyses of clonal dynamics have revealed that, in epithelia, homeostasis is achieved at the population rather than at the single stem cell level, suggesting that feedback mechanisms coordinate stem cell maintenance and progeny generation. In the central nervous system, however, little is known of the possible community processes underlying neural stem (...) cell maintenance. Recent work, in part based on intravital imaging made possible in the adult zebrafish, conclusively highlights that homeostasis in neural stem cell pools may rely on population asymmetry and long‐term spatiotemporal coordination of neural stem cell states and fates. These results suggest that neural stem cell assemblies in the vertebrate brain behave as self‐organized systems, such that the stem cells themselves generate their own intrinsic niche. (shrink)

El Ethos es el fenómeno de la moralidad en su sentido más amplio. El presente trabajo –de naturaleza programática– esboza la idea de una fenomenología integral del ethos capaz de pensar, evitando toda forma de reduccionismo, sus diversos niveles de sentido. Procedemos en cinco pasos: en primer lugar, sostenemos que las experiencias humanas fundamentales –en particular la experiencia ética– son del orden de la contingencia y que, en consecuencia, sus verdades no se dejan captu-rar por el análisis fenomenológico-transcendental. En segundo (...) término, presentamos la noción de experiencia ética, a la que describimos como la experiencia del contacto traumático de la Ley en su cuádruple carácter: singular, universal, verdadero, y contingente. En tercer lugar, vía la lectura del ensayo de Derrida Violencia y metafísica. Ensayo sobre el pensamiento de Emmanuel Levinas, ponemos en cuestión la tesis de la supuesta preeminencia de la fenomenología –en tanto que idealismo transcendental– respecto del discurso ético. En cuarto término, introducimos la noción de testimonio como la modalidad narrativa, “pre-filosófica”, capaz de expresar de la manera más fiel el sentido de la experiencia ética. Por último, distinguimos cinco niveles fundamentales del ethos y, sobre esta base, señalamos algunas de las tareas específicas de una fenomenología integral del ethos.The Ethos is the phenomenon of morality in its broadest sense. Our programmatic essay sketches the idea of a comprehen-sive phenomenology of the ethos capable of thinking –non-reductively– its different layers of meaning. We proceed in five steps: first, we claim that fundamental human experiences –in particular, ethical experience– are contingent in nature and that, as a consequence, their truths cannot be grasped by a phenomenologico-transcendental analysis. Second, we describe the notion of ethical experience as a traumatic experience of contact with the Law in its quadruple character: singular, universal, true, and contingent. Third, through a reading of Derrida’s Violence and Metaphysics. An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas, we question the alleged preeminence of phenomenology –as transcendental idealism– over ethical discourse and praxis. Fourth, we introduce the notion of testimony as the kind of “pre-philosophical” narrative able to convey most faithfully the meaning of ethical experience. Finally, we distinguish five fundamental layers of the ethos and, on the basis of these distinctions, we identify some of the specific tasks of a comprehensive phenomenology of the ethos. (shrink)

Exemplified especially by Heidegger and Levinas, the phenomenology of death expresses first, the impossibility of the death experience, second, the authenticity of Dasein starting from the horizon opened by the possibility of death, and third, the relevance of the death of the other to the discovery of one’s own death. This article tries to take a step further, showing the link between the authenticity of Dasein and the desire for immortality manifested in this authenticity. By overturning Heidegger’s theses and by (...) affirming both the necessity of an authentication of death itself—in accord with Socrates’s death example—and the legitimacy of the meditation on death, this text links the need for immortality, which is phenomenologically visible, with the Christian faith in the resurrection, which is visible only for theology. (shrink)

The view we defend is that in virtue of its nature, disgust is not fit to do any moral or social work whatsoever, and that there are no defensible uses for disgust in legal or political institutions. We first describe our favoured empirical theory of the nature of disgust. Turning from descriptive to normative issues, we address the best arguments in favour of granting disgust the power to justify certain judgements, and to serve as a social tool, respectively. Daniel (...) class='Hi'>Kahan advances a pair of theses that suggest disgust is indispensable (Moral Indispensability Thesis), and so has an important part to play in the functioning of a just, well-ordered society (Conservation Thesis). We develop responses and show how they rebut the arguments given in support of each thesis. We conclude that any society free of social disgust would be more just, reasonable and compassionate. (shrink)

El problema de las utopías es central para la filosofía política quizá ya desde Platón, pero indudablemente desde Moro. En este artículo se utiliza como fuente de la que hacer manar la filosofía de Emmanuel Levinas en relación con la posibilidad de desarrollar una filosofía política de la alteridad. El problema que se plantea es si la primacía de la ética desactiva el sueño utópico político o si esta filosofía de la alteridad acerca a la justicia utópica. Primero desentrañaré (...) la semántica del término utopía en la obra del pensador lituano, después me centraré en el significado central como ética y finalmente plantearé que la obra de Levinas es una filosofía del no-lugar. (shrink)

Edition du ms. K 861 découvert à la Bibliothèque humaniste de Sélestat, dans lequel Beatus Rhenanus, étudiant alsacien de Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples et de Charles de Bovelles de 1503 à 1505, rapporte un propos de ce dernier, réunit un ensemble de citations de Nicolas de Cues, et transcrit un opuscule inédit de 62 propositions Sapiens est qui se fecit hominem, que l’on peut attribuer à Bovelles.

La presente investigación se circunscribe dentro del campo temático de la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl. Y tiene como objetivo el tratar de dilucidar dentro de la misma inmanencia de la experiencia trascendental del yo pienso, el modo no solo como surge la intersubjetividad, sino cómo este último concepto al igual que el de la egología, tienen como fundamento una noción de subjetividad moderna que por un lado, aparece dentro de la arquitectónica fenomenológica, como constituyente de sentido dentro de la (...) meditación husserliana, y por otro, puede aparecer como una noción que impide la elaboración de un nuevo concepto de hombre que incluya en su seno la alteridad, tal y como piensa Emmanuel Lévinas, y con ello, la posibilidad de hablar de un yo separado que no encuentre en lo otro una mera analogía suya, o extensión de su propia inmanencia, sino antes bien, la posibilidad de hallar en eso otro que nos sale al paso, la condición por la que se puede hablar de tiempo, de mundo y de existencia como relación con otros y para otros. (shrink)

This paper takes the recent French elections as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the presidential function in parliamentary democracies. The discrepancy between the winning candidate's pre-election declarations and his actual approach to his new function reflects a fundamental divergence in the possible interpretations of political representation. This divergence was made fully explicit and came to a head in the debate that opposed the two great jurists of the Weimar Republic, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt. This paper suggests (...) that revisiting this old polemic can yield interesting insights into the contemporary situation. (shrink)

Lorsqu'il commence la rédaction du Prince au début de l'année 1513, Nicolas Machiavel met le principe nuovo Médicis sur la voie de la création d'un Etat libre et de la refondation du vivere libero florentin. Texte d'intervention, resserré dans l'espace et dans le temps d'une conjoncture et d'une occasion politique, Le Prince, et plus largement l'oeuvre de Machiavel, formule les questions politiques fondatrices : qu'est-ce qui peut rendre légitime l'autorité? À quelles conditions les hommes peuvent-ils instituer la vie libre? Ce (...) livre reconstitue le cheminement du discours machiavélien à partir de ses concepts clés (la virtù, la fortune, la forme, la matière et l'occasion), situés dans leur matérialité historique. L'oeuvre de Machiavel travaille en profondeur les pensées de la "modernité" politique. Une autre modernité apparaît, marquée par une tradition civique dont on n'a pas épuisé la fécondité, et qui permet de repenser radicalement la notion de démocratie. (shrink)

Cet opus de cent pages, qui s’inscrit dans la collection dirigée par Ariel Suhamy et Nicolas Duvoux, “La vie des idées” des Presses universitaires de France, propose d’explorer différentes questions au travers desquelles le handicap est envisagé comme cause politique. C’est un ouvrage collectif qui regroupe une introduction, cinq chapitres, et une bibliographie anglophone et francophone commentée (États-Unis, Royaume-Uni, Canada, Australie, France) citant une quarantaine d’auteurs relevant de...

This interview was conducted with one of the closest friends of the visual artist Ray Johnson, the late photographer and writer William S. Wilson. Johnson was a fixture of the New York downtown art scene in the late 1940, 1950s, and 1960s. He was influenced by Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists alike, but was a true original, widely considered to be the founder of “mail art” and also an important collagist and performance artist. Wilson helped Johnson to formulate the idea (...) of “mail art” as they exchanged correspondence, thoughts, ideas, experiences, and much else besides. In this interview, Wilson discusses Johnson's sexuality, sadomasochistic practice, and philosophy of friendship. He provides hitherto unknown details about Johnson's intimate relations with the artist Richard Lippold and life at Black Mountain College. Wilson also recounts details of Johnson's relation to women in terms of art, friendship, love, and sex. But more than anything, this interview captures the atmosphere of queer life in the middle decades of the twentieth century and Johnson's particular experiences of that era. (shrink)

Dreaming is often characterized as lacking high-order cognitive skills. In two studies, we test the alternative hypothesis that the dreaming mind is highly similar to the waking mind. Multiple experience samples were obtained from late-night REM sleep and waking, following a systematic protocol described in Kahan . Results indicated that reported dreaming and waking experiences are surprisingly similar in their cognitive and sensory qualities. Concurrently, ratings of dreaming and waking experiences were markedly different on questions of general reality orientation (...) and logical organization . Consistent with other recent studies , experiences sampled from dreaming and waking were more similar with respect to their process features than with respect to their structural features. (shrink)

A new history of liberalism which argues that liberalism has been predicated on definite morality and should be viewed as an attempt to encompass both fear and hope. Liberalism, argues Alan Kahan, is the search for a society in which people need not be afraid. Freedom from fear is the most basic freedom. If we are afraid, we are not free. These insights, found in Montesquieu and Judith Shklar, are the foundation of liberalism. What liberals fear has changed over (...) time (revolution, reaction, totalitarianism, religious fanaticism, poverty, and now populism) but the great majority of liberal thinkers have relied on three pillars to ward off their fears and to limit the concentrated power that causes fear: freedom, markets, and morals, or, to put it another way, politics, economics, and religion or morality. Most liberal thinkers emphasize one or two pillars more than another, but it is typical of liberalism down to the Second World War to rely on all three, although there were always minority voices who preferred to stand on only one leg. After WWII, "thin" procedural/market liberals, who wanted to strip any moral or religious basis or purpose from liberalism, dominated "thick" liberal moralists, who thought liberalism needed a moral basis and/or goal. It is the political contention of this book that liberalism is most convincing as program, language, and social analysis when it relies on all three pillars, and that the relative weakness of liberalism at the end of the twentieth century had much to do with neglect of the moral pillar of liberalism. Its historical contention is that for much of the past two centuries it did rely on all three pillars. But Kahan also argues that liberalism is not only a party of fear. It is also a party of hope, or the party of progress. Many of the contradictions typical of liberalism derive from the seemingly contradictory effort to encompass both hope and fear. If in case of conflict fear often trumps hope for liberals (loss aversion applies in politics as much as in economics), and utopia is subject to indefinite postponement, progress in personal autonomy and development has always been at the heart of liberalism. Liberals typically support their hopes on the same three pillars of freedom, markets, and morals which they use to ward off their fears. Nevertheless, in one respect those historians and political theorists who identify liberalism with laissez-faire economics are not wrong. It is characteristic of liberalism then that it bases its hopes not on the state but on civil society, which for liberals is the common source of a free politics, a free market, and of morals. Alan S. Kahan is Professor of History at the Université de Versailles. His previous books include Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion: Checks and Balances for Democratic Souls (Oxford 2015), Alexis de Tocqueville (Continuum Books) and Mind vs Money: The War Between Intellectuals and Capitalism (Transaction Publishing, 2010). (shrink)

This commentary uses the dynamic of identity-protective cognition to pose a friendly challenge to Jussim (2012). Like other forms of information processing, this one is too readily characterized as a bias. It is no mistake, however, to view identity-protective cognition as generating inaccurate perceptions. The “bounded rationality” paradigm incorrectly equates rationality with forming accurate beliefs. But so does Jussim's critique.

"Liberalism" is widely used to describe a variety of social and political ideas, but has been an especially difficult concept for historians and political scientists to define. Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville define one type of liberal thought. They share an aristocratic liberalism marked by distaste for the masses and the middle class, opposition to the commercial spirit, fear and contempt of mediocrity, and suspicion of the centralized state. Their fears are combined with an elevated ideal of human personality, an ideal (...) which affirms modernity. All see their ideals threatened in the immediate future, and all hope to save European civilization from barbarism and militarism through some form of education, although all grow more pessimistic towards the end of their lives. Aristocratic Liberalism ignores the national boundaries that so often confine the history of political thought, and uses the perspective thus gained to establish a pan-European type of political thought. Going beyond Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville, Aristocratic Liberalism argues for new ways of looking at nineteenth-century liberalism. It corrects many prevalent misconceptions about liberalism, and suggests new paths for arriving at a better understanding of the leading form of nineteenth-century political thought. The new Afterword by the author presents a novel description of liberal political language as the "discourse of capacity," and suggests that this kind of language is the common denominator of all forms of European liberalism in the nineteenth century. Aristocratic Liberalism will be valuable to students of history, political science, sociology, and political philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Both Constant and Spencer are moralists who want to encourage individual human perfection. But for Constant, politics has moral value even in a laissez-faire state, whereas for Spencer political participation has no moral value in itself. For Constant, from a moral perspective the historical change from an ancient to a modern conception of liberty is not absolute, and he wishes to retain, in a subordinate role, certain aspects of ancient liberty in modern societies. For Spencer, the historical evolution from (...) militant to industrial society involves the complete separation of politics from any positive moral good. In an industrial society, altruism has no connection with politics, and attempt to bring altruism into politics are not only doomed to failure but iare unjust and therefore immoral. Spencer is a leading figure in the separation of classical liberal thought from perfectionist morality that flourishes in the twentieth century. The separation between classical and modern liberalism that takes place in the fin de siècle is not just a matter of economics – as is shown by the fact that both Spencer and Constant are ardent apostles of laissez-faire – it is above all a question of different attitudes to morality. (shrink)

Thirty-eight “practiced” dreamers and 50 “novice” dreamers completed questionnaires assessing the cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional qualities of recent waking and dreaming experiences. The present findings suggest that dreaming cognition is more similar to waking cognition than previously assumed and that the differences between dreaming and waking cognition are more quantitative than qualitative. Results from the two studies were generally consistent, indicating that high-order cognition during dreaming is not restricted to individuals practiced in dream recall or self-observation. None of the measured (...) features was absent or infrequent in reports of either dreaming or waking experiences. Recollections of dreaming and waking experiences were similar for some cognitive features and different for other features. (shrink)

Evidence of reflective awareness and metacognitive monitoring during REM sleep dreaming poses a significant challenge to the commonly held view of dream cognition as necessarily deficient relative to waking cognition. To date, dream metacognition has not received the theoretical or experimental attention it deserves. As a result, discussions of dream cognition have been underrepresented in theoretical accounts of consciousness. This paper argues for using a converging measures approach to investigate the range and limits of cognition and metacognition across the sleep–wakefulness (...) cycle. The paradigm developed by LaBerge and his colleagues to study "lucid-control" dreaming offers one such framework for relating phenomenological, cognitive, and physiological measures. In a lucid-control dream, the dreamer is both aware that the experimental context is a dream and has the ability to intentionally regulate aspects of the dream . Subjects can make patterns of deliberate eye movements to signal from the dream and thus index significant events such as the time of lucidity onset and the completion of previously agreed-upon tasks in the dream. Lucid dreaming and other examples of reflective awareness during dreaming have important implications for models of human cognition. The existence of these phenomena raises fundamental questions about current assumptions regarding "state" constraints on consciousness and cognition. (shrink)

The Metacognitive, Affective, Cognitive Experience questionnaire was designed to assess metacognition across sleep and waking . The present research evaluates the psychometric properties of the MACE. Data from two recent studies were used to assess the inter-item consistency, test–retest reliability, and factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity of the MACE. Results show that the MACE is a reliable measure with good construct validity. Exploratory factor analyses revealed one self-regulation and two monitoring factors. One monitoring factor emphasized monitoring internal conditions; the other (...) emphasized monitoring external conditions. This factor structure is consistent with the Metacognitive Model . Tests of convergent and discriminant validity suggest that the MACE is assessing metacognition and is appropriately related to similar constructs such as mindfulness and self-consciousness. The implication of these findings as well as suggestions for research and clinical applications of the MACE are discussed. (shrink)

A ground-breaking study of the views of the greatest theorist of democracy writing about one of our most pressing issues. Alan S. Kahan, a leading Tocqueville scholar, shows how Tocqueville's analysis of religion is simultaneously deeply rooted in his thoughts on nineteenth-century France and America and pertinent to us today.

_The Old Regime and the Revolution_ is Alexis de Tocqueville's great meditation on the origins and meanings of the French Revolution. One of the most profound and influential studies of this pivotal event, it remains a relevant and stimulating discussion of the problem of preserving individual and political freedom in the modern world. Alan Kahan's translation provides a faithful, readable rendering of Tocqueville's last masterpiece, and includes notes and variants which reveal Tocqueville's sources and include excerpts from his drafts (...) and revisions. The introduction by France's most eminent scholars of Tocqueville and the French Revolution, Françoise Mélonio and the late François Furet, provides a brilliant analysis of the work. (shrink)

In the twentieth century one interpretative perspective is curiously and strikingly absent: spatiality of narrative. Philosophical thought saw fundamental ontology as founded on temporality with space as decoration. Johannine inquiry has tended to follow in philosophy's temporal footsteps. However, it is plausible to assume that New Testament writers were spatially oriented while modern interpreters have been ensconced in temporal consciousness. Furthermore, as anthropology has long recognized, conceptions of space and place are central to any culture's sense of self. The undue (...) hermeneutic privileging of linearity and causality may have forced biblical texts into a temporal mode of reading that their original authors may not have intended.In understanding biblical worlds it is necessary to again explore spatiality. This essay will introduce textured spatiality as it applies to John 9. It will briefly review temporal thought and consciousness and explain how visual imagery is an essential component to the transmission and preservation of tradition. Textuality will also be used to tell the tale of the man born blind. Using the nature of Shabbat as a pivot, and a narrative juxtaposition of two contrasting Sabbath spaces, the paper will point to a possible Urcarnivalesque element in the chapter. (shrink)

The advent of democracy in nineteenth-century Europe was resisted by a set of thinkers who shared an 'aristocratic vision'. These aristocratic thinkers rejected the view that the greater good of the majority was of greater value than some higher good of a smaller number. It was the noble minority that was the more valuable part of society. This view corresponds in part to the philosophical tradition known as perfectionism. Matthew Arnold and Friedrich Nietzsche, thinkers rarely considered together, represent significant exemplars (...) of the liberal and radical versions of the aristocratic vision, and their similarities and differences are representative of the broad spectrum of aristocratic thought. Their common rejection of philistinism was part of an aristocratic vision of cultural perfection which was, Alexis de Tocqueville suggested, the natural reaction of a minority against the overwhelming materialism of democratic society. (shrink)

Numerous experiments have examined whether moving stimuli capture spatial attention but none have sought to determine whether visual features of looming and receding objects are extracted in a capacity-free manner. The current experiment used the task-choice procedure originated by Besner and Care to examine this possibility. Stimuli were presented in 3D space by manipulating retinal disparity. Results indicate that features of an object are extracted in a capacity-free manner for both looming and receding objects for participants who consciously perceive motion (...) but not for participants who do not consciously perceive motion. These results suggest that the cognitive system is biased to process potentially animate objects, perhaps because of the evolutionary advantage this cognitive ability may provide. (shrink)