IntroductionCognitive impairment is a highly prevalent non-motor feature of Parkinson’s disease. A better understanding of the underlying pathophysiology may help in identifying therapeutic targets to prevent or treat dementia. This study sought to identify metabolic alterations in the prefrontal cortex, a key region for cognitive functioning that has been implicated in cognitive dysfunction in PD.MethodsProton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy was used to investigate metabolic changes in the PFC of a cohort of cognitively normal individuals without PD, as well as PD participants (...) with either normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment, or dementia. Ratios to Creatine resonance were obtained for glutamate, glutamine and glutamate combined, N-acetylaspartate, myoinositol, and total choline, and correlated with cognitive scores across multiple domains administered to the PD participants only.ResultsWhen individuals retain cognitive capabilities, the presence of Parkinson’s disease does not create metabolic disturbances in the PFC. However, when cognitive symptoms are present, PFC Glu/Cre ratios decrease with significant differences between the PD-NC and PPD groups. In addition, Glu/Cre ratios and memory scores were marginally associated, but not after Bonferroni correction.ConclusionThese preliminary findings indicate that fluctuations in prefrontal glutamate may constitute a biomarker for the progression of cognitive impairments in PD. We caution for larger MRS investigations of carefully defined PD groups. (shrink)

Concerned with the interplay between science, society, and power, Isabelle Stengers offers a unique perspective on the power of scientific theories to modify society, and vice versa. 9 diagrams.

Depuis qu'elles existent, les sciences dites exactes se prétendent différentes des autres savoirs. Comment comprendre cette prétention? Faut-il, à la manière des épistémologues anglo-saxons ou de Karl Popper, tenter d'identifier les critères qui la justifient? Peut-on, suivant le modèle nouveau des études sociales des sciences, y voir une simple croyance? Ce livre propose un dépassement fructueux de l'opposition, apparemment irréconciliable, entre ces deux approches des sciences. Et si la tension entre objectivité scientifique et croyance était justement constitutive des sciences, enjeu (...) des pratiques inventées et réinventées par les scientifiques? Réussir à parler des sciences avec humour, sans en faire un objet de vénération, ni de dénonciation, en restant au plus proche de la passion des scientifiques, tel est ici le pari d'Isabelle Stengers. Mais ce livre ne se limite pas à un discours sur les sciences. Il s'agit bien plutôt de prolonger l'histoire de leur invention. Comment comprendre les liens multiples entre la science et les pouvoirs qui la mobilisent aujourd'hui? Comment concevoir les rapports entre science, expertise et démocratie? La nouveauté de L'invention des sciences modernes est de faire de ces différents problèmes intellectuels, pratiques et politiques les enjeux du processus par où pourrait s'inventer et se renouveler l'identité même des sciences. (shrink)

This study investigates whether the market valuation of the two summary accounting measures, book value of equity and net income, is higher for firms with reputation for sustainability leadership, when compared to firms that do not enjoy such reputation. The results are interpreted through the lens of a framework combining signalling theory and resource-based theory, according to which firms signal their commitment to sustainability to influence the external perception of reputation. A firm’s reputation for being committed to sustainability is an (...) intangible resource that can increase the value of a firm’s expected cash flows and/or reduce the variability of its cash flows. Our findings are according to expectations and show that the net income of firms with good sustainability reputation has a higher valuation by the market, when compared to their counterparts. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead has never gone out of print, but for a time he was decidedly out of fashion in the English-speaking world. In a splendid work that serves as both introduction and erudite commentary, Isabelle Stengersâe"one of todayâe(tm)s leading philosophers of scienceâe"goes straight to the beating heart of Whiteheadâe(tm)s thought. The product of thirty yearsâe(tm) engagement with the mathematician-philosopherâe(tm)s entire canon, this volume establishes Whitehead as a daring thinker on par with Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Michel Foucault. (...) Reading the texts in broadly chronological order while highlighting major works, Stengers deftly unpacks Whiteheadâe(tm)s often complicated language, explaining the seismic shifts in his thinking and showing how he called into question all that philosophers had considered settled after Descartes and Kant. She demonstrates that the implications of Whiteheadâe(tm)s philosophical theories and specialized knowledge of the various sciences come yoked with his innovative, revisionist take on God. Whiteheadâe(tm)s God exists within a specific epistemological realm created by a radically complex and often highly mathematical language. âeoeTo think with Whitehead today,âe Stengers writes, âeoemeans to sign on in advance to an adventure that will leave none of the terms we normally use as they were.âe. (shrink)

The main problems faced by a conception of perception as passive will be introduced through a critical examination of John McDowell's account of 'empirical thinking'. Overcoming these difficulties will lead to a conception of perception as involving an active cognitive participation of the perceiver, and an account of how observational judgment is warranted that is focused on the conditions of experience. In both cases, analogies to inquiry in scientific experimental practice will be explored.

L'ambition de ce livre, et elle est grande, est de faire vivre à son lecteur, qu'il soit ou non philosophe, le trajet fulgurant qui, en quelques années, a transformé le mathématicien Alfred North Whitehead en philosophe spéculatif. De la pierre grise que je vois là jusqu'à la création du Dieu qu'exige la cohérence spéculative, il s'agit bel et bien de cette " libre et sauvage création de concepts " associée à la philosophie anglaise par Deleuze et Guattari dans Qu'est-ce que (...) la philosophie? Mais " sauvage " signifie d'abord ici l'humour d'une mise à l'aventure de tous les " nous savons bien " qui rassurent, et l'expérimentation tranquille des concepts qui portent à leur plus haut degré, pour les faire converger, liberté et contrainte, audace et obligation. De l'aventure, nul ne devrait ramener une doctrine ou un mode de pensée unanime ; plutôt, différent pour chacun, un certain goût pour les questions qui mettent en risque, et une grande indifférence aux mots d'ordre qui prétendent nous dire comment penser. (shrink)

Este libro es un homenaje a la trayectoria intelectual y académica de la profesora María Teresa López de la Vieja, Catedrática emérita de la Universidad de Salamanca. En él se trazan algunos de los caminos que, con su obra, nos invita a transitar. El volumen recoge contribuciones de colegas de varias nacionalidades y procedentes de diversos ámbitos de reflexión que le son afines: la filosofía moral y política, la literatura, la teoría de la argumentación, los estudios feministas, las éticas aplicadas, (...) la bioética. Los capítulos que componen este libro dan voz a varias generaciones de investigadoras e investigadores que han acompañado y acompañan su andadura académica y que aquí dialogan con ella haciendo propias sus preocupaciones intelectuales. Con su participación contribuyen al justo reconocimiento de su dedicación a la labor docente e investigadora. (shrink)

This article systematises and analyses the successive Catalan nationalist governments’ main media policy strategies in the years of the so-called ‘pro-independence process’, which began with a massive separatist demonstration in September 2012 and has since been eclipsed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights four main lines of action: the instrumentalisation of regional public media; the granting of broadcast licences to private firms sympathetic to the cause; clientelism in the transfer of public funds to those private firms; and the mechanisms for (...) pressurising and seducing foreign journalists. All of the above can be understood as an acceleration of the project to articulate an own media system, which had begun in the 1980s, for the purpose of furthering Catalonia’s nation-building process. (shrink)

This article examines how the Kashmiri non-dualistic Śaiva philosophers Utpaladeva (tenth century) and Abhinavagupta (10th–11th centuries) present and criticize a theory expounded by certain Buddhist philosophers, identified by the two Śaiva authors as Sautrāntikas. According to this theory, no entity external to consciousness can ever be perceived since perceived objects are nothing but internal aspects (ākāra) of consciousness. Nonetheless we must infer the existence of external entities so as to account for the fact that consciousness is aware of a variety (...) of objects: just as a mirror takes on a variegated appearance only by reflecting a multiplicity of objects that remain external to it, in the same way, phenomenal variety can be explained only by assuming the existence of various objects external to consciousness. In Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikās I, 5, 8–9 and their commentaries, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta endeavour to criticize this theory, which challenges their own idealistic principles: according to them, the Sautrāntikas’ inference is neither legitimate nor even possible. The passage is particularly telling as regards the strategy developed by Pratyabhijñā philosophers with respect to their Buddhist opponents: they make use of certain arguments propounded by Dharmakīrti in defense of Vijñānavāda in order to criticize the Sautrāntikas’ inference, but they also exploit this discussion to underline the superiority of their idealism over that of the Vijñānavādins. (shrink)

"Isabelle Stengers presents us with a new way of understanding a remarkably diverse range of sciences and their relation to a material and living world. Playing with a position both inside the practices that constitute and transform science and outside the sciences as their mode of conceptualization, Stengers explores the limits, constraints, and inventions that fuse modern science and contemporary society." Elizabeth Grosz --.

This contribution aims at putting forth two different receptions of the Aristotelian conception of the intellectual contemplation as the unique source of human happiness. As it is defined in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle understands intellectual contemplation as a philosophical activity, based on the same model as the divine activity of the prime mover. Following Aristotle, Avicenna defines beatitude in pure philosophical terms, thus excluding any religious requisite or divine intervention. Albert the Great appears to be extremely dependent from Aristotle’s and (...) Avicenna’s influences but includes theological contemplation based on the lux gloriae for human beatitude. Beyond the historical interest, this paper hopes to provide an insight into the relationship between terrestrial happiness and celestial beatitude and to show how philosophy and theology interact to construe such a relation. (shrink)

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, an important conceptual battleground for democratic theorists ought to be, it would seem, the capitalist firm. We are now painfully aware that the typical model of government in so-called investor-owned companies remains profoundly oligarchic, hierarchical, and unequal. Renewing with the literature of the 1970s and 1980s on workplace democracy, a few political theorists have started to advocate democratic reforms of the workplace by relying on an analogy between firm and state. To (...) the extent that a firm is an organization comparable to the state, it too ought to be ruled along democratic lines. Our paper tests the robustness of the analogy between firm and state by considering six major objections to it: the objection from a difference in ends, the objection from shareholders’ property rights, the objection from worker’s consent, the objection from workers’ exit opportunities, the objection from workers’ expertise, and the objection from the fragility of firms. We find all of these objections wanting. While the paper does not ambition to settle the issue of workplace democracy at once, our goal is to pave the way for a more in-depth study of the ways in which firms and states can be compared and the possible implications this may have for our understanding of the nature of managerial authority and the governance of firms. (shrink)

Participation of the Public in Science: Towards a New Kind of Scientific Practice Participation of the public in science has been the object of an increasing number of social and political philosophical studies, but there is still hardly any epistemological study of the topic. While it has been objected that involvement of the public is a threat to the integrity of science, the apparent indifference of philosophers of science seems to testify to its lack of relevance to conceptions of scientific (...) activity. I argue both that it is not a threat to science and that it is relevant to philosophy of science by showing that it constitutes a new kind of epistemic practice. Two main objections to the idea that the involvement of non-scientists, with their situated perspective and contextual values, can form an epistemic practice will be addressed: the first bears on the epistemic potentialities of the cooperation between scientist and non-scientists; the second on the possibility that this cooperation takes the form of a practice. (shrink)

Psychologists and economists often ask similar questions about human behaviour. This volume brings together contributions from leaders in both disciplines.The editorial introduction discusses methodological differences between the two which have until now limited the development of mutually beneficial lines of research. Psychologists have objected to what they see as an excessive formalism in economic modelling and an unrealistic degree of sophistication in the behaviour of individuals, while economists criticize the absence of a general psychological framework into which most results can (...) be fitted and the lack of welfare implications in their theories. The editors encourage scholars to exploit the strengths of each discipline - the ability of psychologists to understand the feelings and motivation of individuals; and the experience of economists to develop normative frameworks.The editors then highlight the links between the contributions by grouping them according to central themes in the study of rationality and well-being:1. The causes and consequences of 'irrational behaviour';2. The role of anticipatory feelings and imperfect self-knowledge on decision-making; 3. The way in which memory of past events and cost of thinking affect current decisions;4. The interaction between anticipated and remembered utility and its effects on the welfare of individuals; 5. Experimental practice on how to perform controlled experiments to test hypotheses.This exciting volume provides an excellent point of entry for anyone interested in the interface between economics and psychology. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead called Isabel Scribner Stearns the most talented female philosopher in America. Drawing on Whitehead and her other teachers, Paul Weiss, C.I. Lewis, H.H. Price, and Grace de Laguna, as well as the traditions of ancient Greek philosophy, Continental Rationalism, German Idealism, and American Pragmatism, Stearns has created an epistemologically and logically sound systematic account of the ontology of individuation and the relational genesis and endurance of individual beings.

Augustine is a particularly interesting author for anyone who wishes to question the topic of dualism, because of the diverse and complex way this topic is adressed in his writings. After having been listening to the Manichean as an “auditor” for almost ten years, he raised many critics against the manichean thesis ; but in spite of this critical position, several of his later opponents, from the Donatist and mostly from the Pelagian heresy, often reproached him to have remained a (...) crypto‑Manichean. This paper focuses on working out the original image Augustine had about the manicheism, as providing a coherent answer to some ethical and metaphysical problems, then as being nothing more than a false response he had to break with. This task will then lead us to question his potential residual manicheism, considering his controversy with Julian of Eclanum, in order to identify the arguments by which Julian supports the accusation of augustinian Manicheism, and to assess the extent to which this accusation is or is not admissible. (shrink)

Prepared for an ANU Humanities Research Centre Symposium in early August 2003, these notes may be considered as a comment on Brian Massumi’s proposition that ‘a political ecology would be a social technology of belonging, assuming coexistence and co-becoming as the habitat of practices’.

"The Invention of Modern Science proposes a fruitful way of going beyond the apparently irreconcilable positions, that science is either "objective" or "socially constructed." Instead, suggests Isabelle Stengers, one of the most important and influential philosophers of science in Europe, we might understand the tension between scientific objectivity and belief as a necessary part of science, central to the practices invented and reinvented by scientists."--pub. desc.

Dans ce livre, l’auteur élabore une critique de la notion de « banalité du mal » forgée par Hannah Arendt à partir du procès Eichmann en vue d’expliquer les crimes de masse. En reconnaissant, certes, que la banalité du mal est une formule qui a le mérite d’affirmer la dimension humaine du mal extrême « par opposition à l’idée de l’indicible d’un mal absolu et transcendant » (p. 117), Isabelle Delpla la qualifie néanmoins de « faux concept ». Del..

At the end of his life, Michel Foucault wrote of ‘problematization’ as what he had done all along. Yet some commentators see a ‘new’ Foucault emerging together with this term. This essay accepts the last hypothesis and connects it with the French scene, where problematization was already familiar, and its use under tension. Starting with Bachelard, problematization was related with a polemic epistemological stance, but its reprise by Gilles Deleuze turned it into an affirmative theme dramatizing the creation of problems. (...) Situating Foucault’s problematization in this philosophical line permits us to develop the relation he proposed between problematization and the test of contemporary reality on the thinker. This paper will put problematization itself to the test of our present, that is, to the prospect of the social-ecological devastation associated with climate disorder. Both following and betraying Foucault with the help of Whitehead and Haraway, problematization will then be related to the power of sensible events, a power which requires allowing oneself to be touched, and allowing what touches us the power to modify the relation we entertain to our own reasons. (shrink)

Les travaux de Locke sur la monnaie ne sont pas une esquisse maladroite des théories économiques libérales ultérieures mais une partie intégrante de sa philosophie. Il s’agit alors de montrer que l’étude lockienne de la monnaie se situe à l’intersection de trois axes de recherche distincts. D’une part, s’inspirant de l’analyse mercantiliste de la richesse et de sa circulation, Locke s’efforce de définir les catégories propres de l’analyse monétaire. D’autre part, la monnaie métallique se définissant à la fois comme marchandise (...) et comme signe, le problème se situe alors sur le terrain d’une analyse philosophique de la représentation, qui met en jeu la distinction entre substance, mode mixte et relation établie dans l’Essai philosophique concernant l’entendement humain. Enfin, la monnaie assure la liaison entre l’activité privée et l’ensemble de la vie sociale : Locke examine son rôle du point de vue de la propriété, du travail et des finalités collectives qu’ils doivent réaliser. Au total, la monnaie apparaît bien comme un problème crucial de la pensée lockienne, et non comme un thème annexe et conjoncturel. (shrink)