A vast network of cellular circadian clocks regulates 24‐hour rhythms of behavior and physiology in mammals. Complex environments are characterized by multiple, and often conflicting time signals demanding flexible mechanisms of adaptation of endogenous rhythms to external time. Traditionally this process of circadian entrainment has been conceptualized in a hierarchical scheme with a light‐reset master pacemaker residing in the hypothalamus that subsequently aligns subordinate peripheral clocks with each other and with external time. Here we review new experiments using conditional mouse (...) genetics suggesting that resetting of the circadian system occurs in a more “federated” and tissue‐specific fashion, which allows for increased noise resistance and plasticity of circadian timekeeping under natural conditions. (shrink)

Conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) presents many opportunities in the psychotherapeutic landscape—such as therapeutic support for people with mental health problems and without access to care. The adoption of CAI poses many risks that need in-depth ethical scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to complement current research on the ethics of AI for mental health by proposing a holistic, ethical, and epistemic analysis of CAI adoption. First, we focus on the question of whether CAI is rather a tool or an (...) agent. This question serves as a framework for the subsequent ethical analysis of CAI focusing on topics of (self-) knowledge, (self-)understanding, and relationships. Second, we propose further conceptual and ethical analysis regarding human-AI interaction and argue that CAI cannot be considered as an equal partner in a conversation as is the case with a human therapist. Instead, CAI’s role in a conversation should be restricted to specific functions. (shrink)

Research on the human microbiome has gen- erated a staggering amount of sequence data, revealing variation in microbial diversity at the community, species (or phylotype), and genomic levels. In order to make this complexity more manageable and easier to interpret, new units—the metagenome, core microbiome, and entero- type—have been introduced in the scientific literature. Here, I argue that analytical tools and exploratory statisti- cal methods, coupled with a translational imperative, are the primary drivers of this new ontology. By reducing the (...) dimensionality of variation in the human microbiome, these new units render it more tractable and easier to interpret, and hence serve an important heuristic role. Nonetheless, there are several reasons to be cautious about these new categories prematurely ‘‘hardening’’ into natural units: a lack of constraints on what can be sequenced metagenomically, freedom of choice in taxonomic level in defining a ‘‘core microbiome,’’ typological framing of some of the concepts, and possible reification of statistical constructs. Finally, lessons from the Human Genome Project have led to a translational imperative: a drive to derive results from the exploration of microbiome variation that can help to articulate the emerging paradigm of per- sonalized genomic medicine (PGM). There is a tension between the typologizing inherent in much of this research and the personal in PGM. (shrink)

Dans La Paléontologie : distancer le temps, John Huss examine les défis de la compréhension des échelles de temps géologiques en paléontologie. Les profondeurs du temps, comparables aux vastes distances spatiales, nécessitent des heuristiques uniques pour être conceptualisées. Huss explore la "spatialisation du temps", où les fossiles et les strates géologiques servent d'archives physiques de processus s'étendant sur des millions d'années. Cette approche permet aux paléontologues de reconstruire l'histoire de la Terre et de comprendre les changements évolutifs. -/- L'article aborde (...) comment les archives fossiles et la biologie moléculaire offrent des chronologies parfois complémentaires, mais aussi parfois contradictoires, des événements évolutifs, incitant à des progrès méthodologiques constants. Huss traite également des difficultés épistémologiques liées à l'étude de l'histoire profonde, en particulier du fait de la nature fragmentaire des archives géologiques. Il critique la métaphore traditionnelle de l'histoire de la Terre comme un "livre", suggérant que les couches vides de roches sédimentaires reflètent non seulement des lacunes dans les archives fossiles, mais aussi des changements systémiques dans l'environnement terrestre. Cette perspective met en lumière les méthodes intégratives complexes nécessaires pour reconstruire le passé ancien de la planète. (shrink)

The connection between art therapy and specific theories of positive psychology such as Antonovsky's theory of salutogenic sense of coherence (SOC) has been less articulated in the literature. This paper draws a methodological connection between arts therapy and SOC, that is, meaning, manageability and comprehensibility, as the components of coping. This theoretical and methodological connection is then explored with a group of participants dealing with the health-stress of cancer. Method We conducted a large-scale, qualitative study that included fifty transcribed hours (...) of thematically analyzed arts processes and one hundred art works, used to explore salutogenic theory within a support group for recovering oncological patients. Results The results point to the arts as including mechanisms that enhance meaning, manageability, and comprehensibility in an embodied and synergetic way. The art makes it possible both to separate and to 'fill' these three components, while on the other hand, integrating them into a cyclical element. We outline theoretical and methodological implications of understanding art therapy as a methodology to enact and concretize positive psychology theories, as well as presenting a protocol for using arts to enhance salutogenic coping. (shrink)

The introduction of computer simulation to paleobiology ushered in a new, experimental style of reasoning. Rather than starting with observed fossil patterns and hypothesizing causal processes that may have produced them, it became possible to start with a process model, and from it to simulate a range of possible patterns. ;The MBL Model is a stochastic model of phylogenetic evolution . Computer simulations conducted with the MBL Model served as thought experiments in stochastic evolution. In the MBL work, similarities between (...) empirical and stochastically simulated clades mounted a visual argument that stochastic processes potentially explained large fluctuations in diversity. Stanley and others countered that the similarities were an artifact of scaling. The scaling problem may have been obscured by visual bias: measures of clade shape are scale-invariant, but diversification itself is highly scale-dependent. ;Null and neutral models are frequently conflated. Null models generate hypothetical data distributions under conditions that exclude some process of interest to test whether patterns in an actual data distribution provide statistical evidence for that process. A neutral model assumes selective equivalence among all units at a specified hierarchical level in the evolving system. Neutral models are often inappropriate as null models. Pattern recognition presupposes a null model, but tacit null models are subject to persistent cognitive biases, necessitating explicit formulation of null models. Nonetheless, failure to reject the null model should not preclude further investigation of a pattern. ;Often, models are not candidates for falsification, but serve to simulate data for testing concepts or methods. Sepkoski and Kendrick , and Robeck, Maley, and Donoghue used the MBL Model to test whether mass extinction periodicity is an artifact of paraphyly in taxonomic data. Such numerical experiments, which make all assumptions explicit, can serve as templates for localizing points of disagreement. Models may fall into lineages, each generation providing lessons for the next, but often sharing operational assumptions. Artifacts of shared operational assumptions are often a threat to the validity of inferences. Results holding across models should not be accepted unless they withstand rigorous robustness analysis. (shrink)

Here I critique the approach often seen in bioethics, termed "Chicken Little bioethics," which emphasizes only the potential risks of novel therapies, using fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) as a case study. I argue that, instead of cataloging hypothetical risks, bioethicists should focus on establishing an ethical framework for FMT based on justice, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and autonomy. The essay advocates for empirical risk-benefit analysis through initiatives like the FMT registry, which tracks patient outcomes to better assess the actual risks and benefits (...) compared to antibiotic alternatives. Additionally, I address challenges related to informed consent, donor selection, and access to FMT, underscoring the need for balanced policies that consider both patient safety and the equitable availability of this promising therapy. In the end, I call for a regulatory approach that fosters responsible innovation while allowing FMT and similar bacteriotherapies to be integrated safely and effectively into medical practice. (shrink)

Kaum eine andere künstlerische Strategie prägte das Wertesystem der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts wie die Wiederholung. Sie lässt sich als wesentliches Moment ausmachen, neue Wahrnehmungsweisen zu ermöglichen, Kritik an Formen der Repräsentation zu üben und neuen Sinn zu produzieren. Der Band nimmt eine kritische Revision des Phänomens für die zeitgenössische Kunst vor und eröffnet anhand bildnerischer, skulpturaler, performativer, technisch-medialer wie auch kuratorischer Wiederholungen in der Kunst eine Perspektive auf die Wiederholung als Grundbegriff des Ästhetischen.

We examine the embodiment of one foundational aspect of human cognition, language, through its bodily association with the gestures that accompany its expression in speech. Gesture is a universal feature of human communication. Gestures are produced by all speakers in every culture . They are tightly timed with speech . Gestures convey important communicative information to the listener, but even blind speakers gesture while talking to blind listeners , so the mutual co-occurrence of speech and gesture reflects a deep association (...) between the two modes that transcends the intentions of the speaker to communicate. Indeed, we believe that this linkage of the vocal expression of language and the arm movements produced with it are a manifestation of the embodiment of thought: that human mental activities arise through bodily interactions with the world and remain linked with them throughout the lifespan. In particular, we propose that speech and gesture have their developmental origins in early hand-mouth linkages, such that as oral activities become gradually used for meaningful speech, these linkages are maintained and strengthened. Both hand and mouth are tightly coupled in the mutual cognitive activity of language. In short, it is the initial sensorimotor linkages of these systems that form the bases for their later cognitive interdependence. (shrink)

Metaphern beeinflussen unser Denken, unsere alltägliche und auch wissenschaftliche Sprache. Sie lassen Ähnlichkeiten erkennen und schaffen neues Wissen. Da unsere Kultur, unser Denken und Handeln aber zunehmend von Bildern geprägt ist, muss es dann nicht auch visuelle Metaphern geben? Und welche Bedeutung misst man ihnen bei? Till Julian Huss arbeitet erstmals die historischen und systematischen Grundlagen einer Theorie der visuellen Metapher aus. Indem das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Metapher und Begriff sowie Sprache und Bild in den Kontext einer allgemeinen Ästhetik der Metapher (...) gestellt wird, nimmt die Metapher eine Schlüsselfunktion zwischen Sprache, Anschauung und Denken ein. (shrink)

In this paper I look at three challenges to the very possibility of an ethics of belief and then show how they can be met. The first challenge, from Thomas Kelly, says that epistemic rationality is not a form of instrumental rationality. If this claim is true, then it will be difficult to develop an ethics of belief that does not run afoul of naturalism. The second challenge is the Non-Voluntarism Argument, which holds that because we cannot believe at will (...) and because ought implies can, there can be no ethics of belief. The third challenge comes from Richard Feldman, who claims that there is no such thing as ought all-things-considered. He says, for example, that moral oughts can be weighed against other moral oughts and that epistemic oughts can be compared to each other, but that there is no way to weigh moral oughts against epistemic oughts. If this is true, then norms about what one ought to believe are not nearly as important as one might have hoped or as philosophers have traditionally thought. In answering these three challenges, I try to show how and why the project of developing epistemic norms might be a promising avenue of research, despite claims to the contrary. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this paper, we explore what it means for an object to be eerie. We argue that the Eerie is an index of phenomenology’s limits: it is a complex, contradictory moment in the dialectics of subject/...

Critical accounts over the past years have focused on neoliberalism as a subject of knowledge; there has been a recently growing interest in neoliberalism as an object of knowledge. This article considers the theoretical, epistemological and political implications of the relationship between neoliberalism as an epistemic subject and neoliberalism as an epistemic object. It argues that the ‘gnossification’ of neoliberalism – framing it an epistemic project, and deriving implications for political engagement from this – avoids engaging with numerous ambiguous elements (...) of the production of knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘scholastic fallacy’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s work in sociology of critique, the article lays out a framework for the study of the relationship between epistemic, moral, and political elements of critique of neoliberalism, including the conditions of its own production in contemporary academic contexts. (shrink)

This edited volume of essays provides an interdisciplinary philosophical analysis of the Planet of the Apes franchise, addressing themes of intelligence, language, time travel, research ethics, and the evolving status of CGI characters. Through a range of essays, the volume examines how the apes’ society mirrors human civilization, challenging assumptions about intelligence, moral worth, and speciesism. Key themes include language as a criterion for intelligence, the ethics of experimentation, and the treatment of sentient beings.

Musiker, Freigeist, Drogensüchtiger, Stimme der Schwachen und Entrechteten, Christ, Familienmensch, Sänger von Liebe, Gott und Mord. Viel gibt es über Johnny Cash zu sagen, man kann es aber auch auf eine einfache Formel bringen: Er war der "Man in Black". Er sang vor Schwerverbrechern in Saint-Quentin, für Richard Nixon und alle amerikanischen Präsidenten nach ihm. Er verzweifelte an der Liebe zu June Carter und fand später mit ihr seine Erfüllung. Er förderte Musiker wie Bob Dylan und Kris Kristofferson, spiele absichtlich (...) schlechte Schaltplatten ein und wurde in den 1990gern von einer neuen Generation entdeckt. Was steht hinter dieser Karriere, was bewegte diesen Mann, wie sind seine Lieder und sein Weltbild zu verstehen? 21 Philosophen betrachten das Leben und Wirken dieser amerikanischen Ikone und zeigen Ihnen so eine Welt zwischen Kunst, Kommerz und Kant. (shrink)

Essays explore philosophical themes in The Planet of the Apes films including human-animal relationships, science and ethics.

Unter den Leitbegriffen >PluralisierungAutorit tSattelzeit.

Lone conducted weekly philosophical discussions for first and second graders on human rights and how to be treated in society. With “The right to be treated equally” as a nearly unanimous response, Lone records these reactions in a formatted list.

Cílem studie je stručně přiblížit historii eugeniky a zmapovat problematiku novodobé eugeniky, její metodologie a s ní souvisejících technologických, sociálních a bezpečnostních problémů a morálních úskalí. Studie se také snaží rehabilitovat pojem eugenika, který má především kvůli nacistickým zločinům negativní konotaci, a ukázat, že jako vědecký obor má eugenika stále své místo ve vědě. Představeny budou především eugenické metody, jejichž prostřednictvím by bylo možné ochránit lidstvo před vyhynutím, ale které jsou zároveň velice rizikové a k vyhynutí lidstva mohou rovněž přispět. (...) Text se také věnuje nejzávažnějším argumentům příznivců i kritiků novodobé eugeniky. (shrink)

New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness is an annotated translation by John Makeham of Xiong Shili's major philosophical work Xin weishi lun 新唯識論, one of the most difficult and least understood of the crucial Chinese theoretical works of the twentieth century. In this work Xiong has integrated central concepts, problems, and themes from traditional Chinese philosophy with those representative of Sinitic Buddhist philosophy in order to create an ambitious philosophical syncretism.On the one hand, the book is a modern Confucian (...) critique of the Buddhist theory of consciousness introduced to China by the pilgrim Xuanzang in the Tang dynasty. Xiong criticizes the original Yogācāra pioneers of this... (shrink)

Critics of Aristotelian accounts of practical reasoning, in teaching and in other contexts, criticise phronesis for its rigidity and lack of imagination. This paper argues that phantasia, or imagination, helps us to develop a richer account of Aristotle’s phronesis. Two senses of phantasia, as producing images and as an interpretive faculty, are proposed here to be importantly involved in phronesis. By producing images that help in the selection of an end goal, and by having an interpretive faculty that helps to (...) compare competing possibilities, phantasia plays a crucial role in the practical reasoning process of phronesis. (shrink)

This book offers a thorough technical elaboration and philosophical defense of an objectivist informational interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which its novel content is located in its kinematical framework, that is, in how the theory describes systems independently of the specifics of their dynamics. -/- It will be of interest to researchers and students in the philosophy of physics and in theoretical physics with an interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Additionally, parts of the book may be used (...) as the basis for courses introducing non-physics majors to quantum mechanics, or for self-study by those outside of the university with an interest in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Recent psychological research on the connection between culture and thought could have dire consequences for the idea that there are objective standards of reasoning and that meaningful cross-cultural discussion is possible. The problems are particularly acute if research shows that the Law of Noncontradiction (LNC) is not a universal of folk epistemology. It is extremely difficult to provide a non-circular justification for the LNC, and yet the LNC seems to act as a basic standard for reasoning in the West. If (...) non-Western cultures do not believe the LNC holds, then meaningful cross-cultural discussion and debate will be very difficult, to say the least. In this paper it is argued that the distinction between belief and acceptance is important in analyzing cross-cultural studies on the way people reason. Studies conducted by Richard Nisbett and Kaiping Peng concerning differences between East Asians and Westerners are analyzed. The distinction between belief and acceptance is used to demonstrate that the empirical data currently available fail to show that the LNC is not a universal of folk epistemology. A brief proposal for further research is presented. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss several temporal aspects of paleontology from a philosophical perspective. I begin by presenting the general problem of “taming” deep time to make it comprehensible at a human scale, starting with the traditional geologic time scale: an event-based, relative time scale consisting of a hierarchy of chronological units. Not only does the relative timescale provide a basis for reconstructing many of the general features of the history of life, but it is also consonant with the cognitive (...) processes humans use to think about time. Absolute dating of rocks, fossils, and evolutionary events (such as branching events on the tree of life) can be accomplished through the use of radiometric dating, chronological signals extractable from fossil growth patterns, and the “molecular clock.” Sometimes these different methods of absolute dating, which start from largely independent assumptions and evidentiary bases, converge in their temporal estimates, resulting in a consilience of inductions. At other times they fail to agree, either because fossils and molecules are giving temporal information about different aspects of nature and should not be expected to agree, or because of flawed assumptions that give rise to an inaccurate estimate. I argue that in general, despite the fact that it can be difficult to integrate disparate kinds of evidence, the principle of total evidence should be applied to the dating of evolutionary events. As a historical science, paleontology studies past events we cannot observe directly. This raises questions of epistemic access, meaning that due to the fragmentary nature of the fossil record we may find ourselves without access to the relevant traces to adjudicate between rival hypotheses about the past. The problems and prospects of epistemic access are explored through a case study of the reconstruction of the colors of dinosaurs. The paper closes with a reflection on the Darwin- Lyell metaphor of the fossil record as a highly fragmentary history book, and a call for a reconsideration of the book metaphor in favor of a systems view of the geologic and fossil records. (shrink)

This paper explores the problem of racial privilege in US American feminist thought. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s analysis of ethics, particularly her ideas of epistemic discontinuity and teleopoietic reading, I argue that a specific kind of ethical openness can help feminist social-political philosophy better negotiate the legacy of white privilege. Spivak’s work calls for a reconsideration and reworking of the subject who theorizes. Her analysis of ethics suggests that racially privileged feminists must be able to confront their own complicity in (...) order to engage in political critique less likely to recreate historical patterns of racial domination and exclusion. (shrink)

The theoretical work of European and American structuralism has produced a number of important elements which have resulted in (especially with respect to certain new, fundamental approaches in semantics, philosophy and methodology) essential shifts in the modes of thinking in the humanities, and in the cultural and social sciences. Despite these shifts, Western discourses have still not produced any integral, coherent structural model of epistemology. The present article intends to show that such a model can be found in the pan-structural (...) epistemology of the modern Chinese philosopher Zhang Dongsun (1886?1973), and that the crucial, theoretical underpinnings of such models were developed much earlier in the history of Chinese thought, given that the bases of a structural approach to comprehension had already been established in ancient Chinese philosophy. This paradigmatic foundation (the concept li) was further developed and elaborated by various Chinese philosophers in later centuries as a crucial feature of the classical Chinese logic of binary analogies. The article also points out that the central binary concept of the Neo-Confucian tradition (i.e. the concept of structure and creativity; li and qi) has generally been interpreted as a dualism of idea and matter by Euro-American sinologists. However, such interpretations have overlooked an important feature of traditional, structurally determined Chinese onto-epistemology. (shrink)

Die Beiträge zur Altertumskunde enthalten Monographien, Sammelbände, Editionen, Übersetzungen und Kommentare zu Themen aus den Bereichen Klassische, Mittel- und Neulateinische Philologie, Alte Geschichte, Archäologie, Antike Philosophie sowie Nachwirken der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Dadurch leistet die Reihe einen umfassenden Beitrag zur Erschließung klassischer Literatur und zur Forschung im gesamten Gebiet der Altertumswissenschaften.

ABSTRACTThe article opens with a discussion of recent theoretical and methodological innovations in the field of comparative philosophy. In this regard, I propose and explain a new possible method of contrasting particular aspects of divergent philosophical texts or discourses and denote it as a ‘philosophy of sublation’. Then, the paper provides a concrete example for such a post-comparative method of reasoning, I will try to apply a ‘sublation philosophy’ approach for a reinterpretation of certain aspects of the complex philosophical intersections (...) between modern Japanese and Chinese philosophies through the lens of a contrastive analysis of Nishida Kitarō’s and Mou Zongsan’s dialectical thought. In this way, I hope to shed some new light upon some general questions regarding different models of dialectics. (shrink)

This review summarizes the research on ethical decision-making from 2004 to 2011. Eighty-four articles were published during this period, resulting in 357 findings. Individual findings are categorized by their application to individual variables, organizational variables, or the concept of moral intensity as developed by Jones :366–395, 1991). Rest’s four-step model for ethical decision-making is used to summarize findings by dependent variable—awareness, intent, judgment, and behavior. A discussion of findings in each category is provided in order to uncover trends in the (...) ethical decision-making literature. A summary of areas of suggested future research is provided. (shrink)

Li Zehou stands among the most influential Chinese philosophers in the post-Mao era. His notion of subjectality is of paramount importance for current developments in contemporary Chinese philosophy. It belongs to the central concepts in Li's theoretical framework, around which his entire philosophical system is constructed. With his elaboration of this concept, Li expanded the problem of the self in post-revolutionary modernism. The present article analyzes the theoretical bases of this concept, exposes its importance in the scope of contemporary Chinese (...) theory and shows why and how it represents a call for a new humanism. Through a multidimensional comparative perspective, the author also explains why the human subject, which is based upon Li's notion of subjectality, has the potential not only to transform modern alienation into a real “human condition,” that is, into spiritually fulfilled society of autonomous individuals but also to fill up the prevailing “vacuum of values.”. (shrink)

"Philosophers explore the meaning and continuing importance of Johnny Cash's music and legacy" -- Provided by publisher.