The unexpected roles of the microbiota in cancer challenge explanations of carcinogenesis that focus on tumor-intrinsic properties. Most tumors contain bacteria and viruses, and the host’s proximal and distal microbiota influence both cancer incidence and therapeutic responsiveness. Continuing the history of cancer–microbe research, these findings raise a key question: to what extent is the microbiota relevant for clinical oncology? We approach this by critically evaluating three issues: how the microbiota provides a predictive biomarker of cancer growth and therapeutic responsiveness, the (...) microbiota’s causal role(s) in cancer development, and how therapeutic manipulations of the microbiota improve patient outcomes in cancer. Clarifying the conceptual and empirical aspects of the cancer-associated microbiota can orient future research and guide its implementation in clinical oncology. (shrink)

How should we decide which inequalities between people are justified, and which are unjustified? One answer is that such inequalities are only justified where there is a corresponding variation in responsible action or choice on the part of the persons concerned. This view, which has become known as 'luck egalitarianism', has come to occupy a central place in recent debates about distributive justice. This book is the first full length treatment of this significant development in contemporary political philosophy. Each of (...) its three parts addresses a key question concerning the theory. Which version of luck egalitarian comes closest to realizing luck egalitarian objectives? Does luck egalitarianism succeed as a view of egalitarian justice? And is it sound as an account of distributive justice in general? The book provides a distinctive answer to each of these questions, along the way engaging with the leading theorists identified in the literature as luck egalitarians, such as Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, and Ronald Dworkin, as well as the most influential critics, including Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, Samuel Scheffler, and Jonathan Wolff. (shrink)

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the recent debate about responsibility and distributive justice. It traces the recent philosophical focus on distributive justice to John Rawls and examines two arguments in his work which might be taken to contain the seeds of the focus on responsibility in later theories of distributive justice. It examines Ronald Dworkin's ‘equality of resources’, the ‘luck egalitarianism’ of Richard Arneson and G. A. Cohen, as well as the criticisms of their work put forward by (...) Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, and Jonathan Wolff. Key concepts such as responsibility (individual and collective), luck (thin and thick; brute and option), control, desert, and equality of opportunity are delineated, and the implementation of responsibility-sensitive accounts of justice is considered. The chapters of this book are positioned in relation to the wider literature on responsibility and distributive justice, and a brief outline of the chapters is provided. (shrink)

This study offers a comprehensive summary and critical discussion of Alice Crary’s Beyond Moral Judgment. While generally sympathetic to her goal of defending the sort of expansive vision of the moral previously championed by Cora Diamond and Iris Murdoch, concerns are raised regarding the potential for her account to provide a satisfactory treatment of both “wide” objectivity and moral disagreement. Drawing on the work of Jonathan Lear and Jonathan Dancy, I suggest possible routes by which her position (...) could be expanded and possibly strengthened. (shrink)

As the word “optics” was understood from antiquity into and beyond the early modern period, it did not mean simply the physics and geometry of light, but meant the “theory of vision” and included what we should now call physiological and psychological aspects. From antiquity, these aspects were subject to geometrical analysis. Accordingly, the geometry of visual experience has long been an object of investigation. This chapter examines accounts of size and distance perception in antiquity (Euclid and Ptolemy) and the (...) Middle Ages (Ibn al-Haytham), before turning to "natural geometry" in Kepler and Descartes. It finds a purely mechanical realization of natural geometry in Descartes (primarily in his L'Homme, 1664), in which he conceives states of the visual system as varying in accordance with distance, much as his geometrical compasses vary their spatial relations in accordance with geometrical proportions. This reading challenges the notion that a two-dimensional sensation (without three-dimensional phenomenality) was universally accepted prior to the nineteenth century by positing a direct psychophysiological account of the experience of distance in Descartes. It thereby challenges the interpretations of Descartes on natural geometry of George Berkeley, Nancy Maull, Margaret Wilson, Erwin Panofsky, and Jonathan Crary. (shrink)

O presente ensaio coloca em evidência o “estatuto da literatura” e as questões relativas ao seu ensino na universidade. Para tanto, traça uma problematização sobre as condições materiais e ideológicas em que se dá o ensino de literatura em um curso de Licenciatura em Letras – Português e Inglês, fazendo uma revisão de dois textos seminais de Antonio Candido, “A literatura e a formação do homem” (1977) e “O direito à literatura” (1988) e as leituras que se construíram em torno (...) deles, principalmente o recente estudo publicado por Paulo Caetano e Luiz Penido. Tal discussão dá-se mediante problematizações acerca do estatuto da universidade no século XXI, da precarização do trabalho e a sublimação do complexo internético e das TIC’s no contexto do “rumo a um mundo pós-capitalista”, de acordo com Jonathan Crary, e uma crítica à cultura informacional, partindo da discussão com Glaucia Dunley. (shrink)

Jonathan Bennett's analysis of the second half of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, in which Kant concerns himself with topics such as substance, the nature of the self, the cosmos, freedom and the existence of God, continues to be an engaging and accessible exploration of Kant's major work. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Karl Ameriks, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this influential work has been revived (...) for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

O texto busca refletir criticamente sobre alguns fenômenos sociais contemporâneos, fortemente imbricados, notadamente as tendências contemporâneas de entrincheiramento e achatamento do eu; o reforço da iconomania e da compulsiva produção de avatares de si, em meio a bolhas narcísicas digitais, franqueadas pelas recentes tecnologias de informação e comunicação; e a virtual destruição da intimidade e da privacidade, diante da emergência de panópticos digitais e da vigilância algorítmica. Para tanto, toma-se como ponto de partida proposições apresentadas por Christopher Lasch em sua (...) obra _The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times_, publicada originalmente em 1984, em particular a própria noção de mínimo eu, as quais são, então, entretecidas com argumentos de Christophe Dejours, Günther Anders, Theodor Adorno, Hebert Marcuse, Jonathan Crary, entre outros. Em acréscimo, busca-se salientar a ancoragem desses processos à hodierna dinâmica de acumulação de capital, a partir da crítica da economia política, perspectiva que atravessa todo o texto, bem como assinalar a atualidade do pensamento de Lasch. (shrink)

This essay analyses six case studies of theories of exhaustion-related conditions from the early eighteenth century to the present day. It explores the ways in which George Cheyne, George Beard, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud, Alain Ehrenberg and Jonathan Crary use medical ideas about exhaustion as a starting point for more wide-ranging cultural critiques related to specific social and technological transformations. In these accounts, physical and psychological symptoms are associated with particular external developments, which are thus not just (...) construed as pathology-generators but also pathologized. The essay challenges some of the persistently repeated claims about exhaustion and its unhappy relationship with modernity. (shrink)

Karl Marx u Njemačkoj ideologiji i Kapitalu uvodi optičku metaforu ljudskog oka kroz koju tumači problematiku ideologije i robnog fetišizma. U radu se razmatraju mogućnosti interpretacija ovih Marxovih metafora. U svjetlu se tih interpretacija razmatra jedna od središnjih postavki vizualnih studija da se vizualna kultura moderniteta gradi na potkopavanju epistemološke prevlasti viđenja. Rad problematizira koncepciju modernističkog utjelovljenog promatrača koju uvodi američki povjesničar umjetnosti Jonathan Crary. Prema Craryju, ova drugačija ideja promatračkog subjekta potkopava klasičnu filozofijsku ideju o rastjelovljenosti spoznajnog (...) subjekta. Prema Craryjevoj argumentaciji takva se klasična ideja subjektivnosti s modernitetom ne zamišlja više kao temelj spoznaje, nego kao figura ideologije. Međutim, preokretanje Marxova odnosa između optičkih metafora i pojmova ideologije te fetišističkog karaktera robe baca potpuno drugačije svjetlo na pitanje promatračke subjektivnosti. Završna je postavka rada da se camera obscura i ljudsko oko ne trebaju isključivo shvaćati kao puke metafore koje je Marx u Njemačkoj ideologiji i Kapitalu upotrebljavao kao analogije preko kojih je tumačio pojmove kao što su ideologija ili fetišizam robe. Postupak čitanja može isto tako ići i u obrnutom smjeru: camera obscura i ljudsko oko su pojmovi koji su objašnjeni posredstvom već definiranih pojmova ideologije i fetišizma robe. Ako se perspektiva čitanja zamijeni na taj način postaje jasno da iz postavke o utjelovljenom promatraču ne proizlazi nužno i postavka o utjelovljenom karakteru doživljajā viđenja.Camera obscura and human eye were key metaphors engaged in the interpretation of the concepts of ideology and commodity fetishism in Karl Marx’s fundamental texts German ideology and Capital . The aim of this paper is to reconsider interpretative strategies that Marx used while he was proposing his main thesis on ideology and commodity fetishism. In the light of these considerations the paper addresses one of the central propositions of the contemporary visual studies that modern visual culture undermines epistemological privileging of the vision. The paper critically discusses the concept of the embodied observer that American art historian Jonathan Crary introduced in the philosophy, art history, cultural history and visual studies. According to Crary the idea of vision as primarily rooted in the corporeality of the observer undercuts Cartesian idea about vision as primarily disembodied event. Crary claims that with the rise of the modernity disembodied subjectivity turns from the site of the knowledge into the figure of ideology. However, reversing the Marx’s relation between optical metaphors and concepts of the ideology and commodity fetishism poses the problem of the observing subjectivity in the quite different terms. Final proposal of this paper is that camera obscura and human eye should not only be considered as optical metaphors that Marx used in German ideology and Capital as mere analogies for explaining concepts such as ideology or commodity fetishism. Reading procedure could well go into the opposite direction: the camera obscura and the human eye are the concepts explained via the already defined concepts of the ideology and commodity fetishism. If the reading perspective is switched in that way it is clear that the thesis of the embodied observer does not necessarily entail the embodied character of the visual sensations. (shrink)

We are defined by our faces. They give identity but, equally importantly, reveal our moods and emotions through facial expression. So what happens when the face cannot move? This book is about people who live with Mbius Syndrome, which has as its main feature an absence of movement of the muscles of facial expression from birth.

No trait is more characteristic of contemporary philosophy in France than its continued fecundation by the physical and biological sciences. The divorce between philosophy and science that existed in the first half of last century is now regarded, by almost common consent, as an error of the great pre-war Unenlightenment. The ménage is rémonté ; the vieilles traditions of Descartes and Pascal live again, though very transfigured. How long the alliance may endure, how and how much it may benefit both (...) parties, it would be idle to prophesy. But it is significant that Boutroux and Bergson were compelled to devote much energy to acquiring a scientific competence, the one in mechanics, the other in biology. It is still more significant that a number of professional scientists should, with the passing of years, have contributed less to their sciences and increasingly to philosophy. This mutual invasion of territories has, indeed, become so considerable and enduring that philosophy in France is at present, for good or ill, almost wholly ‘philosophy of the sciences.’ It is now within this ‘internationalized’ neutral zone that the distinction between the epistemological and the ontological has to be drawn. Thus, Meyerson fairly represents the former emphasis, Bergson and Le Roy the latter. And if it is rare for one man to hold successively a chair in mathematics and a chair in philosophy, like Milhaud and Whitehead, rarer still is it for one man to hold both concurrently. But M. Edouard Le Roy has for many years lectured on mathematics and mechanics at the Faculte des Sciences in Paris; he has extended and modified Bergsonism from Bergson's former chair at the College de France. (shrink)

This paper reports on an analysis of the work of Leni Riefenstahl, and German expressionism, through the use of trans-disciplinary semantic associative search in specialized databased dictionaries1. Within this database space (Kitagawa and Kiyokim 1993), the quantitative data of objects as representation can be visualized by number. While the method of image analysis is qualitative, it is based on a quantitative analysis of visual representation. Through this analysis, Riefenstahl's film Olympia Fest der Vlker is compared with the Nazi ideology of (...) the body image. The film is often categorized as romantic; however, this paper proposes a new interpretation based on theories of Jonathan Crary, and Martin Jay, which are combined using the mechanism of connotation in searching database systems. We proposs that, in the context of Visual Culture Studies, the use of digital technologies may provide new possibilities for research in the humanities. (shrink)

What does it mean to be visually literate? Does it mean different things in the arts and the sciences? In the West, in Asia, or in developing nations? If we all need to become "visually literate," what does that mean in practical terms? The essays gathered here examine a host of issues surrounding "the visual," exploring national and regional ideas of visuality and charting out new territories of visual literacy that lie far beyond art history, such as law and chemistry. (...) With an afterword by Christopher Crouch, this groundbreaking collection brings together the work of major art and visual studies scholars and critics to explore what impact the new concept of "visual literacy" will have on the traditional field of art history. Contributors: Matthias Bruhn, Vera Dünkel, Jonathan Crary, Christopher Crouch, Peter Dallow, James Elkins, Henrik Enquist, W.J.T. Mitchell, Richard K. Sherwin, Susan Shifrin, Jon Simons, Barbara Maria Stafford, William Washabaugh. (shrink)

For most people a sense of self includes an embodied component: when describing our selves we describe those aspects of our physical bodies which can be easily codified: height, hair colour, sex, eye colour. Even when we consider ourselves we tend not to consider our intellectual cognitive characteristics but our describable anatomy. Wittgenstein's dictum, ‘the human body is the best picture of the human soul’, is relevant here but I would like to go further: the body-part we feel most embodied (...) in is our face, even though it is difficult to describe and so forms little part of how we describe ourselves to others. (shrink)

A major work in moral philosophy by the noted Puritan divine.

Jonathan Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, his chief focus is on the words they wrote. What problem is being tackled? How exactly is the solution meant to work? Does it succeed? If not, why not? What can be learned from its success or failure? For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is (...) an excellent introduction to it. Those already in the know can learn how to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them as colleagues, antagonists, students, teachers. In this second volume, Bennett focuses on the work of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. (shrink)

"--Daniel Callahan, cofounder of the Hastings Center "Doctors and people who have no choice but to trust doctors--which means all of us--need to read this book.

ABSTRACT We tested a model in which individualist and collectivist orientations mediate the association between cultural background and students’ self-reported plagiarism. A sample of 430 Jewish and non-Jewish undergraduates at a college in northern Israel completed a questionnaire to assess individualist and collectivist orientation and demographics, and answered a question regarding whether they had committed plagiarism during their studies. The results partly supported the model; individualism, but not collectivism, mediated the association between cultural background and admitting plagiarism. The model and (...) some unexpected results offer new insights into the role of culture in academic behavior and raise further questions. (shrink)

This book explores the contributions to the philosophy of mind made by the Tibetan Buddhist thinker Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (1109–1169) in his seminal text, the “Dispeller of the Mind’s Darkness.” This study, which includes a critical edition and English translation of those portions of the “Dispeller” devoted to explicating the nature of mental episodes and their objects, contributes to a deeper understanding of Tibetan intellectual history, while also facilitating a wider appreciation of both Phya pa’s theory of (...) mind and its significance within the global history of philosophy. (shrink)

We argue that differences in the institutional setting of Europe and the US is the critical factor in understanding policymaking in Europe and the United States, and particularly the influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). To test this relationship between institutional differences, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and NGO activism, we investigate 12 cases involving US and European companies in each of three industries. We conclude that different institutional structures and political legacies in the US and Europe are important factors in explaining (...) the influence of NGOs on business and in the policymaking process, regardless of the timeliness of corporate strategy or NGO influence. (shrink)

Bevir?s view that theories are prior to theorists, just in so far as they are prior to any observations which one might make and, by extension, any facts which one might invoke in support of any particular interpretative conclusions, is problematic when applied to intellectual history, for although it is in one sense true that all facts are ineluctably constituted by some or other underlying theory, it is also true that, in a vast number of important situations, all human beings (...) share the same basic theory. The most important implication of this shared stock of concepts, observations and facts, is that we shall often be able to see numerous aspects of a long?dead author?s world in much the same way as he or she saw it. (shrink)

Cool Characters tells the story of American political irony from World War II to the present: how irony came to seem politically subversive for American countercultural rebels; how mainstream culture allegedly co-opted countercultural irony; how irony became part of major critical theories of postmodernism; and how -- starting in the late 1980s -- innovative writers developed an idea of "postirony" with the hope of overcoming the political limitations of postmodern irony. To chart the shift from irony to postirony, and show (...) what relationship culture has to politics, the book offers intensive analyses of important American countercultural figures: the hipster, the punk, a figure the author calls "the believer," the coolhunter, and the occupier; and new interpretations of important works by Ralph Ellison, Thomas Pynchon, William S. Burroughs, Kathy Acker, Michael Muhammad Knight, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, Alex Shakar, William Gibson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Lethem, and Rachel Kushner."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)