A crucially important part of the biosphere – the virosphere – is too often overlooked. Inclusion of the virosphere into the global picture of protein structure space reveals that 63 protein domain superfamilies in viruses do not have any structural and evolutionary relatives in modern cellular organisms. More than half of these have functions which are not virus‐specific and thus might be a source of new folds and functions for cellular life. The number of viruses on the planet exceeds that (...) of cells by an order of magnitude and viruses evolve up to six orders of magnitude faster. As a result, cellular species are subject to a constitutive ‘flow‐through’ of new viral genetic material. Due to this and the relaxed evolutionary constraints in viruses, the transfer of domains between host‐to‐virus could be a mechanism for accelerated protein evolution. The virosphere could be an engine for the genesis of protein structures, and may even have been so before the last universal common ancestor of cellular life. (shrink)

There is a plurality of good reasons for action. An adequate theory of practical rationality has to be compatible with it even if it requires certain modifications of our everyday practices of reasoning. Usual theories of practical rationality do not pass this test. It is envisaged how to revise adequately our understanding of practical rationality.

The notion of objectivity in science has come under critique of feminist writers. The scientific ideal of a detached, neutral observer, who has no race, no gender, no cultural identity, no class, and views the world “from nowhere,” has been challenged, and patterns of domination explored. Feminists argue that objectivity is a tacit generalization from the subjectivity of a small, privileged social group “of educated, usually prosperous, white men.” Hence, it is a result of the denial of the subjectivity of (...) women and other marginalized people. The task which I set before myself is to inquire into the problem of objectivity in science and to explore the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity. I argue that, although the feminists’ critique of objectivity contributes to a greater awareness of the problem of objectivity in science and indeed subjectivity matters, their critique is ill founded. It is an example of one of many stereotypes and simplifications that we can find in today’s feminist thought. The affective engagement with the world, the approach that I propose, leads us to knowledge beyond objectivity. It is a prerequisite of knowing persons as persons and things as they are. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone estudiar la noción de expresión en los dos libros que Deleuze publica en 1968: _Spinoza y el problema de la expresión _y _Diferencia y repetición. _Se trazarán las correspondencias entre las formas de expresión en el primero y los planos ontológicos del segundo, para luego considerar en qué consiste el _renversement _ del spinozismo que Deleuze propone. Se mostrará que este no consiste en invertir el rol del fundamento entre lo Uno y lo múltiple, sino en (...) liberar las formas de expresión del cuádruple cepo de la razón suficiente, y darle a cada una su lógica y potencia propias. (shrink)

Our ordinary conception of time has it that there are temporal particulars: not only do people do things, but there are particular doings by people; not only are we born, but the birth of each one of us was a particular event, and each of us will have our own particular death. Temporal particulars in this sense are individuated, fundamentally, by their temporal locations or relations, rather than by their intrinsic or qualitative characteristics. In this respect they are unrepeatable, not (...) just de facto, but as a matter of their very nature. However, there is a tradition in philosophy that seriously downplays this aspect of our thinking about time. According to this tradition, the fundamental unit of temporal representation is _tensed truth_; the notion of an unrepeatable particular, individuated by its temporal location, is at best an abstraction from a complex of tensed truths. The aims of this paper are, first, to argue that the representation of temporal particulars is deeply implicated in our ordinary conception of the past as fixed and unalterable; and, secondly, to argue that the theorist of tensed truth is able to provide only a pale imitation of this aspect of our thinking. I will then reflect on the consequences of this for debates about the metaphysics of tense. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 4-13.

Advances in brain–brain interface technologies raise the possibility that two or more individuals could directly link their minds, sharing thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences. This paper explores conceptual and ethical issues posed by such mind-merging technologies in the context of clinical neuroethics. Using hypothetical examples along a spectrum from loosely connected pairs to fully merged minds, the authors sketch out a range of factors relevant to identifying the degree of a merger. They then consider potential new harms like loss of (...) identity, psychological domination, loss of mental privacy, and challenges for notions of autonomy and patient benefit when applied to merged minds. While radical technologies may seem to necessitate new ethical paradigms, the authors suggest the individual-focus underpinning clinical ethics can largely accommodate varying degrees of mind mergers so long as individual patient interests remain identifiable. However, advanced decisionmaking and directives may have limitations in addressing the dilemmas posed. Overall, mind-merging possibilities amplify existing challenges around loss of identity, relating to others, autonomy, privacy, and the delineation of patient interests. This paper lays the groundwork for developing resources to address the novel issues raised, while suggesting the technologies reveal continuity with current healthcare ethics tensions. (shrink)

One popular line of argument put forward in support of the principle that the right is prior to the good is to show that teleological theories, which put the good prior to the right, lead to implausible normative results. There are situa- tions, it is argued, in which putting the good prior to the right entails that we ought to do things that cannot be right for us to do. Consequently, goodness cannot (always) explain an action's rightness. This indicates that (...) what is right must be determined independently of the good. In this paper, I argue that these purported counterexamples to teleology fail to establish that the right must be prior to the good. In fact, putting the right prior to the good can lead to sets of ought statements which potentially con- flict with the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. I argue that no plausible ethical theory can determine what is right independently of a notion of value or goodness. Every plausible ethical theory needs a mapping from goodness to rightness, which implies that right cannot be prior to the good. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es identificar el uso político de la imagen al servicio del Estado y la función del régimen democrático al interior del sistema filosófico de Thomas Hobbes. Tal propósito se aborda en dos momentos: I. se propone un análisis iconográfico, con lo cual se destaca una lógica de la presencia/ausencia de la multitud como un cuerpo político (i.e. problema de la dispersión); II. se retoman las discusiones en torno a la función de la democracia, y se (...) expone el problema de la dispersión como el paso de la multitud disuelta al pueblo junto a la consolidación del cuerpo soberano (i.e. régimen democrático). Se concluye que el uso político de la imagen, descrita a partir de la distinción entre la adoración civil y la adoración divina, por parte del poder soberano, es una exhortación hobbesiana a la regulación del miedo (ciu bono del sostenimiento del poder soberano). En consecuencia, el gobierno de la imagen implica el problema del régimen democrático. (shrink)

Culture is a uniquely human property. Although precursors to cultural practices are found in other animals, these precursors differ in kind from the conditions of human culture that have emerged through evolutionary processes. In order to illuminate the mutual dependence of biological-genetic and cultural evolution, the author investigates technology and the use of tools, as well as the way these abilities are transmitted, in order to understand what properties and abilities separate human beings from animals.

An entertaining and thought-provoking look at the food on our plates, and what it can teach us about being human, from the author of The Pig That Want's to be Eaten.

El silogismo práctico o razonamiento de la acción (EN VI, 12, 1144ª 31, “oigar sillogismoi tvn praktvn”) es presentado por muchos estudiososde la obra aristotélica como un esquema de explicación, que intenta darcuenta del movimiento que realiza el alma humana desde el apetito o deseopuro hasta la acción concreta. El punto de vista que aquí se argumentapuede ser presentado en dos tesis articuladas: 1) el razonamiento prácticono es un silogismo, comprende muchos más aspectos que son irreductiblesa la estructura formal de (...) un silogismo perfecto; 2) el silogismo práctico sebasa sobre todo en razonamientos retórico-dialécticos, bien sea un entimema,un paradigma, o un epiquerema; es un proceso discursivo de deliberacióncon silogismos imperfectos o cadenas de silogismos probables que orientanla deliberación a manera de sorites e inducciones retóricas. No se trata deuna demostración sobre cosas que son necesariamente y no pueden ser deotra forma, sino que se trata de lo posible y contingente, aquello que puedeo no puede ser, puesto que sólo se delibera sobre lo posible y esto se hacecon opiniones probables. Corresponde entonces a la retórica y la dialécticarazonar con este tipo de premisas. La regla de conducta en un silogismo práctico utiliza como premisa una opinión generalmente aceptada (a manerade hipótesis o conjetura), cuya aplicación al caso particular es contingente ysu resultado, la acción, también lo es, ya que puede ser o no realizada. Laacción como consecuencia del razonamiento desborda el marco lógico formaldel silogismo. (shrink)

In ‘Kant’s Changing Cosmopolitanism’ and Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, Pauline Kleingeld argues that, in ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,’ Kant meant for the Bund of states to be a coercive federation. Kleingeld admits that there is a disparity between this earlier coercive idea of the Bund and Kant’s talk of a voluntary congress in Toward Perpetual Peace and The Metaphysics of Morals. She explains this disparity by: appealing to a semantic ambiguity (...) in the term ‘Bund’; making claims about with which contemporary 18th century works Kant was acquainted; and ultimately attempting to draw a parallel between the unsocial sociability of individual people within a state and the unsocial sociability of individual states in a larger community of states. In this paper, I argue that while Kleingeld’s claims are superficially supported by the text, her claims depend on her apparent conflating of teleology and morality. (shrink)

Self-awareness is thought to be tied to processes of higher-order perspective taking including empathy. These abilities appear to be reserved for humans, great apes, and possibly, dolphins. Recent examinations reveal that both self-awareness and empathy may have origins in the right hemisphere. It is possible that, as in language, lateralization plays a key role in the development of higher-order perspective taking and self-awareness.

“It’s not good enough to say there’s some mechanism such that you start out with amoebas and you end up with us. Everybody agrees with that. The question is in this case in the mechanical details. What you need is an account, as it were step by step, about what the constraints are, what the environmental variables are, and Darwin doesn’t give you that.”.