I present a reconstruction of F.H.C. Crick's two 1957 hypotheses "Sequence Hypothesis" and "Central Dogma" in terms of a contemporary philosophical theory of causation. Analyzing in particular the experimental evidence that Crick cited, I argue that these hypotheses can be understood as claims about the actual difference-making cause in protein synthesis. As these hypotheses are only true if restricted to certain nucleic acids in certain organisms, I then examine the concept of causal specificity and its potential to counter claims about (...) causal parity of DNA and other cellular components. I first show that causal specificity is a special kind of invariance under interventions, namely invariance of generalizations that range over finite sets of discrete variables. Then, I show that this notion allows the articulation of a middle ground in the debate over causal parity. (shrink)

According to Dr. Clare Graves, mankind has developed eight core value systems,1 as responses to prevailing circumstances. Given different contexts and value systems, a one-solution-fits-all concept of corporate sustainability is not reasonable. Therefore, this paper presents various definitions and forms of sustainability, each linked to specific (societal) circumstances and related value systems. A sustainability matrix– an essential element of the overall European Corporate Sustainability Framework – is described showing six types of organizations at different developmental stages, with different forms of (...) corporate sustainability, each supported by specific institutional arrangements. (shrink)

BackgroundFunctional changes after spinal cord injury are related to changes in cortical plasticity. These changes can be measured with electroencephalography and has potential to be used as a clinical biomarker.MethodIn this longitudinal study participants underwent a total of 30 sessions of robotic-assisted gait training over a course of 6 weeks. The duration of each session was 30 min. Resting state EEG was recorded before and after 30-session rehabilitation therapy. To measure gait, we used the Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury (...) Scale, 10-Meter- Walking Test, Timed-Up-and-Go, and 6-Min-Walking Test. Balance was measured using Berg Balance Scale.ResultsFifteen participants with incomplete SCI who had AIS C or D injuries based on American Spinal Cord Injury Association Impairment Scale classification were included in this study. Mean age was 35.7 years and the mean time since injury was 17.08 months. All participants showed clinical improvement with the rehabilitation program. EEG data revealed that high beta EEG activity in the central area had a negative correlation with gait and balance measured at baseline, in a way that greater high beta EEG power was related to worse clinical function at baseline. Moreover, improvement in gait and balance had negative correlations with the change in alpha/theta ratio in the parietal area.ConclusionIn SCI, functional impairment and subsequent improvement following rehabilitation therapy with RAGT correlated with the change in cortical activity measured by EEG. Our results suggest that EEG alpha/theta ratio may be a potential surrogate marker of functional improvement during rehabilitation. Future studies are necessary to improve and validate these findings as a neurophysiological biomarker for SCI rehabilitation. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the discussion of the moral demandingness of Kantian ethics by critically discussing an argument that is currently popular among Kantians. The argument from the system of duties holds that (a) in the Kantian system of duties the demandingness of our duty of beneficence is internally moderated by other moral prescriptions, such as the indirect duty to secure happiness, duties to oneself and special obligations. Furthermore, proponents of this argument claim (b) that via these prescriptions Kant’s system (...) of duties incorporates into morality what current debates on (over-)demandingness call happiness and personal projects. These two claims are in conjunction supposed to establish that Kant’s ethics, at least when it comes to beneficence, is not plagued by the problem of excessive moral demands. We show that claims (a) and (b) are mistaken given what Kant says about beneficence, the application of imperfect duties and about emergencies. We finally argue that special obligations towards loved ones, a class of obligations largely overlooked by advocates of the system of duties, are the most promising candidates for internal moderation. These duties are, however, of a narrow scope. (shrink)

This paper takes as a starting point a recent development in privacy-debates: the emphasis on social and institutional environments in the definition and the defence of privacy. Recognizing the merits of this approach I supplement it in two respects. First, an analysis of the relation between privacy and autonomy teaches that in the digital age more than ever individual autonomy is threatened. The striking contrast between on the one hand offline vocabulary, where autonomy and individual decision making prevail, and on (...) the other online practices is a challenge that cannot be met in a social approach. Secondly, I elucidate the background of the social approach. Its importance is not exclusively related to the digital age. In public life we regularly face privacy-moments, when in a small distinguished social domain few people are commonly involved in common experiences. In the digital age the contextual integrity model of Helen Nissenbaum has become very influential. However this model has some problems. Nissenbaum refers to a variety of sources and uses several terms to explain the normativity in her model. The notion ‘context’ is not specific and faces the reproach of conservatism. We elaborate on the most promising suggestion: an elaboration on the notion ‘goods’ as it can be found in the works of Michael Walzer and Alisdair Macintyre. Developing criteria for defining a normative framework requires making explicit the substantive goods that are at stake in a context, and take them as the starting point for decisions about the flow of information. Doing so delivers stronger and more specific orientations that are indispensible in discussions about digital privacy. (shrink)

The discovery that hypocretins are involved in narcolepsy, a disorder associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy and unusually rapid transitions to rapid‐eye‐movement sleep, opens a new field of investigation in the area of sleep control physiology. Hypocretin‐1 and ‐2 (also called orexin‐A and ‐B) are newly discovered neuropeptides processed from a common precursor, preprohypocretin. Hypocretin‐containing cells are located exclusively in the lateral hypothalamus, with widespread projections to the entire neuroaxis. Two known receptors, Hcrtr1 and Hcrtr2, have been reported. The functional (...) significance of the hypocretin system is rapidly emerging in both animals and humans. Hypocretin abnormalities cause narcolepsy in dogs, human and mice. The role of the hypocretin system in normal sleep regulation is more uncertain. We believe hypocretin cells drive cholinergic and monoaminergic activity across the sleep cycle. Input from the suprachiasmatic nucleus to hypocretin‐containing neurons may explain the occurrence of clock‐dependent alertness. Other functions are suggested by pharmacological and neurochemical experiments. These include regulation of food intake, neuroendocrine function, autonomic nervous system activity and energy balance. BioEssays 23:397–408, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

We provide complete classifications of algebras of partial maps for a significant swathe of combinations of operations not previously classified. Our focus is the many subsidiary operations that arise in recent considerations of the ‘override’ and ‘update’ operations arising in specification languages. These other operations turn out to have an older pedigree: domain restriction, set subtraction and intersection. All signatures considered include domain restriction, at least as a term. Combinations of the operations are classified and given complete axiomatizations with and (...) without the presence of functional composition. Each classification is achieved by way of providing a concrete representation of the corresponding abstract algebras as partial maps acting on special kinds of filters determined with respect to various induced orders. In contrast to many negative results in the broader area, all of the considered combinations lead to finite axiomatizations. (shrink)

El modelo viquiano propuesto en este trabajo tiene hoy día implicaciones concretas para la lingüística y las ciencias cognitivas. A nuestro parecer, hoy las investigaciones en estos campos no hacen otra cosa que verificar la existencia de un vínculo gnoseológico entre sentido, concepto y metáfora que Vico exponía en la Scienza nuova. Vico demostró, ante todo, que la lógica poética constituye la facultad preliminar que permite el comportamiento simbólico humano. Dicha noción falta del todo en las actuales investigaciones sobre la (...) metáfora; y falta claramente la noción de Homo Poeticus en todas las visiones hasta ahora expuestas en lingüística. La concepción viquiana de la lógica poética permitirá a estas ciencias trazar el recorrido científico que deberán seguir en el futuro.Recent researches in linguistics and cognitive sciences may be brought as to show that there exist a empistemological bound between sense, concept and metaphor which Vico already acknowledged in his Scienza nuova. While Vico clearly showed that poetical logic helps to developing the human symbolic behavior; the concept of Homo poeticus is lacking in recent scholar contributions on issues related with metaphors and linguistics. It is assumed that the Vichian conception on poetical logic may improve a better understanding of the problems with which those sciences have hitherto been concerned. (shrink)

Propose une étude sur une période particulière de l'histoire du philosophe, celle de sa compromission avec le nazisme en 1933.

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The recent literature on causality has seen the introduction of several distinctions within causality, which are thought to be important for understanding the widespread scientific practice of focusing causal explanations on a subset of the factors that are causally relevant for a phenomenon. Concepts used to draw such distinctions include, among others, stability, specificity, proportionality, or actual-difference making. In this contribution, I propose a new distinction that picks out an explanatorily salient class of causes in biological systems. Some select causes (...) in complex biological systems, I argue, have the property of enabling coherent causal control of these systems. Examples of such control variables include hormones and other signaling molecules, e.g., TOR (target of rapamycin), morphogens or the products of homeotic selector genes in embryonic pattern formation. I propose an analysis of this notion based on concepts borrowed from causal graph theory. (shrink)

Since the February 2020 publication of the article ‘Flattening the curve’ in The Economist, political leaders worldwide have used this expression to legitimize the introduction of social distancing measures in fighting Covid-19. In fact, this expression represents a complex combination of three components: the shape of the epidemic curve, the social distancing measures and the reproduction number \. Each component has its own history, each with a different history of control. Presenting the control of the epidemic as flattening the curve (...) is in fact flattening the underlying natural-social complexity. The curve that needs to be flattened is presented as a bell-shaped curve, implicitly suggesting that the pathogen’s spread is subject only to natural laws. The \ value, however, is, fundamentally, a metric of how a pathogen behaves within a social context, namely its numerical value is affected by sociopolitical influences. The jagged and erratic empirical curve of Covid-19 illustrates this. Although the virus has most likely infected only a small portion of the total susceptible population, it is clear its shape has changed drastically. This changing shape is largely due to sociopolitical factors. These include shifting formal laws and policies, shifting individual behaviors as well as shifting various other social norms and practices. This makes the course of Covid-19 curve both erratic and unpredictable. (shrink)

Generally, simulations are carried out to answer specific questions. The assessment of the reliability of an answer depends on the kind of question investigated. The answer to a 'why' question is an explanation. The premises of an explanation have to include invariant relationships, and thus the reliability of such answer depends on whether the domain of invariance of the relevant relationships covers the domain of the question. The answer to a 'how much' question is a measurement. A measurement is reliable (...) when it is an output of a calibrated measuring instrument. (shrink)

Erdelyi distinguishes between cognitive and emotional forms of repression, but argues that they use the same general mechanism. His discussion of experimental memory findings, on the one hand, and clinical examples, on the other, does indeed indicate considerable overlap. As an in-between level of evidence, research findings on emotion in neuroscience, as well as experimental and social/personality psychology, further support his argument.

The Representational Theory of Measurement conceives measurement as establishing homomorphisms from empirical relational structures into numerical relation structures, called models. There are two different approaches to deal with the justification of a model: an axiomatic and an empirical approach. The axiomatic approach verifies whether a given relational structure satisfies certain axioms to secure homomorphic mapping. The empirical approach conceives models to function as measuring instruments by transferring observations of a phenomenon under investigation into quantitative facts about that phenomenon. These facts (...) are evaluated by their accuracy and precision. Precision is generally achieved by least squares methods and accuracy by calibration. For calibration standards are needed. Then two polar strategies can be distinguished: white-box modeling and black-box modeling. The first strategy of modeling aims at estimating the invariant equations of the phenomenon, thereby fulfilling Hertz’s correctness requirement. The latter strategy of modeling is to use known stable facts about the phenomenon to adjust the model parameters, thereby fulfilling Hertz’s appropriateness requirement. For this latter strategy, the requirement of models as homomorphic mappings has been dropped. Where one will find the axiomatic approach more often used for measurement in the laboratory, the empirical approach is more appropriate for measurement outside the laboratory. The reason for this is that for measurement of phenomena outside the laboratory, one also needs to take account of the environment to achieve accurate results. Environments are generally too relation-rich for an axiomatic approach, which are only applicable for relation-poor systems. The white-box modeling strategy, reflecting the complexity of the environment due to its correctness requirement, will, however, lead to immensely large models. To avoid this problem, modular design is an appropriate strategy to reduce this complexity. Modular design is a grey-box modeling strategy. Grey-box models are assemblies of modules; these are black boxes with standard interface. It should be noted that the structure of the assemblage need not be homomorphic to the relations describing the interaction between phenomenon and environment. These three modeling strategies map out the possible designs for computer simulations as measuring instruments. Whether a simulation is based on a white-box, grey-box or black-box model is only determined by the relationship between the phenomenon and its environment and not by e.g. its materiality or physicality. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art presents an overview of the issues, methods, and approaches crucial for the study of sound in artistic practice. Thirty-six essays cover a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sounding art from the fields of musicology, cultural studies, sound design, auditory culture, art history, and philosophy. The companion website hosts sound examples and links to further resources. The collection is organized around six main themes: Sounding Art: The notion of sounding art, its relation to sound (...) studies, and its evolution and possibilities. Acoustic Knowledge and Communication: How we approach, study, and analyze sound and the challenges of writing about sound. Listening and Memory: Listening from different perspectives, from the psychology of listening to embodied and technologically mediated listening. Acoustic Spaces, Identities and Communities: How humans arrange their sonic environments, how this relates to sonic identity, how music contributes to our environment, and the ethical and political implications of sound. Sonic Histories: How studying sounding art can contribute methodologically and epistemologically to historiography. Sound Technologies and Media: The impact of sonic technologies on contemporary culture, electroacoustic innovation, and how the way we make and access music has changed. With contributions from leading scholars and cutting-edge researchers, The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art is an essential resource for anyone studying the intersection of sound and art. (shrink)

Si je relis de vieilles lettres -- Où placer la liberté ? -- Les lettres -- L'oubli de soi -- L'inégalité des civilisations -- Celle que j'ai cherchée -- Nostalgie -- La patraquerie -- Ma sensibilité -- Les morts -- Les amis -- Le grand philosophe -- Simplifier la vie -- Les héros dans l'histoire -- 1936 -- Maria et Marissou -- Compter pour quelque chose ou pour rien -- Mes peurs -- Laura -- Les yeux -- La tristesse -- (...) La jeune fille -- Le sourire -- La création de soi par soi -- Éva -- Les jeunes filles -- Les garçons -- Les nuits de fête -- La beauté et les classes sociales -- Le plaisir d'enseigner -- Vie réussie et vie heureuse -- Contempler -- Éva (2) -- Ma journée -- Ma grand-mère Marie -- Le "réel" -- Le corps -- L'humilité -- Charles Martel -- Un homme d'État -- Pascal et l'amour -- S'oublier soi-même -- Oncle Urbain -- Les cadeaux -- Mon ressentiment -- L'amour qui empoisonne -- Seize heures par jour -- La cause et la raison -- Eric Weil (1904-1977) -- Maurice Pradines (1874-1958) -- Mon rêve de cette nuit (16 mai 2018) -- L'enfant qui est en moi -- Le matérialisme -- Florette me plaît beaucoup -- Être -- Le bois de la Masse (Aidée Bernard) -- La vérité -- L'amour -- La "création du monde" -- La valeur des systèmes -- La pensée -- Liberté et vérité. (shrink)