Este estudio exploró los discursos y sus procesos de subjetivación que realizan los interventores psicosociales de infancia y adolescencia que participan en dispositivos del Estado de Chile. A partir de la metodología cualitativa, entrevistas semiestructuradas y análisis crítico del discurso. Los resultados muestran significados de la infancia y adolescencia asociados al cuidado, al peligro y a un sujeto de derechos con agencia. Este último, resiste a la violencia institucional mediante el apoyo mutuo entre pares y con los interventores. Esta investigación (...) subraya la importancia de intervenciones psicosociales participativas con una infancia y adolescencia como agentes sociales y políticos. (shrink)

La metáfora de la memoria como “viaje mental en el tiempo” (“mental time travel” en inglés) ha tenido una gran influencia en la ciencia cognitiva de la memoria así como también en la filosofía de la memoria contemporánea. A pesar de su relevancia, no ha habido ninguna discusión teórica real ni sobre el significado de la metáfora en sí misma ni sobre su adecuación para dar cuenta de los recuerdos de experiencias pasadas. Este artículo trata de llenar este vacío al (...) examinar con más detalle la metáfora del “viaje mental en el tiempo”, centrándose más específicamente en los problemas que dicha noción presenta. Si la metáfora del “viaje mental en el tiempo” pretende referir no solo a una facultad o sistema cerebral sino también a una experiencia subjetiva particular, como así ha sido sugerido en la literatura, no es de por sí evidente que sea compatible con las nociones de (re)construcción y simulación con las que se la asocia frecuentemente, ni que describa de manera fehaciente la fenomenología de todo recuerdo del pasado personal. Si, por el contrario, sólo se refiere a una facultad o sistema cerebral y no pretende dar cuenta de la fenomenología del recuerdo, el uso de dicho término parece perder todo sentido para nombrar dicha facultad. A pesar de su relevancia, la metáfora del “viaje mental en el tiempo” no se ha impuesto como paradigma único: otras metáforas distintas continúan guiando actualmente programas más o menos fructíferos de investigación de la memoria. El artículo concluye que aunque dicha metáfora fue beneficiosa en su momento para la ciencia y la filosofía de la memoria, el examen minucioso de dicha noción sugiere que no constituye realmente una buena metáfora de la memoria sobre las experiencias pasadas, por lo que debería ser abandonada. (shrink)

Introduction to the book symposium on Katherine Puddifoot’s How Stereotypes Deceive Us.

Drawing from a multi-sourced data corpus gathered from high-net-worth social media influencers, this article explores how these individuals reconcile ethicality and living a luxury lifestyle through the enactment of three types of personas on Instagram: Ambassador of ‘True’ Luxury, Altruist, and ‘Good’ Role Model. By applying the concepts of taste regimes and social moral licensing, we find that HNW social media influencers conspicuously enact and display ethicality, thereby retaining legitimacy in the field of luxury consumption. As these individuals are highly (...) influential, they could leave a potentially significant mark on public discourse and, consequently, on their audiences’ construction of ethically responsible luxury consumption. In this vein, this article offers significant managerial insights into professional influencers and discusses ethical managerial practices to ensure ethical collaborations between influencers and managers. (shrink)

Canguilhem’s contemporary relevance lies in how he critiques the relation between knowledge and life that underlies Kantian rationality. The latter’s Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment represent life in the form of an exception: life is simultaneously included and excluded from understanding. Canguilhem’s critique can be grouped into three main strands of argument. First, his reference to concepts as preserved problems breaks with Kant’s idea of concepts regarding the living as a ‘unification of the manifold’. Second, Canguilhem’s vital (...) normativity represents life as the potential to resist normative orders that judge the living, relegating Kant’s ‘lawfulness of the contingent’ to a ‘mediocre regularity’. Third, Canguilhem’s introduction of the environment as a ‘category of contemporary thought’ decentres the living/knowing subject and introduces contingency. His idea of the ‘knowledge of life’ leads to the conclusion that life is the condition of possibility of rationality, rather than rationality’s ‘blind spot’. (shrink)

This research examines whether and how firms can meet both business goals and social needs through their innovation activities. We examine antecedents and consequences of innovation that addresses social needs, in addition to business goals, using data collected from European for-profit firms. We find that innovation including social intent is more likely under conditions of high market turbulence, which represents an important form of demand-driven threats. Meanwhile, we find no relationship with competitive intensity, a form of pressure driven threats. Together, (...) these findings suggest that customers and other stakeholders are more likely to drive firms to focus on the social dimension than competitors. The findings also indicate that innovation including social intent is positively related with customer acceptance, which supports the notion that innovation can meet both business goals and social needs. This relationship is partially mediated by perceived market turbulence, which highlights the importance of customers and their demands for social responsibility. This research advances both theory and practice as we add to existing discourses on innovation by providing a broader than common perspective that includes the social dimension as a potential part of innovation conducted to meet business goals. Furthermore, we shed light on how and when firms are likely to include intended social outcomes in their innovation and when they are less likely to do so, which highlights a potential untapped opportunity. (shrink)

In this article, the main factors of academic cheating and plagiarism in four countries are analyzed. Three groups of factors are investigated, namely individual, motivational, and contextual. A mixed method approach has been used, with material including student surveys, interviews with university teachers and administrators, and analysis of university documents. The survey results show that the role of individual social-demographic factors are not significant for predicting misconduct. Students are prone to neutralize their own blame in misconduct, and refer to the (...) external conditions by the proposition that it is difficult to avoid cheating and plagiarism during university studies. Students are also more likely to cheat and plagiarize in the conditions of weak teachers’ control and deterrents. Such results demonstrate the importance of an integrity policy at the national, institutional and classroom levels, and that the social and cultural environment can be important factors in cheating. Integrity systems and the level, which they have been implemented, have a significant impact on student misconduct and attitudes toward cheating. (shrink)

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth,nothing easier than flattery.— Fyodor DostoevskyFyodor Dostoevsky, whose 200th birthday we celebrated in 2021, is perhaps one of the most emi...

The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major (...) problem, because he does not resolve certain conflicts that arise between what action a duty prescribes and what action a natural affection, associated to that duty, inclines us to do. (shrink)

Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid’s notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper argues that the same (...) is true of memory, and it offers an answer to the question: what type of conception does it employ? (shrink)

I. Liturgical practices, whether solemn or celebratory, mark our transcendence of the everyday. In liturgy, the common and the worldly fall away. Our spirit is tasked with the work dedicated to the...

This paper critiques Dagfinn Follesdal's influential interpretation of the Husserlian noema as a Fregean sense. Though other philosophers have argued that Follesdal's interpretation is mistaken, this paper demonstrates that the origin of the error is a fundamental misunderstanding, on Follesdal's part, of Husserlian terminology. The paper also examines the views of David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre who, influenced by Follesdal, mistakenly read the Husserl of the "Ideas" as a linguistically motivated philosopher. The paper concludes that, if Follesdal and his (...) followers were correct, certain methodological implications would follow for Husserlian phenomenology that would lead to its demise. (shrink)

El artículo intenta recuperar la figura de Dora Benjamin como referente de la crítica social, reconstruyendo las huellas de aquello que el silencio de su imagen posibilita interpretar.

¿Qué relación hay entre derecho y lenguaje? Y ¿entre lenguaje y ley? ¿Cómo se inicia la serie de la juridicidad? ¿Qué la posibilita? Una característica hace de lo humano algo aparte de lo vivo: la palabra. El presente trabajo pretende recorrer parte de esta huella, intentando repensar allí la centralidad del lenguaje en la estructuración misma de la juridicidad. Volverse al lenguaje es, en definitiva –como señala P. Sneh– un gesto político.

This paper combines both an exegetical and philosophical approach to the treatment of miracles in the Markan gospel. Using key insights developed by biblical scholars bearing on the problem of Mark’s treatment of miracles as a basis, I conclude that for the author of Mark, miracles are effects, and as such, signs and symbols of what occurs in the moral and spiritual order. I argue that Mark connects miracles with faith in Jesus, a faith qualified through a grasp of the (...) proper exercise of human power in the kingdom of God. The last section of the paper explores the ontological conditions for the possibility of miracles as they are portrayed in this gospel; there I argue that the best candidate for a theory that squares with Mark’s understanding of miracle is a different one from that found in the contemporary philosophical literature on miracles. (shrink)

In this article, I will discuss the idea of teachers as knowledge translators, not in a pedagogical or didactical sense, but in a “professional” one. A professional practice is supposed to be theoretically informed by academic research. In the name of effectiveness and efficiency, current policies in teaching and higher education repeatedly ask for research-based practices that legitimize the adoption of an instrumental view of knowledge. Knowledge is conceived of as detached from the context in which it was produced and (...) becomes a commodity that can be mobilized by the researcher or the teacher at any time, as if language is a direct and transparent vehicle of thought. But this idea fails to recognize that language endlessly translates and produces new meanings, which imply that “knowledge users” have a responsibility with regard to the meaning they give to the research, policy documents or professional accounts they are “mobilizing” for practice. Here, I will discuss this translation framework, using fruitful ideas developed in the field of translation studies. Then the framework is put to work through the analysis of concrete, and somewhat unfortunate, translations that Donald Schön’s influential work on reflective practice has undergone. These observations lead to an exploration of some concrete implications of an ethic of translation, which would require fostering some translational dispositions in teachers and the creation of translational spaces for teachers’ “professional development”. (shrink)

Digital Earth applications provide a common ground for visualizing, simulating, and modeling real-world situations. The potential of Digital Earth applications has increased significantly with the evolution of artificial intelligence systems and the capacity to collect and process complex amounts of geospatial data. Yet, the widespread techno-optimism at the root of Digital Earth must now confront concerns over high-risk artificial intelligence systems and power asymmetries of a datafied society. In this commentary, we claim that not only can current debates about data (...) governance and ethical artificial intelligence inform development in the field of Digital Earth, but that the specificities of geospatial data, together with the expectations surrounding Digital Earth applications, offer a fruitful lens through which to examine current debates on data governance and artificial intelligence ethics. In particular, we argue that for the implementation of ethical artificial intelligence and inclusive approaches to data governance, Digital Earth initiatives need to involve stakeholders and communities at the local level and be sensitive to social, legal, cultural, and institutional contexts, including conflicts that might arise within those contexts. (shrink)

In times of crisis, connections among people, cultures, and societies seem to be the main antidotes available against the risks of individualism, auto-referentiality, and a revenge culture. Connectivity offers opportunities to nurture human generativity (Santi, 2021) in the service of better futures and cosmopolitan scenarios, contrasting the delusion of autarchical economies, the rhetoric of political nationalism, and the reinforcement of social polarization by way of competition/marginalization, which applies to education as well. The pandemia that occurred in 2020 brought both risks (...) of isolation and opportunities for connection: it has been a paradoxical and even paroxysmal situation that has challenged us to think about forms of dependence, especially in instructional contexts. The stimulus for an inquiry that was carried out with 817 students at the University of Padova was the provocative title of an album by well-known musicians: “Declaration of Dependence.” The aim was to think about dependencies in the form of regular roles such as “study/student” that are important for our human existence, and which were profoundly upset by the “sindemia” (Singer, 2009). Our aspiration was to explore what it means to belong to a thriving university whose over-arching goal is to serve the dependencies of people in a generative community of future horizons. Our efforts led to the drafting of the “Declaration of Dependence,” a shared manifesto by the research group that enumerated a thorough list of the students' self-declared dependencies, and which was later shared with the university community in multiple languages. This led, in turn, to the use of the Declaration to launch multiple focus groups, which discussed these dependencies in a setting devoted to dialogue and the practice of complex thinking. Subsequently, in a workshop carried out in 2020 at the 20th Biennial Conference of the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) in Tokyo, we opened an international dimension on the reflections that had preoccupied us in the Padova University context. Here, the aim was to reflect on the personal, collective and educational dependencies of the present historical moment through the practice of community of philosophical inquiry, which offers a paradigmatic time and space for sharing, listening, questioning, and gaining perspective. The conference workshop offered an international group of scholars and practitioners from various socio-political contexts the opportunity to deliberate on how the pandemic has impacted both their local and the global community. Considering the new educational and philosophical challenges presented by the pandemic, the group expressed an urgent need to deconstruct established boundaries and return to “origins.” Invoking metaphors taken from the natural world (Roversi et al, 2022), an inquiry into the nature and scope of our fundamental dependencies reminds us that we are part of a socio-cultural ecology that is grounded and nurtured in our relationship with others. A community that understands its dependencies as gifts that call us to the design of a better future could in fact represent a foreshadowing of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has become omnipresent in migration control and mobility surveillance, with AI systems now deployed across all aspects of migration management. Critics of such trends typically examine questions of ethics and rights from the vantage point of regulatory mechanisms and the limited venues for the redress of grievances. But if legal frameworks are as of yet forthcoming and do not necessarily apply to migrants, are there alternative mechanisms to critique algorithmic decision making? To explore (...) this and related questions, this paper engages one such alternative by taking a ‘visual turn.’ In asking ‘what can AI see’ the paper interrogates the role of images in constructing AI's capacity to both understand migration and make appropriate decisions about migrants. In addition, a visual turn allows for exploration of an emergent age of post-visualization: a phenomenon whereby the values and meanings of what we see will be increasingly imparted to us by AI systems. The paper examines what AI sees with the help of an experiment, prompting an AI generative platform to draw distinctions between migrants, refugees, and people. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that Dioscorides’s view on medicine is purely pragmatic, focused entirely on the effectiveness of medicines, and derived from trial and error. One reason for this interpretation is that Dioscorides himself wrote little about his theory of medicine. In this article, however, we argue that he would have arranged De Materia Medica in a way that would have been useful only to a skilled practitioner. This argument implies that Dioscorides had a medical theory, as the arrangement of (...) the content could not have followed a trial-and-error approach. It is only in the sense of having a theory that he is able to claim that his text is more “complete” than others. This article provides a historical overview of the text from its genesis to its reception and, ultimately, to its falling out of use. This article concludes with a series of hypotheses on the correspondence between theory and arrangement of the treatise, with the aim of narrowing scholarly conjectures about both. In the final analysis, we argue that an arrangement by family resemblance most closely corresponds to the theory that animates Dioscorides’s text. (shrink)

Os modos como cada sociedade ou grupo pondera sobre o consumo do álcool e seus efeitos nos múltiplos contextos culturais é bastante distinto, em especial quando os discursos se referem a este consumo com as atenções voltadas aos gêneros. Assim, as associações entre o consumo de bebidas alcoólicas e as alterações dos comportamentos sexuais de cada gênero, embora estejam presentes desde a antiguidade, devem ser entendidas nos contextos culturais em que foram produzidas, de modo a compreender como cada grupo social (...) lida com determinados aspectos fisiológicos e a partir dissoconstrói seus discursos e interdições. Desta forma, torna-se fundamental, um retorno cuidadoso às fontes antigas, evitando interpretações baseadas no senso comum ou na tradição, considerando as possíveis diferenças entre o discurso normativo e a prática cotidiana. (shrink)

The question that drives this paper is: How does time function in psychosis? Given the altered or inhibited relation to speech in psychosis, I think that it is worth working out a notion of temporal or, to borrow Bessel van der Kolk’s term, “rhythmical. .. .interactions” (Listening to Trauma, 2014) with the afflicted persons. Using Freud’s analysis of non-linear psychic time, I construct a theoretical model of temporal modifications in psychosis. I then use this model, along with Lacan’s writings on (...) psychosis, to show the temporality peculiar to psychotic breakdowns. Aligning the theoretical analyses with the individual testimonies, I draw on patient accounts of psychotic time-perception recited by Davoine and Gaudillière and by Minkowski. (shrink)

La révision du matériel mis au jour lors des fouilles de P. Orlandini dans le sanctuaire extra-urbain de Bitalemi à Géla dans les années 1960 conduit à s’interroger sur les pratiques rituelles accomplies en ce lieu et sur la fonction de la céramique qu’on y a trouvée. L’attention se porte sur un certain nombre de cratères, dont la fonction principale est le mélange de vin et d’eau. Mettant en doute la consommation de vin durant les Thesmopho­ries célébrées dans le sanctuaire, (...) on s’interroge sur la nature du breuvage le mieux adapté à des fidèles rassemblées en l’honneur de Déméter et qui pourrait avoir été préparé dans les cratères. Puisque les abeilles et le miel jouent un rôle central en relation avec les eugeneis gynaikes (les épouses légitimes et les mères qui participent à la fête), l’article fait l’hypothèse que, durant cette fête, les cratères ont pu être utilisés pour le mélange de l’hydromel, une boisson de tradition ancienne, composée d’eau et de miel, et au pouvoir enivrant. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick sought to interpret F.H. Bradley’s ethics, as presented in Ethical Studies, in fundamentally Aristotelian terms. Sidgwick “found it ‘natural’ to think of self-realization as the ‘realization or development into act of the potentialities constituting the definite formed character of an individual’.” In this paper, I want to demonstrate that, rather than giving the work of Bradley an Aristotelian interpretation, as Sidgwick sought to do, one should focus on studying the Hegelian influences on and the historicist aspects of Ethical (...) Studies. Bradley’s account of the self to be realized is far from approaching Aristotle’s account. First of all, Bradley never speaks in terms of actual and potential character, and he certainly would not accept Sidgwick’s claim that the potentialities constitute the definite formed character of an individual. There is nothing Aristotelian in Bradley’s talk of history and evolution, nor in his holistic doctrine of ethical relativism. (shrink)

One of several important issues that inform contemporary philosophy of chemistry is the issue of structural explanation, precisely because modern chemistry is primarily concerned with microstructure. This paper argues that concern over microstructure, albeit understood differently than it is today, also informs the chemical philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627–1691). According to Boyle, the specific microstructure of ‘chymical atoms’, understood in geometric terms, accounts for the unique essential properties of different chemical substances. Because he considers the microstructure of ‘chymical atoms’ as (...) semi-permanent, Boyle considers these stable entities as operationally irreducible, even if they are not ontologically fundamental. While it is generally believed that our contemporary concern over structural explanation is a function of modern chemistry’s emphasis on microstructure, this discussion of structural explanation in Boyle will serve as a case study to illustrate the manner in which many of our contemporary concerns have deeply historical origins and the manner in which the history of chemistry can substantively inform issues in contemporary philosophy of chemistry. (shrink)

Manuel Philes dedicated countless occasional poems to his many benefactors to praise their qualities and ask for all sorts of assistance, both spiritual and material. This article analyses one of these compositions, namely poem Flor. 58, and offers a commentary of its language and content. On the basis of the imagery, repetitions and allusions present in the text, it is argued that this untitled poem was in fact dedicated to the scholar and metropolitan of Philadelphia Makarios Chrysokephalos to request the (...) gift of a hat. The detailed reading of the text aims at showing the presence of several layers of meaning which characterise the whole poem, as well as illustrating Philes' sophisticated poetic technique. (shrink)

Helping behavior is likely to have evolved to increase summary chances for survival of an individual and their group. Nevertheless, populations differ significantly in their eagerness to help, and still little is known about populational and inter-individual determinants of these differences. Previous studies indicated that economic and physiological factors might influence helping behavior. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of approach to resource management of a society (immediate-return economy vs. delayed-return economy), prenatal androgenization (based on (...) second-to-fourth digit ratio), and physical strength (based on hand grip strength) on helping behavior towards others. Helping was assessed in terms of both general eagerness to help and differential helping towards: (1) kin, (2) other group members indiscriminately, (3) friends, and (4) those from whom help was obtained in the past. Based on data collected in two small-scale societies, we found that people in the egalitarian immediate-return society (the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania) engaged in helping behavior significantly more often than representatives of a more stratified delayed-return economy (Yali horticulturalists of Papua). Additionally, our results revealed that physical strength was a significant predictor of helping behavior in women but not in men. We discuss our findings in the light of the adaptive value of helping behavior. (shrink)

While commentators recognize the centrality of the notion of Geist in Hegel’s philosophical project, there is no consensus about what the term exactly designates and what its role is within his system. One interpretation, which has appeared on the scene in recent years, overemphasizes the onto-theological connotations of the Hegelian term and understands it as a kind of supernatural or divine force determining the development of the system and guiding human history. Critically opposing this reading and showing its conceptual shortcomings, (...) the paper clarifies Hegel’s concept of Geist and discusses its real place in the philosopher’s system. (shrink)

Negli ultimi anni le ricerche sulla civiltà rupestre del Mezzogiorno medioevale, in seguito agli studi innovativi di Cosimo Damiano Fonseca, hanno condotto alla rivisitazione, attraverso approcci nuovi e con l'ausilio di strumenti sofisticati, di questo fenomeno nelle sue varie sfaccettature. Se, a partire soprattutto dalla fine dell'800, gli studiosi avevano rivolto i loro interessi in specie alle cappelle rupestri e alla loro decorazione pittorica, ovvero all'aspetto, in apparenza il più eclatante, dell'abitato rupestre, di recente l'attenzione si è focalizzata intorno allo (...) studio del paesaggio rupestre stesso e ai suoi valori, inteso come modello insediativo non certamente alternativo, né inferiore, a quello urbano, bensì come elemento specifico all'interno della complessa realtà dell'insediamento umano delle regioni meridionali e della Sicilia tra Tarda Antichità e Medioevo. (shrink)

Stoic philosophers had to face the accusation of incoherence, self-contradiction and Paradoxes since ancient times. Plutarch in his Moralia writes against them; Cicero devotes a separate work on stoic paradoxes. Even in contemporary Literature there are still discussions on the possibility of such an incoherence and existence of paradoxes in the stoic theory. At first glance, stoic Cosmology gives the impression to both accept a kind of Determinism, and at the same time it undoubtedly argues for the moral agent’s freedom (...) of the Will. In pre-stoic or even other contemporary to Stoicism Philosophical Traditions, the definitions that these two terms/concepts are given, fairly accuse as incoherent any Theory that does not set them as “contraries”. Under these types of accusations, the stoic Cosmology and Theory of the Freedom of the Will is often to be included. This phenomenal self-contradiction inside the Principles of Stoicism becomes even more obvious in Epictetus, a philosopher of the Late Stoa. He is interested in practical ethics, thus the phenomenal contradiction gets more lucid. This would have augmented the criticism of the Stoic philosophy for incoherence, if Epictetus had not made his main philosophical aim/target : the clarification of how an agent’s Will can be Free inside a Universe ruled by Fate/Destiny ; namely, a Universe merely Determined by Nature’s/God’s Will. Epictetus’ originality appears in the way he interrelates the concept of Freedom of the Will with the concept of Destiny and Determinism, in order to accomplish their simultaneous co-existence. This approach guards him against being easily accused for incoherence and self-contradiction. Through the unique way he understands and defines the Moral Agency, which is the agent’s internal state/condition/disposition, he steers towards an integrated, accomplished, strong and coherent line of argument. This sturdy declaration is able to support the weight of the Consent to a Free Will, and thus a certain kind Freedom of the moral agent. The excellence of this line of argument is that it can bear also the burden of the Consent to the phenomenally contrary concept of Determinism and Destiny. The elements used to the construction of this argument, which is stretched throughout the whole epictetean corpus can be summarised to a few key concepts, which are: the things which are in our power and the things which are not in our power, the concept of Freedom. These concepts work towards his philosophical targeting, because of the special definition he gives them. Axiomatically Epictetus states that in order for man to be free, it is necessary to be liberated from what the body forces him to do. Desires, passions and beliefs are considered as elements which are external to the moral agent. The moral agent “shrinks” into the Will. Thus man has the capability to free himself from anything external to his Will and therefore to harmonise his own Will to the Will of Nature/God; namely, to will what Nature/God wills and thus never conflict to the external facts. Consequently, Epictetus’ solution, is to include in the category of τά οὐκ ἐφ' ἡμῖν anything that he defines as external to the prohairesis: the desires, beliefs, passions and in general anything the body entails, the external facts. Thus the prohairesis, remains unhindered and it is completely depended on man’s power ; as characteristically Epictetus writes, “not even Zeus himself can overpower” the prohairesis. -/- Dissertation for the MSc Ancient Philosophy (2008-2009) at The University of Edinburgh, supervised by Inna Kupreeva. (shrink)

Introduction: Congenital myasthenic syndromes refer to a heterogenic group of neuromuscular transmission disorders. CMS-subtypes are diverse regarding exercise intolerance and muscular weakness, varying from mild symptoms to life-limiting forms with neonatal onset. Long-term follow-up studies on disease progression and treatment-response in pediatric patients are rare.Patients and Methods: We analyzed retrospective clinical and medication data in a cohort of 32 CMS-patients including the application of a standardized, not yet validated test to examine muscular strength and endurance in 21 patients at the (...) last follow-up. Findings obtained in our cohort were compared with long-term follow-up studies of CMS-cohorts from the literature by considering the underlying molecular mechanisms. Outcomes of CMS-ST were compared to results of normal clinical assessment.Results: Thirty-two pediatric patients with defects in eight different CMS-genes were followed by a median time of 12.8 years. Fifty-nine percentage of patients manifested with first symptoms as neonates, 35% as infants. While 53% of patients presented a reduced walking distance, 34% were wheelchair-bound. Even under adequate therapy with pyridostigmine and 3,4-diaminopyridine, CHAT-mutations led to the progression of muscular weakness partly in combination with persistent respiratory and bulbar symptoms. RAPSN, CHRND, and CHRNB1 patients with neonatal manifestation, early respiratory problems, and bulbar symptoms showed a good and maintained treatment response. CHAT and CHRNE patients required higher PS dosages, whereas RAPSN patients needed a lower mean dosage at the last follow-up. The benefits of short-term medication and long-term progression of symptoms were highly dependent on the specific genetic defect. CMS-ST was carried out in 17/21 patients, determined affected muscle groups including bulbar and ocular symptoms, some of which were not reported by the patients.Conclusions: Our findings and comparison with the literature- suggest a better treatment-response and less severe progression of symptoms present in patients suffering from mutations in CMS-genes directly associated with receptor deficiency, while patients with defects leading to synaptopathy and presynaptic defects tend to have worse outcomes. Assessment of affected muscular groups and clinical symptoms by CMS-ST may be a useful tool for optimal therapeutic management of the patients, especially for future clinical studies. (shrink)