We describe here recent work on the molecular genetics of mitosis in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Aspergillus is one of three simple eukaryotes with powerful genetic systems that have been used to analyze mitosis. The modern molecular biological techniques available with this organism have made it possible to use mutations to identify genes and proteins that play an important role in mitosis. Three Aspergillus genes that affect mitosis are described. One gene, nimA, is specifically expressed late in the cell (...) cycle and codes for a putative protein kinase that induces mitosis, even in cells blocked in S‐phase. The second gene, bimG, codes for a putative phosphatase that interacts functionally with the nimA kinase. The third gene, bimE, codes for a protein that suppresses mitosis during interphase, apparently by keeping nimA turned off. None of these genes appear to be similar to any of the genes affecting mitosis that have been characterized in other eukaryotes, but rather appear to be elements of a system that prevents mitosis from occurring during interphase. (shrink)

This book consists thematically of three broad sections: a lengthy introduction in which Grünbaum critically assesses the hermeneutic construal of psychoanalysis, as represented in the work of Habermas, G. S. Klein, and Ricoeur; a critical examination of Popper's assessment of both psychoanalysis and inductivism; and a logical analysis of core psychoanalytic ideas that constitute the foundation for much of psychoanalytic theory. This last section is, in my view, the heart of the book and therefore, it is that section on which (...) I will focus in this review. (shrink)

Morris N. Eagle explores the understanding and role of subjective experience in the disciplines of psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy of mind. Elaborating how different understandings of subjective experience give rise to very different theories of the nature of the mind, Eagle then explains how these shape clinical practices. In particular, Eagle addresses the strong tendency in the disciplines concerned with the nature of the mind to overlook the centrality of subjective experience in one's life, to view it with suspicion, (...) and to reduce it to neural processes. Describing examples of research in which subjective experience is a central variable, Eagle provides an outline of a model in which the dichotomy of conscious and unconscious is supplemented by subjective experience as a continuum. This book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychologists and anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of theories of the mind to therapeutic practice. (shrink)

Let me begin by summarizing my understanding of some of Hersch’s main points. He proposes 1) that “the use of existential themes and concepts” and “an existential ontology provides a more suitable philosophical grounding for psychotherapeutic theories and practices”; and 2) that “an existential version of the mental status examination… can provide us with a more in-depth understanding of…an individual’s experiential world”. According to Hersch, an existential perspective directs our attention to the existential guilt and anxiety “present inherently in the (...) human situation”. The former, “existential guilt,” “is a kind of.. (shrink)

We critically evaluate arguments in a recent Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics article by Svoboda, Adler, and Van Howe disputing the 2012 affirmative infant male circumcision policy recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. We provide detailed evidence in explaining why the extensive claims by these opponents are not supported by the current strong scientific evidence. We furthermore show why their legal and ethical arguments are contradicted by a reasonable interpretation of current U.S. and international law and ethics. After (...) all considerations are taken into account it would be logical to conclude that failure to recommend male circumcision early in infancy may be viewed as akin to failure to recommend childhood vaccination to parents. In each case, parental consent is required and the intervention is not compulsory. Our evaluation leads us to dismiss the arguments by Svoboda et al. Instead, based on the evidence, infant male circumcision is both ethical and lawful. (shrink)

This study assessed the possibility that the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale can offer an ideologically biased understanding of religious commitments. In a large sample of university undergraduates , Budner Scale correlations with Religious Interest, Religious Orientation, Need for Cognition, and Response Uncertainty supported the conclusion that religion predicts an inability to cope with uncertainty. At the same time, however, special procedures were used to create new scales expressing a Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity by translating Budner Scale items into a (...) language that was more compatible with religious beliefs. These Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity measures revealed that religiousness was associated with an ability rather than an inability to cope with uncertainty. Conflicting results between these Christian and nonreligious Tolerance of Ambiguity measures yielded additional support for the Ideological Surround Model of the psychology of religion. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author's unplanned venture into public philosophy began in the mid‐to‐late 1980s, just as Ronald Reagan was insisting that a certain famous wall be torn down. Various European thinkers and political philosophers in America, along with a few people working in the author's own tradition, like Robert Nozick and Peter Singer, had already begun to work in the nascent movement of “applied philosophy,” and in a public way. The author's early work in philosophy had been solidly (...) within the analytical tradition, with a special interest in religion, focused mainly on metaphysics and, secondarily, epistemological issues. Public philosophy can be rekindled in our time by any number of means and across a wide variety of topics. Many of the philosophers who had the biggest public impact in their own time and into our own have been good storytellers, and some have used the power of humor well. (shrink)

Afferent feedback can appreciably alter the pharyngeal phase of swallow. In order to measure the stability of the swallow motor pattern during several types of alterations in afferent feedback, we assessed swallow during a conventional water challenge in four anesthetized cats, and compared that to swallows induced by fixed (20 Hz) and stochastic (1-20Hz) electrical stimulation applied to the superior laryngeal nerve. The swallow motor patterns were evaluated by electromyographic activity (EMG) of eight muscles, based on their functional significance: laryngeal (...) elevators (mylohyoid, geniohyoid, and thyrohyoid); laryngeal adductor (thyroarytenoid); inferior pharyngeal constrictor (thyropharyngeus); upper esophageal sphincter (cricopharyngeus); and inspiratory activity (parasternal and costal diaphragm). Both the fixed and stochastic electrical stimulation paradigms increased activity of the laryngeal elevators, produced short-term facilitation evidenced by increasing swallow durations over the stimulus period, and conversely inhibited swallow-related diaphragm activity. Both the fixed and stochastic stimulus conditions also increased specific EMG amplitudes, which never occurred with the water challenges. Stochastic stimulation increased swallow excitability, as measured by an increase in the number of swallows produced. Consistent with our previous results, changes in the swallow motor pattern for pairs of muscles were only sometimes correlated with each other. We conclude that alterations in afferent feedback produced particular variations of the swallow motor pattern. We hypothesize that specific SLN feedback might modulate the swallow central pattern generator during aberrant feeding conditions (food/liquid entering the airway), which may protect the airway and serve as potentially important clinical diagnostic indicators. (shrink)

In _Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care_, a timely and trenchant consideration of the clash of values between managed care and psychoanalysis, contributors elaborate a thoughtful defense of the therapeutic necessity and social importance of contemporary psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches in the provision of mental health care. Part I begins with the question of where psychoanalytic treatments now stand in relation to health care; contributors offer explanations of the current state of affairs and consider possible directions of future developments. Part II (...) looks directly at the conundrums that have resulted from the attempt to integrate psychotherapy and managed care, with contributors examining the ethical and legal dimensions of confidentiality, privacy, and reporting to third parties. Part III opens to wider consideration of the experiences of psychoanalysts under health care systems throughout the world. Finally, Part IV demonstrates the relevance of contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to a variety of contemporary patient populations, with contributors focusing on the applicability of analytically oriented treatment to AIDS patients, seriously disturbed young adults, and inner-city clinic patients. Collectively, the contributors to _Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care_ convincingly refute the claim that psychoanalytically informed therapy is an esoteric treatment suited only to the "worried well." Drawing on a wide range of clinical and empirical evidence, they forcefully argue that contemporary psychoanalytic approaches are applicable to seriously distressed persons in a variety of treatment contexts. Failure to include such long-term therapies within health care delivery systems, they conclude, will deprive many patients of help they need - and help from which they can benefit in enduring ways that far transcend the limited treatment goals of managed care. (shrink)

In a ‘Letter from Washington’ in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Drew reported some speculation regarding the mental processes of Ronald Reagan. In Drew’s words:The curious process Drew describes is clearly important in many ways -historically, politically, and perhaps legally. We contend that there is even some epistemological significance to Reagan’s method for the fixation of belief. We shall argue, in particular, that some of those curiously insulated beliefs which Reagan possesses qualify as knowledge under at least one leading causal (...) reliabilist theory of knowledge- that presented by F. Dretske in Knowledge and the Flow of Information. But, as we detail the structure of such beliefs, what is probably evident already will emerge quite clearly, viz., that these beliefs do not amount to knowledge. (shrink)

Movement is crucial to Merleau-Ponty’s effort to comprehend sense, meaning as generated within being. This requires a new concept of movement, not as a dislocation within an already determinate space- or time- frame, but as a deeper, more fundamental change that first engenders space and time as determinate contexts in which movement can follow a sensible course. This poses a novel challenge: conceptualizing determinate space and time as contingently arising from a deeper sort of change, which I call templacement. I (...) address this challenge by turning to the Mexica/Aztecs because the most basic term of their ontology is motion-change, and it is obvious to them that motion-change does not occur in an abstract space-time container. Instead, time-place is woven out of ‘prior’ motion-change. This study leads to a deeper lesson for phenomenology, regarding ‘obvious’ presuppositions about what time and philosophy obviously are – and how these presuppositions go hand in hand.La question du mouvement est cruciale dans l’effort de Merleau-Ponty pour comprendre le sens, la signification telle qu’elle se produit dans l’être. Cela requiert un nouveau concept du mouvement, qui n’est pas compris comme un déplacement dans un cadre spatial – ou temporel – prédéterminé, mais plutôt comme un changement plus profond et fondamental, qui, avant tout, produit l’espace et le temps comme des contextes déterminés dans lesquels le mouvement peut suivre un cours sensible. Cela pose un nouveau défi : conceptualiser un espace et un temps déterminés qui résulteraient, de manière contingente, d’un type de changement plus profond, que j’appellerai templacement. Je lance ce défi en me tournant vers les Mexicas/Aztèques parce que le terme le plus élémentaire de leur ontologie est le mouvement-changement, et il est naturel pour eux que le mouvement-changement n’ait pas lieu dans un conteneur spatio-temporel abstrait. Au contraire, le temps-lieu est tissé sans mouvement-changement « préalable ». Cette recherche conduit à un enseignement encore plus profond pour la phénoménologie, concernant au sujet des présupposition “évidentes” sur le temps et sur la philosophie, et elle nous montre aussi comment ces présuppositions sont étroitement liées.Il movimento è un elemento cruciale nello sforzo di Merleau-Ponty di comprendere il senso, il significato in quanto generato all’interno dell’essere. Questo sforzo richiede un nuovo concetto di movimento, da intendere non come movimento-spostamento nell’ambito di una cornice spazio-temporale predefinita, ma come più profondo e più fondamentale mutamento che inaugura lo spazio e il tempo, in quanto contesti nei quali il movimento stesso può esprimere una traiettoria dotata di senso. Si pone quindi una nuova sfida: quella di concettualizzare lo spazio e il tempo come generati da una forma più radicale di mutamento, che propongo di definire templacement. Per affrontare questa sfida, mi rivolgo ai Mexica/Aztechi poiché il termine più basilare della loro ontologia è quello del moto-mutamento, e poiché essi ritengono ovvio che questo moto-mutamento non si verifichi all’interno di un contenitore spazio-temporale astratto: al contrario, lo spazio-tempo è per loro un intreccio che risulta da un moto-mutamento “precedente”. Questo studio permette di ricavare una lezione più profonda per la fenomenologia, che concerne le sue “ovvie” presupposizioni riguardo a che cosa siano “ovviamente” il tempo e la filosofia – e a come queste presupposizioni siano strettamente connesse. (shrink)

Platon n’est pas sérieux lorsqu’il conduit Socrate à déduire que la poésie doit être essentiellement narrative avec juste un peu de dialogue. Non seulement cette argumentation est-elle intentionnellement fautive, mais Platon crée aussi un Socrate qui obscurcit à dessein une distinction fondamentale. Le Socrate de Platon fait ensuite semblant d’être confus par son propre obscurcissement. En nous obligeant à nous frayer un passage à travers les broussailles de son argumentation erronée, Platon nous donne l’occasion d’avoir une participation plus profonde aux (...) véritables problèmes sous-jacents et de découvrir son thème : une bonne personne est stoïquement indifférente à la fois au malheur et au bonheur. (shrink)

Many people assume that the claims of scientists are objective truths. But historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science have long argued that scientific claims reflect the particular historical, cultural, and social context in which those claims were made. The nature of scientific knowledge is not absolute because it is influenced by the practice and perspective of human agents. Scientific Perspectivism argues that the acts of observing and theorizing are both perspectival, and this nature makes scientific knowledge contingent, as Thomas Kuhn (...) theorized forty years ago. Using the example of color vision in humans to illustrate how his theory of “perspectivism” works, Ronald N. Giere argues that colors do not actually exist in objects; rather, color is the result of an interaction between aspects of the world and the human visual system. Giere extends this argument into a general interpretation of human perception and, more controversially, to scientific observation, conjecturing that the output of scientific instruments is perspectival. Furthermore, complex scientific principles—such as Maxwell’s equations describing the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields—make no claims about the world, but models based on those principles can be used to make claims about specific aspects of the world. Offering a solution to the most contentious debate in the philosophy of science over the past thirty years, Scientific Perspectivism will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of science. (shrink)

Debate over the nature of science has recently moved from the halls of academia into the public sphere, where it has taken shape as the "science wars." At issue is the question of whether scientific knowledge is objective and universal or socially mediated, whether scientific truths are independent of human values and beliefs. Ronald Giere is a philosopher of science who has been at the forefront of this debate from its inception, and Science without Laws offers a much-needed mediating (...) perspective on an increasingly volatile line of inquiry. Giere does not question the major findings of modern science: for example, that the universe is expanding or that inheritance is carried by DNA molecules with a double helical structure. But like many critics of modern science, he rejects the widespread notion of science--deriving ultimately from the Enlightenment--as a uniquely rational activity leading to the discovery of universal truths underlying all natural phenomena. In these highly readable essays, Giere argues that it is better to understand scientists as merely constructing more or less abstract models of limited aspects of the world. Such an understanding makes possible a resolution of the issues at stake in the science wars. The critics of science are seen to be correct in rejecting the Enlightenment idea of science, and its defenders are seen to be correct in insisting that science does produce genuine knowledge of the natural world. Giere is utterly persuasive in arguing that to criticize the Enlightenment ideal is not to criticize science itself, and that to defend science one need not defend the Enlightenment ideal. Science without Laws thus stakes out a middle ground in these debates by showing us how science can be better conceived in other ways. (shrink)

Introduction: the use and abuse of Thomas Paine in the transatlantic world / Sam Edwards and Marcus Morris -- Part I. The image and idea(s) of Paine: origins, use and reuse -- The image of Tom: Paine in print and portraiture / W.A. Speck -- "I am made to say what I never wrote": deism, spiritualism and ventriloquizing Paine, c.1790s-1850s / Patrick W. Hughes -- All Paine: the American mind and the creation of the League of Nations and the (...) U.N. / Michael Holm -- The distortion of Thomas Paine's philosophy of government / Gary Berton -- Part II. Discovering and using Paine's radicalism -- "Revolutions are the order of the day": Atlantic fragments of Thomas Paine, c.1819-1832 / Matteo Battistini -- Posthumous Paine in the United Kingdom, 1809-1832: Jacobin or loyalist cult? / Matthew Roberts -- "The neglect of Paine seems particularly strange at the present political juncture": explaining British socialists' relationship to Paine, c. 1884-1914 / Marcus Morris -- Citizens of the world: Paine and the political prisoners transported to Australia / Tony Moore -- Part III. Remembering and remaking Paine -- Common sense on the Lower East Side: Thomas Paine and the era of immigration, c.1900-1950 / Louis Mazzari -- "A monument in every city?": Thomas Paine in memoriam / Theodore Marotta -- "He came from America didn't he?": the Thetford Statue controversy and the problem of Paine in transatlantic memory, c.1909-1970 / Sam Edwards -- Afterword: the struggle for Paine's memory and the making of American democracy / Harvey J. Kaye. (shrink)

Most recent philosophical thought about the scientific representation of the world has focused on dyadic relationships between language-like entities and the world, particularly the semantic relationships of reference and truth. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources, I argue that we should focus on the pragmatic activity of representing, so that the basic representational relationship has the form: Scientists use models to represent aspects of the world for specific purposes. Leaving aside the terms "law" and "theory," I distinguish principles, specific conditions, models, (...) hypotheses, and generalizations. I argue that scientists use designated similarities between models and aspects of the world to form both hypotheses and generalizations. (shrink)

Understanding Scientific Reasoning, Fifth Edition, develops critical reasoning skills and guides students in the improvement of their scientific and technological literacy. The authors teach students how to understand and critically evaluate the scientific information they encounter in both textbooks and the popular media. With its focus on scientific pedagogy, Understanding Scientific Reasoning helps students learn how to examine scientific reports with a reasonable degree of sophistication. The book also explains how to reason through case studies using the same informal logic (...) skills employed by scientists and to analyse a complex series of propositions and hypotheses using sound scientific reasoning--Publisher's blurb. (shrink)

Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas (...) from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

I argue for an intentional conception of representation in science that requires bringing scientific agents and their intentions into the picture. So the formula is: Agents (1) intend; (2) to use model, M; (3) to represent a part of the world, W; (4) for some purpose, P. This conception legitimates using similarity as the basic relationship between models and the world. Moreover, since just about anything can be used to represent anything else, there can be no unified ontology of models. (...) This whole approach is further supported by a brief exposition of some recent work in cognitive, or usage-based, linguistics. Finally, with all the above as background, I criticize the recently much discussed idea that claims involving scientific models are really fictions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:358 BOOK REVIEWS New Perspectives on Old-Time Religion. By GEORGE N. SCHLESINGER. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 196. George Schlesinger ends one of the chapters of his hook by saying: In the last two hundred years or so, theism has mostly been on the defensive and in retreat. It is important to show that the believer can offer a rational justification for his position (...) that is at least as respectable as his opponent's. And it is also important to show that he can do this without having to reinterpret radically, demythologize, or dilute traditional religious doctrines; without having to take shelter in impenetrably opaque metaphors and mystifications; and without claiming immunity from the testimonies of empirical evidence and logical argument by in· voking the special, ineffable status of his beliefs (148). That is precisely what Schlesinger attempts to do in this hook. What we have, as a result, is a philosophically original, vigorously argued, literate, and even at times entertaining defense of religious belief cov· ering a wide range of topics which are seen to he interrelated in deep and sometimes surprising ways. After a brief introduction offering an over-view of what is to come, Schlesinger addresses in his first chapter the crucial topic of the concept of God. In it he argues the superiority of St. Anselm's conception of God as a greatest possible, or absolutely perfect, being. With the single idea of divine perfection as the governing constraint on any detailed elaboration of distinct divine attributes, Schlesinger suggests that many well known arguments against the coherence of theism can he answered very simply. In this intriguing chapter, he even goes so far as to suggest that " upon gaining a basic understanding of the nature of Divine attributes all problems disappear " (14). He illustrates his approach by examining difficulties that have been alleged to attend the theistic claim that God is both omniscient and immutable and the claim that God is omnipotent. Along the way, all sorts of interesting problems are touched upon, from the proper understanding of time to the nature of petitionary prayer. Chapter two tackles what is considered by many people to he the major obstacle to theism, the problem of evil. Schlesinger begins by arguing that it is an inadequate response for theists to suggest that God is justified in allowing the evils of our world because they are necessary, or their allowance is necessary, for the existence of a great good, namely, morally significant free will along God's creatures. Schlesinger contends that a simple free will theodicy has no way of explaining why God does not act in subtle ways so as to curtail the scope of wicked- BOOK REVIEWS 359 ness in the world. If we agree that it would be morally incumbent upon any person capable of restraining a Hitler to attempt to do so in fact, we find it hard to see on what grounds God might diverge from our judgment. Does He view each of Hitler's acts of free will to be of such value as exercises of freedom that it is better to allow them than to prevent the \more horrendous of them? After his discussion of the free will solution, Schlesinger goes on to develop a line of thought that he has pursued in other writings, but which here is given most detailed elaboration. He begins by sketching the main lines of what is often called the virtuous response theodicy, or the soul-making theodicy. This is fundamentally the claims that (l) there are certain virtues which could not be had in a world bereft of suffering, (2) a world containing creatures with these virtues is superior to one devoid of suffering and thus of these virtues as well, and that (3) God is justified in choosing to create and sustain a world which allows of such virtues, that is to say, a world containing suffering. Of the many objections raised against standard explications of this sort of theodicy, one is especially difficult to overcome, an objection often known as the absurd morality complaint. It goes like this: It is an absurd morality which allows us to... (shrink)