This paper puts forward the hypothesis that consciousness might be linked to matter in a way which is more sophisticated than the traditional macroscopic Cartesian hypothesis suggests.Advances in the biophysics of the nervous system, not only on the level of its macroscopic functioning but also on the level of individual ion channels, have made the question of how finely consciousness is tied to matter and its dynamics more important. Quantum mechanics limits the attainable resolution and puts into doubt the idea (...) of an infinitely fine-woven attachment. A recent approach to physics rekindles such a rationalist hope. Endophysics focuses on the global implications of microscopic computer simulations of chemical and biophysical processes. A complete artificial universe can be set up in the computer. It produces non-classical and nonlocal effects inside — on the interface that exists between an internal observer (fluid neuron) and the rest of the world. This interface is finer than any brain property to which the status of the mind-body interface has been attributed hitherto. A new class of experiments becomes possible in the artificial world and, by analogy, in the real world. Magnetic resonance imaging experiments, routinely performed under open-loop conditions, can be repeated under psychophysical (closed-loop) conditions — in search for microscopically induced changes in the perceived and measured structure of the world. (shrink)

SummaryThis article approaches eighteenth-century views on scientific academies by examining Haller's utterances, public and private, especially those occasioned by the founding of the Göttingen Society. It deals in turn with his understanding of the distinctive purpose of academies, with his explanation of the chief ways in which they realized this end, with his thoughts on their broader usefulness, and finally with his various reasons for considering close ties with the state to be essential to their productive and harmonious operations.

The study of mental illness by the methods of molecular genetics is still in its infancy, but the use of genetic markers in psychiatry may potentially lead to a Virchowian revolution in the conception of mental illness. Genetic markers may define novel clusters of patients having diverse clinical presentations but sharing a common genetic and mechanistic basis. Such clusters may differ radically from the conventional classification schemes of psychiatric illness. However, the reduction of even relatively simple Mendelian phenomena to molecular (...) genetics has been shown to be a surprisingly complex and problematic enterprise. Mental illnesses exist at many levels of including social, environmental, and developmental interactions. Reductionistic shifts in the classification of such a disease entity will have to address the interlevel dynamics that take place within the structure of theories of mental illness. The question of how molecular analysis of psychiatric disease will impact on the structure of existing theories and classification systems is the central topic of this paper. (shrink)

The paper examines the very beginnings of Bible Mission in Hungary within the Habsburg Empire in the first part of the nineteenth century. It divides the first thirty years into two major epochs: the one before Gottlieb August Wimmer, Lutheran pastor of Felsőlövő (Oberschützen) and agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and the one characterized by his work until the revolution of 1848. In the paper, I summarize the main obstacles of Bible Mission both political and religious (...) as well as the main achievements and formations of policies and practices that still define Bible Mission of the Bible Societies in all around the world. The work of BFBS in Hungary in this period was also intertwined with the formative period of the Budapest Scottish Mission, a topic that I also touch in the paper. (shrink)

À moins de définir la justice ou le droit de telle manière qu’il existe entre eux un rapport intrinsèque parce qu’on les a déjà conçus comme indiscernables, le rapport entre eux ne peut être que contingent d’un point de vue conceptuel et ontologique. Puisque la justice au sens matériel constitue toujours une conception particulière de la distribution des biens au sens le plus large, la réalisation d’une telle conception est en revanche toujours subordonnée à la technicité du droit qui la (...) concrétise en réglant les comportements sous des conditions non idéales, faisant intervenir sous certaines conditions, entre autres éléments, des actes de violence. Si le droit est de ce point indifférent par rapport à la justice, toute théorie de la justice doit tenir compte des contraintes de sa réalisation juridique. (shrink)