We have no interest whatever in minimizing the continuing history of racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise abusive biologisms, or the urgency of their exposure, that has made the gravamen of so many contemporary projects of critique. At the same time, we fear — with installation of an automatic antibiologism as the unshifting tenet of `theory' — the loss of conceptual access to an entire thought-realm. I was left wondering what danger had been averted by the exclusion of biology. What does (...) the nominative `biological or anatomical body' actually refer to? And what secures the separation of its inadmissible matter from the proper purview of Irigaray's textual interventions? When I asked a question to this effect it was met with a certain nervous comprehension. Deciding, perhaps, that I must still be immersed in a precritical understanding of the body, the speaker dismissed me with a revealing theatrical gesture. As if to emphasize the sheer absurdity of my question she pinched herself and commented `Well I don't mean this body'. And so it seemed with a gesture so matter of fact that it required no further comment, the fact of matter was both decided and dispatched. Feminism has been as deeply implicated in routinized antiessentialism as any of our critical procedures. Even though questions of `the body' have become increasingly fashionable in all manner of feminist projects, the schedule of feminism's antibiologism has been little altered. In most of these projects on `the body', the body in question is pursued in its socially, experientially, or psychically constituted forms, but rarely in its physiologically, biochemically, or microbiologically constituted form, the idea of biological construction having been rendered either unintelligible or naive. Despite an avowed interest in the body, there is a persistent distaste for biological detail. These feminist theories have usually been reluctant to engage with biological data: they retain, and encourage, the fierce antibiologism that marked the emergence of second wave feminism. That feminist scholars are particularly prone to a `knee jerk constructivism' helps explain the reluctance of those in the humanities to engage seriously with the claims of science. This book functions primarily as a reminder to social, political, and cultural theorists, particularly those interested in feminism, antiracism and questions of the politics of globalisation, that they have forgotten a crucial dimension of research, if not necessary to, then certainly useful for more incisively formulating the concepts on which they so heavily, if implicitly rely. It is written as a remembrance of what we have forgotten — not just the body, but that which makes it possible and which limits its actions: the precarious, accidental, contingent, expedient, striving, dynamic status of life in a messy, complicated, resistant, brute world of materiality, a world regulated by the exigencies, the forces, of space and time. We have forgotten the nature, the ontology, of the body, the conditions under which bodies are encultured, psychologized, given identity, historical location, and agency. We have forgotten where we come from. (shrink)

This paper aims to reconfigure the place of memory in epistemology. I start by rethinking the problem that memory systems solve; rather than merely functioning to store information, I argue that the core function of any memory system is to support accurate and relevant retrieval. This way of specifying the function of memory has consequences for which structures and mechanisms make up a memory system. In brief, memory systems are modeling systems. This means that they generate, update and manage a (...) series of overlapping, simplified, relational representations that map out features of the world. Succeeding at building and maintaining models requires the kind of active knowledge generation traditionally associated only with deliberative reasoning. (shrink)

The study of identity crosses all disciplinary borders to address such issues as the multiple interactions of race, class, and gender in feminist, lesbian, and gay studies, postcolonialism and globalization, and the interrelation of nationalism and ethnicity in ethnic and area studies. Identities will help disrupt the cliche-ridden discourse of identity by exploring the formation of identities and problem of subjectivity. Leading scholars in literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy explore such topics as "Gypsies" in the Western imagination, the mobilization (...) of the West in Chinese television, the lesbian identity and the woman's gaze in fashion photography, and the regulation of black women's bodies in early 20th-century urban areas. This collection of twenty articles brings together the special issue of Critical Inquiry entitled "Identities" (Summer 1992), two other previously published essays, and five previously published critical responses and rejoinders, all of which is interrogated in two new essays by Michael Gorra and Judith Butler. Contributors include Elizabeth Abel, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Akeel Bilgrami, Daniel Boyarin, Jonathan Boyarin, Judith Butler, Hazel V. Carby, Xiaomei Chen, Diana Fuss, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Avery Gordon, Michael Gorra, Cheryl Herr, Saree S. Makdisi, Walter Benn Michaels, Christopher Newfield, Gananath Obeyesekere, Molly Anne Rothenberg, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sara Suleri, Katie Trumpener, and Joseph Valente. (shrink)

We consider an approach to propositional synonymy in proof-theoretic semantics that is defined with respect to a bilateral G3-style sequent calculus \(\mathtt{SC2Int}\) for the bi-intuitionistic logic \(\mathtt{2Int}\). A distinctive feature of \(\mathtt{SC2Int}\) is that it makes use of two kind of sequents, one representing proofs, the other representing refutations. The structural rules of \(\mathtt{SC2Int}\), in particular its cut rules, are shown to be admissible. Next, interaction rules are defined that allow transitions from proofs to refutations, and vice versa, mediated through (...) two different negation connectives, the well-known implies-falsity negation and the less well-known coimplies-truth negation of \(\mathtt{2Int}\). By assuming that the interaction rules have no impact on the identity of derivations, the concept of inherited identity between derivations in \(\mathtt{SC2Int}\) is introduced and the notions of positive and negative synonymy of formulas are defined. Several examples are given of distinct formulas that are either positively or negatively synonymous. It is conjectured that the two conditions cannot be satisfied simultaneously. (shrink)

Background Families whose child has unexplained intellectual or developmental differences often hope that a genetic diagnosis will lower barriers to community-based therapeutic and support services. However, there is little known about efforts to mobilize genetic information outside the clinic or how socioeconomic disadvantage shapes and constrains outcomes.Methods We conducted an ethnographic study with predominantly socioeconomically disadvantaged families enrolled in a multi-year genomics research study, including clinic observations and in-depth interviews in English and Spanish at multiple time points. Coding and thematic (...) development were used to collaboratively interpret fieldnotes and transcripts.Results Thirty-two families participated. Themes included familial expectations that a genetic diagnosis could be translated into information, understanding, and assistance to improve the quality of a child’s day-to-day life. After sequencing, however, genetic information was not readily converted into improved access to services beyond the clinic, with families often struggling to use a genetic diagnosis to advocate for their child.Conclusion Families’ ability to use a genetic diagnosis as an effective advocacy tool beyond the clinic was limited by the knowledge and resources available to them, and by the eligibility criteria used by therapeutic service providers’ – which focused on clinical diagnosis and functional criteria more than etiologic information. All families undertaking genomic testing, particularly those who are disadvantaged, need additional support to understand the limits and potential benefits of genetic information beyond the clinic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whiteness and the General WillDiversity Work as Willful WorkSara AhmedIn this essay I explore whiteness in relation to the general will. My starting point is that the idea of “the general will” offers us a vocabulary for thinking through the materiality of race. In his keynote address to the 40th Annual Philosophy Symposium in 2010, Charles Mills argues that race is material: it becomes part of the living human (...) body. Mills draws on recent theories of whiteness as habit, including the work of Linda Alcoff (2006) and Shannon Sullivan (2006). Quoting from Sullivan, he suggests that whiteness is in “the nose that smells, the back, neck and other muscles that imperceptibly tighten with anxiety, and the eyes that see some but not all physical differences as significant” (Sullivan 2006, 188). Whiteness is embodied; it is in bodily matter as well as affecting how bodies matter. Mills then suggests that the materiality of whiteness is its “resistance to will.” One definition of materiality could be this: resistance to will.This essay takes up the theme of the materiality of race by thinking of whiteness in relation to the will. There are clearly risks in such an undertaking: after all, the idea of whiteness as willed might seem to imply that whiteness is volitional: and can be simply “willed away.”1 I want to suggest that if whiteness is resistant to will, as that which cannot be simply willed away, then whiteness can also be understood as willed: in other words, what cannot be willed away is a willing way. Edward Said’s definition of Orientalism as “willed human work,” which as a definition has yet to be rigorously understood, could be considered an important precedent to my argument (1978, 140). The suggestion is not [End Page 1] simply that the Orient is brought into existence, or made to exist over time, but that the very labor of creating the Orient, the land of the stranger, the land far away, is what establishes a direction. Once the Orient has come to exist, there is a willing of its existence; to keep going that way is to keep that way going. Willed work is work that in willing that way creates a way that can be willed. It is not as the old English cliché says—where there’s a will there’s a way—but rather to will is to way. I think it is useful to think of whiteness in this way, as a willing way, which is of course only one way of thinking about whiteness.I pose the generality of the will as a way of reflecting on “institutional whiteness.” Whiteness becomes “the material” of an institutional body, whether that body is the nation, an organization, a neighborhood, or a street. We can consider an institution as a body with parts: it too has noses, mouths, muscles that register anxiety, as well as ears and eyes. Just think of how Neighborhood Watch, as a national or even global technology, uses the injunction that citizens should become the “eyes and ears of the police.” A good citizen is the one who accepts this injunction: the one who is willing to watch out for strangers, those who are loitering, who seem suspicious, or out of place. Institutions have “detection systems”: they have parts that register the approach of strangers. A collective body in registering those who are out of place, both creates strangers and establishes a direction toward them, as those who threaten the place of the “in place,” as those who generate anxiety.A key event in my own life was of becoming a stranger in a white neighborhood in Adelaide, Australia, in a place I called home. I was fourteen years old. I was stopped by two policemen in a car who asked me, “Are you Aboriginal?” It turned out that there had been some burglaries in the area. It was an extremely hostile address, and it was an unsettling experience at the time. It was an experience of being made into a stranger, the one who is recognized as “out of place,” as the one who does not belong, whose proximity is registered... (shrink)

Modern computer systems are ubiquitous in contemporary life yet many of them remain opaque. This poses significant challenges in domains where desiderata such as fairness or accountability are crucial. We suggest that the best strategy for achieving system transparency varies depending on the specific source of opacity prevalent in a given context. Synthesizing and extending existing discussions, we propose a taxonomy consisting of eight sources of opacity that fall into three main categories: architectural, analytical, and socio-technical. For each source, we (...) provide initial suggestions as to how to address the resulting opacity in practice. The taxonomy provides a starting point for requirements engineers and other practitioners to understand contextually prevalent sources of opacity, and to select or develop appropriate strategies for overcoming them. (shrink)

Argues that Socrates’s fundamental role in the dialogues is to guide us toward self-inquiry and self-knowledge. In this highly original and provocative book, Sara Ahbel-Rappe argues that the Platonic dialogues contain an esoteric Socrates who signifies a profound commitment to self-knowledge and whose appearances in the dialogues are meant to foster the practice of self-inquiry. According to Ahbel-Rappe, the elenchus, or inner examination, and the thesis that virtue is knowledge, are tools for a contemplative practice that teaches us how (...) to investigate the mind and its objects directly. In other words, the Socratic persona of the dialogues represents wisdom, which is distinct from and serves as the larger space in which Platonic knowledge—ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics—is constructed. Ahbel-Rappe offers complete readings of the Apology, Charmides, Alcibiades I, Euthyphro, Lysis, Phaedrus, Theaetetus, and Parmenides, as well as parts of the Republic. Her interpretation challenges two common approaches to the figure of Socrates: the thesis that the dialogues represent an “early” Plato who later disavows his reliance on Socratic wisdom, and the thesis that Socratic ethics can best be expressed by the construct of eudaimonism or egoism. (shrink)

In this paper we evaluate the role of prosodic information in inferring dialogue-specific functions of speech acts. We report the results of an empirical study in which participants are exposed to recordings of certain utterances and, next, asked to recognize discursive contexts from which the heard utterances may come. The recorded utterances are quotations: staged utterances produced by speakers asked to read aloud dialogues specially constructed for the study. We analyse prosodic cues produced by recorded speakers and argue that they (...) play a key role in depicting demonstrated target utterance. We assume that participants’ decisions manifest their implicit understanding of dialogue-specific functions of target utterances. The empirical part of our study shows that the efficiency rate of the prosodic cues produced by recorded speakers is 76%. We use the results of our prosodic analysis of recorded utterances to account for some cases of incorrect interpretations reported in the study. (shrink)

This paper explores how diversity is used as a key term to describe the social and educational mission of universities in Australia. The paper suggests that we need to explore what diversity ‘does’ in specific contexts. Drawing on interviews with diversity and equal opportunities practitioners, the paper suggests that ‘diversity’ is used in the face of what has been called ‘equity fatigue’. Diversity is associated with what is new, and allows practitioners to align themselves and their units with the existing (...) values of their universities. However, given this, diversity can mean potentially anything: and practitioners have to re‐attach the term ‘diversity’ to other more marked terms such as equality and justice if it is to ‘do anything’. The paper explores the appeal of diversity, the strategic nature of diversity work, and the role of commitment, leadership and training. It also offers some more general reflections on how language works within organisations by showing that words, although they do things, are not finished as forms of action: what they do depends not only on how they are used, but how they get taken up. (shrink)

Artificial intelligent (AI) systems that perform image classification tasks are being used to great success in many application contexts. However, many of these systems are opaque, even to experts. This lack of understanding can be problematic for ethical, legal, or practical reasons. The research field Explainable AI (XAI) has therefore developed several approaches to explain image classifiers. The hope is to bring about understanding, e.g., regarding why certain images are classified as belonging to a particular target class. Most of these (...) approaches use visual explanations. Drawing on Elgin’s work (True enough. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017), I argue that analyzing what those explanations exemplify can help to assess their suitability for producing understanding. More specifically, I suggest to distinguish between two forms of examples according to their suitability for producing understanding. I call these forms samples and exemplars, respectively. Samples are prone to misinterpretation and thus carry the risk of leading to misunderstanding. Exemplars, by contrast, are intentionally designed or chosen to meet contextual requirements and to mitigate the risk of misinterpretation. They are thus preferable for bringing about understanding. By reviewing several XAI approaches directed at image classifiers, I show that most of them explain with samples. If my analysis is correct, it will be beneficial if such explainability methods use explanations that qualify as exemplars. (shrink)

A sequent calculus is given in which the management of weakening and contraction is organized as in natural deduction. The latter has no explicit weakening or contraction, but vacuous and multiple discharges in rules that discharge assumptions. A comparison to natural deduction is given through translation of derivations between the two systems. It is proved that if a cut formula is never principal in a derivation leading to the right premiss of cut, it is a subformula of the conclusion. Therefore (...) it is sufficient to eliminate those cuts that correspond to detour and permutation conversions in natural deduction. (shrink)

A proof-theoretical analysis of elementary theories of order relations is effected through the formulation of order axioms as mathematical rules added to contraction-free sequent calculus. Among the results obtained are proof-theoretical formulations of conservativity theorems corresponding to Szpilrajn’s theorem on the extension of a partial order into a linear one. Decidability of the theories of partial and linear order for quantifier-free sequents is shown by giving terminating methods of proof-search.

A relation between two secrets, known in the literature as nondeducibility , was originally introduced by Sutherland. We extend it to a relation between sets of secrets that we call independence . This paper proposes a formal logical system for the independence relation, proves the completeness of the system with respect to a semantics of secrets, and shows that all axioms of the system are logically independent.

I raise three challenges for Wu's project. First, are mental actions really relevantly similar to ordinary bodily actions? I suggest that it may be hard to capture commonalities between them while still being grounded in the cognitive structure of action. Second, might long-term memory have a greater role to play than Wu allows? This influence might be observed on top of an indirect connection that flows through activated long-term memories in working memory. Finally, where do spontaneous memories fit in to (...) Wu's picture? We end with an exchange about spontaneity, seriality, and control. (shrink)

In 1968, Orevkov presented proofs of conservativity of classical over intuitionistic and minimal predicate logic with equality for seven classes of sequents, what are known as Glivenko classes. The proofs of these results, important in the literature on the constructive content of classical theories, have remained somehow cryptic. In this paper, direct proofs for more general extensions are given for each class by exploiting the structural properties of G3 sequent calculi; for five of the seven classes the results are strengthened (...) to height-preserving statements, and it is further shown that the constructive and minimal proofs are identical in structure to the classical proof from which they are obtained. (shrink)

Based on a general review of international, representative tissue banking policies that were described in the medical, ethics, and legal literature, this paper reviews the range of standards, both conceptually and in existing regulations, relevant to four main factors:(1) commercialization, (2) confidentiality, (3) informed consent, and (4) quality of research. These four factors were selected as reflective of some of the major ethical considerations that arise in the conduct of tissue banking research. The authors emphasize that any policy or ethical (...) guidelines designed to regulate tissue bank research should address all four factors. Whenever this sort of research is conducted between several institutions or several countries, the paper suggests that the relevant entities work collaboratively to harmonize their standards. (shrink)

The explosion of data grows at a rate of roughly five trillion bits a second, giving rise to greater urgency in conceptualizing the infosphere and understanding its implications for knowledge and public policy. Philosophers of technology and information technologists alike who wrestle with ontological and epistemological questions of digital information tend to emphasize, as Floridi does, information as our new ecosystem and human beings as interconnected informational organisms, inforgs at home in ambient intelligence. But the linguistic and conceptual representations of (...) Big Data—the massive volume of both structured and unstructured data—and the real world practice of data-mining for patterns and meaningful interpretation of evidence reveal tension and ambiguity in the bold promise of data analytics. This paper explores the tacit epistemology of the rhetoric and representation of Big Data and suggests a richer account of its ambiguities and the paradox of its real world materiality. We argue that Big Data should be recognized as manifesting multiple and conflicting trajectories that reflect human intentionality and particular patterns of power and authority. Such patterns require attentive exploration and moral appraisal if we are to resist simplistic informationist ontologies of Big Data, and the subtle forms of control in the political ecology of Big Data that undermine its promise as transformational knowledge. (shrink)

In this chapter we consider computer tools for architectural design based on shape grammar design systems, and evaluate the advantages and disadvantage of handing over these tools to inhabitants for the design of their apartments. This evaluation is qualitative by considering the values of inhabitants, architects, and cities that are affected by this hand-over. Shape grammar design systems when applied to architecture enable computer tools to generate new designs and adjustments of existing designs of apartments on the basis of design (...) rules. First, focussing on individual housing, it is argued in this chapter that the use of shape grammar design systems by inhabitants for designing their apartment realises the values of customisation and inhabitant autonomy without compromising design quality and structural safety. Second, focussing on cities, it is argued that a wide-spread use of these grammar design systems creates for cities a bottom-up inhabitant-led renewal of neighbourhoods and urban structures that maintains the social fabric in neighbourhoods and the architectural identity of cities. Values that are less realised by the hand-over are financial feasibility and ecological sustainability. Third, shifting to philosophy of technology, we present shape grammar design systems as a technology for design for values in architecture that allows for flexibility in the values designed for over the longer time periods characteristic to architecture. These systems are a technology that enables the incorporation of values of inhabitants, architects, and cities by the designs of apartments, and they are a technology that enables inhabitants to adjust their apartments through time to their developing needs and wishes. (shrink)

Background: Direct–to–consumer genetic testing (DTCGT) offers risk estimates for a variety of complex diseases and conditions, yet little is known about its impact on actual users, including their decisions about sharing the information gleaned from testing. Ethical considerations include the impact of unsolicited genetic information with variable validity and clinical utility on relatives, and the possible burden to the health care system if revealed to physicians. Aims: The qualitative study explored primary care patients’ views, attitudes, and decision making considerations regarding (...) DTCGT. This article focuses on the disclosure decisions participants made regarding participation, testing, and results of DTCGT, a topic which arose as a secondary aim of the study. Methods: Through four longitudinal interviews (pre–test, results, 3 and 12 months post–test) we examined twenty primary care patients’ decisions, expressed intentions, and actions regarding disclosure to immediate and extended family, friends and coworkers, and physicians about participation in and results of DTCGT. Individual interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and a summative approach to describe the global themes. Results: Most participants disclosed to some immediate family; less than half disclosed to extended family; approximately half talked to friends. Most participants stated they would or might disclose to physicians about DTCGT and a few did. Conceptual themes that emerged from the data analysis include ambivalence about disclosure, consistency between intention and actual disclosure behavior and decisions, and conditional information sharing. Conclusions: Participants’ intentional and actual disclosure patterns offer insight into how they view DTCGT, weigh results, and the potential impact of DTCGT. (shrink)

Cet article interroge, à l’aide d’une trajectoire singulière issue de la clinique des auteurs, le lien entre la construction des imagos parentales chez une femme française issue de l’immigration maghrébine et son adhésion à l’idéologie religieuse radicale de Daech. Il s’agit plus précisément d’entrevoir les échecs et les impasses de l’institution familiale et sociale et la manière dont cette jeune femme s’est saisie de la Umma (la communauté des musulmans dans le monde) – dont la racine Um signifie en arabe (...) « mère » – pour rompre avec la France et construire une nouvelle famille au sein de l’organisation terroriste de Daech. Cette analyse permettra de faire des hypothèses cliniques quant à la défaillance des fonctions maternelles et paternelles dans la construction d’un devenir femme et de mettre en lumière l’absence ou l’exclusion du tiers et la tentative de séparation avortée menant vers des positions radicales. Un extrême qui ramène à une fusion avec le corps maternel à travers la Umma et le groupe des sœurs musulmanes. (shrink)

Ever since antiquity, attempts have been made at defining knowledge through belief augmented by additional properties such as truth and justification. These characterizations have been challenged by Gettier counterexamples and their variants. A modern proposal, what is known as defeasibility theory, characterizes knowledge through stability under revision of beliefs on the basis of true or arbitrary information. A formal investigation of such a proposal calls for the methods of dynamic epistemic logic: well developed semantic approaches to dynamic epistemic logic have (...) been given through the plausibility models, but a corresponding proof theory is still in its infancy. We shall recast plausibility models in terms of more general neighbourhood models and develop on their basis complete proof systems. An inferential treatment of epistemic and doxastic notions such as safe belief will give a new way to study their relationships; among these, the characterization of knowledge as belief stable under arbitrary revision will be grounded through formal labelled sequent calculus derivations. (shrink)

Cell biologists, including those seeking molecular mechanistic explanations of cellular phenomena, frequently rely on experimental strategies focused on identifying the cellular context relevant to their investigations. We suggest that such practices can be understood as a guided decomposition strategy, where molecular explanations of phenomena are defined in relation to natural contextual (cell) boundaries. This “top-down” strategy contrasts with “bottom-up” reductionist approaches where well-defined molecular structures and activities are orphaned by their displacement from actual biological functions. We focus on the central (...) role of microscopic imaging in cell biology to uncover possible constraints on the system. We show how identified constraints are used heuristically to limit possible mechanistic explanations to those that are biologically meaningful. Historical examples of this process described here include discovery of the mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria, molecular explanation of the first steps in protein secretion, and identification of molecular motors. We suggest that these instances are examples of a form of downward causation or, more specifically, constraining relations, where higher-level structures and variables delimit and enable lower-level system states. The guided decomposition strategy in our historical cases illustrates the irreducibility of experimentally identified constraints in explaining biological activities of cells. Rather than viewing decomposition and recomposition as separate epistemic activities, we contend that they need to be iteratively integrated to account for the ontological complexity of multi-level systems. (shrink)

In this report the history and main activities of the Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos at the University of Navarra is presented. It was created in 1994 to promote the study of the work of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), especially in Spain and in the Spanish-speaking countries. An outstanding result of the work of this group is the massive installment in the web of Peirce's texts translated into Spanish.

A sense of belonging is an integral feature of an online community of learners. This article explores the ways in which digital technologies in an online teacher education programme can facilitate social presence and in turn nurture a sense of belonging in an OCL. A sense of belonging can lower attrition rates in distance programmes that attract learners who are marginalised from on campus education. This can help address issues of social justice by supporting equitable access and participation in higher (...) education. Findings from a qualitative case study indicate the power that digital technologies can have in facilitating social presence and a sense of belonging in an OCL. This study identifies the importance of several factors in this. Firstly, the importance of pedagogical understandings that digital technologies have different affordances in nurturing an OCL, and secondly, that each participant had a different perspective on the affordances of each digital technology in their usefulness for fostering social presence and a sense of belonging. (shrink)

The ordeal of mourning, being so much harder than any thought its experience may deliver, bears out the impression developed in Julia Kristeva’s opening to The Severed Head —that thought is swift. She has recognized as well as anyone the interplay of blindness and insight. Nothing brings all this into starker evidence than the premature death of a loved other, a friend, or a true assistant in life and thought. There is a reminder in this that the new narratives of (...) subjectivity on which Kristeva places a high value, and certainly the long life of meaning in the world, come at the price of the loss and mourning of our loved others. Pleshette DeArmitt’s book, The Right to Narcissism: A Case for an Im-possible Self-Love, has given the condition of narcissism an intricate place in this difficult if promising work. (shrink)

Our fast-paced society does not approve of solitude; being alone is antisocial and some even find it sinister. Why is this so when autonomy, personal freedom and individualism are more highly prized than ever before? Sara Maitland answers this question by exploring changing attitudes throughout history. Offering experiments and strategies for overturning our fear of solitude, she to helps us to practice it without anxiety and encourages us to see the benefits of spending time by ourselves. By indulging in (...) the experience of being alone, we can be inspired to find our own rewards and ultimately lead more enriched, fuller live. - The School of Life is dedicated to exploring life's big questions: How can we fulfill our potential? Can work be inspiring? Why does community matter? Can relationships last a lifetime? We don't have all the answers, but we will direct you toward a variety of useful ideas--from philosophy to literature, from psychology to the visual arts--that are guaranteed to stimulate, provoke, nourish, and console. (shrink)

Arguments of stability, intended in a wide sense, including the discussion of the conditions of the onset of instability and of stability changes, play a central role in the main theorizations of morphogenesis in 20th century theoretical biology. The aim of this essay is to shed light on concepts and images mobilized in the construction of arguments of stability in theorizing morphogenesis, since they are pivotal in establishing meaningful relationships between mathematical models and empirical morphologies.